Йога родительства (2011, Нью-Йорк), занятие 1

[Говорящий 1]
The main reason to be here tonight is really just to honor Lama Orang and have a baby shower. And then she talked me into saying something about parenting, which I know nothing about. But I've heard things.

So I talked to some close friends who I consider very good parents, and successful parents. And then the last thing I said, well, okay, I'll have to talk about something I know nothing about. But I'm okay.

I'm pretty good at that. So anyway, I think the first thing I'd like to say is, I remember going with some parents, friends who are parents, and we went to Tucson to see His Holiness, I think in 1998 or something. I don't remember.

Ninety-three. What was it? It was in 93.

Sure. That was when I met him. In Tucson?

Mm-hmm. Oh. But we went again.

[Говорящий 2]
We went again. Then he came again. We went again after the two retreats.

He came again. That was in 2005 or something.

[Говорящий 1]
Oh no, it must have been 1993 or something. I don't know.

[Говорящий 2]
No, but then there was one we went. Maybe it was in 98.

[Говорящий 1]
I don't know. But we went, and then I remember he was teaching Master Shantideva, and one of my friends had a chance to... You know, he submitted questions, and somebody submitted a question to him, and it was...

He was teaching patience. That was 1993? And they said, well, how do you teach these things to children?

And then I remember his response was very beautiful. It was... He said, you can't teach these things to children.

All you can do is give them an example. And then, you know, my friend's face fell. And then I was thinking also, this is the hard way.

He said a beautiful thing. He said, children are not going to listen to you, and it doesn't matter what you say to them or how much you explain to them. They're just going to...

In the end, they'll end up doing what you're doing. And I found that as a teacher. I've spent most of my adult life teaching people.

But in the end, they just do what you do. So, I think... I think, first of all, that's a good advice to me.

It seems like a good advice to me. I think one of the main things you could teach children, by example, is how you view the world and how you view other people, right? And...

on a beginning level, I think... I think on a beginning level, you're not too much in control of your mind, and you're not very good at practicing worldview, and so you lose it. So, I think on a beginning level, especially if you're about to have children or something, you're going to have children, then I think you would have to be in the mindset that probably you're not going to be able to keep your patience.

Probably you're going to lose patience. And then your children are going to see you lose patience with other people. Probably inevitably, right?

But also, especially with them.

[Говорящий 2]
And then...

[Говорящий 1]
I think... I think children watch... So, what I mean to say is they're going to see you get angry.

The children will see you lose it. And I don't think at that point that you can change it much, you know? You're not going to be perfect, and you're going to lose your patience with what they do.

And then I think that the crucial thing is they will watch what you do afterwards, you know? They will watch how you deal with having lost it, and how long do you hold the anger, and how long does it take you to apologize and forgive them, right? So, they will watch.

And then I think... for people at our level who lose it sometimes, or we can't be perfect people, then I think one of the most important lessons to teach children is is how quickly you forgive, you know? How quickly you can let go of anger.

And then how quickly... whether or not you can be the first person to make up, in order to hug the other person and say, you know the courage to apologize to people, or to admit that you were wrong? And...

So, I'm thinking on first level, in as far as you can, to show how fast you can forgive, and how fast you can get over something, you know? Maybe that's one of the most important lessons to teach children. Then on a second level, using karma and emptiness with your children, right?

So, parents are always having expectations of what their children will be. I think a lot about having a child is... and also having a disciple, is expectations of what you want them to be.

And for me it's very, very strong. With the people who are close, and the people I train closely, like I have very, very extreme expectations of them. And...

And then, what will you do when they don't meet those expectations, you know? Because, I mean, are you going to be the kind of parent who gets angry at them, or berates a child for not meeting what you expect, you know? Because you're going to have this idea of who they should be.

I was in... what do you call it? We're going to Princeton tomorrow to do a little concert and a little talk.

And then, people sent me a newspaper clipping, and it said... it was about our going there. And it was interesting to me because there was...

I'm from the university, so they were talking about my life and stuff, you know? Then I flipped the article over and there was a... what do you call it?

Singles. Ads, you know, on the back. And it said, if you're going to be my partner, you have to be the fun.

You know? And there was a list of things, you know? But what caught my eye was the, you have to be.

You know, like... Some guy was demanding already. Before he met the lady, he was demanding what she would be, you know?

And I was just wondering who would answer that kind of thing, you know? Like, you will have to be, you know? And that's kind of how we feel, I think, as a parent, or as a teacher also.

You have a certain vision of what you want the person to be. And then you start, because you're bigger than them, you get to direct them. And, you know, the way you're expected to direct them, and you're supposed to decide for them how they're supposed to be.

And then you're supposed to sort of push them in that direction. And then what if they don't want to go, you see? And what if that's not them?

What if that's not what they want to be? So I'm thinking, you know, nowadays, we've been in China a lot. And they start now training children for college in preschool, you know?

Like the college education prep in China occurs in preschool. So you are sending your kids, you know, this is like three years before first grade, and you're sending the children to learn alphabet and learn English and learn math. And by the time they hit school, what we would call elementary school, it's cut, real practice.

By the time you reach elementary school, they're already telling, you're supposed to be already forcing the child into getting a head start and being ahead of the other children, right? So it's this competitive thing. And then it's like drilled into their minds that getting into college is so competitive in China that you're going to have to be prepping in preschool.

And you have to get a head start during preschool to be a serious college candidate, you know, like that. And I like to think of children, and maybe also Dharma people, as, I like to use the word ether, their mind is like the ether. So I believe that people come into this life with sort of unformed mind, a mind that's not completely formed yet.

And they're in an uneducated way, but also in the sense of their mind is almost more attuned to a greater nature. I don't know how to say. Their mind is free, in a way.

In a way, their mind is in some kind of freely creative state. Before you hit school, before you hit formal education, your mind is in some sort of an open, available, and I like to think of it as ether, right? And then you hit school.

I remember, I was in... I remember first grade, because my family moved when I was in first grade. So I went from a church school in Santa Monica, they put me in public school in Arizona, and I remember being in first grade, and the first day I remember.

And they gave me a big piece of that cheap paper with the dotted lines and the lines. Really cheap paper. It's like what Doubleday uses for my books now.

Probably better. And the teacher said, okay, everybody draw a big A on your paper. So write a big A on your paper.

So I'm thinking, I'm like, pause, you know, and I'm like, maybe she wants a capital A. But she didn't say capital A. She said big A.

So probably she wants a big A. You know? So I drew this A as big as the paper, because I thought if she wanted a capital A, she would have said capital A.

And... and then she walked around, you know, desk to desk, and nodding. This is Mrs. Melvin, you know her. With the far side glasses, and the B, what do you call it? Yeah, just like that. And then she leans over, you know, and she says, well, she got angry, you know, she really criticized me.

I wanted a big A, you know. And I'm like, I remember looking up, you know, really up, high, you know, and saying, you know, it is a big A. And then she thought it was being a smile, you know.

And, you know, so... when you hit first grade, normally, then they start demanding that you conform to a certain... you conform to a certain idea of what they want.

And where things were ethereal before, and where creativity and nature dominated before, now they want to restrict your movement. And they want to, how do you say, buttonhole you. They want to put you in a box.

Nowadays they say in a box, right? And they want you to conform to a certain idea of, in this case, communicating. You have to write the letters in a certain way, and then you have to speak in a certain way, and you must spell them in a certain way.

And other ways of spelling them are wrong. You see? And then...

I responded to it well. You know, like, I like order. And I like being told, you know, being told to make your A like this, or...

I like, I think I like... I feel comfort in structure, right? Even if it's an imposed structure, and even if it may not be the best structure, to be structured is comfortable.

It gives me comfort, okay? And then... But what happens is, the moment you start structuring a child's development with letters and things like that, then you are destroying the natural in them, right?

The natural mind. The mind which is more free, and available, and creative. And then you're forcing that mind into certain molds from a certain age.

So call it, I don't know, seven or six, first grade? And... So if you start that process earlier, artificially, if you say, my kid has to get ahead of the other kids, and I want my kid to be able to learn letters and numbers earlier than the other kids, and this is big in China right now, right?

Real pressure. And even intelligent children in China are being... they get tutoring.

Like they come from a hard day of school, and then they're encouraged to do some French, or some, you know? Like they're... or do algebra or something.

They get pressed more. So then I think... My feeling is that most children will pick up numbers and letters easily when they hit first grade.

So it's okay. You can just let them do that. And then some of them won't anyway.

And maybe that's... What I'm thinking recently a lot about is people I know who never really fit in with that structure, you know? Like I'm thinking of people who...

If you had to describe their minds as more natural, like more... like a tree, like growing like a leaf, you know? Something organic and natural.

And to them, the angles of the letters and the required sounds, and having to spell the word the same way every time didn't seem necessary, you know? And then... And then them ending up to be some of the most beautiful people I know, you know?

Like that. So I'm thinking about education... I'm thinking definitely not to force children into a certain mold.

I think that's what I'm trying to say. Because that's a sort of judgment, right? Then that's a judgment about whether it's good or bad to to fit in exactly to the way everyone else is doing.

You see what I mean? And then that leads to the question of of being judgmental of others. You see, to require a child to spell like everybody else and to draw their letters like everybody else...

I hit a teacher in the fifth grade. Guess her name. You know her name?

Mrs. Butts, okay? And in the fifth grade, this is really funny, you know? And...

I had really good teachers up to Mrs. Butts. And then she was like crazy. And then...

She would... She had like... What was it?

We had to get up and sing Ode to Spring every morning. And then we had to memorize all the states and their capitals. And if you missed one, you got really...

You know? If you missed one capital of one state, you got a C or something like that. So, most of the year was spent struggling to memorize the fifty states and the capitals, you know?

And... of each state. And it was very traumatic.

You know? Then the final exam, you know, like thirty really scared kids in the room trying to remember the capital of Nebraska and stuff. Or trying to remember Nebraska.

And then...

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah.

[Говорящий 1]
And then she had this thing about handwriting. And... And I had handwriting and everybody could read it.

And it was okay. It was kind of vertical, you know? The L's went up straight.

And the M's were like straight, you know? And then she had this thing about classical British handwriting where it had to be just the right thing and the F had to go with the scroll. And then it had to come back with this little scroll thing.

And Q... Nobody knows how to make a Q. It's a thing like this.

And then you have to have a flourish at the end. And she fought with me the whole year, you know? I was a good student.

I was a straight-A student. And she fought with me to handwrite in a certain way. And...

And really made my life unpleasant, really hard, my life. So... In a way, you see, that's a statement about judging people.

That's a statement about what's good and what's bad. And then that naturally extends to personal relationships, right? So then, as teachers, you demand a certain conformity.

And then as a parent, you demand a different kind of conformity. You demand that they act in a certain way. And then by demanding that, you're making a statement about how other people act.

About how... You're making a statement about whether it's good or bad how other people act. So there was this thing, I remember...

I think C.S. Lewis talks about people who would go... Children in Britain, when he was writing in the 40s, 1940s, and then he said there would be this thing where children would go to another home, and they'd have a fish knife to cut fish, right? And then the children would say, that's not the kind of fish knife we have.

You know, like... Your family has a different kind of fish knife than we have. And your family's fish knife is wrong.

Because my family has the right kind of fish knife. And the children would start to grow up like that. And in my experience, and having talked to people, it comes naturally from the way the parents judge other people.

You see what I mean? So, if the parents are talking in terms of other people's fish knives, then it infects the child. And then they become people who are intolerant of other people who don't fit a norm.

And then in a way we teach it to them in school, because they must draw their letters in a certain way. You know what I mean? And they must...

Even they must spell a word in a certain way. So okay, you spell middle a little bit differently. You spell it M-I-D-L-E.

And it's obviously what... You know what it means, and it's okay. Like in Tibetan they have damkha, right?

You know damkha? Damkha is like you can spell a word two or three different ways. And it's...

Damkha means optional. You know? Like, you can spell it that way, or you can spell it that way, you know?

And people say, oh that's a damkha, you know? Either one is okay. So I think as a parent, I'm thinking as a parent, you know?

How much tolerance for diversity, how much tolerance for being different, can a parent display? You see? Because they're not going to listen to all your lectures about dakshina and yam je, and treating others like yourself.

They're not going to listen to that. They'll just watch what you do. And then, how accepting and how embracing are you of difference, right?

And then they will do what you do. They will learn to do what you do. So my experience is, just observing children, they tend to be as tolerant as their parents, right?

They tend to... In a debate ground, in the monastery, you go to the winter debates, and you are... most often you're set against a competing monastery.

What do you call it? A rival monastery. So the big deal for Saramay monks is they'll put you against a Sarajay monk, you know?

And then, each college, Saramay have... In my day, had maybe five great teachers who were teaching all the classes. And then Sarajay had five also.

But then, when you get into the debate ground and you start debating a guy, after about three minutes, you know who his teacher is. And you don't need to know... He doesn't have to tell you who his teacher is.

You can tell from the quality of his debating. You can tell from his ideas. You can tell from how how well he was trained.

You already... You say, oh, your teacher is Genjanpa, you know? He'll say, yeah.

How'd you know? He'll say, just from how you debate, I know. So, it's my experience that, you know, I have lots of students, right?

In my life, I've had lots of students. And then, sometimes you meet the parents, right? And then you see where the...

You know, after five minutes of talking to the parents, you know... you know where the quality of the child has come from. And mostly it's pleasant experience, you know?

Like, you'll meet a parent and you'll say, they'll seem really cool. They'll seem somebody really cool. I think of Bliss's mother, or Alicia's mother, right?

And you meet them and they're just really cool. They're cool people. And then you say, okay, that makes sense, you know?

I know where that came from. So I think, with regard to judging other people or how tolerant they are of differences in the world, it's something that is passed down very closely. And how tolerant you are, how embracing you are of other kinds of people, is something that you learn largely from your parents.

So I... And then to me that goes, stretches to education. You see, so how tolerant are you of different states of mind?

And just some people as young children, or some people as 40-year-old Dharma students, they're not going to fit in this keyhole, you know? What do you call it? Buttonhole.

They're not going to be the standard Dharma student, you know? Maybe they're... they will exhibit behavior which is different.

You know? And I'm proud of Diamond Mountain in a way that I think we're pretty accepting of a wide range of student behavior. You know, and often time it gets, you know, harmful for somebody.

But I think to... to be tolerant of even gross differences in thinking. And in...

What do you call it? The cognized things. How people cognize things.

Like people just might not see a letter in the way you see a letter. Or they might not feel that it's important to spell something the way you spell it. You see what I mean?

And then maybe after a few years of knowing them, you discover that they have this deep, deep, deep sensitivity to some... I'm thinking of one person who has this deep sensitivity to colors. You know?

So I... you know, they don't spell very well. Right?

But then we would take a walk or we would be talking with each other and then they'd just stop. And they look at a tree and they say, look at the leaves, you know? And you're like, yeah, you know, there's leaves, you know?

And they said, no, look at the colors, you know? And you're like, yeah, there's some are green, some are yellow, you know? No, but look at all the yellows, you know?

And then you realize that they are having some very rich experience that you're not capable of. Right? So like, you can spell better.

And you're better with the kind of structure that counts in school right now. But then they are having this other almost mystical experience of other things. And that's why their mind's not on the spelling, you know?

Like, to them, spelling would be a distraction. And it's not interesting to them, and it's not beautiful to them. And they're wrapped up, they're engrossed in some higher kind of beauty all around, and you're not even noticing it.

So I think Lama Kristi and I had a chance, we went to Seattle. I don't know if you remember, on the heart yoga tour? And there was a lady who had an autistic son.

And she brought him to the talks, and then she said, would you come to my house? Would you come to my house one night? And I don't know why, like years later we looked her up, and we went to her house.

And we spent the night there. And then we informed her that we would teach the autistic child yoga. We spent some time, and we said, we figured out some yoga that would be good for your child.

And then, you know, we spent a very frustrating afternoon trying to get the child to do the yoga. And some of that they did, and we felt like, oh, that would help them, their body physically, right? And then she said, okay, I don't remember the child's name, it was like Johnny, and she said, well Johnny, why don't you play them some piano?

And he's like, okay, and he could barely walk to the piano, and he couldn't speak, right? He couldn't speak. And then he went to the piano, and he played this incredible classical piece without any music, you know?

He just, with feeling and beauty, and we were just like stunned, you know? And then it occurred to me, well maybe he's just paying attention to something else so deeply, that speaking or writing doesn't mean so much to him. That kind of structure doesn't mean so much to him.

So then, it makes you feel like, have I been judgmental, you know? Like, did I judge the child? Because I did judge the child.

I counted the child as less than normal, right? From the time we met the child. But now you're seeing they have some kind of extraordinary beauty, which maybe I would give up my ability to speak to hear like them.

You see what I mean? And so I'm speaking in an average way, and I'm hearing in an average way. They're speaking in a sub-average way so that they can hear in a super-normal way.

Their attention is on how they hear, how things sound. And it was beautiful. And then you're like, maybe I would rather be blind and be a great musician, or something like that, you know?

Maybe I would rather. So, that then begs the question of judging other people. Like, how...

I'm thinking one of the most powerful things you can teach a child is, how do you judge other people? To what extent do you judge other people? And count them as stupid, or count them as less talented, or like that.

I'm thinking... I'm thinking that's a... that's maybe the most important thing for a parent to focus on.

How do you... value other people as people? How do you judge their level?

So that's the second thing. What was the first thing?

[Говорящий 2]
Recover from...

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, yeah. So first thing was very low level. Like assuming the parent is going to lose it sometimes.

So how fast do you recover? How fast do you forgive? How fast are you...

Are you the first one to hug the other one and say, okay, I'm sorry? You know, even if it wasn't your fault, right? That's basic level.

Assuming you can't control yourself. Okay? And then second level is...

Okay, so you don't have gross negative emotions. But I think the most valuable example you can give to a child is, how embracing are you of difference? How tolerant are you of difference, right?

Because then, I think... that bridges to a higher level. That bridges to the ultimate practice for children, right?

And... the beginning of the bridge is to teach children to find good in other people, right? So...

you know, when you are in the act of judging other people, do you... how good are you at finding good in other people? And make that a habit.

And demonstrate that habit to them with your... just with your everyday life. You know, like...

somebody says, he's autistic. And you say, but did you ever hear him play piano? You know?

Like, and you teach the child to look for the goodness in other people, and... instead of the... of what's wrong with other people.

Because both are always there, right? Both are... there's always something wrong with other people.

And there's always something beautiful with other people. So then it's just a question of which would you rather spend your time on? You know, do you want to concentrate on...

on how irritating another person is, or do you want... could you... they are equally talented at something, or they have some kind of beauty to them, and some kind of...

high quality, right? So... so...

it's really always just a decision of which world do you want to be in. Do you want to be in the world of... of constantly observing their faults?

Which is not uplifting, right? Which is... what do you call it?

What's the other... degrading. It's degrading to you to think of other people's faults, right?

Then it pulls you down. You'd be... the fact that you can observe or see someone's faults means that you have it, right?

And it's interesting to you, and you can identify it, because you have it. And then, why spend the time on that when... every person has some kind of high beauty in them, right?

Every person has some kind of worthwhile thing in them. So I'm thinking, if you had to think of a lesson to teach children, by example, it would be, can you constantly say something positive about everyone you meet? You know?

Can you, in front of this child, as a daily habit, say something positive about each person they encounter with you? So you're never like saying, oh, she's irritating, or she's kind of stupid, or she's kind of fat, or he's kind of ugly, or something like that. You're...

the focus of how you relate to others is to look for the good in them. And... and it's not to pretend they don't have bad in them.

You're not trying to pretend they don't have bad in them. You're just choosing to concentrate on the beauty. And then your mind becomes more beautiful, and then your child becomes...

changes, right? Your child becomes someone who sees beauty around them, because they've seen it as a habit in you. So that's a...

like step two, right? And then to me it bridges to step three. I had a lady, she was very distraught at the time, and she grabbed me, and she took me in a corner, and she said, my daughter died.

You know? Which is like the... I'm going to cry.

It's the worst thing that could happen to a parent, right? I saw it happen to my... my brother died before my dad died.

So I watched it... I watched how much it hurt him, you know, to watch his son die. And...

I don't think there's anything that hurts more than... than to lose your own child, right? And...

So she was in a really bad place. And she said, well, what can I do, you know, what should I do? And I don't know why it came to me.

I wasn't practicing it, and I wasn't... planning it, and I didn't know she was going to say... I didn't know she had lost her child.

And she just popped it on me, like, what should I do? And I came in my head, I was like, oh, I know exactly what you should do. And she's like, what?

And I said, start a journal, and every day write down things that your daughter did while she was alive, that you would now consider indications that she was a divine angel, that she was a divine being, sent to help you, you know? So write down, keep a journal, and just write down things that you recall. You know, make it a practice, for six months or a year, write down things about your daughter that might have been coincidence, and might have been signs that she was a divine being, and that she was purposely sent here for you.

You know, and then I... she went away, and I'm like, I don't know where that came from. And...

and then I would get emails, like every six months or so, you know, and she would describe, she'd say, yeah, you know, I did go over when she was six, she did this, and when she was eight she did this, and you're absolutely right, you know, the odds that she was some kind of non-human being, who was sent here, to this planet, to help me, it becomes more and more obvious that that's correct. And so she spent this whole... she worked her way out of her grief this way, for years.

I think she's still doing this practice. And it's... and now she has this beautiful...

it has changed her, you know, it has changed her personality. And... once you break through the ice, break the ice with one person, like once you accept the possibility that one person in your life might be more than a human, then naturally it starts to happen with other people, right?

And... so like, Winston and Andrea, two old friends, so they had a boy. He was conceived doing a diamond-cutter teaching.

They were in a tent, I remember, next door to IMS, do you remember? And they told me, you know, he was conceived in the middle of the sixth class, and I was like, wow! And...

and then they had a baby, and... I remember, I was teaching at the Quaker House on 15th Street, and they came up with Kiran in their arms, you know. And...

Kiran looks at me, you know, he's like... he's just in Andrea's arms. He looks at me and he goes like this, he goes...

You know, like three times or something. And I'm like, wow, this is weird, you know. And...

I don't remember how, but then we took a photo that night or something, and there was a one-way sign with an arrow, and it looked like it was... it was something cool going on, something really weird going on. And then Andrea was like, well, Geshe-la, do you have any advice for how I should raise the child, you know?

And I'm like, why don't you do this thing that Pat is doing about her daughter, you know? Why don't you keep a... My mom kept a baby book, for me.

By the time she got to the fourth boy, she just quit. But I was number two. So number one had a pretty good baby book, I had a really good baby book.

And then the fourth brother didn't have one, because she was too tired. But... But it was really cool to have that.

I think Auntie Pamela stole my baby book. But it's really cute, and it's really funny. There's all the report cards and pictures, you know, cool stuff.

And it's big, it's like that, you know? And then... So I said to Andrea, why don't you keep a baby book, a different kind of baby book, and why don't you watch for any signs of abnormality, you know?

Watch for any sign that this child is special. You know, and every parent thinks their child is special already. So like, if you tell them to make a list, it's like throwing gasoline on a fire, you know?

And then they're like... Every parent I know that come up to me, at some point or another in the child's life, they come up to me and say, they confide in me. You know, Geshe-la, there's something about my child, and I'm like, are they alright?

They said, yeah, they're alright. Just, you should know one thing. And I'll say, what?

And they'll say, well, they're really the smartest kid in their school. You know? And, you know, like that.

And every parent, every parent does that. And then they show me these photographs of little lumps of flesh, and they say, my baby's the most beautiful. You know?

And they look like the same old round, pudgy things to me. And... But in this practice, which is a tantric practice, okay?

There's two stages of tantric practice, right? Kirtan and Dzogchen. And the first stage tantric practice, you...

you watch for signs of divinity around you, right? It becomes your practice. You become like...

What's Rinpoche's favorite TV show? I can't do that. The guy, the detective guy.

[Говорящий 2]
No. No.

[Говорящий 1]
It's your fault. Columbo. Columbo.

God, he loved Columbo. You know? He watched it religiously.

You know? Like, you couldn't get near his room on Wednesdays from seven to eight, you know? Like, just forget it.

You know? It could be a fire in the temple, or... You know?

You could discover a new text in India, and he'd be, no, Columbo's not, you know? And... So, you have to be like Columbo.

You know? How he just walks through a room and he sees six pieces of evidence that nobody else sees, and he can already conclude who the murderer is. And...

Rinpoche would say, he would say about Kirtan, he'd say, you have to be like Columbo. And you're like quite... You know how Columbo's like saying, did you have a good day, Mrs. Smith?

And she'd say, yes. And then he'd say, you know, did you have a nice lunch? And she'd say, what did you have for lunch?

And she'd say, I had, you know, salad. And then he'd say, did you kill your husband? And then, you know, and...

You know? And then he'd say, you have to be like that. You have to be kind of cool, and not too obvious about it.

And then you have to walk through the world and look for signs that other people are divine. You know? And you're just collecting clues like Columbo.

And you're not playing... You're not showing your... What do you call it?

Cards? You're not showing your hand. You're just kind of walking through and you're just checking out things, you know?

So you have to be like that with your child, okay? And then I made a deal. If you're somebody's ney lama, which means they're spiritual mentor or something.

We have a ney lama system. So, I'm not allowed to have more than twelve... I'm not allowed to be a ney lama for more than twelve people.

What it means is, you have somebody you can call when you're having a spiritual crisis or something. And it... So it's not that 700 people...

I'm trying to take care of 700 people on that level. So we have a ney lama pyramid scheme. And you don't have more than twelve people that you're on call for.

If they have a crisis at 3 a.m., they can call you. So I don't want to have 700 of those, I limit it to twelve, okay? But...

Maybe you work out a... If you're someone's ney lama, and they're having a child, or they have a child, then I think it would be worth it to... I think it would be worth it to teach them this practice.

And people come to me and they say, Geshe Michael, I'm having a child. You know? And I used to tell Lama Kristi...

First they would say I'm getting married. And then Rinpoche would always tell me, uh, they're getting hanged. You know?

Like they're dead, you know? And I say, what do you mean, Rinpoche? Say, dub se...

dub nag lab de gyur le. Dub se lab de gyur le. Which means, it's a naughty thing to say.

I shouldn't translate, maybe.

[Говорящий 2]
No, mommy!

[Говорящий 1]
Nah. Anyway. It just means that once you're in a heavy romantic relationship, your spiritual aspirations sometimes get sidetracked.

Okay? But it's some kind of naughty way of saying it. Uh...

And then when somebody got married, you'd say, oh, they got hanged, you know? There was a hanging today, and I'd say, what do you mean? He'd say, I mean, somebody got married, and I'm like, okay.

And then, uh, then somebody would have a child, and Rinpoche would say, that's over. Their life is over. You know?

Their life is over. Now they can't do anything. But then later, I was in the room one day, and someone came in and they said, I'm having a child.

And he said, okay. And they said, you know, he said, sit down. And she said, I'm pregnant, you know?

First of all, there was a discussion about abortion. And, uh... And, uh...

And he talked her out of it. And later she had the child, and she said it was the best thing in her life, ever. You know?

But anyway, she came and said, you know, now I'm not... now I'm not going to be able to practice anymore. And he said, no, no, you don't understand.

Your child is your practice now. You know? He said, you're not going to have time to meditate.

They're going to be disturbing you all the time. You won't be able to go on retreats, because it's not responsible to leave your child for that long. And basically, they're just going to be...

that's it, you know? Your whole time is going to have to be poured into your child. I have a friend, a close friend who had two children.

And she and her husband helped me get a retreat cabin a couple of times. And then they would bring my groceries. And then, uh...

So, one time I said... I wrote them a note. I said, my retreat's ending next week.

I'll watch your kids. I'll watch the two boys. For a day or a night.

They'll spend overnight. I'll watch them the next day. You go on a honeymoon.

What do you call it? Second honeymoon or something. You go to a bed and breakfast, and make out or whatever.

You know? And then... So they said, that's really...

we thank you very much, because we never get a break. And then the boys came. And God!

It was torture. And you know, I had prepared all these things for them to do. Like, we were going to make Mongolian mousetraps together.

And then we were going to go through a hike to the woods and see a lake. I had the whole day planned out. And then it was like...

brutal. It was really... And maybe she wasn't wise after later, I think.

But I distinctly remember a moment when I said to them, okay boys, I have to go pee-pee. I have to go poopoo, you know? And I went in the bathroom, and I locked the door.

And then they were banging on the door. And I can't concentrate on the poop, you know? And they're like banging on the door and yelling at me to open the door.

And I'm thinking, you know, just give me five minutes, you know? Like, amuse yourselves for five minutes. Because I'm pooping, you know?

And it takes a certain kind of concentration. And they didn't give it to me. They wouldn't leave.

They wouldn't stop banging on the door. And I couldn't get up because it was only halfway done. And it was just really uncomfortable, you know?

And then I thought, oh my god, they do this every day. They do this every day all year. My friends, you know?

Oh my gosh, you know? How much... They're exhausted.

They're totally exhausted because the children demand... I don't know everybody's children. I don't know about other children, but these children demanded every iota of their attention.

And then they were exhausted. And then Rinpoche would say to their parent, you're not going to be able to meditate like you used to. And you're not going to be able to go on retreats.

And you won't have time to study. So now you make... Now you have to devote yourself to tantric practice.

Only. And that's observing your child for signs of their divinity, is now your practice. Is now your full-time practice.

So then you're not resisting the child, you know? You're not resisting the experience. You're not saying, oh, I'm not free anymore.

I don't have any time anymore. They're taking all my time. I can't meditate.

I can't practice. And then there was a time with one mother that he said, you're going to now have a better chance to practice than the people who are meditating. You know, he said, now you're really lucky.

Because now it's natural for a parent to be very focused on their child. And now if you do it in such a way that you're watching for their divinity, you're way ahead of everybody else. You have a natural outlet for tantric practice that's forced on you.

You know? So use it. Ride it.

The idea of tantra is to ride a tiger, right? Tiger approaches you and tries to bite you. You jump on their back and ride them, you know?

And so that's... That was what Rinpoche would say. He would say, once you become a parent, basically drop your other practices.

You can keep up what you can, but your main practice should be kirim, practice with your child. Observing them for divinity. And then what I found as someone's ney lama is encourage them to send you emails.

And they send me once a week a summary of the cool things they've done. And then keep a baby book, not of photos, and not of report cards from school. But keep a baby book of miracles.

You know, keep a journal. Of miracles that you've seen with your child. And once you start to notice a few, you'll notice more, because they are divine.

Okay? Because they are divine. So, I mean, the end of Columbo's investigation is already known.

He's going to discover that the child is divine. You know? And then you just have to...

You have the fun of the... What do you call it? Detective work.

You know? You're going to have the enjoyment of the detective work throughout the rest of your life. So that's the...

To me it's the three levels of parenting. Maybe eventually we could develop some kind of a program for parents. You know, like an extended program for parents, I think.

And we had a great program for children in Howell for, I don't know, ten years. And those kids are unbelievable. Bob Chilton's wife was one of the first children, and she's extraordinary.

So they were brought up with worldview of karma and emptiness since they were tiny. And then... And two things happened with two of the children.

See, the cool thing about children is they believe everything you tell them. They actually believe what you tell them about karma and emptiness. So we taught them for, like, I don't know, a year, two years, something.

And then Sammy's friend died. One of the children's friend died in a... He was riding a bicycle and got hit by a car.

So then Sammy was sad for a while. And then... I forget the other child's name.

But this was like 12, 15 years ago. So then we were sitting together at 6th Street. And I remember this very heavy afternoon where Sammy came in and I said, well, how are you doing, Sammy?

And he said, today I'm really good. And I said, why? And he said, I was doing tonglen for my friend.

You know? And I said, so what kind of tonglen did you do? He said, oh, I sent him a bicycle today.

Because he really liked bicycles. So I meditated all day. And I sent him a really good bike.

And he really liked it, you know? And he was doing tonglen on his friend. And then it was really hot, you know?

And... I forget the other child's name, but he was really special. And then I said, they said, it's hot.

And I said, I'm sorry, the air conditioner broke. And then I said, well, I'll try to fix it. And I got up and I got some screwdrivers and stuff.

And then the boy on the floor, he's like, no, no, Geshe Michael, don't waste your time. I said, why? What do you mean?

And he said, that's not why it broke. And I'm like, what do you mean? And he said, we didn't make places cool enough for other people in the past.

And that's why the air conditioner broke. And you can try to fix it, but maybe you will and maybe you won't. And if you really want the air conditioner to work, we have to make places cool for other people.

You know, like, they get it. They really get it. Kids get it before other people get it.

So I think, personally, to indoctrinate children, to try to logically present to children the idea that the world comes from how they treat other people, is really, really a sweet way to bring up a child. I think those kids are... The Sammy I met as an adult, and he's extraordinary.

He's really extraordinary. He's really an extraordinary person, you know. So I would encourage you to do that.

Last thing, okay? Then we go to the movies, I think. Because it's going to be crazy tonight.

Last thing I wanted to talk about was... We talked about it last night, I think, or the night before, Pratyahara, which is the effect of over-stimulation on people. And for children, it's exaggerated, I think.

So, you know, I haven't had children, but I've been able to contribute to the upbringing of some children in the course of my life. I've been like a godfather to some children. And so I got to participate to some extent in the bringing up of some children.

And the experiment that they did, the big thing was... Well, one of the big things was not to allow the children to see any television at all. Zero tolerance on television.

Not allowing the children to see any television at all. Like in the home, there's no television. And nowadays that would extend to videos on the web.

So I'm just presenting the possibility, or the thought, of what would a child be like if they were not exposed to television, or that use of computers at all, until they finished elementary school, or something like that. Like in the home, there was no custom of using television or computer for the children. And I thought it might be too extreme.

I thought they might come out strange, or something, you know? Or, you know, somehow deprived, somehow. Or stupid in a way, like other kids would be joking about a show like Columbo, and then they wouldn't have any idea what was being talked about, and somehow they would be deficient, you know?

And I wasn't sure it was so wise, you know? But anyway, that's what we did, and no television at all. Zero tolerance.

Like not saying one hour a night, or something like that. There's just no television in the house. And then the experience was that the parents have to observe the same thing, you know?

Like the parents have to observe the no television thing. And then what happens is, now, I think the experience of parents in the modern world is you don't have enough time with your children, you know? You don't have time to be with your children.

There won't be time. You have to work, you have certain things to do, they have to go to school. You only have a very, very limited time to interact with your children.

And then if you engage in the use of television and video on computers and things like that, web surfing, and even cell phones to a certain extent, right? Then you're in a situation where you're in a room with somebody, it could be your kitchen of your home, and dad is staring into a computer screen, and mom is staring into a computer screen, and the child is watching a show on TV, and there's three people in a room, and they haven't talked to each other for a week, you know? They haven't really had a face-to-face, a human interaction for a week, you know?

They are, each of them staring into some screen. And that's not to mention the physical effect of the screen, you know? Which is probably quite damaging.

I think they will look back and say that these devices were quite damaging to human health, you know? Over the long term, especially like, what do you call it? Wireless.

It will be learned that it was very damaging to the body. And the effect of a screen, a computer screen, and cathode rays on a human being, I think there's a physical damage of the computer, and what it does to your ability to concentrate, and your attention span. But then there's a social damage of teaching children to be in a room and not interact with other human beings in the room at all.

Like, there's no human interaction going on. And then, in the experiment that I was peripherally involved with, the children had no television up through high school. And they're beautiful.

You know, they're really beautiful. And instead of television, they might go outside and go for a walk, or see the stars, or they're into gardening. They plant things.

So that the boy, one of the boys, I saw recently, and he's in college now, and I went to his house, and he's with all his roommates, you know, and I said, well, you know, I'm just trying to check out to see if things are all right. Do they drink, you know, beer or anything? And he said, no, they don't drink at all.

I said, well, what do you guys do for fun? And he says, well, we do our garden. You know, I have a garden out back.

And we grow vegetables for dinner. That's what we do, you know? And he was put into a house with normal college frat guys.

And now the whole frat is like doing gardening in the evening. And they're like, look at these squashes, we can make really good pies, and you know, and we're really, and you know, it's so healthy. And they're so mentally, what do you call it?

Healthy. Their mental health is very high. And their level of happiness is unprecedented.

You know, I haven't seen that level of happiness. And they had no familiarity with modern... what do you call them?

They call them devices now. On the airplane they say, shut down your devices. They don't say, shut down your computer anymore, they said.

Because there's so many. They say, shut down your devices. And then I told this story last night.

I went to breakfast with a good friend of mine from the dining business. He's discovered cell phones, computers, iPod, email. And I felt really sad, because I haven't seen him for maybe six months.

And I waited for three days to have a meal with him. And then we finally went to a meal, and he was on this iPod the whole time. And now it seems to be a normal...

It used to be, like a couple years ago, that people would apologize, and they would excuse themselves from the table, and they would go outside, and they would take their phone. It was a bit like smoking a cigarette. But now it's just...

people comfortably lapse into ignoring each other when they've gone out to dinner to talk to each other. And very automatically and very smoothly, they both pull out their cell phones and completely ignore each other for half the meal or something. And it's not considered impolite.

It's considered normal. Even if there's nothing very important. Like nobody's dying, it's just they want to check their email.

So I would propose, just from my own experience, no TV, no computer use, aside... I don't know if there's some necessary for school, for writing compositions or something, as a word processor. And no cell phone up to a certain age.

And I believe you'll find that they come out much better people for it. They come out really good. That's what's happened.

Really, really good. The one boy was homeschooled most of his education, and then he went to high school the last couple years, and they voted him class president the moment, you know, after a couple weeks, he got there. And they made him class president because he's just so friendly and so human.

And he's able to look you in the eye or hug you, you know. And he doesn't ignore you, you know. He's been actually accustomed to human interaction and love, you know, like warmth, warmth, right?

So, just as a practical thing, I would suggest that. So now, so what do you have? You have, I'll summarize.

You have, if you lose it with your child, I mean, especially at them, right? But even with other people, you make an example of how fast you can forgive, right? What was the second thing?

Yeah, a high degree of tolerance. You exhibit a high degree of tolerance for difference. And you look for the good, I mean, with the tolerance goes looking for the fine qualities of other people.

And that automatically bridges to what? Yeah, seeing the divinity in other people. So then you keep a journal of your child's divinity.

They will observe you doing it. The flavor, the rasa, of you trying to see divinity in your child and keeping a journal of it. And they'll become aware of what you're doing at some point, right?

Even if you don't announce it formally, they'll be aware of the exercise. And then what happens to them? Two things, I mean, to have someone consider your divinity, people tend to respond to whatever people put on them.

People project Lama onto me, and then I do the Lama thing, right? So if you're looking for them to do something sacred, they'll start doing sacred stuff, you know? But then again, they'll learn the habit of what you're doing, you see?

And they will look for sacred things. They will say, mom and dad were always looking for the divine in me. And they seem to be pretty happy.

Or they'll automatically do what you do. If you judge other people negatively, they'll do that. If you're trying to see the divine in them, they'll start doing that to other people.

So on two counts you have a beautiful child, right? They are responding to being... the divinity trip being put on them, and then they're learning to do what you do to see other people as divine.

What was the last thing? What was the side thing? Yeah, Pratyahara in the sense of consider the possibility of raising children in a device-free atmosphere where you encourage and you undertake one-on-one warmth and one-on-one human contact with them.

Often. Because the time you have available during the day is limited. And the time you have before they leave you is limited.

So have as many warm interactions as you can. Use the time that way. So I've used up all the time.

We're going to have a ten-minute baby shower? Is that alright? What are you doing in baby shower?

I don't know. You sit up here, right? And we bring you nice presents and stuff.