Бетси Грир — Книга 2: Интерлюдия о пустоте, занятие 38

[Speaker 1]
But I got to listen to Dave Brubeck twice. I just saved a bundle on my car insurance. I got the better deal on that one.

[Speaker 2]
Car insurance can be expensive.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, the increase in car insurance costs is just incredible when I'm a very safe driver. That's what you say. No, I'm just kidding.

I'm sure you are. That's what everyone says. Yeah, exactly.

So maybe we should just get started since it's been 10 minutes. I think that that's generally the thing to do. Let's do it.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, so here is the quiz for Class 2. Hey, I got a question for you, Upala. Yes.

What is this and what is this? They look like things you don't want to eat on the right and something you do want to eat on the left.

[Speaker 2]
So much so that it's no longer recognizable.

[Speaker 1]
This is the milk, this is the water, and I'm the goose. Okay, go ahead. Okay, so this is going to be tough.

So pull out your notes. Right. Put on your thinking caps.

Okay. Don't see your screen. Somebody's having trouble seeing yourself.

If they can't see my screen, I don't know what to say. Yes, I can. Is there anyone else who cannot see my screen?

I think we can see your screen. Is there anyone who can give technical assistance to the person who cannot see their screen? Now it's okay.

Now it's okay. Okay, cool. All right, here we go.

So as a review, please describe what a Gakja is, and especially vis-a-vis emptiness. Vis-a-vis.

[Speaker 2]
I think the waiter is going to say, I'm sorry, we only take MasterCard. MasterCard.

[Speaker 1]
I mean, in what school? I'm going more broad than that. More generally than that.

We're not at school level. But what Nick said, Nick said it perfectly. I didn't hear him.

No. The thing emptiness is empty of, or what's being denied when we talk about emptiness. The thing that is denied.

And then when we talk about emptiness, in a general sense that all Buddhist schools agree, what is the Gakja? The thing that has the nature that we're denying exists. So it would be the impossible way of existing.

That is self-existence, or existing by nature, or existing by definition. Yeah. Whatever your definition happens to be, right?

Right. All Buddhist schools agree in the lack of self-existence. Of what exactly and precisely how?

We're not talking about that. What self-existence means is, I guess, what's debated, right?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. They may or may not agree that things exist by definition.

[Speaker 1]
Right. Right. Okay.

So, each of my questions has three parts. Is the Gakja of any importance to us? Why or why not?

It is important to us to understand what it is, because we need to identify it in order to deny it. Great. And that's what your book said.

Great. Anyone else? It's the thing that we are trying to get liberated from.

So therefore, it's really important if we want to get liberated. Yeah. Anybody else?

No, those are good things. I'm not saying they're not good things. There are multiple reasons why.

But first, as Nick said, we have to know first what its presence is, or would be if it could exist, before we can say it's not there. It's not enough for us to just say, oh, the Gakja is the lack of the absence of self-existence. That will not be helpful in the least.

Wait, what? It would not be helpful to say the lack of the absence of self-existence, that that's what the Gakja is.

[Speaker 2]
No, that would be wrong.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
If it were the lack of the absence of self-existence, then there would be self-existence.

[Speaker 1]
Exactly, that's what the Gakja is. Self-existent thing.

[Speaker 2]
Right, so there shouldn't be a lack of a Gakja, or we've got a real problem.

[Speaker 1]
No, the lack of the absence. On purpose, using double negatives. Okay.

So why isn't it helpful? Because you're going to go meditate on the lack of a lack. I think I've tried.

Yeah, okay. It wasn't very fruitful. And also, what Word said that I didn't have, but then I think another important reason that I thought of was that each Buddhist philosophical school has, it defines the absence of self-existence in different ways, therefore each school has a different Gakja.

And our clear understanding of each school's position is extremely beneficial to our personal practice as we actually have these different kinds of misunderstandings about things during our day-to-day life, and then also to our correct understanding of the highest school's position. If we say that we give up the Gakja, I mean the idea of the importance of the Gakja, do we give up the two truths, the system of the two truths? If you give up the importance of the Gakja, you probably give up any hope of reaching enlightenment.

Does that help? What I want to know is, is it part of the two truths?

[Speaker 2]
No, it's got to be neither, because the two truths exist, and Gakjas don't. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Can anyone give me the correct spelling of Gakja in Tibetan? One at a time, please. I'm sorry, one at a time, please.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, I'm not sure if that's how it was. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good. Okay, second question, three parts. K.J. says that the mistake in our mental perception of something and how we take it to be is relatively straightforward to describe. And, you know, if we do that, we understand the lack of a self-teacher to things. What does he say about the relative ease with which we can describe the mistake of our sense power perceptions? Much harder.

Right. It's very difficult to get a good picture in our minds of the mistake in the sense perceptions, because even when the eye sees colors and shapes, that perception is mistaken. But what exactly is the impossible thing that the eye perceives?

We don't see how what we see is mistaken, where we can sort of figure out where we're making a mistake in our mental thinking. Please give the phrase for the difficulty of getting, in Tibetan, the difficulty of getting a good picture of the object.

[Speaker 3]
Right.

[Speaker 1]
Good job. Question three. K.J. then helps us understand what the gaccha is that the sense power is perceived by giving a quote from Master Asanga. What does that quote say?

[Speaker 3]
Before the name, there's no perception. Is that it?

[Speaker 1]
Close. I don't think it's perception. Is it perceiver or something?

Before it is given the name, there is no idea of it. Yeah, yeah. Nice.

What is the Tibetan translation of before it is given the name, there is no idea of it? Starts with ming.

[Speaker 2]
Mingde tatsang. Mingging ngaro lome chir. Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Mingging ngaro lome. What's happening?

[Speaker 2]
Oscar. Nice. Hey, Oscar.

Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
And then lastly, what does Choney Lama say about Master Asanga's verse in his commentary to the Diamond Cutter Sutra that helps us?

[Speaker 2]
Do you remember?

[Speaker 1]
Okay, so he explained the verse by saying that whatever thing we might consider, whatever it is, we don't think of the thing as the name we call it before we give it a name. And this is true because even if there's only one thing we're talking about, that one thing could have a number of different names. For example, the word for the name in different languages.

And then B, we often refer to many different things with the same name. For example, all the individuals on the planet with the family name Chen. But which I understand there's like 2 million or something like that.

Thank you.

[Speaker 2]
Cool.

[Speaker 1]
So now we will go to my attempt at translation. So I did one more than you asked for because I did one less previously, but also because I thought it would be a... You had just asked me to do these latter two.

I thought we should set the stage with the one before it because it's how it starts. How does an appearance may enable by thought... ...appear to a non-conceptual sense of purpose? Okay, good. Yeah, good. I have one small suggestion.

The hard part, I think, is perfect. That's one of those... I think...

Oh, I just say enchanted... Can I refer to the horse or to the person who's under the enchantment? Is the person enchanted or the...

The person.

[Speaker 2]
Yes, the person is enchanted and maybe the stick.

[Speaker 1]
Or you could say enchantment horse. I don't know. Okay, good.

Why? Because the magically induced horse... Yeah, okay, good.

Here's the thing, okay? Here's the thing. Do you misperceive...

When you look at a... I don't know. When you look at a coffee cup, do you misunderstand its relationship to its name?

You see? Do you take it to be a coffee cup naturally? Yeah.

So you are misunderstanding the nature of the coffee cup. Can I say it? Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
And there's an impression that you were given that it's wrong.

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Right? Now, he says something interesting. And don't forget, as Utpala said in her homework, we're discussing the very difficult question of how exactly does the thing appear to you the wrong way?

Because... Here's the punchline. If you think the cup should have been called cup, then it means the cup is suggesting to you that it should have been called cup.

But if the fact that it should have been called cup is wrong, it doesn't exist. How can you be misled by something that doesn't even exist? How can there be some appearance coming from the coffee cup which suggests to you that the coffee cup should have been called coffee cup naturally, okay?

If it's not there. How can you be misled by a mirage which is not there? You see what I mean?

If the impression coming from the cup, that it should have been called cup naturally, is misleading you, which is what you guys said, then if that appearance is wrong, then that doesn't even exist. Then the coffee cup is not kunzop dempa. It's not a misleading reality.

Because it's not sending you any messages. Because those messages don't exist. So how can a message that doesn't exist affect your mind?

[Speaker 2]
It's like that.

[Speaker 1]
Then we say, if it's impossible for something to send you a wrong message, then the whole discussion of the magic show and the horse should never have taken place. Because no horse would have been appearing to anybody. Got it?

If the horse doesn't really exist, but it's appearing to everybody as a horse, according to you, nobody in the audience should have run away. Why? The horse didn't exist.

Okay, got it? So the question is, does the impression of a horse being there exist? And he's saying, well, how could you have an impression if there's no horse?

How could it create an impression? It's not there. It can't do anything.

That's his argument. All right. PHYAR MI SRID PAR BRTAL PHYAR MI SRID PAR BRTAL means it could never have appeared to you.

See? LTA LANG GI SNANG BA The appearance of a horse running at you could never have struck your mind because there's no horse. All right, next paragraph.

It's kind of cool. Okay, well, then you have to describe... Yeah, good.

Who's talking? This other guy. Yes, you put it in italics.

Thank you. Well, then you have to describe one. DBANG GZHAN LA GZUGS NGON DANG KHYAD PA KYI THAN GYI GYI GZHIR SNANG BA All right.

How, if it's a performer of such, appears to essentialize as a basis of the word's essential nature. GZHAN LA GZUGS NGON DANG KHYAD PA KYI THAN GYI GZHIR Yeah, okay. Okay, good.

Two, how moreover it appears that it exists in that definition. DE YANG RANG KYI TSIN GYI GYI GYI GYI PHANG NYAM BAR LA Good. How it is defined as the basis of the contextual home of LTA LANG GI SNANG BA Good.

GZHAN LA GZUGS NGON DANG KHYAD PA KYI THAN GYI GYI GYI GZHIR Nice, it's all good. Okay. Good.

And I just threw these guys in for fun. Dave Brubeck, take five. Okay.

There was something I wanted to say. Oh, it's interesting if you know the language. LTA LANG GI SNANG BA Oh, I can do that again.

It's interesting if you understand the language. LTOG PA'I THAG BSAM To exist in name only. In the lower schools, it means the thing cannot exist.

Okay. If you say the fact that the coffee cup is appearing to be naturally called coffee cup is appearing to you, in these lower schools they say that's just a figment of your imagination. That's just something made up by your imagination.

And then in the highest school they say, God bless, that's something made up by your imagination. So therefore it's real. They have a lot of problems with that.

They bitterly deny it. To say that things are a creation of your mind in the lower schools is to say it's not real. You tell your husband, I wasn't criticizing you.

That's just something that is in your head. And then he says, oh, okay. And then if he's Madhyamika, he'll say, well, then it's real.

It's funny. The same language is an anathema to one school and it's a savior to the other school. Anyway, here we go.

Nice homework, Buddhpala. Let's go here. Okay, we finished that one.

Finished that one. Now that guy said, if you are being misled by an appearance that's coming off of the object, and if that appearance is mistaken, then what's misleading you? It's not even there.

It's the same as a fish that flies. You know what I mean? Around the world or something.

It just don't exist. How can it mislead you if it's totally non-existent? How can it mislead you?

If it was never there, how can it take you the wrong way? Okay. And we say, hey!

Sheparjate! Please! Who am I picking on?

Oh! You want to try? You want to criticize somebody?

It's fun. Okay, come sit next to me. This is Bob Serino, the master of YSI.

Hi, Bob. Hello. Let's see.

Let's make sure. Where are you? There you go.

Okay, he's going to correct you, Udpala. I told him to just criticize every third syllable. Okay.

Sheparjate. Ditar. Avya, right?

Ja. Nice.

[Speaker 2]
Good, Bob. Good, Bob.

[Speaker 1]
Ketles. Not less. La.

Le.

[Speaker 2]
Le.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Dela gen gi wang. Gen. Gen gi wang gi nseni gang.

Seni gang. Seni gang, Shena. Oh, sorry.

Gan kunshi arampar. No. Arampar.

Nampar shepar. Nampar shepar. Nampar shepar la sabun ken.

Sabun. Chen. Chen.

Chen. Yeah. Yipa yang dakpa ma yinpa.

Yipa yang dakpa ma yinpa. Sabun ken yang dakpa. Oh, I'm sorry.

I messed it up. Sabun ken yang dakpa ma yinpa. Kun tok.

Oh, I was reading tenger there. Sorry. Kun tu tok pa du su pa.

Nampar rikpao. Nice. Good job.

All right. Thanks, Bob. Shepar jat de.

Hey, let me tell you about that. Dittar, here's how it is. What's tektu?

It's a Mahayana samgraha. Yeah, summary of the great way. Which is a classic mind-only ancient book.

My master, a sangha. de la shen gyi wang gi tsen ni. I'll tell you, I don't know about you, but when they say shen gyi wang for shen wang, I sometimes get confused.

Sometimes I don't recognize it as shen wang. So, what is shen wang venerable Upala? It is very, you know, generally a changing thing.

Something under the power of something else. Good. Meaning all the changing things in the universe, okay?

Or all the functioning things in the universe. shen gyi wang, shen wang, tsen ni. What's the tsen ni of shen wang?

The sign of a changing thing. Or definition. Give me the definition.

He says, anybody want to know what's the definition of shen wang? One of the three groups is in the mind-only school. What's in that group?

Changing things. They're called shen wang, at the mercy of others, because the result is at the mercy of the cause. So it means all cause things.

Let's take the group called all cause things. What's the definition of all cause things? kang kun shik gi nubar shepa la ser ben chen That thing which has a relationship to the kunshi, that it has its seeds in the kunshi.

Can we say that? No, that doesn't make sense. Which has a relationship to kunshi such that it holds its seeds?

Anything which has a relationship to the refrigerator in your mind. What? What relationship?

Its eggs are laid there. The seeds for it are laid there. That makes sense.

That's a changing thing. Is yupa part of the definition, Geshe-la? No, it's a comma here.

After ser ben chen you mean? Yeah, yeah. It's a consciousness that holds...

Now a whole other thought. Geshe-la, can I ask about that one? Okay.

We were just on. Could it be that thing which has... I don't know where...

I don't see relationship to... That thing...

[Speaker 2]
It's a lot.

[Speaker 1]
That thing whose seeds are present in the kunshi. The kunshi consciousness? Yeah.

Okay. The foundation consciousness consciousness? Yeah.

That thing... No, no. We're repeating it.

Kunshi means foundation consciousness, and nampar shepa means consciousness. Oh, that's the full name of it. Oh, that's the full name of it.

Yeah, that's kunshi's full name. Alaya Vijnana or something. Yeah, that's kunshi's full name.

Okay, that thing which possesses its own seeds, laying in the kunshi consciousness, is one of how many in the Mind Only School? Three. No.

Oh, I'm sorry. Eight. Eight.

[Speaker 2]
Eight.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. It has its eggs in the kunshi, okay? Oh, God.

And... It's a... YOD PA YANG RTAG PA MA YIN PA KUN DU RTOG PA'I DUG PA'I NAM PAR NI PHO YOD PA...

The kunshi is... Can we say? Sabin Chan...

He wants to read it. The tengyur, okay? The tengyur says, kunshi nampar shepa, which has sabins, and is YOD PA MA YIN PA.

Okay? The tengyur, which I favor here, says, kunshi... It lives in the kunshi, which is itself the place where seeds are stored, and which is YANG RTAG PA MA YIN PA.

[Speaker 2]
It's not pure.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it's not pure, okay? So, it has a relationship to kunshi. What is kunshi?

It's a consciousness. What can we say about it? It has seeds, it holds seeds, and it is not pure.

Okay? Why is it not pure? It's tokpe taktong.

[Speaker 2]
It only exists through conception.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it's only conceptual. It exists only conceptually. And in this school, that means it doesn't really exist.

Tokpe taktong? Where's that?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, kun du tokpe.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, in the IE. I don't have this version. Darn it.

I'm proposing reading kun du tokpe as tokpe taktong. Yeah. It is a state of mind, nam parikpa, which is simply tied up with imaginary objects, basically.

Are they implying kun tak? Yeah, they are. But it means a totally different thing in this school.

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

So now you can think of sen yi as basic nature. What's the basic nature of shen wangs? They have a relationship to the kun shi.

What? Their seeds lie in the kun shi. They come out of their seeds in the kun shi.

That kun shi is the troublemaker. YANG DRAG PA MA YIN PA Why? In a sense, it exists only by imagination.

Okay? The kun shi itself. Okay?

In this school, that means it's not real.

[Speaker 2]
What school exists?

[Speaker 1]
Kun shi? No.

[Speaker 2]
Well, in my normal group.

[Speaker 1]
Sen yi?

[Speaker 2]
Kun shi is my normal group?

[Speaker 1]
Mainly, yeah. 99%. Yeah.

Let's go on and see if it helps, okay?

[Speaker 2]
The dupe nampa rupa, is this like mind is collecting those things with an idea?

[Speaker 1]
It is a state of mind which is subsumed by imagination. Like included within imaginary things? Yeah.

When you have instrumental with dupa, it's like that, okay? If you took all the imaginary things in the world, it's taken in by them. Okay?

Kun shi. It's a fake state of mind, okay?

[Speaker 3]
What is a fake state of mind?

[Speaker 1]
Kun shi. Oh, boy. We were defining shen wang.

Kun shi is a kun tak? That's what it says here.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, that's terrible.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. I'm sorry if I'm more confused than everybody else, but we were defining shen wang. Shen wang is anything that has its cause in the kun shi.

Yeah, by the way, if he asks what is the basic nature of shen wang, okay? If you answer it's a number rupa, you're already wrong. Uh-huh.

Okay? So it can't mean that. The sentence cannot mean that.

Why is that wrong? Because shen wang includes potato chips and physical stuff.

[Speaker 2]
But that's only a part of your mind pretending to be potato chips?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. There's no external object. Come on.

Right, hence the name.

[Speaker 2]
Is the refrigerator taking on the shape of potato chips under the influence of the contents of the refrigerator? Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
No, there's no refrigerator because it's a state of mind.

[Speaker 2]
Right.

[Speaker 1]
But it seems even more problematic if part of how they're defining shen wang is that it's caused by a kun tak. Here it's included into all the kun taks in the universe, something like that. Kind of can't be right.

Yeah, the shen wang is supposed to be different from a kun tak. Well. Well.

Shen wangs are real and kun taks are not. There's a lot of stuff in the world that's changing in the mind-only school, right? All the things in the world which perform a function are shen wangs.

Kun qi is part of shen wangs, but it's not the only. The mind-only school still talks about suk. They still have the word suk, right?

[Speaker 2]
But there are no outer objects, and what appears to be outer objects are only the kun qi nampar shepa taking on the form of an outer object.

[Speaker 1]
You could say that.

[Speaker 2]
So shen wang is nampar shepa.

[Speaker 1]
I'm trying to come up with a shen wang which is not nampar shepa. You could say that. You could say that.

I don't think it's the point here, but you could say that. Right. Let's go on and see, okay?

We could read the context if you want. Would a pak shak be a shen wang that isn't nampar shepa?

[Speaker 2]
Oh, boy.

[Speaker 1]
A pak shak would be a shen wang that's not nampar shepa.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, my God.

[Speaker 1]
Ben, because only outer things appear.

[Speaker 2]
So the kun qi doesn't have two parts, the refrigerator and the contents?

[Speaker 1]
It does.

[Speaker 2]
And one of those two parts being the contents are the pak shaks?

[Speaker 1]
No, it's sabun chen. It holds the sabun.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, so the refrigerator holds the sabun, or the refrigerator holds the refrigerator? What's the contents of the refrigerator that's not the part of the kun qi that's the refrigerator?

[Speaker 1]
Quotation itself says kun qi nampar shepa possesses the sabun.

[Speaker 2]
Right, so the refrigerator part of the kun qi holds the other part of the kun qi, which is what's the other part of the kun qi that's not the part that holds it?

[Speaker 1]
More refrigerator.

[Speaker 2]
Couldn't be pak shaks, that's for sure.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. I don't know if you want to read the whole section. I do.

No. Well, let me give you the context of this quotation and maybe it will help. ,ZHES BYAS TSE NYID, JI LTAR LTA BAR BYA ZHES NA, How shall we see the defining characteristics of ZHES BYAS, of existing things?

Okay. Well, that can be divided into three types. There's shenwangs, there's kuntaks, and there's yongdrups.

These three... Here, TSE NYID means one of the three characteristics of the mind of wisdom. Probably what it meant back here.

I was just wondering.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
This means what... The question then changes to what is the characteristic of the mind-only school called shenwang? Okay.

It doesn't have anything to do with definition. Okay. What is the...

This TSE NYID just refers to the three characteristics of the mind-only school. Can you describe the characteristic of the three characteristics of the mind-only school, which is changing things? Can you describe it?

Here he says everything in the universe, all ZHES BYAS, can be divided into shenwangs, changing things, kuntaks... What's that? Mental constructs.

Yeah. Especially false ones. And yongdrups.

All false ones. And yongdrup. We haven't come up with a good one.

We've used established reality, we've used totality, we've used... Well, let's call it the fact that changing things are actually devoid of what we imagined about them. How's that?

That's kind of long. That's nice. Characteristic number one.

Characteristic number three equals... Can we say that? Shenwangs minus kuntaks.

Something like that. The fact that shenwangs are devoid of kuntaks is yongdrup. The fact that all changing things are devoid of imaginary self-existent things is emptiness in the mind-only school.

Then somebody says, Well, what is shenwang? Now I misunderstood the tsenyi. He says, Can you describe the characteristic called changing things?

kang kun chi Oh, by the way, the Tengyur reads it differently. And I think it's correct. kang kun chi number shepa sal min chen By the way, Tsongkhapa sometimes used alternate translations before the translations were finalized.

And he sometimes prefers the alternate to the one that won out. kang kun chi number shepa sal min chen yang dap ma yinpa kun togpay dukpay nabarikpa What is the characteristic of the three characteristics of the mind-only school, which is changing things? kun togpay dukpay nabarikpa Here he says it is the state of mind.

Is it only the state of mind? Oh, Ben's position, yes. Which is taken in by imagination.

It's somehow false. yang dap ma yinpa And it possesses sabans, right? It holds the seeds, right?

Let's see where he goes from there, okay? And let's see if it helps. Wait, you jumped to...

You jumped... I didn't hear you include kun chi there. Let's just go on, okay?

Yeah, I think he's going to describe why he used that quotation. This is cute. Oh, look, shepa kun chi nabarikpa This...

Say again? Oh, yeah. This quote about kun chi.

That's good. He's going to gloss it for you, okay? kun chi nam she la Can you read?

shepa kun chi nam shes la yu pe bak chak ki wangi yu yang dap pa ma yinpa te shin chi lo ki nang tsu yu pe yang dap ma yin kun tok ki nam rik nam rik pe... Oh, sorry. shin wangi tso war tenay te tabway nam rik gi bye wa ye wa, shepa na Yeah.

Now we're getting into this word nam rik, okay? It's extremely difficult. And it's going to play a major role throughout the next few pages.

Okay? And there's many versions of it. And somehow it indicates a false impression or something like that.

Is a false impression mental? Or is it what appears to the mind? Let's call it a false impression, okay?

For now. Okay? But...

the mind-only school is sometimes called nam rik pe duk tar. Mentalist.

[Speaker 2]
Mentalist.

[Speaker 1]
Right.

[Speaker 2]
Vichini Anavadins.

[Speaker 1]
Vichini Lama in particular. Yeah, and in that case... And by the way, it's used earlier in that text once.

He refers to mind only as nam rikpas. So in that case, nam rik means simply the mind. But in this discussion, for the next few pages, it's kind of crossing over between the mind and the false image appearing to the mind.

Okay? And don't forget why we're having this discussion. He says, you're supposed to be explaining to us how our physical senses can be fooled.

And then we say, well, there's something appearing to your physical senses which is not real. And then he says, if it's not real, how can it fake me out? Then why shouldn't it be just a rabbit with two horns?

You know, it's the same ontological status. If they can't do anything because it doesn't exist, how can it give me a false impression? Okay?

Yeah, that's a good question. That's pretty cool, yeah. It's a great question.

It's a great question. It is a great question. So anyway, namrik means...

Namrik here, namrik is sometimes used as a name for the mind-only school, the mentalist school. But in this conversation here, it doesn't mean that. It kind of means the false impression.

Okay? The false impression. And there's like 20 of them.

Okay? If you're interested here, there's a list down here. Look.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, okay? Eight, nine, 10, there's 12 namriks, okay? And they're all false impressions.

It's not just simply cognition? No, it's not just cognition. It means a perception in the sense of a false perception.

He has a perception that I don't like him, but it's not correct. Okay. He has some kind of perception.

So it's an innocent word, perception. But if it's used in a certain context, it means a false perception. He has some idea that I'm trying to hurt him, but I'm not.

In that case, idea means a false impression, right? Generally, ideas are good. You can create iPhones.

Okay, so anyway. Okay. ,'KHUN BYIN RNAM SHES LA YOD PA'I BA CHAG GI RANG GI, Due to the power of the impressions, imprints, which are present in the storehouse consciousness, okay?

Due to the impressions that are present in storehouse consciousness, ,YUL YANG DAG MA YIN PA STE, the object takes on a mistaken appearance. Okay? The object takes on a mistaken appearance.

It seems to then... It takes on an appearance which is completely mistaken, suggesting to you something mistaken. Okay?

And the other guy's objection still holds, right? If it doesn't exist, how can it... If it doesn't exist, how can it sway my thinking?

,CHIN GYI LOG GI NANG ZHEL YOD PA'I YANG DAG MA YIN, ,CHIN GYI LOG GI NANG ZHEL YOD PA'I YANG DAG MA YIN, ,KHUN TOGS KYI RNAM RIG, And here, RNAM RIG means a mental impression, which is simply a construct, which is not correct. Okay? An incorrect appearance, all right?

Which appears... Sorry. Which appears mistaken, or...

I'm sorry. This is... Which possesses a misleading appearance.

How's that? Okay. Okay.

And now he's saying that... He's kind of implying that there's a correct object out there, and then because of the messed-up bok choks in your mind, what appears to you is a messed-up impression. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And the other guy's objection... Wait, wait, wait.

I thought we were saying the object itself had the problem.

[Speaker 2]
He didn't say anything about the object out there so far in this sentence.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. The perception, the mental perception of the object is influenced by this rotten, stinky kun chi. Is that what we're saying?

Yeah. No.

[Speaker 2]
No?

[Speaker 1]
No. The object is messed up by the rotten, stinky kun chi. The innocent object, which is just a coffee cup or something, there's something...

There's a mistaken impression between it and our mind.

[Speaker 2]
Some kind of... Yep? You asked, right, in a mistaken idea, are we talking about mind or are we talking about a conception?

But it seems like you need both, right? You need two to tango, right?

[Speaker 1]
It's about a sense perception. There's no idea. There's no thought.

There's no...

[Speaker 2]
But if you have a nam rik of a kun par tok pa, if you have an awareness of an idea, which is impure by telling you that things are different than they are, and that's forced upon you by a bak cha, then you have an awareness that's focused on an idea that's wrong due to the arising of a bak cha.

[Speaker 1]
Well, yeah, you could say that. But that's not the main point here. The point is you're looking at something which is an innocent coffee cup.

He didn't do anything wrong. And then somehow, between your eye and the coffee cup, an interceding impression, nam rik, which is mistaken, that impression consists of thinking the coffee cup had to be called a coffee cup. So that false impression has inserted itself between your sense perception and the coffee cup.

And that's lying to you. The coffee cup is innocent. The coffee cup, he's not...

He got his name. He's happy he got his name. He's grateful to have a name.

He's not lying about his name. He's just... It was called coffee cup by somebody.

They'll take that. But somehow there's a false impression that has inserted itself between your eye and the coffee cup. And that false impression is floating towards your eye and misleading your eye.

And the other guy says, if it's wrong, it doesn't exist. If it doesn't exist, how can it affect your ideas? How can it lie to you if it doesn't?

Then it's the same as rabbit horns. Oh, rabbit horns inserted themselves between me and the coffee cup. They're hurting me.

He's like, that's the same thing. They don't exist. How can you say that the rabbit horn got between you and your coffee cup and your eyeball and stuck you in the eye?

He's like, it doesn't even exist. How can it do anything? Okay, got it?

Then we're going to be discussing nam rig, which is that false impression. And here I just want to say, it's not the same nam rig that you see in nam rigpa, which means mindfulness. That means mental list, nam rigpa, school.

This is shaping up. The more I read it, the more you read it, it's shaping up as the false impression. kun tog kyim nam rig.

The imaginary perception. Okay, got it? And it's yang dak mayin.

There's something wrong with it. It's messed up. Yang dak mayin, it's messed up.

Kun tog kyim, it's imaginary. And it's nam rig. It's an impression, mental impression.

And it's chen shi lo. It triggers a mistaken perception. Sorry, mistaken nangwa, a mistaken appearance.

Cool?

[Speaker 2]
You've got this huge note here. Is nam rig shen wang a single phrase here?

[Speaker 1]
Well, my note to myself is that the more I read this section... By the way, I'll show you a game you can play with yourself. Look up the word nam rig in this conversation.

It will turn yellow. You see what I mean? It will turn yellow.

And it becomes very important here. And it's not just perception. It's mistaken perception here.

The school is called perceptualists, perceptionists. The minority school is called nam rigpa. But I don't mean that here.

Here it means a mistaken impression. And I made a note to myself because I have a problem here. Nam rig means mind.

Rigpa means mind. Rigpa, yul, lo, shepa, dun je. From Adam's text.

They're all synonyms for mind. Rigpa means mind, with no S. Rigpa means mind.

When they say that something cannot be mind, you guys now well-trained translators, when I say, for example, mental seeds are not the mind itself. They live in the mind, but they are not made of mind. What do I say next?

Because they don't perceive stuff. They don't see stuff. They're not aware.

Are mental seeds physical or mental? Neither. How come they're not physical?

Well, there's a billion of them on the tip of a pin. They don't crowd each other out. Otherwise your head would explode when you hit 30 or something.

They can't be physical, but neither are they mental, and the reason is they don't perceive things. They don't see blue. They don't see anything.

They don't think anything. They are not alive. They are not alive.

They are a potential. They are a potential. But in this conversation, the word nam rig is kind of referring to the object and not the state of mind.

And I just made a note to myself because it got more and more confusing when I was trying to think of this mind.

[Speaker 2]
It seems, though, if you say kundoki nam rig, it's okay. It's just the nam rig that's looking at the kundok. It's an instance of mind that's looking at this.

[Speaker 1]
No, kundok here is a state of mind. We're out of time. By the way, Ben, kundok and kundok is different.

[Speaker 2]
Right, but this is still kundok. Nampartokpa is still a conception, is still an idea, and if there's a state of mind associated with that idea, then why not the mind that is looking at that idea?

[Speaker 1]
That would be nam rig kundok.

[Speaker 2]
The kundok's mind, I mean, nam rig kundok, doesn't any existing thing have to have a state of mind that sees it?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, no, it doesn't mean that, yeah. Okay. Because the whole conversation is about looking at coffee cups.

Yeah, yeah. The whole conversation is about the horse, the piece of wood appearing as a horse. You see what I mean?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, but in this case, aren't you looking at the wrong idea which is causing the coffee cup to appear to you, Junji Lo, backwards?

[Speaker 1]
No.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah. That would be nam rig kundok or something like that. And by the way, is kundok equivalent to kundtok?

No, it's not. That spelling is different, and in fact, the tok in kundtok is misspelled throughout all these books. Right.

It's B-T-A-G-S. It's not B-R-T-A-G? No.

Oh. That's a misspelling, and they never got over it. That's the past tense of ikalpa.

You see, ikalpa latte, it's weird. It's weird that no one caught it, you know. Kundtok, B-T-A-G-S, means imputed by the mind.

That's the correct spelling, and they all got, many, many scholars got it wrong in the native text. I suggest we start up here next time. Okay?

I think we got to start here again. So we did nothing. Okay.

So what should I do for homework for next time? Don't get stumped. You're working.

I'm sorry? When you get stumped, you're working. I know.

Well, I haven't been working. You guys have been working. When you understand everything is when you're in trouble.

If you really want to translate something, I'm going to give you something. I would start here. Okay?

In a sangha. Shejay. Okay, here.

Page 214. Last slide. Oh, we have far different page numbers.

Could you show me the context? Could you go up a little bit? Oh, it's Bampo is where it starts?

Bampo, Nipa, yeah. Okay, great. And how far?

Let me see how far to translate from here. Okay. Let me think about it.

Let me see.

[Speaker 2]
Wow.

[Speaker 1]
Down to Kiwi number. Okay. Okay.

Thank you, Geshe-la. Okay, don't worry. We'll figure it out.

The main, again, the main thing to remember is that if I'm being fooled by things, that means a false impression is coming from the thing to my eye. And if that false impression is false, it doesn't have any real existence. If it doesn't have any real existence, how can it fool me?

Okay, that's all. That's all. Focus on that.

Okay? And we're trying to answer the guy. Okay?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, okay.

[Speaker 1]
All right, we'll do it more next time. How much time we got, Uncle Nick? Thank you, Geshe-la.

Well, it's one minute to one. My class was supposed to start, so can we just do a five-minute break? Yeah, and I can run over on your class.

It's okay. By the way, I'd like to announce that we have a musical interlude tonight. So if you're...

Yay, those are great. Pizza on the final night before our massive two-day vacation, in which we take a rest and don't do any work. Except those of us who have to translate.

Yeah, so Hasa's going to play us a song. Okay, see you. Thank you, Geshe-la.

Thank you, Paula. Thank you, all. That was cool.

That was too much. Thank you, Mind Only School, maybe. Thank you, Ariasaga.

[Speaker 2]
Hey, Bob.

[Speaker 1]
You guys are awesome. You're my heroes. See you guys in a few minutes.

I'll start my quiz in, like, five minutes, and then if you guys are still doing stuff. Oh, Hasa. Make sure it's two.

Thank you, Geshe-la.

[Speaker 2]
You're welcome. Are you leaving? I'm going over here.

You're muted, Hasa. We hear nothing.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, yay. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
I've heard it before, I really like it.

[Speaker 3]
It's a very beautiful song. It's called La Rumba de la Lola.

[Speaker 1]
La Rumba de la Lola.

[Speaker 3]
Rumba is like a kind of music style and La Lola is the name, like Lola is just like a female name.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, Lola's Rumba. Yeah. Thank you.