Бетси Грир — Книга 2: Интерлюдия о пустоте, занятие 9

[Speaker 2]
Hi Tim.

[Speaker 3]
Yes.

[Speaker 2]
Could you say Isabel?

[Speaker 3]
She's in there.

[Speaker 2]
Alright, thank you.

[Speaker 3]
Sure. So, no questions?

[Speaker 1]
Everyone wants to go home?

[Speaker 3]
Usually people take like a five-minute break after class. They may have jumped away.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, I see.

[Speaker 3]
They come back. Just as a question.

[Speaker 1]
Here's a question from Ji Hong. Would you please explain, this thing does not cause another thing. The picture of the seeds and the picture of the fruit exists separately.

I got a little confused. Then what about karma theory? You do this and you got that.

So, what you've brought up there in your question is two different ways of looking at cause and effect. One is a conventional or a deceptive way of looking at cause and effect. And the other is based in reality.

So, the first way with a seed and a fruit, we have this conventional idea. You know, anyone who has a garden has this idea that if you put seeds in dirt and give them water and have them have access to sunshine, that seed will sprout and then grow into a plant such as a fruit tree. And which will then produce flowers, which gets, you know, the bees come by and do their thing.

And then fruit appears. So, that's the conventional idea of how things work in cause and effect. But when we're talking about karma theory, what we're talking about is emptiness and cause and effect.

So, no thing has any nature on its own side, from its own side. How you see a tree produce fruit or a seed produce fruit is if you have created the cause for that experience, for that seed to ripen in your mind to experience that fruit, that seed turning into a fruit. And so then the question is, what do you do to plant the karmic seeds for that experience to occur for you in the future?

Does that help? Experience is in the middle. In the middle of what?

The seed and the fruit. So, the experience I'm talking about is your perception of a karmic seed ripening. And that experience of a seed causing a fruit only happens because you planted a similar seed.

You did a similar kind of karma, helping someone to plant a garden, for example, that planted a seed in your mind. So, it could be, you know, years ago, eons ago, lives ago. So, the experience is not in the middle.

The experience is the result of the ripening of the karma. Does that make sense? Yay, thank you.

Any more questions? Either everyone is totally understanding all the teachings or maybe you're tired. Oh, there we go.

This is from Ella. What about the seed in our mind and the fruit of our experience? Are they also coming from our seeds?

So, yeah, definitely the seeds in your mind are coming from actions you have done, whether it's speaking or thinking or doing some action, right? That plants seeds. And so, that action plants seeds and the seed causes that action.

So, it's a circle. And it's a closed circle until we get the heck out of the wheel of life. Wheel of death, we should call it, right?

The correlations between the seed in our mind and the fruit of our experience. So, are you talking, I'm sorry, the fruit of our experience, you're talking about the fruit from the tree? No.

So, you're talking about the experience we experience, yeah? Okay. Oops, it just got bumped.

So, let me go back to it again. So, the correlation between the seed in our mind and our experience, the experiencing of our experience. So, you could say, excuse me, cause and effect.

That's the correlation. And like in words text just now, it circles around. The experience of our experience also plants a seed in our mind.

Here's from someone, and I cannot read their name. But, hello, teacher. I would like to ask a question.

I have many teachers around me, and they talk about Buddhist emptiness. Some explain emptiness in terms of quantum physics, from matter to electricity to protons. Everything is essentially empty, but his explanation didn't feel as good as Geshe's, but he was also very loving and compassionate.

And he was very observant, and he knew that all laws are empty, cause and effect are not empty. And if he could understand that, he also understood the true emptiness. So, I'm not clear what the question is.

I mean, I read it as a description. So, if there was a question there, I missed it. And I'm probably speaking too quickly for the translators.

So, sorry. Thank you, Catherine. So, the questioner wants to know whether this teacher's understanding is true emptiness.

So, unless from the upper middle way school of Buddhism, from that position, emptiness would have to talk about the lack of a self-nature to things as being empty. So, I don't see anything here that talks about a lack of a self-nature. Did he use those words when he talked about emptiness in terms of quantum physics and matter, electricity, protons, and so on?

Seems he didn't talk about the lack of things. So, yeah. I mean, I don't know anything about, I'm not very good in physics at all.

I mean, but my understanding is that there is like, within a cell, there's like far more empty space than matter. And even, you know, if you go down further and further, it's just, there's a ton of space that's not occupied. And maybe that's what he was talking about in terms of being empty.

But if he was saying that cause and effect are not empty, then, you know, as K.J. said in my text, if you don't understand karma and its consequences, then, you know, you don't understand emptiness. You know, there's no way that a cause could touch, in the same moment, a result. It can't exist at the same time.

So, from our perspective of what emptiness means, that's the way we would understand that. But maybe he meant something else. And how wonderful that you have many teachers.

You know, that's a great karmic ripening.

[Speaker 2]
Anybody else?

[Speaker 1]
So, I just ran this through Google Translate. And if I don't get it correctly, you can blame me for using it. Question.

The big four, earth, water, fire, and wind, can change many things. Can the big four create a certain defect? For example, the husband who is not there.

Thank you. So, in my understanding of those four things, while they are changing things, and therefore can, yeah, they change. But they're not, while they change, they're not animate.

They are not aware. And so, I mean, in my understanding of it, those elements would not be able to consciously create a cause. Wind may result in, you know, trees falling down.

It could result in a nice, cool breeze when you're warm. Oh, can they, I'm sorry, can they create a lack? Not a certain, not a certain defect.

So, in one sense, for example, fire, there's the absence of frigidness. You know, the nature of fire is hot. And there is an absence of cold.

So, it has that kind of absence. But creating a lack, I'm not sure I really understand the question. But in any event, I do not think that the four elements can create something that doesn't exist.

Because that's what the husband who wasn't there is, is something that does not exist. But on the other hand, I guess you could say, I'm sorry, I may be rambling here, but okay, let me answer it this way. There is nothing that changes that cannot create something that does not have a lack, an absence.

Because all things are absence of a self nature. Please let me know if that's at all helpful if I've just, you know, wandered around here and made you more quizzical than curious.

[Speaker 2]
Yes, you said it helps, but it's not so clear.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, my apologies for that. Yeah, changing things cannot create unchanging things, right? So, the four elements cannot create a lack.

Okay, so changing things cannot create unchanging things. So, you're equating lack with unchanging? That's what's meant by lack?

Is that it's unchanging? Yes, okay. Right, it cannot.

Because anything created is by definition a changing thing. Anything else? Hi, Linda Wu, I just saw your name.

Okay, maybe that's it, huh? Any translators in the process of translating questions? They probably won't answer me if they're translating questions.

Maybe people are thinking, yes, thank you, Catherine. Hi, Hasso. In the last book I worked on, it's about emptiness meditations.

Yeah, by Chinu Lama. Which one do I recommend to start finding insights about it? If I recall correctly, he suggests starting with that things aren't caused by themselves, they're not caused by others, not by both, and not by neither.

Or to find a thing that would do any of those. And you come up with nothing. I think that's the place he said to start.

Just don't do it with clay on your face, Hasso. I saw your post on Instagram, I think it was. Hi, Gina.

Hi, Tong Tong.

[Speaker 2]
Hi, Venerable.

[Speaker 1]
Hasso, he's asking about brief descriptions of what emptiness is understood as in each of the four different schools of Buddhism. And I have to say that right now, I can't because I've been so much in this term. It's a horrible thing for me to admit, but there we go.

I'm really sorry. Thank you. It's always good to mess up in front of people, you know.

Because the ego usually arises, right? The sense of, I made a mistake. I made a mistake.

And this really strong sense of I, you can feel it. You can feel it. It's somewhere inside.

And so it's great to have those experiences so that when you do sit down and meditate on emptiness, you can recall this very strong object. And then you can take that very strong object and start ripping it apart, taking it apart altogether. And you see, poof, there's nothing.

So thank you, Hasso. Yay, Isabel. Like strong emotion like that, especially when you're, like, accused of something that you didn't do that was a negative thing, you know.

There is this sense, you know, you can almost tactically feel it in your body. And your mind, at least my mind, when that happens, becomes very tight. So because I've made that association with this protection of a nonexistent thing, the self, me, whenever I feel any little tightness of mind or any physical sensation that is uncomfortable like that, even just if it's just a shadow of that experience when you're accused of something you didn't do, then you can easily learn to recognize that in the moment and just stop yourself and in your mind go, whoa, what is it that I think is true or real here? You know, it's misunderstanding things that's creating these sensations in my body. So, you know, stop.

Look, what is it? You know, is it that I think the other person is self-existent? Do I think the traffic light is self-existently making me stop when I'm in a hurry?

You know, anything that's going on. And then the quicker you can notice the sensations, physical and mental, like even just beginning to arise, you can get that close. And then you can get like sensitive enough to where you can notice when they're about to arise so that you can just, you know, take a pause and like bring up your motivation, you know, whether it's to be of benefit to all living beings.

Yeah, that. Oh, another question. Good.

We are not saying everything is non-existent. Excuse me. We just say that nothing exists.

Excuse me. So, could I explain the difference between those two statements? So, statement one, everything is non-existent.

Statement two, nothing exists. The only difference between those two statements that say the exact same thing is that the first statement is saying it in a positive way, everything is, and the second statement says it in a negative way, nothing. That's the only difference.

They mean the exact same thing. It's what we call a nihilist point of view where you think nothing exists or that everything doesn't exist, same thing. And then you tend to think nothing matters, right?

If you're like the only being in the universe, then why be concerned with anybody else? Do whatever it is you want to do on a whim. Doesn't matter if it hurts anyone else because there is no other people, right?

They don't exist. And then you create all this negative karma and fall. Isabel, how to handle the guilt related to this?

Which guilt are you speaking of? The guilt about not being able to answer Hasel's question? Yes.

So I don't feel guilty and I'm trying to, I don't know if I can pinpoint exactly when I stopped being guilty about things like that and not. I feel sad that I was unable to answer his question. I feel sad that I haven't taken those teachings, you know, in my bones that I can just pull them out.

But at the same time, the experience of that, like every experience, right, is showing me what it is I have to work on right now. You know, what I have to work on is being a student that's not like a leaky pot. That's what I have to work on.

And I own that. I created that experience. And I'm responsible for it.

But that doesn't mean I'm a bad person, you know. I don't know if that helps. How to handle the guilt.

So if you were to feel guilty, which to me has this connotation of like really holding on to this emotion of guilt. And it also has this connotation of like there was a right way and a wrong way. And that I did the wrong way.

So there is no right way and wrong way. And yeah, negative self-judgment. So here's the thing that may be helpful.

Point to the place in your body-mind complex to where a guilty self could be. Or an unguilty self for that matter. There is no self.

That is, you know, bad. And deserves to be felt guilty over. It was a moment in time.

And let the moment go. But in every moment, you can learn from whatever it is that's ripening. But let it go otherwise.

Just let it go. And just be in the, you know, move to a place where you can be constantly creating the future you want to experience. Because what just ripened was the past.

Who knows? It could have been eons ago. So should the upala of this moment, is the upala of this moment responsible for what, you know, Sam did in 1863?

You know, no. It's a ripening. It's gone.

Actually, it's a good thing to rejoice about. Oh, good. That's done with.

You know? Not being able to answer a question. Shoo.

May that never happen again for anyone. So here's a question. Why is misunderstanding neutral?

Keshi Michael made a point of saying that this is, seems, I mean, I heard it as him making a point that it's the functionalist schools that hold that misunderstanding is neutral. But actually, I really don't understand why that could be, because in the middle of the wheel of life, what's in the middle, right? It's ignorance fueling attachment and aversion, you know?

Liking things with ignorance and disliking things with ignorance. But it's ignorance that causes those things. And those are definitely negative emotions.

So, yeah, I really don't understand. And I hope that, you know, Keshi said that, you know, let's find a commentary on this question of why it's considered negative. Be interesting to read.

But, no, I'm sorry, I don't get it at all. You're welcome. Oh, I apologize to all the translators, interpreters, excuse me.

And I owe you a debt of gratitude. Call on me whenever you need anything. Also, sometimes I feel jealousy for other translators.

Any advice on that? When I think deeply about the why, using wisdom, I cannot find a good reason to be jealous. But still, the emotion is triggered in me from time to time.

So, you know, remember that an experience of jealousy, that experience in this moment, comes from something you did way back. And if it happens a lot, it's just a karma, a bakchak, a propensity for doing that again and again and again and again. And it getting more and more powerful.

So, it's great that when you stop and think deeply about it, you can see that there is, you know, no one to be jealous of. But if you know that this is something that occurs a lot for you in your experience, you can try and, it isn't quite nipping it in the bud, but to stop it as soon, let me say this, that you try and keep the jealousy from arising. So, for example, let's say that you're jealous of Tongtong.

And so, in the morning, you wake up and you go, oh, I'm going to translator class, and Tongtong is going to be translating. Okay, I always get jealous of Tongtong. What is it about Tongtong's translation, her interpretation skills, her translation skills?

And think about all those great qualities of hers in her translation. She knows how to translate complicated ideas into simple language. She knows how to choose the words that will best reach her audience.

Think about all these things, you know, that she's good at and rejoice about that. And just, you know how it is in meditation when you sit down before you start to meditate and you say, I'm going to meditate for an hour. So, then you say, after thinking about her good qualities, today, when I see her, whether it's on Zoom or wherever, when I see her, I'm going to think about all of her good qualities.

And how fortunate I am to be witnessing someone who is so great at translation. May I become like her. So, set that, like, little seed in your mind to ripen when you know the next time is going to be when you'll be faced in that situation.

I used to have to do this with, way before I was a Buddhist, I was working this job in Seattle. And there was a woman in the office. No, I was just becoming a Buddhist.

There was a woman in the office where I worked who was, she was manic depressive, which means that sometimes she was very happy and energetic and excited and really pleasant to be around. And then other times she was, oh, she was mean and cruel. And the thing was, I never knew what I would walk into because she'd be the first person I saw when I opened the door to go into work.

And so I had this huge aversion to her because as delightful as it was when she was happy and up, I might be getting the nasty stuff. And I didn't want that. So the way I worked with it is that, you know, this very same way that I told you about working with the translator that you're jealous of, you know, to think about her good qualities.

And there's just a different, there's a different way to walk into a room and be in the presence of someone when you are open to them and respectful of them versus when you're, you know, put off by them and you don't want to be around them. You know, the whole, it's a whole different vibe. And you also train yourself.

I hope that's a little helpful. Good. I want to be like Tong Tong actually.

Ella says, I usually do Tong Len for the people I'm jealous of. Just helping him or her more to give better performance. Oh, beautiful, beautiful.

Yeah, you can look at them as a shining example. You know, wow. Someday I'm going to be like that.

May everyone be able to speak to everybody else in whatever language they use, you know. May everyone be able to communicate with each other. You know, you can use the Tong Len with jealousy for sure.

Take that jealousy that you're experiencing and, you know, smash it with your wisdom and compassion at your heart in order that that be the end of all jealousy everywhere on the planet. Because that's where all jealousy comes from anyway. Sometimes I will think they are my children, my seeds.

Then it feels better. That the seed, tell me more about that, Catherine. The feelings of jealousy are your seeds, your children?

Uh-huh. I think, you know, that's a really good step to get to in understanding our cause and effect and our experience so we don't get tied up in thinking that other people are doing this wrong. That we're the ones who created the experience that we're having.

And then eventually we get to asking, you know, what is my seeds? What does my seeds mean? Who is this me that has seeds?

[Speaker 2]
Hi, this is Tong Tong.

[Speaker 1]
Hi, Tong Tong. The one I would like to be like.

[Speaker 2]
I would like to be you. I have this question. Because the other day when I think it's in your class that Gisela talked about the person who is, his understanding into emptiness is high.

But the signal of that is that he pays great attention to doing good karma, right? Yeah. And then you just talked about like if we feel guilty about what we did in the past, then we should think about where is the me who did that?

It's already gone. So we shouldn't feel guilty. And to me, I know the logic.

But just in reality, when we practice it, it's hard to do. Like if I turn to the emptiness side, then I will not work hard on purifying the bad seeds. If we turn to the karmic side, then maybe we will end up being guilty too much.

So I don't know if like for beginners, we should focus on karma, just doing good deeds and purifying bad deeds. And if we go to advanced levels, we should focus more on emptiness. I feel like I kind of don't know how to handle in real situations.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Like in my experience of learning and practicing Buddhism, at first for me, it was like a deluge of all these different kinds of teachings on different topics. And then I would get more and more texts on one topic and then more and more texts on another topic.

And we can kind of lump them into karma and its consequences and the lack of a self nature to things or emptiness. Yeah. So my reason in bringing all that up is that there were like in each of these classes and teachings, there were meditation suggestions, right?

They're teaching different techniques. So I would have a big tool bag filled with, you know, literally hundreds of different meditations. So part of being a practitioner of tarma is to recognize which tool to use in the experience that you're having right then.

So by experience, I don't just mean, oh, I'm sitting in a room in front of a computer. But maybe I'm feeling anxious or tired or grumpy. And OK, so what do I do?

Like, what is the tool I can use to work with anxious or tired or grumpy? And there are many different tools, many different tools. So it's the one that that like feels right in the moment and works in the moment.

I don't know that it's like ever too early to learn about emptiness. I think each of us has a different experience of learning emptiness. Some people get it very quickly.

Excuse me. They have planted the seeds previously to excuse me. This is the most I've talked in about.

I don't know. Last time I did this. What was I saying?

Oh, right. Some people get it very, very soon in their in their going to teachings and learning about emptiness. And for some people, it takes a long time.

So it all depends on the seeds you've planted. And who knows when the seed for understanding emptiness is going to pop. You know, it's going to ripen.

That's what I mean by pop. So I think, you know, definitely. Well, we learned from my text.

In the past couple of days that, you know, if you don't understand karma and consequences, you don't understand emptiness. So they both go together. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's the appearance and its nature.

The only reason they're separated is because we talk about it.

[Speaker 2]
Right. Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Any other questions? Berta and Catherine, I love seeing your smiling faces, even though they're just pictures. They're not moving pictures.

But I like them. Okay. Do we say good night?

Good morning. Good afternoon. Thank you for your interest in the Dharma.

Thank you for your participation in this course. There's really nothing quite like it. We are so, so fortunate.

And have a wonderful rest of the day, evening, whatever. And see you tomorrow. Bye.

Thank you so much, Venerable Pa. I love your, you know, I love your book. I love the way you do it.

I love your translation. I love your pronunciation. So hopefully someday.

Yay. Okay. Okay.

Good night. Good night.