ACI 13 «Искусство аргументации», занятие 5

Class Five: Subjects and Objects

Transcribed by Angie Overy

[laughter] I, and we’ve been to ‘Hell’s Kitchen’, so [laughter] [laughs]. But, if
anybody has any good ideas. We’re okay, we have space for next course but it’s
a little tight. So, if anyone can find anything, be nice. We pay rent and all that.
There’s one sponsor that has an organisation that might be purchasing a building
and said we could use it, if we could help find the building. So, it would be like, a
church with an adjoining building, or something like that. Church, synagogue,
theatre, something like that. So, if anyone, you know, if you’re just walking
around and you see something, sign put up ‘for sale’, or something.

[What about the Limelight?].

   I would love to have the [laughter]. No, I mean anything like that. Give the
ideas to John Stillwell, okay. Give the ideas to John or to Ora. But, but, you
know, the way we found this place was that somebody was walking by it one
day, and, and asked, and it’s, it’s worked out okay. We, we looked at other
places that cost, like, two thousand dollars a night. This place is much cheaper
and, you know. So, if you have any leads, you know, let John know. And we’re
still looking for that. There’s no reading tonight. We tried nobley to finish it and
couldn’t do it. So you have to make very good notes tonight, alright. I’m
warning you, alright. [laughs] Okay. Also, one more announcement: Monday
night class is daily practice class. We go over how to do your daily practice. And
it’s really good because you need that in addition to these courses. You can’t
have one without the other really. Sometimes we have extra time at the end of
those classes. Like this week we had extra time. So, if you’re, if you have any
burning questions about this course, you’re welcome to ask them. We opened it
up last week. We did about an hour of practice and meditation and then we had
a, like, half hour, forty-five minutes of open discussion about the, this class and
other issues. So, if you have any questions that you’d like to ask I think that
might be better. Then, we don’t have to stay too late. If you have a really quick
question that’s good for this class, go ahead and try to ask, okay, during the
class. And if it’s something I forgot or something like that, I’ll go ahead and talk
about it. But if you have a more complicated question, like, what was the whole
third reading about [laughter][laughs], you know, try, try to come Monday
night maybe. And we’ll, we’ll have a little open question and answer thing after
the meditation. So, I’ll, you know, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll trade, you know. You have
to meditate for an hour and then I’ll answer questions, okay. [laughter] Alright?
It’s a bribe. Okay. Alright, here we go. You finished a lot of the basic {dura}
topics. You finished the outline of existence. You finished {chi jedrak}, about
generals and specifics. And then you finished, what was last week? {Gyun dre}.
You finished cause and effect. There was one more. What was that? No? We
only did three? What was the first class? Oh, the first class was the importance
of doing it, okay. And that’s what you’ve finished so far. We’re going on to,
you’re doing like, don’t forget you’re eight years in about three months. So,
you’re real special. [laughter] [laughs] And, say {yul} [repeat], {yul- chen}
[repeat]; {yul} [repeat] {yul-chen} [repeat]. That’s the next important subject I’d
like to go over. {Yul} means, objects. And then you see the same word repeated
here and {chen} means, possessing. So that which possess an object is a…?

[Subject.]

 Subject, okay. So, ‘Objects and Subjects’, is the next, is the next little subject
we’re gonna study, okay. This is really important for the study of how do you
perceive things. This is the excuse for the logic scriptures to get into Buddhist
psychology.      So, everything you ever wanted to know about Buddhist
psychology. It’s a huge subject. I intend to do it as an auxiliary course in the
next two years. It’s called {sem semchung}. It’s a whole thing. There’s fifty-one
mental functions. It’s really cool to study it. There’s no way we can cover it in
detail tonight. We’re gonna do the rough outline of it and then I’ll do it as a
separate course. A short course, like, a three day course or something like that.
But, we’ll go through the basics tonight. It’s very important to know how does
the mind work, how does the mind perceive objects. It’s especially important in
the study of emptiness. If you study {yul yul-chen} properly, you can eliminate
about half the explanations you ever heard of emptiness, okay. Like some kind
of idea that the mind sinks into the object and they become one. That the subject
and the object become one. Ideas like that are totally false. They’re not correct.
And you can get a better appreciation of it after you’ve studied {yul yul-chen}.
So, people who’ve had this when they’re thirteen years old in the monastery,
would never even listen to one of those lectures. I mean, they’d just walk in
they’d say, no, this guy’s crazy, you know. The {yul yul-chen} is separate. Every
Buddhist philosopher ever lived said that, you know. In ancient India, in Tibet,
nobody ever said they melted into each other or something like that. There are
expressions like, ‘pouring water into water’. That’s a different thing. There are
expressions like ‘non-duality’. That’s a different thing. But, it doesn’t mean, that
somehow you become emptiness. You are a {ngupo}. You are a changing thing.
You are {mitakpa}. Emptiness is {takpa}. You could never become emptiness. I
mean, they’re just totally different things. You are changing from millisecond to
millisecond and you always will. Even after you get enlightened you will
continue to change from millisecond to millisecond. Emptiness never changes,
okay. And, just basically, that’s, if you study {yul yul-chen} you wouldn’t even
have that wrong idea. And you see that wrong idea everywhere, okay. You see
it written in all kinds of books all over the place. And it’s just false, okay. That’s
one of the things, one of the applications of studying {yul yul-chen}, okay. We’re
gonna go on to the definition of a {yul}. Say {tseme} [repeat] {shelwar} [repeat]
{ja wa} [repeat]; {tseme} [repeat] {shelwar} [repeat] {ja wa} [repeat]. {Tsema}
means, as you know, a valid perception. How many valid perceptions have you
had today?

[student – unclear]

[laughs] No. The point is, ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine
percent of all your perceptions are valid, okay. What’s a not a valid perception?
When you’re completely drunk and you see something. When you’re on LSD
and you see something. When you’re overcome with jealousy and you think
everyone’s out to get you, you know. When you’re moving in a subway and
the other subway’s moving and it looks like, you know, you have this illusions
of motions and stuff like that. Those are examples of a {tsemin}. But, but ninety-
nine point nine, nine, nine percent of your perceptions are, are {tsema}. They are
valid. Are they correct? Valid means, given the data you have at your disposal,
they’re okay. Correct means, does the nature of the object correspond to what
you believe about it. Madhyamika says, you’ve never had one in your life until
you see emptiness directly. But don’t feel depressed. Everyone’s the same, okay
[laughter] probably. {Shelwar ja wa} means, ‘that which is apprehended’, okay.
That, which is apprehended by a valid perception. {Shelwar} and {jelwar} can
mean, ‘to be weighed’, ‘to be judged’, like that. And it, and it means here, to be
apprehended.       Anything, which is apprehended or perceived, by a valid
perception, is an object. Okay. Now, I’ll give you some synonyms. Say, {yul}
[repeat], {yupa} [repeat], {shel-ja} [repeat]; {yul} [repeat], {yupa} [repeat], {shel-ja}
[repeat]. {Yul} means, ‘objects’, okay, objects, all the objects in the world, okay.
{Yupa} means, ‘existing thing’. {Shel-ja} means ‘anything you can apprehend or
perceive with your mind’. And these three are synonyms. Okay. That’s kind of
a big statement, you see. The definition or a description of existence, is anything
you can perceive with a valid perception. So, the word, all the objects in the
world that you could perceive, all the existing objects in the world, and all the
things in the world that you could ever apprehend, are the same thing. They’re
all the same thing. It’s another word for everything that exists, okay. These are
all equal; the same thing, okay. So, {yul} is very important. Every existing object
in the universe is a {yul}, or an object of somebody’s mind. Okay. There’s a lot
of, you know, cosmic dust out towards Pluto. So, who’s seeing it? An
omniscient being; a Buddha, okay. So, that, it’s a {kyeba} in Buddhism. Every
existing object is being perceived by somebody’s valid perception, okay. {Yuls}
can be divided into two types. Say, {ngupo} [repeat], {takpa} [repeat]; {ngupo}
[repeat], {takpa} [repeat]. {Ngupo} means, you know, a ‘working thing’ {dunje
ngupo .. tsennyi}, anything that performs a function, okay. Anything that does
something. According to Buddhism, anything that changes, anything that does
something, is the same thing. Okay. {Ngupo]. By doing something you change.
By changing you do something, okay. {Takpa} means an unchanging thing,
okay. And all {yuls}, anything you could ever perceive in the universe, anything
you could ever put your mind on, is either belongs to {ngupos} or to {takpas},
okay. It’s either a working thing or an unchanging thing. And working thing
and changing thing and produced thing and made thing and caused thing are all
the same thing, okay.

[student – unclear]

 You could say {mitakpa}. The text says {ngupo}. I think they’re trying to make
a point, okay. But it’s the same thing to say {mitakpa} and {takpa}. Same thing.
Okay. All {mitakpas}, all {ngupos], all, all working things, can be divided into
five. We’re working our way down the categories, right. These are basic
Buddhist concepts that you need to go anywhere later in your studies, especially
about emptiness, okay.        Say {pungpo} [repeat], {nga} [repeat]. {Pungpo}
[repeat}, {nga} [repeat]. {Pungpo} means a pile of something. Like a pile of
leaves or a pile of dirt or a pile of rocks or something like that. In Tibetan, it’s
called {pungpo}. In Sanskrit, it’s skandha, okay, skandha. {Nga} means five,
okay. {Nga} means five. And this is the famous five skandhas or five heaps.
They are five parts of a person. Every person is made up of five different parts.
Each one of those parts includes many many members. And so, they’re called
heaps. I mean it might even be better to translate it as a mountain. You see
what I mean? It’s like when you say it’s a mountain of snow on the street, or
there’s a mountain of dirt on the street, or you know, meaning a huge pile of
something. That’s the meaning of {pungpo}. The Abhidharmakosha first
chapter says, {pungpo ….}, which means, if you want to know why {pungpos}
are called {pungpos} or why skandhas are called skandhas {…} because it, in the
sense of, many things piled together. That’s all. It’s, it’s a group including many
objects. Okay. And we’re gonna go through the five. These are all the {yuls} in
the world. If you cover these five, you covered all the {yuls} in the world. How
many {yuls} are there? Exactly as many as there are existing objects in the
universe, okay. So it’s interesting. In this presentation you can divide every
existing object into the five parts of a person. Okay. Here’s the first one. Say,
{suk} [repeat], {suk} [repeat], okay. We have one {suk} already, and it was, we
translated it as ‘physical thing’, right, physical thing. And the definition of it was
{suk su rungwa}.       How do you define blue? What’s the definition of blue?
Anything you point to and say, “look, this is what I mean when I say blue”,
okay. That’s {suk su rungwa tsennyi}, definition of a physical thing is, you know,
what’s the definition of ‘square’? What’s the definition of ‘round’? What’s the
definition of ‘blue’? You have to show it to somebody and say, “that’s blue.
That’s what I mean when I say blue”, okay. And, this physical matter {suk} is
often translated as form. Why? Because normally it refers to what you can see
with your eyeball: shapes and colours.              So if you’re studying Buddhist
philosophy you have to be able to draw the distinction between general {suk}
and specific {suk}. General {suk} is any physical thing: smells, sounds, tangible
objects, tastes and things that you can see, okay. In one sense, it can mean the
object of the eye, meaning only colours and shapes, okay. In this case, it’s all
physical matter. It’s all physical matter, okay. The first heap, the first part of a
person, is all physical matter. There are two types, okay. Say {chiy suk} [repeat],
{nang gi suk}[repeat]; {chiy suk}[repeat] {nang gi suk}[repeat]. {Chiy suk}
means, ‘outer’, outer physical matter, outside physical matter; {nang gi suk}
means, inside physical matter. There’s a big debate in the Abhidharmakosha
about what makes ‘outside’ and what makes ‘inside’, okay. If you define it as
anything where your consciousness covers, then there’s this huge debate about
the end of your fingernails and your hair, you know. At what point does your
hair become not sentient, you see what I mean? If you have, okay [laughter].
But, at what point can you feel when somebody touches your hair, you see what
I mean. And, and there’s a big debate about it in the Abhidharmakosha. And
that the outer, outer physical form would be the chair or the building or
something like that; inner physical form would be, for example, your eye faculty.
The, the, the cells inside your eyeball, that can detect colour and shape, okay.
What do you call it?

[Optic nerve.]

Geshe-la: Optic nerve, okay. The optic nerve would be an example of inner
physical matter. Okay. But, if you think about it, and, and this is something you
have to think about carefully. The wall is part of you also. You see, it’s part of
your reality. You see, it’s hard for me to divide between the environment and
my body, right. I mean, where does my body stop? Does it stop where I’ve
stopped touching things? So the end of my fingernails is not part of me
anymore? Or does it stop where I can see the edge of my skin? Or where does
me stop? You see. And in, and in this presentation in the logic Scriptures, they
don’t draw a distinction for the heap of matter between the wall and my body.
Okay. It’s just, it’s still part of your experience. It’s still part of what you call you.
And you have to get used to that. When we study the Heart Sutra at Conneticut,
it’ll be {suk me, tsorwa me, dushe me, du-je me, nampa shepa me, mik me, …}
and it goes like that. You go through all the existing parts of you and it gets real
hard to distinguish between you and the wall. Meaning, it’s as much a part of
your experience as your body is, isn’t it? You know, it’s not connected, if
someone hits the wall with a hammer, you don’t say, ‘ouch’, unless it’s your
house or something [laughs], okay. But, but generally speaking, it’s still part of
your experience, you know. When you describe yourself or your being a lot of
that is the outside physical matter. And in this presentation that’s considered
part of your rupa skandha; part of your first heap that makes up what we call
you, okay. And eventually, with the Heart Sutra presentation, you will have to
see the emptiness of all of those things, of each of the five heaps. You must
study the five heaps. Why? It allows you to deconstruct yourself. You see what
I mean? If you can break yourself down into five parts and you’re looking for a
self-existent you in each one and you don’t find it, then your self-existent you
probably isn’t there, okay. So, the exercise, especially in the first chapter of the
Abhidharmakosha, is to divide all of reality into five parts called ‘you’. And
then, examine each one and see if you can find a self-existent you. And you
won’t. And then you can eliminate that possibility. But you have to, there's a
difference between what is objectively the five parts of you and this thing that
you feel is you, you know what I mean? If you’re really objective about it you
are a bag full of certain mental parts and certain physical parts. There’s no
independent you aside from those parts, you see what I mean. And you have to
get used to that. You’ve been living in your body so long and you’ve been in
your mind so long that you think of it as, as ‘Robin’ or you think of it as ‘Tony’
or whatever you are, ‘Thomas’, you know. You think of yourself that way. But,
if you’re objective about it, you’re just a pile of pieces, {pungpo}, you know.
And, and there is no you there if you’re really objective about it, you know.
There’s just a bunch of parts there. And you have to get used to that. That’s the
exercise in Abhidharma. That’s the, the first chapter is devoted to that, to
deconstruct yourself. If you’re into the {dakye} it would be { … }, okay. It’s the
same exercise. You’re deconstructing yourself, okay. And it’s, it’s the same idea.
You’re breaking down your parts so that you can get sensitive to the fact. If you
really get into the teaching on the five heaps, it’s really cool. I mean, go home
and find the ‘you’. And you got five places to look at. Like, it’s like being,
having five rooms in your house where you’re gonna look for a pink, two-
headed, twelve foot elephant, right. And you go through each room and you
don’t find it. And then, you can say with certainty, there’s no pink, two-headed
purple elephant in my house. And, by the way, there never could have been.
But it helps to have five rooms to check in, right. It helps to say, my house has
five rooms, I checked in all five rooms, it’s not there. Okay. In the break, okay,
‘cos it’s gonna be a long one tonight. Trust me. Okay. Second one. Say,
{tsorwa} [repeat], {tsorwa} [repeat]. {Tsorwa} means feeling. Feeling, the
capacity of feeling. Okay. This is a mental part of you. Is it still a {pungpo}?
Yeah. It’s {pungpo} number two. It’s heap number two. Why call it a heap?
Well, if you state it simply, you have three kinds of feeling: good, bad and in-
between; good, bad and neutral. If you wanna get more fancy, good physical
feeling, good mental feeling, neutral, bad physical feeling, bad mental feeling.
Five. You wanna get really fancy? Eighteen. Feeling good about what I see,
feeling neutral about what I see, okay. Feeling bad about what I see. Feeling
good about what I smell, etcetera, etcetera, okay; all six senses. So {tsorwa} is a
big {pungpo}. It’s a big pile of different events, okay. {Tsorwa ….. }, that’s how
it’s defined in the Abhidharmakosha. {Tsorwa} is simply defined as the ability to
experience objects; to experience the content of an object. You know, good, bad
or medium or in-between. That’s feeling, okay. We talked about why feeling,
you know, there’s fifty-one mental functions in this school that you’re in tonight,
okay. Why, out of all fifty-one {tsorwa} got to be its own category is something
we talked about before. Do you remember?

[student – unclear]

Geshe-la: Yeah, {korwa ….} okay, that’s the first chapter Abhidhamakosha.
These are separated out and treated separately because feelings are what get you
I trouble. It’s what causes your suffering. I like this. I don’t like this. And then
you collect bad karma for the things you like and the things you don’t like, okay.
Does that mean you should stop feeling things ‘cos they cause you all your
trouble? No. Buddhas feel great and they like it, okay. Does it mean you
shouldn’t be attached to your feelings and just let them go on like and observe
them? No way. Buddhas very much enjoy the bliss that they have and they’re
very attached to it. They have no intention of going back to hell or anything like
that. Seriously, okay. That’s not true. All those things are not true. Does it
mean that in order to get a good feeling, you should never commit a bad karma?
That’s what it means. Yeah. That’s what it means. Why not? ‘Cos it doesn’t
work anyway. Okay. That’s ignorance, you know. To do something bad to get
a good feeling is ignorance ‘cos that isn’t how they come, okay. That’s all it
means, okay. Do Buddhas enjoy the pleasure they {. ..}, you know, of course.
They love to be in bliss. They would like to get everyone there too, you know.
It’s not like you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can, you know.
Buddhas have their cake and eat it too. { … }in the very deep secret teachings,
you know, it’s like a worm. And that I can’t tell you about. Okay. [laughter]
{Tsorwa, dushe}. Say, {dushe}[repeat], {dushe}[repeat]. The Abhidharmakosha
{ … } which means, and this poor word gets mistranslated and mangled and
abused all over, okay. {Dushe} means, discrimination, that’s all. This is good.
This is bad. This is tall. This is short. This is red. This is blue. I like this. I don’t
like this. Okay. Those are all {dushe}. Why do you imagine {dushe} got to be a
separate category? Oh, second big trouble- maker. Okay. I like him. I don’t like
him. I like this. I don’t like this. This is mine. This is yours. Okay. Does that
mean we should just give up thinking anything is mine or anything is yours?
Does it mean that we should ignore the distinction between what hurts us and
what is nice? Not at all. Buddhas have {dushe}, okay. All living creatures have
{dushe}, okay. Buddhas can distinguish between this is hell and this is a Buddha
paradise and I wanna stay in the Buddha paradise, okay. Of course they do. Of
course they have {dushe}. This is the bad {dushe}. This is the {dushe} that says,
this is mine, this is yours and I want yours. Okay. But, if you just say, this is
mine and this is yours and I’m gonna collect good karma with mine and I’m
gonna collect good karma about yours, then that’s fine. There’s no problem
with that. You don’t have to give up discrimination. It’s not a goal of Buddhism
to be a vegetable somewhere not wanting to feel anything and not able to tell
the difference between good and bad or tall and short and feels good or feels
bad. That’s not a goal. Obviously it’s not a goal, okay. And poor American
Buddhists who heard about it, you know, were like, trying for twenty years not
to feel anything or not to like anything, you know. It’s not the point. Buddhas
like to be in Buddha paradise and they would like to free all sentient beings. And
they don’t like to see us suffer. And they better be able to draw that distinction,
okay.

[cut]

Geshe-la: Say {du-je} [repeat], {du-je} [repeat]. {Du-je} is another much mangled
word, you know, much abused word. It’s, it’s heap number four, right. It’s
defined like this in the Abhidharmakosha: {du-je pungpo shi le shen}, which
means, the fourth heap is everything that’s not in the other four heaps. And
that’s all.   Everything about you that didn’t make it into the other four
categories, right. We only have four so far, right, there’ll be one more.
Anything, that didn’t make it into one, two, three, and five, is number four.
Okay. What’s in there? Well, in this school, there’s forty-nine different mental
functions after subtracting feeling and discrimination, okay. There’s, Magda is
there, okay. Magda’s body is stuck in number one. Magda’s feeling is stuck in
number two. Magda’s discriminating is stuck in number three. Magda’s
consciousness or awareness is stuck in number five. But Magda is none of those.
She has those but she is a person and the person belongs in number four. Okay.
These are all different qualities of a person that aren’t included in the other four
heaps, okay. So, the Abhidharmakosha defines this one as, ‘hey, everything else’.
Okay. And then people say, you know, samskara or what is it? They come up
with really weird translations. I call it ‘other factors’. The word {du-je} means,
factor. You can translate it as other factors. What does factor mean here?
Something that acts as a cause. How many parts of you act as a cause?
Everything. Why? ‘Cos they all perform a function. Okay. That’s all. So, it just
means all the parts of you that didn’t make it into the other four parts. I guess,
technically speaking, your emptiness might be here, but I’m not sure, okay.
That’s part of you and it doesn’t change, okay. Was it making it into {du-je gi
pungpo}? Maybe. I don’t know. Okay. Number five. That would make a good
debate, by the way, you know. Where is your emptiness in this outline?
Because it doesn’t change it can’t be called a {du-je}. It’s not physical. It’s not
mental. But, it’s part of you. Yeah.

[student - unclear]

Oh, I’m sorry. It is a division of {ngupos}, working things.

[student - unclear]

Say again.

[student - unclear]

No. Not all existing things are {ngupos}, okay. Say {namshe} [repeat], {namshe}
[repeat]: your awareness, your consciousness. Okay. Americans tend to think of
the word mind as equalling the brain and that’s totally wrong. Right? Where is
your awareness? If I don’t say ‘brain’ and if I don’t say ‘mind’, but I just say your
‘awareness’, where is it? And where did it come from? And why do you have it?
And why aren’t you like a rock, you know? Frank Zappa’s ‘Help on the Rock’,
right. That’s an old one. Okay. [laughter] But, like, how do you know that
you’re not a, I mean, what’s the difference between you and a stone? Right. I
mean, where does this thing come from that you’re aware of everything?
Where did it come from? Why do you have it? Where is it? You know. Is it on
the other side of the room or is it here, you know? Is it in your refrigerator at
home or is it here? Mine already went to bed [laughter], I mean, mine is
dreaming about my bed, you know. I mean, it’s, it’s just this general thing that
you’re aware of everything, that things are happening to you, okay. That you
know things. That you’re aware of things, okay. {Namshe},okay, awareness.
Six different types: {namshe} connected to your eye, {namshe} connected to your
ear, {namshe} connected to your nose, {namshe} connected to hearing your own
thoughts in your own mind. Okay. So, we get six, six different categories. We
just finished all existing objects, okay. Now we can go onto

[student - unclear]

huh?

[student - unclear]

Yeah. Well, {yul, yul-chen}. We can go onto all existing subjects, okay. Yeah.

[student - unclear]

There’s not much to say about {takpas}, okay. Emptiness, empty space, the fact
that you’ll never go to hell again if you reach a certain level, you know. The fact
that the sky is blue on this planet, on this days. Like that. It’s not the function of
this class to go into {shi drup kyi namshak} which we finished already. The
function of this class is to discuss subjects and objects, right. So that’s a rough
outline of objects as they treat them in this subject. Now we’ll get to subjects,
okay. Say {rang yul} [repeat] {la} [repeat] {jukpay} [repeat] {chu} [repeat]; {rang
yul} {la} [repeat] {jukpay} [repeat] {chu}[repeat]. {Rang} means, ‘its own’, okay.
It’s own. {Yul} means, ‘an object’, right. {La} means, ‘in’, okay. {Jukpay} means,
how did I translate that? ‘Engages’, okay. And {chu} means, any ‘existing thing’.
In Sanskrit what? Dharma. Okay. Any existing thing which engages in an
object, is the definition of a subject. Now, I ask you a question. You guys are
already experts at {shi drup kyi namshak}. You had it in class number two.
Right? [laughs] [laughter] It’s hot in here. Okay. So, {mitakpa….} , okay,
{mitakpa …} ,okay. Which means, it’s too bad that there’s no division of
changing things, you know {mitakpa … }, you know. That’s a shame. Okay.
You have three choices, okay. I said {me} which means, there don’t exist any
divisions of changing things. Now you have three choices because I said {chir} at
the end, right, {mepay chir}. {Mepay} [repeat] {chir} [repeat], okay. I ended with
{chir}. He heard {chir} so he knows he has three choices, okay. If he wants to
agree, which should never be the case. I mean, if I’m a good debater I should
bring up something to fight about, right. But, suppose I’m like a dumb debater
and I brought up something that we didn’t fight about. Then, he would just
repeat the verb, which is, {me}. Okay. Which means, yeah, I agree. You can’t
divide changing things at all. There’s no divisions of changing things. There’s
one kind of changing thing and there’s not two kinds of changing things, okay.
Now, I’m giving you choices, okay. Listen carefully, ha, ha [laughs] [laughter].
Or, you could say {tak ma drup|}. Say, {tak} [repeat] {ma drup} [repeat], {tak ma
drup} [repeat]. Which is to say, it’s not correct to say there’s no divisions to
changing things, okay. That’s not correct to say. And then, the third one you
could say would be, {kyappa ma jung}, which means, yeah there’s no changing
things but whatever you’re trying to get to, forget it, [laughter] okay. So, which
one would you like?

[student: tak ma drup].

Yeah. Say {ta} [repeat], not {tak}, okay. {Tak ma drup} means I couldn’t get the
rope to tie the guy up [laughter], okay. {ta ma drup} means, {ta, tak ma drup}
means, you know, that’s bad. That’s not true, okay. So, {ta} [repeat] {ma drup}
[repeat], {ta ma drup} [repeat]. Then, we learned last class, I come back with a
{teln gyur}. I come back with a prasangika. I come back with a sarcastic
statement, right. Oh, {yerba yerba ta} okay. Say {yerwa} [repeat] {yerba ta}
[repeat]. Then you get this disgusted look on your face [laughter]. {yerwa}
[repeat] {yerba ta} [repeat]. You telling me that there are divisions to, I mean, it’s
a stupid thing to say, but, are you telling me that there’s divisions to changing
things? You can divide changing things up? And then, you have to, like, say
‘yeah, that’s what I said’, you know. [laughter] Okay. And that, that’s your
logic thing tonight. You say, {du} [repeat]. And you say it with authority, you
know. You say, {du} [repeat]. That’s what I said, yeah. {Du} is the same as {du}
in {du kam} meaning, ‘desire realm’. {Du} means, desire. Meaning, I agree, I
assent, okay. {Du} means that. So you can remember, there’s a store in the
village called, Dokam, right. It’s {du kam}, right, {du}, okay. Just think ‘dah’,
alright. [laughs] [laughter]. Okay. { … } you telling me there’s a division? {Du}
[repeat], okay, {du] [laughs] okay. Then there’s a {shok}. Say, {shok} [repeat],
{shok} [repeat]. {Shok} means, let me have it, okay. {Shok} is {drok}. {Drok}
means ‘present them please’, okay. But it’s like, hey, come on, rip ‘em up, you
know. Let’s go. Okay. {Shok}. By the way, when you say {tak ma drup}, you
better have your {shok} ready already. [laughter] Right? If you say, there are
divisions, I disagree there’s no divisions. I say, you telling me there are
divisions? You say, “Yeah”. I say, {shok}. And you better have it ready right
then, you know. Or else you should not have said, {tak me drup}[laughter], you
know.      You should have said, “I, I didn’t hear that.             What did you
say?” [laughter] [laughs] And that’s {la}. Say {la} [repeat]. {La} means ‘I, I didn’t
quite catch what you said’. [laughter] And meanwhile, your mind is going like,
what, what should I answer, what should I answer, okay. But you shouldn’t,
never give your answer until you’re ready with your counter examples, right.
Like, you better have some divisions ready in your mind before you say {tak ma
drup} because {shok} is gonna be there in about two seconds, you know. And
then, you see a lot of guys in the debate ground, they get lazy; {tak ma drup},
{du}. There’s a {shok} and they go …. [laughter], you know. And they don’t
have anything ready. And then everybody goes, {dooo tsa}. Say {dooo tsa}
[repeat]. {Tsa} means, you should be ashamed of yourself, okay. [laughs]
{Shok}. Now you’ve had lots of time to think about it. [laughter][laughs] {shok,
shok, shok, shok},{shok, shok, shok, shok, shok}, {shok, shok, shok}. {dooooo
tsa}. [student] [laughs] Give me any division of a changing thing. Come on.
There’s three, right? You can do it in English. I don’t care. [Suk?] Yeah.
Physical matter, mental stuff, and how about anything that’s not either. That’s
the third one, right. [unclear] three. Now, where does, here’s the definition of a
{yul chen}. Now, we’re gonna debate. And we’ll be doing this for the rest of the
five- year course that ended two years ago. Which one is a {yul chen}, okay?
How about Fran Dayan. Which one of those three, I’m assuming that emptiness
can’t be a subject, right. Emptiness can’t perceive anything, right. So, in which
category do you wish to put {yul chen}? {Yul chen …}, okay. Where you gonna
put {yul chens}? Subjects. Where we gonna put subjects? {Ma yinpa ta}, okay.
Right. I said a {teln}, right. That’s one of those, oh you telling me it’s mind? You
say, what? {Du}, {du}, say {du} [repeat], {du} [repeat]. Yeah. If I had to choose
between those three: mental thing, physical thing or something between. I’ll
choose mental thing, okay. Then I say, then I better have a counter example
ready, right. See I’ve set this all up, you know, like, hours ago, right. She can’t
go anywhere, you know. The minute she stepped into the debate ground, she
was in trouble. [laughs] Okay. So, I, I have all my counter examples ready.
{Gangsak chuchen}, okay, {gangsak chuchen}. Say, {gangsak} [repeat] {chuchen}
[repeat], {gangsak} [repeat] {chuchen} [repeat]. Oh hey, let’s talk about Magda
again, okay. {Gangsak} means, person, you know, a person. Could be anybody,
okay. Natasha. Leon. Okay. Let’s talk about Magda, you know. Subject {ma
yinpa ta}, oh, poor Magda, I guess she can’t be a subject then. Right? [Because
she’s physical matter?] No, she’s not physical. She, she’s between, right?
Remember? Magda’s between. Magda possesses a body, Magda possesses a
mind, but Magda, is neither the mind or the body. There’s something else called
‘Magda’ that possesses those two things, right. But you said, {yul chens},
subjects, have to fit into mental category. Like, we both agree that her mind is, is
a subject. But according to you, she, poor, poor Magda can’t be a subject. She
can’t engage her object. She can’t engage in an object. She can’t have a Michael
and Zowie’s shake. It’s like the worst thing that could ever happen, you know.
So, {yul chen ma yinpa ta}, you telling me she’s not a subject? Which means, she
can’t go and buy a Michael and Zowie shake. She can’t engage an object.

[Fran: And now I’m going to say it’s neither].

Geshe-la: [laughs] Then, you can say, it’s both. How about both? So, your
mind can be a subject and you can be a subject. Why? Because you fit the
definition. What’s the definition?       Any existing thing which can engage an
object, okay, engage in an object. So, what about her {suk}? Who should I pick
on? [unclear], like, half awake. [laughter] What about her physical matter,
subject {ma yinpay chir}. So, I guess her physical, Magda’s physical body can’t be
a subject? Subject {ma yinpay chir}. Now, you have three choices. You can say,
{mayin}, which means, right, I agree. Of the three kinds of changing things,
Magda can be a subject and Magda’s mind can be a subject. The mind is easy,
right. She’s seeing me right now, okay. But can Magda’s body be a subject? {ma
yinpar chir}, cannot be. {Ma yinpar chir}. Say, {tak ma drup}[repeat], okay, if
you wanna go that way. But, you better have your counter example, right.
[laughter] Say, {mayin te}[repeat] {mayin te}[repeat], and why not? Okay.
{mayin te} means, you know, colon, that’s a colon. {Te} is a colon. Like, you’d
know if you studied Tibetan, {te}. {Mayinte} means, why not, okay. May I ask
why, why not? No. We already covered {demin duche}. We all agreed that
Magda can be a subject, because she can buy a Michael and Zowie’s shake. She
can engage an object.        And we all agree that Magda’s mind, her visual
consciousness, for example, is engaging an object right now. Which is my red
face and my bald head, okay. But, what about Magda’s body? Can it be a
subject? Subject {mayinpay chir}. And you said, {tak ma drup}. Subject {yinpa
ta}, are you telling me she can’t be a subject, her body? {Du} she said {du}, I think
so, yeah. {Yinte}, why?

[students - unclear]
Huh? That makes her an object. If you can see her it means she’s an object. I’m
asking, can her body be a subject?

[students - unclear]

Yeah, that’s a, that’s a answer. It’s a perfect answer, okay. Her sense faculties,
okay. Her eye. Her optic nerve, okay. There’s a patch of cells on the back of the
eyeball that, according to Master Vasubandhu, sixteen centuries ago, can detect
shapes and colours. And that’s physical cells, you see what I mean. And they
report to the mind what they are detecting, okay. And that’s, that’s an example
of a physical matter which can be a subject. So all three categories of changing
things can be a subject, okay. Her eye faculty, which is physical, which reports to
her visual consciousness what’s going on, and then a moment later, her mental
consciousness says, ‘oh, I think this is Michael Roach’s face’ or something like
that, okay. And then, obviously, Magda as a person can be a, can be a subject
because she can go buy something, okay. And obviously, her mind, her visual
consciousness which says, ‘oh, hey, he’s got a red suit on’, can, can also engage in
objects, you know. Okay.

[Student - unclear].

Can’t? Hey, in a debate, debate. Let’s go.

[Student: How, how can the, how can the visual, you said the eye faculty, how
can the eye faculty engage in an object without a consciousness or an awareness,
it’s not physical matter]

Okay. She said, if there’s no visual awareness yet, then the, then the eye faculty,
the optic nerve cannot engage in an object. Yeah. {Yinpa ta, yinpa ta}

[student - unclear]

{yinpa ta}

[student - unclear]

Okay, okay, come on, come on, {yinpa ta} [laughter] Okay. { …}, okay. Take
the first instant of a visual, of the optic nerve being aware of self, of being aware
of shapes and colours, okay. {Kechik .. chuchen}, okay, {yul chen yinpa ta me
yerta}, doesn’t exist, right? Doesn’t exist, right? It’s not aware of it’s [unclear].
[student – unclear]

Oh-ho [laughter] {yinpa ta}, so it is aware? In the first instant?

[student – unclear]

 It’s picking up, it’s picking up colour and shape. Is it picking up colour and
shape? It’s not picking up colour and shape?

[student – unclear]

So, you could poke somebody’s eyes out and they could still see physical objects.
So it has to come the moment before.

[student – unclear]

It has to come the moment before. It reports to the visual consciousness, this is
going on. In fact, it creates the visual consciousness. You see. It is the {hlenchek
jekyen} of the visual consciousness. It’s the contributing factor that allows visual
consciousness to grow at all. And if you don’t think so, poke your eyes out and
see if you can see anything, you see what I mean. But, in the first instant, it
hasn’t done what yet? It hasn’t created a consciousness yet ‘cos that comes a
millisecond after. Remember we said you’re always one millisecond behind?
I’m sorry. You know, you’re never in the present. The present that is, the
present is happening a millisecond before you’re aware of it because the present
creates your awareness of it.

[student – unclear]

I’m using a very ambiguous word so I can get away with all the interpretations I
want. [laughter] It’s my right. It’s my right. [laughs] Okay. I mean, engage, I
mean, either the person buying the shake or the eye consciousness being aware
of redness, or the optic nerve recording data. And that’s what I mean by
engage. So I can get away with all three that I want to. Yeah. [So can a tree be a
subject then?] That’s a good, say, {shing chuchen}. Say {shing} [repeat]
{chuchen} [repeat]. By the way, you wanna learn Tibetan perfectly? Debate, you
know. Why? You get to use colloquial. You get to say, ‘hey stupid-head’, you
know. But, you also get to use Scriptural language. The, the, the language you
use for debate, has not changed in two thousand years, you know what I mean.
You’re still using the same words that we used two thousand. It’s like, hey
stupid-head, thou art wrong [laughter], you know. [laughs] And you learn all of
Tibetan language very fast. It’s extremely fast, okay. Say, {shing chuchen}
[repeat], {yul chen yinpa ta} [repeat]. ‘Oh, take a tree. I guess it’s a subject’?
Then what’s your {tak}? What are you gonna say? Because why?

[Student: I’m asking you.]

No, you, your move. [laughter]

[student - unclear]

You said what about a tree.

[Student: Because it’s a result in the same way that if a retina responds to light,
so leaves do and turn themselves…]

Oh, say, {tsema loma kunde nyewe chir}. Say {tsema} [repeat]. I’m sorry. Yeah.
{Tsema loma} [repeat] {kunde} [repeat] {nyewe chir} [repeat]. It’s a, it is a debate.
This debate already exists in the logic Scriptures. {Tsema lo ma kunde nyewe
chir} means, because the leaves curl up at night and go to sleep. Okay. {Tseme
lo ma kunde nyewe chir}, because they seem to respond in the same way that
the, you know, they respond to stimula, stimuli the same way that the eye
consciousness does, okay. {Tsema lo ma kunde nyewe chir}. And they say, no.
In Buddhism, they say, no. They say, I mean, I, I won’t do the whole debate
with you, but in Buddhist philosophy, in real Buddhist philosophy, the growth of
a plant is very similar to the growth of a crystal. And it’s not considered to be
sentient life. It’s not considered to, to have a mind. Okay. [I’m not saying that.
I’m saying that it’s important to...] That it responds to stimulus?

[Student: Ya because that’s what you’re saying.]

No. I said it transmits it to the consciousness. [laughter]

[Student: So are you saying that they have to be both?]

Huh? It engages its object.

[Certainly a leaf must be engaging light.]
I don’t think so, {tak ma drup}. [laughter] {Tak ma drup}. That’s not how I used
the word engage.

[student – unclear]

Huh? I see it’s object though, right? Its object. Engage its object.

 Student: [If this were true then the ngupo would be a subject as well. Like any
changing thing would… ].

Why? ‘Cos it engages its object?

[Student: ... it changes, its impacted by something that interacts with it.]

I’d say that impacts it but doesn’t engage it. How’s that? Engage in, okay.
Anyway. [laughter] Okay. Anyway. Write to Tashi, Ngawang Tashi [laughter]
[laughs]. Okay, we’ll go on a little bit. The other way to get out of a debate is to
change the subject.

[Student: Does ‘engage necessarily involve sentience?]

In this case, yes. In, in the way the word is used in this definition it involves
sentience, yeah. And there’s a big debate. I mean, the Japanese Buddhists,
believe that plants live. No, no, no, no traditional Buddhist in India ever said
that. Nobody, you know. It’s not, it’s not a Buddhist belief. Period. You can
emanate as a tree. I mean, it could be that a Buddha is emanating as a tree. But
that’s, that would be like a, an illusion of a tree or something like that. But, there
is no Buddhist school from, from, from the Buddha that, that ever said that.

[Student: Why is it necessary that flesh be of a subject nature]

Sorry?

[Student: Why is it necessary that flesh be of a subject nature]

Flesh?

[student – unclear]

{ …. } Take pork, dead pork meat in the store {. .. yinpa ta}. Is it a subject?
[No.]

So, I didn’t say it was necessary. Okay. [laughs] I didn’t say {kyappa}. You said
{kyappa}. Not all flesh is sentient.

[Well it reacts to heat doesn’t it?]

Huh?

[Won’t it react to heat?]

Steel reacts to heat. It’s not sentient. It melts.

[Aren’t you outside physical matter? Where do you end?]

Huh?

 [Physical matter is only a subject if it also engaging mental objects… aren’t you
saying that?]

Well, I, I would say that. I would say that. Yeah. I would say that. Could you
have a case where there was an eye, an optic nerve working where there was no
awareness of the optic nerve working? That’s a tricky question. That’s a tricky,
there is a thing called {nang la ma ngerpa}. Say, {nang la} [repeat] {ma ngerpa}
[repeat]; {nang la ma ngerpa} [repeat]. And in fact, {nang la ma ngerpa} means,
you’re watching TV, you’re really engrossed in it, and your mom comes in and
says, ‘dinner’s ready’. [laughter] Okay. And, and you don’t hear her, okay. But,
but we believe there’s been some, you know, auditory nerve change, you know.
So, I think it might be possible to say [laughter] that in theory it’s possible. That,
that the auditory nerve has…

 [Wait a minute. That proves our point - that something changed yet there was
no awareness].

I didn’t say that it had to be aware. I’m just giving you an example of where you
don’t have to be aware but that’s a {tsemin gyi lo}. That’s a non-valid perception.
Okay. In this school, [laughter] yeah, and in my definition, what? {Tseme
shelwar ja wa}. But, in this school, {nang la ma ngerpa} is not a {tsema}. It’s one
of the three kinds of {tsemins}. Okay.
[But then just nerve objects, objects of the nerve,.[unclear]… sensory data, its not
about perception in the first place.]

That’s true. By the way, the two, out of the three {yul chens} [laughter] only one
is a real {yul chen}, okay. How’s that? So, you win. [laughs] [laughter] But, you
should have said, ‘how could a, how could a, how could your optic nerve have a
{tsema}’, you see. How, how could Magda have a {tsema} because Magda is not
mind. How could Magda be a {tsema}, you see what I mean? When Magda
buys a Michael and Zowie’s shake and I say that the subject is Magda herself,
then you should have said, ‘oh, then she’s a mental thing, right’. I say, why? She
says, oh because that shake is defined as an object because it’s engaged by a valid
perception. So that makes Magda a valid perception. Poor girl. We always
thought she was a person, you know. Alright? Like that. Yeah. You’re right. I
mean, it’s a { … }, which means, my division was a theoretical one and not a
literal one, you see what I mean. Like when we divide what? Nirvana. And we
talked about it. There’s a natural nirvana, which is not a nirvana at all. Like,
when we divide the Three, {pelma}, the Three Jewels, okay. [laughter] Right.
Like, when you divide the Three Jewels, remember we had the same distinction
in the Friday night class. One of them isn’t a Jewel at all. Like, anyone who
wears this, this, an ordained person isn’t, is only a, a symbolic Sangha, okay. A
Buddha image is only a symbolic Buddha. A Dharma book is only a symbolic
Dharma. Okay. They are not the real Dharma, not the real Buddha, not the real
Sangha. Okay. What’s the real Sangha? Yeah. Anyone, who’s seen emptiness
directly, etcetera. So, that we call a, a nominal division, which implies it’s not a
real division. And, to be frank, you’re correct and your arguments are true
[laughter] in that, two of the three subjects that they mention in this text, are not
real subjects.      Because, their objects are not objects by virtue of being
apprehended by a valid perception, which was the definition of a subject, object,
sorry. Okay. We’d better do one more. Let’s see. I won’t give you the Tibetan
for all those last three types because you know it, and I hereby exempt you from
doing it on the homework, okay, alright, ‘cos we gotta go on. {Shepa}, mental
things can be divided into two kinds. Say {rang rik} [repeat], {shen rik} [repeat],
{rang rik} [repeat], {shen rik} [repeat]. {Rang} means, itself, right, ‘self’; {rik}
means, it knows itself. In psychology this is called apperception. It means the
ability of the mind to know itself: self, self-awareness. How’s that? Self-
awareness. Okay. {Shen rik} means, awareness of something else, other than
itself; {shen} means, something else. And, in the Buddhist logic schools, which
are what, do you remember which of the four great schools of ancient India they
are? Mainly Sautrantika. Okay. Sautrantika. Which is not the same as
Svatantrika. Okay. Alright. Sautra comes from Sutra. You can remember.
These are people who are Sutrists; people who follow Sutra. Okay. They believe
that all types of awareness can be divided into two: self-awareness and
awareness of other things. Okay. What is the definition of self-awareness? It’s
called {dzin nam} which means, the ability of the mind to be aware of itself at the
same instant that it’s perceiving something outside. For example, when I look at
the blue of the pen, there’s an awareness of the blue, but there’s also an
awareness of the looking at the blue. You see what I mean. There’s an
awareness of seeing the blue and there’s an awareness of the blue. And, the
awareness that I’m watching blue is called {rang rik} in this school. Master
Shantideva, if you remember, went through a long story of why according to
the Prasangika, the highest school of Middle Way, this is a wrong idea. Okay.
And then they said, well then, how do you remember blue? How do you
remember ‘I saw blue’ if there was no self-awareness of seeing blue, see what I
mean. Like, tomorrow, when I’m sitting there at Michael and Zowie’s having
my three o’clock brownie and I remember the class last night and I say, I saw the
pen because I remember talking about the self-awareness thing, you know.
Well, how do you remember that you saw the pen if there wasn’t any self-
awareness at that moment? And Master Shantideva would say, look, if you
remember blue, you must have been there. There doesn’t have to be some
separate awareness of yourself at that moment, okay. We’re talking at the same
moment, right? I mean, a millisecond later, you’re aware of yourself. That’s a
different thing. They believe that, at the very same instant that you see blue,
you’re already aware of yourself seeing blue.
And the other schools say, not necessarily. You know, if you can remember
blue, then you must have been at the Quaker House holding the pen up, you
know, or, you know, close to the pen.

[cut]

[end side A]

[side B]

That’s all. Yeah.

[But wouldn’t {rang rik} be truly the cause for the valid perception.].

Yeah, it is. Ah, well, no. It is the valid perception. [laughs]
[You don’t have to have awareness at the time that you are aware of some the
other thing, then go back to the same thing that….]

Ya, you, you have an awareness, first you have an awareness of blue and then
later, you have an awareness that you were aware of blue, you see what I mean.
And, it’s a deduction.

[And those are two different things.]

If there was, yeah, they are two different things. Yeah. One is a {shen rik}, the
awareness of blue is the awareness of something else. And then, {rang rik} in
this school, would be a simultaneous awareness that you are looking at blue.
And, it’s proven, by the fact, that tomorrow you’ll look back and say, I was
looking at blue. In this school, okay. In this school. Okay. Anyway, don’t
worry about it. Higher school’s say, there’s no such thing as, as the mind being
aware of itself at the same moment as it sees something else, okay. It is aware of
itself in the next millisecond. That’s okay. We say that’s okay. Okay. There’s
another, there’s {shen riks}, and then we’ll take a break, can be divided into
{sem}. Say {sem} [repeat], {sem jung} [repeat]. {Sem} [repeat]; {Sem jung}
[repeat]. The two divisions of the awareness of other objects, right. We finished
with self-awareness of the mind. Okay. We’re onto all your other kinds of
consciousness. All your other kinds of mental events, okay. And the two kinds
are called {sem} and {sem jung}. {Sem} means, main mind, your primary mind,
primary consciousness. The mind itself. {Sem jung} means, all the mental
functions running around in the mind. Like what? Well, there’s some that
accompany every state of mind. Like what? Feeling, discrimination, attention,
concentration. Bugs have {tingin dzin}. Bugs have a form of samadhi. Why?
They’re able to focus on one object for an extended period of time. Like two
milliseconds. Okay. That’s enough to call it {tingen dzin}, okay. {tingin dzin}
according to Abhidharma, every state, every mind in the universe has some
ability to pay attention to something for a while. Has some ability to concentrate
on something for more than a millisecond, okay. And these are all {sem jungs}:
jealousy, anger, sleep, okay, virtuous states of mind. These are all {sem jungs}.
In the Abhidharma system there are forty-six. In the system that you’re in, the
Buddhist logic schools, there are fifty-one. And, I’d love to do them. And we
will do them, okay. Like, in the next eighteen months or so, we’ll have a separate
little three-day course or something. We’ll go through the whole thing. It’s a
very beautiful subject – Buddhist psychology. And, I don’t have time to do it
tonight. Fifty-one separate mental events and they’re very cool. They’re very
interesting. Like, by the way, Thubten Choney translated it about a hundred
years ago, was it? No. She translated the whole text and it’s, she did a nice job
on it. Even like the, the pride, the, the pride, the mind of pride is of nine different
types and stuff like that, you know. It’s a very interesting subject you can get
into.
We’ll stop there and we’ll take a break. We’ll come back in about ten minutes,
okay.

[cut]

Geshe-la: Okay, we had one division of mental things into two. What was that?
{Rang rik} and {shen rik}, okay: the mind knowing itself and the mind knowing
other things, okay. There’s another way to divide it. If your homework
question was, you know, what’s the way that those lower Buddhist logic schools
think about it? You can say, the mind knowing itself and the mind knowing
other objects. And if it says, by the way, what’s another division that you can
make, okay? Here’s the other one. Okay, say {tsema} [repeat] {tsemin gyi lo}
[repeat]; {tsema} [repeat] {tsemin gyi lo} [repeat]; another way to divide all
mental things into two. {Tsema} you know, is valid perception, valid perception.
Ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine percent of all your
perceptions, okay. {Tsemin gyi lo} means the opposite, okay. {Lo} means,
mental event or state of mind; {tsemin} means, which is not valid perception,
okay. A mental event which is not a valid perception, okay. {Tsemin gyi lo}.
Examples of the non-valid are, are what you see on LSD, are what you see when
you’re very drunk, are what you see when you are very angry or jealous, you
know, paranoias you have or misperceptions that you have due to strong
emotions. Other things that happen, like, in Tibetan they say, the appearance of
the trees moving because you’re in a row-boat and you’re rowing past them and
it looks like the trees are moving. But actually, on the shore, but actually, it’s you
moving, but it looks like the trees are marching by, you know. And that’s called
a, that’s a typical example of a {tsemin gyi lo}, a non-tsema.            That, that
impression that the trees are walking by or something like that, is an example.
Yeah.

[student – unclear]

It’s true that all perceptions are tainted by that, yeah. That’s a different story.
That would be the distinction between correct and incorrect perception whereas
this is the distinction between valid and invalid. And that’s a long story. And we
should do it someday. That’s Pramanavartikka second chapter. It’s fantastic.
And we don’t have time to do it tonight.
[student – unclear]

That’s not necessarily the distinction, okay, whether you know it or not, okay.
Right.

[What if you are just kinda waking up?]

That would be kinda like that, yeah. Okay, I’m gonna give you very famous
definition of {tsema}. Okay. Very, very famous. Say {sardu} [repeat] {miluway}
[repeat] {rikpa} [repeat]; {sardu} [repeat] {miluway} [repeat] {rikpa} [repeat].
Very famous on the debate ground; it’s like a mantra, okay. {Sardu} means,
fresh, okay, fresh. Like fresh vegetables, okay, fresh. {Miluway} means,
unerring. Unerring. You can say, unmistaken, but it’s a little bit touchy, okay.
Unerring. {Rikpa} means, how did I translate it? Perception. Okay. A fresh, a
fresh unerring perception. A fresh unmistaken perception, okay. Why do they
say ‘fresh’? In this school, memory is not a {tsema}, okay. In this school, a
memory is not a valid perception. They have a list of states of mind which are
not valid perceptions. One is memory, things, memory is not a valid perception
in this school. In the highest school it is, okay. So, the definition of {tsema} in
Madhyamika Prasangika is {miluway rikpa}, okay. And they cut out the {sardu},
the ‘fresh’ part, okay. But, in this school, you have to say ‘fresh’. {Miluway}
means, unmistaken: {rikpa} means, perception, okay. That’s the definition of a,
of a {tsema}, of a pramana, of a valid perception, okay. There are two kinds of
valid perceptions. Say {ngun sum} [repeat] {jepak} [repeat]; {ngunsum} [repeat]
{jepak} [repeat]. {Ngun sum} means, a direct perception. Like, the perception of
the colour of this pen, okay. That’s a {ngun sum}, a direct perception. Your
awareness of your thoughts would be a direct perception. In this school, self-
awareness would be a direct perception, okay. Those are all direct perceptions.
They don’t involve some kind of conceptualisation, in this school, okay. They
don’t involve some kind of conceptualisation. In the other schools it’s a touchy
subject.    {Jepak} involves conceptualisation.    The main type of {jepak} is
deduction and I’m gonna show you the three kinds of {jepak}, okay; the three
kinds of conceptual perception, as opposed to direct perception.             Direct
perception, you’re just seeing blue. You’re not, like, in this school, you’re not
going through some conceptual process about ‘oh, it’s blue and blah, blah, blah’.
Okay. But, for {jepak} you have to go through some kind of conceptual process,
especially, in the case of deduction, you know. Take sound, it’s a changing thing,
because it’s made. If, based on that statement you perceive that sounds are
changing things, you just had a {jepak}, okay. You just had a deductive
perception. You can see a lot of things with {jepaks} that you cannot see with
{ngun sums}, okay. Your first perceptions of emptiness are {ngun sum} or
{jepak}? [Jepak]. {Jepak}, okay. {Jor lam}, second of the five paths, Path of
Preparation, is defined by increasingly more subtle, intellectual, deductive
perceptions of emptiness. They are not direct perceptions. When you get to the
Path of Seeing, path number three, {tong lam}is a {ngun sum}, okay, direct
perception of emptiness. And that’s the difference, okay. I’m gonna give you
three kinds of {jepak} and then that’ll be about it tonight. I said about it, okay.
[laughter] [laughs] In the debate ground, you have to very sensitive to words
like ‘primarily’ or, or ‘mostly’ or ‘pretty much’ [laughs], ‘seems to me’, yeah.
The three kinds of {jepak},okay. The most famous one, the principal one, by the
way, it’s essential to understand, that in Buddhism, in Buddhist philosophy, a
{jepak} is as good as a {ngun sum}. Okay. Do you see the pen? Does a pen
[laughs], does a pen exist in this room? I mean, does a pen exist in my hand?
Yeah, okay. Is there a pen in my hand? Yeah. You didn’t hear it hit the ground.
You cannot see the pen with any direct perception but you’re using {jepak},
okay. Now, you’re perceiving the pen with {jepak}. And, in Buddhism, that’s a
hundred percent as valid as {ngun sum}, as seeing it directly. And you have to
get used to that. If you decide that there are future lives through deduction, they
exist. That’s a {tsema}. That’s a pramana. Anything perceived with a pramana
or a {tsema} or a valid perception, exists, okay. You don’t have to see directly
your future lives and your past lives to act on them because you can deduce
them. From what? Oh, anybody who knows {gyun dre} pretty well can deduce
them, okay. That difference between a {nyerlen} and a {hlenchik jekyen},
difference between a material cause and a supporting factor, contributing factor.
If you understand it clearly, you can deduce that future lives and past lives exist.
And then, you don’t have to think, that you’re, have any less perceived them,
than someone who directly after the path of seeing saw their future lives
directly, okay. Your perception of future lives, if you understand, through
deduction that they exist, is one hundred percent as valid, as good as the
perception of someone who, who in a deep state of meditation, saw their future
lives directly. It’s exactly as valid. And you have to get used to that. Okay. It’s a
{tsema}. And anything that a {tsema} sees, is existing.         Period. That’s the
definition of existence in Buddhism. So, the next three kinds of {jepak} you’re
gonna see, you have to get used to the fact, in Buddhist philosophy, if you
perceive something with these, it exists as really as I’m holding the pen here,
okay. You have to get used to it. It’s as valid. {Ngutop}, say {ngutop} [repeat]
{ngutop}[repeat]; {ngutop} is the deductive conceptual perception, okay.
Deduction, based on a deduction, based on logic, okay. He, he had that blue
thing in his hand; his hand moved like that; I didn’t hear anything hit the floor;
ergo, the pen is still there. And that’s a deduction, okay. {pen, pen, pen
chuchen}, [laughter] okay. Consider the pen, okay .[laughs] {la pa la yernte}, it
is in your hand, because it was there the moment before and you put it around
your back and I didn’t hear anything hit the ground, {yinpay chir}. And you can
say? (Snoring sound from Geshe-la) [laughter] {Yinpar chir}. {Yin}, okay. Right?
If you agree you just repeat the verb, right, {yin, yin}. {Yinpay chir}, because it
exists, because it exists behind my back. {Yin}, okay. And it’s a hundred percent
as valid as seeing it in my hand, okay, unless you’re on acid or something. Okay.
{Ngutop}. Say {drakpa} [repeat], {drakpa} [repeat]; {drakpa} means, famous or
well known. Like, it’s the ‘kirti’ in Dharmakirti and Chandrakirti, okay. Losang
Drakpa, which is Je Tsongkapa’s monk’s name.

But, in this sense, it means, ‘by convention’, okay, by mutual convention, right.
By the agreement, of the whole world, or by the agreement of all the people
who know that world. Like, do you like Uncle Sam or not? [laughs] [laughter]
It’s not April yet but you can still dislike Uncle Sam, okay. Uncle Sam, the
perception of the federal government when I say, ‘Uncle Sam’, because you are
aware of the convention that ‘Uncle Sam’ refers to the government, is a {jepak}.
Okay. It’s a conceptualisation. Okay. You don’t see Uncle Sam, I’m sorry, you
don’t see the federal government, you don’t conceptualise directly in your mind
when I say ‘Uncle Sam’. You go through a process. You say, oh, uncle, uncle, oh
Uncle Sam, yeah, yeah, federal government. You see? There’s this conceptual
process where you understand a convention that is not immediately
recognisable from the word. He’s not anybody’s uncle. He’s everybody’s
enemy. Alright. And he’s a Sam, Uncle Sam, oh, yeah, yeah, it’s not anybody’s
uncle, it’s the federal government, you see what I mean? The classical example in
Buddhist philosophy is the house of Mr. Rabbit, okay. Mr. Rabbit’s house
[laughter] and in Tibetan it’s {ribong chen}, okay. Say {ribong} [repeat] {chen}
[repeat], {ribong} {chen} [repeat]. This is the ‘man in the moon’, okay. In Asia,
when you look up at the moon, they see a rabbit’s head. Okay. They see a
rabbit’s head in the, a design there. So, everybody knows when you say, ‘Mr.
Rabbit’s house is full today’, you’re talking about the moon, okay. It’s like ‘Uncle
Sam’, okay. So, in Scripture you might come across, oh {drakpa jepak}, an
example of conventional, conceptual perception, valid, is ‘Mr. Rabbit’s house’.
And, everybody knows, although you guys don’t know, that it refers to the
moon.       And that’s all.    These are conventions. They’re not immediately
recognisable from the word itself, okay. Third kind. Say {yi-che} [repeat] {jepak}
[repeat], {yi-che} [repeat] {jepak} [repeat]; {yi-che} means, rational belief, okay,
rational belief, {yi-che}. And this is where you have a valid perception of
something that it really exists, because someone who is, for you, an
unquestionable authority, said so. Okay. Somebody, who’s unquestionably
authoritative, said so. Okay. And, obviously, in Buddhism, it’s very hard to
qualify as an unquestionable authority, okay.             We’re very picky about
unquestionable authorities, okay. And, and, by the way, {tsema, tseme kyebu}, a
pramana person in Buddhist Scripture means, a person who cannot lie. Okay.
So, the exercise in Buddhism is, you have to establish that the person in question
cannot lie. Okay. The Buddha, by the way, one of His first rules was don’t
believe anything I say unless you check it out and it fits you. And, you’ve
argued it, and you’ve discussed it, and you’ve debated it, and you’ve come to
believe it by logic and by reasoning and by thinking about it. But don’t accept
what I say just because I said it. Okay. He said that. Okay. And you have to
live by that. And America has had enough beliefs where it was ‘just believe
anything’, right. You know, you had it when you were a kid. You know, ‘mom
and dad said’. You said, why? And they said, ‘don’t ask any more, just believe
it’, okay. And, and you’re in this class because you rejected that, okay. So, I’m
not, I don’t want you to think you got to a point now in your Buddhist studies
where Michael Roach got up and said, ‘okay, there’s a new kind of valid
perception, just believe whatever I say’, you know.[laughs] Okay. It’s not like
that. Rational belief, okay. And it involves a preliminary step of establishing
that that person or that authority cannot lie. Okay. Now, maybe you’ve met a
person like that or maybe you haven’t, you know. But, but in Buddhist Scripture
we allow for the possibility that there’s a being who cannot lie. And that if you
studied the question carefully, you could establish that there is a being who could
not lie. And then you just sit and listen, right. I mean, if, if first you’ve
established that this person cannot lie and would never claim to have seen
something without seeing it, you see what I mean. That’s also implied. That
then, after that, if they say there is a hell realm, you could take it to be, {yi-che
jepak}, you know. Based on rational belief in this person who is incapable of
telling a lie, and incapable of misrepresenting reality, they said it so you can buy
it. Okay. And then, but again, you have to personally establish them as
unquestionable, okay. And, if you have not, then you’re not allowed to have a
{yi-che jepak}, okay. You cannot have a {yi-che jepak}. But in, in the monastery,
and in your studies, you will reach a point where you’ll recognise certain people
as being unquestionable. I mean, you get the feeling after awhile and you, you
do certain tests, you do certain checks, and then you get to a point, like, if I see
something in the computer, I get a hit. I go surfing for a certain idea. I get a hit.
It’s S-5320, you know. I know this is Je Tsongkapa’s commentary on a certain
text, you know. Okay, whatever it says I can trust it. You see what I mean?
And it’s like that, okay. And you have to get used to that possibility. We allow
for it, okay, in the monastery.
[student – unclear]

 No. No. Not at all, okay. [laughs] By the way, why not accept everybody as an
unquestionable authority? Because somebody will get up here the next night
and say, ‘it’s okay to drink alcohol’. Or, ‘abortion is alright’, you know. Or, or,
you know, ‘once you reach Tantra you can do whatever the hell you want’, you
know. It’s all beyond normal morality or something like that. Okay. That’s all,
if you just believe anybody who just gets up here and starts talking, you will
suffer, you see. You will continue to do things that make you suffer. You can’t
do that. It has to be logical. It has to fit with the rest of Buddhism. It has to be
provable to you. And if you start buying everything that somebody says, even
if they are wearing a red suit, even if they are said to, in the poster that you read,
to be the Dalai Lama’s best friend, which there, He got so many ‘best friends’ I
can’t believe it, you know. No. What they say has to be provable to you. Any,
what anyone says in Buddhism. The Buddha Himself said, don’t believe what I
say. Check it out, okay. And, and that has to remain a rule in American
Buddhism or else we’ll, we’ll get all kinds of voodoo and all kinds of weird
things. And you will get hurt from that, okay. Yeah.

[student – unclear]

He said, how can you call the Buddha a person who never lies, if we all know
that when He was teaching people of lesser capacity, the Buddha often simplified
things to the point where, technically, it wasn’t true anymore, okay. For
example, the Buddha taught self-awareness. There’s a Scripture where the
Buddha teaches self-awareness.         When you get to the higher schools of
Buddhism, they say, that’s not correct. It doesn’t exist. Okay. He taught it as
such-and-such a Buddhist school, you see what I mean. He, He presented it as a
such-and-such a Buddhist school and you have to say it that way. And, and
that’s a, there’s a subject called {trang-nge}, the art of interpretation. How do
you know when the Buddha was speaking literally and how do you know when
the Buddha was speaking figuratively? Lord Buddha said, kill your father and
kill your mother. He meant, if you’re not able to practise the spiritual life well at
home staying with your parents, then move out and go stay somewhere else.
Okay. That’s what He meant. And you have to know how to interpret the
Buddha, you know. How do you know when He was speaking literally and
how do you know when He wasn’t? We’re gonna cover that subject in around
October, November. We’re gonna have a whole course on it. {trang-nge} will be
the last formal course of the, of the, of this whole thing. Okay. So, that’ll be the
subject. So hang around ‘til then, alright. Alright, one more thing. [laughter]
The last, I have to, I try to give you a little bit of formal logic every night, okay.
We’ve been through reason, which was defined as? Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Nobody on earth could ever give a definition of a reason; {tak kyi tsennyi yepay
chir}. Okay. {tak kyi tsennyi yepay chir}. You say? I say, nobody on the planet
could give me a definition of a reason.

[student – unclear]

Say, {tak ma drup} [repeat], {tak ma drup} [repeat]. Wrong. Okay. That’s not
correct to say. Oh, {tak …. yarta}, are you telling me that you could?

[students: Du.]

{Du}, okay, say {du}. {Shok, shok.}

[student – unclear]

Yeah. Anything you put forth as a reason. Anything you give as a reason. {tak
kyi tsennyi yinpa teln}, are you telling me that’s a reason, definition of a reason?
{Du}, okay. You know how faxes send a, I forget what they call it. There’s a
confirmation signal or something.          It, it, it confirms that it sent itself or
something. So, at the end of that, this is the whole exchange, it goes like this:
nobody on the earth could give me the definition of a reason. And she says,
wrong. He says, oh are you telling me somebody could give me that reason?
Right, {du}. What is it? And then she said, anything you put forward as a
reason. I said, is that the definition of a reason? And she says, {du}. So that last
thing, that last step is a reconfirmation, okay. I’m just checking. Is that what you
meant to say? And you say, {du}. What do you want to do about it, you know,
{du}. Alright. So, {tak su kupa tak yangdak kyi tsennyi yinpa teln}, so, I guess
any reason you put forth is a good reason, right, {yinpa teln}.

[No.]

Why did you say that?

[I didn’t say that.]

Yeah. It’s, like, I didn’t say that. Who said that? Who said that? Say {chi chir}
[repeat], {chi chir} [repeat], okay. When do you use {chi chir}? When I say, oh,
so I guess anything I put forth as a reason is a good reason. I added a word,
right. And you say {chi chir}, you know. Why do you say that, you know. Who
said that? Okay. So, there’s two, what you have to learn tonight is just that.
There’s two answers to a {teln} statement. There’s two answers to that sarcastic
statement we talked about last week, last class, you know. I come down with a
{teln}, right. Are you tell, oh, oh, so I guess anything I put forth as a reason is a
good reason. And she says, {chi chir}, who said that? Okay. Got it? If I end with
{chir}, she has three options: right, meaning, repeat what I said- is or has, okay;
or she can say, {tak ma drup} which means, wrong; or she can say {kyappa ma
jung}which means, you’re right but it doesn’t necessarily prove what you’re
trying to prove. That, we had already, okay. The last class we had my response
to her, oh, are you telling me, anything I put forward as a reason, is the
definition of a reason? And she says, {du}. So, to tell, when I go down on a
{teln}, {yinpa teln}, she can say, {du}. Right, that’s what I said. What do you
wanna do about it? Okay, {du}, okay. Then I do my reconfirmation to her, but
I’m being sneaky. I’m changing it slightly, okay. Oh, are you telling me the
definition of a reason, of a good reason, is anything I put forward as a reason?
And then she says what? {Chi chir}. Say, {chi chir} [repeat], {chi chir} [repeat].
Who said that? [laughs] Alright. Why, why, wherefore? Okay. It means, {chi
chir}, right. Now you know all the responses in a debate. If you think about it,
you only have five choices, right? If I say, because the, nobody could give me a
reason, could give me the definition of a reason. She says, {tak ma drup}, wrong.
Okay. And if I say, the sky is green because it has a colour. {kyappa ma jung}.
Nice, okay.      Say, {kyappa} [repeat] {ma jung} [repeat], {kyappa ma jung}
[repeat]. Sometimes you just go, {kyappaaa} [laughter], okay, {kyappa majung}.
Which means, dah, of course it has a colour but that doesn’t prove it’s green,
okay. See, if you said, {tak ma drup} what would it mean? The sky doesn’t have
a colour. You can’t say, {tak ma drup}, you see. You can’t say, wrong. Okay.
What did I say? Oh, consider the sky, it’s green, because it has a colour. You
can’t say, {tak ma drup}, ‘cos then, you’d be saying that it doesn’t have a colour.
You have to say, not necessarily. Just because it has a colour doesn’t prove it’s
green. Then you say, {kyappa ma jung}. Say,{kyappa} [repeat] {ma jung}
[repeat], {kyappa ma jung} [repeat]. But, now, I say, the sky has a colour
because it’s blue. Right. You can just go like, by the way, you don’t say {du},
okay. {Du} is only a response to my sarcastic one. Are you telling me the sky
has a colour? {Du, du}, okay. Are you telling me the sky has a colour?

[students: Du].

Right. So, the sky is a changing thing, I’m sorry, unchanging thing, right. {Chi
chir}, [laughs] you know. Who said that? Okay. I didn’t say that. Who said
that? Okay, you gotta get used to those five answers, okay. One is to just agree,
right. One is {tak ma drup}, which is, wrong. One is {kyappa ma jung}. Oh,
yeah, what you say is right. Consider the sky, it’s green, because it has a colour.
Yeah, I agree the sky has a colour, but that, doesn’t prove it’s green, okay,
{kyappa ma jung}. Now, if I come down with a {teln}, are you telling me the sky
is blue? Right, {du}, okay. Oh, so, you’re telling me the sky is green, right? {Chi
chir}, who said that? Okay. {chi chir}. So, you got five basic answers now.
Okay. We’ll check, we’ll do a few next week, okay. But that’s, that is all the
answers in a monastic debate. And, if you know those five, and if you could
understand the language, then sooner or later you reach the truth about any
given question. It’s great. It’s really interesting. In the, in the confines or the
restrictions of those five answers, you can reach the truth about any subject. It’s
very cool, okay. That’s all you need to engage in a Tibetan monastic debate, you
know. You could be a real geshe in, like, a week probably [laughter], you know,
‘cos there’s, all you need is to answer, you know, you can fake a debate in a
monastery too. You know, you’re just, like, {tak ma drup}. Or you say, {du}.
And you don’t even know what the guy’s asking you, you know. You say, {chi
chir}. [laughter] You could go on like that for, like, ten minutes, you know.
[laughter][laughs] And, and they don’t know what the, I mean, pretty soon it
reaches, like, it’s crazy, you know. Like, you, you agreed the sky is green and
blue and everything else, you know. [laughter] [laughs] But, you know, if you
can’t hear the guy very well, you can always just take a shot, you know. And,
That’s an option. Okay. Three kinds of good reasons and then we really are
done tonight. Three, three kinds of good reasons. How do you say ‘good
reason’, by the way?         Correct reason.      {Tak yangdak}.      First chapter
Pramanavartikka: {…. }, there’s only three kinds of correct reasons are possible,
okay. {Tak yangdak} means correct reason. First one is called a, say {dre tak}
[repeat] {yangdak} [repeat], {dre tak} [repeat] {yangdak} [repeat]. {Dre tak},
{dre} means, {drebung}, you had it last class. What is it?

[A result].

A result. Okay. A result. An effect or a result, okay. {Tak yangdak} means, a
good reason. So, a good reason which involves a result, okay. A good reason
which involves a result. I’ll give you the most famous example from Buddhist
Scripture for the last thirteen centuries, okay. Say, {du deng gi} [repeat] {la la}
[repeat] {chuchen} [repeat] {dulwa yerte} [repeat] {me} [repeat] {yepay chir}
[repeat]. Another, again, okay. {Du deng gi} [repeat] {la la} [repeat] {chuchen}
{dulwa yerte}, I’m sorry, screwed it. {Me yerte} [repeat] {dulwa yepay chir}
[repeat]. {Du deng gi la la chuchen} means consider a mountain pass where
there’s a big cloud of smoke. In Tibet, you’re sitting in the Lhasa valley, and
you’re looking out towards Drepung, that inferior, I mean, great Drepung
monastery, and there’s a mountain pass behind it and you see this huge cloud of
smoke. Okay, {du deng gi la la chuchen}, consider a mountain pass covered with
smoke, okay. {Me yerte}, say, {me yerte} [repeat], there must be a fire over
there. Okay, {me yerte dulwa yepay chir}. Say, {dulwa} [repeat] {yepay chir}
[repeat], because there’s a big cloud of smoke over there. And that’s the classic
correct reason where the reason is the result, okay. And that’s the first of the
three types. Okay. {Du deng gi la la chuchen me yerte yipay chir}, okay.
Consider a mountain pass covered with smoke, hey, there must be a fire over
there, because there’s smoke. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Okay. And
that’s a classic proof in Buddhism. First kind. The reason to learn all these is to
learn all the different ways you can prove emptiness. And you must do it {tak
yepa}. Say, {tak yepa} [repeat] {tak yepa} [repeat], {rikpa tak yepa} [repeat].
Very famous in Madhyamika. You must be able to prove emptiness a thousand
different ways, okay. By the time you see emptiness directly you better be able
to prove it about a thousand different ways. Okay. And all of these are for the
purpose of establishing emptiness. I mean, we’re trying to get at emptiness.
And we’re gonna use all these tools. You have to have a huge toolbox. When
you go in to your one- month retreat to try to see emptiness directly, you better
have a big toolbox to take with you. And it’s gonna be all these different reasons
that you understand about emptiness. And you cannot perceive it directly,
without understanding many different ways of proving it. And that’s the whole
point of doing this class. It’s not a boring, well, may be boring, but it’s not a
meaningless class in, in logic. There’s a very specific goal in mind. If you get
good at this, the odds that you will see emptiness directly, in this life, are very
much higher. If you never get good at this, the odds are very lousy, okay. So,
you have to, you have to work on it, okay. Number two. Say, {rangshin}
[repeat] {tak yangdak} [repeat], {rangshin} [repeat] {tak yangdak} [repeat]. It’s
called a ‘correct reason of nature’. And, I’m not gonna go over it tonight. I just
want you to know the name of it, okay. That’s on your homework. You don’t
even have to explain it. Okay. We’re gonna get to it next week, okay. It’s
correct reason based on some kind of nature. Okay. Say, {ma mikpay} [repeat]
{tak yangdak} [repeat], {ma mikpay} [repeat] {tak yangdak} [repeat]. {Ma
mikapay} means the absence of something , okay. The absence of something.
These are correct reasons that are used to prove the absence of something. And
we’ll get into that about two classes from now, okay. Most of the proofs of
emptiness are {ma mikapy taks}. Why? Emptiness is simply the absence of a
self-existent thing that never existed anyway. And could not have existed.
Okay. I think you gotta get used to that. It’s not like we’re denying something
that ever was there. It never could be there. Never will be there. Isn’t there
now. Okay. There’s a mental idea of a self-existent thing, right, { … }. Until you
can understand what you think is there you can’t ever establish that it’s not
there. But the actual thing that you think is there, forget it, never was there,
never could be there, {gakja}. Okay. The thing that we deny; the thing that was
never there anyway, okay. And we’re trying to prove the lack of it, the absence
of it, the emptiness of it. Okay. So, that’s where we’re headed, alright. We’ll just
go straight to some prayers, alright.

[One question?]

Yeah.

[Ngupo right, …unclear… a false deduction]

No, ‘cos we’re talking divisions of {tsema}, divisions of correct

[If you put the pen behind your back and somehow I have a perception of that
pen behind your back by some crazy illogical process.]

Yeah. That’s not a {ngutop jepak}, yeah. You can come a correct conclusion by
wrong reasoning and it’s not a {jepak}. It’s not a {tsema}. Alright.

[cut]

[prayer: short mandala]
[prayer: dedication]
The Asian Classics Institute

Geshe Michael Roach
Course XIII: The Art of Reasoning