<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XybVhZEtAE4VjO8vQp0lEAplrBGbgI0m/preview" width="100%" height="80" allow="autoplay"></iframe> About, I don't know, maybe seven years ago, Geshe Michael, he told me this was going to happen. This very thing, he described this to me seven years ago. So it means a lot to It's true. It's true. One... One... First announcement. Last year we did a class at Diamond Mountain to prepare for tantra, to prepare for teaching the students tantra. It's required to teach this class before you study tantra. So we, it was Deila, Path to Birth, by the First Pension Lama, His Holiness the First Pension Lama, who is now in prison, and we don't know where. current pension mama is in prison. He's a boy. We don't know where. And so we worked hard on it. We translated most of it in Varanasi. So I'd like John Stilwell and Joanne to stand up. Where are they? And they are? In the back. Where are they? In the back. She's already standing. Are you standing up? Joanne is standing. There is John. Oh. John and Joanne. So if you don't know, all the ACI courses exist because John brought a tape recorder. He said this is going to be important. So for seven years he got this tape recorder. Anyway, so he went home and took all the poetry out of the pension line. We did some poetry by the first pension member. And he collected it all secretly. And he published it into a book. And he ordered enough copies to give to all the students at Diamond Mountain. And then he got them last week from the printer. And they were all... They had a slight defect in the cutting or something, in the paper. The paper wasn't the one he had asked for. So he said, you have to give me these for free. so they did or something close I don't know but anyway he and Joanne have paid for that and then we said could we give him away at the teaching on Friday and he said cool so so it's very very beautiful poetry really beautiful it's mostly yogi tantric poetry and Diamond Mountain, please don't take one. They're in the other room. When we stop in half a minute, shortly. We'll just go around and get one, and have one. If you're from Diamond Mountain, please don't take one, and you'll get one later, okay? Because we want to have enough for all the other people here. Okay? And Chrissy, I was going to read something. So the Panjshin Lama was around the 1500s in Tibet, and I just want you to know how Well, the Maha Siddhi lineage has been passed on. I went and captured all the forest deer, all the objects in the universe. I used the snare of remembering what I had seen before when I was still in that deep meditation. And then the snare itself turned into the body of an angel, a body made out of bliss and emptiness. When I think of this, I think of my Lama's kindness, and oh, how kind you have been to me, my Lama and my Lord. I died without losing my life and once again sat and watched the struggle. Then the sculptor arrived, the mind fast as thought itself. It took up in its hands the refined gold of all the subtlest element of all and crafted the image, an angel's holy body made of wisdom itself. The body awoke and did miracles beyond the mind to conceive. I grabbed the universe, all three realms, and devoured it in a single swallow. Aghast at what I had done, I ran off into simple voidness. When I think of this, I think of my Lama's kindness. And oh, how kind you have been to me, my Lama and my Lord. Then from nowhere came again a rainbow across the sky The rainbow blazed in the marks and signs of an enlightened being There was a virgin, the cleft of method, the one of power And then came a boy, born of himself from the empty realm Drunk from the wine of the clear light of his home They united, never again to be apart friends and companions combined into a single thing they tore from the others the immaculate shining jewels and a mass of objects of enjoyment claiming them as their very own when I think of this I think of my lama's kindness and oh how kind you have been to me my lama and my lord Thank you. You're first. This is, I was in the monastery one time, and there's two monasteries in Sarah. Inside of Sarah there are two monasteries, Sarah J and Sarah May. There's a green line between them. Only the monks know where it is. So we don't go across the line into Sarah J, and they don't go across the line into Sarah May. Because they're inferior, you see. They would feel bad. But twice a month we meet together in one big temple called Sokchen. And then we do our confession ceremony. So it's like 3,000 monks are singing the confession ceremony. It's very beautiful. And then we confess anything bad we've done. So I went one time. And we have a Vinaya master. who Tuki knows very well. He's helping her. He's very old and he started the, he was the first abbot of the refounded monastery after it was refounded in India. And we all got, we scrammed into the temple. There's 3,000 of us and everyone's sitting up straight ready to confess their faults, you know. And then he says, I have an announcement to make. And everyone's like, you know, and he says, confession was yesterday. And we counted the moon dates wrong. You know, it's like some astronomical thing. And he said, we got the wrong day. You know, it's gone. It's finished, you know. And they're all like, what are we doing? He said, let's have a Toshitsok. Toshitsok means, eh, just for the hell of it. Let's do one, you know. Let's do a little thing, just for good luck. So we're going to do Tashi Tso tonight for the teaching. We'll just do a few of the most beautiful verses. And then it's a custom to leave a little bit undone, unfinished. For a long time. And it means we have to meet again and do the next second quiz. Okay? Mazal? Mazal. Okay. So here we go. This is verse 21 of the fourth chapter. Anyone who restrains the sweeping winds also restrains the mind. And anyone who restrains the mind also restrains the sweeping winds. there are two great principles found in this verse two very very holy principles of yoga and when they teach yoga in Tibet these are the two guiding principles of yoga in Tibet and they are expressed in this verse the first one is called say lungsem jukpa Chikpa. Lung-sem. Lung-sem. Jukpa. Jukpa. Chikpa. Chikpa. And we spoke about it before, but here's where in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, this is where it's actually stated. Lung means prana, the inner winds, and sem means the mind. Thoughts are thoughts. And then Jukpa-chikpa means they always ride in tandem. So wherever the winds go, the mind also goes, the thoughts also go. and wherever the thoughts go then the prana also moves and we talked about it if you get angry for example or jealous then prana is moving to the right hand channel the sun channel and if you're like looking at a maple covered donut and you'd be willing to fight to get the last one or hurt someone or just take it before someone else had a chance to get it. Then prana is moving in the left-hand channel. So, and the goal of physical asanas, the goal of physical yoga is to move all the wind out of the left and the right channels through physical means, through twists and bends and inversions, to get it into the central channel, which would make your thoughts purer. And then as you leave the yoga studio with purer thoughts, you're better able to control yourself, right? And then that brings more prana into your central channel. So that brings up the second guiding principle of all yoga in Tibet. Say, chi nang, tabla, tabla, sor, sor, be. Chi nang, chi nang, tabla, tabla, sor, sor, be. Chi means the outside of the body. It means the body. Nang means inside the mind Chinang Tabla means Tsoor Be means you have to promise this is a vow this is a tantric vow this is a high vow this is a vow that you must take before you can learn yoga in Tibet and we did it at Diamond Mountain this last semester it's one of the 8th grade mother vows called the mother vows the most secret vows of tantra and this one is when you get this empowerment or initiation then you swear. You raise your right hand. So left hand. Raise your left hand. I'm not making you do it of course. Just good luck. Say, It means I vow, I swear to use both outer and inner methods. I swear to use both outer and inner methods. So an outer method would be, for example, practices that use the body to affect the prana, to affect your thoughts. So yoga asanas or practicing with your partner. These are outer methods using the physical body to affect the channels, to affect the prana. And try to bring it into the central channel. Then nang means, I also swear that I will work from the inside, not just from the outside. I also swear to work from the inside. So meditation, pratyahara, using some kinds of pranayama sometimes you can think of as inside. And these are methods to control the prana from the inside, from the mind. And before you're allowed to embark on physical yoga in the Tibetan tradition, you have to promise that for the rest of your life, you will use both methods, meditation and asana. Okay? You promised. You kind of promised. We're going on to... Well, verse 22, is that in reading 9 or reading 10? Nine, okay. Ten, okay. Well, actually, it's nine. Don't trust the header, it's wrong. Anyway, everybody find verse 22. Our thoughts have two different causes, mental seeds and the inner winds. Whenever any one of the two is destroyed, then the other is destroyed as well. So we talked before about how the reason that we can use both the inner and outer methods to get to the same goal is because we have our body and our mind are connected in the sense that our thoughts have a physical counterpart. the inner winds running through our channels and they're integrally connected. If you push the inner winds one way, the thoughts will go that way. If you push the thoughts some way, the inner winds have to follow. They're like a physical mirror of the mental side of yourself, right? But here it's talking about our ultimate practice of understanding that our thoughts, they are both inner winds and mental seeds, right? They are like little mental seeds of the heart chakra projecting all of our world. You know, we talked about how this room was not made from, you know, mortar and bricks, that it was made of from our kindness, how the walls, how the roof were, that was standing up because of a kindness that we did to other people in the past, you know. We created a space for other people to gather together in the past, and that's the reason that we're under this beautiful roof right now, right. So we get that. We get that part about emptiness. We get the part about the screaming boss is coming from us, you know, because we screamed at somebody else in the past. And the way to prevent that is not to scream at other people in the future. It's really simple, really easy, really hard to do. I mean, easy to grasp in the mind when you're sitting under this roof, this holy roof, and then as soon as you leave the building, it sort of goes out the window. But, you know, I mean, intellectually we can grasp this. Then you get a little bit deeper into emptiness and you start looking at yourself. We started talking about Atman, you know, and what is the self and what is not the self. And you can sort of divide what we think of as ourselves into body and mind. And it's relatively easy to break down the fact that our body is not ourselves. You know, from the very moment of conception, we have gotten our bodies from two other people. You know, the sperm came from one source, the egg came from another source, they got together, they were formed. What about that was you? You know, it came from two other people. And then every single moment you are recreating your body by the food that you're eating and the air that you're breathing. Every single thing about your body is coming from somewhere else. And it's just a habit that we think of it as ourselves. And we can't always control our body. Like we're looking in the mirror. We start to see the wrinkles. we start to get older, we know our body is dying, and we can't do anything about it. You know, the definition of ownership is something that you can control, something that you have control over, and we can't control our bodies. You know, we can't control the decay, the so inevitable decay of this body. So it's easy, sort of, as yogis, when you start to think about that, to separate yourself from your body, you know. We use our bodies as a tool. We interact with them to get the wins in a certain place. And somehow we are separate from them at the same time. But what about our thoughts? This is what the verse is talking about. What about the... Are we our thoughts? And that's a little bit more difficult, right? Because we're so used to thinking of ourselves as what we're thinking of right now. But if we use that same definition of, you know, can you control your thoughts in the present moment? Can you control your thoughts? Do you have a blissful, perfect state of mind 24-7? If you don't have a blissful, perfect state of mind 24-7, you probably are not in control of the thoughts that you're having in your head right now. Because otherwise, you would never have any painful thoughts. The proof that we're not in control of our thoughts is that we have painful thoughts. That we can't stop. So, where are these thoughts coming from? You know, where are these thoughts of jealousy or anger or selfishness that make us so unhappy? All these disgusting thoughts. Where are they coming from? They're coming from the seeds in our mind. They're coming from something that we did in the past. Vasana, you know, the mental seeds. From, you know, we do actions like, I don't know, eat meat. And we talked about it before. We start to get more violent thoughts in our mind. And we say things like, I don't know, you're stupid to somebody else. And then we start to get thoughts in our mind of a lack of confidence. That's like the karmic correlation of, you know, calling somebody else stupid is that you start to feel stupid. You know? These are seeds in our mind. It's not, even our thoughts, you can't grasp onto them as me because all of your thoughts are going to be, as it says in the verse, destroyed. They're going to be transformed into something else in the future. You're going to give up all of these mentally afflicted thoughts, all of these negative thoughts in our minds, and we're going to trade them in for perfect, blissful angel thoughts of helping other people and just total love for every single person that we meet. And you have to understand the emptiness of your own thoughts to get what it's like to be the angel. You have to imagine for just one minute what it must be like to live in a mind of perfect love for other people. I mean, looking at, you walked into this room and you saw, I don't know how many people are here, like, how many people are here? A couple hundred people, say. And you passed by them. 300 people, okay. You passed by all these people. And what did you think of them when you saw their faces? Like as you passed by every single other person in this room to get to your seat, what crossed your mind? Was it ultimate love for each face that you saw? Or was it, oh, I need to get to my seat before somebody takes it? Or was it something else, you know? So it's important to think about, you know, even our thoughts. Even our thoughts are empty. You know, even our thoughts will be transformed. form. And we thought that the last thing we'd like to talk about is you know, when we think back on the two weeks, and we think about what we did, we've covered the first chapter of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, and we've covered about a quarter of the fourth chapter. Then why did we do that, and how did this teaching go? what were the main points that were made? The very first section, the whole first section, and every night we spoke about the lineage. We spoke about the teachers, right? The gurus. And that's the most important thing for every yogi, is their teacher, right? So, if you have a teacher, and again, in Tibet, they're very strict. If someone teaches you the alphabet, they become like your guru. and you are required to follow the Guru protocol with them. There's a famous saying from Tantra, once somebody has taught you one verse of higher scripture, and if you don't respect them as a deeply, respect them deeply, honor them, then you'll take like 500 verses a dog and then it goes on like that. But properly, every night we've been talking about teachers and the lineage of the great yogis. And so the first thing you have to do when you leave here, starting tomorrow, right? Honor your teachers. And your teacher means whoever is teaching you yoga, people who have taught you in your life, school teachers, your parents, and especially the people we don't like. They are our teachers, right? And then honor them. This is the first great teaching of the Hatha Yoga Patipika. It starts out with a prostration to their teacher, right? And then it goes through all the line of teachers, the lineage. So if nothing else that you take home, you know, I don't know how many people finished all the homework and stuff. But if nothing else, take home this one thing, you know, honor your teacher. respect your teachers. The more you respect your teachers, the more amazing things will happen to you. So it's not for them. They don't need it, right? They already have what they need. It's for us that we respect them. And it's a beautiful, fun practice. It's like having a new girlfriend or boyfriend. If you just think of neat ways to express how you feel towards them. And it's just fun. The second great teaching that we've had in this last two weeks is the asanas. We have the 15 asanas. And I think it's important, you know, people say, I went to Geshe, Michael, and Christy's teaching the other night, and I'm going to get more spirituality into my yoga. But you also have to get more asanas into your yoga. You know? Like, now you have to think of asanas as something different. So, it's not that we're getting up here and saying, don't do asanas. We're getting up here and saying asanas are extremely important. The whole key of this approach to enlightenment is the asanas. It's your physical body. To work first through your physical body to your inner body. So now you have to change how you feel about the asanas. Now to do the asanas becomes like going to church. You have to think of your yoga practice as like going to church. This is now the way you are going to help humanity. This is your service now of people, is to do your yoga in a deep way. so that's the second teaching do asanas and do them in a spiritual, do them for the sake of all other living creatures in order to change your body and the last thing, and this is important why did we keep putting the fourth chapter why are we injecting fourth chapter into each one of these courses the fourth chapter is all emptiness, I mean maybe you noticed we have trouble you might notice the homework gets shorter as we go on because he just keeps saying the same thing in the fourth chapter see emptiness get the winds into the central channel and how many questions can you make and Raja Yoga is Shunya is emptiness and I don't think you can say enough as he said at the beginning the purpose of Hatha Yoga the purpose of the physical yoga is to ascend the stairway, he says, to Raja Yoga, which is the perception of emptiness, bringing the winds into the central channel in order to see emptiness. So, you know, this is the one greatest book on physical yoga ever written. All schools of modern yoga are descended from this one book. But you can't hear anything about emptiness yoga studios, you see? So half the book is missing. You know? Half the book just got lost somehow. And so we charge you with this responsibility. We awaken this knowledge. Bring it back to yoga practice. You're teachers. You have now the lineage. And you can help people understand emptiness. What is What's the emptiness of this room? You have to be very clear that it's not staring at a wall. You have to be very clear that it's not trying to think about nothing. You have to be very clear that it doesn't matter how I treat other people. What is emptiness? Lift your finger. Left finger. Point to any part of this room which was constructed by a construction company. point to any part of this room which is being held up by bricks and mortar and then they call means you can't there's no such thing this room is being held up by kindness you see the forces that are holding up this roof the ceiling are kindness atomic, what do you call it? Cohesion or something. It's not what's holding the atoms together, this place. It's karma. It's how you've treated other people. If suddenly we, if suddenly the goodness we have done in the past to others were to exhaust itself in this very hour, the building would collapse on us. You see? So, this is, that's emptiness. And you have to teach it that way. Okay? If Christy and I sneak into one of your yoga classes, Jennifer, brilliant, and you start talking about asanas, we expect to hear something about emptiness within five minutes. And within two minutes after that, we expect to hear something about yama and niyama. See? Because if you go to emptiness and you don't go to yama and niyama, then you didn't get it. Right? That's all. That's karma, right? Everything is held together by kindness. That's all. Yeah. Okay. You have to give away the good karma. Okay. Big, heavy, big karma. And concentrate really hard. I like to give the karma to all the students and students, students and students, students and students. They will be telling stories about you before the class about a hundred years from now. So, you know, we dedicate this good karma that we've done to all the future lineage, which is now up to you. That's the last time we'll teach this, I think. Okay? Here we go. and then Sharon would like to is that okay? she's going to speak shall we do the dedication after you speak? after right now okay Sashibuki Kyushin me to Tramri Gidrokurnamdha Shemla Juvashon Dalamogru Ravadala Kaliyyata Yalaam I am the one who Thank you. Please teach, please teach, please teach. Thank you. book, which is one of the many reasons why we are here tonight to celebrate this pretty incredible offering that Geshe Michael and Christy have provided for all of us. And so I thought it might be appropriate to relay some of history or herstory about our relationship. Is that okay? I promise it won't take too long. It is a long story, but I'll try to shorten it. Christy actually told me later on that she had come to yoga classes when we were on Second Avenue. And so that was a pretty long time ago. When was that? 96, 97? 96, 97, yeah. And then, I don't know how long ago it was that you came here. The first time. 99? 98 or 99? Something like that? Late 98, probably. Okay. So, in the offices of this school, it is very hectic. And it is... it is extremely demanding and people like Ganeshala and myself and Julie and Kamiko and Katya and all of us we are and David phone many phones are ringing you know sometimes we have the two phones at the same time we're on the computer and then there's people constantly knocking on the door and shoving little messages underneath the door and it's a very, you have to have many arms to work in these offices. And so one of our wonderful people that was working here said, oh, there are these people that want to have some private yoga classes and they want to have them with you or David and when I heard it was like it can't be me I have these deadlines it can't be me David, maybe you David said, I don't know because we don't usually we really don't have time to give private classes We barely have time to teach the classes that we're scheduled to teach. So David said, well, okay, who are they? And then, well, you know, I think they're good people. And I asked, and apparently he's a teacher, and then his friend, and they're Buddhists. And, you know, I saw David go, it's true right and then David you know David is is so kind he very rarely says no to to to anyone or any anything you know my first um reaction always is oh can't do it and then I you know kind of think about it and I regret, like, oh, maybe I should have, I could have, I could find it. You know, but David always just says, oh, okay. And so they came and David started to teach them in that little room across the office when all this other stuff was happening in the office. The three of them were in the room trying to be calm and David, you know, he would like be in this state, but then he'd go into their room and he'd go, hello. Right? And you never knew that it was happening on the other side of the wall, right? So this went on for a while and then David really got very, very busy and he could not continue to meet with them privately. And so he said, you know Ruth Ruthie would you these people they're very nice people and would you would you like to do this and then and Ruth said well see Ruth is not like David either I never knew that I don't know And you had a million reasons why you didn't really have time to do it. And then David said, look, Ruth, it'll be easy. They only want a workout. They just want to learn Ashtanga. They just want to give them some sort of a primary series, and they'll be really happy with that. Okay, I'll try. And so they were really kind of passed on to Lady Ruth. But every once in a while, they would come into the office, and they would always bow and give me a little gift. I remember that. Give me a little gift. And it was very meaningful, but I didn't really have time to accept it properly at the time. And then I remember this very interesting time when our very lovely assistant said, oh, we were leaving on, I think maybe Friday, we were leaving the office, and she goes, oh, you know that Buddhist guy and the girl, they're having this going away party, and they want you to come, and I think Ruth is coming. And I was like, what, when? Well, it's tonight. Oh, well, what time is it? Oh, you know, it's a potluck, and you can, you know, probably it's like, you know, there's a little informal gathering. You can just probably just show up, you know, anytime. Or you don't have to go. So anyway, David and I, we went home, and we were very busy at home. And then I said, you know, David, it's getting late. You know, I think maybe we should go and just see, you know, what's happening at that party. And David said, oh, I'm so tired. I really, and I said, well, let's just go. You know, Ruth is going to be there. I just have a feeling. And I really didn't know why. I just had a feeling. And we had the wrong address. And finally we got to the party, which was like, it was a big event. With like, you know, hundreds of people at a school auditorium. And it was near the end. It was, you know, really near the end. And people were getting ready to go. And Ruth and Robert were there, and they were so kind and, you know, greeted us. And we sat down, and there was some music playing on the stage, and I really didn't see the Buddhist guy and his friend around. And people were eating and talking, and it was very nice. And then Ruth said, well, you know, you missed all the amazing things, you know. teachings and oh, I didn't know. And then, we were just about ready to go, and then Geshe Michael sort of comes up on the stage, and there's a little podium there, and he says, you know, we're going into this three-year retreat, and I just have one more thing to say. And he picked up a pen. He picked up this pen. And you know the story about the pen, of course. Everyone here knows the pen story. And I just sat there and I was like, Wow, this is a Buddhist guy who knows this stuff. This is interesting. This is really interesting. And something happened in my psyche then. And I was very, very happy. I was very, very happy. And we went home, and then some months passed, and David and I were actually getting ready to go on a tour of, it was, I don't know, faraway places. Philippines, Singapore, you know, It was like those kind of places. Australia. In the middle of this long tour, I had to come back because Ruth and I actually were going to go and teach at a conference. So in the middle of the tour, I was going to leave the tour. David was going to go on, and I was going to come back and meet Ruthie. And we were going to teach at a conference in Arizona. And I didn't really know that you were in. I mean, I didn't pay that much attention. I didn't know that the three-year retreat was in. I didn't know that much about what was going on with them. And so David and I, we were kind of planning, packing for our trip. And we had just come home from a trip, and there was a stack of letters in our apartment. I mean, a stack. And David was sitting there opening each letter. And then I heard him. And there was one letter, and he goes, oh, hmm, oh, that's so nice. And he kind of put it over to the side. He said, what was that? He goes, "Oh, you know, it's from the Buddhist guy." And I'm like, "Oh, you know, the pen? The guy with the pen?" And he says, "Yes." And I said, "Well, what does it say?" He goes, "Oh, nothing. It's okay." And I'm like, "No, what did it say?" "Oh, he wants me to come and give classes to women in Arizona in the retreat." And I said, oh, are you going to go? No, I can't go. It's like I'm going to, we're going to China. It's a specific time that he's asking me to come. I can't go. And I'm like, oh, where is it? He says, it's in Arizona, Tucson. And I'm like, when is it? And it was like, it happened to be like the day after. I finished teaching with Ruthie in Phoenix. And I said, you know, David, maybe I could go instead. And David said, you? Why would you want to go? It's Arizona. It's Tucson. It's like, you know, it's sunny and it's like, you know, it's in the desert. And I said, you know, I don't know. I don't know, but I want to go. And so I went there, and I took with me my Guruji's book on the Yoga Sutras, the textbook of yoga psychology by Sri Ramananda Sureswati. And I thought, well, I don't know what I'm going to do when I'm there, but at least I have my guru's book, and I can give them something that I know is very special and helpful. And I didn't know that Ruth had already given the book. I didn't know that, and actually David had already given the book. before. But when I came there, and I want you to know, I mean, if you haven't been, I mean, it's a new Diamond Mountain now, but the first Diamond Mountain was very magical as well. And it's magical because of the holy beings that are there. So it will be assured that it's a magical place. And when I got there, these amazing, very kind ladies just embraced me like I was a friend of theirs. And I felt like I was a friend of theirs. And there was this beautiful young woman named Amber who was, like, radiant. And they took care of me, and they put me in this adobe house. And then this incredible man named Winston, would knock on my door, and then he gave me this book called The Garden. And so while I was there, I read this book, and the book, The Garden, was as amazing as the pen thing. And when I would then go to the yurt to teach, And they would be there waiting for me. And they bowed to me. And I thought, wow, this is an interesting situation. And I felt I had my guru's book. And these two lovely people bowed. Of course, they were bowing to the teachings. in this book and to my teacher. And we had a very wonderful time together. We had a very special, wonderful time together. We spent hours and hours. And, you know, I would come back into the yurt where the people were gathered and we were at Amber and everyone was creating the food. And there were people, you know, people talk and they're saying, well, you know, you spend so much time there teaching them what, I mean, what are you doing there? And I'm like, well, yoga, you know, yoga is very exciting. And they said, well, you know, there were other yoga teachers, too, that would come and visit other people there, other retreatants. And I remember one very wonderful woman said to me, well, you know, I teach yoga, but that's what I do for my body. but I'm a Buddhist because, you know, Buddhism has this rich philosophy. And I'm like, well, but we have also, we have, you know, I didn't say that, but I, you know, I thought that inside. But we have Patanjali and we have Yoga Sutras, we have Bhagavad. We have very rich philosophy, too. and I felt maybe she doesn't know maybe she doesn't know and then she would talk about well, but in yoga you don't have emptiness and you don't have anything about the heaps and you don't have I said, well yes, we have all of that we have different terminology but we have that we have that And I could feel that that was the beginning of something very special. Because I realized that maybe it was just a misunderstanding. You know, the yogis had some misunderstanding. The Buddhist people had just a slight misunderstanding. you know and that great things were about to happen I knew that and so I said when I had to leave I said well I have to give you some homework so here is this book and they were very polite and they didn't tell me that they'd already been given the book by my two friends and they took it and I said you know if I come back again you have to familiarize yourself with this book and then we can take it to the next level because we don't want to just get stuck. And so of course when I came back oh well we have memorized the book. Wow. You have a lot of free time. they were they were they are they are they are very good students they are the very best students they are very good students and they make the teacher have to be a good teacher because you can't be a teacher who slacks off with students like that. You can't. And so the next time I came then I thought, well I'll bring the yoga the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and I'll bring His Holiness the secret teachings of the Daya Lama that book too, which is also a very special book and shows, of course you know that book too it shows yoga asanas that were in the monastery the secret room of the Dailama so this essential yoga sutra it is it's very beautiful it's very poetic and I think if all yoga students could embrace the teachings with the kind of importance that Christy and Keshi Michael have. Wow. Incredible things are going to happen. And so I don't want you to take this book, The Essential Yoga Sutras, and just go, wow, these two amazing people did this. But this book is to inspire you to also know that you could do, that you have to do these kinds of amazing things. That we all have to do this together. That there really is no better thing to do. And then we will heal this disconnect and these divisions between these. They're not real. They're not real. They're not real. So I'd like us to, to just, because we're in this special school, I'd like us to all sing together. Loka Samasta, Suki no Babantu. Loka Samasta, Suki no Babantu. May all beings everywhere be happy and free. And may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life Contribute in some way To that happiness and to that freedom for all Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti Hari Om, Hari Om Thank you for giving us this wonderful book. Thank you. And the next painting you will mention even with the other background. We're gonna have a party, I promise. We'd like to thank some people. First of all, we were just a Buddhist guy and his friend. But the moment we walked in here, I was very nervous to come here the first time. And the moment we walked in, we felt like we were back home, you know. So first we'd like to thank David and Shannon for having us here. And Lady Ruth is our kind teacher. I'd like to thank our old friend Carlos who's here and helped him. Jessica helped him out. Where's Jessica? Jessica sometimes got the readings that she was supposed to print for that day at 4pm. And they were like rushing to the copy stop. And I just want to personally thank you for that and apologize. I'm just going to name all the people who helped from the YSI. Okay. The Yoga Studies Institute, the Bourne, Chapman, Kelly, Matt, James Chu, Shadi, Betts, Alissa, Ness, Susie, Jennifer, Kumiko, Christina, David Book, Mercedes, Anatole, Jules, Katya, Klenia, Jesse, Julie, Lizette, James, Heather, Bliss, Vilma, Rafael. This is like reading Sanskrit. Ruth, Benjamin, Rebecca, Venable, Chucky, Venable, Ellie, Ian, Rob, Daniel, Warren, Eric, Nook, Brian, Giselle, Venable, Eric, Mickey, Hewitt, Darcy, Mikey? Mikey. Mikey here. Why is it Mikey? Well, I know it's Michael here. Darcy, Brian, and Kendra. So please thank all the people who worked so hard. It could not ever, never, ever, could not ever, never happen without one person. And you know, and she has to come up. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I don't know if there's a-- if Trace Murphy? No? Should I embarrass another person? No. Okay, so now, yeah? Have a nice party. By the way, we'll be up here to sign books. You can get the books outside. You can get a free one. The Punch and Lama's portrait book, the blue one. Everyone gets one free. Very sexy portrait book. Come up and sign it for you if you like. and then yoga and sit down to unite. And have a nice party. Okay? -