Six Flavors of Emptiness

So, welcome. Thank you so much for being here. It's so great to see your faces again so soon.

And others that I haven't seen in a long time, Andrea, it's great to see you again. And then new ones as well, welcome. So I generally start with opening prayers and take a little time to help us settle in.

So I'm going to begin in my usual way. 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 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 this strong intention, 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 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 these 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.

We are studying a practice module called the Six Flavors of Emptiness, also known as the Mahamudra practice, although technically what we're learning is the foundation for an actual Mahamudra practice. So I prefer the term the Six Flavors of Emptiness. It was originally taught in the United States by Geshe Michael Roach.

It's part of the Asian Classics Institute curriculum of the Gelugpa Mahayana Buddhism philosophy and practice tradition. Geshe-la first taught this in the mid-1990s, and then of course it was recorded, and he encouraged his students as teachers to share it with others. It's part of those 18 ACI courses, not one of the 18, of course, but there are six, actually more, but six main practice modules that help us meditate on and learn to live by the philosophy and practices that are taught in greater detail in the 18 courses.

Both the 18 and the practice modules are very practical teachings on why and how to choose our behavior in order to stop perpetuating the fact that unpleasant things happen to us, to learn how to stop perpetuating that, and then to successfully do it is significant. To learn about it and never try it is still significant, but missing an opportunity. So the idea with the practice modules within the ACI curriculum is taking those philosophies and learning how to go deeper into them on your meditation cushion so that you can apply them to day-to-day life in our behavior choices.

There is no change that we cannot make once we understand well these principles of the marriage of emptiness and karma. Emptiness and the law of cause and effect understood properly, or yeah, properly. So Lord Buddha is said to have taught the three turnings of the wheel.

Early on in his teachings, he was wanting to motivate people towards the renunciation of continuing the same old mistakes. So he emphasized how all these existing things of our world and all these existing things that make up me, how those things are in fact changing and how our misunderstanding of those things makes us be attached to them and repulsed from them in such a way that inspires us to behave in ways that actually perpetuates the unpleasant results or the pleasant results that wear out, that we are trying to avoid. So those early teachings are helping people be more and more aware of the suffering of life.

And then the idea is to motivate them to say, how can I stop that pattern? So as his students were ready, he then moved on to what's called the second turning of the wheel in which he said, well, all those existing things I was talking about, in fact, they have no natures. And people heard that as saying they didn't really exist. Because for something to have no nature, it's like, well, then what the heck is it? It can't be real.

Is Buddha saying that all those existing things don't really exist at all? Of course, that's not what he's saying. But it sounded like that's what he was saying. And someone who was at both levels of teachings was brave enough to say, you know, in all due respect, Buddha, to say all existing things are suffering and the causes of suffering.

And then to say, you know what? All of those existing things don't actually exist. That's contradictory. Right now, Buddha didn't actually say they didn't exist at all, but it sounded like that.

And this brave bodhisattva said, I see a contradiction here. I know you can't contradict yourself. I know I'm misunderstanding.

Help me understand. And that prompted what came to be called the third turning of the wheel in which Buddha said, oh, what I meant when I said nothing has any nature is that some things do and some things don't. And if we can distinguish between what does and what doesn't have a nature, we can change our behavior sufficiently to be able to stop perpetuating this samsara.

And that sequence of first turning of the wheel, second turning of the wheel, third turning of the wheel is covered in all of the 18 courses. And when we get to the 15th of the 18 courses, that whole course is called what the Buddha really meant, in which it's supposedly clarifying which one of these three is the real one. And we want that course to tell us it's this one and not that one.

And it's kind of frustrating when we do that course. It's like we need to understand. It depends on the level of the understanding of the student, which one is the one that will serve them the best.

To hand the most subtle teaching on karma and emptiness to someone who doesn't have the seeds prepared to understand it well, it won't help them. So what we keep calling the highest worldview isn't necessarily the best one for a given student at a given time. They say if the student keeps at it, they will come to their own level of understanding of the understanding of emptiness and karma, which is the one through which we actually stop replanting seeds for samsara.

And that is the highest worldview. The one that works to stop all suffering is said to be the highest worldview. But that means we want to just jump to the highest worldview.

Just don't waste my time with that lower stuff. Just teach me the one that's real, the one that's going to work. But the problem is the words can come out of our mouths, out of Geshe Michael's mouth.

And we could be going, yeah, yeah, I understand. I understand and I understand. And then we turn around and blame somebody for doing something and get upset with them.

And it's very clear that our intellectual understanding did not translate into our behavior, which means hearing the highest worldview didn't help, didn't sink in. So this particular practice module came about as Geshe-la was seeing that the students he was cultivating weren't getting the whole big picture together yet. And so he broke the different levels of understanding of emptiness and dependent origination.

He broke it into these six different levels of understanding. Geshe-la didn't make those up. They are the different schools of Buddhism that we hear about.

But we don't mean schools like UCLA and USC and University of Munich. We mean levels of understanding of the words karma and emptiness and what this succinct study of the six main levels helps us do is get them more clear in our mind what dependent origination and emptiness mean from these different levels of understanding. And then the idea is for us to be able to recognize when we are functioning from one of those six levels.

If we even make it to number one, we're doing pretty well. So we in each class will review and try to do two of the six flavors in each class. And then today's class we won't do an actual meditation.

We'll just do a contemplation. But then subsequent classes we'll be learning about it, and then I'll guide us through a meditative investigation of what we just learned. And this course in the course materials does have readings, homeworks, and answer keys.

You're not required to do the homework. It's mainly a study guide. It's helpful to read it right over for the review.

I do ask you, though, to give yourself 10 or 15 minutes a day to think through the two levels of emptiness that we talked about in the class just before, because each class builds on the next one. And we want to be pretty clear on what we learned previously so that we can add to it. Okay.

When we understand these six levels well, Geshe-la says it's like having a stairway up to the roof of the building, six stairways, six steps, and that when it's really clear to you, okay, I'm on the first step. I'm living according to the understanding at the first step. That will prepare us to be able to go up to the second step.

And when we recognize, ah, I'm living pretty well on the second step, up we'll go to the third. And we can march our way up to the rooftop. That is the analogy for this new view of our experience, the rooftop representing the direct perception of emptiness, actually, because the highest worldview efforts will plant the seeds to help trigger that experience of the no nature of self and things that Buddha taught in the second turning of the wheel.

When people misunderstood it to mean, oh, things don't really exist at all. So we're trying to get to that rooftop of the direct perception of emptiness. We don't stay on that rooftop, however, do we? We get that experience.

The experience will pass, as everything does, and then we actually go back down the ladder into life. But now we know something that we didn't know before. Intellectually, we understood.

But once we experience it directly, we're changed forever. We can't see emptiness directly again just by wanting to do it, or for most people just by sitting down and meditating on it again. But to do an emptiness meditation after you've had the direct experience, right, it's much more accurate.

Won't it be? Then the ones we do based on our intellectual understanding. So again, this practice, a practice called Mahamudra, is a practice designed to help us grow the likelihood of our direct perception of emptiness. And from that experience, we now know.

And nobody can make us unknow after that. So there's a text that we're studying from, although we really don't use it in class. It's in your reading.

It's called The Light of Crystal Clarity. Here's my share. Written by one of my heroes, the first Panchen Lama, Lobsang Chukyagelsen.

His dates are 1570 to 1662. We know him from the angel-devil debate text that Geshe-la has been teaching. We also know him.

Those of you who took the open day-long classes, he wrote that day-long text. He wrote all that poetry. So if we're not familiar with Lobsang Chukyagelsen, if you stay in this lineage, you will become familiar with Lobsang Chukyagelsen.

In Lama Christi's Set Your Practice on Fire series of courses, this is one of the texts that we studied in depth. And I have a group that's doing those courses again. We'll get to the Mahamudra again someday.

Oh, I need that back again. So the term Mahamudra is Sanskrit. The Tibetan is chakya chenpo.

And it's a long, long story about what that actually means. And all of it rolled together has something to do with making us a seal, S-E-A-L in English, that establishes something as authentic, as not tainted in any way. Mahamudra or chakya is this term, the seal.

And Geshe-la's example was in the olden days when you had an envelope to send a message to someone. You had a wax. You made a melted wax, and you put your chop, and the wax sealed the opening of the envelope.

And if you received the envelope and the seal was not broken, then you know that what's inside the envelope is what the sender sent you because nobody tampered with it. Because we would know if they did, the seal would be broken. We see it in more modern days, at least in the West, that everything we buy that has a cap that you can open is somehow plasticized and sealed.

And there's always a message that says, if the seal is broken, don't use this product, because it implies that somebody has tampered with it, and you can't trust that it's safe. I remember, I want to say it was in the 70s maybe, that some really unfortunate suffering human being put poison in Tylenol, acetaminophen bottles in a drugstore somewhere, and somebody died as a result of taking these tainted medicines. And then because of that incident, ever after, everything is sealed so that you can know no other unfortunate person has done that.

And then a whole new industry got started because now everything is sealed in that way. But the idea is that says our stuff is safe. So there's something about this word Maha Mudra, is the stamp of authenticity and untampered with.

The Maha or the Tempo means great. So whatever this seal is trying to convey, putting the Maha or the Tempo means it's great, it's the big one, like the most important one. And we will come to see that there is a Maha Mudra practice in the Diamond Way called the Nakluk.

Nakluk means the secret words system, which is another word for Diamond Way. And there's a Maha Mudra practice in the Doluk. The Doluk means in the Sutra system.

So the two practices are different practices. Their goal is the same. The reaching Maha Mudra from Diamond Way is said to be reaching the clear light, reaching Maha Mudra Sutra Way is said to be reaching the direct perception of emptiness.

Both are directly perceiving the lack of self nature to oneself and all existing things. But they are arrived at through different methods. And so they have a little, not a little, they have a big different effect on our minds afterwards.

Both have an uncomparable effect. In training the Sutra system, we are building the foundation to allow us to shift to the Diamond Way system when the time comes. So in a sense, the timing of this course came so perfectly.

If many of us are getting ready to receive that transmission, it's like we're building the momentum to that that will help you push forward through what that Diamond Way is promising us to be able to achieve when and if we carry out our commitments, keep our vows, do our service, carry out our commitments. Okay, now I can get rid of this. So the Great Seal, Maha Mudra, Chakya Chimpo, is actually code for experiencing emptiness directly.

Whatever method is used to get there. So we have Maha Mudrad once we've seen emptiness directly. So let's just review a bit why seeing emptiness directly is significant.

And to do this, let's go back and talk about our friend, the pen. Do you see? Look, look, watch, watch. So what is this thing? It's a pen.

We know that if the dog comes in here and I offer it to the dog, they sniff it, they chew it. We struggle a little bit thinking, no, the dog sniffing and chewing a pen. But if we think about it just a little bit, we recognize, yeah, for me, the dog's chewing on a pen.

But for the dog, they're chewing on, I don't know what, right? Something to chew on. And if we think about that, we recognize that, well, then, this object cannot have its identity in it the way I think it does. Right? We just have to think, how is it that I can see pen and dog can see chew toy? If the pen's in it the way I think, impossible.

That gets us started, doesn't it? What I think I have in my hand, the pen that tells me it's pen from inside. And by knowing pen, I know what it does. And still have this feeling that it has its writing ability in it because I can't pick up an apple and decide to write with it.

And the very fact that the object doesn't make the dog do the same thing tells us the object is not in charge here. So the pen that we perceive, the pen that we see, actually reveals the pen's empty nature. And you don't say that to total beginners.

But we've been studying this for a while. And to understand that to perceive anything is to perceive it uniquely to me. And if it's something that someone else can perceive, it will be perceived by them uniquely to them.

And as soon as I realize that, I understand something about the fact that the object's identity cannot be in it from it. To perceive something is to reveal its emptiness. To me now, no, I have to think about it.

But someday it'll be so obvious that to perceive anything is to perceive its emptiness. And that's getting close to Buddhahood omniscience, perceiving the no self nature and the appearing nature of the object at all time. But then even that gets more and more complicated when we really tried to pin it down.

Do we think a Buddha sees an orange pen? And the emptiness of the orange pen when a Buddha's mind is perceiving all existing things. So Buddha's perceiving each one of us perceiving this object. You know, and the way the Buddha's perceiving it, it's like it's getting really big fast.

So that's not what we're here to discuss. We're wanting to clarify this understanding of how for something to appear to us, it must lack its own nature so that it can be what I perceive. If it had any nature of its own, it would make me perceive it in that way.

But come on, I believe that it has a nature of its own and I believe it makes me see it that way. And that's what we're going to explore. The nuances of my belief that yes, this object does have something pen-ish about it that allows me to see it and use it as a pen.

But we're going to get there. We are trying to unravel where the appearance of the object as a pen then comes from. If it's not coming from the object and it has to be coming from me, for me to experience it the way that I do.

How did that, where did that come from? Is it something I just decide pen? No, because I can't do that. Is it something I can wish into being pen, pen, pen? No, I can't do that either, mostly. But it is, it does happen.

It is a result of a cause. So the deeper meaning of cause and effect is this understanding that the reason I perceive an orange pen right now is that it's the result of some cause that was in my mind before that is now causing me to have the result experiencing an orange pen when I want it. Cause and result is the mantle seeds from what I did to and for others in the past ripening into my experience of what others are doing to and for me now.

Even the pen other, it's there available for me to use. English just failed me because I said it's there and that's not actually the highest view to even say that. But I need to leave it there for right now.

Cause and effect is I do something towards someone or something. It imprints in my mind when that imprint ripens, it brings to me an experience that is the ripening. We think the law of cause and effect means you plant a tomato seed and if it grows, you will get a tomato plant.

That is true in our human world. You don't get tomatoes from carrot seeds. But the reason that is true is still by way of karma ripening, not by way of some nature in a carrot seed or a tomato seed.

Are you with me? So the law of cause and effect is behavior makes the seed, the seed ripens, makes my experience. That's cause and effect, that's karma. Worldly cause and effect, put the key in the car, turn it, the car starts.

We are not negating worldly cause and effect. We're negating why worldly cause and effect works sometimes and doesn't work other times. Because it isn't true that every time I turn the key to start the car, the car starts, right? So it cannot be actual cause and effect, even though millions of times it works.

Karmic cause and effect never doesn't work. But here's the problem. We can't see ourselves plant the seed, grow the seed, and watch that seed ripen.

There's too much time in between. We can learn the system intellectually well enough that we can deduct it happening. And we learned from course 13 that many of us just finished that deductive, right, accurate deduction is valid reality.

We can prove something exists by deduction. But we can't see directly, experience directly the subtle workings of karma. It's deeply hidden reality, deeper than ultimate reality, seeing emptiness directly.

All right. So the reason we want to understand the law of cause and effect accurately is because that shows us that it's through our own behavior, our own personal behavior choices, that we create the seeds that will become our own personal experiences. So do we want to stop perpetuating all that unpleasant stuff that goes on? Yes.

Do we want to stop perpetuating the pleasant stuff that wears out? Yes. Do we want to even stop perpetuating the seeds that force us to age, die, get sick, age, die, and be forced into a rebirth where we have to learn this all over again? I hope the answer is yes. And learning these different levels of what's meant by the emptiness of something helps us be more clear in the moments of our reactions to things about what our reactions are planting.

That's what we're about to do in the next eight classes, is clarify for ourselves these different levels of ways that we misunderstand the existence and experiences that we have, that because of the misunderstanding we misbehave towards them and that misbehavior plants seeds for new unpleasant circumstances or pleasant that wear out or just pervasive. So that misunderstanding, they call it ignorance, and ignorance sounds like something we don't know, but really our ignorance is a misknowing, a misunderstanding where things come from. It's not just a not knowing.

It's a misknowing. And as we can correct our misknowing, and even through our belief born of logic, we choose different behaviors, then the goodness of choosing those different behaviors helps us grow the goodness to be able to understand our misknowing better so that we can get clearer and clearer on what the accurate knowing will be intellectually so that we can grow ourselves towards the actual experience of the true no nature of things and more importantly of self. So in the Mahamudra practice, it's special claim to fame is that the Mahamudra uses as our meditation object, our own mind, the mind as the object, and it's difficult to even, it's difficult to figure out how to do it.

So we'll learn to go through these six different levels using a physical object so that we can get them clear. And then in between classes, you kind of cook how that's related to your own mind, and then eventually we'll get to a place where we will be working with some level of awareness that will work our way through the six levels with this level of awareness called feeling. And then if we have enough time, we'll try it on for size with our very me.

The Lama Christi's course took something like 25 or 28 classes to get to the place where we were regularly meditating on our own mind. So I don't expect us to be able to get there in eight classes, although you're welcome to wow me. But the advantage of Mahamudra eventually is that it's a meditation done with the object of meditation is our own mind.

So they say that because that's the fact, there's advantages to Mahamudra practice. One of them is that it's a powerful method for reaching a deep state of meditative concentration that can sustain the direct perception of emptiness. So we've learned that that requires being on the first level of the form realm level of concentration, long story.

To reach that, we need to reach Samatha. To reach that, we need to reach single pointed concentration. To reach that, we need to move through those nine stages of meditation.

That's a different course. Mahamudra is a great practice for moving through those nine stages to Samatha swiftly because you have this object that's so readily available. Typically, our practice says visualize the Buddha before you or your Lama before you and use that object, powerful karmic object to get your focus, fine tune your clarity and then check dullness, agitation, fix it until you can park your mind on that visualized object.

And that requires being able to hold the visualized object. It requires having some amount of attraction to the visualized object. It takes a certain amount of effort to hold that visualized object.

If the object's interesting, easy. If it's not so interesting, harder. And the idea of meditation is to gain this ability to be able to meditate at that level of concentration regardless of your level of interest in the object.

You just turn on your meditating mind and it'll park on whatever you say. So, Lobsang Chukyagelsen says, for Mahamudra, the mind as your meditation object is so easy to hold because it is what's thinking. It is what is aware.

All you have to do is be there and you've got your meditation object. He says you can't lose the object in Mahamudra meditation. Personally, I have lost the object in Mahamudra meditation.

I guess I'm just special. But once we get the hang of it, it very swiftly puts us on to level four meditation where you don't lose the object. Very swiftly.

And when we're using some other object, it can take some time to get there. Second reason Mahamudra is an important practice is that it's an analytical meditation about the nature of that mind. And so it's difficult to get stalled out in dullness or subtle dullness.

Because you're working on something and it's the mind that's doing the work on the mind itself. There it is. If you get stalled out in your argument, you're aware of it.

And so you fix it. And then they have the same argument for it helps you avoid agitation. Because in agitation, your mind's going off the object or getting ready to go off the object.

And because the mind is the object, it's like, Whoa, where is it going? Come right back. So they say if we're really using the mind as the object, very swiftly, we'll have our recollection strong and are aware of the sheshan, checking for dullness and agitation. The trick with Mahamudra is to find that thing, the mind that is our object.

We think our mind is so obvious. And then when you get in there to find it, it's like, wait, wait, until you find it. And then once you find it, it's like, Oh, my gosh, how come that was so hard to find? Then you can't find it, actually.

All right. And then the fourth one is that effort ripens us for something higher, meaning our effort at a Mahamudra practice is planting these seeds that will grow into this higher level Mahamudra, the Diamond Way Mahamudra practice. Okay.

How'd we do? We did well. Let's take a break. And we'll start our first two.

So like five minutes enough. Okay. Five minutes enough for you, Claire.

Okay. Okay. Are we back? So what does Mahamudra mean? The great seal.

What's it code for? Seeing emptiness directly. Seeing emptiness directly puts the seal on us, on our mind as somehow being authentic, as being authoritative, as being untampered, unstained, like all these different ideas of how our mind is different after we've seen emptiness directly. Now we know something we didn't know before, even if intellectually we had it really, really clear.

To experience it directly changes us, and we are sealed. And we can't lose it in that sense that it can't be tampered with then. So technically when we are doing Mahamudra meditation or practicing Mahamudra, it's probably more accurate in English to say, I am practicing in order to reach Mahamudra.

I am practicing in order to trigger the direct perception. But what I'm doing to do that is the practice that's called Mahamudra, right? Similar to the six perfections, right? They're called the perfections. We don't do them perfectly until we're Buddhas, but we call it, I'm doing the six perfections, similar with Mahamudra.

All right. So to work with these six different levels of emptiness, to reach any level of understanding emptiness, we first need to recognize what is there that we think is there that actually isn't there. And that's what establishes this thing called emptiness.

We call it the Gakcha. The Gakcha is the thing that emptiness is empty of. I use the words and I don't understand them, but there's no other way to describe what we're looking for.

We think, oh, here's my world. I interact with my world in such a way. Just teach me how to do it correctly and I'll fix my behavior.

But it actually doesn't work like that because until we really figure it out, at some point we'll resist the change that we need to make. If we're relying on some authority figure that tells me how to behave, at some point my ego, me, misunderstander is going to go no. But when I figure it out myself, I'm still going to go no, yes, no, yes.

Until I've hurt myself enough that I finally go, oh, okay. And I don't know about you, but I know I'm at this many lifetimes. Hopefully not many more.

So in each of these different levels, we're doing two of them tonight yet, we establish both what we think is there more clearly and then we check out whether or not it can be there in the way that we believe. So to start right out saying, okay, hold your mind as your meditation object. Think about how you think it exists and let's explore it.

It's like, sorry, we wouldn't get very far. So we're going to use something simpler, something more tangible that we can explore. But then our task is to do the same thing with the aspects of our me that will include the aspect of our mind.

So Geshe-la started with the pen thing and I'm going to do it too. But when I get to the part where we're going to try it on for size, I'd like you to use something that we're more attached to, like use your phone. Maybe I should use my phone just to start out because, well, you'll see why.

I'll go there. So first of all, when we have an object, this pen, let your wrong worldview be strong. If what's in my palm, you're going to say it's a pen, right? Or it looks like a pen based on the information that you get, which is almost nothing.

And then you're not surprised when I click the tip and show you the clip and then show you that it writes. And as I do all of that, our minds are saying, see, I'm right. See, I'm right.

That is a pen. Right. It was.

And now she's proven it to me. It is a pen. And with that, it is a pen, is our deep belief that it's pen-ish-ness, its identity and its quality are there in it.

We can't help it if you're not Arya or higher. And I don't know. We can't help it.

The seeds with which we planted pen are stained with the belief that the pen that we planted had its identity in it. So we are forced to experience the pen that is the ripening with its identity in it. It's in the seeds.

That's why this is so difficult to turn off, because the seeds that we have to be able to turn it off are so subtle. So when we say, OK, yes, there's pen. And we have this deep belief that it's somehow in it from it.

We also have this deep belief that it's it's impermanent, like it's a weird word. We don't go through life going, oh, that's impermanent. That's impermanent.

But deep down, we do. We believe that, for instance. OK, watch this.

Watch. Now, watch. Oh, look, nobody is startled by that because we believe that this object, the orange pen, has this permanence to it.

That when I put it in my cup and came back to the cup, we all expected it to be there. So nobody goes, wow, where did that come from? We go, of course it's going to be there. Right.

Same with everything else we experience, our wallet, our cell phone, our car, our me, our spouse. We have this expectation that they they are there. Intellectually, we know they're not the same.

Right. This pen is five minutes older than it was when I first showed it to you. We know that intellectually.

But come on, is it the same pen? Yes. It's not a different one. I mean, we think this stuff should be so obvious.

But language just is so hard. It's the same pen and it's a changing pen. And we go, yeah, right.

Nothing wrong with that. No, there's everything wrong with that. It can't be an unchanging thing and a changing thing at the same time.

Those two are opposites. It's got to be one or the other. But if it's a changing thing, well, then.

How can it be a pen now and not an apple and then not a bicycle and then. It is a pen, it does. Stay as a pen until something happens to destroy it.

And then it runs out of its penness and it's destroyed and it's gone. So, yeah, it's impermanent because it stays the same and then it disappears. Right.

So no big deal about impermanence, except that that's not what it. That's what gross impermanence means. And we all live with that.

We all know that. It's not any great. Aha.

To remind ourselves someday the car key is not going to turn the car on and I'll deal with it when I get there. Subtle impermanence is recognizing that this object, in fact, isn't staying the same for more than a finger snap. Because it's right here it is.

Time's moving. I'm experiencing it. And then I experience it again and then again and then again.

And if we actually functioned at that level, it would be this miracle. Oh, my God. The pen's still there.

Right. How can it be still this pen? Let's see if it writes. Oh, my gosh, it's still right.

Like we would be on this crazy. Amazed. State of mind all the time.

And of course, our world would think we're crazy. So we're trying to find this in between. Like what does what is the what is not there in the pen or with the pen that we believe is with the pen that is revealed to us at this first level of understanding emptiness.

So the first level is understanding that there is no permanent whole self-standing nature to this object. And we'll learn this again in. Oh, we learned it in ACI course 12.

We'll do it again in 15, probably to learn the Tibetan and all that. I'm not going to do the Tibetan at the very beginning level of exploring emptiness. We first need to recognize that we do believe that there are some permanent whole self-standing nature to the things we interact with.

To the other people we interact with, to the other experiences that we have. All the way up to my own body. My own feeling.

Discriminating between thing, all the other factors that make me up and all the different kinds of awareness that I possess. Every aspect of the three spheres of every experience we hold in some way as having this permanent whole self-standing nature, not self-existent, but there is an orange pen. It will still be an orange pen by next class.

It will still be this orange pen by next class. And we expect it. And then when it shows up that way, we go, see, we were right.

When in fact, it doesn't say that. We would be amazed if it shows up again, if we understood correctly. So the first understanding of emptiness is to recognize this permanent whole self-standing nature to this object, meaning its pen, is not true.

There is no permanent whole self-standing pen here, is there? If there was, what would that mean about this object? It couldn't age. It couldn't run out of ink. It couldn't be a chew toy for the dog.

I couldn't even take it out of my cup and put it in my hand because its permanent whole self was in the cup. And it wouldn't go into my hand until it, the permanent whole self-standing pen, decided I'm going to go into her hand. But then that would mean it's not permanent because it would have had to have changed to go from saying I am a pen in a cup to I am a pen in Surani's hand.

It has to change to do that. So suddenly it can't be permanent and it can't be self-standing. Because even if it does decide I'm going to go be in Surani's hand, it's dependent upon Surani to be there, to have the hand for it to go into.

So it can't be self-standing. But wait, wait, no, it is a pen. Do you see our own minds? My own mind says, yeah, I get it.

But deep down, no, there is an orange pen. It'll be the same orange pen when I do this class tomorrow morning and it will have changed. I know because it's a day older, but somehow I still illogically believe it's unchanged.

It's unchanging and changing at the same time. We are crazy. Humans are nuts.

Because we live with that and say, OK, fine. So why is this important? Because this belief in its permanent self-standing whole nature as a pen makes me expect that it will be a pen tomorrow and it will have the ink in it. And when it doesn't.

I get upset. Who took my pen? How did my pen run out of ink? Do you see our misunderstanding at this level is enough to still cause me to get upset when this object with its own nature, when it's self-standing whole permanent self doesn't behave in the way I want it to behave. When it goes missing.

When somebody breaks it. So, you know, who cares about pens? That's why I'm saying, yeah, what about your cell phone? No, this permanent whole self-standing important thing, if it's doesn't have that kind of. Permanent nature.

Then are you saying that I'll pick it up tomorrow morning and it won't respond to my pin number? Does it change that much? Depends on our seeds, right? Our seeds could be such that we wake up in the morning and are on cell phone doesn't work. And then my mind goes, yeah, but only if somebody messes with it. Right.

I'm insisting that the thing isn't changed. Somebody had to have changed it. But that's my wrong worldview.

We're trying to recognize our wrong worldview in action so that we can decide whether our reaction to the object is a reaction that I want to replant or not. When we're understanding more and more about the not permanent. Not whole, not self-standing nature of these things.

We won't have those expectations that would allow us to get upset when it appears that somebody took my phone. And that's hard to imagine, isn't it? Like what? I could get to a relationship with my phone that wouldn't care if somebody took it from me. It's like that's not the point here of Buddhism.

It's not to become, you know, some doesn't matter what happens person. It's to be able to avoid that flip out. Who did this to me? I'm going to get back at them.

What do I have to do to fix it now? By all the old ways, our worldly point of view makes us react and then act in order to fix something that we can't actually fix by what we do in the moment. Can we? That doesn't mean we don't do anything in the moment. It means we're very careful what seeds we plant in our effort to fix the problem.

So to just see our cell phone as our cell phone is not the wrong worldview. To see our cell phone as my cell phone in it, from it, permanently like that. That would make me get upset when something happens to my permanent cell phone is the worldview through which I plant seeds that perpetuate the suffering.

Obvious suffering, suffering of change, pervasive suffering, not just for me, but for everybody technically. Because we are holding the identity and function and permanence and mind mindness into this object. Okay.

Are we having a valid perceptions of cell phone mobile? I'll show you. Yes. Do you see? Same as the pen valid perception.

We're having valid perceptions most of the time. Are they correct? Technically not. Because we have with this valid perception.

Depends nature in it. It has some impermanence to it. It's going to function the way I expect.

It's going to be here until it's not. So this first wrong way of seeing the object is to see the object and hold to it in this way that believes that it will still be this object five minutes from now, an hour from now, two days from now. It's not obvious.

We have to think about it. And so don't think about my pen. Think about your own favorite pen.

Where is it right now? In my purse, at my office. And notice how your mind goes, yeah, I know it's there. And it's going to be there when I get to work tomorrow.

And then when it is, see, I'm right. Instead of when it is, wow, great. Because technically it's a miracle.

If your favorite pen is still there on your desk. You created it there on your desk still. So we'll get there.

We're moving a little too fast. Is the perception of the pen wrong? No. Valid.

Is the belief about the pen mistaken? I don't know your mind, but I know my mind. It is mistaken. It believes if I put it over here and then go reach for it, it's the same pen.

Do you see how slippery? It is the same pen, but it's changed. So it's a miracle that it's still there. As similar as it was before that I can recognize it and use it again.

Which if I'm functioning from that level. If I understood as soon as I stop experiencing this pen. And then when I go back to get it again, if I have if I have no expectation of it being there and it is there.

Wow. Good job me. How can I use it to help somebody else? As opposed to, OK, my pen, leave my pen alone.

This is my pen. I don't touch my pen. Which, you know, we don't do that so much until we have something that we really depend upon or something that's really valuable.

Leave that alone. That's mine. It's going to stay being mine as long as I determine it.

Right. That's leaning into the second one that we're going to go into. Let's see, am I supposed to do that first? No.

First, let's explore. So how am I doing? Have a half hour. So use your own object here.

I'm going to hold up my pen. But you hold up either your own pen or something that feels more close or important to you, like your phone, like your purse, like your wallet, something. Right.

Hold it up. So you're going to watch it. Look at it.

So in this sequence, the first thing we always do is just. Perceive it, just look at it. Old, ordinary.

Human way, no analysis, just there's my pen, my pen, then intentionally shift to finding the feeling about your object that it's something permanent, reliably permanent. It's not something we see in it, but it's definitely something we believe about it. So as you're just looking at the object pen, can you feel in yourself this belief that if you took it away and came back to it tomorrow, it would be still there.

As my pen. You find that belief now, drop that belief and see if you can see the pen and feel differently about it. I can't, but I can explore it pen without its permanence.

It doesn't even make sense, does it? A pen that's not the same pen. Now, let's impose our understanding that in fact, this object in your hand is like flashing moment by moment, like seeds ripening 65 per instant. The cascade of mental images.

Imagine you're seeing your object as this cascade of mental images identifying it. Just pretend you can do it, but it makes me feel like I'm going to drop it at any moment because it's so insubstantial. It's like, what's in my hand if it's doing that? Go back to just the pen.

Go back to your object. Permanent, even with the permanent mind and feel how strong it is and then impose that know it's images ripening moment by moment by moment. Miracle that it seems to stay the same.

Can you feel a different reaction towards it? Okay, in one five minute class, we're not going to get there, but you can get the idea of how to explore. It's a very imaginative and thinking experience. From just my experience to recognizing what I believe about the experience of the object to removing what I believe about the experience of the object to then imposing wisdom on the object, the wisdom of it.

In this one, changing moment by moment by moment and see if you can catch a different relationship with the object as you go through those different levels of trying to experience the object more directly from these different levels. Is it clear? Trying to find our belief in its staying the sameness identity that actually is impossible and so miraculous that it is. It does appear to me the same, the same, the same, the same.

When I understand that its impermanence is such that it's shifting moment by moment, what and suddenly it were to blink out of existence. Would I, would I like go, Hey, who stole my pen? Or would I go, Wow, I just saw it. I just got it.

Our expectation of things being the same will start to fall away. And when our expectation of things and people and reactions and happenings being the same falls away, there's less and less reason to get upset when things don't work or happen in the ways that we expect them to. Because we expect them to happen in the ways they've always done because we believe in this permanence of them.

When we can recognize our belief in their permanence is a belief in something that is impossible. We can stop having that expectation. And we'll decrease our upset in this when things don't work the way we expect.

Or people don't do the things we expect or our own body or our own mind doesn't cooperate. Just from this first level of looking for the permanence that we believe is present, that isn't present. All right.

So to have the direct experience of subtle impermanence, this changing, changing, changing nature is one of the precursors to the direct experience of the seeds ripening, which is the precursor to the direct experience of nothing exists in any other way than that. The direct perception of emptiness. So it's not an unimportant experiment to try to recognize our belief in things, sameness nature, to be able to pull that away and recognize things appearing natures instant by instant.

Because to experience that directly puts us on this push. All right. Let's do a second level of something that we think is there that's not there.

A second level of emptiness. The words that are used here is we believe that things self other have some self standing substantial nature to them. Some self standing substantial nature.

And here substantial is code word for meaning being in charge of something. It's not usually substantial means solid, clarified, you know, something you can get a hold of and something tangible, substantial, important. But here substantial means, though, though, the one in charge.

So that kind of makes sense to if you're the substantial person at the office, that means you're probably the most important one. And you're the one who's in charge. So here we're talking about things being in charge and it's silly.

It's like, come on, the pen's not in charge of anything until we recognize our expectation. The reason I pick up a pen is because I want to write with it. And so the pen is in charge of the right ability.

It has the ink inside. It has the grip ability. It has everything I need.

There's something in the pen that agrees with me and allows me to then write with it. Some kind of pen in charge of being a pen. It sounds stupid because we don't think that.

But deep down, we kind of believe it. Along with that permanent pen that's sitting in my cup is the pen that writes. It's in charge somehow of being a writing instrument.

I don't reach for a banana. A banana is not have any kind of being in charge of writing. Now, technically, I'm the one in charge.

I'm going to pick up the pen and whether I write with it or not is up to me. I could tie my hair up with it if I had hair. So we say, no, the pen doesn't have any substantial nature in that way.

But I sure think I do. I'm in charge of things. And most of us are in charge of things.

Valid experience. We have responsibilities. We are in charge.

But is it actually possible for anyone or anything to have this nature of being in charge of either what it does, how it responds to the situation that it's in? If you're in charge, truly, in our sense, we build suffering beings. What are we, sadistic or whatever that means? I don't have the right word. We can't be in charge.

But wait a minute, I'm the one that sets the alarm for what time I am in charge. In the same way that pen is permanent but not permanent, is my in charge but not really in charge. Does that mean our conclusion is, oh, I'm not in charge of anything, so I quit? No, wrong conclusion.

When I think I'm in charge but I'm not really in charge, can I get upset when things don't go my way? Absolutely. If I knew I wasn't in charge and things don't go my way, would I get as upset? Hopefully not. That's our clue as to how well I understand my in-charge-ness and the other's in-charge-ness, is how upset I get when things don't go the way I want them to go.

Even in my own reaction circumstance, like something's happening, determined, I am not going to yell back, but out it comes. And then, oh, regret. If I was in charge the way I believe I'm in charge, I would never let that happen.

We are not in charge. What makes me fly off the handle? Seeds ripening. Is it that the other person did something stupid? It doesn't matter whether they did or not.

My reaction comes out of my seeds ripening, and I can't choose those seeds. If I was in charge, I could. Why does it seem like I'm in charge? Is it a good thing to be in charge? It's a good thing for Ken to be in charge of his three-year-old.

But is he really in charge of his three-year-old? Not ultimately. Seeds ripening are in charge, aren't they? So then are we just stuck? Seeds ripening, seeds ripening, who cares what I do? No, because part of the way our seeds are planted is that we ripen the ability to have a choice of how we respond. And to choose a different response than our automatic pilot one plants a seed to get off automatic pilot.

To choose a different behavior intentionally to plant a seed includes in it the seed to be able to choose different reactions. We can plant seeds that ripen as appearing that we are in charge of someone. And if that is a good, a pleasant experience, it's only a result of having planted that seed and it helps somebody.

If being in charge is an unpleasant, unpleasant reason, it can be that being in charge is a ripening result of saying that we are unpleasant to someone else in this arena of responsibility or being in charge. So it's not that we are not in charge. It's that we are not automatically the one in charge of everything we experience.

How do we know? Because we can't just wish things to be different. We can't just decide it's pleasant to have our tooth drilled by the dentist. If we were in charge, we could do that.

Nothing's in charge in that way. Any appearance of being in charge is these seeds ripening, having that responsibility, acting in a way about the result we intended. When it works, it's a goodness.

It's a ripening result of some way that we've helped someone else in the past. It doesn't work. We do our responsible action and we don't want to be recognized for ripening somebody from their perspective.

Responsibly to be blaming the other for our circumstance. Understand that this is all seeds ripening and I am not in charge in the way that I thought. All of this is designed to stop our afflictions.

Not just suppressed, not just not reacting to them, but no more mental afflictions. But to get to that place, we also need to damage the belief, the subtle belief that the other has their nature in them. We have to see emptiness directly in order to plant our seeds in such a way that don't add to the misunderstanding.

Even as we're working on overriding the misunderstanding. It takes seeing emptiness directly just once to stop adding to those seeds of ignorance. Which is why they say then we're on the conveyor belt out.

Until then, we're still replanting ignorance as we experience things. Chipping away at them with a class like this, with a meditation like this when we get to it. Just this series of logical thinking to recognize I do believe in things as permanence.

Even when intellectually I understand it. I do believe that things and others have some in-chargedness to them. Some controller to them.

Even as I understand intellectually that that can't be the case because things go wrong. So we're trying to find that feeling, our interaction, our friend. That I'm in control of circumstances and they're in control of their circumstances.

Therefore, it's totally illogical. But we hold that fits with our experience of life. That I'm the one always deciding those things.

I have my alarm set at 4 a.m. And there are days when I wake up at 6 a.m. And when I finally look at my phone, the phone says the alarm went off for 4 a.m. three times. And it's like we say, oh, you just slept through your alarm. Yeah, but if I'm in charge and I intended to hear that 4 a.m. alarm, how can it go off without my hearing it three times? I can't be in charge.

And yet that's such a common experience. We don't go, wow, that's significant. We just go, of course, you didn't hear it, you slept through your alarm, big deal.

But no, it proves I'm not in charge. And if I'm not in charge of my 4 a.m. alarm wake up, how can I say I am in charge of my bank account? Let's be consistent. Let's be logical.

So does that mean we're not in charge of anything? Technically, yes. But don't let it slip you into, okay, nothing matters. Because because we're not in charge, everything matters.

How we plant our seeds matters. Does Buddha become in charge of everything? No. Does Buddha function to help everybody get happy? Yeah.

Are they in charge of that result? No. Does it upset them? No. Can you imagine being not in charge and yet still be the parent? And be in charge, but understand that you're not in charge so well that when your effort to be in charge doesn't go right, you don't get upset.

You just switch gears. You just go in a different direction. Because, all right, seeds ripening differently right now than what I expected.

Let's do this instead. Like how refreshing it would be. Wouldn't it? To go through life with this.

Okay, that didn't work. Okay. All right, let's respond in this way.

It would be this beautiful flow. And we see Geshe Michael demonstrate that so beautifully. If you ever get to see him in action in a program.

It looks like everything's going exactly the way it's supposed to. But he's just shifting with the flow of it. So smoothly because of that awareness.

All right. Can you control the shirt on your back? Do you know for sure you'll have it tomorrow? No. Do you know for sure you'll have your computer tomorrow? No.

Is it likely? Yes. But do we know for sure? No. So that's what the second one is trying to explore.

Using an object. Where's my control over my cell phone? First, you stare at your cell phone. Recognize it as a cell phone.

Valid experience. My mobile. Then get in touch with.

I'm in control of this mobile. It's mine. I can throw it away.

I can break it. I can use it. I can.

But anybody else. Get a hold of my mobile and harm it. You're in trouble.

We feel that. Find it. Find that feeling about it.

And then explore that sense of control. And explore the reaction to the absence of that control. That happens in daily life.

When it appears that someone stole my phone. Flip out. Just explore some circumstance that would happen with your object.

That would make you feel like out of control. And how you are likely to react to that. And.

Notice. What seeds would that plant. To actually act on that impulse.

To go blame the other guy for. Smashing my cell phone. Is that going to bring the cell phone back? No.

Is that going to teach that guy a lesson? Probably not. Is that going to plant seeds in my mind. For somebody to get.

Crazy upset with me when I make some mistake. Probably. Explore it in your contemplation.

So that when life happens. It might be the case. That when something goes wrong, you can think.

Oh, obvious. I wasn't in charge when I thought I was in charge. This isn't a surprise.

How shall I respond? Our cushion time. Is where we explore those ideas. And then we watch for it to show up.

In daily life. Where can we apply our understanding of. Things aren't impermanent.

I was expecting them to be impermanent. Or sorry, permanent. And I can recognize now when things aren't as permanent as I thought they are.

I can just go. Okay, fine. Let's do something else.

Or. When I thought I was in charge of something. And it doesn't go the way I thought.

Can I. Not be upset. Not feel threatened and instead. Respond accordingly.

These two permanence. And being in charge. Whether it's our own in charge or our expectation of somebody else.

To be in charge of themselves. Like your behavior. Our expectations is what we're looking for.

The fourth step always. Is to. Put on to your experience your understanding of.

Under the influence of karma. Seeds ripening. So you just pretend.

That your fourth step. In your permanent pan. And you're.

In control of the pan. Is no, actually, it's just seeds ripening. So that how I respond.

Is planting seeds for future. How I will perceive this pen. Right, so the four stages.

Just the object. Then find the wrong belief about the object. Get it really clear.

Then show yourself. Why that belief is mistaken. Analytically.

And then say, okay, what's really happening? Seeds ripening seeds ripening the cascade of mental images. And then you go backwards. Oh, I see my belief.

I see what it would be without the belief. Oh, I see what it is. Just the object.

We'll get good at. These four levels dancing between them. And then also dancing between the impermanence.

And the inchargeness and the others that are coming. We'll be able to. Like dance up and down this stairway.

Like Fred Astaire, you know. So it's coming. So we have two.

Levels of emptiness. The emptiness of things. Or self or other beings.

As having permanent. Whole self. Self standing selves.

The permanence being the factor. And then the second one. As anything or anybody or any aspect of me.

Being substantial in nature. Meaning being in control. A master of my five heaps.

So explore those two please. Between now and when we meet again Thursday evening. See what your experiences are.

And then we'll explore it again. And then go to the next two levels. Okay.

All right. So to close class. We recognize the goodness that we've done.

To study emptiness and dependent origination. Which is what we're doing. Is an incredible goodness.

And that goodness is vibrating in our world. Uplifting everyone already. Surprisingly.

And so please be pleased with yourself. No matter how confused you might feel. Or how tired you might feel.

We've made some great goodness. So be happy. 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 and help you and inspire 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 loving kindness. Filled with wisdom.

And may it be so. All right. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Thank you Miss Claire for making it available to everyone. Have a great week. I'll see you my Thursday evening.

Everybody okay? Not allowed to leave you scared. Good. Good, good, good.

Okay. Thank you. I love you.

We are ACI practice module 6 flavors class 2 on September 10th 2026 where I am. We'll do our opening prayers and then go right into a meditation. I will lead us through all the meditation preliminaries and then we'll explore those first two levels of ways that we misunderstand the things of our experience called the first two flavors.

Not actually real emptiness is, but two wrong views that we want to reveal to ourselves are mistaken. Right? Ready? 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 and it's 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 us to grow this 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 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.

Now settle your body into your meditation posture. Check your alignment and then your body's relaxation. And then bring your focus of attention to your breath at your nostrils.

Feel your focus. Zoom into that place, those sensations. Turn on your clarity, bright clear state of mind.

I'm sorry it's so early in the morning. And turn on some level of fascination even if you have to fake it. Keep adjusting those three focused on the sensation of breath.

Now shift your object of focus to listening and following my words. With that bright mind, with that fascination, take refuge in whatever understanding about emptiness you have now. Explain it to yourself and think of how that understanding as it goes deeper can and will protect you by helping you change your behavior choices.

Think it through. Now grow your bodhicitta by thinking about that person who's in distress and understanding this emptiness of them and their distress. Meaning it has something to do with our own seeds ripening.

Which means changing our own seeds is how we will help them to become free of that distress. Feel eager to help them in that way. To grow that level of love and compassion and wisdom through which our own behavior will help us see them change for the better.

Feel a sense of eagerness to make these changes and then turn your mind back to that precious holy being there before you. See their face clearly, how happy they are with you. Think of just one of the amazing good qualities that you see in them.

Feel your admiration. Think of all the goodness they must have done to grow that good quality in themselves assuming they see it in themselves. We feel our admiration and our aspiration and make a mental prostration to them.

Meaning tell them of your admiration, your aspiration, some sense of reliance upon them, devotion to them. Tell them. Then make them some offerings, the traditional ones, any beautiful thing.

And what they like best is to hear you or to be aware of you hearing yourself. Tell them about some way in which you did something based on something they had taught you. So think of some kindness from earlier today, yesterday that you did because of your study and practice and tell them.

See them even more happy with you in receiving your offering. Then we feel so safe in their presence that we're able also to share with them some deep regret, something that we thought or said or did out of old habit, out of old wrong view that planted a seed that when it comes back to us, we won't like it. Recall the event, the deed.

Tell them about it. Tell them of your regret about it and explain that the reason you regret is that you see you planted a seed that goes against our growing effort to help beings stop their suffering. Then make your pledge to not repeat that mistake in some specific time period that you know you can achieve and then offer them a makeup activity which could be your attendance and effort in this class.

So then know that when we finish this class, provided we keep our power of restraint, the seeds of that event will be damaged. So feel happy with yourself for having this plan, this effort to clean our hearts and then fill that space in our heart with some rejoicing Tell that holy being of some kindness you saw someone else do with a sense of pleasure in the goodness that that person planted. Tell them of another kindness you did recently with a sense of pleasure for the good seeds that you've planted and then try to think of someone that maybe you don't get along with so well and tell that precious being of some kindness you saw them do, the person you don't like so much.

Surely somewhere along the way that person has been kind. Tell the lama about that. Now ask that precious being to continue to bring your teachings, formal ones like this and the moment-to-moment ones that we get as we move through our ordinary human life day.

Those irritations, those struggles, ask them to help you use all of that for growing your bodhicitta and then ask them to please stay close to you. Ask that all the spiritual teachers in the world stay close to their students, stay present in our world, ask for your dharma friends, co-students to stay close and then we dedicate these preliminaries to reaching a deeper understanding of emptiness and karma. Then check in with your body.

See if it needs to move or shift or twitch or blow your nose. Now's the time to do it and then you settle back in. Swiftly go through your sequence of setting your body.

We don't know that yet. We'll learn it someday. Bring the mind back to the breath at the nostrils to fine-tune the focus, the clarity, the intensity.

Now shift from your breath as your object to listening and following my words as your object and bring to mind your own favorite physical object that you own. Think through the different things. Decide upon just one of them to use for this session.

Give me a thumbs up when you have something. Maybe it's the thing that's most important to you. Object, not person, object or the most valuable, the most precious.

Okay, okay, okay. Wow, somebody had a big one. Everybody got one? Okay, all right.

Good, okay. Now in your mind's eye, simply gaze upon that object unexamined. There it is.

My, fill in the blank, simply the object. The next step is to examine our feelings about that object. There's many.

Maybe, oh, I find it so beautiful. It gives me so much pleasure. It reminds me of my mother.

Lots of feelings. Explore through all of those feelings about that object and find the feeling, the belief that that object has some lasting quality. It's there.

Every time I reach for it, it's where I left it last. It's the same object. I recognize it.

Find the belief that that object has some kind of permanence. There's a belief we have about it. Try to find it.

Now recognize how you would feel if this, your favorite object, got stolen or broken. This upset that comes is because we believe that the object should still be there. We expect it to be there.

When it's not, our belief has failed us, but we don't realize that our belief was mistaken to begin with. We get upset. Who stole my mother's ring? Who broke my computer? Move to the next step, which is recognizing that this favorite object, in fact, does not have that permanence in it.

Try to imagine being aware of your object as something that has no permanence. What would it be like if you did not expect it to be there the next time you looked for it? This object is simply passing through our life, constantly changing as it goes. No matter how long it seems that we've had it, it will be gone very soon.

What would our reactions and relationship to this object be when we are aware that it is this fleeting, passing series of mental images and nothing but that? Now, let all that go and come back to just experiencing your favorite object unanalyzed. There it is. Let's explore the second flavor of emptiness.

As you experience your object, again, feel your feelings about it. One of the feelings we are looking for is our feeling, our belief in our ownership of it. This belief that that thing is mine, and so, therefore, under my control, and so, therefore, it is my decision how it's used, where it goes, how well it is taken care of.

Find our worldview about the object of our ownership, our control over it, because of our ownership. Recognize how that belief in our ownership of it can so easily trigger upset when somebody uses that object in a way that we disagree with, or without asking us, or if they are even the agent of revealing to us that object's impermanence, meaning someone breaks it. Our belief, it's mine, I control it, gives way to these mental afflictions, doesn't it? So, next step, explore this control over it that we believe we have.

Do we control its destiny? Can we make it do the things we want it to do? Is anything that we believe we own under our control? Recognize there is no such thing as something that we can control, nothing that we own. We do have the object, but the object that we control, there is no such thing. That object doesn't exist.

The object that is there is there by karmic circumstance. It appears I can control it sometimes, but not others, which means I don't control it. So, notice again, this object and our belief that it has some kind of lasting nature, and that we have some kind of ownership and control, and recognize that because of those two beliefs, when it doesn't behave according to those two beliefs, we get upset.

We can have the object without those two beliefs about it, and use it, and enjoy it, and share it with others, and not get upset when it moves out of our karma ripening. So, now let go of that sequence. Come back to your awareness of that holy being before you, and your awareness of doing this exploration in order to become a being who can help that other in that deep and ultimate way someday, and dedicate what we've just done to reaching that goal someday soon.

Remembering your awareness to be keenly aware of in your body, in your room, in this class, and when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch. Nice job. That was 40 minutes.

You don't think you're a meditator that can do 40 minutes. You just surprised yourself. Yeah, well done.

So, we'll be using these same four steps repeatedly. Just the object, the object in the wrong way, but before we know it's wrong, then explore that belief that we're looking for to find it's impossible. Rest in that impossibleness nature, and then what we do is learn to slide up and down between the way I believe it appears.

It can't appear like that. It only appears according to how my seed ripening makes me see it and believe it, and it doesn't exist in any other way than that, and so we'll get used to that at all these different levels, and again, for this to be an actual maha mudra practice, we'll be doing that on the quality of our own mind's awareness. Not sure we'll get all the way to that in this course, but we'll try.

Okay, so questions, comments, concerns so far? All right. So, let's do a little bit of the teaching class, and then we'll take our break. So, this tradition teaches that there are five stages of personal development that a human goes through on their journey or their quest for stopping suffering, and it's the same five if our quest to stop suffering is just focused on our own suffering.

It's the same five if our quest to stop suffering is, no, everybody's suffering is what I'm out to stop. Depending on that level of belief in the ultimate, what's meant by each of those five stages or what is experienced in each of the five stages is a little different, but the principles are the same. So, Keshla had said if we understand these five stages of development, stages of change well, we'll be able to recognize like where we are in our life, and it's helpful.

Well, you know, before I said, we're talking about these six steps up to the rooftop. Our minds naturally, habitually want to know like, which step am I on? Because, you know, it's like, okay, I've made some progress. I've got this far to go.

We measure ourselves. Technically, we're measuring ourselves against other people, which is a mistake, but that's how and why we want to know, and Keshla said we can use these understandings of the five stages to get a sense of where am I on my progress to my ultimate goal. So, I'm assuming because you're studying in a Mahayana tradition that your ultimate goal is to end the suffering of all existence, and that's the same as saying my goal is to reach Buddhahood for the benefit of all.

So, in that case, when we're speaking of these five stages, we're speaking of these changes in our behavior, our focus of behavior change that are directed at a certain new understanding about ourselves in our world. So, we know the five, right? The first one is the path of accumulation, and we're accumulating enough disgust for our worldly life that we are growing a greater and greater willingness to change in order to stop perpetuating it. We're talking about renunciation, and renunciation starts out feeling like, oh, those teachings are telling me to give up everything, and then as we understand better, it's like, no, actually, the teachings aren't saying give up anything.

They're saying give up our misunderstanding of those things and where they come from, but sometimes we need to remove ourselves from circumstances in order to be able to change our relationship with those circumstances so that then we can go back into them, if we even could, and relate to them differently. So, path of accumulation is really living a suffering life long enough until finally we go, there's something wrong with this picture, and we're desperate for something new and different. Then comes the path of preparation, where what happens that moves us to the path of preparation, Geshe-la says, is somebody tells you the pen thing, and there's some piece of it that we get, because we can tell the pen thing to someone, and they go, okay, fine, bye, right? It doesn't impact them, or we can hear it, maybe not the first time, but maybe the 10th or 20th time, we're going, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, my gosh, right? Something really deep and profound that we can't get our finger on yet, but keeps us digging and learning and searching.

So, path of preparation is where we're studying and learning and taking teachings and contemplating and meditating and serving, actively trying to plant our seeds better, even before we quite understand how to do that, to grow our more and more clear intellectual understanding of where that suffering all comes from in the first place, and that path of accumulation, path of preparation can go on for lifetimes, or it can go very swiftly, based on our own past life's efforts in accumulation and preparation, and we will move through those four different stages of path of preparation that have to do with our level of, not level so much, but as our more spontaneous awareness of the intellectual fact that things can't exist and happen in the way that it seems like they do, so that we remember to plant our seeds differently, and that grows to that final highest stage of deceptive reality, the experience of pot on stove, that experience of seeing, not seeing the seeds ripening, being aware of the mental images cascading out, karmically pushes us into the direct perception of emptiness that we've already been trying to meditate upon, working with intellectually, but have not yet directly, personally experienced. Once we do have the direct perception of emptiness, and we come out of it, that's the point at which we can say we are forever changed, because we've now directly, personally experienced that thing that before we had just intellectually studied so well. The analogy I like is learning to ride a bicycle, so suppose you want to learn to ride a bicycle, you get every video on YouTube about how to ride a bicycle, you read every book, you are an expert in how to ride a bicycle, but you've never actually gotten on one, but then you get on one, and you actually ride it, and you go, oh, that's what all that meant, you get off the bike, even if you never get on another bicycle, you know what it's like to ride a bike, because you did it once, so our two paths of accumulation and preparation we're growing goodness, we are purifying mistakes, we are making progress, but technically none of that progress is so set into us that it permanently changes something about us the way our tonglam, our direct perception of emptiness does, so it's like we've got these steps, now let's call the steps path of accumulation, preparation, path of seeing, then path of habituation, no more learning, we'll get to those in a minute, technically we're dancing up and down the first two steps through daily life, through lifetimes, until we get on to the third step, path of seeing, once we're path of seeing, we may still work with our renunciation, we may still explore the path of preparation, still taking more teachings, helping people learn, but we never go off that progress the rest of the way, once we reach tonglam, because we got on the bike and rode it, we've seen emptiness directly, we know the no self nature, nature of myself and all existing things, we lose that belief, do we still experience our world as out there coming at us? Yes, and our path of habituation is those lifetimes in which we are learning to live according to what we now know is true, even though we're not experiencing it that way yet, so it is significant, they call a stream enterer, once we've seen emptiness directly, because the stream is going to carry you to the ocean no matter what, it's more like being on a conveyor belt that you don't get off ever, which is refreshing, then the task in our path of habituation is to burn off those seeds that make us still perceive our world as in it from it, and all the while we're doing that, we're replanting seeds without that belief, and if we're doing it on the bodhisattva path, we are doing our kindnesses with this new belief, in order to grow us towards that place where there's no more seeds for even experiencing things as in them from them, that's called eighth level, sometimes called nirvana, sometimes called arhat, for a mahayanist, it's another stage along the way to the goal which is omniscience, the path of no more learning, our total buddhahood, the seeds that we burn off and plant during our path of habituation, every single one of them, 65 per instant, is growing into our future buddhahood, which is why that direct perception of emptiness is so critical, so important, if we could wish it into happening, we would all do it, if the teachers could wish it into happening for us, we would have all done it by now, if the teachers could bonk us on the head and make us do it, right, we'd all be getting bombed and doing it, the experiencing emptiness directly also is nothing but ripening results of our own past deeds, we have to make the seeds for it to happen, we have to clear out the next, the obstacles that are preventing it from happening, we need to clean out our habitual behavior that reacts in the wrong way to our wrong belief, thinking it's the right way to get the happiness we want, when it's not the right way, you know, no wonder it's so hard, we're doing everything we were trained to do as human adults, but it's all mistaken, it's all wrong, it's like oh, so in studying our six flavors, the only one that is the intellectual understanding of the emptiness that we will experience at tonglam is the sixth one, the highest one, but to get to that one, we want to look at these obstacles that we have that prevent us from understanding the first time we heard the pen, oh, I get it, there's nothing that has any nature of its own, absolutely nothing, and not like get all freaked out by what that really means, so that's why we're going through these emptinesses that aren't really emptiness, and they are beliefs that we have that don't actually apply to the object or to our life, they don't work, but we have them, and because we have them, we behave badly, and because we behave badly, we plant the seeds to continue to have those wrong beliefs, so we need to find the wrong belief, we have to find the belief that we think is correct, show ourselves that it's mistaken, recognize how that mistaken belief triggers these behaviors that plant negativity, so that we can convince ourselves not to behave that way, because the thing doesn't really act like that, doesn't behave like that, so that's why we're going through this slowly, detailed, we want to be able to catch ourselves even in the midst of an interaction with, oh, there's me believing that the thing should be a thing, you know, where's my favorite pen, who took my favorite pen, it's not in my cup, only to find, oh, whoops, I left it on the table over there, you know, I was blaming somebody, especially blaming my favorite pen that was supposed to be in the cup, and it wasn't, I'm blaming it for not being there, right, these subtle ways that we interact that cause our own upset, okay, all right, let's take our break, and we'll dig into two more levels of mistaken view that we don't know are mistaken yet, okay, five minutes, please, okay, are we back, so what's pseudo-emptiness number one, permanence, right, the fact that the permanence we think things have, they don't have, understanding impermanence is helpful, what's the second pseudo-emptiness we were exploring, ownership, ownership, some kind of control, are we sure, am I sure I will have this shirt tomorrow, you know, seems like it, I've had it a long time, but I don't know for sure, am I sure our house will still be standing tomorrow, some of you are closer to this realization than I am, I'm not living in a place where something drastic could happen, third and fourth levels of exploration come out of the school called mind-only school, and recall that mind-only school philosophical discussion is from a level of a Mahayana motivation, we want to reach total Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings, and a belief that things that function, things that do things, things that make other things happen, have to have some kind of quality in them that allows them to have this effect on other things, functioning things must have some nature of their own, self-existent, no, don't be silly, nothing is self-existent, meaning existing independent of any other factor, a functioning thing can't function to bring something else about if it exists independent of any other thing, that's just silly, right, everybody agrees no such thing as a self-existent thing, but the taxi cab that breaks my legs, come on, it's not just a projection, projections can't break my bones, but taxi cabs can, do you see, so in all honesty, I'm still a functionalist, my mind still goes to nothing real when it imposes nothing but projections, and then, you know, quickly, no, that's what makes it real, but the automaticness of no, no, material things, solid things, they do have some reality, because bananas are different than bicycles, okay, so we're exploring the ramifications of our belief that things that function has to have some kind of their own reality in order to influence other things with their own reality in order to bring about a third reality, you with me, okay, so Mind Only School shows us two more wrong beliefs, beliefs that we have that we don't know are wrong, one of them is that when me and my friend the pen come together to do what pens can do, which mostly is right, but could be tie my hair up in a bun, or could be, I don't know, put a stopper in the door, that the pen has some pen identity and pen function, and more specifically, it has pen cause, this pen has its own causes, and me, I have my own causes, which are clearly different than a pen's causes, because I am not a pen, so me with my causes, the pen with its causes, is what allows me to then pick up this pen that can be a pen from its own causes, and me can use the pen to write, right, that's what I believe, things have causes, I have causes, there's the cause for me and it to do our thing, what's wrong with that, what am I thinking is the cause of the pen, the pen factory, the store I bought it in, I didn't buy it, someone gave it to me, we went to see our attorney, and they gave us a pen, so this pen has lots of causes, the plastic and stuff from the factory, the factory workers, it came off the conveyor belt, it got shipped, it got printed, it got to the lawyer, we got there, all those are the causes for me to have this pen, what's wrong with that, is it completely not true, no, hey, pens do get made of plastic, but where does that leave me, in terms of my mental affliction possibility, if I think the pen has its own causes, and me have my own causes, and then I have to rely on the pen with its causes, but they're independent of me, like it starts to get kind of funny, it's like if I, right, if the pen has its own causes, but they have nothing to do with me, then why doesn't the pen just pick itself up and run, it never does that, yes, Timothy, are you waving at me, because you like me, or you have something to say, we can't hear you though, it must be that you like me, can you hear me now, yes, we can hear you now, okay, does this have anything to do with how and why, the how of the pen is the factory, is the lawyer's office, is us going to the lawyer's office, but the why of the pen is what's left out in this description, would that be fair statement, that's fair statement, but I want to wait to get to that until we get to fifth level school, oh sorry, about how and the why, because at mind only school, they're how and the why, they will still say the why is karmic seeds, but they are not saying that there's nothing other than karmic seeds ripening, which is what my school says, so we're getting there, thank you, okay, did you just inhale your gum, you're okay, okay, so technically this first level of misunderstanding things in mind only school is the way in which we believe that me and the things that I validly perceive come from different substances, different substances is code for different causes, because it is true that the pen and me come from different substances, right, I come from the substances that have to do with my body, it comes from the substances, plastic, ink, metal, substances doesn't mean that, substances mean different causes, and even then it's like, yeah, of course we have different causes, I have human being causes, it has pen being causes, of course they're different, so what's mistaken about that, because we are saying that mind only school is pointing out a belief that we have that we believe is correct, that can't be correct, and explain the experiences that we have with these objects, so it seems correct, doesn't it, I still agree, it seems correct, different causes, part of that factor is the valid perception piece, we believe that me and the things I validly perceive come from different causes, that's not wrong, it's just incomplete, it doesn't actually explain our experiences, the reason they clarify valid perception is that rarely we have invalid perceptions, like when we're driving along and we see a mouse run across in front of the car, but then you look again and you see, oh, it was just a leaf, this school would say that was an invalid perception, higher schools would say differently, I don't know why they would then say the me and the invalid perception would not be coming from separate causes, because of course they still are, but I think the reason they take this out of the exploration is because the mouse that ran in front of the car was never there in the first place, we would be exploring the causes of the leaf, not the causes of the mouse, because the mouse was not a valid perception, higher schools will explore, mouse, leaf, leaf, mouse, what's really going on, and it actually helps us understand better the misperceptions at the higher view to look at that, but again from the mind-only perspective, the function of the thing we're exploring is so important, right, so when we perceive our object that we're holding to hat to come from different causes, the reason that that's mistaken is that even for me to experience an object with its own causes has to be my cause, has to be caused by me, because I'm experiencing the object, that has to come from me, doesn't it, the pen even with its own causes can't make me experience it without my causes ripening to experience it, that's straightforward, so yes the pen can have its own causes, but the experienced me experiencing pen has to be a set of causes that brings the object with its own causes and me with my own causes together, and that's this emptiness of the pen with its own cause and me with my own cause being able to interact, the fact that that interaction requires my causes to ripen that interaction, we're not perceiving it that way, pen, me, I grab it, I write with it, as opposed to my seeds ripening bringing me and pen together, writing happening would be more accurate, the emptiness that we're looking for is the emptiness of our belief pen with its own cause, me with my own cause, and somehow the two meet in some independent way, when in fact that happens because my seeds are ripening to bring it and me together, my seeds are ripening to bring you and me together for this class, your seeds are ripening to bring me and you here for this class, do we have our own causes? Yeah, but our experience at the moment is driven by the same seeds ripening, my seeds ripening to bring us both together, that's this beginning mind only level understanding of dependent origination, then coming out of, they call it the same karmic seed, like it's just one seed, and technically at this instant of me holding pen, that is one seed, but it goes 65 per instant, one seed for me to be doing this, to make it a movie happening, it's this seed, this seed, this seed, this seed, this seed, those seeds that are what bringing the experience, pen, me together, right, and that's, we don't perceive it that way as we experience it, which is why it's a version of finding something that we believe is there that's not there, that's where the lack comes in, but what we're actually learning to do is to see that in fact, it has to be my own seeds making this event, subject, object, interaction between happening, all right, so when we say all emptiness, everything disappears, it's like no, no, no, with emptiness, oh, that's how it's all working, it's all there, more real, more effective, more possible, when we understand, no, they're not independent, separate causes, it has to be coming out of one cause, one series of ripening seed causes for me to have the pen, and when those seeds end, what happens to the pen? No pen, and maybe it's just, okay, I put it down and I walk away, no pen ripening, no Surani using pen ripening happening anymore, and then the pen's not in my hand, it doesn't just poof out of existence, although it could, okay, first level, it's hard in words, we experience objects, other subjects, me, as having our separate causes, and somehow we interact, and then separate causes in random interactions, I'm going to blame that pen for leaking on my hand, I'm going to blame that pen for not being there when I need it, I'm going to blame somebody for something, because it's their causes causing the trouble, not coming out of mine, who wants to take that blame? Not I, so you with me? There's another level, what comes out of this still thinking the pen's causes bring it to me, my causes bring me to it, and then we can interact, that mistake leads us to believe that things actually happen to us randomly, well, you know, if it's not my seeds making the pen be here for me to use, it's something about the pen, or if not the pen, something about something else that's affecting me, affecting the pen, whether it's here or not, we go looking for anything else to explain our experience, why the pen leaked all over, why it ran out of ink at the moment I needed it, why I couldn't find it, why that other person has my favorite pen in their pocket, that if it's all coming from the other side, the pen's side, then we are free to blame, blame, blame, and we are free to be offended when what that other is doing, we don't like, we find unpleasant or offensive, so this second aspect of this misperception is this belief that there can be random events, Geshe-la called it no accidents, like somebody runs into your car, I'm so sorry that was an accident, and it's like no, actually there's no such thing as accidents, but not because, not because the other person, you know, shouldn't have made that mistake, but the reason there are no accidents is because there is no pen that comes to me that's not coming from my seeds, there's no car running into my car that's not coming out of my seeds, right, my seed ripens, that cause and my cause is coming together at the moment that they do, so we can't say that there are accidents that happen to us, things that happen that shouldn't happen, or that things happen randomly, random means without a cause, just anything that happens is a result of a cause, isn't it, there always have to be causes, there always has to be a reason why what we are experiencing, we are experiencing at the moment, and it can't come from the other thing, why not, because how can something else impose itself on us, independent of us, and not impose itself on everybody exactly the same way if it's doing the imposing independent of the one it's imposing upon, right, it's the pen and the chew toy thing again, that shows us mind only misunderstanding as well, for me to experience some event, random event that pops up that seems like an accident, that's coming out of one substance, my seed ripening for me and that to come together, everything is mind only, Jetsun Kappa says everything is karma only, is really what they mean by that, because karma is movement of the mind and what it motivates, right, so we hear mind only and we think oh it's all in my mind, and then that makes it dysfunctional completely, and then even as we take it further it's like okay my mind extends beyond my physical body, everything is mind only, and in that sense it really is, but in that sense awareness only, can we experience something without being aware of it, no, so everything we experience is experienced through awareness, so everything is awareness only, awareness is our mind, everything is mind only, but my mind goes oh right, and it thinks it wrongly, still it does that, okay, so these two flavors of misunderstanding is when we believe that the object of our experience, whether it's a pen, or it's the yelling boss, or it's the loving husband, we think that object has its own causes, does it have its own causes, yes, but is that why we're experiencing it, are we experiencing that object because of its causes, no, we are experiencing it with its causes because of our causes, our causes to be me, no, my causes to experience whatever I'm experiencing, when I'm experiencing it, my karmic seeds ripening bring them and me together to experience it, and so there can be no accidents, it's always my karma, there's no one to blame, is these two, both of them shows us no one to blame, that's hard right, I bow at your feet if there's no part of you that doesn't want to run away when you hear a teaching that says there's no one to blame but us for anything we experience, it's like I can't, that, yeah, don't tell me that, it's too hard, but if that's not true, then there's something in our world that we cannot change, and if there's anything in our experience that we cannot change, then we cannot, we cannot stop suffering, there will always be a suffering that we cannot change, it has to be true that everything is our karmic seeds ripening, everything, which means there's nothing we can't create by way of how we plant our seeds, and how do we plant our seeds, does anyone have a pen, I have one, oh thank you, right, that simply as we're aware of how we interact with those things that our own karmas have brought to us, how we respond makes the new imprint that eventually brings the experience, it really does make sense as we're starting to sort it out, but making sense and then living by it, two different things, right, intellectual understanding about bicycle riding and riding the bicycle, two different things, but we can understand well enough intellectually that we can decide to try on for size different behavior than our automatic pilot, and get this sense of how seed planting is where our creative power lies, and then we expect to be able to see a result, because who doesn't want the feedback of positive result from a new effort, and doggone it, for many of us we don't see a result that we can connect the dot to, this new behavior brought me that, it can take a long time for that to come, and by the time the result comes we've forgotten that we did that effort, so the advantage of the study, study, study, meditate, meditate, meditate, is to convince ourselves logically, intellectually of the truth of seed plant result come, so that we can like live in the seed planting, knowing that we're planting the highest things that we're capable of at the time we're planting them, and then let the result take care of itself, and these whole practices are all designed to help us do that, just by following the instructions, the guideline, when we follow them, understanding why to follow them, we are that much more effective, and that much more likely to follow the guidelines, when we understand why, who wants to do it, because some authority figure said do it, right, our teenagers come up and go, I'm not going to do that, show me why, right, prove it to me, right, then once we prove it to ourselves, then it's our job to live by it, nobody can make us do it, right, so we are exploring, how does understanding the fact that the objects do have their own causes, I do have my own causes, but there's a my cause that causes them and me to come together to do what we do, how does that help me with my mental affliction, what mental afflictions do you figure it's going to help us reduce, when we understand my causes, right, my causes making all this happening, can we imagine being in a situation and not blaming the other, angry yelling boss, I didn't do what you're blaming me for, to recognize, I yeah, I didn't do what they're for, but this is my seeds, does that mean we just sit there and let them yell at us and fire us, maybe, maybe not, but does it mean we yell back, does it mean we lie to wiggle out of it, do we do all those usual human things that we're expected to do, to set the situation straight, are we willing to do them, when we recognize, no, that's just going to plant seeds for some future unpleasant situation, where I'm going to blame the other for it, can I hold my tongue long enough to say something kind, that's true, I'm sorry you're upset with me, how can I help, in order to plant different seeds, then we've burned out that series of being blamed for something that you didn't like, and the tendency to react badly, that's all been burnt off, at least one set of it, which is going to make it a little less likely that it'll happen again, might it still happen again, might, and we'll be that much more able to not react badly, react with kindness, we've burnt off another one, when we burn it out of our own heart, we've burned it out of the whole world, haven't we, if there's nothing that we can experience, that's not a ripening result of our own ripening awareness, then every time we don't react badly, we've lessened the bad reaction in the whole world, that's cool, we don't actually have to see the actual result, we know we just, we just did it because we felt it, I was going to yell and instead, we just changed our world every time we do that, kind of cool, okay, so technically all of that was emptiness number three, emptiness number four shows us how when we reach, when we experience an object or an other in any way, we believe that that object identifies itself, they call it, uh, exists by definition and when we say by definition, we don't mean by the definition in the dictionary, the words, we mean that out of the jumble of possibility, the pen says pen, I'm a pen, there's something pen-ish here, the exact pen you see, that's up to you, but the pen defines itself, the yelling boss defines themselves, not meaning stands there and goes, I'm the yelling boss, but meaning when we experience it, we have this belief that there is something in it that shows us that, it comes to us as a word and a term, says higher school, but lower school says, yes, that name and function is being shown to us from it, by it, what's this thing, a pen, whatever it is in your language, still it's a thing that writes, correct? It defines itself, somehow we believe, now we all know that's wrong, right? We've been trained to reject that, I'm asking us to spend the next few days letting ourselves recognize these two wrong flavors, I believe the object's there with its own causes and conditions, and I believe that when I look there and see a pen, it's because there's something about the object that said pen, and we believe it because the object next to it is a pencil, and we don't mistake the two because they're different, right? So, this gotcha, the thing that we believe is there that's not there, is the object that's somehow declaring itself, when in fact what's happening? Is there no object there? No, there, there's something, and then in order for us to say, oh, there's my pen, our mind has to come up with that definition, that clarification of what this information is, it's our mind that says, pen, writing object, not even in the actual words necessarily, right? By the time you've recognized and reached for the pen, you have it in your hand before the word pen shows up, but the understanding, the delineating pen out of the massive data that our eyeball is getting has happened, and we believe that the object, something about the object made it happen, okay? What's in my hand? A pen.

We believe something in it told us it's a pen, when in fact our mind goes, pen, like think of a little bubble up here, pen, writing, writ, and suddenly there it isn't, suddenly there it is, so they say we experience this object through our mental construct, through a mental construct, construct means you take different things, you put them all together, you come up with a different thing, a new thing, you have defined it out of pieces, whole pen, pieces, pen, our mind has done that, not the object, it's called kundak, we'll learn it in course 15, it's called a construct because our mind took visual information, maybe tactile information, and came up with the name and the term pen, writing instrument, or maybe the other way around, writing instrument called pen, and then there it is for us to use. This one's a little harder to see why that can cause mental afflictions, but it's another exploration that shows us how the object's identity and function has to depend on something from us to be what it is for us. What is it for the pen? How do I know I'm not a pen? What is it for the dog? I only know what I perceive the dog doing, I don't really know what the dog perceives.

How do I know what it is for the boss? I think I know, but do I? No, I even think I know the boss and what the boss is, but do I? No, I'm experiencing them through my construct, my mental image that's made out of this information that my sensory input has given me. Where does that construct come from? Does it come from the object? Does it come from the eyeballs? Does it come from me by willpower? No. Does it come from some creator god? Does it come from some Buddha? Where can it come from? Where else is there? My own mind, my own awareness.

Can I experience anything outside of my own awareness? No. Can anybody? No. Can anybody make me be aware of what they're aware of? No, not even Buddhas.

Can we ripen the seeds to have the experience your enlightened angels showing you what they see you as? Actually, yes, you can, but that'll be your seeds ripening, right? Not that being imposing it on us because if they could, they would have already because they're enlightened beings because of their holy great compassion. They wouldn't be able to witness us still suffering and not do it, right? Not just by willpower, not do it. They would be forced by their being omniscient Buddha to do it so they can't.

So what's the good of being a Buddha if you can't help people? You teach them how to do it. And how do you know what to teach? Because you did it yourself, right? You went from suffering being to omniscient being made of love and compassion and you made all the mistakes and you've purified them and made merit. And that's how we'll help others do it.

It's a foolproof system, right? A failure-free system. Technically, it can just take a long time. Okay.

So level four is we believe the thing has some defining quality of its own. And so if it's defined into a quality we like, my pen, you leave my pen alone. If it's a defining quality we don't like, get rid of this.

Anything I need to get away from the defining characteristic I don't like. Does it work? No, because the defining characteristic is not in it to begin with. So when we glom to the one we like, we've actually damaged the likelihood of having other things have qualities we like.

And when we hurt somebody to get away from something we don't like, we've made more things that we don't like. We do the opposite behavior of what we should to get the things we want and the things we don't want, because we believe the defining quality is in it. Not just the pen, but good pen, bad pen, my pen, your pen.

It makes us fight over things. To believe that the best song is in it. The best place to go to eat is in it.

We fight because of this wrong belief. Because we believe it's in the object from the object. Because we believe the object has its own causes and conditions.

It does, but not the one that comes to me. That one with its own causes and conditions is forced to come to me by my seeds ripening. And whether it's pleasant or unpleasant is also forced on me by my seeds ripening.

My kunta, my construct. And the object itself doesn't have that kunta, doesn't have that construct in it. It gets it from me.

How do I make kunta? They are seed ripenings. A different word for what we use in higher school, but they have a different context as well. Mind only school does say the object pen, the other powered object does have an existence of its own.

Not the pen I perceive because I perceive through the lens of my construct. But it is a functioning object here. I never actually experienced directly the pen the way the pen exists.

I can only experience it through my own construct. And as do you. And as do we with every experience we have.

So again, who is there to fight with? Who is there to blame? Who is there to expect that they're going to be the same day after day? The permanence or impermanence? Who is there? What's the second one? Impermanence control that we can have any control over. So do we not try to control at all? I don't know. That's a long story, right? If you're raising kids, you have to have some, right? Some authority, but it's not going to come out of deciding you are the authority.

Okay. Got it? We now have four levels to explore. The mistake of permanence.

The mistake of some kind of control. The mistake of separate causes for the objects of my experience. And that object of my experience is defining itself with its own qualities and characteristics.

And so therefore, my reaction to it. And explore what it might be like if I didn't believe those beliefs. I experienced them, but I don't believe it.

How am I going to react differently to the angry yelling boss? How am I going to react differently to the drunk driver that drives into the car? And do we really believe we could even react differently? Explore it in your contemplation to see why your reaction can be different. Okay. Got it? So we learned all this motivated to become one who can help that other stop their suffering someday.

And probably they won't ever have to sit through classes like this because you're doing it for them. And somehow, because of our interaction with them, they catch on. So hearing this class is a great, great goodness coming out of us and being planted back in us.

So please 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 being.

See how happy they are with you. They see you catching on. Feel your gratitude to them.

Your reliance upon them. Ask them to please, 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 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.

Okay. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Please think about these things.

Contemplate. Even meditate. Okay.

I will see you Thursday, Sunday evening for me. Okay. Have a great weekend.

Okay, time in. We are Six Flavors of Emptiness class, third class on September 13th, 2026, where I am. We'll study first and then do our meditation second for this class.

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 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 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 me that, show me that, help me become like you.

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 have imagined 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. Idam, guru, ratna, mandala, kamyaya, tayami.

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.

I just want to show you this word, the Tibetan word, gac cha. I think we all know it, don't we? The gac cha. But I don't want to leave my screen share.

I'll come back to it, because I want to see you guys. So to find this thing called emptiness, we must first find this thing called the gac cha and eliminate it. So the gac cha means the thing that emptiness is empty of.

And I find that English phrase incomprehensible, frankly. But what it means is that we believe something exists in a way that it does not and cannot exist. But we believe that it does exist so strongly that we then react to it in mistaken ways to either get more of it or avoid it or get less of it.

We live our life reacting to these gac chas, these things that we believe exist that in fact are impossible. And that's what's so hard to wrap our minds around. Am I saying that angry yelling boss, while they're there yelling at me is an impossible thing? And so they're not really there? No, it's not saying that at all.

But there is some way I'm believing about that angry yelling boss that leads to my experience of them and that experience as unpleasant that leads to my reaction to them, believing that what I do in the moment will shut off this unpleasant unpleasantness because it's coming from them. When we recognize that we are believing in things and others and even ourselves in this way, existing in a way that's in fact impossible, we can stop having those mistaken reactions to those things. It's not that everything stops because that's impossible.

So at each of these different levels of understanding emptiness, we first show ourselves the belief that we have, show ourselves what happens when we act according to that belief and then show ourselves how and why that can't exist in that way. And then show ourselves that if we understood how the thing truly exists, what would our reaction to it be? How would it be different? And that explanation is an explanation of the practice of this Buddhist Mahayana philosophy of how to stop perpetuating the world that appears to exist in one way, but in fact does not. It exists in some other way, not that it does not exist at all.

So our first flavor of emptiness, we looked for the gaccha, which is or would be something that has permanence, something that we believe is going to last. We believe that existing, changing things in our world, have some permanence, which means I leave my pen on the table. I have every expectation that that pen will be there when I come back.

Given nobody takes, that I know takes it, the house doesn't burn down, right? Given an ordinary experience, I put my shoes in the closet. I expect them to be there when I go back. What's wrong with that? Nothing really, except that it's completely false that they're still in the closet because they have some permanence.

If they are still in the closet, which I won't know until I get to the closet and look, then I can only say at that point, see, my shoes have some permanence and I would still be incorrect about it. So our expectation of things having permanence means we expect our home is gonna be in the same location with the same stuff inside, with the same people inside day after day. And mostly it is, right? We expect our car to be in the carport and to start when we turn it on.

We have all these expectations. And what happens when the object that's supposed to have permanence, reliability, sustainability in it fails? I react. I react badly, probably.

I find something to blame. I get upset. I react in a way that does not help me actually.

Even when I think that that reaction is going to solve the problem. It can't because it's reacting to something that I believed existed, but in fact, didn't. Can there be such a thing as an existing material changing thing, which has permanence? No, things change.

Are there existing things that have permanence? Yes. Empty space, emptiness, long story. But we're talking about the objects of our experiences, whether those objects are material objects or other conscious being objects, the objects of our experience, we believe have some kind of permanence to them.

Like intellectually, we don't believe that. We know everything's impermanent, but somehow emotionally we have this expectation. And when it fails us, we get upset.

So the first level of understanding emptiness is this absence of something that we believed existed, but it doesn't. Something that lasts forever, something that doesn't change. So the understanding of emptiness then has something about the idea of impermanence.

And imagine what our experience would be like if we really had no expectation at all of the objects of our experience having any permanence whatsoever. It's unsettling, isn't it? It's like, I wouldn't know for sure if my bed is over there until I get there. I wouldn't know if it would actually hold me up until I sat on it.

It would be disorienting. And that the point isn't to try to learn to live in that sense of impermanence. And yet when we can, it's freeing us of these expectations that things should be there, should be reliable.

And more particular than things is people. So then the second flavor of emptiness, the Gakcha, the thing we believe in that doesn't in fact exist, but we believe it so strongly, we react usually badly, is ownership. Those objects that we believe have some permanence, some of them we believe are mine.

And that expectation that they are mine has in it, I control them, I run them. It's up to me what happens to them, which would mean anytime they go missing, anytime something goes wrong, anytime they don't work, anytime someone else does something with them, we would be offended because that thing is mine. But the very fact that we can experience somebody else taking my computer shows me that I don't have control, I don't have ownership.

Because if I did, nothing could ever happen to me or my things or my other people that I did not initiate. So second flavor is this belief that we have that we control, own and control things. Most importantly, we believe that there's a me that owns and controls my body and my mind, my five heaps.

And if we did control our five heaps, would we ever get sick? Would we ever get tired? Would we ever do something that wouldn't bring us the result we wanted? No, if we're in charge, we're in charge. So it's kind of crazy that we get as old as we are, still believing we have some kind of control over things when control has never worked. And yet I know some of you are parents.

And then to flip to the other side and say, okay, I give up control, chaos, right? So we're not saying that we can't have the appearance of control, but the appearance of control and the control itself are two different things. At this level school, second flavor of emptiness, our expectation that I control and own things leads to mental afflictions when our experience is it's out of my control. Somebody did that to me.

Somebody took my stuff. We are upset about something that is non-existent, the me controlling those things in the first place. So the understanding of emptiness here helps us see the mistaken view of ownership, the mistake of our expectation that we're in control.

Then the third level, the Gakcha is believing that our experiences and the objects of our experiences come from some cause of their own. And we come from some cause of our own. And that belief makes it such that it can seem like things can happen accidentally or randomly, or again, that they do that to me.

And that belief leads us then to react against the them who did that to me in a way to try to protect ourself or in a way to try to get more of what we want. So this one is described as understanding that the fact that it's not correct to say objects and experiences have their own causes, me has my own cause, and we randomly connect, the lack of that reveals that the me and the object of my experience are all coming from the same substance. Same substance is code for the same karmic seed.

Who's karmic seed? It has to be my karmic seed because I'm there. We can't say, well, it could be their karmic seed, but then, right? We wouldn't be the one experiencing it. They would be.

Are they? But when we're talking at this level about me experiencing you, you do have a karmic seed that's ripening you and your experience and the me that you are experiencing. That's coming from your substance. You and my experience and me is coming from my substance, my karmic seed.

My seed ripens. It brings me here and the UI experience here to have the reaction or have the interaction that I have with you. At this level, you exist separate from me.

The pan exists separate from both of us. It's there whether I'm experiencing it or not. But when my substance ripens to bring me and it together, ta-da, I have this pan that I am experiencing in this way.

I can't blame the pan. I would rejoice. No, I had the seed to bring the pan to me when I needed it.

Wow, yay. But when the angry boss is yelling at me, it's much harder to go, wait, my seed bringing them and me and my experience, oh. I really can't justify blaming them, yelling back at them, doing something non-virtuous to fix the problem unless I want more problem in the future.

My understanding of this one seed thing should help me choose my reaction differently than my belief in the gotcha allows me, forces me to choose my reaction. Are we getting an idea of it, a feel of it? So within this level, this is mind only school level, it's important to recognize that we're going step-by-step and not jump too fast to the training we've already had in the highest worldview. It's tempting to do.

Functionalist school, mind only school believes, as I do, I admit, something that functions has some kind of nature that's different than something that functions differently than it does. Because my experience is there's definitely a difference between a bicycle and a car and a difference between both of those and a chair. And so there's something in them and we're gonna get there, we're gonna explore that.

For the functionalist, even at mind only level school, there is the thing, the object there, but I don't experience it until my seed ripens, it to come to me and me there with it. And then we have our experience. However, we don't then say, oh, then everything is non-dual because it all comes from my one karmic seed.

That's a mistaken understanding of the term non-duality and it apparently comes up at this level somehow between mind only school and middle way is this term non-duality. Geshe-la clarified that that term non-dual means that when we are in that direct perception of emptiness, the direct experience of ultimate reality, we cannot during that experience have the experience of distinguishing between self subject side and object side because both subject and object are part of deceptive reality, appearing reality. And ultimate reality is the absence of those appearing realities, appearing with their identity or qualities in them.

So we cannot experience subjects and objects while we are experiencing ultimate reality, but it does not mean that they have disappeared or that there is no such thing. And it also does not mean that me, the subject side, has merged with emptiness. Somehow we are experiencing the absence of my own self nature and all existing things, but we have not merged with it.

Words just fail to explore it. Then there's another meaning of non-duality. It's like non-duality when you're thinking emptiness and non-duality when you're thinking appearing reality.

Non-duality in this other flavor is when what is appearing and appearing the experience of how it's appearing are consistent with its existence. Like again, words are very slippery here. Meaning in duality, things appear to be self-existent when they're not self-existent.

And a meaning of non-duality is when we are actually experiencing something's appearance and its ultimate reality consistent with the way it actually exists. Meaning we're experiencing something as a cascade of mental images, results of our past behavior and it's no other nature than that nature, which to me says the only time we can experience both of those is once we are omniscient, Buddhahood. It's not clear if that's what they're talking about, but when we are perceiving objects accurate to how they truly exist, that's a meaning of non-duality.

They're still subjects, objects. All right, so those were flavors one, two, three. Permanence, nah.

Control, nah. What's the one I just said? Coming separate, random, separate accidents. Anything that I could experience that's not coming out of my seeds.

Nah. Fourth one, if we don't quite have the first three clear yet and we have an experience, then we have a judgment about the object of the experience and our response to the experience. Angry, yelling boss, this is unpleasant.

That's a judgment and with that judgment, it's a, this is unpleasant, they are doing it to me. And we hold the unpleasantness that I feel as their fault. I blame them for it.

If they weren't yelling at me, I would not have this unpleasant feeling. That's kind of true, right? You're not gonna be standing at the ice cream store and all of a sudden have the feeling the angry boss yelling at you. It does seem to be related to the experience.

And so we believe, yeah, you know, this feeling I have towards it's coming, they're causing it, somehow they're causing it. We call those judgments. We have judgments all the time.

The thing is our judgments are, we hold those judgments to be coming at us, like imposed on us by the experience. We don't recognize, oh, that judgment, that's actually constructed by my own mind. Information, I come up with the judgment about it, but I believe that the judgment that I'm having about it was imposed upon me by the experience.

So I believe my judgment is like valid, it is valid, correct. And then we have the expectation, well, then everybody should agree with my judgment. Like anybody getting yelled at by that boss would have the same opinion of the boss, wouldn't they? You know, and on the first blush we go, yeah, of course.

But then in actual experience, I don't know, some crazy person loves to be yelled at by the boss. No, maybe the boss is at their nine-year-old soccer game and the boss is yelling, yeah, go, go, go. Their nine-year-old's getting yelled at by our boss.

Nine-year-old loves it. They're getting the attention. Then we go, that's a whole different circumstance.

Right, because of our judgment out of the information. So really it's not me and yelling boss situation that causes the problem with judgments. It's when we're trying to make a decision together about something and my judgment says this way is best and your judgment says that way is best.

And we clash because we don't understand that my judgment can be just as valid as your judgment even if they're opposites. And if we had this understanding, oh, my judgment about the situation is totally related to my being, all my past experiences, all the way I've believed in things before and they're doing the same thing. Why would we argue about disagreements? And wouldn't we like totally celebrate when we were on the same page with somebody? Because it would be so flabbergasting that we agree on anything when we're all so different with such different background.

So this second flavor of mind only school still is that these judgments that we have, that we think are imposed upon us by the object and the experience are not. They are our own constructs, things our mind makes up and lays onto the situation. Do you see how that's starting to dance into middle way? Just our seeds ripening.

Mind only calls it the kundaks, the constructs. When we interact with things, mind only school perspective, we never actually interact with that pen that's sitting on the table. We're always interacting through our kundak, our mental construct of that pen that makes it this specific pen in my experience of it.

My seed ripening, here comes the pen, me and the pen, my kundak, this pen. My name, my label, this pen, this experience. Then I set it back down.

The pen is still there. But I'm not experiencing it until my seeds ripen again. Kundak pen, mind only school is helpful.

We tend to tease about it, but it will, living according to mind only school well, will get us very, very close to the realizations that we're wanting to push us into that direct perception of emptiness. And we don't have to even address whether or not those functioning things exist because they do. But we're gonna learn how to interact with them differently because we understand there's never anything random or by accident, it's always my seed ripening, which means my seed planting becomes critical.

And my judgment about the thing is purely mine. Everybody has a different one. So no need to argue.

Let's get on the same page and resolve this thing. Mind only level can help us do that. So it's not that we stop judging.

I don't think that's possible for a human mind. It's to recognize where our judgments come from and decide whether we wanna act on them or not. Somebody said, yeah, but even in this teaching, we are judging which one of these emptinesses is the best.

And Geshe-la has been saying again and again, the best emptiness, the highest emptiness is level six. But in fact, that's not true. Level six is the most accurate, but it's not the best because it wouldn't help somebody who's only at the level of being able to understand things are not permanent the way we think they are.

So the best emptiness, the best Gakcha and emptiness teaching is according to the one that functions for the person who hears it. The one that functions for them is the best one for them at that time. Then later they become ready for another one.

So let's go on to flavor five. Mm, flavor five comes to us from the lower middle way school, Svadhantrika school, it's not a tantra. The term means independence.

Here it is, Svadhantrika. It's the Sanskrit term for this level school. If I had it in my list, it would be down here between mind only and Prasangika.

So we have these schools, Abhidharma, Sutras or logic school, mind only Yogacharya and Prasangika. Abhidharma, Sutras, mind only are functionalists. When we get to Svadhantrika, they're hedging their bets.

I, yeah, we can't really agree with things that function exist separately, completely, but we don't quite get how things can only be projections because it still seems like to say something is nothing but my projection. I should be able to stick my hand through this computer or right, nothing should have any tangible reality if it's just projection, which is a misunderstanding. It's not true, but my mind still goes there.

So this fifth flavor, the Gakcha is something that exists from its own side through some unique way of being. Now that does not mean self existently. Self existent would be independent of any other factor whatsoever.

And we all know that's impossible for something to exist from its own side through its unique way of being explains how we would say the mind only's pen that's sitting over there on the table that I'm not experiencing. We would say, yes, that thing has some unique way of being. I can't, I don't know exactly what it is because I'm not experiencing it, but there's something there because I left a pen there.

There's something there. I lost my train of thought. This goal says things do not exist from their own side through some unique way of being, but rather they exist by virtue of it appearing to a normal unaffected state of mind.

Things exist by virtue of appearing to a normal unaffected state of mind, meaning two conditions need to be satisfied, need to be present in order for us to experience something. There needs to be a something there to be experienced and there needs to be my mind in an unimpaired state experiencing that something. And then what that mind is experiencing establishes the object's existence.

If my mind is impaired, say I'm high on drugs, I'm hallucinating and this object shows up and I see it as some rainbow, I don't know, chew toy, we would say that does not establish a rainbow chew toy to exist because the mind was impaired. Did they experience a rainbow chew toy? Yes. But that didn't make it exist in the way that for an unimpaired mind to have this information become a pen establishes this pen as existing.

Did it establish this pen as existing yet? No, but now it has. Now what's there? You can't really say, can you? Similar to highest school, you can't say until our valid perception establishes a pen. But can our valid perception suddenly establish this as pen? Like no, right? It's not all coming from my mind.

And it certainly is not coming from my mind by my wishing it or deciding it. Because if it were, I'd say, I need a pen, reach for some object, pen, no, not pen. The object doesn't exist from its own side through its own unique way of being, but it does have some pen-ishness, glasses-ness.

It has something, it brings something to the party. Because if that were not true, when my mind ripens pen, anything I reach for should become pen and it doesn't work like that. So the thing has to bring something, but for it to become the thing for me, my mind has to do that, which again is why my mind and your mind might come up with different things.

What it is to be human is for this information to become pen and this information to become glasses. But it doesn't mean that the pen or the glasses are giving us that identity. They are suggesting it, but our mind is giving it its existence, its reality, its name and its term, which is what high school is gonna say.

So it has to be, an object has to be appearing in such a way to suggest the object and our mind fills in the details to make the object become. And then we use the object. So again, if we understand that, who's to blame if that object is a pleasant experience? Me.

Who's to blame if the object is an unpleasant experience? Me. If the object can't bring that to us, it can only suggest itself. Okay? Geshe-la calls this 50-50 school, but you know, it's not like half the pen is the pen and we fill in the rest.

It just means some of it suggests pen, we lay on the rest. But 50-50 is an easy way to remember it. They use this analogy of the magic show.

We've probably all heard it before. Hmm. Independent school says, look, we experienced things similar to a magic show.

So I guess in India, there were these magicians, they would wander around. They gather a crowd, they'd hold up this stick and they do some rituals, simsalabim, and then throw it on the ground. As they say magic words, and then throw blast magic dust on the crowd.

And all of a sudden the crowd's going, wow, backing up because suddenly there's this big elephant in the middle of the crowd. And whoa, the crowd sees an elephant and believes the elephant is there, they say. Then they say, well, what happens when somebody comes along who didn't see the magic spell and didn't get the dust? And they're looking in the same direction as everybody's going, whoa, what do they see? Just the stick on the ground, right? What's everybody upset about? There's just a stick there.

And then what about the magician? What is the magician experiencing? They were there, they got the spell too. They're seeing the elephant there, but they know the elephant is this thing imposed, but not a real elephant, I choke on the word real. They're seeing the elephant, but they know the elephant is not there like that.

So they ask, who are these three beings experiencing this magic show? The one seeing the elephant believing that it's there is non-Aryas who don't know anything about emptiness and karma. The reality I'm experiencing is in it, from it, oh my gosh, there's an elephant there. The newcomer is, I forget the analogy suddenly.

The newcomer is someone who's not being fooled by reality, by mistaken reality. And the magician is like a Arya, a new Arya, Arya not Arhat, because they are seeing reality the wrong way, but they know they're doing it wrong and they can't not do it. So the, we would call it Arhat, who's seeing reality for what it is, just the stick there.

The Sosoke was believing what they see is reality and non-Arhat Arya perceiving things the wrong way and knowing they're perceiving it wrongly. Mind only says, or not mind only, sorry, independents say, this is the perfect analogy because you have to have the stick there and you have to have the spell on the people for the people to perceive the elephant. There has to be something pen-ish and there has to be me under the spell of it's pen-ness is in it.

And so therefore I experienced the pen as in it from it instead of experiencing the me 50-50, partly it, partly me. How does that help me to know for sure? Partly it, partly me. I'm suddenly not limited to how I use this object.

If I recognize I'm bringing some part, some big part of this object's identity and function to the object, well, then that means I could bring something different to it. I could use a thing called pen for something completely different if I had this wisdom and the seeds to do so. So they say this is a great level of understanding for transforming problems into the path because what would be, oh my gosh, this is a disaster, can be, wait, no, I can see it differently.

I can use it differently. Maybe this getting fired from my job leaves me this perfect opportunity to take this other position and go in a whole new direction. I would never have been brave enough to do that on my own, but fire me and okay, I'm out of here.

That's using problems as the path, which happens at this level. We don't have to react in the same old way. We can make new choices.

And often what we see that the beings who are familiar with this, they'll find themselves in a situation where something's broken and ordinary perspective is you need this particular thing to fix the problem. And because of this ability to not be limited by this belief in things as unique natures, they're able to fix the situation with a rubber band or my mother always used to fix the boat problems with chewing gum. How she always did it, I don't know, but it always seemed to work.

There's no inherent function to those things. We put it on there. So it's a really useful level as it is mind only level.

This one's useful for helping us redirect problem situations and Geshe-la said he would do it. And then he would get blamed for actually causing the problem in the first place so that he could use this alternative. And he always said that is absolutely not what I was doing, but his shift was so seamless and usually so much more effective than the thing that went wrong was supposed to not go wrong that people got some wrong idea about it.

All right, let's take our break. Now can I ask a question? Yes. Just to be sure with the mind only because I always confuse it.

So the bringing myself at the pen is coming from my seeds. But not the fact that the pen writes. So the causes of the pen are the pen causes, but the fact that I can see the pen in my experience is coming from my seeds.

And that's the difference with the high level view. Is it correct? Starting from what level were you starting from? The three, the view number three. I mean, there is the mind only, the two understandings.

They want that. My seed brings the pen and me together to use the pen. Exactly, but the pen causes are not coming from my seeds.

So that is where my seeds, let's say responsibility to stop. Right, until you go looking for the pen that's at the pen factory. But yes, the mind only leaves it at the level that you're seeing.

Exactly, so therefore I can blame, for example, in the case of the boss, I can still blame the boss for being mean because I brought the boss to my life, but I am not responsible for his or her behavior. Right, like this is mind only thinking, correct? Well, just at the beginning of it, because then when you start exploring the boss that you've drawn to you with your seed and their qualities, you find that no judgment aspect of it that my mind seeds are coloring my judgment of that boss. I'm experiencing that boss through the color of my mental construct, which includes their behavior.

So did my mental construct get imposed upon me from them? Or is my mental construct coming out of the seed that brought that boss and me together? But then what is the difference with the high level? Because at that point, the high level view is I am creating also the behavior and the judgment and the feelings that it triggers in me. Right, right, right. The difference is in mind only school, the boss goes home at night and has their own life and comes back the next day.

And they exist whether or not you're thinking of them or experiencing them or whether you've ever met them. Because they're a functioning thing. Mind highest level school says, you can't say.

Oh, okay. Okay, so mind only is very close to high level. Yeah, it'll lead to the same careful behavior.

Okay, okay. So now I misunderstood before I thought. Mind only is only until the point my seeds brought the boss to my experience.

And then, but the behavior of the boss is not coming from me. Therefore, I kind of feel blame, blame me. Right, until you start really exploring a mind only explanation with every experience that we're having, it's consistent.

So good. Okay, thank you, Lama. Yeah, okay.

So all these emptinesses overlap in a sense are the wrong views that when we get them right overlap. And let's use the job. And so at first, there's a first level, we think our job is gonna last.

And we think our job is gonna last because we think we have some control over whether the job will last or not. And then when things are starting to go wrong, we think there's somebody we can find to blame and we get them to go away or change. And we expect our experience to change.

When we find that person to blame, we judge that situation, that person, and believe our judgments are true for everyone. And then we just don't understand how we have to be, we have to participate in all of it for any of it to happen. Like the common denominator of anything that happens to me is me.

Like it's so clear that it's absurd that it's not obvious to us. But is there anything I can experience that's outside of my awareness? Do we think so? Do we think there's some planet out, far, far away that I've never seen or heard of, but I believe it's there? I do, but just to have that idea of some planet far, far away, I've had to think of it. It's in my awareness.

Every bug, every gnat, every instant, every thought, I have to be there. Me, the subject side, you, the subject side. And every instant is unique to me and changing.

And all of it ripening results of past ways in which I perceive myself interacting. And then thus evolves those four laws of karma to explain our experiences. Not that here's the laws of karma.

Everything has to behave that way. It's like, this is how things happen. How do we explain it? Oh, like this.

So when we're at this fifth level, recognizing hot on the heels of experience, something I have the sense of it's good or it's bad, thumbs up, thumbs down, the heap of feeling. It's subtle and fleeting. And in the next moment is I want more, I want less.

And in the next moment is my reaction to get or push away still with the belief that it's the thing that I want or the thing that I don't want. Even with the feeling, I want to push that feeling away. Or get more of it.

The misbelief keeps triggering the sequence that leads to our actual interaction in that three spheres where the new seeds get planted. So at all of these different levels, are contemplating, meditating these different explanations to try to get a feeling of when we're holding the Gakcha as true and what it might be like to recognize that that is impossible and how we might act or react differently when we were faster at not blaming, not expecting, not holding things to be what they are from their own side. We can more conscientiously make our behavior choices, which gets us off of react into respond.

And it's crazy difficult because our react is so fast. And then we react and if we can pause, we have time to choose something different, even to just pause and choose the same thing by habit. We've grown a little space for being able to choose something different next time without working on it, exploring it, imagining ourselves being in a situation, recognizing the Gakcha, choosing a different response while in our imagination, it's not likely we'll be able to pull it off when we're in the midst of real life.

So the advantage of meditating, contemplating, exploring, we do it, we do it, we do it. And then one day, I don't know, you're in the midst of some common and recurring theme and you don't have that usual reaction or you have a different response. And afterwards, it's like, wow, I saw it, I caught it.

And it's a huge rejoicable because then it gets to where we can do it again. And then hopefully again and again. All right, so let's meditate with it, shall we? We'll go quickly through our meditation preliminaries and then quickly through the different flavors so that we can explore them.

So set your body, set your mind by using the breath at your nostrils as your object. Zoom in your focus and park it there. Adjust the clarity, bright, clear mind.

Turn on the fascination, count 10 breaths. Now intentionally shift your object of focus to my words and following along and take refuge. Refuge in your understanding of emptiness and karma.

Just tell yourself how that will help you. And we grow our bodhicitta by recalling that person at the beginning of class. They have that problem.

We really, really wish we could help them worldly ways and ultimately. And then recall that precious holy being that you called forth at the beginning. Recall that we know that they know what we need to do and learn.

Sorry. Feel your admiration for them. Think of just one of their amazing qualities.

That you see in them. Let yourself aspire to do what's necessary to grow those good qualities too. Mentally, they call it a prostration.

Just tell them of your admiration. Tell them of your intention. And then offer them something.

And you know what they like best. Tell them of some kindness that you did especially because of something they've taught. See how happy they are with you.

Then clean out some negativity. Tell them of that event and explain why you are confessing it because you want to get those seeds out of you. Feel and tell them of the regret and your refuge and determine an antidote which can be this meditation and a power of restraint.

Tell them what it will be, something you know you can achieve. Now water the good seeds we know we have. Tell them about another kindness you've done and something you saw someone else do.

Give them another one. Now ask them to continue to teach both formal teachings and to bless you to be able to be aware of them teaching in the midst of daily life. Ask them to stay close.

Ask that your Dharma friends stay close. Ask that anyone who helps you improve your behavior stay close. Then shift and wiggle if you need and settle back in.

Set the body. Set the mind using the breath. Now shift from your breath as an object to my words following along and choose another favorite something.

It can be a physical object, an experience, another person or a pet. Choose something pleasant to explore. Settle on one.

Give me a thumbs up when you have it in mind. Okay, okay, okay, okay, all right, thank you, okay, all right. All right, gaze upon that favorite object.

No analysis, just there it is, there they are. Enjoy it. Now as you are enjoying it, find the worldview about that object that it has some durability to it, some lasting nature, some permanence.

This expectation, we will have it for a while. They will stay close to us. It will be there tomorrow.

Still enjoying that object before you. Recognize what happens when that expectation does not get met. Find that expectation again.

Now show yourself why. That expectation is unreasonable. Remove the gaccha, that object's permanence.

Tell yourself why. Now experience that object knowing its impermanence. How does it feel for it to still be there? Now and now and now, every moment I have it is wonderful.

I don't know how long it will last. Feel your relationship to it or them shift a little bit when this expectation of their permanence is gone. Now let all that go.

Bring back the object, unexamined, enjoying them there. And now find our worldview. I own it.

It's mine. Even if it's a person or a pet, there's something special in our relationship. I have certain expectations.

And what happens when that expectation is not met? That expectation of control, of ownership. Show yourself why control or ownership cannot be true the way we think. And strip it away from you and that object, the relationship between you.

How will we react differently? Now drop all that. Bring the object again, unanalyzed. Pleasurable.

And let's see if we can find the wrong worldview level three, some deep gut feeling that the material object comes from its factory, its store. The person object comes from their whole history. The me comes from my whole history.

And just something randomly has brought us together different forces for it than for me. And now that we are together, it's mine. I control it.

I expect it to last. And when it doesn't, I get upset. And when I can't control it, I get upset.

That object coming from its own causes, randomly coming at me. Can that really be the case? And at the same time, I experience it in a way that's unique to me. My own karma brings that thing to me and me to experience it the way that I do.

Try to feel what it would be like to interact with this other, knowing this. Wow, how did I manage to create this? How do I perpetuate it? Now, even with this realization, it's coming from my seeds. Catch the feeling that, yes, it's my seeds and it's a pleasant thing.

And everyone who experiences it will experience it as pleasant because I do. Our expectation that our judgments about things should be shared with, by others. That object, that other is so special.

How could anyone see it differently? Imagine interacting with this object and others about the object when we are free of this belief that our judgment about it is the most accurate one. Recognize that our judgment of it as pleasant is a ripening result of past kindness. Gives us a glimpse of how we might want to interact with this object or use this object if we want our judgment of its pleasure to continue.

Continue. Now go back to experiencing your favorite object out there coming at you. It's almost hard to do, but unanalyzed, there it is.

Enjoy it. And let's explore the 50-50 level. So imagine something unpleasant happens to or with your favorite object.

Feel your initial reaction and what your response is likely to be. There's probably some struggle involved, some uncertainty. But now recall the 50-50, transforming problems into happiness.

The basis is this unpleasant situation. Our judgment about it, however, our outlook is our opportunity. Yes, initial judgment is all bad, but we apply our understanding of 50-50.

Let's do something other than the habitual response. Let's apply some skillful consideration. How can I use this as an opportunity? The object's basis and my perception of it makes my experience.

It requires both. Can we imagine understanding this level well enough that problems stop being problems and are simply challenges? Opportunities, insights, our eagerness to face them can increase. So what blocks us from habitually recognizing unpleasant things as opportunities to turn into happiness? It's our belief that those unpleasant things have some unique way of being in them.

And so we have judgments about them that they impose upon us. And we believe that those things come from some other causes and circumstances that has nothing to do with us, which makes them totally out of our control when we believe we are in control. And when things are out of control, then that solidity of some kind of permanence that we rely upon for comfort and safety suddenly disappears.

And without understanding that disappearance of permanence leaves us reeling and scared. And when we recognize the impossibility of impermanence, sorry, the impossibility of permanence and the significance of impermanence, we can launch ourselves through this cascade of recognizing, oh, then there's no ownership, no control, and it's refreshing, not scary, no random, no accurate judgments that everyone should agree with me, things that happen. I bring my version and how I respond, plants new seeds for a new version.

What do I want to create? I'll bring your mind back to just the object unexamined and just notice your relationship with it or them now and thank them or it for helping you in that session. Recall the person we are doing this for. They will benefit from it, whether we are aware of it or not.

And recall your own precious holy being. See how happy they are with you. And think of the goodness that we've done in this class.

Imagine it's like a beautiful glowing gemstone you can hold in your hands. Look to that precious being, feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon them. Ask them to please, please stay close, to continue to guide you and help you and 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 your heart.

See them there, feel them there. 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 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, well done. I hope you're getting a feel and exploring.

And we'll go to level six next week. They're building, can you feel it? Any questions, comments, anything need clarifying? Except zillions of things. All good? All right, then thank you very much.

I'll see you Sunday. What are we? I'm sorry, I'm confused. See you Thursday, right? It says Sunday.

Thursday. Okay, have a great week. Thank you, Claire.

You're doing a great job. All right, bye-bye, I love you.

Okay, are we ready? So welcome back. We are studying the Maha Mudra, Six Flavors of Emptiness. We are on our fourth class.

It's September 17th, 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 your 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 more and more 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 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 become like 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 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 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. Now let's review. What's that first flavor of emptiness? The lack of permanence, right? When we say, what's the flavor of emptiness? We're talking about something that we believe is there that we're recognizing is not there.

When we say, what's the wrong belief? Oh, it's the belief in permanence. It's what we believe is there. And then to find the fact that it's not there, we just explore our experience of things.

To recognize, son of a gun, there isn't anything that I experience that doesn't or isn't going to end. And we can look at it grossly. They end, they die, they break, they get stolen, they disappear.

And we can look at it more and more subtly as well. How long do they last? Those things that I know are not permanent, but I think last a certain period of time and then disappear. How long do they actually stay the same? Thank you very much.

And so we can take this very simple emptiness of things having permanence and get very subtle about it. But at the more obvious level, let's move to emptiness number two, is that absence of the control over things that we believe that we have. And even when we look at recognizing, oh, everything, the permanence, I think things have, they don't have.

That alone, if we think about it, is enough to say, well, then I can't have the control over them that I think that I do. Because if I control something, then I wouldn't ever let it wear out. I wouldn't ever let it get lost.

I wouldn't let it die. And we go, that's silly. We don't have control over things like that.

But we say, but I do have control over things like humans are so absurd. So, okay, I don't have control over things. What's the third? Emptiness.

The third lack. We find the lack by recognizing what we think is there and show ourselves that that isn't there. Not just not there, actually is impossible, is a non-existent thing.

So, the third one is that emptiness of things happening by chance, randomly, by accident. Do we believe things just happen to us? I do. Well, out of the blue, the car wouldn't start.

Out of the blue, I couldn't get my computer to turn on. Yeah, we don't even think that there's something wrong with this picture. But we struggle then when things happen, whether they seem random or by accident, or even expected.

We hold them to have something in them from them that made them happen then and in that way. And so, we blame them for our experience of them, don't we? And if that random experience was not a pleasant one, we get upset. If that random experience is a pleasant one, oh, we want more.

But we're still blaming, if you will, the object of the experience, whether it's an inanimate thing or an animate thing, and we struggle. But we're struggling against something that doesn't even exist. Does that mean the person of that activity, whatever we're talking about, doesn't exist at all? No.

That randomly experienced boss yelling at me again. I'm having that experience. But the boss just suddenly deciding to yell at me for no reason at all.

That's not happening. That's not there. Do I think it's there? Yes.

Do you see? It's slippery trying to find the absence of something that was actually never there in the first place, but I thought it was. And then to remove it when it was never actually there in the first place. What changes in the experience? Nothing really in the experience.

But will my reaction to the experience be different? Probably. That's the idea. When we recognize we're upset with something that's impossible, what do we do with the upset? Hopefully we laugh at it.

That's silly. Let's respond differently here. Then the fourth emptiness we learned was the emptiness of our, the absence of our value judgments about things.

This one's a little harder to describe because the words fail. If Sumathi and I are deciding where to go for dinner, we used to have Chinese food or Mexican food. And I knew he preferred the Mexican food.

He knew I preferred the Chinese food. And we would go back and forth generally. But the reason I bring it up, it's like in my mind, oh, the Chinese food is better for you.

There's more vegetables. Yeah, it's high salt. There's other stuff that's not so great.

But my judgment was it was better for us. So I couldn't understand why he didn't see it that way. And then Chinese food, I mean, Mexican food, it is delicious.

All that cheese and beans. Can't argue with that. But you see, my judgment, I'm taking to mean, I'm expecting him to have that same judgment.

Because who wouldn't recognize that? 50 years after the marriage, I say yes. It's more also not interrupting. Oh, you made me lose my train of thought.

See, random. There you go. I just did it.

Level four. No, level three. Blaming him for my loss of train of thought.

Anyway, my point is, we have opinions about things. But we believe that our opinions about those things is because of something in those things that warrant our opinion of them. And so we're tenacious with our opinions about those things.

And we don't recognize that this opinion I have about the Chinese food is my construction, my contact, my opinion about the Chinese food that actually isn't driven by the Chinese food at all. So my correct value judgment about the object or the experience is what is the gotcha here? Do I have an opinion? Absolutely. Is it correct about the object of my opinion? I say it is.

But I'm holding my opinion on something that is a gotcha. If Chinese food was the best, everybody would have the same value judgment about it. And we don't.

None of us have the same value judgment about anything, because technically, we experience things differently. So even if we do agree, oh, yes, Chinese food is always the best. It's like, yeah, but what you mean by Chinese food and what I mean by Chinese food can't be the same.

And in fact, our Chinese food place, when our Malaysian friends went to visit there, and they were speaking Chinese with the family, the family said, well, you know, we don't really serve Chinese food here. We serve American Chinese food. Because they knew, right, the Malaysians would go, this is not Chinese food, because it's not.

It's American food. So the emptiness of our judgments does not mean don't have judgment. We can't help it.

But do that. But recognize though, they're our judgments, not accurate to the thing we are judging, which allows us to then be more open to other people's judgments about things. And that would cut down on so much argument, so much disagreement to have this understanding.

Is it enough to stop perpetuating suffering? No. But it is enough to decrease the amount of arguments and disagreements and resentments. And so inability to work together to come to a conclusion.

It's a very useful level of emptiness and experience to function from when we can. Number five, we just learned number five. So up until number five, we've been talking about these objects of our experiences.

And those objects are there. They exist. We have our experience of them.

And we're exploring whether our belief about those objects and how they really exist is accurate to how we actually experience things. And we're finding as we look closer and closer, our belief system and how we experience things, they're not consistent. So when we get to level five, we're even starting to question whether those objects of our experiences, to what extent they actually have their own existence.

All the other levels, they have their own existence. We're learning to relate to them differently. They're not self-existent, independent of any other fact, but they are there.

At this level, we're starting to wonder, our friend, the pen, is it there first? And then my mind comes along and recognizes it. Or does my mind make the whole thing up? Or somewhere in between? So at level five, we're looking at those experiences that we have, in particular problems that we have. Because we don't investigate when things go well.

We probably should, because we want to learn to perpetuate them. But we ask, why did that happen to me when something unpleasant happens? And highest school would say, why did that unpleasant thing happen to me? My projections, my karma forced that unpleasant thing on me. And there's nothing about the unpleasantness other than that.

And if we say that unpleasantness is nothing but a projection, my own mind still automatically flops over into, oh, well, then you're saying it's not really happening. And excuse me, but it is happening. So I can't agree with you, highest school that says this is not happening.

Does highest school say that? No. Does my mind think they say that when it hears nothing but projection? Yes. Still, even after all these years of study, I feel it do it every time I say, just projection.

So 50-50 school helps us investigate that mind only explanation of the object being that other powered thing, having its own causes and conditions. But I only experience it through my unique way of experiencing it through my construct of it, which explains why we can all have a different experience of the same object. The object is there, but we only experience it through our own mental judgment of it, our own belief in its existence.

So then if we are working at that level for a while, at some point, we will start to wonder, well, if my friend, the pen, like is out there, but it's only my construction, my kundal, that makes me experience the pen. How much of this object does my mind have to experience for it to come up with the the mental image of the mental construction pen? You know, is this enough? Does it take this much or this much? And at some point we go, well, I think you can't see it well enough. Let me start again.

Ready? What's this thing? Let me get this way. What's this thing? Now, you know, you've already seen it as the pen. Let me try a different one.

Oh, I gave it away. Let me try a different thing. You're ready.

What is this thing? Right. Okay. Watch.

Tell me. Tell me when your mind suddenly pops something in. Now you've got it already.

What is it? Can you see? Pencil. Pencil. Well, wait a minute.

You haven't even seen the lead part, but do you see what our minds do? All right. So if we didn't see enough of the pencil for the pencil to tell us it's a pencil, what does that say? Something from my mind made pencil out of just some part of it. And then once we have full on pencil, we go, oh, yeah, that the stuff, the parts that I don't know what 50, the pen, the pencil ish miss of the object finally showed me enough of it that my mind filled in the rest and came up with pencil validly.

We would even say accurately, although highest school would argue. So 50, 50 school. The absence of the object being what it is.

Without the experiencer of its input, Joshua calls it 50, 50, because we can catch on to that. It isn't literal half of it, but it means that the object has to bring something to the party and our mind brings something to the party. And when those two are there, we can have the experience of the pencil.

Do you remember the magic show? You need the stick. You need the magic. And then you have elephant.

Without the magic, you have stick. Without the stick, even with the magic, apparently there would be no elephant. It takes both the object of the experience and the my mind bringing to the experience, the identity of the experience.

That makes sense. It allows us to believe we have similar experiences. Yes, this pencil unique to each of us, but we all agree it's pencil, don't we? Nobody says I'm holding a banana.

And we believe that therefore proves that there's something in this object, something pencil-ish that helps us distinguish it from something that's pen-ish. They're mighty similar, but we don't mistake one for the other. Do we? So how does 50, 50 help us to recognize that the object doesn't have its whole identity nature in it? It depends in part on us experiencing it.

Our misbelief that the object has everything about it, in it, from it, makes us react to those experiences, those objects. So at this level, it's more addressing not just the object, but our experience of the object. It's our experiences that we want to explore the 50, 50 level, because when we understand that, we recognize that we have to take some responsibility for this experience that we're having.

And in particular, we're addressing problems that we're having. A problem has happened. When we think that that unpleasant situation is coming from the other, from the situation, we believe that our reaction to the unpleasant situation is really the only solution.

And that habitual reaction, normal reaction, in someone who's still ignorant, like myself, is going to be a reaction that perpetuates some similar or at least future unpleasant thing to happen. When we recognize, yes, this unpleasantness has happened, but my reaction, I'm bringing some of the assessment of the unpleasantness from my own mind, it gives us this opening to say, wait, I can use this as an opportunity. I don't have to react in the same old way.

We can make a different choice. And in doing so, plant different imprints in our mind. So 50, 50 school, Geshe-la calls it, it's the school that helps us become better crap copers.

No crap means unpleasant, stinky, awful things we don't like. And when we learn to respond to those unpleasant situations differently, we actually don't find them as unpleasant because yes, it's unpleasant, but now it's an opportunity to do something different. And that has planted new seeds, burned off the ones from the unpleasantness because that's done and gone and planted new seeds for new opportunity.

As that pattern grows, we're able to more and more quickly recognize our experiences as opportunities to respond in ways that plant the seeds that when those ripen, they'll be okay with us. It helps us get off automatic pilot to be able to function at 50, 50 school level. But it still says that problem happened.

It's happening. It allows us to grow this new state of heart, state of mind, but it doesn't work on stopping unpleasant things from happening. Will it eventually stop unpleasant things? Yes, but it's not working on where and why did the unpleasant thing come from in the first place.

It's just working on our reaction to it. That's not Buddha's promise. Buddha did not promise to make us better able to cope with samsara.

He promised that we could stop perpetuating it, that we could finish it off. Now he did teach all these different levels of misunderstanding our world and so understanding our world so that we could change our reactions to our world. He did teach all levels, not meaning for anyone to stop at any one level and say, I've reached my ultimate goal.

Will we say, wow, I've reached nirvana someday? I hope so. But in our training, our aspiration to stop everyone's suffering, we won't take that as our ultimate goal. It's a benefit along the way.

So our friend Arya Nagarjuna, some of us are studying his root text. He wrote that letter to a friend. And in the letter to the friend, he's telling this friend about all these mistaken ways we believe our self and our objects of our experiences and our reactions to our experiences exist.

And he's explaining how, you know, if you recognize your misunderstanding, you'll be able to respond differently in these different circumstances and how helpful that will be. But once he's gone through them, he finally says, but look, these first five, they're just band-aids. They help a little bit, but they don't heal the wound.

They just protect it a little bit. The only accurate understanding of the Gaksha and what's absent is the sixth worldview, the highest worldview. And then Nagarjuna spends most of his career then focusing on this highest worldview, trying to teach people what's meant by wisdom, which isn't just emptiness.

Because there is no emptiness without some appearing thing to lack its own nature. So it's a long story. So let's look at the Tibetan for the sixth worldview.

Where's my chair? Because it helps, it helps us wrap our minds around what's trying to be said, making you guys bigger. Okay, so it's down here. Can you see? I'll read it.

Mingde Shaksam Mai Impar Yurangi Duluksu Drupad Dongwa. Mingde Shaksam. We'll hear that again and again.

Mai Impar Yurangi Duluksu Drupad Dongwa. Dongwa means absent of that. So we're trying to sort out what highest school describes as the thing we believe is there, that's not actually there, so that we can know what to look for to find that son of a gun.

It's Dongwa, not there, absent of that. So I'm going to go step by step. Ming, the word Ming means name, names.

De is translated as term, names and terms. It seems to me in English that those are pretty similar words, right? The term for this thing is pencil. The name for this thing is pencil.

But they make the distinction that the name for the thing is the label we give it. I call it pencil. You have a different word for it.

And the day is what a pencil is, what a pencil does. So we have different names for it. But I think we would say we have the same term for it.

Wouldn't we? It's a writing instrument where you write with lead instead of ink. And so it takes a name and a term to experience an object and know what it is, what it does. That name and term, when we explore it, it gets deeper and deeper.

The name and the term. Pencil, what pencils do. But it kind of includes where pencils come from, how they're made.

Like all the worldly stuff that we know about the thing that gets the name, pencil, day, term, completes it for us. So, Mingde, shak means established. And sam means only that.

So the term Mingde Shaksam means to be established only by names and terms. It's like, well, isn't that what we've learned highest worldview is? Things are established by way of names and terms. But that's not emptiness.

That's some description of a thing's appearance. It's existent. So hold that in mind.

To be established only by names and terms. Ma Yim Par means suppose things were not that way. Suppose it was not that things are only established by names and terms.

Yurangi Duluksu, sorry, Yurangi Duluksu Drupa means to have their own unique identity. So now again, don't hear that to mean self-existent because nobody believes in self-existence. But for something to have its own unique identity tells me that, look, this pencil and this pencil, right, they're different.

They're both pencils, but this one has its uniqueness, short, blue, and this one has its uniqueness, long, multicolored. So we do believe that things have their unique identity. Tongwa, absent of that.

Suppose, they're saying, something does exist with its own unique way of being, not simply as a name and a term. They are absent of that, this school says. What are things absent of? The having their own unique way of being.

What are they absent of? They are absent of not simply being established by names and terms. I'll say it again. In highest school, what's not there that we think is there? Something that exists with its own unique way of being, something that exists other than only established by names and terms.

So what does it mean to be only established by way of names and terms? We'll explore it. Look, look, look at this word too, chumbap. We'll come back to it, but I'm going to get rid of this screen share, okay? Chumbap.

It means that water analysis. It really means a waterfall, but back, okay? All right. Let me get rid of this too.

Okay. So I asked, what does it mean to only be established by names and terms? And why is it that thinking something exists with its own unique way of being, and being established by way of names and terms can't be a true statement. It has to be one or the other.

So when we say, oh, things are established merely by names and terms, what it means is, what is this thing? I'm not trying to fool you. Do you see the little doodad coming out? Watch what it does. If it does, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it doesn't.

Oh, there it did it today. Yay. Okay.

So this thing's a pan. Do we agree? Along comes our friend, the dog. What does the dog do? They sniff it.

They chew it. Now check your mind. What's the dog doing to what? Your gut reaction.

The dog's chewing on a pan, right? I mean, I admit it. I still see it that way. However, when we investigate, if the dog can chew it and enjoy it, which they seem to be doing, and I can pick it up and write with it, and I can pick it up and not write with it, and use it as a demonstration for what it is to be Mingde Shaxian, what does that say about where the identity of this object is coming from? Is it clear? I have to bring something to the party.

The dog has to bring something to the party. You have to bring something to the party. Is that correct? If none of us had to bring anything to the party, and this object is a pen, and we say what we know what pens are, name and term, could the dog not pick it up and write with it? If it was in it, from it, independent of the experience or of it, wouldn't it dictate what anybody did with it? So if it says it's a pen and pens, right, then any being, fly, mosquito, you, me, Tarzan, who came across this object, the object would force that person to pick it up and write.

Wait a minute. Even if the object needs the person to pick it up and write, that already says, wait, then it's depending on the person to do the thing the pen is supposed to do. Wait, it's dependent.

It's not writing instrument in it, from it, because it has to have me to make me do it. So even without deciding whether it's all my projection or not, just to pick up something and use it shows us the thing is not in it, from it, the way we believe. How do we investigate it further then? We would want to know, well, if there's something about this object that allows me to put pen on it, and there's something about my mind that allows me to put pen on it, then I can have this pen, and it can be a pleasant thing or an unpleasant thing, and how I use it is going to either use it up or, I don't know, perpetuate it.

How I use it is an opportunity. That's 50-50 school. But when we recognize, wait a minute, what part of the 50-50 does it really take for my mind to come up with the name and the term pen writing instrument? Can you come up with name and term without the object there? Think pen, like we all know pen.

So we can think pen, and when we do, it includes, it's something that's writes, it has ink, it someday wears out of ink, right? Everything we know about pens, but just thinking one, can you pick up and write with that one? I can't. I need something more like this. So my mind says it can't be just name and a term because, right, my imagination of one is a name and a term, but what's the difference between the name and term of an imagined one and the name and a term of a tangible one when we go trying to pin it down? At every level that we look for the information that's giving us the label, we don't find anything that gives the label.

We find something more subtle that's receiving a more subtle level, label, more subtle label. So when we go looking for the thing that gets the label, all we find is some aspect, some part, something more subtle that gets a more subtle level, label, sorry. And we keep going down investigating where's the thing that says, I'm the blah, blah.

I'm the atom that starts the pen for me to put these other labels more and more obvious until I have the whole pen. I desperately want a smallest particle. And guess what? We'll never find a smallest particle that's there before my mind ripens the Mingde, the name of the term.

Oh, smallest particle. And that's how we come to the conclusion that there's nothing but names and terms because we can never find the thing that gives itself the name on the term. It's always our mind doing it.

Okay, great. Then if our mind is making everything's identities and qualities, what's the matter with us that we ever make something unpleasant? It must not be under our control. Even when we understand it, it's not under our control.

If it were, who would make the name and term of anything unpleasant for anybody ever? Even as you're fully enlightened being you, your own experience will always be pleasant, pleasant, pleasant, pleasant. And if there are beings that are not perceiving themselves that way, we, the Buddha, cannot reach into them and make their experience go away. How do we know that's true? Because I still suffer.

If there is a Buddha and they could fix me, the process through which they became a Buddha would have forced them to fix me in the next instant. So they can't. So what good is Buddhism if they can't help me? They can't teach me how they did it themselves.

And then it's totally up to me whether I want to follow those instructions, figure out whether or not I want to follow them, whether I see the truth in them. It's by our choice because there's nothing in those teachings from their own side either. Okay, so our question needs to be then, why does the name and term come up at any given moment? If it's not the object making my name and term, and it's not me choosing my name and term, I think we can already say there's no outer being or outer source beyond the object and the subject that can be making my mind make the name and the term.

But I'm experiencing name and term. What's going on when we experience something? Is that a result of a cause? Can we experience something that's not a result of a cause? No. Does the cause have to be made or present before the result can come from it? Yes.

Do the cause and the result that comes from that cause, do they have to have like something in common? They have to have some kind of relationship, don't they? Can't be unrelated, or you would get bicycles from orange seeds, some kind of similarity. But they can't be identical, the cause and the result, because to be identical, you would have to be happening at the same moment. So there's some apparent time factor involved through which or during which the cause becomes the result, creates the result.

Can't happen simultaneously. The cause is there. But until it makes this transition into the result, you don't have the result.

Technically, until we have the result, the cause is not the cause, because not all seeds become the orange plant. But once you have a result, you had to have had the cause. So once we have an experience, we had to have made the cause for that experience that has done what causes do in order for this experience to be the result.

So our current experiences are results. What is the result? The name and the term, that ripening way that we identify and experience the object merely by way of name and term. Why do we have that particular name and term? Because that cause was there.

How do we put a cause for a resultant experience of name and term if causes have to be similar to their result? We had to have put some name and term in there. Right? So when we experience ourself interacting with other, our mind is aware of the name and term of the experience that we're having and it imprints our mind with that experience. That imprint seeds, imprints in our mind are being influenced by similar ones and influenced by dissimilar ones.

Some growing somehow in strength until I don't know what does it, but they get over the threshold into ripening result. Like the seed, you can have, you know, mustard seed in the packet for years and then you broadcast them onto the soil. You get some rain and some sunshine and then bit by bit a little sprout comes up and pretty soon you have a field of mustard plants and then flowers and then more seeds.

Something happens to that imprint that it, Geshe-la says cracks open, but it's not literal, he says, and its result comes out. The result is what's meant by Mingde Shaxiong. Our experience of the object of our experience as nothing but a name and term that we mistake for it having its own identity when in fact it's nothing but a name and a term.

Does it have being nothing but a name and a term make it unreal? When I check my mind, it seems like it. Oh, this pen, nothing but a name and a term? Come on, this pen is more real than that, but this pen that is has some unique identity to its own that's not simply my name and term? How substantial is that pen? Not at all. There's no such thing as that pen.

That pen is unreal, impossible. The pen that's nothing but my name and term is this pen, very real, very functioning. If it's not nothing but my name and term, it is non-existent.

Can we experience anything that's beyond our awareness of that thing? No, it's absurd to even say it, right? Can we experience anything that's not our name and term projection? It's saying the same thing. Everything we experience is merely our name and term, meaning our projection and our projections make our experiences and they are real experiences. We believe that the experiences have their identities in them, their qualities in them, and we think those are real, but they're not.

Our projected ones are. And it's so slippery, I still feel my mind go, no, that's backwards. And that's why we do this again and again and again until it becomes so clear that what it means to say only name and term instantly says, oh, results of my behavior.

Because when we have those two so, what's the word, tied together, any pleasant experience we have, we automatically want to share. Any unpleasant experience we have, we automatically want to burn it off and plant something pleasant. Even as we understand that what we plant in the moment is going to take time and circumstances before its result comes up, just like the mustard seed took time and circumstances.

When we understand well enough, we can go to the Buddha's recommended what to take up and what to give up so that we don't have to figure it out ourselves when we can't see the result of our new behavior because it's too far in the future. So when we understand well enough, we don't just say whatever Buddha said, I will do. We look at those recommendations and see how it's guidance for seed planting that will create the circumstances of this new you in a world that gets more and more abundant, safe, beautiful, and perpetuated with happy people.

Highest worldview. All right, let's take our break. Lama, can I ask you a question? Buddha cannot help us by removing our karma.

I hear many times we ask with devotion and we believe and they will do it. And then it comes the devil in the mind and says, okay, they can only show up as a teacher or whatever if you have the karma for it. So then why do we ask for help if at the end, if I don't have the karma, I can cry as much as I want.

Nobody's going to come to help me. Asking is part of the planting and renewing the seeds to see a teacher come. So when we ask with devotion, your explanation was when we do it, then they can help us.

But those words give the wrong meaning. When we ask with devotion, we can see them able to help us. We can see them helping us.

It's not that suddenly they can where they couldn't before. We've changed our mind by repeatedly saying, please help me, please help me, please help me. They are there helping us all the time anyway, without us asking.

But our minds, our hearts are closed to recognizing, well, every time I hold up this pan, it's a Buddha's emanation there. I don't see that. When we ask with this heartfelt, I can't do it myself, please, please help me.

It's changing our mind to open our mind and heart to receiving that help. And what about the people who are not Buddhists? Like those people who are not aware of Buddhism, Buddhism, Buddhism, then, because there are no Buddhas outside there by themselves, waiting. So for those people, Buddhas don't exist.

For those people, Buddhas don't exist. And therefore, there is nobody helping them. Well, do they have a belief system that fairies are helping them? You know, I don't know their belief system.

What I'm trying to say is like, I hear all the time this, you know, this world of the self-existence outside the Buddha. And then if I, if they, Call it, don't even call it Buddha. Stop calling it Buddha.

And then try to give your explanation. No, let's say, I don't know, people who are, don't believe in anything. It's random.

Everything is random. Right. So in that, in their cases, are Buddhas trying to help them like they are doing with us? Yes.

Or not, because in their, in the world that they have, I mean, these people that are agnostic, I think is the word. Right. Buddha don't exist.

So in their, the reality that they are creating, there is no such a being, no help, no karma, no nothing. Right. But those people that are in my world, and I'm seeing them like that, is that their karma? Or is that my karma? It's both.

No, that I see them like that is my karma. Right. Right.

So does that mean I'm unsuccessful in my practice until all those people say, Oh, wow, there are Buddhas? No. Well, yes, because that means, it's the same way with the suffering. If I keep, I still see people suffering around me is a reflection of my success as a Buddhist.

Right. So does that mean I'm failing because I still see people suffering, in which case I should just give up? No, that means I am slow. Right.

Me too. Okay. Well, it doesn't clear my... Our responsibility is our behavior and our seed planting.

Yeah. I think what I have been cooking in this, with this class is also the fact that it's this judgment of what you do. And meaning, I know that if I'm doing, like I am attending this class now, and then it's hard for me to believe that whatever understanding I get is not coming for the now, from now.

It's coming from something I did in the past. So it's hard for me to trust my judgment because I feel it's always off, like it's delay. And then it creates a space of kind of a craziness.

Anyway, so I think you have to continue. Thank you, Lama. If it was easy, we'd all be enlightened by now, Geshe-la always says.

Oh, our seeds were better. All right. So the Gakcha in the Sixth World View is something that exists with its own unique way of being, not simply established by a name and a term.

There's no such thing as that. Every experience, every existing thing is a thing which exists established by way of a name and a term. Whose name and term? Mine.

For me, yours, for you. Can we ever have the same experience of a single object? Like you and me experiencing what we would call the same object, and we agree it's an orange pen, but is it the same object? Can we experience an object the same as someone else? No, of course not. Your you is unique to you.

Wait, then, there is something that exists independent of name and form. No, because my me's uniqueness is established by way of names and term. Your uniqueness for you is established by your ripening names and terms, and your you for me is established by my ripening names and terms.

So all of a sudden, how many realities are there going on when we look at that orange pen? As many as there are beings being aware of it. So how many pens are there? Remember when we learned the emptiness exploration of one or many? Like it seemed like just a silly way of seeing something not there that we thought was there, but it's actually quite significant. So when we understand that everything we can experience is established to exist by way of our names and terms, there is nothing that we can experience that's outside of that, which means there's nothing that we can't change.

There's no suffering thing that we cannot change by way of planting wise mental imprints with it as the object, all the way up to that experience we call dying. That too exists as nothing but ripening results of past behavior, and it can be experienced totally differently. When our seeds ripen it differently, this experience of this thing as a hand and arm could be experienced totally differently, will be experienced totally differently when the seeds planted for it are planted totally differently.

And that gives us the glimpse of how it is that this worldview is the worldview through which we can enter the door to the diamond way. If there's still any aspect of our experience, either of ourselves or of others, or the interaction between, if any of that has their own nature, no matter how subtle, then there's something that's existing that's independent of our seeds ripening. And if there's something that exists independent of our seeds ripening, that's something that we cannot transform from being part of our suffering world to being part of a pure world.

So we need to at least strongly intellectually understand the power of understanding. Nothing exists except established by way of our names and terms. And our names and terms are what it means for a karmic seed to ripen into our experience of subject object interaction between any interaction with our world in which we are still believing that me or the yelling boss or the anger I'm feeling are happening outside of my seeds ripening into that experience blocks me from being able to change my behavior such that I can make this transformation.

Our task is to respond differently to our everyday life experiences to plant our seeds differently. And that's why we do a class like this, because we are planting our seeds differently as we struggle to understand. Hmm.

724. How'd we get there? So, so we're going to do a sit. Yeah, let's just do it.

I won't explain it. So get yourself bright enough to stay awake for a meditation. Those of you who are up so early, and then set your body and set your mind by bringing your attention to your breath at your nostrils.

Zooming in that focus, turning on the clarity, right mind, and the intensity, the fascination. Watch as your mind struggles to stay there. Keep pulling it back to the breath.

With each exhale, you sink in deeper, but your mind gets more alert. Now shift from your breath as your object to my words. Follow along.

We'll do our preliminaries. Recall your refuge in emptiness and seeds ripening and use that to grow your bodhicitta. Recall that person whose problem seems insurmountable.

We recognize our own ripening names and terms, and so how our behavior will influence our ripenings. Recall your precious holy angel being there with you. Think of their good qualities.

Recall that whatever good qualities they see in themselves, they made through huge amounts of virtue, and whatever good qualities we see in them, we made with lots and lots of virtue. Admire their good qualities. Aspire to grow that goodness ourselves.

We recall that they are helping us reach that, and so feel your gratitude and admiration and make them offerings, and in particular, something from your practice, some way in which we applied our growing understanding to our behavior. See them smile even bigger, then clear out some negativity, some ugly seed that we planted in the last 24 hours or so, driven by habit, recognizing that, oh, that seed, it's going to grow into something worse. I really regret my slip.

I really regret my ignorance, my misunderstanding, and the selfishness that comes from it, and I offer this meditation as my power of antidote and establish a power of restraint, something you can actually do, no matter how puny it might seem. Now rejoice in another kindness that you did. Tell them about it, and a kindness you saw someone else do.

Ask that precious being to continue to guide you and teach you, to inspire you, to be able to put these practices into life. Pray that those close to you that help you live happy, long lives, and dedicate just those preliminaries to a deepening glimpse of this marriage of karma and emptiness, and then let's explore those levels five and six. When we do, it's more useful to use a situation than a simple object, a problem situation, and at the time Geshe-la first taught this, he taught at the FPMT Center, maybe not the first time, but a time, and that group's Lama was Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and at the time Lama Zopa Rinpoche was apparently struggling with his diabetes, and people were concerned for his health.

So we are in a situation where our common Lama Geshe Michael appears to be struggling with his health. They call it kidney failure. So let's look at this situation, our precious Geshe Michael having kidney failure, and what we believe he should do about it, what we believe somebody should do about it, what we believe we could do about it.

Let's start with level five. 50-50. I don't get it.

This amazing being, he has kidney disease. Oh, okay. That's a problem.

The problem that I see him with disease, kidney disease, the problem that it's slowing him down seems to be limiting his lifespan. We've got a problem. Old worldview says, get him that transplant, get him the medicine, get him the supplements.

This is bad. We need to try to find things that can fix it for him, worldly things. Do we all agree on what worldly things he should do? No, no alternative medicine.

No, no acupuncture. No, no kidney transplant. That's the only thing that'll do.

There's a problem. We all have our idea about how it can be solved. 50-50 says, yes, there's a problem.

The problem has already ripened and seems to be continuing to ripen. All those suggestions are worldly suggestions. Whether they work or not will be our experiences.

Maybe we need to behave in some different way to make our seeds such that when he gets his kidney transplant, it will solve his problem. He will go on to live a long kidney transplanted healthy life. We need to make the seeds for the transplant to work.

This is 50-50 school. What seeds? Find the best genetic fit. No.

What seeds? Protect life. Seeds. Protect his life? Protect any life.

As much life protection as we can. More than what we were doing before to change our seeds for bringing our 50%. There is a problem.

My response to this problem is to be more protective of other beings' lives. More protective of their kidneys. Dedicating those efforts to shifting the 50% we bring, which is, oh, that kidney disease can only be solved with a transplant.

Our seeds can ripen. Transplant's ready. He gets it.

Transplant patients, they can live 20, 30, 40 years. I know one. They can also not work.

We make the seeds to increase the likelihood that we see the transplant work. This is 50-50 school. Through our behavior that seems independent of our interaction with him, but because he taught us.

Plant our seeds so that our new ones ripen differently. But at 50-50 level, we are allowing our belief that Lama has kidney failure to stay with some nature of its own, or his seeds ripening, and we're working with our seeds to see worldly things work better. Worldview 6, nothing but our ripening projections.

Can we just choose? Okay. I quit my projection guessing Michael with kidney failure. So forget it.

He doesn't have it. But then next time we hear about him, somebody says, ah, you know, he's getting closer to his transplant. Wait, I thought I changed that.

We don't do it by wishing. We don't do it by imagining, although imagining does plant seed. Our meditation about looking for the base reality, the Lama with kidney disease, and trying to find the one that's there before our seeds ripen that, and recognizing that there is no such one there like that.

Every instant we can hold that. We are cracking away at the belief that he continues to have kidney disease. No base reality.

Our projections happening, forced by some past behavior that's ripening now as, oh my gosh, our Lama's impermanence. Our Lama staying with us that we don't have control over. In the flesh at least.

Is kidney disease an accident, some random event? Our judgment about it that everybody should agree with. And then okay, I can respond differently. I can use it as an opportunity to increase my life protection seeds.

And I can use it as an opportunity to explore the nothing but projections aspect of my Lama's kidney disease. Our conclusion is I want to change my karma. I want to damage those seeds that are making me see this.

I want to grow my seeds of protecting life so that I can see this problem resolved on a higher level. When we speak of the five worst deeds, the five immediate misdeeds, one of them is trying to hurt a Buddha's physical body. And another one is trying to break up the Sangha, causing division in the Sangha.

When someone hurts, tries to hurt the Buddha's apparent physical body, it's an attack on what's called the nirmanakaya, the appearance of a Buddha, the form of Buddha. When someone interferes with the Sangha, dividing the Sangha, that's an attack on the dharmakaya, the essence of a Buddha, because the Sangha are those beings technically who've seen emptiness directly, who are therefore the ones who carry it accurately in the world. Non-Arya Sangha are the ones who represent living by the words and teachings of the Buddha, and so therefore represent the essence of enlightened being to maintain that holy dharma in the world.

So the result of splitting a Sangha would be harming a teacher who is bringing the dharma to the world, meaning if there is a Sangha surrounding a given teacher and those Sangha members are not getting along, the result of those seeds of not getting along can ripen as seeing the Lama's appearance become more and more tenuous. It can manifest as the Lama's health problem or their being away for long periods of time. So Ghashla was saying about Lama Zopa's group, yes, protect life carefully, more carefully, but deeper consider if there are other dharma members, Sangha members that maybe you struggled with or argued with or just plain disrespect.

Those seeds, because they have to do with the service of the Lama, are very strong and they grow rapidly and can grow into this health issues in the Lama themselves. So he said, just find one instant where maybe you and another Sangha disagreed and, you know, got into it a little bit and then even though it passed, there's maybe some resentment left or some judgment left that makes us be a little less tolerant, a little less respectful. Mentally admit it to yourself.

If you feel safe enough, tell it to that Lama there before you. Recognizing now that those mental seeds are affecting the health of our Lama, feel that deep regret, even as we're still probably justifying our reaction. It's not worth it.

Forgive yourself, forgive that other person and mentally finish it now. Determine that when the next time you see this person, you will smile, you will be kind, you will respect them. You don't have to like them, but make the determination that you will still love them, want them to be happy, want them to gain realizations.

You're not obligated to stay close to them, but cut that tie so there's no more resentment, so you can work together when the time comes. And know that these seeds planted will assist in the Lama's health situation. Don't look to see if there's any residual there in your heart related to this other person.

Forgive yourself, forgive them, decide that it's just done in order to keep our holy Lama with us. Now let's dedicate, shift your attention back to that precious holy being who's there with you. Recognize that we established this class, this session, as our added antidote to the original thing we were purifying, and so those seeds are damaged.

That alone is a great, great goodness. So think of this goodness like a beautiful glowing gemstone you can hold in your hand. Feel your gratitude, your reliance upon that holy being.

Ask them to please, please stay close. Ask them to continue to guide you and help you, inspire you and guide 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. So use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one being, to share it with everyone you love, to share it with that one you just fixed stuff with, and a fourth breath 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 for the opportunity to share.

Please keep thinking these six different levels. You know, whenever it occurs to you, test yourself. What's number three? That one I always have to stop and think, what is number three? Accident.

Are there accidents? Do I believe there are accidents? Yes. Can there be such a thing as an accident? Why not? I just play like you're playing a game. Have fun.

We will explore these things again and again. We have four more classes to do it. Okay.

All right. So now I just need to make sure. Is anybody hearing that things are nothing but names and terms, and that means nothing matters? Nothing's real? Anybody feeling that? I don't see any thumbs up.

Are you okay? I'm not allowed to leave you like that. Okay, good. All right.

This is Thursday. I will see you Sunday, my Sunday. Have a nice weekend.

Thank you, Lama. Please stay. I love you.

Bye-bye. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

Welcome back. We are ACI practice module six flavors of emptiness. This is class five.

It's September 20th 2026 where I am. We'll gather our minds, say our opening prayers, and then do our contemplation, meditation, exploration, and then we'll talk about stuff. 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 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 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 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 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, set your body for a meditation.

Get your seat on your seat, solid, push down those sits bones a little bit and feel the force of that. Push the rest of you up a little bit, raising that energy, then turn and scan down your outer body, inviting your body to relax. Head, face, neck, shoulders, arms, hands, upper torso, lower torso, hips and thighs, legs and feet, and turn and move your mind back up.

Lifting that energy again, raising the sternum, raising the crown, then bring your focus around into the sensation of the breath at your nostrils. Parking your focus of attention there at that location, turning on the clarity, bright mind, turning up the intensity, the fascination with just those sensations of the breath at the nostrils counting 10 breaths, trying to do so without losing it. And with that eager fascination, now shift from your focus on your breath to your focus on my words following along.

Take your refuge. Ultimate refuge is in emptiness. In the sixth world view, the lack of self nature to anything reveals that there is nothing we cannot create by way of our behaviors towards others.

Think of how those three refuge jewels teach us and guide us about and towards that truth and how to live by it. Explain to yourself, your own and understanding of how emptiness protects us. Now recognize through that understanding we see that others pain and suffering that we see, there is a more ultimate way to help them stop that suffering.

We see that that suffering is a result of a big mistake. And we see that the worldly ways we try to help may or may not help because of some mistaken way. We are thinking about those worldly ways we try.

And so think about the difference between giving someone some money, teaching them how to make money, and teaching them sorry, how to really have resources come to them by sharing. This is the difference between helping people with material needs and teaching them the Dharma wisdoms. Think about the difference.

And which has the potential to help them more deeply, you know, recognize that maybe we don't feel we understand the Dharma well enough to teach it with someone to the extent where they could stop their suffering. I'm so sorry. And so we turn our mind to that precious holy being we have before us.

We know they know, we know they can help us come to know. So think of just one of their good quality, recognize whatever good quality they see in themselves, they made through zillions of virtuous deeds. And so admire their wisdom, admire that goodness, feel your aspiration to be able to do likewise, and then just show them our honor.

And to gather the goodness or our paths, progress, make them an offering, especially offer something from your practice, something you did, because of something they taught, tell them about that. And now we recognize that we still have blockers to that greater kindness, greater wisdom behavior, we aspire to these negativities created when we didn't know any better. Or even when we knew but we just couldn't stop our habit.

Think of something recent that we thought or said or did that we recognize planted a seed that will be unpleasant for us, and likely to trigger another seed planting that will perpetuate that mistake. Tell them of the situation. Just the facts, tell them of your regret that grows out of understanding about the seed planting, and how that damages our growing bodhicitta.

Tell them of something that you will do as a makeup activity. And it could be this meditation, this class. And establish a power of restraint, something that you know that you can keep, no matter how puny it might seem.

And then next we water the good seeds that we know we have. With rejoicing, recalling something especially kind that we have done recently or long ago, and taking pleasure in having done it. Find another.

There are many ways that we are kind. And now that we know about emptiness and karma, those kindnesses that are easy for us to do, we can infuse with our understanding and empower them further. Think of all those amazing spiritual teachers.

Rejoice in the goodness that we see them do. Think of those you see as ahead of you on the path. Rejoice in the goodnesses you see them do.

Then ask that precious holy guide again to teach you formal teachings, and to help you recognize them teaching you through day-to-day life. Amongst what might appear to be the struggles and the joys, ask them to please, please stay close. Ask that the people in your lives that inspire you to be more kind.

Ask that they live long and stay close to you. And then dedicate what we've done just so far to seeing a shift in the depth of your own understanding of karma and emptiness, and your own ability to choose behaviors that align with our bodhicitta. Then if you wish to shift and wiggle or blow your nose, now's the time to do it.

And settle back in. Park the body and park the mind, again using the breath sensation of the nostrils to turn on the focus. Turn up the clarity and turn on the fascination.

Now drop that object and focus on my words. Follow along. Let's explore worldview five and six, again using the problem, focusing on a problem.

And let's all use the same one again, so that we can get familiar with the sequence we can use on our own. So let's focus on what looks like the problem of global inflation that seems to be an impending scarcity. First, we just think about the problem at hand, worldly consideration.

We identify it. We think about what we think we know about it, how it's affecting ourselves, our families right now. And think about the worldly explanations and worldly solutions that are being offered.

Within this exploration, we recognize who and what is getting blamed for the problem. More than one thing, of course, but our worldly thinking is, if that was different, that would be all that it would take. It's their fault.

So let's take this problem from your own perspective about it and apply worldview lower middle way. There is a problem. It's happening.

We believe there's no way to see it differently than we do. Especially, there's no way to see anything good about it. That would be nuts.

It's a problem. Yes. The wrong view about the problem is that we can't possibly choose how we relate to it.

But is that true? What might be ways that we could look at this problem situation to give us different insight that would allow us to relate to it differently? Maybe we could look at what is it teaching me about impermanence? Or what is it teaching me about my belief in control? Or could I use it to show myself how I am blaming and judging others inaccurately when I believe everyone should see it my way? Or even what is this situation showing me about my own past behavior? What is it giving me an opportunity to practice? Yes, it's a problem. And I can use that problem to learn a new way of being, a new way of responding to a problem. And so we recognize that this problem itself can't make me see it a certain way.

We recognize that our own perception and experience of it colors the problem in a way unique to each of us. So, explore that problem from my perspective. How much of that problem's identity do I bring? How much does the problem bring? Looking for the 50-50, what percentage of the problem can each of us recognize is our own contribution, our own mind's contribution? If our own mind contributes nothing, then we cannot change that problem.

If our own mind brings 50%, we can change 50% of the problem. How much of the problem is there independent of your experience, and how much does your experience bring? It's a difficult question to answer. And if my mind brings anything to it, it gives me hope.

I can have new ideas. I can choose different behaviors. Maybe only enough to change it a little bit, but it's still change, change for the better, I hope.

And if there's any part of that problem that has its own nature, or any part of that problem that comes from someone else's influence, that means there's a part of that situation we cannot change. Our exploration in our practice career is to learn to catch ourselves in our belief, how much is the situation we are experiencing in it, and how much is coming from me. Intellectually, we know all of it is coming from me.

Experientially, behaviorally, often in my own case, I am not aware of any of it coming from me. So let's push ourselves up to worldview six, this problem, everything costing so much more. But my income is not going up.

I'm fearful about the future, about scarcity for my family. And so my belief, my habit is to want to cut back on spending, to withhold my giving, to avoid that uncertainty. It might lead me to want to accumulate or hoard those things that I think won't be available, which could lead to people fighting with me over resources.

So again, simply identify the situation, the problem, with the problem, recognize our belief that the problem is a problem in it, from it. And the fear that I feel is caused by the problem. My proof is that everyone is feeling it.

And check. Is it true? Everyone is feeling it? Is it true that anyone is feeling it? In the same way? I am. You are I. Everyone experiences things differently.

Each unique to them. We don't know their experience. We just know our perception of their experience.

We think we know, but we don't. Everyone is ripening their own karmic seeds. And so it is happening for each of us.

Uniquely, forced by each of our own karmic seeds ripening, there is no base reality problem that everyone experiences differently. There is the reality that everyone is ripening. It's a subtle but important difference.

So then what is the real way to resolve that apparent problem? If it's created by our karmic seeds ripening, we want to clean up those seeds that are creating it. We want to carefully, conscientiously, powerfully plant seeds for the results we want to see. And we want to water those seeds by rejoicing in them.

And we want to dedicate those seeds to seeing everyone see the results that they are planting come about bigger and better than we can achieve. So let's try it. Think of the situation again.

Things getting so expensive, I can't get my family's needs met. The fear of scarcity, the fear of aggression towards us if we have more than someone else. And recognize that for me to see or even believe I might see this situation, I must have done that in small ways before.

This life, past lives, sometime had to have been put in there. And man, do I regret it. I didn't know any better back then.

Now I do. I see the results of having put monetary gain ahead of others' needs. I regret that I did that ever.

I see the results of putting my own wants ahead of others' needs. I see the results of imposing scarcity on others. I deeply regret those past lifetimes of deeds.

Now I know better. I will refrain from repeating those kinds of behaviors. So I will do the opposite.

I will continue to find ways to share resources with others. However small, maybe just the resource of my own time is what I can give. And I will rejoice in having done it.

And all the times I have shared my resources, I will rejoice in the past generosity of those who now have great wealth and pray that they grow in generosity in this life so they can perpetuate their wealth. I will protect others' property. I will protect others' safety.

I will try to attend to their needs for comfort, for security. I will be more careful in my own consumption of things solely for my own pleasure, using those things to share a little ethical pleasure with others. I will dedicate my sharing to seeing everyone see and experience abundance independent of money, independent of cost.

And I will rejoice in the caring and the sharing that I've already done, finding specific instances, being happy with those seeds and eager to plant more. So let's sit for three more minutes. You're doing great.

Imagine this you, this worldview six you going through your day. Stay clear. Stay focused.

Be creative. Keep your focus, clarity, eagerness. One more minute.

Feel how happy that new you feels. Even when there are challenges. Nice.

Now turn your mind back to that precious holy being there before you. Dedicate the goodness that we've done with this exploration to their long life, to their other students, gaining realizations. Ask them all to stay close and then become aware of yourself.

You're in your room here in this class. And when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch and we'll take a break. Nice job.

That was a good long set. Now, can I ask you a question? In the meditation, when you say, think how much of the problem identity is coming from you and how much is coming from the problem? Like, I don't know, for me, it's like blank. Like, what should I think there? Do you know what I mean? I don't know.

It's, I just stay in blank. Right. Any hint? Well, it takes some time to explore just that aspect.

Less in answering it with words and more of a feeling when there's some problem situation or even some pleasurable situation, any experience. Our gut reaction to the experience is that it's all out there coming at me. In which case, how much of it's coming from it and how much is coming from me? Like 99% is in it.

Clearly, I have to be here, but that's as much responsibility as I take. Thank you very much. Right.

And so to actually let ourselves recognize that's our ordinary human perspective, to get the sense of it really feels like it's coming at us. And then from there, you can start to get a sense of what really is coming at me like that. If it is coming at me like I think it does, then it would say that anybody who's here with me, put somebody in front of me and have them have it come to them.

And it would have to be the same. And even if I can't feel what they feel, I know it can't be the same for them as for me. So that would be a way to explore it.

Okay. You know, just in your mind, but feel it more than try to explain it. Yeah.

And then I think you'll get the hang of what this step through the worldview actually from four to five to six will help you understand. Okay. Yeah.

Are we back? Looks like we're back. So what are the implications of living according to worldview? Does it really even seem possible to be stepping through our moment by moment life with none of that reality out there? Just our karmic seeds making it moment by moment as we go. Like that's hard to relate to as you are getting out of bed in the morning.

We can do it in our meditation cushion. We can imagine it. We can meditate on its ramifications, but as soon as I open my eyes, old worldview comes flooding back uncontrollably really living according to this worldview.

It really is like swimming upstream. Not so much because everybody else in the world is not living it, although that's part of it, but we're swimming upstream from our own experience, the belief of our own experience. We're struggling against that.

So Keshala said it doesn't take any brilliance really to recognize that anything we have or actually believe or are is going to break or get lost or end eventually. That realization of impermanence is not so hard. And the realization that we're not in control is not so hard either.

Maybe it's hard to admit it, but it's not hard to see it. We just refuse to accept the ramification of it. And so we hold ourselves back.

Then the next one, maybe it's a little harder to see that there aren't really any random events or accidents that anything I experience, you know, is a result of a cause. It's been created by me in some way. So I can't really call it an accident.

I can't call it random and I can't really blame the other person. We don't want to take that one on, which is why it's harder to realize. Then hot on the heels of that one is recognizing that not everybody has the same opinion about things as I do.

Come on. We learned that when we were teenagers, didn't we? But it didn't make us really change our behavior. We just, I don't know, doubled down on our belief that, well, I'll align myself with people whose opinions agree with mine and I'll avoid people whose opinions don't agree with mine and I solve the problem that way.

Until somebody who used to agree now doesn't agree, you know, and then we get topsy-turvy. Or until we stop agreeing with what our group believes, then we have all of that business about was extricating ourselves from that group. But again, those recognizing those levels of beliefs that are holding us back from our spiritual progress, they aren't sufficient for us to motivate to change our behavior such that we can actually stop perpetuating the mistake that colors us in such a way that keeps us choosing behaviors that perpetuate the suffering world.

Even as we're trying to, we still are colored by our past decision-making to make those decisions again. It's very difficult. Keshava says that's why there are so many beings in samsara.

It's hard to get free. It's hard to stop creating it. And if that suffering world has any aspect of it that comes from it or comes from somebody else, then we're stuck.

In which case, let's just go eat chocolate and go to football games and, you know, who needs this? But then we all die and we lose it and we start all over. So at this point, I'm so sorry, but you've been cursed with hearing the pen thing and your own good seeds landed you in this place where you just can't go back because we've got a glimpse. So thank goodness, like I'm really rejoicing in your goodness that has you on this path, this path.

And although you are absolutely free to say, I've had enough, I'm out of here. You've planted seeds that will help you change your world sooner or later. And hooray for that.

So again, at level five middle way, lower middle way, we're still allowing ourselves the luxury of saying, yes, there's an existing world outside of me. And because the way I perceive it is unique to me and the way I perceive it is my seeds ripening. It means my seeds planting can force me to perceive it in a nicer way.

If I plant my seeds like that, that's helpful. It brings hope. It brings a sense of contribution and empowering us.

What we do matters because it will change things in the moment. That's the hard part. And then ultimately, if there's still something out there independent of our seed ripening it, then there's something we cannot change.

Is that clear? It actually took me a really long time to get that. It's like, oh yeah, duh. I always had to really think it through.

Wait, how come if there's something out there independent of me, I can't reach in and change it? There's a chocolate candy sitting on the counter. It has its existence in it. I reach out.

I take a bite of it. I put it back. I've changed it.

Haven't I? It seems like something that exists independent of me. I did something and I changed it. It seems like in my day-to-day life, I am reinforcing my belief that yes, things there have their own natures and yes, I influence them through my behavior.

That's just completely illogical and impossible. But it doesn't feel illogical and impossible because I do it all the time. Then only rarely do I go to do one of those things.

What I do doesn't work the way it's supposed to, like turning the key to turn on the car and suddenly it doesn't turn on. I have an appointment. I'm supposed to be there.

Now I can't get there. But every other time that I turned the key and the car started, reinforced that by turning the key, I started the car. And yet, is it true that turning keys to turn the ignition starts the car? How do we answer that? Seems true.

Seems like cause and effect is happening. And it's just random or by accident that all of a sudden it doesn't happen. And if we're a human being who can cope with difficulty, we go, okay, I understand.

It's the battery's dead or something. I'll get it fixed and then the key will start the car again. And when that works, I have again reinforced my misunderstanding.

And so I believe it is a correct understanding and I've missed an opportunity to recognize my own ignorance. So going from level five to level six, level five allows the things to be out there, but empowers us to interact with them differently by thinking of them differently in order to plant our seeds differently. So that similar out there things will be pleasant instead of unpleasant.

That's helpful. But as long as there's something out there, independent of our seeds ripening, there's something we can't change. If there's something we can't change, we can't create a Buddha paradise, can we? Because those things that we can't change that we experience now, they are being experienced as sansaric things, things that are part of suffering and the causes of suffering.

So our belief that they are in them from them means they're suffering and the suffering they cause are in them from them. And that means there's some suffering we can't stop. And our Buddha paradise cannot be reached if there's something that we have not transformed.

But then I can read Louisa's mind. Well, then how come Buddhas are aware of any suffering at all? And I'm not going to go there right now, but it should come up in our minds. Wait a minute.

If Buddha paradise is totally pure because there is no base reality and that mind's ripening only purity, what about me? I was left behind. They left me in sansara, not from their side, right? What does Buddha see when Buddha perceives you? Think about it. Is Buddha ever not perceiving you if Buddha is omniscient? No, that's a little scary.

Sorry, Buddha. Some of those probably weren't so pleasant, but Buddha didn't perceive it that way either. Did they? A being made of love, compassion, wisdom.

And then that's what we are aspiring to become. We say, if there's any aspect to me, in me, from me, like worldview five says there is, then I cannot transform into a Buddha because there's something about me that's independent of my seeds ripening. Now that seems absurd, doesn't it? But when we say, oh, my me is nothing but seeds ripening, ripening, ripening, does it feel like a little scary because that solid me that we think is doing the ripening, we believe is somehow independent of that process because we are the ripener and the planter and we think we're separate from the whole thing.

And if we are, that means we can't plant new seeds to change it, can we? But wait, nobody else can change my seeds. Even Buddha can't change my seeds. They can only teach me how to change my seeds.

But if there's any aspect of me that I don't believe changes, then there's a part of me that can't become no longer samsaric suffering being. All right. I kind of got ahead of myself.

So in this shift from level five, there's still something out there. I bring to the party stuff about it. Two, there's nothing out there.

Information ripening upon it, information ripening upon it, information ripening upon it, but no base reality of something that we start from. The difference is between practicing patience. We practice patience with worldview five and practicing the perfection of patient with worldview six.

So practicing patience means we are training ourselves to be in unpleasant, difficult situations without responding negatively, being able to tolerate the unpleasantness. At first we get angry about it or we get impatient and we recognize our impulse is to act in a certain way for our own comfort, not really caring so much the impact on the other that's involved. And then our practice of patience says, no, no, I'm becoming less and less willing to cause harm or discomfort to somebody else in order to relieve my discomfort.

Subtle changes at first, burning off the unpleasantness, planting some growing willingness to tolerate unpleasantness in order to plant my seeds in a new way. Practicing patience does help us grow our patience. Doing the perfection of patience is recognizing that this situation that's challenging my patience is coming from me, not it.

I'm burning it off. I'm going to intentionally plant new seeds in order to end unpleasant situations for everybody forever. Does the thing that we do change? Not so much.

The image that always comes to my mind was when Geshe-la was describing this from the Master Kamalashila's commentary on Diamond Cutter. And one of the levels of patience, he had this picture, a little cartoon drawing of the little girl on the bus who's given her seat up to the old lady. I related to the little girl giving up the seat and I related to the old lady, like, thank you.

It's like the little girl was willing to stand. It's uncomfortable, unpleasant to stand on a bus. And the little girl has this big grin on her face.

She's not just willing to stand. She's enjoying standing so that the old lady, somebody's grandma can sit and be safe, be comfortable. So presumably, the little girl was acting with wisdom.

Also thinking, not only am I providing a little pleasure for that lady at my own personal comfort expense, but I understand that in the process of doing that, I'm planting my seeds for everyone to be safe and comfortable and always have a seat. So maybe on worldview five, the little girl sitting on the chair, she sees the grandma come. She gets up, gives the grandma the chair, stands during the bus and is thinking, my mother will be proud of me.

I gave up my seat to the old lady. A kindness done is planted in her mind. But same deed, done thinking about it in this different way.

Plants, the seeds in the little girl's mind come very, very differently. Worldview five versus worldview six. It's a what we're doing in our mind that helps us also decide what is it we're actually going to do.

I actually use this term robo claws. It was from an old TV ad about these gardening tools that were these great big clippers that you'd hold on to them with both hands. And they had big teeth on them.

And I had a cutter. And you could take this claw thing and you could get a hold of something you needed to pull and it would hang on to it. You could fix stuff with this thing called robo, like robot claws.

I think of it as Iron Man, you know, the movie Iron Man. He puts on his big suit and he's got these big old hand things that he can crush cars and he can do all kinds of powerful things in the moment. The thing with the robo claws is saying to us, we believe that when something's going on, what we do in the moment to affect the situation does in fact affect the situation into what comes in the next moment.

We believe that, don't we? I do. Put the key in the car, start the ignition, the car starts. See, it works like that.

I mean, everything we do is an example of that. And suddenly I go blank. Put water in the teapot, push the little button, hot water gets made.

Does it really work like that? How do we show ourselves that that is not in fact cause and effect? Cause and effect means the effect comes from the cause, which means it will happen every single time. It has to. Do you see how difficult that one is as well? We say, I believe in cause and effect and I believe that cause and effect doesn't always work.

And it doesn't make me flip out about my belief in cause and effect. Does it? Yes. The turning the key starts the car and yes, from time to time it doesn't work, but that doesn't mean my understanding of the cause and effect doesn't work.

We're so illogical. So the exploration is that if I believe that turning the key is the cause for starting the car, the way I show myself, whether or not that belief is accurate to experience is whether there's ever a time when turning the key does not start the car. Hmm.

I have had that experience. Seems to happen about once every 10 or 12 years for me, but every three to five years for the car that's got that battery in the desert. But do you see I'm doing the same thing again? As long as the battery is functioning, we have cause and effect.

And as soon as the battery doesn't, it's a temporary cause effect loss, but it's not proving to myself that I have the wrong cause and effect relationship because I'm refusing to admit that there's something else going on. Do you remember when we learned debate and Geshe-la says, if you go through, you know, an accurate debate with somebody and they agree to this and they agree to that and they agree to that. And then you say, so therefore blah, blah, blah.

And they go, no. He says, you can't debate with a crazy person. Who's the crazy person? Me, because I say cause effect, cause effect, cause effect.

And then when it doesn't work, I don't go, well, what's wrong with my cause effect belief? If I got it, I would have fixed this thing a long time ago because things didn't always work the way I expected, even when I was a little kid and I never questioned it enough to say, wait, what's wrong with this picture? I want to know the truth until there is a great big one. So this difference between level five and level six, it's actually a really, really huge leap. And you don't have to force, we don't have to force ourselves to take that leap.

We can't actually. Studying about it, thinking about it, chewing on it in our meditation helps us recognize how we're clinging to our old beliefs. And as we recognize how we're clinging to the Gakcha, that's what allows us to start to loosen our grip on our habitual reactions to circumstances.

Our habitual reaction to negative circumstances is to do anything to push it away, stop it, avoid it. Maybe not caring so much about our impact on the other. Our habitual reaction to pleasant things is, I want more.

We use it up. We don't naturally recognize that the way to perpetuate that pleasurable things is to share it. It goes against our ignorant human mind to lean into the unpleasant things and give away the pleasant things.

It's the opposite of what we're trained to do as functional human adults, isn't it? So we struggle. When we recognize what I do in the moment appears to bring what happens next, but doesn't really, then we wonder what is it that makes it appear to work because that's a good thing. And what is it really when it doesn't work the way we expect? And how is it that I can make things work every single time? Because that's what we want, isn't it? That what we do in the moment to bring the result that we want in the next moment.

Now, technically, I don't think that happens until we are close to or omniscient. Sorry, I got myself lost there. A gardener knows that it takes time between when you plant the seed and when you will get your harvest.

This shift from worldview to worldview up to the sixth is our growing ability to be more like the gardener in life than like the me who believes what I do in the moment brings what comes next. The gardener waits. You plant a sapling and you know it's going to be five, 10, 15 years before you have the big tree with the shade on the house.

And you don't need to do anything but tend to the sapling, tend to the tree. We plant the seeds and let those seeds grow. If we want those seeds to grow faster, there are influences that we can include in our planting of the seed.

And there are influences that we can add that will water those seeds to help our ability to recognize that our seed planting is where our power lies. Even though the moment after we plant the seed is not related to the seed we just planted. So then when it seems to work, turn the key, star cards, it would be like, wow, I helped somebody at some point because this is a goodness.

Wow, again, the next time. Wow, the grocery store has the peanut butter. I like, wow, we would be on this like, wow, kick.

Because every time it seems like what I do brings on the thing I wanted, that would be just like a miracle. Because we know it didn't happen like that. But getting what we want is a ripening of past kindness.

How long ago past? Who knows? Who cares really? What we care about is how do I perpetuate that goodness? What do I do with this circumstance where the key did start the car? I want to use it somehow to help somebody. And that's where our practice comes in, is how do I use this worldview to use me to plant my seeds in a way that's going to grow the garden that when any of those seeds ripen, I'll be happy with them. Can I plant, you know, daisies and petunias and zucchini and tomatoes and not plant ragweed and thistle and write those things that get stickery in your socks? Can I only plant good seeds? Can I weed out the negative seeds? Do I have to wait until they come up as a weed? Or is there something I can do with them to prevent them from even erupting as a negative thing? Right? We've learned all this.

We learn how to purify. We learn how to plant our seeds differently. Well, but if what I do in the moment doesn't bring what comes now, how do I know what seed to plant that will be pleasant when it ripens? If it's going to be so long by the time it ripens that I won't know what caused what.

Like, aren't we kind of stuck to randomly try things on for size, but in a system where you can't see what you planted brings what result? How could we ever figure it out if what I do in the moment doesn't bring what comes next? By the time it brings it to me 10 years later, I don't know the connection. So we rely on a being who's done it and must have taken notes, you know, or their memory was so good that when they reached their goal, which is driven, a Buddha reaches their goal driven by their bodhicitta for all sentient beings benefit, which means when they reach it, the very seed planting with which they reach it ripens from includes them helping the ones they did it for. Who are those ones? Me, you, anyone who doesn't perceive themselves as a Buddha yet, assuming you don't, I don't know.

That being then can't take our seeds, can't make us behave better any more than a parent can for a teenager. But they can teach, they can say what works and what doesn't work. And in this tradition, they say that what is unique to Shakyamuni Buddha is that instead of telling his growing disciples, look, everything's going to be okay.

We can create a pure world. Just do this. He said, look, you're right.

Everything about life is suffering. And look, you're actually not right. Because even the pleasant things about life are suffering.

And this is why. And he says, and you're both right and not right, in the sense that deep down, we want to stop it. And on the surface, we can't see how it could possibly be stopped.

So everything about the three jewels of refuge have to do with emptiness and dependent origination. What is it that makes things appear to happen in the way they do to each of us? And that reveals that nothing has its nature in it from it. So that those things can be uniquely experienced by the one who's experiencing it.

Those two wrapped together, we study them one, one, one, and we try to figure out how do they relate. But in fact, they're not separate. They can't be one reveals the other.

Look at it this way. You see dependent origination, you know, emptiness, look at it this way, you see emptiness, you know, dependent origination, bring them together. And we get me and my world, me and my experience, meaning you and your experience.

And with that understanding, we see that, well, then truly, there's nothing I can't create for the future, by way of my behavior. So Buddha, I get it. Everything's about suffering.

Tell me what I need to do. Because it'll take too long for me to figure it out. And he goes, take up and give up.

What? Vows, we get those guidelines of behaviors, we call them vows, that aren't restrictions, they're directions for decision making, that helps us not have to reinvent the wheel. Refuge advices, freedom vows, at whatever level you choose. Bodhisattva vows, don't get to choose a level there.

All or none. And then someday Diamond Way vows, designed to take the other three and just crank up their power. The Diamond Way vows aren't new or different so much.

They're how to do your other vows more powerfully. The keeping vows is guidelines for behavior. If you ever line up all your vows, most of them say, I will avoid dot, dot, dot.

And if you say, okay, that would mean I would do the opposite. What would the opposite look like? Like look at the virtues, the six non-virtues, killing, stealing, sexual misconduct. And we think, okay, it's one thing to avoid killing.

It's another to actively protect life. And when we think of the seed planting for both of those kinds of behaviors, and think of them as what are the circumstances those are going to ripen as, avoiding killing and protecting life. It's going to ripen as an experience of a world where beings don't get killed.

Beings' lives are protected. That would be longer and longer lifespans, wouldn't it? Ultimately, it would be no death at all. Like, wow, how's that possible? So I actually was doing retreat, long retreat, in one of our in-between deep sessions.

I sat down with all my vows. I have a lot of them. And I laid out the negative wording and I thought of its result, wrote it down, turned it over, did the opposite, and thought of what result that seed planted.

And I looked at all of them and it revealed these five different, what does Geshe-la call them, platforms or doorways that we work on. We work on our health. We work on our abundance, prosperity.

We work on our partnership, trustworthy partnerships. We work on our clear thinking, meditative focus, and we work on saving the world. And if you look at your list of positive behaviors that come out of the vows, it's like, oh my gosh, they are designed for us to create a world of abundance, safety, beauty, partnership, happy people, Dharma flowing readily.

Like, it's so extraordinary. All we have to do is follow the program. And a lot of us here, somebody say, just follow the program and we instantly reject.

So what I love about the ACI is they don't say just follow the program. They say, here's why the program is the program. Then you choose.

You want to reinvent the wheel? Have at it. You have enough to do it. Or you want to speed up the process? Follow the program.

And it really is true, at least from my side, following the program because I understand why helps me do it better than just from an authority figure. So how do we do our gardening with enough strength that we shorten the time frame between when we do the deed that plants the seed and when we get a result from the seed? I don't want to say the result from the seed because that seed is growing and changing until it ripens. And if it ripens sooner than later, it's ripening result is going to be different, similar, but different in detail.

So we plant our seeds with an ideal of a result. And if we keep in our mind, this is the way that result has to show up from that seed or series of seeds that I planted. We are very likely to be disappointed.

We'll keep waiting for the cute, tall, blonde, blue haired guy to show up as my perfect partner when the shorter, dark haired guy has been there. And we it's like, no, no, that's not what I planted. We're missing our perfect fit, maybe as opposed to I plant my seed, I will cultivate it.

When it shows up, it will show up. Meanwhile, I've planted all these other seeds. So when we're planting our seeds for the future we want, we don't have to worry about the future.

We just plant, plant, plant, plant, plant. Samantha, are you wanting to say something? Are the master planter? So there are four factors, technically more than four, because one of the factors has two parts through which we can more conscientiously plant our seeds. Like the gardener can just throw his seeds out and call it broadcast them and let nature take its course.

Or the gardener can till the soil and plan out where he's going to plant what and really detail fashion, plant things, and then wait and let nature take its course. So we want to be the more detail oriented gardener, although broadcasting seeds can be nice as well. So we know these different factors, the Tibetan, their sheets, but so Jorwa, Tartu, Geshe-la teaches them a little differently when he goes to a public talk.

Here they say that, so these are all factors through which we plant our seeds with greater power. A seed with greater power is going to grow bigger, faster than a seed planted in a less powerful way. But it's not an all or nothing thing.

It's like there are all these gradations. So the first one is the power of the object toward which we do our deed. The more powerful our object, the more powerful are the seeds planted given the same deed.

So for instance, you get a bouquet of daisies and you offer them to your personal holy heart mama. Those seeds are planted with a certain power. You take those same daisies and instead you give them to your very dear Aunt Mary.

The seeds are planted still with power, but not as strongly as with our teacher. Because our teacher is a being we see as closer to enlightenment or maybe already enlightened. And as someone who teaches us how to get there.

Our Aunt Mary we see as this amazing, wonderful woman who's helped us. You could give the same daisies to somebody you don't know on the street just to bring a smile to their face. Also plants good seeds, but not as powerful do you see as the other two.

So it's a gradation. You could give the same flowers to the stray dog, plant seeds, but not as strong. Then there's the Tsampa.

Tsampa means our motivation. Meaning what was I thinking and why did I do it? We might think all motivation means I'm going to give these flowers to my Lama as an offering to plant these powerful seeds in my mind to create a Buddha paradise for everybody. And that takes those seeds of offering to the Lama's flowers and makes them even more strong.

This Tsampa also increases the power of negative seeds. If when we're doing a negative seed to someone, we have this really strong intention to harm them by doing that thing. It plants the negative seed in a stronger way than if we end up doing some negative thing to someone by accident, right? The result is going to be different because the state of mind with which we did the deed is different.

Jorwa means the method that you used. Not so much the method, but using a method. We plan the method, we get the method, we do the method.

And then the last one, Tartuq, we think of it as rejoicing, that it really means completing the deed. And being happy that we did the deed is what completes the deed. So all these factors accelerate the result.

And then understanding that we see how it is that Diamond Way can be used to add further power to the cultivation of our seeds such that we more powerfully damage the negative seeds that we have to prevent them from ripening, to prevent them from obstacleing our change in behavior. And we plant our new good seeds with such power that they are adding to our old similar good seeds so that all of those seeds together seem to make it such that what we do today ripens a month from now. It's not really so much that what we did ripens in a month.

It's that we're doing those deeds in a way that it adds to the old ones that are similar in such a powerful way that they get over this threshold to manifestation. It takes worldview six understanding, at least intellectual, in order for the Diamond Way practices for us to recognize how and why to take a transmission and follow those advices that come. Without a clear understanding of the no-base reality, the Diamond Way becomes very difficult.

It's difficult either way, pleasurably difficult, but with our high worldview, it's possible. So when we have these, understand these four factors, we recognize, well, this is what helps me design how I'm going to garden my seeds. Like the gardener designing what he wants his garden to look like.

We can't do the same thing. And I encourage you to think that through a bit between now and the transmission coming, if you're taking the transmission, to have fresh in your mind how you can be planting your seeds in these powerful ways and ripening your seeds in these powerful ways. This transmission is a ripening of your seeds, your goodness.

So there's a lot of rejoicing that can be going on, going into this thing and coming out of this thing, that it's been created so that it can be perpetuated so that we can all gain these realizations that are its promise. When will those realizations show up? Right? That's not under our control or our power. We plant our seeds in a way that it will come as quickly as we can manage, but we focus on our planting, not on when's it going to come? When's it going to come? When's it going to come? Plant, plant, plant, plant, plant, plant, plant.

So with that, let's plant this class. Well done. We will explore further level five, level six next class, going a little deeper into relating to it.

So time up. Remember that person we wanted to be able to help. We ripened a lot of amazing seeds.

We planted a lot of amazing seeds. 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, help you, inspire you, maybe even challenge 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. Okay. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Claire, for making this available to so many people. More than I can. Thanks, everyone.

I love you. 

So thank you for coming back to class. I know it's an effort and I appreciate it. So in this class, we will do our opening prayers and then our meditation preliminaries.

And then we will explore in this contemplation are the six flavors using our own mind as the object of meditation. So in order to do that, I need to first talk to us a little bit about what it is to use our own mind as an object. And then we'll try it.

So let's do our opening prayers first. 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 what's meant by 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, 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 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, ratna, mandala, kam, nirya, tat, namini.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened. She's 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. She's 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. She's 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.

Okay. So when we think of our me, like your me and my me, we're referring to what we believe is our body and our mind. Those two things combined makes up our me.

The body we understand is made up of lots of stuff. So it's called the heap of form. And technically, what qualifies to be in our heap of form actually goes beyond the limitation of what we call our body.

Then when we're saying my me is made up of body and mind, when we say mind, we are referring to those four other heaps that makes up a human being. The heap of feeling, the heap of discriminating between things, the heap of all the other factors, and the heap of consciousness or the heap of awareness. And in that group, within the heap of consciousness or the heap of awareness, there's the visual awareness.

There's the auditory awareness, the olfactory awareness, gustatory taste awareness, tactile awareness, and then awareness, awareness, mean thought. And we tend to think, no, my mind is the thing that's having those experiences. And if and when we get a chance to study deeply Lobsang Chukwigaltsen's training in Mahamudra, we go exploring, we go looking for that mind that is the thing that has these different qualities.

And you can imagine what we're going to find. But to be able to do that exploration effectively, we learn the steps and go by slowly. This course, often called Mahamudra course, doesn't teach that.

We're using this course to get more and more familiar with being able to recognize when we're operating from worldview level one, believing the Gakcha, believing something's there that's not there, recognizing level two when it's happening, when we're doing it, when we're believing in it, recognizing level three, level four, five, and six, being able to intellectually dance between them because we've gotten so familiar with at least what they mean by description. And then our use of what we have learned would be when we're trying to catch ourselves blaming our experience on something that's happened that didn't meet the expectation, the expectation of which shows us the worldview we were holding. So we will be using for today's meditation the mind aspect called feeling.

So we are using the mind as the object, but the mind, the object of mind is feeling. And right there, I'm already a little bit like, wait a minute, that's not the mind, that's what the mind is feeling. And anyway, so what we mean by feeling in this heap of feeling is not emotion.

It's not tactile sensation. The heap of feeling is this content of our mind that is constantly shifting between thumbs up or thumbs down or thumbs neutral in response to the experience we're having. So in order to be able to describe it, we use some experience.

Here's our friend, the pen. And part of our experience of the pen is this heap of feeling where that factor is whether our attention, our interest, or whether our mind is attracted towards the pen or subtly adverse from the object or just totally neutral. And these moments of feeling are really swift and subtle.

Although they say it's more obvious reality than the heap of discriminating. So it's like once we actually attune to this feeling, thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs neutral, it's not so difficult to find. But until we really recognize what it is I'm trying to describe, our minds think feeling means there's the thing and it's whether the thing is pleasant or whether I like it or whether I want it.

And all of those are true about the feeling thumbs up, but the feeling is before the identification. Oh, it's good, I like it, I want it. Those are the other heaps of mind kicking in.

So it's this subtle until we find it, then obvious quality of mind in response to every moment of experience that's either thumbs up, going towards thumbs down and thumbs neutral. Now they say that's the case for the mental aspect and that's also the case for the awareness of a physical aspect of an experience. We're not gonna deal with that right now.

We're just gonna be looking at the feeling experience as we explore what we believe influences that feeling so that we can recognize our expectations about our feeling about things, about our experiences. And when we can recognize our expectations, then we can recognize when our expectations are not getting met and we can explore why that would be to explore whether or not what I'm blaming on the failed expectation is really valid or not. And that will lead us through the various levels of our beliefs about what makes us feel, our mind feel the way it does at any given moment.

So we want our mind to feel thumbs up all the time because from thumbs up comes pleasant. I like, right? I wanna keep more of that. We don't want a thumbs down state of mind, most of us anyway.

Okay? And so we're going to explore this feeling function of our mind or this feeling aspect of our experience. Okay, got it? Any burning questions about what I mean by feeling? Cause I'm gonna use the word and I want us not to be thinking, oh, I'm feeling good. Or I'm feeling worried that I'm not doing this good enough.

Those kinds of feelings is not what we're talking about. Okay? All right. Sorry, Lama.

Could you explain again the feeling? Because I find it very difficult to catch that moment. It's like when I saw something or someone, I thought I already caught that. I like this person.

Right? So is that before that stage? The feeling that we're trying to find is actually coming before the cognition. Oh, that person is a person I like. What ripens is this thumbs up.

So say you see this person in a crowd, they're a little bit far away, but out of the whole crowd is this one. And your mind goes, and then it goes, that looks like so-and-so. I haven't seen them in a long time.

I like them so much. Right? And then the thumbs up is continuing. Whereas the initial thumbs up, and then you go, oh, I think that's so-and-so.

I like so-and-so. I get closer and closer. And as I get closer, all of a sudden we see, oh, it's not them.

It's this other person that I don't like. Right? As the perception shifts, it's not them. Then right there, there's a feeling.

Maybe it's not them, but I want to know who it is. Or maybe it's not them. And now I'm afraid to make a fool of myself because I was getting ready to hug them, and I don't know them from Adam.

Right? It happens before, and then all the story starts. So if all we can catch is the story, and we can recognize, is the story a thumbs up story or a thumbs down story, that will get us started, recognizing how our mind has this feeling going on, even as we're telling ourselves this story. It's, right? That's what we're, I'm giving away the punchline because we're going to find the minds doing this, like almost constantly.

But we want it to do this and stay there. And son of a gun, it doesn't. And who are we going to blame for it not staying thumbs up all the time? Them, that, something else, not me, not my seeds ripening, right? We know the punchline, but we want to get to the punchline by recognizing the limitation in our belief system.

We don't want to just jump to the punchline, right? So I'm going to try to help us do that. Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

So we'll start with the preliminaries, but I'm going to do them fairly swiftly. Please don't rush your preliminaries when you're doing them at home. Even if you need to do your preliminaries, like as your morning practice, and then work on this meditation as a contemplation over your lunch hour, that's fine.

Preliminaries are important seed planting opportunity for our actual session, not the one after the particular preliminaries, but building our capacity with our preliminaries. They're very important. Okay, so let's gather our minds here as we usually do, which means set your body.

We haven't really talked about how to do that. That's another course, but get it set upright, propped if it needs to be, so that you can get it to be still and forget about it. And once the body's parked, you bring your attention to the breath at your nostrils, learning to trigger that awareness, to trigger the meditative focus, to trigger the clarity, to trigger the intensity.

Also, how we do those is a different course. Count 10 breaths, starting with the outflow, and inflow as one. Now, intentionally leave the object of your breath and turn that focused, clear mind to what I am saying and following along.

So take your refuge, your refuge in emptiness, that understanding that there is nothing I cannot create by way of my behaviors towards others, and there is nothing that I can experience that I have not created by way of past behavior towards others. Think of how knowing that helps us choose our behaviors in a different way than we habitually do, and how that is protection. Then we grow our bodhicitta.

Think of how amazing our world would be if everyone just knew that and recognized that if there's anyone that we experience who's suffering in any way, it's because I haven't always known that, and maybe they don't either, and maybe it would help them for me to show that example, to help them reach a point where they would be interested in helping people in a way that helps them help others, in a way that helps them help others, and we can see how big that gets, and maybe it still feels so impossible, and so we rely on those beings who have already done that or are at least ahead of us on that path, and we think of this being with our sense of admiration and aspiration, thinking of just one of their amazing good qualities that we see in them. And make them an offering to honor them. All those beautiful things we can offer and what they like the best is for us to hear ourselves telling them about some kindness we did because of something they had taught us.

See how pleased they are, and then tell them too of some negativity. Some negatives see that you want to damage from some old selfish habit, but be specific. Tell them of the event.

Tell them why you are confessing it because it's gonna come back to hurt me and hurt others and I really regret. Feel the healthy regret. Feel the sense I really, really don't want to do this again.

Make a specific power of restraint and tell them of an antidote, which could be this meditation, this class. And then add rejoicing. Tell them of some kindness you saw someone else do or just heard about someone doing.

Tell them of another, and another that you did. See with each one how pleased they are. And so we ask them to please stay close, to continue to teach us and guide us and inspire us.

We ask that people who are helping us learn on this path, stay with us, stay close. And we dedicate what we've done just so far to gaining those insights, those realizations, through which we can become the one that helps others help others help others. And we shift our mind back to our breath.

If you need to shift your body, now's the time to do it. If you don't need to, you don't have to. Then settle back in.

Settle body, settle mind. Let that breath get slow and soft. Don't make it, it just will do so.

Now again, intentionally leave the object breath and turn your focus of attention to my words. We're going to use as the object of our meditation, our feeling, our mind feeling, the function feeling, the mind is always feeling one of three modes, feeling good or positive or up feeling, neutral feeling, negative, bad, down. And the words are too strong for the sensation.

Even in Buddhahood, a Buddha mind will have this constant changing feeling. I don't imagine a Buddha mind ever feels full off bad, but it's still feeling. So check your own state of mind right now.

What is it feeling? Now our answer may be sleepy, uncomfortable, nervous. Those aren't what we're looking for. Thumbs up, thumbs neutral, thumbs down.

It's difficult, isn't it? What is this thing called mind? Where the heck is it? So I'll ask again, what is your mind feeling right now? Or maybe how is it feeling right now? Thumbs down, thumbs up, thumbs neutral, thumbs down. So whether or not you've clearly identified it, Geshe-la said, pretend. You have before your awareness's mind's eye, this clear feeling of your mind.

Call it one or the other. Actually, there's three. Whatever you feel closest matches that quality of mind right now.

And once we have it, that is our object of meditation. And once we have it, we can explore our belief about it. And one of the beliefs that we have is that it should last for a while.

It should stay the same. If it's feeling good right now, our expectation that until something unpleasant happens, it will stay feeling good. Our belief in the permanence of our experiences, even as they change, we somehow believe the object of the experience has permanence.

So in regards to this feeling, strip away this belief that it should stay the same. Once it's feeling good, feeling thumbs up, I wanna keep it feeling thumbs up. But even as we experience it, recognize how it's shifting, shifting, shifting.

I say something more, it shifts again. I don't say anything for too long and it's shifting again. Where is that feeling? That stays the same for as long as we expect it to, as long as we want it to.

Try to catch that feeling, changing moment by moment, even if it's still thumbs up. Now shift from that investigation, that watching to just observing the feeling again. What is it now? And let's look at the second flavor of our misunderstanding, our ownership.

We believe that we should be able to control the feeling that our mind is having, that we are the owner of those feelings. And this belief that we own and control those feelings is inconsistent with our experience because why would we ever have a thumbs down experience of mind if we are in charge, if we are controlling it? Why wouldn't we control it to be thumbs up all the time? That mind's feeling, when it's thumbs up, when it's thumbs down, where do we think it's coming from? Shifting, shifting, shifting in response to other things, things in response to our experiences. Let that show us the mistake of thinking we are in control, thinking we are in charge.

Now let that go, go back to checking the feeling now. Try to catch our belief about that feeling that it is happening to me. We believe there is a me separate from the feeling and the feeling that is separate from the me.

And we believe that the feeling comes to me, at me, unrelated to anything that I've done as if that feeling comes up randomly and changes randomly. That belief allows us to be victims of our feeling. That belief is the misunderstanding that the me here to experience that feeling and the feeling happening that I am experiencing are both coming out of the same karmic seed, my karmic seed.

No feeling can appear to us and in us here to feel it, except that we did something similar, even in thought towards someone in the past. Coming out of one karmic seed means coming out of the seeds planted by our own past deeds. Everything is a perfect ecology.

Our mind feeling the way it is feeling is exactly what we have created by our past interactions. So we have brought this experience to us, the experience of that feeling. Now go back again to just the feeling.

Notice what it is now compared to what it was at the beginning. The next misunderstanding we have has to do with our judgment about the feeling, our opinion or reaction to the feeling. Thumbs up leads to I want, leads to I want the thing that I think caused the feeling.

Thumbs down, that's negative, that's something bad. I did something wrong. Could lead to guilt and misunderstanding or could lead to regret and cleaning out.

The Gaccha is our belief that the judgment we have is correct, is true. Just the judgment itself isn't the problem. It's the belief that that judgment about it is correct.

Because if it is, it should always stay that way. That feeling should always have that. Quality that my judgment holds.

The judgments are things the mind constructs out of the information it is receiving. We don't have to believe them. We can respond differently than the judgment says we should respond.

Now let that one go. Go back to checking the feeling. Let's move up to worldview five.

At this level, we are still believing that that feeling our mind is having is something that has some aspect of its own. Something independent of my participation. We feel our awareness of that feeling is a separate thing than the feeling we are aware of.

This Gaccha is believing the feeling has some of its own qualities. It has to be there for us to be aware of it in the way that we do. 50-50, if the feeling has all of its own nature, we can't influence it in any way.

We can't choose to interact from it differently. We couldn't use that feeling and the circumstance around it as a tool for transforming our mind. We could not respond to that feeling in a different way than we ever have, always have.

And yet we know that we make different choices. We know that we can choose new behaviors. Our experience in life shows us that that object feeling can be responded to, recognized by, and responded to in a way that's unique to ourselves.

So our ripenings, so we can use this level of understanding. 50% of the feeling is in it, 50% is coming from me. I want that feeling to be thumbs up, thumbs up.

So I will respond to it in a way to bring it up a little, to bring it up a lot if I can. We can learn Lojong, how we respond even to this subtle feeling in a way that changes our feeling. So think of that person or that object that you absolutely love the most in the world.

Just to think of them, your heart leaps, your feeling lifts. We did a conscious action. To lift the feeling, is it staying lifted? Even if we keep thinking about that love, does the thumbs up feel the same as when I first said, think of them, and our heart leapt, it's changing.

Can we keep it at the highest level of feeling by willpower? If we can, it should never shift until we say shift. And why would we ever do that? If we think that feeling is independently coming at us from the me, you're feeling it, how is it that it ever comes to me? And then we think that feeling, everybody must feel the same way when they think of their loved one as I do when I think of my loved one. And in fact, I think they should feel the same way about my loved one, but they don't.

My judgment isn't coming from the feeling, is not coming from the object. My feeling and me here to feel it, it takes both. But let's go looking for the feeling that's there before we feel it so that we can feel it.

Can you find it? We think our feeling is a product of external causes, external to me. We believe our mind feeling is a response to having had a nice dinner or had enough sleep or visiting with that friend. But our feelings are produced by the circumstances around us at any present moment.

This is a mistaken view, a mistaken belief. The feeling is the result of an experience, but the experience it is a result of was the deed we saw ourselves think, do or say that impacted another, that planted the seed in our mind that is ripening as this circumstance and my mind responding thumbs up. The feeling is projection just as the pen is projection.

So if this feeling is projected, projected, projected, can we create the projections of thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up? The way we start is by keeping an ethical way of life. There's no other cause for the feeling that we are experiencing at any moment than the ripening results of how we contributed to others feeling in their moments. So find the feeling again and put on it your knowing that this feeling is part of the seeds ripening moment by moment, ripening, ripening, ripening, which means we can plant, plant, plant.

Thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up through kindness, through helpfulness, through caring, even when what we do in the moment does not bring the result we had intended. So now let all of that go, become aware of that precious holy, your own moment of being there before you, see how happy they are with you. Tell them that you dedicate this beginning effort to reaching the direct perception of ultimate reality so that you can help others help others and see that llama's heart glow in light, sending a beam of it into your own heart, and filling you full.

Then become aware of yourself here in your body, in your room, in this class, and when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch, that was a good long sit. You did very, very well. So let's take a break.

Oh, how did that go? Did you get a sense of this thing, mind, feeling? I still find it really slippery. And then to explore our belief about it, even once we find it, I expect it to stay the same. I expect that I'm somehow in control over it.

It seems like I'm in control if when I think of someone I love and it goes thumbs up because I wanted it to go thumbs up and that's why I thought of somebody I love. It seems like I have control. But you know, have we ever had a thumbs down when we were thinking of that person that we love so much? I have to admit, I get thumbs down in response to my one true love.

So, you know, I'm either not in control or it's not coming from the object I think of, or both, right? Technically, I'm not in control and it's not coming from them. So then why? Sometimes when I think of them, oh, my mind goes really high. And sometimes when I think of them, it doesn't.

It's like, what's going on? Am I having a valid experience? Yes, if I'm not dropped sick, right? Valid experience of the feeling of the mind. I'm having the feeling, the experience. It has to be a result of something.

If it's not my control of it, if it's not the object that I'm focusing on or experiencing, okay, maybe it's some outside force that says, you know, feel this now, feel that now. But then that would be the same as saying the experience is causing the feeling to say that there's some outside being, you know, bigger than me that could make me feel a certain way. And it's like even beings who are omniscient, they can't make my mind feel a certain way because if they could have, they're becoming totally enlightened being the result of this extraordinary loving kindness that they've been developing.

With the seed ripening of that would force them to reach into my heart, rip out the negative seeds, put in only thumbs up seeds. They would have had to have done it. And maybe they've done it for you, but I'm still suffering.

So it means they didn't do it for me, which means either they can't or they just won't. And if they won't, when they could, it means they don't have that ultimate love and ultimate compassion that is what makes them omniscient. That's why they become omniscient is because they love and compassion so much.

So it seems like a circular argument and it's worth continuing to chew on. Like, where do these feelings come from? We desperately want them to be from something that somehow predictable and reliable and comforting and does not require my personal responsibility, but that's not possible. The only way I can make the cause for something I can experience as a result is if I perceive myself interacting with another.

That's what makes seeds. That's what imprints the mind. There's no way anything I can experience has come from anything but this mind's own past experience of interaction with others.

And that means we are totally responsible for everything. And you are an extraordinary, gifted, amazing human being if you can hear that and not run away because it's a really powerful message to say I'm responsible for everything I can experience. It's heavy.

Don't put that on people that you're teaching the pen to. Don't say, and so you see, you're responsible for everything until we reach a certain level of spiritual maturity. We don't want to hear that.

Once we reach that level to hear it and then to hear the person who says that say you're special because you're not running away and say that therefore you have the capacity to plant your seeds in such a way that you will be the one who stops all the suffering in the world. Like you're so close already. I used to wonder why Geshe-la always said that.

You're so close because I didn't feel close at all. I still really don't, but I hear the message. I understand the message that to hear this, a class like this, that you're sucking out of me, this is not in my notes, is coming from your extraordinary goodness.

So please pat yourself on the back. Maybe not this personality me is not so extraordinary. Don't let it go to your head, but the mindstream that is you, you have done extraordinary things.

To hear such a message and maybe even have a mental thumbs up. That's like, yeah, like somehow I always knew that. Somehow I always knew that it was my own.

I'm the one that will do it. I can and I will. And I have the skill and I have the tools and I have the goodness.

I have the motivation. So this ramification of worldview six, is first of all, egads, I'm responsible for everything. And therefore I am the creator of everything.

Not like, oh, I'm God and I will make things happen. But in the sense that through my behavior, I create. Does it come to me in the absolute next moment? No.

Does it seem to come to me in the absolute next moment? But sometimes turn the key, start the car. But can I decide I'm going to sit down on my meditation cushion and I'm going to go into the direct perception of emptiness. If it works the way I think turning the key starts, the car works.

I should be able to go into the direct perception of emptiness anytime I want and I can't. Because what I do in the moment doesn't bring what comes next, even when it looks like it does. How do we know that? Because sometimes you turn the key and the car doesn't start.

If it doesn't work once, it's not cause and effect. So is there anything that we cannot create by way of our perception of ourselves interacting with another? No, theoretically no. We could create the worst hell realm by way of our behavior.

We could create the most extraordinary Buddha paradise by way of our behavior. There's no hell realm or Buddha paradise that was ever made in any other way than that. So is your Buddha paradise waiting somewhere for you to go into? Not in the sense that like, I don't know why this pops in my head, Palm Springs is like a vacation destination for wealthy people.

Palm Springs is waiting for somebody to show up there, it seems. But it's not, right? Because whoever goes to visit Palm Springs, experiences of Palm Springs unique to them based on their seeds ripening. Maybe somebody goes to Palm Springs and says, I had the best time.

And somebody else goes to Palm Springs and says, it was 115 the whole time I was there. It was awful, everything cost too much. The same Palm Springs.

What's wrong with what I just said? It's not the same Palm Springs. We're just using a word that we think we agree upon, that we think is a place that's there, that we think we'll go visit and our visit will go the way we try to control it. We have all these worldviews that build on each other that are all based on the belief that there's something that can be experienced that's outside of my seed ripening, that's outside of my past seed planting.

But there is no such thing. So technically, all that matters is how we plant our seeds because that's where we are in create mode. And when we're planting the seeds that we are sure are the ones that will, how do I say, will be, I don't wanna say the ones we want when they ripen, cause it's way beyond that.

That we're planting seeds that the result will be progress on the path or the result will be Buddha paradise for everybody. Bodhichitta, let's call it. When we plant the seeds, whose ripening result will be Bodhichitta, then it doesn't really matter what it looks like.

It's gonna have this component to it. Everybody with this loving kind. Yeah.

So we can plant, plant, plant and let go of the result, let go of recognizing the result cause we know whenever those seeds ripen, it's gonna be great for everybody. And then our focus is on the planting and the planting itself can be extraordinarily pleasant. But when we're so clear about what are planting, what seeds we wanna be planting, the way we are clear is by following the advice of the omniscient ones who have showed us what to do.

But not just because they say, this is what you should do. But because we've reasoned it out that that being can't give us mistaken advice because of their omniscience. So it does take some effort to get to this logical conviction that the vows that this tradition offers us are the guidelines of our seed planting that are designed to plant the seeds that will create this world of abundance, of safety, of beauty, of perpetuation, of happy beings, including ourselves.

That all we have to do is these behaviors again and again and again. Behaviors of body, behaviors of speech, behaviors of mind. And if it was easy, we'd all be Buddhas by now.

And if we're not Buddhas by now, we realize that getting off automatic pilot in our behavior patterns is crazy difficult. But only because of our belief that things are things in them from them and that I can't possibly take this unpleasant experience and use it in a different way until we've done it a few times. And then we recognize, oh, maybe there is something to this.

We try it on for size in little places to show ourselves that, hey, in fact, I can work on my perception of my own prosperity by working on my own seeing myself. Be generous in times that I wanna be stingy. Be protective of others' sense of abundance.

Be careful with their property. They have all these different aspects to the 10 virtues, non-virtues we use to recognize how our obstacles to keeping our vows and the factors that we grow to help us keep our vows more and more subtly. Our behavior is where we are creating our future garden.

So now we are empowered. There's nothing we can't create by way of our seed planting. There's nothing we didn't create by way of our past seed planting before we knew any better.

Now we're getting a glimpse. It will help us catch ourselves in all, there I am on automatic pilot, blaming and wanting to criticize to make my point. I'm not gonna do it, right? And hopefully I can not do it long enough that the situation will pass and I won't come back to it and say, remember that time? It's our own personal effort.

Do we go to the other person and say, look, you are planting bad seeds with your behavior. Bless you. No, we keep our own book.

If they ask about behavior, then we're welcome to share. We tend to like get this big glimpse. Wow, seed planting, it's so amazing.

I wanna share it with everybody. Mom, sit down, I wanna tell you about this. And mom's not interested for some reason.

We can't force her, but we can set the example where she expects us to react in some way that we've always reacted that way. And now all of a sudden we're like so much nicer in the same situation. Mom's gonna go, wow, what happened to you? Like, what do you know? What did you learn? And then you've got the door open to explaining to mom, but just so far as mom is willing to listen, willing to be interested.

Same with other people, of course, set by example. So what might that look like? This setting by example, trying to hold to our highest worldview. Guess I'll use this example of the boss, like suppose we are in sales and the boss says, we're a little bit low on our income this month.

So on your next sales call, you're trying to sell this object that we know if we sell it for $500, we make our usual profit. But when you go to your buyers, tell them that there's something special about this item and we're selling it for $1,000 now and that you're getting a good deal to get it for $1,000. And that way, right, we'll get our usual 500, but we'll get an extra 500 in it all, right? I need you to do that for me.

And then, you know, you, the salesperson, we get in this situation and we realize, wait a minute, I'd be lying to my client to get this extra $500. And maybe in the past we have done so and they've paid the $1,000 and it's like, great, we got the extra 500 and we think, okay, I lied once before and it worked. So I'm willing to lie again and let's see if it worked.

And maybe it does. And the boss goes, good, good job. We get some kind of positive feedback from having gotten the extra $500.

And we think that telling the lie about the value of the object is what got us the extra $500. But when we understand about seed planting as we're interacting, is it possible that the lying was the cause of getting that good result, that extra money? It cannot be the case. Why not? Because the result of lying to someone is to be lied to and to be not believed whether we're lying or not.

So if when I tell the lie and I get believed and I get the extra money, it reinforces my wrong belief that I will be believed in the future and I will get the advantage. So I will tend to lie again. And every time I lie, I'm feeding the lying seeds.

And sooner or later, those are going to ripen as being lied to and not being believed whether I'm telling the truth or not. So maybe there's another scenario where we're part of a group who are trying to carry out some project. And we're having a meeting and we have this brilliant idea about how to do something.

And we say, you know, let's do it like this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the rest of the group just goes, like they just disregard it completely. And then maybe days, weeks later, somebody else in the group comes up with this same idea and they go, wow, brilliant idea.

And nobody says, oh, that's the thing you said before. It's just, it wasn't even heard that way. Why? Because my seeds from having lied is ripening as my experience.

No one believes or even hears what I say. They heard the decibels. They heard the words.

But it wasn't pertinent. So the lying wasn't even a contributing factor to getting the money. If we get an extra $500, that's a result of something.

It has to have been some kind of generosity before. And if we were believed when we said the object was worth $1,000, it was because we had told the truth before. The only reason we are believed when we say anything is not because we're telling the truth.

It's because we have told the truth in the past. So if we want to be believed in the future, we want to tell the truth in the now. And the now, and the now, and the now.

So next time, boss says, here's the item, let's sell it for $1,000 instead of 500. I know you can do it because you've done it many times before. And you say to the boss, you know what? I've learned something new.

And I know now that telling a lie cannot be the cause of bringing this extra money to the company. I know now that telling the lie will make it such that I will be lied to and that I won't be trusted. And I'm no longer willing to do that for you.

What's likely gonna be the immediate result? Wow, fired, right? You go down, work in the factory so you don't have to do this anymore. And then you go home, honey, I got fired. What? Well, because it was more important to tell the truth than to lie.

What? Right? Is all that cause effect, cause effect, cause effect not in the immediate, right? Maybe we go home, honey, I got fired. And she goes, good job. That job was making you make bad karma.

And I couldn't get it across to you. I'm so glad you got fired. That was brave of you.

And either response can come, right? Because it's not really a result. Getting fired is not a result of having told the truth because you can't get a bad result from a goodness. But it happened right after, right? But that's not cause and effect, you see.

Oh, well then it doesn't matter whether I go to work or not go to work. Actually, that's true, except for the seed planting. We make a commitment to go to work.

We plant the seed for reliable people when we go to work the way we say we will, right? We are planting seeds all the time whether we are consciously planting them or not. That's the practice is to become more and more consciously intentionally seed planters based on the world we want to create. And then be this conscious evaluator of the situations we are in and our habitual response to them to check whether that habitual response is the one we actually want to plant or not.

It takes mindfulness to have this, the window of opportunity in an experience to notice what's arising and the reaction, the reaction pushing the response and deciding, nope, not gonna do that one. Which is where the vows help us because by learning our vows, we're learning what to watch for. And then we have a plan for keeping the vow, meaning avoiding the negative behavior.

And maybe we've even spent some time to figure out what the opposite behavior would be. So I'm not just avoiding lying, I'm actually speaking the truth. Two actual different seeds being planted.

So Nama Samanti likes to talk about the how and the why. No, the how we got the extra $500 is that we sold the object for more money than what it was really worth. And we told the lie and we got believed.

The why we got the money is because we have been generous. The why we got believed in telling the lie is because we have been truthful. So then what did we just do in telling the lie to get the extra? We just like hit ourselves on the foot with a hammer and then we'll wonder, why is that guy lying to me all the time? Or we'll wonder how come I was this super salesperson and now my numbers are dropping.

Nobody believes me even when I tell them the absolute truth about the value and the special qualities of the object. Like how can my career go from so high to so low? When I'm the same person, you see how it could work. Now, maybe it never happens in this lifetime that are telling the truth seeds don't wear out.

And so our lies keep being believed, but we still have this telling lies to get the advantage in our mind at the end of this lifetime. So those are gonna color some future lifetime where no matter telling the truth, nobody believes me, nobody listens to me. Like we could imagine a whole lifetime, right? Where we just can't get ahead because nobody believes us.

Nobody trusts us. Nobody values what we say. Like how would we ever accomplish anything? And we blame everybody and everything.

And we wouldn't figure out that, oh my gosh, I must have lied before. I don't lie in this lifetime. I don't mean me personally, right? I'm saying in this scenario, when we're ripening the seeds from some past life of lying and we don't remember, we don't know that past life.

Those subtle workings of karma are deeply, deeply hidden reality. But we can learn the principles, the four laws, the four ways they ripen. And we can learn the correlations from the scripture.

And we can logically, we can logic out what will it be like when this behavior comes back to me? And the bottom line is, will I like it or will I not like it when I tell somebody a lie to get the advantage? Will I like it when somebody tells a lie to me to get their own advantage? Probably not. So am I willing to do it? What circumstances, hmm, what circumstances might happen where I might be inclined to lie to wiggle out of something maybe? But then I realize I'm not gonna do that because ultimately it means I won't be trusted. It's more important to be trusted than to save face in this moment.

It takes courage because what may come in the next moment may or not be good for you, which is what we hope. It may be, you're fired. Geshe-la says though, if we hold the line on our ethical behavior firmly enough and with wisdom, the understanding of because I'm planting seeds, he says we can't help but benefit from it.

He said in his scenario about the lie to get the extra money you keep telling the boss, I refuse to do that because it will create the circumstance of being lied to and not being trusted and I won't do it. He says, keep that up and pretty soon you'll be vice president. I don't know.

I don't know that I would wanna be vice president of a company where the head guy says lie to get the advantage. But Geshe-la's point was when we find that we have this negative seed planting habit that we think is okay and we recognize, oh, that's a big mistake and cut it off like stop because we understand karma and emptiness, that shift is such strong karmic planting that the results are very likely to show up in a recognizable way. And I don't quite understand how you get seeds that have been in there for a long time to finally gain enough strength to get over the threshold into manifestation.

I know all the factors but I don't quite understand what pushes it. And now this whole explanation that he gave about the lie and stopping the lie after having done it has something to do with this strength of getting seeds to ripen like a conscious intentional shift of behavior because we understand karma and emptiness. So we worked with our own mind feeling to work our way through those six different misunderstandings that revealed to us what we think is there in it from it, that's not there, the Gakcha.

To show ourselves the understanding through which we will choose a different behavior than what our automatic pilot says to do. So we're gaining the tools to be able to apply to any aspect of our experience. We do it on our meditation cushion in our contemplation because we have the time to work our ideas through and to come up with a plan.

Then when we're in the midst of a situation, our task is to remember the plan and put it into action instead of having to remember the whole sequence of why. So you use your practice time to plan some different response to some habit that is planting seeds that you don't want to plant. Doesn't have to be a big one like lying, but find one to explore these different flavors and come up with a different idea for how to respond when you find yourself in that situation, yeah? And then we have two more classes that I don't have anything new to say.

I'm going to say the same things over and over again, hopefully from different angles that maybe one of them will give you up. Aha, it's a little different. We'll explore it in meditation, we'll explore it outside.

So thank you for the opportunity, we're good? Let's dedicate. So remember that person we wanted to be able to help at the beginning? We've learned a lot that 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 and help you and inspire you and show 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 loving kindness, filled with wisdom. See them all as gardeners and may it be so.

All right, thank you again for the opportunity. Thank you Claire for making this available to a wider audience than I can do. Have a nice weekend, see you Sunday, right? Yes, okay, I love you.

So for the recording, welcome back. We are, what are we? Six Flavors of Emptiness Practice Module.

This is Class 7. No, Class 6. No, yes, Class 7 on September 27, 2026 for me. 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 your thinking of them. 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 again and again, 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, 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. I make 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 and 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 and 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 and sharing this class and the rest.

May all beings totally awaken with the benefit of every single other. So as we, as our understanding of this worldview, we're calling worldview six, get stronger and stronger. Our, our task, our practice task is to learn how to live accordingly, live by way of that growing wisdom.

And they, they call it holding the line. Since I'm holding the line of our worldview and that highest worldview is our conviction that there's no part of any present experience that is anything but ripening results of our own past behaviors towards others. So anything that we experience is what we experience, but not in the way we believe.

We understand then that every moment of experience is also a moment when we are planting the imprints in our mind that will be our future experiences. But it's not the case that those future experiences related to what we just did happen in the very next moment. So our response to our current moment experience is where we create future current moment experiences.

And that means that if I can respond to my current moment in ways that imprint in my mind, what will be pleasant future experiences, I would try to do only that. And if it was easy, we'd all be Buddhas by now. Now, maybe you are, and you're just pretending for my benefit.

Thank you very much. But I know I am not. And I know I've been at this task for a long time.

It's difficult to get off that automatic pilot of reacting to an experience instead of consciously choosing our response. React means boom, it happens. So we experience something as irritating.

And the very fact that we say that's irritating, we are already irritated. So that irritated is also a ripening result. And it's already a planting.

How we react to the being irritated, perpetuates situations of being irritated, or don't replant them. So there's an automatic reaction that we are not trying to change yet. We are trying to grow the mindfulness, the awareness, to be able to recognize the automatic reaction before we act upon it.

There's this little window of opportunity where we can choose a different response to the automatic reaction to the situation. In doing so, we don't replant the automatic reaction, and we burn away the habit of that reaction that we can't actually yet get a hold of stopping. With effort, we'll find even those reactive experiences to change.

And we find surprisingly that some situation that we would recognize would have just made me so irritated, I was able to not even blink or maybe better laugh at it, which changes the whole reprint a lot. So our holding the line to our belief that there is nothing I can experience that is not a ripening result of my own past creation. We want to hold that line as we go through our day, interacting with other beings, that irritation, we recognize it and respond differently than we ordinarily would.

We can plan that out before we're actually in the situation. That's where we use our meditation cushion time. Can be a contemplative session where you just recall I'm having that meeting, that particular person, they are just so irritating.

And I know I'm going to react with criticism. And I'm going to consider some different action in the face of my being irritated by them. What might I do? And you decide, maybe before it all starts, I will compliment them on something.

Gosh, your shoes look nice today, something honest, and do it very intentionally. In order to help chip away at that automatic being irritated with that person and so reacting badly. Then once you've planned it out, you look for the opportunity in your day to try it on for size.

And as we do, we plant seeds for it to become easier. Eventually, even on the fly, where we are choosing these new behaviors based on our understanding of what it is I would like to experience in the future. And for someone attracted to the Mahayana, when we say behave in ways to create the future I want, the future I want doesn't just mean my personal future.

It includes everybody in our environment. I want to plant the future that I want. That's a fabulous one for everyone.

If it's true that there's nothing I can experience that's not coming from my past deeds, that means there's nothing that I cannot create through my current deeds. And the behavior that I do in my current responses plants those seeds that grow. Being influenced by more kindnesses, they grow bigger than what our original thought was about what we believe they will ripen as.

So we can imagine I'm making a pure world for everyone and we can even try to think it out clearly what that's going to be like. And then, of course, it's going to be way more amazing, way more spectacular, way more beautiful and pleasurable than we can even conceive. We can create it because our seeds grow bigger than our belief, our idea of them.

So we hold the line when we're irritated. We choose a new behavior. We hold the line when we're in a rush.

Now, have you noticed when we're in a rush, things get in the way and that we get anxious and irritable and more in a rush? Whereas if we didn't interpret what was happening as being in a rush, would we even notice those things as things that get in the way? Maybe, maybe not. Our response when we're in the rush and those things get in the way is to blame them or whoever is involved in them and get upset, which doesn't help our rush or not rush. It only plants seeds for future upset.

So what we think is somehow helpful to get upset at the obstacle, it's not helpful because it plants seeds for future distress of some kind. So even if it seems like our upset with the obstacle seems to fix the obstacle, like you yell at that person who's asking you for six things when you have this other task to do, and they get huffy and they go away, and our mind thinks, yeah, see, yelling at the person, that solves the problem. But how is it going to come back to me when I need something? And maybe I'm not paying close attention and I'm asking somebody for something when they're already focused on something else.

So I am actually interrupting them, but I do it anyway. And then they get upset with me and push me away. I get hurt.

And then I don't like them as much as I did before. And then I'm more likely to react badly. We perpetuate these cycles.

When we're trying so hard to hold the line, we're not struggling with the other person. We're not struggling with the situation. We're struggling with our worldview.

We're struggling to say, I'm blaming them for this unpleasantness. I know that it's not them. I know it's my seeds ripening, making them do that.

I know responding with kindness will bring a better result in the long run. In the moment, it may not seem like it's going to be helpful at all. And that's the holding the line.

So we get challenged to hold our worldview when we have too much to do. And somebody asks one more thing of us. We get challenged to hold our worldview when we don't feel well.

We get challenged to hold our worldview when someone we love is sick or needing something. We get challenged in our worldview when we see a spiritual teacher or leader manifesting sickness. We get challenged in our worldview when fill in the blank.

Find your own. We call it the bar, right? The jumpers, right? The track and field guy who jumps over the bar. They jump over the bar at this height and then they put it up.

They jump over again, then they put it up. They keep putting it up until you can't get over it anymore. So it's that idea.

We keep pushing our behavior choices according to our understanding of highest worldview, meaning more and more subtly aware of situations and our reactions and then responding. Sooner or later, we will be able to be holding our worldview even at the level of the react. And when we get to that point, our progress can be very swift at burning off our results of past mental afflictions and planting our seeds to be more and more pure.

So we're looking for the struggle. For me, I call it the blame factor. When I'm blaming something or somebody for what I'm experiencing, I'm not blaming my own karmic seeds for making that situation.

And that's our practice is to catch they're doing that to me and go, yeah, it seems that way. And it's my seeds ripening. And so how do I want to respond? Maybe our natural response is kindness.

And we go, that is how I want to respond. Great. Respond like that.

Many of us have those habits of kindness. Good. Then we find the places where our mental afflictions come up.

And we want so desperately to blame the other involved. Like nobody wants to take responsibility for everything. That's too big.

That's too hard. We talked about it last week. And yet, taking that full responsibility says, I can plant, I can create anything, just not in the moment yet.

So Geshe-la said, look, we've got nothing to lose. If our effort to hold the line and behave according to our morality as guidelines, and it doesn't work, or we find, man, this is just not true, or I can't get it to work. All that's going to happen is that we get old or sick and die.

And that's happening anyway. So we have nothing to lose from trying to hold ourselves at this highest worldview. Then what does that mean? We are applying our interaction with others' mindfulness in order to plant our seeds.

We complete those seeds by being happy, pleased that we did them. And we clean out the negative ones, new negative ones that we put in, and old negative ones that we recognize we must have. We clean those out on a regular basis, using our four powers.

So we have the tools to become really precise gardeners, precise seed managers. And then it's simply up to us the extent to which we will apply ourselves to it. And nobody's overseeing you and saying, you're not doing well enough.

Nobody's looking at anybody's book. If you're keeping a book, it's all our own mind, our own self that's tracking our behavior. So maintaining our motivation and our belief that even my me, there's nothing about my me that's not a ripening result of ways I've perceived myself behaving towards others.

So for those of us that have this deep belief, I'm nobody, I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy. It's like that may be our perception, our ripening perception of ourselves, but it is not who or what we are. We are blind.

And we don't need to continue to behave according to that belief. We are training ourselves to behave from the perspective that my me is also empty of self nature. I am creating my very experience of me moment by moment.

There is nothing we cannot change by way of our behavior towards others. Just not in the moment. So Geshe-la says when we do apply ourselves well, doing our four steps, our four powers, tracking our behaviors, he says very likely, we will soon experience things that happen that surprise us.

Shifts, somebody we expect the boss to come in yelling on Monday morning because they always do. And instead, they praise you and give you a new project that you really, really know you'll do well at. And you'd go, wow, how did I create that? Or maybe, wow, look, I created that by helping my team member who was always upset with that other team member.

And I see how helping them has ripened in my favor. Great. How can I use this to help others help others more than from surprising comes amazing like experiences that are almost like this can't be happening idea.

And yet there it is. And then all the way up to what Geshe-la calls impossible, meaning like miracles. And it's kind of fun to think on your own, you know, what would be something miraculous for me? Like miracle means beyond beyond what natural laws would say could happen.

Somebody walking on water or I see somebody levitating and going across the room, I might think, oh, that's a miracle. But even more maybe miraculous would be if I saw some problem in my outer world that I've been trying to change by way of my behaviors, and it hasn't and it hasn't and it hasn't. And all of a sudden, it's like, agreements made, differences settled, everybody moves forward as if the as if the conflict never happened.

It's like, well, how could that happen so far? miracles? It's possible, because nothing is anything but ripening results of our own past behaviors. But I can't show somebody a miracle. But maybe, I don't know, maybe you're at the grocery store, and suddenly it pops into your head.

Oh, you know, my neighbor, maybe my neighbor. Maybe she would be pleased if I brought her a bag of groceries. And for for us, it would just be, oh, that'd be nice.

I think I'll do it. And then you take the bag of groceries to her. And, you know, I just thought of you here, these are for you.

And I don't know, she bursts into tears. Like I was on the verge of killing myself, I had nothing and you show up with some groceries, you care about me, you just saved my life. Like to me, that'd be quite miraculous.

Because it's not that I knew about it. And I acted I just spontaneously was there. Those kinds of things happen when we are holding our line.

From this motivation to be of service to be of help to everyone. So let's review level five, level six. And then and then we'll do the meditation that explores the mind feeling again.

That's a hard one. We'll do it again. And then next week.

I would like to take us through a meditation exploring the six flavors using our me as our meditation object. So I'm just going to dangle that for next class. And we'll do q&a as well.

So you can be thinking all week of you know, what's not clear? What would you like help with? So help me understand. At level five, at level five, we are becoming more aware of our experiences, and me having that experience. And we're wanting to become more clear on the recognition that here's, here's, here's a situation happening.

I've already recognized it as good or bad or somewhere in between. And I want to have some influence on it. Because if it's an unpleasant experience, I want to shift it so that it can get better.

And if it's a pleasant experience, I would sure like to be able to perpetuate something similar. So at level five, we are not so much exploring, where did that experience come from? We are saying, we are showing ourselves that I, I, I can influence this, this event, because we believe that the event is happening. And me being here to experience the event, I bring something to the event that makes it what it is for me.

The event is there. Remember the magic so stick, that becomes the elephant. The elephants there.

Are we going to reach out to that elephant to take care of it? Or are we going to be scared and run away? Are we going to be threatened and want to fight? Like those are our basic three kind of options to anything in all the nuances that we have. So our automatic reaction to whatever the situation is, the problem situation is contributing to future similar problem situation. But the automatic reaction has already happened.

Our response to the automatic reaction is where we have some amount of opportunity to change. If we have the alertness to say, wait, I can perceive this, I can react to this, I can interact with this situation differently. Because I bring that part to the party.

Remember, we called this, we called it 50-50 school, but its ramification was to turn problems into opportunities. And so getting fired from one's job would seem like a really, really terrible thing. And yet we can reassess that terrible thing and decide to respond to the situation with, oh, now I have this opportunity to do that thing that I was just too afraid to try.

Now, it's time, like the universe showed me, it's time to try. And it's scary. And it doesn't mean everything's going to go easily and successfully.

Because what we experience next is not from what we just did. So worldview five, we learn to respond differently to our situation. We need that skill in order to hold the line at higher worldview, worldview six.

Because the automatic pilot from react to behave is too strong to be able to say, react, think about emptiness, then act. It's too difficult. We can go practice at level five.

Don't try to stop the event in the moment. Work with it. And it will shift.

So in level six, we're wanting to let go of our need to have any part of the object's identity or qualities in it, from it, without falling off the cliff of, well, if there's nothing about that, that's real, then there's nothing about that that matters. Because that's the wrong conclusion. From understanding that there's nothing about our experience of the angry yelling boss that's not coming from me.

There's nothing coming from that being, I'm calling an angry yelling boss, coming from me, makes it real. Angry yelling boss experience that was coming from them isn't real. It's not possible.

It's never happened. They've always been my own experience, unique to me, forced on me by my karmic seeds. But does that make an angry yelling boss disappear? Poof.

No, that's what makes them there. So as we're working with our worldview six, we go through a period where we're thinking, oh, if I recognize somebody's nothing but my karmic seeds, they should just disappear. And just my projection should take over.

But they've always been my projection. What we're taking away is some belief that they were something in them. We're taking that away.

So what really goes away? Only our blaming them for that goes away. The boss yelling stays there. If our blaming them goes away, our reaction to blaming them, which is don't do that to me, doesn't happen.

And then our response can be, I'm so sorry, you're upset. How can I help? And like who said, who does that in the face of somebody upset with us? We automatically defend. And there's nothing wrong with automatic defending, except that it perpetuates our broken world, where we continue to be in situations where we make others need to feel defensive, and we ourselves get in situations where we need to feel defensive.

So people ask, all right, we get it. But if we can't shorten this time gap enough to be able to see, I say this kind of thing to the boss in this moment, and by the next day, or the next week, or soon enough, to remember having been kind in that moment, and then receiving some kind, helpful experience. If I can't say, oh, this experience came from that change in behavior.

How are we ever going to give ourselves the positive feedback to make this change? It takes strength. It takes determination. For most of us, we need some positive feedback in order to continue making these changes.

And how do we get that if the kindness I say to the angry yelling boss today may not ripen in its pleasant result that I planted this seed for until, I don't know, five lifetimes from now. I'm not going to remember, oh, that comes from when I was kind to that angry boss. I won't even remember having an angry boss.

So how does it work, really, if we can't show it to ourselves? We've learned through the ACI courses, we study the principles, we learn to think about it logically, and we show ourselves that, in fact, there's no other better explanation, which isn't really satisfactory. Like this is the explanation by default. Maybe there's one we just haven't heard about yet.

That's even better. So we apply our logic. And then we also learn to look at the teachings of the one who taught this to see if those teachings themselves contradict what this highest view is saying.

And that takes some learning how to do it and then doing it. And we use the logic to come to some conclusion about the truth of the teachings. Not meaning the truth is in them, from them, because it's not.

But our seeds ripen in such a way that we can logically prove to ourselves that this explanation that I can't show myself in real time works. I can know that it works based on my logic grown belief in the one who teaches it. Not meaning the current person, but meaning the original teacher of it.

And one of the keys to that understanding is to recognize the significance of the fact that Buddha taught his disciples about suffering, the reality of suffering, instead of placating suffering and promising something different. He encouraged, he led his students into a deep dive into suffering and where it comes from. And when we dig into that deeply, it's actually revealing about the qualities of that being called Buddha that we say we aspire to become.

We kind of want to know what it is to be a Buddha, don't we? If we're saying I want to be Buddha, like what if their job description we don't like? Once we get close, it won't be that case. But you know, like what if you sign on for 10 years of expensive college to become a lawyer, and once you're the lawyer, you don't like being a lawyer. Oh, nuts.

I wish I had known. So same with Buddha. Now we can't really understand completely what it is to be Buddha until we're close to it.

But we can explore and we can think of the seeds that we plant in our minds that grow into that Buddhahood, which are seeds that have to do with planting love, compassion, wisdom, and how those behaviors that we do that grow those experiences, they already feel so good, even when we do them as a puny human. And then we can imagine multiplying those feelings of loving someone or being loved by someone by, you know, as many beings as there are and get a glimpse of what it is we are saying we want to create ourselves into. And then work backwards from that, what kinds of seeds could I plant that would grow into that? And what kind of behavior seeds am I planting regularly, that's preventing me from becoming that? And what kind of seeds have I planted in the past, that are even preventing me from planting the new seeds? And what seeds have I planted in the past, that are helping me be on this path and staying on this path? We all have lots and lots of good seeds.

We all have lots and lots of selfishness seeds. We know what to do with them. Purify the negative ones.

Rejoice and repeat the positive ones. Current behaviors follow those behavior guidelines, because we can't figure it out on our own. Buddha gave guidelines.

What guideline? Avoid the 10 non-virtues, the basic 10. Try to cultivate the opposite of those. Do that having taken vows about avoiding those behaviors at the level of the freedom vows, the individual vows, at the level of the bodhisattva vows, and at some point maybe at the level of the diamond way vow.

Taking a vow to avoid a behavior increases the power of that decision to change our behavior. When we say, oh I'm not going to eat meat anymore, every meal that we sit down where we had the choice to eat meat and we don't choose it, we're planting the seeds of upholding that decision that we made. And we're protecting life.

When we take a vow to avoid eating meat, I vow I will avoid eating meat. If we had that vow, I could ask you, are you eating meat right now? No. Right.

So you're gaining the goodness of keeping your vow now. And now. And now.

Not only when you have the opportunity and then don't. Don't eat that. Don't eat the meat.

So having vows is this tool for increasing the goodness. Like subconsciously, I have my vows to avoid praising myself, criticizing others. When I'm aware that I have that vow and I am not criticizing others, I'm keeping that vow.

I was in a teaching once with a fellow who was a full monk, American man. And he was explaining why he took his ordination vows. And he said, I was studying and my lama said this about vows.

And he said, well, in that instant, he saw that it was a no brainer. Do you have that term? A no brainer to get as many vows as he could. Because they're all designed for our success.

They are going to give us a vow that we absolutely cannot keep. And when you get to the diamond way vows, they get a little bit trickier. To actually keep.

But by the time we get there, we are pretty good at for powering and rejoicing and planting seeds that we we can be successful. All those vows build upon each other. And all those vows are some ramification of the 10 avoiding the 10 non virtues.

And so doing the 10 virtues in some way, shape or form. So really, everything boils down to those. And those 10 are think are aspects of our experiences moment by moment by moment.

To avoid killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, harsh speech, divisive speech, useless speech, avoiding coveting, let's call it jealousy, and ill will, and wrong view. Like those, those various situations are bubbling up in life moment by moment by moment. So we have the tools.

All right. So what if someone were to ask you, look, what, what amount of your experience is coming from the other in your experience? And what amount is coming from you? Right? Suppose the two of you are standing there and they are yelling, bosses yelling at both of us. And our human experience is, we didn't do that.

Or even if we did do what they're saying, we don't deserve being yelled at about it. Right? And we assume, I assume that the other person is reacting to that experience in the same way I am. Don't I? I expect them to be as upset as I am about the boss yelling at me.

So it adds this extra dimension to our experience. What if I turn to my friend who I'm expecting to be upset and the friends not upset at all. In fact, they're saying, oh yeah, like I see, we did make that mistake.

We can, we can help out when I'm expecting the friend to be upset, like I'm upset. And all of a sudden I'm feeling betrayed by my friend and angered by my boss. And somebody says, right, the boss is there yelling at the two of you.

Something is in there. You both bring your own unique flavor to your reaction to the boss, but the boss is there. As long as we are holding any aspect of that experience as not also coming out of our own seeds, there is an aspect of our experience that we cannot change, but wait, I can't change any of it in the moment.

Right. But there's no part that I can't change by way of my interaction with that experience that I can't change in the moment because it's already changing, changing, changing. And we showed ourselves that when we were looking at the impermanence, when we were looking at the control factor, when we were looking at whose karma is it from anyway.

So each one of our worldviews that we were building, when we get into them deeper and deeper, we see how they all feed into these two higher worldviews and ultimately into the sixth one, and not even necessarily by way of the ladder going up. We could explore our belief in permanence to recognize impermanence in such a way that the depth of that realization of impermanence could flip us right to highest worldview. Same with the lack of control, if we dug into it deeply enough.

All right. So let's take our break. Okay, I'll be back.

So we'll do our preliminaries and then practice this finding our mind feeling and explore the six flavors. You'll get your body settled, upright and relaxed. You have the body parked.

Bring your mind to your breath at your nostrils. Watch and count as that air moves out and moves back in. Grow this awareness of the focus on that object, the brightness of the awareness on that object, and the keenness of the awareness on that object.

Use the breath to adjust those factors. I'll count 10. Now intentionally shift from the object breath to my words following along.

And first we take our refuge in emptiness. Think of how the three jewels, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, how they help us is by teaching us and guiding us in understanding and living according to the empty nature of others, of our experience and of ourselves. And so think of what you understand about emptiness and experiences and think of how living according to it can be our protection.

How does that work? What does it protect us from? Then we grow our bodhicitta. Think of how we change our behavior as a result of our emptiness understanding and so become more helpful, more kind, and consider what it would be like when more and more beings had that awareness and made that effort. We could all respond differently to our situations such that we could burn off negative ones and plant positive ones and all be helping each other to do it.

Whose seed ripening will that be when you experience your world in that way? Now recall your own precious holy being, that one before you, made of love, made of compassion, made of wisdom. All of that, the ripening results of all the kindnesses that that being saw themselves do towards others through countless lifetimes, countless situations. Think of just one of those good qualities that you see in them and the behaviors that they must have done if they see those qualities in themselves and feel our admiration for them.

Recognize what they've taught already and feel your gratitude. Recognize them as a powerful karmic object so that what we see, think, say towards them plants very strong seeds to ripen into very strong results. So make them an offering.

More than one is fine. The traditional offerings plant certain seeds in our minds for certain results having to do with abundance and beauty and wisdom. And we know that what they like the best is for us to hear ourselves tell them of some change in behavior that we did as a result of something they have taught us.

No matter how small you might think that is, delight them by telling them of it. Then I recognize that I'm offering them this special situation, this special thing I did. And I recognize that doing that deed that I'm now offering was so pleasant and out of character for me that I recognize, oh my gosh, my habit is to not be that kind, to not be that thoughtful.

And oh my gosh, I think of all those selfish ways I've stayed irritated with someone. And I see now what a mistake that was. I thought it was right.

I thought it was how I was supposed to be. But now I see it's a mistake and I regret that mistake. All that blaming others for the irritation I felt.

I really try to stop reacting to those feelings in that same way. And so we make a determination for our power of restraint, something we know we can keep. And we offer an antidote, a makeup activity, which can be this meditation so that we know when we finish this meditation and we keep our power of restraint, the seeds from those deeds that I'm confessing will be damaged.

Maybe not 100% yet, but significant. And then rejoice in the good seeds that we do have. That event that we offered at the beginning, there was something else we did that planted the seeds that we were able to respond in that way.

If we have abundance, it's because we've been generous before. We can rejoice in our past sharing with others. Find something specific from yesterday that you recognize planted a seed of keeping our vows or a seed of overcoming selfishness, something.

Tell them about that. Think of something especially kind you saw or heard of someone else doing. Tell them about that.

Recognizing to see others' kindness is your seeds also. Find another good seed you have inside you. Tell them about that as well.

Then recognize the positive influence our precious guide has upon us. Ask them to please, please stay close. Ask the people around us that help keep us on our best behavior, stay close.

Ask for teachings and guidance and for the ability to recognize that teaching and guidance. When it comes to us in ways that we don't expect, and then dedicate what we've done just so far. We've made offerings, we've purified, we've rejoiced.

Dedicate to growing our worldview, six, and our ability to push that bar of living according to it higher and higher. Then you can shift and wiggle your body if you need to. Shift and wiggle your mind if you need to.

Wake it up or calm it down. Then settle the body back in. Settle the mind back in using the breath.

Now let's try again to find that function of mind called feeling. It's happening constantly. Keshala says it should be easy to find.

I don't find it easy at all. We are aware of our moment by moment experience. We have a moment by moment sense of that experience being a thumbs up or a thumbs down or a thumbs neutral.

This response of consciousness. What is it feeling right now? Thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs neutral. We want to put words on it.

Tired, tired, mildly happy. Go underneath those words to that raw sensation. Thumbs up, thumbs down.

So now just decide whatever sensation is there right now. Just decide. It's a medium thumbs up and let's try to catch our belief about that sensation that we believe it has some kind of lasting nature to that feeling that the mind is having.

If it's a mild thumbs up now, I expect it to stay mildly thumbs up all by itself. It's staying there. Because I'm staying here, I'm trying to do this meditation.

It's mildly pleasurable. It's going to stay that way. All those ideas, even before the words I've applied, we believe apply to this feeling.

If it's thumbs up, we want it to last. If it's thumbs down, we're afraid it will last. But now strip away this belief in that feeling's lasting quality.

Recognize that that feeling is popping up as part in response to our moment-by-moment experience. So of course that feeling is changing, changing, changing. Even if it doesn't change from thumbs up to thumbs down, it's changing to go from thumbs up to thumbs up to thumbs up.

Each moment, a different moment. If it's flipping like that, there's no need to be upset. If it's a thumbs down for a little while, we know it's going to change.

There's no need to be upset. When a thumbs up shifts, we know it will come back to thumbs up. No need to struggle.

Let's shift to worldview two. Check the feeling now and become aware of our belief that there's a me, an aspect of this mind that owns its experiences, is responsible for them. But in the sense of the responsibility being as if we can control it, control that, as if we are in charge.

We believe we are in charge of this quality of mind feeling. But can that be true if we can have qualities of mind that are thumbs down feeling? Why would we do that to ourselves if we are in control? Can we make ourselves have thumbs up all the time? Recognize our belief in our control over this quality of mind feeling is a mistake. It isn't true.

Strip away that non-existent, self-existent thing, that belief, and experience those feeling as they are. Something popping up, popping up. Thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs neutral.

Seemingly related to our experience in the moment. Shift, shift, shift in response to other things. This helps us let go of our expectations that we should feel a good feeling all the time or that we are stuck in a bad feeling.

We can better go with the flow of things at this level. But it's not enough to stop replanting the iris seeds that perpetuate the suffering nature of our world. So let's push higher.

Find the feeling nature again. Notice how it has changed from the beginning of our session. And at flavor three, we want to get in touch with our sense that these feelings are happening to us, our me, and that thumbs up feeling of mind.

There are two things coming together. It happening to me. I am separate from the feeling so that I can feel it.

And that feeling coming at me or to me is unrelated to anything I've done. It makes me feel the victim of my feeling. Maybe that's too strong a word.

Now find the reality, that feeling that's coming at me and the me here or it to come at. Both of those are my experience. So both of those are coming out of my own karmic seeds.

No feeling can appear to me and me here to feel it except that I did something similar, even just in thought to someone in the past. Perfect ecology. We are always getting what we have created.

So there is no random. There are no accidents. This level helps us understand the power of our behavior because of course we want pleasurable things and us there to experience them as pleasurable so that we can share them with others.

Now let's move to level four. Find the feeling. Now explore our judgment about the feeling.

It happens so quickly. This is difficult to find. We're saying the feeling is simply thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs neutral.

But by the time we recognize a thumbs up, we've already judged it as good. And as soon as we judge it as good, we add, I want it. I want more of it.

And that leads to our consideration of what we do to keep it or get it. And that leads to our reaction. And it goes so quickly.

We think it's triggered by the feeling. There's nothing about the feeling that can be the cause of our judgment about it. Our judgment is something our mind constructs from information.

The feeling does not cause the judgment. If our judgment about the feeling and then our judgment about the judgment are unrelated to each other, then I can choose a different judgment. To choose a different judgment means we can choose a different response.

To recognize our judgments are not from the feeling allows us to accept other people's judgments without needing to argue with them. Now let's shift to level five. Find that feeling again.

At level five, we are again looking for our belief about the feeling that it is somehow existing independent of me so that I can feel it in the way that I do. It seems absurd about our mind feeling, how can it be independent of me? But recognize this very sense that for me to experience anything, I believe that that anything has its own existence of some kind and for me to experience the result of that is that that feeling feels thumbs up. I can't respond to it differently when we strip away this wrong belief and recognize, yes, the feeling thumbs up, thumbs down is there.

And I see that it's coming out of my seeds and I see that my judgment about it is coming from me, not the feeling itself. It shows me that I can choose a different response to this feeling than what I think it's forcing upon me. I bring part of this experience to me and so I can change that part.

I can respond differently. But if at that level, there's something about the feeling that is there from its side, then there is something about that feeling nature of mind that we cannot influence through our behavior. And that would mean that if we have a thumbs down state of mind, our belief would be we cannot change that.

Some aspect of it we cannot change because some aspect of it is from it, in it. When we go looking, what part of it is from it, not me? Can we ever find anything? Can we experience something independent of our experience of it? No, that's absurd. We believe our feeling is a product of some external cause, angry yelling boss, thumbs down, delicious lunch, thumbs up.

This misbelief contributes to our clinging and wanting those things that trigger thumbs up and struggling and avoiding against those things that trigger thumbs down. But the things don't trigger that state of feeling. Karma ripenings trigger the nice lunch, triggering a thumbs up.

Nothing can create thumbs up in our mind. Except as we have shared someone trying to give them a thumbs up. Nothing can cause a thumbs down feeling of mind except as we have seen ourselves interacting in a way that appeared to cause a thumbs down for someone else.

Whether it is someone else experiences thumbs up or thumbs down from what we do to or for them, that's their seeds ripening, their seeds planting. My experience of them and their reaction is my seeds ripening and my seeds planting. And so I can be encouraged to continue to try to be the agent of others thumbs up states of mind by way of knowing what would bring me a thumbs up state of mind and choosing that kind of response.

So recognize that the growing wisdom that we are glimpsing through this exploration reveals the power of our seed planting behavior and how it reveals the guidance that we find in our vows and karmic correlation. And so grow the sense that you have the tools that you can use to design your future Buddha you and Buddha paradise emanating and give yourself permission to change behavior patterns. Allow yourself to try on new ways of responding.

Rejoice in yourself when you do it. Apply the four powers when we slip back into habit. We all do it.

Everything we think, say and do is creating our future experiences. And so I want to be kind, helpful, loving, because that's the kind of world I want to live in. Now turn your mind back to your own precious holy being.

Feel your gratitude to them, how they share their guidance, their wisdom, how much they love you. Think of the goodness that we've done, purifying those seeds from our preliminaries and learning more and more about emptiness and our behavior. Be pleased with yourself and think of this goodness like a beautiful glowing gemstone you can hold in your hand.

Feel your gratitude to that precious being and offer them this gemstone of your 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 from the beginning of class.

Share it with everyone you love, share it with every existing being everywhere. See them all filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom and may it be so. Bring yourself back to your body and your room.

Be sure you're nicely grounded and really good job. You sat for an hour. Nicely done.

Okay. So one more class. We'll do question answers.

Also that class I hope and explore the me which is can be more difficult than the feeling. Okay. Everybody.

All right. All right. Thank you for the opportunity.

Okay, so welcome back. Hmm.

This session completes our program on the six flavors of emptiness. And so thank you so much for the opportunity. I hope it served you.

And I hope that you won't stop exploring those six flavors just because our sessions are finished. They give us tools for recognizing where, what level of belief we're functioning from as we interact with our day-to-day experiences. And it, for me, it didn't come just by learning this course one time.

It took a lot actually to reach the point where I feel like I can turn on an awareness of how much of what's outside there happening to me do I believe is coming from it and how much from me. And yeah, it's a long story, but I'm just wanting to encourage you to continue to play with these six different ideas. 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 just by way of your 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, a beautiful golden glow encompassing us in its light. And then we hear them say, bring to mind someone we know who's hurting in some way. Feel how much we 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, 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, please teach us that, show us that, help us become that. And they are so happy that we've asked.

Of course they agree. Oh, 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 Uputta 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.

So let's do a meditation using our me as the meditation object. It's different than the mind as the meditation object that we were exploring using the mind feeling as the meditation object. That was hard, wasn't it? Still hard for me.

And then this me meditation, at first it was really hard for me. And then once I caught on, it's like one of my favorites. And I really enjoy coming back and revisiting this version of it.

Because I realize that when I do it, I just jump immediately to the conclusion. And it's like, that's useful for some purpose. But I'm not giving myself the opportunity to really, really explore these misunderstanding ways I'm holding to my me that still happen in my day to day experience.

So we're talking about a me. There's some aspect of ourselves that we say, me, I have a body. My body is not me.

Like I suspect, you know, I suspect mostly, we already have that sense. I didn't always. I remember when I used to think my body was me.

Anyway, then we tend to think, well, then my mind is me. But when I think of my mind, I think of that experience of thinking, experience of knowing, experience of seeing, hearing, smelling. But then even as I'm aware of experiencing any of those, I recognize there is a me doing that experiencing.

And that's what we're looking for in this particular sequence of exploring our six flavors is the me, the me that's experiencing those emotions, those thoughts, those sensations. So first Panchen Lama, he's talking to his group of students. And he says, I know the me can actually be difficult to find, to experience as the meditation object.

And he said, imagine you're in a situation where someone strongly blames you for something that you did not do, like worldly thing. And they say, Zita, you did that thing to me. And you know, you didn't.

And there's a part of us that goes, me, I didn't do that. That's what we're trying to find. Me, I didn't do that.

When we put ourselves in that situation, it becomes pretty clear that we're holding to some me in a quite tangible way. Even as we understand that me doesn't have physical tangibility, it doesn't have emotional tangibility, but doggone it, it's a thing there. It's me.

So for this sequence of exploration, we want to find that as clearly as we can, in this maybe first time we've gone looking, and then hold it as our object of investigation. Now, of course, immediately we're going to say, well, if I'm holding my me as the object of investigation, who is doing the investigating? And it's like, not to worry, we'll get there. Let yourself have this dual experience of finding and looking for our me.

So does that make sense enough that you feel like if we sit down into a meditation right now, you'll be able to find something that you can hold as a me? Give me a yes or a no. I think you can get it. I see some thumbs up.

Okay. So let's try. So first set your body.

Once you have it parked, bring your attention to those sensations we call the breath at our nostrils. Use that object, breath at nostrils, to turn on the focus. Zoom that mind in.

Adjust the clarity, the brightness of the mind, and try to turn on that eager fascination. Independent of the object that we're fascinated about, we'll count 10 breaths. When you lose the object, just come right back.

Now intentionally let go of that object and turn that focused, clear, fascinated mind to my words and follow along. And first find the me as our meditation object. The me who's here listening, doing this meditation.

Once we have it, let's explore our first level of understanding of the Gaccha. Think of the belief that that me has permanence. The way I do it is I think, well, I am 72 years old and I have never not been me.

This me has to have some permanence to have lasted that long. I know I'm not exactly the same as I was when I was five years old, but my me is the same me. My me does have permanence, but then let's check.

Permanence means the same, still here, something still recognizable, experienceable as the me that has to be the same as the previous me because my me is never somebody else. But let's look if that's true, that my me has its own permanence. How could my me be a 72 year old me when two years ago it was a 70 year old me and 10 years ago, a 62 year old me and tomorrow's me will be one day's worth different than today's me.

Won't it? Doesn't every experience me has changed me? You are considering your me, of course. So has our me ever been the same two moments in a row? And yet truly our me never becomes somebody else's me. So let go of that me that is a lasting thing.

There is no such me, but it's not that there's no me at all. Try to sit with that. The lasting me I thought, I think is there is impossible.

And so this changing, changing me is the one that is here. Now let's move up to level two. Just go to that simple me again.

And let's recognize that we have this belief that our me has control over things, especially has control over our mind and our body. Our belief convinces us that I can decide to raise my right arm and then I do. See, I am in control.

I can think of a beautiful sunset. See, I'm in control. But check to have control over something means to be able to make things happen at our discretion.

And sometimes we can, but sometimes we cannot. So if there's ever an experience we can have where we expect to control something happening, and it doesn't work, that's evidence that we are not in control, even when it appears that we are in control. Because cause and effect to be a cause and effect relationship have to work every time.

Or else there's something else coming into play for the cause and effect relationship to happen. So that me that believes it's in control of things, even as it understands it's not in control of everything, we still hold very strongly to trying to be in control of things and somehow not letting the fact that it doesn't always work impact us enough to figure out what's going on until now. So negate that me that's in control.

There is no me that's in control. But it's not that there's no me at all. What is the me like that is free of the belief in control? Let's step up further.

Find the me, the one who's listening, the one who's thinking, and recognize how that me believes that things happen to it. Good things, unpleasant things, when they happen, me believes they are happening to me, the me that holds the experience, they or that is doing that to me, blaming, believing the quality and the identity of the experiences in those objects of the experience. Find this me that says it's not my fault.

Now let's examine that me's belief that things are happening to it. It seems to be consistent with what we see the things out there. And then it comes at me.

We hear it out there. We feel it out there. But let's examine that me that believes those things are out there coming at me.

Pick any experience and find this belief during the experience that its object was there. And it's happening to me. And then try to describe to yourself what experience is it that me is actually having? I see that one, the boss.

I hear those loud unpleasant sounds coming out of their mouth. Those sounds make themselves known as blaming me for something. I feel disrespected, rejected, something misunderstood.

And we blame them for that feeling too. And our me wants to defend itself. And so it chooses something to think, say, do.

All of that experience is the object of that experience. That person yelling. Are they aware of our me's experience? Are they aware that my me feels disrespected? Are they aware of what I'm thinking to do in response? No, those are all experiences unique to me.

Can my me experience anything ever that's not unique to me? Something about my me, my body, my mind is the cause for the result of me here and them here. And this experience me is having no accidents, no random, no one to blame, but our own past causes made by way of our interactions with others. Karmic seeds.

How does this help? Our idea of me, the me that believes things are coming at me is left limited even to the point of helpless, our me. That's growing this understanding that whatever comes to me and the me that experiences it is ripening results of my own past behavior. That means my current behavior creates my future experiences that come at me.

We are empowered by this understanding, empowered by more conscientiously responding to our experiences that we are better able to do when we understand that the experience is not causing me to feel the way I feel, is not causing me to act the way I want to act. So that me that we found was changing with every experience, we see now that we can plant the seeds for future changing with every experience by how we respond now and now and now. So that me that things are coming at, drop that me, but it's not that there's no me at all.

Now let's step up to level four. Level four is recognizing the judgments we have about those objects of our experiences. We believe our judgments are correct about those objects and so when we and others disagree, we get afflicted.

Now when our me is our object of meditation, we even have judgments about our me that we believe are true about me. So think of your me and think of one good quality you know your me has and then look at that quality and recognize of course that's my quality. Everybody sees that good quality in me.

Well, mostly everybody does because that quality is in me. So everyone should agree with me, but then someone doesn't and what happens? We get upset and then what is our habitual reaction and we can try to suppress that reaction, but that reaction won't stop happening. Until we recognize that our judgment about our me was mistaken in the first place.

Not that we don't have those good qualities, but that they are not in us from us that everyone else should be aware of. They are experiences, ripening results of past deeds that created those results of those good qualities. And then we know that we then want to perpetuate the creation of those good qualities.

We drop our expectations that our own opinions about things are necessarily correct about those things. We can recognize that other people have judgments and opinions and are very likely thinking that their judgments are correct just as we are believing our judgments are correct. And we can recognize this as the source of conflict and choose to respond differently.

It does not mean always agreeing with the other and it means not getting upset when someone disagrees with us. What me has its quality in it that everyone should judge the same way. There is no me like that, but it's not that there's no me at all.

Let's push up to level five, 50-50. Find that me again. Notice whether it's getting more clear or actually less clear.

Now recall that at lower middle way, we are still holding that something that functions has to have some basis and that the experience-er brings to the experience the specifics. So there would have to be some essence of our me and the specific experience of me happening together for me to experience me in the way that I do. Some non-specific me that becomes a specific me as experiences happen.

That means there is some essence to me that other beings could experience this me essence in a way that's unique to them as I am experiencing this me essence in this way unique to me. At this level, our me-ness, this essence me is the recipient of the other's part that they bring for their experience and their me-ness receives my part that I put on them for my experience of them. Try to get a sense of that.

A me is here for you to experience, but the one you experience is unique to you and the one I experience is unique to me. And the same goes for the you that my me is experiencing. So that means someone could experience me as unpleasant and that's their seeds.

If someone experiences me as pleasant, that is their seeds too. So which one am I? A pleasant me or an unpleasant me? And if I experienced someone or something as pleasant, that is my seeds ripening. And when I experience something or someone as unpleasant, that too is my seeds ripening.

So why do I get upset with them? So find the me that gets upset with them for being unpleasant to me. Find the 50-50. There has to be a me here for them to experience.

If there's no me here, then what are they experiencing? And what am I experiencing? There has to be a me here, but not the one that defines itself. Try to feel that sense. Your me being experienced by someone else and aware that we believe they experience us in the way we think they do.

And yet we know the way they experience me is unique to them. What would it be like to be able to rest in that non-specific me here available to be what they experience? Wouldn't we hope that their experience of us would be pleasurable, would be helpful? We might think we know what would be helpful, what would be pleasant for them, our judgment. Or we might think, wow, I'm just a random happening to them.

Or we might think, yes, I'm going to take control and make them enjoy me. Or we might think, yes, my me's pleasant qualities are in me always. Of course, they will experience me that way.

Then run your mind back up the ladder. No, I'm never the same two moments in a row. And if that's true, how can I control anything? And it seems like random things happen to me.

But my me always has to be there to experience them. And the way I experience them is unique to me. Which means the way others experience me are unique to them.

And so my judgments about things are also unique to me and theirs unique to them. And it's a miracle when we ever agree. And then if we go one step further to find that me that's been doing this exploration and recognize that there is some essence, but that essence is never the same two moments in a row.

Any other being perceiving this me perceives it unique to them. But without some essence of me here, they could not perceive me at all. Find the 50-50, not literally half and half.

Now let's push to the highest understanding that essence me that becomes receives the specific me. If there is such a thing, we should be able to find it and experience it. And in order to find it, we make that me the object of our investigation, which means there's a another me looking for that me.

And then we say, okay, that me that's looking for me, let's look at it. But wait, there has to be another me that looks at it. We swiftly see that we'll never find an essence me that's there first, that then receives some ripening that makes it a specific me.

And we see that we will never find no me at all. We find the appearance and the potential to appear in the way me does appear a process happening constantly, which reveals this me can never be the same two moments in a row, and helps us to not need that anymore. That belief in the same me, we can let go of that me that thinks it is in control, finding the freedom that comes with deep awareness of this mechanism of karma's ripening, let go of that me that believes they did that to me, allow the me that can take responsibility for the response that burns off the negative and plants positive for the future, let go of the me that believes it has its own qualities in it from it, both good qualities and not good qualities.

Let them all go. Let that me go. That is some essence of me that's here to receive the ripening, either my own or others, and let go of anything, everything but subject side of every seed ripening and planting, changing, changing moment by moment, and never not existing, profound dependence happening, providing all experiences, creating all future experiences by helping others, help others to grow love, compassion, wisdom in action.

This can be you, it will be you someday. Love, compassion, wisdom in appearance because of our me is empty and appearing. Let's hold that conclusion for one more minute and send that wisdom, love to that person you want to be able to help, dedicating this effort to them.

Recall that personal guide, see how happy they are, offer this goodness to them and dedicate to reaching it directly someday soon, and then let it all go. Become aware of being in this body, in your room, in this session. When you feel like you're back, open your eyes, take a stretch, we'll take a break.

Nice job, that was over an hour, you can do it. Okay, so Irina asked a question at the beginning of class about practicing Lojong, and if Lojong equates to the four powers, or do we do Lojong and then the four powers? And then when we say Lojong, you learn that there are many different Lojong practices, right? So you might choose to be working with just with any one of them. And then they have different parts to them, of course, as we explore and get familiar with them.

And then our four powers, we understand it is about what we can do to have an effect on the negative imprints that we know our mind has, either by what we know we've done in this life towards others, or by way of what we see going on in our world around us. We must have the seeds for that. And then the four powers is this method for having an impact on these negative seeds we already have in order to neutralize them, even negate them.

And within the four powers, there's the antidote force, so the good seed imprinting that we do specifically to contribute to the negation of the negative seeds we're trying to prevent from ripening ever. And then there is the power of restraint, where we determine that we won't replant the ones that we're working so hard to damage. So Lojong practice can be what we use for our antidote power.

It can also be what we use to help us do our power of restraint. So they work together, right? Got it. I see that you got it.

So I promised you a Q&A session. That you are welcome to ask anything, whether it's about Six Flavors or beyond. I'm yours for another 40 minutes.

And if there's not enough to fill it in, then I'll do a synopsis. But there's nothing in the synopsis you haven't already heard. So maybe you have questions.

So questions, anyone? Going once. Luisa, yay, Luisa. Of course, I have a question.

I have a question about the me and the ego. So if I'm experiencing feelings of humiliation, for example, or so I'm exploring that currently. And now with the meditation, is the ego, like I'm trying to define what is humiliation? Like what is that inside me that feels offended or feels pushed down? And is the ego and the me that we were exploring before the same? And then what would be your recommendation to overcome and not get in the blaming rabbit hole? Like is they that are doing that to me? And I am a victim.

And right, so what would be your advice? Yeah. So our belief in what we describe as a self-existent me, like what we mean by that, our belief in that is so strong, that that's what becomes the ego. What we call ego, at least in Western terms, the ego is like underneath the personality.

It's this sense of me with my certain qualities, my certain things that I deserve. And so that ego is like this really, really strong misunderstanding of the me that of course doesn't know it's a misunderstanding. So it thinks it's the real me.

So we could think of the ego as the real me. We're using the word real in the sense of in it, from it, right? There is a real me, but it's not the one we think. We need a different word than real.

So when we're trapped in those cycles, that when we're able to even have enough wisdom to look at the cycle, we recognize this pattern. Here's me. I believe in me in a certain way.

And that me does not deserve what has just happened. And that me really wants to believe that I didn't deserve that. It wants to blame the other because then we are free of responsibility.

And so we go through this round and round around, struggling to get ourselves to be so convinced that we're right. About they did that to me that we can't even break the cycle. And then we just get angrier or more hurt or more jealous or more of whatever is underneath that blame factor.

And then the tendency is when we've like solidly declared they're the one or ones that did that to me. Then this ego trying to stay in control, in charge, will actually look for opportunities to disrespect or hurt or harm or something that other in retaliation. Right.

And we don't use the words, I'm going to get back at them. But subtly, given the opportunity, we'll say that negative thing about them or we'll point out, I didn't really do what they, everybody believes I did. They're wrong.

And all of this is that ego justifying its position. So now if that ego really was the real me, would it have any need at all to declare its position or to overcome somebody else? Like if it really was the real me, who cares what they do? Right. So although we believe in our ego me so strongly that we have no doubt about it, deep down, it even knows that it's mistaken.

No punch in Lama's angel devil debate. That devil is our ignorance, our belief in self-existent me. And that devil is smart.

That devil knows the words about nothing exists from its own side. And that devil is able to twist those words to its advantage. And that's what our ego does.

Somehow it knows it's mistaken, but it refuses, refuses, refuses to admit it. Because once it does admit it, it means it's been wrong since beginningless time. And how hard is it for us to admit? Oh, I'm sorry.

I was wrong about that. Why is that so hard for humans? Like maybe it's just me, but who wants to admit that we've been mistaken about everything since forever? The better we understand the ramifications of emptiness and dependent origination, the more willing and even eager we are to recognize, oh my gosh, I am mistaken about everything. And if we could really get to that awareness, it would be not difficult at all to recognize the power of the behaviors that Buddha laid out for what to take up and what to give up.

It would be no difficulty at all to just learn those and do our best to live by them. Because we would understand that because of all the mistake, I could never choose accurately before. Now I understand the mistake colors my automatic reactions.

And I understand that it's my opportunity to recognize all that's happening and choose to respond differently according to the vowed behavior, whether I have the vows or not, because they are the behaviors that plant the seeds for the end of that misunderstanding. So we start somewhere, somewhere that we can actually see a little improvement. Even if it's just the tiniest little habit change to be able to accomplish a habit change is saying to our mind, this ego mind, I'm on to you, your days are numbered.

And then it doesn't go, okay, I'll help you because you want to bet and it comes out fighting. Doesn't it? I mean, mine is really struggling right now for a lot of reasons. And it's not practice failure.

It's actually practice success. When we're finding our mind, our personality, our ego is just fighting us every step of the way. It's because it's feeling threatened.

And when it's feeling threatened, it's feeling threatened by growing wisdom. And that's what we want as opposed to feeling threatened by the worldly situation that appears to be the thing that's hurt my feelings. Okay.

Easy to hear, hard to do. Yeah. Thanks, Lama.

That's an amazing teaching. Thank you. I hope it helps.

Darya. Maybe it will be some strange question, but I was thinking that... I need to get on the English channel so I can hear. Okay.

Maybe that will be some strange question, but I was contemplating about, I was thinking about ego that constantly, I heard it in my childhood, but I thought, that is not that way. It was not useful for me because other were suffering and I'm suffering. I connected it some way.

But also I had the question, what is me? What is I? What is me? Me is now, like before I was asked, me is now, currently I'm a woman. But in the previous lives, I was a man. Is it me or not? I was telling that it is me, but is it sure? But that is those men and now you're this woman.

Are you the same or are you different? Maybe that is confusing. I'm even myself can't understand it. Who is that me? So doesn't that show us that the me is something separate than the gender, right? Okay.

If my me had a previous life where I was a human man and that human man has a subject side, we believe that the subject side is a male subject side. And now I believe my subject side is a female subject side, but that can't be true, can it? The me can't have gender. The gender it experiences itself as is ripening results of past deeds.

So what kind of past deeds? Well, that depends. Does my me find being a woman to be a good thing? Or does my me find being a woman to be a not so good thing? Let's just say a bad thing. And of course it's not one or the other, it shifts.

But if, wow, this time around me loves being a woman, then the seed that pushed me into what became a woman's body was a kind of seed planted at some point that ripened into me ripening a woman body as a pleasant thing. If it's an unpleasant thing, which it easily could be, seed that ripens into that is a different, it's a seed from some kind of unkindness. So same for mind in a male body, good to be male, bad to be male, same for being in a seeing oneself as a bunny rabbit, right? Or not as the beautiful cat, male cat, female cat, the mind stream, the subject side of any being.

It is not, I can't even say gender neutral. It's before gender happening. But then it shows us that how that me can't be pinned down to be a single thing that moves through time as this special thing with special qualities.

Because if that were true, it couldn't this time around be male and this time around be female. And this time around, right? Be kind of both, which we're seeing a lot more in our times, beings that are legitimately, right? And probably more energetically balanced than those that are really strongly one or the other. Does that help? Mm-hmm.

Yes. It's coming from us. Like I understand that now, that is comfortable or not comfortable in this body.

That is emptiness. Everything is coming from us. And the same can be perceived as a happiness, as a joy.

And someone is telling, oh, I don't want to be a woman. I want to be a man. Like I'm reading Matsubuta.

It is written, if you don't want to be a woman, you will be a man. So it depends on how someone perceives it. Even if you're suffering in this body, like Tara, I was reading that Tara wanted to help.

And I told that I will be in the body of a woman. I will show that in the body of a woman, it is possible to reach enlightenment and help as well. Did I understand it correctly? Yes.

Because that subject side, who we call Tara, became so clear and identified with its empty nature that its willingness to help people ripened it as doing so from a female body. Because at the time, the current position was you could not get enlightened if you were in a female body. But do you see the wrong view of that? Like there's something about a female body that blocks reaching full enlightenment.

That means there are female bodies that exist independent of someone's projection, female body, whether it's somebody else's female body or my own body as female, we're believing mind only level. It's female in it, from it, and me and it come together. And it's like, if that's true, then no female could get enlightened.

But if it's true, then no male could get enlightened either. Because if you're holding female bodies as having some nature other than projected results of kindness, then you have to hold male bodies as having some nature not projected. And anything that has a nature independent of someone's projections cannot be changed.

But wait, is there such a thing as something that's not someone's projection? No. So it's another reason why something that has its own identity can't get enlightened because there's no such thing. Right? So the fact that there's no such thing as a body or mind or karma, that's not ripening results of behaviors, why don't I start that? The fact that there's nothing that's not that is the promise or even the proof that enlightenment is not just possible, but inevitable for every conscious being.

Right? Because that are not self-existent, are not enlightened, me, I'm going to say doesn't exist. And I get slammed on the debate ground. But is there a self-existent Darya? No.

Is there a self-existent Nastya? No. Already? No. Do we believe there is? Yes.

But it's just a belief. Shouldn't it be easy to get rid of a belief? I don't know, in your culture when you were little kids, did you have Santa Claus? And then, you know, or something similar. And then at some point, you know, the older brother, you know, he's, he's reached that level of being sourpuss, you know, and I'm still really, whoa, Santa's coming, Santa's coming.

And the older brother goes, don't be silly. Santa Claus was Uncle Charlie. And it's like, what? And somehow, little me believes the brother, instead of my own experience, right? Little me knew Santa Claus was real.

But suddenly, older brother's word is more important. And I stopped believing. And that belief was just gone.

I could pretend after that. But before that, what I believed in was real. Yeah.

What we believe in, me and me, you and you, we clash or we get along. Shifting, shifting. It's just a belief.

Like, don't you wish older brother would say, look, Sarani, there's no such thing as Santa Claus. And then I'd go, oh, you're right. No such thing as self-existent me.

No such thing as self-existent you. Oh, freedom. Wouldn't it be nice if it was like that? Apparently, after direct perception of emptiness, it is kind of like that.

Belief is gone, but the seeing it that old way is still happening. That's where it's a little bit different. Because I don't know about you, but I didn't see Santa Claus constantly, but then disappeared when my belief went away.

But we're seeing things as if they have their identities in them. And then we lose the belief that those identities we see in them are really in them. But even with that end of the belief, our response to our experiences, the initial reaction still comes up.

Irritation, anger, et cetera. Jealousy, I understand. But the reaction to the reaction doesn't come up.

Instead, there's the conscious choice of behavior because the belief is gone. Let me see. I'm reading the chat.

Your mind, my mind are distinct mental continuum. Yet the mental continuum of all Buddhas who have attained a ultimate goal are one, not one in the same, but identical. And they are all experiencing all, but each one unique to each one.

It's starting to kind of try to describe like a holograph. You know holograph? It's an image. And you take a little piece of the image, and then all of the parts of the image are in the little piece.

And it doesn't matter how small you go. Somehow all of it is in the tiniest piece, and all of it is in the biggest piece. Something about that word all to me is more useful than the word one, because one implies there's other than one.

Even when you say no, by one I mean everything. But you can't know one without other. But all, all is all inclusive.

So maybe that helps. Let me see. When snow falls, a multitude of distinct snowflakes form.

When snow falls into the ocean, the snowflakes melt and merge with the ocean. When a person becomes a Buddha, their mental continuum becomes one with the continuum of all Buddhas, but not one in the same. Do you see? We don't merge with some other mindstream Buddha.

But we all know all, we're all omniscient, which means Buddha you is directly aware of Buddha me's omniscience, and my omniscience is aware of your omniscience. How do you get omniscience upon omniscience upon omniscience? What's that like? Maybe that's where the word infinity came from. I don't know.

So which continuum is being referred here? The question which continuum is being referred here is colored by our belief in a continuum with its own nature. But that's where we started. Every mind has its own distinct continuum, but distinct in the sense that it isn't one being that has this mindstream and this mindstream and this mindstream.

It's that the ripenings happening in a given consciousness, all have what we call a subject side. To make an imprint, there has to be a subject and object and an interaction between perception. So there is a projection, subject object interaction between that gets imprinted.

The imprint has subject object interaction between, which means the ripening has to have subject object interaction between. Subject means this one, point your own finger. Right? That's what subject means.

That's what the word means. Object means the other. There can be no subject object without an interaction between them.

So those things happen like this, not one, two, three, but I wish I could do it with my fingers. And it's never not happening, which is why I love this mudra. Subject object interaction between, subject object interaction between.

Does the subject side ever shift? Yes, it's changing constantly, but does this subject side ever get in? No, I can't say that. Does this subject side ever perceive itself as your subject side? No, because it would be my object, wouldn't it? Even if I could experience what you are experiencing, like from behind your eyes, it would still be this subject side being aware of your subject side having its experience. That's what it is to be a subject side.

That's what subject means. There is no subject side just because there's the word subject. The word subject is how we try to describe the experience that we have moment by moment by moment.

So subjects are unique, but they're not self-existent because we can take our subject side, the one that's aware of the information coming in, and we can look at it, in which case suddenly what we were calling our subject side is now the object of a more subtle subject side. That's the actual Maha Mudra practice, is you keep separating that subject state of mind to look at it. And it only takes a little bit of doing that to recognize that if I can take my subject state and experience it or part of it as an object, that means my subject state of mind is empty of self-existence.

But it doesn't mean that there's some point at which there's no subject state of mind. Every time we find what we believe is there and we show ourselves how it is the Gakcha and we take it away, we remind ourselves, but it's not that it doesn't exist at all. I don't not exist at all.

If when we take away our wrong belief, we poofed out of existence, then that would negate all of the teaching. It would mean there was a self-existent me that we decided was wrong and we took it away. But we find that the self-existent me I'm looking for isn't just not there, it's impossible.

And when we reach that conclusion that my self-existent me is impossible, we don't have to look anymore. But it also means then we don't have to defend it anymore and we don't have to cater to it anymore. And so we don't really believe it's impossible until we stop being upset when it gets hurt or threatened.

Because you know like what's there to get hurt and threatened? But it does get hurt and threatened. You see it's so slippery. That's why it takes us years to go through the fundamentals so that we can chew on this stuff in order to show ourselves the limitation of language.

Not just the fact that I can't talk to you directly in your language, but the limitation of any spoken language. So we do it in meditation beyond language. Okay? So thank you so much for the opportunity to share the six flavors.

Thank you for working hard on it in preparation in preparation for what's coming next for you if it is. And please stay close. I love you all.

Let's dedicate what we've done. We already dedicated our meditation, but let's dedicate. We completed what we set out to do.

Yay! That's a big one. And we did it on behalf of one or more other people that we still see as suffering beings. And that makes it even more powerful.

And we relied on our own precious holy being. And that makes it even more powerful. So please be pleased with yourself and think of this goodness like a beautiful glowing gemstone that you can hold in your hands.

Recall that precious being. Feel your gratitude to them. Feel your reliance upon them.

Ask them to please, please, please stay close to continue to inspire you and guide you and support you and be there for 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 may. So use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one being. 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, dear Lama. Thank you so much. Thank you, Claire, for making this available to more people than I could.

Thank you to Five Houses tech team. Darya, we appreciate that. All right.

Okay. I love you. Take care.

See you when I see you. Bye-bye.