BDW 3 «Суть волшебной жизни», занятие 8

(0:12 - 2:58)
I don't know, Geshe La, how you can make each class more interesting than the previous one. That's an incredible skill. It is so pity that it is going to over soon, but this make our ears to be open and our hearts be open as well. 

So please share with us. Thank you. All right, let me find a book to teach you guys. 

So Brian, I know the big question. It's a guy stepping on ants. Wow, you're so cool. 

All right. I'm supposed to teach you how to die. We reached this section in the Lamrim, so please don't be depressed. 

And I don't know why it came at this time. It's almost like Vajrayogini was pushing it. But recently we were at Diamond Mountain and Stanley and Xiaoping came to me and they said, we're going to teach a meditation in the morning. 

Do you have any suggestion for the meditation? And just the day before, I was looking at an old book that I translated 45 years ago. It's the Death Meditation from Je Tsongkapa's Lamrim Chenmo, the great book of the Steps on the Path. I don't know why, but it just said, it was in my hand already. 

And I said, do that. Teach the Death Meditation from the Lamrim Chenmo. So it's been on my mind. 

I've been thinking about it. And I've been getting ready in case something happens to me during the surgery. I don't plan on it at all. 

But it's a good time to think about things. And then if it goes wrong and I live 100 more years, no problem. So don't worry about it.

(2:58 - 4:12)
Don't think about it. But my job as a teacher is to make you depressed and upset. Okay. 

So my wife and I, we have a small house and we have a driveway. Our neighbor, Gary, he had a big truck full of gravel, big gravel rocks. And he decided to dump them on our driveway as a gift. 

And it's very difficult to walk up and down now. But there's a red ant house there, red ant bed. And I don't know if it's coincidence, but those red ants, they have a bad bite. 

They make a bad bite. They made their house exactly where people step out of their car at my house. So the other day, Xiaoping stepped out of her car and stand there talking to me.

(4:12 - 4:28)
And I'm watching the red ants crawling up her leg. And I'm like, move, move. Right? So while I'm talking about that, I had this weird thing happen to me the other day.

(4:28 - 4:37)
I'm walking out on that gravel. I'm walking near the ant's house. They are very busy.

(4:38 - 7:14)
I'm trying not to step on them. But come on, how careful can you be? If you're really careful, you cannot walk anywhere. So I kind of have a democratic opinion. 

I will step on some of you, but not all of you. Just because otherwise I can't go to the car, I can't walk to the car, because there's thousands of them, hundreds of them. So at some point, or even when you drive your car away, you're going to kill some of them. 

So then this strange thing happened to me, and I was working on this class, and I was working on this death meditation. And it occurred to me that tomorrow, at the same time, I could be there. And my wife stepping on me, or the car smashing me. 

You see what I mean? It's logical, right? It's not crazy. And it's not depressing or something like that. It's just, it's true. 

I have a karmic connection with those ants. For 20 years I've been trying not to step on them. But I'm like, well, sometimes you step on them. 

And then that kind of karma, it's possible if something happened to me, I will be the steppy and not the stepper. Understand? I will be the one down there, and then maybe they will be the one stepping. You see what I mean? So I think it's a good death meditation. 

I don't know if tomorrow I won't be one of them. I really don't know. In fact, it's kind of logical that I have some kind of connection with them, because I stepped on them for many years. 

So I don't know, and you don't know, that you won't be those ants tomorrow. You don't know. Then you start to step more carefully. 

Then you're like, well, okay, maybe I can avoid them. Maybe I can be careful. So I don't mean you have to sit down and do a death meditation every day, and get depression, and think about your funeral casket colors, and stuff like that.

(7:14 - 8:39)
I'm not saying that. I'm saying logically, you don't know if you won't be them tomorrow. You don't know. 

So act, we say in English, act accordingly. If you understand that, then try to be kind to the ants, and try to be kind to the animals. You cannot say if you will be them tomorrow or not. 

You don't know. It's possible. If you met them, and you walked on them for 20 years, you probably have some connection, right? You probably have some karmic connection. 

Who's to say you won't be born there tomorrow? It's a good death meditation. I don't like to sit and be depressed, and think about myself dying, or something. I don't like that. 

But I try to help myself do healthy meditations when I get a chance. I don't think you have to sit in your meditation cushion to do a death meditation. I think you can do it all the time. 

You can do it walking across the lawn. You don't have to tell anybody. Just do it. 

Just do it, and then you will be ready. The idea is to be ready. If you know something's coming for sure, get ready, and then relax.

(8:41 - 10:59)
Okay, all right. This is Gibson's book, right? Okay, they go into a part now about if it's true that I could die anytime, and if it's true that I could become an ant, or a cat, or anything else. We don't know, and I don't know. 

Then I should do something to get ready, or I should try to get some kind of... I should have a plan that I don't become an ant. I should have a plan. If I think about it, and I notice them, and it occurs to me I might be there tomorrow, and John Brady visit me and walk all over me, or something. 

We don't know. Maybe it will happen. We don't know. 

Someone go to Peachtree Cafe and step on me the whole way. It's possible. I have to say it's possible. 

So what should I do about it? Is there anything I can do? And then the text goes into the Three Jewels. The Three Jewels. In our tradition, the Three Jewels means three kinds of people can help you. 

Three things can help you. In this situation where you might die, and you might become those ants or something, or somebody else, there is someone who can help you, and that's the Three Jewels. First I told the AI, give me Three Jewels on the palm of the hand, and they gave me some lousy emeralds. 

And then I was like, no, I want diamonds. So this is my version of the Three Jewels. And we always talk about Three Jewels, and I think it's good to talk about what they are.

(11:00 - 12:10)
The ACI courses have a great section about who is the Three Jewels, what are the Three Jewels, and there's a difference between Buddha and the Buddha Jewel, and there's a difference between Dharma and the Dharma Jewel, and there's a difference between Sangha and the Sangha Jewel. So I don't know, you all sit here, right? What was the year at Vajrapani that I went there first time? Nineteen-something. Okay, 1995. 

I think it was one of the first times I was ever asked to teach in my whole life. It was 1995, something like that. And some group in California asked me to come and teach. 

And I was very excited because, no, it was before that. It had to be before that. Anyway, I was so excited that someone wanted me to teach. 

And I don't know them, I don't know those people much. I think, is that where I met you? I don't remember. That's where I met you.

(12:11 - 14:03)
So I went to teach, and they said, what do you want to teach? And I said, I would like to teach about the Three Jewels and how to take refuge. Because they say how to protect yourself from a bad death is to take refuge. So I'm like, well, what's taking refuge? It means going for shelter. 

Like if you're outside and it starts to rain really hard, then you will automatically look for some place that has a covering, and you will run there. And that's the idea in Buddhism of taking shelter. You have a problem, it's raining or something like that, you don't want to get wet, and you run under the tree or you run under the place. 

That's called shelter. That's called taking refuge. And supposedly there's three kinds of refuge that can help us. 

There's three kinds of refuge that can help us. And I think it's... I was excited to go to that center in California to teach it, because it's something we learned in the Geshe course early. We learned it in the first few years. 

What does it mean to have Three Jewels? What is the Three Jewels? How can they protect you? How can the Three Jewels protect you? And Buddha and Buddha Jewel is a big difference. Dharma and Dharma Jewel is a big difference. So we say in Buddhism, if you understand what the Three Jewels are, they can protect you.

(14:04 - 14:16)
So it's good to find out what they are, and then they can protect you. And they say an interesting thing. There's an old joke that two monks were sitting in the temple.

(14:17 - 16:33)
There's 3,000 monks there. The abbot gets up in front. The most educated Geshe in the whole monastery get up on the throne. 

And one monk said to the other monk, you see the abbot? Yeah, he's the greatest Geshe in our monastery. Yeah. And then he said, you want to know a secret? And he said, what? He's not a Buddhist. 

Everybody's like, what? Yeah, the abbot is not a Buddhist. The best Geshe in our monastery is not a Buddhist. Why? He doesn't know what are the Three Jewels, and he's not using them. 

If you're not using the Three Jewels, if you don't know what they are, technically you're not a Buddhist. Somebody asked me the opposite question. In ACI, for example, we have a rule that we do not teach religion, because we teach in many countries. 

Even in the Buddhist countries, everybody has a different kind of Buddhism. We don't teach religion, because we want to teach everybody. So we take the idea, and we teach the idea, but we don't teach religion. 

So is it possible, we just said it's possible to be the main person in a monastery of 3,000 monks, and you are not a Buddhist, because you don't know what is the Three Jewels. Is the opposite possible? I would say, yeah. Is it possible for a person who's not interested in Buddhism, but they understand what is the Three Jewels, then they become Buddhist in their heart. 

But do you have to know you're a Buddhist to be a Buddhist? The answer is no. You can be a Christian, and you can be a Hindu, and you can be Jewish, and you can still be a Buddhist in your heart, and there's no contradiction. I would say it's a culture.

(16:34 - 17:34)
Some of my teachers said, the most careful thing to do when you're a Buddhist teacher around the world, and you're going to many countries, don't talk about Buddhism. Let people do what their parents did. Most people decide what religion to follow. 

They just follow their parents. My teacher said, that's great. That's fine, because that's what their parents taught them. 

That's what they grew up with. I'm not going to go... I had a big problem. I was at Princeton University. 

I was in the Christian group. I stayed in the church house for my senior year. I lived in the church house with the priests.

(17:38 - 18:06)
I went to the Princeton Cathedral. It's one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the United States. It's a beautiful, beautiful Christian cathedral. 

It fits 3,000 people. So I went there. The next week, I'm in this little Mongolian temple in Howell, New Jersey, and they're all going, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

(18:06 - 18:15)
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know what I'm saying? Then I'm like, oh. Then one week ago, I'm like, oh, Jesus.

(18:17 - 18:41)
I'm like, I don't understand. It was very uncomfortable. I remember. 

The pictures were Some of those hell realm pictures in that temple, they look like Salvador Dali on a bad day. And it was hard. It was very hard for me.

(18:41 - 18:47)
And then I realized that's my upbringing. That's my culture. It's not my beliefs.

(18:48 - 19:04)
The beliefs in both places are very similar. A good Christian and a good Buddhist are doing the same things. And I felt close to God or Buddha in each temple and church, I feel the same.

(19:05 - 19:36)
I felt, some friends of mine went to the garden today, and I feel the same there. But culturally, what your parents taught you, most people feel comfortable with that. So, there's no contradiction in my heart to go, we go to, sometimes when we travel to San Diego, we have a favorite church there, and we go on Sunday.

(19:36 - 19:52)
I take the two Chinese people, and it's fine. And everyone feels happy, okay? That's possible. What makes you a Buddhist in your heart, you can be a Christian.

(19:53 - 20:01)
You can go to a Christian church. You can follow Christianity. There's nothing Jesus taught which is contradicting to Buddhism.

(20:03 - 20:18)
But you can go there, but in your heart, if three things are there, you are a Buddhist also. You are, I don't know, Christian Buddhist, which is okay, it's fine. Jesus will agree, and Buddha will agree.

(20:18 - 20:30)
I don't know about the other people, but if you ask the two big guys, they will say, fine. For us, it's fine. We like it.

(20:32 - 20:56)
So anyway, if you want to be a Buddhist, it doesn't mean you do what your parents did, and you light incense, and you go and put it in the temple, and you say, namo gurubhya, namo buddhaya, namo dharma, namo sanghya. Just saying something doesn't make you a Buddhist. Just lighting incense in the temple doesn't make you a Buddhist.

(20:57 - 21:12)
Understanding the Three Jewels makes you a Buddhist. And it's very impossible to understand the Three Jewels, and you don't know you're a Buddhist, and you're a much better Buddhist than the Buddhists. It's very impossible.

(21:13 - 21:21)
If a person has a good heart, it's possible they're a better Buddhist than Geshe Michael. Okay, it's possible. There's such a thing.

(21:21 - 21:55)
All right, so let's go through the Three Jewels. I had a film, they filmed, somebody filming my life story and my death story, and they're like, we're talking about my church days and what I was, and if you understand what's the Three Jewels, you are a Buddhist, okay? So here's what it is. And I have pictures for you.

(21:56 - 22:06)
You ready, Brian? I love this, you change colors. How do you do that? Strange. Mine is gold in the background.

(22:07 - 22:21)
Hmm, okay. That's not the same picture. It's not the same one, but I don't mind.

(22:21 - 22:28)
I'm just curious how I got up there. Okay, it's close. This is Maitreya, this is the next Buddha.

(22:30 - 23:00)
We say there will be a thousand Buddhas in this million years, and our Buddha who came 2,500 years ago is number three, and number four is waiting. Okay, Buddha number four in this world is waiting. I like to say that Buddha number four, whose name is Maitreya, is very close, almost arrived.

(23:01 - 23:15)
And I like to say much closer than you think. It's very fun. Okay, and so they represent that Buddha with one leg is down.

(23:16 - 23:33)
It means that Buddha is coming into this world. All right, that Buddha is coming into this world. You can say that Buddha has two parts, like we have two parts, okay? We have physical body, and then we have a mind.

(23:33 - 23:53)
Okay, so those two things together is a Buddha, the Buddhist body and the Buddhist mind. Okay? The difference is that Buddha's mind can see all things at the same time. And the Buddhist body will never die.

(23:53 - 24:19)
Okay, it's a special body. And the most cool thing about a Buddha, and the thing that makes a Buddha, the Buddha jewel, so if you understand what makes Buddha a Buddha jewel, so they have three bodies, physical body, mental body. We call body, but it's not really they have three bodies.

(24:19 - 24:50)
Then they have to buy six shoes whenever they go to the store. It's not like that, okay? They have physical body, they have mental, they have a physical part, they have a mental part, and they have an emptiness part, okay? That beautiful body of Maitreya is coming from their seeds. That mind of Maitreya that can see the whole universe at the same time is coming from their seeds.

(24:51 - 25:06)
And there's nothing about Maitreya which is not coming from their seeds. And that is Maitreya. There's nothing about Maitreya's body which is not coming from Maitreya's seeds.

(25:06 - 25:18)
There's nothing about Maitreya's mind which is not coming from their seeds. And those two not coming is the real body of Maitreya. And that's emptiness, okay? That's emptiness.

(25:18 - 25:34)
You can't find something which is not coming from how you treat other people. You cannot find anything which is not coming from how you treat other people. That truth about Maitreya is Maitreya's real body.

(25:34 - 26:02)
That's the ultimate body of Maitreya, okay? There's nothing about Maitreya that didn't come from being nice to other people. Simple, okay? You don't have to make it so complicated, okay? Finding one part about this dude that didn't come from being nice to other people, you can't, you won't find it. That's Maitreya's emptiness, okay? That's the emptiness of Maitreya.

(26:03 - 26:15)
That's the core of Maitreya, and that is the Buddha jewel. That is the Buddha jewel. Do you take refuge in that jewel? Tell me yes or no.

(26:15 - 26:33)
Each person tell me yes or no. Do you take refuge in that jewel? Yeah, then you should be nice to everybody, okay? All right? Do you believe in Maitreya? Yes. Do you believe Maitreya has a physical body? Yes.

(26:33 - 26:44)
Do you believe he's like that? He's always like halfway down, okay? Which is very important. He's on the way. He or she is on the way.

(26:44 - 27:25)
And then, do you believe that there's nothing about Maitreya that didn't come from his seeds or her seeds? You have to say, yeah, I believe that. Okay, you are 33% Buddhist, okay? You are 33% Buddhist. You're already almost halfway there, okay? If you believe that there is such a thing as a person who's created from perfect kindness and compassion, then you are almost halfway to be a Buddhist, okay? That makes you a Buddhist, okay? Cool? You don't have to be a nice person.

(27:25 - 27:31)
You just have to believe it. It's much easier. Just kidding.

(27:34 - 27:49)
And again, traditionally, he's not sitting cross-legged. He's sitting with one foot is already in the world and he's on his way. He's very close, okay? All right, next picture.

(27:49 - 28:02)
Second jewel is Dharma jewel. I love this picture. This is the little tiny Mongolian temple where I stayed for 25 years.

(28:03 - 28:22)
And was educated by my teacher tirelessly. The first day I met him, I offered him my bank book and he took it and he's like, he had a car accident. His voice is very Star Wars.

(28:23 - 28:32)
What's this? I'm like, that's a book. I know it's a book. What kind of book? I said, that's called a bank book.

(28:33 - 28:42)
He says, what's a bank book? I said, that's all the money I have. That's everything I have and I'm offering it to you. And he goes like this.

(28:44 - 28:49)
And he threw it at me. Has a special blessing, Rob. Be careful.

(28:51 - 28:57)
He threw it at me. He hit me on the head with it. And he said, I don't want your money.

(28:58 - 29:10)
And he taught me for 25 years and he never asked me for anything. Did I give him? Yes. But he never asked me.

(29:11 - 29:19)
And he said, I don't want your money. And he never charged money for his teaching. He would take offerings, but he would not charge money.

(29:20 - 29:43)
So anyway, we lived, I built him a house in the back of this temple. And then I had this weird life where the people in that temple were refugees. They came from Europe, from Southern Russia in 1947.

(29:47 - 29:55)
They were all the same age. By the time I got there, they were all exactly 75 or something. Everybody was old.

(29:56 - 30:06)
And many people had died. And the kids didn't want to stay in a little dirty town in New Jersey. They wanted to go live in Manhattan.

(30:06 - 30:29)
So very few younger people there. And the temple was empty all the time. So I have a beautiful, stunning Buddhist Mongolian temple with an original Kangyur, the only one in North America or South America, and all the Tsongkapa paintings, the only one in the West.

(30:30 - 30:40)
And I have it to myself, and I can sit there. I can go meditate there every day as much as I want. So that's where I saw emptiness.

(30:41 - 31:02)
I saw it there 50 years ago last summer. And when a person sees emptiness directly, that is the dharma jewel. Dharma, you can say books, John Brady said in the dharma, you're teaching the dharma, you're studying the dharma.

(31:03 - 31:09)
That is dharma. That is the teachings. But it's not the dharma jewel.

(31:10 - 31:25)
The dharma jewel is to see emptiness directly. That's all. If you see emptiness directly, then when a person sees it, they are the dharma jewel.

(31:25 - 31:48)
Their mind is the dharma jewel. Okay, got it? You don't have to be a Buddha. If you see emptiness directly... You know what's funny? If you see emptiness directly, then every Buddhist in the world is praying to you, if they're real Buddhists.

(31:50 - 32:04)
If they're a real Buddhist, and you have seen emptiness directly, then every Buddhist in the world, when they go to church, they are praying to you. It's very interesting. It's very strange.

(32:05 - 32:18)
So Buddha jewel is the emptiness of a Buddha. Dharma jewel is the direct perception of emptiness. For a hundred dollars, what's the sangha jewel?

(32:19 - 32:31)
By the way, the plain sangha, if you don't say sangha jewel, is people who have the vows of Vinaya. They aren't the normal sangha. They are the community.

(32:35 - 32:44)
One more thing. Synagogue, Jewish word for church, synagogue. The sin comes from Sanskrit sang.

(32:45 - 32:57)
God comes from Sanskrit ga, sangha. Synagogue comes from sangha, if you want to know. Thank you.

(32:58 - 33:16)
Sangha is a person who has seen emptiness directly. Good, a hundred bucks. Yeah, so the nominal sangha, or what people think of as a sangha, is all the people who are ordained in some way.

(33:18 - 33:37)
Even people who have lifetime maintenance vows, these are sangha, technically. But sangha jewel is completely different. You can be a businessman in a DCI group in Kazakhstan, or it doesn't matter.

(33:37 - 33:52)
If you see emptiness directly, then you are a sangha jewel. And it's, again, you can be, we have great groups in Kazakhstan, for example. So you're in a Muslim country.

(33:52 - 34:11)
Everyone's Muslim. They're studying DCI. If someone understands emptiness correctly, they are the sangha jewel, okay? And every Buddhist in the world is praying to them, a Muslim person who saw emptiness directly.

(34:12 - 34:27)
Got it? It's cool, right? So it's important to know what is the three jewels. If you think they can help you, you are a Buddhist. That's all, that's all.

(34:28 - 34:39)
You're not a Buddhist just to go in a Buddhist temple. You're not a Buddhist just to grow up with Buddhist parents. You're not a Buddhist to offer incense in a temple.

(34:39 - 34:47)
You are a Buddhist if you understand emptiness. That's pretty cool. All right.

(34:48 - 35:03)
Why? Because that can protect you. That will protect you. Why does it protect you? Emptiness means there's nothing in the world that doesn't come from how you treat other people.

(35:03 - 35:16)
That's all. That's the ultimate protection. When you understand that there's nothing in the world, good, that doesn't come from helping other people, then you're protected.

(35:16 - 35:24)
Then you're a Buddhist. Then you have umbrella over your head. Nagarjuna's lucky.

(35:28 - 35:46)
Why? He's got these dragon nagas, right? They have these hoods. They look like cobras and they cover him on sunny days in India. Me and John Brady are praying to have a relationship with those dragons.

(35:46 - 35:55)
Okay. I put the picture here. This is Rendawa.

(35:56 - 36:01)
This is Jetsun Rendawa. This is Tsongkapa's teacher. He has a different kind of hat.

(36:01 - 36:08)
It's actually round on the top. It looks like a skull cap. And that's a Sakya custom.

(36:08 - 36:36)
Sakya was a great religion in Tibet, a great kind of Buddhism, before Tsongkapa, before Tsongkapa. That monastery, big monastery southwest of Lhasa, it's in a strange valley and the dirt is all whitish. Dirt in Tibetan is sa, whitish is kya.

(36:37 - 36:44)
So they became called Sakya, Sakya. So he was a Sakya scholar. He was a Sakya teacher.

(36:46 - 37:04)
He doesn't have the deep, deep, subtle presentation of emptiness that Je Tsongkapa does. He does not have that. He has a good, solid understanding of Chandrakirti and Aryadeva and Nagarjuna.

(37:06 - 37:23)
Okay, but he was not, when you read his books, he doesn't have the detail that you will learn from Je Tsongkapa. But in my opinion, it's a great introduction to Buddhism. It's a great, great introduction to Buddhism.

(37:28 - 37:39)
Tsongkapa didn't have Tsongkapa to learn from. Tsongkapa learned from Rendawa. So apparently it works.

(37:40 - 38:01)
Okay, understand? So in my opinion, his commentary on Nagarjuna, which is what we just finished translating, it's a very, very good introduction to Buddhism. And I hope the Five Houses will use it. I hope the Five Houses will use that book a lot.

(38:01 - 38:10)
I think Stanley and Xiao Ping are using it already in some of their classes. They're already using it. But that book will be a wonderful book.

(38:11 - 38:27)
If you want to teach your friends Buddhism, or you have a new person that you want to help, that new book will be amazing. That will be a great book to start with. I'm sure it'll be translated into Ukrainian and Russian.

(38:27 - 38:39)
It will be translated very soon, I think. I hope it will be, but I'm not sure. Understand? Okay.

(38:45 - 38:54)
My wife says any time I get a chance to show up, I show up. I'm just kidding, she doesn't say that. I just say she says that.

(38:56 - 39:05)
Actually, she only says sweet things to me. Okay. Next picture.

(39:07 - 39:29)
How are we doing on time, Timothy? How much time do I have? 16 minutes? 15? 15 minutes, okay. I can do it. That book by Jetsun Rendawa, Tsongkapa's teacher.

(39:30 - 39:38)
By the way, you can call him Rendawa, but it's a little bit impolite. It's like saying, hey, Kapa. Okay.

(39:40 - 39:52)
In Buddhism, we try to refer to a teacher with a nice, sweet name, Jetsun. Jetsun means high and holy. Je-tsun.

(39:53 - 40:02)
Say Jetsun. Okay, his name is Jetsun Rendawa. He has a big theme in his book, and I think it's good.

(40:02 - 40:16)
We cover it now in the Song of My Spiritual Life. We reached, in Gibson's book, we reached this part about black and white karma. Okay? Black and white karma.

(40:16 - 40:39)
It means good karma, bad karma. And there's a very, very interesting theme. Okay? When Rendawa teaches it, and who's he teaching? He's teaching a king, okay? We believe, I mean, tradition says it was Udayabhadra.

(40:41 - 41:04)
Okay? So if you know the story of the Wheel of Life, two kings were giving each other gifts back and forth. And finally, when you give a gift back to a person in Buddhism or ancient times, it should be better than the gift which they gave you. So there was an escalation of gifts, more and more precious, more and more precious.

(41:05 - 41:36)
Finally, one king gave, Udayana gave Bimbisara a special coat that could protect him from all weapons. And then Bimbisara was like, I don't know, what's better than that? And he had trouble to find a gift that was better. And then one of his ministers said, hey, you got Lord Buddha, he's hanging out in the forest in our country.

(41:36 - 42:02)
Let's go ask him, what's more valuable than this weapon coat? And they go and ask Lord Buddha and he says, the most precious thing you can send Udayana is my picture. And then Bimbisara assigned a bunch of artists. He hired a bunch of artists and said, go to the forest, find Lord Buddha, paint him.

(42:03 - 42:10)
And then they all left and they didn't come back. Nobody came back. And Bimbisara's getting irritated.

(42:10 - 42:19)
And he's like, I told you, I want the painting of Lord Buddha. Go find out what happened to the artists. And they went to the forest.

(42:19 - 42:40)
There's Buddha sitting there and all the artists are sitting there and they have their canvas and they have their paint and they're like, and they say he's so beautiful, they couldn't paint him. They couldn't stop looking at him. And they're like, it's like your high school girlfriend.

(42:41 - 43:04)
Okay. So anyway, Buddha said, I have a solution. Take a white sheet and wait till evening and build a fire behind me and my shadow will be cast onto the sheet and tell the artists to sit on the other side and copy the outline.

(43:04 - 43:13)
And this way they can paint it without going crazy. So he finished the painting. Buddha said, just one more thing.

(43:16 - 43:25)
Add this wheel with 12 parts to it on this painting. Let's send it together. Udayana got the painting.

(43:26 - 44:01)
He opened it up and they say he saw emptiness on the same day, okay? Because of the power of the Wheel of Life painting, okay? And it's kind of cool. Then Udayana was murdered by his son and Bimbisara was murdered by his son. Bimbisara's son was called Ajatashatru, which means even in the womb, some fortune teller said that he will kill his father.

(44:02 - 44:16)
And he was given the name, unborn enemy, Ajatashatru. And then, so he grew up to be a king. He killed his father.

(44:16 - 44:43)
After he killed his father, he regretted it and he became a good Buddhist and he followed Lord Buddha. Ajatashatru had a son named Udayabhadra and Nagarjuna wrote a letter to him. Okay, got it? This letter that we're studying was written by the grandson of the person who painted the first painting of Lord Buddha.

(44:43 - 45:09)
Okay, got it? Now, it doesn't quite work out time-wise. If you follow Western scholars, how many centuries and stuff like that, but don't worry about it. Anyway, the point is, before Grandpa told another story, the person who's getting this letter from Nagarjuna is a king.

(45:10 - 45:52)
The book I'm suggesting that you read as soon as Rosa gets it out, which is going to be half an hour or something. Right, Anatole? When you read it, Rendawa has a very interesting argument for why you should learn about good karma and why you should learn about bad karma and why you should follow the Ten Good Deeds, okay? And his argument is very interesting. He tells the king, and I don't know, I don't think he says it directly.

(45:52 - 46:35)
He does not say it directly, but he says, look, the odds are that you're not going to become a Buddha in this life, okay? Like he doesn't teach tantra at this point to the king. By the way, Rendawa was a great tantric master, Guru Yoga, okay? And that's why Tsongkapa emphasizes Guru Yoga. But so he's like, if you really want to become a Buddha, you're probably not going to make it in this life, okay? So Rendawa says you better learn good karma and bad karma.

(46:35 - 46:57)
You better become a master at what's good karma and what's bad karma. You should become a karma expert. So Tsongkapa's, Rendawa's student is saying, in these verses, he's saying, in Gibson's book, he's saying, you guys should learn karma.

(46:57 - 47:14)
You guys have to learn karma. Rendawa would say what? Tsongkapa says, you guys have to learn about karma. Rendawa would say why? Yeah, you probably cannot make it in this life.

(47:14 - 47:28)
So just in case, why not set up a good body and mind for your next life? Which means be kind to people. Never hurt people. Do the best thing you can for other people.

(47:29 - 47:49)
It's just smart. If you practice Vajrayogini, if JB teaches you Vajrayogini, you reach Buddhahood in one lifetime, okay, you can skip all the karma stuff. But just in case, it doesn't hurt to have a good bank account in case you die suddenly.

(47:49 - 48:10)
It's better to prepare. Rendawa would say about this part of the text, learn what's good karma, learn what's bad karma, and use it to create an insurance policy for your next life. So your next life is intelligent and healthy.

(48:12 - 48:23)
So your next life... In order to have an intelligent, healthy next life, be a nice person now. Learn what's good karma. Learn the 10 good karmas.

(48:23 - 48:43)
Don't hurt people because you have to think who's going to be studying in your next life. You want to have a good body and mind. You don't want to be a red ant that can't even pick up the diamond-cutter sutra, okay? Got it? Right? You all right? Go like this.

(48:46 - 49:15)
The ultimate Buddhist student in the modern world. Now, step one, learn to sleep with your eyes open. If you're advanced, learn to sleep with your eyes open and nod every two minutes, okay? Then be sure to wake up at the end of the class.

(49:15 - 49:25)
All right, okay. Next picture. How much time we got? Five minutes, okay.

(49:25 - 49:40)
All right. I like to use a person with an umbrella to represent someone who is taking refuge, yeah, or who's smart. They don't want to get wet.

(49:40 - 50:03)
They don't want to ruin their clothes so they get an umbrella and they walk around with an umbrella, okay? $100. You ready? $100. What's a good way to take refuge? I'll give $200.

(50:05 - 50:40)
What's a good way to take refuge? And you want a clue? To understand the three jewels. I mean, that's a classical answer, but I want something that proves you were listening in the last 10 minutes. Emptiness, to understand that the jewels are not the item, but how the item relates to it.

(50:40 - 50:50)
That's a $100 answer. You get $100. He gets $100, especially if he buys coffee beans and roasts them for grandpa.

(50:50 - 51:14)
But I want a really smart answer that proves you've been listening for the last five minutes. What was the question? What would be a good way to take refuge? I would way to take refuge is knowing you're going to die. I mean, that's true, but it's not what I'm looking for.

(51:16 - 51:24)
Stanley just figured it out. When Stanley's hungry, and when he figures out something, it's the same sound. He goes, oh.

(51:28 - 51:37)
It's understanding the pain, where everything comes from. Come on, you guys. One more chance.

(51:38 - 51:43)
Be nice to people. Be kind. Yes, super nice.

(51:43 - 51:46)
Cancel the bet. We don't have time. Cancel the bet.

(51:46 - 52:20)
Cancel the bet. If you are planning ahead to your next life, just in case you don't reach it this life, it's a good idea to be nice to other people, help other people, so you have a human body in your next life who can read, who can go to class, who can think. Okay? That's actually an ultimate act of refuge.

(52:22 - 52:37)
To plan your next life wisely is taking refuge. Okay, got it? He's very sexy. Okay? Got it? You all right? Okay.

(52:37 - 52:55)
That last thing we were talking about, we did refuge as the three kinds of emptiness. Then we talked about Rendawa's advising you to get a good body and mind just in case you don't finish this lifetime. Then he says, by the way, that is taking refuge.

(52:56 - 53:05)
To plan your next life is taking refuge. Okay. We have one minute left, three minutes left.

(53:08 - 53:37)
Let me make a mark here. I got to make... I always ask Tim where we stop, right? It's the day, 10, 20, 28. If you remember this time that we had together, if you think about these days that we had together, I think the one thing you'll remember is when the microphone broke during the music concert.

(53:38 - 53:52)
No, I'm kidding. If you have to remember one thing about this time together, for me, it's been very beautiful and very cool. And it's a beautiful place.

(53:52 - 54:06)
And I'm very grateful to Tim. Yay! And Pachi. And Pao.

(54:07 - 54:21)
And Ale. Gina. All the tech team.

(54:30 - 54:40)
Mr. Shanti. I don't know. I had a really good time.

(54:41 - 54:53)
But if you think about this time that we had together in the future... And by the way, we never know if we will have another one. We were in Guadalajara. Aldo was there.

(54:53 - 54:57)
We were all saying goodbye. This is like five years ago, Pao. I don't know if you remember.

(54:58 - 55:12)
It was near Chalapa. Chalapa. And I remember Aldo... Where is Aldo? Is he still here? Yeah, you know.

(55:12 - 55:25)
Aldo stood up and said, Hi. Nila's father. Aldo... We asked everyone if they want to stand up and say something at the end of the program.

(55:27 - 55:38)
And Aldo stood up and said, I have something I want to say in Guadalajara. I said, what? And he said, I want to say I love each one of you. He said, I want to say I love each one of you.

(55:39 - 55:49)
And we're like, wow. He says, because I don't know if we will meet again. And he said, at the time, I don't know if you remember, probably.

(55:50 - 56:05)
But he said, anytime you say goodbye to somebody and you say, I'll see you tomorrow, I'll see you next week, you don't really know if you will see them again. We don't know. It's a crazy world.

(56:06 - 56:17)
Strange things happen. And anything can happen. So, I like that advice.

(56:18 - 56:44)
When you finish a program, tell each other you love each other, just in case you don't see each other again. And then remember the 16 steps. So if you go home and your wife or your husband says, what did they teach you there? And you can say, look, we got this paper with the 16 steps on it.

(56:45 - 57:05)
So if you remember anything from these classes, besides the great rock and roll, and John Brady, boy, I told you. Then please remember, please study the 16 steps. Please learn them.

(57:06 - 57:17)
Some of them you can do now. And some of them you have to do as you die. And some of them you have to do after that.

(57:19 - 57:29)
So I don't want you to, what do you call that in English? Pick and choose. I don't want you to pick and choose. I want you to do all 16.

(57:29 - 57:38)
I want you to have a good childhood. I want you to pick some good parents. I want you to die with style.

(57:39 - 57:52)
And I want you to master the wisdom before that. In other words, don't say, I guess I'm only doing 10 to 12. I want you to do, take all 16 steps seriously.

(57:54 - 58:03)
If you do that, you made your teacher happy. No matter who's your teacher, it's a powerful karma. Cool? Okay, thank you.

(58:16 - 58:31)
Can I sit down? I can sit with my butt. Thank you. So Geshe La helped us say thank you to some of the people here already.

(58:32 - 58:54)
But I want to say thank you specifically to we have 200 volunteers that make this program possible. Interpreters, tech teams, and marketing people all over the world making this event run. And with those people is because we have 150 people in Malaysia, we had 168 people here.

(58:54 - 59:21)
We had 1,800 people online in how many languages? How many languages? 12 languages online. So we have a huge worldwide production. And with the nine or so staff members that are here, a couple people couldn't make it.

(59:22 - 59:54)
We also then had 27 teachers online and in person bringing this event to you. So I'd like to thank all of them. And what else we've got going here? We gave, so these events are, yes, there's a cost to them because we have to do things like venues and hotels and airplanes and things like that.

(59:55 - 1:00:19)
And we make it available to anyone who wants to come, whether online or in person. So we gave over $22,000 in scholarships for those 2,000 plus people that attended. So thank you to all of you who paid and offered more so all of those people could come.

(1:00:21 - 1:00:39)
Last night's banner. That was our final total from last night. There's gonna be a lot of happy high school students next May.

(1:00:39 - 1:00:53)
So thank you all very much for that. Coming up, just really quickly, our next major event is in Kyoto. Door to the Diamond Way 4. And we got some cool things happening there.

(1:00:54 - 1:01:04)
We're gonna continue with the house activities that you did here, developing content. We're gonna go deeper into that. We have a lot of ceremonies planned.

(1:01:05 - 1:01:22)
Ben Kramer and his wife, Kendra, are gonna be there teaching us debate and yoga. So if you've ever wanted to learn how to do debate, Ben is a master at debate. It's impossible to beat him because he doesn't stop.

(1:01:22 - 1:01:34)
And he'll teach you how to do it and do it the classical way and the correct way. And Jasmine is running that event for us. And I really wanna thank her for everything she's doing for the five houses.

(1:01:35 - 1:01:56)
She had three events this year simultaneously in Malaysia. And she's also the primary producer in Kyoto, which takes a lot of headaches off of our plate, including hotel management and transportation management, all the stuff that makes me wanna poke my eyes out. Honestly, I don't like doing those things.

(1:01:57 - 1:02:13)
But she gladly takes that on and is putting together an event for 500 people. And we're about halfway there in registrations. And if you wanna come, when does the early bird end? Next week? Something like that.

(1:02:13 - 1:02:23)
Early bird prices end very soon. So if you'd like to sign up for that, please do that. Otherwise, the cost kind of inches up a little bit.

(1:02:24 - 1:02:34)
So again, thank you all for coming. This is beautiful to see all of you here. We will hopefully be back in Phoenix again next year for another wonderful event here.

(1:02:34 - 1:03:10)
Again, thank you to the ACI Five Houses staff, all of the volunteers. Thank you all very much. Ale, do we have the little thing? So the last thing we have here, as you know, Geshe La, that you have this ability to work endlessly and tirelessly and have spent so much time to develop all the content, everything that we do here.

(1:03:10 - 1:03:24)
And this is a token of our gratitude for you. It's, we can never repay you, but I think we all can repay you through our own practice by being kind people. So thank you all very much.

(1:03:25 - 1:03:31)
Again, thank you. Please stay. Please keep teaching us, Geshe La.

(1:03:31 - 1:03:35)
Please keep teaching us. And we'll see you guys soon. Thank you.

(1:03:39 - 1:04:02)
I had a chance once to sit on a mat you used while your DCI events. And while I did that, that was only one spot in my mind, love. I cannot imagine more powerful ending of this magic event than this.

(1:04:03 - 1:04:11)
Thank you so much. Please stay. Please stay.