Снять с себя зависимости с помощью кармы (Феникс, 2014), занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
Okay, hi. Thank you for coming. I could tell you a long story about my studies, but I've learned, you know, we travel all around the world.

We just got back from six cities in Mexico, and before that six cities in Europe, and I thought I've learned just to show a video, okay. So, I grew up in Arizona, in Phoenix, not far from here, and then studied at Princeton, and then studied in a Tibetan monastery for over 20 years, and at the end of that process you take an examination called Geshe, and in my case, my monastery at that time had over a thousand monks, and then each one asks you questions in Tibetan in a public park, and the process takes three weeks. Some debates during the night, sometimes during the day, and then at the end, on the final day, your main teacher questions you in front of all the monks.

So, anyway, so I spent 25 years in the monastery, and then after that I started teaching in New York. I taught, I think what, seven years? I thought I would try to teach the whole Geshe course in New York City, and so I did seven years there, and then after that I did a three-year silent retreat in the Arizona desert, no talking for three years.

And then recently I've been going around the world teaching people how to do business with ethics, and how you can be more successful if you help other people. And there are certain rules for that, and there are certain principles for that, and we teach about 10,000 people a year. 3,500 people came in Mexico.

1,300 came to one talk in Mexico City, and that was pretty wild. But a lot of people, when we have business seminars, they come to me with other problems. Some of them come with relationship problems, like how do I find a partner, or you know, how do I get my husband to wash the dishes, and things like that.

And we talk about karmic methods. So, during the course of these business seminars, I think last year about 10,000 people came to them. Different people come up to me with different questions, and a big question has been addiction.

People have all different kinds of addictions, and they're asking me, usually it's a relative who has a problem, and they ask me, is there any way to use the principles that you're teaching with addiction. And so, starting in Hamburg this year, earlier this year, we started to give seminars about applying ancient wisdom to the challenge of an addiction. And we thought it would be nice to do in Phoenix.

So, that's what we're starting tonight, and we'll continue tomorrow afternoon, and then tomorrow evening. So, three sessions, and we'll progress through deeper and deeper subjects. I think the first thing to say is that we all have addictions.

In my own personal experience, I haven't met anyone who didn't have an addiction. Buddhism would say that you come to this world partly because you have an addiction, and you have to work it out while you're here. So, we would say that every person has some kind of addiction or wouldn't be here.

So, and I think, personally, I've just noted that there are addictions which are acceptable to society, like overwork, or addiction to power, for example. They call you talented and driven, you know. And then there are addictions which are not acceptable to society, which are like, I don't know, alcohol, or heroin, or things like that.

So, there are different kinds of addictions. I think you can divide them into ones that society disapproves of, and some that society approves of. But in the end, they're all the same.

And I tried to work out with some friends, one of whom is here tonight. She's a PhD in psychology and a longtime clinical psychologist. And I was asking her, you know, how would you define an addiction?

And they say that an addiction has four parts. So, the first part of this program, especially tonight, will be to talk about different kinds of addiction, in the hope that each one of us can examine ourselves, and see if one of them applies to us. You see?

So, I'll go through a long list of addictions, and I'll describe the essence of an addiction. And then tonight's goal, by the end of tonight, you're supposed to be convinced that you have one of them. Okay?

And I know mine. I have mine also. So, you know, and I work on it.

I apply these principles to my own addictions. And it's been very fruitful. It's been, it's made me a lot happier, even in the last year especially, since I've done formal programs in addiction.

I think to think about it, and to talk about it, I've been able, the first step of course is to recognize what it is you're addicted to. And there's a long list of possibilities. And we'll go through the list tonight.

So, the goal of tonight is maybe each one of us, including me, we try to admit to ourselves that we have an addiction, and what that addiction is. Okay? And then, in the second part of tomorrow afternoon, we'll start attacking an addiction in a different way.

And that's why I'm here, that's why we came, that's why we're having this program. The training that I got over 25 years time in the monastery, gave me certain tools that can be used by each of us to overcome our addictions. And they are not normal.

They're not what you would think of in the West. I haven't seen them in any book, or television show, or anything. There are completely different ideas about how you can treat addiction, and how you can stop addiction.

And personally, having helped many people in the world, and being constantly traveling to help people, I think it works very well. And I think it works uniquely well. I think it's a very special thing.

So on one hand, I think by tomorrow evening, each one of us has identified what might be the addictions that we have. And some of them are acceptable, but not pleasant. You know?

And then, by tomorrow afternoon, we start working through a new way, completely different idea about addiction. And that's why it's difficult to convey to people. I think it takes three talks to really convey to people a new idea of how to overcome addiction.

For me, addiction is very personal. My mother and father were both alcoholics. It killed both of them.

And you know, we had a large family, four boys. And I went through the whole, you know, thing that anyone with an alcoholic parent goes through, but both of them. And it was many years of suffering, and many years of sadness.

And you know, I have this sort of heartfelt need to, if there's some way to treat it, that other people wouldn't have to go through it. It would be so wonderful. And I think the ancient teachings of Tibet, they have an answer.

They have a new idea. And I think it's in a very, what do you call, it's in the first years of this information coming to the West. And we also teach in China.

I mean, in China, and she just got back. They've been in Singapore, and we were in Japan, Tokyo. And we're going to six cities in China next month.

And so, I can't say East and West anymore. Maybe you say modern world and ancient world. But the ancient world has special ideas, new ideas, that you can use for overcoming an addiction.

And it's something that you understand. It's an understanding. It helps if you meditate a little bit.

And we'll do some meditation. We have a meditation session tomorrow. And you're welcome to come, and you're welcome to try that.

But it's not the main thing. The main thing is some kind of idea. And it's some kind of way of viewing your addiction, and the thing you're addicted to, that can change the addiction forever.

So, it's just a totally new idea. So, you're going to have to hang in there with me. It's a 25 years of training, in three sessions together.

And then, I propose, first of all, that it's something that can change your life completely. You will overcome your own addictions. And there's a big difference between being in denial about an addiction, and then facing it and fighting it, and then how you feel afterwards.

You see? Knowing that you are free of it. And we're going to go through that process.

So, the first part is to face up to, to learn to face up to. Each one of us has an addiction. According to Tibetan wisdom, you wouldn't be here if you didn't have some addictions.

We all have. We all have them equally strongly. Some of us have ones that hurt us more, or more obviously.

But we all have some addictions. And in the end, they cause us all pain, all the time. So, there's a process.

You face the addiction, you learn a completely new way of overcoming that addiction, and then there's what I call the other side. Then you come out the other side, and you don't have it anymore. And then, there's a feeling you get when you give up an addiction that you had.

It's like a burden that you've been carrying your whole life. It's like, I have this very heavy backpack. Tim likes to carry it, I don't know why.

It's got like everything you might need if you travel around the world constantly. It's got, you know, plug adapters for 20 countries, and it's heavy. And I carry it everywhere.

Because every time I leave it somewhere, I need it. And sometimes I set it down, or someone takes it off my shoulders, and then I walk down the sidewalk, and I feel like, wow, that's so nice, you know. So, I think if you face an addictions that you have, and then you try this new way to get over them, and then you come out on the other side, and you don't have them anymore.

And the other side feels so nice, and it's so good, and it changes everything in your life. So, think about that. By tomorrow night, you will have the ability to go to the other side.

And then it's just up to you, you know. You try it, and you'll be over. And then it's some kind of wonderful, clean, pure feeling that you have after that.

And you're just free, and you don't have that anymore. And then then you realize how much of your life it was hurting, and how much you were carrying around all the time. When you let go of it, and you're free of it, then you realize how heavy it was.

And then you feel so different. You feel completely happy, okay. So, that's the goal, that's all.

I was trained in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, I don't care what you are, I don't care what you become. I'm not trying to sell Tibetan stuff. I was sitting with some Mexicans last weekend.

There are many, there's like a group of a hundred Mexicans who are well-trained now. And I'm like, yeah, but you have to do it like Mexicans. You not Tibetans, you know.

And then one of them said, and you aren't either. And I said, you're right, I'm not. And like, you're kind of free to do it your own way.

So, I can teach you something, and then you do it your own way. I don't care what you are, I don't care what you do after tonight. All I care is you get free of your addictions.

And I'll give you a new tool, and you use it, and if it works, you know, you can write a letter to Tibet. To say anybody Tibet, thank you, you know. I don't care, I personally don't care.

I don't keep lots of statues and stuff in my home. I find it kind of, I don't know, it just doesn't quite fit my house. I have a few really nice statues from Asia, but that's because they're beautiful, and they mean something to me.

But I don't, I'm not trying to change your upbringing, because you can't, okay. And I don't think there's any benefit to trying to be Tibetan in America, okay. You're who you are, use what, use the wisdom in your own home, in your own setting.

So, let's go back to the definition of addiction. I would say four parts. And you have a reading.

I forced them to print it in color, it's like really expensive. I forced them not to put it in that tiny little playbill. Guess why?

So you would keep it, and take notes on it. There's two jobs for people who come here tonight. Number one, learn a new way to get over your own addictions.

Number two, spread it to other people. If you find it helpful, which you, I think you will, then learn it well, and share it with other people. Because a big part of, as you'll find, a big part of the Tibetan approach to addiction, is that helping others with addictions is a large part of your own, what do you call it, recovery, right?

So, and that kind of matches what they found with AA, and things like that. So, in the Tibetan system also, we'll be talking about how helping other people with their addictions creates the seeds to overcome your own addictions. But there's a special technique, and there are certain mechanisms that are going on that you have to learn about.

But in the meantime, you know, a lot of people put out a lot of money so you could have this color thing. Like, make sure you take it home. When you leave it on the seat, I get really depressed.

So, make sure you take it home. Fill in some notes, okay? Like, get a pen, and take notes on this paper.

Because maybe next week you can share it with somebody, and you might save somebody's life, right? A person with a really bad addiction is suffering heavily, and maybe you can really help someone. So, each one of you, in the Tibetan tradition, in the monastery, it's a very heavy tradition that you have to record what you hear carefully.

And the teacher will often check your notes, you know. Because the idea is that you're going to be up here next time, and you're going to be helping other people with this. So, it's meant to be passed on.

It's meant to be spread from hand to hand. So, take some notes, or at least follow the pictures as we go, you know, okay? So, the first picture is where we want to go.

Where we want to go is the other side of an addiction. Page two, right? Where we want to go is the other side of an addiction.

And a lot of us don't even know we have addictions, right? Like, you think, I'm not addicted to heroin, and I've seen people who are addicted to alcohol, and you think, I'm not like that. The premise of these three talks is that every person here, including me, we all have addictions.

And if we could let go of them, or take them off, then we'd be so much happier. Anybody who doesn't have a reading, can you raise your hand? And keep it up, even if you didn't take a shower.

Okay. And we'll have the same reading tomorrow. If more people come, we have more.

And we'll use the same reading for the three talks, okay? So, this one covers all three talks. Anybody not have a reading?

Okay, one back there. Okay. So, what is an addiction?

Page two, at the bottom. An addiction consists of number one, compulsive attempts to gain pleasure for ourselves, okay? So, mainly the first part of addiction, first step of addiction, is that we want something, and it's compulsive.

Like we, we really want something. In my case, I have a minor addiction to sweets, okay? Like, I can get up all night and eat sweets out of refrigerator, and somehow justify it to myself, you know?

And it's compulsive, okay? Like I need it, I want it, I really want it, it's something that I really want. I want the taste of sugar on my tongue, okay?

Number two, we cannot stop even when we want to. And then that's when compulsive, compulsion becomes like uncontrollable. Like you want to give up sweets, or you want to give up, I don't know, alcohol or something, and you can't do it, okay?

And there's a moment of truth where you keep saying to yourself, I could give it up if I wanted to, and that's also a typical addictive thinking. And then there's a moment of truth when somebody says, okay, then show me, you know, don't eat that donut. And you're like, well, okay, I'll just eat half of it, you know?

And you can't, you can't stop yourself, and you can't control yourself. And then you become aware that you're an addict, right? You can't stop.

If someone puts it in front of you, you will take it, okay? Third thing, that hurts ourselves. So, the obsession eventually hurts ourselves.

Like in the case of sweets, you know, overeating. I travel a lot, I'm a lot of time in Asia for example. In China, mainland China, they haven't learned to overeat yet.

American culture hasn't got there yet. It got to Taiwan. Taiwan has overeating, and the people don't look fresh, and they look tired, and they look overweight, and they look unhappy in that way, physical way.

But in China it's interesting, they haven't learned about sugar, and flour, and you know, dairy. And they, physically they look quite good. They look fresh, and their eyes are bright, and they're not hurting themselves with food.

Then you get back on the plane, and you come back, and you get off in Phoenix, in the airport. And it's very sad, you feel very sad. Even on the plane from LA to Phoenix, I think about sixty, seventy percent of all Americans are overweight, they're eating too much.

And you can see, and it hurts them. And they're unhappy, and they can't sit down in the chair, and they can't stand easily, and they can't move, and they...and you can just see that it's not happy, and it's hurting them, okay. So, me, in my case, same.

You know, the doctor's always telling me, you have too much cholesterol, and you should stop eating donuts, and I'm like, yeah okay. Then I start eating sweet rolls instead. And, like that, you know.

So, I think part of the definition of an addiction is that it's compulsive behavior, you can't stop it, and it hurts you. It does something to hurt you. It hurts your happiness, oftentimes it hurts your health.

And then number four, it hurts the people around you, okay. So, you can't act compulsively without bothering the people around you. At the lowest, at least you're bothering the people around you, and you don't care, and you don't notice, you know.

I will get my donut, and if we have to stop at 7-Eleven at Happy Valley Road this morning, so I can get my donut on the way to Phoenix, we will stop, whether Jigme wants to stop or not, you know. And then I will get my donut. And when you have an addiction, you don't care about how it impacts on other people.

You reach a point in the addiction that you just don't care. You know, you might try to hide it for a while, like at some point you feel embarrassed that other people would see your addiction, and then when the addiction gets bad enough, you don't even care what other people think of you, you just indulge in your addiction. So, those are the four parts of addiction.

Number one, it's like you want something, you want some kind of pleasure for yourself. Number two, you can't stop, even when you want to stop. And number three, it begins to hurt you the longer you have it.

And then number four, inevitably the pursuit of that object of your addiction impacts on other people, as you cannot stop. And you start to ignore other people's feelings and needs, because of what you need, because of what you want, okay? And again, we all have addictions, okay?

Alright, next page. I'm going to jump right into something about the cure, okay? And it's something new, and it's something you haven't heard before, okay?

This is something new from Tibet. And I'm going to throw it in the beginning, in case you don't come back after refreshments, okay? So, at least you heard something of the secret that I have to share with you.

There's a secret, there's a kind of knowledge that you can have, that you can understand addiction on a deeper level. And if you understand it, you can stop it, okay? You can get free of it.

And so, I'm going to just inject some new ideas from the ancient teachings. And you know, we have a project in the monastery for 27 years. We teach Tibetan refugees to type in their ancient texts.

We have a team of 12 people at the college in Stona, who are working on those texts. We've identified a hundred and forty-one thousand manuscripts. We've cataloged that many in—around the world.

And we've typed in fourteen thousand? And about ten thousand more uncataloged, call it twenty-five thousand texts. So, what I'm—we spent 27 years on that, and we study them deeply, we work on them deeply, we translated a lot of pages.

And the wisdom of what's in there, that you can use for addiction, is on this page, okay? So, I'm going to give you some new ideas, and they're going to apply to addiction. If you understand these new ideas, you can overcome an addiction, okay?

So, these are weird ideas. Why are they weird? You never heard them before.

Why did you never hear them before? Because if you had heard them before, you wouldn't be here, because you wouldn't have an addiction. Because you could just cancel it, you see?

So, there's deep ideas that can apply to addiction. And I'd like you to learn them, and they are new, and they're not something you heard before. So, at least tonight, if this is the first and last time I see you in my life, at least you heard these ideas.

And these ideas can overcome addiction easily, okay? And they are different. And I've used them for many things, okay?

My Lama sent me to New York City, he said, use these new ideas to make a company, you know? And we'll give the money away to poor people. And I'm like, Lama, I don't like business, I don't want to be a businessman, that's why I'm in the monastery, you know?

It's the last thing I would want to be, is a businessman. I don't like New York City, it smells bad, it's, you know, people are dangerous, people are crazy. You know, he's like, no, you go to New York, you prove that you understand the principles that we taught you.

And I said, well what, what do I have to do? He said, you start a company. I said, well what am I supposed to do with the company?

You make a million dollars, you know, we'll give it to poor people. But just prove that you understand these, like karma, you know? Prove that you understand these principles of karmic seeds in your mind, and you can do it if you want, you know?

You can make a million dollars if you want. So, I went to New York, I didn't want to go to New York, I made a company, I helped make a company. That company now has 10,000 workers, it makes 250 million dollars in sales per year.

And Warren Buffett bought it in 2009. And I don't know anything about business, and I don't like business, and I still don't like business, and I don't want to be involved with business. But as an experiment of these principles, it was successful.

You can use these principles for different things. Some people ask me, you know, I want to make a big, I want to make a million dollars. So, I said, okay, here's like four things you have to do.

And they do it, and they make money, okay? Some people said, I don't want money, I want what? The next thing people want is a partner, you know?

I don't care so much about money, but I'd like to have a girlfriend, or I'd like to have a boyfriend, or husband. Then you can use the same principles for that, okay? And we teach people that.

Because people come and say, I want a partner. And I say, okay, you can use it for that. The principles I'm going to teach you now, you can use for financial stuff, you can use it for partners.

Some people say, I have a health problem, I have a bad back. Can I use these principles for that? I say, yes, you can.

And we teach them how to do that. All over the world, thousands and thousands of people. Some people say, I don't want, I don't care about outer stuff, I just want inner peace, you know?

I don't need to be rich, I can live without a girlfriend, and I can live with a bad back. But, I'd like to have inner peace, you know? Then of course, the first thing I say is what?

What? Yeah, you should have all those things, why choose, you know? Why say I'd rather have inner peace than outer things?

Like, you know, you should have both, why not? You know, I tried to meditate in a cave one week, it was miserable. There were spiders crawling all over me.

And then I realized it's nice to have a small house that has a door, and the spiders stay outside, and you meditate inside. You know, it was a big breakthrough for me. I'm like, that's cool, you know?

So, it'd be nice to have a house with a door, and you know, they kind of go together. I mean, outer success, you have to be able to live comfortably if you want to develop your inside, okay? That's just the way it is.

And then of course, I think all of us would like to help the whole world. I think there's a very deep human hunger to do something for other people. And you'd be happy to know that all over the world, in all the countries we go to, people have that same hunger.

Like, I haven't talked to any group of people in any country where people didn't have that. So, in Tibet they say, all human beings have two basic urges. One is sex, and one is food.

And then they say, but on a deeper level, all people share the urge to help other people. We all have it. And that's why there's Spider-Man, Superman, Iron Man, Avengers, Transformers, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Wolverine, Batman.

That's why we love those movies, because there's a deeper desire in people's hearts that they would like to help the world, they would like to serve the whole world. We would all like that. So, there are five basic goals that people have.

You can get any of them using the principles I'm about to tell you, okay? We just happen to be working on addiction, okay? We could just as well be having a talk about how to make a 250 million dollar company, or you know, or how to get a nice beautiful partner for the rest of your life.

We can do that some other night, okay? Tonight we're working on addiction, okay? So, to start with some new ideas that I think will help you for your whole life.

We have to talk about, hmm...you have a pen, yeah, okay. In the monastery in Tibet, this is how they teach the students, okay? They ask them questions.

Some people say it came from Aristotle, because his student came to India. Who is that? Alexander the Great came to India.

And they think a lot of the knowledge in Tibet came from him. So, anyway, they will teach by asking questions. So, I'm going to ask you questions, and in this process, by asking questions and answering questions, we will come at a completely new way to treat addictions, okay?

And then you can free yourself from whatever your addictions are. And again, we all have them, you know. So, just decide, I have one, you probably know what it is, but if you don't know what it is, we're going to go through a bunch of addictions and we'll see if you find yours.

I know what mine are, okay, so far. Okay, so here's the questions. And I know some of you may have heard this before, but you have choice, you can take a short nap, or you can watch how it's taught, okay?

Or you can think about it. Okay, so here we go. What is this thing?

Yeah, it's a pen, okay. Next question, if a small dog came in here, like a puppy dog, and I wave this thing in front of the puppy dog, what will the dog do with it? Yeah, like a small puppy will bite it and chew on it, okay?

Third question, does the small puppy dog see this as a pen? No. How do they see it?

You can say as a... something to chew on, like a... what do you call?

Chew toy. You can say that. Next question, we're going a little bit deeper, okay?

If I set this black stick here, and all the dogs leave the room, and all the humans leave the room, then at that time, is it a pen, or is it a chew toy? Which one? Yeah, and that's the universal answer.

Like, we were in Moscow a couple weeks ago, and then I don't know where were we, Warsaw, and Vienna, and Guadalajara, and everybody gives the same answer, and they're like... it's like, nothing man, like, if the dog leaves, and if the human leaves, then it's kind of just waiting to be something, right? Okay?

You can say blank, empty. Buddhists say empty, okay? I'm sorry it's not any sexier than that.

That's all it means. It just means if the dog goes out, and the humans go out, it's just a thing, okay? Now next question, if the human comes back in, what does it become?

Yeah, at that point it becomes a pen. That proves... that gives us an answer to the next question, okay?

If this thing becomes a pen when the human walks in the room, then is it coming from the human's mind, or is it coming from its own side? Which one? It must be coming from the human's mind.

If it becomes a pen when the human walks back in, it proves that it's not a pen from its own side, okay? If it were a pen from its own side, the dog would see a pen, the dog would attempt to write a poem to his dog girlfriend, you have a nice tail, or something like that, okay? But they don't, okay?

What you see is coming from you. That's the basic truth of the pen, okay? That what you see is coming from you.

Okay, next question is kind of important. Does that mean I can close my eyes and wish that this was something else? Like, could I make it a bar of gold by closing my eyes and thinking positive?

You know, is the answer to my addictions just, oh, they're coming from you, just think positive, okay? Let's try, okay? If I can make a gold bar, I promise to split it with everybody.

So, you know, you close your eyes, and you wish very hard. You ready? Will you help me?

Okay, wish, wish, wish. Think positive, think positive, think positive. And then you open your eyes, and it's still a pen, okay?

That's important, and you have to appreciate that that's very important. Is it coming from me? Yes.

Is it whatever I want? No, or else nobody would ever go to a dentist, okay? It's not whatever I want, okay?

Is it coming from me? Yes. Can I just close my eyes and make it something else?

No. Am I trying to tell you to think positive, and your addictions will go away? No, it doesn't work, okay?

I don't believe it works. It doesn't work, and you know that, okay? We're trying something deeper, okay?

What's something deeper? We say that the human being, when they walk in the room, they have a seed in their mind, okay? Deep inside their mind, there's a seed.

And it's a very beautiful process. The seed is tiny, you could put a bunch of them on the tip of a needle, okay? And that seed resides deep in your mind, okay?

In the subconscious of the mind. And then, let's do it slow motion, okay? Like, Tim hands me this thing, and then I go, oh...

I keep thinking about the last goal of the World Cup, did you see? He saw it. Okay, who...

what country? Germany. What's the guy doing as he kicks the final goal?

He's falling backwards, and the ball hits his chest, and he like dribbles it somehow down to his foot, and then he kicks it. But that's all done in the air. He's falling down on the ground.

So, you know, we flew to... where were we? Vienna, a couple weeks ago, and the guy...

then we had to go to Germany, and the guy's like, oh we're... we are landing now, and in Frankfurt, in the home of the World Cup. That's the captain, you know?

So, I keep seeing this last goal, and the guy's falling back, and he... he like... this desperate kick, and he kicks it in, you know?

So, let's do slow motion, okay? So, I'm going like this, like, what is that? You know?

And then, somebody goes, bad. You know? And then, we say something cool.

In Tibet, they say, between here and here, a seed opens in your mind, okay? Inside your mind, between here and here, a seed breaks open in your consciousness, in your subconscious, okay? And you can think of it like...

I don't know, what kind of seeds are you into nowadays? Pumpkin seed. You can think of it as a pumpkin seed.

When you sprout alfalfa, like, you see the thing split open? The mental seed splits open like that, and the two sides fall open, and then out of this seed, it's very, very, very interesting, and very beautiful, comes a silver image, like a hologram. And it comes out of your mind, and then it...

like Casper the ghost sheep, and it settles over this thing. It's very interesting. It's very beautiful.

How long does it take? I mean, between here and here. How long does it take for one sheep, silver sheep, to come out of this seed in your mind?

One sixty-fifth of a second, okay? According to ancient wisdom, it's one sixty-fifth of a second. It's too fast for you to see.

You can't see it happening. Like, it's happening, but you can't see it. You can't follow it happening.

By the way, if you meditate regularly, very seriously, and with good training, you can see it happen. You can watch the seed opens, and then like a silver image of a pen, like a hologram, or a silver sheet, shiny, luminous, comes over this object. And then it coats it, and you see...

what you see is that covering, and that's shaped like a pen. So, you think you see a pen. You think there's a pen out there.

But really, if something came out of your mind, and settled over this object, and it became a pen, okay? What happened with the dog? Does the dog have seeds?

Same. But their seed was different, and it cracked open, a silver image comes out, and it's of something good to chew, okay? It's a chew toy image.

And it flies out of their mind in one sixty-fifth of a second, and settles over this thing, and they start... what do you call that? A drooling.

Yeah, salivating, okay? Because they see something to chew, okay? Next question, who's right?

Yeah, both are right, okay? Both are correct. Which one would you rather be?

I'm not so sure anymore. But both are, both are correct, okay? Both are right.

Dog, after the seed opens, and the stuff settles on the pen, sorry, the black stick, then they can chew on it, validly. There's no problem with it. It's...

the human can get upset, please don't chew on my pen, but the dog can just as well say, why are you wasting a perfectly good chew toy writing a poem to your girlfriend, you know? Why aren't you chewing on that, you know? So, it's equal, okay?

It could have been either, right? It just depends on the season in your mind. Then the next question comes, so we covered...

well, we covered the first picture, okay? The dog, on page three. And we covered the silver sheet.

The Wheel of Life is supposed to be on the next page, I'm sorry, that's my fault. And that's a silver image of a pen settling on an object, and then you see a pen, if you're human, okay? How is the seed planted, okay?

I covered how the seed opens, in how long? One sixty-fifth of a second. Your life is going by in sixty-fifths of seconds, and it's single frames.

Your mind is producing 65 frames a second, and throwing it out over things. It's very interesting. A good film is what?

24. But humans, your video, what do you call it? Your movie has to include sound, smell, taste, and sensation, and thought.

So, it takes 65 a second to sustain the movie of your life, okay? My hand is going like, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, and it's coming from seed in your mind, okay? I always tell people, if you don't like what I'm saying, it's your fog.

If you like it, it's me. Okay, so, in the middle is a video camera, and that's... that's talking about how seeds are planted, okay?

So, in theory, just in theory, if what I said so far is true, then all of the things around you, and all the people you've ever met, are coming from where? From seeds in your mind. Are they real?

Yeah. I always tell people, if you don't think it's real, go stand in front of a car, you know, and see if the...if the image of the car coming out of your mind breaks your leg, you know? And it does, okay?

Is it coming out of your mind? Yes. Is it real?

Absolutely. It always was that way, and it's real. You can plant seeds for money, and you can become wealthy, and you can use that money to buy things, okay?

I bought a new guitar yesterday. It's like my eighth guitar. I don't play the other seven at all, you know?

I was with my friend V, and she's like, why are you buying another guitar? I'm like, I don't know, I just want one, you know? And she's like, are you gonna look at the price tag?

I'm like, no. You know, I just like it, you know? Then she stood in front of the door, and she said, you're not going in there.

And I said, you gotta let me through. And she said, no, you have to promise me that you'll play it. I'm like, okay, I promise I'll play it, you know?

And then I went in, I just bought it, you know? And if you knew the process, you could just make money, literally, you see what I mean? You could make a 250 million dollar company, as an experiment, for fun, you see what I mean?

Or you could make a partner. Or you could fix your partner, or upgrade your partner to business class, you know? Or you could change something about your health, or you could even change the thoughts, because the thoughts you hear in your mind are also coming out of seed.

You could plant different thoughts for next week, and then you would hear beautiful ideas, rather than depression, or anger, or jealousy. You could plant nice thoughts for next week, you see what I mean? If you knew how to plant them.

So, I'm trying to sell you on the idea of planting. How do you plant? Jiggy, can you come up?

Do you mind if I embarrass you? I've been embarrassing her for 20 something years. Okay.

She does all my finances. Come on, come on. Okay, so we're gonna plant a seed together, alright?

So, let's say I don't want to be a dog anymore, and I'd rather see this as a pen, okay? Then in that case I have to plant a pen seed, okay? You can call it karma if you like, but I think the word is so misunderstood, that I don't like to use it, okay?

The word in... the word in China is yedi, the word in Tibetan is lei, the word in Sanskrit is karma, right? Let's call it seeds, mental seeds, same thing, okay?

So, I would like to plant a seed for a pen. Why are we talking about all this? I want to plant a seed to see myself overcome a certain addiction that I have, you see?

So, that's why we're talking about reality and philosophy. It's not just... what do you call?

I'm not just wasting your time, okay? I'm gonna teach you how to plant something and make it happen, okay? And if I was in China right now, which I'll be in a couple weeks, it'll be about how to make another hundred million dollars, right?

Or if I was in France, they want to know about how to make a more romantic partner, or... you know what I mean? Like, we can do those things, we can plant those seeds, but tonight we're planting seeds to overcome an addiction.

If the addiction is coming from me, if the addiction is like the pen, then there's a lot of new possibilities, you see? I could overcome anything. But let's try to plant a pen seed, just to get the principle straight, okay?

So, I'm tired of being a dog, I would rather have a pen seed in my mind. So, there are four steps to planting a pen seed, and we'll talk about it today and tomorrow, we'll go over it again and again, because that's how you... ultimately how you overcome your addictions, okay?

Step number one, decide what you want, okay? Step number one, you can write it down next to the guy with a video camera, next to the dog. Number one, decide what you want, okay?

In Tibetan, they call it, shi sampajor tatuk, some of you already know. These are 17 centuries old, okay? Shi means, decide what you want.

So, I'd rather be a human, I want to see a pen, rather than a... what do you call? Chew toy, okay?

So, that's number one. For me, number one means, decide what you want, okay? I want to make a million dollars, or I want to have a nice partner, or I want to fix my partner, I want to improve, upgrade my partner, fix them.

The one thing I don't like about them, or... or I want to overcome an addiction. You see, you choose.

I'm gonna make it easy, I'll just say, I want to see a pen, I want pens, okay? Why do I say pens? Yeah, don't be satisfied with making one pen, like, if you like pens, make a thousand, you know?

Don't make a million dollars, make two hundred million dollars, okay? Why fool around, you know? The goal of this system, is to make any dream happen.

Nothing's too wild, nothing's too extreme, you know? I couldn't imagine there'd be thirteen hundred people come to the talk in Mexico City, I couldn't... and they were wild, they were wild, and they understood everything.

They're very sharp, and they're desperate for something, because they're so... a woman was shot outside the talk, a woman was murdered in her car, about 50 feet outside the door. And they're desperate for something different, you know?

And... so anyway, step number one, I want a pen, okay? I want a pen.

Step number two, I have to find someone else who wants the same thing that I want. I have to choose a person who wants the same thing that I want, that's step number two, okay? I have to choose a person who wants the same thing that I want.

So, I go to Ellie, and say, do you want a pen? Yes, okay, it just happens that I found someone who wants a pen, you know? So, that's step number two, you have to find them.

Choose someone, your friend, someone in your family, anybody you know who wants the same thing as you. If it were an addiction, what would I be looking for? Someone else with a similar addiction.

Does it have to be the same addiction? What do you think? We say no, okay?

It's called the vanilla ice cream question. Some lady in China asked me, I want vanilla ice cream for the rest of my life, every single day. Okay, so plant a seed.

So, I have to find someone who wants ice cream, right? Yeah. Does it have to be vanilla?

No, it's not a bad question. Suppose I'm addicted to cigarettes, but my friend is addicted to alcohol, then will this system work if I help them? We say, yes, okay?

It's the essence of the addiction, okay? It's the essence of what you want. So, do you want a pen?

Yes. Then, I should start planning of how to help her to get pens, okay? That's step three.

Sorry, that's still part of step two. Step three is, give her a pen. Alright, you ready?

This is the important part. We're about to plant a karmic seed. You can use these to make money, you can use these to create a partner, you can use these to make pens, you can use them to overcome addictions, okay?

That's the cool thing. So, I say, okay, I have a pen, I'll give you my pen. Okay.

Because I want 10 within the next week, okay? That's part of it, alright? It'd be stupid to give her a pen to get a pen.

I should just keep it, understand? These seeds multiply in your mind, okay? That's cool.

Every 24 hours, they double. Every 24 hours, that's how I made a 200 million dollar company. I don't know anything about business, okay?

But I know about pens. Okay, so, I put it in her hand. Watch.

We're gonna plant a seed, you gotta watch, okay? Don't fall asleep yet, okay? Get your eyes up here, hold it up higher, they can't see.

Okay, now, watch my hand, watch my hand, and I'm gonna watch my hand. And it opens, and in my heart I gave it to her, okay? Two things happened.

I opened my hand, I released the pen, and in my heart I said, it's yours, take it, it's yours. Now, watch. Who's watching my hand when it opens?

I am, and she is. But the important thing is me, okay? I plant a seed in my mind, by watching my hand open, okay?

You have to understand that. That's how the seed is planted. Now, one more time, slow-mo.

They call it lenta, lenta camara in Mexico. We just had it, lenta camara. You open your hand, and then I see my hand open.

That impression passes into my...passes to the eye, to the physical eyeball. It hits the road's cones and the rods at the back of the eyeball, the cells at the back of the eyeball. It creates an image of a hand opening, and that image is carried to my consciousness, and it makes an impression on my mind, like that, okay?

Like you can see my thumbnail print, impression. So, that image of the hand comes through my eye, optic nerve, and touches the mind, and makes an impression. And then, in...within a few hours, that impression becomes a seed, okay? How big is it? Small enough to fit on the tip of a pen. How many have you made in your life?

Multiply 65, times 60, times 60, times 60, times the number of days you've been alive, okay? 24 is in there somewhere. It's billions, and you have them all in your mind, okay?

Then... then, when the guy goes, whoa...then in that second, in that millisecond, the seed cracks open in your mind, a silver luminous image comes out, and coats the pen, and it becomes a pen, a real pen. You can write with it, you can use it, okay?

It becomes the real thing. Thank you. You're done.

You cannot have the pen. I'm not done with it. This is the only way I make any money, is I...later I do it with dollar bills. So then, that's how I plant the seed, okay? Then, okay, I'm gonna jump to the end, okay? And then we'll take a break, okay?

We have refreshments, and we'll take a break. And during the process...the course of these three talks, I'll take questions also. And the nice thing is, the questions don't have to be relevant to anything, okay?

You can ask me how to plant a boyfriend, or how to be a bowling champion, or...I don't care. Anything, okay? So, we'll take questions later on also.

But...but let's go one more step, let's go one more step, okay? How many steps did we say to planting something? Four.

How many did we cover? Only three, okay? We still have the fourth one.

So, the question comes up in your mind automatically. My mother, in my case, we lived on 17th Avenue in Northern. She bought...it was in my time, which was a hundred years ago, that was empty land as far as Flagstaff, you know? There was nothing. And she built a house on the empty...on a big empty lot there, in the middle of a field. And her mom helped her or something.

But my mom, she didn't have a key to the house. One day we went on vacation to San Diego, and we came home, we're...the four boys and her, she's a single mom, right? We're standing there in front of the door, and everybody's like, you know, open the door.

And we're like, I don't have a key. And then she said, you open it. And she said, I don't have a key.

And then we figured out we never had a key to the front door, because my mom never locked it in her life, in Arizona. She lived for, I don't know, 25 years here, but she never locked the door, you know? And then people could come in, and open the fridge, and take stuff.

And people could even go in and sleep in our beds. And I grew up thinking that was normal. So, you'd come home hoping your bed wasn't occupied, you know?

And if it was, you'd have to sleep on the couch or something. One night she came to me, and she said, that guy who came last night, he can't come back. And I said, Ma, you know, you never said that before.

And she said, well, there's a reason. And she took me to her bed, and she lifted up the pillow, and there's a loaded gun, pistol. And she said, that boy cannot come back, you know?

But we were like that. So, according to this idea of, you know, you get what you give, multiplied by a hundred percent every 24 hours, she should have been rich. I mean, she should have lived in Puerto Vallarta, in a mansion, right?

Where we were, there, last week. We went surfing there, I'll tell you about it later. So like, she should have been super wealthy, but she wasn't.

Why? She was doing the first three steps, but she wasn't doing the fourth step, okay? She knew the first three steps by instinct.

A lot of people do good things by instinct. So, she was giving everything she had to other people. But she didn't get rich, she died poor, okay?

Just before she died, her mother died, she was rich, she gave my mom a lot of money, and my mom bought a car for the first time in her life, like six months before she died, you know? And then she had nothing, you know? So, why?

Why didn't she have...why didn't the seeds work for her? And then, that's step number four, okay? So, you have to know about step number four.

Step number...the first three steps, plant the seed. But a karmic seed can stay in your mind for how long? Well, like a hundred years, you know?

They can...they take their time opening. It's not like if you plant a pen seed today, you're gonna see ten pens tomorrow. It doesn't work that way, okay?

The seeds can sit there for many years and not open, okay? So, that's why there's a step four. Step four triggers the opening of the seed.

So, if you're just about to take a refreshments, on the first night of the talk, by somebody who knows about all this stuff, they're gonna make sure you know step number four, just in case you don't come back after refreshments, okay? So, that's the last thing we'll do. Step number four is what heats up the seed, or it waters the seed, and it makes it crack open, okay?

So, you have to know step number four. Step number four is cool, it's a kind of meditation, I'll demonstrate, okay? So, you're supposed to meditate, oh man, like this, right?

And hold your fingers like, this is Tibetan monastery, right? 25 years. And then you're supposed to look up there in your forehead, right?

And show the whites of your eyes like Freddy on Halloween. And, you know, then you're... So, this is the classic meditation posture in the monastery.

Then there's a big fight, do you put your left foot up first, you put your right up first? Then, forget all that, okay? If you want to be a good step four person, if you want to learn that meditation, you got to go into a special posture.

And there's a long story behind it, and I'm not going to tell you, because then you won't get refreshed in some time. But, you're supposed to lay down on your bed. I like to cross my left foot over my right, but you can do it the opposite.

And, I think it's good to put your hand under your side of your head, because then that's the meditation posture that you used to use in high school, when you're thinking about your high school boyfriend. And your mouth falls open, and you're looking at the ceiling, and you focus so much inside that when your mom calls you for dinner, what happens? You don't hear it.

What do you call that in the Ashtanga? Which one of the Ashtanga is that? Earl?

You don't hear your mom when she's yelling at you, because you're thinking about your high school boyfriend. Yeah, that's Pratyahara. That's perfect withdrawal of the sense organs, okay?

The ultimate test is McDonald's french fries, under the nose. And if you don't smell anything, it means your mind is focused inside. And I'm not kidding, okay?

Like, that's a good test. If you're like a three-year retreatant or something, you can, we might test you. You know, like, close your eyes.

I like staring at the ceiling. And then in this system, just before you go to bed, at night, you're supposed to like get real comfy. I have two, we call them kiss monkeys, do you know what those are?

They sell them at Safeway, they're about this big, they're little monkeys. Like, they're sitting with me when I'm doing this meditation. They're called kiss monkeys, because when you press their chest, they go, like that.

They're, anyway, they're my friends. So, I'm sitting there with the kiss monkeys, and I'm looking at the ceiling. And then you're supposed to settle in and be happy, and you're supposed to think about the nice things that you did today for other people.

So, most of us worry before we go to bed, we worry about our credit card debts, or we worry about our addictions, or we worry about what somebody said to us today at the board meeting at the church. And, you know, most of us sit there, and we can't quite go to sleep. And in this system, if you're my mom, and you've spent 20 years letting strangers sleep on your bed at night, and you want to wake those seeds up, and create some beautiful things in your life, you're supposed to water those seeds by thinking about the nice thing that you did for other people, okay?

So, it's a very calm, happy, peaceful, reflect— what do you call it? Contemplative meditation. You kind of just relax into your pillow, and your mattress, and your kiss monkeys, and you look at the ceiling, and you say, today, you know, I did some good stuff.

Ellie needed a pen, you know, and I got the pen from Tim, was it? I took Tim's pen, and I, you know, generously gave it to Ellie. And, you know, and my hand opened, a seed was planted in my mind, and by being happy about the seed you planted, it creates like a cocoon around the seed, and it opens faster, it opens much, much faster.

If my mom had known that, I wouldn't be here now, I'd be like in a—like, what's that place north of New York, where all the rich people go? I'd be in the Hamptons, in a big mansion, you know, like that. She didn't know the step four.

So, step four means contemplation at the end of the day, about the kindnesses you have shown to other people, okay? And that puts like a cocoon of warmth. And there's a way to explain it pranically, if you're interested someday, we can talk about it, but it's prana, coats the seed, and makes it open faster, okay?

So, those are the four steps to creating something in your life. How do you apply that to addiction? How do you use all that that we talked about, to stop something that's maybe been demonizing you your whole life, like your whole adult life.

I have a friend in Phoenix, we grew up together, we knew each other since third grade. I was doing a retreat up near Flagstaff, and I found him. And he came to visit me in my retreat cabin, this is like ten years ago.

And I said, how's your life, you know man, I haven't seen you since like high school graduation. And he said, well, not very good, you know. And I said, well, what's wrong?

And he said, I'm an alcoholic, you know. I just lost my wife, I just lost my job, they took away my car license, you know. And I'm like, wow, that's terrible, you know, you were such a nice kid, and we had such good times together.

And I said, you know, how did that start, you know? And he says, it started in high school. And I'm like, well, how?

And he said, I said, how did you get your first drink? And he looks me in the eyes and he says, you gave me my first drink. And I'm like, oh man, you know.

And you can have something that's been making you miserable your whole life, and ruining your life, your whole life. And if you, by tomorrow night, I can teach you something that will break it, okay? And you can be free.

Really you can be free. And then those of us who have more acceptable addictions, or more private ones, we can overcome them too. And you're so much happier afterwards, you're just so much happier.

And it's doable, it's a new idea, and it's something that works, and it's true. And we'll go through it, okay? So, later tonight we'll go deeper.

I found that people like it if you go deeper. I used to be afraid of losing people, but then I realized that people want to go deeper. So tonight, we'll do the hard stuff tonight, okay?

First of all, let's see. Let's go one more small thing, and then I'll take some questions, okay? And those of you who have been around for a while, if you want to ask some very exotic, strange question, you can do that too.

Or all. Okay. I'd like, before we finish tonight, I'd at least like to cover all the different kinds of addiction, that we're going to talk about treating.

And I think, so we'll skip to page five. And I would divide all the objects of addiction into three, addictions into three types of addictions. I think one is, I call it physical addictions.

So we'll go through different types of physical addictions. Then we'll do, then we'll go through emotional addictions. And then finally we'll get to philosophical addictions, okay?

And that'll be kind of deep, okay? And if you survive that, you can come back tomorrow. Okay.

So, we'll just go through fast, so maybe you can line it up. The first is addictions to food, which are either too much or unhealthy. So I, this is one of the addictions I don't mind admitting in front of a lot of people.

I always say that we're always willing to admit our second worst one, but not our worst one. But, and it's just that, especially in the United States, if you travel a lot, you see it, we tend to eat way too much. You know, the...

I went, I'm telling you, okay? There's a place in Flagstaff I didn't show you guys yet, it's called Martins. It's a breakfast place, it's Mexican, and you can order the El Gringo, okay?

Just say, I'm a gringo, give me the El Gringo. And it's a pancake about 18 inches across, and then they put two eggs on top of that. And then if you want, they'll put hash browns on the side.

And then like six cups of coffee, and bacon if you're into meat. And you can't eat a quarter or a fifth of it, it's impossible. No human being could eat that.

But they're serving it to everybody, and everybody's eating it, and it's extraordinary, you know? And it's too much food for three or four people. And that's who we are as a culture, we eat...

I guess from the time we're kids, they teach us to eat that much food. And you don't need it. Like in the monastery, when you first take your vows, you can agree not to eat dinner.

And I did that for 17 years or something. And you don't miss it, you don't need it, it's... you don't need that much food, you know?

You just have a nice breakfast, and a lunch, and that's enough. But Americans we just tend to overeat, and it's... and we're trained that way.

In my case, my parents were Germanic, British, French, Irish. And they have foods that came from those countries, because that's what they eat in those countries. So, everybody has foods that their parents gave them, that were the foods that your parents ancestors ate.

And in my case, Irish, it's potatoes. And the German part is cheese and milk, and then the French part is like, I don't know, more cheese, and wine, and then... you know, you can tell a person's ancestry from looking at their dinner, in many cases.

Because that... that's the last thing to change. You lose your language after two generations, but you keep eating the same foods for like eight generations, you know?

So... and... and what I'm trying to say is that, the foods that my parents taught me to eat, are all unhealthy, they're all not good for you.

But I was told it was good for you, you know? Like, drink another glass of milk, or eat some more bread, or have another potato, and put lots of butter on it, you know? And I grew up, that was normal for me.

And I... it took me many, many years, I'm 61 years old, it took me like 50 years to figure out my parents were wrong. And they loved me, and they cared for me, and I think they believed that stuff was good to eat, but it's not, you know?

So, I think part of a food addiction is to break through what you're... grew up with, what your country eats, or what their family eats, you break out of what they thought was healthy, and decide for yourself what's good to eat, and what's healthy, but you're addicted, right? You grew up with...

that's your comfort food, you know? For me, a donut, and bacon, and eggs, and a pancake, these are comfort foods. So, you have to break out of what you grew up with, okay?

In many cases, with a food addiction. Second one here is stimulants, sugar and caffeine. By the way, each one of these tomorrow, we will go through it again, and we will see how to break it, okay?

So, I'm just... tonight the goal is not to talk about how to break an addiction, it's just to identify. It's to say that, I do have that one, okay?

If you have all of them, you're special, okay? I think I have some... some degree of most of them.

Anyway, stimulants, sugar and coffee, caffeine, and we believe throughout our lives... I drank coffee for many years, in... I was in corporate life in New York for 19 years, and I drank coffee all day.

When I got home, the Tibetans would feed me salt tea. I would drink 20 cups of salt tea every day, and my teeth were bright yellow before you met me, okay? Then, thank God they have this...

what do you call it? You sleep with that thing in your mouth, and then you can smile. So anyway, and we have a feeling...

this is important for tomorrow. We have a feeling about the coffee, that there's something in it that will keep me fresh, and awake, and bright, okay? And I have a friend, he was working at Starbucks, RH, and he said, it's such a...

it's such a joyful thing to give people their first coffee in the morning, because they go like this... We believe, we hold it in our hands, and the warmth, you know, and the... what do you call it?

The steam coming off, and... to me it's the coffee smell. I keep bags of coffee around my kitchen just to smell the...

because the smell leaks out. I get paper bags of coffee, and put it around, and I love the smell. It makes me feel like I'm in Starbucks.

And you feel it, and you look at it, and you... in your heart you believe there's something in the coffee that will give you comfort, okay? That's a clue for tomorrow, about where we're gonna go with addiction, okay?

We believe there's something in the coffee that's making us happy, okay? And tomorrow we'll talk about that. We can break addiction if we understand the coffee.

We understand the coffee, we can break it. Okay, third one. Internet and electronics.

This is a big deal in China. When I go to China, you know, China is not like America. In China children talk to their parents, they're expected to be at meals, they're expected to be respectful to their parents, they're expected to pay attention to what their parents say.

And there's a big cultural change happening where the kids are on their cell phone, and they're not talking to their parents anymore, even at mealtime. And it's freaking out this generation of Chinese, like they're very, very worried about their children. You know, the Americans are used to it, the kid didn't talk to me for two years, and now he's doing something on his phone, it's okay, you know?

But, I was in China, I was having a class in a coffee shop with my Chinese teacher, Xiao Liang, and she... we were watching four young ladies, we were having a Chinese class, but I was watching these four young ladies, because they were sitting around like a very hip Japanese-style recessed table, and they were wealthy I think, and they were...they sat there for two hours, and they texted, and they ignored each other for two hours. These four friends went to the coffee shop to be with each other, and they were...they didn't even look at each other for two straight hours, and I was just like...I was like mesmerized by this vision of these four bright, smart, young ladies who were ignoring each other completely, and they're in this little box, this little quarter-inch box, you know? And there's a whole world, but they're stuck in an inch by two inches, you know? I'm like, how can you do that? And finally I'm like, I got impatient, and I said to Xiao Liang, you know, okay, okay, that's enough today, you know?

And she said, okay, let's go. And I said, on the way out, could we...would it be impolite to just ask those four ladies, you know, why would they go to coffee together, and ignore each other for two hours? And she said, well, that would be really impolite, you know?

And I'm like...then she looks at me, she says, but Geshe-la, you're American, you're always impolite, you know? Let's ask them, you know? And I said, you know, and they got very defensive, and you know, what do you call that?

Like righteous, you know? And I'm like, what are they saying, what are they saying? She says, they're not ignoring each other.

I said, yeah they are, they're two hours, they didn't even look at each other, and they're like...and then they said, no, no, we were texting each other. I'm like, two hours, you didn't look at each other, and you're sitting around the same table, why don't you just talk to each other? They're like, no, we're just used to texting, you know?

And I got this phone, my friends made me buy this phone. I didn't have a phone the whole time at DM, okay? Seven years I didn't have a phone.

And then I got a phone, and then...and now I have to sleep with it, you know? And like when I'm nervous, I'm like, fond of it, you know? And you get addicted to them, you see?

And it's a serious problem. People are living in this unreal world, okay? Electronics.

Christine's profession, you know, try to figure out what happens to a person who lives in a phone for 40 or 50 years. We haven't seen that yet. We haven't seen what it does to violence in the world, or interpersonal relationships, or feelings.

We don't know yet. You see kids in the airport who are just on an iPad for an hour, and it makes their parents happy, because they don't have to even deal with them. But they're only three years old, you know?

What's gonna happen by the time they're 30? What will they be like? What will the world be like with a...populated by people who have never looked up, you know? It's gonna be weird. It could maybe be the cause of some of the violence going on now, I don't know. But we'll find out.

Okay, next one is sex and pornography. So this is...there's a nice picture, right? That's the life of a female in America right now.

And I saw...okay, so I went online and I checked the statistics. A billion people in the world go to one of the sex sites once a month. A billion people go to the same site once a month, you know?

In the world. Three percent of the world's...of the internet users of this certain category, every day they're spending like many hours on that, you know? And what happens to a person whose total libido is wrapped up in images on a...on a screen? So Buddhism is not anti-sex or anti-intimacy. We believe that it's a very rich part of life, and an important part of life. And we believe that with love, and tenderness, and affection, it can be one of the greatest pleasures of life.

But to kind of corrupt it into...and then whoever you're seeing on the screen is being paid. And that has a whole nother problem going on. It's a kind of slavery really.

They are doing that for $10 or $15 an hour. And it changes their...it changes their life, and their personality, and it hurts them. So it's a whole problem nowadays.

And then, it seems to be more of a man thing. I never admit that in private conversations with my lady friends, but I think it's true. Anyway.

Next is alcohol. I don't think you have to say anything about it. I think all of us know about alcohol.

The only thing I would say is, you know, having lived with it my whole life, is that it's much more addictive than you think, you know? Like, we think there could be a responsible use of alcohol in a glass of wine before dinner, and that it might relax people sitting at dinner together. And you know, I have friends in Europe especially who, they always have a glass of wine at dinner.

And...but...but it's my own personal life, a whole lifetime of watching my friends and my family, is that it's...it's much, much more addictive than you imagine. And once you take a little, you can't stop, you know? And you'll get stuck.

People get stuck. And even the casual use of alcohol becomes a heavy addiction. They can't stop.

It fits those four criteria of an addiction. One, it's compulsive. Second, you can't stop when you want to.

Third, it starts to hurt you. And then fourth, it hurts the people around you. Eventually it hurts everybody around you.

Okay? Cigarettes. I found a photo online, you know.

What is it? Six million people die a year from cigarettes. One million of them are the children and the family of the smoker.

Okay? Fifteen percent. One million people die around the world every year inhaling their mom's smoke, or their father's smoke, you know what I mean?

So, it's a terrible addiction. A lot of these objections, they cost money also. And the whole thing is a scam.

The whole wine thing, you know, where they come out and give you a big wine list, and you...they have a long fancy name, and they they put it in a...what do you call it? They say, this has to breathe, you know. There's a whole ritual, which is all BS.

It's rotten grapes, and it's rotten wheat, and it's rotten barley. One quarter of the American barley crop goes to whiskey. One quarter of the total agricultural production of barley in the United States goes to...is alcohol, it's whiskey, and you know, it's...it kills people. People are starving in the world, and it's...it's amazing. Okay, anyway. This is the depressing part.

Drugs and pills, you know, we know people who are hooked on meth, or maybe heroin, or...I know potheads. I grew up in the hippie days. I have friends who never stopped.

I stopped in college, okay? And I enjoyed it through college. But, I was sitting with my mom in the Dalai Lama, you know.

That's a long story. But the first thing he said to me was, have you ever tried drugs? And I'm sitting with my mom, you know.

I was 20 or something, and I'm like...anyway. He was very interested in it, but that's another story. Like...and he encouraged me to find ways to go to the same place in meditation, you know. And he...he joked and he said it's cheaper. So, that's what I did. But anyway, and I think a bigger problem than that is pills, all kinds of pills, especially sleeping pills, and things like that. And they're very addictive.

And...what percentage of medicines are approved for use, of the ones that go for federal testing? Eight percent. Ninety-two percent are rejected, because they are toxic, they hurt you, they poison you.

They are meant to be poison, because they...they go to your what do you call it? Cholesterol, or they kill something in your body. But they also kill the person.

And the ones that don't kill you so fast, they get approved, you know. So, there anyway, all those drugs are harmful to the human body. Possessions.

I like the movie, I forget what it's called, it's called The Shopper, or something like that. And it's a Japanese lady who's very wealthy, and she hires a guy just to carry the bags back from the gross...from the...from the...what do they call it? Shinagawa.

The rich shopping area in Tokyo. And she just...he just carries the bags for her. And then he...she buys shoes, she'll buy like six pairs of shoes and come home. And then she takes the bags from him, and she throws them in the closet. The closet's like bigger than my house. And she just throws them in there, and she closes the door, and she never uses the stuff.

She's just addicted to having the things, you know. And I think we get addicted to having possessions. I usually tell people, think about how many pairs of shoes you have.

And they get more and more, right? They start to take over your closet. And you think, I'll use them someday.

And they just take over your closet. Can you remember how many pairs of shoes you have? Roughly.

I mean, not exactly. Can you picture in your mind the shoes that you own? Like, I have a pair of hiking boots, right?

And I have a penny loafers, and I have the business shoes, and I have tennis shoes, and I have lace-up tennis shoes. And I have sandals, flip-flops. Like, I can remember them.

What happens over the period, over the length of your life, is that, those memories clog your brain. Remembering all the stuff you own in your house, as you collect more things. If you can remember what you have in your closet, that means part of your brain is being taken up right now.

By something that you don't use, maybe. So, it becomes an addiction. I did a three-year silent retreat, and a lot of...some there are people here who did that. And in the desert, we went out in the desert, we did three-year silent meditation retreat. Some people here, in solitary, in a single room. And then, I don't know about you guys, but I had this weird reaction that I wanted to go shopping for something.

And I'm not...I don't enjoy shopping, and I don't go very often, but the inability to express myself by buying something, was very disconcerting. I felt like I wasn't a real person. Somebody else was buying everything for me, and I couldn't buy.

And because I couldn't buy, I felt like I wasn't a person anymore. Because I wasn't buying, you know. So, there's some kind of comfort that we get from things, you know.

And we get addicted. We get addicted to things, we don't need them. Emotional addictions, page 7.

And I am watching the time slightly. Busyness. We just like to be busy, you know.

I think one of the things about working in a busy job, is that you get addicted to it. And then you have to be busy all the time. And I think a lot of us get addicted to being busy.

Attention of other people. I give talks all over the world. I sometimes talk to thousand people at a time.

And it's a very dangerous occupation. You can get addicted to people's...the attention you get from people, and things like that. Attention is a very addicting thing.

Power is extremely addicting, and very prone to abuse. Like, if you become a supervisor at work. You know, you had this nasty supervisor for three years, and then they made you a supervisor, and then suddenly you're doing the same things.

Just because we tend to abuse other people. When we have power we tend to lord it over other people, okay. Negativity.

So, a lot of my job around the world is to get people to open their karmic seeds. That requires step four. How do you do step four?

Yeah, you lay down and you just get comfortable, and think about the good things you've done today. And then I'll be in like Singapore, and I'll talk to a lot of people, and I'll teach them about the four steps. And then they'll come up to me during the break, and they'll say, I'm looking for a boyfriend, I want to have a baby, I want to make a million dollars, I want to have a backache.

And I'll...and they ask me the same questions. And the answer is always the four steps. Ningbo told me I should buy a tape recorder and keep it here.

And then I should enjoy the refreshments. And they should come up, and I should just hit the button, and I'll say, there are four steps, you know. At least you can solve your problem, you know.

And then I come back a year later, and some people mob me, and they say, you know, this guy like in Germany, he's like, I got ten million dollars, you know. I'd say, great, you know. And then this guy...this lady in Shanghai, we did a concert, and she ran up at the end, and she took the mic out of my hand. And I used to play in bars when I was in college, and you never let anyone take the mic. So we had a little struggle, you know. And she was like, and I was like, no.

And she's like, yeah, yeah, no. And then she tore it away from me. And she had a letter in her hand, and she said, I wrote this letter to you to get your mic on.

And I'm like, okay. Three years ago you came to Shanghai. I told you I was 41 years old.

My doctor told me I could never have a baby. You told me how to plant the seeds with the four steps. And I just have something to tell the audience.

And then I said, what? And then this guy, her husband walked, runs up on the stage with this little kid, a two-year-old, dressed in all like fluorescent pink. And she's like, and then the Chinese went crazy, you know.

So, I have these moments in my life. I met a girl like that. She's grown, she's about six years old.

And her mother just wept the whole time we were together, because she couldn't have a child. And now, six years later, she brings me the child. And I'm like, oh man.

And there's these very rewarding moments that I have, you know. But then there are other moments. And people come up to me and they say, you were here last year.

And I'm like, yeah, you know. Do you remember me? And I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, yeah.

I only met 10,000 people last year. Like, I definitely remember you. Yeah, yeah.

Well, do you remember my problem? And I'm like, yeah. It was, you know, they say, boyfriend.

I said, yeah, yeah, it was a boyfriend problem. And they say, yeah, I couldn't have a boyfriend. I couldn't find a boyfriend.

I'm like, yeah, well, did you do the four steps? And they say, yeah, I decided what I wanted. I chose somebody to help who was lonely.

I visited them once a week. I did everything. And I said, no, no, no.

Did you do step number four? Oh, step number four. What is that?

And I go, I'll give you a clue. You know. And they're like, oh yeah, on the bed at night.

Like, being happy about something good you did. And then they always say, no, I didn't do that one. And I'm like, I want to have a bouncer that goes around with me.

And it's a big guy. And if they say, I didn't, I couldn't do step number four. I go like that, you know.

And then they throw him out the door. Come back next year. You know.

So, what I've noticed all over the world, and it's very, very, very sad, is that we are incapable of enjoying the good things we do. We cannot, no matter how much we want to, no matter how many times somebody tells you the karma is not going to open unless you think about it, you know, as you go to sleep. If the system doesn't work if you cannot enjoy the good things you're doing as you go to sleep.

It will not work. The seeds will be there, they'll stay in your mind for a hundred years, nothing will happen. Your life will go on the same, you know.

And you can tell people that over and over again. And then a certain number of people, including me, like 80% of the human beings on the planet, cannot do this practice. They cannot do step number four.

It's very, very sad. We have some kind of addiction to negativity, beating ourselves up, you know. Or then, you know, my boss said something to me today, or my girlfriend was mean to me, or, you know, my credit cards are way out, you know, or I'm not happy.

And we go to bed like that. And you can tell somebody a hundred times, including me. And I'll go home and I'll say, ah, you know, I'm gonna do this rejoicing meditation.

And then I lay down and suddenly I'm worrying about this program I got to get ready next week, and we all like that. I think this is one of the biggest addictions that we have. Is it possible to overcome the addiction to thinking, to looking at the bad side of things, and the negative side of things?

We're gonna talk about it. Okay, last one. Then we'll do some questions, okay?

By the way, you're supposed to go through pages... When did we start? Five?

Yeah, you're supposed to go through pages five to eight, to nine. And then you're supposed to decide which one of these you have, okay? I know which one I have.

I'm working on it. Now, I'm much happier than I was six months ago, okay? And I was really happy six months ago.

Okay, I call it a viewpoint addiction, means... and then we'll stop. Then we'll take a few questions.

It means, we are addicted, we are all addicted, every one of us is addicted to thinking that the pen is coming from the pen. So, tonight we opened with the dog, and we proved that the pen is coming from you, and everybody nodded, and she said, and it was all... we all agreed.

And it was a moment of, you know, truth, and we all had an epiphany, and we realized that the pen must be coming from me. And then you're gonna forget it five minutes after you leave here. Somebody will cut you off in traffic, and you will sincerely believe that they are not coming from you, and that will allow you to get angry, as I did on the way here, right Jimmy?

Some bad driver. What did they do? I don't remember.

They cut in front of us, yeah. Oh yeah, ooh, yeah. No, and then we can't...

no matter how many times I get up here and say it myself, I can't remember that that guy was coming from me. You see what I mean? No matter how many times you repeat it.

So, we have physical addictions like alcohol, cigarettes. We have emotional addictions like we can't think about the nice side of things. But we have a...

the biggest addiction, the mother addiction, which allows all other addictions, is that we believe the pen is coming from the pen. And that allows you to be addicted. That...

and if you don't have that last addiction, you can't have any of the other ones. And I'll give you a foretaste of tomorrow, okay, ready? And then I'll do questions, okay?

Just for a few minutes, because it's May, and it's Halloween, and we got to get some candy. Something useful. This is very deep, okay, ready?

I'm gonna send you home with something deep, but never forget it, okay? If I never meet you again, don't forget it, okay? So, a lot of people grew up, I grew up, my family had wine, oftentimes at dinner.

So, we would have a glass of wine. And I remember the night my dad said, now you're old enough to have your own. And I'm like, yeah, I'm old enough, you know.

I wasn't of course, and still not. But, you know, they put the wine in front of you, and then you drink it, and then it feels warm. You know, it tastes bad for the first few years I guess, I don't remember that part.

But, you feel the warmth trickle down your esophagus, right? It goes to your chest. And then, after a few minutes, after a few sips, you start to feel more relaxed.

And you're kind of like, I get giggly after like one sip, you know. And then, you know, I'm like more open, and I feel more comfortable, and I can talk to people more, and I can say things. And then, struggle to understand this, and then we can go deeper tomorrow.

Struggle to understand this. If the wine does something for you, if the wine makes you more relaxed, is that coming from you, or the wine? Yeah, wait.

Yeah, it's coming from you, okay? From what? I see it in your mind, okay?

What happens when the seed opens? Image comes out, image coats the red liquid, and then when you drink it, you feel relaxed, okay? But that's not in the liquid, okay?

It's not in the red liquid, and that's very very hard, it's against everything we've ever learned, you know? You look at a glass of wine, somebody pours you a glass of wine, you look at the wine, and you think, if I drink it, there's something in the wine that will relax me, right? You believe that, deeply, deeply, deeply, okay?

You believe that. And that's the first step to addiction. Believing that about the wine, allows you to be addicted later, okay?

And we all have it, we all do it, we believe there's something in the wine that makes us relaxed. But if the pen thing is correct, the relaxation is coming from, Jimmy, come quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, come on, yeah. Okay, hold up your hand, let's do the whole thing again.

Don't show your... yeah, okay, good. If I want a pen, I have to...

if I want ten pens, as Jesus said, I must give... I must plant a seed, and it will come back. Jesus said, well-planted seeds, 60 times.

So-so planted seeds, 30 times. Minimum, 10 times, okay? So, I'm gonna get at least 10 pens out of giving her one pen.

If I ever get a pen, where did it come from? No, it didn't come from him, it came... no, it came from giving a pen to someone.

And he's my silver... my silver sheet covered him, and he held out a pen, you know? And that's where he came from, he's coming from me, okay?

So, if I get a pen, it's because a seed opened in my mind, that made me see a pen instead of a? Chew toy. So, if I feel some relaxation from a red liquid, who put the relaxation in it?

Huh? I did. Okay, don't take my pen.

Now, now, just get this, okay? Then we'll do some questions. If this thing is true, which you know is true, because we just proved it with the dog, but you just never thought about it.

If it's true that the pen is coming from my mind, then where is the relaxation coming from? It's a seed in my mind, okay? What would happen if I didn't have that seed, and I drank the same alcohol?

I'd get angry, I'd fight with my... I'd be at Thanksgiving dinner with my family, we'd have a quarrel, after all drinking wine. Is it possible?

Okay, now try to understand, the relaxation doesn't come from the wine, okay? It's not in the wine. And the pen is not in the pen, okay?

It's coming from me. If I learn to plant the seeds, I could have the relaxation without the addiction, anytime I want, okay? I could have...

So, in this system it's very interesting. Get this, you are not giving up anything, okay? If you drink wine and you have an alcohol problem, because you want the feeling of relaxation that you get from wine, then learn to plant the seeds without the wine.

And you have the same thing, you don't lose anything, except you don't have to buy it, okay? So tomorrow we're gonna explore getting the same kick out of things, by planting the seeds that are putting it in the wine in the first place, okay? And then you can have enjoyment, and you can have pleasure, without addiction.

Because it doesn't hurt other people, and it doesn't hurt you, and it's just pleasure. And that's... that's wonderful.

If I could have the feeling of a donut without eating it, and the calories, right? Like, because the donut doesn't have the... the donut doesn't have the sweetness, it's not in the donut, okay?

It's coming from my mind, because I was sweet to somebody, okay? It's very interesting theory, okay? Tomorrow we have to explore how to use it to overcome an addiction.

Could you have donut kicks indefinitely, without eating donut? And I'm not talking, what do you call it, metaphorically, or... I'm not doing some spiritual thing, I don't care.

I want the real kick of a donut. Like, I don't want some nice thing, okay? Like, I want wine-like relaxation without the wine.

And I don't want to have to meditate for six years to do that. I'm serious, you know? I want some easy way to have the same pleasure, without the downside of being addicted to it, okay?

I... but I... the pleasure is good, okay?

There's nothing wrong with the pleasure. The relaxation you get from wine, if you have the seeds to be relaxed, and not quarrelsome, it's coming from your mind anyway. So, learn how to plant it, and learn how to enjoy it, without the addiction.

And then you don't hurt people, and you don't hurt yourself, okay? So, you're not giving up anything. The pleasure is good.

The pleasure is... the relaxation is nice. And sex is the same.

The... the feeling you have at... in a...

in a... what do you call it? Successful act of sex, is very pleasant.

And it's something everyone should have and enjoy. But is there a way to do that without addiction? And without hurting people, okay?

Okay, questions? If you don't have any questions, I'll be forced to go home. Any questions?

Even irrelevant questions. Kim?

[Speaker 2]
Okay, good.

[Speaker 1]
She... I'll just repeat the question, so everybody gets it. What if you understand those four steps for getting something?

Let's say it's a boyfriend or something. But, inside you have this deeper fear, or low self-esteem, like, I don't deserve that. Or, you're even afraid of getting what you dream of, okay?

Usually that's tied up with losing it later. So, I'm not sure I want to be in a relationship, because the last three I had ended badly, you know? So, even if I could have a successful one for a few years, or months, I don't want to get into it, because it'll hurt me.

Or something like that. Something else might happen. Like, then you have to divorce the seeds from the...

of the dream, from the seeds of how you feel about the dream. So, like Robin Williams, right? He has success, he has extraordinary wealth, and he killed himself, and he didn't...

he didn't have a lot of sleeping pills or something. He took off his belt and hanged himself, you know? He's incredibly wealthy, he's one of the most popular people in the United States, but he didn't have happiness, you see?

So, what... the seeds to be happy are separate from the seeds to be successful, or to have a good relationship. He had a nice family, right?

So, you can... it's conceivable that you do the four steps to get like a relationship, but that you're unhappy with it, okay? So, what do you have to do?

You have to plant both sets of seeds, okay? So, you plant the seeds to... I don't know, plant the seeds for like some kind of success, but then at the same time you have to plant the seeds to be...

feel worthy of the success, or feel certainty that you won't lose it. You see what I mean? So, it's...

you plant confidence, and you plant self-esteem, and you plant happiness, at the same time as you're planting the material success, or the boyfriend. So, you're right, you know? I'll give you an example, okay?

Which I tend to go on too long, and I'm sorry, but you're the ones who came here. So, a lot of people, they ask me, how do I get a boyfriend? And it's a long story, and it takes a long...

it takes an evening of talk, but to strip it down to two minutes, you get a partner by helping someone who's lonely, okay? You do the same four steps. Number one, I want to have a nice partner.

No, I want to have a partner, right? Number two, choose someone else who is lonely. I tell...

I encourage people to go to a nursing home, or something like that. Like, we were supposed to have a talk on Sunday. I canceled it, we moved it to tomorrow.

That's why we have an afternoon talk tomorrow. Why? I forgot I'm taking my old lady to the ballet on Sunday afternoon.

She's 87. She's my karma collecting farm, you know? I milk her.

You know? She... that's...

find someone who's lonely. Take them out once a week, or once every two weeks. And I do, and I have for 20 years.

And I have these wonderful relationships, because I planted them. So, that's the third. Then the fourth one is, what?

Show me. Yeah, yeah. Like, you have to enjoy it in bed at night.

Like, I took her to the ballet, you know? I listened again to her story of her boyfriend from 1949, who was the cutest boy in Coronado High School. I swear, she tells me almost every time we go out, because she forgets that she told me.

It's like my stories. So, so anyway, those are the four steps, okay? Then somebody asked me, you know, what if I don't really intend to help the elderly person?

What if I'm really kind of selfish about it, and I just see her as a way to get a boyfriend? What if I'm treating her as a sex object or something, you know? Like, I'll come visit you if I can plant seeds to have a boyfriend.

You see what I mean? What if it becomes a boyfriend business proposal between me and her, and I'm just kind of using her to get a boyfriend? What do you think is the seed that you plant from that?

The boyfriend is selfish, okay? Do you get a boyfriend? Yes, you cannot stop it, okay?

If you plant a seed by helping a lonely person with the correct technique, you cannot stop a boyfriend coming. I'll tell you someday about the woman who visited three elderly ladies. That's a funny one.

But if you help someone, if you do a kindness to someone, it must be returned, because it's stored in your own mind. You can't escape it. You can run away to Tasmania and never talk to any boys, and he will hike up to your door, and probably Adam or somebody, and find you, you know?

You can't stop that. But he will be selfish, you see? So, at the same time that you plant the object of your dream, you have to plant the mental state that will accompany him.

And that may mean self-esteem, or it may mean courage to go into a relationship knowing the dangers, you know? And those two come from helping people who have low self-esteem, doing the four steps with them, or doing the four steps with people who lack courage. And then you'll have the courage to have a relationship.

And go through all the beatings you get in a good relationship, okay? Another question. Yes, Mr. Jim. Mr. Michael, thank you for teaching this subject. My question is, in the 12-step programs of Alcoholics Anonymous, generally speaking, there has to be a bottom, a hidden bottom, before you're open and prepared enough to receive the gift that is that program. And from what I understand, many other types of programs.

Does there need to be a bottom here in this process? And also, like, how does that work into these four steps? Yeah, good.

So, Mark said, a lot of what we said is paralleled the AA 12-step program. And in the AA 12-step program, one of the founding ideas, which I don't claim to be a big expert on it, I studied it so I could talk about it, but I haven't used it myself. But, you know, if I...

in that system it's very frequently said, or in many systems, they say that you have to hit bottom in order to pull yourself up, you know. Do you... so the question is, in this approach to addiction, do you still have to hit bottom?

So, I'll give two answers, okay? One is the pro-bottom approach, and one is the anti-bottom approach. We do say in the Tibetan tradition, you know the theory of the five paths of spiritual evolution.

So, we do say that no matter what your background, your country, your beliefs, your religion, no matter what path you're following, it's always good to start with a good tragedy, okay? Like, that will push you into the spiritual life, you know. Like, people who are having a good job, and a good girlfriend, and you know, they don't tend to show up to my talks.

One guy did, I remember, in New York City. He looked wealthy, he looked healthy, he looked handsome, he was really well dressed. It was at a talk in a private home, and I remember looking at him and saying, why is he here?

You know, and then later I found out he had AIDS. And he was a very famous dancer, and our group treated him until he died. And we went there every day, and we took care of him, and he died.

He threw up in my face one time, I was so scared, and you know. But, so in Tibet it's said that you do have to hit bottom, or you have to have some serious problem to wake you up, and to get you to struggle out of a normal life, okay? That's the pro-bottom idea.

The anti-bottom idea is that, if you're very intelligent, frankly, if your IQ is quite high, someone can explain the pen to you, and you grasp it, and you save yourself the bottom. You don't have to go to the bottom. You can take a addiction which is not too serious, or where you haven't even got close to bottom yet, but which is already irritating and bothering to you, and especially to the people around you.

And you can deal with it through sheer force of intellect, to sheer force of understanding what's producing the relaxation in the wine. You don't have to hit bottom. You don't have to go to the bottom.

You can, at any stage in your addiction, you can throw it off. So, I like that answer better. But that takes a special person.

That takes a person who can grasp the implications of this, that everything's coming from you. And you can't argue with it, if you're a really logically minded person. And I don't mean boring logic, I mean rational person.

If you're very rational, and someone talks to you about this, the dog, then you walk home understanding fully, for the first time in your life, that you've created everything around you. And then from there, the possibility is unlimited. Okay, you can make 250 million dollar company, it's not such a big thing.

If it's coming from here, right? Or you have a problem with your husband that's been going on for 20 years, you can fix it from here, you know. Then you get really excited.

I had a guy in Leon, Mexico, his name was Alfredo. Sorry, no, Mexico City. And he took us out to dinner after the talk there.

And he sat me down, and he said, and he's like 40, you know, and he's very successful. And he said, tonight I learned something that I can believe in, for the rest of my life. He got it, like in that one hour, he got it.

And it was so beautiful, he was like, tonight I got something I can use for the rest of my life, you know. And he, so there's certain kind of level of person, who can get it right away. And then they see that possibility, you know.

And it was exciting, because Mexico's really in trouble, and to give a big group of people hope. The corruption is coming from where, right? The violence is coming from where.

And it was very exciting, for all of us. Okay, one more question. Then we go to Ben.

Yes ma'am? We always talk about, when you always talk about the why, how to claim to see this, but what about the how?

[Speaker 2]
I mean, like for example, when you have problems with a partner, and you're not about therapy. Or if you are very addicted to something, like, you should have like AA meetings, or you know, or psychology, or something.

[Speaker 1]
So, Ronit asked about, sometimes we distinguish between the why and the how. Like the why, I'm addicted, I understand. But how, how do I get out?

Is it that therapy is not useful at all? Is it that AA is not useful at all? And I like to compare it to what, Nick, guess?

Yeah, nice. So, sometimes I carry a stapler around with me, and I wave it in front of the people, and I say, does, is this a good stapler? And usually 90% of them make the same mistake, and they say, yes.

And then I hold up two pieces of paper, and I go, click, click, click, and they fall apart. And then they say, oh wait, it wasn't loaded, you know. So, we feel the same about therapies, or books, or medicines, or programs, like that.

And I'll say it very quickly, and it's... and you'll get it, okay? So, any particular program for addiction works for some people, and doesn't work for other people.

That's obvious, you know. And sometimes the success rate is a little higher, and sometimes it's a little lower. But in the end, we never know if the same programs gonna work for two people who are sitting next to each other, you know.

And maybe work for him, and not work for him. And this is life. And...

and that's a whole long story. We get used to that, we accept that. I understand, is AA successful?

Yes. Why? It helps a lot of people.

But some people it doesn't help at all, you know. So, is it good to do AA? Should I stop doing AA, you know?

The cool thing is, if you put the right seeds in your mind, and then you go to AA, it works. And that's why it works for the people who it works for. And if you don't put the right seeds in your mind, you can go and sit next to the same person, at the same AA meeting, and listen to the same words, and go home and do the same things, and you'll still be addicted.

You see what I mean? So, it's like a stapler. AA is like a stapler, you know.

If there's staples inside, it'll cure your addiction. If there's no staples inside, it won't. What are the staples?

Four steps. How do I put staples in my mind for the AA meeting to work for me? That's the sponsorship thing, it's so cool.

Help somebody else. Make an effort to help another person. I read the AA history.

I read Bill, Mr. Bill, or... I don't remember their names. I saw the photo, I remember the photo.

You have the photo up there somewhere. It's at the end, like number 60 or something. But, they asked him...

Yeah. They asked him, why did you start AA? You know, these are the founders of AA.

And, and...one got his head chopped off, probably. Anyway. Then they asked him, why did you start AA?

And he said, I had this weird instinct, that if I didn't help other people with their addiction, mine wouldn't stick. You know, I was free. I got free from alcohol.

But I had this weird, like strong intuition, that if I didn't dedicate a lot of my life going on to helping people with addictions, I would, I would...what do you call it? Relapse. I would relapse.

And that's why he started AA. It's very interesting. So, we say the same thing.

AA will work for you, if you keep up a steady intention and effort to help another person who has an addiction. And if you ever stop, then you could relapse. Yeah.

Now, now, there are miracles. There's such a thing as a miracle. So, I like to tell this story, which is a Christian story, that when Jesus came into Jerusalem for the last time.

And he's about to get killed, but he doesn't know that. Or maybe he does. But he comes in to the city.

And outside the city, he's just healed...he brought back to life Lazarus. And his students are getting nervous. They're like, you can't keep doing this stuff, you know, like something's gonna happen, you know, you're gonna get hurt, you know.

They're gonna do something to you, you know. And he's like, well, you know, you have to just take it. So, they're outside of Jerusalem and someone brings him a white horse, and says, you should ride into Jerusalem, the holy city on a white horse.

And he says, no. His students stop it. They say, you will look too much like you're trying to be a leader of a revolt, like a king.

You should ride something like a Volkswagen, you know. And they give him a what? They give him a donkey.

And he enters Jerusalem on a donkey, you know. Because they want to protect him. And he's riding in Jerusalem on a donkey.

And then people start screaming, king of the Jews, king of the Jews. And they start throwing palms on the road in front of the donkey, right? Which is why it's called Palm Sunday.

And then his students freak out. And they're like, tell everybody to stop yelling king of the Jews, they're gonna kill you. You know, you can't say that, you know.

You're gonna get in trouble, you know. Tell them to stop saying that. And he goes, he says, look, if I tell them to stop, the stones will start yelling.

The stones of the street under the palm leaves will yell king of the Jews, you know. I can't. It's not coming from them, it's deeper.

It's coming from something deeper. So, why am I talking about that? If you get to extraordinary level of seeds, you could cure an addiction without AA.

And you could not have to go to an AA meeting again in your life, okay? But you'd have to be pretty much like Jesus, okay? You'd have to have that level of love and compassion and seeds that the stones would cry out.

You see what I mean? And it's possible. There are such things.

You can walk on water. But most of us don't have that. If we've had an addiction, it's a sign we don't have that kind of seed.

We'll be lucky to pull it off with the AA meetings. You see what I mean? Every day, for the rest of our life, or every couple days.

But they will only work if we're trying to help other people with their addiction. And if we go to the same meetings without trying to help other people with their addiction, they won't work for us. Okay?

Got it? So, is counseling helpful in a relationship or in an addiction? Yes.

Or not. Could be. Yeah.

If you have the seeds, if you plant the seeds, if you do the four steps with someone else who's suffering, then the counselor you go to will help you. And if you go to the same counselor without helping someone yourself, they'll just take your money. Okay?

It's very cool. And if you were super, you know, pure person, you wouldn't need the counselor. But that's...

I think it's safer to go to the counselor. But get the seeds and go to the AA meeting. That's the best thing.

And that's why they work. Okay? That's why AA meetings work.

Okay, so tomorrow we're gonna go deeper, and we're gonna go practical. So, we're gonna go to each one of those addictions, and see what... when we hit your addiction you have to wake up and listen.

Okay? So, we'll go through each of those same addictions, and we'll see how do you use these ideas to get... to get through that addiction.

Okay? Cool? That's what we do tomorrow.

That's the plan for tomorrow. Okay. In your mind you can do the mandala.

Okay? And thank you so much for coming, and thank you for letting me talk about these things. And it's good to see new friends, and thank you for coming.