Углублённый курс ACI 04 — Искусство толкования, часть 1 (1998, Билакуппе, Индия), занятие 2

[Говорящий 1]
So, Geshe-la likes to repeat where we are, you know, remind you where we are. We're about to enter the two great branches, one going off into the mind-only school, one going off into the Madhyamika school belief about how to interpret things. And in the mind-only school, we're going to have the Lord Buddha's own commentary on what he meant in the sutras.

And then we're going to have the actual sutra sections, and they're going to be followed by Je Tsongkapa's commentary on those sections. And then after that, we reach the sutra of never-ending wisdom. And then from there, we're going to learn the Madhyamika viewpoint.

So, just to remind you, we're starting off with Dode Gongdo, which is the Buddha's own commentary on what he meant, and then the commentary on that by Je Tsongkapa. The very first of the three categories that we're going to discuss now is called a question regarding apparent inconsistencies in the sutras. And generally speaking, it's another thing later that doesn't match each other.

But if you take the sutras literally, if you look at the wording itself, it appears that the Lord Buddha has contradicted himself in different sutras. Like he said one thing at one place, and then he said something different. And if you take them literally, then the Buddha seems to be contradicting himself.

So, someone is going to ask the Buddha a question concerning, why did you do that? Are you being contradictory, or what is it? And he's going to ask a question about the three turnings of the wheel.

The Buddha turned the wheel of the Dharma three times in his teaching career. The first, second, we'll get into it later what the meanings are, but there were three periods of his teaching, three great turnings of the wheel. And someone's going to ask the Buddha a question about, why does the first turning of the wheel, what you said during the first turning of the wheel, seems to contradict what you said during the second turning of the wheel, or rather the reverse, right?

What you said the second time didn't match what you said the first time. You're seeming to contradict yourself, we know you can't contradict yourself, so what did you mean when you said that? And there's a section in the book called The Buddha Making a Commentary on His Own Sutra, right, where it's called the chapter that was asked by the bodhisattva named Dundamyang Dharpa.

So this is a certain bodhisattva on our behalf, you know, he says, Geshe-la says, representing all of us students who are going to happen throughout history, you know, he asked the Buddha, why did you appear to contradict yourself when you turn the wheel on these different occasions? And that'll be the first section, which is called A Question Regarding Apparent Inconsistencies in the Buddha's Own Presentation. We're at the bottom of page four, third line from the bottom.

The second section will be, by the way, Geshe-la points out that, of course we'll go into more detail later, I'm just giving you a rough out of where we're going. The second section, in the second section that is to come, the Buddha will give his response, and he'll say, well you know when I taught it that way I had this in mind because there were those students there, and when I taught it later I had this in mind and I taught it a little bit differently because those students were there, and the Buddha will explain the apparent inconsistencies in his own presentation.

The third section is Jetsun Kappa explaining to you what the Buddha meant when he was referring to the three essences, the three essential natures. These are called the three characteristics of the three natures, which are very special to the Mind-Only School. So the Buddha in his response is going to say, well you know when I was teaching this group, who turns out to be the Mind-Only School, I had to use the idea of the three essential natures, and later on Jetsun Kappa has to explain what are these three essential natures that he's referring to, what are these three special characteristics that he's referring to.

When the Buddha gives his response and says, yeah when I taught this group, knowing that their minds were in such and such a condition, I had to refer to a thing called the three essential natures, and I was using that as a vehicle when I gave my presentation to a certain group. So Jetsun Kappa is going to go into more on what are those three essential characteristics, and this is really the guts of the Mind-Only School. Generally speaking, when you have an exchange, a financial exchange, somebody's buying, somebody's selling, and you have this exchange going on, you know, like one guy is making an offer, the other guy's accepting it, and then he'll make an offer and he's accepting, and finally after you have this exchange, there's a profit that comes out of it, like some kind of result of the transaction.

So it's similar here, that after this exchange of questions and answers, people are asking the Buddha, what do you mean when you seem to contradict yourself? And then the Buddha answers back, and out of this exchange is produced a clear picture of what the Buddha really meant all along. So that's like our profit out of all these financial transactions.

So you can look upon the first and second turnings of the wheel as, since they are somewhat, they have to be interpreted, they're not meant literally. There were the Buddha saying things that maybe he didn't exactly mean literally. By the time you get to the third turning of the wheel, he's explaining, he's finished explaining the first two, so the third turning of the wheel is the one that's the real one, where he really says what he literally meant, and in the first two are sort of these exchanges.

So the third turning of the wheel, or what's called here is dukden, which is like the result of the transaction, or what you get out of the exchange. The thing that is arrived at after the exchange is going to be the third turning of the wheel, and in there you find out, finally, due to the questions and answers, you find out the conclusion at the end, through the exchange. So the fourth category will be the conclusion resulting from the exchange.

I'm just giving you a general picture of each of the categories that we're going to be going through. You won't really appreciate the whole category until we get there, and we get the whole explanation, but I just want you to be able to see the overall picture and then get in your mind some kind of a seed for understanding the whole thing when you get to it later. Last line, page four.

By the way, in the monastery, the great monks memorize this whole book. It's considered so important that they memorize the whole thing, so it's in his mind. He says this whole thing is the question that's posed to the Buddha.

That whole chunk, he said dokdo means chunk, that whole chunk there is the question posed to the Buddha, and that is the chunk that's proposed to the Buddha. He also advised me that I could go over the wording with you later, but he wants you to get the meaning. So he says you can do wording later with them, but I'm going to say this chunk up to that chunk means this, and that's what he's going to do.

He says, you know, you can't blame me for doing a horse race because you guys don't have much time. So up to here is the bodhisattva asking Lord Buddha. Now, when you turn the wheel the first time, when you taught the Dharma the first time, his first great period of teaching, he said, didn't you say that, and what exactly did you mean when you said that?

Did you say that, or didn't you say that? Okay, he's posing a question.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
So if you summarize the first turning of the wheel, Lord Buddha has covered seven different discrete subjects during the first turning of the wheel. The first one being the five heaps, or the five skandhas, the five parts to a person. I hope I can remember this.

The second one being the twelve ayadhanas, which is basically your sense organs and your six consciousnesses and their objects. Third one being the twelve links of dependent origination is the third one. Fourth subject was the eighteen categories.

Sorry, number four was the four different kinds of sustenance. Number five was the four Arya truths. Number six is what we call the eighteen categories of existence.

[Говорящий 2]
Eighteen categories.

[Говорящий 1]
And then number six is the thirty-seven components of enlightenment. So that's the subject of the first turning of the wheel. It's summarized in seven sections.

Now you could go into dividing out those... there's divisions of three to some of those seven. There's divisions of four of those seven.

Divisions of five. Divisions of eight. You could go into a long spiel on just those seven divisions.

I mean, you could discuss the content of those seven divisions, but that's not the point here. The point is that at the end of all ends, the Buddha, during the first turning of the wheel, referred to all the divisions of all those seven and said, they exist by definition. They exist in truth.

They have their own independent existence. And the Buddha said that during the first turning of the wheel. That's the question we have to look at.

That's the part of the first turning of the wheel that we're really concerned with here. We're not going to go into all of those components and all of those categories. I think the question here is, did the Buddha say those things exist by definition from their own side, truly in truth?

Did he say that and what did he mean? Because no matter what he taught during the first turning of the wheel, all of those seven categories and all the details of those seven categories, he said one thing about all of them. He said they all exist by definition.

They all exist from their own side. They all exist in truth.

[Говорящий 2]
What does it mean?

[Говорящий 1]
So page five, first line, is the Buddha starting out in a question being posed to the Buddha about, look, you talked about the five parts of every being, of beings, and then you went on to say that they existed by definition, meaning this means from their own side, independently. So you seem to have said that when you referred to the five heaps, and this is part of the question here. So when the Buddha taught about the five parts of a person, he did so by describing five characteristics of the five parts of a person.

So those five parts of a normal person have five characteristics. The first characteristic being that he said they exist by definition. They have some kind of true existence, he said, in the first three in a row.

Secondly, he said, they have a quality of having begun, of having started, of having been created. Thirdly, he said, they have a quality of being destroyed, of coming to an end. Thirdly, he said, they have a quality of being abandoned.

And here, Geshe-la started out by saying, abandoned can have different meanings. In general, sooner or later you're going to have to abandon them. These five heaps that we have, the mortal ones, that are bound to suffer, bound to die, you will have to give them up, you'll have to abandon them in that sense.

And as you get higher in the paths, and as they start to transform, then you get parts of them that you don't have to abandon anymore. That's one way of explaining quality number, we're on four, right? But the other way of explaining quality number four, when you say abandon or to give up, it could be referring to the five heaps as they regard to the second of the Four Noble Truths, which is the source of suffering.

So he says, if you look at the five parts of a person from the viewpoint of the second Arya Truth, then you see that they are the source of suffering. You see how the source of suffering relates to the five heaps. It's very famous in the sutras where the Buddha says, you have to eliminate Arya Truth number two.

You have to get rid of it. You see, the source of suffering is something that should be gotten rid of. And then, what he said about the fourth Noble Truth, fourth Arya Truth, is that, I'm sorry, the first Arya Truth is that, this is something you must realize is going on.

What's suffering? What's number one? Suffering.

So he said, you have to realize what's going on. So your relationship to the first Arya Truth should be to realize it. Your relationship to the second Arya Truth should be to eliminate it.

So with regard to the five skandhas or the five parts of a person, the first characteristic that the Buddha said was, they exist from their own side, they have their own true existence. Then he said, they start. Then he said, they stop.

Then he said, with regard to the source of suffering quality that they have, you have to get rid of it. With regard to the truth of suffering quality that they have, which is that they are suffering, you have to realize what's going on. You have to understand that they are suffering.

So those are the five characteristics that the Buddha used to describe the five keeps. But the first of those is that, they exist by definition. They do exist from their own side.

[Говорящий 2]
Yes, sir.

[Говорящий 1]
Yes, sir.

[Говорящий 2]
Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

[Говорящий 1]
And now Yanda Pak is asking Lord Buddha, Hey, and you said the same things when you taught the second big subject, which was those twelve ayatanas, the twelve doors. We call them the doors of existence or something like that. Meaning, things occur through the presence of your sense powers.

The gates of existence or something. You can call them the twelve gates. When you got to the twelve gates, which is just another way of dividing up people.

Instead of five heaps, you can say twelve gates. When you got to the twelve gates, you went through the same five characteristics with them. Okay?

And then when you got on to the twelve links of dependent origination, you went through the five parts with them too. Five parts meaning, they do exist from their own side, they began, they stopped, they have their own source of suffering, they have their own suffering, which you should realize. And when you discovered the four kinds of sustenance, you also discussed them in those five characteristics.

So you applied those five characteristics to your discussion of each one of those different subjects, the five heaps, the twelve doors of sense, the twelve parts of dependent origination, and then the four kinds of sustenance. But whatever you taught in the first turn of the wheel, you said that it had those five characteristics. And the first characteristic was that it existed on its own, of its own accord, by definition.

So for all four of those different categories, you said all five are complete in each one of those four. When you got to the four Arya truths, which was his fifth subject, right, in the first turn of the wheel, you discussed it in terms of two divisions rather than five. And when you got to the four Arya truths, the one thing you definitely said about them was that they do have their own true existence.

They do exist from their own side. They do have a definitive existence. They exist by definition.

[Говорящий 2]
So in the first turn of the wheel, what you talked about in your first turn Completion of the path in an untouched state is the state of truth And if that state is uncertain, the state of uncertainty is fulfilled The subject is situated in the state of the Unknown And, therefore, we should search for the state of the Unknown And then we gather the information through sentient beings And then we are able to discover and be uncertain But, however, we are not able to find and be uncertain When we do and when we are uncertain it is as if we are blind

[Говорящий 1]
We said that each of the Four Noble Truths, Four Arya Truths, had two characteristics each. And here's how it comes out to two each. The first one is the truth of suffering.

And your relationship to that has to be that you have to realize that that's going on. So in the sutra it says the truth of suffering is something to be realized or something that you have to understand is really happening, otherwise you can't get anywhere. You have to realize that the truth of suffering is going on.

That's your relationship to the first Arya Truth. Your relationship to the second Arya Truth, which comes naturally because you're thinking to yourself, why am I suffering, is the second Arya Truth being the source of suffering. And your relationship to that source has to be, I want to get rid of it.

I want to eliminate it. Then you come up in your mind, is it possible to stop it entirely? Can I stop suffering entirely?

Yes, and that's truth number three. And your relationship to truth number three should be to bring it about, the end of suffering. And your relationship to truth number four, which comes naturally, oh, how do I bring it about, which is the path, is to practice the path, to carry out the path.

So there are four Arya Truths. You have a different relationship to each one. And each of those separate relationships is the first characteristic of each truth.

So, for example, for the Noble Truth of Suffering, the first characteristic is, you have to know what's going on. Noble Truth of the Source of Suffering, the first characteristic is, you have to understand that it's happening. I'm sorry, get rid of it.

The relationship to the third Noble Truth, and also its first characteristic, is that you want to achieve it. And your relationship to the fourth Noble Truth, which is its first characteristic, is that you want to practice it. That's the first characteristics of each one of the four Arya Truths.

What's the second characteristic, which is actually the first one stated, is that they all exist by definition. They all exist truly. So the Buddha said those two things about each one.

So each one has its own unique characteristic, and then all four have their common characteristic, which is that the Buddha said, that exist by definition, exist from its own side. Okay, eighteen dhātus, which is the eighteen categories of existence. There's four characteristics that Lord Buddha taught with regard to the eighteen categories.

But here he doesn't say eighteen categories, he just says categories. So the first time he says categories, he says kam na tsopa, which means the six categories, not the eighteen. So when he says categories the first time, or the first characteristic of the categories, is the six categories.

These are the... These are sāchu, me lung, nam she, nam she, nam kha. They were talking about the four elements, earth, water, fire, wind, consciousness, and space.

And that's one of the six, those are called the six dhātus, or the six kams, or the six categories. So that's the first characteristic of the categories, is when he discusses them in terms of six. When he discusses the categories again, he discusses them in terms of eighteen, which is the six objects of the senses, the six senses and the six consciousness of the senses.

So then you get eighteen. Then he went on to say, you have to get rid of something, don't you? And there he's referring to the eighteen categories with reference to there being the source of suffering.

Because that's... When you're talking about the eighteen parts of existence, and you're identifying certain pieces of those parts as being something you have to get rid of, you're talking about the component of the noble truth of the source of suffering which they have. Then when you get on to nyong su shepa, it means you have to realize, meaning you have to just get it, that there are parts among these eighteen categories of all existence that you have to realize what?

Realize that they are suffering. So now he's applying that to the first noble truth. So Lord Buddha, in the first turning of the wheel, teaches the categories of existence in four different ways.

He says, you can divide them into six, you can divide them into eighteen, you can look at them in terms of what you have to eliminate, which is the source of suffering, and you can look at them in terms of the source of suffering itself, which is something you have to just realize is going on. And that's how you, Lord Buddha, taught the categories of existence. He's still posing his question.

[Говорящий 2]
It's different from kam na sopa, isn't it? Is kam na sopa different?

[Говорящий 1]
Is kam du ma different? Is kam du ma different? Then he discussed the categories in terms of the source of suffering that you have to eliminate with them, and then he taught the categories in terms of the suffering which you just have to realize is going on.

And that's his presentation. That's Lord Buddha's way of presenting the categories. He wants to go over the eighteen categories with you and make sure you understand.

This is Abhidharma, first chapter. I want to explain the eighteen to you. Well, six times three is eighteen.

Six times three is eighteen. Maybe you want to know what the six are. That's it.

That's it. There are six receptors, six sensors that a human being has. So the first one is the eyes, you know, like that see things.

The ears that pick up things, audible things. The nose that smells the smellable things. The tongue that tastes tasteable things.

The body which senses tangible things. And then your mind, let's see. Oh, you guys think it's up here.

That understands things. And so these are basically the six sensors or the six receptors that a being has.

[Говорящий 2]
He's laughing.

[Говорящий 1]
So there are six different sensors, meaning understanders, he says, that things are going on. And they are sitting on six different chairs. They need a chair to sit on, don't they?

They need to sit and do their work. So six people who know what's going on have to have six seats to sit on. So you can think of six chairs on which the six sensor beings are sitting.

And those six chairs are the sense organs. And he says, for example, with the eye, there's the eyeball. But don't think that's the sense organ.

That's not the sense organ itself. The sense organ itself is the optical, is the cells at the back of the eyes that are receptors and which are sensitive to forms and colors. And I guess you're a scientist.

I figured it out by now, he says. But it's not the eyeball per se. It's the sensitive cells included at the back of the eye, which is the chair on which the seeing sensor sits.

And then the ear has a similar chair. The nose has a chair like that. The tongue has a chair like that.

The body and then the mind. That's it.

[Говорящий 2]
That's all.

[Говорящий 1]
That's it.

[Говорящий 2]
Let me, let me.

[Говорящий 1]
Then there are six objects which are to be sensed. So he talked about sensors or receptors. And now he's talking about the receptivities, the things to be received and the things to be sensed.

And that also has six divisions. So in the case of the eye, you are sensing shapes and colors. In the case of the ear, you're hearing wah, wah, wah, noises.

In the sense of the nose, you are sensing sounds. And then in the sense of the nose, you are smelling certain objects. You are tasting certain objects.

You are feeling certain objects. And then with regard to the mind, you are perceiving certain objects which are not included into the other five. So the object of the mind is not taste or colors or sounds like that.

It is what we call Dharma. And that's, in this case, Dharma means all those objects which are not covered by the other five. And that category is called Dharmadhatu.

And that's the real meaning of Dharmadhatu. Dharmadhatu is the category of things which the mind sensor is sensing when he sits on his chair of the mind sense organ. And he's looking out and he's thinking about things that cannot be described by the senses, like the concept of impermanence or the concept of something growing.

Concepts or facts or truths are objects of the mental sense. And that way you get 18. Six sensors sitting on six chairs of the sense organs focusing on six sensations that they are looking at.

That's the 18 categories. So we finished six of the seven divisions of the first turning of the wheel. The seventh of the subjects of the first turning of the wheel is called the 37 qualities of enlightenment.

Those can be divided into seven groups. And when you add them all up, they add up to 37. Master, the sodun doesn't look catchy.

Get it.

[Говорящий 2]
Master, many. Many, many.

[Говорящий 1]
Many, many. I believe he's saying among the 37 qualities of enlightenment, in the 37 qualities there are seven different groups. Sodun doesn't look catchy.

Master, master. Many, many, many. Many, many.

[Говорящий 2]
She.

[Говорящий 1]
She.

[Говорящий 2]
Many, many. Many, many.

[Говорящий 1]
37 enlightenment qualities divided into seven groups. And then each of them having their own... It divides out to 37, but he's saying they have eight characteristics.

So whether you treat them as 37 individual members or whether you treat them in regards of seven groups, they have eight characteristics. And then he went through the seven groups. Jamyang Shashi, the four recollections.

Jamyang Shashi, four recollections. The four awarenesses, really.

[Говорящий 2]
Nine.

[Говорящий 1]
That doesn't work. You know, Tsongpa Rinpoche doesn't... Jamyang Shashi.

The four... The four... The four perfect abandonments.

How's that? The four miraculous legs. They just have names like this.

The five powers. The five powers in the 37 don't return to the five powers in the 18. They're not returning to the sense powers.

They're talking about powers of a Buddha. And then the five forces of a Buddha. And that adds up to 37, hopefully.

Oh, sorry, we missed the eight components of the Arya Path. That should add up to 37. I think it's 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, and 8.

So 3 times 4 is 12. 2 times 5 is 10. That's 22.

And then the Palamyon Nagye.

[Говорящий 2]
That's 30.

[Говорящий 1]
And then Dunchil Deshan. Palamyon Nagye Ngelak Dunchil. Oh, I'm sorry, I blew one.

And the seven limbs of enlightenment. So then you get 37. Which is somewhere...

The eight parts of the Arya Path. And it's not the main subject here, he says. Whether you treat these 37 individually, or whether you treat them in groups that total seven groups.

Each of the 37 individually, or the 37 in the seven groups, has eight characteristics. But the one that covers all of them, is the same as the first one in all the others, which is, they exist from their own side. They exist by definition.

They exist in truth.

[Говорящий 2]
Laringe.

[Говорящий 1]
Laringe.

[Говорящий 2]
That's right. Yes. Yes, yes.

Yes, yes, yes.

[Говорящий 1]
The second one is called Mitumba. Mitumba means not getting along with one another. Fighting with each other.

What it refers to is the fact that, although the 37 qualities are all wonderful, each one of them has its own enemy, right? So for example, if you take love, its enemy might be hatred. So the quality of discordance applies to all 37, meaning they don't concord with their opposites.

They don't get along with their opposites. There's a hassle. There's a fight-out, punch-out going on between...

And he says it that way. He likes to say things that way. He says, there's a punch-out going on between love and anger.

So there's an idea that there's a discordance going on with all of the 37. Each one of the 37 has a quality of discordance where it's fighting against the quality which is negative. And that's the discordance.

It's the second quality of all 37. So if you... Really, you should name number two, the enemy.

Okay? Mitumba means the opposite. Literally, in Tibetan, it means the opposite.

So quality number one, again, exists in truth or by definition. Quality number two is it has its enemy. And quality number three is called counter-agent or antidote or fix.

And that refers to each of the 37 acts as its antidote or its fix for its corresponding negativity, which is number two, right?

[Говорящий 2]
Mitumba means... Nyambuche. ...

... ... ...

...

[Говорящий 1]
... Each one of the 37 also has a quality of creating what was not created before or causing what was not caused before or giving you something that you didn't have before. So it's called ma kye pa kye pa means to bring about something that wasn't brought about yet.

Meaning that each time you get one of these 37 qualities, it enables you to engender in yourself spiritual qualities that you haven't yet engendered. So the third quality shared... the fourth one, right, shared by all 37 is that it engenders that which has not yet been engendered.

[Говорящий 2]
... ... ...

... ... ...

... ...

[Говорящий 1]
Now we're on to the, what, sixth quality? Fifth quality. Fifth quality of all 37 is kye pa nye pa means once you have engendered a good spiritual quality, they empower you to maintain it.

And he says most of us, we get some beginning of a spiritual good quality and it's almost as if a mugger mugs us and takes it away from us. They always tend to degenerate, you know. But once you get into these 37 qualities of enlightenment, then each one of them has the power to help you maintain the good spiritual quality which you have previously engendered.

So that which is not engendered got engendered and that which was engendered is being maintained. ...

[Говорящий 2]
... ... ...

... ... ...

... ... ...

... ... ...

... ... ...

... ... ...

... ... ...

...

[Говорящий 1]
... The next one is called my kye pa which is an ancient term. He says it's an anachronism for the idea of uncuttable or inseparable.

And what it means is that once you have a good spiritual quality, once you've been able to maintain a good spiritual quality, then no matter which one of the 37 good qualities it is, once you get into it, This is a characteristic of all 37, that allows you to keep yourself from being separated from this good quality and going off to some bad quality. So it's like some kind of inseparability, that doesn't allow you to be cut off from it and wander off to its negative side. So it's called, it's an ancient word, we're going to get into these words in more detail later, and it comes later, the words you won't find them right here at this section.

He says this quality is that you will not be separated, you will not be cut off from this good quality that you've been able to maintain. You will constantly be connected to that good quality. Are we on to what, number 7?

It's a quality called perpetuation, meaning it's self-perpetuating and self-improving. So once you get into any one of these 37 qualities, each one of those 37 qualities has its own quality of improving itself constantly. I don't know if this tape stopped me, I'm not sure.

That's quality number 7, that once you get into any one of the 37 qualities, it is self-perpetuating, self-improving, it has a self-improving quality to it. It keeps going better and better. It's self-improving.

Number 7 had this idea of getting higher and higher, getting better and better. Number 8 is like it gets broader and broader, wider and wider. So once you have one of those 37 qualities, it tends to be self-widening, self-increasing on a horizontal sort of feeling.

And the other one is, number 7 was sort of getting higher and higher. So this is like ever fattening, ever widening, and it just keeps getting wider and wider, more vast. Those are the 8 qualities shared by the 37 components of enlightenment.

Now comes the whole point of the question. The bodhisattva who is asking the question, the Buddha says, Okay, you taught in the first turn of the wheel these 7 categories of teachings. And then you went on to this long story about how they have all these separate characteristics.

Characteristic after characteristic, division after division. You talked about it over and over again. But there's one thing that all of them had in common.

There's one thing you kept saying about all of them, and that was that they existed by definition. They existed from their own side. They had some kind of true existence.

You repeated that quality in every single one of these 7 groups. You repeated it for every single component of these 7 groups. Now, what I want to ask you, Lord Buddha, about is that one.

When you got to that, what were you talking about when you said, Oh, they exist by definition or from their own side? Lesson. Lesson.

[Говорящий 2]
Lesson.

[Говорящий 1]
Lesson. Lesson. So if you take the whole question that the bodhisattva is asking, separate out all those other details that we talked about.

Let's isolate this idea of them existing from their own side or by definition. Now, let's talk about that. Let's focus on that quality.

And all of this is stuff that you, Lord Buddha, said in the first turning of the wheel. And in the first turning of the wheel, if we isolate out the one quality that you seem to be pressing on, it was that things had some kind of natural existence or existence from their own side.

[Говорящий 2]
Lesson.

[Говорящий 1]
Lesson. Lesson. Lesson.

[Говорящий 2]
Lesson. Lesson.

[Говорящий 1]
Now we're getting to a second section. If we read out from page 5, sixth line from the bottom, there's a sentence that begins with, and he says, Buddha, then you got into the second turning of the wheel, which we sometimes call the in-between turning of the wheel. Sometimes it's given that name.

So when you got to the in-between turning of the wheel, meaning the second turning of the wheel, then, Lord Buddha, you said something totally different. Lesson.

[Говорящий 2]
Lesson. Lesson.

[Говорящий 1]
Right. Right. Lesson.

Lesson. Lesson. Lesson.

Then when you got to the middle turning of the wheel, which always means the second, right? When you got to the middle turning of the wheel, right after you'd finished the first turning of the wheel, where you mentioned these seven groups and all these things, everything from a person's physical form, which is the first of the five parts, or skandhas, all the way up to the 37 qualities of enlightenment, all from between there, you said one thing. They all do have their own true existence.

They all do have their independent existence. And then, when you got to the second turning of the wheel, you reversed yourself and you said, there is nothing in the universe that has any natural existence. There's nothing in the universe that exists from its own side.

There's nothing in the universe that has any true kind of existence. Then that's what you said during the second turning of the wheel. Lesson.

Lesson. Lesson. And the wording you used during the second turning of the wheel was that things don't start of their own accord.

That was the wording you used. Meaning, they don't exist by definition. They don't exist from their own side.

They don't exist in truth. The wording you used was, things don't start of their own accord. Then you said they don't start.

You said nothing starts. No object in the universe starts. But what you meant when you said that in the second turning of the wheel was, nothing starts of its own accord.

Nothing starts by definition. Then you said those things which stop. Forget the things which start.

Then you said nothing which stops starts from its own side either. So you used that kind of wording during the second turning of the wheel. Then you used the words, sumana shiwa means, peace from the beginning.

Peace from the beginning of all beginnings. Peace for all time. Sumana shiwa means peace for all time.

But when you said that, what you meant was, no object in the universe has any existence from its own side or of its own accord. And you used that kind of language too.

[Говорящий 2]
Samadhi.

[Говорящий 1]
Then the fifth quality that you mentioned in the second turning of the wheel, right? We finished four. The fifth quality that you mentioned in the second turning of the wheel was that, everything is gone beyond grief.

Remember this is the Tibetan word for nirvana really. But here it has a special meaning says Geshe-la. Grief here means its own true existence.

And when you say everything has gone beyond that, you're meaning that no object in the universe is such that it hasn't gone beyond its own true existence. Meaning that nothing has any true existence. Nothing exists from its own side.

So now during the second turning of the wheel, you used five different descriptions, five different qualities, which all basically refer to the same thing.

[Говорящий 2]
...

[Говорящий 1]
I want to ask you a question, and I want you to give me an answer. So you think about it. We don't need to look at the book or anything like that.

I want you to consider the following question. In the first turning of the wheel, this enlightened being says, nothing has any natural or true existence of its own. Then in the second turning of the wheel, this same enlightened being, same guy, says, nothing has any natural existence.

It's impossible for anything to have any natural existence of its own. So what do you think? Do we have a problem here or not?

We have an enlightened being who is saying two completely opposite things. What do you think is going on here?