<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/12JknwdNbCzB069eliyNtFpAcXgg4u7RR/preview" width="100%" height="80" allow="autoplay"></iframe> hi good morning uh welcome back to uh sorry welcome back to yoga sutra and it's good to see you guys it's nice to see uh how how much you're working together and how much community sense you have. I like it. It's very nice. Nice to see the Singaporeans here. Hi, you guys. Nice to see the Argentina people here. Hi, Teresa. Hi. Hi, Jenny Wong. Nice to see you too. Okay. Oh, by the way, there's a satsang. Don't forget the satsangs at 5 p.m. Pacific Standard time. How does that compare to here? Same. Okay, PST. Don't forget that we can get together as a community and talk to each other at 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. And there'll be Bob and Earl and Lydia and Paula and everybody together. And you guys can talk to each other. I think it's very, very useful. I think it's very helpful for you guys. And I think you're a little crazy if you don't come. I think what you will learn over the years is that the community is almost more important than the information. I think Hector's group, the Three Jewels people, have an amazing community feeling. And I think it's very precious. And he's worked very hard to build it. So that's very cool you guys okay here we go uh as a teacher basically this class is about the 10 good deeds which you can call the 10 bad deed but but i think that's a bad way to start with it you know people generally like to you know over many years time and i've been teaching this for 25 years, I guess, less than 20 years. Just a personal teaching tip. You know, people, I think people are more inspired. If you, if you present it as the 10 good deeds, or the 10 cool things to do, rather than the way it's traditionally presented, which is in the negative, don't kill, don't steal, don't commit sexual misconduct. So just as a teacher, I personally would always teach this from a positive point of view and encourage people to do the part of save life, preserve life, protect life, liberation of animals, et cetera, rather than don't kill, don't eat meat, things like that. In his presentation, I think this is one of the most moving verses in the whole Yoga Sutra. The way he wraps the presentation of the 10 Good Deeds is unbelievable. It's really wonderful. And as I get older, right, Commander Foley, I think you appreciate it more and more. So I wanted to talk about the end first, in case I die in the hour. I'd rather have taught the end. So I'm going to verse 31, Tim. And I'd like to read it to you. Okay. Jati desha kala samayana vachinna sarva bhama maha vratam. Okay. Jati, say, Jati, Desha, Kala, Samaya, Anava Chinna, Sarva, Bhama, Mahavaratam. OK, cool. And after presenting the 10 Good Deeds, which is Yama, right? The first of the Ashtanga. So first he listed the Ashtanga and we finished it last class, the eight components of yoga practice. And then he started to go through them and explain what they are. So when you teach the Ashtanga verse, I encourage you not to go into too much detail. Like do it the way we did it yesterday. And just give a teaser, you know, kind of make it make people hungry to hear what are the eight, you know. So don't, you know, just go into them generally. And I don't let the in English, in American English, we say don't let the cat out of the bag. It means don't don't give all the details when when in the verse that lists the eight because he doesn't want you to because he doesn't. then he starts to give you the details and it takes two chapters. It takes one and a half chapters to give you the details of the eight components, the eight practices of yoga. Maybe we could call it the eight practices of yoga or something like that. Okay. So the first one is yama and self-control, right? And it really is negative in the end because, because niyama is the positive sign. So we're talking self-control for yama, which means don't do this, don't do this, control yourself. And then niyama means make a commitment to do something positive. So I would make that distinction. So when he finishes with the yamas, which is what we're going to do in this class, he makes a statement about the yama, which I think is one of the most moving ethical statements I've ever seen. and I think it could be applied to any religion or any faith or any system. So let's go through that verse 31. Let's go to Sarvabhauma. Sarvabhauma means sarvabhumi at all spiritual levels. He says, I don't care if you just started practicing YSI. yesterday or you've been working away at your moral you know struggling to keep your moral code for 30 40 years in my case 50 something years and it's a struggle it never ends it's always a struggle and it's hard work and so there are these ethical principles I don't know their nature is to fall down their nature is not to uh be strong their nature is to to be i don't know constantly challenged you know there's always a chance to lie there's always a chance to to to cheat on something financial you know sexual misconduct these are always around you opportunities are everywhere uh to break your uh the the prohibitions against alcohol and drugs these are these are around us all day and and it's so easy to to chip away at it's it's hard to build up uh your yama strong and it's easy to lose them you can break them in a few in a few minutes okay so and and that's a lifetime thing so sarva bhama here means sort of a booming means at every spiritual level. It doesn't matter if you've been trying to keep these vows for 50 years, which in my case, or you just heard about it yesterday. They're all the same, okay? At all levels of a person's development. These are, say, maha vrata. Mahavrata. Mighty codes of conduct. mighty codes of conduct. I love that, Brata. These are mighty. These are magnificent codes of conduct. I heard about an interview with a French monk, Mathieu Ricard, who I'm jealous of, so he's in that category. We were friends almost 50 years ago. He helped translate from my mom when she had cancer and she went to see the Tibetan doctors in the Himalayas. So I met him almost over 50 years ago. Almost 50 years ago. And I heard about an interview where somebody asked him, and he's a very traditional monk and they asked him um you know don't you feel constrained by all these vows you know doesn't it feel like you are always being told don't do this or don't do that doesn't it feel constricted you know to to live like that and he's he laughed i think he was on the second floor the building and he said, no, you don't understand at all. You know, these 253 vows are like wings and they let me fly, you know. If I didn't have these wings, I couldn't fly, you know. And it was so beautiful to hear someone describe their yama as if they were wings that allowed them to fly their whole life you know uh so i thought that was really beautiful so mahavrata patanjali master patanjali says these are mighty codes of conduct and i don't care what level you're at i don't care if you've been practicing for 50 years and you're john brady you know and you do your yoga and your meditation every day i don't know how he does that uh and then uh you know or if you just started yesterday i don't care these are mighty powerful wings and that's how he finishes the section he says these are mighty wings and i don't care what level you're at sarva bauma okay i don't care what level you're at then he says i also don't care what's your jati say jati okay so uh i translated it as race or social status okay because in in india jati which means your birth right genetics comes from here uh or jataka tales for example birth stories so he says i don't care what social status you were born in okay it doesn't matter to to me uh what your skin color is what what what's your place in society i don't care they're still mahabrata these are still mighty wings okay and they apply to everybody i don't care what part of society what level of society you live in i don't care what's your skin color these these are universal mahabrata these are for everybody okay and i think that's so here's my pitch okay as i get older uh and i think john can appreciate john john fully i i think uh i begin to understand that the yamas are responsible for civilization you know we have we have everything we have physically uh because of yama you know and uh it's this self-restraint of people i always think of uh genghis khan okay and maybe you don't know his story but uh you know he took over the known world and and he's people don't give him credit he's like worse than Alexander the Great. You know, he reached all the way to Moscow. The reason Anton Kratysiuk is so handsome is that blood from, you know, really, and mixed strongly into Russian culture. The reason Afghanistan, and we were talking about it, is so barren is that he took it when it was not barren and he destroyed the ecology on purpose. He overgrazed purposely by acre, acre by acre to destroy the ground cover. And it never recovered. The country never recovered. He destroyed it purposely. And he's unbelievable. He took Vietnam. He was outside of Vienna and he killed 400,000 Austrians in one week. and his grandson, and then he turned around and went home. The Khan died back home and they turned around. We would all be speaking Mongolian, seriously. And he just voluntarily went home. His generals went home. Why am I talking about that? How he grew up so tough was that in his culture, in his time, Each tribe of Mongolian, and there are still even four tribes in Howell, New Jersey, Pozawa and all these guys, they don't get along. That's why there's four temples there. And each tribe would try to murder the other indiscriminately. If I met you on the street, I would try to stab you or hit you on the head with a hammer. This was the culture. And his Genghis, right, his father was invited to another tribe's tent, you know, to have dinner. And they poisoned him. You know, they invited him to have dinner and they poisoned him. And by the way, I was in a cab in Scotland. And I landed at the airport and I was with my friend whose name was McNally. And I was trying to say how I'm American, but really my roots are here. And I'm Irish and my friend is Scottish. And the cab driver said, what, McNally? And we're like, yeah, McNally. And he says, oh my God. And I thought he was going to throw us out of the cab, you know. And I said, what's wrong with that? And he said, oh, they invited everyone to their castle and poisoned them all at night at the dinner. It's very famous, you know. And this is what they did in Mongolia. And Cengiz grew up with his mother in the wild. He grew up in the mountains evading this other family. So the reason he was so tough was 15 years in the mountains with no food and no shelter, and he survived. Why am I saying that? I mean, just think of civilized behavior. You know, like when I go to Christina's house for dinner, I don't have to bring Ellie with me to eat first. Tassif is going to poison me, you know. And there's a kind, try to appreciate when you teach this topic today, try to appreciate that I don't have to worry that Christina will poison me at dinner. Because there's this code. There's a moral code in our planet, on our planet. I mean, there's religions, there's societies, there's different governments. But there's a universal code, Mahavarata, great wings. And if we didn't have them, this would be a hell room. This place would be a hell room. You know, if I thought that you would kill me to get my shirt or my pants or my iPhone, the first chance you got any chance you got, you know, uh, if I thought you would stab me right here, right now, uh, because you, you, you didn't get a cup of coffee and you laugh, you know, you say, Oh, that's weird. I can understand stabbing you for your iPhone, but stabbing you for your coffee. And you have to understand that there are places and times in history where you would be stabbed for a cup of coffee and no one would think anything. They would just, they would just be concerned that someone has to get your body out of the house. You know, they don't care that you've died. And there's no moral fabric of society, you see. And that's a hell realm that pretty much describes a hell realm. So I, in my feeling, when you teach this class number seven, try to convey that sensation try to convey that mood that these uh yama are what keep us from you know biting each other when we're upset which is what animals do that's uh i gave a talk at my monastery we built a school there i built the school i paid half and a very great christian organization paid half uh and uh we we built the school it's i think it's at 700 kids now and i'm very very grateful to the friends some of them are online now who uh support those 700 kids uh every day and uh so i i we built the school we had a big uh what do you call it opening ceremony and i was asked to give a talk you know and uh so i got up and i i said what's the difference between you you kids and a dog the kids are like seven to 12 years old or something i said what's the difference between you and the animal and a dog you know and all the kids are like and finally one kid goes like this i said i said well what's the difference and he said well dogs have tails and humans don't i was like okay you know i was hoping he'd say humans go to school and learn to read and he said no humans don't have tails and much later 20 years later I was in New York and I met this Geshe and and I said have I met you before he said yeah when I was a kid I was there I was the one who talked about the dark I was like oh man you've come a long way uh why we what i'm hoping that you would say is when a dog i had a close friend uh she works at and uh this is a she's a waitress at my favorite restaurant and she was very pregnant one one night and uh and i said oh you're gonna have a baby and she said yeah and i said well So me and Veronica were there and we said, we know that she works really hard and she works, they don't get paid very well. So we said, we'd like to give you a baby grant. And we gave her like 300 bucks and we said, this is towards the birth, you know. And she was like, wow, thank you. And then she had the baby and it's a beautiful, beautiful baby. It's her second child. And they took the child to someone's house and they had a dog. And somehow the child was along with the dog. And the dog, she pulled the dog's tail. And the dog bit her nose off. She tore her nose almost off. And they sewed it back on and she's okay, but it's this huge scar now. And that's the difference between a dog and a human. Like if Connie irritates me and asks me to do one more thing, I don't like bite her nose off. I just do her ear or something that you can't see. But that's the difference. You got to, when you teach yama, I think the goal is that your students will appreciate that we don't bite each other's nose off when we get irritated with each other. And that's because of yama, maha vrata, mighty. They are powerful. They keep this world from going insane. And frankly, in my country, I don't know about you, John, but in my perception, it has declined. Keeping your yama has declined. politicians, the general public, they don't obey driving laws. They don't obey common decency in political behavior. And it's very disturbing to me. It's like if the yama breaks down, then we have a problem. Then we are going to end up biting each other's noses. And so I think I encourage you to give this pep talk. I like to call it a pep talk. I mean, Tim lives through all my pep talks day after day. I think you should give a pep talk. You should talk about how cool is Yama for our life, for our morality. It's not some religious boring thing. And it's Desha Kala An-Anavachina. Say Desha Kala An-Anavachina. Sorry. Which means it transcends Desha, which you know means country. And it transcends Kala, which you know means time, like Kala Chakra. Okay, so Nama, these mighty wings, Mahavarata, is Desha, Kala, Anavachina. It transcends country and it transcends historical era. Okay, these are truly universal. You don't bite off other people's noses when they irritate you. You just don't do that, okay? And of course, can we refine it further? Can we refine it further in our lifetime from the time that we are young to the time that we are older? Can we get to where we help the people who bother us? Where our reaction is, we're not just trying yama to stop from biting their nose on. I think we graduate to Niyama in a way. Can you commit to help and serve the people who hurt you? Can you commit to help and serve the people who hurt you? Are you that civilized? Can you be that civilized? And that's our goal, right? This is why we're studying yoga. So anyway, Desha Kala, doesn't matter what country you live in, doesn't matter what era. It doesn't change after the invention of the iPhone or the computer, you know, or after you send a rover to Mars. It doesn't change. The Mahavarata, these are powerful wings for everybody. And it doesn't matter what era of history. and it doesn't matter what geographical location you live in they hold society together they keep us from killing each other okay and if you can refine them to niyama you know can that's really cool okay last thing here and then we'll go to the actual yama okay And I repeat, as yoga teachers, yoga sutra teachers, I think the pep talk is important before you do the yamma. And then I would go back to the details. So here it says Samaya Anabacina. So you distribute the Anabacina. Not, what did I say? Not discriminated or difference. They go beyond the differences. What? Of Samaya. It doesn't matter what's your faith. Okay? It doesn't matter. Here it says various creeds and convictions. That's how I translate it. Samaya. It doesn't matter if you're Christian or Muslim or socialist or whatever you are. It doesn't matter what country you live in. It doesn't matter what beliefs you grew up with. And as you get older in this world, you start to appreciate how universal, how universally appreciated are the yama. You know, every religion, the 10 good deeds of Buddhism and the 10 commandments of Christianity, which is what I'm familiar with, are the same. They're basically the same. So it seems like all civilized people, which we have defined as people who don't bite your nose off when you irritate them. Okay, all civilized people respect these 10 good deeds. You know, all governments respect these 10 good deeds. And when a government doesn't respect it, no matter where that government is, then things start to fall apart. The country starts to fall apart and need prosperity. And then you get into karma, karma vibhanga, right? The prosperity of that country will suffer. And it's a vicious cycle, right? What's the translation of vicious cycle? Yeah, it's a vicious cycle. You know, the leaders get a little corrupt. And then the people start giving bribes. And then people stop obeying traffic signs. And then people start bribing policemen. And I was in a country, I won't name the country, but back in the diamond business. And, you know, I paid a driver. I hired a driver. I needed a break. I was in a big city. I was building an office there. It was very successful. Eventually, it became a $30 million office. And I started with nobody. I didn't know a single person in the country. and uh so i just needed a break i said take me to the beach he said okay and we drove to the beach now you almost guess what country um and uh halfway there we got stopped by the police you know and uh and uh the guy leaned in and he he's like by the way don't try to guess the language it's just generic and he and they start screaming and then finally there's this passage of something and we go you know we didn't do anything we didn't do anything wrong and I said uh what what just happened he said you know normal I said what's normal he said we got stopped by the police I said but what did we do he said he looked at me you know what do you mean I said well what did you do he said I didn't do anything I'm just driving I said well why did he stop you this is when he wants money you know then why were you yelling at each other and he's a guest stupid cop he asked me for my driver's license and I said well you gave it to him right he said oh you kidding he said uh I told him I don't have a driver's license and then he was trying to get more money out of me you know I said you you're taking an American tourist uh to the beach and you're a car and I rent it from a good hotel and you don't have a driver's license? And he says, oh, of course I have a driver's license. Look, I have a driver's license. And so just short term, he says, you stupid, you know, he'll take it to the police station and then I have to go there and pay everybody, you know. So I told him I don't have it. And this is what happens, you know, this is what happens. So these are Samaya Anabachina. it doesn't matter what's your religion this is not a matter of religion or conviction or faith or government system it's universal okay Patanjali last word about what subject yama he's the last thing he wants to say is these are mahabharata these are great wings and they keep us from biting each other's nose off. And as you get older and as you visit countries where it has fallen apart or you live in a country where it's declining, it's a very serious thing. It's a very, very serious thing. So it's a great thing that people learn yama. And if you're going to be a yoga sutra teacher, you know, you can keep the whole world from getting diabetes and heart problems, seriously. And you can keep them happy and you can build their wisdom, right, about the two husbands. But you can also contribute to keeping people from biting their noses off in your country, in your society, okay, in your group, your national group or racial group or economic group, you can, you are contributing to civilization. And civilization creates happiness and prosperity in countries. That's all. So this is a big responsibility for a yoga teacher, okay, to encourage people to keep their yama to keep the yama you have to learn what they are okay so he goes through some of the most basic forms of yama and and again the purpose of the yoga sutra is it's a sutra in tibetan ndo say ndo ndo has two meanings one is a crossroads of ideas so sumdo shimdo these are uh three crossroads of two roads three roads four roads but ndo also means uh brief short okay so the the tibetans for example chose to translate the word sutra as a short teaching concise teaching then you can debate it right what about the hundred thousand verse sutra on the perfection of his day you're like well some exceptions okay but generally uh master patanjali has challenged himself to present the whole path in like 200 verses. It's impossible. It's a great challenge that he set for himself, right? And my publisher, when I translated it, I don't know, he did the same thing. He said, we want to make more money on this book. I said, well, so what's that mean? He says, we're going to print it on newspaper print paper, cheap, ugly paper, gray paper. I'm so, I'm sorry. I don't like that. And we're only going to give you a hundred pages for a 200 verse book. I'm like, that's not possible. He said, yeah, we're, we're going to pay a dollar 50 to print it and we're going to sell it for 1899 or, you know, 1999. Oh, we're going to make money off this one. You know? And I'm like, that's the last thing an author wants to hear. That's like Bob making a movie and having them tell you, You know, we need some sex here or, you know, we got to spice this up a little bit. So anyway, here we go. So we're going to go through the yama in this homework. And you're going to teach the yama in this seventh class of the second chapter. But again, I would teach it backwards. okay i would go to the end uh sell the biting your nose off mahabaratha great wings thing and then go back to cover the you know his very brief presentation of non-nose-biting behavior okay and then he said he just makes a list and it starts with say ahinsa satya ahinsa satya and yeah the satya and the asteya gets stuck together which is sanskrit rule right so ahinsa everybody knows now grandpa's suggestion when you teach morality uh people don't need to know that they shouldn't kill other people they know that so i wouldn't spend much time on it you know when i teach the 10 good deeds first of all as i said i like to present it in a positive way you know support life what do you call it like protect life honor honor life respect life okay uh but then personally i would get into some gray areas uh to help my students you see what i mean like every culture has its weak spots in its morality every culture every country uh every religion has weak spots or blind spots in the morality. So I would say, you know, ahinsa traditionally means not killing. And then again, I would flip it to the positive, which is respect life, protect life, find ways, find reasons to protect life. I was sitting doing a mixed nuts show Thursday night, and I had a doctor's appointment, and I also was trying to do a job interview. So I was trying to do three things at once, and I did it. So I had the person drive me to the doctor, and then it came time for the mixed nuts, and I took them to a restaurant, and we did the filming while we were eating. So this is typical of how I live. I did the medicine Buddha in the car. I talked to them at the doctor's office waiting for the doctor. And then I ate dinner with them to save time eating dinner. And I did the mixed nuts during dinner. Why am I talking about that? We had to face the window to get the light right. So we were sitting in a weird position facing the window and not facing the restaurant. And I was watching traffic go by in Flagstaff, which is a small town. And that was the busiest street. There's a famous song about it for $100. Dang, Connie, but you got to hum the tune at least. Oh, that's true. I get your kicks on route 66. Okay, Geshe-Law gets $100. Anyway, why am I saying that? Grandpa goes off on these stories. Don't worry, I'm coming back. Half the people were texting as they drove by. I was shocked. You know, it's illegal in Arizona. I mean, this is still the only state where you can drive a motorcycle without a helmet in the whole world. But it was the last thing to say don't text. More people die texting now than alcohol. More people die. And half the people, exactly half, I counted, were texting. I mean, I'm not talking checking the GPS. I'm talking arguing with their girlfriend while they're driving. You know? And I heard some terrible stories of people dying this way. you know and uh one guy anyway uh so ahinsa in instead of telling people don't kill christina don't kill john you know please don't kill john he's he's important to our sanskrit project without him we can't do it by the way i need you to look at the cotonies of the medicine buddha fragments and tell me what the hell is there. Okay. Good luck. Ahisha sent us all the fragments. If you could do it, I will, I will kiss your Lotus feet because I don't have time. But anyway, you know, we, we don't need to say, Christina, when, when John irritates you, please don't kill him. We need to sell people on not texting when they drive because that's the only way in this society that you could easily kill someone else you see we're not gonna you know bite john's nose off and squeeze out the blood or something we're gonna we're gonna kill people texting and we will kill people texting so when When you teach the yama, ahinsa, which in this case means no killing. In general it means no violence or no violent behavior. And by the way, this is a good example in the Sanskrit of when the nasal is next word dependent. If the next sound starts with an S, and if you're supposed to, what do you call the M with the anuswara? If there's an anuswara, which means make a nasal sound here. It's a dot, right? In the Sanskrit, it's a dot. The nasal sound you make depends on the next letter. So you don't say ahimasa, and you don't say samsara. The letter in English transcription is an M with a dot on it. But that means be like a Bengalmi and make a nasal sound to you, depending on what comes next. So please don't torture Geshe Michael's ears with samsara. I met samsara the other day. Ahimsa, okay, Hinsa, Hinsa, Sansara. Okay, good. Sanyama, third chapter, big subject. Okay, Sanyama. All right, anyway, Ahinsa. So if it's me, I will talk about the kinds of killing that my audience might not recognize as killing or might inadvertently commit, right? I don't think anyone in this room, I don't think we're in danger of Tim killing Connie to get her shoes, okay? Which is what they would have done in Genghis Khan's time, okay? They would have done that. That's a breakdown of society, okay? So we're not there yet in America. We're getting there, but not yet. So anyway, what's another kind of killing? I can think of two more kinds of killing that you might want to bring up to your audience if you're teaching the Yoga Sutra. Two other kinds of killing that in this tradition are emphasized. One is abortion, okay? When they give the definition of killing, it's mi am mir chakpa, always. Every time, always. They always say a person or a fetus. They always say that in the definition of killing. They always start with human, a person or a fetus, okay? They say a person or a fetus, okay? So, you know, in fact, they're passing laws this week in America, different laws, and there's a fight about this. And I grew up in America. I was taught to respect a woman's right to abortion. And I'm not the one to make the decision. It's not me. But I can say, as a teacher, I've been called to mental hospitals. And I can remember some very, a woman who tried to commit suicide because she had an abortion. So, you know, just my personal experience, and I had an abortion, I was involved in an abortion before I knew anything. And in my experience, it's very destructive to the people involved. You know, it's better to learn a thing called birth control. Okay? Once you reach puberty, you're old enough to read. So go online, type in birth control and do it. Okay? And not using birth control, and thinking you can control yourself is foolish okay you won't you'll get you'll get passionate and you'll forget the consequences you know uh so i i you know in this world there's there's no reason why you can't use birth control you know come on if the one thing meets the other thing And if something squirts out, that can make a baby. Is that clear? No, I mean, okay. All right. If even a little bit squirts out. So I think, you know, according to Patanjali's tradition and most Asian ancient traditions, killing a fetus is murder. I asked my lama about abortion, and he looked at me and he said, he used this word, he said, in my opinion, it's the most, what do you call that, shameless murder you can commit because the other party has no ability to defend themselves. You know, it's one thing to stab John to get his mask, very attractive mask. But it's another thing to kill someone who's already tied down and, you know, can't move, and you just slowly put a knife in them. He said that's repugnant to me. He used this word, kyeoktobo. This is repugnant to me. The other guy in the fight is tied up and can't move, and then you kill him, you know? So anyway, this is abortion. When is the fetus viable? According to this tradition, it's viable at the moment of conception. The mind has entered this first cell at the moment of conception. So it's not a discussion of six weeks. In the U.S. right now, it looks like six weeks is going to be the number. It's not a question of that. It's in this tradition, it's at conception. And forms of birth control, which destroyed the cells after conception, I'm sorry to say, would be murder in this tradition. Okay. And I'm not judging everybody. I myself was involved in an abortion. I believe that, well, that's a long story. But so anyway, if you're going to have a baby, have it purposely. And if you don't want to have a baby, then do what you need to do to not have a baby. Duh. Okay. What's another kind of killing in American society, for example. Yeah, animals. And when I teach this, I like to point out that when they talk about killing in this tradition, in the ancient Asian tradition, and by the way, I'm struggling not to mention Buddhism or Buddha or religious words that are related to any particular religion, because then you limit your audience. You cannot teach religion in a number of countries around the world without government permission. It's illegal. So I think it's important. And I have, you know, struggled to keep the line, but it's not easy. You know, we have a responsibility to follow the laws of the countries that are hosting us. And think of it that way, okay? Don't think, oh, I'm going to this country and I'm going to teach them everything. Don't think like that, you know? Think like this country, this country's government has been kind enough to allow a foreigner to come in and without biting your nose off and allowed them to teach the people in this country. And think of it that way. You know, this government, which is rare in the history of mankind, humankind, they are allowing me to enter their country and express my ideas. So you have to follow your hosts. Think of it as a host. You're a guest in somebody else's house and you don't say things which would offend them. That's just yamma. That's just normal morality. I don't go into John's house and say, I hate the airplanes. I really hate airplanes. And you don't do that. So if a government has said, you're welcome to come to my country online, electronically or in person. But please don't talk about this stuff. Then you should honor that. That's a basic yama. That's a very basic form of yama. Oh, they are restricting my freedom of speech. No, they own that country. They're the government of that country. You are not. You are not the government of that country. They have their own government. If they wanted you to be president, they'll inform you. But I suspect it's not going to happen. I've been waiting for a long time. It hasn't happened. Okay, so the Sanskrit word for killing someone is Purusha. Purusha in Tibetan, Karfa. And in the ancient languages, but I don't know the Chinese, Ren, I guess, but in these languages, it's living being. It's not person. Person in English means human person. But in the ancient languages and in Patanjali, it means person or animal. And animals are called persons. Ruby is a person. We knew that. John's dog, John Foley's dog, we know she's a person. But I mean, the rule is don't kill persons, which means living being in Patanjali. So you have to, when you teach it, just you gotta talk about that. The injunction is not to kill any living being, okay? Any living being. And when they say person, in that language, person is automatically applied indiscriminately to humans and animals, okay? It's living being, purusha or person in Sanskrit means animal or human or spirit for that matter, okay? Okay, so those are the things I would point out. And another suggestion when you teach this, Yama, don't try to sell your vegetarianism in a country which is strongly not vegetarian. You know, you're talking to people whose parents told them it's okay to eat meat. You know, you're not gonna, you gotta tread lightly. Be careful when you teach Yoga Sutra in a society where everyone was brought up eat meat. My parents gave me meat every day and they said they would be bad parents if they didn't give me protein. And by the way, the protein crap, let's call it the protein crap. Okay. Let's see, 40 years ago, I decided to be a vegetarian. And the story is a beautiful story, I won't talk about it. I had a dream that I was a cow being led to slaughter. I was in India, and I'll never forget it. And the cow was screaming in a human voice. And then I said, I can't eat meat after that. But, you know, so anyway, when I stopped eating meat, all my friends from Princeton, they're like, oh, God, now you've really gone weird. You know, urine is cold. And now they say, don't eat meat. And, you know, now you're not eating meat and you're not going to get enough protein. and you're going to die an early death, you know. Now listen, okay? Every person who told me that is dead already, okay? Every person who gave me the protein crap is dead already, okay? From all kinds of heart disease, diabetes, strokes, you know. Is there some connection between killing an animal and eating its, by the way, it's just a little bit worse than biting people's noses on. Oh, John, you know, John Foley, you look pretty buff. I wonder what it'd be like to chew your bicep. You know, if I get hungry, would you just mind if I take off a bicep or two? You know, it looks yummy, you know. And then John's like, Geshe-Los, I can't come to Yoga Sutra for the rest of the classes. I'm like, why? So, you know, it's uncivilized to kill another being because they have a bicep that looks yummy. It's uncivilized. You don't do that. Okay. So, you know, we're living in a world where there are these blind spots. There are blind spots. And it's not nice to kill other purushas, living beings. It's not nice. It hurts. And you don't need it, okay? You don't need that meat. And I'm much, much healthier than my brothers, for example. You know, I came from a big family. We were taught to shoot deer and eat the meat. It was okay to kill a deer if you ate the meat. And we did. And we shot deer and we ate the meat. And we brought it home on our car. We tied it to the top of the car. You can see it in this state. People drive around with deer on the top of the car. Sometimes they don't tie it down very well. But, you know, it's a blind spot in your culture. So be careful of blind spots about the yama in your culture. Don't take the government's definition of abortion. You figure it out. You figure out if it's killing or not. See what happens if you don't abort the child. See what comes out. And then use logic. Use your logic. But blind spots in yamas are very, very deeply ingrained. And you will lose your audience if you push too hard. Okay? So as a teacher, use your wisdom. Okay? If you're in a country where everybody eats meat, then start talking about heart disease and meatless Fridays or meatless Mondays and get them in slow. Bring them in slow. Say, come on, just don't even bring up the suffering of the animal. Just say, God, you know, that's a lot of fat. You know, you're going to get a heart attack. Let's try to do a meatless Monday. You know, I heard that, what is it? Starbucks has meatless Mondays now. And Jack in the Box is carrying a plant-based chicken. And it's very popular in Singapore because Singapore people are so smart. So, you know, encourage your friends to try plant-based proteins. Bill Gates just wrote a book and he said all the rich countries, there's a word for it. I forget. SSPD or there's a OECD. There's a word for rich country. And his proposal was, you know, there's no financial reason why the rich countries can't go to plant-based protein. It would be more ecologically sustainable. One of the biggest problems in the atmosphere is not carbon. It's methane, which is produced by the millions and millions of livestock. It's produced from their stomachs. And carbon dissipates and methane doesn't. Methane stays in the atmosphere. And it's a serious concern. And it's probably karmic. It's probably that we have raised them to kill them. And so then they produce something that's going to kill us. Get it? Duh. All right. So that's my Ahinta sales pitch. Now, Satya, not lying. I personally, if I'm going to teach it, by the way, I have to tell 745, right, Tim? Personally, if I'm going to teach satya, and by the way, this is not the order that we would teach it in Buddhism, for example, but killing. And then Ahinsa, he says satya, telling the truth. Then again, as a teacher of Yama, I encourage you not to sound like some, you know, fanatic religion guy, you know, like try to point out in a company, for example, how much better that company works if everyone's being truthful to each other. It's extraordinary. The efficiency of communicating truthfully, it's so efficient that you make more money. The company makes much more money. And I think one of the, well, just as you communicate with each other, try to keep truth. What, and if it's me and I'm teaching yama, which is what I'm doing today, I will take, I like to teach satya as matching impressions. It's a principle that I like called matching impressions. So just before you communicate with any other human being, in the milliseconds that you're trying to decide what to say. I know you know people that it seems they never think of what they're going to say, but everybody does. Some people, you know, I have a friend who gives a commentary about their life unstopping all day. And I do that to some extent. I apologize to Veronica and everybody else. But people do think before they talk. Delejite nasuke denisemba dande che. Fourth chapter of the Dharma. Denisemba dande che. Karma is pre-consideration, preconception, and then expression. So preconception means you do have a picture in your mind before you say something. You have a picture in your mind before you say something. Oh, I was driving here today. I dropped off my roaches. That's every morning I drop off the roaches, the other roaches. So I catch roaches every night in my kitchen. And I put them in a plastic bag and I bring them to, there's a little place near here that kind of has some water. And I drop them off. It's not near anybody's house. It's a couple of miles from anybody's house. I drop them off there, you know. So, and apparently other people decided to drop stuff off in that particular spot. And I won't even describe some of the things that dropped off, but why am I talking about that? So I have a picture of that in my head, you know. It's a bush. It has, it's weird. It has a hundred, somebody made lemonade there with like a hundred lemons. Somebody else threw out their monthly cloth and strung it up on the tree. And it was, anyway, abundant. And so I have a picture of that place that I stopped this morning coming here. Every morning, basically. And so during this course. So I have a picture of that place. And now I gave you a picture. And if you ever get there, okay, that picture is going to be slightly different from what you experience. So you will see lemon peels and other things hanging from the tree. And you'll say, oh, Geisla described it pretty well. You know, it's pretty much like that. Just don't stand there too long because my subjects will crawl up your legs. because I dropped them off there. So anyway, so I have a picture in my mind of a place that I saw this morning. And then I speak. And that creates a picture in your mind. And satya, truth, which comes from us, which means to be. We had it in asana. How closely the two pictures match is truth okay now and as a yoga as a yogi or yogini your goal is to try to get matching pictures matching pictures before you say anything as a result of your moving your mouth the other person should generate in their head a picture which as closely as possible matches your picture and if you use language in a devious way and their picture purposely has some holes in it then that's life okay if the pictures don't match in some major respect, because you didn't want them to know something, then that's called lying. And that's not satya. Okay. So if I'm teaching yama, which I am today, and I will talk about truth, I would talk about matching pictures. I would go there, you know, rather than saying, stop lying to your wife, you know, stop lying to your husband, Stop lying to your father and mother. Try to tell the truth. I think it's more interesting to talk about the matching pictures. And then people get into it. People start trying to make matching pictures. All right. Astea. Say astea. Stealing, right, John? Stealing things. Okay. Now, again, my approach when I teach Yama is to try to choose a form of yama which people might not notice they are doing like like when i teach killing i like to talk about cell phones or abortion and then uh or animals those three things but when i get to stealing there's a couple examples i wrote in the homework okay let's let's go to the homework oh by the way one more thing that's on your homework about lying and I did think it was important to add to the homework that the most serious form of lying in in this tradition in the ancient asian tradition is to lie about your spiritual life that's called the big lie okay it and it sometimes they don't explain it they just say try to avoid the big lie so the big lie and but and in my experience the big lie is most often unintentional or it's not directly stated. I don't say, for example, I saw emptiness this morning just after I let the roaches go. I had a moment and I saw something. We don't say that. We don't tend to do that. When we lie about our spiritual life, we tend to do it indirectly. You know, we pretend that we're doing yoga every day when we know we're not, you know, or we pretend that we are meditating regularly or we pretend that we've had insights that we haven't had and we know we haven't had them. So just be aware that to lie about two things specifically in the scriptures, meeting divine beings, you know, to say I met Tara yesterday, and she said, you should shut up. Something like that. This is typically what happens when you meet a daddy. They give you advice about somebody else's behavior. So be careful about that one. And then, you know, misstating your understanding of emptiness is considered one of the most serious lies of all. So to claim you've seen emptiness directly when you have not is considered one of the most serious lies of all. Arias typically don't talk much about it. In general, Arias don't generally talk much about it. It takes time to really get an Arya to tell you what they saw. And if you're not sure if you saw emptiness or not directly, I can tell you one thing, that you either did or you didn't. And if you did, you know. And you have no question about it. If you're not sure, then it's 100% true that you did not. OK, if you're not sure, it's 100 percent true that you did not. OK, you would never forget it. And and you would know that you had seen it. OK. All right. Back to us, Dan, not stealing. I'm trying to finish on time. It's kind of trouble. I gave three examples in my in the homework. Number one is. There's a kind of stealing going around my country. especially because of the virus that a lot of us are working online and in the old days you know in my office in New York you came to work and we watched you all day and if you were on the phone with your wife we knew it because in fact in my office I had no walls I built the floor I built the whole floor and I built no walls only what was necessary to keep the diamonds safe uh but everyone knew what everyone else was saying or doing and and I'll tell you something the peer pressure against uh wasting your time at work was so intense at my company I hired people and then I had their co-workers come and beg me to fire them and I said you don't get along they said no no no they're not working so then i have to do extra work you know geshla michael hire someone who's who's who works don't hire these sluffers you know because then i have to carry them you know so i think especially in the internet world of work it's very easy to take money uh your salary and do something else you know like watch your kids or or fix up your house or you know stuff that you're not being paid for. So, you know, we're kind of in a world where you self-police. Your employer is trusting you to give them enough hours. So I think you have to be careful in the internet world. We don't have this problem in all 11 organizations of the worldview organization because everybody overworks. You know, if you tell them work at home, they won't sleep and they won't eat. So anyway, that's another kind of stealing. OK, you know, don't let Geshla steal from you, your home time, your family time, your exercise time, your yoga time. You know, respect it both ways. Otherwise, you are stealing. Either you're stealing from your family or you're stealing from Geshe-la or your employer. Okay, so be careful both ways. Don't overwork and don't underwork because that's dangerous. Okay, second example. It's my experience that publicly owned things are abused. And I'm thinking of driving down to Phoenix and stopping at the public restrooms. And they are unbelievable. You know, you got to have courage to walk into one of those. You know, they are filthy. You know, I don't know what it is. Take a man out of his home, a male, and give him a toilet. And he can't hit the spot. I don't know what it is. You know, he cannot hit that little round spot and he'll pee everywhere else. It's extraordinary. And I don't know what it is. It's some kind of marking the area with your urine or something. Maybe. Women have better control, I have to say. But what I'm saying is there's things that are owned by everybody. You know, when you throw garbage on the street, you are stealing tax money from somebody else. That's all. You are stealing. You are directly stealing because somebody's got to pay somebody to come and clean it up. And then you're stealing from the other taxpayers. Okay. And when you don't pay your taxes, you are stealing. Okay. You're in a Bodhisattva way. What's the definition of bodhisattva thief who comes in your home? They sneak in. They make sure you're asleep. They find your purse or your wallet, and they put money in, and then they sneak out. That's enhancing the yamas. Don't forget, that's also another teaching tool for this presentation. Take the yamas higher. It's not enough not to eat meat. uh grow a garden and and and you're supporting hundreds of extra animals it's interesting uh good raise bees you're 40 of all food is is possible because of bees so you know do a beehive it costs 130 they're there for 10 years you know they don't have to do anything actually i'm a beekeeper i don't do anything i go out and look at them and they i say you guys all right they're like i'm like okay keep doing what you're doing okay uh third kind of stealing and by the way i know i'm over time tim i i know i'm cutting into question and answer i'm i'm working on it uh think of future generations don't steal from future generations. Okay. Don't use up all the oil. We have a retreat center called diamond mountain. It was near a railroad a hundred years ago. They needed wood to run the railroad and they cut every goddamn tree in the thousand acres. They cut every single tree they took every tree except for two i think there's two live oaks there they cut they cut a whole forest of live oak beautiful ancient trees and they left us nothing they and i get pissed off sometimes i'm like well how could they do that what were they thinking and we're doing the same thing we're doing exactly the same thing to the oil supplies and the oxygen and the forests and You know, don't let your kids' kids curse you that you took everything and you destroyed everything. That's definitely stealing, okay? It's our responsibility. You're biting the nose off of your grandkids. You don't have the right to do that, okay? You're supposed to leave something. Okay, let me see if I did anything else. the sexual purity, right? And it just means don't mess with other people's relationships. It's very simple, okay? Don't mess with other people's relationships. Gay issues, LGBT issues. As far as I understand the ancient scriptures, there's nothing wrong with having a partner the same sex it's fine i i have never seen there have been countries there have been eras when it was not allowed or it was wrong for that culture but i i cannot see any support for uh punishing or or not allowing people to to express themselves sexually or what do you call it what's your gender identity i've never seen anything that said anybody had any right to tell you one or another as long as it doesn't hurt anybody actively okay it might offend some people's feelings but that's they can get over it okay so that's that's okay but uh and if you don't have a committed relationship and it's clear to the other party that you don't have a committed relationship then it's okay to have other partners or date other people or that's fine okay but if a person's married if they made a commitment to another person and they're not married but they they had a mutual commitment then for you to mess around with one of those people is is you're breaking your yama okay and it's very destructive if you if you don't think it's a problem. You know, talk to anybody how they felt when they found out their partner was cheating on them. You know, it's people sometimes don't get over it for decades. Okay. So, so think carefully before you make a commitment, a mutual commitment, but after you make the commitment, by the way, I would say, make it very clear what the terms are, you know, like I'm making a I met me for two years or, you know, I can date other people, but not have sex or you decide, but make it clear and then don't break it. Okay. And one good way to not break it is to always imagine that your partner is sitting next to you all day or standing next to you. And then you wouldn't say anything inappropriate to another person, okay? You just try to imagine always. There's a picture here, Tim, that the person is sitting there. Your partner is standing there with you. And don't say any silly, suggestive things that you wouldn't say if they were standing there. Don't flirt with people inappropriately. And the measure that say, right, of whether it's inappropriate is, would your partner think so if they were standing next to you? Okay. So, yeah, always imagine that. So this guy's looking at his phone. The lady on the left is his partner. If he was alone with the lady in the middle, he might say or do something inappropriate. But he's trying to imagine that his wife or his committed partner is standing there with him. And he doesn't say anything inappropriate. So that's when you teach sexual misconduct, I think that's a good place to go. Okay. All right. Last thing, and I know I'm cutting into your question and answer time. In Patanjali, in Master Patanjali, he then says, Aparigraha. Say Aparigraha. So he lumps the rest of the yamas, the moral codes. It's almost as if he's trying to write a doll, a short book. So he says, you know, a parigraha. Don't be possessive. Parigraha means overgrabby. Overgrabby? A parigraha means don't be overgrabby. Okay? And grab comes from graha. Don't be grabby. Okay? And when I teach it, I like to teach the last three of the traditional ten good deeds. I like to teach the last three, okay? What are they? But please don't say craving, okay? Oh, my God, I had craving this morning. Christina brought me a coffee and an unmentionable object called a croissant. And I had craving. Come on. That's not what we're talking about. Give it to me simply. Can you guys, $100? Anybody interested? In the room. Number eight. Good deed number eight. Being, I'll give you the first word for free. Being unhappy when somebody else gets something. Good. Connie gets $100, okay? Now you don't have to do this director thing anymore. You can just live off answering Geshe-Las questions. uh being happy sorry being unhappy that someone else is successful which is the kind of jealousy basically and we all have it i have it really bad i have to struggle with it all day uh you know being unhappy that someone else succeeded okay it's basically jealousy okay number nine switch around being happy being happy when someone else gets trouble yeah i don't know why but we have this with uh famous people oh did you hear that uh what's that handsome stupid guy brad pitt threw a telephone at his his cell phone at uh angela jolie which is a i know it was reported in the press. I can't say if it's true or not, but, uh, I'm so happy, you know, it's so interesting that these famous people are bickering the way my, my partner and I do. It makes them seem almost human, you know, and you get interested in other people's misfortunes, uh, especially when they screw up. And it's especially happens in the Dharma community, you know, like, Oh, did you hear so-and-so yelled at so-and-so and they're not very buddhist or yogi at all you know forget their headstand uh okay then the last one is wrong views they include they're not just uh thinking that your husband comes from himself in the kitchen not just that to to deny the laws of of karma you know i can if i do a bad thing in the privacy of my own home and close the door uh there will be no karmic result you know that that kind of foolish thinking is number 10 okay i think there's another example oh they say not to believe in future lives and past lives, you know, you know. So those are typical number 10s. So it's not just misperceptions. It's not avidya. It's opinions, basically, about morality. Therefore, what's the worst of the 10 is number 10, okay? If you don't believe in seeds, you will misbehave in private. and you will hurt yourself okay like that okay uh we have zero time left i'm sorry for that uh how about i start tomorrow with question answer how's that is that okay can we make a trade like that do you got the same picture i got the problem with geshna's pictures is that he forgets them by the next day but you guys remind me okay so that's how i teach after 50 years of teaching basically that's how i teach morality and and and there's a lot of uh i would listen to this again if you're going to be a yoga teacher if you're going to teach yoga sutra i would encourage you to listen to this recording a couple times because I've tried to teach yama to countless people and I myself I've tried to teach myself and uh and these are the traps that I that I've seen and I'm I'm my yamas are not perfect I break them all the time I struggle we all struggle and by the way that's the last thing i'll say about yamas if you are not struggling in your yamas if you're not struggling to be a moral person if ethics is not challenging to you then you don't need the yoga sutra because you're already enlightened okay so you don't have to study yoga i would exempt you from yoga sutra If you're not human anymore, you don't need the sutra. So you can just throw it out. If you are human, if you're studying Yoga Sutra, that means you're human. If you're human, then keeping this civilized behavior, Mahavrata, these great wings, it's challenging. It's hard. It's a constant process of adjustment. It's like driving a car. It's like how your hands move when you drive a car. You never reach yama and just, you never have trouble after that. The moment you think your yama is perfect, something will happen within half an hour. Trust me. Okay. When you think finally that you're a moral person, something will happen. So, you know, I think something Patanjali should have said is that we're human. And the reason we have to make up self-controls is that we're not self-controlled. It's not human nature to behave perfectly. And so we need these guidelines, Mahavarata, okay? And what I'm trying to say is when you teach it, part of your pep talk should be, don't expect too much of yourself. and don't expect too much of others. We are all selfish. We're all weak. We break our yamas when we feel like it, when it's convenient, when we want it. We break our yamas. So don't get depressed. To get depressed about your lousy yamas will make you break more yamas. So be hopeful. Be realistic. think be forgiving of yourself and others. Okay. When other people hurt you, I think if you're mature, which I am, you'll see that people hurt themselves much worse than they hurt you. Okay. So it's human nature. Okay, people who hurt you are normally unhappy. They are already hurting themselves much worse than they can hurt you. So why are you surprised that a person who hurts themselves every day hurts you unintentionally or just by the way, you know? So don't, you know, be forgiving of other people. yama but be especially forgiving of your own yama because i think we're much harder on ourselves than other people okay Thank you.