BDW 6 «Алмазный Путь Арьи», занятие 5

Autotranscript · BDW6, Malaysia, Meditation 5

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

Date: 12 July 2026 · Malacca, Malaysia · duration 1 h 10 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 - Meditation 5 (July 12, 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: Good morning, good morning everyone. We are now beginning Arya's Diamond Way Meditation 5 with Geshe Michael Roach. Take this opportunity to slow down, settle your mind and reconnect with your practice. Please check your language channel, find a comfortable posture, take a deep breath and enjoy the meditation. Let's begin.

Alright, with gratitude, let's welcome our teacher Geshe Michael and teacher Stanley.

Geshe Michael Roach: Well, you didn't burn down the hotel last night. Congratulations. That was fun. Thank you again, Jasmine, as usual, and Gyal Tse, we're going to have Gyal Tse. My boss at the diamond company used to say, don't worry, you can sleep on the plane.

Okay, here we go. Okay, so get ready to meditate. Relax your eyes. Make a small smile. Relax your forehead.

Tighten your lower tummy a little bit. Push your shoulders back and down a little bit. And we'll start with a hundred breaths together. And please start your breath. Okay, let's begin.

And then please bring a teacher, one of your teachers, to come and sit with you in meditation. Here's a big debate. Should you start by imagining their outline, or should you start by imagining the parts of their face? But when you meditate in the next few months, what I'd like you to focus on most importantly is how much they love you. Don't worry so much about their nose and their ears.

Try to imagine strongly the feeling of their love for you. So, I don't mind if the picture is not so clear, but the feeling of their care and their love for you should be clear. Next, please offer your teacher a gift. I think all of us here can offer all the hard work and all the time we spent to come here and learn. And please think of something you did in the last few days that was not very nice, and tell your teacher very openly, very honestly about it, and that will clean it.

And then I'd like you to please dedicate all the good seeds that we planted by working so hard together in the last week. And make a prayer that we learn something new and virtuous today. I think when you have meals with other people at a program like this, and you keep your ears open, you can learn a lot of fresh new ideas about being a good person. And now please think about some of your friends and your teachers here at this program and make a prayer for their long life. It's very difficult to practice by ourselves, without friends, without teachers.

And if we are lucky, then the good people around us have a long life, and it helps us a lot. Then we'll start the actual meditation. This week so far, we had three kinds of meditation. And in the next few weeks, and the next two months, let's say, if you can, I would ask you to meditate at least five days, well I would say not more and not less than five days a week. One of those days off is a regular day.

It could be Saturday, it could be Sunday. And one of those days off, not meditating every week, is a day when you have special pressure, or one of your kids is sick, or you have a project for work, and you can skip one day of meditation. But the rest of the days, I would like you to sit down and prepare to meditate like we did here. It's good to do those same preliminaries that we did, but breathing 100 breaths, if you don't have time, you can do 20 breaths or 50 breaths as you like. Then the meditation each day for the next two months, when you do meditate, I would like you to, each morning or evening, depending on when you meditate, we did three different kinds of meditation this week.

First we meditated on the teachers that came into our life before the age of 12. It could be parents, it could be brothers or sisters, it could be school teachers. But just to appreciate and thank the people who helped us start this life, and who probably, well certainly, came from our past life. Those people are proof of your past life. They didn't come from nowhere.

And they taught us from the time we were born. So your first choice of three different meditations is to think about the teachers that you carried into this life. Your second choice for meditation in the next two months, each one of us had books or songs or poetry that changed our life. We also carried those books or songs or poetry, we carried them from our last life. They are not a mistake.

They didn't come from nowhere. Nothing comes from nowhere. And so, your second choice of meditations in the next two months, think about the books or the music or the poetry that came to you from your past life before you were 12 years old. Your third choice of meditation, the third meditation that we learned together these last few days, then when you were a kid, when I was a kid, people around us told us this is where the world comes from, this is who made the world, this is how everything happens. We got some explanation from our parents and school teachers.

Then you don't have, I don't want you to worry about did they teach you something correct or did they teach you something mistaken. Maybe the school teachers told you the world came from a big accident explosion. And then maybe your parents or your church or your temple, they told you, oh no, everything comes from a very big powerful guy like Buddha or God. And I don't want you to, in your meditation, I don't want you to worry about was that information correct or was that information not correct. I don't want you to worry about that.

I just want you to think about how did it come to you, who taught it to you, and where did they come from? So, those are three choices you have for meditation. And in the next two months, I would like you to do one of them every day. And understand that what came to you before the age of twelve is a result that came from something earlier. And then because we are studying Diamond Way, we have to think about those people, like our parents or our school teachers.

Is it possible they were Buddha? Buddhism says there are countless Buddhas in the universe. And Buddhism says they can show any way they want to you. And Buddhism also says that when a Buddha comes to you as a normal person, they might do something nice to you or they might do something to hurt you if it teaches you something. So, there's a chance that the teachers who came to you as a child and the books that they taught you, and information that came to you as a child, and the ideas of where the world comes from which came to you as a child, might be delivered by Buddhas.

Personally, I think there's a misunderstanding about Diamond Way. You don't have to pretend that the people around you are Buddha. Or even just an Arya. You don't have the capacity to recognize a Buddha or an Arya for sure. Because you don't have the ability, you don't have the ability to determine whether a person is Buddha or not.

But Diamond Way practice means you think to yourself, it's possible that some of the people around you are Buddhas or some of them are Aryas. Just think it's possible. That it's possible, it's logical, and you can accept that. We can't say for sure they are or they are not. But just thinking it's possible, it's logical, and you can accept that.

It's possible we'll make you a better person and a happier person. Okay, we have a few minutes. Choose one of those three meditations for this morning. And give yourself a chance in the next few months to do one of those three meditations every morning. If I'm in a big rush to go to the airport, I will meditate in my airplane seat.

And I don't close my eyes because maybe I will miss the meal on the airplane. So, sometimes my meditation is just kind of looking off into space and thinking about one of those three things. Maybe we have a rough morning and we don't have time to sit down in formal meditation. But certainly, we have a few quiet moments every morning to sit and think about one of these three. Okay, so choose one of the three for this morning.

We'll do about ten minutes of silent meditation. And then we'll have a little bit of extra time for questions. Okay, here we go. Okay, and then please let's dedicate this meditation and also dedicate this week of hard work together. And offer it to the people of this world.

And then slowly open your eyes. Take a stretch. Take a drink. And if you have any questions, we'll take questions.

Question from the audience: I'd like to ask a question on behalf of a friend. The question is, this friend has very bad anxiety and depression. And that's what brought them and interested them in the Dharma. But they've been practicing for years. And they still have this problem very bad.

And they're starting to lose hope and wanted your advice.

Geshe Michael Roach: Yeah, so Lindsay says she has a friend who has anxiety and depression. And they've been practicing for a long time. And it doesn't seem to be getting better. So first I'll tell you as a joke, what my teacher used to say, just imagine how bad it would be if you weren't practicing. Then I think it always comes down to the same thing.

When we have some kind of problem in our life, we all have a tendency to focus on ourselves. And I really do believe that the more you focus on yourself, you don't have time to think about other people. If the pot on the stove is coming from your seeds, and that's why it's important to see the pot on the stove, then you can ... if you see the pot on the stove is coming from your cascading pictures, then also the way you feel about yourself and the way you feel about your life, those seed pictures are cascading out of your mind. And the word samsara, it means vicious cycle.

You focus on yourself. I'm not feeling happy. I feel anxiety. The time it takes to think about yourself is time you don't have to think about others. And it doesn't mean you should ignore your needs.

You should take care of yourself. If you don't take care of yourself, you can't help other people at all. So, go to the doctor when you have to. Eat carefully. And do silly dances on the internet.

All my friends are complaining to me for the last two days. Geshe-la, my legs hurt. That's a good sign. So, take care of yourself. With love.

If you can't do that, then it's not possible to take care of other people. But, leave a lot of time to take care of other people. Because that's where your happiness comes from. So, take care of yourself. Feed yourself, comb your hair, put on clothes on yourself.

Shantideva said, it's not wrong to look nice. But don't feel pride about it. Think about a flower in the garden. Shantideva said, those flowers don't think, I'm so beautiful. I'm more beautiful than the other flowers.

Shantideva said, those flowers just enjoy to make people happy. So, if you fight your anxiety, fight your depression, because you want to be beautiful like a flower. I know about beautiful because I'm American. So, be a beautiful flower. Be happy for other people.

I can tell you, my life is not perfect. I have lots of problems. I have strange problems. I'm not even going to tell you. Generally, I try to take care of other people.

That makes my life extremely happy. I like to brag. You know I like to brag. But sometimes I like to brag that I'm the happiest person I know. That's because I take care of other people.

Okay? It's a struggle to get the focus off yourself and turn the focus on other people. If you're lucky, you have a beautiful wife who will tell you, we went to the Peach Tree Cafe. We had a meeting with three other people. Husband, the whole time you just talk about yourself.

Anatole was trying to say something and you talked over him for two hours. So, try to get married to a good person. They will remind you to focus on other people. Remember the flower. The flower is not bragging.

The flower is not bragging. The flower enjoys to be beautiful to make other people happy. Dress nice. Learn beautiful ideas. Share them with other people.

Because you want to be like a flower. Flower, okay. Alright. One more short one. Short question.

We never wish you wrong (?).

Host: Very good.

Question from the audience: Okay. 19 years ago, I read your book. At that time, my parents passed away suddenly. It was a big blow to me. I learned a lot of psychology but it didn't work for me.

Then I started to learn from you It's been almost 14 years. I think learning from you has changed my life a lot. I used to be desperate about life. I even killed myself a few times but it didn't work. My classmates said I was depressed.

I thought it was nothing. I was desperate about life but it didn't work. But in the past 10 years, I think learning has been a great support and help for me. I think meeting you is a miracle in my life and a great fortune. I want to ask you These days, you have been talking about your health.

So I have a request. I sincerely hope you can stay in this world and guide us to learn and practice Buddhism. I want to ask you because you have been teaching us that everything comes from me. What should we do next? What should I do?

What kind of seed or cause will I plant for you to stay and continue teaching us? This is my question. Thank you.

From the audience: Yesha, I met you 19 years ago and I was very unhappy, seriously depressed because my parents just suddenly left the world and I feel hopeless. I tried so many different kinds of psychology methods or training didn't help but meeting you really brought me hope and my life was radically changed after that. Another friend mentioned about anxiety and depression. I got real depression at that time and I tried to kill myself several times but it didn't work. Anyway, thank you so much for your teaching.

I really hope that you can stay in this world for as long as possible to teach us. My question is from my side, what can I do to force you to make you stay and teach us, keep teaching us?

Geshe Michael Roach: Thank you for the beautiful question. So, many years ago I couldn't be close to my teacher. The circumstances were difficult. I was living far away and I couldn't get a chance to be close to them. So, I studied all the seed system.

Of course, the seed system will say try to help other people to be close to their teacher. So, I really worked hard on that. I did a lot of retreats to work hard on that. I remember a retreat in Flagstaff. I remember I was so sad I couldn't be close to my teacher that I just cried the whole time.

Then my teacher was talking about flowers also. Then flowers don't advertise much. They make some nectar and it forces the bees to come. I have a beehive. I have 8,000 bees.

The flower doesn't go to the beehive. The bees come to the flower. The flower's method is to be as beautiful as possible. That's why flowers have beautiful colors. It's all advertising.

The flowers which have attractive colors survive in evolution because the bees are attracted and the bees pollinate them. My teacher said just find ways to serve teachers. You don't have to go to other countries. You don't have to go to India. Mainly what you find in India is not the teacher, it's diarrhea.

Bring the teacher to you. How can you bring the teacher to you? By helping other people to find their teacher and by supporting teachers in the world. That's what I did and now I'm married to my teacher. It's pretty good.

It's pretty good. That's my idea. Thank you. Thank you for your concern. And I'm doing the best I can to take care of my health.

See you in a few minutes.

Host: Thank you. Thank you, dear teacher. Please stay and keep teaching us. Our next class will start at 8.15.

Suggest we come back at 8.12. If you don't need to go to the restroom, you can just relax at your seat. Thank you and see you later. Thank you.

Thank you for practicing with us. We hope this meditation brings clarity and peace. We'll have 8 minutes break. Up next is Arya's Diamond Way class 8. See you soon.