Углублённый курс ACI 04 — Искусство толкования, часть 1 (1998, Билакуппе, Индия), занятие 21

[Говорящий 2]
Back then, people didn't know how to speak Chinese. So we had to teach a teacher to speak Chinese, and then teach one member of the teacher to speak Chinese, and then, the remaining one would have to teach the student a bit. But, the teacher's teacher only knew Chinese and was not speaking Chinese.

[Говорящий 1]
He wasn't speaking Chinese.

[Говорящий 2]
So, they would not know Chinese. If they could speak Chinese, they would have been able to speak a bit of Sichuan dialect. They would have known a bit of Sichuan dialect, but if they weren't able to speak Chinese, I couldn't be sure if the students would understand it or not.

The other day, I was on a mission to India and I met someone asking me a question. He said, you have to go to India to take part in the war. I said no, I don't know much about it.

He said, you have to go there to take part in the war. I said no, I don't know much about it. So consequently, the Buddha will become enlightened one day And this Buddha also will become enlightened one day I think this is the way of the Buddha So, how can this Buddha become enlightened?

Buddha cannot become enlightened He has no energy This is the truth Therefore, we must never be in the same state This is the truth We should feel the joy in accumulating it When we first studied the teachings of the Buddha So, in this way, we can see that there is no difference between the mind and the body. Well said.

[Говорящий 1]
So we've had a couple of presentations why nominal things, or constructs, remember they said that generally speaking, constructs can be divided into those which refer to existing things and those which refer to things which don't exist. But generally speaking, you have to say that constructs do exist. So when the commentaries, such as older commentaries on the sutra in which the Buddha explained the antanimous sutras, start explaining that with regard to dependent things, the Buddha in this sutra said they are neither truth, they neither exist ultimately nor do they exist nominally.

And then they went on to say again, there was another section that it said, empty things, totality things, that they do exist nominally but they don't exist ultimately, which is the opposite of what's correct. And on those two points, the great commentaries on the sutra in which the Buddha explains the antanimous sutras are wrong. This is all in response to a claim that somebody has said that constructs don't exist.

People are claiming that somebody in the mind-only school might end up saying that constructs don't exist at all, because not being in either one of the two truths, they would have to not exist at all. And then Jatakapa says, you know, those commentaries have been wrong on other points as well, it wasn't just on this point that they were wrong. For example, they say that the mind-only school does say that external things exist.

And we know, according to the presentation in Thegdu, in the compendium by Master Sangha, that he says they're distinctly quoting the original sutra that those things don't exist, that this school says that external objects don't exist. So it's obvious that these commentaries have been wrong on those points and they're probably wrong on the other points as well. And then to rub it in, Jatakapa starts quoting also Master Sangha, two different places.

He quotes Bodhisattva levels and then he quotes the abbreviation, and he says in these two places as well, they describe constructs as being existing things. Admitted, there are certain constructs which don't refer to existing objects, but in general you have to say that those constructs do exist. And also admittedly they exist only nominally, but you still have to say that they exist.

They may not exist ultimately, but they do exist nominally, therefore they exist. So, for all these reasons, for the reason that the original sutra indicated that constructs do exist, for the reason that Master Sangha's two works, even three works Master Sangha on two different commentaries is saying that they do exist, that constructs do exist, even though they exist only nominally. Therefore you cannot say that the intent of the sutras was to say that constructs don't exist at all, as a group.

Now we have on the last line of page fifty and on the beginning line of page fifty-one, some of the guys are coming up and saying, look, why are you complaining about the commentaries to the sutra in which the Buddha explained the intent of his other sutras? Why are you doing that? Why are you complaining about that?

Everybody knows it was written by Master Sangha himself. And Geshe-la points out that there are catalogs to the Tengyur in which the great commentary to the sutra in which the Buddha explained the intent of his other sutras is supposedly written by Master Sangha. I've also seen it.

There's also some that say supposedly written by Master Sangha. But anyway, there are catalogs to the Tengyur where it says, this book was written by Master Sangha. Then Je Tsongkapa says, anyone who claims that this book, that these mistaken commentaries, or commentaries and mistakes in them were written by Master Sangha, hasn't looked into the matter very well.

Matakso means, Matapachembo means, they have grossly failed to look into the matter at all. Page 51, first line. Why?

For several reasons. First of all, what's stated in that great commentary to the sutra on the intent of the sutras, and what's stated in the Bodhisattva Levels, and what's stated in the abbreviation, are all at odds with each other. If you set on one side this commentary to that sutra, and if you set on the other side these two known commentaries by Master Sangha, they seem to be completely saying different things.

They seem to be totally contradicting each other. Master Sangha is not the kind of person to contradict himself in three different books. So that's one indication.

Secondly, we find in that commentary on the sutras, on the intent of the sutras, we find a quotation. They quote Master Dharmakirti, who by the way, Westerners say lived around 600-700 A.D. Master Sangha is 350 A.D. So they said, that book quotes Master Dharmakirti. Even historically, the claim that that book was written by Master Arya Sangha is wrong, from point of view of style, from point of view of content, from point of view of historical possibility.

He couldn't have written it. Anybody who says that hasn't looked into the matter. And then Geshe-la brings up another possible objection.

Somebody might come and say, it's no problem that Master Sangha is contradicting himself here, because remember, he's really a Madhyamika in mind-only clothing, she's clothing. Everybody knows he's really a Madhyamika thinker who's just presenting the mind-only school for his whole life. And then they say, well, even if he were, even if that may be the case, that could be the case, but in these three books, he's purporting to present the ideas of the mind-only school.

He begins by saying, I'm going to present the ideas of the mind-only school. So it's not like he's going to throw in Madhyamika in some books where he's supposedly presenting only the mind-only school. So that's not a justification for why there might be some contradictions here.

The fact is, he didn't write it because the time is impossible, the subject matter is impossible, and the style is different also. Je Tsongkapa says, I'll give you another reason why Master Sangha never wrote that book, okay? He did write the book called The Abbreviation.

In the book called The Abbreviation, that book treats the entire sutra, on the antenna of the sutras, in great detail, except for one chapter, there are ten chapters in that sutra. One chapter is called, the lang shi means, lang shi sort of means a story about how the book was written, or why the book was written, usually it's something like that, okay? Nowadays it means the foreword of a book, it's called a lang shi or a lang shi.

So he says, aside from that chapter, which is not the biggest chapter there, all other nine chapters of the ten chapters of the original sutra, in which the Buddha explains the antenna of the sutras, he covers every chapter. He pulls out quotations from each of those nine chapters, he talks about them in detail, and in particular he goes after difficult points in those chapters. So he rips apart, he goes in and he delves into them.

So there's no need, there's no reason why Master Sangha would have gone and written another commentary on the same subject. So you can't say that he wrote what's called the great commentary on the sutra in which the Buddha explains the antenna of the sutras, because he did write the abbreviation, which turns out to be a really big, long book, in great detail about the contents of that sutra. So there's no reason why he would have finished that, and then started another commentary on that subject.

So it doesn't make sense, it just doesn't cover. Now on page fifty-one on the fifth line, chikki-kacik kyang means, and also there have been later people who showed up later, you know, later thinkers and later debaters who have shown up later and made similar mistakes or similar claims, right? What are those claims?

First one is that the first of the three attributes of the Mind-Only School, right, which is constructs, that would come along and say that constructs exist neither ultimately nor do they exist relatively. They exist neither ultimately nor nominally, neither ultimately nor deceptively, which is in effect to say that they don't exist. Some people have come up and said that's what the Mind-Only School thinks about constructs.

When you get to the middle one, meaning the middle of the three attributes, which is shamwangs, right, dependent things, well, then they say, oh, they do exist nominally, but they don't exist ultimately, which is also a reversal, right? And then they come up to this last one, which is totality or emptiness, and they say, it does exist ultimately, but that's all, okay? Then some people, these later debaters, have come along and said, this is the true intent of tome-kuchi.

Tome-kuchi means Asanga and the brother, meaning Asanga and his half-brother, Master Vasubandhu, okay? So when they were in Mind-Only School, she's clothing, then that's what they believed and that's what they said. Now, this is basically exactly the same positions that are being expressed by whoever wrote the commentary on the sutra, on the intent of the sutra.

And so really it's just the same error over again. It's the same misreporting of the concepts or the positions of the Mind-Only School. Who is it, and then he goes on to say, anyone who thinks that has dropped out of this system, okay?

There's an expression in Tibetan which is, they have gone to the outside of the system, meaning they've lost the system, they've gone to somewhere else, okay? They may have gone somewhere else, but they're not in the Mind-Only System anymore. So whoever reports this as being the intention of the Mind-Only School has in effect dropped out of the Mind-Only System, the Mind-Only School.

Now, who are these later people that Jetun Kapa is talking about? Geshe-la identifies them as Bhutan Tantray Khyenpa Rinchen Drup, Bhutan Rinpoche, who was instrumental in, by the way, instrumental in designing the Kangyur Intent, putting them together, okay? And he was about a generation and a half before Jetun Kapa.

He is a renowned scholar of Madhyamika. He understood the Middle Way School very well. He wrote good books about it.

His description of that is correct. When he got to the Mind-Only School, when he got to reporting what the Mind-Only School believed, he didn't describe it correctly, okay? He didn't get it right.

And he did, for example, say these three things, that two of them are not correct, about the Mind-Only School. So that's who Jetun Kapa is obliquely referring to.

[Говорящий 2]
Geshe-la is looking for that quotation from Dharmakirti that shows up in that book, just to prove to you that it's correct. Okay. Okay.

Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
Then Jetun Kapa lays a further fault on these guys. He's rubbing it in even more. He says, by the way, what did you say again about dependent things?

And they said, we said that the Mind-Only School says that dependent things don't exist ultimately, but do exist relatively, or do exist nominally. And what did they mean when they said exist nominally? He says, oh, oh, what they mean when they say exist nominally is that when you look at something like a vase and if, what was it?

If it appears to you to be, oh, it appears to a mistaken state of mind that it is arising and stopping, but in truth it's not arising and stopping like that, okay? So to a mistaken state of mind, it appears to be beginning and ending in a certain way, but that's not the way it's really ending and beginning. Now don't forget that this is exactly how the Middle Way School was describing the word deceptive and deceptive reality.

And then don't forget that the Mind-Only School attacked them for saying that, you know, and saying that that was correct or something like that. So here we go, someone reporting the Mind-Only School as saying, you know, the reason why dependent things, we can say that they exist nominally, is that they exist, they are said to start, and they are said to stop, with regard to a mistaken state of mind. If the mind weren't mistaken, they wouldn't see it stopping and starting that way.

Since it is starting, it seems to be starting and stopping that way to this state of mind, that's why we call it nominally existing. So they've totally introduced something that the Mind-Only School never ever said at all and would never ever accept. And that's, and they're going, they are aggravating their error.

And Je Tsongkhapa says, look, you know, you're getting worse and worse, you know, okay?

[Говорящий 2]
Mm-hmm.

[Говорящий 1]
So, so now they go on to say, well, if you, how do you establish that nominally existing thing again, right? They say, shenwangs are nominally existing but not ultimately existing. They report the Mind-Only School as saying that.

Who's they, buddhi-rimche, so far, okay? And, and they're saying, yeah, changing things or dependent things do exist. They do exist nominally but don't exist ultimately, okay?

And what do you mean when you say nominally? Nominally means they appear to start and to stop to a mistaken state of mind, but in actuality they do not have any such starting or stopping. So then Je Tsongkhapa jumps on these guys and says, hey, wait a minute, you just did a kundan, okay?

You just, you just, you know, you accused them of doing that, but now you, yourself, are canceling shenwangs, right? Shenwangs really do exist, and now you're saying that the Mind-Only School says they don't exist. So you just did one of those, one of those tricks where you say that something that really does exist, doesn't exist.

You're discounting, aren't you? You know, you, first you accused the poor Middle-Aged School guys of discounting. Now here you are doing it yourself.

According to you, then the Mind-Only guys themselves would be the ultimate discounters, because they'd be saying it's only to a mistaken state of mind that the stopping and the starting of things begins. And if the mind ever straightened out, it'd realize that those things don't stop and don't start, meaning that they're not dependent things, they're not caused things, and then they'd be canceling the very basis on which we establish constructs and emptiness. So, you know, if you want to choose anybody to be a discounter, right, someone who's discounting improperly, it's you guys when you're reporting the Mind-Only School's beliefs.

Then Je Tsongkhapa goes on to another complaint. He says, by the way, and on this complaint he's lumping in the Jonnambha with Bhutan Rinpoche, because on this point Jonnambha holds a very similar position to Bhutan Rinpoche. So whatever Bhutan Rinpoche has said here, Jonnambha is very close to that.

And what is his complaint to both of them? He says, by the way, and you, Jonnambha, weren't you the one who said that the third chain of the wheel, right, the sutra in which the Buddha explains the intent of his other sutras is to be taken literally, right? Didn't you say that?

And he says, oh yeah, yeah, he did say that. He says, oh yeah, doesn't that sutra say that constructs do exist? And doesn't the Buddha say that changing things do exist by definition?

And it never said they exist just normally or something like that. Doesn't it say that? He says, oh yeah, it does say those two things.

Constructs do exist, and changing things do exist by definition, and not just normally, right? It says that. The sutra says that.

Aren't you the guy who said we have to take that literally? He says, oh yeah, yeah, I did. So here, like, there's even a bigger error, you know?

You've got even a bigger contradiction in your own system than before. Because on the one hand you say that we have to take this sutra literally, and then when it says that, then that sutra goes ahead and says literally that constructs do exist, and that they're not such that they don't exist, right? By the way, why did they say they didn't exist?

They said, with regard to both truths, neither truth applies to constructs. So you've got that problem, now you've got the second problem. You're misreporting everything, and you've got a bigger contradiction than you ever started out with.

Turn the film forward, okay? Advance the roll. That's what he's trying to say.

Advance the roll and we'll go on to the next. We're on to another big section now. We're moving on to a separate section.

Second line from the bottom of page 51, we've reached a section called, you know, refuting attempts to show that our own system has contradictions, is contradictory. Now, who is refuting what? Don't forget that the whole exchange started out by the mind-only school criticizing the middle-way school, and then the middle-way school criticized them back.

They gave a counterattack. They said, hey, wait a minute, you know, your own school has these other problems, you know, your own presentation has all these other problems. Now you get the mind-only school coming back again and defending themselves against the counterattack of the middle-way school, okay?

So now they get to come back and say, no, no, no, our school doesn't have those problems, our school doesn't have those inconsistencies, okay? This is going to be that section.

[Говорящий 2]
Second line from the bottom of page 51.

[Говорящий 1]
On the last line of page 50, where it says, in a way, the book quotes Dharmakirti in his book called, it's called Pramana Samuccaya, the Samuccaya, or the, I'm sorry, Viniscaya, which means the distinction between these two things. So it says, you know, he quotes that book where Dharmakirti is making distinctions, it's called Making Distinctions. So how could he have done that?

And Geshe-la says, well, for one thing, they are separated by many generations. He says, I don't have the exact dates or anything like that, but by the time that Dharmakirti, I'm sorry, when Master Sangha was writing his book, or supposedly writing this book, Dharmakirti still hadn't shown up in his mommy's tummy yet. So how could he be quoting Master Dharmakirti if they are separated by many generations of time?

Secondly, I was hoping to find that actual quotation and share it with you, but I'm having trouble finding it right now, and I'll try to pull it out this evening and try to give it to you tomorrow. which is Sutra Alamkara, which is called the Jewel of the Sutras or something like that. Oh, by the way, in between there you're going to get as well a commentary on separating the middle from the extremes.

Okay, so now you've got four, right? You've got the original sutra separating the middle from the extremes, a commentary on separating the middle from the extremes. Then you're going to have Sutra Alamkara, the Jewel of the Sutras.

And then finally you're going to get another quotation from the abbreviation itself. So you're going to have five different quotations that blow holes, particularly in the idea that the mind-only school says that changing things or dependent things exist ultimately. Because all of those five references, in some way or another, are going to be concentrating on the idea that they don't exist ultimately.

These are mind-only books. These are mind-only references. And in each of these references you can find statements to the effect that dependent things do not exist ultimately.

So who's right and is there a contradiction here or not? So here begins the attack on the mind-only school.

[Говорящий 2]
In this context, the mind-only school is not the mind-only school. none none none none This is pretty cool.

[Говорящий 1]
They're quoting a sutra on the intent of the sutras, and that sutra is examining the nature of the eight components of the Arya Path. This is one of the 37 elements of enlightenment that we talked about before. We had all these different groups, and finally we said, this is the final one, actually, the eight components of the Arya Path.

And when they got to the eight components of the Arya Path, that sutra says, by the way, look at these eight components. They are separate things. They are discrete things from each other.

A. B. They are all coming from their causes and conditions.

They grow from their causes and conditions. Now consider the emptiness or the yongdrup, the totality of those eight things. Those totalities also, or those emptinesses that pertain to each separate one, are in themselves also separate.

They are discrete, one from another, and in that way they resemble the eight elements. But, if you were to go further and to say that those eight emptinesses also grow from their causes and conditions, then you would be saying that those things are produced, that those eight emptinesses are produced things, if you said that they have their own causes and conditions, as do the things which they refer to. And in that case, you would have to be saying that they were not something that existed ultimately, because everybody knows that if something is produced, it cannot exist ultimately.

End quotation from the sutra. What has the sutra just said? The sutra has just said, if they happened to be produced things, then they couldn't exist ultimately.

And Je Tsongkapa rubs it in and says, aha! This sutra now is saying, if you are produced things, you cannot exist ultimately. And it's using that as a proof of why those eight emptinesses can't be changing things, they can't be produced things.

So there's one example where your own school, there's something in the sutra which is contradicting your own school. The sutra which you guys love to use, it turns around on you and says, once you are produced things, you can't be ultimate. You can't be existing ultimately.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
So to summarize the problem here, or the issue here, Je Tsongkapa is pointing out that according to that sutra itself, once something is a produced thing, it cannot be existing ultimately. So that's the sutra. And there's another quotation from Maitreya's own, our protector Maitreya's own book called Dividing or Distinguishing the Middle from the Extremes.

And in that book there's a line that says, the ultimate one is only one. The ultimate one is only one. And that quotation is referring to the three attributes of the Maranama school and saying that only one out of three, if we take it literally, apparently it's saying that out of those three attributes or categories, only one of them is ultimate.

And the commentary to that text further says... No, you didn't get to it yet. So if you take these words on their face value, they seem to be saying, only yongdrup, only totality or emptiness, is something which exists ultimately.

And the implication there is that the other two don't exist ultimately, and meaning that dependent things don't exist ultimately, according to this quotation. If you take it on face value. Ninety-eight.

[Говорящий 2]
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

[Говорящий 1]
Nothing. And the commentary to that text, the commentary to the text called Dividing the...Distinguishing the Middle from the Extremes, right? The commentary itself also says...

By the way, what this short phrase means in the root text is that the only thing that exists ultimately is totality or emptiness. And you should understand that that's the only one that exists ultimately, that truly exists ultimately. You should realize that that's the case.

So really what the commentary says about the root text and what the root text seems to say by itself are exactly the same.

[Говорящий 2]
That's right.

[Говорящий 1]
And then we're going to get a quotation from the Jewel of the Sutras, right? And it's going to start out by saying... Commentary on these words is going to come later.

You know, it's a very, very difficult word by itself. All it says here is that it is not something which exists. What that means is that...

What they're going to gloss it as meaning later is that once something comes from its causes and conditions, it cannot be included among ultimate things.

[Говорящий 2]
Once... Nothing. Nothing.

Nothing. Mine. Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. Mine.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

[Говорящий 1]
Geshe-la says, Oh, what the heck, let's go in and explain each syllable of this extremely difficult quotation, okay? Now, what it says, it starts out by saying, it's not something which exists, it's not something which doesn't exist, okay? We're referring to the ultimate, okay, to ultimate things.

Whatever it means to be ultimate is what they're talking about. Now, you can refer back to those five attributes of Yongrup or totality that we had before. These are very, very similar, okay?

We had them back up there a ways, okay? And they were talking about... The first one, yon means, is it the case that, for example, a water pitcher and the emptiness which pertains to that water pitcher are one and the same?

Are they inseparable? Are they just simply one object? Are the water pitcher and the emptiness that the water pitcher exhibits are they one and the same thing?

No, they are separate. So you cannot say they exist as one and the same thing. And that's what it means when the quotation says they do not exist.

They are not something which exists, meaning they are not something which exists as one and the same thing. A water pitcher and the emptiness which pertains to it, those two things are not something which exists as one thing, as a single object. Next it says, me-min, which means, neither are they something that doesn't exist.

This means neither are they something that doesn't exist with a relationship of what we call one identity, or something like that, a single relationship of identity. What that means, that kind of relationship means that if you remove one, the other is automatically removed. You can call it one identity or something like that.

So neither is it the case that they do not share a relationship of identity, meaning if you do remove a vase from the universe, you do remove all the emptiness of vases from the universe. If there were no vases, there would be no emptiness of vases. So although they are not one object, and although they are separate things, they do have such a relationship, a relationship such that if you removed one, you would remove the other.

So they do have an essential relationship. So it's not the case that they exist as separate things, and neither is it the case that they do not exist as things which are almost inseparably related. Then it says, dey-shin, min-shin, min, and by the same token, neither are they something both or something other.

Neither are they something unrelated to those two things. That's not the case either. So they neither exist, they neither not exist, nor do they both exist and not exist, neither do they neither exist nor not exist.

None of those is the case. Now, still talking about ultimate objects. Still talking about what is ultimate.

It is not something which starts, it is not something which stops. It is not something which has any beginning, and it is not something which stops, which perishes. This is the crucial phrase right here where it says it doesn't start and it doesn't stop.

This is the crucial phrase because now we're eliminating the description ultimate with regard to produced things, meaning shen-wang, meaning dependent things. So once you start saying that, once you start saying that, hey, if the thing is ultimate, it cannot start and it cannot stop, you're already eliminating shen-wang, according to the mind-only school. Then it says there's no lessening and there's no increasing.

Geshe-la explains it very nice. These are famous words from the Heart Sutra also. And what it means is, for example, when you start studying more and more and your level of knowledge and your level of understanding gets greater and greater, or if you study less and less and your level of understanding starts to degenerate, and your knowledge starts to degenerate, when the knowledge starts to degenerate, does the emptiness which pertains to that knowledge in any way degenerate?

Does it in any way lessen or become 30% or 20%? You know, something like that. No, it does not.

It's still perfect 100% emptiness. So in that sense, the ultimate is without lessening. And the opposite is true, the opposite is true as well.

When your knowledge or when your level of learning gets higher and higher and higher, is it the case that the emptiness of that level of learning gets higher and higher? No. It's always either empty or not empty.

It's not less empty or more empty. And that's another description of the nature of the ultimate. And then they say, and that's what the nature of the ultimate is.

That's what ultimate means. So there's that long explanation from the Jewel of the Sutras, wherein they're explaining that things that are described as ultimate cannot be all of those things. And among there, in there, is a statement that there cannot be things that begin and things that end, which automatically disqualifies Shambhala.

So if there's another problem with your presentation, you might want to guide. Okay? This is pretty cool.

Now we're on to page 53, second line. It says, moreover the abbreviation says, okay, and then it says, gyudzen kunzoku yo pa Now we have to talk about the word gyudzen. Normally gyudzen means reason or justification or something like that.

And Geshe-la glosses it in a wholly different way. He says, gyudzen means refers to results. Okay?

Those things which exhibit a characteristic of possessing a cause. Okay? So he's taking gyud and zen.

Okay? Those things which show or indicate having cause-ness. Okay?

Which refers to what? Which refers to results. And what does your classic result belong to?

What group? Dependent things. Shenlong things.

So gyudzen here is a code word for dependent things. Okay? And then the book says, kunzoku yo pa jupa cha ah, dunzaku yo pa jupa cha which is where the abbreviation, in the abbreviation there's a rhetorical question.

You know, hey, let's talk about Shenlong. Let's talk about dependent things. You know.

Are they are they something that exists deceptively or are they something that exists ultimately? And then du-wa itself, the abbreviation itself, answers, they are something which exists deceptively. Okay?

So, so there you go, Maitreya School. Now you've got this other problem to deal with. Moreover, the same book later on says constructs are also something that exists.

You know, it asks the same rhetorical question. Are concepts something that exists deceptively or are concepts something that exists ultimately? And it answers its own question saying, concepts are something that exists deceptively.

So here you go again, you have a problem. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I blew that one. Okay? Concepts, the deal, the abbreviation says concepts are something which does exist ultimately and don't exist, and don't exist deceptively.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Let's start that again.

[Говорящий 2]
dun dar du yu un su kyang bi yun nuwa yun na yang di na we ndu sham ne le nampa topa yang ne kundara se yon marwa de kundara se yon marwa nampa topa dendri nampa tapa dendri I blew that.

[Говорящий 1]
Erase that whole last section, okay? it doesn't say construct, it says constructing state of mind, okay? So sorry about that.

So then the abbreviation comes up and says, okay, having said that about dependent things in general, let's talk about the constructing state of mind, okay? Is the constructing state of mind something that exists deceptively, or is it something that exists ultimately? And the answer is, it exists deceptively, okay?

Dhruva's own answer, the abbreviation's own answer is, it exists deceptively. So here in two cases, one in the general category of dependent things, and secondly in a state of mind which belongs to that category of all dependent things, the same answer has come up. So these other guys, whoever they are who are attacking the mind only at this moment, are saying, hey guys, you know, they didn't say in there it was ultimate, right?

They asked a rhetorical question and nobody answered there, those two things were ultimate. So I think your presentation is wrong, okay? That's another example of how their presentation is wrong.

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[Говорящий 1]
... I just want to check in with you guys and make sure you got what we're talking about so far, okay? We're talking about the first way of establishing something as being ultimate, and the first way of establishing something as being deceptive.

And what this means is, in effect, what it means to exist ultimately, and what it means to exist deceptively, okay? That's what they're talking about, okay? And I want to make sure, I want to check in with you and make sure that you understand that in this first presentation of the connotations of those two phrases, that when we say something does exist ultimately, what we're saying is it is not simply a construct of the mind.

It is not simply a projection. Rather, it exists from its own side, through its own unique way of being. And when we say, on the other hand, that something exists deceptively, or something exists nominally, what we're saying is it exists only as a projection of the mind.

It exists only as a creation of the mind. And it does not have the other kind of existence, okay? It doesn't have any existence of coming from its own side, through its own unique way of being.

And that's what the first take on what those two phrases means is, okay? We didn't get to the second take yet, okay?

[Говорящий 2]
Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
Listen. So, we don't have to keep reading the book. I'm not going to quote the book now.

I'm going to try to give you a hands-on example of what these two are. Let him listen. So, question for you guys, okay?

Ready for questions? When we say that we are restricting ourselves to the first explanation of what it is to exist ultimately, right? If we say we are restricting ourselves to the first version of what it means to exist ultimately, we keep saying, ultimate, ultimate, ultimate, ultimate.

What does ultimate mean? Don't dump to your percentage. You said that doesn't exist only as projections.

Could you elaborate on it just a bit? It seems to need a little bit of elaboration.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
It usually comes in two halves, right? Right, right. Everybody assent.

So, if you stuff your tummy, she won't have to eat. That's just like you.

[Говорящий 2]
Let me.

[Говорящий 1]
If we restrict ourselves to this first interpretation of what it means when we say things exist ultimately, right? And it's just what you said. It's not just a projection.

The thing does exist from its own side to its own unique way of being, okay? If you describe existing ultimately that way, which is the first of the two ways, right? Then, how many of those three groups, okay, the three attributes of the mind-only school, to how many of those groups does that description imply?

Which two? That's right. That's right.

Now you've got the first way of establishing what it means to exist ultimately. Now you understand it, okay? So, now, again, restricting ourselves to the first way of explaining these two phrases.

What does it mean for something to exist deceptively, then?

[Говорящий 2]
What does it mean for something to exist deceptively, then?

[Говорящий 1]
This is yours. So, I guess, you know, the Venerable here can eat dinner and you guys won't have to eat dinner because you're all one mind stream. And feed the rest of you when he eats.

That's the way it is. Okay, so, now that you've got it straight, what it means in the first interpretation of things for something to exist deceptively, how many of those three attributes do exist deceptively and how many don't? Yeah, you derived that from the other one, right?

What did you just say? Is this clean now? Is this clean for everybody?

Do we understand it? Is it clear? What do you mean by that?

That's all right, that's all right.

[Говорящий 2]
That's all right.

[Говорящий 1]
That's all right, that's all right. So, from the scripture on what the second version is, so I'm just going to consolidate it and give it to you all in one big hung, okay? And just lay it on you.

We've got a little bit of time left. I'll just extemporaneously explain to you what it is. There's a lot of other issues to bring up before we actually get to the second one, but I don't want you to get confused and I don't want you to get it all mixed up.

So let's just go to the second one. I'll give you a brief presentation of what it is.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay. That's all right. Okay.

[Говорящий 1]
Let it, let it.

[Говорящий 2]
That's all right. Why do you think it's empty?

[Говорящий 1]
Nothing, nothing, nothing. Very easily, to present it very, very simply, okay? The meaning of the word ultimate in the second interpretation, when you say things exist ultimately or things don't exist ultimately, all it means is, all it's referring to, the ultimate here, is referring to totality, emptiness itself, okay?

That's all it means there. In the second interpretation, it's just referring to totality, which just means emptiness itself. Defined in this school as the ultimate object of the path of purity.

Remember that expression from the beginning of the book? The ultimate object of the path of purity, meaning that thing which the direct perception of emptiness perceives, okay? Is the definition in the mind-only school of what we call totality or emptiness, okay?

And to state it very, very simply, if you want to know what deceptive means in the phrase exist deceptively or something like that, those things which are deceptive are all other things, okay? All other things. All those existing objects, he's careful to say that, right?

All those existing objects, which cannot be characterized as being the object, the ultimate object of the path of purity, then that would be, in the second interpretation of these two phrases, the meaning of what it is to exist deceptively, or what deceptive objects are. So now, I got my other question out for you. When you're thinking about those three attributes, or those three groups of things, according to the mind-only school, now, how many of them exist ultimately, according to this interpretation of what it means to exist ultimately?

Which one? Now, come on, this one's easy. Okay, in the second way of interpreting things, how many of those three groups are what can be said to exist deceptively?

[Говорящий 2]
That's it. That's it.

[Говорящий 1]
So, now's quiz time, all right? Going back to the first interpretation of what it is... I'm sorry, let's state it differently.

Don't forget that the Bodhisattva levels, by Arya Sangha, in there he says over and over and over again that dependent things exist ultimately. He says over and over again that dependent things exist ultimately. Now, which of the two interpretations of existing ultimately is he referring to when he says that changing things exist ultimately?

Got that? Now we go back to those five groups of quotations, right? Where someone's attacking the minority school.

And one of those quotations said, once something has come from its causes and conditions, it can no longer be said to be ultimate. Which ultimate are we talking about now? Which of the two interpretations of ultimate are we talking about now?

nyipa di yin, jok su nyipa di yin. jok su nyipa dun dam di yin. gyur dang kye le...

rang gi gyur dang kye le yin na ma yin kye... But you know there's a problem. If you say that the mind...people who live in the mind-only school, Okay? When they talk about, half the time when they talk about something exists ultimately, and they say, oh, things exist ultimately, in that case they're referring to ultimate with one connotation, and they're going to go around saying, nothing, things don't exist ultimately, and in that case they're referring to ultimate with a wholly different connotation. Doesn't that seem a little weird to you? That they're, what do they call it, there's a word in English, they are, there's a technical word for that, they're changing the meaning of the word when they, on different occasions, you know, there's a, what's it called?

Sophistry, maybe. Anyway, it's to, it's to, it's to use the same word, but to mean it in two different ways, according to your desires, you know, I think. Yeah, no, there's a word, there's a technical word for it.

Anyway, it's like Yeah, you can talk about this, you can talk about this. If a minority school person comes up and says, yes, it's true that produced things do exist, ultimately, then it's no problem for them to mean ultimately in the first connotation of it. Is that okay that they mean it in the first way?

Is it okay to say that? In the Mind-Owning School. Yeah, they would say it's okay.

They'd say that's okay. It means it's not just a production of your mind. It's not just a fabrication of your mind.

It really does exist from its own side. The pan and the black and white here. Now I'll ask you another question.

Is it okay for a Mind-Owning person to come up and say dependent things don't exist ultimately, if they mean that ultimate in the second sense? Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

[Говорящий 2]
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

[Говорящий 1]
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yeah, what you pointed out is the difference between is and its meaning as existing and is and its meaning as identification. And you say, I have money. No, you're saying it is not the ultimate.

it has ultimate-ness, or something like that, you see what I mean? Don't you change being the ultimate and having ultimate nature, you see what I mean? Yeah.

Pejeyong gre, digre. Nare.

[Говорящий 2]
Nare. Nare. Nare.

Nare.

[Говорящий 1]
Nare.

[Говорящий 2]
Nare. Nare.

[Говорящий 1]
Nare. Nare. Nare.

Nare. Nare. Nare.

Nare. Nare. Nare.

Nare. Nare. Nare.

Nare. Nare. Nare.

Nare. Nare. Nare.

Nare. Nare. Nare.

Nare. Nare. Nare.

Nare. Nare. Now don't choose a self.

And this is the, remember that's the name of the whole section. The name of the whole section was, the way in which they avoid the apparent inconsistencies. They just, there's a word for that.

What is that? Before you changed the meaning of the term half way through your argument. You see, you don't have any problems.

Anyway, okay. Digre gre. OK.

That's it. Troubling it. OK.

That's it.

[Говорящий 2]
OK. That's it. Not in, not in.

OK. OK. OK.

OK. That's it. OK.

Not so.

[Говорящий 1]
Geshe-la is going back to a really, really... I think we promised to go back to this earlier. It's page 54, second line.

I think we might have made a mark there. He said, this wording is really, really nasty. And it really, really is.

What the wording means literally in English is that consciousness which remains in a state of where it has accustomed itself to... remains according to the expression, OK? Something like that.

Almost like gibberish, you know. It doesn't make any sense. Geshe-la says, hey, Lam, just take that whole section, just take that whole line and a half, second line to the third line of page 54, and all that's referring to is the constructing state of mind, OK?

The mind which is projection, making a projection, or the mind which is making a construction, a construct, OK? Take it like that. And then in the following line it says, let's talk about its object, the object which this state of mind is focusing on, OK?

And then it says, that object is that thing, that physical form, that visible form. Do you saw this suk di gyi mi gyi nam pa shepay... suk kye che di re, suk chi dang di re?

[Говорящий 2]
What did he say? He can't understand.

[Говорящий 1]
No sir, no sir, no sir. Oh, oh, oh, kun dang di re, kun dang di re, no sir. No sir, no sir, no sir.

No sir, no sir, no sir. Then it says, that thing which is called form, which possesses the name... that form which possesses the name of form, OK?

Then it says, that form which possesses the name of form. That object... What's his name?

That form which is the thing which possesses the name form. How's that, OK? And it says, let's talk about that.

That particular thing which acts as the object of that particular state of mind neither exists substantially, neither does it exist ultimately, OK? Having said that, you know, when the book, when the duo, right, the abbreviation, says about anything that thing which neither exists substantially nor exists ultimately, they must be talking about constructs, OK? They must be talking about constructs, OK?

They don't exist substantially and they don't exist ultimately. They must be talking about constructs. Therefore, you can assume, says Geshe-la, that when they talk about the object of the mind here, they're not talking about physical matter or form in the sense of a shenwang, in the sense of a dependent thing.

They must be talking about the object it thinks it sees, as opposed to the object it's focused upon, OK? The object it thinks it sees is kundan, OK, is constructs. So when they go through this very, very difficult wording and they're talking about that form, which is the thing which is given the name form, Geshe-la says, this is so arcane, the wording here is so obscure, that I'm not even sure we can take it to mean constructs in the traditional sense of the meaning of the term constructs.

It must be talking about something that's close to a construct. It doesn't seem to be saying quite construct. It seems to be saying even something, a little bit of a variation on a construct.

[Говорящий 2]
Got it.

[Говорящий 1]
That's right, that's right.

[Говорящий 2]
That's right. That's right.

[Говорящий 1]
So whatever this object is, OK, we're not talking about the actual object of the eye consciousness, right? We're not talking about the thing that you're looking at. We're talking about something that you think you see, right?

And it's getting close to a construct, right? It seems to be a variant on a construct. And then it says further, this thing does not exist substantially, and this thing does not exist ultimately.

So what it's saying, in effect, is, and the following line stated, what it's implying then is that since the thing doesn't exist ultimately, it must exist, I'm sorry, it doesn't exist substantially, it must exist as a labeled thing. Remember the distinction we had between existing substantially and existing as a labeled thing? So I guess you've got to throw this object, whatever it is, right, this almost construct, you have to throw it in the category of labeled things, first of all.

Secondly, because it said not to exist ultimately, you're going to have to throw it into the category of things called deceptive objects, deceptive things, OK? So there's two things we can say about this object, whatever it is. It doesn't exist ultimately, meaning it exists deceptively.

It doesn't exist substantially, meaning it exists as a labeled thing. Those are the two things you can say. That's the whole section, very, very difficult wording in Tibetan, which is actually a translation from Sanskrit, which doesn't help, on page 54, about two-thirds of the way down.

That's what that part is saying.

[Говорящий 2]
OK. Never mind, never mind. That's it.

[Говорящий 1]
Sawati. No sir, no sir, no sir. Now, more difficult, difficult Tibetan here.

Very difficult. Geshe-la says, you know, we're just running the bulldozer through it right now. We're trying to clean up the mess tomorrow, OK?

I'm just trying to run through it pretty quickly. We'll get to it in more detail tomorrow, OK? But just the bulldozer through it right now, page 54, eighth line from the bottom.

Here they start describing a state of mind, which is sawa. Sawa means devoid of here. It means which is cleared away of, meaning which does not possess any such total familiarity with the expressions.

Now what the heck does that mean? Now Geshe-la is opposing visual consciousness to the conceptualization of a color, for example, OK? So one thing you can think of, if I say blue, and you're thinking about blue, and you close your eyes and try to think of blue, that would be the state of mind described in line three.

That was the one that we already talked about. What? The one that was taking this almost construct, right?

And it was focusing on an almost construct. If you think about it, that state of mind where you imagine blue, for example, is focusing on some kind of a construct, really, of blue. It's not focusing on blue itself.

And it depends on some kind of familiarity or intimacy with ideas and not real things, OK? With what we call expressions here, meaning concepts, OK? And then when it gets down to the other part, eight lines from the bottom of page 54, they're talking about a state of mind which is clear, which is free of any such total familiarity with concepts.

Now we're talking about the direct perception of blue. We're talking about your eye consciousness's understanding of blue, which is more direct and does not depend on some kind of intimacy with concepts. You see what I mean?

It's rather depending on just plain old direct perception of blue. And now we're talking about... If we talk about that state of mind...

[Говорящий 2]
That's true, too.

[Говорящий 1]
Now it becomes clear, OK, after all this stuff. This is nice. Pay attention to this one.

When we talk about the object of that second state of mind, which is what? Which is a direct visual perception of blue. Now the object that that thing holds does exist substantially and does exist ultimately.

And that's the whole point. Now it all becomes clear. That second state of mind, the object that it's focusing on, which is blue itself, which is shen wang, does exist ultimately and does exist substantially.

[Говорящий 2]
You see what I mean? That's all.

[Говорящий 1]
So Geshe-la says, let's take that can of worms, shove all the worms down in the can, lock the top of the can, stick it under my seat here. Forget the verbiage, OK? Forget the expressions, forget the words.

Let's just go to the meaning of what they're saying here. Forget all these extremely difficult Tibetan words here. What are they talking about?

They're saying, when you are sitting there and imagining blue, when you have a mental construct of blue, when you are thinking about blue, that blue that you are thinking about is something that is not a shen wang. It is not a produced thing. It is a construct.

As a construct, it cannot be said to exist substantially. It cannot be said to exist ultimately. It's rather something that exists as a labeled thing.

It's rather something that exists deceptively or nominally only. So finish the book on that one. Now when you're talking about the object of a visual consciousness, when you're talking about looking at blue itself, it does qualify as a produced thing, as a dependent thing.

It does qualify as a substantial thing insofar as it's a functional thing. Since it's a functional thing, we can say it's a substantial thing. And then it does qualify as something that does exist ultimately.

So that's all it's saying here. That's all the point is here. Maybe tomorrow we'll let a few worms out on this point.

We'll re-examine this issue tomorrow and maybe we'll let a few of those worms out. We'll go into it a little deeper tomorrow. Okay, we're finished.

Are you ready, Pabula?