Классика Алмазного огранщика: Верхний Срединный путь — Великие книги мудрости, занятие 24

[Speaker 1]
Can you tell the commander what you're up to in your text? And think about it. Like, if you were going to present it to a sponsor, for example.

With no notice in Taiwan? Exactly. To just teach about it?

Like, what happened? How would you teach it to someone who didn't know much about this text? There's an old book by Ari Nagarjuna called the Sixty Verses on Reasoning.

In that, it's 61 verses. And in that book, he's arguing to the lower way. He's trying to prove emptiness.

Our version of emptiness to them. Using their reasoning. And this book that I'm, you know, that he's translating that I'm trying to translate.

He's translating. Is by Gyaltsab Jey. And so he's pretty tough.

So it's confusing. It's his commentary on the Sixty Verses on Reasoning by Nagarjuna. And so where we're at.

That's what I really want you to talk about. Yeah. I was stalling so that I could try to.

No, I think it's interesting where you're at. Where we're at now is amazing. Because he just, he was talking about whether or not there's a mind to the direct perception of emptiness.

You know, he started debating that, you know, the famous Chinese master who said there's no mind. And there was a really interesting discussion going back and forth about whether there is a mind or not. And then where we're at now, he just segued into the differences between the upper and lower parts of the middle way school.

And it's fascinating. So he listed ten differences. And then in the end of last term, we made an appendix that has all these different presentations of the differences between the upper and lower middle way schools.

Which are totally interesting. And some of them are kind of hard to understand. Because I think they're based on ten years of prior study of middle way philosophy.

But it's really cool stuff. Good. Yeah, so one of the most important subjects of all of Buddhism is why did the middle way school break into two halves.

And to put it simply, the lower middle way school is a 50-50 school. What's that mean?

[Speaker 2]
I think things are 50% out there and 50% coming.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, they think that 50% of reality is incoming and 50% of reality is coming from me. And somewhere we meet in the middle. That would be kind of a psychological school.

The way I feel about this song depends on many factors in my mind. But it's definite that the song itself is not coming from me. So you get this feeling that I'm interpreting the world in different ways.

And if I was in a really good mood, if I had some good coffee that didn't have spoiled half and half, I would... just kidding, don't drink it. Then I would...

If I had had a really good coffee, the whole world would look brighter. No, no, I have one. No, I gotta have half and half, that's the thing.

So, that's the lower middle way. Higher middle way? The higher middle way is that everything is named in a label.

100% coming from me. Big difference, okay? Huge difference.

And then that leads to a list of eight classic differences between the two schools. And a lot of it has to do with how do we prove emptiness. And if you understand...

it's uncomplicated, if you understand those eight, you understand Buddhism. So, Gyaltsabje, he's on another subject. He's talking about something else.

And then suddenly he says, suddenly, at this point I shall indulge in a slight digression and explain the ideas which distinguish the consequence group from the independent group. He's just like, hey, how about I give you a nice teaching on this? Because the book was about how the Buddha did teach emptiness to lower way schools, Hinayana schools, but they didn't get it.

You see what I mean? So, Nagarjuna spends a whole book, 60 verses, is devoted to proving why the Buddha did teach emptiness in the lower, in the Abhidharma Sutras and things like that. The full emptiness, but they didn't get it.

How did Nagarjuna interpret the third turning of the wheel? When the Buddha explained what he really meant in the third turning of the wheel, he was defending Prasangika. It's not that he invented Mind-Only School.

You see?

[Speaker 2]
Where does he save that and when do we get to spend it?

[Speaker 1]
We'll get there, we'll get there. That's amazing. Yeah, it is amazing.

Yeah, Buddha did write that book called What I Really Meant, but he was talking about Prasangika. So, I was talking with Nick that a good presentation on those eight would be more valuable than the book we're working on. You see?

And if you take those eight and make a very sexy appendix, which is complete, people who know, both of them, they will consider the appendix more valuable than the book. The book is extremely valuable, but the appendix would be more valuable. So, we started off on an appendix, and we worked on it quite a lot.

So, I don't know how many pages it is, how many pages is it? Oh, it's not too long yet, maybe, maybe six or seven pages. We took a different list from different people, because they're slightly different, the lists are slightly different.

And we worked on it a lot, many hours, and then I'm not satisfied with it. I look at it and I say, it mentions the differences, but it doesn't explain them. So, my proposed strategy, he explains his own list of ten.

He's got more than other people. He wrote a separate book about the eight. He wrote a whole book about the eight.

We should look at how long that book is. Maybe that could be an appendix. Yeah, he wrote his own book about the differences.

He wrote a separate book about it. But it's also called Notes, so it could be Tsongkhapa. Even the eight is called Notes.

Yeah, yeah, so I don't know, we'd have to read it. We're planning another appendix also, right? Because...

No, Gyaltsabje attended a lecture by Tsongkhapa on this text, and he wrote his Notes, and they still exist. We were going to... on the sixty verses.

So we were going to put that in an appendix, in our free time.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
I'll pass. I'll take this old, cold one. Okay, now.

So my proposal is... Nick goes through the ten that Gyaltsabje gave. Gyaltsabje promised two things in section 139.

This is why sections are useful. We numbered it like the Bible. We numbered that.

Every translation is getting numbered. So you can say, I don't agree with section 146. There's something stupid there.

So, quick reference. Go to section 139.

[Speaker 2]
Over there.

[Speaker 1]
And then teach us from there. What's he say? You want me to read the English?

No, I mean, tell us what it is. Okay, he's enumerating the differences. And then...

According to him. And then he's going to identify which are actually correct. Yes, he's going to tell the differences, reported differences, about the Middle Way School.

And then he's going to comment on them. So let's just go over that as a review. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
It is confusing. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
First one. The first one. Section 141.

Whether or not they accept, in general, the idea of an assertion which is independent, meaning a Rangyu...

[Speaker 2]
Keep tensing.

[Speaker 1]
Now, the Lower Middle Way School's name is Independent School. Why?

[Speaker 2]
Because they accept it.

[Speaker 1]
They accept a thing... They accept a mode of reasoning called independent reasoning. Roughly, how would you describe it?

[Speaker 2]
When I say to you, let's consider a duck, that I think you and I have the same image.

[Speaker 1]
That's a different one. No, the reason itself has the power to bring your mind to a higher state, and there's something in that reason that, from its own side, proves the assertion. Yeah.

Whether or not a reason is effective doesn't depend on my karma. There are certain reasons which are so true, they don't depend on me. It's like the husband who's yelling at me, it wasn't my fault.

Why does this reason work? It's not my fault. It's just true.

Two plus two, four. It's just true. It's not coming from me.

Four is not... Two plus two is not four because of my perceptions. It just is.

And certain reasons are so good that they are independent. They don't depend on the beholder. They don't depend on the beholder.

It's almost like saying truth is truth no matter who's looking at it. You see? And it's an attractive idea.

And that goes along with the 50-50 idea. Truth is truth. It don't matter if you had coffee or not.

Okay? Okay? So they call that an independent reason.

It has its own power to prove what it's trying to prove no matter how stupid the person looking at it is and no matter what their karmic seeds are.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
And now explain why the higher school is called consequence. Oh, so the higher school is called consequence. First of all they don't accept those and they believe that you can be shown the truth based on the way that you understand or the way that a sarcastic statement is presented to you which shows you the consequences of your...

the absurd consequence of your own ridiculous thinking. All fruits are red. What about bananas?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. No, no.

[Speaker 1]
Give me a telling you. So I guess an orange is red. Well, I would use a banana.

I guess a banana, but an orange is even weirder. By the way, you don't say it... you never say it in a combative way.

You always say it in sort of a... Well, I guess oranges are fruit.

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
All fruits are red. Bananas are red? It's just like this sarcastic thing.

It's never like, what are you, a fool? Bananas are red? No, it's not like that.

It's like... I don't remember we did that. It's like this.

I mean, a true prasangika, a true tengyur is, wow, so bananas... Okay? And that's all.

And according to the highest school, that's enough to lead someone to emptiness. According to the next lower half of the middle way school, it's not enough. You have to say, look idiot, take a banana.

It's not red. Therefore, not all fruits are red. You know, and you have to go through each step.

According to the highest school of Buddhism, which all tantra also follows, it's enough to say, wow, so bananas are red. And that's all. You don't like beat it into the guy.

You see what I mean?

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
And that's why the highest school of middle way is called prasangika, which means, absurd consequence of your statement. Yeah, proof by absurdity. She must use it a lot at home.

[Speaker 2]
She gets it.

[Speaker 1]
All right. Okay. So, the very first difference between the two schools, or, he just calls it concepts which the two schools discuss.

They're two groups. We call them groups, okay, from now on. You don't call them schools.

They're not schools, they're subgroups. Okay? First one, do you accept that a reason can have its own efficacy, its own power, or not?

That's the first one. Second one, go. Whether or not they accept such a reason in the context of examining emptiness.

Yeah, like specifically, can you see emptiness with such a kind of a reason, which has its own independent power to prove something. Okay? Independent of your karmic seeds.

Third one. Do they accept or not the idea of an accurate perception engendered by the basic nature of a reason? Lupa tov shuki.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
The power of the... What's sema? Valid perception.

Correct perception. Accurate. I like that.

Let's call it accurate. Okay. Accurate perception.

If someone... So, direct perception is obviously accurate. You know, you see blue.

Authority is accurate. You know, if the Buddha says, if a Swiss banker jumps out the window, jump. You see, if you're on the 10th floor and a Swiss banker jumps out, just jump, don't talk.

Don't think about anything. You know, it's called authority, scriptural authority. Right?

And then there's one called... There's a minor one called...

[Speaker 2]
Convention.

[Speaker 1]
Convention.

[Speaker 2]
Which means...

[Speaker 1]
A rabbit in the middle. A lemon. If you say, this car is a real lemon.

In America, it means it's a bad... It doesn't work well. But everybody knows you're not talking about the fruit.

But, the last one is, is logic, is the results of logic, can that be on the same level as your eyes?

[Speaker 2]
Yes. But they say no.

[Speaker 1]
No, lower middle way. Or, okay, it's a debate about that. Can you trust your third eye, reasoning, as well as you can trust your physical eyes?

Okay? Alright, next one. Do they or do they not profess that the person who initiates an argument and their opponent can ever be perceiving the same object under consideration in a compatible way?

If there's two people in the debate, can they really agree that they see the same thing in the same way? If banana doesn't mean the same thing to me that it means to him, can he use banana as a counterexample?

[Speaker 2]
And especially if I say banana, and I think the bananas are self-existent, and you don't.

[Speaker 1]
Exactly. And the famous example is with the non-Buddhist school that believes the sound of Aum is eternal. Which school?

[Speaker 2]
I mean, probably we got a few, but...

[Speaker 1]
Does it mean Mamsa? I don't know.

[Speaker 2]
Anyway...

[Speaker 1]
And then the first great use of Buddhist logic in history was in a debate with those guys, and the Buddha said, ,,Draja chen mitakte chepi chen," Okay? Things are changing. Things are impermanent because they're changing, or because they have a cause.

So, when the Buddha gave that argument to the Aum guys, and he said, ,,Take sound," already is there a disconnect. Yes. Because one of the rules of an example, ,,Take sound," is that both parties have to agree what's the sound.

If sound means fish to you, and sound means something you hear to me, we can't choose it as a... as a... something we're going to argue about.

But in a way, if they're arguing, they never see the thing the same. Anyway. So that's what this one's about.

,,Tu nang," means, if they do two opponents in a debate, they never see the example as the same thing. Well, we're going to debate it. Next.

Number five. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what he's talking about yet.

That comes later. I think there's a debate, and we'll get to it, at the end of the Three Principle Paths. ,,Mikde te so kayen kun shig na," ,,Mikde te so kayen kun shig na," If all the ways you regard things fall apart, then you got there.

Tsongkhapa says, If all the ways you see things fall apart, you got there. So then people responded to his line, and said, Well, that means you have no position at all, right? You don't have a position, and that's your position.

Okay, I believe it regards to that. Okay, next. Yeah.

Yeah, and that goes to your text. His text so far has been a frustrating mixture of, we call it pancake flips. In his school, which is the second Buddhist school, and it's 200 pages into it, and it's like, it's sweet, but it's, a thing is the opposite of all that it's not.

So take all the things in the universe that aren't jhanpho-li, reverse it, and that's what jhanpho-li is. Okay? That's called yong chu.

So, is that... We don't know what he's talking about yet, but somehow, the two middle-weight schools have differences in the way they view this opinion. Well, the famous school is the second one.

Who likes it? Well, is this definitely between the two schools? Yeah, because sometimes it's just a list of what makes the prasangika special without being something between them.

But I think he's framed it as something between them. We need more information. Okay, seven?

Good.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Is it enough just to prove something else wrong without proving yourself right?

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, there's a difference in how they feel about absurd statements. How strong is... How strong is, oh, I guess a banana is red.

Is it enough to prove that all fruits are not red? Number nine? Good.

Yeah. Some people say they go beyond all states of mind. That's the other one.

Okay. And? Okay.

Yeah, I'm not sure... Well, let's keep going, okay? Now let me see something.

Let's just go... Now let's start on your text, okay? Well, you want to...

Out of those ten, he likes some of them Okay. Can you scroll down a little bit in the version that you're looking at? Ying.

Go back up. Up a little more to 152 in English. Yeah.

I think we missed a few letters there. That's weird. Ying, there is some...

A saying? I must have rewrited the box in there or something.

[Speaker 2]
Probably saying, right? Saying. So, I'll set a paragraph break.

Which is a little strange. Sorry? Can you repeat the tenth one?

[Speaker 1]
It's saying, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. It was saying.

[Speaker 1]
The tenth one is whether or not they accept apperception, the mind's ability to perceive itself. In a single moment. In a single moment, I guess.

Yeah. It's saying, okay? Yeah, I thought so.

Why is it doing that? This is just window dressing. This...

Yeah, okay.

[Speaker 2]
Window dressing?

[Speaker 1]
This definitely confused me, these points.

[Speaker 2]
Is that what it says? Windows? No, it doesn't say window dressing.

[Speaker 1]
It says pretty thing, Zepa.

[Speaker 2]
No, in English, did it say...

[Speaker 1]
Window dressing. No.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, good.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, let's do the first one. And his book is hard. I'm sorry.

It's just hard. And Geltsub J is hard. And he's not clear.

And he's... He makes huge leaps of... We...

In the winter inter-monastic debates, we will debate one page of Geltsub J every day for twelve hours for a month. And not get to the bottom of it. He's unbelievable.

And there are western scholars who think he's crazy. But he's just deep. Okay.

Anyway. So the last two, which are what? Does a Buddha have any wisdom in their mind?

And can the mind perceive itself at the same moment? And there are two famous metaphors in that argument. Can a knife cut itself?

And? That's kind of one, but the more famous one is, can a man ride on his own shoulders? People have tried just to prove it.

So I mean... The higher school says these are not... It cannot.

There's always a time gap between the perceiver and the perceived. Okay. Something like that.

Okay. So. Now Geltsub J has promised to go through and comment on how he feels about these ten proposed differences between the two schools.

Okay. So here we go. I'm just going to get us there.

The last two, which concern the mind's ability to perceive itself in a single moment, which is kind of tied up in the witness mind that hears our thoughts. Is there a time gap or not? And then does a Buddha have wisdom?

He says, these are boiled down to Bawa Longme. Okay. Bawa Longme.

And I couldn't find it anywhere. And a lot of times, Geltsub J, who was famous before he met Tsongkhapa, is talking about arguments he's had with people, you know, in Lhasa last week. You know, like, he's like, that old man-on-his-shoulders thing.

And then we have to figure out what's man-on-his-shoulders thing. And he doesn't explain it. So my theory, and I don't think anyone's going to come up with anything better.

Yeah, I think it's a criticism of the two separately. Bawa means hidden. And Longme means not enough time.

So I think Longme refers to apperception, which is to say there's not enough time for the mind to see itself. It's got to take at least two seconds. And then therefore I take the hidden to be, we may not be able to see a Buddha's wisdom, but we can assume it's there.

It's hidden. So I have a new theory on this line. It just came to me, you know.

And I think Bawa Longme was an expression in the debate ground in his time. You know, like, it's hidden, and there ain't time enough. It's hidden, and there's not enough time.

And there were two answers to those two. Because he says chimanyi. He says, as regards the last two.

I think he's splitting, and he's hitting the two. Okay? Unfortunately, Bawa as a, Bawa by itself can be from Kentucky.

Okay? So there's people called Bawa John Foley or something. It means John Foley from Kentucky.

So there's a little area in Tibet called Baa. And sometimes it comes before the person's personal name. And so it's like Baa Niklasa.

Okay? But I don't think it's this, because Bawa is definitely an adjective. Okay?

But I'm just saying, you know, fifty years from now, they may find in the database that this was a guy's name. Okay? So I made the footnote enough to cover our rear ends.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
I said, there is an outside chance that it refers to some ancient author. Then they won't call us fools, they'll just say we didn't know. Can I ask you a question about footnoting here?

I noticed that even though you were footnoting those ideas, you put it at the end of the sentence. Sometimes I've been putting mine in the sentence, like at the end. Yeah, it's okay.

We don't have a definitive... It's not a big difference. I would say, if there's a good chance that the reader will stall before he hits the end of the sentence, put the footnote in the middle.

But if there's a good chance that they understand the words hidden at insufficient time, like those are not so weird that they're going to stop. The reader's not going to stop. So then put it at the end because it's out of the way.

A footnote in the middle of a sentence is definitely distracting. But if it had said a statement of absurdity, something that nobody knows, you know, detail is...

[Speaker 2]
If there are multiple items in a sentence, would you put two numbers in there or cover them both with the numbers?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I prefer a single footnote. I think more than one footnote in a sentence is brutal on the reader. So you've got to think that the reader's tired.

They just got home from work. They went in the bathroom. That's the only time they have to study Buddhist books.

And you've got 12 footnotes in one sentence. They're going to shut it and open their surfer magazine, which is what I do. Okay, so just keep in mind everyone else is as tired as you are.

So make it easy for them. Or they're not going to read your book. And as I mentioned before, I'm aware of Buddhist books that were translated in my lifetime and are already out of print.

Nobody bought them and they're out of print. I don't want your books to go that way. By the way, we have to choose a cover design for the 108 books.

And Shunten and Sugan have some proposals, so they're going to email them to everybody. How's that? Yes, because it's not my set, it's everybody's set.

So I think we should decide as a group what's the cover going to look like for 108 books. Because you're going to be stuck with it for quite a few months, at the rate we're going especially. By the way, we did finish our first book.

It's in the Chinese Translation Bureau's hands. It's perfect. It's done.

It's 499 pages in English. So, we're getting there. Halfway done in Spanish.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So here we go. And I gave a lecture yesterday about how all the books tie together. And you should memorize it.

I mean, you guys should be able to spit that back. There's a reason why we chose the 16 books we're working on right now. And it's kind of extremely elegant.

And it covers all of Buddhism. Between you guys, if you guys survive, you can translate any Buddhist book. Because you are covering the 16 great topics of like Geshe's and Tantra.

Okay. So, if you can all learn your own book, we got it covered forever. That's the design of this track, of this program.

We spread it out historically all the schools. So if everyone here does their job, there's nothing you cannot translate without me. Okay.

Kind of cool. Okay. It's built like that.

If one person quits, you're in trouble. No pressure. No, because if he quits, for example, there's no logic.

And his language is extremely difficult. Okay. Well, no, until you finish your book.

And then we'll switch it up. Because obviously, if two people understand the genre, it's better. Okay.

Next. You were teaching what we've done so far.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, now you can get into some, you can get into some worthless argument about whether there's a difference between the two parts of the Middle East school about mind and matter. You know, whether or not they actually took those positions. You're just trying to look cute.

And I'm not going there. Does that relate to anything in those ten that we listed? I don't know.

It must. It must. Or maybe he's just making a side comment.

Because he, unfortunately, he doesn't go in any great order. He just throws out comments. Okay.

Now, number six and seventh are also, those are wrong. Okay. In my list, six and seven are wrong.

Okay. What does he mean they're wrong? Like those don't belong in the list of differences?

They don't belong in the list. They are proposed differences, but they're not valid.

[Speaker 2]
Right.

[Speaker 1]
Because the consequences do say it fits their school, and the independents would agree to it also. So it's not a difference.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
I don't think he put it in his list.

[Speaker 2]
Ah, yeah. Yeah, right. I guess that's what he's doing.

Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
And then he goes off on Baba Viveka.

[Speaker 2]
Right.

[Speaker 1]
Okay.

[Speaker 2]
He's a nice guy. It takes a lot of gut.

[Speaker 1]
It does. Then he talks about, do two debaters ever see the example the same anyway? If we're going to debate, if you're a Hindu who believes that Aum is eternal, and I'm a Buddhist who believes that it's destroyed moment by moment, and I say, well, let's consider sound, then he addresses that, do they ever see the same thing?

So if you can't see the same thing, how can you have an argument about it? If I point to this and you see a fish, and I see a skyscraper, how can we discuss it? There's got to be some overlap of how we think about it.

What would you say offhand? I'm curious.

[Speaker 2]
I mean, so by the way then, the one that I mistakenly attributed that quality to he's saying is the key to understanding it, right? That's true. Which is that when I say, when I say consider a duck, if you're thinking of a self-existent duck, then, and I'm, if I want to prove emptiness to you, right, and I say duck, and you're thinking of a self-existent duck, and I'm thinking of an empty duck, then we don't share the same thing.

So instead what Nagarjuna does is when he says consider duck, he's assuming you're a self-existent duck, and then he's just going to say it doesn't exist, which is a prasanga.

[Speaker 1]
What do you guys think? Can I have an argument about a banana? If I think all bananas are red, and you think all bananas are yellow, does it make, ever make any sense to say, let's talk about bananas?

What, don't go that far. Can we talk about bananas? Can we talk about bananas?

Exactly. Okay, this is the point. When we have a debate with someone, let's say you're debating with your wife, whether the Japanese restaurant is good or bad.

Okay? That's a typical debate. I had it with V the other night, about El Patio.

Guess who said the food was bad there? So, when I say, well, let's talk about El Patio restaurant. I think it's bad for these reasons, you think it's good for these reasons, okay?

But can you even say, is there an El Patio restaurant to talk about? That you can both relate to. Generally, as long as there's something that you can agree on.

Divorce it from what you disagree. Is there a building called El Patio, and they serve Mexican food there? Yeah, of course then, yes.

Are we agree on that? Now let's talk about whether the food's good or bad. So, if you can divorce, talking about, is it, is it possible for her and I to talk about El Patio restaurant, if she's already thinking they have good food, and I'm already thinking they have bad food.

Is there an El Patio restaurant independent of good or bad food? Yeah, there's a place, they serve food, you pay money, you know, okay? So that's the way that argument comes down to.

Divorce it from the thing you don't agree. There is sound atoms banging into each other, and whether they're eternal or impermanent, let's talk about it. But we all agree there's something here, right?

Okay, got it? So there's some overlap on how you see the thing you're talking about.

[Speaker 2]
I think he's going to say though, that when the subject in question is the nature of that object.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 2]
That they can't agree.

[Speaker 1]
Well, it has a nature.

[Speaker 2]
We'll see.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, okay, anyway, okay. What does he say here?

[Speaker 2]
I predict he's going to say that that it's not true.

[Speaker 1]
In the final analysis, the entire question of whether an independent provision is valid. Hold on a minute. Okay, good, yeah.

Whether or not wrong duplexes are valid boils down to can you see the same thing. Okay. All right, we're ready to start your class.

Is people cold? Should we turn it down?

[Speaker 2]
Can we warm it up a bit?

[Speaker 1]
It's a trick to keep people awake. Let's go. I confess, as I already confessed a few times, but I feel bad about it, I did not have time to prepare for your class.

So, you know, I'll do the best I can. Let's go. Okay.

Okay. Okay, tell us about Ngopo Thop Shuk. Well, this is reasoning with its power.

So by the power of reasoning, or I guess you could say logical proof. Yeah, you can say that. It's almost a synonym for logic itself.

Break it down.

[Speaker 2]
Ngopo, thing, power, shuk.

[Speaker 1]
This shuk means resides, resides, yeah. A power resides in the thing. And this is this is about the idea that a reason that you give can trigger an understanding in another person's mind.

That we're not debating. But was it in there from its own side? Who wrote the Diamond Cutter Sutra?

Yeah, you did, okay. You see what I mean? But is it valid?

Does it work? Yeah, if you study it, you can get to see emptiness directly. Who wrote it?

You did, okay, that's all. So there's a disagreement about where the power comes from, but there's no disagreement about does it have power. Reasons have power.

If you try to prove that they don't, you're already using the power of reasoning. Just a few paragraphs. People who try to convince you that logic is stupid always use logic.

It's very funny. And if you're a real logician, you're just kind of, oh man, yeah, okay, you convinced me. Yeah, all the reasons you gave me, why reasons are stupid, they prove it, definitely.

Okay, so Nirmal Pantav Shuk, Shepa. And what do we say about shuk? What does it mean to stay beside your name?

There's a common, other spelling of it. Oh, shuk. Shuk, not shuk.

No, that's shuk.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Shuk means power, right? Shuk.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, shukden. Shukden.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, so shuk means power, okay? And most people spell this with an S-H. But Tung is already that, right?

Right. But he keeps repeating Z-H. So, obviously, the greatest logician Tibet has ever seen has felt it was Z.

But I just tell you, you run me a number. We have a search program. We can check a million pages and see how many people spelled it.

You want to compare them?

[Speaker 2]
Give us a vote.

[Speaker 1]
We do this. We call it a vote. In the last thousand years, which was spelled more?

Ngopo Top Shuk spelled either way. Sumbum. It won't be in the tenure.

Much. Who's doing Z-H? Who's doing S-H?

[Speaker 2]
I'll take Z. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
You take S.

[Speaker 2]
I'm doing Z. Tell me when you're pushing the button. The search...

[Speaker 1]
They're searching over a million pages.

[Speaker 2]
Ngopo Top Shuk. Ngopo Top Shuk. What's the number?

Did you just do S? I did Z-H. Okay, then I'm doing S.

[Speaker 1]
I must have spelled something wrong because I got zero hits. Somebody do it with Z and somebody do it with S.

[Speaker 2]
It's kind of simple. I didn't spell it right and I got nothing.

[Speaker 1]
Come on. How strange.

[Speaker 2]
You're in the wrong... You're searching the wrong thing.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it's got to be, huh?

[Speaker 2]
You're searching the wrong thing. At least this text is wrong. Search the sumbum.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that's what I was searching.

[Speaker 2]
I've got 15 for Shuk.

[Speaker 1]
Really? 15 for Shuk? For S?

I got none for Z. Try P-O or possibly I. I just wrote Top Shuk.

S-T-O-B-S. Oh, really? Yes, yeah.

And I searched for sumbum and I got no hits. She got 69. How many Shuks you got?

[Speaker 2]
I got more Shuks coming in.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, I see what I did wrong. Z. How many for S?

[Speaker 2]
15.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, okay. By the way, he was such a defender of this concept that there's a very common grace in the monastery. Thangchen Kepitukyam Tsongkhapa.

Utthuk Rikpe Wangchuk Gyaltsarje. You are the emperor of this form of reasoning. That's his nickname.

So, yeah.

[Speaker 2]
He's got a good spelling too, apparently.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, anyway, I like the other one. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
But I lost.

[Speaker 1]
I lost the statistical. It was 15 to 120, right?

[Speaker 2]
123, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, so there was some serious... At least 15 people agree with me. Okay.

When you lose, you can look at it that way. Get Shakyamuni. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so this expression, the power of the thing. Okay. Okay.

Shukyam. Ngopo rangsemba kye lengpa la ser na. If you say it's talking about what?

Independent reasons? No, difficult here. But ngopo rangsemba...

People who exist. You can take rangsemba here to mean ngopo in its usual sense. Existing thing, yeah.

Functioning thing. Functioning thing, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dunchenupa. Right. Defined as dunchenupa.

That which can perform a function. He says, kye lengpa la ser na. You can say that the ngopo, in ngopo topshuk, refers only to its limited sense in the literature as functioning thing.

What's the Sanskrit?

[Speaker 2]
Oh. Bahava.

[Speaker 1]
Bahava. Bahava. Which means thing.

Right? And then, over the years, it came to mean the smaller class called things that do something. Now, he's making a comment.

Gyeltsabje is making a comment. Rangsemba kye lengpa la ser na. If you take this to be ngopo in its sense as working thing, functioning thing, mi te.

That's not correct. Yeah, you're wrong. That's not what the ngopo in ngopo topshuk means.

Okay? Which means, it just means thing in general. Which means that it can include unchanging things.

As such as?

[Speaker 2]
Empty space.

[Speaker 1]
Empty space or emptiness or facts.

[Speaker 2]
Facts.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good. Okay, got it?

[Speaker 2]
Got it.

[Speaker 1]
So, what he's really saying here, in my opinion, and it's hard, is that if you use space as a reason or emptiness as a reason, even though it's not a ngopo, it's a ngopo topshuk rinpa. Okay, got it? It is the kind of, it is the class of reasoning that we call deduction or logic.

Which in Tibetan involves the word ngopo. But in this case, ngopo doesn't mean working thing. Because you can use, plug in anything there.

So, he says, I want to use bhava in its older, in older meaning as all stuff. All stuff. Every, every word has a power.

Okay, got it? Time's up. If you say it only applies to ngopo in its normal sense, rangchenpa.

Okay? In its normal sense. If you claim that, you are mipit.

You're incorrect. Why? What does he give as a reason?

That bhagavad-gita himself denies... That idea. Yeah.

Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, right. He was right about something.

[Speaker 1]
But even Bhavaviveka denied that.

[Speaker 2]
Sure. Oh, even Bhavaviveka.

[Speaker 1]
Khyan.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, Khyan.

[Speaker 1]
Khyan. Why does he say even Bhavaviveka?

[Speaker 2]
Because he's lower middle way. He's the quintessential lower middle way.

[Speaker 1]
He's the mother of the lower middle way. If this is supposed to be a difference between the higher middle way, and he himself denies it, Come on. Give me a break.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, got it?

[Speaker 1]
Okay. I got through that class. I really pulled that off.

I only did one line. That's pretty cool. I'll work harder on it, I promise.

No, I just, I totally ran out of time. The manual is 660 pages. I just ran a class downstairs.

I just ran out of time. And I didn't stop. I just worked.

Yeah. I didn't stop at all. Anyway, I don't know.

I don't know what we can do about that. You'll have to translate. You'll have to put high performance.

We're going to have to learn Tibetan, I guess. We need some high performance here. It'd be interesting.

You're going to talk about high performance? A little bit. Because it would be useful for this group.

Okay. Much less the people downstairs. This group has got to translate 10,000 books.

In a week. No, no. I told you you had 10 days.

No, but what I'm saying is the idea of high performance is not irrelevant to you. So maybe you want to talk to us about it separately. I don't know.

But the idea that you could go to 18 inches from a mile. Can you drastically improve your performance rate in this room? Not downstairs, you see.

They're trying to convince people of world-saving ideas. We're trying to squeeze them out of these Tibetan books. Are there ways to jack up your performance?

I believe it's one of those things that if you pay attention to jacking it up, you jack it up. Yeah, just deciding to talk about it makes your performance better. So, maybe I'll...

You're leaving tomorrow night, right? Monday, but I'm back. Oh, okay.

And then we have, what, a break Thursday, Friday? That's right. But then Saturday and Sunday I'm here next week.

So maybe you guys set a time. I mean, just for half an hour. Forty-five minutes.

Talk to us about performance. One of our classes. I wouldn't...

If someone does give up a class, I'll replace it at the end.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. It'd be interesting just to hear it. Absolutely.

Well, if you went tomorrow, too, I'm speaking from... Year four to six. Four to six.

Yeah, because I invited a bunch of people. So, yeah, downstairs. And definitely sit through that.

I'm going to teach there how to get the idea across or how to teach a teacher kind of idea. Right. But it will be this high-performance idea.

So... Cool. Yeah, definitely.

If you can get in 45 minutes here. Because we have a different issue. Okay, gotcha.

I mean, we... We have to do thousands and thousands of pages. The carvings are broken.

Nobody knows what the damn thing means. You know.

[Speaker 2]
That's true. They are...

[Speaker 1]
I mean, how would you increase the performance of the people in this room? Just as a metaphor to your Blue Angels performance. Your usual talk would be useful here.

Okay. Thanks. Okay.

Shall we? Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
It would be interesting to go find Baba Rebecca.