Адам Андраде — Книга 2: Логика. Рассеивая тьму, занятие 48

[Speaker 1]
All right. It's about that time. Welcome to Xuanzang's Tower, a program of the Diamond Cutter Classics translation team, affectionately known as the Mixed Nuts.

Happy to be back together with you all on this fine Monday evening slash Tuesday morning, and whatever else it might be in your part of the world. And we've got class coming up, I believe, with Dr. Andrade. Oh, Adam, why are you so serious?

Is that better? Yes. Put on a smile.

Here, get the homework going. The homework's quite serious. One quick announcement.

After this class, we will have a Q&A, and I will give you more information on that in a moment. Okay, go ahead, sir. Take it away.

Adam, can you make your text bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger? I certainly can, yeah. Just tell me when to stop.

Is that perfect? Is that good? Okay.

Tim? Is that where you want the mic? Yes.

Okay. Yes, so this is good luck with this homework, let's just say. So when the auditory consciousness perceives a sound, does it simultaneously perceive sound and all its qualities as a single entity?

I can handle the first part of the question, no, and then why or why not, I'm going to move to someone else. Okay. Does the auditory consciousness perceive sound simultaneously with all its qualities?

Because auditory consciousness only perceives auditory stimuli, it can't perceive other qualities. I mean, you would think that, right? I do, until you said that.

Yeah. I mean, does anybody else, or should we just launch it? I want to try to make sure that we do stay within the 10 minutes, and I went kind of heavy with my answers.

So we'll just go ahead. It perceives like a lump. It does perceive it like a lump.

Thank you, sir. Oscar, clutch, clutch answer. Yeah, it does.

You wouldn't think that the auditory consciousness perceives all of sound's qualities. However, it does. And so when the auditory consciousness perceives a sound, it also perceives the changing nature of sound.

This is something that I'm trying to grasp, so we'll kind of go into it a little bit further, too. And it perceives everything that comes along with it as well. That's the concomitant here.

It just means everything that goes along with it. So sound and the changing nature of sound are the same thing, which means that they both come into existence at the same time. So we can use this basic truth to deduce another proof of this relationship.

So since the sense consciousness, consciousnesses are bound to only perceiving changing things, we could say that the auditory consciousness could not perceive a sound which is bereft of the property of being a changing thing. So the sound and the changing nature of sound must be perceived as a single entity, as it would be impossible for them to appear to the auditory consciousness as being separate. Does that follow?

This is why you can say that sound and the changing nature of sound cannot exist independent of one another. Or what you might be able to say, the flip. You could flip that and also say that sound and the changing nature of sound are inherently dependent upon one another.

So basically, this is something that I'm just now starting to figure out and something that I may have been, and I don't, yeah, seriously, I'm trying to stay super conscious of staying within the 10 minute kind of, sorry, Ava needs a snack. Give me just one second. Yeah, so it's not going into it too much.

And hopefully Geshe Michael can comment on it a little bit as well. And the changing nature of sound is a physical property, right? So if you perceive anything with the senses, it has to be positive in nature.

And anything that comes along with sound in that little clump, as you perceive it, has to also be physical as well. Well, I'll tell you one thing. We're going to come up to a distinction between perceiving and cognizing or recognizing.

So it could be the case that you perceive it, but you don't. Exactly. You don't recognize it.

Yeah, you don't ascertain it. He's saying you see without ascertaining. Yeah.

So I just always thought that, yeah, the changing nature of sound, because I had this misalignment in my head where I was, if the changing nature of, I always just thought of the changing nature of sound of being conceptual. But what I'm starting to grasp is that it's actual physical property of sound. The ascertaining part, just to keep in mind in this discussion.

So the idea is that you can hear a sound and not recognize that it has impermanence, even though it must be hearing impermanence sound. And what they call cognizing or what they call it? Ascertaining.

Yeah. Ascertaining. I just wanted you to know that some people say it's subsequent, meaning not at this time as the perception of sound.

And it's particularly tied with figuring it out later. I tried to hit that in our second question. Good.

Okay, let's go. So describe the difference between the changing nature of sound and the fact that sound is changing. And without making you guys suffer, and also just because we want to stay within time for the homework period.

So the perspective of the Sautrantica school, the changing nature of sound is a quality which is inherent to sound. Because any produced sound has a quality of being changing from moment to moment. And as such, the changing nature of sound is something which is perceived by the auditory consciousness, and it cannot be ascertained by the mind, which is what we were just saying.

So if it was ascertained by the mind, it would be an unchanging thing, as reasoning is strictly conceptual. So that's what we were just talking about, I think. When you say the changing nature of sound, Adam, you mean that sound is a changing thing.

To be sound is to be a changing thing. So if you're looking at sound, you're looking at a changing thing. Totally.

And I think this is why for the past three months, we've been using establishing what it means to be substantially one thing. So the fact that sound is changing is an unchanging thing, since it describes the unchanging nature of reality, the unchanging reality of all sounds. And the fact that sound is changing is something that cannot be perceived with the auditory consciousness, since it must be ascertained to the mind by analytical reasoning.

So that'd be like Mopo or Yimba instead of Mopo. Yeah, well, yeah, totally. So the sound and the changing nature of sound are both things that are perceived as a single object by the auditory consciousness, and they are substantially bound, and they're linked.

So they have a dependent relationship. So sound and the fact that sound is changing can never appear to the auditory consciousness as a single thing. Okay, cool.

By the way, if you want to really confuse people, we can get into the difference between the mind only attitude on this, the sutures attitude on this, and the middle way attitude on this. But we haven't really chewed on that yet. I've been trying to confuse myself by looking into that.

That's a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. That means Ava has to take a very long nap. Oh, yeah, that's not happening anymore.

She's not doing afternoon naps as frequently. She gets older, so starting to. Yeah.

Yeah, so if sound and the changing nature of sound are perceived by the auditory consciousness as a single entity, and the auditory consciousness can only perceive positive phenomenon, then why would acknowledging that sound and its changingness are distinct be a negative quality? There's one simple word that we're looking for here. Acknowledging, that's the problem.

Yeah, totally. Acknowledging, which is conceptual, but it also involves the process of doing what to the entity as a whole? Canceling out everything that's not.

Exactly, dude. Yeah, exactly. Canceling.

Yeah, that was the simple word I was looking for. Yeah, so to make a distinction between sound as a whole and any of its qualities requires a fundamental abstraction. So in any case, the moment we take the sound and distinguish it as a whole from any of its accompanying qualities, we cancel the idea that it exists as a singular object.

So the cancellation of the object as a whole is a negation, and all negative phenomena have the nature of being unchanging. Yeah, what are the two terms here? There's the term seljuq and duqjuq, right?

Yeah, duqjuq is like that positive engagement, which I'm just like a total engagement. Yeah, and then seljuq, it just means to, it's like the cancellation, or like, so selwa, right? And then seljuq, is that what, is that what I read?

Yeah, yeah. And what that means is, we teach it in DCRE, that you arrive at something through negating other things. So you say, yeah, the famous example of the lady with the ticket.

[Speaker 3]
But he just said that the auditory consciousness cannot perceive the negative.

[Speaker 1]
No, it cannot.

[Speaker 3]
Only a positive.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, because it cannot reason.

[Speaker 3]
So can it notice an absence or something?

[Speaker 1]
No, that's only conceptual. Yeah. No.

[Speaker 3]
That's cognition.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, well, yeah, we call cognition, right? All right, let's go to the student translation. Can you read, Adam, we make you read the first one, just for good luck.

It's on, you know, Papa, it's your all. Hang on, I gotta get a bigger cursor here. It's huge already.

We must be on different cursors. Oh, I see, Adam's using his cursor. Okay, good.

Okay. Well then, consider all existing things. Anything which is deceptive cannot be established as kunzo byoneshi mudrube karaka.

Are you saying that, so when you have anything here, you have to start with, are you saying? It is sarcastic, yeah. Sarcastic, yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Question mark, you're good.

Then why do you accuse me of that? Because, you know, yeah, there's a difficult expression here that took me a while to think about. It's a And I, you know, after sitting with it for a few days, I thought, Papa, we have to maybe just, what do you call it, for the time being?

Put it on a shelf. There's another expression. I think it means, it would end up being, okay, I want to translate the Bapa as, it would end up being, okay?

Yeah. Oh, you see, Bapa, and mean in Tibetan, it would happen. Usually it means, it means befall, if those of you who know English well, it would occur, and it's the verb to fall.

So it would, you know, it would end up that it, because because it would end up being good, being disproven, good, okay, by an accurate conception. If it, yeah, if it's merely a creation of conceptions. Okay, good.

Yeah. Okay. Hang on.

Let's go back. Something's wrong here. Yeah, it would end up being disproven by an accurate conception.

Okay, yeah. Okay, good. Yeah.

Okay. If something's a mental construct, it would be, it would end up being disallowed by a, but it's okay, the way you have it, it would end up being disallowed by an accurate perception. Yeah.

Yeah. So just for clarification, we're distinguishing between kunzop and dundandempa.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
And in this school, dundandempa is anything that's not a, anything that is a projection. That, maybe. But what's, yeah, okay.

Right. I mean, I'm trying to distinguish between the two. So anything that exists ultimately in this, we said it was takchikrangwongchen.

That's generally takchikrangwongchen is to be self-existent in this school. Yeah. Yeah.

But that's the gakcha, right? Yeah. Just trying to figure out.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you disagree here?

Who's gonna read? Um, let's see. Who do you have in the room again?

I have all kinds of victims. It'd be nice to see some, some, some people. I don't think I can turn, I can.

Oh, you don't want to? Yeah. Okay.

That knocks things over. I got Jiggy. I got Chloe.

I got Ross. I got Joel. Can we go Jigme and then Joel?

That's up to Jigme. Come on. Can you read from there?

Okay. Hang on, she's coming. But you gotta make her read more than one if she's gonna come up.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Good. Yeah. By the way, what two things are they talking about here, Adam?

Is it sound that sounds impermanent or something like that? Yeah. Sound in the, yeah, it's dradong on the top, but.

Okay. So, uh, when you perceive sound, is the sound separate from its impermanence? Yes or no?

Or is the sound the same thing as its impermanence? You gotta say something. They're a single.

They're separate. Yeah. Right?

They're separate things, right? I'd say they're ta-de. Yeah, I'd say they're ta-de, but they're a single entity.

They're zaychik, but they're ta-de. Okay. Now, the fact that something is separate is separate from another thing.

Is that a conceptual object or is that a real object? I think you have to think about it to decide that they are different from each other, that they are not the same thing. You have to close your eyes and think about it.

So, therefore, the fact that they are separate, ta-de yin-ba, the fact that they are separate is, in this school, is an unchanging thing. Okay? Because it's conceptual.

In this school, if you have to close your eyes and figure something out, that's a principle or a concept, and those are unchanging. Okay? So, ta-de yin-ba, the fact that sound and the impermanence that the sound has are separate is something that is a concept.

Okay? And concepts are to-pe tak-tsang. They are made up by the mind.

They are conceptual. They are imagination. Okay?

So, therefore, if the fact that they are separate is conceptual, is it correct to say that they are separate? If the fact that they are separate is conceptual, does that endanger the idea that they are separate?

[Speaker 3]
In this school, yeah. Only if you don't accept that kun-zon exists. That's false.

They're separate.

[Speaker 1]
It doesn't make it false, right? That it's conceptual, that they're separate. Okay?

You have to close your eyes and say, is sound separate from sounds and impermanence? And say, yeah. And then you say, did you have to close your eyes to think about that?

And say, yes, I cannot see it with my eyeball. Okay. Well, then is that separateness something you are...

It's a concept in your mind. It's conceptual. And you say, yeah, it is.

Then he says, he had said, the other guy had said, if their separateness is conceptual, then it can't be real. But I think, Adam, even in this school, it can be conceptual and still be real, right? I thought that's a major dividing point.

I mean, between real things, rang-tsen and qi-tsen. But both rang-tsen and qi-tsen are real, right? They exist.

Yeah. I mean, but... Well, they're both real in the sense that they exist, but one is more real than the other.

Yeah. And I mean, from what I've understood, that's like a major point of contention. So somebody said, if something is a construct of your mind, it cannot be real.

And we said, bu-do means I deny that. I spit that out, bu-do. Yeah, blow your position is fine, because bu also means to blow a trumpet.

All right. Who's going to... Let's let Jay read this one, because she's sitting up here.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. And other people can come sit up here later. Joe, what's after me?

Talk loud. Which holds to a coffee cup. Okay.

Is it ju-ju or sel-ju? Yeah, does the direct perception of a coffee cup operate through illumination or through just seeing the thing? It has to operate through direct perception, and direct perception has to be positive.

I'm trying to get a response from this audience here, who's acting as if they already had their pizza. Okay. When you perceive a coffee cup directly, do you do so by illuminating other objects, or do you do it by just seeing the cup?

Yeah, just seeing the cup. We call bu-ju-k, rather than by illuminating sel-ju. So sel means, like, oh, sel, clear mind.

It's a similar word, s-e-l, rather than g-s-a-l, to clear away something, okay? So can we say, you guys, everybody, that when you see a coffee cup with your eyeball directly, it's through a process of perceiving a thing in a positive manner, rather than by illuminating cows and moons and... Okay?

Yeah. Yes. Um, and due to that, gyu-tsen-kyi, because of that, robo-dang-ngobo-tsen-tsing-nyi-na, if, if it's the case that being a coffee cup and being a ngobo, functioning thing, are to be, to be one is to be the other.

Is it true that to be a coffee cup is to be a functioning thing? So therefore, if you perceive a coffee cup, are you perceiving a functioning thing? Yes, yes, I see it.

But when you perceive a coffee cup, do you always think of it as a functioning thing? No. No, you don't, okay?

And that's the whole question of this whole three months of work. When you hear a sound, are you hearing impermanence?

[Speaker 3]
Mm-hmm.

[Speaker 1]
Are you hearing that something isn't? Yes, you are. You are.

You're hearing something, but you may not be able to distinguish between the sound and its impermanence. That's the idea. Okay.

So, when you perceive a coffee cup, are you perceiving a functional thing? Yes. Yeah.

Are you perceiving it as a functional thing? No. With your eye?

Really? No. No, it's the eye that decides something's functional.

Okay? You okay? You guys okay?

Awful quiet in here.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
It's like a funeral in here. You know? If being a functional thing is part of being a sound, and you perceive a sound, do you necessarily perceive that it is a functional thing?

We said no. Okay? But, deng mo po yang tong ge, is your eye looking at a functional thing?

[Speaker 3]
Yes. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
That's all good. When you look at a coffee cup, do you see a function? Are you looking at a functional thing?

[Speaker 3]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Look at a coffee cup. Do you see a functional thing? Yeah.

Do you see it as a functional thing? Let's break that. No.

No. All right. All right.

[Speaker 3]
Let's keep going.

[Speaker 1]
Um, yeah. This next one, I apologize. I think I butchered it, but it is what it is.

That's, but history has butchered this one.

[Speaker 3]
Oh, man.

[Speaker 1]
Okay? It's coming from Dharmakirti. He drew Dharmakirti from nowhere, and he drew in something difficult from Dharmakirti from nowhere, and no one ever understood it anyway.

Okay. By the way, Adam. Yes.

Yes, sir. Yeah. Okay.

I like your first sentence. Therefore, when you see a working thing, you are seeing all of its qualities, right?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Can you catch the knee? I'll try. Because it may be important, and it may not.

So I guess, yeah. It might mean always. So to put it into normal, you know, just simple English, when you see a functioning thing, it should always be the case that all of its qualities, including its impermanence.

Okay. In English, we distinguish between look at and see, and that may be the difference between monsoon and discernment, you know. Are you looking at impermanent thing?

Yes. Do you see that it's impermanent?

[Speaker 3]
No.

[Speaker 1]
All right. Okay. Okay.

Okay. The meaning of this quote from a major text by the Intelligent Ill-Considered Followers. That's good.

Okay, good. Let's run ahead. I didn't really, the cheats on you.

I mean, I kind of, I think, I mean, I know what it means. I just didn't know how to fit it in here. Yeah, this is, bap chok, bap chok means some kind of confusion or something.

That's what I put ill-considered. That's okay. But what he's saying here is that this is just some kind of bad thinking that chases after the general object, okay.

The, this is some kind of bad thing thinking, which is chasing after the general idea of sound. Yeah. Okay, cheats on.

Yes. You guys are hung up on chasing after the general concept of sound and not thinking about sound itself. I think I was getting confused because I didn't know how to relate these, these two, these two sentences here.

These, these two states. Oh, that's pretty easy. The original from Dharmakirti says, if you see a coffee cup, you see all of its qualities.

Always. You always see all of its qualities. The original lines from Dharmakirti, probably taken out of context, say, if you see a thing, you see all of its qualities.

And the nyi at the end of the second line means you always see all of its qualities. Okay. Or can we say if you look at a thing, you're always looking at it plus all of its qualities, but you may not discern those.

How's that? Okay. You are looking at its impermanence, but you may not be aware of its impermanence.

Okay. So then he criticizes people who misunderstood these two lines from who? Dharmakirti.

Dharmakirti. Yeah, in his commentary on accurate perception. New word for Dharmakirti.

All right. Butchulte means you're just, this is just some kind of wild guess that you guys are taking because you are following. And then he makes a joke at him.

He says, you guys are just hung up on the words. Right. Which in Tibetan, the word for word is sam.

Okay. For example, what do they call the study of Sanskrit in Tibetan? Drak.

Drak. They call it sam, shabda. Okay.

So he said, you are just hung up on sam, words. You're just getting hung up on the words. But it's a pun because we were talking about sam.

Okay. So I would take this drak chit sam means you're hung up on the words. You see what I mean?

Yeah, no, I get it. And I was trying to catch that because I could kind of infer what was going on. I just didn't know how to word it while staying true to the phrasing that Kejepje used.

It might need a footnote. Okay, let's see how you caught the last sentence. Something which is indivisible, moments of obstructive form, is either existent or non-existent.

Actually, it's a question, okay? Okay. Does there exist or does there not exist?

Okay. Does there exist or does there not exist? Yeah.

Obstructing form, okay. Yeah. Individual moments.

Yeah, basically, is there such a thing as, as, as, you know, what do you call it? Solid stuff. Okay.

Which is, which, which is composed of indivisible moments of time. Does there exist a shortest moment of the coffee cup's physical existence? Yeah, you'd have, I mean, you'd have, you'd have to, I mean, it exists with that, within this school, yeah.

Yeah, don't forget that's reality. The Abhidharma and the sutras together are pretty much science.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
And it's fun to criticize scientists by saying, you are the lower two schools. Actually, you're the lowest one school. But can we say, we are now wearing which hat?

In this book? Yeah, we are wearing the second school's hat, which means we believe there are shortest, what? Moments of time.

And we do believe there are shortest lengths of things. Atoms. We do believe there is a, we do believe there is a shortest measurement of physicality, both in time and in space.

We believe that. There's atoms and there's milliseconds in this school, and they cannot be divided. And by the way, if you want to know what emptiness is, sorry, if you want to know what ultimate reality is, in one sense in this school, if it can no longer be divided mentally, it's ultimate reality.

Yeah, and again, I wanted to ask, I've had this question about when we talk about Beltran, Chame, are we specific? Is there some way that we could, I mean, what about the elements? Because in the Abhidharma and in this school, we would say Jung-war, was it Jung-war-gyur, like things that arise from the elements.

Jung-gyur, Kisuk, and Jung-war, yeah. So I was trying to distinguish between our, like when we say Beltran, Chame, are we talking about the elements? No, not at all.

[Speaker 2]
That's just Abhidharma?

[Speaker 1]
Even in Abhidharma, I don't think, I don't think they're necessarily connected. I don't think the element of fire, for example, defined as hot and burning, is necessarily related to the idea of a smallest atom. I mean, they would say that anything physical is made up of atoms which have a smallest measurement, but they don't claim that the quality of being hot and burning is particular to an atom or something like that, in the sense that in the Western science, the definition of an element is the smallest aggregate of a thing which still exhibits elemental qualities, like aluminum or something like that, okay?

The element in the periodic table means if you took a smaller piece, which would be a proton or an electron, it would no longer exhibit the qualities of aluminum as being necessarily a metal, for example, okay? They don't make that necessary connection in Buddhism. If we consider the elements, though, are they irreducible, though?

That's what element means. Once you reduce it, it will lose its unique qualities.

[Speaker 3]
So how would that not be?

[Speaker 1]
Once you put oxygen down into hydrogen, and was it O2? Then it's no longer on the periodic table of the elements. Or it wouldn't be if it could be broken down further and still retain breathability.

Okay. I guess, yeah, somehow I was getting... I still see a parallel there.

Like the elements aren't reducible. It's definitely a parallel, but it's not a correspondence. Okay.

And can I ask you one question that I blanked into when I was... Or you'll take 100 years on your text.

[Speaker 3]
Yes, sir.

[Speaker 1]
Yes, sir. It directly relates to the text. I found it in the Dura when I was looking for the...

I was looking for... Here it is. Let me share this with you guys.

Okay. So section three... Let me move this over.

Wow, somebody's reading your Dura.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
You're reading your Dura. I'm reading my Dura. I got a little freaked out here again.

So we're talking about... The reason I went here and I was looking for... I was looking for some clarification and some context is because the Dura says that Mithakpa is a Dhimunduchi.

Mithakpa Dhimunduchi Yenpa Thang. Khenlupa Yimecha. Well, that's not a Khyapa.

That must be a Shenlup. That must be the other guy's idea because it's not true. Right?

We finished it up right here though. Not everything that's a working thing is a... Not everything that's a working thing is a changing thing, which is neither physical nor mental.

This is what you just said. Not everything that's a working thing is necessarily a changing thing, which is neither mental nor physical. That's what this says.

It's in Shen Luke, I think. It's the other guy. So you got to be careful when you pull something out of Dura, you got to make sure you're not in somebody else's position.

I get that. I don't want to take too much time, but I am still a little confused here. I understand this is Shen Luke, and we're kind of responding back to an incorrect idea.

Oh, by the way, it could be incorrect. Oh, I'm sorry. I still see what I see here is...

That's why I'm asking you guys, because this kind of blew my mind if this is true. This sentence is very, very deceptive. This is a very, very weird proof where you are saying a cell phone is space is permanent.

A cell phone is space is unchanging. A cell phone is space is unchanging. He's using space is unchanging as a fact, and he's saying that something is equivalent to that fact.

You're in the middle of a very nasty section here. It can be read two or three different ways. Yeah, totally.

All except one are wrong. So the way that I'm taking it is that... Is Adam sound is impermanent?

No. In this sense, yes, because it just means you're real or you exist, right? Then you can debate it.

Is Adam sound is impermanent? That's what this is all about. I almost said bitch to translate.

[Speaker 3]
That was a close one.

[Speaker 1]
It seems because we keep talking... Where we were hitting in the homework and where we've been hitting in these next sections that we got into was looking at the changing nature of things, right? Then we got to a point to where we said that changing this or the changing nature of a working thing is a physical property.

So what I was thinking in my head is that the changing nature... The changing nature of a working thing has to be a working thing as well. That's tricky.

It's just tricky. You're into facts, and facts are unchanging. Even the fact that sound is changing is unchanging.

Yeah. That's where they're at. In the syllogism you pulled out, you're going to have a headache.

Good. Because this is a very weird syllogism. I wouldn't go there from our text.

Okay. This is getting into is Adam the sky is blue. I'll think about it again.

Yeah. By the way, he's not. Where is he?

Okay, here we go. We got to get to work. We only got 20 minutes left.

17 minutes left. Here we go. All right.

I just don't want you guys blaming me when you're 80 years old and I'm 150. I didn't finish your text. I predict it will happen.

You'll be in my nursing home asking me questions. Where are we? That part's true.

We're at 464, I believe. Okay, good. By the way, he quoted Dharmakirti.

And Dharmakirti is a... I almost said bitch again, but I didn't say that. Dharmakirti is impossible.

And I would never translate a sentence of a text who quotes Dharmakirti without going to read whose commentary. Dharmakirti. Dharmakirti.

Geshe Yeshe Wangchuk. Geshe Yeshe Wangchuk. He's the only one in history, one of our teachers, who explained it clearly.

And there's many commentaries, as we read in Ben's text. There's many, many commentaries, but they don't help you much. And Geshe Yeshe Wangchuk saves your...

I almost said ass, but I'm not going to say that. So, as a matter of policy, when I hit a quotation by... Master Dharmakirti.

[Speaker 3]
Master Dharmakirti.

[Speaker 1]
Geshe Yeshe Wangchuk to find out what the heck it's about. Because it's all in code. Dharmakirti is all in code.

You cannot understand it without a commentary. It's impossible. You can translate the words, but you won't understand it.

So here we go. There's the quotation. Found in Geshe Yeshe Wangchuk's commentary.

Inserted there by a young monk named...

[Speaker 3]
Geshe Michael. Well, just Michael, I guess.

[Speaker 1]
Geshe Michael. And we're going to read this because it's helpful. So Adam, who's going to read the verse?

Joel. I got... I'm serious, you need victors.

I got Joel. Please. Okay.

By the way. We need help. Only because of people like Joel that we have the database and we should give him a hand.

He's here from Canada and he claims he doesn't say a book. We tested him before we let him in the building. And he said about, and then we let him in.

Okay, so you're going to read this. This is the original verse from Dharmakirti. It's the full verse.

Our author only used the first two lines. Okay, go slow. Enjoy.

You're controlling the cursor.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Put your finger up there. I got to teach this computer guy everything. Okay, they're following your cursor.

Oh, you want me to? Okay. Yeah.

Okay, keep in mind I don't read Tibetan. That's why we're going to have fun.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Good. Good.

[Speaker 1]
Good. This is true. Okay.

Okay, we tortured the database guy. He's so rude. All right.

Thank you. So Desi pulls out the verse. And again, the first two lines are the two lines that we're interested in.

And it says, Therefore, when you see a functioning thing, it is always the case that you see all of its qualities. Which seems to say, if you see a coffee cup, you see its impermanence. But what does it mean to see?

Does it mean recognize? Can you see? Or do we want to say look at?

When you look at a coffee cup, are you looking at its impermanence? Yes or no? You kind of are, but you're not reading it.

You know, you may not understand its impermanence or something. Okay? Like, okay?

Okay. And anyway, it's a single sentence by Geshe Yeshe Wangchuk that helps me understand this line. Okay?

And here's the single sentence. Who's going to read it? Adam?

I heard you talking to Tim. Was Tim there? Who?

Tim's here. He still didn't comb his hair. I'll never mind.

[Speaker 3]
Hi, how are you? Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Right.

[Speaker 3]
Did you try those? Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Where are we? Can you do the cursor? Sure.

Louder, louder. Okay, Tim's going to translate it. He offered to translate it.

Adam, we're so lucky. So what's lunsum? Directly?

Yeah, a direct perception, which is dzinpa tu. The sound. Which is holding sound.

It tongs all the chosubdra. It sees all the qualities of the sound. Young, young.

But? But it doesn't nyepadim. It doesn't just recognize.

Can we say recognize in the easy way?

[Speaker 3]
Recognize is great.

[Speaker 1]
It's looking at all the qualities of sound. And maybe look is better than see, right, you guys? Yeah.

The perception of sound is looking at all the qualities of sound, but it's not recognizing them. There's a therefore. Therefore, people need a dak.

A label. Yeah. Or an explanation from somebody, ngak, speech, okay?

Either they need syllogism from somebody, or they need an explanation from somebody, because both are the foundation of. About that. I understand.

I understand. Perception through indirect perception. Indirect perception can be three kinds.

Reason, or someone else taught it to you. Or there's a third one. When you call a car a lemon.

Convention. Convention. Yeah.

You say it's a lemon, but someone has to explain to you what a lemon means. Otherwise you think you're getting a nice car. Okay.

Okay, good. Ngak dan tawa sokpa. That's the sokpa by.

Okay. So in order to see dramita. In order to see sound as an unchanging thing.

You're going to have to depend on a dak or ngak. A reason or.

[Speaker 3]
Or a description.

[Speaker 1]
Good. Okay, that's all. He says, that's what the verse means.

Okay. And he doesn't touch the third and fourth lines, which we didn't need anyway.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. All right. By the way, Adam, the original seems to say the opposite.

The original seems to say, when you look at a thing, you are looking at all of its qualities always. Okay? Yeah.

And he says, you may be looking at them, but you don't recognize them necessarily. Right. And then I wanted to explain it to you with reason.

Okay. Cool. Yeah.

Okay. Everybody. Okay.

It's awful quiet in here. Yeah. You know, if they really fell asleep, there'd be snoring sounds at him.

So I think we're okay. All right. Those last two lines.

It seems like. It seems like right under the influence of whatever delusion or something. Right.

We don't give rise or whatever. We don't create certainty or recognition. But then that seems okay.

But that last line is, I don't understand. Were you listening to Geshe-la five minutes ago when he said, don't touch Dharmakirti without commentary? Sure.

Yes. He's not commenting on this yet when he says that? No, he doesn't go that far.

Okay. You know, I'll say something about his commentary. In the earlier chapters, he doesn't go as deep.

He's not as careful. Then towards the last two chapters, he explains every single syllable.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
He's more careful later in the book to explain every syllable, which is what we need him for. Okay. All right.

We got to thank Joel again that we even have all these resources. So yay, we think we win. Okay.

And those other people like Brittany, okay. You want Tim to read some more? I think he's dying to read more.

Well, it's perfect. Yeah. Tim, can you help us?

464. Yeah. Don't forget that means that junk's your idea.

That crap idea. Okay. So we can kind of cut it off.

Just remember, he said, your idea got tracked.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
What was our idea? Go ahead. I think it was, what was the obstructiveness?

I think it was, tok chey kyi suk kye chik chan me. So we were saying that it either exists or it doesn't. So here we're saying, if it doesn't exist...

What's kye chik chan me? Indivisible moments. Yeah.

Are there indivisible moments of a coffee cup? Yes. This school, there are.

Yeah. Therefore, your position that there are indivisible moments is trashed.

[Speaker 3]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good. If something doesn't exist, what's something? Yeah.

Your position that there are physically touchable, solidity, that there are moments of solidity to a coffee cup is trashed.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
All right. You want Tim to do one more? That's unbelievable.

Yeah, that last one was too short, man. You're getting off. These are all kind of short.

Okay, let's go. Yeah, nah. By the way, why are you borrowing your daughter's crown?

I don't know. She's desperately reaching for his thinking cap. You're the king of logic.

Okay, here we go. Okay, let's forget the you and I. It says if it's true, then the what's the word?

Touchability? Touchability. Touchability.

You can say tangibility, okay? It's the object of the fifth one. Eye, ear, nose, tongue, skish.

Okay, yeah. Topa means strikeable. Who's the famous person whose name has that in it?

Asanga. Asanga. Because his knowledge cuts through things.

Touchability. Like a hot knife through butter. We could have called him Arya hot knife through butter.

I like it. I like it, too. So you traded hats, Adam?

No, sir. Okay, good. So is the coffee cup and the touchability of the coffee cup, are they sechink or separate?

Is to be one to be the other? Yes and yes. Is to be a coffee cup to be the tangibility of the coffee cup, yes or no?

Yes, in a certain way. I don't think that's the same thing. Then the touchability.

Because that's the same thing. It's weird because if we say the cup, we're kind of talking about it as if it's a singular entity apart from. Well, here's the question.

Is the touchability of the cup and the cup itself, is to be the cup to be a touchable cup? I mean, they come along together, right? What if you're a full amputee or something?

My cashier at the cafe got stung by a scorpion last night. She said it was weird because she couldn't touch anything. It all felt like electricity.

Everything she touched felt like electricity. So could she feel the touchability of the coffee cup? No, but the coffee cup, yes.

I say they're not such that one to be one is to be one. I don't know. We got one more minute.

Let's do this one. Tim wants to do one more. He's begging.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah, Tim.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, this is a structure that you guys should know, okay? The yen lock and the yen lock for $100, a common English expression. Parts and the whole?

What did you say, Kramer? Parts and the whole? Yeah, $100 for you.

But it goes to the Ezra Scholarship Fund, okay? I'm telling you. If he goes to college and he ends up having monetary problems, it's not my fault.

Now you got to collect from Jigme, I guess, okay? Somehow. That's okay.

He's going to go to Diamond Silk University.

[Speaker 3]
It's no problem.

[Speaker 1]
By the way, we tanked that price of that to Harvard. Okay. In-state tuition?

Yeah. It is five. I'm just giving you guys a heads up.

Okay, I'm finishing, Nick. Is there a substantially separate whole? Is there a whole which is substantially separate from the parts?

Yes or no? I would say no. I'd say no, too.

And then we say, you just junked the idea that it's impossible to have a whole which is separate from these parts.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. That's it. No.

In fact, the only thing you understood today.

[Speaker 3]
All right, yay.

[Speaker 1]
That's because of me. $467, $468, and $469. Yes, sir.

For next time. It's getting fun. Cheating and having Ava help you, okay?

Okay. Yeah. No, I know what goes on there.

Okay, I think we got to Nick. I'll turn off my share. Well, Adam's going to give a 15-minute discussion, or he's going to lead a 15-minute discussion with our group here about the practicality of these ideas.

But I do want to make an announcement. I'm going to go sleep on the couch. Oh, is there a couch?

Yeah. Sounds good. Before we start, Adam, I do just want to make a quick announcement that after Adam's discussion, as usual, we will have the Peachtree World News.

After the Peachtree World News, we're going to have a Mixed Nuts Q&A session with Professor Stanley Chen, and it's going to be in Chinese. So we've been trying to incorporate more foreign languages. He's going to do it in Chinese.

You can ask about practical questions about what we're talking about or whatever you want, and it will be translated into English. So just join the English channel if you're listening and you don't speak Chinese.

[Speaker 2]
Nick promised me that nobody would ask any philosophical question about Adam's text.

[Speaker 1]
I promise. I don't know if I can make that promise, but I was hoping. Yeah, you know, we kind of left off at a pretty cool point where we were saying that there is, it was, we left off with a question, which was that whether or not there was a substantial hole independent of the parts that we perceive.

And I think a very practical application of this would be to look at maybe somebody that we're having an argument with, like in the kitchen, or some problem. I mean, that seems to be the pretty standard way that I try to think about it. So is there a person that exists?

How about this? If we perceive anything, does it have parts? It does.

Anything that you can perceive with your senses has parts, right?

[Speaker 3]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. So are there components that would make the form that we see in, like, the kitchen, right? They're kind of being made up, right?

So would somebody's, would the quality of somebody being annoying, could they be a part in the same way that somebody would have the quality of being changing or unchanging? Maybe not in the same way. Yeah.

[Speaker 3]
I think you'd have to say that you're seeing an annoying person, but you don't necessarily recognize how annoying they are.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. And also, what I'm trying to get around to is that we don't see that it's not coming from its own side. A quality of all things that we perceive is that they have an emptiness, right?

So from that same way that we're not perceiving the changing nature of sound, we're also not perceiving the fact that it's not self-existent. And I think the same could be said for any problem that we encounter in our life, especially for people that we see before us. And, you know, I think really it's thinking about these things that kind of start like a friction fire almost in my mind.

And the more I think about them, the more that I find that these ideas pop up in my mind throughout the day, like just doing random things and looking at random things as I'm driving or as I'm playing with Ava. The more I think about them, the more they seem to appear, which we know that karma kind of ripens that way, doesn't it? In an exponential way.

So the more I think about them, it's getting easier to catch when my mind is deceiving me and telling me that things are not coming from their own side. That's nice, Adam. I think you could say that there's a way in which anyone in your life could be annoying or helpful, and you don't necessarily recognize it when you look at them.

So what would it take to recognize people as helpful? And then, of course, we're left with being helpful people.

[Speaker 3]
We need some other element. We need some other element to come.

[Speaker 1]
We need some other thing to ripen for us to recognize this thing that we don't see in people, which is, yeah, how beautiful they are, which isn't to say that you couldn't have a ripening to see them as annoying, but you could have a ripening to see them as helpful. And I guess helping people out, helping the people in your life, of course, is a great way to plant the seed to have that further recognition, to recognize that people are helpful, because they are in some ways. I know I'm annoying for all you guys, but my mom thinks I'm very handsome.

And so she must have been very helpful to people in the past. And so if you don't like me, you know how to fix it. It's not my problem.

Yeah. I mean, yeah. I think the reason this text in particular is helpful to me, it's just because it stays with me throughout the day.

And the more I think about it, the more it helps me just kind of take in my environment and my perceptions and analyze them in different ways. And I think in some way it allows me to almost put like a stop gap in between when I plant bad karma and when I'm looking at things or considering certain actions to take to come back to my text as it randomly pops in my head. I don't know if that's making sense, but it just seems like the text is seeping into my life.

And that's pretty nice. So in a practical way, I would say it just helps me kind of with just to govern and direct myself throughout my day-to-day existence. I mean, because we're coming back to really how would you use these things to prove or how would you use these things to deduce the refuge vows and how they could be beneficial to your life?

How can you use them to kind of reduce it back to like, oh, well, analyzing the nature of a coffee cup can get you to a point to where you understand reality and where it's coming from, such that cause and effect makes more sense. I don't know if I'm... Yeah, it seems like Geshe Hsien-Wong said there are two ways and one is reasoning, but the other is being told we have to rely on teachers.

[Speaker 3]
We have to rely on each other to show us what's around us that we can't see, even though we're seeing it, but we're not recognizing it. There's a whole reality waiting, even though we're looking at it, looking at it all the time, looking at it. Yeah, it's a great translation.

We're looking at reality all the time, but we're not recognizing the ways that we can use it, the ways that it can serve us. And so we can reason it out. That's cool.

But he also said you could be told, and that's nice. We can go to teachers. We can help each other.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. I would have never been aware of these concepts had I not been led. And I think ultimately I could just distill everything to what I'm trying to say is that if you perceive sound and you perceive its presence, you're not just changing this, but you're not recognizing it.

There's also a quality of being empty that's present in an object, too, from the perspective of the higher middle way that you're not perceiving. And so the same process, I think, could be used to really just drill it into your mind, that there's an aspect of reality, once again, that you're not perceiving and that it's the source of all your suffering. I mean, it's kind of the whole kit and caboodle right there.

Anybody else have something they want to share? Let's see. Is there something in there?

Are you saying not perceiving is the same as emptiness? No. I just think there's a quality, right?

Like there's a quality inherent to all phenomenon, and that quality would be not being self-existent. And so I'm not saying that the two are synonymous. What I'm saying is that no matter what you perceive, it's going to be empty.

And I think this is kind of like training your mind to get ready in the higher schools to analyze that in meditation, such that you can take these reasonings from the lower school and they warm you up with a coffee cup, which, you know, that's not that abstract. You can touch it in your hand. But as you proceed through the schools, you'll start to maybe meditate on the emptiness of yourself.

And that's a little bit less tangible. And so your mind has to kind of be ready for that. And I think this is a good preparatory kind of way, even if it's been six years that we've been in the school, that I've been in the school, I'm still like learning a ton from it.

So. Yes, ma'am. Yeah.

Just one second. Okay. Let's see.

The difference between perceiving and discerning can be important. Yeah, totally. Yeah.

The difference between perceiving and discerning is the central topic to what we've been discussing the past two classes. Yeah, totally. So when.

Yeah. No, I think it's, it's really, really, it's, It's super important to drill in on the difference between perception, direct perception and ascertainment or recognizing. So recognizing the quality of something versus sensing it.

Is are, are two totally different things.

[Speaker 3]
I don't pay Ling was asking if she could say something in Chinese. I don't know if Stanley might be willing to help. I see him on the screen.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Let me turn my. The interpretation.

[Speaker 3]
Oh, I bet Stanley could just help us in the English channel. If she wants to ask a question, is that true? Stanley, would you be willing to do that?

Look at that.

[Speaker 1]
Just that one question.

[Speaker 3]
What's that? Okay. Okay.

Mayo. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, Okay, we know that seeds, that comes with two sides, emptiness and then seed itself.

[Speaker 2]
So that, but we know that when we plant the seed, it is, we will get a result, although that we know that it is empty.

[Speaker 3]
Pei-Ling is making an assumption and she wants to know if that's correct.

[Speaker 2]
So that's a question, she believes that, like even before we perceive things, because things are coming from seeds, it's already there, the entity already exists before we perceive it and also because seeds are empty. So it means this entity can't change too.

[Speaker 1]
That's basically her assumption and she wants to know what you think.

[Speaker 3]
Before it becomes a solid form, but it has already become solid inside our head. So I'm saying that how do we perceive a coffee cup? It is coming from the projection of our image so that we can see a coffee cup.

But because hundreds of years of the recognition or the habit is too, this pattern is too solid.

[Speaker 2]
So we think that this is a coffee cup outside there, but actually it is coming from the projection of the image from our head.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I think it's a very beautiful and subtle distinction. So yeah, how many seeds ripen in every finger snap, right? It's a question, right?

We've got 65 simultaneous kind of seeds that are ripening, you know, maybe not simultaneously. I don't even know how to think about that. Like the coffee cup, right?

It appears solid, but it is just a projection of individual moments. And those individual moments are unchanging. We're going to have to investigate this one further in a subsequent conversation as we have reached the finality of this very impermanent discussion.

Quickly, if you wanted to go to the ACI courses, the ACI courses talk about subtle impermanence in a much deeper way. Thank you. That was really fun, guys.

Thank you, Adam. Thank you for your text, your awesome work on it, and also being willing to take on the task of trying to have these discussions after doing your mind-bending text. So thank you.

So now we have 15 minutes with Juan Hasso. Are you ready, Peachtree World News?

[Speaker 2]
Yes, here I am. Thank you very much.

[Speaker 1]
There he is. And then stay tuned if you would like for an exhilarating Q&A with Dr. Stanley Chen. Thank you very much.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, so hello, everyone. Welcome to a quick segment of what's happening all over the world. You know, I was listening from class about this idea where there are basically, it's difficult or impossible in a way to define a line where time, how to say, the present moment draws.

And I was thinking that applies actually very well for today, because where today starts and where today ends. The reason I'm bringing it is because we are celebrating a very special birthday today. And it's not really today here, but it's today there.

So we want to celebrate the Asian happy birthday of Connie. She is having already a birthday. Her birthday is in July the 2nd.

But she's in Asia. That's what I am saying. She's already having, she's living in tomorrow now, which is very interesting to me.

But anyways, we want to congratulate you. Happy birthday. Happy, happy birthday.

Thank you for all your love and help. We hope you stay for infinite time. They are in Asia because they are about to be part of a very cool program.

It's the Borobudur event happening in a few more days in July. The 10th of July to the 17th. They are getting ready there.

John Brady, Connie, Errol, Jasmine, Jolin. They are organizing this event. And we're going to be talking about it more in depth tomorrow in our program that we have.

And we want to invite you to watch it. We're going to have all these amazing panelists talking about projects and events that they are about to have. We're going to have the new groups of Asian wisdom growing in Europe mostly.

We're going to have Adam also talking about new ideas and his own experiences about his translations. John Brady and Connie, of course, talking about this Borobudur. She can be also sharing about life experience team and his next upcoming July tour.

Chloe is going to be with us helping us to lead some interviews. The Mexican producers and Shanti the baby also maybe hopefully we'll see. And Lindsey talking about the very cool with Rosa.

Cool projects about the good night book club and other cool things. So if you have the chance, join us. It's going to be late for Europe and early for Asia.

But we hope if you can, come. And speaking of that, just to remind you, there is going to be the Mexican event coming up at the end of July. Is the next picture, please?

Yes, you still have a chance to sign up for it. And tomorrow during the program that I just mentioned, we're going to be talking with some of the main producers of this upcoming event. And just to finish for today, we also have another guest waiting for us.

And this time is Errol Bernie talking about a wonderful classes and teachings. You just have this weekend. Errol, can you tell us a little bit?

How did it go?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it's a two part program we're doing. It was first part was last weekend, and we continue this weekend. And it was amazing.

It is called To the Inner Kingdom. And it's from teachings in 2001. Geshe Michael went on three year vacation.

I mean, three year retreat. And he came out twice a year and gave my favorite teaching. Some of my favorite teachings that he's ever given.

It was the first time I ever was at teaching of his. And it was the first time that I know of that he taught his own poetry. Not Jetsun Kappa, not Choney Lama.

This was very heartfelt, very beautiful, profound. The poetry wasn't always easy. It's stark and encouraging and beautiful.

But it really hit home and emotional. And the idea is that there's an outer kingdom and there's an inner kingdom. And the opening line says, there are those of us here who shall not taste death before we reach these kingdoms.

And in Sanskrit, it's Jivan Mukti. Mukti is freedom. Jivan is this life.

So we can reach a place of freedom in this life. And Geshe Michael never retaught these teachings. And I was curious about that.

But then when I gave a talk in three year retreat, it'd be so hard to replicate. I don't think we can teach what we teach in three year retreat once we're out of it. The heart is too different.

The mind is too different. So he never retaught them. And they're so beautiful.

I don't think they're even on the knowledge base. And so I really want to bring these teachings back out into the worldview world. And we're doing that by inviting teachers to come and share their experiences, share their thoughts.

And it was really beautiful last weekend. And I love talking to these teachers and some great insights. And the idea that there's an inner kingdom.

To get to the inner kingdom, we have to get to the outer kingdom. And to get to the outer kingdom, we need deep meditation. And so last weekend, we talked about obstacles, the deep meditation, things, objects of the senses, electronics, things like that.

This weekend, we'll talk about what is the inner, what is the outer kingdom? And then the inner kingdom. And to a spoiler alert, the inner kingdom is a place that we, if we get to, we spontaneously look at every single living being as someone to serve, like our best friend, like our child, like our parent, like our teacher.

And we can never, ever truly be happy unless we can get to that place. And so Geshe Michael said, look, the instructions are rare. And he taught, and he said, I want to give the real instructions to get to that inner kingdom.

And especially on day four, he really, he teaches some meditations that I think will blow your mind. They're from, straight from the Diamond Way teachings. And there's something else.

So I hope people can join. There's recordings from the first weekend. If you go to the next slide, you will see one of the speakers this weekend, Mr. Rob Haggerty, who was at the teachings. And Ben Kramer will also be there. Peter and Maria and Mr. Ben. So, you know, it'll be amazing.

[Speaker 2]
It sounds wonderful there. It's, it really does sounds wonderful. So thank you.

Thank you very much for sharing these. And also for taking the time to bring these things back to the present moment. Thank you.

Thank you. And of course, thank you, Geshe Michael, for having, in the first place, having the kindness and the wisdom to bring it then to us. So thank you very much.

And we will hopefully talk to you again soon. I know you're also going to Bora Budur now. And tomorrow we will be talking with John Brady and Connie about it.

And we probably may see you on screen very, very soon. So thank you as well. Thank you for coming.

And yeah, just to remind you one more time, can we show the QR code of the event tomorrow? Just in case you haven't signed up, you can.