Шесть путей духовного воина (1999, Голуэй), занятие 2

[Говорящий 1]
For those of you, first time tonight, I'd like to welcome you. And thank you for bringing us to Ireland. We have in the United States, in New York, maybe 400 or 500 students and a lot of Irish-Americans.

And we have been separated from Ireland for a couple of generations. And a lot of us don't even know what town we come from. And so when we got this invitation to go to Ireland, we have this secret, not so secret, Irish-American Buddhist club.

And so we all got together and listened to a few Irish songs and then bought our plane tickets. And so it's really nice to be here. And I hope it helps.

Last night, we were talking about what would be an interesting way to spend your life, which is something like what they call in Buddhism, they call it a warrior. And warrior means that it would be a shame. In Buddhism, it's considered one of the biggest shames, is to spend your whole life as normal, something normal.

And by abnormal, I don't mean kooky, OK? I don't mean crazy or something like that. But we think that it would be a shame to spend your whole life just as a normal person and work a normal job and quietly live.

Somebody in the poetry called it a lives of quiet desperation or something like that, where really, you're just working from year to year and living in your small house and trying to have a small vacation once a year, and not really having much fun, and not really being very happy, and nothing very exciting happening to you. I think that's why people read novels or watch television or something like that. They dream of something happening big to them, something exciting happening to them.

And in Buddhism, we think that there's a way to recapture the magic of the great people of Ireland in the old times. You read about people who had fantastic adventures, or you read about great saints, or you read about people who did courageous things. And I think the Irish are known for courage almost more than anyone.

And you hear about these people, and then your heart gets kind of inspired or your blood runs a little bit hot. And then it's time to get up and go to work again. And then it seems like normal life has taken over again.

And I especially wanted to talk tonight about... people talk about meeting angels or something like that. What would it be like if you could find some way, or someone could teach you a way that you could actually make contact with angels?

I mean, that would make an exciting life. And I'm not a new age person. I'm not some kind of...

what do you call it? In America, all these crazy people going around writing books about meeting angels and things like that. It's not like that.

I'm talking, what if someone could give you an actual method, and said, if you try this for a few months or something sincerely, then you would actually make contact, or you would actually meet one of these people. And what would it be like? How would your life be after that?

I think then your life wouldn't be so normal. Like, I'm talking about, is there some way to bring some magic into your life? And you personally start to have a magical life.

And you personally start to have amazing experiences. The kind that you read about in the Bible, or the kind that you hear about from the old days, can it happen in the modern world? And are those days gone, or are they just mythical?

Are all those things in the Bible, or all those things about early Ireland, you read about these great saints, or people meeting up with angels, or having amazing experiences with them. Are those all just the old stories, or could it happen to a person nowadays? And that's really what we're talking about.

We started last night, and there were six different steps to this method. It's like a method where you yourself could become what we call a warrior, or your own personal life would start to change. And you would be one of those people that you read about in the Bible, who ran into this amazing being, or had this amazing experience.

And when you read the New Testament, especially one of the epistles, you're always running into one of the people always running into amazing miracles. Things are always happening, especially Jesus is around. And almost every verse is a different story about something amazing that happened while Jesus was teaching.

And then you think, oh, that's the old days. Those things haven't happened for a long time. And they couldn't happen to me.

And people think that way. And people, you tend to reach a certain age. I don't know what it is, 15 years or 20 years old, and you give up thinking like that.

You give up thinking you could meet those people, or things like that could happen to you. And that's what we're talking about. We're talking about six different activities called perfections that you could try, and you could see if they work for you.

We believe, and I'll explain more about how it works, but we're going through six different activities, six different ways of living that would change your life completely. You would start to meet amazing things. Amazing things would start to happen to you.

Things you never expected. Things you thought that you're too old now to have those happen to you. Or maybe in 1999, those things don't happen anymore, or something like that.

And they can happen, and they do happen. And they're happening to people now. And there is a tradition, and there is a teaching on how to make those things happen.

We started last night talking about the first of the six perfections. That was giving. And we talked a lot about different ways of giving.

First way of giving was to give things to people, like money, or a place to stay, or food, or things like that, clothing, things like that. Giving to the people around you. And the giving doesn't have to be something where you fly to Yugoslavia, and you sell your house in Ireland, and you go fly there, and you give away the money, or something like that.

Giving begins on a very personal level. And the hardest thing to give is small things. And the hardest people to give to is your family, or the people that you work with.

It's very noble and very easy to put a few pounds into a box, and somebody in Kosovo is going to get fed for a day. That's very easy, and it doesn't have much effect. We don't say that you'll meet angels if you do that.

But if you start giving with a pure heart to all the people close to you, like all the people around you, the people that you think are normal, and the people around you that sometimes upset you a lot, the people who are not so amazing. And you start giving to them, and you start paying attention to giving. And you make a giving part of your career.

You decide that the art of giving and the art of being generous is going to be something that I do. And then we have this practice in Buddhism that you go into a room and you watch people's eyes. And you watch them as they come into your kitchen, for example.

And you watch them, and you see where their eyes go. And people who like cakes, their eyes go to the cake. And they're talking to you, but the eyes are over there.

And then they keep coming back to you once in a while. And in the Tibetan monastery, they teach you to watch people's eyes in a good way. You see, the eyes are what they call the eyes of the mirrors of the soul, the windows of the soul.

That's the meaning of that. You watch people's eyes. Some people's eyes go to the tea.

Some people's eyes go to the refrigerator. Some people's eyes go to the Coke. And giving means you sit there, and you watch them.

And you see what people like. And it doesn't mean that you give money, you write a big check for Kosovo Relief or something like that. That's a good thing to do.

But giving on a very magical level is to sit there and watch people's eyes all day long. Everywhere you are, in the office, in the kitchen, at the home, and especially the people around you. These are the easiest people to be normal with.

You see what I mean? It's very hard to be magical with people you're next to all day. But if you're going to make this work, it has to happen like that.

You're going to have to be doing these things with the people who are close to you. And that's the hardest. Because when you're close to somebody, you get, what is it, familiarity breeds contempt.

You get so used to them that you don't appreciate. There was a monk who lived with the Buddha. He studied with him for 12 years.

His name was Lekhar. And after the 12 years were over, somebody said, hey, what about this Buddha? Is he sort of an amazing chap or what?

And he said, I never saw anything special about him at all. Seems like a normal fellow. He's got this light around his head once in a while.

But besides that, I never saw him do a single surprising thing. He's a normal person. There's nothing special about him.

And this is somebody who lived day in, day out, 12 years, next to the Buddha. And it just means that we all have this capacity to take the things right around us and make them very boring and very normal and very everyday. And the idea of this, we call path of a warrior or the path of a saint, to really become this warrior saint, you see, in your own home, with your own family, is the most difficult part.

You have to do it with the people around you. So it's not like sending 1,000 pounds to Kosovo or something like that. We're talking.

You watch the people around you. And instead of resisting giving them what they want, you watch them. And you make it fun.

And the whole day long, you're going to have fun by watching these people's eyes. And these are people you've lived with for five or 10 years. And you watch them.

Instead of resisting what they like to eat, you go out and buy what they like to eat. Instead of resisting buttering the toast the way they like the toast, you purposely butter it the way they like the toast. And then you pretend you like it that way, see what I mean?

And you keep serving people like this. Your whole day is spent watching other people giving them things. The second kind of giving is help.

People need something. People are hurt. People are having trouble of some kind.

And you watch them. And you help them. And it's not like you're going to have a chance to save somebody who's being murdered by someone on the street.

That's not going to happen every day. Someone drops something on the ground. And you help them pick it up.

And somebody is late to get to school or to work. And you take your time. And you get their briefcase together and something like that.

Or you go get the person's coat. And you make sure their coat is ready. But it's this sort of a, in the Tibetan monasteries, they consider it an art form.

They consider it, you're doing it very well if the other person doesn't notice it, see what I mean? So you don't make a big deal about it. You just start helping them with everything, everything that somebody needs.

You're always anticipating what they want ahead of time. What's the point of this? What's the point of acting like this?

What I'm trying to say is, there are people in the world who are like Joan of Arc, or Jesus, or Mother Teresa, or the Buddha, or something like that, who'd be willing to give their life for you easily. If you were about to get hit by a car, without hesitation and without fear, they would just stand in front of the car and be hit in your stead. You see what I mean?

And that would be an exciting way to live, to be that kind of person, to be that kind of level of person in your own community, in your own family, in your own life, quietly, would be something holy. That would be something meaningful. That would be, you'd be a very, very magical person.

And your whole life would be a joy, you see? Your whole life would be different. It wouldn't be boring, or you wouldn't, you see, thinking about yourself is what makes life stupid, or boring, or normal.

And if you became like this saintly person, if you became what we call a warrior, then your whole life would be some kind of excitement and some kind of, I don't know how to describe it. Benjamin Franklin in America called it a continual Christmas. It's like Christmas every day, and you have this excitement all day long, every day.

You would be, your life would be exciting if you did these things. And that's what I'm trying to, I'm trying to give you a list of things you can try, okay? The third kind of giving we talked about last night was love.

And you give love to people, even when they don't deserve it. You see, Buddhism is very strict about it, okay? I think John said the same thing, you know?

Even when people are being bad to you, that you be good to them, okay? All the time. All the time cheerful.

All the time forgiving. All the time happy. All the time, like, sending love to people.

And people that you meet in the street. I have a student in New York she worked for me in the diamond business. She didn't know I was a Buddhist.

And she watched me for, I don't know, four or five years she worked for me. And when she got to the diamond business she was this very angry person. Really, really angry.

And we had a lot of trouble with her. Like, every few weeks she'd get brought into the office and reprimanded, and then she would walk out in a huff. One day she walked out of the whole building, came back a few hours later, you know?

And she was just this very difficult employee, you know? And then she started doing this kind of work. And she started to study.

She just showed up one night in a class, I remember. And she started to come more and more. Now she's this, I think she has maybe 50 or 100 students of her own.

She has this shining face. Everyone swears she's a saint, you know? Those of us who remember, it's a little hard.

You know? I remember in a period of three months she got fired from five jobs for fighting. And now she's this unbelievable shining person.

You just wouldn't believe it. You would never believe me. The new people who come, they don't believe me when I tell them how she used to be.

And it's from doing these things. It's from studying these things. And she has these amazing dreams, amazing experiences happen to her.

And we walk through a bus station, three people will stop and ask her about their life or something, because she's just shining. And she does this thing to people. And this is what we're talking about.

That somehow your life, to be a normal person is very boring, it's a waste of your life. And to be is like Mother Teresa or something like that. We say anybody can be like Mother Teresa.

We say anybody can be like Jesus. You just have to practice the right things. And we say it's a lot like playing piano.

We say you have to practice. You know, when you start piano, it's this very boring thing where you have to do scales. I played an instrument and my teacher used to make me play scales day after day after day after day until I was sick of them, totally sick of them.

And I'd say, no, no, it's been six months now. I've been playing scales for two, three hours a day. No, go back, play some more scales.

And you can become, and then later we were playing concerts together. And you can do it, but you have to practice every day. You see, it's just the same as everything else.

Becoming Mother Teresa or becoming some kind of a special person, like a saint, who's having this extraordinary life in the middle of Galway is, everybody's eligible. You just have to practice like playing piano. And you have to try a little bit every day.

We're going to talk more about that. So that's the third kind of giving, which is giving love to other people. People smell it and they come around.

They respond to it. Number four, giving number four is like giving some kind of spiritual knowledge to other people, like teaching someone how to do this. You see, I mean, if you know about piano, if you ever learned an instrument well, you have to have a really good teacher.

Somebody has to sit there. And you can't learn it from a book. You can't learn it from a video.

You can't learn it from a cassette tape. Almost every great art, you have to learn at the feet. And what's smart at the beginning is to find the best one you can find.

You see what I mean? Go out and find the best master. And then you beg them to teach you.

You see what I mean? I did it in the diamond business. I went out and find the best diamond guy in the world and ask him to teach me.

And I did it in Tibetan. Went out and found the best. And sometimes they charge you a lot.

Like the diamond cutting guy charged me $3,000 for the first lesson, to come in to the first lesson. And I don't mean to say pay money. What I'm saying is find the best at this thing.

If you're going to learn to be something extraordinary, then you have to take lessons, and you have to practice all the time. So we're going to talk about ways to practice it. But what I'm saying is that if you try these four things, if you try to give like that, something else will happen to you.

I think it's very important from the beginning to talk about how it happens. People tell me when you go to Ireland, don't get into this deep philosophy stuff. Just teach them sweet things about life and stuff like that.

But the more I think about it, I don't think you can do it without the philosophy. So I'm going to give you a little philosophy, OK? I think too much philosophy is dumb.

Too much philosophy makes you, I think, sort of a very boring person. But a little bit is necessary to understand this stuff. Because you've heard people your whole life say you should be a good person because you should be a good person.

And I want to propose something different. And I'm sorry to bore those who've had it before, OK? But anyway, we talked a little bit about it last night.

Is this a good pen or a bad pen? We've got a couple of opinions already. Some people say good.

What do you guys say? Good or bad? Neither?

OK. Some people say neither. Some people say both.

Some people say good. Some people say bad, and they want me to stop talking and put the pen down. But people in Ireland are very polite.

Anyway, you know when I ask you the question. Each person in this room has a different feeling about the pen. Maybe a certain number of people say, that's a pretty good pen.

It's pretty clear. Not bad. It works.

I kind of like the pen. It's kind of a nice pen. And then some people can say, well, it's kind of a fat pen.

You should have had a thinner one. It looks a little funny for a pen. Some people maybe won't like it.

And then some people don't feel much either way. But everybody in this room is having a slightly different opinion about the pen. Some people might come in and say, I really don't like that pen.

I don't like what you're writing on the board. I think it's a bad pen. And some people think it's a good pen.

So where's the good coming from? If you like the pen, where is it coming from? Your perception.

It's just your perception. And there's about 50 people, and each person's having a slightly different idea about the pen. This is a thing in Buddhism that we call blank or neutral.

The pen itself is blank or neutral. And it's important to understand in order to become a warrior saint, in order to become like Mother Teresa or something, you have to understand this thing. This pen, from its own side, is not good or bad.

From its own side, it's not something good or something bad. It depends on what? Depends on how you see it.

Each person sees it slightly differently. Some people feel really good about the pen. Some people don't feel too good about the pen.

Some people don't care about the pen. Some people wish I stopped talking about the pen. OK.

All right. But everybody's having a slightly different idea. And what's clear is that there's no good thing coming from the pen.

You see what I mean? There's no good of the pen. It's not like everybody I show the pen says exactly the same thing.

That's a brilliant pen. That's the most brilliant pen. It's not like that.

If it was a brilliant pen from its own side, if the pen was good by itself, then everybody here would have what? Everybody would have the same idea about the pen. Everybody would say the same thing.

When I said, how do you like this pen? Everybody would say brilliant. At the same time, they'd say brilliant.

And they'd say it at the same volume. Everybody would say brilliant at the same time. If it was brilliant from its own side, then everybody would say.

If I say, what is this? Everybody would say, pen. Everybody has the same reaction at the same moment.

But if I say, is it good or bad? Then somebody says, good. Somebody says, kind of good.

Somebody says, neutral. Where is it coming from? The idea of the pen.

Whether it's good or bad, where is that coming from? It's coming from each person here. Each person here.

So some people are really enjoying this pen, and some people are really not enjoying it by now. If I keep going like this for a few more minutes, right? OK.

Now we say something interesting. We say the pen is neutral. We say it's not a bad pen, and it's not a good pen by itself.

We say it's just neutral. Sometimes they say blank in Buddhism. Sometimes they say empty.

But empty is a kind of, you know, it has ink in it and everything. But empty means it's neutral. Now how you see it depends on you.

Where is that coming from?

[Говорящий 2]
You mean my perception?

[Говорящий 1]
But where is your perception coming from?

[Говорящий 2]
Spirit in my mind.

[Говорящий 1]
Your mind. But why is your mind having that perception, other people's mind not having that perception? Like, you could say conditioning, OK?

Some kind of conditioning. Now Buddhism says there's two kinds of conditioning. One is what we call, like, recent conditioning in your life.

You know, like, somebody beat you up yesterday and hit you with a pen like this, over and over. And then you came in today and you said, oh, don't show me that pen, you know. That was yesterday, you know, I remember that.

Now somebody else remembers, you know, fourth class in school and remembers how much fun it was to draw things with a pen. And they have this very happy remembrance of a pen. And when they see a pen, they feel happy.

We're not so much talking about that kind of temporary conditioning. We're talking more like an ultimate conditioning. Meaning, we say that in your mind, in each person's mind, there's a different set of perceptions that makes them see something.

We call them imprints, like footprints in your mind, OK? Like, there's certain deep imprints in your mind that make you see something a certain way. For example, how do you say this word?

Please repeat, shanti. Shanti. Shantim.

Repeat it, shantim. OK. You have this imprint in your mind, we say, from your school days, and you remember what S is, and you remember what A is, and you remember what I is.

Where is that memory? Where is that knowledge of A, B, C? Where does it stay?

It stays somewhere in your mind, OK? It's like in some kind of subconscious. When you need it, you pull it up, right?

Does it go away? Well, when you die, maybe, OK? Or if you live that long in the nursing home, you know, you say, A, B...

Forget the third one, OK? I mean, that happens, right? But generally, that imprint stays a long time.

You know, it's interesting, because it only took about a year to put the imprint there, and it lasts for 60, 70 years. The imprint has that power. We say that there are similar imprints in your mind all the time.

Your mind is like a big pocket full of imprints. Thousands upon thousands of imprints are sitting there, in the bottom part of your mind, in your subconscious. And they have been collecting there, and they're sitting there.

And then, when I pulled out this pen, and I said, Do you like this pen? Some kind of imprint comes up, like some kind of coloring on your eyes, and they make you see the pen a certain way, OK? So, get used to that idea.

I say, Do you like the pen? And then, suddenly, your eyes are covered with this kind of imprint. And that imprint says, Yeah, I like the pen.

The pen looks good to me. And then other people have other imprints. And when they look at the pen, what?

Different color comes up. They say, I don't like that pen. You see what I mean?

It's like glasses or something. It's like a way... It colors the way you see the world.

And we say that every human mind is chock-full of these thousands and thousands of imprints. And they're responsible for how you see the world around you, OK? They're responsible for whether you like something or not, OK?

That's what decides whether you like something or not. And everybody in this room likes this a little differently, because everybody in this room has a slightly different imprint in their mind, that comes up. We say those imprints are temporary.

They come and go. They're like all other energies, OK? They come up in your mind for maybe five minutes.

Five minutes ago I liked this pen, but this guy's talking so long about this pen, now I don't like this pen, OK? We say the imprints wear out, OK? We say they wear out of their own accord.

We say that they are planted like a tree is planted. And then when I hold up the pen, they start to grow. And then in your mind, this liking, liking, liking, liking, liking, liking, and then the guy's going on too long, it's getting kind of late.

Disliking, disliking, disliking, disliking, disliking. And we say all imprints in your mind, they come up, and they go down. Because they have an energy, they have a power.

They are like a tree. The tree grows, and then the tree dies. And all the imprints in your mind are like that.

You will like this for a while, and then what will happen? You'll start to get tired of it. One pizza is good.

Two pizzas starts to hurt. Three pizzas is like a torture. Eat this third pizza.

No, no, please, no. OK, it's like, you see, and everything you like is like that. Have one scoop of ice cream.

Oh, it's great. Have two. Wow.

Have three. Oh, no more. Four, no way.

Five, no, you're torturing me. And we say everything is like that. All things that you like change like that.

And we say it's because the imprint in your mind comes up like a tree. It stays for a while, and then it dies. And we say this happens with every relationship you ever have, with things and with people.

You meet somebody, you know how it goes. You're at a Buddhist talk in this presentation school, and you meet this person. And you're like intrigued at the beginning, you know?

Like, who? Maybe they'd like to go out and have a coffee, you know? And then the third night, you get enough courage and you say, come out with me and have a coffee, you know?

And they come out. And it's very exciting, you know? At first, you're wondering, will they like me?

Will they agree? Can we go out? And then you have a coffee, and you say, you know, would you like to have some cake?

And then you have cake, and then you say, would you like to come out with me tomorrow night? And they say yes, and you're all excited. You go out, you buy a new dress or new makeup or something.

And then the second night is even more exciting, and maybe they hold your hand. And then it gets more and more exciting, you know? And then finally, you have a relationship.

And then there comes a day, you know? And you know the day. And then suddenly, they seem to be a little different.

You say, I don't like the way you did that, you know? And you say, you know, you've never said that to me before. They say, yeah, but I never saw that before.

You never did that before. And then they say, OK, well, you don't mind. You know, I do that once in a while, but I'll stop, you know?

And then the second day, it's like, no, no, now you did that again. Now you did that other thing that you never did before. And then this thing starts to happen between you, you know?

And then that gets stronger and stronger. We say that the imprint to find them intriguing wears out, OK? All the imprints in your mind, as they come up, they start to wear out, OK?

Buddhism says that when a thing starts to grow, it is planting its own death, you see? The beginning of something is the cause for the death of the thing. And nothing else is necessary to make it stop, you see?

You don't have to get hit by a car. You don't have to get cancer. Your body will die anyway.

You see what I mean? It will get old and die. If you're one of those few people who doesn't get killed by something, it'll die anyway.

Why? Because it was born, OK? What's that got to do with all this stuff?

We say that your whole world is colored by these imprints, you know? By the imprints. Who puts the imprints there?

Supposed to be you do, OK? How do you put imprints there? We say by thinking, by doing, or by speaking.

Three ways. When you do anything, when you say anything, or when you think anything, an imprint is put on your mind. We say your mind is like putty, soft clay.

And every time you have a thought, it's written in the clay. Or every time you do something to someone, there's an impression left on your mind, OK? When your teacher in first class taught you ABC, they were writing on this putty called what?

Your mind, OK? So your mind is like a big tape recorder, or like putty. And everything that happens to you is recorded in the mind.

We believe that. We believe that everything you do leaves an impression on your mind, OK? Especially anything you do to help or hurt another person, OK?

All the writing on your putty, on your mind putty, it's all done by how you treat other people. If you treat them kindly, good things are written on your mind stream. If you treat them unkindly, a bad impression is made on your mind stream, OK?

And that's where we believe the imprints come from. So if I hold up this pen and you like it, what? What can we say about your past?

You did something nice to somebody, OK? There's this Sound of Music movie, did you see it? I must have done something good.

OK? It's like that. You know, it's true, we believe that.

Anytime you have an impression of something and you like it, we say an imprint is coming up from your subconscious. And it was planted there when you did something good to another person, OK? Anything good for another person.

What's this got to do with warriors, saints, and becoming a special person, and having an amazing life? We were talking about meeting angels, OK? We were talking about meeting angels.

What's it got to do with that? We say angels are just neutral, you see? They're like the pen, OK?

They're just like this pen. If you met one today, and you didn't have any good thoughts or bad thoughts in your mind, good imprints or bad imprints, you would think what? Just a normal person.

They would look like a normal person to you, OK? Somebody in the room would go, Ah! Ah!

Ah! And you'd say, what's wrong? You don't see?

See what? You know, and you're both looking at the same person, the same pen, in effect. You see what I mean?

It's the same principle. We say that this person is neutral. We say this person is just neutral, medium, OK?

If you have very good imprints in your mind, what do you see? You see, you actually see an angel, OK? If you have sort of bad imprints in your mind, Oh, that Buddha guy, I stayed with him for 12 years.

Nothing special, you know. He's got this light around his head sometimes. That's it.

I don't see anything else special about him. You see what I mean? And that's what we say is the reason to study what we're studying tonight, OK?

We're studying the art of putting good imprints in your mind, OK? Putting good imprints in your mind. You want to meet angels?

You want to be Mother Teresa? You want to have amazing experiences that you read about in the Bible and people said they don't happen anymore? You just have to learn how to do these six things, OK?

Six kinds of activity. And that's why we're talking about them, OK? You can become one of those people.

And you don't have to, like, save the world, OK? You can do this with your family. You see, it's a state of mind.

The imprints are planted by a state of mind. You watch the people you live with. You watch their eyes.

You serve them. You give them everything they ever dreamed of. And then all these incredibly powerful imprints are being put in your mind, OK?

Then suddenly you wake up one morning and you start seeing things special, magical. Things start happening in your life, OK? By the way, they happen very slowly.

They start, we talked about it last night. First, it's sort of an improvement, general improvement. You feel slightly better.

Your boss gives you a small raise, you know? Your wife is a little bit nicer, OK? Something like that.

And then we say, surprising. You know, like, the children come and thank you for being a good mother. You never said that before, you know?

I don't know, it just came into my mind, you see? Where did it come from, by the way? Who made it?

You did. You see, not the child. It's not your son or your daughter.

It's you. You know, you've changed. You've planted new imprints.

And they actually come up and they force you to see this person thanking you, OK? You're responsible for them thanking you, all right? Then third stage is like we called it yesterday, amazing.

Like, your son or daughter cleans up their room by themselves, or no, not like that. Your boss gives you a major raise, you know? A health problem that you had for five years goes away, OK?

Like that. Because health problems are the same as this, OK? Your body is the same as this pen.

Whether you feel your body is something good or something bad is totally up to the imprints you put in your mind. You see what I mean? Can you just decide tonight that this sounds like a good idea and you don't want to have a backache anymore?

What do you think? Can you just go home and say, that guy said everything's a mental, everything's my perception. OK, tomorrow morning, I won't have a backache anymore.

Guess what happens? You still have a backache the next morning, OK? Why?

The imprints are like gardening, OK? They're just like gardening. You have to put seeds in your mind, then you have to wait.

And they take time. Just like a tree. They're just like a tree.

And so don't expect you're going to be good to someone. I'm going to give away five pounds in the morning and get 15 pounds back by the evening, OK? It doesn't work like that, OK?

We do say that nothing is ever lost. Nothing is ever lost. If you give away five pounds, you will get back 50 pounds, 500 pounds, 5,000 pounds.

Takes time. It's like gardening, OK? Things take time.

Things don't change that fast, all right? Do they change at all? Does all this stuff work?

Yes, OK? Prove it. Well, I started a company with three guys.

I'm not the owner, OK? We started with $50,000. We use these principles.

That company sells $125 million a year now. It works, OK? I'm not asking you to do something that doesn't work, or something that's not been proven, or something like that.

You can do it, OK? It works. It works beyond anything you ever dreamed of, OK?

And I'm not just talking money. Money is kind of stupid. Money can be a burden, right?

I'm talking other things, too, like your health, OK? If you have a health problem, and you really try these things for a while, it'll just go away, OK? Period.

We say very amazing things can happen. You see, it's not just seeing angels. I mean, your own body will start to change, OK?

And you can try it. That's the whole idea. That's the whole point to do these things.

Very big things can change. You have to do it consistently. You have to understand how it works.

And you have to keep track of how you're doing. Like, all day long, you have to check yourself and say, OK, how am I doing today about those things, all right? OK, tonight we're supposed to talk about number two.

We didn't even get there yet, OK? Can you see? It's OK?

Can you see? No?

[Говорящий 2]
OK.

[Говорящий 1]
Better? All right. Yesterday, we talked about giving, and we finished it.

And tonight, we go to number two. By the way, those of you who were here last night, I promised you a quiz, right? And they didn't hand it out before, so they're going to hand it out during the break.

OK, very easy. I ask everybody to do homeworks and quizzes. You're going to get a homework before you go home tonight about what we're talking about.

And then tomorrow, when you come back, you have to take a quiz. People say, I'm not in sixth class. I don't know why you're doing this to me.

I'm an adult now. I thought I didn't have to do that anymore. If you do this, you learn it a lot better.

You see? If you know you're going to get homework, you'll probably listen more carefully. Like, people in New York, they ask me, is that on the homework?

I say, no. They say, OK, I don't have to listen right now. OK?

It actually works, you know? I taught for a long time and didn't make people do homework. And nobody learned anything.

Later, I made everybody do homework. And now, oh, they're all brilliant. I have 12 of my students that are teaching in New York.

And you remember if you have to write it down and you have to write it again. So it's not torture, OK? I'm sure you'll perceive it as a nice thing eventually.

OK, number two. I like to put up a little bit of Tibetan just to impress you. OK?

And then we'll go to English. Please say tsultrim. Tsultrim.

This is the second thing which will make your life amazing, OK? And I'm not kidding. All the stuff I'm talking about really happened, OK?

I mean, it's happened for me. And we're not supposed to brag or talk about our own spiritual life or something like that. But I want you to know it really works.

And it really does work. And we really do make $125 million a year. I don't get any of it, OK?

But we make it, OK? No, actually we are supporting 2,000 Tibetan refugees every day, all their food. I mean, that's the kind of thing you want to do with your money after you make it.

But anyway, you can do it with this kind of teaching. If you follow what I'm saying, you can do those things. And your life will be something amazing.

You don't know what it feels like to go to a town and know that you're feeding everybody in the town. You know, it feels wonderful. You know, people who really need it, like a refugee camp, OK?

So that's sutra. Sutra means leading an ethical way of life, an ethical way of life, OK? That's what we call the second perfection, the second perfection.

There are three kinds of sutra. The first kind of ethical life, OK, the first kind of guide to an ethical life we call freedom. A freedom, like a list of freedom guide.

Guide, what do you say in English? How are we going to call that? How about guidelines?

Yeah. Freedom guidelines. These are ways of behaving throughout the day that make you free.

What does free mean? In this case, freedom means free from negative thoughts, OK? Free from negative thoughts.

If you keep doing these freedom guidelines, if you keep following them all day long, eventually you reach a place where you never again have an emotion of anger. You're not capable of having anger. You never again feel anxiety.

You never again feel jealousy, OK? All of those kinds of thoughts, you're not capable of them, OK? Somebody can come up and hit you in the face, and you can actually turn the other cheek and hit me again.

And you're not worried at all. You're not afraid of anything. You have no fear, no anxiety, no depression, no worries, no anger, no jealousy, completely, totally free from those things, OK?

That's what happens if you keep up the freedom guidelines. That's the first kind of sutra. That's the first kind of ethical living, OK?

Why does that happen to those people? Why do you think? The secret is in this thing.

You see, it's an interesting thing. Your mind is just like the pen. Your mind is just like the pen.

Whether you hear your mind as a pleasant thing or whether you experience your mind as an unpleasant thing depends on what? Those same imprints, you see? If you have put good imprints in your mind, then you get to hear your own mind be a very clean mind.

It's very interesting. It's just like the pen. Do you find your mind enjoyable now?

Is your mind an enjoyable place to be all day long, you see? I mean, most people say, yeah, part of the day it's OK, right after I have coffee, it feels great. And then after I meet that person down the street, it feels bad to be in my mind.

And later on it feels neutral to be in my mind. And around dinner time it feels good to be in my mind again. And you see, I mean, those are all, we say, imprints coming up to the conscious mind.

They were planted by how you acted towards other people, OK? Like, people have been really good for a long time. They hear music differently.

The weather feels different to them. Food tastes better to them. The people around them are like holy, brilliant people.

You see what I mean? And that's a result of planting good imprints in your mind. So, freedom guidelines are such that if you keep them for a long time, everything around you starts to change.

Imagine. I mean, once in a while you'll be at the beach on a good day, and you get a feeling of what it was like to be young again. You know, like, things smell very sharp, and you eat some, you know, the wind is kind of cold, and the ocean is there, and you eat something and it tastes like more tasty than it's tasted in five years or something like that.

And then somebody puts on music on a radio, and suddenly it's just like the most amazing music you ever heard. You know, people who write great poetry, people who write great music, people who paint great paintings, they are experiencing the world in a different way than we are. And that's because they have better imprints inside them.

And you can plant them very consciously. You can say, I want to be a great poet in two years. I want to be a great musician in two years.

You know, I want even McDonald's food to taste good in two years. So, purposely, you put these imprints in your mind, okay? And then it will.

You see, it's very interesting. The people around you will change. You know, people ask me, why do you hang around with these people?

Why are they following you around? I say, these are the most incredible people I've ever met. These are the most amazing people.

They're bright, they're excited, their minds are incredible, you know. Physically, they're very beautiful and excited, and they say, why do you get these people to follow you? I say, I didn't do anything.

You know, I'm just keeping these guidelines, you know, and they show up. You see what I mean? The people around you will start to change.

The very people around you will start to change. They're on the way to becoming what? Angels.

I'm not kidding. Rome wasn't built in a day, okay? First you meet one brilliant person, then you meet two, then you meet an extraordinary person.

Then like the sixteenth one is like, got this little glow around their head, you know, okay? Like that. And your life starts to be like that.

I'm not kidding, okay? You can watch it happen. It's very nice to know how to do it, you see?

It takes a little time, it's just like planting a garden. Maybe you have to put the bulbs in this year and they come up next March. Seriously, okay?

It's just like planting a garden. Your subconscious is this big earth and you have to be very selective and you have to plant the right things there. You have to weed out the rotten ones every once in a while.

And then only good things happen to you, okay? Number two. I like warrior saint.

Let's put saint in here. The word in Tibetan is is a senpa, pao. But it means like a warrior saint.

You don't have to be dressed in armor. You don't have to live in 1100 AD. You don't have to ride white horses.

I met a woman in Mongolia. We were in Mongolia about a week ago. And we just finished giving a talk, like a thousand people came.

There was a riot afterwards. No, I mean they were like crushing the stage to be up on, you know, just to get a touch or just to... And then, like two hours later the place calmed down and there were four or five people left.

And this lady comes in and she's got blonde hair and she's about 50 years old and she's a little chubby and she's very unimpressive. And she comes in and she walks up and somebody says, do you know who this is? And I said, no, I'm very happy to meet a westerner in Mongolia, you know.

And they said, this is... what was her name? Huh?

Yeah, what's her other name? Christina. Noble.

Yeah. Yeah, and they say, this is Christina Noble. And I say, I never heard of Christina Noble.

And they say, she saved 130,000 children in Vietnam. And I'm like, wow, she just looks like a normal old lady, you know. And she says, hi, I'm just like a normal...

You know, she's like... No, she refused to be a famous person, you know. She was like, hi, I'm Christina and I'm glad you came and a very nice talk and the children liked it a lot.

You know, how are you doing? And, you know, it's like... And then you meet this person, you see, that's a warrior.

She's a warrior. I'm talking about a warrior saint. I count her as a warrior saint.

She doesn't show anything outside. She looks like a normal person. You know, she looks like a tourist, actually.

And you're like, what are you doing in Mongolia? You know, there's no TV here. You know, I mean, a little bit, but...

Why are you here? Oh, I just saved 10,000 children's lives, you know. This is a saint, you see, this is a warrior saint.

To be like that... As I understand it, she started out as a normal housewife. She got one kid, then she got two kids, then she got three kids.

That's what we're talking about, okay? Those are the guidelines that make you like that, okay? And you don't have to look like Sir Galahad on the outside, you know.

That's not the point. I count her as a warrior saint, you know. And what I especially like about her is she's so modest about it.

She wouldn't say a word. She wouldn't talk about herself for a minute. And it's kind of cool.

Okay, number three. Number three are the secret guidelines. And they're not like horrible secret, but they're just like special.

And you have to have a lot of training in the other two before you can start trying them. And because they're secret, I'm not going to talk about them at all. Okay.

Okay. Now I'm going to tell you the first two. Okay, the ones I can tell you about.

I'm going to start listing them. It's actually a matter of style. We won't talk much about it.

But I'm going to give you ten different activities you can do during the day that will make you like a warrior, like a saint. You don't have to tell anybody you're doing them. If somebody hadn't told me who Christina Noble was, I would have said, you know, the shopping is best over at that store.

You know what I mean? I can tell you where you can get real English biscuits here in Mongolia. You know, she looked like that's all she'd be interested in.

And you don't have to look different. I'm saying on the inside, you become a warrior. I'll give you ten guidelines.

Okay. First one. First one is honor life, okay?

This means you just take care of every living thing around you. Now we, in Buddhism, we don't say plants are included here. Okay, there's a debate about it.

But in the end, they say they don't really have feelings. You see what I mean? So we're talking about life meaning anything which has feelings.

Okay, we're talking about people. We're talking about animals, okay? You can divide animals into two kinds, you know?

The kinds that you think have feelings and the kind you don't want to think about whether they have feelings. You see what I mean? Like, no one would sit there and torture their cat or their dog.

So those animals have feelings. But the ones that we like to eat, those animals don't have feelings, right? I mean, I think 50 years from now, they'll look back on our time and say, those people were so strange, you know?

And you'll say, why? Well, they took care of some of the animals. In fact, in America, I think they spend $1 billion a year taking care of pets.

You see what I mean? $1 billion a year. Taking, you know, pet shampoos, pet vitamins, pet operations, pet vaccinations.

And then they kill the other ones. You see what I mean? Because those have feelings and don't have feelings.

I mean, they'll look back 100 years from now and say we were silly, you know? Like, I remember reading recently, in Benjamin Franklin's time, they had these founding fathers of America, these great, intelligent men, had serious discussions about whether black people are animals or not. They had serious discussions.

These intellectuals, you know? And they were trying to decide whether the slaves or animals are humans. You know what I mean?

And we look back and we say, oh, they're so crazy. They're so silly, you know? I think people will look back on our times and say something similar.

They took care of their animals in their home and they killed the other ones. I don't know what they were thinking, you know what I mean? Anyway, life means anything with feelings, all right?

Life means anything with feelings. Any creature that has feelings. You stamp on a floor, mice run away, birds run away.

Why? Why do birds fly away when you walk up to them? They have feelings.

They're afraid. OK? They're afraid of you.

Fish are afraid of you. That's why they swim away. So we say, anyway, they have life.

That proves they have life. That shows they have life. Respect all life.

I should have said—I meant to say respect. How's that? Respect life.

Respect all life, OK? Wherever it is, whatever form it is, respect it. Take care of it, you know?

What does this mean if you're going to be a warrior? We say warriors have to start small, OK? Warriors have to start with small things.

Like what? OK? What thing can you do to respect life tonight?

Drive carefully home. OK? That's very interesting.

You see, we say becoming a saint, becoming a Christina Nobel depends— you start with small things. You start with paying attention when you drive, OK? You start with, you know, when we take our tea break, which will be soon, you take the time to move your bag out of the aisle.

Because there's a one chance in 10,000 that someone could trip on it and hurt themselves. So this is respecting life. You see what I mean?

You watch out through the whole day for little things that might hurt other people's life, OK? All through the day, you're like thinking ahead of time, what would be something I could do to protect life? Oh, keep those pens off the floor.

See if I can get my neighbor to stop eating too many— what do you call those things? Scones. This is, by the way, this is the behavior of a saint.

You see? You don't have to go to Vietnam and save 130,000 children. You will get there.

You will become that. But in the meantime, start with the things around you. And you start thinking like a saint, you see?

What's in this room that might hurt somebody? You know, what can I do to protect human life? You see what I mean?

And you start like that. By the way, in Buddhism, we believe that abortion is murder also, OK? We believe that you have to protect that kind of life also.

We believe that at the moment of conception, that the mind enters that single cell, or single two cells. We believe that the child is alive at that point, OK? So, if you want to know the Buddhist viewpoint, it's very clear.

You can't have abortions, OK? Can you... Is it killing to have birth control?

We say no. If you prevent the egg from meeting the sperm, there's no life yet. We believe that life is not there, and you haven't done anything to harm life.

You sort of deprive someone of a life, but that's not so bad. You see what I mean? You haven't killed anything by doing birth control.

If you do, I understand there's like this new birth control, morning after pill, or something like that. It ruins the cells after they've already conceived. That would be murder.

You see what I mean? So, that's where we draw the line in Buddhism. Like, birth control itself, you're not killing anything yet.

After conception has taken place, then anything you do to stop that, that life, we would consider it killing, OK? And so, you'd have to include that in honoring life, you see? You'd have to include that.

That's one of the most common ways in America that you could fail at this guideline, you see? Millions of women in the United States have abortions every few years, and we believe that's not honoring life, OK? And that's a big mistake.

So, like that. What happens to you if you do that kind of thing? You tell me.

You plant some new imprints, very, very bad imprints, OK? Very dangerous imprints. How do they come back?

How do they affect how you see things? You have a car accident. Your back hurts all the time.

You know, you're one of those people that isn't healthy. You go to the doctor, and they give you some medicine, and it doesn't quite work for you, you see what I mean? We believe medicine is the same as this, you see?

Medicine works for people who have good imprints, meaning for people who've been good to other people. And medicine doesn't work for people who haven't been good to other people. It's very interesting.

If you don't honor life, medicine and doctors themselves can be dangerous for you, you see what I mean? It's very interesting. Something which is meant to keep you alive, like food, could kill you.

You see what I mean? We believe food and medicine are just like this thing. Whether it becomes something that saves you, or whether it becomes something that hurts you, depends on what?

The imprints you put in your own mind. How? By honoring life or not honoring life, you see?

What's the implication for a person in this room who has a health problem? You can remove it. It's very interesting, you know?

Do you know what gout is? I had gout, okay? My father had gout.

It's hereditary, okay? So I had gout. The first time I came to England, I couldn't come.

I couldn't walk. I couldn't get out of the bed, you know? I had gout.

Gout is like these crystals that grow in between the bones of your... you know, and they feel like somebody's sticking a knife in you, you know? Like all the time.

So I went to the doctors and they said, did your father have gout? I said, yeah. And they said, do you eat meat?

And I said, not nothing. They said, are you a drinker? I said, I haven't drunk in 25 years.

They said, well, do you eat a lot of beans, like chickpeas? I said, I eat chickpeas every single day. They said, that's what's giving you gout, you know?

So then they said, now you have to go on this special medicine. And I looked up the medicine in the books and it says, this destroys your liver, your kidneys, your stomach, but it makes your gout feel better. So I said, doesn't this destroy your liver, your kidneys?

And they said, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's okay, you have to take it. And I said, I don't want to take it. And they said, well, if you don't take it, you're going to have gout for the rest of your life.

I said, no, no, I think I'd rather just respect life for a while. And I did, and I haven't had gout since, I don't know, 15, 10 years? Completely gone away.

Totally gone away. I still have the... The place where it was is still this deformation on the bone, and it's just gone away.

I've never had the slightest problem with gout since then. And it works, it really works. This kind of stuff works.

I didn't have to take that medicine, I saved all that money. And it's just by doing small things to honor other people, to respect life, okay? Everywhere you get a chance, any living thing, you respect it, you know?

If you have a choice between killing an insect or not, just leave it. Just walk around it, okay? And let it respect life, any living thing, okay?

You see anyone has a health problem, you help them. You go out of your way to make sure you drive safely. In America or in Ireland, the best way to take life is to kill someone with a car, or in an abortion, or something.

These are probably the two best ways that you and I can kill another human. So you have to be very, very, very careful about those two, you see what I mean? You just respect life like that, okay?

I think we'll stop there for a break. Yeah, did you have a question? Oh, those of you who did your homeworks, you now get a quiz.

I'll give you lots of time, so have some tea, you can spill it on your quiz. Also, if you have any personal questions, you want to just ask a small thing, you can come up here and just crash this little circle, okay? So I'll sit down here, have some tea, okay?

By the way, some people came up to me during the break and said, I was involved in an abortion, what should I do about it? And what can I do with the old imprint that is there? And there's a special method you can use to remove the imprint.

It's interesting, the imprint will otherwise cause you some major health problems, or it will cause you even some accidents or things like that. And you can remove the imprint, or you can change the energy of the imprint. And we'll be going into that, I think, by around Sunday.

So one of the classes on Sunday, we'll talk about how to disable an imprint. It's interesting, we say the imprint stays in you, but it never becomes active. You see?

It never comes back to hurt you. So, we have to talk about that, or I can't leave Galway, right? So, number two, respecting other people's things.

Okay, that's the second guideline. That means, remember, we're not talking about some glorious, great, wonderful thing. We're talking about being saintly in a small way from day to day, and then meeting angels as a result of it.

And actually coming in contact with the real thing. Coming from respecting other people's property on a small, small level, in your immediate experience, with your family, at your office where you work, with your parents, with small things, you know? You don't take the last bowl of morning cereal, you know?

You don't take another person's pen from the desk. You don't make a phone call from work if the boss didn't want you to make a phone call, you see, on his telephone. Things like that.

And it sounds stupid, and it sounds silly, and it sounds like... you don't cheat the least bit on anything, you see what I mean? Some shopkeeper gives you an extra few pens, you go back and give it to them, you see what I mean?

And all day long you're acting like this, with small things around you. The imprint that makes is to have incredible wealth, and I'm not kidding, millions of dollars if you want, okay? It happens, it works, okay?

It's very interesting. It's very interesting. Imprints are very interesting.

They get much bigger during the time... they like incubate in the mind. We say they grow like anything else, you know, like the way that a plant would grow, or the way that a child grows in the womb or something like that, starts with one cell, splits to two, splits to four, splits to sixteen, splits to sixty-four.

We say that within a few days the power of that imprint is sixteen or sixty-four times stronger than it was when you started. So what this means is very interesting. If you pay attention to small things that belong to other people, you're very strict about respecting other people's property.

Then you start to see more and more prosperity around you. Very interesting. Very interesting.

By the way, the opposite happens also, okay? Take a pen from work. I'm not kidding.

I'm dead serious, okay? You're talking to a person who, you know, we sell 125 million dollars a year, okay? And I'm not even there, okay?

That's how... really it works, I'm not kidding. The opposite happens if you steal little things, okay?

If you don't respect other people's property, strictly, then you'll always be in this thing where you don't have enough money, you're always struggling, and it never seems like you have enough, and you don't know why. You see, everything has a cause. Science is right, science just doesn't know how to make it work.

Science is right, everything has a cause. There's a reason why some people have money and other people don't have money. The people who respect other people's things have all the money they need, all the time.

Period. Does it happen in one day? No.

You have to keep it up over a while. Now, what's a while? Is this one of those things that doesn't work till I'm 80?

It can come very fast. It can come in 6 months, it can come in 8 months. You can make it happen very, very fast, okay?

How? The most interesting thing is if you understand how it works, it works faster. If you understand how it works, it works faster.

If you're conscious, consciously good, if you say... If you're about to use somebody's pen, and you say, wait a minute, that guy said that if I ask, if I respect their property, I'll actually be financially better off next year. May I use your pen?

You see what I mean? Even on a small thing like, they're your friend, they don't care if you use their pen, but you ask. You see what I mean?

Respect other people's things to that degree. Then suddenly, if you're conscious of what you're doing, it comes back to you. By the way, this is the whole foundation of the Ten Commandments.

What are the Ten Commandments supposed to do? Get you to heaven. How?

It doesn't explain it very clearly. Did Jesus do this? Obviously.

You see what I mean? Does it work? Of course it works.

You just have to understand how it works. And then it's a lot more fun. So you can actually make it...

It's like gardening. Those of you who garden, when a gardener starts digging the ground in the early spring, they have a vision for the end of the summer or the fall. You know what I mean?

And they have to have that kind of patience and that kind of faith. You see what I mean? When you're digging in the ground and it's still cold outside, of course in Ireland it's cold all year, but...

Seems to me. Anyway, when you're out there digging, a gardener has a vision of what's going to be in the future. You have to be like that.

You can't sit there and go out and march and say, Oh, flowers, now! You know, it doesn't work like that. It just doesn't work like that.

And people, you know, half the people in the room won't try this because they don't have the patience to wait till next fall. But that's what it takes. You have to have that kind of knowledge.

If you plant the seeds with knowledge, if you say, I believe in that imprint thing, I'm going to respect other people's things, strictly. And I dedicate it to, you know, having amazing things happen in my life. They will happen much faster.

By the way, the second way to make them grow faster is to do it for other people. Okay? Like you say, I'm going to respect your property because I know I'll be financially better off next year.

And I'm going to use that money to help other people. First I'll buy a new TV, and then I'll help people. Something like that.

That's fine. By the way, Buddhism doesn't say that you should deprive yourself. Okay?

That's some kind of rumor. You should be happy, comfortable. Simple, but comfortable.

Okay? Because more than that will make you miserable. You know, what's your need, you take care of.

And then you give. You give, constantly give. So, if you think at the time, I'm respecting this person's property because I know it'll make me more prosperous.

And by the way, when I get more prosperous, I'm going to use it to help other people. Then the thing grows very, very fast. Okay?

And every time you give away something to somebody else, you get much more back. You know, that's not just some kind of noble sentiment. That's plain old imprints.

Okay? It works. It's true.

Okay? But you have to know what you're doing, and it helps a lot if you dedicate it to other people. You say, okay, I'm going to be better off next year because I'm doing, I'm respecting other people's things.

And I'm going to use it to help other people. Like that. Okay?

Very powerful. Very, very powerful. It grows much faster.

It's like fertilizer. Okay? Number three.

Three is sexual purity. And, you know, it's kind of hard to talk about sometimes in public. And it's very powerful.

Sexual drive is one of human beings' most powerful drives. It's a very, very powerful energy. We say, in fact, that when a monk or a nun takes vows, that it's the sexual energy that helps you keep those vows.

And we say that a person who doesn't have a clear identity, you know, like they're a neuter, or gender is neuter, they cannot keep vows. They cannot hold vows. There's some kind of powerful energy behind the sexual drive.

So we believe it's a very powerful force for good, and a very powerful force for bad. So we don't believe that you just avoid it, or deny it, or something like that. Recognize that in each person, man or woman, there's a very, very powerful drive.

Okay? Very, very strong drive. And you can either use it for something bad, or use it for something good.

And number three is sexual purity, you know? It starts with respecting other people's husband or wife, okay? You respect that relationship perfectly, okay?

You don't even look at another person's spouse. You don't touch them, you don't speak to them in a way that's meant in a sexual way, okay? Don't even think about it.

And that some kind of energy will come back to you from that. Some kind of very, very deep happiness, and some kind of very deep satisfaction. Also, we believe that the imprints that are planted by this kind of purity are responsible for the beauty of where you live, okay?

So, like, if you are a person who has a high degree of sexual purity, purity in your sexual life, that the weather will be better, the trees will look better, the food will taste better, the people around you will be kinder, all of these things are being created by this kind of attitude, and this kind of respect for other people's husbands and wives. That's the main one. We say any kind of sexual behavior which is excessive, which makes you sort of think about sex too much, you see what I mean, is a problem also.

It creates a negative imprint, okay? Normal sex between two consenting adults who are either married or not married, but they're not married to anybody else, okay? All right?

Consenting sex between single people or between married people, no problem. It's a beautiful thing, it's a good way to use that drive, and it's a very satisfying thing, and it has a very great potential for a good thing. And then any other kind of sexual behavior which is excessive, where you're getting into something strange or something improper, then it doesn't, where it begins to hurt other people, or it begins to make you the kind of person who can't take your mind off it all day long, or it begins to obsess you, we say that plants some kind of bad imprints in your mind, and then, just because it'll make you unhappy, okay?

As you get higher up in the level of things, sexual purity, like with a monk or nun, is just to refrain from it completely. And this is like something that's good to work towards if you can, okay? It's not like we believe that everybody in the world should become a monk or nun, but if you are able to live like that, it's actually even better, because that drive is still there, and you can use it for great things.

You know, there are monks and nuns don't have to sleep at night, they can work all night, they can do huge projects to help other people. I mean, this comes from a monk or nun, or a person who's keeping celibacy voluntarily, it gives you some high energy, it gives you some very high degree of energy. That drive is still there, and it allows you to be, you're much healthier, your mind is much freer, and if you're doing it happily, okay?

I'm not talking about somebody who's doing it unhappily, okay? If you're doing it happily, and because you believe in it, and because it's a pure idea that you're doing it, you actually feel better, your body feels stronger, you're able to concentrate better, a big part of your mind is freed up, and you're actually able to do much greater things with that. So that's like kind of a thing that you could work towards eventually.

Is sex dirty or wrong or anything? Not at all. Any kind of sex which hurts other people, especially adultery, plants very bad imprints in your mind, but everything else is fine unless it gets you thinking about it all the time and distracts your mind and makes you obsessive about it, okay?

So, just normal sex, fine, and then work towards this goal of eventually getting beyond it, you see what I mean? And then everything becomes much stronger, much more... I don't know, much more happy, okay?

The drive is there, the drive doesn't go away, and you use the drive for higher things, okay? Like that. But at this point, number three, for most people, it means no adultery, nothing close to adultery, okay?

Respecting other people's relationships, like that, very carefully, very strictly, okay? I don't know anybody who's done adultery, you know, I'm a monk, people come to me, they confess a lot. I don't know anyone who's done adultery who's happy about it, you see what I mean?

You do it because you think it's gonna make you feel good, and then you always end up feeling lousy later, and I've never met anybody who did it who thought it was worth it, later, you know what I mean? It always seems very important at the time, and then later it's very hollow, and it doesn't make you happy. We say it makes a very negative imprint, and it will disturb your happiness in the future, okay?

It's interesting, in this system of things, the main reason not to do these things is that they ruin your happiness, okay? My tray, okay, okay. Number four, okay, always speak the truth.

In this system, always speaking the truth is very simple, and I know it's getting late, so I'll try to finish this kind of quick. What time you got, Sarah? It's, okay, we'll finish in about five minutes, okay?

And then we'll finish the rest tomorrow. Always speak the truth is very interesting. In this system, it means like this.

Before you say something, you like mentally close your eyes, and you get a picture of what you understand about a thing, like somebody asks you, you know, what does your house look like? And in this system, if you're gonna follow this warrior-saint system, you know, you sort of close your eyes, and you picture your house. And then you try to find the words that for this other person would give them exactly the same picture in their mind, and that's being truthful, okay?

It's very interesting. That's a lot harder than not lying, you see what I mean? What I mean is, before you say something, somebody asks you, what do you think about so-and-so?

Or, what do you think about this thing? And what you do is, in your mind, you make a picture of what you think, and then you try to imagine putting that picture in the other person's mind, and then you say the words that you have to say to give them that picture, you see what I mean? And at the end of any interchange with another person verbally, they should come out with the same picture as you.

And what it means is, it's a lie to give another person a misimpression. We're not just talking about what you say, but what you say must give them exactly the same impression that you have. And that's total honesty.

It's very interesting. It's a very difficult art. It's a very difficult thing.

Like, you have an understanding of something, and you want to explain, you want to express in words, in a way, that this other person comes out with exactly that same understanding, and that's truth, you see what I mean? Which is much harder than just telling the truth, you see what I mean? If you say, what do you think about this problem?

And you say, well, I kind of think like that. But you don't express yourself carefully, and their impression is slightly different. Then it's some kind of untruth.

So, total honesty is something that's difficult. And total honesty takes some kind of care and practice, like playing the piano, okay? Like, to be totally honest to another person requires great skill in expressing yourself.

And that's the idea, that you are driven that the other person's impression be correct and completely accurate about anything that they ask you about. You see what I mean? This is truth.

And then, if you can go back at the end of the day, and say, I have been totally truthful, imagine how it feels. I don't know if you can even imagine how it feels through the whole day to speak absolute truth to other people. Complete, 100% total truth.

And at the end of the day, you can look back and say, I spoke absolute truth to everyone in the whole day. We believe those impressions can create miracles. We call it an act of truth, you know?

Those imprints on your mind can make miracles happen. We believe that, you know, if someone is sick, and you haven't lied the whole day, and you can put your hand on them, and you can say, by the truth, that I have given no one a single misimpression today, may this person be cured. You see what I mean?

We believe that, we believe that it's called a denbe to, in Tibetan, it means the power of truth, absolute truth. Like, if you can get to the end of the day and say, in this whole day, I did not tell the slightest lie. I didn't give another person the smallest misimpression.

And then, you can, at the end of the day, you can call on that power to make things happen. You see what I mean? You can meet angels like that.

You see what I mean? It's just a, it's a cool idea. It's a very, very interesting idea.

You can do it, okay? You can actually try it. Now, to spend a whole day completely honest is a little hard.

Okay. This is the last one, then we'll finish. This is a special one.

Number five is, people are split up, you know? This person doesn't like that person, or this person used to like that person, or this person has a bad impression of this other person, and you try very hard to go to the first person and say, do you know that this person actually kind of likes you? By the way, it should be true, okay?

All right? Or else you break number four. Okay, but you find excuses to bring people back together.

Okay? Like, you're spending your whole day looking at people and seeing ways to bring other people in contact with other people. You say, this person should meet this person, you know?

Like, there's people that do this. If you meet them, they're special people. Like, I don't know, I've been meeting a few on this trip, one in Mongolia, I remember, and Bacalar Rinpoche, one in Australia called Salim Lee.

They're constantly on the lookout. They'll say, this person should meet this person, or this person, who's kind of thinking badly of this person, I want them to meet each other and make up. So, all day long, you're looking for ways to bring people back together, okay?

On an international level, on a personal level, on a family level, two people in your family are having a little fight, and you find some excuse to get them back together, you see what I mean? And all day long, you're looking for ways to bring people back together with each other, okay?

[Говорящий 2]
Are you talking only if they're split?

[Говорящий 1]
She said, are you talking only if they're split? Even if they're not close, but they're pretty close, and you make them closer, that's the same thing, see what I mean? They don't have to be split up.

They could be two people who are pretty friendly, and then you make them very friendly, see what I mean? And this is like an art of looking through the world and trying to bring people together, trying to bring people to love each other more, trying to bring any two people that you meet, trying to find an excuse that they should get closer to each other, okay? And this is a special good imprint.

If you keep this imprint up, then special things happen to you. I told you that'd be the last one, right? Okay, since I did four, I'll have to stop there.

Let me see, you guys have to, I didn't give you all the answers on the homework. Write, make a note, okay? You have to answer question number one.

Answer question three, but only do five parts. And that's all, you get off easy, okay? Question, you can skip question two, and you can skip the second half of question three, all right?

And we'll cover them tomorrow. What time we start tomorrow, Kevin?

[Говорящий 2]
10 o'clock.

[Говорящий 1]
10 o'clock? Is that Galway time?

[Говорящий 2]
No. That's not right. If we're enjoying it so much tonight, we might be here a long time.

[Говорящий 1]
No, no, I enjoy it, but I still have a long time, okay. That's all we'll do tonight, so see you tomorrow, okay? Thank you.

Thank you. Bye.