BDW 6 «Алмазный Путь Арьи», занятие 2

Autotranscript · BDW6, Malaysia, Class 2

03.08.2026 / processed with Claude (AI) for Irra / Dharma · Malaysia · BDW6

Date: 8 July 2026 · Malacca, Malaysia · duration 1 h 20 min

Teacher: Geshe Michael Roach

Translation into Chinese: Stanley (consecutive; the Chinese translation was not captured in this recording)

Source audio: ENG/CH Arya's Diamond Way with Geshe Michael Roach - Class 2 (July 8, 2026)

⚠ Warning

This is an automatic transcript of the audio recording, roughly processed with Claude on 3 August 2026 by Irra Dzhabali. It is not an authorised record of the teaching. Speech recognition and speaker attribution may contain errors. Please check against the original recording.

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Host: Let's get ready to welcome our dearest teacher.

Host: Almost. Okay, now it's time.

Host: Let's welcome our dearest teacher Geshe Michael Roach.

Geshe Michael Roach: Okay. You just have to kiss it. Okay. Today we want to start the class with a special announcement. And we'll end the class with a special announcement.

But, I guess about two years ago, we had an idea called Five Houses. And the reason we had that idea is all the ... So, grandpa's teaching too many years. And there's too many courses. And if a new person comes today, and they want to finish all the old ACI courses, it would take 32 years.

And then you would be 34. No, I'm just kidding. So, we feel like it would be good if we could split up the ACI courses into five different tracks. And it would be like a university. So, when you get to Princeton, I think after the first year, you have to decide what's your department.

During that year, you take lots of different courses. to find out what's your love. What do you love? So, I think when we finished Pabongka Rinpoche's Lam Rim, Steps of the Path, it took 14 years. And that's just one topic.

So, we had an idea to create like five departments. Like physics department, music department, literature department, and so we created the five houses. And we announced it over a year ago. And everybody got really excited. And we asked everybody to go online and tell us what's your first choice for your department and what's your second choice for your department.

Then we got too busy. And we didn't have time to create the department. Because I'm just too busy. And then we had a good idea. Stick it on Jasmine's head.

Jasmine, Plant (?), and Bo. Where are you? Yeah. And Aura. Is Aura here?

So, Aura helped design all of the ACI courses and all of the Diamond Way courses 20-something years ago. And I think she came when she was 19 or something. So, I expect your kids by 18. And then Jasmine and Bo have organized, I believe it's about 15,000 classes online at the Knowledge Base. Free.

Free online. Jasmine and Bo have organized more than 15,000 classes Free classes online. They are the only two organizers of a project which came to me, I think, and said, Geshe-la, we don't need any fundraising and we don't need you to do anything. We'll take care of it. And they took care of it.

They paid for everything.

Host: Yeah.

Geshe Michael Roach: So, they have a vision of all the classes I taught in the last 40 years or something. And together they are willing to help. We have courses. We have the ACI courses. But many courses I didn't quite finish.

The old Diamond Way courses, I never finished some, two of them or three of them. So, anyway, they're going to help decide what we have to finish, finish it, and create five different departments called houses. So, if I'm a normal person, Tim, how do I choose my house and what do I have to do? And does that mean I cannot go to the other houses program? Tim, I have a question for you.

If I'm a new student and I have to go to the other houses program, how do I choose which school I'm going to go to? So, after I join a school, can I not go to the other school's programs? And so on. And the first thing I want to say is that I'm excited to be able to design this course with Jasmine, Bo, and Aura.

Tim (co-host): To work together. We have different ways or entrances into the teachings.

Geshe Michael Roach: So, a lot of us are nerds.

Tim (co-host): We're very much into the classics and studying the technicalities of everything. But we found that not everyone is as nerdy as we are. And Geshe-la has taught so many things in so many different ways. That maybe, Jasmine, we might have a program that's five times this size. And that's your problem.

But really, the idea is how can we reach more people?

Geshe Michael Roach: People with different capacities, different minds.

Tim (co-host): And so, the idea is with the five houses, it's five different types of people. So, we're going to be asking you, where do you think you belong? And I know that all of you are nerdy and want to be part of the classics house. But I know a lot of you might have interests in other areas that might actually align more with what's in your heart. So, like any university, there will be several courses that are the foundation for everyone across the country.

Across all five houses.

Geshe Michael Roach: Like the foundation of the three principal paths. An understanding of meditation. An understanding of how seeds work.

Tim (co-host): An understanding of the other side, from the diamond cutter sutra, the emptiness side. And that foundation will then allow you to enter into one of the other five houses. And I'm super excited that now we're beginning to create what that content is going to be, those tracks in all the other houses.

Geshe Michael Roach: And thank you for helping lead us through this. So, I want to emphasize one thing. Houses are mainly like a university to learn to be a teacher. So, if you want to be a meditation teacher, you join that house. If you want to teach philosophy, you join that house.

And everyone is welcome to come to the classes of every house. So, same as before. But if you want to become a teacher, we'll help you to specialize in what you enjoy. I believe the teacher training for each house begins with three years and goes up to five years. But it won't be fourteen years or twenty-five years.

If you want to study for twenty-five years, we can do it. But that's the idea. So, if you're interested, especially to be a teacher, we will help you to specialize in what you enjoy. Tim and I will go through the five houses right now. We have some pictures.

You kind of see which one you would like to join. The last one is called Diamond House. Everybody wants to be in Diamond House. So, we're asking you to name two houses. Diamond House and what else you want.

Okay, and then we'll erase the Diamond House. No, but of course you can. I think most people will take one of the four houses and then they will be in Diamond House. But it will be like a department in the university. My department, we are very small at Princeton.

I'm in the religion department. I think we might be the smallest department, but we have a big feeling that we are a family. And after fifty years, we still meet each other. Alright, I'll start and you do the next one. Starting at the top.

At the top is Classics House. That means people who like to study Jing. People who like the ancient books. Mainly, that will be the 18 original ACI courses. So, if you join that house, and you become a teacher, you would teach mainly the 18 ACI courses.

By the way, I challenge Francisco to find and steal the 17 ACI courses. The scene from Harry Potter, where they are doing the hat and the houses. In the next 20 minutes, I challenge you to find that cut. And we'll show it illegally. It comes from there.

That concept comes from there. Rob is from Slytherin House. Classics House is easy. This course is easy to do. Because we designed this course very early.

And we did a very good revision. It's almost perfect. It still needs a little bit of editing. By the way, it also means, it doesn't mean you are not allowed to teach it if you want to teach it. Anybody can teach it.

So, it's not that you are not allowed to teach them if you don't join Classics House. But the Classics House guys will receive special training how to teach them. And it will be easier to get the materials. We didn't update that website for 35 years. And that's what these three kids are going to do.

Okay, you explain the next house. The next house is the Samadhi House.

Tim (co-host): And the second picture down. No, no, no. Stay in the same picture. Yeah, that one. That's what I think I look like when I'm meditating.

But don't put the picture of what I actually look like.

Geshe Michael Roach: It means that many people here are attracted by meditation. So they are more willing to meditate instead of reciting sutras.

Tim (co-host): I know this school.

Geshe Michael Roach: For example, in New York, many people like this school and they provide a lot of meditation training. So many people come to these classes through meditation. So if you want to become a meditation teacher, we have a lot of ways to teach this to the world. So we need everyone's creativity to create this course to achieve this goal.

Tim (co-host): Because we know a lot of people, they go, oh, mindfulness, meditation, what is that? They have this natural attraction to it. And we'll teach people how to correctly meditate. The pitfalls of it.

Geshe Michael Roach: And some details to pay attention to during the course. And some things we shouldn't do.

Tim (co-host): Nice segue.

Geshe Michael Roach: Do you have a copy, Lindsay (?)? I never walk around without a copy. Can I take—find me one. We need one devil to face an angel. Rosa's idea.

I'm the boss of advertising house. And fundraising boss.

Tim (co-host): Go ahead, keep going.

Geshe Michael Roach: So, the Devil Angel book presents all the wrong meditations to get to the right meditation. And honestly, it's very humbling when I realized, oh, I'm doing those.

Tim (co-host): But the idea is that can we help people meditate and meditate in a correct way that can really help them?

Geshe Michael Roach: How to plant the seeds of meditation, the correct seeds, the most powerful seeds.

Tim (co-host): So, if you're attracted to that, just imagine yourself— I mean, if this is what you want to look like in meditation, or whatever you think you look like.

Geshe Michael Roach: Kind of a cool idea. By the way, the book that Tim mentioned is here. It's called— in Tibetan, it's called DANG RDZIN ZHANG BDEB (?) Say DANG RDZIN. ZHANG BDEB DANG RDZIN means holding to a self-existence. What's that look like?

YI BA'I 100 (?) What does it look like when you're holding to self-existence? Like the devil? Give me an example at work.

Question from the audience: When your boss yells at you and tells you whatever you didn't do the project on time, and you think that the boss is not coming from something that you did in the past when you yelled at other people in the past.

Geshe Michael Roach: In other words, when you think it's coming from his side. It's self-existence. Sometimes— Stop, stop by your head. Sometimes a person gives a $300 answer to a $100 question. Thank you.

We started teaching this book 14 years ago. My teacher began it and never finished it. And luckily, we were all able to finish it. And I put some commentary in it. And inside, I think the core of the book there are 28 wrong meditations on emptiness.

And you think it's strange to write a book about how to meditate on emptiness wrong way. But actually, this author who lived about 400 years ago he was a genius. By the way, he wrote the de lam, he wrote the first three courses of the Diamond Way course. And if you get a copy, I predict while you are reading it you will say, I thought that was a correct emptiness. And then you can improve your own meditation.

So, you know, we brought copies in suitcases and probably it ran out I guess already. Okay, no? Okay. You should make it run out. But there's also an e-book copy.

Yeah. Now, if you live in mainland China it takes many years to get approval to sell books in China. My Diamond Cutter business book is selling approved by the government to sell in China. Yeah. And I have some friends from Guangdong who saw it in the Beijing bookstore.

But it takes it took 25 years to get permission. It's not legal for us to send you books into mainland China without that permission. So, we are working with the publishers almost every day. And it looks good. But in the meantime we can't mail you a book in mainland.

But it is legal to take it home with you. And we have lots of them everywhere I teach, I have lots of them. So, I promise we'll keep bringing books to events. You cannot take a box of a hundred home. That's called illegal importing.

You can take three or four in your suitcase. That's fine. Alright, so I suggest you try to get the book. And we'll talk more about the Good Night Book Club with Lindsay's project later in the week. Third house is my turn.

This is called Mountain House. And it means, some people say Geshe-la, I'm not attracted to the old books. They are very boring. In fact, I agree. If you have trouble sleeping, read some of those books.

But this idea to do retreat, I think it's very sexy. I heard about Kat and Connie, John Brainy, deep in three-year retreat. It sounds very exciting to me. And if you have this kind of attraction, we would like to train you to teach people to do retreat. Lots of people try retreat and they don't like it.

Almost everybody's doing it wrong way. And I'll show you a slide tomorrow from Forbes magazine. So, the third house is retreat house. Called Mountain House. The classics house, we have all the 18 foundation courses of ACI.

They are finished. We have to clean them up. We have to make them easier to get. And there will still exist ACI to provide those courses. But in the case of retreat, we don't have a good course.

Many of us did retreat, but we didn't create courses for everybody. Like 18 courses of how to do retreat. So, the people who sign up today for retreat house, which includes many people who finish three-year retreat, they will help design a course for other people. Okay, next. By the way, it doesn't mean you have to do three-year retreat.

Like Stanley has an organization called Innovation Retreat. You can say three days up to three weeks. How to use retreat for new ideas in your business. And I've been teaching courses for his organization. For example, how to design a new kind of gemstone.

I discovered a new gemstone called Swiss Topaz. It's very, very popular. And it's very, very profitable. You make it for $60, you sell it for $600. In fact, the first ones were made in Hong Kong with a secret process which I created during a retreat.

So, retreat house will also, and Stanley's Innovation Retreats will teach people how to get new ideas in retreat.

Tim (co-host): So, the next house is called the staircase house. And in the classic language we call it lam rim.

Geshe Michael Roach: Steps on the path.

Tim (co-host): A lot of people come to us and they're like, this sounds awesome.

Geshe Michael Roach: Like, this is amazing. I don't have time.

Tim (co-host): I have two kids. I work full time. I don't have time even for myself. But I need something that I can do right now.

Geshe Michael Roach: I have problem X and I need a solution now. I need a practice I can do.

Tim (co-host): In the lam rim, the steps on the path is everything you need to do from the beginning to the end. It also happens to be a preparation for Diamond Way too. The text that we're studying which was translated by Gibson is a steps on the path text.

Geshe Michael Roach: It's short.

Tim (co-host): And very profound. And so the idea is can we help people who need a practice right now. Now the more that you study lam rim the more you recognize that it is everything anyway.

Geshe Michael Roach: I grew up in lam rim.

Tim (co-host): I met Geshe Michael through the steps on the path.

Geshe Michael Roach: All the training I had was through that. Stanley and I have called each other lam rim brothers.

Tim (co-host): So if you're particularly attracted to this type of teaching which is designed to be very accessible and very relevant the teacher of the lam rim that we studied for 14 years taught normal people just like us. But what he didn't have he taught to a room this size without microphones.

Geshe Michael Roach: And he was trying to reach normal people in their normal life. And so if you're attracted to that in teaching that and we're actually in a steps on the path class this entire event the last two perfections that's the place you'd like to go. If this is the place you'd like to go. Last house. Diamond house.

Secret teachings of Buddhism. Basically two choices there. We created a Diamond Way course at Diamond Mountain Retreat Center. It's thousands of pages. Fifteen?

Eighteen. Seventeen courses almost finished. And people like JB Connie people are teaching at Jigme they're teaching it very nicely. Very deep, very traditional. Then grandpa is now starting two-year course for Arya's Diamond Way.

And if you join Diamond House you can learn two ways to teach Diamond Way. And you can focus which way you prefer to teach. So it's very much like a university. At Princeton you can finish I finished a religion degree and then I did a Russian degree. You can do two.

Learn how to teach in one house and then finish and then if you want to learn how to teach in another house you can do. No one's stopping you from teaching basically if you want to teach it's a free country almost free world. Okay. But you can do a better job if you get training. But you're very welcome to go to courses in all five houses.

It's just my opinion. If you seriously want to learn to teach one of these five that's going to take five years of hard work in that field similar to a university. And we want to give you that we want to give you that chance. So to repeat you're always welcome to come to all the courses. Of course you will teach your mother everything you learn.

If you want to be a certified five house teacher or if you want to be a certified Princeton graduate you have to go to Princeton University. And then probably you should choose a specialty and become a master and then move on to your second specialty.

Tim (co-host): So how are we going to get started? Let's watch this first.

Geshe Michael Roach: It does look like Francisco.

  [Editorial note: audio insert from a video clip — a parody of the "Sorting Hat" scene (Harry Potter), used to illustrate the "which house do you belong to" theme of the five-houses announcement. Not a class participant speaking.]

Host: Okay. Okay.

Tim (co-host): So when you put that hat on what will it say about you? Not Slytherin.

Geshe Michael Roach: Must be staircase house.

Tim (co-host): So it depends. Which one would the hat what would the sorting hat say to you?

Geshe Michael Roach: Okay. Go back to the slide.

Tim (co-host): And so here's our form. We also are going to be asking you some questions because we're looking for help. This isn't something that we can do by ourselves. I was told yesterday that I have to hire 15 people.

Geshe Michael Roach: Three for each house. I'm sure there are 15 people here who would love to volunteer for a year or two to help grow each of these houses.

Tim (co-host): So we're also going to be going through that as well.

Geshe Michael Roach: Please fill out the form.

Tim (co-host): Or the best thing to do if you're really really interested maybe talk to myself or grab one of the five houses staff members.

Geshe Michael Roach: Elevator pitches. 30 seconds. I'm going to walk out the back door so I don't get pitched.

Tim (co-host): No, but if you're interested please let us know.

Geshe Michael Roach: Thank you for your time. I'll repeat. You're always welcome to come to all the houses' classes. If you'd like to be a teacher you should find your department and learn how to teach in that department. Then if you want to learn to teach in another department also like at Princeton, you can do that.

It's a lot of work. You can do it if you want. You don't have to do it if you don't want. But we are trying to create well-trained teachers. And thanks to Tim for his hard hard work.

Host: Okay, let's have a class.

Geshe Michael Roach: So don't forget to go online and just choose your house. You know, when I applied to college I applied to 20 colleges. In America that's what you do and then you go to the ... if you get accepted you go to the one that you like. Okay, we're going to go back to the ...

Yeah. We just finished the cooking for your teacher. Or working for your teacher. Again, I went ... I graduated from Princeton and the next day I went to be with my teacher.

And many many friends wrote me and said, oh, he joined the cult. And, why are you a cook in a little Mongolian temple? You should be a lawyer at the Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna, which is what my roommate did. Oh, okay. Everybody said, oh, that teacher is taking advantage of you.

And I just kept my mouth shut. I didn't say anything. Just served the teacher. And I'll tell you honestly, the Atomic Energy Commission guy ... You want to hear a story?

Okay. Atomic Energy Commission for the world. They control nuclear bombs for the world. The whole world. Then he told me, you're so crazy, I can give you a job, you can make lots of money.

You're sitting in a little Mongolian temple with a bunch of old monks and wasting your time. So, Princeton, I think it's 250 years old. There are some old rules there. One rule, you have to learn to swim. If you can't swim, you can't graduate.

Which I think is a really good idea. My roommate doesn't know how to swim. He sued the university. He's a law student. He's very good at it.

He won the case. He didn't have to learn to swim. Five years after graduation, he's walking near a river and he fell in. He died because he couldn't swim. He left a wife and two kids.

He's the one who said I was really stupid to stay in the Mongol temple. If I know I have to die, I would rather die in the Mongol temple If I know I have to die, I would rather die in the Mongol temple. At least they can help me afterwards. So, anyway, I just ignored all my friends. Many, many people write me nowadays, can you help me?

I got cancer. I'm going to die. I don't know what's happening next.

——— Slide 1 · Second level morality, public horse ———

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Geshe Michael Roach: Many, many people come to me from Princeton. My old friends. So, I went to the Mongol temple and became Chibita. Da means horse. Chiba means the whole village owns this one horse.

Then all those Mongols came to America just after World War II. In 1945, they were 40 years old. In 1945, everybody was 40 years old. In 1975, everybody was 70 years old. They don't speak English.

They cannot drive a car. So, my teacher said, you are the horse for the whole village. I have to drive everyone, everywhere. Luckily, they are kind of Mongol speaks Russian. So, I translate for them.

Very, very busy. Why I include it here? For me, that's the second perfection. Which is what? You can say morality.

We went to Peru. Essa? What's it called? E-S-A-N The National Business College. We taught there.

We had breakfast with the president of the university. He said, can I ask you a question? And I'm like, okay. He said, are there different kinds of morality in Buddhism? Then I'm like, you know, yes.

He said, what kind of different kinds? And I said, well, there's DONGS PA'I TSUL KHRIMS (?) DONGS PA'I TSUL KHRIMS means you promise not to hurt other people. For example, there's like 20 monk vows about not taking monk's cloth from the people, not asking for more monk's cloth, not stealing monk's cloth, not keeping monk's cloth. There's all these monk's cloth vows. So, first level Buddhist morality is don't hurt other people.

And he's like, well, what's the second level? And I said, that's bodhisattva morality. So, if I'm a monk, if I keep an extra pair of clothes for more than like 48 hours, that might disturb my meditation. How many pairs of shoes do you have at home? That information is in your brain.

That means it's wasting space in your brain. That means having those extra shoes is hurting your meditation. Because it takes this space on the hard drive. So, first level Buddhist morality reduce how many things you own. And your meditation will be more clear.

Second level, he says, is there a second level? Oh yeah, there's a second level. Called bodhisattva morality. Then if you're a bodhisattva and somebody offers you three warehouses full of silk, you must accept it. You cannot say no.

Because maybe someday you can help somebody who needs clothes. Second level morality is much bigger than first level morality. First level, don't keep extra shoes if you're not wearing them. Second level morality, if someone offers you a hundred pairs of shoes, take them immediately. Because you can share them with poor people.

Don't just think about yourself. Third level morality, he says, is there a third level? Oh, that's their secret morality. What's secret morality? If you get empowerment or transmission into guanyin, and someone offers you some silk, you should put it on.

Wait, even if you're a monk? Yeah, you should. And they do. And you put it on, and you imagine you are guanyin. It helps your meditation.

So, three different levels of morality. CI BAS DA Say CI BAS DA Public horse. That's higher kind of morality. You should have a good size car. And you should be available all day for old people.

It's trouble to own a car. Insurance, gasoline, everything, trouble. It's a lot of trouble to live in a community of several hundred old people who knock on your door every hour of the day. I was supposed to raise some money for John Brady. With the wealthiest woman in the world.

A.S. I have an appointment to meet her at Lincoln Center to see the ballet. Actually, I just want to squeeze her purse to help John's project. I did a lot of strange things for John.

The neighbor died. One of the Mongols died. Old man died. Then my teacher said, OK, it's your turn. You have to go to the funeral home.

Do prayers for three hours while they take the blood out of his body. If you're a monk, you find out about these things. In America, when you die, by law, they take the body to a nursing home. They put it on a cold steel table. It has troughs on four sides.

Trough means where the water goes off the roof, for example. Then they cut... They make holes in your body. And the blood comes out and goes into the trough and goes into a bucket and they throw it out. And then they replace it with formaldehyde.

Chemical. It's a chemical that keeps your body from rotting. Then I told my teacher, I can't go to watch this. I'm supposed to do prayers for three hours while they change his body. I said, Rinpoche, I'm going to meet the richest lady in the world.

She's going to help John Brady. You know what he said. He's like, you don't have to talk. You shut up. Go to the funeral home.

Then very funny, this rich lady had an assistant. She was a modern dancer also. So I sent my friend to Lincoln Center. Thousand people are coming to the opera. I'm like, look for two ladies.

One is the big one. She's the rich one. The other one's legs look like telephone poles. She's the modern dancer. And they went there.

And that's the kind of ... you're trying to help your teacher. In Diamond Way, this is the second perfection. This is morality. This is the three levels of the cloth.

You do what your teacher needs, and you do what your teacher asks you to do. My teacher is very great. He's very traditional. There's no negotiation. Okay, one more story.

So, when I first met him, he didn't speak much English. And I had learned some Tibetan in the Himalayas. So, we used to talk half broken Tibetan, half broken English. And then somebody paid for him to learn English at George Washington University. So, one of my first jobs, he said, you're going to drive me to Washington, D.

C. We will spend three months there. I will learn English. So, I drove him. Long story, where I slept.

So, he went to the university. I drove him. Then he came home. I drove him home. Then he's like, and I'm like, Rinpoche, what's that?

This is homework. Then I said, why are you giving it to me? He said, you're going to write it for me. Every day, why do you think I brought you two with me? Then I'm like, Rinpoche, you're supposed to do the homework.

One thousand dollars. No, because I don't want you to forget. We have enough. One thousand dollars. Ready?

Get your arm ready. What was his answer?

Host: Okay, who wants an answer? Wait, wait, wait.

Geshe Michael Roach: You have to say it with the right sound. Star Wars.

Host: Okay, this way? Okay, thank you.

Question from the audience: I'm your teacher.

Geshe Michael Roach: So, Diamond Way. Second Perfection. Ultimate Morality. Ultimate Morality. If your teacher tells you to do something, you do it.

Shut up and do it. Okay, see you next class.

Host: Thank you Geshe Michael. Thank you Stanley. Goodbye for morning classes. But the students here need to stay. We have a very important thing.

Host: Thank you so much, our dear teacher, Geshe Michael Roach. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I changed my channel. Thank you very much, our dear teacher, Geshe Michael Roach.

For these so beautiful teachings. And thank you, everyone. For your attention, participation. And presence throughout today's sessions. We'll now take a 15-minute break.

Maybe 30. And the next session. Will be. Rebroadcast. First meditation.

With Geshe Michael Roach. And then. Session. At 1.30 pm.

Kuala Lumpur time. Classic House. Foundation course. Class 3-1. Six preliminary.

Or four. Meditation. With Jasmine Yao. John Brady. And Sarah Blackburn.

Please stretch, hydrate. And return on time. For our next session. See you soon. Thank you.

Bye-bye.