BDW 1 «Пять домов: Новый старт», занятие 6

(0:08 - 0:56)
Hi. Hi, dear students. Welcome. 

Here we are. Welcome to online and in-person students. We're going to start with class number six. 

My name is Laura Bordera. I'm helping ACI with coordinating translations, and we're going to start with the sixth class, the last one, with our dear teacher Geshe Michael Roach. I hope you're enjoying, as much as I do, these beautiful and incredible classes.

(0:57 - 4:21)
And please, just enjoy. I hope every one of us could join this last class and take all the benefits of the teaching we are hearing. Again, my name is Laura, because I think I've started before time. 

And I'm part of ACI staff, helping with translations. And that's all, folks. I hope you enjoy these beautiful, beautiful teachings that we are hearing, all of us. 

And the stage is for Geshe La. I don't know if he's prepared. He's ready to continue with those classes that we are hearing. 

If not, I keep talking, just for you. As well as for all the online audience, please rejoice in this that we are sharing together. It's an incredible experience. 

This is something that is so, so special. I can't even believe that we're hearing what we are hearing in those incredible classes. And just enjoy. 

This has been a little unprepared. And so, I want to just rejoice in all the beauty that all the volunteers and all the teams have created to make this possible. And to help us, all of us, to be able to listen and to learn such beautiful lessons that we're hearing these days. 

And please feel that you're important. You're an incredible part of ACI. And just by attending, wherever in the world you are, it's a kind of miracle that this is happening. 

And I hope you have the same feeling. So, this is an incredible opportunity for all of you. Please check your schedules online. 

This is going to be broadcast from Europe. And keep learning. We have a lot of classes after this one, this last of Geshe La. 

And hopefully, in a minute, we're going to be able to to listen to our dear teacher. Please let me know when we're ready to start hearing again those beautiful classes that we are listening. I'm so sorry because I thought this was going to be a little shorter. 

But it looks like we still have problems. So, I have to keep talking for all of you. So, I can say that that's... I already said that it's such a beautiful thing.

(4:21 - 6:23)
I don't know if all of you were prepared for what we're hearing. I wasn't. And I'm enjoying it so, so much. 

It's incredible. I see now that we have already... The video is setting. All of the attendants in Diamond Mountain are getting prepared. 

So, the class is going to start in a second. We're going to have our dear Geshe La teaching us again. I see Tim giving instructions. 

And please feel part of this because you are online. You're just as important as any of these people sitting there. All of us are part of ACI family and this is a great thing. 

Just hearing what we're hearing and being here as a part of this magic that is happening already. I don't know if they're hearing. I think it's going to take a little time more. 

So, we wait until what dear Geshe La has prepared is ready to continue giving us so many pearls of beauty, of wisdom. And it looks like it's almost, almost ready. Okay, here we are. 

Hopefully, in a few seconds. Thank you for being here. Thank you for trusting in ACI. 

And just realized that I have the opposite background. Sorry for that. And we see you. 

I hope I see you after the class. Just to wrap up. Thank you for being here.

(6:24 - 7:31)
And hopefully, Geshe La is going to be ready soon. Yes, it looks everything is getting settled to start. So, please. 

Our last class with Geshe Michael. So, this is class six. That's just how we kind of mark things on our little thingies. 

And Geshe La, thank you very much for teaching us. And here we go. Okay. 

Thank you. The reason we had an early class is I have to rush to Phoenix and do some normal medical tests. Nothing strange. 

Just every few months I have to do them. Okay. And they're very tough to get the time. 

So, okay. Arizona has a shortage of doctors. And the world has a shortage of Dharma doctors.

(7:31 - 7:51)
Right? Understand? Similar. Okay. All right. 

Mexico City, July 18th to 21st, we will continue this course, these classes. Okay. If you can come in person, it's a very wonderful place to be.

(7:52 - 8:28)
The Mexican people are extremely hospitable and kind. And they really take good care of people. They're very friendly. 

All my Chinese friends who went to Mexico are going to retire there. So, you know, if you can, come and come and see Mexico City. And it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful city. 

And the main thing is the people are very wonderful. Okay. 18th and 21st. 

And we'll just continue these classes. Okay. All right.

(8:30 - 9:54)
Also online. Yep. I have other announcements I'm supposed to do. 

Let's get them out of the way. Those posters, Rob Resinger and myself, we made those posters about 20 years ago to teach Tsongkapa's life. And that Tsongkapa book, King of the Dharma, it gives you all of the parts of Je Tsongkapa's life as a Diamond Way practitioner that made him successful as a Diamond Way practitioner. 

And there's 12 different careers he had, 12 different things he did. And so we encourage you to get the poster. We're selling them for $16 each. 

We're donating the, when we sell things from Rosa, we pay for the production, we pay the salaries of the staff, and then we donate the rest. So usually it's about 50%, 40%. We're going to donate the donation to ACI. 

Okay. All houses [?]. Right? Yeah. 

Okay. Just in case, you know, I don't get in trouble. So it helps pay for airfares and things like that.

(9:54 - 9:59)
Okay. So if you buy a poster, it helps get teachers and tech to Mexico City. Okay.

(10:02 - 10:33)
I have good news. We have a publisher. There's a publisher in Taipei who has published my books for a long time. 

She translated, her company is a very famous company called Oak Tree, and part of Citi Corporation, I think, and a very, very large company. And she's a wonderful, wonderful person. And she translates my books into Chinese.

(10:33 - 10:48)
And she publishes them for the last 20 years, 25 years. So I'm happy to announce that they have finished Katrin [?] in Chinese language. Okay.

(10:53 - 11:59)
And it will be available in June. And talk to Rosa. You want to stand up? Yeah. 

Okay. And that lady's name is Jia Fan, and she's an unbelievable, kind, wonderful person who's been translating my books for 25 years. If you ever have a chance to meet her, give her a big hug. 

All right. Lastly, Kat told me they brought peacock feathers for many people. I don't know. 

Everybody can have a peacock feather. No? Canton [?]? Oh. Seriously? No? Oh. 

You don't have that many? Oh, anyone can take these. Okay. First come first serve. 

After I finish and get out of it. So it's good luck. Again, it reflects Seiji's new translation, which is all about peacock warrior.

(11:59 - 12:26)
Peacocks in the lojong tradition, it means most people avoid problems, and most people avoid problem people. Most people, if they see an animal on the ground, they just keep going. But a sangha and us, Lamrim, staircase, and other people, we stop and we help the person.

(12:26 - 13:46)
Okay? So that's a tradition. It's called peacock warrior. The tradition is that the color of the feathers comes from poison. 

They eat poisonous plants, and only a peacock has the power to eat poison and make something beautiful. Okay? Most people avoid trouble. Most people avoid problems. 

Most people walk the other way when somebody's really having a problem. And then peacock warriors, which is the theme of Seiji's book, and by the way, Seiji's book is like fat. It's a lojong book. 

So that book talks about peacocks, and people who stop to help people in trouble are more beautiful. Okay? Stopping to help makes you more beautiful. Eating the poison makes you more beautiful. 

Okay? You see trouble, and you don't go away. You go towards it, and you help the people. Cool? All right. 

That's coming out any day. Right? Yeah. And by the way, someone's been working really hard on those books, which is Anatole Nguyen, and I'd like to thank him.

(13:46 - 15:31)
Can you stand up? And Rosa. So it's one thing for the translators to finish the translation, but if we can't publish it, it doesn't matter, right? So they've been doing all this hard work. I didn't put that fourth picture there, and it looks a little disrespectful. 

I don't know, but I don't know where the sunglasses—you put the sunglasses on. Anyway, I was on [?] Pabongka Rinpoche on the left, and yeah, that's better. And he's a—so the thing is, those of you in Staircase House, you can say Pabongka Rinpoche, he was the great master of Lamrim. 

He wrote the greatest Lamrim, and his disciple, Trijang Rinpoche, in the middle, did all the work. He's the Rosa and the Anatole for Pabongka Rinpoche, okay? And you need that. You need people like that. 

So he spent many years of his life helping to print and prepare his teachers' teachings, okay? And Pabongka Rinpoche is famous for Vajrayogini. He wrote the best commentary about Vajrayogini. I translated it.

(15:32 - 16:22)
I've never published those translations. I have three or four. I have about—I think it's about 20,000 or 30,000 pages of Diamond Way translations. 

But we—you shouldn't normally publish them. You should give them to your student, okay? So it's waiting for you, all right? There's about 20,000 pages, something like that. And I worked hard on it. 

I worked for 10 years on it. And his book is the greatest. His Diamond Way book is the greatest. 

We will study his book, okay? So you should know the lineage that you are—if people ask you what's your lineage. Now, coolest thing. And then I think—then we'll switch over to the angel for today.

(16:25 - 16:30)
Let me see what I got out of it. No, we'll keep going. Poor angel, always gets shortchanged.

(16:34 - 18:30)
In my monastery, Sera Mey, there's 12 great houses, okay? You got five, they got 12. And there are 12 great houses for over 500 years, okay? And my teacher is from Gyalrong House, okay? Say Gyalrong. So at Princeton, there used to be a sort of a house custom from your home state. 

So I'm from Arizona. When I went to Princeton, we meet with all the other kids from Arizona. And, you know, we do naughty things together. 

And it was really fun. And it was really dear, you know? And we got very close to each other. And because we're in a foreign part of another state, we don't know all these people. 

They live—they're from the armpit [?]. We're from Arizona. We don't have any—it's very difficult to be friends with them. 

They have—they're New York, New York people. They want to know about coffee. And we're like, it's difficult to be their friend. 

So you have a house from your own state. And in the same thing in the monastery, okay? So people travel sometimes thousands of miles to come to study at the great three monasteries. And there's a house for Gyalrong. 

Gyalrong means East Tibet, near like Chengdu area, okay? They have their own dialect. They have their own language. But other people can go there.

(18:30 - 19:21)
If you're from Arizona, and you're the first white guy in how many years? 600 years. Then there's no Arizona house. So they say you can join Gyalrong house, because my teacher was from Gyalrong house. 

And what I want to say is why Gyalrong house is the best house is that Pabongka Rinpoche came from our house, okay? The greatest teacher is Pabongka Rinpoche. So my teacher and Pabongka Rinpoche came from Gyalrong house. When your teacher comes from Gyalrong house, you are part of Gyalrong house, okay? So you are Gyalrong house.

(19:22 - 22:06)
You're also whatever house you are, staircase, whatever. But you should have some, you should be happy that you are part of Gyalrong house. And you can brag about it, you know. 

People say what house you connected to. You can say Gyalrong. And they say, what's Gyalrong? I say, it's just the greatest writer in history, Pabongka Rinpoche. 

He was reborn. He passed away in 1941, I think. And he was reborn. 

And that reborn Lama finished his geshe. And then suddenly he died. And then he was reborn again. 

And so the young Pabongka Rinpoche was my classmate. And we had many good, I examined him for his geshe. I was the number one examiner. 

And it was cool. And he's a great teacher now. He teaches all over the world. 

He's a good teacher. Okay, these are in the beginning of the steps of the path, in the beginning of Diamond Way. To prepare for Diamond Way, we have to learn our teachers. 

And these are your teachers, okay? And I'll tell you something. I don't care what country they came from. I'm not loyal to a particular country. 

I'm not, to be honest, I'm not attracted to a lot of Tibetan culture. It's not something I'm interested in. If I give you the, shall I sing Tibetan? It's very similar to Beijing Opera, okay? Then I'm like... Then there's many things about, you know, I'm not attached to American culture. 

I'm probably the least American American you ever met. And I'm not attached to a particular country or particular culture. I'm not trying to sell Tibet or China or Japan or, you know, I just feel like we're all one country, Russia [?]. 

I feel, that's how I feel about it. So I'm not trying to make you Tibetan, or I'm not trying to sell you Chinese things. It's a way of thinking. 

It's a way of living your life. And there's people in every country who follow it. And there's people in every country who don't follow it.

(22:07 - 22:38)
All the ones who follow it are in the same country. You see what I mean? They're in Lamrim country, okay? And that's how I see it. That's just the way I see it, okay? So I'm not trying I'm not trying to make you Tibetan. 

I'm not trying to get you to wear this strange hat, you know. Ask me how many times I wore my hat in Rimra [?]. How did I know it? No, like I never wore it once, you know, because it's not appropriate.

(22:39 - 24:50)
It's not appropriate to wear it around Phoenix, Arizona or something, you know. I wore my robes once in New York and this guy stopped me and he said, what are you, what are you, goddamn Moses? I'm like, peace, man, peace. So I don't think it's so important that what you wear or if you have a bell or, you know, I don't think it's, personally, I don't think it's so important, okay? I think you dress to fit the people you're teaching. 

If you teach business people, you got that picture? If you're going to a business talk, the one with the four teachers. If you're going to a business talk, you go in a nice car and you wear a nice suit, okay? Really, seriously. And then if you, when you're in Diamond Mountain, you just wear your normal clothes and that's Lamrim, okay? That's Lamrim. 

So I'm not trying to sell something cultural to you. Buddhism is not a culture. Buddhism is a way of thinking. 

Diamond Way is a way of thinking, okay? So in this, in this text so far, we are bowing down to the teachers. And I wanted to show a person bowing down successfully. Next picture. 

Yeah. So I'm in, our company exploded. Our company doubled every 18 months. 

And we're the fastest growing company in the history of New York. Why? Just by accident. And so I was desperate for workers, you know? And I put out the word, if anyone knows anyone who knows jewelry, if they know some jewelry skills, please let me know.

(24:51 - 25:25)
And we were working like crazy hours. I was working until two every night. And then I had hired a lady from Barbados. 

And then she's like seven feet tall. And she said, I know somebody. And I'm like, okay, tell them to come in. 

Two people came in. One was Uma Thurman. She came in. 

She needed a job. She didn't get famous. She didn't get into the movies yet.

(25:26 - 26:46)
And then I interviewed her. And I said, let's, I said, do you really want to be a secretary in a diamond company? And she said, no. And I said, well, what do you really want to do? And she says, I want to be an actress. 

And I said, I'll tell you what, you, I'm not going to hire you. And, and you go be an actress, okay? And then I think two months later, she got the role in Dangerous Liaisons, something like that. And then she became, she's been on Vogue cover more than any other woman. 

Her father always thanks me for not hiring her. And at the same time, this short black Barbados lady came in. And I interviewed her. 

And she said, she had some jewelry skills. And then I said, one thing, our company is tough. You know, we got to work till one o'clock, two o'clock. 

I mean, we're a crazy company. And so if I hire you, you're gonna have to work when I tell you to work. And she says, I don't do that. 

And I'm like, you know, I'm very, very busy. I'm in a huge company. And here's this lady come in and say, I don't do that.

(26:46 - 27:37)
So I'm like, well, why did you come here? And she said, I need a job, you know, but I don't do that. And I said, what do you do? And she says, I work when I want to work. And I'm like, I just looked at her, you know, and I looked at a friend who brought her. 

And I'm like, you know, and then I, this word, yes, came out of my mouth. And I was like, what? And so I hired her. And she was trouble. 

And, you know, but she, she grew up in the company. Then she, she became a great diamond jewelry master. She became, she handled the largest account, which was $20 million account, something.

(27:38 - 31:36)
And she became really good at it, you know. And then, I don't know. I was sleeping in New York once a week, because I have to open the vaults. 

Somebody has to open the vaults. Only three people allowed to, to know the secret numbers, you know. So I come in once a week. 

I sleep in New York. And then I started teaching people in my hotel room on the bed, because there's no place else. I sit on the desk, and they sit on the bed. 

And then it got more and more people, and they're all trying to sit on the bed. And she heard about it. And she said, can I come to your class someday? I'm like, you won't like it. 

And she's like, no, let me try, you know. And then she came, and then she really liked it. And then she studied, studied, studied. 

And then she became a nun. My teacher made her a nun. And she, she and I started ACI together, okay. 

And that was, how long ago? 30 years ago, okay. And then she came out to Diamond Mountain. She did a three-year retreat. 

And she helped build this place. She built this, we built this temple by our hands. All the students carried the bricks and built the place. 

It was hard. And she's such a, she changed. I never saw anyone change so much. 

She was a very difficult person. No. And then she became this extremely happy person. 

And then, then we did a, we had a chance to do a second three-year retreat. And she's like, I'm up for it. And she's the only person here, right, John, I think, who did two, she did six years of deep retreat. 

So pretty amazing. People don't know she had cancer the whole time. She had cancer when I met her. 

And people didn't know. And we didn't tell anybody. But she had bad cancer. 

And she just keep going, you know. And so finally she passed away. But, you know, people always doing all these nice prostrations, you know, blah, blah. 

And I think if you want to prostrate to the Lamas, like pick up a shovel and build a temple, you know, do something, do something to help, you know. That's all nice, you know, all these people hand me red envelope, you know, and they're like, oh, we love you. And I'm like, yeah, I got a shovel. 

Yeah, I don't do that. So I think when you prostrate, you know, and when you bow to the lineage, think about this kind of prostration, okay, and it's just hard work, you know, to build this place, just hard work, okay, 20 years of hard work. Those stupid Chinese young people, they're like, oh, we're doing the same thing. 

I'm like, yeah. My wife, I asked my wife, should I let them try it? And she's like, yeah, let them try it. Because it's hard. 

It's really hard. It makes you strong, okay. If you want to prostrate to the Lamas, if you want to honor the Lamas, then clean the toilet or, you know, do something like that.

(31:36 - 33:31)
That's the real prostration. It's not this, whoa. Those are easy. 

Those things are easy, okay. Hard work. If you want to honor the lineage, then hard, okay. 

It's 30 years since we started ACI. That was the first organization. Now we have 42 organizations. 

And if you're really cool, you'll join the 30-30-30 club. And everybody, you're supposed to say, what's that Geshe La? And the first 30 means, the first 30 means it's 30 years since we started ACI. ACI is taught for free. 

The teachers don't get paid, okay. They can take red envelopes, and you should throw red envelopes at them, but they don't get paid. So we need to raise funds to keep it going, okay. 

And this is my job. When you become a teacher and I come to your class in my wheelchair, I'm going to have so much fun watching you fundraise, you know, because all the karma of being irritated when I fundraise is going to come back to you, and you're going to tell your students, we need money, you know. Please buy the poster, $16. 

The money goes to ACI, please. They sell, Connie sells everything of my old stuff, you know. I clean out my closet. 

She said, give it all to me, Geshe La. I can sell it. I can make donations for ACI, you know.

(33:32 - 35:38)
My wife said, no underwear, okay. Are we thinking about it? No. So anyway, it's $1 a day, okay. 

It's not going to kill you, okay. Every country can do that, okay. Give $1 a day. 

Just commit. What's happening is it's working, and it's going really strong. And I told Tim in the beginning, I said, I don't think it's going to work. 

He said, let's try. And it's working. We're making enough money to keep the ACI going. 

So please, if you're not a member of the 30-30-30, please join, okay. And if you don't join, you're just a loser. Come on, $1 a day. 

You know, come on, you know. It's not going to kill you. You won't notice it, okay. 

And all together, if we all give a little bit, it keeps the thing going. And it's important to keep it going, okay. All right. 

Well, he wants me to sell my meditations. You ready? So every week, I tried to film a new meditation. Somebody asked me, can you teach a meditation? And then they said, I said, which one? And they said, well, how many is there, two, three meditations? I said, I laughed at them, you know. 

In the Geshe course, we do hundreds of meditations. And so I said, I can teach you hundreds of meditations. And then Tim said, okay, Geshe La, just do 100, and we'll film them. 

And we'll blackmail people. If they don't join the 30-30-30, they can't watch the meditation. And then I'm like, that's not really Buddhism, you know. 

But, oh, they get it earlier. Okay, they get it earlier. Okay, it's semi-blackmail.

(35:39 - 36:59)
Okay, so anyway, you will get a new meditation every week, or roughly every week, or something like that, okay. And it's very cool. We meditate every morning in the monastery for two hours, something like that. 

And oftentimes together. It's like a thousand people meditating together. Very cool. 

Anyway, you can learn some of those meditations if you'd like to, okay. How much time I got, Tim? Okay, I'm gonna do a little more, and then I'm gonna take Q&A, okay, especially about Diamond Way, but anything you want, okay. So I'll do about, I'll stop in about 15 minutes, okay, and we'll do Q&A, okay. 

You should have some questions about how you continue with your Diamond Way practice, and things like that, okay. Okay, last thing. There's an unusual part of Gibson's [?] book where they talk about, if you study Lamrim, you get eyes, okay, and that's the next picture.

(37:00 - 38:44)
Yeah, this is a famous stupa. I think it's Boudhanath in Nepal, in Kathmandu, and I think this is, some people say it's where Lord Buddha was born, but it's an unusual stupa. It's famous because it has these strange eyes on it, you know, and then it's Buddha's eyes. 

It's part of a huge, huge stupa, and when we finished this stupa, Dr. Wu told me, those are kind of mini stupas, aren't they? And I'm like, what do you mean? And these are pure marble. You can't, you know, it's like pure diamond. It's like, you can't, he's like, well, I was kind of thinking of Boudhanath, you know, which is like five stories high. 

I'm like, we also got, by the way, we have to respect the view. We can't ruin the desert. We don't feel like we can put big Buddha statues and stuff like that. 

They have to fit into the mountain. We don't want to hurt the mountains, and we want to make the stupas quiet and elegant. Okay, so anyway, eyes are very important, and somebody said to Tsongkapa, if you study Lamrim, you get the eyes to see the world, to really see the world, and he got upset, and he said, that's not what the book says. 

That's not what it says, and then they said, what do you mean? And he said, the Lamrim is the eyes. Okay, not that you study Lamrim and you get eyes, not like that. He said, Lamrim is the eyes.

(38:44 - 40:46)
If you learn Lamrim, you have the eyes. Okay, got it? What? For seeing messages, okay, in diamond way. And by the way, the author, Choney Lama, he said, Tsongkapa said, he told the story about Tsongkapa and Tsongkapa's eyes, and then I checked it in John Brady's database. 

I checked it, and I found it, and it's on the last page of the Lamrim Chenmo. It's 1,000 pages into the Lamrim Chenmo, and it talks about the eyes. Lamrim is eyes, and if you have Lamrim, you have eyes, and if you don't have Lamrim, you don't have eyes, okay? What's it mean for us? There's a very, very famous quotation from Lord Buddha, and somebody asked him, which meditation posture is better? And he's like, what do you mean? And there's this big fight for 2,000 years. 

Do you put your left hand down first, or do you put your right hand down first? Do you cross your right leg first, or do you cross your left leg first? Big fight, okay? There's a big fight, you know? So somebody asked him, what position, what's your meditation, what's your favorite meditation position? And he said, I have three. Lord Buddha said, I have three, you know? And they said, what? And he said, I meditate when I'm flat on my bed, I meditate when I sit in a chair, and I meditate when I stand up. That's all.

(40:52 - 45:19)
And so I wanted to give you a proposal. So, classically, Lord Buddha said, there's three times you can focus on your meditation. When you're a Buddha, it's whether you're laying down, sitting, or standing up, okay? Which is, you know, all the time. 

I don't think there's any other choice. Word [?] probably could come up with flying, or, yeah. Oh, no, I would count that as standing up, personally. 

But anyway, I propose that until we meet again in Mexico City, whether you're online in Mexico City, or whether you come to Mexico City, I propose that we have a sort of a, that we all try to, when we're walking, when we're traveling somewhere, when we're going somewhere, in a car, or walking, okay? When you're going somewhere, especially walking in a street in Shenzhen with your son, or flying somewhere, or in a car, okay? When you are moving to go somewhere, got it? Walking, traveling in a car, flying in an airplane, okay? When you're, I would like to make a deal among all of our, we're now a small Diamond Way group, right? Including the online guys. Until Mexico City, which is July 18th, right? For four days. Until then, when you travel, let's make a deal that you look for messages, okay? And, you know, you can sleep on your bed, you don't have to look for messages. 

And you can sit at your breakfast table, you don't have to look for messages. But I propose that we all agree to look for messages when we're traveling, in a car, or on a plane, or walking to a city, okay? That's all? Okay, agree? Agree? That was three people, I think. All right, cool. 

So remember, you know, what's your homework? Somebody asked you, what's your Diamond Way homework? It's, when I'm traveling, I'm supposed to see if there's any messages that were sent to me, okay? And I get a lot of messages on airplanes. I'm on airplanes a lot. I keep my ears open, you know? Somebody gives me a message. 

And I remember one lady was looking at her cell phone the whole way, like, it said, how many hours to Japan? 11 hours, you know? And I think about 10 hours she was like this, you know? And I'm kind of like, irritated. I don't know why, I'm just irritated. Somebody would look at their phone the whole way to Japan, you know? And then I kind of was curious what someone could look at for 11 hours. 

And I looked, you know, when you go to the toilet, you spy on people. And I went to the toilet and I'm like, okay, I just want to see what website she's looking at. And that's when I found out you can turn the camera around and look at yourself, you know? Hi, Geshe Michael. 

And she was checking her makeup for 11 hours, you know? And I was like, wow, she's checking her makeup for 11 hours, you know? I'm such a better person, you know? I don't even know how to do that. And that makes me a better person. I would never just think about myself for 11 hours, you know? And then suddenly I'm like, it's a message.

(45:20 - 46:09)
She's telling me I think about myself 11 hours out of 11 hours, you know? And maybe she's Vajrayogini. Maybe she's an angel. Maybe she's a Buddha. 

Maybe she's a lady Buddha, you know? Maybe she's trying to get me to get this. Maybe if I would just figure it out, she could go to sleep. But she has to sit there for 11 hours. 

That guy's so stupid. He didn't get it. Keep trying. 

Okay. So, watch from... that's our homework, okay? That's what I'd like to do together. As a group, as a team, when you're traveling, then look for messages, okay? And they can be unusual.

(46:09 - 47:30)
They can be really strange, you know? What's the message when a scorpion crawls on your foot during Trijang Rinpoche? You'll never forget Trijang Rinpoche, okay? What's the message? Okay? We're looking for messages. And if I have to tell you what's the greatest Diamond Way practice, it's looking for messages. I think it's one of the greatest, okay? Is it a message? Was she sending me a message? Was she a Buddha sending me a message? I can't say she was, but I can't say she wasn't. 

I can't say I know she was, but I can't say I know she wasn't. And that state of doubt between I can't say I know she was, and I can't say I know she wasn't, that middle place of doubt is extremely powerful karma, okay? It's one of the most powerful karmas there is. If you want financial freedom, if you want to throw hundred dollar bills at people all day, or you want to be happy, or you want to have the greatest wife in the world, or husband, this is the karma.

(47:31 - 51:01)
It's an extremely powerful karma, okay? Everything you ever dreamed of will come, okay? It's very unusual. It's very strange, okay? Got it? That doubt is one of the most powerful karmas there is, okay? And it will produce weird things, like very, very successful life, very happy life, okay? And it's so cheap. It doesn't cost anything to be paranoid about that lady, you know? It doesn't cost you anything. 

It's no effort at all. It takes like 10 seconds, you know, on the way to the toilet. Huh, another message. 

Hi, bye, you know, do your toilet. I could tell you about, no, no, we had an interesting flight from China, speaking of toilets, but I'm not going to make fun of my friend who was throwing up and diarrhea at the same time, and the airplane company closed the toilet. Anyway, buddy, it's a good way to lose weight. 

Okay, let's do Q&A, okay? You got your homework, right? We all, I have my homework, okay? All right, all right. And we'll do, we'll finish Angel Devil sometime soon, Tim. You, who's going to choose now? Tim, you choose. 

Somebody choose. By the way, after class, I got to go quick, okay? I'm, there's a lab waiting for me. So, Geshe La, thank you so much for the class. 

So, I'm just wondering, what is the message for us that we are here in the class and we see the scorpion? And I'll say something about that, okay? I think messages are tailor-made. It means I think messages are sent to you personally. So, I think it's part of this practice is, it's not that Geshe La decides the message, you decide the message, okay? Because I don't know your life, I don't know what's going on in your life, you know? I have many, many students, I don't know what's happening in their lives, you know? You know what's happening in life. 

So, one thing about messages is they are created by the Buddhas to fit you personally, okay? And two people can get different messages from the same event, okay? Two people can get different messages from the scorpion, you know? And they're both true, even if they're opposite, they're both true, okay? And that's the cool thing about messages. So, they are, one thing about Diamond Way is that all this stuff is happening, was designed for you personally. It's a personal message for you from the Buddha, okay? And you can take it and you can use it. 

And that's Diamond Way. That is Diamond Way. You asked me to teach Diamond Way, I'm teaching you Diamond Way, okay? All right, next question.

(51:02 - 51:17)
It's such a cute teapot. Okay, I'm like, Malaysians. Congratulations on your new stupa, you Malaysia people.

(51:22 - 52:49)
Thank you, Geshe La. Can I ask a question in Chinese? Geshe La, is it okay that I ask this question in Chinese? Thank you, Geshe La. After listening to Diamond Way for two days, I feel like Diamond Way allows us to see a lot of incredible and impossible things. 

For example, yesterday, the teacher said that in the teaching of Diamond Way, you can imagine yourself as Bodhisattva Manjushri. But my logic tells me that this is not possible at all. Because I'm not a Buddha at all, I'm not a Bodhisattva. 

So how do I apply these teachings of Diamond Way to help me improve now? Or how do I understand these teachings of Diamond Way? Thank you. So thank you, Geshe La, for the teaching in the past two days. It seems like in the Diamond Way teaching, a lot of what we have to do is to visualize. 

And for example, we have to visualize ourselves as Manjushri. But logically, for me, that's not possible, because I have trouble seeing myself as Manjushri. So what can we do in a Diamond Way practice? If this visualization doesn't work for me, what are the practices that I can do to bring Diamond Way into my life? Thank you.

(52:49 - 53:29)
Nice. Okay, cool. One thing that John Brady did in his database... So there's, I don't know, we are planning to input 300,000 books. 

He is he's about three or four percent finished. It will take another 100 to 300 years to finish. Okay? That's how long he has to stay. 

And it's huge. It's unbelievable. It's 300,000 books.

(53:30 - 55:05)
The Western Classics, on which all Western universities are based, there's 500 books. Harvard University Classics Library has 500 books. That's all. 

Asia has 300,000. And they are high quality. They're not silly books. 

They're not cuneiform? Abyssinian? I said Babylonian. Somebody corrected me. Sumerian. 

There's Sumerian. To be honest, I don't know the difference. But they're not some complaint about a guy's horse. 

They are extraordinary books. Every one of them can get you enlightened. 300,000 books. 

From all the ancient books, you heard about sutra and shastra yesterday, right? There's 990 sutras and tantras left from many thousands. And there's 3,700 shastras left. And there's about 285,000 commentaries, late commentaries. 

And then the ancient people divided all of those books into 12 categories, in the Kangyur. Something like that. The whole Kangyur has only 12 sections.

(55:06 - 55:16)
990 books. The Tengyur has something like 14 sections. John Brady's database has probably a thousand.

(55:17 - 55:26)
It's a thousand different divisions. It's cataloged correctly. And it took many years.

(55:26 - 55:46)
It took 30 years to do it. So there's about a thousand categories. Why do I mention that? There's 160 tantras in the database. 

Vajrayogini is one. Manjushri is one. Amitabha is one.

(55:47 - 56:17)
There's 160. John Brady's project has identified 160 tantras. Tantric systems with thousands of books in them. 

So it's unbelievable. Then each one, Vajrayogini is divided into many, many categories. How to do retreat, how to do the fire, how to do the mantra, how to do the meditation, how to die, how to teach it, how to do the initiation.

(56:18 - 57:42)
Many, many. Then I asked my teacher, I said, you're teaching us two or three tantric traditions. We get Yamantaka and we get Vajrayogini. 

We get two, basically. But there's 160. And then all my friends who were studying with other teachers, they're like getting 10, 12, 50. 

I'm like, we only got two. It's kind of irritating. And he said, that's all that we practice in the tantric monastery. 

There's only two in Tibet. There's thousands of monasteries. There's only two tantric monasteries. 

And he's like, that's all I study. That's all we study. We study two. 

I'm like, wow. Why is that? And he said, I said, why are all those tantric, why do they exist? And he said, everybody's different. Everybody needs a different teaching. 

That's why there's five houses. Everybody's attracted to a different thing. It's the Veronica at the cowboy shop story.

(57:44 - 59:36)
My wife tried on 42 pairs of jeans. I counted. I had to stand up the whole time. 

There's no chair. I was irritated. I wanted to go home. 

And then she didn't buy any of them. Don't ever tell her this story. It means different people need different tantras. 

There's 160 pairs of pants there. There's 160 holy beings. And probably there's thousands. 

That survive in John's database, there's 160. So you came to this one. And then if you tell me, if you tell your teacher, you know what, I don't really connect with Yamantaka. 

And I'll be honest, I don't connect with Yamantaka. I'm like, it's scary. And it's kind of, you know, you know, and I'm like, I got any other choices here? And my teacher's like, I think you're a Vajrayogini person. 

I think you're a Vajrayogini type, which is like, you know, you know, and so my teacher's approach, my teacher's tradition in the ancient tradition, which is 2000 years old, we give you basically several choices. You know, you can have the tough one, if you want, you know, or you can have the sweet angel one. And personally, I like the sweet angel one.

(59:36 - 1:00:34)
I connect with that. So when you study Diamond Way, your teacher should give you a couple options. And basically, we give you Yamantaka option, or we give you Vajrayogini option. 

And you don't need to know about it now. You don't have to worry about it now. You don't have to choose that house now. 

Just sit, enjoy the Diamond Way classes. But the options are waiting for you. We have them. 

Okay, so if it doesn't feel like it fits very well right away, don't stress about it. You will change, or we'll offer you a different tantra, a different tradition. They're all the same in the end. 

It's all Lord Buddha, just looking like different pairs of pants. It's one person who looks like 42 pairs of pants, 160 pairs of pants. In the end, it's the same person.

(1:00:35 - 1:01:43)
But I also believe that, as I mentioned before, you can go with the Vajrayogini who's more comfortable for you. You feel more attracted to a feminine Buddha, a female Buddha. You know, that's fine. 

And then some people want a real authority figure, president, we know who, you know, whose name cannot be named. You know, it depends on what you feel comfortable with. And so what's cool about Diamond Way practice, basically there's many, many options waiting for you. 

So if it doesn't feel like it fits right away, there's two choices. Go for the other one, which fits more in this tradition. We have other ones, if you like. 

But I'll tell you another option. I think I mentioned it the other day. Out of the Geshe course, there's five great topics.

(1:01:43 - 1:02:21)
There's Abhidharma, Vinaya, Logic, Lower Middle Way, Higher Middle Way, and then Mind Only is in there somewhere. And when I studied the Geshe course, when I got to the Logic, I hated it. I really hated it. 

And I was like, I can't do this. I'm quitting. I'm going to quit now. 

You know, it's like I could care less about major premise, minor premise. You know, it's all BS to me. I don't care.

(1:02:22 - 1:03:10)
I had real trouble with it. And my teacher at that time couldn't speak English. So he's like, you know, a couple of my old Miami Dogman [?] fans. 

I'm like, I don't understand anything. And then he tried to explain logic terms in elementary English. And I'm like, it's worse, you know. 

And I'll tell you something. And I told this story many times. I was walking back to my room from his room. 

And he had just given me a logic class. And I was like, oh. And I was sleeping on the floor of a garage. 

I was sleeping on a concrete floor in a sleeping bag. That was my room. I didn't have enough money or I didn't have any place.

(1:03:10 - 1:06:42)
And there was no place. I'm sleeping on the floor of a garage with an old drunk who hid in the garage. And I'm always afraid he's going to kill me, you know. 

And so anyway, I'm on my way to my room. And I remember I stopped under a tree. And I was upset because I said, I don't know if I can do this. 

I don't know if I can learn this, you know. And then this voice came to me. And it said, you kick ass on the logic. 

You do the logic. It's something important. Something you're supposed to do, you know. 

Shut up and learn it and master it, you know. And I'm like, wow, I got a message, you know. And in that moment under the tree, I think you can still see the tree, I said, I'm going to do this. 

It's the thing I like. It's the thing I don't like the most. It's the one subject I don't like the most. 

And somehow I got a message. It said, you're supposed to do the thing you don't like the most because that's what you don't have yet. You understand? That's the practice you don't have yet. 

And so that's the one you need, you know. The one that you don't like the most is the one that's missing inside of you, you know. And that's a very interesting idea, you know. 

So you can wait and we'll give you other traditions. John Brady, Connie, those guys, they can give you other, they will give you other lineages, other traditions. There's a lot of choices. 

You can wait until something comes which fits your unusual bottom [?], okay. You can wait. But you have this other option that maybe the one you're not attracted to is a message. 

Maybe it's what you are lacking that you need, okay. And so I became good at logic. I'm the best, okay. 

It's extremely difficult and I killed myself for many years and now I know it. And it's wonderful. It's like the most valuable thing, okay. 

So don't always think that the thing that's comfortable for you is the right thing for you. Maybe the one that you're not attracted to is the one that you don't have. That's what you need. 

So sometimes in Buddhism, force yourself to do what you're not attracted to. If you just keep doing what you're attracted to, you don't learn anything new, okay. Understand? Cool. 

Don't forget that one, okay. All right. How much time we got, Tim? Okay. 

Who's choosing? Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Thank you so much, Geshe La, for teaching today. 

Yesterday while I was reading book by Lord Je Tsongkapa, I saw Hummingbird in English. Am I right? Colibri. Hummingbird.

(1:06:42 - 1:11:04)
It came to me while I was reading his book. Oh, nice. Yeah. 

And I was so happy and I shared this news with my karmic partner and my roommate, Olga. And next day, can you imagine, she saw Hummingbird as well. And I've checked with Ayi [?], and Ayi told me that this is a sign of easy enlightenment. 

It's huge for me. Easy enlightenment? Easy enlightenment. Like easy way to enlightenment. 

Like without suffering. Yeah. So, I love it. 

And my question is, so yesterday I saw like good sign, and if we see like, let's say, everything comes from our karma, and deep, for example, I see like bad sign, what should they do for powers [?]? Yeah, good. Okay, good question. Thank you so much. 

All right. Yeah. My Lama said something about that. 

I'm trying to remember. Oh, yeah. Okay, here's the answer. 

So, I lived with my Lama, because I was his driver, his toilet cleaner, his cook, his lawnmower. When you serve a Lama, then you get to hear everything they say. So, it's a dirty job for 25 years, but you learn a lot, because you're always with them. 

So, whatever they tell people, you hear it. So, here's what he said one day to somebody, and he said, they said, oh, Rinpoche, you know, sometimes I have these beautiful signs in the dream. I have these wonderful dreams, and I see the sky opening up, and I see Tsongkapa coming out of the sky, and I have these extraordinary dreams. 

So, I want to ask you, first of all, what do those mean? How do I interpret those dreams? And then they said, and sometimes I have a nightmare, and sometimes terrible things come to me in the dream, and that seems like bad signs, but I don't know how to read them, you know, and I want to ask your advice, you know. And here's his answer. In the diamond way, when you have a beautiful dream, and something amazing happens, and you like meet a Buddha in the dream, or you know, you're flying in the dream, or you know, you become a female Buddha, or something like that, that's a true sign that you are making progress. 

When the hummingbird comes to you, and you feel like this is a guiding you to enlightenment, it's a good sign, and your practice is really going well. And he said, he said congratulations. I thought it was weird to congratulate the person for a dream. 

You know, he's like, congratulations, and I'm like, yeah. And then the person said, the bad dreams? And what about the bad dreams, bad signs? And he said, you ate something bad in the afternoon. Like you ate an old piece of pizza, or you know, what did you eat? I don't remember. 

You know, you ate a bad egg or something, you know. And he said, that's the, that's how valid the bad messages are. And basically saying, excuse me, but he's saying, fucker [?]. 

You know, if you have a bad message, you have a bad sign, you know, a cloud goes over the sun, and everything turns dark. You can say, that I had a bad lunch. That's all. 

He said, don't give it any attention. Don't pay attention to it. He's like, you just, just think I ate something bad, you know, something like that. 

It's just like having burps [?], you know, burps [?]. You know, you ate something bad, and you have burps [?]. It's like a vision, bad vision is a burp [?].

(1:11:05 - 1:11:59)
And he said, just ignore it. If you're, his advice was, attach to the great visions, and pay a lot of time, spend a lot of time thinking about them. And then when some, some bad sign comes or something, just say, don't give them the honor. 

Don't give them respect. Just say, go away, you know. I'm not even going to think about you, you know. 

You know, some scorpion comes, you're like, okay, seriously, I like that. I like, I like the pizza thing. I think we got time for one more time. 

I don't know. No. Oh, okay.

(1:11:59 - 1:12:15)
So we have an online question. And it says, Hi, grandpa. You've mentioned.

(1:12:15 - 1:15:48)
I've not answered. You've mentioned in the past, one has to finish Geshe course before learning the Diamond Way. What is the seed that allows us now to be able to learn Diamond Way without needing to complete Geshe course? How should we continue to reinvest these seeds? What was the last question? How do we continue to reinvest in these seeds? Reinvest. 

Reinvest. Oh, okay. Seeds. 

Okay. My opinion is, if you finish the 18 courses, and then you do Diamond Way, and you do the 18 Diamond Way courses, your practice will be more firm. And teachers in the world right now of this thing, teachers of this kind of thing that we're talking about today are extremely rare. 

There's not enough. There's a very bad shortage of teachers. I like to say it's like New York. 

Imagine New York City or Singapore with two doctors or something, because that's the way it is. There's only a few people for every thousand people who understand these things. There's only a few people who can teach. 

So all those people are suffering, and there's no doctors. There's a shortage of doctors, you know. And so, in my opinion, we have to do what we have to do to create more doctors as fast as we can, safely. 

I mean, you don't give a person two weeks of training and give them a scalpel and say, do heart surgery. No, you're going to kill somebody. You're going to hurt somebody, you know. 

So we don't have much time. I don't know how long you're going to live. I don't know how long I'm going to live. 

We don't know who will die first. We have to get it done now. We have to take care of it now. 

So I would say, there will be requirements, Tim can tell you, for ACI people to learn Diamond Way, to teach Diamond Way. There are requirements. It's better if you can do the 18 courses. 

It's better if you can do the 18 Diamond Way courses. It's better. You will be a better doctor. 

There's an old doctor called General Practitioner, GP. I have one. They're very rare. 

She's a female GP. She's about my age. And they stopped making them. 

They don't make them anymore. You know, you go to a doctor and they say, what's wrong? You say, I got a headache. Oh, you got to go to a headache specialist. 

And they send you to another doctor. And then you say, I got something with my toe. And they say, oh, you got to go to a toe specialist. 

And it's a lot of money also, by the way. And they keep sending you to specialists. It's very rare to find someone who's an old-fashioned GP, General Practitioner, General Doctor, who knows all the different problems pretty well.

(1:15:49 - 1:16:49)
And so I would like to create GPs. I would like ACI to create GPs. I would like you to master many things, many subjects. 

Then when someone asks you a question about bad dreams or bad hummingbirds, you have an answer ready for them. You don't have to say, oh, go talk to Sophie in Tokyo. I don't know the answer. 

You see what I mean? It's better if you can learn a lot. So I think as a doctor, the best doctors I know, they never stop studying. Even they're 60 years old, 70 years old. 

You say, can I see you next week? They say, no. And you say, why? And they say, I'm taking a class. And I'm like, you're 60, 70 years old. 

Why are you taking a class? I want to learn more. I want to be able to help more people. I respect that kind of doctor.

(1:16:50 - 1:19:43)
Then that kind of doctor, they're always learning the new techniques. And my wife had a knee surgery. We got knee replacement. 

And this guy has a new, what do you call it? He does the operation with a robot. So there's 20 doctors who can do it with their hands. And there's one who can do it with a robot. 

And the robot is much more precise. And you heal faster. And then she was, now she's fine. 

You can't tell which knee is operation. Both knees are wonderful. So this person, he's already a great surgeon. 

He's already very famous. He can cut you up very well. But he went on to learn the robot. 

He wanted to learn the robot also. And now he has the choice. Some difficult operation needs hands. 

And most of them are fine with the robot. And the robot is more precise. And it doesn't make mistakes like human beings make. 

And I think it's good to know. I like the surgeon. I like to go to the surgeon who knows both. 

And then I get, I can get which one is better for me. You see what I mean? So I think as a teacher, I don't want you to come to me and say, should I take 14 courses or 15 courses? I say, take all of them. And then take them again. 

And then take them a third time. And don't ask me this irritating question. If I do 13 and a half, can I teach? And don't ask me to make those decisions. 

Learn the robot. And learn to do it by hand. And as soon as you can help somebody, start helping them. 

You don't have to wait till you've mastered the robot. You can help people. Don't hurt people. 

If you hand a steak knife to a kid and say, do a heart operation, I'm like, I think I'll wait a while. So it's a delicate question. We want people who don't hurt other people, who don't make mistakes teaching people. 

But we don't want to wait until you've had 50 years of experience. Because then you can only help a few people. So it's kind of the answer. 

I stick with whatever Tim says, first of all. And then secondly, you can't stop learning. I mean, you should never stop learning.

(1:19:43 - 1:20:53)
It's you can study Diamond Way for 100 lifetimes. You will not master it. It's endless. 

But you have to, as soon as you can, do the hard work to learn as much as you can. And then you can help more people. And if you want to know how many courses Bob taught, talk to Tim. 

Thank you. And if it's me, and if John Brady, Connie, Ali, those guys are giving courses. I know Peter and Marie are teaching Diamond Way. 

If it's me, I'll try to go to all of them. OK? Why did you just smell your shoe? Do you want to? I have stuff on mine. OK.

(1:20:54 - 1:21:00)
I'll take your microphone. And Geshe La, please keep teaching. Please keep teaching us.

(1:21:04 - 1:22:10)
Thank you. Thank you so much. You guys should start your process [?] out. 

Please, everybody, he's going to walk out. But we have announcements. He has to move to Phoenix soon. 

Thank you, Geshe La. OK. Thank you, everybody. 

So first of all, so what we have coming up is now we're going to be making a shift in focus. Now I can see you. Or you can see me.

(1:22:12 - 1:22:29)
We're going to make a shift in focus. So the first part of this event was house development, introduction to Diamond Way, lots of energy, lots of excitement. Now we're going to start making a shift into mountain house, Ina [?].

(1:22:30 - 1:23:18)
We're going to be making a shift into retreat mode. OK. So what's coming up? So this afternoon, so we have some stuff going on here, which we'll announce after the online people, after we finish with online. 

So this afternoon, we have retreat time, just not retreat, retreat, just to start bringing our minds a little bit more inwards. And then tomorrow morning, we have an excitingly quiet morning. First of all, we're going to have an overview of the four-day retreat and an opportunity to sum up everything we did in the house activities, and as well as some time for Q&A.

(1:23:20 - 1:23:53)
And after that, can I get the bodhisattva vow? We're going to be offering, where did, I don't know the answer to this question. Venerable Jigme, are we just doing bodhisattva vows or we're doing all vows? OK. OK, cool. 

So tomorrow, we're also going to be offering refuge layperson and bodhisattva vows in the morning. So if you have the vows, you can renew. If you would like to take the vows for the first time, you may take the vows for the first time if you've studied them.

(1:23:55 - 1:24:13)
If you would like to take the wish to take the vow, but you're not quite ready, but you want to commit to being a bodhisattva but not fully yet, you can do that as well, which I highly recommend. And then also laypersons and refuge vows as well. So we're going to do that in the morning.

(1:24:15 - 1:25:15)
Following that, there's going to be a short class on retreat preparation, how to set up your retreat, boundary markers, how to make tormas, our offering cakes to help set the mood and also to set the boundaries and the protection for the retreat. And then later in the day, so then we're going to spend three hours making tormas, yay. And those of you online, we will have cameras just sort of wandering around so you can watch us make a mess, a holy mess. 

And then after those offerings have been completed, then we're going to be doing the closing ceremony in the afternoon. So from now until then, please start bringing your minds inward. Yes, talk and do all those things, but start bringing your mind closer so we can get quiet and start integrating some of these ideas in our hearts.

(1:25:16 - 1:25:37)
Cool. Did I get everything for online? Yeah, but I want to make sure I covered everything. I think I have everything from my list here. 

Okay. All right. So what's that? I'll do that later.

(1:25:38 - 1:26:09)
Cool. So all of you online, thank you for joining us. And then tomorrow morning, our next online event is 7 a.m., I believe. 

So join us then. Thank you very much. All right. 

Okay. So that was all. That concludes our sessions today. 

So thank you for joining. Thank you for staying with us. Thank you for deciding to study with us, with ACI.

(1:26:09 - 1:26:32)
I hope you start sending, sending, no, looking for messages all around. This is the homework that we get from this sixth class of Geshe Michael Roach. And please check the schedules, both in your platforms and in the Telegram study chat.

(1:26:33 - 1:26:41)
And see you tomorrow. So thank you for coming. And please, please keep coming tomorrow. 

Bye-bye.