Голоса трёхлетнего ретрита (2013, разные места, Аризона), занятие 5

[Speaker 1]
I thought I would take my time today and just tell you stories. I'm sure everybody here in retreat has many tales to tell of things that they've experienced over the two and almost a half year. And I just thought it would be fun to share a few of mine with you.

For my very first story, I have to go back to the very beginning of this great retreat. We came in to our first layering, our first actual month-long retreat in February of 2011. And if you came to those early great retreat teachings, you might have remembered how cold that month was.

We always go in on a Seichu, which Holy Lama explained last night since yesterday was Seichu. We go in on a Seichu. We do one session at night and have a celebration.

And then when you wake up in the morning, you do your four sessions. That's the first day of your layering. So I had my heat on in my room because it was so cold.

And I keep my door closed because I could never heat the whole house. And I just spent my day preparing for Seichu and scrubbing my floor and dusting and polishing and all this stuff and preparing a nice meal for the holy ones that were coming that evening. And when I went to bed, I turned my heater off because I don't like heat at night.

And the flames were funny. They were kind of big and slow and orange. And I thought, hmm, maybe one of my tanks is about empty.

No problem. There's a full tank on the other side. It just kicks in and, you know, it's fine.

So I turned it off. And I thought when I get up in the morning after my first session, when it's light enough, I will go outside and take off the empty one, put on a full one, and I'll have two full tanks and I won't have to worry about propane for the whole month. So that's what I did.

When I came back in and I went to my room and I started punching my heater, it wouldn't ignite. It just wouldn't start. First day, you know, coldest February it's ever been here.

And so I went in the other room, the other bedroom that has a heater, and it wouldn't start either. So I kind of had to chuckle. At that moment, I surrendered whatever happened in retreat because I understand where it comes from.

I couldn't point the finger at anybody, you know, for the fault that I didn't all of a sudden have heat. I had it the whole first month, but I didn't have it now on the very first day of a 30-day lay room. So I just, I figured it's okay.

I have winter clothes. I have two down comforters. I mean, I'm not going to freeze and it might not be quite as comfortable as I pictured, but it's going to be great.

And in the meantime, I think I'm going to make a cup of tea because I'm really getting cold after sitting for almost four hours in my early morning session. I hadn't followed the propane from the heaters to the stove and to the refrigerator. I wasn't concerned about stuff in the refrigerator because my whole house was almost a freezer.

My room was 43 because I had run the heat the whole day before and the rest of the house was 33 degrees. So I turned on my stove and it's like, duh, you know, I'm not going to have, not only do I not have heat, but I also I'm not going to be able to cook. And you know, all those warm soups and teas and things that you want when you're cold or just a dream.

And it's like, I understood that everything I experienced, not just in retreat, but our whole life, our whole world, everything is just the ripening of our past karma. That's all it is, is just ripening karma. So I thought, okay, all right, must have been a slumlord in my last life, you know, and my tenants are banging on the pipes and I'm, you know, I send up the heat, you know, and I just ignored them.

So I am purifying that karma right now by not having heat. I rejoice. That's great.

And not only that, I must have also at some point in time been responsible for feeding people because I must have provided, though they were nourishing, they weren't appetizing and they were cold. So that's, that was again, that's fine. All this is going to be burned up and I'm not going to have to face this again.

So I added a second yoga session to my daily practice because we sit most of the day, you know, and it, and it, the cold just penetrates. And so almost from the first day, I started running in place, which I used to do. I used to jog and I'd stand in front of one of my windows and watching the few birds that were brave enough to be out in the cold.

And I'd jog for, you know, six, eight minutes, and then my body would be warm from the inside. And then all the layers on the outside would do some good. And I was, I was, I had been in retreat a whole week, one week of my three-year, three-month, three-day commitment to myself, my Lama, and everybody else, you know.

And I'm jogging, watching the birds, and I noticed my heart wasn't beating normally. And this had happened twice in January, briefly, as we were hiking to the top of a mountain to put a boundary marker or hiking to someone's cabin to do a house blessing, which was just wonderful. We did four or five a night until they were all done.

And at those two times, I was always climbing. And I get, I don't know if I heard it or I felt it, but I could tell my heart wasn't beating as normally as it should. You know, when you're exerting yourself, it goes faster, not slower.

But by the time the thought formed in my mind, it was back to normal. So with those two instances and no other symptoms or anything, I figured it's just a hiccup in the system someplace, and I wasn't going to worry about it. So I came into retreat, and now I have finished one week of the four weeks.

And here it is slow again, but this time it didn't go faster. It didn't go back to normal. So I took my pulse, and it was 40, which I found I really liked.

I'm kind of wired too tightly, and I kind of liked the whole body slowing down. And I didn't really know what to do, so I called on my holy angel. I said, holy angel, I don't have a clue what this is.

I know that a rapid pulse is not good. I've heard that, you know, see your doctor. I've never heard anything about a slow pulse.

And I don't have a clue if this is something I should be concerned about or if this is something that could be serious. I know I came here to do retreat, and I'm going to do this lay room, unless I get a message from you that this is serious and I need to do something now. So I finished my lay room, but the last week I knew I had to have it checked out, because by then I was terribly short of breath.

Walking around the cabin wasn't too bad, but just the least exertion, I just couldn't catch my breath. I couldn't catch my breath. So on the first day that we were not in retreat, I contacted one of the in-cell medical people, and they came over and gave me a physical, and of course it could be my heart, but there were two other things that also manifested with a slow pulse, slow heartbeat.

And so the way to definitely determine was to draw some blood and set it out to the lab and see what came back. And so it did. It was enough time.

It allowed me to participate in the first fire puja here. You know, that was, as somebody else already mentioned, we rotated through the group six at a time through each of our fire pujas. And it allowed me to finish that, and the results did come back that it was my heart, and in all probability, I needed a pacemaker.

So from my layman's understanding of the way your heart works, it has a natural-like pacemaker, maybe an electrical impulse or something that, you know, triggers the heart to beat. And mine was only triggering the upper half of my heart, not the bottom half. So that's why roughly my pulse was half.

I was only getting half the beats. So our very, very kind out-of-town medical team had prearranged, and they took me to a heart hospital in Tucson. And I had a pacemaker put in, which is a little gadget right here, just under the skin, and it has wires that go into your heart, leads.

And so now I am 100% battery-operated. At this point in time, I have to tell you a little bit about me and my hang-ups. I have always been a person who has to be in control of me.

I don't want to control you. That's not my bag. I don't care.

I want to control me, my situation. I don't want to find myself, like, unprepared or incapable, or I don't know. It's just a terrible hang-up.

Too self-grasping. So as some very simple but very true examples of this, I commute. I didn't commute.

At the beginning of each term, I would drive 800 miles to come to Diamond Mountain for the month, and then I would stay here that month. And I never, never have used cruise control. And I had a brand new car, which my dear mother had given to me, and I thought, gosh, I should join the world and try out cruise, you know?

So I put it in cruise control, and I'm careening down the interstate, you know, 75 miles an hour, and for some reason, I looked at the gas pedal and my foot wasn't there. And it freaked me out. I mean, I'm not determining how far to push it down and when to let it come back up.

So it just freaked me out, and I took it right out because I'm not in control. It's locked in some mechanism, you know? And as another silly example, batteries is another issue I have.

We know nothing's permanent, but it seems like my batteries are about the most impermanent things I can have. And so we all have bags that we carry anywhere we go. I mean, if something's supposed to happen at 12, it might not start till 7.

And, you know, then you need a flashlight, which you didn't bring because it was only going to last an hour or something. So I carry not only two flashlights, I carry a bag of batteries as well. Because of this control issue for me.

I don't want to be stuck in the dark with no light. And so what happens? I'm battery operated.

So this whole first year, I think I can say for every person in retreat, was nothing but purification. Surrender, surrender, surrender, and purify, purify, purify. So I lost my train of thought.

Let me think what else I had to say about that. Oh, I did want to mention, after calling on my holy angel and asking her, putting myself totally in her care, and, you know, I surrender to you. I just wait for a message from you.

And when I, I made it through the whole month, the whole lay room with my pulse never going up or below 40, unless maybe when I was sleeping. I, of course, couldn't check that. I, you know, got to the, was driven to Tucson, got in the hospital, checked in, signed in, you know, all this stuff.

I'm sitting there waiting, waiting for surgery. They do it right there in emergency. And I have all these wire things on my chest and my legs, and there are monitors connected to me, and they're standing by.

And my dear friend from Diamond Mountain was with me. And she could see the monitors. And she said, your pulse is down in the 30s now.

And I went, really? I felt absolutely fine. But I knew if I, you know, started to jog and did five steps, I'd be gasping for breath.

So I knew why I was there. And not too much longer later, she said, it's in the 20s. And I went, really?

And I, oops, I turned my head, you know, to see it, and it said 27. And I just, I was amazed, because I, I don't know, 27 beats a minute, I'd think I'd be comatose or something. And I felt absolutely fine.

So I just think, I think truly my holy angel knew how important, number one, it was for me to do this for Slay Room, you know, instead of, you know, blowing the very first month, for heaven's sakes. And I also feel that she saw it was necessary to adjust my heart for these holy practices that we do. Expanding it, opening it, you know, compassion, thinking of others, all these practices that we do.

And so she took care of it for me. And so here I am today. So, so, I better hold on to this thing.

I keep banging it into my head. I have no sense of where it is. The next story I want to tell you, the weather had fortunately warmed up.

And I don't know when it was, doesn't matter, April, May, something like that. And Geshe-la had mentioned once, when he was teaching here at Diamond Mountain, things would pop in his mind about something that happened in their retreat back in 2000. And I remember him saying something like, you just don't know what's going to come up.

Might be an old song or some jingle or, you know, commercial or who knows, and it can drive you crazy. So that was the issue, this lay room. It was very interesting because the whole first year, I kid you not, the first week of every lay room was fine.

I settled in. I loved it. I love the practices.

I could just, and do, spend the whole day doing them. But then at the end of the first week, it's like, pow, something else ripens. And it's like, oh my gosh, what now?

And so this one was a song. And I really prefer silence. I threw out my radio at the end of high school, and I don't listen to one.

I do like some music, but I'm selective. And the rest is noise to me. So where this song came from, of course, I'd heard it.

But I don't know, I had no connection with it. And the first day of the second week, this woman and her group, I have no idea who they were, took over my mind. And the song was, I'm not sure of the lyrics, but it was something like this.

And I'll back up a little bit. I don't want to, okay. It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to.

I'll sigh if I want to. I'll die if I want to. And it could happen to you.

So like I said, I woke up one morning, and she and the group were there. And it didn't matter what I was doing. She never stopped.

The group never ate. They never took potty breaks. It was nonstop all day, like a stucco record.

And I'd go to bed at night, and she would sing me to sleep. And I would wake up, and they were already on stage, singing their hearts out. So I would join her.

I sang with her during the break most of the time, breaks between the sessions and during the sessions. I mean, try to imagine meditating with this going on in your head. So it was kind of a waste of time as far as the meditation and practice went.

I did do them, but I was accompanied musically. So this one day, like I said, it was hot. And so I had every door and window in the house wide open.

And I was doing my yoga out on my porch because there's a much better cross breeze out there. And I'm singing as I'm doing my asanas. And I finished my session.

I bent over to start rolling up my mat. And just like that, I'm on this huge stage. I don't know if it was inside or outside, but it was huge, like an amphitheater or a stadium where you have these steps, seats that go all the way up to the nosebleed section, just surrounding seats.

And I could tell they were filled. I could see a little bit of movement, but I certainly couldn't see faces or bodies. It was just shapes.

And in front of me was this huge bank of lights, stage lights. I guess that's what you call them. And I'm standing on stage with a microphone in my hand, my left hand, and I'm right-handed.

And I'm singing my song. And I guess I sang it for quite a while. I don't know.

And the group was behind me. They were my backup. So I started singing.

As I recall, there was a man in the group that had one of those really low voices that went off the keyboard. It was so low. And he was right behind me.

And so I started singing. It's my party and I'll cry if I want to. And this low voice says, louder.

I'll sigh if I want to. Louder. I'll cry if I want to.

Louder. I screamed at the top of my voice. And it could happen to you.

And then I'm standing with a yoga mat in my hand. I didn't truly have a clue where I was. Seriously, I looked around and I was in this like a porch.

And I went over to the window. I'm screaming out this screen, you know. And I walked over to the window and I could see another house across the road.

And I said, oh, there's another house. And then I'm looking a little farther and it's like, oh, there's another one. And I'm really craning.

And I could see part of another one. And I still, nothing clicked. And I started to walk in what is my room.

But I didn't know that at the time. I was just trying to get to another window. On another side of the house.

And I got about three steps into my room and it clicked. And I just went, oh my God, what have I done? Yeah.

I'm in retreat. I've been screaming at the top of my voice. And then this, you know, just, just because I have an afternoon break and do my yoga at three doesn't mean everybody else is.

Our third session is pretty open. I mean, we have basically from noon until dark to get in a third session. And then this hot wave of sweaty shame just took over.

Just, I just broke out in this horrible sweat and I just felt so, so ashamed. And, uh, I just wanted the retreat tan so I could just apologize to everyone. You know, voices carry.

We're at altitude. When we were building cabins, you could hear conversations. I was screaming.

My throat was sore and I had, I had lost my voice just like back in college. You know, when it's Saturday and it's rah, rah, rah home team, you know, for three hours and then you can't talk. So I know I was screaming somewhere and the lady in her group continued to serenade me, but they, they were put on the back burner.

She didn't bother me anymore. The shame totally overrode everything, totally overrode everything. So finally the retreat ended another one, not too focused except on my shame this time.

So I was able to get a hold of my two closest neighbors within a day or so of the end of the lay room. And when I was with the first one, I wrote, did you hear me screaming at the top of my lungs? And they said, no, unfortunately I missed that.

So I'm looking at them not saying anything, but thinking you had to have heard me. I was facing your house screaming out the window. So I went to my other neighbor, same thing.

Did you hear me singing at the top of my lungs? No, I didn't hear a thing. It's so quiet in here.

So I'm really confused. I mean, I had never had anything like this happen before. And I know I was singing somewhere because like I said, I had no voice.

So fortunately the entire retreat time since, you know, the first layering up to now, our Lamas have met with anyone who wants to meet with them at the end of each lay room for any problems or just to talk or to say hi and give them a hug or whatever, you know. And so I couldn't wait. I could not wait to get my appointment.

So I could say, what was this, you know? And I had it all written out because, you know, it's time consuming to write when you're in their presence, you know. And so we have it all prepared and then it's not so much of a wait for everybody else.

And so my holy Lama read this and then she wrote a reply and she said, you have just proven how we create our world from our minds. And she said, it's not like you went to some, you know, weird other reality and then came back to this safe, solid, self-existent world. They are both every bit as real because they both are projections of my mind forced on me by my karma.

So that was my stage debut, I call it. This feels kind of natural. Maybe I'll look into another career.

I'm sure each of us here have tales to tell about our Naga friends, our snakes. I don't think most of us have dealt with them in our previous lives here. I mean, in this lifetime, in our previous, where we lived.

I'm sure we haven't. So this was hotter. It was maybe the end of August, September, something like that.

It was a Wednesday, a delivery day. In the beginning, we got deliveries every Wednesday. And I don't remember how far through the year that went, but by mutual consent, we're all like, this is enough.

You know, the caretakers are working overtime and we're being distracted so much weekly with this issue of getting food, you know. So after that, we changed it to every two weeks, which is wonderful. But this was every week.

So it was a Wednesday. I'm next to the last and I get my delivery like 2.30. So about 1.30, I close my curtains, drapes. So just in case when they deliver, I don't see them and they don't see me.

But I hear the truck. You know, I hear the box open and, you know, put the food in and get back in the truck. The door slams.

They go up. It doesn't slam. I don't mean that.

You know, the door closes. And then they go up to my neighbor. And then I hear them when they leave.

And so when I hear the truck come down the hill, I'm out my door, up to the corner of the house, around the east side. And then the front of the house on the south side is where my box is. So I'm trucking along the east side of my house and something is screaming at me, stop.

And I just stopped dead in my tracks and I'm looking around, you know, I was like, what, what? I don't see anything. What?

And I took another step so I could look around the corner and leaning against or next to the end of my food box was this big pile of snake, huge, just big snake. And he wasn't hissing, he wasn't rattling, he wasn't holding his head up. It was like he was sleeping.

His body all curled up, his head rested on his body, eyes open. I got a book about all these things before I came here. And rattlesnakes don't have eyes, eyelids, sorry, eyelids.

Snakes can't close their eyes. So how do you know when they're sleeping? But the minute I saw it, I said, that's not a real snake.

And I looked up and I could see the back of the truck still winding its way out. And I said, those caretakers, trying to scare an old lady, you know? So forgive me, I don't know any of you who would have done that, but it was the only logical explanation I could come up with.

Because you had been here within five minutes and all of a sudden there's this big, huge, phony snake sitting there by my food box. So I don't like snakes. I don't, even little ones.

My son had a garter snake for his growing up through high school years and I didn't want to touch it. They're not fuzzy and they don't purr and you know, I just don't see the thing about snakes. So unlike my husband, who dearly loves them, you know, he puts snakes inside his shirt so they can get warm on his body and you know, it's like, oh gosh.

And he will stop anywhere on any road to get a snake off so it won't get killed. If it's not poisonous, he just picks it up and trucks it off way away from the highway. If it's a rattlesnake, he always has something in the car he can use as a prod.

And he just, not to the shoulder, but way off, get it off the road, off the road. So I said, oh, I got to get this and put it in the cupboard until my husband comes to visit. Because he loves snakes and this is one really well-made phony snake.

And I seriously, I had no fear because it wasn't real. It's all a projection, right? And my mind said, it's not a snake.

It's not a real snake. I walked right over to it, bent down. I could could have picked it up with my hand, but I couldn't because of my, I don't know, not disgust, but I just don't want to touch them.

I don't want to touch snakes. So I went to the other end of my food box and I dragged it on the gravel. It's heavy.

It's loud, you know, thinking, you know, maybe, maybe I'm wrong, you know, and I looked and of course the snake didn't move. It wasn't real. There was a little, this was interesting too.

I was separated from my mind and I'm saying, you know, oh, this is a phony snake. And my mind is like, oh, not quite so sure. Maybe, maybe.

So I got my food and put it in the, put it away and I could finally start my third session. But my mind wasn't ready to join me on that journey yet. It was still playing with the snake.

And like I said, I had bought this book about all these, um, at the visitor center in Wilcox. Actually, it's a wonderful book. They have great books there.

And this one was called Tread Lightly. And it's about every single poisonous insect, you know, creatures, Gila monsters, bees, wasps, frogs, and of course snakes in the Arizona deserts. It's very specific.

And I thought that's, and it tells all about the creature and then it tells what to do if you get bitten until you can get medical help. And I thought that sounded invaluable. So my book had said, my mind was saying, you know, was it a rattlesnake?

You know, I, you know, from the shape of the head, I have seen them. I know what they look like. It looked like a rattlesnake, but I could see no tail.

There was no rattle. And my book had said, just by the shape of the face is not a 100% guarantee of what kind of snake it is. In Arizona and our deserts, there are, I think it was three snakes that are not poisonous that have the ability of flattening their face.

And if you're not really a snake expert, maybe enough to frighten you into thinking it is a rattlesnake and you would quickly leave them alone. But it says to be absolutely certain you can tell by their eyeballs. So I was reading this to my husband as we're going back to our little house where we were staying the last few days before we actually came into retreat.

And I was laughing. It's like, there's no way I'll get close enough to any snake to look at its eyeballs, you know, but that's what I was going to go do. And so I took my walking stick with me and it's not a staff.

It's, I push it down to like cane level and I always carry it with me because it's the terrain so rough here. And I went back out to the pile of snake, you know, it hadn't moved, nothing changed. And I'm bending over, you know, I'm seriously within two feet of it looking into these most incredible eyes I have ever seen, these golden orbs with slits.

The rattlesnakes have slits. Non-poisonous snakes have round eyes with pupils. So my phony snake was a rattlesnake.

This is true also out east with the cotton mouse and the copperheads. So bear that in mind in your travels. Check the eyeballs.

So my mind is still kind of debating me. So I picked up a very tiny pebble and I flicked it and it hit the snake and bounced and it's like, mind, what do you think? It's not real.

It's rubber, plastic, some synthetic snake material, you know. And, but my mind still wasn't ready to let go. So I thought, I know how to solve this issue.

If I stick my stick, the point at the end under the pile of snake and if I lift it up and if I see a little white tag that says, made in China, I'll know. I'll know. My mind will have to agree.

It is a phony snake. So I worked the point of my, I worked the point of my stick under the snake watching it. I didn't just shove it and flip it.

So I too must've had that 1% of, I'm not sure. And so I got it a good half inch under and I'm still watching it and I pushed it a little bit farther. And like I said, the snake was coiled up, you know, with its head on its body.

And I thought the head lifted not even a quarter inch. It was almost imperceptible, but I thought I saw movement. So I kept watching and a black fork tongue shot out and I stood up and I looked at it and I said, well, for heaven's sakes, you're a real snake.

So mystery solved. The mind was right. I was wrong.

And I could go in and finally do my third session of the day. And then that night, in the summertime, I mean, I go to bed before it's dark because I get up to do my first session in the dark and you know, there's not much dark in the summertime. So I had, from my other room, I could look right down on the snake, which I did before I went to bed.

And it was beautiful, really. It hadn't to all appearances moved at all. And I'm looking down on these beautiful diamonds on his back.

And again, still questioning, I counted and his head was on the sixth diamond. And I said, still not sure you're real. And so in the morning, one of my duties, especially in the summer, is filling water bowls for the creatures.

And I have three, the smallest one. They're all flower pot saucers. And the smallest one is very rough terracotta.

And the wasps and the ants love that the best. They can really grab onto it and get their drinks. And then I have a little 10 inch flower pot, about, I don't know, an inch and a half, maybe two inches deep, that the little birds, the finches and stuff, dearly love for bathing because they know they can stand up in it.

And it holds a half a gallon. Then I have a big, bigger one, you know, deeper that holds a gallon. And everybody comes, you know, the deer and the foxes and the ring tail cats and the snake.

Snakes drink. I never saw a snake drink before, you know. Of course, I don't live around them, so how could I?

So in the morning, I went out. Before I went out, I went to check the snake again. And it, in all appearances, had not moved during the night at all.

And I said, no, I was mistaken. It was not a real snake. So I'm going to fill the bowls, pick up the snake, throw it in the cupboard and forget it.

And so I filled the bowls and walked over to pick up the snake and it was gone. So I named her Angelica after my angel. And I truly believe she was a protector, a protector, you know.

And so now that I knew I had maybe a snake in the area, I had to be very careful as I went out many times a day to fill the water bowls and stuff because I know there was one there. And the next day when I went out, I checked behind the food box. That was the first place I checked each time.

And there she was, curled up again, you know, sound asleep. This time, she was behind the box, so it was under my window that overhangs. And then behind the box, it was a nice shady spot.

And she stayed the entire week. I'd check every morning, first trip out to the bowls, you know, to make sure she hadn't moved and I had to look for her elsewhere. She stayed the whole week.

And then it's Wednesday again and our caretakers are going to bring the food once again. So I thought I better alert them that there's a rattlesnake behind the food box. And so I went out about 12 o'clock with this little note, you know, attention, rattlesnake behind box.

And I was going to clip it to my ocotillo that they almost have to walk through to get to the food box. And she was gone. So I didn't leave the note.

And she hung around until all the snakes disappeared. And I saw her at least half a dozen times. And I checked my time.

I have many snake stories, but I have other ones. I think I'm going to leave the snake. She did come around, like I said, I saw her at least half a dozen times, usually right up against my house, always in a pile, not, I mean, sleeping.

I never got a rattle or any warning or nothing. She just ignored me. But this one day, I did see her.

I disturbed her when I opened the door with my jugs of water and stuff to go out. And I stick an incense for the other Naga at the other end of the house. And when I opened my door, that's where I stop and peek around before I come down my four steps, you know, to see that there aren't any creatures waiting down there.

And as soon as I opened the door, I heard a hiss. And there at the bottom of my stairs on one of these big flat rocks that I have there was Angelica. So I said, sorry, take your time.

I'll just come back inside. I can fill the bowls in a minute. And I knew she would move because it's just natural.

If you've been disturbed, you're going to move. So I was standing right at my porch window so I could watch her. And she was the most magnificent thing, really, really, really beautiful.

And I don't know how they move. I've seen the little ones and they kind of wiggle, you know, they make S's as they scurry off. But she didn't do that.

She's too regal. And she was more like Cleopatra's barge, you know, slowly going down the Nile, you know, with her head high. And her body got longer and longer and longer.

And she was at least three to three and a half feet long, beautiful diamonds. She had five of the black and white rings at the end of the body. And then she had eight or nine of the biggest white rattles I have ever seen on a snake.

And I watched her. She just glided past me to the end of the house. And then she turned and I don't have any windows on that side.

So I didn't see where she went. But she was magnificent. I mean, I totally respect rattlesnakes.

I didn't see her the next year. I had six different rattlesnakes the next year. And a couple of them camped out for a few days.

Primarily, I think, because I have birds, you know, that come in and drink. Usually the birds just fly away. They know.

But unfortunately, little goldfinches don't know about snakes. And so I think that's why they hung around for a couple days. But anyhow, it was a wonderful experience.

I appreciate them. They're gorgeous. They're magnificent creatures.

I still don't want to hold them though. So, gosh, I think we started a few, a couple minutes late. I'm going to push my luck and see if I can do this in about 10 minutes.

I had a really interesting experience in this laboring we just finished. I have weird things happening. It's just like this, you know, like these two I've explained already.

Way back, seriously, two years ago at least, I ordered on my grocery list a carton of red miso, a carton of white miso. I'd never had white. I love red.

It's a fermented soybean paste, if you're not familiar with it. And I take a big spoon and put it in a big glass of hot water. And it's kind of like instant soup.

I find it very satisfying. So, I tried the red, of course, and I love it. And I tried the white and it's like, it's missing something, you know.

So, of course, I ate all the red up. And then I had this white miso. And over the two-year period, I would periodically put one red miso and then I would cross it out.

I was raised, you don't waste food. You don't throw away good food. And this stuff would not mildew, you know, wouldn't mold.

It wouldn't spoil. I mean, miso is fermented. It stays forever.

So, I would take a spoon of white once in a while and mix it with my hot water. And it just wasn't that delectable. But I had gotten, it was in, like I said, the slave room.

And I finally thought, I'm going to order some red miso. And I put it down and I didn't cross it off the list. So, I'm looking at that carton of white miso in there saying, you're going to eat this.

You've got two weeks to eat this white stuff and then you can enjoy the red stuff when it comes in. And so, I grabbed the carton of white miso, which was half full, took the lid off, and it's factory filled to the top with fresh red miso. And I said, oh my gosh, uh, maybe it just came in delivery.

I mean, you know, they bring a delivery and take your order at the same time. I thought I had just put it on this outgoing order. I must have ordered it two weeks ago.

And then I looked at the carton and it says mellow white miso. And so, I thought, I bet it molded finally. I can throw it away.

But I didn't because it smelled wonderful. And I got a spoon and I kind of stirred all through it, you know, and it was red right down to the bottom. And I tasted it and it was wonderful.

So, where does it come from? I mean, there was no self-existent miso in my self-existent refrigerator. You know, it wasn't white or red or any color from its own side.

It all comes from me. So, I figured I must have purified something and got something good in return. So, I got to eat red miso until my new red miso came in two weeks later.

So, let me get check again. Yes, I think this is going to work. My very last thing.

Phew, my very last thing. The last course we had here at Diamond Mountain in our tantric courses was Lama Devotion, Lama Chuppa, the practice of the Lama. And the text we used, the sadhana that we practiced was written by Losang Chuky Gyaltsen, who was the first Panchen Lama who lived in the middle of the 1500s.

And when you write something on the Buddha's teachings or a commentary or a sadhana or something, the first thing you put down is an obeisance to someone, some deity or something. And it's a clue as to what the book is about if you don't know from the title. So, if I opened a book and it says, I bow down to Lord Manjushri thing, you know, it's going to be about emptiness, you know, the wisdom, the higher teachings.

So, this book was on a Lama devotion. So, of course, his obeisance was bowing down to his Lamas. And this, it was very brief.

And the obeisance was, I bow to the blessed feet of my holy Lamas, matchless in their kindness. And I come to them for shelter too. Shelter meaning refuge.

Out of your great love, take me in your care, no matter... I lost it. Out of your great kindness, take me in your care, no matter how far I may be.

I'm sorry, it won't click. I hope it clicks because I'm going to sing it for you if I can. It just, the first time I read it, when we started the course, there was something about those words that really connected with my heart.

And when we started the lay room, I would, I added Lama Chuppa. I did it at the sadhana every day. And I would do this obeisance as part of my dedication, all four sessions a day to my holy Lamas.

And I said it, and said it, and said it, and said it. It's still beautiful. I still loved it, but I thought it would be so nice if I could put it to music and sing it.

And like I said, I don't have a lot of music in my head. And I didn't come up with anything. I took my two hour break from 12 to two one day and just sat there trying to come up with every tune I could think of.

And it just wouldn't fit with the words. So when I woke up in the morning, I still am thinking about it. And it's like, I wish I could sing it.

And I opened my mouth and this song came out. And so I'd like to sing it if I can remember the last line. And so I'd like to sing it.

And it's lyrics by Losang Chukigaltsen and music by the angels. It's divinely inspired. So come on, mind.

Don't fail me now. And the angels sing much higher than I, I'm sorry. So if my voice cracks, just ignore it.

All right. I bow to the blessed feet of my holy llamas, matchless in their kindness. And I come to them for shelter too.

Out of your great love, take me into your care. In every moment and wherever I may be, I bow to the blessed feet of my holy llamas, matchless in their kindness. And I come to them for shelter too.

Out of your great love, take me into your care. In every moment and wherever I may be, I bow to the blessed feet of my holy llamas, matchless in their kindness. And I come to them for shelter too.

Out of your great love, take me into your care. In every moment and wherever I may be. In every moment and wherever I may be.

So I made it. I share it with you. And if it touches your heart, maybe you can add it as a part of your dedication, like I do every single day, every session to our holy, holy llamas, especially our heart llamas.

Geshe Michael, we love you. Thank you.