ACI 5 «Как работает карма», занятие 2

CLASS 2: THE NATURE OF KARMA AND WHAT IT PRODUCES

[b: Abhidharmakosha], it’s very, very important [unclear] very, very important
right. The first {le} means ‘karma’. Deeds, actions - those are synonyms, you
know. Deeds, actions, karma - okay. I, I … you ought to know karma comes
from the sanskrit word {kur}, meaning to do something. It’s one of the most
basic words in the sanskrit language - {kur} - okay. It probably came into
[unclear] sometime, I don’t remember. Anyway, {le-le}. The second name
means ‘from’. Unfortunately they’re spelt the same and sound the same and
mean two completely different things. {le-le} [repeat]

{Jikten} means … {jikten} is the, is the Tibetan word for the ‘world - the suffering
world’. In sanskrit it’s just one word - {loka} but in Tibetan they … this is one of
the early translations. They tried to catch the meaning, they made a new word.
{Jik} means ‘to be destroyed’ and {ten} means ‘a basis’, so your body is a {jikten}
and your world is a {jikten}. It’s, it’s, it’s going to - sooner or later, it will collapse,
it will fall apart. The world, meaning you and your environment, are both
perishable, perishable things. That’s {jikten}. So, {jikten} means ‘the world’. It
can also mean ‘planet’. And in Buddhism a planet is a complicated thing. It’s not
just a round ball with people standing on it. Okay. [laughs]. That’s a long story
- I won’t go into it [laughs]. That’s the third chapter of the [b: Abhidharma]. But
basically, it’s got all of these levels - there’s many levels that we can’t see. You
know, there’s the hell realms, preta realms, on each planet they have their own
hell realms, they have their own preta realms, they have their own partial hell
realms, they have their own deity realms. You can’t see almost any of it, you
know.

[student: The [b:Abhidharma] isn’t the English type of translation?]

It’s been - since it’s the main book of southern Buddhism, it’s been translated
many times by Sri Lankan scholars and things like that. There was a great
French translation [unclear] - I don’t speak any French [laughs] so …

[student: But is there any English?]

And then someone translated that into English - Veo Prudent - and that’s the
other commentary. That’s Vasubandhu’s .
[student: Is that worth, you think, trying to read?]

It’s pretty decent. It’s very expensive, it’s about, I don’t … two hundred bucks.

[student: Four hundred]

[student: Is it, is it very big?]

It’s four volumes and it’s well done. I mean I kind of … like, and I haven’t read
much of it and we translated this first time on this commentary but we haven’t
polished it yet. About … we started twenty years ago, finished ten years ago
[laughs] and we didn’t try … we never got it cleaned up, it’s on the disc. You can
look at it some time. I can give you the disc. You can play with it.

[student: But it’s in English?]

Yep, with the root text and the commentary. {Jikten na-tsok … na-tsok} means
‘various, multitude’ - okay. {Na-tsok} means ‘many different kinds’ - okay. For
example, {na-tsok dema} in the higher … in the secret teachings there is a special
multi-coloured lotus. It has different colours, that’s {na-tsok}. So, {na-tsok}
means ‘all these different kinds’. {Kye} means ’they come’ - okay. So the whole
first line, the first line of the fourth chapter, is the most important line in the
whole thing. It says… what did the third chapter talk about?

[student: The world and where it came from]

The world and the beings in it. And now he is opening up the fourth chapter.
It’s called {Sum Joi Wa}. It’s called building a bridge in Tibetan.        Good
composition. Supposed to relate it to last chapter. So he says “and if you want
to know where all these different planets come from, of the universe,” and they
have outlines of the planets, you know. There’s this galaxy over there, this
galaxy over there, you know, that planets named that, that planet’s going to
appear on this month. All those different planets and all those different beings
living on those planets, came from {le}.

[student: What’s { le } ?]

Karma - okay. And that’s really, you know, you know, last class we were saying
- if you came out of it, if you ever did come out of it, with a little inkling of what,
that you might, of some strong, lets say some decent foundation, that you might
continue on after you die and that you were here before. That’s enough, that
was a big achievement. This class you, you’re supposed to now focus on, on
actions, your actions - what you do and then if you get some kind of instinct or
feeling for how that creates your world, you know, how that actually determines
your world and you. That you and your world are fluid and they, they’re blank
actually. They could have become anything depending on your actions now.
And what you have now, whether you like it or not, the things you like and the
things you don’t like all came from karma. I mean, Geshe Darge , my first
teacher, he used to say the feeling of the fan on your cheek, it’s, I mean
everything from there on up is from karma, I mean everything so …

[student: If everything comes from karma and karma is caused by ignorance
and attachment and all that, what caused ignorance and the attachment if mind
is, what - how would we define mind? In other words, what makes a blink of
karma?]

It’s like original sin, I guess. [laughs]

[student: Yeah, exactly]

It’s been lousy forever, okay. [laughs] I mean if you were in the last class you’d
know that there was no beginning to your mind because there was always that
death that came just before your first moment of consciousness and that death,
because you have the kind of consciousness you have now, was a … you had
certain kinds of misperceptions at death and therefore you had to take them at
birth. And that’s …

[student: Yeah, but that was a beginning for karmic …]

No, no, beginning. No beginning to all the universes. I mean, universes come
and go.

[student: Mind is endless and karma is endless]

[laughter]

[laughs] I just said that… we’ll talk about it.

[student: I know what you’re saying]
I know, I know what you’re saying - it’s beginningless - it is beginningless.

[student: So karma is beginningless?]

Yeah, yeah, it is beginningless. You know we’ve already proven that in the last
course. We took [laughs], you know, three or four months [laughs] to prove
that - the class was endless, the point was beginningless.

[laughter]

[student: [unclear] Mind was beginningless, not karma was beginningless. If
karma is beginningless … ]

If mind is beginningless, karma is beginningless because karma creates the mind.
It has to.

[student: So then, how then if it is beginningless, it’s endless?]

Yeah.

[student: Then how come we even think that that is possible?]

You can purify it but you can’t destroy it. You can’t destroy mind. You can put
an atomic bomb in it’s way …

[student: No, I’m talking about karma. I’m not talking about mind]

Oh. There’s a kind of … according to [b: Abhidharma] there’s a …

[student: How can you get rid of it? It’s like you can’t get rid of your dhar …. of
karma]

You can get rid of your ignorance, that’s beginningless. You can get rid of
suffering, that’s beginningless. Just because it’s always been that way doesn’t
mean it’s always got to be that way - okay. {Le-le jikten na-tsok kye}. So that’s,
that’s Vasubandhu’s first statement about karma. Why is he saying that? He, he
wants to point out, he’s trying to point out, two different things and the first one
is this. Who’s he, who’s he mostly fighting with - do you remember? It’s about
the same people that Dharmakirti did.
[student: [unclear]

No, no, whoever the [unclear] were [unclear] Vasubandhu’s time - that’s two
hundred years later. [Unclear] general word for non-Buddhist or Hindu and he’s
fighting with Hindus who believe in three different things.

[student: Can you say that sentence, the whole sentence before you go onto the
next bit?]

Yeah, oh, why don’t I give you the reading. It’s there - the levitude of worlds
come from karma. I say here deeds cause the multitude of worlds.

[student: Which would you prefer us to know?]

[laughter]

I’d, I’d use… deeds cause the multitude of worlds because that’s what’s in your
reading.

[student: Cause or caused?]

Cause.

[student: So what is the basis to be destroyed fit in here?]

That’s the translation, that’s the literal meaning of the Tibetan word for world.
{jikten} can also mean ‘planet’. {Jikten bah} means ‘a layman’. A worldly person
- okay. And then Pabongka says “well, {jikten pa} means anybody who hasn’t
seen emptiness [unclear]”. Anyway, [silence] three things that the, that … I
almost said Dharmakirti. Vasubandhu’s fighting against three ideas. One of the
main reasons he wanted to write that first line was because the people in India
when he was there, believed in these three things, one of these three things. Say
{gyu takpa} [repeat]

{Tsowo} [repeat]

{Wang chuk} [repeat]

Okay.    {Gyu takpa} … {gyu} means ‘cause’ and {takpa} means ‘unchanging’.
{Gyu} means ‘cause’ and {takpa} means ‘unchanging’. The second one is {tsowo}.
{Tsowo} means ‘main or principal’. That’s the word for ‘Principal teachings of
Buddhism’ in that little book’s title. {Tsowo} means ‘main or principal’ - okay.
You can translate it as primal energy, primal energy …… and then the third one
is {wangchuk}. {Wangchuk} gets the Tibetan translation of {Ishvrar} and you can
think of it as indra. It doesn’t much matter.

[student: What?]

Indra - Indra’s a Hindu God …. Hindu deity. There …. The ….. those were the
three big ideas around in ….. in Vasubandhu’s time… for what?

[student: Resistance … ]

Where the world came from all right … where the world came from. {Gyu
takpa} is, was impersonal. {Gyu takpa} was like a big bang theory or something
like that - okay. It’s a cause but it …. nothing came before it, nothing caused it.
It was the first cause of all.

[student: Uncaused cause?]

You could say uncaused cause [laughter].

[student: Original cause?]

Unchanging cause. If it’s uncaused, it’s unchanging so it’s the cause of all causes.
Not, not necessarily a being {tsowo}, {Tsowo} is like, it’s hard to describe but it’s
like a being but it’s not like a being. Anyway it’s the energy in the universe that
creates things - okay.

[student: It’s not the energy itself, though]

It’s hard to describe because it’s so… doesn’t exist. But anyway it’s a … for
example they believe there were twenty five different divisions. {Sum-kyer}
school who believed there were certain numbers of existing phenomena and
there was this energy or being. You can say primal energy - okay - and, and he
had a permanent part and an impermanent part. And the impermanent part
does things and makes the world and things, things like that. It’s like a primal,
it’s an energy behind the universe.
[student: The force]

The force. [laughter] They did have vague ideas.

[student: The force]

The schools are very well developed. The ideas are hard to describe. This is like
the cause of all causes. This is like the force - really that’s not a bad translation
and {wangchuk} is, that’s a creative god - okay, a creator being. That’s a guy
who, I think they say he stirred up the ocean with a big stick and I don’t know
what happened. Something…

[student: Feminine?]

It’s … I don’t think of him as feminine. I think it’s a him. I think Ishvara is a …

[student: You said Ishvara?]

Well, a lot of Tibetans say Indra - Indra’s actually somebody else but they get ….
I mean, you go to India and try to ask the difference between Ishvara and Indra
you, you know it’s pretty confused now. There’s two hundred, there’s hundreds
of Hindu [unclear], there’s thousands of deities. And if you ask what’s the
difference, if you ask [unclear] - what’s the difference between Krishna, Ishvara
and Indra you know, you’ll get – well, he’s blue and he, you know, well that’s
about it, you know. It’s all confused now. As far as I can tell. I’m not a very
good … I don’t know much about it. The oldest schools were better and well
presented in the Madhyamika schools. You can study the Hindu … the real old
Hindu schools, better in Madhyamika, than you can if you go to India nowadays.
So those are the three, those three things according to the non-Buddhist caused
the world.

[student: Didn’t you say {tsowo} was also being - force or being?]

Yup - they think of him as a being. Primal energy.

[student: And what’s the difference between {tsowo} and {wangchuk}?]

I don’t know [unclear] [laughs], this is like …he’s more personalised, how’s that.
This is, this is like [unclear], sometimes he’s not personalised and he, it’s a … it’s a
primal energy that exists behind all things.
[student: Sounds like paganism]

Like what?

[student: Paganism - that’s what they believe, kinda ]

Yeah, it’s like that. I, this is… [unclear] is explained better in Madhyamika than
I’m explaining it now. But anyway there’s these three things. These two are
unchanging, maybe that’s a good thing to say. This one is changing. These two
are unchanging, this one is changing.

[student: How is {tsowo} unchanging?]

Excuse me?

[student: How is {tsowo} unchanging?]

He’s just about to be unchanging, he never takes … this is what the Hindus say.

[student: Oh, this is a being, this … {tsowo} is a being?]

She asked me that, I … generally you think of him as a being, but it’s not very
clear. I, I’ll check [unclear] is not, it’s like a being but it’s like, hard to discover.
It’s a kind of energy. Number three is definitely a being. Number one is
definitely not a a being. Number two is, I’ll check and see if it says being
anywhere. I mean it doesn’t say being, but when they describe him in the samy
school {Samska} school, it sounds sort of like a being. One of his, one of the
twenty five qualities is Being. Capital B. [unclear] anyway, so those are the three
things that they said that the world came from. There are two arguments
against those three and you already know them. Why, what’s the big argument
against this one? Argum… we could say argument eh? I … there were a lot of
them but I don’t know if you remember any, any of them. [laughs] [laughter].

[student: That, well, I just remember the one, I remember, I remember the one
where couldn’t … it couldn’t be a personal being because that being would have
had to suffer]

Yes, that, that was one of Dharmakirti’s because he’s perfect. To become perfect
you have to have suffered first. It’s permanent. He never was suffering before.
He didn’t change, he never changed. That’s not the argument for Vasubandhu.
[laughs] Vasubandhu is concentrating on this argument that a being could have
made the world in one shot. He could have made all of history in one moment.
He - since there’s no, since, since each period doesn’t depend on the period
before it. You know, nineteenth century doesn’t depend on eighteenth century
to happen. You can skip from seventeenth to nineteenth century. Seventeenth
and nineteenth century can happen at the same time. There’s no reason for
there to be - what do you call it?

[student: Stages]

Stages or any progression in time.

[student: Linear]

There doesn’t have to be linear - it will be one instant in time because he can
create the whole thing in one moment. There’s no need for him to, the fact that
it takes time, the fact that the events of the seventeenth century have to, have to
cause the events of the eighteenth century, is, is a problem if you believe in a
creative God. It shouldn’t require that. A God should be able to - someone who
created the universe should be able to create it and then it would end in the same
instant. There’s no reason for it to, for things … something to have to come
before, something else to make it happen. Cos he’s making everything happen.
Those things are not causing each other. He’s causing everything and that, you
know it sounds silly - is actually quite correct. You just have to get used to it.
You have to think about it. It, it …. in a world made by a person and doesn’t
depend on any causes, you know, he could just make it all - everything could
happen in one moment and get it over with. Cavemen and the dinosaurs and
everything else could happen and, and the space shuttle could all get, get it over
with in the same second. That, that would be a quality. Doesn’t have to happen
in… in stages. The reason it happens in stages is that something has to cause it.
The argument against these two - both of these are supposed to be unchanging
and if the cause of things was unchanging then things have to be unchanging.
Things could never get old, things could never decay, things could never arise
again. Things could never fluctuate. There would be no fluctuation of, of
anything in the universe - nothing would fluctuate cos it was caused by a
permanent unchanging thing. The idea … why, why, why, does the wall get
older. Cos the energy that started it had a limit and the energy that started it is
wearing out. It’s, it’s like a curve like that and the energy created the wall and
then the energy is like dissipating even as, as we talk. The wall is disintegrating
as we talk and you can see that. Sooner or later this wall must fall down.
Hopefully we will not be in here at the time. And that’s, that’s fluctuation - a
permanent thing which never changes or never, never goes like that, wouldn’t
have, couldn’t cause that. If the cause is like gets strong, strong, strong - creates
a thing and then weakens - then the thing has to do that too. If the thing is doing
that, if the thing is getting stronger and then, and then disintegrating, then the
cause have to been the same. Therefore these two can’t cause the world. Those
are the main two arguments. What do you care. There are things called {du
pas}. So you know {du pa}. {Du pa} {Du pa} means ‘a shadow’ but it’s
obscuration - mental shadow. And we have them and they come from your …
they are the pre-suppositions with which you grow up. They are the things you
hear from your, from your childhood and now they, your mind is soaked in
them and you don’t even notice it, you don’t know it. So arguments like these
sound a little funny or they sound like not very relevant or something but the
{du pa} we have is that we really do believe that the world came from some
being cos that’s the way we grew up. It just happens to, why people told us as
we grew up. There’s no evidence for it. There’s no logic to it. There’s no
reasonableness to that statement that there’s some guy we can’t see and he
made the world. It doesn’t make any sense, but, but, since we grew up with it,
we take it seriously. You know, God is spelt with a capital “G” , it’s on the coins
and on the money. It pervades your world and you believe it, a part of you
believes it. That’s a {du pa} and you have to try to break that down. Because if
you want your world to become happy without suffering, if you want to
remove the suffering in your world you have to come to a real strong
intellectual understanding that your world comes from your actions - from, from
what you do. And if you, if there’s … and as long as the other thought is ten
percent of your mind, taking up ten percent of your mind space, you won’t, you
won’t really act properly because you don’t really believe it. Ten or twenty
percent of your mind doesn’t quite accept it so you won’t follow the rules of
karma. And, and then you’ll never get out - you’ll always have some suffering
so that’s, you have to work on that. It’s important to know where the world
came from. It’s not just philosophers arguing and Buddhists fighting with the
non-Buddhists and something like that. It’s something … you have to just give
up all the old ideas and you have to think, you know, this world came from what
I did and my later…my future depends on… my future depends precisely on
what I do now.

[student: Trying to understand how these three points fit into the whole chapter
of review of karma. So is this … the idea is these schools had this position so to
begin his chapter on karma he wanted to refute the nature of existence before he
moved onto other things]

He’s trying to, what’s his whole, in [unclear] what’s his ultimate goal - what’s he
trying to do? He’s trying to get you out of suffering. So he has to show the
process by which suffering was created and basically your suffering is your
world and you. So he’s, he’s trying to explain the process by which this world is
created and where you came from. This is actually tied up with the Four Noble
Truths. This is all part of them, it’s Noble Truth. The world is suffering. Yep.

[student: So if I can pick up on what John was saying, an appropriate title for this
section with these three would be the prevalent theories during Vasuhandhu’s
time of creation or at all times the arguments against karma.]

By the way I didn’t speak much about it last time and I wanted to, but you have
people ask why don’t we just buy one of those translations that comes out of the
understanding and use those. I say, well, I have a problem with most of it. What
is it - here it is - one of the big problems is this. If you read Truka Rupa Dorge’s
explanation of the four schools you have to think of the four schools as - these
are a design by an omniscient being to, to try to relate to all the possible kinds of
beings there are in the world . Through-out all history he’s using these four. In
other words he’s using those four and the first chapter in the ‘Abhidharma’ say’s
it because that’s the nature of people’s minds -there’s four kinds of minds, mind
sets that can relate to each one of these schools and it’s not a historical thing. It’s
not like Nagarajuna (Two hundred AD), he thought up Madhyamika and then,
you know, four hundred years later Chandra …. Dharmakirti he had a good
idea and he added that and, it’s not like… it’s an omniscient being designing four
schools for four states of mind of being. He can see two thousand years later
what people are going to need and he designs it that way. So, yeah, normally it,
it’s not just a historical debate between [unclear] and Buddhists in eighth century
India. They tend to be universal wrong ideas that beings have throughout
history. Otherwise the Buddha wouldn’t have designed it that way.

[student: It’s like the three most likely possibilities if you don’t believe in karma]

Very common.

[student: Whether those days are even now].

Yep. It seems to be a ment … a thing that people have. They tend to want to
believe in these things.
[student: The three greatest misconceptions about creation]

Okay. We happen to be, I mean our culture is pretty much into this one in the
religious side and I would say into what, which one for the big bang if you are a
scientist? Maybe {Du takpa}.
If you’re into the cause of all causes. If you’re a scientist.

[student: It used to be that, but now it’s bang, bang, bang and it’s always been
going along, you know, it goes out, the explosion goes [unclear]]

I could never see why, if there was a big bang, there couldn’t be one before it,
[laughs] you know. But anyway, so that’s, that’s one half of what he wants to do
with that statement. He’s trying to do two things, as usual. We call {Nam chik}
[unclear]. He’s trying to say the world didn’t come from those things, the world
didn’t come from those things. Your office at work didn’t come from one of
these things. You made it and you have to eat it [laughs] [laughter] and, and,
you’ve got to get it into that mind frame - you know it’s not like a guilt trip. It’s
like intelligence. So you can have a better office later. Okay. That’s what you,
that’s what the world didn’t come from. Then on the other side, what’s he going
to say?

[student: [unclear]]

Now here’s where it came from. It’s … as usual there’s a negative goal, a
negative point to a Buddhist statement and there’s a positive point. It’s denying
that the world came from these things and he wants to prove that it came from
karma. [silence] Say {deni} [repeat] {sem-pa} [repeat] {dang de-je} [repeat] {deni}
[repeat] {sem-pa} [repeat] {dend de-je} [repeat]. Okay. {Deni} means ‘that’.
{Deni} means ‘that meaning karma’, that and then {sem-pa}. You’re going to get
to know {sem-pa} very well okay. What’s the Tibetan word for mind?

[students: {Sem}]

{Sem}. {Sem-pa} is not the same as {sem} okay. Be careful. {Sem} means ‘mind’.
{Sem-pa} means a totally different thing. People get it confused all the time.
{Sem-pa} is this. It’s a movement of the mind. It’s called… in Tibetan it’s called {il
la chopa}, {sem il la chopa}. {Sem} means ‘mind’, {il} means ‘object of the mind’,
{la chopa} means ‘it turns the mind to the new object. {Sem il la chopa}. That’s
the … and the function of it, the function of {sempa} is to motivate physical and
verbal karma - okay.

[student: So when they talk about the karma of body speech and mind, it’s the
karma of mind that generates the karma of body and speech]

Yep. It’s the whole point. This is his next line. I’ll repeat it. We’ll talk about it
more. So the, the most, the… you know… the virtual karma… you know… the
real karma that’s running things is {sem-pa}. {Sem-pa} is any… is the movement
of the mind. Yep.

[student: What are the emotions that fit into body, speech and mind?]

They are different, they are different mental functions that will be linked with
{sem-pa} at all times. {Sem-pa} is always present in the mind. According to
Abhidharma there are five mental functions that are always present in the mind.
They never go away. They will never go away.

[student: So part of the movement of the mind?]

The mind is always moving.

[student: Whereas the speech and the body are separate?]

Yeah, yeah. So the motivator, the source, is {sem-pa} - okay. {Sem-pa}. {Dang}
means ‘and’.

[student: And?]

A.N.D. {Dang} means {‘dang’} {dang} means ‘and’. [laughter] And {de-je}
means, {de-je} means ‘what it does’, ‘what it motivates’ - okay.            What it
motivates. And then the next line says {sem-pa} [repeat] {yikyi} [repeat] {leyin-
no} [repeat] {sem-pa} [repeat] {yikyi} [repeat] {leyin-no} [repeat] - okay. Yeh.

[student : Michael, you pronounce it - it’s not {sem-pa.} It’s like a b,p or
something like that ]

It’s not a b and it’s not a p. You’ll have come to Tibetan class to learn about that
–okay. {Sem-pa} means that - we’ll call it movement of the mind. Okay ? Is yin …
you go to the end of a Tibetan sentence for the verb.[laughs] {yikyi le}. {yikyi le}
means ‘karma of the mind’. Karma of the mind. .So how do these three lines go?
So try to digest it. All the planets in the world come from karma. Karma is when
your mind moves and anything that, that motivates in your speech or body.
Movement of the mind is what mental karma is. That’s his first three lines. He,
that’s… he’s setting up the whole presentation of karma right there, okay. When
your mind moves you commit mental karma and those movements inspire you
to say something like a bad joke and hurt someone’s feelings which I do all the
time, or move your arms, steal something, give something, kill something,
protect life. But it’s all…. The drivers up in the mind.{Sem-pa} okay. Movement
of the mind. Mental karma. So mental karma drives bodily karma and verbal
karma. Those are the only three ways you can express yourself. Yuh ?

[student: Could you say that sentence again.]

[student (different):Does it happen also when you reach Buddhahood ?]

Yeh, in this school there’s a thing called pure karma, but that’s a long story - we’ll
get to that.

[student: But you still have the moment ?]

You still think - there was a school in Tibet that said the Buddha didn’t have a
mind, because they had a problem with that. But of course the Buddha thinks -
he thinks in a different way .His thoughts are spontaneous but he still, he still
thinks... yuh ?

[student: So that karma is only caused by, you know, impure minds or stained
minds.]

It depends on which school you’re in. The Madhyamika, or lower Madhyamika
schools talks a lot about it and we’ll talk about it too. They say… they say it has
to be… there’s two kinds of mental karma. One is motivated by {klesha’s}, one is
not. Those that are motivated by {klesha’s} are dirty and those that are not
motivated by karma ‘s, by {klesha’s} are pure karma. It’s a long story.

[student: Could you just run through that verse again.]

Yeh, the world - I’m going to paraphrase, okay? The worlds of the universe
come from karma. .Karma is any movement of the mind and the things which it
inspires. That refers to bodily and verbal action, you know, the things it inspires,
it refers to that. [unclear]
[student: It refers to bodily ?]

Karma with your body and karma with your mouth.

[student: Okay]

[student(different):This is, you know , this is a very different sentence. The
sentence we had two courses ago, we just had a six word original group sentence
that said karma is the movement of the mind and what follows .So what’s the
difference, what are they trying to say here.]

Same thing, same thing, {demi sempa da le che},same thing. And the third
sentence there is when the mind moves, that’s what mental karma is. That’s
mental karma. That karma that we know.

[student: So what do they mean by that ? When the mind moves, when it’s
changing, what does it make?[unclear]

Having a thought .I,I….it’s described in the scriptures as when the mind goes to
another object.

[student: When what ?]

When the mind moves to another object. When the mind shifts. Any…I like to
go like that and say [laughs], you know, that’s mental karma. When your mind
goes like that. Shifting. Most minute shifting of the mind. You collect karma by
the millisecond.

[student: Okay. So what. The mind …to me the mind is, you know, in a pure
way or in a early stage, you know, before we get into judgement, we’re
learning, you know…a child, right, sees something, tries to understand what it
is. You know, you know, it seems to me that the prime, one of the primary
functions of the mind is not judgement or is do [unclear] but trying to
understand the world. Why does that cause bad karma?]

I didn’t say bad, I said karma. Don’t think of karma as bad.

[student: But I… you know what I mean. It seems like it is pure]
Don’t think of karma as bad. Don’t think of karma as bad. Don’t even think of
karma as … I mean there are pure kinds of karma.

[student: It seems like a lot of what mind does is trying to understand]

That’s neutral. You know. If you try to understand the causes of AIDS to cure a
lot of people, it’s a great virtue and if you’re trying to understand how to make
money, how to cheat your friends, that’s a non-virtue. Trying to under …. If
you’re just a pure scientist and you just want to know, that’s called neutral. And
there is such a thing. Okay. One more and then we’ve got to go.

[student: Is it a case of the mind when you’re talking of the movement of the
mind, it’s a lot of what is contained, in that it is stuff that we would consider
unconscious in the sense of when we say a thought - a thought is something that
we have a self conscience of having a thought. I’m hungry, what time is it? But
there are also, from my understanding, like the very minute things that are
happening and what we would consider is the consciousness.]

He talks about that, I mean, some of the books talk about that. They say for
example, sometimes you can be speaking and not be thinking I’m speaking.
You’re, you, you … they describe a sub-conscious awareness that you’re
speaking and that is also karma. Okay. (laughs)

[student: Finally. The mental karma is motivating physical and verbal karma.]

It’s running the machine, yeah.

[student: Right, so what’s … does it only, do … does a mental karma only
produce either a verbal karma, a physical karma or another mental karma, if
you don’t act on it - let’s just say then it produces another mental karma.]

You mean if you control yourself or something like that?

[student: Yeah, if you have the mental karma to say something to somebody
and you don’t say it for whatever reason, it didn’t produce a verbal karma.]

Well, I’m … we’ll talk about that right now.

[student: Okay, so … can it do two at the same time?]
No, it can’t, no.

[student: Can it create another mental karma and yet a verbal karma?]

Yuh, absolutely.

[student: Fine.]

Actually it can make four different results.

[student: Okay.]

Okay, I’ll do one more thing and then we’ll take a break. I’m actually being very
good about [unclear]. So if I was to ask you [laughs] [laughter]. What are the
two most basic kinds of deeds? What would you say? I mean, based on that last
line I gave you.

[student: Say the question again.]

It’s, it’s called {Sem be lei} and {Sum be lei}. {Sem be lei} is mental karma. {Sum
be lei} is, if you could think of {Sem be lei} as thoughts and {Sum be lei} as what
you thought to do. Does it give you, make it … does it give you some feeling?
One is thinking to do something and one is what you do by thinking, meaning
verbal and physical. So there’s this big division. Over here is mental karma
which is thinking karma and over here is what they call thought karma which is
thinked.

[student: Oh, having a thought}

What you thought to do - which means mental, which means verbal and physical
karma.

[student: When you’re saying this has already happened after you’ve had the
thought then you speak it and you act it.]

Yep. So the speaking and the acting are all considered the second type of karma,
motivated karma, and the first side is motivating karma which is mental karma.
So they’ve got this big division. So if somebody asks you on the homework
what are the two kinds motivat… you can say motivating and motivated karma,
how’s that? See one is a thought that is actually running the truck, and one is the
truck which is being run [laughs] - the deed that came out verbal.

[student: You’re calling these the two kinds of karma. Is that what you’re calling
these?]

Yup, the most basic division of karma. There’s motiva… there’s motivating
karma which is your thoughts, and then there’s the physical and verbal deeds
that motivating karma motivates.

[student: So it’s considered just as bad to generate, like a tremendous amount of
heat towards somebody even if you don’t kill them or are [unclear] it’s
considered just as bad for your … [unclear].

There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of detail about that. We’ll talk about it, we’ll talk
about it. That’s in the … I think it’s the eighth or ninth class. We’re going to talk
about how does you mind frame affect the, the severity of the deed. And we
talk a lot about that. Is anger itself a karma, you know? Is ignorance itself a
karma? That’s a big subject. Is it, is it virtuous or non-virtuous or neutral?
Ignorance itself.

[student: It’s neutral.]

Is, is a very big argument.

[student: It’s not caused, right, you’ve always had it.]

That doesn’t mean it’s not caused, in fact that might be a reason why it had to be
caused.

[student: Well how could you have always had it if it was caused?]

Cos earlier instances caused later instances. Okay?

[student: {Gaucha}]

Are you cold?

[student: Yes … [unclear].

I’ll turn it down.
[student: You should turn it off.]
[Silence]

You don’t have to write the Tibetan. You don’t have to write any of it in fact.
[laughter] Say {nampar rikje} [repeat]. {Nampar rikje} [repeat]. {Mayinpa
nampar rikje} [repeat] {Nampar rikje} [repeat]. {Mayinpa} [repeat]. This was the
first book I ever read in Tibet. I remember I would… Rinpoche would teach me
in the early morning, he would go to school and then he would come back in the
evening and I had to spend the whole day trying to figure it out - he didn’t speak
any English at the time. And when I got to this it took… it was very difficult.
{Nampar rikje}. {Nampar rikje}. {Nampar rikje} means … I have translated it as
‘communicating’. Communicating as an adjective and I’ll explain it. {Nampar
rikje may…} what’s {mayinpa}? Kylie, you know. {May..}

[student: (Tom Kylie.) Mind not communicating or something.]

Yuh, non-communicating. Now what does that mean? Obviously it’s pretty
confusing.

[student: Mean communicative?]

I’ll tell you what it means. It means, [laughter] communicating the intent of the
doer or not.

[student: Say that again.]

It’s, it’s, it’s form, physical form, colour and shape, okay, which communicates
the intention of the doer, of the person who does it and I’ll give you an example -
okay.

[student: Which are you talking about?]

{Nampar rikje} is communicating. It means - if you go to a, if you go to a, if you
walk into a church and you see somebody down on their knees going like this,
that’s {nampar rikje}. Why? It communicates to you that they have some
spiritual intentions, okay. As you look at them … you may be wrong of course,
they may be waiting to meet their crack dealer or something you know.
[laughter] [laughs]. But, normally this, this is, this is a {nampar rijke} [unclear]
this is - you know all those movies where all the Mafia guys pray next to each
other and plan hits and stuff. Not like that. It means the actual shape of the
person, the outline of what the person’s doing communicates to you something
about their intentions. The other example is prostrations, you know. If
someone is standing here and getting down on the ground, you know, you, you
from that, that picture of that person communicates to you that he has some
good intentions. That’s called {nampar rikje}.

[student: You said through colour and form.]

It’s actually in the shape. You can think of it as the outline of that person. In this
school - we’ll talk about it. The actual picture of that person doing that thing
communicates to you that he has some virtuous intents.

[student: Be like people dancing would communicate happiness or something
like that.]

Yeah, like that. Yeah.

[student: So when you say communicates in this sense, accurately communicates
or is there …]

They don’t even get into it. You see … skip schools, okay. Don’t get, you’re not
back in Pramana any more. This is {Abhidharma}, very basic, you know. They
don’t even talk about… well, he might be fooling you.

[student: So what triggers, triggers some kind of understanding in you, whether
that’s correct or not, makes no difference.]

Yeah, they don’t discuss it much. They don’t discuss it.

[student: So a shape that triggers an understanding in you?]

Yeah, a shape that allows you to impute, can I say impute?

[student: Yeah, yeah.]

Some kind of motivation on the person whose performing the act.

[student: Does it have to be of a person or could it be a tree? Could it, does it
have to be …]
[student (different): Could it be a tree and the tree is bent over?]

We’ll get … I’m going to talk about it after the break. {Nampar rikje mayinpa}
By the way, it’s fine if you cough, I respect that you came and that’s fine. We’re
going to break real soon. {Nampar rikje mayinpa} is a very interesting idea that
only the Abhidharmist schools have and they believe that when you perform
some very good deed or bad deed, actual some kind of form, some kind of extra
- what do you call that thing in new age stuff?

[student: Halo or aura]

Aura, yeah [laughs] yeah, yeah, it’s like an aura. An aura forms in you the
moment after the {nampar rikje} and I’ll give you an example. A monk goes
before an Abbot - I mean a layman -and he gets down and the Abbot touches
his hair and the monk takes his vows. He repeats them three times. He has his
vows - okay. After he’s repeating those vows after the Abbot, you know, as he’s
taking his vows, that’s {nampar rikje}. If you came in the room suddenly and
saw what he’s doing today “Oh, somebody’s taking vows, that’s great.” He has
virtuous intention. But what happens when he gets up and walks out of the
room and you meet him.

[student: He’s still got a buzz.] [laughter]

He still has this, what they call … it’s not a bad word actually. Cos they describe
it as being like light…

[student: A glow.]

… as stretching from the bottom of the feet to the top of the head, as staying
with the person - doesn’t make him fatter or heavier. [laughter] [laughs]. You
know there’s a question, you know, and it’s somehow with him and it’s actually
an outline.

[student: And they have different layers.]

Well, in that case it lasts until he dies. I mean, if he took a vow til he dies, they
say, the school says, the nature of that vow is, that is that outline, it stays with
him [unclear]. I, this is, this idea is not accepted by any other Buddhist school.
[student: I like it] [laughter].

But I think it’s a very useful idea. I used to think of it as a cosmic photograph,
you know when I did something good or bad. Cos we grew up with the God
idea right - that someone is taking a picture, you know, and that picture
somehow stays somewhere, you know. Like I’d better watch out what I’m doing
cos there’s all these pictures being taken, you know. Its not … maybe that’s the
kind of thought they had in mind when they, when they, when they describe
this kind of {nampar rikje mayinpa} . An example is the vows of a monk. What
are the vows of a monk? How do they stay on me, where are they?

[student: It could be like saying energetically you’re affected - is that the idea?]

They’re trying to say there’s some kind of energy which is sticking on you, but
it’s matter.

[student: But the idea’s not that you change your own energy, but you get
something from outside.]

No, it’s like a cloak.

[student: It comes to you from the outside.]

Yeah, and it’s actual physical matter that we can’t see.

[student: What are we, collecting cloaks all the time … [laughter] laughs] … and
they merge with each other or, I don’t know …]

Usually with the Abhidharma, go to Sri Lankan time …

[student: You can destroy this all by doing bad deeds?]

We’re going to talk about it a lot.

[student: Does this have anything to do with creating different bodies?]

No, that’s a totally different thing - yeah.

[student: Do they consider life matter?]
Yup, it’s one of the kinds of colour.

[student: Kinds of colour?]

It’s one of the divisions of colour.

[student: And I mean if the monk degenerates, breaks their vows, does the
cloak degenerate?]

Yup, yup, it, it disappears.

[student: [unclear} disappears [unclear].

They can destroy … you can damage it too - when a monk breaks his vows, it’s
damaged.

[student: Someone told me you can take a picture and you can see the aura, you
can see the colours coming out of the body.]

[Unclear] they say you can’t see it. No, they say you cannot see it. It’s {nampar
rikje mayinpa}.

[student: With your eyes?]

You can’t look at Michael Roach when he’s dressed up as a businessman …

[student: No, they say …..]

… and say “Oh, he’s a monk…”

[student: With a special camera …]

… yes, I see the {nampar rikje mayinpa}

[student: yes, thank you, kurlian - kurlian photography [unclear]

Okay, take a break, quickly.

[student: Michael, have you ever heard of kurlian photography? I just [unclear]]
That would be expensive [laughs] [laughter] [unclear].

[student: This is called not communicating?]

Yup, it’s at… it’s the moment … it starts the moment after he takes the vow. The
moment after he does the not communicating, then that, then he stands up and
he’s walking around and somehow that vow is still stuck on him.

[student: Not communicating in the sense that he’s doing anything specific that
would make you interpret, but you see what’s there.]

Used to be called uninterpretable form, but it was too long. In other words, you
can’t look at me, if I’m dressed as a layman and you look at me, there’s nothing
that can tell you that I have this virtuous intent, that I have vows sticking on me.

[student: [unclear]

Not apparent.

[student: Not apparent?] [unclear]

Talk to Vasubandhu [laughter] We’re going to have five qualities - which you
are going to have to memorize actually - of this stuff, and we’re going to do after
the break.That will be your last thing. I, I like the idea, I think it’s a useful idea.
What are we going to call this stuff?

[student: Which stuff?]

Which relation do you guys like …

[student: which stuff?]

… non-communicating or …

[student: Uninterpretable.]

[student: (different) Yeah, I like uninterpretable.]

[student: Can you see it though?]
[student: It’s interpretable to the person.] [unclear]

So this is us - yeah, we had stuff in the last course.

[student: A lot of stuff.] [Unclear]

We’re describing … I’m now going to give you five qualities of this aura.

[student: The second one?]

[student: (different) Well, what are these two things, these, these {rikje’s} ]

The two kinds of , two kinds of verbal - I should have said that and didn’t say
that - verbal and physical. Good question. Verbal and physical karma can be
divided into these two.

[student: You’re not saying one corresponds to verbal and one corresponds to
physical]

No, nothing like that. You see there’s a verbal {rikje},{nampar rikje mayinpa} and
there’s a physical {nampar rikje mayinpa},and you can guess what they are , you
know. Like, the words of the monks speaking, as his lips move. You know, that’s
supposed to be the verbal one and the, the form of him bending down, clasping
his hands, that’s, that’s …those are communicating, and non-communicating is
the moment after he’s got that aura of that vow. The verbal thing takes it’s own
aura… the physical thing takes it’s own aura.

[student: So every…]

I’m going…wait…

[student: Okay, go ahead, go ahead.]

[unclear]

I think I know what you’re going to ask - it all came back.{yeng-dung [unclear]}
That’s the verse, the first part of the verse. [unclear] That’s the first quality -
okay. The first quality is [unclear] {yeng} - {yeng} means literally ‘distraction’.

[student: The first quality of what - of {nampar rikje mayinpa}?]
Now we’re describing the five qualities of this very special idea that only
Abhidharmists have which is that there’s some kind of aura, a nice word - I like
it, because they actually explain it as a kind of light that you can’t see. It sticks
with the person’s whole outline of his body. Sometimes they say it’s like the oil
in the oil seed. Like an oil, the oil in a sesame seed. It is just like …

[student: Permeates]

Permeates it, yeah. Something like, and it’s light. It is colour but you can’t see
and stuff like that.

[student: Could you just call it an energy field?]

I kind of like aura. Aura is almost pretty close to that. I dunno, but you think
about it.

[student: Now is this only for good or can you have a bad aura too?]

I’m, I’m going to tell you.

[student: Okay]

So {yen}, {yen} means ‘distraction’, so the first quality of [nampar rikje mayinpa},
the first quality of this special aura, is that even when you are not thinking about
it, it’s there. Even when your mind is on something totally different, that still
stays and the, the root text says, even in periods of distraction. But it doesn’t
mean, you know, here distraction is a little bit strong. It just means, even when
I’m not aware of my vows - my monk’s vows - the, the aura’s still there. {Yende
sem mey pa ya} … {sem mey pa} means - what does {sem} mean?

[student: Mind.]

Mind, that’s {sem-pa} right.    Now we’re back to {sem} what does {mey pa}
mean? Kylie, you know.

[student: (Tom Kylie) {Mey pa}?]

Yeah.
[student: Not, {mey} is a negative.]

A negative, yeah, not. It’s… you, you have it even when you don’t have a mind.
Now is that, is that possible, to not have a mind? Is it possible for a living being
to not have a mind?

[student: To not have a mind?]

It’s just, you have it even when your mind is missing, and so the Abhidharmists
say of course you don’t - you must have a mind. We proved that in the last class.
You never lose your mind - okay. Yuh. So it means there are certain kinds of
deep, deep meditation in which your mental processes are almost stopped and
that’s called {sem mey pa ya}. {Sem mey [unclear]}. It’s called mindless - I
shouldn’t say mindless – no-mind meditation, but it doesn’t mean your mind has
gone. It doesn’t mean your mind has stopped. It means your mind is on an
extremely subtle level, so even in those states, that aura’s with that person. So
not only - that’s the second quality - so, in the first he’s not thinking about it but
the second quality is, that even when your mind is almost shut down you still
have that aura - it doesn’t go away. Even in periods of deep meditation, very
deep meditation. There’s this big debate, you know, when you’re seeing
emptiness directly, do you still have Bodhichitta for example. ‘Cos Bodhichitta is
supposed to be main mind. So there’s this big debate, you know, - do certain
mental states get lost when you’re in deep meditation? So that was the second
quality. {Yende sem mey pa ya} {ge-dung mi-ke kalin-dah} {ge-dung mi-ke}
means ‘it has an ethical component’. It is either virtuous or non-virtuous.

[student: What’s the Tibetan word now?]

{Ge-dung mi-ke kalin-dah}. {Ge-dung mi-ke}.

[student: Is that three?]

That’s the third one.

[student: Ge-dung mi-ke]

{Ge-dung mi-ke} - it’s either virtue or non-virtue.

[student: {Ge-dung Mi-ke}.]
{Ge-dung mi-ke} - it’s either, it’s either a good deed or a bad deed, it’s, it’s - there
are things in the universe which are morally neutral. This pen is morally neutral
- we call {tung-ya}. It, it’s not a good deed, it’s not you know, it’s not a good
thing, it’s not good or bad. It’s not evil or good. But {nampa rikje mayinpa} ,
this aura, has to be one or the other. What’s an example of a bad source in the
Abhidharma later. Abhidharma in the fourth chapter gives a whole presentation
on vows - I’m not going to do it. In the karma [unclear] I’m going to do it as a
separate course for you but it describes all the vows it contains… all the… all the
morality vows it contains and describes anti-vows and that’s …. To give two
examples - one is to say, “Okay I swear, I swear I’ll be a butcher for the rest of
my life”. Like you go sign up for butcher school and you say I’m signing up
cause I intend to, you know, slit animal’s throats for the rest of my life which was
you know, existing. And then, that guy when he, when he walks into the school
and he signs the paper and says I’m going to sign up - I commit myself to this
occupation, he gets {nampar rikje mayinpa} [unclear] and that’s called an anti-
vow. The other one is when you join the military - okay. [laughs] And you say I
will fight, you know, I agree to kill people in the sense of my country. And that’s
a classical example of {nampar rikje mayinpa} vow form. You get an aura - an
anti-vow aura forms on you. And then when you’re dismissed from the service
is disappears.

[student: All these examples have been about vows.]

Yeah.

[student: Are there non-situations where [unclear]].

What I’m trying to say …normally they’re talking about it being … normally it
comes up in discussions of very severe karma, you know. I’ll have to see… I’ll
have to see.

[student: We, if you talk about … ]

When even in the cases of a prostration, it’s aura even in the case of a buyer, of a
… some kind of photograph is taken and it stays with you.

[student: When you …]

Is it the, is it, is it karma itself, you know. Is it the transmission karma, no - that’s
not how karma boomerangs according to them. I, I … let me look, let me check
[unclear] ‘cos I’m not sure. I have the feeling that it has to be pretty severe. I
think the motivation has to be pretty strong [unclear].

[student: So what happens to it?]

Well, it depends on … it disappears.

[student: It disappears?]

[student: (different) As far as …]

In the case of a vow …

[student: Sorry, as far as joining the military, is it totally considered no difference
in value whether it's a very just reason - you’re really trying to save people’s
lives for you - or whether it’s, …?]

We’re going to reach that. We’re going to have this course [unclear] it’s coming.
They actually, they actually describe this question separately, you know. What if
the, what if, what if the responsibility of the person who participates even on a,
with a virtuous intention or even as a non-combatant. You know. How much
karma does he collect relative to the people after the shooting begins.

[student: Does …]

And that’s, we’re going to discuss it.

[student: Doesn’t this idea of what’s good and what’s bad tie into emptiness and
there’s not good or bad so this whole concept of restructuring of good and
bad…]

The whole point of the karma course is, is to, is to … oh boy, never [laughter]
that’s [unclear].

[student: I’m mixed up there] [unclear]

In the path of emptiness there is good and bad. I mean - we’re going to get to
that. That’s why we actually made a separate class out of that. I mean that’s
going to be -one class of this course is going to be devoted to, simply to that
subject. Never, never. I had this thought, I read this story in a book about
Buddhism and the lady said she got, she got caught taking towels out of a hotel
from a Buddhist conference [laughter] and she said it doesn’t matter cos they’re
all empty anyway - that’s the ultimate ignorance - it’s because they’re empty it
does matter you know and that’s another story. [laughter] They say, okay, next
quality - where are we up to.

[student: Four]

{No-le is gey-del} {Gey-del} means ‘continues on in a stream’.

[student: {Gey-del} or {Gey-drel}?]

{Gen-drel} actually.

[student: {Gen-drel}]

{Gen-drel}. And what it means is, they, they argue about … what do we do … It
continues on after the moment of. The first moment is. {Nampar rikje} - I take
the vow of saying something -someone sees my lips moving. They, they can
interpret me. But then when … how … somehow it streams on. It follows on
after me. Even though I move, you know.

[student: [unclear]]

Streaming on, following on. It’s not like a discreet moment and then it’s gone or
something like that. It continues … as I walk around, it goes around …

[student: It continues in space and time?]

Yuh.

[student: Does it disappear over time?]

They don’t say anything like that - I mean, if I take a vow for life then if, if I keep
it, then, then, then when I die it disappears.

[student: So if you take a vow for two lives it’ll [unclear]] [laughter]

There is no such vow. But I don’t know how …
[student:   But maybe they just, it’s just like that, that real strong good
intention…]

Okay, fifth quality is [unclear] which means - do you remember that discussion
we had about the elements? Wasn’t there a {thangka} here? [laughter]

[student: The walls degenerated faster than we thought] [unclear]

I hope not. I was born in [unclear]

[student: Was that Tara, Green Tara?]

[Unclear] Okay, we don’t have a {sema} about it do we? [laughter] Okay -
anyway, the last, we talked, all right, about the wall and the four elements inside,
you know, active inside the wall. The hardness, the wetness, the, the non-, you
know, the four qualities. [Unclear] Earth, water, fire and wind - okay. And then
actually they describe actual physical energies within all physical matter and that
it wasn’t just some silly thing that they thought there was little fires burning in
the walls. So the last quality of {nampar rikje mayinpa} is that it has these four
elements as it’s causes. It’s made of those four elements. So it’s physical matter,
okay - so this is a very special idea.

[student: Do all four have to be present?]

In the Abhidharma system all matter have all four and some other stuff too,
[laughs] and it’s just the predominance of one that makes something hard or wet
or hot. But every … all atoms, all atoms have, have the four. Even, even in usual
atoms have the four according to the Abhidharma school.

[student: Do they believe that Buddhas or Bodhisattvas can see them?]

Can they do what?

[student: Can see this aura in people]

I haven’t seen anything about it - I, I, I don’t … Buddhas can see it because it’s a,
it’s a, it’s a thing. Bodhisattvas they don’t talk about much. They do have the
word Bodhisattva but I, I … they don’t describe them much. Now could a
person seeing emptiness maybe see it as [unclear].
[student: Yeah, a stream-enterer]

Yeah, I, I don’t know, they don’t talk … I’ll check. I don’t remember anything
like that. Okay - we should …

[student: And they waited on top of each other to take a lot of different vows
[unclear]]

Yeah, and then this evening I was reading this thing - it’s in a great {sakya}
commentary. We … the {sakya} commentaries do this. The, the one {sakya}
commentary to this is the best in the universe. And he, he says there was a big
argument about whether it would make you, you know, if you add more it’d be
easier, would you get heavier or fatter [unclear] he says, no, it’s just like more
light. Okay. It doesn’t have an effect - you can’t measure it by weight or by
[unclear]. It’s not like [laughs] the person gets bigger as the clothes get [unclear].
It’s not like that. And then he says under [unclear] … means ‘they claim’. And
Vasubandhu at the end of the verses that he knows are false, in the
Abhidharmakosha, he puts this [unclear] which means ‘they say’. So that’s a
code for all … he was as a Mahayana person. He, he identifies the universes
where, where he doesn’t really accept what they say but he records it quite nice.
Okay. Kylie, you’re the [unclear] for tonight.

[student: Quick question, do these five reasons apply to both communicating
and non-communicating?]

Yeah, no.

[student: No, only not communicating.] [Unclear]

Communicating is normal - what you can see.

[prayer. Mandala]

[prayer.dedication]

I mean, there’s no such Abhidharma vow.

[student: So if you took the Bodhichitta vow it would only last for one life and
you’d have to start
all over again.]
There’s no … they don’t have Bodhichitta vows. There’s no such question in the
Abhidharma system.

[student: In this system?]

There’s no such thing, they don’t talk about it. There is no vow in the
Abhidharma system which doesn’t end when you die.

[student: What about when you say, “from now until attaining the height of
enlightenment I take refuge.”]

That sounds … I don’t know … I don’t remember. Let me check. Let me check.

[student: Is that another formula for refuge?]

I understand, yeah. Maybe it would stay with you for more than one life - it’s a
good question. I’ll check. It seems to me it would, but I don’t know how.

[student: But maybe …]

END OF TAPE
ACI Course V, Level One