«Дар освобождения», курс 1 «Глубочайшая медитация», занятие 9

[Говорящий 1] (0:00 - 10:24)
So, we were discussing, again, we're in a book which describes one by one the steps that you take to reach enlightenment in order to become someone who can change this entire world and help everybody in this world escape from suffering, right? Escape from death itself. And that suffering and that death is not a necessary condition.

It's a mistake. It's just a small boo-boo, you know? And people on other worlds have figured it out and people in this room mostly have not figured it out.

So, we're just a little bit behind everybody else in the universe, right? People still die here. There's still hunger and war here.

And this book, if we practice it well, if we learn it and then go one by one through the steps, meditate on them in a retreat, then we could reach a place where we could be someone who could help this entire world escape from all the pain that is here. To do that, we have to understand emptiness. So, we decided, our approach has been to go to emptiness first, which is at the end of the book.

And then we will go back to the other steps to becoming enlightened. But then each of the other steps will be informed by an understanding of emptiness, which is necessary, right? So, we've gone to the hardest part first, and then we'll go back to the beginning.

So, he was discussing on Tuesday, Pabongkha Rinpoche was discussing, what kind of conditions do you need to gather together to talk, right? What conditions do you need to gather together to see emptiness? What kind of preconditions would help you see emptiness?

And then he listed some. I'm going to start Dena Nyingbo, which is a little bit... Dena...

We have to collect certain conditions, probably a few lines up. That's close, yeah. SUM LAM GYEN MED CING CING PA LA BAR KHYEN PAS SKYE BU DANG PO LA BSTAN LAS DANG NYID KUN ZHIG GYI DANG LA THO BA First, we need a living teacher.

It's not enough to read things on the internet, or even read translations. We need a living teacher who has had some experience of emptiness, and who also has some familiarity with the scriptures that teach it, who can guide us. Everything goes faster if you can find someone who can guide you.

Like learning piano. It'd be like trying to learn piano from the internet or something. We had people at Petal Mountain.

There's a man named Will. He decided he's going to build his cabin by himself. He works during the day, then at night he goes home and he Googles the next step in the construction process.

He watches YouTube, like how to install a shower. He built his shower. He did his plumbing to a cesspool, then he built his shower, and he poured liquid cement down the drain.

Then he had to tear all the drain out and all the cesspool out again. Then he fixed all the pipes throughout the house for the water, and then he looked up a YouTube about sheetrock, how to do sheetrock over the plumbing. He sealed all the walls in, and then the inspector came to the plumbing and said, you have the wrong pipes for the plumbing, so he had to tear out the sheetrock.

Not just tear it out, he had to cut it in strips across the building and change the pipes. He's under time pressure. He's trying to finish.

He also doesn't have any more money. It's like that. You can't YouTube the steps in my way.

It would be much better to have somebody there and say, Will, don't pour the cement down the drain, because then, okay, like that. Same thing. SONG SONG DRIB BYONG CHEN PA Do great things for extraordinary people, like find special people, help them, do errands for them.

DRIB BYONG means remove the obstacles in your heart, examine the problems in your life, examine the things that are not going so well, and then use the standard fixes for them, which normally involves not doing the same thing anymore. If someone is irritating to you, someone doesn't listen to you or nobody listens to you, then you have to examine your own life to see who you're not listening to, and then change it. It changes, right?

It's not a question of getting angry at the person or being reasonable and trying to talk them out of not listening to you. You do neither. You just listen more yourself, and then people listen to you, and that's how you fix the problems, right?

LAMA YIDAM YIN MEG CHEN GYI SU BUD DAP PA You ask your dear, sweet, perfect heart lama, who is indivisible from a divine angel, he says, YIDAM YIN MEG means indivisible from a divine angel. You ask them for help. You can do it directly, and then we were saying that you can do it in your mind all day.

You can talk to them in your mind, and you can say, you know, we're studying emptiness. You need a lot of good karma to study that. You need a lot of guidance.

You need divine assistance, and I'm asking you directly, in my words and in my heart, to guide me for the rest of my life, especially with regard to these deep things, which are hard for me to see. So you ask. We ask.

I ask. Okay. TZANG RANG TSONG KHANG RANG DANG GYI RANG KHYER BA'I RGYUR TSONG RANG TSONG RANG You gather together these conditions, which will...

What do you call that? Be good for the understanding to come. But what's the...

Conditions which are... Like conducive or... Which...

Yeah, which help you to cultivate. They're like fertilizer or sunlight or water. They help you cultivate that view.

All right? DE DAG MA TSANG RANG DOG MI NO If you don't have those conditions I mentioned, you will never understand emptiness. If you don't have a good human being, living, experienced teacher, you won't get it.

If you don't make good karma with heavy karmic objects, you know, go out to stores all day and buy things for, you know, stuff like that. GYIP CHUNG If you don't clean away your own problems, how do you know you have a problem? How do you know you have a bad karma?

Something unpleasant happens. How do you know what to do about it? Just magic.

If someone around you is complaining, then stop complaining. If someone around you is irritating, stop being irritating. If someone around you is lying, stop lying.

Okay? Like that. LAMA YI DANG NYON RIG PA CHEG And then ask your beautiful heart lama, perfect heart lama, to help you.

And if you have those conditions, you can understand emptiness. If you don't, you won't. He says it.

DE DAG BAR DOG BAR GYUR GYI GRUB THAG MA WA ZHIG SO SO NYES BDAG BA'I JOG SANG NANG SREG MI CHUNG PA MANG YANG In ancient India, there were many systems of explaining emptiness. There's a joke in India. And in Tibet, it's called LAMA RE RE DEPA RE RE Every guru has their own teaching.

Like that. And then there came to be thousands of ideas about emptiness. Especially there came to be four great ways, four great schools, four great traditions from ancient India of explaining emptiness.

JOG SANG BDAG BA'I JOG SANG NANG SREG MI CHUNG PA MANG And there were many disagreements among the four classical schools. There were many versions of emptiness taught by Lord Buddha himself. And they are contradictory.

And they were given to different audiences of different capacities. He didn't say the same thing to the British Airways Union management that he said to the Diamond Mountain people who had been studying already for 20 years. There was differences in the presentation.

And they were even contradictory. But they're all helpful. And then you move up through those viewpoints and then you get to the highest level.

SO SO NYES BDAG BA'I JOG SANG NANG SREG MI CHUNG PA MANG YANG But the main view that we will be using, this is the highest view in the open teachings and it is the ultimate view for all secret teachings. So it's shared by all the highest teachings. It's called UMA THAM GYUR ROG.

UMA means middle way, teachings of the middle way.

[Говорящий 2] (10:32 - 10:33)
Anybody have a ball of aspen?

[Говорящий 1] (10:36 - 11:02)
Advil, X7, Pylenol, Sumatripton. Yeah. Ibuprofen.

Okay. So I want to describe to you UMA. UMA means middle way.

Right? Middle way. And I'll just do a quick demonstration with aspen.

With some aspen. So what is this thing?

[Говорящий 2] (11:03 - 11:04)
Yeah, it's an aspen.

[Говорящий 1] (11:05 - 16:09)
Okay, I'm from another planet. I'm from planet B. You live on planet A.

And we are studying you guys. We've been studying you guys. And this thing where you start looking very bad and pale and your forehead goes like this and then you struggle to...

You seem to have trouble opening these things. And then you get it open and then your hands are shaking and you take something out and you take this thing called... Tibetans call it isprin.

Aspen, right? What are these things? What are these things?

Yeah, it's a medicine. I'm from another planet, okay? I'm just asking.

What are these things? Medicine. What's a medicine?

How do you define a medicine? It takes away pain. It takes away some problem that you have, some pain.

Some illness that you have, it takes away. But you have to take it, right? You swallow the medicine and then it takes away some pain in your body, right?

What does this particular medicine do? Yeah, I mean this one. Normally most people use it for headache.

I use it for headache. Use it for other things, but headache, right? So when you take an aspirin and your headache goes away, then the medicine works.

We say it works, right? Right? Yeah, it works.

Does it always work? So let me get this straight. On your planet, when you're in extreme pain, right?

Bad pain. And your hands are shaking and you're trying to get the childhood thing open. And then you take the pill.

You swallow it. And then you wait, right? Why do you wait?

It kicks in after a while. Or? Or it doesn't kick in.

Okay? Right? Just let me get that straight.

You take a medicine whose definition is that it takes away your problem. And then you have to wait to see what? If it's going to work or not, right?

So when it doesn't work, is it a medicine? Well, may I remind you that you have defined a medicine as something which takes away a problem or an illness, right? When it doesn't work, is it still a medicine?

I don't think you can say so. I mean, at that time it's not a medicine, right? When you take the aspirin and it doesn't work, are there different chemicals in the aspirin than the aspirin that didn't work?

Well, this is getting really bizarre. I mean, you have to understand how strange this sounds to our people. Okay?

You just have to appreciate how strange this sounds to our people. Let me get this straight. You take this thing because it will take away a headache.

But then sometimes it does and then sometimes it doesn't, right? And when it does, it has a certain what in it? It's like, what do you call it?

Most of it is placebo, right? Then there's a little bit of, what do you call it? Active ingredient.

Yeah, drug fats. Active ingredient. In each orange caplet.

I mean, there wasn't anything in the bottle, but that's okay. Anything else? Ibuprofen is the active ingredient.

Okay, so there's a few grains of ibuprofen. That's the active ingredient, right? So let me understand.

I'm just trying, I'm not trying to, you know, criticize you. I'm just curious. You take this thing when you have a headache and then sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

But when it works and when it doesn't work, it has the same active ingredient. Am I right? Yes.

I mean, normally. I mean, the FDA is pretty good. There are some countries where they put rat poison in it to save money, but this is not one of them yet.

So is the active ingredient active? Sometimes. Sometimes.

This is like, when they call it, there's an expression for that. It's strange and stranger, but there's some literary expression for that. This is modern Shakespearean.

[Говорящий 2] (16:10 - 16:13)
Huh? Yeah, this is curioser and curiouser.

[Говорящий 1] (16:14 - 17:54)
So you take this thing and it has an active, what does active mean? It works. Oh, good.

So that's the one that does something. It acts, right? Let me get this straight.

You take this pill, you swallow it, and sometimes the active ingredient is active and sometimes it's not? I guess you'd have to say that, right? And the active ingredient is equally in every pill?

Yes. So do you honestly believe that what takes away your headache is in the pill? That would come to the crux of the question.

People from my planet are curious. They want to know. They want a statement from...

You can choose any representative of your planet you want. Anybody sitting up in the front here is okay. We have a...

What do you call it? A delegation to your planet. Rob is going to represent your Earth.

Sorry you got stuck with this. So let me get this straight. Do your people honestly believe that what takes away your headache is inside the pill?

And you also believe that sometimes you take the pill and your headache doesn't go away? Right. But you believe that whatever it is that was inside it when it did take away your headache was still inside it when it didn't take away your headache?

Right. And yet you still believe that there's something in the pill that gives you headache? Yes.

This is curiouser and curiouser. Okay? What would we say?

I mean, what would planet B people say? Wouldn't they say don't take aspirin?

[Говорящий 2] (17:54 - 17:55)
No.

[Говорящий 1] (17:55 - 23:47)
They don't say don't take aspirin, all right? Your karmic seeds need an instrument to express themselves, all right? You will get to a point where you don't need to take them and your headache will go away.

But for most of us, the karmas are not strongly known. And they need an agent. They need an instrument through which to express themselves.

So that's important to admit. Do we, planet B people, still take aspirin? When we get a headache.

Anyway, yeah, we do take aspirin. But we do something else first, which is? Yeah, we want it to work.

So we need the cause that makes the active ingredient active. All right? There's a cause underneath the active ingredient.

There's something that activates the active ingredient. If that's not there, it doesn't take away your headache. If it is there, it does take away your headache.

What we say on planet B is, if you're a person prone to headaches, you would want to be observant and be concerned about other people's headaches. Take an interest in the people around you who have headaches. Watch out especially.

Be especially sensitive in your life to anyone who claims they have some kind of body pain or some kind of headache pain. Search out those people. Find those people in your immediate life who get headaches and tend to get headaches.

And then serve them. Help them. Maybe you give them aspirin.

Maybe you give them aspirin pills or you just try to help. You give them, massage their head or give them some ice packs or like that, okay? When you offer them something that you hope will take away their headache, right?

You plant a seed in your mind to see the active ingredient be active. The seed in your mind created by helping other people have a similar problem is what activates the active ingredient. When you take an aspirin and it works, it's really because you've helped someone else in the past who had headaches or something similar.

And when you take an aspirin and it doesn't work, it's because the thing that activates the active ingredient isn't there which means you didn't take an interest in other people. By the way, taking an interest is like 90% of it, right? Because will the aspirin that you give them work?

You don't know. Don't freak out. It doesn't make it wrong to offer them help.

Give them help. Massage their head. Make them an ice pack.

Give them some aspirin. Whether it works or not is not up to you. It's up to their seeds.

You have to try. Your responsibility is to try. That plants a seed in your mind.

That activates the active ingredient in your aspirin, alright? So, we come to the big question which was all triggered by a question about Uma, middleware. Does aspirin work?

Be careful. Does aspirin work? No.

Okay, next question. This is an old joke I do. It was especially sensitive at British Airways, okay?

I said, if you went down the jetway to an airplane and the stewardess was standing there with a clipboard and you started... It's always kind of a scary moment for me to step onto the plane. Like you have one foot on the jetway and you have another foot through the metal door and you're just hoping the jetway doesn't fall down or something or the plane doesn't fall down and you're like, I'm on.

So, your foot's about to go on the airplane and then the stewardess says, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And you're like, you get nervous, right? Whenever they say wait or something, you're tense when you feel them get tense.

And you say, what's wrong? And they say, could you just sign this paper before you get on the plane? And you say, well, what paper?

No one ever asked me to sign a paper before I got on a plane before. They say, just, you know, it's just a technicality, just sign it, it's okay. They're always telling you that's okay, right?

And then your antenna comes up when they say it's okay and then you say, well, what does it say? Can I look at it? And you grab the clipboard.

She's like, and you grab it and you look at it and it's an insurance waiver. And then you say, why are you asking me to sign an insurance waiver? They say, well, you know, this is a pretty new airline and we have some new aircraft here and we pretty much figure out how to fly it.

Like most of the time, it goes really well. You're very likely to get to where you're going safely. And just sometimes, you know, it falls down.

And then, you know, those nasty insurance suits and things, we just want to avoid them. Nothing to be concerned about. Would you get on the plane?

If this really happened in an airport, would you get on the plane? I mean, you'd turn around and you'd go to some other airline, right? You'd go to the terminal, you know, ticket sellers, and you'd say, I want to get on another airline.

I want my money back and I want to get on an airline. Does their plane work?

[Говорящий 2] (23:49 - 23:51)
Sometimes. Good.

[Говорящий 1] (23:52 - 29:06)
Stop the sometimes thing, okay? Stop the sometimes thing. You know, I'll tell you something.

This is from my heart, okay? This is from my heart. People on your planet, for the whole history of your planet, you know, 50,000 years of civilization.

You know, once you started to be civilized, it's been 50,000 years, right? You've been doing things for 50,000 years. And everything you do works sometimes.

Everything you've been doing works sometimes. And you've gotten used to accepting that. You've gotten accustomed.

You have become used to, say, believing that it's not so bad that an aspirin works sometimes, right? And you pay for a whole bottle of aspirin knowing that half of them are not going to work, you know? They don't give you half back.

You don't write just to, you know, who is this? A Kuwait company and say, it didn't take my headache away. Could I have the money back from half the pills that didn't work?

You laugh. You're laughing. You laughed when I said that.

It means you honestly think it's okay that they charge you for the whole bottle. You're used to it. And you accept it.

And you shouldn't. You should object to things that don't work. You shouldn't turn around and go to the ticket counter and get something else.

You see? You don't have to live like that. You don't have to keep doing things that work sometimes and don't work sometimes.

Because when they just work sometimes they don't work. Don't you get it? It's like the plane, you know?

I don't want to know if it works sometimes. I'm going to get on a plane that works all the time. Okay?

But you got used to it and you are some kind of, I don't know, it's very pitiful to watch you. It's very sad to watch you. You know?

Because it's not just aspirin. Every single action you undertake in your whole day is sometimes worth and sometimes doesn't work. And you're just playing odds all day.

You know? You're just playing odds all day. I read a book by one of the greatest stock analysts of all time, right?

And he said in the end it's a crap shoot. You know? He said nobody knows if it's going to go up or down.

I was lucky. But nobody knows. It's just gambling.

Taking an aspirin is gambling. You get in your car to go to work. You turn the key.

You don't know that you won't die on the way to work. And you accept that, you accept that chance. And you actually say your car gets you to work.

You know? You have the temerity. I almost said audacity.

You have the guts to say you get to work in a car. We wouldn't even say that on our planet. If the cars killed the people one time out of a thousand, we'd say the car doesn't work.

That's not how you got to work. If a car kills you one time out of a thousand, the car didn't get you to work. Something else did.

And you try to understand, you guys on your planet, try to understand. Whatever you want to work, you have to serve somebody else first. You have to show some kind of kindness to somebody else first.

Then the thing will work. And that's what makes the thing work. And it's not the active ingredient and it's not the gasoline.

And it's not the battery. It's kindness. Kindness is the active ingredient.

Helping other people is the active ingredient. And then everything works all the time. And the things you say work don't work.

And stop putting up with it. Stop getting on airplanes that might fall down. Stop taking answers that don't work every time.

Because that doesn't work. That means they don't work. And you think I'm crazy.

You're sitting there like, this guy's weird, you know. And I don't know. Anyway.

Considering the possibility that everything could work all the time. You could make investments and you would make money. You could do yoga and you would get thin and strong.

You could study lamrim and you would conquer death. It would just work, you see. Everything would work.

And you wouldn't have to work so hard. Working is not the hard thing. Not knowing if the work is going to have a result is the hard thing.

Going to work is not so hard. Not knowing if the work is going to make money or not. That's hard.

The uncertainty of your approach. Sitting on the plane and wondering if it's going to fall down. That's almost worse than falling down.

To live a whole life uncertain if what you're going to do is going to work. Why don't you just stop that? Why don't you just do things that work?

You see? Okay. Samajamika.

How did I start off on this aspirin thing? Now we're more behind on homework six.

[Говорящий 2] (29:09 - 29:09)
Uma.

[Говорящий 1] (29:11 - 30:34)
Middle way. Did I say that aspirins never work? I am saying they don't work.

Is it impossible to make them work? No. Could they work?

Yes. Do they always work? No.

So one extreme is saying they always work. No. They work.

And you believe that because you take that. And then the other extreme would be for me to sit up here and say under no conditions will an aspirin work. For you to say that they work and for me to say that they don't work, these are two extremes.

The middle way, this is it, right? You get this, you get the rest of the book. The middle way says there's a cause behind the cause.

And if you find that cause, which is kindness towards others and serving others, then it will always work. I didn't say aspirin worked. And I didn't say aspirin didn't work.

I said under certain conditions aspirin will work if you've been kind to another person. So now I'll check. Let's check in.

Does aspirin work? Say no. Does aspirin not work?

No. Does aspirin work under certain conditions? What are those conditions?

[Говорящий 2] (30:35 - 30:35)
Kindness.

[Говорящий 1] (30:36 - 33:18)
That's all. That's middle way. That's middle way.

Then the highest middle way in this school is called tyangirwa, tyangirwa. That means prasangika or consequence. They believe that the effectiveness of an...

I've just given you an argument, right? They believe that the effectiveness of an argument itself for truth doesn't lie in the argument. The effectiveness of an argument for truth does not even lie in the argument.

Where does it lie? In your honesty to others. If my presentation convinces you it's because you've been honest to others.

If you don't believe my presentation it's because you've been dishonest to others. Not even my words work. Not even the argument to which I've dedicated my life to bring to you, right?

To this day. It doesn't work. It only works if you've been nice.

Cool? All right. Here we go.

dey nidongwa denjin nidongwa denjin tongway dunyu shepa shiglang che There's a very unique teaching of the middle way school. There's a very unique teaching of the middle way school. They say...

This thing called pendak which means dependent origination. Forget that big word, okay? It just means things work because of kindness.

Just think like that. Things work when you've been kind to people. That's the meaning of dependent origination, okay?

If you put a seed in your mind for an aspen to work by being kind to someone who has a headache then the aspen will work. That's dependent origination, all right? What's emptiness?

Emptiness is these don't work. It's even more extreme. These are not...

These are not aspen. These are not medicine. These are not medicine and these are not aspen.

They're sure as hell not pain relievers or headache relievers because they don't work. Take away all the aspen in the world that don't work because you've been kind, okay? Take away all the aspen in the world that...

I'm sorry. Yeah, okay. Take away all the aspen in the world that work but not because you've been kind, okay?

How many aspen are left? None.

[Говорящий 2] (33:18 - 33:20)
Okay, got it?

[Говорящий 1] (33:20 - 38:53)
That's emptiness. You cannot find an aspen that works that didn't work because you were kind to someone. All the other kind of aspens are just not aspens.

That's emptiness, all right? Are those two ideas like... Do they...

When come? Do they support each other or not? Are they antagonistic or are they...

What's the opposite? Yeah, are they... Two sides of the same coin.

What do you call the opposite of antagonistic? Compatible, maybe. Compatible's good.

Who said compatible? Yeah, that's good. Is it compatible?

Is it compatible if I say there's no aspen in the world that works if you're not kind, okay? That's a negative statement, right? There's no aspen in the world that works if you're not kind.

That's emptiness. You got that? Hold that in your mind.

Then over here is when an aspen works it's because you've been kind to someone else. That's a positive statement. That's dependent origination and this one is emptiness.

Do they mesh? Do they mesh? Are they the same?

No. One is a negative statement. There's no aspen in the world that doesn't work from kindness.

And one is a positive statement. Every aspen in the world that works does so because of kindness. Do they mesh or are they antagonistic?

They mesh. This creates a space for this to be. You see?

The fact that there's no aspen in the world that doesn't come from kindness creates a space for all the aspens that do come from kindness. Got it? The emptiness creates a space for the truth.

The screen creates an empty space for the words to be. Okay? Got it?

Sorry. Okay. So the unique thing about the highest middle way school is that they said you want to know what dependent origination is?

You know I want to know what the meaning of dependent origination is? It's emptiness. And you want to know what the meaning of emptiness is?

It's dependent origination. They mesh so closely that they are opposite sides of the same coin. You couldn't take away...

I mean modern American coins are what? They're like sliver. You know.

You couldn't peel it into two. But normally you know it'd be like what the back of the paper depends on the front of the paper. Right?

You can't peel off the front of the paper and not hurt the back of the paper. There's not two pieces. It's one piece of paper.

You can't have emptiness without dependent origination and you can't have dependent origination without emptiness. Because they are just opposite sides of the same coin. It's only the highest school of Middle Way that expresses that clearly.

Like we got two whole lines there. Okay. The Compassionate Teacher, Lord Buddha.

The Compassionate Teacher. Dukje lo chokmengi rinpoche He came to address audiences of people. And then you know a good teacher is winging it a lot of the time.

They walk in. They have a lesson plan. And then they look around the room and they say that's not going to work for these people.

And they just change. They just go down or they go up to... They either go down to a lower version or they go up to a higher version.

They don't stick to what they planned because you know half the people are falling asleep. Or half the people are like ah, ah, ah. And then they say oh I gotta create this up.

These people are better than I thought. You know. So Lord Buddha chokmengi rinpoche means he would observe his audience and he would see that their minds were higher than he expected or lower than he expected.

And then he would adjust his presentation. gaza hi ta la shen me do pe chir du So in a case where he was addressing sort of I did it once. It was the New Age Festival in Sun Valley.

Okay. He had to rrrrrrrrrrrr He had to like can we say dumb down his argument? ta la shen me do pe chir In order to get those people to stop being so attached to aspirin.

Isn't aspirin an aspirin? That's dot. You want to know what atma means?

Or dot? Self? Self?

Buddha said there's no self. I mean let's put it in plain English. Isn't aspirin an aspirin?

Isn't aspirin an Let's say it this way. Isn't aspirin a medicine? Be careful.

Be careful. Right. Okay?

Got it? Aspirin is not a medicine. Why?

Because it doesn't take away your pain. It doesn't take away your pain. It's worse than that.

Sometimes it takes away your pain. Or it seems to take away your pain. Got it?

Isn't aspirin an aspirin? No. Isn't aspirin an aspirin if you've been kind to someone who gets heavy?

[Говорящий 2] (38:54 - 38:54)
Yes.

[Говорящий 1] (38:54 - 45:00)
Yeah. Yeah. Get used to that, alright?

What if I'm lying, you know? What if everything I said is dumb? What if everything I said is wrong?

I mean, what's the worst that can happen? You run around giving aspirin to people, okay? I mean, you'll be a nice person and everybody will like you.

That's the worst that can happen, okay? And if I'm telling the truth, then you'll never not have your headache go away, right? Alright, here we go.

So, for people who are at sort of a basic level, they couldn't get a higher presentation. Lord Buddha told them. He didn't talk to them about the aspirin, okay?

He didn't say that aspirin is not an aspirin. He didn't say... What is that?

That's the Heart Sutra, okay? In the Heart Sutra, Lord Buddha said, aspirin is not aspirin. Tylenol is not Tylenol.

Excitement is not excitement. You know? No, he didn't.

He didn't. He didn't. It's nothing.

Nothing is anything, you know? But he can't say that to the Sun Valley New Age festival, alright? So, he has to say, you know, people ask him a question.

What's emptiness? I was in Brazil with Ken Rinpoche, you know? And some guy...

I was translating, and he was in Rio de Janeiro. And some guy said, Rinpoche, what is the cosmic vortex of the universal spirit in the soul of the absolute? And Rinpoche's looking at him, you know?

And then he says, what did he say? And I tried to translate, and he said... He...

Anyway... Those people cannot get the thing that aspirin is not aspirin. You don't go there, because they won't come back.

And that's the worst thing you can do. Same with the yoga class. You don't teach advanced things in a beginner's yoga class, because the worst thing that can happen will happen.

What? They'll never come back. They'll give up yoga, you know?

So, the worst thing you can do is overwhelm people, right? You've got to back up. You say, look, do you have control over your body?

Is your body you? Why not? Because you can't tell it what to do.

Do you run your body? No, I don't. Raise your left eye.

Okay, I'll ask you again. Do you run your body? How can you say you don't run your body?

You just lifted your left eye. Yeah, I mean, ultimately you don't run your body. You can't control your body.

It will do things that you can't. It will get a cancer and you will talk to it and say, don't have a cancer. And it won't listen to you.

There's an illusion of control, right? When you're young. And it's not one of the frustrating things about aging.

And I've been around some aging people recently, some 80-year-olds, you know? And their hearts are breaking, because they're realizing they don't have control and they never did have control. And it's very, very painful to know that you don't have control.

After 75 years of believing that you have control, then to find out you don't have control, that's very sad. Better to tell those people when they are 30 or 40, look, you don't really have control over your body. Then they won't be so hurt later.

And you don't really have control over your mind. You will get into depressions or sadnesses and you can't control it. In the present moment.

In the present moment, you can't control these things. So relax a little bit. Learn in your 30s and 40s to relax.

When you get to 70 or 80 and it becomes obvious, you'll be a better person. You'll be a more patient person and a nicer person. Is that enough just to be a nicer person as your body falls apart?

We say no. We say no. We say find out the causes why the body falls apart and stop it before it falls apart.

And don't try to be a nice person while it falls apart. Don't try to be a person who copes with problems well. Be a person who makes them non-events.

Learn to make them not happen in the first place. These lower viewpoints in almost every book you ever read about Buddhism also, in the Barnes and Nobles, they are lower viewpoints. They are helpful.

They are, what do you call them? Comforting. And they're useless.

Yeah, good, good, good. If I don't have control over my body and mind in the present moment... When you say present moment, Geshe Michael, you're implying what?

That I have some kind of control over my body and mind in the future. Like, I have control over the body and mind I'm going to have in six months, but not right now. I'd like to call it, the current body and mind is hard cement and the future body and mind is wet cement.

But if the current body and mind, Tenny's saying, are hard cement, how can they think to affect the future body and mind? How do you get your mind to want to affect the wet cement if it's already hard cement?

[Говорящий 2] (45:04 - 45:11)
Grace of your teacher. Which comes from good karma.

[Говорящий 1] (45:12 - 46:17)
Okay. So, Lord Buddha, dam le dam. Then Lord Buddha met people who were a little bit more capable.

He found other audiences who were more trained. And he said, chö nam le dam bar yu me gyi kye par ché la dam. Then he told people, you know, some stuff works because of something inside it and some stuff doesn't work because of something inside it.

He fudged it. For some better audiences, he fudged it. Some stuff, some aspen is aspen and some aspens aren't aspen.

He fudged it. Just so they wouldn't freak out. You didn't go to planet A and tell them nothing in your whole life worked that you ever tried in your whole life.

You know, because people would lose hope. He said, yeah, you're doing a good job. Most of what you do is good.

There's a few adjustments to be made. He fudged it.

[Говорящий 2] (46:17 - 46:29)
Right? Yeah. But if these things are coming from us, how come Lord Buddha sometimes finds people who are more advantageous than them basically?

That's a good question.

[Говорящий 1] (46:29 - 48:50)
He said, Lord Buddha, how could Lord Buddha, if things are coming from yourself and if Lord Buddha is a perfect being, how come he ran into people who could get it and other people who couldn't get it? That would imply that Lord Buddha didn't get it. If we meet an irritating person, what does it imply?

That we've been irritating. We've been irritating. Right?

All right. That's one way to answer the question. Okay.

The other way is to say that they perceive themselves as not getting it, but Lord Buddha sees them as tenth-level bodhisattvas because nobody else is allowed in his paradise. But those same bodhisattvas don't see themselves as bodhisattvas, and they are not, but they are. Okay.

DE NYON LO CHOG TU GYUR PA LA DEPAR MED KYANG RANG BZHIN GYI DUG PAR BSTAN PA DANG He said, and then there were other ones that he said, look, things are not exactly real, but they do have some quality in them of their own. Fire is hot, but it's not 100% real. It's not what you thought it is, but it does have a quality of being hot.

Things do have something in them, but not in the way you thought. He fudged it. He did advanced fudging.

All right. All right, next. YANG RAB LA Even the higher ones, CHER THAM BYE RANG BZHIN GYI MED PAR BSTAN To the very highest disciples he said, nothing has inside of it anything that works.

Nothing has inside of it anything that works. Not a car, not an airplane, not an astronaut, not a Buddhist book. Nothing.

Nothing works. Nothing has anything inside of it that works. If you understand what this thing says, it's not because it's in the book.

It's because you have helped other people understand things. There's nothing in this book which can help you. If you perceive something in the book which can help you, it's because you've been kind to other people.

Congratulations.

[Говорящий 2] (48:52 - 48:52)
All right.

[Говорящий 1] (48:52 - 49:23)
Okay. We'll stop and take a break shortly. Okay.

CHER MED DE'I GYI GOM PA'I THAG TU CHOG TU GYUR PA NI PHYI MA DE YIN The ultimate intention of Lord Buddha and the ultimate idea or belief of Lord Buddha is only expressed in the final position that we mentioned. Nothing has anything in it that works. Only that position is the real truth.

The rest was fudging it for lower audiences.

[Говорящий 2] (49:23 - 49:24)
All right.

[Говорящий 1] (49:24 - 51:12)
DE YANG DONG PA NI GYI SOGS CANG PA'I DE'I YOD DONG NI RGYAS RNOG PA'I DANG PHYIR DRAG PA DE MI NUS SHES PA PA STE YOD DANG MED PA'I PHYOGS GCIG PA SHES PA YOD DANG MED DRAG PA MED RGYAL BA'I GOM PA DRAG PA LA DEN DRAG DANG DRAG PA LUNG TEN PA'I GNAS DGON PO LUS ZHAGS KYI RJES SU DRANG NAS LTA BA TSAL DGOS GYI He's going to change gears here. He's going to change gears here. You'll be able to finish your sixth homework.

He's going to tell us... You see, Buddha can see everything in all time. That's what a Buddha is, right?

They can see all events in the past. They can see all events in the future. They can see all events now.

We are locked into like a tiny little box called the present moment. You see? We are retarded.

We are like in a... We live in a closet. We live in a closet our whole lives.

Like, there's a... I saw these big rambling homes today. I was on Central Avenue and Calabasas Avenue.

I love Arizona wealthy people's homes. They just spread out. They just go down the block, you know?

And I just imagine people like if they forgot the corn chips in the kitchen, they got to walk like half a mile to get to the kitchen again and then come back, you know? Like, they don't build up because it makes it too hot, right? So they just take over lots and they build...

They have roofs on. That's what this building is. It was a small house and they kept adding roofs on.

So... Why did I say that?

[Говорящий 2] (51:15 - 51:15)
Yeah.

[Говорящий 1] (51:16 - 53:46)
So, it's like you live in one closet in a huge Arizona rambling wealthy person's house, you know? And you spent your whole life in the closet. We live in the present moment.

It's not your normal condition, right? You made some kind of mistake. It's not the nature of your mind.

Your mind's nature is that you're supposed to ramble throughout the whole house. Of all time and all space, your mind has the power already in it. It's natural condition is to see all things in all times.

I can't be getting a... I can't be getting a text message. Your mind's own nature is to see all things in all times.

You are now in a temporary, you know... It's like you're... It's like you have a fever or something.

It's a temporary illness that you have. And it won't be like that. So, Lord Buddha, two and a half thousand years ago, set in motion events that he knew would lead to this night.

Because he saw this night two and a half thousand years ago. He also sees Saturday and Sunday. He knows, and I don't know whether I'll be able to prepare the homeworks.

But he knows. Okay? Like, his mind is not limited.

So, he saw... He saw certain people in history who would be... who would carry his message, who would carry this word.

This idea about emptiness is very, very difficult. And there are only a few people throughout history who have carried it on purely. And it has been lost in centuries and it has come back in other centuries.

And it has been... It's so difficult and so rare and so precious that there are times when it was lost. And there are times when it has come back.

And then he's going to describe how that happened, all right? After your refreshment. Okay, we'll start again.

We'll just do like a half hour. And from what we are about to do, you will be able to do through the sixth homework. Okay?

So, you should finish the sixth homework by tomorrow evening, all right?

[Говорящий 2] (53:52 - 54:02)
So, chokpe de yu. What do you mean? This is...

The Lord Buddha made a prediction.

[Говорящий 1] (54:03 - 54:52)
In a place called Beda, there will be a glorious monk, very famed. And his name will be the Naga. The Naga.

Okay, his name will be the Naga. De ming nushir gupa de. Yonamebe chok jeet pa.

He will destroy the viewpoint that things exist and that they don't exist. He will destroy. He will destroy the idea that aspirant either exists or doesn't exist.

But you already know the difference, right? You're all right with that. If you nod, you might get to go home alone.

Okay, you already know the difference, right? Does it exist?

[Говорящий 2] (54:53 - 54:54)
No.

[Говорящий 1] (54:54 - 54:55)
Does it not exist?

[Говорящий 2] (54:55 - 54:56)
No.

[Говорящий 1] (54:56 - 1:30:29)
Does it exist under certain circumstances? Yes. Which are?

Kindness. Kindness, all right. So, you're already caught up to Aryadeva, aren't you?

Okay. Chok jeet. Che yod tat na me ta pa me.

He avoided the two extremes of saying that aspirant works or saying that aspirant doesn't work. He threaded his way between those two extremes. All right?

Ye ta me ta. Gyalwa'i gopa dawa la, dendara dawa. He was a matchless commentator on what Lord Buddha meant.

Okay? So, somebody who has seen emptiness explains emptiness in a generation or maybe in every 15 generations. Okay?

And then they teach people and then they leave or something and then those people try to explain it to other people. And what happened between Lord Buddha and Arya Nagarjuna who came 700 years later was that there was a big gap. There wasn't anyone who taught it completely correctly.

All right? From the point of view of someone who had seen it directly. So, emptiness taught by someone who had seen it directly is completely different from emptiness taught by someone who hasn't seen it.

And there wasn't anyone who had seen it. So, there was a... The teachings on emptiness, what do you call it?

Declined for over 500 years. Then Nagarjuna came and he's amazing. Like, just totally, totally, totally amazing and you can't imagine.

But to read Nagarjuna in the original is to hear somebody say aspirin exists, aspirin doesn't exist. You know? Aspirin with kindness exists, aspirin without kindness doesn't exist.

That's why it doesn't exist. And then he just keeps going like that. Line after line, like exquisite and seemingly, you know, contradictory and very, very brief and very beautiful, you see?

He just got up and said aspirin works and aspirin doesn't work. And he went on like that. It's like the Heart Sutra.

It seems like the deeper someone sees it or if someone's really seen it, then they just say little things. His text is little and the lines are little. It's called the Root Text on Wisdom, Savasthi Rama.

Moola Prajna. He just, this tiny little part, it's like the Heart Sutra. It's tiny, it's short and it has all this weird stuff in it like aspirin works, aspirin doesn't work.

And that's the way Aryas taught. That's the way Aryas taught. They're trying to say things don't work or like that.

So then he passed away and it was a long time before another Arya showed up who taught that particular subject in that way and that was Chandrakirti. Let's see if he gets there. Dharamdara Loong Tempe Gombala Shakyamuni Chakravarti Thawak Sanghuki We must seek to understand emptiness as it was understood by Nagarjuna in 200 A.D. What we have at our disposal is Arya Nagarjuna's teachings on emptiness. If you want to understand emptiness, study Arya Nagarjuna. That's all. The Buddha is often too difficult.

So there's a weird thing that goes on in Buddhism. Normally, the longer a philosophy stays in this world, the more corrupt it gets. Normally, someone like Jesus says something and then there's hundreds and hundreds of years of interpretation.

Normally the interpretation gets weirder and weirder as time goes by and probably farther and farther away from the original intent of the person. In Buddhism, the opposite happens. Like Lord Buddha was teaching people whose minds were much more meditative than ours.

So they caught things faster in 500 B.C. in India than they do now. So then people kept coming and clarifying for the current generation. So there has been a long and glorious line of teachers who have clarified emptiness for the present generation.

And it's gotten sweeter instead of more corrupt. It's gotten more and more simplified or clearer in a way. So anyway, Master Chandrakirti came in, I don't know, 650 A.D.? Let's see if he comes. You can see many individuals writing books, giving explanations about emptiness, which claim to be very profound. LUD DUG GI GOM PA DANG DU NA Any of those presentations which is in accordance with how Nagarjuna taught it, that is what the Buddha meant. But, key.

DE LAS GZHAN DU GYUR PA NI But if someone tries to teach you emptiness which is essentially different than the way we just talked about the aspirant, okay? If someone tries to teach you some weird kind of emptiness, like black hole emptiness, or don't think about anything emptiness, or everything's an illusion, nothing matters, all those kinds of emptinesses. RGYAL BA'I GOM PA LAS LOB PA ZHIG TU MED PAR NGES It is quite certain that they are not telling you what the Buddha meant.

That's not what Lord Buddha meant. If you hear an explanation of emptiness, which is in any... What do you call it?

Considerable way or substantial way different from the aspirant thing you just got, it's wrong. That's all. PHUNG KYI LUM PO DAG DAG CIG RGYAL RIG PHYET PA CHEN PO LOB PA LAS DANG BYAS DANG It's not just the case that there were people in Tibet who were...

LUM PO means fools. He's being very... What do you call it?

Harsh. He's being harsh. He says, I'm not just talking about the fools here in Tibet.

He says, RGYAL RIG PHYET PA CHEN PO LOB PA LAS DANG BYAS DANG PHUNG KYI PHEN CHEN CHOG NAM PA SO MANG PO DBANG DGAR BA'I NAS DE LA CHU ZHING Even in India, even in ancient India, he mentions Master Bhavaviveka and other masters. These people wrote a thousand pages each about emptiness. They wrote books that were a thousand pages long.

Jonanga started a sect which has survived for many centuries in Tibet. And he says, they're just simply wrong. On the crucial point, when it comes down to nuts and bolts, when it comes down to Nargajunian little statements like Aspen doesn't work, Aspen's not Aspen, there's nothing in the Aspen, they don't get it.

They just don't get it. My personal advice is that if someone gives you a teaching on emptiness which cannot be immediately applied to your life and which doesn't require you to be kind to others as a direct result of understanding that emptiness, then it's wrong. It's not useful and it's wrong.

The sign that your understanding of emptiness is correct is that you're compelled to be more and more kind to others. If there isn't that bridge or that connection between emptiness and kindness, it's wrong. All right.

DE LA'I SHENG LA'GA' ZHIG GIS NI NYOD DUG GIS BYAS SUB DANG KYANG DE LA'I DGONG PO MA RTOG PA DANG GA ZHIG NI NYOD DUG GIS BYAS SUB DANG KYANG Some people said, I'm trying to follow Nagarjuna's thinking. Aspen is not Aspen. I'm trying to follow their thinking.

DE DGONG PO MA RTOG PA But they didn't get it. They didn't get it. And you can read hundreds of books like that.

You can read hundreds and hundreds of books. The books that are written about emptiness are the most crazy and most worthless. They're like, if you understood the physics of how to cause an atomic reaction, or if you understood how to make a jet airplane engine, right?

And then there was some Aborigine from Australia who wrote a book about airplane engines. Like, big round, go through little thing, pop, come out. And then you try to use that to build an aircraft engine.

The explanations you see in 99% of the books are the same. They are completely unusable and worthless in trying to understand emptiness. They're just flatly wrong, okay?

NYOD DUG ZHIG NI NYOD DUG LA MA RTOG NYOD DUG GIS BYAS SUB DANG KYANG DE DGONG PO MA RTOG So people either tried to follow Nagarjuna but didn't get it. Because it's hard, right? If someone comes up and says Aspen's not Aspen, and they don't know what they're talking about, then there'd be real confusion, right?

Then people would do all sorts of weird things. They would stare at walls for their whole life, or they would think nothing mattered, or they would do crazy things. They wouldn't go and help people.

DGAR ZHIG NI RIG PA'I BYAS SUB MA RTOG MA MA ZAD Other people flatly refused to follow Nagarjuna's thinking. Not only that, DE LA RGAG PAR BYAS PA SOG KYANG CHEN PO but they even attacked Nagarjuna. They said, there's this crazy guy.

He says Aspen doesn't exist. But we all take Aspen. Then he changed his mind and said Aspen did exist.

But then he said it didn't work, and later on he said it always works. And it's just crazy. NYOD DUG BYAS SE KYI RIG LA MA RTOG PAR If you don't follow Nagarjuna, DE LA'I CHOG TU RGYUR PA'I RANG SOG DAG LA DUNG PA NI and you just make up something, I mean, that's the worst, right?

It's one thing to follow an ancient wrong tradition. It's another thing to just start making up stuff on your own. And what pains me to see is when people study pretty well for a few years and then they take off.

And they say, I don't need to study anymore. They stop their studies. And then their view gets weirder and weirder.

Every year they're away from the source. They start teaching weirder and weirder stuff until five years later you can't recognize what they're saying. For the first year what they're saying sounds like what they learned.

And then they just keep, what do you call it? They want to make it more and more sensational every year, so then they just start making up stuff. And then five years later, I don't recognize them as my student.

I don't recognize them as saying anything I would want them to say. They just started to, what do you call it? Improvise.

You can't stop studying. You either have to see emptiness directly or you have to keep studying. You can't study for a while and then go off and improvise.

Okay, all right. Let me look at this one. CHIR ROL GYUR PA ZHI BA'I DA BA'I LO BU'I NGOS DAM ZHAG GI LAM LA'I NI CHIR ROL GYUR LA ZHI BA'I THAB MA'I DOR DE DAG KUN SOGS DE NYID DE LAS NYANG DE LAS NYANG BA'I THAR PAR GRUB YON MIN This is a very famous statement.

We'll go for about 15 minutes more, okay? This is Chandrakirti, all right? 650 AD, this is what he said.

LO BU'I NGOS DAM ZHAG GI LAM LA'I NI If someone were to, what do you call it? Go away from, on a path. Diverge.

Diverge. If someone were to diverge from the teachings of the Garjuna and then lose that idea. Lose those ideas.

Okay, what? Aspirin is not aspirin. Aspirin is not aspirin.

Aspirin will work. Aspirin doesn't work. Aspirin does work.

Aspirin works under certain conditions of being kindest to others. Emptiness can only be understood in the context of compassion. Emptiness can only be understood in the context of compassion.

Someone who leaves that system, someone who tries to teach any other kind of emptiness, ZHI BA'I THABS MED DO they will never reach happiness. They will never reach happiness. Peace.

Not possible to reach peace without kindness. DE DAG KUN RDZOGS DE NI DE LAS NYAM They have lost the teaching of the two truths. They have lost the teaching on the two realities.

What are the two realities? Is there an aspirin here? Is there an aspirin here?

Does it do what you thought? No. No.

So we say this is deceptive. It's called deceptive reality. Is it real?

Yes. It's there. Is it lying to you?

Yes. Until you heard that its power was granted to it by kindness, it was lying to you. All those years you tried to take medicine, but didn't connect it to your kindness to others, then those aspirins were lying to you.

They were what we call deceptive reality. That in itself is ultimate reality. So there's two realities.

The fact that they were lying to you is the truth. Got it? So there's two truths, or there's two realities.

Number one, none of the stuff in your life that you thought worked, worked the way you thought it did. We can even go so far as to say, the name of my next book, Nothing Works. I didn't write it yet, but I know the title.

Nothing Works. We can go so far as to say nothing works. Everything is lying to you.

Everything you thought worked, didn't work. Every action you ever undertook that was successful wasn't successful for the reason you thought. If you ever got anything from doing anything, it was random good luck.

Okay? That's kind of disturbing. And that applies to the other six billion people also.

No action being undertaken in the world today, which works, works. All right? You all right?

By anybody. From the morning till the night. Thousands of actions, multiplied times six billion.

None of them works. None of them... People try to make money.

People try to get a boy or a girl. People try to become famous. People try to fix their health.

Nothing that they do works. It's mind-boggling. If you don't feel mind-boggled, you don't get the extent of the problem.

All right? The problem is mind-boggling. No action undertaken by any human being in the last 50,000 years had anything to do with what they were hoping to get.

Your job's supposed to... It's a job, you know? Job your job.

No, okay. I just wanted to see if you could control your job. All right.

So those people don't understand those two realities. It's not possible to ever reach any degree of happiness without understanding what we talked about today. It's not possible.

It will never happen. Cannot. Cannot be happy if you don't understand that things are coming from how you treat other people.

It cannot happen. It will never happen. You'll never be happy.

And you'll never get the things you hope. Nothing. There's no second door to happiness.

There's no second method to happiness. That's all. There's one.

Je Tsongkapa Dharma De Tapa So you don't really have any choice. You have to find out, what did Nagarjuna teach? What did he think?

Those of you who get it, you did a little football. What was a football? When I finished the Aspen explanation, something happened to you.

I cursed you. I cursed you. You will never be able to take an Aspen again and really believe that it's working.

Right? And then you'll start doubting your car. And then you'll start doubting everything.

You'll say, nothing works. I cursed you. You know?

The next time you get a headache, you're going to be thrown into doubt. You'll probably get another headache on top of the first headache. Okay?

Alright. Now, now you're going to doubt everything. Financial strategies, yoga, scriptures, telephones, computers, aspirins, operations.

Everything you tried doesn't work. They're neutral. They could work and they could not work, depending on if you're kind to other people.

That's all. And there's no second way to peace. You have to understand that.

Alright. LUDOB LUM LA'I RGYUD RGYU LUDOB KYI RJES DANG RNAM KYI RNAM NAS JO BO CHEN PO Now, the guy tonight lived 18 centuries ago. He passed away.

Some people say after 700 years. I don't know. Okay?

But, JO BO CHEN PO Who was the next great person to understand emptiness? And express it clearly in this way. It was Master Chandrakirti.

So Lord Atisha said, Dronacharya, tamo-dhinkhangi-tokshena, who was it that really grasped under emptiness? After Nagarjuna. After Nagarjuna.

dey-shin-shek-pay-lung-ten-jin, there was a teacher who was predicted by the Buddha. chen-ni-den-pa-sik-pa-yi, there was a teacher who saw emptiness. lut-huk-lok-mar-da-dar-ye, He was the disciple of Nagarjuna and his name was Tawadrakpa.

Chandrakirti. I always confuse the two kirtis, okay? Who are the two kirtis?

There's a dharmakirti and there's a chandrakirti. So don't confuse them. Dharmakirti is the logician, much earlier, different school.

Chandrakirti, which means the famous moon. What's that mean, famous moon? How many people in the world see the moon on a given day?

I mean, who don't have clouds? Everybody, okay? So his name is famous as the moon, as well-known as the moon.

I mean, you just go out and look up and you see the moon. How many people saw the moon today? Everybody.

I mean, unless they had clouds or they didn't go outside. The moon is everywhere and he's as famous as the moon. Important as the moon, okay?

Dharmakirti. Dele gilgul menar ki chuni damar tamar gyalar. This is Atisha speaking, right?

The person who brought Buddhism to Tibet is speaking. The person who brought the Lamrim to Tibet is speaking. He says, it's only the teachings which came down to Chandrakirti which will help you to see emptiness.

Chuni damar tamar gyalar. They will help you to see emptiness. sumar tar loban damar drakpa chok tu gyur kyi.

So we can say that after Nagarjuna, Chandrakirti was the greatest teacher of these things, of emptiness. phu du je su dampe phu ngarab kye druk ta sosok kye druk gi lobpen mang du chungwa nang le tobpe lobpen rang rang gi gongpa thang gyur du ne pa mongpo yuk kyang So, after the Buddhism reached Tibet, many, many great scholars came. Many, many great wise people came.

And they understood emptiness in the way that Chandrakirti did, Master Chandrakirti. So in Tibet, in the early days, there was a lot of pure understanding of emptiness, right? Gyalar, what's gyalar?

But, okay. du je la nongmo dam tum par chi su la so sungpe chi ne genjung mangpo gongpa nang ma lungpar rung gi chukpar shukpa mangway But those teachers were faced with a lot of Sun Valley New Age audiences. And they had to adjust their teaching.

Like, they ran into Tibetans who couldn't get it. You know, as the years went by, the teaching spread in Tibet. You know, and people of different capacities wanted to learn about emptiness.

And then they saw that these people wouldn't get it if they came up and said an aspirant's not an aspirant. So they kind of fudged it. But then the fudging became the party line.

The fudging became the party line. And things got messed up, okay? Things got messed up.

And a lot of people started really getting confused. Because their teacher's teacher had fudged it for the convention, the New Age convention. And that's what they heard.

janggung tsongkhapa'i kyang tawa pa duk chik tse chupe gongpa chungde By the time of Tsongkhapa in the 1400s, right? Late 1300s, early 1400s. chungde tawa kor du phur shen phel sur la thug thug ma chhe ne By the time of Jetsongkhapa, 600 years before now, things were so bad that Tsongkhapa started to doubt every tradition being taught in Tibet.

It was so bad that he began to doubt every version of emptiness in Tibet. pa kyi du lo kun lu jang dang duk chen mitra sok jel shek gi pepsi zepana Then Jetsongkhapa decided to go to India and try to get the straight poop. Okay?

In India. He said, things in Tibet are bad. Maybe in India people still understand emptiness.

So he made a plan to go to India. And he was going to study with somebody named Nagabodhi who was alive in his time. Not Nagarjuna, okay?

Nagabodhi. And somebody named Mahasiddha Mitra. Like Dala Mitra.

jel shek gi tsep su ho chok duk chen gyi neng gi shul tak But somebody, one of his teachers advised him to wait. duk chen gyi gyi shug gi ze te And then that teacher, he went to a tantric deity named Vajrapani. He had contact with a divine being.

He said, you don't have to go to India. I got connections. So, you ask me what you need to know, I'll ask Vajrapani.

de tenpe shule men chok duk si chok she deng nong And then he gave Jetsongkhapa a record of the questions he had asked this divine angel called men chok duk si chok the garland of the deathless nectar of the highest medicine. That's just some book. He gave Jetsongkhapa this book.

di deng sang gi pe chak pal ma duk si chok wa yupe But there were problems with the record. Like, I don't know, the MP3 got corrupted. There were problems with the text.

And de kyang thuk chin ma simpa So Jetsongkhapa wasn't satisfied with that record of questions and answers from Vajrapani. So, lama jam yang yamay la suwanda So, he made requests in his heart to his heart lama who was indivisible from a divine angel named Manjushri. The angel of wisdom.

In his heart, he realized that his sweet, holy root lama was no different than the divine angel of wisdom. He knew that. And then he asked her or him help me understand these things.

Help me to understand these things. sak chak shuk chak ga gyur nyur He spent a lot of time trying to clean away his bad karma and trying to do 200 new projects to make new good karma. Or so.

may nam kyalwa nama ching chen ze And he really tried to in meditation just to meditate on those deep subjects that he was taught. chi su jam yang And after many years of trying he met Manjushri face to face. And there are beautiful stories.

First he had a translator. He had an intermediary named, what was his name? Lama Umapa?

He was a he was a sheep herder who who was very, very devoted and he had good meditation. And he was able to he was just a sheep herder, but he met this angel. He was able to meet this angel directly.

Out in the meadows in the grass he met Manjushri. It's a very beautiful story. And then So Kapila had questions about emptiness.

He was going to go all the way to India, right? And then Lama Umapa said, not necessary. Ask me and I'll ask Manjushri.

And then he could see Manjushri but So Kapila couldn't see Manjushri. And then he said, you know, this is kind of a hassle. Why don't you just teach me to see Manjushri?

And he did. Chir shal sikla There are he says, there are many ways to meet a tantric deity. There are many ways to meet a divine angel.

He gives a list. Number one TSAG NANG DU LUNG ZHUGS PA'I NYAM NANG LA PHONG BA LA You can get sort of a hallucination because of prana going in weird channels in your body. Prana can kind of like shoot into weird places in your channels and you can kind of think you're seeing an angel.

And it's sort of a shaky thing. NGON PA'I NYAM YI SHI LA SHAR BA THONG BA Or in deep meditation you can have a vision of an angel with your eyes closed. Or DBANG ZHIG GI NGON DU MI DANG MI SHIN DU PHONG BA STE SUM YOD Or you can meet them face to face.

Really face to face. As if you had met your next door neighbor. JE NUNG PO CHEN GYI PHYIN PA LTAR SIG NI BYANG YAM DANG LA LOG PHRAD PA SHIN DU BYUNG BA'I Guess which one Tsongkhapa did with Manjushri.

The last one. They met face to face. Not like a dream or not like a vision but they met face to face.

He was fortunate enough to meet this angel face to face and interact with the angel as the angel student. DAG LA'I GANG NAS GOR CHI BA ZHUGS PA'I SUM LA RNAM SAGS PA'I GO BA'I TSUL DU RNAM SAGS PA'I MA GO BA'I TSUL DU GYUR PA NA JA TSUL GYI LTAR BA'I THOG CHOG KYI YUL RNAM LTAR BA GYI ZHIG DANG Let me see how long this is going to go. I better stop there, okay?

You think? All right, hang on. I'm just going to do it really fast, okay?

I'm sorry. I'll keep you another ten minutes. DAG LA'I GANG NAS GOR CHI BA ZHUGS PA'I SUM LA RNAM SAGS PA'I MA GO BA'I TSUL DU GYUR PA NA And it would seem that after asking questions of this angel Je Tsongkhapa was unable to grasp the answers completely.

After asking questions after meeting this angel directly and after asking his questions he was unable to understand all the answers. It would seem that TSUL DU GYUR PA at the end of the first line TSUL DU GYUR PA means it would seem that. What's that mean?

You must pretend me not to understand. JA TSUL GYI LTAR BA'I THOG CHOG LA YO REN DAWA LA GYI ZHIG PA DANG So Manjushri told him look, there's a human teacher in Tibet right now. His name is Ren Dawa.

You talk to Ren Dawa. You take my answers to Ren Dawa and ask him to help you. And that was one of Tsongkhapa's great first teachers.

Later on Tsongkhapa passed him and began teaching Ren Dawa. And then they had these prostration fights because no one knew who was the teacher and who was the student. But that's another story.

DE KYANG THOB PA KUN MI SEL MA NGE BRTEN PA DI SHIR PHYIN NAS TSUN DRUG TZAM NA NANG ZHIG NA GYUR PA'I SHUNG LA BRTEN NAS LHAG MA'I LTA BA CHE CHEN MA LOB PA THOB PAR LUNG BRTEN PA SHIN DE KYANG THOB PA KUN MI SEL MA He This is not Geshe-la talking to Tsongkhapa. You won't be able to clear up all your doubts only with Master Ren Dawa. NGE BRTEN PA DI SHIR PHYIN NAS But take the teachings I have given you from the angel.

TSUN DRUG TZAM NA NANG ZHIG NA GYUR PA'I SHUNG LA BRTEN NAS If you keep working hard on the answers I have given you and then you refer back to the classics of ancient India on emptiness, BRTEN NAS LHAG MA'I LTA BA CHE CHEN MA LOB PA THOB PAR LUNG BRTEN PA SHIN You will come to understand emptiness. Take the answers I gave you, check in with Ren Dawa, Master Ren Dawa, then go back to the ancient classics and then it will come. He predicted.

He made a prediction. You will understand emptiness. PHYIN SOGS SOGS DU BYANG SOGS KYI THOS MO BUN SANG NYID KYANG GI SHEL SIG NE Je Tsongkhapa went back to collecting good karma by doing nice things for holy beings.

Like, you know, going out and buying things for them and stuff like that. And then he collected enough good karma and he cleaned his bad karma that he had a direct vision of a lama named Buddha Palita. Buddha Palita is a lama who he's a teacher who lived in India between Nagarjuna and Chandrakirti.

Between Arya Nagarjuna and Master Chandrakirti. He lived just before Master Chandrakirti. He wrote a book explaining Arya Nagarjuna.

Somebody else complained about it. Chandrakirti came to his rescue a couple centuries later. So Buddha Palita had it right, but he got criticized during his lifetime.

Later on Chandrakirti came along and cleaned up the problem. And what do you call it when you prove someone was right in the first place?

[Говорящий 2] (1:30:30 - 1:30:30)
Vindicated.

[Говорящий 1] (1:30:33 - 1:41:34)
Yeah, who said that? Vindicated. Yeah, that's good.

He vindicated Buddha Palita. So Tsongkhapa had a vision of Buddha Palita. JA PA BUDDHA PALITA SIG PA THAN GYUR BA'I LTA BA Then he had a vision.

It's a beautiful vision. It's in that big red book about Tsongkhapa. He saw Buddha Palita's book written across the sky.

And then he came to an understanding of the higher Madhyamaka school that we talked about. If you understand the Aspen Dutcher school already, THUG RGYUD LA THUNG He got it. KHAB DE DAG LA BAR GYUR GYI PHAN DU MANG PO SHAL SIG PA'I PHAN DU MANG PO SHAL GYUR GYI You sure you want all this tonight?

Another five minutes. Okay, I'm sorry. If some of you wanted to go home, I'm sorry.

Then he also had He had visions of other earlier Indian masters, in his visions, but he didn't, what do you say? He didn't, what do you call it? He didn't count them as being like heavies.

He underrated them, okay? In his mind, he thought, oh, I love Chandrakirti and I love Buddha, but these other guys, I don't know about them. They're probably not so important.

He was thinking that. So kapha, all right, just a kapha. Then Manjushri sent him a message, all right?

To a mama named Dokdenpa Jango Gyatso, okay? Dokdenpa means person who has really good connections with high beings. And there's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful stories about Dokdenpa.

The most famous one is what? Yeah, that's how Dokdenpa was told by Manjushri to take a partner, okay? And then he doubted the instructions and he thought maybe he was crazy.

So he asked Dokdenpa to ask Manjushri again. And then Dokdenpa had a dream and Manjushri told Dokdenpa to go get a partner and stop fooling around and go get a partner, all right? So anyway, that's another story.

Dokdenpa told Jango Gyatso that Manjushri wanted him not to underrate these other Indian scriptures, all right? Didakishunla tene rangshenla pengyachevo chungwa gyurwa If you are able to study carefully the great classics on emptiness written throughout Indian history, you'll be able to help many other people. And it's the same with you guys, okay?

I can get up here and not tell you anything from Tsongkhapa. I can repackage it in good old plain English for you. And that's what I do for British Airways and stuff like that.

I don't mention Tsongkhapa. I don't mention Chandrakirti. I don't go through all this historical stuff, and I don't quote anybody.

I just give them the aspirin thing. But the purpose of this particular gathering for the next 10 years is that you get the real thing. I'm not going to, what do you call it?

Water it down, all right? You got to hang in there, okay? We're going to get the real classics.

And that's what Manjushri told Tsongkhapa. Stop watering, go get to the classics. You can go over here.

DE LTAR URME TAWAR CINGYI MA LAG PAR RTOG PA NA THUB PA LA THUB DE CHER THUL ME When Tsongkhapa finally got it, about the aspirin, he freaked out. And he got a huge crush on Lord Buddha, okay? It's really weird.

It's really weird. If you read his later poetry, he was writing love poems to Lord Buddha, you know? The Buddha is kind of this old historical guy, and we don't have, it's not like you have a crush.

It'd be weird to say you have a crush on the Buddha, right? But he did. Once he understood the aspirin thing, he immediately fell in love with Lord Buddha.

Really in love, like couldn't think about anything else all day long. Like a real crush, you know? Like a permanent crush on somebody, all right?

Which is kind of nice, all right? You'd like run through red lights and stuff like that. All right.

DEN DRIN GSUNG PA'I DGON NAS THUB PA LAG CHEN GNYIS PO CHUNG BA JAG RTZOM ZAD So he wrote a book called Lag Chen Gnyis Po. What's that? The Essence of?

Eloquence. CHUNG BA. What's CHUNG CHUNG?

The little one. Je Tsongkhapa wrote two books called The Essence of Eloquence. They're not at all connected, okay?

The shorter one is A Praise of Lord Buddha because he taught dependent origination. It's very famous. We should learn it someday.

It's a nice thing for a weekend. Like a, what do you call it? Like masuka center or something.

It's a nice thing for a weekend. He wrote a love poem to Lord Buddha because he said, I have a crush on you because you taught dependent origination. And it's beautiful.

It's a great book about dependent origination. DIP DANG PO GNAS KOR ZHIG GI We're almost done, okay? One more minute, maybe.

DIP DANG PO GNAS KOR ZHIG GI NGAG NAS GYUR BA PO BO DONG CHOG LAS NAM GYEL GYI SEMS NAS There was a very, very famous lama in Tibet called Bo Dong. Bo Dong Chog Las Nam Gyal. He wrote 130 volume encyclopedia of Buddhism.

It's unbelievable, okay? So Bo Dong was out doing, he was doing, what do you call it? He was circumambulating in Lhasa somewhere, okay?

Then he heard a beggar reciting Lord Buddha, sorry, Je Tsongkhapa's crush poem to Lord Buddha, all right? So the beggar heard the poem and learned it by heart. And then he was just walking around singing this song to, crush poem to Lord Buddha, okay?

BO DONG CHOG LAS NAM GYEL DANG POR LUD DUG GI TSE DANG MYONG BA DANG Then Bo Dong Rinpoche, who was very, very great scholar, he thought, oh, this must be a book by Nagarjuna. This love poem must be by Nagarjuna. It's so perfect.

It must have been written by Nagarjuna, all right? DE NAS DA DRAG GI TSE NYAM SO Then he said, no, no, it must have been written by Chandrakirti, you know? It's got to be either Nagarjuna or Chandrakirti.

It's too perfect, you know? BYUNG NAS RIN PAR LUD DUG DANG DANG BA'I ZHUNG LA BSTAN SOGS KYI ZHUNG ZHIG THAMS PA NA Then he heard quotations from Nagarjuna and Chandrakirti in the poem. And he said, wait a minute.

It can't be Nagarjuna, it can't be Chandrakirti. He's quoting Nagarjuna and Chandrakirti. DE DAG MYIN BAR KHYENTTE Then he realized it had to be a third person, okay?

I'm trying to give you the three big people who have carried on emptiness on this planet up to the present day, okay? There are three people whose names you have to know. Because if it wasn't for them, it would be gone.

It would be gone from this world. Nobody would understand that, nobody. Six billion people would be, what do you call it?

The situation would be hopeless, irretrievable, okay? Only three people carried it on up to the present time. And that was Arya Nagarjuna, Chandrakirti, and Tsongkhapa.

Then the beggar said, this was written by Tsongkhapa. Somebody named Tsongkhapa. Bodo went to meet Tsongkhapa.

He got irreversible faith in Tsongkhapa. RGYA BA RGYUN KHAL, he went to try to find Tsongkhapa. RGYA BA RGYUN KHAL, he went to try to find Tsongkhapa.

but Tsongkhapa had already left this world to serve others in other worlds. So today, he wasn't able to meet him. He lost his chance.

BYA'U'PHAN SEMS SO RNAMS SKABS THOG PA'I MA RNAMS BTAB PA You know you need gold to meet a big Lama, right? In the old days. So he had some gold.

He was going to offer some gold to Tsongkhapa. And Tsongkhapa had already passed to another world. So he took the gold dust and he just threw it in the air and he said, may I meet him in some lifetime.

MA RNAMS BTAB DE DAG DANG LDAN GYIS BDE TSAR BHAB PA SOGS KYIS RNAMS SKABS NGO TSAR YOD And then there's a story how that gold floated to the air and landed in Gangden Monastery where Tsongkhapa had been living. Et cetera. DE DAG DANG LDAN GYIS BDE TSAR BA'I BSGOM DANG RNAMS SKABS NGO TSAR YOD So that's all.

Then Tsongkhapa wrote a book called BOM PA RANG BSAM. The Illumination of the True Thought of the Buddha. And that's where our lineage comes from.

So those three Aryas, those three people who saw emptiness. Nagarjuna is known to have seen emptiness directly. I'm not sure about Chandrakirti.

Tsongkhapa is known to have seen emptiness directly. Or is said to have seen emptiness directly. But that's it.

That's who carried it in this world. So you should know who they are. And the only reason we have it now is because of them.

So at least you should know a little bit about them.