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

[Говорящий 1]
Well, good to see you all. And we had a good time in New York, saw His Highness, which was amazing. And I don't know how many people came up to me and said that I only understood that because I was in ACI, you know.

Like about a hundred people. And he went through a lot of the Tanya, Mainomi school, and he went through a lot of Abhidharma, and he went through a lot of Cicero and Dhaka, from the Bodhisattva Charitara. He went through a lot of the Bodhisattva Charitara.

And anyway, everything he went through, we had. And everyone was really happy. He did Janangbha, he did Shantung.

So people were really happy. Then we had a lot of teachings in New York. We had a Tiger Rider, we had a peace weekend, three nights of teachings.

Then we had a public talk in a church with three of the retreatants in Sanchukila. And then we went to Ireland and did Tiger Rider there. And a lot of Europeans came.

And it was amazing. Winston gave vows there in Sanchukila, which was amazing. And the bottom line is that...

Oh, and we also finished the course catalogue and printed it. And I think there will be a meeting or something Saturday or something? Next Wednesday.

Oh, next Wednesday it will be rolled out here. Anyway, the bottom line is that the course catalogue is out. Hundreds and hundreds of people got it.

Like 300 people came to hear Chukyala and others at the church talk about Three Year Retreat. And at the Godstow talk they rented a huge auditorium and they paid $6,000, which they didn't tell me, and they got it back the first night. And then they did well.

And then the Three Jewels fundraiser went very well. And I think we got $7,000 gross from that and donations to keep them open. But anyway, everywhere we went we told them about Diamond Mountain.

So the bottom line is there's going to be a lot of people coming, I think. More than we thought, I think. Next September.

So we've got to work hard towards that. We're not many people, right? And also for Tara Tantra.

And I was a little... I think the pre-registrations for Tara Tantra are about 100 now, 90 to 100 people. So I'm starting to get nervous about that.

What struck me when His Holiness talked at the Beacon Theatre, I think 6,000 people were there, and he taught pretty much what you're going to teach in Tucson. And a lot of people couldn't follow it. And if you hadn't had an ACI course before, I think it would have been difficult.

And it actually thinned out a little bit the last few days. And I was thinking we should have a review class we're going to have anyway. But I thought we should have two.

Because I'd like to talk about strategies of how to present it to normal people. And you guys are going to be teaching half those classes. So I thought it would be good...

I thought we'd get in a circle for the review class and maybe have each person initiate the conversation for one class just to practice. And then we all explore together ways to make it relevant to normal people. Because His Holiness' talk, I felt sometimes it got a little...

Maybe it was the translation, which was excellent. He's really good, but it's this Oxford drone, you know. And people couldn't get the excitement of how they could apply it to their lives, I think, sometimes.

And I think we have to purposely... What do you call it? Conspire about how we're going to do that.

You know, like it's one thing to go through Tantra, which is technical and difficult, but it's another thing to try to inspire people to use it in their real life. So I thought, luckily we had made an error in the class schedule and planned for two classes anyway. So, to tell you how it's going to go, Saturday there'll be a Sanskrit class, right?

And Kristila will cover the last few Sanskrit classes. The Sanskrit for the last few classes. Then I'll do the tenth and final class on Saturday.

There's a subject in the Uttaratantra which is the Twelve Deeds of the Buddha, which we've never covered in ACI courses. And, you know, I'm not really... It's not like a main subject in the monastery, but I thought you should know it, and it is in the Uttaratantra.

So I thought it would be sort of like a cookie class. As a tenth class, we'll go through the Twelve Deeds of the Buddha, which is pretty much the Buddha's life. And then Wednesday we'll have the first review...

half of the review class. And then the following Saturday, the second half of the review class. And I'll let you know on Saturday...

I'd like there to be a leader or a monitor for each class. You see what I mean? So we'll just go through and say you're going to monitor class number five.

Meaning you're going to initiate and lead the discussion about how do we... You're going to review the class. Like you'll say...

You can basically have your homework there, you know, and you can be following the master, the homework master, which you should... They're around. If you don't have them, let me know.

But you can follow basically the homework master, and you can lead the discussion. And then you can say, well, how do you think we should present this to normal people? Also, you have to check out the people in your...

that you get in your module, right? So... But I thought some clues on that.

Are you going to teach the second Sanskrit class next Saturday?

[Говорящий 2]
No, I'm going to cover everything.

[Говорящий 1]
Oh, OK. Even the tenth class. Yeah, I'm going to give Christy the Sanskrit for the tenth class before you get the tenth class.

So the Sanskrit class will be in the afternoon. Does that conflict with the community meeting idea? No, that's on Wednesday.

Right, OK, good. All right, we're on to the class. There's room up here, Alistair, if you need...

There's room over here. Tonight's subject is called... By the way, I made a boo-boo on the homework master, so I'll need...

I'll give it to you tomorrow. Is that all right? OK.

OK, tonight's subject is... Say, Tatuk... Tegpachik.

Tatuk... Tegpachik. It's one of my favorite subjects.

We've never covered it in the ACI classes. And... I think it's really, really germane to the modern world and to our lives.

Maybe more than any other class we've had. It means, in the end, all paths are one. In the end, all paths are one.

OK, Tatuk means in the end. Tegpach means way, path, jhana, like Mahayana, Hinayana, etc. And then, Chik means are one.

They all go to the same place. You see? It's a very, very profound subject.

It's a very beautiful subject. And I think, as a Buddhist teacher, you know, you're going to discover this in your life. Sooner or later, you'll come up against the idea of do all paths lead to the same place or not.

And I think it's a really beautiful subject. And it comes up in the Uttaratantra. It's one of the big subjects in the Uttaratantra.

And it's a huge debate in Buddhism, OK? It's not an easy subject. It's not like some, you know, new age thing where we all decide, oh, everything's the same and it all ends up in the same place.

It wasn't a foregone conclusion at all. Over the last two thousand and a half years, people have fiercely debated it, whether all paths lead to one. And there are convincing arguments on both sides.

And there are scriptural evidence on both sides. The Uttaratantra and, you could say, ultimate viewpoint of Buddhism is that, in the end, all paths lead to one place. All paths convene at some point, you know, and they lead to enlightenment.

But we're going to go through the whole history of that debate, OK? And all of the points on each side. And we're going to discuss this subject, which is very dear to my heart.

When I did it in the monastery, I was really happy. Like, I did it very early. You study it very early in the Prajnaparamita course.

And just when I got to it, I was so happy. And then there's a big discussion of it in Gyaltsabje's commentary to the Uttaratantra. So we'll be going through that.

When Choney Lama, who gives one of the best presentations of this, what else did he write? Diamond Cutter Commentary, OK? I went to see Gene Smith, you know.

He's the greatest bookman of Tibet. Anywhere. Any nationality, you know.

And he said, Lama Sipa called me. He says, where did Geshe Michael get that Diamond Cutter Commentary? Can you give me that?

So I'm like, oh yeah, we got that from Russia, you know. So anyway, that was Choney Darpasiru from Sera Mae. So Sera J is asking for some questions.

It makes sense. But anyway. Anyway.

Oh, he wrote a commentary in which he covers Tartu Tempachik, right? But then in conjunction with that, he covers two other subjects, which I find really dear to my heart. The first one is a very beautiful discussion.

It's that discussion of does samsara have an end or not? And does it have a beginning or not? You know, does our suffering have a beginning?

And does it have an end? And is there any proof for either viewpoint? And we've talked about it briefly, but Choney Lama, he does an interesting thing.

It's almost as if he has a normal American in the room asking him questions about it. And all the normal questions that you would think of, he comes up with, you know. Like, he sounds like an American half the time.

You know, like, if sentient beings are infinite, and if I have to save them all, then how can I ever get to the last one? And how can there be an end, you know? And if there is no end, then how does that work?

Then what's the use of becoming enlightened? And what about the last guy? When you get down to the last guy, are you still working for all sentient beings?

Is he going to work for all sentient beings? And stuff like that. And at this point, when Rinpoche taught this in McDougall Street in the West Village in 1974, he said, what do you think, they're all going to retire?

And that's all he would say. But I'd like to go through that. And then there's a discussion of basically how people move through the different tracks.

Like, if you're on a lower track for a while, and you move up to a higher track, how does that work? So, basically, tonight, we've got to start out the discussion of, do all paths converge at one point? The discussion begins with the three tracks.

So I think we have to review the three tracks for you guys, and then we can discuss whether or not they converge. So, first we've got to write the names of the three tracks, which are what? Yeah.

Listener. Self-made Buddha. And what's the third one?

Bodhisattva. Otherwise known as? Mahayana.

Okay, Mahayana. This is the Nyantekpa. Rangyirotekpa.

And Tekpachenmo. Got it? And you know, there are other jhanas.

There's like Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana, things like that. But we're going to be treating these three. So, when you get into jhanas or vehicles, there's lots of them you can talk about.

The debate about, do all paths lead to one place, starts from the viewpoint of these three jhanas, these three tekpas, okay? What's tekpa mean again? Do you remember?

Yeah, like vehicle? And tekpa also means, it's a verb. Tekpa as a verb, not tekpa, right?

Tekpa as a noun means vehicle or vehicular capacity. And tekpa means to hold up something. So, like if there were a pillar in the middle of this room, which there would be in Tibet, tekpa is the beam, you see?

So, it means how much can you hold up, you know? And also vehicle. Sometimes Tibetans call it shimba.

Shimba means something you ride on, like a horse or a cart, okay? In Tantra, for example, the thoughts ride on the winds, like that. Are the winds riding on the thoughts?

How does that go? Thoughts ride on the winds. In what is called the shimba, you see the rider and the ridee, yeah, like that, okay?

So, anyway, tekpa is sometimes defined as that which you ride upon, okay? And then I gave you some really beautiful readings, like if you ever get them. We finished the second one like a couple of weeks ago and someone forgot to email it to you.

And the third one is done but not checked and the fourth one is half translated and so you will get them before the... Don't worry. We're trying really hard to pump them out.

But this reading is really sexy and I went through... The plane was delayed. We had like 10 hours on the plane and so I had time to go through all the old explanations of why are these called tekpa?

Why are they called listener? Do you remember why listener?

[Говорящий 2]
They hear the bodhisattva.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah. And what?

[Говорящий 2]
They're not able to act on it.

[Говорящий 1]
Right. They don't use it themselves. Okay, so...

[Говорящий 2]
They can...

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah. So, listener means they hear the bodhisattva teachings by Lord Buddha and they can even convey them to others. Okay?

So, te means to hear and dro means to convey to other people, to proclaim, to advertise in a way. Okay? And so, te dro is a synonym for nyantu and you'll see both of them in scriptures.

Sometimes they're called te dro, meaning te meaning hear and then dro meaning they tell other... Hey, did you hear? You know, Geshe Michael taught tantra.

You know, oh, are you doing it? No. You know, so they like report to people.

I guess you could say hear and report, te dro. Okay? But they don't do it.

They don't use it themselves. Okay? So, that's what nyantu means.

Also, nyantu in scripture can mean any disciple. So, you have to be careful. If you want to be a translator, be aware that sometimes nyantu just means any disciple of Lord Buddha.

So, Manjushri might be called a nyantu, but he's obviously not Hinayana, right? Okay? Something like that.

In Sanskrit, do you know the word? Yeah, shravaka. Okay?

Shravaka. Which comes from a root shru, which means to hear. To hear, yeah.

Like shruti. If you ever heard shruti, you know, it means hearing or learning. Okay?

So, shravaka. And there's a beautiful quotation I gave it to you in the reading that is a sutra, where Lord Buddha explains why he named them shravaka and why he named them pratyeka. And things like that.

Okay? Next one is self-made Buddha, which is neither what nor what.

[Говорящий 2]
Neither self-made nor Buddha.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, yeah. Neither self-made nor Buddha. Okay?

Rang, meaning by themselves. Gyalwa means became a victor or a Buddha. And thekpa meaning that vehicle.

So, rangyal means they get enlightened by themselves, but they don't reach a full enlightenment. You know, did you ever wonder why they say fully enlightened Buddha? I mean, are you half enlightened Buddha?

Can you get to be a half enlightened Buddha? And the answer is, yeah, you can. Like you can become a Hinayana arhat, which means you've destroyed your mental afflictions, you don't have to take another birth in samsara, but you're not in a Buddha field.

So, where are you? I mean, some of the Abhidharma schools say, bhemrik chepa. Your body and mind discontinue and you're just there or you're not there.

You know, the higher schools say, who's got discontinued? You know, if there's nobody there anymore, how can you say there's an arhat? If he's got no mind and no body, what's left?

You know, and they're like stuck. And the higher schools say, they go into a peace called, it's called nye-wa-shi-wa-shi-wa, where it's like a total, it's a realm of total peace. And they just hang out there.

And it's called the lar-mi-lang-be-nyam-chat. They're in a meditative state where they, going into it, they believe that they will never come out again. You know, going into it, they believe that they will never come out of this meditation again.

And they just stay there. And they're like totally free of anything. No mental afflictions, they're just there.

You know, and they go into that state thinking they'll never come out again. We'll get more into that later. Okay?

That's a nice subject. I like that subject. And by the way, that gives you a clue about why some Buddhist schools felt there were, ultimately, in the end, there were three paths.

Why? They said, in the end, there must be three paths then. Yeah, you're never going to go to this path, this track.

If you're, you know, if you can reach Nirvana where you're just hanging out there forever in some kind of peace and you never come out of it, then there must be three paths. Ultimately speaking, in the end, there must be three ways that lead to different goals and that's it. And Lord Buddha taught them.

Okay? So you have to, we're going to go into it, but Lord Buddha taught these three. Lord Buddha said there were these three.

Okay? So Rangyotepa means, this Buddha doesn't mean fully enlightened Buddha. And I finally found a scripture that supported that and I put that in your reading too.

It said, look, this is not a real Buddha. This is, the things I teach you come from like a hundred thousand pages of scripture, you know. They got to be like collated.

And Rangyal doesn't mean by themselves because why? Yeah, from countless teachers they studied millions of years. So they are self-made but not by themselves and they're not Buddhists.

Okay? But you know all that. And then Bodhisattva, obviously Mahayana.

So what I wanted to do was, what makes you a listener? What makes you a self-made? Oh, we got to get the Sanskrit in here, sorry.

What is it for self-made? Pratyeka, Buddha. Which is really Pratyeka.

Pratyeka, which means on their own. Okay? Like Pratimoksha means what?

What do we call those vowels in English? Individual freedom. So the Praty again means individual.

On your own you get it. You see? Eka means what?

Ek, do, tin, chal, panch. I'm needing ek rupi. It means one.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like on their own they get it. You know?

Then I found an ancient sutra. It said Pratyeka Buddhists are called Pratyeka Buddhists because they see reality directly. And that's when you when you get something like that in Tibetan, you know the Sanskrit didn't say that.

You see? There's a few places where Tibetan just doesn't catch it. Like there's a statement in the Abhidharmakosha that says devas are called devas because they live in the sky.

Namkala, nebina, ha. These beings are called ha because they stay in the namkha. Which doesn't make any sense for in Tibetan.

You see? But if you go back to the Sanskrit what is it? They're called what's John Stilwell's new daughter?

Devas because they live in the div. Yeah. And it was div.

So it makes sense in the Sanskrit it doesn't make sense in Tibetan and they didn't you know, it just got translated. What's the Greek for sky? Who's the great father in the sky?

Dvipatra. Jupiter. Okay?

See? Dvipatra. From Sanskrit it came into Greek as Jupiter.

And so it's the same. Dv and div are the same. So anyway so I sat there I said, why they it must be one of those things, you know.

So McNally knows the three kinds of pramana from the first chapter of the Yoga Sutra. I thought I'd embarrass you. Think about it for a second.

Direct perception is called pratyaksha. Pratyaksha. Pratyeka.

So he's saying they're called pratyeka because they're pratyaksha. You see that's an ancient sutra why they're called. So then the Tibetan translation doesn't matter at all.

It's not relevant at all. They're called doing things on their own because they see reality of its own. There's a nice visitor outside.

Anyway. Welcome, but don't do your thing. So anyway.

If you get the pun in Sanskrit they are called pratyeka because they have pratyaksha perception of emptiness. Now, do they see emptiness directly? Do they see emptiness directly?

What do you guys think? Do Hinayana people without having bodhicitta This is a big question. Can you see emptiness directly?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have a vow against what? Against saying that they don't.

Yeah. Of like going to Sri Lanka and telling all the monks there there's no way you're going to see emptiness. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. So, they do see emptiness. So, do they see it directly?

Yeah, they reach. Oh, yeah. They reach Dharahat.

Which means they use their understanding of emptiness to do what? To get rid of their mental afflictions forever which is why they can sit there in this space forever and think they're never going to come out again. Okay.

So, but that's going to lead to a big argument. Okay. That's going to lead to a bit of an argument.

Okay. Anyway, we're going to Bodhisattva. That's, you all know about Bodhisattva track.

Okay. And, I don't have to say much about it. Different motivations, right?

Now, how do these three tracks differ? Well, they all have five paths to them. Right?

One, two, three, four, five. Right? This is listener.

This is self-made Buddha. And this is Bodhisattva track. Okay.

And each track has five paths to it. First path, accumulation. Accumulation.

And here, accumulation too. How do you get to this? What's the tse?

Yeah, true enunciation in your heart. Okay. When you're totally fed up with life, you know, I can go through the horror stories of each of you guys.

The only people who make it to the center are people who have horror stories. You know? So, because you're on the path of accumulation, right?

And then, for this track you need something extra. It's a form of renunciation. Bodhicitta.

You know? I wish everyone had such a screwed up life as I did. Because then they could want to get enlightened.

Okay? So you got to have bodhicitta on this one. Okay.

Path number one, right? And then, second path? Yeah, preparation for what?

[Говорящий 2]
Seeing emptiness directly.

[Говорящий 1]
Nice. You guys are boring to teach, actually. I keep...

Okay. Preparation. Which is mainly what?

Yeah. Yeah. Mainly four levels of insight into the nature of emptiness, intellectually.

We're lucky because we have irritating people to make us want to think about emptiness all day. You see, if you're into worldview, if you're into worldview as a solution to life's problems, we're so lucky to have other people around. You know?

Because even if they're saints, they'll still irritate you. You know? Due to our own problem, right?

So, you can struggle with worldview all day long on the path of preparation. Okay? Deeper and deeper insights into emptiness intellectually.

Path number three? Yeah, seeing. Okay?

I'm going to say more about that later. Let's go to the next one. Four?

[Говорящий 2]
Habituation.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah. Habituation. Okay.

And then what? No more learning. No more learning.

Okay. Let's just put... Okay.

And this one differs from these two. How? Omniscience.

This is full enlightenment. This is what we just called full enlightenment, right? Omniscience.

And these are lower nirvana or otherwise known as arhat. Okay? So, this is arhat or lower nirvana.

And this is the same. Okay? These people are capable of helping every living being in the universe at the same time.

These people are hanging out in a personal pleasure grove thinking they'll never come out of it again. These two guys. When they get to here.

That's what they have in mind. Not going to come back to this kind of suffering again. I will live in what they call a Buddha field which is a permanent state of bliss with no mental afflictions.

A state of meditation that they never have to come out of again. Okay? That's what these two guys are.

And this person is fully enlightened Buddha. Okay? So, now the question is...

Well, there's lots of questions. But let's start out by saying How did we come up with these three tracks? You know, how do they differ from each other?

And I'm going to quote from your homework. Okay? Let's go to the first one.

Explain the difference in motivation which of course is a difference in goal. I mean, what do you want when you enter these paths? What are you looking for?

What's this guy looking for? Yeah, a listener is looking to get to here. Like nirvana.

Just to hanging out in that state forever. Nirvana. Never have to come out of it again.

Go into deep meditation. No more suffering. No more mental pain.

No more physical pain. No more coming back to this kind of broken realm. Finished.

Okay? What's this guy want? Self-made Buddha.

Did you have a question?

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah. I thought listener just was not wanting to be reborn in a lower realm. It doesn't really...

[Говорящий 1]
Well, we'll talk about it. We'll talk about it in one second. Well, let's talk about it now.

People often confuse these three with the three scopes of the Lamrim teachings. You see? And I did that all the time.

And so I looked it up about yesterday on the plane. And I put it in your reading. I threw it in your reading.

Okay? What are the three scopes? What are the goals of the three scopes of the Lamrim?

Kebu, chung, kebu, din, kebu, chumbo. What they call little person, medium person, big person. What are the three scopes?

By the way, that word doesn't occur. I don't believe in the Indian teachings. It comes along later.

But what is...

[Говорящий 2]
The initial capacity or lower scope...

[Говорящий 1]
What are they looking for?

[Говорящий 2]
To end their own lower rebirth.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah. Don't go to the hell realms or the animal realms or the praetor realms. That's all they're interested in.

How do I get back to a human or a devil realm? That's all they want. Middle capacity.

[Говорящий 2]
They want to end their suffering permanently.

[Говорящий 1]
They want to end their own suffering permanently. Aren't interested in other people. Third, big capacity.

[Говорящий 2]
They want to end like everybody for everybody's sake.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah. So where do you put these two guys according to what I just said?

[Говорящий 2]
They're both medium scope.

[Говорящий 1]
And you'll see that in the reading. And I get confused too. I get confused all the time.

[Говорящий 2]
And what is lower scope school?

[Говорящий 1]
They don't even make it in the three tracks. You know. They're like way back here.

They're back here which is called the three trainings. Immorality, concentration and wisdom as a preliminary to getting renunciation. As a preliminary to getting into the first of the five paths.

If you make it to the first of the five paths in this life, you're doing great. You see. Like how many people make it?

You know. You got to have a real disaster in your life. You got to have some really painful experience normally.

Like someone says their mother died. I'm like, you know. I have mixed emotions sometimes.

Gampopa, Milarepa's big disciple. He met. He got married.

And then his wife died. And he went to her father or her uncle and said, It's so great my wife died. Now I can concentrate on my practice.

You know. And the uncle picked up some mud and threw it in his face. But the point was he got.

He was, you know, renunciation. It pushed him into looking for the real reason of things. And then he became a great master, you know.

Incredible master, Gampopa. So anyway. These two belong to medium scope.

This is higher scope, greater scope. And what's this person looking for? Full enlightenment so they can help all living beings.

So these two differ from this track on motivation. So somebody asked you on your homework, you know. Where do these tracks come from?

You see. How do we get three tracks? Well, you get two of them as opposed to one just on the basis of where they're looking for.

What they're looking for. Motivation. Okay.

You don't get a split into three. But at least you get a split into two. These two hang together.

And this one hangs by itself. Okay. That's the first point of difference between the three tracks.

Here's the second point of difference. What's the core teachings used by each track? Winston can tell me.

Maybe you can tell me. Tie it to the three turnings of the wheel. Say that again.

[Говорящий 2]
The first two?

[Говорящий 1]
Well, like, what would this guy be studying? As his core teaching. First turning of the wheel.

What would this guy be teaching, covering? Good, good. First turning of the wheel.

First turning of the wheel. Because they're both Hinayana. They're not Mahayana.

This guy might be using... Or third turning of the wheel, depending on who they are. Mind only would be using third mostly.

Madhamika would be using second mostly. Maybe. Okay.

Now, within the first turning of the wheel, these guys specialize in one of the teachings and these guys specialize in a different of the teachings. As their core teaching. Do you know what it is?

Wheel of life? These guys use the wheel of life. The solitary...

What do you call it? Self-made Buddhas use the twelve links of dependent origination. That's their core teaching.

They use the wheel of life, the teaching on the twelve links to get to nirvana, lower nirvana. Okay? But that's again how these three tracks are differentiating.

You see? This track differs from this track in the core teaching they use from the first turning of the wheel to get to nirvana. They are interested.

That's so sexy. I mean, that chart, you could talk about it for a year. Rinpoche taught it to us for like three years.

It's amazing. Like the whole Buddhist path is there. It's a great teaching.

And you go to Sri Lanka or Thailand, you see it all over the place. Like I went to Thailand, they had it carved in stone on an ancient temple. The twelve, the wheel of life and the twelve links and really beautiful.

So... And it's in the ancient Vinaya scriptures. What do these guys use then?

The four Arya truths. The four truths. These guys, they really like the teaching on the four truths.

So then you get a distinction between these two tracks finally. Right? Because their goal is the same.

Their motivation is the same. Right? So what differentiates them in one way is what is their core teaching.

What do they use as a core teaching? And what would you guess here? I mean, their core teaching is pretty obvious.

The bodhisattva track. Mahayana. Yeah, all the Mahayana sutras.

Especially the Perfection of Wisdom, the Mother Sutras, Prajnaparamita Sutras, other Mahayana sutras. If you're mind only, you probably like the sutras from the third turning of the wheel of which the main one is. His Holiness said it.

Yeah, Dode Gongdo. The true intent of my sutras. Right?

And the second sutra they use is Desan Shekpa Nimbado. The sutra on Tathagatagarbha, on Buddha nature. So they really like those two sutras.

So, if you're on this track and you're lower Mahayana, mind only, you're going to be using the third turning of the wheel, which is maybe the sutra on what I really meant in my sutras, and then the Buddha nature sutra, Desan Shekpa. And if you're Madhyamika, you're probably going to be using any of the Prajnaparamita sutras from the second turning of the wheel, which you believe are literal. Okay?

Buddha meant it when he said nothing had any nature of its own. Okay? Alright?

So there's a difference in core teachings. That will help you separate the three tracks on another level. Here's another level.

And this is the most important for tonight's discussion. This is the big thing in the Uttara Tantra. According to many, according to the mind only school, and also according to the lower Madhyamika school, which is called what?

Svatantrika. I call them independent. Okay?

Why? Because they believe in a... It's a long story.

They believe that certain kinds of logic have an independent ability to convey certain ideas, something like that, which the higher schools say is not. They don't. But anyway, mind only and lower half of Madhyamika say that...

They say something very different. They say something very different. They say, this guy on the path of seeing, on the Bodhisattva track, and this guy on the path of seeing on the self-made Buddha track, and this guy on the path of seeing on the listener track, when they see emptiness, they see three different kinds of emptiness.

Okay? He sees one kind of emptiness. He sees a different kind of emptiness.

He sees a different kind of emptiness. And that's what makes them different. That's the crux.

That's what really makes them different. Okay? And that gets into a long story, which we're about to start.

Okay? What are the three kinds of emptiness they see? Okay?

First I'm gonna... So, we're gonna call it three kinds of emptiness, which seem to be weird, because I'm numbering them two, three, four. And there's like a pre-emptiness.

There's like a... There's like a lower emptiness than that, which is... I'm gonna call number one, okay?

But this is the one used by the listener guys. This is the one used by the self-made Buddha guys. This is the one used by the bodhisattva guys.

And then there's this one that's sort of pre... pre-tracked, okay? And you've learned all of these if you took the...

what module? Mahamudra. I threw them all into the Mahamudra module as lower kinds of emptiness that weren't really emptiness.

These three aren't emptiness, okay? I threw them all into the Mahamudra module. And I stole them from this teaching, okay?

So now you know where... I mean, that's where a lot of Mahamudra came from. Now, to say something about these four kinds of emptiness that we're gonna talk about, three of them on the tracks, one like pre-track.

They're very difficult to thresh out. Like you have to go through hundreds of scriptures to thresh them out. They're not clearly threshed out almost anywhere.

So, you know, if you have a huge database and you have a computer, you can do it. You know, if you've put in a few thousand books, you can do it. But otherwise, it's not very clear.

And there's a lot of differences of opinion. But I'm gonna give you... You know, if you could study all those slowly, this is what you would come out with, and I think it's really cool.

I think it's totally correct. And it's pretty close, accidentally I'm sure, to what Sarah Jetson came up with. He's from Sarah J.

And he was the teacher of the person who wrote the Sarah May textbooks, Kirub Dhammadagyai. It's pretty close to what he came up with. Actually, he came up with the crucial parts of it.

OK? So, we're gonna go through that. You've had it if you've been through the Mahamudra course.

OK? I'm just gonna give you the rough names of these four kinds of emptiness, and then we're gonna describe them. OK?

So, on the homework, you're just supposed to give the rough names, I guess. Oh, both. Wow.

OK. All of this, during his teaching. The four days.

I mean, in the course of the four days, he covered all this. Say, Gansaki Dagme Rakpa OK. Also, you're gonna get the Sanskrit for the Gansaki Dagme.

They don't have Rakpa, but you'll get the Sanskrit for that on Saturday. OK? Gansaki Gansaki means...

It also means a smoking pipe, so be careful. I don't know why. Dagme means self, Atma.

Dagme means Anatma, no self. And Rakpa means the gross one or the obvious one, rough one. Rakpa means like obvious or...

So, it's the... It's the obvious lack of self to the person. The obvious lack of self to the person.

OK? It's the obvious It's like a pre-emptiness. I'm calling them emptiness.

I mean, in those schools, they would not call them emptiness. They'd call them selflessness. They wouldn't call them emptiness.

They reserved the word emptiness for number four here. But that's another story. Now, listeners, when they reach the path of seeing, they perceive Gansaki Dagme Say, Gansak Gansaki Dagme Dagme Tamo Tamo Tamo means subtle.

Subtle. So, Rakpa means sort of easy to see and Tamo means sort of difficult to perceive. More difficult to perceive.

Why don't you guess the next one is? Chirki Dagme Rakpa Chirki Dagme Rakpa Chirki Dagme Dagme Rakpa Rakpa Cool. Chir means Dharma.

Chirki Dagme means lack of self-nature to things. To things. Rakpa means the rough version of that.

The gross version of that. The gross version of the lack of a self-nature to things. Okay?

And in this case, things means what? Parts of a person. So, these are referring to the lack of self-nature to the person.

To Michael. Brent. Cover boy.

You're never going to live that down, you know. You should have worn a nice shirt. Anyway.

What I can say. And Chirki Dagme Rakpa is the emptiness of the parts of a person. And Christian and I are having an interesting discussion, you know.

Is that really different from things in general? I mean, is this part of me? I mean, in a way.

In a way. Yeah. When they get into Abhidharma.

When Abhidharma gets into this question, they're like, there's Michael Roach and then there's all the parts of Michael Roach. But in a way, everything I see, I mean, tactilely, I ended the skin, in a way. But, but is that not part of my, of me, in a way, my being?

You see what I mean? So, in a way, this is, you could almost translate it as the person and things. And you wouldn't be so far off.

But you would sort of miss the connection between it being parts of the person, you see. So, these are the emptiness of Michael Roach. These are the emptiness of everything that Michael Roach is made of.

Including his world. OK? The world he's in.

Traditionally, they say the five heaps. But could you, in the first heap, you have sukhmet, surahmet, I'm sorry. Sukhjati, rakja.

You see? Forms, sounds. You see?

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah.

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah. Yeah. So, really, it's kind of cool.

Like, when you study that in Abhidharma, first chapter, you could get up, you could come to a point where the five heaps cover the world. And there's arguments like that in scripture. Your five heaps cover the entire universe.

OK?

[Говорящий 2]
So, is that to say the listeners would say that those parts do have self-making?

[Говорящий 1]
That's, oh, how do you mean? Oh, yeah, they would. Well, they wouldn't have perceived that directly yet.

How's that? OK. On the path of seeing.

According to And, by the way, similar beliefs are held by the two lower schools and half of the middle way school. Slight differences. OK?

And there are beautiful books written about the differences, but we don't have time to do that tonight. So, anyway, what would be the next one? They see the subtle lack of self-existence to things, or parts of a person.

[Говорящий 2]
OK?

[Говорящий 1]
I usually say parts of a person when I was translating Frication to Dimension because I just wanted people to remember that that's the context. That's always the context when you're debating these two. Um, these, you got all that?

These three kinds of emptiness that the three people on the path of seeing on the three tracks C have their own name and you should know it. It's called dogma-tradaktsum. It's a famous word.

OK, OK. It's sure nice to be teaching after having to sit for hours and hours and take notes, you know. It's a lot more fun to stand up and get to be the star.

Your butt just gets sore in that Beacon Theater. I think those seats were made out of buckets or something. It's a lot more fun to teach.

That's another reason to study hard. Say dogma. Dogma.

Tradaktsum. Dogma. Tradaktsum.

Tradaktsum. The three sum lacks of a self-existence dogma with differing degrees of subtlety. Tradaktsum.

That's right. And it's a very famous subject in Svatantrika and in Mainoma. Dogma-tradaktsum.

Like the three differing levels of emptiness you can call it. OK. Now, how do you describe those four?

I'm just going to do it What time is it? Do you want to take a break or do you want to do it? Let's do one.

Let's do one or two and then we'll take a break. Here's the first one of the four. OK.

Like when they say the three they're not including the first one. I'm giving you the first one because you'll see it. Some people think the first and the second one are the same thing.

I don't think so. But anyway. Tak.

Say tak. Tak. Chik.

Chik. Ravanchen. Ravanchen.

Ki. Ki. Dak.

Dak. This is really the self which is... His Holiness went over at the first day of his teaching.

His Holiness went over it a lot. Who believes in this kind of self? If I tell you His Holiness covered it in the first day.

The non-Buddhist schools. He went into it. He really went into it.

We went into it when we did Bodhisattva Charvatara. We did it in the... What is it?

The first... The second or the third class I don't remember. Of course.

But it was like Chitso and Dak. You know, Atma. And...

Get this. OK, get this. When you're debating with a Hindu who believes in a...

in a creator of the universe like an original power or an original force a Big Bang Theory really or God. You could throw a Big Bang in here you could throw God in here. You know.

That's one kind of self. You know, Atma. You know.

And you get a feeling about that. Like Atma doesn't exist. Like Big Bang didn't...

There was no Big Bang. There was no Bang before all other Bangs. You know.

They didn't have a Bang before it. There's no guy who made everything. You know.

Like get that dark in mind. Atma. And then I think when all the debates that took place to defeat this kind of dark self they caused a lot of trouble when we got to the other three.

You see. Because the other three aren't talking about a person. They're just talking about the way something is.

You see what I mean. So shifting from this dark self to the self of the lamp or the self of the clothes or the self of the wall it really screwed up people. People screwed it up for centuries.

But in America in the West worse than anybody. No self. You know.

No self. Wow. You know.

So people went from understanding dark as meaning a person which it is in the first one in a way to then when they talked about no self nature to a lamp they just didn't get it. You see. It's not a person.

You know. So you see how it kind of slipped there. I think when you teach emptiness and you're saying emptiness is a lack of a self you have to be very clear when you move out of number one to the others that you're shifting from the idea about of a person or a Michael to you know does the lamp have it's own nature.

So and I noticed that Geshe Thubten Jimba is now shifting from self he calls it selfhood because he's trying to escape from this problem. You see he's saying things have no selfhood. And that's a nice attempt to get away from the problem of saying things have no self.

Because then it feels like people. It. Myself.

Himself. Herself. Themselves.

You know. In a way it also includes things. You know.

The big problem is we gotta prove that this thing doesn't have a self. You know. And.

So I just think you should get in the mind get it in your mind that when we're trying to debate against the self it's a self nature. An inherent nature. And it has nothing to do with self in the way self is normally understood in English.

You know. Take care of yourself. You know.

Self improvement book. You know. I mean.

The way the word is normally used in English doesn't at all convey what dak means except in the world except in the first one. In which we're trying to defeat and a permanent dak means unchanging. Cik means unitary.

Only one. Big man. One big bang.

One big god. Rang wan chen means can do everything. Power.

You know. Takes independent. You know.

Makes all things but was never made. Can do everything but save myself. Yeah.

Except stop your breast cancer. And dak. That kind of self.

That kind of self. You know. You can throw the big bang into here but what they're really picking on is a creator god who we could blame for all our problems.

Unchanging. Singular. Powerful.

Self. You know. The non-existence of that is that emptiness.

If you perceive that will you reach Buddhahood? If you perceive it directly will you reach Buddhahood? Yeah.

So I give you an interesting litmus test for something emptiness. Always remember. You know.

Keep it in your mind. It's all throughout scripture they say. You want to know something's emptiness or not?

You want to know? See if. Check if seeing that it doesn't exist would get you enlightened.

Okay. Check if seeing that that kind of self doesn't exist would get you enlightened. If it would it's emptiness.

If it wouldn't it's not emptiness. Okay. That's Madhyamika Prasangika.

But what would Mind Only school say? It's a lower flavor of emptiness. You see?

Because they got these three tracks they each have their own kind of emptiness. You get more and more. You go higher and higher.

And this would be sort of a pre-emptiness emptiness. You see? They would say yeah it's a kind of emptiness.

Okay. Because they believe in these degrees of emptiness. But we don't believe in that because if you're either empty or you ain't.

You see? You can't be more or less empty. You can't be more subtle or less subtle empty.

Empty is empty. One hundred percent empty. Either it's not there or it's there.

It's not like it's half there or three quarters there. You know? Either the Gaccha is absent or the Gaccha is present.

You can't have two thirds of the Gaccha in. I always say the two headed thirteen foot purple elephant couldn't be halfway in the door. I mean that's not the...

You know what I mean? It's like that kind of argument. That's the same thing when they're talking about degrees of subtlety for emptiness.

I mean the Madhyamika Prasangika you say come on what are you talking about? You mean subtle? More subtle?

More empty? Less empty? OK.

It's either completely absent or it's... You don't say absent or half absent. You don't say...

How many children are half absent in the class today? You know? You don't say that.

You see? OK. That's the first one.

We'll do the second one and we'll take a break. The second one is the one that is perceived by listeners when they've reached the path of seeing. Seeing directly.

It is the rough lack of... Sorry. Subtle lack of self-existence to the person.

OK? And it's defined as... It's described as follows.

Rangkya. Thupe. Zeyuki.

Toa. Kangsak person. Rangkya thupa means self-standing, self-supporting.

Like this lamp is rangkya thupa but just barely. OK? Seriously.

I mean, it's an example. It's a good example of barely rangkya thupa. OK?

I mean, these things tip over very easily and then they're not rangkya thupa. OK? And then, Zeyu means substantial.

And as we said in Mahamudra class, Zeyu can mean a million things in Buddhist scripture. What it means here is what His Holiness was describing in his teaching. He said, Je kul.

Je kul. Je means master. Kul means servant.

The idea that there's a self, that there's a Michael Brannan who's like a crane operator and operates the crane called Michael Brannan's Body and Mind. So there's a different Michael Brannan who's separate from Michael's mind and body, who's like a big... He's a guy in that glass cabin up on top of this big machine and he's like running the gears.

Like, let's move here. Let's move there. Move your hand.

Let's do this project. Let's listen to this song. Let's have this to eat.

I have control. I can decide. Michael's deciding.

And that's how we get disappointment and anger and letdowns, right? Because you're not deciding. You don't have power.

But the idea that you do is number two. There is a Michael Brannan who decides what kind of dessert I'm going to get tonight before I consult Christy. And then it gets disappointed when the police say no, you can't have that.

You see? Who believes they have control? You know?

And it's that illusion of control that creates so much friction in the world. You know? I'm going to do this project.

Diamond Mountain is going to run this way. You know? I'm going to raise X money from Diamond Mountain.

You know? And then you like get angry or frustrated or something but you can't do it because you believe that you're in control. You know?

You believe that if I could just find the right robo-claws, you know, I could control this stuff. You know? If I just didn't have my strategy down right, you know, I should have asked her when she wasn't listening whether I could have this donut.

You know? And, you know, stuff like that. You know?

But that's not how it works. You don't have control. Okay?

But the belief that there's a Michael Roach who has, who's independent of my mind and body and has control, possesses things, basically. Who can possess things. The idea that you possess anything.

Come on. You know? And the example that I always give in Mahamudra is your shirt.

You know? Do you own your Vancouver Canucks neat T-shirt? I'm not asking for it.

You say, yeah, I own it. I bought it. Somebody gave it to me.

I got it on, you know? And no, you know, you're getting a car wreck out there. The car burns.

The shirt burns. You don't own it. You know?

Things like that happen. You know, you don't really have control over even your, the clothes you have on tonight. You don't know if they'll be yours tomorrow.

You don't have control. I mean, that's the most elementary thing. You know, I own my clothes.

No, you don't. I own my finger. No, it might be cut off tomorrow.

There's a guy, tell the story, the guy in Hossa, he's got his arm hanging out the bus. The truck comes by. Boom!

Next minute, he doesn't have an arm. You know? That's not his arm.

He doesn't have control over that arm. You see? So, there is no guy who controls the arm and the legs and the shirt.

You know? But that's a jnanakartupa jeya, the guy, kausa, who controls, who's jeya, who's a substantial self-standing guy who can control everything. You see?

Kiri tongwa means things aren't that way. This tongwa is a verb, right? Tongba means emptiness.

Tongwa means things are devoid of that, meaning that doesn't exist. So, the non-existence of a guy, self-standing, independent controller of your mind and body, the lack of that is the first level. That's what listeners see when they see emptiness directly.

Is that emptiness? Is seeing that enough to get you into enlightenment? It's pretty good.

I mean, it's a good start, but it's not the real thing. Okay? It doesn't answer the question of like, it doesn't really tie into karma that well and it doesn't explain the idea of projection that well.

It doesn't talk about projection that well. Like, if you understand projection, you understand how your tantric vows can make you into Vajrayogini. But that works.

That's the best one. That's the only one that really works. I mean, it's important to understand that you don't own anything, but where does that take you after that?

You know, like, okay, I don't own my shirt. What do I do now? You know, is that going to make me happy somehow?

It'll probably make you calm down. It might remove your mental afflictions to a state, to a point, and then you could get to Arhat on a lower track, you see? So that would be cool.

That's probably enough, right? I don't know. Actually, Mahayana would say no.

Mahayana would say no. Still not enough. Even someone who's on the listener track who, when they see emptiness, they always see the highest form of emptiness.

I mean, that's Mahayana Prasangika's position. Okay? Just so you know.

It's only the Mainoni school that really believes in this kind of stuff here. But I thought Uttaratantra was Mainoni. I thought Asanga was the big opener.

He's the innovator. He's the guy who started Mainoni in the world. Come on.

Isn't he? We had this in the first class. You guys, we're going to teach you.

Asanga's commentary has three, there are three interpretations each of it. You're getting there. How many books did Maitreya write?

Five. And are they all Mainoni? No.

Which one are we on? Uttaratantra. Uttaratantra is Mainoni or Madhyamika?

Huh? Madhyamika. Yeah.

Like some of the other ones are Mainoni. Okay. Yeah.

Asanga started, Master Asanga started the Mainoni school, basically. And Nagarjuna started, Master Arya Nagarjuna started the Madhyamika school. But when Maitreya taught a range of viewpoints in his five books to pick up more market share.

Okay. Really. More market share.

Okay. Some students will be attracted to this Mainoni idea. So let's present some Mainoni in some of the five books.

And then some students will be more attracted to Madhyamika and we'll present that. So Uttaratantra has to say that this is emptiness or not? They say not.

This is non-emptiness. So does Uttaratantra believe there are ultimately three paths? Or does Uttaratantra believe that ultimately all paths go to the same place?

They have to say all of them go to the same place. Because sooner or later you have to see real emptiness. Sooner or later you have to get up to the higher track, highest track.

They don't even believe in these three degrees of emptiness. Okay. So Uttaratantra is devoted to defeating this idea.

Okay. Just so you know. Are they defeating these as realizations or defeating these as ideas of emptiness?

As they exist. That there even exist these three kinds of emptiness. So Uttaratantra doesn't accept dharmachara-ksum, right?

Dharmachara-ksum. These three degrees of emptiness, right? Right.

So they don't accept the division into kāsakhi-dharme and ksukhi-dharme. Selflessness of the person, selflessness of their parts. They don't accept.

So you don't have to see one before the other or anything like that. Now, yeah, even Madhyamika Prasangika says, Oh, we accept the idea there's a selflessness of the person and selflessness of the lamb. But they're qualitatively the same thing.

They just refer to different objects. But they're both just pure emptiness of that thing not being your projection. That's all.

Got it? So I'll repeat it just so you get it. Would the highest school say that there is a division into the emptiness of things and people?

Yes. Sure. Is it this division that we're talking about?

No. Okay. Why?

Because they don't believe in three degrees of emptiness. They would say this has its own 100% emptiness of not being my projection. This is 100% empty of not being my projection.

In what way? Yeah, in exactly the same degree, you see. It's not like one is more subtle, one is like subtle, one is like...

I shouldn't say that. I should say they're not different kinds of emptiness. Okay.

They refer to different objects. But the idea behind it is the same. The principle is the same whether you're talking about a lamb or a guy.

Yeah, empty of the same thing. Empty of not being my projection. Okay?

Okay, so this is what listeners see according to this idea. And that's enough according to this school to get them to nirvana. To destroy their mental afflictions.

And you can see how it would help, right? That's why we taught it in Mahamudra. And that's probably why who taught it?

Lord Buddha. Okay? You're telling me Lord Buddha would teach something that's not even true?

Yeah. You mean he'd get up and define a whole school of philosophy that wasn't even true? Exactly.

Okay. So he'd get up and pretend to be a Hinayana monk? Yeah.

Get up and pretend to be a Bodhisattva monk? Yeah. Get up and show himself as a Tantric deity?

Yeah. Guy or girl? Yeah.

You know, whatever works. She came up with a... Krishnadevaraya came up with a new translation for Tathagata, skillful means.

What is that? What? Whatever works.

Really, whatever works. Lord Buddha will do, you know, out of compassion. You know, I've heard people say it's almost like deception or something.

I don't think so. I think it's compassion, you know. If mom has to put on a good humor uniform to get the kids to go to bed, you know, and go ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, you know, she'll do it, right?

Out of compassion, you know. And if mom has to look like Hitler to get them not to eat sweets, you know, she'll do it. Sorry.

She'll do it, out of compassion, you know. No, it's not like mom is being deceptive or mom is being dishonest in some way. Mom is trying to achieve a goal.

And these are skillful means. That's what the word skillful means means in Tibetan. You know, whatever it takes, you do it.

Okay. We'll go back to that later. Take a break.

And we'll do... I still owe you two kinds of degrees of emptiness, right? Yes.

All right. Which number of emptiness? Number three.

Number three. Okay. This is the old favorite mind-only one, right?

Which is... This is now going to be the rough form of the lack of self to what?

[Говорящий 2]
Of things. Of things.

[Говорящий 1]
Got it?

[Говорящий 2]
Yeah.

[Говорящий 1]
Which is what the self-made Buddhas perceive on the path of emptiness.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
Path of seeing, sorry. Which is... Say suk.

Suk. Dang. Dang.

Sungzin. Sungzin. Kyi.

Kyi. Tsema. Tsema.

Tse shen kyi. Tse shen kyi. Toa.

Toa. You've had this in the Mahamudra. Okay.

Suk means... It's just one example. Visible things, okay?

Visible things. Visible form. Sorry.

Whose is that? Do you want me to put it in my pocket or something? And...

Dang means and. Sungzin kyi tsema means that valid perception which perceives the form. Meaning your perception of...

The lamp and my perception of the lamp. The lamp and my perception of the lamp. Tse shen kyi toa means they are devoid of any separate substance.

They are devoid of any separate substance. Meaning... They came from the same karmic seed.

Okay? One karma has produced the world for you to see and Kimberly to see it. Okay?

One karma. Yeah. Has created you and the world to see.

And as I say, that was like this big moment at the monastery. It's like the only time I ever interrupted Geshe Thubten Rinchen and I'm like, Geshe-la! And he's like, You know, I said, What's wrong with that?

You know, why is that mine only? And he said, There's nothing wrong with that. He's totally right.

And I'm like, Wow, I get it. It was a big moment for me. It's like a big moment of, Wow, I get everything now, you know.

Like everything fell into place. And of course the only problem with it was... It's not.

Well, no. That the seed... That the seed would stay in the kunchi.

That the seed would... That there'd have to be a separate part of your mind where the seed stayed. That's the only problem with it.

But otherwise it's fine. It's great. Okay?

But remember when you hear this, that we're talking about the mind only's idea of it, which is that the seed pops out of a separate part of your mind, and that's a different problem. Okay? But anyway, you and the stuff you see are coming from the same karmic seed.

The fact that anything else is wrong is the emptiness. The fact that nothing comes from any other place is emptiness. It's the rough form of the lack of self to things.

So you start to feel like this self, persons and things thing is getting a little... It's not quite so defined, right? I mean, you could say that it applies to me as well as it applies to the lamp.

Okay? But that's a... That's a different problem.

Okay? We're not going to get into that.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
So anyway, this is what, according to the mind-only school, and especially one part called those who follow scripture, who love this idea, this is to them what is one kind of emptiness. One of the three levels of emptiness. The Rangipa school, the independent school, the Svatantrika of the Madhyamika, they put this as what the self-made Buddhas perceive when they get to the path of seeing.

Okay? I'm not sure a mind-only school would put it here. Okay?

Like, I wasn't clear, but it seems to me they would say this is ultimate emptiness. You see what I mean? In my mind.

But the lower Madhyamika school says that this is the emptiness perceived by self-made Buddhas, anahinayana track, in order to get to their nirvana. Okay? This is enough to make you get rid of your mental afflictions and get to that spaced-out state that you never have to come out of that meditation again.

Okay? Number four, and then we're finished with the three tracks really. This is going to be what the who sees at the path of seeing.

Bodhisattva. People on the third track. Bodhisattva track.

Which is the subtle lack of self-existence to the... to... to things.

Subtle lack of self-existence to things. Okay? What is that?

Oh, that's that long one. You want me to do the whole thing? All right.

What is that? What is that? Noway wangi shakta mayi mer.

Lo... Lo nirme. Nice.

Okay. Lo nirme. Okay, here we go.

Lo nirme la. Lo nirme la. Noway.

Noway. Wangi. Wangi.

Shakta. Shakta. Mayi mer.

Mayi mer. Yul. Yul.

Rangi. Rangi. Tummo mayi mer.

Tummo mayi mer. Duluksu. Duluksu.

Tupay.

[Говорящий 2]
Tupay.

[Говорящий 1]
Towa. Towa. That's the highest form of emptiness.

That's the only one that they give the name of emptiness. Okay? The other ones are lack of self.

Selflessness. Okay? This one is emptiness.

So they say bodhisattvas on the bodhisattva track see this when they reach the path of seeing. Directly. Okay?

This is emptiness. This is real emptiness. This is mainly a lower Madhyamika school presentation.

Okay? Like, I think the Mind Only school might say that the last one was the true form of emptiness. But it's not very clear.

When they teach this subject they usually do it picking on the Mind Only from the point of view of lower Madhyamika. Something like that. So just to warn you this is not something you'll find in a Mind Only scripture very often.

Okay? This is mainly lower Madhyamika. But the idea is the same.

Okay? The idea is that there are different levels of emptiness. Okay?

And this is the highest one. Low nirman means there's a state of mind which is not screwed up. Nirman means not screwed up.

Not drunk. Not crazy. Not jealous.

Sorry? Yeah. Unimpaired is nice.

Yeah. And to it la appears nangway things and wangky due to that wangky means due to that shat we can say things exist. You know, things are established shat by the power wangky of their appearing nangway to la and unimpaired nirme state of mind lo Okay?

You can get the tape. Alright? Anyway How do I know this lamp exists?

Because I'm not crazy and I'm seeing and it's appearing to me. Right? How's that different from saying I'm projecting it?

Yeah, it's coming sur sur tong, right? We did it at the Gatsita teaching. You know, it's coming at me.

You know? It has some existence out there and it's coming at me. You can't get angry at a person unless you believe that.

Unless you have this screwed up view you cannot have a mental affliction towards another person. You have to be angry or upset. You have to believe things are coming at you.

The moment you believe that you're projecting it you can't get angry anymore. All you can do is just stop. Okay?

So if you want to know how good your view is doing see how your mental affliction control is doing. Okay? But if that's how things are and anything that is different mayimbar means anything that is not that way mayimbar anything that is not that way i.e. if you if the object you rangi tumo mayimbe duluk if it had its own unique way of being out there if it were out there to its own unique way of being it's a lamp. It's an irritating person. Okay? If it were out there on its own like that duluk si jupay the emptiness of that is emptiness.

In other words what they're trying to say is 50-50. Okay? Things exist 50-50.

There has to be a lamp there has to be a perception of lamp that's not drunk or crazy. Or there has to be an irritating person and there has to be a perception of this irritating person. Then you can say the person exists.

Okay? But the minute that you believe that that thing exists out there on its own through itself in and of itself then you the lack of that is emptiness. Okay?

The opposite of that is emptiness. The fact that that don't exist is emptiness. Okay?

And that's what bodhisattvas see when they reach the path of seeing. Okay? And that's enough to get you to full enlightenment.

And that's why we got these three tracks. Okay? Okay?

So now you got a difference between the three tracks as far as motivation as far as goal as far as the main scriptures they rely on. What's the other one? As far as...

Oh, how they define emptiness. Yeah. What kind of emptiness they see.

Okay? Oh, who made up all this stuff? Where did we get all this stuff?

Lord Buddha. Okay? Lord Buddha taught this stuff directly.

I'm going to tell you some of the scriptures where he taught the three tracks. Okay? The idea of the three tracks or the three kinds of emptiness.

I'm going to give you three. Now, when you get the reading about three years from now. What I really like about Choney Dakpa Sridhar he lets each side give their own presentation.

The guys who believe in three tracks the guys who believe that ultimately in the end there are three paths to enlightenment they get to make their pitch. And they have a lot of time like he doesn't rush them they get like page after page and I put it in your reading which is why you won't get it for three years. Then over here is the Madhyamika Prasangika guys who say, that's crazy.

Or the Uttara Tantra guys, right? Who say, no, ultimately all paths flow into one. Ultimately every path there is in the world flows into this one path.

Everybody will get to that path sooner or later which is what? Track number three actually. But with the right kind of emptiness.

So, I mean, ultimately everybody will get into Bodhisattva path. And frankly, the Tantric scriptures say that everybody gets enlightened Tantric. I mean, ultimately everybody has to go to Tantra.

But that's not a subject in Sutra class, is it? So, anyway, ultimately there is only one path ultimately all streams flow into the last path which is Bodhisattva path. And you have to go through the whole five the five paths, Bodhisattva track.

Right? Where were we? Where was that?

You know, the Uttara Tantra says ultimately you got to go through these five paths. Ultimately, that's what they mean when they say in the end everything flows everything is one path. So, Christian, Jew, Muslim, whatever Theosophist, whatever you know, whatever you're doing ultimately you will flow into this path.

By the end, all paths flow into one. All, everybody all spiritual paths are flowing towards this path and then ultimately they all join there. They all converge there.

Now, do they converge here? Do they converge here? Could you go from here to here?

You see? Could you skip the first two here? Could you like work your way to Nirvana here?

You've already seen emptiness, right? Can't you just go here? You know, and see this form of emptiness?

Do you have to repeat these first two paths, basically?

[Говорящий 2]
According to Prabhupada, what should you do?

[Говорящий 1]
We're going to talk about it. Okay, anyway. So, who came up with these three paths in the first place?

Okay. And here's what the guys say who believe that they're ultimately these are dead ends. These are final ends.

There are three final ends, you know. Whether you go this way or this way or this way when you hit path number five, you is done. So, not everybody is going to go to Mahayana path.

And they go to another extreme and I'll tell you now. Not everybody will get to a full enlightenment. Mine only.

And lower half of the... I guess, by extension, lower half of the Manimika. But they say not everybody gets to full enlightenment.

People and... Some people just park here forever and they never get to full enlightenment. So, they have to say that.

If you say, ultimately, in the end, there are three tracks. They have to say... Yeah, that's why there are three tracks.

They have to say that this is an end. This is a dead end. You stop there, you stop there, or you stop there.

So, there's three paths. Okay. Now, they quote scriptures that say that.

They're not crazy. And here are the scriptures. The first is the Lankavatara Sutra, Journey to Lanka, right?

It's a scripture called the Journey to Lanka. Those of you who went to His Highness's teachings, he spoke about that. And he spoke about the five jhanas, the five thikpas.

And he went through them. He taught them in New York this last... two weeks ago.

So, he... And three of the five are the three that are here. Okay.

So, don't tell me I'm crazy. This is mind only. Especially those who follow scripture as opposed to those who follow...

His Highness mentioned that. Logic, okay? Like, mind only can be divided into those who tend more towards scripture and those who tend more towards logic.

Those who tend more towards logic say, Look, Journey... Lankavatara Sutra gives these three. But Lord Buddha...

I didn't make this up. Lord Buddha said that, you know. Those who tend towards...

The ones who follow sutra... The ones who follow scripture use this. Use this.

Yeah. Again, they're quoting scripture. Like, there...

There is a logical proof also. I'm not going to go into it tonight because it's so late. But they say, Look, Lord Buddha stated it in the Lankavatara Sutra along with two other jhanas.

I mean, it wasn't just three. It was five, right? Remember?

There's a high thikpa, the jhana of the gods. And I don't remember what the other one was. Sangbhikthikpa.

The Brahma Thikpa or something like that. But anyway, there's five in the Lankavatara Sutra. So, we didn't make it up.

So, why are you picking us? Then he says, He says, Do de gong do. True intent of my book, my teachings, which was taught by Lord Buddha in the third turning of the wheel.

It also says the following. It says, There are certain people on those two lower tracks, right? They will never develop bodhicitta.

Ever. They will never be able to develop bodhicitta. Okay?

For three reasons. A. They have too little compassion.

They don't have compassion. B. They're too afraid to continue on in samsara.

Like, they want to get out for themselves as soon as possible. They're afraid. And then thirdly, he says, They are by nature a lower kind of person.

So, what he's saying is, there are people in the third turning of the wheel. Lord Buddha says, There are people who are not going to make it to bodhicitta. They will never make it to bodhicitta.

They just are different kam. Their kam is different. Their wishes are different.

The goal in their mind they have is different. They just want to get out themselves.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
And I'm going to throw something in here and you got to listen. Okay? This one's important.

I mentioned three things just now. What was it? Their kam is different, right?

Their nature, their buddha nature is different, right? We had kam already, buddha nature. It's one of the seven diamond like visions, right?

We're going to go over it, right? So long ago, that's another reason why I want to have two reviews. Because I forgot half of it.

But everybody has a different kam. Everybody has a different buddha seed in them. A.

B. They have different wishes, different ideas. Three.

They have different goals in mind. You know? These people are just by nature have those.

They're lower in all those three. Okay? And then, very beautiful.

Gyaltsabje. Anyway. Gyaltsabje.

Who is that? Gyaltsabje. He says, you know what?

The reason they think that is because they're real mind-only people. And they think that Shen Wong and Nyong Drup are Demudrup. They think that changing things and emptiness exist truly.

And that's why they have this problem with the three tracks. That's why they're stuck on this idea of three tracks. That's why they believe that people could have a buddha nature that was lower and that only wanted nirvana.

You know? Because they can't get it that buddha nature itself is a projection. That's a very powerful statement.

Incredibly powerful statement. And I'd say people who defend Shentong, it's very powerful. And that's really what I was trying to get to tonight.

You know? Your own buddha nature is a projection. You see?

So if you think Shen Wong and Nyong Drup, if you think changing things and emptiness have some kind of true nature of their own, then you will believe in these three things. Then you will believe that there are people who get stuck here and stay there forever. Then you can believe in the three tracks and that there are three flavors of emptiness.

You will believe it because you don't get it. You don't get that the buddha nature itself is a projection. And therefore, it has all the potential in the world to change.

You're projecting your inability to get bodhichitta. Your inability to be kind to others is a projection. So you can change it.

You see? Change your karma. Change your projections.

It's not that the people's buddha nature is lesser. It's not that they have self-existent less of a desire to help others. It's not that they have self-existently an idea to reach some spaced out nirvana.

Those things don't exist by definition. Changing things and emptiness do not exist by definition. And it's only a mind-only person who would get stuck on this idea because they don't get it.

They're still trying to say that some things could exist by definition. And I know mainly functional things. A pen works by definition.

The sun comes up because it comes up. I'm not making the sun come up. It's not me who makes this pen work.

It's working. That's what a pen does. A pen by definition is writing.

Peas are round. I didn't make peas round. Peas by definition are round.

You see? And Gyaltsabshe is saying that's why they get stuck in this tree. So if your homework said, you know, what's the real reason why those in the mind-only school might believe that in the end there are three ways?

It's because they're stuck on the self-existence of the three characteristics of the mind-only school. Changing things. Things that do something exist from their own side.

I didn't make the light work. The light works from its own side. That's what a light is by definition.

A light gives light. I didn't make it that way. I didn't make peas round.

And as long as you believe that, then you can believe this idea that people have in themselves a nature which can't be developed further. Now given the Buddha nature that we got through teaching class after class in the Uttara Tantra, can Uttara Tantra buy that idea? That there's people that can't get enlightened?

No. I mean, you can't sell somebody the idea of Buddha nature that every sentient being has that's going to turn into enlightenment and then at the same time say that, well, some people can't. You know?

So obviously that throws Uttara Tantra into a non-mind-only school. You see? That's one of the big reasons why Uttara Tantra is considered Mahayamika.

You see? If they believed in the three tracts, if they didn't attack the three tracts, then they might be mind-only. But they are attacking the three tracts, so they're not mind-only.

See? Got it? You can undo the tape.

Finally, the last scripture they quote, the guys who do believe in the three tracts, they say the mother sutras, which is Yom Kippur, the Prajnaparamita Sutras, mother of the Buddha Sutras, they say, some people can never develop bodhicitta because they have already cut off the stream of samsara, cyclic existence. They have already stopped cyclic existence. What's he talking about?

Yeah, these two guys here. Lord Buddha, in the Prajnaparamita Sutras, makes a statement somewhere, I don't know where it is, that some people, because they've stopped samsara, will never get to bodhicitta. Okay?

So therefore, the three tract idea is right. Okay? Okay?

Now obviously, mind you, we have to come along and explain why it's not what? Definitive. Literal.

Yeah. And they do, and we don't have time to do it tonight. Okay?

It's a beautiful, beautiful presentation. It's a really nice presentation. It's really cool.

It's in the reading. And you'll appreciate it if you've done a lot of class 15, course 15, you know. But we don't have time to do it tonight.

But one of the things, there's three parts to deciding something is figurative. I don't know if you remember, there's three tests that something is figurative. Number one, what did the guy really have in mind?

You know? What did Geshe Thubten Rinchen say? Break that cup for me.

Pick up that, bring that cup over there and try to drop it halfway over to my chair, okay? What's he telling his disciple? Be careful with the cup, okay?

Be careful with the cup. You broke three already. Now this time, just remember.

You know, Geshe Thubten Rinchen was struggling to tell us about interpretation, you know. So he says, look, when I tell my disciple, that stupid one over there, the Tibetan kid, when I tell him, could you bring my cup of tea over there this time, and this time can you remember to drop it? It's figurative.

Why? Because it's not what he really had in mind. You know?

And this is the whole essence about everything a Tantric Lama does. I mean, everything, you know. Like, get it?

Like, no, I didn't mean it literally. I didn't want you to drop the cup, okay? Got it?

So first of all, there has to be some deeper intention, you know. He's trying to get the student to be more aware and not drop the cup this time. That's number one.

What's the second one? Oh, I would say what he really had in mind. A, what he really had in mind.

Yeah, like, what did he really have in mind? That's the first thing you have to talk about. What's the second one?

I forget. What is that? That's the third one.

Oh, the reason. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the point?

He doesn't want him to drop it. He's trying not to break the cup. So what he really had in mind was.

Oh, no, I'm sorry. Why does he say it in a figurative way? What's the point of not saying, please don't drop my cup?

I guess that the student would take it as funny or it would be more impressed on his mind. The student would pause and figure it out and then be less likely to drop the cup than if he said, God damn it, stop dropping my cups. You see what I mean?

It's a way to get to a student who's not ready for, don't drop the cup, okay? Like, it's a way to get the message deeper to a student. Okay, so that's the reason to say it in a figurative way.

And the third one is, is the litmus test, the logic test. It just doesn't make sense. Like, why would Geshe-la want me to drop his last cup on the floor today?

You know, the student will stop and he'll say, he must be figurative tonight. He must be speaking figuratively because it contradicts the logic. Like, I don't think Geshe-la would want me to break his last cup tonight.

You see? So that, anyway, when you talk about figurative, you have to say, what did he really have in mind? Why did he say it in a weird way?

And how could it not be true that he wants me to do that? See what I mean? That's the test for something figurative.

Why did I come up on that? Oh, there's a story why Lord Buddha would say there are three vehicles, when in the end of ends there is only one. And this is a story that's told in scripture, and I thought it'd be easier to tell you the story than to go through those three tests, okay?

Anyway, when they say, well, then why did Lord Buddha present these three? What was the point? Who was he trying to get through to that couldn't get it otherwise, you know?

And the answer is, there's a story about a ship captain. He's trying to get people to the land of jewels. It's called Rinchen Ling, Ratna Divipa, which is where?

What is the land of jewels? It's Sri Lanka. I mean, I was in the gem business, and Sri Lanka, you dig two feet anywhere, you hit rubies, sapphires, zircons, topaz, it's unbelievable.

It really is the land of jewels. Like, some geological weirdity there. But half the gems in the world come from Sri Lanka.

You just dig anywhere and you find something. So it really is the land of jewels, the isle of jewels. So he says, someone's trying, ship captain's trying to take people to the isle of jewels.

They're going to get rich there. I mean, beyond their wildest dreams, you know? And halfway, they start to get tired.

You know, like halfway, they want to go home. Because it's a hard job, it's a hard voyage, and it's hot, and you know, and everything, and they want to go home. They don't want to, you know, he knows what's there.

He's just trying to get them there. You know, he's been there. He's seen the jewels.

If he can just get them to step on that place, they'll all be millionaires, you know? But halfway on the trip, they're all like tired and bored, and like, oh, I can't do it, you know? And so, I guess in ancient scripture, Lord Buddha emanated a magical city just in front of the ship.

You know, like New York City, with all the delis, and Starbucks, and I used to dream about it in retreat, you know, going to have a latte in New York, you know, and we did it, right? And a biscotti, you know, like, where can you get a biscotti in Bowie, you know? And so, he like emanates in one of these places just in front of the ship, you know, and so they're like, you know, and then he keeps moving it on, you know, and then sooner or later they hit Sri Lanka, you know, but in the meantime, everybody's happy.

You know, everyone's like got this thing, they can see a short-term goal. So, that's why Lord Buddha taught lower nirvana, they say. People were, he was struggling to keep them on the bodhisattva path.

He saw they're not going to make it, they're going to drop out. So, he took them down to a lower track. He said, look, don't worry about all other living beings, don't worry about it.

I'll get you to a place where you can just space out, you'll hold this, better than heroin, you know? Not really. That's why addicts take heroin.

It's just a place where your mind is shut down and, you know, peace. I'll take you to a kind of peace. It's like the latte off the ship, off the bow of the ship, you know?

So, that's why, the story is that, that's why Lord Buddha taught the lower nirvana. It's like a cookie to keep people rowing, you know? And then, he knows what they're going to get to, but they don't know.

Like, you're going to get rich if you keep rowing, you know? You'll be, it's like Jesus inviting people to the feast and then they, they don't have time, you know? It's like, like I'm offering you something priceless, totally priceless.

Okay, so you've got a few hours of pain, you know? Just do it, you know? You won't remember for the rest of your life.

You'll be a billionaire, you know? And he's like begging them and he's got to like beg them to row a little bit so they can get to this billionaire, you know? And they're like, wah, wah, that's too hot, you know?

And, you know, he knows they're crazy, but he has to get this, what do you call it? Carrot. It's like a carrot.

These two things are a carrot in front of the donkey, okay? So that's why Lord Buddha taught them. I'm just throwing in two more things quick and then we're done.

Which school is this from? I think, it wasn't a particular school. I guess it would have to be a Madhyamika, right?

But he doesn't say which sutra, I checked. He doesn't ever say which sutra it is. I don't know which sutra it is.

This is a question. The debate over how many ways in the end there are, like all of Lord Buddha's teachings, has application to our modern life. State the application.

To me, this is just a personal question, okay? Like, I rarely throw in personal questions. But it's something I very much believe in and something I really want to say.

You know, someone was telling me, someone actually came to me and criticized writing a yoga book. And I said, really, it's just a vehicle to present emptiness and karma to a new audience, you know. And laughingly, I call it market share.

You know, I think it's a funny word. There's 20, 30 million people who are doing yoga. There's only 10 or 15 thousand who believe in Tibetan Buddhism.

So, you know, if you go to His Holiness' teachings in New York, it's the same 6,000 people I saw five years ago. With a few new people, but not much. I mean, it's the same people.

They're older, they're grayer, they look more tired. but you need to be able to present it to other people. You see, you need to be able to, you need to be able to emanate different emanations.

Where does that come from? You take on different forms. To help different people who have different ideas, who live in different places, who have different interests.

You know, may I achieve Lord Buddha's emanation body so I can like cover all the markets. You see? It's like, I will be Hinayana monk to those who need it.

I will be Bodhisattva monk to those who need it. I will be a tantrica to those who need it. I will be a yoga teacher to those who need it.

I will be a businessman to those who need that. I will speak about Christianity to those who need that. You know, what I'm saying is that if Lord Buddha went to the trouble to teach three wildly different and conflicting systems in his lifetime, I think it's a message to us.

You know, I think it's a message to us. Come on! You want to save living beings?

What do you call it? What do you call that? What chameleons do?

Well, they sell it when they... Well, it's like that. You have to wear different hats.

You have to. It's not like some kind of misleading people. You have to look like a yoga teacher to 20 million people.

You have to write a book about yoga. If you care about people, if you're compassionate, if you really want to reach people, you have to have all these skills in your toolbox. Life is a...

A Buddhist has to have a toolbox. Somebody wants to learn yoga? Oh yeah, I know yoga.

I know Naropa's ancient style of yoga. Here, here. Do it this way instead of that way.

And by the way, everything is emptiness and karma and it's not going to work unless you treat other people right. You see? And then, you see, and it's a way to get the idea into more people.

And it's the same thing as... It's very much the same thing. Like, Lord Buddha's life is a story about taking on different emanations for different people's needs.

And that's what the end of the Dakya says. May I... May I reach this power.

May I reach this ability to be all things to all people so I can teach them karma and emptiness. You know? That's the thing.

So, I just really wanted you to encourage you to think about that as a method. You know? Like, you have to be able to move in different circles in order to reach different people.

You can't stick in Tibetan Buddhist, Tibetan grammar mode. You know? Like, it's not going to reach more than 15,000, 20,000 people.

You know? If you're really compassionate, if you really care about people, you have to develop different skills and different personas. Persona.

You know? You have to be able to mutate to... There's a better word than that.

But anyway. You have to be able to, like, honk into businessman mode. You know?

And talk about... Morph, that's it. Yeah.

You need to be able to morph. And I... I assert that you need it as a skill and you should cultivate it.

You know? And somebody said, Oh, that's deceptive. That's misleading people.

And I said, No, I don't think so. I think it's compassionate. I think it's skillful means.

Because Lord Buddha did it. Was this deceptive? Was this harmfully misleading?

You know? That Lord Buddha taught these kind of emptiness that aren't emptiness. You know?

Or was he trying to reach more people? You know? And...

And the book says, and you'll get it in your reading, that, you know, why did Lord Buddha do this? Because he loves people. He's trying to reach mind-only-minded people.

Okay? Get it? Mind-only-minded people.

They need that presentation. They are not going to get the projection thing. Tell them that this is 100% your projection, including the ding, they won't get it.

And they'll just freak out and go away. You know? So you've got to have your mind-only toolbox ready.

Oh, that may come from the same karmic seed. You know? Or, I don't control my arm or my shirt.

You see? And that's emptiness. And you bring them in.

You bring them in. Like that. So anyway, I just wanted to think about that.

One is to be able to morph. As a skill, develop it. You've got to be able to go to the buoy, go to the teepee, sit down, order a black coffee, and get along with the guys there and look like one of the guys.

And in a hundred years, you'll bring them around to karmic emptiness. Like three lifetimes from now. You know?

But you start the process. You know? You sit down and you morph into a coffee-drinking old buddy.

Good old boy. You know? And you have to have that skill.

As a Buddhist, you have to be able to walk into a garage and speed cars and get them to understand the karmic emptiness of car repair. And then you've got to be able to walk into a university and present it to a philosophy professor. And if you can't, then I say you're not compassionate.

I say you really don't care about them. You know? That's my first point.

Second point is you've got to have a foundation to do that, to morph from. You've got to have a base identity. You know?

I'm Madhyamika Prasangika. You've got to know Madhyamika Prasangika backwards and forwards. I understand projection.

I understand karma. I understand compassion. You've got to have the foundation of a firm, clear, well-educated Madhyamika Prasangika person.

I'm a Tsongkhapa. One hundred percent. You know?

I'm a one hundred percent Tsongkhapa Mahayana Gelong. Bhikshu. You know?

In my core. And then I will appear to other people when I need to. You know?

But you've got to have the core. You see? If you don't have the core, then if you go morphing, you might get lost in the morphing.

No, no, really. If you don't have the core, you'll end up some kind of Geshe, Rinpoche called it a tupa. What's tupa?

It's a kind of soup, but it means Irish stew. He likes Irish. It'll just be an Irish stew.

You know? You won't know anything. You'll just be mixing up everything.

What I mean is you morph, but you control your morphs. You do them consciously from a base of a core of your understanding of emptiness and karma, according to Manyamika Prasangika. Okay?

So, in my mind, you've got to have core and morph. Core and morph. Okay.

All right. And... Oh, there's a debate.

I'm going to do this real fast and we'll go home. There's a debate about do you... If you got to here, what happens?

To me, it's one of the most beautiful parts of Buddhist scripture. It's so beautiful. What happens to these guys?

They have gone into a meditation that they are not intending to ever come out of. And they have the power to do that. So what happens to them?

Everybody in Buddhism. I mean Manyamika mostly, but... What happens to these guys?

Yeah. It's very beautiful. And we debated it in the monastery.

Like, what happens? We debated it night after night. What happens to these guys?

Lord Buddha emanates some kind of light. It's very beautiful. Like, there's some kind of magic, some kind of Lord Buddha goes into this mode and starts pouring light at them.

And they are like, what's that?

[Говорящий 2]
You know?

[Говорящий 1]
And I'm like... You know? And they are like, what's going on?

And then Lord Buddha shakes them out of it. It's really cool. And we debated it over and over.

Like, how does he do it? And what goes on? And what do they think?

And what do they see? And it's like indescribable. It's like, I put some of the scripture in your reading.

But there's this beautiful description. Like, I don't know. I still don't understand exactly what happens.

But some kind of light is pouring out of Lord Buddha's body in towards them. And some kind of, like, courage or some kind of, like, inspiration. And then they just say, I got to do it.

You know? I got to go for it for all living beings. You know?

Like, something happens. Something goes, bam! You know?

Like, Lord Buddha, like, pew! Into their heart, you know? And they're like, pew!

And they get it. And they go up. They move up to my, they come out of that Buddha.

It's like a lesser Buddha field. They come out of it. Ah, no, that's the question.

Okay, now, Choney Lama has a long debate about it. And I put it in the reading for you just because I didn't want you to get home before one o'clock tonight. And the big question is this.

They've already seen emptiness, right? So could they just go, well, they've already seen this emptiness, right? So could they just go here and pick up on this emptiness and then hit it to the end?

There's a couple of arguments about it, okay? I'll tell you real fast. They say you can get from here to here in three lifetimes if you kick ass.

It's called barwar, bok chenpa. If you kick butt, you can get from here to here in three lifetimes. You know?

Okay? And this one takes how long? Even just this one?

Three count three times ten to the sixtieth eons. Billions of years. Billions upon billions of years.

So Choney Lama's first argument, which is repeated by Gyaltsabje and other people or vice versa, says, well, then we should all just go hinayana, man. Get this done in three lifetimes, shoot up to here, save time. You know?

Let's count this eons stuff, you know? You know? If that was the case, we should just cancel these two paths, you know?

Why bother? You could save, like, countless eons, you know? And then they say, well, no, obviously you can't do that.

Something special is happening here. Everybody, whoever gets on these two tracks, ends up starting here again. You have to start over here.

Again, yeah. Ah, now these guys, according to Madhyamika, they've already seen emptiness directly, which is the same emptiness as this guy sees directly. So why can't they just come to here?

Even according to Madhyamika, why can't they? They've already seen emptiness directly. The one real emptiness they've seen directly.

They've already seen it. So why do they have to go back to here again? And the answer is, at these two paths on the Mahayana, certain things happen that need to happen to create your Buddha body.

Okay? Which is that you are working on Buddha-Citta from this point. You know?

Everything you do on these two paths, on this track, is being motivated by a love for every living being. You've seen every living being. You're trying to serve them.

You're trying to work for them. The kind of karma you need for this body to turn into an angel's body has to start here. Has to start here.

It's just plain old big job. You can't get enough karma here and here to make this Buddha body happen here. So, no matter how far you got on these two tracks, and no matter what kind of emptiness you've seen, even if it's the real one, you've still got to start over here.

No, he knocks you out of it and he talks you into getting up here. Starting here. Okay?

Well, see, that's the question. If they could get here, they could jump to the seventh bodhisattva bhumi. Okay?

They've eliminated the grasping to self-existence and seeds for it. They could jump right to bodhisattva bhumi number seven. They've not only reached the path of seeing, they're already up to bodhisattva level number seven.

So, you need these two to get enough karma to create that body, to create that transformation into an enlightened being. Of course, Tantra blanks out the whole thing. Tantra says just one lifetime.

You know, change your world view. Every single being in this world is a Tantric angel working their ass off to get you there. Come on.

You know, wake up. Then you just do it in one lifetime. Boom.

It's over. Faster. Okay, but I'll still teach the class.

Because I like to. Oh, last question. Yeah, last question.

Is there a beginning to samsara? You know the answer, no. You know.

Is there an end? Yes. And I don't have time tonight to go through all the debates.

I'm sorry. Maybe we can do it at the review or something. But people bring up all these questions that always occurred to you when I taught that class.

You know, like, well, so if beings are countless, how can you get to the last being? Like, I'm supposed to, oh, please, Lama, stay until samsara ends. Well, if there's always one more being after the one you just did, how's samsara ever going to end?

You know. And then, you know, you've got to save all living beings, but half of them are already saved, so how can you save all living beings? And, you know, when you get to enlightenment, how many living beings are going to be left to help?

And the poor last guy who gets to enlightenment, he doesn't get to help anybody. So he just stopped, you know, and he brings up a lot of questions like that. They're very nice.

The only part I put in your homework was the following. Oh, Choney Lama says, it's not odd that something could have no beginning and yet have an observable end. Okay?

It's not odd that something could be known to have no observable beginning and yet have an observable end. And he says, and that's the only point I wanted to bring up tonight. And he says, every plant, every seed for every plant in the world is like that.

Every seed, like a corn seed is like that. There is no in the generations of corn seeds. You and I can't say it began at a certain point.

You know, we can't say that the first corn seed came. You know, of all the corn seeds in our world, they came from a previous season of corn seeds, which came from a previous season of corn seeds. And we can't say there was a first corn seed.

Like, we can't point to an observable first corn seed. So, samsara is like that. So, he says, it's not strange to posit an unobservable beginning or no beginning, no observable beginning.

You know, no pointable beginning. But you can burn that seed right now. You see?

You can crush it. You can burn it. And that's an observable end.

So, he says, don't think it's such a weird idea. It's not such a weird idea. Anybody could buy that.

So, that's his example for that. And then he goes on. There's a beautiful, beautiful sentence.

He says, look, and by the way, samsara is based on a lie. Samsara is based on a lie. You know?

The world is not the way we see it. I did not... The person who pisses me off is not anything but my creation.

You know? If I see them as coming from in a car, driving up the driveway, getting out, coming to the door, coming in, pissing me off, you know, that's a lie. You projected the car.

You projected the road. You projected Diamond Mountain. You projected buoy exactly as it is.

You projected them driving up. You projected them getting out of the car. You projected them walking in the house.

You projected them pissing you off. You made them. You know what I mean?

And everything else is a lie. And sooner or later you'll see through a lie. A lie...

Abraham Lincoln, or was it Franklin? I don't remember. A lie stands on one leg.

The truth stands on two. You know? And Choney Lama says lies are unstable.

They are inherently unstable. Inherently unstable. You know?

Lies are just unstable creatures. Sooner or later they fall. Sooner or later it breaks.

Sooner or later there's a revelation that this is not the way things are. Therefore we have hope. You know?

Therefore the seed can be burned. You know? That's how he says it.

It's very beautiful. Cool? Okay.

Sorry to keep you late. We'll do the 12 Ds. I'm sure it'll be shorter.