Дебаты дьявола с ангелом, часть 9: Сделать невозможное возможным (2014, Феникс), занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
So we're going to talk tonight about philosophy. But in the end, the purpose of the philosophy is to serve real people. And you can have both.

The philosophy feeds the understanding that you can help people with. So I just really encourage you to get involved. And you can talk to me or talk to any of the red ones.

And it's just cool. It's just really nice to do this kind of thing. And you should try.

You should do something for other people, because that's the source of happiness and helps other people. And we didn't have a moment from 6 in the morning to midnight. We were working.

And it's very satisfying and fulfilling. It's a good way to spend your life. OK, so tonight we talk about the philosophy behind it.

Because if you study that philosophy, then you get inspired. So tonight, as Nicole said, we've been going through a text for about three years called DANG DZIN CHANG DEP in Tibetan. And it means a debate in one person's mind between the devil and the angel.

And I don't know. So now we've been going really slow. So it'll probably take a couple more years.

I think it's one of the greatest pieces of spiritual poetry ever written. I think in time, it will be considered a classic along the lines of the Inferno or similar books, the New Testament, Bhagavad Gita. And so we're in an interesting place.

And I was thinking about how to teach it or what to do. And by strange coincidence, we have a choir, a rock and roll choir. And I don't know.

It started like three or four months ago by accident. And we were in Guadalajara. And we were practicing a song that we were going to play at night.

And then people started drifting in and asking if they could join. And some of them couldn't sing so good. But we said yeah.

And then, I don't know, it ended up like 15 people or something like that. And it was really fun. And we did a song called Gold Guns and Girls, which is a very important song.

And we had a really, really good time. And then we started playing more together. And I think the next hit was Give Me Shelter, which is, for those of you over 50, Rolling Stones, which is a band.

And then somebody asked me, some little, I shouldn't say little, some young lady asked me who the Beatles were. And anyway. And then we did, what was the other one?

You Can Make It If You Try by Sly and the Family Stone, which nobody knew even in those days. But they did play it at Woodstock, I think. So we were casting around for a new song to play for you guys tomorrow, which hasn't been rehearsed that well.

But you never tell people that. And it's a song, it says, I will love you until the following things happen. Basically, that's the song.

It's by Stevie Wonder. It's called As. I think it was supposed to be called Always.

And then he took the first letter and the last letter and made it As. But I'll read you some of the lines. Basically, it says, I will love you until the rainbow burns the stars out in the sky.

I will love you until the ocean covers every mountain high. I will love you until dolphins fly and parrots live at sea. I had a dream about the flying dolphins last night.

It was awesome. It was so awesome. That was really something.

I will love you until we dream of life and life becomes our dream. I will love you until the day is night and night becomes the day. I will love you until the trees and seas just up and fly away.

I will love you until the day that 8 times 8 times 8 is 4, equals 4. And like that, until the Earth starts turning right to left rather than left to right. Like that.

So it's a long list of impossibilities. So I thought tonight we're going to talk about the idea of impossibility and things that can never happen, things like the Earth changing its rotation to the opposite direction, or the day that 2 plus 2 is 3, or things like that. And he's made a song to his wife, I guess, that says, I will love you until these things happen.

So she thinks she's safe. I will love you until 1 plus 1 is 3. I will love you until the Earth changes its rotation on the axis.

I will love you until day becomes night, night becomes day. I will love you until you become me and I become you. Like that.

And it's all about things that are impossible. And then I think we all have our list of impossibles. Everybody here has things that they would like to happen, or that they hope would happen, or that have occurred to them to want or wish for.

And then you discounted it and you said, it's not going to happen. In my lifetime, these things can never happen. These things are impossible.

So in each person's life, you have a list of things that you don't pay much attention to because they're not possible. There are things that, fantasies or something like that, that would be nice if they happened, but they can't happen. So you kind of have it in the back of your mind, like if I could be Maitreya or something like that, if I could be the next Buddha in this world or stuff like that.

Impossible stuff. Relationship things that could never happen, that are against possibility. I want my husband to be blah, blah, you know, but it's never going to happen.

And you don't really believe it. Or the wife wants one thing and the husband wants the opposite thing. And so they both assume it's impossible.

Something that can't happen, right? Like one thing can't happen that would satisfy both. One thing that was two opposite things couldn't happen.

Right? Like the wife either gets what she wants or the husband gets what he wants, but it's not possible that there would be, that they could both get what they want at the same time if the two things are opposite. Got it?

So this is, we have in our mind impossibles, things that can't happen, you know? Like the whole world overcoming death or something, you know, in your lifetime or total peace in your lifetime or things like that. You have a list in your mind of things that you think are not possible, okay?

And that song is about impossibles. Then we're going to talk about that tonight, you know? Is it true that things are impossible?

Then I, okay, so I draw my inspirations from this kind of stuff, this song. And then the other important thing in my life is that I'm reading a really good science fiction book by Orson Scott Card, who wrote Ender's Game. And he's Mormon.

I think he's a fairly devout Mormon and he writes awesome science fiction. Many, many. He's very prolific.

He wrote a book called, what's the name? The Memory of Earth. And it's part of a series called The Homecoming Series.

And it's three novels. So I'm halfway, I finished the third and I'm halfway through the first. Because I got, someone gave them to me in the wrong order.

And there's this thing in the book called the, over, so here's the story. It's relevant, okay? Don't worry.

I'm not just rambling. It's about people just before Earth was destroyed by the inhabitants of Earth. A group of people took off in a rocket ship for another planet called Harmony, which they named Harmony.

And they have been on that planet for 30 million years. Like they, what do you call it? Civilized the other planet?

Populated, settled. Anyway, they moved into this other planet. And after 30 million years, they hardly remember Earth.

It's like just a legend that they came from a place called Earth. And then there's a super powered artificial intelligence computer somewhere on that planet that was sent with them. And it has an influence over their thoughts.

So this computer for 30 million years has had influence over the thoughts of the humans on that planet. And it's very interesting. Whenever they think of developing a technology that could destroy them, the computer destructs them.

Okay? So once anybody on the planet, if they start to frame the thought of a weapon that could hurt a lot of people, they start to get hungry or something, or they see a cute girl or, you know, like their mind gets, they can't remember what they were thinking about. You see what I mean?

Every time any, of tens of millions of people are being, what do you call it? Monitored by this computer. And anytime they start to think of something that could destroy their planet again, the computer distracts them.

So like they don't have airplanes. They have solar systems, solar energy. They have advanced medical technology.

They have, you know, handicapped people have special machines that help them, but they can't build a war machine because every time they start to, they forget what they were doing and the computer distracts them, or they can't remember what they were thinking, you know? And then, that's a long story. After 30 million years, the computer starts to degrade and people start remembering how to do destructive things or harmful things, you know?

But I, and then there's this very beautiful scenes where people are trying to remember things and they start being able to remember things and then they have to struggle not to forget things that they knew. And the computer's still trying to make them forget. You see?

So they have trouble holding onto certain thoughts, but then they realize that they're having trouble and they realize they're being manipulated by this machine. You see? And then they start to figure out ways to go around the machine.

And, you know, human nature, you know? Of course, then they start to destroy themselves. And so, we're going to study a thing called dangdzin.

Dangdzin means to misunderstand your world. It means the inability to break down a certain kind of blindness about where stuff is coming from. Every human being and every other living creature on this planet has it, okay?

They have an inability to think correctly. And every time they get close, they call it over-soul, okay? The computer's called the over-soul.

The over-soul distracts them. Every time they start to grapple with the questions, the real questions of life, something distracts them and they can't. They can't think straight.

And we have this innate, according to Buddhism, we have something similar to original sin, which means that we can't think straight. And every time we get close, there's some natural resistance built into the human mind. The negative part of the mind has a very powerful desire that things should continue the way they are.

And the positive part of the mind is continually getting shut out and shut down. And the negative side of the mind is always overcoming the positive side of the mind. And it applies to everybody.

And every time someone gets up to give a talk about it, like right now, you start thinking about dinner or refreshments or, you see, it's like the over-soul. You see, it's like the computer. No, the bad side of your mind for the whole length of your life will talk the weaker, correct side of your mind out of what it's trying to think of.

And you won't be able to think of it, you see? So then to teach a group of people like that is uniquely difficult. You see what I mean?

Like the moment you start getting close, the negative side of your mind will push you away by hook or crook. Think about sex, think about food, think about your job next week, think about anything except where stuff's really coming from. And your mind, the negative side of your mind will resist it subconsciously.

And it's extremely difficult. You might start arranging flowers, for example. It's extremely difficult to overcome the power of that negative mind, which according to Buddhism, you have had for countless lifetimes, okay?

So we're not just in a fight for tonight. It didn't start this week, you know? The negative side of your mind has had its way for billions of years.

So to say you're gonna change tonight is kind of cuckoo, you know? It's like hopeless for me to teach you and hopeless for you to sit here. Maybe we should just have refreshments.

What is? No. So let's take a shot, okay?

I will propose to you a different way of thinking. And you have to struggle against your natural disinterest in it, okay? It's a very difficult process.

You are fighting states of mind that have been in your mind for billions of years, okay? And they will get you on to something else by the end of the night. But let's take a shot, okay?

And the idea is that, okay, the thesis tonight, the theme, is that all the things you think are impossible in your life, for example, if the wife in a relationship wants one thing and the husband wants the diametric opposite, that both of you think that it's impossible, that there could be a solution that would satisfy both of you. You both think there could be a compromise, but you both believe it's not possible for you both to get exactly what you want at the same time. You believe that, okay?

And that's a mistake, okay? Every person in the world could have everything they want, even if it contradicts what everybody else in the world wants, because that's the way the world is, okay? You gotta struggle with that, okay?

It's not true that anything is impossible. It's not true, okay? And the world can be seven billion different worlds to seven billion different people, and they can all be contradictory, and they can all be opposite.

And everybody can have the world that they want, exactly the world that they want, and that's not a problem, because it's already that way, okay? But it's just not happy. Everybody has a conflicting vision, conflicting perception of the world, and they're all totally acceptable.

They all work in the same world. This world is seven billion different worlds, okay? But the goal is, could there be seven billion ideal worlds going on at the same time, okay?

Could seven billion people have their heaven, their paradise, could everything in their life be totally perfect at the same time, even if they're contradictory, okay? All right? And the part of the thesis is that those perceptions that anything could be impossible, which are wrong, which are mistaken, are partly caused by the state of your inner body, okay?

Pranic, there are pranic causes. There are knots in your body. There are kinks in your channels that cause you to believe that something could be impossible, okay?

So he's going to discuss all this, which is really cool, okay? Is there something in your inner body that you could straighten out with both physical and philosophical means that would allow you to overcome the oversaw and see that anything is, you can have anything you want, okay? All at the same time, okay?

That's the idea. So let's go to the text. I'm not gonna, I just put in the first two paragraphs on the first page, sorry, because it's sort of introductory, so we're not gonna go through all that.

It just tells you there was a debate between wisdom and ignorance, and it involves something called Mahamudra, which we'll talk about later, okay? And then we're gonna start on the first verse. I like to read it for two reasons.

What? The Tibetan. One is to impress you, and the second is to put a seed in your mind that someday you will learn Tibetan.

It's a holy language. It has no linguistic relationship to anything. It dropped out of the sky, okay?

Strangely, okay. LA LEG CI DANG DU BYAL KYI BYED PA'I MA YIN PA'I DUS MING DAG DANG LA DOG PA'I GYIS NGA NI MIN DUG NYAM SAM ME GOM PA DE YANG MA YIN DGAG GOM KYI ME DGAG MA YIN CING NGA DANG DZIN DANG NGOS MIN GAL Let's go through it. LA LEG CI DANG DU BYAL KYI So there are many proofs of emptiness.

What's the easiest one, if you're traveling in Colombia and Argentina, to teach brand new people? The pen thing. I can do it in two minutes.

You ready? I'll talk fast. You answer fast.

What is this thing? If a little dog came up here, what would they do with it? Does the dog see this as a pen?

So can we say that the human sees it as a pen, the dog sees it as a chew toy? Who's correct? What happens if I put the thing here and all the humans go away and all the dogs go away?

What is it then? Nothing? You can say that.

What happens if the human walks back in the room? It becomes a pen. What happens if the dog comes back in the room?

Chew toy. What happens if they both come back in the room? Yeah, because both at the same time.

Good. So, can we say, therefore, that the pen is coming from the human? It must be, because it becomes a pen when they walk back in the room, right?

It must be coming from the human. So can the human close their eyes and say, I want a bar of gold instead of a pen? No.

So can we say that the pen has come from your mind? Yes. Can we say that you have control of how the pen comes from your mind?

No, not in the current moment, okay? Then you go into Buddhism, okay? Karma.

I must have a seed in my mind that the dog doesn't have in their mind to see this thing as a pen. If you're interested about how karma opens, that's a useful thing to know, okay? So a karmic seed opens in your mind when Geshe Michael pulls this thing out of his pocket and says, what is that?

I see. And then you say, in that moment that the pen is coming out of my pocket, a karmic seed is opening in your mind. A small image of a pen, which is not bigger than that, flies out of your mind at the rate of?

1 65th of a second, which is why you never noticed it, okay? Your mind is throwing out frames of reality from karmas in your mind. And it's a very smooth, what do you call it?

Frames per second. It's 65 frames per second. A normal film on the internet is 24, something like that.

So 65 is really smooth. It looks like reality. But really, my hand is going, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

Seeds are opening in your mind at that rate, 65 per second, okay? So that's how a seed opens, and that's why you see a pen. Who put the seed in your mind?

Only you can. Nobody can loan you a seed, okay? How do you put a seed in your mind?

Do nice stuff or do bad stuff to other people, okay? How does it get into your mind? You see yourself do it, or you see yourself say it, or you're aware of yourself thinking it, okay?

And that's karma. And then that puts a seed in your mind. Okay, you just learned everything you need to know about karma, everything, all right?

That's a typical proof of emptiness. Which part of that spiel was the emptiness part? When you leave the room, it's not there.

Huh? When the dog is gone. Yeah, good, when I threw it down here and the dogs left the room and the humans left the room, that was the part where we were talking about the emptiness of the pen, okay?

At that point, it was, everybody said nothing. In every country, they go, ah, nada, nada, you know. It's interesting, because they end up using the words for emptiness from scripture.

If you phrase the question correctly, you can bring anybody in the world, a drug dealer from Medellin, to an understanding of emptiness quickly, in a few minutes, and they will say nothing. And what they mean is emptiness. So that's emptiness, okay?

That's one proof of emptiness, okay? There's many, many. One of the most famous ones is called chikdudel.

Say chik. Okay, chik means? One.

One, two, duma? Duma means many, okay? And that reasoning is often misspelled.

Those of you studying Tibetan, it's often spelled T-U, even by the Tibetans, which is a mistake, okay? Then it becomes a preposition, chikdud, in one, okay? So it's really, the full form is chikdun, duma, one and many, one or many, okay?

Chikdud. So don't say chikdud, okay? You gotta say chikdud, dud.

Say chikdud. Chikdud. Chikdud.

Then everybody says, ooh, you're cool. You're saying it right, okay? Those who know, okay, chikdud.

Drel means what? Okay, listen. Drel came from a word, an ancient word, shrel.

Here's shrel. It's onomatopoeic. It means that's the sound of paper ripping.

It's shrel. And it became a verb called drel, which is not del. Drel means to be divorced from or to be separated from or to be without, okay, drel.

So chikdud, drel means things are neither one nor many, okay, things are neither one nor many. Is this one pen? Is this one pen?

Is it multiple pens? Or is it one pen? Okay, but this proof of emptiness says it's neither.

It's neither one pen nor several pens. This is neither one pen nor several pens, okay? Why?

Because nothing could be one pen or several pens, okay? A box of pens can't be a bunch of pens, and one pen cannot be a pen. Why?

Huh? It comes from you. What?

It needs a person to return it. Yeah, I mean, yeah, without a person there, it can't be. Without a person there, you could put a box of pens here and it would be?

Neither. And if you put one pen here and all the humans and the dogs go away, it's? Neither, okay?

So by itself, what is it? Is it one or multiple? Neither, okay?

Got it? It's not difficult, okay? So how's that supposed to help me?

We'll get there. So if you truly examine whether this is one pen or a couple of pens, what do you find? By itself.

Neither, okay? Neither, it's neither one. Mayaypahidu, mingtak tsamla tohpayi, ngani mindug nyam samne.

Then people say, oh, things just exist in name only, okay? Some do an analysis of the fact that things are neither one nor many, and again find that nothing is there, which is when we left the room. But what they think to themselves then is that there is no I, because it is nothing more than something labeled with a name, and then they meditate on that.

Is this pen something labeled with a name? In Buddhism, labeled with a name is a nickname for that little picture of a pen popping out of a karmic state in your mind and flying out of your mind and gluing itself on the front of this thing, okay? That's called giving it a name.

So you don't have to know language to give names. You could be a children in the womb before they know language, are already having sensations and putting pictures on those sensations, which allows them to identify them, okay? Those pictures are popping out of their karmas.

If a child feels, if the mom's doing a forward uttanasana bend in yoga and the child's feeling squished at the moment, which they are, and a woman in Guadalajara went into contractions last year to prove it, then are they using language? Is the child using language? No, okay, but they are using images.

Those images are arising out of karmic seeds that were planted earlier, okay? So everyone uses names in the sense of images come popping out of karmic seeds, all right? So if you realize that, have you seen emptiness?

That's the question here. This is a very subtle text, okay? It's not an easy text.

We're in the middle of a three-year project. We've been going deep for three years. So we got down to like 14 levels down.

Is it the same thing to say it's coming from your mind, okay? And to say, if all the dogs and people leave the room, then what's there? Is it the same thing to ask those two questions?

Is it the same? No, the answer to the first question is, it's popping out of a karmic seed in your mind. Who put the seed there?

I did. How did I put the seed there? I gave a pen to somebody else, and I saw myself do it, and that planted a seed in my subconscious, okay?

Is to understand the process of how we create the pen by an image popping out of a karmic seed in your mind, is that the same thing as understanding that when the dogs and people leave the room, it's nothing. Are they the same? No.

No, one is positive. One is negative, okay? One is to say, this is coming from me, and not what I thought before.

And the second one is, without people and dogs in the room, it ain't nothing, okay? So the first one is identifying in multi-syllabic, uncomfortable Buddhist language, is called what? And the second one is called?

Emptiness, okay, and they're not the same thing. Dependent origination is a statement of how things are happening, as opposed to what you used to think that the pen was made in a factory in Japan, okay? It's a new way of identifying where the pen was made.

You thought it was made in a factory in Japan. You thought it was obtained by money. And now you realize that it's popping out of karmic seeds in your mind.

So it's a different thing than what you thought it was before. But this is, to say it's nothing, that's a different thing. That means, when the people are gone and the dogs are gone, it's not anything yet.

When one of them comes back in, it becomes a pen, because of seeds in their mind, okay? Now, I have to teach you two very cool Tibetan words. Don't fall asleep.

Don't even get drowsy eyed. It irritates me. This is interesting.

Say, mayinga. Mayinga. Mega.

Mega. Mayinga. Mayinga.

Mega. Mega. Okay, so Buddhism says there are two kinds of negatives in the world, okay?

Like, one is, you know, David Stumpf walks in the room, and, where is Stumpf? He's over there. He did the right thing today.

He brought me my favorite cookie. So, if I say, look, David Smith walked in the room, then that's not the person who walked in the room, right? So to say that's not David Smith, that's David Stumpf, is mayinga, okay?

Is to say it wasn't what you thought, it was something else, okay? This wasn't made in a Japanese factory. It was created by you being generous in the past and having given pens to other people, which is where the seed came from, which is where the image popped out of, which allowed you to identify it as a pen, okay?

So it's not the way you thought it was. That's mayinga, okay? Mayinga.

It wasn't made in a factory. It was made by your karmic seeds. And everything in your life is the same, which, by the way, means you have total control over doing anything you want in your life.

And if something in your life is not happening and you consider it impossible, you're just a karmic loser, okay? You don't understand karma, okay? If there's something in your life that you want and you're not getting it and you think it's impossible, then you just don't understand where the pen came from.

Then you need a mayinga. You need to cancel what you thought was happening and go to a different idea of how things are happening, okay? That's not the same as a maigak.

Say maigak. Maigak. Maigak means absence of something.

Is there a two-headed, 17-foot purple elephant rampaging through the backyard of Casa Jardin in Glendale, Arizona tonight? No. No.

No, okay? Is that elephant gone from this place? Yes.

Was the elephant ever here? No. That's maigak.

The simple absence of something is called maigak, okay? That's not the same as David and Stump and David Smith. That's a question of mistaken identity, okay?

The fact that Joe Schmoe didn't show up tonight and is absent is different. That's not a mistaken identity. That just didn't show up, okay?

Now, question for you. He's now describing someone who went through a proper Buddhist process to determine whether this was one pen or several pens, and the person decided it was neither, because it came from their mind, because they realized that it came from their mind. A single pen which did not come from their mind isn't there.

A multiple pen who didn't come from their mind is not there. They came to an appreciation of where the pen is really coming from, which is karmic scenes in your mind. Is that a maingak or a maigak?

[Speaker 2]
Maingak.

[Speaker 1]
It's a maingak. It's a realization that you misidentified where the pen was coming from before. You thought it was David Smith, but it was David Stump, okay?

Got it? But that person hasn't gone to maigak yet, okay? That person has not gone to, there was never any pen there the way I thought there was, okay?

Is it the same thing to realize what it always was and to realize that it was never there? Different things, okay? One leads to the other.

Which comes first? To understand that it comes from a karmic seed comes first, or to understand that it was never there the way I thought it was comes first? It comes from a karmic seed comes first.

So if you tell me, says the first Panchen Lama, who's the angel in the book, that you've understood, that you've perceived emptiness because you understand that the pen comes from a karmic seed, he says, mistaken. One is mistaken identity. You've got the identity straight of where it did come from, but you didn't understand what it wasn't, ever, yet.

Got it? Now, why is he hair-splitting like that? That's probably what happened to me.

Why is he hair-splitting like that? Because the second one can liberate you. It leads directly to nirvana, okay?

That there's no pen there when the dog's gone and the human's gone. Somehow, to understand that, shoots you right into nirvana and enlightenment. And the other one is just a stepping stone, okay?

Somehow you have to get to the absence of a pen. Okay? Mega, okay?

So he's criticizing very sophisticated people. They understood where the pen is coming from, but they didn't understand that there was no pen there before. Okay, got it?

Just nod. Nodding is the way to get refreshments. All right, okay.

Let's go one more verse, okay? I like this, Tom. We could do this all night, but you'll fall asleep.

You're gonna fall asleep even if we don't do it all night. Okay, verse 122. Oh, by the way, at the last of the last verse, he said, me gag mayin ching, nga dang dzin tang ngun min gyal.

Nga dang dzin tang ngun min gyal. Two people walk in the room, you know, and they see, I don't know. Let's take an example.

Okay. One, there's a rope on the floor. And one person, the first person who walks in the room, takes it to be a rattlesnake and runs out of the room, okay?

They have anxiety attack because of this misidentified rattlesnake, okay? Then the second person comes in the room, maybe they need to tie something on the top of their car, and they see a rope, okay? Now, do the ways in which they perceive the object correspond or are they contradictory?

They're contradictory. One person sees it as a rope, as a dead, inanimate, useful object for tying things on your car, and the other person sees it as a deadly object, living, deadly object, okay? Do we call that, say, dzin tang?

Dzin tang. Ngun gyal. Ngun gyal.

Dzin tang. Dzin tang. Ngun gyal.

Ngun gyal. Dzin tang means the way you're holding something. Dzin means hold.

Tang is an ancient word that means the way you do something. For example, the way you walk is also called a tang, or the way, whether a horse is in a canter or a gallop or a walk, is called a tang, tatang, a horse moving way. So dzin tang gyal means the way in which they both perceive the object is, what do you call it?

Mutually exclusive. Ngun means mutually exclusive, not just contradictory. Ngun gyal means mutually exclusive.

If you perceive it, if you think it's a snake, you cannot at the same moment think it's a? Robe. Robe, okay?

Now, he says that a person who has identified that the pen is coming from a karmic seed doesn't have a mutually exclusive perception as ignorance yet. But the one who understands that when the pen is here, is not here when the people and the dogs go away, they have a perception of the pen which is mutually exclusive with the wrong one. Okay, you got to chew on that, okay?

Somehow, thinking that it comes from a factory in Japan and thinking that it coming from karmic seeds in your mind is exclusive, but not mutually exclusive. Okay, you got to chew on that, okay? And somehow, to think that it was never there the way you thought it was, okay, is mutually exclusive with looking at it the wrong way.

The second one will save you, the first one will just get you, it's just a path to the other one, okay? So you have to understand mutually exclusive. They cannot coexist in the same room.

Somehow, the other two can. What are the other two? This pen is coming from a karmic seed in my mind and I bought this pen in a store.

You get this pen in a factory, okay? Somehow, those two are not totally exclusive. And we'll get there, okay?

Don't bust your brains, because it's late, okay? They're exclusive, but not mutually exclusive, okay? That's a different thing.

Let's go on to the next verse. By the way, you cannot damage the misperceptions you've had for your whole life until this one. The other one doesn't damage them directly, okay?

You can go on forever understanding that it comes from karma and not be liberated, okay? Until you see that there was nothing there that you thought was there, okay? It's a different thing, okay?

Then, no means damage. You can't damage that point of view. Until you damage that point of view, you don't have wisdom, okay?

All right, that's a long story. Okay, let's go one more verse and I promise you refreshments, and me too. Like, don't come out and ask me silly questions about your relationship without bringing a cookie.

Okay, 122. How on earth can you imagine that you could expel me from this mind? Who's me?

Wrong, misunderstanding your life. Misunderstanding your life. Who's you?

Wisdom, understanding your life. Who's the angel? Wisdom.

Who's the devil? Not understanding where your life is coming from, okay? Misunderstanding where your life is coming from.

Unless you found a viewpoint which stands in direct opposition to the way that I see things. That's what we call ngun gyal, right? Exclusively, what do you call it?

Exclusive. Exclusive. How could you ever meditate upon wisdom so long as you had yet to inflict any damage on me?

If you are having a state of mind which doesn't damage how you misunderstood your life, your whole life, then you don't have wisdom, okay? You can have some understanding, but we can't call it wisdom. Wisdom has to be, the presence of wisdom in a mind should, to that extent, expel misunderstanding of your world.

They cannot exist. You can't be in the same time, what do they say? I looked it up on YouTube.

I spent like an hour on YouTube trying to get you that clip. I'll give three bucks to anyone who finds the clip. It comes from a 1938 cowboy movie, and somehow the clips didn't get recorded, like the lines got recorded, but not the clip.

But it's this really funny cowboy movie with the guys with 10-gallon hats that go up like that, and the heaviest moment in the movie is where one guy punches the other for saying something bad about his mom, and he misses him by about half a foot, and the other guy goes, oh, you know. This is like a really early cowboy movie. But they didn't leave the part in that says there ain't room in this town for, this town's ain't big enough for both of us, okay?

So if wisdom gets one foot into the mind, misunderstanding has to take one foot out, okay? That's just the way it is, all right? All right, next verse.

Lala Chittantrudelki chen ne, I promised you refreshments, but that wasn't really a verse. That was just a wrap-up. Lala Chittantrudelki chen ne ma nye pa'i tse, nga ni tongpa nyi gom she, nga de la shukpa shindu gom.

Here's the key to the, what do you call it? We had sort of a koan or a quandary, right? Like, how was it that understanding that this pen came from karma is not in contradiction, direct contradiction, with thinking that it came from a store, okay?

Here's a clue, okay? Jump on it, those of you who are clever enough. Some again do an analysis of the fact that things are neither one nor many, and find that nothing's there.

We're okay so far, right? They say then that they're meditating on the fact that the me is simply gone. But even in that moment, they are living in this me.

They're like looking at the pen and saying, here, I'll give you the answer, okay? Because you're hungry, or, you know, I don't know. You want refreshments, I can tell.

They are saying the pen, you know, they are saying that the pen is, the pen isn't a pen when there's no dogs and people around. She, I think, she got it. What am I saying?

What's? Still calling the pen a pen. No, you didn't get there yet.

They still think there's something. They still think they are there. Good.

Who said that? Anatole. He's looking at my notes.

Yeah, the person pointing their finger, it's the same. But they don't think about it. They're like, oh, I get it, Casey Michael.

The pen is not there. I get it. Okay, got it?

I get it, yeah, yeah. Okay, I get it. So there's this tendency, when you have a discussion about emptiness, that you're looking at some object like a pen or an Aspen bottle or something, and you're saying, I understand that it wasn't what I thought.

I understand. And I understand where it's coming from. And then they miss that the whole point is to apply it to yourself, okay?

And then he's gonna be on that theme for a bunch of verses. You know, you can kind of take a nap now, which is what some of my students do. You can kind of, okay, got it?

Like, it's very common in discussions of emptiness to point to something and say, I understand, okay? And not understand that the understander is the same as the pen. Okay, why are we talking about this?

Because we started tonight talking about impossibles, until the earth changes its rotation, until porpoises fly. Dolphins fly, and parrots live at sea. You know, like, until then, I will love you, you know?

We're talking about impossibles, right? So, you know, people say, oh, I understand the pen, Geshe Michael, but my boyfriend, and I say, oh, don't say, but my boyfriend, you know? I hate that, you know?

He's the same as the pen, then just fix him, you know? You can have a boyfriend who washes dishes all day, cooks, you know, pays for everything, is affectionate and loyal, you know, just do it, you know? It's bad when I gave a whole night's talk about a pen, and then you come up and ask me some question about a relationship, as if you were not coming, as if you and your partner weren't coming from the same thing, you see what I mean?

That means you missed the whole point of the talk. You're applying it to pens, and you never got it to yourself, you see what I mean? So, if it's true that this can be two opposing things at the same moment, which it can and is, then obviously you can be also, you can be impossible things, you can be anything.

If this is true, you can be anything. Then it just mind boggles me. People teach emptiness for year after year, and then they're not happy, because they don't have the things they want.

And it's just stupid, you know? It's so silly. Then plant the seeds, you know?

Just plant the seeds for what you want. Why are you telling me you can't do this, or you can't do that, or this didn't happen to you? Geshe Michael, what should I do?

Don't ask me. Plant a seed. It drives me nuts, you know?

Do you understand the pen? Yes, but I have a problem with it. No, just fix it.

Just plant a seed, got it? It's so frustrating. And that's what the first Panchen Lama is saying.

He's saying there's these people who finally make the breakthrough that the pen is carried from a karma in their seed, and then they're whining about their life, right? And they don't figure out that whatever's true about the pen is true about themselves and their partner and their life, right? So a real Buddhist, right, a real Buddhist philosopher should be like totally, I don't know, happy, and they should have everything they want, and you know, they should just make anything happen.

They should be like magicians, you know? It really irritates me, you know? I don't know.

You should be like, I don't know, an example for the whole universe. I want to be like that film clip. Maybe Scott can find it for after the refreshment.

I want what she's having. I like that one. You know, a Buddhist should be like that lady, right?

Everybody wants what she's having, you know? I don't know, it's kind of, anyway. So the point here is that whatever realization you have about the pen, you should have about yourself, okay?

By the way, those of you who care, those of you who are learning Tibetan, there's a couple of daks and ngas running around in these verses. What's dak mean? It can mean self, and it can mean I.

And nga means I. So this text is tricky, because sometimes ignorance is referring to himself as nga, I. But sometimes he's saying nga as the I, the gyeltsang, the kadding, okay?

Okay, so if you're into translation and you want to under, if you want to appreciate something very difficult about this text is, you don't know when the, when ignorance is talking about himself, or when he's talking about the I, okay? The me, okay? So it's a very, very, Geshe Thubten Rinpoche would call it, he likes this word, delicate.

It's a very delicate word, okay? You could easily mistranslate this text, okay? It's very slippery.

Sometimes me is the devil, and sometimes me is the me, meaning generic me, okay? So you have to be careful, okay? You deserve refreshments.

It's about 8.48. How about we go a little extra, okay? But have like a 15-minute cookie break. All right, just to repeat the last verse, some again do an analysis on the fact that things are neither one nor many, and find that nothing's there.

They say then that they're meditating on the fact that the me is simply gone, but even in that moment they are living in this me. So that's the temptation not to apply it to yourself when you're talking about the emptiness of the pen, okay? I think I'd like to stop there and take questions.

We're over the time already, but if you would ... if you need to go, go, but if you have time to stay, I thought we could do a couple minutes of questions, and maybe half an hour of questions. If you don't have any questions, I'll keep going.

Those of you who know what VY is, talk to Jigme, because there's something occurring about that, okay? Jigme is over here. But if you don't know who Jigme is, you probably don't know what VY is.

Okay, alright. Ah, it's okay, skip it. They saw that video.

Oh, play the video. This is ... I showed this in China and it was very poorly received.

Wait, you don't have the ... are you going to do the audio, Scott, yourself? Wait, just to explain, I'm not trying to show something inappropriate.

The point is that at the end of the clip, the lady says, I'll have what she's having, and the idea is you should be like that. Nothing. It's just that all men are sure it never happened to them, and most women at one time or another have done it, so you be the man.

You don't think that I could tell the difference? Get out of here. Okay.

I think we better stop there. Anyway, she says she can fake something, and she proves it in the restaurant. An elderly woman comes in to order dinner.

This is Harry Met Sally or something? I didn't see the movie, I just saw this part. And then the waiter comes over to the lady and says, what would you like to eat?

And she says, whatever that lady's having. The point is that if you understand these principles, not just about pants, right, but about yourself, then you should ... you should be happy and you should be, you know, what do you call it?

Your life should be fulfilled, and then people are attracted to that, and then ... and then it's easy to help them, right? Because you're an example.

Okay, questions? Any questions? If you don't have questions, I'm going to make you do more philosophy.

Mr. Kramer. Oh, I missed your questions for three years and three months and three days. Is there an extra mic?

No? Okay, just get up and talk loud. Can you stand up?

They can hear you better.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Oh, that's okay. I think to say that it is not self-existent is the same thing as saying the pen that I thought was there doesn't exist.

So, that's a ... that's a maggok in essence. No, it's not just grammatical.

It's what you intend. It's ... technically, it's the image that comes up in a person's mind when you finish talking your sentence.

And if that image is of the absence of something, then that's correct. Okay? But he was more ...

and he's going to be talking more about the thought process that goes into understanding how the pen is coming out of a karmic seed in my mind. And that's not emptiness. Okay?

So, the process that you go through mentally, when you think about how the pen's coming out of a seed in your mind, is not technically emptiness, but it leads you to that. Okay? So, it's a necessary step in it, but you can't say you're meditating on emptiness.

You have to say, I'm meditating on dependent origination. Although, it's a necessary step to get there. If you want to put it in terms of the five paths, how would you put it?

Yeah, good. The mayingak, saying that it's not ... it's not arising the way I thought it did, is happening during the second path, jor lam.

And then the maggok is happening during ... tong lam. Yeah.

So, that's an interesting way to describe it. That's an interesting way to think of it. The difference between path two and path three.

Utpal. Wait, you guys ... say it loud, just so everybody can hear.

Doesn't Je Tsongkapa say the king of reasonings is to prove why things are dependently arising? Yeah, and he's going to ... We're in a very sophisticated, deep, profound part of the text, and he's trying to distinguish between the thought process of understanding the reasoning, and then going ...

having the reasoning take you to an experience of ultimate reality. So, he's trying to push people past the reasoning. He's trying to say, appreciate the reasoning, understand the reasoning, use the reasoning, but use it to get to a place where you're not ...

where you reach an absence of something. And then focus on that. Don't focus on the process.

It's like ... don't focus on the bus, focus on where you're going. Next?

No? Keep asking questions, you're going to have to do more verses. Loud, loud.

They all have to be able to hear. Sorry, we'll get a microphone tomorrow. Yeah, good.

Okay, good, that's cool. She's asking about what was the interaction of the three faiths. A Catholic priest, he was a Reformed rabbi, and you know, a Gelugpa monk, about ...

You know, the topic was meeting the divine. And I was the last to talk, I think. And the priest was young and he pretty much just quoted what he learned in theology school.

Pretty ... You know, I don't know how to say it. He was very sincere, but I don't think he had a lot of experience talking in front of a group of people.

And so he was kind of saying, you know, you ask Jesus Christ for help, and he'll help you to have a vision of the divine, or something like that. And then the rabbi, he talked a lot of ... Like, we took questions from the audience and we split them up.

And the story I remember is that three people asked him, what is God? And he said, the next person that asks me what is God is going to get kicked out of the synagogue. And then he said, you know, he told a story that in the time ...

2,000 years ago, around the time of Jesus, he said there were two factions of Judaism, and they were very strong schools following different rabbis. And they formed around different rabbis. And very ...

what do you call them? What do you call that? Very popular ...

charismatic. Two charismatic rabbis. And then ...

somebody came to the head of the first group, the rabbi, and he said, can you explain to me what is God standing on one foot? And then apparently in Hebrew, standing on one foot doesn't really mean standing on one foot. It just means in five minutes or something.

So, the guy said, you want me to teach you what is God in five minutes? And he said, I'm not standing on one foot, and if you want to know, spend ten years here and I'll explain it to you. And he threw him ...

he actually got a stick and hit the guy and pushed him out of the synagogue. So naturally he went to the second rabbi, and he said, can you explain to me what is God? And he lifted up one foot and he said, treat your neighbor as yourself.

And then the rabbi was ... the priest was really happy, because ... because of that quotation.

And then ... I went into the pen, and I told them how I went to Jerusalem during Shavuot by accident, and heard the mitzvahs, which are against the chetz, and they really liked it. But basically what we talk about here tonight, that if you understand the pen, then this object is the same as this object, and you could see the divine, in the way that ...

if you planted the karma, then a vision of the divine would come out of a seed, and you would see the divine. And everybody was really, really happy. And there's a ...

there's a former Argentine diplomat in the audience, the former ... he's attached to the embassy of China, to China. And he's now working on a ...

a European television initiative called Imogen. And ... it's spread to hundreds of thousands of people in Europe.

And he wanted to put it all on TV. He said ... he wants to have a separate channel, interfaith channel.

And he asked us if we could organize that. And he would ... it's CNN, Fox News, and interfaith channel.

And I just don't have anybody to do it. So he's ... but anyway, the reaction was very strong and very cool.

So ... I think in the end, everybody was high, and everybody was really happy because they realized that all three were saying the same thing. If you are kind to other people, then you plant seeds to see the divine.

And we explained it in such a clear way, I think, that people were really attracted to it. And I felt like they wanted to hear a lot more about it and that they would incorporate it into their own faith, that the Catholics felt comfortable with it and the Jewish people felt comfortable with it. So I think ...

I think we have a very precious way of explaining why good deeds could help you see God. And I think it's ... I think we're in a nice position to give each of them more information about why their system works.

It's like the crepes and waffles place. They're only hiring abused single moms. They have 2,000 of them.

They're doing the right thing, but they don't know why. So I think we're in a unique position to encourage people to do what they're doing by explaining to them why it works. And then somehow they get more encouraged to do what they're already doing, which is good.

Without ... what do you call it? Any religious ...

What do you call it? Baseball card stuff. Okay, anyway.

Other questions? Zaki. Okay, don't make it some weird philosophical thing, okay?

He's not a Muslim cleric. He just hasn't been well and he didn't have ... He didn't have time to shave.

We'll shut it off if the question's bad. I was wondering about what we were just talking about. And I haven't ...

I can confess to everyone now that I haven't read The Karma of Love yet, and it's on my bedside table. It's been there for a while.

[Speaker 2]
But even though I haven't, I just wanted to ask you, since I have been planting the seeds by serving older, sick people, a person in my life who's older and sick and hurting and lonely and trying to do the things that my partner wants from me and stuff like that, and directly just trying to serve her that way and then doing what I can to dedicate the karma to that, working out. I'm wondering if there's something that I could be missing that besides just the overt practice, external practice that I'm doing, either if there's an internal thing or if there's just some piece that I might be missing that could actually solidify that karma to turn the situation around.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good question. Real question. So, the way to plant a seed is four steps, right?

She's Sampajorta from the Abhidharmakosha, which we'll study eventually. She means decide what you want, okay? Then I want my relationship to flower and flourish.

Then Sampa is make a plan. Someone you will help with their relationship, right? Or a lonely person, help a lonely person.

Then number three is jorwa. Nike says, just do it. Like, carry out the plan you made in step two.

Everyone here, many people here are familiar with those four steps, but the first three steps relate to planting a karmic seed. Then the Yoga Sutra says, durshita durshita janma vedanya. What is that?

Durshita a durshita, uh? Seen and unseen. Janma means birth, like jataka comes from that.

Vedanya means experience, to be experienced. The lhara paritapa phala phunya phunya hetu dvak. Durshita durshita janma vedanya.

Good deeds done towards others create pleasure or comfort, and then bad deeds done towards others create suffering. It can be seen in this life or not, which means it might be seen in the next life. Karma can stay in your mind for thousands of years.

Then it's kind of almost insane. You say, I helped a lady last week. I don't know what's wrong with my partner.

In Buddhist terms, it's like saying, I don't know. I met a brahmasaurus, but I don't understand. I don't know.

It was a million years ago. You know what I mean? It could take a million years.

So the fourth step, which is called tar tuk, which means dak gyur chepa. Dak gyur chepa means make it your own, and appreciate yourself having done that thing. Dak gyur chepa, make it yours.

That's where people get hung up. That's where people's karma gets stuck. If you don't do number four, it's like, I have some corn seeds.

Somebody gave me some corn seeds. They are 200 years old. They are purple species of corn from Mexico or something.

They're 200 years old. They kept them in the family. They're like 200 years old.

They said, try to grow them Geshe Michael. You'll be surprised. I put them near my fence in my garden.

They grew. They grew to nine feet high. They're awesome.

Except the corn tastes like rocks. But it works in a soup. It works in a soup.

The thing is, my answer to you is that I believe you have many, many good seeds. I believe you have enough good seeds to have a beautiful relationship. I also believe like most Americans, or almost anybody on this planet, you don't appreciate enough the good things you're doing, so they don't get watered.

The karma doesn't get watered. That will sit in your mind because... because of universal justice, because goodness can never go unrewarded, and because meanness can never go unrewarded.

It can either open or stay in your mind. It can't disappear. It's not possible.

That seed can stay in your mind for lifetimes. But if you do step number four, and I'll say something, but I don't know. Probably the oversoul will prevent you from hearing it.

Universally, throughout the world, people only appreciate themselves about 1%. They are 99% more magical than they give themselves credit for. The whole world, people around the world, and every country we go to, are incapable of appreciating themselves, and the goodness around them.

They're always worrying about money, or what somebody said to them, or about them. They spend their whole day thinking about stupid, meaningless stuff, and ignoring the beauty around them, and the magic around them, and the beauty of themselves, and the magical things that they're doing. And they die.

They go through their whole life like that. They spend their whole life seeing the dark side of the world, or worrying about it, and there's so much beauty, so much magic, and they're so magical, and they just don't think about it. So then the karma has no water.

The seed has no water. So you've got to struggle against that human tendency. The tendency is to think you're not good enough, or you haven't been nice enough, or your life's not magical, and your life's already magical, totally magical.

Try to get in the habit of fighting that. Try to get in the habit, as you fall asleep especially, of making a list of the totally outrageously magical stuff that's happening in your life. You can meet ...

I know people who've met Vajrayogini, and they don't think about it. They're like, they're like, my shoes are too tight. And I'm like, but you met Vajrayogini yesterday.

Yeah, but ... my credit card bill. And I'm like ...

So, that's all. That's all. The water, the first three steps, plant the seed.

The fourth one puts the water on it, so it can ripen in the next week, or the next month. I had a guy, it was so funny, I won't say who it was. It was on this last tour.

So, he and his partner were talking to me about their relationship, blah, blah, blah. And we went to a program for business people. And after the program he told me ...

we were sitting together, the three of us, and he told me, Geshe Michael, you know I love you. You mean a lot to me. You helped me a lot in my life.

You helped me get my wife. I got my wife because of you. And I really appreciate you.

But this thing that ... this thing that you're saying, that someone could ripen a karma within a day or a week, I mean, isn't that kind of misleading people? And then his wife and I were giggling.

And he said, what's going on? And I said, well, you know, your wife was ... Yesterday, do you remember, we had a conversation.

She was saying, she was looking for a house in which she could do retreat. Outside of Buenos ... I'm not supposed to say the place.

Outside of the city, she's looking for a place to do retreat. And then she asked me what seed to plant, you know, to get a retreat place. And just before we had this conversation, a wealthy man came up to her and invited her to use his retreat cabin on the lake, blah, blah, blah, up in the ...

and you know ... So, I said, that was 20 hours ago, you know, and she took care of the seed. She planted a seed together.

We did the workshop thing. Scott led the workshop, Scott Noreen. And we did the workshop thing together.

And then she ... she watered the seed that night. She was appreciating herself and her family and her ...

you know. And the next day, the guy shows up. And then she's laughing at her partner because he said, why are you telling people they can get it in a week?

And she said, yeah, that's stupid. It's in a day, you know. So, try, just try.

We're in the business of the impossible tonight. We're supposed to be ... tonight and tomorrow we're supposed to be talking about impossible.

So, try. I say you have the seeds and you're not watering them. And I claim that ...

that everyone here only appreciates 1% of who they are or what's happening in their life. I claim that. And if you just got it up to 8% or 9% everything would be cool in a week, you know.

So, it's just that. And it's some kind of demon in your mind that keeps telling you, you're not worthy or ... you're not a nice person or ...

it's impossible, you know. You can't fix that. Don't be unreasonable.

Don't think that's going to happen in a week. And you believe it, you know. We believe it.

I believe it. Okay, one more question, then we got ... we have a small thing to do later.

Mr. Lowenhaupt.

[Speaker 2]
I'm kind of wondering about how to move from that idea that ... so, yes, I'm seeing it as a karmic ripening and then moving to seeing the absence. And the question is, you know, there's this ...

we go through this process, oh, I'm going to meditate. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. But the irony is, what he's saying right there, there is no I.

The moment I say I'm meditating on emptiness that doesn't make sense. In the sense of like, you know, you're looking ... we get stuck in this, I'm doing this.

And my question is partly in that but then the other side of it is oftentimes I try too hard. I'm trying too hard to understand something or practicing too hard and that then creates a level of anxiety or something like that that I'm not able to get somewhere or something like that. So I'm wondering, on one hand, how to not try so hard but the other side, like, how do we then go from the first step to the next one?

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good question. And then we'll break till tomorrow. If a method is correct or if a philosophy is true then it should be easy and it should be fun.

If something is laborious and boring, it's not correct. It's not a correct method. You're doing something wrong.

Okay, if something involves uncertainty, being unsure of things, anxiety, stress, unhappiness or difficulty, it's not a correct method. You're doing something wrong. It should be ...

if this stuff is true then it should be the most fun thing in the world to, I don't know, to meditate or something like that. Like, to get yourself to meditate or the tendency to over-try. The word over-try implies that you're not doing it right.

It implies that the whole approach is something ... there's a self-existence to it, okay? If you're over-trying then you're doing something wrong because the method is to simply plant a seed, you see?

And that's very easy. Okay, I have a gardening teacher and so I've been doing a garden for three years. I'll show you tomorrow.

It's really awesome. And they said, let's go plant watermelons, you know? And I'm like, oh, you know, I was like, I don't know, I don't have much time today.

I have other stuff to do. And they said, come on, you know, I'll show you. And I'm like, I don't know, you know.

And they said, just give me five minutes, okay? All right. So they gave me one of those packages.

I think they have somebody spitting into those. You know, they eat watermelon, they spit into those little packages and they charge you like $2 for 12 of them. It's such a good deal.

It's a good business. So she tears open the package, she says, hold out your hand, and I'm like that. And she puts the seeds in there and she says, take your thumb.

And I'm like, okay, lick it. And then stick it in the ground. Put those in there.

And put the dirt over it. Now go back in the house and do whatever you were going to do. That's all.

Water it once in a while. And I'm like, that's all? I spent my whole life buying watermelons in the store and no one told me?

You can just stick your thumb in the ground? And she said, yeah, you know. And then we had these huge watermelon plants that took over the whole house and there were watermelons everywhere and it was a big mess.

And then they had seeds in them that I could spit myself. It's just pleasure. If you're doing it right, if you're following this stuff right, then there's no such thing as over-trying.

And what he's saying about the me, about me meditating or me practicing, it's that your feeling about your practice and how much work it takes to get on the mat for yoga or on the cushion for meditation, if there's any resistance, don't fight it. Just plant something else. Don't struggle year after year with your laziness or your, what do you call it, resistance to practice.

You know? Just plant a seed and relax and stop having all this anxiety about it. So, how would you plant a seed?

For resistance to practice. Make... What do you call it?

Facilitate somebody else practicing. You know? Like, make a donation to Diamond Mountain Retreat Center.

Or something like that. Like, help that place serve people. There are people lined up to go do retreat there and just do something to help it.

And then don't struggle with your resistance. Let it resist. Be resistant.

You know? And then plant seeds in a very pleasant, happy, what do you call it? Joyful, non-difficult way.

Forget your resistance. Don't fight with it. Be resistant.

Stay resistant. Be resistant. And then help other people have opportunities to practice.

And you have a thousand opportunities in this group. You can support this place. You can support a tori.

It doesn't mean money. You can do all kinds of things. Mow the lawn.

Do something. Take care of the old dog. Do something, you know?

Just relax and do something to support this with a good heart. And then suddenly after six months you won't be resistant anymore. And don't fight it.

Don't fight it, because you can't fight it. The over-soul is running your mind. You will resist.

So, go around the back. You know? Plant a different seed.

And what I'm saying is the planting of the seed to overcome that resistance or to overcome that habit of over-trying should be easy. It should be totally easy. Pick something that's easy and fun for you.

And then that seed will stop your resistance. You see? And then don't think about it anymore.

Don't fight your resistance, because you can't. Because the thoughts in your mind that are over-trying or the thoughts in your mind that are resisting are opened out of a karmic seed a split second ago and they cannot be affected by any power on this planet because they are past tense. What you hear in your mind, your tendency to over-try or your tendency to resist happened a millisecond ago.

God cannot change it. It's like saying, I'm going to change Lincoln's assassination. It's too late.

Okay? By the time you have a feeling, it already ripened out of a karma. It's too late to change it.

You can't change it. Stop struggling against something that happened a week ago or a year ago or a millisecond ago. It's too late.

You're just witnessing what happened a millisecond ago. It's like saying, I'm frustrated with the color of the star that I see that left that star a thousand light years ago and the star is not even there anymore, but I don't like the color. It's like too late.

It's already left the star before. It's past. You can't change your own thoughts in the present moment.

It's not possible. You can't. You are listening.

You are a witness bound to hear what comes out of your karmas, so change the karmas, but don't struggle against the thoughts. It's too late. You're hearing them a millisecond later.

They were thunked a millisecond ago. You can't change them. Don't struggle.

Anytime you're struggling, it means you're doing something wrong. Planning is pleasurable. Planning is easy.

Anytime you're in a struggle, you feel something's wrong. At the bottom of it, you're seeing things as self-existent. If there's a struggle, it's a sign that you're doing something wrong.

It should be easy. If it's not easy, you're doing something wrong. And just plan a scene.

Whatever is your problem, just plan a scene. And then relax. I said, what do I do now?

They said, go in the house. Work on your... We call it my girlfriend, my laptop.

Go be with your girlfriend. Come out here in a couple weeks. If there's any weeds, pull them off.

Water it as necessary. But it will grow by itself. You don't have to stand there and you don't have to think about it.

You don't have to worry about it. If it's not like that, you're doing something wrong. If it feels like a struggle, then you're dealing with something that's self-existent.

It should be easy. Okay? Any problem you have with anybody...

I have somebody in my life who's irritating. That's because you're irritating. Then just stop it.

And at night, dedicate the seed to that and they'll stop. And you don't have to struggle with them. You don't have to talk to them.

You don't have to reason with them. You don't have to fight with them. You don't have to ignore them.

You don't have to pretend you're not mad with them. Just stop doing whatever you don't like and they will change. And stopping doing what you don't like is so easy and it's so non-stressful.

You don't have to have tension with anybody except yourself, right? It's just so easy. If it's not easy, you're doing something wrong.

Okay? Eh. Alright.

We have a custom in Buddhist teaching at the end to give away the karma to all the people in Glendale. Okay? And...

So... Bonnie, you ready? Ready?

Satsang with Mooji www.mooji.org