ACI 12 «Руководство к образу жизни бодхисаттвы, часть III», занятие 3

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ACI Course XII: Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, Part III
Class Three: The Meaning of Illusion
October 21,1997
First part up to p. 18 (side one of audio tape) transcribed by: Christine Trotter
Second part p. 18-31 (side two of audio tape) transcribed by Roy K. Yoshimoto

[short mandala prayer]

[unclear]

[refuge prayer]

I'm sorry we're late tonight. You're up to 4 a.m. doing the reading and up til 7:20
doing the homework (laughs)... okay, so (laughs)... but, it's finished. (laughs)
We're on the subject of the two truths, which you know means the two realities,
right? There's ultimate reality, that almost defined us, if you could come into
contact with it directly for like twenty minutes in your whole life, you could
eventually reach nirvana and Buddhahood. And if you don't come in contact
with that in this life, you have obviously no hope of reaching Buddhahood and
no hope of nirvana also, which means that you'll never be able to get rid of your
bad emotions. You'll always have anger, you'll always have jealousy, and those
will make you unhappy for the rest of your life. So basically, if you don't see
emptiness directly in this life, if you don't make contact with ultimate reality,
higher reality in this life, you're doomed to be unhappy in this life. You can't be
happy. It's impossible, okay. That's the nature of ultimate reality. Then there's a
deceptive reality that's around us, deceptive in the sense that it looks to be one
way, but it really is a different way. And as long as you live in that kind of
reality, and as long as that's all that you know about, you'll be unhappy. Okay?
Period. Not only unhappy, but your unhappiness will cause you to do certain
bad deeds that will cause you to continue to have a body like this, and you'll
suffer. So, it comes down to, if you see emptiness directly you don't have to
suffer anymore. If you don't, you will have to suffer. You'll be unhappy for
sure. And obviously you'll continue to have a body like this... and continue to
have possessions that run away from you, and hopes and desires that run away
from you, and health that runs away from you, and beauty that runs away from
you, and everything else. Everything is caused by your inability to see, to make
contact with ultimate reality. Tonight we're gonna talk about... more about the
fight between Buddhist schools f ancient India that were complaining about our
explanation of ultimate reality: "What is ultimate reality like?" And there was
two big divisions in the Buddhist schools of ancient India about what does
ultimate reality mean, what is it like? Whenever there's a big fight between two
Buddhist schools, you have to remember that the Buddha taught both of them.
Okay? The Buddha taught the ones that are wrong, and the Buddha taught the
ones that are right. Okay, so why would the Buddha go around teaching three
schools that are wrong? And then... three and a half really... and then teaching
half a school that is right? Why would he do that? He was anticipating people in
1997 having certain wrong ideas about emptiness, you know. And he has no
problem two and a half thousand years ago... he sees 1997 as well as he sees 500
B.C. For him, today and two and a half thousand years from now look exactly
the same. So he has no problem looking into the future and saying, "Okay,
people in America in 1997 in New York City in the Quaker House, they're gonna
be having these wrong ideas about emptiness. I'd better teach four schools, you
know. And three of them will be wrong. And then that guy'll get to stand up
and give an explanation of them, and then they'll understand emptiness better,"
you know? So really he did teach all four ideas. Three of them... three lower
schools have a certain idea about emptiness, and the higher school has a different
idea about emptiness. What's the lower schools say? They complain about the
higher school. The higher school says nothing is real. Nothing is true. Nothing
has a nature of its own. If you were here Friday, we did the pen, right? And I'll
do it really quick, okay? First, just look at this pen, just look at it, okay?
{[unclear]} means "Don't think about its ultimate reality", you know? Just look at
it. {[unclear]} means "You're not worried about its ultimate reality." You're just
looking at a pen, okay? Now we'll start getting into its ultimate reality, but first
we'll start with "Now just see it." Shift your mind, shift your mode of perception,
and just see it as a stick that's black and white. Don't think of it as a pen. Just
look at it as a stick that's black and white. Pretend you didn't know it's a pen. It's
not hard to think of it as a black and white stick, right? It's not too hard. I mean,
you just kinda pretend it's just a black and white stick, and it's... for your mind to
shift to perceiving black and white stick is not difficult, okay? Now go back to
seeing it as a pen. Concentrate on it as a pen. So, if you think about it, the only
thing that's reaching your eye, the power of your eye, your sense consciousness,
the only thing your eye can see is shapes and colors, okay? All your eye sees is a
black and white cylinder. I'll call it stick, okay, but really it's a cylinder, okay?
Your eye cannot see "pen." Without your mind's participation, your eye by itself
can only see colors and shapes. That's all the eyeball does. The eyeball doesn't
make decisions about, is this a pen or not, okay? That's the mind. But the eye
doesn't make decisions like that. Really, the only information you're getting
from the side of this thing... I'm not gonna call it a pen, right?... and the only
information you're getting is cylinder, black and white, okay? The decision that
it's a pen, you know, deciding that it's a pen, is coming from somewhere else.
Where? It's from your own mind. Cause you can turn it off, and... you can turn
it on and turn it off, right? You can turn it off and say, "I'm just looking at a black
and white stick." When you turn it on, you can say, "I'm looking at a pen." So
thinking of it as a pen is not coming from its side, it's coming from your side.
That's what it means when you say the pen has no nature. This black and white
stick has no nature of being a pen until what?... Until you think of it as a pen,
okay? Until you decide of it as a pen. It's just a black and white stick, until you
decide to think of it as a pen. How did I prove it? Because you can turn it on and
off. You can decide to see it as a black and white stick, and then you can decide
to see it as a pen. So it's not coming from this thing's side. If the pen-ness was
coming from this thing, you would say, "Uh, wait a minute, Michael, I can't, uh, I
can't think of it as a black and white stick. Every time I look at it, I think pen. I
can't think of it as a black and white stick." But you can. So the pen-ness is not
coming from this, it's coming from your mind, okay? The idea that it's a pen is
coming from your mind. That's all we mean when we say it has no nature,
okay? It does not have a nature of being a pen. Its pen-ness is imputed, or laid
on it, it's a trip that you're laying on it. The poor thing from its side, as [Serge]
would say, the poor thing is just a black and white stick, you know [laughter]
and you're making it a pen, you're forcing it to be a pen, okay? It's not a pen
from its side, until you think of it as a pen from your side, because your eye
cannot see pen. All your eye can see is color and shapes, okay? That's what we
mean when it has no nature. Now the lower schools come along and say... oh,
by the way, [unclear] says, "Okay, this pen is like an illusion. This pen is like
magic, it's like a trick, it's unreal in a way." Why? Because your mind grasps so
strongly that that's a pen out there, from its side. But the reality is, it's just a
black and white stick, until your mind makes it a pen. But your mind thinks,
when I put this up, you didn't think black and white stick, you thought pen. And
you thought everyone that ever came in this room should see a pen. But an
Ala... a guy, an Eskimo, or an Aborigine who comes in and sees me holding up
this thing, he just thinks, "Wow, that's a really cool black and white stick. It's like
really smooth and it's not at all like the ones we have in Australia, you know?
[laughter] You know, he doesn't think pen. If pen was coming from this, he
would think pen the minute he saw it. But he doesn't. He sees the two, two
kinds of colors and he sees a cylinder. For him, that's all it is, okay? The pen-
ness comes from you, okay? If it was a pen from its own side, if it was a pen by
itself, if it had the nature of a pen, then any kind of animal, a bird, a dog, a cat, a
roach that walked in here would see a pen. They'd say, "Oh, a pen", you know.
But they don't, you know. They'd see it as a life-threatening thing, or a thing that
pokes them, or something like that. They don't see it as a pen, okay? They don't
have the karma to see it as a pen. That karma is coming from your side. It's not
coming from the side of this black and white cylinder. So it's like an illusion, but
your mind says, "Oh, it's a pen. It really is a pen", you know. And that's
ignorance. The illusion is that, it looks like it's a pen from its side, but the truth is
that it's not a pen from its side, okay. So the higher school says, "illusion," okay?
We're gonna study tonight illusion, the idea of illusion. Say {geema} [repeat]
{geema} [repeat]. In Sanskrit I believe it's {maya}, I think it's the name of the
Buddhist mother also. It means illusion, okay? Illusion, okay?
Illusion. By the way, if you wanna be convenient, you can think of a movie as an
illusion, okay. Seven Years In Tibet is a {geema}, okay? It's just a bunch of
Tibetans from New York City and other places that went to Argentina and put
on these costumes and they're just playing the Dalai Lama, and they're just
playing the Dalai Lama's ministers and the Chinese people are playing these
guys, nasty guys with machine guns, and they're probably all from, you know,
some diners in New York and stuff [laughter] and everybody like eats the same
lunch together, the Tibetan guys and the German guys, this American guy, and
it's all a {geema}, okay? It's all an illusion. There's not really any war going on
there, there's not really anything like that. It's a {geema}, okay? What is it that
makes a {geema} a {geema}? Say {[Nangsul dang nehtsul mitumba]}. [repeat]
{Nang}means "appear." {Nangsul} means the way something appears... the way
that something appears. {Nangsul} {Dang} means "and". {Nehtsul} means "the
way that the thing really is." In this case, {neh} means "to exist" or "to be" or
"really is", okay? {Mitumba} means [hums]... how do you call it... "inconsistent"... I
had a good translation for it. "Inconsistent... the way it appears and the way it
really is are inconsistent with each other, not the same, okay? Yeh?

[student: unclear question]

Excuse me?

[student: unclear question]

Well, we'll talk about what {namsul} and {nehtsul} mean, okay? There's a point...
do you remember that guy standing in front of the stove and there was a pot of
water, right?... just before he found emptiness directly, okay, July 1975? And the
guy is standing there and he's looking at this pot, okay? And he's thinking... and
then suddenly he sees that he's not looking at a pot. He's looking at some colors,
he's looking at a round thing, and a white thing, and a shiny thing, and a long
stick black thing. Because that's all the eye can see, okay? And then he's aware
that he's making a little pot in his mind, you know, that the mind is synthesizing
this nice little pot, and that pot is perfect. You know that's the pot you always
thought was there. It's nice and round, it's whole, when you look at the left side,
you can also see the right side, when you look at the right side, you can also see
the left side... like it's impossible, right? But it's this nice, perfect, whole little pot,
and it's like this big, and it's in the back of his mind somewhere. And then he
realizes he's never been looking at a pot in his whole life. It's impossible to look
at a pot, c'mon. You can't see a whole pot. It's impossible, okay?. If you see the
left side, you can't see the right side. If you see the right side, you can't see the
left side. That's why your eye is going... you know, you look at somebody's
eyeball, it's going like this. It's picking up clues. But somebody else is lying and
saying, "Oh, it's this nice little pot, you know? You can even see the back from
the front, you know?" [laughter] And stuff like that, you know? It's got this nice
little pot in your mind, okay? It looks like the minute before... five minutes
before, when you looked at the pot, it looked like there was a pot out there, on
the stove. And now suddenly, this thing is just a bunch of colors and shapes, and
there's another pot that's a little picture in the back of your mind, okay? The
{neetsul} is that, the way things really are, dependent origination, the ultimate
meaning of dependent origination. The meaning of dependent origination is
that all you're really seeing is some colors and shapes and your mind is making
this nice little picture and you've been watching these pictures your whole life,
okay, and mistaking them for the pot. That's dependent origination. That's the
{nehtsul}. {Nehtsul} means "that's the way things really are." What's the
{namsul}? Oh, that was five minutes before. The way it looked was it was out
there on the pot by itself, I mean, on the stove by itself. The pot was out there
on the stove by itself. What's the {namsul} of this pen? You think I'm holding a
pen in my hand. What's the {nehtsul} of this pen? I'm holding a stick that's black
and white. Your mind is laying a trip on it, and saying pen. And you think that
anybody who came in here would also say pen, but that's... you know that's not
true. If this thing was pen from its own side, then any schmuck who walked in
here, even if he's an Aborigine from Australia from five hundred years ago,
should see pen. But they don't. They see a black and white stick, okay? It is not
from its own side... it is not something [unclear] pen. But that's how it looks. So
we have an illusion going on here, okay. That's the meaning of illusion in this
case, the way it really is, which is a bunch of colors that your mind is organizing
into a pen, and the way it looks... oh, there's a pen out there... are not consistent
with each other. They're different, okay? And that's the meaning of illusion.
Yes?

[student: unclear question]
I'm sorry, what?

[student: unclear question]

Oh, that's another... we're gonna get to that in a later class, okay? We will get to
that. They are, but that's another story. Okay? So that's the meaning of
{geema}, okay, that's the basic meaning of {geema}. The more profound
meaning of {geema}, okay, just so you know, is really after you see emptiness
directly. There's the big illusion going on then. You came down out of the direct
experience of emptiness, you know... you... by the way, you just came out of the
direct perception of ultimate reality, you came down, and now again you're
seeing normal reality, deceptive reality, and you get this understanding that
every single thought you ever had before that was mistaken, it was fooled by
the deception, deceptive reality, it was fooled by de... deceptive reality is called
deceptive reality because of the state of mind that sees it is deceived, okay? And
then you realize that you never had a correct perception in your whole life,
okay? But there's something weird going on now. When you come down out of
the direct perception of emptiness, you start seeing that thing that way again,
you start seeing things exactly that way again. So then your life becomes very
weird. Why? You know you're wrong. All day long, you're seeing things as
existing from their side, and you know you're wrong. Can you stop it? No. The
day you stop it, but...is the day you become...you reach Nirvana, okay. Stopping
that...that is the most subtle and the final bad emotion that you'll ever overcome,
okay? Before that, you get rid of anger, jealousy, desire, but the most subtle one
is thinking that those things exist there out on their own, and it's the one you
were born with, you can't stop it easily. The day you stop it is the day you reach
Nirvana. It's very interesting. So it's very... that's a real illusion, to go through
your whole life, after seeing emptiness directly, and to know that every, every
perception that you have is wrong, but you know it, okay? That's a real illusion.
Then you're aware of the illusion, okay? Let's go back to... to the state of mind
where you saw the illusion, okay? You're standing in front of the pot and
suddenly it dawns on you that you're not looking at a pot, okay? Why do you
think you see a pot? What's making you organize those colors and shapes into a
pot?

[student: unclear answer]

Yeah. Your karma, okay? Your own karma, okay. If you see a nice pot, if you
see a pot with your nice tea in it, and you like the pot, it's the result of good
karma or bad karma? Good karma, okay? If you see a nice pot that's helpful to
you making you a nice cup of tea, then it's good karma. If you're like angry that
you have to stand there and make tea for somebody cause you'd rather be off
doing your practice, those same colors and shapes are being organized by the
mind into something unpleasant, and therefore that pot is a result of bad karma,
okay? The same pot can be the result of bad karma and good karma. By the
way, this is the reason we study emptiness in the first place, okay? That pot has
no nature of being a pot, and it has no nature of being a good pot or a bad pot.
That's coming from your mind. If you wanna live in a world of lousy pots,
collect bad karma. If you wanna live in a world of nice pots, collect good karma.
If you wanna live in a world where all the pots are filled with the nectar of
immortality and if you drink it you'll never die again or ever be unhappy again,
then study compassion, {bodhichitta}, ultimate good deeds, and it'll be that way
later. That's the whole point of studying emptiness, is to create your Buddha
Paradise, okay. You create it and then you move in, you can move out of your
apartment, get rid of all that stuff, move over there [laughs]... it's really possible,
because things are empty, okay? It really is possible, because things are empty.
Yeah?

[student: unclear question]

Yeah.

{student: unclear question]

He said, "You're enjoying looking at the pot, and you're anticipating that good
tea you're gonna have and you're thinking, 'Okay, this is gonna be nice tea,' and
you reach out and, say, you spill the water on your hand and you burn your
hand very badly, and suddenly this pot is very painful." You tell me what
happens.

[student: unclear answer]

The good karma wore out... seriously, and there's a prioritization system, it's like
airplanes waiting on a runway... seriously, your karmas are waiting there like
airplanes waiting on a runway. You can move some up, and you can move
others back, and you can divert some off that will never go off, they run...they'll
never fly. That's the idea of the four powers of confession. If you do a good
purification, you can move some of those bad karma airplanes off to a... a
hanger somewhere and they'll just sit there. They will never ripen. Or they will
ripen as a very... they'll, like, do a little hop and come back down or something.
[laughter] Seriously, okay? That's purification. But otherwise you've got all
these good and bad karmas lined up in priority, sequence. Which one's gonna
ripen first the more powerful? How is something more powerful? You did it
towards a more powerful object? Or you had a more powerful mental affliction.
Or you had more powerful compassion. Or whatever. So what happened in this
case was two planes took off right behind each other, okay? Like the... the
karma for having a nice cup of tea took off first, and then suddenly landed, you
know? And then the karma for having [laughs] it burn you took off behind it.
And that's still flying, [laughter] you know? And really. And then that will wear
out. All planes come to it land. They either crash or they land, right? I mean,
they all wear out. All karmic seeds wear out. And that's responsible for your
life. If you're tired of it going like that, then stop it, you know? Stop doing that.
That's responsible for the ups and downs of life. That's why everything you get
that's good turns screwy. And that's why when... just when you think things are
un... are hopeless, then something good happens. Because it's just the karmas
are... are taking off and landing. Yeah?

[student: unclear question]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It ripened first.

[student: unclear comment]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Tonight we're getting into... oh, by the way, so these
people over here say, "Things are an illusion because they don't have any nature
of their own. For... for example, the pen is not a pen from its own side. It does
not have a nature of being a pen. So it's unreal, okay? Now all these other three
schools say, "Oh, Mr. Madhyamika, Mr. Middle-Way. That's crazy, you know?
Things are real." And Madhyamika people say, "Why?" And they say, "Oh, it's
really a pen cause it writes." Okay? "It writes. You know, you can make these
little things with it, you know?" "If it functions, it's real," so we call them
Functionalists, okay? But where did the functioning come from? Your karma.
Okay, I mean, why we called it unreal and why they're saying it's real are two
different things, okay? They say it's real because it works. We say it's unreal
because it works. Or, it works because it's unreal, how's that? I'll say it again.
They say, "Oh, Mr. Madhyamika, it's not unreal, it's real. It works." And we say,
"Because it's unreal, it works." Got it? Is that too much on a Tuesday night... I'll
do one more tonight [laughs], okay? These people complain and say, "Don't say
this pen's not real. It's real, I can write with it." And then Madhyamika comes
along and says, "Well, it only writes because it's unreal." So what does unreal
mean? Well, it looks like it's not coming from your karma, but it is coming from
your karma. And that's what unreal means, okay? It's coming from your
karma.

[student: unclear question]

Yeah. Because it looks like it's not coming from your karma. There's... there's an
illusion here, okay? Okay? If I said, everything around you is a production of
your own mind, your mind... karma seeds in your mind are ripening and
creating this whole room. It's not real. Then it's like, wow! It's not real. Does it
work? Yes. Are there people sitting around you? Yes. Do they eat, sleep,
poopoo? Yes. Okay, no problem. But they're unreal, they're not what you
expected. They're not what you thought they were. They are all... everyone in
this room is a production of your karma, okay? If you like them, it's a
production of your good karma. If you don't like them, it's a production of your
bad karma. Most minds have about thirty-three, thirty-three, thirty-three.
Any... any room you walk into, the human mind will say... eventually will say, "I
like a third of these people, I hate a third of these people, and I don't care about a
third of these people," you know? It's not a function of the people. This is why
people who change companies always find that the same people are waiting for
them at the next [laughs] company, [laughter] you know? Really. You always
find a third of the people that you like, a third that you don't, a third you don't
care about, cause it's not coming from them. They are not self-existent. It's
imputed from your side. You're carrying the same karma in your mind that you
had at your last job to your new job. Eventually you'll find someone you don't
like, eventually you'll find someone you do like, and eventually you'll find a
whole group of people you could care less about. That's a function of your own
mind. That's another proof of emptiness, by the way. So remember that when
you quit your next job. Tonight we're gonna talk about a particular one of these
three schools who's trying to complain about the Madhya-...Madhyamika. And
they're called the Mind-Only School, okay.            The Mind-Only School.       Say
{semsang} [repeat] {semsang} [repeat]. {Semsang} means "mind only," okay?
I'm gonna tell you briefly why they're called mind only, but we'll get into it in
more detail later. It's gonna be a long class tonight, and it's a very nasty class
and, sorry, and I hope some people come back for the next class, which is not as
hard [laughter], okay? This is in the monastery where we lose a lot of the
monks. We usually start with sixty in a class and my class ended up with three
people graduating, so, anyway, this is the one that does it for a lot of people.
Okay. It's not that they believe that everything in the world is mind, okay?
They don't think that when you sit on a chair you're sitting on your mind, okay?
I mean, many people say that's what they believe, and it's dumb. Of course they
don't believe that, alright? What they do believe is that when I look at that chair,
or that pew, my eye... my eye and my eye consciousness, the fact that Michael
Roach is standing here, and the fact that he has a mind, and the fact that he can
even be aware of those colors and shapes, is coming from a karmic seed, right?
There's a karmic seed ripening and therefore I have an eye, and I can see things.
If I didn't have that karmic seed, I would be blind, okay? And people do get
blind, which means that airplane also comes down, eventually. You either die or
you go blind, but either way you lose your eye. Seriously. All karmas come
back. All karmas come back to the ground. They all wear out, okay? It's a
temporary, nice condition that I can see things, okay? The karmic seed that
created my eyes and the karmic seed that created that bench are the same thing.
It's called {zehchik}. They are one thing, one substance, one karmic seed. Like
helping people who had eye problems is ripening into my eye and that pew at
the same time. So that's really the result of same karma, okay? Is the pew my
mind? No. Okay? Is it like an extension of my mind? In a way. It's also
ripening out of one of my consciousnesses, okay? It's also coming from the same
seed that created my mind, okay? And in that sense, everything is mind only.
But they don't think that when you're sitting on a cushion, you're sitting on your
head, okay? They don't think that, alright? That's the meaning of mind only.
Now they're gonna complain to the Madhyamika. They're gonna say something,
and here's the basic gist of it. They say to the Madhyamika, "Can you see the
illusion, okay? Can you see the illusion? Can you see (a) the pen, (b) can you see
that the pen is really just colors and shapes, that you're thinking of as a pen. Is it
possible to see that illusion?" Of course. Especially when you see the pot, just
before you see emptiness directly, the morning you see emptiness directly. You
will see that you're seeing an illusion, okay? You will see it. So is it possible to
see the illusion? Yes. And they say, "No." The mind only school. They're
complaining to the Madhyamika School, okay. We're getting a little subtle
tonight, and then we'll go back to a little more comfortable stuff, alright? You
gotta hang in there, alright? No, because it has... no nature of its own. Check
this out. When the guy's standing there, and he figures out that the pot is really
just a picture in his mind, he's seeing that the pot is an illusion, right? That the
pot that he thought was out there is an illusion. Is everything an illusion like
that? According to these guys, yeh. Every normal thing in deceptive reality is an
illusion, like that, okay? In deceptive reality, everything is like an illusion. It
looks one way, but that's not the way it really is. So it's illusion. How does it
look? It looks like it exists out there on its own. Why is it an illusion? Because
that's not the way it really is. It's your mind making it that way, okay? Now
suppose one day you figure that out? What about the mind that figures it out?
Is that illusion? Yeah, cause it exists. It's deceptive reality. Deceptive means it's
illusion, it fools you. Even while you're seeing that the pot is unreal, the mind
that sees that is just as unreal. Got it? Okay [laughs]. The mind that sees the pot
is as unreal as the pot was, because it's deceptive reality. Why? Well, simple. It's
not emptiness, okay, it's not ultimate reality. If my mind was ultimate reality, I
would've been out of here at age two, you know, because I'm aware of my mind
all the time. My mind is also in that big group of things that are the lie, the
illusion, okay? Me, everything about me is there except for my... emptiness,
okay? There's only one thing about me which is not a lie. There's only one thing
about me that if you see it directly, the way it looks, and the way it really is, it's
exactly the... same. And that's emptiness. Emptiness is the only thing that looks
and is exactly the same. Everything else lies. Everything else looks like it's
coming from its own side, but it's not really coming from its own side, okay?
Now, Mind-Only people school, they like to talk about the mind, right? They're
gonna get subtle. They'll say, "Okay." So when you recognize this stuff... like
you're sitting in this class right now, you know, you didn't understand a hell of a
lot of what I said, but some of it, okay, that understanding, is that an illusion
also? Think about your understanding. Is that an illusion? Yeah. Because it
looks like it's coming from its own side, but it's not. If you have really good
karma tonight, that understanding is really clear. If you don't have such a good
karma tonight, that understanding is very fuzzy. If you have even worse
karma, you're bored to death, and you're waiting to see if you can get out of
here. [laughter] You know, okay? [laughs] That understanding of the illusion is
not itself self-existent. It is also a result of your karma, okay? If you have really
good karma, that karma is forcing you to understand what I say tonight. If you
have [unclear] karma, then it's like letting you understand half of what I'm
saying. If you have lousy karma, you're like really bored. If you have excellent,
excellent karma, they say, when I get to this subject, you should get chills up
your spine. That's a sign of a real Madhyamika student. Seriously. Opening
lines of Chandrakirti...Master Chandrakirti. If you really have a {bakchak}, if
you really have the {kyelwa}, the good virtue in your heart to see emptiness
directly, when I start talking about all this stuff, ooh, man [laughs] [laughter],
you know? It says...Master Chandrakirti says that. It's like, more, tell me more,
okay? So that understanding of, of the illusion, and that understanding of the
emptiness itself, is also a projection. It's also just your karma going off in your
mind. If you have good karma, it's clear. If you have medium karma, it's fuzzy.
If you have lousy karma, you're bored to death, you didn't understand anything
I said, and you're hoping the homework won't be too hard [laughs], okay, okay?
So it's also like an illusion. So these guys say to the Madhyamika people, "Hey,
what about that understanding of emptiness? Is that something... is that an
illusion?" Yeah, we have to say, yeah. It's like everything else. It's a projection.
Will they say, "Well, then, there's no illusion?" Okay?
They can't see any illusion. Because they think that if something is like an
illusion, it can't be true, and then it can't work, okay? Got it? Boy, real quiet.
[laughs] [laughter] They say, if something works, it's for real, okay? If a pen
works, it's for real, okay? And if you Madhyamika people say this pen is unreal,
then that means it doesn't work, okay? Now is the mind that understands
emptiness itself real or not? No, it's not real. Also, it doesn't work. So there is
no emptiness and there's no illusion. That's what they say, okay? That's what
they say. Got it? I'll do it one more time [laughs], okay? The illusion...
understanding the illusion... the state of mind that understands the illusion is also
illusory. It also doesn't have any existence from its own side. You are creating it.
Your karma is creating it. I can prove it. There's like eighty-five people in this
room, and there's eighty-five different understandings of emptiness going on
right now, I think [laughs], okay? [laughter] Or something approaching, okay?
That proves that that understanding is coming from you, and not from me, or
something like that... not from my words. Nagarjuna went into this long thing
of why words are not self-existent either. What you understand from these
noises I'm making is totally up to your karma. And if you're like autistic, it just
sounds like [goworworwor], you know? Because they don't have the karma to
hear the words have any meaning. You see what I mean? It's very interesting.
So, to repeat...

[student: unclear question]

After class, okay, cause I know you're gonna have a lot, okay? Come up to me
after class and we'll do that [debating hand-clap], okay? So this person complains
to the Madhyamikan people, okay, we'll do it this way. The pen is unreal, right?
Right. Why? Doesn't it write? No, stupid, it writes, okay? [laughter] Well, if it
writes, how come it's unreal? Well, because the fact that it even exists as a pen is
coming from your mind and your karma. It doesn't exist out there on its own,
okay? Oh, well, in that case, is your... is your understanding of the pen's
unrealness unreal or real? Like everything else, it's unreal. Okay? Well, in that
case, it...it can't work, right? I didn't say that. Oh, and because it doesn't work, it
doesn't exist at all. I didn't say that. Well then there's no illusion at all. And
you're all wrong, you know, okay, and it's like that. That's the whole debate,
alright? That's the whole debate. That's all they say. Now how does
Madhyamika respond to them, okay? How does Madhyamika respond? And
it's very cool, okay? Like sorry if anybody gets lost, alright? Just have some
cookies, you'll feel better, okay. They come up to them and say, "Look, Mister...
we'll do it this way, Mr. Mind Only, do you understand what illusion means?"
And they say, "Yeah, we understand what illusion means. It means that it looks
like it's one way, but it's really a different way." "Well, do you have any illusions
in your philosophy system, you know, do you... do you believe in the things...
are there any illusions that you talk about?" "Yeah, we got a real serious one,
you know." "Well, what is it, you know? "Oh, we think that when you're looking
at the bench, it looks like it's not coming from the same karmic seed as your
mind, as your eyeball, you know? It looks like it's out there, as an external
object, but it's not, because it's like you're looking at your toes. That's really your
own mind seed growing over there. So in a way, you're seeing your own mind,
but nobody knows, cause it's like an illusion. It doesn't look like that pew is part
of my own mind, it doesn't look like my mind is creating that pew, and that my
eye is looking at a piece of my own mind, okay? So they say, "Oh, that's what...
in your system, that's what illusion means." "Yeah, so we do have an illusion,"
Okay? "Well, so I guess then you can never see the illusion." "Why do they say
that?" You know? [laughs] [laughter] "Because you complain about us, that
when we're looking at our illusion, the mind itself must not exist, because the
illusion does exist." You cannot have a subject mind without an object, okay?
That's principle of Buddhism. You have to understand that, okay? There's no
pen that can't be a perception of the pen. Forget it, okay? There's no pen that
can't be a perception of the pen. So we say to them, "Well, then I guess you can't
see a pew." "Why do you say that?" "Because the pew's not there the way you
thought it was." "What's that got to do with it?" "If there's no object, there can be
no subject, there's no mind to see the pew. Same as you said to us." Okay, that's
how Madhyamika fights the Mind Only. Alright? I'll do it one more time, okay?
[laughs] [laughter] How does... first we'll start with the Mind Only guy, okay?
He's complaining to the Madhyamika guy, alright? "You say things are unreal,
right?" "Yeah, that's what we say." "So this pen is unreal, right?" "Yeah, that's
what we say." "Well, first of all, I think you're stupid cause it is real, I can write
with it, okay?" "That's not what we mean when we say unreal. When we say
unreal, it means, whether you can write with it or not, it looks to be existing
from its side, but it's not. It exists because your karma is going off in your head
and making you see it as a pen." "Why so?" "Because any idiot can see that if a
bug walks in here, or a dog, or a cat, or...or an Aborigine from two hundred
years ago in Australia, all that they're gonna see is a black and white stick.
They're not gonna see a pen. So pen is not coming from this thing. It's coming
from your karma." "Yeah, okay, sounds good, but I still think it's real cause it can
write, okay." Like, he insists, okay? So he says, "How do you prove that the
thing is an illusion?" "We see it's an illusion, stupid." "Well, how do you see it's an
illusion?" "We understand we're standing at the pot, and suddenly we catch
ourselves understanding that there's no pot out there, there's just some colors
and shapes of a pot, and our mind is making us see a pot. So it's like an illusion."
"Oh, right, right, right." "There's this real neat experience called {chuchok},
{jorlam chuchok}, you know, last moments before you see emptiness directly,
and... and you see that the pot is... is not real, right?" "Right." "So, if the pot's not
real, then the mind seeing is not real either, right?" "Right. The mind is not real."
"Why is the understanding of the pot's nature not real?" "Because it's also just
forced on me by my past karma, okay? It's not just coming up in my mind for
no reason at all. I'm seeing my mind think like that because of my past karma,
and that's why it's unreal, okay? That's the illusion." "Don't you guys accept an
illusion?" Be careful now, okay, it's gonna get harder. [laughs] "Oh, we do have
an illusion, we do accept some kind of illusion, okay?" "Well, tell me about your
kind of illusion. Is it the same as ours?" "No, no, we... we believe in a different
kind of illusion, okay?" "Well, what kind of illusion?" "Oh, we believe that that
pew out there that John's sitting on is really being created by a seed which is in
my mind, although it doesn't look that way, okay?" "Tell me more." "Well, the
eye that's seeing that pew and the pew itself are coming from the very same
karma, okay?" "So why is that an illusion?" "Because if you just look at the pew,
you're not gonna stand there and think, 'Oh, look, my mind is... a seed in my
mind's going off and making that pew that John's sitting on... I'm glad it's doing
that or John'd be on the floor, you know, okay?' Your mind doesn't think like
that. Your mind just sees the pew. Your mind is not thinking, 'Oh, that's good,
that's a seed going off in my mind, and my eye is also a seed going off in my
mind, and they're both coming from the same seed. Isn't it cool? You know, one
karma is creating the chair, and my eye to see the chair, that's cool.' You don't
think like that. You just look at a chair, so there's an illusion going on, the way it
really is and the way it looks are different. So we also have an illusion." Okay,
got it? Is the illusion real? No, it's not, it's not real. That's an illusion. So when I
look at the chair, am I seeing something real or an illusion? You're seeing an
illusion. So my mind that looks at the chair is not looking at anything real, right?
Yeah, that's what I said. So that state of mind doesn't exist at all because it's
looking at something that doesn't exist, okay? You cannot have a mind without
its... something for it to see, okay? There's no such thing in the universe, okay?
You cannot have an eye consciousness, you can't be aware of any colors and
shapes if there's no colors and shapes. So if there's no pew out there that's really
a pew, how can you ever understand that? How can you ever see a pew? You
guys are as crazy as we are. [laughs] Okay? Alright, that's the basic argument.
Is it more comfortable? Questions?
[student: unclear question]

Yeah, according to the Mind Only School.

[student: unclear]

You could say that also, but that's not what they emphasize. They emphasize
that, if the pew is unreal, then how could you have a subject mind that's holding
it because unreal things don't exist.

[student: unclear]

Sure.

[student: unclear]

Yeah, yeah, okay? If the mind was standing here and saying, "Oh, look, John's
sitting on a pew that's created by my own karma, which is also creating my
eyeball, that exists, that pew exists," but it's... that's not what that mind is
thinking. That mind is thinking, "John's sitting on a pew, which is created by
wood, paint, factory, anything but my own karma," okay, and that pew doesn't
exist. So what is your mind seeing? You guys are as bad as us, okay?"

[student: unclear]

Yeah, Madhyamika is arguing back to the Mind Only School. You are making
this complaint to us. Well, we make it to you. How did you ever see something
that was an illusion, because it doesn't even exist, so how could that state of mind
exist? Okay? By the way, what does the Madhyamika really say about illusion?
You can watch a movie. C'mon, you can enjoy "Seven Years In Tibet." It
functions. You eat popcorn, you drink Coke, and you feel nice, you know,
you're seeing this very compassionate little Dalai Lama guy, and everything is
really cool, you know? You can have emotions from a movie, you can watch a
movie, you can enjoy movie, as long as you don't... no, as long as you don't rip it
apart and say, "Oh, look, you can see the frame going. It's not really Tibet, it's
Argentina, I know that guy [laughter], he's the [laughs], you know, he's the
waiter at Tsampa Restaurant, you know, you know, he's not a... he's not His
Holiness's attendant, you know. I mean, that's {matak machepa}. If you leave it
alone, you can live in the world. We talked about the taxi and all that, you know,
but if you start investigating what's its real nature, it's no fun anymore. You
know, it won't be a movie anymore. Can you watch a movie? Yes. Does a
movie function? Of course. It entertains you. Is a movie real? No. Okay? That
doesn't mean you can't watch it, okay? That's how Madhyamika would respond.
Can a movie function to make you feel entertained and happy? Of course. Is it
an illusion? Yes. Do illusions function? Yes, no problem. Can you stand out in
front of an illusory New York City taxi cab barreling down the street and it'll
break your illusory legs? Yes, you know. [laughs] Is it real in the way that you
thought it was? Should you get angry at the taxi driver? No. Who broke your
leg? You broke your legs, okay. You made the taxi. Where did you think it
came from? Some sadistic creator God? We, we wiped him out in the last class,
okay? [laughter] Where did you think [laughs]... where did you think the taxi
came from, you know? Oh, it's just random? You know, it was bad luck that
you were walking across the street? It's just random that some people get hit
and some people don't get hit? C'mon, you know. Everything has a cause.
There's a cause for breaking your leg, and there's a reason why you stepped off
the curb at that moment, okay? Everything has a cause. Be a scientist, don't be a
voodooist, okay? Yeah?

[student: unclear]

They didn't win yet really. Okay? All they said was that if... "If you're... you're
complaining to us that if everything's an illusion, then no state of mind is for real
either." "Well, we can say the same thing to you."

[student: unclear]

Oh, oh. Jim said, "Why can you say that a mind can exist without an object?" In
Buddhist perceptual theory, the object actually perceives the mind and helps
create the state of mind which perceives it. The object triggers the awareness of
the object, okay? The object helps create the awareness of the object. Until you
have a banana, you can't have a perception of a banana. A banana comes a
millisecond before the awareness of a banana, and it's always like that.
According to Buddhism, the object helps create the perception which is
perceiving it by being there to be perceived. And it triggers the awareness of the
banana, okay. Let's...

[student: unclear]

I'm sorry, what again?
[student: unclear]

It can... by the way, the whole point of talking about illusion is... is a very good
picture of a banana or a very good wax banana from a distance can make your
stomach growl, yeah. Can it fill your stomach? No. And the whole point of... of
emptiness theory is that even though all those things have none of the existence
you think they have, you still struggle to get the things you want, you still
struggle to avoid the things you don't like, and you still hurt people to do that,
and then you're gonna have more problems, okay? They're not real, and the
way you relate to them is false also, you know? You're gonna sue the taxi
driver, you should sue yourself [laughter], okay? You're the one that created the
bad karma, you know, you're the one that created the taxi driver, you know? A
real good Buddhist should sue themselves at that point. [laughter] Okay? Yeah?

[student: unclear]

Would they disagree to the fact of the illusion? No, right? The fact of the illusion
is... is a reality. The fact that the "Seven Years In Tibet" is not real is itself a kind
of reality, right? It is a kind of truth. It's true that that movie is not real. Now
would they have a problem with that? Don't forget that Madhyamika said that
every state of mind is mistaken, and they also said that every perception of an
external object is mistaken, okay? Mistaken.

[student: unclear]

We're getting... We're gonna... We're about to come to that. We're about to
come to that. You're right, you're right in a way, it's coming. It's coming, okay?

[student: unclear]

You can say that.

[student: unclear]

Yeah, this pen exists as a conceptualization of the mind. It does not exist out
there on its own without that conceptualization. You can say that.

[student: unclear]

You can say that, yeah. That's the Madhyamika viewpoint.
[student: unclear]

Oh, they don't even talk about it. You see, their... their idea of illusion is
something totally different. And by the way, according to them, emptiness
would be what?

[students: unclear]

What would ultimate truth be? What would the real truth be about the pew in
my eyes? That they... well, let's make it easier. According to them, what would
dependent origination be? That that pew and my eyes come from the same
karmic seed? What would emptiness be? Nothing is any other way. Okay, in
their system, what would be dependent origination? The fact that that pew and
my mind depend on one karmic seed for their existence. That's dependent
origination. And emptiness is always the opposite, right? What is emptiness?
It's the fact that nothing ever comes any other way, okay? Very subtle, okay?
Any other way. Double negative. There ain't nothing that don't happen that
way, okay? [laughter] Seriously. That's the emptiness. There ain't nothing that
don't happen that way. That's emptiness, according to their school. After class...
[laughter] after class... No, it's cause I'm gonna go til ten and I don't wanna
make these people suffer more [laughs], okay? Not really, nine-thirty, probably.

[students: unclear]

Okay, when I'm like this, I'm a Mind Only.           When I'm like this, I'm a
Madhyamika, okay, Middle Way, Middle Way, okay? So, hey, do you guys have
any idea of what dependent origination is? Of course, we're Buddhists, aren't
we? [laughter] Well, what is dependent origination? It's the fact that that pew
that John's sitting on and my eyeballs and my eye consciousness are produced
by the same karmic seed. They depend for their originating on the same karmic
seed. Oh, that's your idea of dependent origination, right? Yeah. {Duh} yeh, in
Tibetan. So, so what do you think emptiness is... it's the opposite of that, right?
Right. What would that be like? It's not true that any pew could ever exist any
other way. Double negative, okay? There ain't no pew that's any other way,
and that's the emptiness of the pew, okay, in their system, okay? Got it? How
'bout you guys? What's dependent origination in your system? You know, like
they met on a subway somewhere, right? Oh, we got our own dependent
origination. Oh, what's that like? Now this is the real one, right, this is the
system of the Buddha, Nagarjuna, Tsongkapa, Khen Rinpoche, the Dalai Lama,
everybody else, okay, this is the real system. Oh, dependent origination means
the existence of this pen depends on karma forcing me to organize that black
and white color into a pen. The pen has originated depending on my perception
of it as a pen, which is forced on me by my past karma, okay? Oh, then, what is
emptiness according to you guys? Oh, we got emptiness. It's the fact that the
pen is empty of any other way of existing. The pen is devoid of any other way
of existing. The pen ain't got no any other way of existing. That's its emptiness.
Emptiness is always negative. Emptiness is an absence of something, okay?
Everyone sufficiently confused? Alright. I think we'd better take a break.
[laughs] Alright, take like a ten minute break and come back, okay?

[cut]

...through the homework questions one by one, okay? [laughs] [laughter]
Number one, summarize the argument of the Mind Only School when they
object to the position of the Middle Way School about deceptive and ultimate
truth or deceptive and ultimate reality, right? And the answer is, "If you
Madhyamika guys say that nothing has any nature of its own, then the mind
that sees things can't exist either, because it doesn't have any nature of its own."
They think if it has no nature of its own, it doesn't exist. Is that true? No. Does
the pen have a nature of its own? No. Does it really exist? Yes. Can you use it
to write? Yes. Okay, so already they're in trouble, but they say wrongly, "If you
Madhyamika guys say that the mind which sees things doesn't exist... is an
illusion, then it doesn't exist. If that mind didn't exist, there would be no subject
that it saw. And then nothing would be anything, okay, so you're wrong."
Okay? Basically, they're back in their same old problem of thinking that if
something doesn't have its own nature, it cannot exist at all. But that's not true.
The pen doesn't have its own nature. Its nature is coming from where?

[students: unclear]

Your mind. Why? Why did you choose pen and not stick? Your karma's forcing
you to see it. Was it good karma or bad karma? It depends how you feel about
this class, okay? [laughter] [laughs] Seriously, I mean, some people in this class
could be cursing this pen right now. [laughter] In that case, it's a bad karma.
Okay? If you like this class, then you say, oh, that pen is a good karma. Okay,
but either way it's a karma, and in that sense the pen is an illusion. It doesn't... it
doesn't look like it's coming from your karma, but it is. So I'll say the answer one
more time. Mind Only School is complaining to the Madhyamika School, "How
can you know anything, cause your mind is illusion also, it doesn't have any
nature of its own?" So it can't work, they think. "If it can't work, how can you
ever talk about an illusion, cause who could see the illusion?" Okay? "Who could
see the illusion? If your mind is an illusion, it doesn't work; if it doesn't work,
how can it see the illusion? Can't be an illusion. So you can never know, you can
never have that experience of the pot on the stove, because the mind that had
that experience is an illusion also. And it doesn't exist, and it doesn't work, and
it's not seeing anything at all," which is not what we said in the first place, but this
is what they're complaining about, okay? Now let's get them back. How? Let's
use the same gun that they used to shoot us to shoot them, okay? What's that?
Question number two. It's also on the quiz. How does the Middle Way School
answer this objection?       They say, "Look, your same argument applies to
yourself. Do you guys believe in any illusion?" They say, "We do. What's your
illusion like?" "That chair and my eye look like they are separate things and that
there's no connection between them in particular except that I'm watching the
chair. But in reality they are both created by the same karma. I helped
somebody put their rear-end on a chair in my past life. And that's creating that
chair, and that's creating my eye, at the same time." "But it doesn't look that
way." So there's an illusion going on. So then we say, "When you look at the
chair then you really don't see what you thought you saw, right?" They say,
"Right." "So the perception of the chair doesn't exist right?" "Why do you say
that?" "Cause the thing it's looking at is not there. You're the same, you're just as
bad as we are. Don't complain to us. You got the same idea running around in
your head. You think that things are an illusion; therefore, nothing could see it
because illusions are not real. So the state of mind seeing the illusion is also
unreal. It's not true."

[Cut]

[End of Side One]

[Side Two]

...say, "When you look at the chair, then, you don't really see what you thought
you saw, right?" They say, "Right." "So, the perception of chair doesn't exist,
right?" "Why do you say that?" "Cause the thing it's looking at is not there.
You're the same, you're just as bad a we are. Don't complain to us. You got the
same idea running around in your head. You think that things are an illusion,
and therefore nothing could see it because illusions are not real. So the state of
mind seeing the illusion is also unreal. So it's not true." When you went into the
movie theater, Sony Theater on eleventh and second, third...okay, did you see
Tibet and His Holiness the Dalai Lama? No. So was there a state of mind which
was perceiving Tibet and His Holiness the Dalai Lama? No. Was there a state of
mind which was perceiving the illusion of Tibet and the illusion of His Holiness.
Yes. That's all. Okay. There's no state of mind which is perceiving Tibet and the
real Dalai Lama because they weren't in the Sony Theater. So that subject mind
cannot be there. That's all. Okay, don't get confused. Don't worry about it.
Alright? There cannot be a perception of a pew according to you because there's
no pew there. It's just a piece of your mind that looks like a pew. Alright? How's
that? Okay? Did the Dalai Lama and Tibet go to the Sony Theater last week?
No. Did you have a perception of His Holiness and Tibet? No. Did you have a
perception of something that looked like His Holiness and looked like Tibet.
Yes. Is that an illusion? Yes. Did it function? Yes, I had a good time. It made
me cry, you know. So can illusions function? Yes. Is the pen illusory? Yes. Can
I still write with it? Yes. Okay, no problem. Okay? Easy. Huuh... [laughs]
Question number three. The graders are gonna have a really good time on these
two questions. Okay. Be liberal. [laughs] I hardly understand it myself.
Number three: state the meaning of illusion. What's the essence of an illusion?
By the way, Tibetan people have to do it in Tibetan track. {Nangsul dang netsul
mitumba}. The way it looks and the way it is ain't the same. Okay? The way it
looks to be and the way it really is is not the same. Why? It looks as if it's a pen
out there in my hand. But what's it really? It's my mind organizing some colors
and shapes. Why is my mind choosing to make it a pen? My karma. Because of
my karma forcing me to do that. What the hell has that got to do with my
happiness? Hey, if you could collect only good karma, you'd be having only
good, good objects in your life. Everybody in New York City would be friendly
to you. Every subway would run on time. There wouldn't be any garbage on
the street. Okay? And if you really worked on it, it would be a Buddha paradise.
That's the point. You wouldn't even have to die. The Buddha didn't say, "I'll
make you feel good." The Buddha said, "I will protect you and I will save you
from death, old age, and sickness. You can do it because things are empty.
That's what it's got to do with your life. Why should you listen up here to some
guy discussing two schools of thirteen hundred years ago arguing about some
stupid thing...it just seems to be, you know, philosophy and plain old stuff. It's
not like that. If you get it, you can not die, okay? And that would be nice. I
think everybody in this room would like to do that. And not get old, and not get
stupid, and not get blind, and everything, okay. That's the point. We're not just
fooling around. These are very important questions. By thinking about these
points you will see emptiness faster. That's the whole point. Twenty minutes
with good old emptiness: you're outta here. Alright? Seriously. The definition
of ultimate reality. I'm not kidding and I'm not being facetious. This is why
we're talking about all this stuff. Master Shantideva who spent hundreds of
pages teaching you about patience, kindness, compassion, morality,
concentration, giving...he's not gonna waste your time at the end of the book,
okay? There's some connection between this stuff. Okay? Alright. Question
number four. Oh, by the way, question number three also says, "What,
according to the Mind Only School, is like an illusion?" It's me, and John's pew,
and my eyeball, right? How do we say it in Tibetan? Here you go. I stayed up
until four. Okay, you guys get to stay up later, I think. Okay, say {suk} [repeat]
{dang} [repeat] {suktzin} [repeat] {gi} [repeat] {tsemma} [repeat] {tze} [repeat]
{shinki} [repeat] {trulpa} [repeat]. It's like a mantra in the monastery. When you
get to the Mind Only School this is like a mantra. You debate for day after day
after day. You debate and you use this: {suk dang suktzin gi tsemma tze shinki
donwa...tze shinki trulpa}. Like that. It just becomes like a mantra. This is the
belief of the Mind Only School about the illusion that that pew and my eyes seem
to be coming from separate causes. That that's not true. That's just an illusion.
They are coming from the same causes. What? I was nice to somebody who
needed a needed a place to sit in my past life. That created my eyes to see that
chair. And it's creating the chair itself. One seed, one cause, is creating both. The
illusion is that it seems to be that they're coming...it seems to be that they're
coming...it seems to be that my mommy and my daddy and the Cheerios I eat
every morning are creating my eye and some factory made that chair. Is that
true? Yes. Why did I eat those Cheerios? Why did I have those mommy and
daddy? Why did that factory make the chair? They were creating by one karmic
seed, okay, in my mind. Okay, kinda cool. Yeh?

[Student: [unclear]]

Once they ripen into the...

[Jim: [unclear]]

Jim asked, once that seed ripens do those two things happen independently? We
would say that they're independent of each other. But in the sense that they
both depend on the cause, they're not independent. But after they've ripened,
and the seed has, what, by definition disappeared, they are...they do exist those
as separate objects, okay? But the, but the Mind Only School would say, that is
not an external object. They don't like the word external. Okay? They would
also say that. By the way--I'm surprised nobody brought it up yet--when we got
to this point in the monastery I interrupted my teacher for the one and only time
in eighteen years. And I said, "What's the problem with that? It sounds great to
me." You know? "How, how, how come we don't accept that? Isn't it true that
everything in my world and everything about me which is experiencing it have
come from my karma?" You know? "What's wrong with the Mind Only
School?" He says, "You got it. There's nothing wrong with them." Then what's
the problem with the Mind Only School? They think there's a separate part of
your brain where those seeds have to stay and that's not true. But the principle
is right. No problem, okay? Is that the ultimate meaning of emptiness? Pretty
close. Okay? So don't think it's a stupid idea. It's a great idea. And you should
have objected by now. Anyway, yeh?

[Student: [unclear]]

Yeh, the whole problem of the Mind Only presentation stems from their believe
that the seeds themself and the mind itself is self-existent.     But that...I'm
not...that's not why we're here tonight. We're not gonna talk about that tonight.
Yeh?

[Student: [unclear]]

Okay, he says if there's a homeless person outside and I help him with some
money to get some food, am I interfering with any karma or anything like that?
She created karma which is forcing her to see you give her money. You created
karma which is giving you the predilection or the enjoyment of giving charity to
other people. And so they're both the result of karma, and if at the last moment
you decide not to, or if the coin drops into a grating and she can't reach it, then
her good karma has just shifted into a bad karma. The good karma has worn
out...it's like tea that burned your hand, okay? So everything is within the laws
of karma. Nothing breaks the laws of karma, ever. Okay. So I think that covers
question number...that's the illusion according to the Mind Only School, okay?
Now, in the Mind Only School, how do you catch yourself seeing the illusion? By
the way, our tradition is Dalai Lama's tradition, Gelukpa...when we get to the
hard part we slow down and we spend more time on it. I mean that's our...that's
our tradition. I'm not saying the other schools don't. But I'm saying we really
enjoy it, so we're really gonna slow down and covers these carefully. Alright?
Say {rangrik} [repeat] {rangrik} [repeat]. Roll the "r" even though I can't do it so
well. {Rangrik}. {Rang} means "myself...self." {Rik} means "to know." {Rangrik}
means "self-perception of the mind." They're gonna get to the point of asking us,
"How do you...you have this state of mind that was watching the mind. You
caught the illusion, finally, after countless lifetimes. You caught yourself in the
act of watching an illusion. But how did you do that if the mind itself is an
illusion? How can a screwy state of mind catch a screwy state of affairs?" Okay?
And we say, "Well how about you, how do you think you're gonna catch your
illusion?" "Ah, we got something: {rangrik}." Okay? The mind sees itself. The
mind watches itself. Self-awareness, okay? When I am looking...I got it, it's
okay...when I am looking at the color blue, for example, there's a part of my
mind watching myself seeing the color blue. Got it? When I see blue, when I see
something blue, there's two states of my mind going on in my mind at the same
time. Half my mind is perceiving blue. The other half of my mind is watching
my mind perceiving blue. Got it? Okay. The second one is called {rangrik}, the
mind watching itself, okay? They say, very conveniently, the mind separates
into two parts: one part is watching the pew, the other part is watching myself
watch the pew. Prove it! I can remember myself watching the pew. Alright?
Got it? I'll go through it again. Maybe this is too much for one class. Anyway,
Mind Only School...how do you catch yourself seeing the illusion? The way you
catch yourself doing anything else. Well, how's that? There's two parts of your
mind going on at the same time all the time. When you're watching the pew,
there's another part of your mind watching you watching the pew. Okay?
Prove it! Hey, tomorrow morning you're gonna remember that you saw the
pew. Well, you're also gonna remember that it was you seeing the pew. You
must have had an awareness of yourself. You must have been aware of yourself
watching the pew. 'Cause the next morning you remember yourself that you
were watching the pew. You say, what? I saw the pew. Who...how did you
know I was there. 'Cause part of your mind was watching "I" and part of your
mind was watching the pew, they say, okay? Is this true? No. Okay, we'll get
into why not. Alright? I think we kinda believe this in America, also. Alright?
They believe that that little part of your mind that's watching yourself watch the
pew is called {rangrik}: knowledge of itself, the mind's knowledge of itself, in the
moment, in the present moment. It's not a memory. It's a simultaneous
awareness of the chair and awareness of the awareness of the chair. Got it?
Everyone's asleep. Yeh?

[Student: [unclear]]

Yeh, something like that. Yeh, I think for [unclear].

[Student: [unclear]]

They're just now every...each school is getting into the question of how do you
catch yourself, watching the illusion? That's all. Okay. But for them illusion only
refers to outside things, things that look to be outside, okay? Yeh.
[Student: [unclear]]

[Laughs] Yeh, we do. We do talk about...Nancy said, but what about like when
you're watching your morality? You're keeping your book every two hours.
And then there's this...back of the mind, there's this awareness of "what am I
doing, what am I saying, what am I thinking?" According to Madhyamika, those
would be alternating. They would not be going on at the same time. Okay?
Alternating quickly in the case of an ethical person. Alternating very slowly in
the case of [laughs] other people...tens minutes later, "Oh, I shouldn't have said
that," you know. [Laughs] By the way, that's the point of {tundruk}, and that's
the point of your book. It's to lower the time gap, down to zero. You, you don't
say the bad thing as you're trying to say it. You get kinda schizophrenic if you're
a good Buddhist, you know, like "Uh, uu, dzuh," trying to search for something
good to say. Okay? Alright. So what state of...now question number four, what
state of mind according to the Mind Only School confirms the existence of your
seeing the illusion, and in fact, every state of mind. It's {rangrik}. It's that mind
that watches the mind. Okay? Since it's early tonigh-...in the night, I'll give you
the full philosophical definition of {rangrik}. Okay. This is also a mantra, mantra
in the monastery. This happens to be the answer to question seven. And we're
almost done, right. {Ka}, {na}...{kanala}. We have to memorize this at the winter
debates over and over again, so...by the way this class is for fanatics, okay? I
gave you two easy classes this year. Now you get one real one, okay? Did
everybody see [film: GI Jane]? That was an assignment, right? Don't ring the
bell, okay? "Ring the bell" means I chickened out. I'm gonna go to the Friday
night class. I think I'll switch over to English track. Be a tough guy. The more
you...the more pain, the more you gain, right? Really. This is not unimportant.
This is your death we're talking about, okay? You gotta put some effort into it.
I'm trying to force you to put some time into it. Okay? Somebody asked me
today, "Should I sleep, meditate, or prepare for the quiz?" And my answer was,
"All three!"

[Student: [unclear]]

Not at all. Not at all. Okay? Very typical in Buddhism, you can use someone
else's screwy logic to screw up their logic. Okay? No problem. It's called {rikpa
gosung}. It's a logical method. It's a recognized method. As long as they accept
it, it's, it's legal. Okay? The test of trueness in Buddhist logic is not so much
reality, it's, it's what does the opponent, what will, what will the opponent accept.
You see what I mean? It's a long story. Okay. Say {kanang} [repeat]. By the
way, scream. In the spring, February, we're gonna do a class on Buddhist logic
and we're gonna debate. Half the class will be debating in English, or in Tibetan,
but we're gonna break into small circles like in the monastery, half the class, and
we'll just go at it. It's a lot of fun. You know, you saw that guy dancing in [Time
Magazine], right? That was really a debate, okay? It's a lot of fun and you learn
like a rocket ship. You can learn ten times faster, and, and, and you learn how to
debate a question. And then forever after you can pick any question you want
and decide it quickly, and you also become very stubborn, okay? 'Cause you can
defend anything whether it's logical or not, okay? As those people who work
with me know. Okay? {Kanang kona la chok}. Say {kanang} [repeat], {konala}
[repeat], {chok} [repeat].          {Kanang konala chok} means...{kanang} means
"inwardly," it faces inward, it's introspective: {kanang}. {Kona}: it only faces
inwardly, it never checks out the pew...it's never looking at the pew, it's always
looking at what? Me looking at the pew, okay? This is the definition of the
selfperception of the mind. Okay? The first quality is that it's always turned
inward. {Kanang}, only, {kanang konala}, {chok} means to be directed inward, so
it's always inwardly directed. {Kanang konala chok shing}. {Shing} here means
"and." {Ninang tamche dang drelway}. Say {ninang} [repeat], {tamche dang}
[repeat] [repeat], {drelway} [repeat]. {Ninang} means "duality," "duality." Okay?
A sense of two separate things. Okay? A sense of two separate things. In
Buddhism that has different meanings. Okay? Tonight it's going to mean a
separate knower and a separate knowee. Tonight, two separate things it's gonna
refer to: a separate knower, and a separate thing known. Okay? The knower
and the known. The knower and the thing it knows. How's that? Okay. Here
in this case, in this definition, which is not always the case, duality means a
separate knower and a separate thing which is known. {Tamche} means all of
those. {Dang trelway} is an idiom meaning it ain't got those things. It doesn't
have those things. There is no sense of duality. There is no sense of I am
knowing or I am known. Okay? There can't be...this is a very convenient part of
the definition...for the, for the Mind Only School. They're lucky they threw this
in. Because otherwise they're in big trouble. Why? How could the mind at one
moment be knowing itself and be knowing itself? It's like this Fireside Theater
thing back in the...I'm not gonna say the year. [laughter] You know, how can
you be in two places at once where you're nowhere at all. So how can you be
the thing that's out there that you're knowing, and simultaneously be the guy
who's looking at the thing? It's stupid, it's impossible. They say, "Oh, it's all, like,
void at that time." You know, forget the distinction between the person who's
knowing and the thing that's known, okay? How could your mind split into two
parts and half of it is looking at the other half while the other half is looking at
the pew. Come on, you're either a knower or the thing that's known, but you
can't be both at the same time. Okay? They say, "Ohhh, it's all those...it's neither.
All duality is gone." Okay? They have to say that. By the way, the Buddha then
says...this is question number five...the Buddha complains about the Mind Only
School. Who invented the Mind Only School?

[Student: The Buddha.]

Okay. Anyway, he takes a knife...he say...he holds up a knife, 'cause...imagine
this is a knife, okay? Do you have karma to imagine it as a knife? Yes. Okay.
Imagine it as a knife. This is the blade of the knife, right? Can the blade of the
knife cut itself? You like...when you're using a knife, do you have to be careful
not to cut the knife? It's crazy, it's stupid. The Buddha said, "Your, your {rangrik}
is the same. How can the mind see itself, while it's seeing itself, while it's seeing
something else? How can the mind be the thing which is seeing and the thing
which is seen at the same time? That's like, you have to be careful while you cut
bread because you might cut the knife, okay? It's silly, it's impossible. Okay? By
the way, that's the answer to number five. The Buddha said, "The mind is the
same as the blade of a sword which could never cut itself." Direct quotation from
the Buddha, and Master Shantideva rips it off and puts it in his book. How could
a, a knife be in danger of cutting the knife? How could the mind watch the mind
and be the thing watched by the mind at the same time? It's impossible. Okay?
Yeh?

[Student: [unclear]]

Why?

[Student: [unclear]]

No, okay? Alright. Yeh?

[Student: [unclear]]

I will. When we finish I'll give you the gist of the whole thing. {Tamche dang
trelway}, we're up to {dzunam}, okay? {Dzunam} means it's a subject, it's in the
subject mode as opposed the object mode. Can your mind ever be in the object
mode? Can your mind ever be the object of another state of mind? Yeh? When?
When the Buddha reads your mind, okay? When the Buddha is reading your
mind, your mind is in object mode.             {Dzunam} means subject mode.
Selfperception of the mind is always in subject mode. {Dzunam} means subject
mode. If there's anyone I didn't loose yet, please raise your hand. No, okay?
Alright. {Yengarwa}. Say {yengarwa} [repeat]. {Yengarwa} means it's a whole
separate compartment of your mind. {Yengarwa} means isolated, separated...it's
a very rare word, okay? {Yengarwa} means separate. So, I'm gonna wrap it up
for you. In a nutshell, their idea of self-perception...why am I talking about
selfperception? Why did this come up? Who can catch yourself seeing the
illusion? You know? When you're seeing the illusion, how do you know you're
doing it, if your mind is illusory also? Okay? "Oh, there's this other part of your
mind." "Oh, what's it like?" It's {yengarwa}. It's a separate part of your mind,
which is always only a subject, it doesn't have any quality of being the thing
which knows or the thing which is known; all of those distinctions are gone at
that moment. And it's only focusing upon the mind itself. It's only focusing
inwardly. And we call that thing the self-perception of the mind. In, in
psychology it's called apperception, if you care, okay? Got it? Okay. One more
time. The Mind Only has to come up with this stupid idea that's not real because
they have to explain how do you catch yourself in the illusion. Is that important?
Goddam, yes it is. You have to catch yourself about an hour before you see
emptiness directly. You must be able to catch yourself seeing the illusion. You
must catch yourself making a mental pot where there's only a few colors and
shapes. You must be able to see dependent origination. That is dependent
origination. You catch yourself doing it and then about an hour later you see
emptiness directly. About an hour after that, you never have to worry about
suffering in any major way for the rest of your existence. That's pretty cool.
What's it like? Okay. They say, the state of mind that catches the illusion is a
separate part of your mind, it's a subject part of the mind, there's no distinction
there anymore of someone who's knowing or someone who's known, and it's
only focused inwardly. It's only watching what? The mind watching the chair.
Is it ever focused on the chair? No, it's only inwardly focusing. Can it distinguish
between the thing known and the thing knowing? It better not or you're gonna
have some kind of real schizophrenia. Okay? Because it happens to be two
opposite things at the same time. Let's drop that. Okay? Where is it located?
Separate compartment in your mind. Okay? Alright? That's their definition.
Let's see if we got anything else. Last thing, almost. We got this debate again.
Who's over here? Mind Only. Who's over here? Middle Way. Okay? Mind
Only says, "Well, you explain how you remember that you saw the pew. What
are you saying Mr. Madhyamika? The next morning...just tell me what you
say?" "We say, 'I saw the pew.'" "Ah hah, you say, 'pew,' and you say 'I' right?"
"Right." "So you must have had an awareness of the pew, and you must have
had an awareness of 'I,' because you say two things; you say 'I' saw the pew."
"Right." "So at the moment that you saw the pew, you must have been aware of
your mind, right?" "Not necessarily." "Well, we say you are; we say there's this
thing called self-perception of the mind, and that's why the next morning you
could say, 'I saw the pew' because the same mind at the same moment is seeing
the pew and watching you see the pew, and that's proven by the next morning
you can say, 'I saw the pew.' You can remember 'I' and you can remember 'pew.'
And if there hadn't been one state of mind catching both of them at the same
time, how could you say I saw the pew?" "We have a different explanation."
Okay? [Laughs] "What's that?" "You don't remember the example of the rat?"
Okay? Okay? This is called the example of the rat bite. It's very famous, in
Madhyamika philosophy. What's the example?                          There's a bear
hibernating...where are they hibernating?...I don't know where they hibernate,
in some cave I guess, okay? And he's in a state of like half-asleep. It's winter
time. Okay? He's in hibernation. Okay? Some mouse comes up and bites him
on the butt. Okay? [Gnarl, gnarl.] And he like turns over in his sleep, he's like,
"Ouch," you know, and he turns over, okay? But he doesn't wake up. Alright.
Then according to Tibetan and Indian philosophy, springtime comes with its
April showers, and what happens? There's thunder. There's a big boom of
thunder. And the bear goes, "Woo, what was that?" And he wakes up. The
thunder wakes him up, okay? It's called {drup dra dreba}. He hears the thunder
and he wakes up. And then he goes, what? "Ouch, man, what was that?" You
know, and he, and he, and he remembers, you know, rolling over like I like
remember some kind of sharp pain, December, it was around Christmas time,
you know, and I got this sharp pain in my butt and I rolled over and went...I
didn't quite wake up, you know, and then he looks and it's all infected. He sees
this pus, okay, and he says, "Uh oh, that rat must have had rabies." Or
something like that, okay? That rat must have had...they're called {shiway
dhup}...it means there's some kind of poison in the rat's mouth, okay? It must
have had some ra-...call it rabies, okay? He must have had rabies, 'cause now
look it's all infected, it's not just like a scar. It's all puffy and everything else,
okay? This is how Master Shantideva and by...and, and the great philosophers in
India explain why I can say, what? I saw the pew. Okay? And there's five parts
to this analogy: that's the homework question. Okay? There's five parts to the
analogy. This explains why you can remember why something happened, and
you can remember yourself in the event even though there's no such thing as
this idea of self-perception of the mind. By the way, to summarize I'll give it to
you easy, and then we'll break it down into the parts. Whad'yah have for
dinner? I mean think of the thing you had for lunch or, you know, okay? I had,
of course, the nectar of the gods, Two Boots Pizza, okay? I've been waiting,
okay? Was I in the pizza parlor? Yes. I ate pizza. Alight? So I must have been
in the pizza parlor. Why? According to the Madhyamika, because I remember
the pizza. Okay? That's all. That's all you need. I remember the pizza. And it's a
deduction, and not a direct memory to say, Michael Roach must have been there,
okay? Got it? The, the pizza, I saw directly. But the Michael Roach, I'm just
assuming was there. Why? I remember the taste. Okay? This guy standing
here remembers the taste. So this guy must have been there, okay? Was there a
direct perception of me at that moment, at the very moment that I was focusing
on the pizza? No. It's impossible, okay? Then how can you say you ate the
pizza? Well, I remember the taste of the pizza, I must have been there. Okay?
By the way, you can have this thought a millisecond after you bite the pizza,
right? It's not like it would have to be the next night or something like that,
okay? How do you prove that there was a mind there tasting pizza? Because I
remember the taste of the pizza. So I must have been there, okay? You don't
have to say there's this half of your mind hanging over there, it's watching your
mind eat the pizza, okay? You don't need that. All you have to say is that I
remember the pizza, so I must have been there, okay? It's just like the bear that
got bit in the butt, okay? Now what is the full analogy? Here we go. Then you
can wake up and go home. Okay. [Laughs] Being bitten by the rat is like eating
the pizza, okay? Being bitten by the rat is like eating the pizza, okay? Did it
happen this afternoon? Yes. Did it happen around Christmas? Yes. Okay? You
got bit by the rat. The pizza got bit by me. Okay? Alright. Did poison enter the
body at the time that the rat bit the bear. Did some poison enter the body? Yes.
That's an analogy for...there must have been...I mean, how to say? The fact that I
have a nice full tummy now proves that I was there in the pizza parlor. How's
that? Okay? The, the fact of the poison proves that there was somebody there.
The fact of a full stomach now, and the remembrance of the pizza proves that I
was there. Okay? The fact that there's infection now proves that there was
poison in the rat's mouth. Okay? Number three: was the bear aware of the
poison at Christmas time...that the poison was entering it's body? No. Okay?
Was there an experience of Michael Roach at the very moment I bit into the two
bites, the Two Boots Pizza? No. Okay? Same thing, alright? You're not aware of
yourself at the very moment that you're focusing on that outside object, okay?
No, it's the fact that you cannot focus on two widely
different things at the same moment. The human mind can't do that. It appears
to do that because it, you know, [fingersnap] sixty-five seconds of perception
[two fingersnaps]...per sixty-five [fingersnap] moments of [fingersnap]
perception in that much time. It's actually alternating between objects. Okay.
Remembering the bite later on, right, in April. He remembers, "Oh yeh, I
remember that." It's like remembering the object later on...the original object,
okay?      I remember the pizza.        It's like remembering the bite.    Okay?
Remembering the bite is like remembering the pizza. Okay? Tasting the pizza,
biting the pizza. And the fact that we understand that there was poison in the
rat's mouth is what? A deduction. And I can also deduce that I must have been
sitting in the pizza parlor. Okay? I can, I can understand that I must have been
there. So, the bear saying to himself, that rat must have had rabies when he bit
me, is the same as me saying, I must have been in the pizza parlor, because I
remember the pizza. And he remembers the bite, and he sees the later effects,
the full tummy, nice feeling, of the pizza. Okay? Wow! I think that's about it.
Yeh, number four was, remembering the bite later on is the same as
remembering the experience of the pizza. Okay? Your remembering the bite is
an analogy for "I remember biting into the pizza." Okay? Yeh.

[Student: [unclear]]

Yeh, exactly. Especially, it's a theory of "how can you remember the subject in a
former perception?"

[Student: [unclear]]

Yeh, you can say that. That's a deduction. It is the same thing.

[Student: [unclear]]

Oh, deduction...you don't sit there all day and say, "Gee, I wonder if I was in that
pizza parlor?" You know? Like your mind calculates it instantly, right? I know I
was in the Two Boots Pizza Parlor. Why? I can remember the Two Boots Pizza,
I must have been there. Okay, that's all. What's this got to do with my
happiness? Okay? Okay? What's this got to do with my happiness? It's very
important. How can I get to that point where I'm standing in front of the stove
and I finally see after countless lifetimes, that I am making that pot with my
karma. You know, and now all things are possible. I can enter a Buddha
Paradise in this life. I can see tantric angels standing around me in this life if I'm
good enough. Why? Cause it's empty. Okay? How do you prove it? How do
you know it? When you, when you remember seeing the real nature of the pot,
you know you must have been there. Okay? That's all. Anyway, we're trying
to get to that. Definitely the last thing. I covered all the questions except one.
Okay?

[Silence]

You don't have to write this. This is in your reading, okay? You don't have to
worry about it. It's in your reading. Write the first few words and you'll know
where it is, okay? {Marme sawa}. Okay? {Marme sawa}. It's a dying gasp of
the...Mind Only School. By the way, after tonight you can say goodbye to them.
They don't come back. Okay? You can rejoice...that by next class we'll be back
on a normal subject. Alright? And I promise we will, okay? No more heavy
stuff. But I don't want to leave it out, you know? You should understand it, you
should know it, okay? This is the hardest class, I think, of all the classes we've
had, in history, okay? So you can be proud that you made it through the class.
Next class it gets easier. And this is their dying gasp, okay? This is their final
word on the subject, okay? They say your mind is just like a lamp. Why?
They...by the way, they're trying to defend, what? Their last attempt to defend,
what? {Rangrik}. The idea that the mind could know itself at the very instant
that it's knowing something else...that the mind could watch itself work. Watch
who? Itself. And be the person being watched at the same time? Right? Oh
come on, you know? Oh no, no, it's just like a butter lamp, {marme}, okay? See
{marme}? It's just like a butter lamp? What are you talking about? Oh, a butter
lamp lights up all the things around it. Oh we can handle that. Your mind see's
the pew right? I mean you're talking about the mind seeing the pew. Right,
right. The mind sees the pew in the same way that the light from a butter lamp
lights up all the things in the room. Okay, we have no problem with that. And
then they say something really stupid. And, but first the lamp has to light up
itself. Okay? Or else it would be dark, you know? [Laughter] Right? I mean
the dumb electric bulb has to light up itself, has to make itself light before it can
light up all the stuff in this room, okay? Why? When you look at it it's all lit up.
Okay? Alright? They say, that's how {rangrik} works. That's how the mind sees
itself. First you have to see yourself and then you can see other stuff. Okay? The
mind in one moment, is watching itself and watching itself watch the other stuff
at the same time. Okay? It's watching itself and it's also seeing the pew at the
same time. Why? Because a butter lamp lights up the whole room and itself. At
the same time. Okay? No problem. Okay? So Madhyamika gives a really cute
answer, okay? Finally you get something light, alright? They say, well when
you turn off the lights it must be bright as hell in your room. [Laughter] Okay?
[Laughs] And then the Mind Only School says, "What are you talking about?"
You know. And they say, "Well, you know, it's like this. First, darkness makes
all the things dark. First darkness covers up all the other stuff." "That's all right.
And then according to you, it covers up itself, right?" "Uh, I guess?" "And then
everything gets light because the darkness is covered, right?" [Laughter] Got it?
I'll do it one more time. "We say there must be a mind that watches the mind
while the mind looks at other stuff." "That's really stupid. I mean how could the
mind be looking at itself and be the thing that it's looking at at the same time."
"Oh, it's just like a butter lamp, you know? It lights up all the other stuff, you
know, but first it has to light up itself." "Oh, I get it. So it's just like darkness,
right?" "I don't know what you're talking about." "Well, darkness covers up
everything else first, right?" "Yeh, that's right." "And then it covers itself up,
right?" "Well, I guess you're right." "And since the darkness is all covered up,
everything is bright, right?" [Laughs] Okay? It's like a joke. Get it? Okay.
[Laughs] [Laughter] By the way, that joke was used by someone named
Nagarjuna, in his, in his [Root Wisdom], in his most famous book, okay, the
Arya Nagarjuna, the...Nagarjuna, the being who saw emptiness, directly, uses
that example to defeat this idea, okay? So what's the whole point? To
summarize, and then you can go home. The point is that there will come a day
just before you see emptiness directly that you catch yourself watching the
illusion. Okay? Is the state of mind that catches yourself watching the illusion
also an illusion? Yes. So how can it be valid, how can it be true, how do you
know what you're seeing is right, if that mind is screwy? That's not what screwy
means. Okay? Well, what does screwy mean? It doesn't mean it doesn't work
right. Screwy means it looks like its not your projection but it is your projection.
That's all. Got it? Okay? So and illusory mind can recognize illusion. No
problem. Okay? Your mind, which is an illusion, can catch yourself in a world of
illusion. Okay? No problem. Why? Because illusion doesn't mean screwy, it just
means that that state of mind is also a projection of yours. Where did it come
from? Your karma. What kind of karma? Countless years of good karma, to
have that one minute of perception, you know? Countless, countless good
deeds, helping thousands and thousands and thousands of people, you know?
Being good for entire lifetimes. And then, maybe, you'll have a two minute
perception of yourself watching the illusion. Okay? Is that a projection? Yes. Is
it like an illusion? Yes. Is it dysfunctional? Wrong. Inaccurate, screwed up? No,
that's not what illusion means. Don't think like that. That's the bottom line. Did
you have a question? Loud. Loud.

[Linda: [unclear]]

Yeh, good question. So Linda said, "Okay, so you catch yourself doing an
illusion thing, an illusion trip with the pot, right?" Yeh, you do. In the next
moment could that same state of mind focus on itself of the moment before
please? Okay? And say, "Oh, my mind was also an illusion at that point." Yeh,
of...it could. But only focusing on the mind of the moment before. Not focusing
on itself. Because you can't stand here and look at John and then be John at the
same moment. You can't be the lookee and the looker at the same time. That's
crazy. But, yeh, you can focus on the mind of the previous moment. Do you
happen to do that? No, okay? But you could. Alright? Okay? Anybody still
awake? Alright. One more.

[Eric: [unclear]]

Yeh, Eric said, "When you're having a direct perception of emptiness, how does
your mind know this is not an illusion?" It can only know it in an illusory way
about ten minutes after you've finished seeing emptiness directly. Okay?
Because while you're seeing emptiness directly, you cannot be focusing on an
illusion. Why? Because the meaning of an illusion is the way it looks and the way
it is are not the same. But when you're focusing on emptiness it's the first and
the only time that the way it looks and the way it is is exactly the same. Okay?
There's no illusion there. Okay? But it happens to be an illusory state of mind
that remembers that. [Laughs] Okay? Oh, you sure, you're gonna make
these...torture these poor people? Okay, one more question, then we're gonna
leave the Mind Only, okay? You can like take the Mind Only and throw them in
the river, you know? Yeh?

[Student: [unclear]]

Yeh, good, go ahead. Okay, alright. He asked like this: so you see emptiness
directly and you come down out of it and then you're aware that the way you're
now seeing things is an illusion, that it's wrong. You know that you're wrong.
So what's to say that a year fr-...now, from then, after seeing emptiness directly,
you're not gonna have some better perception? And maybe that was wrong.
Okay? Something like that, but that was an illusion. It's like a dream within a
dream, right? So you wake up from one dream and you dream but you're still in
the dream but you thought you woke up from the dream and you did wake up
from the dream but you're still dreaming 'cause you're in another dream. Okay,
something like that. But how do we know the dreams aren't endless. Ultimate
truth is ultimate reality. Ultimate is ultimate. Period. The day you see it you
know there's nothing else. It's a direct, absolute {tsemma}, [pramana] means...
[pramana] means inviolable perception. You know, you know it is ultimate
reality and there is no higher reality than that. And you perceive that. You
perceive that fact, directly. And it cannot be disproven by any other state of
consciousness. And you see that directly. Also, incidently, until you get there,
the Buddha said, there's no more illusions after that. I mean, that is ultimate
real-...ultimate means ultimate. Ultimate means nothing higher than...really,
honestly, the day you see it you won't ask this question. You won't ask this
question. You see everything directly, period. You know, you see your future
lives, you see emptiness, you know you saw emptiness, you see the day of your
enlightenment, and you see that that's the ultimate way of being. And there's
nothing else to do. Really. It's fine, it's alright, no problem. Sure Sky? Okay, let's
for real suffering.
[Sky: [unclear]]

Yeh, what's a practical application for this thing, you know, what's a practical
application for this thing? Frankly you have to be very careful. Okay?
Seriously. We're not allowed to teach, and I have not taught you the final steps of
this, of this analysis. You teach it to people privately, honestly. Okay, like what
we did last Friday was cool, but there's still a few more steps to that, you know?
And you can't fool around with it, and it's very, very inappropriate, because you
might get some weird idea, and then might break your morality or something
like that. If, if it ever gets to you that emptiness and morality are not [break]

[End of Side Two]