BDW 5 «Мост 5: Пустота в повседневности», занятие 4

(0:28 - 0:37)
Welcome back everyone. Welcome to class four with our dear teacher, Geshe Michael Roach. We are very happy to have you here with us as ACI [?].

(0:38 - 1:06)
So let's take a quiet moment to settle in, relax your body, soften your breath, and allow your mind to fully arrive in this space of learning. Even we are staying online, but I truly believe that we are connected to each other. So before we start, I highly recommend you to set a pure motivation to study not just only for ourselves, but it also can bring more wisdom, kindness, and benefit to others.

(1:07 - 1:22)
So with that intention, let's open our hearts and minds to receive the teachings. Thank you for being here and sharing this way of learning together. Now let's welcome our dear teacher, and we will begin shortly the class four.

(1:23 - 1:57)
Have a good day. And we have to go to song, right? All right. Next picture.

(1:59 - 2:17)
Oh, we're going to do Song of My Spiritual Life, okay? The ACI people know this picture. I really like this picture. For zero dollars! What's the life tool called in ACI? Okay.

(2:18 - 2:34)
Yeah, your mouth is my mouth. Yeah, your mouth is my mouth. And think, okay, just think like this, okay? I like to eat donuts, and I never get them because my wife won't let me eat them.

(2:35 - 2:44)
Now, I don't think we ever had one in our house. Did you ever see one in my house? No. So, paradise is not quite perfect.

(2:45 - 3:24)
And, but, the thing is, when you eat something you enjoy, you can go to Peachtree Cafe and have a cinnamon roll, and they're fun to eat, they taste good. And if you understand seeds, and if you like cinnamon rolls, then you must give them to other people, okay? No choice. And, if you understand where things are coming from, and you want things, you like things, you must give them to other people.

(3:24 - 3:48)
It includes money, it includes kindness, it includes everything, okay? Anything you want in your life, first you must give it to someone else, because otherwise you don't plant the seed. And that donut is coming from seeds. That donut is pictures coming out of, wait, yeah.

(3:49 - 4:11)
We can do a mantra retreat. But, so, that has some implications. If it's true, that the donut, the cinnamon roll that I got at Peachtree Cafe, if it's true, it's coming from giving them to other people.

(4:11 - 4:32)
If it's true, then several other things have to be true, okay? And one of them is that whatever you like, you don't have choice. You must give it to other people. You don't have a choice.

(4:32 - 4:48)
If you have one donut only, and if you like them, what should you do? You must give it away. And human beings don't understand that. Human beings, very, very, very few human beings understand that.

(4:48 - 5:26)
If you like donuts, and if you like cinnamon roll, and there's only one left at the Peachtree Cafe, and you came in first, and you can buy it and you can eat it, if you like it, you must give it to the other person, okay? It's logical. It's the only way to get what you want, okay? Understand? And it's very hard to do. It's very, very, in the moment, you know, you're like, hmm, nah, there's one more left, you know? It always happens to me.

(5:27 - 5:30)
I have this karma. I go over there. They got one left.

(5:31 - 5:43)
I'm looking at it. And just before I say something, some lady walks in and says, I want a cinnamon roll. And I'm like, I was here first.

(5:44 - 5:51)
And she's like, oh. Then I say, okay, you take it. And it's, you have to understand one thing.

(5:51 - 6:00)
It's self-interest. It's in your interest to give what you like to other people. It's how you get it.

(6:01 - 6:11)
That's how you get it, okay? Understand? It's very difficult for people. I don't know why. By the way, they say there are planets where everybody understood this a long time ago.

(6:12 - 6:22)
There are many countless worlds in the universe. You can visit them someday. And there are places that already understood that.

(6:23 - 6:35)
And people just buy things and give them to other people. That's what they do, because they like them. Okay? So it's very, we're called, in English we say, we are the stupid kids in the back of the class.

(6:35 - 6:58)
We are the kids who are, Joe never did this, but, we're like doing bad things in the back of the class. And the science teacher, I remember specifically the science teacher's teaching, and we're doing very bad things in the back. Our planet is the back of the class, okay? Everybody's in the back of the class.

(6:58 - 7:22)
We are the stupid people in the universe who didn't understand that. That's one thing, okay? The deeper thing, and the more interesting thing, I think, the more exciting thing, is that this means that your mouth is my mouth. And that's, people always say, Geshe La, I want to do secret tantric practice.

(7:22 - 7:35)
Okay, you got one here. Your mouth is my mouth. My mouth is your mouth, okay? If you, not visually, I didn't say that, okay? Your mouth is over there.

(7:36 - 7:46)
My mouth is over here. I, duh, I understand. The mouths are on different heads, and I hope you don't have my dentist.

(7:50 - 8:05)
I had a dentist recently tore a tooth out, took a tooth out. He was halfway finished, and he said, Mike, and I'm like, uh-uh. He says, this is killing my back.

(8:05 - 8:18)
I got to take a break. Hey, I'll see you later. Okay, I hope you don't have my dentist.

(8:19 - 8:33)
Then I got outside, and someone drove me because I'm on drugs. I mean, after the dental. It was Stanley and Xiaoping, and they're like, can we have the tooth? And I'm like, uh-uh.

(8:36 - 8:59)
Anyway, my mouth doesn't look like your mouth, but functionally, your mouth is my mouth, okay? If I want a donut to go into here, I got to make sure it goes into there. Visually, spatially, your mouth is not my mouth. Your mouth is in a different latitude and longitude.

(9:00 - 9:23)
But in reality, your mouth is exactly my mouth, because I can only get a donut if I put one in your mouth, okay? Therefore, your mouth is my mouth. And you know all these new age people, you can tell them because they meditate like this. You can't do that for an hour.

(9:23 - 9:41)
You got to put it down here. They all say, everything's one, you know? You are me, you know? And you're like, can I borrow five dollars? I'm like, no. But we really are, we are the same person.

(9:42 - 10:13)
We are the same person. And logically, the goal of this lineage is that your logic overcomes your habits. Your understanding, your study overcomes your the habits you were born with, okay? You, by hard work, study and meditation, retreat at Diamond Mountain, the best deal in the world, you find out that other people's mouth is your mouth.

(10:14 - 10:31)
And then you act on it. And what I wanted to say about this picture, and I'm old, I'm 73, I've been doing this for 50 years. And I've got to say one thing.

(10:32 - 10:55)
If you practice that, or you try to practice that, your life is so unbelievably happy, okay? And you're just, all the time, it's a party from morning to night. Your whole life is like a party. And in fact, it's better than most parties I went to.

(10:57 - 11:25)
You know, it's extremely enjoyable, okay? To practice this, to put stuff in other people's hands, is extremely fun. And I don't know why we don't do it. We hesitate, right? And, oh, and by the way, you take care of your own needs first, so you don't create problem for other people.

(11:25 - 11:44)
It's not nice to give away all your money and then go borrow money from Anatole or something. That's not nice. Your responsibility is to get enough money to feed your family, feed yourself, have a nice place, not fancy.

(11:44 - 12:04)
The car should run, and that's enough. And then take care of other people, okay? I don't mean you have to not take care of yourself. That's a bad idea, okay? Then you'll just bother other people, all right? Take care of yourself quietly, effectively, and nicely.

(12:05 - 12:19)
I have money, I use it. I live in the smallest legal house in my town. The lot is one-sixth of an acre, okay? It's the smallest legal lot in the capital of the universe, Rimrock.

(12:21 - 12:45)
But I'm happy and everything's okay, okay? So, take care of what you need and then put donuts in other people's mouth, okay? And you will always have what you want. And I'm telling you as an old man, you can have a wonderful, happy life. And giving to other people is so much fun.

(12:45 - 13:13)
There's nothing so much fun as that. There's nothing like that, okay? It's just, forget the philosophy, okay? If you want to have fun, give stuff to other people. After you take care of yourself, after you take care, feed yourself, make sure you have a house to stay, and then become a professional giver, okay? All right.

(13:16 - 13:25)
It's fun, it's more fun. And I like fun. I'm a Buddhist, but I like fun, okay? I enjoy having fun.

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My whole day I do what I enjoy. And it's fun, okay? All right. Okay.

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Next picture. I told you this story, but it comes up in the text. And if you didn't hear this story, you're lucky.

(13:44 - 14:13)
If you did hear this story, you can take a short nap, okay? So, in my company, we started it, two of us actually, in the very beginning there were two of us, and we rented half a table from another guy. And we stayed in his office, and we rented half the table. And that's all the money we had.

(14:13 - 14:23)
It was near the Empire State Building. And he would not give us the key to the toilet. We had to go across the street to McDonald's.

(14:24 - 14:33)
And he's so cheap, I won't tell you his name. But that's how we started. We were so small.

(14:34 - 14:45)
And we had three diamonds. Later we did 300,000 diamonds a day, every day. But at that time we had three diamonds.

(14:45 - 14:57)
So, we have half a desk and three diamonds. And we just move them around on the desk all day. And we called department stores, and it's funny.

(14:57 - 15:09)
And then later we got crazy successful, just crazy. And there were trucks full of diamonds. We built a special garage under the building.

(15:10 - 15:21)
And the armored cars could come under the building. We locked the door, and then they take the diamonds out. And they're big bags of diamonds, and all over the table.

(15:23 - 15:30)
And sometimes you drop them. They stick on your shoes. And you can find some in the elevator.

(15:30 - 15:37)
It's very exciting. When you go home, everybody's like. You know, so many diamonds and stuff.

(15:37 - 15:42)
Very, very successful. Biggest in the world. We became the biggest in the world.

(15:44 - 15:55)
So, we weren't used to that kind of money. So, I gave almost all my money away. And then my partner, he went crazy.

(15:56 - 16:11)
He bought like many houses. And there's a place called Tavern on the Green, you know this place? It's a restaurant in the middle of Central Park. There's only one business allowed to sell food in the park in a restaurant.

(16:12 - 16:23)
And it's a very, very expensive place. So, he went there, and he said, I want a table. And they said, okay, three weeks from now.

(16:23 - 16:30)
And then he said, no, no, no. I want a table every night. I want to reserve a table for every night.

(16:31 - 16:37)
And they said, well, do you know what it's going to cost? And he said, I don't care. It doesn't matter. I can pay anything.

(16:38 - 16:49)
And then they said, are you going to come? He said, if I feel like it, I will come. If I don't feel like it, I won't come. Then they said, what do you want us to do with the table? If you don't come.

(16:49 - 17:04)
He said, I expect it to be available. So, there's always one empty table at Tavern on the Green. For all those years, there's one empty, nice empty table, just sitting there, in case he wants to go and eat a hamburger or something.

(17:05 - 17:16)
So, we're sitting there, and then I noticed something. Every time I go out to dinner with him, he's really cheap. He will not share his money.

(17:16 - 17:29)
He's always like, I say, you want to go have dinner? He says, who's paying? Then I'm like, you could buy the restaurant in two hours. He said, yeah, but I want to know who's paying. And I'm like, look, okay, I'll pay.

(17:30 - 17:38)
Let's go, you know, I'll pay, don't worry. And he said, okay, let's go. And then when I pay, he orders this wine, this $500 wine.

(17:39 - 17:48)
I'm like, oh man. So anyway, many times I tried to get him to share his money. He would not do it.

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Many, many times I tried. He wouldn't share. Never give a good tip.

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But what do you call it in Russki? Tip? Trivet? Okay, tip, chai, na chai. Okay, yeah, na chai. So I give na chai.

(18:10 - 18:28)
I always get, in Russian it means a little bit of tea money. Right? And so anyway, I always, I like to give, we just always give $100, right? No matter what we buy, we give $100 tip. We're the most popular people at Peachtree.

(18:31 - 18:44)
When we come in, they're like. So then I, I'm trying to change his habit. I'm trying to get him to break out of his habit, you know? And then I had an idea.

(18:44 - 18:53)
And we finished a good dinner, and I took out $100. He said, you're not going to do the $100 thing. I said, yeah, I'm going to do the $100 thing.

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He says, I don't know, you're crazy, man. Then he, I said, but Ophir, his name is Ophir. I said, one problem.

(19:03 - 19:10)
He says, what? I said, I got to go pee-pee. Then he's like, okay. And I said, here, you take the $100.

(19:11 - 19:24)
And when the guy comes, you give it to him, the tip, you know? He says, okay, you go, you go. So I run to the bathroom. You can see in the picture, okay? And it was zipped up, don't worry.

(19:28 - 20:06)
And I was spying on him from the bathroom. And I see the waiter come to give the tip, you know? And I see him, and my partner, he goes, you know, and the waiter's like, I can't hear anything, I just can see, you know? And the waiter's like, and he's like, and he's like, you know? And then my friend is like, you know? Then I came out, you know, I sat down. I said, did you give him the money? He said, yeah.

(20:07 - 20:25)
I said, how did it feel? He said, man, that feels good. And then slowly, he got very generous, you know? You want to hear one more story? Okay. This is totally not on the subject.

(20:26 - 20:42)
I think I told you recently, but anyway. Two things about Geshe course. When you finish Prajnaparamita, 12 years, then you have to leave the monastery, and you have to do a retreat.

(20:42 - 20:52)
And maybe three months or something. And because you're about to study middle way. You're about to study emptiness, higher middle way.

(20:53 - 21:07)
And so every person who gets that far in the Geshe course, they have to leave the monastery. They have to go stay in a cave or something. And you have to build up good karma so that you can understand the middle way course.

(21:07 - 21:13)
And it's tradition. You have to leave, and you have to do that. And then there's little milestones like that.

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When you reach Abhidharma, your class has to give a gift to the monastery. We gave a library. We built a library for the monastery.

(21:26 - 21:43)
And then when you do your Geshe, you have to make some gift to the monastery. So people give a painting, or people throw a lunch for all the monks. And I decided, I spent many years in the debate ground.

(21:44 - 21:53)
There's no roof. If it rains, you're out there in the rain. If it's 100 degrees, you're out there in the sun.

(21:53 - 22:04)
If you're bald, your head's red all the time. Because sometimes you do four or five, six hours out there. And the debate master will come and make sure you're there.

(22:04 - 22:13)
And then he goes home and has some tea. And sometimes he takes a nap and he forgets to come back. And you cannot leave the debate ground until he comes back.

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So I suffered there. And a lot of my classmates had tuberculosis. And they're spitting in your face and coughing in your face.

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And then it rains. And then the next day, half of them are in bed, sick. And I thought, man, I would like to give a nice debate ground to the monastery with a roof, you know? So they're not standing out in the sun.

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But I didn't have enough money. And so every six months, I would give my salary to the monastery. And the company would take it and keep it.

(22:52 - 23:00)
They didn't pay me. And then I would take enough to buy shoes and stuff like that. And I never bought a car.

(23:00 - 23:21)
I went four hours on the bus every day for 19 years. Because I didn't want to buy a car. And so, you know, then every six months, I will give an invoice to the company, like $100,000, and then they will pay the charity.

(23:22 - 23:42)
They will pay our charity. And then, so I said, I met the other guy and I said, would you like to donate a little bit extra? And he's like, how much do I owe you? And I said, you owe me $100,000. He's like, I'll give you $500,000.

(23:43 - 23:53)
I'm like, oh, thanks. How much is your table at Central Park every night? And he's like, oh, that's around $2,000. I'm like, okay.

(23:54 - 24:19)
And then, so when I did my Geshe, I had him and his wife over there, and I took them out to dinner. And I said, well, now this is a special night. And they're like, why? And I said, you know, you have to, I need to collect my money for the last six months, and I'm going to give it to the monastery for my Geshe degree gift to the monastery.

(24:20 - 24:31)
Then he's like, what are you going to do? And I said, I'm going to buy, I'm going to build a new kind of debate ground. Nobody ever had a debate ground like that. Like, it's going to have a roof, you know? And he's like, okay.

(24:31 - 24:54)
And then I said, do you want to, do you guys want to donate something? And he's like, how much? And I said, 50-50, you know? And he's like, $100,000? I'm like, you know. And then he's doing this thing with his wife. They're diamond dealers, and we do this thing.

(24:55 - 25:06)
We go 100, 200, no, 300, no, no, no, no, 500, no, no, 200. And they're doing this thing under the table. And I'm like, tell me when you're finished.

(25:07 - 25:14)
You know, because you don't have to talk. You just do sign language. And then he said, we decided to do it.

(25:15 - 25:25)
We'll give you, we'll match the debate ground. First, the debate ground was not covered. And I was like, you know, wow.

(25:26 - 25:34)
What, why are you doing that? I said, you're from Israel. You're Jewish. He said, yeah, I was very religious.

(25:35 - 25:52)
I heard him tell another person, he's so religious, why he's religious on, if someone drives their car on Saturday, he will throw rocks at them. And this is the most religious thing. Because you're not supposed to drive a car on Saturday if you're strict Jewish.

(25:53 - 26:08)
He said, that's the most religious I got, was to throw rocks. I said, but all Israel people, you're all Jewish, right? He said, yeah, mostly. You know, we have some Ethiopians, Christians, but generally, they work in McDonald's.

(26:09 - 26:19)
And, but generally, we're a Jewish country. Then I said, you understand, it's a Buddhist monastery. The debate ground is for Buddhist people.

(26:19 - 26:44)
And he said, yeah, he said, but you know, you got to cover your bases. I said, what? He said, he said, look, you know, he leaned over the table and he said, we don't really know which religion is correct, do we? And there's a chance that you're correct. And my religion might be wrong.

(26:45 - 26:56)
So I'm just making, it's an insurance policy. And I'm like, okay. Anyway, this was the education of my partner.

(26:57 - 27:16)
He's actually a very, very fine person, very beautiful person. All right, next one. In the text, so we have a problem, it's about me and Rosa and Anatole.

(27:19 - 27:38)
We, when the 10 translators came to, when they signed out, 12, basically I told them the same story. We will split all the money. And you have the right to publish your own book, equal right, anywhere you want.

(27:38 - 27:47)
You cannot change a word, but you can publish it anywhere you want. And then they all agree. And then I said, you get, we split the money.

(27:47 - 28:09)
And they're like, okay, we can do that. And then I said, I just warn you, that maximum sales for Tibetan philosophy book is about 30 copies. If you sell 50, you'll have a heart attack.

(28:11 - 28:32)
So, they're like, okay, we understand, you know? But what it means is, when you sell a book, you cannot put on the cover, you have to put a sexy name on the cover, basically. You have to put an interesting name on the cover. So, me and Rosa and Anatole, we have a lot of fun choosing the names.

(28:33 - 28:41)
And we do have fun. And she writes back and says, that's a stupid name. That's going to be worse than 10 sales.

(28:42 - 28:52)
And then I write back and say, that's a stupid picture. And she says, yeah, let's have Gina do it. And she always does it, and we should thank her.

(29:05 - 29:29)
So, the subtitle of the book is a struggle against our tendency to think that things are coming at us, okay? Natural human being tendency, you think things are coming this way. And in fact, a lot of our philosophy books are arguing about that point for year after year. Things are not coming that way, things are coming this way.

(29:30 - 29:40)
And in this book, he makes a big, big deal about it. It takes courage to understand it. It takes courage to change your worldview.

(29:41 - 30:00)
When you're born in this format, your mind is messed up. When you're born in this kind of body, your mind is twisted. And everyone, if you're not a Buddha or something, when you're born, you have this problem.

(30:00 - 30:14)
You believe that things are coming this way. You feel like that. And there's a big debate about it in the mind only school, which they have a special belief that the other person is a picture in your own mind.

(30:16 - 30:33)
You see, the person that you're giving the tip, na chai, that you're giving that money to yourself. In the mind only school, they are inside of your mind. You are giving it to someone who's inside of your mind.

(30:33 - 30:51)
They are coming out of a seed in your mind and they live in your mind. So, it's very difficult to ... Then there's a big debate in the mind only school. Why does it feel like people are out there? Where did that come from? Guess.

(30:53 - 31:01)
Seeds. Luminous [?] seeds from ... How are you treating other people? Okay, it's very funny. It's very strange.

(31:02 - 31:33)
Your habit to think that there's distance between your mouth and my mouth, you know, how much? It's 10 meters or something. That 10 meters is coming out of a seed of a bad habit for countless lifetimes. And it's very interesting in the mind only school that they ask the question, where does the feeling of distance come from? Who made it? And of course, the answer is it comes from your own seeds.

(31:34 - 31:43)
From many lifetimes of believing it, you are born with it. You are born with it. In this life you are born with it.

(31:44 - 31:59)
And the first Panchen Lama says it takes courage to try to fight it. It takes courage to understand I am Tim [?]. Although my hair is combed usually, by nature.

(32:01 - 32:17)
You see, it takes courage to think it out. And then it takes more courage to live by it. It takes much more courage to share what you have once you understand that other people are you.

(32:18 - 32:35)
You know, it takes a lot of, it takes a lot of, your understanding has to be stronger than your mind that you were born with. What you learn in this class has to be stronger than what you were born with. And that's very rare.

(32:35 - 32:42)
Extremely rare for a person to change their viewpoints that much in their life. It takes courage. He's saying courage.

(32:42 - 32:52)
That's why I like the guy with the sword. And he's killing a dragon. The dragon represents your habit of seeing the distance.

(32:52 - 33:09)
There's a little dragon down in the bottom corner, okay? You can't see it very good, no, no, no. But I'll tell you a story. This is just for fun, okay? This is slaying a dragon, this angel slaying a dragon.

(33:10 - 33:23)
I was in Bangkok. I built a company there on Suriwong Road. And it was a gemstone-buying company.

(33:24 - 33:37)
And then my friend came from a diamond company in Mumbai, Girusha [?]. And he said, I want to buy a Thai statue, Thai-style Buddhist statue. Then I said, okay.

(33:37 - 33:52)
He said, can you come with me so I know I'm getting a good one? So I said, yeah, I'll come with you. We went to several shops and he was negotiating. He was fighting for $3 or something.

(33:52 - 33:59)
He's got millions of dollars. That's the Juhu Beach guy. Where's the lady from Mumbai? He's the Juhu Beach guy.

(33:59 - 34:06)
He has a penthouse on Juhu. And so he's fighting for $3 or something. I'm like, just pay the guy.

(34:07 - 34:27)
And then I saw this statue, metal statue, old, of this angel killing the dragon. I was like, man, that is beautiful. And then I told him, I think I'd like to buy it.

(34:27 - 34:35)
And he said, you shut up. He said, you don't know how to negotiate anything. Let me do it for you.

(34:36 - 34:49)
And then this is when the guy said $90. He said, are you crazy? This thing's pieces, it's not worth $50. The guy says, okay, $85.

(34:49 - 34:55)
And they went on for like two hours. I'm like, just give him the money. It's okay.

(34:55 - 35:02)
So I got it for like $60. And I took it home. And I kept it on my, it's about this big.

(35:02 - 35:19)
And I kept it on my desk at work. And one day someone came from the, what's that museum near you, John? Museum of Natural History? Metropolitan. A guy came from the Metropolitan Museum and he walked in.

(35:19 - 35:31)
He helped us do a, I was working for Christie's Auction House. We did a thing together. And he walked in and he's like, oh, this is a [?] from Paris.

(35:31 - 35:40)
I said, no, no, it's a cheap thing from Bangkok. And he said, no, no, this is the real thing. This is the real one.

(35:40 - 35:50)
And I'm like, are you sure? And he said, you look on the bottom, you can see the signature. This is a real one. This one like $100,000 something.

(35:50 - 36:02)
I'm like, and it [?]. And so I gave it away. I had a lady working for me.

(36:02 - 36:07)
She had a baby. She said I could be the godfather. So I gave her the statue for the baby.

(36:08 - 36:15)
I don't know where it is now. Do you know her? She's the Palma's best friend. She brought Palma to the company.

(36:17 - 36:33)
Celestine [?], okay? If you ever find her. Eight feet tall, okay, Barbadian. Okay, anyway, why I say that? It takes courage to overcome the habit of millions of lifetimes.

(36:33 - 36:41)
It takes a lot of courage to believe the other person's mouth is your mouth. It takes a lot of courage. And it takes a lot of study.

(36:41 - 37:01)
And you can't do it just sitting in the class. You have to practice, okay? The clue is, it is so fun to feed other people what you want. It is so fun, you will get addicted to it, okay? It feels wrong at the beginning.

(37:01 - 37:13)
It feels uncomfortable to give your money to other people. And then suddenly it becomes very, very pleasant. And your whole life is, my life is fun.

(37:13 - 37:20)
It's just fun. All the time I'm having fun. Except for when my wife makes me eat broccoli.

(37:21 - 37:32)
Okay. Which does happen from time to time. Do you know dogs don't eat broccoli when you throw it under the table? Okay.

(37:33 - 37:43)
How are we doing on time? Tim, what time? Ten minutes. Okay, I got one more for you. Next picture.

(37:45 - 37:52)
This doesn't look very exciting. But, so we live in Rimrock. This is what Rimrock looks like.

(37:53 - 38:02)
It's a juniper forest. Those trees are like, a big juniper is like 100 years old or something. They're very slow, they have no water.

(38:03 - 38:17)
But they do grow slowly. And then we have a bad problem with fire. If someone throws a cigarette out a window of a car, it can burn up five, 10,000 acres.

(38:17 - 38:46)
It can burn large parts of the state, get burned every year. Some people, some guy, my Veronica's stepson lost his house in Flagstaff because some guy pooped and he had toilet paper in the forest and he tried to burn it because he didn't want to leave it on the ground. And then it destroyed hundreds of houses.

(38:47 - 38:55)
So it's very, very dangerous there. It's very easy. It's so dry that everything can burn easily.

(38:56 - 39:11)
So, and we live in a poor town. We don't have fire hydrants. So I decided, me and my wife said, this town needs fire hydrant, you know? So we put one in.

(39:12 - 39:37)
We paid for it. And everyone said, what do you do, what the, what are you doing? And we said, do you realize we live in, we live at the top of a cliff and the fire will come and take our house first, like Los Angeles, you know? And we said, we're trying to help everybody. We're building this fire hydrant.

(39:38 - 39:58)
They're like, how much did it cost? $30,000. And they're like, where do you get the money? We work, you know? They said, well, why don't you just buy a better car? Why are you building fire hydrants? And we're like, because we need them. Our town needs them, you know? And that was our neighbor, Gary.

(39:59 - 40:08)
He's like, you guys are crazy. And they know him. He's an ex-Marine, military.

(40:08 - 40:23)
So he's like, you guys are crazy. And anyway, we didn't tell anybody in the town. We told Gary, because he's our friend, but we didn't tell anybody else.

(40:23 - 40:32)
We just quietly paid for it. And now people are so grateful. If you have this near your house, they cut your insurance.

(40:33 - 40:57)
You have to tell your insurance agent, we have a fire hydrant near the house, and that will cut your insurance. So everybody on our side of town has got more money for them because we did it. And everybody thinks the city put it there, but the city is more broke than we are.

(40:59 - 41:10)
Everybody thinks the town put it there. And we didn't tell anybody, except you guys, okay? But I'm so proud of it. I go down and look at it sometimes.

(41:11 - 41:37)
That little red head, that's so cute. He's like, you know? And people are so grateful, and then they don't know who did it. And I just want to say that that kind of giving is the sweetest, okay? That's the most fun, to do that kind of thing for other people, anonymously.

(41:38 - 41:52)
You just do it because it will help many people, and you don't tell anybody. And it's very, very sweet, okay? And you want to have fun. I mean, the purpose of life is to be happy.

(41:53 - 42:08)
The purpose to be alive is to be happy. And this secret helping other people is the most fun thing you can do, okay? And I encourage you to try. I encourage you to try it.

(42:08 - 42:20)
If you want to be a happy person, just keep giving stuff quietly. Don't tell anybody you did it. And you can watch the people enjoy it.

(42:21 - 42:44)
And it's just really, really enjoyable, okay? The purpose of life is to be happy. One of the best ways to be happy is to help other people without telling them. And just put it there, and let people admire the red head that he has, okay? So, this he talks about it.

(42:46 - 43:09)
I believe that, you know, we study what's called the bodhisattva's way of life, how to live like a bodhisattva. I would say that if you do it well, you are having fun. And if you want to know if you're living the bodhisattva's way of life, then ask yourself, am I having fun? Just ask yourself if you're having fun.

(43:09 - 43:25)
If you're not having fun, I suspect you're not living the bodhisattva's way of life, because it's fun. And that's the purpose of life, is to have fun. I can't see any other reason to be alive if you're not having fun.

(43:25 - 43:38)
I just think it's boring. Boring is the worst thing, right? The worst thing about samsara is boring. So, do stuff for other people.

(43:38 - 43:55)
Because they are actually you, you will have much more fun, okay? If you're having fun, you're practicing well, okay? All right, thank you guys. All right. Thank you.

(43:58 - 44:32)
Thank you, everyone, for joining class four with our dear teacher, Geshe Michael Roach. And it's truly a precious opportunity for all of us to receive these teachings together. We hope today's session brought you more inspiration, encouragement to your study and practice.

(44:32 - 44:49)
And we invite you to share the gratitude to our dear teacher, Geshe Michael Roach, for always supporting us in our studies. And for always sharing these profound teachings with generosity and love and care. Before we close, let's take a quiet moment to dedicate the goodness from our time today.

(44:50 - 45:04)
May the understanding and positive seeds we create grow strong within us. And it benefits many beings for the happiness and freedom of all. Thank you again for being here with us.

(45:04 - 45:13)
And we are so grateful for your presence. And we look forward to continuing this journey together. We will have the break in two hours.

(45:14 - 45:19)
Please rest well and drink water. We'll see you soon. Thank you, everyone.

(45:19 - 45:19)
Thank you a lot.