Снять с себя зависимости с помощью кармы (Феникс, 2014), занятие 2

[Speaker 1]
Hi, so this is a continuation of last night's talk and then we'll continue this one tonight. We're talking about how to use ancient Tibetan wisdom to address addictions. And last night we went into, to give you a two-minute summary, the idea of a pen, which I don't...

oh, wait, I have. We talked about how a dog might see this as something to chew on, and a human might see it as something to write with, and how if you put it on the table here and the dog goes out and the human goes out, then it's a... which one?

Yeah, you're supposed to go like that and say, neither one. And if you're interested, that's the Buddhist concept of emptiness, okay? It doesn't mean you close your eyes and everything is black, it doesn't mean that nothing matters, it doesn't mean that a kiss and a punch is the same, it just means that by itself it's not a pen or a chew toy.

When the human comes in, something in the human's mind makes them see it as a pen, and when the dog comes in, something in the dog's mind makes them see it as something to chew on. And then we talked about how you plant those mental seeds in your mind. There were four steps that we talked about last night.

One was, you decide what you want, like let's say I want to see a pen, I don't want to be a dog anymore. And then secondly, you'd have to find someone else who wants a pen, that's how you plant a seed. Third step would be, you help them to get a pen, and that plants the seed for a pen.

And then the fourth step was, some kind of meditation, we call it coffee meditation, I'm not going to go into the story of how that was called that, but you basically, before you go to bed, you try to be happy about the kindnesses you've done to other people, and that makes the seed grow fast. If you don't do the last step, you will never believe this system, because the seeds that you plant won't open for 10 years, or 20 years, or in this lifetime. So, that's why so many people in this life aren't following those principles, because they don't seem to work.

You are kind to others, you help others get pens, or money, or a partner, and then nothing happens for you. And that's because the seeds haven't been watered, and the seeds haven't broken open. So, if you're going to follow this new idea, this new system that you can get what you want by helping others to get what they want, you have to buy into the fourth part, and that's where most people fail.

If you try, you know, to find a partner by helping a lonely person and nothing happens in 10 years, then you probably won't continue to use the system. So, it's vital that you recognize the importance of the last step, which is that you have to water the seed in your mind. And the way you do that is just by being happy about having planted it, okay?

Someone offered me recently, I don't know, Kat maybe saw, somebody offered me Egyptian purple corn seeds, and they claimed they're hundreds of years old, and that they came out of a pyramid, but I don't believe the last part. And you know, they said try planting them and see if they grow, and I did, and I planted them in three parts of my garden, and they all grew, all three grew, and they grew about nine feet high, and this beautiful purple corn came out, and it's worthless, you can't use it for anything, but it makes a good story. You know, you can't eat it, it's like a rock, but it's cool.

So, the seed stayed in the pyramid or wherever in Egypt for hundreds of years, but it, and it had the, what do you call, potency to grow into a plant, but no one watered it, okay? So, seeds in your mind are the same. If people knew about all four steps, including how to make the seed open fast, then everybody in the world would be prosperous and happy, and they'd have nice partners, and they'd be free of addiction for example, and just because they would plant the right seeds, and they would get whatever they want.

So, it's the failure of the world to act along the lines prescribed by Jesus for example. I like to speak in churches, I like the feeling in a church, the meditation this morning felt really good here. But, but Jesus was constantly talking about seeds and planting things, and you get, you reap what you sow, you know, and he, there's a very moving passages about not planting seeds in the wrong place, stony places, planting them in good places, and he's talking about the same thing.

You can call it karma, you can call it mental seeds, okay? We covered that last night, we talked about the principle of seeds and how you could use it for overcoming an addiction. We said last night that all of us have addictions, it's just a question of identifying which one you have.

Some are socially acceptable, some are less socially acceptable. Overworking, what do you call it, in a diseased way, what's that? Huh?

No, overworking in a pathological way, so that it hurts the people around you, and it hurts yourself. So, that's kind of admired in this country, and like that. So, there are some kinds of addictions which are admired, and there are other kinds of addictions which are, you know, unacceptable in this country.

But, but the Tibetans would say that all of us have some kind of addiction, and it's holding you back, and it's holding you down, and it's important to find it. So, this morning we did a meditation, what do you call it? Addiction hunting meditation, and you, you try to identify the addiction that you have yourself.

There are three general types of addiction. One is physical, like food. For me it's food, or it could be alcohol, or it could be sex, or it could be internet addiction, okay?

Then there's emotional addictions. People are addicted to low self-esteem, to thinking badly about themselves, to seeing the negative in the world, and many people are addicted to that. And then there are, there's a granddaddy addiction, which is kind of like a how-you-see-the- world addiction.

And we say that that's the source of all other addictions, and it triggers all other addictions, and it keeps them cycling. So, as long as you have this granddaddy addiction to, for example, believing that a pen comes from itself, and not from your mind, then you will always have some addiction. According to Tibetan belief, it's not possible to overcome an addiction unless you understand where things are coming from.

So, that highest addiction that all people have. Tibet's, this tradition, two and a half thousand years old, it says that even insects have this, this tendency to believe that things come from themselves. Birds, animals, fish, they all believe that the pen is coming from the pen side, and not from my, from seeds in my mind, okay?

So, when you have this granddaddy, mother of all addictions, then the other addictions come. If you can eliminate that mother addiction, then the others can't happen. So, this addiction to how you, to where you feel that things come from.

Somebody was on the internet yesterday, it was Jigme, she said, I don't know what program it is, what app, but it identifies the most searched thing in the last hour on Google, and she said it was, what was it? It was something to do with black holes, or no. Oh, Big Bang, yeah.

The Big Bang Theory, yesterday afternoon, probably something to do with Halloween, was the most searched thing on the internet for a couple hours yesterday. Like, she tracks these things. And people want to know where the world came from.

We're going to, in New York in two weeks I think, we're going to have a whole weekend about the Big Bang, and you know, why Stephen Hawking is wrong, and the talk is called, A Better History of Time. But, everyone would like to know where things come from. If you don't understand where things come from, you can't act properly, you can't overcome addictions, you can't have a good living, you can't have a good relationship.

We believe that that's key for everything. If you don't know what created the things around you, then you'll never be happy, it's not possible. In Tibet they say it's not possible, okay?

You can have periods in your life that are going better or worse, but you can't be happy all the time, unless you know where stuff is coming from, okay? So, that tendency to misunderstand where things are coming from, it triggers cycles in our life. And then understanding, or as you increase in your understanding where things come from, it triggers a better life.

And your life, every part of your life starts to improve. So, it's your finances, your relationships, your health, your inner state of your mind, and then how you serve the world, they all start to improve the more you understand where things come from. So, if someone's a wreck on all five things, then they're not, they're not, it's a sign that they're not working on understanding where things come from, okay?

So, there's a very famous teaching in Tibet, in the Buddhist tradition, it started two and a half thousand years ago. There's a long story of how it started. I translated the sutra about 35 years ago, and we published it, and then that's a long story.

We found the original carvings in Indonesia. But there's a story of how the Buddha introduced the idea of cycles, upward cycles and downward cycles, and this key to all cycles in your life. So, you know, I'll give you a five-minute summary, it's not my goal today to tell you the whole history, which would take a couple hours, and it's a nice story, it's a beautiful story.

It's a famous sutra called the Udrayana Avadhana. But basically, in the time of Lord Buddha, there were two kings. King in India, there were like 200 kings in India, so don't think king of India.

It's like each area had its own king, and there was a king named Bimbisara, which is Sukchen Nyugbo in Tibetan, and there was a king named Raudrayana or Rudrayana, which is Udrayana in Tibetan. And these two kings had, what do you call, adjacent kingdoms, and they were both nice guys, and they were good kings. We call Dharma King, which is sort of like a virtuous president of the United States or something, okay.

I like to think Obama's like that, but I'm not getting into that. So, they were like very wise and good natured kings, and they never met each other, they had never met each other, but they lived in adjacent kingdoms. And there was this story that if the karma of one kingdom was rising, the karma of the other kingdom was going down.

So, they had this kind of weird symbiotic relationship between them. And then they reached out to each other to get to know each other better, which is always good between countries, which we don't do much. And King Bimbisara sent King Rudrayana a gift, you know.

And then they started this competition, gift competition. So, like in Asia, when someone gives you a gift, you have to, the Japanese call it giri, you have a, what do you call it, you have like an obligation, it creates an obligation. Then you have to give them a better gift, you know, and it goes back and forth like that.

If you ever see two Japanese people in the airport, they're like, one will go like that, then the other one has to bow lower, and then go like that. And it goes like this, di di, di di, di di, di di, di di, di di, di di, di di, di di, di di, and they get really low, you know. So, it's the same with gifts.

So, they started sending each other more and more expensive gifts. One day, Rudrayana sent Bimbisara a special coat, and this coat, it's like Jacob's coat or something, what, Jacob's coat? Well, I got Joseph's coat.

You flunk your Bible. But this coat had the power to repel arrows and spears, and if you have it on and you, someone tried to poison you, the poison wouldn't hurt you, and like that. And it was studded with diamonds, and emeralds, and rubies, and you know, it's a special coat.

So, that put a lot of pressure on Bimbisara to give something better back, but he couldn't think of anything, okay? So, he called his ministers together and said, you know, Rudrayana has sent me this coat, it's priceless, it can protect its owner from everything, and now I have this problem, because I have to send back something more valuable, you know. And they all like cogitated for a while, all the ministers, and then one of them said, you know, there's this dude wandering around your country named Gautama, which is the Buddha, right?

And supposedly he knows everything, so probably he could suggest a gift which was more valuable than the coat, you know. So, Bimbisara said, that sounds great, you try to find him, because the Buddha was wandering around. The old monk system is, you sleep under whichever tree you are closest to at dusk.

So, to find Buddha was a little tricky, but they found him, and they asked him, you know, what would be more precious than this coat, you know, what can Bimbisara send to Rudrayana? And Lord Buddha said, you know, in all honesty, a painting of myself would be more valuable, you know. And they're like, really?

And he's like, yep, that would be more valuable, you know, it would do Rudrayana more good than that coat does to King Bimbisara. So, then Bimbisara said, okay, well let's paint the Buddha. And he sent like five painters out to the forest to try to paint Lord Buddha.

And then there's a long story, three weeks went by, and Bimbisara was waiting for the painting, and it never came. It's sort of like, stuff that I ask my students to do. And, or my emails back to you, okay.

And, so he went, Bimbisara sent more people out to find the painters, and they came to the painters, and the painters were sitting in front of Buddha with these canvases and just like, you know, and they said, what's the problem, why aren't you painting, you know. And they said, he's so beautiful, you know, look at that, you know. And they couldn't think to paint, they were just like transfixed by the Lord Buddha's beauty, and they couldn't paint him.

They couldn't even start, you know. So then Buddha's like, okay, I can solve this problem. And he got some bedsheets, and he had them put up on a stick, and then he went behind, and stood real close to the back of the bedsheet, and he got some torches behind him, and he, they projected his silhouette onto the bedsheet.

And then they drew his outline, because they couldn't see him, so they weren't like paralyzed. And they just started to sketch his form from the silhouette. And then they finished all that, you know, and they filled in all the details later.

And then the Buddha saw it, and he said, now you just need one more thing, okay, this painting needs one more thing. And they said, what? And he said, it's a thing called bhava chakra, okay, bhava means existence, suffering life, and chakra means wheel.

So he said, we need a thing called the Wheel of Life. We need to paint. Under my picture, you have to paint the Wheel of Life, because that's what will help the King, Udrayana.

If he receives this painting, he will actually go a long ways towards enlightenment, he will become an Arya, he will see emptiness directly, if he sees this painting. So, he predicted that. And then they listened to him, and he had this painting drawn, and it has a lot of components to it, it's very famous.

Later, Lord Buddha said that all temples, all Buddhist temples should have a copy of that painting in the foyer, and there should be a copy. Everyone who goes in a Buddhist temple should see this painting on the wall. So, the Vinaya, the monk's teachings for monk's vows, with the main book of which is nowadays the Vinaya Sutra, which is not a sutra, that's a long story.

It also dictates that a person, that all monks should become familiar with the Wheel of Life painting. So, this is a very famous painting. This painting is useful for us, and thank you for projecting it.

It's useful for us, because it describes how self-perpetuating cycles begin, and how to stop them, okay? So, the whole subject of the painting is addiction in a way, how do cycles start, and how can you break cycles. It's called the, I'll say it, you repeat okay, for good luck.

So, I'll teach you Tibetan in my next life, or you can look on YouTube when I'm gone. Say lungjung, lungdok, lungjung, lungdok. Lungjung means, how are cycles triggered?

What triggers a cycle in our life? It could be a cycle of overeating, it could be a cycle of alcohol, it could be a cycle of low self-esteem. How are cycles set into motion?

Called lungjung. Lungdok means, where do you break those cycles? How do you reverse a cycle?

Dok means to reverse something, okay? So, there's a teaching called lungjung, which is contained in here, which describes how cycles start, and then there's a even more deep teaching called lungdok. Excuse me, I have to blow my nose.

Hang on, we were in Moscow a couple weeks ago, and I got a cold. Okay, lungdok means, how do you break the cycle? Okay, so today, this afternoon, we'll start using this painting as an excuse to talk about how addictions get started, and how you can stop them.

Okay, so it's useful, it's a study tool, or a tool for concepts, that has been around for two and a half thousand years. And my teacher taught it to me for many months, and we had to memorize all the parts. DANG PO MO RIG PA GNYIS PA'I DU BYED KYI LAS ZIN PA'I MING GZUGS ZHIG PA GSUM PA RNAMS SHING ZHIG PA MING GZUGS BSNGAGS PA SKYE MCHED GRUB PA REG PA DON PA TSO BA SKYE PA ZAD PA DGOS PA LEN PA CHUG PA SRID PA CHUG CHI PA SKYE BA CHU GNYIS PA RGA SHI.

We had to memorize all the pieces of it, and it's something good to know, because you can use it for everything. But we're going to use it for your favorite addiction, okay? And what I'd like to start with is a short meditation.

We did one this morning, but not everybody was there. We're going to start on the Wheel of Life, we're going to apply it to our addictions. And I think a good place for us to start is in the very center.

So, we're going to talk about this, the very middle part of the wheel. I think you might want to go to a different... who's controlling that?

Nobody. You might want to go to the picture of the animals, the three animals at the middle. What page is that on, you guys?

Page 10? Let me see. Yeah, that's good.

Let's say page 10, okay? I'm going to preface the three animals at the middle of the wheel with the page 9, okay? Look at page 9.

I spent 25 years living with my Lama, it was a real experience. He was an old-fashioned, cranky, demanding, brilliant Tibetan Lama, and he really, you know, smashed me and recreated me, okay? And it wasn't always pleasant, but the result, I enjoy the result, 20 years later.

So, and people used to always come to his room and say, you know... by the way, if you don't have a reading, can you raise your hand? If you don't have a reading, raise your hand, okay?

It's free, alright? You're welcome to take one home, okay? Just raise your hand, keep your hand up if you don't have one.

Then people used to come to him and say, you know, oh Rinpoche, I have a problem with alcohol, you know. And his total advice on many occasions would be, what? Just stop, you know, don't drink alcohol.

And then he'd say, okay, now you can go downstairs and Michael will make you some tea. You know, and then I'd have to go downstairs with these people, and they'd say, what just happened there? And I'd say, well, you know, he told you to stop your addiction, and they'd say, but I can't.

And that's why I came to seek his advice, you know. He would, his reaction to an alcoholic was, just don't drink, okay? And then he'd say, go downstairs and have a tea with Mike.

And that would be kind of irritating, you know. And he would, he would just say, stop completely, like don't, what do you call it? There's two theories, right?

With like cigarettes, one is that you should taper off, you know. Like, have your 30 cigarettes today, and then tomorrow have 25, and then the next day have 20. That's called the tapering off theory.

And then there's the complete, what do you call it? Stopping a day theory, you know. Cold turkey, yeah.

And you meet both kinds of people, right? You meet, you meet some people who say, well you meet three kinds of people. What?

Four, four kinds of people. One kind says, you know, I went, I used to smoke for 20 years, and then I just stopped, and one day I stopped. I went cold turkey and I stopped, you know.

And it was tough for a couple of weeks, and I stopped, you know. And then you meet other people who say, I cut down gradually, you know, I had, I was smoking a pack a day, and then I cut down to 20, and then I cut down to 10, you know. Those are two kinds of people.

Third kind of people is like, I tried to stop cold turkey, and it worked for a couple days, and then I started smoking again, and I've been smoking for the last 20 years since then, you know. Then the fourth kind of person is what? I tapered off, and I stopped, and then I started again, you know.

So these are the four kinds of people. One tapered off and started again, one tapered off and stopped, one stopped cold turkey, and one tapered off, what? Sorry, they went cold turkey and they started again, okay.

Sorry, these are the four possibilities, okay. You have to struggle with something in your mind, okay, you have to struggle with a certain concept in your mind. My job, I was thinking about it this morning during the yoga, because the yoga teacher, what's her name?

Lyra. She obviously has many, many years of experience with addiction, you know, and she's been through everything, and I was listening, and I was, you know, enjoying the class, I was really enjoying the yoga class, but I was thinking how different the approach that we would take is from everything else I hear, you know. So, this approach, using the Wheel of Life, or using these ideas to overcome an addiction, is completely different than everything you heard before, okay.

We're not teaching, I'm not interested in, and I don't think it works, and I'm very impatient with people who try to get me to be interested in, like tapering off, okay. Like, I don't think it works. My mom was an alcoholic, she tapered off many times, and then she went back many times, and she died from it, you know, and I watched her taper off, you know, and I'm like, tapering off doesn't work, and then they say, well it works for some people, and I say, well if it works for some people and doesn't work for other people, that means it doesn't work.

I mean, try to grasp that, okay, try to, try to, desperately try to understand that. If something only works sometimes, it doesn't work. Like, you wouldn't get in an airliner that only works sometimes, you know, the dream liner, made of plastic, carbon fiber, you know, they try to get me on that, and I said, does it work all the time?

They said, yeah, we almost worked out the problem with the batteries so they don't melt through the bottom of the plane, and I'm like, when you work it out, let me know, you know, then I'll fly your dream liner, you know. Like, no thanks, if it works sometimes and falls down sometimes, I'll get in it after you work it out, you know, but in the meantime, I'm not getting in the plane, and I still don't get in the plane, okay, I haven't gotten on one yet. My friend advertises for them in Tokyo and he's always trying to talk me into it, and I'm like, you know and I know the batteries don't work right, and when they get it straightened out, let me know, you know.

He's like, okay, like I'm not interested in something that almost works, okay, if I'm up 35,000 feet, okay. Then, you know, then there's people come to me, oh, cold turkey is the only way to do it, you know, and then I say, no, my dad tried cold turkey, he tried many times, he went cold turkey many times, and then he went back, he died from gin, he was, at the end he was drinking gin all day, and I saw it, and I went to it. That's why I have a, what do you call, that's why I'm addicted to tonic water, because he would give me the tonic water and he would drink the gin, and you know, I've been there.

So, we call it a diamond deal, okay. I put a, can you show the diamond dealer, where are you? That's one, okay.

This is an old joke in the diamond business, okay. So, I was in the diamond business, I was in the wholesale diamond business, on a good day we dealt with 300,000 diamonds, on a good day we went through 300,000, we processed 300,000 diamonds. So, we were not involved, I was not involved with jewelry stores, but I've heard, okay, that in a jewelry store, there's a joke in the diamond business, that you know, everybody in America wants a one carat diamond, because they get married, right?

And they want a one carat engagement diamond. So, like 90% of a carat might cost $2,000, and then the same color, the same quality at a carat, 10% more weight, is double the price, because everybody wants one, you know. For some reason people want a carat, you know.

So, if you're a good jeweler, which is in the next photo, I think, where'd he go? They're in order. Yeah, that's him.

If you're a good jeweler, if you're a jewelry store owner, then you always keep two diamonds in the drawer, you know, and one is... you keep two one carat diamonds in the drawer, and then there's always this couple comes in, which is the jewelry store owner's joy, when they see a young couple, like 25 year old man and woman come in, then they're looking at it and they're like, haha, you know, this is great, and they come in, and that boy always looks a little grumpy, and the girl's all bright, and you know, and then they say, may I help you? You know, and they say, we're looking for an engagement ring, and they say, oh really? And then they say, what size do you want?

And they say, one carat. They say, oh really? You know, like you have to act surprised, and then you're supposed to say, you're in luck today, you know, I just happen to have two one carat diamonds here in the drawer, you know, and you open the drawer and you take out, you know, a diamond and you show it to them.

You put it on a little velvet tray, okay, it makes it look like worth more. And then the boy will say what? Looks great, because he's tired because they've been to ten stores already.

You know, he's tired of the whole thing, he wants to get back to football game or World Series. Who won the World Series? Who?

Instead of who? Oh well, okay. And then the girl will pick it up, you know, and the girl will ask the jewelry store owner what?

Do you have a loop? You know, do you have an eyeglass? And they're like, what?

And she's like, I want to see your eyeglass. So, he takes it off, his neck, and he gives it to her. And she's like, you know, like this, and she's like, the boy's like dying to get home, and he keeps looking at the door, and she's looking really carefully and she says, but this one is yellow, you know, this diamond is yellow.

And then, if you're a jewelry store owner you have to act surprised again, you know, like, oh really? Let me check. Oh, you're right, you know.

We call pee-pee color, it's, in the business it's called an N color. On a scale from A to Z it's around the middle, which is yellow, pretty bright yellow. And then you say, oh, oh, I'm so sorry, you know, you wanted a white one.

And then you take the other one carat diamond out and you give it to them, and you say, okay, there's a white one, you know. And the boy's like, okay, we'll take that one. And the girl's like, no, no, give me this eyeglass thing, you know.

She'll look at it, she'll look, study it, you know, and then she'll say, it is white, the stone color is white, but there's a black spot in it, you know. And the diamond seller is like, oh really, there's a black spot? And he checked it, he said, you're right, there is a black spot in it.

You wanted a clean stone, right? Yes, well then take the first one. And can I wrap it in a box for you?

Do you want red or blue ribbon, and will you pay a credit card or cash? And you quickly give them three or four decisions. This is how to sell something, okay?

You don't say, do you want it? That's like suicidal. You say, do you want a box, do you want it, you know, red ribbon or blue ribbon, and will you pay cash or credit, you know.

And the boy will always fall for it and say, credit card, we'll pay credit card, you know. And the idea is to get them confused, get them into the mood of making a decision. You see, force them, put it on them to make a decision, and get them, what do you call, stressed.

Stress them with three quick decisions in a row, and then they won't think to say what? Give me a white one that doesn't have a black spot, you know. I don't want a clean yellow one, and I don't want a white one with a black spot.

I want the third choice, which is white and spotless, you know. That's what I want, okay? But you, you press them and you, if you press them enough, they don't understand till they get home that they bought one that they didn't want, okay?

So, it's the same with addiction treatments, okay? And you have to understand that. Someone will sell you one or two approaches.

They'll say, this, our system, in our system of addiction, you have to go cold turkey, there's no choice, what do you call, complete avoidance, you know. No other system works. You can never take a drink again, that's the only system that's going to work, you know.

And then, and then somebody else will try to sell you the other stone, which is what? You got to just taper off, you know, like you can't just do it in one day. If you could do it in one day, you would have done it ten years ago, you know what I mean?

It's not possible. You got to get off slow, okay? These are two methods which work sometimes, which in this system means they don't work, and you have to reject both, okay?

In this system, you can't accept one or other of a bad diamond, you see what I mean? You can't do this diamond deal, dealer's choice thing. You have to, if something doesn't work, stop doing it, okay?

If something doesn't work, stop doing it. And that's the same with your relationships, it's the same with your career, it's the same with your health, and your decision of doctors and medicines. If something doesn't work, stop trying that and do something else, you know?

Like, does aspirin work? Sometimes, you know? Well, why do you keep buying aspirins that work sometimes?

Why don't you just buy aspirins that work all the time? Why every year on the television did they come out with a new kind of aspirin that really works? Why do they say really?

Because the last hundred years of aspirin didn't really work, okay? And why next year will there be a new brand? And why will they say it really works?

Because the other ones don't really work, and neither does the new one, okay? And you got to—it's very frustrating for me, okay? My life is super frustrating.

It's like trying to convince people to stop doing things that don't work, you know? And it's very frustrating, you know? You're like, does aspirin work every time?

No. Does Tylenol work every time? No.

Does Advil work every time? No. Do you think you should stop trying those things?

No. You know? And then you're like, but wouldn't you like to have something that works all the time?

I guess deep down inside we think what? There is no thing that works all the time. I'll take my chances Geshe Michael with Advil, because it works pretty often, you know?

For me, it works pretty often. I know it doesn't work for Ravi Fung all the time, but for me it works more often than not, okay? I'll go with the Advil, okay?

Unless you can show me what? Something that works every time. You know, if you come up with some new aspirin, Geshe Michael, Geshe Michael aspirin, and every time you take it your headache goes away, I'll buy it.

Until then, I'm going to use the Advil, because it works, for me it works most of the time, or my Sumatriptan or whatever, okay? Like, I'll take that. And you, it's very frustrating to over and over for many years try to convince somebody that there's a, there's an aspirin that works every time, okay?

So, what we're going to talk about is a system of addiction stopping, which works every time. If you do it, if you follow the instructions on the bottle, it works every time. If it doesn't work, it means you, in my opinion, you didn't follow the instructions on the bottle, okay?

And then, to continue to have headaches, and to have that bottle in your hand, is to me some kind of really weird thing, you know? Then you're kind of like the people who smoke after reading the thing on the front, you know? Then I don't know what to do.

This could kill you, do you want one? Yes. Okay, you know like that.

So, we'll talk about a new idea, we'll talk about a new system. In my experience, if you try it, it works every time, okay? And you can have everything you want.

In this, the context of this weekend, you can stop any addiction you have, no matter how old, it doesn't matter how old it is in this system. It doesn't matter if you've had it for an hour, or if you've had it for your whole life, it's irrelevant. If you use this system, you will overcome that addiction.

If you don't use it, you will continue to have it, and that's my opinion. And then people are always giving me books of philosophy, or Buddhist books, you know, and I open one page. Frankly, I don't do it in front of them, okay?

But just so you know, when I get home I open one page, I read one paragraph, and if it doesn't describe this system, I throw it out. I don't even give it to the Goodwill, why? Somebody might read it.

Like, I don't know, that's the way I am. I'm sorry, okay? I'm not sorry, okay?

That's all. I'm selling one product, that's all I'm interested in, don't try to sell me other products, I don't believe they work. I believe this one works every time.

In my personal experience, 60 years of using it, I've gotten everything I wanted. And for me, I don't see any reason to try anything else. But okay, let's start with the three animals, then we'll take a little break, okay?

Because it's easy to stand up here and talk, it's much harder to sit on your butt for two hours. But I did that for 25 years, and I always swore that I would make other people do that. So anyway, we're going to talk about the three animals in the center.

I would like to start with the pigeon, okay? By the way, this is a new version of the painting that was done by a friend of ours, Ori Karen, Nancy Karen's son, in New York, and he painted sort of a new version of the painting. There are two versions of the middle of the painting.

For the last two and a half thousand years, there have been two ways of painting the middle of the painting, okay? Inside the middle, there are three creatures. One is a pig, one is a snake, and one was originally painted as a pigeon two and a half thousand years ago.

And somewhere along the line, somebody changed it to a rooster, okay? And it's okay, it's about the same thing, alright? So, you can actually date a Wheel of Life painting, you know, to, I don't know, 9th century.

If it's older than that, it'll always have a pigeon. If it's newer than that, it might have a rooster, okay? And like that, you can figure out, but it doesn't really matter.

Can you show the drawing one, the black and white? I'm sorry I don't have a better version of it, but I—whoa, that's not a pigeon. Okay, this one.

This is also another way of painting the three creatures. That is a rooster, I guess, in the upper part of the painting, and there's a snake on the left, and then there's a pig on the bottom. In this version, the mouth of each creature is holding the tail of the next creature, okay?

So, it's kind of a—what's that Irish thing? The snake, the serpent, Erebus? I don't know.

Yeah, something like that. Anyway, it's biting its own tail. In this case, the three creatures are holding, each creature is holding the next creature in its mouth, the tail in its mouth.

Now, can you go back to the color one? In this one, the tails of the pigeon and the snake are coming out of the mouth of the pig, okay? And there's a reason for that.

I'd like to start with the pigeon, okay? The animal in the middle, the pigeon represents an emotion, okay? Which is desire, okay?

So, pigeons, I don't know, I haven't observed this personally, but apparently they like sex, and they're always reproducing. Phil's nodding, he was a farm boy, I'd take your word for it. Roosters are the same, okay?

So, apparently they are very lascivious creatures, and they like sex a lot, okay? And that's the idea. So, the pigeon represents desire, okay?

Then we're going to talk about desire for a while, because we're going to tie it back to addiction, okay? Addiction is a desire, right? Four parts to addiction.

One, it's like a compulsion, which you cannot stop even when you want. In time it hurts you, and in greater time it hurts everybody around you. It bothers, at least it bothers everybody around you.

In extreme cases it ruins their life, okay? So, these are the four qualities of addiction. The first one, the pursuit of pleasure, right?

I would like to talk about that. So, we're talking about the pursuit of pleasure. At the bottom of addictions, whether it's for power, an addiction to power, or an addiction to food, or even an addiction to a way of seeing the world, they all involve some kind of satisfaction.

You get something out of it, okay? You get some kind of pleasure out of it. So, you know, there are ways of teaching Buddhism, and there are Buddhist theories which we would call, what do you call that?

Incomplete Buddhist theories, like people who never studied completely, and they would say all desires are wrong, you know? You shouldn't enjoy anything. A proper Buddhist, you know?

You put a donut in front of them, they're like... then you put, you know, a picture of their girlfriend in front of them, they're like... you know?

You put wine in front of them, they're like... you know? Like nothing's interesting to them, and nothing is desirable to them, and all attachment is bad, you know?

That's a misconception about Buddhism. What that leads to is thousands of frustrated Western Buddhists, you know? They're like, they start to have a pizza, and they say I'm enjoying it, you know?

And somehow it's evil or wrong to enjoy a pizza, or to enjoy a movie, or to enjoy a Neil Young song, or something really pleasant, you know? Like, somehow they... and then they get totally frustrated, and they die unhappy.

I've, you know, the older original hippie Buddhists are starting to die now, and I meet them, they write me letters and they say I've been unhappy for 30 years, because I couldn't not be attached to pizza, and they die thinking it was wrong to enjoy a pizza, okay? That's a totally wrong idea. I don't know, some demon has twisted the Buddhist teachings, some demon has convinced people that it's wrong to be having fun, or enjoy something, okay?

I watched the Dalai Lama eat dinner once. People say, are you tight with the Dalai Lama? I'm like, yeah, you know?

Well, what happened? I said, well we had dinner recently, that was 20 years ago, you know? We had dinner, you know?

They said, well how many other people were there? I said, I don't know, about 400. And like, were you at the same table?

No, I was like a football stadium away, but I was watching him, as were 399 other people, they were like staring at him, you know? He was trying to have dinner, it was a fundraiser dinner, I had to go with my teacher, you know? This guy got up to introduce him, and you know, they said, I said, Rinpoche, who is that?

Do you recognize that guy? He says, I think he's some kind of senator. I said, no, he's not a senator.

Then he said, I know, that's Indiana Jones. You're right, that's Indiana Jones, you know? And then everybody was staring at the Dalai Lama eating dinner, and then this is how he was eating dinner, you know?

You'd like to think he would go like this, it wasn't like that. He had his fork here, he had his spoon here, and he's like...

[Speaker 2]
you know?

[Speaker 1]
And then this waiter came over and said, you know, do you want more? And he's like, yes! And we're all like, I'm not quite sure that's proper, you know?

He seems to be enjoying himself too much, and he's also eating too much, and he was really enjoying the meal better than anyone else in the room, I think so. He was enjoying it more than anyone else in the room. So, apparently, unless he's like corrupt or something, there's a proper way to enjoy something, deeply, okay?

So, the pigeon represents a kind of enjoyment which is mistaken, okay? And that's the kind of enjoyment that addiction is based on, okay? So, there's a mistaken kind of enjoyment, and then there's what we would call an enlightened kind of enjoyment, okay?

So, you have to divide desire, or enjoyment, or pleasure into enlightened pleasure, and then mistaken pleasure, okay? So, in the case of the pigeon, let's say I like, I gave an example this morning, what was it? Everybody started thinking about Starbucks after that.

Yeah, it's those lemon pound cakes at Starbucks. I might go get one afterwards, with the white icing on the top, okay? Like, be careful that you get the one with the icing, not from the end of the loaf, like from the middle.

And so, there's a way to enjoy pound cake with icing on it, in an enlightened way, and there's a wrong way to enjoy it. So, I put here, we'll finish that and then we'll take a break, okay? I put a picture of it on page 11, okay?

There's a picture of it on page 11. Anybody from Canada here? Oh, two, two hockey players.

So, what's Tim Horton? They know Tim Horton. Tim Horton is the Starbucks of Canada.

Tim Horton was a hockey, famous hockey player, and then he started a chain of like Dunkin Donuts, and then some guy tricked him out of it, and he doesn't own it anymore, and now McDonald's is trying to buy it, so that they can shift their headquarters to Canada and not pay taxes in the United States. Only for that. And Tim Horton's like 1% of the size of McDonald's, but that's another story.

That's called a loophole. So anyway, so Tim Horton's is this really cool place in Canada, and they have the best hot chocolate in the world, and I've tried almost everywhere. It's the best, to me.

And they have, as you can see here, well that's not really the right one, but they have maple-covered donuts, okay? Because it's Canada, so they have maple syrup, and it's not like fake Dunkin Donuts, you know, chemical treated sugar. It's real maple syrup coating on the donut, you know, and that's my favorite kind of donut.

So, I love Tim Horton's. I love it when people invite me to Toronto, or Montreal, or even Vancouver, and you know, because I can go to Tim Horton's. That's my only reason for agreeing, to go speak at UBC?

UBC, University of British Columbia. So, I went to UBC, and I gave a talk there, and it was really nice. It's a beautiful building, campus there, and then I had to curtail the talk, why?

I had to get to Tim Horton before they closed, you know? Like, that's the priority. So, you know, I'm giving this talk at the UBC auditorium, it's like cross-cultural studies, it's a beautiful place.

And I finished the talk a little bit, I shaved it, you know, early, and I got to Tim Horton's by 9.30, and they're like closing at 9.30, and I got there at like 9.20, and I'm, have this total—what is ekagra? Yeah, single-pointed focus. So, I opened the glass door, and I don't know, somebody was with me, I don't remember, they were going to pay for the donut.

And I'm looking across the whole length of the Tim Horton's, and there's a glass counter, you know, and they are cleaning up, because it's time to close. And I'm like using my, what do you call it, third eye? Focused, and from the door I can see there's a one maple-covered donut left, you know?

And I'm like, yes! You know, like the hot chocolate is not so hard, they have enough. But sometimes they run out of donuts, especially after like 8 o'clock or something.

So, you know, I took a chance cutting the talk short at 9, and I'm like, alright, they got a maple-covered donut. And I'm like, like strolling towards the case without taking my eye off the donut, you know? And then I heard this noise behind me, and there's this banging of a stick on the glass.

What is that? That's an old lady in her, what do you call those things? In her walker with her husband.

And she, they always crash their walker into the door, you know? So, you know it's an elderly person, they like BAM! And then they're trying to get through the door of the walker, you know?

The old man's trying to hold it open for the old lady. And I do this every time I take my old lady out now, she's using a walker now. Try to fold one of those things up, it's like, no, it takes like a mechanic, you know?

I gave up, I just throw it in the back of the, I put down the back seats and I throw the whole thing in there, you know? And so, then you turn back and you're half paying attention to that, and you're half focused on the donut, and then she says, I hope they have maple cupboard, this is my favorite! Then you're like, what's a nangdom you Buddhist people?

What's a nangdom? Yeah, it's an ethical priority conflict. The classical nangdom in the Vinaya is what?

Do you know? Yeah, you lost your monastic mentor, like they went out of town, and it's time to go to Sojong. Then do you try to find a new mentor, or do you go to the monthly, bi-monthly, bi-weekly confession ceremony?

Which is higher priority? Which is more important? Yeah, you have to stop, you don't go to the required confession ceremony, and instead you have to look for a new mentor immediately, okay?

In the case of a donut, I'm having this nangdom crisis halfway across the floor, you know? Like, she's an old lady, you know? One part of my mind is like, really feeling good, because I can out walk her to that counter, and I even have enough time to get there, buy it, have it put in a bag, and she'll never know, because her eyes are bad too.

So, she'll never know there was one left. And like, I can be out of here and eating it in the car before she even figures out that there aren't any more. You see what I mean?

And then halfway across the floor I'm like, you should be ashamed of yourself, you know? You're like a Buddhist monk, and are you gonna take the last Tim Horton donut, maple-covered donut, or are you gonna give it to her? Okay, so there's a crisis going on.

At that moment I have a choice between two kinds of enjoyment, okay? I can engage in enlightened enjoyment of the donut, or I can engage in addictive behavior towards the donut, okay? So, it's really addictive versus enlightened.

I'm either gonna engage in an addictive pleasure of the donut, which will hurt me and the people around me, okay? Or, I'm gonna enjoy the donut in an enlightened way. So, halfway across the floor, with the old lady chasing you on her walker, you have a choice.

And this choice repeats itself every hour of your day. You have a choice between enjoying something in an enlightened way, or you can—or you can take, you see? And when you take, you lose points.

That's addictive behavior, and it hurts you. You have more trouble getting donuts after that, okay? Why?

Okay. By the way, if you're ever teaching ACI, DCI, YSI, ZZI, and you can't think of anything to say, just hold the pen up, okay? Then, we talked about it last night.

This pen must be coming from my mind. If you understand how it comes from your mind, you can use the understanding. If you don't understand, you're just kind of operating on some kind of faith, and it will break down.

Under pressure, it will break down. Why do I see a pen? There's a mental image coming out of my mind and coating this pen, okay?

There's a luminous, it's silver-coated hologram that comes out of your mind. It's produced inside your head, and it comes out and it coats this thing, and you see a pen. And the dog has a different seed, and when their karmic seed opens, a luminous image, very small, comes out of their mind and covers this thing, and they see something to chew.

Whose image is correct? Whose thing is correct? They're both valid, okay?

They're both coming out of the minds of the people who are watching it, okay? So, who put the seed in their mind? That's how the seed opens, okay?

It's very beautiful. Try to understand, if you're bored in traffic, and or you're irritated at somebody, or if you're loving someone deeply at a moment, or Johnny O's playing a song that's awesome, I don't know what happened to you, but apparently the hormones have changed or something. No, I mean it's gone to a different level, but if you are enjoying this music, sometimes pause and reflect that a seed is opening at the rate of 65 a second, and little sounds are coming out, silver holograms, and they are covering Johnny O, and causing him to hit those high notes so sweetly, you know what I mean?

And just when you're enjoying something, just try to imagine the process that's going on, and it's very helpful for your life, okay? Later, if you meditate a lot, you can catch your mind doing it directly, okay? And that's a big deal, that's the end of?

Jorlam. It's Jorlam Chod Chong. It's just before you see emptiness directly, you're able to catch your mind doing this, but to do that, it helps to imagine it constantly as you go through your day.

Oh, my mind's putting silver holograms over Johnny O right now, and oh, it's so much—it's on a different level than it was like six months ago, you know what I mean? And just try to imagine the process going on, okay? So, in the case of a donut, the reason I see a donut is what?

The reason— the reason there was the last donut there. Why do I see a donut? Yeah, I open the door to Tim Hortons, I look across the room, through the glass of the counter, I see a maple-covered donut, because a silver hologram is coming out of my karmic seed in my mind, and settling over what was a glazed donut a few seconds before.

I'm not kidding, okay? It was, it was—what do you call those plain ones? They don't even have glaze on them.

Plain donut. They're like so— they're boring, they're hard to chew, they're hard to swallow, you got to waste the whole Tim Hortons hot chocolate to get it, just to get it down. And you know, just before I approached the door, it was a plain donut.

What happened? A silver image—I made it into a—I made it into a maple-covered donut, okay? But why was I able to do that?

Because I had a seed for that. How do you plant a seed in your mind? You give the same thing to somebody else, okay?

So, now comes the crucial question, we'll cover the pigeon, we'll take a donut break. And if someone doesn't bring me a donut, you're losers, okay? Okay?

In that moment of starting to race the old lady to the counter, you know, if I love donuts, if I want donuts, if I really love donuts, what should I do? In the—what's the conclusion of the nangdom? What's the—I should buy it, and I should turn around gracefully, and put it in her hand.

Because I'm nice? No. Because I'm good?

No. Because I'm moral? No.

Because I'm a Buddhist monk? No. You know?

Because I like maple-covered donuts, okay? Got it? Alright?

You got to get there, you got to struggle to get there. I know some of you have been hearing this for years, I'm gonna keep torturing it with you until I see that you're extremely happy all the time, okay? It's been a while, okay?

Okay? Seriously, okay? That's the—the goal, right?

So, if I love maple-covered donuts, then the decision is clear. Only because I love maple- covered donuts. I mean, of course I should be kind.

Luckily, the universe works in such a way that, to get what you want, you have to be kind, okay? That's lucky, otherwise I'd have another nangdom, you know? Should I take what I want, or should I be nice?

But the way the universe works is, you only get what you want if you give it away, okay? That's just the way it works. So, desire can force you into being compassionate, or force you into being kind to other people, okay?

If you understand where things come from, you will automatically be kind. You don't have a choice, you can't get anything without being kind to other people. It's just the way it works, okay?

Is it just the way it works? What's the picture on the bottom there? I found it on the internet, I hope the people never sue me, because I couldn't find, I couldn't find the, I checked all the photo agencies, they didn't have it.

She's putting a donut in her dad's mouth, okay? It's a child, I assume it's a donut. She's putting something in her dad's mouth, okay?

Which leads to a higher question which we'll cover after the break. And here's the higher question, why does it work that way? You know, I said that's just the way it works, but of course that's a bad answer in Buddhism.

We don't say, nothing works just because that's the way it works, okay? There must be a reason. There has to be a reason why, I mean, one of the most difficult questions that anyone can ever ask you is, why is it the case that if you want something, you have to give it to somebody else, you know?

Why does karma work? Who made karma? And why does it work that way?

And also in the New Testament, you know, why does, why do the wise people keep repeating that you reap what you sow, you know? Why do they keep saying over and over to us, you will get what you give to others, you know? You can buy that and you can use it to live your life, but is it possible to prove it?

Is it possible to explain why, why does life work that way, okay? It's convenient for someone who would like to be compassionate, that the only way to get everything you ever wanted was to give it to someone else. It's convenient, I'm glad it's that way, you know, I'm glad I don't have to cut people's heads off to to get my doughnuts, you know?

I'm glad that's not the real way, okay? Because then if it were, I'd have a crisis, I'd have a moral crisis, a nangdom, but the fact is, the only way I can get the things I want, including Tim Horton maple-covered doughnuts, is to provide them to others. But why is that so?

Why does it work that way? We have to, in Buddhism, in the Tibetan tradition, to be successful you have to understand why things work. It's the only way.

What's the Sanskrit name of understanding the way the things work? Prajñāpāramitā, it's called prajñāpāramitā. Prajñāpāramitā, this whole long Sanskrit word just means, the more you understand why this stuff works, or how it works, the easier it is to live by those principles, okay?

If someone can explain to you why does karma work, who invented karma, and why do I have to give away my maple-covered doughnut to get ten more? You know, I'm happy that that's the way it is, it makes me glad to be in the situation that I'm forced to give stuff to other people, because it's more fun, and I feel happier, and I'm glad that's the way reality works, but why is that the way reality works? Is it just that way, or is there a reason for it?

If you can go deeper and understand why it works, then it's a lot easier to do it, okay? That's our system. We keep going deeper until we understand why does karma work, okay?

Who made it? Why is that the way stuff works? Even in Christianity, why is that the way stuff works?

We'll answer that question after the break. Ready? Okay, we're going to start again.

I promised Earl he could ask me a question, since he's from Tim Horton home. I think we'll do questions for a few minutes, okay? And we'll continue with the Three Critters in the evening course.

So, you're on Mr. Bernie. Yes? Okay.

Say again? A human and a dog walk in a room, and there's a thing on a table. The human sees a pen and the dog sees a chew toy.

That they both see something? Okay, good. In that case, then the presentation of the hungry ghost and a glass of water must be mind only.

The presentation from the Madhyamaka Avatara about how the preta, the hungry ghost, sees a glass of pus, and the human sees a glass of water, and the deva sees a glass of amrta. That, I guess Chandrakirti was mind only school. I mean, that's how we debate in the monastery.

You ask, you give a silly answer to it. By the way, that's where the presentation of the pen comes from. You know, that's where I pulled it out of.

Every DCI presentation comes from something like that. And what I've started to do in the DCI courses is identify the sources for each concept. Yeah, but I understand, I think a mind-only person could easily explain it in very similar language, and so that's true.

I think it could sound like a mind-only school. Yeah, you could make it sound like that. Maybe the different schools looking at the same concept see different things.

No, but that's a good—yeah, I believe that you could explain it. You could use the mind-only language, and it would still make sense, I think, yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, that's a good question.

[Speaker 1]
So, you know, what he's asking is, that in ancient times, in India, Lord Buddha taught different groups using different language, you know. Like, he would even seem to contradict himself when speaking to different groups of people. And then, you know, Buddhists for the two and a half thousand years since then have tried to reconcile, why would the Buddha say—it sounds like a politician, right?

Like, kind of morphed to the audience. I saw a very terrible thing online, you ready for this? There's a very, what do you call it, hotly contested Senate, midterm Senate and Congressional elections happening right now.

And it's all being, the publicity is being largely delivered online now, as opposed to post—well, Arizona's behind, right? Which is surprising, but there are no, in many districts like in Massachusetts, there's no posters on lawns, there's no car stickers, anything, nothing, bumper stickers. It's all online, it's an online battle.

The decision to place an ad in the few square inches of your laptop is made in 180th of a second by a machine. And it takes bids for the few inches on your laptop in 180th of a second. And the highest bidder wins, and then you see an ad, but in that time, you know, within a second, the robot checks your purchase records to see if you've bought a gun in the last three years.

If you have, then the ad comes up, protect the rights to own guns, you know, on your laptop. And if your neighbor sitting next door has, you know, made a donation to anti-gun lobby thing, the same space on their laptop has an ad that says the opposite for the same candidate, okay? And that's an extension of a principle that Lord Buddha used himself, okay?

So, Lord Buddha talking to one group of people who were very highly trained would explain things in a certain way. And then if the same day, later in the evening, he got put in front of an audience of new people, he would explain it in simpler terms or different terms. And then there came a question throughout the history of Buddhism, like, did he contradict himself?

What do you think? Yeah, in the case of the Buddha, and maybe not in the case of the politician, he's telling, he's selling the same message, but he's using different language for different audiences. And Buddhism would say, that's not only not contradictory, it's good manners, and it's skillful means, and it's a wise approach, you know?

You judge your audience. Oftentimes I prepare, like we were in Mexico last week, and for, in Leon, I had prepared a whole talk, or no, we were in Mexico City, and I had prepared a talk to a business group. I don't think, I think Nick was there, were you there?

Yeah, we had a business luncheon at the Presidente Hotel, the most expensive hotel in Mexico. And I prepared a whole thing, and I stood up in the front of the room, right? And I got the projector images ready, and then the people walked in, and I canceled the whole thing, in my mind.

And I just sat down and we did a different thing. And you have to be ready to do that. I think if you're going to be a public speaker, or you're going to be a teacher, you can't be attached to the presentation you had in mind for a group of people, and you have to judge where they're at, and you have to change quickly on the spot, if it's necessary.

So, Lord Buddha did that. We recognize it, I'll tell you something cool, okay? The people in the higher schools recognize it as something very skillful.

The people in the lower schools think he was crazy, okay? So, even about that there's different schools. There's different schools about the idea of different schools.

And then the hardest thing for any speaker is, if you have, on the left side of the audience, you have people who just got out of a thousand-day retreat after 14 years of study, and then over here you've got people you never met before, and how do you keep them both, you know, interested in the same talk? That's another story. Any other questions?

No, so what I'm saying is that it's skillful, in Buddhism it's considered skillful to judge your audience carefully, and to gain the skill of judging your audience within a few minutes, and then totally changing your plan, your lesson plan, if it seems like it would help people, okay? And you have to, that applies to what you wear also, you know. So, we had a lot of discussions Friday afternoon of whether I should be a Tibetan Buddhist monk and wear this red suit, or whether I should wear a tie and a suit, or whether I should go business casual, business casual one.

And that's a message, you know, and a teacher or a public speaker has to decide what would be more comfortable for the people in the audience. That's a big Buddhist thing, that you should present yourself physically in a way that's comfortable for the people that you're talking to, because otherwise your physical appearance gets in the way of what you're saying, okay? So, it's the same principle.

Somebody else had a question. Mr. Day, because I miss you so much I never see you. By the way, can you bring my mom to LA next weekend?

We'll talk about it. Okay. That wasn't really fair in front of everybody.

Okay. She's in Jordan, right? My 87-year-old mom decided to go to Jordan and lecture them.

Okay, must be Jeanette.

[Speaker 2]
Oh right, I know what you mean, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
So, I'll repeat the question. We were speaking about three levels of addiction. The simplest and the most obvious one is physical addictions, like cigarettes or food, or birthday cake and Gina.

It was good though. And then the second one is emotional addictions. And then we said the granddaddy of all addictions is seeing things in the wrong way, and because it gives birth to the other two.

In the way that out of the pig's mouth comes the pigeon and the snake, okay? We'll talk more about that tonight. So, Jim's question is, how does that mommy addiction of all addictions fit the four criteria of an addiction?

So, the first criterion was it's a compulsive behavior and a search for pleasure of some kind. And then secondly, you can't stop when you want. And that's a very important criterion, right?

A lot of people believe they're not addicted to something, and the test is, can you truly not eat a donut which is already in your hand? You know, do you really have the power to stop? Because you feel like you do, but you don't.

And then thirdly, that it hurts yourself in time, and then fourthly, that it hurts other people around you in time. So, the question is, Jim's question is, if I understand it, is you know, how does the mother addiction of all addictions fit the first of the four criteria? How is it that you seek pleasure by thinking of things in the wrong way?

And yeah, I would, I think your own answer is probably correct. I would say it's the foundation of all pursuit of pleasure, is to misunderstand where it comes from, or you wouldn't pursue it. You would just plant it.

So, I would distinguish between the pursuit of pleasure and the planting of pleasure, okay? So, planting to me is enlightened. I plant the pleasures I want next week, this week, by giving the elderly woman the maple card donut from Tim Horton.

So, I think I would answer that it's tied up with the word pursuit, or the seeking pleasure. The word seeking in DCI lingo is a no-no. You know, looking for a partner, trying to get a job, you know, trying to find a doctor who can treat some medical problem you have.

These are all illegal language in the DCI language, which is a language of its own. It has evolved over the last five years into a language of its own, but it's a no-no in DCI programs to say, I'm looking for a partner, I'm seeking a partner. Why?

It's just flatly wrong, you have to plant one, then they'll come to you. And there was a test case in New York City, some of you know. A woman challenged me, she said, are you saying I could plant the seeds for a boyfriend and then I could go lock myself up in my apartment and he would still show up?

Because if he's coming from my mind, he should. It shouldn't be dependent on where I am at when the seed ripens. And I said, that's correct.

And she actually planted the proper seed, went to her apartment and stayed there. He knocked on the door. He was delivering something and she opened the door and they got married, okay?

And that's a true story, okay? So, that's what I would say. The pursuit of pleasure is already a mistake.

The concept that you should look for things you want is already a mistake. So, in that, but that pursuit is the desire to have things that you want. Even the granddaddy, wrong view is that, okay?

We have a few more minutes if anybody else has a question. I like questions, oftentimes they teach us more than the teaching. Bonnie?

Okay, so Bonnie's question is, we have a catch word in DCI programs which is stop making decisions. I think the Russian team put it on a t-shirt, Kiev in Ukraine, right Ukraine? They put it on a t-shirt and they put, it said stop making decisions.

And we sell that as an idea. What it means is, anytime you feel torn between two courses of action, should I quit cold turkey or should I work myself off of the object of my addiction? Anytime you feel, there's a new word they use, conflicted, I like that.

It's a new verb in the last two years or so. Every time you feel conflicted over two courses of action, you're already making a mistake. To try to spend your time trying to decide between two courses of action, such as going cold turkey on your cigarettes or weaning yourself off of your cigarettes, anytime you're faced with a decision that feels confusing to you or it puts you in a tough spot to make a decision, that confusion or uncomfortable feeling that you get when you're faced with a difficult decision is a sign that you're going the wrong way already. Okay, that's should be an alarm.

What do you call it? An alarm should go off when you, anytime you feel less than pretty happy, you're doing something wrong already. Okay, so anytime you face two courses of action and you're conflicted and you're not sure which one to do, you're already doing the wrong thing.

Okay, in this system. You know, because you should be doing the third one, right? The third one is calmly plant the right seed.

Now, if the decision is what's the best way to plant a seed, you know, which would be more effective for my getting lots of maple-covered doughnuts in the future, you know, that's okay. That kind of conflict is good, that's healthy, that's like almost like meditation. Should I, you know, offer it to her in a napkin or should I offer to give her one every week or, you know, what's the best way to plant seeds?

That's okay, but there's an emotion you have when you're using this system which is comfort and certainty and assurance and peace. Because all possible options of planting seeds are the service of others. So, all possible options for gaining things that you dream of are desirable and serving others.

And when you're really focused on serving other people, you don't get upset, you don't get, if things don't work out, you don't get upset. You know, like if you're trying to give money away to somebody and they just refuse it or like Earl or, you know, or they say you keep it or, like you don't get angry, you know. You're just like, okay that's cool, I'll give it to somebody else.

So, it's a sign that you're in the right system is that all possible options make you feel happy because they're all serving others, okay? So, conversely, if you're stuck with a decision that makes you unhappy or feel conflicted, probably both, probably you're diamond dealing yourself. Probably you're trying to choose between a yellow diamond and a black one, okay?

Then, so it's a barometer of how pure your view is, the discomfort you have in a decision-making situation. If you feel increasing discomfort, then probably you're looking at it the wrong way. That's a sign.

It's almost certain that you're looking at it the wrong way, okay? Alright. In the back, please.

In the far back. Then we'll do the medium back, and then we'll stop.

[Speaker 2]
Is it just a person automatically that you choose to have in front of you? Or is it just the right person that you have in front of you? And the second one is, this reminds me kind of of like the manifestation of what I've talked about in my new age philosophy, which I assume that you're like in your way.

[Speaker 1]
And I'm wondering if you could, if that was true in countries and regions where people don't have, they would say it's more of a person in the back, and it more of a time in the relationship, just to put it that way. Do you feel like those kinds of rules, are they universal to the sense that you're in a relationship? Okay, good.

Now I'll, you know, oftentimes Buddha would answer a question with a question. And so, if I walk in the room and I look at a black plastic stick and I see a pen, we've been saying I see a pen because of an image in my own mind that pops out of a karmic seed that opens, okay? So in the case of walking down the street and meeting someone who wants to rob me, where does that person come from?

Yeah, they're just the same as a pen. The reason I see a person who wants to rob me, rather than just a passerby who walks past me and keeps going and I never see them again. The reason I see a person who wants to do violence to me is because I have a seed in my mind which opens into a luminous image of a person who wants to do me violence.

And in that luminous, excuse me, hang on, we have a crucial, I'm sorry, we have a crucial project going on right now. Okay, it went well. The reason I see a person who wants to rob me is that, according to us, is a karmic seed opens in my mind, an image of a violent person comes out in my own mind, and in my mind places that image, overlays that image upon the person approaching me on the sidewalk.

So, in that sense, everything and everyone I ever meet is coming from what I did last week or last month. Okay, everything that happens to me is coming from seeds in my own mind. So, there's nothing random, and there's a sort of a comfort to that, which is that everything in the world makes sense.

Everything that happens to me makes sense. Everything I get is deserved. Good or bad, I have earned it, you know.

And that leads to a, for me, a higher comfort, which is that the world is logical, and there's a justice to everything. Everything that happens to me... But isn't that how the Indian, how traditionally in India they justify the caste system, or they justify slavery?

Can you describe any injustice because of this last few decades? Oh, yeah, no, it's fine. If you meet a high class Brahmin, I was in India 40 years ago today, and I was on a bus, and the bus got caught in a flash flood in a wash, and a Brahmin was swept away, and an untouchable threw him a rope, and he refused to touch the rope, and he died.

And so, in this system, if I would like to be treated, if I would like to be abused and mistreated, then I should subscribe to the caste system. It's very interesting, you see what I mean? The answer to your question is, who made the lower caste person lower caste?

They did. What should I do about it? I should do everything in my power to bring them up, and recognize them as an equal individual.

If I don't, what will happen to me? Then people will treat me that way shortly, you see? So, a person who understands this system, they have two points of view when they see another person being hurt.

You know? Like, we just spent two weeks in Mexico, and we had a lot of meetings about what to do about the 50,000 kids that got pushed over the border. We had a lot of meetings in Mexico about how to help them.

And a person who understands this system, they have two things are going on in their mind. Number one, even this child has done something to someone else to cause them suffering, or they wouldn't be undergoing this suffering. Number two, I must help them.

I must, therefore, I must help them. Okay, that's the logic in this system. It's not the opposite.

It's not like, oh, they're suffering because of something they did, therefore I shouldn't help them. That's like crazy. That would be crazy logic.

They're suffering because of something they did, therefore I should do something that's not helpful. You see, that's crazy. In this system, are they suffering?

Yes. Did they bring it upon themselves? Ultimately, yes.

What's my responsibility? What's the most intelligent thing I can do? I must help them.

I don't have a choice, you know? I must help. If I ignore someone in suffering, what will happen the next time I'm in trouble?

Someone will ignore me. And we ignore. We don't hurt people, but we ignore people.

We ignore suffering. So, that's a common question that we get. If I...

I was in New York City with my Lama. One of my Lamas, Geshe Lothar, okay? Who's having an operation on Monday.

People should pray for him. Heart operation. We were on the bus when he was younger and I was slightly younger in New York City and a guy grabbed a lady's purse and took off.

And we ran after him, you know? And he actually dropped the purse and we ran after him together. So, there's this Tibetan Lama running down this...

It was Sixth Avenue in robes. It was kind of cool. And he dropped her purse and then...

We had this big moral discussion afterwards. Like, I'm like, why were we able to help the lady and why didn't we get shot by the guy? And he's like, we were able to help her because what?

Because she helped someone else in the past. Then, you know, I was 20 years old and I'm like, well, Geshe Lothar, then why should I try to help her? Because I...

I want people to help me if some guy tries to kill me. You see what I mean? It's like that.

I mean, it's our responsibility to help others. If you understand the system, you can't ignore people in trouble anymore, wherever they are. And the internet has made the world so small.

We know of everyone's problems now. We can't... In New York we're going to do a big Ebola thing.

We have someone from Africa has come and we're going to do a big Ebola fundraiser. We have to do that kind of stuff, you know. We can't just ignore people, okay?

Because of karma we can't ignore them. What was the second question? Yeah, good question, okay.

So, it's harder for people, let's say in a war zone, to use these principles to get quick results than it is for a person who's already in a wealthy country. Why? Because the countries themselves are being projected from the seeds in those respective people's minds.

The war zone is coming out of the mind of the person in the war zone. So, that means they already have a lot of very violent seeds in their mind. So, it's going to be harder for them, it is going to be harder for them to use these principles in the short term to become a millionaire in the middle of, you know, Eastern Ukraine right now, okay?

Because the environment they're living in is coming from the seeds in their mind and that means they already have a lot of negative seeds ripening. So, it is harder for a person in a war zone to manifest the results, but we went to the Ukraine. We were there, we were on a flight the day after the one was shot down, okay?

And it was kind of, you know, unreal. We were very carefully sitting as it took off. I don't know how you do that with a missile coming at you, but I'll tell you something, we kind of, oftentimes we purposely go to dangerous places or war zones because there's a lot more hay to be made in that sunshine, you know?

You can do a lot more good in a dangerous place than in a, you know, where there's trouble. And the Ukrainians were so grateful and do I mention, is it okay to mention? Certain parties who are here sponsored that trip and made it possible for us to, it's okay, the Morse did.

All three, a team. So, the Ukrainian economy has collapsed, even in the West, even in Kiev. So, most of the people couldn't afford to come to the retreat, so they sponsored them.

And so, for us, as people who are following these ideas, it's important for us to go to places that are not comfortable. I was in a very, I felt great about Bono of U2. He caught Ebola because he was serving a person with Ebola.

And you know, to be a zillionaire and like Mr. Handsome, and then serving an Ebola patient and then contracting Ebola, and he's okay now, but that was so courageous to me. And it seemed so cool. So, we have to be brave like that, you know?

We have to be like that. And the biggest disease in the world is, is not understanding the pens, you know? That's the most deadly disease in the world, is not to understand that what you do comes back to you, right?

Or to understand how it works, okay? That's the biggest disease in the world. And that's the biggest danger to world peace, okay?

I think we stop there, because it's kind of cool. So, and I gave this talk, I was giving this talk in Mexico City, and we had a book table outside on the sidewalk, why? We weren't allowed to sell books in this theater.

It was some kind of government rule. So, you know, being the sneaky Buddhists we are, we just put the book table outside the door on the sidewalk, and people had to go out the door to buy the book and come back in. And a woman was shot right there, right at the book table, across, right on the sidewalk.

Shot through, four shots to the door of her car. And someone gave me a lecture afterwards about how it's more efficient to shoot to the door because the bullet goes straight. And you never, you can tell a professional because they don't shoot to the glass.

And I'm like, okay, I'm glad I know that. And, and we were talking about that it's our responsibility. If you understand these concepts, you kind of have an extra added, what do you call it, guilt trip, on top of all the ones you already have, that it's your responsibility to help spread it as quickly as you can, and as widely as you can.

And that expense to yourself, financial expense to yourself, or your physical health, or your physical time, it's up to us to act quickly. You know, we can't wait. We gave this talk, I gave this lecture, I was giving this lecture in the theater while the lady was being shot outside.

And our people, one of them is a medic and he was manning the book table and he was very brave and he went, Geronimo, if you know him, he went and took care of her. It was pretty awesome. Alejandro was right behind him.

So, if you understand these concepts, at your own risk you should, you should try to help other people. At the cost of your health, or your time, or your finances, you should, we have to sacrifice quickly into everything we can. Okay?

Okay? Because the whole world has Ebola. World view Ebola.

Okay. We'll see you, what time? Seven o'clock?

Any announcement? No. Okay.

Thank you. See you at seven o'clock.