Дебаты дьявола с ангелом, часть 6: Как наблюдать за своими мыслями (2013, Феникс), занятие 2

[Говорящий 1]
So we were up to page 20 and 21. I'll start with 20, verse 105. ,'JOD PA'I STON LA RGYUN TSUL DANG, ,GOM PA LA YANG SPYOD SPYOD PA, ,SPYOD PA PO YANG SPYOD PAR BYED, ,DE'I SPYOD PA PO YANG SPYOD So we are talking about different ways of meditating.

Meditation is very subtle. It's like fixing a car. All the lamas in my monastery thought that because I came from America, I could fix any mechanical thing.

And they'd show up with watches and they'd say, ,'Could you fix this watch? It says Made in America on the back.' And I would try. And then one day my lama's car broke.

He had a Volkswagen with 300,000 miles on it, a bug. And he said, ,'You fix it.' And I never touched a car in my whole life. And I said, ,'Okay.' And I got all these tools and I read all these books and I took it apart. Then I put it back together and I stripped... It's an aluminum head, right? So I stripped out the head.

And I broke the car. I ruined the car. Meditation is the same.

Meditation is the same. Americans don't meditate. They don't have a culture of meditating.

So they just think you just sit down, close your eyes and just get quiet or something like that. And that's their total repertoire of meditation. And then in Tibet it has been refined for a thousand years.

And there are 100, 200, 300 models of meditation-like cars. And they're all different and they're all subtle and they're all beautiful. And you just go into your mind like a bull in a china shop.

And you'll just break stuff. So this is the first Panchen Lama from 500 years ago. And he's describing mistakes that people make in meditation.

And these are subtle mistakes. He's going to get very, very subtle. But if you don't do it right, it won't succeed.

The meditation will not bring you what you hope it will. It won't even make you calm, which is not a very advanced goal. You won't get anything.

Nothing will happen. And you'll quit. I think more Americans have quit meditating than do it now, statistically.

Just because they were doing it wrong and nothing happened, so they didn't get anything out of it, so they quit. So he's examining very, very subtle mistakes in meditation. And we had one yesterday.

We were talking about... The one we ended with yesterday was that it's accepted in meditation that you should have an object of the meditation. To say you're going to meditate on nothing is like saying you're going to read without a book.

Seriously, meditation is very similar to reading. If you learn to meditate, it will open up thousands of new worlds for you in the way that learning to read opens up great ideas of history to you. If you never meditate, you are like a person who never learned to read.

But once you do learn to read, you need a book. So meditation is not the goal. It's the tool.

It's like reading. And then you have to choose what you meditate about. And that's the first mistake that Westerners often make.

I should sit down and think about nothing. And that's like saying you should play baseball with the bat, but no ball. You see what I mean?

It's like Jvetans would just think, Oh, that's weird. Play baseball without a ball? Just with the bat?

I don't know how you do that. It's like that. You got to hit something with the meditation.

So, we've been talking about the most effective form of meditation. You can take as your meditation object a picture in your mind of a holy being. It could be Jesus.

It could be Moses. It could be Barack Obama. That's a certain kind of meditation.

We call it like an image. You have a visualization in your mind, and that's very powerful. That's a very powerful meditation.

There are hundreds of meditations. You could take a sick person and imagine, visualize yourself, fantasize yourself healing them, and that's a very deep meditation. And you can do it with your prana, with your breath.

And that's a very deep meditation. But we're learning a meditation called Mahamudra. Mahamudra means the object of the meditation is your own thoughts, your own mind.

So, you are reading your mind. You are training the... Meditation is like a telescope or a microscope, and you got to look at something with it.

You can't go around like this all the time. And not look at something with it. So, you're looking at your own thoughts.

You're looking at your own mind. Then we described last night, there are three or four levels here. Everybody hears their chatter in their own mind.

Everybody is aware of the chatter in their own mind. And you get used to it. If you ever do a long meditation retreat, you can reduce the chatter, and then you're all excited.

It's nice to have a mind that doesn't chatter. But most of us, all day long, we are in a constant monologue, and it ain't from Shakespeare. It's all like, I didn't get what I wanted.

Ooh, look at her. She's got a nice dress. I hate that.

And you have to listen to this obnoxious thing called your own mind, chattering all day, mostly complaining, mostly judging other people, mostly criticizing, mostly wanting something else than what's right in front of them right now. We did a vote this morning. I think the room was about 80% future.

80% of us, me included, we're thinking about our plans for tomorrow. And tomorrow we'll be thinking about the plans for the next day. And we'll never be in the day.

So, we're in the chatter of our own mind, and that mind is mostly not here. You can't be happy if your mind is not here in the present moment, because this is where you have to be happy. It's not going to happen tomorrow if it doesn't happen today.

It doesn't work that way. So anyway, normal person can hear chatter in their own mind. That's level number one.

That's not meditation. It's just awareness of your own thoughts. Then level two, a person who begins to learn to meditate, it's an extraordinary skill, it's an extraordinary progress if you can step back a half inch in your own mind and listen to those thoughts going on from a distance.

Like you're not in them. You're watching your own mind think. So really you're watching two things.

What are they? Your thoughts and your mind thinking them. It's like watching a conversation between two people.

So, in the first level, you're just listening to the thoughts. The second level, you're watching two other things. Your mind is having its thoughts.

And you listen to it. That's when you step back in your own mind and you say, where am I at, spiritually, and as a person, as an individual, how am I doing with my life? Let's listen in to Geshe Michael's mind.

And then you step back and you kind of go, and then you're like, oh, he thinks about food all day. That's amazing. Much less think about somebody else.

He doesn't even have uplifting thoughts about himself. He's just like a cow. And it's very sad when you learn to step back and you really can do a statistical analysis of your thoughts.

They're like 90% garbage. And it's kind of depressing when you first... By the way, the books, the holy books, the scriptures of Tibet say, at that point, don't be disturbed.

Don't be depressed. It's progress to know how bad it is. And they say that.

They say don't get disturbed when you first learn to listen to your own mind because it's better than not knowing how it was. And if you know what's going on, you have a chance to change it. If you don't know, it'll never change, and you will die thinking about macaroon cookies, which we have for you tonight.

Don't think about macaroon cookies. Alright, so that was the second level. Watch your thoughts.

That's a kind of mahamudra because the object of the meditation is your own thoughts rather than, say, a picture in your mind, something like that, okay? Now we go to the next level. This is subtle, okay?

This is really subtle. Buddhism says... Oh, that's so convenient.

Thanks for leaving that, whoever did. Are you too warm? Are you okay?

You're not too warm? Okay, tell me if you get too warm. Check this out, okay?

I'll do a very quick thing with you that I do all over the world thousands of times every year. When I hold this up, all my close staff, they fall asleep like that. And then when I put it down, they wake up again because they heard it so many times, it drives them crazy, okay?

What is this thing? It's a pen, okay? If a dog came in here, a small puppy dog, and I waved this thing in front of the puppy dog, what would they do?

Then you say they will bite it, they'll chew it, right? And you say, what is this thing to the dog? You can say a chew toy, okay?

Something to chew, right? By the way, if you've heard this before, which is very likely, then learn how to teach it. Because it's very specific.

It's not random. The questions are in a certain important order, right? Who's right, the dog or the human?

Both are right. I mean, they can chew it and enjoy it. And I can write with it, right?

So that those are both valid, okay? Those are both valid. No problem.

It's really a chew toy to the dog, and it's really a pen to me. In a sense, two realities are coexisting at the same time, okay? Which is okay.

One thing is being two things at the same time. Now, most important question. If I set this thing here, and all the dogs leave the room, and all the humans leave the room, at that time, which one is it?

A pen or a chew toy? You can say neither, right? The last answer was both, right?

And this time, I asked, who's right? And you said both. The dog and the human are both correct.

And now I said, if the dogs leave the room and the humans leave the room, at that time, which one is it? And you have to... All over the world, in every continent of the world, people will go, you know?

Everybody gets it. Except one guy in Florida one time. Okay.

Zach was there. Zach taught that night. Do you remember that?

I don't know. It was amazing. He insisted it was a pen.

That's only one guy in history. In all... Maybe a hundred thousand people.

Anyway. By the way, that's the meaning of emptiness in Buddhism, and nothing else. Nothing more mystical, nothing more black than that.

It just means it's a blank white screen. It's like a blank white movie screen. By itself, it's not a pen yet.

And it's not a chew toy yet. If you leave it on the table by itself. If a dog walks in, it becomes a...

chew toy. Like that. And a real chew toy.

He can chew on it, and he can have a good time with it. And he can break it. And if the human walks in, it becomes a pen.

And if they both walk in, it becomes a... a chew toy and a pen. Got it?

And if they both walk out of the room, it's just something waiting to be something. And that's the Buddhist meaning of emptiness. That emptiness is supposed to save your life.

That emptiness is supposed to save your life. And if you understand it, you can get anything you want in the world. It's like...

I feel like the Wizard of Oz oftentimes. If you understand that the pen is not a pen yet, you can have anything you want in life. I made a $200 million company.

We gave money to the refugees, right? But I don't know anything about business. I know nothing.

And I don't like business. I hate business. But I did it because I understood this.

So it's important. You can do anything. You can have any dream you want.

It's cool. Next question. Then I like to use my hand.

All over the world I use my hand. I say, is the pen coming from me or is the pen coming from the pen? Therefore, because of everything we said so far, is the pen coming from me or is the pen coming from the pen?

Show me with your hand. Yeah, I mean, it must be coming from me because if it was coming from its own side, the dog would see a pen. The dog would try to write a letter to his dog girlfriend.

You have a nice tail. Okay? And they don't do that.

So the pen is not yelling, I'm a pen, I'm a pen. It's not announcing I'm a pen. If I see a pen, it's coming from my mind.

If I see a chew toy, it's coming from my mind. Now, why am I different from the dog? Why does the dog see a different thing than I do?

And Buddhism says there's a seed in the dog's mind for a chew toy. And there's a seed in the human's mind for a pen. That's easy, right?

There's some kind of energy, seed, in your mind, and it opens in your mind and you see a pen. And the dog has a different seed and that seed opens in their mind and they see something to chew on. People ask me dumb questions.

People in Hong Kong are like, should I invest in stocks or should I invest in property? And I say, where's the property coming from? Your mind or the property?

And they say, well, I guess it must be coming from my mind. And I say, where are the stocks coming from? And they say, well, I guess it must be coming from my mind.

So if you have the right seeds, it doesn't matter what you invest in. You can choose anything. You can close your eyes and throw a dart at the newspaper and invest in that stock and it will go up if you have the seeds because it's coming from you.

Then people come to me, Geshe-la, should I use red lipstick or pink lipstick? I'm like, what? You're asking a monk?

These are people like in Singapore, they're like, Geshe-la, you a monk, should I use red lipstick or pink lipstick? And I'm like, where's it coming from? And they say, from me.

And I say, where's the boy coming from? They say, from me. How do you plant a seed in your mind to see a boy walk into the restaurant and sit down next to you at Starbucks?

How do you plant a seed in your mind for that? Pen, nobody's interested in more pens, they have enough pens. How do you plant a seed for a boy to come into your life?

Because they are coming from you. They are, a girlfriend or a boyfriend, they're coming from you. How do you plant that seed?

And the answer is, you take care of someone who wants companionship. You plant a seed by helping someone get the thing that you want. And it's that simple.

It's just that simple. And there's all this technique stuff, but you don't have to worry about it. There's technique involved.

There's certain farming techniques involved. But once you know the techniques, you can have anything you want. So you plant a boy by helping a lonely person, like in a nursing home or something.

I'm going tonight to my old lady's house, and she will come tomorrow to the board meeting. Sorry guys. She's 87, and I promised her to take her out for lunch, breakfast tomorrow.

So, I have one, you know. I've used her for 20 years, you know. And, so you plant a seed.

Okay? You plant a seed. Now, why am I talking about this?

By the way, it always works. It always, always works. All right?

It's not like other stuff. This system always works. All right?

I was in Bulgaria. The Oprah Winfrey of Bulgaria came to my class. Her name is Iskra.

She has a Sunday... I'm worldwide now. Sorry, Iskra.

It's okay. She... No?

Okay, forget I mentioned her name. In an Eastern European country, there's a famous movie star, TV star. She's had seven years of show, like Oprah Winfrey.

And, she came and she said, I don't... I'm... Everybody in the country knows I don't have a boyfriend for the last seven years.

I got to get one. There's a lot of pressure on me. You know?

And I'm like, okay, don't worry. We'll take care of it. And we planned everything and she went to the nursing home and she planted the seed.

And then she was walking down the main street of her city and... and she bumped into a guy, physically. They just hit each other face on.

He was looking somewhere and she was looking somewhere and she looked at him and he looked at her and like, ding! And... he's a famous musician.

He owns a big house in Germany and he... And she married him last summer. Okay?

There's a TV show. We... I'm not supposed to talk about it.

It's on... You can look at it. You can look at the whole show.

It's kind of cool. So anyway, it works. It always works.

If you understand how to do it, it always works. You can have anything you want. You know?

200 million dollar company. It's unbelievable. I have no training in business, no interest.

I was in a monastery for 25 years. So, how do you... how do you plant the seed, right?

You help someone else get the thing that they want and that plants a seed in your mind. Why are we talking about this? Because everything in your life is coming from seeds in your mind.

Even your thoughts. Okay? The chatter you hear in your head is coming from how you treated people last week.

Okay? And that's why when you're sad or you're angry or you want a beer and you're not supposed... you know, you're addicted or something like that, you can't stop yourself because it's too late.

The seeds have opened in your mind and those thoughts are pouring out of those seeds. And it's too late. You can't push a tree back in the ground.

We said it last night. You can't put your hand on top of a tree and push it back into the ground. Once the thought comes into your mind, once the seed cracks open and you hear the thought come out of the seed, it's too late to change it.

You can't change it. It's not possible. And that's why people have such miserable...

people have serious depression or something. They don't want to be depressed. Nobody wants to be sad.

They can't stop it. Like people who are addicted, they don't want to hurt their families and hurt themselves. They can't stop.

It's because seeds are cracking open in their mind and they're watching something that was planted last week and they can't stop it, no? It's too late, you see? So, here I come back to the subject.

Listening to the chatter in your own head all day and not thinking much about it. Just taking it as part of life. Learning to meditate, which means step back and listen to the chatter and evaluate it.

What did we evaluate this morning in meditation when we listened to our own minds? Yeah, were my thoughts in the future or the present or the past? And we had a vote.

I was in the future club. We elected our candidate. 80% of the people were thinking about the future.

20% were worrying about the past. Almost always it's a boyfriend or a girlfriend, ex, okay? And then people in the middle, there were very few people in the room, I think two or three, who were in the room at the time.

During the meditation, their mind was in the present, okay? So, we learned to listen to our minds. Question for you.

When you get deep in meditation, the third level is to learn to watch a seed crack open and a thing come out, okay? Like when I... Okay, watch.

You ready? One, two, three, go. Okay?

Your whole life, you felt instinctively that the pen was showing itself to your eyes. It's not that way. A seed cracked...

When I went like... At the same instant, a seed cracked open in your mind. And an image came out of your mind onto that thing.

It's not coming from here. And it's so fast, you can't see it. Watch, I'll do it again.

See if you can catch the image of a pen flying out of your mind and your eyes to the pen. And it's not coming from the pen. Ready?

One, two, three. It's too fast, you can't do it.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
Just imagine. You can imagine it, right? I'm going like...

And a seed is cracking open in your mind. And then a small image of a pen, it's this big, flies out and it goes... And then you think there's a pen there.

Okay? That's how you can create a boyfriend by planting seeds. That's how you could change depression by planting seeds.

Or addiction or anything. It's very interesting. It's really cool.

You can control your life and everything that happens to you. It's amazing. That's happiness, right?

You can even control the amount of wisdom it takes to wish for the right thing. Okay? Because that's probably necessary, right?

If you got everything you wanted, you'd probably be dead. Okay? No, I mean, you can also develop wisdom.

You can say, I want to know how to know what's the right thing to want. Can I plant that? Yeah, you would help someone else.

No. How can I help someone else know what's the right thing to want if I don't know what's the right thing to want? The attempt plants the seed.

The attempt to help someone else. The imperfect, ignorant attempt to help someone else get what you want is enough to plant the seed. Okay?

Why? Seeds always grow. I mean, these trees around the house, they...

I was a kid near here, a hundred years ago. These were onion fields. There were no trees.

Those trees weren't here. Somebody planted them, and they grew. And the tree, a big oak tree weighs, I checked on the internet, two and a half tons.

An acorn weighs a half a gram.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
You try to help someone else understand what they want in life, and suddenly, you will have an unshakable sense of purpose and clarity about your own life. You see? Even your thoughts are being planted by how you treat other people.

The amount of clarity you have about what you want in your life comes from helping other people gain that clarity, even though you don't know how to do it. Got it? Because things grow.

Because karma grows. Every 24 hours, it doubles in the mind. It's cool.

Okay? So, the third level of meditation is extremely subtle. It is the ability to watch your mind and watch thoughts, watch seeds crack open and thoughts come out of them.

Okay? So, we never get to this one. This one's a hell of a lot harder.

Okay? But you have to get there. You have to learn.

I suggest you start with a pen. Okay? Thoughts are...

they're just too fast. They're ten times faster than the pen thing. Okay?

Try to... And what you do is, in your home, during your meditation time, you practice. You can hold a pen there and try to catch your mind.

It's a small, luminous, shining image of a pen that comes out of a karmic seed in your mind. And if you meditate, if you practice, you can catch it. You can see that.

You can see the seed crack open and the thing comes out. And you can use that. By the way, is the pen coming from your mind?

Yeah. Is it coming from a seed in your mind? Does it occur, appear, when a seed cracks open in your mind?

Was it planted when you helped somebody communicate three weeks ago? Yeah. We believe that.

Important question. I'll repeat two questions. Is it coming from your mind?

Yeah. Does it work? Only the guy in Florida, only one guy, he said, no, it doesn't work.

It's coming from your mind. I said, come up here and get a mustache. I'll give you a mustache.

Then he was like, no, no, it's okay. You know? They are that good.

The images are that good. Why? Because the rest of the world's coming from your mind.

The paper that it writes on, the ink that comes out of it, it's all coming from your mind. There's no problem. Is it coming from your mind?

Yes. And then in our monastery, you get whipped if you say, but it's still real. You get whipped with a rosary.

You think rosaries are for counting prayers? You get whipped with a rosary. If you say, but it's still real, you get whipped.

Why? You should say, and that's what makes it real. That's why it's real.

Something that wasn't coming from your mind could never be real. You see? If you say, but it's still real, it's coming from my mind, but I can still write with it, then you get these red dots across your forehead.

You'll walk around all day with these red dots and everybody's like, he said but, he said that. Okay. Is it coming from your mind?

Yes. Is it real? Well, of course, that's why it's real.

If it wasn't coming from my mind, I couldn't write with it. Got it? They are that good.

The images in your mind are that good. Did $200 million company come out of my mind? Yes.

Could I spend the money? Yes. Did it help tens of thousands of refugees for 25 years?

Yes. Because it's real. Okay?

You can use that money to help people. You see? It's very cool.

So, third level, Mahamudra. Much, much practice. First, just practice imagining that.

Okay? Oh, it's coming from me. A seed is cracking open in my mind and I'm seeing a pen.

I'll give you a clue for success at this level of meditation. Okay? I'll give you a trigger.

I'll give you an event in your life which will trigger these thoughts. I'm going to do a hypnotism on you. When the following thing happens in your life, you are supposed to think that this is popping out of your own mind.

You ready? Anytime you meet an irritating person, you will imagine that it's all coming from you and you were irritating last week and that's why you see them. And it's going to trigger this class in the memory of this class.

When the next person irritates you, which could be at the break, you're going to think, Oh, they're coming from me. I was irritating last week. What's the automatic next thought in your mind?

That's true. No, because I... No, you're not going to say that because you know the truth thing.

I taught you the truth thing. You were mildly irritating last week and this guy's an asshole this week. So, you're not going to have that thought.

What's the next thought? Yeah, I should stop being irritating. I don't like this.

I don't like to see people like that. I don't want to see people like that. So, what should I do?

Stop being irritating. Okay? Like a real person who's trained in Mahamudra, their reaction to problems, to bad press, to people hurting them, to people criticizing them, to bad weather is, What did I do last week?

What smaller thing did I do last week to somebody else? And then they improve and their life changes. And then they're surrounded by success and they're surrounded by beautiful people.

It's cool. You can change everything around you. Just learn this Mahamudra thing, okay?

Plant a seed. So, third one is, one day, if you are persistent in this trigger, what's the trigger? People who hurt you or bother you or irritate you, okay?

When someone hurts you, I hereby bless you to wonder what you did last week to cause it. Okay? And then the anger goes away.

Okay? And then you don't create a new seed. Okay?

It's a huge cycle, right? New seeds are created by the anger at a person that you produced from the old seed. Okay?

If you practice that kind of thinking long enough, there will come a day when you can actually see the person pop out of a seed in your mind. Okay? And that's the third level of Mahamudra.

Pens are easy. People are easy. Thoughts are extremely subtle.

But when you get to the stage when you can observe a thought popping out of a karmic seed in your mind, okay? We gave an example yesterday. What was it?

Oh, distraction in meditation. Okay? What would be the karmic seed of not being able to keep your mind on your meditation?

You just keep thinking about breakfast or something. Yeah, you interrupted people last week. And we all do it.

I'm really good at it. My lama informs me constantly. You know, constantly I interrupt people.

And then you're trying to meditate and your mind is interrupted. And that interruption in your own thoughts is coming out of a seed. And see if you can catch it.

And it's very difficult. But you have to practice. You have to learn it.

Okay? Got it? Now, next question.

And this one's difficult. This one's difficult. And give me a careful answer, okay?

Is the fact that distraction in your meditation is coming from a seed that broke open in your mind, is that emptiness? No, okay? It's not, okay?

The highest meditation object of all, of ever, is emptiness. To watch the seed crack open and the thought come out, or to kind of watch the seed crack open and you meet an irritating person, right? That's not emptiness.

If you care about the Buddhist word, it's dependent origination. That's the ultimate meaning of dependent origination. The person's coming from you, okay?

But that's not the highest thought you can have yet. Okay? It's even higher.

It's even more subtle. Number three is very difficult to go to. You've got to get to number four.

In this life, you have to get to number four. So what does it mean, emptiness? What is the meaning of emptiness?

Let's use the example of an irritating person in your life, right? We talked yesterday about a husband who comes home from work and he opens the door and you say, Honey, I spent an hour at the store. I spent an hour, you know, getting all the stuff ready.

I read the recipe. I spent two hours cooking this thing. It's ready.

It's hot. I'm ready to serve you. And he says, Great.

And he walks in and he takes one bite and he goes, Can we call out for a pizza? And you're like, At least you could pretend to like it. I mean, I spent three or four hours on it today.

And you're going to spend another hour cleaning up, right? We gave that example yesterday. Now, I'm going to ask you some questions and they will correspond to this thing.

Okay? Did a husband come through the door? Did he criticize you?

Yeah, did he criticize you? Is he coming from you? Yeah, the criticism is coming from you.

Okay. Now, we're going to go to step four. You ready?

This is emptiness. We'll go there and then we'll retreat and just go back to the book. Okay?

We'll like crescendo and then we would... Here we go. Are you ready?

Did the husband that you used to get mad at exist? No. You have to think about that.

Why? Was there a guy walking in the door? Yes.

Did he say something? Yes. Did he criticize you?

Yes. Was he coming from you? Yes.

Was he not coming from you? No. Is there a husband who could walk in the door that isn't coming from how you treated people last week?

No such husband. Now, which husband? What of those four?

Let's go through it again. The guy who walked in the door. The guy who said something, criticized you, right?

I forget. The guy who criticized you, who was coming from you, from what you said last week to somebody else, and the husband that isn't coming from what you did last week. Okay?

We got four husbands here. Husband number four doesn't exist, and never did. Now, question for you.

Which one of these four husbands were you always angry at? It was number four. Okay?

All the wrinkles on your face, all the sadness in your life, all the worries you've ever had were about things that didn't exist, and they have ruined the happiness of your life. Okay? And it's not a big jump to be happy now.

Okay? Because anytime something upsets you, just think about it. It doesn't exist.

Chill out. It doesn't exist. The people who bother you are the people who bother you who didn't come from what you did last week.

Because if you realized that they were coming from what you did last week, you wouldn't be bothered. You would just stop bothering other people. You'd say, God, I've got to take care of this thing.

I'm going to... Boy, I'm not going to bother people. I'm not going to complain anymore about dinner.

Like that. And then you just shut him off. That's called cessation, right, in Buddhism.

You shut him off. It's cool. The husband who was criticizing you, you can shut him off permanently.

And then you're just happy all the time. He's always praising your dinner. Okay, got it?

It's very cool. What's the... What's the alarm?

When should an alarm go off in your head and start screaming, you are misunderstanding your life? When should that alarm go off? Anytime you have a sad feeling, negative feeling, unhappy feeling, because it's always about something that was never there.

It's so sad. It's so tragic. The unhappiness of six billion people, seven billion people, is about things that aren't even there.

You see? It would be okay if they... If there was somebody bad walking the door, it'd be okay that you were sad.

That'd be okay. The tragedy of the world, there's nobody there. Is there...

Is there a guy? Yes. Did he say something?

Yes. Did he say something because you said something mean last week? Yes.

Is there a guy who walked in the door and said something mean for no reason at all and not connected to how you acted last week? There's no such guy. And that's the guy you're always worried about, you know, the ex-partner or whatever.

They don't exist, and they make your life miserable. Something that doesn't exist is making your life miserable. So a real philosopher should say, how can a thing which is immaterial affect somebody?

Okay, that's another question. All right. So those are the four levels.

I'm in my thoughts. I'm learning to watch what Michael's thinking about all day, what his life concerns are. Then I'm learning to watch his thoughts pop out of what he did last week.

And then I learn to see that the concerns he has are about phantoms and things that never existed. Okay? When he's sad, even inside his own mind, it's about thoughts that he couldn't control by being nice to other people.

Okay? It's very subtle. It's very subtle.

But if you learn it, you can design your life. And it's so fun. It's like I have this garden, right?

This is the time of year. I got all the seeds laid out in the living room. And I have this big piece of paper, and I'm planting.

This color goes well. Yellow goes well with purple. And red goes well with white.

And this flower goes shorter. Put the hollyhock in the back, right? And then put the shorter flowers in the front.

And you have to plan. Now is the time for planting, right? Very soon.

In Phoenix, it's the time. Everybody has allergies. In my place, it's going to be a couple more weeks because it's higher.

But I have to plan the garden. I have to plan which colors go where. And I have to plan it time-wise.

You know, what do you call it? When it goes off. I have to plan when it goes off because sometimes things go off later.

Some things go off earlier. So I got to have a... I got to plan the timing of the garden.

And I have to plan the colors. And I have to plan the heights. And I can plan the smells also.

So I put the really fragrant ones, the jasmine and the alyssum. And the honeysuckle. They go right where I come out the door.

And you plan your garden now. Now in the spring, you plan for an amazing garden in the late spring, in the summer, right? You can plan your life the same way.

You plan your life the same way. You plant seeds. And then you just relax.

And stuff happens. Stuff happens, you know. I always was thinking...

I wrote this book called How Yoga Works, right? And I'm thinking, I'd like to make a movie. I wish I could make a movie out of that, but I don't know how to make movies, you know.

I should plant the seeds for some movie guy to come. This is a true story, okay? So I was like, I'll help other people make movies, you know.

And I did. I helped all these people make their movies, you know. And then, like, I don't know, a month ago?

Two months ago? This guy calls me, famous Hollywood director. He made one of the most important films of the 20th century.

21st century. Which is called Legally Blonde 2. No, but it made 90 million bucks, so it's okay.

And it sold 90 million bucks. So anyway, he calls me and he says, I want to make a movie of your book. I'm like, I've been waiting.

You know, I planted the seed and I don't know why it took so long. And he's like, excuse me? And I said, okay, just, you know, where do I meet, where do I fly to?

He says, no, no, I'll fly to you. I'll come to Phoenix. I'm like, oh, all right.

And then he's come twice, right? And he even pays for lunch and stuff. and imagine that you know how to do stuff like that and you are surrounded by people who don't.

And how frustrating that is. And how your heart's breaking. Like you want to, they're working so hard to get stuff and you're like, no, no, no, please just do it this way, you know.

Can I tell people that? I don't know. Is it premature?

So she always wanted to be a movie star. She went to LA. She worked really hard, you know.

And then, like, I don't know, a couple of years ago, she started planting the real seeds and she just got a major part in a feature film. Okay, so, no, but she very consciously planted the seeds. And what she did, in her case, was she volunteered to do movies for, to do free videos for an organization which helps women internationally who are abused by sex slave trade or like that.

So she made a series of videos for them for free. And then she planted that seed and she took care of the seed, which is another thing that you have to learn. And then they just came and they gave her this part, you know.

So, and everybody was like, oh no, you've been in LA and nothing's happened all these years. And she's like, no, I'm planting a seed. And it just happens, you know.

Then you just relax and somebody calls you, you know. It's really frustrating to watch people struggle to get things and you're like, excuse me, just plant the seed, you know. And they're like, what do you mean?

You know, and it's really frustrating, okay. So anyway, third level, watching the seeds open and good stuff come out. Fourth level, understand that nothing else is ever going to work.

If it works, it's by accident that you planted the seed by accident. Okay, got it? If you apply to 48 movie companies and give your resume and then finally they choose you in a casting call, it's only because you helped someone else before and you forgot.

And you think you did it. You think, oh, you know. It's not how many resumes you put out.

Harrison Ford, I worked on a movie with them. Kundun, right? At Central Park West.

I was their advisor. And Coppola, what's his name? Anyway, the guy, director guy.

They're all in a room just like this and I'm like giving them this thing, you know. And they were like, you know, do you know how Harrison Ford got his acting job? He was a carpenter.

He was a cabinet. He was installing kitchen cabinets in Hollywood. And he installed a kitchen cabinet for this lady who was looking for a handsome guy for a movie.

And she's staring, she's standing there at the kitchen table like, how am I going to find this guy? And he's banging on the cabinets and, you know, and then he turns around and she's like, and in our belief it's not an accident. You see, he didn't submit resumes to her, right?

He didn't, you know, go kiss the director's rear end or something. He just went and did carpentry there. You see, so I remember talking to them about it because it was a cool story.

It's not how many resumes you write. It has nothing to do with it. He must have helped someone else get their dream.

And then he could have walked to, I don't know, Buenos Aires and somebody would have hired him in Hollywood. It's weird, okay? All right.

Maybe we should take a break there, I think. So we're about to get to, so what they're saying is, in these verses now, stop there. Stop there.

Live in your thoughts. Learn to watch your self-thinking. Learn to understand how those thoughts are coming out of how you treated people last week.

And definitely forget trying anything else because it doesn't work, and it never did. And if it looked like it worked, it was just a seed, a random seed that you forgot that you planted, okay? Like Harrison Ford, okay?

Those are the four steps. And stop there. Because some people said, I have to watch the watcher.

And then I should watch the guy watching the watcher. And they got lost in the meditation. They got lost, like in a maze, in their own mind.

They said, let me watch the watcher. And the watcher's, because somebody's going to have to watch the watcher of the watcher. And then maybe I should watch the watcher of the watcher of the watcher.

And he's criticizing that people who got lost in their minds that way, and they thought that was emptiness. And it's nothing to do with it. Emptiness is when the husband comes in the door and he yells.

Emptiness means there was never any husband who was not your fault, who was not coming from you, okay? Last thing, okay? Does that mean you shouldn't resist an evil person, you know?

Oh, someone's stealing a car, or someone's beating somebody else, or stabbing somebody. Does that mean you just say, oh, it's just coming from my mind, you know? I should try to be a nicer person.

Good luck on that cut, you know? No, you can't do that, okay? You have to try to do good in the world, but understand whether you succeed or not depends on your seeds, okay?

On the older seeds. And it may not come out the way you planned. And don't stress, because that's not the point.

You have to try to help people, because that's how you plant seeds. Whether you succeed or not is up to old seeds. So don't get all stressed if you try to help somebody and they say, I don't want that, or what are you doing, or get out of here.

Don't quit being a do-gooder, you know? Because that's a false thinking. If you try to do good and something bad happens, it's not because you tried to do good, it's because you did something bad before that.

Got it? So never be sad or upset when you try to help somebody and it doesn't work out. That's coming from an older seed.

What you're doing is the right thing. Yeah, that takes some practice. But generally there's four rules, and one is similarity, okay?

Bananas make bananas. Jesus said, you don't get thorns from... Figs from thistles or grapes from thorns.

Okay? That was a very profound statement, meaning you don't get rice if you plant bananas. We think it's silly to say that, but it's a miracle, and thank God.

Can you imagine? I always think of Wilcox. I don't know why.

I think of Salsa Fiesta, sitting in this little grungy Mexican restaurant, and all these cowboys used to come in, farmers, and they used to talk to each other over Mexican food. What did you plant today? What did you plant this year, Jed?

They said, I planted rice, or I don't know, wheat, corn. I planted corn. Well, what did you get?

Mangoes. I got mangoes. And we're so lucky that the same thing creates the same thing.

That's just karma. There's a karma that causes that, and it's always the same. So we're lucky.

If you want to be a famous movie star, generally it's a good idea to help other people with films, you know, like that. If you want a boyfriend, it's because you're lonely, then you should have someone who's lonely, like that. Bananas make bananas.

Thank goodness. What did you get this year? Okay?

Don't forget that. It's really funny. All right.

Am I supposed to announce anything? There's a program in May. Is it this?

There's a ten-day free program. We're going through The Idiot's Guide to Enlightenment. It's a thousand-page text.

It was written by the teacher of the teacher of the current Dalai Lama, who was also my teacher's teacher, okay? The teacher of the current Dalai Lama was my teacher's teacher. So, it's a thousand-page manual on how to reach enlightenment.

And it's very, very, very beautiful, okay? And we're in the middle of six practices that you should do just before you start to meditate. So, in the Tibetan tradition, we believe that there's a warm-up, mental warm-up, that you have to do before meditation.

And it involves things like proper posture in the meditation, cleaning your room properly, which I'm sorry to tell some of you, putting out attractive offerings. Like Santa Claus won't come without cookies, right? And stuff like that.

There are tricks to meditation that have been developed over two and a half thousand years. And they're tiny things, like what kind of flower to put out if you want this kind of meditation, you know? It's very cool.

So, we're going to do that for ten days. It's free. It'll be May, what?

6th to 12th. The first three days of it, the 3rd to the 5th, the first three days, will be held at Diamond Mountain University. So, you're welcome to come if you want.

You don't have to come, but if you want to come. I'm blackmailing people. The first three days are out there, because that's an anniversary for the retreatants.

And some of them will actually come out and speak to us blindfolded. They will talk about their own experiences blindfolded. And then, after that's done, we'll do the rest of the program here in Phoenix for seven days.

Something like that. So, you're welcome to come to the first part. If you can't make it, just come to the second part.

Diamond Mountain is about an hour and a half to two hours outside of Tucson. Okay. In an obscure corner of Arizona.

Which is where a meditation center should be. Okay. A retreat center.

Okay. Anything else? Please eat a lot of...

Yeah, Rebecca's in charge of the bake sale. The bake sale, as I said last night, makes money to send our students to a Tibetan monastery to study for a month. And three or four of them are here from the last crop.

Right? How many are... Four are here from the last crop.

What month were you there? November? October?

They were there in September. So, every year we send... How many?

Five? Six? Five to ten people are sent to India and their airfare is paid for and their food is paid for from the bake sale.

So, eat a lot and overpay. Okay. And I'll stay here if you have any personal questions.

I suggest we do something afterwards. We'll have a little time. I'll do some more of the text, but why don't we have questions and answers if you want to ask questions and answers after the refreshments.

Okay? I thought we'd do some questions and answers just for fun. And there was a really good question.

Who was that? Somebody promised me to ask it. You were second.

Yeah, go ahead. Loud, so everybody can hear it. Yeah, good.

Yeah, okay. I'm going to adjust the question a little bit, which I always do. Anybody who's going to answer it, exactly answer it.

So, in this system, it's different, okay? This is a different system. It says the world is coming from your mind, and that it's coming from seeds in your mind, and that if you learn to garden those seeds, like I'm planting my garden for this summer, you could design your life.

You could design what happens in your life in the next six months. All the people you meet, the things that happen, your business, your relationships, your health, and your mental state, you could plant it and plant it and get what you want, right? So, in the case of finding a partner, which is the...

That's, I think, the first question in the book. Somebody's asking me, how do I find a partner? And it's help a lonely person.

Like, I like to tell people, go to a nursing home and adopt one of the people who has no one, no family, right? If you really start to go to nursing homes regularly, they're extremely painful places, extremely sad. You know, you walk in, you go down the...

The one I used to visit a lot, you go down the corridor, and there's people sitting on each side of the corridor in chairs and in wheelchairs, and they sit there the whole day. And if a mobile human comes down the corridor, they're like... And they just want to touch a person who still has any life energy in them.

It's almost like a battery that's ran out, and they just want to touch a person who's alive still. And it's very sad. You walk down the...

And most of them, many people in nursing homes don't have family, or they have family and they come once a month or something. They don't really care. And they just come so they don't feel guilty.

And they don't really take care of them. They don't pay attention to them. So, if you...

The reason people want a partner is they don't want to be lonely. It's like it's... They want to come home and tell somebody about what happened today.

If you get a part in a movie and you come home and sit by yourself, you want to tell somebody. You want to come home and tell somebody. Cook for yourself is...

Eating by yourself after you cook for half an hour is a drag. It's like five minutes and then you clean up for half an hour. And then you sit there.

It's nice to have someone to come home to who's beautiful and fun and happy. It'd be nice to have a person like that. It's a normal human hope to have somebody cool who doesn't change, right?

And we all want that. In this system, you plant the seed for them by visiting a lonely person. So, there's a story about a woman who came to me and she said...

She asked me how to get a partner. I told her, you go adopt an older person. And adopt means just go once a week for half an hour.

It's ten times more than they ever had. You don't have to sit there and take care of all of their needs. You don't have to sit there all day and be a martyr, which doesn't work.

Then you're just unhappy. Say every Friday I'll come in the afternoon and I'll visit you for an hour and that's all I can do. I don't have more time than that.

And they'll say, God bless you. If you come regularly at the same time, on the same day, like birds, right? You have to feed birds at the same time every day or they get confused.

And old people are the same. I'm going tonight. I'm going from here to her house and I'm spending the night there and we're going out for breakfast because it'll be Sunday.

You see what I mean? And then you make it regular and then you plant a seed in your mind. So, I told this lady, that's not what you should do.

And she's very strange because she takes what I say and she goes and does it. So, she actually went to... and the lady in Eastern Europe whose name I'm not supposed to say because she might hear the broadcast.

But anyway, and many, many, like hundreds of other people. So, she... And then a boy came.

And then she called me and she said, Fly to New York, Geshe-la. I'm getting married and I want you to be the priest at the marriage. And I'm like, cool.

That's such a good advertisement. I could talk about this for years. And she found the boy.

The boy was created. She created the boy. And then I went and did the marriage ceremony and Lama Maru was there and some other people.

And we did the ceremony and then I sat in this other room with them and we were eating cake, right? And I said, well, so how's Mrs. Smith? How's she doing?

And she's like... And I said, what's the matter? How long has it been since you saw Mrs. Smith?

When did you meet the boy? And there was a strange correspondence. She dumped Mrs. Smith when she got the boy. And then I'm like... I got kind of angry. I got kind of, what do you call it?

Wrathful. And I'm like, you sit down. And I took the boy and I sat him down with her.

He's also a Buddhist. And I sat them down and I said, you're telling me you dumped Mrs. Smith after you got him? And she's like, I didn't dump her.

We were busy. We had to do the invitations. We had to pick out the dress.

I had to figure out what we're going to eat and where we're going to have the wedding. And I'm saying, you don't get it, man. Relationships are like trees, right?

When the seed gives its power to make the tree, then the seed dies making the tree. That's what seeds do. When an acorn turns into an oak tree, it's not like the acorn is hanging out down there.

It's gone. Because all its energy went into the tree. And then the tree dies after so many years because the energy has...

it's a conservation of energy. Life takes energy. The seed is killed by the growth of the tree.

Every moment you spend with your new husband, that seed will get older and it will die. And people start to dislike each other and they start to have problems in their relationship. It's inevitable, you see?

You plant a seed for the boy by visiting the person in the nursing home. Then that creates the boy. And every hour that you spend with them, the seed is dying.

And then it dies. And then you have your last fight and you get divorced. And that's why relationships fall apart, always.

You know? It's like that. So I got like wrathful of her, you know?

And she says, well, what do you want me to do about it? And I said, now you both have to go. You have to keep planting.

You have to sustain the planting. You can't stop now. You have to sustain the planting.

You have to keep going. You don't have a choice. You both have to visit her for the rest of your life.

And if she dies, you have to find another one. And you can't stop. And then your relationship will be beautiful forever.

And I have relationships that I have sustained for, it's 43 years now in this method. And they're beautiful. They're fantastic.

And they're better than they were 43 years ago. Every year they get better because we serve the people together. You see what I mean?

So you have to do this. You have to keep doing that, right? Then what will happen?

He's talking about universal compassion, universal love. He's talking about love for the whole world, right? Which is a high Buddhist goal.

It's called bodhicitta, right? Can you develop a love for the entire world? And can you be Spider-Man?

Can you become... Is there a way that a normal person can become Spider-Man, right? Why are those movies so popular?

Why did Spider-Man already... No, what's his name? The Mechanical Things.

Transformers. Why did that kid save the world three times already? Why is it so...

Why are we so in love with that idea of a teenage boy getting bit by a spider and suddenly he can trump all the criminals in the city? Why are we so... Why did those movies make millions?

And Avengers just made $200 million or something. I mean, why are we obsessed with these movies? It's because we want to do it.

We want to... We want to be Spider-Man or Wonder Woman or whatever, Catwoman, I don't know. Then everyone says, well, that's a nice story.

I understand the sentiment, but it's not practical. I mean, I'm not going to become Spider-Man in my lifetime. Maybe I can be reborn as Spider-Man, but it's not going to happen.

I can see my life path and it's not including a suit like that. In this system, it's very beautiful. There's...

Using these methods to make your dreams come true automatically helps the whole world. And isn't that the way it should have been? You see, if your spiritual practice, if your personal practice is successful, it's the best thing you can do for world peace.

How does that work? I'm going to give the example of the nursing home lady. This is in the book.

I'm going to give you a sneak preview. It's like this. I told this lady, this is what I want you to do.

You come home. This is when she first met the guy. I said, you invite him over to your apartment at 7 p.m. Okay? And then you call... The couple days before, you call four or five of your girlfriends and you say, I'll meet you at the restaurant at 7... Invite them to a restaurant at 7 p.m. And tell them where to go and tell them...

Arrange it. Then call your new boyfriend. At the time, he wasn't a husband yet.

He was the new boyfriend that she planted. And I said, call him and tell him to come to your apartment at 7 p.m. She's like, why? I said, well, there's a plan.

And she said, what's the plan? I said, when he gets there, you have three tall glasses of water ready. This is not Starbucks tall.

This is real. Real glasses of water. And ask him to drink all three glasses of water quickly.

And she's like, what's that got to do with universal love? And I'm like, it's coming. And then go to the restaurant with him.

Take him to the restaurant. You're going to be late because it takes time to drink the water. You're going to be like 20 minutes late.

And the girlfriends are all waiting for you. And she hadn't had a boyfriend in seven years or something like that. So then walk into the restaurant with him.

You know what I mean? Arm in arm like that. And then everyone's...

What's going to happen? The girlfriends are all going to be like, oh, who's the guy? Who's the guy?

And then someone's going to say, it's got to be her cousin. It can't be a boyfriend. She hadn't had a boyfriend in seven years.

This is real. And they'll say, it must be her cousin. And then you make a plan.

As you approach the table, pause and give him a big kiss. Like a gui. Like a real movie kiss.

And then everybody's like, not a cousin. He's a boyfriend. And then everyone's like, it's going to be uncomfortable for the first 15, 20 minutes because everyone's like, oh, nice to meet you.

What kind of job do you have? But they're dying to know how you found him. Where did you find him?

So anyway, what's going to happen after 20 minutes or so? He's going to have to go to the bathroom because he drank all the water. So he's going to get up and excuse himself and say, I have to go to the bathroom.

I'll be right back. Then all this conversation is going to break out. What's the website?

Which club? Was it a club? Was it a website?

They're going to keep asking you and then you have to go like this and you have to say, it was a nursing home. And then they're all going to be, what? What?

He looks so young. And then you have to say, then you have to say, no, no, I learned this new idea. What you want, you give it to someone else first and then you plant a seed and then the boyfriend pops out of a seed in your mind.

And because of that, he's real. And then, half of them will think you went crazy and you joined some cult, right? And then half of them will say, well, let me give it a try.

It doesn't hurt. The worst thing that can happen is I'll make a lonely person happy for a couple of weeks and then I'll quit and I'll stop doing it. So then they will try and they will get a boyfriend and then they will invite him over for three glasses of water.

Yeah? And they will go to a restaurant with their friends, right? No, I'm not kidding.

It happened in Bulgaria and other, I'm not supposed to say the country. It happened. They saw the boy and everybody was like, how did that happen?

And she said, it's a whole new world. It's a whole new system. What you want, you set it up for somebody else and then you plant a seed and you learn their special Tibetan techniques to take care of the seed which you have to learn.

Right? You know people who do nice things who didn't have nice things happen to them because they didn't know how to take care of the seed. That's a whole other subject.

But you, you take care of the seed, then what's going to happen? It's going to be a chain reaction. It's obvious.

I'm not just joking around. I'm serious. It'll be a chain reaction.

People will start to copy what you're doing and not because you gave a good talk at a Dharma Center because you're successful which is more compelling than a talk. They will say, look, she got a boyfriend. I don't know what she's doing but whatever she's doing, I'm going to do it.

You don't have to grab them by the collar and say, follow the ex-church. They don't care. If they can get a boyfriend by doing it, they'll follow it for a while and they'll see if it works and it will work and then they'll take their boyfriend to a restaurant and then they'll take their boyfriend to a restaurant.

Pretty soon there's like huge lines at nursing homes. It's like 31 Flavors. You got to take this ticket, right?

Right? In Tucson. Remember that one?

You got to take a ticket. It's like on Speedway or something. You got to take a ticket because it's so popular.

There's like 20 people waiting for ice cream and you take your ticket. It's going to be the same in the nursing homes. They'll say, take a ticket.

She's busy. She's booked. Come back at 3 o'clock tomorrow.

You can have 15 minutes with her. I have this dream that all the boys in line and all the girls in line are going to meet each other. They might not even get into the nursing home.

But there's going to be... I'm not kidding, okay? I'm talking about a perfect world.

It's the way we start a class and it's the way we end a class. And that's a perfect world. And that's how you create a perfect world.

And you create it just by becoming successful yourself. So is it selfish to go to a nursing home because you want a boyfriend? You know?

Is it like mercenary to only serve a lonely person because you want a boyfriend? It can be. It can be selfish.

If you go to a nursing home to help an elderly person selfishly, it will plant two seeds. It will plant two seeds. What are they?

You'll get the boyfriend and the man will be a selfish son of a gun. And it's true. I'm not kidding.

You will plant two seeds. One for boyfriend and one for selfish. So your state of intention, your intention when you go to the nursing home must be Spider-Man.

It must be Spider-Man intention, you know? And it's the same action. It's a different intention, okay?

Which is the way it always goes. Why'd you go to the nursing home? I want a boyfriend.

Why? I want to start... The lady in...

The lady in Bulgaria, okay, whose name I'm not supposed to mention, but now she's probably more irritated. She came up and she said, Revolucija drugoje, which means boyfriend revolution. They're very like...

They love revolutions there. And she's like, Revolucija drugoje. It's like, I'm going to start a revolution.

I'll be a one-woman revolution. Everybody will copy me. People will copy them.

People will copy them. The whole country will have boyfriends because of me, you know? And there won't be any lonely people.

The nursing homes will be crowded with young people because they understand after they get the boyfriend they still have to go. Then they have to take the boyfriend to the nursing home. You see what I mean?

And there won't be any more lonely people. And people who want money, how will they get money? Find people who need money and help them get money.

So what will happen? No poor people. People will be dying.

Do you know any poor people? I can't find any. I got to plant some seeds.

They're getting rare. Can you help me out? Do you know anybody?

And then there'll probably be dealers, like poor people dealers. Yeah, I know some. I can hook you up.

I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. And we were in China.

We were giving this talk to tough ass Chinese business people, hard people in Guangzhou. It's like, I don't know, 150 hardcore. Guangzhou, you don't know the name Guangzhou.

Guangzhou is where half the stuff in the world is made in Guangzhou. It's factories back to back for a hundred miles. They made the paint.

They made the chairs. They made the carpet. They made the computer.

It's just outside of Hong Kong. So these guys are like that, you know, and I'm like, what would happen if everybody did this? And they're like, and one guy goes, world peace.

I'm like, damn. You know, you got it. You know, like these hardcore Chinese guys are like, world peace.

And suddenly their faces are like, I like Bambi, you know. They're like, world peace. We can make world peace, you know, by using this system.

And it was so beautiful. I wanted to cry, you know. So that's all.

It becomes Spider-Man by being successful with the intention of the lines at the nursing home. The first time you meet the old woman, you have a vision. And that's bodhichitta.

You have a vision of what could happen if you set off a revolution. And each person can. Each person can be at the center of ground zero.

And you will cause this thing. Each person will cause this thing. If you just try this, plant the seed.

Whatever you want. You know, you want to be... What's going to happen when they're interviewing her after the movie comes out?

And they ask her, how did you get the part? And you're like, I made these movies for this charity. You know, and then, you know, 400,000 budding young actresses are going to be like looking up charities on the internet that they can make movies for.

And then it sets off a revolution. And that's bodhichitta. And it's nothing other than that.

And it's a natural outcome of doing things the right way. Okay? It's cool.

By doing the right thing for yourself, you help the world. Isn't that the way it should have been? You know?

It's not like you become successful and this whole Christian thing that the world should be successful and you should be miserable. You know? Everyone else should have a boyfriend except you, and that's spiritual.

That's wrong. It's a wrong think. It's a wrong think.

You should get what you want and that should trigger everyone else getting what they want. And then everybody has what they want. And isn't that better?

Isn't that the way it should have been? You see? It's a really cool system.

Everyone gets what they want. Then I had some guy in Germany. He says, the problem was the sinking.

I said, what? He says, according to you, everyone will have a Mercedes-Benz. I said, yeah.

He says, how are they all going to get gasoline? Duh! Give gasoline to other people.

No, they'll be solar because you gave energy to other people. You see what I mean? There's no shortage after that.

Shortages come from selfishness. It's very beautiful. It's a beautiful system.

Okay, he's been so patient. Go. Oh, we have five minutes.

Give me a four-minute question because I need a minute to wrap up. Okay. Oh, okay.

Say, she, sampa, jorwa, tathuk. She, sampa, jorwa, tathuk. If you know these four, you can never see me again in your life and you will be successful.

You will have everything you want. Then you're self-running. You're like, the rabbit with that battery in him.

What's that? Energize your bunny. Then you come out of here and you're an energizer bunny.

You don't have to see me again. You just do those four things. Okay?

So, it's a great question to end the night. She means, and it's in the book. I don't know, somewhere in the book.

Oh, that's the other one. I put it in here five times and one of the editors said, excuse me, it's in there five times. I said, duh.

There's a reason why it's in there five times. Anyway, it's in there. Number one, decide what you want.

Okay? Decide what you want. That's all.

Number one, in one short sentence, tell me what you want. I want a girlfriend. Or, I want my husband to wash the dishes.

Or, other impossible things. Not you. So, you know, say what you want.

Number one, just define what you want. Then, of course, somebody in China came up to me and said, I don't know what I want. Then I'm like, okay, then you do the four steps on someone who doesn't know what they want.

But that's another story. Okay. So, step number one, decide what you want.

Step number two, choose a person who wants this, something, the same thing or something similar. Okay? Choose a person.

So, therefore, if you want a girlfriend, because you're lonely, then you should help a lonely person. Right? And I find nursing homes are convenient.

They're everywhere and nobody's helping those people. They're great. I had a guy in Detroit.

He came, the guy named River, I don't know, do you remember him? He came to the program in Detroit. He said, he got all excited.

The third day he came, Geshe Michael, Geshe Michael. He's standing up in a big crowd of people. He said, I found a person.

And I'm like, okay, it's all right, just sit down. And he's like, no, no, you don't understand. She's sick.

She's poor. And she's also lonely. I can get all three with one person.

And I'm like, that's cool, man. So, choose a person. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you from my heart, okay, people, I tell people that.

Like if I tell her, find someone who wants to be an actor, who wants to be in a movie. I always get the same answer. I don't know anybody like that.

Then I say, look for 24 hours. And if you don't find 10, then come back. They never come back.

Okay? Look for 24 hours. Among your friends, they were always there and you were ignoring it.

You were ignoring them. You know? Find someone who wants to be financially successful.

I don't know anybody. Check for 24 hours, get back to me. They never get back because they find like six people.

Okay, so number two, choose somebody to help who wants something similar. I had this lady. I want chocolate chip ice cream all the time.

I'm like, okay, so you know what to do. But my friend wants vanilla all the time. I say, it's okay.

It's similar enough. You know? There's like some leeway with karma.

You know? It's not like you're going to have to eat vanilla for the rest of your life. You know?

There's ways to change it to chocolate chip. You know? So she's all right.

So that's number two. Choose them and make a plan with them. And I like to say Starbucks.

Take them to a neutral location and talk with them for an hour and do your best to help them get what they want. You know? Give them some suggestions about getting what they want.

Like they want, you want to be financially independent? Then find someone who wants to be financially independent and take, step three, take them to Starbucks. You know?

So I gave this talk in Paris. No, it was in Paris. She's upset because she has to sit through it all.

She and her husband have to sit through it. They are my two assistants. So anyway, I think it was Paris.

No, it was Buenos Aires. And I gave this talk and I said, take them to Starbucks because it's a neutral place. It's everywhere in the world.

In China, you have to say, shimbarko. And so I said, take them to Starbucks. It's a neutral place.

They won't feel uncomfortable in your home and you won't feel uncomfortable in their home. Go out to a different place. Sit down for an hour.

You pay for the coffee or the tea or whatever. And then just listen for an hour. Just support them for an hour.

Do it once a week. That's all. Then somebody else came up to me.

I want to become financially independent. Okay, then what's step number one? Tell me what you want.

I want to be financially independent. I want to have... I call it...

I heard somebody call it a bad word, but I changed it. It was called F.U. money. It means I have enough money to do what I want and I don't have to listen to anybody, which is kind of what I would like to have.

It's what I do have. Anyway, and then... No, it means that I would like to be...

I don't want to be rich. I don't have a fancy car. I don't have a fancy house.

But I don't worry about money. I have all the money I want. And somebody else takes care of the bills and it just comes.

And I'm not wealthy, but I don't need money. I don't think about money. You see, like that.

That would be nice, right? Somebody said, I want that. So what do you have to do?

Yeah, choose somebody who wants to be like that. Help someone else who wants to be like that. So that's step number three.

Then someone raised a very good philosophical question. You want me to take someone out to Starbucks and advise them about how to become financially independent when I'm buried under credit card debt? You know, like what am I going to say to them?

And that's a good question. It's a true question. It's a true thing.

You just give it a try and that plants the seed and it's enough. It's enough, okay? You give it a good try.

You say, I'm going to help you get financially independent, F you money, you know? I'm going to help you do it. And they're like, what are your qualifications?

You say, none, you know? But I'm here to, I'll help you. I'll do my best.

And that's enough. That will plant the karma. That's enough, okay?

Will you succeed? Will they become financially independent? Depends on their seed.

You can't control it. Don't get depressed if they're still in credit card debt next year. You know what I mean?

The point is you have to try. You do your best with your amount of knowledge that you have to help another person to get the thing that you can't get yet. With a good heart, help them.

And with what? Boyfriend revolution vision, you know? If I pull it off, all my friends will copy me.

And then everybody will be out at Starbucks helping each other. And there won't be any poor people. You must have that intention in mind.

You must have bodhichitta in mind. Or it doesn't, it'll work and you'll have money and you'll be surrounded by selfish, greedy people, which sometimes occurs, right? Okay?

So you have to be sure to have this motivation. You want the world to be saved from poverty by you taking somebody out to Starbucks. Got it?

I'm not kidding. That's step number three. Step number four is the most important and we'll stop with that.

Then we'll stop the evening. It's the most important thing that you can do in Buddhism. Without it, this system doesn't work.

Okay? You know people who are generous who are broke all the time. Okay?

In fact, they get more broke because they become more generous. They get some money and they give it away and then they're more broke. Okay?

You know people like that. People come to me all the time. My mom was generous and she died in poverty.

So I don't... I like your system. It's attractive.

It would be nice if it was true. But frankly, Geshe Michael, that's not the way life is. People are very generous or they're very open to other people.

They're very kind to other people and they get screwed. Or they don't get money. So then we say they didn't take good care of their seeds.

They had good seeds. They had correct seeds. But they didn't know how to take care of them.

If you plant a seed... They bought me a carob tree. My students, right?

And I got... I said, I don't want this tree to die. It would cost a fortune.

They lifted it over the house with a huge crane and put it in the backyard because that was the only way to get it there. And it was expensive. So I'm like, I got to make sure this tree doesn't die.

And I got 16 drip systems and wrapped it in drip systems and poured water on it. And I'm like, yeah, mine's going to be the best carob tree. That's Geshe Michael.

I'm going to have the best carob tree. And then the leaves started falling off and everything was drooping. And I called this guy and he came and he said, you're killing the tree, man.

I said, what are you talking about? I'm giving it extra water. He said, you're killing it.

The roots are covered in water. They never get any air. You're killing it.

You got to stop the water. So you can be generous. But if you don't know how to take care of the seed, it won't grow.

You'll kill it. So how do you take care of the seed? Step number four.

What is step number four? I like to call it coffee meditation because my Lama taught me to do it while drinking coffee or Tibetan tea. But anyway, in the afternoon, you take the lady to the Starbucks or whoever and you help them for an hour with advice and moral support, happy emotional support about getting the thing they want.

And you make a commitment to help them once a week for an hour, not more. Don't do more because you'll quit. Don't tell the lady at the nursing home you're going to come every day because you won't.

Make it once a week or once every two weeks and make it for an hour. But be regular. Commit.

Make a commitment. That plants the karma. Then in the evening, come home, have your meal, clean up.

You can do... I allow you to do half an hour of Facebook only. Okay?

So your friends are going to drop a bit. Your friend count is going to drop a bit. And then take your shower, take your bath, put on your nightclothes, go to your bed, lay down, prop up on one elbow, stare at the ceiling, and think about what you did for the old lady in the nursing home for five minutes as you fall asleep.

Okay? So the time before we fall asleep is the time that we worry because we are tired and everything looks worse when you are tired. So you're thinking about, I don't have enough money or this person doesn't like me or this thing's going wrong in my life.

This is the time of day that all of us, because we're tired, life looks darker. Right? And sometimes you even wake up in the night.

And the Tibetans say that's when demons attack your mind because the mind is vulnerable in the night. And they will come and they will make you worry. You will worry.

You will stay up. You'll wake up at 3 o'clock and you start worrying. It's all illusion.

It's not real. You wake up in the morning, somebody pours a bucket of ice water on your head and you're like, you can't remember all those worries you had at 3 a.m. They're not real. It's just an influence of demons, they say in Tibet.

It's some kind of spirit influence, right? So, you fight back. Instead of, when you go to bed, when your head hits the pillow, you must make it a reflex, automatic reflex, that you start thinking about all the good things you did today.

All the good stuff you did today. My Lama was, we got a call, like, I don't know, 25 years ago, we got a call from the local Catholic Church, you know, and we're in this Buddhist temple and we got a call and they said, the Pope issued a, what do they call it? Yeah, the Pope, John, I think, or the one before that, Paul?

Before John Paul. Just John. Yeah, it was just, not the Polish one, the one before that.

Italian, I think. Yeah, so he issued a thing that all Catholic churches should invite someone from another religion to give a talk. So they're like, will you be the token Buddhist talker, you know, speaker?

And my Lama was a very gracious person and he said, of course, I'd be happy to come. And we went together because I was his driver, I was his slave basically, which was a great honor. And then I drove him there and then we were walking down the middle of this huge cathedral, beautiful cathedral, stone cathedral with this father, you know, and we're walking down and Rinpoche's looking, God, look at those windows, that's such a cool idea.

We got to do some Tara windows like that, you know? And he was so impressed and then he, and then he, there was a little special room halfway down the cathedral on the right side, you know, I remember. And we're looking and this priest goes in one side, in a door, and then this kind of good-looking lady goes in the other side of the door.

and Rinpoche was very, you know, he didn't say anything, he was just like, you know, what are they, what are they doing there? You know, and the priest says, don't worry, don't worry, it's, it's confession. And he says, well, what's that?

And they said, well, the priest goes in, there's a wall separating them, and the priest goes in one side and the lady goes in the other side and then she tells him all the bad stuff she did last week. And then he says, well, what happens after that? And he's, and the priest said, well, then he, he gives her an assignment to do so many prayers on the rosary.

And Rinpoche's like, damn, we got exactly the same thing. We do exactly the same thing, you know, when you do a bad deed, bad karma, then the, the monk, the lama will give you like so many mantras to do on the rosary. He said, it's amazing, it's totally the same, you know, and he was so excited, he was like, you guys are smart.

You know, that's great, you know. And then he goes, where's the other one? And the priest is like, what do you mean?

And he says, well, where's the other room on the left side? You know, and the priest says, well, I don't understand what you're talking about. You know, where the lady comes in and the priest goes in.

Where's the other one? And he's like, well, what other one? You know, the one where the lady comes in and tells the priest all the good stuff she did last week.

Where's that one? And they said, you know, and the priest was like, we don't have that one. You know, and in Buddhism, that's crucial.

And he wasn't being funny. He really thought there was another one. You know, in Buddhism, it's crucial.

A seed cannot grow. A good karma seed will not grow unless you appreciate it later. It will not grow.

Your mom can give away money her whole life and she'll be poor her whole life because she doesn't know how to do this. This is the trick. The trick.

Step number four. As you fall asleep, rather than random worries about your life, fight those. By the way, the exercise of forcing your mind which wants to worry to think about the good things you did today, the act of forcing the mind to listen to you is the definition of meditation.

That's meditation. That's meditation. You want meditation?

That's meditation. The mind wants to worry. You're tired.

You've got problems. Money problems. Girlfriend problems.

You know, boss problems. And the mind wants to worry. And you take that mind and you say, you're coming over here with me.

We're thinking about the good stuff we did today. You know? And then the mind will go, and you go.

That, that is meditation. Really. Honestly.

Grab the mind and say, we're thinking about the good stuff we did today. You know? And by the way, there's no expiration date on the good stuff.

If you didn't do anything good for three years, find something you did three years ago. Because the seeds are there. Seeds are never destroyed.

You have seeds from a thousand lifetimes ago. Are in your mind now. Don't worry.

You did something nice when you were a kid? You know, use it. You know, use it.

You know, think of the greatest things you did in your life. Almost, you know, we've all done a few noble things in our life. You know?

And hang on to those things and, and milk them. You know? I'm not kidding.

So when you fall asleep, dwell on the good things you've done or the good things you've seen other people do. It's the same. It has the same effect on your seeds.

It, it causes them to multiply wildly thousands of times. People are asking me, you're a, you spent 25 years in a Buddhist monastery, right? I didn't handle money for 25 years, right?

We're not allowed to handle money. And then I made a $200 million business. How?

That's all. Take someone to Starbucks and when you get home before you go to bed, think about the good stuff you did or the good stuff you saw other people do. And your whole life changes.

And, and then, then you can have anything. And is that selfish? What's that?

What's that? It's three glasses of water. Don't forget the three glasses of water.

Okay? I'm serious. You can save the world by doing this.

You can start a boyfriend revolution. There'll be lions outside in nursing homes. You gotta think like that and it will happen.

It will come. In our lifetime you will see strange things. You know?

I could show you a video from Oslo. Our friends in Oslo. Did you see it?

It was awesome. Those are our friends. They, the Oslo Movie Theater Association has announced a program where if you bring an elderly person to the movies, they're free.

And our friends, yeah, our friends in Oslo, you know, isn't that awesome? And you will see things happen in the world. You will see, in your lifetime, the way we've been running the world so far was mistaken.

Competition. You know, competition and, and struggling against other people for things. It's wrong.

It doesn't work. Take them all out to Starbucks. I gave this talk to 1,200 architects in Miami, Florida.

Right? And at the end, this guy is like, What about oil? I'm like, What about oil?

What are we supposed to do about the oil shortage? I said, Chinese people want to buy American oil, right? They want to buy American oil companies.

Right. Congress stopped it, right? Yes.

Give China the oil. Give it to them. Make sure China has enough oil.

Don't worry about America. What will happen? In this system, according to this system, what will happen?

I mean, you take China out to Starbucks and then you sleep on it. What will happen? New unexpected sources of energy will appear for America.

And that's the way to protect America, is to serve China. And it's weird, the whole room got very quiet because they were all like really redneck southern guys, you know? And they were like, and then they started to cheer.

They just started to cheer and they got it. They understood it. And then there's no war.

There's no fighting. We are serving the people that we would compete with. That we already have those seeds?

You have every seed. But it's helpful to make new ones and rejoice about those. But you do have every seed.

So anyway, that's the future of the world, okay? And you can all be Spider-Man because all you have to do... How do you be Spider-Man?

You become successful. And then people copy you. You don't have to go door to door with pamphlets and say, I want you to be a Buddhist or something like that.

And I don't give a damn if you're a Buddhist. I don't care. I could care less.

I just want you to be Spider-Man. We could call it Spider-Manism or something. I just want you to be really successful and happy.

And then people will copy you. And then everybody will be really successful and happy. What picture do you keep in your room?

Who cares? I don't care. I have Jimi Hendrix's picture on my altar.

You know? I don't care. So, to conclude, your responsibility, if you're a spiritual person, is to become happy.

That's your mission, is to become a happy, successful person because people will copy you. You see? And then you will change the world.

And that's all. And the way you do it is by planting seeds. And the way you plant seeds is to help other people who want the things that you want.

And that's the only way. There's no other way. Got it?

If you nod, you can go home. I gotta go see my girlfriend. Alright, you ready?

You ready, Tim? Go for it. Okay.

Oh, that's fine. Wait, I gotta do one more advertisement. By the way, my Lama never took money from me for 30 years.

And he taught me all day for the last 30 years of his life. So, anyway. This thing, people would ask him, why you don't charge for it?

He said, what's the price? What price you put on it? A million dollars a minute?

You know, it's too small. He got really angry. So anyway, I'll give it to the gasoline people.

Okay, thank you. This place is cool, and there's people teaching here for free if you live in Phoenix. Johnny O.

and Nick are teaching in Phoenix. Zach is teaching in Tucson. Lots of people are teaching.

Jigme's teaching. Rebecca's teaching. They're doing courses all over the valley in different places.

Christine's teaching. Jeff's... All these people are teaching.

So, talk to Nick or talk to Johnny O. Talk to Erin. Mrs. Nick. After she finishes her bar exams next week, you can talk to her next week. And they just teach for free, and you don't have to join anything, and you don't have to tattoo my name on your arm or anything. You just come, have a good time, meditate with them, do yoga, and do what you...

Just be happy and do that stuff. You don't have to keep a Buddha. I don't care.

Just... make your dreams come true. And then that's...

you joined the club, okay? And then... So, they're there.

Talk to them if you want to do more. And otherwise, we'll see you in May. Until May, your assignment is the four meditations we did this morning.

Okay? If you're not sure what they are, talk to these guys. And...

How do they find it online? There's a thing called The Knowledge Base. Go on there.

Look for these talks. They're free. You can listen to them a couple more times.

You can listen to the four steps again. Try to get it straight. And then your assignment is to do the four steps on what you want in your life until May.

And then let's tweak it. You know? You say, I got a girlfriend, but she's, you know, some problem.

So, you know, whatever. And then we'll tweak it together. We'll adjust it together.

It's probably the wrong old lady or something. And then... do those four meditations.

If you don't remember anything, you can look online at The Knowledge Base. It's free. Or...

I find a human being to be more... I don't know. You could do both, right?

But these guys are human. They can... they adjust to your needs.

Okay? So, talk to them. All right?

And if you're in Tucson, talk to those guys. And all over the world, many, many countries. There are over 300 ACI teachers around the world in every major...

in most major cities there.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
All right.