<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x0_3DRYZcW5FowjSq5uLlHamcrKaZjlb/preview" width="100%" height="80" allow="autoplay"></iframe> what's the question okay our first question today is after a few days of study of the yoga sutra i find that the philosophy of yoga sutra is quite similar and sometimes often the same as Buddhist philosophy. What is the connection here? Okay. It's a good question. Where I would date the Yoga Sutra, which is around 200 AD, don't forget that Buddhism was very strong in India. So India had a strange history that, I don't know, for, depends on who to talk to, but for thousands of years, Hinduism was developing in the same way that Judaism was developing in the West. And then at some point came, you know, a prophet named Siddhartha, right, the Buddha, 500 BC, in the same way that Jesus showed up in Jewish culture. And then that new prophet's teaching got very strong so in india you know at in 500 bc there were hundreds of competing religions and in the middle east there were zoroasprian came close to beating out christianity uh but uh but uh you know different different religions were competing with each other. So in India, Buddhism got hot and very, very popular around, you know, starting 500 BC. And then it sort of cranked up for 700 years until about 200 AD. And then it reached some kind of a very exciting peak of creativity with Nagarjuna, Arya Nagarjuna. And then that continued for about 600 years and then suddenly it died out buddhism died out completely and a lot of people would tie it to the invasion of the persians or the moguls and they they thought the buddhist monasteries were forts that's the story and they destroyed all of them carefully because they saw it as a threat to their to the people who took over north india who built the taj mahal for example and so uh so buddhism was wiped out completely so around the time of the yoga sutra it's like uh rock and roll you know there are great periods like 1966 and then there are really bad periods when there's no good music coming out. And so it was a hot time around 200 AD. And I think it's possible that the influence of Christianity, Judaism had already reached the Malabar coast of West India. And we have bronze plates of Hebrew that have been found there because of the trade winds blowing in from the Middle East. And then Alexander the Great, he found a sea route back. When he retreated back to Baghdad, some of his troops went overland. He went overland. And then some troops followed on ships off the coast. And they found out that from the Red Sea, there was a prevailing trade man that if you caught it just right, you could hit the Malabar coast, the west coast of India. And in a few weeks, like it was like super, super trained. And then trade started and slavery started. And one of the greatest slaves ever brought to India was Thomas, the disciple of Jesus, who was brought to Taksila, which the Tibetans called Dojok. And he was chained and required to build a palace for a king that the Greeks called Gandalfores, which the Romans called Gaspar, who is one of the three kings who attended the birth of Jesus from the east. So anyway, Thomas ended up there. And there's a long story. I'll tell it to you sometime. But he ended up in, what's that city? In the southeast, no, very common city. There's an airport, Madras, nowadays called Chennai. Thomas was martyred there. He was killed there after he built a church. And the church is still there. And his teachings are still popular there. And it's interesting to speculate that having, you know, being there 150 years before Nagarjuna, very close to where Nagarjuna was born in the land of Betala, that there may have been some crossover. So anyway, the short answer is, during the time that the Yoga Sutra was written, the ideas that those of you who study Buddhism are familiar with were hot, just like rock and roll songs. They were hot for about 100 years, 150 years, up until the time of Vasubandhu and Asanga. So that's the answer. We're just getting a snapshot of a really good period in Indian history when there was a very active renaissance of new ideas. It was so new that it was called Mahayana, okay? The great way. So that's the long answer. Okay, next question. Thank you very much. This next question says, I love when you said that everything we're learning in the Yoga Sutra happens in the kitchen. So my question is, if we are experiencing a friend or family member complaining about their husband yelling in the kitchen and the friend is, you know, I didn't do anything. I don't know. Is there anything you can suggest that we say or think or do in that moment to help stop the misunderstanding? That's a great question. And, you know, I say this. the meaning, if a sutra is really a great sutra, then everything in the sutra should have a parallel in the kitchen, you know, in the, not arguments, but in the tension you might have in the kitchen with your wife or your husband on a bad day. I would assert that every great idea in a sutra, you should be able to find it in a common everyday problem that you're having. And conversely, any problem that you ever have in your personal life, and even just a single incident in the kitchen in the evening when you're cooking dinner or something, that you should be able to find all of those, the answers to every detail in a sutra, you know? And so people have made fun of me. They say, oh, sutras are old books. In fact, the word for sutra in Chinese is just old book. And all old books are jing. Jinkan jing, for example, the diamond-cutter sutras. So, you know, people say, no, Geshe-la sutras are old, like the bible you know they're old books they belong in church uh you know why you keep saying it should be in the kitchen but i would say that the great authors of sutras meant for them to be used in the kitchen and if there's anything in a sutra you can't find in your personal life i would say it doesn't belong in the sutra it's useless it's meaningless and every challenge in your personal life you should be able to find it so for example in yoga sutra somewhere you should find an answer to your problems in inside the yoga sutra now what about somebody else right so we have a friend uh who's having problem with their in their relationships and how do we, you know, in a sweet way and in a convincing way and not to sound like a missionary, how can we, you know, affect them? How can we encourage them to apply these ideas in the kitchen? Right. And, and I would, you know, I'll just give you a clue and then you take it from there. in my opinion uh the way to go is to try to lead their thoughts to the emptiness of the situation okay uh the the most powerful idea in the yoga sutra the most powerful idea in all ancient tradition of india is the idea of emptiness now what's that mean how do you communicate that to a normal person who's not interested in yoga sutra and not interested in ancient philosophy then how do you get them thinking uh in a way that would help them to appreciate the kitchen idea and i would just say i would if it's me i'd say isn't that strange you know uh the very words that your husband says to you that hurt you and and and make you feel so bad if your mother-in-law was in the kitchen uh she may okay not always but she may say oh finally my son woke up to the truth you know uh finally my son saw how this lady really is you know and I would go that way and I would point out which is real which husband is real the one that his mother sees or the one that his wife sees and and that's a segue to the idea of emptiness you know or you could uh just before the yoga sutra class starts you could play a song for your friends and see the reaction some people get excited some people are grabbing their ears and trying to stop it and then you could segregate to the idea of emptiness so is this song that we played just which is called by the yardbirds uh shapes of things uh is it a good song or a bad song so get your friend thinking about the idea that there's there's the way that you heard the song and there's the way that i heard the song and then there's the way the song really is and just go that way. You know, say, okay, you like this song? Well, Geshe-la, I respect you and I like you, but the song sucks. And then, you know, does Geshe-la like the song? Yeah, he's like, it means the world to him. He knows every note of the song. So which song is the real song? And if it's me, I will try to get my friend to think about the idea that there is no real song apart from the song that hurts your ears and pleases my ears okay something like that i would start from emptiness next question one more right tim um actually that's about 15 minutes should we start okay let's go to the class or i'll be late You're right. If for some reason you finish early, I can ask another question at the end. But this way we'll make sure we have enough time for class. Thank you. The odds are not too high, but let's keep going. Okay, here we go. We finished Yama, the first of the Ashtanga, the first of the eight practices of yoga. What are the eight, by the way? Let's go. Number one, yell it out. Yama. which is like self-control then niyama commitments asana physical exercises to help your asana to help your sitting very much sitting yeah then pranayama breathing practices then pratyahara withdrawing the senses from the outside world and then the famous team sanyama dharana dhyana samadhi okay so today we're talking about the second yama niyama sorry so yama we covered which is kind of like trying not to plant bad seeds okay like trying to control yourself from planting bad seeds. And by the way, I noticed I missed one homework question yesterday, which is about normally when the yamas are covered in ancient times, like no killing, no stealing, no sexual misconduct, no lying, and then they will include no intoxicants you know don't use alcohol don't use drugs okay somebody tell me for a hundred dollars why that's so important okay yeah good Connie got a hundred dollars uh hi JB uh yeah If you use alcohol or drugs, you're much more likely to do the other four or the other five. You're much more likely. Your inhibitions are lowered. And I'll tell you a funny story, which is why you hired me for this job. Because I can tell you funny stories because I've been around for a long time. My wife gets tired of my funny story. No, not really. She loves my story. Okay, here's another story. So there was a very high lama giving, for the first time in America, a high initiation called Kalachakra. And I remember because I had just been hired by a diamond company, and I took time off, and they weren't sure if I was going to come back. And so I was on a plane going to this Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin. And there was a lot of, not a lot, but there were, you know, maybe 10 people on the plane going to the Kalachakra. And so I sat down and there was a guy, a Tibetan sat next to me. And I didn't say anything, you know, I just sat there. And then the stewardess came around, a flight attendant. And she said, you know, drinks, orange juice. And this Tibetan said, you know, I'll take a whiskey or something. And, you know, I was like, hmm. And at the time, I was translating the Abhidharma kosha. It took me 12 years. And I was in the middle of, I think, the fourth chapter. And this topic comes up about alcohol. And there's a famous discussion where a disciple asks the Buddha, is it okay to drink alcohol? And the Buddha is sitting, as usual, in a meadow. He didn't teach in monasteries. He taught in meadows or gardens, jetavan. And he pulls a blade of grass out of the lawn and he holds it up. and he says, whosoever drinks the amount of alcohol that you could put on the tip of this blade of grass or serves it to another, don't call yourself my disciple. He doesn't say don't do it. He says, don't call yourself my disciple. And so I was kind of disturbed that this guy was drinking alcohol next to me. So I flipped to this page in the Abhidharma and it's a commentary by the first of the great teachers and i i said oh you're tibetan he said yeah and i said well i i'm studying tibetan you know and he said oh good you know and i said i got this page here and uh i don't really understand this sentence and what's going on in the meadow here and i said can you help me with that and it was so it was so funny anyway uh So that's the last part from yesterday. Okay. All right. And now today we're going to niyama, which means rather than yama, which keep you out of trouble and keep you from planting bad seeds. I should slow down right to the translator. Sorry. I get excited about stories. So now I should study niyama. So niyama means what are some positive things I can do? because life is not so fun just trying not to do certain things you know it'd be nice to give me some things I should be doing okay I got five I got five yamas for you and now I got five niyamas for you okay this is Patanjani Master Patanjani okay so here's the first here's the list of niyamas Okay, say, Okay, good. These are the Niyama. Five of them. By the way, the Yoga, what is, Essential Yoga Sutra, the spelling here is mistaken. Okay, Connie? We should fix it. okay i generally it's very good it's very carefully done but sometimes when i find a mistake i like to fix it for the next edition so saucha here shaucha is misspelled here okay good so shaucha means being clean okay to be clean and so the first of the commitments positive commitments is to be clean and that has two classical meanings uh in tibetan it's called okay sangra and sangra can mean what we talked about yesterday with marie what's her last name tidy lady kando marie kando uh yeah what we talked about yesterday being being tidy and being neat and i would say that the tidiness of the space you live in and your work schedule and your work is a reflection of your mind and your mind is a reflection of your of your tidiness of your life okay uh so uh that's one kind of cleanliness or one kind of tidiness. I put some here in the essential yoga sutra. I remember when I was at university, when I was at Princeton, it was very common to visit another student's room or a professor's house, and there'd be stacks of books everywhere, just stacks. My Buddhism professor, You couldn't get through the house, just stacks of books everywhere and papers everywhere. And so I think that's one kind of tininess. But there's a parallel tininess in how you schedule your day. You know, is your day also filled with, I would say, xiao cha, the first commitment, relates a lot to shallow interactions, shallow interactions with other people, shallow interactions on the internet, you know, and, and I would define shallow as here's an easy way to define shallow. Okay. And, and when you have too many shallow relationships or shallow interactions with the, with the internet, for example, or with your phone geshla what do you mean by shallow what i'm willing to shout you i'm willing to make the commitment to clean up my life and make my life more tidy but if you define tidy in my schedule as reducing shallow interactions give me a definition of shallow and i have one for you okay it's uh any interaction you have with the news or with other people or or with your phone or the internet that if i asked you three days from now what did you do it john at nine o'clock on what's the day sunday would you be able to tell me uh what you were doing uh or especially with the news okay like did you read i'm not gonna pick on you but did you read the new york times three days ago did you even glance over cnn i did this morning uh i got in the habit during the election i never had this habit before i never ever looked at it and and i used to think badly of people who did and now i'm doing it every morning i gotta look at it and it's shallow it means I cannot tell you what I read on CNN three days ago. I don't remember. And it means it was shallow. Or if you had an interaction with a person, you know, you texted somebody or you called somebody and there was nothing important enough that you could remember it three days later. I'd say that's shallow. Probably that's shallow. I'm giving you a real guideline. If you remove all the shallow interactions, I would say you have kind of cleaned up your schedule, your daily life. And it's a struggle, okay? It's a real struggle. You know, it's a constant struggle. And I struggle with it every single day. People are barraging me with minor things. And I really have to be strong. I really have to say, look, that's not important enough for me to spend my breath, which is limited. I have I'm 68. I only have so many breaths left. I don't want to. What do you call it? Referee between you and this person. Can you guys just talk it over and, you know, directly? And I'm just go back to my translation that nobody else can do, you know. You know, so I think you got to be strong, okay? I remember deciding to tidy up my room one day at the monastery. And I took some clothes that I wasn't using. And I threw them out. I threw them in the garbage. This isn't in New Jersey, okay? I threw them in the metal can and took it out. It was going to get picked up the next morning. And I remember waking up at midnight and going outside and digging to the garbage can to get those socks back, you know, that I never wear. And I was like, I need them, you know. And so I also have a rule about tidiness if you want to try. I think the Japanese lady, Marie Kondo, she's wonderful. And Veronica and I saw her video and I thought it was one. I think we both were very impressed and we'd like to try. I think her system is quite good. But in the meantime, go through your stuff. And if there's something you have not used for six months, then throw it out. Okay. And then second step, be strong enough to resist the siren call from the garbage can. Why did you throw me out? Can't I come back? You know, it's okay. Anyway, when you take them out of the garbage can and bring them in, they got some kind of smell and they never lose the smell. I'm just telling you, you're going to end up throwing it out anyway. Okay. so so watch out treat your residence like a temple okay you you you see these zen temples that are just and you see a room after Marie Kondo has taken care of it it looks like a temple you know for a couple maybe a couple days and then junk starts sneaking in again and you got to be tough and your schedule is the same you know shallow unnecessary interactions will and by the way if you're strong and you refuse those interactions you'll get a reputation among your friends they won't even try after a while you know there's a whole bunch of emails that i don't get anymore uh they'll just say he won't answer them you know and so okay all right uh so that's uh shalcha second one is santosha say santosha tosha is an interesting word it comes from tush maybe it has a connection to your tush in fact it in fact it surely does uh tush means uh a fat a fatty uh a generous portion Tush means a generous portion, okay? Thigh comes from that. The word butter comes from that. The word Tushita, heaven comes from that. And it implies prosperity. Still in India, people who are fat are considered more beautiful because they have money to eat. They have money to buy food. So being fat in India, still the movie stars are all generous. Tush. They are all kind of chubby. And that's considered beautiful in a country where starvation was so common. You know, so you must have money. You know, you must be a person of high caste because you have more weight on you. Okay. So that's Tush. Santosh means super fat, meaning contented. All right. The word came to mean contented. And in fact, a friend of ours, a good friend of ours, Santosh Dvivedi, his last name means who has known twice, right? Knows the two Vedas. Knows the two Vedas. Knows two Vedas. Of the how many? Four? Four. Of the four Vedas. There are chapter word Vedis too. Oh, really? There are four Vedas. Okay, or trivedi. So anyway, the director of our Sanskrit input project in Varanasi, his name is Santosha. So Santosha means contentment. And this is part of a dual commitment called De Chung Chokshay in the Abhidharma. Say De Chung Chokshay. De Chung Chokshay. And it's all Santosha. So it's a nice definition of Santosha. And it has two parts. De chung means don't be hungry for new stuff. Don't be hungry for new possessions. Try to control your hunger for new possessions. Me and Veronica go out in the desert for a walk. We have to walk past a couple of neighbors' houses. And one of them has this old 1949 Ford pickup truck, painted fire red fire engine red and it's just sitting there and every time i walk by i'm like we should buy that let's bang on the door they never use it you know and and she looked radical looks at me like you know you don't even use the car you have you know why you why you want to the only person using my car is a squirrel uh so anyway uh thinking of new things that you need is half the enemy okay and and try to control your desire for new things that you need extra stuff that you need the illusion that you need one more thing and the illusion that if you had one more thing you'd be happy and that it's the lack of one more thing that's why you're not happy and not satisfied with your life is is an illusion okay you could and you should have learned that by now there's certain things in life you shouldn't have to be 68 to figure it out and probably in 28 you could figure it out right that one more thing that one more thing doesn't usually it never makes you happy okay that one more thing that you think is standing between you and santosha between you and contentment it's it's hopeless okay to try to it just doesn't work okay so try to control your i don't know your unreasonable desire or belief that one more thing is i you know what i'm into nowadays one more thing is the exercise equipment you know if I just had a what do you call butter bell kettlebell if I just had a kettlebell my tummy would go down you know I know I learned yoga I got all those asanas but if I just had a kettlebell then my stomach would really go down so I buy a kettlebell we have a place in the laundry room where we keep all Geshe-la's old exercise equipment that he never used once. And I don't know about you, but on exercise stuff, I always think, oh, if I just had one more thing, then I would use them. But it's not true. Okay. Now, the other half of that. So that's do chung. Try to control your belief that one more thing would make you happy. you know, and then chokshay, say chokshay. And I love this idea. And by the way, these are in the Abhidharma, this santosha is a long, famous presentation, and it's considered an important support for meditation. Santosha is considered an important meditation aid. If you have Santosha, your meditation will be much better. If you don't get Santosha, it'll hurt your meditation. So it's always in the context, seventh chapter of good meditation. santosha being sorry not trying to get new things okay then the other half of that is what yeah being happy with the things you have and um i like to you know uh marie kando she was it was a beautiful thing i you know in the netflix we were watching and she she forced the family to dump all their clothes out on the bed and the wife had to do it in one room and the husband had to do in another room and they dumped all their clothes on the bed and then she said pick them up one by one and she held it in her hands like this and she said does it bring you joy do you get a hit of joy like this is my favorite blue shirt that I taught long rim many times you know and i pick up that shirt and i touch it and i feel some kind of joy and that goes in the keep keep column that goes in the keep pile and then you you know touch this right my my shoes or something tennis shoes that i never wore i touch him and she says if you don't feel any hit of joy then it's interesting she doesn't say throw it out she says acknowledge it and thank it and throw it out and that's very interesting to me it's like i love you tennis shoes you you made a good effort to make it into my life you didn't make it i'm sorry you didn't make the cut but i love you you know i care for you and then throw them out or give them away to the you know to the poor poor store okay okay so so that's the other half of santosha means enjoy the stuff you do keep and love the stuff you do keep like a pair of jeans that you really like okay and get this relationship with the stuff you do decide to own where you enjoy it and you appreciate it appreciation okay appreciate there's nothing that i personally appreciate more than an old shirt or an old pair of pants that i really enjoy you know i really enjoy them you know so i think that's a big part of uh santosha okay the second half of santosha is to truly enjoy the things you decide to keep okay like really appreciate them what's a croissant meditation who wants to give me a one minute croissant meditation who's ready jb loud So the croissant meditation is a reenactment of remembering the hundreds of individuals and situations that brought this waitress to your table, offering the perfection of a French croissant. And so you're reviewing not only the waitress, but the baker who got up at 4 a.m. in the morning, like most of you did to do this course, going back to all the materials and all the farmers related to growing the wheat and milking the cows and truck drivers who brought it all to a specific place where you went shopping for a week. it, even the people that built the road for the truck to get to the warehouse, where the warehouse distributed to the stores, where the stores distributed to the consumer, and the baker eventually got there to pick up, you know, the goods to make these croissants. But there's dozens of other people. Good. Nice. Thank you. So part of Santosha, Dochung Chokshay, part of the enjoyment part, appreciation part, is to think of how much went into your favorite genes. How many people's work went into your favorite genes? Veronica and I, we kind of by accident grew some strawberries and they didn't do much for a couple of years. And then finally this year, they really went off and we had maybe a couple hundred strawberries right and uh and every one was precious every single one was and you tasted it was 10 times 100 times better than in a store but suddenly you realize how much work goes into a single strawberry and then you're like whoa you know like you take care of it you know so that's uh kick out the things you don't use and really treasure the things you do use and value them and you'll be happier your life will be happier okay uh tapas tapas you guys ready tapas say tapas it's not a portuguese dinner it means a hot practice okay top means hot it came into english as tepid i just looked up it came into belton which is the irish sacred fire belton it came into that and stuff like that temperature it came into the word temperature and so it means hot and what it means is difficult practices okay difficult practices and it's very popular in hinduism in traditional hinduism so and and it's uh where you hurt yourself you hurt your body in some way you sit between five or four fires. You make five fire offerings and you sit in the middle. And the longer you can sit there without running away, it purifies you spiritually, it's considered. And there's a practice where you hold your arm up, you know, for two years or 10 years, and it atrophies, it becomes unusable, becomes this stick and then you're considered more spiritually advanced or something like that so that's uh that kind of is it means a difficult practice and in the later development of india uh they would say let's let's do something more meaningful than trying to lose an arm you know let's say, let's make tapas or willing to undergo hardship for your spiritual life, willing to undergo. I think the three-year retreat, especially that John and Connie did, that was a hard retreat. It's hard to do a three-year retreat. And that three-year retreat was particularly hard. And that's a tapas. So, you know, they gain things from a thousand days of meditation that you would never get otherwise. So I would say that's a worthwhile tapas, and all the tapas you guys went through, it was worth it. But for $100, what's the highest form of tapas? What's recognized as the highest form of tapas? Say it more strong. Not getting angry when you should get pissed off. Yeah, not getting pissed off when you should get pissed off. Okay. Earl, okay. Earl got the toughest question. Later, in the later development of this philosophy, a very great sage in the 7th century, he said, come on, you know, whipping your bag is okay, it hurts, but it's not really that hard. Anybody can do it. And a three-year retreat, yeah, I mean, if you just lock somebody up for three years, they don't have much choice. to keep your mouth shut when a real stupid person is criticizing you, now that's topless. That's real spiritual hardship. And if you can do that, then you're truly a saint. Hitting your skin, cutting your skin, that's not... I mean, lots of people hurt themselves every day. and staying in a retreat cabin, people get put in prison. We taught in prison, we know. But to keep your joy when someone is criticizing you is a true spiritual hardship, okay? All right, so that we've covered three, right? We had Shaocha, cleanliness, Santoshia, contentment, and appreciation. right? Always goes with contentment. Tapas, we finished, and now we have swadhyaya. Say swadhyaya. Swadhyaya. Okay. Swadhyaya. Okay, so Sanskrit, it's fun to break the word down into pieces, right? So Sva means, what does Sva mean? Like yourself, okay? Suicide comes from that, Sui in Latin, Sva. Adhi means super, it's similar to Abi, like Abhidharma. Adhi means super. ah, ah means very much right and then ya means to go and it comes from the the verb i just the letter i which is the verbal root to go and you see it in exit which means go out x means out and And i means to go. So you see it in English. So sva, say sva, adhi, a, ya, svadyaya. To go very deep into yourself. To go very deep into yourself. That's very beautiful. Sva, adhi, a, ya, svadyaya. And that's the fourth of the Niyama. Okay. And later we see, you know, a description of what is Swadhyaya. And it came to mean, you see people say self-study and that's okay. That's okay. But the most common ancient meaning is study. Just study. You know, study more. And this gets into, you know, I've had people say to me, oh you guys are all what do you call it you spend all your time studying and you don't do anything from your heart I've had people tell me that and I've had people tell me don't study so much just feel from your heart you know you guys are too analytical you spend too much time on books you know and I agree that's a very it can be a serious problem I mean, I've met geshes who spent 25 years in the monastery, and they're the most unpleasant, unfriendly, unkind, dishonest people. I've met people like that, who seem to be like that. But that's not what he's obviously talking about. Svadhyaya means expose yourself to the great thinkers of the past. You know, you have a choice of who you spend your day with, right? And because of books, because of the invention of scratching letters, right? John into palm leaves with a needle. Because of books, we have a chance to commune with the greatest minds of history. we have a chance to spend the morning with Nagarjuna. Because of books, because teachings can be recorded, then we have the opportunity, we have the possibility to spend the morning with the greatest saint in a thousand years. And I personally, you know, it's wonderful. It's the most wonderful thing. And I don't think it as dry or scholarly or unfeeling somehow or unkind or unemotional or something like that. To me, it's the sweetest thing you could imagine to sit with the most reasonable, loving, beautiful person in a thousand years and get to talk to them. Yeah. OK. I mean, I anyway, that's what. So expose your mind. You have a choice, right? You can look up CNN. You can see who shot somebody this morning. and they did, nine, I don't know, ten people. You can see what truly insane and stupid person did this morning. You can spend your time with that. That's it, you can and people do. Or you could spend your morning with Nagarjuna, okay? And that's what, yeah, okay? That's, and okay, we're going to go deeper. You want to go deeper? Yay! So in the traditional lineage of the Yoga Sutra and other lineages that we study, Svadhyaya always implies memorizing the ancient wisdom. And that's why things were written short, Sutra, Yoga Sutra, and that's why they were often written in poetry, in verse. So you know if you're missing a word, OK? . And it's cute in the monastery John Bender-- both John's Bender, me-- the kids, the little kids go out on the porch every evening, and they recite together. . And he say, what does that mean? And they say, I don't know. And it's a beautiful system. You're not allowed to go to the debate ground until you're 15. You're not allowed to become a monk until you're 21. You're not allowed to make the decision to commit to the monastery until you're 21. You're not considered mature enough to commit for the rest of your life until you're 20 or 21 years old. So what do you do from 7 to 15? you memorize the great books. And I was taught to memorize the first three chapters of the Dharmakosha before I knew what they meant, before I could read them. And that's something, you know. You know, and then in the West, we have advanced beyond memorizing things. We don't believe in that old-fashioned thing of memorizing a book, you know. It would be foolish to memorize the emails you sent yesterday, because you have more to send today. And that's an indication that something's probably not worth doing if it's not worth memorizing. And I just want to share with you, I mean later I memorized the and it takes about an hour and a half to, and I memorized the But I want to put in a plug for memorizing, okay? I want to say that it's a great, great thing, and I'll tell you why. If you memorize the Abhisattva Ankara, for example, the perfection of wisdom, What happens during the day is Maitreya, the future Buddha, is singing in your head. Unprovoked, unasked. You know, you're trying to buy a package of bread. And suddenly Maitreya is like, whoa, slow down, I'm trying to buy some bread. And you got Maitreya singing in your head, and there's nothing like it. If it's true that Maitreya is a being who sees all things in all times, then what if he's singing in your head at the grocery store? And so I know it's hard for us advanced modern people to memorize a tiny page or two like the Heart Sutra, right? I know it's hard. And I know it's not popular. And I know we're not encouraged to do it. But there's nothing like having Maitreya sing in your head at the grocery store. I got to tell you. So I really encourage you, learn something, you know, like the eight verses of Diamond Lion, okay, what's it called? Lojong? Sigeema, the eight verses. Just come on, eight verses, you can do it, you know. And there's learning it in your own language, whatever your own language is, that's fine it doesn't matter okay uh the sanskrit the tibetan the chinese chinese is particularly easy to memorize because it's always uh same beats uh it's always perfect so you know choose something uh to memorize and memorize and just try just memorize one verse and it will sing in your heart when you most need it. You know, you're going down in an airplane and suddenly Maitreya starts singing and you're like, okay, I'm all right. Just before the plane hits the ground. I got my dream ahead. I can go out this way. Or prayers that mean a lot to you. Memorize them and have them in your mind when you need them. Okay, that's Fajaya. Okay. All right. Last one. Last commitment. Say Ishwara. Pranidhana. Pranidhana. Okay. And so Ishwara means Lord of Power. Ishwara. In Tibetan it's wong chuk. Okay. Wang means power and chuk. Chuk means rich. And it comes from the word for cow. So chuk means cow. and wealth used to be measured in livestock. I'll never forget the person who taught me to speak Tibetan was an old aristocrat from old Tibet. And he was crippled and he was bedridden and he lived next to me in the Himalayas. And, you know, I was in Buddhism class, Shantideva class, and they were talking about being kind to people. So I thought, well, I'll try with my neighbor. Because he used to, his wife, his ex-wife, he became a monk when he, just before he died, he wanted to die as a monk. So he became a monk and he couldn't get out of bed. And his wife would drag him out of bed every day. She dragged the bed out into the sunshine. And he would enjoy being in the sunshine. And so I would pass by to get to my room every day several times. And I thought, well, let me do something for him. So I cooked some armdopale. This is a bread that you make in a pot with water. And it's an instant breakfast. You can make it in about six minutes. And you steam it. You make a teepee and you put it in the water. And then you boil the water away and it cooks the bread. And you eat it for breakfast. And so I said, I'm going to take him a namdo pale, you know. So I took him a namdo pale, you know. and his name was Marlam Changtsin, which means a higher aristocrat. And he taught me Tibetan, he taught me to speak. You know, he would point to things and give me the word, you know, like, you know, this is a bed, this is a blanket, you know, these are words, he would teach me words. Why am I talking about that? One day his wife said, you know, he's not just a normal guy. And I'm like, why, why not? He said, he's a Changze. Changze means treasurer. The ze is the same as kosher. Chang means hand, right? So anyway, he's a Changze. I said, well, what's that mean? I said, he's a big man. He was a big man, you know? And I said, well, how big? She said, 500. And I'm like, 500? She said, yeah, 500 yaks. He had 500 yaks. Can you believe? And I'm like, mm, 500 yaks. You know, that's something. She said, God, 500 yaks, you know, man. And that's chuk, okay? So to say rich in the ancient languages is yak. He's John Brady yak. He's got money, you know. Why am I saying that? "Wangchuk Ishvara" means "power yak". Okay, this guy has power. This guy is rich in power. So "ish" is related to the English wish, which means desire. And in "vara" is the superlative in Sanskrit, "est" bestest of the bestest. So wishist refers to the days when you had a banquet and you, like in England, you would go kill a cow and cook it in a fire pit and drag it into the central hall up to the king and he would cut off the piece he wanted that was tasty for him, white meat or dark meat. And that's called Ishvara. He had the choice, choicest. So Ishvara means overwhelmingly powerful and dripping in power, okay, Ishvara. Pranidhana means to make prayers to honor, okay? So Ishvara Pranidhana is the last of the commitments and it means to honor your teacher, okay? for you as a student of traditional wisdom, your Ishvara, your Lord, is your teacher. And you know, this gets into a lot of questions, many, many, many questions. In this country, in America, the idea of a spiritual teacher like guru is often criticized. it's considered a bad word or it's considered unpleasant or someone who is going to abuse their students and it has happened in many cases, okay? So this idea of thinking of your teacher as your master is not popular because it has been abused and it has been abused, okay? But it's a big part of the yoga tradition, okay, to honor your teacher and serve your teacher. And, you know, I'm aware of the controversies and I'm aware of many cases where gurus have hurt their students or taken advantage of their students. I'm aware of that. And when I went from Princeton into this tiny Mongolian monastery and spent 30 years serving my master, it's the greatest part of my life. It's the happiest part of my life, okay? To serve your master, to have a master who's worthy of serving, and then serving them, there is no greater honor or pleasure in life. I don't think so. So, you know, the trick is to find one which is worth, I mean, be picky. It's worse than getting married, okay? It's much harder. You got to select your wife carefully, your husband. You know, you might want to take 50 years to choose. But if you have a real spiritual master, there's nothing sweeter in the world, nothing. And 30 years of serving them. And I'm talking hard service. I'm talking not like you guys, okay? I'm talking build me a house, build me a two-story house and make it quick. But don't say burn, you know. And so, you know, the trick is to find a worthy master. And let me talk about that, okay? If things are coming from you, then how do you find a worthy master? I would assert that you make them worthy. Okay, you make them worthy. Okay, so if you're going to wander around the world looking for a worthy master, you might spend a long time, okay? And this idea that you have to go to some foreign country to find a master, it's a silly idea. If they're coming from you, then collect the seeds and stay where you are. And they will be forced to come to you. Many people ask me, how do you find a great master? And by the way, I'm not suggesting that I'm your master. I'm not. That's a different thing. I'm teaching you a book. I'm teaching you ideas. I'm teaching you scripture. In the monastery, we say scripture teacher. Pecha Gergen. Say Pecha? Yeah. Gergen. Then they teach you the holy books and you honor them and you serve them and they're very valuable for you. But that's different from your master. Master is more like someone who takes care of you your whole life and every detail of your life. So that's a different thing. Somebody's not your guru or your master. just because they teach you a book, okay? It's nice, and it should be a sweet and deep relationship, but that's not a guru. A guru is a different thing, okay? A guru is a lifetime close relationship, and you should be physically close to your guru. I believe so. I lived in the same house for almost 30 years, and it's hard. It's really hard. but it's the sweetest thing in the world okay there's nothing sweeter nothing sweeter so that's the final commitment okay and I'll say another thing I don't know anyone who has mastered anything without having a master I don't think so like piano or or athletics or I don't know anybody who's a, everyone you ever meet who is truly a master at something had, had mentors. They had mentors, you know, somebody crafted them, somebody built them, you know, and, and again, in my opinion, you create your master. If you're going to try to find a person who is perfect, you will never find them. If you go looking for a perfect person, I don't know, you could die before you finish, I think. But I think you have to grow up and realize that by serving them and by doing your best to do what they ask you to do, they become your master. You see what I mean? If the pen is correct, then the master is also coming from you. And that, frankly, it gets into what do you do if the master misbehaves, if the master is abusive, or the master asks you to do something that you cannot do. I was asked to eat meat in the monastery. Everyone ate meat in my monastery. Come on, they're mostly Mongolians. They don't eat meat the way you eat meat. They raise a sheep, and then they slaughter it, and they put it on the table with a bunch of knives and forks. They cook the sheep whole with everything inside, and they just lay it on the table. And they give everybody a knife and fork and say, "Go to it." I was in a monastery like that, and I wanted to be a vegetarian. And my master at that time was not a vegetarian. Later he became a vegetarian. But I think part of the process of making your master a master is to hold by your principles. So I became a vegetarian in a monastery which was a hundred percent meat eaters. And I got some heat for it. You know, you want to hear one? My Lama introduces me to another high Lama. I'm up there in his room, you know, and I think it was Lati Rinpoche. You know, a very high, or it was Song Rinpoche, I don't remember, a very high tantric Lama. and he took me in the room, and this is how my master introduced me. This is Mike. He gave up meat, but not his mental afflictions. Then he's like, you can go now. I'm like... He gave up, he abandoned meat, but not his kleshas. Thanks. Okay, see you guys later. So anyway, why am I mentioning that? Having a person as a master doesn't mean you do everything they say. Okay? And that's a delicate, delicate line. If your master says stop eating so many sweet rolls, you might decide to push that student override button. No, the student is correct. It's good to eat more sweet rolls. I mean, you can fool yourself, right? Correcting your master is a dangerous, dangerous thing. But if the master is eating meat, and you truly feel it's not something you can do, then you have to refuse. So I'm not talking about a master as someone that you blindly follow, and when they do something harmful, and they ask you to do something harmful, and you believe it to be harmful, that you do it. I'm not saying that. I'm saying you are not serving. You are not Ishvara Pranidhana. You are not serving your master. If you agree to do something for your master that you think is morally wrong, then I think you have failed in following your master. And you can say the master is testing you, or you can say the master likes me. And I don't really care. It doesn't matter. If they ask you to do something wrong, then you refuse. And that is serving your master. Got it? So that's spoiled. And that's a hard line. That's a really hard line. And you have to make sure... But the point is, it's hard, so you improve. If it was easy, you wouldn't improve. You wouldn't have a master relationship. With a master, you struggle with everything. Because a true master is saying, use your wisdom. In the end, it's you who has to decide. That's the whole principle behind chang-gei. That's the whole principle behind the study of interpreting spiritual teachings. It's a huge subject. It's even an ACI course. What course? 15. When do you agree with the master? And when do you say no to the master? Is it possible the master would ever say something wrong to test you? And that's a huge topic. And I would say that a person's not a master if you are following them blindly. Then they're not a master for you. Then they're just some kind of Hitler, some kind of unpleasant relationship. A master is challenging you constantly. And you never... every time you think you're cool with your master, something blows up. So if you expect it to be a Pollyanna relationship, everything's beautiful and the master is always massaging your feet or something, it happens. But a real master is going to bring out the master in you. And that means hardship, tapas. You have to be tough and you have to serve, even when it's difficult. Serving when it's easy is not service, come on. That's just doing what you enjoy. Service is when it gets hard. When the lama says build me a house, you're like, "Ah, what?" Okay. And again, I would say that in my personal life, it's the best thing that ever happened to me. And I strongly disagree with the idea that a guru is harmful, or that it's a bad thing, or countless of my friends from college told me I was being taken advantage of, you know, this person was abusing me, or many, many people told me that. And then later, they all wrote me, without exception, begging for help. Teach me what you learned, please. You know, I got cancer, or my wife died, or-- I can't count the people who wrote me later and said, You did the right thing, and we were wrong. Okay, so, you know, find a master. How do you find him? Help other people get their master. Help other people find their master. But there's nothing sweeter in the universe, and there's no more beautiful thing than to have a master to serve. People who don't have a master to serve, I feel sorry for them. I feel, oh God, you missed the sweetest thing. It's like not having a baby, right? It's like you missed the sweetest thing. So if you didn't have a master to serve, I feel sorry for people like that. Okay, I didn't cover destroying your old bad seeds, which is the next topic. Say, Pratipaksha Bhavana. Pratipaksha Bhavana. Should we finish the class or should we do question and answer? Jacqueline, you tell me what to do. Should I continue the class or should I do question and answer? Let's continue the class. I'm too far behind. Do you guys mind? Okay, let's keep going. All right. Geshe-la, I've told too many stories. So now we're going to talk about the next verse, which is 33 and 34. And the big thing here is pratipaksha bhavana, right? So say pratipaksha, bhavana. Bhavana means meditation, right? Bhavana. So bhava means to be, and bhavana means that which creates. So the word for meditation in Sanskrit is to repeat a pattern of behavior until you become that. And that's bhavana, that's meditation. The word meditation, one of the words in Sanskrit, bhavana, means it turns you into that thing. You keep repeating it until you become it. You keep doing tonglen meditation until you become compassionate. And then bhava, bha-anak, it has made you into a compassionate person. That's bhavana. So bhavana can mean to practice something. Prati-paksha, prati means against. And paksha means a wing of a bird or a side of a dispute, for example. is called a paksha, or a side in a war, one side or the other side, is called paksha. So praty paksha means an antidote, the opposite side. So if you happen to collect a bad seed, if you happen to break your yamas or your niyamas, what do you do? Or what do you do about the old bad seeds you collected before you learn yamas and yamas? And that's a huge topic, right? Most of the worst things we ever do are in college, I think. Now, you first get out on your own and you do all these naughty things. And then, oh, Geshe-la, I learned the yamas and the yamas. I like them. I'd like to try. But what about all the old stuff? What about all my old seeds? What am I going to do? Praty paksha bhavanar. Praty paksha bhavanar. Practice the antidote. Use the antidote. Paksha, I looked it up, JC, was pacify, peace, paks. And that means to gather everyone into one side together in a pact of peace. All those words, paks, peace, pact, pacify, they all mean one side. And in Buddhist logic, pakksha is extremely important, chok chu. It's the opening lines of Dharmakirthi. chok chu de chay khyabayi is logic, Logic takes advantage of sides, this side or that side. That's a long story. I want you guys to repeat something. You ready? karta, karita, anumodita. karta, karita, anumodita. And this is very, very famous in the study of karma and morality. These three words are very, very famous. Kerta means what was done by myself. The mistakes I made, the bad seeds I planted. Kerta. Karita, what I encouraged other people to do. Karita, what I encourage other people to do. If you're going to look at your old bad seeds, and you want to pratipaksa bhavana, if you want to cancel them, in effect, with an antidote, pratipaksa bhavana, then you've got to look at three kinds of old seeds. One kind is you kirtat it yourself. And there's the current karma, right? You kurta it yourself. You did it yourself. Or you karita somebody else to do it. You encourage somebody else to do it. Now we got one more. You ready? Or you heard somebody did it and you anu modita. Good job. Anu modita. You read in the newspaper, somebody shot somebody this morning, and you're like, "Yeah, that's good, those people were bad, and I'm happy somebody shot them, that's a good thing." So there's three ways that you can make a bad seed. 'Kurta' means what? You've done it yourself. 'Karita' you encourage someone else to do it. and anumodita. You weren't involved at all, but you heard about it, and you're like, hmm. I mean, I wouldn't shoot anybody myself, but somebody else did. And there's a small, tiny satisfaction that somebody did something to somebody you don't like. You are too yogi to do it yourself, but if somebody else did it to them, "Oh, I'm so sorry, but he, they deserve it." So that's anu monita. Now, interesting moral question comes up, ethical question. If you, and it's in the Abhidharma, in the discussion of war and hiring soldiers to kill for you, Which is what societies do. They don't, especially the older wealthier guys, right JB, you and me? We hire other people to go shoot people in Afghanistan. You know, you're 20, you're healthy, go get your foot blown off. It's heroic. And we pay taxes. And we know that a certain amount of taxes are going to kill people. And so the Abhidharma Kosha says, if you're a taxpayer, karita, right? But you're not the guy who shoots the gun, karta, how much karma do you collect? And what's the answer? More. Yeah, well, the easy answer is 100%. But Christina's answer is beautiful. It's totally correct. And we can take the... Yeah, so if you pay taxes willingly and without objection to kill people, there's no difference between writing the check at your desk in your home and pulling the trigger in Afghanistan and blowing someone's head off. It's the same, 100% same seats. You have those seats. If you have not objected to a war effort, then you are complicit, 100%. You collect the same karma. That's the Abhidharma answer. Now the Christina Kasuka answer, which is higher than Vasubandhu, is if you think about it, you got more bad karma. Why? Christina, do you want to say why? I hope you give the answer right. Okay, now you got it. I know you got it. Why? Why more karma? Yeah, good. If you kill a person yourself, that's just a simple bad seed. But if you pay someone else to kill, then they get a bad seed. Because you forced them or you paid them to make a bad scene, so now you got an extra bad scene. And don't forget the second law of karma. Sorry, pala. The second fruit of karma. Result. Yeah, habit. Habit. They will, if the second law of how karma ripens is true, If the second law of how karma ripens is true, which means you get a habit, once you do something once, you are very likely to repeat it. That's the second law of how karma ripens. Then every time... when you pay someone to kill for you, they are building up a habit. They're going to kill more... it's going to be more likely that they will kill again because they have killed once. And you get credit every time they do it, it comes back to you. So it's a lot of karma. So Christina's assertion is that you get even more than the person who killed. It's better, you know, I told my brother and I had a debate. He said, "Ah, you know, I don't like this vegetarian thing, you know, it's crazy, you know, it's stupid." And I had the greatest... I never did it, okay? I should have done it, but I had a fantasy to buy a sheep and invite him for breakfast and bring the sheep into the room, into the kitchen, and tie it to his chair and give him a knife and say, go for it. You kill it. Don't buy the meat that someone else killed for you. If you're going to be a real meat eater and you're going to make fun of me for vegetarian, then you kill the god damn sheep. Right here, right now, and I promise to cook it. I don't know. So anyway, I got three more minutes. Loba, krodha, moha, purva ka. Say Loba, krodha, moha, purva ka. Just before you kill somebody, you always get Loba or krodha or moha. And Tim's got a picture of the center. It's called screenshot. Sorry, I didn't have time to name it. Or you could show the whole thing, but it's not as... Should I send it to you again? There you go. Show the one before that again. So there's the Wheel of Life. A traditional two and a half thousand year explanation of how we get in trouble. But we're going to focus on the center. And these are three animals at the center of the wheel of life. These are three emotions, three kleshas, which are the root of all evil. And guess what? Loba, krodha, moha, purvaka. Purva means for you to collect a bad seed, first something else has to happen. Purva means first something else has to happen. What? either lobha or krodha or moha. Very, very famous. Very, very famous. And this picture is lobha, krodha, and moha. Say lobha. Krodha and moha. Here they are, these three guys. JC, you okay? Who's the lobha, who's the desire here? Oh, you're not seeing the picture of the Wheel of Life in the middle. Loba is either a pigeon or a rooster because of desire. They represent desire. So loba means ignorant liking things. Ignorant liking things. Is it wrong to like things? No. Is it wrong to enjoy it when people are happy? I mean, come on. So you can't translate it as "I desire that you'll be happy for the rest of your life." That's not wrong. Why does Geshe-la say ignorant liking? I define ignorant liking, loba, in the Yoga Sutra, and in the center of the wheel of life, the pigeon. Desire to the point where you would hurt someone to get it. Desire to the point where you would hurt someone to get something is the definition of lobha. So, Patanjali says, "Lobha is a typical precursor. Lobha is a typical motivation for hurting someone, for making a bad scene." Okay, that's easy. That's the pigeon or rooster. It used to be a rooster first and a pigeon later, I don't remember, but they're both the same. They like sex. Okay, krodha, say krodha. Krodha is, in the picture? - Saga. - A snake. - Saga. - Yeah, a snake. Because they are angry creatures. If you ever met a rattlesnake at Diamond Mountain, you know, okay? They have krodha. Is it wrong to dislike things? Do you dislike to see your friends suffer? It's not wrong, okay? But if you dislike someone enough to hurt them, then that's a precursor that leads you to make bad karma, okay? So we can call them not liking or disliking, and I prefer not to call them desire and anger, okay? I like to call them ignorant liking and ignorant disliking, okay? Ignorant meaning you would hurt someone to get it, or you would hurt someone to get rid of it, okay? Because you don't understand which is $100. In the verse. Oh, moha. Moha. $100 for JC. Okay, moha. Okay, moha. Dark ignorance. Jin Mug. Okay, dark ignorance. You don't understand that things are coming from you. Okay? And Patanjali is saying here, anytime you collect a bad seed, one or all of these are activated. One or all of these is inspiring you, is motivating you. Purvaka. They come first, then you hurt somebody, then you make a bad seed. When you make a bad seed, whether it's karta, karita, or modita, Whether you did it yourself, or you're happy that someone else did it, or you inspire someone else, or you pay somebody else to do it, you still collect a bad seed. So what's tomorrow's subject? We're going to start with Pratipaksha. The antidote. And that's very famous, the four antidotes. NGYAM PO TOBSI. we'll stop there yay see you tomorrow thank you so much for class you're welcome I believe that we're going to share a video there you go Tim thank you Oh, boy. That guy looks strange. Miss V. Quick, quick. Tim, we can't hear it. It sounds like it's in the background, like people are just talking in the background, but we can't hear it clearly. Start it again if you can. Oh, yeah, it's a good subject, right? Bob lined it up so you look like you have a hair long. I think he did that on purpose. Who did this? Bob Serino. He's good, actually. He looks so tan there. I think he did some kind of coloration or I don't know. Hi, we're going to do some calligraphy here. I remember it's a little bit difficult to learn this calligraphy, And I remember I saw someone do it about 30 years ago, 35 years ago. And I was struck by how beautiful it was. I couldn't get my teacher to spend much time with me. He was too busy. And I made a personal rule that when I took notes in his class, I would take it in Tibetan in calligraphy. So I had a rule for myself. And he taught every day for sometimes five, six hours. and so my personal notes, I just made a self-rule that I would take them in calligraphy and it worked. And you know, I go back and look at the early notebooks and they looked like some kids handwriting and then you know, of course, practice makes perfect. So we're going to do a little piece of calligraphy from a very famous yoga principle because YSI is one of the 11 organizations that will be receiving free rent money from the endowment, from this Castle Rock endowment here. Yeah, the idea of that endowment or that money is that it would help the expenses of our 11 organizations past my generation, which is Generation 100, and then you guys, Generation 101. And then, you know, I'm thinking, this phase that we're teaching have been going on for 100 generations. I am literally 100, and you guys are 101. And the idea is to make the Generation 100 and the Generation 101, we just try to work hard, a little bit extra hard, and it's hard and it's frustrating, it's tiring, it takes energy, but we're going to set aside some extra funds and then from that this business will create money. It's a very safe business and it's not going to, the place has been booked up for many years. There's a waiting list for many years. which is right behind the college so that if we need to expand the college later we also have land. We'll just tear down some of the rent, some of those rooms and make a place. So, you know, it looks like this will provide a steady income for people after we're gone. And then that will help those organizations to keep going. This calligraphy is for the purpose of fundraising and we're going to calligraph a very special idea called "se-lung", "sem", "jupa", and it's very famous and it's very appropriate to put on for a piece of calligraphy. "lung" means Prada, the inner wind, "sem", the minor. Chupa Chupa means they ride in tandem, like a horse and a horse rider. And the idea is sometimes you can calm your mind down by calming down your body in yoga. And then sometimes you're not feeling well in your body and you can control the product with your mind and fix your body. So the relationship goes back and forth. And if you become a master of that, you can stay healthy and mentally and physically. So this is a statement about the interconnection of mind and body, okay? Which yoga helps address. So here we go. We're going to do Lung San Jipa Chippa. I think the trick is not to think too much. Because it was originally a piece of bamboo, the strokes on the memory, just down the strokes, I'm just giving him applause. Zither Harp