BDW 4 «Алмаз в Киото», занятие 2

(0:47 - 1:39)
Hello everyone. Good afternoon and good morning, good evening everyone around the world. Welcome to our next class, Door of the Diamond Way, with our beloved teacher, Geshe Michael Roach. 

My name is Han. I'm from Vietnam and it's my honor to be your online emcee for the next sessions. So please make sure that you already settle in your place and everything that supports your studying, like a notebook or even a cup of water, and spend a little quiet moment for yourself to set your pure intention before the class why you are here today and what is your biggest motivation and who you wish to benefit.

(1:40 - 5:17)
And then please express your gratitude and offer to our dear teacher everything that you would love to, and the gratitude for everyone, everything that supports you to let this precious moment happen. And if you are ready, please show your lovely smile and be excited to welcome our dear teacher, Geshe Michael Roach, to the class. And I'm so grateful to seeing every one of you being here today and I wish you have a good time and joyful. 

Thank you. And as we're waiting for Geshe Michael, please also send our beautiful dedications and our rejoicement to our own goals and our ultimate, the long life of our teachers. Hello, our friends online, we're seeing you right now on the big screen. 

So it's our huge pleasure to have you here accompanying with us all the way through. Thank you all the online volunteers and translators and as well as all the participants. We're so grateful to have you here with us.

(5:29 - 7:04)
Geshe Roach is here, so we welcome everyone to stand up and we'll wait for Geshe Michael to enter. Okay, hi you guys. So this is Lamrim class and it's to prepare for Diamond Way and it's hopeless.

(7:05 - 8:21)
Okay, I taught Lamrim for 14 years. I taught the greatest Lamrim in the world for 14 years. But some people asked me to teach Diamond Way and I thought today, I have an idea. 

I've been worrying about it for months and I have an idea and I want to tell you the idea and then I'll start teaching you Diamond Way, okay? But this is my idea. So my teacher taught me Diamond Way. He started, I think, 1977 or 1978. 

He started to prepare us for Diamond Way. He said, I'm teaching, I'm preparing you for Diamond Way. I want you to learn Jorcho and Lamrim. 

So he taught Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. He taught that twice. He taught it, well, two and a half times.

(8:21 - 9:26)
He taught it once in New Jersey. He taught it once in Washington DC and then he started it again. And he finished the whole book. 

I was lucky because I was his driver. So only one student heard it twice and that was me because I'm the driver and I have to wait for him when he goes to teach it. So he taught that to prepare for Diamond Way and then he gave us Diamond Way empowerment. 

So to study Diamond Way, to practice Diamond Way, you need empowerment, which is permission. That's permission from the teacher to study Diamond Way. What is Diamond Way in general? You know, supposedly it takes billions and billions of years to become Buddha.

(9:26 - 9:55)
It takes billions and billions of years even after you decide. Even after you get bodhichitta, it can take hundreds of thousands of years. So traditionally there's a quick path. 

There's a way to reach it in one lifetime. That's Diamond Way. It's very beautiful, very fun, very happy.

(9:56 - 11:35)
And very cool, obviously. And there's rules, but there's rules about teaching it. I have to follow the rules about how to teach it, where to teach it, who to teach it to. 

And I'm happy to teach it. So I, in New York 1993, I started the ACI courses and I was doing my Geshe degree in 1995, my final exam. So a couple of years before that I had to do my pre-Geshe degree and I had to debate for that degree. 

Then I thought it would be exciting if we could teach the Geshe degree to people who are not monks and not nuns. By the way, in those days nuns were not allowed to study Geshe degree. So my teacher started to teach men and women equally the Geshe degree topics, including Lamrim. 

We both got criticism. We got criticism from people for teaching women the Geshe course. We said, oh that's okay. 

We taught it anyway. So I started teaching in New York and I took the Geshe course. I divided it into 18 parts and I taught it for six years.

(11:35 - 13:04)
I don't know if you know, but I taught it twice every week. I taught it for four days a week because you could choose to learn it in Tibetan language or you could learn it in English language. I taught it four days a week for two different groups. 

So I taught the preparation for Diamond Way in New York. I taught, that's the 18 ACI courses and that's the coolest part of the Geshe course. If you learn those 18 courses, I would say you understood the essence of the Geshe course. 

The Geshe course has a lot more detail, but also the Geshe course has a lot of breaks and you have no idea. It used to drive me crazy. You go to class and they say, we canceled the class. 

They say, why did you cancel class? Oh, the teacher decided to go to North India or something. When is he coming back? Nobody knows. What topic are we studying? Oh, every Geshe class has six or seven teachers. 

You learn the Geshe degree from your house teacher. There's 12 houses, 12 colleges. It's like Oxford.

(13:05 - 16:25)
Then each of those teachers will teach at his own speed. So maybe you're studying page 100, I'm studying page 200, somebody else is studying page, it's very disorganized. Do we have debate today? Nobody knows. 

If they ring the bell, come. If they don't ring the bell, maybe come. When I did my Geshe qualification degree in 1993, someone came to my room, they said, now. 

I'm like, what? They said, now, now's your exam. I said, nobody told me. Now, we don't tell anybody. 

Just come. I'm like, what if I was in the toilet? Would I miss my Geshe degree? He said, yep. I'm like, so everything is really disorganized in my time and I think it has always been that way. 

What I mean to say is if you study the 18 ACI courses, the foundation courses, you basically got the information in a Geshe degree. They spend a lot more hours, but it's not very well organized. So you get a good foundation. 

Then I told my students, if you finish the 18 courses, I will teach you Diamond Way. Then at the end of the foundation courses, it was 1999, and I decided to do a three-year retreat, partly to prepare for Diamond Way. Then I said, okay, I'm going to go and retreat and I will think about it for three years, 1,000 days, how to teach Diamond Way. 

Then when I finished the retreat, am I being translated? Should I be pausing? Yes. Okay. Then when I finished retreat, I had a plan in my mind of Diamond Way courses, 18 courses, and what's cool I think is that I did exactly the plan. 

So I taught everything in the plan and I started 2003, something like that, four. Then I taught that for six years I think. I wrote a Diamond Way course, 18 different parts. 

That's another, one of the reasons I wrote the course was Diamond Way study in a monastery, in the Geshe Monastery, is very disorganized. So either you, maybe your teacher will, maybe your private teacher will teach you some Diamond Way. Then teachers will come, big, big teachers will come once a year, twice a year. 

They will give Diamond Way teachings for three days, four days. Then everybody goes. Then you don't know what they're going to teach.

(16:25 - 17:27)
You don't know what subject it's going to be. If you learn Diamond Way, it's because your teacher, your personal teacher, decide to teach it to you, privately. We don't have Diamond Way courses in the Geshe Monastery. 

We don't have a course. There's no course for Diamond Way study. There's two Diamond Way monasteries, Gyume and Gyuto. 

My teacher was a very high, he was the vice president of Gyume, Tantric College, which is very famous, and was outside of Lhasa. He was the vice president of that. He got a good training, but in general, in my time, it was very disorganized. 

There's no starting date. There's no ending date. There's no curriculum.

(17:28 - 21:07)
There's no order of the courses. You just go. You just show up at the Tantric College and somebody will teach you something, whatever they like. 

There was no exact course. Then people would go there. They would go there, some of them, because if you finish two years at the Tantric College, you can reach a higher position in the organization. 

You can be the head of the organization, like the Ganden Thipa, the throne of Tsongkapa. You cannot go politically higher in the monastic system if you don't go to the Tantric College. The minimum was like two years. 

People would go for two years. Then the main study was to memorize the Guhyasamaja Tantra and be able to recite the ritual. That's all. 

They examine you for, can you recite the ritual and do you generally go to some classes about it? There's no order. There's no structure. There's no organization of it. 

There's no required topics. People would just show up. Then they would float in and out. 

They wouldn't stay there. They would come for two months, go home for two months, come back. It's very disorganized. 

I was there the day they opened their debate ground. I debated there with the students. It just felt disorganized to me. 

I was kind of disappointed. Then when I was going to start my own Diamond Way series, I thought I would like to, I have a dream, I have a vision that I would like to do it very, very organized, like Princeton. You go to class number one, then you go to class number two. 

You do homeworks. You prove that you understand the material. You go through each of the steps. 

I designed, I took all the Diamond Way teachings and I organized them into one course, 18 courses. I think that's the first time anyone's done that in history. It's a great course. 

It's a really, really good course. It's really high class. I took the greatest Diamond Way books and I translated them. 

I made them into a course. Then I made it very tough. I said, you have to finish the 18 courses before you can study Diamond Way course. 

I think we started with 80 people from, survived from New York or something. The first 2003 came to Diamond Mountain in 80. I think it was 80 to start with. 

I think it reached 100 and something later. Then we went through six years. We followed the course exactly.

(21:08 - 22:10)
We went through the six course, the six years of study. I translated many thousands of pages of the Diamond Way texts, the greatest. The fun thing for my life, because I'm a foreigner and because I'm from a foreign country, I get to take the best of the best. 

No one has done it before, so I can choose the greatest books in each category. The Diamond Way course is the best of the best. It's the cream of the cream. 

I translated all of them. Then I created courses. At the same time, we were building Diamond Mountain Retreat Center. 

It was a lot of stress. I think it cost a million dollars, something. We all had like $20.

(22:13 - 22:28)
We have to build this million dollar place and we have to build houses and we have to build toilets. We didn't have a water system. It was very, very stressful and it was very difficult.

(22:28 - 22:46)
To do the courses at the same time, it was very difficult. It was thousands of hours of work. Towards the end, I think three quarters through, I just couldn't do it.

(22:46 - 23:37)
I just couldn't keep up. Some of the courses were never finished. There's some of the courses there. 

I taught the classes from the Tibetan books, but I didn't have time to translate it. I didn't have time to write the homeworks properly, examinations, things like that. It was too much stress on me and too difficult because I was also doing much of the fundraising and things like that. 

I never really finished the course, but we got to the 18th course. Many people finished, then they did a three-year retreat, like that. Then I made it, in my heart, I said, you guys teach it to the next generation.

(23:38 - 24:24)
I need to take a break. I was pretty tired and I just said, I'm going to go to Rimrock, Arizona. I did a long retreat. 

I rented a house on a mountain. I did like a one-year, I did like a silence by myself and I just stayed there. Then I finished the Diamond Way courses. 

I finished all the translations and I found some more text. I found some more materials. I cleaned up the courses.

(24:26 - 24:52)
I translated a huge amount of extra material. Then I just decided I'd rather my students teach it. I thought if I teach it, they won't teach it. 

You see what I mean? I have this problem in my life. If I teach it, my students won't teach. I told them, I'm not going to teach it again.

(24:53 - 25:13)
You guys have to teach it. I waited for how many years? That was what year I left Diamond Mountain? 2010? 2011? Something like that. I waited 15 years to see if they would teach it.

(25:14 - 26:09)
Some of them did and they did some of it. Then I just thought, then I was, so for 15 years I didn't teach it. Although I kept translating and studying. 

Then I was in Kyoto three years ago or something. I never go out with my students. I never take the class out. 

I don't do things like that. I don't have time and I'm too tired. Then I was walking near Takashimaya and some student met me and they said, we're having dinner. 

Your students are having dinner upstairs. Do you want to have dinner with us? I'm like, you know, it's not relaxing. Someone's going to try to sell me something.

(26:10 - 26:22)
I'm like, please, please, come have, the food's already ready. I'm like, okay. Then I went up there and I remember I was sitting and there's, this is called CSP.

(26:22 - 26:38)
This is a special group of business people and I taught them for eight years or something. It's a bunch of people that I taught for many years in China. They're sitting across from me.

(26:39 - 28:04)
I think two of them, they're like, Geshe La, will you teach us Diamond Way? I'm like, yeah, sure. Then I'm like, whoa, wait a minute. Then they said, you promise. 

It was exactly like that. I didn't plan it. I didn't have any idea to teach Diamond Way. 

I didn't want to teach Diamond Way. They asked me so sincerely. They were very, very sincere. 

I could feel it. I couldn't say no. I said, okay, yeah, all right. 

When? Sometime. Then I thought 200 lifetimes from now. But I felt at that moment like I gave a promise. 

I felt like I promised. So all this time I've been getting ready for that and preparing a Diamond Way course for them. Then what happens in this situation is other people hear about it. 

They say, can I join? Can I join? I'm like, I don't know. I don't have a place. I don't have a time. 

I don't have a student. Everything else is okay. So I said, okay, I'll do it and people can join.

(28:06 - 28:26)
Almost three years ago, that small group, CSP, I started to teach them the preparation for Diamond Way. I like to do it in a relaxed way. I don't like to be on a train schedule or something like that.

(28:26 - 28:51)
I just taught them in a relaxed way. They finished a few weeks ago. They finished three years of preparation. 

People have joined them from other groups. So we will start. I will start the empowerment for them this year.

(28:53 - 29:15)
Maybe in the next few months. But, okay, big but, I have a kidney problem. I didn't know I have a kidney problem. 

I took a blood test like eight years ago. The doctor said, you need to visit a kidney doctor. I'm like, why? They said, just do it.

(29:16 - 29:51)
I visit the kidney doctor and they say, you have kidney disease. I said, what's that? They said, your kidney is going to get worse and worse and then you're going to die. I'm like, oh, okay, what do I do? They said, you can't do much about it. 

Don't eat so bad food. Drink lots of water. I'm like, okay. 

Then they said, you have to come to the doctor every six months. We will check how far does it, it gets worse and worse. There's no cure.

(29:52 - 30:06)
They said, we'll just check you every six months. We'll let you know when you're going to die. I'm like, okay, thanks. 

So now the number has reached a place. I don't feel bad. I feel normal.

(30:06 - 30:33)
I can work. I can teach. I feel really happy and relaxed. 

If I have a kidney transplant now, maybe I can go another 10 or 15 years. If I don't, then it's going to get messy, like maybe three years, four years, something. I'm like, okay, I'll do a transplant.

(30:34 - 31:11)
So that requires like a year of preparation. It requires a lot of technical stuff. It requires a kidney. 

I got everything ready. Then there's 200,000 people waiting for a kidney. There's 6,000 people waiting for the operation. 

Luckily, the best operation in the world is probably in Phoenix, Arizona. It's two hours from my house. It looks like we can do it.

(31:13 - 34:37)
The success rate is 99.9%. It's not a bad thing. But they have to hurt your immune system. They have to kill your immune system. 

So I will get sick from everything. Every time someone catches a cold, I will catch it. Every time I'm on an airplane, I'll get sick. 

It's similar to AIDS or something like that. It's similar to that. But it's better than dying, right? Anyway, I can't guarantee when I can teach Diamond Way, how I can teach Diamond Way, but it looks okay. 

I passed all of the... There's 27 exams, very complex exams, including MRIs. I passed all of them. So they said, okay, you can do it. 

You can do a kidney. But don't travel for six months or a year or something like that. Don't try to go to Kyoto, for example. 

So I'm like, okay. I think they'll do it in the next six months, but we don't know for sure. We have to wait for everybody to agree. 

Anyway, before I promise you Diamond Way, I have to warn you that maybe you have to come to the hospital and sit with me or something. But it should be okay. I don't want you to get serious. 

Now you all got serious. Relax. Don't worry. 

It's okay. But I can't promise the date that I can do your empowerment. I can't promise all the details like that. 

We have to just do month by month. We have to see how it goes. Okay? Understand? Go like that. 

All right? Okay. Then I have a logistic, I have a problem. Do I put all your groups together? Do I try to teach ten different groups Diamond Way? That's a lot of time. 

My time is extremely tight. My day is extremely tight. I work 18 hours a day, all the time. 

I don't know how many days I have. I don't know how long my life will be. It's very difficult for me to teach it ten times or something like that. 

It would be much better if I could just throw everybody in one group. Each group has a very different personality. The CSP people, I've been teaching them almost ten years. 

Then some people in this class, I never met you. It's very difficult for me to just mix everybody together. Where do we do it? I think we should go to Brazil or something.

(34:38 - 34:57)
No, I mean, not everybody can travel and it's very complicated. I've been praying for guidance about it. I have a proposal, which I want to tell you today. 

Don't be so serious, Silvia. It's a good proposal. It's a happy proposal.

(35:02 - 36:30)
One of the groups, mainly the CSP group and other related groups, they bought a large piece of land near my house. It's one million square meters. 1.3? Any 1 point something. 

It's a huge place. It's 200 acres? 300? 300 acres. My house is on one sixth of one acre. 

It's 2,000 times bigger than my house. It's a big place and it's beautiful. It's super beautiful. 

By accident, it has a wonderful classroom that can fit 150 people. The owner was going to tear it down and they said, do you want it before I tear it down? We're like, yeah, okay. But it's a beautiful, beautiful place, beautiful classroom. 

Many years ago, one CSP group asked me, will you teach Diamond Way? Will you make a special place to teach Diamond Way? They offered to build a special building just to teach Diamond Way. We were at Princeton University. I took the class there.

(36:30 - 37:19)
How many people? 100? Went to Princeton? Yeah, we went to Princeton. Outside of Princeton, there's a small private institute. It's called Institute for Advanced Study, IAS. 

It was built for Einstein and for Oppenheimer. It was a place near the university. You can walk there, but it takes a while. 

It was kind of an advanced research building. Einstein had a house near there. I lived near there for a couple years.

(37:21 - 39:29)
It's a beautiful, beautiful institute in a beautiful forest, very close to Princeton. We asked the university, could we do a program there? They said no, because they still do secret research there. Then we met the director and we said, could we rent the classroom? She said, you know what? You can do a class outside on the grass. 

You can bring your students, you can have a microphone, you can sit under a tree, you can have a class. Then you can tell everybody you taught at the Institute for Advanced Study. Actually, it's outside, but it's the same thing. 

Then I said, okay, that's cool. We had the class. We did a good class. 

Two things happened. One red fox ran into the circle and went like this and ran away. We were like, that's weird. 

Then there came a, we call plainclothes policemen. It's a big bump here. You know what I mean? They carry a gun all the time. 

He said, I'm a guard here. I'm security. We're like, hi, we have permission. 

He said, I just canceled it. You can go home. You have five minutes to get off the property. 

They still do nuclear research there. Anyway, we were looking at the building. I should show a picture, but I don't have it. 

It's extremely beautiful. That group, said to me, if you teach Diamond Way, we will build a building like that. We will make an institute like that. 

You can teach it there. Now the property has been bought. It's near my house.

(39:29 - 41:09)
If I have a kidney transplant or something, I can almost walk there. It's a very, very beautiful place. Part of the idea is that we could teach it there, if necessary. 

I'm happy to travel to Kyoto. I'm happy to travel to Munchen? Munchen? Where are you now? Close. Yeah, see? Wherever people decide I'm happy to go there. 

What's best for most people? Probably Kyoto is easy. Then I have, now I still have another problem. Each group that I have, or each group that I share my teaching with, they are different. 

Each one has a different... I have a YSI yoga group. We have a CSP business group. We have DCI, thousands of people studying business or success system, non-religious. 

Then we have PEP, YLP, SLP, DSEU. We had a big meeting a few days ago. They said, when are you going to stop making new organizations? I said, when we run out of letters.

(41:12 - 44:28)
Then they, somebody did the math. How many? 5,000? 6,500 combinations of three letters. So, we still have a few more we can do. 

But each group has its own personality. I don't think a one Diamond Way course is going to fit everybody. I like to say, my wife Veronica, beautiful angel of my life, we saw a cowboy store in Cottonwood and she said, I'm going to pick up some jeans. 

I'm like, okay. We went in there and of course there's no chair for the man. You have to stand. 

She tried on 42 pairs of jeans. I stood there, I counted them. Don't tell her, I'll kill you. 

She tried 42. How many did she buy? Zero. I always remember that. 

Teachers are like jeans. Teachers are like jeans. Every person has the teacher that will fit them. 

I'm not, I'm a tight pair of jeans. Not everyone can put on me. Everyone needs the teacher who will fit them. 

You see what I mean? You try to get into tight jeans, you're going to be uncomfortable for a long time. You get in jeans that are too big, they're going to fall down. Then you have another problem. 

You understand? Everyone has their own teacher that they're attracted to. I would like to, I'm happy to share Diamond Way. I'm not selling Diamond Way. 

The classes are free. I'm not selling Diamond Way. I'm not asking you please come to my Diamond Way course. 

If you want, if you're serious, I'm happy to teach. If you're not serious, I'll still teach you. But you know, I'm busy. 

I got lots of things to do. I don't have to teach, but I'm very happy to teach. I've been struggling in my heart. 

How do I teach 10 different groups, 10 different Diamond Ways? That's extremely difficult. The CSP people and the YSI people and the ACI people, they're all different. They're completely different groups, different personalities, different interests. 

So what I came up with, here's my proposal. I have those 18 courses from the old days. I never finished them.

(44:30 - 44:51)
The readings were never finished. Even the readings I finished, I didn't clean up. Then I went to the next course. 

I didn't have time to finish. I would like to finish those courses in a beautiful way. They come from many Diamond Way classics.

(44:52 - 45:31)
Due to John Brady's kindness, we have many Diamond Way books. We have thousands of Diamond Way books. They are unbelievable. 

They are very, very beautiful. What I would like to do is, and I started this morning, so I decided the Angel-Devil book that I taught you earlier today, I finished that two days ago, yesterday. I finished the introduction yesterday.

(45:32 - 47:50)
Then now I have a space in my life. I've been doing that for 14 years. Now I have space. 

I have two, three hours space every morning. So I would like to re-clean up all those courses, translate those books. I have other Diamond Way books that I finished in the last 10 years, 15 years. 

Many. I would like to consolidate all of them. Then I would like to design Diamond Way courses for each group, different groups. 

If YSI is interested, the new director, I would be happy to design a special Diamond Way course just for YSI people. Then I would like to design a course for Five Houses people, separate Diamond Way course. Then a Diamond Way course for DSEU or CSP. 

I would like to create an institute at that property, at that building, where I can do that work. It's kind of like Dharma Einstein place, where I can create Diamond Way courses for each different group, who's interested. Because I don't think one pair of pants is going to fit everybody. 

I don't think I can teach everybody the exact same Diamond Way course. I think the YSI Diamond Way course should be heavily Mahamudra and the Mahasiddhas. It should be taken from those sources. 

Although there should be core books that are the foundation of all the Diamond Way courses. But then each Diamond Way course, and I propose, you ready? Hold on to your chair. I propose a Diamond Way course for DCI.

(47:58 - 50:36)
Okay, which is non-religious. You see what I mean? DCI, a principle of DCI is we don't teach religion. We teach DCI. 

I taught DCI in Uzbekistan to Muslims. I taught DCI in Israel to Jewish people. I taught DCI in America to Christian people. 

I taught Communist Party members DCI. I think DCI needs a different Diamond Way. DCI needs its own Diamond Way. 

It should be appropriate for people who are not religious and people who don't want to be religious. I think there should be a... Diamond Way doesn't have to be religious. Diamond Way is a way of life. 

Diamond Way is a way of seeing things. I think it would be cool to have an institute where Grandpa can relax with his three kidneys. So later on you're going to be jealous of me. 

They don't take out your kidney. They give you an extra one because your old kidney still does three percent, four percent. They say, leave it. 

Let's just put another one in. So I'll sit there with my three kidneys. Probably make me more smart. 

I would like to tailor Diamond Way courses for different groups. But with the core teaching and translate the books, and I would like to invite other teachers to help. We do that. 

We do the Diamond Way that way. I'm very happy if you choose to study Diamond Way with anybody else. I don't... It's fine with me. 

I'm too old to be jealous. Okay. Luckily, like two years ago probably I'd be jealous. 

But I, you know, you go to any teacher in the world that you want to. It's fine. I don't mind. 

I don't care. And you want to study any, you know, I don't know, ESP from Mars applied to, you know, good diet or something. I don't mind.

(50:37 - 51:15)
Okay. Whatever you want to do is fine with me. Okay. 

My course will be pure ancient classics. Okay. It will not have any weird added stuff. 

Okay. That's what I teach. I don't... teach weird stuff. 

Okay. I just teach the classics. Okay. 

That's why it was called Asian Classics. Okay. So, but anything else you want to do, I'm too old to worry about it. 

Okay. But that course will be very pure and it will be tailored to the needs of different groups. Okay.

(51:15 - 51:22)
And it will include spiritual groups and non-spiritual groups. Okay. Cool.

(51:34 - 53:33)
That's all. So I started this morning. I said I'm not going to wait for the students. 

I'm just going to translate many of the classics. And I would like to clean up those 18 courses. I'd like to finish the 18 courses. 

They still need a lot of work. They need a lot of cleaning. It occurred to me that I've been teaching for 50 years. 

I wrote those courses when I had been teaching for 25 years. So in theory, I'm twice as wise. Okay. 

I didn't say it's correct. I just said in theory, you know, I have learned much more about that tradition than when I taught it the first time. So, you know, and I'm excited to work on that. 

And I can do it. Okay. Mazal? Good. 

All right. And you know, the exact timing is up to my kidney doctor. And we don't know. 

And I'll tell you as soon as I know anything. You know. Okay. 

We're kind of doing it a little earlier than I have to do it because I'll be stronger. Okay. I'd like to take any questions about this idea or any suggestions. 

Okay. Or if you want to just take a nap. Yes, Mr. Kramer. 

Wait, we need a microphone. Microphone sign on me. Okay. 

All right. Here we go. Congratulations on being here.

(53:33 - 53:38)
Congratulations on your book. Thank you. Thank you so much.

(53:40 - 53:55)
Thank you. Yeah. Ezra. 

Very grateful to be here. Spelunker. It's an incredible honor to be here. 

And dramatist. Yeah. I just thought I would put out there DCC [?].

(53:57 - 54:47)
Just to translate something. Any one of us would do it. We all have books. 

We're all busy. But I know that I speak for everyone in the group that would be so happy if we can learn alongside with any of the work that you're doing to take one of those slots, to take any amount of slots, to devote to learning to translate that vernacular, that language, would be an incredible honor for our organization, whichever of us you would be interested, you know, or adding a 73rd mix nut [?] at any time. I would just love to make that request, if it's appropriate. 

We'd love that. I wasn't thinking to do that, because I'm already overbooked. But the request is so beautiful that I cannot deny it.

(54:52 - 55:13)
But I propose we do it as a group, and not one by one, because I can't do that. I propose we take one book as a group and do it. Okay? Mazal? Mazal? In this business, you have to hear it.

(55:13 - 55:26)
All right. Okay, mazal. It means, yeah, I can't see doing 12 different Diamond Way books to translate.

(55:26 - 55:58)
We don't have time, but I'm happy to devote one class every 12 classes, something like that. Okay, mazal? Okay, all right. We'll figure it out. 

Anything else, kids? No? I go home early? Wang Xia, why? Thank you, Geshe La. I don't have any questions. I just want to share my thoughts.

(55:58 - 56:13)
Because just now you said you will have Diamond Way for ACI, for CSP, for DSEU, for everybody, but not for DCI. So I'm thinking, where is DCI? And then you finally said Diamond Way for DCI, and I'm so happy. I said Diamond Way for DCI.

(56:13 - 56:37)
Yeah, yeah, that's why I said, when I heard you said Diamond Way for DCI, I'm so happy. So thank you very much. Thank you. 

Let me clarify. Let me clarify my idea, and I'm glad you asked, okay? I'm glad you said that, and thank you for saying that. And by the way, Wang Xia is going to help us run DCI.

(56:40 - 57:22)
So I think I did 12 DCI courses, foundation courses, like how to get rich, how to find a girlfriend, how to stay healthy, like that. I finished 12 courses. Then I promised them advanced courses, and I did. 

I said, I'll give you 12 advanced courses. I finished five of them, and they are getting so advanced that I get many students like this. And I'm a little scared to keep going like that.

(57:24 - 58:10)
By the way, they are very correct. They are very deep, but DCI is meant for non-religious people. DCI is meant for, you don't have to be a Buddhist. 

You don't have to be spiritual. You don't have to be religious. We don't teach that. 

We just teach the ideas for any person in the world. And to be honest, Wang Xia, so now I'm on course number 18. I did for 18 years, and those manuals are hard. 

Those manuals take me six weeks of all day work. They are three, four, five hundred pages. They're a lot of pressure, and they're a lot of hard work.

(58:11 - 58:48)
I think now that we have five advanced DCI levels, I think the DCI Diamond Way would fit very nicely into the next seven slots, the next seven DCI courses. You see what I mean? And they will not be religious. The government of China just approved my book, the Diamond Cutter Business Book.

(58:48 - 1:00:16)
It's been published now. I got my first royalties. No, but we have a good relationship with the government, and we're very careful, and we obey the law. 

We follow the law very carefully. So I will teach Diamond Way in a non-religious way that every business person and every family person can use. Okay? Like that. 

Cool? By the way, the very first Diamond Way teachings were designed for business people, and people don't understand that. They were designed for, you know, the first kings of Kalachakra were politicians and business owners. The Diamond Way was originally designed for busy people, and business owners and politicians. 

So they were the first— Diamond Way was invented for them. Okay? Cool? So I think the DCI course is going to be the coolest. Geshe La, I have a question too.

(1:00:17 - 1:00:32)
Okay, hi sleepy. This sounds like an approach, like a very five houses approach to teaching Diamond Way. And I'm wondering if you can say a little bit more about the original 18 courses you designed.

(1:00:33 - 1:00:56)
Who are they for? And how should we think about it if people are interested in those courses or these courses? Should they do one? Should they do both? Kind of things like that. How should we think about the original ones? Yeah, good question. The 18 original Diamond Way courses, a couple things.

(1:00:56 - 1:01:02)
Number one, they need to be cleaned up. I need to finish them. Like there are some of them that were never finished.

(1:01:03 - 1:01:15)
Because there was just too much pressure, too much time. It's thousands of pages of translation. And so I would—I commit to finish them.

(1:01:16 - 1:01:34)
I commit to cleaning them up. And so that will be, you know, the five houses Diamond Way course will be, you know, I can clean up those 18 nicely. If—I would like to retranslate a lot of the sections.

(1:01:34 - 1:01:51)
You know, I have—I'm twice as old Dharma-wise as I was then. And I learned—by the time you finish 18 courses, you understand the first one. Okay, so this is—that's the nature of things.

(1:01:51 - 1:02:01)
When I redo things, I learn a lot. And I do them much better the second time. So I commit to finish those.

(1:02:01 - 1:02:34)
But my concept, my general strategy, given my age and my health, is that I would—I used about 10 major Diamond Way texts for those 18 courses. I used—those courses come from 10 major Diamond Way classics. I would like to clean them up and publish them as the 10 classics.

(1:02:34 - 1:03:05)
You see what I mean? I would like to give you the book of Naropa's Six Practices as a separate book. And I would like to give you, you know, Vajrayogini practice according to four or five different authors. You like that? I would like to—what I'd like—my strategy that I would like to do is finish the original books and then modify them for courses.

(1:03:06 - 1:03:18)
You see what I mean? Because I never finished all of the books, but it's easy for me to do now. I have a lot more ability to do it now. I can do it very, very fast.

(1:03:18 - 1:03:41)
So I started one of them this morning. And then I would like to add maybe five or six new books to that set. So I think the Five Houses version of the Diamond Way courses will be the most technical or the most detailed.

(1:03:42 - 1:03:55)
Okay? The DCI version will be the most usable. Okay? And I would like to have both. I would like to have something everyone can use.

(1:03:56 - 1:04:19)
And I would like to have something that has a strong tradition behind it, that has the originals. You see what I mean? I would like both. So I think—I see Five Houses as the holder of the original courses and the information, the correct information for a Buddhist.

(1:04:20 - 1:04:37)
Right? That's ACI, Five Houses are Buddhist, mostly Buddhist. There's a non-Buddhist track, right? That's up to you. But I think there's a place, there's a unique place for Five Houses practice of Diamond Way.

(1:04:37 - 1:04:53)
And there's a unique place for even the Secular Five Houses Diamond Way. But it's a lot of work. And you need—Five Houses needs five heads and five assistant heads.

(1:04:53 - 1:05:03)
Five Houses needs ten good people to manage it. And that has to come. That has to be.

(1:05:03 - 1:05:24)
Or else it won't be possible. It won't be possible to have those Five Houses Diamond Way courses if you don't have a strong group of people. So around the original courses, for those who are teaching them, how should we think about that? I need to clean them up.

(1:05:24 - 1:05:46)
And I need to make them more accurate. I'll tell you one more thing about the original courses. I remember distinctly, I was driving in a car from— what's that little town near Maitreya retreat place? St. David.

(1:05:47 - 1:05:53)
Tombstone. I was driving from St. David to Tombstone. I was a passenger in the car.

(1:05:53 - 1:05:58)
The driver was a friend of ours. She got a ticket that night. It was midnight.

(1:06:00 - 1:06:13)
I was doing the homeworks on my laptop. We were driving to this— Bisbee, is it? Near Tombstone? Yeah. And we got stopped.

(1:06:13 - 1:06:19)
We got pulled over. These are the conditions under which I wrote the homeworks. All the time.

(1:06:19 - 1:06:24)
I was always like that. I was totally exhausted. It was midnight.

(1:06:24 - 1:06:33)
The class is the next day. And I'll tell you something that happened. Under those circumstances, the homeworks got too long.

(1:06:35 - 1:06:47)
No, they're way too long. And it doesn't help anybody. It's not like people spend more time they spend the same time and they just copy the answer.

(1:06:47 - 1:07:06)
Somebody finished the whole Diamond Way course in one weekend. They copied the answers for three days straight. And— No, I'm just saying they're too— To be honest, as a course, they're too complicated to put into practice easily.

(1:07:07 - 1:07:15)
And they need to be cut down. They need to be— They need to be cleaned up. And they need to be organized.

(1:07:16 - 1:07:24)
Okay? I mean, it was a great thing. It never existed in the world. But it needs to be tightened up.

(1:07:25 - 1:07:38)
And the information has to be reduced to something you can practice in 20 lifetimes. Like that, in my opinion. That's my opinion.

(1:07:38 - 1:07:44)
And that's going to take some work. But I feel up for it right now. I feel like it's time in my life.

(1:07:44 - 1:08:00)
So. Cool. Dear Geshe La, please stay and teach us for a long, long time.

(1:08:00 - 1:08:17)
I would like to know how we, as your students, can support you in your process. Perhaps you could comment. We know that scientists tell us that group work, group meditations, and group prayers are very powerful.

(1:08:17 - 1:08:35)
And could we perhaps do like every Friday or every Sunday where we unite and pray for your health and meditate together to create a supportive field for your process? Could you just comment on that and maybe suggest for us to do something for you? Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

(1:08:42 - 1:08:52)
We're always fundraising. All our groups are fundraising all the time. But sometimes I think our group is for fundraising and not for anything else.

(1:08:54 - 1:09:08)
But me personally, I think because I practice DCI, my finances are very, very good. And I have more than enough. I don't need anything.

(1:09:09 - 1:09:18)
I'm happy to take more money and spread it around. But I personally don't need anything. For finance.

(1:09:20 - 1:09:39)
And my time, I complain a lot and then I felt guilty that I complained too much. Then people are afraid to, they're afraid to say hi to me. They're like, Do you have time, Geshe La? Can I say hi? You know, and I'm like, Oh, I'm sorry.

(1:09:40 - 1:09:57)
So I want to say in public, you know, I complain every, almost every day about how people wasting my time. But I don't mean it. I just mean, I love you and you're welcome to talk to me.

(1:09:59 - 1:10:05)
I don't hate everybody. Okay. And I will still complain.

(1:10:06 - 1:10:14)
Okay. But, and by the way, one thing I really need is my wife. I need my marriage.

(1:10:14 - 1:10:27)
Okay, I can't, I can't do, I can't do five houses 24 hours a day. You know, I need a private life. You know, I need, that's my diamond way of practice.

(1:10:27 - 1:10:43)
I need time with my wife. So I think, and I need people to respect her time. Because what happens is, if people can't get my attention, they go to her.

(1:10:45 - 1:10:55)
And then she, she's not, that's not her job. And it's not her, it's not what she does. It's not, she has other things to do.

(1:10:55 - 1:11:10)
So people, it's very common that someone will, will call her for three hours or something like that. And it's, I think, please be careful with that. She's, she's, she didn't sign up for that.

(1:11:10 - 1:11:35)
She, she signed up to be Vajrayogini, okay? So, you know, respect my time, but don't get crazy, okay? Like don't, don't refuse to say hi if I see you. Because you're afraid I'll, and if you have an emergency, I'm happy to help, you know. So I, I do complain a lot about it.

(1:11:35 - 1:11:44)
But in general, you know, I'm here to spend time for you. That's my job. So, and I know that.

(1:11:45 - 1:11:58)
So, but we have to be efficient with how I help you, you know. We, we have to think about that. As far as prayers and things like that, but I need a little bit of logistical help.

(1:11:59 - 1:12:22)
You know, I need people who I can say drive me to Phoenix to get my stitches on or something, you know. That kind of thing I need pretty constantly. But I would say in this tradition, the best way to keep your teacher healthy is to have harmony in the group.

(1:12:23 - 1:12:34)
You know, that's the famous karma to keep your teacher alive. You know, it's not donating to the Kidney Foundation or something like that. It's harmony.

(1:12:35 - 1:12:46)
It's, it's loving each other. When the whole group, everyone is really, really having fun together. I say harmony and fun is synonym.

(1:12:48 - 1:12:57)
You know, if you're really having fun together, that's, that's what will keep me alive. Okay. That's what will help.

(1:12:58 - 1:13:23)
So, like, hey. And if you don't have fun and you fight with each other and you give me a lot of extra hassle, I'll still take care of you and I'll still teach you. But it's a lot easier if everyone's having fun.

(1:13:24 - 1:13:28)
Okay. And not too serious. You're all too serious.

(1:13:29 - 1:13:40)
Okay. Like, I mean, if you really practice well, even going to surgery is fun. And I'm, I'm serious.

(1:13:42 - 1:13:46)
I mean, I'm fun serious. Okay. So, no, I am.

(1:13:47 - 1:14:03)
And the surgeons all think I'm crazy. One surgeon said to me, they, they, they, we were laughing, right? You were there. And the, and the lady said, you, you're just laughing at all this.

(1:14:04 - 1:14:14)
You're having fun here. I said, yeah. She said, can I ask you a question? I said, what? She said, do you meditate? Anyway.

(1:14:16 - 1:14:21)
Okay. Are we, can we take a break? Yeah. I'll see you at, so that's my idea.

(1:14:21 - 1:14:33)
If you have more questions, I'll answer in the coming days. Okay. Tomorrow we have, what two things? Oh, we have a translation class first.

(1:14:34 - 1:14:47)
With Ben Kramer. By the way, I know those are boring I know you don't understand anything. Ezra's like, that's my dad.

(1:14:49 - 1:15:03)
Now, those translation classes are extremely powerful for your subconscious. And stuff will happen to you 20 years from now. And you'll say, I'm so glad I went to Ben's class.

(1:15:04 - 1:15:14)
So, trust grandpa, okay? Grandpa knows some things that you don't know. Come to those classes and listen to them. Especially fall asleep in them.

(1:15:15 - 1:15:31)
The information goes into your brain, subconsciously. Okay, that's, okay, that's the class. And then, after that we'll have, you want to introduce Jasmine? We'll have bodhisattva, bodhisattva vow ceremony.

(1:15:32 - 1:15:38)
Okay, you don't have to do anything. Just show up. If you already took bodhisattva vows, you're welcome to take them again.

(1:15:38 - 1:15:51)
When you take monk's vows, nun's vows, you cannot take them twice. You have to take them once until you die. But bodhisattva vows you can take over and over again.

(1:15:51 - 1:16:01)
And it's nice. It's a fresh hit of, what do you call it? Vitamins. Okay, it never hurts to take them again.

(1:16:03 - 1:16:15)
And so you're very welcome to take them as many times as you can. If you're not sure whether to take them, just take them. You want to hear a cute story? Yes.

(1:16:17 - 1:16:32)
My teacher was going to give us empowerment in Fairfax, Virginia. Some professor from George Washington University. And we were cooking dinner in the kitchen.

(1:16:32 - 1:16:51)
I think 20 students were taking the initiation. And this lady who owned the house was a wealthy, spoiled professor from a university. And then suddenly in the middle of, we're all cooking, we're all cutting vegetables and stuff.

(1:16:51 - 1:17:09)
And she asked my teacher, Rinpoche, can I ask you a question? And he said, what? And she said, we're going to take an empowerment, right? Today. He said, that's why I'm here. And she said, do we take vows at that time? Yes, you get permission to take your vows.

(1:17:09 - 1:17:20)
You learn the, permission to learn the vows. Then she said, I heard that if you don't keep those vows, you go straight to hell. And it seems a little dangerous to me.

(1:17:21 - 1:17:34)
And then he said, no problem. And she said, why? And he said, you're going to hell anyway. You know, and she's like, what? And he said, you're going to hell anyway.

(1:17:34 - 1:17:48)
But when you get there, you know, the hell people talk to each other. Said, why are you here? I killed my mother. Why are you here? I stole money from my grandpa.

(1:17:48 - 1:18:01)
Why are you here? I broke my Diamond Way vows. I'm not like you guys. Understand? Anyway, take them again.

(1:18:01 - 1:18:07)
Okay. There's a chance you won't go there. Okay.

(1:18:09 - 1:18:12)
Okay, done. I'll see you tomorrow. Thank you.

(1:18:14 - 1:19:56)
Let's invite everyone to stand up. And let's show our appreciation for Geshe Michael as they depart. Wow, I guess I'm still in the aftershock.

(1:19:57 - 1:20:17)
Maybe as many of you as well. Well, I guess all I can say is it's my absolute honor and pleasure to be in a part of a group in which we all share these historical, wonderful moments together. And I guess in the future, we can all tell our children perhaps, or descendants in any ways, or our friends and family that we were there when this happened.

(1:20:17 - 1:20:31)
So thank you so much. And the next class, it will be our meditation studies initiative led by Tim Hogarth and also Sylvia starting in 20 minutes. So please make sure to come back on time.

(1:20:31 - 1:20:38)
And we will see you very soon. And we have prepared the tea breaks in the back of the room. There are also some wonderful short texts for you to take a look.

(1:20:39 - 1:20:59)
So thank you and see you in 20 minutes. Thank you so much, dear teacher Geshe Michael Roach for meaningful and profound teaching today. Hi, everyone.

(1:20:59 - 1:21:12)
It's me again. And I'm really thankful for your beautiful seed of gathering and studying today. I hope your wisdom will grow every day and soon to touch the Diamond Way in this life.

(1:21:13 - 1:21:28)
And don't forget to send your special seeds to every sentient beings. And next, we will have another class, excellence in meditation technology. Please have a relaxing short break and be back with us in 20 minutes.

(1:21:29 - 1:21:35)
From all of us five houses, we look forward to seeing you again. Thank you and bye-bye.