i don't need a flower but i thought i
would put this flower here
symbolically to support all our
brothers and sisters in ukraine
so um for a while
for some time
i was
asking myself
how
do i
visualize
infinity how do i visualize
countless of sentient beings
how this was like a puzzle for my mind
especially for a mind that
has only ever seen or worked with finite
objects
and this puzzle
kept me
occupied for a while
and
as my favorite activity is looking at
carpets i spent quite a
few moments looking at carpets
and then
i found the solution
and the solution is
carpet
and sand
and so then you would ask what does
carpet and sand have to do with
infinity and so i shall explain
um
i'm gonna present
now my
my first
witness or my first evidence you may not
be able to see it
but
stuck to this blue piece of paper
the first evidence i collected
from the bottom of our vacuum cleaner
this morning
and gyatso was our
cleaner this morning handling the vacuum
helped me collect this specimen
mind you um i cannot guarantee a hundred
percent
that this is what i think it is
uh it could be but it could also be lint
or it could be hair
however
however i i think it is a piece of
fabric from our carpet here a little
yeah strand of carpet
which is
quite thin much thinner than a strand of
hair
but anyway i collected this specimen for
the purposes of this talk
and so i was trying to think about this
issue of infinity
and then i was looking at the carpet
and i thought well
what if i wear
what if i wear one of those tiny little
strands of
of carpet
and what if every other sentient being
likewise
was a little strand of carpet
and then i looked at the vastness of the
carpet
and then i said wow if i wear one tiny
little strand of of carpet located
perhaps in a corner over there
and look at the vastness in front of me
and i couldn't be even able to
to see or even imagine that would seem
to me like countless others
that i wouldn't even able wouldn't be
able to fathom so that might look to me
at that point like countless and
infinite
and so um that prompted me to do some
research before this this
um talk
and i try to figure out okay how many
little strands
of carpet are in each little bunch of
carpet that you can see in front of you
well i counted that approximately
actually it looks like there's one bunch
but actually two bunch ones on top of
the other
there are approximately a hundred in
each one of those little bunches
now in the space of an eight and a half
square
inch which is this kind of size right
there are approximately three million
two hundred and forty thousand
little strands
of carpet so some of you may be sitting
on about a small island on the caribbean
and so i figure okay this is holding if
i wear a little strand of carpet over
there
and i'm looking over that way i may be
looking at basically all sentient beings
on these planets and now i can and now i
can start to visualize that these may
encompass this carpet here in the dining
room may actually encompass close enough
to every sentient being on this planet
and then i could work with that
and then i decided okay let me think
about the sand on the beach because i
used to frequent the beaches i was born
next to the ocean then i lived in
california also by the ocean and i
really liked the ocean so
i thought about the sand on the beach
and i figured well what if i wear a tiny
little grain of sand on the beach and
every
and every sentient being everywhere
where another they were all little
grains of sand on the beach
and i figured yes there would be
countless grains of sand and i can
definitely use that for my visualization
and then i went a step further and i
said well you know
if i were really one grain of sand and
all other sentient beings were also one
grain of sand
what would make me think that i am the
most important
grain of sand on that beach
and then i thought
well you know
if someone were to take my little grain
of sand
from the beach
there will still be a beach over there
nobody would even miss
that little grain of sand that would be
me
everybody would still have fun they'll
be the greatest beach on earth
however
if somebody were to take all of the
other grains of sand from the beach but
leave me there my little grain of sand
so important so beautiful and so
wonderful
would there still be a beach there and
would steep would people still enjoy it
and call it the most wonderful beach on
earth
no
there wouldn't be a beach there nobody
would want to go there there's only one
little grain of sand there there would
be nothing
it'll be close
the beach closed people go somewhere
else
so am i really that important
so this little analogy of the sand and
the beach
and the carpet in the living room was
very very helpful when i
continue with my analogy
let's say that someone were to drop
a little bit of
ketchup
on one little bunch of those down there
would anybody notice that
oh probably not maybe an apple children
would she would but i don't think
anybody else would
i think anybody else would look i mean
it would blend with all the other colors
but if i were to drop
a whole tub of ketchup right in the
middle
of
the dining room and it would make like
three squares of this right in the
center
i mean that would be
that would be
nine million six hundred
and eighty thousand worth of
tiny little
strands
[Laughter]
it would be very noticeable
so again
that went back to my self-centered
thought
so how important am i
at the end of the day
the carpet and the sand happened to be
a very important visualization for me
and i
every time i feel a hint of
self-importance
i go back to the beach and it's so much
fun
[Laughter]
thank you