Углублённый курс ACI 04 — Искусство толкования, часть 1 (1998, Билакуппе, Индия), занятие 14

[Говорящий 2]
In the beginning of this lecture, I told you that there are three types of people. One is a man, a woman and a child. The third is a man, a woman and a child.

The man is a woman and the child is a man. The woman is a man and the child is a woman. I don't know if he is a drunkard.

He's a good guy. I would like to say that in our community there are many young people who are very good in life. I don't know whether he is a drunkard or not.

I don't know if he is a good guy. He is a good guy. He's very good.

But he has no idea about what's going on. I don't know what they are doing but there are many languages that I can speak. What I can say is that many languages are difficult to understand.

I'm a native speaker and I know French so I speak French. And I find it difficult to speak French. So I learn to speak French from then on.

[Говорящий 1]
So again, remember that we're on a whole new section. We're on a section where we're going to be describing Arya Asanga, Master Asanga's description of the mind-only school. And it begins out by trying to establish that it is the sutra in which the Buddha clarified the intent of his own sutras, which Arya Asanga is mostly basing his works on.

So to show that, Jetsun Kappa takes an actual quotation from the abbreviation, which is a text by Asanga, and he goes on and it says there exactly this... I'm going to explain, or you can understand emptiness. It says here, the ultimate as having five characteristics as described in the sutra in which the Buddha explained the meaning of his other sutras.

So that proves that that's one case in point where Arya Asanga is using as his scriptural reference for his presentation of the mind-only school, the sutra which we've been talking about, the sutra in which the Buddha expressed the meaning of his other sutras. And not only... he didn't just use...

there are ten chapters in that sutra. We've only been concentrating on one chapter, the one that was spoken due to the question of the Bodhisattva Dindamyanda Bhagavata. But in this particular case, says Geshe-la, the...

shall we say, the Arya Asanga uses four different chapters from that work. So he is quoting from four different chapters of the original sutra, not just that one chapter, in order to describe the meaning of the tenets of the mind-only school. And again it's with reference to something called the five characteristics of the ultimate.

The ultimate being, Geshe-la says, emptiness itself. The first of the five characteristics, right? Master Asanga is quoting four different chapters from that sutra, in order to describe the five characteristics of the ultimate, meaning the five characteristics of emptiness.

So Geshe-la says, let's go into those five characteristics and see what they are. The first characteristic is beyond description, beyond words. No one can tell you what it's about.

And Geshe-la says, well you know, any object in the world can be described in words. You know, any existing object, generally speaking, can be described in words. So what do they mean when they say that emptiness cannot be described in words?

This refers specifically to the experience of an Arya, a person who is seeing emptiness directly, and they cannot communicate to a person who hasn't been through that experience exactly what it feels like to be in that experience while you're in that experience of the direct perception of emptiness. So they cannot describe, it's difficult for them to describe in words to another person what it was like during the direct perception of emptiness, and there's not much they can say to a person about it. They can't really put that into words.

It's beyond expression or beyond words, in that sense. That's the first of the five characteristics of emptiness.

[Говорящий 2]
So... So... So...

[Говорящий 1]
So, So, So, So, So, In this verse, So, there's no duality. Let's say non-duality. Okay, so the second characteristic of emptiness is that it is non-dual, there's no duality.

Now, we went over the meaning of emptiness already in the Mind-Only School. Here we have to, in order to understand the expression non-duality, you and I are going to have to go back to the two senses of emptiness in the Mind-Only School. In the Mind-Only School they point to emptiness in two different regards.

In the first one is where we went to that thing the other day, we took changing things, we took produced things, and we showed that they were empty of any characteristic of having constructs apply to them, those constructs which did not exist. So the fact that constructs which do not exist, do not apply to changing things or dependent things, is one way in the Mind-Only School that they describe emptiness. So take that meaning of emptiness and put it aside for now.

There's another meaning of emptiness in the Mind-Only School, which is that generally when mind perceives an object, for example, when my eye consciousness becomes aware of a water pitcher, then the Mind-Only School says that my mind consciousness and the water pitcher are devoid of any separate substance, meaning they have the same substance, they are of the same substance, meaning they both arise from the same karmic seed. So in the Mind-Only School the second way of describing emptiness is that the mind which perceives the water pitcher and the water pitcher itself are devoid or empty of having any other separate substance, meaning devoid of any quality of not coming from the same karmic seed. And this says Geshe-la, I think, more captures the meaning of non-duality, non-dual in the sense that, zay chik, right?

One substance, in the special sense that we know one substance means. So that means they are not two, they are not two different things, meaning they are not of two different substances, meaning they are not arisen from any karmic seed which is separate. It's only one karmic seed.

So that's the meaning of the second characteristic. Remember that we're in the Mind-Only School and we're going to have to explain these from the point of view of the Mind-Only School. You guys have to keep in mind now, although we will go on now, you have to keep in mind, fresh in your mind, those two flavors of emptiness that describe the Mind-Only School.

One, we went over it a lot, now we've just introduced another one. But you must keep those two flavors of emptiness according to the Mind-Only School in mind, because later on in this presentation we're going to get a lot of debate about it, a lot of issues are going to arise from these two presentations of emptiness according to the Mind-Only School. So please keep those distinctions in mind.

One kind of emptiness where changing things are devoid of constructs that don't exist, and the other kind of emptiness in the sense of that the mind and the object which it perceives are devoid of a separate substance, meaning have both come from the same karmic seed.

[Говорящий 2]
So we're going to get into that a little bit more, and then we're going to get into the subject of the Mind-Only School, and then we're going to get into the subject of the Mind-Only School. So we're going to get into the subject of the School. So we're going to get into the subject of the Mind-Only School.

So we're going to get into the subject of the Mind-Only School. So we're going to get into the subject of the Mind-Only School. So we're going to get into the subject of the Mind-Only School.

So we're going to get into the subject of the Mind-Only School. So we're going to get into the subject of the Mind-Only School.

[Говорящий 1]
So we're going to get into the subject of the Mind-Only School. So we're going to get School.

[Говорящий 2]
So we're going to get into the subject of the Mind-Only School. So we're going to get into the subject of the Mind-Only School. So we're going to get of the Mind-Only School.

So we're going to get into the subject of the Mind-Only School.

[Говорящий 1]
So, quality number three. We had number one which was beyond words, right? We had number two, which was what?

Non-dual, right? And now number three is an object which is beyond the... an object which is perfectly beyond togewas, okay?

I'll say it again, an object which is perfectly beyond togewas. I'll say it again, an object which is perfectly beyond togewas. You have to decide what the word togewas means.

Generally speaking, in Tibetan, tokewa means a logician, or a person who is adept at the art of reasoning, you know. So, you know, usually the word tokewa refers to someone who walks up to another person and starts debating them and giving them reasonings and trying to prove things and trying not to prove things and like that. That's the usual meaning of tokewa.

So, normally we translate into English as a person who is good at reasoning or a logician or a thinker or something like that. Geshe-la says, you know, the word tokewa has another implication or another connotation in Tibetan and that is a person who has not yet entered one of the five great paths, right, whose spiritual level is still pretty, relatively low, you know, they have not yet entered the track of the five paths and they're called a tokewa, okay, and that's another sense of that word. But he says, really, if you think about it, we are all tokewas, you know, anyone who hasn't perceived emptiness directly yet or something like that, someone who is still a little bit, for whom emptiness is something which is beyond them for the time being, perfectly beyond them for the time being, they can call them tokewas.

So, in a sense, people like us are tokewas. So, I guess you could say tokewa meaning, you know, thinkers, I guess, or something like that, normal thinkers, you know, or something like that. And you could say that emptiness, in the Mind-Only School, being that thing called totality, right, is beyond the normal abilities, is an object which is beyond the normal abilities of thinking people, meaning a normal thinking people who haven't seen it yet.

So, that's the third characteristic. Better, says Geshe-la, if we don't describe tokewa in the sense of someone who comes along and is debating with us and arguing with us, and a logician, right, better not to think of it in terms of its meaning as logician, better to think of it in terms of a normal thinking person or something like that. People like you and me, this object called emptiness is beyond us, is perfectly beyond normal thinking people, and better to translate it that way or better to think of it that way in this case.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay, this is tough.

[Говорящий 1]
The next quality of emptiness, we're on to number four, I think. It's described as being beyond any description of being separate or not being separate. It's beyond any state of being separate and it's beyond any state of being not separate.

And what does this refer to? What are you trying to say when you say that emptiness is beyond any state of being separate and it's beyond any state of being not separate? If you take some object, like let's take a water pitcher, and its emptiness, right?

If you remove the water pitcher then you remove the emptiness also. So, in a sense, they share a logical relationship of what we call, to be one is to be involved with the other. You know, they are essentially connected, okay?

They are essentially one thing, in the sense that if you removed one you'd have to remove the other. So, if you remove all the water vases in the world, you remove all the emptinesses of those water vases in the world. So, they are what we call lolacik, meaning of one essence or one essential nature, in that sense of the word.

Because they have that oneness about them, we can say that they are beyond being separate. See what I mean? In that sense they are one, because they are one how?

If you took away one, the other one would have to disappear. That oneness, or that essence of being one, implies that they are beyond any nature of being separate. So, in that sense they are beyond separateness, the quality of being separate.

Now, how are they beyond the quality of being not separate, right? Did I blow that? Yeah, okay.

How are they beyond the quality of being not separate, which means they are separate, okay? Let's say it again. They are, secondly, they have a quality of being, they are beyond the quality of being not separate, double negative, right?

Which means they are separate. And that means that the basis of an emptiness, like a water pitcher, and the emptiness of the water pitcher, are not so, are not so inseparable that you couldn't perceive them separately. You know, it's not that you could never divide or distinguish between the emptiness of the water pitcher and the water pitcher.

Of course you could eventually learn to make this distinction between the emptiness of the water pitcher and the water pitcher. So, in that sense they are beyond the quality of not being separate, meaning they are separate in that sense, okay? So, in that way we describe quality number four of emptiness, which is, it is beyond being separate and not separate, okay?

And then the fifth quality, or the fifth characterization of emptiness is called one taste. In Tibetan it's called rochik. In Sanskrit, ekarasa.

And in English, people have translated it different ways, and I think different, you get a single taste, or something like that, and Geshe-la says, let's try to get into what single taste means. And he explains it in a way that you would almost want to translate it as, they all taste the same. You see what I mean?

It all tastes the same. And what he says is, you know, if you have a big bowl, a big pot of rice, and you cook it, and you cook it, and you cook it, and finally there's this delicious pot of rice, and it's all ready to serve out, and you pull the pot off the fire, and you set out four bowls, and you dump the rice into the four bowls, you distribute it between the four bowls, and you say, hey, take a taste, what do you think?

And if a person took a bit out of this bowl, and a bit out of this bowl, and a bit out of this bowl, it would all taste the same to them. You know, the rice that was in each bowl would taste the same. So that means single taste all tastes the same.

How does that apply to emptiness? Geshe-la says, I'm not suggesting that you have to try to eat emptiness, okay? He says, what it means here is that, as you all know, every object around us has its own emptiness.

You know, a water pitcher has its emptiness, this thing has its emptiness, this thing has its own emptiness, every object has its own emptiness. And from the point of view of the object to which the emptiness is attached, right? From the point of view of the object on which the emptiness is resting, they are different, right?

So you can say, this thing is the emptiness that belongs to the pot, this thing is the emptiness that belongs to the thermos bottle, this is the emptiness that belongs to my glasses, and things like that. So from the point of view of what has the emptiness, these are all different. But from the point of view that each one of these emptinesses is the simple cancellation of a self-existent object, right?

It is the simple absence of what we call the gaccha, right? Of a self-existent, of a subtle self-existent thing. From the point of view that they are all equally the cancellation of a non-existent, self-existent thing, then we can say that they all have the same taste.

They all share the same quality, they all share the same taste, they all taste the same in the sense of being the simple cancellation of a self-existent object. So in that sense, the fifth characterization of emptiness is that it all tastes the same. He wants to make sure that I said to you, if they're all one taste or they all taste the same in being the simple cancellation of a self-existent thing.

So there is a self-existent thing, you could say the self-nature of objects, right? And every one of them lacks in exactly the same way the self-nature of objects, for example. So the fact that that gaccha or that thing which emptiness denies is absent in every object, is equal in every object.

Every object in the universe is equally devoid of a self-existent thing. And so in that sense, everything tastes the same. Got it?

Is this clear, or is anybody not clear on that?

[Говорящий 2]
A couple of you were like not moving your heads at all, so I was a little confused.

[Говорящий 1]
So don't forget what we're talking about. We're talking about Arya Asanga reporting the place where he found these five definitions or five characteristics of emptiness, right? And he's saying, I got them back in the sutra where the Buddha explains the antinomous sutras, right?

And then Geshe-la says, by the way, if you want to know in more detail, and this thing is really tough. He says, when you go back and find these and think about them and study them, these are tough. But if you want some more detail on it, the first one and the second one, which was beyond any expression, and what was the other second one?

Having a characteristic of non-duality. They come from one chapter of the sutra, and each of the others comes from a single chapter of the sutra. So you can say that these five are drawn from four different chapters of the original sutra.

Then the abbreviation, the text by Arya Asanga also says, oh, by the way, you can also understand the three attributes, or the three characteristics, oh, as they're explained in the sutra in which the Buddha explains the antinomous sutras, right? Now there's a trick here that when he talks about characteristics here, or attributes here, Je Tsongkapa goes on to say, he's talking about those three, but he ain't talking about the three that we were talking about before, okay? They don't seem to be the three attributes of the mind-only school.

Geshe-la says, you know, I went back to the original sutra at this section, I've been checking the original sutra at this section, and he quoted the actual verse in which he believes that Arya Asanga is referring to here when he says, if you want to know the attributes of objects, then go check the sutra, okay? That's all he says. This is actually, the intent of this is to show that Arya Asanga is basing his presentation of the mind-only school on that sutra.

But, you know, let's go in and try to find out which characteristics he's talking about. Je Tsongkapa says three, but it doesn't seem to be the three attributes of the mind-only school. It seems like he's referring to a verse, and then Geshe-la quoted the verse from memory.

I can't quote it from memory, but the first line says, if you were to see the real nature of phenomena, right, the emptiness of phenomena, then second line, you would be able to remove all the mentally afflicted side of your being, and third, you would reach that place called liberation, okay? So here, says Geshe-la, we have three different characteristics being mentioned, or three different attributes. What?

One is emptiness, okay, the perception of emptiness, or emptiness itself. Secondly, the group or category of mental afflictions and mentally afflicted stuff. And then thirdly, the group of enlightened stuff, or enlightenment itself, that you get if you're able to remove your mentally afflicted stuff by seeing emptiness.

So Geshe-la thinks, says here, I believe that the three characteristics mentioned here, or the three attributes mentioned here, are emptiness, mentally afflicted things, and then finally, you know, liberation itself, okay?

[Говорящий 2]
So to him, these are the three, and then he quoted that verse to back himself up, to back it up. Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
And then Arya Sangha goes on to describe, in the same book called The Abbreviations, he says, now again, when we discuss the three attributes of things not having any nature, so now the wording has changed, you see? When he talked about those last three attributes, he called them chuggi tenye, which means the attributes of dharmas, or the attributes of objects. Now he's calling them the chuggi ngo-nyi me-pay tenye, meaning the attributes that things have of not having a nature, you see?

So in Tibetan and in Sanskrit, the wording would be different. So those three groups we just talked about are one thing, which are called the attributes of objects. And now we have a second thing called the attributes of the lack of self-nature to objects, you see?

So now we're on to... By the way, Arya Sangha also, when he got to the three attributes of objects in the sense of their lacking any self-nature, okay? When he got to the three attributes of objects in the sense of their lacking any self-nature, well then he also went back to the sutra in which the Buddha explains the antanimous sutras.

He went back to the chapter that was instigated by the Bodhisattva Dendamyantapa, and from there he has identified successfully the three kinds of a lack of self-nature. What are they? We talked about it, constructs, changing things, and totality in the sense of emptiness, and these being interrelated in the sense of you establish the emptiness of objects by looking at changing things and finding the absence of a non-existent construct with regard to them.

So you use the three characteristics to establish the three characteristics, the three lacks of a self-nature. So he says, now when Arya Sangha has gotten to the second point in the abbreviation, in his book called The Abbreviation, in which he wants to establish what the three lacks of a self-nature mean, and those being the characteristics of existing objects, right? Then he also, in this case, goes back to the sutra in which the Buddha explained the meaning of the sutras.

So that's another example to show that Arya Sangha is leaning heavily on the sutra in which the Buddha explains the meaning of his sutras to write his books, and it shows that these are the sources, these are the scriptural authority that Arya Sangha was depending on. So again, it's my style, right? It's Geshe-la's style.

I've given you a general description of how Je Tsongkapa is demonstrating that Arya Sangha used that sutra as his authoritative source. Now we go back to Je Tsongkapa's text, so that you can be assured that I'm not making it up, right? This is coming from Je Tsongkapa's text itself.

We start from the third line down on page 35. There's where Je Tsongkapa directly demonstrates that Arya Sangha used that sutra when he described the five characteristics of emptiness. Then starting on line 5, Je Tsongkapa demonstrates how Arya Sangha used that same sutra to describe the three qualities of objects, those other three that we talked about.

And then when he gets down to the end of line 7, he begins to describe how Arya Sangha drew on the same sutra to describe the lack of a self-nature to things, which is where they end up describing the three attributes of the Mainomi school. And he goes on with all that kind of logic and that whole demonstration in three different cases to show that in three different cases Arya Sangha has been relying for scriptural authority on the sutra in which the Buddha described the antinomous sutras, it all ends on page 35, six lines from the bottom. So Je Tsongkapa has given three specific cases where Arya Sangha is utilizing the sutra in which the Buddha explained the antinomous sutras in order to show you that this is where Arya Sangha is drawing the Mainomi school's beliefs from.

[Говорящий 2]
So the main point is that Arya Sangha has been relying on the sutra in which the Buddha described the antinomous sutras to show you that this is where Arya Sangha is drawing the Mainomi school's beliefs from. So the main point is that Arya Sangha has been relying on the sutra in which the Buddha described the antinomous sutras to show you that this is where Arya Sangha is drawing the Mainomi school's beliefs from.

[Говорящий 1]
Now Je Tsongkapa has shown you three specific instances wherein Arya Sangha has drawn on that sutra as his scriptural authority. We're going to throw in two more. Je Tsongkapa throws in two more.

He mentions them like in one sentence, okay? He says, by the way, Arya Sangha also drew his presentation about the group of eight different kinds of consciousness and he also drew his presentation on the definitiveness of the different kinds of tracts, right? The definite number of the different kinds of tracts.

He drew those two presentations as well from the same sutra. Now Geshe-la says, you have to realize that the Mainomi school, the followers of the Mainomi school are divided into two different camps. There are those that are called those who follow scripture and there's another group called those who follow reasoning, right?

Logic. Lung Rik, right? So there are those who follow scripture and those who follow logic.

Geshe-la says, here Arya Sangha and Je Tsongkapa are mainly talking about the group which is called those who follow scripture. Those who follow after scripture. This particular group has these two additional ideas, two additional beliefs that they hold.

One of them is that the different kinds of consciousness can be described as eight. Consciousness is all lumped into a group of eight, okay? And what that means is that normally when we speak about the different kinds of consciousness we only call it the group of six, okay?

There's a group of six different consciousnesses and these are, you know, like hard sutras sort of thing. Consciousness of what you see, consciousness of what you hear, what you smell, what you taste, what you feel tactically, tactilely, okay? Tactile objects.

And then Geshe-la says, and what you think, right? Because according to you Westerners, you know, in Tibet you have to go like that. But, you know, and what you think.

So, those are normally called the group of the six consciousnesses. Now, when you get to the followers of scripture camp of the mind-only school, they say, no, you have to add two more. One you're familiar with, which is kun-chi nama-shepa.

That's an idea that there must be a storehouse consciousness or some kind of basis or foundation consciousness in which certain things are stored. And then they have an idea of an eighth consciousness which they call the consciousness of mental affliction. Now, what that means is a long story, but they say that they posit eight different forms of consciousness and they call that the group of eight consciousnesses.

Now we go on to that fifth idea, right? The fifth thing where he talks about the definitive number of the ways, right? The definitive number of the ways.

What this means is that I told you yesterday about the middle way school belief that there are three tracks, but if you talk in terms of reaching this ultimate goal, all roads lead to Rome, in a sense. So, ultimately there's only one track. Ultimately, no matter how much you fool around on all the tracks, sooner or later you have to end up going all on one track and getting to enlightenment.

And that's a middle way school presentation. But the followers after scripture, right? The followers after scriptural authority camp of the mind-only school says, no, no, no.

There are definitely six numbers that even in an ultimate sense, there are three different tracks. The tracks are three. There are three different goals, three different tracks, and the tracks are three, not one.

Okay? Ultimately speaking, with regard to the ultimate goal, we still say there are three. So, these are two specific beliefs of a camp, of a particular camp of the mind-only school, and Jetsun Kappa points out that when Arya Asanga talks about these beliefs, again, he is quoting, he's pulling out scriptural references from where?

From the sutra in which the Buddha explained the intent of the sutra. So, this again, now we have a total of three plus two, we have five different cases in which, says Jetsun Kappa, Arya Asanga has gone to scriptural authority, for scriptural authority to the sutra in which the Buddha explained his sutras. And that shows that this is the real basis for the mind-only presentation by Arya Asanga.

[Говорящий 2]
So, then Jetsun Kappa goes on to say, look, what are the great writings of Arya Asanga?

[Говорящий 1]
We have Changsha, which is like Bodhisattva Bhumi, especially the chapter on duskness, and then we have And then there's a book which is called, you know, setting that forth, or setting forth that, you know, the exposition of that, or something like that. So, he's got a book called Bodhisattva Bhumi, especially the chapter on duskness. He's got a book called the exposition of that, and I don't know what that is.

And then he's got a book called the summary of the ways, okay, these different summaries of ways. And he says, in all of those, they are all presentations, most importantly, focusing on emptiness with regard to the mind-only school of belief. So, in all of these, Arya Asanga is going back to the sutra in which the Buddha explained the intent of his sutras for their scriptural authority.

So, that's more cases. So, you got five plus three, and he's still using these as examples that Arya Asanga is drawing all of his presentations from that sutra.

[Говорящий 2]
So, he's got a book called Bodhisattva Bhumi, and he says, in all of those, they are all presentations, most importantly, focusing on emptiness with regard to the mind-only So, you got five plus three, and he's still using these as examples that Arya Asanga is drawing all of his presentations from that sutra. So, you got a book called Bodhisattva Bhumi, and he says, in all of those, they are all presentations, most importantly, focusing on emptiness with regard to the mind-only So, you got a book called Bodhisattva Bhumi, and he says, in all of those, they are all presentations, most importantly, focusing on emptiness with regard to the mind-only school of belief. So, you got a book called Bodhisattva Bhumi, and he says, in all of those, they are all presentations, most importantly, focusing on emptiness with regard to the mind-only So, you got a book called Bodhisattva Bhumi, and he says, in all of those, they are all presentations, most importantly, focusing on emptiness with regard to the mind-only So, you got a book called Bodhisattva Bhumi, and he says, in all of those, they are all presentations, most importantly, focusing on emptiness with regard to the mind-only So, you got a book called Bodhisattva Bhumi, and he says, in all of those, they are all presentations, most importantly, focusing on emptiness with regard to the mind-only school of belief. So, you got a book called Bodhisattva Bhumi, and he says, in all of those, they are all presentations, most importantly, focusing on emptiness with regard to the mind-only So, you got a book called Bodhisattva Bhumi, and he says, in all of those, they are all presentations, most importantly, focusing on emptiness with regard to the mind-only So, you got a book called Bodhisattva Bhumi, and he says, in all of those, they are all presentations, most importantly, focusing on emptiness with regard to the mind-only So, you got a book called Bodhisattva Bhumi, and he says, in all of those, they are all presentations, most importantly, focusing on emptiness with regard to the mind-only So, you got a book called Bodhisattva Bhumi, and he says, in all of those, they are all presentations, most importantly, focusing on emptiness with regard to the mind-only

[Говорящий 1]
Then, going to page 36, first line, Je Tsongkapa brings up, he throws into the pot the five... He begins to talk about certain ones of the five great books of Maitreya. There are a collection of five great books called the five great books of Maitreya.

Some of them relate the beliefs, end up being interpreted as relating the beliefs of the middle way school. For example, the Abhisamha Ankara, the ornament of realizations, and the higher line, which is called Uttaratantra. These two, for example, relate the beliefs of the Madhyamika school, the middle way school.

But there are three of the five great books of Maitreya. By the way, you know that Asanga wrote them down, right? He was taking dictation.

The other three books, of which one is the Dode Gyal, which means Sutralankara, and Uttanamadze, which means distinguishing between the middle and the extremes, and then Je Tsongkapa says, etc., there's only one left, Chuyinamadze. Chuyinamadze is very funny, Chuyinamadze. And the one that's not mentioned here is the one called making distinctions about the realm of dharma, meaning emptiness itself, okay?

So the one that he says, etc., refers to that. So basically, there are three books among the five great books of Maitreya, which are presenting the mind-only school system. And then people like Arya Asanga take these three books and start commenting upon them.

Also, student Moti, Lodhitemba, and Master Vasubandhu, these three great thinkers of the mind-only school and other great mind-only school proponents begin drawing from these three books of the five books of Maitreya to present the mind-only presentation of emptiness. And then Je Tsongkapa says, and the presentation that they derive thereby is in total keeping with the presentation in the sutra where the Buddha says, this is what I... in the sutra where the Buddha explains the true intent of his other sutras, right?

So he says, if you think about it, all the presentations of the mind-only school are being drawn from one place. Whether they come... we talk about those books of Maitreya which are in total concurrence with that sutra, or you're talking about the whole commentarial tradition which has come down from ancient India on that sutra, or whether you're talking about the sutra itself, it seems to me, he says finally in the fourth line on page 36, that this sutra has got to be the mother of all mothers for the mind-only school.

You know, this is the very root of all of it. This is where everything grew out of, is this sutra called the sutra in which the Buddha explains the intent of his sutras, for everybody involved with the mind-only school. So, what is it?

[Говорящий 2]
So, this sutra has got to be the mother of all mothers for the mind-only school, right? MMM and, uh...

[Говорящий 1]
...you know, it might be worth it to go back a page and tell you about those extra two consciousnesses, you know, ...and he said, do they know about those other two, and I said, well, we've talked in class about kunshi. ...and he said, do they know about those other two, and I said, well, we've talked in class about kunshi. But I haven't really gone into, and I don't really understand very clearly myself, ...the other one, which is called the mental affliction consciousness, right? He says, okay, let's go into them and talk about them a little bit, if you don't mind. Okay. So, Guruji Namah Shepa, he says, you know, in the middle way school, when you do something good karma, or you do some kind of bad karma, then some kind of potential is planted in your mind stream, some kind of energy, that you can also call that a bhaktsak, or a mental seed, is planted in your mind, and the middle way school says that's planted in your consciousness of your mind.

Okay? It's called the mental consciousness, as opposed to the sense consciousness. So those potentialities, those energies, those seeds, or bhaktsaks, are planted in, the middle way school says, it's planted in your consciousness of your mind, or your awareness of your thoughts.

Okay? And then the mind only school says, no, no, no, no, we need a separate consciousness, you know? We need to posit a separate consciousness where all these potentialities, where all this energy which is about to become something, right, where karmic seeds are planted.

So they say, oh, there has to be a separate consciousness called foundation, or base consciousness, some people call it storehouse consciousness, in which all of those potentialities are planted when you do a good deed or when you do a bad deed. So whether you've done something good, or whether you've done something bad, these bad energies and good energies are walking around with you, wherever you go, whatever you do, you're carrying around this extra consciousness with that baggage, with that karmic seed baggage, which is contained in that separate consciousness called kunshi, kunshi namahseva, which is the foundation consciousness. Okay, what we call mental affliction consciousness is very similar to what in the, you know, Middle Way school we described as the tendency to hold the person as being self-existent, okay?

So the tendency to believe that a person is self-existent is very, very similar to the idea of the mind-only school's eighth consciousness, which is called mentally afflicted consciousness. So the function of consciousness number eight is actually to focus on consciousness number seven. It focuses on the foundation consciousness, the one in which the bhaktas are being stored, and it says, oh, this is the self-existent person, okay?

This thing is, this is the essence of the person, and it's self-existent. This is the essence of a being. This goes on, you know, this is something that's lasting, this is something that exists from its own side, this is something that exists self-existently.

So the function of consciousness number eight is that tendency, comparable to the tendency to hold on to the self-existence of a person in the Middle Way school, which looks upon consciousness number six, which is the consciousness in which all those karmic seeds are staying, and looks at it and says, this is the real nature of the person. This is the essential self-nature of a person, and it has that mistaken understanding. It's called a lokshe means it's a misconception.

So number eight is a misconception about number seven, which is very similar to the Middle Way school presentation of that tendency to see a self-nature of a person.

[Говорящий 2]
So number eight is a misconception about number seven, which is a misconception about the self-nature of a person.

[Говорящий 1]
Jetla Gapa in the next line says, and so we can conclude that when Master Asanga made his presentation of the mind-only school, that he was drawing primarily upon this sutra which the Buddha explains in the Tenement Sutra. Now, when you think about that, when you think about that wording that Je Tsongkapa is using, this is the basis upon which Master Asanga made his presentation of the mind-only school. What he's implying is, he's saying one thing and he's implying a different thing.

What he's saying is that, Master Asanga was very instrumental in describing the mind-only school. But if you think about it, what he's also saying is that Master Asanga belongs to our camp. We are Middle Way Consequence Group, Highest Prasangika Madhyamika.

And when he says that's how he made his presentation, he's implying that Master Asanga didn't belong to that camp. Of course, the mind-only school people would say, Master Asanga belongs to us. He's a member of our camp.

Master Asanga is a mind-only school person. But Je Tsongkapa, in these simple words, in this simple phrase where he says, this is how Master Asanga describes, makes his presentation of the mind-only school, he is implicitly saying, Master Asanga belongs to our side. Master Asanga is just making a presentation of the mind-only school for the benefit of certain people.

But of course he belongs to the highest group of the Madhyamika school.

[Говорящий 2]
Yes. Yes. Yes.

[Говорящий 1]
You know, we've just been to this section where we had like, I don't know, five different places that Je Tsongkapa referred to in which Arya Asanga was drawing upon that sutra in which the Buddha explained to me in his sutra, right? So he's talking about five different places. He's ending up talking about the five characteristics of emptiness.

He ends up talking about the three characterizations of existing objects. He talks about the eight different kinds of consciousness. He gets down to all these things, right?

And in his own text, in Tangyur Lekshi Nimbo, in the Essence of Eloquence, which is the name of this book, on how to interpret the Buddha, Je Tsongkapa himself does not go into identifying them for you. Oh, you want to know what the eight consciousnesses are? Oh, here they are.

This is what this is, this is what this is, this is what this is. Neither does he go into the five kinds of emptiness and characteristics of emptiness and explain them for you, you know, one by one. Why?

Why not? What he's trying to say, Je Tsongkapa's style is to go for the jugular of things that are really hard. You see, he's not going to go back and list for you eight kinds of consciousnesses which you can learn anywhere else, right?

Je Tsongkapa's particular personal style is to go for the guts of the matter, right? These are not the guts of the mind-only school system, right? Those are interesting in that Arya Sangha used that sutra as a scriptural reference for them, and we've finished proving that Arya Sangha depended heavily on that sutra.

But Je Tsongkapa, his focus right now is explaining to you the very most crucial points of the mind-only school. On top of that, Je Tsongkapa's personal style is to leave the easy stuff and to go like a hound after the difficult points. So he's going to take the difficult points, smash them, smash them, break them, break them down, you know, down into finer points, finer points, finer points.

He's going to take the very most difficult points and mash them down into their finest denominators and try to figure them out. But he's going to cruise right past the easy points, and that's Je Tsongkapa's style. Je Tsongkapa wants you to know the crucial points, and when he gets to the difficult points and the crucial points, he stops and mashes it down into this powder, and that's his style.

So that's why Je Tsongkapa, at this point, in his very, what do you call it, concise text, is not sitting there and explaining to you easy points like, oh, here's what the eight consciousnesses are, or something like that.

[Говорящий 2]
That's it.

[Говорящий 1]
That's right. I'm just giving you an example. I'm not saying that Je Tsongkapa took a mortar and pestle and went about smashing the various sutras and stuff like that.

I hope you don't think I meant that. One big section closed. Case is closed.

Let's move on to the next one.

[Говорящий 2]
OK. Yes. OK.

[Говорящий 1]
I kind of interrupted him because I wanted to say it before I forgot it. OK. He says, should I go through the outline with him?

You know, normally Je Tsongkapa's style is to put forth his outline first, and then later on he just says, two, three, four, you know. So he says, should I tell them the outline? I said, yeah, it might be helpful so they get a general understanding of where we're going, right?

So he says, OK, let's do the outline. So at this point in the text, starting from line four, page 36, Je Tsongkapa begins his outline of his next subject. His next subject is how, especially in the mind-only school, using that sutra, we go on to describe, or we make our presentation, right, of how they describe emptiness.

And then he goes on to say, the first category is a general presentation on how it is that we avoid the two extremes. And remember from your earlier studies, those of you who took those courses, extreme here means cliff. OK?

Extreme here means cliff. We're going to thread a narrow path, and on each side of the road are two different cliffs, which are like, Geshe-la says, you know, these are like scary places where you could fall off of. You know, there's like rocks falling down into this chasm, you know, and you're like, I don't want to fall down over there, and I don't want to fall down over here.

So the word ta here, which normally means extreme or end, right, or edge, in this case refers to a kind of cliff. Now, what are the two great cliffs that we're trying to avoid? One is called kundep.

Kundep in Tibetan means to discount something. Something is actually existing or actually true, and you say it's not, that's called kundep. We can call it discounting, right?

And the other extreme or the other cliff that you don't want to fall off of is called dondok, which is seeing something where there is nothing. OK, so these are the two great mistakes you can make. Either say that something which is really there isn't there, or to say that something which isn't there is there.

And these are the two great cliffs off of which a person could fall. And the first section here is the idea of avoiding those two great chasms and sticking to a middle way. Now, here's the second category, the Muslim issue.

OK, the second category is called taking special pains to refute the cliff called seeing something where there is nothing, right? Of making up something where there is nothing. And what we're specifically referring to here is in this school where we are talking about a gaccha, right?

A self-existent thing. And here we're talking about a very subtle one. It's the subtle form of the self-nature of objects.

OK, the subtle form of self-nature of objects. People are seeing a subtle self-nature of objects where there is no self-nature of objects. It's actually a gaccha, but people don't see it that way.

People are creating something where in actuality there is nothing. And this is called donduk. So, the second category is taking special pains to refute the existence of that thing which people impute which is not there.

So, it's the extreme or it's the chasm or the cliff of thinking that there is a subtle form of a self-nature of objects when in reality there is no such thing. And that's the second category.

[Говорящий 2]
OK.

[Говорящий 1]
So, what's the third category? Remember the first category was a general presentation in which we described how to avoid those two extremes, those two cliffs. And then the second one was a more particular presentation or to take great care, more detail on avoiding the extreme of thinking there is something there when there is nothing there, meaning the subtle form of a self-nature to things.

And now he says, what's the third category going to be? The third category is using that information. After we have learned in the context of the mind-only school how it is that we eliminate or we avoid these two extremes, then the result of that is that we will come to an understanding of how the mind-only school says some scriptures are figurative and some scriptures are literal.

So, by learning how the mind-only school says we should tread our way through those two cliffs or those two extremes, we automatically come to an understanding of how they make the distinction between a teaching which is literal and a teaching which is figurative. So, that gives you a general outline of where we are going now.

[Говорящий 2]
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

[Говорящий 1]
So, now we are going to get... we are continuing with the outline, okay? You are going to see the outline first.

So, remember that the first category, the first section, we were going to talk about how to tread your way between the two extremes. A general presentation on how to tread your way between these two big chasms, right? And to do that, Jetsun Kapa is going to describe how Arya Sangha does that in Bodhisattva Bhumis, right?

That jangsa, the text he wrote called jangsa. Then, secondly, he is going to describe how Arya Sangha did that in the book called The Abbreviation. And then he is going to describe how the art of avoiding these two extremes is described in other important books, in other important texts.

So, there will be those three categories. How it was described in the Bodhisattva Bhumis, how it was described in The Abbreviation, and then finally, how it was described in other texts. And now we are going into the subcategories of the last categories, okay?

So, in the last one, he promised to explain how Arya Sangha describes how to avoid the two extremes in his book called Bodhisattva Bhumis, right? And now he is going to go on to... there are two ways of doing that.

There are two different steps in doing that. One, the first one, is to describe what it is to discredit something or to impute something, right? So, he is going to describe what is the viewpoint, how does a person look at something when they are in the act of saying that nothing is there when it really is there, or saying that something is there when it really isn't there, you know?

What is it? What is that state of mind like? What is that state of mind actually thinking as it does its discrediting?

What do you want to call the other one? It's like making a mountain out of a molehill. It's like making something when there is nothing there.

You could call it imputing maybe. It's more like there is nothing there and you think there is something there. The other one is like discrediting, you know?

There is really something there and you say there is nothing there. Let's call it imputing right now, but you know I don't mean projection or something like that, okay? It's seeing something there when there is nothing there, and the other one is saying there is nothing there when there really is something there, okay?

So, discrediting and overrating maybe. Let's call it that so we don't get confused, okay? Discrediting and overrating.

So, what is that state of mind like when you're discrediting something, in this case? And what does it mean to be overrating something, in this case? Okay, that will be the first step.

And then the second step will be, how does the Bodhisattva Bhūmīs, how does the book called Jāngsā, describe how to stop those two, how to avoid those two? Okay, so first is, how does that state of mind work when you either discredit or overrate something? And secondly, how do you avoid doing that?

Those will be the two steps.

[Говорящий 2]
So, how do you avoid doing that? First is, how does that state of mind work when you either discredit or overrate something, in this case? And secondly, how does that state of mind work when you either discredit or overrate something, in this case?

And thirdly, how does that state of mind work when you either discredit or overrate something, in this case? So, how does that state of mind work when you either discredit or overrate something, in this case? That's all, that's all.

Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Yes.

Yes, sir.

[Говорящий 1]
Now you have to learn to make the distinction between... ta means the edge of the cliff, okay? So, you have to make the distinction between the edge of the cliff of the tendency to discredit something, and the discrediting, okay?

So, there are two different things here. There's the edge of the cliff of discrediting something, and then there's the state of mind of discrediting something, okay? So, you have to make a distinction between those.

You also have to make the distinction between the state of mind which overrates something, or sees something where there is nothing, and the overrating, or the thing overrated, meaning the cliff, okay? The edge of the cliff. So, I'll repeat it, okay?

With each of these two states of mind, there is a distinction between the state of mind which either discredits or overrates, and then, what we call the cliff, or the extreme of overrating, and the extreme of discrediting. So, for example, in the case... Geshe-la wants to take first the case of the extreme of overrating something, or seeing something where it's not there.

There are two flavors here, okay? This state of mind either wants to say that something that doesn't exist there, is there, right? Is in the English sense of identity, right?

I'm sorry, of existence. And then there's another flavor of the English word is, which in Tibetan is a different verb, right? Which means, is in the sense of to be something, or to be somebody.

You see what I mean? So, this state of mind which is trying to make something where there is nothing there, has two flavors. Either it's saying something's there when there is nothing there, or it's saying that something is some way when it's not that way at all, okay?

So, is in these two senses of English. It exists, or it is something or other. You see what I mean?

This state of mind has both of those flavors. Either this state of mind is saying something exists where nothing exists, or this state of mind is saying about something, it is that way where it really isn't that way. So, these are two kinds of overrating, or making something where there is nothing.

Now, you have to distinguish between the state of mind and what it thinks is the case, right? So, there's the state of mind which says that something's there when it's not there, and then there is the thing which was never there that it thinks is there. Now, this is a little hard to describe because it doesn't exist, okay?

Like, for me to describe it to you would be a little difficult. We call that the extreme, okay? So, you got to make that distinction in your mind.

When we talk about the tendency to see something where there is nothing, that's a state of mind. When we talk about the extreme of thinking that something is there when it's not there, that extreme is actually the theoretical object that that state of mind thinks is there, but it's not there anyway and never was there, okay? So, when we say...we have to make a distinction between overrating and the extreme of overrating, because when we say extreme, the word extreme in Tibetan, meaning edge of the cliff, is a code word for the non-existent object that that state of mind thinks it sees, okay? And you have to get used to that. So, there's a distinction between the states of mind of overrating and discounting, and the objects which they hold, okay, which are called extremes, okay? And you have to thread your way between those two extremes or edges of cliffs, okay?

He gave an example...I don't remember what it was. There was a very brief example of where we sometimes see something where there is nothing, okay? Or where we impute something where it doesn't have that quality, okay?

And that would be...I think it...I don't remember the example, but it's like something like seeing something to be permanent when it's not permanent at all. That's another flavor of the tendency to overrate. And a permanent object where there is none, that non-existent permanent object would be an example of a ta or an edge of a cliff.

So, you have to distinguish between the edge of the cliff, ta, and the state of mind which is holding to that, okay?

[Говорящий 2]
Mm-hmm.

[Говорящий 1]
Mm-hmm.

[Говорящий 2]
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

[Говорящий 1]
The same is true of the second tendency, right? The tendency of discounting, right? Of saying...and there are two flavors, right? One is the state of mind that says, there isn't something there when it really is there. Or the state of mind that says, this isn't something when this really is something. You see what I mean?

The first being a state of mind that says, oh, yeah, about something which is actually there, it says, no, it's not there. Or it says about something which really does have a certain characteristic or quality, oh, it doesn't have that, it is not that. Meaning, it doesn't have that characteristic or quality.

So, again, remind yourself that we are talking about a state of mind which is saying something is not there when it really is there. That's the second kind of...that's what we call discounting, right? Discounting something that's actually there.

Again, we use the word ta, or extreme, or edge of the cliff, right? To describe as a code word for its object, okay? What is its object?

Well, ta-pa-ta-sam-gyur-ikpa means... you know, in theory we could describe it a certain way. In theory means...

it's difficult to describe because it doesn't exist, you see what I mean? The non-existence of a quality there, when there is a quality there, doesn't exist. Okay?

The non-existence of a quality there, or the non-existence of an object there, when the object or the quality is there, is something that doesn't exist. So it's hard to describe the extreme. It's hard to describe the edge of the cliff.

Edge of the cliff is a code word, in both cases, for the object to which that mind is grasping, and that object is a thing which doesn't even exist, you see? Either it's holding on to something which it thinks does exist when nothing is there, which doesn't exist, or it's holding on to the non-existence of an object or a quality which really is there, and that doesn't exist either, does it? So you've got to get used to this idea that both states of mind, whether it's overrating something or discounting something, are holding to an extreme position, an edge of a cliff, which is a code word for something which never existed anyway.

Geshe-la, I want you to be aware that this continuing detail is Michael's fault. I keep saying, I don't think we have to cover this in that much detail, do we? And I keep saying, I think it'd be really nice if you did, Geshe-la, and if you guys get bored or you think I'm going into too much detail, or, why is he being so nitpicky?

If that occurs in your mind, you have to blame Lo Tsang Tseng, because he's the one who keeps telling me, oh, oh, let's go over that, let's go over that, you know? I keep saying, do you think it's necessary to go over that? And Lo Tsang Tseng keeps saying, yeah, yeah, let's go into some detail there.

And so if you guys think it's a pain in the ass, it's Michael and it's not me, okay? I think it could definitely come into your mind that he's being too nitpicky, and I just want you to know whose fault it really is.

[Говорящий 2]
Mm-hmm. Na re. Na re, na re, na re.

Na re, na re, do.

[Говорящий 1]
Na re, Lo Tsang, Lo Tsang. Na re, Lo Tsang, Lo Tsang. I've never heard this, it's very beautiful.

He says, you may wonder about a literal explanation of the Tibetan expression, don dok. Don dok is the one that I'm translating as overrating, which I still don't like, because overrating assumes something's already there, and you're just overrating it. But this don dok is more radical than that.

It's seeing something where there isn't anything, right? So don dok, if you want to know the meaning of the Tibetan phrase, which is a quite difficult phrase, it doesn't seem to have any literal explanation, etymology. He says, here's the etymology of don dok.

Do refers to a certain feather of a bird. Do means a feather of a bird, okay? And dok means to apply it.

Now, let's suppose you want to go out and make an arrow to shoot something, right? You take a piece of bamboo, and you fashion it into the shape of an arrow, okay? You take the bamboo, which is just a plain old piece of bamboo, and you fashion it until you have an arrow.

And then you go back and get this feather, piece of feather, right? And you pull it off the main feather, and you glue it onto this stick in order to guide it properly, right? So you glue these three feathers onto this stick.

That gluing in Tibetan is the verb, dokpa means to apply something, or to label something, or to stick something onto something. So, don dok meaning the application of the feather, or gluing on the feather means to fashion something which wasn't there before. You see, there wasn't any arrow before.

There was just a piece of bamboo and a bird's feather. And now you have applied the feather. You have glued on the feather, meaning you have created something where there was nothing there before.

You've created an arrow where there was no arrow before. And that's the etymology of the unusual Tibetan expression don dokpa, which means in English to make something where there is nothing there. Generally in Tibetan we have a verb kurwa, which means to dispatch something, dispatch a letter, or to dispatch a package.

Oftentimes it means to entrust it into someone else's care, meaning I have dispatched it, like with the Pony Express or something. Kurwa means I've dispatched the package or the letter, or I haven't dispatched the package or letter. So, if a package has not yet been dispatched, it's still with you.

It's something that exists with you. If a package has been dispatched, or a letter has been dispatched, then there's nothing there anymore. And don't forget that kundep, this state of mind is something that says something which actually is there, isn't there.

So, in a sense, the package has been dispatched, meaning that it's no longer there. This state of mind believes that something which really is there, is no longer there. It has dispatched that thing off into nothingness, right?

So, that's the meaning of... That's my attempted etymology of the word kundepa, which is a very... these are both very weird Tibetan words, weird Tibetan phrases.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
So, we have now... He says it's a big pain in the ass, isn't it? If this were all in English, I could just say, okay, it starts there, you know.

But this is all in Tibetan, I'd have to go counting pages and counting lines for you and telling you to start from that line. And if it were all in English it would be a lot easier, wouldn't it? It's kind of a waste of time to have to do this.

But anyway, page 36, 6th line from the bottom, the quotation starts on the 5th line from the bottom, and that's where, all the way up to the 3rd line from the bottom, that is the actual quotation from the Bodhisattva Bhumis of Master Asanga, in which he describes how to stop those two states of mind and what those two states of mind are. So there you get the actual quotation from Master Asanga, and then beginning straight after that will be Je Tsongkapa's interpretation or his explanation of how those words describe those two states of mind and their extremes, right? And then how to avoid them.

Then starting at the last line of page 36, Je Tsongkapa says, well, these two, meaning now that Master Asanga has brought up these two states of mind, Je Tsongkapa is going to search around in Master Asanga to find out how he describes these states of mind, beginning at the last line of page 36. He says, these two are described in Bodhisattva Bhumis as... And then he takes off with a quotation from the Bodhisattva Bhumis, all the way up to the 3rd line on page 37.

And right there on the 3rd line in the middle, Je Tsongkapa begins to say, well, now these words by Master Asanga describe what it is to overrate something, to think something is there when it's not. That's OK.

[Говорящий 2]
That's right.

[Говорящий 1]
In lines, page 36, 5th line from the bottom, we start out in Arya Asanga's Bodhisattva Bhumis, where he asks a rhetorical question. He says, well, what's it like? And Geshe-la says, well, what is he talking about?

What's it? And they're talking about it when they say, what's it like? They're talking about emptiness according to the mind-only school.

So when Arya Asanga starts out by saying, well, what's it supposed to be like? What's it like? He's talking about emptiness as presented in the mind-only school.

And then Master Asanga goes on to say, he says, you have to learn to eliminate that tendency of mind, which tends to overrate in the sense that it puts something there when something is not there. Secondly, you have to learn to eliminate that state of mind which says that this isn't true when it's talking about something which is true, which is pure. Pure probably meaning emptiness.

The other one probably meaning gaccha, right? You have to learn not to say about something that is there when it's not there. You have to learn to say about something, not say about something that it isn't there when it is there.

And if you get to that point, then that's what... Remember the first question was, well, what's that like? And then he says, well, I'll tell you what it's like.

It's like this. You've got to learn to get to it, if you want to know what it is, if you want to know what it's like, well, you've got to get to a point where you can eliminate the state of mind that says there is something there when it's not there, meaning with regard to the gaccha, right? Or you've got to avoid that state of mind that says there isn't something there when there really is something there, which is yantrapa, meaning the pure meaning, meaning probably emptiness or something like that.

So, you have to learn to avoid those two extremes. And that's what it's like. You want to know what it's like?

That's what it's like. That's his answer to his own rhetorical question. What is this?

[Говорящий 2]
What is this? That's all. That's all.

[Говорящий 1]
That's all. And then you can divide these two tendencies, right? Or the two types of people who have these tendencies.

You can characterize them as people who don't know where to draw the line about what's there and people who don't know where to draw the line about what's not there. And they both go too far. One doesn't know how to draw the line about what is there and he tends to say there's too much there.

One doesn't know where to draw the line about what's not there and he tends to deny more than you have to deny. He tends to cancel more than you have to cancel. The other one tends to say there's too much there, much more there than there is there.

So how do we, in brief or in a simple way, describe these two states of mind or people that have these two states of mind? One would be somebody who doesn't know where to draw the line about what is there in a positive sense, and then somebody who doesn't know how to draw the line properly with regard to what's not there. And that's a simple way to describe these two states of mind and people who have these two states of mind.

[Говорящий 2]
Yes, that's right.

[Говорящий 1]
All right. Okay, so we got this idea, this concept of somebody who doesn't know where to draw the line somebody who doesn't know where to draw the line on saying things are there or saying things exist. Then we got somebody else who doesn't know where to draw the line on saying things don't exist.

They go too far in describing what doesn't exist. And these first guys go too far in describing what is there, right? These guys have the problem with John Doeck, right, saying something there is not there.

These probably have a problem with, these guys have a problem with Cohen and Dampa saying that something's there, which is, sorry, denying something which really is there, right? And we can describe these states of mind more in terms of the people who have them, right? When we said they don't know where to draw the line on what is there, they don't know where to draw the line on what's not there, right?

We can actually identify specific groups of people who are doing this. Let's take the four great schools of ancient India, right? The first two schools, which are the Abhidharma schools, the Vaibhashika school, right?

The detailists, we can call them in English. The detailists and the sutras, which are the great logic schools and the schools of perceptual theory. These two, we can categorize the members of those two schools as people who don't know where to draw the line on saying things are there, saying things exist.

They go too far in identifying what's really there. Then, from the mind-only point of view, right? From the mind-only point of view, right?

The people in the fourth school, meaning the middle way, the followers of the middle way, they are kinds of people who don't know where to draw the line in saying things don't exist. They go too far in saying something's not there when it really is there, okay? So, from the mind-only school's point of view, these two lower schools have a problem of not knowing where to draw the line in saying things are there or do exist.

And this middle way school, which they wouldn't characterize as highest, I guess, don't know where to draw the line in saying what's not there. And that's how we can identify people who have these states of mind.

[Говорящий 2]
. . .

. . .

[Говорящий 1]
How is it that these first two groups are people who don't know where to draw the line of saying that something exists? Don't forget that in Tibetan, the word saying that something exists, which is drupa, right, which also means positive or means to exist, but it also means to establish or to prove something, right, like dharma-drupa, something like that. So, drupa has all those senses.

So, they don't know where to draw the line on proving things or establishing things, right? How is it that these lower two schools don't know where to draw the line on saying how... when we can say something exists or something is established or something is proven, right?

We can go back to the example of the boy named Tashi, right? What does the mind-only school accuse the lower two schools of saying about Tashi, where they don't know where to draw the line? They've said that more exists there than really exists there.

They've tried to establish more there than really exists there. Don't forget their idea that the fact that Tashi is the thing called Tashi, okay? The fact that Tashi is the thing that we give the name Tashi.

They say, those lower two schools, according to the mind-only school, right? The lower two schools say that fact exists by definition, okay? The fact that Tashi is the thing that gets the name Tashi, to say that that fact exists by definition, okay, is going too far, okay?

They accuse the lower two schools of that. That isn't something that exists by definition, according to the mind-only school, but these two lower schools that say... they say that that fact does exist by definition, and in so saying, they have gone too far.

They don't know where to draw the line on saying that something exists. You could also say, more simply, that they... there was one other thing you said, oh, that they believe that that is something that comes from its own side, from...

through its own unique way of being, right? This is another way of characterizing exists by definition, right? In the mind-only school.

In the mind-only school, something exists by definition when it is said to exist from its own side, through its own unique way of being. Now, these two lower schools would also say, about the fact that Tashi is what gets the name Tashi, that that fact is something which comes through its own unique way of existing. From its own side, by its own unique way of existing.

And in this sense, too, they don't know where to draw the line in saying what exists and what doesn't exist. Okay? So, that's another example.

There are those... there are... there are two concrete examples of why the mind-only school would accuse the two lower schools of not knowing where to draw the line on what exists or what...

or what is present or what you have to prove or establish. They go too far. Now, what would it be like if you did know where to draw the line?

Okay? Okay? So, what if you did know where to draw the line on saying something existed or doesn't...

or existed? Right? If you knew where to draw the line properly about saying that something exists or doesn't exist...

or, sorry, that it exists, right? Well, then, according to the mind-only school, you'd say, with regard to Tashi, right? The boy named Tashi.

Tashi and the emptiness which applies to Tashi. Those two things. Totality which applies to Tashi.

The emptiness of Tashi. And Tashi himself. Oh, these are two things which do exist by definition, okay?

But the fact that... I'm sorry. Yeah.

But the fact that Tashi is what gets the name Tashi, right? The kundaka of Tashi. That's not something that exists by definition.

If you say it that way, okay? The fact that Tashi is what we call Tashi doesn't exist by definition, but Tashi himself does exist by definition, and the emptiness which applies to Tashi does exist by definition. If you say it that way, oh, then you're a person who knows where to draw the line with regard to what does exist.

Then you've drawn the line properly. You're a person who knows how to draw the line well. So what does it mean when they accuse the Madhyamika Prasangika, the consequence group, the highest group among the middle way school, they say, hey, you guys don't know where to draw the line.

You don't know where to stop with canceling things, you see? You don't know where to draw the line about saying that things don't exist. What is the manner, or how is it, that the higher group in the middle way school doesn't understand where to draw the line?

Well, with the example of the boy named Tashi, Tashi, the changing thing, the dependent thing, which really does, according to the mind-only school, exist by definition, and the emptiness of Tashi, his totality, which also according to the mind-only school, does exist by definition, they come in, those Prasangika guys, and they're like saying, no, that doesn't exist by definition, Tashi, and neither does the emptiness that applies to Tashi exist by definition. They go too far in canceling things, wiping out things, saying that things don't exist.

Therefore, they are the classic example of somebody who doesn't know where to draw the line in denying that something exists. You can therefore, you can guess what it means to draw the line properly in denying something, right? Now you can guess.

How would you draw the line properly in denying something? If you denied that Tashi didn't exist by definition, and if you denied that Tashi's emptiness didn't exist by definition, then you would be drawing the line properly, according to the mind-only school, about denying, what to deny or what to say doesn't exist. Got it?

Yeah. I think I got it. No?

No, I didn't get it? Okay. If with regard to, if somebody came along and said that Tashi doesn't exist by definition, okay?

And if somebody came along and said that Tashi's emptiness doesn't exist by definition, and if you denied those two guys, you would be drawing the line properly about what to deny, you see? About what to cancel. And if with regard to his, the constructs about Tashi, somebody came along and said that does exist by definition, okay?

Somebody came along and said the construct does exist by definition, and you went and denied with them, and you canceled them, and you said, no, you're wrong. Then you are a person who draws the line correctly in denying something. You see what I mean?

Okay, got it? That's a little tricky. All right?

Whew. Double negatives and stuff like that. Okay.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
So, in a sense, what have we done? Who's fallen off the cliff now? According to the minority school, who are the poor guys that fell off the cliff, right?

Off the cliff of saying something's there when it's not there have fallen the first two philosophical groups of India, the detailists, the Vaibhashikas, and the Sutras, right? They have fallen off the cliff of saying something's there that does not exist, that's not there. Now, who's fallen off the other cliff?

That's the Madhyamika Prasangika. Those guys, the consequence group, the higher group among the Madhyamika school, Middle Way school, they have fallen off the other cliff of denying something's there when it really is there, right? And so, in a sense, by identifying the two objects, the two cliffs, the two nonexistent things, right?

We've done that now. You've been able to identify the objects that these two lower schools think that are there that's not there. And we've identified the so-called object that this school thinks is not there, which really is there.

The two tathas, the two extremes, the two edges of the cliff, we've identified properly. So, by identifying those two extremes and identifying who it is that fell off into those two cliffs, off those two cliffs, then we start to begin to come to a very clear idea of what it is that the mind-only school believes itself about the idea of emptiness. By going through those two extremes and refuting them, we are now getting very close to the mind-only school's presentation of emptiness.

By denying the extremes, we come to understand the mind-only school's presentation. So, tomorrow we'll go on to... you know, we were going to take special care to refute the people who were overrating something.

Now we know who we're talking about. We're talking about the first two schools of ancient India, the detailess and the sutras. And we know who it is that we're going to be refuting when we say, now we will take special care.

Now we will take a special... in greater detail, we will describe how to avoid the extreme that these two guys have fallen off, and not so much the extreme that the middle-weight people have fallen off, although we will get to that, or that will be presented. But now we're going to take special care to talk about how we refute those two lower schools that have fallen off that particular cliff.

That's it, that's all.

[Говорящий 2]
That's it. That's it.

[Говорящий 1]
That's it. That's it. Don't forget yesterday, you know, we talked about tashi.

The other day we talked about tashi. We talked about tashi being empty. And we talked about the two flavors of the word empty.

One was that you walk into the room and you say, you know, that thing's not here, meaning that thing is absent or present. And then we talked about another kind of emptiness in which we were talking about the snake, the piece of rope and the snake. We said the rope is not the snake.

The rope is empty of having the identity of the snake. One is a question of is in the sense of is it present or not, does it exist or not. And the other is the is in the sense of is it that thing or is it not that thing.

And you guys are going to have to now buckle down and try to think clearly about which one of those two flavors are we really talking about when we get into refuting these guys who believe that something is there when it's not there. And you guys have to go home and start cooking that one.

[Говорящий 2]
That's it. That's it.

[Говорящий 1]
You better get this point, okay? You better get this point comfortable in your mind. It better be sharp in your mind.

You better be very sensitive to this point. Up till now we've been saying there's a kind of construct that doesn't exist, and the lack or the absence of that construct with regard to dashi is dashi's emptiness, right? The fact that a non-existent construct does not apply to dashi is dashi's emptiness.

So we've been kind of saying dashi's over here and there's this megak over here, right? There's this gaccha over here. There's this non-existent, never could exist construct that doesn't apply to dashi.

So here's dashi and standing in back of dashi, looming in back of dashi is this non-existent construct which dashi will never have and which will never apply to dashi, which is absent with regard to dashi. So if I keep going like that, and because I've been going like that so much, you guys might start getting the feeling that out of the two characterizations of emptiness, one of thinking of emptiness as meaning empty room, right? Where something is absent, like furniture or people are absent.

Then the other kind of emptiness where you say, is the piece of rope, the snake, a snake or not? An absence of identity or an absence of being something rather than an absence of the presence of something, right? Of those two, I think that given all this megak, gaccha stuff that we've been going through, the lack of this with regard to dashi, the fact that dashi doesn't have that with him, on him, right?

You might start thinking that, I have a feeling that your minds are tending towards the empty rooms interpretation of emptiness, the empty room flavor of emptiness, but please don't do that, okay? Don't forget that the big question that's going to come up tomorrow is the question of, is, not exist, right? Is, as opposed to exist.

Is the boy dashi someone who by definition is given the name dashi? Okay, or is he not? You see, now it becomes a question not of existing or not existing.

We're not talking about whether dashi exists or dashi doesn't exist, or whether this gaccha does or does not apply to dashi. That's a reasonable way to talk about it. That's a correct way to talk about it.

It's not the main point here, okay? The main flavor, and I want you guys to get this in your mind, I want you guys to be able to fix your mind on this point, is that we're talking about whether or not dashi is, okay, not exist. We're talking about whether or not dashi is the thing that gets the name dashi by definition.

Is dashi by definition the object of the name dashi? That's the big question here. Then you're talking about more of emptiness in the sense of the snake and the rope, right?

Is the snake the rope? Is dashi someone who gets the name dashi by definition? And we're not talking so much about whether or not a non-existent construct exists in this room, right?

So get your mind on those two flavors. Be able to switch your mind between those two flavors because it's the second flavor, the flavor of identity and not of existence or non-existence. Is dashi by definition the thing which we name dashi?

That's going to be the crucial question in the coming day, okay? That's okay. This is a tough point.

This is a tough question, you know. This distinction, making this distinction is difficult. And that's why Desangkapa is going to revisit this idea now in the coming section of text.

He's going to be concentrating on this distinction. Thank you.

[Говорящий 2]
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