Серия ежедневной практики, курс 09 — Пустота ума (махамудра) (1999, Сокел), занятие 4

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

[Speaker 1]
Okay, I'm thinking two flavors of emptiness on session is pretty good speed. Alright, so we're going to do two more. Maybe one more is better.

Nah, we'll do two more. Okay. These two flavors are a little hard.

Okay, we're going to get harder now. Okay, first one was easy, right? And I think the first one you can say, the first flavor of emptiness that we talked about, which is not really emptiness.

Okay, get used to that. It's just a useful pseudo-emptiness, okay? And that's all Lord Buddha meant.

It's addressing your feelings that things are permanent, okay? It's addressing your feeling that something is going to last, okay? It's definitely a step to emptiness.

That's why Lord Buddha taught it, definitely. It's like the first rung on a ladder with six big steps on it, okay? It's a beautiful thing to know.

Just be aware that it... Don't go saying that Michael Roach said that was emptiness, okay? I call it a flavor of emptiness, meaning it's useful.

It is not what will get you out of samsara by itself, okay? Number six is the only one that has that power, okay? It is not the one that will get you out of your suffering by itself.

It's very useful. It's a good first step, but it's not the one that removes samsara, okay? The second one, the second flavor of emptiness addressed your feeling about owning things, that you could own something, okay?

Someone told me something very interesting. I was talking about, you don't know if you're going to have this shirt. Everybody still got their shirt?

Yeah. Somebody had one stolen out of a car after I gave a lecture like that. I said, not even your body, not even your arm, not even your name.

And then someone told me they were in Tibet a few months ago. I forget when. And one guy was reading a book, a Dharma book.

He had his window out the car, and a truck came by, and his arm was gone, like that, you know? And they were running around trying to find blood for him, and airlifted him out. You don't know that you'll have this arm tomorrow.

You see what I mean? You have to get used to that. Somebody said reasonable expectation, but karma is very unreasonable, you know what I mean?

Is it reasonable to believe that I'll be sitting here tomorrow? I don't know, I guess you could say reasonable, but there's certain odds that I'll not be sitting anywhere, you know what I mean? That I can't even come here, you know what I mean?

So, reasonable is a little touchy. Odds, statistics, karma ignores them. You might be the only one that doesn't come tomorrow, and the odds of that are 100% if you have the karma.

You see what I mean? So here we go to number three. Number three is a little tricky.

It is a very popular... The people who popularize this flavor of emptiness is the mind-only school, okay? So here we go on the...

By the way, I'm not going to get into why mind-only school is a bad name for that school, because they don't believe everything is only the mind at all, okay? But that's another subject. I don't want to confuse this class with another class, okay?

But we're just going to talk about two ideas they have about emptiness. So that's three and four, which you're going to get two doses of mind-only school, which is a tough school, this morning. I don't know.

Yeah, we'll do it anyway. Okay, number three. The words are long, but the meaning is not so bad, okay?

Say suk... suk... dang...

dang... sung jin... sung jin...

ki... ki... tse ma...

tse ma... ze shen gyi... ze shen gyi...

toa... toa... One more time, suk dang...

suk dang... sung jin gyi... sung jin gyi...

tse ma... tse ma... ze shen gyi...

ze shen gyi... toa... toa...

Okay. According to the mind-only school, this is the main kind of emptiness, okay? The main thing.

Suk means something visible that you can see. Suk has two meanings in Buddhism. One is your physical body in the five heaps or the five skandhas.

That's not the one we're talking about. We're talking about, in this case, visible objects, something you can see, colors and shapes. It's called suk, okay?

Colors and shapes. Dang means and. And.

Okay, A-N-D. Suk jin... Suk jin gyi tse ma, okay?

Suk jin gyi tse ma. The tse ma part is pramana, meaning a valid perception. Valid perception, okay?

Are you having a valid perception when you see a pen here? Yes, you are, okay? How many valid perceptions do you have a day?

Sixty-five times that, okay? I mean, sixty-five of those multiplied by the number of those in your day. How many non-tsemas or non-pramanas do you have during the day?

A certain number, okay? But they're pretty unusual. Like a leaf going in front of the car and you think it's a squirrel and you...

Just for a split second you have a non-tsema, a non-pramana. Then you move the car. And then you see, oh, it's only a leaf.

And then suddenly the non-valid perception is replaced by a valid perception. It's that quick. It's like instantaneous.

It just twists like that, you know? So non-pramanas are pretty rare. So we're just talking about a normal perception of a pen, okay?

The colors and shapes of a pen. Sukhdzingitsamma means the perception which is holding that pen, meaning your visual consciousness, your awareness of the colors and shapes of the pen. So what do we have so far?

The colors and shapes of the pen, or the pen, and my perception of the pen, my mind sitting here seeing the pen, okay? Two things so far. The pen and my mind seeing the pen, aware of the pen, okay?

Through the assistance of my eyeball, my optic nerve, okay? So there's basically, you can narrow it down to this, me and the pen, okay? Me seeing the pen, okay?

Me seeing and the pen being seen, okay? The two of us. Zeshen means, literally means separate substance, okay?

That's a code word in Mind-Only School for, comes from a different karmic seed, okay? Comes from a different karma. Like that pen just happened to make it over there, and I just happened to make it over here, okay?

We are coming from separate places. Zeshen gi means we are coming from separate places. That pen was made in, let's see, Bellwood, Illinois, okay?

And poor thing had to get all the way out to California, you know? And it has its history. It used to be just a little prehistoric tree, and then that fell into the mud, and a couple million years went by, it turned into oil in Saudi Arabia.

They pumped it out, it got to Illinois. They, you know, made it into this pen, and it got here. And then me, you know, I was born in LA, and then I went to the East Coast, and then, you know, and then I made it here too.

And then just by some kind of coincidence, you know, he by his circuitous route, and me by mine, have come to be in this room together. Okay, that's Zeshen gi tong, okay? Just by some kind of random thing, okay?

Zeshen gi tong means separate incidents have brought my eye and my consciousness, my mind and Michael Rhodes to stand here, and brought this pen here also. Separate forces, no connection, okay? Is that true in the mind-only school?

Absolutely not. So they even go so far as to say emptiness means that that's not true. Emptiness is the lack of truth to that.

Toa. Toa means emptiness, okay? Don't forget that emptiness just means cancel something, deny something.

It doesn't mean like an empty stomach that I have right now, okay? It's not like that. Toa means it's not true.

That's all. Emptiness here means it's not true. What's not true?

That this pen just wandered into this room through its own history, you know, and that I just happened to be here. In other words, you could summarize this kind of emptiness by saying there aren't any accidents. There's no such thing as randomness, okay?

Everything comes about through a karma. This pen was forced into this room by karma, and I was forced into this room by karma. How many karmas?

Mind-only school says a shared karma. It's very interesting. Ze chik means, ze shen gyi toa means it wasn't just two separate events going on.

This whole thing, me meeting this pen, has been produced by one karmic force, okay? That's the whole point of the mind-only school. That's their idea of emptiness.

You want to understand emptiness in the mind-only school? Get it. There's no accidents.

Okay? This pen was brought here by certain karmic energies. I was brought here by certain karmic energies.

Okay? And they're the same. Okay?

There's no accidents. Nothing you ever meet in your life is random. Nothing that ever bad, and particularly it's important in the study of the things that you don't like, okay?

You know, when something good happens you don't like, investigate, why did this happen to me? I'm so... You know, you don't go home and stay awake at night and try to figure out, why did this happen to me?

You think it's God-given. But when something bad happens, you know, you get cancer, you lose a job, you know, you break up with a relationship. You sit there at night and say, why did this happen to me, you know?

In the mind-only school they say, you can stop that now. Okay? That flavor of mental affliction, did you notice that every flavor of emptiness has its own flavor of mental afflictions?

Like the first one works on that feeling that things are going to last. The second one works on that feeling that I own these things, okay? Now the third one works on that feeling like, why did things happen to me?

I didn't deserve that. You know what I mean? Why did I lose that person?

Why did I lose... Why did I get cancer? You see what I mean?

And so the third kind of emptiness is aimed at stopping the mental afflictions that are getting angry or upset or feeling bad about, especially about the bad events in your life. Like now you can deal with it. It's coming from karma.

The same karma that brought you here brought it here. Okay? That's all.

That's all. Okay? No more accidents.

Don't see the world as being random anymore. I always say this, Master Shantideva in the Bodhicaryavatara says, look, there's only three possibilities of why this crap is happening to you. Why?

Number one, it's random. You know, Big Bang Theory. Suddenly something went off a zillion years ago over near Pluto.

I mean, Pluto wasn't here yet, but for some reason something started out of nowhere. And then atoms and molecules started flying around space. And then by some accident, they've all collected together and you have a body and a mind now.

That's theory number one of why your boss is so bad to you. Really. Number two is, there's a divine being, creator God, who's like sadistic, you know?

And they're like, oh, Michael Roach, meet Ophir Azulon, your boss, you know? And let's see how it goes, you know? And, you know, and they're just hurting you, you know?

I mean, that's just, that's possibility number two. Possibility number three is that there's some sense to why things happen. You hurt someone before.

You were a bad manager or a bad supervisor to a bunch of people. You tortured your employees for a long time, and that's why you're meeting this guy. You know, there's a justice.

There's a karmic, cosmic justice to things. That's why this is happening to you. There are no accidents.

I mean, Master Shantideva basically boils it down to those three, okay? And so, if you understand emptiness, flavor number three, which is not real emptiness, but we're getting closer, aren't we? We're getting closer.

And that's the whole point. That's the point of the four ancient schools of Buddhism. I'm not talking Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu, and Gelugpa, okay?

I'm talking Abhidharma schools, Vaibhashika. Sutra schools, Sautrantika. Yeah, Sautrantika.

Then the Mind-Only school, then Middle Way schools. The reason there's four schools is that there are more and more sophisticated explanations of emptiness, mainly, okay? So, now you're up to school number three.

Okay, you're up to... Somebody's saying, you want to stop your mental afflictions? Get it.

There's no accidents, okay? Whatever happens to you is coming from one force or energy that you set in motion before. So don't go blaming other people.

Don't go thinking things bad to you are happening just at random. Don't go blaming some god, okay? It's you.

And nothing happens by accident. Nothing that you ever encounter, no object that you ever encounter is not coming from some karma that you set in motion yourself, okay? So get used to it.

Does that help deal with your mental afflictions? Yes. Is it the one thing that can remove your mental afflictions forever?

No. No, okay? That's only number six, okay?

But this is very helpful, okay? So we have three very helpful flavors of emptiness. That's why Lord Buddha taught them.

That's why Lord Buddha made the mind-only school, okay? So got that flavor of emptiness, okay? There are no accidents, okay?

Nothing is random. And by the way, I'm not just talking about physical objects. I'm talking also about your thoughts, okay?

And that's preparing you for Mahamudra, okay? Your thoughts ain't no accident either, okay? No such thing as a random thought.

No such thing as a random emotion. No such thing as a random bout of depression or anxiety, okay? It all has its karmic causes, okay?

No such thing as something just happening in your life because you didn't have something to do with setting it in motion, okay? And that's what they're saying here. If you want to translate it, it would be something like the fact that things are void of...

subjects and objects are void of coming from separate karmas, which is a fancy way of saying there ain't no accidents, okay? Everything... you and the things you experience are produced by one karmic event in the past, okay?

Get used to it, okay? And that's another flavor of emptiness, okay? Don't forget emptiness is always denying some non-existent, crazy, stupid thing that we strongly believe in, okay?

I always say a typical example of emptiness would be the lack of a 40-foot, two-headed, purple elephant rampaging through this temple at this moment, okay? That's one kind of emptiness, okay? And you think in your mind, you think, oh, that's a silly example, you know?

It ain't. Why? Because the self-existent thing that you're grasping onto that causes all your suffering has exactly the same ontological status as a two-headed, purple elephant that's rampaging, crushing Kendall.

We won't have any umzei tomorrow, you know? I mean, the self-existent thing that you strongly believe in, in which causes all your truth, all your suffering, has exactly the same amount of existence as that elephant. Get used to it, okay?

Emptiness is denying something that never existed, never could exist, never will exist, but that you, in your heart, strongly feel exists, okay? What do we have so far? Things that last, okay?

They don't exist, okay? Things that you own, they don't exist, okay? Bosses that bother you and just came out of nowhere, and that you didn't have anything to do with bringing them to you, that doesn't exist, you see?

You get used to it. Emptiness is always the denial of a gaccha. Gaccha meaning non-existent, self-existent thing.

Okay? Exactly the same as a rabbit with horns and stuff like that. They just don't exist, okay?

But your emotion about them causes you all your suffering. Okay, emptiness number four. Sukha in Sanskrit is rupa, okay?

Meaning...has two meanings. One meaning is the first of the five heaps, meaning your physical body. But on a deeper, on another level, it means the object of I-consciousness, meaning it is...it equals, you know, sukha equals shapes plus colors. You can think of it that way.

[Speaker 2]
Then the tse-tsen-gi was the things come from different places.

[Speaker 1]
Right, right, right. What was the middle part? Oh, sukha-tsen-gi-tsen-ma means the state of mind which is grasping onto that colors and shapes, meaning your visual consciousness.

You can boil it down to this. You seeing the pen, and the pen, you and the pen have not come from separate places. They've been produced by one karmic event in the past.

The mind-only school is all hot on that, okay? That's their big thing, okay? And that's ultimately what mind-only means, okay?

Get used to that. It doesn't mean that that pen is part of my mind, okay? At all.

It just means that we've both come from the same karmic place, okay? Get used to that. There is no school of Buddhism that says that the pen is part of your mind, okay?

It's a sexy thought and people explain it that way, and the Buddha never taught it that way. Number four. This is a long one.

Let me see if I can get it short. Nah, you'll get the whole thing, okay? Sorry.

That's the longest one, okay? Okay, here we go. It's long and it's not hard, okay?

I mean, not that hard. Rang nyi means itself. Itself, okay?

Rang nyi means itself. Then you have rang nyi che pe, which means called itself. Called itself.

Something is called what it is. Okay? The fact that something is called what it is.

Okay? Tan ye means a name or a word, okay? An expression.

Juk pa means to apply an expression, to apply a word or apply a name to something. Juk pa, okay? Juk pe.

Juk she means the thing that got the name. Like this cylinder is the juk she to which I juk the name pen, okay? This cylinder is the object towards which I apply the name pen, okay?

This is the juk she. Pen is the name, is the tan ye. And then I juk it to the cylinder, okay?

So juk pa means to apply. Tan ye means the name. And juk she is the thing I give the name to.

This cylinder, okay? Yin pa. The fact that it is.

Okay? The fact that it is. What?

The fact that this cylinder is the thing I call the pen.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
The fact that something is the thing it gets called. Okay? Then we can do this whole thing in one big slash, okay?

Rang gi tse ne ki juk pa. Rang gi tse ne ki juk pa. Okay?

Rang gi tse ne ki juk pa. Exists by definition, from its own side. Automatically.

Okay? Rang gi tse ne ki juk pa means automatically. From its own side.

And it's very simple, okay? Who decides this should be called a pen? We do, okay?

It's convention. That's all. It's convention.

We just all agree. What do we call this thing? What do we call this thing, this cylinder thing that he writes up on the board with?

Let's call it a pen. Okay? If you're Russian, pero.

If you're Tibetan, nyugma. Okay? I mean, different things.

Let's call it a pen.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
But get used to the idea that it's a... If you've studied Mind Only, those of you who've studied Mind Only, it's a kunda. It's a...

It's something you've made up in your mind. Okay? But human nature is to think that it's natural.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Human nature is to think that the labels I have given things belong to them by their God-given right. Okay? And you forget that it was you who labeled it pen.

Okay? I mean, the human tendency is to say... is to get very upset if anyone else thinks of it any other way.

Okay? Actually, you made this up. Your culture made this up.

You made up this word. We've decided to think of this as a pen. We've decided to call it pen.

This is all not something which is its almighty God-given right. You have to remember this is a... This is a construct.

This is something we've made up. But human tendency, the human nature, which leads to mental afflictions, is to say, this has always been called... My mom called that a pen.

So it has to be a pen. Okay? And this is called...

You know, these are the suppositions of your culture. You know? That...

My mom and dad called that a pen. And everybody else better call that a pen. You know?

My mom and dad and Mrs. Melvin in the first grade said, democracy is right for everybody. So everybody should live that way. You know what I mean?

Because that's what they told me. Okay? That's not something which is natural.

That's not something which is automatic. This is a construct. This is something that Mrs. Melvin and your parents made up, or their parents told them that. But this is a construct of your culture. It may not be true for everybody. Okay?

Interpretation of things. How you interpret the things around you. How you judge them.

How you decide whether they're good or bad. It's a construct. That's something that your culture is making up.

And get used to it. Okay? Whether you experience this thing as the most beautiful thing in the world, or whether you experience it as something ugly, it's something made up.

It's a construct. Okay? It's not...

This pen is not naturally good from its own side. And this pen is not naturally bad from its own side. And get used to it.

That's... You could say that emptiness number four is very helpful in the case of judging things. Okay?

Judging other people. Do you really have the equipment to say that the person next to you is the way you're thinking about them right now? Can you read their mind?

You know? Can you really tell what the people around you are? I know, what they're doing, Lord Buddha is slowly stripping away the justification for most of your mental afflictions.

Stop thinking of things as lasting forever. Stop thinking that you can own something. Okay?

Then what was the last one? Yeah, stop thinking that accidents can happen. They can't.

Now, stop thinking that your judgments of things are some God-given... has to be that way. Okay?

Because that's also just the result of your karma, the way you see something. By the way, if people understood this kind of emptiness, they'd stop having fights about favorite songs. We talked about it in San Francisco.

Okay? There'd be no more people saying, you know, Neil Young is the best music. Okay?

You know? Has to. I don't know why you change the channel.

You know what I mean? You don't understand. You know?

And, what the mind-only school is saying, Ranggitsena Kitupe Dora, means, it is devoid, it is empty, of having any nature of being the best song from its own side. Okay? It doesn't have that quality.

By the way, well, I'm not going to get to that. Let's rub this in a little bit. Okay?

So, favorite songs, favorite actresses, favorite movies. Okay? Favorite anything.

Favorite people. People you like, people you don't like. They are not...

Your judgment of other people is a... Mind-only school is saying, please don't forget it's a construct. You could just as well have twisted it around a different way, and you would love this person.

Probably you will a year from now. And then you'll think that's a God-given thing. You see what I mean?

So, get used to realizing that your judgments, especially of other people, are something that you're constructing. Your mind is constructing. Ranggitsena Kitupe Dora, Ranggitsena Kitupe Dora means, not existing by definition, is a mind-only school code word for, it doesn't come from its own side that way.

You are putting this trip on it. You are labeling it. You're imputing it.

You're making it that way. That's your problem. So don't go blaming other people when they don't think about it that way.

Okay? Don't judge things and then get into conflict. I mean, I think emptiness number four is very good for preventing conflict.

Okay? Obviously, two different people are always going to make different constructs or interpret things in different ways. They're going to have different judgment about things.

Realize that that is not coming from the object side. It's coming from yours. You're laying this trip on every object around you.

So don't get upset when that's in conflict with someone else's trip. Okay? And then you've just eliminated another 25% of your mental afflictions.

So it's a very useful idea. It's like pretty cool. Mind-only school is very, very attractive as far as removing your mental afflictions.

Your interpretation of things is your construct. Don't forget it. That's kundat in mind-only school.

What are the other two groups in the mind-only school? Shen Wang? Yong Du.

Shen Wang means all the changing things in the world. Yong Du means the emptiness of everything in the world. Are those constructs in the mind-only school?

No way. Okay? In the mind-only school, those things come from their own side.

Okay? This is a pen from its own side. Okay?

The pen-ness comes from its own side. Whether you call it, how you judge it is different. Got it?

You can put it this way. There is a cylinder there. How you interpret...

Oh, I'll say it this way. There is a pen there. Okay?

Whether it's a good pen or a bad pen, it's a construct. But, in the mind-only school, is there a pen there? Yes.

From its own side. Through its own unique way of being. Ranggit.

Tummo moyin pey, dulun sungun ne, dul pa. Okay? From its own side.

In its own... Okay. My judgment about it, good pen, bad pen, is a mental construct.

And realize that, and stop fighting with other people about, Oh, I like this. You have to like things the way I like them. You have to not like the things I don't like.

Okay? Stop that. It's a big source of mental afflictions.

A. B. But does the mind-only school think that there is a pen out there?

Yes. And that it comes from its own side. And that it has its own unique way of being.

I'm setting you up for number six. Okay? Do you feel it?

You know, Lord Buddha is setting you up. Number three and number four are very cool ways of looking at reality. But they have a major flaw.

What is it? It's still founded on the idea that that thing is coming from its own side.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
We're still short of the ultimate emptiness. Okay? We're still short of it.

Me, who comes from my own side, and the pen, who comes from its own side, me, who exists from my own side inherently, and the pen, which exists from its own side inherently, have come from the same karmic seed.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
This is mind-only school. And me, who exists inherently, have judgments about this pen, which exists inherently, which doesn't exist inherently. Okay?

That's where they're at. Okay? The pen is really there, from its own side, exists from its own side.

There is a pen there. Whether or not I think about it, whether or not I'm aware of it, if a tree fell in the forest, the sound would be there. Okay?

And I'm over here, and it's over there. And then, but whether I think good about it or bad about it, now that's a construct. That I'm making up.

Okay? Got it? This is my...

They're like people on the fence. Okay? They don't want to go to the Abhidharma school and say, everything comes from its own side.

And they're afraid, they're very afraid of the middle-weight school that says, nothing comes from its own side. They're, whoa, I'm not going over there. You guys are extremists.

You know? They say that. You middle-weight people, you're crazy.

You know? Go around saying nothing exists. Did middle-weight school say that?

No, but they accuse them bitterly. Okay? You guys are crazy.

You know? And we're not going over there. It's true that my...

that my judgments are... are something I make up. And they have no existence from their own side.

Ranggit Senegi Madhubba. But... but the pen, come on, I mean, there's a pen there.

Okay? You can't say there's no pen there. That's too extreme.

Okay? They get very nervous around that.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
All right? So, the emptiness we have so far, which we'll practice next session, okay, is... is thinking that there could be accidents, that you haven't set in...

in... in motion the forces that created the pen in you, who by the way exists from your own side, from this point of view, from this school. And then secondly that your judgments of the pen, good pen, I like this pen, bad pen, I don't like this pen, and everyone else should think that way.

And when you don't think that way, you're a bad person. Okay? That...

that that's not true. Okay? That's the fourth kind of emptiness.

Okay? Very useful kinds of emptiness. Okay?

And we're getting close. We're getting hot. Okay?

Next... we'll move into the middle way schools. Number five belongs to the lower middle way school.

Number six belongs to the higher middle way school. Okay? Okay, we'll do a dedication.

You're gonna get a homework. I say they're good. Okay?

And that exists by definition. Okay? No one can disagree.

So... try to do it. Okay?

It helps a lot, really. Then, next time, when you have to explain it to somebody, you're not like fumbling around, like, I don't quite remember, or... Okay?

You are the next lineage holder, right? I always say, you shouldn't be the one who did the dead end after two and a half thousand years. Okay?

You say, you know, they'll get the lineage, oh, Ken Rinpoche, Geshe-la Tsongkhapa, Michael Roach, and then... oh, and then it dead ended. Okay?

Okay, it shouldn't be like that. You have to... Once you hear any teaching, you're automatically responsible to pass it on, and not to be the place where it stopped after two and a half thousand years.

Okay? All right. Thank you.

[Speaker 2]
This is the end of Session Two.