Нагарджуна, курс 5 — Мудрость Арьи Нагарджуны, курс 5: Будда Медицины и мудрость Нагарджуны (2023, Аризона), занятие 7

[Speaker 1]
First of all, I have some friends here who are visiting from New Jersey. And I'd like to introduce Sinjoma, Sandy, Maria. Can you guys stand up?

Judy. Gucci. Gucci.

Gucci. Gucci. Gucci.

Gucci. Good. And Zonda, who's invisible.

I want to tell you a story about them, okay? You ready? Okay, first picture, you guys.

So the day I graduated from Princeton, I went to this place. I was 22 or something like that. And this is called Rashi Gyempa Ling.

It's a Mongolian, Kalmyk Mongolian temple in New Jersey, near New York. It's about one hour from New York. And the way they got to the United States was a long story.

700 years ago, they took over Europe. And during World War II, they escaped to a big part, about 1,000 people escaped to the United States. And they built four temples like this in New Jersey.

And my teacher was appointed the abbot of this temple. And that's how I met him. He came to speak at Princeton.

I heard him speak at Princeton. And then I asked him if I could go stay in this temple. And he said, okay.

But nobody in that community at that time spoke. They weren't used to an American boy coming into a Mongolian town. And there was like 1,000 or 2,000 Mongolian people.

And there's one American boy. And it was hard. It was very, very hard.

And luckily I could speak Russian and some of them speak Russian. And it was hard. It was really hard.

And I was in the wrong place. And there was one man who was the treasurer of the temple. And he came to me like the first day.

And he said, what are you doing in this town? And I'm like, I just want to study with the lama. Can I stay?

And then my lama was there. He said, yeah, you can stay. My teacher said.

But you have to live in the garage. So there was an old garage with an old man there. And he said, you have to live in the garage.

I don't have a place for you. You have to live in the garage. And it was a really hard place.

And so I moved into the garage. Cement floor, sleep on the floor. And one Mongolian man came to me.

Very beautiful man. Here's his picture. Next picture.

His name is Hangor Sojuraw. And his wife is here, Sandy Sinjurma. And...

And he said, don't worry, I'll take care of you. You can stay. I'll take care of you.

And he protected me for 25 years. And he let me stay there. And he gave me a place to sleep.

And he took care of me. And he's this beautiful, happy person. And his son, Buchi, is here.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And Hangor passed away about three weeks ago? August 25th.

Yeah, August 25th. And so today we'd like to dedicate the fire offering to him. I learned to do fire offering because of these guys.

And everything I learned for 25 years is because of these guys. So, you have to thank them, okay? Here's an early picture of Han Guo and his wife.

She's pretty. She's a pretty fast food. And that's when I met them.

It was 50 years ago. We went for lunch like that. That's at your house, I think, right?

Next picture. These are some of their children and nieces, right? And Maria?

Yeah, Maria's child is there. And...1977? 79. I forget.

But we got permission to invite the Dalai Lama to come to our temple after many, many years of waiting. And this is the day. Han Guo's in the background.

And those are the children. Those children are now 50-something? I had a children's class for 15 years and they were in my class.

Next. This is my teacher when he first got there. He was quite young, 55.

He started...next picture. He started to have classes. And...

And that's the Mongolian temple. And these guys built it. St. Germain, her husband, built it. Maria and her husband built it. They let us have classes there for free. We didn't have to pay.

And they allowed us to use the temple for... We said it's just going to be for a few weeks. And it was 25 years.

We had classes there like every day for four or five hours for 25 years. And the group got bigger and bigger and it got to be thousands of people. They're still very kind.

They said, okay, just mess up the temple, we'll clean it up. And they allowed us to have classes for 25 years. And that's why I can teach you.

It's because of them. Next picture. This is me learning to debate.

In 1979, the newspaper came and took a photo. And we had a... We got a grant from the National Institute for the Humanities.

And we had a children's debating grant. And a children's oral history, Mongolia oral history. And it was chosen the Project of the Year by NEH.

And they called me. Zonda was in charge of it. She was how old?

She was 12 years old or so. And we did a book. We did a book of debating.

And we did a book of the Wheel of Life. It was selected the Project of the Year for the country, the whole country. And the government called me and said, the director should come down to Washington D.C. And we'll give them a medal or something. So I said, well, who's going to be with her on the airplane? And they said, why? And I said, she's 12 years old.

And they're like, no, no, she can't come. They didn't know she's 12 years old. And she did a whole book about debating and oral history of the Mongolian Buddhism.

So it was the best grant of the year. And the kids group did that. Next picture.

This is Hangor fixing his son's tie at the Dalai Lama's visit. That's Buchi, I think. And Buchi is an artist.

We had a bad block print of the Wheel of Life painting. So we took it over to his house, his mom's house, and we asked him if he could fix the carving. And here it is.

I think you were 12 or something like that. He was 12. And we had a special genius kids group.

And they all did stuff like this. So he fixed that painting and we put it on the Wheel of Life. I've been studying that.

So that was about 50 years ago, 45 years ago. And I've been studying the Wheel of Life still since then. And, next picture.

We just finished this book. So this is by Sugeng Hsieh. Sugeng just finished this book.

It took seven years of hard work. It's coming out of the work that we did 45 years ago. And I taught you the first two links today.

And that's why I can teach you the first two links. It's because they let me stay in their town and learn everything. And it was hard for them.

They had a lot of criticism. There was a lot of people who said this white boy should get kicked out. And they protected me.

Thank you for that. We have a very cool guy called John Dutchman here. He's been volunteering here for, I don't know, almost 10 years or something.

And he works really, really hard, really quietly. Very hard work. And he's been a very steady worker here for many years.

And one of his jobs used to be to take all the garbage to the dump. And he saw all this wood, extra wood, and he said, why should we waste the wood? We should make some benches.

And then he goes all over. This is a thousand acres. He hikes all over.

He carries the wood with him. When he sees a nice tree, he builds a bench. And he puts it there secretly.

And he doesn't tell anybody. So if you hike around and you see these benches, that's John Dutchman. And so I had an idea to build a bench in honor of Angkor and a nice shelter and a bench overlooking the beautiful part of the land.

And we'll dedicate it to Angkor and we'll have a plaque for Angkor. So I asked John to take me. I said, pick a good spot, John.

Because he knows this land like nobody knows this land. So here's a, this is where I saw this lady running. We went up on a mountain.

If you guys have time, I'll take you up there. It's a little difficult to get up there. I was puffing and huffing.

But we'd like to put a special bench, like a stone bench. John's going to design it and a shelter over it to give the shade. John chose a spot where there's a big tree and there's a good place where you can spy on all the retreatants.

[Speaker 2]
So I might go there sometimes to make sure I'm there.

[Speaker 1]
You guys ready? It's like a one minute video. With sound.

I hope. No. No.

No. No. It's coming.

It's coming. If you guys want to go to the last slide and then work on the video, you want to do that? Okay, then come back to the video.

Okay? All right. This is a book that we did The Mongolian Temple in New Jersey has a lot of very, very rare paintings.

They have the only complete copy of the Kangyur in the United States. There's a story, Shar-Em-Chi who was a doctor monk, which is, Em-Chi means doctor monk in Mongolian. When they left their homeland in Europe, there was a Mongolian country there called Kamgyur.

When they left during the war, everyone started to pack their furniture on the wagon. Shar-Em-Chi got up and said, we don't need furniture, we need our culture. He threw all the furniture off the wagon and they put all the religious statues, all the religious paintings on a wagon with horses.

They took them out and they survived. They came to New Jersey. We did a book of those paintings.

There's a set of 15 rare paintings and there's about 200 tiny, tiny, tiny inscriptions of the life of Je Tsongkapa. It took 15 years to photograph all the paintings. You guys don't know the story, but I can tell you now.

I asked my teacher, can I take the paintings down and can I photograph them? He said, no. So, one day when he went to the grocery store in Lincoln, I took them all down and I photographed all of them and then I put them all up and just, I'm putting up the last one, his car came back.

Then when we checked the film, they're all no good. You can't see anything, only the glass reflection. So, the next time he went on a trip, I had like five hours and we got them all down, we took them out of the frames and we photographed them one by one and we put them back in the frames, nailed the frames together, put them back up, and then he came home.

That's all these paintings. I told the temple guys, and there's a history of the temple here. There's the whole history of the temple in New Jersey.

I told them, I'll make a book and you guys allow me to use all the temple paintings. We'll make 1,000 copies. We'll sell it for $100 each and we'll donate 100% of the money to the temple.

They said, okay. It took me a long time to sell the books. Jenny Wong helped me a lot.

We had a book selling party in Singapore. We just sold out. We finished selling and they took the money and they renovated the temple.

They just changed all the windows in the temple. Thank you for that. People ask me, can I buy the book?

I said, no, it's finished. We made a paperback which is much cheaper. Here's the paperback and there's the QR code.

If you want to buy it, you can buy the paperback. I think there's also an e-book. It's an e-book also.

We have paintings, some modern paintings were done by Nancy... Nancy... No.

New York Nancy. Nancy Karen's son or Ory Karen. He painted these paintings.

The painting on the left is a dream by Tsongkapa's mother. She didn't know she was pregnant with Tsongkapa and she had a dream that she was in a field with 500 other women and Manjushri was going from woman to woman with Vajrayogini and say, is it this one? She go, no.

They say, is it this one? They say, no. Then they got to Tsongkapa's mother and Manjushri asked Vajrayogini, is this her?

He said, yep, that's the right one. Then she got pregnant and she had Je Tsongkapa. If you want to get this book, we continue to support the temple.

For me, we should help that temple for the rest of our life. It's a small temple but 25 years of classes. No charge.

My teacher would not take money and they didn't take money from us for 25 years. We had classes there and we spilled stuff on the floor and made a mess and everything. I learned to do fire offering there.

Tonight the fire offering will be for Hangor. Before that, Bujji is a rock star. I don't know why my student should grow up as a rock star but he's going to play some music for us before the fire offering to celebrate his father.

Before that, we're going to have a wedding. These two guys. That starts at what time you guys?

6.30. 5.30. 5.30 wedding. 5.30 warm dancing. And then 6.30 fire offering. Dress warm. I guess it's a little chilly today. So dress warm.

The fire offering will be right outside there. The rock and roll will be right here. He said maybe he let me help Stephen with the bed.

I don't know. But we'll negotiate that. The Grateful Dead would have two drummers and maybe two bass players.

I don't know. Anyway, we'll celebrate Hangor's life. If Hangor wasn't there, I wouldn't be here.

And his father, their husband and father, he helped me to survive for 25 years. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. Maria was also the best student of my teacher.

No, in the community. She was the best Mongolian student of my teacher. So if you have any Tibetan questions, ask her.

And she has beautiful children also. Don't embarrass me.

[Speaker 2]
I just might entertain Thangkas. They're from Lhasa.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, they're from Lhasa.

[Speaker 2]
They're from Lhasa and his whole family owned them at one point.

[Speaker 1]
They were brought out on horseback during the fighting. During the fighting. Okay, I'll show you the video of where we're going to put the Hangor's Memorial Bench and shelter.

And people can go there and enjoy the land and relax. It's a 30 second video. It might bug 24.

[Speaker 2]
In 24, we don't have very often.

[Speaker 1]
You know, if we have this three month retreaters, so that's where we'll build a shade and a bench. And we already have a sponsor called Geshe-la and his wife. We're going to build a place there where people can relax and look at the land.

And I can spy to see if people are doing their retreat. Okay. And if you guys have time, we can drive up there.

But it's a pretty high place, but it's a beautiful place. So that'll be the Hangor Sochirak Memorial Shelter. And please enjoy your time here.

Please make sure they overeat. And take good care of them. They took care of me for 25 years.

All right, let's go. We'll go back to class and we'll do the other thing. Okay, you guys?

All right, we'll go back to class. Let's see here. I was thinking to start at 5.41, which is a sick lady. I keep jumping around and I'm sorry. That's Geshe-la ADD. Tim, we go till 9, right?

Okay. There's eight Medicine Buddhas, which is seven Medicine Buddha Gang plus their road manager, which is Lord Buddha, Shakyamuni. And the first Buddha is called Good Name.

And Good Name made eight famous prayers. We're going to cover the most important ones. And so the first prayer of the first Medicine Buddha is for sick people.

And it's a prayer. Here's the prayer, 5.42. Yeah. Whenever those of us here or those like us, any living being at all, are stricken by blindness or deafness or insanity or skin diseases or some terrible illness, may all their senses be restored and all their pain and sickness come to a stop in all the days to come until we come to our final enlightenment.

That's the first prayer of the first Buddha. You guys spent some time, we translated the two sutras of Medicine Buddha. And it was a lot of work.

It took about five years or something. And we published it and it's done. And you can read those sutras and you can do a retreat with those sutras.

Or you can use the Fifth Dalai Lama's sadhana, which now you have the first two parts of the three parts. And there's a very, very important emphasis in the Fifth Dalai Lama. And it's different from the sutra.

Sutra says, may sick people may sick people get cured. That's the first prayer in the sutra. Here's the first prayer in the Fifth Dalai Lama.

May we get cured. And it's from the first person. It's from me.

And you're praying that I may be cured also. So really there's a new emphasis in this sadhana. And it's I'm also sick.

I also get sick. I'm also going to die. And may, please help us.

So the prayer in the sutra is largely for other people. And the prayer in the sadhana includes yourself. And it's a big, big difference.

When you're doing retreat, you're not just saying to the eight medicine buddhas, please take care of other people. You're saying, please take care of everybody, including me. So sometimes Buddhist people get too focused on taking care of all living beings.

And my teacher used to say, don't forget, you is one of all living beings. You is one of all living beings. So when you're praying for all living beings, it's okay to include yourself.

Because you're also suffering, and you are one of those living beings. You shouldn't leave yourself out when you take care of people. And that applies to Tracy's question.

It's a very, very Buddhist practice to take care of your own self also. You can't take care of other people and ignore yourself, Shanti. You have to take care of your own health.

You have to take care that you sleep enough. If you hurt yourself to help other people, you are making Medicine Buddha unhappy. You are one of the people that you're supposed to take care of.

So don't forget that. My teacher used to say, all living beings, including you. He said all, all includes you.

So that's a big difference in the Fifth Dalai Lama's sunna. He wants you to be aware that you have a commitment to take care of yourself also. Otherwise, you can't take care of other people.

Cool? Next one. Then the Medicine Buddha says, by the way, there is no cure.

There is no cure. You should pray that every living being gets cured of old age and sickness. But by the way, there is no cure.

This is one of those strange Medicine Buddha announcements. You have to make sure everyone gets cured and there is no cure. So let's talk about that.

We're going to go back to Nagarjuna. Next slide you guys. This is one of the most famous quotations from Wisdom.

If I taught you Nagarjuna's most important book of poems, if I taught you too carefully, it would take about 10 years and we couldn't do anything else. So I took the most important verses. I'm giving you the highlights, like the football highlights of Wisdom.

This has to be one of the top five verses of all of that book written 2,000 years ago. This is one of the most famous verses. If you want to memorize some Nagarjuna, memorize this one.

This is very, very famous. ,GAL TE DE DAG KUN STONG NA, ,BYUNG BA MED CING JIG PA MED, ,PHA PA'I BSTAN PA ZHIG PO RNAMS, ,GYUR LA MED PAR THAL BAR MGYUR, Wisdom, the book, is in poetry, which makes it beautiful. Because it's in poetry, we're using it for the parenting course, How to Be a Good Parent.

You guys, Sinjar Ma, I'm teaching a parenting course. I've never been a parent. So I'm an expert.

But we're basing it on this poetry. This is the poetry that we're basing it on. The original poetry is also a debate.

The original poetry is also a debate. It's an argument between Nagarjuna and other people. Other people attack Nagarjuna.

They say, if things are empty, then I don't see how it's going to work. I don't see how it's going to work. This is not Nagarjuna.

This verse, which I just told you to memorize, is not Nagarjuna. It's his opponent. It's a very, very famous criticism of Nagarjuna.

His opponent says, Is everything empty according to you, Nagarjuna? Well, Nagarjuna says, Yeah, of course. I told you over and over.

Everything's empty. Okay, so it's empty. Nothing starts and nothing stops.

Cancer doesn't start and you can't stop cancer. If nothing exists, it can't start and it can't stop. Right?

Who said that? The other guy. If everything is emptiness.

How do you say emptiness in Karmic? I don't know. Austin?

Yeah. In Tibetan, DONGS PA NYID. In Sanskrit, SHUN YOD DA.

In Chinese, GONG ZHIG. GONG ZHIG. In Russian, BUS TE DA.

In Spanish, VACUIDAD.

[Speaker 2]
VACUIDAD.

[Speaker 1]
I don't know what else. In German, LEER HEIT.

[Speaker 2]
LEER HEIT.

[Speaker 1]
I teach all over the world. I have to know. That's the only word I know.

If everything's empty, then nothing starts and nothing stops. According to you, the first teaching of the Buddha is canceled. Who's talking?

His opponent. Yeah, his opponent. Oh, everything's empty, right?

Nagarjuna? Yes. So nothing starts, right?

Right. And nothing stops, right? Right.

So cancel the four truths. Cancel the first teaching of Lord Buddha. Cancel the first thing that Lord Buddha ever said, the four Arya truths.

Teddy gave them last time, but he's not here. Which means Sugeng hasn't done it. Loudly.

So the first one is... It's a Singapore accent. Singapore accent.

The first one is, life is suffering. Life is suffering. And then there's a cause of suffering.

That has a cause. And then there's a way to stop it. No.

Oh, we can stop the cause of the suffering. And then there's a path to stop the suffering. And there's a way.

We live in pain. It has a cause. You can stop it.

And there's a path to stop it. But since Nagarjuna, everything is empty, then nothing starts in the first two noble Arya truths. And nothing stops in the second two Arya truths.

I guess we can cancel Buddhism. Who's talking? The other guy.

Very, very famous. I'll give $1,000. $1,000.

And I hate it when people answer before I ask the question. Rob's getting nervous. You got $1,000?

This guy cleaned me out. I don't offer $1,000 unless it's really important. So listen carefully.

And I really will give you $1,000 if you can answer the question. And these questions go down in history. The guy who's coming tomorrow for his translation class got $3,000 out of me one day for a question I never thought he could answer.

So here's the question. Someone attacks Nagarjuna. If everything's as empty as you say, then nothing starts and nothing stops.

For example, in the context of Medicine Buddha, cancer, high blood pressure, anything else, it doesn't start according to you because it's empty. And you can't stop it either. So I guess Medicine Buddha, they're all going to retire because they got nothing to do.

According to you, Nagarjuna, the four truths don't exist at all. Now, look at that verse. And I'll tell you something.

And that's the $1,000 bet. Stanley woke up completely. There comes another verse later in the chapter and it's an answer to this verse.

There comes another verse later in the chapter. We'll get to it. And it's an answer to this verse.

If you can tell me that later verse, I'll give you $1,000. By the way, you want a clue? I don't know if I should tell you.

You don't need to see the other verse to tell me what it is. Okay, raise your hand. She's choosing, not me.

Okay. And if you win the $1,000, you're taking us all out to dinner.

[Speaker 2]
No, I'm kidding. Because they're empty, they exist.

[Speaker 1]
Here's the verse. Here's what you have to do to win the money. There's a verse that comes later which attacks this verse.

Without seeing that verse, you can tell me what it is and you'll win $1,000.

[Speaker 2]
My guess is because they're empty, they exist.

[Speaker 1]
Give me the whole verse. Come on, work for your money. I'll give you a clue.

You want another clue? Change one word. Calm down, she's going to do it and she's taking me to dinner.

[Speaker 2]
Because they're empty from their nature, they exist?

[Speaker 1]
Now listen, the verse that comes later is Nagarjuna's answer and he just changes one word and that's his answer.

[Speaker 2]
Share the money with her, please. Okay. It is the same verse but without cannot.

According to you, the Four Higher Truths can exist.

[Speaker 1]
Anybody else? You guys look like the kids in my elementary school when the teacher said, you have to go to the bathroom and everything.

[Speaker 2]
So, nothing starts from their own side. No.

[Speaker 1]
I just changed one word, come on. Because they are empty, the Four Higher Truths can exist. I think Chloe wanted to try.

What? No, you want? Just add.

Okay, I'll make it more and more easy. Add one goddamn word and it's his answer. Add one word and it's his answer.

Keep the rest of the verse the same. It's so easy. Ah, never mind.

I'm not answering. Tim, you choose, okay? You're the boss.

Yulia in the front. Who? Yulia in the front in the yellow.

Helsinki.

[Speaker 2]
If all of these are empty, then nothing starts and nothing stops. Therefore, according to you, then the Four Higher Truths exist.

[Speaker 1]
You're making it too hard. Jose from Peru. Nima, Senor Nima.

De la Borda. If all these are empty, then everything starts and everything stops. Therefore, for now, no?

This money is so hard to get away. Listen, listen, I'm going to repeat. I'm going to repeat.

Just add one word and you get a thousand dollars. But you have to read the whole verse. When?

You're going to try? When? Loud.

Oh, she asks, Khoi, you have to translate. You have to... If all of these are empty, then nothing starts...

Too late, too late. Too late. You win, you win.

Ena, Ena, say that again. Who's going to translate for you?

[Speaker 2]
So, No?

[Speaker 1]
Somebody else. I'll say anything. How do you say if, Stanley?

If. If there is no emptiness, then there is no emptiness. Tina got it, but it's kind of late.

Tim, up to you. Give it back to Ena. Ena, right behind you, to your left.

This is the hardest money I haven't given you. If all of these are not empty.

[Speaker 2]
Yay!

[Speaker 1]
By the way, if you share the money with Tim, it's corruption. No, no, no, no. You cannot, you cannot.

That would be corruption. Okay, good. Then, so the guy complained to Nagarjuna, hey, if all this stuff is empty, then nothing stops and then nothing starts.

So why the hell Buddha taught the four truths? Because the four truths, the first two are about how things start, how trouble starts. And the second two are about how to stop it.

So according to you, there's no Buddhism. And Nagarjuna answers, if they're not empty, you're right. Got it?

Which means, if they're not coming from you, then there's no Buddhism. If things are not coming from you, then there's no Buddhism. I agree.

He said, if things are coming from you, there's no Buddhism. And Nagarjuna said, no, if things are not coming from you, there's no Buddhism. You can't cure cancer unless it comes from you.

You cannot cure cancer unless it comes from you. Got it? Because it comes from you, you have a chance.

And by the way, I grew up Christian and my wife is a devout Christian and I love the Christian church. That tree was in the Christian church. That's where I met her.

But this is a big, big difference. This is a big, big difference. The world does not come, if the world does not come from you, you will always suffer because there's no reason why it should change.

You see what I mean? Got it? It's so hard to give you guys money.

You can give me money much easier. Okay, let's go to the... I don't want to go through good names prayers one by one.

I want to take the most serious, the highlight prayers. Here's the next one. Next picture, you guys.

Tim at 15 till will have this party. This is the Gaza Strip the morning I wrote the class. This is...

Stop it. This is... I don't know how many people died that morning.

500 people? 500 people in a hospital died down. This is a hospital that blew up in Israel, in Palestine.

This is the... In this explosion, 500 people... 500 wounded people died.

So, let's go to the next prayer. Let's go to the next prayer. There are those of us...

What's significant here? Yeah, he says us. We and the other people are suffering from poverty.

We don't have food. We don't have clean water. We don't have clothing.

We don't have money, crops, places to stay. Nothing to offer either. No incense, no flowers.

For a Buddhist, this is a disaster. I don't have enough money to buy offerings. That's what's the situation of those people right now.

They can't get water, they can't get fuel, and they can't get food. Right now. When you see it, I think when you see it on the news, we should do our retreat better.

You see what I mean? What can I do about it Geshe-la? I'm not there.

I don't have millions of dollars. I can't take care of them. But you can.

You can do your practice. You can do your sadhana. So, do your sadhana for them.

Do your sadhana for them. Who's right? Who's wrong?

It never mattered. In history, it never mattered. Was it the Germans?

Was it the Mongolians? Was it the Americans? Was it the British?

Was it the Russians? Was it the Ukrainians? Was it the Palestinians?

Was it the Jews? It doesn't matter. What matters is can we stop it.

I don't care who started it. That's a useless game. Samsara is a circle with no beginning.

Samsara is a circle with no beginning. Who started it? Nobody.

If you go there, you're going to spend your whole life looking for who started it. So, it's happening. Now, what can we do?

This is the fourth prayer of good name. We went from prayer number one, which was for sick people, and now we're going to prayer number four for people with nothing to eat and nothing to take care of themselves. Next picture.

Yeah, this is like helping a homeless person. I'll tell you something interesting. That book that we quoted this morning by Dharmakirti, where he said, I don't care if nobody wants this book.

I'm going to write it anyway. That's how I feel in the translator's seat. He said, stop that.

He said Buddha has achieved both of the goals. Buddha has achieved both of the goals. It's called RANG BDUN PHUN SOGS and GZHAN BDUN PHUN SOGS.

Say RANG BDUN. RANG BDUN PHUN SOGS PHUN SOGS GZHAN BDUN GZHAN BDUN PHUN SOGS PHUN SOGS Buddha has finished taking care of other people and Buddha has finished taking care of Buddha. Very famous.

This is kind of the definition of a Buddha. Buddha has finished taking care of other people and Buddha has finished taking care of himself. And then there's a famous, famous objection.

What do you think it is? For zero dollars, if Buddha took care of everybody else, why are people getting blown up in a hospital yesterday? Why 500 people?

Many of them children. Why were they... They were already wounded.

Then they were killed. They were wounded and they were operating on them with no anesthesia because there's no anesthesia now. And then they bombed the whole hospital.

They blew up the whole thing anyway. So how can you claim that Buddha took care of himself and everybody else also? It's a very famous objection to Dharmakirti's...

By the way, ACI course number two, refuge. You're going to a refuge to a person who has the two perfections. They took care of everything.

And then you say, how can you say they took care of everything if yesterday 500 kids got blown up? How can you say that? And they said he did.

He did take care of everything. He took care of everything for himself and he took care of everything for other people. He finished.

He's finished. Buddha's finished. Buddha took care of himself and Buddha took care of other people because there's nothing more to do.

There's nothing more to do. Teach them that these things are coming from yourself and there's nothing more you can do for somebody. You cannot take another person's karma.

You cannot take another person's karma. Buddha cannot take another person's karma. Once Buddha taught you that your world is coming from you, that's all Buddha can do for you.

There's nothing else, Buddha. Now you have to take care of yourself. You have to finish your seeds.

A Buddha cannot take, you have millions of seeds in your storehouse consciousness. Buddha cannot change one. Buddha cannot change one.

Buddha, if he could, he would take all your seeds, but he cannot. And that's a big question about God or Christianity. If God made everything, why did God make people with cancer?

And Buddha would say, God cannot take away your cancer. You have to take away your cancer. But God taught you how, so God took care of you.

I'm sorry, Buddha took care of you. Or maybe God also. If they taught you, they took care of you because they cannot take away your seeds.

It's not possible. If it was possible, no one would have cancer. If it's possible for another person to take away your bad seeds, no one would have cancer, or else that person has no compassion.

If it's possible for another person to take away your bad seeds and people still get cancer, either they could not do it or they have no love for people at all and they don't mind to watch a hospital blow up with 500 kids in it. Got it? Okay, all right.

All right. I'm going to shift now. I'm going to do it, Tim.

We'll come back to it. I have a presentation for you guys. Where is that?

It's a new plan. My wife, when I say new plan, she goes to the bathroom or something. Enough plans.

Enough projects. When I start to say, I got an idea, she's like, no. It's like, you don't have time.

Anyway, my new idea, me and Tim, we had, total it was about 11 hours of fundraising work yesterday on my day off. We call it 30-30-30 plan. You guys, promise, I don't know what's promise.

I said plan. 30-30-30 plan. So here's the idea.

I started ACI 30 years ago. This year is the 30th anniversary of ACI. I'll show you a little bit about what we have done in the last 30 years.

We started ACI 30 years ago with five people around a kitchen table in Hell's Kitchen. If you don't know what Hell's Kitchen is, you've never been there. This is the part of New York around the Port Authority Bus Terminal, south of the terminal, which is extremely dangerous.

This is where we did our first classes. This is where we had the first classes on ACI. There were five people in the room.

Anipyelma was there. I remember we went out to buy refreshments for the students. There's a guy walking down the street without any clothes on and with a pistol like this.

This is Hell's Kitchen. Anipyelma is like, what's that? I'm like, get across the street.

This is Hell's Kitchen. Why were we there? Because it's cheap.

We couldn't afford a place to hold the classes. We didn't have a common community to give us a temple for 25 years. We had to pay rent.

That was really hard. It was very, very difficult. Anyway, here's what we did there.

Next slide. No. I would say Buddha gave three major parts of his life.

There's three major parts of the Buddha's life. They're called turning of the wheel. The Buddha's teaching career had three major parts.

We call the three turning of the wheel. The first turning for us, for all of us, was called the 18 Foundation Courses of ACI. It took seven years in New York City.

I was working more than full time. We did classes four nights a week, I think. It was really hard.

Really, really hard. We finished 18 courses. It's 4,657 pages of translation.

It's the most important parts of the Geshe course. If you finish the 18 Foundation Courses, you know all the material of the Geshe course. I had a famous dinner with Juan Hasso and Oritz Vasek.

Geshe Lothar brought two of his Geshe candidates, senior Geshe candidates. Haramba, I'm not a senior, I'm a baby Geshe. I'm a third level Geshe.

These are first level Geshe. Two of them. They had a debate.

Hasso and Oritz beat the two Geshes. I was like, yeah. It was kind of funny.

Those Foundation Courses are good stuff. I almost said something else. They're good stuff.

It took seven hard years to translate them. Then I told the students, who survives the first 18 courses? I'll teach you Tantra, Diamond Way.

We'll have a special course for Diamond Way. Next slide. Yeah, that took seven years.

It happened here at Diamond Mountain. It's 7,000. So together it's 12,000 pages of translation.

It was hard. It was really, really hard. The first 18 courses, those are the Geshe course.

If you study them well, you can beat a Geshe. I think. I saw it.

Then the second course is the Diamond Way. It's 18 courses about the secret teachings. The nature of the secret teachings is that they were secret.

So they weren't very well organized. Somebody taught three people here. Somebody taught two people there.

No one ever put them all together. It never happened in history that all the different Tantric teachings were put together into a course. That's the ACI course.

That's the first time in history. I'm not shy to say it's the best Tantric course in the last 2,000 years. It's amazing.

It's accurate. It's correct. It works.

We finished that. It took seven hard years. We call it blood, sweat, and tears.

We had a lot of problems. When you do something important, you get a lot of problems. If you're trying to keep your temple alive in New Jersey, if it's the only temple in 1,000 miles, you're going to get problems because the demons don't like it.

They don't like it. When you stick your head up, they come to hit you. When you build a temple or you start a Tantric course, a seven-year course, someone's going to come and try to...

This is the nature. So we finished. It took seven years.

Then, we started Lam Rim. I promised to finish the Lam Rim. It will take 21 years to finish the Lam Rim.

It will take 21 years. We finished 14 years. We're done.

This year is 14th year starting, which means I have seven years to go. I will be 77. Hopefully my mind will hold out.

I don't worry about my knees. I can teach in a chair, but I got to hope the mind holds out. So I need to do seven more years.

For me to finish the Lam Rim, I need seven more years. My intention is to do a hundred meditations, videos on video. I think the time of books is passing.

I'm sad to see them go. I love them very much. But we don't need paper anymore.

I have on here three million pages of Buddhist books. I have all my books. I don't know what to do with them.

I gave them to John Brady to keep in his office. I have hundreds of Tibetan books. I don't need them.

I haven't used them for 25 years. Finally, I just gave them to John Brady. Here, you guys keep them.

There's three million pages here. There's 300,000 books cataloged here. So it's enough.

We have books. We have the 18 courses. We have 12,000 pages of courses.

What we don't have is a meditation series, a series of meditations. I'm talking a hundred meditations. People ask me, oh, you taught me tong len.

Yeah. You taught me dak shen yim je. Yeah.

Is that it? Is that all there is? No.

I mean, in the monastery, you do a hundred meditations. You master a hundred meditations. During the Geshe course, you master a hundred different meditations.

I would like to record them. I would like to make videos. I think the next big step, Irina this morning, where are you?

She gave me my, what's it called? Instacramp, Instacramp. I didn't know she's doing it.

She says, Geshe-la, you're a star. You got half a million hits. I'm like, did someone hit me?

She's like, no, no. I think the next, if I'm going to finish my job, I got to make videos, like a hundred videos. I'd like to do a hundred videos for the whole Lam Rim.

It'll take 21 years to teach you the Lam Rim, but I would like to distill it to a hundred videos. I'd like to make a hundred meditations and make a hundred videos that we can do. I have seven years left.

We won't finish for seven years. We have seven more years to go. Here's what I'm asking for today.

It's been 30 years since we started ACI. In seven years, that'll be 30 years of those courses. I'm sorry, 2030, I will finish the Lam Rim.

There's 30 and 30. What is it? In 2030, I will finish the third turning of the wheel.

It's been 30 years since I founded ACI. So 30 and 30. ACI has a, we had a board meeting yesterday?

Day before. Tim was pulling out his hair. Like, how do I pay for all this?

I said, we have 20 organizations in the Worldview Group. We have 20 organizations, and you were given the most impossible job. He said, what?

I said, you have to teach thousands and thousands of people in 12 languages around the world for free. He's like, what? I'm like, that's the problem with ACI.

ACI can never work. Whoever you choose as director of ACI is going to pull out their hair. I can tell you.

I paid for everything for the first seven years. One person helped me a little bit, but I paid for everything. I used to print the homeworks at the temple at two o'clock in the morning.

Then they were done by six o'clock and I put them in a backpack and I carried them to New York because no one wants to pay for them. They want everything free. Then I rented a place to teach the classes in New York and it was expensive.

I was in a huge debt when I finished the Tantric course. I was $30,000 in debt. At that time it was a lot of money.

It's like $100,000 now. I moved to Rimrock with the debt. I had zero money, nothing.

Because whoever gets to choose, whoever is appointed the director of ACI is appointed an impossible job because they have to teach people all over the world. By the way, there's 200,000 students total in the world right now, all Worldview. There's 19 Worldview organizations that charge money.

There's one that's not allowed to charge. That's ACI. They charge for extra stuff.

You can sign up $99 and you get... Tim will tell your future or something. I don't know.

But the basic courses are free. So we have a fundamental problem. If I'm going to continue for seven years, either I can do the 100 meditation videos or I can fundraise, but I don't have god damn time to do both.

I cannot do it. I cannot do it. I tried.

I really tried. I can't do it. You choose the course or the fundraising, but I will die if I have to do both.

It's impossible. I spent 11 hours yesterday. I'm supposed to prepare the class.

I can't do it. I just can't do it. So we have to pay for ACI.

Somebody has to pay for ACI. Somebody asked me, keep everything free Geshe-la. I said, I fly United Airlines.

You come with me. They came to the ticket office. I said, they want the course for free.

Okay, can I have an airplane ticket for free? They said, get out of here. We have to pay for some stuff.

There's some stuff we have to pay for. So we have a new proposal. 30, 30, 30, 30.

It's 30 years since we founded ACI. I can finish in 2030 if everybody give $1 a day. Okay?

Okay? Voluntarily. If you say, I don't want to pay $1 a day.

I want to come to class for free, right? In the temple. Not only they come for free, they spill stuff on the floor.

I spend two hours every night after sentry to clean the floor. Me and Sindroma made the floor with hung-gor. Remember we put the tiles down with a torch.

Not only will they not pay, they will complain and they will spill crap on the floor and then they will leave and somebody has to clean it. So anyway, if everybody give $30 a month, just sign up. It's like, call it Super Netflix.

You know? Like Super Netflix and everyone just sign up. Okay, I'll pay $1 a month.

Then how long Geshe-la? I'm going until 2030. Okay, I'm going to 2030.

So at least until then. After that, I don't care. It's up to Tim.

No, I care. But I think if you get in the habit to pay $1 a day, then it's not going to hurt you. I mean, how many...

I'm not even going to ask you. I got Netflix, Hulu, Disney. Every time I want a new movie, I have to sign up for the stupid thing.

You can cancel it in two months. Who cancels? I get this bill.

I never heard of this one. My wife says, well, that's that movie we wanted to see. So it's just, you're not going to miss it.

$30, so that's $30, $30, $30, right? 30 years we've been doing it. We're going to 2030.

You're going to pay $30 every month. And here's the last $30. Me and my friend, Noor, who we have a charity, with Seiji, who we have a charity, with Rob Ressinger, we have a charity.

We will pay the first $30,000 today. We will give the first $30,000 today. It is hard, but we have it.

We worked really hard this month and we collected from everywhere. So we'll give the first $30,000. If there's other big sponsors who want to give $30,000, or $300,000, or $3,000, I'm not going to complain.

So if you want to match or help, and I know we're asking for funds for a lot of projects. I know that, and I'm sorry. But I'm not sorry.

The reason we have 20 projects, 20 organizations, is because they're helping different people. There's 20 organizations because each one helps a different population. And that's why 20 organizations are asking you for money.

And that's why tomorrow I'm going to ask you for more money for another organization. But right now, my heart will be at ease for the next seven years if I don't have the fundraisers. If I just know it's taken care of.

It's not a lot of money. But we need it. We need to pay people.

We need to pay for the tech. We are paying people who don't have other jobs. If you dedicate your life to ACI and you're like a tech person for ACI full time, then it's cruel to ask those people to do that.

How are they supposed to feed their kids? Or how are they supposed to take care of their family? We used to be all volunteer, but it's just not possible.

If you're working eight hours a day, 10 hours a day, you got to give people something. So that $30 a month will hopefully take care of that. We're trying to find 1,000 people to give $30.

Then we'll be okay. Then I can focus on the third turning of the wheel. It takes me seven, give me seven more years with no fundraising.

That's my nirvana. Let me focus on the god damn chorus. I'll always do it.

If I have to fundraise, I will. I'm good at it because my teacher taught me to fundraise. I'll do it.

I'm happy to do it. I won't complain. I know I complain though.

But I'm happy to do it. I'll do it. If I have to do it, I'll do it.

I'll do both. But I can do it. I know.

I can do a better job with the videos, 100 videos. What happens? You see, in the old days, and then I'll finish.

In the old days, there's two ways to get tantra, two ways to go to Vajrayana. Number one, become a Geshe. Geshes are allowed to enter the two tantric colleges.

The ticket to enter the only two places to learn tantra in Tibet, the ticket is a Geshe degree. You cannot enter those two colleges without a Geshe degree. My teacher entered and became the vice president of the tantric college because he was a high Geshe.

So either you get a Geshe, or if you finish Lam Rim with a qualified teacher, you're allowed to go to tantra. If you finish Lam Rim with a qualified teacher, you're allowed to go to tantra. So my idea is, if we have the 100 meditations and you master them, you can go to Vajrayana this way.

This is traditional. This is traditional. You have an option.

Sweat through the 18 courses, 7,000 pages of work. The homeworks are long. Or master the 100 meditations of the Lam Rim.

Then you go to Vajrayana. Okay, diamond way. Geshe-la, what does it mean to master the 100 meditations of the Lam Rim?

When you can teach them, you master it. How else are we going to know? You're not blinking.

You see what I mean? How are we going to judge your knowledge of a meditation? I can't watch you.

Oh look, Tina moved. She failed. I can't judge if you mastered a meditation until I see you teach it.

You see what I mean? Until I see you share it, I don't know if you understand it. If you can lead the meditation with your eyes closed, then you mastered the meditation.

They are not hard. They are not weird. You don't have to memorize 200 things.

It's a feeling. I want you to see if you have the feeling of that meditation. Okay, you passed meditation number 28.

Now go to 29. When you can teach 100 meditations, and they're not complicated, and there's not a lot to memorize or something like that. When you can teach them with heart, from your heart, you pass.

You see what I mean? Then you do Diamond Way. Ideally, you can do both.

But it's also another way to end. Traditionally, my teacher's sister, who was a quiet, old Tibetan lady, we took her on a plane one time in India, and we were going to fly her down to the mountain. She lived in Darjeeling, which is really Dorje Ling, the land of the diamond.

Darjeeling tea is not Darjeeling. It's Dorje Ling tea. It's the land of the diamond tea.

She lived in a tiny, and she had a tiny little momo shop in Dorje Ling, Darjeeling. She'd never been on an airplane before. Oh my God.

Her knuckles are like this. The plane took off and I'm watching her and she's going... She's like shaking.

She's like 60 years old. She was a secret Vajrayogini master. She was a secret.

Geshe Lotar is her son. She was a high Vajrayogini master. Secret.

They had a secret ladies Vajrayogini group in Darjeeling. They had Sechu secretly for like 30 years. Nobody knew.

That's perfect tantra. That's real tantra. Oh look, this old lady, she can't fly on the airplane.

This old lady is the highest Vajrayogini master in this part of India. She's secret. She looks like a housewife.

That's real diamond wave practice. She entered through Lam Rim. She entered Vajrayogini practice through Lam Rim.

That's the idea. That's the master plan. Help me out if you can.

If you don't, I'll do it anyway. But if you do, I can have more fun. I can have a couple of days off to fundraise for the other organizations.

Okay, so 30-30. Here's the QR code. Dun, dun, dun.

Yeah. When I teach the 100 Meditations, I'm going to write a manga comic book with 100 Meditations on it. I call it, seriously, Lam Rim Manga.

So there'll be a comic book and 100 videos. Just sign up. Help me out.

If you have the capacity to match the other 30, you're welcome to try. All right. Oh.

Thank you. Thank you. You'll do who?

1,000.

[Speaker 2]
25, 20.

[Speaker 1]
What's that?

[Speaker 2]
2,500.

[Speaker 1]
Yay. In this lifetime. 5,000.

5,000. That's an exchange rate.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
500 from Peru.

[Speaker 2]
5,000.

[Speaker 1]
5,000? Oh, my God. I think I'll drink a slow coffee.

I'll give you $55 a month for 30 years. I mean, I guess I won't go to the bathroom. I'll just...

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, don't worry about it. No pressure. Okay, you guys decide.

I mean, I didn't mean to put pressure on you. But help us out, okay? And me and my work...

Oh, are you sure? We also take borsig. We also take borsig.

$1,000. Yay. By the way, Buchi, Steve and Raquel, we'll have instruments here in the whole day if you want to come.

It's a nice place to play. It's got a nice... The room has a nice sound.

So if you would be willing, we can dance if you can play. It is, after all, a marriage happening today. We have lots of musicians.

Nick? Jack? These are guitar players, drummers, keyboard players, okay?

They can help, okay? And they're good. All right, you guys ready?

Yuan? $5,000,000.

[Speaker 2]
Yay. Yay.

[Speaker 1]
We'll take it. Timothy? First of all, thank you all very...

Thank you so very much. And thank you, Geshe-Lev, for committing to teach and having this beautiful plan for the third turning of your ACI wheel. No money, baby.