ACI 13 «Искусство аргументации», занятие 7

Class Seven: Contradiction and Relationship



Transcribed by Angie Overy




Stillwell said he had to meet me after class in a dark restaurant. I thought if I
wore my wire I could record everything, [laughs] you know. [laughs] Anyway.
See the class is getting thinned out a little bit. Stick with it, okay.
I was thinking about it, you know. I, I, actually, I didn’t want to teach logic for a
long time because I thought everyone would run away. And then, then I felt like
it was, that, that it was necessary to teach it. I felt like we reached a point where
you need it or you can’t really read Madhyamika Scriptures. You can’t really
read Scriptures about emptiness, serious scriptures. And it’s hard. And it’s
necessary. And you have to do it. So, then I was thinking, where else could you
get this, you know. And you can’t. Okay. There’s no place else, that I’m aware
of, where you can get this in a coherent way, you know what I mean. And I
thought it’s important that we finish it before this, this series of classes ends, you
know, series of courses. I thought it’s pretty much the only time we’ll ever have
to do it I think in the near future. So, you are the lineage holders and you are the
ones who are gonna have to pass it on to other people. So, work hard and, and
sweat a little bit, okay. I mean, I’ve made it as digestible as possible, but you’re
still gonna have to work a lot to get it. And it’s very, very important stuff. So,
stick in there, alright. I think I only just started informing people that you don’t
have to read it from the beginning each reading. And I should have told you,
maybe, earlier, but the easy part is in the middle, okay. It’s called {rangruk}, you
know, where we present our own position. So, there’s no way you can get
through all the {kachikmas}, all the arguments, okay. I think Tony realised, you
know, we’ll debate the first four or something like that. And then, maybe,
realise he got it, you know. They are, each one of them, a separate thing to
learn. And, if you only get through a few of them, that’s fine. And I divided
them with lines on the reading so see if you can digest one or two. You have the
rest of your life to do the rest of them. And then go to the middle and find
where we present our own position and make sure you understand that. And
that’s a lot easier. But I don’t at all expect you or think that you’ll ever have time
in this class series, to read all of the {kachikmas} and digest them. They all make
sense, by the way. None of them are silly. I mean, some people read them and
they say, oh, they’re just playing with words or something like that. It’s not that
at all. Each one has a very important point to make and each one is necessary
for you to understand our own position clearly. And it’s, and some day you’ll
realise that. And none of them are stupid and none of them are tricks. They’re
all very important. So don’t, you know, I heard people say that about {dura},
about the {kachikmas}. Oh, they’re splitting hairs, or what’s the point of talking
about this, or they’re just playing with words or something. It’s not like that at
all. Each one is a sacred experience if you take the time to get into it, you know.
And each, each one will give you deep insight into something important so
don’t, don’t just skip them or something like that. But try to take them slow,
you know. Like, digest one at a time. Don’t try to read the whole thing like a
novel. I mean, Buddhist books are not like that. You don’t read a Buddhist book
from cover to cover and then put it up on a shelf and go to the next one, you
know. You, it’s, it’s a lifetime’s relationship with this book and that’s why you
memorise a book in Tibet. And, and it’s like getting married or something, you
know. That book will be with you the rest of your life. And, you memorise it,
you debate it, you go back and memorise, rememorise the parts you don’t
remember, debate it, forget it, memorise it again, debate it. I had a Mongolian
teacher, Geshe Kelden, who, on his death-bed in Howell, in the back where
Jampa, where Ngawang lives, was studying {dura}. And, and I went in and I
said, you know, Geshe la, with all due respect, you’re, you’re dying, you know,
why are you reading, he’s from Gomang, Drepung, so he’s reading the {Se
Dura}, right. And, I’m saying, you know, why are you reading fifteen-year old
logic stuff, you know, for fifteen year olds? And he says, this is the most
important thing for understanding Madhyamika and I wanna be ready next life
too, you know. And he was dying. And he had tuberculosis. He had one lung
cut out in Buxhall refugee camp and he could hardly walk his whole life. And
then, at the end of his life, he’s sitting there on his back reading the Se Dura. I
remember, he was in the hospital and they took off all his robes and they put on
this thing that went up to here. It was really gross because his legs were sticking
out and everything else. He didn’t care. He was finishing his Se Dura, you
know. And, you know, he was, like, exposed to the air, and he, and it was really
terrible to see him like that. But he was, he was sitting there on his back reading
Se Dura, you know, and saying I’m getting ready for my next life, you know.
So, so take it, you know, you’ll never get a chance like this so try to get it this
time. It’s very, very important stuff, okay. Okay.
Tonight’s torture, [laughs] I, I giggle while I’m translating these and then the
people who are with me say, what are you giggling about? And I say, I get
revenge for all those years on the debate ground when I didn’t know what the
hell was going on, you know. [laughs] [laughter]
Say {geln drel} [repeat], {geln drel}[repeat]. This ‘n’ is a pre-nasal, right, so don’t
get worried about it. It’s between the {gel} and the {n-drel}, okay. And the {n-
drel} in {drel} is very important because without the ‘n’ it becomes {trel}, which
means the opposite of {n-drel}. So, this is a very touchy one and you better get
the pre-nasal right, okay. {gel} stands for {gelwa}; {gelwa}means, contradiction,
okay. And then, {drel, drelwa} means, relationship. And tonight’s topics from
the {duras}, from the Dura text, will be {geln-drel}. {geln} is the study of when
are two objects contradictory and {drel} is the study of when do two objects
relate to each other, when do they share a relationship. And we’re gonna
explore the different kinds of contradiction and the different kinds of
relationship, okay. Both of them very important for understanding emptiness
and cause and effect, dependent origination, okay. Well first, let’s talk about
what makes a thing {gelwa}. Two qualities make something {gelwa}, well, they
make two things {gelwa}, right. {gelwa}will always be talking about two things,
whether two things are in contradiction, whether two things contradict each
other. So, when you’re talking about contradiction, by definition, you’re talking
about two separate things, two things which are distinct from one another. And
that’s called {tade}. Say {tade}[repeat], {tade}[repeat]; {tade} means separate or
distinct, okay. And I think the only thing to say here is that there are two
different, there are debates about what’s the meaning of separate and what’s the
meaning of distinct. For example, if you call this thing Geshe Lobsang Chunzin
or if you call this thing Michael Roach, it’s the same thing, right? So, is Michael
Roach {tade} from Geshe Lobsang Chunzin, you see what I mean? Are they
distinct from one another? And, generally, in Buddhist logic, we consider them
distinct, okay. { … } because the, the main, the primary name is different or
something like that. There’s two, two different identities to the same thing. But,
the main thing is that the two things should be distinct from one another, okay,
to have relationship. In this case, I’m sorry, I don’t think that’s a good example.
{ngu min} means, main name, okay. And, and I don’t know what you wanna
consider my name, main name, but if two things, if something has a main name
and a secondary name, that doesn’t make it distinct from itself. You can’t be
distinct from yourself. Okay. But me and the pen are {tade}, okay. We’re
distinct from each other. Why? Because, when you conceptualise them, the
primary name is separate. That’s one way to describe {tade}, okay. Mainly, you
can think separate or distinct from one another, okay. So, the first thing to have
a contradiction between two objects, they have to be two objects. Okay. You
can’t have, you can’t say two things are contradictory, you can’t say there’s a
contradiction if there’s not two things there. That’s all. Okay. There has to be
two separate things there. In Buddhist logic, the word contradiction, I mean,
distinction or separate, implies the existence of each one of those two things,
okay. And that’s a rule. That’s an a priori, okay. And you gotta get used to that.
When I say, two things are distinct from each other, or when I say, two things
are separate from each other, I’m assuming that they exist, okay. So, for
example, in Buddhism, you can’t say that something which doesn’t exist
contradicts something which does exist, because one of the pair, there’s no
{tade}. There’s no distinction there between the two objects ‘cos there are no
two objects. There’s only one object. Okay. So you can’t discuss the, whether or
not something which does exist contradicts something which doesn’t exist, okay.
And that’s a general rule. Now, whether or not non-existence itself exists is a
bitter debate in Buddhism, but that’s another story. Right now, let’s say {tade
pe} some texts say, {tade pe chu},okay, existing things which are separate. Okay.
And you have to get used to that. So, {tade}, when we say {tade}or separate or
distinct from each other, we’re assuming that the two things exist, okay.
The second feature of a contradiction is that there should be no {shi-tunpa}. Say
{shi-tunpa}[repeat], {shi-tunpa}[repeat]; {sh-tunpa} means - this is tricky, {mepa}
means, there is no {shi-tunpa}, okay. {mepa} means, there is no {shi-tunpa}.
And, {shi-tun} has, like, a hundred lousy translations in books that you can buy
at East-West Bookstore and other places, you know. I mean, there’s a thousand
lousy ways to translate it. I, I’ve seen ‘common locus’, somebody told me
‘stratus’, what was that? ‘Common stratus’ or something like that. Come on, it
just means, one thing, which is both things, okay. One thing which is both A and
B. You can translate it like that. {shi} means, ‘foundation’; {tun} means,
‘harmony’. Okay. And what it means is, one thing which can be both A and B
and it’s always like that. Okay. Sometimes, it’s A and B and C. Sometimes, it’s
A, B, C and D. But, anyway, it’s one thing, which could be both of those things
or more. Okay. And that’s called a {shi-tunpa}, okay. A real {gelwa}, the
ultimate meaning of contradiction, is that two objects are separate from one
another, distinct from one another, and there is no one thing which can be both.
Okay. {shi-tun mepa tade yinpa} and {shi-tun mepa}. I’m simplifying but that’s
the basic thing, okay. That’s the meaning of contradiction. Two kinds of
contradiction, yeah [student] well, it’s a good question. He asked, do you mean
both of them contradicting each other? In Buddhism, you can contradict one
way and not contradict the other way. Okay. And we have to, we’ll talk about
that. But you can say that A is contradictory to B but B is not contradictory to A,
at the same time. Okay. Or, you can say that A shares a relationship with B, but
B doesn’t share a relationship with A. For example, a tree bears a relationship or
shares a relationship with its seed. And, it’s a relationship of the kind we call,
coming from its seed. The relationship of something that came from something
else. So that, in Buddhism, the tree is related to the seed. So, there’s a one-way
relationship. But, we don’t say, that the seed is related to the tree. Okay. It
didn’t come from the tree. There’s only, but we’ll get to that, alright. And that’s,
that’s something you have to, we’ll talk about it. But in, in Buddhism, it can be
contradictory one way and not contradictory the other way; A can contradict B
but B not contradict A. Okay. And that’s a, we’ll get into it, okay. Maybe we
won’t, but anyway, okay. Two kinds of, of contradictions. Say {pendzin pangel}
[repeat]; this is the first kind of contradiction. {pendzin} means, ‘mutually’, okay,
{pendzin}; {pang}means, ‘eliminate’; {gel} means, ‘contradiction’. And you can
call this, I translate this as, ‘the kind of contradiction which is mutually exclusive’;
where the two things are mutually exclusive, alright. And what it means is, no
one thing can have both, okay. No one thing can be both. For example, one
example would be, changing thing and unchanging thing, okay. Changing thing
and unchanging thing, they’re contradictory. Why? You could never find a {shi-
tunpa}. You could never find one thing that is both changing and unchanging,
okay. By the way, anytime we talk about contradiction in Buddhism, we’re
talking purely or wholly one and wholly the other. Okay. For example, does,
are, blue and red contradictory, are they {gelwa}? In Buddhism, they are, okay.
Why? They are. And then, somebody says to me, well what about the
American flag, you know? It’s red, white and blue. But in Buddhism, when we
say contradictory, we mean it’s, it cannot be wholly blue and wholly red, all blue
and all red at the same time. No one object can be all blue and all red at the same
time. And then, people come up with purple and stuff like that, but that’s, that’s
not the point. It cannot be all blue and all red at the same time, so those two
colors are contradictory, contradictory. They’re contradiction, okay. And that’s
the first kind of contradiction. I wanted to give you some examples of them.
And, and {pentdzin pangel} means {yongchu nangchu}, it’s a special, {yongchu
nangchu} means, there’s a special kind of contradiction where, when you
perceive one of them it automatically excludes the other one, okay. When you
perceive, when one of them is present it automatically excludes the possibility of
the other one’s presence, okay. And that’s called, and that’s necessity in {pendzin
pangel}; {pendzin pangel} should be like that. So, what it just means is that one
thing cannot be both. Another example would be a, a water pitcher and
everything which is not a water pitcher, you see. That’s what we call a totality
{pendzin pangel}, meaning, there’s nothing else in existence besides those two,
okay, {pendzin pangel}. No one, one of them is the opposite of the other
considering all things in existence, okay. So, like, the pen and everything, which
is not the pen, covers everything in the universe. And that’s one kind of {gelwa}.
There are other kinds of {gelwas} like, hot, I should say, heat and coldness, okay,
heat and coldness. No one object can be heat and coldness at the same time but
there are other objects in the universe which are not heat and coldness, you see
what I mean. So, like, the mind, okay. So there are, this, this is another kind of
contradiction where no one thing can be heat itself and coldness itself at the same
time but there are other objects in the universe which are not heat and coldness.
Okay. Yeah. [student] It’s true. Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. They can’t exist
without the other. That’s true. [student] Yeah. He said, heat and cold are not
heat and cold from their own side because they’re relative to each other or
something like this. [student] He said, for example, if one person’s experiencing
it as hot and one person’s experiencing it as cold, then why can’t heat and
coldness be simultaneously present in one object? But, then you can say that
about anything, you know. This pen is a chewable object and a pen, so are you
saying that, a pen and chewable object are not contradictory? To be, to one
person’s experience perhaps. Maybe, you can say it that way, okay. I mean, one
person can be a Tantric deity and a demon to two different people but that
doesn’t mean, that those two things, are not contradictory, you see what I mean.
Let’s put it that way. Also, there’s a difference, that we’re gonna get into,
between hot and cold and heat and coldness. Okay. There’s a difference
between heat-ness, heat sorry, heat and coldness and hot and cold. And we’ll
talk about that. Okay. I’m talking about absolute coldness and absolute heat as
absolutes. Okay. Yeah. [student] I call it, well, I would call it, what do you call,
comprehensive or something like that. But in Tibetan there’s not a, there’s
another division in Tibetan but I’m not gonna go into it. But I’ll go into it since
you asked.        There’d be a [laughs] a direct contradiction and a indirect
contradiction, okay. And, in the case of {pentsun pang-gel} it would be, a direct
one would be a water pitcher and everything which is not a water pitcher. Okay.
And, an indirect one would be {takpa} and {chepa}, okay. {takpa} meaning an
unchanging thing and {chepa} meaning a thing which is made. Okay. {takpa} is
directly contradictory to what? {mitakpa}. I mean, mentally. And when we say
contradictory we’re talking about mentally. When I say changing, I’m sorry,
when I say an unchanging thing is directly contradictory to what, you think,
changing thing. Okay. I’ll say it again. When I say, give me the direct
contradiction of an unchanging thing, you think, unchanging, I’m sorry,
changing thing, okay. And that’s what pops into your mind and that’s what we
call a direct {pentsun pang-gel}, okay, a direct mutual exclusion. Okay. That’s a
direct one. Now, an indirect one is, unchanging thing and a thing which is made.
Okay. Because, a thing, which is made is always a changing thing and a changing
thing is a direct contradiction of an unchanging thing. That’s all. Okay. And
that, we call a, a indirect contradiction; an indirect mutual exclusion, okay. I’ll go
over it again. [laughs] When I say, what’s the opposite, what contradicts
unchanging, you think, changing. Okay. Then, if I say, well, can any one thing
be both unchanging and something, which is made? And you go through this
mental process, you see. You say to yourself, well, anything that’s made must
be changing and I know that changing is the direct opposite of unchanging, so,
no, it’s a contradiction. But there’s a, you have to go through a process to reach
that. Your mind goes to ‘changing’ and then it goes to ‘contradicts unchanging’.
So, your mind first goes to ‘made’ and then your mind goes to ‘changing’ and
then your mind says that contradicts unchanging directly. So that’s what we call,
a mutual exclusion, which is indirect. Okay. Yeah. [student] Oh, that’s a good
example. { takpa ngupo}, he’s, he’s mentioning, unchanging thing and working
thing, is that direct or indirect? Indirect. What about working thing and existing
thing, which doesn’t do any work? That’s direct. You see what I mean? {ngume
ngupo} are {pentsun pang-gel, ngupe pentsun pang-gel}and {ngupo} and {takpa}
are {gyu gyi pentsun pang-gel, gyu}, okay, {gyu} meaning indirect. Okay. And
that’s in your reading. You can see that. In fact, here’s the example of a direct
one: {ngupo} meaning, a thing which does something, any, a working thing and
then, {ngume} meaning, something which doesn’t do anything, something which
has no work. By the way, and, when we say that, we’re always implying an
existing thing which does no work, okay. You can’t just say, something, which
does no work because things that don’t exist at all do no work, also. Okay. You
always have to be careful when you’re debating, right. You have to say, an
existing thing, which does no work, is the direct contradiction of a thing, which
does do something, okay. You gotta be careful there, okay. Yeah. [student]
Leon said, it sounds like a semantic thing rather than a mental thing. Yeah.
[student] Yeah. Leon said, they’re, after all, they’re all the same thing; working
thing, changing thing and made thing are all the same thing. But, yeah, the,
semantically, as, as you’ll see in, it’s actually already been in the logic text, they
each have a different way of producing the conception in the person who hears
that word, you know. The, the {dun-chi} you get, the mental image you get
from each word is different. And, even though they all refer to the same set of
things, it is, yeah, it’s semantic in that sense, that does the word have the power
to suggest, directly, to the mind, what does it suggest directly to the mind. And,
and that’s, yeah, each one of those three has a different, and that was, if you go
back and look at the distinction between three different qualities asserted, the
qualities we’re trying to prove, in the discussion of formal logic. In discussing
the quality you’re trying to prove they discuss that distinction. You can go back
and look at it. It’s in that section. Okay. Even though working thing, changing
thing and thing which was made, all refer to the same set of things, they give
you a different mental picture when I say them. Okay. And, yeah, this does
refer to, are the two mental pictures directly contradictory, okay. And that’s the
distinction, okay. Here’s the second kind of contradiction. Say, {hlenchik}
[repeat] {mine gel}[repeat], {hlenchik}[repeat] {mine gel}[repeat]; {hlenchik}
means, to stay together, {hlenchik} means to stay together. You probably, you
might remember the word {hlenkye} meaning, ignorance which is inborn. So,
{hlen} has the meaning of two things, which always come together; {hlenchik}
means, together.       {mine} means, they can’t stay, they can’t coexist, okay;
{hlenchik mine} means, they cannot coexist. {gel} means, a contradiction; a
contradiction which involves, I would call it, I think in the reading I call it, what
did I call it? Mmmm. Diametrically opposed, how’s that, diametrically opposed.
An example, I mean, one of the kind of light-hearted examples in Scripture is,
{ukpa} and {charok}; say {ukpa}[repeat] {charok}[repeat] {ukap}[repeat] {charok}
[repeat]; {ukpa} means, an owl, {charok} means, a crow. And supposedly, they
don’t get along. They don’t like each other and they can’t stay on the same
branch together. And when people teach this to children in the monastery, they
say, hey, it’s like an owl and a crow, you know. Like, they can’t coexist on the
same branch. But, the real examples, in Scripture, are {nyenpo} and {pangja}.
Say {nyenpo}[repeat] {pangja}[repeat], {nyenpo}[repeat] {pangja}[repeat];
{nyenpo} means, an antidote for something or a fix for something or a
counteragent for something, okay. And {pangja} means, in, in Buddhism, it
means a negative spiritual quality, a negative quality of a person. So, {nyenpo}
can be translated as a spiritual antidote and then {pangja} would be a negative
quality that you had that you’d like to get rid of. {pang} means, to get rid of
something; {pangja} means, to be gotton rid of. For example, if you had a
problem with laziness, if that was {pangja}, something you wanted to get rid of,
then, a death meditation would be a {nyenpo}, you see what I mean. If you had
a problem with desire and, for sense objects, {pangja}, then you could meditate
on, there’s a thing called ‘skeleton meditation’, where you, it’s in the
Abhidharma. And you start with this, you start with a tiny point in the centre of
your forehead, and you picture it as rotten, as rotting, like, gangrene or
something. And then it starts to spread and you, and you do this meditation,
you let it spread and spread and spread until your whole forehead, you can see
the bone. And, and then you let it rot and keep, and then the skin peels off. And
you keep going down through your whole body. And then you start with the
carpet and you see it start to fray and get old and stinky. And then you reach
the pews and you see them rotting and falling apart and eaten by worms. And
then you go out to, to the walls of the building and see them collapsing, you
know, as they will, right? And, and rotting, and, and falling down. And then
you go out to the whole of Manhattan and see it as it will be one day; just a ruin,
you know, everything rotting, rusting, things falling down, stinky. And then
you go to the ocean, then, you dry it up, as it will be one day, you know. And
you let all the fish sit there stinky. And you destroy everything until you cover
the whole planet, you know. And then you, you bring it all back and, and you
come back to this dot here. That’s, that helps remove desire. And those are,
those are {nyenpo}, okay; {nyenpo} means a spiritual antidote for {pangja},
means, a negative personal quality, okay. Yeah. [student] Yeah. They didn’t
really give a definition but, oh, I’m sorry, there is a definition in your reading.
It’s two things which conflict with each other in such a way that they act against
the continued existence of each other. Okay. [student] Yeah. Well, let’s talk
about it this way. They talk about a process with {hlenchik mine gel}, okay. The
second kind of contradiction implies a process and it’s described like this; the
death, the meditation I just described, which is called {… tingindzin}, skeleton
samadhi, okay, [laughs] and, and this desire for objects, sense objects, the, the
meditation encounters the desire, okay. There’s an encounter and then the
meditation starts to work on the desire and wear it down slowly, slowly. And
then, as the meditation gets stronger, the desire gets less. So, it’s a process
where one starts to work against the continued existence of the other, okay.
Until, finally, one of them has, has overcome the other. But it’s, it’s a gradual
process of encountering, working on it, and then, removing it. Whereas, mutual
exclusion, just means, look, the minute this is red it can’t be blue anymore, okay.
That’s all. Immediate exclusion of the other quality, you see the difference? And
those are the two kinds of contradiction. The second one is not a legal
contradiction only the first one is the real meaning of contradiction. Okay. So,
generally, although we speak of two kinds of contradiction, the first one is the
real one, okay. And I’ll give you another example, which is a little harder. Can
one state of mind be grasping to an object as self-existent and, at that same
moment, be understanding, its emptiness perfectly? Impossible. You see what I
mean? Cannot be. You cannot be, directly understanding, a thing’s emptiness
and at the same time be grasping to it as being self-existent. No, no one state of
mind, meaning, a millisecond state of mind. You can alternate between the two
in, in a few minutes, thousands of times. But, at the millisecond that you’re
understanding the emptiness of the thing, you cannot at that same moment,
perceive it as being self-existent. So, in that sense, those two states of mind are
{pentsun pang-gel}; the first kind. Okay. No one state of mind can be both. No
one millisecond of your mind can be both. So, in that sense, they are mutually
exclusive. But in the other sense, you know, as a problem in your mind, as a
problem in your life, as a problem in your ongoing mental continuum, now I’m
talking about the continuum of your mind, they are {hlenchik mene gel}, okay. I
always say they are like two guys that say, ‘this town ain’t big enough for both
of us’, you know. I mean, you can’t go on thinking of things as self-existent as
your wisdom gets stronger, okay. As your understanding that things are empty
gets stronger, slowly, the perception of them as self-existent has to start leaving
town. First he has to move out of mid-town, out to the suburbs, and then,
finally, he has to leave all together, you know. But, but there is a period, where
one is working against the other. Okay. So, that’s a delicate example, okay. It’s
an example of, both, in a sense. Okay. Relative to one millisecond of mind they
are mutually exclusive to, exclusive, and, and you could call them {pentsun pang-
gel}. Relative to a mental continuum, they are antidote and problem and they
are working against each other through a process, and that’s called, {hlenchik
mene gel}. And that’s a good example of both. Now, heat and cold are the same
and I think I screwed it up earlier tonight. You figure it out, okay. [laughs] I
mean, no one thing can be hotness and coldness at the same time, am I right?
But, but heat, but hot and cold can work at, no, hot and cold, nothing can be hot
and cold at the same time. But, but warmth and coldness can work, yeah, I think
I messed it up. Let’s reverse that, okay. Ah, you figure it out. I had trouble with
it. I think I screwed it up on the reading, okay. You, you check, okay. In one
sense, they’re mutually exclusive. No one object can be heat and cold at the
same time. How’s that? But, with regard to the process that, which, you know,
you know, when you have a cold room and you turn on the heat, then slowly,
the heat begins to work on the cold. So I guess heat and cold are {hlenchik mene
gel} and hotness and coldness, the text says, {tsar-rik and trang-rik}, a cold
sensation and a hot sensation, are {hlenchik mene gel}. Sooner or later one
pushes out the other. And heat and cold in and of themselves are mutually
exclusive. How’s that? Okay. The, the text makes that distinction, alright. I
don’t know if I got it right in the English but you worry about it.
Okay. Yeah. [student] Yeah. [student] Yeah, they have to be distinct from one
another. [student] Yeah. Well, I didn’t make that a separate quality. Like, on
the homework, it’ll say, give the two criteria to be contradictory. And you’ll say,
they have to be separate objects and they have to be such that no one thing can
be both at the same time. And then, when I threw in they have to be existing
things, I want you to know that when, in Buddhism, when we say separate we’re
assuming existing objects. So, if some guy came up to you in the first {kachikma}
after the {rangruk} in this very reading and said, non-existent things are
contradictory to existing things, you have to say no. Well, why? ‘Cos they’re
not distinct. Well why? Because, they’re not distinct objects. Well why? Because
one of them ain’t an object. Okay. And you won’t get that unless I tell you that,
okay. That’s all. [student] Sure, {tsennyi … }, okay; definition of existence is that
which you can perceive with a valid perception, okay. Not what the New York
Times says. Okay. By the way, I thought you might like to know, the text from
Sera doesn’t give all this detail but the one from Drepung does. Okay. [laughter]
[laughs] Don’t tell Rinpoche I said that.
Example of a direct contradiction for {hlenchik mene gel}: you see, they divide,
they divide that one where they don’t get along with each other, where they
stop each other’s continued existence or they work against each other’s
continued existence. They also divide that into direct and indirect in the Drepung
Scripture, which Se Dura, which is pretty cool Dura I have to admit, okay. They
give two examples: light and dark, light and darkness, okay, light and darkness.
I mean, when you turn on the light, it encounters the darkness and then there’s a
process of the light removing the darkness, okay. And that would be a direct, a
direct contradiction of diametric opposites, as opposed to, a direct contradiction
of mutually exclusives. Okay. In that, in that sense of, turning on the light, okay,
in that context of turning on a light. And then, ht touch and cold touch, you
know. If the room is cold and you turn on the heat, then slowly, the feeling of
warmth removes the feeling of cold. Okay. The tangible object called warmth
removes the tangible object called cold, how’s that. Because when you say
tangible object you’re talking about one person, how’s that. Okay. Now, here’s
an example of an indirect one. They say, huge clouds of smoke and a feeling of
coldness on a certain location, okay. So, on a certain block, there are incredible,
huge, billowing, you know, you’ve seen, you know a building is well on fire.
You know the whole building is on fire if you see this kind of smoke. It’s huge
masses of smoke. And then, you’re thinking about something cold in that
location. You cannot see the fire but you see the smoke.
And that’s an indirect contradiction, an indirect contradiction of diametric
opposites, okay. The, you know that cold cannot be there ‘cos you see this huge
smoke even though you can’t see the direct opposite of cold which is fire or heat,
okay. And that’s a case of an indirect one, which is not covered in your reading,
okay, ‘cos your reading comes from the, today’s reading comes from the Sera
manual, okay. Alright.
We’ll go onto relationships. Yeah. [student] Yeah. There’s a debate in the,
you’ll see, they’ll say, is there anything which is not a contradiction? And the
answer, I think, is no if I remember correctly. There’s a {kachikma} about it and
they say, find something, which is not a contradiction. And then finally they say,
I can’t, you know, okay. By the way, no one thing is a contradiction, ever. But
everything that exists will eventually be involved in a contradiction, which if
you’ve been alive long enough, you know that, right. Okay.
Say {dak chik gyi}[repeat]{drelwa}[repeat], {dak chik gyi}[repeat] {drelwa}
[repeat], okay. There are two kinds of relationship. Now we’re done with
contradiction, okay, we’re onto relationship. You’re moving through the Dura
at an unprecedented speed. [laughs][laughter] You can get the fifty pages of
{kachikmas} in the reading, okay. We, by the way, I’d really like to thank all
those people working on the readings. It’s a hell of a lot of work. It’s like, it’s
like, many, many nights; many, many late nights. And a few people are really
working hard on it. Which you can probably guess if the thing is getting so
huge, you know. But anyway, {dak chik gyi drelwa} means, the kind of
relationship where, to be one thing, is to automatically be the other thing. Okay.
It’s the kind, {dak chik} means, one self or one being. And, I don’t like, and I
don’t encourage you to ever translate things in a weird way, where you come
out with some weird expression. Like, the relationship of one selfness-ess-ess or
something like that, you know. And that’s the way they do it in a university.
And we’re freed from that restriction, right. We don’t have to impress anybody.
We just want to get to the meaning of the thing. The meaning of the thing is, a
relationship which, is such that, to be one of the things is automatically to be the
other thing. And let’s call it that. Okay, and not, a relationship of single -
selfnessicity or something, okay. [laughter] We can just say what it is. And I
hope, I pray that you spread Buddhism this way because otherwise it won’t
spread and it will die in the minds of a few people and nobody will benefit by it.
You have to find words, common ground, right. The rule of Buddhist logic,
must find common ground. It begins with common language, common words.
Words that the people that you’re talking to can understand, you know.
Otherwise you have already broken the rules of Buddhist logic because you are
outside of common ground, okay. So, by the way, this is an example of a
relationship, which can go one way and not the other way, okay. What is the
relationship between {mitakpa} and {chepa}? What’s the relationship between a
changing thing and a thing which is made?          It’s a {dak chik drelwa}. It’s a
relationship, such that, to be one is automatically to be the other. Okay.
Anytime you are a changing thing you are automatically a made thing, a thing
which is made. Anytime, you’re a thing which is made, you’re automatically a
changing thing. This is a two-way street. This is a two-way relationship, such
that, to be one is to be the other, automatically, okay. How about car and
Chevrolet? Not. It’s only one-way. Okay. When you’re a Chevrolet, to be a
Chevrolet is automatically to be a car. But, to be a car, is not to automatically be
a Chevrolet. Okay. So we say, and you gotta, this is very tough, for those of
you learning Tibetan. I had some students over the other day. We were talking
about sentence structure. And these are people who never studied grammar in
High School, which seems to be what they do nowadays. And we were saying
that English is, normally, SVO. I mean, I learned that when I was teaching.
Rinpoche went to Georgetown University and I spent six months of torture
explaining him SVO, you know, subject-verb-object. Okay. I mean, most
English is, you know, ‘I like you’, okay. ‘I go to the store’. Okay. And that’s
subject-verb-object. The sentence order of Tibetan, as you may have noticed, is
what? SOV, not B, okay, SOV, you know. ‘I you like’, ‘I to the store go.’ Okay.
And that’s the normal SVO, I’m sorry, SOV. Okay. Now, in, in expressing
relationship or contradiction it gets very nasty and it’s very idiomatic. And, if
you don’t get it right the first time, you will wander in the Madhyamika
Scriptures for years, okay. So get it right. Here it is. It’s very idiomatic. You
say, in Tibetan, when you say that something is related to another thing, such
that, to be it is to be the other thing, you say the other thing first. Sorry, second.
[laughs] [laughter] Okay. Had a hard day, okay. [laughs] [laughter] Okay. The
thing being related to is second. The thing relating to it is first. So you say,
Chevvy-car {dang dak chik}. And you use the word ‘and’. {dak chik} means,
one, one being, okay. And what this sentence means is, to be a Chevvy is to
automatically be a car. And I hope you translate it that way. Okay. It’s very
difficult Tibetan. Yeah. [student] [laughs] You say, Chevvy – car {dang dak
chik}, okay; Chevvy – car {dang dak chik}. That’s all. To be a Chevvy is to be a
car, okay. To be a Chevvy is to automatically be a car, and, and I hope you
translate it that way. And, you know, if you don’t know this idiom you can
really, {dang} looks like ‘and’, and {dak chik} means ‘one guy’ and what the hell’s
going on here, okay, very difficult. By the way, {gelwa} is expressed the same
way. You would say, for example, let me find some empty space. [cut]
Let me think about it. How about this one? Say {yupa}[repeat] {mitakpa}
[repeat] {dang}[repeat] {gel}[repeat]; {yupa}[repeat] {mitakpa}[repeat] {dang}
[repeat] {gel}[repeat]. I gotta be careful, okay. It goes like this: being all existing
things is, contradictory to being, something which is changing. Okay. I’ll say it
again. And that’s how you have to translate it, okay, very nasty. And you can
go home and look it over a couple of times, okay. I’ll say it again. Being all
existing things, is contradictory to, being a changing thing. Okay. But reverse it,
okay. Being a changing thing, is not contradictory to, being an existing thing.
Alright. So, this is a one-way relationship of, of being one to be automatically be
the other. Okay, it’s very tricky. You have to think about it. Being all existing
things, is contradictory to, being a changing thing. All existing things, is not a
thing which is a subset, or which is equal to, the set of all changing things, okay,
although the opposite is true. All changing things are a subset of existence itself.
And for this you have to know a rule of logic that, if a set includes both changing
and unchanging things, we consider it unchanging. Okay. All existing things,
includes things, which are changing and things, which are unchanging. But,
when I say, all existing things, I’m sort of stating again a general truth, am I not?
And in that sense, it’s unchanging, okay. It will always include those many
objects, okay, whether they happen to be around or not. How’s that? At any
given time, whether examples of them, see what I mean. The ‘is-ness’ of the
universe is unchanging, okay. The, the things that are in that shoebox may be
changing or unchanging but the shoebox itself is unchanging, okay. So, {yupa
mitakpa dang gel / mitakpa yupa dang mingle} and you have to go home and
chew on that, okay. Alright. Being a changing thing is, not contradictory to,
being existing things, but being existing things is, contradictory to, being a
changing thing. Okay. And, and you have to get used to that, alright. You have
to chew on that, okay. I’m just trying to help those people who are trying to
learn Tibetan with the impossible idiomatic syntax here. You will, never get over
it unless somebody trains you, you know, to, to work with it. So, you gotta
work with it.
It will come up often in the Madhayamika Scriptures. You will never be able to
read a lot of Nagarjuna or Je Tsongkapa or anybody else, Shantideva on
emptiness, if you don’t understand the structue, okay. That’s all.
It’s awful quiet out there, okay. [laughter] laughs] Okay. Say {bumpa}[repeat]
{bumpay dokpa}[repeat]; {bumpa}[repeat] {bumpay dokpa}[repeat]. If you want
a good example for a relationship, such that, one thing is automatically the other,
you could use {bumpa}and {bumpay dokpa} on your homework. That usually
wakes them up. [laughter] [laughs] Okay. [laughs] That’s why I invented the
homework.
Say {bumpa}[repeat] {bumpay dokpa}[repeat]; {bumpa} means, a water pitcher.
I hope my students never translate it as ‘vase’. That’s not the point, right? And
{bumpay dokpa / dokpa}, is that tricky thing meaning, the reverse of all that a
thing is not. Okay. The reverse of all, that a thing is not. What’s the reverse of
all that this pen is not? It’s the pen. Okay. But {bumpay dokpa}is not the same
as {bumpa}, right. Okay. Is one of them unchanging?                  Nasty question.
Anyway, pen and the, opposite of all which the pen is not. How’s that? Pen and
{dokpa} means, the reverse of all that the thing is not. Remember {dokpa} is
very important in this school, because that’s, according to them, how you
perceive things; by eliminating all that the thing is not you, you perceive the
thing. And some Tibetan Buddhist schools have mistaken that for emptiness,
okay. Yeah. [student] Yeah, or the opposite. [student] Yeah. Yeah. [student]
Everything that’s not what it’s not. Okay. [student] Right. And those two
things are related that way, you see. Those things are, such that, the minute that
you are the pen, you are automatically the opposite, of all that the pen is not.
Okay. And they are two separate things. Okay. They are two, they’re distinct
from one another. Do they refer to the same thing? Yes. Are they two separate
things? Yes. They’re distinct. How’s that? They’re distinct. The, the opposite of
all that the pen is not is distinct from the pen. Are they the same thing? Yes.
[students] [laughs] Perhaps in the way, that you perceive them. Okay. When
you, by the way, when you perceive the reversal of the pen, I call it the reversal,
all that the thing is, the opposite of all that it is not, you’re actually perceiving,
you’re excluding the opposite of all that the pen, you’re, you’re excluding the
opposite of the exclusion of all that the pen is not. How’s that? But, when you
perceive the pen, you’re just perceiving the exclusion, of all the pen is not. But,
when you perceive the exclusion of all the pen is not, you’re perceiving the
exclusion of all that it’s not the exclusion of all that the pen is not, okay.
[laughter] [laughs] And by the way, you better get used to thinking like this
because you, you, if your mind isn’t into this, if your mind’s not sharp enough to
handle that easily, then you’re gonna have trouble with emptiness, you see.
Sooner or later, you gotta buckle down and, and read those {kachikmas} and be
able to get through them fluently, you know. Sooner or later you’re gonna have
to if you want to see emptiness directly. It’s not just word games of logicians in a
college, or something like that. It’s, you mind has to be able to quickly move to
those things so that you can perceive emptiness directly. Sooner or later you’re
gonna have to buckle down and be able to do that. Okay. That’s all. Yeah.
[student] You’re, you’re beyond me now. [laughs] [student] Yeah, yeah, you
can say that. In this school especially, yeah, that’s necessary for perceiving
[student], yeah you can say that I guess, yeah. He says, you can talk about it
because that distinction exists so therefore the distinction is important and they
are distinct and I guess you could say that. It’s important that they’re distinct
because to understand how you perceive the pen you have to be able to perceive
the second one which is that the, how you perceive the pen is by excluding all
which is not the pen, okay. [student] Yeah. You could say that. [student] Yeah.
You can’t. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. [student] Yeah. Nominally, they’re distinct,
conceptually they’re, they’re distinct [laughs] and ontologically they’re not
distinct. That’s fine. That’s alright. You can say that. Okay. Okay, we got into
some big words. Alright. I’ll lay one more on you, what the heck. Then we’ll
have some fun. Say, {dejung gi}[repeat] {drelway}[repeat], {dejung gi}[repeat]
{drelway}[repeat]; the second kind of relationship, okay. Which is a cause and
effect relationship if you want to say it easily. {dejung} means, ‘which came from
it’. The relationship of a thing and the thing which it came from. Okay. The
relationship between a thing and the thing which it came from. By the way, this
is not a two-way street. Okay. We’re talking about the relationship of a thing,
with the thing which it came from and not, the relationship of a thing which is
about to produce a thing which doesn’t exist. Okay, ‘cos that can’t be a
relationship because they’re not distinct because they’re not two distinct objects
because they’re not two objects because one of them ain’t an object yet. Okay.
And then you get into this nasty debate. Well, by the time the tree’s there the
seed’s not there so you don’t have two distinct objects so there’s not two objects
so you can’t have a relationship. And then we say, over a period of time,
[laughs] you know what I mean, or something like that, you know.
Conceptually, or, or when you speak of the thing result, you’re assuming you’re
talking about the cause in the same breath, okay. By the time you call a thing a
result, you’re also conceptualising it’s cause. It’s technically true that at the
instant that the result is there the cause is already gone but we can still speak of a
relationship over a period of time. Okay. Like that. Okay. Given a, we can still
speak of, of Tessie over the whole period of her life. We can say, in her whole
life she’s only eaten this once. Even though all the Tessies from the millisecond
that we’re talking about on back don’t exist anymore. Okay. But, we can still
say, whether or not she’s eaten something because we can still consider her over
the length of her lifetime, okay. That’s all. Here’s an example of two things
which are, which share a {dejung gi drelwa} one-way. Okay, only one-way. And
we’ll find out which way later, okay, after you write the Tibetan down.
Yeah. [student] That was last semester. [student] Ah, no. Abhidharma School,
Abhidharma School. [student] Yeah. He said, is this the school that accepts that
cause and effect don’t have to happen sequentially, that they could happen at the
same time. Mainly Abhidharma School. This school, I believe, also has a
presentation similar to that. I don’t remember if they have that particular
[unclear]. They might but I, when they talk about relationships they say it’s
impossible. [student] Yeah. [student] Yeah. [student] Yeah.
Say {ngupoy}[repeat] {chi-lok su}[repeat] {jungwa}[repeat], {ngupoy}[repeat]
{chi-lok su}[repeat] {jungwa}[repeat]; {ngupo}means ‘working thing’, any
working thing, {chi} means, later, {lok} is a Tibetan word that means, especially
when you say it with a ‘sa’, okay, it’s like, when you flip a pancake, that’s called
{lok, lok} the pancake. So {chi-lok}, remember in future lives class, I’m always
talking about the thing that flops over into, that’s the flap-jack thing, okay. {chi-
lok su jungwa} means, ‘a working thing in the moment after it’, okay. I like to
translate it that way: a working thing in the moment after it. Working thing,
millisecond number two. Okay. Working thing, as it will exist, in millisecond
number two. The, the flop-over of working thing millisecond number one.
How’s that? {chi-lok su jungwa} means, {jungwa} means, happenend, so {chi-lok
su jungwa} means, flop, and now we’re into the second instant of the thing,
okay. The thing in its second instant bears or shares a relationship of having
come from something else with {ngupo}, meaning here, the original thing.
Okay, the original working thing. Okay. So, pen of millisecond number two,
shares a {dejung gi drelway} with, pen of millisecond number one.
  But, we cannot say, that pen of millisecond number one, shares such a
relationship with pen of millisecond number two, because number two hasn’t
happened yet. Ouch. I was hoping I could get away with it and say, oh, let’s
take a break. [laughter] [student] Pen, of millisecond number two, which you
can call,{ngupoy chi-lok su jungwa}, okay. The, the working thing as it is the
moment after it, okay. Pen of millisecond number two, shares a {dejung gi
drelway}, with pen of millisecond number one. But, pen of millisecond number
one, doesn’t share such a relationship with of, of, with what? [student] It doesn’t
exist yet. What are you talking about? Okay. That’s all. That’s all. It doesn’t
exist yet. You can’t say that, alright. [student] Yeah, but they say that’s okay.
[laughs] No, they say, at that moment, in millisecond number two, you can be
considering the entire duration, you see. That’s why I brought up Tessie in the
length of her life. But, it doesn’t matter how much length of life you talk about
when you’re talking about Tessie tomorrow because that can not be included in
length of life yet ‘cos it hasn’t happened yet. That’s all. It’s a, it’s a fine point,
okay. You can consider, as a group, the milliseconds of the present and the past
together. Let’s put it that way. You cannot consider, as a group, [cut]
[end side A]
[side B]
the milliseconds of the present and the future together because the future ones
don’t exist yet. That’s all. And have never existed, how’s that? Okay. Okay,
that’s relationship. I think I’ll give you a well-deserved break and when you
come back we’ll do something much more interesting. Okay. Yeah. [student]
Sorry? [student] Which one? [student] Oh, that’s a good question. Leon asked,
which, what’s the subject of the sentence? You can say, the working thing of the
moment after it shares a relationship with the original working thing. Okay.
[student] No. I’m talking from the point of view of the second millisecond.
[student] Yeah. Yeah. [student] Yeah, if you want to, you can say, the working
thing from the point of view of the result, okay. Of, of it being a result, is the
result, shares a relationship of having come from the working thing of the
moment before it. How’s that? Something like that. [student] Yeah. Really,
well, you an also talk about this, this structure is a, shares a relationship of
having come from Lincoln’s assassination. And, and we say that, you know.
Somehow Lincoln’s assassination affected this structure and we can say that it
bears a relationship with Lincoln’s assassination. But, we can’t say, that Lincoln’s
assassination, at the time of the assassination, bore a relationship with, shared a
relationship with this Quaker House, which didn’t exist yet. That’s all. And
Madhyamika Prasangika has a different idea about the past, present and future
and we’ll get into that someday. [laughs] Yeah. [student] Yeah, they do, yeah,
yeah.
Okay, take a break.
[announcement]
Help. No. Good job. [laughs] Okay. {dak chik gi drelwa} we already talked
about; a relationship, such that, to be one is to be the other, okay. We’re, maybe
it’s more accurate to say, a relationship, such that, to be the first one is to be the
second one. Which may not be true of the second one to the first one, alright.
Okay. It is rolling. I wanted to give you three criteria for that relationship, okay,
three criteria. Homework question, wake up. Okay. First one is that they
should be {daknyi chikpa}, {ba da ka dak, nya kiku nyi ta nyi} [laughter] oh,
you’re lucky, okay. [laughs] Say {daknyi}[repeat] {chikpa}[repeat]; {daknyi
chikpa} means, well, so far, it means, like, something like, to be one is to be the
same thing, or something like that. Okay. And the trick here is that something
which is a changing thing can be, is a {daknyi chik} with something which is a
changing thing but they don’t have a relationship because there’s no two
separate things. How’s that? Okay. To be one, I don’t know how to say it.
Anyway, same thing, how’s that. Same thing. Okay. {daknyi chikpa}, same
thing, alright. You can say same thing about, you know, Winston is the same
thing as Winston, how’s that. But they don’t, they don’t share a relationship
because they’re not separate. So, so far, we don’t have all of the required
characteristics. The first characteristic is that they should be the same thing.
Okay. But we have to have some other characteristics here, okay. What’s the
second characteristic? Ah-ha. They should be separate from each other, okay.
Which means that Winston can’t have a relationship with Winston. I mean, this
kind of relationship, okay, so [laughter] [laughs] alright. Okay. Should be
separate things. Okay. [laughs]
And here’s the third quality. Say {chu de}[repeat] {me na}[repeat] {kyu}[repeat]
{me gu}[repeat], {chu de}[repeat] {me na}[repeat] {kyu}[repeat] {me gu}[repeat].
Okay, {chu, chu de} means, ‘that thing’. In, let’s take the example of cars, okay.
Let’s say that {chu de} means, that thing, meaning cars. Okay. Cars. {chu de},
cars. That thing, okay,{chu de} means, that thing. I’m using the example of cars.
For example, those cars-s, okay, {chu de}. {me na, me na}means, ‘if they ceased
to exist’. Okay,{me na} means, if they ceased to exist. {kyu} here, means, ‘then
this thing’, meaning the Chevvy, okay. {kyu} here, this thing, meaning in this
case, in our case, the Chevvy {me gu}, would have to cease to exist. Okay. So,
three requirements for that relationship to hold between two objects: they
should be the same thing. I mean, car, Chevvy’s the same thing as a car, right, in
a sense; should be separate; and, if you wiped out all the cars in the world, you’d
have to wipe out the Chevvy. That’s the test of whether they share this
relationship. Okay. That’s all. That’s a,that’s a general description of three
qualities that you’d have to have for them to share a relationship, such that, to be
one is to be the other. Okay, {daknyi chikpay drelwa}. Okay. Let’s move on,
everyone’s got that.
[student] Yeah, or it could be both ways, you see what I mean. If you took
away all changing things then you take away all made things, for example.
Okay. They are separate things. They refer to the same things but they are
separate things. They’re distinct. How’s that? Why don’t we use the word
distinct? I think in the reading I used the word distinct. Maybe that’s better,
okay. Alright.
Last thing your, huh, which last thing? Your formal logic, okay. You’re deep
into it. We have covered two of the kinds of correct reasons. One involved a
relation, an identity. One involved cause and effect. Now, we’ve reached {ma
mikpay tak}.
By the way, to make up for logic I’m gonna do Lojong next course. So, if you
quit tonight, come back and, when is it, May, okay. [laughter] That’ll be straight,
you know, office Dharma, you know. What do you do in your office, okay.
Two extremes.
Say {ma mikpay tak}[repeat] {yangdak}[repeat], {ma mikpay tak}[repeat]
{yangdak}[repeat]. Okay. This is very difficult to translate. People wander all
over to translate it. You know that famous prayer of Je Tsongkapa? Je
Tsongkapa’s mantra: {mikme tsewe terchin chenresig /mikme / mikme} means,
‘not perceived’, okay, {tseme ma mikpa}, okay {tseme ma mikpa}. Here it means
a similar thing; {ma mikpa} means, not perceived, okay. I call it, well, we’ll get
there. {ma mikpa / tak}means, a reason and {yangdak} means, a correct reason.
A correct reason, to prove, the absence of something, okay. A correct reason to
prove the absence of something. Okay. So now, we have three kinds of correct
reasons. One is where the correct reason involves the nature of the other object.
One is where the correct reason ahs a cause and effect relationship with the other
object. And here we have a correct reason for proving that something ain’t
there. And that’s so important that it’s treated as a separate kind of reason,
okay. It’s so important that it’s split off as a separate kind of reason, {ma mikpay
tak yangdak}. Okay. In fact, you could not have the other two relationships,
because we’re trying to prove a, an absence.              An absence can’t have a
relationship, but talking about that later, alright, {ma mikpay tak yangdak}.
I’ll give you a classic one. Okay. {dungi shi dir chuchen}, say{dun gi shi}[repeat]
{dir}[repeat] {chuchen}[repeat]. Okay. And then it’s a long story, { .. },
something like that, which would mean, consider this room; if there were
someone in this room who doubted the existence of hungry ghosts, okay, then
there could be on one in this room who remembered the hungry ghost they
saw. Something like that, okay. In other words, or you could say, consider all
the people in this room; nobody in this room has a valid perception of a hungry
ghost; because everybody in this room doubts the existence of hungry ghosts.
Okay. Meaning, if you prove that no one in this room has had the cause of, of
knowing about hungry ghosts then, you can say they don’t know about hungry
ghosts. If no one in this room has perceived a hungry ghost with a valid
perception then we can say that no one in this room could ever have a valid
memory of a hungry ghost. That’s all. Okay. Or the following would be a
proof: consider everybody in this room; it would be improper for anyone in this
room to say that hungry ghosts exist if no one in this room had had a valid
perception of them. Okay. That’s a classic, okay. I’ll say it again. Consider this
whole room; it would be improper for anyone in this room to swear that hungry
ghosts exist; if there were no one in this room who had perceived them with a
valid perception. Okay. What’s, what’s the {je kyap} there? What’s the reverse
necessity, you know? What is the, the general truth that they’re saying there? If
you haven’t had a valid perception of a, if a Buddhist has not had a valid
perception of a hungry ghost, then a Buddhist would never go around telling
people, oh, hungry ghosts exist. Okay. That’s the implication. It’s very
powerful. I’ll say it again. I mean, the {tak yangdak/ ma mikpay tak yangdak}
is the following: consider this room full of people; no one in this room would
ever, all being good educated Buddhists, no one in this room would ever go
around swearing that hungry ghosts exist, if no one in this room had seen them
with a valid perception. Period. Okay. And that’s a classic {ma mikpay tak
yangdak}. It’s a proof for proving the absence of something. Okay. What’s,
what’s absent in this room? The propriety, of swearing that, hungry ghosts
exist, okay. The correctness of swearing that hungry ghosts exist is not present
in this room if no one in this room has had a valid perception of a hungry ghost.
Okay. That’s all. We’re talking about the propriety, okay, the rightness, that it
would be right for someone in this room to swear that they exist if they had not
had a valid perception of them. And that’s an airtight {ma mikpay tak yangdak}
in Buddhism, okay. And obviously it has applications to how you present
Buddhism to other people. You meet many American Buddhists who, who go
from making claims which seem to be correct maybe, about what the Buddha
might have said, to claims that the Buddha never said, but all with equally
insufficient authority, you know what I mean. And you don’t wanna be like
that. It turns people off. You step beyond common ground right away, you
know, by claiming, you know, you have to believe in these things. Why? ‘Cos
we do, you know. Just like Santa Claus and, and all those, and the guy who
made the world, you know. No thanks. I’ve been through that, you know. I
want, as a Buddhist, you cannot assert the presence of a thing until you’ve had a
{tsema} or a pramana about that thing, period. Okay. And that’s, that’s the
classic {ma mikpay tak}, okay. Yeah. [student] Oh, she said, how can you assert
that you’re a Buddhist if you’ve never had a valid perception of a Budda? I
would say that you could assert that you’re a Buddhist if you have had a valid
perception of teachings which you consider to be authoritative of Buddhism or
something like that, right. I mean, to say you’re a Buddhist is not to say that
you’ve had a direct perception of Buddha. We don’t know until you’ve
perceived emptiness directly, you probably will not ever directly experience a
Buddha. On that day you do. Okay. But you can have a deductive perception of
a Buddha. By the way, did I say, direct? Did anybody here say, direct? You
know, I didn’t say direct. I’ve had a {tsema} of a, of a preta. I’ve had a {tsema} of
a hungry ghost ‘cos Rinpoche said so. Okay. For me that’s, that’s {tsema}.
That’s {loung gi tsema}, right, Scriptural authority of a person, I, I perceive or
I’ve established in my mind, to be infallible. He said so. Okay. Can you present
that to a non-Buddhist? No. You know, can you present that among company,
one person of whom doesn’t accept that authority? No. Okay. And that’s the
difference. I didn’t say direct perception, right, direct valid perception, ‘cos that’s
why we went through the kinds of valid perception, right. There’s direct,
{ngunsum}; there’s{jepak}, and there’s those different kinds of {jepak: ngutop,
lung}, what was the third? {shung gi jepak} and, huh? Rational belief? No. It
was convention, I think. It was convention. I mean, Uncle Sam, refers to the
American government because by convention, everyone agrees it. And I’ve had
the direct, I’ve had a deductive perception of, of the American government when
somebody talks about Uncle Sam. You know, I haven’t met this guy called Uncle
Sam but, by convention, we understand that we mean the US government that
sucks our taxes away and, you know. I perceive them through that word, okay.
That’s all. Okay.
Two kinds of {ma mikpay taks}. By the way, this part is gonna be the same, so
you can just write this if you wanna be lazy and I’m sure Phuntsok won’t mark it
wrong. [laughter] By the way, somebody made a really good suggestion. It was
Randy, actually. And it was, why don’t you post the answer keys before the
quiz, you know, after everyone has finished their homework already, okay.
And we’ll try and do that, okay, for the next class. If you get here a little bit early
next time we’ll try and post the answer keys outside so that you, even if you
screwed it up on the homework, at least, when you take your quiz, you know
what it’s supposed to be. Okay. And, and that makes sense to me so, I’m, it’ll be
on a, of course, since we’re all Buddhists, nobody will cheat or anything like that,
okay. You would be, you would be denying worldview if you though that
passing the quiz came from cheating, right? You would be denying cause and
effect. You’d be spitting on cause and effect. Seriously. Okay. Worldview,
correct worldview, {yangdak gi tawa} says that cheating on a Buddhist
homework, quiz [laughs] you know, would only lead to a negative result, okay.
And if you happened to pass because you copied it onto your hand and then
wrote it down on the paper, it’s not because you copied it on your hand and
wrote it on the paper. It’s because you did something good in the past. And you
have to start thinking like that. That’s correct worldview. Okay. You have to
separate the results of your past deeds from the consequences of your present
deeds. That’s, that’s the skill of being a Buddhist, okay. Alright.
Say {minangwa}[repeat] {ma mikpay}[repeat] {tak}[repeat] {yangdak}[repeat],
{minangwa}[repeat] {ma mikpay}[repeat] {tak}[repeat] {yangdak}[repeat]. The
main word here is {minangwa}. {ma mikpay tak yangdak} we already had; this
whole thing here. And it meant, a {yangdak} means, a correct, {tak}, reason, for
proving {ma mikpa}, the absence of something, okay, the absence of something.
By the way, it’s not always, technically speaking, an absence. It can be not being
something but that’s the way it’s named. It’s called that although it’s not always
for an absence. It can be for something not being something else which is not
the same as absence. Okay. Anyway, that’s the name of the reason. Okay,{ma
mikpay tak yangdak}. {minangwa} means, generally speaking, the, the thing
that you’re denying, right, you’re denying something. For example, what was I
denying before? The propriety of any Buddhist who hasn’t had a pramana or a
valid perception about hungry ghosts to get up and say, hungry ghosts must
exist. We say so. Okay. What am I denying there? The propriety of saying that
hungry ghosts exist, okay, if you haven’t seen them or, or you can’t prove them
in any other way, okay. What’s the main element in that statement? Hungry
ghosts don’t exist. What’s the key word there really? What’s the key of the
whole argument? What’s the key of his problem? Hungry ghosts. Okay. I
mean, the real problem boils down to hungry ghosts, you know. Do they exist
or not? I mean, this is difficult to decide. These things are difficult to pereive.
We call them {keldun; keldun} means, something that’s kind of beyond us. It’s
beyond our normal experience. That’s the meaning of {minangwa}. {minangwa}
here means, it is not apparent. Okay. It’s not something, which is apparent, to
whom? Mainly to the other guy, okay. So, if the main element that you’re
denying, which is something about hungry ghosts, is something that the other
guy has trouble confirming or not, we call it, a {minangwa}, okay. How do you
translate this? A correct reason for proving the absence of something which is a,
which is abstruse or difficult for the other person to perceive. Okay. Trying to
prove the absence of something, we’re trying to deny the existence of
something, that the other person might find difficult to perceive. Okay. The
thing we’re denying involves something that’s difficult for the other guy to
perceive. What’s another example? {dun gi shi du chuchen}, take this guy in
front of me, {yinte yurme dam …}, I can’t say whether he’s a Buddha or not, I
can’t say whether he’s seen emptiness directly or not, {ma yinte tseme … }I
haven’t had a perception about that. I can’t, I don’t have a valid perception
about that. I can’t say if Jay Siller had seen emptiness directly or not. I can’t say,
you know. I cannot assert that. I cannot get up here and say he has or he hasn’t,
okay, if I had not had a direct, sorry, if I had not had a valid perception abut it,
okay. That’s all. And, and that’s the reason for studying this kind of reason.
And this is the one that came in the first reading when we discussed the reason
or the purpose of Buddhist logic. And one of the main reasons was not to go to
hell for ninety-nine million zillion aeons like that guy did. Who was that guy?
The Buddha, okay. And then when he got out he said {gangsak gyi gangsak gi
tsu misung te nyampar gyur tare}, don’t do it man, you know. Don’t, don’t
judge Jay Siller, you don’t know, you know. You can’t tell, okay. You haven’t
had a valid perception about it. This is a {minangwa ma mikpay tak}. Take Jay
Siller, it would be incorrect to make an assertion about whether or not he’s seen
emptiness directly if you hadn’t had a valid perception about whether or not he
had seen emptiness directly. Okay. That’s all. That’s a great {minangwa ma
mikpay tak} because it is not apparent to me or to a normal person who’s gonna
be the opponent in this debate, whether or not this person has seen emptiness
directly. It’s a difficult thing to tell about somebody. And it’s, it’s a custom even
for people who’ve seen it directly not to say or not to say in a very direct way
that they’ve seen it directly, okay. So, so you’re gonna have trouble about that.
So that’s a {minangwa ma mikpay tak}. It involves something which is very
difficult to perceive, okay, especially for the opponent. And the purpose of it
gets down to the purpose of all Buddhist logic which is you cannot, you have to
learn, what do you call it, there’s a word in English? I forget the word. You have
to learn to be somehow, it sounds like critical, almost, huh? Critical or [student],
not discerning. Something where you don’t believe it until you see it, sceptical,
almost.
Something like that. It’s not sceptical, but anyway. The purpose of Buddhist
logic is that the better you get at it the more you realise how much you don’t
know, you know. The better you get at Buddhist logic the more sensitive you
become to the fact of how much you don’t really know and how much you’re
assuming, in a very illogical way, especially about other people. Okay. And all
the bad karma you’re collecting that way, okay. Who knows who they are?
You see what I mean? Do you have a valid perception about it? And if not, the
Buddha called it {me .. }, it’s like, there’s a special barbeque pit in ancient India
where they, they make a big pit and then they fill it full of firewood, and then
they burn it all day. And then there’s this, the grey color of the, of the ashes,
looks like the grey color of the sand around it and you might just walk onto it
not realising. And then, suddenly, you’re in six feet of embers. And He says,
don’t, {me …}, you know. It’s like a pit of embers to think you know much
about other people, you know. Don’t, use your Buddhist logic to establish to
your own mind, to prove to your own self, that much of the judgement you
have of other people if not al of it, is invalid. You can’t tell. You don’t know.
You know, you don’t have a valid perception about it, so be careful. That’s the
big deal about {minangwa }, that’s why they create this category of logic, okay.
What’s the second one? By the way, that has applications up to the highest
teachings of Buddhism obviously, if you think about it, if you’ve had them, okay.
Alright. It has profound application in the highest teachings of Buddhism, okay.
Maybe you can say you have to get pretty good at this before you can really
appreciate the highest teachings of Buddhism, {kye rim}, okay. By the way, you
don’t have to write the whole thing ‘cos this much is the same.
Say {nangrung}[repeat] {nangrung}[repeat]. That’s really the last thing from
formal logic tonight. {nangrung} just means, the thing can appear to the
perceptions of your opponent, to the normal perceptions of your opponent,
okay. It’s not, like, some difficult to perceive thing like whether or not Jay Siller
has perceived emptiness directly or, or whether or not there’s hungry ghost
perception here, or something like that. For example, if I say, consider the top of
this pen, there’s no car there, because there’s no Chevvy there. Okay, that’s a
{nangrung ma mikpay takyang dak}, okay. You don’t have to be a person with
ESP to perceive the truth of that, you know. A normal human being in this
room who knows what a Chevvy is and what a car is can perceive it. So, it’s a,
it’s a, it’s a reason for proving the absence of something which, which is
something which could appear to the valid perceptions of the normal opponent,
okay. That’s all, okay.
In the last section on debating, okay, you got a, can I borrow your rosary? I
thought you might like to learn some, I call that section, ’debating tactics’, okay.
Tactics means, I like to call it the ‘Mohammad Ali’ tactics, okay. I dunno, I used
to like to watch Mohammed Ali fight. The first thing I ever said to Rinpoche, I
mean Rinpoche, I was like twenty something years old. And I walk in there and
he gave a class. And I was late ‘cos it snowed and the car broke down and I had
to hitch-hike and all this stuff and I got there late. And they were just about to
let out and then it let out. He said, hang around. And I hang around and I was
standing there, and I’m waiting for the word from the Master, you know. The
Dalai Lama has sent me to meet this Lama, you know, and said you have to go
study there, that would be good. So, I’m, like, waiting and he’s, he, he looks, I
remember he was sitting at the table there in the kitchen. The other house didn’t
exist yet. And, and I’m standing there and I’m waiting, you know. What’s he
gonna say to me, you know. And I’m all nervous. And he says, hey did you
watch Mohammed Ali fight last night? [laughs] [laughter] You know, and I’m,
like, no. [laughs] And then, I’m, like, judging him, you know. I say, well you
know fighting’s not very good, you know. It just beats up people and stuff like
that. He says, oh no, no. He doesn’t want to hurt anybody. He just want to be
good at what he does, you know. [laughs] [laughter]
And that was our first exchange. So anyway, Mohammed, the great thing about
Mohammed Ali is, was rope-a-dope and stuff like that. It was all these taunt,
taunting the other guy to the point where he gets so confused before you even
punch him, you know what I mean. Before you, before you swing your arm,
he’s already, like, in another world, you know. Like, he’s already confused. And
he’s already, he’s like, wondering what the hell you’re doing. ‘Cos you’re
standing there, like, that, you know, hit me. You know, like, this last fight with
this Mexican guy and he just stood there and let the guy punch him until the guy
got so tired and then he just hit him once, you know. [laughter] And this is, this
is a skill in debate and that’s to, to, to rope-a-dope, you know. It’s to, to get your
opponent so confused and, and, and distracted that you can wipe him out with
your point, okay. And I’m gonna teach you some of those, okay. It’s very much
a part of debating. Is it much, is it part of debating because you wanna be mean?
Obviously not. Is it a par of debating because you want to hurt the other guy’s
feelings? You better forget that when you walk into the debate ground. Is it a
part of debate because you wanna beat the other guy? Not at all. You wanna
help him. Okay. You wanna get him, help him get to a place where he can focus
his mind totally in the middle of mayhem, you know. In the middle of chaos he
can keep his attention and he can keep his very complicated chess moves in
mind, you know. Even while you’re saying all these things about him and
you’re egging on the other people, okay, to say, to start whoa and [unclear], you
know. And you’re hitting him on the head with this thing. But, he’s keeping, his
concentration, is unshakeable. And, and it’s gunna be useful for him later when
he meditates and, you know, people are, fire trucks go down Sixth Street or they
make a movie there or some stupid thing. You’re trying to concentrate and
there’s noises and stuff like that. It’s very, very important to learn to do it. So,
these are not just a game. It has a very great use for everybody involved, okay.
So, here we go. [laughs] Who do I pick on? I, I made a list of them in your
reading, okay. And I went to Rinpoche and I said, how do you spell all these
stupid things ‘cos nobody in the monastery knows, okay. They’re just things
that people have always said during debates and they could mean three, four
different things. And he said, I don’t know. And he’s the Abbott of Sera Me
monastery, you know, and the greatest debater on this planet maybe. And he
says, I don’t know. So, we sat down together and we worked it, you know, out
what they probably used to mean or something like that. They’ve just taken on
new meaning. I mean, nobody thinks of them as word anymore. They’re just
things you say when you get the guy in that corner and then you say it, you
know. And it doesn’t particularly have much meaning anymore. It’s just the
emotion of the thing is what it’s supposed to be. Okay. So, let’s start like that.
{gelwa la …chir}, okay. So, wait, you start like this, {dhi chitar chuchen}, okay.
Let’s get somebody else to do it. Jacquie? [laughs] [laughter] No, come on,
come on. Okay. Pick on him, okay. Maybe, Phuntsok. Yeah, do you mind to sit
here? Come on, come on, come on. [laughter] No, come, come, come, come.
[unclear] right here, okay.       We can catch this historical moment on film.
[laughter] [laughs] Okay. I think you sit, you’re facing this way so everybody
can see. Alright. And you gotta go home and practice this, okay. So first thing
is [student] well, I’m calling him the attacker and he’s the defender, okay. In the
reading, he’s the attacker and he’s the defender.           And if the monk has
improperly only used half of his shawl by folding it like that [laughter] then,
when he drops it, there’s, there’s nothing left here, okay. And that happened to
me one time and I got in trouble. But anyway, you didn’t get away with it,
anyway. So, first thing, you drop, you put your {sen} back like that, okay. That
shows respect for his opponent. By the way, this has been done since the time of
the Buddha, right. The opening of the Diamond Cutter Sutra, you know,
Shubhuti puts his shawl up there and he gets down on his right knee and, okay.
Anyway, you go up and you and you go down close to his face. Okay, ready?
This is always on your left hand, okay.
Okay, {dhi chitar chuchen}[repeats], okay, {dhi chitar chuchen}. Okay, what’s the
{dhi}? What’s }dhi}? [students] Yeah. The root syllable for wisdom, okay. It’s
like, I hope we can all be smart tonight, okay, {dhi}.
{chitar chuchen / chitar chuchen} means, how about this? So, if you’re gonna do
it in English I don’t mind, okay. {dhi}, how about this one, okay. {dhi} how
about this one, {dhi chitar chuchen}. Then you start your debate. {gelwa la}
[repeat] {yewa}[repeat] {mepay chir}[repeat]. Say {mepay chir][repeat], {mepay
chir} [repeat]. {gelwa} means, what? By the way, this is the way to learn a
lesson. Don’t go home with a stupid fifty page incomprehensible reading
[laughter] and, and, and try to read it, you know. Get one of your friends and
get the most important homework questions and debate them. And then you’ll
learn them in, like, an hour. And then you don’t have to read all that stuff, okay.
{gelwa la yewa mepay chir}; {gelwa} means, what? Yeah. Contradiction. {yewa}
means, different kinds, {yewa} means, divisions, okay. {me / me} means, what?
There aren’t any, okay.         There’s aren’t, there’s no different divisions of
contradictions, okay. Then he says, [student: tak ma drup]. Louder. {tak ma
drup}, okay [laughs] {tak ma drup}, okay. Say {tak}[repeat] {ma drup}[repeat]
{tak ma drup}[repeat]. And I don’t care if you do it in English or Tibetan. If
you’re a Tibetan track I suggest you do it in Tibetan, you know. If you’re not,
that’s okay. {gelwa la yewa mapay chir}; he said {tak ma drup}. Then you
confirm, fax machine confirms back, you know. Are you telling me that there
are divisions of {gelwas}? {gelwa la}[repeats] {yewa}[repeat] {yerpa teln}[repeat].
Say, {yerpa teln}[repeat] {yerpa teln}[repeat]. Are you telling me there are
divisions to {gelwas}? Mr. [student: du] {du} [student: du] {du}, okay.
By the way, don’t say {du} if you ain’t got them ready. [laughter] Okay, don’t
say {du}if you’re not ready. And now, I’m gonna teach you the first tactic; the
stalling tactic, okay. [laughter] Say, {ah}[repeat] No, listen; {ah} [repeat], {ah}
[repeat];{ah} means, what did you say? Okay. [laughs] [laughter] You can also
say, {la}[repeat]; that’s a little more polite, okay. {la}[repeat], okay, and I wrote
them down for you in the reading, okay. Say {ah}[repeat], {ah}[repeat], {ah}
means, what the hell are you saying? Okay, {ah}. Okay. And you can also say
{la}[repeat]; {la} means, I didn’t quiet catch what you said, you know. [laughter]
Okay. And what you could do in that few seconds while he’s, you know,
repeating, is you can think real fast what to say, okay. So {yerpa teln} [student]
Are you ready? Okay. Then you say, {shok}, okay. By the way, that’s low-tone
{shok}, right, {shok}. Say {shok}[repeat] {shok}[repeat]; {shok} means, show me.
let’s see ‘em. Okay. {shok} [laughs] [laughter] By the way, [laughter] don’t, this
is for the, this is for the three year olds, okay. [laughter] {shok} [laughter] This is
for the kids, okay. [laughter] I don’t want to see you sissies, okay. {shok}
[repeats], you gotta get that {shok}[laughter] [laughs] {shok} [laughter]
Okay, {shok, shok, shok, shok, shok, shok}. [student] Okay, by the way, you
ready? {whoaaaaaa chir}.
Okay, some, I asked Rinpoche, is it {che} or {chir}or {chu} or what is it? And he
says, I don’t know, you know. [laughter] Apparently, you know, this is a winter
debate thing between colleges and this is the most popular way to say, come on,
say something, you know. Some people say it’s {chir} which means, you know,
because, you know, he said {chir} what are you gonna say man? Say something,
{ doooo che}, you know. Some people say it’s {che}; {che} means, stalled, hey
you stalled man. Let’s get going, okay. [laughter] It’s the {che} in Diamond
Cutter; { .. che}, okay, you’re stalled. Some people say that. Rinpoche says, it’s
probably {chir}. Nobody knows, okay. {dooooo chir} [laughter] Hah-hha-hah,
okay you gotta learn [unclear], say [unclear][repeat], ha-hah [laughter] okay.
I’m just trying to teach you all the ones you might hear. Say, ha-hah [repeat]
[laughs] He’s been a [laughs] [laughter] He’s a natural. [laughter] Okay, ha-hah
means, come on, you’re a laughing stock, okay [laughter] laughing stock. Okay.
Okay.
Now, say {shok, shok}[student] {…}[student repeats] Are you telling me it’s
direct contradiction and indirect contradiction, is the two, is the two main
divisions? [student] Again, please. [laughter] Yeah. He says, {du}, right. {du}.
{oooh tsa / whoa tsa}, okay. And that’s another thing you gotta learn, okay.
Ready? {oooh tsa}[repeat], {whoa tsa}[repeat],okay. {tsa}, we were trying to
figure out what {tsa}, I’ve heard two versions in the monastery. One is {ngo-
tsar}, say {ngo-tsar}[repeat]. If you studied mental functions or bodhisattva
vows, {ngo-tsar shepa ..};{ngo-tsar} means, to be ashamed or to be embarrassed,
okay. So {tsar} means, you should be ashamed of yourself, the {tsar}[unclear]
and you do it with the back of your hand like that. And, usually, you do it twice,
you know. You do it like {tsar ..}, {whoa tsa ..}, okay. Alright, like that. And you
should be ashamed to give an answer like that. If you really want to rub it in
you go [laughter], okay [laughs]. Try it. [laughter] It means, is this getting red?
[laughs] [laughter] You’re a disgrace. [laughter [laughs] Okay.
You say, {gelwa yinpa teln}, are you telling me that’s the division? {yewa}
[student repeats] {yinpa teln}[repeats] {du}. {mayinpa teln}[repeats], no it’s not,
okay, because the {..}is {pentsun pang-gel}[repeat], {pentsun}, by the way,
easiest, fastes way to learn. It’s been four minutes, they have already learned
most of the vocabulary, see what I mean. It’s the totally the easiest way to learn.
Your Tibetan and your Scripture reading just accelerate, like, a hundred percent,
okay.
{pentsun}[repeat] {pang-gel}[repeat]{dang}[repeat]{hlenchik}[repeat]{mine gel}
[repeat]. Okay. Say again {pentsun}[repeat] {pang-gel}[repeat]{dang}[repeat]
{hlenchik}[repeat]{mine gel}[repeat], {yinpay chir}, that’s the real divisions.
[student] [laughter] [laughs] Say, {tak ma drup}[student repeats]. Okay, now I
wanna teach you another one, {kyappa long}. Say {kyappa long}[repeat],
{kyappa long}[repeat], okay; {kyappa long} means, give me the {kyappa}, you
know, give me your new, screwed up, stupid {kyappa}, okay. And you’ll see
that you’re wrong, okay, {kyappa long}. Okay. So here, it would be, okay,those
are the two main divisions of {gelwas} but those aren’t the main divisions of
{gelwa}. Just because they’re, those, the main divisions of {gelwa} doesn’t mean
it’s the kind of {gelwa} I’m talking about, or something like that. It’s an
indefensible {kyappa}, okay, it’s an indefensible statement of necessity. So, when
you think he’s getting close to one, you say, {kyappa long}, okay. You get him
in a corner and you say, {kyappa long} okay, give me your stupid {kyappa} and
everybody’ll go {whoaooo chir},okay. [laughs] Alright, {kyappa long}, that’s
another one, {kyappa long}. There was another one. [unclear] Can’t remember.
Let me check. It’s in the reading. [student] Okay. Let’s see. Oh, {{labda}, you
know. Okay, say {labda}[repeat], {labda}[repeat]; {labda} means, say something
already, okay. You ask him a question, you say, {yinpay chir}. And he sits there
and goes, you know. You say, {labda, labda}, okay, {labda, labda}. By the way,
you can start a {whoa} whether you’re right or not. It’s a good way to buy time.
And, fifty percent of the people who join you haven’t even been listening.
[laughter] And they don’t know if he said something stupid or not. And,
oftentimes, some guy’ll give a great answer but the opponent, to get out of it,
will start a {whoa}, you know. [laughter] And then it looks like he’s wrong and
he’s not wrong, okay. But this is the way it goes.
Oh, there, there’s one more. Okay. Do you agree that sound is a made thing?
[student: yes] And do you agree that if something is made it must be changing?
[student] So now I ask you, is sound a changing thing, and don’t forget you’re a
non-Buddhist who thinks that OM is an unchanging thing. [laughter] No, no,
don’t forget, you’re the, you’re, by the way, you, you take a, take wrong
positions all the time, okay. It makes it more fun. Okay. Don’t get into
American competitive, pride, bullshit, you know. Take a position which you
know is wrong and let the other guy prove you wrong and it’ll help everybody,
you know. Don’t try to be right all the time. It’s the best way to be a lousy
debater. Take an interesting wrong position and let’s see where we can go with
it, you know. You, my friend, are a non-Buddhist who believes that sound is
unchanging. I’m playing the Buddhist who’s trying to convince you that sound
is a changing thing, even the sacred syllable OM, okay, is a changing thing. So I
say, so don’t forget where we’re coming from. You’re a {..yangdak} means a
proper opponent for my debate. And you can say that, you know. In the
monastery you can say, okay, look, I’m gonna play the Buddhist, you play the
Hindu, okay. Do you agree? So now, you gotta defend it, you know, like it’s
your own, you know. You gotta defend it with your heart. Okay, ready?
{dra chuchen mitakte chepay chir}, take sound, it’s a changing thing, because it’s
something made.
[student: agree]
No you don’t [laughter] [unclear]       {doooooo che} [laughter] Let’s try again.
You’re the non-Buddhist, okay. [laughs] [laughter] Okay, {dra chuchen mitakte
chepay chir}, take sounds, they are changing things because they’re made things.
[student: tak ma drup]
Hah. So you believe that sound is a changing thing, right? I’m sorry, you
believe that sound is something that’s made, right?
[student: yeah]
And you believe that if something’s made it must be a changing thing, right?
[student: yeah]
And you still say, sound is unchanging.
[student: yeah]
{kordhi korsum} [laughter] Okay ,okay.
Say {kordhi}[repeat], {korsum][repeat]; {kotdhi}[repeat] {korsum}[repeat].
Okay,{kordhi korsum} means, man you just, {kordhi korsum} means, you just
travelled in a big circular reasoning, you know what I mean. Meaning, you
know, you, now you just crazy, you know. You accept one thing, you accept the
other thing and you do not accept the necessary consequence of accepting those
two things. And we call, in Scripture, in logic it’s called {korsum}. Say {korsum}
[repeat], {korsum}[repeat]. Which means, three circles, okay, {korsum}. In logic
you’ll see it in logic texts, {korsum}. At this point you’ll see {korsum}. In the
monastery you can either say {korsum}, but you gotta do a, a {kor}, okay. Or
you can say {kordhi korsum}, okay. You go {kordhi}, try {kordhi korsum},
okay. Like, man you just went in three big circles. First you say sound is a made
thing. Then you say if something’s a made thing it must be a changing thing.
And then you say that sound is not a changing thing, {kordhi korsum}. Say
{kordhi}[repeat] {korsum}[repeat], okay.       And the {dhi} is, again, I asked
Rinpoche. Nobody knows what’s the {kordhi korsum}, you know. He says, I
guess, it’s Manjushri’s seed syllable, okay, again. It could be {korte korsum}
which would mean that you’ve done three circles, something like that. So, those
are all the, those are all the wild expressions you do to try to shake his
concentration, okay. And then, so you gotta try to debate, I’ll give you one
debate for, to do between yourselves. And, you gotta find a partner, okay. I
debated with myself for about five years in the, in the lobby of the temple ‘cos I
couldn’t find anybody who wanted to do it. And then Benjamin Altman agreed
to do it on the phone and we did it on the phone for, like, a year, okay. And so,
you know, if you can’t find somebody to do it with, then do it, you can do it with
yourself but it’s like playing checkers with yourself or something. It’s not too
much fun, okay. And I’ll give you, there are no, there are no divisions to a, to
contradiction, okay. Start out, one guy starts out like that. The attacker starts
out with something crazy, okay. There are no different types of contradictions.
Okay. Okay, there are no different types of contradiction. And then, he says,
{tak ma drup}, okay. He says, are you telling me there are different types of
contradiction? And he says, {du}. By the way, you can do it in Tibetan, or it
doesn’t matter, okay. {gelwa la yepa yinpay chir}, there’s no divisions of
contradictions. And then, he says, not correct. And I say, then, there are
divisions? And he says, right, {du}. And I say, {shok}. And then, he says,
{pentsun pang-gel}, say {pentsun}[repeat] {pang-gel}[repeat], that mutually
exclusive thing; {dang}[repeat], and, {hlenchik}[repeat], sorry, {mine gel}[repeat],
{hlenchik}[repeat] {mine gel}[repeat], okay. And, if you do that for, like, ten
minutes, your, your homework is like that. It’s not a question. Okay. {yerte /
shok}, show me the two, {shok}. In Tibetan. [student] {pentsun pang-gel}
[student] {dang}, okay, second one, [student] {hlenchik mine gel}, pre-nasal
there, {hlenchik mine gel} [student] {yinpa teln}. You telling me those are the
two divisions? Okay. {hlenchik mine gel / shok}, give me an example of
diametric opposites, okay. Give me an example, any example, {shok, shok}.
[student] What? {nyenpo dang}, {pangja .. }
So he said, spiritual antidote and some kind of bad quality that you have, okay,
{nyenpo dang pangja nyi}, okay. {.. chuchen}, yeah, {hlenchik …}. I’m sorry.
Ah, ah. Oh, let’s say, {…}so I guess there’s no one thing that can be both?
[students] {whoa tsar}, okay. I said, there’s no one thing that can be both and he
said, well that doesn’t prove that they’re not, that they’re not contradictory,
okay. But that’s the definition of contradiction, you see. There cannot be one
thing, which can be both. Now, he’s probably gonna say, no, that’s the
definition of {pentsun pang-gel} but don’t forget that the, what, Roy, what was
that line? What was that line in the text? {pentsun pang-gel dang gelwa dun-
chik}. He came up to ask me, what does that mean, okay. He’s got that little text
there, right. Don’t forget, this is the only real contradiction. The first one is the
only real kind, okay, if there’s mutually exclusive kind. Now he gave me
{nyenpo} and {pangja}; {…}, one thing can be both. What do you say? {yinpay
chir}, can be. You got three choices. Give me one of them: {yu}, there is such a
thing which can be both; {tak ma drup}, I don’t agree there’s such a thing which
can be both; {kyappa ma jung}, yeah, there is such a thing that can be both but
that doesn’t prove what you’re trying to prove. {shok}, {tak ma drup}, he said,
there is no one thing which can be a {nyenpo} and a {pangja}. {..}, you telling me
there’s not? [student: du] {… chuchen}, take your body, your precious human
rebirth, {…} so, I guess it’s not an antidote to your spiritual problems and also
something to be given up eventually. [laughter] [laughs] [student]
  Yeah, { …}, by the way, you have to say {…}, which means, the, the dirty,
impure physical body that you have taken on in this life. {…}, I guess it’s not
both because there’s nothing that’s both. [laughter] {labda} [student] {mayinpa
teln}, it’s not both? Precious human rebirth, {mayinpa teln}, so I guess it’s not a
precious human rebirth? {student: kyappa ma jung} Ah {tsa}. [laughter] [laughs]
So, it is a precious human rebirth? [laughter] Yeah. And you do have to give it
up when you reach your Buddha paradise, the dirty body that you took on this
life. [student: du] oh, and you can’t use it to overcome your mental afflictions
for example and reach Buddha-hood with it? This precious human rebirth.
[laughter] Yeah, {kordhi korsum}, alright. You just made a big circle, okay.
Now, if he’s really good, he’ll say, well, come on you don’t use your physical
body. You use your mind, you know, or something like that. And then we’ll get
into well why do they talk about, you know, is it useless? Can I just get rid of
my body and use the mind? Something like that, okay. Alright. Thankyou.
[laughs] Alright, we’ll do prayers, alright. Try to practice a little bit, alright
[unclear] and then, next time, we’ll do a little more with, next time we’ll actually
get into groups, okay, and I’ll go around and help each group a little bit.
[student] Yeah.
[prayer: short mandala]
[prayer: dedication]
The Asian Classics Institute

Geshe Michael Roach
Course XIII: The Art of Reasoning