Занятие 5

[Speaker 1]
Today we're supposed to do the third of the seven diamond-like visions. What would that involve? So, yeah, gaṇa, meaning sangha, meaning the jewel, sangha jewel, sangha jewel.

And as you know, that mostly involves people who have seen emptiness directly. And in this particular presentation, the state of mind, certain qualities of the mind of a person who has seen emptiness directly, are considered the sangha jewel. And then maybe all the people who have seen emptiness are considered the nominal sangha jewel.

So the real sangha jewel is their state of mind and their attainments. And then the nominal sangha jewel is the people who have seen emptiness directly. And then we had another presentation from the Abhisamhankara in the second course, I think it is, that said the real sangha was people who have seen emptiness directly, and the nominal sangha is people who wear robes.

So now you're seeing a deeper presentation. We're just going deeper and deeper. That's the idea of an in-depth course.

And I started out making the reading like 24 hours ago. And I went through it and I said, you know, there's eight qualities that they have, very similar to the Buddha jewel and the Dharma jewel that we went through. And the eight qualities weren't explained very well anywhere.

And even Gyaltsabje doesn't explain them much. So I kind of got tired of trying to squeeze a reading out of that. And there's another famous, really famous quotation that we did all the time in the monastery about the jewel of the sangha from Uttaratantra, from this text.

It comes pretty much further down in the first chapter. But it is talking about the sangha jewel. And to me, it's one of the most exciting quotations in the whole Uttaratantra.

And there's a big reading you could design around that, because everybody since then has debated this quotation. Everybody. So we'll get from 350 A.D. up to about 1700s or 1800s. We'll get a whole string of debates. So I thought what you might find fun was what I mentioned previously, sometimes it's really useful to just follow the debates back into history, in the monasteries, the monastic textbooks. So like the big three monasteries, it's called Densasum.

Say Densasum. Densasum. Densa means like, it's asana, meaning seat of higher learning.

And sum means the three biggies. And that's Sara, Ganden, and Vibhu. And their textbook writers in the last 500 years have struggled with this quotation that I'm going to write for you from the Uttaratantra.

And I thought it would just be fun to see how they struggled through the centuries. So I think I have about 10 different textbook writers in the reading. And all the great ones from all the great monasteries.

And then I thought I'd write the whole quotation up here first, because it's so famous, and I urge you to memorize it. It's on your homework, it's on your quiz. And what's kind of interesting to me is I memorized it a certain way in the debate ground, and then when I was searching for it in the database, I couldn't find it in Saramay textbooks.

And then I started to look for pieces of it, and then I realized that over the centuries the quotation has evolved. And this you know from like, even Holy Lama Ken Rinpoche, he'll be in a class, he'll have a quotation that in the back of his mind that he didn't debate for 47 years. And then he'll look through like 14 scriptures and he'll say, oh forget it, it's something like this.

And then somebody writes that down in his book, and then other people copy it out of Ken Rinpoche's book, and then it becomes mushed around. So you'll see it in the reading. This quotation has been inverted in different ways.

Which makes me want to say that you guys have to be careful, as you record these teachings. Like John Stilwell wrote me an email, he said, that's cool that you guys are doing in-depth sutra courses in Arizona. Who's going to, who's going to, what do you call it?

What do you say? Archive them. Yeah, who's going to archive them?

I mean, let's get that straight, because we still have a thousand tapes in God's store that we haven't archived yet. And so he was very concerned that who's going to be doing the archiving, and who's going to be sending out those courses, and who's going to make sure that the content is still, is not, the quotations aren't all messed up in 300 years. You see what I mean?

So you'll see in the readings how the quotation evolved over the 300 years. And it's very, sorry, over 1600 years. Anyway, here it is.

And there's a beautiful Sanskrit equivalent, and you'll have it in your next Sanskrit class, which is early August, I guess. And it's really beautiful. If you get a chance, you should do the Sanskrit of this verse, especially.

Ready? Not quite, but anyway. BHAG PA'I, CI DANG, NA BA DANG, RGA BA'I, RGYUN YANG, TSE NAS, PHAR BANG, BHAG PA'I means, what's it called?

Yeah, Aryas, but BHAG PA'I, by Aryas, by Aryas, okay, Aryas, Arya in Sanskrit, Aryaya. CI BA, number four in the prison yesterday. Yeah, you might notice some other one here.

And, NA BA, SKAD GANG NA CI, we had it yesterday. NA BA, sickness, okay, sickness. You've had GNAS in the last homework, GNAS, which means sickness also.

So you put a DA in it, it means sickness also. Death, sickness, and DANG, RGA BA, old age, aging. There's this big debate in the monastery, if you say old age, you get in trouble.

Oh, so babies don't have RGA BA'I SDUG BSNGAL, so babies don't have the suffering of aging, and then you get this big thing. RGA BA'I SDUG BSNGAL, suffering. TSE NAS means TSA BA NAS, it's the same thing, TSA BA NAS, from the root.

TSE NAS means from the root. SPANG means they have eliminated it, eliminated, got rid of it. Why didn't he say TSA BA NAS, Christy?

Yeah, he'd blow his mind, he'd blow his meter. He'd have an extra beat in there. Hear it, PHAG PA'I CI DANG, NA BA DANG, RGA BA'I SDUG BSNGAL, TSA BA NAS SPANG, it would ruin the meter.

So he threw in TSE, which is pretty rare, but it means the same thing. It's MULAD, from the root, okay? MULAM.

Anyway, so what this is saying is that anybody who has seen emptiness directly, anybody who has seen emptiness directly, has eliminated death, the sufferings of death, illness, and all this. Has eliminated it. So here we go.

Yeah. BYANG SEMS MTHONG LAM PAR SPYOD PHYIN MTHONG LAM PAR SPYOD MED LAM PAR SPYOD PHYIN It's L-E-L, okay? Take a person who just achieved the first part of the path of seeing.

They're in the direct perception of emptiness, called the uninterrupted level, right? The uninterrupted path. CI BA DANG, NA BA DANG, RGA BA Death, sickness, and old age.

SREG NAS SPANG BA THAG So they've gotten rid of it, right? Yeah. CI BA DANG, NA BA DANG, RGA BA So they're not going to die, right?

SREG NAS SPANG BA THAG So they haven't eliminated it from its root. They've just eliminated it. SREG NAS SPANG BA THAG In some cases they've eliminated it.

CI BA DANG, NA BA DANG, RGA BA So they haven't eliminated death. Then they're still going to die. CI BA DANG, NA BA DANG, RGA BA Even though, this is Geshe Thutthirin's, right?

So even though they've eliminated death from its root, they haven't eliminated death, right?

[Speaker 2]
Not usually, but eventually.

[Speaker 1]
Eventually, but, but, but, but.

[Speaker 2]
Yes, they have.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, duh. I don't know, we'll see. It's a very big debate.

It's a huge debate. Okay, anyway, we'll go on. Those are the four sufferings, right?

We had them in the prison yesterday. SKYE RGA NA CI Say SKYE RGA NA CI You know, people pick on me for many things, but one of the things they, one of the smaller things they pick on me is why do you keep bringing up this death thing? I mean, Buddhism is just to learn to be relaxed.

Buddhism is learn to meditate. Buddhism is learn to watch your breath. Buddhism is learn to be friendly.

Buddhism is blah, blah, blah. And I keep saying, no, no, the whole thing is about dying. The whole thing is about changing your body into an angel's body.

The whole thing is that. And here's another verse to support me. Now, it's just an accident that it came up.

But, you know, that's what Buddhism is all about. I just can't stand all the other ones. I mean, in certain places, on certain occasions, to certain groups, maybe you would talk about getting calm.

But I was sitting in the prison yesterday and there's 30 like hardcore cons were in the high security, max security one. And they're staring at me and I got to say something funny, fast, and interesting, you know. And I know they're uptight all the time and I know they want to hear about meditation, but I just went straight to death, you know.

I just can't do anything else. I think deep down inside everyone's interested in that, actually. You know, being calm, you'll get calm if you take care of your death, right?

[Speaker 2]
I think so.

[Speaker 1]
And they responded to that. I think they really responded to that because they knew you're just cutting through the BS, you know. You go straight to what matters.

So, khe gan na chi, birth, rebirth, aging, illness, and death. But there's a problem here so far. What's that?

Something missing. Yeah, it was missing. He didn't mention rebirth.

But it's only half the verse, so give him a chance. I think everybody in the country should send a bill to Bill Gates for the time they waste on trying to get windows to work. And then all the money could be redistributed from where it came from originally.

But anyway. LAS DANG NYONMONG BA'ANG GI SKYE Say LAS DANG NYONMONG BA'ANG GI SKYE DE LA DE MED PHYIR DE MED LAS DANG NYONMONG Two big problems in life. What are they?

Karma and mental afflictions. Karma and bad emotions, bad thoughts. LAS DANG NYONMONG BA'ANG GI means by the power of karma and mental afflictions.

SKYE That's how people get born. That's why people are reborn. BA'ANG GI means through the power of karma and mental afflictions people are born.

By the way, I'm going to read you the whole verse in English because it's on your homework. I mean, yeah. So I'll give you the translation in a minute.

DE LA DE DE MED They don't have it and so they don't have it. They don't have it and so they don't have it. DE LA DE MED PHYIR DE MED Meaning what?

Who wants to take a shot? They don't have it, so they don't have it. Who's they?

Yeah, Aryas don't have karma and mental afflictions so they don't have what? Birth. So they don't have birth.

PHA PA LA SKYE BA ME A THA Let me give you the translation first because this is going to take us on to another subject. This is just a translation thing. I like to avoid the word Arya in most translations because of the connotations with Hitler and all that.

And the new Aryan things and all that. Although it has nothing to do with Arya, right? So I call them realized beings as opposed to enlightened beings.

They realized emptiness but they're not enlightened yet. So it says, Realized beings have eliminated death. That's the first line.

The second line reads, and sickness and aging from the root. Birth comes by the power of deeds. Next line, and mental afflictions, dash.

Last line, they have none and so have none. Back to our debate. PHA PA LA SKYE BA ME A THA So I guess Aryans, people seeing emptiness directly don't have birth, right?

So, because the great, kind, benevolent lamas of our lineage have constantly repeated the fact that they don't have it because they don't have them. How could anybody contradict holy scripture, wonderful, magnificent, holy scripture like you do? That's how Sarah May says that, that's how Sarah May says that when you contradict a scripture.

And then every different gensa, each different major monastery has their own way. So Ganden will go, Peeja Danyao, you know, so when we debate then we go, oh, Peeja Danyao, you know, and then they go, oh, Peeja Chakra Danyao, you know. Huh?

Say some major. Maitreya said that. He just said, not what it says, show me where it says something else.

It says they don't have it because they don't have them. Oh, birth and the suffering birth are different. So you can have to take a rebirth and not suffer.

So Pabbala dugden meata. So Aryas don't have the truth of suffering. Aryas aren't the truth of suffering.

[Speaker 2]
Huh?

[Speaker 1]
So they don't have the truth of suffering. So they don't have impurities that are related to karma and kleshas. So they have the truth of suffering.

They are the truth of suffering. They still are the truth of suffering. Can you be the truth of suffering and not be samsara?

Are Aryas in samsara? So they're in samsara but they're not suffering? By the way, I'm not just picking on you.

This is the whole crux of the whole thousand years of debate. And it's just exactly what just came up. It's like, are they suffering or aren't they?

Are they the truth of suffering or not? Much less, do they have the truth of suffering? Do they take rebirth or not?

What makes them take rebirth? And now I'll tell you a verse, the next verse from Maitreya. It says, JI SHING YANG DAG MTHONG BA'I PHYIR Because they have seen the way things are so well, meaning emptiness, right?

SKYE SOGS RNAM LAS DE GYUR GYANG They are beyond birth and all those other problems. But, GYANG SNYING RJE DAG NI SKYE BA DANG CI DANG DGA'A DANG NA BAR BSTOD But still they pretend or they just show, in Tibetan it's BSTOD, right? They just pretend.

Because they are the embodiment of compassion to take birth, to die, to get old and to get sick.

[Speaker 2]
Sound good?

[Speaker 1]
So, bodhisattvas only take birth out of, we call it SNYING RJE DANG MON LAM Okay, you should know that, SNYING RJE DANG MON LAM SNYING RJE, there's a new MON LAM here, right? So, it's very famous. Just out of compassion, KARUNA and MON LAM.

They are prayers. You know, may I take birth in some crappy place to take care of people there. Only because of those do Aryas take rebirth.

Right, Michael? So, they don't have mental... So, they don't take rebirth through mental afflictions, right?

[Speaker 2]
Bodhisattvas, no.

[Speaker 1]
Bodhisattva Aryas.

[Speaker 2]
They won't take rebirth in mental afflictions.

[Speaker 1]
So, everybody who ever achieved the first bodhisattva level will achieve the 8th one automatically.

[Speaker 2]
No, no, no, no.

[Speaker 1]
Because it's the 8th one where you lose your last mental affliction. So, somewhere between 1 and 8. You still got to work, you know.

Like usually, how many lifetimes?

[Speaker 2]
Seven.

[Speaker 1]
Typically seven.

[Speaker 2]
As many as 16, 17, 18.

[Speaker 1]
I don't know about that, but anyway.

[Speaker 2]
About 10,000 years ago.

[Speaker 1]
That's a different book. Okay. That's about people who keep their tender bells in their mouth.

That's another subject. Okay. That's a very beautiful thing about 16 lives, if you keep your bells.

But I want to introduce you to the idea of... And the reading is really nice. And I'll try to work on it on the planes and stuff and email it after my vacation to L.A. Ma or someone. Say, Sipa. Sipa. Len.

Len. Dombawa. Dombawa.

Sipa. Sipa. Len.

Len. Dombawa. Dombawa.

You know, I've often mentioned a Sipa Len Dombawa, like in the Diamond Cutter class. A person who has seen emptiness, typically, they might very typically perceive directly that they have seven lifetimes to go to achieve enlightenment. Seven lifetimes as a human in the desire realm.

Okay. So, this is one kind of stream-enterer. And I thought, I mean, you can experience these things yourself directly.

It's like we were trying to do a lot of channel practices during the three-year retreat. And what we found out is that you can get three years of channel practices in half an hour from somebody. You see what I mean?

Because the story is all sitting and working on it. I mean, describing it to you can take a week or something. You know, you can go study it with some lama for about a week.

And you can get the entire transmission of Jetsun Kappa's presentations on the channels and chakras or something like that. But then to really do it, it takes like three years of just daily, all-day practice, basically. Sipa Len Dombawa is almost the same idea.

You know, I've often mentioned it to you in terms of a direct experience of emptiness. Like if you see emptiness directly, you will, in the following hours after that, directly perceive that you will become enlightened within seven lifetimes. At least.

At most, sorry. But I thought you might like to see the scriptural backup for that if anybody ever asks you. It's also helpful to have books you can pull out and say, well, this is where it talks about that, about the seven lifetimes thing.

So it's possible you could even have the experience yourself and then go back later to the books and find it. And then write a reading about it for somebody like that. You know what I mean?

So I thought it's very helpful to have it in writing. You know, you say, how did you learn about the seven lifetime thing? And you say, well, I heard it in a class from somebody.

They say, well, where's the proof for that in the scripture? And then it's useful, I think, to be able to go to the scriptures and say. So I'm going to do the scriptural presentation as opposed to the diamond-cutter type of presentation.

And that in itself is a little interesting, how it's evolved over the years and maybe got a little confused since the time that it was first spoken about. It's found in Abhidharma literature, in Abhidharmakosha and other texts. And it's used in the description of gyun shukpas, which is what?

Stream-enterers. Meaning people who have just seen emptiness directly. And there are many kinds of stream-enterers.

Someday we can go through that chapter in the Abhidharmakosha. But this one is called a sipa len dumbhawa. Sipa means like sipa korlo sipa, which is...

Do you know sipa korlo? Yeah, wheel of life. This means lives, lives.

Sipa in this case means lives, lives to take. Still that many lives to take. Len without the dengu, okay, be careful.

Means times, how many times. And then din means seven. And then the phawa makes it an er.

I like to call him a seven-timer. Okay, seven-timer. And it's pretty exciting.

I mean, if you go reading scriptures that say it's 49 billion years until Maitreya gets here, which is what liberation in the palm of your hand says. But then you know that it's possible to see emptiness directly yourself. And then within seven lifetimes, the average lifetime now is like 70 years.

So that's 500 years. Like Maitreya could happen in 500 years. Or less if you practice tantra, and we're going to see that.

We're going to see some things from Je Tsongkhapa. But the sipa len dumbhawa thing for me is very exciting because it means you will be the next Maitreya if you just work hard on the courses and then your meditation and then your Dzogchen practices and your retreats. I put in the reading the technical definition of a seven-lifetimer.

And it just basically says they will take seven more lifetimes in the desire realm, in the same type, meaning they will continue to be humans of high, they have good intellect, they have good dung khyens, lots of people taking care of them, they have enough money, they have enough food, everything is easy for them. And they continually meet great teachers, even from the time they're very young. Rick Chengi, pang ja rim gyi pa.

pang ja rim gyi pa means a stream mentor who abandons all their negativities in a gradual way. gyun shuk means a stream mentor. gyun shuk sipa len dum baway tse ni is the definition of a seven-timer.

It's not very complicated. Basically, they're just going to come back seven more times or less if they practice Tantra.

[Speaker 2]
Which means...

[Speaker 1]
I'm going to read you... Now I'm just going to start the debate text, okay? I'm just going to go through some debates with you.

And I haven't translated them yet, so we'll just go as we go. And so you just listen. You won't have a reading, so you just have to listen to the debates carefully, okay?

And then probably later you have to compare notes with each other. You can get the reading, I think, in about three weeks maybe, okay? It's finished in Tibetan, but it's not finished in English.

And we'll just go the usual way. And just listen. This is from...

I put the best monastic textbook first, so it's from... Sereme. Kedug denpa dage.

I think 1493-1568, but I have it in the reading, so don't worry about it. du den la phunpo drapa yinpe ma khyap te Someone can be the truth of suffering and not possess the demon of the heaps, okay? The demon of heaps.

There are four demons in Buddhism that you destroy as you become enlightened. The demon of the heaps means the body and mind that you were forced to take on when you came into this life. Dirty, mortal, troublesome body and mind, okay?

Then there's the demon of the mental afflictions, which doesn't need any explanation for anyone who's done any lerungs or anything, or who keeps a book. Then there's the demon of death, death itself. Then there's a demon called the child of the deity named Garabuangchuk.

That just means... It's a fancy way of saying that in the old days, when you were getting close to getting enlightened, somebody would show up and try to take you off track. Just before the end, or as you get more advanced, you'll bump into some new friend and that's some kind of a demon influence who will try to convince you that what you're doing is not very meaningful, or they'll try to get you sidetracked.

That's just a common thing when you're getting towards the end. They'll try to put doubts in your mind. The more powerful, the more beautiful, the more fantastic things are happening, the more the Thai Wongpa Du gets into action and tries to plant doubts, plant problems, get people distracted from the real issues like that.

Like if you spent a thousand days in a yurt during retreat and then you have the big rejoicing afterwards, but then you get distracted by some other thing. Then that would be like Thai Wongpa Du. Okay.

SDUG BSNGAL LA PHUNG PO'I DU RAB PA YIN PAS MA KYAB TE So he says, you can have the suffering of, I'm sorry, the truth of suffering. You can be the truth of suffering and not possess the demon of the heaps. You can be the truth of suffering and not possess the demon of the heaps.

Can you be a person and be the truth of suffering? Can you be the truth of suffering? RAB PA Truth of suffering is a fact?

I think I got up here last class and said what? It's a fact in the sense of the things which are that thing. It's not a truth as like a statement or a...

You see what I mean? It's the reality of those things. So can a person be the truth of suffering?

Yeah. All sentience, all suffering sentient beings are the truth of suffering. It's not like they have the truth of suffering or they believe in the truth of suffering or they haven't recognized the truth of suffering.

They are the truth of suffering. Okay? But can you be the truth of suffering and not have the demon of the heaps?

And he says, GYUN ZHUG SRIPA LEN DUG PA BA which means what? GYUN ZHUG Stream-enterer who's got seven lives to go. DUG LDAN YIN BSKYANG What?

YIN They are the truth of suffering. BLA BSKYANG means BLA. Okay?

PHUNG PO'I DUS MA YIN PHUNG PO'I DUS MA YIN They are not the demon of the heaps. GCIG TE RGYEN RIGS KUN GCOG YIN PA'I PHYIR RGYEN RIGS KUN GCOG YIN PA'I PHYIR What? They are the Sangha jewel.

They are the Sangha jewel. So what do monastic textbooks do? They are pedagogical.

They are debate. They are dialectic. You know?

They don't sit there and tell you, Now look, there are three kinds of stream-enterers and then the third one, he has the truth of suffering, he is the truth of suffering, but he doesn't have the demon of the heaps because he's the Sangha jewel. They just present an argument between two people and then they go on. And then you have to suck out, you have to withdraw the information from it.

So now you learn something, which is what? You learned a bunch of stuff. You learned something about Sipa Landumbawas.

You learned that these seven-time guys are what? They are the truth of suffering. They don't possess the demon of the heaps because they are Sangha jewel.

So then you can derive this thing that anybody who gets to be Sangha jewel doesn't have the demon of the heaps, right? So anybody who is a Sangha jewel doesn't have a mortal body, right? No.

[Speaker 2]
He doesn't have a mortal body.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, they do have a mortal body, right? Right. So they have the demon of the heaps, right?

No. Yeah. Now you get tricky, you know, because now we're starting to get questions.

We're starting to get doubts. What are you talking about? What's the demon of the heaps if it's not a mortal body?

[Speaker 2]
If it's a mortal body, it wouldn't matter.

[Speaker 1]
It might be. It might be. The nice thing about the script, the debate books, they don't tell you.

[Speaker 2]
If it's a mortal body, it wouldn't matter.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, you can say that, but they're still going to die. That body is still going to... Or maybe it turns into light at a certain point.

Maybe there's a difference that way. Maybe there's some kind of difference that way. You see?

Maybe they're on the way, they're on the conveyor belt to become a body of light, so they don't count as having the demon of the heaps body. Okay? Maybe that.

Okay? I propose. Let's see.

He throws in another comment, by the way, and I just chopped him out. You don't get the whole context, but for that you have to debate a lot. He says, by the way, it's also not true that if you do have the demon of the heaps, you'd want to get rid of it.

That it's a pang ja. Heya. Pa...

What is it? Heya. No, it's the heya part.

Praheya. It's not true that it's a praheya. Pang ja.

Okay? Wow. Sure?

PHUNG PO'I DUS YON NAM PANG BYA YIN PAS MA KYA LTA Wow. You're telling me that if you've got the demon of the heaps is infesting you, it's not something you want to get rid of? Don't say apparently not.

You could probably find somebody from another monastery that said the opposite. Why not? Why do you think he said that?

No, we're talking about nyer leng gi phung po. Nyer leng gi phung po means the ones that were forced on you when you were born. Okay?

Nyer leng gi phung po. But he says, DE YON GYUR GYI CHUD CHOG DGE DANG LDAN PA'I MI LUS A human body, which is possessed of the eighteen de yon gyur, which is what? Spiritual leases and fortunes from the Lam Rim.

Come on! It's a precious thing. It's a wonderful thing.

You know? You wouldn't want to, for example, commit suicide. Okay?

So it's not something to be eliminated, right?

[Speaker 2]
He's referring to the phung po devil dominated. It's not true to not want to get rid of it.

[Speaker 1]
Well, no, it's not true that even if your being is in the clutches of the demon of the heaps, that it's something you'd want to get rid of, necessarily. Right? So are you going to buy that?

Would you buy that? It's not something to get rid of? Say again?

[Speaker 2]
Is this a sutra debate or a tantra debate?

[Speaker 1]
We're coming to the tantra later. We're coming to the tantra. But let's stick to sutra.

So, suffering heaps are not something to be abandoned. Because they have the 18 legions and fortunes from the beautiful Lamrim books. That's what he's saying.

That's what the author of our textbooks just said. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's this thing where you don't get rid of the boat until you get over the ocean, you know? Then you must get rid of the boat. Okay?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
That's true, too. Okay, anyway. Here we go.

Denis says a little bit. You want some detail? You want to sit here for hours?

I don't know. Okay. And by the way, it's not even true that if something is the demon of the mental afflictions, it's a mental affliction, he says.

Just in case you were wondering. You got an idea? We need a Chöchen, right?

We need a Chöchen. We need that example which proves the exception. I'll say it again.

He said, by the way, that thing about the demon and mental afflictions, something can be the demon and mental afflictions and not be a mental affliction. And not be... He throws in an adjective that he hopes you don't notice.

A manifest mental affliction. Yeah. It could be a latent mental affliction.

But he goes further. He says you could be the... In a way, you could be mixed up with mental afflictions and not be mental.

Like he's really pushing the envelope. That's in one way. But what would be a mental affliction demon but not be mental?

Work on that. By the way, Rinpoche brought us up on these. We read these.

We didn't do the ACI courses. We only read these. So, for anybody who was there 30 years ago, it's easy.

It's easy. Nyamongke Saban. Say Saban.

The bhagyak. Bhagyak. Nyamongke bhagyak.

Yeah? So, you're telling me bhagyak's not mental? Yeah.

Well, A, it's not manifest, but B, it's not mental at all anyway. It's an energy. It's a potential.

You see, if you split the whole world into mental, physical, and stuff in between, where does it go? It goes in between. It goes in the demonduchies.

It's a power. It's a potential. It's an energy.

It's not mental. It's not cognizant. It doesn't perceive anything, you see.

It's just an event waiting to happen in a way. Okay? That's a bhagyak.

So, bhagyaks stay in your mind, but they're not mind. They stay in your mind, but they're not the mind.

[Speaker 2]
So, they're seeds without causes and conditions for life?

[Speaker 1]
Well, I don't know about that. We'll debate that later. Then he goes into this long story about how you don't have to be the son of the deity, the child of the deity, mental fiction, which just means someone who distracts you.

You don't have to be a child of a deity, but you knew that. Okay, here's another debate. Let's talk about a bodhisattva on the third level.

Can you think of one? Arya Sandhya, according to the scriptures, by the end of his life. Sasobhacharyajan.

Kshukyapabhudurabhachombata. Did he get rid of the rough form, rough form of the demon of the heaps? And then he says, because he destroyed heaps which are impure and which come from karma and kleshas.

We can agree to that so far, right? I think. Okay, he got rid of the demon of the heaps because he's gotten rid of any heaps that are a product of karma and kleshas, karmas and mental fictions.

Good? Buy it? He's being careful.

He's smart. Let's buy it. Let's see where he goes from there.

Takdrute. You have to agree to my reason that he has gotten rid of heaps that are caused by karma and mental afflictions because thekchen gyi tong la nam du lam la ne pa'i sempa de because a bodhisattva who's on the Mahayana path of seeing in the moments after seeing emptiness directly. We call it being in the meditation and then when you get up and start walking around like an hour later, then we call it nam du.

Nam du means at that point when you start to, you're already free of all the problems that seeing emptiness directly eliminates. So you're in a state of liberation in a sense. Because bodhisattvas who have just seen emptiness directly and are walking around in the 24 hours after that, right?

They have gotten rid of rebirth and death which are created by karma and mental afflictions because the Uttara Tantra says, and every single debate I have in here has this same quotation. I wanted you to see how ten different people in the last 2,000 years, 1,700 years, have used the same quotation to prove what they want to prove. And it's not bad.

I mean, it gives us insight into the meaning of the quotation. And then he just quotes that line, those lines. And he says, by the way, moreover, if you're a person who has just reached the first bodhisattva level because you just got bodhichitta and you just saw emptiness directly, le nyun gyi wang gi chungway sak chak gi pungpo pang pe kyal thao I say you must have gotten rid of the...

Are you telling me that they have gotten rid of keys which are created by karma and kleshas? Are you telling me that, from that quotation? I mean, our guy, us come up to the other guy and say, are you telling me that?

The guy already just agreed to our quotation. So he said, do you think the quotation proves what we were trying to prove? I said, yeah.

Okay. Dake. Dune.

Dake means, well, you agreed, right? Dune, BYANG SEMS SBYOR LAM PA'I THEG CHEN GYI MTHONG LAM THOB MA THAG PA'I TSE BYANG SEMS MTHONG LAM PA'I RGYUD LA LE NYUN GYI WANG GI BLA BLA BLA BLA Okay, anyway. Let's talk about a person who's on the path of preparation, which happens just before what?

Seeing emptiness directly, okay? Path of preparation. They're on the Mahayana path of preparation.

And they've just achieved the path of seeing, right? Just achieved the path of seeing. Are you saying they don't have heaps, which are a product of karma and kleshas?

Whoa. DE PA'I PHYIR, DU MI NUS TE You can't agree. BYANG SEMS SBYOR LAM PA'I RGYUD LA DE YOD Because the guy who was on the path of preparation had a body, which was created by karma and kleshas.

And. GANG ZHIG. GANG ZHIG, right?

GANG ZHIG means and. DE NYID LUS BSTAN CIG YIN PA'I PHYIR Because they are the same bodily continuum. I mean, ten minutes later he's an Arya.

So like ten minutes before he's got a body that was produced by karma and kleshas. Are you saying that ten minutes later he has a different body? Then he just leaves you like that, okay?

And you have to think about it. And that's what they do. And Rinpoche would do that too.

He'd say, But what's the punchline, Rinpoche? And he'd say, You go cook it. You go think about it.

One nice thing about the monastic textbooks is sometimes they'll just leave you hanging. They won't give you the... Like Americans, people in Rinpoche's classes just get so frustrated.

What's the end? What's the end? Is there a denouement?

No. You got to figure it out. So there you go.

You got stuck with that one. But what did you learn from that last statement? He said, LUD DANG GCIG YIN PA'I PHYIR They have one and the same bodily stream.

Continuum. What do you learn from that? What might be an implication of that?

Is that certain parts of the path of preparation happen like within half an hour of seeing emptiness directly. You know what I mean? Like jor lam chod chok.

You know, highest part of the path of preparation. I mean, what he's arguing is that come on, they're so close. What he's saying, what he's implying is that they're half hour apart, they're 15 minutes apart.

You're telling me it's a different kind of body he's got now? But what you learn from that argument, even if you didn't have anybody to tell you that, is that the direct perception of emptiness happens like within half an hour of the highest part of the path of preparation. Because it's such a big deal that the bodies are the same in that half hour.

All right. We'll do one more and take a break. duk den yin na korwa yinpe kya duk den yin na korwa yinpe kya I need you to give me that.

duk den, dungyel denpa yin na korwa yinpe kya If something is the truth of something, yin na, korwa yinpe kya It must be suffering? Yeah. Whoa, cook that one.

If something is the truth of suffering, it must be samsara. Sorry, are we saying that?

[Speaker 2]
We can't say that.

[Speaker 1]
No, we can't, right? Because what?

[Speaker 2]
Because they haven't determined it's peace all the way through.

[Speaker 1]
Right, right. That's a long ways away. That's 490 years away or something, right?

At least, you know. Well, at most, maybe. But anyway, duk den yin na korwa yinpe kya What do you guys say?

This is the kacigma. Kacigma means what? One mouth.

Which always means the other guy. The guy who's saying the wrong thing. I mean, luckily, they identify who's saying the first thing, right?

So, if you're like this 13-year-old kid in the monastery, you know it's wrong already, but you just got to figure out why. He says, the guy who's always wrong says, if something is the truth of suffering, it must be samsara. Any biters?

Brian? All you have to do is find a you have to find an example that doesn't fit that.

[Speaker 2]
An emanation appearing to a samsaric being.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. An emanation appearing to a samsaric being. Is it dunya dharma?

Is it truth of suffering? We need something which is the truth of suffering, but is not samsara. For whom?

Oh, who's the truth of suffering? The guy seeing the emanation is the truth of suffering. In samsara, but they're not the truth of suffering.

No, he said the opposite. If it's the truth of suffering, it has to be samsara. Which basically, if anything has been screwed up, it has to be samsara.

Well, let's go on. Let's consider the impure vessel of the world. This world that we live in.

Okay. That's his counterexample. You gave the example of a deity emanating as a normal being.

He gives the example of the world we live in. The suffering world we live in. So, what's the guy going to come back with now?

The opponent. He's going to say, are you telling me it's the truth of suffering? Are you telling me it's not samsara?

Our guy, our boy came and said, take the world, suffering world, impure world. Which means he thinks it's, what? Truth of suffering, but not samsara.

Well, let's keep going. Korayamata. I guess it's samsara, right?

And the guy says, why did you say that? It's the truth of suffering. I like this one.

I remember this one. I busted my head on this. Because, the guy says, oh, we say, it has to be the truth of suffering because Kundu, Samuccaya, I don't know which one, says, dungyaki denpa kangshena, what is the truth of suffering?

sem chen kyewa dang kyeway ne kyi, kyang rikpa jau. Either one, suffering sentient beings or the world they live in. Shey sum bhe chen.

Okay? So, the impure world around us has to be the truth of suffering because that book said so. That ancient Indian book said so.

Okay? Then the guy says, okay, I'll go along with it. This world is samsara.

He says, du na koramayamata. When you go up, what does it mean? Koramayamata.

No, this is the non-sarcastic one. When you go down, koramayamata. Are you telling me it's not koramayamata?

Are you telling me it's not samsara? But when you go up, koramayamata, means what? No, it's not suffering.

No, it's not samsara. Okay? How is the tone of your voice indicated in the scripture?

Like, when you do chanting and they have chanting notation, there are these beautiful wavy things. They look like waves. They go, and they draw this line like that.

But there's no line like that here. How do you know his voice is going up? You just have to figure it out from the context.

Sorry. No, no. If what he says is true from what you figure out later, he must have gone up.

Okay? Sorry. Because it ain't korwa.

It's the place where you korwa. Do the karmic places. Okay?

It ain't korwa. It's the place where you korwa. It's not the cycle.

It's the place where you circle. Okay? I don't know.

Let's see where he's going to go from there. By the way, you don't have to buy them right away. You have to question them.

That's why they write them as debates. And sometimes they'll wrap it up wrong and see if you can catch them. Then you have to be really careful.

What's that? Seven-timer. PHYIR CHEN means let's talk about a seven-timer.

Take a seven-timer. Okay? We can do all this in Tibetan when we start the university and we'll be debating.

I'm thinking English, Sanskrit, and Tibetan. We'll debate. Different groups, of course.

Maybe all the same. Anyway. ,KHOR BA YIN PA DA, ,KHOR BA YIN PA DA, Are you telling me he's...

No. He said, ,KHOR BA YIN PA DA, Are you telling me he is samsara? Right?

Why? If I'm the debater, you're the good guy, I'm the bad guy. You said to me, ,KHOR BA YIN PA DA, You're telling me a seven-timer is samsara.

[Speaker 2]
I said, ,GZHAN YANG RGYUD ZHIG PA LEN DANG BA'A PHYIR CHEN, ,GZHAN YANG RGYUD ZHIG PA LEN DANG BA'A PHYIR CHEN, Right.

[Speaker 1]
That the LEN DANG BA'A is the truth of suffering. It is the truth of suffering. So I'll go over it again.

You opponent said that if something is the truth of suffering, it has to be samsara. So let's take that seven-timer. Are you telling me he's samsara?

Why did you say that? I didn't say that. But he's the truth of suffering, isn't he?

That's how far we are right now. The guy's got to say what? Yeah, he's the truth of suffering.

Of course he's a truth-accepting. LAS MYUN GYI DBANG GIS KHOR BA'I NAS SU RANG DBANG MED PAR SKYE BA LEN PA'I SEMS CAN YIN PA'I PHYIR Here's a tough one. Because he is a sentient being who is taking birth in the place called samsara helplessly due to his or her karma and kleshas.

Is that okay? Well, I don't know. I don't know.

[Speaker 2]
I don't know.

[Speaker 1]
We got problems here. We got inconsistencies between the texts. Now this guy is saying he has to be in the truth of suffering because he's going to take more births in samsara due to the power of his karma and kleshas.

And this is a good textbook writer. Who is this? Let me just check.

Oh, this is ours. This is CER MED. Now don't forget that he said that.

Keep that. SEMS LA BYAG CHU. Keep that note in mind.

He said this guy helplessly has to take birth through karma and kleshas. We just heard Maitreya saying what? He takes place through what?

Two things. MUN LA. Yeah.

NYING RJE and MUN LA. Compassion and prayer. You know, may I be born in a land full of...

They call it LALA LUMBA. It means barbarian land like America. Dharmically.

Then he says, DUN NA. Then the other guy breaks down. He says, okay, okay, okay.

He's samsara. I said he had to be, right? Because he's the truth of suffering.

He is samsara. Now he's not samsara. Now he's not samsara.

He's KORWA PO. Which means what? Yeah.

He's the one who's in samsara. He's the samsarerer. Samsarist?

Okay. He's not samsara. So, so far, what do you got?

The world can't be samsara because it's what? It's the place where you're samsara. The guy who's in samsara can't be samsara.

He's a samsarer. So what's samsara? His last closing statement, okay?

And then we'll take a break. SNGA PHYI'I KHOR BA MA YIN PA'I GRIB CHEN GYI PO DE THE STE My last two proofs were fine, even though a little weird. GANG GI'I KHOR NA When you talk about why somebody's cycling, it's because of karma and kleshas.

If you talk about who's cycling, it's a sentient being who's cycling due to their karma and kleshas. If you talk about where they're cycling, or, here's a very important thing, where they're cycling or what they're chained to. Okay, that's nice.

If you're talking about where they're cycling or what they're chained to, and that's going to be useful later, okay? It's GNYER NAGYI PHUNG PO It's your body and your mind that you took on when you were born. That's where they're chained to.

GNAS GANG GI'I KHOR NA And where is all this cycling taking place? In the world, the impure world. KHOR ZHES BYOD DGOS PA'I ZHES BYOD DGOS PA'I If you're going to be precise, you got to talk about it that way.

[Speaker 2]
But none of these is samsara, is it?

[Speaker 1]
The place, the person, the thing they're chained to, none of that is samsara. What is samsara then? He doesn't tell you.

He closes it. Like that. He leaves it.

He says, Can't you guys distinguish between subjects and objects? Don't you have the KOR SUM, correct? Tessie loves that.

She loves KOR SUM. What are KOR SUM? Three spheres.

Three spheres, meaning? The person who's cycling in samsara.

[Speaker 2]
The person cycling in samsara. Yeah. They're both in the samsara.

Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
And where they're produced. Or the place where they're cycling. Okay.

So which one is samsara? Which one is the real cycle? Just get it straight.

Get it straight. People think, they say, Oh, New York is samsara. People say, I have to go on vacation because I don't like samsara.

People say that. People say, I got cancer. My cancer is samsara.

What is samsara? It's the condition. LAS DAG NYON MONG GI DBANG GIS KHO RO NA KHOR BA'I CHA CHA means the condition.

The fact of it is samsara. Okay? It's very subtle.

And you got to cook it. You got to cook it. The implication is we are not living in samsara.

And it's not that we are samsara. It's that the condition of being here is samsara. What's the tantric implication?

No, you could change it. You could change it. The place ain't samsara.

You're not samsara. It's the condition of being here that's samsara.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
It's the condition of having to be here through mental afflictions and karma that's samsara. But in and of itself, this isn't samsara. And you're not samsaric being.

The fact that you're still here is samsara. That's very tantric. Okay?

You got to cook that. He's not writing a tantric book, but he threw that in.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Okay. I'd like to go on. I mean, I'm not really doing the whole ACI courses with you this way, although they were all based on these scriptures.

But you start to get a feel that if you were in a debate ground, and if you debated this stuff for an hour, then you'd know this stuff backwards and forwards. You go to Tucson, teach somebody at the Muse... What is it?

Art Center or something like that? I hate to call it the YMCA. It sounds cheap.

But anyway, it's pretty cheap. But anyway, you really know your stuff by the end. You really know your stuff.

You really, really grasp it. And there are modern scholars who say, all those monastic textbooks, they're just silly. They're just splitting hairs.

But really, if you have kelwa, if you have virtue, core, in you, they're like deities have written these things. You could spend your whole life looking at these things and listening to the debate go back and forth. And by the time you're done, you get everything.

You get everything, because they've ripped it apart from every angle. It's a very nice way to learn. I think debate is really nice.

The prisoners really loved it. It also gives you a chance to act a little crazy and still learn something. It's a very useful thing.

We'll take a break. Ready? We'll start.

I'm going to skip one. It's a debate about truth and suffering and Aryas. You had most of it already.

This is a really interesting one that I wanted to go through sort of carefully. It's another place. There are two places where Je Tsongkapa himself uses this quotation.

So I thought you might like to hear that. It happens to be from a secret text. But I'm just going to do a little piece, so it doesn't matter.

,GYI RIM THAR CHIN TZIN, ,RDZO RIM SEMS DBANG GI BAR, ,THOB PA ZHIG GIS, ,TSE DE LA SPYOD PA SUM GANG RUNG, ,CHE RGYU MA CHUNG NA, Let's suppose somebody has completed their GYI RIM practice. And in their RDZO RIM practice they've got up to SEMS DBANG, which is a certain part of higher tantric practice. ,TSE DE LA SPYOD PA SUM GANG RUNG, ,CHE RGYU MA CHUNG They didn't do the three activities, which we'll talk about later.

,CHI BA'I DU SU, But at the moment of their death, ,CHI BA'I DU SU, ,DU DAG PA'I DANG PA RNGON DU CHA, ,CHI BA'I DU SU, They are able to link into the clear light of death, which is ultimate reality. Sorry, they're able to link into that. He doesn't say directly necessarily, but anyway.

,CHI BA'I DU SU, Then when they die, at the end of the death process, RGYUD MED GUR DANG BAR BYA'O They should think to themselves, I want to enter an angel's body. I want to enter an angel's body. PHAN PA STANG PHAN PA STANG means what?

Make that resolution. It's like, decide that that's what you want to be. BDIN GZHI What?

BDIN DA'I Okay, GZHI NA Okay, if you do that, says Je Tsongkapa. This is all secret stuff, that's okay. PHYI BA'I RINPA NAMU'I SOS TU RGYUD PA'I RIN PA BYAS NAS PHYI BA'I SOS TU CHAR BAR GYUR Then you will go through the various stages of death.

You will enter the clear light of death. And then, DE'I THU'I GZHAN LAG PAR DUG PA'I TSE Then, in the next few minutes, in the time that other people would be entering Bardo, like a scary place between death and rebirth, right? Bardo.

DE'I DUS LA Instead of that, DUS means, this DUS means, as a replacement for that. DE'I DUS LA RGYU LUS GRUB You will get your rainbow body. You'll get your angel's body.

And I've only brought this quotation up because I want you to be really, really clear that if you can see emptiness directly, it's intimately and automatically and it can even be suddenly related to becoming an angel. You see? Reaching an angel's body.

He's talking about a higher level of arya. And later on, Je Tsongkapa says, Look, well, I'll give it to you. Then he discusses how that takes place.

And he quotes from a scripture called The Activities or something like that. It's a tantric scripture. Somebody asks a question, you know, Is it possible, instead of entering the Bardo, to become Vajradhara or Vajrapani, to enter that body?

And then he gives a long explanation of why that is possible and why it will happen. And this is Vajradhara talking to an unknown questioner in this tantra. Then he says, GYUL LUD THOB NA If you are able then to attain the angel's body, the body of light, NGES PAR TZANG RGYAL BAR GSUNGS It's been stated that, TSE DE LA, in that same life, you'll become a Buddha.

So, like, you can't get the miracle body, the rainbow body, and not become a Buddha in the same life. So, he's telling you, if you want to get to the rainbow body, especially during the death process, you must see emptiness directly. Like, you have to try really hard to see what they call the clear light of death and transform that into a direct perception of emptiness.

And then, you can get the rainbow body. And then if you get that, you just become DERI. You become a Buddha in that same life.

NGON TSUL DI GYUL LUD MA THOB LA NGON TSUL THOB NA GYUR LAM LA But let's say you don't manage to achieve rainbow body, but you do manage to perceive emptiness directly, clear light directly. Well then, as the Uttara Tantra says, PHA PA'I PHYI DANG RGA BA DANG NA BA'I SDUG BSNGAL TSE NAS SPANG Okay, and then he goes through that quotation. Same quotation.

LAS DANG NYON MO RWANG GI SKYES DE LA BDE ME PHYIR BDE MED TSE Where did that go? TSE THEG CHEN PHA PA NAM GYI LAS GYI RWANG GI PHYI BA SPANG BAR GSUNG It is stated in the Uttara Tantra that Mahayana Aryas have eliminated having to die through karma and kleshas. Karma and mental kleshas.

DE LAS RWANG GI PHYI BA MA SPANG ZHING YOD CHE MA TSANG BA'I DE LTAR BYAS PAR GSUNGS PAS GYI LUD MA THOB PA'I SO SOGS KYI BA'I NO Then he goes through an interesting explanation of why if you can see directly emptiness and have bodhichitta, then by the way, you avoid all these other problems like never having enough money and stuff like that. DE SHI BA'I OK TU GYI LUD THOB PA DE THOB PA DE Oh, and then he says, the main point I wanted you to get that was this whole process about getting an angel body doesn't work unless you can see emptiness directly just before that. And anybody who says different is wrong.

Okay? So he's like saying you've got to to activate the angel body you have to see emptiness directly before that. And this particular section which is from one of his commentaries on Tantra in general, he's saying that if you want to get that at death, you want to get the miracle body, rainbow body, you have to try to practice and this is a practice found in the Vajrayogini that, you know, CHI BA CHUG KU LAM GYUR OK I thought I'd throw in another the other place where Je Tsongkapa uses this quotation is from his commentary on Guhyasamaja which is in the Kagyu tradition where the Mahamudra comes from and then leads into a lot of like what we're studying in the other class Sama Landen. YANG RIM PA ZHIG PA THOB NAS If you can achieve the fourth level SNGA BA GSUM NAM PAR DAG PAR GSUNG you'll experience the three visions CHU NI NGON TSUL RTOG PA YIN and you will see emptiness directly because the Gyu Lama says because the Uttaratantra says and then he quotes the same quotation and then he says, I like this one and this is I think on your homework somewhere as the Uttaratantra says CHE BAR CHEN GYI THEG CHEN PHAG PA'I KYANG LAS DBANG GI CHI BA SPAM PAR GSUNG NA if it's true as Lord Maitreya says that people in the open teachings are who see emptiness directly can get out of dying through karma and kleshas well NGAR GYI THEG CHEN PHAG PA'I DE'I SPAM PA means needless to say if you are practicing tantra then be no problem, would it? If you saw emptiness directly and had bodhichitta and were practicing tantra on top of that well just forget it and then he just leaves it like that I like that quotation anyway then there are a lot of more I'm going to have in the reading a lot more quotations about how it is that Aryas can have to take birth again let me see if I can find one here's a writer and it's again it's from our monastery BYANG PA RNAMS NYON RJE DANG MON LAM GYI DBANG GIS JI LTAR DOD DOD SU SKYES somebody says to him there's an argument if these people who see emptiness directly have to take seven more lifetimes then what makes them do it? you see?

what is there that makes them do that? and there's a debate about it and he says I'll give you two choices the other guy the other guy seems to want to say they must have some kind of kleshas they got to have some kind of mental afflictions otherwise they wouldn't take birth so that's where we're coming from somebody's saying during those seven lifetimes they must have some kind of mental afflictions that are making them take birth you don't take birth by accident it's not like you just take birth because of the, what do you call it? the momentum you're on from billions of past lives after you've seen emptiness directly why do you still have to take birth?

and our guy gives the other guy two choices he says the other guy was sort of implying you need to have a mental affliction he says BYAMS PA RNAMS SNYING RJE DANG MON LAM GYI DBANG GIS JI LTAR BDOD BDOD DU RGYAS MI NUS PAR BDOD BDOD means any old way they want BDOD BDOD he says okay, so you're saying that these bodhisattvas they can't just take any kind of birth they want through their compassion and their prayer MON LAM are you telling me that? is that what you mean to say? and that somehow there's some kind of mental affliction making them do it, right?

that's first choice they can't do it by compassion and MON LAM there must be some kind of mental affliction at work that's the first choice I'll give you because the other guy said what? there must be some mental affliction involved there then he says I'll give you another choice DBON TE means I'll give you another choice NYON MONG MI ZHES KYANG whether or not you agree that this is a mental affliction PHYI PHUR TSE at the time when you go into crossing the borderland between death and rebirth it's called PHYI PHUR TSE BDAG CHE DONG GI JIG PAS everyone has this fear of losing their whole being like the thing that makes you fight when somebody grabs you on a roof and pushes you or someone goes like that and that automatic fear it's almost like Abhinivesha described in the Yoga Sutra sometimes that way JIG PAS SAK CHE GYI PHUNG PO LA SRED PA'I SRED PA then you get some horrible attachment to this body and then that throws you into another rebirth if you have that fear at the last moment and you're like afraid that if you lose this body you will disappear I will disappear then that kind of fear is called SRED PA in the Wheel of Life attachment and then that throws you into the next rebirth which way you want it which way you want it he's debating this other guy which way was it? what was the first choice again?

they got some kind of mental affliction and they can't take rebirth the way they want through compassion and prayer second choice whether or not they have a mental affliction but they have this fear and that's what throws them into the next rebirth so what we're debating here is we're already assuming you saw emptiness what do you do next? how can you cut those seven rebirths short? like we just went through the tantric explanation but now we have this question this is essential suppose you do see emptiness directly you still want to spend seven more lifetimes?

maybe you could identify what's throwing you into a rebirth even after you see emptiness so here's a debate well there's two choices either you can't take a rebirth the way you want or and some mental affliction is throwing you or whether you call it a mental affliction or not you've got some kind of fear about me and that throws you into your next which way do you want it? the guy might pick the second way why? it gets out of a problem it gets out of a problem what?

that these bodhisattva aryas who have to take life seven more times and he doesn't want to admit that they might be able to do it simply through their own compassion and by the way the compassion thing is a little even to me I don't know if I buy it why? well that and we know he has to take seven more births we know he's not a drachomba he's not an arhat right? he's not an arhat I mean if you could just see emptiness directly and then immediately take any birth you want it sounds like an arhat to me it sounds like a person who's like years and years beyond seeing emptiness directly so what's the difference?

I mean why do you have to go through the whole path of habituation? where's that 500 years? where'd it go?

if the guy could just take birth anywhere he wants then where'd that 500 years go? I mean I don't know if I'd buy it so anyway he says, then our guy doesn't give the other guy a chance to answer anyway he says either way it's wrong because either way it would contradict statements that these Arya Bodhisattvas have destroyed any being forced to do things through kleshas so what our guy is saying is look, whether you call that fear a klesha or not, I call it a klesha it's a mental affliction dey tanah shendun gyal chenpo tashok and if your description was right if a bodhisattva Arya had to take rebirth through any kind of mental afflictions shendun gyal chenpo tashok means forget the idea that he's helping others in a big way rang dun yang durpa shen madrupay che he can't even do what he wants to do for himself he can't even do what he wants to do what are you talking about bodhisattvas acting for all living beings they can't even keep their own rear end out of samsara out of some more books now you got to debate that these are all like they're not all quite matching each other they're all giving a different angle I think if you spend like a week or two reading it you could probably reconcile them all but I'm not sure I'm going to skip the next one oh this is a good one this is by Sarah Jetson Sarah Jetson is the author of the textbook series from the lower college of Sarah I'm just kidding Sarah J.

J. and he was a teacher of the author of our textbooks Kedrup Denpa Dagye and there's a tradition that Kedrup I mean according to us Kedrup Denpa Dagye outgrew his teacher which is almost sort of a little touchy subject right and according to the Sarah Jepas Kedrup Denpa Dagye was sort of a maverick who just kind of wandered away from the party line which seems to typify Sarah Mae Lamas by tradition but anyway however way you see it somebody says look there is a mental affliction that arises in the mind of a bodhisattva Arya which makes them take rebirth in samsara there is a mental affliction now that's a Kachik which means what the other guy which means we we don't buy it ok

[Speaker 2]
so this is the koan

[Speaker 1]
yeah it's like the koan ok oh so you're telling me there's a bodhisattva Arya who is forced to take rebirth out of karma and mental afflictions right he says I didn't say that but you started out with what you started out with you said there's a mental affliction which makes him take rebirth right and he says yeah so he's taking rebirth because he's forced through mental afflictions right no ok you can't agree that he's forced to take a rebirth through karma and mental afflictions because this book says something else which book Uttaratantra then he throws in this quotation again I just want you to get the feeling that this quotation has probably been used more than any other quotation from the Uttaratantra because it's so vital it's so important suppose I do see emptiness directly, well what's my status how is it that I get an angel's body how long will it really take does tantric does tantric practice help and then he's our guy figured that's enough, he doesn't go on you know that's enough, but then he throws in another debate konare which means kacik chan sepapa korakye rinpe gyur gyur pa nyonmong chen yor ba ta there is too a mental affliction that makes the guy take birth again because he's got a nyun drip nyun drip is what jipa is an obstacle ok jipa, jipa like we have the capacity to see every living being in the universe you have the capacity to read my mind at any given time whether you are now I don't know where everyone has that capacity in this room. And then there's this sort of block, there's a wall. If you break through that wall, you can do all those things.

In principle, you can perceive everything happening in the universe. In principle, anybody in this room, if you saw emptiness directly today, on a bodhisattva path, you would see every living creature in the universe, in one minute, in one minute. But there's some kind of block, you see, there's some kind of wall.

If you can break it down, that's called kṣedṛpa, okay? Kṣedṛpa means, kṣeje dṛpa means, it blocks you from the ability to know all things at the same time. As opposed to a nyondṛpa, which is a nyomong dṛpa, which is what?

Mental affliction obstacle, which only prevents you from what? Achieving nirvana, okay? So mental affliction obstacle just means something that keeps you from achieving nirvana, where you don't have to take rebirth to get it off, for example.

And śīdṛpa is what? Prevents you from reaching omniscience, okay? Okay, so, now that you know that, this guy says, there is a mental affliction in the guy's mind that makes him take one of those seven births, right?

Because he's got a mental affliction obstacle. We say, no, he doesn't. And he says, yeah, he does, because he has an omniscience obstacle.

Right, khyapa-mārtyu. Say, khyapa-mārtyu. Doesn't follow, doesn't follow, doesn't necessarily follow.

You can have an obstacle to your omniscience, but have gotten over your obstacles to nirvana, right? I mean, we know that, but he makes a slip, luckily. marjumna-dhārtha, dhārtha-gāpī-mārgī-bhāg-chākī-śāyabhē, And then the other guy says, he does, too, have an omniscience obstacle.

And then he says something very powerful. Because he's still got the, he's still at the level where he has the seed for ignorance.

[Speaker 2]
He's still at the level where he has the seed for ignorance. Is that a mental affliction?

[Speaker 1]
No, we talked about it before today. It's an energy, it's an energy, it's not mental, okay? Anyway, but the other guy is saying that's a mental, the seed for ignorance is an obstacle to omniscience, and not to becoming an arhat.

Is that true? The question is, do you get rid of your seeds for your ignorance when you become an arhat?

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
That's touchy. What kind of ignorance are we talking about? The one that sees that things are self-existent, you get over, that's the last thing you get over, right?

And the seeds for it, or do you get rid of the seeds for it? What do you do between the eighth and tenth bodhisattva levels? Long story.

Okay, anyway. He seems to be saying that this seed represents the thing that blocks you from reaching Buddhahood. Omniscience obstacle.

The seed, not the ignorance itself. Ignorance itself is already gone. ,DE NA BYANG SRED PA PA'I PO'I KHO BA SKYE BA LEN PA'I RGYUR RGYUD PA'I NYON MONGS YOD, ,DE NYON MONGS KYI DBANG GI KHO BA SKYE BA MI LEN, Therefore, he says, according to me, this guy has a mental affliction that's going to make him take birth again.

But he's not taking birth to the power of mental afflictions. It supports me. And then, anyway, the bottom line is that the author from Saraje, says that what if we treat the energies in that bodhisattva Arya's mind as obstacles to omniscience?

The energies for ignorance, the seeds for ignorance in that bodhisattva's mind, what if we treat them as obstacles to omniscience?

[Speaker 2]
Would they still take rebirth?

[Speaker 1]
He's trying to say, let's classify them as something that's not mental affliction, but that still make them take birth. Does that help us with our problems today? What's the Atara Tantra say?

He's not going to take birth again because they don't have it, so they don't have it. Meaning what? They don't have mental afflictions and karma, so they're not going to take rebirth.

Now, Saraje guy is saying, what if we classify those seeds that make him take birth again as not mental affliction obstacles, but omniscience obstacles? Then is he still taking rebirth? Yeah, because we know he has to be because he's a seven-timer.

He's a seven-timer. And then can we say he doesn't have mental afflictions?

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
We got out of it. That's the Saraje, okay? Now, I'm not saying it's right or wrong.

You got a two on it. But you get the point. He's saying Atara Tantra is right.

Seven-lifer is right. Taking rebirth is right. Being truth of suffering is right.

Not being samsara is right. Not being forced by karma and kleshas to take rebirth is right. But having to take rebirth is right.

So there's something mental affliction sort of thing which means the obstacle to omniscience, which is the seeds of the ignorance. Now you see how different authors over hundreds of years are shooting guns at each other. They're like, how about if we do it this way?

Can we... Does that... What do you call it?

Reconcile all these ideas. So think about it. I think it's just a classification trick.

Anyway. But not necessarily wrong. I don't know.

And there's a couple more from Saraje, but we don't need those. Just kidding. Here's another thing I threw in towards the end.

I think this is maybe the last thing. Let me check. Yeah, this is the last thing.

I just threw this in at the end for fun, okay? This is from a Lamrim text. It's a commentary to a Lamrim that was written by the first Panchen Lama, whose name is Lozang Chukgyi Gyaltsen.

And people confuse him with Sarah Judson Chukgyi Gyaltsen, who is the textbook author from Saraje. So if people say Chukgyi Gyaltsen, you have to say which Chukgyi Gyaltsen? And you say Sarah Judson Chukgyi Gyaltsen.

Oh, the Sarah textbook writer. Or they say Panchen Lozang Chukgyi Gyaltsen. And then it means the Panchen Lama.

But anyway, we're talking about Panchen Lama. He wrote a Lamrim called The Easy Way. Almost like The Easy Path.

I don't know if it's been translated yet. Anybody know? If it hasn't been, I think it'd be cool to do it for the first year of the Tantric series.

Because I like Panchen Lozang Chukgyi Gyaltsen. He was a great writer and a great poet. Yeah.

I don't know if anyone's translated it. It's not very long, and it'd be a great Lamrim for us to do as the first year of the Tantric series. So we'll either do that or the Fifth Dalai Lama.

I don't know. Whatever's available by then. This one is kind of, to me, there's a very...

I have a connection with it. Anyway, he says, really, if you think about it, people shouldn't get stuck in middle level capacity. Meaning what?

[Speaker 2]
Wanting to abandon...

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, okay. Out of little capacity, medium capacity, big capacity. Lamrim, right?

They call it greater scope, lesser scope, medium scope. Something fancy like that. RANG DON TSOG DON DON GNYER BA RNAM KYIS NANG NAS Of all the people in history who are watching out for their own rear end.

Something like that. NANG NAS THOG CHOD, the best. The very best were NYAN CHOS CHOG GSUNG.

NYAN CHOS CHOG GSUNG means... Who is that? I think it's Sariputra and Maudgalyayana.

Maudgalyayana. These two great disciples of Lord Buddha. They were great disciples in which turning of the wheel?

Could be. I guess you can say the hard city, right? Yeah, you can say that.

But anyway, they're known for having been there at the first one mostly. And they're known as having been Theravadan. Those two guys.

Yeah, they're known... I think it's those two. I don't think it's Ananda.

I think it's Maudgalyayana and Sariputra. Anyway, they're known as being Theravadan usually. He says the best of the people who weren't bodhisattvas yet had to be those two.

BDAG GIS YIN LA DE DAG KYANG GZHAN DON DAG ZHOG RANG DON TZAM YANG MA RDZOGS PA STE They spent their whole lives trying to achieve their own goals. And not only did they not help to achieve other's goals, they didn't get their own. Like he's putting them down in this Lam Rim.

Why? PHYOGS GSUNG GI NYAL BA'I GNAS RNAM LA SIG PA'I TSE They had an opportunity to view the hell rooms. MU RTOGS PA'I STON PA RDZOGS BYAS KYIS RANG GI LOB PA RNAM LA PHYIN GUR BA DE DAG LA GSUNGS PA'I TSE There was some kind of controversy involving a non-Buddhist teacher and some letter he wrote to his disciples or something.

Anyway, RDI'I NGA'I PHYAG GI STON PA LA GUR BA LTA PO ZHES MA RGA' GI BU LA SDUG STE As a result of this conversation, Maudgalyayana got punched. PHYAG GZHAG THAMS CAD DANG BAR LTAR BYONG BA YIN LA And he tied up his feet and legs. I'm sorry, he crushed his feet and arms.

He crushed his arms and legs like you would a house of reeds. Remember that? And he died.

Maudgalyayana died. Whereas if he had been a bodhisattva and if he had seen emptiness directly, he never would have had any of these problems. Because people who have seen emptiness directly and who are bodhisattvas just don't get these problems because, Uttara Tantra says, So now you see how this quotation is being used by many, many different people.

It's just a short class, not really, but it's just a I just want you to get the feeling for how Arya Sangha has infiltrated all of Tibetan Buddhism. You see? From tantric angle, from lamrim angle, from perfection of wisdom angle, almost anything you read has Uttara Tantra in it, whether you know it or not.

So here he's using it for a different reason. He's using the quotation for a different reason. Then he says, DE NA GZHAN YIN GYES PAS THEG PA CHEN PO'I PHYI GU DE Therefore, if you're going to be a good teacher for other people, get them right into talking about emptiness and karma.

Get them right into talking about emptiness. If you're going to not waste people's time, get them right into emptiness and karma. I like that.

And then he quotes Potowa, who's a famous Kadampa, who said the same thing. He says, don't waste people's time, don't fool around, don't monkey around. Get them straight into karma and emptiness.

Get them to Bodhisattva Arya. So that's all I'm going to do on that. I think especially it'd be nice for you to review the statements about tantric, the tantric part.

And how you can use clear light to achieve the same thing on a tantric level, tantric path, that someone using the ACI courses would on a sutra path. The courses so far, on a sutra path. So really, the 18 courses that are coming up next fall are for getting to the second kind of Arya.

You can use tantric practices to shorten the time, to get to the same thing. Okay, we'll stop there.