Голоса трёхлетнего ретрита (2013, разные места, Аризона), занятие 6

[Speaker 1]
Hi there. We miss you a whole bunch. It's been so great to be here with all of you.

Thank you so much for coming out. So many people I would like to thank. I could fill the whole hour here with thank yous, but I do want to just take a couple minutes to say a few.

I want to thank my parents and my sister for all of their incredible love and their support. I miss you guys. I love you, and I can't wait to see you.

I want to thank my incredible husband, Ben, for always making me laugh and for being the best teacher, for me, of all the things I just happen to want to get good at and all of the retreatants. It's been such an honor and a joy to share this time with you guys. Thank you for never failing to open my heart and for always being there for each other and me.

I want to thank all of our sponsors and everyone who helped build this place. Thank you for believing in us and for all of your love and support and all of our caretakers. I don't even know how to begin to thank you guys.

What you're doing is out of this world. You know, you guys are the superheroes of this project. And you do everything so perfectly seamless.

Ever since day one, it's just been perfect, just so graceful. And we feel so loved and nurtured and supported every single day with your love. So thank you guys, and thank you for all your sweet little details and all of the little smiley faces and the ribbons and the little hearts.

These little things mean so much to us in the day. They help brighten the day. I want to thank Lama Christi for believing that a couple kids living in a tent in the desert could get into three-year retreat and for making sure, despite my own fears and hesitations and doubts, that we did.

And Geshe Michael, thank you for teaching us how to make all of our dreams come true. We miss you guys, and we think about you all the time. Can't wait to see you and squeeze you.

We will. We're going to squeeze you so much. It won't be too long now, so just you wait.

Thank you for being here to help us kick off this last year. So Geshe-la asked us to talk about something that we've learned and to share with you a little bit of our experience. So what I want to talk about is something that's very dear to my heart.

It's something that has grown more dear to my heart since being in here, and it's something that I know for a fact is dear to all of you guys' hearts too. It's the art of play, as in playing, having fun, being joyful and silly, as in laughter. You folks here are some of the funniest, the silliest, and the happiest people I know.

And in your own special ways, all of you here help bring out the play in others. It was always so great, back in the old university days at Diamond Mountain, to get back from a break and to see all of you. It felt like coming home.

And this temple here was a little like our living room. It still is. Don't spill that food on the carpet.

So many late-night yoga playtime sessions in here, and rocking out jam sessions. So many sweet moments of connection in here. And so many late nights out there on the debate ground, philosophizing under the stars, and trying to unravel the mysteries of the world.

Weekends here were packed with some of the most beautiful, radiant faces on the planet receiving the highest teachings. So much magic has happened here. This is no ordinary place.

We know how to have fun. I think it's what initially draws people to this community. And your joy helps generate in others a curiosity for the teachings.

I remember when I first got here, I felt like I had landed in some sort of utopia in that everyone was so happy. Everyone had this incredible glow about them as if there was no longer a need for them to hold back all the love they felt in their heart. I didn't know how to take it at first.

I remember having a normal conversation with Yapeng. It was like this wild experience. We were in the kitchen yurt and we were talking about potato chips or something.

And I remember thinking, whoa, she's still beaming rainbows and laser beams of love on me. So much love was pouring from her. You could feel it.

The love that you feel here helps break your walls down. And it's infectious. It's a little like when you're a kid and you're watching all these other kids having a blast playing.

And you want to play. So you ask, hey, what you guys playing? And they're like, oh, this is awesome game.

You just see how many people you can serve. It's easy. And you're like, well, can I play?

And they're like, yeah. And so you jump in and you start running around trying to find some way, any way to help out. And you're doing it with so much joy just for the sake of taking part in this awesome community.

And the fun that you're having helps to open your heart to receive the teachings. It was so entertaining each term to watch the newbie first timers and to see how long it would take them to crack. Remember, we had some pretty tough characters come through this place.

Why are you always smiling? What have you got to be so happy about? Why can't you be genuine?

Man, maybe I just don't really even like people. But by the end of the six weeks, the magic of this place had worked them over and they'd come up to you. Beautiful day, huh?

Oh, yeah, I just wanted to show you this thing I found in right over there in the Nectar Lounge. It's by this guy named Jason Coppa. Yeah, he's talking about how you should love everyone like they were your own mothers.

Wow, that's something. And then they'd scamper off to make the community meal. Right?

Remember, it was always like that, wasn't it? It's so very cool to be in a place where we can feel safe enough to allow the walls around our hearts to come down and to learn how to play again. It's the fun that we have together that fuels the love and the fearless open hearts that make this place work.

Our lamas gave us Diamond Mountain to use as our laboratory to experiment with our acts of kindness and to become the kind of people who we want to see out in the world to learn, to explore the gifts of their teachings. So, you know, we do hear a little bit about what's been going on out there. And it sounds like it's become a pretty major, crazy, nonstop Dharma party, Alejandro.

That's wild that you've done in two and a half years. Oh my goodness.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Whoa. It's so amazing and inspiring to think of all you guys out there opening the hearts of so many people with your love and your joy. So we've been having a pretty wild adventure on our side, too.

But I'll tell you, one of my biggest fears about coming into retreat was that it just wasn't going to be a lick of fun. I rely so much on my friends for entertainment and for joy and to help open my heart. And I had this idea that life in here was going to be really lonely and rigid with all these goals I set out for myself to accomplish.

I thought, okay, I'll be meditating for X many hours a day, so that means by the end of the first year I should have reached Samatha, which didn't happen. I love to have fun and I love to play, but a lot of times out in the world it would get overshadowed by my task-oriented, schedule-oriented, goal-oriented kind of mindset. And I came into retreat with that mindset, thinking that it was going to serve me.

But I've learned that you can't plan when you're going to have a sweet meditation. Right? You can only create the causes for it.

And all the goals that we're hoping to reach in here, all of them, they can only be achieved when our hearts are open. And so the task has become learning to and working to keep our hearts open at all costs during every activity in the day. And letting go of the preconceived ideas I had about all the ways I thought I was going to reach my goals, and instead learning to relax, enjoying the moment, and learning how to play again.

For me, play is the practice of trying to see the fun and the beauty that's available to us in every moment and learning to revel in and take part in it. When we were kids, we knew how to play. We looked at the world with a sense of wonder, turning the ordinary into the extraordinary.

I remember my sister and I, we could turn the super boring chore of cleaning the house into this life or death situation game where we would take on these alter egos who had to race with time, trying to get everything spotless before the allotted hour when one of our parents were expected home. I remember we'd transform our small backyard into a setting that held for more adventure and excitement than any Indiana Jones movie. You folks remember what it was like to be the hero or heroine of your own special world where there wasn't a mystery you couldn't solve or a feat you couldn't accomplish.

And remember how the most awesome thing was having someone to play with. Right? Someone where together you'd become so enchanted by whatever you were doing that there almost seemed to be a stillness.

Stillness in that you'd be totally unaware of anything other than your game and the time would just fly by in a moment. Only to be interrupted when one of your parents called you in because it was getting dark out. Intruding on the reality that you had just created for yourself.

And how sometimes the reality that you were getting pulled out of was more fun than the one you were getting pulled back into. Remember there was a magic to it. It was a space where total creative spontaneity could flow.

You want to tell a story? I'll add this part. You want to dance?

Cool, I'll follow and try to add these steps. Oh, that's fun. You want to sing?

I'll try to harmonize. Just whatever the game. Letting the creativity and the magic just flow between you.

And the magic and this joy that arose out of the play seemed to be the most worthwhile thing to live for. Maybe I should scoot up. And to me, growing up meant that I'd be free to have even more fun.

I'd be bigger so I could climb higher, travel farther, have greater adventures, unraveling the mysteries of the world. Kids have a notion that the world is whatever they make of it, whatever we make of it. And to me, growing up meant that I would be free to do whatever I want and the world would be this giant playground just waiting to be explored.

But then there's this awful thing that happens. As we grow up, we forget about the magic of playing. Like Peter Pan's fear.

Growing up brings with it all these responsibilities and we learn to be practical and there just isn't the time or the need for all the silliness as an adult. And we forget about how awesome it is to just let go and have fun. But sometimes though, if we are lucky, if we're fortunate, something special happens in our life.

Or we meet someone special who reawakens the magic. Partly for me it was coming here and meeting all of you guys. I don't know, maybe for you it was when you met your partner.

Somebody gets you to climb up back on the roof again just to watch the sunset. Or they pull you out of the house at night just to look at the stars. Or maybe it's your kids who remind you.

Parents, you guys are lucky. Your kids can help you learn how to play again. One of the reasons why we are so drawn to our teachers is because they know how to play.

They know how to have a good time. They know how to have fun. And they know how to bring it out in us.

We have been so blessed to have Lady Ruth come visit us a couple times. And if ever there was a master of play, it's Lady Ruth. For Lady Ruth, the world is still this exciting place just waiting to be explored.

And around every corner is some beautiful new thing that she marvels at. It's like when you're a little kid and you imbue everything with all these magical qualities. Like this is my very special rock.

I love this rock. It's the most beautiful rock I've ever seen. I love it because it's pink and it's shaped like a heart.

So I'm going to keep it in my very special box. We're like, come on kid, it's a rock. But kids are awesome that way.

And so is Lady Ruth. We offer her a mango and she's like, oh, mango. This mango.

This mango is dear to my heart because... And then she tells us this amazing story about how mangoes are like the fruit of the gods or something. She brings you into her magical world and then you don't want her to leave.

We were like, no, can't you stay and play with us for just a little while longer? It's like she looks at the world through the eyes of a child seeing everything with this incredible sense of awe. Jesus said, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.

And Lady Ruth shows us how. Which isn't to say that we're trying to revert back to being little kids again. They have the magic and the play going for them and yeah, we want that back.

But kids can also be little barbarians left at their own devices. What do they do when they're jealous of someone? They run up and they pinch them.

Until their parents tell them, no, that's not good. That's not right. We don't do that.

Our parents taught us morality but we kind of didn't believe them because we still do all these crazy things that hurt people and ourselves. Our teachers are like our parents in this way but they not only teach us morality, they also teach us how it works. They teach us the laws of cause and effect.

How in order to get what you want, you have to provide it for someone else first. Our teachers are these great masters of play who reawaken the magic in our hearts and they help us unlock our deepest childhood dreams. And so you ask yourself, what do I want?

What was my dream? What did I want more than anything else? I just wanted everyone to have fun and be happy forever and all the time if possible.

And then our teacher gives us the instruction manual to the most awesome game there is. They tell us that it is possible and that we can in fact be the superhero of our world which was always the funnest game to play when we were kids. And we kind of believe them because it looks like it's working for them and that they're doing it.

But our greatest, our wildest dreams can only be achieved with our teacher's instructions. And without this wisdom, our deepest wish will never be anything more than just a childhood game of make-believe. Our teacher points us towards the potential in all things.

They show us the availability for a plastic cylinder to be a chew toy or a pen. And then they lovingly drill it into our noggins over and over and over again. And then they're like, okay kid, there you go.

Go out and play. See what you can make of it. They challenge us to explore further into the world beyond pens.

A sunny day. Our partner. Even the way we see ourselves isn't written in stone.

And we continually rewrite the colors in the world around us. The faces of the ones we love and even the feelings within our own hearts by playing out the pictures we want to see through our words, through our deeds, and even our thoughts. We experiment with our teacher's instructions and we keep playing the game by mentally designing the kind of world we want to create.

The kind of paradise that we want to live in and share with the people we love. And then we look at the elements of that paradise and we create each one of them by giving them to someone else. Part of the beauty of emptiness is that we all have slightly different versions of paradise.

And we can all have it just the way we want. And for me, one of the main elements of that paradise is play. For most of us, I suspect that if we stop and look at our fantasies, at our dreams, and at our goals, if we stop and imagine the faces of the angels in the heaven we want to end up in, I bet there would be a lot of laughing.

A lot of smiling. A lot of singing and maybe dancing. There'd be a lot of joy.

There'd be a lot of fun. There'd be a lot of silliness. All of this is what I mean by play.

And so I have to make play for others. We have to make play. And so where is this play coming from?

How are we going to do it? Well, let's get a little analytical for just a second, right? Is this fun?

This talk, right now, this event, me up here talking, and you there listening, is it fun? Yeah, thank you! Well, yeah, Alejandro!

There's a worldview mantra for this question. Right? If I ask you if a plastic cylinder is a chew toy or a pen, what do you say?

For who? So is hanging out in this room together right now fun? For who?

Well, I'm having a pretty great time. But I bet there's got to be someone in here who's a little bored. And I bet there's someone who's enjoying this moment almost as much as I am.

So what gives? Is it fun? For who?

Okay, well, what about from its side? What about from the word's side? If we had a stenographer and they could read back the transcript, would there be fun hardwired into it?

No, don't say that. This talk doesn't have its own fun. It's not universally boring either.

It's just noise. People's hearts are different. People's minds take that noise and they're either into it or they're not.

So what kind of mind is having fun right now? We can call it a fun mind. A playful mind.

That person knows how to play. They know how to have fun. But most importantly, that person's fun is contagious.

That person's joy is rubbing off on the people around them and giving those lucky folks a really great time. So I want to be like that person. I want to have fun and I want to make fun for others.

In my experience of the Retreat Valley, everyone is using this wisdom and working so beautifully to create their own perfect paradise. And I know how hard it gets out in the world to make playing a priority. I know how busy we all get and there's so much going on.

We feel lucky if we have a little bit of fun in the day. I think because our lives in here have slowed down a little bit, that we have gotten better at noticing and appreciating all the beauty that constantly surrounds us. And basking in that beauty and adding to it with our giggles and our play.

Learning to relax and bringing the magic back into our lives by just having fun together. It's such a simple and powerful way of serving each other. Just enjoy each other.

Make each other laugh. Open each other's hearts. Make each moment sacred.

And then dedicating all this joyful bliss to reaching our goals. I'm learning in here that having fun is more of a choice than it might seem sometimes. There's usually something we can focus on to keep ourselves joyful.

We have to train our minds to see it. The sky is blue today. The birds are singing.

There's almost always someone around who we can try to make smile. Open their hearts so they can help open ours. We rely on each other for our joy and we let each other down when we engage in and nurture our selfish afflictions.

It would take a great deal of bravery. But I think it may be time that we look into the possibility that there is no situation in which play is not appropriate. At least in our own hearts.

And yeah, this has to be balanced with not pushing people too hard or too fast to be playful if they are not ready. But despite the seriousness that people may feel they need to see on our face, we can always stay light and playful on the inside. Make it a game for ourselves to slowly, gently get them to play.

We have to look for the signs, the smiles and the twinkles in people's eyes. The goal is to make playmates out of everyone. At first some people won't be ready for this in all situations and we have to be sensitive to that, right?

But still include them in on the game and gradually gently bring them in until they know that they are playing too. And with other people it's easy, right? I mean some people are just waiting for a hint of fun to let go.

And by playing with new people all the time, we will discover great hidden masters of play. Just waiting for our cue to show them that we are ready. And they will show us how to have even more fun.

Maybe more fun than we knew we could ever even have. And they will become teachers for us. Our teachers have countless tools for getting us to have fun and be more joyful.

Maybe for you a great master of play has come under the guise of your music teacher or your dance teacher or someone who's taught you a particular skill or your trade. They teach us their arts because they want us to be happy. And all the practices they give us we have to remember.

It's for that. It's for our happiness. It's for our joy.

Geshe Michael has given us so many practices to help open our hearts. And at the start of retreat when he first came to visit us a lot of us were asking him, okay, so which one should I focus on? He said, do the ones that are fun for you.

Do the ones that make you happy. It's become a motto for us and a gauge. But it's still, it gets pretty hard in here.

I'm not going to tell you it's all rainbows and laser beams. Some days get really tough. It's like, oh man, here I go again.

I'm getting back on the cushion. Another day, another day. I lose the joy.

It stops being fun. And then the doubt creeps in. And I think, whoa, this is crazy.

What am I doing here? I can't do this. And I can't even keep myself happy.

And then we have to catch the doubt quick and ring it by its neck with our understanding and play the game of thinking a little bit more about it. The goal that I'm trying to reach here is just one available picture of how I can eventually see myself. I have this story.

I have this picture in my head that I could one day be rid of all of my selfishness and that I could live in a world with the people I love, where the fun and the joy never, ever has to end. And that I could have the wisdom, the unshakable certainty that all the beauty that I experience in the world is a direct result of the joy that I provided for others. I must have been a pretty good fun kid somewhere in the past to even have this notion.

I mean, it's a pretty wild notion, right? The goal and the wisdom that I pray to one day attain is empty. Empty meaning there is no goal and there is no wisdom coming from anywhere other than the kindness I gave to others.

There is no wisdom. There is nothing to reach and there is nothing not to reach. No hay conocimiento.

No hay nada que alcanzar. Y no hay nada que haga falta alcanzar. Yeah.

Alejandro. There is no wisdom and there is no goal that we can attain that is not coming from our own hearts. And when the Heart Sutra says no wisdom, it means no wisdom like we thought.

There is no wisdom that's locked in some secret box at the bottom of the sea, like in some kind of Indiana Jones movie or something that we can just discover and gain without having done the same sort of goodness that it takes for wisdom to just suddenly dawn on us without us even looking for it. There is no part of you that thinks. There is no part of you that is aware that you are thinking.

Y la parte de ti que esta consiente de que estas pensando. Not only is the goal and this wisdom empty but my mind itself the part of me that is witnessing my world is also empty of being anything other than a picture that my past kindness painted. And this availability, this lack of any fixed limitation to my mind is exactly why I can reach a higher state of mind and the way I see my mind now is just one of countless options and I will see it differently and I can choose a grumpier or a more fun version of this mind of mine to the extent to which I devote it to making life fun for other people today.

All of the wisdom and attainments can be brought to us and made before our very eyes out of our honest desire to serve others with that wisdom. Things can only come about because of their emptiness and the emptiness is proven as we see ourselves change and it's the clarity and the beauty of this picture in my head of all of us laughing and having fun together totally free. It's a picture that's becoming more real every day, more vivid every day.

This is the process working. This is the goal coming and it's recognizing and rejoicing in the beauty of our success that keeps us going and it gets me to try to make Ben giggle, open his heart, which opens mine, which then gets me back on the cushion. Our practice helps to accelerate our process of reaching the goal by purifying the obstacles in our hearts that prevent us from experiencing the world in a magical way.

And so we have to keep at them and give them our honest effort. 100% effort saw to Dirk Kala night on Tanya Satkara Savito dirt a boomy first chapter yoga sutra. You have to do your practice over an extended period of time.

You have to do it without gaps. So not just once a week. Sometimes it's a daily practice and we have to do it correctly under the guidance of our teacher.

Our teachers didn't get to be these great masters of play by not working hard. My teacher Bikram says no easy shortcuts. The hard way is the right way.

And yet it kind of looks like it is easy for our teachers, right? Like it's like they're just having fun, having a blast playing all the time. So we have to try to copy them by working hard and by incorporating play into the practice, finding the joy, finding the fun in every challenging task and practice we undertake.

But there are times on the way towards that nonstop recess playground where we will just have to grit our teeth and do the work that makes fun for others, which means we have to try to make it for ourselves. So we have to look for the fun and dig for the joy in every hard thing we do. But we can't ditch the tapas, the heat of a bit of toil just because we're having trouble finding the joy at that moment.

Keep working, keep looking for the joy. It will come. And you know who's so awesome at this?

It's Dharma Mitra. Dharma knows how to turn the work into play. It's hard for me to imagine that all those 908 poses on his poster didn't come without a little blood, sweat, and tears.

But I don't know. Maybe he's worked so hard having fun in his practice that now he's like this perpetual kid who just wants to play all the time. When I was there, he was always playing practical jokes and doing magic tricks.

I remember this one time before class, he came out and he was doing this thing with his hand and suddenly, bing! There's this red glowing light shining, emanating between his fingers, and we could all see it. We were like, Dharma, whoa, what's that?

What have you got there? Power. Power.

All right, come on, Dharma. Okay, let's see it again. Bing!

Red glowing light right between his fingers. You can't miss it. Everyone can see it.

So Dharma's a trickster. So we ask him, can we see what's in your hand? No.

It's power. And then he won't do it again. So my guess then was that he had some little toy or something lighting up his fingers.

But actually, it could very well have been a city. You know, a special power that he has that he knew he could only show us because we would just think it was a trick. And then he says, so you still want to do the asanas?

Okay then. But there is game two. And you feel like you're in kindergarten again, rolling around on the pink carpet, surrounded by all the colorful, life-size paintings of all these magical beings.

And he tricks you again because you're having so much fun that you forget about all the things you can't do. And suddenly he's got you in some kind of crazy gnarly pose that you're quite certain is either going to kill you or get you to heaven. And there's a choice there.

You're thinking, oh god, I don't think I want to do this. I'm not ready for this one. But Dharma seems to think that you can, and you want to play.

And the kids who are doing it look like they're having a lot of fun. So you wonder what they're feeling. You try to imagine what Dharma feels when he's in the pose.

And you search for the joy. And you're thinking, well he's got me, he's not going to let me fall. So you try to surrender your fear and open your heart to experiencing the magic of the pose.

And then he says, offer your pose to the lord. And you look up. And it's as if all the pictures of the saints on the walls are smiling down at you, cheering you on, saying, you can do it!

It's like when you're a kid and your parents take the training wheels off your bike for the first time. You're afraid you're going to fall and hurt yourself, but they have you, and they're holding you, and they're coasting you down the road, and you're almost doing it. And you're getting closer, and then finally they let go, and you're like, am I doing it?

I'm doing it. You feel like you conquered something. Remember?

There's an exhilaration, an elation, a beautiful joy there. Your practice should be like that. It should make you bulletproof, Bikram says.

Because it should open your heart so much that nothing can take away your happiness. Which then enables you to be a source of joy, a source of fun and play for others. Geshe Michael says that if we do our practices well in the morning, we'll meet angels throughout the rest of the day.

And to do our practices well is to do them with joy. If you ever get a chance to practice yoga near Geshe-la, sneak a peek at him. He practices smiling so sweetly the whole time, making the work fun.

And he's so skillful about this. He constantly challenges us to push our level of understanding of karma and emptiness to greater heights by studying and grappling with the difficult concepts and the many distinctions so that we can be better equipped to serve others. Like back in his Sacred Classics translator class here at Diamond Mountain.

At first you don't know what the heck is going on, right? You're lost. You're confused.

You can't understand a thing. It's hard and you feel like you're probably never going to get it. But he had us laughing hysterically the whole time.

It's a comedy show. It's total entertainment. There's popcorn flying around and everyone's having so much fun and you want to play.

And so you struggle to understand and you try to follow so that you can be in on more of the jokes. He keeps it light and silly for us. He opens our heart so that the wisdom of the teachings can pour in.

And then this magical thing does start to happen. Slowly, little by little, we do start to understand. Which then gives us the incentive to keep playing.

So we can't be lazy about working hard. But we can't fall into the other kind of laziness either, which is just as bad. It's resigning yourself to just doing the work and thinking that it's enough.

It's forgetting that our other job is to try to have fun doing it. Because our practices themselves are not the goal. The goal isn't to be able to do a perfect standing bow pose.

It isn't to be able to recite the sadhana perfectly in both English and Tibetan. It isn't even to reach meditative stillness. Yeah, I want these things and I'm working towards them.

But these practices are just tools to help open our heart. And the goal is to have fun everywhere and all the time. And it can be found in more places than we might think.

But we only discover that by learning to play while working hard. Okay, I'm doing the work. But then, okay, how can I have fun here?

Which really means how can I be fun here for others? It's okay that this takes a little bit of practice too. The payoff is worth it.

So, what's keeping us from having fun? Why can't we just relax and experience our world in a magical way all the time? What's our problem?

Well, a few things come to my mind. For one, we're rarely in the moment. You watch little kids play and they're totally in it.

They're not worrying about what they have to do tomorrow or what they did yesterday. They're just in it. And playing teaches us to be in the moment.

Maybe we're also just a little afraid of looking stupid, so we hold ourselves back from playing. Little kids don't care. Their play is totally uninhibited and they're not worried about looking silly.

But, the main thing that keeps us from having fun is that we prevent other people from having fun. We think, we say, what's fun for you isn't fun for me, so could you please stop that? And we do this all the time.

I do this all the time. Even in just little ways, like rolling our eyes when other people are being silly and laughing at something that we don't think is particularly funny. And it's hard to control what we think.

But, we do have the wisdom that can guide our choices so that whatever outer actions we undertake, we can be supportive of others' enjoyment. And whether we choose to be supportive by respectfully removing ourselves from the scene to keep from being a damper on the fun that we can't get into at that moment, or by staying and letting ourselves take part in the play, we can dedicate it to our own future fun. Rather than negating people's joy and trying to put a stop to their fun, it might be wiser to encourage the possibility that maybe these people are just more advanced than we are.

Maybe they're closer to reaching the goal. What goal? The goal of having fun and feeling great all the time.

So take a look at your feelings in that situation, and then take a look at the way they appear to be feeling, and it might be revealing that they're onto something. When I lived in New York, I used to like walking through Central Park, down by the water where there's this open space near this big bridge held up by all these pillars. It looked like the set for some Shakespeare play.

I loved it. And one time when I was walking near there, I heard this incredible music resonating from under the bridge. It was this beautiful violin, accompanying this wildly unique soprano voice, singing in a language I'd never heard, all to the beat of these jingling bells.

And so when I got down there, I was a little stunned to find that the source of the music wasn't what I expected. There was this barefoot man with bells on his ankles, and he was stomping out the beat. He wore a kind of kilt, and a strange leather-type vest, and had all these feathers in his hair.

He accompanied himself on the violin while singing in this enchanting soprano voice, in a language all his own. He was like this Native American opera-singing, fiddle-playing, dancing nymph from another world. And to say that he was performing wouldn't totally describe it, because he was just having fun, rocking out, doing his thing.

Some people walked by, and they didn't even seem to notice him. Some people walked by, and they looked a little confused and annoyed. Some people stayed and watched.

I, on the other hand, was completely totally mesmerized and inspired. Mostly by the courage I imagined it took for him to become who he was. To trust his heart, and to play, and to do what was fun for him, regardless of what it looked like to everyone else.

He seemed like he was having the time of his life, playing in a magical world, all his own. And I wanted to get up and start stomping around, and dancing, and singing, and try to harmonize with him in his language. But I was afraid.

I didn't know if I could add to his game. I thought I ended up just pissing him off and disturb his magical world. When he was done, I went up and I thanked him, and I said I'd wanted to get up and start singing and dancing too.

He said, Oh, you should have. I always want people to play with. We have to have the courage to let go a little, and to allow ourselves to be silly and have fun together.

I think it's what we all want from each other the most. Just having friends to laugh and play with. Friends who we can just relax with and enjoy life with.

Friends to help open our hearts so that we can experience greater joy. And friends to change the world with by making it a more magical, fun place for everyone. We have to think about what we want our playful, magical world to look like.

And then we have to work to create it. So I don't know, maybe you're thinking, well, you know, I'm not really into the bells and the feathers and the hair thing. That's not really my thing.

But our magical worlds don't have to look the same, right? That's the cool thing about emptiness. But I can play in yours, and you can play in mine by supporting what's fun for each other.

The Retreat Valley is becoming such an amazing place, and our unique little community keeps getting sweeter. We all came into Retreat to devote ourselves fully to our practices and to try to actualize the teachings we've been given. The joy and the smiles on each other's faces have become a gauge that helps determine the extent to which we're succeeding.

And we're learning so much from each other and having so much fun together. I didn't realize when we came in here, I don't know if any of you guys realized when we came in here what a crucial role we would all be playing on each other's progress. Our breaks can be a pretty busy time together.

Everyone's running around serving each other, trying to learn the details of what each other's perfect paradise would look like, and then having fun working trying to create those magical worlds for each other. You want to come over to my house and have a tea party? And I think, hmm, what would her most perfect Alice in Wonderland tea party look like?

I'll make these special cookies that I know she'll love. I'll make her favorite chai tea. It'll get the house smelling all yummy.

I'll set everything out just so. And then when she comes in to see the smile on her face, you know you got it right. Every day starts feeling a little bit like a holiday when everyone is playing the game of watching for the details of what brings each other joy.

And then when someone just happens to give you the most perfect something, you're like, wow, how did you know? I've been wanting one of these. I love this.

I'll use it every day. It's my most favorite. We start becoming like Lady Ruth, like kids again, where every day there's something new to be excited about.

And then when it's time for us all to go back into our own little cabins for another couple months of deep retreat, we take all the heart-opening merit we got from serving each other this way during the break and we dedicate it to quickly reaching our goals, using our practices to then look closer, to dig deeper and to root out the obstacles in our hearts that keep us from playing in our perfect paradise all the time. And it's a battle. But I'll tell you, as the days are getting sweeter, I am becoming less tolerant of my own selfish afflictions, less tolerant of my seemingly justified grumpy moods that not only close my heart, but my sweet fellow's heart as well, which is not fun.

I've been so blessed in that Ben is always trying to find new ways of adding beauty to our life. I look out the window and the birds are there chirping away, eating the morning quinoa that he puts out for them. And he's out there tending the garden, the garden that I only hoped we would have, that he actually works on.

And he's having fun digging around in his cut-off jean shorts and his straw hat, looking like some kind of little Huckleberry Ben. I think. You know?

And this sweet image alone is enough to open my heart. You know, dispelling whatever crappy mood I'm in. And I think how silly it is to stay fussy when he's out there having fun and creating something beautiful for us.

Life is too precious. We can't squander these moments when we notice them. We can't take them for granted.

We have to cherish them and just go outside and play. In the last two years, life has started to take on a new color. Things feel new and fun and exciting again.

The way I remember them being like when we were kids. And as I'm learning to let go of my controlling tendencies and my controlling ways of trying to reach my goals, I've started to relax and enjoy life a little more. Appreciating the little things and remembering how awesome and important it is to just play and have fun.

To laugh and to be silly and to just enjoy the sweet people around me. Through the process of this adventure, we're hoping to plant in our hearts and minds the seeds for experiencing a perfect world. And so, what we're trying to do in here is create that perfect heaven.

And in my perfect paradise, there would be no end to the joy. Everyone would be laughing and playing together for all time. And so my own joy is prerequisite to achieving this goal.

Staying joyful has become the practice. It's the main practice. This is what I'm trying to get good at in here.

Staying joyful and light and playful during every activity in the day by training my mind to notice and to appreciate and to cherish all the simple beauty that's around us. And trying to add to it by provoking and encouraging the sweet laughter of those who are dear to my heart. If I could take one thing with me from this retreat, if I could learn only one thing, I hope it will be that I come out knowing how to be a better source of joy to my family and to my friends and to everyone I meet.

Serving others by providing magical, playful joy in their lives. Opening their hearts so that the joy can be theirs. Bikram says, first you have to learn to take care of yourself.

Get yourself happy, healthy, and successful. Then you take care of your family. You see to it that they're happy, healthy, and successful.

And then you go out and you take care of your friends and then the people in your community and then your city. But then he says, so how do you get yourself happy, healthy, and successful? By serving your family.

By serving your friends. By serving your community. In my experience, from the inside of a retreat, it looks like our experiment is working.

All of the retreatants are becoming more sparkly every day. Becoming these great masters of play and teaching me how to be. And serving each other so sweetly.

And it's your joy that is the fuel. It's your magic that keeps us going. And it's the hope in all of our hearts to see that this most awesome game we are playing extends out into all the communities of the world.

And like we did back in the university days, the old university days, at Diamond Mountain with the newbie first-timers, we have to now try to crack open the hearts of millions and bring them into the game. At the heart of the experiment is the question of can we fill ourselves so full of the joy that we have and that we're cultivating in ourselves here at Diamond Mountain that we can go out into the world and break down the walls around each new person we meet with the same open, honest, unfearing, playful, loving joy. And we know that you guys are already doing it.

Geshe-la tells us about all the crazy places you guys have been. Reaching thousands of people in single teachings alone. Places I've never even heard of or can pronounce.

Bringing the spirit of Diamond Mountain with you guys everywhere you go and opening the hearts of people all around the world. It's so awesome. And I'm so thankful for all of you guys for letting me in on the game.

The game of learning to open my heart by serving others with joy. And for showing me again and again that our highest goals can be reached. That the fun and the play never has to end.

And for reminding me of what I thought as a kid life would be like. That growing up meant having more fun playing better games. Traveling farther and having greater adventures unraveling the mysteries of the world together.

It's exciting. We can't wait to come out and play.