ACI 13 «Искусство аргументации», занятие 4

Class Four: Cause and Effect
Geshe Michael Roach

Transcribed by Angie Overy

.... is through a word and a term; a name and a term. And that’s the only
existence that things have. And then, the textbooks say, the difference between
‘name’ and ‘term’ here is thought and term, you know. The name for a thing as
you hear it in your mind or as you apply it and the mental image you have of a
thing, {dun chi}. So, you might wanna explore it like that, you know. What’s the
relationship between the term quality and quality-ness and ‘a quality’ and ‘the
quality’? So, there’s four different things you have to worry about, okay.
Quality-ness, quote “quality”, as a term, or mainly meaning a mental image of
something, and then, the quality and a quality. And you have to work with that,
you know. You have to decide. There’s a reason to use quotation marks,
because quote “car” is different from car. [students] Yeah. [student] Yeah.
Yeah, a general characteristic of something. Something like that. A general
nature of something. How’s that? But you have to, you have to struggle with
that. There’s a difference between car and a car and the car. [student] Yeah
[student] Yeah [student] You could say that. You could say that. I don’t, I think
we’d better, come in the break and ask these things ‘cos otherwise you, you’ll be
here very late, and you’ll be chasing us out, okay.
One thing I want to say about the class in general. I had a lot of comments on
the reading this time and people had a hard time with it. So, I wanna make a
couple of comments about the reading. One is I’m trying to translate the whole
text, just because if I translate half and then I never translate the whole thing, I’ll
never have time to do it. Never, ever. So I just thought that while I’m got it in
my hands I might as well do the whole thing. I don’t mean that you should
digest the entire logic text, you know, in this class. It’s impossible. So don’t get
frustrated trying, you know what I mean. You should read the reading, I
suggest you take it {kachik} by {kachik}. {kachik}means, one argument, you
know. When it says, {kachikma; kachik na re} or {khong na re} at the beginning,
in the Tibetan, it means, somebody comes and makes the following claims,
usually. Somebody comes and says {kachik} means, one mouth, you know. One
person comes and says that. So, take it {kachik} by {kachik}. We call each
vignette or each section there a {kachikma}. And do one {kachikma}. It’s like a
koan, you know. And, and think about it. Don’t try to read that book. I mean,
don’t try to read that reading, you’ll go crazy, you know. [laughter] I mean,
nobody does that. I forgot to tell you that, right? [laughter] [laughs] Yeah,
nobody does that. They are koans. They are things to be thought about for
hours, you know. You cannot rush this reading. Forget it. This is not one that
you can fake, you know. You can do the homework. The homework is meant
to be fakeable, you know. [laughter] That’s something you can just fill in
whatever I wrote on the board and you’ll probably be okay. But, to really
understand this subject, you have to devote many hours to it. And you can’t get
out of it, you know. And I can’t tell you, don’t spend hours on it, ‘cos you have
to, you know. I can’t give you some kind of a special exception or something.
You must devote time to it. If you want to understand this subject you gonna
have to sit there and, and do each {kachikma}until you understand it. And I
suggest you do one and then digest that one first, and then, when you get it, go
on to the next one. If there’s one that’s totally impossible for you then skip it
and go on to the next one, you know. But don’t try to sit there and read it like a
novel because you’ll never get it. And it’s, and you’ll just frustrate yourself. I
don’t mean you to get, the thing that you must know is what I present in the
class. The thing that you should come out of this course understanding is what I
present in the class. You can spend five or six more years understanding. We
spend about, the whole subject in the monastery, takes about eight years or
something, you know. The two subjects that you are getting, formal logic and
{dura}, takes like, eight years. We debate it for three solid months every year.
And in the winter debates, for one month a year, we debate it maybe twelve or
fourteen hours a day, maybe more. Sometimes, all night. So, you know, we’ve
memorized all that stuff, over and over, many times. And, and, you know, you
can’t just sit down and read it. You have to take it bit by bit. Yeah. [student]
Yeah. I mean, I like them [student] Yeah. Yeah. We can do that. We can do
that. I mean, just you see, they’re called {rikpay drotang}
Say, {rikpay}[repeat] {drotang}[repeat]; {drotang} is a special expression in logic
that means the format of an argument, you know. Like, how does it go. {tang}
means the way, like, {gyup tang} means how a horse trots, you know. Do they
trot like that or do they trot like that. {tang} means how you do something and
{dro, drotang} means how it goes, you know. How, where do you answer ‘yes’,
where do you answer ‘no’, when are you supposed to say ‘ no, I don’t get it, or
‘not necessarily.’ And that’s called {rikpay drotang} and once you understand
one {kachikma} well, the {drotang} is the same for all of them, you know. Once
you understand the possible answers, the flowchart, for one small argument,
then the rest is all the same. So we can try to do that if we have extra time.
That’s like the {lingka} that the student, the teacher promises students, you
know. {lingka} means, {Norbulingka} means, ‘Jewel Park’, right. The Dalai
Lama’s summer palace in Lhasa. {lingka} means, to go on a camping trip or
picnic; an outing, right. In Tibet, they would go for, like, five days. They still do
it in India and, you know, eat for five days and sleep in a tent out near a river, or
something. Like, my class will go every once in a while. So, there’s this famous
story of a teacher who… the students kept asking the teacher can we go for a
{lingka}, you know. And he said, Yeah, when all the work’s done we’ll go for a
{lingka}, you know, and [laughs]. And then, week after week, month after
month, year after year, they were studying and they never had time to go
anywhere. And then, finally, one day they were having a class and outside, a
funeral goes by and the body’s being carried by. And one of the students said,
look, somebody’s finally going for their {lingka} you know [laughter] [laughs].
Meaning we won’t get a {lingka}. Probably we won’t get to that. I don’t know.
We’ll see. But we’ll do… we’ll do, so don’t, don’t take the reading personally,
okay. I had all these people leaving notes on my bed and stuff, you know
[laughs], you know. So, it’s… it’s just the, the quantity because I want to finish it
‘cos I may never have another chance to touch it, you know. The… the content
will take years. But don’t give up, you know. I mean, don’t go home and just
put it up and say, oh, he said I didn’t have to read it this time. It’s not like that.
Like, go to the {rangruk}, go to the middle where our system starts and read that
for sure. That’s what we do in the monastery. We sneak to the middle and find
out what we’re supposed to believe and then we go back, and you know.
You’re not supposed to do it that way, but everybody does [laughs], you know.
Go in the middle, look at the, you know, the presentation of our system and
then, go back to the beginning and hear all the arguments. It might be easier for
you. But at least do the {rangruk} you know. At least do the middle of the
reading, okay. Ellie’s gonna… can you go and pick up the reading today, during
the break? [laughs] Can you go with her? Okay. It’s a little bit big this time.
They couldn’t copy it in time. All right.
Tonight’s special subject, and don’t give up on logic, okay. I mean, you’re doing
pretty good. I expected it to be about half this many people. It’s all the
necessary stuff, ammunition you need, to, to study emptiness. You need to
know all this stuff, okay, to study emptiness properly. So, so stick in there.
{gyun dre}. Tonight’s subject is {gyun dre}.
Say, {gyun dre} [repeat], {gyun dre}[repeat]. In English we say, ‘cause and
effect’; {gyu} means, cause, {dre} means, result or effect. I call it, ‘causes and
results’, okay.     Because we can never remember how to spell ‘affect’ or
‘effect’ [laughter] or, so, ‘results’, you can remember, right? Causes and Results,
all right. And there are two presentations in the {dura} on causes and results.
We are studying the easier one, okay. There’s two of them. I’m not even gonna
go to the other one, okay. This one is sixty pages long or something, okay.
That’s enough. The shorter one, okay, and it’s called {gyun dre}. They start out
by discussing the definition of a … of a {gyu}, of a cause. And that’s here. By the
way, the second part is the same, okay {gyuy tsennyi}. Okay.
Say, {kye je}[repeat], {gyuy tsennyi}[repeat], {kye je}[repeat], {gyuy tsennyi}
[repeat]. {kye}with the {da} suffix letter means, to bring something else about,
okay. To cause something else to happen, okay. {kye je} means anything which
brings something else about. Anything which brings about something else,
okay. Anything, which causes something else to occur, is the definition of a
cause. Okay. Anything, which brings about another thing, is the definition of a
cause. It’s popular to translate this as ‘generate’. And then they say, generate
love or generate compassion. I searched the New York Times for the last thirty
years. It’s never been used that way, you know. You say, develop an emotion.
Develop. But you don’t say, generate, in the sense, in … in the case of an
emotion. You generate electricity or you generate other things but, it means,
anything which brings another thing about, okay, is the definition of a cause.
And these three words, which is {drebu} and {ngupo} and {gyu}, are {dun chik}.
Say, {drebu}[repeat], means what? Result. Okay. I mean, that’s the {dre} in
gyun dre} . By the way, in Tibetan, it also means rice or fruit, because the big
fruit or the big result, in Asia, is rice. That’s the one you’re hoping for every
year. So, the word for rice is {dre}. The word for fruit, like a fruit tree fruit, is
{drebu}. And the word for result or effect is {dre bu}, okay. Say, {ngupo}[repeat].
You know {ngupo}. It’s anything that does anything; anything that performs a
function. I translate it as a ‘working thing’, and you’ve had that already, okay,
{ngupo}. {gyu} you had tonight and it means, cause. All three of these words
are {dun chik}. {dun chik}means, same thing, means the same thing. They are
synonyms. They all refer to the same thing, okay. The text is very adamant on
that, okay. Anything that does anything is, automatically, a cause. Anything
that’s a cause is, automatically, a result. Period. Okay. {dun chik} means, they all
refer to the same thing, okay. Then people, you’ll see the {kachikmas}, they go
crazy trying to find something that might be a {drebu} but not a {gyu}. For
example, say {ma me …}[repeat]. {…} means the last instant of something. {ma
me} those of you who coming to Friday night, same as {drun me}. It means a
butter lamp; the flame of a butter lamp. So, the, the debater, you know, the
other guy is saying, {ma me … chuchen}, you know. Think about a butter lamp
at the last moment of its thing. { dre gyu yinpa ta], are you telling me it’s a cause?
And then we say, {chi chir}. And he says, {drebay yin pechir}, because it’s a
result. And you said, result, cause, working thing, all mean the same thing
essentially. You said anything that’s one is the other. Okay. So, how we gonna
answer? Is it a {drebu}? Is it a result? Yeah. It came from the butter lamp of the
moment before, the flame of the moment before. Is it a {gyu}? Is it a cause?
Don’t forget, this is the last instance of its existence. Huh? Cause for what?
That’s a little tricky [laughs]. So you have to bring a light in to have darkness,
right. Well you, you know, I was thinking about that. You could say it causes
your perception of it, okay. We say it’s a {kye je} for, it does inspire a sense
perception in the next moment. So, actually, the light is already gone out but
you’re not aware of the lamp light, flame, until the millisecond later according to
Buddhist psychology, you know. It takes a millisecond for your eye to record
and give the sense data to the eye-consciousness that there is something here.
And it helps to create the visual consciousness. So, in the second after it’s already
gone out, one of the effects is that you’re aware of the light. And you’re, you’re
always a moment behind.             In Abhidharma psychology, you’re always a
millisecond behind reality. It’s like, the light of some of the stars has already
ended, right. I mean, those stars have already gone out of existence, but the,
light-years later, the light is only just reaching Earth. We may be looking at stars
that don’t exist right now but the light took that long to get to us. And it’s the
same principle. So, you can say it’s a cause for the visual consciousness of the
next moment, okay. So, it is a cause and a result. And then they say, well what
about the last moment of an Arhat, you know. This is a Hinayana school, right.
They believe that just after you achieve Arhat or to be an Arhat means that
{demrik gyun chepa}. {demrik gyun chepa}, means your mind and your body
stop and there’s nothing more after that. There’s nothing else after that. That’s a
Hinayana version of Nirvana. It’s that you just stop. Your mind stops and your
body stops. So then they say, what about that, you know. That’s a result but it’s
not a cause for a person anymore. And then, there’s big arguments like that. By
the way, Mahayana says, well what, what, what, what Arhat are you talking
about please? [laughs][laughter] You know, who achieved Arhat? Who achieved
Nirvana, ‘cos there’s nobody there anymore to be an Arhat. So, how can they
be an Arhat, you know what I mean?                 And they, we don’t accept that
interpretation. We say Arhat means what? You’ve finished your negative
emotions permanently, okay. That’s all. { …. }Nirvana is, is the condition of
ending all your mental afflictions permanently. And, you could have achieved it
this morning and you would probably look the same to us, okay. We don’t say
that you have to go out of existence to get to be an Arhat, okay, or to reach
Nirvana. So, this is very tricky and you have to think about it, okay: that
everything in the world, which is a cause, is also a result. Anything, which is a
result, is also a cause. And, anything, which does anything, is a cause. Anything,
which does anything, is necessarily a result. Okay. And you have to think about
it. Okay. That’s one of the greatest lessons of the study of {gyun dre}, okay.
And you have to think about it.
Next we’ll do the divisions of causes. Say, {ngu gyu}[repeat], {gyu gyu][repeat].
Okay. {ngu} means, direct;{gyu} means, cause. {gyu} means, indirect and {gyu}
means, cause. Okay. If your pronunciation of Tibetan is correct this {da} drops
out and the sound gets shorter. Listen to the difference. This one is {gyu}. This
one is {gyu}. {gyu, gyu}. Say, {gyu}[repeat], {gyu}[repeat]. Okay, that’s all,
different sound only. This is the same {ngu} as in {ngupo} and don’t get
confused. It does not mean working thing or anything like that. It means,
direct, okay. {ngu gyu} means, direct cause. This, by the way, is the {gyu}in, this
is the Tibetan word for lineage. Okay. So, if you, if you want to know, it’s useful
to know. The Tibetan word for tantra is {gyu} without the {va}, okay. Meaning,
a sacred thread. And that’s another story, all right. [laughs] So these are the, one
way to divide causes. You can divide causes two different ways. I’m giving you
the first way; {ngu ngyu}and {gyu gyu} Let’s take an example of a {ngu gyu},
okay. Say, {pen}[repeat]{gyi}[repeat]{ngalok su}[repeat]{jungwa][repeat]. I
wanna teach you a little bit about how Tibetans corrupt English, okay. It’s called
{sorshak}. {sorshak} means, busted-up English, all right. And {pen}, {pen} is one
of them, okay. [laughs] All right. This is a {pen}, all right, {pen}. And you gotta
learn to spell corrupted English right. Like, I was reading the, this Tibetan
newspaper with Rinpoche one day. And, it was all about the {wetkin} and the
{wob}. And I said, what’s {wetkin }and {wob}, you know. He said, that’s the
pope and the Vatican, you know. {laughs][laughter]. {wetkin, wob, wetkin
pob}, you know. So, normally, they only hear our aspirated row, right: {pha,
cha, tha} as {pa, ja, ta}. That’s why Tibetans or anyone from South Asia talks like,
I like a cup of tea and hand me the pen, because, they don’t, they don’t aspirate
anything, okay. And that’s, we can’t aspirate. So, to them, we sound worse, you
know, ‘cos what we’re saying, like {kawa}, we say, {khawa}. {kawa} is a pillar;
{khawa} means snow, {kaba} means where, {ga} means a saddle, okay. And to
us, to them, our pronunciation is much worse than that, okay. But you have to
get a little bit, if you’re gonna read modern Tibetan stuff, newspapers. I said, I
saw a statistic that sixty percent of Tibetans under twenty-five write their
correspondence in English. They can’t write Tibetan. Okay. Tibetan is dying.
The language is dying very quickly. You gotta get used to this if you’re gonna
study Tibetan. {pen, computer, computer}, okay [laughs][laughter]. I have a big
computer project [laughter] all right. And you have to study that. Anyway,
{pen}. It’s good to start to learn those things, okay. Tibetan government tried to
get them to use fancy Tibetan words for, like, {…lungten}. Say, {…lungten}
[repeat], a physical form seeing wind cloud, which is, television, okay. And it
didn’t work. They call it TB, [laughter], you know [laughs] It’s like the French,
you know. Okay. Anyway. {pen gyi}, sorry Eric, {ngalok su jungwa}. {ngalok
su jungwa} is an important word to know, okay. It means, the pen as it was a
moment ago, okay. {ngalok} means, ‘flopped over into the past’. {lok} means,
like, { … lok} means, turn the pancake over, you know. {lok} means to flop
something over. {lok su jungwa} means, flop it over. {ngalok su jungwa}
means, the thing that flopped over into the present reality, okay. The pen that
flopped-over into the current pen, okay. The pen as it was the moment before.
And I translate it that way, okay. The pen as it was a moment ago is called {pen
gyi ngalok su jungwa}. The previous flopping-over of the pen, okay. The just-
finished flopping-over of the pen, means the pen as it was a moment ago, okay.
The pen as it was a moment before. And that’s an example of a? {ngu gyu}, a
direct cause. For what? The current pen, you see what I mean. The pen as it
was a moment ago is the direct cause for the current pen. Say, {pen gyi}[repeat]
{ngalok su jungwa}[repeat], {pen gyi}[repeat]{ngalok su jungwa}[repeat]. So, a
{gyu gyu} is naturally a {ngalok su jungwa, ngalok su jungwa}, okay. The pen as
it was a moment before the pen as it was the moment before, okay. An indirect
cause of the pen, is the pen as it was a moment before, it was a moment before.
Okay. And you have to get used to that. I mean, in the monastery, you do like
twenty of them in a row: {pen gyi ngalok su jungwa ….. yinpa ta}. And you’re
like, you just keep track whether it’s odd or even, you know [laughter] [laughs].
You just listen. You don’t even try to conceptualise what the guy’s saying. You
just keep track of is he doing odd or even, you know. And the you can give the
right answer, you know. But sometimes, it’s like, seventeen in a row or
something, you know. And it just is, it gets you to think faster and to think
sharper, okay. So, the, so an example of an indirect cause would be the pen as it
was a moment ago as it was the moment before, okay. That’s all, all right.
That’s a {gyu gyu}. The pen as it was two seconds ago, all right, is the {gyu gyu}
of the present pen. Is the indirect cause. The direct cause is the pen as it was the
moment before, okay. In Tibetan, {pen gyi ngalok su jungwa} is the direct cause;
{pen gyi ngalok su jungwa ngalok su jungwa} is the indirect cause. Okay. And
you gotta get used to that, okay. What’s an indirect cause of this building being
here? Lincoln’s asassination. And you gotta get used to that, you know. I mean,
all the events of the past, in Abhidharma, that didn’t prevent the construction of
this building, are its causes, okay. That’s another story. All right. But you gotta
get used to that. Indirect causes are pretty freaky. And, when you start to
meditate a lot you’ll start to become more aware of the indirect causes of your
mind. And very early in your life, I mean, there’s a certain stage in meditation,
that happens at {jor lam sopa}, where you can start to remember things that
happened long ago. And it’s by some kind of {ngalok su jungwa, ngalok su
jungwa, ngalok su jungwa}. You’re able to link into the one that came before the
one that came before the one that came before the one that came before,
especially in regard to the thoughts you’re having. Like, deep in meditation, you
start to be able to trace why you’re having this thought back to the first time you
ever had such a thought and then, back before that. And it’s very cool. And it’s
called {chu gyu nyi tingin dzen}. It’s a special kind of samadhi where you can
perceive, especially, Dharma teachings or Dharma realisations that you had a
hundred years ago or something; and the stream of them coming into your
mind. And that’s, {ngalok su jungwa}is very important for that. So, you have to
get used to that. You know, there’ll come a time, long before you see emptiness
directly, where you can trace back the thoughts you’ve had for many, many
decades. And especially, Dharma teachings you’ve had. And that’s a special kind
of event that you can expect if you meditate regularly. If you don’t meditate
regularly or if you’re always making up excuses why you can’t do it every day, I
can promise you it won’t happen to you. And you can just sit there in class and
be amazed that maybe this thing exists. But, if you do practice everyday, happily
and joyfully, and not because you feel like it’s an obligation but because you
enjoy it, then, then sooner or later, you’ll start to have that. And, and it’s very
cool. It saves a lot of time, right, okay. [laughter] Okay. It’s a natural result of
meditating frequently. And frequently just means, like, an hour a day or forty-
five minutes a day, okay, but without stopping.
Okay, here’s the second kind of way of dividing causes. Say, {nyerlen}[repeat]
{gyi gyu}[repeat], {nyerlen gyi gyu}[repeat], {nyerlen gyi gyu}[repeat]. And
then, the opposite is {hlenchik jekyen}[repeat]{hlenchik jekyen}[repeat]. Those
of you who studied the course on proving past and future lives are well
acquainted with these two guys. To draw this distinction between them is
necessary for understanding why you have been here before, okay. So, we’ll go
through that now. That’s the main application of this distinction is that it helps
you to understand why you must have had a past life and why you will have a
future life, okay. {nyerlen gyi gyu}, means, I translate it as ‘material cause’
versus a ‘contributing factor’. Can a, can a person act as a cause for a clay pot, a
water pitcher? Yes, sure, because they can make it, okay. They can be the
person who makes it. So, they are a cause for the water pitcher. If you take the
definition of a cause, they help to bring it about, right. They can make that other
thing come about. Without the human there, forming it, it wouldn’t have
happened. Are they the material cause? Are they the stuff that turned into a
water pitcher? No. That’s the clay or ceramic, okay, whatever. Okay, the clay
or the glass or whatever. And that’s the distinction, okay. They are not the
‘stuff’. When I say material cause, I mean the stuff that turned into the result,
okay. And you have to get used to making that distinction. All the other things
are just contributing factors. So, it’s almost like the main cause and then all the
secondary causes. In the case of a plant or a tree, what’s the {nyerlen gyi gyu}?
What’s the material cause? Is a seed. And then, contributing factors are sunlight,
water, the soil, fertiliser, warmth, time, a farmer, okay. All of those things are
contributing factors, okay. And that’s the difference. {nyerlen gyi gyu} is the
seed or the clay and then {hlenchik jekyen} is the potter or the wheel or the kiln
or the other stuff, okay. And that’s the distinction and you have to make that
distinction. Contributing factors for the creation of a human mind at it’s first
moment of its existence in your mother’s womb {hlenchik jekyen}, contributing
factors are: your parents, you know, the sperm, the blood, the fact that they had
relations. You know, all of these things are contributing factors. They are not
the {nyerlen gyi gyu}, okay. They are not the mental stuff that turned into your
consciousness at the first moment of your conception. If their mental material
were the {nyerlen gyi gyu}, were the main or material cause of your mind at its
first moment, you mind would share some of the qualities of their minds,
automatically. If they were talented musicians you would always be a talented
musician, you know. If they were like, gentle, peaceful, happy people, then the
children of peaceful, gentle, happy people would always be peaceful, happy and
gentle. And you know that ain’t the case. The worst kids in my High School
were the kids of all the ministers, the rabbis, [laughs] and stuff like that [laughs],
you know what I mean. I mean, that’s evidence that the stuff or the material of
the mind, which is not a physical stuff but a mental stuff, has not come from
your parents, okay. It’s come from something else. There must be some mental
stuff that turned into the mind, your mind as it existed in your mother’s womb
at the first moment of your consciousness, of your awareness. And that’s one of
the proofs for a past life: that, there must have been an instant of consciousness
prior to that, to act as the {nyerlen gyi gyu}. To act as the material cause for your
mind, okay. And that’s, that’s where we use material cause. That’s where that’s
an important concept, okay. I’m gonna give you the definition of a material
cause. Okay, {rang gi} means ‘its’; {dze} is the word I’ve been using ‘stuff’, okay,
or material. And again, mind can be one kind of stuff; physical matter can be
one kind of stuff. I’m using the word stuff in a very general sense, okay. {gyun}
means, ‘continuation’; {du} means, ‘as a’; {tsorwa} means, ‘primarily’; {kye je} as
we saw before, means, ‘brings about another, brings about something else’. So,
if you put it into English word order: Anything, which brings about something
else, primarily, as a continuation of the same stuff as it was before, is the
definition of a {nyerlen gyi gyu}, of a material cause. Anything, which brings
about something else, primarily, as a continuation of the same material or the
same stuff, is the definition of a material cause, okay. As the clay is for the pot;
as the seed is for the tree; as the last moment of your bardo’s mind was for the
first moment of your consciousness in this life. And that’s your meditation, by
the way. And it’s cool, you know. Go back in your meditation as far as you can.
It’s very, very good exercise during the study of {gyun dre}to go back as far as
you can remember in your life, you know.              Try to go back to the first
consciousness that you’re aware of. I mean, for me, it’s of a blanket in my crib. I
remember a certain kind of light blue blanket that was very soft. And, you
know, I remembered that. That’s the earliest thing that I can remember,
normally, you know what I mean. And, and do that exercise, you know. Go
back, like, do a meditation where you focus on your current thought and if you
meditate a lot, this is easy, okay. Like, you are thinking about something and
then you realise that you couldn’t have had that thought without a thought you
had a year ago. And then, you realise you couldn’t have had that thought unless
you had another thought a year before that. And then you work yourself back.
And you can do that during meditation. Try to get back in theory, okay. It
won’t be a direct perception. It won’t be a direct awareness but try to get back,
logically, to the first moment in the womb, okay. And it would have been some
kind of very primitive thought that, ‘oh, it’s hot in here, hot, wet, uncomfortable.
Something like that. I mean, according to Buddhist scripture it’s extremely
uncomfortable and you’re aware of it at that moment, you know. While you’re
in the womb for those nine months you have these primitive awarenesses of
being very, very choked-in and hot and confined and that it’s very unpleasant
for the, for the in, for the child in the womb. And that they’re having, already,
very primitive awarenesses of how unpleasant it is, you know. Every time the
mother moves quickly or jars, even eats certain foods that the, the embryo is
very sensitive and is constantly made uncomfortable by those things, you know.
And try to go back and imagine the first thought in your mother’s womb and
then try to compare it to the pot or to the tree and try to see if you can
understand why you must have had a mind before, okay. And that’s a, that’s a
good exercise for past lives, okay. And you have to stay aware of this definition.
That’s the definition. You’re looking for the thing that was primarily bringing
about a continuation of the mind of the past life, okay. And, that, was the last
thought that you had in the bardo. In the, in the, as a spirit between lives, the
last conscious thought you had was the cause, the {nyerlen gyi gyu}, the material
cause, of the first moment of consciousness in your mother’s womb. And you
have to get used to that. And you have to explore your mind and see if there’s
anything left, okay. And you can do it. If you meditate deeply you can, you can
get very close to it, okay.
Next thing. Now, I’ll give you the definition of a result. Okay. Say, {kye ja}
[repeat] {drebuy tsennyi}[repeat], {kye ja}[repeat]{drebuy tsennyi}[repeat]. {kye
ja} means the opposite of {kye je}, okay. {kye ja} means, ‘anything which is
brought about by another thing’, okay. Anything which is brought about by
another thing, is the definition of a result, okay. {kye ja} means, anything which
is brought about by another thing; {drebu} means, a result; {drebuy tsennyi}
means, that’s the definition of a result.
Results can also be divided the same way as causes and I’m not going to go into
it, okay. Direct results, indirect results, you already know that. I mean, you can
figure it out. The result of the material cause and the result of the contributing
factors, okay. And you can, I don’t have to get into that. Yeah. [student] Yeah
[student] You could have a direct contributing factor that was a direct cause, you
see. The, the sunlight of the moment, the sunlight of the moment before the, or
the potter at the last moment before the pot comes into existence, is the direct
cause for the pot but not a material cause for the pot because he doesn’t turn into
the pot. That’s all. Yeah. Okay. So, they’re not exactly the same. Okay. I’m
gonna pretty much stop there. You have sixty pages of reading on that to play
with, okay. We kept this up for about four nights in a row, all right. And, if you
see zombies in the class, they were probably helping. But, you should, you
should be aware of one thing. And that’s called ‘relationships’. We’ll get into it
later. But so far, you’ve had two relationships that are possible between two
different objects. You’ve had both of them, so far. One is the relationship
between a quality and a characteristic, okay. It’s the relationship between
Chevrolet and car, okay, or car and Chevrolet. To be a Chevrolet is to be a car.
And that’s called a { ..}, okay. That means a, a relationship where to be one is to
be the other, automatically, okay. And that’s a { … }. That’s one possible kind of
relationship. There are only three possibilities between two objects on this
planet or in this universe: either they don’t have a relationship or they have a
Chevrolet – car relationship, or they have a cause and effect relationship. And
those are the only three possibilities according to Buddhist logic, according to
Buddhism. And it’s important to understand them. Okay, I’ll ay it again. Two
different objects – me and the pen, me and you, you and your mind, your right
eyebrow and your left eyebrow, okay.[laughs] There’s only three possible
things going on between them. One is, no relationship. Okay. The second is, a
relationship of identity. I call it a relationship of identity, you know. Like, the
relationship between Chevrolet and car. And then, the third possibility is, cause
and effect relationship. They are related, in the sense of being, cause and effect.
These are the three possibilities that can exist between any two objects in the
universe, okay. What’s an example of a, of a relationship of identity is, is car and
Chevrolet. What’s the test of whether a relationship holds? Remove one and
see if the other disappears, okay. If you removed all cars in the world would
you remove all Chevrolets in the world? Yes. So they have a relationship, okay.
If you removed your right eyebrow would you necessarily remove your left, left
eyebrow? No. So we say they don’t have a direct relationship. If you remove
the seed do you remove the tree? Yeah. So they have a relationship, you see
what I mean. Now, a tricky one. If we remove all Chevrolets do you remove all
cars? No. So, we say Chevrolet shares a relationship of identity with car, but car
does not share a relationship of identity with Chevrolet. It’s a one-way, what do
you call it, a one-way street. And you have to get used to that. Some of them go
two-ways, some of them only go one-way. How many ways does it go between
automobile and car? Both ways. You see it’s, it’s, they’re related, you know. If
you’re a car you’re automatically an automobile. If you’re an automobile you’re
automatically a car. If you removed all cars in the world you remove all
automobiles. If you removed all automobiles you’d remove all cars. We call it
‘two-way identity relationship’, a two-way relationship of identity, okay. Is
there such a thing for cause and effect? If you remove the tree do you remove
the seed? The seed’s gone by the time the tree’s there, come on. I mean, in
Madhyamika, you get very fancy here, okay. Think about it. By the way, the
answer is no, they don’t have a relationship like that, okay. I mean, if you don’t
get fancy, all right. If you don’t get fancy, it’s okay to say, you can remove the
tree and it wouldn’t effect the cause, okay, the seed. The seed’s already gone. If
you removed all the seeds in the world you wouldn’t get any trees. If you
remove all the trees in the world it would not have changed the fact that all the
seeds they came from were there. But, they wouldn’t have been seeds would
they, until there are trees around. For purposes of naming, you see what I
mean. For purposes of calling them seeds or calling them causes, you must have
a result around. So we say in a very, now I’m getting fancy, okay. You can read
it in Pabongka Rinpoche’s commentary to the ‘Three Principal Paths’, okay. The
fact that it’s a cause depends on its result occurring, you see what I mean. You
can’t call it a cause until the result is there. So, in a sense, in a sense, if you
remove the result the cause doesn’t get to be a cause anymore ‘cos it didn’t cause
anything. Okay. But that’s getting fancy. Normally, we don’t say that.
Normally, cause and effect is a one-way street, okay. If there’s no causes there’s
no effect, therefore they’re related. Effects are related to causes but causes are
not related to their effects ‘cos if you remove all the effects you don’t remove all
the causes. Okay. You gotta get used to that.
Why are we talking about this? It has a lot to do with understanding emptiness
and perception, okay. Why? Do cars and Chevrolets exist at the same time?
Yes. Do seeds, do seeds and the trees they cause exist at the same time? No. By
the time the tree has occurred the causes, the seed has, by definition, gone,
because it grew into this big fat tree, okay. It’s gone. Then we debate in the
monastery, we talk about, oh, the seed with the sprout coming out and what
point is it a tree and at what point is it a seed and can you have a seed with a
sprout coming out and is a sprout a tree ‘cos then you got a seed and a tree. And
you say, no, the part of the seed that’s a tree isn’t a seed anymore, okay. Like
that. It’s a big, huge debate. When does a seed become a tree? You know. At
what point is the seed gone and the tree is there? Can’t you imagine a seed with
the sprout coming out half-way, like, you know, those lousy bean sprouts, and
they ruin these good sandwiches by putting these things in there, you know.
And you’re always, like, getting one of them in your teeth. Like, that’s still a
seed, but there’s a sprout coming out of it, okay. That proves to me, right. No,
and then they’d say, no, no, the part that’s the sprout is gone already and like
that, you know. But, if you think about it, that’s another proof for emptiness.
And you can cogitate on that one, you know. At what point does it become a
sprout? And, if you try to pinpoint it you’ll go crazy and you’ll never find a time.
And that’s an indication of the emptiness of the growth of a seed, of a, of a
sprout, sorry. Okay. Because it’s all, isn’t it all just your projection when you
decide to call it tree or when it becomes tree? You know, theoretically, any
moment that you choose to say, this is the moment at which the seed became
the tree, could be divided again. And then, which moment is it that it became the
tree? The first half of the moment that it became the tree or the second half of
the moment that it became the tree? You say, well, the first half. You say, well
what about the first half? What about the first half of the first half and the
second half of the first half? And then you’ll never find a time when it truly,
objectively, became a tree. It’s a projection. That’s another proof for emptiness.
And it’s a, it’s one of the five great proofs for emptiness based on that. Yeah.
[student] Loud. [student] Yeah. You can’t find, she said, is it same for the
moment your mind moved from the bardo into this, into your mother’s womb,
for example. Right. You can’t pinpoint a time because any particular time you
can pinpoint you can divide again. So, who’s making up this moment? Your
projections. That’s, that’s evidence that there’s no external reality there and that
it’s coming from your mind. And the reason the sun comes up in the morning is
a projection of you, okay.         But that’s another story.     We’re not doing
Madhyamika, are we? Okay.
Yeah. [student] That’s a debate. That’s a {kachikma}. I’ll show you, okay.
[student] By the way, I mean, [student] you gotta distinguish between there
being a real, externally, existing from its own side, objective moment at which
your mind and your past life became, turned into the mind in this life, okay,
which doesn’t exist. And, you have to distinguish that from the one that
apparently exists because your karma is forcing you to think that it exists. And
that one, exists. And that one, brought you into this life. And that one’s gonna
kill you. So, so it’s real, you know. Really. Seriously. That one, it, it is a
projection, but that’s what makes it real, you know. People say, oh, it’s a
projection so it’s not real. I’m sorry, Madhyamika says the opposite: It’s real
because it is a projection. Yeah. So, don’t come and tell me there’s no material
causes because you can’t point the time at which the material cause really existed.
No. There are really material causes because I can’t point to a time that it really
existed.
 Madhyamika says the opposite. Madhyamika says, all this stuff, all this crap is
real. When you die of cancer it’s gonna be real. Why? Because it’s a projection
of your mind. Okay. [laughs] All right. Hang on, hang on. Okay. That’s all I’m
gonna say. You can get the rest from the reading. You better give it some
honest hours. You’ll never do it later will you? Okay. We’ll be onto something
else. [laughs] Try. Take it one by one, okay. Go into the bathroom. Take one
with you, you know. My bathroom’s hard ‘cos I got, like, five people need to
use it, you know, but I go in there with my, anyway. We’ll do a little formal
logic to make things more fun. [laughs]
Say,{tak}[repeat], {tak}[repeat]; {tak} means a reason, okay. By the way, {tak}
can mean three different things and you better get used to it. {tak} can mean the
whole logical statement, can be called a {tak}. ‘Consider sounds, they are
changing things, because they are made’, okay. That’s a {tak}. But sometimes,
{tak} means, the reason, ‘because they are made’. And sometimes, {tak} means,
the main thing mentioned in the reason, ‘made’, ‘made thing’, okay. So, {tak}
you gotta be, it’s a very slippery, greasy word in formal logic. Again, I’ll repeat.
It can refer to the whole logical argument, {tak}. It can refer to the whole thing,
‘because it’s a made thing’. Or, it can refer to the thing mentioned in the because
statement, ‘made’, ‘made thing’; ‘made thing’ without the ‘is’ stuck onto it, okay.
And then, {tak} is very greasy and it can mean all three. Okay. What’s the
definition of a {tak}? Anything you put forward as a {tak}, okay. Because the
sky is green with pink polka dots everyday, okay. That’s a {tak}. Why?
Because, I put it forth as a {tak}. To prove what? It doesn’t matter, you see. I
said, because. You don’t need to know anything else. Because the sky,
everyday, is green with pink polka dots, is {tak}. Why? {tak su kupa yin pechir},
because you gave it as a {tak}. You gave it as a reason. It doesn’t matter what
I’m trying to prove. It’s a reason. Why? I gave it as a reason. That’s all. {tak su
kupa tak kyi tsennyi}. Lot of people feel uncomfortable with that, you know.
Like, but it doesn’t seem right to me. Hey, I didn’t say it was the definition of a
correct reason. I said, it was the definition of a reason, okay. And you have to
get used to that distinction. There’s a big difference between a reason and a
correct reason, which you know from talking to your boss. Okay. Yeah. Like,
the whole statement, meaning, ‘consider the horns on a rabbit’s head, they are
good to eat, because the sky is green with pink stripes’. [laughter] And, that’s a
{tak}. That’s a {tak}. It’s a logical argument. [students] It’s an irrational, logical
argument, yeah. [students] Yeah. By the way, I mean ‘logical’ as meaning,
presented in the format of a logical statement. I don’t mean as, ontologically
correct, okay. I almost said, entomologically, but you know what I mean, okay.
[laughs] You know, when I say, ‘logical statement’, I mean an attempted logical
statement, okay. Obviously. Okay. An argument, right. An argument that
somebody presents to you, okay. That’s a {tak}. Yeah. [student] [laughs] He
said, at what point does illogical become logical? When it’s something you really
want, okay. [laughs][laughter] okay. Say, {tak}[repeat] {yang dak}[repeat], {tak
yang dak}, {tak yang dak}[repeat]. Okay. You gotta get used to it. It’s like a
mantra in the debate ground; {tak yang dak}[repeat]. {tak yang dak} means, a
correct reason, you know. A reason that holds. And it could mean any of the
above: a logical statement which is correct, a whole ‘because’ statement which is
correct, or something you’ve put forward as the little element in the ‘because’
statement which is correct, okay. Yeah. [student] To start a debate. By the way,
she asked, why would you make a statement that’s not correct in the first place?

Every great debater who ever lived, who wants to teach students, you see, you
always, I’ve seen these great, great Geshes get up in the, in the assembly,
thousand monks standing there, and they’ll, they look at, they look at who’s the
opponent, and they know that this guy has a problem understanding something,
and they pick that. And, they, purposely, take a wrong position. I mean, if
you’re really, really good at debating, you take these very subtle wrong
positions and you see if the guy can prove you wrong. Why? To help
everybody else who’s listening. These are bodhisattva debaters. They’re not
trying to win the argument. They’re trying to teach the people around them,
you see what I mean. It’s a whole different mind-set. They’re gonna present an
argument which is very, very subtle, which is almost true, which is a mistaken
idea that most of the monks there have, and they’re gonna see if the other guy
can prove them wrong, ‘cos they want the other guy to prove them wrong. You
see what I mean? Seeing debaters in the monastery is beautiful. Like, all these
bodhisattvas trying to present an argument, which is very slightly wrong, and
seeing if this guy can, it’s like setting yourself up in a chess game to be
checkmated, just to help the other guy to learn to checkmate you, you see what I
mean. And it’s a whole different mind-set, you know. It’s a very beautiful mind-
set. Yeah. [student] Say again. [student] Do they not graduate? They end up,
they get the real graduation, you know. Most of the greatest Geshes in the
monastery are guys that didn’t quite finish their {hlarumpa} you know, ‘cos they
ended up serving some other Lama or something, you know. There’s many
people like that. And, I guess they got their real {hlarumpa}, right? But, anyway,
say, {tak yang dak}[repeat], [tak yang dak}[repeat], correct reason. Definition of
correct reason is, and that’s gonna be the whole rest of our, of our [cut]. Say,
{tsul sum}[repeat] {yinpa}[repeat, {tsul sum yinpa}[repeat], {tak tang dak kyi
tsennyi}[repeat]. {tsul sum yinpa}[repeat] {tak yang dak}[repeat] {kyi}[repeat]
{tsennyi}[repeat]. Definition of a correct reason is, {tsul sum yinpa}, okay. {tsul
sum yinpa} is a nasty, nasty word to translate. Okay. {tsul} means, ‘way’, {tsul}
means, way; {sum} means, ‘three’; {yinpa} means, ‘that which is’: that which is
the three ways. I translate it as, how did I translate that? A, a reason, where the
three relationships hold, okay. A reason, where, the three relationships hold.
Three relationships have to hold true in a logical statement. And, then, we can
say that it’s a good reason or a good logical statement, correct logical statement.
Okay. {tsul sum yinpa tak yang dak kyi tsennyi}. And, this is very cool. When
you give an argument to somebody, if you’re a Buddhist, and you’re trying to
prove something, they have to already accept every part of your argument.
And that’s a rule of Buddhist logic, okay. You’re not allowed to try to prove
something to somebody using any idea that they don’t already accept, okay.
And, and as Buddhists in a new Buddhist country, you better get good at it. And,
when you try to discuss Buddhism with your friends at work or whatever, and
you have an impasse, it’s because you have failed. You see? You have broken
the rules of logic. You’ve introduced something that they cannot accept yet,
okay. So, when you’re trying to prove something, as a Buddhist, and American
Buddhists in the first generation of American Buddhism, will be called upon often
to prove things. Right? The next generation will be lazy. They’ll believe in past
lives because mom and dad told them, you know. I don’t look forward to being
in that generation. I think I’ll get enlightened in this one, you know. You know,
they’ll be doing their books ‘cos mom and dad made them do it, you know.
[laughter] And, they’ll hate it, you know. But, we’re in a very good generation
right now. We’re in a pioneering generation. We are the {kadampas} of
America, right?
  And, and if you’re gonna stick to Buddhist, the rules of Buddhist logic, you
cannot, ever, give an argument to somebody using any concept, any term, any
thought, that they haven’t already figured out. And, that they don’t already
accept. And that’s the principle behind {tsul sum yinpa}, okay. That’s the
principle behind the three relationships. You, as a Buddhist in America, have to
be able to present your arguments for, for this worldview, using only those
things, which the other people already accept, you know. And, that’s an art.
That’s the art of reasoning. Okay. That’s the name of the class, right. That’s an
art form. And, and you can do it, you see. The beauty of Buddhism is that it is
logical and only with the information that Americans already understand and
accept you can prove every single Buddhist concept to them. Okay. If you do it
carefully, and logically. So, we’re gonna talk about the rules of logic and then,
hopefully, it will effect the way you present Buddhism to other people and to
yourself, you see. The Pramanavartikka has for chapters. One of them is called,
how to prove stuff to your self. One of them is called, how to prove stuff to
other people, you see what I mean. It’s cool. Even Dharmakirti, Master
Dharmakirti was aware of this difference. You have to be able to prove things to
yourself and then you have to know how to prove things to other people, you
see what I mean. And it’s very beautiful. You will not be able, and it will not be
helpful, and you won’t succeed to present Buddhism to other people, unless you
stick to this rule of using only those things, which they already accept. And, it’s
enough in America. You don’t have to use voodoo. You know, you don’t have
to use future lives and stuff like that. Pretas that nobody can see, hell realms that
nobody can see, you don’t have to talk about them until you establish their
existence logically with someone. And you can. That’s the beauty of trying to
defend Buddhism is that it’s logical. And, and you can prove anything about
Buddhism, starting from where people already accept. Starting from what they
already accept. Yeah. And by the way, if you get to something they don’t
accept, step back further until you reach something they do accept. [student]
Excuse me? [student] Yeah, you can. Jay, Jay brought up a good point [laughs],
you know. Can you use reasons that are wrong but you know the other person
will accept them and it will help them? You see what I mean? And in Buddhism,
you’ll see in some of the {kachikmas}, we will agree to something they say so
they can hang themselves using their own wrong ideas. Okay? And that’s okay,
but it’s tricky, because someone will quote you out of context. Jay Hahn once
said, you know. Somebody will take it out of context and use it so you have to
be very, very careful about, yeah, you can argue, you know, things like, well
why, god is, god isn’t like that, you know. God is a nice guy. Why would god
kill people, you know? Why would god make people and then kill them? And,
already, you’re talking about something that doesn’t exist. You’re describing
how many inches long is the horns on the top of a rabbit’s head. And you’re
arguing whether they’re six inches or eight inches, you know what I mean, ‘cos
the thing you’re talking about doesn’t even exist. But, you have to use that word
because, because you’re talking to someone [student]. Yeah, you can do that.
It’s acceptable to use that, but then, by the end, you have to say, by the way
they’re [cut]
[end side A]
[side B]
..they’re not six inches or eight inches. They don’t exist at all. But you can’t start
out that way either, can you? Yeah. [student] Yeah. Yeah. [student] Yeah.
Yeah. She said, well then what does His Holiness mean, the Dalai Lama, when
He says, you know, everybody’s ideas are useful and that’s good enough.
Everybody should use their, say {tartuk}[repeat] {tekpa chik}[repeat], {tartuk}
[repeat] {tekpa chik}[repeat]: all spiritual paths eventually lead to one thing. You
see what I mean? There’s this huge debate in Buddhism, are there really
Hinayana and Mahayana and Vajrayana or, you know, are they separate or are
they one thing? And we debate it in the monastery day after day. And the
answer is no. They all, lead to, eventually, they always lead to Vajrayana. I
mean, eventually, they always lead to the highest path. You must, eventually,
reach that path. Is it right that everybody in the world should sit here and argue
about syllogisms? And is that gonna fit everybody in the world? You tell me. I
mean, no, obviously not. And so there’s, every spiritual path, which brings a
person further along, is valuable because there’s someone who needs that right
now. And, there has to be all those paths. If there’s, if the path exists, it means
that it’s helping somebody. If it didn’t help anybody it would disappear, you see
what I mean. So, it does help somebody and it brings them a little closer, you
know. But {tartuk tekpa chik}, in the end, they have to enter Madhyamika. In
the end, they must see emptiness and the relationship between emptiness and
karma. But, but obviously it would be stupid to force people into doing, that, all,
you know, right away. It wouldn’t be helpful. It would hurt people, okay.
Okay, we’ll stop. Take a break and then come back in ten minutes, okay.
[cut] Yeah, good. .. for the break. Do you want it back? [laughter] [cut] Okay.
[students]
Okay. We said a good reason was one where three relationships had to hold.
And, the definition of a good reason is {{tsul sum yinpa}. Say, {tsul sum}[repeat
{yinpa}[repeat], {tsul sum}[repeat] {yinpa}[repeat]. When Rinpoche was first
learning English he had a student in Washington named Susan [unclear] and he
would call her Tsu sum[unclear], okay. If you ever see her you can call her
Tsulsum, okay. So, there are three relationships. I’ll give you the three. Here’s
the first one. Say, {chik chu}[repeat] {chok chu}[repeat]. The thing choked, okay
[laughs]. Opening lines of the Pramanavartikka, after the praise of the Buddhas,
{chok chu ….. },which means, first ,there is to be a {chok chu} and then, there
should be a {de che … }, okay. {chik chu} is the first relationship. It’s the
relationship between the reason , and if you struggle through the second half of
the reading, you’ll see what {chok} means and {chu} means. And why {chok}
refers to the subject and {chu} refers to the reason. Like that. There’s {mitun
choks}, there’s tun choks}, there’s {chok chus} and there’s {chok kyi drelu} and
you can spend a couple of weeks on that.
Say, {chok chu}[repeat], {chok chu}[repeat]. So, we’ll give our classic argument,
okay. Take sounds; they are changing things; because they are things which are
made. Okay. Take sounds; they are changing things; because they are things
which are made. It’s a classic {tak yang dak}. It’s a classic correct statement or
correct reason, okay. Take sounds; they are changing things. Consider sounds;
they are changing things; because they are made. {chok chu}, the test of {chok
chu} would be, is being made a quality that applies to sound? Does number
three apply to number one? Okay. That’s all. I mean, when I was in the debate
ground, I would just cheat and remember three applies to one, three applies to
one, you know. What’s three? Because, it’s made. Okay. Does ‘being made’
apply to sound? Yes. So, the first requirement of a correct reason is satisfied;
{chok chu} exists, {chok chu} is present. The necessary relationship between the
third item and the first item does hold true. Okay. The relationship holds.
What? The thing you gave in your reason, which is, ‘because it’s made’, ‘it’s a
made thing’, does apply to sound. { …. chok chu kyi tsennyi}. The long
definition is, too long. You can read it in the reading, okay. What does it
involve? You don’t have to write this, okay. It should involve, look, the other
guy better accept that. {tseme ye}, he must have already perceived that it’s true
that sound is a thing which is made, okay. The first requirement of {chok chu}is
that the opponent must have already perceived that that’s correct thing, you
know. Buddhism is the one and only religion because it’s what I follow, okay.
{chok chu} holds. The other two don’t, okay. I mean, for him. But he’s already
perceived that Buddhism is something that you follow, okay. By the way, that
doesn’t make it a correct reason yet ‘cos there’s two other {tsuls}, right. But
{chok chu} holds. The first relationship holds, you see what I mean.
Consider the sky; it’s good to taste; because it’s blue. {chok chu} holds, the sky is
blue. Is everything that’s blue good to taste? I don’t know. [laughter] [laughs]
Okay. That’s another question, right. But the first {tsul} holds. The first
relationship holds, okay. And that’s called {chok chu} and the opponent must
have perceived that it’s correct. The opponent must already agree that what you
said last applies to what you said first: ‘sounds are made things’, okay.
What are the other two relationships? Well, by the way, if you wanna say, in
Tibetan, {dra} means, sounds and {jepa} means, things that are made. And, in the
debate ground if somebody says, show me an example of {chok chu}, all you
have to say is, {dra jepa}. Okay. {dra jepa …….}, okay. {dra jepa} is the {chok
chu}. That relationship holds. Sounds are made things. Okay. That’s the first
one. So, if someone asked you on your homework, give an example in Tibetan
of a {chok chu}, you could say {dra jepa}. Very con, succinct. I mean, debate
language is very, very rapid fire, you know. You don’t go through and say, oh,
oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You say {dra jepa}, you know. It gives the other
guy less time to think, okay.
Number two. Second relationship. Say,{je kyap}[repeat], {je kyap}[repeat]. It’s a
big long word, okay. Doesn’t mean much. I mean, the positive necessity
between the reason and the thing to be proven. Let’s go slow. What’s the
reason you gave the guy? Because sounds are made. Sounds are made. Okay.
Sounds are things that are made. That was the reason you gave the guy; things
that are made. What’s the quality about sound that you’re trying to prove? It’s
a changing thing. It’s a changing thing. What’s the subject under discussion?
Sounds or sound. Okay. So, you have three units, right? Subject, quality you’re
trying to prove, and the reason you gave. Take sounds, number one. They are
changing things, number two. By the way, he doesn’t accept that, right. You’re
trying to prove it to him. So, this is the quality to be proven about sound. And
the third thing was the reason you gave for it: oh, because it’s a made thing.
Okay. Because it’s a made thing. To put it very simply, {je kyap} is simply the
relationship between number three and number two. What was {chok chu} was
the relationship between number one and number three, right. Now, you have
the relationship between number three and number two. And if I say it in
simple English it’ll be fine for you. If something is a made thing it must be a
changing thing. That’s {je kyap}. That’s the expression of {je kyap}, okay. I’ll
say it again. If it’s number three, it must be number two. What was {chok chu}?
Number one is number three. I mean, when I was in the debate ground, I, I
would get all confused if I didn’t [unclear] number one is number three. If
number three, number two. That’s all. Just remember that. Now, technically,
it’s a lot more complicated than that, but that’s enough to memorise now, okay.
{chok chu}, first relationship, number one is number three. What? Sounds are
made things. {je kyap}, if it’s number three it must be number two. What? If
something is made it must be a changing thing. That’s all. That’s {je kyap}.
That’s the second relationship that must be true, it must hold true if that’s gonna
be a good reason, if this is gonna be a proof that holds. So far, we have two of
the relationships that must be there. Okay. First one, number three is true of
number one. Second one, if something is number three it must be number two.
I call it the ‘positive necessity’. When I say ‘positive’, I’m implying there might
be a negative necessity. But we’ll get there, okay. Let’s express the {je kyap} in
Tibetan for that proof. And here it is. Very, very classic, okay: {je na mitakpe
kyap. Je na mitakpe kyap}. That’s expression of the second relationship. I’m
simplifying it grossly for you, okay. I mean, the long definition you can see in
the text and it’s a lot more complicated than it looks. I’m just trying to get you
home tonight, okay. Say, {je na}[repeat], {mitakpe kyap}[repeat]; {je na}[repeat]
{mitakpe kyap}[repeat]. Anything that’s a made thing must be a changing thing.
That relationship has to hold if we have a good proof, okay.
Third thing. Say, {dok kyap}[repeat], {dok kyap}[repeat]. To put it simply, the
expression of {dok kyap} or the ‘negative necessity’ is, if it ain’t number two, it
can’t be number three. I mean, to put it very simply, okay. If it ain’t number
two, it can’t be number three. If something’s not a? Changing thing. It can’t be
a? Made thing, okay. If something wasn’t a changing thing it could never be a
made thing. And that’s {dok kyap}. That’s the third {tsul}. That’s the third
relationship which must hold true if you’re going to have a {tak yang dak}, a
correct reason, okay. If something, if something wasn’t a changing thing it could
never be a made thing. That’s all. All three of those relationships have to hold
true. If those three hold true the thing is a correct reason. Now, there are other
details, you know. I’ll give you a few of them. You don’t have to remember
them. You could have a case where a guy got up and said, ‘take sound, it’s a
changing thing, because it’s sound’. Is that a good proof? No, ‘cos the guy
already doesn’t accept that sound is a changing thing. So, it’s not a proof for him
to say, ‘sound is a changing thing because it’s sound’. Unfortunately, sound fits
all the three {tsuls}. Why? Well, sound applies to sound. If something’s sound it
must be a changing thing and if it wasn’t a changing thing it couldn’t be sound.
Okay. So, they throw in another thing in the definition, in the technical
definition, which is this long, okay. It can’t be the same as the subject, exactly.
You gotta change it slightly, okay. They also say, {…}. {… } means, in the way
you stated it, okay. Which means, it’s a different thing if I say, ‘take sounds, they
are changing things because they’re made’ or if I say, ‘take sound, changing
things exist because they’re made’. If I change the verb there, okay. In Tibetan
it’s the difference between {yinpa} and {yerpa}, okay. If I say {yerpa} instead of
{yinpa}, I open a big can of worms, okay. Technically, all the little pieces fit but
I’ve used a verb that means a lot more than to be ‘to be’. I didn’t say, ‘sounds
are made things’. I said, ‘sounds have made things’ or, ‘made things exist with
sounds’. And in Tibetan, you know, in Sanskrit and Tibetan that’s a big deal.
Course, in English, it is too, but it’s more subtle in Tibetan. You could have said,
‘have’ or you could have said, ‘is’ and there’s a big difference between the two.
If you think about it, the word ‘is,’ in English, has both meanings, you know. It
is, meaning, ‘it exists’. Or, ‘it is a book’, meaning, its identity is that. There’s a
difference between, ‘it is a book’ and ‘it is’, right. And that’s a subtle difference.
In English we only have one word and you’re gonna have some trouble there,
okay. We have the word ‘to be’. In Tibetan, you have two separate words for
‘to be something’ or ‘to be’. Meaning, and there’s a difference between ‘to be’
and ‘to exist’, okay. You don’t say, ‘this exists a pen’. You say, ‘it is a pen’. And,
and it’s the same in Tibetan. Unfortunately, the English word ‘is’ can mean to
exist or to be something, okay. And you’re gonna have to fool around with that.
Yeah. [student] Yeah. [student] You can say it either way. It’s the same thing.
 If something is three, no. You can’t say it the second way. Yeah. The quality
expressed in the reason applies to the subject. Yeah. You can say it that way.
Yeah. By the way, another part of the definition is, ‘only applies’. And you’ll see
that. Meaning, always applies. There’s not, like, a time when number three
doesn’t apply to number one. And that’s another part of the definition. So, the
definition, the real definition is like that long. Yeah. [student] Yeah. [student]
Yeah, {je kyap} is, if three, then two [student] {dok kyap} is, if not two, then not
three, yeah. I’m surprised no one said, but that amounts to the same thing, but
I’ll let you worry about that. [laughs] Okay. Everybody’s asleep. Okay.
[student] Hang on. If something, here’s an example of a {dop kyap}, okay. {dok
kyap}, I said {dop kyap} sorry, {dok kyap}. {dok kyap}, with the {tak na}. Say,
{tak na}[repeat] {ma jepe}[repeat] {kyap}[repeat]; {tak na}[repeat] {ma jepe}
[repeat] {kyap}[repeat]. Which is to say, if something is not made, it cannot be,
sorry. If something is not changing it cannot be made. Is that what I wrote
there? Yeah. If something is unchanging it cannot be made. All right. And
that’s {dok kyap}. If those three things are true, if those three relationships hold,
then your argument is a good argument. What? If sound is a made thing, that’s
relationship number one, {chok chu}. If it’s true that, anything which is made
must be changing, that’s relationship number two, {je kyap}. And, if it’s true that
if it’s not changing it cannot be made, {dok kyap}. If those three things are true,
then, that’s a good argument, to that person. And, he must perceive the truth of
those three elements, okay. He must or else it’s a bad reason. It’s a bad logic for
him, okay. There’s interesting thing. He must also perceive the existence of each
of the terms you use in each of the three slots. What? He must have perceived
what a sound is. He must understand what sound is. You can’t say, ‘svook’, or
something [laughs] like that. What’s a svook, you know. I don’t know. Okay.
And you can’t say, you know, here, where you have to say, ‘changing thing’. He
must understand what ‘changing thing’ means. If you say, ‘changing thing,’ to
an Eskimo who doesn’t know English, even though, you see, even though it’s
correct by western terms, in western logic, it’s not correct in Buddhist logic. And
that’s very, very important. You cannot use words to people that they don’t
understand what they mean yet. In Buddhist logic you just, you just became
false. Your argument just became false. It’s not real anymore. It’s not true
anymore. Why? He doesn’t know what a svook is, okay. This means you can’t
go around screaming at people, like, you know, you have to accept pretas, you
know. And they’re, like, what’s a preta? You know. And you see, they have to
accept the terms. By the way, they don’t have to have perceived it directly. I
mean, you can discuss hell realms because they can have a {dra chi} about hell
realms, you know. You can discuss the existence of hell realms. It doesn’t mean
they perceived the existence of hell realms. It means they understand what you
mean when you say hell realms. Okay. They understand what the term refers
to even though they don’t accept that it exists, okay. And that’s okay. You can
use words like that. But you can’t use terms, which they totally can’t relate to,
okay.       And you can’t say things about them, you can’t, none of those
relationships, the relationship of three to one, the relationship of three to two,
and the relationship of not two, not three. They must all be, already, something,
which he accepts. If you get really sensitive to this point, you’ll see that the only
thing you’re doing when you prove something to somebody, is you’re taking
them through something they already accept but they haven’t tied it together
yet. You see what I mean?




If somebody accepted that sound was a made thing, if somebody accepted
already that all made things are changing things, if somebody already accepted
that if it wasn’t a changing thing it couldn’t be a made thing, then, they’re just an
inch away, from accepting that sound is a made, is a changing thing. And you’re
just helping them realise what they didn’t tie together yet. And that’s all good
logic is. You’re not allowed to use any other kind of logic with somebody when
you’re trying to prove something in Buddhism. It’s very cool. You are, it’s your
obligation, as an American Buddhist, to reduce your argument to using facts,
which they already accept. And that’s difficult and it’s beautiful because then
nobody will ever complain about it, you know. You’re only giving them facts,
which they already accept. You’re just tying it together in a fresh way. You’re
giving them a fresh outlook on these facts they already accept. You can prove
future lives. You can prove past lives. You can prove emptiness. You can prove
karma. You can prove the non-existence of a, of a creator. You can prove the
falsity of the worldview of western civilisation. Using, facts that people already
accept. You don’t have to go into voodoo or mysticism. They don’t have to
have a spiritual awakening experience on their meditation seat. All of Buddhist
philosophy, all of Buddhist beliefs, because they are true, can be confirmed with
normal facts that normal people can see. If you are unable, after extended talks
with someone to, to demonstrate the truth of the Buddhist worldview as
opposed to the New York Times worldview, and I’m not kidding, the worldview
of western civilisation which is false, incorrect, then one or two things is
happening: either they are so steeped in the voodoo of their western civilisation
that they can’t, that at some point they’re being illogical. Everything you said is
true, everything you’ve said they must accept, they refuse to draw the same
conclusion. Then we say, {nang nyin dewa ma sopa me}, you know. I can’t
debate with some crazy guy, okay. [laughs] In the monastery you say, you
know, if you’re gonna be crazy, you know. If you’re gonna accept all the facts I
gave you and then you just refuse to tie them together in the way that is
objectively correct, then, then, what can I do, you know. You’re crazy, you
know. Like, you say, is the sky blue? Yes. Is blue a color? Yes. So the sky has a
color, right? No, no, no, no, no, you know. [laughter] [laughs] Then you say
[laughs] well, you know [laughter] I can’t do anything. I can’t work with you,
you know what I mean. I mean, that’s the one possibility. But, the more likely
possibility is that you have not reduced it to the facts that they already accept.
And you must. So, when you talk to people you have to be in that mind frame.
If you fail, and we’re talking people’s lives, right, we’re talking life and death
here. If you practice Buddhism correctly, you enter a Buddha paradise. You
don’t have to die like this. You’re talking people’s lives are at stake. Literally a
person’s life is at stake on your, on your persuasiveness. Then, you have to be
very good at going down to the facts that they already accept. You must reduce
Buddhism to the facts that normal American people can accept, you know. And
if you stay up there in this ivory tower with things that they could never accept
or never understand or and you say, I don’t care if the common people don’t get
it, you know, then really, you’re just contributing to their murder in a sense.
You see what I mean? You’re contributing to their death. You, you have to
bring it down to, to what people can accept or, or you’re not a Buddhist, you
know. You’re not presenting it in a Buddhist way because, because those are the
rules of Buddhist logic, you know. That, you’re required to go down to what
they can already accept. And it’s your responsibility to try, all right. People’s
lives are at stake, you know. Yeah. [student] Yeah [student] Then you, then
you haven’t, he said, what if you wanna start an argument, with the fact that the
definition of existence is, that which is perceived by a valid perception as being
existing? You can’t use that for people who don’t accept that. You have to go
further, you have to reduce it further. You have to prove that first. You can’t
use that as a building block. If you can’t prove it then I’m not gonna accept it.
[student] Yeah [student] You have to prove it according to their own
experience. You have to say, you know, doesn’t it seem to you, that the way to
prove that something exists is, that it’s there when you see it’s there. And you’re
not drunk or crazy or hallucinating or overcome with some emotion. And if
they have a problem with that then you have to reduce it further. You must
reduce it further. Yeah. [student] Oh, yeah. Nothing is a priori. You must be
able to prove everything. Nothing is a priori. [student] Sure. [laughs] No time
tonight. We can do it. There must be, you have to prove it. You have to be able
to prove it or else you’re, or else you’re already, you know, you’re saying, hell
realms exist because preta realms exist. Okay. You know. And, well wait a
minute, I didn’t agree to either one yet, you know. You have to go down to
what they can accept. Yeah. [student] Yeah. [student] Yeah, yeah. Brookes
gave a very interesting question, [laughs]. Can you prove that, proofs themself,
themselves, are valid, you know what I mean. Is, is logic airtight? And this is a
common misperception of people. They say, when you get to Tantra you can
throw out logic or something like that, you know. No, not at all. But when you
get into deep meditation on emptiness, you know, you, you go beyond, you
transcend the limitations of logic. Bullshit. You know. Really. No, really. It can
all be confirmed. This presentation that you are getting here is the immediate
cause of having the highest mystical experience possible. Which is, the direct
perception of emptiness. And don’t let anyone tell you anything different. It’s
false. Totally false. They are murdering you. You know, they are contributing
directly to your continued suffering in this planet, you know. You, it’s not at all
true, you know. The logic is, is absolutely, brings you straight up to those
experiences. And Tantra and logic are husband and wife, you know. They love
each other. They live together. They’re married, you know. Don’t ever let
anyone say different, you know. We could prove it. I mean, {tsema ….},
opening lines of the Pramanavartikka. The being, who cares most about all
living creatures who’s incapable of lying, said that logic is the way, you know.
And, and that’s the opening lines, but then they go through other arguments.
But, but don’t let anybody tell you, it’s totally false, okay. The way your mind
works, the way grammar itself works, the way language works, the way
computers work, you know, the way thinking works, is correct. And, emptiness
is based on a logical thinking and the highest realisations of Tantra and the
highest practices of Tantra, are based thoroughly on logic. And, and don’t let
anybody tell you something else. It’s not, it’s just not true. Okay. Yeah.
[student] I, I told ya I was waiting for someone to ask that, you know. He said, I
can never think of a case where number two would hold where number three
wouldn’t hold and vice versa. Cook it. By the way, there is no such thing, well,
no, you figure it out. Then why would they have three instead of two? You
figure it out. Work on it. Come back to me later, okay. It’s mainly for the
benefit of the opponent, okay. I’ll give you a clue, all right. But I used to wonder
about the same thing. It’s a good question. It’s a really good question. Okay,
last thing. That ‘last thing’ syndrome. [laughter][laughs] Very, very simple,
okay. Say {dra chuchen}[repeat] {mitakte}[repeat] chepay chir}[repeat]. Okay.
Consider sounds, they are changing things, because they are made. Okay. Then
you would say what, if you were the opponent? If I say {chepay yin pay chir},
because they are made. If you were debating me what would you say? They
are. You just repeat the verb. Right. They are. No argument. I mean, it’s a
really lousy way to start a debate in the monastery, you know. If you start out
with a correct reason then everybody just sits there and looks at you like
[laughter][laughs], you know. And then the guy says, oh, oh, {mayin, mayin},
you know what I mean. Then he immediately changes back, you know, ‘cos.
Every once in a while some kid gets up, you know, and there’s a thousand
people watching. He’s been practicing all morning, you know. You know, {yin
pey chir}and he forgets to put the negative in, you know. Everybody just sits
there and goes [laughter], you know what I mean. Because he said something
true. You can’t start an argument with something true, you know [laughs],
okay, normally, okay. [unclear] [laughter] which happens, okay.
So, if I say, {dra chuchen mitakte, ma chepay chir}, okay. Sounds are changing
things because they are not made. You say, not {tak}, {tak ma drup}[repeat], {tak
ma drup}[repeat]. Which is to say, that’s wrong. It’s incorrect to say that sounds
are not made things. That’s what {tak ma drup} means, okay. So to, to a
proposition ending in {chir}which is because, one of the answers you can give
and the most common answer is {tak ma drup}. The thing you said for number
three is not correct about number one. It’s not true that sounds are not made
things, okay. So how about this? {dra chuchen mitakte yin peychir}, okay.
Sounds are changing things because they exist. Then what do you say? Yeah, it
doesn’t necessarily hold. In Tibetan, {kyappa ma jung}. Say, {kyappa}[repeat]
{ma jung}[repeat]. It doesn’t necessarily follow, okay. It’s true that sound is a
existing thing. {chok chu} holds, relationship number one holds. But those other
two are a problem. Just because something’s made doesn’t mean it’s changing,
okay. Just because it’s something made doesn’t mean it’s changing. And
conversely, not everything which is changing, not changing, doesn’t exist.
[laughs] Sorry, [unclear] Sorry. No. Right. It’s not true that if something is not
changing it can’t exist. How’s that? All right. Those two and three don’t hold.
Go home and work on it, okay [laughs]. Two and three don’t hold. Now,
there’s another way to blow a guy away, you know. And this is called {teln
gyur}and I’ll write it for you. Say, {teln gyur}[repeat], {teln gyur}[repeat]. In
Sanskrit, prasangika, okay. Prasangika. {teln gyur}means a statement, I call it a
‘statement of necessity’, okay. A statement of necessity. Normally, they are
absurd, okay. Absurd. If somebody says something stupid, and then you give
him back a sarcastic, absurd statement, and that’s the normal {droltang}. That’s
the normal system of a {teln gyur}, okay. So, let’s give an example. Somebody
says, ‘take sounds, they are changing things, because they exist’. You know.
And you don’t say anything. You just say, ‘oh, so I guess emptiness is a
changing thing right?’ Okay. {tong pa nyi mitakpa yinpa ta},okay. {tong pa nyi
mitakpa yinpa ta}, okay. Oh, I guess, I guess emptiness is a changing thing then,
uh? Okay. And you go {taaaa} at the end, you know. Say {yinpa ta}[repeat],
{yinpa ta}[repeat]. Which is Oh, I guess space is, emptiness is a changing thing,
right? Okay. And then you go {yinpa ta},okay. And that’s called a {teln gyur}.
It’s a, it’s a necessary consequence of his stupid statement, okay. It’s a necessary,
absurd consequence of his stupid statement. You’re just, you don’t attack him
directly. You just implying something, you know. You’re just saying, oh,
everything that exists changes, huh? Well, I guess emptiness is changing, right?
Changing thing, right? Because, in essence, he said, everything that exists
changes. If something exists it must change. He said, by the way, oftentimes, it
follows a general truth, or a universal truth. The opponent will give a {kepa}, a
universal truth. Like, everything that exists changes, you know. You say, oh,
gee, that’s too bad. I guess emptiness is changing right, changing thing. It gets
more empty, less empty. There’s, first there’s less self-existence and then there’s
more self-existence and then sometimes it’s fifty percent self-existence [cut]
[unclear]sometimes it’s like thirty percent self-existence. Which is ridiculous,
right? But you say, oh, yeah, I’m sorry. I guess, I guess emptiness itself varies,
right? It’s not the hundred percent total absence of a thing that never existed,
right? It’s, like, sometimes there, sometimes not there, changing, variable, you
know. Too bad. Guess we can’t get enlightened. You know what I mean. Oh,
let’s [unclear]. That’s called a {teln gyur}, okay. According to the highest school
of Buddhism, there are four great schools, right?               The highest school’s
Madhayamika, Middle Way. There are two branches of the Middle Way school.
The highest one is called, {Teln Gyur, teln gyurwa}- those who like to use {teln
gyurs}, okay. Those who depend on {teln gyurs}. Those who depend on those
sarcastic, oh, too, poor little emptiness, it’s changing, right. Okay. That’s a {teln
gyur}. Okay. Why are they called {teln gyur}? They believe that someone, that
an opponent, can be led to a correct understanding of emptiness, simply through
a {teln gyur}. You know. You, you just had a deeper appreciation of emptiness
than you had ten minutes ago. When I started saying, oh, too bad, poor old
emptiness, sometimes it’s fifty percent absence of a thing that never existed,
sometimes it’s a seventy-five percent absence of something that never existed,
sometimes it’s a thirty percent absence of something that never existed, right?
And that, already, gave you a deeper appreciation for what emptiness really is.
Which is, a one hundred point zero, zero percent absence of something that
never could have existed anyway. Okay. And that, already, gave you some
deeper insight into emptiness. According to the highest school, the highest
Middle Way school, that’s enough for you to get a lot of fresh, infor,
enlightening information about emptiness. I don’t have to go on and say, Look,
Brooks, don’t you get it? It’s impossible for it to be thirty percent empty. It’s a
hundred percent empty, okay. Just, just, you don’t have to go through that.
That’s a {tak}. That’s a {jor ..}. That’s an assertion. You don’t have to go through
that. Just the sarcastic question is enough. And, if he’s got any brain at all, he’ll
say, Oh, hey, you know what, he’s right. Has to be a hundred percent empty or
it couldn’t be empty, you know. So, that’s a {teln gyur}, that’s a prasangika. And
that’s why they’re called prasangika, if anybody ever asks you. Yeah. [student]
Well you, of course you { …} you perceive emptiness based on infinite number
of reasons, okay. [laughs] But, but the assertion is that the opponent can be led
to a deep understanding of emptiness simply by asking sarcastic questions,
based on stupid things he already said, you know. Using stupid things he
already said. [student] No, you haven’t proven anything of your own. But, he
gets it. And that’s what prasangika means, okay. That’s what a prasangika is.
Okay. So just learn that. It most often follows a universal statement, okay. If
something is a fruit it must be an apple. Oh, I guess oranges are apples, {yinpa
teln}, okay {yinpa teln}, all right. And it’s just a sarcastic question. Next week
we’ll get into the answers to a {teln}, okay. There’s two answers you can give to
a {teln}. I go {teln}. Then you can say two different things and we’ll get into it
next week. One more thing, okay. [laughter] When you believe the {teln gyur},
you go up. And they never tell you that, okay. {yinpa teln}, say, say these two
things {yinpa teln}[repeat]. Hear my voice going down? {yinpa teln}[repeat]
Are you telling me, that, okay. That’s the way it sounds like in Tibetan. Say
again, {yinpa teln}[repeat]. And now, listen to the other one, {yinpa teln},
[laughs], {yinpa teln}[repeat]. That means, it is so, okay. See, the first one is, so is
it. And by the way, that’s why you get the weird English in the translation,
okay. Because I’m trying to give you one English word to give you the {teln},
right. Hear it. So, is it true that – it is so true that. You see what I mean? And
that’s the two senses of {teln}. I was trying to find one English word that did
both things too, okay

If the {teln} goes up, it means you’re saying something you really do believe. It
is so. You know. It is so true. And in English you go up, you know. Oh, so is it
and that’s when you go down, okay. Sarcastic one, the false one, the absurd on,
goes down. Now, how do you, how do you get that in a text? How do you
know if his voice went up or went down? Huh? [laughs] You have to know
whether it’s true or not. [laughs] You have to know whether our side would
ever say that or not. And it’s very bad, okay. And you can spend months trying
to figure out does this one go up or down. I’m sorry, okay. When you’re
translating a text, you actually have to skip beyond it to see is it something we
believe or not. And then you have to translate it accordingly. You have to get
used to that, okay. It’s a very unfortunate thing about Tibetan, all right. So, {teln
gyur} can also be a necessity that we do believe in, okay. It is so true that all
fruits have colors, okay. Oh, so an orange is, is red. Or an orange is an apple,
okay. And you have to get used to that. Those are the two {telns], okay. And
then next week we’ll, next class we’ll start actual debating. And we’ll break up
into little debate, don’t get worried about it. It’s fun. Or, maybe I’ll just stand
here and you can scream at me. How’s that? We’ll start like that. All right.
We’ll do some prayers, all right.
[prayer: short mandala]
[prayer: dedication]
The Asian Classics Institute

Geshe Michael Roach
Course XIII: The Art of Reasoning