ACI 13 «Искусство аргументации», занятие 9

Class Nine: The Concept of Elimination in Perception

        th
March 24 , 1998



Transcribed by Angie Overy




Tonight we’re gonna do a subject called {shen-sel}. Say {shen sel}[repeat], {shen
sel}[repeat]; {shen-sel} is not studied in the monastery until you’ve gone to the
winter debates for about three years. The first class in the winter debates is
about fifty guys. After the, by the time you get to the second year it’s about
twenty guys. By the time you get to the third year it’s about five guys. And
there were only two of us who went to the fourth year. So you’re up around
{shen-sel} and it looks like that, okay. So, you’re getting there, okay. [laughs]
The reading for {shen-sel} is very difficult. It’s very long. It’s about fifty pages
long. Don’t try to read the whole thing, okay. Go straight to the end of the fist
part, as you know, and then, read, read the, roughly, through the formal logic
section, and then I, I think it would be nice if you read the last part very carefully.
The last part is a, is a essay about all the different debating classes that go on at
Sera Me Monastery. And, fourteen different classes, like Junior, Sophomore,
Freshman, that, that, it goes for twenty-two years. In twenty-two years you
have to finish fourteen classes. And, the structure has never been written down
before, so Rinpoche and I worked on it. And I like it. It’s nice. And these, these
courses are based on that, you know. That’s the whole structure of the five or
seven year course, whatever it was, okay. And, the whole structure comes from
that. So I thought you might be interested to see how it comes from that. So
that’s the twenty-two year course in the monastery and it goes through six
subjects. And that’s what the whole structure of what you’re doing is based on.
So, I thought it might be fun if you saw all the, all the rationale behind it and all
the things that they study and what they do in each year of the twenty-two
years. So, that might be fun for you to read, okay. Don’t try to read the whole
first part, okay. You can do that during the long break that we have which is, I
think, a month or something.
Say {shen-sel}[repeat], {shen-sel}[repeat]. This is another idea of the Buddhist
logic schools. And, many of the details here are not accepted by the higher
schools. So, the question is, did the Buddha teach them or not? [student: yes]
{sangye .. yinpa tel}, are you telling me it’s taught by the Buddha? [student: yes]
Oh, yeah. [laughs] I didn’t teach you ‘oh, yeah’, yet. [laughter] [laughs] oh,
yeah, means, you’re in trouble now. [laughs] {Sangye .. yinpa tel}, it’s taught by
the Buddha? [student: yes]
Okay. {Sangye chuchen},which means what? Consider the Buddha. {tsema
kyebu mayinpa tel}, so He’s not a person of pramana, he’s not a person of
{tsema}? [student] You just say, yes or no, okay. [laughter] [laughs] {..mayinpa
tel}, so He’s not a, He’s not a infallible person? He’s not a person that can’t lie,
right? All you say is {du} or {chi chir}, please. If you disagree, say, {chi chir}. If
you agree, say, {du}. No, that’s the {tak ma drup} and that’s the {chir}, right.
You can only say {du} which means, right, I agree or {chi chir} which means, who
said that? I didn’t say that. Okay. {Tseme kyebu mayinpa tel}, so I guess He’s
not a person who can’t lie. [student: chi chir] {chi chir}. Oh, {tseme kyebu yinpa
tel},so He is a, is a person who can’t lie? [student: du] So, whatever He says is
true? [student: du] Oh, yah, {… shen sel chuchen}, so let’s take {shen-sel}. I
guess He never taught it? {Sangye .. mayinpa tel}. I guess He never taught it?
[students] This is where you get to use what? {kordhi korsum}. [laughter]
Okay, you’ve gone around in a circle, right. The Buddha did teach it. Okay.
Why? You’ll see from the description of it that it’s very important for the study
of emptiness. And, incidentally, you’ll see as we go through the kinds of {shen-
sel}, how it addresses three common misperceptions about emptiness. So, it’s
important to go through {shen-sel]. Okay. That’s why it’s important to study
{shen-sel};. It’s not that {shen-sel} is, necessarily, accepted by the higher schools,
all the details of it, but it’s important for understanding the fine mistakes that
you might make about emptiness which were made by Tibetan schools all
through the history of Tibetan Buddhism. I mean, there were schools of
traditions in Tibet who thought that {shen-sel} was emptiness, okay. And it’s
wrong. And we have to see why, you know. We have to see why, okay. It’s
close and no cigar, okay.
What happened to the pen?           The first kind is called [student], oh, I’m sorry.
{Shen} means, ‘something else’, {shen} means, something else, other. And,{sel}
means, ‘to eliminate it’. I translate this word as, ‘exclusion’. You have the whole
thing as exclusion. Literally, what it means is, the exclusion of what is other.
Okay. And we talked about the concept already, {dra mayinpay le lokpa} means
the, all which is not, all which is not, sound. I’ll say it again. All, which is not all,
which is not, sound. Which is another way of saying, sound, it’s another way of
getting at sound but through a different process. And in fact, according to this
school, that’s how you perceive a thing. That’s how you perceive an object. It,
it’s, like, some kind of Picasso thing where you’re eliminating, or Rorschach, you
know. You’re eliminating what it’s not in order to get at what it is. And that’s,
according to them, how you actually conceptualise things, okay. So {dun rang
shen, shen-sel} [cut] means, different versions of that concept. The first one is
called, {dun rang sen}; {dun} here I’m translating, it’s, it’s a big word and you
don’t have to worry much about it, ‘objectification’. It, I don’t like to use words
like that but it, it fits in this case, okay. Normally, {dun} means, object, normally,
{dun} means, the meaning or the actual object, okay.                     Here, I mean
‘objectification’ in the sense of you’re creating an object by, in a sense by,
rejecting all that it’s not, you see what I mean. So, I’m calling that process,
‘objectifying’, creating an object by eliminating, mentally, everything that it’s not
and, thereby, establishing what it is. And, that’s not the same as being what it is,
okay. A, a pen looked at from the point of view of all that it is not and a pen
looked at from the point of view of being a pen, are two separate ways of
looking at the pen. Okay. [cut] And, they’re important for the study of
emptiness. That’s all. Because, some schools have claimed, falsely, that the
emptiness of the pen is the fact that it is void of all that it is not. And, if that’s
what it was to see emptiness directly, you and me would be outta here a long
time ago, okay, ‘cos that’s no big shakes. Okay. It doesn’t get you liberated to
see that. It doesn’t stop you mental afflictions from rising to see that, okay.
That’s very simple. Okay. So, and then {rang sen} means a specific instance of
something. So, in a way, it’s getting at, by the way, specific instances as opposed
to {chik sen}. {chik sen} means, the concept of a thing. The concept of ‘pen’. The
general concept of pen. And then, {rang sen} is a specific example, a specific
instance of the pen. And here, [unclear] that specific instance from the point of
view of being everything which is not what it’s not. Okay. That’s all. And it’s
two different ways of looking at the pen. It’s two different ways of looking at
the pen. This one is negative, right? It’s the opposite of the opposite. It’s the
opposite, it’s the reverse of all that it is not. So, it’s a way of looking at it, at a pen
which requires you to make some kind of negations, double negation, in fact.
It’s two ways of looking at the pen. So, in a way, you can say, either the pen is
an object, or the pen is an objectification. As an object it’s a? Positive or
negative? Positive. As an objectification it’s a negative and that’s the point,
okay. You’re cancelling out everything that it’s not and arriving at the pen. And
that’s why I added ‘cation’ there, to make it into a process, okay. And that’s
what the concept here is. How many {dun rangsens} are there? According to
this school, only functioning objects, only working things, can have {dun
rangsens}. Okay. Space, for example, could never have {dun rangsen}. So, the
implication is, a working objectification of something. Okay. An objectification
of something, that does something. Now, why get into so complicated, you
know, what’s the point? What’s the point of doing that? As you’ll see when you
get to the higher schools, the lower part of the Madhyamika school, people, the
lower half of the Madhyamika school, called the Svatantrika, the {rang gyurpa},
they have a problem with functioning things, you know. They, and everyone
below them, all those schools have a problem that they can’t understand how a
functioning thing could be empty, you know. I understand that, you know, a
concept might be empty, a theory might be empty, an idea might be empty, a
fantasy or a memory might be empty, but a pen or a car that, you know, gets
me from here to there. It does something. That must be inherent in the object.
And, since you and I have that same problem, that we are much more likely to
think, to think that something that does something is self-existent, the Buddha
decided, I better teach {shen sel}. You know, people have a problem here. You
know, people think that, okay, I can understand how a general idea is empty of
self-existence but a pen? That does exist from its own side. You know, the fact
that the pen is either writing or not writing,is not something that I’m making up
with my mind, it, it has that. The classic example, when you get to {rang
gyurpa}, that big thing that you see every morning, what? The rising of the sun
itself. Okay. Like, I can understand how a pen might be, you know, some kind
of projection of my mind, but the sun? I mean, there’s three billion people
seeing that thing, you know what I mean. I mean, that function is not like some
projection from my mind, you know. If, if, if what you say is true, then three
billion people must be having a collective projection of this function of this orb
going through the space. And that’s exactly what Madhyamika Prasangika says.
Okay. Three billion people have collectively collected the karma to see this thing
do the same thing. And, when that karma runs out, what? You’re called blind,
you’re called put in prison for the day, you’re called put in my office for the day
with no windows, you know what I mean. I mean, the karma wears out, or
dead, okay. It is a karma and it wears off. And there’s lots of people in the
world who can’t see the sun. Okay. And, and it has the karma, when we have
the karma for it to shift every twelve hours or so, you know what I mean, that
it’s gone. And, that’s not an accident. And it’s not an independent external
event. It’s, it’s, it’s a projection. And, but it feels so real, you know. I mean, I
could see how a pen, you know, whether or not the pen writes today, is up to
my past karma. I understand that. I can accept that. You know, I’ll stop stealing
people’s pens at work, and, and then the pen in the class will work and I’ll be
able to read the overhead, which, if you laugh, you have wrong view. Okay. If
you laugh you don’t understand worldview, okay. That’s, exactly, the only
reason why the pen would ever work in this class for each individual person,
you see what I mean. If you laugh, you don’t get it. You see what I mean? The
pen only works in so far and so long as the karma that you collected for it to
appear to work is still working. And it wears out and there’ll be the last day you
see the pen write in the Quaker House. And you may not want it to stop but it
will stop, you see what I mean, ‘cos it’s a projection. It’s not working from its
own side. It’s very hard to accept with the sun, so in order to address that fact,
the Buddha taught{dun rangyi shen sel}, okay. You can add {shen sel} to the end
of all these, okay, {dun rangyi shen sel}. So, each functioning object, each
working object in the world has its own nature of being the opposite of all that it
is not, okay. We call it, if somebody asked you for an example of it on your
homework or something like that, you better get used to {mayinpa le lokpa},
okay. If you’re gonna study Sautrantika, second school, Buddhist logic and
perceptual theory, you better get used to {mayinpa le lokpa}. It should be like a
mantra. Okay, say {mayinpa le}[repeat] {lokpa}[repeat], {mayinpa le}[repeat]
{lokpa}[repeat]; {lokpa} always think of pancake, okay. {lokpa} means, ‘to flop
over’. {lokta}, means ‘wrong view’, it usually means ‘arse - backwards’, okay.
And {mayinpa le lokpa} means, ‘the opposite of all that it’s not’; {mayinpa}
means, ‘what it is not’ and then, {le} means, ‘than’, t-h-a-n; {lokpa} means, ‘the
reverse’. Okay, the reverse of all that it is not, okay. And it’s like a mantra.
When you debate this, every winter for twenty-three years, or if you make it
that far, {mayinpa le lokpa, mayinpa le lokpa, mayinpa le lokpa}, okay. In this
school, that’s how you perceive something, okay. In English you say ‘of’ in
Tibetan you have to say ‘than’. The opposite, ‘the reverse than’. But in English
you say, ‘the reverse of’. Second kind of {shen sel}is called a {loy shen sel}. By
the way, we won’t go through deep today and we’ll do debating [unclear] your
pen ran out of ink, see [laughs]. I’m sorry, your karma ran out of ink. [laughs]
Say {loy}[repeat] {shen sel} [repeat], {loy}[repeat] {shen sel}[repeat]; {lo} means,
‘mind’, okay, general mind. {loy shen sel} means, I call it a ‘mental exclusion’, a
mental type of exclusion. And this is just this fact that, in this school, when you
conceptualise something you mentally make an image of the opposite of all that
it is not, okay. So remember, this is the opposite of all that the pen is not and it’s,
and it’s an object. And, in this school, the, the pen is ultimate reality because it
does something. Okay. That’s what makes something real in this school, okay.
It’s funny because, in the higher school, the fact that it doesn’t do anything in the
normal sense, is it’s ultimate reality, [laughs] okay. But in this school, if it’s
working, if it’s driving, if it’s writing, if it’s burping, it’s real. Okay, that’s what
makes it real. With {loy shen sel}, it’s just can you imagine it in your mind, you
see, {loy shen sel} means, ‘making an image, it’s the imaging of an object. It’s the
mental opposite of all that it is not, okay. It’s the appearance to your mind of an
image of the opposite of all that the thing is not. And, you’re getting very close
to {dun chi}, okay. You’re getting very close to what is really at the root of
dependent origination, okay. Because, in the highest school, you are mistaking a
mental image for the actual object, okay, in the higher schools. So, here, you’re
very, very close to it. And I imagine that Lord Buddha was thinking, well, I’ll
teach them {loy shen sel}; when they get grown up enough we’ll go to {dun chi},
you know what I mean. So, it’s like, an intermediate step, okay. {loy shen sel}
means the image that’s produced in your mind, the image that’s, it’s defined as,
‘the image which appears to conceptualisation’. Which is created by, negating all
that a thing is not, okay, and that’s how you image something in your mind.
Okay. [laughs] Could say it’s the mental image of the opposite of all that the
thing is not. The mental, see here we’re emphasising mental image, which
appears to a certain state of mind known as, in this school, conceptualisation, as
opposed to, direct perception, okay. But we don’t have to get into that, okay.
So, who shall I pick on? [student] Oh, you wanted to debate, okay. [laughs]
Ah, { r… chuchen}, okay. What’s a {…}? The horns of a rabbit. The horns on a
rabbit’s head, okay.      Real horns, on a normal rabbit’s head, as we have
experienced them in our life up ‘til now. {.. chuchen}, okay, {shen sel yinpay
chir}. So, there is a {shen sel} for {..}? Okay. For a two-headed fifteen foot
purple elephant that’s stampeding through this Quaker House tonight at this
moment. There is a {shen sel} for it. Is there a {shen sel} for it or not? {yinpay
chir}. [student] {tak ma drup} [repeat] Not {tak}, {tak} [repeat] {tak ma drup}
[repeat] Oh, okay, {…}, so I guess there isn’t any {shen sel} for a two-headed
purple fifteen foot elephant that’s rampaging through this Quaker House
tonight, {yerta}. If you agree, say {du}. If you don’t agree say, {chi chir}.
[student: la] [laughs] {mayinte} [laughs] Good example of {la}, okay. What was
{la}? Ah, I didn’t quite catch that, which means, he’s buying time, okay. [laughs]
{ …}, does it or does it not, have a {shen sel}? That elephant, that’s stamping
through the Quaker House tonight? [student] Right there. [laughter] {…} does
it have a {shen sel} or not? {labda, dooooo che} [student] Say something, you
[unclear] all you can [unclear] you’re gonna get in trouble anyway. [laughter]
Say {du} or {chi chir}; {du} if you agree, {chi chir} if you don’t agree. Is there a
{shen sel} for that poor elephant? {chi chir}, why the hell do you say that?
[laughter] So, no, it means that’s what he’s saying, okay. And I say, oh, so
there’s not, doesn’t have a {shen sel}? That’s why elephant doesn’t have a {shen
sel}? The poor elephant, that’s rampaging through the Quaker House, right now
at this moment. [student] Yeah, yeah. Is there a {shen sel} or not? You’re
saying, not. I think you’re saying, not ‘cos it doesn’t even exist, right? {merta}
So, if it doesn’t exist, you can’t have a {shen sel}, right? That’s what you’re
saying, right, {yinpa tel}. So, if you agree say, {du} if you don’t say, {chi chir}
[student] So, doesn’t exist, it can’t have a {shen sel}, right? If you agree, say {du}
if you don’t, say {chi chir}. [student: du] okay.         So, you can’t imagine that
elephant, right? [student: du] [laughter] So, you {lo merta}, so you don’t have a
mind? [laughter] {Sem chen mayinpa tel}, so you’re not a sentient being? You
are a sentient being? Are you a sentient being? {du, du}, so you have sense,
{du}. You have sense, right? [student: du] You have a mind, right? So, you can
have a {shen sel} about an elephant, right? You can make a mental picture of the
elephant I talked about: fourteen feet high, it’s pink, it’s rampaging through this
Quaker House tonight. [student: du] So, has a {shen sel} because it has a mental
{shen sel}. [student: du] {ngo tsa .. } [laughs] [laughter] By the way, [unclear],
classic {shen sel} is the first one. That’s a, it’s a trick question, okay. He was right
up to the last moment. So you can’t pick on him really, okay. He was right up
to the very last moment and then I pulled out a new idea. The only real {shen
sel}, in this school, is something that does something. It’s the {shen sel} for
something that does something. Those other {shen sels} are just imaginary,
okay. And, if you read the text carefully, it will say anything that’s {den me}, has
a {shen sel}, has a {loy shen sel}, okay. Anything that’s {den me} has a {loy shen
sel}. What’s {den me}? No true nature of its own. Okay. In this school they
don’t say shunyata.          They don’t use that word, okay, {den me}, selfless,
truthlessness, okay, lack of true existence. Okay. Anything which is {den me}
has a {shen sel}, okay. So now I say, ah-oh, [laughs]I don’t remember that one.
[laughs] [laughter] {… chuchen}, let’s talk about that elephant, okay, non-
existent thing; {den me yinpa tel}. So, are you saying it lacks true existence?
Huh? [student: du} {yerta}, so, it must exist, I guess. {du} or {chi chir}? Oh, so it
doesn’t exist? Does exist or not? {..} If I say, are you telling me it doesn’t exist?
Say {du} or {chi chir}. Don’t get flustered, just say something. [laughter] [laughs]
{chi chir}, oh {..}. When you say {chi chir} you’re saying, no. When you say {du}
you’re saying, yes, to a {tel}, right, to a {tel, yinpa tel}. Are you telling me that
elephant exists? {.. yinpay chir} . When she says {chi chir} I have to come back
with a {chir}. She said, why? I said, because [laughter] {..}, lack of self-existence.
It has emptiness, {shok}. [student] {chi chir} means, who said that, implying I
don’t agree, okay. So, I’ll go back to the {chi chir} okay, {yinpa tel} so I guess
you’re telling me that the elephant exists, right? [laughter] [student] {chi chir},
good. Which means, I didn’t say that. Who said that? {den me yinpay
chir},because the elephant has its own emptiness. No, no. To {chir} you have to
answer what? If you agree to the reason but it doesn’t prove what I’m trying to
prove, you say {kyappa ma jung}. If you don’t agree with the reason I gave, you
say {tak ma drup}. {den me yinpay chir}, it must exist because it, it doesn’t, ‘cos
it has it’s own emptiness, so it must exist. [laughs] [students] I love this. When
you’re having a good debate, you get two different answers.[laughs] [laughter]
{tak ma drup} or {kyappa ma jung}; {kyappa ma jung} means, I agree it has its
own emptiness but I don’t agree that proves it exists. How’s that? Or, you can
say {tak ma drup}, which means, I don’t agree that it has its own emptiness.
[student: tak ma drup]. {den me mayinpa tel}, so it doesn’t have its own
emptiness? [student: du] Oh, yeah, so {.. den me yinpa tel}so, so it, so it is self-
existent? [laughter] Huh? [laughter] So it is self-existent? { den me yinpay chir
yinpa tel}, [laughs] {den me yinpa tel}, so it has it’s own self-existence, right? {chi
chir, den me mayinpay chir}. It’s not one, I shouldn’t say ‘thing’, I can’t say
‘thing’, see. I have to say, it’s not something, which has its own emptiness. It’s
not something, which is typical of, emptiness. How’s that? By the way, just ‘cos
we have to go home tonight, {yume ..}, say {yume}[repeat] {..}[repeat]{..}[repeat]
{den me}[repeat]{..}[repeat]. Okay. {..}are you telling me it doesn’t matter
whether a thing really exists or not, it’s {den me}. It is a kind of emptiness. It has
its own emptiness, okay. Yeah, you could get into a huge debate. You could
say, oh, then it has its own quality, right? I say, yeah. Oh, then it holds its own
quality, right? Right. So it {..} its own quality, right? Right. So, it’s a dharma,
right? Right. So, it’s an existent thing, right? No. [laughs] It’s difficult. [student]
In this school, {…} doesn’t matter whether something exists or not, you see. The
quality of not being self-existent stretches farther even than the quality of
existence itself. Even fourteen foot purple elephants that were never in this
room, will never be in this room and could not be in this room, cannot be self-
existent. [student] No. It’s not a quality ‘cos there’s nothing for the quality to be
based on. But that’s another story, okay. Anyway {loy shen sel}, the first kind of
{shen sel} applied only to working things. I’m just trying to help you when you
get to the reading. When you, when you hit that thing about self, no self-
existence, remember it applies to all, to all. I can’t even say ‘things’, right, to all
whether existing or not, okay. {loy shen sel} applies similarly to, to all whether it
exists or not. Anything which lacks a self-nature is, has a {loy shen sel}. Why?
Because you can imagine it. You can picture it, the opposite of all that it is not,
okay. You can picture it, right? It can’t exist but you can picture it. And, if you
couldn’t picture it Mr [unclear], you couldn’t have said to me, there is no
elephant here. Right? You could not have said there’s no elephant here if you
hadn’t had a {loy shen sel} of an elephant because you couldn’t have denied its
existence here because you couldn’t imagine it, okay. How’s that? So, if you
deny that there’s an elephant here you must have been having a {loy shen sel}
about it, okay. Even though it didn’t exist you, in your mind, you pictured this
perfect fourteen-foot, purple elephant, two-headed elephant rampaging through
the Quaker House probably stepping on all the refreshments we’re supposed to
have later. [laughter] Yeah. [student] Ah, tricky. He ‘s trying to set me up. I
don’t bite. [laughs] Another way to get out of the debate is just not to bite in the
first place. He says, can an imaginary thing function in this school? The, the
image of a thing can function, how’s that? An imaginary thing cannot function,
how’s that? You know, [student] yeah, thinking you’re gonna get fired that day
when you’re not, can give you an ulcer. [laughter] Right? [student] No, really,
right? And, but the firing doesn’t give you an ulcer ‘cos it doesn’t exist ‘cos the
boss wasn’t intending to fire you in the first place. But, but the image of it, yeah,
the image can, can raise hell, right. Okay, last one. And by the way, it’s the
same with all self-existent things, right? Master Shantideva said, {…} you must
be able to imagine what a self-existent thing would be like or you will never
perceive emptiness directly, okay. A self-existent thing would be like the sun
rising every morning from its own side. That, that only exists, as an image in
your mind. There is no thing, which corresponds to that, to that image in your
mind, okay. It doesn’t exist. The sun is rising because you personally have the
karma to enjoy its light on that morning. And that will wear, that is wearing out
every time you perceive it and you will die some day and not be able to see the
sun anymore. [student] Yeah. [student] I wouldn’t say any [unclear], that’s
another debate, okay.
Say {megak}[repeat] {megak gyi shen sel}[repeat], {megak}[repeat] {megak gyi}
[repeat] {shen sel}[repeat]. In this school the same thing. You’ve studied
{megak} already. And in fact, when they get to the definition of {shen sel, shen
sel} they say, I’ll tell you what, I’ll take a break today. I don’t have to write a
definition for {shen sel} because I already wrote the definition of {gakpa} and
they’re the same thing. Okay. Okay. It’s a negation. It’s an exclusion. Whether
you call it exclusion or whether you call negation it’s the same thing. Okay,
{megak} is that negative in the sense of being an absence of something as
opposed to negative in the sense of being not something. The first kind of {shen
sel}, if you think about it, was a negative of the first kind, right, in the sense of
not being something. Okay. It is not the opposite of all, it is not all that it is not.
Okay. It is the opposite of all that it is not. So, when I say, {bumpa mayinpay le
lokpa}, the reverse of everything which is not the vase, you go through two
negations there. That’s a {mayingak}. That’s a negation in the sense of not being
something, okay. But, when I say {megak}, what’s a classic {megak}? There’s
two. One is ultimate reality. One is plain old reality. Huh? Emptiness itself is a
{megak}, okay. It is the simple absence, in this room, of something which never
could have been here anyway, which is, for example, a pen that was functioning
from its own side and not because your karma’s forcing you to see it function.
The pen which could function from its own side; the person in this room that
could piss you off, existing from their own side, doesn’t exist. That’s a, and the
fact that that doesn’t exist is emptiness and that’s a {megak}. It’s a simple
absence of something. Any negative event which ever happens to you, whether
it’s a person or a traffic jam, and that was what master Shantideva chose to take
off from in his chapter on Patience, if it existed from its own side, if it were not
your fault, it would be a self-existent thing. And the absence of that is what we
call emptiness. Okay. Which implies you have to take responsibility for your
own world. And you have to keep your book and get enlightened, okay. Okay,
{megak}.
That’s about all on {shen sel}, okay. In, in the monastery in the winter debates
it’s about a one month thing. You debate it for about, I don’t know, two or three
hundred hours, you know. It’s a rich subject. It’s the whole end of the first
chapter of the Pramanavartikka. If you think the {Dura} is hard, the {Dura} is an
oversimplification of the Pramanavartikka. Everything in your reading is an
extreme simplification of the Pramanavartikka, you know. So, someday, we
have to go do that. Yeah. [student] I didn’t say that. He said, I don’t see why
an imaginary thing doesn’t have a quality. The, the thing that the, the image
refers to doesn’t have a quality, yeah. A, a two-headed purple elephant that
could be rampaging through this room doesn’t have a quality because there’s no
basis to support the quality. Like, I have an arm, because I have a torso to
support it. I have Michael Roach’s color because there’s a Michael Roach to
support it. But, but there’s nothing to support it so there’s no qualities that it has
otherwise it would be a thing that possessed its own qualities which is pretty
much the definition of a dharma, of an existing thing. Okay. Okay, at this point
in the, we’re on to formal logic, okay. You’ve become masters of {shen sel}.
[laughter]
Oh, I have to go back to {shen sel} for one thing. On your homework I asked
you for examples of each one. For number two, which was what? The mental,
the mental exclusion, okay. You can say, I have to add a [unclear] here, okay.
Say {tokpay}[repeat] {nang yul}[repeat], {tokpay}[repeat] {nang yul}[repeat];
{tokpa} in this school means, the process of conceptualisation, working to
perceive a thing through some kind of mental picture as opposed to seeing it
directly. When you see blue you’re not, you’re not having {tokpa}, you know.
When you imagine how much you dislike your boss, {tokpa’s} almost like a
sentence in a sense. Or you’re using some kind of, you’re working through a
mental image, in this school, okay. And that would be {tokpa},okay. Like, they
say, when you perceive blue you just perceive blue. But, when you’re thinking
about the blue now, you’re using a {tokpa}, which is a {jepak tsema} a {rang,
rang tokgi, tok} what is that, {ngutok}. Anyway, so we’re back to this, {tokpa}
means some kind of conceptualisation; {nang yul} means, the image that you
think you see, okay. {nang yul} means, the object that seems to be, that seems to
be appearing in your mind; the image of the object, {nang yul}, okay. And, as
we said, the {nang yul} for rabbit’s horns or for a two-headed fifteen-foot purple
elephant, does the {nang yul} exist or not? Yes. Does the thing exist or not? No.
Okay. Great. {nang yul}. Yeah. [student] Ah, that’s not the point. The point, in
this school, is if you have anything else than a direct perception, you’re using a
{nang yul}. You’re working with a mental image. But, when you look at blue
directly you’re not using a mental image. You’re not doing it by means of a
mental image. But, when I go like this and I say, in you know, is there a blue pen
behind my back, then you use logic, {jepak tsema}, indirect valid perception.
And you are seeing blue in your mind and you’re using a mental image. In this
school that’s {tokpa}. [student] Not at all. She said, if you don’t see something
directly does that exclude it having a {tsema} towards it? No, we went through
that. There’s all those {jepaks}. There’s conventional perception, indirect
perception based on convention. Did you, did you run into Uncle Sam today?
Will you be ready for Uncle Sam by April fifteenth? [laughter] You know, and,
and by convention you have a perception of this federal bureaucracy eating up
your taxes, okay. That’s an indirect perception by convention. Is there a blue
pen behind my back? If you say yes you’re having a, then what we call a logical
perception of a pen behind my back, okay. And the Buddha says, that if you
commit sexual misconduct the city you live in will have bad pollution. Do you
believe it? Seriously. Okay. Yeah. I do. I have a kind of indirect perception of
that fact because of Scriptural authority, because I trust the source. Okay. That’s
all. Those are three kinds of indirect perception all involving a {nang yul}, okay.
[student] Ah, they, they work through an image. They perceive their object
through use of images as opposed to, in this school, you know, direct perception,
okay. Anyway, {tokpay nang yul}. An example of the third one: say {bumpa}
[repeat] {mayinpay}[repeat] {tongwa}[repeat], {bumpa}[repeat] {mayinpay}
[repeat]{tongwa}[repeat]. This is the {shen sel} of an object which is the simple
absence of something, right. It’s the {megak} one, the simple absence of
something. And that’s the general fact that no object, I’m sorry. Every object is
devoid, and that’s the real meaning of emptiness, right? Every object, is devoid
of anything from that group of things, which it is not. It is devoid of anything
that belongs to what it is not, okay. That’s different from saying the opposite of
everything that’s not the pen. The opposite of everything that is not the pen is
the pen. But here, and that’s a {mayingak}, which is another reason why it’s not
emptiness. Okay. But that’s another thing. But {megak} is the fact that this pen
is simply, doesn’t have anything which has to do with all that it is not. That’s all.
It, it is simply devoid of that. We’re not saying anything about the pen or
anything like that. We’re not saying anything about its pen-ness. We’re just
saying, this pen lacks anything that doesn’t belong to it. Okay. That’s all. And in
your mind it should just kind of draw a blank, you know, just draw a blank. By
the way, that’s emptiness too. And that’s why the Buddha taught this one. He
said, look what’s real emptiness? Draw a blank, okay. Look around this room.
Try to find a self-existent object. And, when you come up with a blank, you just
perceived emptiness. Okay. It’s not the opposite of the opposite and it’s not the
positive thing. It’s the fact that something’s absent in this room. What? Two-
headed purple elephants and self-existent things that never could be, never will
be and aren’t now, okay. But what are they like? I don’t know. You figure it.
Twelve inch rabbit’s horns. A sun that comes up every day because it wants to
come up and not because your karma’s forcing you, or because some big dude
in the sky has made his sun to come up. Okay. If you want a non-existent sun
those would be a couple, okay. Alright. [cut] - they call me and say, you asked
for examples on the homework and you didn’t give any. That’s why I put a
message machine on now. It’s a message - destroying machine. Okay. We did
that.
Oh, we better add one more part, {perna}. [student] Of number one? It would
be a working thing looked at from the point of view of its being the opposite of
all that it is not, you see what I mean? A working thing, looked at from the point
of view, of being the opposite of all which it is not. And, in that sense, it’s a
negative and a working thing at the same time. Okay. Which is a little tricky.
Sometimes it’s defined that way. Something which is a negative and a working
thing at the same time.
Say {perna}[repeat] {dra chuchen}[laughs]; {dra chuchen}[repeat] {mitakte}
[repeat] {jepay chir}[repeat] {perna}[repeat] {bumpa shin}[repeat]; {dra chuchen}
[repeat] {mitakte}[repeat] {jepay chir}[repeat]{perna}[repeat]{bumpa shin}
[repeat]. Okay, that’s a classic {jorwa}. That’s a classic logical statement. That is
the classic logical statement. It’s also a logic mantra for every twelve year old in
the monastery, okay. {jorwa},it’s a {jorwa}; {jorwa} means, ‘put together’, okay.
It has million different meanings: yoga, ‘yog’, okay. {nyeljor} comes from that,
yoga, yogi, yoke in English, comes from that, okay. And it means all these
logical elements put together. You have reached a point, you are well, well
through {Dura} now. You’re about three quarters of the way through. You’ve
gone through it like a rocket ship, okay. [laughs]
Someday you’ll actually learn the whole thing. And, no, actually you’re getting
the main points but you have to go back and chew on those readings for years
and debate them with your friends in Union Park between courses, okay. We’ve
reached a point in the text where they say, okay, okay, okay, let’s slow down a
bit. Let’s make sure everybody in this room understands all the elements in this
logical statement. Okay. What’s the subject? What’s the reason? What’s the
thing we’re trying to prove? Stuff like that. So we’re gonna take the same thing.
Your homework, it gives you fourteen different parts here that you have to
identify. Okay. It asks you to identify fourteen different parts; fourteen
different parts in this logical statement already. By the way, in English all you
got so far is: take sound, it’s a changing thing, because it’s a thing which is made.
It is, for example, this is the {perna} part, okay, it is for example, like a water
pitcher. Why do you say, ‘for example like a water pitcher?’ Why do you give
an example? It’s to put you on common ground with your opponent, right, the
idea of common ground. You must have common ground, okay. He already
accepts that a water pitcher is a made thing. He already accepts that if a water
pitcher is a made thing it must be a changing thing. He already accepts, in fact,
that a water pitcher is a changing thing. He accepts all that. He just didn’t put it
together for sound yet, okay. That’s what makes it a good logical statement.
You have total common ground with this guy. He accepts everything you
accept. He just hasn’t tied it together yet. That’s all. And, and the example is the
case where he’s already tied it together. You say, come on, you can understand
this with a water pitcher, right? He says, yeah, I understand that. Well, sound’s
the same thing. Okay. That’s all. Because we were fighting people who said that
sounds aren’t like water pitchers. OM is unchanging. OM is eternal. OM never
changes. Okay. Right? This is, the source of this statement came from ancient,
ancient debates between Buddhists and non-Buddhists, okay. That’s why this is a
classic example. Okay, here we start on the fourteen elements. You know these,
you know formal logic, and then we can go further, okay. What’s the, what’s
the subject that we’re debating about in, in this one? That, in English, {…}.
What’s the subject? What are we debating about? What’s the thing we’re
debating about? Sound. That’s all. Sound {yinpa tel}, are you telling me sound is
the subject here? {du, du}, say {du}[repeat]. That’s what I said. Are you hard of
hearing or what? [laughs} {Du}, okay. {Dra chuchen yinpa tel}. Let’s pick on
somebody else. Marty, {dra chuchen yinpa tel}, you telling me sound is the
subject in this case? [student: du], {du} say, {du}[repeat]. Okay, got me, right.
Finished. The subject is sound. And in Tibetan, {chuchen}, okay, {…}, okay, but
this is the short name. Okay. Second {shendun chuchen gyume} I’m [unclear]
Oh, [laughs] [laughter] {drupja ..}, what are we trying to prove? What’s the
assertion, {drupja ..}? That sound is a changing thing. That’s all. In Tibetan,
{shok, shok} [unclear]. In Tibetan {shok}, sound is {dra mitakpa yinpa tel}
[student: du]. {du, du}, that’s what I said. Prove me wrong if you’re so smart.
Okay. I mean, that’s how you have to be in the debate ground. Take a stand
and stick with it. Let him prove you wrong. Half the time they can’t even when
you are, okay. {laughs] [laughter]. Okay. Okay, {dra, dra mitakpa} is the
{drupjay chu}, I’m sorry, {drupja,drupja}, the thing to be proven. The assertion,
the thing you’re trying to prove. The idea or the concept you’re trying to prove,
that sound is a changing thing. A lot of debating is hutspa, right. You, you
pretend, you play polka, right? You say, yeah, I’m right, okay. And you just
pray, you know. By the way, in the text they do cover these elements but not all
of them, so it probably is wise to write it down. I mean, I wish they had just said,
okay, here’s fifteen or twenty elements and here’s what they are. But they don’t.
They give you, they, they, they, what do you [unclear] they tempt you. They
give you, like, ten or something. They don’t give you all of them. Okay. Let me
see what’s the next one. Okay. [laughter] [laughs] Laura Seagal, quality to be
proven {..}. What’s the quality to be proven here? What’s the quality we’re
trying to prove here? [student] Say again. Being a changing thing. See what I
mean? We’ll try to prove that that quality applies to sound. So, ‘being a
changing thing’ is the quality we’re trying to prove. It’s part of the {drupja}. If
you, if you divide the logical statement into four parts now, right: subject, quality
you’re trying to prove, reason and good example that your opponent already
accepts, okay. It’s number two, it’s element number two here. It’s the thing
you’re trying to prove about sounds: being something changing, being a
changing thing. In Tibetan {mitakpa}is the {drupjay chu}. Being {mitakpa} here
is just {mitakpa}, okay. They just say {mitakpa}. They don’t say be, {mitakpa
yinpa} or something like that, okay. It’s understood in Tibetan. That’s the
quality you’re trying to prove about the subject, sounds. Okay. You’re a lousy
boss because you pressure me too hard and you keep changing my priorities.
Okay. You {chuchen}, lousy boss {yinte}, ‘cos you keep changing my priorities,
okay. That’s all. {drupjay chu}? Being a lousy boss. Okay. Assertion,{drupja}?
You is a lousy boss. Reason? You keep changing my priorities.
The quality to be proven in its explicit form, I don’t think we talked too much
about that, okay. What is the quality to be proven? Being impermanent, being a
changing thing, okay. Being a changing thing is the quality to be proven. Don’t
forget, they can be an explicit form of that which is the one you actually say.
And then, there could be the implicit form of that which is, maybe, its definition,
or something similar or something like that. We distinguish between the explicit
form of the quality to be proven and the implicit form of the quality to be
proven. What would be the explicit form? What would be the obvious stated
form of the quality to be proven in this case? Being a changing thing, okay. It’s
normally the same thing, okay. {..} {mitakpa} is {ngu} means, in this case, direct
or explicit. Explicit. Yeah. Directly stated. How’s that? {ngu jyi drupjay chu}.
The, the quality to be proven as it is directly stated, how’s that? I call it explicit.
This is important for a lot of other proofs okay. We’ll get into it later. What do
you think is going to be the next element? This is the explicit one {mayingak,
mayingak}. [laughs] Yeah, yeah, it’s gonna be the implicit one. What would it
be for {mitakpa}? What would it be for a changing thing? Huh? [students] No,
no. If I say, what’s an, what’s an, what’s an indirect way to say ‘changing thing’?
You could say ‘working thing’ or you could say ‘something that only lasts a
moment’, which happens to be the definition of a changing thing. Okay. Why
don’t we say that, {kechikma}. {Kechikma} means, something that only lasts a
moment. You want the one above it? [student] Yeah, yeah you just, if you’re
lazy, just change the first word here. If you prove for somebody that something
is changing do you prove for them that it’s something that only lasts a moment?
There’s a huge debate about it. Okay. Do you have to have seen that something
is something that only lasts a moment in order to see that it’s changing? [student:
yes] In practice, yes, you have to experience the qualities of a thing before you
experience, you know, the definition has to be experienced before the thing
that’s defined is experienced, in a sense. If you don’t experience ‘hot and
burning’, we can’t say that you have experienced fire, okay. So, supposedly, if
you’ve understood something about fire, you should have understood it about
that thing which is hot and burning. But there’s a huge debate about it. Okay.
That’s another story. What is the idea that we’re denying with this logical
statement? What’s the {gakja}? By the way, here’s a usage of the word {gakja}
not meaning a self-existent thing as it means in the Madhyamika School. Here,
it’s just what is it that we are denying? What is the idea that we are denying?
[student] Wo, wo, what? [student] That what is unchanging? [student] That
sound is unchanging. That’s all. That’s the idea we’re denying. In Tibetan it
would be {dra takpa}, okay. Very simple, {dra takpa} is the {gakja}. Remember
{gakja} from the old Madhyamika days? That wasn’t so long ago. December, I
think, okay. In Madhyamika it means the object we deny, meaning a self-
existent object, normally. And here, it’s meaning, the idea we deny. In logic, it’s
the idea that we deny. It’s the opposite of the {drupja}, of the thing, of the idea
we’re trying to prove, of the assertion. How many we got now? I don’t know.
Six? Oh, man, I wanna ask you. Refreshments.
What’s the quality that we’re denying about sounds? What’s the quality that
we’re denying about sounds? What’s the quality that we’re trying to prove
about sounds? [student: being a changing thing] Being a changing thing. So,
what’s the quality that we’re denying about sounds? Being an unchanging thing.
And that’s called {gakjay chu}. In the monastery they never do it for you like
this. You have to figure it out, okay. It’s good to have it done for you once,
okay. Confirming or denying an idea, is often done by, checking all of the
similar cases. What is, what is the set of, the group of similar cases in this case?
Not made things. All, all changing things. All changing things. You’re checking
to see if, if a made thing is necessarily in that big group that we call ‘all changing
things’. And that is the critical group here. In fact, in Tibetan it’s called, the pivot.
The whole argument pivots on this. Does that thing fit in that big fat group
called ‘all changing things’? So you kinda, in a sense, have to check them. Do
you go through and check everyone? No, or you, or would have taken you
eternity to see that I have a green pen behind my back. You see what I mean?
You don’t go through but you check on a, on sort of, like, a typical basis, okay.
There’s a big debate about that. But the whole group of similar things, which is
called {tunchok}, which you have, is all the changing things in the world. So you
can say all those dharmas which are unchanging, I’m sorry, changing in the
world, which is {mitakpay chu}. {Mitakpay} means, changing; {chu} means, all
the things in the universe that are changing things, is the {tunchok}. It’s the set
or the group of similar cases. And your goal, as the opponent, is to figure out,
you know, do, does a made thing fit in that group or not? Okay. Does a made
thing fit into that group or not? Okay. We’ll do one more and then we’ll take a
break ‘cos it’s exhausting. By the way, I had somebody say, what was it? [cut]
Oh, they were just talking about how they didn’t feel very special or something
like that. I said, if you’ve survived this class so far you must be special, you
know. And then they said, no, not so special you know. I’m just a regular old
person. I said, no you’re not. I mean, in the monastery they say that if you can
make it through the first few years of this stuff, you have a good chance of
seeing emptiness directly, you see. Because, the karma to be interested in this
stuff, the karma to be interested in the idea of all that a thing is not, the karma to
be thinking about mental images and do they represent the thing itself or do
they not represent the thing itself, and am I mistaking my mental image for the
thing itself, and where does the image come from? Your past deeds. Where
does your reality come from, your perception of your reality? Your past deeds.
And, and, and, and being well acquainted with all those fine points and getting
into them and swimming in them, requires {kelwa}. Means what? Incredible
virtue. Extraordinary virtue. This subject would put ninety-nine point nine,
nine, nine, nine, nine, nine percent of all Americans to sleep within ten minutes,
okay. And, somehow, you care about it, you know. Somehow you’re attracted
to it. Very close to seeing emptiness directly. This is the key. To understand the
concept of mental images and what’s not there and what you’re doing, what the
mistake that you’re making that has thrust you into this life of suffering is, is all
there. The key is right here. So, I’d say if you’re in this room you’re special, you
know what I mean. And, and, and I believe it and so don’t go round showing
me a mopey face, okay, [laughter] you know. You can be mopey-faced at work
but if you’re here you’re special ‘cos you’re close to, you’re flirting with
emptiness. Direct flirtation with emptiness, okay. [laughter] [laughs] Alright,
last one. [laughter]
Say {mitun chik}[repeat] {mitun chok}[repeat], the field of dissimilar cases, okay.
Why is that important? Well I’ll give you an example: take sounds, they’re
changing things, oh, I love it, {dra chuchen, dra chuchen mitakte yinpay chir}.
Take sounds, they are changing things, because they exist. [student: kyappa ma
jung] [unclear] {kyappa ma jung} back there. [laughter] [laughs] No, you can
either say, {kyappa ma jung} which means, not necessarily. Just because it’s an
existing thing doesn’t mean it’s changing. Or, you can say, {tak ma drup} which
is, sound is not an existing thing. {Dra chuchen mitakte yinpay chir}, okay. Take
sound, it’s a changing thing, because it’s an existing thing. And then you should
say, [student: chi chir]. No, you can either say {tak ma drup}, which means, it’s
not an existing thing. When I say, {chir} you only have two choices: {tak ma
drup} or {kyappa ma jung}. {Kyappa ma jung} means, I agree it’s an existing
thing but that doesn’t make it a changing thing. {..}, which way are you gonna
go?     {Kyappa ma jung}. So, {.. mitakpay ..}, which means, just because
something exists doesn’t mean it’s a changing thing automatically? [student: du]
{du}, yeah [unclear] [laughs] {du} [laughter] Yeah, that’s what I said, just because
it exists doesn’t mean it’s a changing thing necessarily.. {Shok ..}, show me
something. Show me something that exists and is not a changing thing [cut]
[end side A]
[side B]
{..} Huh? [student: namka] {namka chuchen}, say {namka chuchen}[repeat],
{namka chuchen}[repeat], {yinpa tel}. He said, empty space. You say, it exists?
[student: du] {du}. And it’s not {mitakpa}? [student: du] {du}. And he beat me,
okay. [laughs] [laughter] Okay. I go back and I check. I said, all, all existing
things must be unchanging, sorry, changing. He says, not necessarily so,
{kyappa ma jung} I said, are you telling me just ‘cos something exists doesn’t
mean it has to be changing? {Du}. {…}, what are you gonna show me? {..}
means, ‘whadya’, whadya, {sha} means, show me, okay. What are you gonna
show me? He said, {namka chuchen}, take empty space. Then I go back and
confirm. Oh, {yinpa tel}, are you telling me it exists? {Du}, that’s what I said.
{Mitakpa mayinpa tel}, are you telling me it’s not a changing thing? {Du}, yeah,
that’s what I said, what are you gonna do about it. I gotta shut up. He beat me
on all points, okay. Fini. Okay. By the way, the reason ‘because it exists’ is not a
good answer, is that it fits in the {mitun chok} also. Get it? It also fits those
things which are not changing so that’s why the idea of the group of similar
cases and the group of dissimilar cases is important because {yerpa} leaks into
the dissimilar case group. {Yerpa} also applies to unchanging things. So it’s a
lousy answer, okay. That’s why you have to understand {tunchok} and {mitun
chok}. If it leaks over that border, between similar cases and dissimilar cases,
and in this case, ‘because it exists’, leaks over the border into unchanging things;
lousy reason. There’s no {je-kyab}. What’s {je-kyab}? We’re gonna meet him
after the break. Okay. So, you have a few more to go. And then we’ll do a little
bit of debating tonight. We’re gonna debate that same debate. So, I’ll have it up
there in writing. This time you have it in English. This time you have it in your
reading and all that stuff, okay. We’ll see you in ten minutes, okay.
[unclear] happy. [laughter]
Take sound. Take sound, it’s a changing thing, because it’s made. What’s the
reason? {Tak …}, what’s the reason? [student: chepay chir] Yeah,{chepay chir}.
Ooh, {chepa}, we say {chepa}. Short name is {chepa}. Say {chepa}[repeat] {chepa
tak}[repeat], {chepa} is the reason, okay. {tak yinte}, by the way, it’s a custom
when you teach to keep going until the student makes a mistake. {Tak yinte},
why is it a {tak}? Why is it a reason? Why is it the reason? What makes it a
reason? {Tak yinte}. {tak su kuppa yinpay chir}, say {tak su kuppa}[repeat]
{yinpay chir}[repeat]; because you said it as a reason. That’s a {tak kyi tsennyi},
that’s the definition of a reason. Okay. Agreed? [student:du] Ah, good. Then
{dra takpa yinpay chir, tak yangdak yinpa tel}. So, I guess ‘because sound is an
unchanging thing’ is a good reason, right Miss Magdha? {tak yang dak yinpa
tel}, I guess it’s a good reason, right? {Yinpa, chi chir}, say {chi chir}[repeat], why
do you say that? Oh, it’s not a good reason, {tak yangdak mayinpa tel}. It’s not
a good reason. [student:du] {du}, right, that’s what I said. It’s not a good
reason. {yinpa tel}, by the way, when I go up, it’s not sarcastic anymore. It’s
what I believe, okay. Say {yinpa tel}[repeat]. It is too a good reason because {tak
su kuppa yinpay chir}, because I gave it as a reason. [student] Ah, ah, hey,
wake up back there. [laughter] {kyappa ma jung}[laughs] [laughter] {…} Are
you telling me just because I put something forth as a reason it doesn’t make it a
good reason? [student: du] {Du}, that’s what I said, stupid head. Okay. {chepay
tak}, wake up back there, alright. [laughter] [laughs]. Okay, now we get into
those three relationships. Three relationships must hold if the thing is a good
reason. [cut]
Three relationships must hold if the thing is a good reason. One must be three.
If something is three it must be two. And, if something is not two it can’t be
three. {Chok chu, je-kyab, dok- kyab}, okay. Those three relationships that
must hold if the thing is gonna to be a good reason, okay. This is the {chok chu},
okay. It’s the relationship between one and three. {Dra} what? {Jepa}, the fact
that sound is a made thing, okay. {Jepay yangdak kyi}, who didn’t I, Placide, I
didn’t pick on you. So, {…}I don’t think a good opponent has to accept this, {…}.
A good opponent doesn’t have to accept this. He doesn’t have to accept that
sound is a made thing. Does he already accept that sound is a made thing?
Don’t forget the proof. Take sound, it’s a changing thing, because it’s a made
thing. Did he already understand that it’s a made thing? Yes, because it’s, the
definition of a good reason is, a, a reason where all three relationships hold. He
must have already seen that sound is a made thing. So he accepts {chok chu}.
He accepts {chok chu}. That’s the first relationship. You can check, by the way, I
don’t know about you, but I already had a debate with somebody this morning,
and they were being illogical. And I could see there wasn’t any {chok chu}, you
see what I mean. You’ll get good at it after awhile. You’ll say, Oh, my gosh, my
boss just did an attempted logical statement to me and he’s missing the first
relationship. [laughter] [laughs] You know. That’s why he doesn’t make sense,
you know. [laughs] [laughter]
Here’s {je-kyab}: if three, two. {Jena} means, if something is a made thing, {jena}
means if something is a made thing, {mitakye kyab}, it must be a changing thing.
And that is the expression of the second relationship. That’s the expression of
what we call, what did we call, the positive necessity. The positive necessity: if
something is number three it must be number two. The second part of your
checklist of three items that have to be present if the thing is a good reason.
Okay. One must, one and three must be true and if something is three it must be
two must be true, okay. That’s called {je-kyab}. On your checklist of the three
necessary relationships it’s number two. Yeah. [student] I’m saying it’s the
same thing. Three must relate to one and if, if something is three it must be
number two. And what’s the last one? If something’s not number two it can’t
be number three. If something’s not a changing thing it can’t be a made thing,
okay. And that’s the third one. Where did it go? I think we should have about
thirteen with this one. What have you got? [students] Well, this one’s now
thirteen, right? {Mitakpa ma jepa kyab}. And this name I think I left it off the
homework key, okay, the name of it, I think. Okay. The name of this one is
{dok-kyab}. Yeah. [student] I’m sorry, you’re right. This should, I’m sorry, he’s
right. This is a mistake, okay. Everybody scratch this off. {Tak},okay, he’s right,
{takpa ma jepay kyab} which is the opposite of {mitakpa}, okay. Sorry. Please
correct that on the homework keys as well or Phuntsok’s hand will get tired.
I know you’ll appreciate that this is all done at four in the morning or five in the
morning. Okay. Say {tunpe}[repeat] {tunpe}[repeat]; {tunpe} means a good
example to prove this thing. {bumpa}, just like a water pitcher, dumb-head.
What’s the difference between a sound and a water pitcher? Same principle,
okay. That’s {tunpe}. {Tunpe} means a good example.
Okay, last thing before we do a little bit of debating. Did everyone get their
numbers by the way? You have them. [laughter] [laughs] [students] That’ll be
right. Why don’t you start going round now and just, are they in a hat or
something? Most people jump, pick out of a hat, okay. And we’ll show you the
last part later. Just walk around and give people one.
Last thing. If you read the reading there are actually, something like, six
different ways to divide good reasons. For example, you could divide good
reasons into positive ones and negative ones. You could divide them into those
three kinds that we had: results, nature and negative, like that. But there’s a very
interesting one. The last one, I think, is the most important one. And I think to
indicate that in the text they have this big ornament in front of it, meaning, hey
guess what, this is the most important one. All correct reasons can be divided
into those that you give yourself and those that you give to others, okay. It’s
very interesting. And, and if you think about it this is the whole essence of
Buddhism, right? We talked about it in the Friday night class. And, I mean,
really Buddhism is a private thing. What you’re trying to prove is emptiness to
yourself. You’re meditating on emptiness to yourself for example. In logic, in
the opening reading, what was the most important thing to prove? You don’t
know about other people. You can’t judge other people. For all you know they
could have been enlightened a million years ago, forget ten days ago, you know.
I’m talking a million years ago. You don’t know that anybody in this room
wasn’t enlightened a million years ago. Come on, use a {tak yangdak}, you
know, {mi..chuchen}. Consider all the people in this room, {sangye mayinte},
they are not enlightened Tantric deities. Now give me a {tak yangdak}, you
know, give me a proof that they’re not. [student] Huh? [student] {dukngel…
yinpay chir}, because they’re experiencing {dukngel, tak ma drup} [student] He
said, because they’re not Buddhas yet because they’re still experiencing suffering.
{tak ma drup}. Which is what? They’re not experiencing suffering. Prove it, you
see what I mean? There’s no {..}. There’s no {tak yangdak}. There’s no correct
reason. You can’t prove it. You can prove it for? Yourself, perhaps, okay, if you
are. I don’t know. But I am, okay. So I can prove it for myself. Anyway, all
good reasons must be divided into two kinds. Those which you present to your
own mind and those which you present to others, okay. And I’ll give you those
and that’s the last thing for tonight. This is democracy, she’s choosing your
[laughter], this is like having the, it’s like when someone hands you a fortune
cookie, you know, it’s like you don’t have any say. Yeah. [student] I’m sorry.
I’m sorry. If I’m a Buddha can I give a {rangdun kab kyi tak yangdak}?
[student] Could I [student] Yeah. [student] Oh, I think, I think you could say that
if I could read your mind, ‘cos what, what does the text say? {Nga’am dang
drawe mayinpa … gyur tare}, you can’t judge other people unless you are like
me, meaning, unless you are someone who can read other people’s minds.
Okay. [student] Yeah. [student] Yeah. [student] Oh, I can never give that as a
reason to you ‘cos I don’t know if you can do it or not, you know. [student]
Well, unless you could read other people’s minds. [student] Yeah, yeah, or to
know, you don’t have to be a Buddha to read other people’s minds. {tong}, a
person who’s seen emptiness directly can read other people’s minds for a short
time afterwards automatically.
Say {rangdun}[repeat] {kab kyi}[repeat]{tak yangdak}[repeat]; {rangdun} means,
‘for your own sake’, {rangdun} means, ‘for your own sake’; {kab} means, ‘on
that particular occasion’, okay, on the occasion of your own sake. Meaning, in, in
the, in the context, how about ‘in context’. In the context of yourself, {rangdun
kab}, means in the context of yourself. {Tak yangdak} means, ‘a good reason’, a
correct reason. Okay. And the opposite of that would be {shendun kab kyi tak
yangdak}. We had {shen} tonight in {shen sel}. It meant ‘other thing’, other,
okay, {shen} means, other. And those are the names of those two reasons. I’m
not gonna give you the other five divisions. You can look them up. You can
read them, okay. But we gotta start debating, okay, so let’s go for it. Okay. Yes
{kyappa ma jung}. [laughter] [student] Oh, I think you missed {tak}. {Tak} was
number ten and it was {jepa}, yeah. And Magdha was the one who gave it to us,
okay. Okay, please take your positions. Okay. We don’t have a lot of time so
try to do it okay [cut]
[end side B]
The Asian Classics Institute

Geshe Michael Roach
Course XIII: The Art of Reasoning