BDW 6 «Алмазный Путь Арьи», занятие 5

Autotranscript · BDW6, Malaysia, Class 5

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

Date: 10 July 2026 · Malacca, Malaysia · duration 1 h 16 min

Teacher: Geshe Michael Roach

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

Source audio: ENG Arya's Diamond Way with Geshe Michael Roach - Class 5 (July 10, 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 back everyone. We're going to have class five with Geshe Michael Roach. It's Arya's Diamond Way class five and we have a little bit changes in the schedule. In two hours we're going to have yoga with Geshe Michael Roach instead of class six. This is amazing.

Geshe Michael will lead yoga class. So if you are planning to join, it would be great. And now, welcome Geshe Michael. An honor to present Geshe Michael Roach today for class number two. So everyone who is outside in the classroom, please come in.

Because we need to begin on time. And one gentle reminder. If you don't need internet, Wi-Fi for the classes, please help us to provide a better broadcast for 3,000 people online. And don't use the Wi-Fi during the classes. It's a very powerful karma.

And also something very important. When it's time for Q&A, please keep your questions short. Because we want to give the opportunity to as much people as possible. And keep silence too. And something, if you have the opportunity to buy the special candles from last night, we still have a few more.

And for those who help us buying those sets, thank you so much for your generosity. For everybody online, thank you so much for joining each class. All the people joining the rebroadcasting sessions, all the volunteers online and in person, is making very powerful these classes. It's an opportunity to be together online from wherever you are in the part of the world. And here, this is very special.

Just a housekeeping information while we wait for Geshe Michael. Today we have the surprise that make us move the entire rebroadcasting schedule. And Geshe Michael is going to lead a yoga class. Please welcome Geshe Michael. And here he is.

Welcome Geshe.

Geshe Michael Roach: It means I have to try to put you to sleep. No problem. So you guys with the slides have to lead grandpa. So here's the first slide. I wasn't following the class very well and now I decided not to follow it at all.

Big surprise. Today I would like to talk about using jing, using the ancient books. And using it to see emptiness.

——— Slide 1 · Special focus on parents ———

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Geshe Michael Roach: And in my own, when I saw emptiness, I saw my first real teaching of those books was Shantideva and it was in the Himalayas. And actually my mom was there. So my mom was a school teacher of 10 year olds. And she got breast cancer and then it got worse. She had a very big operation.

They cut out all the what do you call this? Lymph. And her breast. And then she got worse and worse. Then she started to have epilepsy and I remember one day she had epilepsy in the classroom.

And then the school said you have to go home, you can't teach. Then my teacher told me bring her to the Himalayas. There are some very famous TCM doctors. Traditional Chinese medicine. And also great teachers.

So she came. It was a terrible journey. She never went outside the United States. And she was very sick. So I went to pick her up in New Delhi.

And it's like a 10 hour taxi ride. Then brought her back. She was laying down in a taxi. And took her to the TCM doctor. Famous TCM doctor.

And I knew him. Because I got hepatitis while I was there. And then he came out and he said you don't have to bring her back to me. Because I can't help her. Then my teacher said have her come to the class everyday.

And we can teach her how to die. And everyday they put her against a pillar. And she listened to the Shantideva book for like almost two months. And I saw the power that the book had for her.

——— Slide 2 · Getting your finances in order ———

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Geshe Michael Roach: And then when I got back when I was finishing at Princeton. My teacher the first time I met him he was teaching Heart Sutra at Columbia University and then at Princeton. And when I look back I think those meeting the holy books meeting Shantideva meeting Nagarjuna meeting Heart Sutra I think it's one of the main ways to see emptiness. And I don't think it's possible to see emptiness if you don't meet the books. It's interesting in the ancient language they don't say read a book.

They don't say pecha lok means to read a book. They say peche chun jel ngel means to meet a holy being. It means just to meet a jing So it's interesting to me because I love books. They don't say read a book. They use the verb that means to meet the Buddha.

When you read Heart Sutra when you read Diamond Cutter Sutra the verb is you are meeting the Buddha as a book. So it's very famous you need shamatha and vipashyana you need deep meditation and you need wisdom to see emptiness. And that meditation ability it does not happen in a vacuum. It's not about you sit down and meditate and you see emptiness. It's not like that.

You have to create a whole meditation environment in your life. And we talked about some of the details. You should be less concerned about your appearance. You should be careful not to collect too many things that you have to worry about. I would say you should and this is a difficult one I'm sorry you should get your finances in order.

Not having good finances is one of the main obstacles to meditation and I'm surprised Kamalashila didn't put it in the poster. And I don't mean you should be rich because that's also distracting sometimes. But I mean you should be responsible with your spending. Don't spend more than you have. Don't be American.

I mean you should be responsible with your spending. If you don't have money don't spend it. Don't be like Americans spending money for the future. Because if you spend more than you earn it will disturb a part of your consciousness. You will be worried about this in your consciousness.

So reduce your needs to fit your income. 100. Now there's a word for that. I taught it to you a long time ago. Two days ago.

It's dam, dam, dam, dam. 100 dollars. By the way you have to give me the ancient language and then you have to translate it. Less fuel and easily satisfied. 100 dollars.

You know it's not part of the long rim actually. But reducing your expenses below your income is a great way to focus. Focus your money. And you can do it you're just lazy. It takes about 10 minutes.

Just don't spend what you don't have. And you'll be able to focus. But you must have a relationship to the ancient books. In the Geshe course the first 12 years is Abhisamaya Alankara. It's 75 pages.

It takes about 45 minutes to recite. And you have to memorize it. In fact we're going to study that book tomorrow with Tim. That means every baby monk in the monastery and there's thousands of baby monks they have Maitreya whispering in their ear all day. And it feels like that.

It feels like Geshe Michael all day what you memorize is under your subconscious all day. Then to be honest I had many American friends when I was younger they say you guys spend too much time on the books. Just be a nice person. Just be a good person. You don't have to read all those books.

I strongly believe that's a serious mistake. These books are not romance novels. They are like electricity. When you connect with them you are like and then you can see kongxing. So I started I strongly recommend I spend 5 or 6 hours a day studying the Jing.

Almost every day. I finished the Geshe course 32 years ago. But it's I think it's important to meet the Jing every day. I like to show off the new books that John Brady (?) finds. This book Stanley and John both worked on it.

This is Kamalashila who designed our meditation system. If you took ACI course number 3 it's all from Madhyamaka. These are all from the Lotus Land Master (?). Most people don't know he wrote the only long commentary to the Diamond Cutter Sutra from India. And I have been working on it for 15 years.

And recently Stanley's team found a copy in Dunhuang. And this is one of the pages. Eat by really this is how I keep people awake. If you are a teacher it's a good method to keep people awake. You talk about Diamond Cutter Sutra they fall asleep.

You talk about $100 everybody wakes up. Those people who are in Singapore you already know the answer. Why are those holes important in the book? It's just to check if you were asleep in Singapore. Why do Chinese people always raise their hand before they know the answer?

They are reading my mind. Alright, you know the answer?

Question from the audience: Yeah, because you use the holes to put a string into it and then you connect the whole book and that whole book is called jing.

Geshe Michael Roach: What's the Sanskrit word for the string? Sutra. Nice job. So this is a beautiful explanation of the Diamond Cutter Sutra by the person who invented our meditation system. The red color $100.

What's the question? What's the red color? So the red are the original sutra and the black are the commentary. Thank you. Thank you, thank you so so much.

Okay, let's show the last question. $100. Think carefully. Wait, you gotta show the picture. The jing.

Some chicken was walking on the paper. You see the little scratches? Like at the very bottom. That's not the jing. That's in the red color.

The sutra is in the red color. Kamalashila's commentary is in the usual black color. Tiny tiny letters. What's that? By the way, it's handwriting.

From the audience: Thank you. It's a note.

Geshe Michael Roach: 100 dollars. Why I ask that question? I'm still waiting for Anatole to give me a high high high resolution copy because I cannot read the notes. JPEG, JPEG, JPEG, JPEG Unfortunately on the left you can see half the page is lost. Usually John Brady spends his whole year in the airplane.

And we did fundraising and we bought him a time machine. So he will be traveling back to Dunhuang during Tang Dynasty. To bring the rest of the page. He promised me. So that's actually the next project that we have.

This is the book after this one. Then this one, by the way, you four guys come. You ready? Come up. It's Tim and Jasmine.

These four books I was hoping to sell to fundraise for the translators. But last night at 2 o'clock Buddha woke me up. And he has a different plan. She has a different plan. And we would like Max and Ira and Peter and Maria and Yulia to come up.

Okay. Didier and Max. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's Yulia. Didier, Yulia.

Yulia? No, no. She here? Yulia? No.

She fell asleep? Yep. Yulia Bileva? Max, how do you say her name? Yulia Bileva.

Host: Yulia Bileva. Yulia, where are you? Can someone call her?

Geshe Michael Roach: She's in the emergency room. Okay, so these guys with John and Connie (?) leading them they worked for many years to find students, teach new students and the amazing thing is those students are at war. There are two. Their students' countries are at war. It's the longest war in this century.

It's longer than World War I. It's longer than World War II. I think close to a million people have been injured or killed and still these people work together and they make peace together so me and the translators Jasmine and Tim and Stanley we would like to present these four books to you separately.

From the audience: And ask you to keep doing the good work.

Geshe Michael Roach: Keep doing the good work. And Jasmine promised me to put a preface in each one. We got two inside. Extra. Okay, so it means they have to stay together because they have four different parts of the book.

So Stanley is going to give Peter his copy. Jasmine is going to give Maria her copy. Now listen, tell her if Peter is not a good boy she can... Jasmine will give this book to Maria and tell Maria if Peter is not a good boy you can beat him with this book. Tim is going to give to Max and Ira.

Tim is going to give this book to Max and Ira. This one we can do Rob for Julia and her husband Yevgeny.

From the audience: Before you guys go I want to say two things. This group has expanded the size of the Ukrainian and Russian Sangha is incredible.

Geshe Michael Roach: For example, when we look at everyone who submitted a request for transmission even bigger than the English speaking group worldwide.

From the audience: The Ukrainian community was almost a thousand people. The Russian community is just short of 800. I don't know. English came in just around 700. So it's amazing.

The work that you are doing is incredible. Please stay and please keep teaching.

——— Slide 3 · Dunhuang / Dragonshead crossovers ———

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Geshe Michael Roach: I think if they keep working hard the war can finish soon. Alright. Next picture you guys. On the left is my angel Veronica. This is the library at Dunhuang.

Behind her is the classic library at Dunhuang. There are 735 meditation caves at Dunhuang. By accident they found 60,000 books in a sealed cave. 125 years ago. Those books unfortunately they were stolen by many colonial powers.

France has a big collection. England has a big collection. I saw the Russian collection. And the Americans also stole a lot. It's my dream that we can give them back to Dunhuang.

We are fundraising Stanley's group is fundraising to help bring the books back. And to translate the books. So it's about 60,000 books are there. And I hope we can get images of all of them. The images are not available much and the ones that are available as I mentioned, you can't read them.

They are not clear enough. Why I show this picture? Dunhuang was most powerful 1400 years ago. And sometimes the past generation sends us a message and we don't see the message. So what message was sent from Dunhuang?

Retreat and the great books go together. Meditation, retreat and studying the great books. In Dunhuang it's combined. That library is surrounded by meditation caves. And those caves are amazing.

Inside painted very beautiful paintings and I think we should be creative to make new meditation caves ourselves. The tree house on the right is a meditation cave that we designed for Dragon's Head. And we started building already. How many trees? There are maybe 100 trees.

Maybe 100 big ones. Useful trees. And we chose the first tree. That's Veronica and Xiaoping in the middle picture. And we chose the first tree.

And we had several programs at Dunhuang. It's at the edge of the Gobi Desert in China. And we had a meeting in Singapore few days ago and a very wealthy hotel owners in Dunhuang have offered us a center in the Gobi Desert. So I've been teaching how to do retreat and how to study the great books. And like all of our organizations for the next two years those three organizations Innovation Retreats Diamond Silk Entrepreneur University DSEU (?) and CSP (?) they will be doing a two-year course mainly for business people.

About how to see emptiness and use it in business. But the reason I show the picture is 1400 years ago people understand the book and the meditation and the retreat are not separate. And they built places like this to do all three together. Okay, next picture. We're going to have a special panel discussion in the next class and we're going to talk about this Goodnight Book Club and if you want to see emptiness directly I think one of the most important things you can do is what you do in class.

Sleeping! And recently Stanley came to me it's really irritating to me people only believe something if Harvard University is doing it. Harvard University just reports that sleep is the best way to have intelligence. Let's make a thing called Goodnight Book Club. Okay, the story about Goodnight Book Club I never had a television and in 25 years in the monastery I think I only saw one or two movies with my teacher.

Then COVID came and I used to travel 182 days a year. And I used to stay home 183 days a year. Why? Wife cannot complain. Honey, I'm home most of the time.

Then, you know suddenly COVID came and I'm sitting at home and I have too much free time it's also dangerous, right? And I start watching internet. First I watch Korea's soap opera. King's Affection Extraordinary Attorney Wu John's Life doesn't they're good, they're really good. Then it's just half hour or something.

Then I start to watch short movies. Then I start to watch long movies. Then I start to watch war movies. Then I start to watch dirty movies. And you know worse and worse and worse.

Then I don't sleep. I remember and then I heard about my friend Will Duncan. He has a small retreat center in Arizona. At nine o'clock he turns off the internet. And I heard about it a long time ago.

But I thought I was strong enough to control myself and I'm not. I start to understand I'm doing something wrong. Then I put my when I go to bed I put my phone and I put my computer in a drawer. Then one night I remember I woke up around two o'clock and the drawer is next to the bed and I'm opening the drawer I'm trying to get to the phone. If you know my wife she's a Buddha.

She wake up immediately. What are you doing? Sounds like my old lama. What are you doing? I said I need to look on my phone.

Why? Sleep. It's sleeping time. It's time to sleep. No, no, I have to find out something.

What? When I was trying to sleep a question come in my mind deep, deep question. She's like, oh, honey what's the question? I said, every person has fingernail and toenail on them. Which one grow faster?

Then I will ask the AI chat GPT even he don't have fingernail or toenail then she look at me she said, you're crazy. This internet Do you understand now? Do you understand it's addiction? You're addicted.

——— Slide 4 · Early to bed, early to rise ———

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Geshe Michael Roach: No, no, I can stop. You cannot stop. You're real addicted. She's always right. Then I decided to try to follow Will Duncan's system.

So, ten o'clock I lock up well, ten o'clock I put the computer and the phone in a drawer and I wake up at six. I always heard John and Connie wake up at four. I don't know if it's correct. But I always admire I said, oh, I wish I could wake up at four. Then usually I wake up at nine.

So, I tried this new system go to bed at ten wake up at six. All my business friends say now you got worse and worse. Geshe-la, when you work in the diamond business you always work till two a.m. in Manhattan.

And you always go back to Manhattan at six o'clock. Then you're a real tough guy. You don't need eight hours sleep, Geshe-la. You work for eight hours. You work for twenty years with four hours of sleep.

You are going to waste your time which is the thing you fear the most in your whole life. So, I tried it ten o'clock get in the bed six o'clock get up if you do it for a few weeks the clock is inside. I always wake up at five fifty nine because I have a really irritating alarm. Five fifty nine turn off the alarm. Then he's like Then go to bed at ten.

And I lock it. In this hotel Rob comes to my room nine fifty nine point fifty nine Can't you come at ten fifteen sometimes? I'm always in the middle of a good movie. Then Rob's like Then I'm like, okay, here's the computer. Where's the phone?

Then he give it back to me at six o'clock. And I'm going to recite this mantra until I die. I think I can do a million before I die. You have to try it. You have to try it.

Okay? Why we can give those big fat books to those guys? My productivity increased three hundred percent. Rosa almost had a breakdown. She's like, Rosa's like, Okay, Geshe-la, Me and Anatole finished your last book.

It's out. It's out. Angel Devil. Then I said, good, because I have a new one. Then she's like, can't you wait a few weeks?

Then it's just three times production. And I feel so fresh. And I don't have the guilty feeling that I am watching crap on the internet. So I really encourage you to try. And I'm going to repeat this mantra until I die.

Okay? And I'm going to say it again and again and again. Someday you have to try. Just try it for two weeks. You will never give it up.

And you feel your health is sleep is the basis of health. And we'll talk more about it in the next class. Rosa designed a special bag. You got my bag, grandpa? He carries my bag everywhere.

I have this bag with me all day. It holds my computer. It has a lock on it. There's a time lock. I can't open it, even I want to open it.

Okay? And Rosa designed all that. I'd like to thank her. I feel like it saved my life. Because the stuff on the internet is very addicting.

And it's very bad for your meditation. I think if you are addicted to the internet you cannot see emptiness. I don't think so. I don't say internet is an evil thing. I don't say that.

I use it many times every day. I go to the ALL website (?). I use the search program. Probably about a hundred times a day. And for me it's very, very precious.

And if you can, I hope you support the ALL project. Yay! Next picture. Yeah. If you'd like to join, there's the QR code.

Lindsay (?), can you stand up? She will send you two books a year or four books a year. Every time we make a new book Lindsay sends it out to the people who sponsor. This money goes to the translators to pay for their salaries. It's basically one dollar a day or two dollars a day.

It's not going to kill you, okay? And it will save the most valuable thing in this world. So, you really should help. Please help. If you want to help today or tomorrow, we have trouble in the United States.

Understand? Anyway, our government stopped insurance for poor people. We don't have national hospital, for example. If you get sick in America, you need thousands of dollars. Or they will not treat you.

So, we used to have government insurance and it was canceled. So, that's a big expense for all of our team. One tire on one American bomber airplane costs half a million dollars. One wheel, the rubber wheel, it costs $500,000. One wheel on one bomber costs half a million dollars.

When you say bomber, you mean the plane that dropped the bomb? One wheel, not the two. Oh, okay, I see. One tire on one American bomber airplane costs $500,000. Then all that money, all that insurance money went to that.

So, grandpa have to think of ways to raise more money. I made a red box using classical Chinese red lacquer. The box cost me $1,000. It has all the books which I made. Which we translated so far.

Seiji's book just come out. Two volumes. Similar to Seiji. Cannot fit in the box. So, it's on top.

Now, grandpa propose to sell this box for $12,000 US. I will donate the money to the translators in family insurance. If you want to pay more than $12,000, I won't complain. If you like to help, talk to Rosa or talk to Lindsay. Okay, thank you.

Alright. If you really serious to see emptiness, you need to read those books. Little bit. When you go to sleep, read for five minutes. Don't even read the book, just close your eyes or open some place.

Buddha is not stupid. Buddha saw two thousand years ago he saw you open the book. He will send you a personal love note in the sutra. You can trust it. But if you don't have the book, you can't do it.

So, I ask you to get a book. Do we have another slide, Francisco? Oh, that we did already. Okay, then that's it. We have time for one question.

Then we'll take a break.

Host: Geshe-la, we have a question from someone online. This person asks, my grandfather is 93 years old and he is recommended to do a surgery. My dad is the eldest of the siblings so he was assigned the responsibility of deciding if he should get the surgery or not. But he's kind of afraid of the outcome of the surgery. Doctors say it is dangerous but it is more dangerous not to do it.

So, what advice do you have from the perspective of the teachings we're learning here?

Geshe Michael Roach: Thank you. When I wrote the ACI course on Diamond Kundalini Sutra (?), what was the number? Six? Yes, when I was designing the ACI course on Diamond Kundalini Sutra, I remember I wrote it in the hospital. And my teacher had the same problem.

So, he was already 80, I think. And the doctor said you should have a prostate surgery. And I told him what the doctor said and I asked him the same question. Rinpoche, how do you decide you should do the operation or you shouldn't do the operation? And his answer was two steps and I believe in it.

And he said first of all find a doctor who's compassionate. Find a doctor who's a good person. It's interesting, he didn't say the most expensive, he didn't say the most skilled, he said find the most compassionate one. And he was picky with doctors. He kicked out many doctors.

And it takes patience to find a compassionate doctor. So, when you start asking your friends, suddenly you will have 20 doctor choices. And be patient. Meet them one by one. Check if they seem to be compassionate.

That's the first rule. Second rule, shut up and do what the doctor tells you to do. Okay, and don't worry about it. So, I followed that advice I had four operations in the last few years but I followed this advice and I believe in it. So, that's the best you can do and don't be afraid to go to a good doctor.

Good doctor. Then many patients get in trouble because they don't listen to the doctor. So, listen to the doctor. Talk to the doctor. If the doctor is too busy to talk to you lock them in the room and talk to them.

And then do what the doctor says. And decide whatever is the result I will serve people. Okay, we're going to take a break. Yoga? Oh, Grandpa and Anatole we're going to teach a yoga class.

Host: Thank you Geshe Michael. Thank you Stanley. So, very important arrangement for yoga. Please take a seat. We have 900 chairs here and if one yoga mat equals two chairs Thank you very much dear Lama, dear teacher for these great teachings.

And great advices you gave to us. We're now getting ready to yoga which is going to be in 40 45 40 minutes So, get ready enjoy the class and Anatole and Geshe Michael will be leading us through yoga. Thank you.