Дебаты дьявола с ангелом, часть 11: Стрельба по мишени с завязанными глазами (2017, Аризона), занятие 2

[Speaker 1]
Okay, welcome back to the Devil Debates with an Angel. Hi, new people. Yeah, so this is a text that was written in the 1500s and it's very famous in Tibet and it's an argument within one person's mind between their good side and the bad side.

The good side specifically is looking at the world in a way which is correct and the bad side is looking at the world in a way which is not correct. And just to make it simple, the correct way to look at the world or how we understand the world is that as you interact with other people you plant seeds in your mind. If you do nice things to other people you plant good seeds in your mind.

If you do bad things to other people you get bad seeds in your mind. And then your reality is flowing from these seeds. Small pictures are flowing out of those seeds.

Those seeds are called karma. And then your life, the people you meet, the guy that just ran me over in the traffic, it took me a lot of, it took me about 10 minutes to figure out it came from me. You know, like I couldn't remember for the first 10 minutes.

You know, so the idea is that if you keep aware that people who run you off the road are coming from you, you won't get so angry at them. You'll just try to drive better and then you won't see them again. That's how to get rid of them.

And then the devil in this case is trying to tell you, no, no, he's not your fault. He was just driving on the same road. He's a...

I'm not supposed to say bad words. He's just an asshole and he's running you off the road, you know. He's not your fault.

He's his fault, you know. So, that's the devil talking. And then the angel would say, no, no, everything you see is coming from you.

Good things, bad things are coming from you, okay? So, that's the basic argument that's going on in one person's mind in this text, which is about 500 years old. And the author is the first pension lama who's very famous.

And so, we're going to start where we left off yesterday. I'm still doing a review of the last 10 sessions that started in 2010, right? And if we finish tonight pretty far, we will be 10% done with the text.

Okay, and I hope one day... I think it's one of the greatest spiritual books ever written. I think it's like Rumi or something like that.

And I think if we can get through it... I've translated it literally, and then somebody should take it and make it poetic, you know. So, here we go.

We talked about the parts and the whole. So, one of the proofs of emptiness the basic meaning of emptiness is not that there's nothing exist. It's not that everything is a black hole.

It's not that everything is illusion. It's not that you shouldn't think about anything. It's not that you should watch thoughts go through your mind.

None of those is emptiness because they don't help you succeed, okay? If you really understand emptiness, you should be a very successful person. Because what understanding emptiness means, the guy who ran me off the road who wasn't my fault, okay?

The guy who ran me off the road who wasn't my fault, okay? Who was coming from his own side doesn't exist, never did exist, couldn't exist, never will exist, okay? This is cutting out.

Okay, got another one. Hey, you're too ready. Do I have to turn you on?

I think you're on. Yeah, couldn't exist, okay? I'll say it again.

A guy who's not coming from me who ran me off the road this evening doesn't exist. You see what I mean? And his non-existence is called emptiness in Buddhism, okay?

So, the fact that there's nobody to blame except yourself is called emptiness. And that's the real meaning of emptiness. Every other thing you ever heard about emptiness is completely wrong.

Probably the absence of that is also emptiness. All right? So, there are many, many ways to prove emptiness.

And the angel in the mind is trying, she's offered to the devil that she will share some of those proofs of emptiness with him, okay? And we're picking up at parts and holes. We did parts and holes already with your body or with a car, okay?

And the classic argument, and by the way, this argument has been misunderstood by hundreds and thousands of people in the last 2,000 years. So, you go to many, many Buddhist talks, even by big lamas, and you will hear ridiculous things, okay? So, here's the correct one and it's easy and it's clear and you can use it for your life.

So, you know, either you are all of your parts together or you are one of your parts, okay? And last night we talked about your foot, you know? Am I my foot?

No, that part's easy, okay? Am I my legs, arms, torso, head all put together? No, not yet, okay?

Why? There's always one final piece that you have to add to make the whole, and that's the state of mind which organizes the pieces into a whole, you see what I mean? Without that state of mind, you can't function.

That's what happens to people with Alzheimer's, okay? John and me are on the edge of it, right? They forget how to glue pieces together, and actually, karma is wearing out in their life, karma is wearing out.

They can't piece together things anymore, and that's just karma, you see? And that's a temporary ability. Your mind is also flowing from karma in your mind, and someday the karma will end, and you will die.

In between here and there, the mind starts to lose its energy, like any tree for example, as it gets older, and then you can't paste things together. So, the ability to paste things together into objects is the final piece of every composite thing, okay? Including you, all right?

Like this guy who ran me off the road, he had a car, he had arms, he had legs, he had a head, I don't know, but I put it together, you see? And someone else riding next to me would have said, oh, you know, he's the only person driving well here, you should speed up Geshe Michael, you know? You see what I mean?

So, that's the emptiness of the guy who ran me off the road. Until seeds open in my mind from doing dangerous things in my life, you know, until I stop those seeds, I will continue to see people like that, because they're coming from me, okay? That's the emptiness of my body.

That's the parts and wholes of my body. And where the penchant lama goes from here, he goes to the mental parts and whole, okay? Of your mind, okay?

So, is your mind made of pieces? Yes, in Buddhist psychology 51, pieces of your mind, you know, like attention, or jealousy, or memory. And Buddhist psychology has two different presentations, and there's a certain amount of functions in your mind, okay?

Is any one of those Daniel's mind? Is Daniel's attention Daniel's mind? No.

Well, that's just one part, you see? But what about all the parts together? All the memories, all the attention, all the intelligence, all the other things, all together are they Daniel's mind?

Not yet, okay? And usually when we study the emptiness of the mind, we talk about the mind stream, okay? We don't talk about the mind in one moment.

We talk about the Daniel's mind since he got up this morning, up to now, okay? So, that's been so many hours, right? I'm not asking what time he got up, but let's say he got up at eight o'clock.

I almost said seven, but let's say eight. So, since eight o'clock up to now, his mind has been continuing in a stream, and that's also pieces, okay? Daniel's mind at four o'clock, Daniel's mind at four oh one, Daniel's mind at four oh two.

His mind has all of these time pieces, so time has pieces, okay? And how your mind glues those pieces together is coming from your karma, okay? So, when you're making out with your girlfriend, when you're 17, was it?

At the drive-in movie, I remember one time we were at the drive-in movie. We were like 17, and the policeman came and knocked on the door, on the window, and we're like, what? And he said, we said, we didn't do anything wrong.

He said, yeah, whatever. The movie's been over for two hours, you know? Like, get out of here, I have to close the gate, and we're like, oh yeah.

And then, like, three hours passes, it feels like 10 minutes, right? Then when you go to the dentist, the opposite happens, you know? Your friend's waiting outside, they're drilling your teeth, you go out, they say, how long has it been?

You say, two, three hours, and then they say, no, you've only been in there for 20 minutes, you know? So, time can go slower, or time can go faster, and that's an indication that it's coming from you, okay? So, the pieces of your mind over time, you also glue those together.

And people who get Alzheimer's, or people get amnesia, they forget who they were. They don't have the karma to put those pieces, those moments together. They no longer have the karma to put those moments together, okay?

So, that's what the angel is arguing to the devil. She's saying, not only is your body empty, not only is your body not all the pieces, or one of the pieces, your mind is the same, okay? Your body and your mind are the same, okay?

That's her, that's her proof. I'm not going to go into the more subtle emptiness of time, because this is something which we covered about five years ago, and hopefully, V said I should try to get to the subject tonight. I don't know, okay?

Then, then the angel says, once you understand this thing about time, for example, that it can go faster or slower, then you will have to admit something slowing it down, or something speeding it up, and it has something to do with your mind, okay? There must be something in your mind that makes it go faster. The dentist clocked three hours, trust me, okay?

My lawyer would clock six hours, okay? Yeah, actually, he's a good man. He's just an expensive good man.

Okay, and then she, she calls it all a single song. All things have this quality, okay? And I'm not going to spend much time on that.

And then they discuss questioning the world, or just going along with it, you know? People say, well, why Geshe-la, you know, why talk about all this stuff, you know? Who cares if my body's, who cares if I put, if I put my body together or I didn't put my body together?

Who cares, really? It's all the same anyway. Whether you know you're putting together the guy on the road, or whether you don't know you're putting together the guy on the road, he still run you off the road.

It doesn't really matter, Geshe-la, you know? Well, the point is, since it's your mind gluing him together, if you put differences in your mind, everybody would be driving very well, you see? If I can control my outside world, I can control my income, I can control my relationships, I can control my health, okay?

I started ballet when I was, what? 50 something, okay? You can control your, the things in your life if you understand these things, okay?

Emptiness is not some stupid, empty philosophy. It's a practical way to design next year, and then what you want to happen will happen, okay? If you really understand karma and emptiness, you can design your future, and that's more fun, okay?

I'm working on the road thing, all right. Okay, she went to that. Then she says, look, it's good to question your world, and maybe something good will come out of it.

Then what did she say about her own teaching about emptiness? She said, it's empty. She's telling the devil, the reason you're hearing me talk about this emptiness is because you have the seeds, okay?

I'm your echo, okay? And everybody you meet in the world is your echo, okay? Even if someone's explaining to you about echoes, that's also an echo, okay?

So, if I always tell people, if you don't like my talk, it's your fault. If you do, it's me. Okay, so she went through the emptiness of teaching emptiness.

Then he says, you're like a cousin who came for a visit. I own this. He keeps talking about the mind as an apartment.

He wants to stay in the apartment. She wants to take it back. She's like the owner, and she wants it back, okay?

He says, I'm part of the inner circle. I'm like Mount Meru. Mount Meru is the ancient word for Mount Everest, okay?

Like you don't move Mount Everest, okay? And he says, you can push me, but I'm not going anywhere. It's like pushing Bell Rock, okay?

I'm not going anywhere. I live here, okay? In the mind.

You come in the mind like lightning. Who's you? The angel.

Understanding the guy on the road. I will forget tonight again if he meets me again, okay? You are here like a blink of an eye.

I am the enduring love of the mind. I am the love of a mother for her child. You're the distant cousin who arrives for an occasional visit.

I'm the resident master of this mind, okay? Now, right here. Verse number 93, okay?

It's 93 verses have passed, okay? We have to get to 135 just to start the class. I'm sorry, okay?

But at this juncture, after the 93rd verse, she starts criticizing wrong kinds of meditation, okay? And last night I said, I prefer to call them ineffective, okay? Like, do they make you calmer?

Yes. Are they peaceful? Yes.

Do you feel like a better person afterwards? Yes. Are they strong enough to prevent your death?

No. Are they strong enough to prevent war in this world? No, okay?

Are they strong enough to save your family from death? No, okay? So, there's basically two kinds of meditation.

One is feel good meditation. You feel like you're going deeper. You feel more peaceful.

And the first time a guy runs you off the road, it changes. And then there's a deeper meditation that has the power to change this world into a different kind of realm. And there are other planets where they already did it.

And we're like the retards at the back of the class, okay? Our planet on a galactic level is considered, what do you call it? Retarded.

But there's a polite word. Developmentally disabled. They should call our planet DD, okay?

The DD planet. So, this planet among people who know, okay, is considered a little backward. And they're waiting for us to catch up, okay?

And it is possible to have a perfect planet. And it is possible not to live in this kind of guts and bones body. And it's possible to change the body.

And not go through all the suffering that people go through in this world, okay? And you have a certain window in your life to make it happen. You have 10, 20 years to make it happen.

If you don't, you get too old to think straight. And then you're back in it again, okay? So, you have a window of opportunity to change things.

And to change things, you have to learn about what she's teaching, okay? So, she's gonna start off on 25 different kinds of meditation that don't work, okay? And she's brutal.

She's not this sweet angel, okay? She's like brutal in assessing these different kinds of meditation. And you have to understand that these were meditations that were popular in Tibet 500 years ago, okay?

And we have no commentary to this text. We don't know who he was criticizing. But it seems to be that certain mistakes in meditation are universal.

They get repeated every generation, okay? Every generation makes the same mistakes inside of meditation, okay? So, we're going to go through 25 mistaken meditations, ineffective meditations.

They're not going to help you in a big way. They're not going to save you, you know? And you can do them for a while.

And then when you start to get older, you get scared. And you say, I need something that's going to really work, okay? I call these meditations fire extinguishers that never work, okay?

Like people sell you a fire extinguisher. They say put it, they make a law that you have to have one in each building. And they know they don't work.

But you don't know until you have a fire that they don't work. You pull them off the wall and you push the button and nothing happens. And you're like, oh my gosh, these cynical people are selling fire extinguishers.

They don't work and I'm about to lose my house, you see? So, that's the experience that many people have. As they get older, they get closer to death and they realize that the meditation was ineffectual.

It wasn't strong. It wasn't effective. It was sweet.

It was nice. The teacher was nice. It felt good.

And now when push comes to shove, they realize they need something more, okay? So, the point of studying this text is to identify those kinds of meditation ahead of time. So, at least you can think about it, you know?

Somebody said, you know, one of the greatest Buddhists who ever lived, the first Panchen Lama, said, these don't work. Be careful, you know? If you're doing one of them, think about it and try to do something that does work.

And the 26th meditation is one that does work, okay? And we won't get to it. I don't know.

I don't know where we're going to get to it. Okay? So, we will hear 25 meditations.

They're not stupid meditations. They are attractive. They are sophisticated.

They are interesting. They feel good. And they don't help you with the big things, okay?

So, you know, the idea is get familiar with them. And my experience has been, by the way, at Diamond Mountain we're going to cover eight of them because Lord Buddha covered eight of them many, you know, two and a half thousand years ago. He said, here's eight meditations that don't work.

And here's a ninth one that does work. And he called it the roar of the lion. The meditation is called the dance of the lion, okay?

So, he said, use these, go through these eight meditations that you will hear about, get used to them, suck some benefit out of them, get another nine, number nine, and leave the other eight, okay? So, we're going to cover that at Diamond Mountain. These 25 are included in, I mean, the eight are included in these 25, okay?

You will see them here. But if you come to Diamond Mountain when we leave tomorrow, starts on Friday, we'll do it together, okay? I thought tonight I don't have time to do 25 meditations with you.

I will describe them. But if you have time, come to Diamond Mountain. We'll actually sit there, we'll take you through them, you see how they feel.

You test drive at least eight of them, okay? For an hour or something. And then you'll see what's, you'll see why they don't really work, okay?

Got it? So, tonight I'm just describing them. If you want to go deeper, if you want to play with them and see their strengths and their weaknesses, then come to Diamond Mountain and that's what we'll be doing, okay?

All right, because we have, you know, I don't know, I'll be there for two weeks or something. All right, here we go. So, here's the, what do you call, here's the segue.

That whole, so far it's just been a kind of cute argument between the devil and the angel in one guy's mind. I assume it's our mind, right? Your mind.

And then the devil says, oh, once in a while somebody comes along, they say they're a great meditator, they say they're gonna throw me out of the mind, and they say, I'm gonna meditate on the mind as it really is, okay? And then we start the first wrong meditation, okay? First of 25.

I've numbered them for you, okay? I was curious because I was wondering how many, how many is he gonna go through, you know? I call it flaccid meditation, okay?

He, flaccid means you make a flagpole out of rubber, or, you know, it means it's not gonna be as strong as you need, okay? It's not gonna work. It's just like, it's gonna, when you need it, when things get hard, like death is on its way, this meditation is not gonna, it's like having a plastic knife in a gang fight or something, you know?

Like a rubber knife in a gang fight or something. It's gonna be that useful when the poop hits the fan in the dangerous parts of your life as you, you know, you get in that final car accident or something, and you pull out this meditation. It's gonna be like a rubber knife in a gang fight.

It's just like, boing, boing, okay? That's what I mean, I'm trying to give you this picture. The meditation is, it's not effective, it's not gonna help you.

It's sweet, it's interesting, it feels good, the teacher was nice, you know, they used a lot of Sanskrit words and it's not gonna help you, okay? When you need it, it's not gonna help you, okay? Alright, first one.

Those of you who know the DCI system, I based the present moment meditation on this one, okay? This was an ancient meditation that said, try to stay in the present moment, okay? Don't let the mind, and there's a practice you can do.

It takes about an hour to explain it, okay? But, first you watch your mind, you see if you are straying off to the future and straying off to the past. And I've been in groups of a thousand or two thousand people, we sat down all together, we meditated.

John and Connie have led these meditations. And we asked people to vote. We were in Moscow a couple weeks ago, we did it.

And we asked people to vote, do you have more future thoughts or more past thoughts? Are you living in the future or are you living in the past? Usually, past is the ex-husband or wife.

Future is usually something you hope to happen next week. And most people are living in one or the other, okay? And that sort of makes you, what do you call it?

Unable to function because you're never in the present, you see? It's like being on your phone all day. It's like you're never here in this real world, you're in some virtual reality, you know?

There's people who stare at that all day or they stare at their laptop all day and they never experience the world, you see? The outside of these electrons, you know? They'll say, look at this picture of a tree, you know?

I'll say, but don't you want to go touch a tree? No, no, look there's another tree, you know? And it's like that.

So, is it a useful practice? Yes. Is it nice to be in the present moment?

Yes. Is it helpful to be in the present moment? Yes.

A good meditator should be able to identify whether they're in the present moment or not. They should get that good at watching their mind. Am I wandering towards my ex-wife?

Or am I wandering towards what's going to happen when I get home? What's in my fridge after Geshe-la finishes tonight? You see, I had a meditation teacher, Goenka, who started Vipassana and I spent 10 days with him in 1973.

And he was, the first thing he said, he got up and he said, don't think about monkeys. During the next 10 days, don't think about monkeys. Then we meditated hard for 10 days and of course, all we could think about was monkeys.

So, try to be in the present moment, okay? Is that an ultimately helpful meditation? No.

The present moment will get older and older. You will get older and older and you will die in the present moment, okay? It's useful.

It's a slightly useful tool but it's not the goal, okay? It's like watching your breath, which is what Goenka teaches, taught, which is what his students still teach. Watch your breath.

It doesn't help you change your life. It gives you focus, it makes you peaceful, it puts you in the present moment and then you die, okay? So, life will push you out of the present moment, okay?

That's the nature of life. You need something more. It's a good start to be in the present moment.

It's a nice thing. It's useful. We teach it.

DCI has a present moment meditation but it's not the goal, okay? It's like watching your breath. It's not the goal in your life to count the breaths as the end.

There's a number they put on it in the yoga tradition. It's 17,800,000 something. How many breaths you will breathe in your life, okay?

Then they end, okay? Now, this is going to be... It's funny because the devil knows what's a good meditation.

The devil in this case is sophisticated, okay? So, don't ever think devils are stupid. If you have time to read, there's a book by C.S. Lewis who did the Narnia books. It's called The Screwtape Letters and it's advice to his nephew from the devil on how to corrupt a young man in England during World War II, okay? I read an interview with C.S. Lewis and he said it was the hardest book he ever wrote because he had to put his mind in the devil's mind. To write what the devil was saying, he had to think like the devil and it was painful to think like the devil.

But the thing he pointed out was devils are not stupid. They are extremely intelligent. This devil in The Screwtape Letters, he says, what's the greatest thing that happened to devils in the last 100 years?

And his nephew's like, I don't know. We corrupted like 10 million people and he says, no, no. We got people not to believe in the devil.

That's an achievement. When you talk about the devil, people think you're foolish or you're not sophisticated. This is the best thing we ever did.

No one even believes we exist and we're in everybody's mind, you know. It's so cool. Okay, all right.

This devil is similar. So, what he will say continually, these people who are doing a lesser meditation are actually meditating on me. Okay, and that's a very serious charge.

Are you saying Geshe Michael that to do breath meditation is to meditate on the devil? Come on, you know, calm down. It's maybe a waste of time, but it's not evil.

The devil is evil, you know. Watching your breath for five years, you know, other kinds of meditation like that, they're not evil, they're just a waste of time, you know. But the devil here says, no, you are meditating on me.

Okay, why? Somebody tell me why. Bigger than that.

Connected to my drive today. Yeah, say it again. Yeah, even as you're watching your breath, you are misunderstanding the entire world.

Okay, how you feel about your breath. Where does your breath come from? Oh, my mom gave me my breath and I ate Cheerios this morning, so I have life and then I have breath and that's why I have life, you know.

And Buddhism says, no, the reason you enjoy any moment of living is because you protected life in the past. Okay, and that's the only reason you get to live five minutes more. Okay, so while you're watching your breath, you don't understand your breath and you're making your negativities stronger.

Okay, every moment you think the breath is coming from your mom or from the food you ate today or the yoga you did this afternoon, then you are strengthening the devil inside of you. Okay, every moment you look at anything and don't understand it, the devil's getting stronger inside of you and he will kill you. Okay, literally he will kill you.

Okay, what am I supposed to think Geshe-la? At least think, I'm breathing because I protected life. I respected life.

I did not kill people, animals, trees. Okay, I respected life and that's why I have the gift of breath. That's why I have five minutes more to breathe.

You see, that's angel thinking, right? Be careful. Somebody contradict me.

Because we're going to go there sooner or later. Is it the angel to focus on your breath during a Vipassana meditation and at least think, I'm breathing because I protected life. I respected life.

Is that the angel? No. And we're going to get there.

We're going to get there. Okay, is that the perception of emptiness? No.

How would you express the perception of emptiness at that moment? Oh, I'll kiss you but your husband's here. Yeah, there's no, a breath which you are breathing, which didn't come from protecting life, is impossible.

That's the only idea that can give you progress. Okay, Geshe-la, it's the same thing as understanding your breath coming from protecting life. No, it's not the same thing.

Okay, one is positive, one is negative. Okay, I'll show you. Why are you breathing, Geshe Michael?

Because my mom and my dad, you know, they were messing around in 1951. No, that's just straight devil. Okay, now here's a more subtle devil.

Geshe-la, why are you breathing? I protected life in the past. Okay, in this subtle, subtle, subtle book, it's not enough to stop there.

Okay, you have to go to what's not there. You have to express it as what's not there. You have to, okay, you ready?

Here I go. Here's the best one. I'm not breathing because my mother gave me life.

I'm not breathing because I respected life. Okay, sorry, I am, no, I take that back. Yeah, I'm not breathing because I take vitamin supplements.

Okay, that's, that's a higher meditation. The negative side is a higher meditation. Okay, and we'll get there, we'll get there.

It's around 21 or something. Okay, and it's subtle, it's subtle. The first one in Buddhism, what's that stupid, inconvenient name for it?

This breath comes from protecting life. Yeah, it's dependent origination. Things come from causes.

That's true, but it's not ultimate truth. Okay, what's ultimate truth? All the things you think, everything you see, everything you encounter in your life, you are wrong.

It's not just the guy who ran you off the road, it's your foot, it's the chair, it's Sedona. Okay, you, you're wrong about everything, all the time. Okay, got it?

Who made, who made the building? John Brady, Connie O'Brien, O'Brady. They made the building.

No, they didn't. Who gave the steel the strength of the steel? Who put the strength in the steel?

I gave this lecture at the World Trade Center in 1999. I said, who put the strength in the steel? I did, and then I got out of New York.

I went on a three-year retreat. I was the last person in America to hear about it. They interviewed me, the newspaper interviewed me.

No, who put the strength in the steel? You did, okay? You did, okay?

You, someone needed housing in Puerto Rico or Mexico City, and you donated. You donated money, okay, to Mexico City. All right, and that's why the, that put the strength in the steel, and if you don't donate money to Mexico City, you'll be in the World Trade Center when it falls down.

Okay, that's real meditation. Okay, here we go. Okay, so that's number one.

Is it a good thing to be in the present moment? Yes. Is it useful to meditate on that occasionally?

Yes. Does it sharpen your meditative ability? Yes.

Is it the goal? No, it doesn't help you. It doesn't save you.

You can be in the present moment until you die, and then that's it. End of meditation, okay? Use meditation for something that will change the world.

Don't use it for feeling good for half an hour until you get in a traffic jam. Okay, now here's ineffective meditation number two. Don't forget we've got 25 to go.

I don't know where we're gonna do this. Oh, we're not doing too bad. Okay, the trap of emptying the mind.

That's what I call it, okay? Here's how she describes it. Other people try to stop the mind from thinking about anything.

Their meditation consists of being careful not to think at all. But here's the test whether a meditation is good or not, okay? Does anybody remember?

What's the test? It's called incompatibility. Now you explain it.

That's true. He said, but you know, logically you have to be careful to say one object, and then you have to say entirely cold or entirely hot at the same time. Burn your hand and freeze your hand at the same time.

No one object. Frying pan that you put on the stove for an hour until it's red hot, okay? And then you put it in the freezer for two days.

Then you touch it, okay? It can't be red hot and frozen at the same time. Either or, okay?

The whole pan. I'm not talking, yeah, theoretically you could heat up the handle and not heat up the end of it or something like that. But that's called contradiction.

What's contradiction here? What's the contradiction this whole book is about? Yeah, the devil cannot occupy, hi John Foley, the devil cannot occupy the same space as the angel, okay?

They don't get along and they never will, okay? They cannot live in the same mind. They cannot stay in the same head.

This town ain't big enough for both of us. Somebody has to leave, okay? That's the idea.

Why are they incompatible? She's beautiful and kind, he's got horns and mean. Is that why they're incompatible?

Come on, come on. What did we say last night? Yeah, the way they see things cannot be reconciled.

There will never be a marriage between these two. Why? One of them believes that life comes from saving life, okay?

The other believes it comes from chemicals and vitamins and your mom and your doctor and, okay? Got it? Is it wrong to take vitamins?

Do they work? If you protect life, your vitamin supplements will work. If you don't protect life, if you eat life and then take the vitamin supplements, they might hurt you.

Got it? Okay. You can't have it both ways.

Either the world is coming from how you treat other people or the world is just random, okay? You can do whatever you want. As long as nobody's watching, okay?

Do what you want, okay? The way the devil looks at the world and the way the angel looks at the world are completely incompatible. She thinks the guy who ran me off the road tonight was coming from me because I push people too hard, okay?

And he thinks the guy got in his car, he had a beer, you know. Me and my friend sat at the Beaver Creek mini market one night, me and Anatole. I said, let's have fun.

He said, what? I said, let's count how many beers leave this store, this convenience store in the next 45 minutes. Guess what the number was?

490. And I live in that town. I don't drive after five.

No, I mean, see, the devil will blame it on the beer. You see? The devil will blame the guys driving on the beer, okay?

The angel will say what? Come on, help me out. Yeah, he drank a beer because you made him drink a beer.

And don't blame him, okay? You did something dangerous in the past, so you have to see something dangerous, okay? They're incompatible.

The way she views the world and the way he views the world are completely incompatible, all right? So, in ineffective meditation number two, it's called empty your mind. Don't think about anything, okay?

Which is a joke because the harder you think about it, you're thinking about not thinking about anything. You can't not, you can't think about nothing, but the harder you try, the more obvious it becomes that you can't, okay? Now, why is that an ineffective meditation?

Why is it flabby? Why is it, it's not useless, it just doesn't have any strength, right? It's got no avocado.

Wait, do you know what that joke means? We need a Mexican to explain it to us. I was in Guadalajara.

This lady explained to me that it was Susana. It's not me, okay? She said avocado is Azteca for God's testicles.

I said, I didn't know, but I don't like them anyway. Anyway, this second meditation has no avocado. You understand?

Okay, why? Now, now you have the ammunition. Now you can tell me why.

Tell me why. Why is it weak? Why is it not very helpful?

Yeah, thinking about nothing is not the opposite of how the devil looks at stuff. You see, we want a meditation that contradicts the devil. We don't want a meditation that can coexist with the devil.

Got it? It's okay. Empty your mind, and it's not going to hurt your opinion that the guy ran you off the road because he had a beer, okay?

I'll say it again. Emptying your mind for an hour or two hours in the morning is not going to make you understand the guy who ran you off the road, okay? It's not going to contradict the feeling that he was drunk and it's his fault, okay?

We're looking for a meditation which will drive the devil out of the mind. We're looking for a meditation that the devil cannot coexist with, and there's only one, and that's the meditation that says, my breath is coming from respecting life, okay? And everything else is flaccid, flabby, that the devil's going to say, yeah, come on in.

You can stay for a half hour. You want to meditate on your breath? Yeah, come on.

Sit here next to me. Meditate on your breath. It doesn't hurt me, okay?

This whole poem, you know, hundreds of page poem, the devil's like, oh, you want to meditate on your breath? Come sit next to me. That's fine, you know?

We can just sit in the mind together. How long you want to do that? 45 minutes.

I'm a real meditator. Oh, yeah, sure. Sit down next to me.

You don't hurt me. You're just like nothing, you know? I sit next to an avocado.

I sit next to you. It's the same, okay? It doesn't hurt me.

You can stay in this mind rest of your life. You can meditate on your breath the rest of your life. It doesn't do anything to me.

It doesn't endanger me at all, got it? We're looking for a meditation. Okay, I commuted for 19 years to Manhattan, two hours each way to earn money for the monastery, okay?

And, I don't know, Port Authority used to go. She knows the drive. So, you're the last one on the bus.

Bus holds 49 people. You're the last one on the bus. You got the only empty seat next to you.

You're like, I did it. I did it, you know? Then two hours, I can like, and then this big guy gets on the bus.

He's looking, you know? Then you're like, oh, shit. There's no other seat.

I can't move. He's gonna sit down next to me, and he's gonna slobber on me for two hours, you know? The point is what?

We're looking for a fat guy who can't sit on the same bench with the devil. You see, we want a meditation that's so fat that the devil has to move, okay? Got it?

When that meditation comes into the mind, the devil has to leave for a half hour, okay? That's what we're looking for. We don't want a meditation that allows for coexistence, okay?

Any meditation which allows the devil to remain while you're doing it is a mistake, okay? It's not good enough. It doesn't hurt the devil.

He's like, yeah, oh, you want to pretend there's no thoughts in your mind? Come on, sit next to me. Come on, you're my pal.

As long as this mind is thinking about that, I'm safe. Got it? Because you don't contradict the way I look at things, okay?

You don't contradict the way I look at things. You're not gonna take over this mind. You're not gonna push me out of this mind, okay?

Yeah, go ahead. Empty your mind. Empty your thoughts.

Do that all day. I love it. We can live together, okay?

What do you call it? Common law marriage. All right, ineffective meditation number two.

Now, ineffective emptiness. This is called shentong. This was a wrong idea about emptiness that was popular in Tibet 500 years ago, okay?

Emptiness means cancel something. Emptiness means cancel something, okay? That's the meaning of emptiness, okay?

Now, I'll ask you guys who are, you know, experienced about these subjects. Ready? Are you cancelling something that exists or are you cancelling something that never could exist?

Never could, okay? A guy? Okay, no.

Breath that could come from your vitamin supplements, okay? It could not exist. There's no such thing, okay?

It never existed, okay? Well, guess what? You take vitamin supplements.

Yeah, I do, but I protect life at the same time. So, they work. Got it?

Okay, I loaded my supplements for that amount. It's like an hour because every doctor I have gives me more and none of them ever says, okay, you can stop. Some of them own the supplement company, okay?

That's okay. As long as I protect life and they give me, I don't know, rabbit pellets, it'll work, okay? It's true, okay?

So, here's the third one. This is more subtle, okay? Is the mind a physical thing in Buddhism?

No, okay? It's based on a physical thing. It's based on your physical body.

It's not the brain, but you can say it's based on the brain. If you inject the brain with certain chemicals, if you inject the brain with wine, the mind gets stupid, okay? If you submit the mind to stress, the physical body will get an ulcer or a heart attack, okay?

They're connected, but they're separate, okay? So, the mind lives in the body, but the mind is not physical, okay? It's invisible, okay?

There's a link, but it's not the same thing, okay? So, can we say, you ready? Can we say that the mind has an absence of material stuff?

Yeah, okay? It's like your foot has an absence of your hand, okay? Okay?

Are they exist? Yeah, they exist, but is the foot the absence of your hand? Yeah, partly, okay?

If the foot wasn't the absence of your hand, you'd have a hand growing off your foot, okay? Got it? So, you could say the chair is not the brain, it's not the mind, okay?

Is the chair... Does the chair have emptiness of mind? Yeah, yeah, it does.

There's no mind in the chair, okay? Is that ultimate emptiness that will help you? No, okay?

Why? Well, the thing that's not in the chair really exists, you see? You got to have irony here, you got to have irony here, you have to have tragedy here.

The thing that messes up the world doesn't exist and never existed. I was in Kyiv, you know, we had a great program two weeks ago, you know, there was record attendance, 350 people for two-day program, and we slowly got to the point that your enemy doesn't exist, you see what I mean? It's like the guy who ran me off the road, right?

He doesn't exist. The one that I'm... The one that's not my fault never existed, okay?

Got it? So, emptiness that helps you is to realize that what you thought was hurting you wasn't even there. 120 million people died in World War II.

120 million people died in World War II. The enemy didn't exist. I was in Kyiv, I'm talking to Ukrainians, they suffered during World War II, you know, huge casualties.

Tens of millions of people. Then I'm like, and we got to this beautiful moment, I was like, you understand? There was no enemy in World War II, and they're like, yeah, we got it.

They're like, wow, okay, got it? Just nod. Okay, so, emptiness doesn't work unless it's the absence of something that was never there.

Emptiness doesn't help you until you understand the thing that's not there is something that can't exist anyway. It's not the emptiness of money or the emptiness of love or the emptiness of, you see? It's the emptiness of a ghost or a phantom or something that was never there.

Every enemy in your life wasn't there. Every person who ever irritated you in your life was never there. They were your reflection.

Okay? And we are extremely forgiving of us. If me drives me off the road, oh, that's okay, you know, you can make a mistake once in a while.

Okay. But it was always you. So, show other people the same.

Okay. Okay, so, number three. Don't go, there was an idea in Tibet of a wrong school that said shantung.

Shantung means the mind is empty of everything else. Okay, so, how does that help you? Okay, the mind is empty of dog food, but that doesn't help you, okay?

It's true. There's no dog food in your mind, but it doesn't help you, okay? It was the wrong idea.

It's, now, who's that? I won't say. There's still some people trying it.

Okay, now there's a thing called sem jemba. Say sem. Jemba.

Sem. Jemba. It's called, jemba in Tibetan has two meanings.

One is naked and one is raw. Raw vegetables are called sem jemba. A naked person is called mi jemba.

Okay, and there was a school in Tibet that said the goal of meditation is to see the naked mind. Get down to the core of the mind and then you are meditating, okay? Meet the mind face to face, okay?

Without elaborations, without distracting thoughts, without other kinds of mental activity. Meet the source of the mind and that's meditation, okay? Now, what's our test about whether it's a useful meditation or effective meditation or not?

What's our test? Does it make the devil uncomfortable? Is he like, if this meditation gets on the bus, does the devil have to change to another chair?

You see? That's the test of a good meditation, okay? If you meet the mind face to face, will it stop you the next time someone runs you off the road from getting angry?

Will it make you realize he was your fault? No. To watch the naked mind, to meet the naked mind, will it make you understand where the guy came from?

No. So, we say we wasted time. Is it sweet?

Yes. Is it cool? Yes.

It's nice to look at the Grand Canyon. No, it is, but it's not gonna, it's not gonna kill your death. It's not gonna stop your death.

It's nice. It's okay. No problem, but don't, don't think it's gonna help you when the poop hits the fan.

Okay, that's wrong meditation number four. It's called naked mind. We're going pretty well, right?

We'll stop in like 15 minutes, take a refreshment break, and then we'll do question and answer, okay? For half an hour. So, if you, we, we like hard questions.

That's our Tsongkhapa lineage. We specialize in hard questions. So, you have half an hour to think of some hard questions.

They don't have to be about this subject. They can be any kind of hard question. You can also ask an easy question, but okay.

Now, there's another one called Tsongkhapa. Tsongkhapa was a meditation that people did, and they, it's called, we would call it rambling meditation. Mind running loose, you know?

Let your mind ramble, okay? Just ramble, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. Watch your mind, blah, blah, blah, blah, okay?

Ride the, it's called ride the tiger of the mind, okay? They all have sexy names, okay? And they're all useless.

There's like those, anyway, I won't mention, in the, in the, in the vitamin supplements area. They have beautiful names, and they don't do anything, okay? So, this one was called rambling mind.

Tsongkhapa is an ancient word. It just means let your mind ramble, and don't try to meditate, and that's a kind of meditation, okay? Like let the mind, blah, blah, and just watch it, and don't, don't fight.

Just relax. Be here now. Let the mind ramble.

Don't, don't try to resist this rambling mind, okay? Let him ramble, okay? That's, that's so stupid.

There's some of them I don't have to explain, right? Okay. But by the way, he says, here's, here's what the devil said.

This has nothing to do with meditating. Watching the mind ramble has nothing to do with meditating on you, wisdom. And in fact, I can report that I have never seen you in those people's minds during that meditation, okay?

The devil's reporting to the angel. You know, I've known a lot of rambler meditators, and I was thinking, did I ever meet you during those? No, I never saw you in there, okay?

The devil says to the angel, I never, you never showed your face during one of those, okay? That's a way of saying it was a waste of time. Okay, number six, uneducated meditation, okay?

Meditate with no training, okay? If you want, take a 200-hour yoga training. They'll talk about meditation for two, three hours, and then they'll set them loose on the world.

And I was in, I took a class in Phoenix a couple weeks ago, and I sat down and I said, I hope they don't meditate before on yoga, because it gets me riled up. And then the lady said, let's meditate. I'm like, oh no.

And then she said, we're going to watch the breath for 10 breaths. If you think of something else, stop and go back to one, which came from me. And I'm like, which, I mean, it's an old Tibetan technique, but I translated the text and made it popular.

So, I'm like, she doesn't know that the guy who translated it is in the room. And I said, but it's cool. It makes me feel like a grandfather or something, you know?

I'm like, that's so cool. And then she did that, and when she got to the end, she said, now, think about nothing. I wanted to throw the yoga block at her, but it's, okay, so that's called uneducated meditation.

Okay, and most of them are meditating on me. Okay, why? You see, even as they observe their mind in their heart, they don't understand that the mind is flowing from how they treated people last week.

Okay, people, I can't concentrate, Gyatra. Why? What's happening?

I get this blah-blah in my mind. I can't stop it. You will never be able to stop it.

Why? Because you are blah-blahing to people last week, and you planted the karma seeds for blah-blah. So, when you sit down and close your eyes, you hear blah-blah.

Okay, you put the blah-blah in your mind. Alright, because last week you were blah-blahing, wasting other people's mind, other people's time. You were telling them the 289,000 story about Trump that they didn't hear yet.

Okay, give it up. Let it go. Okay, blah-blah to somebody about Trump.

Give it up. Seven more years or whatever. We can do it.

Stop talking about it. Okay, it doesn't help anything. Okay, don't blah-blah.

Why not? It puts seeds in your mind for blah-blah. Then when you try to meditate, you can't meditate.

Why? Because you put karmic seeds in your mind for blah-blah. Got it?

Okay, so, every time you meditate and watch your mind, and you don't think about what I hear in my mind is coming from what I said last week, you are strengthening the devil. Okay, every hour you meditate and watch the mind without once thinking what I observe is coming from how I treated people last week, then you are strengthening the devil in your mind. And you will be less able to understand next week what you hear in your mind.

Okay, because you're perpetuating a bad habit. Okay, lazy meditation is not just lazy meditation. It hurts you next week.

It's a bad habit. Okay, and then it gets stronger. So, just to meditate on the mind is to strengthen the negative mind.

You see? Okay, just being unaware of what's really happening in your mind is to strengthen your unawareness for next time. Okay, what you hear in your mind as you meditate is directly coming from seeds that were planted when you heard yourself talk last week to somebody.

Blah, blah, blah. You can't believe it. Blah, blah, blah.

Okay, does it mean you shouldn't be well informed? No, it doesn't mean that. I subscribe to The Economist.

It's correct. You know, it's a good solid news. You learn things.

You should be up on current events. You should know what a central bank is and why they're messing things up. You should understand.

Okay, but just blah, blah about some politician who's an idiot. Come on, even ... anyway, I'm not going to do it.

Okay, ineffective meditation number seven is called child hiding under a blanket. So, I don't know if you know, but of course, I think probably your kids did this. They think when you catch them doing something bad, little kids, they will cover their head with a blanket and somehow because they can't see you, they think you can't see them.

Sambal probably does this. Okay, got that? The kid will put a blanket over their head because they don't want you to see them, but what you see is a kid with a blanket on his head.

They can't see you, so they think everything's okay. Okay, this is this kind of meditation. So, this is tricky.

Does the devil exist or not? I'm just asking you a question. Yes or no?

Can you clarify? Yeah, is there a state of mind in your mind that doesn't understand the guy who ran you off the road tonight? Yeah, I have the devil.

Geshe Michael proved this evening when he got irritated. I was even thinking which finger to show the guy, but I couldn't catch up to him. Okay, so I do have the devil in my mind.

Okay, I do have the devil in my mind. Is there sometimes an absence of the devil in my mind? Yeah, I mean tonight I calm down.

I'm supposed to be the teacher. I have to talk about how the guy who was driving unsafely came from me. Okay, so during that moment of truth, humility, rare moment, the devil had to move out for two minutes.

The devil had to wait over here. Then when I stopped talking, he came back. So, was there an absence of the devil in my mind?

While I was talking about where the guy really came from? Yeah. Was there an absence of the devil in my mind when I was upset at the guy driving badly?

Be careful. Go deeper. Was the devil in my mind or not?

Was the devil as I see the devil in my mind or not? Yeah, but what's that mean? Don't give me Buddhist platitudes.

Good, good. Okay, so even as you recognize the devil in your mind, you are strengthening him because you don't reflect that he came from the devil last week. Okay, last week I got pissed at another driver also, and that event strengthened the devil so he could come back this week.

Who's responsible for the devil in my mind? Who put him in my mind? Not the guy in the road.

Who put the devil in this road? I did. Okay, got it?

So, it's not enough to meditate on the absence of the devil because there's a relative absence and there's a real absence. Okay, what's the relative absence? While I'm thinking about the angel, the devil can't be there.

Okay, that's easy. But even while the devil's not there, I'm thinking about the devil the wrong way. And there's no devil like that.

There's an absence of that devil. The absence of the devil that didn't come because I misunderstood the devil last week is more important. Okay, understand?

Why is the devil in my mind this week? What's the seeds for the devil? What's the karmic seeds for the devil?

It's simply not understanding him. Okay, every day you spend not understanding the devil, he's planting more seeds to have him in your mind. Okay?

So, is there an absence of a devil in your mind all the time? Yeah, and that's the real angel. Okay, I'm not supposed to...

Okay, so it's not enough to to say the devil's not in my mind. It's not enough to say the devil is empty. Okay, you have to understand what it means.

It means there's no devil in my mind who didn't come from me. Okay, but this guy hasn't been meditating on that. He's trying to pretend he doesn't have the devil in his mind.

Because some buddhist lama said, nothing exists. Okay, so yeah, okay, so I don't have ignorance in my mind. I thought I did.

Okay, all right. This is called flaccid philosophy. I gotta give him better names.

If someone wants to help me give him better names, I'm up for it. I was in a rush. Okay, this is number eight.

Flaccid philosophy means blah blah philosophy. Okay, you'd blah blah, blah blah about emptiness, blah blah blah blah, and then the person still gets angry at the first person they meet who irritates them. That means they're just talking about philosophy and they're not living philosophy.

Okay, so this meditation, number eight, useless meditation number eight, is logic not aimed at yourself. Okay, logic not aimed at improving Geshe Michael. Okay, and that's next kind of useless meditation.

Is there emptiness? Yes. How many divisions?

Two. What? Person attains.

Does the second school expect agree that the emptiness of things exists? No. They only accept the emptiness of the person.

Oh really? Yeah, but some of the third school accepts the fourth school, but some of the dark accept the fourth school, you know. And then the person doesn't improve themselves.

They just talk about all these ideas. Okay, so this meditation is thinking about the ideas, but missing the main point, which is apply it to you. Okay, the reason the Buddha taught all these different schools is that on different days we need different schools.

Okay, and we have to apply them to ourselves or else it's just another flabby meditation. Okay, rubber knife at a street fight. Okay, although I did see Jason Bourne killed somebody with a pen.

Okay, we're at a good place to take a break. Look, we've done eight useless meditations. I think the big ones are emptying your mind, try to think about nothing, or just let thoughts run to your mind.

Watch them come and go like clouds in the sky, blah blah blah. It doesn't help you. It doesn't improve you.

It makes you a passive watcher of the crap going to your mind. It's not going to help you. Okay, some small help, not serious.

Okay, it doesn't hurt the devil. Okay, so here, some people are meditating on nothing more than me. And sometimes they're meditating on nothing more than nothing.

And sometimes they're meditating on trying to think of nothing. A person who's meditating on these things, blah blah blah, is hurting me. Okay, a person who's meditating on where the other driver really came from, is hurting me.

Then he calls it, and then we'll take a break. Nick, you ready? Nyi me karma.

Nyi me karma. Nyi moi karma. Good, but what's karma mean?

Good, a star that shines in the sky at noon. That's how common is a meditator who's really meditating on something that hurts me. Okay, they're about as common as the north star coming out in the blue sky.

Okay, who said that? The devil. He's not stupid.

He's not stupid. He's sophisticated. Okay, all right.

He says a person who really understands this stuff is about as common as a star shining in the middle of the day. Then he says something very powerful, and then we'll stop. I don't know why, but it happens to be verse number 108.

If you're not going to change that situation, stop hassling me. Who's talking? Talking to the angel.

And then he says, you, miss angel, are an udumbara flower. This flower is a cobalt lotus. It opens once every thousand years.

So, he accuses her of being...what's an English one? I don't know. It has to be an example of something that only happens every thousand years.

Like, I don't know, Joe's comment going to the sky or something. You know, you just visit this mine every thousand years. I live here.

Who's talking? The devil. Yeah, okay.

In the very best of circumstances, you might come, but only once. And even that requires that the person spend an inconceivable number of millions of years doing good things to other people. To get you to come in their mind for 10 minutes requires millions of good karmas.

They have to help thousands of other people to get you into their mind for 10 minutes. So, I'm set, you know. And then he says something cool, okay?

What? And that can only come by pleasing the one who is your lama, okay? Shortcut to the angel.

Shortcut to the angel, you know. Find your personal teacher. It doesn't have to be Geshe Michael.

You find your personal teacher. Maybe it's your mom, maybe it's your wife, maybe it's your kid, okay? But every person on a spiritual path has to have somebody watching them, helping them, okay?

And the first thing in life is to find one. And it might be anywhere, okay? By the way, where are they coming from?

They're coming from you. I always tell people, you don't have to go to India and get diarrhea, okay? Because that's all that most people get when they go to India.

Plant the seeds to meet this person. Draw this person to your community like a bee to honey, okay? What's the honey?

Bee. Be kind to the people around you. And you will attract your heart lama like a bee.

They can't avoid it, okay? How do you get a heart lama? Do you have to buy an Air India ticket?

Trust me, you don't want to. Any other ticket, but not Air India, okay? And see, you don't get them by going to find them.

You get them the way you get anything else. You plant the seed. And then they have to come.

They don't have a choice, okay? Got it? And you can sit in your house and plant the seed and they'll knock on your door, okay?

Anyway, there's many stories like that, okay? But if you want the karma to have the angel in your mind, you can do thousands of good things to other people, or you can find your heart teacher and have a good, honest, healthy relationship with them. And that's enough karma to have the angel move into your mind, okay?

Shortcut. Easy, okay? Don't spend the rest of your life without a personal teacher.

Find them, which means you have to plant them. And it doesn't have to be me, it could be anybody. It's up to you.

A lot of people find out that the person they've been living with for 20 years is their heart lama, but they didn't know. Okay? Got it?

You don't know who it is, okay? But once you find them, the karma of that relationship is enough for the angel to move in. Okay?

Cool? It's the easiest karma. It's the most powerful karma.

Okay, we'll take a break. 15 minutes, okay Tim? There's refreshments across the way here.

You're welcome to go have some. And come back with some good questions, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
If everybody could be so kind as to take their seats, we'll take advantage of these last 15-20 minutes. Tim, can you take out the music?

[Speaker 2]
All right.

[Speaker 1]
Ladies and gentlemen, Geshe Michael Roach. Okay, let me see something. Yeah, okay, we'll pick up there next time.

Maybe we'll do some of them. I'll see, stop here. What's the date today?

11? Okay. Okay, questions.

Anybody have a question? Miss Utpala. No, Nick chooses.

Then no one gets mad at me. Don't ask me, you can't ask me a hard question.

[Speaker 2]
It's possible for me to ask you a hard question. Wait, her mic's not on. Tim, can you read?

Okay, go ahead. So, you said early on, you said early on that this dependent origination logic was not far enough. So, why is it that Je Tsongkapa wrote a praise of dependent origination as being the way to find emptiness?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good, good question. So, if we take it out of Buddhist terminology, dependent origination means, I see a guy driving recklessly, because I was reckless last week. So, and by the way, the way karma is planted in your mind is by your own awareness of yourself.

So, you know, if I was speaking recklessly the week before, and I hear myself talking, that's what plants karma in my mind. So, I say something reckless, it goes through my eardrum, and it brushes my mind, it makes an impression called a sanskara, and then two hours later, that's called a vasana, and it stays in my subconscious mind. So, that's dependent origination.

In Buddhist terms, planting a seed for the guy to run me off the road, planting it last week, is dependent origination. It's the positive side of reality. Seeds are planted, and things are coming from seeds.

The opposite of that is, nothing's any other way. Nothing is any other way. And that's emptiness.

So, like a guy that could run me off the road, who wasn't coming from what I did last week, is impossible. It's an impossibility. The goal of Buddhist meditation is to meet that emptiness face to face.