Archive Result

Soundfile 19970925GRBHLR/19970925GRBHLR.mp3

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location Birmingham, MI

Topic Lam Rim

Transcriber Janet Bourgon

Date January 2, 2021

0:00:00.0

Basically what we really needed to do is, now I like to give my, share my little thoughts around here. [incidental remarks]. Basically I’d like to share my thoughts. The question what we really have is the, what we try to do, what is this spiritual, spiritual thing? What is it? And what is it relevant for us? And that is the basic, foremost important question. And, simply, if we think, in our life, what we have in our life, this thing called life here, from birth to death. We call that life. And if we think what we need to do for our self, is the only the question how we can make ourself comfortable between this period that we’re through from the, between birth and death. If that is the only thing, is the need of the people, then in my personal opinion, I may be wrong, but in my personal opinion, we don’t need a spiritual path to make ourself comfortable. And simply enjoy life. But the problem comes in when we try to make ourself comfortable, and enjoy life. And we’re not getting that. We’re not getting that, instead of that, we’re getting a lot of misery. And a lot of sufferings. A lot of pain, we’re getting. So, and that is the problem we have.

0:02:53.8.

And so, when we’re getting those misery and those pains we have, that indicates whatever the material we can make it comfort, what do you call it? The material comfort, what do we call it? I should have said earlier material comfort. What a beautiful flower. Thank you. Material comfort. Material things cannot answer. Cannot satisfy our mind. And we don’t have the mental peace. And we do have a lot of mental, physical, emotional sufferings. And that’s the reason why we’re looking for the spiritual path. Can we get some comfort out of those [??0:04:11.5] called spiritual path? I believe that’s the most reason why we look in the spiritual path. Otherwise, if it’s material things can satisfy us, why we bother? Why we bother with the spiritual path? So we do need spiritual path because we do have those discomfort. Mental, physical, emotional pains. We do have a lot of them, lot of emotional pains. Lot of mental pains we have. Dissatisfaction in our life. Things doesn’t shape out exactly the way we want to. All of those. So we looking the spiritual path, if they have any way to give us some comfort. And then all the traditions, whether it is the Judeo-Christian tradition, or the Eastern tradition, Hindu, Buddhism, all these different type of great religions to teach us. And they do carry, they do carry some message. And they do carry a method, how to maintain, how to bring comfort. How to comfort ourself.

0:06:05.2.

But here, we don’t get the message. Probably. It’s there. It’s returning the book form [???]. Passing through, like the Tibetan Buddhism we say is a living tradition. But only as simply as writing and some information written in the book only. But it’s a living tradition. Meaning people who are practicing, who are doing whatever, it’s been continuous living. Living and doing and that’s why we call it living tradition. And all this, information are valuable. The problem is, a lot of times, we don’t get it. Simply, we just don’t get it. You know you normally, even you know, in America, lot of it you say, you know, when you start fighting among yourselves you say, you don’t get it, big deal, you know. So that’s exactly, we’re not getting it, we’re not getting it. And [?? 0:07:18.9] even we get it, even we think we got it, but we don’t use it. And that’s our problem. We use, we don’t use that. And even we try to use that, we don’t use them properly. So that is the, that is the real problem. It is not the problem of the great traditions of the religion, whether it’s East or West. It is the individual who tried to use, try to use those, and we’re not being able to use it properly. Because we don’t get it properly. Even you get it, you don’t use them properly. Don’t apply them properly. So this is our problem. So it’s not that’s spiritual great traditions doesn’t have a method, doesn’t have [??0:08:10.7] but it’s not been benefiting us, because we’ve not been properly using it. So to me, whether whatever it might be, whether it is Eastern or Western tradition, the goal is the one thing, to relieve the suffering of the individual. And that is the goal really, whether you get enlightened or you don’t get enlightened, that’s a different matter. Some will have [? 0:08:49.7] enlightenment, some will have something else, but really the main bottom line is to relieve suffering. To ease our suffering. And that’s what we all really use everything, with this sort of our human desire is to relieve suffering.

0:09:01.3

I have a musician friend, like John here, and actually it’s Philip Glass who asked me, what is the purpose, Allen Ginsberg asked me, what’s what was the purpose of the poetry? And Philip asked me the same thing. What is the purpose of the music? What does music do? I mean it’s to relieve suffering. To get some kind of pleasure and joy and comfort. People like music because it gives you some kind comfort and joy within that. And that’s same thing. But the way the tradition, spiritual traditions supposed to work and to relieving suffering. And the music relieving suffering may be slightly different. Music will give you temporary relief of suffering. And to spiritual practice should give you a permanent relief of suffering. That is the only difference. But otherwise it was the same thing again. To relieve suffering. To give you some joy. Some help. [? Tibetan quote 0:10:22.4] even the music, by hearing sound, and you enjoy the sound, and it gives you some relief of the sufferings of the body and the mind together. And emotional. Right? So likewise spiritual path also supposed to do the same thing. Different than the music, it’s supposed to do it permanently. It is the same thing. Even with, even looking the six days in the dark drug cultural. It’s also try to give relief to suffering. And finding escape, try to look for that. All of those. And even, even the smokers, they say we also have the habit of smoking because that’s looking for some kind of relief. And some kind of joy. And really true. So everything in the human desire is really to eliminate, eliminate the pain and give you some relief. So that’s why everything, whatever we do and when we look at it, we look in everything, we look in the [??0:11:39.3]. We look into everything. It is really what we do is to relieve some kind of, relief suffering and some kind of easement in our life.

0:11:54.2.

So everything, whatever we do, whatever, even our usual education is also for that purposes. Making money is all that purposes. Right or wrong? Am I wrong? Am I crazy? No, people do educate so that you have better job, better life. Am I right or wrong? Not because, not because, everybody want to be greatest scholar, or some kind of good professors. No. Not so many people are focused on that. Simply you get basic education, you can get a job. And so you can have, you’ll be able to pay your bills and eat your food. And have a comfortable place to live. And all of those. If you really look in the human mind, and what we needed in our, in our, what we needed is just the relief from the sufferings. And that is human goal. Am I right? Am I wrong? I hope not. We all do that. We all, I mean who does something for otherwise? Right? We do everything to relieve our suffering. To get some kind of better pleasure or harmony or bliss or whatever. So we do all of them for this purposes. This is the human goal. So every single thing what we do is we really, we do indulge, we do put efforts in because that’s what we think we get relief. So the great religions, traditions comes in and tell you, hey I have a method to relieve your suffering permanently. And so, and anyway it’s true. Every religion’s tradition will have it. So what is so great about Tibetan Buddhism? That comes my propaganda now. Here you go. So anyway, the Tibetan, actually Tibet has been very mystical place. Anyway, for a lot of Westerners. I mean it’s very mystical place, before. People associate it with some kind of mystery. You know. I have seen the movie called Shangri-La. You get plane crash landed somewhere in Himalayas and you see the, I mean so whatever, wherever you go, everybody is young and beautiful and wonderful and, you cannot get out of certain boundary. If you do so, and suddenly you become 2000 years old. Or whatever you know. And all this.

0:14:59.1.

Sort of the [??0:15:05.1] sort of a place where, very little amount of people knew Tibet. But whatever those little, whoever know, some kind of funny first, fascinating for mystical place. People associated that. And so, that is the Tibet. And when in 19, like in 1950s, and I was back in Tibet. I was back in Tibet. I was back in Tibet. And, to tell the truth, when I was young, like seven or eight age, nine, seven, eight, all this period, I’m very fascinated about America. You know, really, so much, so wonderful. We know very little about America. But I’m always fascinated about America. So I know one thing what America has is a lot of wheels running around the cars, [?? 0:16:11.1] All these wheels running around. And I do know about White House, you know. So thinking about the huge White House, like you see the picture of the portal, I sort of imagined triple times of the portal like in size, like white marble, or you know sort of all maybe a glass house. You know that sort of picture I have. That’s all I know about America. But very fascinated. At the same time, that same period, if you look in the United States, they think it’s some kind of mystical place and the people knew in Tibet, lamas and pics [??0:16:55.8], mountain pics. That’s all the knowledge we have each other. So I used to be very fascinated about America. I never could dream that I’d be here, and being citizen of the United States. So, so anyway it is sort of life, how people’s life changes. And that’s fascinating when you look back. But what I’m really looking at here, try to bring the point is people’s association with Tibet is very, sort of mystical thing. And then it continued and become a little bigger and better in the 60s. And people begin to associate the Tibet as some kind of spiritual home. So the books have been written, and people used to talk about it [??0:17:52.2] and bring things, it’s sort of becoming the home of the spiritual practice. And if you look in any sort of people in the, the poets. And the what do you call it? Beatnik poets?

0:18:11.7.

And then you look at afterwards those New Age gurus, and all of them, and then their source of the spiritual thing is also becoming, drawing from the Tibet. And anyway, it is right because Tibet really had by chance [??0:18:31.3]. It happens to be opportunity. Opportunity that Tibet had a great spiritual path. It’s really a tremendous spiritual. The material and the material, materialistic pressures that what we have today doesn’t exist in Tibet. And it is, it is a sort of time and period where they really, the good old Tibet is a very, very rich in the spiritual path. That also true. That doesn’t mean it is a dream land. It’s not. It also has tremendous problem of extreme other side. There’s no development. There is no running water in the house. There is no heat in the running heat there. There is nothing. There’s not even, there is, but there’s not even have electricity. And all this sort of thing. There’s no wheels running round. Only there is a couple of cars, valuable can run even 10 miles here and there. There’s not even road where you can go. So you can imagine. And so there is extreme other side of the, what do we call it? Straightforward, underdeveloped, underdeveloped extreme. What do we call it? Backwards. So Chinese used to tell us, so backward. So barbarian. Five qualities for Tibet. So backward. So barbarian. So filthy. And then so dark. I forgot one. So anyway, these are our qualities. According to the communist Chinese. So, but at the same time, there’s also a tremendous mental and emotional harmony. Peace. Satisfaction in whatever you have. And know how, how to be self-sufficient. And the food what you grow is enough for our own people.

0:21:11.5.

The cloth what you make is enough for the people. And do you satisfied? Do we import? Yes we do. We do import. We do have a lot of brocade from China, and the [? 0:21:28.7] from China. And all these are there no doubt, but at the same time, generally speaking, everything is very self-sufficient. And then on top of that people’s more sort of like focus here. Where we focus for money, the focus there is for spiritual at that time. This I’m taking [? 0:21:52.7] with you, with my own personal experience. So therefore people here, everybody will work for money, so likewise there, at that time, everybody worked for spiritual development. Development. It is like you know all of those. Whatever you have, you know, here people who doesn’t have money, who are poor we call it, right? And they even have a couple of dollars in their name on their pocket. Right? In their pocket. Likewise, those who have nothing in Tibet is also have some spiritual development at that time. What does that spiritual development used to give us is the mental harmony and peace. And that is the, and the need of the people. It was fully developed spiritual path there. And really fully developed spiritual path there. So nobody will like to have less-than-perfect enlightenment. Less-than-perfect freedom. Nobody will settle for less-than-perfect freedom. And that is the sort of goal. It’s like a, like in the West there’s lot of things you can take in granted. The children will pick up. It’s like you know you have to be behaving properly. You have to be educated. You have to get a job and pay your bills. And like that, we Tibetan people automatically learn that we have to have, we have to have a spiritual development. The enlightenment is our goal. The freedoms we can gain out of those spiritual path is a permanent freedom. And nothing, nothing is we’re not going to settle less than permanent one. So that was the Tibet really had.

0:23:56.0

And in the West people do have that understanding. And they look for that. [? 0:24:03.8] a home for the spiritual path. Anyway, so then later in 70s, the 60s and 70s and 80s, and thank you to the Chinese Communists, we’re being kicked out of Tibet, so [? 0:24:16.6] brought whatever we have together. Since it is a living tradition, and since it’s a living tradition, as in quality of a human being, so brought the quality together. They can rope off, they did rope, every single damn thing that we own, but they couldn’t rope that, whatever that spiritual thing is. So those still sort of flying around here, here and there. So that’s what’s happening. And is here, that’s why I’m here to sort of share and present that path to the area where I call home now. A home away from home. Or, a home. A second home, whatever. So that’s what we do. That’s what Jewel Heart is. The organization which sort of gate for that. And we’ve been doing this for the area for a number of years, you know that. So, and as a part of that, and also, and also I must tell you little bit I’ve been doing this, in this area, for now last seven or eight years. As I came and visit, before that like visit for a couple of times, like two years or so altogether maybe about 10 years now. So anyway, so whatever for the last, for last 10 years we’ve been doing. And presenting that. And there are a number of people who have been affected. I don’t know whether it is positively or negatively. That’s up to them to say. But affected to their life tremendously. And tremendously, and so that’s a lot of people, quite a number of people around, and there’s affected, and been helpful. So that’s why you know I came with invitation of two young Michigandan women from, who came to, who been sort of hippie, hippie ages been running into India. And happens to came across with them in the Himalayas. And then gradually that’s how I came over. And it’s been sort of been little, have little service to a number of people. So that’s why we still continuing here and talking about it, this. And so, things what we’ve been talking it, also I’ve been talking before like almost at the beginning level. It’s almost like it all way back in 2500 years ago.

0:27:02.2.

And it is also true, the funny thing in Tibet, the why Tibetans been able to have that, what you call it, Tibetan Buddhism, is that spiritual path has been able to maintain it intact in Tibet is because of the lack of communication. Truly speaking, lack of communication. Nothing comes out. Whatever is there for a thousand years, didn’t change. [? 0:27:28.8] same old thing for everything. It remained the same old thing. [Incidental remarks about chairs]. [0:28:01.4]. Whole thing they have maintained for 1000 years. So there’s no dilution. Not been diluted at all. And so that’s one of the reasons why they been able to maintain so pure and so wonderful. Actually, I don’t know, it’s good or bad, at least in my father [? 0:28:33.8] , and our generation [name 0:28:37.1 ] Rimpoche, my generation, our generation is the last generation in Tibet who had this little opportunity. It’s really the last generation. And of course the hundred thousand Tibetans have come out of Tibet, and the Dalai Lama settled everything in India. And doing, going and doing, and all this. But it’s slightly different. Well, maybe it is not for me to say that. Maybe not right. But that’s what it is, is the last generation. And to be able to bring that path to over here. And way we used to talk, and what we’re used to share, is also like that thousand years ago. The same old thing in those group of people. Small group of people who have been first working with me has been very tough time. Really. Because everything is sort of, say what, this one has two of these. And sort of one headline comes, and these you’ll find three of these and under there you will find 10 of these. And under each one of them find 50 of these and 60 of that and all this sort of thing. And very very hard way. Even I was talking to a woman who been studying like couple of years now, from New York.

0:30:02.2.

She was telling me this morning, this morning on telephone. She was talking to me. When I first came, she said, I’ve been fascinated. I like way you talk about it, and then I asked you what can I do? And she said you told me to read the Liberation in Palm of Your Hand. She said, I read it. I could not understand a thing and it is so thick book. I read it. And almost I been dropped off. I almost turn away. And I did, I still, I forced myself to read, and I read it. I read it. I read it three times. I did not understand a thing. That’s what she told me. And so even then I couldn’t understand. I put on, pushed myself in these. And I keep on working and then come to the teachings, and teachings, and teachings, and the second, I came to three retreats, and at the end of the third summer retreat, begin to make some sense to me. And when I read the book I begin to get some messages, some understanding. And then she said after three retreats, on the fourth retreat this summer retreat, she said after this one, now I’m looking at the book. Now I understand 50% of the message, and it make a lot of sense. And it make a lot of difference in my life. That’s what she told me. She’s not the beginning one. The early, she’s like two, three years ago. And if she had that much trouble, and the first people who were putting in effort, I’m sure they really had a tough, tough time. So anyway, what we did this summer, in usual our summer retreat and we sort of try to make it a little simplify, modernized way. And so we made them sort of straightforward rather than making complicated. Try to, without losing the tradition and value, and without losing the tradition, and try to maintain true to the tradition, and yet try to make a little simple and easy. So that’s why you have those papers with you. What happened? What? [Audience talking in background. 0:32:47.4] Oh. So you do have a piece of paper that’s to [? 0:32:52.9] people needs that. Okay.

0:33:00.9

And so we just sort of made sort of everything is in very simple. Ah, can I borrow yours? Made into a very simple little booklet for, no, sort of a bookmark. Right? Bookmark form. And very simple. And many of you being here a couple of times first we introduce you very simply, like three principles and that. And the second level we even introduce you what we call it introduction one and two and all this level. We basically talk to you the foundation and to make our life perfect. So we call that foundation of perfections. So, all this. So now we thought it is [? 0:33:59.9] almost time… [Noise] that me? Did I drop something? Oh sorry. It came by itself or maybe I pushed it around. Thank you. Sorry. Somebody open door? Is it Carla? [Audience: I don’t see anyone] That’s okay. So whenever she gets here, and you’ll have those piece of paper. And on basis on which we can talk to you. But if she doesn’t come here tonight you’ll have it next [? 0:34:51.7]. So that’s what it is. So simply what we’re trying to do here is a very simple list of what we, sort of really made into very simplified stack, like I think almost like sixty four different points. One of another. So the reason why we do this is just to be able do something in the spiritual thing. And uh, and um, that’s why we try to share with you. And as a matter of fact, when you go through these steps and through this path, is it going to be something very smooth and wonderful daily? No! I have to tell right from the beginning, it’s not. It’s a simple smooth path. It’s okay. It’s not going to be, what you call those ones, one of those cruises that they advertise for seven days, or Caribbean and Hawaiian and all this. So it’s not going to be that path.

0:36:03.6.

And it’s going to be extremely difficulty. And a lot of challenge in life. And a lot of adventure in there. So we decided to call this, when you make laundry list, you have to, you can’t call laundry list. So you have to give some name. So we decided to call Odyssey to Freedom. So instead of Odyssey to nothing. So we make it to Odyssey to Freedom. As well as, you know, if you look at the stories that I learn for the Odyssey itself as…Well! There you are. Thank you. So, so then talking about the Odyssey, the Odyssey to Freedom… Come here. So, so the Odyssey is the name of a person. Right? In the Greek mythological tradition? [Audience] Huh? Yeah. It is the name of a person. And when you look at the, the sort of look in the… And also we try to bring the East and Western tradition little together. So instead of giving tradition of Tibetan name called Lam Rim, which probably number one you people will not understand anything about it. Number one. And number two, even they understand, they say, oh I see some kind of philosophy. Or they say, some kind of whatever it is. So, they give you a lot of mis-information. Misunderstanding. And so we, and it has a lot of excitement in the journey. Lot of nice little picnic spots round. And as well as a lot of difficulty, adventures round. And so we call that Odyssey. As the Odyssey himself took 20 years to get around, and so we hope to get to the freedom in 20 years time. So, come in and sit down rather than standing over there. And over this side there’s more chair here this side. Yeah. [Incidental remark about seating] oh you want to stand there? That’s fine. You will find the below report will probably know what will That’s okay. That’s fine, okay. Okay, so simply what we try to find here is, you know we try to tell you what to do… Not that I tell you what to do. That sounds terrible. Isn’t it?

0:39:05.5.

Try to… But on the other hand… Here you are, Carla. Did you get lost or what happened? Oh you did. And that is the fault of the person who give you the direction. But you’re not late. You’re very much on time. Just came on time. Perfect. When you look at… When you wanted to do… When you wanted help our self spiritually, get our self spiritually developed. And get ourself free from our neurosis. Get ourself free from our suffering. What we really need to do, I mean really just simply give us a minute to think. What do we need to know? First, we need information. Don’t we? We need information. If you don’t have the information, we can’t do anything. Right? It’s like a complicated, well somewhat complicated, little, little, little gadgets that we have. Little gadgets that we have. These days. Like kite flying or something. And if they throw you the gadget at your lap, and without having any directions, or anything, and we probably don’t know what to do with it. But if, but if you’re a genius you can figure out. My father used to be interesting in Tibet. He’s [? 0:40:59.7] incarnate lama and very well respected. But he spend lot of time right in the middle of our courtyard and dismantling on motorcycles. And dismantling the perfect working jeeps. And a Fiat. And completely dismantle them. And try to put them back, and without knowing any, there’s no direction. Even there is direction, he cannot read in English. And there’s no [? 0:41:32.3] you’re telling. But he spends most of the time, lot of time to doing that. Probably a motorcycle to dismantle and put it back will take months together. But however he does it, it worked perfect. And he also dismantled all different watches, including those gold Rolex watches [??? 0:41:55.1] dismantled, you finding pieces everywhere. And eventually he put them back.

0:42:00.6

So that’s that. But people could do it if you’re really genius, or whatever you have like that. But otherwise it’s very difficult. It’s much easier to have direction. Don’t we? Even little, even little telephone these days, even that one needs a direction to put them together. Makes it easier. So what we [? 0:42:24.1] need is the information. I mean this is the, this is the…we learn that, we knew that, we knew that, we know that. That’s why we go for education. That’s why we go for training. Every single thing, whatever we do, we need them. That’s why we get this diploma. What you call it. So when you apply for a job [? 0:42:49.3], they’ll say “do you have a diploma?” Do you have this, do you have that training. And all this we say yeah. We very proudly show a little piece of paper. Certificate. And whatever we try to tell is, we try to tell that person [? 0:43:02.2] I know what I’m going to do. I know what to do. You know? That’s what we are telling, right? We’re telling that, we’re giving this, when you apply job, they’ll ask you qualification, right? So give little piece of paper saying I’m this and that. I have done my PhD. I am a master. And I’m this, and I’m that. It’s, in other words, you’re telling that I have know how. I know what to do. Am I right or wrong? So it’s need of ours is the knowing. The know-how. The informations that we needed. But nobody’s telling, unless you’re telling them I’m a PhD. But nobody’s telling them I’m a scholar. I’m this I’m that. But simply saying I know what to do. So the knowing and having the information is absolutely necessary. Especially when we’re [? 0:43:57.9] in the path practice. Which is really based on the personal experience of the Buddha. The how Buddha developed himself. How did he become a Buddha? He was just a simple ordinary human being just like you and me. Unfortunately, happens to be 2500 years ago. I wish he’s still around here. Then we will have much less problem. But unfortunately, 2500 years ago, who had it developed, some kind of learned, very hard way how to make our self, how to make himself free person. Free from neurosis. Free from delusions. Free from anger, hatred, jealousy. All this. A real, a total freedom.

0:45:01.9.

So that was basic Buddha’s experience. So when you try to learn from that guy’s experience, we need the information. We need the know how. We don’t want to be learned scholar, but at least we need information. So the first thing is picking up the information. Whatever it is. I used to call it learning. But on the other hand, I don’t think really the learning is a good idea. Level of learning is good idea. I think it is really the information. The information what you needed. And so the first step is the knowing the information. That’s why we give you piece of paper. That’s why we read a book. That’s why we talk. That’s why we spend time and doing all this, is giving you information. It’s not that we are lack of information. We have tremendous bombardment of informations these days. You know? Through television. Through radio. Through newspapers. And through everything, we’re bombarded with information. [Blank spot. 0:46:14.3] Really helping us. Most probably know. Most of them, well the information, most of them is the salespersons. They try to sell you whatever it is. The used car. They try to sell you that. And here is the same thing. Another Buddha’s used car. In good condition. Running in perfect working condition. Anyway, but really, truly speaking, the bombardment of the informations what we’re really getting today is mostly, is not that we been, we been service to us. Rather we been targeted. Targeted, and in the materialistic world somebody’s loss is somebody’s gain. And that’s why they try to play and you get all this bombardment of this advertising and commercial [? 0:47:25.0]. Even you have nice little entertaining movie, and it has to be disrupted by more than 60% by the bombardment of the commercials. So it’s not we’re lack of information. We have a lot of those targeted informations coming to us. But is there really good information coming to us to make our self free? We don’t. Very limited. So that’s why, and that’s why people are such [? 0:47:59.6].

0:47:59.6.

You have that interest to looking into the Tibetan spiritual path because it may have some help for you. To relieve our pains that caused by our neurosis. Especially mental and physical. Forget about future life. And that is another issue together. But as present life, and the pains that we go through. And if you really look in our life, look ourself, look in our life, look back last six days, or last one week… Today’s what? Thursday. Just look for the last what, Wednesday, Tuesday, Monday and Sunday. Look for last three days from Monday. And if you look it back put our life and how much joy we have. How much misery we have. We know that. We know that. So and that’s the reason why the need is there. I raise the first question. Is there need? The answer here is use your own personal experience. Just forgot about the whole life. But look for the last four, three days. And you see the needs there. If need it, if need it [? 0:49:31.0] oh, I forgot one thing. All right. What guarantee do I have? Moneyback? What guarantee do I have? No! No guarantee for whatsoever. No guarantee. No guarantee for whatsoever. However, there’s a chance. There’s a possibility because a lot of people made it through. Including Buddha. A lot of them made it through. And if you follow the footstep, we may make it. There’s a chance. There’s no guarantee. It’s not risk-free. There’s no guarantee. So, that’s why we try to… So no guarantee. However, if you would like to experiment, if you like to go through, then welcome to the journey. Odyssey to Freedom. So what we do is first step. Give you information. And what I’ve been telling you earlier, is these people have tremendous difficulties. These people have difficulties, but they still stick around. So grateful to them. They still stick around because they, but really, the information presented to them is 2500 years away. [???? 0:50:53.2 ] very complicated. And so much, I don’t know, too detailed, and too scattered, or to narrowed, whatever. So difficulty they had times ago.

0:51:10.1.

But still, you try to make it simple and easy as possible. So if you begin to look here, the first thing what we have on this--create a sacred environment. And here we just simply picking up information. All right I’m interested, what I’m supposed to do? The first thing, well you have to have a correct environment. If you don’t have the correct environment, it becomes difficult. When you’re not used to it. You know I mean like me, even myself, you know I used to tell people doesn’t matter wherever you are. Don’t worry about wherever you are, and you can meditate, and you can do whatever you want to. Doesn’t matter. I used to say that. And it doesn’t matter for me. But when I’m try to tell you people, doesn’t matter wherever you meditate, its become big problem. I didn’t even realize it has big problem. Number one, I didn’t mean you meditate right in the middle of this 696. I didn’t mean that, number one. Number two, number two, you know, and so these things are taking granted for the Tibetans. It was extremely taking granted. Doesn’t matter wherever you do, but the point really is, you need correct environment. So we now put that in number one. To have a correct environment. Because environment are not, they also taught in the tradition too. Not that I’m putting in new information. Tradition too. But it’s somehow we’re taking granted. It’s there, but do you know what I mean? It’s there, but nobody pay attention. It’s like the, these 19, what is it, 1888 law that no one can make call from the government property. [?? 0:53:16.2] money. But nobody pay attention till now. Till now. It’s sort of that type. It’s sort of granted it’s part of it. It’s there. But if you look at them as the environment is also extremely important. Because environment help us to bring right atmosphere. And the mental willingness. And the joy, sort of looking forwardness. And sort of the environment gives you excitement. So that excitement push us through. So bottom line is sort of the environment where you can excited to do whatever you need to do.

0:54:09.8.

Or in this case will be meditation. But I’m not going to use the word meditation much. I’m going to use word to focus and concentrate and think. I’m going to use that rather than meditate. If it’s very, again, we try to be non-mystical, [? 0:54:30.2] possible. And so really grounding. So. To be able to think, to be able to concentrate, to be able to focus, it is correct environment. If you look in the tradition of teaching, tradition [? 0:54:47.0] will give you what does correct environment mean. What sort of place, what sort of land, what sort of, these all these are there. But what really the bottom line is, wherever we are, if we’re comfortable, then it is correct environment. Again, I’m going back to my own point. Wherever we are comfortable, and that is correct environment. And so, the correct environment is important. We have to be comfortable. We cannot be uncomfortable. We cannot be place where there extremely noisy, and you try to meditate. On the, and near the Detroit airport. The Metropolitan Airport. If you try to meditate near the airport, on the way where plane goes, takes off and landed down, it’s impossible to do it, because there’s extremely noisy. So like that, sort of whatever it is, doesn’t matter. If it is beautiful place, where the great [beings? 0:55:55.0] before us have meditated, and sat, and developed, then maybe benefit to have the place [? 0:56:07.0] place help the practitioner. It may have some benefit. I do not know. Maybe does. So but that’s sort of environment. So bottom line, it has to be sacred. Where the sacredness comes in, the sacredness comes in within ourselves. That we create the sacredness and it’s not, sacredness is not something that comes out from nowhere. And no it is some sort of dropped from the sky, or grown from the ground, or something. It’s that we create it. We make our self feel comfortable and good and, if possible, excited to be able to do that.

0:57:05.9

Because, you know, good at [? 0:57:09.8], you know. So if even you have nice little tidy clean place, we feel different, then untidy, you have, you know, you have hundreds of the underwears lying. You have to swim across to get to the bed. If you have that type of thing, you feel different. Right? That’s what, that’s why the sacred, just visit example of the mental willingness, mental comfort, and feel comfortable. That’s what it is. So that’s what, that is the, what the first step is creating a good atmosphere. Atmosphere where you will be willing to do something. Where you’ll be able to sit down yourself, and where you can focus yourself. You can maintain that. Purpose of, what are you going to focus? Now you may be thinking that. Don’t rush yet. I’m going to share with you, I at least have a couple of Thursdays to be able to talk to you. And so to be able to talk to you, and don’t try to get what are we supposed to do now. And if you say that, I can simply tell you, to meditate. And that is my answer. But then you probably say what? Then I have to say something else. Right? So but I’m try to bring it gradually to be able to establish to you. So the first thing to do is to have a correct atmosphere. Sacred environment in this case. In the sacred environment, if I let you go empty-handed today, and then it’s not fair to you. And what I was supposed to do in the sacred environment. Simply I can tell you, have a good motivation. Have a good motivation. You know what I mean? What is good motivation? Motivation that we wanted to help. We wanted help our self, and help others. Whatever we do, whatever we do, we wanted to be help. Be, if you can be helpful, it’s great. But at least be help. Be willingness to help. Whatever I do, you know what I used to do in the morning? I get up myself, when I wake up myself, when I woke up, whatever the way. Whether you been woke up by telephone call, or alarm clock, or movement, or whatever. And so whenever whatever wakes you up, the first thing when I realize, I’m grateful that I’m alive.

1:00:19.1

Without fail I think that. I think that because, you know why? When you sleep, you could die. Why not? A lot of people did die. They gone to sleep, they don’t get up in the morning. We were nice way we put it, oh they gone to sleep. Very peaceful. And wonderful. You put it try to take it nice way. But reality is you don’t woke up, you died in the sleep. And it happens to so many. And so, and it’s always possible. So I’m grateful. I’m grateful that I’m still in life. I’m grateful to the life. I’m grateful I am life. So by realizing that gratefulness of being alive, I make myself remind, I will not waste my time. I will not waste my time, in general, particularly today. I try to be helpful. My goal, my purpose is try to be helpful to the people as much as I could. So set up that, that motivation, I set up. In the evening you have your, even you create sacred environment, first thing what you do, is set your motivation straight. And I must share this with you. Why? Motivation is such a powerful tool. Such a powerful tool that people have. We don’t realize many things in our life. It’s a great tool for us. Whether we want to be good or bad. This is one of the great tools. When you wanted to be helpful, and you set up a correct and good motivation. Things what we do in our life during the day, like our daily chores we do. And it become a positive because of that motivation. So now I know what goes in your head is how, why, right? Anybody think that? I mean maybe they think okay. Is that it? All right, I heard you. Whatever, maybe. But you know, when I was, not only it is the tradition of spiritual information we tell you. But when I’m looking at it, logically when you’re looking at it, we look in the people, those people who we call it monks and nuns.

1:03:11.5.

For example [? Name 1:03:14.8] here, he’s a monk. But he wears this type of clothes, so we don’t know. And he could wear [?zoop 1:03:23.6], and then he’ll be recognized as monk. But when he wears this type of clothes, we don’t know. But whatever. When you look at the monks and nuns, whether it’s Buddhist or Judeo-Christian, doesn’t matter. And we respect them. Right? And why? They have a vow. They have a vow of, one is celibacy, right? Did I say it correct? Okay. Because I get mixed up with celebrity and celibacy all the time. Because I never learned this language. So, so they have a vow of celibacy. Right? So we respect them. Why do we respect them? Because they are better, maybe, maybe supposed to be, but maybe not. But they are better spiritual person than we are. And what makes them better, because of their vows. What is the vow? It is the commitment. And how it’s been use it? By the mind power only. Mentally you’re committed. You take commitment, either in the form of ritual, or tradition, or simply a solemn promise, or whatever it may be, we take it a commitment. And that commitment is that mind power, have the benefit for those people. What benefit do they have? Take, like a killing negativity, killing. Right? Like you and me, we are sitting here, we’re not killing anybody right now. At least we know we’re not killing anybody. Do we have the positive effect or the karma we call it, Buddhist tradition? Or the gain of not killing? We don’t. We are simply not killing, we don’t have the gain of not killing, because we’re just simply not killing. So to gain the positive karma of not killing, you have to have opportunity to kill. You decided not to kill. You decide to save the life, and then you can be positivity of not killing.

1:06:05.2.

Is that clear? Right, everybody? Is it clear? Okay. Now those people called the celibate, what is it, celibacy. I almost said celibates. Celibates, right? Celibates. And they have advantage. Is they’re not killing, and they’re getting the positive karma of not killing. Even they don’t have the opportunity not to kill, it’s because of the commitment. For the commitment, whatever they have, is they use the mind power. It is the mind power. So we use the same thing. We use the same thing in the morning, and make motivation that I’ll spend all my time as much as helpful. So if you sit idle, not being helpful, but by virtue of not being unhelpful, or harmful, and then that sitting alone become a positive, and positive karma. It has tremendous value. And we have tremendous amount of time, which is neither positive or not negative in our life. [1:07:28.1] If you really look our self, look within our self, if you really look with our self, just look back one day, today alone. Did we do something very wrong called negative or negativity? No, we didn’t. Most of us, we did not. Look in our, just today, we did not do. And if you look at our self today, did we really do something very positive and great? Maybe not. Many of us, we don’t. We might’ve said our prayers or maybe not that, did something. And maybe we help somebody to give a glass of water or a piece of [? 1:08:20.4] , or something. But beside that, nothing else did. But what we really did, is we have tremendous amount of time, we just needed a positive or no negative. We just neutral, doing our daily chore. Begin from taking shower, making phone calls, and what ever. You know vacuuming our house, or doing our laundry, cooking food and cleaning the dishes. And doing shopping and of course working. And [?? 1:09:03.7], we go work, driving through traffic and all this we did. We just needed by natural it is positive. No it is by natural, it is negative.

1:09:15.3.

But our motivation in the morning can make that a positive. Simple way of adjusting our mind. Very simple. A simple motivation of helping in the morning, taking care of little kids, or washing them. Washing our self too. Taking a shower can make very positive. We can think we’re going to indulge in cleansing. It is cleansing actually. But cleansing not only the dirt that we have on our body, the threat that we carry, but also cleansing our negative karmas, and also simply even we wash ourself, we’re clean. And even it will help other people because they can sit with you and they don’t have to close their nose, turnaround, because we wash it. Same thing for doing our laundry. If we’re going wearing same old socks repeatedly, it not only doesn’t feel good for yourself, but makes the other person miserable to be near you. So you even be relieving this attitude in those thoughts. Can help us doing our daily chores, such as doing laundry, vacuuming our house, making offerings and taking shower and driving. I had to go for work, because otherwise I can’t feed my kids. And that is for the benefit of kids. And all this sort of thing. And all this attitude we have tremendous way of making very positive to our self. And that’s the information I’m whatever little I know I’m try to provide to you. And after providing the information, it is for you to analyze and accept or reject. And if you accept, then I will tell you, I’ll make it condition, that try to internalize the information. Just don’t leave it in the book. Try to internalize. Internalize in such a way that it becomes part of your functioning. Part of your life. Okay? So I’m going to stop here because I know people have coming, it’s a little after nine, but people have to look after somebody else. And you have babysitters and so on and forth. And I’m learning those precious in life. I did not know for many years, and I was always late for 20 minutes and I’m always behind for close on time. But I try to be on time because I realize how difficult it would people. I don’t realize that before. I’m still living half in Tibet. And when you, when you really, if I’m looking back in my life experience, coming from Tibet, of that old Tibet into a new life here, it’s almost like you picked it out of the middle of 17th century and dropped into the 20th century. And that’s my experience. Thank you. And I will see you on, there is no next Thursday because we don’t have a place. So the Thursday after that, what date is it, Kathy? You told me you going to give me the list.