Открывая дверь к Алмазному Пути: Пять домов, курс 1 (2025, Аризона), занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
Okay, so I don't know, in 1993 or something like that, I started ACI with some other friends and I said I would do 18 courses. It took seven years. And that covers the highlights of the Geshe course.

And I finished my Geshe in 95. So I was excited to do it and I really wanted to share it. Am I supposed to speak for translators, Tim?

Okay. So I was excited to share it and I was working more than full-time and I was doing a class every night, most nights. And then, you know, it got more and more deep.

And then I was going to start my three-year retreat and my students asked me, would I teach Diamond Way afterwards? And then I said, yeah, I think so. And then I had a lot of time to design a Diamond Way course.

And so we did it. When I got out of retreat, we started seven years of Diamond Way courses. And that's, I think the total pages is 30 or 40,000 pages of translations for the two courses.

And it took 14 years. And the problem is everybody gets to be an old person by the time you finish. So, no, I'm just kidding.

And I felt happy about it. And I really sincerely believe that that Diamond Way course, the 18 courses, is the best in history, in the history. Because Diamond Way was all broken up by many historical problems and it was taught by different people in different parts of the world.

And no one ever put it together, put it all together. So, I was really happy to do that. I attended one of the two Tantric colleges in the Tibetan tribe.

There's two, Gyumay Gyuta. My teacher was the administrator of Gyumay. And before he left, before he ran away, so I was there debating when they opened their debate ground and I felt we could do a better course.

I thought we could do a more thorough course and a deeper course in Diamond Way. And so I spent almost those three years in retreat designing a course and thinking about a course. And then we did it.

And then I put people into three-year retreat. And we had a lot of trouble. It was hard.

The courses were hard. This place, you have roads and you have a cafeteria and you have toilets and we had rocks and it was not easy. But everyone worked hard and they did a good job.

And 30 people or 30-something people built their own cabin and they donated it to Diamond Mountain when they finished. Is anybody here from the three-year retreat? Is anybody there?

You want to stand up? You guys? And that all was possible because of Rob Rossinger and I'd like him to stand up.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. Then I, did I threaten or I told my students that I didn't, that I felt it would be better if they taught the Diamond Way courses after me because I thought it would force them to be Diamond Way teachers. You know what I mean?

So if I teach, then people sometimes don't come to their course. So I said I wasn't going to teach Diamond Way again. And I kept that promise for, I don't know, 18 years and to almost 20 years.

And then I'm very, very happy with how they're teaching Diamond Way. John, Connie, Ellie, other people, all teaching, they'll say, teaching very nice. And I'm very proud of that.

And I feel a little jealous sometimes because I don't get to teach with them. And yeah, it's okay. But I want to say those who are teaching Diamond Way from the first Diamond Way group, I'm really, really happy.

And Sarathme and David are teaching. And I'm really, really happy with that. And I feel very content with that.

And they don't really need me to do the 18 courses. And I don't have time anyway. Tell you the truth, we have 42 organizations.

And I'm just, I just got back from a 30-day tour. My wife is a little excited about that. And that's probably my granddaughter.

But my life is very, very hard. I was in Dunhuang a few days ago. Then I was in Kyoto.

And then I was in Hangzhou. And then I don't remember before that. But it's very, very stressful.

But I don't feel stressed. I feel happy. But I can't do more.

I can't do, there's no hours left to do that. So my health is okay. I don't have any pain or anything like that.

I have kidney, what do you call it? Disease, which is a thing that gets worse every year. And it's called silent.

You don't feel anything. It just gets worse every year. So I don't have unlimited time.

I would say I have maybe, I don't know. But I don't have time to, I don't have extra time to spend. You know what I mean?

I have to do the things I have to do. And more than other people, I see the impermanence of my life. I see it's not endless.

And I can't waste time. And I can't use my time. I have to be very smart in how I use my time.

So then a few people, good people, asked me to teach them Diamond Way privately. And I started with a few people. I tried to do the 18 courses with them.

And it just didn't work out. You know, it was just impossible for me to go through. The homeworks were insane.

I don't know who wrote them. But they're like crazy. And you know, it's like crazy.

And so those all failed. We all stopped. I didn't continue them.

And then a group in, when I was in Kyoto, a group, somebody invited me to dinner in a restaurant. And I never say yes because I'm too busy. And then I said, yeah, okay, if I have time, I'll drop by.

And I made a mistake and I dropped by. And they were just finishing dinner. And it was some 30 students.

And they said, they, some guy sat across from me and looked at me and said, can you teach us Diamond Way? And I said, yes. And then I was like, wait, you know?

And well, it was a special group of people that I have worked with for, I don't know, eight years or something. And I felt like they, I could do something for them. I could do something special for them.

So I've been doing that lightly, like, I don't know, one day every two months or something. And then they asked me, could I do another Diamond Way for ACRI? And I'm happy to try.

I'm hungry to teach Diamond Way. And I enjoy teaching Diamond Way. And I believe in Diamond Way.

And, you know, it just seems like the right time to do it. And so I just said yes right away and I'm happy to do it. I don't think I can, I used to know all the students personally.

I used to interview every single student. There's like 200,000 students now. And people don't understand that.

People say, Geshe-la, I just got to talk to you for an hour. And I'm like, you multiply 200,000 times one and then divide by, you know. And they're like, yeah, but I need an hour.

And then I'm like, you know, I just don't have that time. I can't do that anymore. I can't interview everyone anymore.

And I can't say you should come and you shouldn't come. How do I know? I see you once in every few months.

And I just see your face. I get a flower and then I, I can't do this kind of very tough thing that I did. How many years ago did I do this?

32 years ago. I can't do that. It's got too many people now.

And many people I believe are ready for Diamond Way. And it would be nice. It would be fun to do Diamond Way together.

And I think a lot of people would benefit, you know. So I kind of, that's my opinion. And I'm sorry for you older people who had to work so hard in the old days.

And you can yell at me later. But I'd like to have some fun and talk about Diamond Way as your grandpa. And, you know, let's do that.

And there's some requirements. I'm not going to go through them. They put me to sleep.

You can talk to Tim. Tim, we, me and Tim worked them out. There's not much requirements, you know.

You have to do what the tradition is, the lineage is. You have to follow that. And we built it that way.

But it's a lot easier than it was 30 something years ago. And that's also, Seiji and I just finished a course this week, or we're in the middle, where we changed the SCIM course. We allow people to do it over a month instead of in 10 days or something.

And then I taught some classes this week online for SCIM staff. I'm not supposed to say flex. If you had to remember all the acronyms that I have to remember, people come like, you got ALS because you're doing DCIM with SCIM.

And I'm like, I don't know. You know, okay. Yeah, I'm ALL overwhelmed.

Right, JB? YSI? So anyway, we changed the format so that we wondered what would happen if people didn't have to ask their boss for two weeks off.

And suddenly we got a whole different group of people who were afraid to get fired. So they were doing two hours in the morning and an hour in the evening, something like that. And it was a lot easier.

And I saw that there were some nice people who couldn't come to the more strict time zones. And I thought, wow, we should try that. So anyway, I'm happy to do this.

And I don't expect you to come to wherever I am three or four times a year. I don't expect that. I know it's not possible.

In a way, the people who do it, they get broke and then they sleep on people's couches and everyone gets upset. So let's just, in English you say muddle on. Let's try.

Let's see how we do, okay? And I'm happy to make it easier instead of harder for you. Okay?

Because I don't know how many times I can do this. So I'm kind of feeling in the mood to do it. Okay?

So I'll make it as easy as I can. But then you have to be, you know, pay attention to the rules they make and be serious. And I also don't expect 2,000 people to stay.

If I do my job, there'll be 20 people here in a couple months, more. But I know it's not going to be 2,000 people. But anyway, you're welcome to try.

And I enjoy Diamond Way. I enjoy teaching. I think we're going to have a lot of fun.

So just relax and enjoy. And I'm happy to do it with you. And it's a special blessing from a different time in my life.

So I'm happy to see you here. Next life I'll learn everybody's name, okay? Okay.

First thing we wanted to do, Timothy, was to embarrass Gibson Chung. He's easily embarrassed. Where are you?

Can you stand up? He's trying to raise his hand. Yeah, so.

So he's one of the 12 Mixed Nuts translators. And obviously to enter Diamond Way, it's traditional to study Lam Rim or the Steps of the Path together. And I was thinking about a Lam Rim that would be very appropriate for this kind of friendly group or something.

Like new kind of Diamond Way. And I thought it would be nice to have kind of a special Steps of the Path just for you guys. So me and Gibson have been working on this book for a while.

And we finished it. And then we gave it to Anatole, who checks these things. And then we gave it to Rosa, who prints these things.

And does everybody get one today? Yeah, let's go. Yeah, if you're here, you get one in person.

And it's free. If anyone tries to charge you, tell them to ask me. Okay?

Rosa, we'll figure out the finances later. That's my mantra with her. And it's a beautiful piece of work.

Okay. Can I see one? I haven't seen one.

Not bad. Gibson, will you sign it for me? Nice.

I like the smell of a new, fresh book. So this is part of a series of books that I started 30 years ago. And it's called Classics of Middle Asia.

The idea was to make some books that you could carry in your purse, or you could carry in your goodnight book club overnight bag. Carry bag. So that's the idea.

And we started this series of translations 30 years ago. And I was on a very terrible bus ride with my teacher in India, overnight bus ride with wooden seats. And it was one of the worst nights of my life.

And then we got off the bus to do diarrhea in the field. I picked a special leaf because it looked like it, I didn't have any more toilet paper. And it turned out to have little needles on the bottom of it.

And I had an exciting time. And riding on the wooden seat with the needles getting pushed in and kind of gooey. No.

And we got off and there was this guy I don't know, some Westerner came up to us. And he's holding one of these books from this series in his hand. And he says, I read this every day.

I carry it everywhere because it's so nice to carry. And it changed my life and thank you so much. And I was like, wow, that's worth the diarrhea.

So, anyway, we tried to choose a book that would be easy and easy to carry around. The other thing about this book, it's called Song of My Spiritual Life. Say nyam gur.

Nyam means, well, gur means a song, a spiritual song. And the most famous gur is the gurbhum, which is the 100,000 songs of Milarepa. Milarepa lived about 800 years ago in Tibet.

And he was a normal business person or something. And then he, at the age of 50, he started diamond ring. And I think he's a good example for us.

He started diamond ring, he became a great meditator. And then he started writing songs, poetry, beautiful poetry called gur. And gur means a song, a spiritual song.

And the English translation has an interesting history. There was a Chinese, Garma C.C. Chang, who went to Tibet in the 1930s or 40s or something like that. And anyway, he ended up at Princeton University as a professor of Buddhism.

And he translated Milarepa's songs. And I missed him. I got there just after him.

I got here, the year he died, I came the next year. And then, so anyway, these songs are very, very famous. His translation is very famous.

So these are similar, gur, gur means a song. And then nyam is interesting because nyam means experience. Nyam nyong in spoken Tibetan.

Say nyam nyong. Nyam nyong. It has a nice ring to it, right?

Nyam nyong means, nyam nyong. It means personal experience. It means inner life, and the person's inner life and their personal experience.

So it's very, Tsongkhapa, who, you know, I spent my whole life translating these books, maybe almost 50 years or something. Every morning I spend six hours, five hours, for a long time. And I'm working on one of his books now.

I think we've done about 3,000 pages of Tsongkhapa in the last year. He's unbelievable. He's the greatest.

And I don't feel shy to say it. No one came close to him in history. He's unbelievable.

He's beyond. But he never talks about himself. And maybe those two things come together.

He's so focused on what Nagarjuna wanted to say that he doesn't talk about Tsongkhapa. Never. I can't recall ever, anywhere.

He wrote the greatest book in Tibetan history, the Lama Chamo, the Great Lama. He doesn't mention himself once. I think at the end of the book he says, my name's Tsong, or something.

See you later. But in this book, and that's why Gibson and I decided to work on it, he says, I'm going to share with you my personal life. And I'm going to tell you how I went into Diamond Way.

What did I do to get ready for Diamond Way? And his Diamond Way writings are the greatest. I was, Mr. Bin contacted me from Vietnam, like 10 years ago. And he said, Geshe-la, we don't have much Diamond Way here and people don't feel comfortable with it. People are not sure if it's real or, you know. And then I said, I sent him the Tohoku catalog, Tohoku University's catalog of the scriptures, which is 4,600 books.

They are in Tohoku. I went and saw them. There's, how many?

There's 3,700 commentaries and 990 sutras. And that's Buddhism. That is Buddhism.

And so I played a game with Mr. Bin. I said, how many of those are tantra? How many are Diamond Way?

And he said, I don't know. How would I know? And I said, can I send them to you?

And he said, yeah, you send it to me. And then I, it's exactly half. Okay, it's like, from the Kangyur, from the ancient sutras, it's 500 of the 990 books are tantra, are Diamond Way.

So to say it's not real or Buddha didn't teach it or something like that, it's ridiculous. It's just, if you understand anything about Buddhism, you're like, ha ha ha, it's crazy. Buddha spent half his time teaching Diamond Way.

And it's amazing and it's beautiful and it's wonderful and it's clean and there's no weird stuff, okay? It's not weird. We don't kill chickens.

We don't have sex in the temple. If you're expecting that, you're going to have to go somewhere else, okay? I don't have any recommendations, but it's very, very beautiful and sweet and kind and compassionate and wonderful and happy.

Okay? I was in Uruguay. I went to Punta del Este to teach a soccer team, professional soccer team.

I thought it was going to be messy, but John, he does that all the time. I mean, he goes and teaches large groups around the world. He just shows up and suddenly it's the New York Jets or something.

I don't have this problem. But it was a bunch of soccer players and they're all drunk. Some guy fell in the pool.

We had, he almost drowned. But we stayed until, they stayed until three in the morning and we had a beautiful conversation. We had a beautiful meeting and they couldn't stop talking about the ideas and it was so beautiful.

And the next morning I went back to the airport. You have to fly over the river back to Rio de Janeiro. And I was in the airport and I saw a big sign that said Tantra.

And I'm like, whoa, in Uruguay. And I went over there and it was terrible. It was a terrible, terrible book.

Something really dirty and strange. I was so disappointed. I felt so sad that this kind of thing had come to Latin America and this is how people think of it.

And I was very sad. And I'll never forget it. I was just walking to the airport with some of the soccer players.

And it was so, it was so sick. And I was like, wow, that's bad. So, yeah, it's not like that at all, okay?

Diamond Way is beautiful, fun. It's like sitting with your grandmother, okay? And it's very, very sweet.

Okay, so I wanted to talk about, I'm going to go through, I have a thing called a flow document, which is how I teach nowadays. And it took me, I don't know, 50 years to come to here. I came to a way of teaching where I have a document that I prepare.

I meditate on the teaching, maybe for a couple weeks or something like that. So my morning practice, maybe I'll meditate on these classes two weeks ago. And I'll get ready for the class and I'll meditate on it.

And the meditation is based on images. I use pictures to remember what I'm going to teach. And I find pictures are more powerful than words.

And I think it's very fascinating to have a language like Chinese where you use pictures as your words. And I think there's something cool about, there's something important about that. But anyway, I do a flow doc, and we're going to talk more about that, especially in the next class today, because I want to talk to you about learning how to do it yourself, when you teach especially, okay?

So I use pictures and they help me ground my talk. They help me go through the talk. They deepen my understanding of the talk.

So I'm going to follow these pictures. And it also helps keep grandpa on track. Old people like to tell stories.

And then suddenly it's the end of the class and you didn't learn anything. Maybe. Okay, next picture.

We're going to try. Is it Brian or Francisco? Who do I yell at?

Fernando. Let's do the last picture. First picture.

Yeah, okay. So again, this is how we're going to start. My stepson painted Tsongkhapa.

He's a very great painter. And he should be a painter. I don't know why he's running this little cafe, but he's really, really good.

He had a one night show. He made $14,000 last week. But he wants to make coffee all day.

He said, I don't know. But it's a beautiful painting. And we tried to get the feeling of Tsongkhapa finally willing to talk about his personal life.

And finally willing to give us some trade secrets. What to meditate about. So Nyamgur.

Nyamgur. There's a tradition that Tsongkhapa is Manjushri. And as I get older, a couple things happen to me.

I used to get confused by the Sanskrit names. There were some terrible ones. I can't remember.

You know, Sarasvati. Just, I felt like an outsider because it was all a foreign language. And I studied in India.

I started with them. And I was there for many years, total. And as I get older, I think it's not so important what their name is.

And I don't think it's so important to use, to call Manjushri or Maitreya or people get confused. What's the difference, Geshe-la? Do I have to be Indian to study this?

Do I have to remember his name to get to know him? And I just feel sort of, as I get older and as I learn more and as I master all the languages more, I think they are less important, to call him Manjushri or call him Tsongkhapa. Forget it, Mr. Onionfield. You know, where'd that come from? Like, I keep trying to think of Onionfield in a tantric way and I still haven't figured it out. You know, like, he smells sweet.

You know, I don't know. And so, anyway, what I wanted to say is, personally, I think Jay Rinpoche, Tibetans call him Jay Rinpoche. They rarely call him Tsongkhapa.

Jay Rinpoche means precious lord or something. Jewel, Mr. Jewel or something like that, okay? And he's supposed to be Manjushri.

And then I feel guilty. My teacher says, don't forget, Tsongkhapa is Manjushri. And I'm like, I forget what's Manjushri.

And he says, the god of wisdom, you know? And I'm like, what do you mean god? Did he make the world or?

And then it gets all confused, you know? And then I just didn't feel very comfortable with the whole thing. You know, am I supposed to have a big hat to be a good person?

Or, you know, do I have to have a foreign name to be a good person? And then at this stage, you know, and there's probably nobody alive who has worked harder on the scriptures. I think so.

And who has translated more of them, who understands them. And I want to say, the whole question of Tsongkhapa boils down to, when you look at the cover of the book, when you see the first image here, okay? And you're going to get lots of images in the next, I don't know how many years it's going to take, okay?

But when you look at the picture, what I want you to do, you know, and carry the book around with you and look at it, open it every morning or open it at night. It's a good luck thing, okay? Just say, I had a lousy day, okay?

And I'm grumpy, okay? And I'm going to bed, okay? Read a few sentences.

Shut up and read a few sentences. And then go to sleep. I didn't understand anything, Geshe-la.

That's the point. It's something new, something that's going to change you, okay? So what I want to say in the first class, and I'll probably say it in the last class, okay?

The first thing Geshe-la said in the New Diamond Way class is, is he a Buddha? Is he the Buddha? Is he the Buddha of wisdom?

Is he Manjushri, you know? And I want to say my opinion, okay? I have not met him directly, okay?

In my meditations, in my experiences, I have not met him directly. And according to Diamond Way, the most important teaching of Diamond Way, okay? I'll tell you tonight in case we all die, is that there's a joke.

There's an inside Buddhist joke. How many Buddhists are in the audience today? And there's like, I don't know, two.

I mean, Kiri and Sushumna, for sure. Those two? Like, you know, who knows?

I don't know. And then, by tradition, according to Diamond Way, what's that Kaladandha thing, Connie? No, well, how's the opening lines of Hatha Yoga, but they'd be good.

Anyway, murtyu kaladandha, they have killed death with a stick, you know? The opening lines of Hatha Yoga, but deepika, say that there are people walking around among us who are Buddhists. They're enlightened.

They killed death, kaladandha. They killed death. They don't have to die.

And they're just walking around all the time. And what else are they going to do? I don't know.

So, according to, the way I like to present it, we were in Dunhuang last week, okay? Dunhuang is on the edge of the Gobi Desert. There's 700 meditation caves.

700 meditation caves were dug out of the cliffs. At any given time, 1,000 years ago, there was 1,000 people meditating in caves. Sorry, 700.

I guess some of them had friends. And they would practice there. This stuff, you know?

And then in 1900, on June 25th, the rumor is that some monk was smoking and he saw the draft of air coming out of a crack and they broke the wall and they found 60,000 books, 60,000 manuscripts. And it's like unbelievable. It's just, it's unbelievable.

So, I've been there a couple of times now and they found the oldest book in the world there. They found the Diamond Cutter Sutra there. It's the oldest printed book in the world with a date, which is 867, something like that.

867, something like that. So, anyway, the oldest book in the world was found in these caves, you know? And we went there and we were, you know, having, just feeling our way there.

And you can feel the, we had a program there, Innovation Retreat Program. And it was unbelievable. And the feeling of the Gobi Desert, the sand dunes and everything, it's like unbelievable.

We should go there sometime again. And we had this amazing, amazing time. And then I had to go to the hospital for some kind of little problem.

And they found out I was a translator and they gave me this sweep with the director and assistant directors and, you know, they said, oh, you're a translator. You know, you get the, it's not like America, okay? In America, they say, what?

Is that like? So, anyway, think about the Diamond Cutter Sutra. It is the most printed book in history, okay?

It beats the Bible by, as far as printing, it's probably, the sales were double or something. To be honest, I mean, I'm loyal to the Bible. I like it, I grew up with it.

But Diamond Cutter is about twice, the sales are about twice. And it's been printed for a hundred generations, you know? And you can go to Dunhuang and people still give you a special room if you can translate it, you know?

And, you know, why did it survive so long? You know, why did it last so long? John and me wrote a book.

He wrote a book. I helped, you know, with the grammar and stuff because he's a pilot. But I was, it got very famous.

The book got very famous. And I was at the airport in Phoenix and I saw a hundred copies on the wall. And I was like, yeah, you know, it's a bestseller.

And I was running to the plane and I didn't, with Scott and Orit, and I didn't have time to buy it. And I thought, well, we're going to be back in a week. I'll buy it then, you know?

And then, so we came back and I went to the bookstore and it's gone. And I said, where's that book by that famous Blue Angels guy? And they're like, oh, we only keep books here for a week.

And I'm like, what? And he said, yeah, you know, we sell them for a week and then we sell the next week, you know? And I'm like, well, I really wanted a copy.

And they said, well, you'll have to order it online or something, you know? And I'm like, okay. What I mean to say is that the Diamond Cutter Sutra has been reprinted in the bookstore called The World for two and a half thousand years, for a hundred generations, okay?

And the purpose of that book is to help you touch the Diamond World, to see emptiness directly, okay? And that's all it's used for. You can't use it for much else.

Doesn't have any recipes, nothing. And people have passed it on to their kids for a hundred generations, for two and a half thousand years, which means to me, there's a possibility that it works. Because you don't pass on a book if it didn't, if you're going to choose one book to give to your kids in ancient times, which is expensive, books in those days, if you had a library, you had to be wealthy, you know?

There were no public libraries and people spent the money and the time to print the Diamond Cutter and hand it to their kids and say, if you don't ever read anything else, read this. And what happened was, it must have worked. I say logically, okay, in my opinion, logically, you don't pass on a book if it doesn't work.

You see what I mean? They found a clay tablet, Babylonian, recently, like 20 years ago. And it's the oldest writing in the history.

And it's clay, it's a clay tablet and it has Babylonian letters on it. And they found it and they worked on the translation, they worked and worked and worked, you know? And then they figured out what it says.

It says, I sold a horse to this guy and he didn't pay me. And I want to take him to court. And if you can help me sue the guy, you can have half the horse.

And you know, this is the oldest printed thing in the world. What I'm saying is that things survive when they're important and when they work, which means, okay, you ready? That somebody must have gotten enlightened by all those sutras and stuff.

John Brady, this cool guy, his target is 300,000 ancient books, okay? His target. He has finished 19,000.

He has finished 80 million words. He's 7% done. So he has to live another, nevermind.

But, you know, there's all these books, why do they survive? Somebody used them and they worked for somebody, which means that logically, not religiously, logically, there's Buddhas walking around. Otherwise the book would have been stored with the Babylonian clay tablet, you know?

You see what I mean? Why would it be printed over and over and over again if it didn't work? So logically, there's Buddhas walking around.

Logically, okay, you ready? It's possible that this guy is a Buddha. And logically, it's possible that he's not, okay?

And I think that's why Buddhists, real Buddhists, spend 10 to 20% of their time studying logic. Logically, he could be a Buddha. You can't say he's not.

Can you say he's not? Can anyone in this room say he's not a Buddha? That he's not Manjushri, the god of wisdom?

Can you say for sure? And then everybody's like, I don't know. Even the Buddhists in the room are faking it and saying, I don't know, you know?

And then now, on the other hand, can you say logically that he is a Buddha? No, you cannot. I don't accept it.

I don't say so. I don't think it's logical. I don't think you can say he's a Buddha.

You don't know, okay? There's a lot of indications that he might be. Nobody else could write.

In my opinion, it'd be difficult to write it if you're not a Buddha. My first Diamond Way class, which you will never forget, even if you never come back, which I'm ready for, that's okay. I don't mind.

The one thing you'll hear from me in the first Diamond Way class is that you can't say he's not, and you cannot say he is. And that's Diamond Way. And if you never hear anything else from me about Diamond Way, if we all get blown up tonight by all of our tariffs, you heard that.

You heard that from me. I don't think you can prove it's wrong. There could be Buddhas.

The person sitting next to you right now could be a Buddha. And it's possible that they're not also. And I can't say.

I cannot honestly say. Okay, got it? I can tell you one thing, from personal experience, and I'm an old man and I don't care if you don't believe me.

I saw emptiness directly. I spent my life trying to teach it to people. I don't know anyone else in the world who did.

But I cannot prove it to you. I can discuss it with you. I can share my experiences.

I cannot prove it to you. And you cannot say for sure that I have. But I know what it feels like to walk around the whole world for almost 40, for 50 years and look at people and know they don't know who I am.

You see what I mean? Like I meet people on the plane and you say, what are you doing? I say, forget it.

If I try to explain, you won't believe me anyway. You know, I learned a long time ago, I don't talk on the plane anymore. I just watch the movies.

No, but you know, I know what it feels like to be something. I know what it feels like to have been to every planet in the universe. I know what that is.

I've been there. But I also know what it feels like to walk around the world and no one sees that. No one can see it.

I know what it feels like. And I'm okay with it. I have fun.

I still have pastries and don't tell my wife. Yesterday, I stopped at the health food place, Arcadia Farms, and I found a walnut pastry. So anyway, I know what it feels like to be anonymous at a different level.

You see what I mean? And I'm okay. I don't mean I'm upset or you don't have to rush up to me after class and say, I'm sorry I treated you like a schmuck.

That's okay, I don't mind at all. But I know what it feels like. I can sit here and I have seen every planet.

I have been there personally. I have met every person who's alive in the universe. And I have done that.

But I know what it feels like to walk around the world and nobody knows, or nobody would believe it anyway, and nobody except the people here would care. But what I'm saying is, the Buddhists in the room, they probably feel the same way. They're like, yeah, okay, I'm just here.

If I can help you, I'm available. That's their job. That's what they do.

They infiltrate groups. They sneak into the room. They look like normal people.

They act like normal people. And then right at the moment that you need some patience meditation, they do something to piss you off. Okay, understand?

That's tantra. That's diamond way. If you're not a Buddha, and I have no idea who you are, if you're not a Buddha, you can join me in the Secret Buddha Admiration Club, and doubting who you're sitting next to in the airplane, trying to figure out who they are.

And what happens after years of thinking like that is you feel sort of peaceful and happy, and you've accepted that there may be a Buddha sitting next to you. And you deal with it. And when that person is good to you, or that person is mean to you, you turn on your diamond way sensibility.

You say, well, maybe they're trying to help me somehow. You have this reverse paranoia. Diamond way is reverse paranoia.

Paranoia people say, everyone hates me. Everyone's trying to screw me. They're looking like this at everybody.

Then diamond way paranoia is like, maybe she's a Buddha. Maybe he's a Buddha. Oh my God.

I'm so lucky. Okay, that's diamond. If you never come back to this class again, and maybe you don't have to, just remember, that is the whole diamond way.

There's nothing else. I mean, can I say in the first half of diamond way? That's the first.

So that's, what am I supposed to stop, Tim? I just have a clock. What time does it stop?

At five? Okay, good. I'll try to finish.

The other reason I do these pictures is that I know I have to finish them to get out of the class, or else I didn't give the whole class. Next picture. Me and Rob Ressinger, we worked for, I don't know how many years.

There was no good life story of Tsongkapa. There was no biography. There were some small things in Wikipedia that were ridiculous.

And there was no information about him. And it was very frustrating to me. And so here's the story.

And I won't finish all the pictures. So I lived in a Mongolian temple in New Jersey for 25 years, and my teacher taught me privately for 25 years, in addition to going to the Geshe course. And then he would teach.

He had a small group. He had maybe, on a normal night, he might have 15 people or something, 20 people. And we didn't have any money at all.

We were broke. And we were living in this Mongolian temple, and all of the people in the town were refugees from the Nazi concentration camps. They jumped over the fence.

And they were tough. They were real Mongol warriors. And they were, a lot of them were messed up.

There was a lot of drug addicts and alcohol. It was a hard, hard time. And he was a visiting monk.

He was supposed to serve them. He didn't speak their language. And it was a hard time for both of us.

But anyway, I snuck in. I helped him. He taught me for free, whatever.

And then he would teach in the summertime. He would have a special retreat. And everyone he ever met would come, and we'd have like 30, 40 people.

And we'd sit in this big Mongolian temple, and it was bitterly uncomfortably. It was New Jersey hot. Arizona hot is cool.

New Jersey hot is miserable. It feels like being in a Japanese sweat lodge. No, you're just sweating.

It's all wet. It's like Kyoto in August or something. We don't go there.

But it's uncomfortable. And so, by the way, Kyoto's my second home, but don't tell my wife. And it's my favorite place to be in the world, maybe physically.

But anyway, so I was, we would sit there and cook. And then we had this steeple, and it had windows at the top. And he'd say, you climb up there and open the windows.

And it's very dangerous. It's triple ladder. And I was scared out of my mind to go up there.

And one day I almost fell. I think I fell, and I think Buddha pushed me back or something. No, I was like this.

And then I was like this. And I was like, what just happened? So anyway, I'm up there, and I'm scared to death.

And I'm looking through the ladder, and I can't quite reach the window. And there's paintings all around me. There's paintings way, way up there.

And I'm looking at them, and I'm like, wow, these are cool. And they had a little writing on them. And they use a single horse hair, what do you call, horse tail hair, to paint the letters, a single hair.

And they sit there for like three years to make one thangka, to make one painting. And they write Tsongkhapa's life story. And you can't see the writing from down below.

You have to, your lama has to said you have to die. And then you earn this right. And I was like, wow.

And I went down, and I went to my lama's room. I said, there's writing on those paintings. And he said, I know.

And I said, why you never told me? He goes, oh, that's called Tsongkhapa Getsu. That's the 80 major events of Tsongkhapa's life.

And there's 15 paintings. Very, very rare, extremely rare. There's only a few sets in the world.

And anyway, so me and Rob Rossinger, we worked on them for many years. And we finished, and we did a book. We wrote a book called King of the Dharma.

And it has all the paintings. And we found the original, John Brady found the original manuscript of how to paint it and what to write on the painting. And it was a big, big deal.

It was like unbelievable. So we, you can read his life story in pictures, which is always easier. You don't have to be like Curie and read the 200 books of Harry Potter in the same week.

Okay, you can get a good picture of his life. So me and Rob, I started to go to museums and teach the paintings. I was at the National Museum of Argentina.

I was teaching these paintings. And then I asked Rob, could we make some posters to put around the room? So we identified 12 themes of Tsongkhapa's life, 12 roles that he played in his life.

And then we made posters. He and I made posters. And I thought we would show you the posters during this Diamond Way classes.

And then we'll give you the posters. I mean, I don't know if I can afford it, but you might have to help me to pay for it. But we'll give you one by one.

We'll explain the poster. Each poster has one of the important parts of Tsongkhapa's life. For example, he thought it was important to learn to sing and to learn to dance.

And people don't know that. People don't know that. It's a Diamond Way practice.

And he was doing all these special dances. I learned some of them in Mongolia. And singing these special songs.

And it's amazing. Stuff like that, okay? So you'll get a poster once every session, like every time we meet together.

We will meet together on the Lam Rim four times a year. I think it will take six sessions. I think it will take a year and a half, okay?

Then we'll start Diamond Way. Ha ha ha. No, my joke is an inside joke.

The whole Lam Rim classes will be Diamond Way. Probably we'll finish Diamond Way by the time we finish the preparation for Diamond Way. That's my secret plan.

Don't worry, I'll give you more. But my idea is if something happens with my health, I want to make sure you get all the important stuff, okay? And so I'm not going to hide it for the first year and a half.

I will dump it on you for a year and a half. And then after a year and a half, we'll start real Diamond Way. And you'll say, that's exactly what you taught for the last year.

I'm used to it, it's okay. Okay, so anyway, this book will be important for you, okay? And try to get a copy.

Rosa has all, it's on, what do you call, Diamond Cutter Press website. Recently, Rob and me worked on a paperback because the old one was really expensive. And the income from that book, we give it to the temple where they are keeping the posters.

Okay, so we just give it all to them and they depend on it. So we've done that for many years now, almost 20 years, okay? They came here.

Some of them came, you met them, yeah. Okay, here's the most important thing in this class from Gibson's new book. And thank you, Gibson, and it's a beautiful book.

The most important two verses, okay, in the whole book. It's a refrain. It means he keeps repeating.

Every time, who is that? It's not my boss, you know. It's my male clinic.

Every time he goes through an important idea of Diamond Way, he says the same two lines. And Gibson's got to recite them. You got a microphone, you guys?

Hi, Brian. You got to really act it up. I don't know, whoa.

[Speaker 2]
,RAM CHOG NGES KYANG SNYAM LEN DE DAG GIS, ,PHANG DU SKYES KYANG DE ZHING KYANG PHRAD LO, Okay, good.

[Speaker 1]
Yay. Here's the, he memorized it. Here's the English.

I, the deep practitioner. What's the Sanskrit for deep practitioner? Yogi.

Well, he calls himself a yogi. This is the only book where he calls himself a yogi. I, the yogi, meaning high practitioner, deep practitioner, have accomplished my practice this way.

If you hope for freedom, you should do the same. And that's the refrain. That's over and over in this book.

You will see the same two lines. After every instruction page, he says, hey, you guys, that's what I did. Look at me.

You should do that. And it's very, very, again, he doesn't talk like that ever, never. He never claims to be a Buddha.

He never claims to be an Arya. He just teaches you how to do it. But in this book, he comes out of the closet.

And he's like, that's what I did. Maybe you want to do that. That's the structure of this book.

So don't forget that line. ,GNYENG SBYOR NGES KYANG DE LTAR BYAGS CAD, ,DE LTAR BYAGS CAD, ,THAR DU SKYES KYANG DE BZHIN KYANG TSA LO, That's what you guys should do. All right.

There's a picture. Next picture. That's Tsongkapa, okay?

He's riding a tiger, which is Diamond Way. And during his lifetime, he didn't tell people what he was doing much, almost never. And then after he passed away, he came to his student, one of his famous students, Kitu Je, in a dream, riding a tiger.

And he said, that's what it's all about. Diamond Way is what it's all about. And riding the tiger is what it's all about.

And we'll talk about that. We'll talk about riding the tiger. But this is, in Mongolia, they keep that dream very dear.

And they carved this carving and someone gave me a copy. My Lama, when I became a monk, he sewed the roads. It's very complex.

It's very, very secret how to sew the patches. And he sewed them himself. And he said, get me a sewing machine.

You want to be a monk, get me a sewing machine. I'm like, you don't know how to use a sewing machine. He says, you never saw me use a sewing machine.

He used to say, there's a lot of things you don't know. I said, I didn't know you could use a sewing machine. He said, there's a lot of things you don't know about me.

Anyway, he made the roads. I wore them for many, many years. 20 years, 25 years.

Then they finally, they fell apart. And I was in three-year retreats. I couldn't, I didn't want to lose the roads, so I made the frame for the painting.

I sewed the frame for the carving. Those are my old roads, okay? And that's a three-year retreat stick that we used to use to keep the rattlesnakes out of the house.

Okay, all right. I got four more minutes. I think we can do it.

Next picture. There's one of the posters, okay? And each one has a quotation of some kind, and each one has an instruction from Je Tsongkapa.

And each of the paintings or pictures has a story, and I'll teach you the story, okay? Each one comes from somewhere.

[Speaker 2]
All right.

[Speaker 1]
Like the black and white one, the Americans during World War II were trying to make contact with the Chinese army so they could work together. And they tried to see if they could fly from India to China, which you cannot because it's too high. The engine runs out of oxygen.

But they tried. And they crashed in Tibet. And do you know Tolstoy, Russian famous Tolstoy, one of the most famous authors from Russia, his nephew was the pilot, American pilot, and he had a camera.

And then he took all these pictures of these secret rituals. Like he snuck in and he took all these pictures. So that's a Diamond Way meeting at Tsok in Tibet in 1940 something.

And he took a picture. He shouldn't take a picture. He wasn't allowed to take a picture.

There was one monk going like this. And so I'll teach you all those things and I'll share with you the stories. And it's kind of cool.

And they are having a dance. They're dressed for a dance. And we'll talk about it.

And God, you don't have to dance, okay? If you're old and your knees are bad, you can just snap your fingers or something. Okay, next picture.

Yeah, I'm sorry for the big bottom. I have an AI. I say, show a lady walking up the steps.

And we tried like six times. And this is the best one. You should see the other ones.

Anyway, we're going to go step by step. That's what Lamrim means, okay? And it's very, very fun, okay?

It's certain steps. You have to do the same steps. There's certain steps that Tsongkhapa identified and the Buddha identified and said, look, don't worry about anything.

There's 10 things you have to do. Just do these 10 and you'll become a Buddha. And don't worry about it.

Just take each step that I ask you to take. And in the end, you're going to say, hey, I'm a Buddha. And I'll say, yeah, I told you so.

Okay? Okay, so that's Lamrim. And what's funny is that the Lamrim teachings, even in this book, don't read the last part without reading the first part because you're allowed to teach Diamond Way in Lamrim.

As part of the steps of the path, Lamrim, you're allowed to talk about secret Buddhism, Diamond Way, okay? She's already, Ella's already looking at the last verse. Anyway, there is time to end this book.

The last section is about Diamond Way, okay? And he wants to share about that. But you have to go step by step.

It's not like you're going to, lightning's going to hit you if you look at the back of the book. And it's not true that you'll never become a Buddha if you cheat. You know, the Buddhas wouldn't give you the book if that was true, because they know you can't control yourself.

So they probably want you to look at the last page first. But anyway, have fun with it. You can read any part you want.

I don't care. If you read any of it, I'm happy. Okay?

And that's the idea. Just do what we say in the class. We will be meeting for a year and a half.

You can come online if you have to. I'd rather have people with real jobs who don't come once in a while than lots of unemployed people who want to sleep on my couch, because the cat's there full time. All right.

Okay, anything else? Yeah. I think we'll start the next one tomorrow.

Yeah, that's a good place to stop. Okay? And thank you for coming.

Thank you for asking me to teach. Again, I want to repeat, if you have your own teachers, which you should have, and they're teaching you Diamond Way, which they should, then keep going. I don't want to, I'm not a replacement.

I'm just deserved. Okay? So please study with your regular teachers.

Please study Diamond Way with your teachers when they say you're ready, because they know you and I don't know you necessarily. And you're very welcome to come to Grandpa's class. And I'll just wander around and talk about stories.

And it'll make your Diamond Way studies more deep and more beautiful. And you don't have to study with other teachers if you don't want to. But if you're in the mood, it's very important.

They will give you detail that I can never give you. I will never have time to do all those courses. So I think let's do both.

Okay? And that's the best thing. Okay?

All right. I'll see you after a half hour break. Okay?

Thank you.