Archive Result

22

Soundfile 20070118GRNYChooseLife

Speaker Gelek Rimpoche

Location NY

Topic Death, life, meditation, etc.

Transcriber David Lewis

Date May 8, 2022

Number of pages – 10

[0:00:34.8] Thank you. And everybody. And wish you very good and happy prosperity, both in this field of spiritual and material. What I mean is wish you a happy new year. Prosperity in both spiritual and material field. Academic field as well.

[0:01:08.2] OK, so, my program begins here last week, actually. And the last week I can’t make it because I had a doctor’s appointment, and on the Friday early morning. And that’s like I had to wait three or four months, and had to get end of last… until last year I ignored all the doctor’s appointment and went on the programs. And I keep on missing it, all the doctors. And this year I cannot afford to do that, because when I went to Malaysia… because Malaysia there’s... one friend of mine… we don’t call it student, but good friend.. is a medical doctor and her husband is a doctor. And so they started… they give me yearly check, and this year they giving me…you know, like wong wong wong. And literally she’s crying and begging me, you know, all sorts of things, and so. So I have to be… little more… pay little more attention. But for me, as long as I don’t have ache and pain anywhere, so, then it’s OK. So that’s why I had to cancel last week.

[0:02:39.1] Then I’m here today. And so… we hopefully… I will continue this year, as much as I could, like last yar. So tonight… it’s interesting, because I don’t want to have the death as first talk, and beginning of the year. And so I made the life… life, last Thursday, and then today supposed to be death. So, since I did not talk last Thursday, so I’m going to talk about life a little bit before I talk. Actually, they link together. The life follows… you know, the death follows life, and life follows death. So it’s sort of… it’s a circle that goes round, together. So, why do we talk about death, actually? Not… you know, people think so funny, sometimes. Sometimes people think we talk about the death so that people get scared. And so you put little more efforts in Dharma practice and spiritual practice.

[0:04:06.7] That’s not true. That’s not true. No one would like to get scared. No one needs to be threatened. We are all grown-up kids [laughs]. Maybe little crazy, but we are all grown-up kids. Nothing need to be threatened, and threatened doesn’t even work. It is an old-fashioned thing. It doesn’t even work… we know very well. But… but, why we talk about the death? Because we should know there is… not only we knew, but we have to be reminded there is something called death. And what happens… what happens then, and thereafter? And then… The question is really, who knows? Actually, who knows? Because we don’t know anybody who had come back from gone. Like Allen Ginsberg used to say, the only problem is nobody came back and told me, I’m back. And that is the problem… that’s true. It is the problem.

[0:05:25.6] Since we don’t see, we don’t see… lot of things we don’t see. When we don’t see, what we do, normally, we will… we try to know what we don’t know is through our mental capacity, through analyze, logical, clairvoyant, whatever… psychic. That’s what we normally do. So here what we do is.. the Buddha told us, exactly, this is what happens. So... what Buddha told us… what really happened is, whatever the positive deeds and karma we’ll be able to carry, and we have good, positive result. And whatever the negative karma we carry, we have negative result, no matter whatever you do, whatever we do. If we have a positive karmic carrying well, no matter whatever, whoever says whatever, we going to be perfect and good. That’s is the Buddha’s prediction. Not only as a prediction, but that’s what the Buddha knew. It’s Buddha’s knowledge. And it is Buddha’s experience, and that shared to us. Which means… which means… that is our best source of information available, as far as I know. Because nobody else came back. There’s no scientific information.. I mean, there may be, some crazy scientist might have produced something… who knows, fight? But sort of commonly accepted thing is not there. And so that is the whatever the best we have

[0:07:35.8] So, according to that, whatever going to happened is, we don’t have to even guess what Buddha said. We don’t have to guess whatever going to happened when we die. We going to die for sure, no matter whatever you do. No matter whoever, whatever you do, it’s all go… no matter whoever. Even Buddha’s gone. You know we talk about the Buddha today, Buddha said this, Buddha did this and that. And Jesus did this and that and all this and that. But then we’re talking about… what is it… 2007? From where? Where did we start that, right? And it’s all gone. So spiritually no matter whatever it is, all goes. Materially, whatever it is, they’re going to go. Somebodies might have frozen and kept it, and thinking they can wake up sometime. Yeah, they will wake up. But not necessarily same person. Some kind of very strange monster will wake up. Take from… mark my word. It’s going to wake up. That’s what’s going to happened. Because that very individual, whoever was alive is gone. The death is reality.

[0:09:04.6] So we all going to go. There is nothing we can do. We cannot drag that out, and you know. like when you try to butcher some animal… you don’t see here, but in old Tibet, they catch the goat and try to pull, the goat will go and pull back as much as the power they have… scream, yell, roll down, fall down, they all do. Even then the butcher’s not going to let it go. Just like that, we all go through with this. No matter whatever you do. That’s bound to be.

[0:09:43.1] That is temporary. It is only temporary matter. That’s not permanent. That’s a temporary… it’s a short period, it’s going to be. And the day after we wake up, again. We talk about the process of dying, and that will completely reverse… exact the process… eight process that we’re going to [inaudible] this way is exactly going to be reversed, reversed exactly. So we’ll wake up and different life, different life, different memory. The memory is almost wiped out… it’s not there. Because the time… the time will wipe off the memory. I mean really… we knew that. People who said they don’t remember… they forget friends, number of times, when they don’t see, number of years. And some worse cases they don’t recognize their companion, spouses, children. And worst of that, they don’t even remember their name, and who they are. They don’t remember that. They lose their identity. It is memory wiped out. It is… our memory is just like…

[0:11:09.3] Actually, there is two memories, two bank of memories: a large memory bank and a smaller memory bank. The larger memory bank is the overall life, life after life. And that’s the larger memory bank. We are not accessible to that, because of our physical condition, and out mental capacity and physical condition, both combined together, we could not be access to that. So we have a very limited… some kind if substation coming out of… you know… attached to the server of your computer, that give you little, portable computer in your hand, and you have your own memories, whatever you do, and you it started punching in the information, and you can access, and you remember it, and you can see it. And that’s what… that’s exactly life’s all about it

[0:12:10.8] So, the question is, what happens after death? Where you going to go? What kind of life you going to get? What kind of computer they going to give it to you? And what is that? Are you going to be a brilliant person, or stupid person, or… what you call it? Artisan? Or, or, or just a defected… you know… the mentally challenged, or… or is it going to be a human being, or is it going to be somebody with our… two horns on your head? Or is it going to be someone who walks, with… you know… both forelegs down. or whatever going to be?

[0:12:59.0] And no one makes a decision at that time, and say, hey, you going to be this, and that is your thing, No, it’s not going to happen. Not going to happen. We are the one who making decision what we’ll be. And we are making the decision in this life, every minute that we go through we are making that decision. Every minute of our life we are making that decision, whether we realize or not. It is just like the scientist whose wearing that little white dress and walking into the laboratory walking around. And every minute they are finding they’re making decision… they making the decision of what will your life, down the road, twenty years and thirty years from now. Exactly like this. Each and every individual making the decision of, what’s going to be my next life. Not only next life, life after tomorrow. What’s going to happen. And exactly we been every pot we have, every action we engage, we been punching he information in. The base is building in,

[0:14:16.7] And that is how it’s going to happen. That’s what I meant... Life death is linked to each. It’s not separate at all. It is exactly the same thing. Not only this life, and death, and the bardo and the future life. They all linked together. There in no disconnection in between. Not at all. It is a completely linked together. So the question of what’s going to happen during the death, after death, is, we re now making the decision. Every minute. Every thought that we entertain. Every action that we do. Every word that what we say. Every sound we produce are recording there.

[0:15:19.9] That is our karma. There’s nothing separate thing called karma. This is… karma is all about that. And this is the best protection… projection that Buddha give, is exactly true to all of us.

[0:15:43.5] So this is our life. And that is our death. The body, the physical body, is a temporary home. And I always say, it is rented apartment. When the heat doesn’t work. When the pipes doesn’t work, get leaked, and you know, bursted. And you know, all this. And that means your have to be questioning whether you want to stay in that apartment or not. And when the roof goes off, and when the heat goes off, and the electricity goes off, even you want to stay in there. And that’s what I mean, it’s temporary.

[0:16:45.9] But, the pains that we carry, mentally, are not temporary. The pain we carry physically are all temporary. Pain that we carry mentally are not temporary. It’s continue. This is attach toward mind side, not attached toward the body side. And that means, separation of the mind and the body. So whatever is the body side, it is there, it is going to be left. It be decompose or whatever it is. And it’s going to go that way. Whatever is attached to the mind side, it’s going to go… with it. You all knew that. Most of you know. That’s why we put our efforts in. And that’s why you came in the rain today. That’s why Alex brought me here, and couldn’t get to this… this… the building here. You know we been gong round this way and that way and that way, there’s a traffic here; can’t go this way. And almost he’s going to drive against the light, and against the [laughs]. Traffic, you know [laughs]. And that’s what happen… that’s what you can…oh, oh, whatever… still he’s driving and I’m sitting in the car. But you people walked, came through the train and walked, right? In the rain, You do that, you did that, because of that treason.

[0:18:43.4] So, what the impact, what death makes the individual really is… as we have to recognize, and realize every minute of our action. Every minute, both, all three: physical, mental and sound, all three are the one which is making the decision of what we’re going to be.

[0:19:26.8] So knowing that, if we know it… knowledge alone cannot convince individual. Because… in my case... I do have all information about diabetics. Every single individual who has mouth in that way tells me, don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t do this, do this, do that… you know, every… and every single time. Honestly. So there’s no lacking of information.

[0:20:16.5] Exactly. Sometimes I even know more that the diabetic specialist who thinks, oh yeah, let me have to think that. I said, mmm, maybe, then look. I said, you’re right. So then… that happens. But I cannot act, because I’m a couch potato. [audience laughs]. Honestly. So knowledge is there. Information is there. But not making impact on the individual. That’s because of the addictions. Addictions. I’m addicted to be couch potato. It’s really comfortable, soft, nice, and nobody bothers you. It’s great [audience laughs] you know. Sit there. Honestly. Even you don’t get food, I’m fine. No really [audience laughs]. Honestly, it’s OK. OK, as long as you don’t have low sugar, that’s OK. That’s good.

[0:21:33.5] And that is addiction, right? But knowledge is there, addiction’s there. And knowledge cannot overrule the… overcome the addiction. There, the problem is lack of… let’s call it… lack of will power. You’re not very… you never… all the knowledge, is you’re not convinced. You may be convinced, but you’re not… there’s no sense of urgency. You know what I mean? No sense of urgency. And particularly for the little knowledge of the Dharma… we… oh yeah, we die, you die, everybody else dies, so what? You know… it is body, it is temporary, life is temporary. It is [inaudible] temporary. It has to go, so it goes. So what. What a big deal.

[0:22:37.4] Not knowing what’s going to happened in the future life [laughs] that is the biggest problem. If you think about it, then it may be little helpful… who knows. Just like that, we have information. Every deed of ours make a difference in our future life. Yet we can’t change. Yet we cannot change the deeds. So, there we are. So the spiritual teachers, such as Buddha, or Jesus, or all of them comes in picture. And then they suggest you a way of changing this. And umm… and whether you want to do it intelligent way, or you want to do it a different way. And you want to force yourself, have a discipline, then discipline comes in picture.

[0:23:53.3] And even discipline’s not enough, so then there is, oh this is a downfalls, and this is negatives, downfalls, this and that, all of them will make a very heavy looking… sometime you can’t even life your head. So that much heavy they will make it, and that because… hoping that the… that will make impact on the mid of the people, and that will change. Most of the… you know… even the downfalls have tow categories. One is negative by nature. Another one is just by rule alone, breaking rule alone. Breaking rule alone are not necessarily negative by nature, but the people get the downfall because you broke the rule. That’s how Buddhism works, anyway. Most of those… you know… the monks and nuns, they have a discipline. They cannot eat in the afternoon. It’s a rule. And if they eat in the afternoon, they break their vow. Not completely break, but it’s a downfall. It’s not by nature it’s a negative. But it’s a downfall because you’re breaking rule. You know what I mean?

[0:25:19.9] So there’s two categories, two categories of downfalls. And they are… the other ones are made because the individual will have bigger impact, so that addictions… maybe the person may think, wow, it is going to be very heavy, so let me not submit myself to the addictions. And that’s why all the rules of all the great religions, traditions made for that reason. They try to use the fear. The try to use the sense of urgency, all of them, whatever they could get ahold of it. Nobody’s going to get anything… I mean, mind you… it is to benefit the individual. No one’s going to be benefitted out of it. Neither the Buddha, nor the Jesus, no one going to profit anything out of that. But they use this, so that maybe have better impact.

[0:26:34.2] So the knowledge alone is not enough. So the constant, continuous awareness and working with it every day, thinking about it, that will have impact. That’s why they tell you, meditate, meditation, so meditate. Feels good. Does some different thing. Burn little incense. Ring little bell. And you know, sit there with the cross leg, or… sit on the ground. Ground’s not there, sit on the chair [audience laughs]. And all this you do, and do something different, so that, again, it will have impact. The simple reason why meditation is for that. The purpose is this. So the mind may be able to focus, concentrate. So doesn’t run around and think zillion things to do, together. Mind may be focused, focus and maybe remember impact. And so make better impact.

[0:27:56.8] So what they really doing is… until it becomes habitual. That’s why they pushing it. When it becomes habitual, when it becomes habitual.. and then somehow it becomes your daily chores. And daily chores… sometime you don’t even know you did.. have to do it… but you do it automatically. By the time you look at that, it’s all done. [inaudible] about work, you have to get up, you have to take shower, you have to do all that, and it’s all done… without pushing, without anything. Except we can... ah, it’s the weekend… I can sleep in. Other than that, it’s becomes automatic. And when it becomes automatic, then it… sort of habitualize, you don’t have to push efforts. Effortlessly it becomes positive. Every deed. Thoughts. That is how individual perfected[pervaded?].

[0:29:11.6] I mean very unconventionally I’m talking to you. But that’s exactly what it is. Conventionally, we have to say… you have to purify all your negativities. And you have to accumulate merit. And sit down and meditate. Do a circumambulations. And do this seven-limbed business. And whole purpose is this. So, honestly… So you have to think slightly different than the traditional way o thinking. You… you cannot change the goal. The method and way how we’re getting the individual on this, we have to think little unconventional way. And if I make it very unconventional, and then it may lose… it is holiness of… it is very… there’s a danger of that too. Sort of, holiness… you may lose it.

[0:30:37.6] But, whatever it may be, the bottom line really depends on that. Dharma practice, spiritual practice does not depend on anything other than mind and way of living… way of thinking. That’s exactly what it is. Even you go to temple or monastery, or in forests, or in the caves of the Himalaya. And if your mind is not bring to in that level, it is no different than living in the middle of Manhattan. No difference. If you make the mind in the positive way, again, no matter wherever your living… wherever you live, whatever you’re doing, however dress you wear, whatever you do, it will make total difference.

[0:32:01.2] You heard the Dalai Lama, or the great earlier teachers saying, practice does not belong to dress. The practice does not belong to the hair shape[?], whether you’re bald-headed or short hair, or long hair, or doesn’t make difference. You heard that, all the time… that’s what it meant. So to me it is the mind. Absolutely, nothing but the mind. Every action we act, we take, it is influenced by the mind. Without mind, the action won’t be there. Without our thought… mind, motivation. Si that is the most important thing.

[0:33:11.8] And then, the second question arises, what makes it positive? What makes it’s negative? And that is very important question. Again, again, it’s very hard to make, what makes it’s positive, what makes it’s negative. Normally we think, well, if you are doing something… you know… Dharma way, great way, something, then it’s positive. Otherwise it’s negative. Our usual thing is negative… we think that way. Not necessary. Not a necessary. It’s not necessary.

[0:34:09.2] Not necessary. As I said earlier, you may be sitting in cave, and absolutely sacrificing all luxurious life, and everything. Yet, you may be creating a terrible negativities. It happens. Or you may be looking completely crazy guy, down in the street. Maybe creating a tremendous positive karma. It happened in history, and it’s happening today. And it will happen in the future. Again. Mind. The last few techniques, mostly mind, plus few techniques. That’s it.

[0:35:29.3] In short, if you think you really going to be great spiritual practitioners, and put in tremendous amount of effort, and doing all this, not necessarily you going to be great. And… and you may think, well, I’m sort of really nothing but…ahhhh… you know, I can’t do much. Not necessarily bad.

[0:36:14.0] I don’t remember whose word is it… and it was quoted in the Pabongka’s Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, right? Right? In Palms of Your Hand. And it says, [Tibetan] one who remains… who remains in family, you have total liberation withing you, just like Marpa, the founder of Kagyu tradition, as well as great many earlier Mahasiddhas, and even kings and ministers. And don’t let me say, the other side of it. I don’t think Pabongkha even quoted in there. The other side is just exact opposite of it.

[0:37:28.4] So that tells us how we should conduct [contact?], how we should live our life, especially in America, The Buddhism, the earlier, traditional one.. we have to base on the traditional one, otherwise we lose our ground. So have to be true to the tradition. Yet techniques has to be… has to be… to be… to be… be worked out. Slightly different.

[0:38:34.6] The principal of learning, analyzing, and meditating is something we cannot change. But, within the learning itself, way and how we learn, we have to change, without which it’s not going to work. I used to have long conversation with the late Tarab Rinpoche, from… from [Darmog?]. Some you have met Tarab. He’s a great psychologist, and he put all Dharma in that… what you call it… Unity and Duality. And the whole Dharma he puts in that… whole Dharma in there. Unity in Duality.

[0:39:35.1] It takes long time for people like to understand… like, you know… whatever Tarab’s teaching… doing it… nothing His Holiness The Dalai Lama understood it. Just two years before he dies. And he was a little surprised, and he told Tarab to come to India and teach in the monasteries. But the monasteries… [inaudible] monastery, are necessarily want some ex-monk to come and teach. So they have to switch him to teaching in the schools. And all of those. And… but… you know, he did one time. And he passed away. And things like that. That’s what happens.

[0:40:26.8] So… what I’m saying is, learning, analyzing meditation cannot change, but the way and how you learn should change. Way and how you analyze should change. And way and how you meditate also should change. In terevan[?] I used to talk lot. And like we have terminology called kun-dah[?]. Right, and, what is kun-dah in Sanskrit? It is [Tibetan] these three nature of existence. Kun-dah is exaggerated and mental projected. Shay-wah is controlled by the others. And yung-du is the reality. [audience inaudible] Right. And we call it kun-dah, shay-wah and yung-du. And both Tarab Rinpoche and I spent more than five years to try to figure what is this three is all about it. And he was telling me, I wish our teachers have told us, the kun-dah is just exaggerated, projected thoughts. Because your mind is not in our own control, because we been confused in absolute reality [laughs]. Is that… how simple it would have been. So it’s take… the monastery… even today, even today the monasteries in India will insist not to say that, because if you say it, they won’t study. So you have to go and circle it, circle it, circle it, circ… round and round and round and round and find conclusion. Some conservative teachers still say that.

[0:42:38.6] So whether you going to waste five years of your life just to figure out. It’s a technical names they have. So the learning part has to be changed. Even way to analyze it. Everything should also be… you know because the people in the West are not stupid. And people in Tibet who are learning in the monasteries, they don’t have any other education, except that. That’s the only education the have. So they maybe learn it…some of them are great learned. But… but they don’t have it… any other education. So… so where the debate is also very… sometime very heavy. And analyzing should be… you know, using the brilliant mind that each and every one of you have it… are using that.

[0:43:52.3] And meditation will also become easier. Because whatever you understand, and the mental is actually focusing… focusing. Sitting down. Keeping you shoulders straight. Head down. All of those are show biz. The true idea is keeping focus, not losing. This nine steps, nine stages. And utilizing six powers to overcome, is the reality. So there’s a lot of culture garbage. And lot of realities. And figure that out, and do it. And that is how it should be done. That is how the American Buddhism should hope to take shape.

[0:44:57.8] [audience (Dimitri?)] Someone asked me the other day, a woman I work with who had read about Buddhism, and actually grew up in China. She asked me a question that I didn’t have a good answer to, about death. Her mother had dies, and she said, if you have no memory of your past life, and it’s not even really you… I mean it’s like a relative self reincarnated, but it’s not exactly me, because the self is impermanent, changing all the time. So why should I care about me in a future life. It’s not really me anyway, and I won’t remember it.

[0:45:30.0] [Rimpoche:] Your laptop is not working. But server is working. It has all informations in that. [audience:] But the person experiencing the result. Like let’s say, I the next life I’m a deer or something around the [inaudible] that next incarnation ahs no… it’s almost like…. [Rimpoche:] That’s why… that’s why we don’t know why we are suffering. [audience:} We don’t see the continuity of it. [Rimpoche:] Because this.. the laptop is allotted to you doesn’t carry that information. The information is in the server, and karma itself manages. Exactly. [audience:] The question is whether the individual responsibility now for a future self… It’s sort of like, why does this lifetime care about the next lifetime? The server cares. [Rimpoche:] Right. [audience:] But we’re not identifying with the server right now, because in our limited… where we are right… [Rimpoche:] But, but, but, we are the same person… same person who’s carrying the new laptop. It is the same person. Look different. [audience:] But there is something that never changes? [Rimpoche:] Oh, yeah, continuation of individual, continuation of individual.

[0:46:45.7] That will be slightly different now, you know. Continuation of the individual. And the individual identity… continuing. That’s there[?] But is this a limited information. Otherwise why should we care? Nothing thereafter, so ignore completely. The old moral [? gnomes?]. I mean, even Buddha himself has said it, if you don’t have to care that, and if you fall in love with your own daughter get married… it’s not right, you know… honestly. The [Tibetan] right. These… the person who accept only one life, those [audience inaudible] Charvakas, right? Charvakas. We call it [Tibetan]. Charvakas say that. Thereafter there’s no difference. So he said, it’s fine. Negative is not a concerned. If you fall in love with your own daughter, get married, nothing’s wrong. That’s what they say. Honestly. And that’s not right, right? We all know that. We don’t know what is wrong, but we know something’s not right. [laughs]. So that’s how it works.

[0:48:32.5] [audience:] My question was… of course it’s thought that we experience suffering because of our past actions. But do we also experience mental suffering out of foreboding of future suffering, a kind of anxiety of what’s going to happen to us because we haven’t taken care of our negative… we haven’t purified our [?] deeds, so we have an anxiety about that. Is there a part of ourself that experiences suffering because we know that in… somehow we have an idea of future…

[0:49:03.8] [Rimpoche:] Rrrright. But that may be a present, present. That might not be part of the future. It may be part of… present. When you say, past, present and future, it could be part of a present worrying about, bringing anxiety of what’s going to happen in future. Yeah, you do… we do. Very much. But that is part of.. when you divided into three times, past, present and future, that should go in the category of present, rather than in future. So, if you say it is the future, then the future begins here. And then it’ll emerge… the separation of past, present and future will be difficult. Because it becomes a gray.. doesn’t have clearcut past, present and future.

[0:50:12.7] So technically, I have to say no. But it happens, right? But we do carry the worry, anxiety, but that is the… not as a part of future, but as part of present. [audience:] The worry is in the present, but… [Rimpoche:] The worry itself is happening now, and now is not a future. That’s what I think. With that link for tomorrow show, with that continue tomorrow show, but whatever we are worrying today is here today. It’s twelve midnight will make difference [laughs]. Again is because it dependent arise, isn’t it? Because it dependent arise. The label of dividing the day, time, and conditions, and acceptance, and that makes the distinction between the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth… twelve midnight. I mean the clocks will go into zero, right? And that is again because of dependent arise.

[0:51:42.9] [audience:] And the distinction… because of course you experience what… the result of something of your past actions. But there’s a certain anticipation that you do something positive that you will… [Rimpoche:] Right. The word “anticipation” itself should give us understanding. We are anticipating means that’s going to happened, that will happened.

[0:52:13.6] OK [laughs]. So I will say it’s a part of... Yes, you want participate in this debate? [audience:] So part of our motivation now would be to have compassion for our future incarnation that we won’t recognize as our selves. [Rimpoche:] Wait a minute. The moment you say “motivation”, I will question. You know, the… the word “motivation” give us some kind of different meaning. Certain… certain ideas that we been informed ae considered as good motivation, like Bodhi Mind, or something. And so I don’t think we should look as motivation as some kind of label on which we can hold it. I will say, constant continuing thought of positiveness. Because… you know… we have in habit of… one good motivation, and then we engage all our activities, and hoping that motivation will cover whole activities until it’s completed. And even sometimes, ends…. What is it… the means justify by end result, because we have good motivation here.

[0:54:24.1] So that’s what I just sort of thought. The moment you said “motivation”, the thought came up in my thought [inaudible], sort of wake me up, shook me up a little bit, honestly. I said, yeah, I have to mention that. Not just you as you are individual, no, in general. [audience:} What did you call it, constant continuing...? [Rimpoche:] A sort of awareness, alertness. [audience:] Constant continuing positiveness? [Rimpoche:] No, awareness. [audience inaudible] You know, and also the positive, because, you know, we have… you have habit of good motivation, and then goes through, and the, you know, end becomes important, will justify all means. You know, that’s what we do, in [inaudible] today.

[0:55:31.5] I don’t mean George Bush has good motivation, but you never know, who knows. [audience [laughs]. You have to give him the benefit o doubt. [audience inaudible] [Rimpoche and audience laugh] Thank you. So that’s what… and I thought. And I will be here next… next Wednesday we have the debate, right? And I hope you all will come there. Who knows who’s going to win [Rimpoche and audience laugh] Hey, I got an email from somebody, from Canada. [audience:] I said, who’s making book on it? [audience inaudible] [Rimpoche:] What did you say. [audience inaudible] What I wanted to… it’s a funny thing… I got an email, and saying that I heard you debating Professor Thurman, and my money is on you. [audience and Rimpoche laugh] Is that funny. [audience inaudible]

[0:56:51.6] And next Thurs… uhhh… Wednesday. And then the Thursday the… January 25th… we begin with the… we begin with the Four Noble Truths, and Truth of Suffering. And I decided to have four Thursdays on that, and thereafter. And [pause] Interesting. Anyway. So we do have these programs running. And the programs are worked out very carefully. And I try put a lot of efforts in the program, by myself, as well as our program people, and various teachers in Jewel heart. We had a number of meetings also, for the last couple of years. We had the meetings in Ann Arbor. And some of the… all the our teachers are unable to attend all these meetings. So, when they are unable to attend all the meetings, sometime the programs, and what we planned does not get convey. Somehow we have a communication break. And when we have the communication break… and again, with great motivation, when you try to do something else, which is not really fits where I plan it, and then, its becomes little uneasy for me. So I hope that shall not repeat in future. So that’s what my simple request. Because I wanted to have, if possible, whole, unified, whole Jewel Heart, whether it is Ann Arbor or Cleveland or even Holland, and Nebraska, Chicago, and New York, we hope to be able to go one program.

[1:00:10.2] And also, you know, interesting thing I’m reading here. February 8 and the 15th is during our… 15th might not be… 8 is during our winter retreat. And we make a decision… we made a decision during the winter retreat as well the summer retreat, we don’t have any program running in any place in Jewel Heart. That was decision made by Allen Ginsberg many years ago. So we follow that. So, umm.. so... it is we need a good knowing and moving together. But it is really wonderful idea. And great, and we’d really love to include everything in that. Which also has to take a lot of… precautions too. And idea is great, we will definitely include. But when it is… when we are ready. Just one [inaudible] that. And thank you.

[1:01:45.6] [audience:] Do you have announcements.