Бесстрашный успех (2012, Сан-Франциско), занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
Thank you for coming and I'd like to thank everyone who organized it, all old friends. I used to come to San Francisco a lot, in the Haydash, I mean, before. No, even I think before 2000, but it's good to be here.

Nice to see a lot of old friends. So they asked me, can you talk about a thing called fearless success. This is actually some talk we did in Zurich, and we were too lazy to make a new reading, so we just changed the place and the date.

So, it doesn't really apply to San Francisco as much as the bankers in Zurich, I think, but the principles are the same. So, we didn't have time to, we were going to do an introduction, but I think I'll just do it as we go, you know, about my life. I don't mean to, what do you call it, boast, but I'm trying to make a point that if you use these principles, you can be successful, okay?

So, you know, I grew up in Arizona. I was born in L.A., grew up in Arizona. I was lucky I got to go to Princeton on a scholarship because my family was really poor, and my mom was really proud of me.

She got it in the newspaper in Phoenix. Phoenix in those days was like, I don't know, 200 people or something. And, you know, she was really happy.

So then I went to school there, and I was doing really well. The President of the United States gave me some award at the White House, and my mom went crazy on that and got it in all the newspapers. Where did you get that?

I never saw that. Then I got a phone call. I think I was a junior in college, and I got a phone call, and they said, your mother died suddenly.

Your mother died tonight. And then I was like, oh. And I almost went crazy, you know, I almost felt completely crazy.

And then I was lost. I didn't know why I'm doing... I was doing everything to impress her and make her happy, and now she's gone, just suddenly.

And then after that, my father died and my brother died, and all separately, all strangely, you know. And then I was like, crazy. So I thought, oh, I have to go away.

I have to figure out what's going on with life in general, you know, not just being a successful person, you know, I have to find out what's happening. Then there was a... I was taking a class in Buddhism, which was the first time I ever heard of Buddhism.

And there was an Indian young man from India. And I remember one day I went to the class, and he was sitting under a tree outside, and he looked like the Buddha, you know. And he said, he was like this, you know.

And I said, you know, I never missed a class in my whole life. I was a really good boy, you know, and then he was like... I said, we got to go to class, and he's like...

And he said, you're not going to learn what you need to know here. You have to go to India, you know. And don't worry, I'll take care of you.

We'll go together, you know. I'll meet you. We'll go meet swamis and gurus, you know.

And you'll be really happy, you know. And they can tell you what happened to your mom, and, you know, what you can do about it. And I was like, I just said yes.

And I didn't have any... I'd never been anywhere, you know. And I got on the plane.

It was all Italia, right? From Kennedy, with all these Italian grandmothers going home. And the plane went up like that, and then it dropped.

It must have dropped almost the whole way to the ocean. And it was like, terrifying. And all these old Italian grandmothers were like...

And then I'm like, what am I doing, you know? Why am I in this plane? And, you know, then we went to India, you know.

And they opened up the door. And the first thing was a strong incense smell. Like, really...

I believe later it's the Holy Land, you know. And then, you know, the other smells. All the sewage and cow poop and human poop, everything.

And you come down, and it was crazy. It was like a riot, and everyone's screaming and yelling. And I'm just like, I'm looking for my friend, you know.

And he's not there. And he never came. He tricked me, okay.

So I'm like in the airport, I don't know anybody. And I just get in a cab. I say, you know, do you know where there's a hotel?

He's like, my cousin owns a hotel. Which, everybody has a cousin, right? Then they get the kickback of half the hotel room.

So he takes me to this little house, and they put me in a room. And I stayed there for like two days, and I was too scared to go out, because it was so insane. Everything was insane and crazy.

And then, finally the guy knocked on the door, and he said, you know, are you okay? And I said, no. He's like, you know, don't you need to eat something?

I said, yeah, I need to eat. He said, well, come out. I said, I'm not coming out.

Then he brought me some food. And he was very sweet. And he, you know, he gave me all the, he told me about the food, all the power elements in the food and everything.

He was very sweet. And then he said, you know, why did you come to India? And I said, well, I want to meet Buddhist people.

And he looks at his watch and he says, you're a little bit late, you know. And I said, what do you mean late? And he said, Buddhist people finished in India a thousand years ago.

No, there are no Buddhists in India. And then I'm like, what am I going to do? I have a three-month ticket.

I said, can I teach your kids English or something? Then I can just stay in the house and I don't have to go out, you know. And he's like, no, no, you go.

In the Himalayas there are some people coming out of Tibet, refugees like this, you know. And I said, you know, I never missed a class in my whole life. I was a really good boy, you know.

And then he was like, and I said, we got to go to class. And he's like, you know. And he said, you're not going to learn what you need to know here.

You have to go to India, you know. And don't worry, I'll take care of you. We'll go together, you know.

I'll meet you. We'll go meet swamis and gurus and, you know. And you'll be really happy, you know.

And they can tell you what happened to your mom and, you know, whatever. And I said, you know, I never missed a class in my whole life. I was a really good boy, you know.

And then he was like... And I said, we got to go to class. He's like, you know.

And he said like this. And I said, you know, I never missed a class in my whole life. I was a really good boy, you know.

And then he was like, and I said, we got to go to class. And he's like, and he said, you're not going to learn what you need to know here. You have to go to India.

And don't worry, I'll take care of you. We'll go together. I'll meet you.

We'll go meet swamis and gurus, and you'll be really happy. And they can tell you what happened to your mom and what you can do about it. And I was like, I just said yes.

And I didn't have any, I'd never been anywhere. And I got on the plane. It was Alitalia, right?

From Kennedy with all these Italian grandmothers going home. And the plane went up like that, and then it dropped. It must have dropped almost the whole way to the ocean.

And it was like, terrifying. And all these old Italian grandmothers were like, ah! And then I'm like, what am I doing?

Why am I in this plane? And then we went to India, and they opened up the door. And the first thing was a strong incense smell, like really, like the whole, I believe later it's the Holy Land, and then the other smells.

All the sewage and cow poop and human poop, everything. And you come down, and it was crazy. It was like a riot, and everyone's screaming and yelling.

And I'm just like, I'm looking for my friend, and he's not there. And he never came. He tricked me, okay?

So I'm like in the airport. I don't know anybody. And I just get in a cab.

I say, you know, do you know where there's a hotel? He's like, my cousin owns a hotel. Which, everybody has a cousin, right?

Then they get the kickback of half the hotel room. So he takes me to this little house, and they put me in a room, and I stayed there for like two days, and I was too scared to go out, because it was so insane. Everything was insane and crazy.

And then finally the guy knocked on the door, and he said, you know, are you okay? And I said, no, like this, you know? And I said, you know, I never missed a class in my whole life.

I was a really good boy, you know? And then he was like, I said, we got to go to class. And he's like, you know?

And he said, you're not going to learn what you need to know here. You have to go to India, you know? And don't worry, I'll take care of you.

We'll go together, you know? I'll meet you. We'll go meet swamis and gurus, and you know?

And you'll be really happy, you know? And they can tell you what happened to your mom, and you know, what you can do about it. And I was like, I just said yes.

And I didn't have any, I'd never been anywhere, you know? And I got on the plane. It was all Italia, right?

From Kennedy, with all these Italian grandmothers going home, and the plane went up like that, and then it dropped. It must have dropped almost the whole way to the ocean. And it was like, terrifying.

And all these old Italian grandmothers were like, ah! And then I'm like, what am I doing, you know? Why am I in this plane?

And, you know, then we went to India, you know? And they opened up the door, and the first thing was a strong incense smell, like really, like the whole, I believe later it's the Holy Land, you know? And then, you know, the other smells.

All the sewage, and cow poop, and human poop, everything. And you come down, and it was crazy. It was like a riot, and everyone's screaming and yelling.

And I'm just like, I'm looking for my friend, you know? And he's not there. And he never came.

He tricked me, okay? So I'm like in the airport. I don't know anybody.

And I just get, I get in a cab. I say, you know, do you know where there's a hotel? He's like, my cousin owns a hotel, you know?

Which, everybody has a cousin, right? Then they get the kickback of half the hotel room. So he takes me to this little house, and they put me in a room, and I stayed there for like two days, and I was too scared to go out, because it was so insane.

Everything was insane and crazy. And then, finally the guy knocked on the door, and he said, you know, are you okay? And I said, no.

And he's like, you know, don't you need to eat something? I said, yeah, I need to eat. He said, well, come out.

I said, I'm not coming out. And he was like, then he brought me some food. And he was very sweet, and he, you know, and he, so he gave me all the, he told me about the food, all the power elements in the food and everything.

He was very sweet. And then he said, you know, why did you come to India? And I said, well, I want to meet Buddhist people.

And he looks at his watch, and he says, you're a little bit late, you know. And I said, what do you mean late? He said, Buddhist people finished in India a thousand years ago.

There, no, there are no Buddhists in India. And then I'm like, what do I, I have a three-month ticket, you know. I said, can I teach your kids English or something?

Then I can just stay in the house, and I don't have to go out, you know. And he's like, no, no, you go, in the Himalayas, there are some people coming out of Tibet, refugees, and maybe you can talk to them, you know, you can try to talk to them. So then I did meet them, and I started studying with them, and I stayed 25 years in monasteries, in Tibetan monasteries.

And in the US, there's a Mongolian monastery in New Jersey, which is secret, but all old Mongolian monks. So I stayed in both places for 25 years, and then in the last three weeks, they give you an examination. Too hot.

This one. They give you an examination, and I don't know if you've seen Tibetan, we have a picture of the debating, I think. Do you have it?

I don't know where you got that. I don't know where you got all these things. No, that's the wrong slideshow.

Hello. Anyway, it's like karate. I don't know if you've seen it.

I won't do it. But they scream at you, and they yell in Tibetan, and then you have a final exam, it's in a courtyard. In my monastery, it was 1,300 monks, and each one questions you publicly in Tibetan.

And then it takes like three weeks, night, a lot of the night, and then most of the day. Then if you answer most of this stuff, okay. That's a typical debate.

But if you answer everything okay, then they give you that yell like this, you know? And I said, you know, I never missed a class in my whole life. I was like this, you know?

And I said like this, you know? And I said, you know, I never missed a class in my whole life. I was a really good boy, you know?

And then he was like, I said, we got to go to class. And he's like, you know? And he said, you're not going to learn what you need to know here.

You have to go to India, you know? And don't worry, I'll take care of you. We'll go together, you know?

I'll meet you. We'll go meet swamis and gurus, and you know? And you'll be really happy, you know?

And they can tell you what happened to your mom, and you know, what you can do about it. And then I was like, I just said yes. And I didn't have any, I'd never been anywhere, you know?

And I got on the plane. It was all Italia, right? From Kennedy, with all these Italian grandmothers going home.

And the plane went up like that, and then it dropped. It must have dropped almost the whole way to the ocean. And it was like, terrifying.

And all these old Italian grandmothers were like, and then I'm like, what am I doing, you know? Why am I in this plane? And, you know, then we went to India, you know?

And they opened up the door, and the first thing was a strong incense smell, like really, like the whole, I believe later it's the Holy Land, you know? And then, you know, the other smells. All the sewage, and cow poop, and human poop, everything.

And you come down, and it was crazy. It was like a riot, and everyone's screaming and yelling. And I'm just like, I'm looking for my friend, you know?

And he's not there. And he never came. He tricked me, okay?

So I'm like in the airport, I don't know anybody. And I just get, I get in the cab, I say, you know, do you know where there's a hotel? He's like, my cousin owns a hotel, you know?

Which, everybody has a cousin, right? Then they get the kickback of half the hotel room. So he takes me to this little house, and they put me in a room, and I stayed there for like two days, and I was too scared to go out, because it was so insane.

Everything was insane and crazy. And then, finally the guy knocked on the door, and he said, you know, are you okay? And I said, no.

And he's like, you know, don't you need to eat something? I said, yeah, I need to eat. He said, well, come out.

I said, I'm not coming out. And he was like, then he brought me some food. And he was very sweet.

And he, you know, and he, he gave me all the, he told me about the food, all the power elements in the food and everything. He was very sweet. And then he said, you know, why did you come to India?

And I said, well, I want to meet Buddhist people. And he looks at his watch, and he says, you're a little bit late, you know? And I said, what do you mean late?

He said, Buddhist people finished in India a thousand years ago. There, no, there are no Buddhists in India. And then I'm like, what do I, I have a three-month ticket.

I said, can I teach your kids English or something? Then I can just stay in the house, and I don't have to go out, you know? And, and he's like, no, no, you go, in the Himalayas, there are some people coming out of Tibet, refugees, and maybe you can talk to them, you know, you can try to talk to them.

So then I, I did meet them, and I started studying with them, and I stayed 25 years in monasteries, in the, in Tibetan monasteries, and in the U.S., there's a Mongolian monastery in New Jersey, which is secret. But all old Mongolian monks. So I stayed in both places for 25 years, and then in the last three weeks, they give you an examination.

Too hot. This one. They give you an examination, and I don't know if you've seen Tibetan, we have a picture of the debating, I think.

Do you have it? Uh, I don't know where you got that. I don't know where you got all these things.

No, that's the wrong slideshow. Hello. Anyway, it's like karate.

I don't know if you've seen it. I won't do it. But they scream at you, and they yell in Tibetan, and then you have a, final exam is in a courtyard.

In my monastery, it was 1,300 monks, and each one questions you publicly in Tibetan. And then it takes like three weeks, night, a lot of the night, and then most of the day. And then, then if you answer most of this stuff, okay.

That's a typical debate. But if you answer everything okay, then they give you that yellow hat. You know?

And that's, everybody wants one, you know? Then when I came back to the US, I was like, I got a yellow hat, and everybody's like, so what?

[Speaker 2]
You know?

[Speaker 1]
You know? And, but, so in my monastery, I was the first Westerner to ever finish that. And then, so on the day I finished, my teacher, one of my lamas called me, and he said, you're the first white guy in 600 years to pass this test.

Now, we have a second exam for you. And I'm like, you didn't mention any second exam, you know? And he said, well, you're special.

So, you're going to go to New York. And I'm like, I hate New York, you know? I was from Phoenix, right?

And I'm like, I hate New York. He said, you're going to go to New York, and you're going to start a business, you know? And I'm like, I hate business.

And he said, we want to see if you can apply the principles which we taught you to make a business. Just as an experiment, just as a laboratory. You don't have to keep the money.

And, you know, we'll give the money away. But we want to see if you understand karma. We want to see, can you apply what we taught you for 25 years in the real world?

And you don't tell anybody what you're doing. You just do it. And we'll see if you can make like a million dollars in a year or something, you know?

Do you understand how to shape reality by working with karmic seeds, you see? And in a real life situation where nobody knows you and nobody's helping you. It's just, you're stuck, you know?

So, I'm like, then I tried to avoid it. I tried to get out of it, but they're very, what do you call it? Discipline is very strict in Tibetan monastery.

You think all those Tibetan monks are nice because they were born that way, but you get hit a lot. So, you know, I had to go. So, I went to New York and we started a company, three people, we started a little company.

And I was meditating. I was like, what should I, what kind of business should I do? And the answer came diamonds.

And I don't have any interest in diamonds. I don't like jewelry. I'm, I don't know what, at that time I didn't know what a diamond looks like, but in the meditation I kept getting this thing that said you have to work with diamonds.

So, we started a diamond company with three people. Now the company is 10,000 people and it's $250 million per year. And it was sold to Warren Buffett in 2009.

And you know, yeah. Should I go back? Maybe.

So anyway, and then this Doubleday called me and they said, would you write a book about the principles that you used so other people can use them? So I said, yeah, I'll write a book. So I wrote a book.

And now that book is in, I think, 25 or 30 languages and people in China use it a lot. I think three million people in China are using it. And many countries.

So, so then we, then I, people read the book and then they said, would you come and talk about it? And I came and talk about it. And then I think we were in Guangzhou in South China.

And somebody raised their hand and said, we were at a business seminar and this lady said, can I use those principles to fix my husband? And then this guy goes, why are you always talking about husband? Can you fix your wife with these principles?

And I'm like, yeah, I guess. I mean, you could use it that way. And then people went crazy.

The whole rest of the seminar was exploded. Nobody wanted to talk about business. They just wanted to talk about their partner, how to fix a partner.

And then some lady's like, I don't have a partner. Can you use karma to get a partner? You know, and this other lady's like, I have a partner, but I don't want a partner.

And I don't know, it just grew like that. And now thousands and thousands of people come every month and we give talks all over the world. And tonight, I mean, people are asking me, I thought to talk about fearlessness, the idea of fearlessness.

And in this system, in the karmic system, if you study it carefully many years, right, then you will come to a place where you understand that the fear and anxiety and stress that the world feels is unnecessary. You see what I mean? It's about things which aren't even there.

You're worried about things that aren't there. You know, if you study these things carefully and you go do your New York experiment, you know, and I was angry at my Lama, I didn't want to go. And now I'm really grateful, you know.

But you come to realize that the world's mental suffering, the anxiety that people have about their future or what's going to happen or will things work out, these are all unnecessary. It's like, what do you call it, polio, right? You just can shoot somebody with some vaccine and it's not an issue anymore.

And anxiety is the same, or fear about what's going to happen in your life or like that, it could just be, what do you call it? What do they do to polio? It could be eradicated.

Human anxiety and fear, nervousness is unnecessary because you can make stuff happen if you understand. You see what I mean? If you could just plan your future for next month, you know, you sit down, what day is it, the 28th, right?

You sit down the 28th of November and you say, this is what I want to happen in December. This is how December is going to go. And you plan, this is going to happen on the 1st, this is going to happen on the 3rd.

I'm going to get a big check from this guy and then this girl's going to call me. And then, you know, you make a list, my bad back's going to go away on the 15th. The war will stop in Iraq and, you know, like you move up, what do they call that guy in the triangle, Maslow.

Yeah, you go, you move up in the end. I think people have four goals, I believe, just from meeting thousands and thousands of people. One is we want to be financially independent.

I don't mean greedy or rich or you have three big cars which are more hassle than one big car. But it would be nice to have no credit card debt and no stress. And if you wanted to send your kids to college, you just wrote a check and didn't think about it.

If you didn't have to think about it, if you just... I saw a book, it's not me, okay, I didn't invent it. I think it's called Shogun.

It's called, it's a bad word, okay, it's F-U money. Like you have enough money to just, you know, you want something, you just buy it. And you don't know how much you have and you don't worry about it.

Money becomes like oxygen in the room, you know. Nobody here is like looking at the person next to them and saying, could you breathe a little less? You know, I mean there's, no, there's enough oxygen for everybody.

They didn't have to announce on Facebook how much oxygen would be here tonight, you know. You just, no, you take it for granted, right? What if money were the same?

And so I don't mean that you are greedy or you want money. What I mean is you don't have to think about it anymore. And then you can think about other things that you want to think about.

And you're not engaged in the pursuit of money. It just comes in and you spend it. And I'm talking like, let's call it oxygen money or something like that.

Could you reach a point of financial independence where it's not an issue anymore? And you're not like, what do you call it? Some rich person with gold.

There's diamond dealers in Mumbai with gold faucets in their toilets and the bathroom handle, the toilet handle is gold. And we don't need those. I just mean, you're just comfortable.

You don't have to worry about it. You don't have stress about it, right? And then I think everybody would like a partner.

I think most people would like some kind of partner, right, relationship. People would like to have a relationship. And then there's so much anxiety attached to that, like in the getting, in the keeping, and in the being happy together, which are different issues, right?

You can find somebody and then sometimes you can't keep them or they're not loyal or there's a problem with that. And then sometimes you keep them but you're not happy with them and then you don't want to keep them. So I think there's, in our system there's different karmas for each thing.

You see, you would have one karma for finding them. You would apply certain karmas for finding them and then you would apply different karmas for keeping them. And then the karmas for them to be nice over the years is a separate karma.

So then you would study those three and you would learn them and just apply them. But what I'm talking about tonight is you would have a partner. They would be loyal.

They would stay with you. And you'd be happier every year. You would be more romantical when you're 50 than when you're 16.

It just gets better every year. It gets more hot every year. You see what I mean?

And you're not thinking. You don't have to worry about it. You know what causes it to be that way and you know how to keep it that way.

Then you... What I'm talking about tonight is not finding somebody or keeping them or being happy with them. I'm just talking about the lack of stress.

If you know what's going to happen with them, then you're not worried that they're going to meet somebody. Who are they texting right now? You know, like...

You know, they're like this. And you're like, hello. And they're like...

You know, and... I mean, what if all the stress were gone? What if it were completely predictable?

And, what do you call it? You could manage the future. What if you could manipulate the future, manage the future?

That's basically what they wanted me to try. That's what they sent me to try. They said, take a real life thing, a business, and see if you can...

if you can manage how it goes, how the future goes. And then, what I want to talk about tonight is that how would you feel if you learned how to do that? Then you wouldn't have anxiety about the future.

You know, you'd say, are you going to have enough money next month? Yeah. Is the credit card bill going to get paid?

Well, yeah. It always gets paid. I don't even look at it.

I don't look at my credit card bills. I just got my... The person who does my finances was like, Geshe-la, do you know how much money is spent in Russia on the phone bill alone, on your private phone calls?

I'm like, no, I don't know. I never see the phone bill. And she's like, $895.

I'm like, okay. You know? You know, that was like a three-week trip in Russia, right?

And you don't worry. You're just like, okay, you know. It'll help San Francisco.

Where's Apple? Somewhere near here. Anyway, okay.

And then people come to me. They say, but can you change a physical thing? Like, I have a bad back.

A lot of people come. I had a woman come with... What do you call it?

Breast cancer. And she said, can you do anything with that? Can you adjust the future of your health?

And you can. And with her... That's friend, you know friend?

Yeah. So she, I don't know. That was 20 years ago.

And she's fine. And she's great. And she's 85 and she's still doing our books in New York.

She never stopped working. And you can adjust those things. So, and then I think all of us, those are three goals that everybody has.

I think you want to be financially independent, just so you don't have to think about it. And then you want to have a nice relationship. That's like a human right.

And then you want to have energy and you want to feel young and you want to feel excited about your life and the people you're with and have good health, energy. Not have to think about it. And then I think it's natural, the deepest human instinct, stronger than those three, is to provide them to other people.

We all would like to be the mom of the universe. We all, male and female, we have this drive, this deep, deep drive to take care of other people. We would like to have the capacity to help other people on a grand scale.

You know what I mean? And that's why, in America, all the movies are about superheroes, right? And the best ones are when the superhero is a nerd who is hopeless and he's like, what's that, Transformers movies?

That guy saved the world three times. Finally, they put him in an office like this and they said, well, keep him out of trouble, he won't save the world. But he still saves the world from that little office, you know?

So I think, why are we obsessed with Iron Man, Superman, X-Men, Batman, I don't know the rest, Superwoman, Spider-Man, I'm sorry, Green Lantern, The Matrix, yeah, I mean, Star Wars. We have an obsession with that thing. We all, we love those movies and we keep going and we keep paying.

They just make them and they make $20 million, they don't have to think about it, you know? And, why? Because that's, I think, the deepest human need.

Deeper than food or sex or shelter or the wish for health. People want to take care of other people. Deep down, no matter how nasty you are, you'd like to take care of other people and you would like to help other people.

So the cool thing about this system, which, by the way, it came from ancient India, it came from a scripture called the Diamond Cutter Sutra. So, this Diamond Cutter system, the way in which you achieve the first three things, for example, okay, if you wanted to be, have your credit cards paid automatically every month and you could talk on your iPhone, you don't have to fool around and figure out the Skype on your iPhone, you could just pay the $4 per minute, you know? No, I'm serious.

So then, you know, like, if you could reach that, then there's a deeper, there's a deeper desire to give it to other people. It's no fun to eat a big dinner at a table and all the other people are not allowed to eat. You know, like, you're happy and you're having fun and you're successful and then everybody around you is unhappy, then you can't enjoy the dinner.

So, I think there's a deeper human need. The cool thing about the Diamond Cutter system is that the way you get the first three things causes the fourth. Okay?

So, the way you become successful causes other people to be served. To say it the other way, you have to serve people to be successful. And it's by serving people that you can get the things you want, anything you want.

And I'm not just doing, what do you call it, corporate lip service, you know? Like, corporate charities are a joke, right? They give what?

Like, McDonald's will give $1,000. You know? That's like the cost of rolls that they dropped in one location.

You know? I just mean you can, if you understand this system, the way you become successful is also to help other people. So, it's fun.

And then people always ask me, but my mom, and my mom too, they say my mom was the most generous person I know and she didn't get rich. She gave, she served, but it didn't make her rich. Then I would say there's a technique involved.

Like farming. Like I grow, I have a garden. And the first thing I started was bare root roses, which are sticks.

And then you stick them in the ground and then, you know, and I said, my roses are going to be bigger than anybody's. I have this competitive thing. And then, I like watered it more than my neighbors.

You know? And then, then the gardening teacher came one day and said, you're killing the roses, you know? Like, they don't like that much water.

It rots the tap root. You will kill the rose, you know? You're not, you don't know the technique of, it's not just more water.

There's other things involved that you have to know. And the same thing with giving or serving. Planting karmic seeds is not just giving away money.

It's, there's a, there's a subtle technique to it. So I thought tonight we just go do a, what do you call it? Technique 101.

The goal of it is that you can make stuff happen in your life and then there's no more anxiety and there's no more fear. There's no reason, because what you want you can just plant it. It's like you don't have to have anxiety about not having marigolds in your garden.

If you want them, just plant them. You don't have to worry. You see what I mean?

It's the same in real life. What do you want? Just learn to plant it.

Learn the technique to take care of it and then relax, because it's going to grow. They say in the Buddhist scriptures that if the conditions are complete, God cannot stop a thing from growing. Nobody can.

If the seed is there, if the soil is there, the sunlight is there, the water is there, if the person knows what they're doing, there's no force in the universe which can stop that seed from growing. Nothing. It has to grow.

If you learn this system, the money will chase you. You can run around the world, the checks will chase you. Okay?

It's funny, it's cute. I went to a yoga class. He knows.

Dharma mentors class in New York. I'm proud because I survived. I'm here.

And some guy comes up to me and basically he gave me a $100,000 check. I never met this guy in my life. He hands me a $100,000 check.

I'm like, why are you giving me this money? He says, I don't know. I said, what do you want me to use it for?

He says, whatever you want. And if you plant a seed, you can't run away from the result. By the way, there's people say, I don't want the reward of my good deeds.

That's okay. You can give it away. Okay?

I have addresses. No, I mean, you can give it away. That's not a problem.

I don't see that as a problem. People say, you know, if you're going to be good, you shouldn't expect some reward. Like, what's a Bhagavad Gita, right?

But, you can't avoid it. It's crime and punishment. I just read that book again.

They had it on each bed in our hotel in St. Petersburg, free. And, no, so I read it again and it's like that. You can't avoid the consequences if you serve people, stuff will come to you.

If you want to give that away, that's okay, but then it's going to be worse. Okay? So, what it means, don't expect a reward, is not to refuse the reward.

It's to, you can, you can, what do you call it? Roll it over. You can just keep giving it, you know, and then each time it will come back bigger and then you give it again.

That's a fun way to live. People love to have you around. So, it's nice.

So anyway, we'll talk about one principle now. I'll start with technique, okay? Why your mom didn't make a $200 million company even though she was the most generous person we met, right?

There's a technique involved. So, I'm going to teach you tonight the technique and then we'll see what happens after that. So, you've got to really pay attention for five or ten minutes.

This is the crux of the whole thing. I need a, you've got a pen, Sean? It's your honor.

Find me a pen that's not in use. Yeah, he has another one. Thank you.

Xie xie. Okay, here we go. This is the most important five minutes, okay?

And, and then use it. I'm just, I want you to be successful. I want you to get whatever you want, okay?

Because I know in the end you'll supply it to other people. And then everybody will be happy, okay? So, follow my line of reasoning.

This is the old Tibetan system. It's a thousand years old. The teacher asks you questions and you answer promptly or they might hit you on the head with your pen, the ones in the first row.

So, you think those rosaries are for prayers? There are these kids walking around the monastery with red spots like this. Everybody's like, you got it.

Okay. What's this thing? Yeah, okay, it's a pen.

Don't be shy. I'm not trying to out-trick you. I'm just trying to help you, okay?

It's a pen. Yeah. If a puppy dog came in here, right?

Came down the aisle and I'm like, a little dog, you know, and I'm like, you know, and I show this thing to the dog, what would they do with it? Yeah, they see it as something to chew. They see it...

Do you know how long it took to find that on Google? Sean, we need your assistance, you know? No, no, I mean the programming, how to find these images.

So to him, is it a pen? No. It's a chew toy, right?

Who's right, the human or the dog? I think you can say both. It's okay.

Animal rights, you know? The human is saying, only one guy in Florida ever answered that question wrong. That's a long story.

So I'm like, which one's right? And you can say both. And then so he said, yeah, but the goddamn dog is chewing your pen.

And I'm like, well, the dog probably thinks you're a fool for not chewing on it. You know, the goddamn human is not chewing on it. You know, and it's equal.

Both are right. Now comes the tricky part, okay? This is the important part.

If I put the pen here, or the chew toy here, and all the people leave the room, and all the dogs leave the room, at that time, which one is it? Yeah, and then around the world people will go like this, you know? It's neater.

I mean, it's available to be either one depending on who walks in the room first. It will be that. And if they both walk into the room together, it will be two things at once, two separate things, and there will be two realities in the room.

Two realities running in the room at the same time. Okay? But when there's no beings in the room, at that time, it's like a blank, white movie screen, right?

It's like a blank screen. It's just available, okay? Next question.

Given that fact that the dog validly sees a pen, and the, sorry, chew toy, and the human validly sees a pen, is it coming from their minds or is the pen coming from the pen? It must be from their mind, okay? You can learn to go like that.

It's useful. Like wherever I go, people, after three days, people are like that. Probably they're asking me to leave, but I, anyway, but it's like it's coming from, it must be coming from us, right?

If the dog sees something else, it proves it. I mean, you can have the very sophisticated Buddhist logical proofs, right? But the dog proves it.

That's it, you know? Neil Young proves it, right? For me, this is the greatest music ever done.

And my roommate in college called it that screaming eunuch, you know? And it's just a blank movie screen and then you're laying your trip on it, right? So, next question.

If this is coming from me, from my mind, can I close my eyes and can I wish that it was a big diamond? Will it work? You know, power of positive thinking.

I hate that. Anyway, sorry. Somebody's trying to teach me nonviolent communication, but I'm really bad at it.

What was I? Yeah, I mean, you can try. We don't have time.

Sometimes I make everybody close their eyes and we wait three minutes like this, you know? And I said, you know, I never missed a class in my whole life. I was a really good boy, you know?

And then he was like, and I said, we got to go to class. And he's like, you know, and he said, you're not going to learn what you need to know here. You have to go to India, you know?

And don't worry, I'll take care of you. We'll go together, you know? I'll meet you.

We'll go meet swamis and gurus and, you know, and you'll be really happy, you know? And they can tell you what happened to your mom and, you know, what you can do about it. And then I was like, I just said yes.

And I didn't have any, I'd never been anywhere, you know? And I got on the plane. It was all Italia, right?

From Kennedy with all these Italian grandmothers going home and, and the plane went up like that and then it dropped. It must have dropped almost the whole way to the ocean and it was like terrifying and all these old Italian grandmothers, wah! And then I'm like, what am I doing, you know?

Why am I in this plane? And, you know, then we went to India, you know, and they opened up the door and the first thing was a strong incense smell, like really, like the holy, I believe later it's the Holy Land, you know? And then, you know, the other smells.

All the sewage and cow poop and human poop, everything. And, and you come down and it was crazy. It was like a riot and everyone's screaming and yelling and I'm just like, I'm looking for my friend, you know?

And he's not there. And he never came. He tricked me, okay?

So I'm like in the airport. I don't know anybody. And I just get, I get in a cab, I say, you know, do you know where there's a hotel?

He's like, my cousin owns a hotel, you know? Which everybody has a cousin, right? Then they get the kickback of having a hotel room.

So he takes me to this little house and they put me in a room and I stayed there for like two days and I was too scared to go out because it was so insane. Everything was insane and crazy. And then, finally the guy knocked on the door and he said, you know, are you okay?

And I said, no. And he's like, you know, don't you need to eat something? I said, yeah, I need to eat.

He said, well, come out. I said, I'm not coming out. And he was like, then he brought me some food and he was very sweet and he, you know, and he, he gave me all the, he told me about the food, all the power elements in the food and everything.

He was very sweet. And then he said, you know, why did you come to India? And I said, well, I want to meet Buddhist people.

And he looks at his watch and he says, you're a little bit late, you know. And I said, what do you mean late? He said, Buddhist people finished in India a thousand years ago.

No, there are no Buddhists in India. And then I'm like, what do I, I have a three-month ticket. I said, can I teach your kids English or something?

Then I can just stay in the house and I don't have to go out, you know. And he's like, no, no, you go, In the Himalayas, there are some people coming out of Tibet, refugees, and maybe you can talk to them, you know, you can try to talk to them. So then I, I did meet them and I started studying with them and I stayed 25 years in monasteries, in Tibetan monasteries.

In the U.S. there's a Mongolian monastery in New Jersey, which is secret. But all old Mongolian monks. So I stayed in both places for 25 years.

Then in the last three weeks, they give you an examination. Too hot. This one.

They give you an examination and I don't know if you've seen Tibetan. We have a picture of the debating, I think. Do you have it?

Uh. I don't know where you got that. I don't know where you got all these things.

No, that's the wrong slideshow. Yeah, okay. Hello.

Anyway, it's like karate. I don't know if you've seen it. I won't do it.

But they scream at you and they yell in Tibetan and and then you have a final exam is in a courtyard. In my monastery, it was 1,300 monks and each one questions you publicly in Tibetan. And then it takes like three weeks, a lot of the night and then most of the day.

And then if you answer most of this stuff, okay. That's a typical debate. But if you answer everything okay, then they give you that yellow hat.

And everybody wants one. Then when I came back to the U.S., I was like, I got a yellow hat. And everybody's like, so what?

But so in my monastery, I was the first Westerner to ever finish that. And then so on the day I finished, my teacher, one of my lamas called me and he said, you're the first white guy in 600 years to pass this test. Now we have a second exam for you.

And I'm like, you didn't mention any second exam. And he said, well, you're special. So you're going to go to New York.

And I'm like, I hate New York. I was from Phoenix, right? And I'm like, I hate New York.

He said, you're going to go to New York and you're going to start a business. And I'm like, I hate business. And he said, we want to see if you can apply the principles which we taught you to make a business.

Just as an experiment. Just as a laboratory. You don't have to keep the money.

And we'll give the money away. But we want to see if you understand karma. We want to see, can you apply what we taught you for 25 years in the real world?

And you don't tell anybody what you're doing. You just do it. And we'll see if you can make like a million dollars in a year or something.

Do you understand how to shape reality by working with karmic seeds? You see? And in a real life situation where nobody knows you and nobody's helping you.

It's just, you're stuck. So I'm like... Then I tried to avoid it.

I tried to get out of it. But they're very... What do you call it?

Discipline is very strict in Tibetan monastery. You think all those Tibetan monks are nice because they were born that way. You get hit a lot.

So, you know, I had to go. So I went to New York and we started a company, three people. We started a little company.

And I was meditating. I was like, what should I... What kind of business should I do?

And the answer came diamonds. And I don't have any interest in diamonds. I don't like jewelry.

I don't know what... At that time I didn't know what a diamond looks like. But in the meditation I kept getting this thing that said you have to work with diamonds.

So we started a diamond company with three people. Now that company is 10,000 people and it's $250 million per year. And it was sold to Warren Buffett in 2009.

And, you know... Yeah. Should I go back?

Maybe. So anyway... And then this Doubleday called me and they said, would you write a book about the principles that you used so other people can use them?

So I said, yeah, I'll write a book. So I wrote a book. And now that book is in, I think, 25 or 30 languages.

And people in China use it a lot. I think 3 million people in China are using it. And many countries.

So then people read the book and then they said, would you come and talk about it? And I came and talked about it. And then I think we were in Guangzhou in South China.

And somebody raised their hand and said, we were at a business seminar and this lady said, can I use those principles to fix my husband? And then this guy goes, why do you always talk about husband? Can you fix your wife with these principles?

And I'm like, yeah, I guess. I mean, you could use it that way. And then people went crazy.

The whole rest of the seminar was exploded. Nobody wanted to talk about business. They just wanted to talk about their partner, how to fix a partner.

And then some lady's like, I don't have a partner. Can you use karma to get a partner? And this other lady's like, I have a partner, but I don't want a partner.

I don't know. It just grew like that. And now thousands and thousands of people come every month and we give talks all over the world.

And tonight, I mean, people are asking me, I thought to talk about fearlessness, the idea of fearlessness. And in this system, in the karmic system, if you study it carefully many years, then you will come to a place where you understand that the fear and anxiety and stress that the world feels is unnecessary. You see what I mean?

It's about things which aren't even there. You're worried about things that aren't there. If you study these things carefully and you go do your New York experiment, and I was angry at my Lama.

I didn't want to go. And now I'm really grateful. But you come to realize that the world's mental suffering, the anxiety that people have about their future or what's going to happen or will things work out, these are all unnecessary.

It's like, what do you call it? Polio, right? You just can shoot somebody with some vaccine and it's not an issue anymore.

And anxiety is the same or fear about what's going to happen in your life or like that. It could just be, what do you call it? What do they do to polio?

It could be eradicated. Human anxiety and fear, nervousness is unnecessary because you can make stuff happen if you understand. You see what I mean?

If you could just plant your future for next month. You know, you sit down, what day is it? The 28th, right?

You sit down on the 28th of November and you say, this is what I want to happen in December. This is how December is going to go. And you plan, this is going to happen on the 1st, this is going to happen on the 3rd, I'm going to get a big check from this guy and then this girl is going to call me and then, you know, you make a list, my bad back is going to go away on the 15th.

The war will stop in Iraq and, you know, like you move up, what do they call that guy in the triangle? Maslow. Yeah, you go, you move up.

In the end, I think people have four goals, I believe, just from meeting thousands and thousands of people. One is, we want to be financially independent. I don't mean greedy or rich or you have three big cars, which are more hassle than one big car.

But it would be nice to have no credit card debt and no stress. And if you wanted to send your kids to college, you just wrote a check and didn't think about it. If you didn't have to think about it, if you just...

I saw a book, it's not me, okay, I didn't invent it, I think it's called shogun. It's called... it's a bad word, okay, it's F-U money.

Like you have enough money to just... to just, you know, you want something, you just buy it. And you don't know how much you have and you don't worry about it.

Money becomes like oxygen in the room, you know. Nobody here is like looking at the person next to them and saying, could you breathe a little less? I mean there's...

no, there's enough oxygen for everybody. They didn't have to announce on Facebook how much oxygen would be here tonight. You know, you just...

no, you take it for granted, right? What if money were the same? And so I don't mean that you are greedy or you want money.

What I mean is you don't have to think about it anymore. And then you can think about other things that you want to think about and you're not engaged in the pursuit of money. It just comes in and you spend it.

And I'm talking like... let's call it oxygen money or something like that. Could you reach a point of financial independence where it's not an issue anymore?

And you're not like... what do you call it? Some rich person with gold...

There's diamond dealers in Mumbai with gold faucets in their toilets and the bathroom handle, the toilet handle is gold and we don't need those. I just mean you're just comfortable. You don't have to worry about it.

You don't have to stress about it, right? And then I think everybody would like a partner. I think most people would like some kind of partner, right?

Relationship. People would like to have a relationship. And then there's so much anxiety attached to that, you know, like in the getting, in the keeping, and in the being happy together, which are different issues, right?

You can find somebody and then sometimes you can't keep them or they're not loyal or there's a problem with that. And then sometimes you keep them but you're not happy with them and then you don't want to keep them. So I think there's...

In our system there's different karmas for each thing. You see, you would have one karma for finding them. You would apply certain karmas for finding them and then you apply different karmas for keeping them.

And then the karmas for them to be nice over the years is a separate karma. So then you would study those three and you would learn them and just apply them. But what I'm talking about tonight is you would have a partner, they would be loyal, they would stay with you and you'd be happier every year.

You would be more romantical when you're 50 than when you're 16. It just gets better every year. It gets more hot every year.

You see what I mean? And you're not thinking. You don't have to worry about it.

You know what causes it to be that way and you know how to keep it that way. What I'm talking about tonight is not finding somebody or keeping them or being happy with them. I'm just talking about the lack of stress.

If you know what's going to happen with them then you're not worried that they're going to meet somebody. Who are they texting right now? You know, they're like this.

And you're like, hello. And they're like... You know, and...

I mean, what if all the stress were gone? What if it were completely predictable? And what do you call it?

You could manage the future. What if you could manipulate the future? That's basically what they wanted me to try.

That's what they sent me to try. They said, take a real life thing, a business, and see if you can... if you can manage how it goes, how the future goes.

And then what I want to talk about tonight is that how would you feel if you learned how to do that? Then you wouldn't have anxiety about the future. You know, you'd say, are you going to have enough money next month?

Yeah. Is the credit card bill going to get paid? Well, yeah.

It always gets paid. I don't even look at it. I don't look at my credit card bills.

I just got my... the person who does my finances was like, Geshe-la, do you know how much money you spend in Russia on the phone bill alone? On your private phone bills?

I'm like, no, I don't know. I never see the phone bill. And she's like, $895.

I'm like, okay. You know? You know, that's like a three-week trip in Russia, right?

And you don't worry. You just, okay, you know. They'll help San Francisco.

Where's Apple? Somewhere new here. Anyway, okay.

And then people come to me. They say, but can you change a physical thing? Like, I have a bad back.

A lot of people come. I had a woman come with, what do you call? Breast cancer.

And she said, can you do anything with that? Can you adjust the future of your health? And you can.

And with her, that's Fran. Do you know Fran? Yeah.

So she, I don't know. That was 20 years ago. And she's fine.

And she's great. And she's 85, and she's still doing our books in New York. She never stopped working.

And you can adjust those things. So, and then I think all of us, those are three goals that everybody has. I think you want to be financially independent, just so you don't have to think about it.

And then you want to be, have a nice relationship. That's like a human right. And then you want to have energy, and you want to feel young, and you want to feel excited about your life and the people you're with, and have good health, energy.

You know, not have to think about it. And then I think it's natural, the deepest human instinct, stronger than those three, is to provide them to other people. We all would like to be the mom of the universe.

You know, we all, male and female, we have this drive, this deep, deep drive to take care of other people. We would like to have the capacity to help other people on a grand scale. You know what I mean?

And that's why, in America, all the movies are about superheroes, right? And the best ones are when the superhero is a nerd who is hopeless, and he's like, what's that, Transformers movies? That guy saved the world three times.

Finally, they put him in an office like this, and they said, we'll keep him out of trouble, he won't save the world. But then he still saves the world from that little office, you know. So I think, why are we obsessed with Iron Man, Superman, X-Men, Batman, I don't know the rest, Superwoman, Spider-Man, I'm sorry, Green Lantern, The Matrix, yeah, I mean, Star Wars.

We have an obsession with that thing. We all, we love those movies, and we keep going, and we keep paying. They just make them, and they make $20 million.

They don't have to think about it. You know. And, why?

Because that's, I think, the deepest human need. Deeper than food, or sex, or shelter, or the wish for health. People want to take care of other people.

Deep down, no matter how nasty you are, you'd like to take care of other people, and you'd like to help other people. So the cool thing about this system, which, by the way, came from ancient India. It came from a scripture called the Diamond Cutter, Sutra.

So, this Diamond Cutter system, the way in which you achieve the first three things, for example, okay, if you wanted to be, have your credit cards paid automatically every month, and you could talk on your iPhone, you don't have to fool around and figure out the Skype on your iPhone. You could just pay the $4 per minute. You know.

No, I'm serious. And then, you know, like, if you could reach that, then there's a deeper, there's a deeper desire to give it to other people. It's no fun to eat a big dinner at a table, and all the other people are not allowed to eat.

You know, like, you're happy, and you're having fun, and you're successful, and then, everybody around you is unhappy, then you can't enjoy that dinner. So I think there's a deeper human need. The cool thing about the Diamond Cutter system is that the way you get the first three things causes the fourth.

Okay? So the way you become successful causes other people to be served. To say it the other way, you have to serve people to be successful.

And it's by serving people that you can get the things you want, anything you want. And I'm not just doing, what do you call it, corporate lip service, you know, like, corporate charities are a joke, right? They give what?

Like, McDonald's will give $1,000. You know, that's like the cost of rolls that they dropped in one location. You know?

I just mean, you can, if you understand this system, the way you become successful is also to help other people. So it's fun. And then people always ask me, but my mom, and my mom too, they say, my mom was the most generous person I know, and she didn't get rich.

You know, she gave, she served, but it didn't make her rich. Then I would say there's a technique involved. Okay?

Like farming. Like I grow, I have a garden. And the first thing I started was bare root roses, which are sticks.

And then you stick them in the ground, and then, you know, and I said, my roses are going to be bigger than anybody's. I have this competitive thing. And then, I like watered it more than my neighbors.

You know? And then, then the gardening teacher came one day and said, you're killing the roses, you know? Like, they don't like that much water.

It rots the taproot. You will kill the rose, you know? You're not, you don't know the technique of, it's not just more water.

There's other things involved that you have to know. And the same thing with giving or serving. Planting karmic seeds is not just giving away money.

It's, there's a, there's a subtle technique to it. So I thought tonight we just go, do a, what do you call, technique 101. The goal of it is that you can make stuff happen in your life and then there's no more anxiety and there's no more fear.

There's no reason, because of what you want, you can just plant it. It's like you don't have to have anxiety about not having marigolds in your garden. If you want them, just plant them.

You don't have to worry. You see what I mean? It's the same in real life.

What do you want? Just learn to plant it. Learn the technique to take care of it.

And then relax, because it's going to grow. They say in the Buddhist scriptures that if the conditions are complete, God cannot stop a thing from growing. Nobody can.

If the seed is there, if the soil is there, if the sunlight is there, the water is there, if the person knows what they're doing, there's no force in the universe which can stop that seed from growing. Nothing. It has to grow.

If you learn this system, the money will chase you. You can run around the world, the checks will chase you. Okay?

It's funny. It's cute. I went to a yoga class.

He knows. Dharma Mentor's class in New York. I'm proud because I survived.

I'm here. And some guy comes up to me and basically he gave me a $100,000 check. I never met this guy in my life.

He hands me a $100,000 check. I'm like, why are you giving me this money? He says, I don't know.

I said, what do you want me to use it for? He says, whatever you want. And if you plant a seed, you can't run away from the result.

By the way, there's people say, I don't want the reward of my good deeds. That's okay. You can give it away.

I have addresses. No, I mean, you can give it away. That's not a problem.

I don't see that as a problem. People say, you know, if you're going to be good, you shouldn't expect some reward. Like, what's a bhagavad-gita, right?

But you can't avoid it. It's crime and punishment. I just read that book again.

They had it on each bed in our hotel in St. Petersburg. Free. And, no, so I read it again, and it's like that.

You can't avoid the consequences. If you serve people, stuff will come to you. If you want to give that away, that's okay, but then it's going to be worse.

Okay? So, what it means, don't expect a reward, and the reward is not to refuse the reward. It's to, you can, you can, what do you call it?

Roll it over. You can just keep giving it, you know, and then each time it will come back bigger, and then you give it again. That's a fun way to live.

People love to have you around. You know, so you, it's nice. So anyway, we'll talk about one principle now.

I'll start with technique, okay? Why your mom didn't make a $200 million company, even though she was the most generous person we met, right? There's a technique involved.

So, I'm going to teach you tonight the technique, and then we'll see what happens after that. So, you've got to really pay attention for five or ten minutes. This is the crux of the whole thing.

I need a, you've got a pen, Sean? It's your honor. Are you taking notes or are you using a pen?

Find me a pen that's not in use. Yeah, he has another one. Thank you.

Xie xie. Okay, here we go. This is the most important five minutes, okay?

And then use it. I'm just, I want you to be successful. I want you to get whatever you want, okay?

Because I know in the end you'll supply it to other people. And then everybody will be happy, okay? So, follow my line of reasoning.

This is the old Tibetan system. It's a thousand years old. The teacher asks you questions and you answer promptly, or they might hit you on the head with a pen, the ones in the first row.

You think those rosaries are for prayers? There's these kids walking around the monastery with red spots like this. Everybody's like, You got it.

Okay. What's this thing? Yeah, okay, it's a pen.

Don't be shy. I'm not trying to out-trick you. I'm just trying to help you, okay?

It's a pen. Yeah, if a puppy dog came in here, right? Came down the aisle and I'm like, a little dog, you know, and I'm like, you know, and I show this thing to the dog, what would they do with it?

Yeah, they see it as something to chew. They see it... Do you know how long it took to find that on Google?

Sean, we need your assistance, you know? No, no, I mean the programming, how to find these images. So to him, is it a pen?

No, it's a chew toy, right? Who's right, the human or the dog? I think you can say both.

It's okay, animal rights, you know? The human is saying... Only one guy in Florida ever answered that question wrong.

That's a long story. So I'm like, which one's right? And you can say both.

And then so he said, yeah, but the goddamn dog is chewing your pen. And I'm like, well, the dog probably thinks you're a fool for not chewing on it. The goddamn human is not chewing on it.

It's equal. Both are right. Now comes the tricky part, okay?

This is the important part. If I put the pen here, or the chew toy, here, and all the people leave the room, and all the dogs leave the room, at that time, which one is it? Yeah, and then around the world, people will go like this, you know?

It's neater. I mean, it's available to be either one, depending on who walks in the room first. It will be that.

And if they both walk into the room together, it will be two things at once, two separate things, and there will be two realities in the room, two realities running in the room at the same time. Okay? But when there's no beings in the room, at that time, it's like a blank white movie screen, right?

It's like a blank screen. It's just available, okay? Next question.

Given that fact, that the dog validly sees a pen, and the, sorry, chew toy, and the human validly sees a pen, is it coming from their minds, or is the pen coming from the pen? It must be from their mind, okay? You can learn to go like that.

It's useful. Like wherever I go, people, after three days, people are like that, you know? Probably they're asking me to leave, but I, anyway.

But it's like, it's coming from, it must be coming from us, right? If the dog sees something else, it proves it. I mean, you can have the very, sophisticated Buddhist logical proofs, right?

But the dog proves it. That's it, you know? Neil Young proves it, right?

For me, this is the greatest music ever done. And my roommate in college called it that screaming eunuch, you know? And it's, it's, it's just a blank movie screen, and then you're laying your trip on it, right?

So, next question. If this is coming from me, from my mind, can I close my eyes and can I wish that it was a big diamond? Will it work?

You know, power of positive thinking. I hate that. Anyway, sorry.

Somebody's trying to teach me nonviolent communication, but I'm really bad at it. Where was I? Yeah, I mean, you can try.

We don't have time. Sometimes I make everybody close their eyes and we wait three minutes and then we open our eyes and it's still a pen. Okay, it is coming from me, but it's not a matter of willpower.

I can't wish it into a diamond, right? Otherwise, you always would have got what you wanted at Christmas, right? But you didn't, okay?

You can't wish it into what you want. It's coming from your mind, but it must be some other forces at work that you don't know how to control yet. You see what I mean?

There are forces in your mind that are creating it, but you don't know how to control them or aim them properly. So, what are those forces? And then those are called bak chak in Tibetan or sanskara in Sanskrit, and it means a mental seed, okay, a seed in your mind.

So, the dog has a certain set of mental seeds in their mind, and I... He's trying to get in his mind. The human has a certain set of mental seeds in their mind, and then they grow inside the mind and they affect what you see.

And the dog sees validly a chew toy and the human sees a pen. Why? They have some seed in their mind.

That's karma. Karma means a seed in your mind. It doesn't mean anything else.

Forget whatever you heard. When we go to China, we don't say yay lee. When we go to India, we don't say karma.

When we go to... When we speak to Tibetans, we don't say lay. We don't use the word for karma because everyone's confused about what's karma.

Just think a mental seed, okay? If you had certain mental seeds in your mind, you would never have to think about paying your credit card again. It would just be paid.

You see what I mean? And you wouldn't have to worry about am I going to be healthy? Or you wouldn't have to worry about is my partner going to stay with me or not?

You know, it just would happen if you knew how to plant those seeds. If you knew the system of how to plant seeds in your mind, then you could have what you want. Question for you at the start, okay?

This is... usually I talk about it later. If I have a garden, I have a garden at home.

I love the garden. It's dying now. We just had our first freeze, so everything looks like an atom bomb here, you know, and it's really depressing actually.

But what did I do? I went out today to do what? Just last night, I went out to do what?

I planted... for when? For spring.

I planted irises onions, garlic, stuff that grows later. But I design in my mind. I can see, oh, I have to put the cosmos behind the zinnias, behind the snapdragons, behind the...

those little purple ones, pansies, because they grow tall. Each one is shorter than the next. So in my mind, I have to think how it's going to be in the spring when it all grows.

I want a certain look. I don't want the tall plants in front and the short ones out in back, I can't see them. So I have to plan it in my mind.

Karmic seeds in your mind are the same. You have to know what you want, and then you have to design it, and then you have to plant the seeds, and they don't grow in a day. I mean, they can.

It's an interesting experiment to try to make it grow in a day, but generally it takes a couple weeks or something like that. And you have to have that kind of patience and foresight that I'm going to plant what I want. So now you're going to ask me how do I plant a seed, okay?

You ready? You've got to help me. Just stay there, don't get nervous.

Let's... Do you have any money? This is how I make extra cash on the side.

I mean monks aren't allowed to carry money, I've got to borrow it. I always forget who to give it back to. That's the biggest one you got, huh?

Okay. So... So anyway, this is just theoretical, okay?

I know you're not greedy, I know you're not interested in money, I know you want to stop the warning rock. The Buddhist scriptures say start with money because you can count it. You can confirm that the system works.

You can say, I made a company, we had $50,000 and now we have $200 million every year. And they can look it up on Google and people will believe. But if you start with love, you know, are you 30% more loving than last year?

I don't know, I'm more like 27, you know? No, it's not something you can easily make... use as an example, for a concrete example.

People want metrics. We gave a program for British Airways. They had a strike, we gave them a five-day program.

They finished the strike, it was a couple of months later. But the guy in the back was like, We want metrics! We want metrics!

And I'm like, Excuse me, but what's metrics? It's like we want measurement. We want measurement of how this stuff works.

We want you to prove it by dates and numbers. So anyway, that's why I use money. Don't think I'm like some greedy guy.

I don't need much money. I'm single and I eat almond milk and that's it. So anyway, I want to plant a seed, right?

I want to plant a seed. You cannot plant a seed by yourself. Rule number one.

Not possible. It's like you can't make an echo without a wall. Or you can't bounce a basketball without a floor.

Think of bouncing a basketball without a floor. It won't come back. So seeds are the same.

You must create a seed with another person. There are extraordinary circumstances where you can plant a seed by yourself. At yourself.

Like suicide is a very terrible seed. And it doesn't affect... You're not doing it to somebody else.

But normally a karmic seed has to be planted with somebody else. So if I want... And by the way, it's obvious, right?

That I'm not going to give him $20 and I get $20 back. Right? You understand that.

You plant a watermelon. You're expecting 10 watermelons back. Otherwise it's just dumb.

You might as well just keep it. The idea is that seeds in your mind explode. They double every 24 hours.

Okay? A seed in your mind which is well planted with proper technique will double every 24 hours. Our company doubled every year for like 10 years.

Which is impossible in a business where the raw material has a price. It's like you can't make steel cheaper than other people. It all costs the same.

How you double every year, you see, it's because the seeds themselves double in your mind every 24 hours. I have irises, right? Do you know irises?

You plant them and if you take good care of them the bulb splits underground. And it keeps splitting like a chain reaction. And then you actually have to dig it up and spread them out because they will kill each other because it splits too much.

So karmic seeds are the same. If you know what you're doing you can give $20 and you get $200 back and that's how you make a $200 million company. And I don't know anything about business and I don't care anything about business.

But I know about seeds. All the other stuff I never learned. I don't know accounting and taxes.

Anyway, here we go. So this is how you plant a seed. He puts out his hand.

My hand is coming down. And when I release the money, with a certain intention, right? It has to be love.

I have to care about him. I'm not giving you money to buy drugs or something. Like, I hope you use this money and have a nice smoothie, a couple of nice smoothies.

And then I let go. Then, okay, don't forget to give it back to him. No, keep it for a while.

We might need it. How is a seed planted? Who keeps track?

Right? I mean, this was the big question when you're a little kid, you know, like, Mom, if I beat up my little brother, who keeps track, if there's no grown-ups around? You know, like, you know what I mean?

Like, every religion has to account for this. Who's keeping track, you know? There's some guy with a long beard with a really long iPad.

And he's like, oh, look, he beat his brother. Oh, hit him twice. And that's okay.

I think that's okay. You can think like that. And it's probably true, because you can create things with your mind, right?

That's okay. But in this particular system, what records it is your own perception of your own hand, which is sort of a drag because it means you can't do bad things alone anymore because they are recorded by you being aware of what you're doing. So you're always under observation.

Everything is being recorded all the time. The mind is extraordinary. The power is extraordinary.

How do you plant a karmic seed? You watch yourself let go of the money, and that plants it, right? And then how does that seed grow?

Like, where does it stay, you know? I remember one of the first questions somebody asked my teacher in the Tibetan monastery. A foreigner came, and they said, where does karma stay?

And the lama is like, well, where do you think it stays? And they said, I think when you do something really bad, it goes off towards Jupiter. And then it circles around like a boomerang.

And then the earth is orbiting, and it picks you up later. And he's like, no, not like that. And it's stored in your own mind, okay?

That's obvious, right? That's the only place it could be stored. So how does it come out and I see a pen?

Let's answer that, and then we have refreshments, Adriana? Oh my God. Okay, I better stop talking.

I'll tell you how it comes out, and then we'll take a break. And then I'll give you some farming technique, all right? To speed it up, because if you don't speed it up, you can get it next life, and that's too slow.

Okay, so... No, I'm not kidding. The first time I went to the...

I went to ask a lama, they're going to send me to Manhattan. I have to make a diamond company. What should I do, you know?

And he's like, do this, do this, and do... And I said, well, how long is this going to take? And he said, se chimala.

Se chimala means next life. I said, Rinpoche, I don't have next life. I'm from America.

We invented McDonald's, you know? We want now, you know? So anyway, that comes after refreshments.

I'll tell you how to make it. Also, there's a trick on that. If I don't teach you how to get a result quickly, you won't believe the system, you know?

If you give him 20 bucks, and eight years later, 200 comes in the mail, you're not going to draw a connection between the night at Rich Relevance Company and the $200 check. It has to happen fairly predictably, or you won't buy into the system. So that's after refreshments.

I have to teach you how to speed things up. So that you can connect it, and then you have faith in the system. Not faith, but you see it work.

And then you get turned on, and then you're like, you're like a kid in a candy store. You're like, oh yeah, I also want this and this and this, you know? Okay, anyway.

So in the case of a pen, think about it. The eye, and this is old Buddhist scriptures. This is like 17 centuries old, Abhidharma.

The eye cannot detect a pen. The eye can only detect colors and shapes. The rods and cones and the eyeball can only say, this is lighter in color than that, and this is longer in shape than that.

It cannot decide it's a pen. The eyeball doesn't have the power to decide this is a pen. It just makes a snapshot of the image.

It says, long cylinder black, and it reports it to the mind. There's a, we got a long cylinder black out here, you know, and then the mind is like, well gee, what do you think it is? Well, it separates.

Aha. Is he like moving it around? Yeah, yeah, it's moving around.

That's a pen. You know what I mean? So, who, the eye can't see a pen.

The eye can only see colors and shapes. The mind decides what it is. In the Buddhism, in the theory of karma, in the diamond cutter system, a seed is opening in your mind, and inside your mind comes a luminous image of a pen, which is about that big, okay?

It's made of light. It's like a light bulb, and it's a picture of a pen, and when you, when I go like this, you ready? When I go like, what's this?

What's this? Then your mind is going, the seed opens, my hand is moving, and your seed is opening at the same time because karmic choreography is perfect for eight billion, seven billion people are interacting with perfect harmony, karmically. I'm pulling out a thing, and the seed is opening in your mind as my hand moves, and when my hand stops, it's time for the karma to come out, and a picture of a pen comes out of your mind onto this thing, and you think it was always a pen.

You see? And with Neil Young also. That sucks.

That just sucks. I don't care what song it is. They're all bad.

You see what I mean? It's not coming from... No, I'm in the opposite school.

I think it's the greatest music ever done. But what I'm saying is that it must be coming from me, right? It must be coming from...

Neil Young proves it, right? So, it's coming... See if you can catch it, okay?

You ready? Just for fun. The thing I pull up is going to be a black, long thing, and that's all your eye can see.

And then your mind, a split second later, your mind is... A picture of a pen is going to come out of a karmic seed in your mind and come out to the black stick, and it will make it a pen. See if you can catch yourself.

You can't, okay? That's just a frustrating exercise. Go ahead.

No, you think it's just a pen. You say, I don't know what he's talking about. He's just waving a pen around.

I'm not waving a pen around. It's a black straight. It's a black straight.

No, and the pen is coming from you. And it's that fast. And it's so fast that you never noticed it in your whole life.

And you've been doing it your whole life. Everything around you, your friends, your family, the San Francisco weather yesterday, how you feel, the thoughts in your mind are coming out of karmic seeds in your own mind. You are creating everything around you.

But it's a garden. And you have to plant before. I'm planting now for spring.

And I have a vision of what I want in the spring. But you have to be like that. It takes some kind of discipline, right?

I'm going to be generous to certain people with technique. We'll do the technique after the break. And then in a month or two months, I'll get ten times more.

Some guy will walk up and give me a yoga class and give me $100,000. The person who least needs it, you know, it will just come. You just plant what you want, okay?

It's really cool. Then what happens, then I'll stop, I promise. Then what happens to anxiety and stress?

There's just nothing. There's no such thing. Am I going to have marigolds?

Did you plant them? No. No, I mean it just becomes stupid.

Well, if you want them, plant them. And stop worrying about it, you know? Okay?

Just what you want, plant it, and then relax. It'll come. You can't avoid it.

You can go to yoga class. It will follow you, okay? It's cool.

Then stress goes away. I'm talking, tonight the goal is not that you become rich or you have a sexy partner or something, which is okay, but it's that you don't have to worry anymore about what's going to happen because you just plant it, okay? All right.

So we're going to have refreshments for, like, what? 10, 15 minutes? Okay.

What time do we have to go to catch the flight? We're okay? Okay.

So how about we start 8-ish? Okay? And just enjoy.

I'm sorry it's so warm. Maybe we can wander around and try to spill stuff on all his colleagues' desks and stuff. All right.

Okay. I'm available here to sign books, take pictures, or solve your life's problems. Before I...

So I'm going to give you four steps that you should know to plant seeds well. And then maybe I'll give you what we call correlations. Correlations mean what do you have to be nice to somebody about to get the thing that you want?

Okay? Okay. So before that, I wanted to thank Sean Pfister.

Would you stand up, please? Yeah, yeah. Sean sponsored all the books.

He said, I want each person to have one free book. And he took care of it. This is his company where he works, and he also arranged the place for us and everything else.

And I want to thank you for that. And he didn't get very much notice. He...

So thank you for that. Andriana, who's in the back, can you raise your hand? No, we can see you anyway.

She's... From our side, she's the producer of this event, and her partner, Anatole Muyin. They have done all the refreshments.

And Andriana spearheaded the event from our side. And Brandy. And David and La Sopa.

Okay. How much time do we have? We have a solid 22 minutes.

Solid 22 minutes. Can you summarize 25 years in 22 minutes? Yes.

Four steps, okay? You should write them down. Okay?

I owe you four steps. And then we'll talk about correlations means. If you want this, what are you supposed to do?

So, number one, step number one. By the way, if you care, in Tibetan they're called Lekilam. In Sanskrit it's called Karma Marga, which means a path of karma.

Path of karma in ancient times meant a complete karmic seed, which is created intentionally, and not one which is just happening by accident. So, up to now in your life, you've just been having good luck or bad luck. You haven't been controlling the process.

It's been random. And the idea, Lekilam, or karma marga, or a path of karma means, now you take control, and you plant what's going to happen by January. You know, and then January runs closer to what you wanted than last year.

And then you get better and better at it. It takes a skill, right? It takes training.

By the way, Shawn is teaching in San Francisco area with other people. To me, it's all like the same place. So, what I mean is talk to him, and maybe by the end you can tell me how they can contact someone if they want to keep going.

And it's free, and we're not interested in making money because we are planting seeds. Okay. So, step number one.

Decide what you want. Okay, that's a no-brainer. Step number one is, I want this.

I want my bad back to go away. Or I want oxygen money. Or I would like to see the war in Iraq finish.

Like that. I would like to see no more hungry people. You can have a whole range of...

I suggest you take something kind of practical that you can... What do you call it? Confirm the system, and then you can use it for bigger stuff.

You know, you could just say, I want my husband to wash the dishes. Or maybe that's a big thing. But, you know, work on something that you can confirm the system.

You see what I mean? So, choose some. Number one, you have to choose what you want.

And be specific about it. And it's not like a genie wish, and you get the wrong thing, and you're stuck with it forever. You can modify it as you go.

It's not like... You don't have to swear this is the thing you want. You know, you can decide you wanted a blonde instead of a redhead or something.

That's okay. So, number one is, what do you want? Say it in one short sentence.

I had this guy, he kept throwing ants at me. I went like that, and I went like that, and I went like that. I said, no, no, no.

No ants. Just give me one thing. Give me the one thing you want.

Okay? That's step number one. In Tibetan it's called shi, or vastu in Sanskrit.

Number two has two parts. Okay? 2A and 2B.

2A is, choose the person with whom you're going to make the karma. Okay? Choose the person with whom you're going to plant the karma.

Because you cannot plant karma by yourself. They should be a person in your life, family, friend, co-worker, but who wants something about the same as you. Okay?

It doesn't have to be exactly the same. If you want vanilla ice cream and they want chocolate, you can still work with them. Okay?

[Speaker 2]
Right?

[Speaker 1]
No, I mean seriously. There's some leeway. Karma has some leeway.

Intention can throw karma a few degrees either way. But basically, if you're looking for financial well, what do they call it? Independence.

I have some problem remembering this thing. I don't know why. Then, then obviously you should find someone else who wants financial independence.

If you, if you want to start a business. Do you know Tomás Laredo? Carola's husband.

Yeah, okay. So Tomás comes to me. This is in Argentina, the most beautiful country.

And he came to me and said, Geshe-la, I want to start a business. And I said, well then you have to start, you have to help someone else to start a business. Just one day a week.

Six days a week, you work on your business. One day a week, you help somebody else to start a business. So he found this lady who's making, what do you call it?

In the vigas miserias. In the sad, what do you call it? In the suffering, in the slumps, she's teaching yoga.

She wants to build a yoga studio. So I said to Tomás, you know, you help her. You know?

Then he helped her, and he painted the place for her. And then he went home and on his email he had a 1.5 million dollar offer in Patagonia. Real estate.

And that was his first business that he ever did. It just came on his laptop because he helped this other lady start her studio. Then the sweet thing is they got married later.

So anyway, you have to choose someone who kind of wants to do what you want to do. And then you give up one day a week to them. And if they are your competitor, it's better.

Okay? That takes a lot of courage though. Maybe you could start with somebody in a similar business.

You know? If you want to start a yoga clothing company, then you help someone else who wants to start a similar thing. And you give them some serious help.

So first thing is step number two, choose the person. Okay? Choose the person.

So then I always get this thing. People come up to me after the talk. I'm running to the airport.

They're in the elevator with me. They turn to me and they say, I don't know anybody else who wants the same thing as I want. I said, here's my email.

You check for 24 hours. If you don't find 20 people, write me. It's because you never cared about it.

And you never noticed. And you just ignored other people what they wanted. If you ask around, I want to cure depression.

Help somebody else with depression. I don't know anybody who's depressed. Ask 15 people.

Get back to me. You know? We just didn't notice.

We didn't care. You know? Like, you will find someone who wants what you want.

Or something similar. Okay? You can find somebody similar.

You got to have a victim. You got to have a... You know?

You got to have someplace to plant your seed. That's step number two. The second half of step number two is you have to make a plan about how you're going to help them.

I always suggest that you take them out to a neutral place. Invite them to a neutral place. Which for me is a coffee shop.

You know? I just happen to like coffee shops. I like to hang out in coffee shops.

I did a three-year retreat like, how many years ago? Ten years ago. Thirteen years ago I did a three-year retreat.

And I got lonely and I... I like to be around people now. Like, I go...

I can sit at home and work, but I want to go to Starbucks and... and see people. Because I didn't get to see anybody for three years.

And you miss people. I still miss people. So...

So, make a plan. I will take them... Have an address.

Have an hour. On Tuesday, at 3 p.m., I will take them to the Starbucks on B Street. You know what I mean?

Like that. That's part of step number two. Why did your mother not make $200 million when she was the most generous person you knew?

She didn't know these four things. They have to be conscious. The more conscious it is, the faster it works, the better it works.

It has to be conscious. It can't be by accident. And it can't be half...

It has to be very conscious. Like, I'm going to plant a seed for... I don't like having a bad back.

I'm going to fix my back. You know? It has to be very conscious.

So, choose somebody who has a similar need and make a plan. And make the plan specific. Tuesdays, 3 o'clock, I'm going to take them out.

You know? Like that. Okay?

To Starbucks. I like Starbucks. Just a neutral, vanilla space.

You know? It's not their place and it's not your place. And they can feel comfortable there with you.

Okay? And you say... And then you...

Step number three is obvious. What? You do it.

Do it. Yeah. An amazing number of people skip step number three.

Okay? So, you got to... You got to take them to Starbucks.

Okay? Good intentions do plant some small seeds. But they're half-assed seeds and they come back half-assed.

So, you don't want... You want a good seed. So, take them out.

Okay? By the way, there's other principles. One of the principles of karma is that it grows wildly.

Like weeds. Like irises. It doubles every 24 hours.

A properly planted karmic seed doubles in power every 24 hours. That means, if you... In the case of helping some lady start a yoga studio in the slums, you don't have to be there 24 hours.

You see? You make a commitment which is reasonable for your lifestyle. I'll give you four hours on Friday.

Like, I'll leave work at 4 o'clock and I'll be there till 8 o'clock at your yoga studio, painting, or whatever you want. You got me for four hours. Okay?

And it doesn't have to be for your whole life. Okay? I mean, you can say, I'll do it for three weeks.

I'll come every Friday and I'll give you free work. You know, I'll do websites for you or I'll paint or whatever you need. Okay?

Step number four is the coolest. There's a story behind it. It gets bigger every time Geshe Michael tells it.

But, so I come dragging home one night. You know, I had to commute for two hours from the Mongol community to New York to work. And then I had to commute two hours back every day.

And so it was four hours in the bus. And I memorized a lot of scriptures. It's very useful.

But, so I used to go. Then I'd be tired when I got home. I was really tired.

And then, we had a small monastery. I think we had, at the peak, we had ten monks. The average age was 75.

And, I was 50 years younger than everybody. And the junior monk has to do everything. Anyway.

So anyway, I come dragging in. And my teacher was an old-time, tough lama from Tibet. He was the youngest you could have been and finished your Geshe in Tibet.

So he was, when I met him, he was, well, when he passed away, he was 86. Like that. So he, he was old-fashioned.

He never saw a bicycle, for example, until he got to the United States. And he was like the real thing, you know. So he was like crazy tough.

And he would really, anyway. But suddenly he discovered baseball. Okay.

And I don't know why. Tibetans like to knock little balls around. There's a game.

And so he, I don't know, for some reason he thought it was like that game. And he became a baseball fanatic. And he was always watching baseball up on the TV and doing his prayers, you know.

If you know baseball, his team was the Mets, which had the worst record in baseball history. So they're all strawberries in the, in the, it wasn't the World Series, it was the league's playoffs. And he hits this ball.

And it's a line drive. It's not going to be a home run. And my mom was like, money pay me home, money pay me home, money pay me home.

And the ball goes like this. The ball goes like this. It's going straight.

And then it goes up and up and up. You can see it on the YouTube. Check it out.

They're all strawberries home run. And it like, it just hits the corner and falls in, you know. And he did that kind of stuff all the time.

So he's like up there. So then I'm like, I'm like listening and I can hear he's watching baseball. I'm like, dang, I really, they don't let the young monks watch baseball because we're not responsible enough.

So, you know, so I'm like, how can I get up there? Then I, you can make him tea, Tibetan tea. You have a big butter churn and you put in a block of Chinese tea and hot water and butter and milk and cream and nutmeg and salt.

And then you, and it's a big delicacy, you know. And then you make it and you run up to the lama, you know. And you're not supposed to open the door, you're supposed to knock, you know.

And then he'll say, show. Show is the word you use for a dog that's come here. And so he used those words for me.

He's like, show. Then you come in and he's sitting in front of the TV like this, you know. And then you got to like, he's like sitting down and you're supposed to, you're not supposed to hand him the tea, you're supposed to get down on your knees, right.

And then you have to do this licking sound thing. Okay, you ready? It's like, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.

And in Old Tibet that meant, I respect you. It's like a very, you're not supposed to talk to him before you slurp a little bit. So I'm like, you know, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.

Oh Rinpoche, here's your tea, your honorable tea. You know, and he takes the tea, you know. And then you have to go like this, you know.

And then you get behind his chair and you watch the baseball game. And, you know. And then he's all wrapped up in the baseball game, he's like doing his mantras, you know.

And you can sit there for like, I don't know, ten minutes. But then he's got eyes all along the back of his head. What do you call it?

Alice Occipital Ridge. He got six eyes there. So he's like, he's like, he's like this.

And he was really mean, he was like, do you meditate today? His voice was like that. Did you meditate today?

I'm like, Lama, you know, it's four hours in the bus, I, you know, I didn't have time, you know. He's like, you gotta meditate. Don't watch baseball.

Okay Lama, you know. And then they get up and then he says, you can meditate here. What?

You meditate here in this room. I'm like, where? He says, sit on the couch.

He has this couch. It's hardwood. What do you call that?

Not teak or some hardwood, dark wood. Some really wealthy guy gave it to him, this couch. And it has gold thread in the cloth and he never sat on it.

And only the Dalai Lama sat on it once. He came to our house once and he sat on it. So he's like, he's like, you sit on the couch, Mike.

I'm like, what? Because sometimes they ask you to do something that you're not supposed to do so they can hit you. I'm not kidding.

They test you, you know. Suddenly I said, that's okay Rinpoche, I'm happy on the floor, you know. He's like, sit on the couch.

If they ask you three times, they always hit you. So, you might as well just do it. So I sat on the couch and he says, lay down on the couch.

I was like, what? Lay down on the couch. Put your feet up on the couch.

In Tibet your feet are, what do you call, what's the opposite of sacred? Profane. Yeah, your feet are profane.

They're really evil. You can't cross your legs, you can't point your feet at a lama or anybody. And you're always supposed to keep them under you, you know what I mean?

So he's like, put your feet up on the couch. I'm like, okay Rinpoche. And then he's like, okay, you, then he, he had another attendant, a Tibetan.

He said, jampa, lung ring, go get him a coffee. He runs down, rinses, he says, drink the coffee. You want me to drink coffee on your couch?

Yes. They're like, if I spill a single drop, it's going to kill me, you know? I'm remembering all these times, you know, and I'm like, you know, trying to drink it.

And then he's like, now meditate. I'm like, then I try to sit up and cross my legs and all that. He says, lay down, I told you to lay down.

He says, you're going to do coffee meditation. I said, what's coffee meditation? He said, drink the coffee.

Didn't drink the coffee, you know, and then he's like, now start meditating. On my back? Yes.

Pretend you're just about to go to bed. Now start coffee meditation. I said, what am I supposed to meditate about?

Step four. This is step four. So this is step four, okay, you ready?

This is, no, this is, I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. This is really step four.

Before you go to bed, when you lay down, forget sitting in a proper meditation position. That's for other times. But, your mind, just before you go to bed, is extremely, how do you call it, vulnerable to bad spirits also.

You get worries, you get, you get, things get exaggerated in your mind. People you're working with, you hate them more just before you go to bed. And, no, your mind is, your mind is tired.

And Tibetans say it's very vulnerable to influence, other spirit influences. So, in coffee meditation, you take advantage of the vulnerability of the mind. And you, you try to think about what you did in step two and step three.

Okay? What was step two? I chose a person and I planned how to help them.

What was step three? I helped them. Okay?

Then, the cool thing is, get this, every time you replay the scene in the coffee shop, in your mind, you get a new set of seeds. People ask me, how'd you do 200 million dollar company and you don't know anything about business? Coffee meditation.

You know? No, I'm not kidding. I'm really not kidding.

Because, then it stays in your mind all night and your mind chews on it all night. So, instead of going to bed angry at somebody at work or somebody said something to you or you have some financial worries or, instead of worrying when you go to sleep. This, by the way, the meaning of meditation is to grab the mind and force it to do what you want.

You see, I mean, the mind wants to go to, I had a bad day. My husband said something to me. My boss doesn't like me anymore.

I'm not making enough money. You take the, you grab the mind physically and you say, we're going to think about the coffee shop. You know?

Yeah, the coffee shop, but who paid? How did he get the money? You know, your mind is very weak and uncontrollable and then you have to grab it.

This is meditation and you build a muscle in your mind by fighting, by, like in yoga, right? The more difficult poses you do, the stronger you get. With your mind, you can develop a muscle in your mind with, it becomes more powerful than the the mind and you say, no, we are not thinking about our worries and what went wrong in our life 20 years ago and what your ex-ex-ex said 20 years ago that he forgot 19 years ago.

And, you know, you are going to think about the good things you did today. You know? And we feel, how do you say, we don't feel comfortable to think about the good things we did, right?

We like to dwell on the I made a mistake or this person hates me or, you know. It's very difficult for us to do coffee meditation. It's really difficult.

Try it tonight. You go home, you know, eat something because who can survive on all this vegan stuff? And then, eat some real food.

Then, I'm just kidding. If it wasn't for him, I'd be dead of corpulence already. So anyway, eat something, relax, do a little Facebook, I don't care.

But then, take your shower, change into your nightclothes, lay down on your bed and let the last thoughts, be very careful that the last thoughts of the day are of the nice things you did. And there's no expiration date. Okay?

If you didn't do anything good the whole day, you can take something from yesterday or last year or 50 years later. Okay? Find something.

There must be something. And, and be happy about what good things you do. I'll tell you one last story, okay?

Then I have to finish. I have to go catch a plane. So, I don't know which Pope it was.

It was one of the Popes. Maybe it was John Paul, probably John Paul, but he, he made an encyclical. He made an announcement that all the churches should invite other religions to give talks at their churches.

So we got a phone call from the local Catholic cathedral and they said, can your Lama come and give a talk? And he's like, yeah, I'd love to come and give a talk. So then, we went to this big stone cathedral, right?

And, I remember the priest came out and he got us and it was a very moving sight for me, because I grew up Christian and I really love Christianity. I went to church last Sunday. No, Saturday.

It was a weird service on Saturday, this Thanksgiving thing. But I like it. It's still, I like the wine and all that stuff, a little bit.

And then, so like, he's, it was very moving for me to have my Lama in the hands of a priest and they're walking down and then they stop in the middle and my Lama says, what's that? And there was a little room on the side, right? And a priest came in one side and a lady came on the other side.

Then my Lama's like, what's going on there? And he said, don't worry, don't worry. There's a wall between them.

Why? Well, there's a little window and then she tells him, thinks she did bad and then he tells her how to clean it. And then he's like, well, how do you clean it?

And she said, well, we repeat these things on a rosary. And he's like, oh, they do mantras too. And he's like very happy.

He says, that's fantastic. You know, that works. You know, that'll clean everything.

You know, and he's like really happy and he's going like that. And then he's like, where's the other one? And the priest says, well, one other one.

He says, where's the other little room? And the priest says, well, we only have one. He says, no, there should be one there.

The priest goes in and the lady goes in and the lady should tell him all the good things she did. And he's like, he's like, that's a good idea. You know, I don't know if they have it yet.

But, but what I'm saying is we tend to think about all the, especially when you're tired and then you're just reviewing all the people who hurt you today or 20 years ago. And really, I know, because you hang on to it. You desperately cling to it, right?

Like a dog with a bone. You know, and just let it go. That's meditation.

Meditation doesn't mean sitting in full notice. And it doesn't mean, you know, chin mudra. You know, it means to force your mind to think about what you want it to think about.

And what are you going to think about? The nice things I did today to help the person who wants the same thing I want. That's what changes the power of the karma to a 200 million dollar karma.

Honestly. And it's so pleasant because you start sleeping well. And then you wake up and you're all refreshed and you're much easier to go to the coffee shop.

You know, so, that's all. Those are the four things. If you're, if you ask me which is most important, it's number, it's number four.

Be, when you sleep, think about the good things you're doing. Force your mind. That's, meditation means to force the mind.

Force the mind to think about the good things you're doing. Because you are a good person. Why do you think they make all these superhero movies?

You know? You're not demanding from Hollywood movies where the good guy kills everybody or hurts everybody. You know, you're demanding a movie where the good guy saves the world.

Because you want to be that. In your heart, that's what you want. And if you do coffee meditation, you're kind of in alignment with who you really are.

You're thinking about the good things you're doing. And you, and then the seeds go wild. You know, every time you review the scene, you get the new seed.

And it's free. You don't have to go to the coffee shop. All right?

Okay. So, I don't know. We'll see.

We're thinking to come once in a while when we're on the way to Asia. And then, yeah. So, we'll, I think on the way is better because on the way back we were like really tired.

Now we're today, we're all like fresh. So, we'll see you then. And I'd like to thank Sean again.

Good night. I have, oh, where are you teaching?

[Speaker 2]
We have a group up in Sevastopol, but I've been thinking a lot about starting something during the day here in the financial district for a long time. I have a bunch of business cards here. There's people down in the South Bay too.

There's people from Sacramento and in Tahoe. So, if you're anywhere in Northern California, we got you covered somehow if you're interested in this. But if you're in, if you're in the San Francisco area, just contact me.

Just come up and see me. And I'll be sending out an email to everybody who signed up via email just to follow up. So, we can be in touch.

Okay. Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Thanks for coming. I'll stay here for a few minutes just if you want to, if you need anything. Okay.

But thank you for coming. The best thanks to a teacher is to do what they taught. Okay.

No, the best thanks is to do the four steps. You choose what you want. But the real way to thank a teacher is to, is to, is to get what you hope for.

Because that, that spreads it. People see you and they, they're like, I want what she's having. Do you know that movie?

Okay. Alright. Amen.