12 способов сделать новый год успешным — вдохновение из «Короля Дхармы: иллюстрированной жизни Чже Цонгкапы» (2021, Аризона), занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good morning, or good evening, and welcome to Tsongkapa Day. We call it Ganden Ngamche, and it's good to see you guys. The very first thing I'd like to do is to welcome Jenny Wang from the Singapore group.

Tim, is there some way to do that? Yeah, I've asked her to. I guess you're doing it already.

Working on it. There she is. Yeah, hi Jenny.

I like your mask. This special three-day teaching is to honor Jenny Wang and the Singapore group for many years of hard work, more than 10 years of hard work. They have spent 10 years helping us all over the world, in Vietnam, in Taiwan, in Malaysia, in Indonesia, in Singapore.

Jenny especially has worked really, really hard. Really, really hard. She's also learning English and Chinese both, and I wish I could be like her.

Now she's teaching in English and in Chinese. She's just worked really, really hard. Her group is helping us all over the world.

The Singapore group is helping our children's charity. More than 500 children are being helped every day at their school with their clothing and their food. They have helped build the roads at Diamond Mountain.

They have helped build many things at Diamond Mountain. They have helped with the Castle Rock Fund, which is the new sort of a fund to help all the children in the world. I can't even count all the things that they have done.

I called them and I said, how about I can do a three-day teaching for free with you guys? We can do it through the Singapore group. First of all, I just want to thank you, Jenny, for all your hard work, for years of hard work.

All your beautiful staff, all your friends, all my friends there, that worked so hard for so many years. I don't know, Jenny, you want to say hi? Tim, can we do that?

Still can't hear.

[Speaker 2]
Yes, I can hear right now.

[Speaker 1]
Try again, Jenny.

[Speaker 2]
Can you hear me?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, it's okay.

[Speaker 2]
Can you hear me? They can't hear me. Oh, can you hear me?

[Speaker 1]
We got you, Jenny.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, thank you so much. Thank you, Geshe-la, for your... I'm so happy to have this event, and then you're teaching us for three days.

Thank you so much. It's my honor to do these things with ACI team and Diamond Press. Thank you so much.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, cool. I couldn't hear, but everyone else can hear, so it's good. Thank you, Jenny, again.

Today is the Ganden Ngamche, which we call the 25th of the 10th month. The moon to the black moon, it's five days away. This is considered the new year in Mongolia, for example.

In fact, today is Tsongkhapa's birthday, and passing away day, and also enlightenment day. All three happen on this day. It's so important in Mongolia that everybody celebrates this day as their birthday.

So never ask a Mongolian person what is their birthday, because the answer is always the same. This is the tradition. Let me check my speaker.

Okay, Tim. My speaker is on. I hope so.

Okay, let me check here. Okay. I think my speaker is on, Tim.

You want to test it? Can you hear me now? Yeah, good.

Okay. All right, thank you. I'm sorry.

Irina, if I forget to do anything today, you remind me, okay? Because it's difficult for me to look at all the things at the same time. We're going to have a special tradition on Tsongkhapa Day that we light a thousand lamps.

This is called DONG CHOD. DONG means 1,000. CHOD means offering of 1,000 butter lamps.

I put some lamps on this Christmas tree for Tsongkhapa. That's my beginning of my butter lamps for Tsongkhapa. I can see in Singapore, Taiwan, Diamond Mountain, Malaysia, you guys have already started your butter lamps.

Let's light them now. These teachings of Tsongkhapa are like the light for the whole world. You can think that the world is like darkness.

Without these teachings, the world is dark. It's black. Even in the daytime, the world is black.

It means different people have different ways to be successful. Different people have different ways of living. But really, in the end, we all have to die.

Everyone gets old. Everyone gets tired. Everybody's body breaks.

They leave this world. We don't see them after that. There's only one real hope to change that.

That's if we can practice this teaching of Tsongkhapa very well. We can change that for the whole world. It's like this teaching of Tsongkhapa is like a light.

On his birthday, we like to offer the special lights. You guys can start lighting. I will also light.

Several people burned down their house this way. But hopefully, we won't do. Okay.

All right. Thank you, guys. I can see you in Taiwan, Singapore, Diamond Mountain.

They're very beautiful. Malaysia, Japan. Thank you for lighting.

When you light the lamp, just imagine that this is the light in the world that gives people hope to stop the darkness of death, the darkness of old age, darkness of war, darkness of sickness in the world. That's the purpose of what we do. It's the purpose of what all of us are spending every day, why we work so hard, is to put this light in the world.

I believe it's the only hope that the world has to stop death and to stop death not just for this world, but for many, many worlds. Countless worlds. We're not the only world in the universe.

There are countless worlds in the universe. There are countless beings in the universe. If you studied Tsongkhapa's teaching, if you learn them, you can meet those people.

That's fun. If you think about it, to meet all the people on other planets. I enjoy just flying to other countries.

But if you studied Tsongkhapa's teaching, then actually you can travel to countless planets. It's an amazing experience. It's an incredible experience.

It's a great experience for me to go to Russia, or go to Singapore, or go to Japan. But imagine the experience to go to countless worlds and visit the people there, and help them, and be a light for them. Try to remember that during these three days.

In these three days, we'll be talking about the story of Tsongkhapa. His life story. Not because of history.

It's not because of a history lesson. Actually, I'm not very interested in history, or what's the date of somebody, or something like that. I don't think it's so helpful for the world.

We're going to study his life inside of his mind. We're going to study what was he thinking about, and what was he doing, to be a light in this world. Because we can also be a light for this world.

We also have all the equipment, the same as Tsongkhapa. We are not different from him. We have the ability, and we have the chance to help the whole world.

You are not far away from this ability. You have met the teachings of Tsongkhapa. You understand how to meditate.

You understand about emptiness. You understand about good karma. So we are not very far away from Tsongkhapa.

We can also be a light for the whole world. I don't see Tsongkhapa as coming from one country. I feel like he's a teacher for the whole world.

In these three days, we're going to talk about a special book. This is the book. It's called King of the Dharma.

This is a book that I finished about 20 years ago. I'm going to tell you the story about the book. This book came out, this new edition came out this month.

It's coming out in English, and also in Chinese. There are some countries where we are not allowed to publish this book, and we are not publishing it in those countries, but in Singapore, in the United States, and other places where it's allowed, we have published this book. I want to tell you the story about the book.

I don't know. I spent 25 years. I was a student of my teacher, Khen Rinpoche Geshe Losang Tharchin, in a small Mongolian temple.

There's a picture here. You can see this picture, kind of, you can see. It was a very, very cold place, near New York.

It's a small Mongolian temple. We have about 15 monks there, not much. All of the monks' average age is about 75 years old.

They are refugees from World War II. They are living in America. They built three or four big temples there.

Very difficult. They didn't have any money. They built the temples with their own hands.

They brought great teachers there, from Mongolia, from Kalmykia, which is Mongol people in Europe, and from Tibet, and from India. They brought teachers. Great, great teachers came there.

During the hippie times, which is my favorite time, some hippies came to those temples. Actually, they were from some very good universities. From Harvard, four famous hippies came there, and from Princeton University.

We met those great lamas, great teachers. We tried to learn how to speak Tibetan. We tried to learn how to read the ancient books.

I also became a monk through that temple. I lived at that temple for 25 years. I studied with my teacher.

Later, he took me to the main Sera monastery. That's when I did my Geshe studies. But I remember this temple.

It was a very beautiful part of my life. I was studying there. We used to have...

all the monks would get together on holidays, and we would pray together in the temple. There were a few Tibetan monks, and mostly Mongolian monks, from Kalmyk Mongolia. This is Mongolia near Russia, near South Russia.

Lucky, I learned how to speak Russian in my university. Lucky, I was able to talk with them. I learned to speak Tibetan with the Tibetans.

But when we do the prayers, the main teacher, the main monk, he was blind. He couldn't see. He was a very high, high Geshe from Tibet.

But he was born in Mongolia. He was Mongolian. He was a very stubborn man.

He insisted to lead the prayers, even though he could not read. But he memorized all the prayers. He would lead the prayers.

We don't have a choice. We have to follow him. He would go like this.

Then he goes very, very fast. Then he goes very, very fast. Even I cannot find the book he is reciting before he is finished.

He will finish the prayer. I am still looking for what book he has prayed. I got all the books, all the possible books.

I have a big stack around me. When he starts the prayer, I will grab the right book and I will try to find the page. But sometimes he is just impossible.

He will memorize some ancient prayer. I don't know the prayer. Actually, I got angry.

I used to get upset. I used to go on strike. Strike means I don't even try to follow the other monks.

Sometimes I will fake reciting. Sometimes I am too angry even to fake it. I just sit there and ignore everybody.

I will look at the temple. It is a beautiful temple. It has many, many beautiful paintings from Mongolia, old paintings.

Then high, high, high in the temple there are some strange thangkas, 15 strange Tibetan paintings. I couldn't see them very clearly. I could see Tsongkhapa is in each thangka.

But I couldn't see them. My teacher used to have a retreat every summer in New Jersey. It is very hot.

The weather is very, very hot. We don't have air conditioning. He gets a big ladder and he tells me, you go open the windows at the top of the church, top of the temple.

The temple is three or four stories high. I have a special ladder. It is like, I don't know, it is like 20 meters, 20 or 30 meters high.

I have to climb up the ladder and I have to open the window. It is very frightening for me. There is nobody to help me.

But sometimes I go up there to open the window and I can see these paintings, Tsongkhapa painting close. I realize it is 15 different paintings. Each one is different.

Each one has Tsongkhapa in the middle. Then each painting has many small paintings next to it. Then I can see, if I look very carefully, I can see some writing on the painting.

There is some tiny, tiny writing on the painting in Tibetan language. I got very interested about these paintings and I studied them for 15 years. I wrote down all of the writing.

I studied what is going on in each painting. Then I realized, these are the life story of Tsongkhapa. Not his history, but the story of his mind and the story of his heart.

What is happening inside his heart for his whole life, 600 years ago, is in these paintings. I was so happy to find them. Anyway, I decided to make a book about the paintings.

When I went to the Bibliotheca La Stacca Vigenia in Petersburg, I found the woodblock carving about the painting, how to write the history of Tsongkhapa. I found that book in Russia, in the St. Petersburg Library. John Brady's project was there for 12 years.

We cataloged 141,000 books. One of those books is the story how to paint those paintings. I used the book and I translated it and I made this book.

This book has three parts. By the way, Tim, if you want to, well, let's do later. This book has three parts.

First part is the story of the temple. What's the story? How was this temple built?

This is my teacher sitting in the temple. The first part of the book is all about my teacher and how he came to this temple. He was sent there by the Dalai Lama and how he taught all the hippies there.

It's a very cute story about how the hippies came to New Jersey and those hippies became great professors all over the world. They became the great translators. Here you can see this is the top of the temple and the chandelier.

The first part of this book is all about... Here's the book from Russia. One page from the book in Russia.

It tells you how to paint the paintings. Then in the last part of the book is all the paintings themselves with the original manuscript. It took many, many years to finish.

Each thangka... Here's one thangka. Here's one painting.

There are 15 paintings. Each painting has tiny, tiny letters. Here's the letters and here's the meaning of each part of Tsongkhapa's inner life, his inside life.

There's over 150 stories about Tsongkhapa's inner life, his inside life. Ever since he was a kid up until the day he passed away, which is today. That's the last part of the book, the third part of the book.

It took many, many years to finish it. It was very, very difficult, but we finished it. The first part of the book is the history of these paintings and these hippies, including Geshe Michael.

The last part of the book is all the paintings and each different part of each painting. It was 15 years of hard work. It was very, very difficult work.

In the middle of the book is the big part of the book. We talk about Tsongkhapa's life and what did he do in his life. I think this is the important part of the book.

The paintings are very interesting. The history of his life, what did he do each year of his life. The first part is interesting about the hippies and how the Mongolians came to America, how they built their temples and how they got these paintings.

How did they get these paintings? Where did these paintings come from? But the inside of the book, the middle of the book, it tells you how to live like Tsongkhapa each part of his life.

Here is how to do retreat. How did he do his retreat? This one talks about he learned how to dance.

He learned to do religious dancing, spiritual dancing. How can we do dancing ourselves? How can we do spiritual dancing?

This one is a story of how he saw emptiness directly. You can see Manjushri put a sword in his heart. Manjushri put a sword inside of Tsongkhapa's heart and then he saw emptiness directly.

The purpose of this book is to give you some guidebook, some map how you can do like Tsongkhapa. How to learn to dance like him. How to learn to see emptiness like him.

How to learn to meditate. How to learn to do retreat. All the big things he did in his life are in this book.

It is a great book. Now it is available. We just finished the paperback.

It is much cheaper. You can order the book from the Diamond Cutter Press. It took me about 15 years to finish the paperback because it was a lot of work to change the book to paperback.

Now it is available this month. 15 years of hard work. 30 years total.

This book I made to donate the money to the small Mongolian temple in New Jersey where the hippies learned and me, where we learned Tibetan, where we learned to read the ancient books. We are always donating the profit of the book to that temple. We made a hard copy 20 years ago.

17 years ago. We sold it. Jenny Wong's group sold many copies for us.

Thank you. We donated all the money to this small temple so they can teach the hippies of the next generation and the next generation. This book also, we are going to donate all the profits to the temple.

We will pay our staff for their work. We will pay for the paper and the book. Then we will donate to the temple.

So far it has been very successful and we helped the temple a lot. It helped them to stay healthy and to invite more monks there. Those monks are now teaching.

That is now a third generation is teaching there. Some museums asked me to come there and talk about these paintings. I went to some museums in New York.

I went to the National Museum of Argentina and other museums. I talked about this book and about these paintings. I realized it is too much to teach in one hour or two hours.

It is impossible to talk about Tsongkhapa's life in one hour or two hours. I decided to pick 12 important things he did with his life. 12 important practices he did in his lifetime.

These are 12 things that you and I can learn how to do. I made 12 posters that people can keep in their house. You can put the posters on the wall.

These are the 12 big things that you can do and I can do if we want to be like Tsongkhapa. If we want to see emptiness. If we want to learn to meditate.

If we want to be a light in the world. There are 12 different main things he did. 12 main things he did.

Then we thought, Jenny Wang and me, we had a plan. Because Tsongkhapa's birthday is today and New Year's, Western New Year's is in two days from now. We thought let's have his birthday and let's have three days of teaching about his life.

Then we can have New Year's celebration together. We will celebrate the New Year, Western New Year on midnight in Singapore, which is also midnight in Beijing, also Indonesia, parts of Malaysia. We are going to celebrate the day after tomorrow.

We will invite all guests from mainland China also. And from other countries around the world. For me it will be 9 o'clock in the morning.

But I don't mind to celebrate with you guys. For Europeans it will be afternoon. That's okay.

I know you guys start your champagne a little bit early usually anyway. In Russia, right Kadin? We can celebrate at the same time.

For Alex, Rivas and me, you are one hour ahead of me I think. But anyway, we can celebrate the New Year together. This broadcast is not allowed in mainland China because it is religious.

I am not allowed to teach religion in mainland China. We cannot show this broadcast for two days. But the third day will not be religious.

We will not show religious books. On the third day we will invite our friends from mainland China also. We won't talk about religious subjects.

Here we go. I am going to share my screen. I am going to show you these 12 main activities that Tsongkhapa did in his life.

Twelve main things. If we can learn to do the twelve, we can be like him. We can be a light in this world.

For many, many worlds. Countless worlds. You can do it.

You won't get a better chance. You won't get a better chance. You have a healthy body.

You are not too old like grandpa. I just turned 69 a few days ago. You are young.

You are strong. You can meditate. You have good teachers like Jenny.

You can meditate. You can practice. You can be like Tsongkhapa.

It is not a crazy idea. We have to plan about it. You can be like Tsongkhapa.

There is no reason why not. You have all the teaching. You have enough food.

You are not a refugee. You have a comfortable life. There is no reason why you can't do it.

We are going to study twelve different things that Tsongkhapa did in his life. Two days, we will cover twelve different posters. I made them with Rob Ruessinger.

He is the former president of Diamond Mountain Retreat Center. He is a great, great man. He is a really great man.

It is a big honor to know him. He worked on this book for many years also. He laid out the whole book.

We worked for many years together. He did not charge any money. In fact, he donated the money for the first printing.

He donated all his time. He donated his money. We made twelve posters to show the story of Tsongkhapa from the paintings.

We took the sexy parts from the paintings. Then we added some hippie things also to the paintings to make them fun. I am going to show you the twelve new posters.

We will study them together. Each poster has one part of Tsongkhapa's life, his inner life. For two days, I will teach you the posters which I made from the paintings with Rob Ruessinger.

Then on the third day, when the mainland friends can come also, we will not talk about religion. We will not show the religious paintings. We will talk about our plan together for the New Year.

What is your plan? What is my plan to improve my life? It is a custom in America and other countries.

On the New Year, you also make some promises for the New Year. Ginny, usually we like to overeat too much during Christmas time. Grandpa also gained a lot of weight this month.

Usually, we make a promise on New Year. Like we will eat more carefully. We won't eat meat.

We won't drink alcohol. We will exercise every day. Or we will treat our family better.

Or we won't yell at our boss. Or something like that. We make a promise on the New Year.

My suggestion together, on the New Year, third day of this teaching, let's all make our promise together. You can make some promise for the New Year. For two days, I will give you some choices about what promise you can make.

I will give you some choices about Tsongkhapa's favorite practices. Then think about it for today and tomorrow. Which one do you want to make your promise for the New Year?

Then on the third day, when we have all the friends from mainland China also, we can make our promise together. You can make some promise for the New Year. Usually, Jenny, we break the promise within three weeks or four weeks.

But that's okay. At least we can get some good seeds from keeping the promise. Some people keep it for the whole year.

Those are very good people. I'm going to share my screen now, Tim. Let me see here.

These are the posters which I made. Let me see if I can change this. These are the posters that I made together with Rob Rossinger, almost 20 years ago.

Each poster has a story. Each poster says, you can do this, or you can do this, or you can do this. There are 12 posters.

These two days, I will teach you the 12 posters. There are a lot of pictures from Tsongkhapa's life. The main pictures are from Tsongkhapa's life.

But I mix in some... Me and Rob, we mix in some other pictures. This is my teacher.

I put him inside the Tsongkhapa poster because he's important for me. This is my teacher. He's sitting in the Mongolian temple.

This is a very rare statue. This photograph, the black and white, this is a statue of Tsongkhapa. It was made while he was alive, 600 years ago.

This statue was made of Tsongkhapa. People who don't like him, 600 years ago, they call him Mr. Big Ears, or they call him Mr. Big Nose, Nago Chumbo, because he had a very big nose and he had big ears. This statue was made 600 years ago.

This photograph was made in 1940. When Tsongkhapa saw the statue, he immediately said, Wow, that looks like me. That looks like me.

In Tibetan language it's nga da, nga da ma, nga da. It means, hey, it looks like me. It really looks like me.

Then that statue's name is nga da ma. Nga da ma means, that looks like me statue. It was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution in China.

We have one photograph of the painting. The hands were covered by a scarf in the photograph. My mom, my stepmom, some of you know her.

She's 95 years old. She got the hands back. She got the hands back on the picture.

This is a real picture of Tsongkhapa. This first poster name is Find Your Heart Teacher. You should try to find your heart teacher.

If there's 12 most important things which Tsongkhapa did in his life, the first one, and always the most important one, is to find your teacher. Find your heart teacher. You can have many teachers.

I have about 15 main teachers, but only one heart teacher. Heart teacher is the one who helped you the most in this life. Here you can see the...

Can you see my cursor, Tim? Does it show? Yes, it does.

It does? Okay. Here's the word guru in Sanskrit.

Jenny, what's this word in Chinese? It's lao shi? Jin?

Jin lao shi. Heart teacher. Xin lao shi.

Xin lao shi. We put this in Chinese and Sanskrit. Sanskrit is guru.

Guru means heart teacher. These are all stories how Tsongkhapa met his heart teacher. He worked hard to find his heart teacher.

I'm happy to be your heart teacher, but I don't have to be your heart teacher. Everybody has different feelings. Everybody has different capacity.

Everybody has different teacher. I think your heart teacher... Finding your heart teacher is like finding a pair of jeans.

I took Veronica to buy a pair of jeans at the store. She tried 40 pairs. She tried on 40 pairs of jeans.

You know this women's store, they don't even have chair for the husband to sit. You have to stand and wait for the lady to try on 40 pairs of jeans. Hey Jenny, guess how many pairs she bought?

[Speaker 2]
25?

[Speaker 1]
She didn't buy any. She tried 40 pairs. We are there for two hours.

She didn't buy any. Then the heart teacher. Heart teacher is similar.

Heart teacher is similar. You have to find your own one. You have to find your own heart teacher.

Geshe-la doesn't fit everybody's... Geshe-la is like jeans. Everyone has a different heart teacher.

You have to look in your life to find your heart teacher. You have to check many teachers. You have to check the teacher carefully.

You have to see how is your feeling. How do you feel about them? Then you can choose a heart teacher.

I have one friend. He says his heart teacher is his dog. I have another friend.

He says his heart teacher is his son. His baby son. Like Maitri.

We don't know who is your heart teacher. That's up to you. Here are some parts of the painting.

That's Tsongkhapa in the middle. On his own right side. His right hand.

Not our right side, his right side. This lama here. This is Gyatsobje.

That was his number one disciple. After Tsongkhapa passed away, Gyatsobje became the main teacher. Gyatsob means he took over the teaching after the teacher passed away.

He was a very great book writer. In fact, Nick Lasha, Professor Nick, who is the head of the Mixed Nuts Translation Group, Diamond Cutter Classics. He is translating two of Gyatsobje's books.

You can get them soon. Over here is the other main disciple. His name is Kedrupje.

He was the second main disciple of Tsongkhapa. He wrote some great, great books about emptiness. He wrote very, very famous books about emptiness.

Utpala is translating them. The Mixed Nuts translator is translating them. One of those books is finished.

We finished it last month. Tim, I don't know if you can show it. It's called Emptiness Meditations.

It's over 400 pages, I think. It took us about five or six years to finish. Can you see it, Tim?

That's this book. If you want to get this book, if you want to get the Tsongkhapa book, you can get this QR code. This is the English.

The Singapore group is publishing the Chinese version in Chinese language. Here is the Emptiness Meditations book. This is translated by the Mixed Nuts.

We just finished this book. This book just came out. It's an e-book.

You can get it in about one minute. I'm very happy we have the e-book. You can order it in about one minute.

I like to give them to my friends. I ordered one copy for my neighbor. My neighbor is always curious, who is this strange guy living next to me?

I sent him this book by e-mail. You can do it in about one minute. You can send the book to your friend.

This is a new translation of how to meditate on emptiness. This comes from the Mixed Nuts. It's unbelievable.

It's an unbelievable how to meditate. There are 38 emptiness meditations in this book. I encourage you to get the book.

I think it's nice to give it away to your friends. You can just send the e-book to your friend in about one minute. Then the money helps to support the translators.

We help to support all our translators. Miss V, you want to say hi? Okay.

I'm going to share my screen again, Tim. Is that okay? No, not that one.

Hang on. Here we go. Oh.

Let me see. Oh, I see, Tim. I have to change this.

I have to stop the focus thing. Hang on, hang on, hang on. Stop the share.

Stop the share. Go to here. Okay, hang on.

Okay. Back to screen share. Well, let's do it this way.

No. Not here. Okay.

Now can you see it, Tim? The posters? No, it's showing.

There it is. Okay, good. All right.

I will tell you some of how Tsongkhapa found his own heart teacher. In this part of the painting here, he is studying Lam Rim. He also studied Lam Rim here.

This is how he studied with his own teacher to learn about how to find a teacher. Even Tsongkhapa studied with his own teacher how to find a teacher. That's part of the painting.

You can find it here. In the book you can find it. Let me see something.

By the way, this monk here is the first Dalai Lama. It's 600 years ago. His name is Khen Rinpoche.

He is also a student of Tsongkhapa. You can see him also. He is one of the monks in the group.

Let's see. Here Tsongkhapa again is studying how to go to a teacher, how to study with a teacher. This is the first day that Tsongkhapa met First Dalai Lama.

At that time First Dalai Lama was not a monk. You can see he has a mustache and a beard. Later he became a monk.

Here is my own teacher, Khen Rinpoche Geshe-la Tsongkhapa. Here is Tsongkhapa asking to become... Let me see.

He is asking for diamond way initiation from his teacher. This shows us what's the best way to ask your teacher. You can see even Tsongkhapa who is so great, he is kneeling down and he is respecting his teacher.

It's very important when you are trying to find a teacher. After you make a connection with the teacher, you have to show them a lot of respect. If you don't show them respect, it doesn't hurt the teacher.

But your practice won't be so good. Your meditation won't be so good. You will not see emptiness.

So you have to choose teacher carefully. Take your time. Don't choose the first teacher you meet.

I heard somebody met a monk in an airport. They asked the monk to become their teacher after five minutes. This is too fast.

Take your time. Check out this person. Ask their other students.

But after you become their student, then you have to respect them. You have to show them a lot of respect. Here Tsongkhapa is showing us.

He is here. Tsongkhapa is kneeling down. He is showing a lot of respect to his teacher.

That's very important if you want to have this relationship with your teacher. That's the first of the twelve posters. By the way, we made these posters into calendar for the new year.

You can get the calendar. You can get all twelve posters with a calendar for 2022. Tim is showing the QR code, I think.

You can get all of these twelve posters in a calendar. I'm going to show you the second poster. Then maybe we have some question and answer.

Tim, I'll spend about five minutes on the second poster. Then we can have question and answer. This is in the new year.

I think a good thing to do is to try to save the world. Try to help the whole world. This second poster is about how to help the whole world.

What can I do? What can I do to help the whole world? This is the meaning of this second poster.

In the new year of 2022, what can each person do to help the whole world? What can we do to help the whole world? When you are born, when you are a kid, you see the superhero movie like Spiderman.

New Spiderman movie. Hey Jenny, I didn't see it yet, but I'm planning. New Spiderman.

Then when I was a kid, I asked my mom, Hey mom, I want to be like Spiderman. She said, do you know how Spiderman became Spiderman? Then I said, yeah, I read in the comic book, in the manga.

He got bitten by a radioactive spider. Then he got super power from the spider bite. For three years, when I was a kid, every time I see a spider, I try to get bit by this spider.

Because I think I also will become like Spiderman. We all want to be a superhero. That's why we like the superhero movie.

And you can. If you study this book, if you study Tsongkhapa's life, if you do what Tsongkhapa did, you can be a superhero. You can do it.

You can really do it. Here's the Sanskrit here. It's bodhichitta.

I don't know, Jenny, is the Chinese bodhichitta here?

[Speaker 2]
Chinese bodhichitta? Bodhichitta. Is it here?

[Speaker 1]
Bodhichitta. Yeah, same thing, right? These are some suggestions how to become a bodhisattva.

I'll give you some... Here's one important picture here. Tsongkhapa had a good relation with Chinese emperor.

Chinese emperor wrote to Tsongkhapa. He invited Tsongkhapa to come to the capital of the empire. These Chinese government officials came to meet Tsongkhapa.

Tsongkhapa sent his main student, Jamchen Chodje, to go to Beijing to meet the emperor. There was a good relationship. Tsongkhapa recognized that it's important for every country to cooperate with each other.

He supported this idea that all people, all different kinds of people, all different kinds of countries, in his own life, he was an international diplomat. He was very careful to bring countries together, to meet people from different countries. Here you can see he's meeting people from different places in China.

He's giving us an example, that if we want our meditation to be good, if we want our practice to be good, we should cooperate with other countries' people, with many different races, different languages, different religions. We should cooperate with each other. We should help each other.

That's from the paintings. You can see his good example. This is a beautiful picture of...

Tsongkhapa had a special vision when he was meditating. He is meditating and he saw all these holy beings. You can see Atisha here, and the other great...

Here is Nagarjuna. These are the great teachers of the Lam Rim. In his meditation, he saw all the great teachers of the Lam Rim.

They said, Look Tsongkhapa, if you want to help the world, if you really want to help the whole world, then you should study Lam Rim. You should learn Lam Rim. Many years you should study Lam Rim.

You should translate. You should write about it. That's the example you see here.

Why did Tsongkhapa write Lam Rim? Why did he write the greatest book about the steps of the path to enlightenment? Why did he write it?

These guys told him to. Nagarjuna, Atisha, these great teachers, they told him, if you really want to help this world, then you should study Lam Rim. You should practice the steps of the path.

You should keep doing Lam Rim and please write the book about the Lam Rim. For example, the ACI courses, the first course, number one, course number one, is about the Lam Rim. We spent, I don't know, I spent ten years teaching you guys Lam Rim and we have ten more years to go.

But here is Buddha telling Tsongkhapa, if you really want to help the world, then you should study Lam Rim and you should practice Lam Rim. If you really want to help this world, then you should become Lam Rim master. This is the meaning of this painting.

I put a quotation from the Yoga Sutra. If you really believe that the world is coming from seeds, then if you don't like war, if you don't like to see war in the world, if you don't like to see different countries fighting with each other, if you don't like to see violence in your family, if you don't like to see fighting in your own family, if you really want to help the world, then change your seeds. Change your own seeds.

If you don't have violence in your own heart, then you will see violence disappear in the world. This is the way to change the world. It's not that you have a super war and you kill all the people who are making war.

That's not the answer. The answer is stop the emotion of war inside your own heart, and then war will stop in the world. You can stop war in this world, but you have to stop it in your own heart first.

This is one of my favorite parts of the painting. This one here. At that time, there was no big monastery in the middle of Tibet.

There was no place to go to study, no place to go to retreat, no place to study the books, no place to learn to be a Mixed Nut translator. There was no place. Tsongkhapa and his five students, just six people, they decided we should build a place for people to study.

We should build a new place for people to study. Tsongkhapa said, okay, we need some money. They all checked their pockets, how much money they have.

Hey Jenny, can you guess how much? The first day, the first day they start to build a retreat center and a university, how much money they have? They collect all the money.

Five dollars. Five US dollars. They have five dollars.

They say, we only have five dollars. Then Tsongkhapa said, okay, let's start. We can buy some rocks.

We will do the labor ourselves. Here they are building Ganden Monastery. This is Tsongkhapa's main monastery.

It became like Diamond Mountain Retreat Center. It became like DCI SCIM College. It's a hard work.

This is a hard work. They start with no money. They start with five dollars.

They start with some bricks. We have to do the same. If you want to help this world, you have to make like Jenny Wong's Singapore group, Malaysia group, Indonesia group.

You have to work hard. You don't have money in the beginning, that's okay. The main problem is not money.

The main problem is courage and determination. Then you can build a group. It took Jenny 10 years, 12 years.

You can build a group. You can build a university. You can build a retreat center.

You just need courage. You need to have courage. You have to decide to do.

All those temples, all those stupas, all those colleges, all those retreat centers, it's all the same. They all start with no money. They all start with a few brave people.

Brave people. Don't wait for Geshe-la to build a college in Moscow or Singapore or Ho Chi Minh. If you have five dollars, then start.

It's courage. Courage makes the place, not the money. The money comes later.

This is an important thing. I think I'll stop here today. Then I'll take some questions, Tim.

We only have time for a few. I like this. This is kind of a sad scene.

This picture in the painting is today. This picture in the painting is today. This is the day that Tsongkapa died.

This is the day that Tsongkapa left this world. We don't say die. We don't say Lama died.

We say this is the day that the Lama left this world. This is the painting. In the painting, you can see this is the day that Tsongkapa left this world.

It's this holiday today. Why we make the candle today? One reason is he left the world on this day.

We are asking him to come back. It's very interesting. Tsongkapa, if you can see in his right hand, he has a Lama hat.

He has a yellow Lama hat. He's giving the hat to Gyeltsabje, to his student. His best student, number one student.

He is giving the hat to his student. Actually, that hat... I'm going to get you one.

Hang on. This is Geshe-la's Geshe hat. This hat I got when I became Geshe.

In the monastery, when the kids get this hat, they use it like frisbee. They like to throw the hat to each other like this. It spins very nice.

When you throw it to your friend, you can spin the hat and you can throw it to your friend. Actually, how Tsongkapa gave the hat to his student, here he's very respectfully giving the hat to his main student. Then he died.

Then he passed away. But really in the story, he threw the hat like a frisbee to his student Gyeltsabje. Gyeltsabje caught the hat.

Then it's a sign that Tsongkapa wants more future generations to follow Tsongkapa's teaching. He wants future generations. Each generation should teach the next generation.

Agong Yeye Abuelo, grandfather Geshe Michael, should teach students and pass on the hat. Jenny, can you catch the hat? I'm throwing you one hat.

Grandpa should teach good students around the world, in different countries. Then you have to become the teacher. You have to teach your students.

It's not my job to teach. You have to learn. Then I throw the hat to you in every country.

Russia, Vietnam, Japan, different countries, Taiwan. You have to catch the hat. Then you become the teacher for your place.

You become the teacher for your generation. Then you have to find five dollars and start to build something. The money will come.

Don't worry about it. I think it's very interesting. This painting in the Mongolian temple, the paint cracked here in Tsongkapa's head.

You see? That's not paint. This is cracking of the old paint.

To me, I always thought it was very interesting. This is the day that Tsongkapa left his body. You can see the paint cracked right here in his head.

To me, it always seemed like he was leaving his body in that painting. Tim, let's go to some questions. Do you have any?

Let's just do a few. One more thing. Hey Tim, can I show something?

I'll show you tomorrow. Let's go ahead. All right.

The first question, Geshe-la, is what are the, you were talking about finding your heart teacher. What are some of the seeds that we can use to, what can we do to plant the seeds for our heart teacher? Then secondly, what does it feel like when we finally found them?

How do we know that this is the one? I have a lot of ideas about it, but I'll share a few. I have many friends in America, hippies, 50 years ago, 40 years ago.

They say, I want to find my heart teacher. I'm going to go to India. I'm going to go to Himalayas.

I will find my teacher there. I like to say, if you plant the right seeds, your teacher has to come to you. You don't have to go to Himalayas.

Himalaya is two things. Highest mountain in the world, very cold. Secondly, best place to get diarrhea in the whole world.

If you want to get diarrhea, you can go to India, you can go to Himalayas. You don't have to go to other country. You're not going to find teacher this way.

I went to Himalayas. I suffer in the Himalayas with diarrhea and cold. Then when I came home, I found my teacher is 45 minutes away from my house.

You can bring the teacher to you. You have to be like a beautiful flower, and the bee will come to you. It's very difficult to catch a bee, but if you have a beautiful flower, the bee will come to you.

My suggestion, help all those teachers like Jenny Wang all over the world. Help them. Be a volunteer.

Help them get the place. Help them plant the books. Help them give the teaching.

Help them do the tech. Be a volunteer. I was a volunteer for 25 years.

People say, oh Geshe-la, you have so many volunteers. You have thousand volunteers in the world. Hey, I was the only volunteer for 25 years.

I washed dishes for eight years. I was the dishwasher for eight years. This is how you make the seeds.

Help the Dharma. Help the teachers. Serve the teachers.

By the way, those human teachers are not perfect. They get upset sometimes. They get jealous sometimes.

They make mistakes sometimes. They are human. They are a person.

They are also trying to practice the path. If you see a teacher gets upset, or I don't know, teacher does something wrong, then don't get disappointed. They are trying to be a good person.

They are not perfect. We are not perfect people. My teacher had 100, 200 students.

He fired all of them. He got in fight with all of them. I was the only survivor in the house.

I am the only one who survived from 100 people who lived with him. Because he is so angry person, and so tough, and so rough person. Everybody from Princeton, they used to tell me, Oh, that Tibetan Lama, he is taking your money.

You are working so hard for him. You are working all day, volunteering for him. He is an angry person.

Why do you stay there? Why do you work for him? I plant the seeds for my teacher to be a perfect teacher.

I don't wait for the teacher to be perfect. I make the teacher perfect. By planting your own seeds, by being a good person, by meditating, by studying Dharma, by not getting angry.

Hey Jenny, my teacher refused to be vegetarian. You know, when he meets the other Lama, he will introduce me to the other Lama. He will say, this is my student.

His name is Mike. He gave up. He couldn't give up.

I am sorry. He will introduce me like this. Mike gave up eating meat, but he didn't give up his klesha.

He didn't give up his negative emotion. He will introduce me like this to the other teacher. He will say, this is Mike.

He gave up meat, but he couldn't give up his anger, his desire, his jealousy. He will introduce me this way. He will make fun of me that I don't eat meat.

And he eats meat. Then I say, I am going to change this. I change, change, change my seed.

Change my seed, change my seed. When he was 70 years old, he gave up meat. Suddenly, he gave up eating meat.

He said, you know, I decided not to eat meat anymore. The teacher also comes from your seeds. The teacher also comes from your seeds.

How to meet your heart teacher? Plant the seeds by volunteer to help the teaching. Then you create the heart teacher.

You make the heart teacher. They come to you. It's like the husband in the kitchen.

The Lama don't come from the Lama. The Lama comes from you. The heart teacher comes from you.

It's like the husband in the kitchen. It's the same. If you want to meet your heart teacher, then help the Dharma to spread.

Help organize teachings. Be a volunteer. Work hard.

I clean the dishes. I was a full-time dishwasher for eight years. Then I was a part-time dishwasher for 17 years.

I make my teacher perfect. I plant the seeds to have a perfect teacher. That's how you find your heart teacher.

How do you know when you meet them? There's a famous quotation in the book. It says, you know you met your heart teacher.

It's the person who helped you the most to be a good person. Who helped you the most to become a good person is your heart teacher. That's your heart teacher.

Which teacher helped you the most to be a good person, then that's your heart teacher. That's how you know your heart teacher. Okay, Tim.

Do you want to stop there or do you want one more question? Let's go one more question. Okay, boss.

It's been said that when you start serving a teacher, someone who has a high karmic object, lots of old bad seeds ripen quickly. Could you talk a little bit about this? Why is that the case and how long do we have to suffer with that?

Yeah, it's absolutely true. When you meet your teacher, two things happen. You have chance to collect good karma and you are burning off your bad karma very fast.

Very, very fast. There will be many problems with your teacher. You should be happy with those problems.

We have a special DCI, new advanced level DCI. This month, January, we are going to talk about how to turn a problem into a masterpiece. How to make a problem into something very, very, very beautiful.

That's the new DCI level for January. We will start in January, 12 new DCI levels. The first level is how to take a problem and how to turn it into something very, very beautiful.

It's normal with your teacher that you will have some serious problems. It's normal. If you don't have any problems with your teacher, there is something wrong.

That's a problem. When you meet your teacher, it's like you got married, right? It's a honeymoon for a few months.

You feel very happy. You feel very spiritual. The teacher looks very perfect for a few months.

Then you start to have problems. Then you see the teacher got angry, or the teacher want money, or something will happen. Teacher will yell at you.

Teacher will get angry at you. You just have to be happy. You just have to say, I don't care.

Teacher angry at me, I don't care. Teacher yell at me, I don't care. I want to help the whole world.

I want to be the light in the world. Don't get upset. Don't get discouraged.

Don't quit. If you quit this teacher, it's like divorce. Then you're going to divorce the next one, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one.

I think 90% of people who get one divorce get the second divorce. My experience, it's very difficult to serve a teacher. It's very, very difficult.

You will have many bad days and many doubts. You just have to have fun and laugh and say, Ah, okay, he's yelling at me today. She's yelling at me today.

Okay, that's all right. I can do it. I can do it.

Don't be too serious. I think having fun is very, very important with your teacher. Have fun with your teacher.

Your teacher yells at you 10 times, then laugh 10 times. Have fun. Go play some rock and roll or something.

Don't get so serious. Have fun with your teacher. It will be okay.

Later it will be okay. You are burning your bad seeds. You are burning up your bad seeds.

Teacher will get angry. Teacher will yell at you. Teacher will be upset.

Teacher will do something wrong. Oh, it's all coming from me. It's all coming from me.

It's like the husband in the kitchen. Your teacher is the same as the husband in the kitchen. They are coming from you.

Okay, tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow I will be a better student. Tomorrow my teacher will give me a hug.

Tomorrow my teacher will praise me. Don't get so serious. I think why I survive in the Mongolian temple, this one hippie survive, because I have fun.

I just have fun. I don't take so serious. Usually when you get upset at your teacher, it's your own pride.

It's your own pride. It's not the teacher. It's your own pride.

When there is trouble with your teacher, just have fun. Do something good. I like to go ride my bicycle.

I will play some rock and roll. I am not allowed to play rock and roll in the Mongolian temple. But I have secret earphones in my monk's room.

When my teacher yells at me, I can go listen to rock and roll a little bit and have fun. Don't get so serious. Don't be so serious.

The student is usually too serious. Try to respect your teacher. Try to listen to your teacher.

You will fail. You will make mistakes. Teacher will get angry.

Then just relax. Don't worry so much. Just relax.

Have some fun. Come back the next day. They will yell at you the next day.

Then come back the next day. They will yell at you the next day. Just keep coming back.

Your life will be very, very happy. You need a teacher. You cannot practice this path without a teacher.

It is not possible. It is impossible. You need a teacher.

If your teacher is not perfect, then make them perfect with your seeds. If your husband is not perfect, that comes from you. If your teacher is not perfect, that comes from you.

You can fix it. You can have a perfect teacher. All right, you guys.

Tim, how about we continue tomorrow?