Углублённый курс ACI 04 — Искусство толкования, часть 1 (1998, Билакуппе, Индия), занятие 4

[Говорящий 1]
My name is Tariq. I am from Syria. He is Tazevuti.

He is my elder brother, Tariq. He is 19 years old. So it is called Tariq.

Today my lecture is going to be at Selvi Valley. When I say this, my friend is going to go there. So we will be having lunch together.

Yes, we can eat together for lunch. Yes. I will be having lunch together with my friends.

I was talking in the morning, and he was talking in the afternoon. You can be a good scholar, he's talking about Christopher, I introduced you, he said you can be a good scholar even if you don't have to wear robes, so it's okay. We didn't get too far, did we?

We didn't exactly finish that last hatha we had, like you may think it's finished but it's not finished. We're on page ten, last line, and we still got a little bit left to do about that last argument we had. We're on page ten, last line, and we still got a little bit left to do about that last argument we had.

We're on page ten, last line, and we still got a little bit left to do about that last argument we had. We're on page ten, last line, and we still got a little bit left to do about that last argument we had. argument we had.

[Говорящий 2]
We're on page ten, last line, and we still got a little bit left to do about that last We're on page ten, last line, and we still got a little bit left to do about that last argument we had. We're on page ten, last line, and we still got a little bit left to do about that last argument we had. We're on page ten, last line, and we still got a little bit left to do about that last We're on page ten, last line, and we still got a little bit left to do about that last argument we had.

We're on page ten, last line, and we still got a little bit left to do about that last argument we had. argument we had. very quicklyfy So, don't forget the two distinctions that we're making .

[Говорящий 1]
And don't forget the object we're talking about, which is his Rosary, which represents all things which are nominal. Don't forget that all nominal things means unchanging objects in the universe, after you take out emptiness. So in the Mainomi school, nominal stuff refers to all the objects in the world which are unchanging after you take out emptiness itself.

And don't forget that when they are talking about an object, they say that those things cannot exist by definition as existing by definition is explained in their own school, because they don't have an existence from their own side, some true identity from their own side. But they do have some definitive existence, so they do exist by definition as explained by the Majamika school, because the Majamika school says that the measure of something existing by definition is that when you look for the thing that's given the name, independent of the name, you do find an object, which they say doesn't even exist. But don't forget that in this school they're talking about, these are great scholars of the Mainomi school, and they're saying, don't forget the object we're talking about is nominal objects, and in our school they do not exist by definition, meaning that they don't exist from their own side, they exist in imagination only.

And they do exist by definition as existing by definition is described by the Majamika, because Majamika says existing by definition means that when you look for the thing independent of your projection or independent of the name, you do find something. So don't forget that those are the distinctions being made here. And one more point, don't forget that the Mainomi school, even though intellectually they understand that this thing can't exist by definition, if you pressed them and you said, do you see it as existing by definition?

They would say, yeah, I do have an innate tendency from my past life to hold things as self-existent, which in their school means, I do have an innate tendency in my mind to see things as existing by definition, in the way that existing by definition is described in the Mainomi school. So even though we don't intellectually believe that, we would say, yeah, we are holding things that way. Anyway, even the imaginary things, the kundak things.

So we've finished one big section, and we can just leave it behind now. So we've finished, remember in the original sutra in which the Buddha explains the intent of his own sutras, which is the main text that the Mainomi school uses to explain these concepts, in there it describes three different kinds of not having their own nature, right? And so the first one was not having any nature of its own by definition, or in its own definitive definition, and that was referring to kundak, or what do you call, you say imaginary things, or imaginary stuff, like that.

And that we've finished. That whole section has been completed. Now we're going on to the second phrase in the original sutra that talked about things that have no nature of having any...

Do you remember? Beginning. They don't have any nature of having any beginning.

So we've finished the ones that said they have no nature of having any characteristics of their own, which is referring to objects which are what we call the nominal stuff, right? And now we're on to the second category. So don't forget that we have finished explaining the first kind of nature that things don't have.

And now he's going on to explain the second kind of nature that things don't have. And if you recall, Je Tsongkhapa said, you know, I have opened your eyes to the meaning of the sutra, and don't forget to use these two different explanations, one a positive side, one a negative side. One saying it has a certain quality, one saying denying a certain quality.

Don't forget to use those two when we get to the bottom two. Remember he said later on we're going to cover the other two lacks of a self nature, and when we get to those, don't forget that you have to use the same reasoning, which is a short explanation from the sutra, and then a positive explanation, and a negative explanation. So now you do that logical statement the same way we did before.

So what is the subject going to be? Let's consider all things which are dependent, right? Ngo-nyi kye-wa me.

They don't have any nature of starting from their own, you know, of their own, right? And then you're going to prove it with a positive reason and a negative reason in the same way that you did before.

[Говорящий 2]
Ngo-nyi kye-wa me.

[Говорящий 1]
Let me see if I can get this straight. When they talk about the positive reasoning and the negative reasoning for proving that starting of things, things don't have any nature of starting of their own accord, right? What that means is that there are two ways in scripture of explaining the positive and the negative reasonings, okay?

So two different ways of explaining what it means with regard to things which are dependent, which means all things which are caused, right? Most of the things around us. So from a positive point of view, when you're trying to prove that they have no nature of their own, all you have to say is, because they come from their causes and conditions.

And that's enough of a proof to say that starting or the beginning of things, the growing of things, doesn't have any nature of its own. In a negative way, you could say they don't grow from a self in the way that a self is explained by the Samkhya school of non-Buddhists, okay? There's a Samkhya school, numerous, so-called because they divide things into many categories, like so many existing categories.

They believe that there is a self which exists before something grows, which is not separate from that thing, and then it just reveals itself. In a way, the thing has always been there. So to prove that things don't have a nature of growing by themselves, you can do it in a positive way by saying, look, it doesn't have a nature of growing on its own because it comes from its causes and conditions.

And from a negative way, you can say, it doesn't have a nature of growing on its own because that idea of that non-Buddhist school that things grow from themselves, in a sense, is false. That's one way of explaining the positive and the negative proof. The other way of explaining the positive and negative proof is like, consider all things which are dependent, meaning dependent on other causes.

They don't grow of their own accord, they don't have any nature of growing by themselves because they are not something which doesn't depend on its causes. So then you're saying just the same thing in a negative way. That's another way of explaining the negative proof.

In that case, the corresponding positive proof is the same. It doesn't have a nature of growing on its own because it comes from causes and conditions. Or to state it negatively, it doesn't have a nature of growing on its own because it is not such that it doesn't grow from its causes and conditions, and that's the negative one.

So there's two ways of explaining, with regard to dependent things, why it doesn't have a nature of growing on its own. Just about the same pattern of reasoning used to prove that the second attribute of the mind-only school doesn't have any nature of its own, the second group of things doesn't have any nature of its own, the same pattern that we had with the first one that Jetsun Kapha said, remember this pattern because it's going to be repeated, and the original sutra said something kind of obscure. It said nothing has a nature of growing.

And then the Buddha said, what do I mean when I say it doesn't have a nature of growing? I mean that things which are dependent don't have a nature of growing. That was the first part of the answer.

There was a rhetorical question, and then the Buddha answered himself. What did I mean when I said things don't have a nature of growing? I was talking about things which are dependent, that category, mind-only school category of things which are dependent, they don't have a nature of growing.

Here comes the second rhetorical question. What do I mean when I say that? I mean they don't have, from a positive viewpoint, they do have a nature of growing from their causes and conditions, and from a negative viewpoint, they were never anything other than having a nature of growing from their causes and conditions.

And that's the full presentation following the same pattern that was used in the case of the first category of things, out of the three categories, right? As you may remember, we are in the expanded explanation, the detailed explanation of what has already been presented earlier in what was called a briefer explanation. So, in the line beginning from, really it's about the Sumbhadira, we're on page 11, line 4, and that's where you get Je Tsongkapa starting to give his own explanation of the sutra's explanation, what the Buddha meant when he said that things don't have a nature of growing.

[Говорящий 2]
So, in the line beginning from, really it's about the Sumbhadira, and that's where you get Je Tsongkapa starting to give his own explanation of the sutra's explanation, what the Buddha meant when he said that things don't have a nature of growing. So, in the line beginning from, really it's about the Sumbhadira, and that's where you get Je Tsongkapa starting to give his own explanation of the sutra's explanation, what the Buddha meant when he said that things don't have a nature of growing.

[Говорящий 1]
So, in the line beginning from, really it's about the Sumbhadira, and that's where you get Je Tsongkapa starting to give his own explanation of the sutra's explanation, what the Buddha meant when he said that things don't have a nature of growing. And then he explained himself and said, when I say things don't have a nature of growing, what I mean is that things which are dependent on other things to grow don't have a nature of growing. And Je Tsongkapa says, therefore, Lord Buddha is not saying that those things which are dependent on other things, meaning cause things, right, that they don't have any nature of growing at all.

That's not what he's saying. He's not saying that they don't grow or something like that, or denying that things which have causes and conditions grow or something like that. He's saying dependent things do grow, but dependent things don't grow by themselves.

And he has to add, Je Tsongkapa says, you must add those words by themselves, because by themselves those words block or they prevent people from thinking that things which are dependent don't come from their causes and conditions. So once you say to somebody, look, when I said things don't have a nature of growing, Lord Buddha meant they don't have a nature of growing on their own. And on their own implies that they don't have a nature of growing without their own causes and conditions.

And that's what the Lord Buddha means when he says things don't have a nature of growing. But don't think that Lord Buddha thinks that nothing grows or something like that.

[Говорящий 2]
When you say things don't have a nature of growing, you're saying things don't have a nature of growing, but you're saying things don't have a nature of growing. But you're saying things don't have a nature of growing, you're saying things don't have a nature of growing, but you're saying things don't have a nature of growing. But you're saying things don't have a nature of growing, but you're saying things don't have a nature of growing.

And then Pabba Thormey gets so upset. gets so angry and all that.

[Говорящий 1]
So he'll say,ublique Dhikram Kyung mi na travalha And then Jetson Kapa comes up and says, you know, I'm not just making this explanation up. I'm not just giving you some explanation about what the Buddha said that I've just made up. So, you know, when he says, when the Buddha says things don't have a nature of growing, the Buddha means they don't have a nature of growing on their own, and that means they don't have a nature of growing without their causes and conditions.

Jetsun Kapha wants to impress on people, this is not just my idea, this is not just my interpretation of what the Buddha is saying, I've got scriptural authority to show you for that. And we can quote again Master Sangha, who's the big founder of the Mind-Only School. Remember we're trying to prove that it's true for the Mind-Only School.

So he says, I can quote Master Sangha, because it's the following line of reasoning. When the Buddha said that things don't have a nature of growing, what he meant was things don't have a nature of growing on their own, and what growing on your own means is growing without causes and conditions, or growing independently. And Jetsun Kapha says, I can show you that Sangha has said the same thing, that what the Buddha meant when he said things don't have a nature of growing is that they don't have a nature of growing on their own, without their causes and conditions.

And then he's going to go ahead and give you the meaning of Sangha's quotation now. This is a quotation from the same work by Master Sangha, to back up, that that's what he, that's how he understands what the Buddha meant when the Buddha said things don't have a nature of growing on their own. And remember that there were two ways to describe in a negative sense why things, why things that depend don't have a nature of growing on their own.

One of them was kind of easy, like things don't have a nature of growing on their own because there's nothing which doesn't grow from its causes and conditions. That was one negative way of saying it. Then the other negative way of saying it was that things don't have, these things, these dependent things don't have a nature of growing on their own because they don't have a nature of growing from a cause which is one with them, which is the belief of a certain non-Buddhist school, the Samkhya.

So he says, if you think about it, Master Sangha is not so much stressing that second interpretation of the negative reasoning, he's more going after the first interpretation, which means things don't grow on their own, means things don't grow independently, means things don't grow without their causes and conditions. But he's not so much going after the reasoning that things don't grow on their own because things don't grow by themselves, meaning that things don't grow from a cause which is one with them and which existed earlier than them, because that's a certain idea. That's how a certain Hindu school thinks that things appear in the world, it's like they existed already, and then somehow they are revealed or something like that.

He doesn't go so much after that one as after the first one. So you might wonder where this explanation came of the two negative reasonings, like the one that Master Sangha seems to be stressing is that things don't have a nature of growing because things don't have a nature of growing on their own, because things don't have a nature of growing in any way except from causes and conditions, right? That's one way to state the negative one.

And the other one is like, well, the Sanghas used to say that things grew from themselves in a sense, and they were there before they started, and then they were just revealed or something like that. And he says, you don't see that so much in this text, but in our sermonic textbooks, that's what they stress. They stress this idea, which Je Tsongkapa discusses in other great books, that what it means not to grow by yourself is actually, Je Tsongkapa and the Buddha are trying to refute this idea that was common in India, that the thing is actually growing from itself in a sense, that it existed before, and then its growth is some kind of revelation of its existence that was actually there before.

So in our sermonic textbooks, they are stressing that second point more than you might be aware of if you just read this text by Je Tsongkapa. Then, what do I know, says Geshe-la, you know, I mean, I'm not just a dumb old guy, but the great masters of history have explained this in two different ways, and you should know that, because if you just read this text by itself, you wouldn't be aware that some great masters have explained it the other way as well. So there's definitely a great benefit to explaining it both ways, and who am I, I don't know anything about either way, but it's good if you understand that there are two ways of explaining this point.

There are two very beneficial realizations you can have from the two presentations, because the second presentation, which says things are not such that they don't grow from their causes and conditions, you know, makes you aware that a thing cannot grow. It's denying, it's giving you like a mental picture of something growing without any causes or conditions at all, and then it's denying that thing. But the benefit of the other one is that it's stressing that things don't grow from things which seem to be causes but which are not causes.

So that one's not talking about, you don't get a mental picture of something without any causes at all, you get a mental picture of something which has a supposed cause, but that thing has been misidentified as a cause, it's not really a cause for that thing. So in the first case you're getting sort of this mental picture of denying that things could grow without causes, and in the second case you're getting this sort of nice mental picture of denying that things could grow from things which people think are causes but which are not causes for them, and those both have their own separate benefits to think about both of them.

[Говорящий 2]
When the Buddha said things don't have a nature of their own, he didn't mean by that, he meant that things don't have a nature of their own. He didn't mean that things don't have a nature of their own. He meant that things don't have a nature of their own.

He didn't mean that things don't have a nature of their own.

[Говорящий 1]
When the Buddha said things don't have a nature of growing, he's talking about things which are dependent, the category or the group that the Mind-Only School talks about, which are really all cause things, things which are dependent. And if you think about it, there are two ways of explaining why things which are dependent don't have a nature of growing, and you can explain it either according to the Mind-Only system, or you can also explain it according to the Consequence system, or the Prasangika system among the Middle Way schools, the higher of the two Middle Way schools. So really when you get to this point, when you're trying to explain what the Buddha meant when he said things don't have a nature of growing, you can either explain it according to the Mind-Only school, or you can explain it according to the Consequence school group among the Middle Way school, which is the highest explanation of it.

Even if you just restrict yourself to this sutra, which as you remember is called the in which the Buddha explains what he really meant when he taught the sutras. And if you just restrict yourself to that, there is an explanation that's going along the Mind-Only school way, and there's a separate explanation that's going along the Consequence groups of the Middle Way school's explanation. And I can repeat for you the first one's idea, the Mind-Only school's idea is that what it means when you say that things don't have a nature of growing is that you are saying that things don't have a nature of growing without any causes and conditions.

But when you get to the Madhyamika, Prasangika explanation of what the Buddha meant when he said things don't have a nature of growing, he meant things don't have a nature of growing in such a way that they exist, that exist by definition in the way that the Madhyamika school explains what existing by definition means, which you guys surely remember. We've got to lock that Madhyamika door again. You can't go over there.

Stick to the Mind-Only school. So we're back in the Mind-Only school. The Buddha has said that things don't have a nature of growing, and then you know now that he's talking about dependent things or cause things, and the Buddha is denying that they have any kind of a nature of growing.

And how would you guys choose to describe what the Buddha meant according to the Mind-Only school when he said things don't have a nature of growing? What did he mean? What did he have in mind?

What was he trying to do? What was he trying to say? Can't go that way.

Madhyamika room is shut. Door is shut. Got to go to Mind-Only school.

You're in the Mind-Only suit now. So what did he say when he said that things don't have a nature of growing?

[Говорящий 2]
Do you have any ideas on what kind of sentence?

[Говорящий 1]
That's the right way to go, yeah. That's how you have to go. If you're going to sit in a Mind-Only suit and then try to go into the Madhyamika door, it wouldn't be appropriate, and you've gone the right way.

So since you've got a Mind-Only suit on, you've gone into the Mind-Only way of explaining it, and you did it right. Thank you. So now I'm quite convinced that all of you are other things.

I've got a single mind stream, because only one of you chose to speak, so I assume there's only one mind running all these bodies in here, and I'm sure if you had all had your own mind streams, you probably would have all answered me at the same time. When you get into the army, you know, there's everybody lined up in regimental columns, and then the marching master says, Okay, everybody, raise your hand, and all the hands come up at the same time. So I guess it's almost like one mind running all these bodies.

So I suppose we just have one mental stream here that's running all these bodies, just like in the army, you know. Just kidding.

[Говорящий 2]
That's it.

[Говорящий 1]
So we'll take that second discussion, which is of the cause things, dependent things, and we'll leave it aside for now, and we'll go on to the next one. That sounds like a Mayinga to me.

[Говорящий 2]
That's a good one.

[Говорящий 1]
So we finished, among the three groups that are posited by the mind-only school, we have finished what the Buddha meant when he said, things don't have any characteristics, right? They don't have any nature of having any characteristics, which referred to... What was it?

Yongjup Singh, right? What was it? Kuntak Singh, sorry.

The nominal stuff. And then we finished the second group where we talked about that things that grow don't have any nature of their own, things don't have any nature of growing on their own, which is finishing off the second group, which is called Shen Wong, dependent on others. And let's close those two doors.

We've locked this up, we've locked this up. Now we're on to the third group, which is the last group. We've got to go into the mind-only school's interpretation of what it means in the third group when the Buddha said, things don't have any nature of being ultimate.

And he says, again, we have two options on how to explain what the Buddha meant when he said, things don't have a nature of being ultimate. I'm only talking about two different ways of explaining the lack of a nature of being ultimate. And don't take these two explanations and go carry them to the first two.

This is just with reference to the third group. Okay. The way in which there are two ways of explaining what the Buddha meant when he said that things don't have a nature of being ultimate, the first one is the way in which things which depend on others are not ultimate.

And the second is explaining how things which are what we call total existence or emptiness are not ultimate. So actually, we're describing the lack of ultimacy with the second group and the lack of ultimacy with the third group is the meaning of lack of ultimate when you're talking about the third group.

[Говорящий 2]
So when we say that there's no nature of being ultimate, we're not talking about the nature of being ultimate, we're talking about the nature of being ultimate. And the nature of being ultimate, we're not talking about the nature of being ultimate, we're talking about the nature of being ultimate. And the nature of being ultimate, we're not talking about the nature of being ultimate, we're talking about the nature of being ultimate.

[Говорящий 1]
So when we say that there's no nature of being ultimate with regard to things which are dependent, meaning caused things, and then there's no nature of being ultimate with regard to things which are total existence, meaning emptiness, right? So we are dividing into two kinds of ultimate, aren't we? And when you say they don't have this nature of being ultimate in that way, these things don't have the nature of being ultimate in that way, caused things, and these things, meaning emptiness, doesn't have a nature of being ultimate in that way, what we're really positing is two kinds of ultimate-ness, which don't even exist.

We're page 11, third line from the bottom, for those of you who are following the Tibetan. Yes, sir. Then the text itself here, three lines from the bottom of page 11, says, in the third kind of a lack of nature, which as you know now, refers to the lack of nature of being ultimate, there are two ways of positing this lack of nature.

And we're going to talk first about, now the next line says, let's discuss how to determine what it means to have a lack of nature for things which are dependent. So now he's already off into the first meaning of the two ways in which things are not ultimate.

[Говорящий 2]
Yes, sir.

[Говорящий 1]
So, the first of the two ways of explaining how things don't have a nature of being ultimate is going to be covered, which is, by the way, the way in which changing things, or things which depend on the causes, don't have a nature of being ultimate, is going to be expressed by a quotation from the sutra in which Buddha explained the meaning of his other sutras, right? And that begins at the last line on page 11, and continues up to the seventh line on page 12. That will be the actual sutra presentation of what Lord Buddha meant when he said things don't have an ultimate nature, changing things don't have an ultimate nature, don't have a nature of being ultimate.

And then, as you can assume, Je Tsongkhapa will go ahead and tear apart the sutra quotation for you and explain it further.

[Говорящий 2]
Je Tsongkhapa will go ahead and tear apart the sutra quotation for you and explain it further.

[Говорящий 1]
This is getting tough, okay? Remember I talked about two kinds of ultimate that didn't exist? So, this kind of ultimate that didn't exist was referring to things which change or depend on things, and this kind of ultimate that didn't exist was referring to emptiness itself.

And in each case, the explanation of what ultimate means is a little tricky and a little bit different. This one refers to what we call ultimate truth. When you describe ultimate truth as that object which is perceived by the direct perception of someone who is perceiving emptiness directly, right?

When we describe ultimate truth as that object which is perceived by a person who is perceiving emptiness directly, the reason we call that object ultimate truth or ultimate reality is that it's being perceived by the ultimate state of mind. So, the word ultimate, as applied to ultimate reality, actually refers to the state of mind which perceives emptiness directly as being the ultimate state of mind. So, when you describe its object as ultimate reality, the adjective ultimate actually refers to the state of mind which is perceiving it and not to the object.

And this ultimate reality in the mind-only school is being denied of things which have causes. Ultimate reality in that sense is being denied of things which have causes, and I hope he gets into more, I'm sure he will. The other kind of ultimate refers to the ultimate gaksha, and you guys know what gaksha means.

So, the ultimate thing which we deny exists, and once we deny it we reach emptiness. So, the second kind of ultimate refers to the ultimate object that we deny has any existence in order to come to emptiness, and that is a kind of ultimate which is denied by the mind-only school with regard to emptiness itself. So, you have this ultimate, the second ultimate, which is the ultimate object to be denied being refuted with regard to emptiness, or what we call total existence, and then the other kind of ultimate which means the ultimate reality and the ultimate there coming from the state of mind which perceives emptiness directly being denied of things which have causes, or things which are dependent.

Now, how that's going to happen I have to see.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay. So, the first meaning, if you take it this way over here, right,

[Говорящий 1]
when he said that changing things or things that depend on their causes and results don't have any ultimate nature, right, don't have any nature of being ultimate, what it means is that that ultimate nature which is perceived, what Geshe-la calls the path of total purity, path of total purity, which is, means the direct perception of emptiness totally, right? So, the path of total purity in which one sees emptiness directly, that object which one sees, which is ultimate reality, right, is not a thing that depends on its causes and results.

So, in that sense, it's, right, it's an uncaused thing, right? So, that being ultimate reality is uncaused, so you can't describe things which are dependent or which come from their causes as being things which are ultimate reality, because ultimate reality is an unchanging thing or things like that. So, ultimate in that sense is being refused or refuted of things which have their own causes, not meaning that they don't have ultimate reality, but meaning that they are not ultimate reality.

And in that case, that's what the Buddha meant in the first half of this presentation when he said things that depend on their causes and conditions don't have a nature of being ultimate, meaning they are not ultimate reality. So, you could summarize this refutation of their having a nature of being ultimate very simply by saying things which are dependent, things which are dependent on their causes and conditions are not that ultimate reality which is the object of what we call the path of total purity which is a synonym for direct perception of emptiness, okay? So, that's how you could describe that one.

Things which are dependent in the sense of coming from their causes and conditions are not the object upon which the direct perception of emptiness, which is here called the path of total purity, are not the object which it perceives. So, in that sense, we're denying a nature of being ultimate of things which change.

[Говорящий 2]
But there are problems in this chapter. It's a little mistake. Oh, okay.

[Говорящий 1]
Now, this very last thing that we said about it not being the object of, you know, put a big star next to that in your notes because we're going to come back to this in a real big argument, okay? There's going to be a real heavy argument. You better put a mark there because we're coming back to that point because there's a big argument about it.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
Now, having just said what we just said, it's going to incite a big fight, which is not the fight he was talking about before. Okay, now another fight. Somebody's immediately going to jump up and say, well, if that's what it means not to have a nature which is ultimate, then why are you restricting it to dependent things?

Isn't it true of those nominal things? They don't have a nature of being ultimate, right? The other group, they're not ultimate reality.

You could say of them also that they don't have a nature of being ultimate because they are not the object which the path of total purity, which is direct perception of emptiness, perceives. So why are you just saying it about things that have causes and you're not saying it about that other category of things that were just nominal? So what do you guys think?

Is it justice if we say, would it be fair to say, well, since things which are dependent or things which have their own causes don't have a nature of being ultimate, insofar as they are not the object which the ultimate state of mind perceives, the direct perception of emptiness, do you think it would be justice or fair to say, well, then we've got to go ahead and say about that other group of things which are nominal, right? Which are just constructs of our imagination, right?

Constructs of our mind. To be fair, we'd have to go over to them and say, well, they don't have a nature of being ultimate either. What do you guys think?

Would it be fair or not? If you think about it, it's the same thing, isn't it? But if you view it from the single aspect, without any other qualifications, right?

From this single aspect of it not being that object which the ultimate state of mind is perceiving, and nothing else said, no other qualifications, from that single point of view, they are absolutely the same. It is total justice and fair to go to that other group and say, well, then you've got to say it doesn't have a nature of being ultimate, because to be fair, it's also not the object of the ultimate state of mind, meaning the direct perception of emptiness. Yes, that's right.

And Je Tsongkapa himself is forced into the same position of saying to that guy who just made this objection, he says, you know, just from that one point of view, I have to admit that if there was any justice in the world, that we'd have to say that that other group also lacks any nature of being ultimate. Yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right. So let's add a little bit of a qualification here.

Five lines from the bottom page twelve. He's on the twelfth page, five lines from the bottom, and the Tibetan says, yeah, if you only are making this distinction on the basis of it not being the object of the path of total purity, meaning the direct perception of emptiness, I admit you'd have to say that it applies to those constructs as well. No sir, no sir, but the reason we said this, that we described things which have causes as not having a nature of being ultimate, and the reason we didn't describe the constructs as not having a nature of being ultimate, the reason we did that was because of certain wrong ideas in the student's mind.

We have to address the tendency of students to have a wrong idea about changing things that most students wouldn't have about a mental construct. And that's why the Buddhists only studied about things which are changing, about things which are dependent. Only about those things did he say they don't have a nature of being ultimate, because that's the one where most students have a problem.

The point here is that normal students, normal people, tend to get a misconception about whether or not things that come from their causes, dependent things, have a nature of being ultimate, but they don't tend to get the same misconception about mental constructs. So since the normal tendency of people is to have a misconception about one, and not to have a misconception about the other, we are talking more about the fact that things that are dependent on their causes and conditions don't have a nature of being ultimate. That's why we focus on that one, and we don't focus on the other one, because people tend to have a misconception about the former, and not about the latter.

That's right. Since you guys have had some teachings in the Madhyamaka presentation and not so much in the Mind Only presentation, let's crack that door open a little bit and let you peep in on the other side, okay? So the distinction here, why people have a problem with ultimate nature with regard to things which are caused, is the following.

When you are perceiving the emptiness of, for example, a chair or, let's talk about a water pitcher, and when you are perceiving it directly, the emptiness of that, it's not as if you're having any other thoughts about it. You're not analyzing it, you're not thinking about it, that's not the way it is. But before that happens, for a long time, somebody has to take you, give you a water pitcher saying, okay, now check this out, look at how this is, think about it, this is why it's empty, this is why it's empty, this is what its nature is, and then after a lot of discussion and teaching and instruction and thinking about it, then you get a very, very clear idea, a very accurate idea of what it means for this thing not to have its own nature. So that's how you do it, especially in the Madhyamaka school, it's all based on thinking about the object first, the thing that has emptiness, and then discussing the emptiness which the thing has. That's what he meant when he put his glasses on the palm of his hand, he said, then you get into discussing the emptiness which the thing has, and from that point of view, you go about establishing the emptiness of a vase, or a pitcher.

[Говорящий 2]
Yes sir, yes sir.

[Говорящий 1]
The reason that students might get into having a confusion or a suspicion or a misconception that things which come from their causes and conditions might have a nature which is ultimate, rather than the things which are constructs, right? The reason you're more likely to get into hot water with the first one is from being aware or understanding that the process of perceiving a thing's emptiness first depends on examining the thing which is empty, and then secondly examining the emptiness of the thing, then it might pop up in a student's mind that, when I'm perceiving emptiness directly, well, first I focus on the vase, and then I focus on its emptiness, so then they start, the vase and the emptiness start to merge a little bit, and then they might get this doubt or they might get this misconception that somehow the vase itself is ultimate reality. Because they've heard that when you're trying to establish intellectually the emptiness of a vase, first you have to examine the vase, think about it, examine it, and then establish its emptiness.

So they might think, students might think that, during the direct perception of emptiness, that you go through a similar process, focusing on the vase and then focusing on the emptiness, and the vase somehow being the pivot around which you see emptiness, and then you might start having this misconception that somehow the vase is ultimate reality somehow. So that's why Buddha took special care to deny that things which have causes and conditions have a nature of being ultimate. We went and put that crack in the door to the Mind-Omega, we brought it out, that example.

We're going to employ that example here in our explanation of Mind-Only. Please be careful to shut that door, okay? Go back, shut that door, don't let it leak out anymore, okay?

And now take that example and apply it to the Mind-Only school, which is very, very similar. So the Mind-Only school is saying, look, if we talk about things which are dependent, meaning things which grow from other things, and they also understand that during the intellectual stages of trying to intellectually understand emptiness, you first focus on the vase, and then you focus on its various aspects of being empty, but the vase being the pivotal object which you are examining when you talk about emptiness, they might hear, especially in the Mind-Only school, people might start to focus on the vase as being something caused, being the center of your focus during the direct perception of emptiness, which would imply automatically that the vase itself was some kind of ultimate reality, because everybody knows you only see ultimate reality during your direct perception of emptiness. So they start mistaking the basis of ultimate reality for the ultimate reality, and because of the tendency of people to have that misperception, Lord Buddha takes special care to deny a nature of being ultimate about things which have causes and conditions, and doesn't apply it to things which are concepts, even though it does apply to things which are concepts.

[Говорящий 2]
So, what is the meaning of emptiness? The meaning of emptiness is that you don't see the object of emptiness, you don't see the object of emptiness, you don't see the object of emptiness, you don't see the object of emptiness, you don't see the object of emptiness, you don't see the object of emptiness, you don't see the object of emptiness, you don't see the object of emptiness, you don't see the object of emptiness, you don't see the object of emptiness, you don't see the object of emptiness, you don't see the object of emptiness, you don't see the object of emptiness, you don't see the object of emptiness, you don't see the object of emptiness, etc.

[Говорящий 1]
Now, it seems to me that a question should pop up in your mind, and that's, you know, isn't the same thing true when I'm trying to establish the emptiness of my constructs? I mean, when I'm trying to establish the emptiness of my constructs, don't I have to examine those constructs first, focus on those constructs, think about those constructs, look at those constructs in all different ways, and then slowly come to an understanding of their emptiness? You know, you should be asking me, Geshe Thodor Rinpoche, you know, well, it's about the same process, isn't it?

You have to look at the constructs, you have to focus on them, then you establish their emptiness, and wouldn't it occur to you just as easily the misconception that constructs are the central focus of the direct perception of emptiness and therefore have some nature of being ultimate?

[Говорящий 2]
They change. Which change?

[Говорящий 1]
Ah, you're going to get in trouble now. Oh, is it true what Rinpoche said? He says you're almost anticipating something that comes later in the text, but we'll leave it for now.

But it's a pretty good idea, and it's actually going to come in the text later, something very similar. If you just look at it on the face of things, there's just about no distinction between the two. Even with constructs, the process is exactly the same.

You have to focus on the concept, you have to think about it intellectually, you have to establish its emptiness, and then you'd probably get in just as easily into the same misconception that during the direct perception of emptiness, you're somehow perceiving the construct itself, and somehow that's becoming ultimate reality. So if you just look at it on the face of things, there's not much difference, and probably we should say that they don't have a nature of being ultimate. But...

[Говорящий 2]
In the text, it says, if you just look at it on the face of things, there's just about no distinction between the two. If you just look at it on the face of things, there's not much difference, and probably we should say that they don't have a nature of being ultimate. If you just look at it on the face of things, there's just about no distinction between the two.

If you just look at it on the face of things, there's just about no distinction between the two. If you just look at it on the face of things, there's just about no distinction between the two.

[Говорящий 1]
If you think about it, which ones of the three groups exist according to the mind-only school? Let's shut that Madhyamika door. If you stick to the mind-only school, if you think about it, of the three groups, two of them, according to the mind-only school, exist really or in truth, you know?

And then the third one, which is those mental constructs, according to the mind-only school, they don't describe them as existing in truth. So although it's true that you could examine mental constructs and come to an understanding of their emptiness, because in the mind-only school they are not considered to exist with the same reality that the other two are said to exist, especially the one being the ultimate object of the ultimate state of mind, which is the emptiness itself, has some kind of true existence. And things which work and things which function, things which you can touch, obviously have some true existence.

But in this school, mental constructs don't have that kind of true existence. So our student would be less likely to have the misconception that those things could have some kind of ultimate nature or nature of being ultimate. And that's why the tendency with caused things or dependent beings is much stronger to think that they could have some ultimate nature, because they are said to be truly existing, than it would be with mental constructs which are, in this school, said to not have any true existence and not to exist in reality.

So, again to repeat, of course, mental constructs and things which come from causes can both be the basis of the ultimate nature for an emptiness that we perceive when we perceive emptiness directly. And you could have the same misconception with both of them. But because one of them has what we call a true existence in this school, said to exist truly, and the other one doesn't have such a true existence in this school, then the Buddha, Lord Buddha said, took more care to isolate things which come from their causes or which are dependent, and said, look, they don't have a nature of being ultimate.

Don't mistake them for the emptiness which they have. When you're talking about seeing emptiness directly, just because when you understand emptiness intellectually, you first have to take them as the basis. Please refer back to where I told you, you'd better make a mark.

And the logical statement there was, shenwang chechen means, let's talk about things which come from their causes, which are dependent on their causes and conditions. They don't have any nature of being ultimate, because they are not the object which the ultimate state of mind directly perceives. And he says, now I want you to go back there, and put a little comma at the end of the reason, and say, and people are more likely to have a misconception about these.

You see what I mean? And then your reason is airtight. But if you don't have that, you're going to have a problem, because constructs, the same thing can be said about constructs, but Lord Buddha didn't say about constructs, that they don't have a nature of being ultimate.

Now you've got an airtight one. If you put a comma, and people are more likely to have a misconception about them, then you're covered. Don't think this is something that I, Geshe Chedrenchen, is just making up, and I think it's a cute explanation, or something like that.

It's right here in Jetsun Kapa's writings, but you've got to be sensitive to catch that's what he's saying. And if you're sensitive to it, and you read it carefully, you'll catch that that's the point of what he's saying. So I'm just taking out the real meaning of what Jetsun Kapa is actually saying, and you can find it in here if you look carefully.

Don't think it's something I'm making up. What I said is coming directly out of this wording that starts on page 12, the fourth line from the bottom, and he says, I can go through and explain it to you. It's with reference to trying to refute the misconceptions that people have, and the fact that even though, it's to state that Shen Wang itself, that things which come from their causes and conditions themselves, are not the object of the path of purity, meaning the direct perception of emptiness.

And why don't we deny that with regard to constructs? Why do we deny it with regard to cause things, and we don't deny it with regard to constructs? We don't.

Why is that so? The second line from the bottom on page 12. Well, the point is that people understand that the perceived emptiness of things which come from their causes, first you have to focus on those things, and then come to an understanding intellectually of their emptiness, and then come to perceive their emptiness directly, and then people might have the understanding that you must examine the object before you see its emptiness.

People might think that during the direct perception of emptiness, you perceive not only the emptiness but that object too, which would make it ultimate reality also, make it have its emptiness. And this kind of misconception is much more common, people are much more likely to get that. Now we're on to the fourth line, page 13.

But with regard to things which are constructs, people are not likely to have that particular misconception. And that's Je Tsongkapa's presentation of that whole thing that I just described to you. Nothing else.

And then, to further clarify what he's talking about, about the ease with which a certain misconception might arise in certain people's minds and not in other people's minds, then Je Tsongkapa goes ahead and gives you an illustration to show his point.

[Говорящий 2]
Mm-hm. Mm-hm. Mm-hm.

[Говорящий 1]
Now, Je Tsongkapa gives an illustration to prove what he was saying. And don't forget what we're trying to prove is that, be very careful here, when you perceive emptiness directly, you are perceiving the emptiness of a certain object. But that, even though you have focused on that object and are now perceiving its emptiness, it's not the point that you are perceiving that object while you perceive its emptiness, okay?

It's what you're focusing on in order to see emptiness, but it is not the emptiness which you are perceiving, okay? So, there's a similar distinction in understanding that sounds have a subtle impermanence, that sound itself has some kind of subtle impermanence. It's very famous in Buddhist logic texts, okay?

So, he says, consider the state of mind which believes that sound does not have a subtle impermanence, okay? Is that state of mind permanently pushed aside, forced out of your head, when you perceive sound itself? No, okay?

So, when you perceive sound itself, that perception itself, that state of mind of perceiving sound doesn't force out of your mind the idea that sound could be unchanging or not have subtle impermanence. It's only the perception that sound does change subtly from millisecond to millisecond, which can shove out of your mind, force out of your mind the idea that sound doesn't have a subtle impermanence. But it's not that the perception of sound itself could force the idea out of your mind that sound does not have a subtle impermanence, and it's exactly the same case.

Think about it carefully. We're talking about exactly the same case. The fact that you focus on that object to perceive its emptiness doesn't mean that you're perceiving that object when you perceive its emptiness, okay?

[Говорящий 2]
Yes. Yes. Yes.

[Говорящий 1]
Don't forget where we are. We're denying this kind of ultimate nature of things which are dependent or coming from their causes, right? And now you know that when we say things which are dependent on their causes don't have an ultimate nature, what we mean is, when we say they don't have a nature of being ultimate, what we mean is, they are not the thing which the direct perception of emptiness is focusing on.

That's the only meaning when we say, in this case, that they don't have a nature of being ultimate. Now, later on, there'll be a different meaning of what it is to not have a nature which is ultimate. And in that time, we'll be saying about these same objects that they do have a nature of being ultimate, and that's coming later, says Je Tsongkhapa.

Don't confuse these two issues. This one is discussing whether or not it's ultimate in the sense of being the object of the ultimate state of mind, meaning ultimate reality. And later on, when we say it does have some kind of nature of being ultimate, that'll be a different kind of nature of being ultimate, and I'll talk about that one later.

So don't confuse the two issues. Remember when we started this whole discussion, I said we're going to go two ways with this discussion about whether something has a nature of being ultimate or not. And first, we were going to deny it with regard to things which are changing or which come from the causes and conditions.

That case is closed. Now let's go on to the second one. Now we've got to go to the other way, which is denying some kind of nature of being ultimate with regard to what's called total existence, which is a code word in Mind-Only School for emptiness itself.

[Говорящий 2]
Yes.

[Говорящий 1]
Page 13, line 9. For those of you, I think... Let's see, count again.

Looks like number 9.

[Говорящий 2]
Mm-hmm. That's it.

[Говорящий 1]
So now we go to the second way in which something doesn't have a nature of being ultimate, and this'll be denying a nature of being ultimate with regard to what we call total existence, as you remember, the code word for emptiness itself. And that is being treated in the sutra where Lord Buddha explains what he meant in the sutras with wording that begins on the ninth line on page 13 and continues to the final line on page 13. So that's going to be the Lord Buddha's own explanation of the second way to go when you're talking about things not having a nature of being ultimate.

And here we're talking about total existence being a code word for emptiness, how they don't have a nature of being ultimate, which is a different nature of being ultimate, right? The pattern here will be the same. First, Je Tsongkhapa will give you the sutra quotation, and then later he'll give you his take on the sutra quotation and explain it for you.

So again, we're going to have that same pattern of Je Tsongkhapa giving you the sutra quotation and then going on to his expanded explanation of the sutra quotation.

[Говорящий 2]
Yes, that's right.

[Говорящий 1]
Yes, that's right. Now, when we get to the second kind of lack of ultimate, lack of nature of being ultimate, just set aside now all that one we just talked about with things which are dependent, things which come from their causes. Now let's focus on the second kind of ultimate that doesn't exist.

And as I said before, this refers to the Gaktya, or the thing which emptiness is empty of, OK? The non-existent thing which never was there, whose lack is called emptiness. And we're talking about that one.

The ultimate thing which we deny when we talk about emptiness is a self-nature of objects, right? As opposed to self-nature of self, right? This is the ultimate one, the self-nature.

We are denying the lack of... We are denying the self-nature of objects, of things, OK? As opposed to the person.

In this case it means the parts of a person. We're denying that they have any ultimate existence. And it's not just the case that we're saying that total existence...

Don't forget when I say that I'm talking about emptiness. We're not just saying that total existence is a lack of that non-existent thing, but rather... That's what he meant when he was doing this.

It's the total opposite of that thing. It's not just the lack of that kind of self-existence. It is the very object which is defined directly by the absence of that other object.

So you pancake over that other thing and you reach emptiness. So it's not just that this is something which lacks that kind of ultimate existence. It is the opposite of that.

It is the very absence of that ultimate existence. See the difference? It is not something which doesn't possess that kind of ultimate existence.

It is defined as the absence of that kind of ultimate existence. So if you just take that kind of ultimate existence and say it doesn't exist, you flop that pancake over, then you get to what emptiness is. So it's not just that emptiness doesn't have an ultimate existence.

It is the very absence of that ultimate existence in the second explanation of ultimate existence as being the thing that we deny when we talk of emptiness. The ultimate thing, which is a lack of a self-nature to the parts of a person really, or to objects you can say.

[Говорящий 2]
I'm going to ask you a question.

[Говорящий 1]
Okay, are you ready? Is it okay to describe emptiness? Okay, total existence, right?

Is it okay to describe emptiness as simply being something which is other than the self-existent thing? What would be the problem if we described emptiness simply as something that wasn't the thing which emptiness denies? What would be the problem there?

If you say there's another possibility that it arises there, if you describe it that way, what would you like to tell me what that possibility would be? Okay. I got to admit you're right, Winston.

What you said is true. Because if you describe emptiness as merely something that's not a self-existent object, you could be getting into things which don't exist at all. And then you get the opening account of worms.

But, he says, if we restrict ourselves to things which actually do exist, do you still have the same problem that you shouldn't describe emptiness as simply being something other than the thing which we deny? If I give something and say, oh, that covers everything, and in your mind there comes an exception, and you say, my God, it doesn't cover everything, well, you better be ready to give me this exception. So give me that exception.

Let's go, man. Something which exists which wouldn't be covered properly if we described it as simply being other than a self-existent thing rather than the total absence or the simple absence of that self-existent thing. Oh, that's pretty good.

That's not right. You tried to go somewhere, but you just kind of squeaked a little. You tried to make a move, but you just twitched.

How's that? You're still sitting in that chair screaming around. You didn't get up off that chair.

What's wrong with describing emptiness as simply as being something other than a self-existent thing? Why do you have to say emptiness is that very thing which comes out when you deny the self-existent thing?

[Говорящий 2]
Let's do this one.

[Говорящий 1]
Dong yi dang dong shi nge kak ja ma yinpa re. Dong shi de yogachi de.

[Говорящий 2]
Dong yi ko la. Sambhogakata nga ba de. Kak ja ko la ma yinpa.

Hai ko ko kak ja ko ma yinpa. De ko la de dang dang ma yinpa. Hai ko ko kak ja ko ma yinpa.

De dang dang ma yinpa.

[Говорящий 1]
We need something that is other than which exists, which is other than the object which emptiness denies, and something about it which we can't say that it exists, ultimately. Yeah, in the mind also. So, can you say about constructs that they have a nature of being ultimate, or do you have to say about constructs that they don't have a nature of being ultimate?

They don't have a nature in themselves of being ultimate? You can say or you can't say? You're getting close, you're getting hot.

You guys are like somebody's screwing a screw into the wood and suddenly hit a hard place and you're stuck there. But you're getting closer.

[Говорящий 2]
So, how does that mean, the object seems to stop? You say emptiness doesn't exist, and the object itself remembers to the object that it is. You have to absorb it.

Is that what you said?

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, no, that's a little bit different. That's a tough one. You put the screw pretty far into the wall, you want to try and screw it in the rest of the way?

[Говорящий 2]
Yes, yes, yes.

[Говорящий 1]
So, among the... How many of the three groups of the mind-only school can be characterized as not having a nature of being ultimate? Have been characterized?

[Говорящий 2]
Just the gunda. There's nothing. Is that being the ultimate?

[Говорящий 1]
No, it's not having a nature of being ultimate. What were those two things we were talking about? And what was the one that didn't make it into the group?

Which group was it that didn't make it in? Constructs. Constructs.

So, now I ask you a question. Are mental constructs that very subtle form of self-existence called the self-existence of objects, are they that? Are they the thing that emptiness denies?

Are they the ultimate thing that emptiness denies? Are they the ultimate form of the Gaccha? Are mental constructs the ultimate form of the Gaccha?

[Говорящий 2]
In mind-only school.

[Говорящий 1]
In mind-only school? You got real close to Chon. So, he says, if you describe the meaning of not to have a nature which is ultimate as simply being something which is not the thing which emptiness denies, then people might start thinking that constructs were the thing that...

were that. And then the third group would be getting into this group of not having a nature of being ultimate. So, that's the problem that comes up if you describe that kind of lack of ultimate existence, nature of being ultimate, as simply something which is not that thing which is the ultimate thing which we deny.

If you just describe a lack of nature of being ultimate, if you describe it simply as oh, that thing which is not the thing which emptiness denies, then people might mistake mental constructs for that, because everybody knows mental constructs are not that ultimate thing which emptiness denies. So, that's why we can't describe that emptiness simply as anything which is not the ultimate thing which emptiness denies. You have to say it's the exact opposite of that, rather than saying it's just something other than that.

That's why. Because then you're beginning into what we call constructs. Because they are something which is not what emptiness ultimately denies.

But you can't say about them that they don't have any nature of being ultimate, because that doesn't apply to group number two. It only applies to group number one and group number three. Got it?

One, I mean Shen Wang. Two, I mean Kunda. And three, I mean Yong Duk.

How are we doing on that? So, if you say it in a debate like this, right? Let's consider Yong Duk, which means emptiness itself, okay?

It doesn't have a nature of being ultimate, because it's not something which is the ultimate thing that emptiness denies. Is that a good reason or not? Is that a good logical proof or not?

I'll say it again. Let's consider emptiness itself, okay? It doesn't have a nature of being ultimate, because it is not that thing which emptiness denies.

Is that airtight? You have to say, no. You have to say, kya-wa-ma-chu, not necessarily so, because there are lots of things which are not the thing which emptiness denies, which are still not characterized as not having a nature which is ultimate, and those are Kunda.

Yeah, so it's not an airtight proof.

[Говорящий 2]
We get it here.

[Говорящий 1]
Therefore, it's very important not to describe emptiness, or what we call total existence, as being simply that which is not the object which emptiness denies, but rather to describe it or to characterize it as being the exact opposite, or the simple absence of the object which emptiness denies. And that is what emptiness is. You can't characterize emptiness as being, oh, that thing which is not what emptiness denies.

You have to characterize it as that simple absence of what emptiness denies. And the simple absence of what emptiness denies is a better way to describe emptiness than to say that thing which is not the thing which we deny. And isn't it true that we have to say in a debate that constructs, even though they are not the object which emptiness denies, they could never be characterized as the direct opposite, the pancake flop of the thing which emptiness denies.

You could never describe them that way. So isn't it true that we couldn't say that about constructs? They can't be described as the diametric opposite of the thing which emptiness denies.

They can only be characterized as something which is not the thing which emptiness denies. So the converse is true as well. Yes, that's true.

Yes, that's true. Yes, it's true.

[Говорящий 2]
Yes, that's true. Yes.

[Говорящий 1]
So we've gotten up to page 14, line 4, and this is where exactly the same thing is being said. Everything we just talked about is being stated here in the book, where it says that the sense in which emptiness itself doesn't have a nature of being ultimate is that it doesn't have... it is the direct diametric opposite of something which would be self-existent, rather than simply something other than something which is self-existent, okay?

All right? He set it up to Chewa, and he described it as being the diametric opposite, the total... the very absence of that thing, the Megang, okay?

We get here, we've reached another very subtle point on which the omniscient John Langlois has made a little boo-boo, and without mentioning him by name, Jetson Kopp is going to needle him a little bit. And here's a very subtle point. The omniscient John Langlois has said to Jetson Kopp, you know, you're characterizing emptiness, and by the way, you can use three different words.

You can say yong du, which means... I'm calling it totally because we're going to have to adjust it later, okay? Yong du, which is emptiness, or you could say that very most subtle form of lack of self-nature to objects, or you could call it emptiness, anyway, whatever you call it.

These three things, which are all synonymous, says John Langlois to Jetson Kopp, you're characterizing them as the simple absence of a self-existent thing. You know, you're characterizing them as the diametric opposite of a self-existent thing. But when you think about it, when you perceive emptiness, or when you think of emptiness, you are thinking of it as some kind of independent, positive object.

And almost in the same way that you perceive a water pitcher, you see, you are making in your mind some positive, self-standing picture of the thing, and that's how you're perceiving emptiness. So you, Jetson Kopp, are describing emptiness as the absence, as a lack, as a negative, as a thing, simply the simple absence of a particular object. But when you think about it, Jetson Kopp, when you are thinking about the idea of emptiness, isn't it true that you're making some kind of positive mental image, almost in the same way that you do when you are perceiving a water pitcher, or something like that?

Today we won't cover this in many detail. We'll just set out the path on which we're going to travel, or just have set out the path on which we're going to travel, and then tomorrow we'll discuss it in greater detail. But I just wanted to get you off.

Now we've got a little bit of a start on the hassle, the philosophical hassle that's going to arise tomorrow. Satsang with Mooji Copyright © 2020 Mooji Media Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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