Transcript
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[3:47] Hello everyone and welcome to this live
[3:50] event for Celebr celebrating Living
[3:53] Gems, the world's largest collection of
[3:55] Tiknahan's teachings. Um we're so
[3:58] grateful to be together with you all.
[4:01] Thank you all those joining us on Zoom,
[4:03] joining us on YouTube, um or watching
[4:06] the recording later. Um and those on
[4:09] Zoom, thank you so much for saying hello
[4:11] from all over the world. It's always so
[4:13] beautiful to see uh such a global
[4:15] community come together and join us. Um,
[4:18] so we're gonna be together for the next
[4:21] hour and 15 minutes to celebrate this
[4:24] beautiful yeah gift of the world of
[4:26] living gems. And in a moment I'm going
[4:28] to hand over to our monastic teachers to
[4:31] fully welcome you and begin this event.
[4:34] But just wanted to share a brief
[4:36] overview of what to expect. Um, we're
[4:38] going to have shortly a meditation and a
[4:41] dedication for this event and for living
[4:43] gems. And then we're going to hear from
[4:44] some of our monastic teachers about uh
[4:47] what Living Gems is and how it can
[4:49] support our practice and our our lives
[4:52] uh living in the world today. And uh
[4:54] then we're going to hear from some of
[4:55] the lay team as well about how to use
[4:58] Living Gems. And then towards the end of
[5:00] the event, we'll have a song um
[5:02] together. So please uh yeah, enjoy. And
[5:06] I'm gonna just to let you know, I'm
[5:07] going to close the chat box in a moment.
[5:09] You will still be able to message the
[5:10] hosts and co-hosts. That's for those on
[5:12] on Zoom. Um but that's just so that we
[5:15] can keep our collective energy on the
[5:17] event. So now I'm going to hand over to
[5:20] brother Papu who's going to guide us um
[5:23] in the opening meditation.
[5:28] >> Hello dear beloved friends, dear beloved
[5:30] community. To begin our session
[5:33] together, I invite us to sit comfortably
[5:36] so that we can enjoy a few breath of
[5:39] mindfulness together. Whether we're
[5:41] sitting on a chair, on a sofa, on the
[5:44] floor, allow oursel to be upright but
[5:48] relaxed,
[5:50] we may like to just close our eyes and
[5:52] just listen to the voice so that we can
[5:55] feel grounded arriving into our body,
[5:59] feeling the sensation.
[6:02] If there's any tension that is arising,
[6:06] we can be mindful of the feeling of the
[6:08] tension.
[6:11] We can bring ease to the parts of the
[6:13] body where there is a little bit of
[6:15] stiffness or agitation.
[6:18] Not pushing it away or fighting it.
[6:23] Just be aware of it and it will take
[6:26] refuge in your presence in your
[6:28] kindness.
[6:31] As we are sitting still, let us become
[6:34] aware of our inb breath.
[6:38] Let us become aware of our outreath.
[6:43] This is inbreath and this is outreath.
[7:02] As you breathe in,
[7:04] you can take full refuge in the inb
[7:07] breath from the beginning to the end. As
[7:10] you breathe out,
[7:12] let us take full refuge in the outreath
[7:16] from the beginning to the end.
[7:19] I'm fully present for inbreath.
[7:23] I am fully present for outreath.
[7:46] Breathing in, I am present for my whole
[7:49] body.
[7:51] Breathing out, I allow my body to rest
[7:55] in this moment.
[7:58] Aware of my whole body.
[8:02] Permission to rest.
[8:18] Staying with the body as as I breathe
[8:20] in.
[8:23] Relaxing my whole body with the
[8:25] outreath.
[8:30] Aware of my whole body.
[8:34] Relaxing my whole body.
[9:02] Breathing in,
[9:04] I am grateful for this body.
[9:08] Breathing out,
[9:10] I accept and smile to this body.
[9:17] In grateful for the body.
[9:21] Out
[9:22] acceptance.
[9:38] Breathing in.
[9:41] I know I am breathing with a community.
[9:46] Breathing out,
[9:48] I feel grateful to be in community.
[9:55] One with community.
[9:58] Grateful to be with community.
[10:20] Let us maintain our mindful breathing
[10:23] and awareness
[10:25] as we listen to our dedication.
[10:29] This letter is an aspiration
[10:32] and a gratitude to Thai and to our
[10:35] spiritual ancestors.
[10:38] Dear Thai, dear spiritual ancestors,
[10:42] we your students from around the world
[10:45] are gathering today, Sunday, May the
[10:48] 24th, 2026
[10:51] to generate a collective energy of
[10:53] presence and mindfulness.
[10:56] As we present the living gems archive as
[10:59] an offering to the three jewels in the
[11:01] 10 directions,
[11:03] we are aware that safeguarding the
[11:06] dharma has been a sacred responsibility
[11:09] of Buddha students for more than 2,600
[11:13] years.
[11:14] This work began with Ananda and the
[11:17] early Indian reciters continued with the
[11:21] council that took the radical step of
[11:23] moving from oral to written dharma in
[11:27] the first century BCE
[11:30] and advanced with the pioneers of
[11:32] Mahayana Buddhism who collated and
[11:35] evolved the teachings Nagarjuna Asanga
[11:39] and Vish Vash Vuandu.
[11:43] Their work was carried forward by the
[11:45] cross-culture translator who brought the
[11:48] dharma east into China and beyond.
[11:52] Generations of practitioners and
[11:54] monastics have invested their time,
[11:58] energy, and material resources to ensure
[12:01] the dharma is safeguarded across
[12:03] boundaries of language and culture.
[12:07] Today with living gems we continue this
[12:10] sacred work.
[12:13] Thank you dear Thai for insisting on
[12:16] recording every one of your talks
[12:18] planting the seeds of Buddha Dharma for
[12:21] future generations from the cassette
[12:23] tapes of the 1990s to the minis and MP3
[12:28] players of the 2000s.
[12:30] We are so grateful to every volunteer
[12:33] across the decades who helped record,
[12:36] film, and archive your words. Thank you,
[12:40] Tai, for your generosity in inviting
[12:43] translator to offer simultaneous
[12:46] translating in up to nine languages.
[12:50] The gentle hum of translators whispering
[12:53] in the background of every talk remains
[12:56] a beautiful mark of your care and
[12:59] inclusiveness.
[13:01] Today, with the launch of Living Gems,
[13:04] we bring the Living Dharma into the 21st
[13:08] century, a fully searchable archive
[13:11] translated into English, French, and
[13:14] Vietnamese without ads, clickbait, or
[13:18] surrendering ownership of the dharma.
[13:21] In living gems, we have preserved all
[13:24] your teachings exactly as they are so
[13:28] that any person can come and learn from
[13:30] you directly.
[13:32] You always taught us to make good use of
[13:34] technology
[13:36] to make the teachings available and help
[13:39] people suffer less.
[13:41] Dear Thai, this is the online dharmah
[13:44] hall you asked us to build in 2010
[13:49] and finally we have made it as a
[13:52] multiffa.
[13:54] We thank the team of developers for
[13:56] their vision, tenacity and thousand of
[13:59] hours of work. Thank you Martin, David
[14:04] and Vizva. And thank you Jonas, a child
[14:07] of Plum Village, for his extraordinary
[14:10] talent and generosity,
[14:13] digitizing all the tapes with such skill
[14:16] and professionalism.
[14:18] We thank Mark, Julia, and a team of over
[14:23] 100 volunteer validators
[14:26] continuing to work hard to steadily
[14:29] review every transcript. And we thank
[14:32] Julie and Ernest for their skillful
[14:35] curating of the playlist
[14:38] and the wider online monastery team for
[14:41] all their support. And above all, we
[14:44] thank the whole community of donors and
[14:48] supporters without whom this ambitious
[14:51] project could not be realized.
[14:54] Together we give rise to the aspiration
[14:57] to continue to expand this archive into
[15:01] more and more languages
[15:03] and with more curated playlists and
[15:06] interactive elements so that living gems
[15:09] can be a deep and refreshing well of
[15:12] wisdom where the community of Thai
[15:15] student can gather and learn together.
[15:19] Today, with all of our love and respect,
[15:24] we offer the living gems archive to
[15:26] Thai, to our spiritual ancestors,
[15:30] and to the world.
[15:43] Fore
[16:08] [singing]
[16:11] you
[16:14] You
[16:26] lion boy.
[16:35] [singing]
[16:39] Thank you beloved community. I pass it
[16:42] back to Flo.
[16:46] >> Thank you so much dear brother, dear
[16:49] sister for this beautiful guided
[16:51] practice and uh dedication to Tiknatan
[16:55] to Thai. Um so as I welcome to those
[16:59] that are just joining us um to this
[17:01] celebration of living gems and being
[17:03] shared with the world and uh we're now
[17:06] going to have a discussion with some of
[17:07] our monastic teachers. Um we're joined
[17:11] by brother Fabu, uh Sister True
[17:13] Dedication and Sister Lang, as well as
[17:16] sister Tufu, who you just heard doing
[17:18] offering some beautiful chanting, and
[17:20] we'll offer a song at the end as well.
[17:23] Um, Brother Spirit was due to join us as
[17:25] well, but he's unfortunately unwell with
[17:27] a fever. So, he sends his apologies, but
[17:30] we're really grateful to have uh our
[17:32] wonderful brother and sisters uh with
[17:34] us. And so we um when you were signing
[17:38] up for this event, you might have
[17:39] noticed that you were invited to share
[17:41] any questions that you have around
[17:42] living gems. And we as a team have
[17:44] collected these questions and um put
[17:48] them together into a few that we can ask
[17:50] the monastics to hopefully yeah
[17:52] hopefully to um answer kind of
[17:55] collectively um together as a community.
[17:58] So I would love to invite uh the team to
[18:00] spotlight our monastic teachers and I
[18:03] would love to um ask the first question
[18:06] um for you brother and sisters which is
[18:08] um living gems is a a support for our
[18:12] our daily lives and practice it or it
[18:14] can it can offer that kind of support.
[18:16] Could you maybe share how you as
[18:18] monastics use living gems in your daily
[18:21] lives and also yeah perhaps how you
[18:24] think that this why you think this is
[18:26] important to keep the dharma alive today
[18:29] and I would love to first of all pass to
[18:31] dear brother Fatpoo.
[18:35] Thank you Flo. Um
[18:39] I think for all of us spiritual
[18:41] practitioners we need food to nourish
[18:44] the path to nourish the aspiration
[18:47] and dharma teachings melodies voices are
[18:53] wonderful contribution to our strength
[18:57] of how we continue to evolve our dharma
[19:00] body or our spiritual body and um what
[19:04] better resources than the Zen master
[19:06] himself. And um today, you know,
[19:10] inaugurating this moment uh with
[19:13] everyone, I just remember following Thai
[19:16] a little bit everywhere in the world.
[19:18] And he always had this contemplation
[19:22] that the dharma is like rain and he will
[19:27] offer it generously and it will touch
[19:29] off seeds for the present but also for
[19:32] the future. And he was very careful in
[19:35] always asking his attendant
[19:37] um is the MP3 recording is my recording
[19:41] devices full of battery and he was very
[19:44] serious about it because he wanted to
[19:46] make sure that when he's not here
[19:48] anymore his teachings can continue to be
[19:52] transmitted from generation to
[19:54] generation just as his ancestor his
[19:57] spiritual ancestor the Buddha and then
[20:00] all of the patriarch in the Zen Gua. So
[20:04] today with with the climate that we are
[20:07] in with so much stimulation and so much
[20:11] um places that we can put our focus on
[20:13] such as streaming sites um streaming
[20:16] music, social media.
[20:19] Living gems is another offering for the
[20:22] world where we can also take refuge in
[20:26] but then be nourished by
[20:29] by words that can touch off insights in
[20:34] us. And I think what what is important
[20:37] for me is that when we have a chance to
[20:40] watch Tai teach is that we're not just
[20:42] hearing his voice, but we're seeing his
[20:44] body language, like how he interacts
[20:46] with the community, how he takes his
[20:48] paws, how he walks mindfully as the bell
[20:52] is invited or how he cleans off the
[20:55] whiteboard. You know, all of these
[20:57] moments were very intentional on how he
[20:59] was offering the dharma. And for those
[21:02] of us who facilitate and hold SA
[21:06] gathering, this is a wonderful resource
[21:09] as well as to continue to nurture our
[21:12] own understanding of the dharma as we
[21:15] are asked and invited to go and offer a
[21:18] 10-minute um sharing or something. We
[21:21] can always rely on Tai. He's so he's so
[21:24] wise and he's so generous and the
[21:27] language that he provides and um we can
[21:30] make it our own and we can have
[21:32] confidence because one of the things
[21:34] whenever I hear Tai teach us is he's he
[21:38] trusts us and that's why he gives us
[21:40] everything that he's experienced through
[21:42] life through his hardship and he knew
[21:46] that many of the future generation will
[21:48] not be able to meet him so living gems
[21:51] is an offering to meet someone
[21:54] historically that that walked this earth
[21:56] that went through two wars being exiled,
[22:00] healing
[22:01] and having his own reconciliation and
[22:04] then teaching to the world the way
[22:07] forward so that we can also meet pain
[22:10] and meet suffering, meet our ancestral
[22:13] um pain also and have a way to transform
[22:16] it. And I think more than ever, Tai
[22:20] always speak about a collective
[22:21] awakening. And to nurture that
[22:24] collective awakening, we need this
[22:26] resource to remind oursel because
[22:28] there's so many times I wanted to give
[22:30] up. There's many times I also want to
[22:32] fall into despair. And it's wonderful to
[22:35] have a playlist, a dharma playlist of
[22:38] words from somebody who walked the path
[22:41] and who walks the talk. So this is how
[22:43] I've been nurturing myself and keeping
[22:46] myself afloat also in these times. I'll
[22:49] pass to sister true dedication. Thank
[22:51] you.
[22:53] >> Thank you so much brother. I guess all
[22:56] of us we have yeah different ways of um
[22:59] relating to this incredible
[23:01] manifestation that is living gems. And
[23:04] one of the ways I come to this is also
[23:06] as a bit of a dharma geek. I want to
[23:09] really understand certain aspects of
[23:11] Tai's teaching, some dharmadors or
[23:13] practices or how he was really teaching
[23:16] certain sutras and just for example we
[23:19] have been um producing the new edition
[23:23] of breathe you are alive one of Tai's
[23:26] bestselling books which is all his
[23:28] teachings on the 16 exercises of mindful
[23:31] breathing and so one of our
[23:33] responsibilities is to make sure that we
[23:35] really capture in printed form as well,
[23:39] all of Tai's teachings on all these
[23:42] different sutras. And so in this
[23:44] edition, we wanted to make sure that we
[23:46] nothing was lost, nothing was missing.
[23:49] And it's thanks to living gems we were
[23:51] able to find two dharma talks that we
[23:53] hadn't that had escaped memory. Um they
[23:56] had been given in Vietnamese, very
[23:58] important talks in 2006 where Tai was
[24:01] giving a very deep analysis of the
[24:03] sutra. And it's so fantastic then as the
[24:07] editors, the publishers of Tai's work
[24:09] that we can we can find these gems and
[24:13] do the this work of collating that has
[24:15] been done over many centuries of
[24:17] Buddhist teachers to collect to distill
[24:20] and to clarify. And so as a researcher,
[24:24] so as a student of the dharma and
[24:26] sutras, living gems is beyond compare
[24:29] like to be able to really understand um
[24:33] Tai's teachings. And then for those of
[24:34] us who are real geeks, we can start to
[24:37] see how certain teachings evolved over
[24:39] time, ripened, matured, expanded, became
[24:43] clearer and clearer.
[24:46] And so that's sort of one way for me.
[24:48] And just one other way is and brother
[24:51] Fool you already mentioned like when
[24:53] we're wanting to share the practice when
[24:54] we're wanting to guide others and to
[24:58] know that we have a resource so the next
[25:00] generation of monastics and lay students
[25:03] we can point you all to Tai himself and
[25:08] that that whole wealth of his teachings
[25:11] can be um accessible in these
[25:13] collections in these playlists so that
[25:16] we can bring to the surface the most
[25:18] important talks, the most key excerpts,
[25:21] sometimes key questions and answers. So
[25:24] that that can be a teaching resource as
[25:27] the kind of lamp is carried from
[25:29] generation to generation and many of you
[25:32] will have found as frustrating as we
[25:35] have found it in YouTube the search
[25:37] function is terrible. I could never even
[25:39] find even I knew what the date I was
[25:41] looking for I couldn't find it. uh we
[25:44] then are resorted we we are limited to
[25:47] hard drives and just one kind of file
[25:50] name and then you you need it's very you
[25:54] need a sort of librarian to tell you you
[25:56] need to find May the 21st 2009 or you
[26:00] need need to find March the 10th 2010
[26:03] and you need someone to tell you these
[26:04] are important moments these are
[26:06] important talks but with living gems
[26:08] suddenly that is completely unfolded and
[26:12] released for everyone one and we can
[26:14] swim through the ocean of tais dharma um
[26:17] and guide one another through it. And
[26:20] now I will pass to sister Langium and
[26:22] we'll hear from her.
[26:25] Um
[26:27] I remember uh when I was I think a young
[26:31] Vikshani in one of Tay's dharma talks um
[26:36] in addressing the community he said he
[26:39] just basically uh asked you know how
[26:42] long have you been practicing and have
[26:44] you heard all of these talks and he
[26:46] listed a series have you listened to all
[26:48] of my dharma talks from living the
[26:51] living traditions of dianas dana
[26:55] of meditation, living traditions of of
[26:58] meditation. Have you listened to all of
[26:59] my dharma talks about the southern and
[27:01] northern transmission? Have you listened
[27:03] to all of my dharma talks about the
[27:05] middle wave discourse? And the list was
[27:07] pretty long. Now it's a lot longer, you
[27:10] know, cuz that was in 2006 or seven or
[27:13] something. Now the list is a lot longer.
[27:15] Uh, I remember hearing him uh say those
[27:20] things and then the first thing in my
[27:22] mind is like, "Oh, great. Now I have to
[27:23] go, you know, gather all of these
[27:26] things. I don't even know where they
[27:27] are." And uh and the other thing was I
[27:30] just went up to the mountain and I cried
[27:32] my eyes out cuz I was thinking, what am
[27:35] I doing with my life as a practitioner?
[27:38] And I'm not even investing
[27:40] uh much time in learning more about uh
[27:44] TA's dharma that he had you know so
[27:46] generously offered to everyone and they
[27:49] and they really were gems and um so many
[27:53] years later I mean slowly slowly I did
[27:57] uh go and to find those dharma talks and
[28:00] it wasn't always easy to access the the
[28:03] full body of taste teachings like it was
[28:05] in this hard drive or that hard drive it
[28:07] was missing here and there. And the
[28:09] other thing was back then we had MP3s
[28:14] uh most you know to save you nobody had
[28:17] a lot of gigs on their devices. So it
[28:19] was a lot audio audio recordings that we
[28:23] had and um but now with the living gems
[28:26] there's so many talks that I heard just
[28:30] through audio uh but I've never seen
[28:32] video and because I was also in our US
[28:35] centers for about eight and nine years
[28:37] and so back then we also received the
[28:40] talks uh through MP3 through just audio
[28:43] the comm whole community listen to taste
[28:45] dharma talks through audio so there's a
[28:48] a whole eight year stretch that I had um
[28:52] uh received Tay's Dharma talks but only
[28:55] through audio and I'd never seen the
[28:57] video and like brother Fapu said I never
[29:00] got the sense of what Tay was writing on
[29:02] the board how he moved uh through the
[29:05] room at during those dharma talks and
[29:08] some of the dharma talks once you watch
[29:10] the video it's very like you the
[29:12] transmission is so much more powerful so
[29:15] that's I mean one of the things I really
[29:18] really appreciate about uh li living
[29:20] gems to be able to access the dharma in
[29:23] this way in video audio uh form. The
[29:27] other thing I remember is um walking
[29:30] into the Dharma Talks uh live or you
[29:34] know just whether it's audio or when I'm
[29:37] in the actual hall with him um that day
[29:41] many things will come up and and uh I
[29:44] don't know what you know there some
[29:46] difficulties in me or something would
[29:49] come up and always walking into the
[29:51] dharma uh talk I never knew what the
[29:54] dharma would be what kind of talk would
[29:57] offer but each dharma talk touched
[30:00] something in me and it was as if he was
[30:03] speaking to me and whatever but you know
[30:05] you it's not like I presented my
[30:07] problems to Tay or anything and then you
[30:10] know received like uh it's not like we
[30:14] have chat boxes chat bots and things
[30:16] like that and you can like really
[30:18] receive a direct answer but but the
[30:21] dharma that's how the dharma reign
[30:23] worked like I just came in and I just
[30:26] exposed exposed myself to the dharma and
[30:28] it just activates insights uh in me or
[30:32] like kind of uh encourage uh further
[30:36] deep looking into certain things I
[30:39] didn't understand whether it's about
[30:40] myself or the dharma or my environment
[30:44] the people around me so it really was an
[30:46] activator of of insights
[30:50] um and I I think that's one of the most
[30:52] powerful gifts in listening to TA's
[30:55] dharma talks um it didn't matter from
[30:57] which period and you can actually choose
[30:59] a random one any day uh and it will
[31:04] still touch something and that's what I
[31:07] appreciate about listening to the
[31:10] experience of listening to taste dharma
[31:13] talks and u any I I'm very happy that we
[31:16] have uh this uh this archive so that we
[31:21] can really swim in the dharma now over
[31:24] to flow
[31:26] Thank you.
[31:27] >> Thank you so much brother and sisters.
[31:29] It's so wonderful to hear um yeah the
[31:32] gift of living gems also to the monastic
[31:35] community and to all of us as
[31:36] practitioners and how it enables us to
[31:40] access Tai's teachings in many new ways
[31:42] and um see the relevance uh in today's
[31:46] world. And uh this brings to our next
[31:48] question. Um one issue many people are
[31:51] concerned about in today's world is the
[31:53] rise of AI and its impact on culture and
[31:56] truth. Um and some people uh living
[32:00] living gems uses AI in select ways and
[32:03] some people ask can you explain why this
[32:05] choice was made and how AI is used in
[32:07] gems. So for this question I'll go first
[32:09] to sister true dedication.
[32:12] >> Thank you so much Flo and thank you
[32:14] everyone for asking this question. It's
[32:16] a very good question. Um [clears throat]
[32:19] so the first uh way in which we make use
[32:22] of um technology and uh AI is in
[32:28] accurately transcribing the talks and
[32:31] some of you may know that we have had
[32:33] many bodhic sattvas over the years
[32:35] transcribing Tai's talks and in order to
[32:37] have a kind of polished uh transcript it
[32:39] may take six or seven hours of work per
[32:42] talk and then we still have problems
[32:44] with the words in all these different
[32:46] languages Chinese Sanskrit it
[32:48] Vietnamese, Pari and so on because one
[32:51] talk may contain five different
[32:52] languages [snorts]
[32:54] and the team together with sister
[32:56] Langium has um really worked um on the
[33:00] technology to refine and to train uh the
[33:04] technology to transcribe Tai's unique
[33:07] accent correctly. And this is a big um a
[33:12] big deal because what this does is it
[33:15] unlocks the ability then to translate
[33:18] those transcripts and to make the
[33:20] subtitles.
[33:23] We then also use some very um excellent
[33:27] uh AI technology to help us train how we
[33:31] want it to translate and in particular
[33:34] from Vietnamese. So the majority of
[33:36] talks Tai gave were in Vietnamese. his
[33:38] mother tongue, the tongue of Buddhism
[33:41] with so many technical and sophisticated
[33:43] terms in it either in Vietnamese or in
[33:45] Sino Vietnamese and to be able to train
[33:48] it to be able to translate on mass the
[33:52] dharma from Tai's way of teaching the
[33:55] dharma into Vietnamese. So that the
[33:58] translation when we arrive at the
[33:59] English or the French is also we can
[34:02] hear Tai's voice in it that is his style
[34:05] then in the English and in the French
[34:07] and it's accurate for all the Buddhist
[34:09] terms as we in Plum Village translate
[34:11] them. So you so what this has enabled us
[34:14] to do is to then once the team had spent
[34:17] more than a year building this both
[34:20] transcribing software and then or
[34:22] transcribing cleverness and then
[34:23] translating cleverness
[34:26] then every talk can be accurately
[34:29] transcribed and then accurately
[34:31] translated. And we are so grateful for
[34:34] this because at the human pace that we
[34:37] were working, there are so many also
[34:40] different styles of translators, either
[34:42] oral or written. And it was very hard
[34:45] for us to come up with polished final
[34:47] translations that fully express the
[34:49] collective wisdom. And we'd have had to
[34:50] wait another 20 or 30 years to go
[34:53] through more than 3,000 talks to be able
[34:56] to agree on a version. And in this way,
[34:59] what we are able to start with is a 95
[35:02] 97% accur accurate translation based
[35:06] from the transcripts. Which means that
[35:09] for people like me and for many of us on
[35:10] this call who cannot understand
[35:13] Vietnamese clearly enough to follow the
[35:15] dharma, who cannot even read the
[35:17] Vietnamese transcript, for us to have
[35:20] the subtitles in English, the team
[35:23] living gems has just unlocked for you
[35:26] every single one of Tai's reigns retreat
[35:30] series. You can now, as Sister Langim
[35:32] said, you can swim through the the
[35:35] living traditions of Zen. You can swim
[35:37] through all of Tai's teachings on Master
[35:39] Lini, uh, also known in Japan as Master
[35:41] Rinszai. There are all of the
[35:44] commentaries on all of the sutras which
[35:46] Tai needed to give in Vietnamese because
[35:48] that gave him the fluency and the depth
[35:50] of scholarship and accuracy and detail
[35:53] that he needed to really um, give a full
[35:58] teaching on these texts and sutras. And
[36:01] that's now possible for all of us. We
[36:03] can we can swim in all of this
[36:04] incredible new newly available dharma
[36:08] thanks to the use of this technology.
[36:10] And another third way that the AI is
[36:14] used is to help us create these chapters
[36:16] of talks. Those of us in the editing
[36:18] team, this is a labor of love that we
[36:21] already do a lot to break things down
[36:23] into the subheadings and so on. And by
[36:25] training the AI how we would like it to
[36:29] divide up the talks, it means that in
[36:31] our search results, we don't simply have
[36:34] a whole talk, but we can jump to a
[36:36] chapter of a talk and we know that whole
[36:38] length of 5 minutes or 12 minutes is all
[36:41] on that same one theme that we're
[36:43] interested in exploring and learning
[36:46] more about. And that enables us then to
[36:48] create playlists with these different
[36:50] chapters and to you can save just one
[36:53] segment of a talk instead of saving the
[36:55] whole talk. And so it means that we kind
[36:58] of can yeah really um make the dharma
[37:03] our own. We can really make sense of the
[37:05] dharma in ways that we need to. And to
[37:08] be absolutely clear, it's very important
[37:10] to us and the incredible work of Yonas
[37:13] um and the digitizing process. All of
[37:16] Tai's talks remain unadulterated.
[37:19] So we will it is all the videos and
[37:22] Tai's own audio are absolutely clean and
[37:25] as they are the AI is helping us with
[37:27] the transcribing part and the
[37:29] translating part. And what's fantastic
[37:32] about this is that having trained the
[37:35] team having trained the technology then
[37:39] the team ran everything through the AI
[37:42] just once. So I know many of us are very
[37:44] concerned and it's a really valid
[37:46] concern about the energy of servers and
[37:49] the water to cool the servers.
[37:52] But it means that each talk only needed
[37:54] to go through be processed once and then
[37:58] tens of thousands of us can then enjoy
[38:00] that translation, enjoy that
[38:02] transcription. So it's a very efficient
[38:05] and collective use of this technology to
[38:07] help us. And we will also hear from
[38:09] Martin in a little bit. The final place
[38:11] is we do have a little bit of AI in the
[38:13] search box to help us naturally be able
[38:16] to put our query in and get a really
[38:18] helpful response. And I wonder if Sister
[38:20] Lang would also like to add a little bit
[38:22] more about No. Okay, that's what we'll
[38:26] say about Hi Ahi for now. Thank you for
[38:27] listening. Thank you so much, Sister
[38:30] Triation. This is a really helpful and
[38:32] supportive response um uh for the
[38:36] community members that had this
[38:37] question. Um and um I would love to come
[38:40] actually to you this dangian with the
[38:42] next question which is around um yeah
[38:46] the offering of living gems for the
[38:48] world being such a beautiful way to
[38:49] access uh Tai's teachings and we've been
[38:53] asked by um some community members why
[38:55] are we seeking contributions um for this
[38:58] offering rather than enabling it to be
[39:00] completely free um for everyone. So I
[39:03] would love to come to you first sister
[39:05] for this question.
[39:12] Thank you, Flo. Uh, yes, that is a very
[39:14] important question. We actually spent a
[39:18] long time thinking about this and which
[39:21] route to go, whether we should offer it
[39:23] for completely free as we do uh our
[39:27] other offerings like on YouTube or the
[39:29] Plum Village app. and um
[39:33] uh uh the way out is in podcast etc. Uh
[39:39] but we realized all of those offerings
[39:41] also had its costs and so does living
[39:43] gems and actually behind all of our free
[39:46] offerings there are huge costs and um
[39:50] that cost is also at the cost of the the
[39:53] community. Um for instance the monastics
[39:56] don't have health care. Uh uh not all of
[39:59] us have healthy um very few of us have
[40:03] you know our infrastructure in Plum
[40:05] Village is like uh either falling apart
[40:07] needs upgrading or expansion uh there's
[40:10] so many things. So like when we look at
[40:12] the true cost of um of what we're we're
[40:16] offering uh the free offering the
[40:19] whatever we put out is free that is kind
[40:22] of like the the cost of it is is
[40:26] buffered by the I think the the
[40:29] community is really shouldering that and
[40:32] we uh it's not very sustainable for Plum
[40:35] Village. And the other thing I'd like to
[40:37] say is uh well it cost to maintain these
[40:40] systems. It cost to uh uh for the devel
[40:44] it cost us for the developers. It cost
[40:46] us um for uh to maintain it. It costs to
[40:51] uh support all of the the work uh um
[40:55] that's involved in offering this archive
[40:58] to to the world. And the other thing I'd
[41:00] like to say is that you know the the
[41:03] idea of uh the dharma is free. Um when
[41:07] we say that it really makes sense that
[41:09] idea that the dharma is free it really
[41:11] makes sense in many different parts of
[41:13] the world where Buddhism is very uh
[41:17] deeply rooted in the culture in the
[41:20] people uh and in the place. Um, and so
[41:25] there's this understanding that, you
[41:27] know, there's there's support that's
[41:29] there's uh always the communities that
[41:33] offer these teachings always need
[41:35] support um uh in order for this work to
[41:39] be offered uh for free in in the world.
[41:42] But that idea being imported to the
[41:45] west, it didn't translate to equal uh
[41:49] awareness that the community that is uh
[41:52] embodying hosting and and dedicated to
[41:56] bringing these teachings to the future
[42:00] uh it didn't translate to the support of
[42:02] the community. And I I remember what Ta
[42:06] said as to me as a novice. Um he said
[42:11] one day just kind of randomly he said
[42:13] you know it might take 300 years for the
[42:16] dharma to be rooted in uh for the for
[42:19] Buddhism to be rooted in the west and at
[42:22] the time I couldn't really
[42:23] [clears throat] wrap my head around what
[42:25] he was saying because I thought oh these
[42:27] teachings are so beautiful why would it
[42:29] take 300 years to be rooted why not
[42:33] sooner for people to really absorb these
[42:36] teachings but the longer I stay in the
[42:39] community, I really understand the
[42:41] broader uh uh implications of what he
[42:44] was saying. It's also the understanding
[42:47] that you know how to support dharma, the
[42:49] generosity that is required in order to
[42:53] support the living dharma, the living
[42:55] community, the living sana, the living
[42:57] dharma, the living Buddha. Um so maybe
[43:01] in 300 years it might be free. I mean so
[43:07] I I'm I mean you know that's that's our
[43:09] wish and it would be possible but that
[43:11] is with understanding that you know
[43:13] there's a whole system that needs to be
[43:15] supported and upheld in order for the
[43:17] dharma to be offered uh completely free
[43:21] to in to the world. Thank you.
[43:27] Thank you so much dear sister Lang for
[43:30] this uh yeah for this forive response
[43:32] and um is there anything else uh sister
[43:35] true dedication or brother who you'd
[43:36] like to add? Okay, thank you dear
[43:39] sisters and brother for for your
[43:41] sharings and responses and thank you
[43:43] dear community for these wonderful
[43:45] questions about living gems. um as
[43:47] you've heard there it's um yeah such a
[43:51] um gift and a contribution to um
[43:54] enabling the practice to be brought into
[43:56] our lives in new ways and embodying
[43:58] Tai's teachings in new ways. So um we
[44:00] would really love part of this event is
[44:02] an invitation. It's a celebration of
[44:04] living gems being available in the world
[44:06] and an invitation for you to support
[44:09] living gems. So whether that's through
[44:12] um making a contribution of a monthly or
[44:15] an annual uh contribution which enables
[44:18] you to get access to all of the talks
[44:20] available on Living Gems which is close
[44:22] to 3,000 talks available. Um or whether
[44:25] it's a one-off donation just because you
[44:27] feel inspired by the monastic community
[44:30] and you want to be a part of offering a
[44:33] generous um support to yeah to the
[44:36] dharma being alive and shared in this
[44:38] way in the world. Um yeah, we've put
[44:41] some links in the chat that you can find
[44:43] out more about those ways to support.
[44:45] And now um yeah, and any contribution is
[44:47] is welcome, whether large or small. And
[44:50] now we're going to hand over to some of
[44:52] the living gems lay team so you can
[44:55] learn a bit more about living gems and
[44:56] see a little bit how it works and how
[44:58] you might use it to support your own
[45:00] practice and your own day-to-day life.
[45:03] So I will hand over to my dear colleague
[45:05] and friend Martin to share more.
[45:10] Thank you, Flo. Uh, wonderful to be here
[45:13] and finally after more than two years of
[45:16] work, uh, be able to celebrate living
[45:19] gems and share it with you all. It's
[45:21] been really, yeah, a work of love from
[45:24] me and my other friends that we've been
[45:27] developing this with. And uh yeah, so
[45:29] after you know, we've been talking about
[45:31] living gems and I thought it would be
[45:32] nice to kind of show you a little bit of
[45:34] living gems, even though maybe some of
[45:36] you have heard it already or seen it
[45:37] already. Um but I thought it would be
[45:39] nice to actually yeah, show you what we
[45:42] have built and walk you through it a
[45:44] little bit. So I will share my screen.
[45:48] Uh so yeah, this is our current search
[45:51] of living gems. uh and as was shared
[45:53] before we built the search because that
[45:56] was one of the main issues that we've
[45:58] been having with you know having so much
[45:59] material more than 3,000 talks but how
[46:02] do you find what is what you're looking
[46:05] for maybe something that's present in
[46:06] you right now and yeah what did Tai say
[46:10] about that so you can actually find a
[46:12] specific part in a talk that can speak
[46:15] to you in that very moment um so I'm
[46:19] going to search for how to deal with
[46:22] anxiet anxiety which um yeah I felt a
[46:26] bit nervous preparing for this uh
[46:27] meeting today so I thought you know how
[46:30] would Tai deal with anxiety and we've
[46:32] built the search which is a little bit
[46:36] more adv like we didn't build a chatbot
[46:37] it's a relatively basic search still but
[46:40] also like it's a bit in between
[46:42] basically because uh it's also advanced
[46:44] in a way that it understands meaning so
[46:47] besides uh like the word anxiety it will
[46:50] also find talks that of um yeah maybe
[46:54] that are about um
[46:57] anger for instance or worries
[47:00] navigating strong emotions so you can
[47:02] find a lot of different um um kind of
[47:06] talks here and wait I'm just going to so
[47:11] for instance well if we go here
[47:13] navigating strong emotions
[47:17] here we get to a page where yeah we can
[47:20] see what we've talked talked about
[47:21] before the transcript on the right side
[47:24] and you're able to see all of Tai's
[47:26] words and you can scroll through it and
[47:28] you can also click through another part
[47:30] in this in the talk and you can hear
[47:32] what Tai has said about that and what is
[47:35] interesting is that as
[47:38] explained a lot of the talks we've used
[47:40] AI in order to transcribe them but
[47:42] there's lots of lots of humans that are
[47:44] currently reviewing all of these talks
[47:47] and you see underneath here you see a
[47:49] little um label that says that this
[47:51] title, description, and transcript has
[47:53] been reviewed for accuracy. So, you can
[47:56] be sure that this transcript is correct.
[47:59] And you yourself, if you ever see like a
[48:03] mistake in the transcript, can make your
[48:04] own changes. Here in the bottom right,
[48:06] we see a button that says suggest
[48:08] changes. If we go there, we can click in
[48:12] the transcript and we can write
[48:14] something else. I don't know. Actually,
[48:16] there's no mistake here. So, um I'm
[48:19] still going to say C.
[48:21] And then once you're done, you can
[48:22] submit for review and then our team of
[48:25] volunteers and coordinators will look at
[48:28] your uh correction and then we'll
[48:31] publish it live and then the whole world
[48:32] will be able to enjoy your transcript
[48:35] correctly. Um so based on that I want to
[48:38] kind of share for a moment what we've
[48:40] been what that team of volunteers have
[48:43] been doing in the past two years. So
[48:45] we've had indeed like a team of more
[48:48] than 90 volunteers working on this for
[48:50] the past two years and two coordinators
[48:52] Mark and Julia who have been so
[48:54] dedicated and have yeah managed this
[48:56] whole team and they spent approximately
[48:59] 13,000 hours on reviewing talks. Um and
[49:03] as you see we have now well we think
[49:05] we're going to have about 3,700 talks.
[49:08] Not all of them are digitized yet. And
[49:10] so we've reviewed 567 talks, but we
[49:14] still have a little bit to go. [snorts]
[49:16] Uh so yeah, that's uh it'll take a
[49:18] little bit more time. [gasps]
[49:20] And then regarding digitization,
[49:23] >> [snorts]
[49:23] >> um yeah, so we haven't digitized
[49:25] everything yet. So we're still have 665
[49:29] approximately talks that we are to
[49:31] digitize. Some of them we don't actually
[49:33] know where they are. Uh we still have to
[49:36] find them. Uh yeah, so there's a lot of
[49:38] work there to do. And some of them are
[49:40] digitized, but they require restoration.
[49:43] So, you know, the audio might not be
[49:45] perfect, the video there might be issues
[49:47] with. So, they still you'll find them on
[49:49] Living Gems already now. So, you can
[49:50] already watch and listen to them. But
[49:53] you'll notice that there are some issues
[49:55] that that still need a little bit of
[49:56] work. And for that, Jonas, who will talk
[50:00] more about it, has been our saving angel
[50:04] and uh he will share more about that.
[50:07] Thank you, Jonas. Over to you.
[50:12] >> Yes, thank you Martin. Um, yeah. So, as
[50:16] Martin said, Living Gems has been an
[50:18] amazing project of working through all
[50:20] of these thousands of talks
[50:23] and kind of it almost feels like a bit
[50:25] of uh tape archaeology sometimes to
[50:30] uh save these precious talks and it
[50:33] feels like an honor often to be able to
[50:35] work with uh Tai's legacy on this level.
[50:40] And so as Martin said, we're
[50:43] like living gems is in a way a way to
[50:45] also help us uh save all of this
[50:47] precious dharma for future generations.
[50:51] And so kind of digitizing all of these
[50:54] talks that are in a way still locked up
[50:56] on these tapes and inaccessible
[50:59] because nobody uses a video casserole
[51:01] player anymore. Um, so yeah, it's kind
[51:05] of that's been my
[51:09] uh my passion for the last two years to
[51:12] work on this to get the best possible
[51:15] result we can and make all of those
[51:18] Dharma talks available with a beautiful
[51:20] high quality sound and really nice
[51:22] looking video. And yeah, we're slowly
[51:25] working through that. um and kind of all
[51:29] the talks all the way back from the
[51:30] 1980s all the way up to 2014.
[51:34] And yeah, it's been amazing so far to
[51:38] work with this team to also see the
[51:41] benefit that people get from this
[51:45] like both the monastics and the everyone
[51:48] who is able to access these talks on
[51:50] living gems now. So it's been amazingly
[51:53] precious.
[51:55] Um I will pass it on to Ernest who has
[51:58] been curating these uh talks into
[52:02] organized collections. So over to you
[52:06] Ernest.
[52:13] Thank you Yonas.
[52:16] Dear Thai, dear beloved community, I'm
[52:18] very happy to be here and it's also for
[52:21] me such an honor to be working on this
[52:24] great project. Um, so the main offering
[52:28] on living gems is TAI's Dharma talks.
[52:34] It's uh on average a Dharma talk rounds
[52:36] out to about 1 hour 20 minutes. Some can
[52:39] go up to two hours. Some are as short as
[52:42] 50 minutes. And um with that in mind,
[52:46] some of us have the time and space in
[52:49] our daily lives to watch full talks, but
[52:51] many of us maybe just don't have that
[52:54] kind of time. So for us, the Living Gems
[52:58] curation team, we really work for the
[53:02] ones who are not so time rich. Um and we
[53:05] do this by creating what we're calling
[53:07] collections.
[53:09] Um and what's a collection? a collection
[53:13] uh the dharma talks each dharma talk is
[53:16] divided up into chapters. The chapters
[53:21] if you watch a dharma talk
[53:24] on the side of the transcript here these
[53:27] gray titles you can see on the screen
[53:29] here these are all chapters. So each
[53:31] dharma talk is made up of chapters and
[53:35] these chapters are curated in in order
[53:37] to be able to stand alone as teachings
[53:40] as teach mentioned a little bit earlier
[53:43] that you can save them. And so as the
[53:46] curation team we tend to make two types
[53:50] of collections. The first is we take
[53:53] chapters and weave them from different
[53:56] dharma talks that fall under the same
[53:58] theme to make a kind of learning
[54:00] journey. And then the second one is uh
[54:05] Dharma is uh collections that come from
[54:08] the same Dharma talk. Uh if you've heard
[54:11] of uh Dharma doors, I like to think of
[54:14] these collections as Dharma windows
[54:17] which gives you a glimpse into the full
[54:19] Dharma talk kind of like an excerpt or a
[54:23] preview of the Dharma talk. And so
[54:26] that's how we collect them. And then
[54:28] once we've curated, sometimes we have
[54:30] the help of our dear monastics uh
[54:33] through their insight and their
[54:34] supervision to curate some of these. And
[54:37] once they are published, they appear on
[54:40] the homepage.
[54:42] They make their debut on the homepage.
[54:44] And on the homepage, you find different
[54:46] types of uh collections. Uh you find
[54:50] them here. This here is a title of the
[54:54] collection and with a tagline that is
[54:56] trying to stay true to Tai's word and uh
[55:00] you'll find different types of
[55:01] collections. This first one here is more
[55:03] of a practical collection that helps
[55:05] with the day-to-day practice, how to
[55:07] sit, how to walk. Uh we have collections
[55:10] about the sufferings of our time. We
[55:13] also have collections about our personal
[55:15] sufferings
[55:17] um and uh collections on very deep
[55:20] teachings
[55:22] uh for dharma geeks and sutra nads
[55:26] whatever you want to call yourselves.
[55:28] And then yeah we have also these long
[55:31] format collections that are woven from
[55:35] different damats like I mentioned
[55:36] earlier. This one in particular, war and
[55:39] peace was was uh was put together by us
[55:44] but supervised very closely by Sister
[55:46] TR. So if you're really interested in
[55:48] what's happening in the world right now
[55:50] with all the wars that are happening,
[55:52] you could find here what Tai has to say
[55:54] about war and how it starts from the
[55:57] inside. Yeah. And then finally
[56:02] um if you look at the left side of the
[56:04] screen here there are these tabs and if
[56:08] I come down to this play button it says
[56:10] collections. You click on that it will
[56:12] bring you to the collections page where
[56:15] all these latest collections sit and so
[56:18] for some of us maybe you can find
[56:20] sometimes the search engine a bit
[56:22] overwhelming or you don't know what to
[56:23] search. This can be a nice entry for you
[56:26] to come in and kind of see what is alive
[56:28] for you and then click on it and start
[56:31] your journey. But uh in general, how can
[56:34] these collections be helpful? Uh you
[56:37] could if you're a facilitator, you could
[56:40] watch them as a SA. If you're a student
[56:43] or a dharma teacher, these could be
[56:44] helpful for your quick research. When
[56:46] you type in the search engine, they
[56:48] usually come up. So they're nice for
[56:51] that. And finally, you could also just
[56:53] create your own and have fun with it. Uh
[56:56] there's the feature for making the own
[56:58] your own collections. So that's it from
[57:01] me, Ernest. Bowing out.
[57:06] Thank you so much dear Ernest, dear
[57:09] Jonas, dear Martin for this sharing uh
[57:13] and exploring how living gems works and
[57:15] the ways that you can use it yourself to
[57:18] yeah search, create collections, explore
[57:20] the dharma in a way that supports you
[57:22] and your practice and your
[57:25] >> yeah your practice inquiries.
[57:28] Oh. Um, and so, um, what we would love
[57:32] to do very briefly, um, as I mentioned
[57:35] at the start, this event is an hour and
[57:37] 15 minutes, so we'll go just over the
[57:39] hour. Um, and we would love to, um, in a
[57:43] moment, we're going to hear a little bit
[57:44] more and also have a wonderful song as
[57:46] part of our celebration. But before
[57:48] that, we wanted to um, invite some of
[57:51] your opinions, dear community. So, I'm
[57:54] going to try to launch a poll and
[57:58] hopefully those of you on Zoom um can
[58:01] see the poll. And this is following on
[58:04] from what Ernest just shared about
[58:05] collections. We would love to hear uh
[58:07] your views on what content length best
[58:10] supports your own practice. So are you
[58:12] maybe someone who's yeah needs very
[58:15] brief uh time less than 15 minutes to uh
[58:19] explore practice or do you anywhere up
[58:21] to like 60 to 120 minutes or do you
[58:24] enjoy a mix or anywhere in between?
[58:26] Would love to hear your views. And then
[58:28] the second question is how are you most
[58:30] likely to engage with living gems? Would
[58:32] it be while gathering with your SA while
[58:35] studying while seeking moments of
[58:37] support perhaps during difficult uh
[58:39] times? uh while walking or commuting or
[58:42] doing daily chores. That's how many
[58:44] listen to the podcast we know. So
[58:46] perhaps that could be um or maybe none
[58:48] of the above or or something else. And
[58:50] then the final question, what kinds of
[58:52] teachings are you most drawn to right
[58:54] now? Um so is it kind of practical
[58:56] mindfulness for your daily life or
[58:58] working with difficult emotions or
[59:00] perhaps deep Buddhist teachings and
[59:02] sutras like sister tree dedication
[59:04] mentioned about going really deeply in
[59:06] and the dharma geeks amongst us. um or
[59:09] relationships, family and community. Um
[59:12] or maybe the teachings on the sufferings
[59:14] of our time and more engaged Buddhism um
[59:17] or perhaps just da question and answer
[59:19] responses to to kind of real questions
[59:22] um from practitioners. So I'll give uh
[59:25] just another 10 seconds or so for you to
[59:27] share your views if you would like to
[59:31] and then I'm going to end the poll and
[59:33] then hopefully I will be able to share
[59:35] the results. So also those that are
[59:37] joining us on YouTube or watching the
[59:38] recording can see um so I'll end the
[59:42] poll now
[59:44] and then we can share the results. So
[59:47] can you see the results? Could you maybe
[59:49] give a little Yeah. Okay. So um yeah so
[59:52] really interesting the 15 to 30 minutes
[59:54] is about the highest. Um but a lot of
[59:57] people just prefer a mix of uh time
[1:00:00] practicing. Um, and then often people
[1:00:04] are most likely to engage with living
[1:00:06] gems during difficult moments. Um, but
[1:00:09] also while studying. That's really
[1:00:12] interesting to see. Um, and then the
[1:00:14] kinds of teachings you're most drawn to,
[1:00:17] maybe uh, yeah, 63% of people practical
[1:00:20] mindfulness for daily life, but um,
[1:00:23] almost 60% deep Buddhist teachings and
[1:00:25] sutras. So, and also 58% teachings on
[1:00:29] the suffering of our times. Thank you
[1:00:30] dear community for this uh mini insight
[1:00:33] into how you might like to use living
[1:00:35] gems. It is really helpful for us. And
[1:00:38] uh in a moment I'm going to uh stop
[1:00:40] sharing and then we can um I'm going to
[1:00:42] introduce uh our director of online
[1:00:46] programs Nicola who's going to share a
[1:00:47] little bit more about ways that you can
[1:00:49] support.
[1:00:52] >> Thank you dear Flo.
[1:00:55] >> Hello dear friends. It's a it's a
[1:00:57] pleasure to be here with all of you. Um,
[1:01:00] so yeah, thank you so much for for
[1:01:01] accompanying us on this journey and it's
[1:01:04] only just begun. This is just the
[1:01:06] beginning. Um, it's been two years and
[1:01:08] many hands and hearts have come together
[1:01:10] to build Living Gems. But to continue
[1:01:12] this work into the future, uh, we really
[1:01:15] do need your support. We we rely on
[1:01:17] recurring contributions and donations
[1:01:19] for from our community. We're so
[1:01:22] grateful to those who have subscribed
[1:01:24] and and donated so far uh which has made
[1:01:26] it possible to be where we are today to
[1:01:29] bring the living gems um archive into
[1:01:31] this world. Um at the same time we need
[1:01:34] to keep going and to keep the engines
[1:01:36] running and to remain sustainable. We
[1:01:38] really need your help to support more
[1:01:40] languages. We would love to um bring
[1:01:42] Russian as well into living jams.
[1:01:44] Spanish is a big priority as well and
[1:01:46] there are so many other countries um
[1:01:49] that we would love to reach um and the
[1:01:51] the the the dharma is so alive to many
[1:01:54] people in their own native tongue. Uh
[1:01:56] we'd also love to develop an app for
[1:01:58] offline listening and viewing and to
[1:02:01] continue to offer access to those who
[1:02:03] may not have the financial means to
[1:02:05] offering offering scholarships for for
[1:02:07] many people around the world.
[1:02:10] So, how can you support? And many of us
[1:02:12] have many of you have written in and
[1:02:14] asked us specifically how you can help
[1:02:16] this particular project. So, for as
[1:02:19] little as um just €1 a month, you can
[1:02:21] help in Chair Living Gems continues on
[1:02:23] uh by being a monthly or a yearly
[1:02:25] subscriber. So there'll be some links in
[1:02:28] the chat here and um a link as well at
[1:02:30] the bottom of the YouTube description
[1:02:33] um where you can subscribe from today
[1:02:35] and all subscribers get full access to
[1:02:37] the full archive which is over 3,000 um
[1:02:40] talks in three languages so far. Um
[1:02:43] Living Gems is also offered on a sliding
[1:02:46] scale so you can pay as you wish um and
[1:02:49] each person may contribute according to
[1:02:50] what is possible for you. Um one-time
[1:02:53] donations are also possible and very
[1:02:56] welcome and again the link um is in the
[1:02:58] chat um and you can make a donation
[1:03:00] today or whenever is convenient. So
[1:03:03] please know that no contribution is too
[1:03:04] small together each donation
[1:03:06] collectively really can make a
[1:03:08] difference and we can really reach more
[1:03:10] people and make sure that um Tai's
[1:03:13] teachings um continue on um into the
[1:03:16] future. So thank you so much. Back to
[1:03:18] you Flo.
[1:03:20] >> Thank you Dala. Um so dear community um
[1:03:25] we would love to of course this event is
[1:03:27] all about celebrating living gems and
[1:03:29] we've come together to do that and an
[1:03:31] important part of that is music. So we
[1:03:34] would love to now invite sister to Hugh
[1:03:37] um to offer a song um as part of kind of
[1:03:41] draw drawing this celebration uh to a
[1:03:44] close. Uh dear sister, I would love to
[1:03:46] invite you to share
[1:04:30] The sun's rising. [singing]
[1:04:34] A new
[1:04:38] [singing] universe
[1:04:40] moving.
[1:04:45] They're buring.
[1:04:48] The flowers blooming.
[1:04:50] I'm breathing in, [singing]
[1:04:52] breathing out. Smile
[1:04:56] to say hello to life.
[1:05:00] But on my mind,
[1:05:04] I want to say with my love [singing]
[1:05:06] that I'm happy. You're there for me
[1:05:11] and I [singing] don't need to hurry.
[1:05:15] to go wherever [singing]
[1:05:19] and to do whatever.
[1:05:24] I sit in peace and I am free.
[1:05:31] [singing]
[1:05:39] [singing and music]
[1:05:43] Foreo
[1:05:48] [singing]
[1:05:56] [singing]
[1:06:01] [singing]
[1:06:13] speech.
[1:06:22] all
[1:06:23] to say hello to life
[1:06:27] but on my mind
[1:06:31] I want to stay with my loved ones
[1:06:33] [singing] that I'm happy you're there
[1:06:35] for me and I don't need to hurry
[1:06:39] to go [singing] wherever ever
[1:06:43] and to do whatever.
[1:06:48] I have arrived [singing] and I am home.
[1:06:53] [singing]
[1:06:54] I have arrived and I am home.
[1:07:01] I have [singing] arrived and I am home.
[1:07:06] [singing]
[1:07:07] I have arrived and I am home.
[1:07:14] I have [singing] arrived and I am home.
[1:07:28] >> Many flowers
[1:07:31] to you. Um dear community, uh I have
[1:07:36] opened the reopened the chat box. So if
[1:07:38] you would like to uh express any written
[1:07:41] flowers for sister Tu's uh song then
[1:07:44] that would be very uh welcome and
[1:07:47] actually I would also in a moment I'll
[1:07:49] hand to our monastic teachers to share
[1:07:52] um some closing words but before we do
[1:07:54] that I would love to um take a
[1:07:57] screenshot of this celebration gathering
[1:08:00] and if you would like you can also offer
[1:08:02] your flowers to uh sister Tuku like this
[1:08:05] with the screenshot. Thank you so much.
[1:08:08] This is beautiful to see
[1:08:11] all the flowers all across the world.
[1:08:14] Thank you dear community. Um and thank
[1:08:16] you again sister for this beautiful
[1:08:18] song. Um so I would love to hand to uh
[1:08:21] brother Fu, sister tree dedication and
[1:08:23] sister Langim in case there's any
[1:08:25] closing words you would like to share
[1:08:27] before we draw this gathering to an end.
[1:08:33] >> Hello dear beautiful team. I think I'm
[1:08:36] just so happy that we're able to show
[1:08:38] the team behind the scene, but this is
[1:08:40] just one fraction of the whole team.
[1:08:42] There's so many more that u we couldn't
[1:08:45] highlight. Um but in the spirit of Thai,
[1:08:48] we do everything as a community. So know
[1:08:51] that just by joining and swimming into
[1:08:54] the ocean of the dharma, you'll be part
[1:08:56] of this community and build the build
[1:08:59] the playlist, build the um um yeah the
[1:09:04] playlist so that others can also join
[1:09:06] and follow. So this is just a happy
[1:09:08] moment as our our teacher would say this
[1:09:10] is one the mantra we should recite
[1:09:11] daily. This is a happy moment. Thank
[1:09:14] you.
[1:09:18] >> And also this is just the beginning. We
[1:09:20] also want to keep developing uh living
[1:09:23] gems so that it can really be a uh place
[1:09:27] of community learning and community uh
[1:09:31] healing. So there will be a lot more
[1:09:33] features coming in that regard like the
[1:09:36] possibility of uh adding notes and
[1:09:39] seeing each other's notes and sharing
[1:09:41] each other's insights and things like
[1:09:43] that. And um yeah, we look forward to
[1:09:46] continuing to develop living gems to so
[1:09:49] that it can you know be of service to
[1:09:52] all of the many different ways in which
[1:09:54] the dharma can land uh for us and so
[1:09:58] that we can also develop our
[1:09:59] understanding and deepen our
[1:10:01] understanding of taste teachings and the
[1:10:04] Buddhist teachings. So very much looking
[1:10:07] forward to and we're so grateful for the
[1:10:10] team that has been so tenacious and uh
[1:10:15] persevering and offering all their time,
[1:10:18] energy, and talent into really birthing
[1:10:20] this u archive and uh yeah it's it's
[1:10:24] such a gift. So thank you for all of
[1:10:27] your continued support and in helping to
[1:10:31] bring this forward in the world.
[1:10:34] sister.
[1:10:35] >> Thank you so much. And
[1:10:38] please do spread the word if you're in
[1:10:40] SAS in the community around you. Please
[1:10:44] do um let people know that this treasure
[1:10:47] trove is there so that um it can be
[1:10:51] available to everyone who needs it. And
[1:10:53] really your support is so gratefully
[1:10:56] received. It gives us the courage and
[1:10:58] confidence to be able to go forward. And
[1:11:00] as Sister Lang was saying, to invest
[1:11:03] more and grow it more and really keep it
[1:11:06] alive. And so any wind you can give in
[1:11:09] our sales is deeply appreciated. And
[1:11:12] thank you so much for such a joyful time
[1:11:14] all together today. It's been lovely as
[1:11:17] ever to scroll through the screens to
[1:11:19] see you all and to feel that we're
[1:11:21] celebrating this moment as a community
[1:11:23] all over the world. This is our second
[1:11:25] session today. We did one session
[1:11:27] earlier and it's just so fantastic to
[1:11:30] feel yeah our shared love for Thai and
[1:11:32] his teachings and to bring that to
[1:11:34] future generations. So thank you all.
[1:11:40] >> Thank you dear sisters and brothers and
[1:11:41] dear community. And uh as we say goodbye
[1:11:44] I'll just make it possible if you would
[1:11:47] like to you can un unmute yourself um
[1:11:49] and then you can uh say goodbye in your
[1:11:52] own language or however you would like
[1:11:53] to. Bye.
[1:12:01] >> Thank you for
[1:12:13] [clears throat]
[1:12:15] >> much love.
[1:12:19] >> Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye bye.
[1:12:25] Bye.
[1:12:25] >> Bye.
[1:12:26] >> Bye.
[1:12:27] >> Bye.
[1:12:28] >> Bye.
[1:12:32] >> Thank you so much.
[1:12:33] >> Bye.
[1:12:34] >> Bye. I
