Адам Андраде — Книга 2: Логика. Рассеивая тьму, занятие 52

[Speaker 3]
As far as I hear in the chat, but yeah, for now, Nick can sing a little song for us. I don't know.

[Speaker 2]
My singing is not so great in person. So on Zoom, I fear what it would do to you all. However, thank you for a great presentation.

And for me, it's always really fun to hear about what's going on, especially in Costa Rica, because we need a reason to get down there too. Right, Hasso?

[Speaker 3]
They may have good surfing. I don't know.

[Speaker 2]
Indeed, they definitely do.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah. So let's keep practicing. So the day we get there, we are ready for the level that the lab demands.

Maybe. Okay, here we are. See you soon.

Sending messages. Thanks Juan. You're welcome.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. So we're going to jump into a little homework here. All right.

So we've been talking a lot about Zaychik and there's been some confusion, obviously, because it's a confusing subject. And so we're trying to figure out if when we perceive a coffee cup, that means that we perceive all of its accompanying qualities. What's the limit of that?

Something that came up for me when I was thinking about it was, if we can say that when you perceive a coffee cup, that means you perceive all of its accompanying qualities. Why can't you say that you perceive the emptiness of that coffee cup? Because the emptiness associated with that coffee cup is a quality of the coffee cup.

However, we don't perceive that directly, right? Because if we did, we'd be perceiving emptiness directly. So there are some more subtle things that you can get into with this.

So I was just trying to give a little context as to maybe why we've been harping on this so much and why we've spent literally since March of this year, February of this year, kind of on this subject. So if the consciousness of the eye perceives everything that it's a chick with a coffee cup, can we also say that it perceives its touchability?

[Speaker 2]
Yes, you have to say that.

[Speaker 1]
I don't love it, but I think that that's technically correct. I mean, you sure have left a lot of room for an answer here. So I'm guessing that it's something more than yes or no.

Yeah, totally. Well, you know, we didn't entirely tie this up with a bow and put it to bed in the last class. So I did some legwork and came up with some definitive kind of ways of really putting this into a little bit more context for ourselves.

So I haven't checked the chat, but if anybody has a chat that matches the length here, you can do it verbatim. Can we say consciousness somehow perceives it, but not directly? You know, that's been the typical go-to answer, right?

Is that you perceive it, however you don't ascertain it. What I'm finding now is that something that's established, and let's just go ahead and bring it out here. What we're finding out is that something that's established and held in both the Vaibhashika and the Satrāntika school is that you can't say that the eye perceives the touchability because they belong to two different khechas.

So the khecha, whatever khecha is interacting with whatever aspect of that coffee cup, like, let's say you pick the coffee cup up and you drop it and you listen, you hear it like break or something like that. You know, just thinking of the different ways that the khecha is actually, that the consciousness engages with physical objects. So the color and shape that indicate the vision, and I want to go through this kind of slow just to make sure, because I figured there has been some kind of confusion in the chat regarding Zechik over the past few sessions.

So I just want to make sure that we're all totally on the same page with this answer before we go on. So the color and shape that indicate the visual perception of a coffee cup and the touchability of the coffee cup are direct objects of two different sense spheres. Touchability belongs to what khecha?

[Speaker 3]
Feeling?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, right. Yeah, totally. So I went and looked up the definition of, and the division of the sense of touch, right?

And the dura. And you find that the consciousness of the eye, it can only see colors and shapes, right? So the consciousness of the body can only experience either touchable things, which are elements, or touchable things, which are products of the elements.

And you have to say this is true, because one of the reasons that we can say, and I took this a step further and use my own, and I'm hoping that you guys call me, or if you see something that stands out that doesn't make sense, please stop me. So if that's true, then we should be able to deduce that while the consciousness of the eye perceives everything that is a chick with a coffee cup, it's limited to perceiving only that which is conducive to its respective khecha. So for example, if the consciousness of an eye can see fire, the color and shape of the fire, right?

But it can't experience it, because fire is necessarily defined as hot and burning. Yeah. Thank you, Verbal Codding.

Was that you who put the translators at work? Excuse me, who did that? That was a gift from the Spanish General, I believe.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, no, it is the Spanish.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, your window popped up in the same space. Wonderful. Yeah, we have this for other organizations as well.

Awesome. Okay. No, thank you for the reminder.

Please, you can leave it up. Leave it up the whole time.

[Speaker 2]
It doesn't work unless it arises spontaneously.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, for no reason at all. For no reason at all. So I think that's pretty airtight, right?

The consciousness of the eye can see fire, but it can't experience fire, right? Because fire is necessarily hot and burning.

[Speaker 2]
Because the eye can only see shape and color?

[Speaker 1]
Exactly. Yeah, totally. And the eye can see a coffee cup?

Yeah, it can see. So is the coffee cup shape or color? Shape is form, right?

You're talking about coffee cup itself? Like the name coffee cup? I don't know.

It's hard. Yeah, I'm not there yet. I don't know.

That seems like a problem. This is hard.

[Speaker 2]
Can I comment a little bit on the, I think this is a big task, but it looks like to me, what you're saying is very obvious in a way. Not that you didn't do the research, this is the most obvious answer that I think is probably right. That we're basically saying the eye consciousness cannot see everything that is Zechik with the coffee cup.

[Speaker 1]
Exactly.

[Speaker 3]
It's Zechik with the coffee cup, which is visible, basically.

[Speaker 1]
Or everything, you know, this is, so I found a term in the text and it equated to wrong sinness. So the best visible form? Well, everything that comes along with being a wrong sin, your eye perceives.

So the individual sense spheres perceive their respective data or stimulus, right? Does that make sense?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Bound up with that, it perceives its subtle impermanence. The fact that it's a changing thing.

[Speaker 2]
We're denying that right now, that the eye consciousness perceives any of those, right?

[Speaker 1]
No, no. This is why I was wanting to make sure that we stuck with this for a second before we actually moved on. So the consciousness of the eye does perceive things which go along.

So coffee cups have certain qualities that go along with coffee cups, right? Not only color and shape, but there are also things outside of a bimple that are things that are not matter that are things that are not matter that accompany each one of those things. Yeah.

So the coffee cup has a set of denmen duches that go along with it. And so although you're not associated, there's a few things which are neither physical nor mental. I mean, if you say, for example, a coffee cup is a changing thing, coffee cup or this, this coffee cup here.

Beautiful.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. It's called a keep cup. It was provided by the fine people at Amazon.

I don't know where they got it. I guess they got it from the people at keep.

[Speaker 1]
It has the quality of having been made in, I don't know. Let's see. Oh, it's, let's say it was made in Mexico.

[Speaker 2]
So is this coffee cup a thing made in Mexico? So if you say yes, or if you say this coffee cup is, is it a thing that came from Amazon? When you look at it.

Yeah. If that's true, anything you say that's true about it, then this, when you look at this thing, you see object that came from Amazon.

[Speaker 1]
So even if you didn't know it came from Amazon, for example, you don't know, this is an object that I drank a certain sort of coffee out of that came from a certain region of the world.

[Speaker 2]
And you don't know which, but when you look at it, you're seeing coffee cup that had Columbian coffee roasted in Carlsbad, California. So you have to be seeing that for it to be true.

[Speaker 1]
And we can make up any quality you're seeing changing thing. You're seeing thing that had a steady state coffee in it. You're seeing thing that I bought in Amazon, all those things are true.

[Speaker 2]
So are those qualities? You're seeing them, right? Anything that that coffee cup is, isn't that the thing that you're seeing, whether you know it or not, you are seeing a thing that came from Amazon, even if you don't know it, even if you don't believe me.

[Speaker 1]
Well, and you know, I think one of the reasons we could really take what you just said, Ben, and step into a level deeper that may provide good fodder for our meditation cushions too, is that every object, physical, or mental, or of the third category is also changing. So every coffee cup, like the one that you just picked up, has a subtle impermanence that goes along with it as well. And if it didn't have that subtle impermanence, then it would necessarily exist from its own side.

It would be static. It wouldn't change. So what we're really trying to hone in here is that yes, okay, the consciousness of the eye perceives a coffee cup.

It perceives its color and its shape, but it also perceives its subtle impermanence and other qualities that can't be seen with the eye. And that is true of the ear consciousness, the consciousness of the ear. If it hears a good rock and roll song, let's say, I think Geshe Michael would use that terminology, the consciousness of the ear.

The ear, you hear a good rock song, and what comes along with hearing that is not just the sound, because you don't hear the color and shape, do you? I mean, the rock song doesn't have a color and shape, right? Yeah, so you don't hear the color and shape.

However, you do hear its subtle impermanence. So what we're really trying to focus in on here is that there are certain qualities that you don't perceive with your eye. However, you do perceive them directly, and you just don't ascertain them.

I'll make it worse for you, Adam.

[Speaker 2]
If the changing of a cup, is that a changing thing? Yeah. Are all the qualities of the cup changing things?

[Speaker 1]
There are aspects of any given phenomena which are also unchanging. So if you have a coffee cup, right, the definition of a coffee cup, if I can remember correctly, it's like a flat, round bottom thing made for holding coffee. So just follow me here, guys.

I promise I'm not trying to lose you. Ben asked a very good question. So in order to hold coffee, you need to have a space within the object to do the holding, right?

Okay. A coffee cup wouldn't be a coffee cup if it was like a place without something you could, you know, if you couldn't pour coffee into it, right? If it didn't have a recess, if it didn't have a recessed area, or a space within it to pour coffee, then you wouldn't be able to pour the coffee into it, right?

And it wouldn't be a coffee cup. So the reason I say that is because the space that is associated with that coffee cup is necessarily something that is unchanging, right? And so your eye doesn't perceive that directly, but it has to do so through some amount of inference.

It has to do so by some amount of reasoning. So there are qualities that come along with physical objects that are unchanging in nature. And who can tell me the most important one?

The most supreme quality that anything you can think of, smell, taste, touch, or hear has.

[Speaker 2]
The absence of self-existence.

[Speaker 1]
The absence of self-existence, right? So there are emptinesses associated with every object that we experience as well. And those are unchanging in nature.

However, we don't perceive those directly, right? If we did, you can do so inferentially, you can do so intellectually. But we know that the experience of emptiness, the highest experience that we can have on our cushion is done so without the use of concepts.

So this is kind of what we're warming up to here. And we're trying to use these topics as like a friction fire. So we're using these different ideas to really get us thinking and to help approximate our understanding of emptiness, to help get closer and closer to a true understanding.

So there are reasons why we're talking about this. And I specifically lead in with the subtle impermanence thing. Because when we talk about mitakpa, that was one of the things that K.J.J. brought up a few sections ago, was the fact that coffee cups have a changing nature that you do perceive with the eye.

[Speaker 2]
Is the changing nature of coffee cups a specific object, a manifestation, a jitsen, or is it a yansen, an actual object?

[Speaker 1]
It's an actual object. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
It's an actual object.

[Speaker 1]
You should go on. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, no.

I was hoping that we could really hash these things out because it's only going to get more difficult in the text if we're not all on the same page. And one of the reasons that we really have to stick with it, and I'm hoping that other people, like Oscar, I see Duo Duo, I see Gibson there, Elva, Laia, I see a lot of people here. And I have to think to myself that this can't make sense to everybody.

Or maybe I am the last schmuck who doesn't understand this.

[Speaker 2]
No, no, I'm with you.

[Speaker 1]
A little slower. Yeah. Schmuck.

Yeah. So, yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Are there multiple things that belong to the category changing thing?

[Speaker 1]
Yes. So does that make it a generality, a general in the sense of being a qizhen? Yeah.

Well, it can exist in a dual way, right? You have the category of coffee cup, because you've got many coffee cups that belong to the category of coffee cup. But you can also slow down Adam.

You can also have a coffee cup. So you can have a specific thing, or you can have, or it can exist in a general way. So when you say touchability here, you mean a touchable thing?

A touchable thing. Or do you mean the group called touchable things? A touchable thing.

Yeah, I mean...

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, when you say touchability, is that a quality, a generality that applies to multiple things?

[Speaker 1]
It is. Yes.

[Speaker 2]
If it's a generality, then isn't that a qizhen, a generality meaning that it's perceived by a jpac-sama deductive perception rather than direct perception, because the two types of perceptions are used to perceive the two types of objects.

[Speaker 1]
But I can pick up a coffee cup and drink out of it. I can feel it on my left, right? Yeah, right.

So, but can you pick up... That's a touchable quality. Change of...

[Speaker 2]
You have to use reason to say that what you're feeling is the same thing that you're seeing with your eyes.

[Speaker 1]
Now, this is where it starts to get super, super interesting. Thank you, Venerable Levala. Thank you.

But, you know, just, we will, we'll kind of clear it up and we'll move on. I just wanted to highlight that for 12 years, I carried the wrong idea that mitakpa was an unchanging thing. Uh-oh.

[Speaker 2]
Hello?

[Speaker 1]
It's okay.

[Speaker 2]
It's just a changing color.

[Speaker 1]
Mitakpa, because it's a concept? Because, well, yeah, well, you could think, you always hear whenever you, whenever we talk about it as a group, and anytime I've heard Geshe-la lecture on it, we talk about mitakpa as in the fact that things are changing. And Geshe-la is very clear to hone in on the word fact when he speaks about it.

And if you talk about the fact that a coffee cup is a changing thing, then it's an unchanging thing. And you, and that is not zeychik with the coffee cup.

[Speaker 2]
This is mitakpa yimba, right? As opposed to mitakpa?

[Speaker 1]
I'm not sure because, I mean, I would like to think that that's one way we could drill down on even further, but I never hear Geshe-la make that distinction. The reason that I really wanted to sit here with this is because this was something that I thought I had nailed down when I first did Course 13. And it turns out that as we're studying this, I'm finding that I have a lot of wrong misconceptions.

And one of those, and I think it's a biggie, is the quality or the nature of changiness, because it seems so crucial on our path to seeing emptiness directly. And it is necessarily the first thing that we really start to, the first subject, really, that's even encountered when you begin to study reasoning in our lineage is sound, and it's changing nature. So I think there's a reason why changiness is necessarily taken as an object for debate from day one.

And that's because I think it plays a crucial role in helping you understand the qualities and their particular qualities, the qualities of the qualities that associate or accomplish, or excuse me, or accompany every phenomenon that we encounter. Is some existing thing changing or unchanging? Some existing thing, nondescript?

[Speaker 2]
Is coffee cup a changing thing? Is coffee cup an existing thing?

[Speaker 1]
A coffee cup or quote coffee? Yes, I would say the category exists as well. Yes.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. But the category, so when you're looking at a coffee cup, you're looking at it's ch-ness, it's existing thing-ness.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I mean, that would be one way of saying it's wrong sin-ness. Apparently, it's exists. Oh, yeah.

That's true existence. I'm including right? Takpa and mitakpa, changing and unchanging things are both existing things.

Yeah, yeah. Right.

[Speaker 2]
But you couldn't say that existing thing is a changing thing?

[Speaker 1]
Yuppa itself is a category. You know, this is a, this is something we've been getting into. What about the category of sheja?

Yeah, right. No, category of sheja is changing. Yeah.

And to be a coffee cup is to be sheja.

[Speaker 2]
No, think about it, right?

[Speaker 1]
The category of, the category of changing things, right, is taking on new things, instant by instant. Slow down? Or should I?

[Speaker 2]
No, no, slow down a little bit.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah, just slow down. I thought you were telling me to stop getting so worked up. No, just ready to speak at the pace where they can keep up.

I feel you. I feel you. I think in this school, when we group together, changing things and unchanging things, they're considered unchanging.

Unchanging. Yeah, totally. Because yeah, when you staple an imaginary thing to a real thing, then the new thing that you have is just made up.

Yeah. Now, if you haven't been following the Mixed Nuts since about 2018 or so, you may have missed that, right? That is actually covered in a section of the Dura called Shijru Kinnamsha.

And if you want to, you know, if you want to explore that, you can go and check out our website and get the ebook, or I could slip you a copy under the table if you can't afford it. How dare you? Don't tell anybody.

Don't tell anybody. I would never. Especially not for someone in need.

But yeah, so, you know, I think this is a really crucial topic, because it's getting our mind used to understanding, once again, the categories of existence, and what belongs where, and the qualities of the qualities of the things that we encounter. And I think it's almost important at this juncture to further state that the entirety of the path is trying to understand how we are misperceiving phenomenon, right? I mean, that's where all of our suffering is arising from.

So, this isn't, you know, kind of like, this is gymnastics. This is like you're doing cartwheels so that you can learn how to do, like, you know, a triple backflip in like a couple years, you know. We know that there are three types of meditation, right?

And one of those is Chagom. That's analytical reasoning. So, this is a form of meditation, and this is to help you and me, excuse me, I'll speak for the first person here, singular.

This is to help me really get used to handling advanced reasoning. So, I hope you guys don't mind that we, you know, kind of spent 30 minutes on this one question. But you can see, I still don't think we're all, we have it all figured out here.

However, I hope the discussion we've had thus far has at least helped maybe a few people understand a little different, you know, a little deeper, if there was something you missed. So, once again, the consciousness of the eye can perceive colors and shapes. So, it perceives the color and shape of any object, but it also has things that are zechic with that object that are perceived, but are not, quote unquote, ascertained.

That being, namely, something called subtle impermanence and other qualities that are very good meditation objects. Let's move on. So, from the perspective of the Sarktantikas, why do we say that there must be a self-perception, or let's say this must be self-awareness?

[Speaker 2]
Because in order for something to exist, it has to be perceived by valid perception. And so, in order for consciousness to exist, it has to be perceived by valid perception.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, dude. Yeah, that's it. That's it.

Yeah. And in fact, in this school, you could even have the word direct. Yeah, yeah, totally.

Fresh. Fresh, exactly. Sorry, dude.

So, there can be no object without a subject. That's another way of saying, kind of, what you said. You know, more specifically, there can be no object without an accurate perception to verify its existence.

So, right, we know that. Is there anybody in the chat that can give me the definition of an existing thing?

[Speaker 2]
That which is perceived by an accurate perception.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. So, in order for something to exist, it has to be perceivable or perceived by an accurate perception. So, you can consider the fact that the definition of an existing thing hinges on being perceivable by an accurate perception.

Therefore, from the perspective of the Sautranticus, self-perception must be asserted as the existence of an outside object cannot be confirmed without a self-perception of the accurate perception that engages it. That one's a little bit more straightforward, but if there are any questions, please don't hesitate to slow us down.

[Speaker 2]
I don't know. It seems convoluted to me.

[Speaker 1]
Do it.

[Speaker 2]
Why do you say you have to be able to see yourself seeing something in order to see something?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that's what the Sautranticus say.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, yeah. No, I know, I know.

[Speaker 1]
But, yeah. Okay. So, first off, right?

Nick, you had your finger up.

[Speaker 2]
Isn't it as simple as because that consciousness, which is perceiving something, has to also be perceived in order to say that it exists?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Well, and then that's where you get into the idea of an infinite regress, right? Because you would need a perception of that perception of the perception of that perception, and then so on and so forth.

So, I actually had that as part of the answer in here, and I took it out because I don't want to get into all the subtleties of why the different schools go back and forth with each other. And that's why- I thought you were going to say that you actually had an infinite regress once. I'm still tripping out.

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Still in the process.

[Speaker 1]
When I had a Phish concert. It just doesn't stop. Yeah.

I never got out of that maze, man. Yeah. Okay.

So, yeah. And, you know, there's a, yeah. We'll just leave it there.

We'll leave it there. We kind of spent a lot of time. So, why does the mind-only school say that the color blue and the eye consciousness, which holds the color blue, are such that to be one is to substantially be the other?

So, I should read it like a game show host. And then I find the cadence of my voice, like reminds me of a game show host. Does anybody have an idea about number three?

Seed? It's pretty easy. Well, pretty short one here.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. There's no real difference between the two because everything you perceive is your mind.

[Speaker 1]
I was trying to throw in a Zaychik aligned question, but I like your answer.

[Speaker 2]
And it- I meant Zaychik in that it's all mind. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, if, as the mind-only school purports, subject and object arise from the same seed, then they're forced to assert that they are co-occurring and arise simultaneously, which in turn means that they must be Zaychik because that's the definition of Zaychik.

The Zaychik is actually, we might see it in the text when we go over there, something called Drup-de-Zaychik. So, there are two different levels of it, Zaychik and then Drup-de-Zaychik. Did I word that clearly enough?

It looks pretty clear, but I want to ask you a question.

[Speaker 2]
Does this Zaychik here just kind of more mean same substance rather than meaning substantially the same thing?

[Speaker 1]
I would take them, I would take those two things, I would take the two phrases you just used, the two terms to be synonymous.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Okay. I think you said last time something about it being separable and co-occurring.

[Speaker 1]
Exactly. Yeah. Yermeh.

Yeah. Yermeh. And I think this is very beautiful.

I personally, the reason I love logic is due to one of the things that I got out of this, which is that if two things occur at the same time, you have to say they're Zaychik.

[Speaker 2]
Well, they have to be the same stuff too.

[Speaker 1]
They have to be the same stuff, right? Yeah. But I would get a little thrown off because I'd think to myself, oh, well, surely there are two different coffee cups, one here in this room and then one on the other side of the world that are being created at the same time too, right?

They're Yermeh, but they're co-occurring.

[Speaker 2]
To who?

[Speaker 1]
Wow. Yeah. I'm just saying within the sphere of existence on this planet, but I thank you for the clarification.

Yeah. So anyways, the co-occurring thing here is so can a seed and a sprout exist at the same time?

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
Can we say that the sprout is a result of the cause of the seed?

[Speaker 2]
If there is an existing sprout, then we can speak about that it had a cause.

[Speaker 1]
It had to have come from a cause, right?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
In this school, right? Yeah, totally. And when we talk about causes, everything that arises, everything that is Zaychig with the coffee cup comes from the same cause.

Why is that? Because they're co-occurring. If they do not occur at the exact same time, then they're coming from different seeds.

That's one of the ways that you can differentiate between objects, between a cell phone or like my bed or a book that I'm reading or computer. Does that make sense? Yeah.

So if something is co-occurring, that means that it's necessarily coming from the same seed. Because even in the word co-occurring, that is necessarily pointing to at least two different qualities, right? To say that something is co-occurring, right?

So the reason that I'm trying to really focus in on this is because I thought that was a pretty cool breakthrough that I had when I was thinking about it, was that sometimes I would think the color of the coffee cup is coming from one seed and its tangibility is coming from a different seed. Does that make sense? I don't know.

So if two different TV shows on two different channels, they both start at seven, they both end at eight, they're the same. Well, in the sense of being TV shows, yeah. But that's not necessarily what I'm trying to say.

Two things that happen at the same time, right?

[Speaker 2]
One in Tuscaloosa and one in Timbuktu. Yeah. Are we qualifying that by saying they're of the same substance?

[Speaker 1]
Of the same substance. Well, okay, so indivisible. Sorry, dude, hold on.

Yeah, Kramer, thank you. Yermay should be the operable term here that we use with co-occurring.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
So Yermay being indivisible and co-occurring. So if something, super sorry for everybody in the audience, huge stipulation. Something can be said to be coming from the same cause if it is indivisible and co-occurring.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, okay.

[Speaker 1]
What does indivisible mean? Like you can't have two different TV shows or one coffee cup here and one coffee cup in Timbuktu that happened to be created at the same moment. I'll be over here cooking it.

So that means that's the definition, it's a jig.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
So maybe to take that back to the consciousness of the eye, can we say that based on, I'm just, we're just, this is free form here now doing some okay. Just to take what we just learned there, if as KJJ asserts, the definition of Zaychik is to be indivisible and co-occurring, then can we say that the tangibility of a cup and the color and shape of a cup are coming from the same seed? No, I would say we can't.

Oh no. Okay. I was going with yes there.

No, I would say we can't. Because they're not Zaychik. The whole, the tangibility.

[Speaker 2]
Don't they both arise at the same time and you can't have one without having the other?

[Speaker 1]
Are they separable?

[Speaker 2]
I guess I'm saying no, if I understand what separable means. You just said they were indivisible. Is that, are you saying that's a different concept than inseparable?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Now Gesher Michael gave a good answer. He said he talked to someone at a gas station, I want to say the night before my last class.

And he said she was stung by a scorpion and she couldn't feel anything in her hand. So for her, there's no touchability, but the color and shape is there. Like the recta, the feeling, her ability to touch it.

So I mean, once again, in an earlier part in this book, we learned that things may be true, but you have to stipulate for who and in what context, at what time and for who. Right. That's going back a couple of years.

And I think there may be other ways of attacking that problem. But that's why I'm posing the question to you guys. I like the pushback because am I saying that the color and shape of a coffee cup and the touchability of a coffee cup are coming from different seeds?

Are they in fact indivisible?

[Speaker 2]
I think you would say that in this school, that to be one is to necessarily be the other, the way you're phrasing it.

[Speaker 1]
But not to substantially be the other?

[Speaker 2]
No, substantially. Yeah. To be one is to substantially be the other, but it's a one way relationship.

[Speaker 1]
To be one is to be the other, but to be the other doesn't necessarily be.

[Speaker 2]
They are distinct in the sense that they are not identical objects. It's still true, though, that to be a cup is to be a changing thing, though being a changing thing doesn't necessarily mean being a cup.

[Speaker 1]
I think that follows. I bow. I'm trying.

It's so hard. Okay, Zenon, subject. Oh, cool.

Look at me a little bit more. Yeah, subject, definitely. The aspect of the object on the side of the mind perceiving.

[Speaker 2]
Wow.

[Speaker 1]
Subjective aspect.

[Speaker 2]
Apprehending aspect.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that's it. Yeah. The apprehending aspect.

Dojo, from the three point line. Okay, so here's my attempt. This is all Geshe-la gave me to really work with.

Dojo, would you mind reading for us? Would you help us?

[Speaker 2]
Oh, yes, sir. I don't want to mess up the first word. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, your phrasing was really good, too, man. You were holding the words together. Not too shabby.

You have to ask him what je-pa means.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I said I was not going to mess up the first word. No, hold on. This is a special one just for you, Dojo.

[Speaker 1]
This is a special one just for you. Another form of the came up in Ben's class for you.

[Speaker 2]
It is. Yeah, it's the same. It's also a closed quotation mark.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, there was a verse before, and we could go and get that. Let's do that. I mean, yeah, we know what it says, which is maybe a heavy lift.

What does that mean? What does that mean? So, yeah, I looked at it for a while.

I don't know entirely. I arrived at something like, in essence, they're one and the same thing, right? Ngo-wo-chik, meaning subsumed.

I mean, the wrong here. So, the self, and there are so many different ways to read. Well, I wouldn't say so many different, but there are a few different ways to read done.

So, that kind of is what started to really trip me up a little bit. Is it meaning? Is it object?

Done has even been used in reference to, well, like Ngo-wo. So, I'm open here.

[Speaker 2]
Well, he's talking about the two lines that our author just quoted from the Pramanavarttika. And this commentary to the Pramanavarttika, which you just pulled from, is commenting on that as well. But that's what we're in right now, is Geshe Wangchuk's commentary.

Well, we'll piece it together, Adam, after you tell us your piece of commentary, and then we can try and figure out how to translate. You already translated the key to understanding the verse.

[Speaker 1]
All right. So, that thing, which is perceived by a direct perception. Okay.

So, what... All right, here, let's go through it. Let's go through it.

So, dakni, that thing itself, ngun-tsum-yam-pa, direct perception. Tse-ma-nam, accurate perceptions. Bai, the key.

Tak-ja, examined. How. So, ma-tong-cha-shin, what other parts would not be seen?

What other parts would be there that wouldn't be seen? If by examining via accurate perception... Now, I would love to ask you guys, I'm finding sometimes in the root text that I switch between grouping two lines with each other, right?

Or thinking that this first line could just be a line in itself. It's not consistent. Yeah, okay.

It's just not.

[Speaker 2]
And you can see when you compare it with the Sanskrit that sometimes it's a separate thought, and sometimes it's not. So, there's no... I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all answer to that question.

[Speaker 1]
No two-in-two, or two-in-one sentence. Two-in-one and two-in-one. And importantly, the law here tells us that they are importantly related to one another, either by relation or by being unrelated, that we have yet to see.

But at any rate, the law expresses that it's a part of a continuous thought. Yeah, totally. The Sanskrit is, I find, helpful sometimes because you can see...

The root text that I've encountered thus far in my text hasn't even been... We usually just see one or two lines. Yeah, right.

In the Tema Deidon, in Kejup Jey's work, in Yikimunsel. So, encountering... And like Venerable Upala said, this is actually drawn from your text, Ben.

He actually put it in as a note, but this is what he wanted me to spend some time with in between our sessions. So, you know... You do the commentary, and then in theory, that should make it easy, or...

You know, totally. Yeah, I didn't see... Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't do this to yourself. You deserve better.

I don't like to shoot myself in the foot. It's just the way I've been operating for years. We have...

You have...

[Speaker 2]
The Great Geshe Yeshe Wangchuk is desperate to help you.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. So, if sound is conceived by way of a positive engagement, let's say this... Drahtok?

Drahtok conceived? Yeah, that's what I went with. Then, every aspect of sound is seen by the consciousness of the ear, or the auditory consciousness.

So, that would be this Drahtzen Nyenshe Kyi Drayi Chökun. Right? And the Nyenshe, the ear awareness holding sound.

It's... Oh, yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Every Chökun, every aspect, right?

[Speaker 1]
Every quality of Drahtzen Nyenshe Kyi Drayi Chökun sees it, Shindu. It's like that. Well, that's why I went...

I split the sentence here, but in the same way. Right? The Shindu here.

And then...

[Speaker 2]
Like, just like how...

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. All right, here. So, the Drangpa, I went with subsequent awarenesses.

Once again, I had to do some legwork to see that in logic texts, and specifically in reference to memory and consciousnesses that are... Yeah. In this particular literature, in this reference, whenever you see Drang paired with She, it literally means subsequent awareness.

Drang, right? To pull, or to guide. Right?

You could also see a similarity into the G-R-A-N-G-S, to enumerate. Right? It's almost the same feeling.

Right? So, Kyong should... So, let's say, should ascertain, right?

All aspects of sound. Accurate perceptions, which realize things like the changing nature of sound, will become pointless.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, cool.

[Speaker 1]
So, I think what... And the reason it didn't really provide too much help, I feel like, with translating the verse, because I can kind of... I mean, I can kind of...

I can kind of suss, right? Like, done as object and wrong as self, you could see how those two things would be equal. Right?

Every object is going to have a self, and that's the definition of a Chö.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Right? To have a self. To have a self, I want to say, is the definition of Chö.

Because it's dirty.

[Speaker 2]
So, nature.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. So, an object with a self... Now, the Ngoa Chö, Geshe-la has treated that in the past as...

Well, sorry, before we move on, we've only got a minute left. But before we move on, what we're saying in the commentary here is that, if by hearing a sound, you ascertain all... Excuse me.

If the consciousness of the ear... I don't want to use the word ascertain. If the consciousness of the ear perceives all qualities of sound, right?

Then you should be able to say that an accurate perception of the same thing would also ascertain things like the changing nature of sound. Right? Which means that, well, why would you ever need to go on your meditation cushion and spend time getting familiar with it if you've already perceived it?

Right? And that's the pointless thing here. That's the dunmei.

Right? Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Right. It seems like the ngun sum, what you see with a direct perception, that one entity, that ni that you see, it is both the thing and its nature. The thing and its nature are not separate.

So, you're having a direct perception of that singular thing that is the and all of its qualities. And so, then, accurate perceptions, tsema nam, when you look at things, then how could there be, when you analyze them, when you look at them with a tsema, with an accurate perception, then how could there be any ascertainment that you don't see? What could there be that you don't see?

[Speaker 1]
This is, once again, I kind of briefly talked about it. I mentioned it to you, Ben. What about the back of the coffee cup that isn't perceivable by the consciousness of the eye?

This could very well be a sarcastic statement. Yeah, totally. Well, that's why I was trying to really get, because it would seem like what Kira is saying is that, yeah, I think it is sarcastic, because it really doesn't make sense outside of that context, in the sense that you can't say that whenever I look at a coffee cup, I ascertain its subtle impermanence.

That would necessarily mean that I'm experiencing chochok. Like, so there would be an issue there. That's why I was trying to hone in on the difference between conceive, toke, and nge.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
So, what he's asserting, it doesn't necessarily follow. We are two minutes over, but let's just tie it up real quick. If sound is conceived or perceived, then every aspect of sound is seen by an auditor, and also the positive engagement here as well, because I think that the changing nature of sound is something that you'll have to ascertain by way of a sound juke, and not a droop juke.

Right? So, I think that might be where this is really going, is the difference between what it means to positively engage something, and then what it means to take something into an analytical meditation. All right, dude.

Thank you, guys. Cool, Adam. Thank you, man.

The weather here on Saturn is beautiful. We're in activity lately, but we're putting up with it. Thank you.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you, everybody, translators, worldview productions, Hasso, Ben, for your guys' awesome classes. That was really a thought-provoking session. So, it's grateful to you guys, the whole team.

And Xuanzang's Tower, we'll see you on Saturday, Geshe Michael's triumphant return.

[Speaker 1]
Much love, everybody. Thank you. Good night.

Ciao. Thank you.