Shadowing Practice: Geshe Michael Roach TEDx 4steps and Pen - Learn English Speaking with Video
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100 sentences
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So I'm going to teach you four quick steps that they taught me in the monastery.
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These come from the 4th century.
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And these are how to plant a seed in your mind for things that you want to achieve.
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First I'll ask you some questions.
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Just answer me, this is the old Tibetan system.
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What is this thing?
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A pen.
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Yeah, it's a pen.
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Next question.
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If a small dog comes in here and I go like this, and I show this to the dog, what will they do with it?
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Chew on it.
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Yeah, they will ride it.
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Do they see this as a pen?
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No. They see it as something to chew.
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Next question, who's correct, the human or the dog?
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Both.
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Yeah, you can say both are correct.
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The human can ride, the dog can chew.
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Most important question, if I come here and I put this thing here,
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and all the dogs go out of the room and all the humans go out of the room.
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At that moment, what is this thing?
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Pen or a chutoy?
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She has the best answer.
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She's going like this. And that's correct answer.
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Right then, it's almost like nothing.
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In Buddhism, we call this emptiness.
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If you understand emptiness, you can make anything happen.
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You can make a $250 million company.
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You can help refugees.
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You know, you can do it if you understand emptiness.
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What does emptiness mean?
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If the human comes back in the room and they walk up here and they look at this thing, what does it become?
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It becomes a pen again.
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Did that pen come from the human or did that pen come from the pen? From the human.
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If the dog walks in, it changes.
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It becomes a chew toy.
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So the pen is coming from me.
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If I close my eyes and wish I had a diamond in my hand, will it change?
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No. Okay.
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It's not by wishing.
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There's something in my mind which is forcing me to see it as a pen.
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In Buddhism we call that karma.
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Okay.
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There's a seed in my mind.
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When I look at this thing, the seed opens in my mind and it forces me to see a pen.
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Who put the seed in my mind?
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We say only you can put a seed in your mind.
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How do you put a seed in your mind?
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You go to another person, you say, I have a pen, do you want a pen?
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And you give it to them.
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When you open your hand and give them a pen or money or refugee aid or whatever, when you release the pen and you open your hand, who sees your hand open?
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You see your hand open and the other person sees your hand open.
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When you open your hand, that image goes into your mind and it creates a seed in your mind.
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When you give something to someone else with the intention of helping them with love,
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then this creates the record in your mind of that opening of your hand, creates an image.
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And that image comes into your mind, it presses on your mind, and it creates a seed.
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Then two days later, you go to a TED Talk, TEDx Talk, and the guy holds up this thing, and that seed opens in your mind, and you see a pen, and then you're not a dog, okay?
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I only have like one second left.
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There are four ways to plant a seed, I'll tell you very quickly.
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You can do it for money, for 200 million dollars, you can do it for a partner, you can do it for your health, you can do it to help the whole world.
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There are four steps and I wrote it on a piece of paper for you.
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But first one, decide what you want.
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Of the five goals I mentioned, decide which one you want.
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If you don't know what you want, put, I don't know what I want.
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I want to know what I want.
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Second step, you must find another person who wants the same thing.
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You must choose another person who wants the same thing.
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If you want a partner, you must locate a lonely person.
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That's the second step.
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I'm not kidding.
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You cannot plant a seed on your own.
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You need another person to plant a karma.
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First step, take them out once a week and help them, okay?
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I like what we said about that can be emotional support.
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It doesn't have to be money.
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It can be love, it can be concern, It can be helping the other person to get their life together.
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Okay.
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That's step number three.
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When you talk to them, you hear yourself talking and it plants a seed in your mind.
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That's called a karma.
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That karma can stay in your mind for a hundred years without opening.
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Okay.
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And you know people who've done nice things and they've had a terrible life.
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Okay.
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It's because they didn't know how to Don't put water on the karma.
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So that's step number four.
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And that's the last thing I have to say.
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The trick to making those seas in your mind open quickly and powerfully, 200 million dollars or a beautiful partner for your whole lifetime.
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The trick is to when you come home at night before you go to bed, you put your head down on the pillow and you do a small meditation,
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okay, with your head on the pillow.
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We call it coffee meditation.
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Don't ask me why.
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And you think about the beautiful thing you did for somebody else.
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You think about the good things you've done for someone else.
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And when you think about them, when you think about a karma, it puts water on that karma and the karma opens in your mind quickly into the things you dream of.
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If you understand that, then those who want money will be giving money to others and being happy about it.
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Those who want health or a partner will be giving those things to others.
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Those who want inner happiness will try to make other people happy.
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And that's how you change the world, and that's how you enlighten the world.
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It's only by helping other people.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Geshe Michael Roach TEDx 4steps and Pen”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: pen, seed, karma, dog, step. This video has 100 sentences and 1058 words to shadow. The speech runs for 5:54. The speaker talks at a natural 179 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 86% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start. 16 of its 100 sentences are questions, so it is good practice for question intonation and short answers.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| karma noun | /kərm(ə)/ | The sum total of a person's actions, which determine the person's next incarnation in samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth. |
| chew verb | /tʃuː/ | To crush with the teeth by repeated closing and opening of the jaws; done to food to soften it and break it down by the action of saliva before it is swallowed. |
| trick noun | /ˈtɹɪk/ | Something designed to fool, dupe, outsmart, mislead or swindle. |
| pillow noun | /ˈpɪl.oʊ/ [ˈpʰɪɫ.ö̞] | A soft cushion used to support the head in bed. |
| meditation noun | /mɛdɪˈteɪʃn̩/ | A devotional exercise of, or leading to, contemplation. |
| happiness noun | /ˈhæpinɪs/ | The emotion of being happy; joy; elation. |
| diamond noun | /ˈdaɪ.ə.mənd/ | A glimmering glass-like mineral that is an allotrope of carbon in which each atom is surrounded by four others in the form of a tetrahedron. |
| lifetime noun | /ˈlaɪf.taɪm/ | The duration of the life of someone or something. |
| intention noun | /ɪnˈtɛnʃn̩/ | A course of action that a person intends to follow. |
| lonely adjective | /ˈloʊnli/ | Unhappy due to feeling isolated from contact with other people. |
| locate verb | /ˈloʊˌkeɪt/ | To place; to set in a particular spot or position. |
| monastery noun | /ˈmɑnəˌstɛɹi/ | A residence for monks or others who have taken religious vows. |
| emptiness noun | The state or feeling of being empty; an emotion that combines hollowness, numbness, disconnection and a lack of meaning in life, resulting in existential… | |
| enlighten verb | /ɪnˈlaɪtən/ | To supply with light. |
| powerfully adverb | /ˈpaʊɚf(ə)li/ | In a powerful manner. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| hold up verb | To wait or delay. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- First I'll ask you some questions.
- Next question, who's correct, the human or the dog?
- There's a seed in my mind.
- Who put the seed in my mind?
- How do you put a seed in your mind?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | mind which is · person who wants · those who want |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | who've done · you've done |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 14 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'll, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: meditation /mɛdɪˈteɪʃn̩/, intention /ɪnˈtɛnʃn̩/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like karma, chew, trick.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.