ACI 4 «Доказательство будущих жизней», занятие 6

Class Six: The Four Reasonings of the Forward Order

Geshe Michael Roach

Transcribed by: Angie Overy




[student] Yeah. [student]
Yeah, nobody, different people asked me. I mean, that question wasn’t very
clear. And we went over a couple of reasons why, a couple of problems with the
idea of an omnipotent, omniscient omnipotent being, okay. And, and the main
one is that he could not have created his own mind.
[student]
Yeah, because it has to be caused so he could not have been, a person who is,
there’s just a problem with a person who’s omniscient creating the world
because he would have had to create his omniscience also, because his
omniscience is part of the world
[student]
Excuse me?
[student]
That’s another problem. I mean, he would have, if he’s, if he’s the creator of the
world and if he knows everything, knowing everything is one of the things he
would have had to create. If he created all things, he would have had to create
his own omniscience, which is a problem.
[student]
It wasn’t very clear. It was in the reading but you have to, you have to get it out
of the reading. But, basically, that he would have had to create his own
omniscience and that’s … . And, he would have had to be omniscient before that
because the creator would have had to be omniscient. So that’s, that’s a
problem. It’s like saying, they say it’s like a man riding on his own shoulders or
a knife cutting itself. And you just got to think about it, okay. [laughs] I mean,
it’s a problem with an omniscient being creating the world because he, he had,
his omniscience, he’s part of the world also. And his omniscience is part of the
world and he would have had to create his own mind and to create his own
mind he would have had to be omniscient. But he wasn’t omniscient yet because
he didn’t create himself yet. He didn’t create his omniscience yet. If you say the
creator has to be omniscient, then who made the omniscience?
[student]
Yeah, must be caused. It’s a state of mind. I mean it’s so obviously crazy that,
that you miss it because you grew up in this culture and you think it makes
sense. Anyway, he would have had to have made his own mind because his own
mind is one of the things in the world.
[student]
Say again.
[student]
The mind, we say, it’s beginning-less. We say it didn’t have a creator.
[student]
You can say what?
[student]
Yeah, sure. Any, any [student]. Then who made, then, who made the world? The
world is beginning-less.
[student]
We studied in the Three Principle Paths that dependence has a lot of meanings
and we, we learned that the lowest meaning of dependence, which is that
everything has a cause, is insufficient because it doesn’t cover changing things.
[student]
Unchanging things. So, by the way, I’m very buzzed out. I was on a plane all
night last night. [laughs] But, yeah, the lowest interpretation of what
interdependence means is, is not accepted by the highest schools because, it
doesn’t cover unchanging things. The lowest interpretation of dependence is
that all things depend on their causes. And the higher schools say that’s not
sufficient because it doesn’t cover unchanging things.
[student]
Yeah, they kind of fall in the middle but they, we didn’t talk about what they
believe.
[student]
Yeah.
[student]
So, they’re dependent. But that’s, we didn’t cover that and that’s not part of this.
[student]
Yeah. Yeah, of dependent interdependence?
[student]
Oh, depending. We’re not, that’s not [student]. Yeah. That’s not dependent
origination. It’s not, we didn’t talk about that yet. They do describe depending
on those things but that’s not [student]. We’re going to talk about it now. By the
way, we’ve got to move tonight or else you’ll be here to very late. [laughs] So
it’s a long one tonight.
Say, {luk-jung} [repeat], {luk-dok} [repeat]; {luk-jung} [repeat] {luk-dok} [repeat].
Okay. {luk-jung} means forward order of something and {lung dok} means the
reverse order of something. And I’ll give you the classic example. The classic
example is not in your homework, it’s not in your reading. I’m just giving you
an example of what these two words mean. You know the Wheel of Life and it
has those twelve links; twelve links of where suffering comes from, where this
world comes from, where samsara comes from. What’s the first link?
Kylie had a couple of years of this; {.. marigpa}. What’s the first link?
[student]
Yeah. Ignorance, the two blind men, right? And if you have ignorance, what
does it make you do? If you’re at work and you have ignorance about the guy
who attacks you, what will you do?
[student]
Yeah, you’ll attack him back. And that’s the second link, which is, karma.
[student]
{.. du je kyi le}. What’s {pungpa}?
 [student]
Then you start, then you start all the, all the causes of birth and things like that.
You start into the different heaps that are caused by [unclear] okay. But that’s,
that’s forward progression. That’s, like, what causes. When you get up to nine,
ten, eleven – what are those? Do you remember? {gurpa lenpa, jukpa sipa …}.
When you get up to the last four links, for example, these are just examples of
forward progressions. When you get up into { chupa si, gurpa lenpa} at the
moment of death you, you grasp to something. {chupa sipa} means you create,
your karma ripens because of your grasping. This is all at the moment of death.
And then, {juk chipa}, the eleventh link is birth and then the twelfth link is aging
and death. So those are {luk-jung}. Those are, that’s how the wheel gets, you
know, wheel of fortune, gets spun, okay. And that means forward order, okay:
what, what triggers what. So what do you think reverse order is?
[student]
Excuse me?
[student]
Yeah. It’s like you start with death and you say, if I want to shut off death what
do I have to shut off? Birth. If I want to shut off birth what do I have to shut off?
Ripe karma at, at, at death. If I want to shut off that what do I have to shut off? I
have to shut off the grasping that triggers that ripe karma. And then you go
backwards. If I want to cut off the second link which is fresh karma, created
karma, what do I have to shut off?
[students]
The first one which is, ignorance. That’s {luk-dok}. That’s reverse order. So that’s
just gives you an idea of a forward order and reverse order. What we’re doing
it, what is the use of {luk-jung} and {luk-dok} in this chapter of the
Pramanavartikka is {tsema gyurpa}. What is {tsema gyurpa}?
[students]
Yeah, becoming.
[students]
Excuse me?
[student]
Say, {tunpa}[repeat] {chuchen}[repeat], {tunpa} [repeat] {chuchen} [repeat]. This
is the form of a debate. This is the form of logic. When you’re making a debate
you always say [claps hands] {chuchen}. You take a [claps hands] {chuchen}
means take this example. {chuchen} means take this example. What’s {tunpa}?
Is anybody saying the grace before they eat? {Tunpa lama sangye }
{tsema}[repeat] {gyurte} [repeat]; {tsema} [repeat] {gyurte} [repeat]. What’s
{tsema}?
[students]
Correct perception. {Tsema gyur} means he turned into and then, and then in
this case it doesn’t mean the perception, right. It means a totally correct person.
He turned into totally correct. Sound familiar? Where’s it come from?
[student]
Yeah, the five qualities that Dignaga was talking about. Who’s Dignaga?
[students]
He’s the grandfather of all Buddhist logic. Who’s the father of all Buddhist logic?
[students]
Dharmakirti.. So this is the person that Dharmakirti was getting his logic from,
okay. He said that the Teacher turned totally correct, why?
Say, {kyodpa}[repeat] {yinpay chir}[repeat]; {kyodpa yinpay chir} [repeat]. So in
a debate you say, {tunpa chuchen}. Say, {tunpa chuchen} [repeat], {tunpa
chuchen} [repeat], {tunpa chuchen}[claps hands] [repeat]; {tsema gyute}[repeat],
{tsema gyurte}[repeat], {kyodpa yinpay chir} [repeat] {kyodpa yinpay chir}
[repeat] [unclear]. That’s how you debate. [laughter]
What is {kyopa}? What’s {kyabdro} mean?
[students]
{Kyabdro}is taking Refuge. {Kyopa} means refuge, protector. {Kyobpa yinpay
chir}; {kyobpa} means protector, {yin} means what? Is. And {chir} means
because. So, it means because He is the Protector. Sound familiar? Where’s the
Protector come from?
[student]
Huh?
[student]
The same verse; from Dignaga’s verse. You’re getting a pattern here. He’s
taking one part of the verse to prove another part of the verse.
[student]
Take the Teacher, consider the Teacher; he became totally correct; because he’s
the Protector. Does that make sense? [laughs] I mean, we’re trying to link all
those qualities to each other and we’re trying to see some kind of what?
Forward progression, how one causes the next, but it seems like he’s pushing it.
What use is it, how can you say, oh he’s totally correct because he’s a Protector?
[student]
Yeah, I mean, definitely it wouldn’t seem to be this way. What makes somebody
a Protector? That’s, that’s the key here. What did we say last time was the way
to prove that the Buddha was correct, at our stage, at out level? Assuming you
are who you seem to be.
[student]
Yeah, the fact that he described suffering perfectly. Which makes you think that
he might be correct about the Four [student] about the Four Noble Truths
because that’s the first one. And, if he teaches people the Four Noble Truths
what has he done for us?
[student]
He’s protecting us. That’s the only way he can protect us. You know, we talk
about refuge or protection blah, blah, blah, the only way he can help you, the
only way he can effect you, is to teach you the Four Noble Truths. It’s the only
way he can do anything for you. And they say, that’s why they say the Buddha’s
speech is his highest activity. His mental activity and his physical activity are not
considered as high as his speech. And the only way Buddha can do anything for
you is to teach you the Four Noble Truths. And that’s protecting you. So, now
does it make sense?
Take the teacher; he became totally correct. Prove it. Oh, because he protects
people by teaching them the Four Noble Truths. And, because he teaches the
first noble truth we know he’s totally correct. That’s the, that’s the key here.
That’s how you jump from ‘protector’ to ‘totally correct’. How does he protect?
He teaches the Four Noble Truths. What’s the first noble truth? Suffering. What
proves to us that he’s correct? He teaches suffering.
[student]
He describes the problems better than anyone, in fact, because he describes it
correctly. Everybody got it? Okay. Want to go over it again? He’s totally
correct because he’s a protector and a protector teaches people the Four Noble
Truths: what to give up and what to take up. And we know he’s correct because
he teaches the first noble truth. And that’s all. You have to go, you have to make
those jumps. Protector means a person who teaches the first noble truth and
therefore we believe him and therefore he must be correct.
[student]
Yeah, yeah, it’s the only thing anyone can do to help you. To tell you what to do
with the guy at work. That gets you out of suffering. That gets you out. If you
react properly to the guy at work you’re out.
[student]
Because you can’t confirm the other three with your direct experience yet; you
can judge him on his description of the first noble truth. But, frankly, you’re not
sure about the other three. You don’t know if suffering can ever end. You’ve
never heard of a, you don’t believe there’s a person who’s not going to die or
get old, do you? Do you really believe it? Did you ever meet such a person? No.
Then do you believe there’s, that … Do you believe that not reacting badly to
the guy at work could someday lead you to not dying and not getting old? You
don’t really see the connection. And, do you really believe that your past
perceptions created the world that you see now? It’s hard to confirm. Over time
you’ll see it with logic or you’ll see it with training. You’ll hear it enough times
and you’ll think it over and it will seem correct to you, but right now, no. The
only thing you confirm that he, the only thing that you can confirm that he said
is that you are suffering in the way he described. And his description of
suffering is much more subtle than say the Christian description of suffering or
something like that. We don’t say a beautiful sunset is a nice thing. We don’t say
a beautiful, a good meal is a nice thing ‘cos they are tied up with suffering. They
always end in suffering. Suffering is part of them. Suffering is their necessary
conclusions. And that’s, they’re not happy.
{kyodpa yinpay chir}; this is the first of the four reasonings of the forward order,
okay, and that’s the name of your reason. This is the first of the four reasonings
of the forward order. And I’ll write four reasons. [cut]
[student]
Yeah. I’ll tell you what forward order means in this case, okay. It’s a very good
question and, you know, I was unclear on it a long time.
{rikpa} means reasoning. Reasoning. This is a {rikpa} and, and you’ll learn it. I
mean, you will get good at {rikpas} by the time five years are done. Debating is
constant {rikpas}, okay. So {rikpa} means reasoning; {shi} means four. Four. In
Dharmakirti’s book the four reasonings for the forward order are to prove
where, where the Buddha came from. To prove how you can become a Buddha.
That’s what forward order means in his book [unclear].
[student]
The forward order, in this case, refers to where does a Buddha come from.
[student]
We’ve only got the first one. When you get all four you’ll see it. What is reverse
order, in this case, means how can you prove, how can you, how can we know
that such a thing exists. And we’re not going to get into that tonight. That’s a
whole other subject. That takes a whole other year in the monastery. What
we’re doing in this six weeks takes a year in the monastery. The four reasonings
of the forward order, which is where does a Buddha come from, takes about a
year. The four reasonings of the reverse order, which means how do you know
he exists, how can you prove it, they take another year. We’re not going to do
that. So, we’re doing {rikpa shi}. This is number one. This whole thing is
number one. That’s the first {rikpa}. That’s the first reasoning. What did we
prove? We proved he was?
[student]
Totally correct. Why? Because, he’s the Protector, in that verse. Meaning, he
teaches the Four Noble Truths. Meaning, he teaches the first so well [student]
that he must be {tsema gyurte}. He must be correct.
[student]
Take for example. I mean it’s [claps hands], you know, what are we going to
argue about? Ah, how about let’s take the Teacher. That’s {tunpa churchen}.
What do we have to prove next? Let’s move this one. Let’s move this one up to
here.
[student]
Let’s prove that he’s a {kyodpa}. And then it goes like that, you see, it goes
through each of those five things.
Say, {tunpa}[repeat] [students], {tunpa}[repeat], {chuchen}[repeat], {tunpa}
[repeat] {chuchen}[repeat] {kyoppa yinte}[repeat], you guys are sleepy as me.
[laughs]
{kyoppa yinte}[repeat] {kyoppa yinte} [repeat] {drima pangpay chir}[repeat]
{drima panpay chir}[repeat]. Take what?
[students]
The Teacher. He is a [students] protector, okay. Got it? Take the Teacher; he’s a
Protector. Why? {drima panpay chir}; {drima} means stink, bad smell. It’s the
‘ma’ in [unclear] and {pangpa} means to eliminate. It means all bad qualities.
{Drima}, in this case, means bad qualities. {pangpa} means got rid of, okay.
So, take the Buddha, he’s a Protector because what?
[students]
He has eliminated all undesirable qualities, literally, ‘all stinks’ [student] in
himself. Absolutely. If it was in us we wouldn’t be here. [laughs] And, no one
can do it for someone else. This is a, this is a secret code for one of the five
words in that original verse by Dignaga. Which one do you think it refers to?
[student]
Yeah. Nice. Okay. Who went to Bliss. This is referring to the, the ‘who went to
bliss’ in the verse. The One who went to Bliss. That’s a word for a Buddha. So
we’re getting, each of those five parts of that very first statement that we had is
coming from. He’s totally correct because he’s a protector. He’s a protector
because he went to bliss. What does ‘went to bliss mean’? Got rid of all your
bad qualities and realised all things. Mainly, got rid of your bad qualities. That’s
what makes you a protector. If you’re not that you’re not such a, you can’t
protect all beings. You don’t have the qualities. You don’t have the ability.
[student]
And realised all things. That’s what {sangye} means. That’s what Buddha means:
eliminated all bad qualities and realised all objects.
[student]
You can’t protect people until you, you don’t have the ability; you have to have
three things to protect people. { …..} and partly you have to, you have to
understand their, you have to be able to see perfectly everything about them.
[student]
What is it?
[student]
It’s called {tokpa phuntsok} and we don’t get it. It comes in the reverse order so
we’re not going to talk about it. We’re concentrating. What does {sangye}
mean? What does the word {sangye} mean?
[students]
Huh?
[student]
What does it mean? What’s the Sanskrit word for {sangye}? Buddha. [laughs]
Okay. Buddha. So you have the word Buddha.
Now, the Tibetans chose to use the word {sangye}. What does the {sang} mean?
What is the {gye} part? There’s two words to that. There’s two parts to that
word,
{sangye}.
]student]
Excuse me?
[student]
That’s close. {sang} can mean to clear away something in the way that you clear
away your sleep when you wake up. If you have a fresh, if you wake up. I mean,
let’s say after the coffee, okay. [laughs] The only way it happens. That’s {sang}.
{Sang} means to, like, clear away cobwebs. It’s a word that means to clear away
something. And that refers to the Buddha eliminating his bad qualities. And then
{gye} what do you think it means? {Gye} means to wide and {gye} means he
covers all objects. His knowledge, that refers to his omniscience. So, generally,
the Buddha has two qualities. The definition of a Buddha has two qualities: he’s
eliminated all bad qualities and he, and he, he has spread his knowledge to all
objects. That’s {sang- gye}, Buddha. And this is referring to the first quality: got
rid of all his bad, everything negative. Which is what? What’s the negative side
of existence?
[students]
Huh?
[student]
Yeah. Afflicted side, which means what? Two things: two noble truths.
[student]
Suffering and what causes it. By the way, noble truths is a very, I don’t know if
we talked about it but, truth kind of means, you know, everything is suffering
and suffering has a cause. But in the real meaning of the Four Noble Truths is
everything is suffering refers to all suffering things. It’s not really a truth it’s a
reality. It’s that thing. Most people never grasp that. It’s not really a truth in the
sense of ‘all men walk on legs’. It’s not like that. It refers to all men. The first
noble truth refers to all suffering things. It doesn’t mean the fact that all things
are suffering. The word ‘truth’ in the Four Noble Truths means that very object,
that very reality. It doesn’t mean, oh this is this. We are the noble truth of
suffering. You are the noble truth of suffering. This wall is the noble truth of
suffering, New York is the noble truth of suffering. [student]
They should have maybe translated it as the reality. It’s a difficult word. The
word doesn’t refer to the fact that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It refers to that
very object. You are the truth of suffering and you are the truth of the cause of
suffering. As well as you have a bad thought in your heart you are the truth of
the cause of suffering. You are both of those truths. So, [student]. Two results
and two causes. [student]. Two results and two causes, in fact, there’s two ways
of presenting it but we didn’t, we’ll get [unclear].
Okay. So, he’s gotten rid of his bad qualities, which means, suffering and the
cause of suffering in his heart, okay. Therefore, he’s a {kyoppa}. Therefore, he’s
a protector.
[student]
Ah, good point. That’s a good point. That’s actually true [student] but he
hasn’t .. -
I’ll make this simple for you, okay. If you read the Tibetan, in the reading, there’s
an adverb here {sepa}, which means, totally. Totally. And in that case ‘bad
qualities’ would refer to the inability to perceive all objects and that an arhat
doesn’t have. He hasn’t got rid of the lousy quality that he can’t see all objects in
the universe. And it’s a good question and if you were in a debate ground you
probably would have got somebody. Okay. Now what do we got to prove?
[student]
We’re not dealing with that now. That’s dealt with, it is part of going through the
list but it’s dealt with in the reverse order, which we’re not going to get into yet.
So don’t worry about it.
[student]
What do we have to prove now?
[student]
Yeah. Now we have to move this one up to here. We have to prove that he got
rid of his bad qualities.
[student]
Yeah. That was number two of the four reasons.
[student]
This one?
[student]
These?
[student]
Yeah. It’s always the same because that’s the colon.
[student]
Because [student]
Say, {tunpa}[repeat] {chuchen}[repeat] {drima}[repeat] {pangte}[repeat] {tunpa}
[repeat] {yinpay chir}[repeat]. I’m going to add something. {tong nyi kyi}
[repeat] {tunpa yinpay chir}[repeat]; {tong nyi kyi}[repeat] {tunpa yinpay chir}
[repeat].
So why, why should the Buddha be, why should the Buddha have eliminated all
his bad qualities? What caused it? Now, we’ve used up a lot of Dignaga’s
statement. We’ve used up what so far for reasons? We used up, what was the
first one? [student] What was the first reason? Oh, ‘cos he was a Protector. We
used up Protector. Then what?
[students]
Protector because he went to bliss. Now, actually, you’re saying he went to bliss
because of what? What’s the only way to get to bliss?
[students]
No. Teacher. Now, what, doesn’t make sense. [unclear] very logical and she
hears something she doesn’t like [laughs] – should do that. At this point you
should say well what’s that got to do with that. What you’re saying is that he
went to bliss or he got rid of all his bad qualities because he’s a Teacher. But
what’s really the only thing that can get rid of your bad qualities? There’s, by the
way, if you have a bad quality, in Nagarjuna, in the Friendly Letter, Letter to the
King, he spends half the book describing how to overcome your bad qualities.
And, and, and he’s speaking to a monk also. He’s speaking to monks and he
says, he gets to a part about how to get rid of desire for ladies and he gets into a
lot of reasons. He says, first of all, when you look at a lady try to imagine that
junk coming out of all the holes in her body, you know. Out of her eyes is
coming junk, out of her ears is coming wax, out of her nose is coming snot, out
of her mouth is coming [laughs] spit and out of the other holes is coming worse
stuff. He says try to think of that. And then he says you can also if she’s your
own age try to think of her as your sister; if she’s older than you think of her as
your mother; if she’s younger than you try to think of her as your daughter and
maybe you won’t get desire. And then he says but it won’t really work. [laughs]
He says it’s only, this is like Shantideva’s first eight chapters. I mean, they, those,
those are tricks that don’t ultimately work. It’s only one thing that really works.
And what’s that?
[students]
Yeah, seeing her emptiness. Seeing the emptiness of [unclear]. It’s the only
thing that really works. So, the rest of the book what does he talk about?
Emptiness. And when we submitted that book to the publishers they asked us
to take out the first half and just [unclear] print the second half as emptiness is
cool and morality’s not so interesting. [laughs] It was a very famous publisher. I
won’t say, okay, But, yeah, emptiness, okay. So, because he’s the Teacher of
what? {Tongnyi}; emptiness. That’s the clue here. Again you need a clue. It’s not
evident. Just because he’s a Teacher wouldn’t prove that he got rid of all his bad
qualities.
[student]
Teacher has to involve emptiness. He teaches emptiness. Student]
Take the Teacher, he’s got, he went to bliss or he got rid of all his bad qualities
because he’s a teacher of emptiness. He went to bliss because he teaches
emptiness. And then, the implication is the only way you could ever get to bliss
is to perceive emptiness directly. That’s the implication there.
[student]
Right, but he’s a {tsema gyurpa}. He doesn’t teach anything if he hasn’t seen it.
He doesn’t say anything if he hasn’t known it. That’s a real important point and
I’ll state it again. {tsema}, totally correct person means you don’t say something
if you don’t know it. He won’t say anything unless he’s personally perceived it
directly in some way with correct, he’s confirmed it. He won’t say anything
unless he’s confirmed it with his own perception. That’s a lot of what {tsema
gyurpa} means. And we don’t do that and I’ve noticed that about myself
[laughs], you know. In a lot of what I say, I mean, it’s like talk a lot at work I
realised that a lot of it is not, and my boss is very good at saying, well are you
sure about that? I’ll say, yeah, yeah. And he’ll say, but what about that? And I’ll
say, well that’s correct [laughs] you know. He’s very good at getting it out of
you in about ten seconds that you really don’t know that. That’s, that’s part of
{tsema gyurpa}. So he teaches emptiness. Emptiness is how he got rid of his bad
qualities. How many reasonings have we got?
[student]
We finished three. Now what’s the last one? We’ve got to prove what?
[students]
What?
That he teaches, that he’s a Teacher. {Tunpa}[repeat] {chuchen}repeat] {tong nyi
kyi}[repeat] {tunpa}[repeat] {yin te}[repeat] {tuk je chenpo}[repeat] {yupay chir}
[repeat]; {tuk je chenpo}[repeat] {yupay chir}[repeat]. {tuk je, tuk je} means
karuna, means compassion; {tuk je} means compassion. {tuk je chenpo} means
what? What’s {chenpo} mean? Great compassion. This is maha- karuna, okay,
very famous word. Great compassion; maha-karuna, {tuk je chenpo}. {Yupay
chir}; {yupa} means what? Do you know? He has, he possesses, {yipay chir} –
because he possesses. So, he’s a Teacher because he possesses what? Great
compassion.
What part of that verse do you think this refers to? Helps all beings. Now we’ve
covered that one: helps all beings. So, how many? Let’s count them up. What
are the four? What are the four reasons that we’ve had so far? By the way, the
reasons are named by their, by the last part. The four reasons, the four
reasonings are named by the last part, by the thing that you give as the reason.
What was the first reason that we gave?
[student]
What?
[student]
Because he’s a protector; so, the first one is called the ‘reasoning of the protector’.
What proved you as a Protector?
[students]
Huh?
[students]
What was the second reason?
[students]
Gone to Bliss. Okay. Gone to Bliss in the sense of he wiped out all his bad
qualities. ‘Gone to Bliss’, don’t forget it’s a word for Buddhahood. What proves
he went to bliss? How do you get to bliss?
[student]
Yeah, you have to know emptiness. So we say Teacher. What made him the
Teacher?
[students]
Great compassion, which was what?
[student]
Helps all beings.
[student]
That’s it, yeah.
[student]
It does doesn’t it. [laughs] I hate to admit it. [laughs] I hate to admit it. By the
way, these are very, very famous. I mean, people spend a whole year in the
monastery studying these. They are not written down anywhere in any of the
great books. They’re always referred to. The whole book is designed around the
four reasonings but they are never written down. By oral tradition they have
never been written down. I got Rinpoche to write them down. You’ve got them
in your, in your hand now.
[students]
But it’s a great mystery, you know. I said to Rinpoche, do you know that these
aren’t written down anywhere? I checked in the computer. We’ve put in
thousands of pages of books. They’re not in the computer. He says, you’re
right. They’re nowhere. So he pulls out these papers he wrote out in nineteen
sixty-one, for him self, and it has them all written out, you see. I had the same
problem, you know, thirty-three years ago. And he pulls out this tattered piece
of paper and says, here you can write it down. You can copy it. So I had this
same problem. It’s very interesting. Yeah?
[student]
Yeah. If you, if you don’t understand the link ask me. You have to understand
the link.
[student]
Wait.
[student]
Weren’t there five parts? How come there are only four reasons? What’s the
fifth part of that statement? It was on your first homework or your second
homework. Take your second homework.                 What’s the fifth part of the
statement?
[student]
Turned correct.
[student]
Good. Good question. What, anybody know? How does saying he’s Protector
prove that he’s totally correct? We’ll go, we’ll go in {luk-dok}. We’ll go in reverse
order. How do you know he’s totally correct? Why do you have any faith at all
in the Buddha? To be serious, why are you? You have a subconscious attraction
to Buddhism, everybody here, nothing logical, nothing reasonable. But what’s
the closest thing you have to reasons [student] [unclear] to be attracted to
Buddhism?
[student]
Your personal confirmation of suffering and that’s the first noble truth. So that’s
why we say he’s Protector in that he shows the four noble truths. If he shows
the four noble truths he shows the first noble truth. If he shows the first noble
truth he must be correct. That’s all. It’s a good question. It’s a good question
and you wouldn’t know that if you hadn’t had the last two classes. It builds up
to this.
[student]
Right. [student] Yeah. [student] Well that’s a little [student]. Yeah. [students]
[laugher]
But that’s not how you prove it. That’s not how you know it, otherwise, you’d
be, that’s reverse. That’s not good reasoning. You can’t say I believe him ‘cos
he’s right, because he’s always right.
You can’t say I believe him because he wouldn’t have said it if he wasn’t correct.
I believe he’s correct because he wouldn’t have said it if he wasn’t correct.
[student] [unclear] be a liar, you don’t know. [laughs] He could not know what
he’s talking about. Not so much a liar but just not know what he’s talking about.
So those are the five statements of Dignaga’s statement. Why did we get into
that you don’t know yet. Okay. We’re building up to something. What’s the
Course supposed to be?
[students]
The proof of past and future lives. We didn’t get to it yet, you know. Why are
we wandering around in who created the world and these five things that
Dignaga said? We don’t have any connection yet to past and future lives. It will
come. There’s a reason but those are the reasonings right now. Those are the
four reasonings of the forward order. This led to that. This led to that. This led to
that. And that led to that. That’s pretty forward, okay. I did it backwards.
[student]
When you write it down it doesn’t but you’re trying to prove how he’s starting.
[student]
Starts here. Great compassion is the key to everything. Great compassion is the,
is the primal cause. We don’t believe there was some god that’s the primal cause.
We believe that great compassion is the primal cause. We believe that great
compassion starts everything.
[student: primal cause of what?]
Of Buddhahood. Everything starts from great compassion and we’re going to
explain that next.
[student]
Yeah. Yeah. In reality it starts from that. Why? You can’t have bodhicitta
without great compassion and we’ll talk about that but great compassion is not
bodhicitta, by the way. It’s one of the causes of bodhicitta. We’ll get into that.
Remember those seven causes, six cause for bodhicitta? We had it in the first
course. Ah, yay [unclear]. Okay, have a break and then when we come back.
Have you asked me, nobody asked me okay. You don’t care to teach unless you
have compassion. That’s one reason. They say, {…. den}. Buddha has to have
three qualities. He has to know everything and he has to have the power to help
us but if he doesn’t have love he won’t care. I mean, you could imagine a being
that knew everything and had the power to teach you but didn’t feel like it.
[student]
Yeah, of course, yeah. Chain of causes are what are called forward order. That’s
the forward order and all that’s hidden in Dignaga’s statement. Dignaga’s
statement is very profound and you study it for like ten years in the monastery
that, those two lines.
[student]
Yeah and that’s a long story. That’s a long story. Can you perceive emptiness
without great compassion? Probably not. Do Hinayana people experience great
compassion? We’ll talk about it.
[student]
{….}, {..} means power, ability and {den} means has.
[student]
We’ll talk about it. Yeah, it seems like it could but I think Dignaga wants to point
out what’s the primary cause. He got down to the primary cause now.
Chandrakirti, he comes a few hundred years later, agrees. And in his book, he
opens his book, which is the basic book on emptiness, by bowing down to great
compassion because that’s the primal cause. That’s the first cause. They call it
the first cause in Buddhism. That’s a fresh idea.
[student]
Be the first cause? They say this one helps cause wisdom and bodhicitta. Okay
have a drink. We’ll talk about it when we come back.
{tuk je che} [repeat]; {tuk je} means compassion.
[student]
This is a long ‘u’.
[student]
Huh?
[student]
Oh, whether the ‘ga’ in Tibetan is a ‘g’ or a ‘k’ is a big battle between millions of
people. It’s a ridiculous battle because it’s between a ‘g’ and a ‘k’ you’ll never
decide. You don’t have that in English so I like ‘k’ because to me it sounds closer
to a ‘k’ but it doesn’t really matter. It depends on your ear. It is not either a ‘k’ or
a ‘g’. Depending on which course is ahead one is the guinea pig and I’m still
figuring out what to say or [unclear] and we have it in the other course. There’s
actually six things but these are the two that I’m going to talk about.
{nying je} means compasson and {jampa} means love. And, there’s lots of
translations but, I’ll give you the basic meaning of them and I think you’ll agree
those are probably correct. Basic meaning of {nying je} as a general word in
Tibetan, compassion, means to want to get someone out of suffering. To remove
someone from suffering, that’s {nying je}.
[student]
As opposed to{jampa}. We’ll get to {tuk je} later. So, what do you think {jampa}
is? Love. What is love? If {nying je}wants to take them out of suffering
[students]. Yeah, {jampa} wants to put them into happiness. It’s like a child, you
know, if he’s sick you want him to get better. That’s {nying je}. And {jampa}is
where you want, you get him presents.
[student]
Excuse me?
[student]
Oh yeah. Yeah. They’re both a wish or desire, a nice one.
[student]
Love. {Jampa}, which is to give them something good; to put them into some
kind of good condition. {Nying je} just gets them out of trouble; {jampa} wants
to get them into something good. It’s the difference between compassion and
love. And you see loving-compassion, loving-kindness, mercy [unclear]. It’s a
difficult word. To give you a sense of the Tibetan colloquial, okay, what it, I
mean, {nying je}means what you do when you see somebody in trouble, you
know. You see somebody in the street, he’s all dirty and poor and he’s got
[unclear] {nying je}. {Nying je} means, you know, I want to pity, in modern
Tibetan. {jampa} means, {jampa min dhu} means they don’t get along with each
other; {jamp kyi dhu} means they get along with each other, they like each other.
So those are the modern senses of those words but the classical philosophical
sense is wants to get them out of trouble and wants to give them something
good.
[student]
These are two of the six steps for developing bodhicitta but that’s not the point
tonight. That’s not .., . I’ll give you the point right now, okay. They happen to be
that.
[cut] [repeat]     {chenpo}[repeat], {nying je chenpo}[repeat], {tuk je chenpo}
[repeat], {tuk je chenpo}[repeat], {tuk je chenpo}[repeat]. {Nying je chenpo}
means great compassion, okay. What does the word compassion in Tibetan
come from? What does {nying} mean? Do you know? What’s {sherab
nyingpo}? Heart Sutra. {Nying} means heart; heart or essence. Heart. {Je} is the
{je} in {dorje}. What’s {je} in {dorje} mean? Lord of stones is a diamond. So, {je}
means lord. Lord. So what’s {nying je}? [student] Lord of heart, heart, lord
heart, highest state of your heart. It’s a nice word. It’s a beautiful word, {nying
je}. But when we talk about the Buddha’s heart we don’t use the word {nying}
because {nying} is a common word. When we speak about the parts of a higher
person, like your Lama or the Dalai Lama, there’s a whole separate language in
Tibetan. You have to use a whole different everything has a different word.
This is my {lakpa}, it’s the Dalai Lama’s {cha}. This is my {go}, this is the Dalai
Lama’s {..}. This is my {lu}, this is the Dalai lama’s {ku}. You know you have to
use these high words. So {tuk} is the higher word for {nying je}, okay. {Tuk} is
the higher word for mind or heart, holy, holy heart or perfected heart. It refers
to a Buddha’s heart.
[student]
Excuse me?
[student]
Yeah. Maha-karuna. So what do you think is the difference between these two
compassions? They’re both words for great compassion. This one means great
compassion and this means great compassion.
[student]
Yeah, one is a non-Buddha’s and one is a Buddha’s, okay. {Nying je chenpo},
great compassion, not enlightened big compassion, is that.            It’s the great
compassion of a person who is not a Buddha. And then, {tuk je chenpo}, or you
should say, I should, you can have {tuk je chenpo} before you’re a Buddha
actually. [laughter] Let’s say Mahayana and Hinayana. Like, bodhisattva great
compassion and non-bodhisattva compassion.              Anyway, there’s difference
between these two compassions. One is higher and one is lower. They’re both
great compassion. What makes them different? There’s two viewpoints here.
One is the Abhidharma which is a lower school. It gives eight differences and I’m
not going to go into them okay, ‘cos she has to leave by nine. No. But I’ll go into
the difference in the higher schools. Separate. Get, let me see, are these
separated [unclear].
{Drel} means be separated from, {drel}; {du} means want. So, what does {drel-
du} mean? [laughs] Ah, yeah, want to see others separated from suffering, want
to see them get out of suffering. That’s called {drel-du}. That’s one kind of great
compassion and even Hinayana people can have that. They would like to see
people get out of suffering. [student] Yeah. [student] Yeah. I mean a lot of
people think there’s no such thing as bodhisattvas or that bodhisattvas are not
described in the Hinayana literature. They are. And all the stages of compassion
are described. The Abhidharma describes bodhisattvas.
So, {drel-du} means wants to see them get out of suffering, other beings. {Kyob-
du} means what? What’s {kyob}? We had it before. Protector. Want to protect
them, you want to be the one to help them. Those are the two flavours. Those
are the two like thirty-one flavours. Those are the two flavours of great
compassion. Those are the two versions. One just wants to see, the first one, just
wants to see them get out of suffering. The second one says I’ll be the one to
protect them. I’ll be the one to get them out of suffering. Yeah but isn’t that the
sixth step of bodhicitta, the {drelwa? And isn’t compassion earlier than that? And
someone in the other class guessed it right off. This form of great compassion,
the kind that wants to help them is the sixth step. It is that taking great, taking
personal responsibility. And those of you who didn’t study that it doesn’t mean
much to you, but this kind is only had by people on the bodhisattva track -
Mahayana people - that actually take personal responsibility to help those
people. I don’t care if nobody, {hlaksam}, which is the personal responsibility
means. And it’s a very nice attitude. It’s very good for you. It’s I don’t care if no
one helps me, you know. If I think it’s valuable I’ll do it myself and I won’t be
effected by whether the other people help me or not. If they help me fine; if
they don’t help me I’ll still do it myself. If they start to help me and then poop
out I’ll still do it myself because I think it’s important. And, even if they attack
me for it I’ll still do it ‘cos I understand that it’s importnat. That’s {hlaksam} and
that’s all tied up [unclear]. Yeah?
[student]
There’s three kinds of compassion taught by Chandrakirti, not Dharmakirti, and
that’s a very long story and you’ll study that. But, basically, the third kind is
where it sees sentient beings as empty and wants to help. It’s called, {mikme
tseway terchin; mikme, mikme nying je} and we, it doesn’t come in this book. It
doesn’t come in this context. He’s talking about, there’s another book on great
compassion and it divides great compassion into three types: one is focussing on
the sentient being, one is focussing on their emptiness as an empty person.
That’s a different [unclear]. Why are we talking about great compassion?
[student]
It’s the fourth reason. And remember we said it was the original cause.
Everything starts from there. You get great compassion, which turns you into a
Teacher; because you’re a Teacher you get rid of your bad qualities; when
you’ve got rid of your bad qualities you’re a Protector; because you’re a
Protector you’re totally correct. That’s how we got here. Now the last thing
tonight and I can finish almost before nine, not quite. [students] Yeah, yeah, yeah
- if I can go backwards.
How long does it take to gain great compassion? Oh, by the way, in the
Abhidharma the difference between great compassion and, you know, this great
compassion and the other great compassion: it’s focussed on all beings, it’s had
by a Buddha who actually has the ability to protect all beings, like that. In the
Abhidharma there’s a whole, there’s eight different qualities, which I’m not
going to go into.
How many lives does it take to get that? I should, bad question. How long does
it take to get it? How long does it take to get the great compassion of a Buddha?
[students] [laughter]
Millions.
[students]
Millions. Yeah, you could say three countless, you could say, you could say thirty
to the sixtieth power aeons. [laughs]
[students]
You meet a teacher, he explains it to you, you understand it’s value, you know.
You go through those steps. But, anyway, according to us it takes millions and
millions of years. I mean, it takes, it has taken you millions of years to get to this
class.
[student]
No. I never said that. [laughs] [laughter]
[student]
Ah, I didn’t say that. There are some secret teachings about it, which are secret,
and if you see emptiness, directly, it’s very common that you would have about
seven lives to go. And when you see emptiness, directly, you will know that.
You will see the seven lives.
[student]
You can’t go to hell after a certain part of the second Path. It’s called {jor lam
sopa}. It’s impossible for you to take a lower birth after a certain stage of
perceiving emptiness intellectually. You can’t go to hell realms, which would be
a nice goal, right? Okay. So, many lifetimes.
Now, this is where another non-Buddhist school comes up, called the {…},
Chravakas, Chravakas, and they say there’s no such thing as past lives. They are
a Hindu school that was, you know, active during Dharmakirti’s time
apparently, fifth century say. And they said there’s no such thing as past and
future lives, therefore, you can’t develop compassion over many lives.
Therefore, this omniscient being called Buddha you’re talking about doesn’t even
exist. So, Dharmakirti gets interested in what?
[student]
he has to show them what? That there’s past and future lives. And that’s how,
now in the sixth class, we finally get to the subject of past and future lives,
alright. How did it go? Chandrakirti, Dharmakirti starts talking about the idea of
pramana, {tsema}, correct perception. Then he says there’s one being that has
only correct perception, that’s a Buddha. And then he goes about showing the
steps by which he becomes a person of correct perception, which is those four
reasonings. The last reasoning involves becoming compassionate. Then he says
it has to happen over many lifetimes. And then he hits the Chravakas who say
there’s no such thing as future lives and there’s no such thing as past lives and it’s
obvious because when the body falls down and stops, the brain stops and there’s
no more mind. And, obviously, when the parents get together and they have
this, they conceive a child, the brain must start then because that’s when the kid
starts moving in the mommy’s tummy. So life, life and the mind starts at
conception of after that and at death any fool can see the body flops around for a
while and then stops breathing and the mind stops. So their big argument for
proving that the mind stops and that there is no future or past lives is what?
[student]
That the mind depends on the body, the mind is linked to the body: when the
body stops the mind stops. And they say you can see it. And it’s a pretty good
argument. It looks like that. So, then, Dharmakirti has his work cut out for him.
Now, the reading that you didn’t get tonight, that you’re going to get at the
retreat, gives you three reasons why they, three, three ways they think that
dependence occurs.
Three ways in which they say the mind depends on the body. That’s also on
your homework which you’re not going to get tonight ‘cos my printer broke so
I don’t know how we do this. You don’t have a class for another week and a half
so I’d like to, I’ll print it tomorrow in New Jersey and I’ll leave it here. You don’t
have a class a week from tonight.
[students]
Right. [students] I don’t, I don’t even have all the questions [unclear] [laughs]
[students]
They’ll be here as of Thursday morning and I’m sorry just as I it broke and I
[unclear]
[student]
Yeah, definitely, I’ll print them in New Jersey. So anybody who’s going to the
retreat I’ll have it on the weekend. Anyone who’s not going to the retreat could
pick it up here after Thursday.
[student]
No but I could also leave some in here and a lot of people have keys …..[further
comments on getting homework]
So that’s all. There’s three, there’s three relationships, there’s three ways they
say in which the mind depends on the body and it’s up to Dharmakirti to prove
what?
[student]
He’s got to somehow prove that the relationship is not what they think it is.
That’s it. Kylie.
[prayer: mandala]
[prayer: dedication]
TYPING ONE OF CLASS SEVEN
940914-1.aaa

17a.txt
transcribed by: Andrea McCullough