Бетси Грир — Книга 2: Интерлюдия о пустоте, занятие 12

[Speaker 1]
We added... so half of this book is the emptiness meditations and then at the end of the emptiness meditations, Choney Lama says, you know, you guys really should learn the correct method for meditation and I don't have time to tell you what it is. So we went and we got the three greatest books on how to meditate.

So 50% of this book is how to meditate on emptiness and 50% of this book is the greatest instructions in history on how to meditate, step-by-step, every detail on how to meditate. And that's by Nagarjuna, wrote a book called How to Meditate. Kamala Sheila stole the name and he called it The Steps of Meditation.

Both books are called the same. Kamala Sheila wrote three of them. And then Pabongka Rinpoche and Tsongkhapa wrote the detailed version of those two books.

And then Trijang Rinpoche, who's my teacher's teacher, who wrote down Pabongka Tsongkha Rinpoche, he did this amazing chart of how to meditate. Let me see if I can find it. Oh man.

It's kind of hard to turn the pages. Here we go.

[Speaker 2]
I'm amazed you got that printed.

[Speaker 1]
Hey, that was Nick and Vimala. Vimala camped out at Staples yesterday. There's the meditation chart designed by Kamala, based on Nagarjuna, designed by Kamala Sheila, and then carved by Trijang Rinpoche following Pabongka Rinpoche's instructions.

All four books are in this book. So all the greatest books on how to meditate are in this one book that Beth, that she just finished. And it's really awesome.

Let me see here. Anyway, we took the, and Earl and Hector are in New Jersey this weekend at the Mongolian temple, taking better pictures of the chart, okay? Because we want to add the chart in the book where the pieces come.

So all the pieces of the chart have the commentary in Beth's book. And it's incredible. It's all the details on how to meditate.

Here's the, like, and she, we got the translation done of all the pieces of the chart are in the book, okay? So the elephant, the crazy elephant comes from a verse by Kamala Sheila. And so if you're going into a three-year retreat again, Utpala, if you don't have anything else to do, please.

Ben Kramer and Mrs. Ben Kramer Kendra. But anyway, if you, I wish I had this when I went into my three-year retreat, because it's totally complete. And I think it's one of the most important books ever done.

I really do think so. I really believe that. And I'll tell you a funny story, okay?

So, Tsongkapa had this idea. He said, I'm gonna write down all the proofs of emptiness, and he finished. And then he said, you know, we should write a book to go with that book called How to Meditate.

So then he wrote a second book on how to meditate, and he put them together, just like this. And then it's called, by the way, this is a book on shamatha and vipashyana, right? 50% each.

And then Manjushri came to him and said, you know what? That's a great book. You know, you got, you got like, right here you got 220 pages on vipashyana, and you got 220 pages on shamatha.

You know what, Tsongkapa? That's perfections number five and six. Why don't you add perfections one to four?

And we'll call it the Lam Rim. So, that's how the Lam Rim got written. It's amazing.

So, Tsongkapa had the same idea that Betsa Mi had. You know, translate all the proofs of emptiness. That's the vipashyana section.

Then add all the technique about how to meditate from Kamala Shila, who brought it to China, West China, right? Who went to West China and brought meditation, and just put those together. So, I guess now Utpala's next project is to finish Ketuji's long explanation of emptiness.

Much, much more detailed than this. So, progress report of her book. And by the way, you guys should send her some congratulations or something.

To you. Nah, we did it together. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't do it.

Here's our update for Utpala's book. Her book is going to be 2,114 pages. We're going to split it up into five books, the same size as the book I just showed you.

So, her new book is five times longer, and it's about emptiness. The whole thing's about emptiness. It's unbelievable.

It's one of the greatest presentations ever. Oopsie! My wife is throwing things in the kitchen.

I think your first book, Utpala, will finish in one year. One year from now.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, wow. Do you think it'll be done editing Sugong and Ben's text by then?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, we can finish those, no problem. That's no problem. We just gotta be able to print the books.

So, we gotta beef up printing stuff. All right, that's up from Venerable Jigme and Kitty. All right, here we go.

We were on this section, okay? I'm just gonna translate it here. Section number one was, why do we need to understand emptiness?

Section number two is, how cool you are gonna be after you understand emptiness. Even if you just want emptiness, you are already a cool person. Third one is, well, what kind of person is gonna be crazy enough to come to translator class?

Really, that's section number three. Where do you find people, out of billions of people, where do you find the 100 or 200 people who are crazy enough to come to translation class? That's section three.

Section four is, let's get on to emptiness. Let's start talking about emptiness. We've reached section four, okay?

So, the crazy people described in section three have reached section four. So, we're about to step into the 2,000-page explanation of emptiness by Tsongkapa's great student, Kitabje. Okay, here we go.

Who's checking you? Inna, can you check this lady's pronunciation, please?

[Speaker 2]
Oh, by the way, one thing I wanted to say about this book, I'm not sure if it's You gotta have muscles just to pick it up.

[Speaker 1]
I think we should all thank our dear sponsor, our very, very dear sponsor, our main sponsor, and this is a gift to you, our main sponsor. We just want you to know that we are working really, really hard. This was 12 hours a day for many, many days, and that's offering to our sponsor.

We really want to thank you, and without you, we wouldn't be able to do this. We'd have to go work in a cafe or something. All right, or a yoga studio.

Okay. You should have received copies already. Yeah, and we really want to thank you and bow down.

Okay, all right. So, which group I mean?

[Speaker 2]
The fourth. We're going to explain the fourth.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, chung dun means, let's get to the real topic here, okay? That we want to explain, Shakyamuni Buddha's future participant, you know, that we want to explain. First of all, let's divide between chung dun and nge dun.

We just had it in Seiji's text.

[Speaker 2]
Right, the literal and the figurative.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good. Let's try to distinguish between what the Buddha said, and he meant what he said, and what the Buddha said, and he didn't mean what he said, okay? Sung rab means teachings by Buddha.

Nge sung rab means, let's identify. Nge sung rab means like to identify someone you're looking for or something. Let's identify what is it that you have to interpret, and what is it that you don't have to interpret.

You can take it literally, okay? First section. Second section, let's go look at the great books by Prakpa Lodro.

[Speaker 2]
By a sangha.

[Speaker 1]
No, Arya Nagarjuna. Yeah, Arya Nagarjuna. By the way, I think our translation group should slowly put together all the books by Nagarjuna, and I'm hoping that Nick will agree to go on to another book by Nagarjuna.

There's about 10 that we should translate. So now we got, Nick has almost finished one, and Utpala just finished the second one. So we can keep going through all of these books.

So he says, let's look at the great books by Shun, by Arya Nagarjuna, and then let's look at the Drelpas.

[Speaker 2]
And the commentaries.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, let's see how the commentaries happened in history that commented on his gova, okay? On Nagarjuna's true intent. What did Nagarjuna really have in mind?

Let's look at those commentaries, and then let's go study Dombani.

[Speaker 2]
After that, let's go study emptiness.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, following those books, okay? Let's follow Nagarjuna, and let's follow the people who wrote commentaries after him, meaning Asanga, Vasubandhu, Dharmakirti, Chandrakirti, Bhavaviveka, Buddhapalita, and Tsongkhapa. All right, here we go.

So we're about to start the discussion of when do you know that the Buddha meant what he said, and when do you think he didn't mean what he said? Okay, here we go. Please read.

Alison, can you correct your pronunciation? Utpala, can you mispronounce something purposely to keep her awake?

[Speaker 2]
Sure. Wait, nothing happened. Nothing happened.

[Speaker 1]
There must be a time delay on the satellite.

[Speaker 2]
Good.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, for den, try to make it without aspiration. Den, den. Okay, here's the first one.

Let's get into when did the Buddha mean what he said, and when was the Buddha trying to make it simple for dummies in class, like us. Okay, dekona nyi tokpa dupa nam. Those guys and ladies who want to...

tokpa dekona nyi, what's that mean?

[Speaker 2]
Those who want to realize suchness.

[Speaker 1]
Nice, okay. You're going to have to ten, you're going to have to rely on Gyalway Singham.

[Speaker 2]
The teachings of the Buddha.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good, but don't forget that those teachings were adjusted according to the capacity of the student. Okay, natsok means, dujan natsok means, look, there were all kinds of students 2,000 years ago, and sampe wang gi, due to the differences in their intelligence, Buddha had to teach natsok. What's that mean?

[Speaker 2]
He had to teach various ways.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, and some of them are not technically correct. Okay, the Buddha is not dumb. He got up in front of the audience sometimes, he started to teach the pen, and they all look confused, so he made it more simple.

Sometimes he made it so simple that technically it's not correct, but it helped the students. Okay, so, jin dawa shikla pene sama dun tsowa jang nyam na means, look, he gave all kinds of presentations, natsok, to different kinds of students, natsok. Then which of them should we be reading, and which of them should we not be reading?

Okay, nyam na, if you want to know that, I tell you, you should be reading the nge dun ones.

[Speaker 2]
The essential ones.

[Speaker 1]
The ones where he said what he...

[Speaker 2]
What he meant.

[Speaker 1]
What he really meant. That's called nge dun, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Oh, for certain, what he said with certainty?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, exactly, nge dun, listen, Nityartha, but read the ones where he said what he meant. Don't read, don't listen to the recordings of the lectures he gave to the business people at Verizon Telephone, which I did one time. He was just making it simple for them, it wasn't totally accurate, okay?

So, please stick to the nge dun, stick to the ones where, you know, he wrote, stick to these people, okay? And don't always go for the simplest ones. Okay, next question, next one pin, please read.

Alison, we're waiting for you to correct her.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Translate that, Utpala, just slowly, think about it. It's a question from the reader. If someone...

Jin Dawa she means, well, which one is...

[Speaker 2]
Oh, which ones are what he meant to say?

[Speaker 1]
Good, and which ones are...

[Speaker 2]
And which ones are figurative?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, which ones are...

[Speaker 2]
If you were to ask, which ones, is that right? If you were to ask?

[Speaker 1]
Exactly. Okay, so somebody comes and says, hey, there's a lot of teachings by Buddha, which ones are the real ones? And which ones are the ridiculous, simple ones that aren't technically correct?

How do we know which is which? Okay, that's one of the biggest subjects in the last 2000 years, okay? All right, I'm going to combine this next section, here we go.

Okay, please go ahead.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, let's just speak, let's just talk about that much, okay?

[Speaker 1]
Here we go. Okay, nyentr depakachi, some of the groups which are nyentr.

[Speaker 2]
From the listeners.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, and that normally means like Abhidharma or something like that, okay? Like the lower groups. They say all the sumrab is nyentr.

[Speaker 2]
All the teachings of the Buddha are what he meant to say.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, anything the Buddha said, you can take it literally, okay? And they say, do this little piece.

[Speaker 2]
But, right, but?

[Speaker 1]
It is exactly a but with one T.

[Speaker 2]
Thank goodness for that.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, just read this tiny little piece here.

[Speaker 2]
But it's impossible that everything, no.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, they say it's impossible to have.

[Speaker 2]
It's impossible that he would speak figuratively.

[Speaker 1]
Good, yeah, it's impossible. That the Buddha would ever say something that he didn't mean. And when you think about it, when you think about it, you could have a big debate.

When Buddha simplified, or when Utpala simplifies her presentation because the audience is confused, well, isn't that also to be literal, Garin? I mean, it's not a stupid position. No, it's not.

Maybe it was just as intentional as the intentional stuff. It certainly was intentional. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
But that doesn't mean it's not figurative.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, exactly. It's intentional, but not figurative. I like that.

Okay, so some people say, look, everything the Buddha ever taught, we have to take it on face value. We have to take it literally. There's no such thing as Buddha simplifying something so much that it's technically wrong.

That's not possible. Now, other people, Kachi, let's read this next little piece.

[Speaker 2]
Kachi ka chung nyi kap yupar nduk do she.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, and some other people say, no, there's both, chung dun and nge min.

[Speaker 2]
There's both figurative and literal.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, so some people say, look, everything Buddha said was literal. And then some people say, no, some of what he said was literal, and some of what he said was figurative. Now, who describes the situation like this?

Okay, she means describing the situation in the Buddhist schools of the first thousand years after the Buddha, okay? Somebody's saying, look, some guys thought everything Buddha said was technically correct. And then some guys said, look, some of it's not technically correct.

He was just trying to simplify for people. Then who reports this situation? Toge Barwa.

This is called the blaze of reasoning. Toge means the logical method. It's a synonym for yaya against logic.

And there's a book called The Blaze of Reasoning, which is by, I forget, is it Bhavaviveka, you guys? I guess.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, Bhavaviveka.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, so who describes this situation where some Buddhist schools say, everything Buddha said was what he meant to say. And some Buddhist schools say, no, you have to learn to distinguish between what he meant to say and what he didn't mean to say. Who said that was the situation?

Well, Tsongkhapa said it, but somebody else said it one, how long, 700 years before him, in a book called The Blaze of Reasoning, okay? Let's read this next section.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, and all of those guys, Deidara Kamje, okay, also are trying to debate, what does it mean to be literal?

[Speaker 1]
What's the meaning of literal, okay? What does it mean to be literal? What's it mean?

And it means, DGRA GYI GZHIN DU GSUNG RUNG MI RUNG Can you take the Buddhist statements as something we should accept right away or not? That's the meaning of chung gi, the study of interpretation, okay? When you put the words literal and not literal together, when you put the two words literal and figurative together, you can translate it as the art of...

Reasoning. Interpretation. Interpretation.

The art of interpretation, okay? And somebody said, well, what do you mean art of interpretation? And says, well, can you take what he said, literally or not, is what we call the art of interpretation, okay?

[Speaker 2]
So, DGRA means DGRA GYI GZHIN DU? That means...

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, DGRA GYI GZHIN DU means literally.

[Speaker 2]
Means like what it sounds like or something? Means what it sounds like?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, exactly. Just what it sounds like, yeah. You can take the words at face value.

It means take the words at face value. Here, DGRA means words, okay? Can you take the words at face value?

And there's an interesting attempt to distinguish between literal and taking at face value. Some people try to distinguish between those, okay? So, that's another problem, okay?

But we're not going there.

[Speaker 3]
RUNG MI RUNG NI? Does that mean like appropriate by itself or not?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it means appropriate. Is it exactly appropriate or not? Or NI can also make it a noun.

Don't forget the appropriateness of taking it literal or not. You see what I mean? You can make a noun with NI.

It's like DA in Sanskrit, GZHIN DU DA. So, sometimes then you can just take it as making a noun, okay? So, they would say the meaning of interpretation, the meaning of the art of interpretation is whether or not you take it at face value, okay?

They make it a noun, okay? It's like a gerund, okay? Taking at face value or not, okay?

All right. And by the way, the next statement is radical, okay? You're ready?

Take a shot at it, Utpala.

[Speaker 2]
So, here we're talking about the Mahayana collection of teachings, right?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, and they say GA MA YIN.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, yeah, those are not the words of the Buddha.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, okay. So, don't forget he's still talking about NI and TS here. So, some lower schools say that everything the Buddha said was literal.

Some lower schools want to divide it into literal and not literal. But they all say that the Mahayana was not the word of the Buddha, okay? Now, Nick, what would you do if someone said that?

Write a book about it? Yeah, write a book called The 60 Verses. Write a book called The 60 Verses.

And Nick, what would be a clever strategy in that book? To show them that they actually already accept the ideas presented by the Mahayana through various methods. Yeah, yeah, okay.

Show those lower school guys that even if you just stick to the lower school sutras, you can still prove that the Mahayana exists. Whoa, okay? Isn't that so negligible, right?

By the way, Utpala, I went to Toge Baro. I tried to find anywhere where he described it, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
And there's two references, you know. Here's the easy one, okay? Can you read this line in the big letters?

[Speaker 2]
Sure.

[Speaker 1]
Which says?

[Speaker 2]
All of the- Sutras? Sutras- Are neither. Are neither.

Oh, sorry.

[Speaker 1]
You could take a literal. Yeah, all the sutras in the universe are literal, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Oh, all the sutras, okay.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, and that's the first position that was taken here, okay? So, I found that one for you in Toge Baro. There it is.

Your footnote can go there. But then he said something about- Here he says, Oh, gosh, all the sutras are figurative. Yeah, meaning all the Mahayana sutras.

So, that's kind of the second part here, okay? So, there's no place in Bhava Viveka where he specifically says the same wording that we see. But those are two sections where he discusses the question.

All right, here we go. Section 112, Utpala.

[Speaker 3]
Isn't Toge Baro contradicting our position, though, in saying that the lower schools would accept it as being figurative? That the lower schools would accept the greater way as figurative?

[Speaker 2]
Right, it's not figurative because it's not the words of the Buddha.

[Speaker 1]
Well, that's a nice point. Yeah, that's a nice point.

[Speaker 3]
Choney Lama argues about this in my book. He says that he thinks there, and he's vague about it, but he says it seems like there are some lower school people who accept the greater way scriptures as being spoken by the Buddha. But it's fuzzy.

[Speaker 1]
But would they say they are?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah, right, that's the question, isn't it?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I don't know. Okay, here we go. Utpala, and who's checking you again?

It's again in the moon.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Question mark?

[Speaker 1]
It should be check.

[Speaker 2]
Check. Mark, Mark.

[Speaker 1]
But. Okay. Deyang.

Depakche Ge. Deyang. This gay means to split up into parts.

So if we split the lower schools up into 18 parts, right? Sarvastivadin, et cetera, as discussed in Ben's text. Ben's text is one of the, his first book, is one of the few places where you see it really explained.

Okay, so if we follow this kind of, mm, ngepay chen ne. After they split up into 18 groups, chedak mawa, you got the detailist, and you got the suturist. Rang de means you got Buddhist groups called detailist, and you got Buddhist groups called suturist, okay?

And they say only the ngeng tu kyi de is tsem. Only the, this doesn't mean accurate perception. It means what?

Correct.

[Speaker 2]
Correct.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it means correct. Yeah, on the nose, on dot, right? They say only the teachings in the Abhidharma and the sutra schools are correct, okay?

And ngeng tu she, tanye chepa dak. And they, then they named themselves, we're the real listener. We're the only ones who are really listening to the Buddha.

Okay? They call themselves listeners. We're the only people who are really listening to Buddha.

Why? Because those chen chens, that's not even ka.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, that's not even those, the words.

[Speaker 1]
That's not the word of the Buddha. This is, and this is the Daini grammar case, right? Ka.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, as the words.

[Speaker 1]
Ka. Yeah, as the word, exactly. Perfect, nice.

So, you know, they don't even expect it.

[Speaker 3]
Because it's agama?

[Speaker 1]
Say it again?

[Speaker 3]
I'm sorry, sorry, say it again? Isn't tsema here accurate perception still because he's referring directly to agama?

[Speaker 2]
Agama? What's agama?

[Speaker 1]
No, here, tsema, when it's used with key limb, it's always going to mean like accurate or correct, correct teaching, okay? Correct teaching, okay? It doesn't here mean, yeah, you could say agama, but correct agama, okay?

Accurate agama, okay? The word, yeah. But tsema here is an adjective meaning correct, and it's not a noun meaning accurate perception, okay?

[Speaker 3]
Okay, especially because of the ladun particle? Exactly, exactly. Okay, thank you.

Okay.

[Speaker 2]
So, agama is Sanskrit for?

[Speaker 1]
It's really like ka, or, you know, accurate teaching, okay? Well, Ben was referring to the form of tsema, which is based on believing what someone said.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, but that's not what it means here. It just means they don't agree that the Mahayana is accurate, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
All right. Uh, but the word tsema, I have to say, Ben, is more than accurate when it's used that way. It feels more than the word accurate.

So, you have to find a word, you know, that's more accurate, that conveys higher than accurate, okay? Perfectly accurate or something like that. It has that feeling.

The word tsema and the word, I don't know, rungwa are different, you know? Rungwa means pretty accurate. Tsema means 100% accurate, okay?

So, when you translate, you might want to shade it that way. All right, here we go. Utpala.

Nick, what time does this class end?

[Speaker 2]
Never.

[Speaker 1]
Nine on the dot. Okay, because I understand our sponsor just showed up and I want to say hi to him, but let's finish this. Ngyen Thu.

[Speaker 2]
Ngyen Thu kyi jang chuk dun du nyer we, ngyen thu par shakpa, thud dok gi drang chuk pey shir gyur pey ngyen thu kyi thekpa... Thekpa wa dak, sorry. Thekpa wa dak, thek chen ka ma yin no shay, korpa nde par ka la nger gyur pey.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Sorry. This is a tough sentence, but it's, you know, get used to it because you're in a, you're in, you're out of the elementary school.

Now you're in university. Your last book was elementary school, okay? No, actually it was kind of advanced high school.

Anyway. Ngyen Thu kyi, it was pretty tough. Ngyen Thu kyi jang chuk dun du nyer we.

People who aspire to the enlightenment of the listeners, which refers specifically to the three traps. When you say jang chuk with ngyen thu, it means the five paths on the listener track as opposed to the five paths on the self-made Buddha track or the five paths on the Mahayana track. So when you talk about, and I remember asking Rinpoche about this expression because it confused the hell out of me.

How can you reach chang chung on a listener track? It's not possible. When you say that the listeners are aspiring to enlightenment on their track, it means lower nirvana, okay?

So you gotta understand that the word enlightenment here means a lower nirvana, okay? It means the fifth path on a lower track, okay?

[Speaker 2]
A lower nirvana or just nirvana?

[Speaker 1]
Yes. It's actually a lower nirvana, but they don't think so. They think it's the ultimate, okay?

So when you're on the listener track and you're looking ahead into the future, your future goal, you're looking at removing all your mental afflictions. That's all. And that track is called chang chung, okay?

So don't get confused.

[Speaker 2]
And removing your mental afflictions is not the definition of nirvana?

[Speaker 1]
No, that is, but- Okay, good.

[Speaker 2]
So I was thinking you're saying there's a lower nirvana and higher nirvana, but there's enlightenment and nirvana, right? Okay, thanks.

[Speaker 1]
By the way, who can tell me why this makes the expression that we find in Medicine Buddha, which we also finished yesterday. That long sutra was finished yesterday. Why do they keep saying in that sutra, sam yak sam buddha?

Why do they keep saying sam yak sam buddha? Somebody tell me. Self-made buddha, as opposed to self-made buddhas.

[Speaker 3]
Total and complete buddhahood. Total and complete.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, total, complete, and perfect buddhahood, okay? The translation is total, good, as opposed to this, quote, enlightenment. Quote enlightenment.

What's that mean? It's not a real enlightenment, okay? Got it, you guys?

So when you say dzogpe, yang dak bar dzogpe, sam yak sam buddha in the Medicine Buddha teachings, they're trying to say Mahayana-chak enlightenment, because there is a lower enlightenment. There's three enlightenments, and only one of them is real enlightenment. Got it, you guys?

It's very confusing, and I just saved you half an hour of confusion. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
By giving you a 40-minute explanation, anyway. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
Nyen tu kyi chak du dun rin re. Those who aspire to an enlightenment quote on the listener track, okay, that's what we call nyen tu.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, that's what we call listener.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that's what we mean. When we say listener, we mean people on a lower track who might not accept the Mahayana, okay? All right.

But, okay, ter dro, $50, ter dro. Oh, wait, I got the answer here in the English. Forget it.

Cancel that part. There's an idiom that's used to describe one kind of listener, which is ter dro, and that means they spread what they heard. Who can tell me what that means?

They can teach the Mahayana Dharma. But? But they can't practice it.

Good. They spread what they heard, but they're not attracted to it. So if you meet one of these guys, you say, hey, where'd you go today?

He says, oh, I went to a teaching by Lord Buddha. Oh, how'd you like it? I'm not a fan of it, but I don't like it.

Well, what did he talk about? And they can tell you perfectly, but they don't want to follow it, okay? So they're called listen and spread, ter dro, okay?

This is the dro in Dharpa, meaning famous, kirti, right? Like Lhasa Dharpa or Dawa Dharpa, Chandrakirti, okay? Sumatra Kirti, okay?

So if you take people who are called spreaders, right? Like virus spreaders, right? Now I'll ask you guys a question, okay?

Utpal, are you ready? If you went up to one of these guys and you said, are the Mahayana teachings spoken by the Buddha, what would they say? No.

Wait, where did they just come back from?

[Speaker 2]
Wait, they went to a Buddhist teaching and they said it's not worth practicing?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, listen, they went to a teaching by Lord Buddha. Then you met them on the road afterward and you said, where'd you go? And they said, I was at a teaching by Lord Buddha.

And you said, well, what did he teach? And they said, well, he taught this stupid thing called Mahayana, okay? Do you like it?

No. Can you tell me what it is? Yeah, I'll tell you everything he's done.

Now, if you ask that guy, is that the word of the Buddha, what's he going to say?

[Speaker 2]
Isn't he going to say Kama Yeno?

[Speaker 1]
No, he's going to say- Section Kama Yeno? No, he's going to say, Buddha said it, but I don't like it. So now you got two kinds of listeners, Utpala.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, okay. So you got the real, how can you call those Buddhists then? If they don't listen to the Buddhist teachings, consider them worth practicing?

[Speaker 1]
Every person who ever had a Lama is not a Buddhist.

[Speaker 2]
Well, probably not.

[Speaker 1]
Is it that they don't like the teachings? Is it that they dislike them or they cannot practice? They don't know.

So, Chunzang, what do you think they specifically object to in the Mahayana? Do they object to kindness or love? No, no.

So what do they object to? You can tell me.

[Speaker 3]
I guess we're talking the lower nirvana, nirvana, enlightenment.

[Speaker 1]
Or did you- No, no, no, take it to the pen. Take it to the pen. Take it to the pen.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, I'm not sure.

[Speaker 1]
Come on, I just went to a teaching. The teacher said the pen wasn't made in a factory and didn't come from oil, petroleum. They said the pen came only from me.

And then these nyantas, those kind of listeners say, come on, that's too much. Of course it came from a factory, it didn't come. Even the lower middle way wants to say, it came from a factory, but 50% is coming from me.

They still want to say that, you see what I mean? So- Thank you. Yeah, I think they object to the emptiness teachings.

Okay, all right. Okay, so K.W.J. says, these kind of listeners, how could they ever condemn the car? What's condemn?

Disrespect the word of the Buddha. Discount. Yeah, yeah, how could they say, how could they come back from the teaching of Lord Buddha and say, he taught Mahayana today.

He taught that the pen comes 100% from me, but I can't buy it, okay? Then, but they're not going to say, how can you say that they're going to say, there's no such thing as those teachings? You see what I mean?

K.W.J. means, how can you say, there's a kind of people who listen to the Mahayana, spread it to other people, and then say, Buddha didn't say it. It's not the word of the Buddha, okay? In the context, if you restrict yourself to the context of people who are passing on what they heard, but cannot practice it, how can you accuse them of saying, it's not the Buddha's teaching?

They can say, it's not the correct Buddhist teaching, but the question here is, whether it's car or not.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, whether it's the Buddha's teaching.

[Speaker 1]
But did it come out of the Buddha's mouth or not? So how can you ever say that listeners in that sense, who listen to what came out of the Buddha's mouth, are gonna say, it didn't come out of the Buddha's mouth. Come on.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Got it? So he's just saying, look, there's two kinds of listeners we're talking about here. Don't forget that one of them is called virus spreader.

They don't like the virus, but they spread it. Got it? It's a whole discussion.

All right. Well, let's do one more section here.

[Speaker 2]
DE LTA KYANG DE LTAR GUR PA NDEBS NA DRA BCOM PA MYONG MONG PA MA ROL PAR PHANG PA LTA KYANG MYONG MONG PA CHEN GYIS MI SHES PA'I KUN NI LANG BA'I CHOS PONG GYIS LAS SOGS PA YOD PAR DE LO Yeah, now if these guys even said that what the Buddha said is not emptiness, okay?

[Speaker 1]
If they reach the end of their track and they say what the Buddha said was emptiness was not emptiness, I'll ask you guys, can you reach the Chang-Chu of a listener? Can you reach the fifth path on the two lower tracks, self-made Buddha and listener track, without seeing emptiness directly?

[Speaker 3]
Not according to the higher school.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, they must have seen emptiness directly and they must have seen the correct emptiness directly, but they don't have bodhichitta. So don't tell me that they are underrating the emptiness teachings because they're not. Why?

Because they got to nirvana, okay? Got it? And they cannot SOGS PA, third line, the kind of karma where you have given up the Dharma.

It's not possible. They are arhats, okay? You would have to be saying, if they rejected emptiness by the time they got to an arhat on the lower track, then you'd have to be saying that an arhat still had karma.

What kind of karma?

[Speaker 2]
A negative emotion karma.

[Speaker 1]
Karma of rejecting the teachings, yeah, motivated by a lack of understanding of emptiness. Oh, did they reach nirvana on the lower track? Yes.

Did they see emptiness directly according to Tsongkhapa? They did, just as much as the Buddha does. Well, can they collect the karma, that special karma, which can only be collected by misunderstanding reality?

Come on, no, they can't, okay? They cannot collect the karma. They cannot collect the bad karma, which only comes from misunderstanding reality, okay?

Why? They're an arhat, they reached nirvana. They must've seen emptiness directly.

Yeah, but they're on a lower track. Come on, that's talking about their bodhicitta or not.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, okay.

[Speaker 1]
All right, we're going to redo a little piece that we did at the beginning. We got one more minute. This is to our sponsor.

We realized our sponsor just came on the call. We'd like to offer you this new book by Venerable Utpala and me worked on it together. This half of this 450 pages is the greatest teachings on emptiness from every school.

There are 38 presentations of emptiness here, 38 arguments on emptiness. 23 are correct and 15 are purposely wrong. And they teach you how to detect the wrong explanation of emptiness, which is very valuable to understand the correct explanation of emptiness.

So it's a very unbelievable method. 23 perfect arguments for emptiness from all four and a half schools. And then 15 wrong arguments from different kinds of schools.

And that's half of this book. This book, by the way, if you're not doing yoga, you could just buy this and get some exercise. It's about 10 pounds, okay?

And then half of this book, this is for our sponsor, is all the greatest books on how to meditate. So it's not talking about emptiness directly. It's how to sit down, what kind of room, what kind of clothes to wear, how to breathe, how to put your hands, how to put your lips, all of these incredible details.

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He debated with the East Chinese meditators. That debate is coming in here and it's unbelievable. And by the way, John Campbell and John Brady and Aisha from Guadalajara worked extremely hard and they got the whole Sanskrit put back together from Kamala Shila.

So we have the West Chinese language, but in this book, we have the whole Sanskrit of how to meditate. So if one of you guys was bored and didn't have enough to do, and I'm talking to a word, if there's somebody out there who really wants to learn Sanskrit, there's not a better book in the world than this book, because you've got every English word and every Sanskrit word and the Sanskrit perfectly matches the West Chinese language. So it's perfect.

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So the whole thing is here and it's great for exercise. I've been using it while I sit here and teach to get exercise. And we just want to offer it to our sponsor and to his assistants, Tangtang and Yi.

We really want to thank you. We want to thank Tim Lowenhaupt, who's helping to facilitate this whole thing with the support for the translators. And this book is offering to our sponsor.

Later on this week, I'm going to offer the sponsor, the Long Medicine Buddha Sutra was finished yesterday. It's totally complete and it's corrected according to the Chinese version, some mistakes. Okay, yay.

Okay, I'll see you guys in the evening. Nick, you have any last comments? Oh, that's just real quick.

Thank you. Thank you, Geshe Michael. Thank you so much, our dear sponsor, for helping us to get these books to come out.

I mean, this is all thanks to you. And we're very grateful for you. And so stay tuned if you would like to join Online Yoga.

We have a class with Alex Rivas today from 9.15 to 10.30. So starting really soon. Wait, Nick, is he going to sing during the yoga class? Because he's a great singer.

We better ask him to. Maybe he'll sing the poses. Down, down.

Maybe during, he could clone some Frank Sinatra. He's really good at that. He's also a fantastic translator.

And their team is translating everything into Spanish. With the support of Yali, Gibson, Emma, and the other, Emily, and the other people from Taiwan. They've been amazing support for many years.

And thank you for that. And Rosa Van Grieten. Okay.

And Alejandro and Inelda, yay. All right.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you, Geshe Michael. Please always continue to teach.

[Speaker 1]
Oh my God, we're having fun. So don't forget to come back at 4 p.m. Arizona time for more Nick's Nuts. And stick around for Alex's class.

Is it four o'clock, Nick, for sure? Four to seven, yeah, for sure. Let me just check here.

Three hours.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, you're right.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, see you there. Yeah.