Six Flavors of Emptiness (Mon/Fri)

Vocabulary

Mahamudra (Tib: CHAKYA CHENPO) The great seal (codeword for the direct perception of emptiness)

Light of Chrystal Clarity by 1st Panchen Lama Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsen (1570-1662)

NGAK LUK Diamond Way method of Mahamudra

DO LUK Sutra Way method of Mahamudra

Welcome back. We are here to study something called Six Flavors of Emptiness to make sure you're in the same place. And let's gather our minds here, as we usually do. I ask you please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

Class Opening

Bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom. And see them there with you. They are gazing at you with their unconditional love for you. Smiling at you with their holy great compassion. Their wisdom radiates from them. That beautiful golden glow encompassing you in its light. And then we hear them say, bring to mind someone you know who's hurting in some way. Feel how much you would like to be able to help them. Recognize how the worldly ways we try to help fall short.

How wonderful it will be when we can also help them in some deep and ultimate way, a way through which they will go on to stop their distress forever. Deep down we know this is possible. Learning more and more about emptiness and karma, we glimpse how it's possible. And so I invite you to grow that wish into a longing, and that longing into an intention. And with our intention strong, we turn our minds back to our precious holy being. We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way.

And so we ask them, please, please, please help me, teach me, show me how to become like you. And they are so happy that we've asked, of course they agree.

Our gratitude arises. We want to offer them something exquisite and so we think of the pure world they are teaching us how to create. We imagine we can hold it in our hands and we offer it to them following it with our promise to practice what they teach us using our refuge prayer to make our promise.

Here is the great earth, filled with fragrant incense and covered with the blanket of flowers.

The great mountain four lands wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon.

In my mind, I make them the paradise of a Buddha and offer it all to you.

By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world. 

Idam guru ratnamandalakam niryatayami.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened 

To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community.

Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest

May we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened 

To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community.

Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest

May we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened 

To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community.

Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest

May all beings reach their Buddhahood for the sake of every living being.

Introduction to this Course

Alright. So, this course is called a practice module, part of the Asian Classics Institute curriculum that Geshe Michael developed for Westerners out of what he was studying and practicing to earn his Geshe degree. But more importantly, to earn his realization through which his insight… I don't know, extraordinarily guides him to share exactly what we can benefit from. So, it's called the Six Flavors of Emptiness, but also often called the Mahamudra practice module, and we'll see why. It is material from the Gelugpa Mahayana Buddhist tradition of Tibet. And Geshe-la first taught this practice in the mid-1990s. And then, of course, he encouraged people to practice it, and then he encourages people to share it with others, because that's how our ability to practice it goes deeper. And fortunately, those who were there at the time it was originally taught recorded it. Like, the foresight of those folks, I bow at their feet. I wouldn't be able to do this.

So, we know that Asian Classics Institute curriculum is this deep dive into the study and practice of Buddhist principles. And they bring us a very practical method, multiple very practical methods through which we can apply those teachings to our life. It's one thing to study philosophy, it's another thing to study philosophy and go, Oh, that's guidance for me, not just some nice idea to think about. The whole point of studying and practicing this philosophy and principles is so that we can stop perpetuating those experiences that are flat out unpleasant, or those experiences that are pleasant but wear out, or that pervasive experience of aging, illness, dying and forced rebirth. There is no change that cannot be brought about once we understand and apply these principles.

Can we change them in the moment? Not for a long time. But does that mean we're not changing them? We'll see. It's part of what our exploration is going to be, is our belief in the changeability of things. It's coming.

(13:25) So, Buddha is said to have taught three turnings of the wheel. They say first, like early on, he was teaching about all existing things. The details of all existing things and pointing out how all those categories of things are in fact suffering and the cause of more suffering. He's encouraging his students in their renunciation, in their recognition that life isn't satisfactory even when it seems like it's satisfactory. It's kind of surprising that he had people stay around, right? Because it's like you meet a teacher and the first thing they point out is, you know that child's beautiful smile, it's suffering. You know that head cold you've got, it's suffering. It's like, okay, I've had enough of that. But fortunately, there were people that's like, Oh, there's also an end to that suffering, of course, he was teaching. So then as his students got more ready, more sophisticated, then he gives them those teachings, You know, all those existing things, none of them have any nature. But what some people heard was, if they don't have any nature, then they don't exist at all. And it sounds like that in the Heart Sutra. There are no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. Did he mean not at all at all? What is this thing? They do exist. But we know the punchline: Not in the way that we think. But my own mind still says, yeah, yeah, right. Here it is still. Aging, hurting, causing trouble all the time.

So someone who'd heard the first turning of the wheel—all these existing things, they do exist, and they're suffering. All those existing things, you know what? They have no nature, no real nature. And someone put that together and said, wait a minute, that's contradictory to say everything exists and it's suffering, but nothing really exists. Is that what Buddha said? Nothing really exists? No, he said nothing has any nature. But if we think things‘ natures are in them, and that's what makes them then, them, and we hear ‚they have no nature‘, then we're going to think he said they don't really exist. Do you see? So someone was thinking it through. And they go, wait a minute, Buddha. That's contradictory. Things can't both exist and not exist at the same time. What did you mean by ‚things don't exist‘? And Buddha apparently didn't say, I didn't say they didn't exist. I said they had no nature. He recognized that another level of understanding, it was time for another level of understanding. And he said, oh, what I meant was some things have their own natures and some things don't have their own natures. And when we can effectively distinguish between the two of them, we can become beings who can stop perpetuating that suffering that all those existing things bring about. And that became the third turning of the wheel. And then that became this three different levels of understanding of what Buddha taught that have carried through over the centuries that ends up, unfortunately, making conflict between the different groups.

But it's not that there's conflict, as we all know. It's the teachings to the level of the person who's hearing them so that that person can have guidance in what they can incorporate into their ability to apply at the time. And then if we actually do that at whatever level, we are gathering the goodness that allows our understanding to go deeper. And as our goodness grows and our understanding deepens, our ability to understand the other levels of Buddha's teaching goes deeper, and we see that there actually isn't a contradiction in those three levels of teachings. They are three ways in which Lord Buddha helped people progress from wherever they were in their ability to understand to where they were wanting to go.

So, Geshe-la in his brilliance, he put all of this together and separated it down into what becomes the Six Flavors of Emptiness. So out of these three levels of Buddha's teachings about where does suffering come from? Where does happiness come from? Why don't we experience it? Why do we choose the behavior that perpetuates the mistake? They end up being these six different misunderstandings of the natures of things and people and the interactions between them and ourself, one of the people being our self. Six different ways that we are misunderstanding the natures of subjects and objects and interactions between. And when we misunderstand without being aware of our misunderstanding, we choose our reactions to those experiences in such a way that tries to bring more of what we want and push away what we don't want. And we believe that our action that we do is going to be what brings about that result. That's the misunderstanding. We don't know we're misunderstanding, that's the problem. Ignorance, we use the word ignorance, and ignorance implies something that we don't know. And it is true. Like before we met the pen thing, we didn't know about emptiness. And now we do know about emptiness and dependent origination.

But ignorance deeper means misknowing. It means believing things about our subject, our object, our interaction between and so our behavior towards those things, misunderstanding what actually is the cause to bring about the result that we want.

We believe that cause and effect means I put the key in the doorknob and turn it and that unlocks the door so I can open it. We believe putting the key in the doorknob unlocks the door. We believe putting key in the car starts the car. And it is true that most of the time that it does. But if there's any time that that doesn't work, then that means that turning the key to start the car cannot be the cause of starting the car, because causes of results, to be a cause, it has to work every single time. So we're looking for the real cause and effect relationship of things that happen in our world so that we can make the causes for the things that we want, because then those things have to happen. Now we know that within that is this time delay. We know it in natural life, worldly life as well. There's a time delay between when you plant the tomato seed and you harvest your tomato. We don't expect: put the seed in the ground today, have tomatoes tomorrow. But we do expect that our behavior, putting the key in the car, turning it, starts the car in the next moment. Do you see? It's as ridiculous as thinking, plant the seed today, get tomatoes in the next moment. But it doesn't feel ridiculous, does it? It's like, why would I put the key in the car and wait? What does it take? Three months to get a tomato? And wait three months before I expected the car to start. We need this understanding.

(24:46) So these six different flavors are the six different levels of our misknowing about the nature of things and self and interactions that color our reaction choice to our situations that make us choose the wrong things for the result that we want. Our behavior makes the causes. We all know that. The way I make the imprint in my mind is watching, being aware of myself interacting with another. Those interactions imprint my mind. Those imprints carry on. Finally, something happens, they gain the power to cross the threshold into ripening, and your cascade of images comes out as our experience. When we understand that well, we'll understand that my reaction to those cascading images of appearances is where I am planting my new seeds for new cascading images. And when I can catch that, I recognize actually how powerful I am, but not in the moment—yet.

So these six flavors help us see very specifically these misbeliefs, so that we can recognize ourselves having them when we are choosing our reactions to pleasant things and unpleasant things, so that we can choose our actions towards those situations in a more conscientious way to plant the seeds, to make the results, that when those seeds ripen, we'll be fine.

Will they be exactly what we had in mind when we planted them? Probably not. Probably they'll be even bigger and better if we're doing this well. And so, as we recognize these six different theoretical misunderstandings that we have, we can more quickly recognize when we are actually functioning from them in our off-cushion time. So we contemplate and meditate these six different levels, exploring what the words mean, exploring what the experience is, and then planning out how I will respond differently when I find myself acting in the old habitual way based on what I learned about my wrong view, my mistaken view. And then when we get off our cushion, we can be surprised to find ourselves recognizing, Oh man, I'm in the midst of that second level right now. And to recognize that on the fly just is a Wow, I see how I can change my behavior and therefore set about a change in everything.

Will I turn around and see the change in the next moment? Probably not.

But has the change been set in motion? Yes, because the seeds were planted differently than my automatic pilot would have.

So six different levels that come to be called the different schools of Buddhism. It sounds like somebody goes to school and learns this particular worldview and then they graduate from it and then they make their living from it, but it's not like that. It means six different levels of understanding emptiness and dependent origination in such a way that we can live differently by it. Each one builds on the one before. Each one will help us in a certain way.

Only the sixth one is the understanding of cause and effect and the no self nature of things that allows us to make that transformation of ourselves in our world. The other, the one through five are insufficient. Does that mean they're wrong? Can a Buddha teach something that's wrong? And that becomes ACI course 15, what the Buddha really meant. And we want that course to say, look, this is what he really meant right from the beginning. And it's so frustrating because that course doesn't do that. At the end of the course, you're going, what? But we have a tool for recognizing how teachings have to match the level of the person hearing them because they're coming from the person hearing them. So they're always accurate, which is dangerous, but I'm not going to go there right now. Okay, so you're with me. I know I'm preaching to the choir. You all know this. But every time I hear myself explain it again, I get this little deeper glimpse of what Geshe-la was telling us back in the 1990s, and it was just like over my head for so long. So keep at it, please.

We are learning cause and effect, not worldly cause and effect, but cause and effect that brings about happiness. So, technically Geshe-la was teaching this from a text. He always uses an authentic text. The text that we are using, and I think it's in your reading, is a text called The Light of Crystal Clarity by my hero, the first Panchen Lama, Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsen. We know Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen, don't we? He's the author of the Angel-Devil text. He's the author of the Delam text. Many of you have studied it already. He's the author of this Light of Crystal Clarity. Some of you have studied that with me already from the Lama Christi gave an in-depth teaching on the Mahamudra practice from this text. It's beautiful, and the Bok Jinpa group that's studying now will do it, you know, over time.

But Geshe-la really didn't follow that text because that text does not lay out these six different levels. That text teaches a method of becoming more and more subtly aware of our experience in meditation. It is giving us tools for reaching stillness—Shamatha, and for using that Shamatha mind to shift to Vipashyana—special insight, in order to plant the seeds to someday trigger the direct experience of Vipashyana, the direct experience of emptiness, of ultimate reality.

So, Mahamudra. Let me screen share. So, here's Light of Crystal Clarity. Look how good your Tibetan's getting. It looks just like English. First Panchen Lama. His dates are 1570 to 1662. It's a text about the practice called Mahamudra, Sanskrit, in Tibetan CHAKYA CHENPO.

Mudra or CHAKYA, the word means seal, S-E-A-L in English. And it means to seal something so that what's inside stays untainted, unchanged, it stays authentic. You know that what's inside is what was put inside because the seal has not been broken. Traditionally, it has the connotation of the king's chop, you know, his identification chop, where he would write an order, put it in the envelope, melt the wax, put his chop, so that the wax with his identifying chop seals the envelope and then it gets sent across the world. And when we receive it, as long as that wax seal has not been broken, we know that what's inside the envelope was put there by the king because we recognize his figure on the chop. So it's an authentication and it tells us that what's inside the envelope has not been messed with by anybody. Like two ideas there.

You know, in our world, I remember within the 70s sometime, I think, and some really suffering being went to the drugstore and put some kind of poison in the acetaminophen medicine, you know, that you give kids for fever and kids got sick and died. And it was, you know, it's a big, horrible, awful thing. And then as a result, this whole industry about sealing anything that is openable for sale has to be sealed. And then it says on the product, if this seal is broken, don't use this product. Because of this one event changed our whole society, right? A whole new industry sealing bottles. But it's the same idea. You know that the substance inside has not been tainted because the seal is intact. That's another connotation of Mahamudra.

What does it have to do with karma and emptiness and cause and effect? The Maha means big, CHAKYA CHENPO. This big seal, this big, important authentication and establishing purity thing. Long story short, it's actually the word for having the direct perception of emptiness. But we don't hear people say, oh, you know, I had the Mahamudra. But that's how the term would actually be used. The direct perception of emptiness. Now, we've learned that when we have our first direct perception of emptiness, it's not, well, the first emptiness that we experience directly is the emptiness of our own me, our subject side. Whatever that is. It's not the emptiness of the pen or the horse or the neighbor or the angry boss. It's the emptiness of me. And there's nothing you can say about it, right? Like water poured into water and you come out and then you're different than we ever were before. We know something about existence that we didn't know before and there's no going back. There's no unknowing once you have the direct experience of one's own true nature, because part of that is the experience or recognition that that's true nature is true about every existing thing. And then when you come out of that experience, you can't wish yourself back into it. You can recall it, probably. And I imagine you do a lot. But you can't get yourself back into it, they say. But you are forever changed. And that's what the Mahamudra is talking about. And it's like, what does that have to do with putting a seal? But do you see what it means is that our being has finally become authentic and untainted. We had 20 minutes of untaintedness. And then we come out and although our experience is, things are in them, we don't fall for it anymore. So we're not, our experiences are all tainted, but our reactions to them are not.

So they say, an Arya Bodhisattva quits making karma. What they're making now is merit. Long story, the difference between the two. But they are still imprinting, exprinting. But they are missing these six wrong beliefs. And so Mahamudra technically is a practice designed to help us plant the seeds that will trigger Mahamudra, the direct perception of emptiness.

Now, there's two methods. There's multiple methods. There's two levels of those methods of Mahamudra. One is the NGAK LUK, the other is the DO LUK. The NGAK LUK means the secret words method, which isn't a word thing. It means the Diamond Way method of Mahamudra versus the Sutra method of Mahamudra. NGAK LUK and DO LUK, DO is Sutra, open teachings.

In Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsen's Light of Crystal Clarity, it's an open teaching Mahamudra training. But he can't help himself. He talks about the secret method. He alludes to it. He shows us how our efforts and mastery of the DO LUK system of Mahamudra, even if we don't quite make it to the experience of Mahamudra, seeing emptiness directly, by the open teaching method, plants the seeds to prepare us for the secret teaching method of practicing and attaining Mahamudra. So it seems to come amazingly at the perfect time, doesn't it? With what's coming up in October that we will have this course finished by then, this review in these different flavors. So I really, really encourage you to work with these ideas, because it will be planting seeds for you to receive that transmission in a different way than we would have if we hadn't worked hard at our understanding of the law of cause and effect and the fact that nothing has any nature other than being this cause and effect relationship happening constantly. All right, so that's our background information. Almost, there's a little bit more.

(44:24) So the practice of Mahamudra is not just another meditation technique. It is a meditation technique, but there's something special about Mahamudra. And what's special about it is that this practice takes as its meditation object our own mind. So mostly in our tradition, we are told, Visualize a powerful karmic object, the Buddha, your Lama, somebody who needs help right now, and hold that visualization with focus, clarity, adjust your agitation, your dullness until you can work your way through those nine levels of meditative concentration to get to the single pointed focus to then trigger the practice fluidities that puts you at the level where you can actually reach the platform where we could trigger the direct perception of emptiness. And we can probably do it if the object that we choose to visualize is interesting enough, that we’ll make the effort. If someone says, you know, just pick a dirty old rock and use a dirty old rock until you reach Shamatha. It's like, come on, we'd lose interest in the dirty old rock really fast. But a good movie, I'm on.

Meditation, though, is the ability to take our concentration and say, I'm putting it on that dirty old rock for 42 minutes and 30 seconds. No dullness, no agitation, fascination, and it does it. Like training our concentration like a fine service dog. The service dog can play, but when it puts on its little coat, it's disciplined. We're trying to make our meditating mind the service dog with the coat on. With a Mahamudra practice, the object of focus is that very mind itself. And it's like, well, that gets slippery. It doesn't require any visualization. All you have to do is be there. And we are never not there. It may feel like we're not on our cushion sometimes, but all it takes is being aware, and we are always aware. Mahamudra is really my favorite.

Benefits of Mahamudra

So there are these benefits of Mahamudra. Where's my notes? That the people who teach it and comment on it, Ngulchu Dharmabhadra in particular, says,

The mind as the object is a really, really easy way to learn to reach the concentration necessary to sustain the direct perception of emptiness when it gets triggered. Because the mind as the object is so easy to hold. It is what's sitting there meditating. It is what's thinking. It is what's aware-ing. So you can't ever actually lose your object. Now, I found myself having lost my object in Mahamudra. I'm just such a slow study. But they say you can't ever be anywhere but level four meditation if you're doing Mahamudra. It's kind of a trick.

Secondly, the use of the mind as the object is an analytical meditation about the nature of that mind. It's not just watching it forever. It's checking out its nature. And it's difficult to drop into subtle dullness when we're doing an analysis of the mind with the mind. It's actually actively engaged in itself. And so it can't slip into subtle dullness until you reach your conclusion and then park on the conclusion. But the advantage is it helps us stay out of subtle dullness. 

Third, it's easy to recognize when we are off the object. And, you know, you said at first benefit, you can't get off the object. But you can stop being aware of your object. But if your object is being aware of the object, you recognize when you're being aware of lunch. Oh, whoops. Just shift from lunch to being aware of lunch and you're back on your object. So it really is a hot knife through butter method of cranking up our mindfulness.

The fourth benefit of Mahamudra is it ripens us for something higher. The sutra method of Mahamudra practice ripens us for the Diamond Way practices of Mahamudra. So Mahamudra is the word for experiencing emptiness directly. In the Diamond Way that experience is called reaching the clear light. It's not different. The emptiness that is experienced is not in any way different. The method and state of mind that reaches it is very different. And how that different state of mind is induced is different. But the emptiness is identical. So the effort we make to explore and understand and even experience emptiness directly sutra way and the clear light that we reach through the Diamond Way are identical absences of self, natures of self and all existing things. But it has a different effect on us when we come out of it. And when we reach clear light versus reaching direct perception of emptiness, we are extraordinarily closer to the full transformation to your angel you from Diamond Way clear light than from sutra emptiness directly. Both are extraordinary steps in human evolution. So don't discount the sutra way. Okay.

So I just made the case for our Mahamudra practice using the mind as the object. But when we're learning the six flavors, it's too hard to use the mind as the object for explaining the six different levels. So we'll go back to our friend, the pen and our friend, the angry boss or the second husband. We'll use our same familiar examples and then we'll find new ones. And then when we have them clear, then we'll shift and look at how we apply that to our me, to our mind and to our me.

So let's take our break a little bit early and then we'll start in. Okay? So I don't know, five minutes. You need five minutes, three to five minutes. 

The Pen Thing

(58:58) So I just said Mahamudra is a meditation practice using our mind as the object in order to analyze it for its true nature, which is its absence of any nature in it from it. And that actually the word Mahamudra is code for having the direct experience of emptiness. So although we say I'm practicing Mahamudra, it might be more accurate to say I'm practicing to reach Mahamudra. But the teachings are so kind, like when we are aspiring Bodhisattvas, they say, You're practicing your six perfections. But actually, I'm not anywhere close to doing the practices of the six perfection. But they say, yeah, you can call it practicing the six perfection. So we can call it practicing Mahamudra. But really, we're practicing. We're planting the seeds to trigger the experience. So just keep that in mind. That's what we're doing through this course. That's what we'll be doing with your contemplations, meditations—planting seeds to trigger the day when that sequence of activities happens to you. Maybe soon, if it hasn't happened already.

So let's go back and review. And I know I pick up this pen and our minds go, I've heard this. But try, right? Crack it open. Let's see if we can approach it a little different way so that we can get into the six flavors. We'll do two of those flavors today.

So here's our friend, the pen. Right? Like what's in my hand? How much of it do you even have to see? I'll show you. (clicking the pen) Did you see that little thing come out? And go in? Okay. Do you see I push it? Oh, okay. Look, it has this clip thing. And then just in case you were doubting, I'll show you. It's a pen. Remnants from last night's class are already there. But proof, right? This thing is a pen. Got it?

Now, are we all perceiving the same pen? No. Are you seeing a different pen, Victor? Is your pen green, or purple? Or does it not have a tip? What's different about your pen from my pen? Yeah, I can hear what you're saying, but I can't actually hear your words for some reason. But I'll interpret it. You said you're seeing the pen from your side and so, although we're focused on the same object, clearly, you have a different experience of it than I have, than Chris has. Right? That's pretty obvious to us as humans, isn't it? When we stop and think about it. But don't think about it, and it's like, oh, there's that pen. Everybody's seeing the same pen. Language gets so slippery, but hang in there with me.

So, usually we say, oh, if Chris's dog gets a hold of this object, what do they do with it? They chew it and destroy it and have such fun doing it. When we see the dog chewing on this object, we say, Dog, you're chewing on my pen. But from dog's side, dogs having a good time chewing on the thing. Chew toy. I don't know what a dog calls it. It doesn't matter. If this object had its pen name and its pen function in it, could the dog not see pen? Could the dog chew it? Now, check your mind. Your mind goes, of course. It doesn't matter where the thing comes from. Dogs chew on things. They're just going to chew it. But at the same time, we say, no, but this object's identity is in it and its function comes from it. And then we go, and a dog can chew on it. No big deal. It's totally illogical and even functionally impossible for this pen to have its own identity, its own nature, and then function or be experienced differently by any two different people. Because if it had its identity in it the way we believe it does, it would force me to see it, experience it the way it is. I would have no choice, no option. But then, even if that were the case, then the pen couldn't write because if it's up to the pen for me to write to show you that it's a pen, the pen would, depending on me to make it write to show you that it is a pen. So, it still doesn't make sense to say the pen has its identity and function in it and then I can use it. If it had its identity and function in it, I couldn't use it because it wouldn't depend on me to use it. It would be writing all the time, all by itself. Not possible in our world, we say. But it's the ramification of our belief that's a misbelief that this object's identity is in it from it.

Who cares about pens? We care about things that are pleasant, things that are unpleasant. We care about getting the things we want to happen. When we put the key in the car and turn it, we're believing that there's something in the key and the ignition and the car that this slight action brings about the immediate result. It's the same kind of misunderstanding as saying, yes, a pen that's in it from it, I can pick up and write with it and the dog can pick up and chew on it and it's still a pen in it from it. It's the same misbelief. It's not clear that it's the same misbelief, is it? We think the key is in it from it, the ignition in it from it, the car engine in it from it. You bring all three together, you do this one thing, you bring about the next event. If different beings can perceive things differently, what does that say about the identity of the object? If two different beings can perceive the same apparent object differently, what does it say about the identity of the object? It's clear, isn't it? We have to bring something to the party. The experiencer of the experience brings something about the identity of the experience to the experience. It's so awkward to say, but it's important to recognize.

Are any of us experiencing this object exactly the same way? No, clearly not. Does the object have its identity in it? No, clearly not. But do you feel your mind go, yeah, but.. if it has no identity in it, how come it's not a banana for Frank and a bicycle for Chrys and no, only the pen for Sarahni? How do I even know what it is for you? I assume you are seeing, like I see myself, it's kind of peculiar with Zoom, I can see me like you see me. And so I can see the pen like you're seeing me hold the pen. I can do it too. And then I think, oh, they're seeing me like that. But you're not, right? I don't know how you're seeing me. That's the emptiness of me. Okay, I'm getting distracted.

So this fact that no two beings can experience the same objects the same way is true about every object, about every person, every boss, every spouse, every child, right? Every experience, every moment of every experience, every jealousy, every anger. It's true about everything. All the way down to our very awareness of those objects is dependent upon the objects we are aware of. And our minds go, oh, what comes first? Something has to come first because we're so stuck in this linear thinking. There isn't a first.

So how can it be that all those things of all of our experiences are empty of being what they appear to be and still be what we are experiencing? How is that possible? I'll say it again. How can all of those things be empty of being what we experience and we still experience them the way we do? How can it be any other way? If anything has its own nature, what it means to have an own nature is it's there without my experience of it. How can I know it's there? If I don't experience something, it doesn't exist for me. Even if for you, it's standing right there in front of me. Now that's spooky. How come we don't bump into things? It all works. We'll see.

So again, the reason we're exploring all of this is because we have expectations. Expectations about these objects and subjects and interactions between based on our misunderstanding of things that we don't realize we're misunderstanding. And so we keep acting in ways that we expect to bring us the result that we want in the next moment. And curiously, often it appears to work. And every time it does work, turning the key, starting the car, we reinforce our misbelief that we don't know is a misbelief, and we perpetuate our thinking that what we do in the moment brings what comes next. And then there are times when it doesn't. I did all the work they said to do and still the boss got mad and fired me. What's up with that? And we have our mental afflictions and react badly. But actually, it's no different than when the key does start the car. If we understood where it's all coming from, we wouldn't have these failed expectations that trigger our mental afflictions, that trigger our choice of behavior that is also mistaken, misunderstood.

Does understanding emptiness make us not care about anything? No, that's not the point. Geshe-la said recently, not caring about other beings and misunderstanding emptiness are cause and effect. Like two-way cause and effect. The more we understand emptiness, the more we will care about other people. And the more we care about other beings, the more we will understand about emptiness. This is Mahamudra practice. That's what we're working on, is this connection. Because our first thought is, okay, I can go into neutral mode and never react badly to anything. Bad things, good things, doesn't matter. That's one of the levels. But it's not what we're going for, to be neutral. We're going for happiness for everybody, always.

So we believe things to be true about objects, subjects, and interactions between that are not true. And we act from the mistaken belief, not knowing it's a mistake. And we are going to learn these six different ways we have a misbelief about things, so that we can try to catch ourselves doing it, so that we can recognize how our expectations, when they are not met, trigger the mental afflictions. If we stop the thing that causes the expectation to not get met, then we don't get upset whether it gets met or not. We understand where it's coming from. It's no longer an expectation. It's an understanding of where things come from.

All right, so first, in order to recognize this whole pattern, we first need to recognize our misknowing. First, we need to catch ourselves in the wrong belief. And then we can catch ourselves in the belief, and then check out whether it's, I don't want to say right or wrong, a misbelief or a belief that will take us where we want to go. So we have to explore the GAKJA, the thing that emptiness is empty of, in order to decide whether or not that thing is there, in order to recognize that in fact it's not there, even as I believe it's there, and that reveals the emptiness of our exploration at that point. We have to find the thing we think is there, show ourselves it's not there, and that's the emptiness of that thing. Got it?

We tend to say, just show me the emptiness. Well, we can't reach emptiness without it being an emptiness of some thing. And the some thing, whose emptiness we want to find, is the thing that's perpetuating our suffering. Is the pen perpetuating our suffering? No. Is my belief about the pen, and so my reaction to the pen, the cause of my suffering? Yes. So that's what we're going to explore. We can't just jump to the highest one, without going through these lower ones, because it won't help us. Our minds won't be able to really wrap around the ramifications of the highest world view—nothing has any nature of its own, without going stepwise up. Geshe-la used the analogy of a stairway up to a rooftop. So we've never been on this rooftop. We don't know what the view is like from up there, but man, we're desperate to want to go there. You can't just jump. You step up on the first stair, and like the little toddler, right? They go up onto the first step, and they wobble and hang on before they step to the second step, and then the third step. So we're going to go up these six steps, and we're going to go up and down, and up and down, and up and down, to increase the pliancy of our understanding of these different levels of understanding of what's meant by dependent origination, or the law of cause and effect, and emptiness. We know the punchline. They are two sides of the same coin. You can't have one without the other. But we want to pull that apart until it's so obvious that when we perceive anything, we know it's emptiness. We know it has to lack its own nature by perceiving it. To perceive something is a thing that lacks its own nature, so it can be what I perceive. To perceive anything is for our projections to ripen an identity, a function onto an otherwise blank experience. Language fails.

All right, so we're going to explore two of these very beginning levels of recognizing a misbelief that we have about things, and learn these four different tools in a contemplation of how we apply our thinking towards this experience of this misbelief. And then we'll repeat that with all six, and then we'll put it all together, and we have eight classes to do that. All right.

1. Flavor: The Emptiness of the Permanence of Things

I'm not going to do the Tibetan in the interest of time. The first level of misknowing that we don't recognize that we're doing that Lord Buddha emphasized is that we believe that there is a permanent, whole, self-standing nature to the objects, whether they're inanimate or animate, and to subjects, which are always animate, and to the experiences that we have, the interactions between. All three spheres we're talking about, but we're going to focus on the object until we recognize what this level is talking about.

So none of these levels are the belief in self-existence. Self-existence means to exist independent of any other factor. We already don't believe in self-existence. This pen had to have a pen factory, you know, right? We all know things depend on other things. We're starting at the first level how we believe this pen is identified and how it comes to be known to function. We have a belief about this object that it has some permanent, whole, self-standing nature. What they mean by that, here's my friend, the pen. Class is over. I put it in my pen cup. We all go away. We come back. Sarahni reaches for her pen in her pen cup, and there it is. Same pen, right? I put it in the cup. I knew it was going to be there, you know, given the house didn't burn down, etc. I have in my mind, wherever I am, if this pen pops in my mind, my mind will say, oh, it's sitting in my pen cup, there on my desk. And then I come and I find it, and it confirms, Yes, that's the same pen in the same pen cup. And now it's here for me to use again. Inside all of that is the belief that this object has some kind of permanence. And it's like, okay, that's obvious. This pen is going to be the orange pen until it gets destroyed. It stays pen, then it gets destroyed, and then it's no pen anymore. And like, no big deal. We know that will happen. That is a level of understanding impermanence that would help us not be so reactive to when we lose things, or people move away, or things change drastically. We can say, oh, I knew that was going to happen. Everything's impermanent. And there are some levels of Buddhist training where they emphasize that. It's okay. Handle change. Change is always happening. It's all right. You're going to carry on. You'll have your needs met. Be kind. It's helpful. Is it a tool that we can use to stop perpetuating suffering? Not ultimately. But do we not need to realize it? No, we absolutely do.

And then we take it more subtly. It's like, okay, I know the pen someday is going to be destroyed. Who cares about this pen? But what if it was my favorite pen? Like, I have a favorite pen. I don't even use it anymore because it's not the most comfortable to use, but it's still stupidly my favorite pen. And it used to have an opal on the end, but the opal broke and fell off, so it doesn't even have the opal anymore. And that's what made it my favorite pen. But it's still my favorite pen. Stupid, right? Why don't I just throw it away? So, this pen's impermanence, gross impermanence. Okay, fine.

This pen's subtle impermanence is: Is this the same pen that I held up at the beginning of class when I showed you it was a pen? Now, it's not a different pen. It's not all of a sudden a green one. But is it the same as it was before? Use your logic. Of course not. It wrote another happy face on my hand. It's missing that much more ink. It's 15, 20 minutes older. I'm 15, 20 minutes older. This pen is changing moment by moment, isn't it? How can it be changing moment by moment and still be the same pen? We don't have a word that I know of. Maybe English does have a word. Help me if you know it. That can allow this object to still be this object but never be the same two moments in a row. It doesn't go from this one to this one to this one. It's always this one but it's never this one the same two moments in a row for me. And it's not the same one for you that I see. So what is this thing's permanence or impermanence? This is what we're wanting to explore. Our belief that our objects, our people, our self have a permanence to them. Because our belief in that permanence makes us expect them to behave the same way, to always be there where I put them, to work every single time. Our expectations arise from our belief in the thing's permanence—that it does not have. Any permanence that appears to have is according to whom? Me. You.

Does the pen have permanence? No. Does my pen appear to have permanence? Yes, because it's the same one I had a half an hour ago. Is that permanence in the pen? No. Because if it was, I couldn't have written with it. These are our analyses that we'll use. But we have to first find our belief that if you take your pen and you put it somewhere that you can't see that we believe that that pen is still there because nobody came and took it away. And then when we go to reach for it, yeah, it's there. Our belief is confirmed. It has permanence.

So who cares about pens? Use your cell phone. We rely on those mobiles for so much. It's my mobile. Somebody takes it, somebody crushes it, somebody misuses it, I'm going to get upset. My expectation of my mobile phone's permanence just failed me. And I either get mad at the phone or I get mad at the person involved. I get upset because it didn't last the way I expected it to last. What if I understood that every time I reached for it and I got it and I could open it and I could use it, what if every moment I was recognizing, wow, my seed's ripening to have it work again. Wow. We would be on this miracle mode all the time. Wow, there's the pen again. Wow, there's tea again. Wow. People would think we were totally crazy, right? Because we don't behave like that. We know these things work. But technically, when we are really clear on how our belief in things' permanence is in them, not from us, our expectations trigger these disappointments and frustrations and angers and jealousies. So that's the point.

So just seeing things, just experiencing people, that's not the wrong view. The wrong view is this belief about them that when things don't go according to that belief, we get upset. That's what we're looking at. One of those wrong beliefs is the belief in permanence.

Obvious permanence that the people you love will live forever. No, they don't. Subtle permanence is that they're the same every time we see them. No, they're not. Subtle impermanence of ourself. I'm the same me that wakes up every morning. Technically, no, I'm not. And if that's scary, we're misunderstanding. If it's liberating, we're understanding. So we're going step by step. So the first wrong belief is not perceiving the object. It's perceiving the object and then believing about the object that it has some kind of unchanging nature, permanence to it, subtle permanence to it. And then in contemplation or meditation, we analyze that permanence. We find our belief. Oh, that's my phone. Same phone, same phone. I've had it a year or two now. It's the same. And then we just check with experience. Is it the same phone? Yes, it's the same one. But is it the same as it was? No, I've used it. It's getting older. It's… Right? We know that it's impermanent, but then take it a step further. What's the true nature of this object? And just leap to the punch line that we know, cascading mental images coming out of our past behavior and pretend you can trigger that view. Wow. Hold it for just briefly and then go back. Wait, no, it's a solid phone because when we're pretending it's these mental images, recognize that it feels like, whoa, then it's not really there at all. But we're planting the seeds to gain this experience that no mental images makes it real. For something to appear to us in the way that it does, it has to be empty of its own appearance. True of my phone, true of you for me and me for you.

So the method will be first you pick up the object you're going to explore. So pick up some object that you care about and look at it right now. And first, just let yourself experience the object. There's my phone. Nothing wrong about that. We are having valid experience, valid perception, as long as you're not high, sick, etc. Valid perception phone, nothing wrong with that. Now, as you're experiencing your object, try to find your belief about that object that it's going to be there for you later today, tomorrow. How far into the future can you go with that object? A week from now, are you sure? You're going to have it a week from now? Six months? How far out before you go, Oh, no, I don't have that.. That's not that permanent. Now back it down again. That object. Okay, I don't expect it to last 10 years. Okay, I don't expect it to last two years. I do expect it to last a year. So that means I'll have it in six months. So that means I'll have it three months. That means I'll have it a month from now. That means I'll have it tomorrow. Do we know that for sure? No. Oh. Can you catch it? A shift in your relationship to the object.

Then go, Well, why do I have it now? And just apply the punchline. My seeds ripening into me having phone. Must have done something good because it's a good thing to have the phone. Okay, great. And catch whether or not your experience of the object starts to get a little.. How can I be holding it? If it's nothing but mental images, it's wrong view. It's another wrong view. Just catch it. How it starts to feel kind of slippery. And then back out and go, Okay, mental images. Okay, there's still the belief that it's going to be there tomorrow. That nature is not in the phone. Whether it's there tomorrow has nothing to do with the object. Take your belief in its permanence away and sit in that lack of permanence of the object.

And then it'll fade away and you go back and do it again. Just object. Find our belief in its permanence. Find the level. Find the line. Get at the line. Ask yourself, Is that really true? To show yourself the lack of permanence. Then impose why it's there. Seeds ripening. And then go back to the permanence and pull it away and try to sit in its absence of permanence. Not absence of the thing. Absence of its permanence. And see what that does to your relationship to the thing. See what happens to our expectation of how it functions, where it is, how I use it. All right? Did you get a glimpse?

So now this object that we believe is permanent and will always be there for me and will always function the way I want. Somebody destroys it. Old relationship with it, (freaking out). New relationship with it, Dog gone. My seeds change. Dog gone, it's going to be an expensive fix. But my reactivity about it decreases. It's still there, of course. But it helps me choose a different response because I don't expect this thing to last longer than a moment. Wait a minute. Okay, so first level is not some baby step. It's significant. But we need to go to second level. I talk too much.

2. Flavor: The Emptiness of a Self Nature of Things/Control

Second thing that we believe about these objects and these people and especially about ourselves is that there is some self standing substantial nature to them. So the first one was a permanence to them that we've shown ourselves is not there. This one is something substantial about them. The word substantial in English means tangible, like something you can hold on to. But here the term is being used as something or someone who's somehow in charge of it. To have a substantial nature means we have some kind of control. It's like we think the pen has some kind of control in the sense that if we use this as a pen, we use it to write and that there's something in the pen that makes us write with it when we do versus eat it. Versus, I don't know, try to start your car with it. That there's something in the pen that controls its pen nature. That's like, we don't really think that. Subtly, we probably do. More importantly is the control issues that we think we're in control. We expect other beings, whether it's your dog or the fly or your boss, to be in some kind of control. And that when we're in control as humans, supposedly we all agree to be polite. We all agree to behave in certain ways. And we all agree to keep control over ourselves. And then we use that control in order to control our environment, right? You cook dinner. You had to control those vegetables to turn them into something to eat. We believe we have this level of control over things. And we have the expectation that other beings have some level of control over things.

So our task is to find this belief in having some measure of control. And it's like we make choices. That's control. We do things. We do affect other things. That's control. And so every time we do something and we get the effect we did it for, it reinforces our belief, Look, I was in charge. Like I did make that choice and I brought about that effect and so see? I do have some measure of control. We know we don't control everything and everybody. But we do have some kind of control. Don't we?

Like if I say, raise your left hand and you raise your left hand, you are in control of raising your left hand. And we just verified the misbelief that we have control. But can you feel how that's a little scary? Don't show me that I don't have any control. I don't want to know that. Thank you very much. Because everybody who does still have control will take advantage of me. But you see, if we're going to prove nobody has the control that they think they have, it means everybody, not just me and you. Well, then how come when I say raise your left hand you can actually do it if there's nobody in control? It appears that there's me in control coming out of my seeds from having helped people in the past if it's a good thing to be in control, from having hurt people in the past if it's a bad thing to be in control. You see? The factor of control is coming out of our seeds. It's not in me from me. It's not in the object. It's not in the other.

So again, we want to explore this: Is there a me that controls this pen? Is there a me that controls my cell phone? Is there a me that is a driver of my five heaps? This is not a baby step. It's finding the wrong way we believe we have control. Exploring how it is actually a mistake that we believe is correct, showing ourselves where those where that sense of control actually comes from and then going back to say, okay, here it is, but it's not really like that to find that emptiness of this controller. Emptiness of the controller means they're not in me from me. It doesn't mean there is no control whatsoever.

To say the emptiness of the pen means the pen is not here is a misunderstanding. The emptiness of the pen is the fact that we can see it the way we do and the dog can see it the way they do. My control that I appear to have is karmic seeds ripening and nothing but. So what do I want to do with my ability to control myself and my apparent effort to control somebody else? If it's nothing but seeds ripening, I want to use it to help, to try to be more and more kind.

Again, our tendency is when we identify a wrong belief and want to find the emptiness of it, we want that wrong belief to go away. We do want the wrong belief to go away, but it's not that the control goes away. It's where the control comes from. Is it getting clear?

Geshe-la suggested that to explore this first, we use our friend the pen or our friend the phone, not any old phone, my phone, because of my attachment to it, and find the one that we believe is in charge of this phone. So it's not really about the phone. It's about me and my control over the phone. Before we were talking about the expectation of the phone lasting. Now we're going to say, here's me and my phone. Regular experience, that's fine. Valid experience, that's fine.

Now get in touch with the sense that this is my phone. I'm in charge of it. I decide who uses it, what happens to it. It's pretty strong, isn't it? Do it right now. This is my phone. Keep your gloms off my phone until I hand it to you. We have these attachments, and then we think I'm in charge of it. I can make it do what I want. Not. I can keep it. I can destroy it. It's up to me.

And then analyze that. How much am I in charge of this thing? If I'm in charge of it, it is my phone and I'm in charge of it the way I think I am. If I set it on the table in our community center and I walk away, then because I'm in charge of it, I would be certain that everybody who sees it will say, oh, that's somebody's phone. I will leave it alone. I actually believe that everybody who sees it will say, oh, that's Sarahni's phone and will leave it alone or even expect them to bring it to me. Which is ridiculous. It's just same phone as anybody else's. There's nothing about it that's Sarahni's and there's nothing about me that can control it. I have to keep it with me. Oh, that's how I control it. I keep it with me. And it's like, oh, wait, no, actually, that still doesn't control it.

Find some reasons for why even keeping it on my body doesn't control it. Because I could drop dead, right? It could still drop off my body. It still doesn't do what I want it to do. If I'm in control the way I believe I'm in control, nothing could ever go wrong. Things go wrong all the time, don't they? Proof we are not in control. But who wants to admit that? Not I.

We're looking for the belief I'm in control of something. No matter how puny, find it and explore it. Show yourself that there's no such controller over my cell phone. So who is here apparently controlling the cell phone? Seeds ripening. Which means if I want to continue to have the illusion that I have control over my cell phone, then I want to help other people. What? Have the illusion they have control over stuff? Maybe. Like what seeds do we plant in response to our being in control in order to always use our control in a way that's helpful? Mostly our control is, I want things for me. I'm trying to manipulate my environment for my own betterment. What if we used our illusion of control to manipulate our environment in an attempt to help other people be happier? Is it always going to work? No. But do we plant the seeds of trying to use our illusory control to help others? Yes. That means it'll ripen as our control ability being used to help others in the future and others using their control to help me instead of hurt me.

Is our expectation of other people trying to control us an expectation that helps us function? Or is it an expectation that when it fails, we get upset? You see? If we're in control and then things don't go the way we want, we get upset. If we understand whether or not things go the way we want them to go is not up to my effort in the moment. We're open to, well, that went wrong. Let's try this instead. Well, that went right. Let's do more of this. Well, that went wrong. Let's change. Instead of, ah.

So again, these four steps. Plain old valid perception, my phone. I'm in charge of this phone. Find that. Strong, get it strong. Explore whether our experience verifies that or not. Get a glimpse of, oh, that way I'm in control isn't actually there. How is it that it does appear I'm in control? Oh, seeds ripening. Pleasant—kindness seeds. Unpleasant—unkindness seeds. Then go back.

What is my feeling of control? I can see I can rip it out. Imagine you with an understanding of control instead of a misunderstanding of control. What will we do with it? How will we create the illusion of being in control by helping others with it? 

Okay, so these first two emptinesses are the emptiness of permanence. And the second one is that emptiness of control, being in charge, anything or anybody in charge. Start with objects for the impermanence thing. Then go to somebody else. Then go to maybe your relationship with that somebody else. And then also consider your own impermanence. Gross one, I'm going to be dead someday. Some of us were studying that death awareness practice. I'm going to be dead tomorrow. And then your subtle impermanence. Every time I do something different, I've just changed. Will the real me please stand up? To show our availability to be what's next. 

Then go to the one in charge, in charge of something specific. Find that belief there is a me that's in control. Then show yourself examples of how that's foolish to believe that there is no such thing. Where is the feeling of being in control coming from? Seeds ripening, the ramification of that. And then go back to the feeling, remove it, and sit in its absence. As contemplation. And we'll talk about it a little bit again at the beginning. We'll meditate on it at the beginning of next class. And then we'll add the next two. And we'll keep going up these stairways. Okay, clear?

Permanence and control, two qualities we think we have that we don't have so that we can experience them. Not that they are non-existent. They happen, but for a different reason.

Closing

So remember that person we thought of at the beginning of class, the one who is hurting. Everything that we have talked about, we will use sooner or later to help them in that deep and ultimate way, and that's an extraordinary goodness. So please be happy with yourself. And think of this goodness like a beautiful glowing gemstone you can hold in your hands.

Recall your own precious holy being. See how happy they are with you. Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon them. Ask them to please, please stay close to continue to guide you, inspire you, help you.

And then offer them this gemstone of goodness. See them accept it and bless it. And they carry it with them right back into your heart. See them there. Feel them there, their love, their compassion, their wisdom. It feels so good we want to keep it forever and so we know to share it.

By the power of the goodness that we've just done

May all beings complete the collection of merit and wisdom

And thus gain the two ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom make.

So use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one person, to share it with everyone you love, to share it with every existing being everywhere. See them all filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom. And may it be so.

All right. My pen is going into my pen cup. And it will be there on Friday morning. Right. All right. Thanks, everybody, for working so hard. OK. Everybody all right. Nobody like scared or weirded out. I know this is preaching to the choir. You guys are so easy to teach. OK. I love you. Bye bye. See you later. Have a great week. Thank you. Bye bye.

Okay, for the recording, welcome back. We are ACI practice module called the Six Flavors of Emptiness. This is class two on September 11, 2026.

We'll do our usual opening prayers, and then we'll settle right into a guided meditation where we'll do our preliminaries and then explore those first two flavors of emptiness that aren't really the emptiness, but explore for beliefs that we hold about things that those things don't actually have, which is why we're calling them emptinesses. So let's gather our minds here as we usually do, please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again. Now bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom, and see them there with you.

They are gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy great compassion. Their wisdom radiates from them. That beautiful golden glow encompassing you in its light.

And then we hear them say, bring to mind someone you know who's hurting in some way. Feel how much you would like to be able to help them recognize how the worldly ways we try to help fall short. How wonderful it will be when we can also help them in some deep and ultimate way, a way through which they will go on to stop their distress forever.

Deep down, we know this is possible. Learning more and more about emptiness and dependent origination, we glimpse how it's possible. And so I invite us to grow that wish into a longing and that longing into an intention.

And with our intention strong, we turn our minds back to our precious holy being. We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. And so we ask them, please, please, please, teach me that, show me that.

Help me and become like you. And they are so happy that we've asked. Of course, they agree.

Our gratitude arises. We want to offer them something exquisite. And so we think of the pure world.

They are helping us, teaching us how to create. We imagine we can hold it in our hands and we offer it to them, following it with our promise to practice what they teach us, using our refuge prayer to make our promise. Here is the great earth filled with fragrant incense and covered with the blanket of flowers, the great mountain, four lands, wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon.

In my mind, I make them the paradise of a Buddha and offer it all to you. By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community.

Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community. Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community. Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may all beings totally awaken for the benefit of every single other. So let's settle our bodies for a meditation.

Get your seat solid and firm, balanced and upright. Scan that periphery for relaxation top to bottom. Then bring your focus of attention to your breath at your nostrils, turning on focus, turning on clarity, the bright attention, turning on the intensity, fascination, the sensations called breath and nothing but.

Check again for focus, clarity, intensity. Now keep that same quality of mind. Let go of the object of breath and turn it on to listening to my words and following the instructions.

So take your refuge in whatever understanding about emptiness that you have now. Explain it briefly to yourself and then think about how it will and can protect you by helping us change our behavior choices. Now think about your growing bodhicitta.

Recall that person from our opening prayers. We're aware of their distress. We're aware of the things they try to do to relieve their distress.

And we're aware that when we try to help the worldly ways we use, maybe they help and maybe they don't. Even when they do, it seems temporary. Let your heart open to that frustration, open to our understanding that it's a limitation born of misunderstanding.

Born of understanding, the misunderstanding is actually our own. And so when we grow our own understanding, we help others in that deeper way. Let that sequence open your heart to your wish to be able to help them ultimately, our bodhicitta.

Now turn your mind again to that precious holy being, your own. See them there with you. Feel their love.

Feel their wisdom. Think of just one of the amazing good qualities that you see in them. Recognize that the way they experience that good quality is a result of their past zillions of kindness and so feel your admiration for them with that quality and for the amazing goodnesses they must have done through their stream of lifetimes.

Feel admiration. Feel aspiration and mentally prostrate to them, meaning tell them that you admire them and would like to become like them and want to rely upon their help and feel your gratitude, appreciation. And so make them an offering, the traditional ones, any beautiful thing.

But what they like best is for you to hear yourself offering to them something you thought or said or did that was guided or motivated by something they have taught you or showed you. So tell them something specific from your efforts to apply karma and emptiness and see how happy they are with you and we feel so safe with them that we have the opportunity to clean out some negativity from our heart as well. And so we admit something that we thought or said or did that we recognize planted a seed within us that when that seed ripens we won't like it.

Tell them about it and include your regret and refuge, which means include in your explanation your understanding that that deed planted the seed you don't want and that by telling it to them with this heart of educated regret you know you can damage that seed and be cleaned of it. Then establish a power of restraint in some time frame you know you can achieve and establish a makeup activity which can be this class so that when we complete this class, if we do, we know that that seed will be damaged and it will stay damaged as long as we uphold our restraint promise and next we rejoice in our efforts to clean out those seeds and plant new ones with our growing bodhicitta. So tell that precious being about some kindness you saw someone else do or heard about.

Tell them of another one that you yourself did. Keshala says don't go on in your meditation from here until you feel your heart is smiling and when it's smiling we ask that precious holy guide to stay close to us to continue to teach us to bring us formal teachings like this one and the day-to-day moment-to-moment teachings that we get as we interact with others. Ask them for help in using the tools of our practice in daily life to choose our behaviors, our interactions more wisely and finally ask them again to please stay close.

Ask that all the spiritual teachers stay in our world. Ask that our Dharma friends stay close and then dedicate just our preliminaries to growing our bodhicitta, becoming more effective tools for wisdom to grow in our world and then check in with your body. If it needs to shift or wiggle or scratch or blow nose, now's the time to do it.

Then we settle back in, set the body through your sequence quickly, bring the mind to the breath to settle the mind with that count of 10 breaths if you count. Now again shift from your breath to my words and bring to mind your favorite physical object, favorite or most important or most valuable. Scan through your things and choose just one.

Give me a thumbs up when you've got it in mind. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Now hold that object in your mind's eye.

Got it. Okay. Thanks.

Just look at it. Experience it without any examination. Now the next mode is to examine our feelings about that object.

So let those feelings come up. It gives me pleasure. It's an important tool.

Oh, it was my mother's and it helps me think fondly of her. Right? Let them. There's probably many.

Now look for the feeling about that object that believes it has some lasting quality about it. It has a place where it stays and you know that when you put it there and come back to it, no matter how long later, it will be there. It will be the same.

It has some kind of permanence to it. Now recognize how because of that belief about that favorite special object, if it goes missing, we will have a big emotional reaction. Recognize our expectation of its lasting nature gives way to upset when it breaks, when it disappears, when someone disregards it.

Explore that connection between the belief in its lasting nature and the feeling we get when something demonstrates that it does not have that lasting nature. Next step, recognize that if this object has this lasting nature as part of its qualities and identities, the way we believe, then it could not ever be broken or get lost or disappear. And yet it does.

So find that belief that the object has permanence and recognize that belief is imposing the permanence on the object. The object is not imposing the permanence on our experience. What is our experience of the object like when we recognize it is in fact fleeting moments of appearance moving through my life, no more permanent than this moment.

Imagine knowing that about this favorite object. How does it feel then to engage with this object again? Wow. And knowing its impermanent nature, does that change the reaction when we suddenly find out that someone broke it or stole it? So go back through the sequence again.

The object, the object that has this lasting quality to it and our expectation that comes up and take away that lasting quality in the object so that our expectation about the object gets taken away again. Nice. Now let's shift to the second flavor of understanding our misunderstanding.

Go back to the object just unexamined. Enjoy it. Now shift to your feelings about it and find our feelings of ownership of it.

This feeling, this belief that belongs to me. It's under my control. I decide who uses it, where it goes.

This belief that because it belongs to me, it's under my control. That belief gets most strong when we see someone else using that object in some way different than we expect them to use it. They're getting it dirty.

They're leaving it in a place where it could get damaged. They don't care about it. Feel what that does to our own mind, heart.

Wait, that's mine. I didn't say you could do that. Find the mental afflictions that grow out of this belief.

I'm in charge of that thing. But now explore, does our being in charge of the object or not come from the object? We believe that there's something about the object because it is ours. That makes us be the one who controls it.

We believe there's something in the object. Of course, that's absurd. We don't actually control it, number one.

And number two, even if we could or did, that would be coming from us, not the object. Why can we know that? Because someone else could believe they control the object too, which means it's not coming from the object. Explore that back and forth.

The object, my object, I control it. No, no object like that, but not no object at all. Whether or not I do control it is coming out of my own mental images, cascading forth.

If my seeds are ripening, I'm in control. It will appear that way. When my seeds are ripening something different, it will appear in a different way.

How will your actions and reactions towards this object be different when your relationship with it is, I have no control over it. I rely on my karma as ripening. Good.

Now make some mental note about what you came to understand about the absence of permanence and the absence of our control, our ownership, and let's dedicate this effort to that person we thought of at the beginning of class, that they recognize that they have misunderstandings about where things come from. They recognize that maybe they can fix things in a different way and then bring your awareness to being in this body, in your room, in this class. And when you've got that grounded, open your eyes, take a stretch.

Good job. That was 45 minutes of meditation. Did you think you couldn't do that? You did very well.

So let me talk a little bit and then we'll take our break. All right. So this tradition says there are five stages or five levels of deepening understanding that we will go through on our progress of transformation from being a suffering human being to reaching our ultimate goal.

So if we believe that our personal ultimate goal is the freedom from our own suffering, there are five stages of understanding we will go through to reach that. If our ultimate goal is becoming a being who can help everyone stop their suffering, there are still five stages and the five stages have the same names and they kind of have the same meanings, but they have a bit different experience because their result is different. I'm going to assume that because you are in this class, which is based on a course that's a Mahayana level training, meaning our ultimate goal is reaching our own total enlightenment for the benefit of all beings to stop all suffering.

I'm going to assume that you're interested in that level of understanding of the five paths. So those five paths, we've heard of them before we've studied them, the path of accumulation, the path of preparation, the path of seeing, the path of habituation and the path of no more learning, meaning the goal. So the fifth stage is reaching the goal.

You could say on that stage, like at the end of that stage, but you never end it, right? You start your career at your fifth stage. So we want to know, like, where am I on my path? What stage am I in? Somehow we need some kind of feedback from life and we compare ourselves to others to find it. We compare ourselves to past me to find it.

I don't know, comparison doesn't really work. But as we understand these different stages, we still are trying to say, well, which one am I on? So using that analogy of the stairs up to the rooftop, we're calling those stairs, these different understandings of emptiness. But now let's call the stairs, these five, five stairs where the last stair is the step up onto the rooftop.

We think, oh, I get onto the first stair and I'm there for good until I go up. But in fact, the first stair is this called the path of accumulation, meaning we are in the process of accumulating enough experience in worldly life to come to the conclusion that there is nothing in this life that works right. Accumulating our disgust with sansara, we call it.

The fact that we do things to try to find happiness for ourself and our loved ones, and maybe they work and maybe they don't. And even when they seem to work, it doesn't last. Something else comes along to upset us.

And it seems like we should be able to manipulate our world to find that happiness. And growing up, we were promised, you work hard, you do these things, you will get this result. And at what age did that start to fail us? And yet for lifetimes as humans, we've just gone, this is what life is.

And we live ordinary human lives and then they end. So the path of accumulation is starting to question, starting to search, growing our renunciation. There's something wrong with this picture.

Growing that renunciation to the point of deciding our own decision, I'm going to change my priorities. And it's not easy. It's like swimming upstream for most of us.

And maybe we've had lifetimes where we dabbled in it and couldn't, we're not in circumstances that we could really change our behavior, change our priorities, but we wanted to desperately. And then another lifetime later where, oh, I actually can make different choices, but then life stops too fast. So we can step onto that first step of path of accumulation and then go off it and on it and off it and on it and off in some lifetime.

For me, this one is like on that step and I don't care what I'm not, I'm not stepping backwards. Then second step, at some point we find something and our search stops and we immerse ourselves in that particular new philosophy or new study because it seems to hold the most accurate message. So at some point our searching ceases.

Geshe-la says, on your path of accumulation, at some point we have the goodness to hear somebody tell us the pen thing. And people hear the pen thing and they go, yeah, right. See ya.

It doesn't impact them. And some people hear the pen thing and they go, whoa, like they get some clue that there's some hugely significant thing in there. And then it's like, tell me more, tell me more, tell me more, tell me more.

And at some point we get enough of the big picture that it's like, okay, I'm going to commit myself to study this path because it seems to have better answers, more clear, logical answers than the other paths I have explored this lifetime, past lifetimes. So for us, but not for everyone, it's this path that perhaps we've found and committed ourselves to. We call that path of preparation because now there's lots to learn.

18 ACI courses, 18 more Diamond Way courses, 18 more book, Jimbo courses, right? To the point of torment. I was teaching a class on Wednesday. Let go of the torment.

Stop all that studying, meditate. Sorry, I'm getting distracted. Path of preparation is where we're digging in deep.

Does that mean we've left our renunciation behind? No, we are still accumulating our experiences of this life that keep us from going backwards, but we can still go backwards from step one or step two path of preparation. Something could happen that our seeds can shift and we can't study anymore. We can't even renunciate anymore.

And although we've gotten to step two, we fall back. It can still happen. So it's like we're dancing back and forth between no step at all.

Step one, step two, one, two, one, two, three, one, right down, down, down. As we are progressing in our path of preparation, our understanding of the fact that things don't have their nature shows us that where their natures come from is results of our behavior. At some point that will become so clear to us that we will actually have an experience of perceiving an object and perceiving that that object is there coming out of this cascading seeds.

And we'll know somehow that those cascading seeds are the results of past cascading impressions made by how we interacted with others before. We will make that connection and then hot on the heels of that experience, we go meditate if we have the seeds to be able to meditate. And that meditation will take us into the direct experience of the fact that even my me is nothing but cascading images.

And we slide into that nothing but the emptiness of subject, object, interaction between tonglam, our path of seeing. Path of seeing when we come out of it, we understand. We go back to experiencing the world as in it, from it, coming at us.

But now we know that that is incorrect. In our path of preparation, we were intellectually understanding that it was incorrect. But after path of seeing, we know from experience that it's incorrect.

And because of that, we are now forever changed because we no longer believe the experiences coming at us can really be coming at us. Do we still have the experiences? Absolutely. But our belief has shifted, which means our interaction with them will be different.

The analogy I like is if you've never ridden a bicycle before, and you decide you want to learn to ride a bike, that you want to ride a bike. And you get every book, every video about how to ride a bike, and you memorize it all, you study it all, and you become an expert in how to ride a bicycle, but you've never actually gotten on one. Then you get a bicycle, and you get on it, right? And maybe you fall down a few times, but then, whoa, you're riding the bicycle.

Oh, this is what all that meant, this experience. And then you finish your bike ride, the bike goes away. And even if you never ride a bicycle again, ever, you know what it's like, right? Nobody can take that knowing away from you, because you had that experience.

So once we get to step three, stairway three, path of seeing, you can never unknow. You can never drop back down to step two or step one, because you have changed. And there's only the forward path from there of learning how to live according to what you now know is true, but don't experience that way anymore.

And that puts us on that path of habituation where we are experiencing things with the ignorance and reacting to them from wisdom, practicing our giving moral discipline, not getting angry, burning off the past ignorance with every 65th of an instant, and planting our new seeds without that wisdom, which is why that path of seeing is so significant. Eventually, all the seeds that had the misunderstanding in them are finally either burned off or so not added to that they can't ripen. And we reach a level of experience where we are experiencing things as coming from our seeds.

I don't understand what that will be like. Like, are you always in the cascade of seeds? Doesn't make sense. Somehow, there's no more the mistaken view that we don't believe anymore.

But that's not our goal. Our goal is Buddhahood. So there's more to do that moves us from our stair step number four onto the rooftop of stair step number five, reaching Buddhahood.

So the point here is that in order to get onto that stairway such that we cannot drop off of it, we need to reach the direct perception of emptiness. To have the direct perception of emptiness, we need the seeds to be able to sustain that deep level of meditative concentration for an hour. In order to sustain a deep level of meditative concentration for an hour, we need to be planting the seeds for it.

We plant the seeds for it by helping others with their concentration, of course, but we also plant the seeds for it by practicing, by learning the steps, by applying the steps, just like learning to do any task at a level of competence that we can rely upon. We find someone to teach us, and we follow their instructions, and we do the skills. We've all probably learned to play an instrument, or dance, or do a sport.

And if you recall that you went, I know my team, we want to learn to play volleyball, teach us how to play volleyball. And the coach says, great, run laps, do drills. No, no, we want to play volleyball, right? Run laps, do drills, serve the ball to that corner a hundred times in a row, right? No, we want to play volleyball, right? Do you get the picture? Do your scales.

No, I want to play Bach. Do your scales. The meditation preliminaries, the daily working through all these different meditation things that we learned, those are doing the drills, doing the skills, training us in the skills that will allow us to sustain that direct perception of emptiness when the time comes.

Now, we hear in the textbooks, somebody, when they're seven years old, they've never meditated, something happens, they sit down, they go into the direct perception of emptiness, they come out a little earlier. Is that possible? Sure. Did it happen to me? No.

So I didn't have the seeds, I need to plant the seeds, right? Maybe next life at seven years old, it'll happen. When that happens to someone, it's because they've had lifetimes of teachers and trainings and purification and merit making, and it's ripening in this lifetime, apparently with no teacher, no teachings. But if we say, okay, one of my lifetimes is going to ripen, I'll just wait for it.

It's like, okay, you're not even on the steps anymore. We're back in samsara, not even trying. So, you know, it's like we all have busy lives.

We're getting older. I don't know about you, but I for sure am. And it gets harder and harder, even for an experienced meditator to uphold the experience because we're burning off our seeds in other ways.

So I am trying to encourage us all, get a regular meditation practice. In our path of accumulation, we're changing our priorities. Please get daily meditation to be part of something that's as important as brushing your teeth.

Please. So that you have the seeds for your tonglam to happen when it does. When you have the seeds for it, it's going to happen.

But you can cultivate it or not cultivate it. All right. So that said, let's take our break.

Five minutes, if you like. And then we'll learn our next two. Yeah, sketchy.

I have that meeting too. Okay. Thanks, Laura.

Okay. Are we back? So let's explore two more flavors of what we think is there that's not there. What was the first one we studied? Permanent.

You think things have lasting qualities, but they don't. Fleeting karmas, passing through space. What was the second one? Those things that last, I own them.

Control. I should be in charge, like Wizard of Oz, but we're not in charge, are we? Even when it seems like we're in charge, we're not in charge. Is that scary or liberating? Kind of scary, I think.

Okay. So those and the mental afflictions that arise from those are pretty straightforward. Now that we've heard about them, if we make the effort, we can see it happening.

When we get upset, oh, I expected it. I expected it to be there. I expected I could control it.

And these next two get a little bit more subtle. And they are from within what's called the mind only school. So remember those three turnings of the wheel? Buddha says, look at this existing universe, all these things, they exist in these ways, and they're all suffering.

And then he goes, oh, you know, all those things that exist, they have no nature. And we heard that mean they don't really exist. They're not real.

And somebody goes, wow. And he goes, oh, some things are and some things aren't. Some things have their own natures and some things don't.

And we learn to distinguish between them. And then we can function in a way that stops perpetuating mental afflictions. Third turning of the wheel.

There must be the highest one, right? So mind only school gets called mind only. But remember the definition of karma, movement of the mind and what it motivates. So it's like, wait, mind and karma, they're kind of interrelated ideas.

So out of mind only school come to ideas about emptiness. And Geshe-la says, we'll call those our flavors three and four. There are not the level of emptiness that we will experience directly.

Are they lacks of something that we believe is there? Yes. But not at the level that will change us permanently. The way the level of emptiness understanding is experienced from the highest school, which is how it will be experienced.

All right. So exploration number three is that we, what we believe is true. That's not true is that we believe that me, the subject and the things I validly perceive, we believe that they come from different substances.

The translated Tibetan word to English is substance. Me and this pen come from different substances. Right? Yeah.

This comes from plastic and oil and a pen factory. And I, you know, Ron Zack law PC. We went to the attorney, he gave us this pen.

Actually, it was at the health fair that he gave us this pen. That's different substances than this thing, flesh and blood and parents. And it is true that objects, any object and subjects, any subject come from different substances, don't they? But now the trick here is that what they mean by different substances is different causes.

The substance means cause. So let's go back. We believe that me, the subject and it, the object come from different causes, right? It's different causes to be a pen than it is to be so running.

What's wrong with that? The, the pen has its own causes. Me has my own causes. That seems correct.

Now we have to go back a little bit. Recall that mind only school thinkers are my honest, they are inspired to become totally enlightened for the sake of all sentient being. And they are functional lists, which means that they believe that anything that performs a function must have some essential reality that allows it to perform the function that it does.

They don't believe self-existent no Buddhist school believes in self-existent self-existent means in and of itself independent of any other factor. I would say no human believes in self-existence because we all know everything has causes. So, but to function, this pan functions differently than this thing, right? And yet they kind of have some similarity and yet their function is completely different.

And a functionalist believes that there's something pen ish in this object, because if there wasn't, I should be able to pick this up and cut paper with it. If that's what I need to do, but I can't, when I use this object, I use it to write because that's what pens do. Now they do say that this particular object pen is unique to me, but it's not that being unique to me, I can make it into something else.

That's all accurate, isn't it? Accurate to experience. I can't decide that this is not a pen, but we believe that the reason I can't decide that is that there's something in this object that blocks me from saying, no, this is a banana. So, function, one of our tasks is for us to be able to recognize how strongly it is that we believe that things is functioning is coming from them, is in them.

It's so strong in us that it's very hard to catch it. Like ask a fish what it is like to live in water in the ocean and they'll go, what are you talking about? It's so hard. We are functionalists.

Highest school says there's nothing in this object, nothing at all in this object that makes it what it is for us, nothing. And our mind hears that and automatically goes, well, then there's nothing really there. It's all just my projection, which is correct.

But then our conclusion is, oh, so it's not real. Because our old mind says to be real, it has to have some kind of tangible nature to it. And how can a projection have any kind of tangible nature? Well, the tangibility is part of the projection.

We'll get there later. So we're at this stage where we are wanting to come to recognize this belief that me has my own causes to be here. And this pen has its own causes to be here.

And that somehow it works. So our investigation is to check to see the mental affliction that arises when life is not consistent with what we believe to be true. So now they do, when they give this description of this level, they say, we believe that me and the things that I perceive validly come from different substances because they want to make it clear that when we have an invalid perception, we are not experiencing something that functions in the way we are believing it to function or be when we're having an invalid perception.

That's more than what we need for this exploration. But just keep in mind that in this school, when we have that experience of a mouse running in front of the car, and then we look again and oh, it was just a leaf, this school would say the mouse was an invalid perception because it wasn't really a mouse. Really it was a leaf.

Highest school says for the period of time that it was a mouse, it was a mouse. Karma shifts and now it's a leaf. Good thing you didn't drive over that leaf when it was a mouse, because the karmic seed would be different than driving over a leaf.

So my only school says this thing about causes applies to valid perceptions. And that's all right because 99% of our experiences are valid as long as we're not drunk high, you know. Okay, so if we are believing that me and the object come from separate causes, then what? What's our expectation? Things have their own causes for arising.

Things have their own causes for doing what they do. It means we have our causes, we go through life, things that happen to us like a random, which means things can happen by accident, which means things happen to me, at me, which means I'm a victim, which means oh, you know, what can I do to change anything? So this belief, me with my causes, it with its causes, technically even you with your causes, angry yelling boss with their causes, it means their causes are making them do what they do to me. It's not my fault.

Hey, random, things happen at random. And then we get offended, we get hurt, we have to react to protect ourselves. It's the ramification of this belief, this feeling that things are in them coming at us.

So are there, is there, are there objects with their own causes? Yes. Is my interaction with that object coming from its cause? No, it can't be, can it? My experience of this pen has actually nothing in the pen that makes that happen. So this school says the correct belief is to understand that the me to be here and the object with its own identity, not self-existent, but own identity, own function, my seed, they are coming out of one substance.

They are coming out of the same substance. What substance is that? What causes that? My ripening seed. This school says my ripening seed brings me and this object together to be me having a pen to write with.

We think they come from separate causes. In fact, they come out of the same substance. What substance? My karma ripening, right? When we understand that with every experience, the cause is coming out of me, bringing it to us, how is that going to change our reaction to that event? Even when it appears random, appears to be an accident, angry, yelling boss, you did da da da da, that was the wrong thing.

You're in trouble. I'm going to fire you. And you're saying, I didn't do that.

I didn't even do that. But it's still my seed ripening, bringing me the angry yelling boss, the situation, my being offended by them doing that to me, because I believe I didn't do that. I don't deserve this.

Did I do what they say I did? No. But did I create the seed to have them blaming me and mad at me? I had to have made the seed because I'm experiencing it. There are no accidents, there is nothing random.

They appear to be them doing that to me random. But it cannot be that way. And me experience it the way that I do.

Do I experience the angry yelling boss, yelling at me unique to me? Yes. Even if my twin were standing there, hearing it happen, their experience would be different than my experience, wouldn't it? Same words, same decibel, same boss. Is there ever the same for two beings? No.

Does that make I'm the only one that exists? I'm the only real one. Everybody else is my karmic seeds ripening. No.

Why? Because I'm part of the karmic seed ripening too. I'm changing moment by moment too. I'm the result of my own seeds ripening too.

Thank goodness, because that's why and how we can transform. If it were not the case, we'd be stuck with our perceptions of ourselves the way they are. And we know that's not true because I perceive myself very differently now than I did when I was 10 years old.

So I know I can change. I know I am changing. Okay, so back to this flavor.

The mistaken view that we don't even recognize we have until somebody points it out is that the pan has its own causes to be here. I have my causes to be here. You have your causes to be here.

And here we are. So I can blame things. And I cannot take responsibility for what happened.

That's nice, except that ends up with everything suffering. When in fact, this is the subject, the object, the interaction experience is all coming out of, they say one seed, but it's one series of seeds, of course. But subject, object, interaction between is all in the seed because it all gets planted in that seed.

So every 65th of an instant, subject, object, interaction between. So who makes the seeds? Who made the seeds that are ripening into me and the pen coming together to have it to just use in this class? I made my karma for it. You made your karma for it.

We make the causes for any result we get. So mind only school is not wrong to recognize, ah, everything is my seeds ripening, bringing it all to me. Who can we blame for anything? Ouch.

How many of us can hear that and not have a sense of, whoa, I don't think I want any more of this tradition. If I have to take total responsibility for everything, that's too much. And a lot of people don't stay.

Once we reach that message, they go, wow, that really is too much. Thank you very much. I have a life to live, but seeds have been planted.

So not to worry. And yet when we hear, in fact, we are responsible for everything. When we are at that level of ripening that we hear it and go, whoa, oh, like we get a glimpse of the possibility of changing such that we can change everything.

Then, right? We're like leaps and bounds forward on our spiritual path. When we hear everything is my personal responsibility. And we see the possibility in that instead of that.

It took me a long time. Okay. So this third flavor to recognize the mistake helps us recognize we are blaming other people, other things, all the others for all of our experience and recognize that in that blame, we are hammering our own big toe in our effort to get happy.

And we don't understand how come I'm hurting so much. Wow. When we recognize the blame that we're applying blame and we can catch it and stop it.

We are starting to pause the hammer and eventually we're going to throw the hammer away. Master Shanti Davis said, look, there's only three possibilities for why crap happens to us. Either it's random.

And we just showed that that's not the case. Or there's a divine creator being who makes it happen. You know, in which case I think they're kind of sadistic.

Or we're doing it ourselves. There's some kind of justice in karma. We made the cause, we get the result.

Can't really argue with that even though we don't like it. So this level worldview helps us stop blaming. And when we stop blaming, we take responsibility for our response to the situation.

And we try to plant our seeds differently. So the boss is yelling, I didn't do it. I'm upset.

I want to yell back or lie or cry or something to get it to stop. And because of growing wisdom, I think, oh, I want to burn this off. Can I say, I'm sorry, you're upset with me, how can I help? Instead of any of the other negative things I would have said.

If I do so, boss may or may not stop yelling. But I have planted seeds differently than my reaction to someone yelling at me before. That means I've burned off a sequence of being yelled at seeds.

And I've replanted an effort to respond with kindness and wisdom. That means there's that much less anger and reactivity in my world. It means I'll have a little bit better ability to respond with kindness the next time.

I'm in that situation. And how long will it take before all my yelling at people, seeds are burnt off? I don't know. But they are finite.

And every time I do it, I'm not replanting them, which means I'm getting closer and closer to the end of all yelling at anybody, not just at me, which is how the Mahayana works, is understanding changing my seeds change my whole world. Because there's nothing in my world that's not my seeds. Right? See how it all comes together.

Okay, so to recognize this thing about the seed, my seed, bringing it to me, helps me overcome blame. So our task in our exploration until next class is to see if we can get that connection, and then we'll meditate on it next week. But now there's a second level, emptiness flavor number four, mind only level functionalists believe that these outer objects, even the objects of our body, our heaps, we believe that those objects, we believe that their qualities, and their identities are defined by them, that they exist by definition is the words we'll get familiar with in course 15.

When we use the term definition in English, it implies you look it up in the dictionary and read the words, the definition of pen is that. But in this meaning, to say something exists by definition, it means the object defines itself, meaning it delineates itself, or it shows us itself, as if there's a massive information here. And within all of that massive information, the pen establishes that it's a pen.

And so along we come, and we go, Oh, look, a pen. And we believe that we saw the pen, because something in the pen said pen. And with pen comes writing instrument should have ink in it.

We believe that the things we experience exist by definition. That's what those words mean. They show themselves to us.

Now we know an object doesn't say pen, I'm here a pen. And that's what we explore is how is it in my experience of that object? Am I experiencing it defining itself to me? We are doing it as humans. Like we're breathing air.

It takes some effort to get to it. When we believe that objects define themselves. We also believe that we the subject define ourself.

I'm Sirani. Everybody should know Sirani. Everybody should know how nice Sirani is.

And when somebody, you know, doesn't like me, or I hear somebody has criticized me, it's like, I'm so offended. It's like, didn't I define myself well enough to them? What's matter with them? Yeah, the pen defines itself. The yelling boss define themselves.

We believe it. Is it true that things exist by definition? How do we know it's not true? If the object exists by definition, meaning defines itself, then it doesn't need to depend on me or the dog to perceive it for its existence. Think of your favorite object, whatever it was, wherever it is.

Does it exist independent of you? Like deep down, what do you believe? If it's sitting somewhere, sitting on your desk, and your neighbor comes, is your neighbor going to see that thing? Yes. You know, if it's a tangible material thing. Is your neighbor going to see your favorite object? Are they going to see the object? Yeah.

But do they see your favorite object? No. We go to the neighbor's house. We see their stuff.

Do we see their stuff? Yes. Do we see their favorite stuff? No, because we don't know, do we? Can we experience something that's outside of or beyond our awareness? No. Do we believe that there are things that exist outside of or beyond our awareness? I do.

Can there be such a thing? No. Just to even think of something as existing beyond my awareness is still a ripening in my awareness. We can't conceive of things beyond our awareness without thinking of them.

I see why mind-only school says mind-only, because there really can't be anything that exists outside of our awareness. But does that mean there are no outside objects? Outside meaning outside of my physical being? No, of course, this pen is an outside object. But do we ever experience that outside object? No, because we're always colored by our personal experience of the object.

They call it the construct. What's happening for us to experience this object is we're getting information. Our forced-by-karma mind movement interprets that information and gives it a name and a term.

Mind-only school calls that the construct, the kundal. Pen, functioning pen, right. We experience this object through that construct.

We never actually get to the object itself. Mind-only school says there is another powered object here. Our experience of it is our construct.

Do we choose our constructs? Not by wishing it, not by willpower, not by choosing it. Those constructs are ripening of our mental seeds. The pen gets the name pen and the function writing instrument from our karmic seed ripening mental construct.

So how did we get there from this fourth level? We believe the thing defines itself. But is that the thing we actually experience? No. We experience our mental construct of the thing, which means the thing is not defining itself.

We are. The experience we have is our construct. Information constructed into this pen, red and white pen, good pen, bad pen, my pen, your pen, keep your glums off my pen.

All of that construct, construct, construct, construct. All of those constructs ripening out of mental seeds. That brings me and pen and my construct of the pen together to be my experience.

So what mental affliction comes up because we believe the objects define themselves? Where, what movie shall we go see? Let's see that one. It's the best movie. You'll love it.

I don't want to see all that violence. I'm not going to love that violence. Let's go see that movie.

I don't want to see that sissy movie. We fight. We fight because we believe the identities and qualities are defined by the object.

So everybody should agree with me about how I define them, how I see the object defining itself. It must define it the same way to everybody because it's in it. You stupid dog.

Why are you chewing on my pen? Dog goes, you stupid human. You're missing out on the pleasure, right? Of chewing on this thing. And we argue, right? We fight with the dog.

Dog, why are you chewing on my sock? Because the dog says, this is the greatest thing to chew on. We think our realities are all the same and they're not. They're unique to each one of us.

When we understand this fourth, the object does not exist by definition. It exists by way of my construct. My ripening opinion that it's a pen and that it should write and that you should know it's my pen and leave it alone.

All of those judgments, all of those opinions that make us struggle against each other are held in these two levels of worldview. Actually, the thing can happen randomly and it defines itself, allows us to argue. So imagine if we were keenly aware that this is unique to me, it's unique to you.

How are we going to interact with differences when we understand even the differences are my construct. The idea is not to just become a milk toast and let everybody walk over you. We might have seeds for doing that.

Any of us people pleasers and then resentful. To be people pleasing without resentment is like Bodhisattva. But if we're people pleasing, but really are feeling resentful that nobody is people pleasing me, then we're misunderstanding.

So when we're starting to argue, we catch ourselves and decide what seeds do I want to plant here? Do I want to continue to push my view or can I respond in a way that we explore this thing? It does not mean just give in always. Act with wisdom. Is this happening randomly at me? No.

Is this situation defining itself? No. My seeds ripening or forcing me to see it this way. All right, it's happening.

What seeds do I want to plant? All of these four levels that we're wanting to explore are meant to help us more swiftly come to the conclusion. What seeds do I want to plant? Then our answer is kindness with wisdom to the best of our ability. By what guidelines kindness? Planting seeds that when they ripen we'll be happy with them ripening versus seeds that when they're ripening we won't like it.

What kind of things is that? Protect life, protect property, protect relationships. You get the picture. Our guidelines for ethics is so that we plant seeds that ripen as more and more pleasure for everybody.

All right, so what emptinesses do we have? The emptiness of permanence. We think things will last but they don't last like that. The emptiness of control over things, ownership of things.

I think I own stuff but really I can't know for sure that this house will be standing by tonight. The emptiness of my belief that the object of the experience and the me experiencing it have separate causes because that belief they have separate causes leaves me vulnerable to random things and accidents and then I blame others. And the fourth one, the absence of things defining themselves when in fact it's my seed forcing me to define them in the way that I do.

And so understanding things is impermanence. Ah, a relief of all the struggle of keeping things, of being upset when they break or get lost or somebody steals them. A greater ability to share the function of, what's the second one? Not in control.

I don't know I can imagine a life where you don't need control. Your seeds are ripening so beautifully that we can just be in the flow and not needing to manipulate. Like our life right now, Sumathi and I, our life right now is like one series of control, control, control and of course it doesn't work, right? So it's really frustrating.

And then if we really understand that there's nothing random, everything is exactly ripening according to right, the process of seeds ripening. Nothing can ever be happening that's not exactly right. Exactly what we need.

Oh, right. We love it when things are going well, but can we hold it when things are going badly? I needed that. Thank you.

I needed that. We all went through a phase like that in Diamond Mountain. Thank you.

I needed that. It's helpful. Fourth one, my seeds ripening this the way it is, which means your seeds ripening the way you see it.

Cool. If we agree on something, wow, miracle, how wonderful is that? If we disagree on something, duh, let's just get it together so that we disagree less often, less judgments about things. We're judging things constantly, aren't we? We can't not judge.

That's not the point, but we judge things negatively instead of positively. And that tiptoes into Diamond Way. Diamond Way task is to change our judgments from negative to positive.

Maybe that's a Buddha, right? Is a positive judgment versus what a jerk. That's negative. So we're dancing there.

We're getting there. Okay. Perfect timing.

Let me do the closing so people can go if they need to, and then I'll answer your question. Yeah. So remember the person that we wanted to be able to help at the beginning of class, recognize the goodness that we've done to explore where our mental afflictions come from is so brave and so extraordinary that we've already set in motion what will be someday the end of our loved ones suffering.

And that's a great, great goodness. So please be happy with yourself and think of this goodness like a beautiful glowing gemstone you can hold in your hands. Recall your own precious holy being.

See how happy they are with you. Feel your gratitude. For them, your reliance upon them.

Ask them to please, please stay close to continue to guide you, help you, support you, and then offer them this gemstone of goodness. See them accept it and bless it. And they carry it with them right back into your heart. See them there. Feel them there. Their love, their compassion, their wisdom.

It feels so good we want to keep it forever and so we know to share it. By the power of the goodness that we've just done, may all beings complete the collection of merit and wisdom and thus gain the two ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom make. So use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one person, to share it with everyone you love, to share it with every existing being everywhere. See them all filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom. And may it be so. 

Thank you.

[Okay, for the recording, welcome back. We are ACI practice module called the Six Flavors of Emptiness. This is class] three, September 14, 2026, let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again. Now bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom, and see them there with you.

They are gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy great compassion, their wisdom radiating from them, that beautiful golden glow encompassing you in its light. And then we hear them say, bring to mind someone you know who's hurting in some way, feel how much you would like to be able to help them, recognize how the worldly ways we try fall short and how wonderful it will be when we can also help in some deep and ultimate way, a way through which they will go on to stop their distress forever. Deep down, we know this is possible, learning more and more about emptiness and karma.

We glimpse how it's possible. And so I invite you to grow that wish into a longing and that longing into an intention. And with our intention strong, we turn our minds back to our precious holy being.

We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. And so we ask them, please, please, please teach us that, show us that, help us become like you. And they are so happy that we've asked.

Of course, they agree. Our gratitude arises. We want to offer them something exquisite.

And so we think of the pure world they are teaching us how to create. We imagine we can hold it in our hands and we offer it to them, following it with our promise to practice what they teach us, using our refuge prayer to make our promise. Here is the great earth filled with fragrant incense and covered with a blanket of flowers.

The great mountain, four lands, wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon. In my mind, I make them the paradise of a Buddha and offer it all to you. By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community. Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community.

Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community. Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may all beings totally awaken for the benefit of every single other.

All right, so let's learn a little first, and then we'll meditate in our second half. So I think we're all familiar with that term Gok Cha, are we? Or is it? Here it is, just so that we have it in mind, and then we'll come back to this. The Gok Cha is this funny word, it means the thing emptiness is empty of.

And in English, I still don't, I can't make sense of that phrase. The thing emptiness is empty of. But it means in order to find this thing we call emptiness, we first need to find what we believe is there, and then check to see if it is there in the way that we believe it to be there.

So the Gok Cha is this thing that we think exists, and emptiness is the fact that that thing does not exist. And then what that means to us depends on our level of understanding. So we're going through these different ways that we believe things, objects, subjects, and interactions between.

The different ways we believe that they exist, the different qualities they have. And we're looking to see if those things actually can exist in that way, and be consistent with our experiences of them. And if we find that there's an inconsistency between our belief about them and our experience of them, that should show us there's something wrong with my belief.

And then we can take that belief away. And that shows us an emptiness of something that we thought was there, that was never in fact there in the first place. But we believed in it so strongly that we reacted to it.

We planted new seeds in response to it. And those new seeds later ripen that include in the new ripening, that old belief about the object. And so this belief that we don't even know is a misunderstanding perpetuates itself, which is why it's so hard to break out of our cycle of perpetuating this thing samsara.

Even when we recognize the absurdity of our belief. Because just because we come to that aha about it now, doesn't yet completely negate the infinite eons of 65 per instant replanting of that belief. So we go through these different levels again and again to increase our familiarity with them, to increase our ability to catch ourselves acting from them so that we can catch ourselves before we react.

And this morning was a perfect example. My own mind was going. If I wasn't relying on the platform, we'd be on time.

I'm an on time type. Blaming, blaming and then catching. Wait, duh, I am not in control.

It could very well have been. I was running the show myself, sitting here a half an hour early and not able to get it to work. We've all had that happen, right? So like, whoa, I caught it a few instances into the blame factor of the I thought I was in control and I was expecting somebody else to be able to control it the way I wanted it to be controlled.

So I don't know anybody else feeling anything similar this morning when you're getting online and hey, wait a minute, what's going on? But now, does that then negate my responsibility to be here early enough to be sure that things can go on time? Do you see the wrong view of the right view can lead us to the wrong conclusion? Well, then nothing matters. I have no control. I don't know if the Zune will be on.

I feel like sleeping late. I'll just sleep late. I'll show up whenever I want.

I must have done that in some past to have ripened this experience. Now it's done. It's out for all of us.

It's out, done, not replanted because here we are on time. Get it? So that's why we're digging through these. And it's also why we're going over them again and again and again because I need to hear it so that I can apply it in the midst of life.

Because that's the idea. So what's that first flavor of emptiness? It's not real emptiness. It's a useful recognition of a belief that we have that is not true about the things.

We believe it to be true about the belief that things have some kind of lasting quality in them. I expect this computer to last me 12 years. That's what I got out of my last one.

So, you know, I have this expectation. I expect Sumathi to be in his bedroom waking up alive. But I technically don't know for sure, do I? I expect that in October we'll do that thing at Diamond Mountain.

But I don't really know for sure, do I? So even though I intellectually understand about everything's impermanent, everything's unsure. I still get up after class, go to the kitchen, expect the hot water maker to be there. And when it is, no big deal.

My expectation was met. But can I be sure that my electric water heater thing is going to be there and going to work when I get there two hours from now? No. What if I went through life not expecting things to last, things to be permanent, things to be there.

And I walk in my kitchen needing the hot water. Wow, look, there's the hot water thing. Let's see if it works.

Wow. Wow. Teabag.

Like it'd be crazy. Like a little kid, right? Wow. Wow.

And it's almost like, well, that's just not an adult human. People would think I was nuts. But it might be fun to try it on for size sometime.

Like, just see what it would be like and what kind of effect it would have on the people around you. To actually live according to this accurate worldview. Does anything have permanence in it, from it, independent of my perception of it having permanence? No.

If they did, nothing would ever break. Nothing would ever go wrong. Nothing would ever work in any other way than the way it said it would work.

Which means for a pot that boils water, I could never put milk in it and boil milk. And that's ridiculous, right? The pot of water doesn't, you know what I mean? It doesn't say, I am for water only. And if you put something else in it and hit the button, it won't work.

Life is not like that. We are inconsistent with our beliefs and our experiences. And we don't even stop and go, what's wrong with this picture? Until it's pointed out to it.

Who really cares? The reason we care is that when our expectation is not met, we get upset. If we don't have the expectation of permanence of things, we don't get upset when things go wrong or break or disappear. So even as we say, I understand nothing's permanent, I still get upset when something breaks or doesn't work.

So I'm inconsistent. And that's the purpose of doing our contemplations, our meditations, to explore these ideas and our behavior to situations when our expectations are not met, to help us get off automatic pilot when we're in the real life situation. So first one, the belief, the Gakcha is the belief in things that have some permanence.

Do they have permanence? No. Did they ever have permanence? No. Will they ever have permanence? No.

Why do we expect them to have permanence? Because of our belief, our need for some kind of security, some kind of something tangible we can hold on to. Electric teapots, heat stuff, it's going to work no matter what. All right, permanence, getting a glimpse of impermanence helps reduce our expectation on others and on things.

Second flavor is this belief that we own things or have some kind of control over things, particularly over our own body-mind version of things, meaning our five heaps. And at a beginning level of understanding of the five heaps, the heap of form, we believe, means this form thing, and that there is a me that's in charge of this thing, like it is mine. I don't kind of think that I own it, like I own my car, but it is mine versus somebody else's.

But as we get more deeper aware of what's meant by the heap of form, we come to see that it's referring to any object of our experience that we are experiencing through our physical senses. So the heap of form that we think we are in control of begins to include the pen, my computer, the weeds in my yard, other material objects. And then within that frame of reference, become the other beings as well.

And so we have this sense of there are some other beings in our interaction that we believe that we have some kind of control over or ownership of, not like we own our pen or our computer, that we have this sense of, right? We're in relationship with some. I'm thinking, you know, as being a parent, I'm not one. But as parent, you are the one in charge.

You're supposed to be the one in control. And we're not saying, ah, you don't have control like that, so don't even bother trying. That would be chaos, wouldn't it? But I'm sure very clearly in your careers as parents, you came to realize I am really not in control here.

I'm doing my best and I will control myself, but that's about as far as it's going to go. Otherwise, I'm going to, right, guide and lead and whatever you do as a parent. Same in our relationships with others.

And then that leads to these expectations. I have control over my own body. I have control over my own mind.

I have some control over my team at work, over my car. If that were true, how could anything ever go wrong? Would we intentionally control something in such a way to make it go wrong for ourselves or somebody else? That's nuts. We wouldn't do that, would we? If we were really in control.

So the fact that anything we think we are in control of can ever go wrong shows us my belief in that control, that ownership is a mistaken belief. Does it mean the deed to our house is meaningless? No, of course not. It doesn't mean we don't care about our behavior at all.

But when we don't have this expectation of being in control, we can respond to the changes in our experiences much more fluidly and open to other possible solutions to things than when we have this mindset and expectation of it has to go this way. Can you feel it? And again, we explore it in our contemplations, in our meditations. We find different places where our expectation of being in control or in ownership fail and see what it feels like and what our habitual reaction to it is to check to see if that habitual reaction perpetuates distress, suffering problems or solves them.

So the idea of control or ownership is mistaken, showing us the Gakcha is the belief that we have ownership, we have control. Third one, we said the Gakcha is that things happen randomly or there are accidents that we can experience. Why is that a thing that emptiness is empty of? Random events do happen, don't they? Accidents do happen, don't they? Seems like it.

But what does it mean to be an accident? I'm cutting apples and I don't pay attention and oops, I cut my finger. Oh, accident. I did that by accident.

I go to the doctor. How'd you cut your finger? I accidentally cut it. We don't go, oh, you know, I cut my finger.

And yet, can anything really be an accident? Because we use the term accident to mean, wasn't my fault. Some other factor was in charge there. And then that's what made this happen.

How do we explore whether it's true that things happen to us randomly or not? I forget how we explored that one. This is the level of Mind Only School where Mind Only School is pointing out this belief that we have that the objects of our experiences, like our friend, the pen, has its own causes that it comes from. And that me, the subject, the experiencer of the object, has my own causes that I come from.

And our ordinary belief is when I need a pen, the pen that I reach for is the one that comes from its own causes and that, you know, there it is. I reach for it. Part of its causes is that it was made into a pen and pens are things that write.

So I have this expectation that when I reach for this object and need it to write, it will write because that's what pens do. And it's there from its own side, not self-existent. But we don't think, oh, my seed's making the pen until we're trained well enough to impose that.

So we believe that the objects of our experiences have separate causes than me, don't we? It's a little slippery because we don't talk like that. But what caused the pen to be on your desk? I bought it. It was made in the factory or somebody gave it to me.

We have all these explanations for where it came from. And then when we explore it more deeply, we recognize the extent. I'm not doing very well here.

We recognize that, in fact, the pen I experience has to be somehow in my causes because it's my experience. I can't experience the pen the way the pen experiences it. Now, all of a sudden, it's like, wait a minute.

The pen is not a thing that experiences. So I can't really explore in that way. But if the pen was a thing with its own causes and conditions and it's an existing thing, our minds kind of say it has to be a pen from it.

And if that's true, it would make me see it and use it the way it was built to be used, which means I could never use it as anything other than a writing instrument. But I can, can't I? I can't use it as a bicycle, but I could use it to tie my hair up or I could use it to demonstrate dependent origination. I'm not writing with it now.

So is it even a pen if I'm not writing with it? Like all these intellectual shenanigans that lead us to mind only's conclusion, which is, wait a minute, this object that I'm experiencing, the pen and the me experiencing the pen have to be coming from the same cause, the same substance. What same substance? My karmic seed to give the punchline. So remember that mind only school level is a functionalist school.

It means we believe things that perform a function have to have some kind of essence of their own because they are a thing which impacts another thing. And so they have to exist effectively enough to affect something else. So in mind only school, a functioning thing is there.

See the pen? I set it down. I believe that pen still exists. I'm going to say you believe that pen still exists.

And when I go, look, here's our friend, the pen, our minds say, see, it was still existing. Even when I couldn't see it. The gotcha is that that pen existing in my experience or not does not come from a different karmic cause than my seed to experience it.

Does the pen have its own causes and conditions? Yes, plastic pen factory having been purchased at this level. Those things are valid experiences. But are those the causes for me to experience this pen? No.

My experience of the pen is coming out of my seeds. So can I say anything can come to me randomly by accident? If everything I experience is coming and the me experiencing it is coming out of the same karmic seed. Can anything happen to me that I did not cause? No.

No accidents, no randomness. Even to accidents, you get in a car accident. It is a car accident.

But it's still coming out of my seed. That that drunk driver ran the red light and hit my car. Mind only school does not get negate that it happened.

Does not negate that there was a drunk driver. Does not negate that I hadn't planned it. But it does say it's my seed ripening to bring me and the drunk driver riding going through the red light together.

And it happens to me. So this expectation that things can happen randomly, there can be accidents. When that expectation is gone, a greater sense of personal responsibility starts to come.

A greater sense of personal power starts to come. If I can't blame others for stuff, I can only blame myself. Where does that get me? The seeds have already ripened.

Nothing I can do about that. My interaction with those experiences plants new seeds. Ah, maybe there's something I can do about that.

Third flavor. No random, no accidents. Not everybody likes being at that level.

Not everybody wants that kind of personal responsibility or personal power. Some of us would rather blame others. But then we just keep having stuff happen to us in which we do blame others.

And it feels like life is random, which makes us crazy. So then, fourth level, still from my lonely school, is that these things that we believe come from their own causes and conditions, we perceive with some kind of judgment about them. Pleasant, unpleasant, discriminating between them, all the other factors, meaning my mental reaction to them, my emotional reaction to them, and then my reaction to them.

So we believe that the object of our experience is the cause of the thumbs up or thumbs down that we feel in response to it. Pleasure or displeasure that we feel is because the object of the experience is making it happen. We believe that our judgment about that object, colored by this feeling, thumbs up, thumbs down, is correct.

We believe that our judgment is something that we see in or about the object, which means we believe that our judgment about the object should be true for everyone. Everyone who experiences this object must experience it with the same thumbs up and so the same reaction to it as me. And we're so surprised when someone disagrees with us.

We're so surprised when someone uses our favorite pen. I don't know. What would somebody do with a pen that would upset me? I don't know, uses it to plug a door or something, right? Uses it to pry something open.

My favorite pen and you're trying to pry something open with it, you're going to break it, what's the matter with you? Do you see the whole levels? Just in that silly example, my favorite pen, I'm in control. Don't you use it like that. You're going to break it.

I've already forgotten level three. You using that is coming from you, not me. Level four, what's level four? I'm trying to describe my judgment, my whole judgment about it.

Why didn't they see that pen as something so special and valuable? Amazing and wonderful. Because they have different seeds, right? If we don't have this expectation, this belief that my judgment about something is coming, is like the thing has the quality that I'm judging about it. If we don't believe that, when we recognize, no, my own judgment about this object is part of this seed ripening the object.

Everybody's seed ripening their object is unique to them. No wonder we disagree. It's like miraculous that we ever do agree about anything.

And if we had that like perspective, anytime somebody agrees with me, I'd be like, wow, that feels great. Maybe I'd want to be more careful, right? About how often I disagree or agree. However, like that just sparked something in my mind that I know for years I went along just agreeing or not agreeing, but not disagreeing, just letting things slide.

Between David and me. And then as I met the Dharma and I started applying logic and hearing the absurdity of our judgments and considerations. And I started pointing them out to myself first and then pointing them out to him.

He didn't like it one bit that I was disagreeing with him. And I could see it that he just like, what's the matter with you? You never used to disagree with me. Even when I did inside, I just never said it.

And then I realized, well, wait a minute, that's not really fair because that's not really me. So then I start disagreeing and he doesn't like it so much. And then of course, what's my experience? I see him disagreeing with me more often.

And then we can kind of laugh about it. We don't have to settle it. But now I'm recognizing, wait a minute, maybe I want to go back to not disagreeing.

But now with wisdom instead of before it was so I didn't rock the boat because I was a people pleaser. So we have these patterns of our behavior that we go, yeah, well, I just didn't know I was a Bodhisattva. But I resented it the whole time.

In which case that was being kind for the wrong reason, which doesn't mean don't be kind. Do you see? Yeah, I made that mistake for a while. But it means be kind for the right reasons, which then means we won't resent.

You know, I go out of my way for them and then they never pay me back, right? Once we have growing wisdom, we don't have that. To be human is to have it. To have these expectations.

That's why we're working this out. So Mind Only School has these two. We think things have their separate causes from me.

They do for their own experience. But anything I experience, it has to be coming out of my karmic seed. My seed brings the pen and me together to use the pen to write.

My karmic seed brought the drunk driver and me together to crash the car. Good, bad, lasting, not lasting, me in control, me not in control. Those are all judgments that we have.

Are the judgments correct? Yeah, you know, it's hard to answer that, right? It's correct for me. It's coming out of my seed. But my belief factor is that the other person should have that same judgment about things.

So we go to the L Brunch Bistro for dinner. They only have like three vegetarian things on their menu. So by now, the waiter guy sees us come in.

He serves David a Coke, me a glass of water, and he almost doesn't even ask, what do you want? Because he knows. But if it were true that that's the best thing to order on their menu, he would serve it to everybody. And he doesn't because other people like other stuff.

We go, duh. But when you say, what movie should we go see? New Minion movie, it's the best one. And the other person says, Minions? I hate the Minions.

That's so stupid. We get our feelings hurt. But we do it to others all the time, don't we? I'm not going to go see that movie.

That's so violent. It's so slippery. No judgments.

No accurate judgments. So have your judgment. Know it's your own.

Don't impose it on anybody else. Know that their judgments are their own. And then work from that place.

How much less stressful would life be if we're meeting people in a neutral place, a place without knowing those judgments are different and not needing them to meet. We can find a third way. The Pung Tsumba, they say.

Yikers, that took me a long time. That was flavor four, correct? Let's go to flavor five. Oh, man, it's time for... Can I do flavor five before our break? And then we'll break and then we'll meditate.

All right. Flavors one, two, three, four are all held while we are believing things that function have their nature of their functioning in them, their identity, their functioning in them. Ah.

Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, Heart Sutra. See all those things as empty. They have no nature.

And our mind thinks, Oh, no nature at all. Nothing's real. There are no eyes, no ears, no nose.

So there's this like disconnect because our mind believes that if something has no nature, no nature at all, it can't exist, can't be anything. And then they say, what's there is this cascading mental image or projection. And my mind still hears that nothing but projections.

And suddenly it feels like I should be able to stick my hand right through my computer or through the wall. You know, nothing is anything but projection. So nothing's real.

Right. And that's not what it means. But my mind goes there so automatically and I reel it back to the middle way.

Trying to be middle way. And say, no, no. My projections is what makes it real.

And then I flip to the other side because real means somehow solid. The word real. So we're dancing between these these concepts that we have to verbalize.

So there is a level. Between functionalist school. Mind only that's saying, yes, functioning things exist.

But the only functioning things we ever experienced are the ones that are seeds ripen them and me together unique to me through our unique way of experiencing it. Functionalist believe that a thing exists from its own side with some unique way of being. Not self existently independent of any other factor, but something unique to it.

Then the one I experience is unique to me. But it exists. The pen exists.

Mind only school. When we're sliding into it exists as nothing but projection. We can go through this stage where we say, OK, there is something.

There is a basis of information here. Something that has some characteristic that suggests something to my perception of it, but that it's my perception of the object that fills in the details. So at this level school, they say.

We believe things exist from their own side with their own unique way of being. We believe we show ourselves that that belief is not true. That in fact some we can say something exists by virtue of it appearing to an unaffected state of mind.

Do you remember unaffected state of mind term? Valid perception versus affected state of mind on drugs, drunk, sick, having a trick of the eye. Those rare occasions when our mind is impaired. Means that the experience of the object we're having when our mind is impaired.

Is not that the valid thing that is not an experience that makes the thing we are experiencing valid. It are we having an experience of our impaired mind. Yes.

But when we are no longer impaired, the object we are experiencing is now actually said to exist in the way that we experience it by way of our experience of it. This level school says it's not true that the object exists from its own side with its own unique way of being. It exists by virtue of the unimpaired state of mind perceiving it.

Gashala helps us. He calls this 50-50 school. It means that with any object that we perceive before we perceived it.

There was something that has the potential, the suggestibility of being the thing that we are going to experience. So if we were to break it down, we'd first say, oh, I'm picking up this cylinder with extra shape here and a funny shape there. And in and of itself, it's not enough information to say what it is.

My unimpaired state of mind, says Penn. My unimpaired state of mind brings the identity and the quality to the object. The object provides the basis.

In this level, there has to be a basis and the my mind establishing the basis is identity and function. That's why they call it 50-50. This school says, I can't have this basis and have my mind lay onto it bicycle because the basis doesn't suggest bicycle.

It suggests Penn, but it isn't Penn until my mind lays on Penn. Then my mind lays on not just Penn, but this Penn. This specific experience of Penn.

And as I do with the Penn, what I do, that's also basis and my seed ripening the identity and function. So in the functionalist school, functioning things exist on their own. The ones I experience are the ones my seeds bring to me and we interact with.

This level school says, no, there are no functioning things out there. There are the bases for the functioning things, but the functioning thing doesn't exist until my valid mind perceives it to exist in that way. What's the expectation that this overcomes? It's the expectation that an experience, an event that I have has to unfold in a certain way according to the way the functioning thing says it has to unfold.

When we understand, no, no, my valid perception of it is making this happen. And we recognize the object doesn't dictate our valid perception of it. We can take a situation and choose to react differently.

They call this level the level from which we can transform problems into happiness. Lama Zopa Rinpoche has a great book about that. How to take any problem, see it differently, and find a different solution.

And it can happen to where you're doing it on the fly. And the example they give is that people that function at this level, you know, the car breaks down, they know nothing about car engines. But because of this perspective, there's nothing about that car engine that has to function the way mechanics believe they function.

That person can look in there and say, hey, a piece of chewing gum put right here will solve the problem and get us home. My mother used to do it all the time with problems with the boat. She'd fix it with chewing gum, and it worked.

So it's this view that even as the seed has ripening, the pen has a pen, it doesn't mean in the next moment we can't create something different. So it actually allows us to use our friend, the pen, in a way beyond what the pen is supposed to do, which is just right. Because it's true that things exist by way of our valid perceptions.

Things don't exist stuck as their identity. Even as it's a pen because of my valid perception, it still is only pen-ish. So some other mind can put the other 50% on as something different than pen.

Because pen-ish is not enough to be pen. Do you see? So it frees us up for creativity. Frees us up to do different things with life's circumstances.

It increases us to the opportunity of possibilities. Different possibilities. Different routines.

Different habitual behavior patterns. Because our reaction to the object doesn't have to be forced on us by the object. Our reaction to the yelling boss, yeah, I should yell back, doesn't have to be what we experience in the face of a yelling boss.

Functioning at this level, we would get to a place where we wouldn't even go home and say, my boss yelled at me today. Even if we had that experience, we would go home and say, wow, we found a new solution to a problem today. Because the experience was so different from our side because our point of view is so different.

Because we've worked our way through these. I don't expect permanence. I know I'm not in charge.

I know there's nothing random. It's all coming out of my seeds. I know my judgments are unique to me.

I don't expect everybody to agree. I know that my reality is made by my valid perception of my reality. My experience.

Wow, cool. It's not quite enough to transform everything into freedom from suffering. Because we're still believing that there is something that exists independent of us.

Independent of our perception of it. And it's okay so far. But ultimately, we'll come to see that there's not even a basis there that's not a ripening of my own mind too.

But we'll get there next class. All right. Let's take a break.

And then we'll do the rest of class as a sit. Namaste Rani. I have to leave very early on time today.

So two or three minutes before 4pm. Just click off as you need. Be sure to dedicate.

Thank you. And thank you for the answer why I'm here. This was great.

Thank you. All right, we're back. Okay.

I'm going to speed through the preliminaries. Don't do this at home. Geshe-la always says.

So, set your body down, up, down, up to your breath. It really can be that fast. Turn on that focus.

Clarity. Eager state of mind. Then switch from your breath to your refuge.

Tell yourself why karma and emptiness helps you grow your bodhicitta. Think of that person who doesn't know about karma and emptiness and they keep hurting themselves trying to get better. Feel your wish to help ultimately grow.

Turn your mind to that precious holy being who we know knows what we need to do and learn. Think of just one of their good qualities. Admire them.

Make that mental prostration to them. Feel your aspiration to grow that good quality. Ask them to help you do it and then make them offerings.

Especially the offering of something from your practice. Then clean something out of your heart. Some negativity.

Recall the seed planted when it ripens will come back ugly. Refill the regret for having made the seed. Establish an antidote.

Could be this meditation. And a power of restraint. And then offer again your rejoicing practice.

Think of some kindness you saw someone do. Tell them of some kindness you did. Then ask them to stay close.

Continue to teach you formal teachings and to help you see teachings in your day-to-day interactions. Ask that your Dharma friends stay close. People that help you grow your practice, that they stay close.

And then dedicate just our preliminaries to gaining the realizations that we need to truly change our behavior. Then if you need to shift and wiggle, now's the time. And then settle back in.

And now bring to mind another favorite object or favorite person or being or favorite experience. Something that you enjoy. Give me a thumbs up when you decide which thing you're going to use.

Okay. Good. Okay.

Imagine that object is there with you. No analysis, just enjoy it. Feel how much you enjoy that.

Now as you are enjoying that object, look for your belief about that object. That it's something durable. It's going to last.

It has some permanence about it. And all the reasons that we hold to that and recognize that belief about that object leads to an expectation. It will be there.

They will still be with me. And what happens when that expectation is not met? What would it be like to have this relationship with this object without this expectation of its lasting quality in it? Catch the recognition that it's simply passing through my life. Every moment I have it then is almost a miracle.

Now drop all that. Just experience the pleasure of the object unexamined and try to find your sense of ownership or control in relation to this object or this other, even as we just imagine that object. We have some kind of sense of how it belongs to me or is somehow under my control.

It's mine. They are mine. My husband.

My car. Find the expectation that goes with that and the mental affliction or more that arise when that expectation is not met or fails. What would it be like if our understanding of the object doesn't have to rely upon this sense of ownership or control? What would our relationship be with it when we understand that other forces are at work? Karma ripening is not under our control.

How would I use that object differently? How would I interact with that other differently? Now let that go. Go back to just unexamined object. Still an object that we enjoy brings us pleasure.

And now get a sense of yourself and this object there together having this interaction of experience and find that gut feeling that believes that the object has its own history and identity where it came from. The factory. The store.

The other person's background. And my own background where I came from. Meaning you.

And see if you can catch the belief that it and our self have come together from these different forces happen to be meeting up independent existences coming together. It and me have come together somehow. And now we belong together.

And now it's mine. And I own it and I control it. And I expect it to last.

Now strip away that gotcha. That non-existent thing. That belief that that object has its own causes and conditions and you have separate causes and conditions.

Pull that away. Recognize that it's your causes ripening to have this experience of this object. Every instant of it is a creation of our own karmic seeds.

From our own past behaviors. What would it be like to know this about your object? Every moment of experiencing it. Wow, how did I manage to create this? How can I perpetuate it? Now add another flavor of the gotcha which is our belief that this exquisite thing that gives us such pleasure would give everyone that same amount of pleasure.

Our expectation that everyone would know that's my favorite object and they would take such good care of it because it's so important. It must be in the object because I don't feel that same way towards this other object that looks even similar. There's something special in that one.

Feel that expectation and then the surprise or the feeling offended when someone disrespects your favorite object. Take away that expectation. Recognize this object is special to you because of you.

You make it special and it can be special for someone else but it doesn't have to be. That means other people have things that are special to them that we probably don't even know about and how would we behave differently if we could be aware that everyone has their own things that are special. If it's being special is in it from it.

We want to keep it. We want to control it. We expect it to stay special.

We expect others to know it's special and treat it nicely. Now suppose something bad happens to your favorite thing or favorite one. Feel your initial reaction and what your response is likely to be.

Someone is careless and breaks it. Now recall transforming problems into happiness where the basis isn't just the object but the basis is this unpleasant situation and our immediate reaction was to blame the other and react badly to them. We recognize that that reaction is our judgment forced on us by our misunderstanding, our wrong belief and we can apply the outlook of wait, this is an opportunity for something.

How can I use this as an opportunity? How can I put this unpleasant experience, this unpleasant situation to good use at the very minimum? We could use it to burn off a past similar deed that we had done to others and not plant the blame factor, the anger factor because we understand this did not happen randomly. My own seed ripening, this unpleasant event and me here to experience it. My own judgment that the event's even unpleasant.

Maybe my mother's crystal vase shattered into pieces is one less thing. I need to move to Mexico with me. Maybe that keeps me below the volume count that keeps the cost of the move a little less and if that vase had not been broken, it would have been included and would have caused me trouble later.

An event has happened. How I respond hasn't happened yet and so can I respond from that new view of let's make something good out of this. When I hold my judgment as the one that's correct, then I react from that judgment.

When I believe there can be accidents, I blame the other one involved in the accident for my experience. When I believe that I have some kind of control, when things go wrong, I get upset and when I think that things will last and they don't, I get upset, hurt, fearful, insecure. Run through the ladder of those flavors again.

They interrelate in any moment of upset over anything. The upset is because some expectation driven by one of these beliefs has failed us. We react badly when we don't recognize of course it failed us because the belief was in something that doesn't even exist, never did, never could.

So now just bring up your favorite thing before you again. Does your relationship with it feel any different just already? Then turn your mind to your precious holy being. See how happy they are with your effort.

They see the clarity that you are getting. They see the goodness that you've done. And so be pleased with yourself at the effort.

Be pleased with your good seeds making this class and what you heard. And think of this goodness like a beautiful glowing gemstone you can hold in your hands. Feel your gratitude and reliance upon that holy being.

Ask them to please, please stay close to continue to guide you, help you, encourage you, support you and then offer them this gemstone of goodness. See them accept it and bless it and then carry it with them right back into your heart. See them there.

Feel them there. Their love, their compassion, their wisdom. It feels so good we want to keep it forever.

And so we know to share it by the power of the goodness that we've just done. May all beings complete the collection of merit and wisdom and thus gain the two ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom may. So use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one person.

To share it with everyone you love. To share it with every existing being everywhere. See them all filled with wisdom, filled with loving kindness.

All because of the goodness that we've done. And may it be so. So I was supposed to include in this flavor five, the analogy of the magic show.

So I owe you that. We'll do it next class. Because the key factor in this level five is understanding that it takes two, there are these two aspects of every experience, the basis and then our perception.

And it takes both of those to have anything. Which is a subtle difference that we want to catch before we slide into highest middle way. So we'll do it next class.

We still have a few minutes. So if there are questions or comments, no. I hate to waste five minutes when we lost a few at the beginning.

Yes, Xiaoxing? I have two actually. One is can I use my body part to be the object? Or is that too strong? Yes? Okay. Another is like I still do have that feeling of it just feels still like a little bit upset.

I'm like, oh, I like and how or like sometimes can be a little bit of fear. Or the most it could be is like it's like there's no joy. I guess maybe it's based on because right now I couldn't do something because it takes time for the ripening to happen.

How should I see it? What can I do? All of those experiences that you are describing, all of them can be your objects for exploration through these different levels of belief about the object and about how the object affects you. So when we get this sequence of looking at it, finding our belief about it at whatever level you will explore and then exploring what the expectation about it that belief makes us have, helps us understand why when that expectation isn't met we feel the way we do. Each of the different flavors actually has a kind of characteristic emotion that comes up.

It's unique for each of us, but when we think we're in control and suddenly we're not, that's fearful. Suddenly we're unsafe. Then if we get a sense of no, no, I am safe, now the emotion becomes disrespect or loss of self confidence.

So we want to explore those mental afflictions that arise when our belief is challenged because life happens in such a way that our belief gets challenged and our affliction is triggered so fast we don't realize it's a reaction to the belief being challenged. When we recognize that, we go I don't need to engage these mental afflictions and they can fade away. The exploration helps us feel it in real time when we pretend it on the cushion.

Then always explore what would it be like to not have that expectation because then the thing can't fail us. What's life like then? Yes, Chris. So is the school that says that there's a basis and then that we our seeds go on to the basis, do they have any kind of I mean that still seems really dualistic or whatever to me.

I mean it's like there's this thing that appears and then we put our stuff. So is it time that is the factor that sort of links the two together where there's a seed that comes out first that makes the basis and then there's a seed that makes the basis a little bit more complex and then there's a seed that verifies the basis or is that the next level? That's what will take us to the next level when we go okay 50-50 I get it wait a minute what what 50 that's exactly where you're going what's there first wait a minute this 50-50 thing can't be right and that's what it's meant for because we don't question from mind only school we don't go wait a minute the way we do when we get to 50-50 school and then that very exploration will help us come to the conclusion that even the basis is a ripening of something to receive the identity basis and even that exactly what you described you use time because it feels like something has to be there first and then something else happens as we explore that we're going to see that that factor is part of the ripening we do experience time but it's part of our seeds ripening time itself cannot be a thing that exists independent of our experience of it can it can we experience anything that's outside of our awareness no what is karma movement of the mind and what it motivates what is awareness awareness movement of the mind it's what we are aware of isn't it so karma and nothing but karma and karma itself is driven by karma right karma is not a thing it's not a rule that we live by it's an explanation of our experience and the way we get an explanation of our experience is our seeds ripening to hear sounds to relate to those sounds in a certain way and it becomes the explanation of emptiness and karma but you're doing exactly what you said is how we go from level 5 to level 6 thank you yeah have fun with that yeah good thank you okay so you've got five flavors to explore and explore how they're related and then we'll review and push higher next class okay okay all right thank you Adrienne I hope that was a little better I know I get to going but I'm trying all right have a nice week everyone I'll see you Friday morning okay bye-bye I love you you too

For the recording, welcome back. We are studying the six flavors of emptiness. Today is class four.

It's September 18th, 2026. Let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

Now bring to mind that being before you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom, and see them there with you. They are gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy great compassion. Their wisdom radiates from them.

That beautiful golden glow encompassing you in its light. And then we hear them say, bring to mind someone you know who's hurting in some way. Feel how much you would like to be able to help them.

Recognize how the worldly ways we try to help fall short. How wonderful it will be when we can also help them in that deep and ultimate way, a way through which they will go on to stop their distress forever. Deep down, we know this is possible.

Learning more and more at emptiness and dependent origination, we glimpse how it's possible. And so I invite you to grow that wish into a longing and that longing into an intention. And with our intention strong, we turn our minds back to our precious holy being.

We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. And so we ask them, please, please teach us that. Show us that.

Help us become like you. And they are so happy that we've asked. Of course they agree.

Our gratitude arises. We want to offer them something exquisite. And so we think of the pure world they are teaching us how to create.

We imagine we can hold it in our hands and we offer it to them, following it with our promise to practice what they teach us, using our refuge prayers to make our promise. Here is the great earth filled with fragrant incense and covered with the blanket of flowers, the great mountain, four lands, wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon. In my mind, I make them love paradise above Buddha and offer it all to you.

By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community. Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community. Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may we realize Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community.

Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may all beings totally awaken for the benefit of every single other. All right, today's class is on worldview six. But to get there, let's go back through.

What's the first emptiness, first thing that we believe is there that's not there? Some kind of permanence. So the first level of understanding is the things, others, me, are empty of that permanence that I believe they have. And if you've looked, we recognize, you know, that's on many different levels.

Gross permanence, I think I'm gonna live, you know, 25, 30 more years. But I don't know for sure, do I? And then as we look deeper, I think I'm the same me as I was yesterday. But come on, right? I'm very different.

But it feels so silly to say that. I'm not very different than yesterday. Yeah, you know, my back pain's different.

But I'm still the same. Do you see how crazy we are? I have permanence, even though I'm changing moment by moment. So helpful to realize things are impermanent.

Because when things go missing, or things go wrong, or our neighbor dies, you know, we can't cope better. Because it's like, yeah, it was to be expected, just maybe not so soon. So then the next one, if we stop and think about it, if there's something that I expect to have, and suddenly I don't have it, do I control it in the way that I think I do? Do I own it in the way I think I do? No.

And yet, even as I realize that everything I own is mine, I control it. I know. No, I don't.

Some illusion of control keeps me functioning as a human. But then I get upset when the thing doesn't go the way I set out to make it go. And it doesn't work like that.

Right? Upset. What if we didn't expect it to go right? Then every time it did go right, we'd be like, wow, this is great. Which really things go right more often than they go wrong, don't they? It's just the when they go wrong is like, I'm having a whole lot of those lately.

Those second one, that emptiness of control over things, ownership, the gacha, the things I own, the control I have. No, the control I appear to have. Okay.

Okay, but then I don't expect it to work every time. Third one, that the lack or emptiness of randomness of accident, meaning we believe things happen by accident, things happen randomly. And that means, right? I was minding my own business and kablam.

How can that happen to me? Why did they do that to me? This one really shows us our blame factor, blame the other factor. And when we're blaming the other for something, right, we react. Usually badly, because we tend not to blame the other for good things.

We just blame the other for the unpleasant things. And then we get those mental afflictions as a result. And again, it's like, it's not random event.

You can't hear it, but there's coyotes going very close by. You know, suppose you're on your commute to work, and it's your routine commute to work. And you just, you know, you're, you're going there, you expect to get to work in the usual way.

But then on that day, there's a train across the tracks and you get delayed. Or on that day, there's more traffic than usual. And we just go, right, that's life.

Things just happen. So when we're talking, there's no accidents. We don't mean just in the case of a car accident, or, oh, I accidentally fell down.

We mean, all of those events that just, that's how your day goes. We don't know what's coming next. And we go, of course, we don't know what's coming next.

And I'm a functioning adult, I can deal with it. But we believe that they just come out of nowhere, don't we? That's the Gakchan. Things that can come out of nowhere.

Things that can happen randomly. Things that are happening, I wanted to say outside of our control. Wait, yes, there is.

That's empty, too. Things that are changing, changing, changing outside of our influence. Wait, right.

That's how things are happening. The absence of accidents starts us on that path of recognizing, no way for me to experience anything. I have to bring something to the party.

I have to, it's a result of a cause. There's no randomness to things. Does it help us stop our suffering forever? No, but it helps us decide to choose a different response, maybe.

So helpful, but not ultimate. Level three. What's level four? I always have to stop and really think.

Level four, we're still mind-only school. It's the judgments. Geshe-la says no, no correct judgments about things.

Meaning, when we have a value judgment, we believe we arrive at that value judgment because of some quality or characteristic of the object or interaction between that we have that value judgment about. And then we believe that our value judgment about that thing is accurate to the thing and we can't understand why other people don't share our value judgment about the thing. So because we believe that the qualities that we are having this judgment about are in the object, when others disagree with us about the quality of that object, we get upset.

What's the matter with you? Why can't you see that pink is the best color to paint this room? You know, what's the matter with you that you think it should be pale yellow? And we argue about these silly things because we think our judgment is the correct judgment. And we know, we're adults, we know, it's my opinion. Of course, the other person doesn't have to agree with me about the color to paint this room.

But there are other things that we do expect others to believe us or to agree with us about lots of things. And then any argument, just about any argument we have with someone is because both of us, if we're arguing, are having these value judgments about what we're arguing about that we believe the thing has. If we knew those value judgments that I have about that object, it's my own experience of that object that brings the quality of that object to this situation, I would recognize, well, the other person's doing the same thing.

Of course, they have a different opinion about it. Why would they have the same opinion? So now when we do agree, disagree about something, understanding it's well, that's how I see it, that's how you see it. Let's see if we can find a common way to see it and work this out.

So the Gakcha, the thing we believe it is there that isn't there, is our value judgment about something that we believe the something has that value. When it doesn't, do we still have the opinion about the object? Yes. We believe that opinion has something to do with the quality of the object.

That's not true. That's what's absent. So it gets a little bit harder to wrangle with because it's not saying just go through life, we're having no judgments at all.

That we have a whole heap of discriminating between things. We have a whole heap of all those other factors. We can't just turn them off.

But our understanding that we're always looking through the lens of our own construct, that word, the kundak, we're always experiencing through the lens of our own taking information and coming up with an identity and a quality and believing that that quality is coming from the object or the situation. Take away that belief and we can have the opinion, the judgment, and realize, well, this is my view. What's yours? Instead of yours is wrong, mine is right.

What was that one? Fourth. Fourth level. At one, two, three, and four, we're allowing ourselves to let those objects, those functioning objects, be the functioning object there, they're an existing thing.

And we are evaluating our different relationships with them. And once we get to this level of exposure, the level three and four, where we're recognizing, wait, if I'm always experiencing things through my lens of my construct, my version, always my version of the object, well, then what's really there? We would wonder eventually, what's really there? If I never experience it directly, I'm always through my color of it, what is it really? And that's where we reach the level five, the lower middle way. One of the differences between schools below mind only and schools above mind only is up to mind only we're believing something that functions, something that does something must have some quality identity function in it, not self-existent.

But for a pen to write, there has to be something about it that can write, right? I mean, it's like we really, it's tenacious, it's a tenacious belief. But now when we get to this level of wondering what's really there, if I can't experience anything without my own unique color to it, suddenly this thing about functioning things have to have their own nature starts to not hold so much weight so that we can investigate how much of this object has to show itself to us in order for my construct to come up with pen. So we've done it before, right? Is this enough to be pen? Only because you saw me have the pen before.

But if I said, what's this thing? You know, you'd go, there's not enough information, right? But if the pen has its pen-ness and its writing-ness in it, and this is a part of the pen, this should be all you would need to experience. Because the pen would be saying, I'm a pen, I'm a pen, I'm a pen, I'm a pen. And it's like, that's absurd.

Things don't do that. Right. Like we all know they don't do that, but we still act towards them as if we believe they do.

We're just like absurd, illogical, crazy beings. No wonder things go wrong. So in level five, Geshe-la calls it 50-50 school, which is helpful.

It's not literal. It does not mean 50% of this pen and we give it the other 50%. It does mean there needs to be an object, a basis there for our mind to lay our construct onto.

Because we can't just bring up the construct pen, think pen and what we know about pens and have a pen show up. Can we? Think pen, think pen. Do you see the difference? My thinking pen is no different.

It's just here's one and here's not one. So we can't just think it into being. And yet we do think it into being.

So there was that thing called the magic show that I said I owed you. The mind only school's analogy for explaining why the mind only explanation that there's a thing with its own causes and conditions. And there's the me with my causes and conditions.

And my karmic seeds ripen that brings this existing object and this me existing object together to use this object as a pen. Mind only middle way school is wanting to explain how we're thinking about that wrongly and how to think of it more correctly. So their example is suppose the magician in India gathers his audience and he holds up this stick and he does Simsalabim and throws magic dust on to the to himself and the crowd and throws the stick on the ground and all of a sudden the crowds backing up.

Wow, look at that. There's a huge elephant there. And then along comes somebody new.

The new person didn't get the magic spell. So they're seeing this crowd going, whoa, with a stick on the ground in the center of them. They're going, what's going on here? The magician, he's also under the spell.

So he also sees the elephant, but he knows it's a stick with magic. So this analogy of these three experiencers of this situation, we have the crowd that's under a spell, but doesn't know they're under a spell. So they see this elephant there.

They believe the elephant has appeared out of nowhere. With all those qualities of elephants and they're amazed. The newcomer is not under that spell.

They see, I'm going to say what's really there. Just for the example, they simply see the stick and a crowd of people that are reacting weird to a stick. And then the magician, he sees the elephant and knows it's a stick.

So he knows that he's seeing the elephant wrongly, but he can't not see the elephant because he's also under the spell. So in that analogy, the crowd is Tso Tso Ke Wo people. People who still believe that our experience, our reality is coming at us.

We're under the spell, the magic of our ignorance, our misunderstanding. So we fall for it every single time. The pen's in the pen from the pen.

The yelling boss is in yelling boss the discomfort the unpleasantness i'm feeling from the yelling boss yes it's in me but the yelling boss is causing it right all part of the spell it's making us see and believe that the elephant is there the magician is like an ariette not in the direct perception of emptiness like lower level aria as if it's lower they go back to seeing things self-existently they see the elephant but they know that it's it's the spell doing it they know in fact it's just a stick the the one who didn't get the spell and isn't seeing the elephant is seeing the stick they say it's like arhat it's not buddha because buddha would see both the elephant and the stick right but arhat does is not under the spell anymore they're only seeing things coming from their own mind so i don't know if it really fits the analogy to say arhat sees stick but they're not they don't have the ignorance ripening anymore is what this analogy is saying so from that we are supposed to take the fact that at this level it takes two aspects of our experience to have that experience there needs to be the basis in the magic show there needs to be the stick and then there needs to be me under the influence of the magic to see the elephant in in the in that analogy what about me non-arya seeing the stick same thing is happening i'm under the influence of my ignorance so that when i see the stick part of my seeing the stick is to believe that the stick is showing itself to me and so therefore anything about the stick is being shown to me by the stick and that means if it's if i own that stick even that's somehow in the stick which means if i leave the stick on the table at work everybody should know it's mine and leave it alone do you see so our misperception from the very highest trickles all way down to the lowest if we didn't have that misperception it's not so hard to see that we don't expect permanence we don't expect control we don't expect random and we don't expect that our judgment has to be the same for everybody and we can function better from this level where yeah the thing has some pennishness not enough to be a full-on pen without my input my input makes this pen this pen for me your input makes this pen this pen for you and let's get along about it pens right this level of understanding allows us to cope with life better in particular problems right we don't want to cope better with good things we just want more of them but when things go bad we want to know how to deal with them so we learned before 50 50 school bad event happening i'm bringing 50 of it to the party why don't i bring a different 50 percent to my reaction and use this use this for something good turning problems into happiness now to go from there into six level gosh michael said you know our friend ariana garcina some of us are starting to study his root text wisdom he wrote that that letter to a friend where he's writing uh to a king i think was the friend and explaining to the king how to be a better king and in that text he goes through all of these mistaken ways we believe things are and happen all the way up to that highest level and then he says but you know what these are all just band-aids they'll help life be a little better we'll cope better but they won't stop our perpetuation of this cycle of forced rebirth aging illness death in some order whatever order they appear so ultimately it's only highest world view through which we can stop replanting that magic in the magic show the ignorance that colors all of our interactions with everything and everybody including ourselves our interactions with ourselves so how do we get from that fifth view something pen-ish and then i make it this pen to nothing but my projections so watch your mind here's the thing each one of us makes it the pen we are experiencing right a pen is here but the one i experience is unique to me feels pretty comfortable does it now what if i say look this pen is nothing but my projections now honestly we know the punch line but feel it in your gut hold up something and here's somebody say to you you know what that thing is nothing but your projection what is your heart mind do mind goes no it's not you know projections just what i think what i imagine like a movie it can't be nothing but projections how can i touch it how can i write with it if it's nothing but projection but you see i'm misunderstanding what's meant by projection we'll use a different word then but there's no word i won't misunderstand because it's not the word i'm misunderstanding it's my perception of the word right i believe there's a thing here i am perceiving feel the difference between the word perceiving and projecting can you feel it there's a thing there i'm perceiving it projection happens and there's the thing there's a thing there and i'm perceiving it versus projection happens and there's the thing which one feels like what you're doing as you go through the day thing i perceive thing i perceive thing i perceive if we investigate that well wait how much of the thing is there before i perceive it the way i do wait right it'll take us through this dance of our belief about the thing and so highest school says look and this is taking me too long highest school says Ming de shak sam mayimpar yurangi duluk su drupe tongwa. I want to do this Tibetan because going word for word in this one helps us start to penetrate down to how we get from five to six. Ming de shak sam mayimpar yurangi duluk su drupe tongwa.

Tongwa means absent of that so absent of what Ming means name de means term shak means established so Ming de shak sorry sam means merely or only or just Ming de shak sam means to be established merely as names and terms or just established by names and terms or established by names and terms and only that that's the way i phrase it to help me understand it best something being established by names and terms and no other way than that that's what the song means so what does Ming de mean Ming means the name de the term seems like name and term are synonyms in English but what they mean here is when we have the name pan whatever it is in your language we have a similar i'm going to almost say the same day about the thing i call it pan you call it stilo i'm not sure what Yasheng's language calls it but when we either whatever name we give it term means what it is and what it does right so this thing we call pan it's a writing instrument it has to have some kind of ink in it because it's different than a pencil when you think pencil your day your term about pencil is different than your term about pen so that day is everything we know and believe about the object that gets the name they go hand in hand don't they as long as we know the name of something right if i say oh you know think of a block you don't have a day to go with a thing called the block because right you don't know what i mean by that but if i say think of a tree you have the name and you have the term they come together this term means anything we experience is established by our name and term and nothing but that sounds like it's saying you just think of something and that makes it exist but we know that's not true to our experience so this is the first part the second part of this statement my empire means suppose it was not that way suppose it's not that things are just well wait let me not finish that sentence yet my empire suppose it's not that way then you wrongly do look say you look so droopy all together means uh have had to have some unique identity of its own so we have these two separate parts of this statement things having some unique identity of their own and being established merely by names and terms and then we have the suppose it's not like that and donghua absent so it's like wait how do we put that all together what do they mean suppose our friend the pen had some unique identity of its own independent it of us naming and labeling it the way that i do what what would this object be like suppose this object exists with some unique way of being like we believe it has unique way of being look at this pen wow unique unique but if that were true that they have their own unique way of being what would that mean for when the dog comes in here and i hand this thing to the dog and they take it and chew it can something with its own unique way of being a pen could a dog chew on it now watch your mind answer of course a dog can chew on a pen but do you see how absurd that is yes no does it feel absurd yet if the object establishes itself as a pen and pens right all we could ever do with that object would be right with it because that's all it does that's what it does that's what's in it from it but wait a minute if that's true about a pen it wouldn't even need me to pick it up and write with it i wouldn't be able to pick it up and demonstrate emptiness with it because that's not what pens do pens right our belief that things have their identities in them from them is inconsistent with how we experience them and use them and until it's pointed out to us we don't recognize that inconsistency we don't recognize we're under the spell of the magician's elephant magic we don't recognize our own misunderstanding and as a result then we react in all of those ways so highest school is saying look go looking for the 50 that the object brings and the 50 that your mind brings all right whole pen information my mind puts on pen well how much of it did it take before you came up with pen once you have pen now all i have to show you is the clicker part you know enough for you to see it anyway and your mind will go oh that orange pen she keeps holding up but can we get to the point where it's like well then my projections is what's making it happen intellectually maybe but functionally no right it still feels very real so we're trying to investigate meditate contemplate work with these ideas that the gawk cha that moves us from level five to level six is to recognize that we believe that the object of our investigation or our experience does exist in some unique way of its own not merely established by my names and terms but there is no such thing of anything that's not established by way of the experiencers names and terms so our question needs to be where do those names and terms come from if everything's established by my name and term why don't i just name and term everything buddha paradise and we can be done with all this i've tried hard it doesn't work not even in my imagination can i get it right we can't just think things into being but we don't not think things into being either where do the mingdae come from so remember our friend the pen and the dog and us and we said okay understanding that the dog sees experiences chew toy we experience pen that says okay the object's identity is coming from the perceiver and then we said why why and geshe-la always jumps right to the punchline because it's coming out of your own mind's karmic seed it can't come from somebody else's mind and make me see it it can't come from itself 100 even 50 it has to be coming from me but it doesn't come from me by me wishing it so what's forcing me to experience whatever i'm forcing at any given moment if we jump to the punchline we say oh it's my karmic seeds but come on how do we get there is any experience we have a result of something can we experience anything that's not a result aren't all experiences don't they have causes and the experience we have is the result isn't that what cause result means the result is what's happening now the cause for the result had to have happened before right sometime before you can't have a cause and a result happening at the same moment because then they're the same thing you can't have the tomato seed that grew that tomato and that tomato at the same time the cause has to be there and then it doesn't all by itself randomly poof into a tomato plant with hundreds of tomatoes there need to be influences on it and then it makes this transformation and then over time that transformation of the original cause has gone to this result which is the cause for this result which is the cause for this result and we end up with what we call the result the tomato harvest but that's just the beginning again because it's got the seeds inside it with the potential for new tomato plants but do all those seeds necessarily become tomato plants that make tomatoes no so in that same analogy for us to have an experience which is a result we had to have made the causes for that experience causes have to be similar to their results don't they so how do we make causes yeah behave see ourselves interacting with those things that are the results we instantly act towards them and we're watching our own mind is aware our awareness moment by moment by moment is that field in which the seeds the causes are made and the results are made are right are arise arise cause is done causes are made by our perceiving our interactions with what we perceive as others experiences are experienced as me perceiving others and this process is existence it doesn't ever stop it's not a thing that never stops it's the explanation of existence do you exist right now yes that's like the only thing each of us can verify okay i am and always will but not you know so where does the mean day the name and the term come from it's a result of past imprints of Ming days they're constantly changing so what we meant by pen the term pen today is technically different than what we meant by pen two weeks ago because we've had more experiences of pen since then it hasn't changed into horse or bicycle it's still pen but they keep getting richer and richer so the idea here is then in highest school they are giving us this tool to investigate the extent to which the object of our experience has it it its own its own part to play because if there is any part of our experience that brings its own identity or quality to our experience it means there's a part that we cannot change if nothing has any part that it brings then there is nothing that we cannot change can we change it in the moment no because you can't have the cause and the result at the same time to change things that are results we interact with those experiences the results in a way that's different from the way that we behaved that planted their cause habitually our ignorant me reacts to a situation in the same way that i reacted that planted the seed eons ago anger i get angry back that kind of thing but even if in the face of anger i lie to get out of it i've burnt off some anger but i've planted some mistrust and lying seeds right so we're trying to replace our our hurtful non-virtuous reactions to unpleasantness and pleasantness with virtuous actions in the face of anything so that we're making future ming day ripenings that will all be pleasant and pleasant and pleasant and pleasant which ultimately says that we could go on to plant and ripen our seeds such that there's no such thing as dying there is no such thing as being upset with impermanence that we live effortlessly in this constant changing changing changingness that is the empty nature of our subject object interaction between at any moment and it kind of feels like you're stepping into the void in every moment and by the time you've stepped this whole right experience has just appeared before us mama christie used to try to explain this to us it's like each step forward you're not you're not it's it's not delineated yet and then by the time your foot comes down you've got the road and the trees and the cars right it just it happens as you go i love this mudra because it feels like that and when our world view is really set we're functioning in this all potentiality even as things unfold and then we can just use use in a good way every moment of experience to keep unfolding what's beautiful keep sending forth what we want to share with the world worldview six is the one that gets us there any other will block us because there's something that is it from its own side and what's it from its own side is in sansara stuck in this suffering world is it no it's a gacha is there even a suffering world no it's a gacha does that make it unreal no it's painful it's awful it's real and it's nothing but names and terms things exist established as by names and terms and no other thing than that that's highest worldview and then our task is to catch ourselves going oh so nothing's real oh i can just imagine it's like no come back ripenings are the main day shock some we don't have control over our ripening we barely have control over our plantings in response to those ripenings and that's what we're trying to grow the ability to choose healthy responses i've got a gnat trying to get close enough to get inhaled stop that i don't want to inhale you see from from worldview five something in this suggests pen i put on pen okay fine to wait wait even what i think the pen suggests that's coming from me when we go looking for the thing that gets the label we never find that thing we always find something more subtle getting a more subtle label and when we do that investigation we will finally reach a place where we go oh i see this is endless not oh i finally found that no self-nature thinking that there's some no self-nature there that we will find i will hit that mistake as well i'm gonna find that emptiness of the object implies that there's one sitting there that we can find the emptiness is of the object is the absence of something that we believe is there but is actually never there not there never was impossible so what's an experience like when you remove something that was never there in the first place that's why it's so hard to imagine i would get to it by removing something but it's removing a belief in something that wasn't there in the first place to find a simple absence all right let's take our break and we'll meditate on it they owe you back hmm so this process the imprints we make by what we think say and do and the experiences we have of what we experience here and the like the thinking this this process is what's meant by karma so karma is the explanation or or that explanation is what we mean by karma and then we say karma is the law of cause and effect so when we're talking law of cause and effect we are not talking than the worldly cause and effect tomato seeds cause tomatoes we are talking that karmic cause and effect that if tomato seeds making tomatoes is a good thing it's the result of somehow planting the seeds for that goodness of a tomato seed becoming a tomato plant right our own process makes even the worldly causes and effects worldly cause and effect relationships don't always work so they aren't actually cause and effect karmic cause and effect always work however that there's that karmic gap between when we make the imprint and that imprint is influenced in such a way added to subtracted from added to subtracted added subtracted etc by everything else we do until somehow it gets enough added to it that it gets over the threshold into manifestation and it's the one that's ripening or the series of one that's ripening that we are responding to and thus planting new distracted myself why did i start saying that because we believe that what we do in the moment in our worldly ways brings about what comes next but when it does and it's a good thing it's actually a ripening result of some karmic imprint where we help somebody affect a good change in the moment so we say karma is the law of cause and effect and we say reality is this marriage of karma and emptiness so it's not that there's karma and there's emptiness and they get married but it's rather for anything to be experienced what's happening is that the appearing the experience the appearance is the cause and effect and it reveals the fact that no part of that experience has its own nature so that it can be the experience i'm having with any experience there is the emptiness of the three spheres of that experience there's always an experience happening so there's always the emptiness of those three spheres the common denominator in every experience is your perception of yours yourself your me the awareness of your me always a little different than it was before but never not present can we say that and so every instant of awareness fraction of an instant of awareness each one of us has our me and the emptiness of our me and we have our experience and the emptiness of our experience and we have our reaction to the experience and the emptiness of the reaction to the experience okay getting a glimpse of the potentiality that is our me and my world so how does world view six actually help us if it seems like it's this woo thing where there's no nothing anything and i'm stepping into the void in every moment can i go to the grocery store and come out with the things i need if i'm like whoa what's come and come next whoa i don't know it doesn't feel like being a very effective human being to try and stay in emptiness all the when we say oh nothing is anything but my projections so doesn't matter anything can happen at any time doesn't matter what i do right wrong wrong conclusion accurate conclusion is wow ripening they're done and gone planting planting planting is where my power lies where my strength lies and yet our habit pattern of react react react with the wrong view is so strong because every seed's been planted with it it ripens with it it's a huge struggle to refuse to believe the seed that's ripening to believe things have their own nature but if you're hearing a class like this and it's making any sense at all you have the seeds to be able to struggle against that ignorance and that's a huge rejoicable even though there are so many more people who've heard about the pen now than when i started with it compared to the number of living beings not just humans right it's still a drop in the bucket but wow what a huge shift we've already created so we explore these things with objects to find the emptiness of our friend the pen and then we would explore it with the object of our experience the angry yelling boss now it's the husband in the kitchen right and then we can go on to explore it with our own feelings and reactions to things and then we can go on to explore it with our own me and and the self-existent me that i believe is there that's maha mudra practice is to explore all the outer stuff until we can bring it to the more inner stuff until we can bring it to our own me our own mind and in the end be able to meditate deeply on the empty nature of my own me the meditator me the awareness be aware and reach glimpses into the emptiness of that that's the actual maha mudra practice so we're learning about it and we have four more classes we'll explore it more deeply for the remaining of this class let's do a meditation that um uses level five level six and geshe-la explained that with this kind of investigation it's easier to use an x an experience rather than just an object or it's more meaningful and at the time he was giving this course he was teaching to a group of people with the fpmt center their lamas lamas opah rinpoche and at the time he was having trouble he was manifesting having trouble with his diabetes and the group was saying we need to get him a better doctor he needs to adjust his medicine we need to feed him better and geshe-la you know was understanding the situation and so he used this meditation to help them explore world view five and world view six in this situation of their lamas illness so it's like oh my gosh fast forward 25 years and our common llama is manifesting chronic kidney disease i mean technically kidney failure although we can't really see it that's what it's like and it appears that we're all waiting for him to get his transplant and it's like well what are they waiting for you know if they have the match let's just do it and get on with this what's this two-year thing that we're hearing about like what you know maybe there's something else he should be doing for his kidneys right all our worldly suggestion send him vitamins get him to do this right and so i'm gonna use geshe michael's kidney disease instead of llama zopa's diabetes for this meditation and see what see what you come up with all right got it i'll guide us through so really this is a guided meditation but it's me just yakking again but as you listen right let yourself delve in deep follow the suggestions okay so set your body set your mind by bringing your focus to your breath at your nostrils feel the zoom in to focus on the object adjust the clarity turn on the intensity eagerness or fascination on those sensations we call breath get it parked there now intentionally shift from that object to following my words and explain to yourself taking refuge in emptiness as a way of fixing our perception of geshe michael with kidney disease next we grow our bodhicitta recall that other person from the beginning of class we want to be able to help think of how karma and emptiness helps you choose how to help them a little differently how to hold our minds as we are helping them help your emptiness understanding open your heart to their pain their distress knowing that we will help it come to an end recall your own precious holy being that one who's there with you recall their good qualities recall those good qualities that they see in themselves are ripening results of zillions of exquisite kindness is done and recognize the good qualities we see in them are the ripening results of our own past kindness is done and so grow this aspiration to grow more of those kindnesses to grow more of those good qualities that we see in them to be able to see them in others and ourselves tell them ask them to help you grow those good qualities and make them some offerings we know that what they like best is for us to hear ourselves telling them offering them some way in which we apply something that they had taught us something from our practice for me when i'm offering those goodnesses my mind automatically does a yeah but about something not so wise that i've done and so i tell them that as well do my confession telling them that i know i planted that negative seed and i really regret the seed and the reaction establish an antidote which can be this meditation and a power of restraint planet and know by the end of this meditation those seeds will be damaged and so rejoice in another goodness you've done and tell them of a goodness you saw someone else do now even think of someone that maybe maybe you don't care for so much and find something good you can tell your lama about them something they've done and ask that precious being to please stay close ask them to continue to bring your teachings formal ones and the ability to be aware of them teaching in the face of our day-to-day life then go back to your breath as the object check your body if it needs to shift or wiggle now's the time to do it and then settle back in bring to mind geshe michael and let's recognize our gacha of geshe michael with kidney disease our worldly belief is those kidney organs are failing in their ability to clean out the metabolic waste and it will go on to end his life if they aren't repaired or replaced and we believe that's the way it is the disease itself will progress if someone doesn't intervene by way of the transplant we believe geshe michael is living with that reality we believe that we understand that reality and our understanding is on some level accurate this is a bad thing it's bad for everyone who knows about it it really can't be perceived some other way and so our solution how can i help him get the transplant what are they waiting for is it money i'll give them money is it a better match can i find a better match can it be me now find the mistaken view lower middle way says we have a problem but we don't have to see it as a problem we can think of it differently and so come up with a different response to it maybe geshe michael is just testing us maybe maybe he's intentionally demonstrating impermanence maybe he's showing us how we've hurt others in the past maybe he's inspiring us to find new ways to help people maintain healthy bodies all of that will help me hmm be less distressed able to respond in different more helpful ways but deep down i still believe he has kidney disease let's push up to world view six world view six says there is no part of our perception of geshe michael with kidney disease that's not coming from our own projection geshe michael with kidney disease in our projection geshe michael with kidney disease we also have the belief that geshe michael projects himself with kidney disease do we know that to be true seems like it he says he has kidney disease we don't know actually what his perception of that is we don't know whether he really experiences that as a life-threatening thing what we know is our own seeds ripening let his apparent kidney disease show us that there is in fact no base reality of his kidney disease my seeds my seeds my seeds my seeds that makes it real when those seeds are ripening but unnecessary so in fact if our seeds to see geshe michael with kidney disease shift when they change they can change to a geshe michael without kidney disease so what's the most effective way of improving his health we call it do the opposite we see our holy teacher having a condition that could be life-threatening and so we protect life better i can't protect his life better i'm nowhere close to him protect any life better than i have before go out of my way to see myself protect life intended to change my seeds for seeing hearing about a teacher whose health is challenged how do i protect life better i'm already vegetarian i already wear my seatbelt i already drive in traffic really carefully except for that time i pulled out in front of that one car because i was in a hurry oops more and more subtle ways of protecting life think of ways today and tomorrow that you could make a little extra effort in helping someone eat healthy be life protected getting more specific to kidney disease helping someone drink more water find something but now on a higher level still geshe michael is an extraordinary teacher of the dharma his main nature is the dharmakaya when we learn about the five immediate misdeeds the worst seeds to plant one of them is trying to cause harm to a buddha's physical body and one of them is causing a division in the sangha to try to cause harm to a buddha's physical body is is a negative deed done towards the nirmanakaya the emanation form causing a division in the sangha is said to be a negative deed towards the essence of enlightened being because those sangha are beings who have declared themselves to uphold the dharma in the world to practice the precious teachings and so to split them from each other in some way damages the buddhism in the world damages the essence of a buddha damages the wisdom and so its result would very likely be seeing our own teacher's health compromised even the potential loss of that teacher any friction between the disciples of a given teacher can cause that teacher's health to suffer from the teacher's side no from the student's ripening side and because that teacher is a powerful karmic object the seeds of friction don't have to be all that big to grow and ripen and if it goes on too far we lose the seeds to have the lama there and so let's do a purification and then continue to work with this if you wish think of someone within the community of beings that you call your sangha related to geshe michael and think of one of those persons that you've had a problem with some kind of disagreement some kind of friction big or small and recognize now that regardless of the situation it was a mistake to act the way i did and to continue to think of them in that negative way the way i do and to recognize my expectation for them to change in order for me to stop feeling this way admit it all to ourselves tell that holy being before you decide to forgive that person decide to forgive yourself decide that we will try to find that other person's positive qualities and focus on them decide to to relate to our sangha like we are all brothers and sisters to a common parent who loves us all equally and so decide i don't have to like this person anymore than i do now but i will love them i will care about them and i will help them and finish it now that conflict in order to change our seeds for seeing geshe michael with a health issue this is the enlightened more enlightened way to help what we see as geshe michael's health might we still see him needing medicine maybe maybe not might we still see him needing transplant maybe maybe not we make the seeds for his good health and long life by getting along by helping others get along okay now set that all down turn our minds back to our precious holy beings see how happy they are with us think of the goodness that we've done in this last few hours powerful powerful goodness to explore the gacha and emptiness at the beginning levels of the highest level so be pleased with yourself and think of this goodness like a beautiful glowing gemstone you can hold in your hands recall your own precious holy guides see how happy they are with you ask them to please please please stay close to continue to guide us and help us support us and challenge us and offer them this gemstone of goodness see them accept it and bless it and they carry it with them right back into your heart see them there feel them there their love their compassion their wisdom it feels so good we want to keep it forever for it by the power of the goodness that we've just done may all beings complete the collection of merit and wisdom and thus gain the two ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom make so use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one person to share it with everyone you love to share it with every existing being everywhere see them all filled with loving kindness filled with wisdom and may it be so all right nice job world view six we'll dig into it more so have a lovely weekend i will see you my monday morning okay everybody all right all right thank you thank you roxanna okay bye

So, welcome back. We are studying the six flavors of emptiness.

This is class five. It's September 21st, 2026, where I am. Welcome to autumn.

We will do our opening prayers and then go right into our meditation preliminaries and then into another exploration of worldview five and six using a particular situation. And then we'll... That'll probably take the first half of class. We'll take a break and then we'll talk more.

So, let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again. Now bring to mind that being who for you is the manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom.

And see them there with you. They are gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy great compassion, their wisdom radiating from them, that beautiful golden glow encompassing you in its light. And then we hear them say, bring to mind someone you know who's hurting in some way.

Feel how much you would like to be able to help them. Recognize how the worldly ways we try to help fall short. How wonderful it will be when we can also help them in some deep and ultimate way.

A way through which they will go on to stop their distress forever. Deep down we know this is possible. Exploring emptiness and dependent origination more and more.

We glimpse how it's possible. And so I invite you to grow that wish into a longing. And that longing into an intention.

And with our intention strong, we turn our minds back to our precious holy being. We know that they know what we need to know. What we need to learn yet.

What we need to do yet. To become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. And so we ask them, please, please, please help me.

Teach me, show me how to become like that. And they're so happy that we've asked. Of course, they agree.

Our gratitude arises. We want to offer them something exquisite. And so we think of the pure world they are teaching us how to create.

We imagine we can hold it in our hands. And we offer it to them. Following it with our promise to practice what they teach us using a refuge prayer to make our promise.

Here is the great earth, filled with fragrant incense and covered with a blanket of flowers. The great mountain for lands, wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon. In my mind, I make them the paradise of a Buddha and offer it all to you.

By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community. To the merit that I do when sharing this class and the rest.

May we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community. To the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest.

May we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community. To the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest.

May all beings totally awaken for the benefit of every single other. So let's settle our bodies. Go through your sequence.

Then bring your mind to concentration on your breath as the object there at your nostril. The sensations we call breath will in your mind's focus. Increase the clarity.

Turn on the intensity, the fascination. Count 10 breaths, making all of those adjustments as needed. Now leave that object, turn that bright clear mind to my words, following along and start by taking refuge.

Our ultimate refuge is in emptiness. All three refuge jewels have something to do with emptiness and the power of its understanding and living by it. In sixth worldview, there's nothing that has not been created by my own past behaviors and there is nothing I can't create through my own current interactions with others.

Think of how living by that understanding protects us. Then we grow our bodhicitta. Think about the difference between giving someone some money, teaching them how to make money, teaching them how to really have all the resources they need come to them by sharing, which helps them more.

Think of that one person and their distress, recognizing that the distress we perceive is our ripening. We don't actually know what they are experiencing. Maybe it's worse for them.

Maybe it's something completely different for them. If we perceive it, it's our seeds and trying to help plants, our new seeds, something worldly may or may not help in the moment. So we try using our emptiness understanding.

We do more if we don't know exactly what that other needs to take up and give up to stop their own suffering. We don't know how to really help them. So we turn our minds back to that precious holy being.

We know they know. We know they love and care. So we ask them again, please, please, please help me help this other.

And so think of that holy beings, qualities that we admire, recognize whatever qualities they see in themselves came from their own zillions of kindness done with wisdom. Admire them for those efforts. Admire them for those qualities that we see.

Recognize the qualities we see in them are results of our own past kindness, goodness that they taught us to do over many, many lifetimes. And so aspire to plant and grow the seeds that will make us be like them. And so the seeds we plant is making offerings to them, including in our offering, something that we thought or said or did based on something they have taught us.

They love for us to hear ourselves telling them then we recognize. Yes, I did that kindness, but I did all these selfish things too. And so clear our hearts of some negativity, something we thought, said, did towards an other that when that seed ripens, it will be unpleasant for us and very likely unpleasant for someone else.

And very likely we'll, we will do something that will perpetuate that suffering. Tell them about that situation. We feel your regret born of understanding.

Establish an antidote power. It can be this meditation or this whole class and some power of restraint that can be kept. Then water our kindness seeds with rejoicing.

Think of other kindnesses that you have done recent or long ago and be happy that you did them. Feel the urge to do more when the time come. Think of some kindness or goodness you saw someone else do.

Tell that holy being about that as well. Think of all the great teachers teaching the Dharma across the world now. Think of all the people reaching to their spiritual path, contributing to growing positivity in this world.

There are many. Be happy with that ripening and ask that precious being to continue to bring you teachings, both formal ones and the ability to recognize them teaching in the day-to-day challenges that we meet. Pray that those around you who help you stay on your path, stay close and live long healthy lives.

And then dedicate just what we've done so far to a deepening insight into this marriage of emptiness and karma. Then check back with your body if you need to shift and wiggle or adjust. Now's the time to do so.

Then settle back in. Bring your attention again to your breath, making the effort and staying on the object, fixation, clarity, intensity. We'll do 10 breaths again.

Now drop that object and again focus on my words and follow along. It's more a contemplation than a meditation. So we will explore Worldview 5, the Gakcha to find that emptiness, to find the change we can make.

Worldview 5 and Worldview 6. And again we'll use a problem situation to explore, to learn the method of the exploration. So let's use the object of what seems to be this current global inflation, this impending scarcity. Just think about that problem.

However or whatever you know about it, however it's affecting you, think of the worldly explanations. Oh and what is it that we are blaming it on? There are many factors of course. Just simply clarify the situation.

Now let's look at it from lower middle way point of view. There is a problem out there. Many, many factors involved, but a problem.

And we have this belief that there's really no way to see it differently than we do. Especially there's no way to see anything good about it. But let's strip away this wrong view.

Yes, there is a problem out there, but I see that I can choose to relate to it differently. I could use it to recognize what it's teaching me about impermanence. I could use it to see what it's teaching me about my belief in control over a thing.

I could use it to recognize how I'm blaming and judging others and how those blames and judgments are valid but not correct. I could use it to explore my own past behavior. What is it giving me an opportunity to practice, to change? How can we use this situation in a positive way? What is my own 50 percent of this situation? What am I bringing to it that contributes to the problem? And so what can I change? I can bring something new, something different to this problem.

This gives us hope, helps us have new ideas and different responses so that we can cope better, so we can help others cope better as those outer factors move through and finally resolve that outer problem. This level worldview is helpful. We can be a shining light of helpfulness in the face of a world suffering from everything's getting too expensive, but it won't help ultimately.

So let's push up to level six, go back to just the problem. Everything is costing so much more, but my income has not increased. I'm fearful about the future.

My urge is to cut back on my spending, to cut back on my giving, to accumulate things for myself and my loved ones, a sense of uncertainty and needing to protect my resources from others. It's all coming from our belief that this problem and the fear I feel is coming from the problem and that everyone is experiencing it in the same way as I am. Level five said, yes, the problem is there and yes, I can choose a different reaction.

Worldview six says, this problem, is it really true that everyone is experiencing it the same way as I am? Isn't it the case that everyone is experiencing things uniquely to themselves, each one differently? Isn't it true that we don't know what their experience is? What we do know is our perception of their experience, and that's valid. There is no base reality, just everyone's current ripening karmas. And so this problem situation is happening for each of us, uniquely forced by each of us, our own karmic seeds ripening.

So then what is the real way to resolve the problem? Can we actually resolve the problem? From worldview six, we recognize to experience a problem has to be my own seeds from when I somehow contributed to a similar problem for others in the past, my negative seeds. I want to clean those out. I want to carefully, consciously, powerfully plant seeds for the results I want to see, everyone's abundance.

I want to water those new seeds that I make and water the old seeds like that that I have by rejoicing in those deeds. I want to dedicate my efforts to seeing everyone see the results bigger and better than what we envisioned. So how might that be in our experience? Let's try it.

Identify the situation, this inflation, things will cost too much. I won't be able to get my family's needs met, this fear of scarcity. Others worse off than me will be angry at me and will become aggressive and hurt me or take advantage of me.

All of that fear I recognize. I have done that in some big or small way in the past, whether I remember it or not, because I see it happening in my world. I have withheld from others, been stingy, been fearful, been mistrustful.

I didn't know any better back then. Now I do. And so now I really regret having done what I did, thinking it was the right thing to do.

I feel my regret. I'm seeing the results of having put monetary gain ahead of others' needs. I see the results of having put my own wants ahead of others' needs.

I see the results of imposing scarcity on others. I really, really regret it. And I will refrain from repeating it.

And so I will do the opposite. I will find ways to share resources with others and rejoice in the ways I have done that already in the past. I will rejoice in the past generosity of those who have great wealth now and pray that they grow their current generosity so they can perpetuate their wealth.

I will protect others' property, protect their safety, try to attend to their needs for comfort and for security. And I will be more careful in my own consumption, solely for my own pleasure, sharing and offering those things that I consume. I will dedicate my sharing to seeing everyone experience abundance independent of monetary cost.

And I rejoice in the caring and sharing I've ever done or seen anyone do, being eager to plant more of these. So imagine this you. With that list of intended activities.

And go through your day. We'll sit for three more minutes. Jack, how is this new you feeling towards this apparent problem? Is the problem still so solidly out there and insurmountable as it was before? Recognize that this very shift in attitude as we go through our day of this keen awareness that through my interaction with others, I influence our future.

Feel how this shows us that there is nothing we cannot change. And so now turn your mind back to that precious holy being there with you. Tell them of just one insight you might have reached from this exploration, dedicated to seeing some shift in our outer world.

And bring that new you with you back to you here in your room in this class. When you're ready, open your eyes, shift and wiggle. We'll actually take our break now.

Hey, are we back? So what are the implications of living by worldview six? It's like his worldview six, just something we think about on our meditation cushion. Or, or is it supposed to influence our day to day interactions with others? If it's going to help us, it needs to influence us all day long. Not just cushion time, not just class time.

And it's difficult to hold when we get into the routine of our human life that is ripening, colored with the seeds of our old beliefs. So it's not hard to recognize the impermanence of things. It's not hard to come to recognize, I don't have the control that I somehow grew up believing I would have as an adult.

And then maybe it's a little bit harder to recognize that things don't actually happen randomly or by accident. But once we catch on to that, then it's not so difficult either. And though that wrong worldview about my judgment about something is correct about the something, we recognize that really, really early in life, but we refuse to believe it.

For some crazy reason, we refuse to go, Oh, duh, people disagree with me. But once we have that pointed out, it's like, it's not hard to see that we're doing it. So once we get up to this difference between worldview five and six, also, once we get it pointed out, and we recognize the difference, it also is not so hard.

But it's very difficult to, to disconnect from the old belief in worldview five, that the the experience is there, the problem is happening. It's actually true of pleasant things as well. We just don't question and wonder, why is this beautiful experience happening to me, we just expect it to go on.

So maybe it's better to explore pleasant things and where they come from, so that we can grow this natural response to them to want to share them or offer them to perpetuate them. We tend not to do that because problem situations is what causes more distress. And we are wanting to stop distress.

But maybe in a future class, we'll explore pleasant things. Why did that happen to me? Why did I win the lottery? Because why not learn how to perpetuate good stuff? So worldview five says the problem is out there. It's real.

Everybody experiences it. Similarly, we know not exactly the same. And just that idea.

Everybody is experiencing something, the same shows us that we believe that the experience is out there to be experienced. And it has some kind of identity, some kind of quality in it from it. We know not self existently.

It has all those causes all those conditions. But it's the problem out there. Can you catch it? It's so human nature, it's hard to recognize.

If I said, how would you show to me that the wall in your room that I see behind you is real? You would reach out and touch it. And you would say, see, it's real. And I would go, yeah, I get it.

Because if it was just a movie set, right, you'd touch it, then it would maybe fall over. If it was just a picture, like a holographic picture, you try to touch it and your hand would go through it. So the very fact that I see you touch it, my reaction to that is, oh, yeah, it's a real thing out there.

Right? Like this is human. This is what it is to be human. Then using worldview five says, right? That outer world is out there.

There's problems, there's good stuff. I'm not forced to experience it the way it says. I bring something to the party.

And until I recognize that I'm bringing something to the party, I don't realize that what I'm to the party, I can choose to change. Now, actually choosing to change it in the moment is a little hard to do, because we have to get off automatic pilot. But then the difficulty even at worldview five, is when we do choose to change our response, what happens next? May or may not reinforce that new behavior, right? Like what if, I don't know, we have this pattern with someone in our life, right? Have this pattern with a spouse or partner, that when a conflict arises, the way we address it is, I'm going to make up something.

This is not David and I. First, we fight about it. And then we like, okay, I'm not going to talk to you for a while. And then we get over it.

And then we come get back together. And we go, oh, that was silly. I love you so much.

And then we go, we're not going to do that again. And then the next time we argue, the pattern happens again. So suppose that the situation comes up, you start to argue.

And one of the partner says, I refuse to go here. I'm going to act differently. The other partner gets actually upset, because you're supposed to do it like this.

And that's how it gets resolved in the end. And then we make up and right, it's so fun when we make up. And if I respond differently, right, I respond differently trying to solve to break the pattern.

But in fact, I upset them more did upsetting them more calm for my more loving response. No, why not two reasons why not? Can you plant a tomato seed today and get a tomato from it? 10 minutes later? One day later? No. So what I do in the moment does not bring what comes next.

But another reason we see that that them getting madder at me, for me responding more lovingly when I was supposed to yell back, though, they're, those are, those are unrelated. A result from a cause has to be similar. To say that they can get upset at me, from me being more kind is like saying, I planted tomato seed, I'm expecting to grow peanuts.

It's too dissimilar. But do we ever get the result of what we do in the moment in the next moment? No. Yes, I do.

I turn the key, the car starts, worldview five. Turn the key car starts, turn the key car start. One day, turn the key car doesn't start.

My worldview five mind automatically says, probably battery is dead. I come up with a new reason to explain why my cause and effect didn't work. Because I still have the expectation that turning the key starts the car when everything else about the car is intact.

And for some crazy reason, that alone doesn't make me go, Oh, silly me. The key does not start the car. If it depends on having everything else intact.

But I, right, I don't change my behavior. Because even when I realize it's not the key that starts the car, can I start the car without the key? No. So see why we're stuck in worldview five, but we're not stuck.

Because we can use it. We can tell right, I recognize I believe all these things have their natures and situations. But I can choose to respond differently, recognizing that my different response may or may not have any kind of, well, it doesn't at all impact what comes next.

But I know that it does have an impact. And that's why it's hard. We want immediate positive feedback.

And so our immediate positive feedback needs to be personally recognized that just by doing a different behavior, I planted a different seed. And wow, what a grown up thing to do. Even if nobody knows, and I'm not gonna see the actual result of that seed.

Maybe even in this form, this lifetime form. I planted a seed in my mind, that when it ripens, will be a good thing for everybody. Yeah.

And that alone will water any kind of seeds I've done with a little bit of wisdom sense forever. And it'll be a little easier to do it again in the future. And then again, and then again.

So there's a special, he has this phrase he calls Robo Claus. Have you heard him say that? He doesn't use it so much anymore. r o b o c l a w s. Years ago on television, there'd be these ads, Ronco, you know, you can buy this really cheap equipment that's supposed to be really powerful for your yard work.

There was something called these robot claws. It's meant to be this wrench that is clippers and a screwdriver. And it's a really, really strong pliers.

And it's like, it's such a powerful tool that you can cut branches, you can, you know, I think of it now as like Iron Man, you know, the movie Iron Man, he puts on his suit, and he's got these big, he can do anything, Iron Man, like that. And with these Robo Claus, it's like when you have a problem, you march in there like Iron Man, and what you do in the moment fixes it. Versus being the gardener, you know, the little 70 year old lady with her bonnet and her basket.

And she goes and she plants her seeds and she weeds and she tidies and the garden, you know, doesn't really look any different, maybe a little neater. But until the seeds come up and bloom, until, right, it takes time for gardening to show the result. And really with a garden, you never finally go, ah, there's my garden.

We're always tending to it, aren't we? And shifting it and adjusting it. And it's this beautiful ongoing work of art in nature, that you plant, plant, plant, and let the results reveal themselves. So our old worldview method is to be the Iron Man going through life.

I will go to the grocery store, I will get what's on my list, I will expect to pay X amount of money for that on the list, and when it costs twice as much, I will be mad at the grocery store checker outer, right, all these ways that we go through life. And then we come home, we eat it, and we have to do it again next week. And we're upset when they move everything around, right? Every six months, they rearrange the grocery store, have you noticed? And the peanut butter used to be there, and now it's over there.

So you have to walk through the whole store to find what you wanted. And it's like, David came home last week, they changed everything. And right, these mental afflictions instead of, wow, it was so fun, I had to go do this treasure hunt in the grocery store to find your peanut butter for you.

So our attitude towards these things out there is worldview five, I can have a different attitude, old worldview, I'm gonna fix it in the moment. And sometimes it fixes, sometimes it doesn't. We get upset when it doesn't fix it.

And we just say, when it works, we expected it. Old worldview, new worldview, be the dainty lady in her garden, planting, planting, planting, even at worldview five, there's something there, there's a problem. But how I respond to it is how I change my experience of it.

And then hopefully, how I respond to it differently demonstrates to other people, they can respond differently to it too. And so then all of us are not so freaked out by whatever's going on as the current problem of the world. But it won't actually change the fact that there's constantly a current problem of the world.

There's constantly a current problem in my world. That pattern won't change, as long as we are still believing that the problem is not changeable, just my response to it is changeable. Now, I think eventually, if we live, taking responsibility for our own response to the situation, eventually, we could not help but recognizing or can't help but moving to worldview six, if we conscientiously live at worldview five.

But they kind of say, no, no, you have to intentionally make the effort to check to see what part of the problem is your 50%. Because when we go looking for what part is my 50%, right, we can't exactly pin it down, can we? At every level of the problem, we see problem, my piece, problem, my piece. And then you try to get more subtle into the problem, and we find different problem, my piece.

And that alone will help us start to recognize, wait a minute, maybe there's no part of the problem that's not coming from my seeds. And that's when we get this aha, that moves us to the level of understanding that there is in fact, no base reality there first. There's the process happening, information that we are perceiving in a certain way forced by our ripening seeds to perceive it that way, shifts into information being delineated into this experience, me and my world, shape shifting into now it being delineated in this way, and now it being delineated in that way, and no other reality than this process of the constant shape shift that is me and my world, versus there's the my world.

And here's the me that makes it my world out of the world, worldview five, the world, my world, worldview six, no only the constant shape shifting of all of it, that the sense of no base reality is scary. If we haven't tiptoed up to it, because it feels like at any given moment, you could be stepping into a void, right, falling off a cliff. What if my seeds don't ripen at the right time? What will there be? No, seeds can't not ripen at the right time.

What we are is seeds ripening. It's not like maybe they ripen. We are that process.

So when we understand it well, intellectually, we can experientially be able to go closer to it. And we tiptoe into it in our meditation, not in our day-to-day life. If we want to cultivate that experience on our cushion, first, we need to have plenty of cushion time for it to happen.

And secondly, we need to grow the goodness that would ripen into it. Having our direct perception of emptiness will be a ripening of extraordinary kindness planted with that aspiration to experience ultimate reality in order to benefit others, bodhicitta. Doing our kindnesses imbued with bodhicitta, remember? We've been talking about that for a long time, to grow the seeds to ripen our wisdom, which happens in our meditation time.

So our interaction with others is the garden where we plant the seeds for our future experiences, one of which we hope to be that direct perception of emptiness. So Geshe-la says worldview five versus worldview six is the difference between practicing patience and the perfection of patience. So when we are growing our patience at worldview five, there's a problem.

And instead of running away from the problem or marching in there with robocalls to fix it, we say, okay, I'm going to see what my 50% is here. And I'm going to bring a nicer 50% to this problem situation. And that's growing my patience, my ability to tolerate something unpleasant long enough to use it, to plant new seeds in my mind, to get through it.

That when I talk about patience at this level, what pops into my mind was when Geshe-la was teaching Master Kamalashila's commentary to the Diamond Cutter Sutra years ago. And he had this image of a cartoon drawing of a little girl and an old lady on the bus. Anybody remember this one? And the little girl's holding the bar, she's standing and the old lady is sitting and the expression on the old lady's face is, thank you so much.

And the little girl is so pleased with herself. The image is that the little girl gave up her seat to the old lady. And so the little girl standing, which is unpleasant on a bus ride, and the old lady is safe and comfortable in the seat.

And the little girl recognizes, my mom's going to be so happy with me when I tell her that I gave up my seat to the old lady. She's so pleased with herself. She was willing to take on unpleasantness to benefit someone else.

That's a level of the practice of patience. Instead of avoiding unpleasantness, we might even be willing to step into it if it could help somebody else. But then, so that's like worldview five.

There is a problem. I'm willing to take it on and act differently than I usually would. And it's going to help everybody get through the problem a little easier, a little nicer.

But the perfection of patience would be that little girl as she gave up her seat to the woman would be, I'm being kind in the moment, but I'm doing it so that ultimately nobody will ever be uncomfortable, unsafe, unpleasant ever again. I gave up my seat so that I can become Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. I gave up my seat because of emptiness and karma.

Is the deed different? No. Is the seed planted in the little girl's mind differently? Yes. Because the motivation and the belief underneath the motivation was so much bigger than just the safety of the older woman.

The perfection of patience is doing our patience practices, understanding karma and emptiness, right? With bodhicitta in our heart, in our mind. The deed isn't necessarily different. All of us are already kind people.

We hold the doors open. We step aside when somebody's in a hurry. Now our training is to recall that we're not just doing that because we're kind.

We're doing it to bring Buddha paradise to everybody. We're doing it to stop suffering for everybody. And it's just an attitude that we train ourselves in.

Why it's so difficult for me, I don't know. Our automatic pilot, right, is coming out of those seeds. So when they say this worldview five and six, living by it is like swimming upstream.

It is swimming upstream because we don't yet see everybody in our world trying to do it too. But more importantly, it's like swimming upstream from our own mind stream, our own seeds ripening. Are the right.

It's in it from it. Act this way. No, no, it's not.

I'm going to act this way and remember why I'm acting this way. That's not in our seeds yet. We're trying to put it in.

So when we meditate, we try to at least start with that idea. And then when we have classes, we hear about it again and again and again. And then the idea is if we're planting those seeds, those seeds are growing.

When those seeds start to garden ripen in our garden, we find ourselves, oh my gosh, I am remembering bodhicitta as I hold the door open. When it happens once, it'll be like, wow, I did it. And then seeds have been planted.

We can do it again. It takes effort. And for me, it's like many days of it never crosses my mind until I'm reading my notes to prepare for class and giving class.

I'm so embarrassed. I'm just on automatic pilot and then whoops. Just seeds.

Don't beat ourselves up. Recognize it. Fix it moving forward, say the accountants, who's an accountant.

So what's the implication of worldview six? There's nothing I can experience that my own past behavior did not create. And there is nothing about my future experience that my current behavior is not creating. What can we do about our past behavior? Purify, like confess, regret, antidote, restraint.

What can we do about our future behavior? Plant the seeds for it now. Grow it, cultivate it. So technically that says, the only place we have to work is now.

In our interaction with the other of our experience, whether it's an inanimate other, or an animate other, there's always another in our experience. And our response to that other plants the seed in our mind for future self other interaction. So every moment of interaction is the field in which we are planting our seeds.

Do you want to just broadcast your seeds over, you know, desert soil? Or do we want to intentionally design a beautiful future garden and intentionally diligently cultivate that garden? Our choice, always our choice. When we decide I'm going to diligently plant the garden, grow the garden, even though habitually I know I'm broadcasting seeds most of the time, I will recognize that my focus of intention is following the plan for the planting of the garden and letting the result of the garden take care of itself, which it's going to do anyway. Our tendency is to hear, oh, I'm the creator of my future.

What do I want my future to be like? Right? We do that. We're taught to do that so that we know what seeds to plant. But then we tend to go, well, has that future come yet? I suppose you're planting the seeds for your perfect partner.

This isn't really the audience to say this, but I'm going to do it anyway. And in your imagination, right? When you're 16 years old, hearing this teaching, I want this fellow who's got blonde hair and blue eyes and they're tall and slender. That's what I'm planting.

That's what I'm planting. And you're going through life watching for the tall blonde. And it's like, no, you're meeting, you know, dark haired fellows who are really sweet, red haired fellows who are really attractive, but they're not blonde and blue eyed.

So they can't be the ripening of my seeds. So hello, you're very nice, but no thanks. Do you see what we do from that silly example? We have this expectation of how my seeds should look when they ripen.

And if they don't look like that, I'm not ripening my seeds well enough. When's it going to happen? No. And then that grows doubt.

And that doubt will grow. And sooner or later we'll lose our practice. But it's difficult because we are goal oriented creatures.

We want to know that what we do brings about the result we set up to make. And yet that's deeply hidden reality, deeply, deeply hidden reality to see how the planted cause bringing about the result because there's such a long time frame between those two events. So how do we really know what to plant? How do we design? We can design the garden, but how do we know what seeds to plant to create that garden? If we can't, in fact, see that this is the result of that deed, we're kind of stuck, aren't we? And we're kind of back to that faith thing that I don't know about you, but I did the religion I grew up with because I didn't understand faith.

Now I think I do better. So I regret all those disrespects I had for people of faith. But it's not just blind belief as we understand belief born of understanding.

Now you've got some faith, something to put our faith in. Faith means we believe in something that we can't perceive with our senses. Once we realize that what we do perceive with our senses is a teeny, teeny, teeny, teeny bit of what reality is and could be, we stop believing in that limitation.

And then faith isn't faith, faith is conviction. But meanwhile, we're acting on educated faith that what the Buddhas teach us are accurate and valid. And so how do we decide that really? And they say that of all the great spiritual beings, Buddha was the only one now I don't know if this is true or not, but Buddha was the only one who did not say to the gathering disciples, look, everything's going to be okay.

Just behave like this, do this, and everything will work out okay. Eventually, you'll go to paradise. Buddha said, look, life's suffering.

Admit it. The bad stuff is bad. The good stuff's even suffering because you know what? You do bad stuff to get more of it, and then you lose it.

And you end up just having the bad stuff seeds for more bad stuff later. And he said, even if everything goes really well your whole life, this life ends and you die and you have to do it all over again anyway. Like this life is just plain suffering.

I'm like, why did anybody stay with him? Oh, a spiritual teacher that tells me there's nothing but suffering. I love him so much. What? But it's like, here's somebody who's telling the truth.

That's why we're looking for a spiritual teacher, because it's just like, there's something wrong with this picture. I need help. And so we meet a teacher that goes, you're right.

You're right. This is terrible. But who then says, but look, it's all a mistake.

It's like really a mistake. I'm making a mistake. Can I fix the mistake? What can I do to fix the mistake? Okay, listen.

And for 20 years, we listen and we try and we catch on and we learn that method. Clean out the mistakes, plant new kindness seeds, and the kindness seeds that we want to plant. Here are some suggestions so that you don't have to personally reinvent the wheel.

You're welcome to recognizing what I see myself due to others will come back to me bigger. Knowing that alone, we could figure out what to take up and what to give up. But it would take us a really long time to make all the mistakes and fix them.

Or we can say, okay, Buddha, what do you suggest? And he says, well, follow these advices for taking refuge. Follow these freedom vow recommendations. Avoid those five deeds.

You want to do it a little bit more carefully, take ordination vows. At the very minimum, avoid those 10 non-virtues, learn the five virtues, practice or the 10 virtues, not as vows, but as guidelines. Then we want to grow a little bigger, faster.

We have bodhisattva behaviors to do. We can do them and we can do them as vow behavior. And then you want to speed it all up.

Get your tantric vows, diamond way vows. The diamond way vows are a way of making all those other behaviors planted more powerfully to ripen more swiftly. They aren't so much new or different.

Many of the diamond way vows, however, are stated in the positive. I will do such and such a thing even six times a day, which is what makes them so hard. All the other vows are things to avoid doing, mostly which we already avoid doing.

Have you noticed? So now we're avoiding doing them for a more powerful reason, but it's the same behavior we've ever done, or at least this life, mostly. So there it is a leap going into diamond way, but intended to just speed things up. Both goodness seeds and unpleasant seeds are speeded up.

However, so fasten your seatbelt. Why did I go there? The behavior, what to give up and what to take up is what seed packets you're going to gather in your little old lady basket to go and plant in your garden, that you will just let the garden take care of itself once you've planted your seeds. You will water it and you will weed it, but you won't go, where are the daisies? How come there's no daisies yet? Where are my roses? It'll just like, yay, when it comes, it will come because we're busy still planting.

Will there ever come a time when our moment to moment life has nothing to plant? Do Buddha stop planting seeds? I don't think so. You know, so if we're thinking, oh yes, eventually I will stop planting and I will just sit and enjoy the garden. It's like, no, no, we'll still be planting.

Will we be surrounded by this beautiful garden in which we are continuing to plant? Yes. That's what finally happens is we're planting such goodness all the time that we're ripening goodness all the time because we've weeded out all the weeds. If you get the dandelions before they poof, eventually there'll be no more dandelions, right? As long as you're also weeding the neighbor's dandelions, not just your own.

So eventually there's nothing but flowers, flowers, and that's like Buddha, me and Buddha paradise. But does that mean it's done? No, even Buddhas perpetuate, don't they? So I imagine in Buddha paradises, all the Buddhas in paradise are sharing, sharing, sharing. I read this, I don't even remember what it was I was reading, but the image was they were describing this Buddha paradise and the peach trees were all laden with fresh, delicious peaches.

And all the Buddhas were picking peaches from their trees and giving them to all the other Buddhas. So everybody was getting peaches and giving peaches. And there was this big peach festival that was going on in this Buddha paradise in this part of this book.

And it's like, oh, I get what Buddhas are doing in paradise. They're not just sitting in their palace, right? They're enjoying each other's paradises. And then they're also all emanating, doing what their emanations do, because that's still planting, doing their gardening as well.

Do you see? So it's like one of those times when I caught on to this fact that I was thinking that my Buddha, me was like, oh, finally, like we finally get to retire. And it's like, no, no, I finally start my career. I finally have finished my training after countless eons.

And now I'm the full-fledged, you know, Buddha is here. And now I do what I'm fully trained to do. And the idea of like finishing it as a Buddha is like, no, I get it.

And that really shifted my perception. So we understand now what seeds to plant. And then we would ask then, all right, I'm getting the picture.

And this is taking a long time. How do I, how do I plant my seeds in, in stronger ways? Right? How do I actually shift from just broadcasting those seeds like random behavior to detailed specific seed planting? How do I design my garden? And we've learned before that there are those four parts of a path of action that influence the strength with which our mental seed is planted and the strength of its planting influences its growth. That's not quite the right word, but it's influenced to bring it over the threshold into manifestation.

So it's those four factors that actually have six because one of them has two parts that she saw, saw, saw what she saw, but Jorwa Tartook trying to get it out of my memory. And guess what teaches it a little bit differently to his business audience, his lay public then is traditionally taught that she is the basis. And he says, identify clearly what it is you want to plant true, but basis here means the power of the object towards whom we are doing our activity, the, that we call it the karmic object.

So certain objects of our behavior are more powerful, right? Are more powerful than others in the sense that the way we perceive them relate to them. When we do a given deed towards them, plants that seed in our mind in a more or less powerful way. So the example is suppose you have a bunch of daisies that you're are going to give away.

And suppose you take that bunch of daisies to your own personal Lama being who we admire so much. We, you know, see as this enlightened or nearly enlightened being, they are a powerful karmic objects. Samba is T S a M P a. So we take those flowers to that being that we see as holy, let me exaggerate it.

And we wouldn't even say we give them the flowers. We say we offer them the flowers and we see ourselves doing it. It plants a seed in our mind.

So suppose we take those same flowers and we go to our aunt Mary, who we love so much. She helped us a lot growing up and we see her as, you know, a human lady who's getting older, who's going to die. And we know it will please her for me to bring her some daisies.

Aunt Mary here, enjoy these daisies. We plant a seed in our mind. Suppose you take the same daisies and you just randomly give them to some person you come across on the street and you see them smile really big, right? Plant the seed.

Now, suppose you take those daisies and you give them to your neighbor's dog, right? You plant seeds. You did the same deed to these different people. That deed done towards your precious teacher plants that seed more strongly.

It will bring a different result in a different time frame than the seed planted by giving the flowers to Aunt Mary. A different seed, a different result than the seed planted, giving it to the random person, than giving it to the dog. You see, same deed, different object, different seed.

What makes the object more powerful? Something in the object? 50-50? Not at all. Doesn't matter so much there, right? The part we put on is the important part. Oh, right.

I admire them. I aspire. I rely upon them.

All of that is included in the, I'm offering them my flowers. I'm gaining some merit so that I can bring all beings to happiness. Aunt Mary, to bring Aunt Mary a little pleasure.

Me, the pleasure of giving Aunt Mary the flowers. They're going to come back to us as pleasant experiences, but see how they will be different because the pleasant experience will include our perception of the one to whom we gave it. We make these offerings to those holy beings.

We're planting seeds in our mind. Something's going to come back to us similar. What do you figure it's going to be? Who will be the holy being receiving something? Gads, are you sure you want to do that? What happens when somebody sees you as the holy being? Are you going to get all puffed up? Yeah, yeah.

I'm the big llama. Give me more offering. Oops.

Let's play this out. What if you get in that situation? It's like, oh my gosh. They're offering to me.

Because of past yuck, our ego does get all puffed up. It's like, yeah, of course. Yeah, more.

What seeds are we planting now being the receiver of someone's offerings? We're still planting seeds. We're ripening seeds, but our reaction is planting seeds. If we get all puffed up, how is that going to ripen? We end up seeing teachers who are all puffed up about themselves and taking advantage of being seen in that way.

Gosh darn, we see that happening in our world, don't we? These spiritual teachers that influence people in such great ways, and then suddenly they're going off half-cocked with their behavior, like they can do no wrong. I hear about it. I don't personally see it.

I'm not saying I see it in Geshe Michael, not at all. But there are other traditions where their holy llamas got in trouble. There are other traditions where those holy llamas become so wealthy, and then everybody says, you know, why do they have a collection of sports cars? And it's like, wait, wait, I see how that can go wrong.

My seeds ripening. On the other hand, you find yourself in the situation where, oh my gosh, people are making offerings to me. They're calling me holy llama.

Oh my gosh. And it keeps you in that space of your emptiness. You know, their seeds ripening.

I'm happy for them. I'm blank. You know, I'm not either holy being, not holy being.

It helps a lot to see one's own emptiness in that view. And then to plant the seeds to continue to be one who can help others in that way. It keeps us really, really on high alert for our own behavior, wouldn't it? That's the effect it has on me.

Whoa, you know, keep my behavior really, really pure so that I can continue to be in this role for others. Because it's not me, right? And it won't be you when, because of your offering to your llamas and your pure view, somebody shows up doing the same thing to you. Like, imagine, let yourself imagine it.

It's not foolish and it's not ego to think someday I'll be the one that is the spiritual teacher, the spiritual guide for some others. And then how am I going to behave? Is my ego going to take over and ruin it? Or is my ego going to step away? Will it already be dissolving that I can use that situation to dissolve it further? Do we really want to dissolve our ego? Yeah, ego says, thank you very much. It's going to fight with us.

So then at some point, we do the same thing with ego. What world view am I holding my ego with? Does it have any nature of its own? We'll actually explore a little bit of that in future, these classes coming up. Okay, so the point I'm trying to get to is, as our world view evolves towards our level six, our behavior management evolves as well.

And our level of ethics evolves as well. And our avoiding the 10 non-virtues and doing the 10 virtues gets more and more subtle. Like how we already avoid killing, but how do we take it more subtly? How is it that we are still contributing to the not safe behavior? Even when we cruise through the limit line and the stop sign? It's like, nope, stop.

I still go five miles over the speed limit sometime. No, stop. As tools, as methods for being more subtle in my protecting life, in the face of a world where it looks like lives are in danger in many places.

So the idea is our growing world view will manifest as our increasing attention to our morality, our ethics, the ethical component of our behavior. Not because the teacher said so, but because we recognize we are designing the garden of our future experiences and we want flowers, not weeds. And it's our job.

It's our power to plant flowers instead of weeds, no matter what it appears in our do this, get that, which we'll talk about more next class. So try this week to catch yourself at some point recognizing, oh, I'm thinking the problem is out there and I'm choosing a different response and decide, no, the problem out there is coming from my seeds too. It is in fact, infinitely shiftable, just not in the present moment.

So I will contribute to its infinitely shift ability by responding to it with kindness. Find one time that we can do that between now and next class, please. All right.

So remember that person we wanted to be able to help at the beginning of class, we have already set into motion, the end of all their suffering. And that's a great, great goodness. Be pleased with yourself and think of this goodness, like a beautiful glowing gemstone you can hold in your hand.

Recall your own precious Holy bean. See how happy they are with you. Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon them.

Ask them to please, please stay close to continue to guide you, help you, inspire you, and then offer them this gemstone of goodness. See them accept it and bless it. And they carry it with them right back into our hearts.

See them there, feel them there. Their love, their compassion, their wisdom. It feels so good.

We want to keep it forever. And so we know to share it by the power of the goodness that we've just done. May all beings complete the collection of merit and wisdom and thus gain the two ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom may.

So use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one person to share it with everyone you love to share it with every existing being everywhere. See them all filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom. And may it be so.

All right. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Roxanna.

Thank you, tech team. What day is today? Monday. Oh, whole week.

I will see you Friday morning. Have a great week. Bye-bye.

So welcome back.

We are studying the six flavors. Today is September 25th, 2026, where I am. And we'll start with our opening prayers.

And then we'll do a sit together with the preliminaries, but I'm going to do them more swiftly than we should do them as our daily practice. They are a powerful tool to grow our spiritual practice. We don't want to rush them, but I'm going to.

And then we'll do our contemplative review of the six flavors, this time using our mind, the aspect of our mind called feeling. But it's tricky because it's actually a pretty hard thing to find. So I want to talk to you about how we find it, what it is.

And then we'll go ahead and do this. So I'm going to talk a little bit first. So let's do our opening prayers.

And then I'll explain. So let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

Now bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom, and see them there with you. They are gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy great compassion. Their wisdom radiates from them, that beautiful golden glow encompassing you and it's light.

And then we hear them say, bring to mind someone we know who's hurting in some way, feel how much you would like to be able to help them recognize how the worldly ways we try fall short, how wonderful it will be when we can also help them in some deep and ultimate way. A way through which they will go on to stop their distress forever. Deep down, we know this is possible.

Exploring emptiness and dependent origination more and more deeply. We glimpse how it's possible. And so I invite you to grow that wish into a longing and that longing into an intention.

And with our intention strong, we turn our minds back to our precious holy being. We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. And so we ask them, please, please, please help me.

Teach me, show me. And they are so happy that we've asked. Of course they agree.

Our gratitude arises. We want to offer them something exquisite. And so we think of the pure world they are teaching us how to create.

We imagine we can hold it in our hands and we offer it to them, following it with our promise to practice what they teach us, using our refuge prayer to make our promise. Here is the great earth filled with fragrant incense and covered with the blanket of flowers. The great mountain, four lands, wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon.

In my mind, I make them the paradise of a Buddha and offer it all to you. By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world. Idam guru ratnam mandala kam niriyatayami.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community.

Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may all beings totally awaken for the benefit of every single other.

All right. So when we think me, our own me, we are holding that me to be a body and a mind. And when we think mind, what that mind is, is feeling, discriminating between things, all of those other factors, and all the different kinds of awareness, of consciousness.

And in the all the different kinds of consciousness, we have the visual consciousness, the auditory consciousness, it's olfactory, gustatory, taste, tactile, and they call it awareness of thought, conceptual awareness. And then we tend to think, well, I have this mind that is the thing that has those awarenesses, the awareness of feeling, the awareness of discriminating. And then later, later, later, not this course, we investigate that mind that we think is the thing that has those other aspects to it.

We go looking for it. Lobsang Chukwigaltsen teaches us that in his text, which is what Lama Christi taught us in the book Jimbo series. It took like 35 classes to learn that practice.

So we're not going to get there. But Geshe-la took us through a session exploring our mind in its form or aspect of feeling. So when we say feeling, the English word, you know, I automatically think, oh, I'm, I'm feeling irritated, I'm feeling, you know, you loving, I'm feeling jealous, I, right.

But all of those feelings, though, those kinds of experiences, those are in the all the other factors that make me up heap. When we speak feeling, as the heaps, it's this very immediate and constant. Can I call it sensation? Of just thumbs up, thumbs down, or thumbs neutral, related to our aware in our mind, related to our mind.

We also have a thumbs up or thumbs down, related to our physical, which of course, we still experience through our mind. And for this session, we're not going to explore those we're simply exploring the mind's awaring aspect of feeling. So it's hard to describe because it's a experience that by the time we give it a the name, and the label, we're already into discriminating and all the other factors happening.

But we'll back into it. So when we're talking about feeling, in any moment of experience, with the experience, there's this mental state, that's either moving towards it attracted to what's going on, liking what's going on, wanting more of what's going on. Or there's a mental state of, oh, I don't like it.

I want to avoid it. This is bad. Geshe-la calls them a good feeling, a bad feeling, or a neutral feeling.

But the by the time you get the label, good, bad, do you see we're past, we've reacted to the feeling. But we have to use some word for us to recognize it. That's why he says it's more accurate to just say what we mean by thumbs up, and what we mean by thumbs down, and what we mean by thumbs neutral, right? But does that translate across cultures? Like, yes, no, right? Who cares, kind of.

But even by the time I get there, do you see, I've already reacted to it. This is a heap that we have, meaning many, many, many pieces of it, not pieces, but it's happening constantly, this mind feeling. They say even as our Buddha, me and Buddha paradise, there's still going to be a heap of feeling, but it won't be impure, ignorant feeling.

And so actually, it becomes us wisdom, one of the wisdoms, but it's still happening. I don't think Buddhas ever have a thumbs down or thumbs neutral. It's like, thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up.

And that's what we're going for. I mean, all minds, all conscious beings want thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up. And we all want to avoid any thumbs down.

And then technically, thumbs neutral isn't acceptable either. So I kind of argue that neutral is actually a version of thumbs down. But the idea here is that in the order of the heaps, form, feeling, discriminating, they say that the Buddha taught that order in the order of obviousness of the heap.

Form is clearly the most obvious heap. On one level, we believe my heap of form is this physical thing, and it ends at my body. As we explore our heap of form more deeply, we recognize, actually, no, any part of my physical outside world, it comes to be included in my heap of form.

It helps later. But then feeling is the second heap that's taught, which means it's second most obvious. And it's like, what? It seems to me that the second most obvious is the heap of all the other things that make me up.

You know, I'm flipping between wanting this, doing that, reacting to this. That seems like the second heap. But Buddha says no, this heap of feeling is really obvious.

So once we learn it, we see that maybe obvious isn't the right word, but it's definitely always present. Some reaction to every moment. And that reaction triggers what we do in the moment.

Because if it's thumbs up, we want more. If it's thumbs down, we want less. So it's a really important piece to come to recognize so that it helps us grow our ability to catch ourselves in our automatic habit reaction pattern.

So we're going to use this feeling, try to find and use what our mind is feeling at the moment as our object of meditation in order to explore our belief about that feeling state, to explore our expectation that it's going to last, that it's under my control, that it happens randomly or not, that my judgment about it is correct or not, that it's there versus I'm there, the 50-50 in order to reach the recognition that it is projections and nothing but. So first we have to find it and then we can explore it. So that's what we're going to do.

So last night's class with the preliminaries, this whole thing took an hour and 12 minutes. But you know, everybody sat there and they did really well. But it's me talking, right? I know that at some point your mind will go, will you shut up and let me do it? And sorry, no, because then it will take two hours.

So forgive me, you can do it in your own time later. All right, but got it, the idea of feeling. All right, so let's settle our minds in, settle your body first, get it parked and relaxed, but upright.

When you've got it parked, bring your mind to meditative concentration mode by turning your focus to your breath at your nostrils. Let's count 10, pulling in your focus, brightening up the clarity, turning on the intensity, the fascination. I'll drop the object breath and turn that focused mind to my words, following along and start by taking our refuge in emptiness.

The fact that there is nothing I cannot create by way of my behavior to others. And there is nothing that I experienced that is not the result of some past similar behavior. This mind has been aware of itself doing thinking saying, recognize how knowing that is a protection living by it is the protection.

What would our world be if every human knew that and lived by that. And then think of that person that you care about, who is suffering, understanding this source of protection. We see that their distress is the result of a big mistake, their own mistake for whatever caused what they are experiencing.

And my mistake for whatever caused the result of me seeing them in such distress. And so to see them in this pain motivates me to grow that wisdom to demonstrate that wisdom to do what I need to do to become one who can know exactly how to help that other in that deep and ultimate way we grow our bodhicitta that wish to bring about a world where all beings live in a way that perpetuates happiness for everyone. And so we turn our minds again to that precious holy being.

We know they know. We know they did what they needed to do purified and made merit to become the one who knows. And so feel your admiration for them, your aspiration to become like them, and then make them an offering, any kind of beautiful thing, and see them happy to receive it.

But what they like best is for us to hear ourselves telling them about some kindness we did because of something they taught us. And then we can also offer them our cleaning out our heart, our purification, tell them of some recent deed of thought, or speech, or word that planted seeds in our mind that when it ripens, we won't like it. Grow the regret.

Feel the need to avoid repeating that mistake. Make some pledge to do it in a way that you can actually achieve. And then offer an antidote, which can be this meditation, this class, so that know by the time we complete class, that seed has been damaged.

And as long as we uphold our power of restraint, it will not be reformed. And what a good thing is that. So rejoice in your past efforts in cleaning out your heart.

Rejoice in past kindnesses done, past learning, emptiness and karma. Rejoice in those who seem to understand it better than you do. And rejoice in those who have experienced emptiness directly to help grow all of our seeds to do it too.

And ask that precious being to please stay close to you, to continue to teach you, guide you, help you. Ask that you're able to recognize them teaching in the various aspects of our life experiences to help keep us on our path. And then dedicate just this preliminaries to becoming one that can help that other in that deep and ultimate way.

Then if you need to shift and wiggle, here's the time to do it. And then settle back in, bring your mind back to your breath. Let it become calm and smooth.

As our minds become calm and smooth. Now intentionally drop the object, the breath, to turn it to my words following along and identify this state of feeling. Start with what's obvious.

Maybe we're sleepy and tired. Maybe we're anxious to get finished with class on to other things. Maybe we're curious.

Find the state, that state, then look inside that state to find this feeling state. The mind's thumbs up or thumbs down or thumbs neutral. It's kind of hard to pin down, isn't it? So Geshe-la said, just pretend you have it clear.

My mind feeling thumbs up or my mind feeling thumbs down. Imagine what it's like to clearly be aware of that state and pick one to work with. I hope you pick thumbs up.

Now let's explore it as we are aware of the mind's feeling. Right now, find that we have some belief that that feeling our mind has has some lasting quality to it. I did say our minds are always feeling, but the feeling in this moment, if it's thumbs up, we expect it to stay thumbs up.

If it's thumbs down, we expect that it's going to stay thumbs down and see how that expectation triggers another state of mind. Thumbs up. I expect it to stay.

Things are shifting. It's not staying. Disappointment, anxiety, or thumbs down, egads, it's going to stay thumbs down.

There's nothing I can do. I'm doomed. Same wrong belief.

What I'm feeling now, I'm always going to feel. Now strip this away, this belief expectation that it's going to last. Recognize how this feeling is popping up, popping up, popping up.

Every next experience has a next feeling that comes with it. It's constantly shifting, shifting, shifting. Try to catch it happening, changing moment by moment.

Even when it's still thumbs up, it's different thumbs up. Now set that one aside. Go back to just the feeling.

What's the feeling now? Let's look at the second Gakcha, our belief in our ownership, our control. We believe, we even hope that we can control our feeling state, that we can make that feeling go one way or the other, as if we are in charge of our feeling. If we are in control of the feeling state of our mind, why would we ever feel anything unpleasant? There appears to be some kind of control, because if I say, think of something that gives you pleasure, to just think of the thing, brings a few instances of thumbs up.

It does seem like we could control, but we can't make it stay, so we are not in control. This belief that we are in control of the feeling is the misunderstanding. Those feelings are shifting, shifting, shifting as a result of something other than our conscious control.

Allow yourself to be aware of this feeling, feeling, feeling changing out of your control, able to witness it and explore it and not have to react to it. Now let's set that one aside, find the feeling that's there now, and see if you can find the sense that that feeling is happening to us. The experience that triggers the feeling is happening to me.

The me is separate from the feeling and the experience. It's happening to me, unrelated to my own action, allows us to be victims of our experiences, a victim of our mind feeling state. Recognize that mistaken view.

Can there be an experience before we personally experience it? Anything we experience has to have us and it there together. This worldview level recognizes that it's my seed ripening, my seeds ripening that bring that experience that triggers that feeling and me to experience it together, coming out of the same substance worldview. My karma ripening brings the experience that triggers the feeling and me having the feeling together.

Everything is happening exactly as it needs to, exactly as it should. I created this experience and the me to experience it that's bringing this feeling. I did create this feeling.

Now set that one aside and let's explore our judgment about the feeling. Just to say thumbs up means we're judging it as good. Thumbs down, judging it as unpleasant.

That judgment immediately triggers another judgment about ourselves having that feeling. That triggers another judgment about how we should act or react. We believe these judgments are true about the experience that triggered the feeling and the feeling itself and the me feeling the feeling.

Those judgments lead to I want it, I want to keep it, I will act to keep it or I don't want it, I want to stop it, I will act to stop it. Nothing wrong with that sequence. The mistake is to believe the conclusion of those judgments about what we will do to get more thumbs up and what we're willing to do to avoid more thumbs down.

We believe our judgment about the situation, about the feeling is correct because it's triggered from the feeling, from the situation. When we know that even we don't experience the same experience in the same way twice and so no one else can experience our experience like we do. So no one else can have the same judgment about an experience.

So our own judgments from moment to moment are just as mistaken, just as untrue as when we disagree with another person. This one's slippery. Find the feeling of your state of mind right now.

Maybe a little confused so it's wobbling between up and down. Mine is and I think oh I don't like that wobble. I must not be understanding there's something bad about the wobble.

All that judgment is not true about the wobble. To recognize the belief in the judgment as the Gakcha, as something that does not exist, the truth of the judgment, allows us to decide whether to follow that judgment or not. Allows us to use either pleasant or unpleasant situations in a different way, transforming problems into happiness this level.

It helps us slide into the next worldview which is the 50-50 school, which is the level where we do this transformation. Find your feeling again. Find the you aware of that feeling and find the you aware of the feeling that believes the feeling has its own existence independent of our participation.

The feeling is something there that I am experiencing and recognize the impossibility of that feeling object of our experience having some reality independent of our experience of it. Yes it suggests thumbs up but by the time it's thumbs up I have to have experienced it. 50-50.

It brings something. I bring something and together we have me experiencing my mind feeling that. If that's true, that it's there, we're there, together it makes the experience, then we should be able to have some influence on that experience.

It's changing, changing, changing. So we recognize it's experience right now. What's it feeling? Thumbs up, thumbs down, and let's see if we can change it.

Think of something that for you is extraordinarily beautiful and check the feeling state of your mind while you're thinking of that beauty. Think of another very, very pleasant thing and check the feeling state of the mind while you're thinking of that pleasant thing. Has it stayed pleasant? Has it stayed thumbs up? Has it increased? Is it more thumbs up than we were just doing watching the feeling? This level helps us recognize that we do have some influence, not total control, but influence.

And so if we want thumbs up mind, thumbs up mind, thumbs up mind, how do we do that? How do we create that situation of thumbs up mind, thumbs up mind, thumbs up mind? It depends on our response to any moment of our feeling, our choices of behavior, the ethical component of our behavior choices is the influence on our own mind that allows us to choose a different response to a given 50-50 experience. We use our influence, our 50% to respond differently than our automatic pilot. This conclusion helps us then recognize highest school.

Well, is there anything about the feeling that's not under my influence when I go looking for the 50% that the object brings? I find that at a more subtle level, I think there's 50-50 going on. And when I look more subtly, I find that there's always nothing but my influence, information receiving a label from which we interact with that labeled experience. High school, there is no base reality.

There is constant sensory information, thought information, that our seed ripening is shape-shifting into me and my experience. And my feeling is one aspect of that. How do those mental seeds get in there? It has to be an experience.

We experience me, other, interaction between, and our awareness of that experience is imprinted. That imprint grows. It reaches its threshold.

It manifests now coming back at us as an other doing to us what we had imprinted. Happening constantly. Each one, each instant, including a thumbs up or a thumbs down, as we were doing our activity and as we are experiencing our experience.

So if we want thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up, that can only occur as a ripening result of mental images planted with some thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up, actions of thought, word, deed, in which we are trying to bring some thumbs up to the other. What kinds of behavior? Our vows, outline, what to avoid to not plant thumbs down. And when we flip those around and do their opposite, it is what plants the thumbs up.

Our behavior choices is where we create our future feeling quality of mind. So find that feeling state right now and recognize that it is part of every seed ripening moment by moment by moment. Try to grasp this feeling, this sensation of the feeling ripening, ripening, ripening.

When it's a thumbs down feeling, we want to burn it off and not replant it. When it's a thumbs up feeling, we want to keep it so we know to share it. So bring to mind that precious fully lean there with you and share this, your thumbs up feeling with them.

Offer it as part of our dedication. We offer our goodness to this powerful karmic object and that deed replants powerful thumbs up seeds. And so thank them.

Ask them to please continue to help you learn, help you grow, help you love, and then set that all down. Come back to simple awareness of yourself here in your body in your room. When you're ready.

Open your eyes, take a stretch. And we'll take our break. Well done.

Okay. Thank you. Okay.

So let me ask you, can we, or can we not manipulate our mind in the present moment? So thinking of that beautiful thing, didn't uplift your mind? No, I did. It seems like we could recognize I'm having thumbs down. If I think of something beautiful, my mind will come thumbs up.

But have you ever been depressed or grieving or so upset? And somebody says, just think on the bright side, you know, and you want to haul off and hit them. Cause it's like, I am thinking on the bright side and my is just sinking, sinking, sinking. So when we think of something beautiful and our mind comes up, is it because we just thought of something beautiful that our mind came up? No.

Oh, so our mind don't come up by not thinking anything beautiful. Actually that happens sometimes, but I can't make that happen either. Oh, so my mind will come thumbs up.

When I think of something awful, people go to violent movies for entertainment, for pleasure, you know? And it's like, it's not, it's not how much of it, of the thumbs up or the thumbs down comes from the in the moment object of experience, right? That's the thing where we want to check our mind. When I say that, how much of the pleasure comes from the object of the experience? Are we a little bit? Most of it? None of it. Do you see how not to say none of it makes us go away? No, that can't be because then my experience doesn't matter at all.

And if that's true, then how come my mind's doing this seemingly in response to the experience. And that's like verbally, that's the catch. It seems like the object triggers, the feeling triggers, my judgment triggers, my behavior choice.

It seems like those are all individual things happening and I'm separate from them. They're happening to me. And then I react, push away unpleasant things, grab pleasant things.

Is there something wrong with that appearance? Only if I'm drunk or high or so sick. Otherwise it's valid. The experience is valid.

The reaction to the experience is probably also valid. We are experiencing it. But all along with it is the belief that those experiences have their own reality.

My me has my own reality. And then they bump up against each other. And it sounds like highest worldview goes, no, there's no reality at all.

And we go over the cliff of, well, then nothing matters. So in order to get to the, no, there's no reality at all. We tiptoe into it by using the words, there's no reality at all from their own side, which allows our mind to say, well, there's some reality, just not from its own side.

And that allows us to go, oh, then it's the reality from my side. Because we are experiencing, always experiencing, never not experiencing, even deep sleep, even anesthetized, even dead. Right? When your body's dead, your mind is still experiencing.

Bardo, experiencing. New birth, experiencing. Never not subject, object, interaction between happening.

Why is that true? That it can't ever not be happening. Because if we are aware now, this awareness has subject, object, interaction between happening. And just by it happening, it's influenced again.

So it can, there can never not be ripening happening. Is it ever the same two moments in a row? Can't be, can it? Because by the time it's ripened, we've experienced. And then we respond to the experience, even when we do nothing in response to an experience, that's a response to an experience.

We've replanted. So is there ever a moment when we are not in the process of creating our future experiences? Let me not even use future. Are we ever not in the process of creating what we will experience? No.

But are we in the moment creating the very next experience that we have? No. Because if we experience the result, like immediately after the seed plant, that would be like saying, you plant a tomato seed, you turn around and look, and you'll have a whole big plant with a bazillion tomatoes on it. The seed, the cause and the result can't happen at the same time.

Yeah, but what about the instant later? How come the seeds don't ripen and instantly? Yeah, the right, the seed plant and the seed result would be unchanged, almost unchanged, just an instant unchanged. But think about it. If it were true that we do a deed in this moment, and we get the result in the next moment.

And we stepped on a cockroach, we crushed the bug. And the next instant, Godzilla crushes us. And it's like, how many bugs would we crush? If we got the result immediately, a big zero, because we would watch somebody else crush a bug, get crushed.

Whoa, I will not do that. But it doesn't work like that. Not because some, you know, God being says, I, you know, let's not make it work like that.

Let's torture them a little bit and make it get all drawn out. It's not that it's that the right, the way our shape shift can happen is that it takes influencing the seeds with other seeds for them to get over that threshold into manifestation. Exactly why I don't know, has something to do with the extent of our ignorance.

And as our ignorance gets less and less, meaning our wisdom about seed planting, and all the different factors that go into the power of the seed, so that we're making them more powerfully, we're purifying the negative seeds, meaning we're doing something to decrease the strength of negative seeds that have been growing. And we're intentionally doing stuff to plant our new seeds with power, our new good seeds, theoretically with power, and adding to our old good seeds with those new good seeds, then we can actually reach the place where the time gap between what we plant and are experiencing the result of those seeds is lessening. And that's the power or promise of diamond way practice is that it adds this tool for planting our seeds so powerfully that they ripen more quickly.

But it doesn't happen just by taking on an empowerment. If we haven't done our purification and positive seed planting, then doing whatever it is that diamond way does that speeds everything up. If we've got crap seeds in there, the diamond way is going to speed up the ripening of the crap seeds too.

Sorry. So, you know, purify, purify, purify. It sounds, you know, very, I don't know, judgmental and controlling, but it's like our, it's our tool for cleaning up the negative seeds negate from the positive seeds, right? Now the positive seeds negate the negative seeds too.

It's kind of like, you know, how, nevermind, like sound canceling earphones, seeds kind of work like that. The analogy isn't perfect, but all the, all our deed seeds are influencing all the other ones that are in there. Similar ones, strengthen each other opposite ones, negate a bit, negate the negative.

I don't know if they negate the positive. That's why my analogy fails. But the idea is, why did I go here? The, if our effort in manipulating our minds feeling works, that's seeds ripening from somehow helping somebody else do something in the moment to help them feel better in the moment.

We can try, and maybe what they do to help themselves feel better works, and maybe it doesn't. But if we try to contribute to them doing something to help them feel better, we've planted the seeds for trying. That's all we can ever do is try because we can't reach into somebody's seeds and change them.

We can only plant our new seeds, which is planted by way of what we think, do and say towards the other. So all those others in our experience, they're the fertile soil they call, right? Where we create future experiences that always include other also. Now the other isn't always like a human other or an animal other.

It can be a pen other or our car other. Our other experience can even be me thinking about my hand and why does my joint still hurt, right? My experience of other is the object of the experience, even when it's a part of me, do you see? So always subject, object, interaction, ripening, and our response back plants the new seeds. So highest worldview is the one that says because there is no identity or even quality of the object of our experience or the interaction between, that's not a ripening result of some way we responded to previous object, subject, me and interaction between.

That means there's nothing that my current behavior isn't creating, which means how I interact with what I perceive as other is where our responsibility is, where our power lies, where we are the creators of our world. And that means our choice of behaviors in response to our experience is where we do our planting, our gardening. If it seems like what I do in the moment brings me what I did it for in the next moment, that's a goodness ripening result in when we've helped somebody and what we did to help they saw help them.

It really wasn't up to us. We simply tried and planted the seeds. So when what we do in the face of a situation doesn't bring the next result, our misunderstanding says, Oh, that's bad.

I'll do something else to get what I want. And when it works, we take it for granted, see it work. And both are mistaken because when what we do in the moment does bring what we wanted next and we let it be, okay, of course, we've just perpetuated our mistaken view, our ignorance.

And then that means when we do something and we get a negative result, we will believe that the negative result happened. And we misunderstand that. And for some reason, it takes us a long time before we figure out, wait, there's something wrong with this picture.

If sometimes I can do something and get what I want, but sometimes I can do something and not get what I want, then what I'm doing in the moment is not bringing about what happens next. Is it like, theoretically, we should be able to figure that out by ourselves. Fortunately, right? We met a teacher, somebody who said, look, this thing, it's a pen for me, but not for the dog.

What does that tell you? But the fact that that had impact on any of that, did it have anything to do with hearing the explanation of the pen? Actually not. Isn't that fun? Like worldview six is so much fun because we just keep finding these absurdities in what we believe. And as long as we're amused by absurdities, which I am, you know, we can laugh at ourselves and go, oh my gosh, you know, how did I mistake that for 2 trillion years? But now we're onto it.

And we even have this sequence that Geshe-la taught that we can go backwards. What is it that I believe? How much of that angry yelling boss experience do I believe is coming from them? All right. I'm bringing some to the party, but no, no, it's totally them.

Why do I believe that? Because everybody sees them as a bad boss. Hey, what about his dog? His dog? Like, yeah, dad's home. Dad's home.

Dad's home. He's not a bad boss to the dog for the dog. And my mind goes, yeah, well, he's just a dog.

But instead of going, wait, what's wrong with my view? How come I don't see him like the dog sees him? Maybe if I try to see him that way, maybe I could interact with my boss better. And maybe, you know, I'd have a more pleasant time at work. Would it work? Maybe, maybe not.

Do you see? But we have to understand or when we understand highest worldview, when I say maybe, maybe not, we go, wow, cool. Whereas without highest worldview, we go, maybe, maybe not. And we go, well, then what's the use of doing anything? If maybe it's going to work and maybe not.

All right. So our conclusions of these arguments are based on our own karmic goodness ripening, that we understand the point, like even before the point is made, because the point being made is coming from you. Our own past deeds.

Well, then that means I know it all already. All right. You know, we do on some level, but if I can still get critical, you know, David, which I do, I'm not living according to what I know, right? Because at that moment, I don't know it.

So can you know something one moment and not know it the next? Technically, yes. Whatever's ripening the seed. Once we're Arya, can we ever not know? No.

But do we always experience things? No, not until our heart level. I experienced things coming from me in case it's recorded and not videoed, because I just did this. So Keshla talked about this thing called an act of truth.

And this idea or this sense that when we are actively trying to live by worldview six, it's like swimming upstream amongst our people, even amongst our own mind, because we'll find ourselves needing to make behavior choices that are so different than what everybody experiences. And so the example that he used is that suppose like we're in a sales job, and our supervisor says, you know, our sales numbers are down. So when you go to sell, you know, this hat, tell the client that this hat is a super special hat.

And although we usually sell it for $500, this one has this additional factor that we're selling it for $1,000 when it's really worth $1,500. So you're getting this great deal for $1,000. Even though we both know, if we get $500 for it, that'll cover the profit that we need to cover our employees.

And because it's our job, and we need to keep our job, maybe we say, well, the boss is telling me to do that. I'm going to do what the boss says. We go and tell the client, you know, here's a $1,500 hat that I can sell for you.

For $1,000, you're getting a great deal. And the client says, okay, and gives me $1,000 for the hat. And I go back to the boss and say, here, you know, you've got your original 500.

And we've got the extra 500. And the boss says, great job. Now let's go do it again.

And suppose I do it again. And I do it again. And then I'm at some meeting.

I don't know, I'm on the PTA board, parent, teacher board, you know, and they're having a problem at the school. And I have this idea that seems like so clear how to solve the problem. And I say, you know, yeah, let's do this, this and this.

And the conversation just goes by as if I've not said anything. And it's like peculiar. And then a few weeks later, the board's meeting again, and somebody says, I have an idea, let's do this, this or this.

And everybody goes, great idea, let's do it. And you're thinking, wait, that's what I said. And nobody remembers.

It's like, what's wrong here? What is wrong? What's the connection between those two stories? So let's go back and unravel it. Did I get the extra $500 for the business because of the lie? But if I, like if I had said that this that price on this hat is $500, would the client have handed me 1000? No. So I told the lie and I got the extra money.

The how I got the extra money was telling the lie, selling the hat by telling the lie. But is that why I got the extra money? No, it can't be. But why can't it be? Is getting the extra money a thumbs up event? I think so.

Is being lied to a thumbs up event? No. Do you see why the two are not related? You can't get a good result from a negative deed. But wait, highest worldview says telling the lie is not what brought the extra money.

Right. Because telling a lie is going to bring to me number one being lied to and number two, not being listened to, not being heard, not being valued, not being trusted. Well, then why did the guy believe me when I said I've got this great deal for you? That's right.

A ripening result from having been trustworthy and truthful. So the customer believed me, bought the hat. I'm happy telling a lie to get the good result.

And I've just planted seeds in my mind to lessen someone's trust of me. So what's going to happen if I keep that up even in this lifetime in this job? Very likely it's going to happen that all of a sudden the client says, no, I'm not going to pay you a thousand dollars for that hat. It's barely worth 500.

I'm going someplace else. I'm going to start being mistrusted and not believe. And then I'm trying to sell the hat at a hundred dollars, which is our cost.

And I still can't get anybody to buy it because they don't believe me that it's worth a hundred dollars. When we have lying seeds ripening, we're not believed even when we're telling the truth. So do we stop telling the truth? Hopefully not, but probably so in worldly terms, because if you keep telling the truth and getting a bad result, ignorance is going to say, see, telling the truth gives a bad result.

So it's like our misunderstanding rears its ugly head in all kinds of situations, even when we're just trying to be plain old happy, moral humans, let alone seed planting morality. We justify so many of our behaviors by, this is what society does. This is what I was taught, right? This is what everybody does.

So then suppose you decide, I can't do that anymore. Now I know the pen thing. And the boss says, go sell the hat for a thousand dollars.

And you go, I'm so sorry. I cannot do that. That's only going to bring a bad result.

I can't. What do you think the boss is going to do? You're fired and you go home. Honey, I got fired today.

Why? Because I refuse to lie to sell the hat. What do we think honey's going to say? I know maybe they go, what are you nuts? Why didn't you just play along to keep your job? We need you. But maybe she's going to say he or she is going to say, wow, I'm so proud of you.

That took courage. Yes, we're, we're in trouble now, but it was worth it. What's going to determine the response of the honey? I just got fired.

Yeah. Our past behavior. When we had some similar kind of situation.

What if, could it be that we say to the boss, I'm so sorry, but I understand this thing about the pen. And if we keep lying about the value, our company's going to stop being trusted and it's just going to get destroyed. No.

And I'll, I'll, I can teach you this pen thing about it. If you're, if you're interested and maybe the boss goes, and if we keep doing that, refusing ethically, refusing cashless says you do that as an act of truth. Meaning because I understand emptiness and karma meaning because I understand I'm planting seeds that will be the future.

I refuse to do anything that will plant a seed that will come back in a negative way for myself or anybody else to the best of my ability. And so, as I'm saying to the boss, I'm so sorry, I cannot do that. I have in, in the back of my mind, maybe not so back.

I'm standing up for this level of morality to help the boss, to help the company, to help me, to help the whole world. Because I understand I'm planting a powerful seed here with high intention. For the result of an honest, trustworthy, a state of humanity, reality.

And I'm willing to take whatever comes. Cashless says do that with that high intention for some period of time. And you'll be surprised to find yourself promoted to vice president of the company.

Or, you know, offered a job in another company that's no longer salesperson but management. He said the planting of a virtue with that high intention in the face of being willing to swim upstream. Buck everybody's expectation, including our own.

It's so powerfully planted that it's like a earthquake shifts our reality. And seeds start ripening differently. So acts of truth are interesting.

We plan them out. And then when we carry them out, we do it with this high level of knowing why and willingness to take what comes next, no matter what, because we know they're not related. That's the hard part.

If we go to the boss, I can't lie for you anymore. And they fire us and we're offended. It's like, if we go to the boss and we get fired, we go, the two are not related.

I'll take this situation and I'll make something good out of it. 50-50. Bad situations happen.

But I can respond differently. You know, and maybe you go home and the spouse says, great, we've been ready to start our own business. Let's do it now.

You know, great time to move to Diamond Mountain. When David had the angry yelling boss and quit, you know, it's like, well, OK, let's go. The.

Our seed planting is our power is the point. And we we dabble with that, recognizing the lower misunderstandings and letting them go. But until we get to that, there's nothing that can have a nature other than what my seeds are ripening it to have.

When we reach that, then we are very clearly at the level where we can recognize where we plant our seeds. Planting our seeds is the crucial point, more important than the reaction or that thing that comes next. Plant, plant, plant, plant.

Easier said than done. Because our automatic pilot is to react, react, react. Planting is conscious response.

What kinds of behaviors? That's why we have our vows and our ten virtues, non-virtues as guidelines. Right. The beings who have already been here, done this.

They are perceiving directly this direct cause of happening. If they could explain it all to us, they would. But our seeds are too puny.

So they give us this list of guidelines. It sounds at first like you have to do this if you are a Buddhist, but it's not that at all. It's you want to make your job easier? Here, try this.

And when we look at our vows, mostly they're written, I will avoid such and such. So it's telling us how to avoid planting seeds that perpetuate samsara. But it's one thing to avoid and it's another thing to do the virtue.

We don't get a vow to do the virtue because it's almost impossible to always do that. But we can avoid them much more effectively, avoid the negative much more effectively. But when we take our written vows, I will avoid such and such.

And you flip them around and say, well, what would it be like to do the opposite of what I'm avoiding? So I will avoid praising myself and criticizing others. The opposite of that is praising others. Right.

And criticizing myself. Wait a minute. We're all very good at that already.

But the praising others, we're not so good at. So maybe to be sure that I keep my first Bodhisattva root vow, I will train myself in this habit of praising others. Now the vow is more specific, you know, but we can, we can look at our vows and get some idea of what they're opposite positive behavior is and design ourselves, design yourself going through your day, doing the positives of the vows, which means you're keeping the vow because if you're doing the positive, you're not doing the negative.

And you can design your future you by using your vows, which are so beautiful because they're designed to develop prosperity, to develop health and long life, to develop trustful partnerships, to develop a calm, peaceful, concentrated mind, and to develop becoming the one that stands on the billion planets. They're built in, those results are built in. So we don't have to figure out how do I go to, what is it about the boss telling me to sell the hat for a thousand dollars? What's wrong with that? What would the opposite behavior be? Right.

Look at your vows and recognize, look at those 10 non-virtues. That's enough to just to train ourselves in the 10 virtues is what it is to keep our vows. So the system is designed for our success.

It's so extraordinary. And the better we understand it, the more likely we'll choose to follow it. You know, our minds are like teenagers.

Don't just tell me not to do it. Tell me why not to do it. Then I'll decide whether I'm not going to do it and then I'll do what you want.

But you just tell me, be home by 10. Teenager is going to go, yeah, right, mom, until you give me a good reason. Yeah, we're the same.

Give me a good reason to not lie, to keep my job, to get the extra money. So somebody says, well, then Geshe-la, if your karmic seeds ripen to get that extra $500 and you didn't lie, you didn't even go to work that day. Does that mean you're going to get an extra $500? You know? And he said, probably yes, something would happen.

Interesting. Because getting the extra money came from past generosity. And when generosity ripens, abundance happens.

We can't help it. Yeah. Okay.

We have two more classes because there's just so much more to explore. So I'm going to use the time. I know we're all a little bit stressed, but going into what's coming next for some of us with a better grasp of higher world view is going to be helpful.

So let's spend the time digging in. And even without what's coming next, spending the time to dig into highest world view is always worth it. And let's do it.

Okay. So remember that being that we wanted to be able to help what we did in our exploration in the meditation, what we've done, listening to these ideas has set into motion the end of their suffering someday. And that's a great, great goodness.

So please be pleased with yourself. And think of this goodness, like a beautiful glowing gemstone that we can hold in our hands. Recall your own personal holy being.

See how happy they are with you. Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon them. Ask them to please, please stay close to continue to guide us, help us inspire us, and then offer them this gemstone of goodness.

See them accepted and blessed. And they carry it with them right back into our hearts. See them there, feel them there, their love, their compassion, their wisdom.

It feels so good. We want to keep it forever. And so we know to share it by the power of the goodness that we've just done.

May all beings complete the collection of merit and wisdom, and thus gain the two ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom make. So use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one person, to share it with everyone we love, to share it with every existing being everywhere. See them all filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom.

And may it be so. Okay. Thank you for working so hard on this.

Thank you, Roxanna, for making it available to a wider audience. Thank you, for making it available later to a wider audience. I will see you.

What day is this Friday? I will see you Monday morning. All right. I love you.

Bye bye. Have a great weekend. Thank you.

Love you. Bye bye.

Six Flavors, it's September 28th, 2026, where I am. Let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.

Now bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom. And see them there with you just by way of our thinking of them. They are gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy great compassion.

Their wisdom radiates from them, that beautiful golden glow encompassing you in its light. And then we hear them say, bring to mind someone you know who's hurting in some way. Feel how much you would like to be able to help them.

Recognize how the worldly ways we try to help fall short, how wonderful it will be when we can also help them in some deep and ultimate way, a way through which they will go on to stop their distress forever. Deep down, we know this is possible. Learning about emptiness and dependent origination, we glimpse how it's possible.

And so I invite you to grow that wish into a longing and that longing into an intention. And with this intention strong, we turn our minds back to our precious holy being. We know that they know what we need to know.

What we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet, to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. And so we ask them, please, please, please teach me that. Show me that.

Help me become that. And they are so happy that we've asked. Of course, they agree.

Our gratitude arises. We want to offer them something exquisite. And so we think of the pure world they are teaching us how to create.

We imagine we can hold it in our hands and we offer it to them, following it with our promise to practice what they teach us, using our refuge prayer to make our promise. Here is the great earth, filled with fragrant incense and covered with the blanket of flowers. The great mountain, four lands, wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon.

In my mind, I make this the paradise about Bhutan and offer it all to you. By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world. I go for refuge until I am enlightened.

To the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community. To the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest. May we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened. To the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community. To the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest.

May we realize Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. I go for refuge until I am enlightened. To the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community.

To the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest. May all beings totally awaken for the benefit of every single other being. So let's review a bit.

And then we'll do that exploration of our mind feeling state again. Going through the different levels of our beliefs about how things exist in our relationship with them that move us through to that highest world view when we continue to diligently plug away at this system. And when we're getting a glimpse of worldview six, we're understanding more and more clearly that there's just no part of any present moment experience that is anything but the ripening results of our own past interaction with what we perceive as the other.

And that means that every moment of experience is the place in which we are creating the causes for our future experiences, which means how we respond is where we create. And yet most of the time we don't respond, we react. And we're creating with that reaction, which means we're recreating things in the same old way.

So we know that phrase. If we keep doing the things that we are doing, we will keep getting the things that we are getting. And then we wonder, oh, why is this happening to me? And we just keep perpetuating the pattern.

So as we become more and more able to be, have this level of mindfulness that allows us to recognize the extent to which we are blaming the other for our experience is the extent to which we have sufficient mindfulness to say, I will respond to this in this way instead of that way. In our effort to bring about a shift, and maybe our new choice of response isn't exactly yet the one that will create Buddha paradise, but we've gotten off automatic pilot. And that's a huge, huge step forward to find, to show ourselves that we have an experience.

We've already had our reaction to the experience. But then we have this window of opportunity to choose how to act from our reaction to the experience. And slowly, slowly, even the reaction to our experiences starts to become more, we become more aware of that reaction and can either burn it off or replant it so that we can create ourselves such that our reaction is a reaction born of wisdom.

Wisdom is not something that we can just decide to turn on. It's something that also needs to be planted and then ripens someday. And that's the rub, isn't it? It's like, yes, I plant my seeds now.

And something happens in the next moment. And we can't help but associate those two. We believe what I do in the moment brings what comes next.

And it's so hard to get off that automatic pilot because one part of us thinks, well, if what I do in the moment doesn't bring what comes next, what's the use of doing anything in the moment? Which is silly. We have to do something. Or we say, if what I do in the moment over and over and over again, I'm teaching myself this new behavior and I do the new behavior, but I get the same old result.

Like, what's up with this picture, Buddha? You said be nice and good things will happen to me. But the nicer I am, the worse it gets. It can seem like that.

So our task is to convince ourselves that what we do in the moment is not actually the cause of what happens in the next moment. And we can get glimpses of that through logic. We can pretend we can see it in our meditation because in our imagination there's nothing we can't do.

So this tradition teaches, use your meditation time to imagine being able to do the things that you don't think you can do outside of your imagination. And we're still planting seeds in our imagination. And the more complete our imagination is in terms of experience, in terms of all the senses involved, the more complete is the seed.

So seeds from a really good imagining can ripen as an experience that we say is real versus imagined. Versus imaginary seeds planting results of even better imagination. Do you see the difference? There really isn't a difference between imagination and real.

They are all blank, ripening and plantings. So then the danger of that is we go off cushion time, being in our imagination as we're going out amongst what's ripening as my real world. And oh my gosh, right? That could land us in an evaluation for our mental health.

So this whole practice is a slippery kind of thing, really. It can be a fine line between reality and I don't know what you call the not reality of schizophrenia. But maybe people with schizophrenia don't have a disease.

They have an insight. I don't know. I don't have experience with that.

So there's this thing called Tsin Tsang. It means holding the line. And it refers to the extent to which we can hold the line on our highest worldview as we go through our day-to-day experiences of ordinary human life.

And it means holding this understanding that there's nothing I can experience that's not ripening results of my past deeds, no matter what's happening, in order to motivate ourselves to choose our behavior to be seeds that we want to imprint so that whenever they give their result, it will be a result that we like. So on one level, we would go, oh, I will use worldview six to create my own life better. I can make myself wealthy.

I can make myself healthy. I can make myself have a perfect partner. When we are attracted to the Mahayana, there's something in our hearts that leapt when we heard, you know, you can become one who can help everyone become happy.

And I don't know about you, but it's like I reached that in stages. And then once I heard it said that that's like what we're meant to be, it's like, wow, man, I want that. I didn't even quite know what it was yet.

So then when I'm saying to myself, I'm planting the seeds for the future I want, what I mean by the future I want is this future in which everyone has this abundance. Everyone has this safety. Everyone has this calm, able to cope with things demeanor, right? I am still using the word I want, but what I mean is so much bigger.

And I in that statement is just a vessel for bringing that about. If there is anything about any experience I have, that's not ripening results of my own behavior. It means there's something in my world of existence that I cannot change because the only way I change anything is through my seed planting.

So if there are things that have their own natures and I plant my seeds towards them in such a way that it changes me, but doesn't bring about a different object, then if I'm perceiving that object as part of a suffering world, I can never not perceive that object as part of a suffering world and I'm stuck. So it has to be the fact that there is nothing that's not my seeds ripening. And you see why we need to use that double negative in order to get the more accurate connotation.

So this holding the line means in those circumstances of life that are challenging, can I hold the line on my understanding that everything about this circumstance is my seeds ripening and all those things and people I'm wanting to blame for it. My judgment about that, blaming them is incorrect. It's a mistake.

And if I go on blaming, I will behave differently towards them than when I understand now it's my past behavior making this. They are there. They are doing what I'm experiencing them doing.

But that is my experience coming from me. And as I'm even hearing myself explain that, I'm feeling the extent to which my mind is still saying, yes, but they're out there. Yes, but they have some nature of their own.

Yes. It's really saying your experience is your experience, but they're there. Our lower world views are so strong in our beliefs that even when intellectually we understand, those are all mistaken.

They still happen. They still ripen out of our seeds because the seeds I'm experiencing ripening now and now and now. We're all planted with those beliefs, including the belief that that belief was correct.

So outcomes, outcomes, they are doing that to me and I believe it. Whereas I could have the seeds outcomes. They are doing that to me.

Right. I would not believe it. Which would be our level for the not believe it to be ripening with it.

But leading up to our level, we can use our growing level of mindfulness to recognize. Yeah, I'm believing that's happening to me. They are there doing that to me.

But I'm going to remind myself, no. It's my seeds, my seeds bringing me and them together. My seeds coloring my opinion about it.

My seeds, their seeds, 50 50. All the way up to know nothing but my seeds. Without falling off the cliff of all then they're not real at all.

Just my projection. As opposed to, oh, wow, nothing but my seed. So how I respond plants, my future.

We're trying to learn that sequence and then hold the line when it gets hard. So what kind of situations do we encounter where it is hard to hold the line? Meaning recognize that we're blaming and reacting. When we have this opportunity to recognize seeds, ripening opportunity, a plant new plant different.

You know, for me, it's when I I'm in a rush. And then it seems like when I'm in a rush, things get in the way. And maybe if I didn't have the perception being in a rush, those very things that pop up that I'm calling getting in the way would be interesting things to do or explore.

But because I'm in a rush, I have my own agenda. They show up. I get out of my way.

I have something else I'm doing. I react on this automatic pilot. What I'm doing that I'm in a rush about is more important than what this other thing is, whether it's another person or, you know, just an event that happened.

Another time for me, that's really hard to hold the line is when I just have too much to do. I have this self-imposed deadline and have to get all these things done. And then somebody has some other need, right? When when I don't feel well and somebody's needing something from me.

Right. We find our own situations when our kindness gets challenged. And then that's those would be the situations that we would explore in our question time or our contemplation time.

And we can put ourselves in those situations and have somebody show up that triggers these buttons and explore why, you know, why does this upset me? Why does this event trigger my blaming them? And why am I so tenaciously holding to the belief that it's correct? To, you know, to snap at them or criticize them or push them away or even just roll my eyes. You know, you're interrupting me again. Yes, I'll take care of it.

But with resentment, the other person or other other in the scenario, whatever we're working with, we think they know what we're thinking. We think they know we're preoccupied. We think they're intentionally interfering.

We have all these weird judgments that then this tidal wave of is a building. And at every aspect of that, we have this opportunity to go. Oh, no, my seeds are opening.

But how do I want to respond? And this is what we mean by hold the line. When we're working to hold the line, then our struggle in our day to day life isn't with the other beings or the other things. The struggle is with our worldview and it's a shift in perspective.

Like, who am I blaming right now? Who am I holding responsible right now? We want this reason for our distress or this reason for our experiences that are not my responsibility. Like, who wants to take responsibility for everything? That's too big. Everything? Everything? No, I can't do that.

And yet, if there's anything left out of what we have created, it means there's something left out of what we can create. And that means we cannot create this thing called a Buddha paradise. What we mean by a Buddha paradise, which is any kind of place that's exquisite, experience that's exquisite, that is reacted and responded to that perpetuates its exquisiteness.

Which would include every other in that experience. So it's a whole different thing to say, what's your Buddha paradise going to be like? And then recognize that whatever we can imagine as humans is puny compared to how extraordinary your Buddha you in Buddha paradise is going to be. Words give me the wrong connotation, right? Think of Shakyamuni Buddha in this beautiful palace surrounded by amazing people and everybody's sharing peaches and music.

And it's like, no, that's just so limited. Anyway, our task is to struggle with our worldview, not with other people. Like just when I hear myself say that, it's like, man, how refreshing to just not struggle with anybody else.

That the struggle is all internal to hold my seeds ripening. So what do I want to plant? What should I plant? It shifts our, it shifts our perspective. So Geshe-la said, look, we've got nothing to lose.

We can try on this worldview six behavior, even before we've experienced it directly. Refusing to respond in the same old ways and trying to always choose a kindness, trying to always follow our vowed behavior in what we avoid. And so using our vows as guidelines for what to do.

It's a difference between avoiding yelling back and saying something kind. So Geshe-la says, we could decide. I'm not sure I believe all this.

So I'm going to, for the next six months, work really, really, really, really hard to track my behavior. Be more clearly aware of my reactions and my responses. I'm going to make this effort to change the seeds that I plant.

And at the end of the six months, I'm going to look and evaluate. What's my experience been? What is my experience like now? He says, look, if you honestly try and you don't see any improvement in life. The worst that's going to happen is that we will age and or get sick and die.

And he says, guess what? That's happening already. So nothing to lose by trying to change our behavior according to highest worldview. He says, if we do, he suggests that we will have experiences that are surprising.

And that then if we keep it up, we have experiences that are amazing. And then if we keep it up, we'll go on to have experiences that seem impossible. Like miracles are.

That's impossible. Physics can't allow someone to walk on water. But you know what? I just saw somebody do it.

I've never seen somebody walk on water, but I'm using that as an example for experiencing the impossible. And at first, these shifts, these surprising, amazing. Impossibles that pop up, it's just, you know, here's one over here and then back to what seems like ordinary.

And then there's another and little by little, we start seeing more and more. Of these. You can call them angel signs, you can call them being guided.

You can call them receiving answers to our prayers. Is it that through our seed planting, finally, something has shifted in the world that things are better? It's like, no, our seeds have shifted. And so we're perceiving things differently.

We're projecting things differently. And so experiencing things differently. There is nothing we cannot create by way of our interaction with others now.

There's just that time gap. I have an alarm going. You probably can't hear it.

But I need to take a time out and go shut it off. Please excuse me. Thank you.

So I hope we're getting the idea that the extent to which we believe that the other of our experience has some reality of its own. Shows us the level, our level of worldview that we're holding to that we're believing in. And we don't even start looking at how much reality does the object have until we get to level five.

But from our belief that the object has its own reality, its own identity, its own qualities, bless you, bless you, bless you. We believe that the thing lasts. It has permanence.

If it's a pen from its own side, it's a pen, it's a pen, it's a pen. It's this pen, this pen, this pen. And then just at the beginning level, we can recognize, well, come on, of course, someday it's going to be destroyed or someday I won't be able to find it or someday.

And when that's true for everything that we experience, our clinging and expectation to things staying the same and being where I left it and always having access to it, you know, we get easier. Just it's an adult, right, to recognize things don't have the permanence we expect. So we don't have to be so distraught when we lose things or they break.

And then the same is true for our people. And then it's a little harder to be less distraught about when they leave or when they die. But we recognize, you know, that's life, that that happens.

But then as we get more sophisticated, we can see that these nuances of our belief in permanence to sooner or later come to see that there's nothing permanent about this object at all. And physics tells us that, right? Ultimately, there's more space between the atoms than there are atoms in this object. So, you know, it's helpful, but it doesn't really impact our behavior other than our level of distress when things change.

Then the second level also doesn't so much look at a thing's reality. Second level is that thing that I thought was so lasting, that was mine, that I can control. I guess I can't control it if it's changing, changing, changing.

And when we think of it that way, it's like, all right, I can't control things. But we land in a situation where we need to be in control and we flop right back into, I understand that intellectually, but practically speaking, I need to be in charge here and I need to make these things happen. It's coming up soon, isn't it, Laura? What kinds of things do you need to make happen? So, understanding that the appearance of control is a good thing.

It can only be a ripening of some way in which we helped others having to do with something about being able to manage stuff effectively. But there's a fine line between managing things effectively and being in control, right? We all know she's so controlling, right? It's a negative thing. But then if we were to say, oh, that person doesn't control anything, not even their actions or their speech or their behavior, that's a bad thing.

So we're not talking about control as good or bad. We're talking about simply our expectation of control, which when we explore it deeper and deeper, includes that expectation that what I do in the moment brings what comes next. Put the key in the car, turn it, I expect the car to start.

That is a level of what we think is control. When it works, we blame the key in the car and we say, yep, see, I have control. And then when it doesn't work, if we never expect it to work, we'd go, wow, my seeds are ripening, wow, my seeds are ripening.

Then what's the third one? If things have their own reality, it means they happen to me out of my control. Changing, changing, changing. It means they're random.

It means accidents happen. Not meaning now and then, meaning everything we experience. It's just right random.

It's like we don't believe that. There are just some things that are random. Some things that are accidents and everything else we think it goes along in a predictable pattern somehow.

If that is our experience, not only if, it is our experience. And if that's a pleasant thing, if it's a helpful thing for us to not be having random things happen all the time, but we're operating by patterns that are predictable apparently and usable, that's a ripening result in ways in which we have been consistent and useful and helpful for others. Life could be totally random.

That would be weird. We're sitting in this class and in the next instant, I don't know, we're at the grocery store. And in the next instant, you're at the beach.

In the next instant, it's like there would be no consistency. So the consistent that we see, that we experienced is coming out of our seeds too, from having been consistent for others in the past. So no random, the way, what they say, explore our belief that things are happening to me outside of my impact.

I didn't cause that drunk driver to run into my car. I didn't cause, right, whatever our event is. And yet, right, we're experiencing that event in a way unique to us.

So even in the car accident scenario, there is another person, they got in a car accident too. And there's me and my version of the car accident. And we think it's the same car accident and that we both are experiencing it the same way.

But that's not possible, is it? You know, and even the legal system understands. This person saw it from over here, and this person saw it from over there. And they describe it, and if you just read the descriptions, you wouldn't know it was the same accident.

Because it's from a different perspective, we say. But technically, it's because it's from a different being whose seeds are ripening it that way. So this worldview is my seeds ripen and the driver in that car and me here to be hit, boom, it happens.

But we're still saying there is the driver in that car making that mistake. It's just that I had to bring both those and me together with my seeds. They had to bring me and them together with their seeds.

So it's this doorway to recognizing there isn't anything that's not my seeds, without having to go so far as saying there isn't anything that's not my seeds. There's nothing I can experience that's not my seeds. So when we're still clinging, other things and me need to have our own realities in order to interact.

We are at that mind only school level. We are still saying there's nothing I can experience that's outside of my karma ripening. But we are not saying that objects of my experience don't have their own.

I don't know what word to use, some reality of their own. Then the next level then was, well, those things that have some reality of their own, not exactly sure what it is completely, I have an opinion about them. And my opinion about them must be correct.

Why doesn't everybody agree with my opinion? Because the object is the same for everyone. Intellectually, we know no object is the same for everyone. But when we react, we think the objects are the same for everyone.

Or we have this expectation that they should be the same for everyone. Which means everybody should agree that Chinese food is the better choice than that other restaurant. And of course, it's silly to say that.

And yet we hold to our opinions so strongly, our judgments of things. Does that mean don't bother having an opinion? No, not at all. Have opinions, have judgment and recognize that they are unique to us.

And it's something we can offer as opposed to demand or cling to, such that it hurts our feelings when somebody disagrees with us. Level four, then we get to level five, where if we are willing to explore this idea that the object of our experience has its own reality, and our power lies in what seeds are ripening. But what that means is we can change our experiences of the objects, but we can't change the objects.

And it's like, well, isn't that enough? Suppose there's two apples, and one apple is a really beautiful, ripe, complete apple, and the other apple is already rotting and icky. And we look at the two apples and go, I'd like to eat this one and that one I'll put in the compost. And then someone else comes along and says, you know, no, there's nothing wrong with that apple.

Just slice this other piece away. Don't waste the whole apple. And it's like, what are you nuts? Throw the whole thing away.

And we fight about it because we're so sure, right, that one apple is a good apple and the other apple is a bad apple. And even when we recognize, okay, we have different opinions about what to do with a bad apple, but still there's a good apple and a bad apple there. And we all agree with that.

And so we perpetuate our belief. But then that means that suppose every apple we ever encounter has an icky spot in it. We can say, okay, I understand the apple with the icky spot.

I don't have to react badly to it. I can cut out the icky spot and enjoy the rest of the apple. That's okay.

That won't upset me. But there's still apples with icky spots. Whereas highest worldview says, no, if there's apple with icky spot still left in it from it, even a teeny bit, there's something that will be left with the icky spot, even in my Buddhapada, which means it's not Buddhapada.

If there's anything that we believe has a nature independent of our seeds ripening, that means there's something in our experience we cannot change. We cannot make pure, like all these words give the wrong connotation because they're so judgmental, right? Pure versus impure, good versus bad. And yet what we're working to create is this world of constantly perpetuating happy happening constantly.

Language is so difficult to describe what we're trying to do because we're trying to get into this space of it's ripening, ripening, ripening, ripening. And at highest level, there's no base reality thing there that we ripen in a certain way. There's this constant shape-shifting of information into a specific, non-specific into a specific.

And that's the process of our seeds ripening, seeds ripening, seeds ripening. But even the seeds ripening is that process. Karma is just an explanation for our experience and why we experience things in the way that we do.

Karma itself is not a thing or a law. The mental seeds that we think we've got zillions of them, they're simply potentials, they're ideas, they're influences. They aren't even a thing that have their own reality.

And yet they have, right? The mind has been imprinted. That imprint is constantly changing, influenced by every other imprint that's going in and coming out. And it's going to, the process is infallible and self-perpetuating.

It will never cease. It's impossible. It's not a thing that can cease.

So, what I'm trying to point out is that as we're interacting with our day, we have this level of belief that it's all out there coming at us. And we're learning to decide it appears that way, but that isn't in fact true. That actual reality is that it's all coming from me, out of me.

But then that leaves my me. Okay, I'm the only one here and my whole world is coming out of me. And so at some point we need to look at that as well.

All this stuff that I've learned about the other, first about inanimate things, pens and bicycles and cars, and then we applied it to other animate things, angry yelling boss, second husband in the kitchen, right? Mama getting sick, others. And we worked out how that's the same. It is still the same that it's my seeds ripening.

When there's another consciousness involved, there's the added piece of their seeds ripening for whatever they're experiencing as they're experiencing me. And what I'm experiencing as I am experiencing them. And we expect our ripenings to be the same and they're not.

They never are. Lost my train of thought there. So all of that is still the object aspect of our experiences that we're exploring intellectually.

And then at some point we also look at, well, wait, there's the factor of the interaction between us. And that also has, we hold the thing that I'm doing has something in it that makes what comes next, turning the key to start the car. And we explore for the reality of that to get these glimpses that it can't be working in the way I think it works.

And yet it is working. So something else has to be going on. None of this ends up denying that I am me, you are you.

So we interact and make things happen. But then sooner or later, we have to get to the me part, the subject side and start to explore, does this me have my own reality the way I believe that I do? Like we all spend time all by ourselves, don't we? And isn't that proof that I have a reality of my own? Because there I am when nobody's perceiving me. If my reality depended on somebody else perceiving me, when nobody's perceiving me, wouldn't I disappear? That's absurd, right? I'm always perceiving myself.

Right. But now then, when we say I'm perceiving myself, don't we still have a subject and an object and an interaction between going on? There's the me. I am perceiving.

That's the experience. Me. Somewhere the me is the object and the me is the subject.

And wait a minute, how can you be both subject and object at the same time? What's wrong with that picture? It's coming out of seeds. So, of course, there is never not a me. And when I look for the me, I'm trying to find the subject side me.

And when I'm looking for it, it becomes the object side. Because I can't experience directly a subject side. I can only experience an object.

I am the subject experiencing an object. That's what subjects and objects are. So if we can get to the point where we're looking at our me and exploring it for what we believe is permanent, in control, randomly experiencing things, the judgments about it, right? Then we're going to find, well, all those things I think about my me don't apply from it, in it, all the way up to its own true nature, which is that it's in every seed that's ever been planted and in every seed that ever will be planted.

And so there will never not be a me. But it is never the same me two moments in a row. But it's never somebody else's me.

And we can see how words fail and that words can't get it right. Words can't get it right. And we finally let go and it's like, oh, and then we're back doing it again.

So I didn't intend to go there in this class. This is a different class than last night's class. I don't know.

We have one more class that I'm going to ask you to please join me for. And in that class, we'll do like Q&A. And then we'll do a meditation where we go looking for our me and we explore it in those five, six flavors.

But today I'd like to go back and do that feeling quality of mind again, because I find that very difficult. And so if I take you through it again, I'll be able to do it better. So let's take our break.

And we'll come back and we'll go through our feeling mind at those different six different levels again. Okay, so get refreshed, please. Thanks, Nancy.

We'll give Chris a minute. Okay, so we'll do our preliminaries. And again, try to work with this mind feeling experience.

So settle your body as you're used to doing. And then bring your mind to your breath to settle it. Turning on its focus, its clarity, its intensity.

Using that thing called breath at the thing called nostrils as the object of focus. We'll count ten in the interest of time. Now intentionally let go of the object of breath and turn your mind to the object of my words and follow along.

We start by taking refuge. Ultimate refuge is in emptiness, how our understanding of it helps us choose our responses in a way that is more wise. And so explain to yourself your own understanding and recognize how living according to this worldview can and does protect us in some way.

How does it protect us? What does it protect us from? Then we grow our bodhicitta, thinking of that person from the beginning of class and how the distress we see them having is our seeds ripening. The distress they see themselves happening if they do is their seeds ripening and grow that feeling that changing my seeds will change their situation. Helping them know about changing their own seeds will help their situation and growing this feeling, the aspiration to become one who can create a world where every being knows a huge, big feeling of love.

Then recall that precious holy being before you at the beginning of class. We recognize that they know and they are made of this huge love, this huge compassion, this huge wisdom. And we know that whatever they perceive themselves as, they created from zillions of kindness.

And we know that whatever good seeds, goodness we see in them, we created with lots of kindness. And so choose just one of these extraordinary good qualities. Feel your aspiration to grow those qualities yourself.

Admire them and ask them for help. And then make them offerings, the traditional ones, help plant the seeds in our minds for creating these pure worlds. What they like best is for us to hear ourselves tell them of some kindness we did because of something they taught us.

Feel pleased with your offering. See them pleased with your offering. And then we recognize that we had all those other times when we reacted selfishly, unkindly.

Clean out something specific, some act of body, speech or mind that we know when those seeds ripen, it will be unpleasant. And I will be likely to repeat it again. Tell them about that.

Feel the regret that comes from understanding that we act and react from this mistaken belief. So quickly make the determination to restrain ourselves from repeating that deed in some specific instance that we can achieve and then offer an antidote. It could be this meditation, this class, so that we know when we finish class and we apply our power of restraint, those seeds will be damaged.

They will not ripen. And so rejoice in that goodness, the purification. Rejoice in other kindnesses you've done.

Rejoice in kindnesses you see others doing. Rejoice in our goodness to have precious teachers in our world, to have the lineage of the Dharma still available to us. Rejoice in your past generosity that you have such abundance.

Then ask that precious holy being to please stay close to you. Ask that those other people who help you stay on your best behavior, stay close. Ask them all to continue to bring your teachings, both formal ones, and to be able to recognize them receiving teachings from them in our day-to-day life.

And then dedicate what we've done just so far to reaching this direct experience of worldview six, the doorway through which your transformation happens. Then if you need to shift and wiggle, now is the time to do it. Then settle your body again.

Settle your mind again. Bringing it to the breath. Watching as that breath naturally slows, naturally calms, naturally becomes more pleasant.

Now intentionally let go of the breath. That's the object. Then turn your mind to my words.

Follow along and find that quality of your experience called feeling, the mind feeling, not the emotions, but the raw thumbs up or thumbs down or thumbs neutral or some version. I recognize that in trying to find it, I'm already giving it more labels than just the thumbs up or thumbs down. Oh, there's the feeling.

It feels good. There's the feeling. It's kind of dull.

And so land on some quality of your aware attention and let's call it the feeling and let's explore what we believe about that feeling. Labor number one is that we believe that there's some lasting nature to the feeling our mind is having. It's a thing with its reality that should last.

If it's a thumbs up feeling, we expect it to stay thumbs up. If it's a thumbs down, we don't want it to last. Now strip away that expectation and simply experience that feeling as constantly shifting, shifting, shifting.

Even when it's thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up. It's a little bit different in each moment. Recognizing the changing, changing, changing this itself will bring another feeling.

Maybe it's thumbs up to catch the changing nature. Maybe it's thumbs down. Just notice then go back to simply the feeling and let's look for ignorance number two.

We believe we can control the objects of our experience, the sense of ownership. There is a me, the master, who controls this feeling, which means I should be able to make it feel thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up. Find this belief in being the controller.

Recognize that that's not consistent with my experience and notice what that does to the feeling. Let's push up to flavor three. Find the feeling of the mind right now.

Flavor three. Mistake number three is believing that those feelings are happening to us. Those feelings are related to the experience that's happening to us.

That means we believe that me is a separate reality, a separate thing from the feeling and that feeling is coming to me unrelated to what I've done. The feeling is related to what I'm experiencing, which is unrelated to what I've done. But is it possible for a me to experience a feeling coming from an experience completely unrelated to my own results of causes? For me to be here and this feeling to be happening has to be coming from my own result of my own created cause.

Me and that feeling come together forced by my ripening results. No feeling can come to me that is not something my own seeds ripening has brought to me. There's still the sense of me separate from the feeling and the two come together as my result, which means there's no random, there are no accidents.

There is nothing my own behavior has not brought to me. It's helpful but not ultimate. So let's move on.

Flavor number four is about our judgment about the feeling. A thumbs up feeling brought to me by my own results of causes is a good thing. It means I did something good.

Good me. A thumbs down feeling is brought to be me to buy some way. I was unkind, selfish.

Bad me. Those judgments they seem accurate. They seem true.

They seem triggered by the feeling which is triggered by the happening by an event and all of that is mistaken. The judgment the judgment is another ripening of causes being laid on this experience of this feeling. The judgment is not coming from the feeling.

The judgment is coming from our seeds and so we can let those judgments arise and pass. We don't have to act from them. We can use this feeling to bring on a different judgment or even no judgment at all.

Acceptance which allows us to respond instead of react and still at this level. We have the belief that our feeling mind feeling that has its own reality. There is me experiencing it that has my own reality.

Let's push up to level five. What is that? Reality of its own. So find the feeling again.

Notice it compared to what it was when we first started and notice again how we believe that that feeling is there with some quality of its own. It's there for me to experience and if it's there for me to experience whatever quality it has is there in it from it. But this is the doctor.

The thing we believe has its own nature that doesn't have its own nature. Recognize that our perception of that feeling colors the feeling 5050 school says there is something feeling ish and the thumbs up is put on by my seeds ripening. That means that whatever the state of the feeling right now we could bring something that could influence it.

If my mind is slightly thumbs up. I can think of something pleasant and the slightly thumbs up will become stronger thumbs up. We can apply some intention to have an influence over our experience transforming problems into the path.

Level five gives us this ability. We can choose to respond to our own feeling experience of mind with kindness. But we recognize that even when we try to bring a thumbs up mind to more thumbs up.

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't which means there's still something mistaken. And so let's push up to worldview six or level five is just starting to deny that the object of our experience is completely from its own identity its own causes level five says I bring something to its reality to make it unique to me to reach level six we go looking what part of this feeling is coming from it and what part is my seeds ripening with the feeling we're watching it moment by moment. We are believing that it shifts in response to some external cause and we've already shown ourselves that that cannot be the case without some aspect of our awareness of it contributing.

Is there any aspect to this feeling that can exist independent of our awareness of it. How would we know but catch our mind saying no there can be things that exist that I'm not aware of and yet how would we know with feeling it's pretty clear we are the only one that can establish the feeling of our mind. We bring 100% of that feeling.

So why do I ever bring a thumbs down feeling it's clearly not under my control ripening results of causes similarly planted thumbs down can only be experienced as a ripening result of somehow being aware of my own self influencing another that appeared to bring a thumbs down to them. Thumbs up can only be a ripening result of imprints made by how I saw myself bringing a thumbs up to another so what determines thumbs up versus thumbs down our interactions with others avoiding harming in obvious and subtle ways trying to be and others pleasant ripening moral ethical seed planting ripens as thumbs up thumbs up we create those causes for future thumbs up to our current moment interactions with others. We are the creators of our experiences just not in the moment can we create what we want that means I want to be kind I want to be helpful I want to be loving because I know this creates the world I want to live in so try to feel that deeply and then bring to mind that precious holy being from the beginning of class we know that they know what we need to do yet what we need to know yet they are helping us they are pleased with our effort ask them to please please continue to guide you help you inspire you and offer them this goodness of this exploration see them accept it and bless it and then carry it with them right back into your heart see them there, feel them there their love their compassion, their wisdom it feels so good thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up we want to keep it forever and so we know to share it by the power of the goodness that we've just done may all beings complete the collection of merit and wisdom and thus gain the two ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom make so use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one person to share it with everyone you love to share it with every existing being everywhere see them all filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom and may it be so alright, well done that's a hard object isn't it good job any burning questions I know so I know we'll do one more class please where we'll explore our me and then we can do Q&A that time too okay alright, thank you for the opportunity to share I always learn stuff when I'm listening so have a lovely week, I will see you Friday morning I love you, bye bye take care thank you

So welcome back. This is the session that completes our study of the six flavors of emptiness. But I hope it doesn't mean that you'll stop studying the six flavors of emptiness.

It's such a concise exploration of these different levels we go through as we study this idea, lack of self-nature or lack of self-existence. And so therefore, what is what I experience or why do I experience what I do? And when we get more familiar with these different rungs on the ladder, and we grow our mindfulness, our ability to have this little witness part that's not just witnessing what's going on outside, but witnessing my reaction or my perception of what's going on outside, we can start to recognize the extent to which we believe there's an outside thing happening at me, which of course, how we're on automatic pilot, but we can start to recognize, wow, I'm so sure that what I'm experiencing is what I'm experiencing, like words fail. And when we are growing this awareness of, well, I'm just disappointed because I expected something to be the same and it isn't.

I don't have to get upset from that. Or if I'm upset because I thought I could control something and it's clear that I can't, oh, duh, why did I even expect I could control? Like I'm in the midst of that now, big time. So my point is Geshe-la gave us this six flavors of the ways we believe things exist outside of our projections as tools so that we can just quickly catch how we're doing it.

But it took me a long time working with it to recognize, oh, that's what he meant. Oh, there is my 50-50 happening. And then once that happened, it got to be fun watching for it.

So I hope that whatever we learned in these last few weeks gives you some tools that you can reach that place where it's like, wow, this is fun to watch where things are coming from. All right, so that said, what we'll do in today's session is we'll do our meditation using our me as our meditation object. So I'll explain it, of course.

And it, last night I did it, it took over an hour. And so that'll be most of class. We'll take a break.

And then we'll do question answers if you have question answers. And if you don't, then I'll do a synopsis. Okay.

So let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again. Now bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom, and see them here with you.

They are gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy great compassion, their wisdom radiates from them, that beautiful golden glow encompassing you in its light. And then we hear them say, bring to mind someone you know who's hurting in some way, feel how much you would like to be able to help them recognize how the worldly ways we try fall short, how wonderful it will be when we can also help them in some deep and ultimate way, a way through which they will go on to stop their distress forever. Deep down, we know this is possible.

Exploring what's meant by emptiness and karma. More and more deeply we glimpse how it's possible. And so I invite you to grow that wish into a longing and that longing into an intention.

And with our intentions strong, we turn our minds back to our precious holy being. We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. And so we ask them, please, please teach me that, show me that, help me become that.

And they are so happy that we've asked. Of course, they agree. Our gratitude arises.

We want to offer them something exquisite. And so we think of the pure world they are teaching us how to create. We imagine we can hold it in our hands and we offer it to them.

Allowing it with our promise to practice what they teach us, using our refuge prayer to make our promise. Here is the great earth filled with fragrant incense and covered with a blanket of flowers. The great mountain, four lands, wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon.

In my mind, I make them the paradise of a Buddha and offer it all to you. By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community.

Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may we reach Buddhahood for the sake of every living being. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may we realize Buddhahood for the sake of every living being.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. Through the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may all beings totally awaken for the benefit of every single other. We want to use our me as our meditation object.

I remember when I was first learning this process, it's like, me? What do you mean by me? It's almost like, I knew me so well I didn't actually know what it was to set it there to meditate on it. Now it seems so silly. But just in case it's not clear, when we say me, do we mean our body? No.

There's a me that's aware of our body, right? And then when we say me, do we mean my emotions? No, it's the me that's feeling those emotions. The me that reacts to those emotions. Is my me the thoughts? And it's like, no, it's the one listening to the thoughts or thinking the thoughts.

There's this weird thing about thoughts. Sometimes they're happening to us, sometimes they're making them, we are making them. The me, it's more like the experiencer or the knower, like who or what is it that has this body that feels these emotions, that listens to or creates those thoughts.

Do you have a sense that you can find that sense? Like right now, because that's what we're going to put forth as our meditation object, our me. You think you can get it? Give me a nod. Because if not, I'll try to explain it a little bit more.

Okay. Mostly I've got thumbs up. The watcher, the experiencer, the meditator, and then, well, wait, if I'm the meditator, how am I going to use the meditator as the object of meditation? There's got to be another me looking at the me.

And actually, that's the point, but don't go there yet. Just do it. We can do it once we get it a little bit clear.

So I'm going to very quickly do our meditation preliminaries. I realized I forgot to do them last night, I think. Anyway, and then we'll go into this me investigation using the six different flavors, the six different ways we hold to our me, five of which are mistaken.

I mean, I'm not even holding myself out. Anyway, you'll get it. We'll go through all six ways of exploring our me.

So settle your body first. Get it parked. Once you have it parked, leave it still.

Bring your attention to your breath at your nostrils to get our mind parked so the meditating mind can come forth, not that it's a different thing. Turn on that focus, that clarity, that intensity, the fascination. Count 10 breaths.

Now intentionally shift from breath as your object to my words as your object and follow along and recall our opening prayers. We're here in class because we see people in distress and we can't help them. We try in worldly ways and our experiences, they go on to hurt in some other way and it breaks our heart.

And so we went searching to learn what's wrong. And we met an explanation about emptiness, this thing, this idea of emptiness. And it revealed something that showed us the connection between our interaction with others and our future experiences.

And so take your refuge in those three jewels, all of which have something to do with emptiness and our behavior and remind yourself how living according to that connection is the key to stopping all that distress, all that suffering, our own and others. And then recall that precious holy being, your guide, and how they have applied themselves through lifetimes, lifetimes, to gain these realizations that they are sharing with us because they can see that in our true nature, all of our distress is unnecessary. It's a big mistake.

And so feel your connection to them, allow yourself to receive from them and admire just one of those good qualities and recognize the good quality we see in them is ripening results of our goodness and any good qualities they see in themselves is the ripening result of their past kindness. And feel your feelings towards them and make them an offering, knowing what we offer them is powerful goodness, offering our goodness to powerful objects helps us perpetuate our goodness. And then we want to clean out past negativities.

And so in a similar way, we can think of our four powers as offering our negativity, letting them take it by telling them. Of the behavior we did that planted this negative seed with this recognition that I made a mistake. I regret it, because I know it will come back to hurt me to hurt others to block my progress on my path.

I really regret it. Establish power of restraint and establish an antidote, which can be this class, this meditation we're about to do. And then know that when we complete those two things, the antidote and the restraint, we have damaged those seeds.

And so rejoicing that tell that holy being about some other kindnesses you've done, and that you've seen others do or been aware, so that we feed those good seeds that we have. And ask that holy being to please stay close to you. Ask that all the people who help you be on your best behavior stay close.

Ask to continue to receive teachings and guidance and dedicate just what we've done so far to quickly being able to help that other suffering being come to recognize the source of their suffering. And if you need to shift and wiggle, now's the time to do it. You don't need to you don't have to to then settle back in, bring the mind to the breath again, we'll do five.

And again, let go of the breath as the object and turn your mind to my words, following along. And let's put forth our me as our meditation object. First Panchen Lama says, It is hard to find the me.

One way to do it is to imagine you are in a situation where someone is blaming you for something you did not do worldly wise. So Ronnie, you stole my purse. I know you stole my purse.

So Ronnie's reaction is me. I didn't do that. How dare you blame me for that.

Me comes up very strongly when we are blamed for something. So find your me. So through this whole session, when I say me, I mean your me.

So let's explore that me through the six different levels. At the very first level, here's my me. And me has a belief that me has permanence.

The way I do this is I think, here I am. I'm 72 years old. I have never not been me.

I have never been someone else. This me has permanence. It must have this lasting nature, because it's 72 years old.

And so my me has this expectation that it has endless this me time, that this me has permanence, something that lasts. But let's check to see if that belief is consistent with our experience. This me that's 72 years old.

Is it the same as when it was 62 years old? And is it the same from when it was two years old? Of course not. Is it the same me? Yes. But is it the same? No.

Is this me, today's me, the same as last week's me? No. Is this me the same as it was 10 minutes ago? No. Every experience changes me.

Never from this me to somebody else's me, but never the same me. It gives us a glimpse of our potential. So can your me let go of its lasting nature? There's no me that's the same moment by moment and still hold that there is no not me at all.

Now let's bring just the simple me up again and go to level two. This me has the belief that it has control over thing, especially control over my own body, my own mind. We say me decides to raise my left arm and then I do it.

See, I am in control. Me decided to come to class and do this meditation. So see, I am in control.

Look, I can even do this meditation where I look at the mind as my meditation object. Do you see? I'm in control. But let's check if that belief is consistent with our experience.

Control means to be able to make something happen at our discretion. It seems like we can, but sometimes we can't. If there could be an experience where we want to move our left hand arm and it won't move, that's proof we are not in control.

When we experience that we want to park our focus of attention on one object and we find our mind thinking of something else, it shows us we are not in control the way we believe that we are. So find that me's belief that it has control. If we negate our control, does that leave me fearful or does that leave me somehow more free? So let go of the me that's in control.

See that there is in fact no such thing and yet there is not no me at all. Let's push up to level three. Get your me clear again.

This me believes that things happen to it, to me. This me is what or who? Good things come or unpleasant things come. The me that they are doing that to.

Find that me. This one for me feels the most obvious. This me that is the recipient of others actions, of others very existence.

And so this me is the one that blames them, blames for the unpleasantness, but even blames for the pleasantness. And let's examine that belief. Is it consistent with actual experience? So think of your me as the recipient of someone bringing you flowers.

Feel the me's reaction and the sense that that person bringing flowers is what made me have this experience. The pleasure of receiving flowers, the flowers, the person, the pleasure. But then let's examine the experience.

I'm having the pleasure of receiving flowers. Is the person who's offering me those flowers experiencing that? No, I don't know what they are experiencing. My experience, the response to receiving flowers is unique to me.

They cannot have triggered it. They cannot have made that experience. It's my own ripening results that brought me and the other and the flowers and the pleasure all together.

They didn't make that happen. The me that believes they do make that happen wants more of them, more of the pleasure of flowers. So expects more people to give me flowers.

And when they don't, I get disappointed or I blame others for not being thoughtful. It's more clear when someone does something unpleasant, our belief that they are doing that to me. I'm an innocent bystander, or even a victim.

When we can show ourselves that our experience is our personal experience. We had to bring that. So recognize this as that first level of mind only school, the belief that separate causes bring experiences to us, when in fact, it's all our cause, bringing them and me to existing things together for me to have this experience the way it does.

Drop the me that can randomly experience something, accidentally experience something, and find the me that's always there. As part of every experience, let's go up to level four. This me has judgments about the things happening to it.

And in those judgments, me believes those judgments are accurate, are correct, are true about the object about the experience. Me says, I'm having a valid experience. So what I see is true.

What I know about it is true. My opinion about it is correct. And so everyone experiences it the same way as me.

Find the me that believes that intellectually we say, no, that's silly. Everybody has their own judgments. Everyone has their own experience.

And yet we get upset when someone argues with us about our opinion. We argue with others. Me says, we can't always agree.

We all see things differently. And yet we still get upset when others disagree with us. Catch that me in this, I don't know the word, mixed up state that intellectually knows something but acts from a belief that it won't admit is mistaken.

And so it won't drop it. The belief that our judgments about other things, everyone should agree with, because the judgment about the other thing is accurate to the other thing. Let's check.

Suppose two of us are holding in mind the same holy being. And we know that we both hold the same holy being. Then I believe that your perception of that holy being is the same as mine.

But that's silly. How can I know what you experience? I can only know my own. Others have unique experiences unique to them.

My experiences are unique to me. When we do agree, what a miracle. So find your me that even judges its own qualities as being accurate to itself and check to see if this belief about my own qualities being in me is consistent with experience.

Could there be anyone in the world that experiences me differently than with this quality? Of course there are. So that quality, I judge myself to have is not in me, or everyone would know it. So drop that judgment that my me has certain inborn qualities, either good ones, or not so good ones.

Find the me that's still there, free of those judgments. Now let's push up to lower middle way. It's getting harder.

Find that me again, the subject side of this moment by moment experience. That me is trying to follow along with this meditation. That me is here in a room on a Zoom call.

There must be a me, an essence of me, and this specific moment of me happening for me to experience me in the way that I am now. There must be an essence to me in order for the specific me to be here now, and now, and now. And that means there is an essence to me that others can experience as a specific instance of me for them.

If there was not an essential me, how could anyone else experience me? If there was the specific me that I'm experiencing, then, and it's in it, from it, everyone would have to experience me in the same way I do. And I know they do not. But if there's no essence to me, non-specific, then how could anyone experience me at all? We believe this 50-50.

There has to be some me here for you to experience me in the way that you do, and for me to experience you in the way that I do. There has to be an essence of me, non-specific but unique to me. How can that be? Find that belief.

There is an essential, deep-seated, unique thing, me, that's lasting, that has some kind of control, that things randomly happen to, that I know in a certain way, and so it has to be true about that. And that me is here to experience what it experiences. And that me is here for others to experience.

We will reach a level in our understanding of emptiness and dependent origination that will bring us to this level of understanding our me, an essence of unique subject side that's available to be what others experience and available to be experiencing what we do. 50-50, not literally half and half, but we have to be a me to be there to experience. We want to find this belief first so that we can check to see if our belief is accurate to our experience.

So to check if this is accurate to experience, we go looking for that essential me. We look for our experience of that essential me. And when we find it, we recognize that what's happening is a more subtle essential me is experiencing what we thought or think is the essential me.

There's another 50-50 going on. Then we look again. Wait, no, that more subtle me and find it's simply a more subtle essential me experiencing the less subtle me.

We're not doing that now, but we're getting a glimpse of how we can explore. When we go looking for the thing that gets the label, we will not find it. We will never find nothing.

There will always be the ripening result of an essence information receiving an identity and qualities happening. And this is true for the object of our investigation. It's true of the experience between subject and object as the object of investigation.

And it's true of the subject that's put forth as the object of investigation. There is nothing about or me and any experience that we can have that is not information receiving labels, which is the process of mental seeds ripening, which is the result of mental seeds being planted. So this me that is the essence that receives the label, others labels, and our own labels.

50-50 school is the belief that, oh, that's the me. Highest school says, yes and no, that essence me is coming out of every seed. It is not independent of the seeds.

And so there is an essence me moment by moment by moment, but never the same two moments in a row, never not existent, ripening with every seed being replanted with every seed and no other me than that constant appearances and the potential to be that appearance happening. So we can let go of that me that needs to be the same. We can let go of that me that thinks it's in control.

We can let go of that me that believes they did that to me. We can let go of the me that believes it has its own good or bad qualities that everyone sees the same way, experiences the same way. We can let go of the belief that there is a me that is still there receiving those ripenings.

We can let go of the me that believes there's anything but this constant ripening subject side of every seed and the constant subject side of planting that me that exists independent of the process does not exist, never did, never could. And so what me is here, a constantly changing, never the same two moments in a row, but never not existent, profound, dependent, happening, being, providing all experiences, creating all future experiences by helping others help others, manifesting love, compassion, that appearance of wisdom in action. This can be our me.

It will be our me someday, soon. So take this glimpse of your real me, the un-me, and think of how you will use it to help that other in that deep and ultimate way. Recall that precious holy being who inspires and helps you thank them and offer them this goodness and dedicate it all to helping that other come to see their own true nature and the true nature of the distress that they're having so that we can see them come to the end of their suffering and then become aware again of this new me in this body, in this room, in this class.

And when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch. We'll take a break. I hope that wasn't torture.

Excuse me. We have an alarm going off. Ah, so what questions do you have? Nancy? Good morning, Lama.

Thank you for this amazing class. Thank you so much. I've been grappling with the seed, you know, like breaking it down, that there's no place of it touching and where it changes and all of that.

And in doing that meditation, I started to think about, but seeds are underground. And so when I'm doing it mentally, I'm creating the images. But in our ordinary or, you know, our reality that we experience, there is a belief that it's happening underground, but there's no there's no person perceiving it.

And so I'm trying to sort that out. When you speak about how, and this has really profoundly affected me, every moment is actually a miracle. Sometimes I get goosebumps thinking about it.

When we start to touch on this emptiness, like every moment is a miracle. And even the miracles that are hidden, like the seeds growing, all of this stuff that we don't see. And I'm trying to kind of like, I don't even know what my question is.

I'm trying to understand it. Yeah. Yeah.

I just found it so fascinating to think about that. Yeah, I'm breaking it down mentally, like I'm looking at it, trying to understand the emptiness of it. And yet it's happening with no perceiver.

Or it appears to be, it appears to be, it appears to be happening, which makes it even more miraculous, really. Yes. It shows, right? It's like, there's some, like, words just fail.

There's an aspect to this aware-ing happening that is so vast. Because, you know, if I pick up an article on astrophysics, that's explaining, you know, I don't know, quarks and string theory and all this stuff that worldly means nothing to me. Ultimately, it's coming out of this thing I call my mind.

And I think I hear my words, my mind, and I think, oh, Sarani's intellect. She's pretty smart, right? But it's like, to come up with an article on astrophysics, like, that's beyond my concept of me. So like, what I mean by me is so puny, compared to the potential of this conscious, this consciousness, right, that each one of us is, is an aspect of a consciousness that is that vast.

Yeah. Yeah. And our belief that this is the real thing, it's like, it gives us this glimpse of how puny we are, but not in the sense of, oh, I'm insignificant, but I'm just so limited to what our potential is.

You know, and then that's what's so frustrating is to not know the limitation and just not able to break out of break out of it. Because even the limitation and the breaking out is going to be nothing but this seed ripening, shifting. Yeah, it's so so slippery, all of it so slippery, because intellectually, you know, you've got an idea and like this idea that every moment is a ripening, it's a ripening, can I slip into that space of ripening? And, and it's, but it's hard.

It's so so hard. But anyway, thank you. This is such a good platform to start building some of this understanding.

It's been incredible. Thank you so much. I'm glad.

Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Chris.

I guess what I've been, I don't know, struggling with lately is the way in which we seem to all have these personalities or potentials or whatever that are, that are sort of fixed or, or solid or whatever, and talents and things. And I've always had this, being one of those people that, you know, I'm kind of like mind blind, and I, and I, things sort of happen accidentally, I don't see, I don't have control. But I've always had this belief that if I found that thing outside, that would fix me, or I followed this path, or I did this, or, or I got that utensil, or I, you know, that it would change, it would change that fundamental me.

Right. And so thinking about it as these are the seeds that are coming out, and none of those things on the outside could ever really change or, you know, could fix me to be a Mozart or an astrophysicist, or, because, you know, or even a visualizer, you know. Right.

Is, it's one of those things that you skirt, you have to skirt the, and now I'm depressed. Right. But no, now I'm joyful because I, I see how, well, maybe next time.

Well, I mean, like, I've been in the presence of my, my guru, who's like laid his hand on my forehead, and I didn't even recognize him, you know, I mean, it's like, you would think that, you know, we're all, you know. So, intellectually, I totally get this. I'm with you.

It doesn't mean I can even do a meditation that actually grasps onto it because of, you know, the way my seeds are. You are not alone, Chris. You are not alone.

And, and all of it gives us these glimpses, actually, of this potential that we are. Not that we have, right? Language would say, oh, I can glimpse the potential that I have. And that implies that there's a me there.

They could have something that I didn't have before. That's what you were explaining. It's not a me that can have something.

It's this, what we are. What we are, we are this potential of anything for anybody, like are my words. And I lost my train of thought.

Is this, this, the shift from something is finally going to happen coming at this, that's going to shift it for me. Also, you explaining that. And at some point, we're getting glimpses of, no, actually, it's this.

But even this is wrong, because it implies there's a this here first. And that things come out of it, like better would be if we could do this to include our me and every aspect of our experience in the ripening. But our mind goes, no, there has to be somebody doing the projecting.

And so someday we reach the exploration of that belief that there has to be somebody doing the projecting in order for me to experience the projecting. But that's impossible. Like somewhere along the way, I had this like harebrained idea.

What if I identified as being a verb instead of a noun? You know, ing, happening, eating, not me eating toast, toast happening, that like language starts to fail. But it helped me to shift this relationship between subject, object and interaction between. Not that I can hold it always.

But to identify with the whole thing without being a me experiencing it, but rather the happening. When I get too kind of attached to the idea of me as a solid thing, I think of how it's in some ways we all came out of that, those held beings that are like pounding on each other to make things sort of start flowing in the way sort of at the really heavy physical level. It all started out kind of like, you know, just and I think, you know, well, maybe I was kind of like wired to come out of that selfishness, you know, to stop.

But now we can float above that. It helps me to think of that ego part not being so admirable. You're right.

Good, good, good. You know, the key is at all these levels of awareness that things are not the way I'm holding them to be. Our conclusion needs to be, oh, so my behavior matters.

And I still have to really consciously impose that. Is it automatic from that know me like that, but not know me at all. So therefore I want to be kind.

Is that automatic yet? It's still putting on the punchline for me. We need to have that discussion. We have time to do it yet, but Victor has a question.

Let's get Victor's question first. Teacher, regarding this 50-50 school, I think during the, when we use the object as me, I think it's a bit confusing to me because 50-50 is like, if I use external object, it's so much easier because that object has some nature. So, but I can, how I react to that object, it can, I mean, I can decide, but now it's like, I'm the object and I'm the one who decides.

So it's a bit confusing to me. Yeah, it is. So when I was first starting that exploration, I would find that me, you know, believes it's there that someone else is experiencing.

And so I wasn't using me experiencing myself. I was using my me and imagining someone else experiencing me. And then I took three or four different people, like either of my parents who knew me as a baby, knew me as pre-baby, actually.

And then I lived with them until I was 18. And then, you know, parents after that, but yeah, they don't live with you when you're 35, most of us. So they stopped really knowing me on a day-to-day basis when I was 18.

So then, then I put them, one of them, and then somebody I knew from college, suppose, and then somebody I know from work and somebody I know from my Dharma world. And it's really easy to see. They all see me so differently, right? My work-life people don't know me as a Dharma person.

My Dharma people don't know me as a work-life person. My parents don't know either one of them. So I sit there with them looking at me and check out my belief in me that they are experiencing.

And then I can feel there is a me. There's the 50-50. Each one sees me differently.

They bring to the party what they bring. I bring to the party me. That's 50-50.

Get it? That's not hard, that part. And then I look, it's like, whoa, who's experiencing the real me? Because that's what we're looking for, isn't it? And when I answer that question, who's experiencing the real me? My mind goes, I am. Right? Of course, the real me is me.

They just see this one, that one, that one, that one. But the real me. And then I go, but wait, my parents have memories of me that I don't even have.

Right? They knew me as a baby. I don't know me as a baby. Not till I'm like four years old do I have an awareness of being me.

Other people have seen the back of me, which I have never seen. Wait, other people have seen my face directly, which I have never seen. So who knows me better? Me or them? How can that be? How can there be a me that's the real me if I've not even ever seen this face directly? Then my own mind, I go, will the real me please stand up? And nothing happens.

And that's the empty nature. They don't all fall away. I don't fall away.

Everything doesn't disappear. But something goes away that had been there. When I say, well, the real me stand up because there is no real me.

That's how we go from 50-50 to highest school. That's how I go. Maybe it doesn't work for everyone.

So maybe that'll help. I think that's very useful. Thank you for such a detailed explanation.

Thanks for asking. It gets so clear, this sense of a me that things are coming at, that it gets frustrating as heck because you want to just go and get rid of it. And I can't do that yet.

I can only intellectually and try to imagine for an instant. And then I'm back in it again. But every time we try, it rocks the world because every time we try, it plants seeds that are so different than the countless other seeds that have already imprinted this mind, that they're so powerful because they're so different.

They don't match anything. Except the previous times we planted a little seed for getting glimpses into our own emptiness. So then the more we do it, the more we're adding to these seeds that aren't quite wisdom yet, but on that track.

So they're growing. We're adding to them, which is why regular emptiness meditation is so important. Regular attempt at emptiness meditation is so important because we're adding to our seeds from before and those seeds are growing.

Yeah. So don't count yourself short. Every emptiness effort is worth the effort.

So try please. Roxanne, I have a question in the chat. Oh, sorry.

We'll get to you, Yesheng. Where's the chat? There it is. When I perceive someone feeling sick, even them saying, I don't not feel good.

How can I make the shift besides 50-50 with this emptiness potential? How can I focus on it? So we understand that. Let's go just jump to highest school. If we experience someone not feeling well or saying they're not feeling well, those are our seeds ripening now are happening.

And it has many depths. One level would be, well, maybe I just assume not hear them say they don't feel good because I can't do anything about it. In which case our conclusion would be, well, then I'm not going to share with people that I don't feel good because it's just going to make them feel bad.

And I know that could be valid. But then we can go deeper and say, well, if there's someone in my world not feeling well, and that's unpleasant to me, that's a ripening when I contributed to someone not feeling well in the past. It's like my third flower ripening.

And I want to try to do something to help someone feel better. And I want others, I guess I would want to share with others. When I feel good, right? So people can hear someone feeling good instead of always feeling bad.

I think in the moment, if we understand my seeds are ripening for me to experience them feeling badly, whatever they are feeling is their ripening experience. We might want to say, I'm sorry to hear that. Is there something I can do to help? Like genuinely offering to help.

And then what if they say, well, in fact, you could help. Could you take me to the emergency room? And all of a sudden an innocent, I'm sorry, can I help you turns into something that's going to take 12 or 20 hours. Are we willing, you know, are we willing to say, I'm so sorry, can I help? Do we really mean it? Probably they're going to say, oh, that's kind.

You know, do you have some Tylenol? Or maybe they'll say, that's so kind of you, that helps just to know you care. So when we try to respond to change our seeds, yes, do so. And be willing to then respond to their response also with kindness.

But then that doesn't necessarily mean that if their answer is, yes, could you take me to the emergency room? Right. You would have to devote your next 20 hours when you have yourself committed to something else. There are solutions.

Yes, I will call someone for you. I will get a ride. You don't personally have to do what they've voiced would help them.

But we would try to initiate it somehow. So short answer to Roxanne's beautiful question is, we recognize my seeds ripening, how if I were in their shoes, what would help me feel better in the moment? Oh, can I offer you some Tylenol? Oh, can I get you a glass of water? Oh, would you like to talk about it? Change our seeds. Will that necessarily stop their feeling badly in the moment? Don't know.

Does it change something in the future? Yes. Every interaction with an other creates an experience that we will have. Every interaction with an other creates an experience that we will have.

It isn't the experience that we have until we have the experience. And the seeds planted in the now are changing, changing, changing, changing, changing. So you can't even say when I plant this seed now of saying, yes, I can help you.

Would you like some Tylenol? Will necessarily ripen as someone saying to me, yes, I can help you. Would you like some Tylenol? But the seed planted has to ripen similarly, which would be a situation in which I need help. Someone asks and responds in a way to offer help.

The specifics aren't apples for apples, but the quality of the interaction is what gets added to kindness, concern for someone not feeling well will come back as kindness and concern when I'm not feeling well. So for me, I try to put myself in the other's shoes to think, to recognize, try to recognize how might they be experiencing me. And then my only tool for deciding how to respond is how would I like them? How would I like to experience others? So that's all how I will try to be.

We can't, we don't know the other's mind. We don't know their feelings. The only way we know how to choose our behavior is based on when this comes back to me, will I like it? And that really can be our criteria for anything we do.

When somebody does this to me, will it be pleasant? If the answer is no, zip your lip, sit on your hands, right? Don't do what that impulse was pushing. Yeah. Your question's a good one and there's not really a clear answer because there are all these different levels.

Whenever I hear the saying of there's only my experience, sometimes I get into a kind of like, kind of like close phobic feeling. I just want to know, is there something, there must be something wrong about that belief or that feeling. So can you say what that is? Yes.

Yes. That, that me, that me that holds itself to be a self-existent thing, right? Logically it's like, come on, I'm not self-existent. I depend on infinite other factors.

And even as we say that, we say, I depend on zillions of other factors. That I is the one that is still there when it hears, oh, nothing but seeds ripening. It leaves us with this feeling.

I am the only one that exists. I am the only one that's real. Everything else is the movie coming out of me.

That's part of what we were looking for as we went through those six flavors to find that me that's still there. The me that's behind the, my projections happening. When we try to explore that before we're ready, we get afraid because it's like, well, if there's no me behind all of this, there's like, there's nothing.

There's no foundation. There's no nothing. We really do have a fear of annihilation.

If I don't exist the way I believe I do, I must not exist at all. We hear that intellectually and go, I won't ever believe that. But we do.

I notice that every time I go through that sequence of, oh, it's nothing but projections. Those very words, nothing but projections. Instantly my mind's reaction is, oh, so nothing's real.

Nothing's out there. Nothing matters. And then, you know, fortunately my training pops me right back again.

That's ridiculous because here it is and I can get back on that middle way. So you're explaining exactly this stage of moving from mind only to lower middle way to higher middle way and the struggle to get past that. No, there has to be a me that's learning, a me that's doing it, a me.

We're wanting to find that. That me is impossible. It's never been.

But it believes in itself so strongly that when we get close to it, it blocks. So keep exploring. You're right on track.

Chris has a chat. Well, when you say every interaction with another, does it help to go and I'm another? Yes, it does. Yes, it does.

It helps a lot. Yeah, that's how it seemed like, because that's how you can plant seeds every second, every instant, because you're interacting with another in a positive way, right? Exactly, exactly. That hints on doing everything with bodhicitta.

So yeah, nice. One of the ways that I explore the emptiness of my own mind, like from the Maha Mudra training, those who did it, is that I recognize that I can sink into this level where I'm watching my mind and exploring the mind and I realize that I can take the my mind and look at it, which takes the subject into being the object, which if my subject can be the object, it can't be the subject from its own side. And it's like, oof, that like just cracks everything open for me for an instant.

And then I'm right back out to the me watching it. But yeah, we touch into it with language, but that language limits us if we stay at that level. So that's the purpose of this idea of meditation, is we use all the language, like I never stopped talking in that meditation, I'm so sorry.

But anywhere along the way, you could stop and sit in the aha and just holding that aha for a few moments, is making imprints, imprints that have certain beliefs removed. And then we come out and we start again. I'm writing that down, Chris, we'll see if we can find it.

We could all get on Zoom and I could play it on my thing and we could have a movie. A movie night, a group say, let's do movie night and then we never actually get around to do it. Let's do it, Chris.

Sometime in October when I'm all stressed out about moving, will you make us have a movie night, please? Right, right. I said, we'll do it. Thank you.

Yes, Laura. I didn't want to very shortly, but I always had in my mind and I just hearing you, I think I really have a hint of maybe because it's time we think of projecting things. Like my block was and if I'm the one projecting others, if it's me, 100%, again, I would say, how is that there's others projecting myself? And I always find that I try to go there and go there and I always find a block.

And I guess it's because I am attached to the idea of me perceiver. If you take that part, it's just perceiving, perceiving, perceiving. There's no Dave perceiving me, me perceiving them.

So that this something that was like, oh, I think that's a kind of him to to go deeper in that part. But I just get it. Now, I feel so many times, you know, but I was like, of course, that's the way, you know? So thank you.

Thank you. Yay, everyone. Yay.

So remember that person we thought of at the beginning of class, completing this, this session and completing this course. On behalf of bringing about the end of someone's suffering, that's extraordinary goodness. So please be pleased with yourself and think of this goodness like a beautiful going gemstone that we can hold in our hands.

We recall our own precious holy being. See how happy they are with us. Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon them.

Ask them to please, please stay close to continue to guide us, help us inspire us, support us, and then offer them this gemstone of goodness. See them accepted and blessed. And they carry it with them right back into our hearts.

See them there, feel them there. Their love, their compassion, their wisdom. It feels so good.

We want to keep it forever. And so we know to share it. By the power of the goodness that we've just done, may all beings complete the collection of merit and wisdom and thus gain the two ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom make.

So use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one person, to share it with everyone we love, to share it with every existing being everywhere. See them all filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom, and may it be so. All right.

Thank you, my dears, for the opportunity. Thank you, ACI Five Houses host tech team. Really appreciate you.

Thank you, Roxanna, for making it available to the Spanish-speaking community later. Thank you all. I love you.

You know what? I'm planning to start ACI 14 in November and then take a little break for whatever happens with Kyoto in December and finish it before Christmas time. And then I still owe you the debate stuff. We'll do that in January, probably because we only have like one month before Chinese New Year.

And then after Chinese New Year, we'll do ACI Five or 15, excuse me, 15. And then we'll figure out how to do 16, 17, 18 in shorter than a year. All right.

Not sure how we're going to do it, but I want to get on with it. Okay. So stay tuned for the announcement.

Let me know if you want to do 14 in November, November, December. Okay. Thank you again.

I love you so much. I'm going to miss you. Thank you so, so much.