Серия ежедневной практики, курс 08 — Сутра сердца: медитация на пустоту (2000, Сокел), занятие 4

[Speaker 2]
This is the continuation of session 2.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, we'll start. Okay, say, phat dompo dompa ni phato phat le dompa ni shen mayin dompa ni le hyang phat shen mayin no Okay, so we just rewrote the Heart Sutra. Okay, which means the pot is empty.

Emptiness is the pot. Okay, phat le dompa ni shen mayin The emptiness is no other than the pot, and the pot is no other than emptiness. Okay, so we gotta talk about those four.

Okay, we were supposed to be getting to those four weird, I mean profound statements. Okay, so first one is suktonpao means pot. The pot is empty.

Okay, that was easy. Alright? The pot is empty of what?

Empty just means blank, right? Empty of what? Pot is empty of what?

Don't be lazy and say self-existence, come on. Yeah, of existing independent of this thing. Independent of this overlay.

Okay? I mean, I should put it on a piece of plastic and lay it over the parts, right? Do you have a piece?

We should get one later, okay? But there's no pot. When you say the pot is empty, you mean the pot is empty of existing out there on the stove from its own side.

Period. There never was a real pot out there. It was all, always, only a an overlay of your mind.

So you understand the first of the four statements. The first one is a negative one in a sense. The pot is not what you thought it was.

Okay? The pot is empty means the pot is not what you thought it was. Okay?

Got it? That's the first one. So that's easy.

We're talking about the emptiness. The pot is not out there on its own. Okay?

That's sukhaṃ bhava. Then it says, emptiness is the pot. Emptiness is the pot.

That one's tricky. And there's something you have to know here. Emptiness...

Well, let me say it this way. I want you to think carefully now, okay? This is a difficult one.

First of all, focus on this room. This room in general. And then tell me, does there exist in this room a two-headed, 50 foot high, purple elephant rampaging through this room?

Does it exist? No. So, that gives you a sense of emptiness.

The word emptiness means something is absent from this room. You can say, this room is empty of a two-headed, 50 foot, purple elephant which is rampaging through the room and crushing people at this moment. Okay?

So, imagine that. Think about it. First you visualize the room.

And then you visualize that this room is empty, or void, or absent of this purple elephant. Okay? This two-headed, purple elephant.

Got it? Now the trick is, the interesting thing is that that thing couldn't have existed anyway. Right?

I mean, nobody... I didn't see a single person go back there in that corner and look down and check. You know, nobody looked behind the cabinet there.

Nobody checked behind that yellow cloth. Nobody checked under the tables. You know what I mean?

I mean, nobody looked around. Because you know it doesn't exist anyway. So you weren't concerned.

It wasn't like everybody was shifting. Like, am I going to be the next one who's squashed by the purple elephant? No, you didn't even think of it.

Now, emptiness is the same. Okay? Emptiness means something that you thought was there, isn't there.

And it never could have been there. And it never was there. And it never will be there.

And you got to get used to that. Okay? Emptiness means the absence of a self-existent thing that never could exist, never did exist, never will exist, but your whole life you thought it existed.

Okay? So just get used to that. Emptiness means something that's impossible is not here.

Okay? That's all. Emptiness means something which cannot exist anyway doesn't happen to exist here.

Okay? In the same way as a purple elephant. Okay?

It just never could exist. What is that? A pot on the table.

A pot on the stone. That kind of pot that existed without your mind making it is impossible. No such thing ever existed.

Okay? Get used to it. So, is the pot empty?

Yes. Why? The pot doesn't exist independent of my projection of a pot.

Okay? That's the first of the four statements. That's the first of the four things that Avalokiteshvara says.

Then he says what? Suktambal Tomani Suso An emptiness is the pot. Emptiness is the pot.

That just means the pot does have an existence. It's telling you what existence the pot does have. What existence does the pot have?

You got to be careful because emptiness is the absence of something. You see what I mean? Like the pot is a positive thing.

You see? You got to get used to that. Many schools of Tibetan Buddhism got confused.

And they begin to describe emptiness as a color. Like a blue color or a yellow color. You know, close your eyes.

Press your eyeball right here. You see these blue spots? That's emptiness.

You know what I mean? You see, emptiness is not a positive thing. Emptiness is the absence of something that can't exist.

Okay? So you can't say the pot is emptiness. Got it?

But who said that? Yeah, Avalokiteshvara. He's like, was he crazy?

It's like saying the Empire State Building is a black hole or something like that. It just can't be. Black hole is the absence of something.

You see what I mean? The Empire State Building is the fact that there's no purple elephant in this room. Does that make sense?

No. I mean, one is a thing you can touch, you can hold it, you can push it, you can stand on it. And the other thing is just the fact that something's not here.

You see what I mean? So when Lord Buddha says, okay, Avalokiteshvara the puppet says, the pot is emptiness. You see what I mean?

And emptiness is the pot. He's not speaking literally. It cannot be.

Because emptiness is a negative, simple lack of something. It's the absence of something. You know?

Do I have any credit cards without over-balances on them? No. I don't.

And so I'm devoid of a credit card. I'm void of an active credit card. And that's just the absence of something.

Get used to it. Emptiness is the fact that something's not here. That's all.

So you can't say pot is emptiness. It's not correct. You can't say emptiness is the pot.

All Lord Buddha is saying here is that, hey, look, in a negative sense, that pot isn't what you thought it was. In a positive sense, that pot is just a picture of a pot in your mind imposed on some parts. Okay?

That suggested pot. Okay? Got it?

So when Chenrezig says two statements here. First one he says, the pot is empty. That's easy.

The pot isn't what you thought it was. The pot is empty of existing out there on its own. The pot is just your mind seeing a pot.

Okay? That's easy. The pot is empty.

But then he says, emptiness is the pot. Emptiness is the pot just means, look, you want to know how the pot is there? It's just a projection of your mind.

If you think about it, in the first of those four profound statements he's saying, he's describing the pot's emptiness. In the second of the four profound statements, he's describing the pot's dependent origination. Okay?

When he says emptiness is the pot, what he means is, the pot is a product of your mind putting an image on these parts. Okay? He's describing what the pot is.

Okay? When he says the pot is empty, he means the pot isn't what you thought it was. That's a negative thing.

That's its emptiness. Then the next sentence he says, emptiness is the pot. That means the pot's real nature is that you're just imaging a pot.

And that's how the pot exists. That's what the first two mean. The first of the four statements is, this thing doesn't exist the way you thought it did, and that's a statement on emptiness.

Then when he says emptiness is the pot, what he's saying is, what that pot really is, is something made up by your mind on those parts. Okay? That's all.

That's all he's saying. Got it? So in the first one he's describing emptiness of the pot.

And in the second one he's describing the dependent origination of the pot. So if there's no pot out there on the stove, why am I boiling tea? What am I boiling tea in?

And then he says, emptiness is the pot. Don't you get it? Meaning, that pot is just your projection onto some pieces.

That's all. Okay? That's all.

So in the first sentence he says, the pot is emptiness meaning, the pot is empty, meaning the pot's not what you thought it was. And then the guy's going to say, what the hell am I boiling my tea in? And he says, you're boiling your tea in a mental image that you're putting on some parts.

And it works. That's a long story. For our purposes they exist.

If you don't open this can of worms, they exist. Okay? No, and then we have to talk about that later.

They do exist. There is something you're calling pot. There is something you're thinking of as pot.

There is raw data. When you examine the raw data as you did the pot, which means now you're looking at the raw data and it's raw data, then this is empty and this is there. Then when you look at the raw data of the raw data, what's behind the raw data is now the raw data.

We're not going to get into that because it's confusing. As if the other stuff wasn't. So, the pot is empty means the pot is not out there on the it does not exist from its own side.

A. Then he says emptiness is the pot, meaning if you want to understand what that pot really is, it's a mental image projected onto some parts. You okay?

Can you also say that because of emptiness there is a pot? We're getting there. Then he says what's the third one?

[Speaker 2]
What's the third one?

[Speaker 1]
Emptiness is nothing but the pot. Oh yeah, emptiness is nothing but the pot. Is that the third one?

Yes. Okay. Emptiness is nothing but the pot.

Meaning emptiness by the way, this is a trick in Tibetan, okay, in Sanskrit. Emptiness is nothing but the pot. It cannot be true.

Literally, okay. It's not true that emptiness is the pot. Why?

When somebody comes up to you and says your mind is emptiness, there's a very simple way to disprove that. The most elementary way to prove it is what? Your mind is a positive thing.

Emptiness is the absence of something. Okay? And never the twain shall meet.

You know, logically impossible for an object to be an absence of something and the presence of something at the same time. Just forget it. It can't be.

I mean, all those ideas are wrong. Okay? That's the most elementary mistake anyone can make.

Emptiness means something that couldn't have ever been there, ain't there. Okay? And your mind is a positive, living, changing, organic thing.

You know, just forget it. They can't be the same thing. He can't say the pot is emptiness.

He can't say emptiness is nothing but the pot. That's not true. Okay?

So what does it mean? It means that you must have a pot to have emptiness. Okay?

You must have a pot... It doesn't mean emptiness is a pot. It means to have emptiness, you gotta have a pot there.

To have the emptiness of a pot, you gotta have a pot. Okay? There's gotta be something there.

Okay? Meaning, every single object in the world has its own emptiness. That's all.

How many emptinesses in this room? Count up every single hair on every single eyebrow. And then every single line on every piece of wood.

And then all the atoms in every piece of line. And then all the thoughts in this room. And then all the personalities in this room.

And then all the principles that apply to this room, like gravity, or the fact that this room is square. Each one of those has its own emptiness. They all have their own emptiness.

You can't have an emptiness without something for it to be on. Okay? That's all.

Got it? That's why he says emptiness is nothing other than the pot. Emptiness is nothing but the pot.

Meaning, if you didn't have a pot, you couldn't have an emptiness of the pot. You gotta have a pot to have an emptiness of the pot. What happens when the pot breaks?

What happens to its emptiness? It goes out of existence. Okay?

It goes out of existence. That's why you cannot translate permanence as permanence. It's changing or unchanging.

Very dangerous, stupid mistake. Okay? Is emptiness permanent?

No. It goes away. When the pot breaks, the emptiness of the pot goes away.

Why? There's nothing to be empty anymore. There's nothing that didn't have a quality of not coming from your mind.

Okay? Double negative. Sorry.

It did not transform from the emptiness of the pot to the emptiness of the pieces. You could say that. You could say the emptiness of the pot has gone out of existence.

And then the broken pieces of the pot has come into existence. But we wouldn't say, technically, in Buddhist philosophy, that one has caused the other. Because absences cannot be causes.

You see, they're not organic. They don't change. They don't grow.

They don't start. And they don't end in a normal curve. Like that.

They just cut off. Okay? Either you're 100% emptiness of the pot or you're not anything at all.

You don't, like, slide out of existence. Okay? Like that.

That's a subtle point. You'll get it. Okay?

So now we got the third statement covered. I'll say it again. Emptiness of the pot just means emptiness needs the pot.

When the pot is broken, the fact that the pot is not coming from anything but your mind goes away. Got it? Which is another way of saying the pot's emptiness.

I'll say it again. You can either say pot's emptiness or you can say the fact that the pot didn't come from anything except your own mind. Okay?

It's always negative. Okay? It's always a negative fact.

For there to be a pot which didn't come from anything except your mind, there's gotta be a pot. Okay? That's all.

That's what Lord Buddha is saying in number three. It's very subtle. And you gotta cook it.

And you gotta chew on it. By the way, this whole struggle with the thing that has the emptiness and the emptiness that the thing has is what you do during jorlam. That's what you do during the second milestone.

You sit there and sweat it out. You say, I don't get it, you know. He said the fact that the pot doesn't come from anything except my mind is the pot's emptiness.

And then he said when the pot gets broken, then that emptiness goes away. And then suddenly there's a new emptiness of the pieces of the broken pot. And then you gotta cook it.

You gotta think about it. This is how you see emptiness directly. You have to be sweating about these things.

In addition to serving the Dharma, helping someone who's sick or elderly, learning to meditate properly, taking care of your mind and your body. All of those things cause you to see emptiness directly. All of those factors come together and you see emptiness directly.

Now, we've got one more statement left, which was what? Yeah, the pot is nothing but emptiness. What does that one mean?

I gotta remember. Oh yeah. I'll ask you a question.

If there was no emptiness of a pot, could there be a pot? No. Pots need emptiness.

Pots need emptiness. Think of emptiness as a blank screen. And think of your mind as the projector.

You need that emptiness for there to be a pot. And by the way, this addresses the great debate that happened since the Buddha lived, you know. And that's the interaction between things and their emptiness.

You gotta have the emptiness of a pot before you can have a pot. If there was a pot out there on the stone, there wouldn't be any room for you to have an image of the pot. There wouldn't be any room for a pot that existed as an image.

If there was a pot that was a pot from its own side, in other words, if there was no emptiness of the pot, then you couldn't have a pot. There'd be no room for the pot. And we'll talk about it later.

In other words, emptiness is like a blank screen. You need a blank screen. And then your mind makes an image of a pot and paints it on the screen.

That's all. And then you mistake the movie for real life. You start to cry.

Oh, the hero's getting hurt. You know. What's his name in Braveheart?

What's his name? Mel Gibson. His arm's broken off.

He's so handsome. Now they're ripping his guts out. You know, you're like that.

I mean, you're getting all worried about a thing that's not really there. You see what I mean? You're expecting the next time they interview him on, I don't know, Oprah, he's got guts hanging out or something.

No, it's like the same thing. You mistake the projection for a real pot. Your whole life.

And the interesting thing, according to the Heart Sutra, this tendency to mistake the image for a real pot on the stove causes aging and death itself. The fact that you're getting older is caused by that misperception. What's the implication?

You could reverse it. You could reverse it. I ain't teaching for philosophy.

I ain't teaching for friendship or warm feeling. We're talking death. We're talking aging process itself does not have to happen if you understand these things.

And you can move beyond this realm. You don't have to stay here. This realm is a mistake.

You live in a world which is a result of an error. Anyone who's in this world, who's not emanating as a deity in disguise or something, is here because they made a very violent mistake. And that's why you're here.

Every person who's here, if you're not in another realm, you're in this realm because you made a very basic mistake. And you thought the pot was on the stove. That's all.

And if you stopped doing that, you'd move to a different realm. Your body would change. The tantric scriptures, which we will get to after 3 years.

You finish 18 courses, we do the tantric scriptures. Describe very, very properly, clean, beautiful, happy, clearly, how to change it back. How to get out of this kind of a body.

But you have to understand emptiness first. You have to have the foundation of those 18 courses. Otherwise, someone can teach it to you, you won't get it, and you won't practice it, and you won't succeed.

You study this stuff long enough, and then someone comes and lays real tantra on you. Boom! It's gone.

The instructions are quite clear and quite scientific on how to change your body, how to reverse the aging process. But it's based on mistaking this for the pot on the stove. That's all.

That's a very basic thing. So now I'll repeat the four. The pot is empty, meaning, the pot is not out there on its own, independent of your projection.

Emptiness is the pot, meaning, what that pot really is, is your mind projecting onto a blank screen. Then, emptiness is nothing but the pot, means, the pot has a quality of its emptiness. The pot has its own emptiness.

Emptiness rests upon that pot, and every single object in the world has an emptiness attached to it. And by the way, when that thing goes away, that's number four, right? The pot is nothing but the emptiness.

The pot is nothing but emptiness. Meaning, that you need the emptiness to have the pot. Number three is you need the pot to have the emptiness.

Number four is you have to have the emptiness to have the pot. If things weren't empty, you couldn't have a pot. If things were not empty, you couldn't have a pot.

And those are the four profound statements. Is it possible that he was speaking literally? As tens of thousands or millions of people have misunderstood this sutra over two and a half thousand years, is it possible that emptiness could be the pot?

I mean, there should be this big yell, no! Are you kidding me? Could the fact that a purple two-headed elephant is not in this room be this pen?

Come on! One is a theoretical absence of something. You see what I mean?

The other is a thing you can hold, you can draw with it. You know what I mean? Come on!

He can't be speaking literally. Come on! People go around spaced out.

My head is emptiness. Buddha said my ear doesn't exist. Come on!

Show me that ear that doesn't exist. Let me pull the hell out of that ear that doesn't exist. You know what I mean?

I've never had anyone come up here and let me do it. You know what I mean? Come on!

That's not what he's saying. Obviously he's not saying that. Obviously things exist.

They don't exist the way he thought they did. That's all. Last thing to say here.

What was that? Oh! We didn't cover the five heaps.

Very quickly. Then you can get to the heap of dinner. Lord Buddha didn't choose a pot.

Lord Buddha chose your parts. The five parts to a person. And I'm just going to go over them quickly because they are so ridiculously presented in most books that if you just get one clear explanation of it, you can take your five skandhas to the bank.

Okay? Here we go. Number one.

These are called the five skandhas or heaps. Say suk. Suk.

Suk. Suk just means your body, okay? And don't think of it as a bag of skin.

Okay? How long is your body visually? I mean, how far does your body go visually?

Yeah, as far as you can see. I mean, think of body as up to those green leaves over there. You see what I mean?

Don't be naive and think of body as what's inside the skin. Come on, that's too primitive. How far does your ear go?

No, as far as you can hear. Okay? I mean, in this sense, when you teach someone the five skandhas, body means that whole extended thing that the limits of your senses.

You see what I mean? Your body is not what's inside. It's not the meat inside your skin.

Okay? That's not what your body is. Your body is, as far as you can see, is part of your body.

You see what I mean? Think of your body in that way. Okay?

Alright, that's body. That's the only physical one among the five heaps. Why do they call it a heap?

pung dang kye go rik gi dun pung dang kye go rik gi dun pungpo kye je gam nam yin First chapter, Abhidharmakosha. It's just a bunch of stuff. What?

Fingers, legs, bile, stomach, you know, liver, head, hairs, some hairs, less hairs, okay? That's a bunch of stuff. pungpo skandha just means a lot of things.

Put the junk together. Pile of stuff. It should have been called the five piles.

Only the physical part. Yeah. It's your five physical senses, meaning your perceptors.

The eye, the visual cells. The audible cells. No, that comes later.

That's number five. Sorry? Just the physical body and what it sees and what it smells and what it hears and what it tastes.

All the physical stuff. Number two. Say tsorwa.

Tsorwa. Your capacity of feeling. Your feelings.

You can divide it into five, you can divide it into three. Here's the five. Feel physically good.

Feel mentally good. Feel neutral. Feel physically bad.

Feel mentally bad. Okay? You can divide it into three.

Feeling good, feeling bad, feeling neutral. Okay? Your capacity of feeling.

Buddhism says that this tsorwa never shuts down. Never. It's going all the time.

Even into enlightenment and for eternity you will feel good, bad or indifferent. Okay? Physically and mentally.

Physically. So you can break the good and the bad into physical and mental. They don't break neutral into physical and mental because it feels the same.

Okay? No, I mean Abhidharmakosha divides it into three or five. That's all.

Very simple. All your feelings. Say dushe.

Dushe. Sometimes this word means conception and that's not what it means here. So when you see it translated as the skanda of conception or something that's just plain wrong.

That's someone who doesn't understand the language very well or hasn't studied it carefully. In the Vinaya like when I look at a beautiful lady I'm supposed to have a dushe that she's my sister or my mother or my aunt. In that sense it means I'm supposed to conceive or have a conception of her in that way.

That's a different use of this word. So don't buy it when somebody says conception. This refers to your capacity of discrimination.

I like this. I don't like this. This is big.

This is small. This is red. This is blue.

Okay? The ability to discriminate between things. Discrimination.

So number two and number three are two of your fifty-something mental functions. Buddhist psychology says that depending on which school you're in I believe it's 46 or 52 or something like that. You have so many mental functions.

Now two of them get to be their own skandhas. Well what happens to the other 50 or 44 depends on what school you're in. We'll talk about it later.

I'm going to skip to number five. So leave a space for number four. That's what my teacher in the monastery will say.

Leave three pages here. We'll get back to it in 16 days. Say nam she.

Nam she. Nam she, they translate it as consciousness. That's okay.

That's okay. But try to recognize your own nam she. It's the fact that you are aware.

Okay? It's the very fact that you are aware at all. You know, where did that come from?

It's like one of the miracles of life. Why are you aware right now? You see what I mean?

If you want to get a feeling for what nam she is, if someone hits you really hard and knocks you out, you almost lose nam she. Nam she is just the fact that you are hearing anything, seeing anything, thinking anything. It's your raw awareness.

It's the capacity of awareness. And if you think about it, it's a miracle. It's the miracle of life.

You know, that you even can look around, that you can taste, that you can feel, that you can feel time going by. You know, all of those things are nam she. Just that raw awareness of the world, which is like your curse and your blessing.

Right? And sometime you'll be aware of your tantric paradise. Right now you're aware of all this shit going on.

Sorry. I'm really sorry. My lama said don't do that anymore.

Okay. But it's that. Okay?

It's just your raw awareness. Now where do we go with all this other stuff? You know, you got all these other mental functions.

What? Love. Anger.

Jealousy. Compassion. Thoughtfulness.

Bitterness. Where do we put all those other things? The Abhidharma says, say, Say Throw them all around to number four!

Say, People mix it up with is number three, meaning discrimination, right? Means, I like to call it other things. Okay.

It's just called other things. People call it all these weird names. Just throw that, take a pen and scratch it out of all the books you have.

Compositional factors. Come on. It's just, they just don't know, you know?

And they're just translating words. They don't know what it is. The Abhidharma in the first chapter says, duje pumbushile shen, which means, hey, all the other parts of you, throw it into number four.

OK? Your concentration, your intellect, your ability of attention, your feelings, your emotions, your Petra-ness, your personality, your ego, your persona, which is neither physical nor mental. It's an idea called Petra.

Throw that into number four. All the other parts about you, go into number four. OK, did you have a question?

Is it just the other mental functions, or is there more? That was the answer. It's the rest of the mental functions, plus those parts about you, which are neither mental nor physical, which are concepts about you, your impermanence, the fact that you're called Petra, Petra, quote Petra.

They all go into number four. OK, so it's not just your other mental functions. It's also your other characteristics, which are not mental or physical.

[Speaker 2]
OK?

[Speaker 1]
They're called demenduche, meaning the other changing parts of you, which are neither physical nor mental. Petra is a concept. And that goes into number four also.

I translate it as other factors, OK? Literally, it means factors. And it just means all the other changing things about you.

I think you might also throw your emptiness in here. So it's not even changing things. But that's another question.

Now, why didn't they just make two heaps, OK? Mind and body. Or why didn't they make three?

Mind, body, and all that other stuff, like the idea of Petra. You see what I mean? Why didn't they just make three heaps?

Mind, meaning awareness and all your mental functions, and then your physical body, and then all the parts about you which are ideas, like Petra, OK? Quote Petra. Why didn't they just make three?

Why did they make five skandhas? Why this famous five heaps, the five pumbala? Why?

The Abhidharma says, tsultrim tsawa gyur pa dang, korway gyur shir, rim gyur chir, pumbal namne tsawa dang, du shey lo shi pumbal shar, means the reason we separated out feelings and discrimination, the reason why these two emotions alone got to be their own skandha, is that they cause all of our trouble, OK? Why? I like this.

I don't like that. This feels good. This doesn't feel good.

I'll fight you for what I want to feel good. I'll fight to get rid of what I don't like. I like this person.

I don't like this person. This person's nice to me. This person's not nice to me.

This person's the right color. This person's not the right color. This person's too tall.

This person's too chubby. This person's too short. All these, the capacity to be able to draw distinctions between people, and the capacity to say, I like this, I don't like this, are korwe gyurtsir, means the root of all samsara.

Those two emotions, those two mental functions, get to be their own skandha, because they're the root of all samsara, OK? And they are what the Buddha chooses to discuss about emptiness here. What did we choose?

A pot. You could just as well take a pot. It doesn't matter, OK?

You could just as well take a pot. All right, why did the Buddha take the parts of a person? Because the first time you see emptiness directly, you will see the emptiness of Petra.

You will see the emptiness of Brian. You will see the emptiness of Christy. You will see the emptiness of Brij.

Brij will see the emptiness of Brij. Brian will see the emptiness of Brian. See what I mean?

The first emptiness you ever perceive directly is the emptiness of you, OK? And it's the same for every person, all right? So Lord Buddha is getting you on the right track.

The next step, the next milestone, is going to be the direct perception of emptiness, OK? But first, you have to understand the pot thing, or you won't be able to get there, OK? You have to struggle with.

And by the way, don't be satisfied to sit in this class and go home. It's not going to save your life. It's not going to change the aging process or something like that.

You have to figure out what the hell your mind is doing. Wrong, you know? What is it that you're doing wrong?

You're doing something wrong. You think I'm up here. I'm not, OK?

There's a perception. You're having a mental image in your mind, and you're laying it upon four sticks and an oval and a circle, OK? You are laying that on me, OK?

You are laying that image. And it's so seamless that you think, I am your image, OK? You're doing it so well that you honestly believe that I'm out here.

I'm not, OK? I'm just some data, raw data. And your mind is forcing you to perceive me, OK?

Your mind is making me what I am, OK? Get used to that idea. Explore that idea, OK?

Don't get crazy, OK? Don't go wild. Does it mean that I'm not here?

Anybody who thinks that, because I'm up here, I'll pull your nose, I'll pull your ear, and I'll prove that I'm here, OK? Obviously, I'm here, OK? Someone's talking to you.

You're hearing something. I exist. I function.

I work for you. But I'm not what you thought, OK? I am just a mental image imposed on some sticks and balls, OK?

And you have to get used to that. I'll let you go now, but with one more thing. What possible relevance could this have for my happiness?

You see what I mean? I mean, it's interesting. I mean, all Wittgenstein said something similar.

So did, what's his name? Archetype guy. Jung, you know, Jung and all these guys.

You know, it's very interesting, Geshe Michael. I read about that stuff in philosophy. It's very interesting.

One more guy saying we're not quite seeing things the way we thought. It's very interesting. But what's that got to do with my happiness?

I want to be happy. I want to be happy. I want to reach happiness.

I want to become Mahatma Gandhi on the inside. And what's her name? Christy Turlington on the outside, OK?

Oh, really, OK? By the way, think of enlightenment that way, OK? Think of enlightenment that way, OK?

I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding, OK? The most exquisite creature you can imagine on the outside, and better, OK?

And then on the inside, Mother Teresa plus, OK? No, really, that's what you're here for, OK? On the outside, an immortal, incredibly delicious creature, OK?

And on the inside, perfectly holy and compassionate mind. And you know, it was like I heard a, who was that? Some famous opera singer went up to Oscar Wilde and said, Bernard Shaw, and said, you know, Mr. Shaw, can you imagine if we got married and the child we had had my body and your mind?

Can you imagine what would happen, you know? And she was coming on to him, you know? And then he said, yes, madame, but what if she turns out with your mind and my body?

Anyway, man, it's not bad. Think of enlightenment like that, OK? No, really, the best body you can imagine, plus never gets old, right?

And then inside this incredibly, totally compassionate, you know, Dalai Lama, all the Dalai Lamas together, all stuffed into one hand, you know, something like that. There's something about the pot thing that allows you to become that, OK? Which we have to get over, we have to talk about a few more milestones.

That's the fifth milestone. There's something about this pot thing and taking care of your mind and your body, meditating, serving Lama, serving your Dharma center, serving other people, studying like crazy. There's something about this whole Heart Sutra is setting you up.

Do this thing first, didn't think about this stuff, didn't see this thing, and then you get at the end to this body, and they all lead one to the other. You've got to understand the first three, four steps to get to the fifth one, OK? The Heart Sutra is like a road map for reaching that body and mind, OK?

And the pot thing has everything to do with that, OK? OK, cool. We'll stop there.

See you at, did you have a question for the others? Yes, is emptiness empty of emptiness? Yeah, not of emptiness.

Emptiness is empty of its own self-existence. Yeah. Emptiness, yeah, yeah.

Emptiness also possesses its own emptiness, OK? Meaning, when you see emptiness, it is also a projection of the mind. And it's not something that exists out there from its own side by itself.

But it's perceived by everybody the same, no? That doesn't, the fact that it's perceived the same by everybody doesn't mean that it has its own nature. It doesn't imply that.

We are all perceiving this as a cylinder right now. But that doesn't imply that it possesses its own quality of cylindricalness, OK? It just happens to be that everyone seeing it has the same karma to see that, OK?

Did you have a question? I have a question about the word. Say again?

I have a question about the word, emptiness. OK. Because, I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I always see that as the implication of the opposite, the fullness.

And that presents a problem for me. So I don't know which predictor you're using. Yeah, no.

I think emptiness is sort of a dangerous word. I mean, blankness could have been a nice translation. But I don't know if anyone else has as well.

Yeah. No, it's not emptiness in the sense of the opposite of fullness. It's not like that.

It means, if you wanted to translate it very simply, it would be an absence, an absence of something. And what it should call up in your mind, rather than being the opposite of fullness, it should call up in your mind the absence of something that I thought was there that's not there. It should draw up in your mind the sense of illusion or being cheated or expecting something and not finding it.

You see what I mean? Emptiness is not the opposite of fullness. Emptiness is this sudden dawning in your mind that something you thought was there all the time wasn't there.

That's all, OK? So don't think of emptiness as the opposite of fullness. Think of it as, oh man, I thought it was there all the time.

It wasn't there at all, OK? You should think of it as the opposite of that, OK? Yeah.

When we studied it in New York, actually, I learned it from Anupama, emptiness is the thing which emptiness is empty of. No. So what is that?

She said, is emptiness the thing that emptiness is empty of? No, you're thinking of gaccha. You're thinking of gaccha.

Gaccha means self-existent part, OK? Emptiness means the absence of a self-existent part. That's all.

Gaccha is, or emptiness is the absence of a gaccha. That's all, OK? The thing that emptiness is empty of is a self-existent part which exists without my mind participating in its creation.

And that thing never could have existed. OK, that's all. Emptiness is the absence of something that was never there in the first place.

But it's your reacting to what you thought was there that causes all your suffering. OK? Yeah, OK, we'll do a mandala break.

OK. OK. OK.

By the goodness of what I have just done, may I also use complete collection of the Sangha. Okay, so... because it takes a lot of karma just to hear them.

You see, I mean, it takes a lot of karma just to hear somebody talk about that. Okay, so, Shariputra, by asking the original question, has shown that he has gone over the first milestone. He made it out of busy life.

You know, and people think life is more busy now than it was a thousand years ago or something. It's not true. Okay?

Businessmen in Magadha in 500 BC thought that they didn't have time to meditate either. You know what I mean? And it's been the same all along.

There were lots of people in Sravasti city. There were only 2,000 showed up for the diamond cutter. I asked somebody how many people, he said maybe 50,000 people.

That means only 4% of the people showed up for that teaching. It was just a short walk from their city. So it's always been like that.

And Shariputra by asking the question has shown that he got out of that and has shown up and is hanging around Lord Buddha. So he got to Tsoglam, path of accumulation. Then he got to Jorlam.

In the last class we talked about that. All the details we talked about, those four profound statements. He figured out the thing about the teapot.

And I'll just draw it expertly one more time. And then there was a burner here. I mean a stove top thing, right?

And then there was a little flash up here of silver color. And there was a little curve there. And there was a straight stick here.

And then your mind said... You're looking at it, right? This time you have an ear.

And your mind said... Your mind made a perfect little pot. Like a very perfect little mental image of a pot.

And then you've always been... Need the detail? You've always been overlaying the data with this picture.

And that's how you make things. That's all things are. They are some indicators.

And then you make a perfect mental picture. Then you overlay the mental picture on the things. And then you mistake that product for a pot.

And you always thought... You know, there was always a thing here that looked like it was out on the range to you. You saw that mental image as being out there on the stove and appearing to you.

You didn't think... In fact, a synonym for people who have not seen emptiness directly is called Surtong. Say Surtong.

Surtong means sees things coming this way. Surtong means this way. Tong means to see.

And to them, they think pots are all out there and coming at them this way. They don't realize that there's pieces out there and you're making them that way. You see what I mean?

So they're called Surtong. You know, I don't know what you call it in English. Hither...

Hither seers or something like that. They see everything coming this way. When in reality, there are indicators and you're making things out of them.

And with your images. You overlay the image on the parts and that's how you see things, okay? And then...

Hey, where's the... And so really, and then we said, when you catch yourself doing this, right? When you catch that little image in your own mind for the first time, due to all those holy actions, you know, helping other people, serving a lama, serving a dharma center, held a lot of study, meditating big time, then suddenly you perceive that this never existed, okay?

That part out there on the stove by itself. Does the raw data exist? Yes.

Yeah. Okay. Is it out there?

Yes. If you focused on the raw data and examined it and tried to decide if it was coming this way or that way, which way is it coming? It's also that way, okay?

But we're not going there yet, okay? No, really. They say, matamajjhepa in Madhyamika means leave it alone for now.

It's out there. There is data out there. Nobody in Madhyamika, nobody in Buddhism ever said there wasn't any shine, there wasn't any metallic curve, there wasn't any black stick.

Nobody ever said that. That's there, okay? And nobody ever said you couldn't burn your hand, right?

We said that too. It is a product of this mental image laid over this raw data. And it works.

That's the important thing, okay? But there's no pot here like the one you thought there was in and of itself, independent of your projections, okay? If you weren't there and the tree fell in the wood, what?

There was no tree. There never was a tree, okay? Trees can't fall in the woods unless someone's there to perceive them.

Now, that's a long story and we'll talk about it, okay? But what I mean to say is, generally speaking, we'd say, yeah, you have to be there. There has to be a perceiver.

Because the perceiver is actually projecting that event, okay? So, that's like a big blank there. Now, we call this the final hours of the path to preparation.

That's the second milestone of your spiritual career. You must reach that. You must get there, okay?

By undertaking all the things we talked about. Then you go up, give your lama the tea. You know, you're like freaked out.

You know, like, you're not like delirious, but you're like, you know, something very profound has just happened to you. Like, that is Chö Chö. That is the most profound experience a person can have before they see emptiness directly.

And you know that. You're aware of what's going on. And you're aware of how earth-shaking it is for you.

You go up, you give your lama the tea, and then you go to the temple, and you sit down by yourself, and you go into deep meditation, okay? And then, due to all those preparations, right? Due to all the accumulation and all the preparation, you go into the direct perception of emptiness, okay?

Direct perception of emptiness. Right now, during this class, you've had intellectual perceptions of emptiness, okay? You've been able to listen.

You got some feeling for what emptiness means. It's nothing like the direct perception of emptiness. Direct perception of emptiness is the golden fleece for Buddhists, you know?

This is what you live for. That's the heart in the Heart Sutra, okay? You live, you practice, you spend a whole life meditating, practicing, going to hear teachings, with 20 minutes as your goal, you know?

20 minutes of direct perception of emptiness, and you are totally transformed. Everything is totally different, and you are forever changed, and you are forever a different kind of being. So, you go into this 20-30 minutes.

That is the beginning of the third milestone, and it's called tonglam. Hmm... Say tonglam.

Tonglam. Tonglam has two parts, okay? The first is called nyamsak yeshe, which means the period in deep meditation, that 20-30 minute experience in deep meditation.

It's called nyamsak. That's first part of tonglam. Tonglam means path of seeing.

Seeing what? Emptiness. Emptiness, then you have to say directly, okay?

Seeing with your eyes? No, it's in a deep state of meditation. That's why Jetsong Khapa was adamant that meditation is a mental exercise, you know?

Never ever stare at a picture, or stare at a lamp, or something like that. That's not meditation. Meditation is a mental exercise.

You shut down your senses, you enter a stage of that meditation called samdhen dampa nyur do mityo me. It's a very specific slice out of the huge meditation spectrum. You have to be into that specific meditation.

That meditation, you shut down all your senses. If somebody brought in some McDonald's french fries and put them under your nose, you wouldn't smell anything. Seriously.

If somebody played Sarah McLachlan at loud volume, you wouldn't hear anything. Or Jimi Hendrix for you, older people. So, no.

You just wouldn't hear anything. You wouldn't hear anything. You wouldn't be aware, because your sense organs are shut down.

And then after that, you have like a 10 to 12 hour experience called Jetavyasi. That means still in the experience of triggered by the direct perception emptiness, but you're out of meditation and you're having other things happen to you. Pretty much for the rest of the day.

Until you go to sleep. And that is the third path. The third path ends that night, when you go to sleep.

So, the path of seeing essentially lasts for one waking day. The first 20 minutes are the direct perception emptiness. And then you have maybe 10 or 12 hours of extraordinary realizations.

Those realizations afterwards grouped together into four parts are called the Four Noble Truths or the Four Arya Truths. And that's all that word means. It refers to the collective experiences that you have after you see emptiness directly.

And those all finish within a day. And then you have seen the Four Noble Truths. Noble is a bad translation of Arya.

It has nothing to do with nobility. Arya means a person who has seen emptiness directly. In Sanskrit, Arya, in Tibetan, means a person who has seen emptiness directly.

Or who is seeing emptiness directly. Somebody who is having tonglam that day. Or forever after.

I like to think of a huge spaghetti noodle. Like your mind is like a spaghetti noodle. It has no beginning, it has no end.

After you get enlightened, you continue to have consciousness, you continue to perceive time, and that goes on forever. And your mind goes back forever. And then, you know, there's one 20-minute period in that infinite spaghetti noodle that you can point to and say, during these 20 minutes, this person is being changed.

How do you say it? Just... Irrevocably.

Irrevocably. Irrevocably changed. Became a higher type of existence.

Reached a higher level of being. Arya means totally higher level of being. Arya means...

I mean, Hitler was right in that sense. Wrong meaning. I mean, wrong application.

But the word means irrevocably higher. You know what I mean? And you can point on this billions of years of spaghetti noodle, you can point to one 20-minute episode and say, during these 20 minutes, this person became a higher form of life.

Irrevocably. And really, in Buddhism, the only thing that matters is which side of the 20 minutes you're on. That's all.

That's all. If you're on this side, if you haven't seen emptiness directly yet, you will suffer in this broken realm indefinitely. Nothing can go right.

Nothing. Nothing can make you happy. Impossible.

And then you have this 20-minute experience, and then after that, nothing can go wrong. And you are on a short track to enlightenment. You become an enlightened being within a short amount of time, and you know it, and you see it, and you know when it's going to happen.

And think of how that person feels after that. You become irrevocably stubborn. You know everything that you need to know.

You don't need anything else. You don't need anything from anyone. And you know what's going to happen to you.

Irrevocably. Direct perception of your future. And imagine what it feels like to know that.

Imagine what it would be like. I'm trying to get you to... You know, your whole Buddhist experience, and your whole study and practice of Buddhism has a very practical goal, and that's that 20 minutes.

You just pull that off, and then you are just a totally different kind of being. And you're on a totally different level. And any person in this room can do it.

You don't have to be Milarepa, or Jetsunkapa, or Lama Serpa. Any normal American person who is persistent, who has enough persistence to learn piano, could see emptiness directly. And never believe you can't.

It's just a decision on your part to go through the first two milestones. Which are what? Decide you're not going to get anywhere else.

Elsewise. A. B.

Do all that stuff. Meet a good Lama. Devote yourself to them.

Really immerse yourself in these things. And prepare yourself to see emptiness. And then, once you have that experience, you don't need anything.

Nothing is tempting to you anymore. Nothing matters to you anymore. In a normal sense.

No problems. No unhappiness. Nothing.

Your life is set. And in a way that your external life can never satisfy. It cannot.

This is just irrevocable, irrefutable, straight track to happiness. And you are completely taken care of. You don't have to worry about anything again.

And you know that. What are you focused on during that 20 minutes? I'll give you three choices.

Do you think it's the data? The raw data? Do you think it's the mental image of the path?

Or could it maybe be this space right here? Okay, I'm not kidding. That empty space.

I shouldn't have drawn stripes. It's just the absence of what you thought was there. So, whereas at the end of the path of preparation, you're looking at the mental image and saying, My God, I always thought it was a pot on the stove.

Now I know it's just a mental image. And now I know there was just some kind of indicators out there and I was making them into a pot. And then, at that time, you realize there was no pot the way you thought there was a pot.

Okay? Like you're aware of this gap here. But during the direct perception of emptiness, your mind, with total perfect concentration, comes into this emptiness and stays there.

Okay? Like you're looking at the entire universe. Okay?

You can... You're looking upon every existing thing. But what do you see?

You're just seeing this blank spot here. Just empty. Okay?

Does it mean black? No. Okay?

Black is a color. You see what I mean? Does it mean your mind stops thinking?

No. Your mind never stops thinking. Even Buddha's minds think.

Okay? Does it mean you watch your thoughts and don't attach to them? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of.

Nobody ever said that. Okay? What it means is, you're focusing on the fact of the absence of something that was never there.

Okay? And you are immersed completely into that object. Period.

Okay? In other words, it's almost as if you're looking at a whole room full of people, but you're not seeing anything. Like you're focusing on chetam jay, means all existing objects.

And then, what do you see? tongpa nyi te. Okay?

chetam jay, tongpa nyi te. All existing objects are emptiness. Meaning, you got your eyes, meditatively your eyes are open towards all existing things, but all you're seeing is this part here, which is just sheer emptiness.

Okay? It's the sheer absence of something that was never there. And you sit there for 20 minutes on that thing.

And that's why the Heart Sutra at this point says, sharipu de tawa na chetam jay tongpa nyi te. Okay? Where is that?

It's page 3, last paragraph. Where it says, and thus we can say, shariputra, that every existing thing is emptiness. Now you tell me, can every existing thing be emptiness?

Is this an existing thing? Is it emptiness? No.

Okay? Is it the simple absence of a 50-foot three-headed purple elephant? No.

It's a positive thing. You can touch it, you can hold it. It's not emptiness.

It has emptiness. But it's not emptiness. Okay?

Big difference. But what did Chenrezig say here? Everything is emptiness.

What the hell is he talking about? That's just wrong. That sounds like some weird Tibetan...

You know, there was some really weird Tibetan traditions that got it all wrong. And they said, oh, everything is emptiness. Oh, well, let me pull your empty ear and tell you...

Let's see if you go out or not. Of course it's not emptiness. Emptiness is an invisible lack of something.

Okay? This is a pen. So why does Buddha say everything...

Why does he say here... I'll give you a clue. With these words, you are reaching Toma.

This is where the roadmap goes to the third milestone. Between this paragraph and the paragraph above, there's a huge horizontal line in the text. You just crossed over into the path of seeing.

You just crossed over into that 20 minutes. And Chenrezig says, everything is emptiness. What's he mean?

You're in the direct perception of emptiness. You are looking at every existing object. But what does it look to you?

What shows itself to you? What do you see? Just sheer emptiness.

The fact that they are not what you're used to seeing. What's that look like? It doesn't look like anything.

It's not black or clear or green or... It's just that the elephant's not here. What's that look like?

What color is that? How big is that? No, your mind is just immersed in this thing that that thing, that pot you used to think was here, is not here.

You're looking at this room full of people. You're not seeing anything. Get used to it.

By the way, it's not the absence of the pot, right? The pot's there. If you don't think so, stick your finger in it.

Wake up. Okay? It's not the absence of the pot.

The pot is there. Okay? It's the absence of the pot that you thought was there that was never there.

And you're focusing on that. And your mind... Because of your level of meditation, because you were working for years on your meditation, two hours a day, one hour a day, not counting your sadhanas, etc.

Okay? Alright? Sheer one-pointed concentration on an image or a thought or a concept.

The ability to sit totally motionless. Breathing almost stopped. Sense objects shut off.

The ability to sit there like that for an hour, which you build up in five-minute blocks. Start with five minutes. Go to ten minutes.

Go to fifteen minutes. Okay? Don't sit there for an hour and space out on what you're going to do this afternoon.

You know, this thing where they hit you on the back with a stick but you don't move. You know, because your mind is so well engrossed on what you have to do this afternoon. You know what I mean?

Okay. They say don't do... Start with a five-minute block.

Bright, strong, healthy, happy meditation. And then break. Have something to relax.

And then go back into it. And then build up to an hour. Okay?

So, for twenty minutes, your mind is just totally engrossed in the fact that what you thought was there is not there. The direct perception of that. It's not an intellectual thing.

You're not sitting there and saying, let's see, I thought there was a pot on the stove and then I caught myself with this little mental image and yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's not that. That comes before that.

During this twenty minutes, your mind is one-pointedly immersed in the absence of this thing that was never there. And that's called emptiness. Okay?

And that's what the experience is like. So, can you be aware of the passage of time? No, because time is not the absence of the pot that was never there.

Okay? You can only be aware of this absence. You see what I mean?

Can you sing to yourself, this is really exciting? No, because the thought, this is really exciting, is a living, organic, positive thing. Okay?

It's not the absence of something that was never there. Can you say to yourself, god damn, I did it. No.

That comes later. Okay? That comes later.

That comes in Jeta Vyasa. That comes later on, maybe five to ten minutes out of the experience. During that experience, you can't be aware of time.

You can't be aware of any other objects. You cannot even be aware of your own thoughts. You can only, it's a direct communion with the absence of something that you always thought was there, but was never there.

And that's emptiness. Okay? And it's triggered by this stove thing.

This happened maybe an hour before. Chidjo happens at the final hours of the second milestone, the second path. And that triggers, you can't have the direct perception of emptiness unless you go into deep meditation.

You see? So, while you're watching the stove and understanding this thing about the pot, you are actually perceiving what? Dependent origination.

For the first time, you're understanding what dependent origination is. Then you go into deep meditation and you always go right into the direct perception of emptiness. Okay?

Right after this. Okay? So you see how all of it builds up?

You've got to lead the home life mentally. You know, you have to give up on that thing, the worldly life. Then mentally you have to commit most of your time to your spiritual pursuits, right?

Then you have to collect all this heavy-duty good karma. The best way is with a Dharma center or with a qualified teacher. Then you need a good coach, like a piano or a football player or a gymnast.

Can you imagine a gymnast in the Olympics that didn't have a coach? You know what I mean? To sit there and cry and look at the scores and...

You know? I mean, you never saw that on TV. Because there's no such thing.

You can't get to that level without a coach. It's impossible. It's just impossible.

So you've got to have a living coach there. And then you have to study like crazy and you have to learn to meditate. Then you go into this experience, okay?

Like a 20-minute experience. That's what the Heart Sutra is talking about in a single sentence. Every existing thing is emptiness.

Okay? That's the last paragraph on page 3. That's it.

That is Nyamchak Yeshe. That is the direct perception, emptiness. We've got to talk about that sentence.

Okay? We didn't finish talking on that sentence. You are focusing on all things.

But what's presenting itself to your mind is emptiness. You are not aware of all existing things. You can't see them.

It's almost as if you're looking at... It's hard to describe. Anyway, you're focusing on...

Technically, you're focusing on all things and you are seeing only sheer emptiness. Okay? So is it true that all existing things are emptiness?

No. What this sentence means is very specific. You are focusing on all things and all you are seeing is emptiness.

So you could have... You know, Lord Buddha or Chenrezig would have been better if he'd said, every existing thing appears to you at that 20-minute period as emptiness. Okay?

But he put is. Why? It's more sexy.

People will keep reciting the Sutra century after century. You know, thinking that everything is emptiness. It's not.

Everything has emptiness. Not everything is emptiness. But at that moment, everything is appearing to you as emptiness.

As one emptiness.

[Speaker 2]
Session 3 continues on the next CD.