Бетси Грир — Книга 2: Интерлюдия о пустоте, занятие 41

[Speaker 1]
Okay, where is Venerable Udbala? Hello. Hi.

Do you want to just tell us, especially if there's somebody here who hasn't been here before, like Kyri, Kyri, maybe want to know about what book we're doing with you? Kyri, I love you. It doesn't look much different from last time, I got to say.

Let's see. No, but if somebody came up to you and said, what book are you working on? Yeah, why don't I just give a narrative?

So this is a book about emptiness. And what is emptiness? But it is the lack of a self nature.

That a thing is not itself. Whether it's a thing or a person. That nothing, no thing is itself.

And so the Buddha had a lot of teachings about emptiness. And he said that that is the thing you need to see in order to get out of the cycle of suffering. And he had so many different teachings and he had so many different audiences that he spoke different things to different people depending on where they were in their own way of thinking.

And so K.J., the author of this book, said that we really need to know which version is the one that we should meditate on. And so he basically is breaking the book down into two where he's going to talk about what the lack of a self nature means. According to Arya Sangha and Master Vasubandhu who were the creators, if you will, of the mind only school of philosophy.

And then the latter part of the book, the largest part of the book, which we won't even get to for another year maybe, is according to Arya Nagarjuna who we just heard from in the previous class. And he is of the consequence branch of the middle way school of philosophy. Okay, so we are in the midst of mind only school land.

And we've been there for quite a while. And we have actually been in the discussion of the emptiness of things for quite a while. And K.J. at this point, meaning about a term and a half ago, he said, you know, my holy teacher described the emptiness of things according to the mind only school in a way that really is unsurpassed by anybody else. You know, he really understands what they mean by the emptiness of things. What we typically hear at the emptiness of things according to mind only is that there are no external objects. That everything that appears to you is your foundation consciousness, your kunshi.

That's what you are perceiving. And K.J. is talking about, you know, it's much more subtle than that. I mean, that's true.

That's true. No external object. And the very essence of the thing you're looking at and the characteristics, the features of that thing, like if you wanted to say pen and I don't know, when the pen started, when the pen keeps on going and then when the pen breaks or runs out of ink, those would be its features.

Those things are actually what you label onto that thing. So they're coming from you. So we're in this discussion of that.

And last term, K.J. quoted Arya Sangha who actually I'm sorry. Yeah. No, Arya Sangha who said that, you know, in fact, you wouldn't even think of this as a pen unless you first called it a pen.

It has a name before you think of it as that. And we're like, whoa, how is that possible? And so we're in the midst of that discussion and we started talking about wrong ways of thinking, wrong ways of holding beliefs about things.

We talked about how how the foundation consciousness itself is lying to us. So it's the very thing that is causing samsara, is causing our suffering existence. And we actually finished right in the middle of a paragraph.

So. It will be interesting to see what's next. All right.

Thank you for a very nice introduction and people really enjoying it. I figure if I smile, then, you know, people have fun. I got lots of by the way.

By the way, you look healthy and I'm glad you look good. OK, here we go. By the way, so we were in Kyoto.

Grandpa had his 70th birthday. We had a great dance party. And I want you to see the DJ right here.

Wow. He's a DJ. He's at Tower Records checking out new music for for his clients.

So Tower Records disappeared in the whole world, except for in Kyoto. And he's checking vinyl records for his clients. Just to show you how sophisticated he is.

All right. Term 19 starts here. Let me get you guys back.

Yeah, progress report. We as Venerable Udpala said, we're in the mind only presentation of emptiness. We're trying to stay patient so we can reach the higher middle way school.

And I'm happy to say I'm sad to say we will not reach it. So, you know, I'm actually nervous to do her text because it's hard. And so just to let you know, there's no hope for this term.

Next time we'll reach Nagarjuna and we'll understand what the heck's going on.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, you think so?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. And I think you can finish classes for your first book this year by autumn, I would say. So that's your second book.

In case you don't know, Udpala's book called Emptiness Meditations is the number one bestseller from the best printing company in the world, the best press in the world, which is Diamond Cutter Press. And I don't know what's happening, Venerable Udpala, but your book is by far number one. And we're all getting rich.

I think we made $300 in royalty speech. But just congratulations. I think your book has turned out to be really useful for people.

Otherwise, they wouldn't buy it. Yeah, as I've told you, I think it's the best book you've ever written. All right.

Let's start here. Okay, good luck. You want to read and then after a while you can have someone else read.

It's up to you. Sure, I'll read one just for fun. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

So in your text right now we have an interesting topic. Blue. It's blue itself appearing to us, the color blue appearing to us.

And we call it ngo wol, which means the basic nature, the basic object called blue, which is appearing to us. And then we call it kyepar. Kyepar means is it dark blue?

Is it light blue? Did it just start? How long has it been here?

Qualities of the blue, different aspects of the blue, characteristics of the blue. So we're talking about emptiness of being blue and the emptiness of being a certain kind of blue or a certain time of blue. And in the Mind-Only School, this is called examining the essence of blue and the characteristics of blue.

The point is that neither the blueness nor the other qualities of blue, such as dark, light, something like that, starting, staying, stopping, those qualities are all not inherent in blue. Being blue is not inherent to blue, and being the starting of blue is not inherent to blue, and being the essence of blue is not inherent to being blue. Those things don't belong in the blue, even according to the Mind-Only.

But what does that mean? So here we go. When you say, ngönpo dennyi ding ngönpo, when you look at blue and you say what?

Ding ngönpo o. This is blue, or that's blue. Okay, hey, that's blue.

Or, hey, ngönpo is a kind of soup. Oh, hey, blue is a kind of form. Yeah, it's a kind of physical form.

Oh no, that form is blue? The essence of that form is blue? Well, you could say that, but this blue is a visual object.

What is this blue? It's something I can see. And that's kind of talking about the essential nature of the blue.

What's the essential nature of the blue? Oh, blue is something I can see. And then, what about we talk about one of the many characteristics of the blue?

In this case, let's talk about the kyewa of the ngönpo. When the blue started. Good, okay.

Or the starting of the blue. Whether you say this is blue, or whether you say blue is something I can see, or whether you say the blue just started, tar ne gyi shiyang ne so gyurpa What's the thing that you're talking about is ngönpo nangway nang tso. This is all different ways in which blue appears to you.

Blue can appear to you as a basic thing. Blue can appear to you as something visual. You can think, oh, I'm looking at something.

Or you can say, oh look, something's starting now. And the yellow went away and the blue is starting. Like that, okay?

But anyway, a blue is appearing to you. And the way it appears to you is either as the essence of blue, or as some feature of the blue. And that's a big deal in the mind-only school.

Either it's appearing to you as blue, or it's appearing to you as, hey, this is something I can see. Or, hey, this is something that just started. All of these are called, in mind-only school, ways that blue can show itself to you.

All right. Keep going, Venerable Upananda. Venerable Upananda.

Yeah, and we had a big discussion in Adam's text this morning. And by the way, it seems to be Adam's text and Utpala's text are running in parallel sometimes. I know.

Which is weird. But anyway, this is an old question. If you are looking at blue, at the same time, do you recognize it as blue?

When you are focused on the starting of the blue, when do you think that? And he says, how do you know that blue has a nature of being blue? And how do you know that blue has a nature of being a visual object?

Or that blue has the quality of starting sometimes and stopping sometimes? How do you recognize blue as blue? And how do you recognize the different qualities of blue?

Oh, this is something visual. Or this is something that starts. Well, the way you perceive these aspects of blue is chemba.

Okay? We remember. We recall them.

In the moment, you are not aware of these things. You are just seeing blue. Okay?

You are not thinking, oh, hey, this was blue. You don't say to yourself the sentence, this was blue in the first instant that you see the blue. You just see the blue.

And you definitely don't think to yourself, oh, I'm seeing blue. And you definitely don't think to yourself, oh, the blue has started. Okay?

That comes chemba. That comes later when you're thinking about the blue. Hey, it must have been something I saw.

Okay? I remember going to class tonight. I remembered that Gibson had a blue tie-on.

If I can remember that, I must have seen blue. That's all. Okay?

So the memory is evidence or proof that you saw blue in the first place. Okay? So a lot of these understandings of what you're perceiving comes through remembering it later.

Okay? I must see blue as blue. I must see blue as something that started.

And I must see blue as something I could see because I can remember Gibson had a tie-on tonight, a blue tie-on. After you go home, you can remember that. That's proof that you had the original perception because during the original perception, you can't think about the perception.

You're just blue. Okay? You're not thinking, oh, I saw blue.

And you're not thinking, oh, blue started. And you're not thinking, oh, blue is something I can see. That comes later.

But doesn't the school believe in that perception? Yes. They also, yeah, they believe that the mind can see itself.

That's another trick. What does bear bite have to do here? It's one of the stories from...

Yeah, Gibson said the bear wakes up after winter. The bear sleeps all winter. And the bear wakes up, and he's got a big open wound on his leg.

And he says, oh, he looks at the wound, and he says, I must have been bitten by a mouse while I was hibernating, while I was sleeping. And then he remembers being bitten, or he remembers some feeling that he had when he was bitten. Therefore, when you can go home and think to yourself, Gibson had a blue tie-on, that's like the mouse bite.

And it proves that I must have seen the tie. It proves it retroactively. After the fact, it proves it.

Okay, good. All right. So the mind remembers the blue, and de la shen de, it focuses on the memory, and it says, oh, that was blue.

I must have... And then it gives it a name. Oh, I saw blue.

Mik she de rang tok gi den pa che. We have... That memory of what we saw is automatic.

Like you go home, and you remember the tie that Gibson had on. That's automatic. rang tok gi den means it can be brought on simply by the original perception, and you don't need haso to come over to my house and say, do you remember you saw Gibson's tie?

Okay, no, the original perception will remind me. Okay, good. Please go ahead.

Okay. Good, okay. The carving...

Our carving says poi... Somewhere here. So anyway.

How's it go? Where is it? Oh, here it is, down here, third line in the middle.

Okay. Our carving says nunpo o she je. Sorry.

Our carving said nunpo i. Yeah. And this is an alternate carving, which is not a carving, it's a tracing of a carving.

And by the way, you can tell that if you deal with them often enough. And I believe this one is correct, okay? Okay.

Oh, right, yeah, that would make sense.

[Speaker 2]
Boss, what does that mean, a tracing of a carving?

[Speaker 1]
So in the old days, like in the days of offset presses in the 1970s, the way we made copies of scriptures was we put a piece of tissue paper over a woodblock print and we traced it to make the letters clearer. And the tracers made a lot of mistakes. They put tissue paper over the woodblock print because the background was too dark for the offset camera.

The paper was too yellow or dark. And the only way we could do it was somebody would roll out a piece of tissue paper and write with a black ink over the letter and they made a lot of mistakes. And those printings are famous for bad mistakes, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Okay, so when you see these, it almost looks like it has a handwritten style.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, those are dangerous. Okay. Those are dangerous.

Nowadays, the cameras are good enough to separate them from the background, but they didn't used to be. And it used to be too much storage. So, you know, a whole computer couldn't hold two pages.

So here we go. ngunpoy she jepey dun dengo kanyin she jinong If you ask, what is the very essence? Remember again, we are in the mind-only school and we're talking about blue as a basic object, and then we're talking about the features of blue.

And what is the connection between the basic object and the blue? And what is the connection between the qualities of the blue and the blue? Who made the blue's starting connect to the blue?

Who drew the line? Who drew a line between blue and the starting of the blue? Who connects those two?

That's your mind. That's obviously your mind, okay? You're the one who says, starting belongs to the blue.

And to an untrained person, it feels natural. When blue starts, and someone asks you, oh, Gibson, what's the connection between the blue and the starting of the blue? You look at me and say, well, I don't understand the question.

It's just the blue started. And the mind-only school says, no, somebody glued the starting of the blue to the blue. And that's an artificial connection, and that's created by your karmic seeds.

And people lose those connections. Autistic people. What's that word?

Alzheimer's people. How do you know when you have Alzheimer's? You can't remember Alzheimer's.

Okay. So anyway, the connection between the nature of blue and blue, and the connection between qualities of blue and blue is artificial. It's not natural.

It's also a creation of your karma. And some people lose those connections. They can't remember their own children.

They lose their karma to see they are connected to their children, and they don't recognize their own kids. Like that. So, ngunpo she jupay dun de ngul kanya she du nang.

If I ask you, well, what's the basic nature of the blue? mik she de la ngunpo tar nangway nangwa de nyi la she ne. Well, it's just what I see when I open my eyes and I see blue.

That's the nature of blue. It's just what I see when I open my eyes and look at blue. she ne.

de ngul suk yin no. And then somebody says, well, what's the blue made of? And you say, suk.

It's a visual object. It's one of the many visual objects in the world. ngunpo she nang depe.

When you answer that, the kunlong tokpa, and this is a difficult word here, there's a state of mind which elicits that answer. If I ask you, what's the nature of blue? And you say, it starts, it stops, it's dark, it's light.

When you answer lightly, that's called kunlong tokpa. It means almost an automatic answer that you don't think about, which is really wrong. Oh, it's just like that.

Why is that a dark blue? I don't know. It just is.

That's like kunlong tokpa means no special motivation to it. You just think that. Or you can say that that perception was brought on jenpa by the power of the original perception.

The idea that blue is blue automatically, the idea that blue is a starting thing automatically, those are all brought on by the original perceptions, elicited. And by the way, the point is that that's not automatic. You take a drug or you take alcohol or something, you're going to see those connections much differently.

I wish one's correct. All right. Who's going to read?

This is a big one. I would like Rebecca to read. Okay.

Are you here? She's not here? Then I would like Venerable Chikme to read.

She's having a coughing attack. She's having a coughing attack. Then I would like Venerable Chintsu to read.

Yeah. Okay.

[Speaker 3]
Okay. Okay. Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Good. The essence here is right here in the middle. How about here?

LUM PO LUM PO THA GNYIS KYI SHES RGYUR PA LUM PO LUM PO THA GNYIS KYI SHES RGYUR PA Blue appears to be the thing that the name blue refers to automatically. I'll say it again. Blue appears to automatically be the thing that the word blue refers to.

Okay? And, you know, you grow up with the word blue or whatever it is in your language, and after a while you think that must be blue and that that's inherently blue. But you could have called it fish or you could have called it chopsticks or you could have called it, you know, Titanic.

And it's not that the word blue automatically refers to that color. That's artificial. And if you don't understand that, you can't understand emptiness.

You have the karma to see that object called, quote, blue. And we don't call it chopsticks, you know? But that relationship between the word blue and the color blue is not automatic.

It's not natural. Okay? It's artificial.

And that helps a lot in reducing conflict in the world. And Noor Ibrahim gave a beautiful talk about the word for grape in four different languages during the New Year's program by the famous Petrie World News guys. And she talked about how different words can apply to the same object, right?

And if we don't appreciate that, we can get into heavy conflict, okay? And a lot of conflict, even international conflict, but also conflict at home, is caused just by words, just by thinking that words are automatic. So anyway, gyu tsan de nyik yi cheer.

Therefore, for that reason, mik shek de la ngunpoy ta ni kyi shuk gyepay ngunpo nangwa blue appears to be the thing which is given the name blue automatically. It appears that way. Tse na, ngunpo rang gi ngunpoy ne tsul kyi ngun ne It seems as though the blue, from its own very nature, ne tsul, ngunpoy ne tsul means, ngunpoy ne tsul kyi means by the very nature of that thing.

It means by the very nature of things. ngunpoy ne tsul kyi ngun ne It seems as though... I better slow down, right?

It seems as... I'm getting excited. It seems as though by the very nature of things, blue is called blue.

ngunpoy ne tsul kyi ngun ne ngunpoy ta ni kyi shuk That blue is the thing that is given the name blue. It seems natural. shir nangway nang tsul yupa yang drup la That's proven by how we think of it later.

ngunpo ta ni kyi shir gyur pe ngunpo rang gi tse ni kyi drup pa nangway dun ni de yin no When we say blue is the object that is referred to with the name blue, then it seems as though... And here we go. That's a kind of self-existence.

Okay? That's a kind of self-existence. When you...

Is blue self-existent or not? I don't know. How do you feel about the name?

Well, the name belongs to that. Okay, it's self-existent. Okay, got it?

Is blue self-existent? I don't know. Well, how do you think about it?

What do you mean, how do I think about it? Well, do you think it should be called blue automatically? Well, sure.

Okay, then you're seeing the blue the wrong way. And you're having the first link of samsara. You're having ignorance.

And you're creating karma also. Bad karma. Got it?

Okay. So, it's kind of a reality check. How do you feel about the name blue?

Well, I don't know. Well, do you think blue should be called blue? Well, yeah, my mom taught me that.

Okay, then you have ignorance. Okay, got it? And the blue itself is deceptive.

The blue itself suggests to you that it should be called blue. The blue itself is lying to you. Okay, it's interesting.

It's really interesting in this school. Geshe-la, can we go back up there? After Tseng Kyi Chukpar, the nangway dun, and then ni de yin, that is...

I'm just trying to think of the nangway dun. Oh, Ranggit Seng Kyi Chukpar nangway dun. It is an object which appears to exist in and of itself.

What's appearing to you as if it existed in and of itself is that kind of... Well, the dun is an object. Okay, sorry.

The blue which must be called blue is what's lying to you. And suggesting to you that it should be naturally called blue. Ranggit Seng Kyi Chukpar.

Thank you. All right, let's go to the next one. This looks like it'd be nice to give to somebody to read.

I don't know. Yeah, let me see here. I would like to ask Elmira to read.

Turn on your microphone. Would you like to read? Elmira?

Elmira? Maybe she was here earlier. Sorry.

[Speaker 3]
Sorry, I'm here.

[Speaker 1]
Yay. Would you like to read?

[Speaker 3]
Yes. Don't be shy. SUG SOGS SU RANG GYI CHEN GNYIS GYI DRUG PA NANG BA'I DONG YANG DE DANG BRAL Lovely, thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Nice, nice, good job. So, by the way, this pause is important, Utpala, okay? DE GZHAN DU NGON PO DE GZUGS KYI NGO BO'O DE'I DE'I KHYER BO'O This is the essence of the blue.

This is the starting of the blue, okay? When you focus on the blue as the object of your terms, whether you say blue, or whether you say starting of the blue, the terms that you apply to this color, whether you say blue to this color, or whether you say it started to this color, DRANG NAS KYI ZHUGS RGYAS PA'I SUG SOGS they appear to you to exist in and of themselves partly because you believe those attributes are inherent to them. You don't believe you created the connection between the word blue and this color.

You don't believe it's artificial. And you don't believe the word it started applies to this color. This color doesn't apply to this color automatically, okay?

When you can believe that the word blue belongs to that color automatically, and when you can believe that it started, the word it started can apply to that blue automatically, that's a sign that you believe the blue exists in and of itself. DRANG GIS ZEN NYID KYI DRUG PAR If the blue is lying to you, you will believe that blue is the name it deserves. And if the blue is lying to you, you will believe that it is starting is a description it deserves, that somehow there's a natural connection between the word blue and that color, or there's a natural connection between the words it started and that blue.

If you don't understand how words apply to blue, that's a sign that you don't understand the blue itself. That's a sign that you have ignorance about blue itself. I'll say it again.

A sign that you are being ignorant and creating more samsara is how strongly do you believe the word blue belongs to that color, and how strongly do you believe the words it started belongs to that color. If you believe it deserves to be called them, it's a sign you don't understand the color itself. If you don't understand the relationship that words have to your object, it's a sign you don't understand the object either.

Okay, got it? Cool. We are in the middle of a discussion about how to identify the gaccha, which we have to do if we're going to see emptiness.

I think what he's trying to say is, your attitude about how words apply to the object is an indicator of how ignorant you are. I'll say the opposite. If you meet people who really understand emptiness well, they are super flexible.

They are super flexible. You can flip a whole project on them. You can say, we can't go to Da Nang.

We're not going to have a program. And then, how quickly they change names. Oh, you mean the Kyoto program?

Something like that. How quickly can a person apply a new name to the same object is an indicator of how self-existent they believe the object is. So, really flexible people, they don't have problems with, you want to call me fish instead of gaccha micro, I'm okay.

Something like that. Okay. You were going to ask a question, Mr. Kramer. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Geshe-la, when I look, for example, I'm looking at blue on the top of your screen here, on the top of the word thing.

[Speaker 1]
It's really blue around, right?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. And it's easy for me to get in touch with feeling like it starts and stops because it's a computer display, or even to say that it's form. It does feel to me like it deserves to be form.

And then, when I think about the word, the name blue, especially with this amazing party that we have here of people all over the world, I feel very aware of many different languages and many different words. And it's a little hard for me to get in touch with being stuck about the name, so much so that I wonder if I'm misunderstanding, if there's something subtler being pointed to. Because we all know that languages are different and that languages evolve naturally, and we all have these different languages.

I understand. It feels to me like it is necessarily naturally form. It feels to me like it starts and stops because of the computer.

But I'm having a hard time getting the feel for like it has to be called blue because I know that languages are different and unnatural.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. I would say that's a sign that you already understood some emptiness. Okay.

No, because intolerant people get really hung up on names, you know? Okay. And that's a sign of their lack of understanding emptiness, I think.

Okay. Okay, thanks, Ponce. You mean people who get really offended if you mispronounce their name, for example.

And there's other people who live their whole life with their name mispronounced, and they're like, yeah, okay. We know people like that. I was in McGratchkey, by the way.

I was in Zhengzhou, and the big banner across the stage said, Welcome McGratchkey. True story. It was okay.

It took me a while to figure out who they were talking about. Oh, it said, McGratchkey, free of wealth. Free of wealth.

Anyway, if you want to endear yourself to me, call me McGratchkey. Okay, 284, who's going to read it? Nancy Karen, would you like to read?

Oh, nice. Nancy Karen's the other half of the reason why you have all these organizations. That's right.

She's pretending her microphone's broken. This is an old New Yorker. Yeah, well, I know her microphone's off.

Eastside New Yorker. Ask to unmute, okay. She'll pretend she doesn't know about it.

She's pretending not to know about it. How about Lindsay? Would you like to read?

All right. All right, I know this old trick. You go, hi.

Can you not hear me? Yeah. I couldn't hear very much.

Yeah, now we know you're faking it. Can you hear me? Maybe just speak really loudly.

No, I think there's an internet problem.

[Speaker 2]
It's okay.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, okay, sorry. The internet in Seattle had too much coffee. All right.

Okay. ,MIG ZHU LA DE LTAR NANG BA DE NI, When you look at blue, and it seems as though the connection between the word and the color is automatic, or the connection between the blue and the quality of starting is automatic, this is not an appearance which is coming to you through some inherent quality of blue. It's not the blue's fault.

,GNES TSOS KYI DBANG GIS, means from the way it stands, or from the measure it stands. But what it means is, it's not something inherent, ,GNES TSOS, to blue. It's not something wrong with the blue.

And it's not a problem inherent to the blue, that it's always going to appear to you as though it should be called blue. Don't blame it on the blue. ,GNES TSOS KYI DBANG GIS, This is not appearing, sharwa, this way, through some defect in the blue.

Don't think that. And also don't think, ,MIG CHE DE LA SNANG NGON PO DAR RANG GI RIG TUN PA'I BA CHAG KYI SAB NGON, And don't blame it on a saban. Don't blame it on a saban.

Don't blame it on a seed. Or propensity. Do not blame the seed, that the seed made the blue appear to you as if the blue was called blue by itself.

Okay? Don't blame it on the seed. But, also it's disturbed, and you should be disturbed.

You're the only person in the room disturbed. Thank God for you. You should be disturbed.

It is the bhagyak's fault, but he qualified the bhagyak. He said, RIG TUN PA'I BA CHAG. Okay?

It is not an immediate bhagyak. RIG TUN PA'I means the blue bhagyak that made the blue, the blue bhagyak of a second ago, which made the blue of this moment appear. Okay?

That's a RIG TUN PA'I bhagyak. It flowed into the blue. The blue of the previous millisecond, that flowed into this blue, the bhagyak of the previous millisecond, that triggered this particular blue, don't blame all the problems on that bhagyak.

That seed was just responsible to keep the blue going. Okay? He didn't make the blue appear to you as though it should be called blue, etc.

Don't blame it on the bhagyak, which is responsible for the continuum of the blue, for the immediate flow of the blue. Don't blame the bhagyak. Don't blame the mental seed of a moment ago that the blue is lying to you right now.

You should blame a bhagyak with no goddamn beginning, which is called MUN JUG GI bhagyak, very famous from Dr. Wordsmith's text, The Golden Key. If you haven't read it, you're a loser. Okay?

If you have read it, you're weird. Yeah. There's another bhagyak at work here, and Utpala is going to describe it right now.

I tried to do that. Okay. This is so exciting for me and Word, because we struggled with this for years.

Okay? And here it is. Thank God for Ketuji.

Okay? He says, That's not the fault of Adrityumvi bhagyak here. It's not the fault of the seed that created the blue from the blue of a moment ago.

This is those goddamn Lumbajupa bhagyaks. Lumbajupa bhagyak means the bhagyak that came from talking about things in a certain way for countless eons. Okay?

You have been talking about blue in a certain way for billions of lifetimes. Okay? That's the bhagyak that's creating these problems.

Okay? We can blame it on... Okay?

And now here's his description of that bhagyak. Okay? Here we go.

First of all, it has come from Toma Mebane Utpala. Beginningless time. Yeah.

It has been in operation for a time with no beginning. And there's three variations on it. Either it says, Oh, Bing Lumbo.

It's... This is blue. That's blue.

Or it says, Oh, this Lumbo is Su. Yeah, this is... This blue is visible.

Visible, nice. Or it slides to you and says, Oh, this blue is Kewa. This blue is started.

This blue is started. It lies to you in three different ways. The old, old, ancient, constantly replanted mental seed says, Oh, that's blue.

Or, Oh, that's something I can see. Or, Oh, that just started. Okay?

All of those terms, all of those words applied to blue, are artificial. They're just a habit. You could be perceiving the world as a Buddha paradise right now, but you've got these old bad habits.

How old? Beginningless time. No beginning, no time.

Ngo dang kyepar kyi tan yin tokpay. Ngo means it's identifying blue as blue. Kyepar means it's identifying blue as something visible, or it's identifying blue as something that started, etc.

Okay? So whether you're talking about identifying the color as blue, or you are talking about identifying the color as something I can see, or something that just started, it's all tan yin tokpay. It's all just words.

It's all just words. It's all misperception based on words. Okay?

Well, when did it start? You mang du kyepar len means how many times have you said it? Mang du kyepar.

Countless times. And you kompa, therefore. And you have a mental habit.

Yeah, you got used to it. And through that getting used to it, it's shocked by the bak chak in your mind. It planted a seed in your mind.

And when that... And due to that seed, things appear to you to be blue from their own side. When actually that blue...

You are looking at a blue in your own kunshi. You are looking at a blue in your own okara consciousness, in your own storehouse consciousness. You never were looking at a blue outside, but you made the mistake so many times that you can't see it any other way anymore.

Even as I'm saying it, you're doing it. And I am too. That was a three-year retreat.

We're at wind-up time. I wouldn't mind getting wind-up. Okay, bak chak de la ni.

But nangwa tsam means, look, it's just appearing that way. It's not that way really. Nangwa tsam means...

It only appears that way? It just looks that way. It just looks that way because of the power of the bak chak, due to the power of the bak chak.

And hey, you want to know what we call that bak chak? It's called the bak chak that's planted by... Of expression or something like that.

Well, by talking about things that way for billions of years. It's called talking about things that way, bak chak. You want to do a little summary?

I don't have the guts or the memory. We continued the discussion of the essential nature or what appears to us, the essential nature of things, of what we perceive, the characteristics of things we perceive are not inherent in the thing we're perceiving. Although, when we think that it's automatically that way, that blue is blue, that blue started or blue is continuing on the word document right now, is a sign that we misunderstand the nature of things.

And it comes from beginningless time thinking, oh, that's blue. Oh, that's a visual thing. Oh, that's the starting of blue.

Good. I would add one thing and then we can stop. I used to think the mind-only school was dumb and the middle-way school is smart and I must be middle-way school, therefore.

But as I study more and more, I start to notice that people like Tsongkhapa have a lot of respect in the school. They're saying, Tsongkhapa says a couple of times, we can use this to help ourselves. This is a very useful thing to help ourselves.

Thinking about it is priceless, okay? Cool. Yay.

All right. Thank you very much. Oh, about your next assignment.

Oh, yes. I want you to do section 286 and 287. All right.

And I want you to especially explain to us what this tokpay taktsam. I'll write it here, okay? Tokpay taktsam.

Okay? Venerable Utpala, here. Venerable Utpala, I'll tie this to...

Okay? This is a very famous expression in the middle-way. Just dakpa with tokpa.

And there's a lot of tokpas running around in these two paragraphs. I'm going to tie... What is the this?

Just tell me what that word is referring to. I'm going to say tie these... Those two verses that I'm going to do?

Tokpas running around here. Okay. Okay?

To tokpay taktsam. Okay? Okay.

Okay. All right. And by the way, extra credit.

Yeah. Is it useful, the misspelling?

[Speaker 3]
Tokpay taktsam.

[Speaker 1]
Oh.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Because half the Tibetans misspell it this way. Okay? Okay.

All right. All right. We'll see you guys in the morning.

Thank you. Thanks, boss. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Anything, Uncle Nick, to put us to bed? Do you want to tell us a bedtime story like Amelie?

Yeah, no. You guys don't want me to. Yeah, no.

Hey, Nick, when I was a nanny in college to pay for my room, I used to skip the pages in the kids' books to get to bed faster. And they would say, why did you skip the page? Yeah, Amelie is way too perceptive for that.

She has all the books memorized. I'll tell you something funny for our bedtime story. She's about three.

And since she was born, like, since she's been talking, she tells us a lot of things. Like, if I ever mentioned, like, oh, that lady's dressed as a police officer, she's like, oh, yeah, I was a police officer once. And I'm like, oh, really?

Where? And she'll just be like, oh, it was in some part of San Diego that she'll just mention where I don't even know she knew the name. Like, it's funny.

She always says, oh, I was there. I did that. Or I was that thing.

I feel like she just remembers infinite past lives. She probably forgets them after a while. Yeah, I think probably forgetting.

But she's always like, yeah, I taught you how to ride a bike once. You don't remember that? I'm like, damn, when?

What was your name? That's cool. All right.

Thank you. Thank you. This was really amazing.

I feel like these terms just get better and better. Thank you, guys. Lindsay, work on your Internet.

Yeah. Seriously. Okay.

I will. Okay. All right.

See you guys later. Buenas noches. Thank you.

Thank you.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you, Gisela.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you, translators. Thank you, tech team. Thank you, people who are here and there and everywhere.