Углублённый курс ACI 01 — Учения будущего Будды: «Уттаратантра» Майтреи (2003, Аризона), занятие 9

[Говорящий 1]
We're not going to do much Tibetan. I think this is the only Tibetan script that we'll do. So welcome to class nine.

Please say, Lots of Ta's. This is the subject of class nine. What does Cheek mean?

One. Cheek means one. Tekpa.

What does Tekpa mean? Yeah, Gisela. Way.

Yana in Sanskrit, like Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana. Tekpa means way. It means like vehicle.

And it can refer to either the road that you travel, the path that you travel, or the vehicle that you use to travel on that path. Like either I-10 or the truck you drive. And then Tar Tuk, like Tarchin.

Tar Tuk means like ultimate. In the end. Finally.

In the end. The last word on this. That's Tar Tuk.

Finally. And so Tar Tuk, Tekpa Cheek means in the end. Finally, all paths are one.

And that's the subject of class nine. In the end, all paths are one. And this is a statement that comes up in Uttara Tantra from Lord Maitreya and Arya Sangha.

Tar Tuk, say Tar Tuk, Tekpa Cheek. Tar Tuk, Tekpa Cheek. Tar Tuk, Tekpa Cheek.

Okay. What does it mean? In the end, all paths are one.

Okay, now, is that true? Yeah, that's the question. So we're going to explore is that true.

We're going to go, in order to answer that question, we're going to go through what's called Dakme. Okay, please say Dakme. Dakme.

Trarak. Trarak. Sum.

Sum. Dakme Trarak Sum. Dakme Trarak Sum.

Okay, Dakme means, yeah, no self. And just never say no self, okay? That wasted 15 years of my life, okay?

Never say no self when you teach Dharma or write a book. Say no self nature. No self nature.

You know, when I was 20 years old, I'm so sad about this actually, at Gettysburg College, I was looking for truth, you know, and I read some Buddhist books, and they said there's no self. Dakme, that's not a bad translation. Word for word.

Get the words right, but lose the meaning, right? Dakme. So I'm saying, so who's reading this book, and come on, there's no self, there's no Winston, that doesn't make any sense.

So no self nature. Dakme. Okay.

Trarak. Tramo means subtle. Subtle.

Like fine, subtle. Rak means gross or obvious. Okay.

And sum means three. Okay. And so we're going to explore this question.

In the end, do all paths lead to one path? By delving into the three degrees of selflessness. Okay.

The three degrees. See, trarak means degree. I mean, you take subtle and gross and jam them together as one word, and it means degree.

Degree of subtlety versus grossness, obviousness. Okay. Dakme trarak sum.

T-R-A-R-A-K. Trarak. Dakme trarak sum.

Okay. This is a presentation that's mainly given from the point of view of the middle way independent group. The independent group within the middle way.

Okay. The Madhyamika. And Lama John Roadhouse yesterday presented a beautiful chart for us.

So if you have that in your notes. This goes in the middle way. The Madhyamika Svatantrika.

I think you had, right? The middle way independent group within the middle way school. This comes from them.

And I believe this, I'm not sure. I believe this presentation comes from Sarah Jetson. From Sarah J.

The other monastery. The other college of Sarah. Okay.

Okay. We're going to begin by talking about, I'm going to talk fast because I don't have too much time. And maybe I'll write less.

And so you guys just stay with me. And I'm going to, I promised I'd end by, you know, to give time for the noontime class. So I'm going to talk fast.

I'll write less. You guys listen well and just, and write, okay? Is that okay?

Mazal? Okay. So there's three yanas.

There's three ways. Okay. Three vehicles.

First one is called the listener. The listener vehicle. Okay.

In Tibetan, if you're into this, I'll just give some words for people who are on these Tibetan Sanskrit tracks. Say nyantu. Nyantu.

N-Y-E-N-T-U. Nyantu. In Sanskrit, please say shravaka.

Shravaka. Something like that. Right?

That means listener. Okay. The listener way.

If you're kind of new to ACI, you notice in the prayer, the sange chodan soki chok nam la, jangshu baro dakini khapsu si. Dakichun yen. Nyen means listener.

Dakichun yen gipe sunam ki. Okay. Nyantu means the listener way.

Okay. So the listener is the first path. Why are they called listener?

Good. They're called listeners because they hear the bodhisattva motivation. They hear the message of bodhicitta, of being on it.

They hear the words from the teachers, you know, or they hear the suggestion. The reason I'm on a spiritual path is to benefit all other sentient beings who are suffering. And the reason I come to class, the reason I meditate is they hear this message.

They hear the words. They hear it. They listen to it.

The reason I'm meditating, the reason I'm keeping my book, the reason I'm teaching, the reason I'm debating, studying, serving others is so that I can take all the energy of my life, the limited years and energy that I have to be of ultimate service to others, to get others to stop creating the causes for their suffering. They hear those words and they can even repeat the words, like I'm saying right now, but it hasn't sunk into their heart. And that's not their true motivation.

So listener means they've only heard it, but it hasn't sunk in. They haven't internalized that bodhisattva motivation. Okay.

That's nyanta. That's what listener means. It's sort of a, we say a maingak.

It's sort of, it implies something else. Yeah, they listen, but the point is that they don't, it doesn't sink in. Okay.

And that's a, that's a goal that we have really is to hear, like somebody said, like one of these, I don't know, Louis Armstrong or something said, you know, you use guys, you hear the, you hear the word, you know the words, but you don't hear the music. You know, John said something like that yesterday. Right.

You know, you, you know the words, but you don't hear the music, you know, and that's something like listener. You're a listener. Okay.

So, small ears. And then a good jazz musician, they say, man, you got big ears, meaning you really hear it, you know. Okay.

Hear the Bodhisattva motivation. The second group, please say Rangel. Rangel.

Rangel. Rangel. In Sanskrit, it's Pratyekabuddha.

Yeah. Say Pratyekabuddha. Pratyekabuddha.

Buddha. Okay. Rangel is R-A-N-G, G-Y-A, G-Y-E-L, Rangel.

Rangel. Rang means self. Gyal means Gyalpo, which means the victor, which means the Buddha.

Okay. Pratyekabuddha. It means self-made Buddha.

And you know, if you've gone through this, the joke is that they're neither. You know, the self-made Buddhas are neither. They're neither self-made, nor are they Buddhas, because they're not self-made.

Self-made meaning they don't have a teacher, they don't have a spiritual guide. They don't have a mentor. They don't have a Maitreya, you know, leading them.

But of course, to have reached this point, they had to have, at some point in their lifetimes, they had to have met probably like thousands of teachers in the past to lead them to have the seeds in their mind right now that they could go off in a hut and meditate and realize emptiness without a teacher recently, like in this lifetime. And then they say they're not total Buddhas because they reach a lower nirvana. So they don't reach total enlightenment.

So you can't, from the highest viewpoint, you wouldn't say they're totally enlightened, and you wouldn't say they're self-made, but they're called self-made, enlightened beings. The third category, the third way, the third thekpa, is, please say, jang-sem. Or another way to say it would be, please say, thekpa.

Tempo. Thekchen. Thekchen.

Thekchen means the greater vehicle. Mahayana in Sanskrit. Jang-sem means bodhisattva.

Jang-chubh-sempa means bodhisattva. So the third track is called the greater vehicle or the bodhisattva path. Now we're going to talk about these three different vehicles in terms of what is their motivation.

Well, first of all, what's their name? So we did that. What's their motivation?

What subject do they study? What kinds of dharma books and teachings do they focus on with their practice? And then most importantly, what is their view of dharma?

What's their view of selflessness? Selflessness roughly is going to mean emptiness, but not exactly. So fourthly, what is their view of emptiness or selflessness?

So we've got the names. What are the three groups? Listeners, self-made Buddhas, bodhisattvas, or those on the greater way.

So what is the motivation of each of those three groups? Sometimes we call this word motivation scope. What is their focus?

What is their scope? What is their motivation? Why are they practicing dharma?

Why are they on a spiritual path? Try not to think of this, by the way, as some academic subject that you'd learn these points and philosophy and homework questions. Think of it in terms of myself.

Each of us think of it in terms of ourselves. What is my real motivation? Why did I bother to get a plane ticket or take all the trouble to come to a Tarot Tantra class?

Why do I make efforts to meditate? Why do I come to Diamond Mountain? Whatever your activity is, why do you do it, really?

In Buddhism, we say there's three motivations. There's three scopes. The first one is I'm worried about the end of my life.

And I have a sense that I don't stop. I know my body is going to stop because I see everyone's body stopping in it. It's burned.

It goes underground. But I feel like there's something about me that's more than my body, like my mind, my soul, however you think of it. And that's going to continue on after this life.

I have a notion that that's true. And I'm concerned about it. I don't know where I'm going to go.

I don't know what I'm going to experience after this life. And that, they say, is just the fundamental motivation of Buddhism. If we don't have that concern in our mind, we're not even practicing Dharma.

We're not practicing Buddha Dharma. And consider that. Consider that.

If we come to class because we want to do something kind of cool and groovy, or we like these ideas, or it's fun to have a Dharma party, or I like philosophy, or I like bodhicitta sounds really neat and serving others. If that's the sum of our motivation, we're not even practicing Buddhism. The books are very clear about that.

The fundamental motivation of a person is concern for what happens after this lifetime. And frankly, that's difficult. Because if you look in your heart, you may find that there's not even a sense of concern about what happens after this life.

For some of us, it's because we're too young, or we haven't had death right in our face. For some of us, it's just not an idea that we grew up with. But somewhere in the back of our mind, there's some kind of nagging concern.

What happens after this life? Do I just blank out? Does something continue?

And if it continues, what continues? And is there something I should be paying attention to? Is there something I can be doing about that?

So that's called the lower scope, the lower motivation. Not lower because it's unimportant. It's extremely important.

But because there's even higher motivations. So that's called the lower scope, the lower motivation. Do listeners have that motivation?

Yes. Do self-made Buddhists have that motivation? Yes.

Do those on the Bodhisattva path have that motivation? Yes. Why?

Prove it. Because they're all Buddhist practitioners, right? It's the fundamental motivation.

So if these are all three paths within Buddhism, all of the practitioners have to be driven by that concern. And if I'm not driven by that concern, I'm not practicing Dharma, frankly. Second motivation is, and think about it.

And forget this philosophy and academic stuff. Think of yourself and your life. Second motivation is what?

Even if I could come back, even if I could stay in this human life or come back to an incredible human life like this is, with an intelligent mind, a little bit of free time, like 11.55 to 12, right? But generally, health, some energy, great teachers, great teachings. It's not good enough for me just to stay at this level.

I'm sick of my mental afflictions. I'm sick of the ups and downs of my job, my relationships, my house, my car, my physical body, my emotions. I'm sick of that.

I want to get rid of these mental afflictions. I want to reach nirvana. I want to end my mental afflictions.

I want to end my own suffering forever. And that's the second motivation. So do listeners have that motivation?

Yes, they do. Do self-made Buddhas have that motivation? Yes.

Do bodhisattvas have that motivation? You sure? Wait a minute.

Aren't bodhisattvas the ones who don't want to reach nirvana, don't want to leave? They want to stay here in their suffering mind so they can relate to the rest of us schmucks. No, come on.

Give me a break. That's one of those dharma rumors that we dispel. Of course, bodhisattvas want to get, because who's going to help you get out of suffering more?

Someone who's exhausted, irritated, jealous, angry, and then they're going to teach us how to stop our suffering. No, we have to get there ourselves and then we have to lead by example, lead others out of suffering. There is a way and here's the way.

Watch me and you can do it too. That's the bodhisattva motivation. So all three groups have both of those motivations.

Yeah, you'd think the listeners have the lower one, but it's not that way. Okay. Okay.

What's the third motivation? Yeah, reaching total enlightenment. Reaching total enlightenment.

Okay. And what's the definition of bodhicitta? See, the third motivation, the third scope is bodhicitta, to reach enlightenment.

So what is that, James? Good. Please say, Okay, so it has two parts.

I want to reach total enlightenment. That's the second part. And the first part is samkhepani-sendunchir, so that I can be of ultimate benefit to others, meaning bringing them out of suffering as well.

So it's actually kind of beautiful. The third one incorporates the first two. I want to get out of suffering.

I want to get out of a lower rebirth so that I can reach total enlightenment. No more mental afflictions for me. And then having done that, I can bring all other beings to the same place of total enlightenment.

So those are the three motivations. So who has just the first two motivations? The first two tracks, listeners, self-made buddhas.

Who has all three? Who has just the first motivation? Yeah.

None of them. Maybe you could say someone who just comes to dharma class or something. But, you know, but correct, yeah.

The listeners, the self-made buddhas have the lower and the medium scope. Okay. Thirdly, third assessment of these three ways is what's the main subject that they study?

What thangka do they put up in their meditation room? You know, what topic do they study? What books do they read?

Okay. What main teaching do the listeners focus on? Good.

Please say pakpe, denpa, shi. Pakpe, denpa, shi. Okay.

The four arya truths. The four truths of a realized being. Okay.

And that's what turns them on. That's like the teaching that they study and that they groove on, you know, is the four arya truths, those of the listener way. Okay.

What's the main subject matter that the self-made buddhas study? Yeah. Please say tenjel, yenlak, chönyi.

Tenjel, yenlak, chönyi. Chönyi means ten plus two. Right, Kiran?

Twelve. Yenlak means steps in a sequence, you know, or links. Sometimes it means links.

Tenjel means dependent origination. So they study the twelve links of dependent origination. Okay.

This is portrayed in the Wheel of Life that you've probably seen with the three. We did at noontime yesterday the three main mental afflictions that keep us in samsara, right? Ignorantly liking things, disliking things, and ignorance itself.

And then outside of that you have beings traveling in the six realms. And then outside of that you have the twelve links. Okay.

Those twelve links are roughly like the six steps of achieved Buddha nature that Geshe Michael took us through from Lord Maitreya. In a different order, he said, we're born with a seed to see things as self-existent. That seed grows, therefore we grasp to things as self-existently attractive, and therefore we collect bad karma.

And we stay in this cycle of suffering. And that's basically what the self-made buddhas focus on. That teaching about emptiness and karma.

Excuse me. What kind of scriptures or teachings do those on the Bodhisattva track follow? Yeah, perfection of wisdom, basically.

Prajna Paramita. Parottacimpa. Okay, the perfection of wisdom sutras.

Like they would get into things like the Diamond Cutter Sutra. You know, if there was someone on the Bodhisattva track, they'd be loving like the Diamond Cutter Sutra. You know, the Heart Sutra.

These higher explanations of emptiness. Which imply the possibility of reaching total enlightenment so that we could bring others to enlightenment. Think about that.

Remember that question from the first day? Was it? Those who are on sort of a lower path, they have the third quality, but they don't have the first and the second quality.

They go around praying to reach enlightenment, but they don't have this necessity that I have to do it to get others out of suffering. And they don't really have a deep understanding of the emptiness of me, which Geshe-la so perfectly described at the end of the day yesterday. So they say, I'm gonna reach total enlightenment, but I don't really have personal responsibility to become Maitreya myself to bring others out of suffering.

And frankly, I don't really see how I could reach total enlightenment. Because this whole idea of nothing has a nature of its own, I don't really get that. Okay, you see?

You remember that question?

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah.

[Говорящий 1]
Do you?

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah?

[Говорящий 1]
Anyone? Who remembers that question?

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah.

[Говорящий 1]
If that didn't sink in, check that out. That's a really amazing point. Okay, so those are the teachings that they like to study.

And then here's the main thing for the class, okay? Dakme Charak Sum. Yeah, what did that mean?

Three degrees of selflessness. So please say, Rangke Tupe, Tseye Dujupe, Dakme Pa. Again, Rangke Tupe, Tseye Dujupe, Dakme Pa.

Okay, this is the first degree of selflessness. This one is called Gansaki Charmo Dakme Pa, which means the subtle lack of a self nature to the person. So the name of this first degree of selflessness is the subtle lack of a self nature to a person.

Gansak means person. Gansaki Charmo Dakme Pa. Gansaki Charmo Dakme Pa.

That's sort of the name of it. And then this is the definition of that first lack of a self nature. Who reaches this realization, which we're about to explain?

If we're going to go through three lacks of a self nature, which of these three ways do you suppose reaches this level of realization about selflessness? Yeah, good. All three.

All three. Okay. All three.

Who reaches only to this level? The listeners. This is the degree of understanding of the listeners.

This is the degree, this is the level of understanding of selflessness that the listeners reach in their meditation and contemplation. So what does it mean? Rangyatupa means self standing, self standing, self supporting.

Rangyatupa means that. Jaya means what? Jaya means substantial.

Jaya means substantial. Substantial. Like not insubstantial.

Like in the tempest. It's substantial. What do these words mean?

Oh, what's the rest of it? Jaya Dujupa. Dujupa means it exists.

And Dakmepa means what? Dakmepa. No self nature.

So let's translate the phrase. Let's translate the realization that the listeners reach. There's a lack of a self nature to a person which is self standing and substantial.

There's an absence, there's a lack of a self nature to a person that is self standing and substantial. We don't really have time to go into a lot of detail about this, but basically the lower realizations of emptiness focus on the emptiness or the selflessness of a whole entity. When we say the lack of a self nature to a person, that's like a code word for a whole entity.

So you could think of it as like me, Winston, the whole guy. Not the parts of me, not my mind, my body, but the whole thing. But you could even also talk about the whole entity of a pen or the whole entity of this room.

You can talk about the person of a room, the whole big single entity of a person. So what does this mean? Rangyatupa means basically to pick yourself up by your own bootstraps, which is sort of a funny analogy.

Lift yourself up out of the muck from your own bootstraps. Everybody try that. This is a yoga asana, right?

Think about that. It's something that you can't do, in other words, because we're denying that this, we're saying there's a lack of being self-supporting. There's a lack of being self-supporting.

You can't pick yourself up off the ground by your own bootstraps. And that's what, if you could pick yourself up off the ground with your own bootstraps, that would be Rangyatupa. If you could levitate by picking your feet up off the ground or your butt if you're meditating, right?

That would be Rangyatupa, if you could do that. Kind of, yeah. Yeah, we'll get to that in just a sec.

Okay. Jaya means substantial. And there's a whole bunch of meanings of substantial.

Geshe-la went through them in Course 15, Class 9. And here substantial means, say, Jeho Dangkalpo. Jeho Dangkalpo.

It means master and servant. Okay, master and servant. And what this, what jaya, so jaya is sort of a code word here that means Jeho Dangkalpo, which means master and servant.

And what the point, here's the point of this. There is no me who's the whole person. There's no big whole entity, Winston, who is the master, the Jeho, like Je Tsongkhapa, the Lord, the Jeho.

And then my heaps, the parts of me are the kalpo, the servant. So there's no me who can boss myself around, in other words. That's what jaya means.

So we have sort of two parts here. There's no me who, there's no person. There's no Kathy.

Okay, there's no Brian. Okay, there's no Mira, you know, who can pick, that we can pick ourselves up by our own bootstraps. And there's no Kimberly who can boss her parts around.

You know? Okay. And here's a metaphor for these things.

A king on a palanquin. Right, what's a palanquin? It's one of those things, right, Robin?

Like, you know, like in Tibet, right, there's the boy Dalai Lama, you know, and then there's like the eight bearers on either side, you know, holding up the palanquin. The palanquin is that thing that the king sits in. So we're talking about a jewa who is a king or a master, right?

And then a metaphor for this is the king on a palanquin, which would mean like a king that could be self-standing without the bearers holding him up. Okay? So think about a palanquin just floating six feet above the ground and then the bearers, the big strong guys carrying the palanquin, they all step aside, they wink at each other, they step aside, and then the king is like still up there on the palanquin in all his glory.

You know, and he hasn't just fallen down into the mud. That's what we're denying that that could ever exist. You know, a king who's self-standing.

See, that's what rangyatupa would mean. It would mean a king on a palanquin and the bearers all step aside and the king is self-supporting up there. Okay?

Je-wo dong kalpo, the second flavor here is that there could be a person who could boss his parts around, boss his heaps around, his or her emotions or thoughts or physical body. So let me ask you a question. Can you...

Oh, and let's make this real simple. What this is saying is there's a dakme, there's a lack of a self-nature to a person. There's no person who is the director or the controller of anything.

Okay? And that's what this all boils down to. There's no...

I don't have a nature of being the director or the controller of anything. That's what this is saying. That's what rangyatupa je-do jupa gitak mepa means.

There's no director, there's no owner, there's no controller of anything.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
Now, is that true? Like, is that something that we can say with certainty, without a doubt, is true? Or do you object to that?

Anyone want to say dakme jupa or kyaba me jupa? Yeah, can you control anything? Let's do an experiment.

Everyone put your left hand up. Now lift your index finger and put it down. Okay, now I'm not going to tell you to do it.

You just decide and do it in a minute. Go ahead. Some time.

You make the decision. You control that. So I'm proven wrong, right?

This realization is not true, right? Now, so what does it mean? There's no director or controller.

It means in the present moment, I don't have the ability to make anything happen absent my karma. That's what this means. I don't have the ability in the present moment to control or direct anything independent of my karma.

Okay. This one happens to be really funny to me because I have this title of the director of Diamond Mountain. And it's really apparent to me.

It helps me to get this second realization because it's really obvious to me, actually, that I'm not the director of anything. People come to Diamond Mountain and I can run around barking out orders to, you know, you go there, let's do it this way. You know, it'll be like that.

And, you know, sometimes people laugh at me. Sometimes people say, okay. Sometimes people argue.

Like, I'm not the director of anything. See, I can't by sheer force of my will make anything happen. Okay.

Now, in the present moment, I can't make things happen. I can't control things. Okay.

There's one, there's a few things to say about this. Do I have the ability to control my life, my world, my universe? Yeah.

I mean, if not, then we're just wasting our time. You know, because, and then the whole idea of living an ethical life and being kind to others, collecting good karma, doesn't make sense. Because one of the reasons we're doing that, I mean, actually, the reason that we're doing that is to make our world more beautiful and perfect and angelic for ourselves and then for others.

You know. So we must have the ability to make things happen. Right.

Like, you're someone who can really make things happen. But it doesn't happen by forcing things in the present moment. It happens by gardening.

You know. Okay. So we can't force things to happen in the present moment if we've collected the seeds, the mental imprints, the causes for things to go well for us.

In fact, for people to cooperate with us. So we have the illusion of being the director. I'm the director of Diamond Mountain.

Huh. Come on. The only reason you're having the experience of anyone working well with you is that you've cooperated with people in the past.

That past action is like those guys carrying the palanquin. Those are the karmic seeds. Those are the real things making things happen.

My decision in the present moment is not controlling anything. You know, and you test it out. Just keep a diary today.

Like ten times, you know, go tell someone, it should go like this. Let's do it this way. And, you know, it's pretty much random.

Sometimes people follow. Sometimes they don't. Think about a yoga class.

Right. Are you the lord? Are you the control tower, the lord, and then your body is the servant?

You know, can you just make yourself, you know, touch your toes or whatever? You know. No.

Yeah, sometimes. But what's really, think about it. What's really making your feet get to the ground?

How about your past asana practice? Right. Come on.

What's really doing it? Is it because I'm like saying, get down there now. You know.

You see, what happens if you try to be the controller and the director of things in the present moment? What happens? Yeah, I pull a hamstring.

In a social situation, what happens? If I don't understand, what happens? Forget the philosophy.

Make it applicable. What happens? Yeah, I create all kinds of, like, unhappiness in my family, in my marriage, with my children, with my colleagues, because I have an idea that I'm the controller.

I'm the director. I have the idea that's going to work. Right.

So I force it on people because I have this illusion that I have a self-nature of making things happen in the present moment. Okay. Right.

I mean, can you relate to this? I'm probably the only one who does this on a fairly regular basis. Right.

You know, and so when I don't understand this, I create this special kind of mental affliction of, like, what do you call it? We could say being a control freak. Not flowing with things.

Not being flexible. Creating all kinds of conflict because I'm trying to force things and it's not happening. And the tricky thing about this is sometimes I can say, let's do it this way, and everyone says, hey, that's a great idea.

You know? But I'm not being the director in the present moment. That's happening because I've said to people in the past, even if I thought it was not the best way, maybe, hey, that's a great idea.

Let's do it your way. And that puts the seeds in my mind to see everyone working together, teamwork, like that. That's the first realization.

And that's a practical application of it. That's called realizing the subtle lack of a self-nature to a person. And get the nuance here.

We're not talking, we wouldn't apply this quite so much to, like, the emptiness of a pen or the emptiness of my body. This idea is more related to the emptiness of me, the person, the actor moving through life. So we call it the subtle lack of a self-nature to the person.

Okay? So here comes the second one. Please say, The name of this realization is the gross lack of a self-nature to things.

The gross lack of a self-nature to things, as opposed to the person, right? You'll notice the word here, tongwa, at the end, which means emptiness or, like, the absence. Tongwa is used rather than dakme.

Okay? And we're talking about the gross lack of a self-nature to things. In Tibetan, it's, what is it, Oh, you Mahamudra.

Say, Okay, dakme, the lack of a self-nature to things. Chö means things, objects. Sometimes, like, this word chö dharma in Sanskrit has two main meanings.

One is, like, the teachings, the teachings of the way to enlightenment. And the other is, like, all existing things. So here, chö means existing things.

Kind of interesting, okay? So who do you suppose has this second realization, as their main, highest realization? The Pratyekabuddhas, the self-made Buddhas, okay?

They realize this second degree, and this is a higher degree of realization of selflessness, okay? So the self-made Buddhas reach this understanding and it's called the gross lack of a self-nature to things. And here's what it means.

What does suk mean? Like, say, suk, Those are the five heaps, right? So suk is the first heap.

Sometimes suk means, sometimes it means physical stuff as opposed to feelings and other mental stuff, okay? But here, suk means, the other main meaning of suk is, like, a visual thing, like colors and shapes, something that my eye looks at. And it was like that diagram we did on the board yesterday morning, you know, that eloquent rendering of the subject and the object.

That's exactly what we're talking about here, okay? Suk is the cylinder over on the left, the object that I'm focusing on. Let's do it this way.

Over on my right is the object that I'm focusing on. This is called suk, okay? Suk dzin, dzin means to hold or to grasp or to perceive, okay?

Suk dzin, like dang dzin means to grasp to a self-nature, right? And so suk dzin means the one who holds the object, the one who perceives the object. So over here on the right, you have the object, the suk.

Over on the left, you have the suk dzin, the one who holds to the object. So you have, so far we have the object and the subject who perceives that object. Suk dang means and.

Suk dang, suk dzin. The object that I perceive and me perceiving the object. Okay, gitsema means, gitsema means valid perception, pramana.

So it means like an object that is validly perceived, okay? And don't worry about that gitsema too much here. Zhe shen gitongwa.

Zhe shen, we've had this word shen a bunch of times. We had shen tong, okay? We have dak shen yam jay.

Yeah, good. Shen means other, okay? And zhe means, we had zhe up above.

What did that mean? Zhe ya. Yeah, good, substantial, okay?

And so, zhe shen means other substance. Literally, the words mean other substance, okay? So there's, oh, and then gitongwa means what?

There's an emptiness, there's an absence. Let's say here there's an absence or there is a lack of an other substance to objects that I see and me seeing them. Let's try to get that clear.

There's a lack, there's an absence of an other substance, a different substance to the objects in my world and me perceiving those objects. There's a lack of an other substance to objects in my world and me perceiving those objects, okay? And so there's some kind of lack of duality.

And we were getting down to the wire yesterday, but we're starting to talk about duality and non-duality. And here, non-duality. And I read in all these books, you know, non-dual wisdom, and I hardly ever see it explained.

I'm like, well, what does that mean, non-dual wisdom, okay? So here's what it means, okay? There's a lack of a separate cause, and that's what zhe shen means.

See, there's a lack of an other substance. There's a lack of a separate seed, substance, or cause, like karmic cause, prior force, producing something. There aren't, there ain't two separate causes for the things in my world and my experience of those things.

That's a nice way to say this. There aren't, there are not two separate, distinct causes for all the things in my world and for me experiencing those things. And that's what non-duality means here.

There's a unity. It doesn't mean, obviously, it doesn't mean I'm a pen. You know, that's kind of a, that's just silly, frankly.

I'm not the things that I look at. I'm not the world. I'm not Andrea, you know.

She's someone, she's a beautiful person, object, a thing in my world. But I'm not her, right? I'm distinct from her.

We're two separate things. But Andrea, my wife, and me experiencing my wife come from the exact same karmic cause, okay? What this is saying is I'm producing everything in my world.

See, that's the realization. And to be a little more literal, there's an absence of things existing in my world that I did not produce from my past karma. That's what this is saying.

Okay? And we know this worldview as worldview three. If you studied the six Mahamudra meditations on emptiness, the Keshe Lasadas, it's the worldview that we've learned as the mind-only school worldview.

Okay? And here's how it goes. Like, if you look up here for a sec when you're ready, in the past, let's say picture your mind like somewhere right here, this tiny little capsule, you know?

Right back here. And there's a thing called the kunshi, like your memory. There's a part of your mind that recalls all of your past actions.

We were talking about this over breakfast, right? And all my kindness and all my stinginess and jealousy and anger and generosity, all my past actions are stored in my memory, aren't they? You know, we have some sort of semi-unconscious maybe recollection of everything I've ever done, especially how I've thought about other people, especially.

And nothing escapes the camera of our observation. This is karma, you know? All of those past actions are recorded in my mind stream.

And every split instant of the day, those past actions that I'm remembering are ripening, you know, bursting forth to produce both the things in my world and my perception of those things at the same time. In the same instant, my past actions, like the reel of a movie, you know, back in the projector room, it's projecting both the people and circumstances in my world, including my own body and heart, when I think of it as an object in my world, which it is, and me experiencing all of those objects. They're coming from the same karmic seed, okay?

Not realizing that leads to what kind of problems? You know, like someone comes up and says something to me I don't like, and if I don't understand that I'm responsible for what they're saying to me, I'm responsible for their bad qualities, sorry, frankly, then I, you know, I criticize them in my mind, I gossip about them, I fight with them, I get angry at them, I get jealous of them, all of this negative stuff, all these mental afflictions. It's all because we don't take responsibility, well, I don't take responsibility for the people and the circumstances of my life.

I don't understand that I've produced them from my past actions, my past thoughts and speech and treatment of others. You know, if I understand that, I don't fight against other people, I don't get angry or jealous, okay? Because why would I want to do that?

That would be putting more seeds in my mind to see an angry boss, someone who's not, you know, appreciating me, not helping me, not working with me, you know? Why would I want to create more of the same if I understand that I'm producing them in the first place? So there's the lack of a separate cause, you know?

Okay, that's the second realization. It's called this, what's it called? What's the name of this realization?

The gross lack of a self-nature to things, okay? And in this presentation, they say it's realized by the self-made Buddhists. Yeah, and I think that these are, you can say these are ladders, like the ladder part with a T or a D.

Like, these are things that you progress. These are realizations that are progressively more subtle and more profound. So here's the third one, here's the last one.

That's a big question. In this presentation, no, it's the self-made Buddhists. So please say, Is that what it says?

Sometimes, like, Geshe-la often, you know, makes this a little more detailed or less or changes it a little bit so we can just have something to talk about. Don't worry about that. This is the, what do you think this one is going to be called?

Good. Subtle lack of a self-nature to things. Who realizes this?

Yeah. Yeah, who realizes this selflessness? Yeah, the highest school of Buddhism.

Okay. The Middle Way Independent Group. What?

As Sarah would say, what? Is the Middle Way Independent Group the highest school of Buddhism? No.

Don't be so quick to agree, okay? If someone goes, the Middle Way Independent School, right? That's like, why don't you criticize that person?

They're a bad person from their own side, right? It's a gentle way of debating. No, but who's making this presentation?

The Middle Way Independent School. So, who realizes this highest worldview? They do.

The Middle Way Independent School, right?

[Говорящий 2]
Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
It's not really. The prasangikas would say, no, there's something higher. In fact, they'd say none of these three things are actually what?

The realization of emptiness.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
So, they're not very useful, right? Wrong. Okay.

They're totally useful. I mean, you tell me. If I could realize that I'm producing every negative quality of every person I ever meet, would that be like a helpful thing to understand?

Totally. Totally. Okay.

You know, if only we could realize the mind-only school, you know? We wouldn't collect any more bad karma, frankly. Actually, truly.

Okay. And since we don't really believe the prasangika school, Je Tsongkhapa, Geshe Thubten Rinchen said, look, you don't really believe the prasangika school. Go to the mind-only school and work there.

You know? It's very profound. But that's number two up here.

So, let's do number three. The bottom part that starts yul rang gi is the thing that we're denying. So, we're saying, tongwa, there's an absence of something existing, jupa, as an object, yul, rang gi tunmong mayimpar, with its own unique nature.

Tunmong means common. Tunmong mayimpar means uncommon, extraordinary, you know? But here it means like specific or unique, its own unique quality.

Tunmong mayimpar. Duluksu means roughly like from its own side. Okay?

In its own way. In its own way, let's say. And so, this realization of selflessness is saying, there's an absence of anything existing totally from its own side, with its own way of being, from its own side.

No object in the universe has its own unique way of being, totally from its own side, 100% from its own side. That's the second half. That's what we deny.

That's the gakja. That's the thing we deny. Oh, so then, how do things exist?

Oh, they exist lo nume la nangwe wang gi shak sam. Okay, so what does that mean? Lo nume, lo means mine, nume means undistorted, not distorted.

Like, so basically, seeing things correctly is lo nume, basically. La nangwa means to appear. Nangwa is a verb that means appearing.

Appearing to me. Okay. Wang gi shak sam.

Shak sam means merely established. Wang gi, by the power of. Okay.

So, how do things exist? Oh, well, they exist only through the, things merely exist through the power of being established. Things only exist through the power of being established.

Sorry. Things only exist as a, things are merely established through the power of appearing to an unaffected state of mind. Okay.

Things are merely established through the power of appearing, nangwa, to, la, a lo nume, an undistorted state of mind. This is the realization of the bodhisattvas, the higher track, right? The thekpa chenpos.

And then, according to the Middle Way Independent Group. So, what does this really mean? Nothing has, nothing exists with a, with 100% a nature of being a pen or an unreasonable boss or an inappropriate person or a bad situation.

Totally from its own side.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
So then, how do things exist? Well, it's kind of 50% coming from out there, which is what la nangwa means. See, it's out there appearing to me.

Tso tong, we talked about in New York. It's sort of half doing tso tong. It's half coming at me, suggesting a really lousy deal, a really unreasonable person.

It's sort of, there's something about it that's suggesting that quality. But until my mind, which is seeing things correctly, which means like, I'm not on LSD, I'm not like crazy with a negative emotion, I'm not standing on a subway platform while the train is moving and I think I'm moving. You know, I'm not having a distorted perception.

I'm just kind of a regular correct perception. So I'm seeing something correctly and it's appearing to me. It's suggesting a beautiful person.

It's suggesting a beautiful teaching. It's suggesting being a pen. So it's 50-50.

And that's what this worldview is saying. And it's saying there's an absence, there's a lack of a self-nature to anything that totally is what it is from its own side, 100% from its own side. It means you can't have a pen until there's a mind that can be saying pen.

That's Lo-Nu-Me. But on the other hand, you can't have a mind correctly perceiving a pen unless there's something there that sort of a good, it's eligible. You know, it's quite eligible to be labeled a pen.

See, there's something that sort of like, what else do we have? See, like you've got my mind here saying pen, but then does one of these things have a little more sort of data in it that's got a little pen-ness to it than the other thing? You see what I mean?

See, there's something about the thing in my left hand that's got a little bit of pen-ness. Like it's more eligible to be experienced as a pen than the thing in my right hand. Do you believe that?

Yeah, according to this school, yes. Do you really, do you believe it? Forget schools, forget all the philosophy.

Do you believe it? Do you think there's something more resident in this object that from its own side is suggesting pen than this thing is? If you say yes, which I say yes, it seems to me like that, we're not prasangikas, okay?

We're, at this point, we're middle way independent group. If we think there's something in this object that's sort of, you know, out here from its side appearing to me a little more like a pen and this thing has less of that pen-ness appearing to me, we haven't reached prasangika. Like we know the words, but we don't hear the music of prasangika.

Really, okay? We're sort of straddling the fence, right? Now, I mean, frankly, I'll just talk about myself, but please think about yourself too and your practice, you know?

Are you straddling the fence? You know? I used to like hang out with fundamentalist Christians sometimes.

They'd say, oh, you're on the fence, brother. You have to, you know, don't be on the fence, you know? Come into the fold, you know?

But honestly, you know, aren't we straddling the fence? Like don't I say, I'm trying to practice wisdom and don't I say, you know, yeah, I know this guy's not an unreasonable person, but I mean, he said that to me. You know, I mean, that's really sort of, isn't that a little more deserving criticism than, you know, someone comes up and says, what the hell are you doing here?

Excuse me. You know, what the heck are you doing here? And then someone else comes and says, I'm so glad to see you.

You know, don't I really viscerally feel that the first words were a little bit, you know, harsh and unfair and inappropriate and the second words, something about them out there, not that I'm producing, but out there in the words, something about that has some kind of nature that could be labeled friendly, the second one, and not so good, the first one. You know, and isn't it only upon that, the basis of that belief that I would criticize another person, that I would judge another person? What else could make me criticize another person, not appreciate the circumstances of my life?

Because I think there's at least something sort of suggesting being unfair, unreasonable, nasty, not appreciating me, not, you know, all of these things. And based on that belief, you know, I criticize someone, I gossip about someone, I judge them in my mind, I'm a little sarcastic to them. And it's not like we're terrible people, we don't go tear people to shreds, but there's this little thing of irritation or little thing of judgment.

And it's all those tiny little things that keep us stuck in samsara. I mean, examples of it are that, yeah, time, time, stop. This is the last thing.

Examples of it are like, as I leave the room, someone's just standing in not quite the right place, and I want to get out the door. I mean, who's had that experience? It's probably just me.

I admit, my name is Winston McCullough, I'm impatient, okay? You know, and there's something about that person, and so my mind jumps to this little criticism. And it's not terrible, I don't yell at them, I don't gossip about them, but I judge them in a very subtle way, and I therefore disqualify myself from reaching enlightenment.

It's all those tiny little judgments about my world, little bad person, little bad situation, out there from its own side, la-nang-wa, sur-tong, coming at me. You know, it's because I don't understand that that I collect bad karma, and it just keeps me in an unhappy kind of life. So these are the three degrees of selflessness I want to keep a commitment that I made, so we're just going to stop right there.

And we have to relate it to this thing, tar-tuk-tek-pa-chik, okay? All paths are one. The punchline is, eventually, practitioners who have all these realizations, and are listeners in self-made Buddhas, and have all their different motivations, eventually, we will all get up to the highest path, we will all see emptiness directly, we will all get true bodhicitta, and we will all reach enlightenment.

We'll all eventually reach that path. How we get there, you have to get the videotape from Diamond Mountain, when Geshe-la taught it in detail. But I want to keep a commitment, so we'll stop right there, okay?

Okay. Thank you.

[Говорящий 2]
Guruji, Juhi, Shri Mataji, Nirvana, Shri Nirmalai, Sangye, Shri Duryodhana, Dukkha, Namda, Shri Mataji, Mahasaya, Nirmalai, Dukkha,