BDW 3 «Суть волшебной жизни», занятие 5

(0:09 - 0:37)
So, dear audience, our next class with Geshe Michael Roach, our precious teacher, is about to begin. We've learned a lot so far. We know NAM, we know TONG, we know YOTA, MEPA, and we are yearning to know more.

(0:37 - 1:14)
Please teach us, our precious teacher. Alright, welcome back. I'm sorry I'm late by a few minutes because I had to pick up my beautiful wife, Veronica.

(1:14 - 1:32)
Thank you for coming. So, we were talking about this picture of the Wheel of Life. I told you I got it in the Himalayas like 50 years ago.

(1:34 - 1:51)
We didn't finish talking about this, so I put the picture in the middle. The picture in the middle is a picture, actually I use it for DCI [?] classes. In the ancient books, it's called Stack of Spears.

(1:55 - 2:34)
In the old days, when people used to fight with spears and bows and arrows, when you took your lunch break, you used to come back to the camp and you want your spears upright, so you can grab them if the enemy shows up during lunch. So, it was a tradition to keep the spears upright when you got back to take a break from the battle. And then it was a tradition to stack them point up instead of point down.

(2:35 - 2:56)
You see what I mean? Because then you would ruin the point, it would get rusted and then it would fall apart. So, there was a custom to stack them like this, in a tipi shape. And then, it comes in the ancient books pretty often, when they're explaining the Wheel of Life.

(2:57 - 3:24)
And they'll say, it's just like stacked spears, you know, it's like stack of spears. And the idea is that the spears are supporting each other, you see? So, you pull out one, they all fall down. And it means, the real meaning of dependence, that everything, in Chinese, yin gong, cause and effect, that everything depends on its causes.

(3:25 - 3:43)
It's actually, in a deeper way, it's not that things, results, are waiting for the causes to happen and the results come out. That is a kind of dependence. And you can say, that's kind of a Wheel of Life.

(3:44 - 3:57)
In the Wheel of Life, the first link of the twelve, like a clock, numbers on a clock, causes the second link. The second link causes the third link. But it's more subtle.

(3:57 - 4:11)
In our text, the devil debates an angel. The first Panchen Lama is going much, much deeper. And that's why we spent fourteen years on it so far.

(4:12 - 4:29)
And he's not satisfied with explaining dependence as, if you... What's the first link? Misunderstanding. We changed it from ignorance. People used the word ignorance a long time ago.

(4:30 - 4:40)
Ignorance means not knowing. The I is an ancient A. It was meant to be negative. A-Knowing, ignorance.

(4:41 - 4:53)
And then, it's not that easy. What's really happening in our life, is that we are making a mistake. It's not that we don't know.

(4:53 - 5:07)
It's that we misknow. We misperceive things. For example, we think that, I don't know, some kind of problem we have with other people is coming from them.

(5:09 - 5:26)
And thinking that is misunderstanding, wrong knowing. So, it should be that misunderstanding leads to, we call it fresh karma. And that's similar to a watermelon seed.

(5:27 - 5:46)
My wife, you don't remember, when we started the garden in our house, fifteen years ago or something, she's like, let's plant watermelons. And I say, no need. And she says, why? And I say, watermelons are grown in the back of the grocery store.

(5:47 - 5:53)
And then they bring them out in the front. And she said, no, that's not how. Well, I really believed that.

(5:53 - 6:06)
She said, no, watermelons you can grow in your own garden. And I'm like, show me how. I don't know if you remember, she brought me a pack of seeds, which I paid money for.

(6:07 - 6:19)
But actually you can just buy a watermelon and eat it, and spit out the seeds. And you can get a lot more seeds. So we opened the pack and then she says, lick your thumb.

(6:19 - 6:25)
Then she says, stick your thumb in the ground. Put the seeds in there. Cover it up.

(6:26 - 6:31)
Put a little water in there. And then she started to go in the house. You don't remember.

(6:31 - 6:48)
And I was sitting there and I was like, waiting for the seeds to grow. And she said, no, no, no, they take time. They're going to grow in April, and then the watermelons will be ready in October, September, something like that.

(6:50 - 7:02)
And that's the same idea in the Wheel of Life. The first link is misunderstanding. So it means you don't understand where these people you don't like are coming from.

(7:03 - 7:14)
You don't understand, like the pot on the stove, they are coming from you. So then you... that's misunderstanding. Link number one.

(7:14 - 7:22)
What's the picture of that link? Yeah, it's a blind man with a cane. So it means you don't see. Something you don't see.

(7:23 - 7:46)
And then you do something to them. You say you're stupid, or why are you causing me so much trouble? And that's how you plant the seed. What's the picture there? Do you remember? A... What? Potter.

(7:47 - 7:58)
By the way, I can't hear anything you say. The speakers are here and they're headed that way. So you're just going like... Okay, it's kind of pleasant.

(7:59 - 8:10)
No, just kidding. Yeah, so the potter means you are making fresh seeds. And those are called samskara or stuff like that.

(8:10 - 8:30)
Planting seeds. Then all the way over at link number ten, which is... you can count. Ten o'clock, what's there? What is it? It's a bird, I don't know.

(8:31 - 8:57)
Anyway, ripe karma. So if you consider the watermelon seed in April, when we first put it in the ground, it's a seed, it's a potential, but it's very asleep. And then if you water, water, water, and it gets warm, warm, warm, then it will reach a point where it's ready to split open within a day or something like that.

(8:58 - 9:10)
It doesn't look different. If you dig the seed up, the watermelon seed, it looks the same in April that it does in early September. The seed doesn't look different.

(9:11 - 9:28)
It's getting ready to open. But there's a big difference on the inside. I like to think there's little guys in the seed, like a factory, and they are running around and saying, you guys got that sprout ready yet? We have to push it out the top of the seed.

(9:28 - 9:48)
You see what I mean? So there's a big difference between a karmic seed which is in your mind, but not activated yet. And then by link number ten, the seed is activated. And it will grow. 

It will trigger something. It will trigger link eleven. I know what that one is.

(9:49 - 10:10)
It should be a lady having a baby. And that baby represents that the seed opened and the result started coming out, which is, in our example, an irritating person. All right.

(10:12 - 10:30)
So, something happens between the time that you irritate another person and then there's a time gap. It takes time underground for that seed in your heart to cook. In fact, it's called pacha [?].

(10:30 - 10:40)
We had it in Manjushri's mantra, arapachana dhi. So it means there's time. It takes time for the seed to ripen.

(10:41 - 10:48)
And then link number ten, it splits open. Link number eleven, you are born. You are born into a new life.

(10:49 - 11:14)
The important thing here is link number eight and nine. And I think a lot of people don't understand it. Because we are translating the ancient sutra about this wheel, we're translating Vasubandhu, who lived 1600 years ago, 1700 years ago, we're translating his commentary with Sugeng Shi.

(11:15 - 11:38)
And there's a very interesting explanation by the king of all Abhidharma teachings, Vasubandhu, Master Vasubandhu. And he gives a very interesting thing. He says, do you know why the seed decides to open? And then he says, it's just like any other seed.

(11:38 - 11:50)
It's like the watermelon seed. If the watermelon seed gets activated underground, it will open. What activates the seed? Causes and conditions.

(11:50 - 12:08)
What are the causes and conditions? They are water, sunlight, fertilizer. And it's kind of a magic. When water touches the seed underground, when fertilizer touches the seed underground, it suddenly decides to get into action.

(12:08 - 12:27)
It starts to wake up. And then Vasubandhu says, what do you think is the water and the fertilizer for our karmic seed in your mind? Sugeng's [?] text is amazing. That text is almost 2,000 years old.

(12:27 - 12:36)
It was lost. It was never explained by anybody. It's never been... Nobody's ever written anything on it.

(12:37 - 12:47)
So for us, it's quite a challenge because it's also corrupted. And the Sanskrit is lost. So it's the perfect text for Mixed Nuts... Okay.

(12:49 - 12:54)
And there's something beautiful in there. A hundred bucks. E-buy [?].

(12:57 - 13:12)
What's... If fertilizer and water and the warmth of the sun wakes up the watermelon seed... And by the way, sometimes we're too busy. We buy seeds. We put them in the package out on the porch.

(13:13 - 13:22)
It rains. The package gets wet. The seeds open inside the package and try to put a sprout out and they get frustrated and we lose the money.

(13:23 - 13:35)
They break open and they don't do anything. What makes a karmic seed break open? That's... It's very beautiful. Ignorance.

(13:37 - 13:42)
Wait. You got to raise your hand. The money only comes if you raise your hand.

(13:46 - 13:49)
Wait. Don't give it to her yet. We don't know.

(13:56 - 14:03)
What's that? Ignorance. Yeah. Not understanding the seed.

(14:03 - 14:11)
I just explained why I don't want you to say ignorance. What's the other word for ignorance? Better word. Not understanding the seed.

(14:11 - 14:19)
You misunderstand the seed. A hundred bucks. Now my wife's going to find out where all the money goes to.

(14:20 - 14:27)
Now she's happy. We do it together. It's very, very interesting.

(14:29 - 14:58)
If you have a seed in your mind, it will only ripen if you don't understand it. It's very interesting. What's the sunlight? What's the water? What's the fertilizer for a seed in your mind? When you are irritated by somebody and you say something about them, or more likely in a Buddhist group, you think of what... Oop, I almost said a bad word.

(14:59 - 15:08)
Irritating person they are. But you don't say anything because you're a Buddhist. But the thought is the mother of all karma.

(15:08 - 15:27)
You think this person's a real... and then that plants the seed. What makes the seed open later into irritating people? That's the problem. Mental seeds are just like physical seeds.

(15:28 - 15:39)
You get from one watermelon, you get how many seeds? Hundreds of seeds. You can grow a hundred watermelons from one watermelon, from the seeds. Karma is similar.

(15:39 - 16:01)
As soon as you mentally criticize a person, then that seed will multiply in your mind. When you put the fertilizer on it, when you put the water on it, it will slowly, over time, open into a hundred more irritating people. Very, very, very interesting.

(16:02 - 16:28)
What is the water? What is the warmth of the sun? What is the fertilizer for that mental seed? Is not to understand it. It's very strange. What makes the seed crack open into irritating people is if you never understand how seeds work.

(16:30 - 16:46)
Therefore... And by the way, Buddhism says that you have seeds from billions of years in your mind. When you meet an irritating person, it's possible you planted that person a thousand lifetimes ago. We don't know.

(16:47 - 16:53)
It's hard to say. They say only a Buddha could know. Not even an Arya would know.

(16:53 - 17:04)
A person who's seen emptiness cannot tell you why you're experiencing an irritating person today. It could be thousands of lifetimes ago. It's possible.

(17:06 - 17:14)
So it's difficult to remove that seed from your mind. You can say it is impossible. You can't remove it totally from your mind.

(17:15 - 17:27)
But what? You can starve it. You can starve it and it will never open. Got it? You can starve the seed and it will never open.

(17:27 - 17:39)
It will stay in your mind. Piles, millions of seeds will stay in your mind and they just sit there. It's like a watermelon seed that never got any water and it will just sit there.

(17:40 - 18:09)
So how do you make your bad seeds do that? If you really want to stop an irritating person in your life, then stop watering the seed. How do you stop watering the seed? Study, study, study. Read the classics. 

Read the ancient books. I hate to keep saying it over and over again. The ancient books are good for two things.

(18:09 - 18:33)
Number one, if you cannot sleep, open one of these books and definitely you can sleep a lot faster. And if you're tired of meeting irritating people in your life, then for goodness sakes, just read an ancient book for a few minutes a day. Maybe 10 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day.

(18:33 - 18:42)
That's enough. As soon as you understand more about the seeds, they can't open anymore. The bad seeds can't open anymore.

(18:43 - 19:18)
Cool? Also, when you read the classics, you learn to be very happy about your good seeds and that makes them grow. Being happy about your good seeds makes them grow wildly, and then understanding bad seeds makes them shut down. So in theory, a well-educated Buddhist is going around happy all the time because they know how to shut down the seed.

(19:20 - 19:29)
In theory, that's what's happening. Now the spear thing. That's more sophisticated.

(19:32 - 20:02)
No one ever put the spears in the middle and I was a little hesitant to do it because it blocks the three animals that represent the three parts of our mind. I put the spears in there because if you think about it, be careful, think carefully. What confirms that a seed is a seed is a tree.

(20:04 - 20:28)
What confirms that a seed is a seed is a tree. You can have a little weird thing in your hand and you're not sure if it's a seed or not. Is it a seed? Is it a viable seed? Is it a real seed? Meaning, can it grow a tree? What's the only way to find out? Grow a tree from it.

(20:29 - 20:44)
Then you can say that the growing of the tree created the seed. The growing of the tree confirmed that the seed is a real seed. Got it? The Wheel of Life goes backwards also.

(20:45 - 21:05)
12 causes 11. 11 causes 10. 10 causes nine. 

Nine causes eight. That's the point that the first Panchen Lama is making here. He's saying, the results you get from how you treat other people are a cause for you to treat other people properly.

(21:05 - 21:14)
Got it? They're both a result and a cause. It's very interesting. Got it? He's very sophisticated.

(21:18 - 21:28)
Next picture. I call it the devil's loneliness. Don't forget the devil is talking.

(21:28 - 21:41)
Who's the devil? It's the part of your mind that doesn't understand everything. There is no other devil in Buddhism. There was never another devil.

(21:42 - 21:59)
The devil is the part of your mind that doesn't understand things, misunderstands things. The part of your mind that thinks that irritating people come from their own side is the only devil in Buddhism. That's the real devil.

(21:59 - 22:10)
What's the real angel then? Yes, understanding where things come from. Those two exist. They really exist.

(22:10 - 22:22)
They do exist in your mind. There's an interesting verse here. Again, this text is very unusual.

(22:23 - 22:40)
You can smell the difference between this and the Song of My Spiritual Life. This text is like advanced, advanced Buddhism. Then we go every afternoon, the second class, we go back to the basics of the Lamrim, Steps of the Path.

(22:41 - 22:51)
He says, I'll read you the verse. I call it the devil's loneliness. The nature of the devil is to be lonely.

(22:52 - 23:00)
The nature of the devil is to be lonely. Here's what he says. All the beings there are follow the same pattern.

(23:00 - 23:36)
O you who think that things are themselves, with you these can never be in the slightest any such understanding of things, and thus, with you, nothing could ever exist. If you follow the devil's point of view, then irritating people could not exist. If irritating people are coming from their side, and if they're not coming from your side, then they could not... If they're coming from you, they cannot exist any other way.

(23:36 - 23:44)
They cannot be irritating from their own side. You are making them that way. What I always think is that their mother thinks they're really reasonable.

(23:46 - 24:03)
You ask their mother, is your kid really irritating and stupid? They'll say, no, my kid is wonderful. That's from the mother's point of view. You alone decided... This is interesting.

(24:03 - 24:11)
The angel is accusing the devil. Where? In your mind. Inside of your mind.

(24:11 - 24:19)
Inside of your own mind, the angel is accusing the devil. Here, it's very sad. He says, you are alone.

(24:19 - 24:27)
You're the one who decided to stay single. You live by yourself. You get by on your own.

(24:28 - 24:35)
You are the solid one who stands alone. You rely on no one. You never depend on anybody.

(24:37 - 25:07)
The angel is kind of saying to the misunderstanding, the devil, he says, it must be lonely to be so wrong. If you really believe that everyone is just stupid and you're the only one who's smart and all the irritating people in the world are coming from their own side, the angel says something interesting. That must be very lonely.

(25:08 - 25:23)
You must feel very lonely. I don't think, like, Tim, we don't see that in a typical scripture. We don't see a description of emptiness and the presentation of emptiness and say, if you don't understand it, you're lonely.

(25:24 - 25:36)
You're a lonely person. It's a very interesting accusation by the angel. I would not want to be you because you are infinitely lonely.

(25:38 - 25:50)
It's interesting. It means, if you don't understand that other people are coming from you in the end, that's terribly lonely. You have no real connection to them.

(25:51 - 26:03)
You have no real connection to them. Even if they're angry at you, even if they're causing you trouble, you have no real connection to them if you think they're not coming from you. It's very interesting.

(26:05 - 26:23)
You will always have more friends if you understand that all your enemies are coming from you. Got it? You will always have more friends if you understand your enemies are coming from you. They're like your people.

(26:24 - 26:33)
You created them. It's kind of a comfort to know where people are coming from. You don't feel so isolated from people.

(26:33 - 26:44)
Actually, every person you meet is a part of your own face in the mirror. You can take joy in that. There's good in everybody.

(26:44 - 26:52)
There's beauty in everybody. If you realize that they're coming from you, life is very pleasant. Life is really nice.

(26:52 - 27:03)
Oh, my neighbor is a really kind person. Ralph is a really kind person. Then you can take credit for it, which is what I like to do.

(27:05 - 27:17)
You can say, well, that is a reflection of myself. You will be more lonely if you don't understand where things are coming from. In the end, they're coming from you.

(27:18 - 27:25)
Then that's less lonely. It's a much more happy way to live. You feel more a part of the world.

(27:26 - 27:33)
You are. You are more a part of the world. Okay, next picture you guys.

(27:34 - 27:48)
Yeah, here's the verse. Angel is still talking to the devil and telling the devil how lonely they are and how miserable they must be. You are the one who stays forever.

(27:48 - 27:58)
You are the one who never changes. Your dark ignorance stands darkest among all the ignorant ones. Your ignorance is matchless.

(27:58 - 28:12)
Your ignorance is supreme. There's no ignorance greater than your own. There is no ignorance in all the three different realms of sentient existence that the victors have ever described as bigger.

(28:13 - 28:23)
You are ultimate ignorance. There you cannot know atomic theory [?]. You cannot understand physics.

(28:25 - 28:41)
You cannot go to psychology school or something. But there's a higher kind of ignorance of when you don't understand where things are coming from, you are super ignorant. You are really wrong about everything.

(28:42 - 28:59)
That's a sad thing because you will stay there forever. Until you change, you will stay there. It's very lonely. 

You can't get out. Until you realize that things are coming from you, you can't really be happy. Next verse.

(29:01 - 30:00)
You are the blind one with the sightless eyes and the reason is that you refuse rebirth even as you are born. You refuse getting old even as you age. He's talking about it's human nature to think that you can talk to a normal human being and say, have you known anybody who died in your life? Yes. 

I knew my grandma died. People will say something like that. Then you say, well, did you know anybody who ever got old? Did you meet someone who was strong and healthy and cheerful and energetic? Then slowly, slowly they got old and old and old and then finally it was difficult for them to walk or to talk or to do anything.

(30:00 - 30:06)
Did you know people like that? Yes. I'm not stupid. I have observed the world.

(30:06 - 30:16)
Then are you scared? No. Are you nervous about it? No. Do you think that that could happen to you? No.

(30:17 - 30:31)
No, that's human nature. It's really weird. Under a certain age, for some unexplainable reason, you think it won't happen to you.

(30:32 - 30:45)
Everybody does. Everybody in this room who didn't die yet, deep down you doubt that you will die. You don't really believe that you will die.

(30:45 - 31:09)
You don't believe that you will get old. That's a sign of ignorance. That's the talk. 

That's ignorance. That's misunderstanding the devil talking in your mind. Where's the devil? Where does the Buddhist devil exist? Do you have to go to hell to meet the devil? No, it's in your own mind.

(31:10 - 31:27)
What's the devil look like? I don't know, but I know what he says. What does he say? That's about other people. When they say people die or people get old or people get ugly, they're like, oh, that's those other people.

(31:27 - 31:57)
Then even you meet an older person, and sometimes we go to the nursing home to help people, and you feel almost like, what's wrong with you guys? Why are you old? You blame them for being old. Why do you pee on the sheets? Why do I have to pay this lady to clean up your sheets? You feel almost irritated by them. You feel like they were stupid to get old.

(31:59 - 32:11)
It's very important as a Buddhist that you recognize what's coming. Next picture. I tried to find a lady who was getting old who didn't know it.

(32:12 - 32:33)
I think I did a pretty good job. She's not got white hair, and she still has her teeth, but there's this sign. There's this, I don't know, 40 years of thinking that irritating people come from somewhere else.

(32:34 - 32:47)
There's 40 years of misunderstanding the world in her face. We wouldn't call her elderly, but we would call her aging. She is aging.

(32:47 - 33:04)
You can smell it, and you can see it. If you look carefully at anybody, except for my grandson, Sela [?], who just looks like a watermelon. Cantaloupe? I think we're on cantaloupe.

(33:08 - 33:26)
Even as we watch the people around us age, we refuse that we're getting old. Even as we see people die around us by accidents and other things, somehow we think it doesn't apply to me. That's just other people.

(33:27 - 33:39)
Then there's a part of you that feels like they are dumb that they got old. Like, why did you get old? That's so dumb. Why did you die? It's so strange.

(33:42 - 33:59)
While we say that, we are aging. While we say that, we are stepping closer to our death. I told my... In the Geshe course, you're not allowed to study yoga until you graduate from the Geshe course.

(33:59 - 34:16)
It's considered a high secret practice. In my monastery, you're not allowed to do yoga until you finish 25 years Geshe course. Then the day I finished my Geshe, there's a strange ritual.

(34:16 - 34:39)
It's very mystical or something. They take you into the abbot's personal, his personal residence, which is on top of the highest temple in the monastery. There's a special room for the abbot and I know because my teacher became abbot, so I used to hang out up there.

(34:40 - 34:55)
There's a special room, special bed, fancy bed, fancy clothes. Then there's a secret back room to the abbot's office. You're never allowed to go there.

(34:55 - 35:07)
No normal monk is ever allowed to go there. You only go to the abbot's office when you get punished. You have to do something really bad to get to the abbot's office.

(35:07 - 35:21)
Otherwise, the scripture teachers will beat you. But to be beaten up by the abbot, it's a special honor. You have to do something really bad to have the abbot hit you.

(35:21 - 35:30)
They have two big guys, the two strongest guys in the monastery. They're called DOP DOP. Say DOP DOP.

(35:31 - 35:46)
DOP DOP means monastic police, monastery police, like those guys around here with the guns. They wear football pads for hundreds of years. It's two boards.

(35:46 - 35:58)
They wear under their shawl, under their monk shawl. They look about seven feet tall. Then if you do something really bad, the DOP DOPs come to get you.

(35:59 - 36:21)
I had a friend who snuck out of the monastery, went out to the cornfields to work in the fields, and then snuck into town to a secret shop. It's like a candy shop, tea shop. In the back, there's a secret room where you watch movies.

(36:22 - 36:33)
The tea shop owner knows that the monks want to watch movies, but they're not supposed to. He has movies going every night. The young monks sneak out.

(36:34 - 36:51)
If you get caught, then the DOP DOPs will come. They will take you to the abbot's quarters. Then the abbot has this huge paddle and he hits your bottom really hard.

(36:52 - 37:03)
It really hurts. You'll hit it like 10 times, 20 times. When I finished my Geshe, I got a message.

(37:04 - 37:14)
I got a telephone call. Do you know what's a telephone call in the monastery? There's no electricity most of the time. There's no phones at all in my time.

(37:15 - 37:26)
You had to travel about 30 miles to use a phone. There were no phones. What's a monastic telephone? It's one of those baby monks.

(37:27 - 37:42)
They're like five years old, seven years old. The way you make a telephone call in the monastery is you get a baby monk and you say, go tell Michael he has to come see me. They'll go, okay, okay, I'm going, okay, okay, I'm going.

(37:42 - 37:53)
They run. Then they get into a game with their friends or they stop at the store for candy. Then they forget the telephone message.

(37:55 - 38:07)
You have to send two or three kids usually. One will get there. It's like the abbot, tell Michael, the new Geshe, tell him the abbot wants to see him.

(38:08 - 38:24)
I go up there to the abbot's quarters and I thought he was going to punish me because there's no other reason why the abbot would call me. I went up there and I'm like, I didn't do anything. He's like, I didn't say you did anything.

(38:25 - 38:42)
I need to talk to you. I'm like, well, what do you want to talk about? He said, well, you finished your Geshe degree and now you have to do a special ceremony, secret ceremony. Probably I'll get in trouble if I tell you, but it's fun.

(38:44 - 39:07)
Come in the back room. You go through a carved stone entrance into a secret room and the original throne of Sera is there from Tsongkapa's time. It was carried from West China by somebody and it's still there.

(39:07 - 39:23)
The original throne is still there, the abbot's throne, and it's secret. Then the abbot says, it's very cool, the abbot says, get on the throne. Normally a monk is not allowed to touch the throne of the abbot.

(39:24 - 39:32)
If you touch the throne, you will get punished. Then the abbot says, get on the throne. Go sit on the throne.

(39:33 - 39:51)
There's a joke among the young monks about why you're not supposed to touch the throne. In the monastery, there's a joke. The young monks believe that they're not supposed to touch the abbot's chair because there's bedbugs on it.

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That's true, actually. Anyway, you go in there and the abbot says, sit on there. If you sit on there, you'll get punished.

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You'll get hit on your bottom. If you're lucky, it'll be on your bottom. He says, sit on the chair.

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I said, I respectfully decline. Then he says, sit on the chair, I told you twice. I'm like, twice I say no.

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Now a third time is magic in the monastery. He says, I ask you a third time to get on the throne. He's swinging his rosary like that.

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I'm like, okay, okay, I'll get on the throne. You sit on the throne and they lock the door. They close the door and they lock the door.

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It's total darkness in a stone room on a 600-year-old throne. They put the abbot's hat on your head, which you are not allowed to touch. You're sitting there on the abbot's throne in a pitch black room with the ancient hat of the abbot on your head.

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You have all these visions. It's amazing. It's really something special.

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It's really unusual. No one ever talks about it. At some point, I guess maybe an hour later, they come in.

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They open the door and you're sitting there and you have all these visions, beautiful visions. Then my logic teacher came in and he said, okay, now you're mine. Now I'll take care of you.

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I'm like, but I've graduated. I don't have to study anymore. Say, Geshe. Say, Geshe tang. Geshe, Geshe tang. Geshe tang means you finished your Geshe exams and you passed.

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But the same verb means to throw out your books. You understand? Many Geshes, the first thing they do is go throw out all their books because you don't have to study anymore. You can just drink tea for the rest of your life.

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I was deprived of this right, I had to teach. Anyway, he says, you Geshe tang, you finished your Geshe. Then I said, well, what are you doing here? Why has my logic teacher come? And he said, because it's time to start your yoga classes.

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And I'm like, we don't have yoga classes. He says, if you're going to be a logician you should say, we don't have any yoga classes that I ever saw in the monastery because many people are doing yoga here and you never saw it. Everyone who's finished their Geshe is doing yoga.

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And I'm like, wow, that's something. So it's a secret practice in the monastery. Want some water? Why am I talking about that? I'm getting there, okay? Old men tell stories.

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So then it's monsoon season. In monsoon season you take your shoes off and walk around the monastery because there's about two feet of mud and you lose your shoes. When you step down and you step up, the shoe stays and the foot comes up.

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So everybody walks around the monastery with their shoes in their hand. It's going, going, going, going, going. We don't have anything like paved roads or anything like that.

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So I'm like sloshing [?] down the road and I met one of my logic, one of my scripture teachers, and he said, where are you coming from? And I said, I'm coming from my yoga, some of my first yoga classes. With my logic teacher, who turns out to be the secret yoga teacher. He's still alive.

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He's visited the United States. But anyway, I'm walking through the monastery and I say, I just come back from yoga class. And he says, how long were you at the yoga class? And I said, an hour.

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And he said, huh, one hour closer to die. He didn't say, I'm glad you're getting exercise and it's so great that you're learning yoga. He's like, I'll never forget it.

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He looked me in the eye and said, you're one hour closer to dying. You know that. That exercise you did so you wouldn't get old.

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You got an hour older while you were there in the yoga class. Does it mean you're not supposed to do yoga? I didn't say that. But it was a funny thing.

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That's what the angel is saying here. Everyone is getting an hour older while they're in the yoga class. Your body is an hour closer to falling apart, no matter how much yoga you do.

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And no one understands that. And everybody thinks that somebody else is getting old. And that's a characteristic of the devil in your mind.

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It's a characteristic of the devil in your mind to not be aware that you are aging every day and that you are closer to your death every day. Is that a depressing thing? Do you have to be sad about it? No, it allows you freedom. It gives you freedom.

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Everyone else is lying to themselves. They're saying the cream is really working. No one can tell my age.

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Everyone else is not being honest to themselves. But a real wisdom, the real wisdom says, yeah, I am getting older. Every day I get older.

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Every day I get closer to my death. Let me do something while I still breathe. Let me do something with my mind while I still breathe.

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So that's a very Buddhist attitude. I saw him handing out bikes [?]. Am I out of time, Tim? Total or till the Q&A? Oh, you cut today's class short.

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No, I'd rather play music. Let's do Q&A. But the point is, the angel in the person's mind says to the devil in the person's mind, you stop making this person so blind.

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Please stop making this person so blind. Let them see the truth that they are getting older every day. The wrinkles are piling up on their face from teenager time.

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And they will just increase, increase, increase. Your energy in your body will decrease, decrease, decrease. Even the time you spend in yoga class is time that your body is falling apart more.

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Did Geshe La tell you not to do yoga? No. You should do yoga. You will live longer.

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But during that time you are aging. You are still aging. So the devil refuses.

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The one thing the devil refuses to do is to admit the truth. If you say, what is a Buddhist devil? It's not who made you eat a piece of apple pie this afternoon. My wife brought me a homemade apple pie.

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It's not that the devil makes you eat apple pie. It's that the devil forces you to believe it won't happen to you. The devil forces you to believe it's not happening to you.

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But Geshe La, it's more convenient and a lot more comfortable not to obsess about getting older or being closer to my death. It's a lot more comfortable life if I don't think about it every day. That's not the truth.

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If you know what's happening and you admit it, you are free. Then you can do something about it. Until you admit it, until you take responsibility for your aging and your death, you are truly a prisoner.

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You are a real prisoner. Understand? You'll feel a lot better and a lot happier and you will make the right choices in your life if you admit that you're aging and if you admit that you will die. Then you will be really free.

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It's not depressing or sad or anything like that. Buddhists are crazy. They giggle about their death and their old age.

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Like that. It's not to be sad. It's sad to ignore what's really there.

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That's sad. Okay, Q&A. By the way, that's the loneliness of misunderstanding.

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That's the loneliness of not understanding emptiness. Questions. Q&A.

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Hello Geshe La, thank you for your teaching. You always cause trouble. Are you sure? I have a question.

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You already teach more than 50 years and a lot of truth you wait for maybe more than a few decades to tell the truth. So my question is when you step into the audience event, what kind of criteria you will have to decide you are going to tell the full truth or to tell the half truth in order to benefit the audience? Yeah, okay. I think, as I mentioned before, in Buddhism, when you attend a class, it's understood that you are therefore agreeing to teach other people to the best of your ability.

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You don't have to be a Geshe. Just what you heard today, you can share with other people and then you become a teacher. In a Buddhist class, when you take the class, when you sit down in the class, you are therefore swearing to teach other people in your own way, which a lot of teaching happens on the airplane.

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You sit down next to somebody. By the time you get off the plane, they are equal to Nagarjuna. Just kidding.

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But when you agree to come here, when you agree to listen to Buddhist teachings, then it's a part of the deal that you agree to teach to the best of your ability and to the people that you happen to know. If you take that responsibility seriously, and you start tomorrow or you start tonight and you try to explain something to the clerk at the hotel desk, within ten minutes, you will understand the principle that you have to judge the other person's level before you open your mouth, before you say anything to them. Or within a few minutes, you have to decide how much will they be able to digest.

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It's considered a big mistake as a Buddhist teacher to give somebody more than they can digest. To give someone Dharma indigestion is a serious mistake for a teacher. So if you ask me, do I edit what I say? Do I censor what I say? Do I adjust what I say to the audience? Of course, of course I do.

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And then later, who has done... Some bodhisattva will ask me, did you really mean what you said about emptiness? And I'll say, well, sort of. Which is a famous incident that happened to Lord Buddha. One of his disciples, Paramartha Samudgata, asked him later, you taught the Xinjing Heart Sutra, you taught Jingangjing Diamond Cutter Sutra.

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Is that serious? Is that what you really think? And because he asked the question, Buddha said, no, it's not true that nothing exists. It's not true that there's no form, there's no feeling, there's no discrimination, there's no other factors, there's no mind. I was just exaggerating to wake up some sleepy students.

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Actually, things are half empty and half non-empty. And then he taught the Mind-Only School after he got the question. If he had taught the whole Buddhism in the first place, he wouldn't have gotten those questions and he would not have created the Mind-Only School.

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Got it? Even Lord Buddha was a shapeshifter. Someone told me recently, I had an interview with somebody and they said, are you a shapeshifter? And I said, it sounds bad. Can you tell me what's a shapeshifter? They said, you seem to adjust to the audience.

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And they were following me around for a couple of years. And that's true. I think as a teacher, you do have to, you have to shift to the audience.

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Otherwise, the audience won't listen. I have to dress to fit you. I can't wear what I want to wear.

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I have to wear what's comfortable for you. Next question. So yeah, it's a Buddhist skill.

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It's a teaching skill. And it's important to say it's not dishonest or it's not misrepresenting yourself. It's your duty to go to the level of your student.

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So Geshe La, we have about 30 seconds. Jasmine's here in Malaysia. Yeah.

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And their group is there studying with us simultaneously. And she wanted to say hi to everybody and I think promote Kyoto. I'm wondering, Jasmine, if you can tell us a little bit about what's going on with your group there and Uncle Nick and Sarani.

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And tell us what's happening there in Malaysia. Jasmine? Yes, we are here. Thank you, Geshe La.

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And see our students here, shaking hands. And say hello to Phoenix and Teacher Nick. Teacher Sarani are here.

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We are very happy. Except that the air conditioning here is very cold. It's Malaysia.

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It's supposed to be hot. Yeah. And thank you to have this opportunity to share what's happening here.

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And we really send our video. We send our video to Phoenix and hope you enjoy what's happening here. And... Hi.

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We did a four-power ceremony last night. We had 100 people smashing their bad seeds and celebrating our good seeds. And it was really beautiful.

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A lot of happy people and a lot of bad seeds destroyed. I'm just grateful for all of the amazing participants here and the sincerity of the people here. It's really inspiring and beautiful.

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You just like it there. You don't have to wear a suit there, Nick. You know, there's something to it.

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It's really fun to sing the prayers and have an outdoor and all these things. Sarani, what are you thinking about? Yeah, Teacher Sarani. Thank you for Teacher Sarani to come here.

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It's really a long distance. The practitioners here are amazing. The heart-opening practices that they do are so inspiring.

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I hope that they will continue their practice and bring themselves to Kyoto so that they can get the transmission from you, Holy Geshe La. Yes. Thank you.

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Thank you. I want more students to come to Asia, come to Kyoto, so that we can have a beautiful time together. Please come with us, the Phoenix students.

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Thank you. Thank you, Geshe La. Thank you, Tim.

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Hey, Jasmine. I'm doing a video for you next week, I think. Okay, I promised her.

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Okay, Tim. 30 minute break, okay? I'll sit here if you want to say hi or you know. Okay? All right.

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30 minute break. See you in 30 minutes. Is it good?