ACI 4 «Доказательство будущих жизней», занятие 2

Course IV: Class Two, Three Levels of Reality
July 25, 1994
transcribed by: Joe Weston

[unclear]

We were studying {tsema} pramana}, which means "normal perception," and
you're having {pramana's} all day long. Normal correct perceptions. Okay?
And ninety-nine percent of what we have are {pramana's}. There's a few cases
where you don't have {pramana's}. That's where a lady crosses the road quickly
and your lights are not working too well, and you think it's a squirrel and you
slam on the breaks. That's a non-{pramana}. You're at work and you don't like
somebody else, and you think they're always out to get you, and something
happens and you think they started it, but they didn't have anything to do with
it. And you think your girlfriend's messing around because you're jealous, and...
it's just because of the effect of your emotion, that it, that something which has
nothing to do with what you think is going on, truly seems to be going on. And
those are all non-{pramana's}. Those are all [unclear]. But ninety-nine percent of
what you have are {tsema's}, not {pramana}. So, today, the first thing we're
gonna talk about is why you need {pramana}, what's the use of {pramana}. And
there we get into a thing called "the three levels of reality," and I'm gonna give
you a chart about it.

[silence]

I'm gonna give it to you in Tibetan and in English. Okay, this is the... there's two
pages, and just make sure you get both pages, cause it's kind of confusing.
Here's the same chart in English, and you have to pull out...

[silence]

You don't have to write it in Tibetan, it's just, I want you to see it in your head.

Say {nyungyur} [repeat], {nyungyur} [repeat], {kogyur} [repeat], {kogyur}
[repeat], {shindu kogyur} [repeat], {shindu kogyur} [repeat].

Okay, these are the three levels of reality. You got two levels of reality in your
other classes. Two truths. These are not related to those directly, okay? These
are different. Why? We're in a different school. We mostly, right now, are in
the Sautrantrika school and the lower Mind Only School. Don't worry about it.
{Nyungyur} means those objects in the world which are evident, obvious.
{Nyungyur} means those things which you can perceive directly without any
problem at all. So, the classic example is colors and shapes. Colors are
{nyungyur}, okay? This blue, this white, this yellow, those are all {nyungyur}.
Most of the objects of your senses, all of the objects of your senses are
{nyungur}. Okay? Touches are {nyungyur}, sounds are {nyungur}, and your own
thoughts to you are {nyungyur}. You don't have a problem perceiving them.
They are very obvious, evident.       That's {nyungyur}.      {Kogyur} means
"hidden." {Kogyur}. That means "hidden."

[student: [unclear]]

"That which is." So, the whole word {Kogyur} means "that which is hidden",
"things which are hidden." An example of a {kogyur} object, the classical
example, is emptiness. It's a hidden object. A normal person can't perceive
emptiness, except by, what?

[student: deduction?]

Deduction, reasoning. I can explain emptiness to you, and based on that
explanation, within about a half an hour, you can have a {pramana} towards
emptiness. Can you say you perceived emptiness? Yes. Can you say you
perceived it directly? No. Is there a difference? Oh! A zillion miles difference.
And that's a long story. But you can perceive emptiness intellectually, and that
emptiness is {kogyur}. When you perceive something through reasoning,
intellectually by thinking something out, that thing is {kogyur}.         Another
example of a {kogyur} object is subtle impermanence, subtle impermanence.
There's two levels of impermanence. One is what we call gross impermanence,
and that's where you see somebody's Cadillac hit a fire hydrant, or, you know,
or you drop a glass and it breaks, that's gross impermanence. That's not
{kogyur}. But when you perceive... When you meditate for a long time, and
then you're able to see that things are being destroyed by the instant, that
nothing lasts more an instant, that's subtle impermanence, so at some point you
can perceive that. That's {kogyur}. It's very difficult to perceive. You can not
perceive it with your senses.      You cannot see with your eyes the subtle
impermanence of you or your relationships or your family or... which are all
disintegrating in front of your eyes and you can't see it.           That's subtle
impermanence. {Shindu kogyur}, {shindu} means what it sounds like. What
does {shindu} mean?[laughs] {Shindu kogyur} It means very, "deeply hidden."
Okay? "Very, very hidden." It means "extremely hidden." {Shindu kogyur}. In
Tibetan, these are ancient words, but still in modern-days Tibetan you say
{shindu nine kogyure}, "he's an incredible fool." [laughter]        "He's a big
fool." {Shindu nine} still has the same meaning. So, deeply hidden. What object
is more profound, or more inscrutable, than emptiness?

[students: Karma?]

The subtle workings of karma. You know, the very subtle mechanisms of
karma are {shindu kogyur}. They're more difficult to perceive directly than
emptiness is. That's where a Buddha can come... I'd like to use this tangka as an
example. A Buddha can come to this tangka, and he can explain why , why this
thing goes to the left, and why this purple part goes to the right, and why this is
a little circle and not a square, and why there's forty-three threads in here and
not forty-four, and those are all... A Buddha can explain, he can see directly
everything that's behind everything around here. You know, why do, why are
two guys in a car, and one dies when the car hits a bridge, and the other
survives? I think it was the three Mets last year, in a motor boat? It went under
a dock at night, so two of them get decapitated and one survives. And he's fine,
he's pitching now, you know? So, why? You know, and they were trying to
explain why, you know, "the boat rocked at the last minute." I mean the answer
is karma. You know, "why does one guy survive and why two don't." This is a
child's question. You know, you don't ask a question like that. Or you say, " the
boat tipped, and he was on the right." But why was he of the right? Why wasn't
he on the other side that didn't tip? And why didn't he get his head cut off, you
know? This is, those are all... They all have a reason, they all have something
behind them. And Westerners have this very interesting prejudice, you know.
They say, "everything has a cause." They're scientists. They say, "everything has
a cause." So, than a kid says, "well, why did one guy die in the accident and the
other two didn't?" And they say, "well..." So really what we're doing is we're
dividing reality into two parts. Things that we say don't have a cause, and things
that we say do have a cause. And when a kid comes up and says, "why did the
one guy survive'" you say, "well, there's no reason, maybe the boat tipped or
something." And than the kid says, "why did the boat tip?" For him, there's no
end. You say, "that doesn't have a cause." So really we're not scientists. We're
not rational. We say that does... We're saying that doesn't have a cause. It's
irrational. It's sick. I mean, it's... it's stupid. We say everything else has a cause
but not those things. It's not right.
[student: The lord works in strange ways[laughter]]

No, there is... everything must have a cause. We can't exclude some things and
say they don't have a cause.

[student: But they're not Buddhists. [unclear]]

No, no. Sorry. Fourth chapter... third chapter on [unclear} I can give you.
[unclear Tibetan] That's the... it starts like that. It's very famous. We'll get into
that. In fact, we're gonna reach that in this class. So, those subtle workings of
karma are...

[student: [unclear]]

I didn't say four years ago... are something only a Buddha can perceive. Those
are {shindu kogyur}. So, you have three levels of reality. To perceive this level
of reality, it's in front of your face. This level of reality, you must think. You
must consider reasons. You have to think it over, you have to think it out. And
to perceive this level of reality, basically you have to take someone's authority.
You have to take it on authority. No matter how much you think. By thinking, I
can help you... and I will, I want to... The teachings on karma are reasonable.
Especially the explanation of the Mind-Only school about karma. If you learn it,
it's quite plausible, you can buy it right away. If you learn it properly. But no
matter what thought process you go through at your level, if you are who you
seem to be, that I have no idea... because of last class, right?... you can't see it,
except you can just hear the Buddha explain it, and then you can perceive it
based on his explanation. And that's a tricky question, and we'll get into that.
You know. What conditions have to be present for you to buy it, when some
being, even Gautama Buddha, says, "this is true. You have to take my word for
it." Are there any circumstances where a Buddhist can accept that? We'll get into
that. But the subtle workings of karma are something that basically you can
only perceive, at our level, based on, on another, on a higher beings words. On
his description of something that we can't see. So, the idea is, we are very
interested about the hidden objects. You see, now, you live in world where you,
you believe what you see and you believe what you hear, and those things are
pretty much air-tight, they are all correct, pretty much {tsema}, pretty much
{pramana}. When we get into this realm, where you start using your reasoning
to perceive things, that's where most of the troubles, that's where most of the
conflicts in the world comes from. Because people don't follow the rules of
reasoning. I mean, we are all logicians. Every moment at work you are drawing
deductions. Every morning... you know, when you're in the office, and you're
working, you're constantly drawing conclusions, and most of them are true.
And that's... the things you are drawing conclusions about are {kogyur}. Like I
was in Bombay. There's a guy in a factory there. The production's not coming
out. My boss is mad. You know, I'm trying to guess why he's not doing it: "
Maybe he doesn't have the diamonds, maybe he doesn't have the workers,
maybe he's got another customer." You know, and I'm doing... that's {kogyur}
for me. That's hidden for me. I don't know why he's not doing it. So, I'm basing
all these... I'm making speculations based on, on what I think, but I don't really
know. So, in that realm, you get in trouble. But, the point is that there is a whole
category of objects in your world. There are objects in the universe which are
{kogyur}, which are hidden. And, first of all you have to understand that they
do... you have to guess that there should be things like that. There are certain
objects in the world that are {kogyur} for you, you can't see them now. There's a
whole big bag of very important things that are hidden to you. Can you see
them? Can you ever get some kind of way of, like a kind of wisdom where now
you can see those things which you couldn't see before? That's the whole study
of karma. That's why you're studying karma. You're trying to see if you can
develop some sixth sense, by which you can see {kogyur's}. That's the whole
idea. It's very interesting. We're trying to develop a whole new mental tool by
which you can see that big group of things in the universe, which to you right
now are hidden, you can't see them. Yeah?

[student: So, I need an example. Are you talking about something like spirits?]

Well, let's say emptiness. By the way, that is an example. In debating, it's one of
the prime examples. [unclear] Something like that. There's a big debate. You
know, "do spirits exists?" You know, "are there these spirits around us, that we
can't see?" Yeah, that's {kogyur}. That's a {kogyur} object.

[student: [unclear]]

Now, is that an important thing to perceive? It's pretty important, because it will
help you establish past lives, future lives, other beings. But the main objects
we're trying to establish are nirvana.       Is nirvana... does it exist?    Does
Buddhahood exist? Does a Buddha exist? Is there a method by which a normal
American person, within a few years, could reach that state?

[student: That's hard work.]
No, it's a very interesting question. Those are the three questions I pose. Is
there such a thing as nirvana, by which you would never suffer again? Is there
such a thing as Buddhahood by which you could reach a state where you'd know
every object in the universe at one moment, and could help every person that
exists. And is it possible for a normal person like us, by using some standard,
plain old process of a few things, reach that place. Is it possible? It's very
interesting, it's very beautiful. If it is, then there's a reason to come to this class.
If it's not, than there's no reason to come to this class. I mean, sometimes I go to
Dharma classes and they sound like pop-psychology classes. They, you know,
like, "feel good and be alright," and, you know, "work it out with your family,
this will help you with your life." Not the point, you know. Those are the goals.
The goals are to reach a state where you don't suffer ever again. And then
secondly, where you reach a state of perfection where you can help other
people. And then thirdly,... is there a normal sequence of steps, that if you do
these ten things, and you're just a normal American person, you can reach
places. You can actually become those things. Is it possible? Those are all
{kogyur}. That's the whole idea of studying {pramana}. That's the goal of
studying {pramana}, is to try to establish whether or not a normal person, by
following a short list of steps, can reach a state where he has no suffering
anymore, or no death. That's very interesting [laughs], okay. Alright, now I ask
a question that... I thought he was gonna ask me that. Are these... in Tibet, in a
debate, you debate it all the time. "Are these three mutually exclusive?" "Can
anything be in more than one of these categories?" I had this debate in Ganden,
and I wasn't good at it. Like with twenty monks attacking me at the same time.
Yeah?...

[student: It depends on your level, right?]

Absolutely. That's the perfect answer. These are not object-dependant, they are
subject-dependant. They depend on the person. To who? To whom? If I ask
you, you know, "is yellow {kogyur} or {nyungyur}? Is yellow a hidden object?
Is it difficult to perceive, or is it obvious? Which one is it?"

[student: It's both...]

You should ask me, "for whom?" I mean, for a blind man, it's {kogyur}. For a
blind man, it's hidden. He needs deduction to perceive the yellow on this wall,
and, in fact, if he's like an alien from another planet, and he's also blind, he
needs... it's a {shindu kogyur}. You know, there's a children's book, [b: A
Wrinkle in Time], it's a beautiful book, and they meet somebody from another
realm, and... it's a children's story, and they don't have colors in their realm. So,
the children are trying to explain color to these people. And they would have to
take those children's word for it. That's {shindu kogyur}. It's totally out of their
experience. There's no way they can establish it, except by taking someone's
word for it. So, even color, even the most obvious thing in the world, can be
{shindu kogyur}, you know, "deeply hidden." But what about the subtle
workings of karma? Can they ever be {nungyur}? Can they ever be obvious?

[student: A Buddha,. Sure.]

Yeah, a Buddha sees... Buddha doesn't even have deduction, deductive
{pramana}. He doesn't... Everything he perceives is direct. He sees all objects
directly. That's his quality. Past, present and future, all corners of the universe,
simultaneously.

[student: The Buddha has no sense of deduction, or has no deduction?]

He has no need for it. He can imagine it, he can pretend... you know, he knows
how to act like he's doing it, but he perceives all objects directly, at the same
time. So, they're not initially exclusive, these three [unclear].

[student: So, that would be like your example of the tangka, if the Buddha
looked at the tangka and saw the...]

Yeah, he just sees... it's cool. You know, he looks at the tangka, and he sees that
Tom Kiley, three thousand years ago, moved his hand that way instead of that
way, and that's why this thing is like that.

[student: So, in other words, to two Buddhas looking at the tangka, one would
look at it and say, "oh, that square up there was a real hot date three hundred
million years ago," and the other one says, "yeah, windy, too." Is it something
like... to them, it's very up front. It's not hidden at all.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they say it's like a marble in their hand, it's like an olive in the
palm of their hand. That's how...

[student: But you use the word "see."]

Yeah.
[student: But you don't mean that.]

I do. That's the verb. If we're going to have a [unclear], which I'm not gonna get
into, that's , that's in the [Amisamankara, unclear] in the last chapter. We'll study
that some day. But a Buddha can see the whole universe with his finger.

[student: See it.]

See.

[student: Does he have eyes, than?]

Yeah. And he can smell with his eyes.[laughter] [unclear] It's in the eighth
chapter of the [Amisamankara,unclear]. And a Buddha wrote it, so [unclear].

[silence]

Okay, say {muntzum tsema} [repeat], {jepa tsema} [repeat], {muntzum tsema}
[repeat], {jepa tsema} [repeat]. {Muntzum tsema} means "direct {tsema}," "direct
{pramana}," "direct correct perception."

[silence]

And it's the kind of perception you need to perceive {mungyur's}. So, it connects
with reality level number one, and you need direct perception to perceive
obvious objects.

[student: [unclear]]

No. No relation to that. Different spelling.        And a lot of people get, even
Tibetans, get confused about it.

[student: You need this for number one, or number one needs this for...?]

Yeah. Perception... direct perception's job is to perceive obvious objects.

[student: How do you define, "direct?"]

Excuse me?
[student: How do you define, "direct?"]

Ah, tough question. A correct perception which does not depend on reasoning.
How's that? Or, you can say that direct perception which is utilized to perceive
all these objects. Those are all definitions.

[student: Does perceive...]

Obvious objects, evident objects, manifest objects. What are examples? For a
person at our level, if you aren't who you seem to be, which I don't know, they
would be your eye consciousness, your ear consciousness... The Heart Sutra
says, "[unclear]." Your eye consciousness, your ear consciousness, your nose
consciousness, your taste consciousness, and your tactile consciousness. Those
are the five. Those are all {muntzum tsema}. Those are all direct perception.
Those consciousnesses.

[student: Is there anything beyond them, the sense consciousnesses?]

Yeah, there's more. Your mental consciousness, your awareness of your own
thoughts, is also a direct perception. You hear your own thoughts constantly.
You don't have to use deduction to hear your own thoughts. Sometimes you
wish you couldn't hear your own thoughts. [laughter] Like when you're trying
to sleep late at night.

[student: What if your thoughts were wrong?]

Your perception of yourself having a stupid or a wrong thought, that perception
is correct. There is a wrong thought going through in your mind. There does
exist a wrong thought in your mind. So, the state of mind which perceives the
wrong thought in your mind [isn't?] {tsema}. Because that wrong thought does
exist. And it is established by that perception of it.

[student: As a wrong thought.]

Yeah. Or as a thought going on in my mind before you thought about whether
it's wrong or right. It's still a thought. Now, if that, if in the moments following
that, you have a judgmental thought that says, "this is a correct thought," that's
not a {tsema}. That's not a {pramana}. But the original awareness of the thought
is a {pramana} because there was a thought there. Whether it was right or
wrong, being aware of that thought establishes the existence of that thought.
[student: So, you're saying that {tsema} is only about [unclear]]

No. I'm saying that direct {tsema} is only used for evident objects. What about
{toma}, the first moments of {toma}? "The path of seeing"? That's called
[unclear]. [unclear]... direct perception.      "Meditative direct perception of
emptiness." And that's also {nyundzum tsema}. And for that person at that
moment, emptiness is a rumor. Emptiness is an evident object. He's seeing it
raw, directly. So, for him at that first moment at the path of seeing, that's a direct
object. That's an obvious object for him.

[student: [unclear]]

{nyangjur muntzum, nyangjur muntzum}. Like {nyangjurma, nyangkimu}.
Now, to perceive the second two types of reality, the second two levels of
reality, to perceive hidden reality, something like emptiness, and to perceive
deeply hidden reality, something like the subtle workings of karma, we need
{jepa tsema}. {Jepa tsema} means, "deductive, correct perception." Reasoning,
true reasoning, correct reasoning. And you use it all day long. Did the pen hit
the ground? Yeah. And that's deductive perception. And that's hidden for you.
The visual part of it, not the audible part. But you did not see the thing. So,
relative to your eyes, your eye consciousness, that when it hit the ground, that
was hidden for you, cause it was blocked by the table, and you made a
deduction. You said, "I saw it drop out of his hand. Every time I've ever seen
something drop out of a somebody's hand, and I hear a 'bunk', the thing fell on
the floor," you know. And that's.... The trick is to understand that that... you do
that all day long, and it's a normal part of your human tool box, your mental
human toll box, and it works. And your current ability to do that is untrained.
You've never had to sit... you know, your mother didn't sit you down and say,
"look, when somebody drops a pen, even though you can't see it, you can figure
out that the pen hit the ground." You know, you, you have an untrained ability.
You have the ability that every normal human has to deduce something. And
then some people, like Einstein, you know, they have, based on the same data,
they have a much greater ability to draw a correct conclusion from that. The
idea in the study of {pramana} is to figure out: how does that tool of your own
mind work, and can you sharpen it? Can you study how it works, and can you
then find a way to develop it into like a more muscular, you know, more, a more
powerful {pramana}, a more powerful way of seeing something that you can't
see, and direct it towards those black holes in your knowledge where nirvana is
sitting, where Buddhahood is sitting, and where the paths of those are sitting? Is
it possible for a normal human being to consciously strengthen his own ability to
reason, and, with that reasoning, perceive things which other people around him
can't see? That's... you know, when you talk about the mysticism in Buddhism,
blah, blah, blah, this is really the guts of it. This is where you actually learn to see
those things which other people can't see around you. And that's based on... you
learn {pramana], you learn the rules of {pramana}. And then you can quite
certainly come to see things which you did never expect to be able to see. And
you do it quite consciously, purposely. And that's what Dharmakirti's career was
all about. You know, he's tried to tell us how to do that. And you can do it. So,
you have to learn the rules of {pramana}. You have to learn about {pramana}.
That's what we're doing in this class, that's why we're in this class. And it won't
be like some mystical thing. It might be just learning to think clearly. And that
helps your life, too. I mean, half the time when you get in trouble at work it's
cause you drew conclusions that were lousy, and weak, and flimsy, and you
thought you knew something and you didn't know it at all. That's mostly what
personal relationships, when you have a problem, a lot of it is from faulty, lazy
deductions. You assume the person did something and they didn't do anything
like that. But you've followed your own lousy deduction, which is not a {tsema},
not a {pramana}. So, we're gonna study that. That's one of the big things we're
going to work on. I think we'll take a break here. First time, on time. Because
it's a natural place. When we get back, I have a much more confusing thing.
Alright, so we'll start again at five after? [cut] {kenchepa} [repeat], {temba}
[repeat], {deshe kobla} [repeat], {chagtsalo} [repeat]. Very, very famous. Very,
very famous. These are the opening lines of Dignaga's work. Who's Dignaga?

[students: The author of...]

The father of all Buddhist philosophy of perception. Lived, when?

[students: Four hundred...]

Four, forty A.D., something like that. And these are some of the first lines of his
text, which are {tsema kundu}, which means "[unclear] of valid perception."
These are his opening lines. Tibetan reads backwards, okay? The subject comes
last, the verb is right before that. That's why when you meet Tibetans, they say,
"store, uh, store going I am." You know? So, {chagstal} means what? Do you
know what {chagstal} means?

[student: Prostrate? Bow?]
Prostrate, yeah. {Chag} means "hand," and {tsal} means "to seek, to look for
something." And {chagtsal} means "to bow down." Why? Because when you
bow down, you're looking for something from the hand of the lama. And that's
why it's called {chagstal}. In Sanskrit it's {namas}, and it means "I bow," and still,
in India, they still say {namas te}, "I bow to you." That's how you say "hi" in
India. So, "I bow down to..." what? And there are five parts in this verse that
you must learn. What is this verse? This is Dignaga's {chujun]. {Chujun} means
when a Buddhist person writes a new book, he's supposed to, in the opening
lines, bow down to some holy being or object. Like Chandakirti bows down in
the opening lines to [unclear], in his Madhyamika text. And Basabandu in the
abhidharmakosha bows down to the Buddha.                     And Maitreya, in the
abhisamayalankara, bows down to the Three Knowledges. So Dignaga is
bowing down... The person that he has chosen to bow down to, at the beginning
of this book, is the Buddha. The Buddha, himself. So this is a short verse that's at
the front of almost every Buddhist commentary, from ancient India, where they
make obeisance to some holy object at the very beginning. And Buddhist books
are really beautiful. I mean, there's [unclear]. If a book doesn't have four
qualities, it's not even a Buddhist book. There has to be some ultimate benefit to
it. There has to be some... you don't have to know this, but it disqualifies just
about every Western book. [laughs] I mean, people ask if I've read the latest
novel. It doesn't have [unclear]. It has to have some short-term goal, holy goal.
It has to have some long-term goal. It has to have some... there has to be some
relationship between that long-term goal and the book itself. And then it has to
have subject matter. So those are... basically, a Buddhist book, if it doesn't have
some relation to ultimate spiritual goals, it doesn't, it's not considered worthy to
read. And people won't study it. And if it's faulty, if it had one faulty part in it,
they would, in India, they would tie it to the tail of a dog, and chase the dog
through the street. That's like custom. Yeah?

[student: Would you write the word for the dedication [unclear]]

You don't need to know this. I was just... It's very famous. Every book has one.
Most of the five great books, all the five great books have one. Dharmakirti's is
very, very hot. Very, very funny. And, some day I'll teach it to you. It's very
interesting. This is Dignaga's, right? So, there are five important parts hidden in
here, in this {chujya} that you have to know. The first is here... {tsema kyurpa},
{tsema kyurpa}, {tsema kyurpa}. What is {tsema}?

[students: many responses]
Correct perception, valid perception. Correct perception. That's {pramana}.
{Kyurpa} means "became, turned into." {Kyurpa} means "turned into." And the
{ra} in Tibetan, the "r" here, means "into." "Turned into {tsema}." "Turned into
{tsema}." In the whole universe, there are only three kinds of changing things.
One are mental things, one is physical things and one are neither, but which are
changing. An example of the third would be a person, like Michael is not
physical and he is not mental. He's a concept, he's an individual. "I have a mental
part, I have a physical part, but I'm not those. I'm an idea. I'm an individual." So,
{tsema kyurpa}... I ask you: is {tsema} mental, physical, or a person?             Is
{pramana} mental, physical, or...? Mental stuff, physical stuff?

[students: Mental.]

Mental. It's a state of mind. Correct perception. It's a state of mind. But he's
bowing down to the person who became {tsema}. Is it possible? A person can't
become mental. You can have a mental part, but you can't become a mind. You
have a mind, you're not a mind. So, the point is that the word {pramana} can
mean "a person who is totally correct." And in that context, that same word can
be used for a being who can't make a mistake, who is totally correct. Who
cannot lie. That's called {tsema kyurpa}. That's called a person who is {tsema}, a
person who is {pramana}. It means he has {pramana}. It means everything he
ever has, or ever thinks, is {pramana}.

[student: He sees everything...]

He never has a non-{pramana}. But we call him the {pramana}. It's just a, it's just
an expression. So, the Buddha has become {tsema}. The Buddha has become
totally correct. He turned into someone who was totally correct. We're gonna
spend a whole class on the word "turned into." {Kyurpa}. That's your fourth
class. It's very interesting. The idea that he wasn't that way from the beginning.
He was a liar just like us in the beginning, okay?

[student: So, is this little phrase here redundant? Is the "r" at the end of {tsema}
mean "turned into"...]

It means "into." The "r" means "into." And the {kyurpa} means "turned." It's the
{de nyi} grammar case, and study it some day. {Sim tak}, which is classical
Tibetan grammar is a very exciting subject. [laughter] If there was a spare couple
of years, we could do it.
[student: Does that mean "Buddha?" {Tsema kyurpa}?

It's... he's... normally in a {chujya}, when you're bowing down to somebody...
{chu} means "an offering of praise." So, you're saying, "Oh! The Buddha! I bow
down to the Buddha, who is always good. Who turned into someone who's
always good." That's the first quality of the Buddha. That's the first thing he's
praising. {Tsema kyurpa}. {Drola penshapa} is number two. {Drola penshepa}.
What is {Dro}?... you know,[unclear]? {Drola}? {Dro} means "to go." {Dro}
means "to go." I don't want to... I'm not teaching you Tibetan, but it's just fun...
{dro} means "to go," and as a noun it means "anyone who is going," which means
"sentient beings." It's another word for sentient beings. {Drola} means "to
sentient beings, to all these goers."

[student: You can say {kando} also.]

Yeah. {Kando} means "she who goes with..."

[student: {Tunjo}.]

Huh?

[student: {Tunjo.]

Oh, {tundo} means "those who go bent over." {Guryanz}, which is the Sanskrit
and Tibetan word for "bowing."           {Dro} means "going," {la} means "to
them." {Pen} means "benefit or help." {Pen} means "benefit or help." {Shepa}
means "he wishes or he wants." So, I bow down to the person who turned into
someone who is totally correct, and who, basically, who loves all beings in an
ultimate way. He wants all beings to... he wants to benefit all beings. He's
looking out for everyone. That's {drola penshepa.} That's the second quality of
the Buddha. According to Dignaga. Dignaga is praising the Buddha's qualities.
The third quality that Dignaga is talking about is {Thumba.} What's {Thumba}?
[Recites Tibetan text]. {Thumba} means "the Teacher." Capital "T". It always
refers to the Buddha. The Teacher. {Thumba}. {Deshek}. {Deshek} means
{sugata}, "those who have gone to bliss." {De} means "bliss," and {shek} means
"gone." And that's a synonym for "a Buddha." There's another, {deshing
shekpa}, which is tathagata. They're all related. They're all the same. They all
refer to the same person.

[student: So, suga is a Buddha? Sugatha is a Buddha?]
Sugatha is a Buddha. {su} means "good'" and it's the "swa" in "swastika."
"Swastika" is "su-astika." Goodness. [laughter] It means "goodness." {Kyab} is
number five. {Kyab} means... what is {kyabsu chi}, {kyabdo}, {kyabdo}?

[student: [unclear]]

To take refuge. And {kyab} means "a refuge, a shelter, a person who protects,
protector." {Kyab} means "protector." {Kyabla chagtsala}, "I bow down to." {La}
means "to." "I bow down to the person who became, or who turned into, a
totally correct being. I bow down to the person who has ultimate concern for all
sentient beings. I bow down to the person who teaches the path to nirvana. I
bow down to the person who has gone to total bliss. And I bow down to the
person who can protect other beings." So, Dignaga is mentioning five qualities
of the Buddha. Those five qualities, Dharmakirti writes half his book about
[laughs]. Based on those two lines... I mean, basically, Dharmakirti writes a
whole book, and it becomes one of the five greatest books in history, in Buddhist
history. Just on those two lines. So, you can spend, in the monastery you spend
five years, in the wintertime, on these two lines. Something amazing. And we're
going to spend the whole class, the whole course, on this number one. {Tsema
kyurpa}. So, the {tsema}, the {pramana}, that we're going to be talking about,
and the one that we're interested in, is the one that refers to the person. The
Buddha, who is {tsema}. The whole rest of the course is taking off from here,
from this first word, {tsema kyurpa}, from this first four syllables. In other
words, we're not really gonna study {pramana}. If you wanna do that, we'll have
another course. That's the first chapter. We're skipping to the second chapter.
Where they try to prove that the Buddha is {tsema kyurpa}. That the Buddha is
{pramana}. That the Buddha is a person who cannot lie, and a person who is
{tsema}. And that's a big... that takes hundreds of pages. I mean, in the root text.
In the root... in the common text, [unclear], we're gonna try to prove or show or
discuss this quality of the Buddha, and that will lead us to a proof of future lives.
Eventually. It's very interesting. It's very, uh... and it takes you by way of
proving that an omniscient being could not create the world. That's... we'll get to
that in this class. That's an interesting... and, you know, there weren't any
Christians around at that time to pick on. It was just, uh... there was a school at
that time that believed that, so he just tried to describe how [unclear], but the
main thing is to prove how you are going to perceive things that you can't see
right now. I have a little... this is a little thing that, uh... the Tibetan class, some of
the more advanced students in the other class are starting to try to translate
stuff, and it's all things that relate to what we're doing. So, I asked them, you
know, a different person is doing a few pages each week, and then they're
typing it out in English. And then what we would like you guys to do is critique
it. It's very rough. It's very lousy, in fact. It's the first one they ever did. And,
so, you know, read it, mark it up, and it will go to Erik [unclear], who did this
one. And then Serge [unclear] did the next one. That's being typed up now.
And, uh, [unclear] did the next one; he's over there typing it up now. [laughter] I
don't have enough for everybody, but if you're a person who would care to
help, take one.

[silence]

[cut] This is Homer's. Finished, a little early.

[students: One? [laughter] That's it? That's all there is?... two question quiz
[laughter] ...[handing out paper] ...[discussing papers]... [applause]... thank you ...
you're supposed to be modest... Michael, are these things that are marked in the
parentheses, are they a part of the text, or is that the translator adding an
exclamation point? I mean, the Erik person who translated it, is that his, or is
that...?]

Oh, oh, I assume, I believe that's things he added to make it more clear, cause the
original sutra is very old, and it's very difficult. It's driving them crazy, actually.
[laughter] And it's not all... it's very, you know, it's not something you'd publish,
but if you had some style things that you didn't like, [unclear]. Okay, who's
[unclear]?

[student: Um, I just want to apologize also that I didn't have the phone list for
today. It's typed up, but I didn't get a chance to print it out. So, next Thursday I
will have a phone list, so you guys can call each other and study.]

[prayer: short mandala] [prayer: dedication]

One little announcement. If you, you know, we sent out an announcement
asking people... anyone who is going to the last two events down in New Jersey.
We sent out a letter... Was it three months ago, two months ago? Asking you to
call Dieter ahead of time if you needed a place to stay. And I think, I don't know,
eight people called him the night before. He was very upset. So,... And I don't
know who it was, but if you're planning to go to this thing in August...

[student: But we read them our names...]
Yeah, I think this list got lost, and... so, I ask... call him directly. I'll give you his
number, okay? It's Dieter, and his number is (908) 364-8719, and I think he'd be
very happy if people called him this week or next week for... just go home and
do it tonight or tomorrow.
#course 4
The Proof of Future Lives
GMR