Трещины в крыле: учимся видеть знаки того, что всё не совсем так (2019, Нью-Йорк), занятие 1

[Speaker 2]
It is my privilege and honor to ask you to help me give a huge, warm, exciting welcome to the source of this love, Geshe Michael Roach. Hello, hi.

[Speaker 1]
So we just finished a term in our college, our little college in Sedona. And I taught 72 classes in two weeks, mostly translation classes. And so we have a team of about, it's about 120 translators.

About half of them are in China. So I'm training 80, well 80 translators in China. And then we're training about 40 translators from America and Europe in Sedona.

And so I brought the, this is two years of work. How many pages, you were supposed to count it. I don't know.

2,747 pages of new translations of ancient books by this team in the last two years. So I thought during the break, if you get bored, you could come look at it. And we also had an interesting negotiation with the Chinese government.

Because every time I go there, I have to be interviewed by the security bureau. And I, you know, it's a tough process to teach there. And so we had a chance to meet with it.

There's a new bank in China, I guess Byron would know, called the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Which was funded with 100 billion dollars by the Chinese government. That's all the American bonds that they own.

Seriously. And they are rebuilding the infrastructure of Asia and Europe. So they bought whole railway systems, the Pakistani railway systems.

Tibet is connected to the ocean now. And things like that. It's amazing.

It's a huge thing. And so we had a meeting with them. And I said, you need us.

And they're like, why? And I said, well, you're going to go connect Europe to China, basically. It's like the old silk road.

In fact, it's the same route. And for 2000 years, there was a silk road. And there was a law passed in ancient Rome against buying Chinese silk.

Because all of Rome's gold was going to China. And that was before Christ. A law was passed by the Roman Senate.

And I said, you're going to get, what do you call it? People kick back? No.

People are going to be resentful after a while. If you own all the railways and ports and airports. You know, people are going to, what's it called?

Blowback? Anyway, you're going to get resentment from people. And you have to learn to be a little more, what do you call it?

Interesting and fun. And diplomatic. And you have to, so I have this idea that you could take your ancient culture and you could train your executives, your business executives, about your own ancient literature.

And then, you know, my experience in business, in the diamond business for 20 years, was, you know, diamonds are international. Everyone in the, every country has diamonds. So, when you do the diamond business, you interact with people from every country, every religion.

Everybody has diamonds. And then the most interesting business people were the ones who knew about their history of their country and their literature and their philosophy. So, I said, we'll train all of your business executives in your ancient literature.

And then they'll be more, they'll be more interesting people and more fun people. And then when you take over the world, it'll be more fun. And so, we had this conversation like that.

And they said, okay. We basically started a program called China Soft Power. And we said, look, you have hard power already.

You are the second or first economy in the world. And you have probably the most powerful military now. But do you have soft power, you see?

Do you have cultural power and kindness and compassion and things like that? So, they said, okay. And so, we started a program.

There's 40 business owners, big, very big business owners. And they come. I go three times a year.

We have about a week together. We spend all day together. And, you know, it's exciting.

But the first couple of days was rough. Because they didn't know me, I didn't know them. And so, I was running off the plane.

And the organizers asked me, do you have any materials ready? I said, no. I said, I was too busy.

And they said, well, what are you going to do? I said, I also don't know. Because in the first half of the day, I have to teach a translation class.

So, we found some ancient works by Chinese authors on the art of interpretation, for example. So, it would take 8,000 pages of English. It would take about 30 years to translate.

And so, we started it. And we started with a group of 80 translators. And we're working our way through it.

So, that's the first half of the day. Then I'm supposed to go meet with all these Chinese business executives and sell them on their own culture. But I don't have anything ready.

So, I sent them a message. I said, everyone has to come to the translation class. And it's very obscure translations, which if you have the courage to look inside, you will see.

And very, very difficult texts. And so, they came. And I said, okay, you have to sit here for four hours and listen to ancient literature, your ancient literature of your country.

And then you have an assignment in the afternoon. This is how I got out of teaching a class. I said, you have an assignment in the afternoon to work in teams, which Chinese people do really, really well.

So, teams of 10 guys each, 10 women or men. And these are big business, very big business owners. And you're going to create modern applications from the ancient literature you heard translated.

And that's your training. That's what you have to do. Because that's all I do.

We started in New York, I don't know, 1905 or something. Right, Rick? 1905.

And the idea was I had just been to the Geshe course. I was finishing my Geshe degree. And that's 20 years of training in five great subjects.

And so, I thought it would be cool to teach it to Westerners. But I had to make it interesting to modern people. So, I was struggling to take the parts of the Geshe course that makes sense to anyone, which is not all of it.

And we created 36 courses. It's about, I think it's almost 20,000 pages of translation. So, Hector's taught the whole thing through here.

John Stilwell taught it all through. Will Mead has been to 18 courses. He's on his third time through.

The Three Jewels is going to start a review of it this year, the next year. And then they're going to go advanced. Then they're going to do the advanced ones.

So, anyway. So, my contribution was to take the ancient Geshe course and modernize it. And make it available to normal people.

And at the time, it was a big deal. And we got a lot of criticism. I got a lot of criticism, I told somebody today, for teaching women the Geshe course.

Because they weren't allowed to see the Geshe course before that. No woman was allowed to be a Geshe for a thousand years. And so, I got a little bit of heat on that.

And recently, the first official woman Geshe was recognized by the authorities. But we did it 20 years before. It seems to go like that.

But anyway. So, these Chinese business people, I said, look, because our courses are famous in China. Many, many people do our courses.

Many thousands of people. Which in China is nothing but, you know, it's a lot. And I said, I'm teaching you my secret.

You see? You're going to go to a translation class. You're going to hear your ancient books.

And then, you're going to figure out something that can be used in your modern life. Or your modern business. You're going to do, I'm teaching you what I do.

And that's all I do. That's my big secret. That's why I get to travel around the world and teach 30,000 people a year.

The reason is, all I do is take an ancient book and find something cool and then teach it to business people for some kind of application in business. You see? So, I told these guys, I'm teaching you what I do.

This is the secret. Then you can replace me. That's basically all I do.

I take some ancient wisdom and translate it. And then I dig around. I call it diamond mining.

And we call it diamond mining now. So, I dig around. I try to find something cool that we can use for your modern life.

Okay? So, that's all I do. And I taught them what I do.

And they got very good at it. Scary good at it. You know?

And then now, the first group, it's 18 months training for Chinese executives. They came to me a few months ago and said, we're teaching the second group. We'll take it.

You know? And I'm like, okay. Because they're good.

They're really, really good at it. You know? So, anyway, I was in, I taught 72 classes two weeks ago.

It was exhausting. You know? It was incredibly exhausting.

Because each class takes about maybe four or five hours to prepare. So, we are translating these ancient books. And I thought I would teach you the cream of what we did.

Okay? And so, I'm going to do it tonight. I'm going to start, I'm going to start on the cream of the cream.

Okay? And then, those of you who work for Three Jewels or work at Three Jewels, we'll do another course tomorrow evening at the Three Jewels. But because the space is limited, the second half of this talk, tomorrow, if you're not a staff member at the Three Jewels or something like that, you're welcome to listen online.

Because we crushed as many people as we could in, but I think it's going to, you know, they can't take more. They informed me a couple weeks ago not to talk about it. So, of course, I'll talk about it.

But I negotiated, they're going to put it online. So, if you want, tomorrow night it'll be live streamed. Okay?

The second half of this class. And then in the morning, or lunch? Breakfast?

Brunch? We'll do, we'll also do some cool stuff. That's the people who paid for tonight to make it free.

We invited them to lunch tomorrow. So, I'll do a special shtick for them. Okay?

So, tonight I'd like to do The Cream of the Cream. We're working on 108 books, a series of 108 books. And my favorite lately, okay, it changes every few months, but my favorite lately is Nagarjuna.

So, I'll talk about Nagarjuna and then we're going to dive into Nagarjuna. Okay? So, Nagarjuna is sometimes called Buddha number two.

Second Buddha to walk in this world. The Buddha lived 500 B.C. and was enlightened here in this world 500 B.C., two and a half thousand years ago. And then, he taught for, I think he was 81 years old when he passed away.

80, 80, 81. And he taught constantly throughout his life. We have we have 990 texts based on his teaching survive.

And there's a rumor that there are thousands more that were lost. Okay? Then he passed away and then there was a grand meeting of all his students and they say 500 of his students.

And they agree, kind of they messed things up. Okay? It reminds me when I left New York.

Just kidding. So, I taught all the courses here and then I went into a three-year silent retreat. You know, and I thought, oh, you know, I don't know what's going to happen.

Actually, they kept it very well. And they did everything very well. They kept it quite well.

But after the Buddha died, they didn't keep it very well. And this meeting, I guess there was too many people there. It was kind of a committee, which is a bad way to do religion.

And they had a big committee and they wrote out the teachings and that record is called Abhidharma. And I did Abhidharma for 12 years. I translated the main text for 12 years.

That was my first thing in the monastery. And it is the most boring, dry subject in the universe. Extremely dry and boring.

And so for 700 years, this school took over called Abhidharma and the boring school. And so Buddhism got very dry and I appreciate it because I worked on it for 12 years. I memorized most of it and it's long.

Sakye Sampametsuna, Lama Thogpa Dukshina, Sakye Khandro, Deyla Lhasa, Namkundi Gyurpa Gyalwa, Samy Lhambi, Demba Nangdu, Meshena, Sumyante, Nangka Dhani, Gopadhi, Deyla Nangka, Madipo, like that. It goes on like that. And then came the Garjuna.

Okay? 200 A.D. I think he might have been influenced by Christianity. I'm not sure.

Judaism reached the Malibar coast, the west coast of India before Christ. And then Thomas, the disciple Thomas, was sold into slavery as a carpenter to work in the Tibetans call it Dojok. What's it called in Afghanistan?

I forget. No, there's a city. Anyway, he was, it's a beautiful story.

You want to know the story? Okay, that's a beautiful story. And it's told in the Gospel of Thomas as it survives in Syria.

so, you know, Jesus appeared to his disciples after he died and gave them all a mission. You know, Peter went to Rome and other guy went to Greece and, you know, then came the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. But he also assigned Thomas to go to India.

There would have been three Christian branches except Thomas refused to go. So, he asked Thomas to go to India. And Alexander had just gotten back, you know, 300 years before.

Well, he didn't come back. He died because it was the end of the world. So, Thomas is like, I don't want to go to the end of the world.

And Jesus is like, you're assigned to the end of the world. And he says, look, I'm a Jew. I speak Hebrew.

You know, he says, I don't care. Just go. You know, and he appeared to him in his bedroom and Thomas refused to go.

And so, then there was a slave trader from, what is that place? Come on. Northern Afghanistan.

It's where Asanga studied. Sounds like Tashkent, but it's not. Anyway, look it up, huh?

No. No. Afghanistan side.

Anyway, I'll think of it by the end. So, then the slave trader came to Jerusalem and he was, probably it was in a Starbucks, I think. And Jesus had just died.

All his disciples are laying low and trying to keep out of trouble. And then Jesus appears and talks to the slave trader. And they're sitting in a coffee shop, if you've ever been to Jerusalem, one of these small streets.

And the guys, Jesus said, well, what are you looking for? And he says, I need a carpenter who knows Greek style because Thomas was an expert in the Greek style. The Jews knew the Greek style and they were popular slaves.

So, so they, Jesus says, I have a guy for you. You know, he's perfect. He's a carpenter.

His name is Thomas, you know. And the slave trader says, okay, can I meet him? And then Thomas is just walking down the street and and Jesus says, I own him.

He's my man, you know. And he says, well, how much is he going to cost? He says, 20 pieces of silver.

And the guy says, well, he must not be very good because 20 pieces of silver is almost nothing. And then Jesus said, a man should not be sold for more than his master. Because Jesus was sold, I think, for 30 pieces of silver.

So, the guy's like, what are you talking about? He says, well, never mind. And and then he, and the guy gets suspicious.

He says, are you really the guy's owner? Are you his master? And he says, yeah, yeah, he's my slave.

You know. So, there's this beautiful scene where Thomas walks down the street, sees Jesus at the coffee shop, walks in to say hi. This is after the crucifixion.

And he's all excited and he's like, you know, oh Jesus, it's you. And Jesus says, this is my friend, you know. His name was Hamas or something.

and the slave trader says, is this guy your master? And Thomas says, my only lord and master. Took him to India.

Took him to Afghanistan. And that's a long, beautiful story. But it was just before Nagarjuna.

And Thomas ended up, after he got out of prison, because he didn't build the palace properly, which is another beautiful story. But I believe he affected South India. He was martyred in Chennai, Madras.

He died in Madras. And I believe he affected Buddhism. But there's some beautiful stories of Buddhist monks meeting the Greek kings who succeeded Alexander.

One named Menander. That in Sri Lanka they call him Melinda. And the great teaching on emptiness, the greatest early teaching on emptiness is a conversation between a Buddhist monk named Nagasena and the Greek king Melinda, Menander.

So I think there was this big connection going on. So anyway, Nagarjuna came out of that. A hundred years later, Nagarjuna appeared in South India.

And he hungered for the original teachings of the Buddha that had been borrowized, made boring. He hungered for the deeper teachings. And he felt like something was missing.

And so he started writing poetry about emptiness. It's said that he had seen emptiness directly, which is very rare. And so sometimes he's called the Arya, which means a person who has seen emptiness directly.

He's just called the Arya. And he wrote poetry about emptiness. And he revived, we would say, the original teachings of Lord Buddha 700 years later.

And that came to be called the greater way, the Mahayana. And specifically the middle way, Madhyamaka. And so what I thought tonight, he wrote six famous books of poetry.

And we are translating a lot of them and commentaries on them in the college. And I thought, it's just, seems very beautiful to me. He's an extraordinary writer.

I think it's a thing about Aryas, people who have seen emptiness directly, that they are, they're so different. Arya means different evolution from us. They're so different that the way they write is very, very, I don't know how to say it.

It's like super genius. But they love to do things short and sweet and profound. And so I thought we go for a dip in Nagarjuna tonight, with your permission.

I'd like to go there. And what's striking me, as we work through the translations all over the world, and we're training 120 translators. By the way, we also have a secondary translation team.

They are translating the translations into Russian. I think we have a lady here. Maria Kondratieva from Moscow.

Where are you? There. And German.

Her husband, Piotr Walicki, Myrtle, is helping to do the German. Uta Scharf is helping to do the German. Spanish, from many different people.

But we have a Mexico crew here. Three great wise people. Los Mujeres.

They have a radio show. Like a Nagarjuna radio show. Once a week?

Twice a week. It's like the hottest thing in Guadalajara. And they've been doing it for five years or something?

Three years. Like super hot. Live Nagarjuna on the radio.

We have a Syrian here, Noor Ibrahim. She's translating into Arabic. We have, Ben's not here, right?

He's doing French. And we have Indonesian. And things like that.

So if you're interested to help with that, you're very welcome. So talk to Tim. Or Noor?

Noor is okay? Yeah. And we have here the people who find the original text.

John Brady. You should give him a hand. Can you stand up?

He's been going around the world for about 30 years finding the ancient text to input. They cataloged 141,000 books in Russia. St. Petersburg. Took 14 years. They're working on, how many Christina? Between 250 and 500,000.

They're working together as a team there in Mongolia. We started 15 years ago. We're about a quarter way through or something like that.

Maybe. And Vimala's working on the Sanskrit. Will you stand up?

So anyway, I thought I would tonight take out the sweetest things from the translations. But if you'd like to participate in any way, we need secondary translators. Of Deutsch.

People who can translate to English or Russian or whatever you like. And we also need people to help us fundraise. Because it's expensive.

It costs about, I don't know, close to a million dollars a year to do the whole thing. So, if you'd like to help with that project, talk to Nour. You want to stand up?

Or Tim. Okay? And the idea is, we'll print 108 rare books of the most important cream of the cream, which you will learn tonight.

And then it'll be translated into, I don't know, 15 languages. And it will take about 100 years. Some of the books are scheduled to take 20 years to translate.

So, we need help. If you'd like to help in any way, talk to those guys, okay? Or Rachel, Three Jewels.

You guys, you want to stand up? Yeah. The Three Jewels people, yeah.

Oh, Stephen. I didn't see you. Or Stephen.

Talk to them. We need help translating and we need help fundraising. But the fundraising is fun.

You just join a team and they tell you what to do and don't worry about it, okay? So, please help. I think it will...

The last time this was done was in 700 AD by a similar team of crazy people in China. And it's kind of a repeat of that. But what happened in China is they changed the country for a thousand years.

So, I think it will happen here. Okay, let's go to Nagarjuna. There's a nice carving.

Oh. Okay. There's a photo on the front of your reading, okay?

And I have an advisor who's been helping me since he was a small kid. And now he's a big kid. Francis, where are you?

Oh. Can you explain what's this photo on the front? Yeah.

Yeah. Part of a comet airplane, okay? So, this is an airplane.

It was by the Haviland Company in Britain after the war. And they made the first jet passenger plane, okay? Four-engine jet plane.

First one for passengers in the world. And it had four... It had four engines.

To make it pretty, they put them in the wing. And, you know, I don't know if you know the story. Anyway, they flew for a while, six months.

The queen flew on it. The princess flew on it. And then they started to fall down.

And it was a little disturbing. And wings would fall off. And, you know, people would...

Nobody survived, so nobody knew exactly what happened. But there are stories that, like in Rome, two crashed in Rome in the period of six months. And one of them crashed without its wings on.

And, you know, you're talking like 150 normal people like us sitting on the plane and suddenly it breaks in half. And everyone died, so nobody knew what happened. So they would collect the parts together.

One crashed over the Mediterranean. They had to collect the parts from underwater. And they took them to England and they put them back together and tried to figure out what happened.

And what happened was that there were small cracks. The windows were square. And small cracks would develop at the corner of the window.

And people were just like, okay, there's a little crack in the window. It's okay. It's not a big thing.

But then the metal fatigue would start in that corner. And then eventually the planes would just break in half, halfway through the flight. And then came this custom of people starting to watch for cracks on airplanes and testing with special X-rays to see if there's cracks in the airplane.

People got interested in cracks. What do you call them? Micro-cracks that they weren't interested in before because the planes were falling down all over the world.

The first passenger airplanes with jet engines. And finally they figured out what was happening. And then all the people who had said, oh, the cracks are nothing, you know, they became unpopular.

Especially with the families of the dead people. The lesson is that we got to look for cracks. If you see cracks, you got to pay attention.

I was on a flight from Dallas to Guadalajara recently and it was a hot day in July. And we're taxiing out to the runway, slowly, and I'm looking out the window and there's jet fuel pouring off the wing. Like huge gallons and gallons of jet fuel pouring off the wing, you know.

And I'm like, and they're about to take off and I said, should I scream, you know? Should I say something? Or should I just, it's not very cool to start screaming just before takeoff, you know.

And then I just decided not to say anything. And then I said, oh, you're so stupid. If you die because you're afraid to scream, that's so stupid.

I said, yeah, that's stupid. So I yelled. I said, hold it, you know.

And everyone's like, security people are, you know, I said, hold it. Stop the plane, you know. And they're all like, what, you know.

And the stewardess came over and said, look out the window and there's gallons and gallons of jet fuel pouring out off the wing. And she says, that's probably nothing, you know. I said, could you ask someone, you know.

Could you just ask someone, you know. And then she went and got the co-pilot. They stopped the plane and the co-pilot came back and he's like, hmm, it's probably nothing, you know.

I'm like, do you know it's nothing? No. Could you ask somebody?

You know, he said, okay, we'll ask somebody. And then they called the, what do you call, the air tower and all that. And it is normal.

When the plane gets hot and the fuel expands, there's an emergency valve and it dumps fuel out on the runway. Hundreds and hundreds of gallons of fuel. I don't know what happens to it if you'd spark or something.

But it's interesting. And we took off and I'm still here. But sometimes you notice something is wrong.

And this is a theme with Nagarjuna, okay. Because I've been eating Nagarjuna heavy for the last few years. And we've been deep, deep into Nagarjuna.

And he keeps saying, don't you notice the cracks? Don't you notice something weird going on? And after a while you don't notice it, you know.

You're like, yeah, okay Nagarjuna, just calm down. It's probably all right, you know. But he's insistent, you know.

And he keeps saying, something's weird. Something's going on, you know. And there's cracks in the airplane or there's some kind of weird stuff going on, you know.

Something's not right, okay. So, I thought I would follow that theme through several of his books that we're working on. One is called Rinchen Theravada, Ratnavali, which means a string of precious jewels.

And then he has another book called Wisdom, which is the most famous book on emptiness ever written. And it's the source of everything, everything since then. And we're translating the best commentary to that, two of them.

One by Tsongkhapa, which is a take about 20 years. We're about six years into it. And then the third one is a book called The Sixty Verses on Reasoning.

And these are all three of his six famous books on emptiness, okay. So, what I did was, it's like, what do you call? Whitman sampler chocolate?

I thought you'd enjoy some chocolate from Nagarjuna, okay. So, here we go. First verse.

And there's my favorite picture of him, okay. He, by his time, many of the original scriptures were missing. And he figured out that the dragons had some of them.

Because dragons like sparkly, precious things. And there used to be dragons, just like in The Lord of the Rings, okay. And they really do like sparkly things, like crows.

So, they collect sutras. And there's a long story, but he went to the land of the dragons and he recovered the sutras. And as a result, he's a monk, right?

Monk bald head. Whenever it was hot in India, the dragons would cover his head. Dragon called Naga, right?

Arjuna means lord. So, Naga Arjuna means lord of the dragons. And he would boss them around, okay.

He had some special power over them. So, you see, when you see a picture of Nagarjuna, you know it's him. Because the snakes are above his head, holding out their hoods to protect him from...

It's a... what do you call it? What's that cream you put on when it's...

Sunscreen! Ancient sunscreen. Okay, Nagarjuna.

So, here's one of his most famous verses, okay. The person is not their solidness, nor their wetness, nor their warmth, nor the motion inside, nor the space within, nor even the awareness of the world. Nor all of these together.

And how could you find them somewhere else? So, this is a reference to the ancient medical terms of the four elements or the five elements, okay. Say SA.

Come on, don't be New York, okay. SA CHU ME LUNG NAM KHA NAM SHES Okay, sometimes four, sometimes five, sometimes six elements, okay. And this is like Aristotle or Socrates and we think they're kind of crude descriptions of medical terms, right?

They didn't have, you know, esophagus and I don't know, large intestines, they had the elements. And if you understood the elements you could treat disease. So, you know, most modern people think they were just stupid, they didn't have microscopes, you know, were not really made of the five elements.

But if you study it more in that most boring book called Abhidharma, you find out that there are quite sophisticated descriptions of the basic energies of the universe. Like gravity or electricity or mass or you think, it's very, very sophisticated. So, warmth, solidness means it's called earth element.

So, I translated it as solidness. Because it's not dirt inside your body, it's the, what do you call it? Solidity in your body.

It's the bones. It's the stuff in the bones that keeps you upright right now, that keeps your neck holding your head. It's not, it's not that they believed there was little pieces of dirt in you.

It's not that they were, what do you call? Stupid or something. They were advanced.

It's the principle, it's the quality of solidity in the human body. It keeps your skin on, it keeps your head up, it keeps you walking, okay? Otherwise you'd be like a jellyfish, okay?

That's what solidity is. So, that's earth element, okay? True water element is the wetness in your body, okay?

So, there's a certain amount of wetness in steel also. According to the ancient teachings, there's some wetness in this. A hundred years from now, this will be drier than it is now.

There are small amounts of water even in a piece of iron, okay? And they cause fluidity, okay? They are fluidity.

They're like gravity, okay? SA CHU ME Fire is warmth, but compared to absolute zero. So, it's not some stupid thing that the ancients like Aristotle thought you had some fire inside your body and if it got too little, you got sick or something like that.

It's not that. It's the quality of warmth above, so ice has some warmth in it. You can make ice colder.

You see what I mean? So, it still has some warmth in it. So, it is the quality of heat, okay?

Inside your body, it's life. When you die, you get colder. And as the years go by, the pieces get all colder and colder, okay?

So, you have this quality of warmth. The steel has warmth. Ice has warmth.

The sun has more. So, we all have warmth. SA CHU ME LUNG They call it motility.

What do I call it? Motion, okay? You move, right?

We did a yoga class today with Coco. It was really nice, especially the ending. Just kidding.

But the fact that you can move your body, that the heart beats, that the lungs move, that the legs can move, is motion. You have motion. Your body has motion.

So, you are made of solidity. You are made of water. You are made of warmth.

You are made of motion. And you are made of the space in which these things sit, which we're going to talk about later, okay? And you have awareness, okay?

You think. You're aware of the world, okay? These are the basic parts to a human being.

He could have said arms, legs, head and brain. And some people do that. But he's cool, you know?

He's saying on an atomic level, you have mass, you have momentum, you have inertia, you have gravity. You know, it's very deep ancient ideas that you are made. This is what you are made of.

You are made of energies. You are made of five or six energies, okay? And then he says, but you're not, okay?

But you're not. And then he says, but you're not made of anything else either. Okay, got it?

You are not made of what you're made of individually. Each part is not you. All the parts together is not you.

And you're not anything else either, okay? And he says, something weird's going on. You should have noticed cracks.

You should notice that something weird's going on. Then we're like, what do you mean? You know, what do you mean I'm not all my parts together?

What do you mean? He says, well, what happens when you cut your arm off? Does Michael...

Are you less Michael if you get your arm amputated? Are you? How many arms you got to lose to not be Michael anymore?

You see, how much of Michael can you lose before you lose Michael? There's a problem, right? Is Michael this paper?

Because if you come up here and say this is the most stupid paper I've ever read, it's going to hurt Michael. Michael thinks it's part of Michael. You see what I mean?

Somebody takes your seat in the break. You know? Now you...

Try to take a baby from a mother and say this is not part of you. You see? Can another person be part of you?

Can me extend to another person? Nagarjuna's trying to say, weird stuff is going on. Your idea of you is a little bit strange, you know?

I had a guy... I have friends here from New Jersey. I spent, I don't know, how many?

25 years in a small Mongolian temple, right? And we had a Mongolian guy named Rupjor. Old man.

His name was Rupjor. I'll give $500 to anyone who can tell me what the Sanskrit is. Okay, cancel that.

Subuti. The hero of some book. The Diamond Cutter Sutra.

Okay, it's the corrupt Tibetan, which is Rupjor. But anyway, it got corrupted in Mongolian. So, I used to take care of him.

I used to give him his insulin shot. You know, he needed insulin shots every day. And I asked the doctor, you know, I said, the doctor said, you're going to give him the shots.

And I said, I don't know. I don't know how to give a shot. So, he gave me an orange.

He said, poke the orange and shoot it three or four times. And I did. He says, okay, now you're trained.

And, and then I gave him his shots every day. And then he got a sore on his foot, right? And, which is very dangerous for a diabetic, right?

And then he put, so the ancient Mongolian treatment, the karmic treatment is to put horse pee on it, which made it much worse. And he saw it. So, we went to the doctor and I'm translating for him.

And the doctor says, you must cut the foot off this week. You must, or you will die. It has gangrene, you know.

And I'm translating, you know. We got to cut the foot off this week. And he's like, no.

And I'm like, you're going to die. He says, okay, I'll die, you know. And I'm like, the doctor says you're going to die.

You need to cut the foot off. And he says, I won't cut the foot off because it's me. You see?

It won't be me if you cut my foot off. You see what I mean? This is very nirgajana.

He's like, if I cut my foot off, I won't be rupjali, I won't be subhuti anymore, you know. Cannot do, you know. I don't care.

Die, die, you know. And so, they put him in a special nursing home. What do you call it?

Hospice. And we said goodbye, and you know. Then I got busy.

My Lama got busy. We were taking care of him. So, he was all taken care of.

Like 15 years later, we go to the nursing home. He's still there, you know. And he looks at me like, if I don't cut the foot off, I'll be dead, right?

And I'm like, I'm so sorry, you know. And he looks at me like, I felt so bad. I said, look, I was just translating, you know.

And I said, you know, this is like most amazing. You're gangrene, he should be dead, right? And I said, what'd you do?

He said, om mani padme hu. And I'm like, but you see, he thought that if he lost his foot, he wouldn't be himself anymore. Okay, got it?

So, Nagarjuna is saying, something weird is going on. Who is Kani? Who is John?

Is John Kani? Is John Kani a couple? They are going to change their name from O'Brien and Brady to O'Brady, I heard.

And at one point, can you take away a baby and the mother won't fight you, as if it were them, you see? Or at what point can you cut your foot off and you are still Rukjara, right? So, Nagarjuna is just saying, it's a little weird, you know?

Who we think is me is a little weird, you know? Because you can take off an arm and you're still Michael, right? And you can, when you have a child, when you give birth to a child, or your child gives birth to a child, right?

Like your daughter just did. It becomes part of you, you know? Try to take that child away, try to hurt that child, and that mom will fight you, like anything, you see what I mean?

So, Nagarjuna is saying, it seems to be a little weird of who is you, who is me, you see? How much of you is you? Can you remove an arm and you're still you?

Yes. Can you add a baby and then you get fatter? You become double.

And yeah, you do, you see? You can cover the baby with me and you can reduce me by an arm and you're still me, you see? So, what is me?

Is me all your parts? It's not, okay? Because you can take parts off and you can add parts and you're still you, you see?

That's a crack in the plane. Try to appreciate it. Something weird is going on, you see what I mean?

When you have a kid, the kid is a different person, you know, somebody tries to hurt your baseball star son, you're going to do something, right? Because your self got bigger. Nagarjuna is saying, your self is elastic.

Ori is elastic. Ori can cover more than Ori or Ori can cover less than Ori if Ori gets gangrene on his leg, you see? And he says it's weird.

It's just a little weird, you know? Who are you? Who is you, you see?

Are you your arm or not? No. Are you your body?

No. Why not? It's Michael's body, you see?

That means Michael is separate from the body. Got it? Got it?

It's my body. It's the body of Michael, right? That means Michael is separate from the body, right?

Isn't it? It doesn't make sense. Nagarjuna is saying, what, Michael's mind?

Wait, Michael is the mind. No, Michael is the one who has the mind, you see? Michael is the one who has the body.

You can lose a piece of your body and you're still Michael, okay? So, therefore, the body is not Michael. Otherwise, when you cut the foot off and you throw it in the garbage, Michael got thrown in the garbage.

You understand? Try to understand something weird is going on, okay? Something's wrong, okay?

You are not your body because you say, Connie's hair needs fixing, you know? You stand there. We all stand there.

Some of us, it takes less time, right, John? And we comb our hair, you know? And we say, that's Michael's hair.

But when you say the hair of Michael, it means it's not Michael. You see what I mean? Or Michael's mind.

So, if Michael has a mind and Michael has a body, it's like Michael has a book and Michael has shoes. But Michael's not the book and Michael's not the shoes. Got it?

So, if Michael can have a body and Michael can have a mind, then who's Michael? It's weird. Something's happening.

Oh, guess what? It's just a crack in the window. No big thing.

What's it say? I was so happy, 1946 or something, they said, origin of failure. Okay?

Origin of failure. Guess why I chose that? If you don't figure out the Michael thing and your leg and your arm and your friend and your baby, if you don't figure out who you are, origin of failure, you will fail in life.

Okay? You will fail in life. And if you figure it out about the cracks, you become incredibly successful.

Okay? We had the fastest, I believe it's the fastest growing industrial company in Manhattan in history, our diamond company, in history. It doubled every 18 months for 19 years.

Doubled the employees for 19 years, every 18 months. If you have 500 employees, hire 500 more every 18 months. Then the next 18 months, hire a thousand.

And imagine that. Imagine that going on for 19. If you figure out the origin of failure, there's something about Michael and the pieces of Michael that you have to figure out.

If you figure it out, you can do anything. Okay? You can do anything.

We have 3,000 people came to the event in Taipei. You know? It's weird.

We started in, where was that place? Hell's Kitchen with five people around the kitchen. You were there.

You were close. It's weird. If you figure it out, you can do stuff.

You can do cool stuff. Okay? You can make millions of dollars.

You can build a college for five million dollars. JB built, we said build a college. We didn't have any money.

Zero. Now we have this beautiful college. It's paid for.

Okay? People sit there and study. You know?

If you figure out the the cracks thing, your whole life changes. Then you can fly to LA and not fall down. Okay?

I'm trying to say, if you don't figure out the thing about Michael's leg, you will never be successful and you will keep having crashes and you will not understand why. You see? There's something about this question which your whole life depends on.

If you understand it, you can have, you can make anything happen in your life. And if you don't understand it, you will continue to have origin of failure. You see?

No matter what you try to do, business or personal relationships, stuff will go wrong and your plane will crash regularly every five years, every ten years. Your plane will crash. Okay?

And if you figure it out, tonight, then just cool stuff happens to you over and over, you know? Jing Mei does my, what do you call it? Accounting.

She goes like, your bank account is like insane. I said, give it away. She's like, yeah, but it keeps coming back.

You know? Okay. Let's just, right?

We just did something orange. Did you hear about that? Come on.

Okay, anyway. Okay, let's go on. If you figure out the source of failure, if you figure out the emptiness of you, you can do weird stuff.

You can be happy all the time and everything you do is successful. Okay? If you don't figure it out, your plane will continue to fall down.

Samoyed Upadhyat. Upadhyat? Isho, isho.

Over and over. Your airplane will fall down. Okay, got it?

Let's go to the next one. What time? Anybody have a ...

What time is it? I'm giving you a break, okay? Don't say I didn't give you a break.

And we do have refreshments. And I will sign books outside. And if you can't afford a book, I'll give you a book.

Guess why? Okay. The next page says, Understand every living being in the same way you understand yourself.

Understand every existing thing in the same way you understand beings. This is the Lord Buddha. Very, very, very famous statement about emptiness.

If you figure out the emptiness of you, of John, of Connie, of Bertha, or Bertha, if you figure it out, then everything becomes clear. Okay? So, we're going to go ...

You got that chart for me, Tim? Where is that? This is part of a teaching we give in other countries.

This is an outline of all the things in the universe. This is very famous, very famous teaching by Dharmakirti. Okay?

Very fundamental teaching of Dharmakirti. This is all the stuff in the universe. We're going to go through all the stuff in the universe box by box.

Okay? And we're going to point out the cracks. That something weird is going on.

Something's not right. Okay? And you can ignore the cracks.

Geshe-la, I don't really care whether my foot is part of me or not. Right now it's part of me, that's okay. I'm not stressed about it.

And I'm telling you, you got to figure it out. Because if you figure it out, if you admit something weird is going on and you find out how to fix it, you can have a jet plane. You see what I mean?

That goes around the world. You see? You can do anything if you figure it out.

And if you keep ignoring the discrepancies, the weird stuff, the cracks, you will always be unhappy. Stuff will always fail. Okay?

I'm trying to... This is Nagarjuna. Okay?

So, we're going to go through all this stuff one by one. The blue box means this is the definition of existence in Buddhism. Andy, you up for that?

TSE ME MIG PA TSE ME MIG PA YOD PA'I TSE NYI TSE ME TSE, TSE ME TSE ME MIG PA MIG PA YOD PA YOD PA TSE NYI TSE NYI The definition of existence is anything you can perceive. Okay? In Buddhism, that's the definition of existence.

Then your mind should go to the tree in the forest. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, did it fall down? What's the Buddhist answer?

Huh? Someone always sees everything. Why?

Because you can develop your mind to see all things. You see? There are people who see all things.

The Sanskrit word for a person who sees all things is a Buddha. Okay? So, anyway, anything you can perceive and you're not drunk and you're not crazy and you're not totally jealous at the moment is real.

Okay? So, that's reality. Okay?

It's divided into two parts and we're going to follow it here. We're going to do the left side is things that exist and change. Okay?

Things that change in the world. Okay? All the stuff that changes.

What percent of stuff changes? 99.99999. Okay? And moment by moment.

SKYE GCIG GI, SKYE GCIG GI, SKYE GCIG GI, BYAS PA'I CHOS. SKYE GCIG GI, SKYE GCIG GI. Say SKYE GCIG GI.

BYAS PA'I CHOS. Definition of impermanence. In and out of existence moment, instant by instant, 65 times as finger snap.

Things go in and out of existence. Okay? That's the stuff on the left.

Okay? Three basic categories of the stuff on the left. Bottom left box is called physical stuff.

Okay? And Abhidharma, this sleepy book, says that you spend most of your life in the visual arena of physical things. About 90% of your total experience is things you can see.

Okay? And then I'm going to go to Nagarjuna pointing out the cracks of physical stuff. Okay?

So, we have a feeling and science has taught us since you were a kid that stuff is made of little pieces. Okay? And, you know, in my time it was atoms and the world was made of atoms.

You see? And atom comes from Sanskrit. A means not.

It's called the privative A. It comes at the beginning of the word. It comes in atheistic or agnostic or apathetic and it means not.

A. A means not. TAM means divisible.

It's an ancient Sanskrit root. Parts of the town that were set aside from the town for worship were called TAM PO. Okay?

Temple came from that. So, ATAM means cannot be split further. Cannot be divided.

In the modern times in physics it means when you split that thing one more time it doesn't act the same anymore. Okay? So, you take an atom of something, an element, right?

Element means that. And I put the periodic chart of the elements here. You know?

What the word element means is if you have an atom or a molecule of oxygen for example and you split more, if you split the hydrogen from the oxygen in water, it doesn't act like water anymore. Okay? So, there are smaller parts.

Nobody says that hydrogen doesn't have smaller pieces but if you break it into smaller pieces it won't act like hydrogen anymore and that's why we call it an atom. Okay? ATAM So, you can't break it further.

You can, you can hit it in a nuclear, what do you call? Collider. Accelerator.

You can break it into pieces but those pieces won't act like hydrogen anymore. You see what I mean? So, that's what an atom means.

Okay? So, there's a smallest piece of something or it won't act like other things. Okay, got it?

The smallest piece of things. This is what science teaches you. We are translating a book here called Drupada Siddhanta, what's it mean?

School of Philosophy. It's a study of the school of philosophy. Ben Kramer is translating it.

We just slogged our way through 22 Hindu schools that died thousand years ago. You know, and it drives you crazy. You know, they all have different ideas and one of them, the Rajika school of the Jains has said that your soul is the size of a big umbrella.

It's white. It covers you from the chest down. When you get enlightened, it's 225,000 miles wide.

And there are these many, many schools of thought. What's at the top is Nagarjuna. And the secret teachings are based on Nagarjuna.

And then, so you go down from that eight Buddhist schools, groups, and then 22 non-Buddhist schools that we studied that are still studyable. And below those is science. Okay?

We're 30 schools down. 31 is science. It's a primitive belief that this is made of little pieces of stuff glued together that are the smallest functioning version of a thing.

Okay? That belief is below the lowest Hindu school in the chart. Okay?

In the Siddhanta. Why? Because the idea of an atom is cracked.

There's something wrong with it. Okay? Why?

An atom is the smallest possible thing. Okay? It cannot be divided further or it will lose its properties.

Okay? So, that means that every part of the atom has to be acting the same. The left side must be acting the same as the right side, right?

If you split them into left and right, the left side by itself cannot do its thing. That means atom. And the right side by itself cannot do its thing.

Got it? You gotta have an atom with a left side or right side. If you divide it, it won't work anymore.

This is science. Don't blame me. Okay?

This is science. And you believe it. You know?

When I ask you what religion you are, your religion is cell phone. Come on. You know?

And it's spread to the whole world. The whole world believes in cell phone. And you can say I'm Muslim or I'm Christian or I'm Buddhist.

I don't care. You're not really. You're cell phone.

You know? You are. And I travel constantly.

We're going to Tokyo the day after tomorrow, then we go to Shenzhen, then we go to Vienna. Everyone is cell phone religion. Okay?

It doesn't matter what country you're in. And they believe that there's something in the copper that carries electricity. They believe that.

You know? There's some quality in the copper atom that the glass doesn't have and that's why you make the wires out of copper because they conduct electricity. Okay, got it?

So, there's a smallest piece of copper and it touches another piece of copper. Got it? You're okay?

This is what you were taught. Don't tell me you don't believe it. You do believe it, you just never think about it.

Then the copper atoms are nested together in the wire and they have the ability to pass electricity. Electrons and protons. Okay?

You believe that. And they... But you can't...

They're like balls, right? Each atom is like a ball. Okay?

If you... And you must have a whole atom for it to work as copper. Agreed?

This is science. Element. That's the word element.

Okay? Got it? Are you okay?

Nobody's nodding. But they have to sit together in the same place and that's the only way you can make a wire. Do you understand?

So, the left side of the copper atom, which is touching the right side of the copper atom next to it, has to act as if it were the whole atom. Okay? Which means the only way that copper would ever work is if all the atoms of copper in the wire were in the same space nested like a Russian doll.

How do you call it? Huh? Matyoshka.

Those dolls inside a doll inside a doll. Okay? For a copper atom to work, for copper atoms to work together, they must be occupying the same space.

Because if you only touch one side of a copper atom, it cannot act as a copper atom because a copper atom split in two cannot act as copper. Something's weird. Like you resist it.

I can see it. You're like, when do we get refreshments? You're resisting.

You don't want to hear it. It's uncomfortable for you. I can tell.

You don't want to think about it. Look, Geshe-la, don't blame me. It was my chemistry teacher in high school.

It's not what I... I just never thought about it. But China...

I'll say it again. If you split a copper atom, it doesn't act as copper anymore. It cannot carry electricity anymore.

Okay? Which means the whole atom must be doing something. Okay?

If you only have half of the atom, it can't carry electricity. Okay? Got it?

If you break an atom in an accelerator, it doesn't act as copper anymore. That's why it's called a copper atom. And that's why it's called an element.

And that's why we call it the periodic table of the elements. Okay? Got it?

So, if you touch a part of the atom of copper, it cannot act as copper. The whole atom has to act together. Okay?

Which means that in a wire... Okay? Here's one atom.

Here's another atom. They cannot be side by side because they won't work. Because you only got the left side of one and the right side of the other.

You understand? When you break it in half, it don't work anymore. The left side of a copper atom cannot act alone.

The whole atom has to act. Which means that in a copper wire, all the atoms would have to be inside all the other atoms. And they'd have to touch in every part of the atom.

Okay? Something weird is going on. Things don't exist out there the way you thought.

Okay? Let me just tell you the punchline in case you don't come back after refreshments. Okay?

All right? Just in case you leave. You're like, this guy's cuckoo.

There's a point to teaching people this. Okay? There's a point to it.

It's not some weird philosophy if you understand it. You can make a quarter billion dollar company. We sold it to Warren Buffett.

It was fun. Okay? And I don't know anything about business.

Nothing. Zero. I was in a monastery for 25 years.

He knows. You were there. I didn't do anything.

I just meditate and wash pots. Those are the two things we do in the monastery. I don't have any business training, but I know atoms.

I know Nagarjuna. Okay? So, I'll teach you Nagarjuna if in case you don't come back.

Okay, ready? Now, maybe some of you might have seen this before. I was in Singapore and some guy came up to me and said, he was angry.

Okay, he wasn't from Singapore. He was from another country. I won't mention the country, but he talked like this.

And he said, Geshe-la, you are getting older. I said, I know. He said, yeah, but you don't remember.

Each year when you come to Singapore, you teach the same thing and we pay again. I said, what's wrong with that? And I said, I didn't forget.

I want you to understand it. He said, but I understood the first time. I said, are you successful?

Well, I'm not real successful. Then you didn't understand it. Okay?

Okay, got it? I think I can do the same thing in this room. By the way, if you are a Buddhist, and I don't care if you're a Buddhist, but if you are a Buddhist, okay, there's another reason why I teach it over and over again.

Okay? If you understand the Five Paths Theory, which are explained in a certain mantra, GATI GATI BARAGATI PURUSANGADI BUDDHISARA, if you understand that Five Paths, okay, the second path is understanding the pen. Okay?

And there's four parts of the second path. If you get the Sutta, JALAM SUT, if you reach a strong understanding of the pen, according to Buddhism, okay, not me, you cannot go to hell or become an animal after you die. It's not possible.

Okay? And we're going to talk more about it later somewhere. If you understand this clearly, you are protected after you die.

So, you know, I don't tell that to business audiences, but I keep telling them the pen over and over again. Okay? Because you're really protecting someone.

If you understand it clearly, it's not possible to go to a bad place after you die. So, you know, I used to work for an Israeli company and the owner was Israeli, right? They're two owners and I used to go, so my salary, I used to take a little bit for shoes and and food and stuff and then I would donate the rest of the monastery.

And so every six months I'd go in and and we would calculate how much they owe the monastery. And then he'd say, let me throw in another 100,000. He would often say like that.

Let me throw in another 100,000. You know, I'm like, cool. You know?

And then it got to be a thing, you know, like every time I went to get the check, every six months he'd be like, I'd be like, okay, I'll throw in 150,000, you know? I'm like, damn. You know?

And then I'd go home to my lama, you know, Rinpoche, it would be that day and he'd be waiting at the door and say, what did he throw in? I'd say 150,000. You know?

And one day I asked him, you know, like after 10 years I'm like, can I ask you a personal question? He says, yeah. I said, you're Israeli, you know?

You're all Jewish. You're 100% Jewish country, you know? And can I just ask you why you throw in 100,000?

Why you throw in 150,000 to a Buddhist monastery? You know, I'm face to face with him. I'm like, and I'm a little afraid to ask the questions because I don't want him thinking about it too much.

But I'm like, why do you do that for another religion? He says, look, you know I'm a practical guy. You never know who's right.

You know? You better give it donations. You know?

Give some donations to different places, you know? So learn the pen, okay? If it's a 1% chance that I'm right and you won't go to a bad place after you die, well, what's the big deal?

It takes 5 minutes. You know? Cover your, what do you call?

Cover your bases. Okay? If it's true, you just got a cosmic guarantee about your next life, you know?

And if it's wrong, you know, you just delayed your refreshments for 5 minutes, okay? So let's do that and then we'll take a break, okay? So, I'll ask question, you give answer.

And I always tell people, don't be like, Scott doesn't like me to mention the company because they get upset when they hear about it. A large international airline in England. And we went and solved one of their management problems.

We taught the nine vice presidents, okay? And I said, give me an answer. I'm going to ask you questions, give me an answer, you know?

I said, what's this thing? And they're like this. I said, no, no, just tell me.

I don't know something about this island country where they're too polite to answer or something. I don't know what it is. What is this thing?

Yeah, it's a pen, okay? Now, second question. Just answer me, okay?

I'm trying to save you trouble later on, maybe. Cover your bases, okay? Then if a little dog comes in here and I go, what will the dog do with that?

Yeah, they all chew it. Question. Does a dog see a pen?

They don't see this as a pen. I used to ask Francis all these questions, but I'm bored of asking you because you always answer correctly. We should ask your dad because he doesn't know the answers.

Who's right, the human or the dog? Both are right. It's not a big thing, right?

The dog can chew. I met one guy in Florida who swore the human was right and the dog was wrong. So, I'm not talking, I'm not saying anything about Florida, but in the whole world, that's the only guy.

And... So, anyway. Now, now we go to emptiness, okay?

You heard the word emptiness many times. You have weird ideas about it. They're all wrong, okay?

So, here's the real meaning of emptiness, shunyata, okay? DONGS PA NYID And don't... just relax and learn it, okay?

And forget everything else you ever heard because it's all bullshit. Okay? Here's...

I put this here, okay? The dogs go out, the humans go out. At that time, is this a pen or a chew toy?

Yeah, it's nothing. That's emptiness. There's no other meaning of emptiness.

You know, I've translated, I believe, more than any other human. I believe so. I mean, arts...

except for art, he's always giving me trouble. But... you know, it doesn't...

all the ancient scriptures don't say anything more than that, okay? I mean, we'll keep translating them because it's fun and we need your financial help. But anyway, there's nothing more than that, okay?

It's empty when the dog's gone and the human's gone and that's the only meaning of emptiness. It's available to be something, but it's nothing yet, okay? It has a potential.

That's called emptiness. No crying. Just kidding.

Now... Now I lost my... Yeah.

If the... Okay, so the human comes back in, right? And the human approaches the stool and looks down.

At that moment, what does this thing become? Yeah, it becomes a pen. So, the next question is easy.

Does the pen come from the pen or does the pen come from me? It must be coming from me because if a dog preceded me into the room, it would have become a... chew toy.

That proves dependent origination. Forget the word. Forget all that.

I don't know who invented this English translation. It's a national disaster like some other people. Okay?

You come in and at that moment that I look down, it becomes a pen. Because of that, it's got to be coming from me somehow, okay? Then how does it come from me?

When I first catch sight of it, a seed opens in my mind. A karmic seed opens in my mind. The seed splits open in 1 65th of a second.

An image comes out of a pen which is this big, okay? An image this big comes out of the karma. Karma means mental seed, right?

Comes out of the seed. The seed cracks open. A picture comes out and it goes on the pieces.

That's a clue about the cracks. Okay? It goes onto the pieces and makes them into a pen, okay?

The dog has different seeds. When their seed cracks open, a picture of a chew toy comes out and goes on the same parts, okay? It's the same parts, okay?

And those... By the way, well, that's another story. What if I have dog seeds and not human seeds?

Yeah, I'll see this as a part. How long does it take to be reborn as a dog? It takes 1 65th of a second.

This bardo stuff was for lower school, okay? 49 days in the bardo. Please do prayers, Geshe-la.

No. It takes 65th of a second. You see?

A new seed opens and you see something else. You see what I mean? It's coming from me.

The pen is coming from me, okay? How? Ah!

Tim! Quick! Then we'll give them a break.

They're getting tired, I can tell. Okay, this is called the $100 thing. Hmm, that lady back there is totally innocent.

Okay, how to plant a seed? Four steps. Don't forget.

It's expensive for me to teach it. Please stand up. What's your name?

Denise. Denise, okay. Denise is going to help me.

Make a video. Look at it this week three times. Okay?

Yeah, go ahead. Oh, on you. A quarter billion dollar thing, okay?

Understand? Okay. And, you know, I ask people in China to film it.

Just film it if you're in a good mood. It takes two minutes, okay? And then look at it three times this week and you will never have financial problems again in your life.

Forget that. People will keep giving you money. It's really weird.

Okay? And your secretary will call you and say the bank account's gone crazy. Give it away.

Okay? Here we go. Planting the seed that opened into the Create the Pen takes four steps, okay?

Just learn them, okay? You never know who's right. Okay?

It doesn't cost you anything. Just try it, okay? Step number one.

Decide what you want as a goal. I'm using money because it's measurable, okay? I can claim to be the happiest person in this room but I can't prove it.

Right? Money I can prove. So, it's just something countable, okay?

So, decide what you want in your life. Choose one thing. Let's say I want money, okay?

Geshe-la wants to make a thousand dollars out of a hundred. This is how I make my living, is giving away these things. You'll laugh but it's true.

I want to turn this into a thousand dollars within ten days or something like that, okay? So, that's my goal. Step number one, define your goal.

Step number two, you must have a partner to plant the seed with. You cannot plant a seed without a partner. It's not possible.

You must plant a seed with another person. Denise? Denise.

So, you got to ask her, will you help me plant this karma? Yes, okay. So, you got to find somebody else who wants the same thing that you want.

Do you want to make some money tonight, free money? Okay. So, we made a deal.

Step number two, she's my karmic partner now, tonight, okay? Step number three, do something to help her that relates to your goal, okay? So, she's going to put her hand out like this, okay?

And I'm going to... Step three is where you plant the seed. Step three is where you plant the seed.

I put the money in her hand and I close the hand. Now watch. One, two, three, ding!

And I plant the seed, okay? How do I plant it? You can relax.

And good people chase me to the stage trying to give it back to me, trying to thwart my seed planting. I'm like, stop, go away, keep it. Okay?

How did I plant the karma? What does karma mean? Karma means my mental tape recorder, my mental recorder saw me open my hand and that image came into my brain and touched my mind and left an imprint on my mind.

Okay, got it? And that's a karma. That's a seed.

That impression on my mind created by the image of my hand opening as I saw it makes an impression on my mind, okay? And that's a karma. That's the meaning of ye li.

Okay? That's karma. That's how you plant karma, okay?

You must help another person, okay? So, that seed is in my mind. Cool?

Step four, okay? Everyone in this room has done countless kind things to other people in their life. Everybody in this room has made karma.

Karma doubles every 24 hours. It multiplies like cancer, virus. It splits like an amoeba every 24 hours.

You should be rich by now. You know? Everyone gave money to somebody, right?

And you should be rich by now. But the problem is a seed will not open unless it gets watered. It's just like a tree seed.

The water is, okay, secret practice. Every night before you go to bed, when you lay your head down on the pillow, think to yourself of all the sweet things you did for other people today. If you didn't do anything nice today, think of something you did yesterday.

If you didn't do anything nice all week, think of last week. If you didn't do anything nice all year, think of last year. If you didn't do anything...

You understand? A karmic seed cannot be destroyed. Once I open my hand and once I see my hand open, a seed is planted in my mind.

It cannot be destroyed. It must come back. It must come back.

It must open. But it may take a hundred years. Okay?

So, there's a way to water it which is before you go to sleep, think of the kind things you did today and be happy. Just be happy. Okay?

If you didn't do anything at all your whole life, be happy about what somebody else did. Okay? But never go to sleep thinking something negative.

Okay? Always control your mind. What is that called, by the way, when you fight with your mind?

Your mind wants to think about money problems, relationship problems, job problems, president problems. Your mind wants to do that. But you fight, you must fight just before you go to sleep because then your mind will cook the seed all night.

Okay? What's that fight called? It's called meditation.

That's meditation. Fight with your own mind. Your mind wants to think about problems.

I got problems. My boss yell at me. My husband said something nice.

My kids don't listen to me. They just play baseball. You know what I mean?

Stop thinking about problems before sleep. At breakfast, think about your problems because problems get smaller when the daylight comes. Okay?

As you go to bed, you must think about something good you did. Okay? And then that will cook all night in your mind.

Okay? And that's how to make money. Okay?

That's all. If you don't do it, the seed will sit there. And you already have millions of seeds in your mind.

Okay? So, for God's sake, tonight or in this lecture, as you fall asleep, just before you fall off, think about something good you did. Okay?

And that feeds the seed. It feeds the seed and then the seed will grow fast. And frankly, you can have incredible financial success.

I can't even... JB and I were trying to raise $5 million, right? For the college endowment.

And we just planted seeds and we made the first payment two weeks ago. About a million dollars. It just comes, okay?

Just try it. Don't be... Cover your bases.

You know? The worst thing that happens is you give someone $100. Okay?

The best thing that happens is... By the way, the old way of making money has cracks in it. Okay?

That's what I'm trying to say. You work hard, hard, hard. Some people work hard and make money.

Some people do the same thing and don't make money. Some people don't work at all and get money. Some people don't work at all and stay poor.

There's a crack there. Didn't you ever wonder about it? Here these lazy idiot people become...

Reach high positions or get lots of money. And then other people who are deserving and sensitive and intelligent lose... You know, they don't get...

Didn't it ever seem strange to you? Like, didn't you think something might be wrong? You see?

If you see a crack in the window, tell somebody. You see? And do something.

You see what I mean? That's what we're talking about tonight. So this is a new model of airplane.

It has rounded windows which is why all airplanes now have rounded windows. And... Just try it.

Cover your bases. Okay? Try...

So what really makes a copper atom work is that... Okay, this is weird, okay? If you give away money to people and if you do your meditation before you sleep, okay?

And it's fun anyway because it's no fun to go to sleep with thinking about your problems. Okay? So it's a good habit to get in the habit when you put your head on your pillow, control your mind.

Fight with your mind. That fight is called meditation. That's all meditation is, you know?

I'm not going to think about my problems with my boss or my wife or... or my kids. I'm going to think about anything I did good today.

Okay? Then that... It brings prana to the seed and then the seed will open faster.

Okay? And if you don't do that, the seeds will open at random, you know, without control. Stuff you did to your little brother when you were six years old will ripen first.

No, I mean... You can control the priority of which seeds open if you use this technique of as you fall asleep, you think about sweet things you've done for other people, okay? And then the seeds will open fast.

And I... My life is very frustrating because I go around the world teaching people how to be successful. I guess, what percent do it?

5%? 10% do it? They get crazy results.

And then other people just kind of drift away and I never see them again. And I don't know... I was thinking to take my clothes off or something to get your attention.

But you got to try. Just try it once, okay? It doesn't cost anything, right?

Just give it a try, okay? Pick something you want to happen and then do those four steps, okay? Number one, this is what I would like to happen.

It could be I would like to find a romantic partner, okay? John Brady came to me, I don't know. We won't talk about that.

No, so I want a partner. I want a beautiful partner, number one. Number two, well, you need to find someone else who is lonely, okay?

That's number two. Then you have to do something with them to make them not be lonely. And, you know, I went out with my old lady.

I have an old lady. I took her out yesterday, day before. And we went to a nice restaurant, Vincent's Bistro.

It's one of the nicer French restaurants in Phoenix. And we sat down. They have a special croissant and they let you eat as many as you want.

And I told the guy, did you ever have anybody just eat the croissants and get up and walk out? And he said, you would be the second one. And so, and she ate like five of them.

And then she started to get sick. She's 94. V's mom.

And she got really sick. And we had to get her up. I'm paying the bill while I'm carrying her out.

But what I'm saying is, you got to find an elderly person. You help them. You take them out to Vincent's once a month.

Don't let them eat the croissants. And that's step number three. Do something nice to them.

On a regular basis. And then be happy about it at night. Think about it at night before you go to sleep.

And that's all. Because the atom of copper is coming from you. Okay?

It cannot be what it seems to be. The scientists are wrong. Okay?

Copper doesn't act like copper because copper cannot act like copper because atoms of copper don't act like copper unless the whole atom is acting. But the whole atom can't touch another atom because they're balls and they can only touch on one part of an atom. If only a part of an atom can touch, it can't do anything.

Understand? It's not true what they told you in school. So learn a new idea of where the world comes from and try to notice the cracks.

Try to notice that things you try don't work. Like go to business school, pay Harvard, I don't know. What is it?

I don't know. We taught at MIT business school. They charge a lot.

They'll teach you marketing and they'll teach you accounting and they'll teach you a dozen things and then they'll give you a degree. And then maybe you will fail and maybe you will succeed and you can see that with your own eyes. It's not that 100% of people who went to Harvard business school are successful.

They're not. It doesn't work because what they're teaching is incorrect and it's hard because atoms can't do what they do. Okay?

Don't sit in a plane with square windows and say, wow, there's cracks in the window. What do you think? You know?

Try it. Try to ask question. What's really happening?

Okay? And what's really happening is that the pen has parts. It has a top and it has a bottom and when you put the parts together it's not a pen yet.

Okay? Because a dog doesn't see a pen. If it was a pen when you put the top and the bottom together then a dog would see a pen.

Try to understand. Okay? The fact that a dog doesn't...

The fact that a dog chews on it and that... the fact that your mouth doesn't water when I hold it up proves that it's not coming from its own side. And this is the Garjuna and the Garjuna sounds very confusing.

The Garjuna is either on acid or he's right. You see? There's nothing between.

Like his... the things he says are crazy. Look.

Top of pen. Bottom of pen. Put together.

No pen. Why? Dog don't see pen?

That's all. That's all. Okay?

Something else must be happening. Okay? Your whole opinion of where the world is coming from is cracked.

And you gotta... Someone... You came to Lincoln Center Small Auditorium.

I don't tell them the Small Auditorium. People ask me, where were you yesterday? I was like, I was just teaching at Lincoln Center, you know.

And... And... I mean, I also didn't say that I had to pay for it.

But anyway. But... there's small cracks in your life.

And that's why things don't happen the way you want them to. You see? That's why you don't have a lot of money.

Or that's why you don't have a perfect relationship. Or that's why you have health problems. Or that's why your mind's not peaceful.

Or that's why you have a weird political things going on. Okay? It's all coming from you.

Okay? So, don't blame other people. Try to notice that the things you try to do to make other things happen don't work.

Just admit it. Okay? I'll...

So, my students... I've never owned a new car in my life. And my students bought me one recently.

Okay? So, you know... I don't have time to drive it anyway.

I think I've driven it like three times. But... they bought me a beautiful new car.

They painted it. They spent a lot of money to paint it my favorite color. Sky blue.

And... you know... And it's weird because it doesn't have a key anymore.

And I'm always looking for the key. And they said, just push the button. And I said, but anybody can push the button.

And they're like, don't worry about it. You know? So, listen.

Try to understand. Try to understand. And then we'll...

Then it's enough tonight. Okay? Then you take the four steps recording home and you get rich.

Take me out to a restaurant next year. Pushing the button doesn't start the car. Why?

Because it doesn't always work. Okay? That means it never started the car.

Okay? Try to... Now, I'm pretending to be Nagarjuna.

The Arya. Okay? I'm pretending to be Nagarjuna.

Okay? Try to grasp that there's something weird going on with cars. You know?

Or a light, okay? The light... Does the light always turn on when you flip the switch?

You come home, you go like this on the wall thing. Does it always work? No, I mean, sometimes the light burns out.

It goes poop. And, you know, then you're like digging around in the dark under the sink in the bathroom to try to find the light bulbs. Come on, you did it.

Okay? It doesn't always work. Now, if I'm Nagarjuna sitting here right now, if I'm the Arya sitting here right now, I will say that proves that there's no connection between turning the light switch and the light going on.

That proves that turning the light switch doesn't make the light go on. And pushing the button in your new car doesn't make the engine start because it doesn't always make the engine start. And you're like, Geshe-la, come on, sometimes the battery's dead, you know, stuff happens.

Okay? But, if I'm Nagarjuna, okay, I'm saying there's a crack there. If it doesn't start, if the light doesn't go on, it proves there's no connection between the button and the car starting.

Well, Geshe-la, you know, just Tapa Tasungi Rigpa, $500. Forget it. You don't know this one.

Even my students in Sedona don't know this one. You shut up. Wait, tell me again, tell me again.

Wait, say it again. That's incorrect. I lost 3,000 bucks to him recently.

I bet on a safe one. He's the human dictionary. I hate you.

Uh, yeah, he walked away with 3,000 bucks one night, but not tonight. Tapa Tasungi Rigpa means, okay, suppose, just suppose, in the theoretical case, okay, in the theoretical case, that you're right, Geshe-la, you know, so, it's okay that pushing the button doesn't start the car. So, what then does start the car?

A picture coming out of my mind starts the car in the same way that a picture coming out of my mind creates a pen. That's all. It's that simple, okay?

There's a small picture of a starting car coming out of here onto the parts, okay? There is atom parts, there's a left side, there's a right side, but if you want it to act like copper, you got to have copper atom seeds in your mind from helping other people to communicate who are having trouble communicating. That's why copper acts like copper, got it?

Because it cannot act like copper if it's atoms because the left side won't act like copper and the left side can only touch the right side of the next atom and the back end of the next atom isn't touching the front end atom. So, it can't be acting like copper. Okay?

Got it? A phone works because you have friends who are arguing, who are married and you help them communicate and if you don't do that, your phone won't work. Okay?

And if you don't give rides with your car, if you're selfish and you take all the world's oil for your country, your cars won't work. Okay? Your cars will die.

Your cars won't start. Okay? Got it?

And the whole reality is based on kindness to other people. Reality itself, atoms work if you're nice to people and atoms don't work if you're not nice to people because the pen is coming from you. Okay?

And we just proved it. Nobody in the room had a problem with it, with the pen. Some people had a problem with the copper atom.

I'm sorry. Okay? Everything's coming from how you treat other people.

So, all this Jesus stuff and Buddha stuff and Mohammed stuff, it's all that. You see? They want you to be successful.

They're like, be nice to other people. Take care of other people. Do things for other people.

Give rides to other people. Your car will always start or people will give you cars. You don't have to fight and work for a year to buy a new car.

Okay? Just help other people get somewhere because the car's coming from you because the parts don't work. There's some cracks in that idea.

That idea doesn't work. And be smart. Play your, what do you call it?

Cover your bases. Cover your bases. Okay?

If someone comes along, look up Jewelry.com. That name costs 21 million dollars. We own it.

I mean, the company owns Jewelry.com. Okay? No business training.

No understanding of anything. Never touched a diamond in my life. Okay?

Up to starting, but I know Nagarjuna. Okay? Just learn, just give it a try.

Cover your bases, right? It's not so hard. Do the force.

What's the worst thing that can happen? Denise gets rich. Okay?

You made somebody else happy. If this whole stuff doesn't work, the worst thing you did was give another person a ride or you gave someone, you helped someone financially. You took an old lady to the restaurant.

Next time she's not going to eat all the croissants. Okay? And the worst thing that can happen is that you're nice to somebody else.

Okay? Got it? But if what I'm saying is true, then reality is flowing from here and it comes from being kind to other people and helping other people.

Okay? And you, cover your bases. Just try it.

Okay? Try to notice that the way you're doing things now doesn't always work. Okay?

You know that since you're a kid, you know, that what you try, you know that and you don't question it anymore. But fix it. Okay?

Wouldn't it be nice if everything you tried worked? You know, you try to have a relationship with somebody or you try to make some money or you try to get skinny or healthy and wouldn't it be nice if everything you ever tried worked? Okay?

But that means you have to notice that what you tried so far doesn't always work. And then you have to question copper atoms. Okay?

So, try the four steps. Okay? Scott and me, where's Scott?

Yeah. We were in Shanghai. Okay, last thing.

Then I gotta go or they're gonna threaten me again. We were in Shanghai and this guy came up to me and said, Okay, I want to try the four steps. I said, Okay, try.

I said, I was waving goodbye. I said, What do you want? He said, I want 10 million dollars this year.

I said, Okay, try. Four steps. Okay?

Next year, he's waiting outside. You were there, I think. He's like bodyguarding me back to the room and, you know, he's like this tall and the guy's waiting for me at the door and he's agitated and he jams into the elevator with me and I'm like, and he's like, It didn't work.

And I'm like, What? He's like, The four steps didn't work. You know?

So, I know how to respond to that. You say, Did you do step number one? Well, first I have to tell you, in the diamond business, one of the first things they teach you is how to tell if a person's lying when you're doing a negotiation.

So, I negotiated many, many deals every day. That was my job. And they teach you the signs of a person who's going to lie and they look down first or they move something on the table.

They'll move a pen or they'll... So, watch for these two things with your kids especially. So, just before they...

I mean, not that they lie, but their eyes will go down just a sec, you know, like this. So, I'm watching his eyes. I said, Did you do step number one?

What is step number one? He said, I want... It's a goal.

I want ten million dollars. I said, okay. He didn't look down.

I did, Did you do step number two? Which is what? Did you find a partner?

Did you find a coming partner? And his eyes didn't move. He said, I did.

It's another guy who does import-export from China, you know. And I said, good. Did you do step number three?

And he's holding my eyes. Yeah, I'm checking. I'm holding his eyes.

And he says, I did. I helped him. Once a week, one hour.

What you said. I helped him. Then I said, Did you do step number four?

Because it's always step number four. It's always step number four. Because people have a problem with thinking good thoughts before they go to bed.

Check it out tonight. I'm looking. I'm holding his eyes.

And I said, Did you, every night, for two minutes, think about helping this guy and what a nice thing you're doing? And he goes, Mostly. And I'm like, Get out of here, you know.

I said, just go away. Talk to me next year. Do step number four.

That's the most common thing. I don't know why people don't like to admit that they did something nice. I'm not talking pride.

I'm talking, just be honest with yourself. I helped somebody today. It's honest.

And you have to do that, okay? So, he looks down and I said, Okay, I'm getting off the elevator. I'll see you, you know.

But that's why it didn't work. And he looks at me and he says, He's more agitated. He says, I didn't say it didn't work.

I said, But you say you didn't get the ten million dollars. Yeah, I only got eight. And Scott and me are like, I'm like, I wish I had this guy's problem.

He's like, Yeah. And, but when you're a teacher, you have to be, okay, you have to be really tough on, you have to say, I can't believe you didn't do number four. You know, you lose two million dollars because you're too lazy when you go to bed?

You know, what's wrong with you? And he's like, Oh, I'm so sorry. I'll do better next year.

You know. And next year, he was waiting for me at the elevator. He goes, he goes, he goes, Okay.

Do it. Okay. Thank you.

Try to notice that your life's cracked otherwise. There's weird, weird things are happening. Things don't start when they're supposed to start.

You know, things they tell you in business school don't work. Sometimes. So, try to be a little, try to notice what's going on and don't be satisfied with planes that fall apart.

Like, try to notice that things don't work the way you thought they did. Try the new way. Cover your bases.

It doesn't cost you much. Just try it. And I say it will work.

Okay? Cool? Thank you.

Okay. Thanks.