Углублённый курс ACI 04 — Искусство толкования, часть 1 (1998, Билакуппе, Индия), занятие 6

[Говорящий 2]
When I was old in my early years, went to the monastery and became a Monkh Everybody around me was called a Monkh at that time At first they could not accept it After I started living in this monastery I did not follow the monkhood So when we practice Kholoithang, we emphasize on Kholoithang and not just on Kholoithang. You have to recognize the importance of Kholoithang as a big part of your practice as well. The other idea of Kholoithang is what I just explained at the beginning.

it is good there is We can still continue the practice then for the third stage as you said all the monks and all the disciples in the 5th stage I ask you we can all continue the practice but why the monks and the disciples can we always join together and practice together how to practice I love to, you know. But what I've learned from our past experiences, Is only that well-being is important. And we are not alone.

We can all do something for our self-interest. There's a saying, When you are still seeking happiness, you will find happiness. The main point is to train our brain, our mind and our body, we are not talking about the world or our image, nor the names of spiritual bodies, but to focus on them to see what is real, how to read the thoughts of Thonglor and what to chant, what to practice that brings the most benefit, what to chant to bring the most benefit in our life.

That is the main point of the Dhogyakri Power.

[Говорящий 1]
When we study the Dhogyakri Power, in the way that we keep it, we will find that it is to be taught by Shiva. So, now our task is to go about, in the second turning of the wheel, to figure out what it was the Buddha really had in mind when he talked about things. According to the Mind-Only School, what was it that the Buddha really had in mind when he taught those five characteristics?

We've finished the first one, which was the fact that things have no nature of their own, and now we'll be going on to the next four. In general, when we speak about turnings of the wheel, we're thinking about specific texts that typify that turning of the wheel. So we're talking about the second turning of the wheel, or the medium turning of the wheel, or the five characteristics which typify the contents of the second turning of the wheel.

And then there are other words or other subjects which typify, which are classic examples of the first turning of the wheel. And so we've been through those, we've been talking about those. When you talk about the third turning of the wheel, the job of the third turning of the wheel was, people came up to the Lord Buddha and said, what did you mean during the first and the second turnings of the wheel?

So if you're going to talk about what is the content or what are the classic examples of subject matter that comes up during the third turning of the wheel, well, that would be discussions just like the one we're having now, which is finding out what it is the Buddha meant during the second turning of the wheel, and specifically during the latter four of the five characteristics which are typical of the second turning of the wheel. So we'll be going now into the third of those sections.

Lord Buddha here, when he's discussing the latter four, he will not be covering all three of the groups that he covered when he discussed the first of the five, right? When he discussed the fact that things have no nature, he discussed all three groups of objects. But when he gets to the second part, which is discussing those four characteristics, he's going to be leaving out, he's going to be skipping one of the three groups.

And in Jetsun Krapa's presentation, Jetsun Krapa is going to be quoting primarily that sutra in which the Buddha explains his true intent during all the other sutras, which is called Dode Gongdo. And then he's going to go on to quote, as necessary, the great forefather, which is called the great Kimball, right? Like the great abbot or the great master of the mind-only school, which would be Master Vasanga.

And then he'll also be drawing in Master Vasubandhu and other great masters, as needed, in his presentation. So that's where we're going now. the first of the four is going to be called, looking into the fact that the arisal of things or the beginning of things is not something which happens of its own accord, or by definition.

So if you had to guess which of the three groups might be left out in this discussion, which one do you think it would be? If we talk about a growing of things which does not exist by definition, if I say I'm about to teach you what the Buddha meant when he said things don't grow of their own accord or by definition, then which of the three groups do you think he's going to leave out? YONG RGU PYI NA YI NA'I ZHIG ZHIG NA'I ZHIG ZHIG NA'I ZHIG ZHIG YI NA'I ZHIG ZHIG NA'I ZHIG ZHIG ZHIG YI NA'I ZHIG ZHIG ZHIG YI NA'I ZHIG ZHIG ZHIG We're talking about what do you think and what could it be, and at this point you can kind of flip around and change your mind if you want.

How many does that apply to? things don't have a nature of growing up on the court, like I said. But, ,'KHYAD DONG YIN BSKYED BA RAG GI PHYED DU GYUR PO MA YIN, ,ZUL ZHIG ZHIG ZHIG GANG LAS DE, PHYED DU GZHAN DBANG GI PHO NUS GZHAN GYIN GYI LAS, GZHAN DBANG GYI PHO NUS GZHAN GYI LAS GZHAN DBANG GYI PHO NUS GZHAN GYI LAS So, is GZHAN DBANG, things which are caused, things which are dependent, is this the category which you think should be left out when we discuss that, or the category that should be left in when we discuss that? So, if you take him by himself, if you treat things which are dependent by themselves, things which grow from others by themselves, is this the one you'd want to concentrate on when you talk about things not having a native growing of their own accord or by definition?

So, now he's going to ask, with regard to things that grow from other things, can you say that in the mind-only school? That it doesn't have any growing by definition. And if you say, of the other two categories, oh, these don't have any nature of beginning of their own accord, by definition, is that okay?

Can you say that about them? So, can you use it for both kundaka and yongdru, or not? If you're going to keep lowering the price when you sell this, if you're going to keep lowering the price when you offer me the money for this thing, you should have told me from the beginning.

First you said we couldn't use this expression towards us two, now you're saying maybe we I don't have to make this up, this is from the text itself, and the text itself says, in the sutra called the Sutra where I explain the meaning of my sutras, it does use this expression for, what do you call it, constructs and for emptiness, and he does not use this expression, he does not refer to dependent things with this expression, so, okay, we'll agree on that.

Okay.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. People have more and more faith... I don't know, I didn't get it.

Anyway, he's telling more jokes with the weather's hotter and keeps people... Faith increases when the teaching gets funnier, how sad. People are more likely to come and leave the food behind.

I think that's how it is. I think that's how it is. So now we're from page 18, second line from the bottom, we'll be beginning the quotation from the sutra where the Buddha explains his sutras, what he meant when he spoke his sutras.

And then they're going to be going through, first at the top of page 19, he specifies when he says, Dambodabdhamma, he's kicking, he's saying, when I say things don't have a nature of going of their own accord or by definition, then he's kicking out the middle one and he's concentrating on the first one and the last one. So that's, he's already agreeing with you on that. And then when he goes down, he goes through the, he starts going down to the four characteristics.

This is from the sutra, right? And first he says, he starts going, let me see here, he says, things don't start by definition, things don't stop by definition, things have been peaced from the beginning, meaning not self-existent from the beginning, and things have been nirvana, or gone beyond, right? We talked about the other day.

And he says, each one begins to push the other one, each one triggers the next one. So he says, because things don't have a natural going, then they don't have a natural stopping. Because they don't have a natural stopping, they don't have a natural state of peace.

Because they don't have a natural state of peace, they don't have a natural state of nirvana. And each one triggers the next one. Now how that is, he's going to go into it.

And we're only referring to constructs right now. We're going to start this explanation only referring to constructs. Right.

Rangitungi-sura kya wapada, rangitungi-sura kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada, kya wapada There have been an offense, peace, or a lack of self-existence from the beginning, and it's not some kind of new story.

Then you take, they are forever gone beyond the state of self-existent stopping. They've gone completely beyond the state of having been born by definition and stopping by definition. So if you take some sort of a threshold and you say, this is called grief.

This is called grief in a sense, or suffering in a sense. A self-existent starting and a self-existent stopping are called grief. Then all kundaka things, all constructs, have forever passed beyond that grief.

They've always gone beyond that grief. And remember that the Tibetan word for nirvana is to pass beyond grief. That's the last of the four.

And so when Lord Buddha says that passing beyond grief doesn't exist by definition either, what he's saying is that with regard to constructs, their stopping and their beginning, which has forever not been existing by definition, they are totally passed beyond that state. They have gone beyond the state of self-existence. And in that sense, they are gone beyond grief, which is the Tibetan word for nirvana.

Do you want? Now here the Buddha is making denial after denial after denial. He's saying, this is not true of this, this is not true of this, this is not this, this is not this, this lacks this, this lacks this, this lacks this, this lacks this.

What does he lack? What do they lack? What do you think he's talking about?

Why is he concentrating on lack, lack, lack? Doesn't have, doesn't have, doesn't have. What doesn't have?

What's the very biggest root, crucial thing that isn't there?

[Говорящий 2]
Help me.

[Говорящий 1]
You're correct. Actually, you're both kind of correct, but you're more correct. And the crucial point is, yeah, from the beginning, in number one, we said that things didn't exist by definition.

And that's the key. All the other doesn't exist depending on that. The electricity's gone out, you might want to talk to the ground engine.

And it'll come and go now. Let's see if it works.

[Говорящий 2]
This needs to run. Does it work? You got it on the battery?

[Говорящий 1]
The batteries may last in the camera for forty minutes, but it won't keep our monastery going for a minute. So you got the main point. It all goes back to number one.

It all goes back to the fact that things don't exist by definition. And because that first thing doesn't exist by definition, then the fact that things grow doesn't exist by definition, and then the fact that things stop doesn't exist by definition, and etc., etc., etc. Each one triggers the next.

So we have sort of a logical statement here. We can say, ah, consider constructs, okay? They don't exist by definition because...

[Говорящий 2]
Can you supply the reasons for them?

[Говорящий 1]
Go ahead. I didn't translate the Vipassana correctly, okay? He says, consider constructs.

They neither grow nor stop. They neither begin nor stop by definition because they don't exist by definition. And that's exactly what Je Tsongkapa says, five lines from the bottom of page nineteen, when he says, we have to posit as a reason for the fact that constructs neither start nor stop by definition.

The reason that we can put forth is that, well, they just don't exist by definition. What did he say? So if you say that for the reason that they don't exist by definition, they don't start and they don't stop by definition, then you're implying that they start and stop a different way.

Well, what way would that be? I shut that Manjimika door, you know. Don't you remember that?

That's a crash for Manjimika. Give Michael that extra key to that door that you've got. Seems like you've got this extra key to that door and you keep pointing it out.

How about we do it this way? If you say it this way, they have no starting and they have no stopping because they exist by definition. So if you say it that way, then what happens to the starting and the stopping?

[Говорящий 2]
Because they don't exist by definition.

[Говорящий 1]
There's no starting and there's no stopping because they don't exist by definition. If they did exist... If they did exist...

Okay, if you say that because they don't exist by definition, they don't have starting and stopping. Now, if they did have starting and stopping, then what would happen? It doesn't have a starting.

If I go around and hold up this stick and say, this stick has its own starting and this stick has its own stopping, then in effect, what am I employing? And that's exactly how the Buddha presents it. It looks like we are Alipenga.

Alipenga, I don't know. He says that's exactly the way the book explains it. If it did have a nature of growing and stopping, then it would have to have a nature of growing and stopping by definition.

And that's exactly what the book says. SKYE BA NA RGA PA DU YOD NA I'd like to tell you that if you SKYE BA NA RGA PA DU YOD NA you have a chance to say, I do now, that DI MIN PA'I SKYE BA NA RGA PA NYONG MA NA NA SKYE BA NA RGA PA DU YOD NA We're following a particular line of reasoning where he said because they aren't bad, they can be bad. And if they were bad, they'd have to be the other way.

And in general what he said is true, but in this particular line of reasoning, we're not going that way. Don't wander off to those fields out there. Generally speaking in the minority school, any kind of starting, any kind of stopping, would have to be such that it was by definition.

So the implication here is that if something didn't have a starting and if something didn't have a stopping which existed by definition, it wouldn't have a starting or stopping at all. And that's what he's been kind of searching around here for. So if you put it into a logical statement of necessity, you'd have to say that if something has a starting and if something has a stopping, then it must, by necessity, have a starting and a stopping which exist by definition.

Can we? So when you asked me just before if there could be any other kind of starting or stopping, if it weren't starting or stopping by definition, you're kind of getting your answer here. It's a necessity both ways.

If it is in this school, if something has starting and stopping, it must be a starting and stopping which exist by definition. If something has a starting and stopping which exist by definition, then it can have a starting and stopping. And if it doesn't have a starting and stopping which exist by definition, it can't have a starting and stopping.

I have another question. Now, we keep having these little vignettes where we have little conversations where you and I discuss something, and then we always have to go back to the book and say, well, here's where the book says that. And then you have to go back to the authority or the basis and say, I'm not making this up.

This is not some little conversation. This is exactly what happens to be the next point in the book. And if you want to see where that little last vignette came from, it was page 19, fifth line from the bottom up to the second line from the bottom, and in there the Buddha says exactly what we just said.

Now, if we divide ... If we talk about things ... Now, let's not talk about things that don't exist, okay?

Let's just talk about things that do exist. So, if it had a gyewon-anggapa-nyo-na ... Can I come back to that?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. If we restrict ourselves to things that exist, and then we further make the ... the requirement that this thing should not have a beginning or a stopping, well, where do we end up then?

You are right, and what you just said is correct, because you were thinking in terms of the three groups. But if we don't say in terms of the three groups, if we divide all existing things ... I know you guys have studied jora, elementary logic, and tagre, the elementary, you know, logical form.

So, I know you're going to know the answer to this. If you divide all existing things into two categories, what are the two things? Now, where did we end up after we kicked out one of those?

[Говорящий 2]
Oh, that's very curious.

[Говорящий 1]
And that's exactly what the text says. Page 19, second line from the bottom. By the way, I think I just said, Lord Buddha, I think this is Je Tsongkapa's definition at this point.

And it says, what is that thing, kyewa dangpa dangdawa means, what is that thing which is devoid of starting and stopping? What are those existing things which don't have starting and stopping? Oh, jumache.

Untainting things, things which have not been caused or created. Where are we going to put constructs? Are we going to put them on the caused side or the unconstrained?

Jumache is?

[Говорящий 2]
Yes.

[Говорящий 1]
Don't forget we've been talking about these four characteristics, right? We finished the one around the last four. No starting by itself, no stopping by itself.

And then peace from the beginning, meaning not self-existent from the beginning. And then the fourth one, remember, was its nature is to be total nirvana, or its nature is to be totally beyond grief. And one meaning of this is that it's totally beyond all negativities, meaning all mentally afflicted things.

So you can interpret the word grief as meaning all mentally afflicted things, all things having to do with mental afflictions. Grief can be described that way. And then having a nature of being beyond grief can be described as having a nature of being beyond those things which are involved with mental afflictions.

Mental afflictions are involved with mental afflictions. Now, among the two kinds of objects, changing and unchanging, where are you guys going to put all those mentally afflicted things? Now, don't forget, you put the constructs in the unchanging stuff, and then you went and put the mental afflicted stuff in the changing stuff.

Is there any mental afflicted stuff that has to do with the constructs? Wait a minute, where are the constructs that are staying with those changing stuff or the unchanging stuff? I don't quite like it if you say that this changing mental afflicted stuff is going to come live in the house of the unchanging constructs.

Make up your mind. No. I don't get what he's saying.

Anyway, if the face has all unchanging things and then suddenly it gets something out of whack and something becomes the nose, it's like changing but the face is unchanging. It's not very cute. Make up your mind.

You don't want to talk about the mental afflicted stuff? Or the constructs? It could not have to do much with it.

Isn't it? What? Didn't you guys already agree that things having to do with mental afflictions are changing?

[Говорящий 2]
Changing things. You can't hold it.

[Говорящий 1]
I don't know.

[Говорящий 2]
I don't know.

[Говорящий 1]
So you have to say that, in a sense, because one is changing and one is unchanging, that constructs living in the unchanging camp are totally free of mentally afflicted things, which are changing things. So, in a sense, they are devoid. They are gone beyond.

They are a piece of those things. And he now uses the same wording to describe constructs being gone beyond mentally afflicted things or past beyond mentally afflicted things or a state of peace which is free of mentally afflicted things.

[Говорящий 2]
You see what I mean? You see what I mean?

[Говорящий 1]
So we've been describing how constructs are free of all four guys. We've got these four guides, which are birth, which exists by definition, ending, which exists by definition, peace, state of being in peace, state of peace, which exists by definition, and then a state of gone-beyondness, which exists by definition. And the first two were easy.

You saw how an arisal, which exists by definition, and a stopping, which exists by definition, could not apply to constructs. But now we have to examine, can these last two apply to constructs? And peace means a state of peace which is free of mentally afflicted things.

So it's true, you can say about constructs that they are in a state of peace, meaning that they are free of mentally afflicted things. And you can say of constructs as well that they are in a state of nirvana, meaning they're in a state of having transcended, or having gone beyond mentally afflicted things. So in that sense, the latter two guides don't apply to constructs.

Does that make sense? Is that okay? Right.

When may it exist by definition?

[Говорящий 2]
Because it doesn't exist by definition.

[Говорящий 1]
This thing you want to make. So many Shiva's down. You also write your name Deva.

Deva Bhi. Nyamun Toki Chugi. Nyamun Toki Chugi may be Shiva.

Nyamun Toki Chugi may be Deva. Digi Nyamun Toki may be Deva. Digi Deva may be Deva.

Rakyate Nyamun Toki Chugi may be Shiva. He says it's true whether you add by definition or not. It's true of constructs that they are a state of peace, which is devoid of mentally afflicted stuff.

And it's also true of concepts that they are a state of peace, which is devoid of mentally afflicted stuff, which exists by definition. Okay. Nyamun Toki Chugi may be Shiva.

Nyamun Toki Chugi may be Deva. Nyamun Toki Chugi may be Deva. Nyamun Toki Chugi may be Shiva.

Nyamun Toki Chugi may be Shiva. Nyamun Toki Chugi may be Deva. Nyamun Toki Chugi may be Shiva.

[Говорящий 2]
Not so.

[Говорящий 1]
Not so.

[Говорящий 2]
Not so. Not so. Not so.

[Говорящий 1]
I... Not so. Not so.

Not so. That is my fault, I think, in the translation. You have to add the word, are not, to the first two.

They do not have a nature of starting by definition. They do not have a state of nature of stopping by definition. But in the latter two he's saying, they are a state of peace which is devoid of mentally affected stuff.

And then the fourth one is, they are the state where you have gone beyond mentally affected stuff. So the second two are, in a way, a positive expression of a negative state. They are a state of peace which is devoid of mentally affected things.

And then they are a state of transcendence or going beyond mentally affected things. So I think that's my mistake in the translation. Is that okay?

Any problems there? Everybody okay? Sorry for the confusion.

When you say peace you mean, and by the way in Tibetan the word peace also means death or stopping, you see. So when you say peace or stopping it means a state of not having that thing anymore, a state where that bad thing has stopped. And when you say transcendence or nirvana in Tibetan the implication is gone beyond or transcended or passed beyond a state where the thing is suffering or grief, which here means mentally affected thing.

So you can also describe that triggering process, that progression of the mind, that progression, in that way. So because the starting has no nature of existing by definition and the stopping has no nature of existing by definition, and because of that, now you can go this way, they are in a state of peace in which you have stopped, right? Joke in Tibetan, shi shi.

You are in a state of peace where you have stopped those mentally affected things and then you are in a state where you have gone beyond the grief of the mentally affected thing. You can say it that way too. You can describe the progression that way as well.

And so now again I'm going back to the text to give you scriptural authority for the little conversation we just had. So you go back to page 19, second line from the bottom, and it's here that they identify the peace, for example, and they identify the grief, for example. And here it says peace and a total natural, sort of a natural nirvana, it says here.

You can identify those now as being page 2, sorry, line 2, page 20, as being kun nyong, which means all of those things which have to do with mental afflictions. So peace meaning an absence or a rest in peace of the mental afflicted things, and then transcending being, transcending, going beyond mentally affected things. And here's the actual scriptural backup for that little conversation we just had.

Before, I promised you we'd go in two groups, two of the three groups, right? We left out one of the three groups, and we promised that we would go through the remaining two groups. We have now completed going through the constructs.

You can close the case on the constructs, okay? And now we're moving on to yong duk, which is emptiness in the Manjushri school, and we have to describe emptiness in terms of the latter four of the five characteristics that came up during the second turn of the wheel. So here we go.

Then, first we're going to get the quotation from the sutra, wherein Buddha explains what he meant in the sutra, and then you're going to get the explanation by Je Tsongkapa of what that means. So that's a long story. It goes from line, really it goes from line 2 or 3 on page 20, down to the next and last line.

And I guess what I'll say is we don't have to go through that sutra quotation directly word by word. What we'll do is we'll go to Je Tsongkapa's explanation of what that thing means. When we discussed the concepts, because it was already something that description number one applied to, right?

Description number one is what? Existing by definition, not existing by definition, right? Out of the five, not existing by definition.

So we said that there was a progression that was triggered by the first one all through the end of the five. We said not existing by definition triggers not, going by definition triggers not, stopping by definition means that it is rest in peace of certain things, and then it was going beyond those things. But now, when you talk about emptiness itself, you don't have to have the first one.

You will not have the first one. You can't say of emptiness itself that it is not something which exists by definition. So we go straight to the second one.

It's not a five-step process. It's a four-step process. So the place where we step off from, the stepping off place, is not going to be the same.

Not stepping off from, it doesn't exist by definition. Now we're stepping off from, it doesn't have any nature of starting by definition. Is that OK?

I think some of that answers it. I have to think about that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Говорящий 2]
OK.

[Говорящий 1]
It's an understanding of Drupal. It is one of the things that exists by definition, according to their system. It's with number two that we start to think that they're not a part of it.

How about you quiet ones? Is this OK? Can you say it again?

Everybody knows that.

[Говорящий 2]
Younger.

[Говорящий 1]
Everybody knows that of the three groups, two of them do exist by definition, and only one of them doesn't exist by definition. You guys, everybody knows that. I forgot that.

Anyway, OK. We baked this cake yesterday. Are your problems all removed?

OK, we move ahead now. OK, two of the three groups do exist by definition. So you can't use the characterization number one with regard to emptiness.

Everybody clear on that? OK. The latter two characterizations, which is that it has reached a state of peace, wherein the mental afflictions have rested peace, and then the fourth one, which says they have gone beyond or transcended the state of grief, these two are easily applicable to emptiness.

These two are easily applicable to Yom Griffithi, OK, to Swamiji, to Ringo, to Thay. Why? Because obviously, emptiness itself is obviously devoid of a state of peace, which is wherein everything related with mental afflictions has ended or stopped, rest in peace, right?

And then the fourth one, obviously, emptiness is something which has passed beyond or gone beyond a state of grief, in the sense of grief as something which is mentally afflictive. They don't apply to emptiness. You want emptiness, OK.

You want emptiness, right? Now Je Tsongkapa is going back in discussing especially the fact that emptiness itself, does not have those qualities of beginning by definition, right? We did these two, right?

We didn't do these two yet, and this one doesn't apply. So in discussing whether or not emptiness itself has the quality of starting by definition or ending by definition, in discussing that, Je Tsongkapa is going back to the original quotations from the sutra in which the Buddha explains himself in the two and ten of his sutras, which covers most of page twenty, which takes up most of page twenty. And in there, there are some very difficult expressions in Tibetan.

When they got translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan, they are difficult, they become difficult expressions. So Je Tsongkapa is trying to help you out with some of the difficult expressions in the sutra when he gets on to the subject of why those two don't apply to emptiness itself. And there's an expression called TAPA TAPA DU and TESU TESU DU.

TAPA in English means unchanging, as you know. TESU means in English like self-standing, independent, stands on its own, something like that. And these difficult words, which means the time of the unchanging, unchanging.

And the time of the self-standing, self-standing. The first one, Je Tsongkapa says, refers to all the time that came before. So the time of the unchanging, of the unchanging, and the time of the unchanging, unchanging means all the time that came before us.

And the time of the self-standing, of the self-standing, or the time of the independence, of the independence, refers to all the time which is to come. So these two expressions are referring to all the time that came before and all the time which is to come. When I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I into that Madhyamika door and I'll sneak out something that will help you understand how to translate it into English. Druk, the word existence here means, if we talk about a water pitcher, the minute a water pitcher begins to exist, the minute a water pitcher comes into existence, then every single thing to do with the water pitcher, all its parts, everything about the water pitcher, every single tiny piece of the water pitcher is automatically, entirely, totally something that is not self-existent.

So, upon the state of existence, all, or the totality of the vase is not self-existent. That's what total existence means. So how does that say it in English?

Totally bare. We'll say totality. When I say totality, you know what I'm talking about, which is emptiness.

So now we go back to the point. He says, where do those two weird expressions come in to explaining why totality doesn't have these two characteristics? He says, the first expression is, from the beginning of the beginning, right?

From forever. And the second expression is, for forever, meaning hereafter. So, what does that have to do with proving that totality doesn't have these two characteristics?

If you start talking about forever either way, then you're already into the category of unchanging things, aren't we? So the minute you're into the category of unchanging things, you can't say anything about changing things about it. Starting and stopping are words that only apply to changing things.

So that's why we can immediately, upon starting, the reason the sutra is starting to talk about these two characteristics from the beginning and forever after, then the reason is that they are talking about the fact that totality, meaning emptiness, doesn't have any nature of starting or stopping anyway. You don't have to go into much detail about it. It's no big deal to explain why they don't have starting and stopping by definition.