BDW 6 «Алмазный Путь Арьи», занятие 3

Autotranscript · BDW6, Malaysia, Class 3

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

Date: 9 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 3 (July 9, 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: Welcome everyone Uh, we are delighted to continue our journey with Arya's Diamond Way class six with Geshe Michael Roach Thank you for dedicating this time to our study and practice We hope today's teaching inspire you both on and off the course.Let's begin

Host: Sure Yeah, yeah

Host: Maybe they can do you want to contemplate Maybe let's just That was a light offering

Host: Before Geshe-la home we have some important announcement need to tell everyone For tonight we're gonna have thousand lamps offering ceremony Which I didn't So we have a thousand lamp beautiful lamp and we want to use that lamp to

Host: Blessing the peace of the world and then give the blessing to the orders peoples

Host: Is The lamp totally have five different colors is represent five buddha families We will sell all the thousands lamp In here and all the money we get will support five house We will sell within group so each group you only have five lamp opportunities So Please tell your group leaders if you want by this lamp as soon as possible

Host: Okay, first apply with your group leaders and each office costs 480 Chinese yuan we will let you know your own money slaters.So do the application as fast as possible if you want it

Host: Let's welcome Geshe-la to teach

Host: Okay, so it's around 70 dollars for the lamp

Host: Group of lamp so which include five of it

Host: Your team leader group leader have a really clear information about that So if you are interested, please consult your team leader first

Host: How your hand don't mean how the

Host: And then sometimes we have lots of beautiful things it's happening Teachers would like to give a really really beautiful gift to everyone We will keep the secret until the teacher to announce but please looking for that I guess everyone will really like

Host: I think that the people can come here definitely have lots of lots good seat.

Host: So I definitely think you will get good experience from here

Host: Okay

Geshe Michael Roach: Okay, hi good morning I always have lots of announcements and I always forget them But so this is the Preface to these books And first of all, I'd like to thank stanley and xiaoping for translating Um And the pure gold stuff And those two kids also donated the cost to make it And so it's free for everybody Okay Nancy karen will remember 50 years ago One hippie named abby hoffman He wrote a book called steal this book Uh, and then he encouraged all the young people to steal the book from the bookstore So, please steal this book, okay,

and It means you can copy Give to anybody For example if you are fly home to your country You can give it to the person sitting next to you Even you don't know them Just kidding And me and jasmine we made one more plan We don't know grandpa's health we don't know grandpa's future And I think it would be very important to have a signed copy And That you have a photo Okay, so,

uh There's 900 people there's one grandpa So jasmine going to arrange the schedule Yeah And it's uh important to keep it It's important to keep it I'm not a big person and I will pass But to have aria signature is very important Okay, great. All right, uh now You found some hair Yeah, so many of you are teachers Many of you are teaching I'll teach you something about teaching Never hand out the book at the beginning of the class Everybody will Hand it out at the end of the class, okay, so jasmine will take care And you will get a copy at the end of the class And again,

I can't do anything without my mouth And I'm very grateful to uh Xiaoping and Stanley for translation Okay, here we go All right, uh We reached the picture of the temple. Yeah So, uh what I wanted to talk about Was uh, if you want to see emptiness There's a reason why there are four and a half perfections before that And so far we've been going through the perfections That I was doing when I was 22 And you have been studying for the last two years So,

number one was giving And I showed you a picture of Mike Cooking terrible food and giving it to his teacher In the beginning my teacher ate meat And in Mongolia, and in many parts of Tibet, they eat meat There's not a lot of other food So I have to learn to make momo So I have to learn how to make minced meat dumplings I have to cut the meat Tiny tiny pieces It takes three or four hours Then I have to crush the spices In a tingle, it's called, it's a metal pestle, mortar So to cook momo takes about four or five hours And I told my teacher, you know,

we should just buy hamburger in the store No, no, the taste is terrible, there's oil in the machine In Rinpoche we have a spice grinder, we don't have to go dong dong dong for two hours No, no, the taste is not fresh So, you know, four or five hours Eight years, cool Then I go to work in New York, start the diamond business Then he has to make his own momo Sometimes, I don't get home until two or three in the morning One day, I came home early He's making momo He has a package of hamburger from the store Then I'm like, you said it needs to become fresh. He said, oh, that's a tremendous waste of time. Okay.

By the way, later he stopped eating meat. He got sick and he decided to not eat meat. One day, very rarely his friend will come from other countries. He's so happy because he's in a foreign country alone. There's no other people he can talk to.

When his friend come, he will talk to them all night, whole night. Then he will introduce me to his friend. This is Mike. He gave up meat but not his mental afflictions. That's how he introduced me.

So, for giving, it was cooking. For the second perfection, morality, I think it was taking care of the old people there. What's the Asian word? Chibita (?). Public horse.

For patience. By the way, I'm talking how to prepare to see emptiness. That's why we studied the first four perfections in the last two years. What's the third perfection? You can say patience, not getting angry.

That Mongol town near Princeton, 45 minutes from Princeton. By the way, my karma built Princeton 250 years ago, and my karma built that Mongolian temple 45 minutes from Princeton where it doesn't belong. So, 700 years ago, Genghis Khan came out of Mongolia, took over most of the world, all the way from China to Austria. He killed 400,000 Austrians in one week. We should all be speaking Mongolian.

But then he died. Just by himself, nobody killed him. Life killed Genghis Khan. They told the army, they told like five generals, you stay here near Austria, we go home, elect a new leader, and we'll be back. And 700 years later, they still didn't come back.

So, there's one pocket of Mongolians left in Europe, and their name is Kalmyk. It means got left behind. And their country recently got independence again. There's an independent country called Kalmyk. Interesting to fundraise their job, just if you need more work.

But when the Germans attacked Russia, they went through the Mongol small country. They want to kill all the Jewish people, and they want to kill all the Asian people. We people don't know about the Asian people. So, they took many of those people and put them in with the Jewish people in the concentration camp. But to keep a Mongol in a concentration camp is a little bit different.

They are extremely tough. The toughest of the tough jump over the fence and live in the forest for three or four years. And those are the ones who came to America, New Jersey, survivors. They are hard, hard, hard people. One out of a thousand who survived the concentration camp.

So, this is ... I'll introduce you to Ida Boldorff (?). Ida Boldorff. This is our temple. This is where I saw kongxing directly.

If you have a chance, you should go there. I still support this temple. It's still there. I told people they should build a stupa there. My teacher used to say, I'm waiting, I'm waiting.

But next to the temple is a prayer wheel house, prayer wheel. On the right side. That was built first. And on another location, on the next street, and they moved it to this place, and then they built the temple next to it. Ida Boldorff has four sons.

Their shoulder is this big. Unbelievable. I asked him one day, he was a very angry man, very angry. I asked him, how did you move the prayer wheel building over here? How did you move it?

He said, well, me and my sons just pick it up. And we carried it here. Then I'm like, wow. And he was, they really hated that there's an American white boy in their temple. And I think eight years they hate me.

And we try, Rinpoche also is my teacher, he's not Mongol. So we are both strangers in the community. We have to work every day to make them happy. We are like a slave. Jingmei knows, it was very difficult.

And so, I asked my teacher, can I become a monk? And he said, not yet, not yet. He keeps saying not yet, not yet. After eight years, he said, okay, you can become a monk. So I lived as a monk for eight years before I took the vow.

Then, one day, this guy come to the kitchen door. Bang! Then I opened the door, then he rushed in. And he pushed me, pushed me. And I'm looking at the window, I think maybe I can jump out the window.

Then he slurped. They say, you're going to join the brotherhood. They say, you're going to become a monk. White boy. Then he says, my family want to offer your cloth for your robes.

And we love you. What's talking? So, this represent which perfection? Patience. Patience.

Don't get upset. And it was a long eight years. But I think that me and my teacher, it helped me to see emptiness. Then, every day, all day, we have to be patient. Mongol like to drink Arak.

You know Arak? It's a heavy alcohol. Then at the funeral, everyone get, we call smashed. Completely smashed. And after my teacher came, they had a funeral.

They all drinking. Heavy liquor, vodka. Which they learned from the Russians. They were also Kazakh. So, they drinking, drinking.

Then my teacher came out of the house. Grab the bottle. Break all the alcohol. Then it's good. You don't want to drink.

Can't drink in the temple. My teacher was short. Here's Aika. Here's my teacher. No drinking.

Okay. Then, big patience. I think it helped to see emptiness. That's why we studied those perfections this year, before we had this class. What's the next perfection, which we covered already?

I didn't start the class yet. Joyful effort. Okay, listen. I told the AI, I have difficult relationship with some of my students. But I have more difficult relationship with my AI.

The AI doesn't listen to me better than my students don't listen to me. Then I said, I need a short Tibetan man working on the sidewalk. This is the closest I could get. I'm sorry. Looks like from Brooklyn.

American guy. Big family. So, one time I came home from working in New York. And I have to walk from the highway. My teacher taught me to go around the temple one time, then come into my kitchen and my bedroom.

It's almost dark. I'm walking around the temple. And I tripped. And Rinpoche is on his hands and knees. And I said, what are you doing?

He said, the sidewalk is cracked here. I'm fixing it. He was almost 80 years old. And he's fixing the sidewalk in the dark. For the Mongol people.

He said, ,'JES LAS CHU BA'I DGE BA (?), Say, ,JES LAS ,CHU BA'I ,DGE BA Special karma if you fix temples, if you support the Dharma. ,CHU BA'I That sidewalk is the circumambulation sidewalk. Then even today, it's there. After how many years? I don't know.

Forty years. People still using it. If you fix it, and people use it for 50 years, even if you die, you're dead, you went to another world. In New Jersey, some guy is walking around the temple. Then that karma is sent to you special delivery.

If you help Dharma. Like, I don't know, you print a book. And then you die. And somebody reads the book after you die.

——— Slide 1 · Patience with survivors from hell ———

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Geshe Michael Roach: The karma goes to you wherever you are. Okay, so, I think my teacher was practicing fourth perfection. He's so excited when he finds a new kind of concrete. He's so excited. We built the fire puja platform.

We did the whole concrete. We did the garage also. We built the garage also. Okay, now we're ready to start this class for this year. Those four perfections that I talked about so far were very important to help me see emptiness.

It's not just reading emptiness books. And it's not just meditating. You have to do the dirty work also. Do the cooking. Do the driving.

Be patient with the ... I call them the survivors from hell, from the concentration camp. And serve the Dharma. If you need some dirty work to do, you can talk to Jasmine. Maybe she has some good cleaning or something.

No, but she's a good example. It's extremely difficult to prepare a program for 900 people. Plus a thousand people online. I'd like to give her a hand. Please live long life.

Me and Tim don't want to work so hard. Okay, so I'd like to start to talk about shamatha. I reached shamatha. And I didn't tell people. For 50 years.

I didn't talk much about it. And because of my health, I think I should talk about it. We'll see what happens. So, the first picture here, should be a forest. That's one before.

Before that. Yeah, there you go. I'm trying to present this preparations to see emptiness with the 16 aspects. That's how Lord Buddha taught it. And as I mentioned, it was the first teaching Buddha ever gave.

The teaching which I'm giving you, Buddha gave to five people. And that was his first teaching. By the way, all five of them saw emptiness directly after they got the 16. They are the first people in this world to see emptiness directly. So, I'm kind of following the same plan.

And teaching you with those same 16. Buddhism is a strange religion because every generation that goes by, Buddhism is more and more clear. Every generation goes by, the teachings in it become more and more clear. The Heart Sutra is two pages, three pages. Gompa Lamsel is 2,000 pages.

This was written 2,000 years after the Heart Sutra. And if I have a choice, Geshe-la, you have to go on a desert island. You can only take one book. You can take Heart Sutra or you can take Tsongkapa. I will choose Tsongkapa.

Because 2,000 years after the Heart Sutra, there are 2,000 pages of explanation. Heart Sutra was taught to superhumans. We are not superhumans. We need explanation. So, in my opinion, you will learn more from this book.

So, in general, the teachings of Buddhism in this world, unlike other traditions, like, I grew up Christian. In my opinion, many of the ideas of Jesus have been lost. But in the Buddhist tradition, every generation, they get more and more clear. Except for the 16. Those 16 are, they got, basically they disappeared.

The first teaching of Lord Buddha The first teaching which caused five people to see emptiness directly in their lifetime. In their lifetime. That teaching is lost. And my hope was to wake it up again. So, that's what we're doing for two years.

We're doing the 16. So, 16 aspects. 16 ideas, 16 practices.

——— Slide 2 · Aspect [13]: path, or marga — crossing from where we are to where we want to go ———

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Geshe Michael Roach: This represents number 13. Geshe-la, oh, where's wordsmith when you need him? Geshe-la, why you start with 13? Why don't you start with 1? They're all mixed up.

I found the original 16. They are not the same order. They're all mixed up. So, I will not teach them to you in number order. I will teach them to you in practice order.

So, the two years kind of starts today. You are getting some... I couldn't wait until the empowerment to start the 16. I'm sorry. So, don't tell anybody.

Okay, we are starting with 13. It's called marga. And that means the path. It's one of the 16 aspects of mastering emptiness. And that's shamatha.

I didn't have a dictionary for 25 years. When I need to know what an ancient word means, I can just go to the greatest Geshe in the world. He lives upstairs. So, I'd like to describe shamatha to you. That word as a real experience.

Sham means peace. Shamatha means staying peacefully, staying in peace. And there are two things you need, two tools you need during your meditation to see emptiness directly. You need the energy of the four perfections, which we learned already before we came here. But the tools you need during the perception of emptiness directly is the shamatha and vipashyana.

So, the rest of the time we're together, this time, like four or five days more, I will teach those two. And that's perfection number five and perfection number six. You need the cooking. You need the cleaning. You need the driving.

You need the cement work. As gasoline to run the car. But now we're going to talk about the car. So, the car begins with shamatha. And it means like perfect meditation.

We did a three-year retreat at Diamond Mountain. Before that, I taught all the stages of meditation. There's a beautiful poster, picture. And so I did my three-year retreat in 2000 to 2003. Then John, Connie, Kat, who else?

Those guys did it from 2000, what? 10, 10 to, really? 10, 2010 to 2014. I think Jigme did a year and a half. With a bunch of wild monkeys called coatimundi.

We found one at Stanley's house. I was very happy because I would talk, I wouldn't talk to them, but I'd write to them. How are you doing? How's your three-year retreat? And I remember Earl said, Geshe-la, I think I'm on stage nine.

I think I'm on stage nine. So, they have three years to worry about what stage I'm on. Which is a good thing. So, all of us heard about shamatha. Geshe-la, if you claim that you saw emptiness, then by implication you're saying you reached shamatha.

Perfect, because you cannot see emptiness without it. Directly. So, I thought I would just tell you what shamatha feels like. And then you know where you're going. It's very, very helpful.

Okay, so here we go. And I made some pictures for you. Number one, if you reach shamatha, you can meditate for one hour perfectly. And I always say what? Not including the preparation.

Not including the hundred breaths. Not including the preliminaries. Yenlak din, seven limb preliminaries. Just in pure meditation. Pure focus.

You have to be able to stay one hour. If you cannot stay for one hour in perfect meditation, it's not possible to see emptiness directly. It cannot happen. Excuse me, Geshe-la, I came to a teaching, you said half hour. Now you say hour.

You are the serious people. I tell you the truth. I don't tell the beginners one hour. They will quit before they start. But I promise, I'm telling the truth today.

It has to be one hour. And I mean inside of deep meditation. And it's kind of your choice. It's difficult to find that. That means you have to meditate for an hour and fifteen minutes or something.

And many people don't have that much time. They have family. They have to go to work. But you cannot see emptiness if you do not stay in an hour meditation daily. Regularly.

Not possible. If you do see emptiness directly, and if you have a real bodhisattva experience, it will help you to see emptiness. Directly, billions and billions and billions of people. Then I love my family. My family keeps increasing every six months.

Fat little babies. I call them xī guā. They don't walk, they roll. So now I have three grandkids. New, mostly new.

And it's a lot of work. My wife is having her second motherhood. She's completely exhausted all the time. You know how if you're married and you lay down on the bed with your husband or your wife? It's a quiet time to talk about the day.

We lay down. I said, you know, how was your day honey? She's like... Don't tell her. She's asleep in one breath.

So, you know, of course that family is very precious to me. But billions of people, if you weigh, we can't ignore billions of people. If you see emptiness directly, if you have a bodhisattva's experience, one person can save billions and billions of people. I have seen myself babysitting a planet. It's one of the things that you see.

Now, that's real babysitting. Eight billion kids. You have that capacity. You can do it. You have to see emptiness.

It has to be an hour of meditation. It's not punishment. You know, I'm not going to hit you with a stick or something. But it's your choice. Now, you don't sit down and start with an hour, okay?

That's kukpay le gar. kukpay le gar means idiot work. I'll tell you how to reach one hour, and there's only one way to reach an hour, and if you don't do it, you won't reach an hour. Start with ten minutes. How many did I say?

Ten minutes. Forget one hour. My teacher used to say, Mike, Mike, come to the window. Then what? Look outside.

There's a rabbit. We have a rabbit in the Mongol temple. Then he's like ... You know, he said, even rabbit can sit still for one hour. But a human being cannot.

Human being have to practice. Start with ten minutes. Guess I have an idea. I'll do ten minutes at six o'clock. I'll do ten minutes at seven o'clock.

It doesn't work like that. Ten minutes in the whole day. I'm teaching you the successful way to reach shamatha, and I have reached it, and very, very few people have reached it. Every week, on a day, could be Saturday, could be Sunday, I don't care. In my country, generally Sunday is a quiet day.

Do you feel it, Anatole, in your house? I mean, the whole world, the whole America is quieter on Sunday. I think so. So, every Sunday, increase one minute. And take Sunday off.

Don't meditate on Sunday. Take it off. Yeah, but for Monday. Oh, I see, I see. I strongly said, and my yoga teacher taught me this.

David Life taught me this. Always take two days off every week. Your yoga doesn't get better if you do it seven days a week. It gets better if you do it five days a week. So, Sunday, take a happy break.

Don't allow yourself to meditate. Overeat. Breakfast. Work in the garden. Watch a good movie.

Take a break. Geshe-la, what's the second day of the week? Is it Wednesday or Thursday? God will choose the second day. Just kidding.

The second day will choose itself. Your day will be a disaster. The cat pumpkin will get sick in the morning. That's what happened this week too. Then, meditation cancelled.

Take the cat to the hospital. The second rest day will be arranged by your karma. You don't have to worry about it. But, don't let it be two second rest days. Then you will lose the habit.

Even you have to come home from the cat hospital at midnight on the second break day, meditate. If you start with ten minutes, every week you increase one minute, you can reach one hour in one year. And that's fine. That's perfect. Don't rush.

Those people who rush will never meditate for an hour. Just slow and steady, like a ... what did he say? What's that retreat center in the Bahamas? Shivananda.

Swami Shivananda said, just be like a donkey. Donkey, just ... I used to work with donkeys. I mean real donkeys. They just walk like that.

And they don't think ... they don't look at anything. They just look at the ground and they walk. Just shut up and be a donkey. One minute a week.

So, the first time that you reach shamatha, you can meditate for an hour without moving. And with good focus. Alright, I'm going to stop there about shamatha. We'll continue in the afternoon, but ... I still got five minutes.

Right? Yeah. Okay, question. Maybe one question.

Host: You in the side. Okay.

Question from the audience: So Geshe-la, I have a question. I understand that there's a chance that when you see emptiness, during this process, you will also develop the real bodhichitta. I also understand that in the Hinayana path, there's a chance that you can see emptiness without having bodhichitta. So how can I make sure that I can have bodhichitta when I reach emptiness?

Geshe Michael Roach: That's a very beautiful question. Yeah, very beautiful question. There's a big debate in the ancient books. Can you see emptiness directly if you're not a bodhisattva? This person, in this book, he says definitely possible.

And I'll give you an extreme example. This is a commentary on Chandrakirti. Chandrakirti is a commentary on Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna is a commentary on Xin Jing, Jing Gang Jing. I was in Ukraine, I think.

I was sitting in the back of the car. Like many years ago, I was starting this translation. And I remember Scott and Ari were in the front, and I was in the back. And it was a long drive to the airport. And I'm working.

Then I stopped, and I said, stop the car. And they're like, okay, okay. And I said, no, no, you got to hear this. And Scott's like, what? And I'm like, Chandrakirti said, if a person is totally anti-bodhisattva, they don't care about anybody else.

But they are studying karma in this book. Emptiness. If they want to get rich, and they don't want to share it with anybody, but they just follow the instructions. Which, by the way, means sharing strategically, just to get more money. Without compassion.

Will it still work? Can they still become rich? And Chandrakirti says, yes. If you follow the laws of karma, even without love, they work. Nobody can stop them.

So, it is possible. And I've heard my teacher say some physicists kind of understand emptiness. So, it is possible. But it's worthless. It doesn't help anybody.

With bodhichitta, it's much more powerful. And in my experience, I reached the bodhichitta about 15 minutes after I saw kongxing. So, in theory, you can see emptiness first, and then on the same day, you can reach bodhisattva levels. bodhichitta. So, to summarize, I would say, go from emptiness to bodhichitta.

Go for the bodhisattva experience. Then you have something worthy to use this powerful weapon. Also, last thing. Geshe-la has many last things. If you have that bodhisattva experience, which we'll talk about, it's very difficult to have a really bad day after that.

You can have disasters, but it's difficult to have a bad day. You know, my water pipe broke in my kitchen. But I just got back from visiting a billion planets. Maybe the water pipe is okay. So, it's worth it.

You will never have a really bad day. Okay, don't forget to pick this up. Thanks Stanley and Xiaoping. Take care of this book. This is a nuclear weapon.

This is more powerful than a nuclear weapon. So, traditionally we don't throw it around. We don't leave it under the chair. I'm thinking, if they ever find a cure for HIV, and there's only one copy of the cure, in the whole world, you would be like, you wouldn't throw it around. You would take care of it.

So, I'm trusting you to take care of it. Take good care of it. Okay, thank you.

Host: Thank you Geshe Michael. Thank you Stanley. Say bye-bye to the students online.

Host: So, thank you for joining us. We hope today's class was meaningful for you. Coming up later in the broadcast of class three, followed by Arya's Diamond Way, class four with Geshe Michael. See you soon. Bye-bye.