Сад (1999, Нью-Йорк), занятие 3

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, so we'll start. We've been going through, for the last few months, a book called The Garden, and in this book, this young man walks into a special garden, and he meets different masters of Buddhism, and then one by one, they are enlightening him. He's looking for a girl, and he keeps bumping into these Buddhist masters, okay?

And we've reached the seventh chapter, and in the seventh chapter, he bumps into the first Dalai Lama, okay? The first Dalai Lama's name was Gyawar Gendun Drup, and he was a student of Je Tsongkhapa, who founded the Great Monasteries of Tibet, the Three Great Monasteries, the greatest of which is Sero Monastery. And so, very famous scholar, he wrote a very beautiful explanation of what we call Abhidharma, and this chapter is basically borrowed from the Abhidharma Kosha commentary by the first Dalai Lama.

So, this young man has been grappling with the question of suffering, and I think for me, my first great reason to be a Buddhist, and the reason I, you know, was attracted to Buddhism at all, was suffering. And I think most of the great students I know, the good people are good students of Buddhism, it's because of some, often tragedy in their lives, that they are interested in Buddhism. And I don't have to talk about it much, I don't have to try to convince you, we talked about it last week, but you can count, simply, all the good things you have.

You have a body which is still working, or you wouldn't have gotten here. You have a pretty good mind, or you wouldn't be understanding what I'm saying. You have some number of friends, you have some number of family, you have a place to stay, even though that's difficult to arrange sometimes.

All of those things you have. And then, you know, what you can expect out of life, is that one by one, these things will be taken away from you. Okay?

One by one, whatever strength your body has will be lost. You know, everybody thinks they're an exception. I don't know why everybody thinks that.

I think that too. My eyes won't go bad. This eye is not cooperating.

And all my friends already have glasses, I don't have glasses. And they're saying, he's already bald, but I'm not. And everybody thinks they're an exception.

Everybody thinks they're going to be different, for some reason. When I was in high school, I used to ask the girl, let me meet your mother before I take you out on a date. I want to see what you're going to look like.

And then, if you run it that way, it's pretty bad, you know? But that's the way it is. You will end up looking like your grandparents do now.

And to think that you're different, or somehow it's not going to happen to you, or somehow you're exempted from that, it's just foolish. I mean, it hasn't happened yet, it's not going to happen with you, probably. You know what I mean?

So, you will lose your bodily strength. You will get old, wrinkly, ugly. You will start to forget everything.

You will be slow. You will have to drive. You know, you'll be the person that you can't stand on the street when you're driving, you know?

The person, you're behind them and they're like going 20 miles an hour. Do you think this guy wasn't driving 70 when he was 20? You see what I mean?

Of course he was. Do you think he enjoys being slow and not being able to remember what street he's on, or what side of the street he's on, or not being able to see anything, or... You know, you will be the person that you curse today in that car.

You know what I mean? So, your body will go. Your mind will go.

I mean, I used to think in high school, OK, I'm not so strong as those football players, but at least I can get good grades, you know? Like, I got something on them. You'll lose that too.

So, it's no comfort, you know? In fact, it seems to be like the most intelligent people who fall the furthest as they get older. Like, when an intelligent person starts to forget everything and can't remember words for things and can't remember people's names and things like that, it's even more depressing than a normal person.

So, and this will come. Whatever family you have will die off one by one, slowly. Friends, family, parents, children, brothers, sisters, everyone you know will die off one by one.

Whatever job you have... I worked in a corporation for 16 years. You can just...

It's like Nagarjuna said, it's like watching a... Arya Nagarjuna said, it's like watching a waterfall. It's like standing at the edge of Niagara and watching people go over in barrels, you know?

And first, you know, this guy gets sick, this guy has a stroke. Half the people I used to work with have strokes. One of the best ones died a horrible death of diabetes, you know?

And got their leg chopped off and then died slowly. And then, you know, the people... You go there and it's just who's still left?

The question is who's still left there? You see what I mean? And that's all you have to look forward to, you know?

As far as your friends, your career, what you call your career, this is what you have to look forward to, you know what I mean? People are struggling to get some kind of position at work and to build up through the organization and there's no end to that, you know? I did it.

You get to be vice president. I swear to God, the first time you sit down in that chair, a very clear vision occurs to you. You know, there's only two ways I can leave this office.

Die or get fired. You know what I mean? There's nowhere else to go.

You know what I mean? The minute you sit on the chair, there's this eerie thing that goes through your mind, like, there's nowhere else to go now, you know? Except down.

Down or out, or dead. You know what I mean? And like when you finally get your dream and now you're the head of this thing, you know?

Then the very first hour, this thing occurs to you, you know? Clearly, that there's nowhere else to go and you can just go down from here. And that's the story of your life.

The place you stay will be rented to someone else. No one will remember you after a certain time. Your pictures that you treasure of yourself and your family will slowly be thrown away.

And then they'll be the last one and then somebody will say, anybody know who this is? And they'll say no, and they'll say, let's just throw it out. You know?

And that's what you have to look forward to. And that's where the young man is in the garden at this point. He's like, got this lecture from Master Asanga in the last night at the garden, and now he's back in the garden after a few months and he's going to meet the first Dalai Lama.

And he's like, going to ask, why do things have to work that way? You see what I mean? Like, the reason to be interested in Buddhism, the reason to be a Buddhist is to ask the question, why do things have to happen like that?

What is it in the world that makes things happen like that? Any relationship you ever have, it can only go two places. One of you dies or one of you leaves.

Okay? That's the only possible ending of a relationship. And then everything else is like that.

All the things you own, all the things you know, all the things you are, you will lose them one by one. And why is that? You see?

That's the big comfort, I think, in Buddhism. They answer the question... First they ask the question, which is the biggest comfort of all.

Everyone else is trying to ignore the question. You know? So, for me it was a big comfort to meet a path that even bothered to ask the question, why do these things happen?

Because everyone else has got their head in the sand, and they're trying to pretend that it doesn't happen. It does happen. That's all you have to look forward to.

And then, secondly, do they have a solution? You know? Like, what causes this problem that all of us have, and is there any way to solve it?

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
So, we're in the garden, and the First Dalai Lama is starting to give the answer to... to this guy. Say, Le?

Le? The Abhidharmakosha, fourth chapter, opening lines, Lelejikta Natsake. This is what the First Dalai Lama is going to be talking about.

Everything comes from Le. Le means karma, okay? And you can go...

you know, you can have some Buddhist guy stand up here and say everything is karma, and it doesn't satisfy, you see? Because there's no proof at all for karma, okay? Like, you can have some guy stand up here and say, oh, everything around you is karma.

Just be a good person, okay? Good night, see you, you know? And to me that doesn't answer anything, you know?

And that's all you get, oftentimes, in a Buddhist lecture, they say, look, everything is karma, now be a good person. Don't squash bugs. See you later, you know?

And then you're like, well, how does this work? How am I supposed to do this? You know what I mean?

And that's what we're going to go through tonight, okay? You have to understand how karma starts, where does karma stay, how does karma come back to you like a boomerang, okay? And those are the big questions to ask.

If you can't explain karma in a way that someone can understand, then I don't think you can talk about being happy or something like that, it's impossible. In fact, in the garden, we took care in the book not to mention a Buddhist word. There's no Buddhist word in there.

The word Buddhism is not in there. The word Buddha is not in there, okay? And there's no Buddhist word.

The word karma is not in there. It's called imprints, okay? Imprints.

And I think that's maybe a better way to say it, okay? Karma is technically defined as anytime the mind moves, okay? Anytime you have a thought.

And they say pieces of thoughts count also. Now, how many thoughts can you have in a minute? I think if you divide it into sentences, it's probably...

depends on who you are, right? Some people, not too many. But it's probably like five or six sentences go through your mind in a minute or something like that, I don't know.

But when we talk about karma, we're talking about flashes of thoughts. We're talking about flashes of pieces of thoughts in your mind. And we say, in that case, sixty-five per finger snap, okay?

It's defined like that. In the time of one finger snap, you can have sixty-five flashes of thoughts going through your mind. They may not be complete thoughts, they may not be complete sentences, they are impressions, or pieces of thoughts, or ideas that don't go anywhere, or little things you hear in your mind, or something like that.

But anyway, sixty-five happening per finger snap in your mind, okay? For it to be karma, normally, there has to be something good or bad done to another person, or to yourself, okay? So we're talking about some kind of thought of happiness towards someone, some kind of thought of irritation towards someone, good thought towards someone, or a bad thought towards someone, okay?

Those lead you to say something, or to do something. So we say there's three kinds of karma. Mother karma, or root karma, or the core, or the root of all karma is...

is thinking, okay? Or those flashes of thoughts going through your mind, about somebody else, just a moment's irritation at someone, okay? Just a moment's thought that you'd like to be somewhere else, or something like that, these are all karma, okay?

And then when they lead you to say something, or to do something, that's also karma, okay? So that's doing something, karma means doing anything, having any kind of thought. So in one finger snap, you're having sixty-five karmic seeds are being planted in your mind, in that much time.

Sixty-five seeds are being planted in your mind. How are they planted in your mind? Okay?

By your being aware of them, okay? Like, I used to think karma was some kind of boomerang, that... I saw, when somebody said karma, I saw a physical thing going off into space, and then circling around and then coming back, you know like a boomerang or something like that, or some kind of energy.

That's not correct, okay? And if you understand how karma works, it gets a lot more serious. Things get a lot more serious.

Karma is like... your mind is like a tape recorder. Every time you have a thought, it's recorded, okay?

By what? By the process of being aware of the thought, okay? When you hear the thought go through your mind, it has been recorded already.

Or, I'm sorry, it's being recorded as you hear it, okay? Get used to that. As you think a thought, and again a thought doesn't have to be a sentence, get used to that.

Just an impression, just a feeling like, oh, it's hot in here, I don't like it, okay? That feeling, and the associated, like, piece of a thought is a karma. And as soon as you think it, or as soon as you hear it in your mind, it's recorded, okay?

That's all. The karma has become a karmic seed. The action has turned now into an energy, or an imprint on your mind.

So think of them as imprints. Your mind is like a very soft clay, and every time you have the tiniest thought, an impression is made on the mind, an imprint is made on the mind. So think of karma like that.

Think of karma as imprints on the mind, okay? And that imprint is put on the mind as soon as you hear yourself think something, as soon as you see yourself do something, as soon as you hear yourself say something, okay? By the hearing, by the saying, by the doing, by the seeing of the doing, by the smelling of the doing, or whatever, it's recorded.

The karma is recorded. Yeah? Sorry?

Maybe a millisecond later. Okay, they say, chiki ni mi she te, you can't have two objects at once technically, but they're moving so fast that it might as well be at once. Technically it's not at once.

Technically they say it's like taking rose petals, gluing them on top of each other, like 300 thick, and put it on an archer's target, and you step back and you take an arrow, and you shoot it at the rose petals, and you see a thwack, you know, and the arrow goes through the rose petals into the target. And they say, perceptually, you can only see one thwack, but conceptually, you know that it must have gone through each rose petal one by one, and that's how they demonstrate how fast it happens. Like, the thought is thought, and then you hear the thought.

You hear the thought being thought, right a millisecond after it's thought, but it's as fast as an arrow going through two rose petals. And it's not like you can be aware of the distinction much, okay? Anyway, that's karma, it's planted, the impression is made on your mind when you...

when you hear it, okay? So does it do any good to... to do your bad deeds in private?

It's a funny idea in Buddhism, you see what I mean? It doesn't matter whether you open the door or close the door, if you're going to do something wrong, you might as well open the door, okay? Because the karma is not what other people think, the karma is recorded by your own mind.

So, the minute you think to hurt somebody, you've already planted or made an impression on your mind of an imprint of thinking to hurt someone, okay? If you never do anything, you still have the karma of thinking about it, okay? And that still plants an imprint, that still puts an imprint on your mind, okay?

Those imprints go down to the subconscious mind, they stay there, millions, millions each week go down to your subconscious mind, okay? And then they... they go into a queue...

a queuing system, like airplanes at an airport, like if you take the New Jersey Turnpike and you go by Newark Airport, you can see all these planes lined up to take off, and the karmas are like that. The minute you've collected a karma, meaning what? The minute you've been aware of a thought or a word or an action that you've done, okay?

Then that enters the queue. And we're going to talk later about what makes it move up in the queue, or go back in the queue, or... what's the prioritization system?

How does one karma get put in front of another one to take off first? How are you going to know which ones go off first, or which ones are going to wait later? We'll talk about that later.

But anyway, they're going down into the subconscious, they're staying there, all these imprints on your mind. When they ripen, which could be ten minutes later, could be ten years later, or more, okay? They come back up to the conscious mind.

Do you like eggplant? People like eggplant, raise your hand. How many people don't like eggplant?

How many people don't even think eggplant is a food? Okay? No, so it's like, we say very simply that eggplant is empty, okay?

That proves the emptiness of eggplant, okay? Eggplant doesn't have a nature of being good or bad. From its own side, okay?

You have to say from its own side. Eggplant, from its own side, is neither good nor bad, okay? Some people—give me a second—some people experience eggplant as something nice to eat, and you know, most delis offer eggplant parmesan sandwiches or something like that, and then some people like myself consider it like the most horrible thing on the planet, and I had to make a mistake.

I sent out one of my friends, he said, I'll go out and get you something to eat. I said, he said, do you want anything else? I said, it doesn't matter, I'll eat anything.

He came back with eggplant. You know, impossible. So, we say eggplant is empty.

You know, you don't have to be a Zen guy and somebody hits you on the head with a stick and you realize—you don't have to do that. The emptiness of eggplant is just that. It's no more complicated than that, okay?

Eggplant doesn't have a nature of its own of being tasty or non-food, okay? It does not have a nature of being intrinsically good or intrinsically bad, and neither does anything else, okay? It is neutral.

It is empty of having any nature of being good or bad, from its own side, in and of itself. Prove it. If eggplant was intrinsically good, I would like eggplant, okay?

If eggplant was intrinsically a non-food, you would hate eggplant. Everybody. You see what I mean?

The goodness or badness of eggplant is not coming from eggplant. So, where is it coming from? Your perceptions, okay?

Your perceptions. Having said that, can we agree that, as of tomorrow, all the people in the room who like eggplant should now hate it? They should go to the deli and try to perceive eggplant as something gross.

You can't do that, okay? Apparently, whatever perception you have of eggplant is being foisted on you. It's being forced on you.

You don't have a choice. Normally, you don't have a choice. You know, you can't say, okay, I liked your lecture.

You convinced me. I refuse to eat eggplant anymore. It will taste bad to me now.

You can't say that, okay? It tastes the way it tastes to you. Something is forcing you to taste eggplant in a certain way, okay?

We say karma. We say an imprint that you put in your mind in the past has come up to the conscious mind every time you see an eggplant, and it colors your perception of eggplant. You can think of karmic imprints as rose-colored glasses, okay?

You can think of your mind as a crystal ball or something, and then the karma colors what you see. So, if it's like eyeglasses, and they're rose-colored or green-colored or gray-colored or whatever, you're gonna see everything like that. So, the minute I pick up an eggplant, my karma puts these gray glasses on, and to me it looks really ugly, like it looks like something you shouldn't eat, okay?

Karma is coloring how you perceive everything, okay? And you have to get used to that. Karma determines how you see everything.

Now, somebody asked me, and you have to go one more level deep, okay? I was at this business conference in Australia, 200 hardcore businessmen. I'm giving them this lecture, but I'm talking about profits and corporate balance sheets and stuff like that, not eggplants, okay?

And I said, can you guys take one level deeper? These are Australians, you know? And they said, yeah, we can, go ahead.

We can, go ahead. You know, and... So I said, okay, by the way, the eggplant itself is coloring, okay?

Forget whether the eggplant is good or bad. The presence of the eggplant is a perception. You got to get used to that, okay?

There are some shapes out there, they are egg-shaped. There are some colors out there, they are gross dark purple, okay? And all there is, there, is raw data, raw data, shape and colors.

And your mind is organizing them into a thing called eggplant. Even it's eggplant-ness is not part of it. Get it?

Okay, good or bad is easy, okay? But if you didn't have a seed in your mind, if you didn't have an imprint in your mind that was forcing you to see it as an eggplant, you wouldn't even recognize it as an eggplant, okay? Like a blind person, doesn't have that seed.

Like an insect, sees it as a mountain, okay? Like a horse, sees it as something else, because these people are in different realms. Different realms means, they have different karmas that are running their world, okay?

So, even the presence of this eggplant, even what you call eggplant, is only a perception, okay? Having said that, I'm gonna go back to good or bad. Okay, did you have a question?

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah.

[Говорящий 1]
Go ahead.

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, that's responsible for your perception of the passage of time.

Yeah, it's like a movie frames. It's actually, karma is ripening about that fast, and you have the illusion of time. I've been talking about an external object, you know, eggplant.

Your thoughts are also perceptions, and that's a long story. I don't think we want to go that far tonight, but, yeah. Who's hearing the thoughts in your mind?

And who's thinking them? And are they separate persons, or are they one person? You see what I mean?

Like, you hear thoughts in your mind. So, what is it? You is talking, and you is hearing at the same moment, or do you say something, and then you hear it the next millisecond, or...

Actually, the way in which you experience the tastiness or the grossness of your own thoughts, just like eggplant, is totally up to your past karma, okay? Like, what we call happiness is really just good imprints coming up and coloring how you perceive your own thoughts, in the same way they color how you perceive eggplant. It's very interesting.

So, even your own thoughts are colored by your past karma. So, for example, you can collect the karma to be rich by giving away money. That's not connected to the karma to be contented or not, you see what I mean?

Being contented or not depends on whether or not you're able to enjoy other people's successes. The karma of enjoying other people's successes, and other people's... the things that other people succeed at, is to be contented.

The karma that you get from giving away what you own, gladly, to help other people, is that you will always be wealthy. But you see, there's separate karmas, it's very interesting. One is responsible for an external thing called your bank account.

One is responsible for your level of satisfaction about your bank account. And if you've collected both karmas, you'll be rich and happy. If you've only collected one, you'll be rich and unhappy.

Or you'll be happy and poor, okay? Or you'll be poor and happy. You see?

Because they're totally different karmas. And there's this illusion that they're connected somehow, and they're not, okay? You know poor people are happy, you know poor people are unhappy, you know rich people are happy, you know rich people are unhappy, because they come from separate karmas.

This karma, happiness or unhappiness, contentment or not, comes from being happy about other people's happiness. Taking joy in other people's happiness. Oh, he got the promotion I wanted.

I'm so glad for him, okay? That's a rare, okay? That's why so few people are contented.

The karma of thinking like that is you'll feel contented at all times. And then this one, the karma of this is whether or not you'll have enough money, okay? So, different...

But what I'm trying... The reason I brought that up is that how you experience your own thoughts is coloring from your past actions. So, if your mind is a lousy place to live in, that's because your thoughts are being colored by your past bad deeds.

And if your mind is a nice place to live in, it's the same as eggplant. Your thoughts and eggplant are the same. Whether you experience them as tasty or not, inside your head or on a plate, all depends on your past actions, what you've done towards others in the past, okay?

Now, it's important to say, I think... It's only imprints going off. Every single detail.

Get used to it, okay? My teacher in India used to say, you know, if there's ever a breeze in this godforsaken hot country, you know... He's Tibetan, he's stuck in India, right?

Feels a little bit like this. Then the slightest breeze that you feel is due to your past karma. It's coloring, it's an imprint coming out from your past karma.

Everything about your world is the same, okay? And that's, to me... It has deep implications, you see what I mean?

You can start designing your future world. We'll talk about that in a moment. Did you have a question, anybody?

That the mind is different? Oh, she's saying when I talk about the imprints being in the subconscious and then floating up to the conscious, it's just that you're used to those words, and I'm used to using them. In scripture, they would have a slightly different thing.

They do divide the mind into 50-something functions, and depending on what's 52 or 46 functions, and they sound like compartments, but they're not technically compartments, okay? It's one mind. Those...

We see bhagavad-gita means those imprints are in a... What do you call it? What do you call it when cavemen fall into icebergs and then get dug up?

Suspended animation or something like that? Okay? Bhagavad-gita means those imprints are alive, but they are in some kind of state of suspended animation in your mind, okay?

And then at some point they wake up, and they color your current experience. That's all. And they're queued up that way.

And I think once you've understood the principle that your entire world is a creation of these imprints in your mind, we have to go into how can you speed them up, okay? If I got a zillion point three billion jillion imprints in my mind, and if, you know, 50% are good and 50% are bad, is there any way I could just like cancel the bad ones and make the good ones come up? And then I'd be happy all the time, you see?

Can I control my experience of my world? Can I control the coloring of my world? And I think...

I mean, once you've got the general idea of imprints running your show, then the question is, can you manipulate them? Because that's interesting to me. I mean, that's what I would be asking, you know?

So there's four principles here, and I'm going to... I'm going to go into that. We don't have a...

make a picture? No. Okay, we'll try.

Say, she. She. In that same commentary, the first Dalai Lama says, always put some foreign words up on the board.

They'll be impressed. They'll think, he was doing Sanskrit. She means the...

by the way, I'm not doing Sanskrit. I'm talking now... I'm assuming you already, like, feel good about the idea of imprints, okay?

You... your mind is like soft clay. Every time you see yourself do something, think something, say something, an imprint is made on your mind, okay?

Now we've got to talk about how strong is it? Because if you can make strong ones, they might come back faster. They might float up to the conscious mind faster.

So we're interested in making big time good imprints, and we're interested in getting them ahead of all the other airplanes, so they can take off first. And all those bad airplanes that got in line when I was 18, or 16, should just turn around and go back to the hangar, you know? Okay?

I mean, that's the game we're interested in, okay? If your world is run by imprints, that's a subtle thing to perceive. They're coming up at 65 a microsecond.

You can't even... it's like watching a movie. You can't see the separate frames, okay?

That's what's happening to you. So how can we get rid of the bad seeds? How can we make sure we only get good seeds?

And then, in theory, if you think about it, if what I'm saying is true, and if I can teach you how to prioritize them well, then you should be able to confirm the truth or the falsity of what I'm saying in a couple of weeks or something like that, okay? Like, if I teach you some convincing method of getting all the good karmas to come up in front, and come out first, then I should be able to demonstrate some way in which your life, or your experience of the world, will start to change for better quickly. Okay?

I mean, that's the deal. If what I'm saying is true about this imprint stuff, and if every detail of your world is driven by imprints, then if I can demonstrate some way to get strong, good imprints, then you should start feeling healthier in a month or two. You should get a raise.

You know, finances should start sorting themselves out. The people around you should start changing, okay? Like, instead of having 50% friends and 50% people you don't like, it should go to 60-40, and then it should be 70-30, and then get up to 80-20, okay?

Food should start tasting better, the weather should improve, the crime rate should go down, the music on the radio should be better. I'm not kidding. This is karma.

Everything in your world has a cause. There's a reason why they don't play the songs you like on the radio, okay? Everything has a reason.

Scientists are wrong, okay? They're wimping out. They're saying, oh, some things have a cause and some things don't have a cause.

I mean, when you really grill a scientist, can you tell me why they don't play Neil Young more often on the radio? Oh, I don't know. They really don't know.

Of course there's a reason. It's an event. All events have causes.

Buddhism is big on this, okay? Science is really wimpy. They get to something like death and they wimp out.

Why did this guy die? He went to the windshield. I didn't ask you how he died, I asked you why he died.

I don't know. He didn't have his seatbelt on. God damn it, don't tell me how he died, tell me why he died.

You know, and they're like, oh, that doesn't have an answer. Okay? You should say, no, I want answers for all events.

All events have causes, okay? That he died has a cause and why he died has a cause, okay? All things have causes.

Science is wimpy, okay? This is better. Okay, so we have to find the causes, the causes to make all these things happen, and they do happen, okay?

Rome wasn't built in a day and tantric Buddhist paradises aren't built in a day. What happens? How do you get to a Buddhist heaven?

It starts happening piece by piece. You get small raises on a regular basis. They start playing more Neil Young on the radio.

Food tastes better. You feel stronger, lighter, happier, okay? Like, slowly, because you're starting to understand the process of manipulating your karma, and it's quite self-interested and that's fine, okay?

Where's the compassion stuff come in? Hey, teach other people to do that. That's compassion, okay?

If what I'm talking about is true, that's the best thing you can do for anybody. What, give them a hamburger? Give them a place to stay?

You know? Teach them to manipulate their own future, reality, to be in a different place in a year, and to know how to run that process your whole life. That's some gift to give somebody, okay?

Really, if what I say is true, then compassion comes in by teaching other people how to do it. That's the most compassionate thing you can do, okay?

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah, hopefully.

[Говорящий 1]
Bad karmas, the 18-year-old karmas. She said, can you really get bad karmas to go away, or do they just delay? Do you just, they go back to the hangar and come back out at some point?

You destroy them. By the way, we're not covering that tonight, we're covering it next Friday, so you gotta come next Friday. All I can do is teach you how to put more Neil Young songs on the radio, tonight.

And next week we cover how to wipe disco off the radio. You see what I mean? No, it's a, you have to know how to do both.

You have to know how to do both. You have to know how to create the beautiful things that you want, and you have to know how to prevent the ugly things that you don't want. Tonight we're only gonna cover the first, okay?

Then next week we get into how to remove disco or, personally I don't like rap too much, stuff like that. Let's say commercials, how about commercials, okay? Okay, we're gonna start with four principles of how to make your karmas more powerful, so that you can confirm or disconfirm what I've been trying to say tonight, okay?

You can check it out yourself. And if they're not playing more Neil Young on your radio in a year, then just drop it. Don't come to class, we'll refund all the money you paid, okay?

Alright. Say she. She means the person towards whom you do the thing, okay?

The person towards whom you do the thing. Like, there's a question of need. Like, if we're talking about giving someone else money, the perception of which, after it comes up out of the subconscious as an imprint, and comes into the conscious mind, turns into more money coming back at you, okay?

And don't discount this thing. If you are doing this practice on a regular basis, people coming up to you all the time, here's $50,000, here's $100,000, here's $1 million, here's $3 million, you know what I mean? It happens.

It works, okay? The businessmen were really happy to hear about this, okay? And it works in business too, by the way.

Anyway, there's a thing of need, meaning if you help someone, give somebody something who's in greater need, the seed is more powerful, the imprint is deeper, okay? So if you have a choice between giving a dollar to someone who doesn't need it very much, or giving a dollar to someone who does need it very much, obviously you give it to the person who needs it more, okay? That's just all, okay?

Someone who needs it more. That makes the seed more powerful. You know, we did a business talk in Australia at a business school, you know, a lot of the faculty and students came, they were, and we talked about corporate giving, like giving away money as a corporation, and if you're a Buddhist, you have to give your money away thoughtfully, okay?

Like it's one thing to talk people into giving money away, and then what happens is they all go out and give it away without thinking about it very much, okay? You have to, if you really want this stuff to work, if you want some kind of prosperity or happiness in your future, I'm not only saying you have to give money away, you have to think hard how to do it the best way, okay? Don't, you can't be a lazy, generous person.

I talked to a very close Hindu friend today, he said in their temple now, they don't let people give money anymore, they have to give their time, you see? Because they found that the wealthy people would come and dump a donation and run away, and then the poor people had to come and work at the temple, so they said now everybody has to come and work at the temple, and it doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor, you have to donate the most precious thing you have, which is your time, see what I mean? So, what this means is, I'm not just trying to talk you into doing charity, or being good to other people or giving other people what they need, you have to think about it carefully, just to dump $50 on somebody, or to come into this class and quietly dump a couple hundred dollars into that plastic box or something, it doesn't mean much, you have to plan the most powerful giving you can, you have to go around in your mind, and you have to do it right, you see what I mean?

You have to give it respectfully, you have to give a lot of what you have, you have to think about, is this money really going to help somebody or not, or is 80% taken away by the administration of that charity or something like that, or should I get involved with it, maybe I should be running the charity, maybe I should have my own charity, you know what I mean? You have to, if you're going to give away things or money or time, you have to do it thoughtfully, it's not enough to decide to do it, you have to plan it, and you have to invest your time in it, and make sure that it's being spent effectively, and helping people in a powerful way, so you got to check out the need, what I'm saying is a lot of new Buddhists, they get excited, they say, oh Michael said I could get rich if I give away my money, and they go home, and they give their sister the money, and they wait, and they wait, okay? No, you have to do it thoughtfully, you have to carefully examine, who is it that needs the most?

Tibetan refugees, people in Costa Rica, people in Sobo, or is it New Yorkers who are totally unhappy, who have a lot of money, where should you invest your money? You see what I mean? And like that, where should you invest it?

It's not enough to give it to United Way, and it's split among 4,000 people, and you don't know about it, and you don't care about it, you have to think, maybe it'd be best if you took that money, and did something that would cause other people to be happier, or something like that. Anyway, you have to recognize need, and you have to think about it. Help, help means, if you do your karma towards someone who has helped you in a powerful way in this lifetime, the karma is much more strong, much more powerful, the imprint is much more powerful.

Who is it that has helped you? In Buddhist scripture, they say your parents are just about number one, okay? Now in America, you say that, three hands go up, my mother was terrible to me, my father is a schmuck, you know, they didn't help me at all, you know, since I was 16, I've been on my own, you know.

There's this thing, and I'll go straight to the core of it, there's a thing called tantra, okay? When you get a human body, you get blood, guts, bones, gray matter, some more, some less, okay? But everybody who gets a human body gets this special plumbing, invisible spiritual channels running through your body, okay?

And if you know how to work with them the right way, you change into an eternal blissful being in this lifetime, okay? If you know how to do it, which is called tantra, okay? Which you can only study if you study this stuff first, alright?

Whoever could give you a body like that, you owe them an eternal debt, it doesn't matter if they were cruddy to you, it doesn't matter if they beat you up, abused you, didn't help you, just by being there, and helping with your conception, and giving you this body, which has these secret channels in it, that if you know how to work with them properly, you can actually enter a different kind of being in this lifetime. Anyone who's done that for you, automatically becomes a very powerful karmic object.

That's all, okay? So, it doesn't matter whether your parents were nice to you, bad to you, it doesn't matter. Karmically, anything you do towards them is big imprints, powerful imprints, okay?

You have to think like that. Also like, they would say people who are helping the world, like the Dalai Lama, or a doctor, or Johannes Salk, is that his name? I don't know.

Anyway, people like that, I mean, anything you do towards people like that is much more powerful, okay? So if you have a choice between doing this good thing to one person, or doing this thing to another person, and you have to choose, then you have to choose the more powerful one, okay? Give your help to someone who is helping many people, and then it becomes a more powerful karma, okay?

That's a Shi, right? That's the general Shi. That's the first way to make your karmas powerful.

So, you know, Buddhism, it takes a long time to get in the mood in Buddhism where, okay, I should give other people things. But then a good teacher will come up to you and say, by the way, you also have to give them very thoughtfully, carefully, slowly, plan it, follow up, make sure the money is going where it should go, okay? Stuff like that.

Okay, number two. By the way, I have this idea that the finances of all the Dharma organizations and the other charitable organizations should be put on the web, live, as they happen. You see what I mean?

Every expenditure should just be public knowledge the minute it happens. And we're trying to work on a system like that. So, in this organization.

So you can just log on, and that's the ultimate test, that if the whole public, at any given moment, can see your books, line by line, all the time, then you're running your finances properly. And I would like to see something like that. I think that would be a good thing to happen.

Okay. Say, Sampa? Sorry, go ahead.

He said, it's a little dangerous to put all your finances in public all the time, because in the case of the Dalai Lama, for example, if people found out, maybe, and I don't know if it's true or not, if he were somehow getting nice grants from foundations, then people might get disillusioned, okay? Now, this goes to a question called worldview. Okay?

This goes to a question called worldview. Very, very important question at this moment, okay? What's the karma of being totally honest with your finances?

What do you guess? Get more money. Must get more money.

People, you have more credibility. Karmically, a year later, more people believe in you than believed in you before you put it up on the web. Karmically, this is the only result that can happen from being totally honest with your finances.

Okay? So, why is it that when some people make their annual report public, 25 of their sponsors cut them off? They say, I didn't know they were making that much money, and I didn't know 40% went to Michael Rosen's food fund.

You know, I'm cutting that off. Why is that? Why did they cut off the finances?

It is your perception, but so is everything else. I mean, whether they give you more money or don't give you more money, it's your perception. But where would a perception of being cut off come from?

Could it come from being honest? Impossible. You gotta get used to this.

This is the hardest thing about Buddhism. Okay? It's even hard to teach it, and then when I go home, people make me try to live this way.

It's very uncomfortable. Okay? They cannot be connected.

According to the philosophy of Buddhism, for the last two and a half thousand years, there cannot be a cause and effect relationship between those two events. Cannot be. It cannot be that honesty would lead to losing your sponsors.

Cannot be. According to Buddhism, it's an illusion. They are two events which happen to be following one another, and there's no thread of connection between them.

Okay? Losing your sponsors comes from being dishonest, and that has occurred because of some dishonesty you did in the past. Okay?

It happened right after you put your books on the web. And they even think they're not giving you more money because you put your books on the web. But it's not...

They're also in an illusion. They're also caught up in an illusion. Their decision to cut you off has come from some previous dishonesty that you did.

It's very interesting. It's very, very interesting. Okay?

And the only result that can come out of being totally honest with your books is what? Sometime, we hope soon, people will start sending you more money because you've been honest. Karmically, there's...

You know the diamond dealer thing I told you in Central Park? Boss says... I used to be a diamond dealer.

Buyer. 30,000 diamonds a day. Boss says, go out, tell the guy his diamonds are crap.

Karab in Indian. Musor to a Russian. What do they call it in Yiddish?

It's... I forget. Drek.

Okay? I mean, whatever country you're in, you learn the word for crap. Karab, drek, musor, junk.

Okay? If you're buying, they're always that. If you're selling, they're always wonderful.

You see what I mean? Anyway, go out there, tell the guy it's crap. Lie to him.

And see if you can get $100 off per karat. And we'll make another $10,000 today. Okay?

So, here's a lie. You lie to the guy about the value of his diamonds. Okay?

Then suddenly, he sells them to you cheaper because you've been persuasive. And suddenly, you got $10,000 more money, which often happens. Okay?

It goes the other way, too. So, it looks like the lie has produced $10,000. Buddhism says, this is illusion.

This in itself is a lie. This is not true. Okay?

It doesn't matter how persuasive you are. It doesn't matter how smart you are. The lying has nothing to do with the $10,000.

Nothing. Okay? Where did the $10,000 come from?

I gave away $100 to somebody who needed it, or to somebody who had given me some great help, or something like that, or who was helping many other people. And that's where the $10,000 is coming from. What can I expect from lying?

Nobody believes me, even when I say something smart. Okay? Even when I say something in those meetings, which is useful and it's going to help the company, and I don't know why no one believes me, you know?

And then a week later it happens and they don't even remember I said it. You know? Where do you think that comes from?

You got to get used to this. This is called the illusion. Okay?

This is the... What would happen if the world knew this? No one would ever hurt another person.

Never. It's very interesting. Okay?

People ask me, can I kill the roaches in my apartment? Apart from my name, okay? If there were no time gap between the subconscious and the conscious, right?

If the minute the roaches' body started to crush, your own ribs started to break, would you figure it out? I mean, would mankind have figured it out by now? You see what I mean?

If every time you cheated somebody, your own bank account suddenly dropped. You know? People just wouldn't...

would be always good to each other. That's really what's happening. But there's this unfortunate time lag.

It's really what really is happening. But there's this very, very nasty time lag. On top of that, there's these apparent connections between bad deeds and good results.

Jesus was adamant about it, you know? I taught in Ireland last month and they got this immediately, you know? They pulled out their Bibles and said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what that means about...

what is that? Where are you?

[Говорящий 2]
You don't plant thistles and get...

[Говорящий 1]
you don't get figs from thistles nor grapes from thorns. Meaning, you can't lie and get $10,000 out. It doesn't exist.

There's no such thing. Jesus was really adamant about it. The lie leads to nobody believing you.

The money came from giving somebody less money before. Period. And this is a lie.

This thing here is an illusion. And by the way, the result of this kind of thinking, the place where this kind of thinking leads is, at any given moment, you, who understands this worldview, will always do the right thing, regardless of the immediate consequences. And that's what the world should be doing all the time.

That's what the world should be doing all the time. Okay? Regardless of the immediate apparent consequences, I must do the right thing.

Okay? Because I have faith that good things lead to good things and bad things came from bad things. So if the boss fires me when I say something true, I won't get upset.

Because I can only get a good result from speaking truly. And if I get fired, it's from something bad I did before. Okay?

This is extremely liberating behavior. You know? All the time, to be empowered, to do what you know to be the right thing, no matter what the apparent results are, because there is no such thing.

The apparent results are an illusion. You know? If you want to be happy, do exactly the right thing all the time, regardless of what it seems to cause around you.

Okay? It's liberating. If you act like this, like, ten times a day, you feel like a million dollars.

It's so cool. Okay? It's like being Mahatma Gandhi or something.

You know? Now, he didn't care if he got beat up, put in prison, hit on the head. He did the right thing.

Because he knew that the prison and getting hit on the head didn't have anything to do with doing the right thing. You got to get used to that. That's a hard thing to live by.

But it feels so good to always do the right thing, knowing that you must get a good result from it, no matter what the people around you might think at that given moment. Okay? It's liberation itself.

That in itself is worth coming to classes. Okay? You feel so free all the time.

You're absolutely free to do the right thing, because it can only lead to a good result. And any kind of crap that goes on around you was caused by something older. Okay?

You got to get used to that. It's a beautiful way to live. And it just, you feel like floating on air all the time.

Okay? You got this knowledge that you're always doing the right thing. I think that's a good place to break.

Take, you know, relax, take some drink, and we'll go through the other three things later. Oh, one announcement. Ready?

There's this flamenco group, gypsies, real gypsies. They're really beautiful. And last, two years ago, they came to us and they said, you know what, we love what you do, and we'll do a free performance for you.

And whatever we get, we'll give you. They made $18,000 that night. And they gave it for the nuns.

And it's helping the nuns to do their retreats and stuff like that. So we'd like to support them, too. They're doing a performance starting next Wednesday, for a couple weeks.

They're really cool. They're the old-time flamenco, real gypsy people. They're not like all blonde and, you know.

So if you'd like to go, I think we'll go as a group, some of us next, a week from Wednesday. And I think we can get some kind of a group thing. So if you'd like to go to that, I think it would be nice to express our thanks to them, because they helped us last year so much.

They gave us the whole proceeds from a whole night. These things will be on the table in the back, and this nun here is going to put them there, okay? Because that's her project?

Okay. Thank you. I'll see you in about ten minutes.

Say Sampa. Sampa. Sampa.

Okay. Sampa is the second. So she meant who you do it towards.

Sampa means how you're thinking at the time. How you're thinking at the time. It has three parts.

First one is motivation. Meaning, did you really intend to kill the guy or not? Okay?

Like, Buddhism, karma draws a distinction between manslaughter and murder in the same way that the courts do. Okay? Like, if you kill somebody in your car by accident, it's a bad karma, but it's not as bad as if you had intended it.

Okay? So, there has to be intention for the karma to be powerful. For the imprint to be made powerfully, you have to have intention.

It's a lot... Karma runs a lot like the legal system. Okay?

There has to be motivation. Secondly, there has to be recognition. Recognition means this.

When I was growing up, when I was in high school, I distinctly remember being told abortion is not killing. The thing in the mother's womb is not alive. There's no problem with that.

And that's what I was taught. And that's the way we acted. Okay?

And then later they tell you in Buddhism that no, it's alive from the moment of conception. If you committed an abortion and you honestly thought that that being was not alive, it's not as bad karma. You see what I mean?

It happens to be alive. And in Buddhism they say at the moment of conception there's life. But if you don't recognize that fact, honestly, you honestly believe that that thing is not alive yet, the karma is not as strong.

Okay? Yeah. Yeah.

I know what you mean. This is a famous question, okay? If you don't recognize it to be wrong, how can you collect any karma at all?

How can the tape recorder be recording something bad if you don't have any conception of that thing as being bad? This is what we call peripheral perception, meaning you have some awareness that there may be something wrong with that. You know what I mean?

Like you're not, you may be 99% convinced that it's not wrong, but there's some part of you, if I asked you, do you have, is your mind open at all to the idea that there could be anything living about that thing? Is there any chance in a million that thing could be alive? You'd say, yeah, maybe two in a million, three in a million, four in a million.

You'd give it some odds. And that's the basis of the karma there. There's arguments in Buddhism that the very fact that the thing is alive creates the karma, and not your perception of that.

But I don't think you can accept that in Buddhism. You see? I don't think you can accept that.

I think it must be something like a peripheral awareness, you have some awareness that the thing could be alive, and that's enough to have some karma, okay? But much less than if you had known it was alive, and that's the idea, okay? Like, if you, if you don't really recognize the thing to be alive, like when you drink water, you kill a certain amount of living beings.

In the Vinaya, in the monks and nuns vows, we're required to carry with us a strainer, and strain the water before drinking it. And if you don't, then you're killing, but if you don't know about that, and aside from peripheral awareness that there may be killing something, you don't collect as much karma, okay? It's not as powerful.

Did somebody have a question? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He said, are there accidents? What do you guess is my answer, according to what I've said so far? No such thing as an accident.

Accidents don't exist, okay? So, what happens when a tornado comes down in Florida, and 50,000 people are without electricity for a couple days? Are you telling me those 50,000 people together did something to somebody else, that they all have to lose their electricity at the same time?

Yeah, right. That's what it is, okay? Well, how can whole groups of people, like 50,000 people, come in and action?

Hey, NATO just bombed the hell out of Belgrade, you know? Every person who paid taxes, and who supports it willingly, has collected part of the karma of every person who was killed there. That's the way karma works, okay?

And that's... Now get this, if you can, that's why nations exist. That's why countries exist.

That's why there's a border between Mexico and the United States. I did it recently. You walk three feet the other way, suddenly everybody's poor.

You walk back three feet, suddenly everybody's overfed. Okay? What created that line?

All the people on the north side did one thing together in the past. All the people on the south side did one thing together in the past. That's what creates nations.

That's what creates countries. That's what creates borders. You have to get used to that.

It's just an imaginary line. There's no line there. I checked.

I looked really carefully, you know? It's karma. You have to think very carefully.

It's a very powerful idea, you know? The only thing that creates that border is your perceptions, and they're forced on you. And they do exist, and the people on the south of that line are more miserable physically than the people on the north, okay?

Third thing, emotion. Emotion means, are you doing this thing out of like overpowering feelings of love, or overpowering feelings of anger, or jealousy, or something like that, okay? What is your emotion as you do this thing?

How powerful are your thoughts, okay? Those make the imprint stronger, okay? Much, much stronger.

Third one. So that completes sampa, which means the mental process that's going on, okay? That's sampa.

Mental. The mental process. Then we have jorwa.

It's kind of cruel to pass around cookies in front of you. All right. Say jorwa.

Jorwa. Jorwa means undertaking the deed, undertaking the action. You see, what do we have so far?

You picked your victim. You decided to shoot them. You know they're alive, and you feel pissed off.

The three thoughts are there, the three parts of the thought, okay? Now, are you actually going to pull the trigger or not? That's jorwa, okay?

What happens if you never pull the trigger? What happens if you don't go any farther than number two? Mental karma, okay?

You planted a powerful imprint of thinking to kill somebody, or intending to kill somebody, but you do not have the karma of killing somebody, which is worse, okay? The karma of thinking about it is bad. Thinking about it and doing it is worse.

Thinking about it and not doing it is a little better than thinking about it and doing it, okay? So jorwa means you actually went about and did that thing. I'm sorry, undertook to do the thing.

You shot the gun, okay? What do you guess is the last step? They die.

Okay. Say tartuk. Tartuk.

Tartuk means conclusion. The thing is finalized. They die.

And also, you must have a feeling of satisfaction and you must own the action. You must say, I did it. I'd do it again if I had to.

I'm glad I did it, okay? All of these things are in tartuk. They actually die as a result of your jorwa, as a result of your action.

You have to be happy about it. I'm glad I did that. And you have to own the action.

You have to say, you know, I am responsible for that, and I'm glad I was responsible for that. And I take full responsibility for that, and I'd love to do it again if I had a chance, okay? That makes the karma much more powerful.

Good or bad karma, okay? Whether it's good karma or bad karma. If all four of these things are complete, shi, samba, jorwa, tartuk, meaning somebody important that you did the action towards, strong motivation, clear perception of who they are, strong emotion going on, you actually undertake the action, and then you finalize it, you complete it, and you own it.

Then the karma is like big, fat, strong, powerful, imprint. We call it a karmic path at that point. It gets a different name.

If all of those elements are present, then you have a big fat karma. It's like a 747. It gets to move up in line, okay, in front of all the other airplanes, and move into position, and then it gets to take off first, okay?

Now go through a theoretical karma that you could take, okay? What's the biggest shi that you could ever have? How about all living beings?

Like, we're trying to collect the biggest karma you can collect, okay? We're designing the one karma that would move up in front of all other karmas almost immediately, okay? Shi, all other living creatures.

Motivation, I would like to become a tantric deity so I could help all of them. Recognition, they are suffering. Not one of them has more than a few hours of happiness in their whole lifetime, okay?

And they got worse to come, okay? You recognize the situation. Emotion, I can't stand to see it go on.

It's pitiful. It's sad, okay? You just can't stand to see it go on anymore.

To see thousands and millions of people dying, and knowing that they're shooting themselves, okay? Like, it'd be okay if people were just dying, but to know that they don't have to die, and that you could teach them how to get out of it, and then they're still dying like that, that it's a big waste, that everything here is a mistake, and if you could just fix the mistake, nobody would have to die like that. Then, that emotion, strong emotion, like, this is a horrible, life is a horrible pain, and on top of that, it was unnecessary pain.

If they knew about karma, if they knew about this thing about imprints, nobody would have to be going through any of those things. That's the irony of it. That makes it doubly painful to watch people...

It's like, I always think of it as children playing with razor blades, and just, you know, little tiny two-year-old just slicing themselves up with a razor blade, they don't know any better. It's exactly how we look to the enlightened beings, you know? Like, it's not like life is killing you or something, you're killing yourself, and you don't know anything, and you're just sitting there and slicing yourself like a little, like a two-year-old with a couple of razor blades, and they don't know why they're bleeding, or where it's coming from, and they're doing it to themselves.

You see what I mean? That has to be the emotion. So, you're thinking of all people, thinking that you'd like to help them.

Jorwa. You actually go about doing the meditations, doing the study, doing the everyday life things that you have to do to get out of this, to be a tantric deity, to become an enlightened being in this lifetime, and then tatung, you pull it off. Okay?

Or you get, you finally get this emotion where you understand where everything's coming from, and you're able to do it. That would be a big, fat, what we call pure karma. Okay?

What's the...then I'll end, okay? This will be the last thing tonight. We distinguish between pure karma and dirty karma, okay?

Dirty karma is imprints that you put there because you don't know any better. Like, even they can be good imprints, like you help people because you feel like helping people, or you hurt people because they bother you, or something like that. Both of those imprints, good imprints and bad imprints, are what we call dirty karma.

Okay? Why do you call it dirty? It wears out.

It wears out. Okay? There is a karma, there's a string of karmas, there's a whole line of airplanes, like...what do they call those? Shuttle planes, going down, taking off every five minutes. Okay? They are creating your perception of your health.

Okay? They are creating your perception of your friends, and they'll wear out. You see what I mean?

You have friends because you have these karmas floating up and making you see them. You are healthy because these karmas are floating up and making you feel healthy. You feel young, you don't feel old yet, because these karmas are coming up and making you feel youngish.

Okay? What happens later? They wear out.

Okay? By experiencing them, they wear out. You see what I mean?

They just wear out. That's why everyone gets old. That's the answer to the question we posed at the beginning of class.

That's why people get in car accidents. By the way, they can wear out gradually, they can wear out in a minute. You get in a car accident, go through the windshield, die.

They just close down, they just shut down. No more perceptions of yourself as a nice, young, healthy person, smart. You're dead.

No more perceptions of this kind of world at all. You see what I mean? Suddenly you're having perceptions of a whole different kind of world.

You're into a different world. Okay? And then sometimes they just drag out, you know?

They start to run out slowly. You know, suddenly you feel stiff in this shoulder, you know? Suddenly your hair is a little white, you know, gray.

Suddenly you don't quite feel the energy you used to feel, you can't stay up as late as you used to stay up. Things like that. That's the gradual wearing out of your old, past, dirty karma.

What we call dirty karma. Dirty good karma. And that's why a person at this level has to lose everything.

Because all of those karmas wear out. You lose your friends, lose your family, lose your house, lose your career, lose your body, lose your health, lose your vigor, vitality, your eyes, ears, everything else. Finally lose your life.

It's just karmas wearing out. It's just perceptions wearing out. Okay?

There's a reverse process where you know how karma works, you know how the imprints work, and you start to manipulate them. Like, where does health come from? Respecting life.

Honoring life. Okay? Like, every chance you get, even little things, like you're driving around a corner and there's a pedestrian there, you just stop.

You say, I will honor life. You know? I will honor life.

You see an insect, you take care of it. You actually take the insect, you make it comfortable while you're moving it. Don't worry, everything's okay, don't run around.

Put it over there, gently. You see what I mean? You get to where you're even with little things, you're like totally, totally mindful.

You take it, you figure out the nicest way to get it, you move it over there slowly, make sure you don't squish it, make sure no legs get caught, you know what I mean? Bump him off, make sure it's the kind of place he likes, you know what I mean? And move him.

You see what I mean? And all those things together, respecting life, your own health will start to improve. If you make it a regular practice to respect life, your health problems will start to go away, and then it starts to reverse.

Okay? You start to feel better each year that goes by. Lighter, stronger, healthier.

And then that culminates in what we call Tantric Enlightenment. Your body becomes like totally light, in the sense of light and not guts or blood or anything like that. Your whole body transforms.

That's caused by respecting life and being good to other people. It's very interesting. Your whole body changes.

And then you can do the same with your mind. And that's the reason to have this class, that's the reason to come to this class, and that's what you can pull off if you understand karma. If you understand the imprint thing, you can actually pull this process off.

We say that aging and death are not inevitable. You don't have to go through those things. And the reason to be a Buddhist, the reason to study Buddhism, is to do it yourself and to teach it to other people.

That's all. We say this whole realm that you see around you, this whole way of life, losing everything you like is an accident, and it's caused by some kind of boo-boo. And you don't have to keep doing it.

You see what I mean? You just correct it, and then you're out of here. Okay?

How many people did the New York Times report left this realm in the last week? How many people gained a body of light? Well, there were those people who poisoned themselves in San Diego.

No, not like that. Okay, not like that. We talked about eggplants, right?

Some people perceive them as something very nice, and some people in the same room looking at the same eggplant, the same side of the same eggplant, can say this is a poison. Okay? Just like that, your perception of your body and my perception of your body are totally different.

You see what I mean? Like, if I have been good to other people, and I've consciously, purposely filled up my mind with good karmas, I will start to see my own body as much lighter, stronger, healthier. Okay?

Eventually it will start to transform. What will you see? You can't share my karma, okay?

That's a rule of karma. I can't split my karma with you. It's impossible, because you didn't do what I did.

You will see whatever your karma makes you see. Is the Dalai Lama getting older? Depends on who's looking.

Okay? Do you believe he's a tantric deity? Yeah, I believe.

I mean, I don't know why people believe, okay? There's no proof. There's no, you know?

I mean, there is a proof that they picked a guy at two years old, and he's a genius, and he won the Nobel Prize, and all that, but... Anyway, you don't really know if he's a tantric deity. I mean, you don't really know it.

Be honest, okay? You'd like to think that way, and he seems pretty special, but you don't know for sure, but it's likely that when he looks in the mirror, he sees something totally different than we see, okay? You have to get used to that.

There's an emptiness of the eggplant, and there's an emptiness of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It's the same principle, okay? He could be on a totally different level, but because we're stuck on our level, we see him getting older, okay?

Get used to that. Emptiness means, and then I'll leave, okay? Then I'll shut up.

Emptiness means there is no reality of a thing. There's only what you see and I see. There's no original condition.

There's no real condition of that thing, okay? You can't say that there's a good eggplant or a bad eggplant. There's no such thing.

There's an eggplant that I perceive as good...bad, sorry. And there's an eggplant that you perceive... And there's an eggplant that you perceive as good.

You see what I mean? There's the eggplant that you perceive, and there's the eggplant that I perceive, but there is no eggplant between those two. Get it?

There is no Dalai Lama who's getting older or not getting older. There's the Dalai Lama who's getting older that you maybe see, and there's the Dalai Lama that's not getting older that he maybe sees, but there is no other Dalai Lama. You gotta get used to that.

That's emptiness. There's nothing in between those two perceptions. Get it?

There's no true condition of the Dalai Lama. It's just what you see and what I see. Which one's right, by the way?

Both valid. We say valid. We get out of it, like all good geshes in the debate ground, okay?

You see, both are valid. You see what you see because of your own state of mind. I see what I see because of my own state of mind.

And there is no other state. There is no other Dalai Lama, okay? Get used to it.

Why do we both say Dalai Lama? There's a common karma to call it Dalai Lama, to perceive it as Dalai Lama. We have a common karma to perceive it as eggplant, because we both did something round and purple to somebody in the past?

Okay? I don't know. Seriously.

So we both have the karma to say it's an eggplant, but then it breaks down. You see what I mean? So, we share a common karma.

Like we have a common karma now to be enjoying this room together, using this room together. And then we don't share the karma to feel it in the same way. Some people feel hotter than other people, okay?

So that's the distinction there, okay? So, thousands and thousands of people in the history of Buddhism have reached these things. They are beyond this realm.

They are not living like us anymore. We got stuck behind because we're hard-headed, okay? Stubborn.

They say that we used to sit in classes with them like a million years ago. They say that. You and me and Shakyamuni Buddha and His Holiness were all goofing off in the first row.

No, and then they just worked harder, and we got stuck. We're still stuck here. No, they say that.

They really say that. So, it's just a matter of deciding and fixing the mistake, okay? Now you know how karma works.

Next week we'll talk about how to wipe out all the old karmas you did when you were so foolish. For me it was about age 18, okay? I was a late bloomer.

But, how to get those old planes back in the hangar, not to come out again. Destroyed forever, okay? And that's obviously an extremely important subject for people who came to karma late in their lives, okay?

Because we did a lot of stuff that we didn't know what we were doing, okay? Alright, thank you for that. I love to talk about those things.

And we'll do some prayers, okay?

[Говорящий 2]
Thank you.