Отдать себя, чтобы найти себя: секреты древней тибетской практики Чё, часть 2 (2012, Нью-Йорк), занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
On behalf of the Three Jewels to the second installment of these beautiful Tibetan teachings on Chöd by Geshe Michael Roach, a tradition that was started last year. And if we all plant good seeds, I'm sure we'll see the lama return again in the future. I wanted to talk a little bit about the Three Jewels itself before Nancy introduces Geshe Michael.

The Three Jewels was founded in 1996 on East 5th Street by Geshe Michael Roach and Lama Annie Palma, who has now just completed her first year of her second three-year retreat at in the Retreat Valley Diamond Mountain in Arizona. A very beautiful group of 39 people that have committed themselves to three years, three months, and three days of retreat. The Three Jewels in New York is located at 61 4th Avenue at Astor Place, and it's been in existence for 16 years.

It moved how many years ago? About nine years ago. And it's the mission statement I was looking on the website last week, and I just want to read that.

It says the Three Jewels Outreach Center was established to reach out to those in need of love, guidance, and spirituality through meditation, yoga practice, dharma teaching, and hands-on serving of the community. And I don't know when this was written, but that's exactly what it does. And very often you look at mission statements and you don't see that the organization is actually veered off course.

The Three Jewels has not. It offers dharma classes on a consistent basis on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout the week, yoga classes in both the Tibetan tradition of Tibetan heart yoga and the yoga asana of India, and community outreach programs. And it rents space to many other organizations and supports many other organizations, healing organizations, and so forth throughout the months, throughout the weeks and months of every year.

And the basis for the teachings at the Three Jewels is the Asian Classics Institute, 18 courses designed by Geshe Michael Roach. Two of the teachers are here today, Lama John Stillwell and Lama Hector Marcel, and they've committed themselves to teaching all 18 courses, so it's a very unique opportunity to get the lung or the direct transmission on the teachings that Geshe Michael started 16 years ago in the East Village in New York City. More importantly, I think we, Nancy and I, want to thank the people that work on a daily basis and give so much of their time to supporting the Three Jewels and making it run.

Nancy is certainly one of them, if not the one. But on a daily basis, we'd like to thank Allison Ziplin. Allison, could you please stand up?

Allison works tirelessly, day in and day out, to keep the Three Jewels running smoothly and to make sure that we all have what we need. It's beautiful. And really, I think what the Three Jewels represents, if we all kind of sit here and say, well, what does this mean?

There's a lineage. There's a lineage of tradition. There's a lineage at the Three Jewels, and what it means is it's a whole group of committed people that simply have the tools, thanks to Geshe Michael.

We've been given tools to make ourselves happy in our life, and everyone there just wants to pass those tools on to everyone else so that they can be happy in their life. And it works. So with that, I'd like to introduce Nancy Cary.

[Speaker 2]
So it's great to be here today. Geshe Michael, thank you so much for coming. We love you so much, and we hope you'll stay forever with us, come back again and again.

Geshe Michael Roach, most of you know him, and maybe one of you doesn't. So I'm going to introduce him the best I can in a short amount of time. Geshe-la began studying Tibetan Buddhism when he was in his early 20s and lived with his lama for many, many years.

During that time, he went to work and helped launch an amazing diamond business and then wrote the Diamond Cutter that became the foundation for the Diamond Cutter Institute. And now Geshe Michael spends his year going all around the world and trying to teach everyone he possibly can reach how to become happy in their lives and spread it like a, you know, a virus so that the world will change into a paradise. Some of his amazing accomplishments are the Asian Classics Input Project, which has 150 years to go, 25 years behind it, preserving and saving the Tibetan texts and the yoga texts from the ancient scriptures.

And obviously, the Asian Classics Institute, which created the 18 courses which mirror the Geshe courses that he studied at the Monastery of Saramay. And then there's the newest thing. I'm just going to jump because there's so much.

So I'm jumping right now to ACI Phoenix, who is well represented here today. So welcome to the Phoenix contingent. And ACI Phoenix is a beautiful new center which offers retreats and teachings and they're presenting the liberation in the palm of your hands, liberation thrust into the palm of your hands.

Geshe Michael's presenting that in retreats twice, four times a year, two silent retreats and strictly teaching retreats in the Phoenix area. And that's launched a 10-year teaching extravaganza. You shouldn't miss it.

And then there's the next image and vision that I'm aware of, which is called the Garden Mission, which is really dedicated to the Sonoran Sangha. Forget borders. It has no borders.

It's the Sonoran Sangha. And the Three Jewels New York City would like to make an offering to the Garden Mission to help that vision become a reality. So we'd like to make a special offering today in that spirit of the Mandala offering.

I think you may have a piece of paper with you, everybody. So offerings at the beginning of a teaching is the request for the teaching.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Thank you for coming. Can you hear okay?

Everybody hear okay? Yeah. It's good.

Then I'd like to thank all the people who have kept the Three Jewels going strong. It was started on a very cold winter day, I don't know, 15 years ago or something. And we couldn't find a place to rent.

And then finally we found a shell of a building. It was burned down. The building was burned down.

And then we approached the owner of the building. We said, if we fix it, can we rent it? And they said, okay.

And then Andy Graves made the floor and we started from there. And the friend Diane worked in the basement next to the boiler. And I'm very proud of Nancy, Karen, Michael, and the other crew for keeping the place open.

And I often meet people around the world who have stopped at the Three Jewels and studied. I'm very proud that you keep it free of charge. I hope it will always be free of charge.

And then a big reason for today, we'd like to ask that you make a donation to keep the programs there going. Okay? And I don't know.

Probably there's somebody who'll take your money back there in the brain, I guess. And we should keep it open. It has helped many people.

I bought a lot of Tibetan books and I had a vision that it would be a scholarly library. I put Ani Pelma in charge of it. I bought all the books and sent her to this New York City training for, what do you call it?

You have to get training to open a coffee shop. You have to have a license. So she went through the whole training.

And I went to the graduation. The whole thing cost me a lot of money. And then, you know, we installed her there.

And then I didn't come by very often. Then I, I don't know, a couple months later I came back and checked in, you know. And it was full of homeless people.

The whole Three Jewels, they were everywhere. And they were all laying down on the floor and some of them were sitting in big easy chairs watching army movies on TV. And then when they wanted tea or coffee they just went back in the kitchen and made their own.

And I don't know even if it was legal, I don't know. But it was very popular. And all the books were gone.

I said, you know, Ani Pelma, where are the books? And she said, oh, the homeless people take them and sell them on the street to make extra money, you know. And I don't know, I think it's a good start.

And I like, I like what it has become. I'm very proud of it. And I, I know it has helped.

The main thing is it, it's a refuge where, you know, especially when you're having a hard time or you don't know what to do with your life, then you can always go to the Three Jewels. You know, Stillwell will be teaching some amazing class. And you can be with friends, right?

You can just be with people who are interested in high ideas and spiritual things. And you can hang out. You can take a not too challenging yoga class.

And usually. And I just feel like it's a safe house in the city for anybody who needs, who needs a place, you know, and needs people to be with people. And I'm very proud that it's, it's there and I'm very proud that, that people can go there.

And I know many, many people who, you know, were down on their luck or they had reached sort of a low point in their spiritual life and they ended up there. And now they are teaching around the world, those people. So, I'm very proud of the place.

I'm very proud of the teachers, all the people who teach and people who keep it open. So, so, you know, let's all like throw in, I don't know, I'll throw in a lot of money today. And then you throw, just throw some in, okay?

And then they can stay open and they can keep helping people. I think it's a beautiful thing. So today we're studying a special, it's really a sadhana.

Sadhana means like a daily practice that you can do, all right? It's a daily meditation that you can do. This text is part of a sadhana.

What I'd like to do first is just do a meditation, okay? I'd like to do a meditation on this sadhana. So you have to get all, sit up all straight.

Russell all your papers now. And then slowly settle down. Once we start meditating, meditating in a big group is a challenge.

If one person makes a big noise, you know, all these people get distracted. So try to sit quietly, sit very still. If your body is still, then your mind becomes still, okay?

So settle down, make your body still. Nice, that's good. Nobody cough or sneeze.

Check in with your forehead, the muscles of your forehead. Are they relaxed? Are your hands relaxed?

Relax your eyes. Pay attention to your lips. Relax your lips, especially the corners of your mouth.

Let your tummy come in just a little bit. Tighten it, very slightly. And it makes the lower back comfortable.

And then please come to your breath. Start to watch your breath. As you watch your breath, keep your face relaxed.

Try to stay aware of your thoughts. Where are your thoughts going? Some are about the future, what you're going to do this evening, this afternoon, where you're going to eat dinner.

Try to be aware of those thoughts and stop them. Then try to be aware of any thoughts about the past. This person hurt me, this person got angry at me.

See if we can all come to this room together. If you catch your mind thinking about the future or the past, then gently ask it to come back to this room. Try to be very aware of this room, the people around you.

You can feel them. See if you can settle into this current moment of time and be comfortable in this present moment. Relax.

We have some time. We don't have anything to do for a while. Just relax and be here.

We'll be quiet together. If you think about the future or the past, please bring your mind back to this room, this moment. And relax.

We don't have anything else to do right now. And try not to move. And slowly, please come to your heartbeat.

Try to hook into your heartbeat. Feel your heartbeat in your chest. Feel your heartbeat.

Stay in your heartbeat. Try not to move. Now imagine in the center of your heart, inside your heart, as it beats, there's a large cathedral or temple.

Colors light inside. Many windows on the sides. Sunlight pouring in.

Your heart is a cathedral with a large temple that's in your heart. There's sunlight pouring in from windows on either side. Very high.

The back of the temple is raised. There's a platform. You can step up a little bit higher on the back.

There's a beautiful altar. A white marble altar. Sunlight pouring in, lighting the altar.

It's very quiet. There's a person standing behind the altar. That's you.

And you are not made of flesh and blood. You are made of light. Golden light.

Like an angel. You are standing behind the altar. Then you have something in your hands, wrapped in silk.

And a person is approaching the altar from the door, from the front of the temple. There's a person approaching the altar. They come up the steps in the sunlight.

And you reach out with your golden arms of light. They come to the altar. You hand them a parcel, wrapped in silk.

And they take the gift. They're very happy. You are shining in golden light.

And before the altar is a person who you've given a gift and they're very happy. Stay there for a minute. Try not to move.

Come back to the beating of your heart. Become aware of the beating. Follow the beating of your heart.

Try not to move. And slowly come up to your breath. Follow your breath.

And slowly you can open your eyes. Stretch. Take a stretch.

Do you want to stand up and stretch your fists a little bit? Then last year we started studying a sadhana together. It's a guide for yoga practice.

How many people came last year? Raise your hands. That's pretty good.

The practice is called chöd. Say chöd. Chöd is a mispronunciation.

I don't know where it comes from. Probably East Tibet. In East Tibet they say chöd.

The proper pronunciation is just chöd. But it's so popular that I call it chöd. I mispronounced it for you.

Chöd means to cut. A lot of you know Dorje Chöpa, the Diamond Cutter Sutra. Jingkanjing in Chinese.

And Vajracchedaka in Sanskrit. So chedaka means to cut. And chöd is an ancient practice.

It started a thousand years ago in Tibet. It was popular a thousand years ago. A lot of you know Naropa.

I think you know Naropa University. So there was a yogi in India named Naropa. He had a spiritual partner named Niguma.

Every Friday at the cathedrals they do Niguma yoga. It's a very beautiful kind of yoga. You can do it there on Friday nights.

And Naropa trained a Tibetan. I don't know. He was a strange guy.

Even in the paintings nowadays he has a big beer belly. He was a businessman. He never became a monk.

His name was Marpa. And he was a prosperous merchant. Like he would have been a businessman in Varanasi.

And then he was trained by Naropa. Then his student was Milarepa, who is maybe the most famous meditator in Tibet. While Marpa and Milarepa were still alive, there was born a woman in Tibet.

A very famous yogi named Machik Labdön. Say Machik. Labdön.

She really is considered the great teacher of chöd. She is considered the greatest teacher of chöd. And this sadhana or this practice that we are going to learn centers on Machik Labdön.

So say Machik. Labdön. Machik means the single mother.

And Labdön means like, she was like a lamp of learning and knowledge. So Labdön. Her name was a single mother.

And she is considered, she is probably the greatest female teacher in Tibet, in history. A yogi. A yogi named Machik Labdön.

She was born in 1062. According to the best records we have, a child called Depthong Lumpo, the blue anus. So she was born during the time of Milarepa and Marpa.

They were still alive when she was born. Then she is the main figure of this sadhana, of this practice. She is at the center of the practice.

Then I thought maybe you would like to know a little bit about her life. And I thought, I'm going to teach it to you from a book called, it's the Depthong Lumpo, which was written by somebody named Gun Lodzawa, about 150 years later. So it's called the Blue Anus.

And it's a beautiful history of Buddhism in Tibet and India, up to the time of Tsongkhapa. So she was born in 1062. When she was 14, she was forced by her parents to marry a wealthy landowner.

And this was typical in Tibet and in India, right? She was married off to a wealthy landowner. And then she started to have longings for a spiritual life.

She tried to convince her husband to start to follow a spiritual path. She said, let us give up this family trip. Let us follow a spiritual path together.

And she tried for three years to convince him to come with her and learn yoga, learn meditation, live a spiritual life. He refused, over and over. And then slowly she went mad.

She lost it. And she became psychotic. And she started screaming all the time and wandering around the village like crazy.

She was crazy. She went crazy. It's very famous that she became completely mad.

And her husband left her. And then she was sort of reduced to like a beggar and like an animal, and just like a mad woman in her village. And then she met a lama named Ma Lodzong.

So she began to study with him at the age of 17. She stayed with him, I think, for five or six years. And they became spiritual partners.

She became his spiritual partner, tantric partner. And she studied with him during five, six years. And she studied many books on philosophy and she studied the secret teachings.

And then, they say at some point in their relationship, her mind changed. She became very gentle and very learned. And then she started to have, she went into a vision of herself and her partner as being divine beings.

So she started to see her partner as an angel. And she began to see herself as an angel. And then their whole life was something like two angels living together.

And it was just very beautiful, perfect life, together with her partner. Then when he, he was almost 20 years older than her, 18 years older, I think. When he was almost 50, in his late 40s, then someone poisoned him.

Someone murdered him. And he died. And then she went into another era of depression in her life.

She had three straight years of depression. And the books talk about seven great levels of depression. Okay, she had seven.

She went through seven dark journeys in the three years. And nothing in her life, everything in her life collapsed, you know. If you know about the secret teachings, she would offer a fire project.

And it would never light. She couldn't get it to light. Nothing would burn.

And then she would make offerings and set them out for the wild animals and they would ignore. Whatever food it was, they wouldn't touch it, you know. And she began to, she was very beautiful.

But she began to get skin diseases and these terrible blisters and open wounds on her body. And like that, she had a lot of problems with her health. Very serious problems.

And then she became very depressed. And she came, she went back into a very dark world. And then she met a lama named Padampa Sangye.

Okay, so I think a lot of you maybe heard of, some of you heard of Padampa Sangye. Lama Kristi taught some of Padampa Sangye's teachings during the Bok Chumba courses. So I taught her those instructions.

And he lived in a place called Dingri. And he was a very, very great lama, beautiful lama. And very, he's actually from India.

And he taught in Tibet for a long time. And then she came to him and said, you know, my partner, my spiritual partner died. And I've spent three years in extraordinary darkness.

My life has gone dark again. Can you help me? Can you help me come out of it?

And then he was kind of rough on her. What do you call it? Tough love?

He said, the reason you're having trouble is that you broke many vows with your partner while he was alive. You broke many, many vows. And you made many mistakes with your partner.

And that's why you're going through this darkness, you know. And then he said, do you remember that you promised to build a temple and you didn't finish it? And she says, I have no idea what you're talking about.

And then he punched her, really hard. He punched her so hard she, he knocked her out. He said she was knocked out, you know.

And then, I'm not suggesting this is a good method. I'm just saying, this is just a story, okay? This is just a history of how it went.

But when she woke up, when she came back to her senses, she remembered a past life that she had promised to build a temple and she hadn't finished it. So she recalled, he helped her recall her past lives. And then she understood what karma she had to be sad and depressed.

And he guided her very gently, very slowly back to the light, you know. And at the age of 30, by the age of 30 then she had recovered. And she started to do a lot of retreats, long retreats.

And slowly she started to teach. And Padapa Sangye, one of his main practices was Chöd. He brought Chöd from India.

And then he concentrated on that with her. She became a specialist. Machik Labdron became a specialist in Chöd.

And then she taught for 58 years after that, okay? She died, she passed away almost 90, it was almost 90 when she passed away. And she became the greatest teacher of Chöd in Tibet.

And they said that by the time she passed away that no one in Tibet had ever learned partner practice as well as she had. She understood practice with a partner, spiritual partner, better than anyone in Tibet. So she's known for that, for those practices and keeping those practices alive.

So we have here, what we're learning together is a text on Chöd. It's a sadhana, a daily practice on Chöd that we can follow. So what is Chöd and what are the goals of Chöd?

Chöd means to cut. I put a picture of a monk, I don't know, it's on the cover, on the first page. And I think I said last year, this picture has always stayed with me.

It's a picture of in Vietnam, during the Vietnam War. So I was, you know, very active. I went to jail during that time.

So briefly, there were monks protesting the war in Vietnam. And one day a monk, nobody could get the president's attention, Nixon. And so one day he sat down in the middle of Saigon, and he poured gasoline over himself, and he lit himself on fire.

And he stayed in meditation, he didn't come out of meditation. So that's a picture of him. And I was in Saigon, we taught in Saigon, not too long ago.

And in Saigon, oftentimes you can't get a taxi, you have to stop somebody on a motorcycle. There are tens of thousands of motorcycles on the street, very few cars. And you just kind of grab a guy and you say, can I sit on the back of your motorcycle?

So there was this monk on a motorcycle, and I kind of waved him down, because I had to go somewhere. And he pulled over and he got me on the back and we drove. And then he stopped at that place on the street.

People still honor the place. And he stopped and he told me, he stopped and he told me his story. People still, it means a lot to people in Vietnam still.

So I think it's part of a symbol, the photo is kind of a symbol of the idea of a self, right? Chöd means the immolation of the self, the destruction of the self. Then last year we talked, I think we talked pretty much about it already.

I think we were talking about the example of, a negative example, right? Buddhism is famous for something called no self, right? People say there's no self.

And then people interpret that as meaning, you should be selfless, right? You should be a very nice person. What other people want, you should help them get.

And then if you feel proud or if you feel assertive, or if you want anything, then that's your self talking. And you should beat that self down. And that's how people think of.

When I say immolate yourself or burn yourself, then people think like that. They think, I'm proud or I'm willful or I want things. And then I should beat that self down.

And then kind of whenever somebody wants something, I should give it to them. And when there's a, what do you call it, when there's friction with another person, I should retreat and not be, you know, not really, what do you call it, assertive. I shouldn't be assertive.

I should be selfless. So people have explained the immolation or destruction of the self, which is the meaning of chö, right? As being kind of meek, we should be meek.

And when things don't go well, we should just sort of be quiet. And that this is peace. And that if you did that long enough, you would be a peaceful person and a good person, okay?

Then there's a higher, that's okay. That's not bad. That's an okay as a start.

But there's a higher meaning of chö, okay? And there's a higher meaning of what it means to destroy the self. So I'm sort of, I don't spend much time on the lower interpretations, okay?

I would rather take you straight to the gist of the matter. I think people in the modern world are sophisticated enough, they're educated enough. Most people are online around the world.

You know, it's not like 11th century Tibet, okay? Like you've had a good education. And we can go straight to the higher meaning of what it is to cut the self, right?

So we've been doing seven, what do you call it? We're doing seven nights of Bhagavad Gita uptown at Pure Yoga. We finished five nights, and we have two more nights to go.

And I don't know if you know the story of the Bhagavad Gita. I'm not Hindu, but I like the Bhagavad Gita. I think it's one of the great spiritual classics of all time.

And I think it's worth studying. Well, so we've been studying the Bhagavad Gita. This is the third year, and we're wrapping it up tonight and tomorrow.

I don't know if you know the story of the Bhagavad Gita. It's one of the great classics of spirituality. Probably there are more copies of the Gita in people's homes than the Bible.

You see, in India, it is a classic. And everyone uses it for their life. Gandhi used it.

The Gita is a story of two parts of a large family, and there's been some disagreement between the two parts of the family. And they both raised huge armies. The two parts of the family have raised armies of hundreds of thousands of warriors.

And then they've decided to have a big battle. It's in India, north of India. And they're going to try to slaughter each other, the two sides of the family.

And the leader of one of the sides of the war is named Arjuna. He's a great warrior. And then he begins to have doubts.

And he decides, he asks his chariot driver. He's got this like, what do you call it? Low-caste chariot driver.

And he's going to drive him out. He says, drive me out between the battle lines before the war starts. The war is about to start.

It's like, people are going to start killing each other in five or ten minutes. Arjuna goes out between the battle lines. Because he wants to see all the members of his family before they die, or maybe he will die.

So it's a very touching time. And in the chariot, he begins to have doubts about what he's doing. He begins to have doubts about the idea of a war.

And he starts to express his doubts to his driver, whose name is Krishna. And then they have an 18-chapter discussion. And in the course of the chapter, they explore what does it mean to do an action correctly.

What is a correct action? And we've been working through that for three years in the class. And you're welcome to come.

If you want to come, it's tonight or tomorrow. We'll finish at Puriyoga, 7 o'clock. And it will be a big, what do you call it?

The surprise ending is coming. But they're discussing what is it to do a proper action. And then, we've been trying to relate that to modern life.

And we chose, it's karma, right? The word is karma. Action in Sanskrit is karma.

So what does it mean to do a proper action? Proper action is called karma marga, path of karma. So there's a distinction between a karma and a path of karma.

And the Bhagavad Gita is about how to do a correct action, path of karma. Then, when we say karma in the modern world, I think, I don't know about you, I was taught the word karma, maybe I was five or six, and I heard the word karma, and I asked, I went to my source of knowledge, which was my mom, you know, and I said, what does karma mean? And people say this word karma.

And she says, you know, it's something they believe in India, you know. And then my knowledge of India was somewhere on the other side of the world. Once me and my brother tried to dig for India, we dug a hole.

And we thought if we could hit India, we could see Indian people, you know. They said it was on the other side of the world. But we didn't make it.

Then, they believe that if you step on a bug, then something bad will happen to you. That's how it was explained to me, right? Karma.

And so, in my mind, it was always something negative. It was always something like, if you do this, then something bad will happen to you, okay? Like, people got their hearts, then somebody would say, that's their karma.

If you study karma carefully, if you study it well, you can make things happen, okay? If you understand the principles of karma well, then you can make, you can change the course of events in your life, alright? And that's a beautiful thing about the study of karma.

So, I don't know, in my own life, my teacher challenged me to start a business and raise money to help the refugees. And then, I didn't want to start a business and I didn't, I don't like business. I grew up in the hippie time, you know?

And business people were considered dishonest and creepy and they talk too fast and they were just considered, in my, when I was in college, business people were considered the lowest kind of life form, you know? And it was the last thing I wanted to do. Then the lama said, I want you to start a business, right?

And I said, why? You know, I don't, I don't want. That's why I came to the monastery, you know?

I dragged myself from America to India and I'm living in this refugee camp because I don't want to, I don't want to be part of that. I don't want to be part of that life. And he said, you have to prove to yourself that you can, that you understand karma, the path of karma, that you can make things happen by using karma, okay?

Like, if you sit in the monastery, you won't have a chance to prove it. I want you to go to New York City, start a business, make a million dollars in a year and using the principles of karma, right? Let's see if you understand them clearly.

You know, so then I came and I had to start a business. That business has 10,000 workers now. And it's a quarter billion dollars a year.

It was bought in, two years ago it was bought by Warren Buffet. And then my teacher challenged me to use it in other things. He said, you know, okay, you can use it in, in, what do you call it?

Like, you can, you can learn, you have learned to use karma for financial things. Could you use it for personal things, relationship? Could you use it on your health?

I had, what do you call it? I had gout, I had really bad gout. I couldn't walk.

Some days I couldn't walk. He said, can you use it on your body? Can you use those principles on your body?

So my whole latter part of my education was my lama trying to see if I understood the principles of karma. And if you understand that, you can shift reality. You can change the bone in your body.

I did ballet now. I was in Beijing, what, two weeks ago. For my birthday they gave me a class with one of the best ballet dancers in, in China.

And we had a really good time. We, they, he didn't speak English and I didn't speak Chinese. And, and we danced.

And he was really happy. And I was really happy. It was way up in the skyscraper.

It's so clear that they don't have mirrors on the walls. They use the window for the skyscraper. And there's, they're like crystals.

There's a red one and a blue one, like red crystal skyscraper and a blue one. Then there's two, these are like, you know, 75 stories high. And then they have walkways between them.

And they're really beautiful. They're like a mandala. And you're up there dancing in the middle of all of them, you know.

And it was very beautiful. Very sunny day in Beijing, which is very unusual. So, how does that relate to Chöd?

You see, I want to relate it to Chöd for you, all right. Chöd is the destruction of the self. It doesn't mean that a person who follows Buddhism should be, what do you call it, unassuming and, what do you call it, a rollover.

And everyone can take advantage of you and, you know, yours is not supposed to mind anything. Someone, they told me in the monastery, they said, those American people, they have this idea about Buddhism. I said, what is it?

And they said, you're standing in the line of the bus and the guy behind you kicks you in the butt. And then you turn around and say, excuse me. And it's not like that, okay.

The destruction of yourself or your ego, it doesn't have anything to do with that, all right. So, what is it? What does it mean to destroy your ego?

I like to talk about karma in terms of your dreams, right. We were in China, we spent the whole time, they call it mongchang. Say mongchang.

Mongchang means your dreams, like what would you like to happen in your life. And we spent a few weeks in Beijing and Shanghai and other cities and we were just talking to people about mongchang. Then, what is your dream in your life?

You see, what would you like in your life? Is it to be a quiet person who sits at the back of the bus and doesn't say anything? Is that what it means to destroy yourself?

And it's not, okay. It's not what it means. If you can destroy yourself properly, then you can have anything you want, okay.

You can have any dream you want. That's the point of this text, okay. If you can destroy yourself, then you can have any dream you want.

You see, that's different, I think, from sitting at the back of the bus or being a nobody, a professional nobody or something like that. It's not what it means, okay. If you can identify your ego and destroy it, then in the process, you can have anything you want.

I think any dream that you want, you can make come true. If you want to make a quarter billion dollars, you can make it, okay. If you want to fix a bone in your foot forever, you can do it.

You see, if you want to find a beautiful partner in your life, I mean, that's what Matthews Ludden did with it, okay. She was the greatest master of partner practice ever in Tibet, okay. So, it's not about, destroying yourself isn't about not being anybody or not wanting anything.

That's a wrong idea. Destroying yourself means, if you can get a certain self out of the way, then you can truly be happy, but you can achieve any dream you want. Any goal in your life that you want, if you understand the self, you can achieve it, okay.

So, I thought we'd talk about that, okay. And then we'll get into the text, alright. Then we'll go into the text.

I want to give you some background, and then I want you to go into the text, alright. So, what does it mean to destroy the self? Chö.

And how would that help you gain anything you wished for? Because that's the business I'm in, right. I go from country to country, like, my teacher calls me preta.

You're like a dharma preta. Preta means, what do you call it? Spirit.

One with spirit. You're a dharma preta. We just go from country to country.

I don't even, sometimes we go to the, what do you call it? Passport control. They say, what country are you from?

And I go, um. And then they get really suspicious, you know. Because I don't remember which country I'm from.

And I don't think it matters too much anymore. I don't think of it anymore. So, we just travel.

We just go to different places. And we give the same teachings. So I'm going to run through something.

I'm going to run through the pen thing, because we have to, to get to Chö, okay. And I'll do, I promise to do it fast, okay. Because some people heard it 300 times and they're tired of it.

I need a pen. Alright. I'm going to talk about an idea.

And you have to pay attention. You can zone out after the break, okay. But I'm going to talk about a special idea.

And you need to understand it, if you're going to use Chö to get your dreams in your life, okay. If you have a dream in life. And you can have a dream, okay.

The purpose of Chö is to reach your dreams, alright. And it can be anything. You can say quarter billion dollars.

That's okay. That's fine. That's a good start.

Or you can say, I want to be healthy. I have a health problem. I have a bad back.

You know, I had a foot problem, right. I couldn't walk. Now I lift a girl up now.

Okay. You can, you choose something you want. And that's the purpose of the spiritual practice, right.

You can fulfill your dreams. Because the last dream is always helping other people, okay. You get enough food to meditate.

Then you can have a place to meditate. And then you're comfortable. And you have a happy life.

You have a nice partner. You have a nice place to live. You're comfortable.

You can create money at will. And your relationship you can craft it to what you want, you see. And your health.

And then automatically those kinds of people go on to help bigger things like peace in the world or stopping hunger. You can't learn to create money yourself and watch other people go hungry, right. Once you learn the trick of being healthy and happy and reaching your own dreams, then it's natural to share it with other people.

That's the evolution of this thing. But you have to understand this thing first. Okay, ready?

So just answer my questions and don't be shy, alright. I'm not trying to trick you. Actually I'm trying to trick you but into something good.

What is this thing? It's a pen, okay. If a small puppy dog came up down the aisle, came up on the stage and I wear this thing in front of the small puppy dog, then what would they do with it?

Yeah, they would bite it. They would play with it. To them it's not a pen, it's a little toy, right.

It's a chew toy. If you've heard this 600 times, then learn how to teach it. Okay, because we need you.

We need more teachers. We have invitations to 150 cities. I think we can do 10 or 12 and we need help.

We need other people, okay. Anyway, if I set this here, oh sorry, who's right, the dog or the human? Is it a pen or is it a chew toy?

You can say both, okay. You can ask anybody in the world and we do and they all say the same thing, it's both, okay. Both of them are right.

It's not like dog is less right than the human. The human says, don't chew my pen and the dog says, why are you wasting a good chew toy? And they're both correct, it's okay.

If I set this object here and all the people leave the room and all the dogs leave the room, at that time, which one is it, a pen or a chew toy? You can say neither and we're trying to get there, okay. That's emptiness.

That's Buddhist emptiness, okay. Then, I don't know, foolish people for 25 centuries have explained it all kinds of stupid ways that have nothing to do with your life, okay. Stare at a wall, close your eyes, see black, black, black, you know, that's emptiness.

My teacher used to laugh and say, you don't have to meditate, you can just drink a big bottle of dosa kiss, you know, and you can get to that. If it means to sit and think about nothing, or if it means to sit and watch your mind as thoughts go through your mind and watch them fade away like a cloud goes away in the sky, it doesn't do anything for you, it doesn't help you, okay. There's no purpose to that.

Just sit and watch your breath all day or try to think about nothing, which is impossible by the way, or concentrate on the black on the back of your eyelids, this is not emptiness. Emptiness means, when we put this object here, and all the people go out, and all the dogs go out, then it's, then it's, it's just neither, it's neither thing, at that time it's neither thing. If a human walks in, it becomes a pet, if a dog comes in, it becomes a chew toy, and that's correct, that's okay, until they walk in, it's a blank white movie screen.

It's just, shunya is a little tricky word, emptiness is a little bit of a bad translation, I don't know, it just means available or blank or, it's there, okay. So now consider yourself, well, let's finish the whole thing. If I see a pen in that case, is it coming from me or is it coming from the pen?

Is the pen coming from the pen or is the pen coming from me? It must be coming from me, okay, why? If it was coming from it's side, if the pen was in the pen, then the dog would see a pen, the dog doesn't see a pen, the dog sees a chew toy, if the dog sees one thing and I see a different thing and we're looking at the same thing, that can't be coming from the thing, it has to be coming from me somehow, something about me is making me see it as a pen, alright.

What is that? It's a seed in your mind. If you want to call it karma, you can call it karma.

I stopped calling it karma a long time ago, because in every country the word karma means some kind of strange thing, because it was explained wrong for 20 centuries by people, okay. In China I don't say ye li, I don't say karma when I go to India. I just call it a seed in your mind, that's okay, same thing.

You have a seed in your mind for a pen and that's why you see a pen. Who put the seed there? Who put the seed there?

Yeah, you, only you can put a seed in your mind, okay, only you can put a seed in your mind. Nobody else can put a seed in your mind. I can't share, I can't take out my pen seed and put it in a dog's mind and they're going to see a pen, it doesn't work that way, okay.

They have a seed in their mind, I have a seed in my mind. How do I put a pen seed in my mind? If you want to put a pen seed in your mind, how do you put it in your mind?

You have to give a pen to somebody else, okay. You're watching yourself give a pen to somebody else, recording in yourself. I witness myself giving a pen to somebody else, that puts a seed in my mind, to see a pen.

Then I don't know, a week later somebody shows me a cylinder and I see it as a pen. It's interesting to know how the karma ripens in your mind. In the subconscious there's a seed, that seed opens, that, when the seed opens, it produces a tiny image of a pen, based on the image I saw when I gave it to somebody, okay.

That image comes up in my mind. My mind projects that image on this cylinder. There's nothing pen about this, okay.

You feel like it's a pen naturally. You think it must be a pen. But if you didn't have that seed in your mind, you wouldn't see a pen, okay.

It's not a pen from its own side. You're seeing a pen because of something in your mind, alright. Try to imagine what it would be like if you didn't have that seed in your mind and I held this up.

Try to grasp what it would be like if I held this up and you didn't see it as a pen. Try to imagine what it would be like. It's just a black stick, you know.

You'd say, oh, that's really smooth. What do you use that for? You see?

It's not a pen by itself, it's a pen because you're making it a pen. Got it? The same is true of your perception of yourself, okay.

If you're depressed about yourself, if you have no self-esteem, that's not because of anything about you, alright. Are you naturally some angelic being? No.

Are you naturally some kind of a worthless person? No. You're just blank, okay.

You're just two arms and two legs and a hand, alright. How you see yourself on any given day is coming from seeds in your mind, alright. You were always like the pen.

You've always been like the pen. You are neither intelligent nor less intelligent. You are neither beautiful or not beautiful.

You are neither capable nor not capable. You're just a blank white screen, okay. And then you put seeds in your mind.

Through the course of your life, you plant seeds in your mind. And then you look in the mirror and the mind, those seeds open and you see something. And that's how you see yourself, okay.

Got it? It's very interesting. You could be the most intelligent person in the world.

You could do better inventions than Steve Jobs, okay, if you had the right seeds. You are available to do anything, alright. That's the meaning of chöd, okay.

So you can forget all this tempted stuff, okay. You can forget like, you know, you're going to suddenly disappear or, I don't know. Whatever you thought it was, it's not going to happen, alright.

Chöd is cutting off the self. And that's a self that was never there in the first place, alright. So it's kind of a useless exercise, okay.

Alright. I mean if you get it, it all becomes very simple, alright. I'll say it again.

The practice of chöd is to cut the ego or the self. It doesn't mean trying to be a person who never asserts themselves or who sits quiet in the back of the class or who doesn't try to make a million dollars or, you know, or be the best architect or like that. It doesn't mean that.

That's not ego. Ego means I'm the way I am from my own side, like a pen that comes from its own side. That's ego.

That's a wrong idea, okay. You are available to do anything if you put the seeds there. You never were anybody.

You weren't depressed and you weren't happy. You weren't intelligent or less. You weren't beautiful or less beautiful.

You never were and you won't be, okay. You're available to be whatever you want. You are like a cinema, okay.

And so chöd is not really, the practice of chöd is not a practice of trying to destroy your image of yourself or something like that. It's not that. It's not like you are egotistic and don't be so egotistic and then you'll be a good Buddhist if you sit in the back of the bus and don't say anything, you know.

And if someone asks your opinion, you say, I don't care. Everything is okay with me. It's the opposite, okay.

It's the opposite of that. A good Buddhist who understands Buddhism should be highly successful, should be very happy, should be very happy, should have a good relationship, you know. If you want one, you know, then you should be, if you want to be the best artist in New York, you should be.

And if you want to be the best dancer in New York, you should be. There's no reason not to be whatever you want to be if you understand who you are and who you're not, okay. So you're not, you're not somebody already.

You can plant seeds and you can change yourself, okay. Anything you want, you can become. That's chöd, okay.

It doesn't mean don't be assertive or don't like things or don't dislike things or just be like a vegetable, you know, spiritual vegetable, you know. It doesn't mean that at all. The Dalai Lama doesn't look like a vegetable, right.

He looks like he knows what he's doing, right. And that's how you can be, okay. So this practice is very beautiful.

It has two parts. One part is a meditation where you realize that you were never the way you are, okay. It's not coming from itself.

You're, the way you perceive yourself and the way you are is coming from seeds in your mind and you can change those seeds and you can design a new me, consciously, okay. You can make a list of what you want to be and then you can plant a seed for each thing and then you will be that, okay. Because you were always coming from the seeds in your mind anyway, okay.

If you're depressed, you can change that. If you have a health problem, you can change that. If you don't like your physical appearance, you can change that, okay.

Nothing is fixed, okay, nothing. Nothing is a pattern, okay. Nothing is a pattern from itself.

You can be anything if you just understand where you're coming from and that's from seeds in your mind, okay. You can do anything. You can become anything.

You don't have to age. Nothing about you is fixed. All things can be changed, okay.

That's chök. So the first part of a chök practice is to understand that you are raw material. You can be anything you want.

Just plant the seeds. Just learn how to plant the seeds, okay. Then the second step is, guess what?

You plant the seeds, okay. Alright. First you understand, I'm available to do anything, okay.

And you told me, I didn't say it, you said it. This is classic debate technique, right? I didn't say it, you said it.

I asked you what this would be if I said it here and all the humans left the room and all the dogs left the room. Then you said, it's neither. I asked you, is it a pen or a chit-or and then you said neither.

I didn't say it, you said it, okay. Then you are neither right now, okay. You've always been neither.

You're available to be anything you want. Understand that first because you can't go anywhere until you understand that, okay. The way you are now is a result of seeds that you planted in the past.

Those seeds aren't adjustable. You just change the seeds, alright. They decide what you want to be, alright.

Decide what you want. I, you know, when people try to trick me, they say, Geshe-la, should I be spiritual or should I be successful? You know, and I'm like, no, don't try to trick me, you know.

You should be both, you know. Is it spiritual to have a nice partner? I don't know.

Machis love them, dude. Is it spiritual to be successful? I don't know.

Dilemma won the Nobel Prize, you know. Is it spiritual to be healthy? I think so.

I don't think you have to be like, I don't know, skinny and undernourished to be spiritual, you know. No, it's all like a big scam, okay. You should be happy.

You should be successful. You should have a beautiful relationship. Your health should be good.

And then you should save the world, okay. Then people tell me, you see, I got this thing, okay. I fly, half my life is on an airplane, alright.

And I try to work. Honestly, I do. I translate on the plane.

I do the first 3-4 hours, I translate. Then I burn out, you know, because there's no oxygen and stuff. And then I ask Ningbo, what movies are on, you know.

What's the movies on this plane, you know. And then he's like, they got Spider-Man. They got the new Spider-Man.

Or they got Iron Man. Or they got X-Men. Or they got Green Lantern.

Or they got Transformers, you know. And then I'm like, did it ever strike you as weird that almost every successful movie out today is about a normal person who saves the world, right. Like the guy in Transformers, in number 3, is it?

What's the last one, 3? He tries not to be a superhero, right. He decides he's not going to be a superhero and he's going to get a job in a regular office, as a mail clerk, right.

And then that turns out to be the office where the only guy who knows about the guy who's trying to take over the world works, okay. And there's a reason why we're obsessed with superheroes, you know. We like, especially if they were just normal guys, you know.

There's a normal guy and then he becomes a, in the Transformers, I don't know his name, but he saved the world twice now. Well, three times, okay. And every time two other things happen.

He gets the car. He gets a good Camaro. And he gets the girl, okay.

Before he saves the world, he always gets the Camaro and the girl. And why not, you know. Okay, it's not like unspiritual to be happy, okay.

To be healthy and strong and, you know, play good music and have a nice date and have a nice relationship. It's not wrong, it's correct, okay. But first you have to kill the self that was never there.

So, we've gone kind of backwards today, okay. We discussed who wasn't there. You were never there.

You're not fixed. You don't have to be who you are right now. Everything about you is adjustable.

Because you are coming from your seeds. The way you see yourself is coming from your seeds, okay. So, plant different seeds and you will see a different person who has their credit cards paid off.

And, you know, really, I'm not kidding you. And who has the most perfect relationship they can imagine, okay. Try to imagine that.

Try to imagine that you're in a relationship and if you could choose any other man or woman in the world, you wouldn't. You wouldn't take them. You have the best.

And I'm not just saying politically correct. You know, of course my husband's the best. I'm saying really the best.

You know, imagine, try to imagine that you have a partner that if someone offered you a different partner, anyone in the world, you wouldn't take them. And you wouldn't want. And you have every possible thing you could want, okay.

And you're just happy, totally contented. And there's nothing else in the world that you want, at all, okay. So try to imagine that, because you can make it.

Now we have to discuss the seeds, okay. How do you plant the seeds for that? I think we'll do that after the break, alright.

So, no, we got you to nothing. And then, now we have to build up, we have to discuss how to plant the seeds, okay. And we will spend a few days on that, alright.

I have to make some announcements, so don't think you can go to the bathroom yet. Oh, we have a break sale going on in the back. All of the proceeds go to buying airplane tickets for young people that we send to our Tibetan monastery to train them, okay.

And that's been going on for years now. And we send them for free. They get good meditation training in the monastery.

They get to live with like 3,000 monks for a month. And they also get to have diarrhea. And if you want to contribute to that, then buy a cookie and pay extra, okay.

Like, do something crazy like pay $50 for diarrhea. Okay, that's the idea. Just do it, okay.

You shouldn't leave here with any money. Then there's a Three Jewels table. Three Jewels is selling books and other things.

You're welcome to look at those. There's a thing called the 108 Project. 108 Project is Hector's project, I think.

And he went to, I think, Nepal and found, they found 108, what do you call it? Really? It's almost 4 o'clock?

No. What time is it? What time am I supposed to stop?

I'll go for another 15 minutes, okay. And then we'll stop. And then you can have a cookie on the way out.

This is, blankets are created by, they've identified 108 homeless people in Kathmandu area, beggars. And they got them making these nice quilts. I want one.

I think they're $150. And it goes to support that project. I think it's a very beautiful project.

So I'll take one. I'll buy one. One quilt, one kid, one year in school.

Okay. Then ACIP, our computer project for refugees, they are typing in the ancient books to that. They have saved a million pages so far.

It's the 25th year this year. They're still going strong. It's going to take another 150 years at this rate.

But if you want to speed it up a little bit, they're selling some books, like journals, diaries to keep your, keep a daily spiritual diary. And neti, what do you call it? Neti pot, tops that you screw on to avion bottle.

It's a good idea, I guess.

[Speaker 2]
I haven't tried it.

[Speaker 1]
And then there's a thing called the knowledge base. The knowledge base is, somebody decided, I don't know, 35 years ago to keep track of all my teachings. And they've been doing that for 35 years.

And there's, I don't know, 6,000 teachings on the knowledge base. They're free on the web, the audio and there's some video and many other teachers also. So if you'd like to help them, you can make a thing for them.

Let's start the text. I'll do 15 minutes. Is that okay?

And then we'll call it a day and we'll start again tomorrow. So I'm going to go straight to page 6. Everything up to there is just kind of, oh, our teachers are wonderful, but you knew that.

Let's start with page 6. So in this system, I'm selling a system. I go around the world selling a system.

I talk to thousands and thousands of people every year. Like in China, maybe a thousand people will come to a talk, right? And then we do a retreat with them and we try to teach them about these principles.

Some of the people listen and try to do what we propose. And then, these are beautiful stories. They're all over the world, beautiful stories.

There's two women in New York who came to a talk like this. They own a billion dollar business right now. They were housewives.

They were typing for some guy. They were secretaries. You can look it up online.

It's called Kaplan Taylor Advertising. So they went home and they actually tried to do what I said. Nowadays I call them and they say they're too busy to talk to me.

Anyway, I don't mind. Like that, there's hundreds and hundreds of stories like that. So if you were going to start a business and you came up to Macik Labdron and asked her, you know, how should I start a business?

Do you think I should borrow money from my relatives? Or do you think I should keep my job and just kind of build it up in the evening? They would give her options that they're thinking about.

And you are doing it right now. I don't know what's going on in your life right now. You're trying to get your relationship back on track.

You're trying to get rid of your debts. You're trying to buy a house or you're trying to deal with a bad back. Whatever it is that you're trying to do in your life, there's something.

Then in your mind you raise options. In your mind you raise options. Should I go to a yoga class?

Will that make my back better or will it make it worse? Should I go try... My friend is trying to get me to go to acupuncturist.

I was kind of thinking about swimming. You raise options in your mind. That's human life.

That's what we do all day. I have a bad back. What should I do?

I need money. I gotta pay off my credit cards. Should I change my career?

Should I get a new job? Should I take another part time job? Should I try to cut my expenses?

How can I get rid of that credit card debt? You put choices in your mind. You have choices for what you want.

I want to find a partner. I'm lonely. My ex was a creep and I dumped him three years ago, but really he dumped me.

I'm really open to finding a new partner. Three years is about the time you feel, to get feeling lonely again. For three years you're like, I don't need a partner.

And then after three years you're like, I don't know, maybe it'd be nice. Maybe I could do it better. So where should I look for one?

Should I go to a yoga class? Should I go to the Bhagavad Gita? I heard there's more girls than boys.

You think of options. That's how you spend your day. That's how we all spend our day.

We all spend our day the same way. We are considering different options to get the things we want. That's all.

Now, in this system, okay, in this system of chöd, macik labdron, none of those options works. Okay? None of the options that you are considering will work.

None of them. Alright? It won't work to go to a yoga class to find a boy.

It won't work to go online. It won't work to go, even the Gita class won't work. Okay?

It won't work to fix your back to swim or to do yoga or to go for acupuncture. It's not gonna work. It doesn't work.

Alright? Then in your mind, you have an objection, right? I used to sell diamonds.

They teach us to address objections. In your mind, you say, but it might work. You know, my friend went to acupuncture, her back is okay now.

My other friend went to yoga, her back is okay now. But does it work all the time? Does acupuncture work all the time?

Does yoga work all the time? Does it work all the time to quit your job and try to find a better job? Do you always make more money?

No, sometimes you're just unemployed for 10 years. Okay? None of the courses of action that you are considering will work for sure.

And in this system, we say, therefore, they don't work. You shouldn't take an action if you're not sure if it's gonna work or not. That's not a good action.

That's not a solution to your problems. You shouldn't take an action unless you're sure it's gonna work. Alright?

So, what do you want me to do? What else is there? I mean, there's acupuncture, there's yoga, there's, you know, some kind of heat therapy.

That's all I know about. Do you have some other, you got some other Chinese medicine thing that I didn't hear about? What are you proposing?

Then you have to think, you have to get in your mind a vision of billions and billions of people waking up every day and taking actions that they don't know will work. Right? Try to feel.

You know, Buddhists are always talking about suffering, suffering, suffering. And then it gets boring. I don't know about you, it gets boring to me in like 5 minutes.

Okay? Yeah, okay, I don't want to hear about it. I know that, you know.

But it's worse than that. Okay, suffering is worse than that. Every single action taken by every person in this city today was useless, hopeless.

Alright? Every single action taken by every person in this city today was hopeless. It didn't work and it won't work.

Alright? And they just don't know how to do things. Okay?

They don't know how to make a thing happen. None of the activities, the normal activities done in New York City by people today will bring them the happiness they seek. It doesn't work.

The things they have been taught to do don't work. Alright? So what works?

Okay? What do you want me to do? What do you propose?

I'll just say briefly and then we'll talk more about it tomorrow. Let's say you want a partner. Okay?

You've been, you got burned, as everyone has, and then you just, enough time has gone by and you're like in the market again. You know? And you're like, okay, maybe I can do it better.

You know, people are on their fifth, sixth marriages sometimes. You know? Like, maybe I can do it better this time.

Maybe I know enough now to do it better. How are you going to find this person? How are you going to find a nicer person?

You have to, in this system, you have to plant a seed. You have to plant a seed. If you want a seed in your mind to see a pen, you have to find a person who needs a pen.

Okay? You have to find a person who needs a pen. If you want to see pens and not chew toys, you need to find a person who wants a pen.

And then you must provide it to them. And as you provide it to them, you plant a seed in your mind for a pen. There's a technique question, alright?

There's certain tech, details about the techniques. And we'll talk about it tomorrow. You need to know the technique.

Not everybody who gave people pens sees pens. Not everybody who shares money with others gets a quarter billion dollars. Okay?

There's a technique. There's some technique details that you need to know. But in general, if you want a pen, you must provide a pen to someone else who needs a pen.

If you want money, you must help someone else make money. Okay? I like to say it that way.

It's not just necessarily giving away cash. Okay? You have to help someone else make money.

Okay? If you're lonely and you want a nice partner, then what do you have to do? You have to help someone else get a partner.

Or you have to help someone else not be lonely. Okay? What I tell people, I say, go find, go to a nursing home.

You know? They're everywhere. They are tucked away.

They are hidden. People don't like to admit they're there. You can find one in the phone book or online.

Okay? In your neighborhood, there's one that you don't even know about. Okay?

Go to a nursing home. Find an elderly person who's lonely and who has no companionship. And in the way that you give a pen, give them companionship.

Okay? Or the way that you give money, give companionship to somebody who's lonely. And make it regular.

And there's a bunch of detail stuff. There's technique stuff. We have to talk about it tomorrow.

Alright? But offer companionship. Then a boy will come.

Or a man will come. A beautiful man will come. Alright?

Just like that. Where did you meet your last partner or your current partner, if you have one? Where did you meet them?

Think about it. Where did you meet them? I mean, you may regret that you met them, but...

I'm talking about your last one. Think about where you met them. You see, it seems like an accident, right?

It seems like it was just serendipity, right? I went to a party. She was there.

I was on the subway. We sat down next to each other. I was on a plane.

We sat down next to each other. My cousin knew somebody and knew somebody. There's always a story, right?

Of how you met them. It wasn't an accident. Alright?

You don't meet people by accident. There's a seed in your life. And it causes you to meet someone.

Okay? So in this system, it's very interesting. Rather than waiting on the subway for some random seed to arrive at, you take control of the situation.

And you plant the seeds for what you want. And there's a cool thing. You can plant a seed for a partner, and then you can design the...

What do you call it? It's like ordering a new car. You can say, I want a CD player, or I want an iPod player, or you can say, I want orange instead of red, or, you know, I want bucket seats, or I want, you know, a bench seat.

You can do that, okay? You laugh. You laugh because you don't know how to do it.

If you knew how to do it, it would just be nature. Who would want to take a chance and get whatever you're gonna get? You know?

Why not make a list ahead of time? You don't buy a new car without, you know, telling them what color you want, and, you know, what model you want, and like that. And the same is true of a relationship, okay?

You can choose the qualities you want. I want someone who's loyal, right? Not like the last time, who was messing around and then I found out later, okay?

And how do you make a person loyal? How do you get loyalty in your life? Yeah, be loyal.

Plant seeds of loyalty. Be especially loyal to the relationship you have now. And send it to the boy who's on his way here.

It's a very interesting system, okay? And imagine if it's true. Try to imagine if it's true.

Don't go looking for some job. Don't go looking online for some job. That's so dumb, you know?

Help someone get a job. And then decide how much you want to make, and where you want to work, and what's the industry you want to work in, and what kind of boss you want, and the hours that you want, okay? And the position you want.

And then plant those seeds, you know? Don't take chances, alright? You can plant those seeds.

Chöd means you are not fixed, and you can change any detail about yourself or your life, okay? Everything is coming from you, from seeds that you plant. You just need to learn the technique, alright?

But if you think somebody's there already, there won't be room for the new thing, okay? If you think you have to go look for a job, or you have to go look for a new partner, or you have to look for a doctor for your back, you already, you got a chöd, okay? Got it?

If you think they're already there, you got a chöd. You got to do chöd. Chöd means they're not there.

You don't find a boy, you make him. I'm not kidding. You laugh because you don't know how to do it.

You don't find a job, you create the job you want. And then they have to hire you. I'm not kidding.

I'm really not kidding. Imagine if what I'm saying is true, how you look to me, wandering around looking for a boy. You know?

I thought, what are you doing? I'm looking for a boy. Why?

I'm lonely. Well, just plant one. Okay?

Really, okay? There are no boys. Chöd.

You and I are one way or another. Chöd. Okay?

There are no jobs. Chöd. Create them.

Plant them. Okay? That's what chöd means.

That's the meaning of chöd, okay? The things you thought were there were never there. You don't find them, you make them.

They're coming from you. I'll leave you with this, okay? Ready?

Look. I didn't say it, you said it. Okay?

I asked you some questions and we all agreed, right? It was coming from me. And the rest of your life is coming from you.

It's not there right now. Nothing's there. You can plant anything you want.

Last thing. If you got good at it, okay? If you got good at it, you got zillion dollars and you got the best, most perfect partner in the universe.

And your health is, you can even do a lady youth class and you don't die. Almost. Then, that's sort of like sitting at a really good French restaurant by yourself and eating, you know?

And then there's a bunch of starving people at the table with no dinner, you know? Like you invite a bunch of people from Bangladesh to the restaurant and they get to sit and watch you eat. You say, I'll have beef bourguignon, and I'll have the pinot noir, and I'd like a croissant.

And, you know, you go through the whole meal. Do you want? Yeah, okay, I'll take a latte.

No, make it a cappuccino. And these people are starving. The other people at the table have nothing, you know?

And then, how could, if that happened, could you enjoy the dinner? It's not possible. I'm talking for real.

I'm talking, you're sitting at a table in a nice French restaurant, you're going through the courses one by one, you know? Soufflé, blue cheese soufflé, you know? And then you get to the end of the meal, you have the cappuccino, and they even give you a little chocolate to change the palate as you leave, right?

And everyone else at the table is starving. Could you enjoy the dinner? It's not possible.

If you get what I'm teaching you, and if you use it, and if you make your dreams come true, you would be a very strange person if you didn't try to help other people do it also, okay? You would be like, you know, you would be selfish, incomparably selfish, okay? Like that.

If someone taught you a way to make all the things you wanted, and then you got the things you wanted, and then you stopped there, you would be almost like an animal, okay? You wouldn't be a person, right? So, I'm just putting that in your mind.

Confirm that these ideas work by trying to reach some dream that you have, okay? If it works, then I think naturally you have a responsibility to help other people learn how to plan things, okay? That's all.

I'm just putting a seed in your mind. All the people I've trained who have the things they want, they end up being teachers, and I like them, and I want you to do the same. Try to make a dream come true.

After it comes true, help other people make their dreams come true, because that's the meaning of a human life, right? That makes a human life meaningful, okay? Then you can have your cake and eat it too.

Alright, we'll do some final prayers, and probably we'll get to the text tomorrow. Satsang with Mooji Thank you. Please buy everything on the tables on your way out.

Okay, see you tomorrow.