Бетси Грир — Книга 2: Интерлюдия о пустоте, занятие 42

[Speaker 1]
I can see you're all jumping up and down.

[Speaker 2]
Is there anyone here?

[Speaker 1]
Yes.

[Speaker 2]
Welcome to the quiz for our first class this term.

[Speaker 1]
I tried to make it easy.

[Speaker 3]
But did you make us smart?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, that's what I should do. I should try and make you smart. Darn.

Okay, I'll do that next time. Okay. We're back to class.

We're back to class. Hello. We need a geeku with an electric cord.

We got geeks. I can answer this question if you want, but you have to pay me $100. Okay.

No, I'm kidding.

[Speaker 2]
Aside from appearing as an external object, what are the ways that Blue shows itself to you according to the Mind Only School? We'll do the English first and then the Tibetan.

[Speaker 1]
Memory? It starts. Memory?

[Speaker 2]
We've been talking about these two for several terms now.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, yeah, you can say that. Tim says a visual thing and something that starts. Yeah, I think that's memory.

Memory shows that know and remember.

[Speaker 2]
Yep. Blue shows its essential nature, blue. And blue shows its characteristics.

Blue started or bright blue.

[Speaker 1]
Or blue is something I can... Yeah, okay.

[Speaker 2]
And we got the Tibetan from the master translator. So now what's going on when we recognize blue as blue?

[Speaker 1]
Hmm.

[Speaker 2]
If you want a hint, I can give you a hint. It has something to do with Gibson's tie.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, you're just remembering that you saw blue.

[Speaker 3]
Right? You saw the tie blue and then you recall that you saw blue.

[Speaker 2]
Right. So we're not aware of blue in the moment we're seeing blue. Rather later, we recognize it as blue by focusing on the memory of blue.

And the other thing about that is that the power of the original visual perception automatically elicits that recollection.

[Speaker 1]
We don't have to quiz ourself. Okay. Geshe-la.

Yeah. Excuse me, Venerable Paul. It's about this.

And isn't this the opposite of what you said in the ACI courses? I know... Isn't...

I don't know if you remember, but I know it's been a while, but like... I do remember I taught some courses. I know you don't like being quoted on some of the course stuff, but isn't...

No, I do remember Geshe-la on October 3rd, 1983. 93, Geshe-la. No, isn't it true that the whole bear bite thing is that the middle way school says...

The example uses pizza. You said, oh, I remember eating pizza because we had pizza. We ate pizza because I remember pizza, but the mind-only school says we need apperception.

So... What gives? I think we're going to answer this question better in this class.

I'm not sure about this question. I think we better do the class today. They're more focusing on the bak chak, the...

What's that bak chak? The special kind of bak chak.

[Speaker 2]
The next question. It's the next question.

[Speaker 1]
Don't give it away. Let's go to the next one. I'm not sure of this question here.

But it's going to be answered in detail in this class. Okay, thanks for your time Venerable Paul. Yeah, and I believe it's more complex than we understand right now.

[Speaker 2]
Does anyone remember the Tibetan phrase for the automatic part of the process?

[Speaker 1]
Something with rung in it? And something with mik in it? Rung mik.

Rung mik.

[Speaker 3]
Of course. You had the wrong mik mik.

[Speaker 2]
So now in this class we discuss two kinds of propensity for identifying blue as blue. Please briefly describe each in English, identifying which is ultimately to blame. And then also give their names in Tibetan.

Let's do the English first.

[Speaker 1]
Tim said the bak chak of the moment before, which is called rik tindi bak chak, which creates the blue of the next, the continuation of the blue. That's one kind of bak chak. Good.

And the other one is from the seeds of expression from beginningless lifetimes of seeing things that way.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. It's not just from seeing things that way, but from naming them that way, from calling them that. Right?

That's why it's a seed of expression.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Yeah, you can say that. And then we got the Tibetan already.

Yay. When would you pick bak chak? Okay.

[Speaker 3]
Pretty blue sky. You know, I was thinking about this because I was frustrated with seeing blue as blue. Keep your picture if you would for a moment, Utpala.

I was thinking about, what do we call blue when we add a little bit of light color to it?

[Speaker 2]
Oh, shoot.

[Speaker 3]
Right. But what about, what do we call red when we add a little light color to it? Pink?

Pink. Yeah. And somehow that's a different color.

And if you say that pink is red, then somehow you're supposed to, we're supposed to think you're wrong. But that's just blue. But light blue is just blue.

And then if the Tibetans say, right, sometimes blue and green, right, either could be mumbo. Like, isn't green just blue? It's just a little more yellow.

Or Kurdish, right, could be blue or black. Right? Right?

But I do feel like I see that, and I think it has to be blue. I don't know. Some of that got me closer to feeling like I'm seeing the world wrong.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Cool. I thought that was pretty interesting.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Rosa says periwinkle. Okay. Okay.

Venerable Upala went ahead, right? Yep. Man, this is extremely difficult.

[Speaker 2]
I know.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it should be. Yeah. Okay.

Just a couple of comments, because this would take like a half hour. Well, let's take it. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
But let's do it when you've got the screen.

[Speaker 1]
Well, I mean, why?

[Speaker 2]
I'm probably way far off, and so you might as well do it while you've got the screen.

[Speaker 1]
No, we can go. But I warn you, in this next section today, we have to go very slow. So, the shakpa here, in the B-Z-H-A-G, pao shakpa shakpa, is the past tense of jok.

So bakchak jok means what? To plant a bakchak. To seed, yeah.

Okay? So this shakpa, which looks like to set or to put into place, it's not that verb, it's a different verb. It's the verb jok, which means to plant a bakchak.

Okay? then, yeah, kompa means the habit of, of, how would you say? The habit of applying terms with your imagination, or something like that.

Okay? Okay?

[Speaker 2]
I don't want to use terms, because we're going to use terms when we talk about, oh no, I didn't use terms. I didn't use names and terms for ming dang kre. I used names and mental images.

But if we use terms instead of mental images down here for, where is it?

[Speaker 1]
I can't see it this big. It's so huge on my screen. Ming dang kre.

[Speaker 2]
So if we use terms instead of mental images, then we shouldn't use terms here, you know, for ta ne. Right?

[Speaker 1]
Well, the point is, this whole process of ngun juk gi bakchak, right? ngun juk gi bakchak, that, from beginning this time, using certain words for certain objects, so, so much that now it seems as though that word applies to that object automatically. Okay?

So we get used to thinking of something with a certain word. That's what it says. Okay?

We get used to thinking of something with a certain word.

[Speaker 2]
Do you want to say certain words?

[Speaker 1]
Well, no, but I'm just trying to make it so we can understand it. You think for countless lifetimes, when you saw this color, you thought of it as blue. This tokpa means you thought of it as blue.

You see? In your imagination, your imagination applied the term to that color countless times, therefore you gom. You got into a habit, right?

And that gom in turn planted a bakchak. Okay? Good?

that habit planted a seed in your mind. Yeah, I want a connotation of not real. Yeah.

It's your imagination. You're just, you're just, you are almost randomly putting names on things. And it's definitely not rata-ta-ta-na-ro-to-ga-sa-tok.

It's not realization. This spelling means just whatever you want to do. You see what I mean?

Randomly applying names to things so often that it seems those names apply to them automatically. Randomly applying names to things so often that you start to think that name belongs to that thing. But it doesn't.

It's just from the habit of doing it randomly for billions of years. You could have called blue fish and you could have called fish blue and then you would swear every time you see a fish that that's blue. Isn't that what I'm saying?

[Speaker 3]
Does that necessarily apply to all those languages that follow the same language?

[Speaker 1]
No, I don't think so. I don't think so. Not necessarily.

Okay. DGONGS PA'I ZHAG PA'I BYOGS PA'I BAR CHAGS KYIS DBANG GIS And then he's following a flow. He's following a flow.

Countless lifetimes you have applied a certain word to a certain object, to a certain color. And then that planted a seed. And then the seed in turn.

DBANG GIS Then the seed now ZHAR BA'I NANG BA TZAM just creates a picture in your mind of this thing as blue. You call it blue for countless lifetimes. You plant a seed in your mind.

The seed opens later and then that thing seems to be blue automatically. So it's a time progression in this first line. Cool?

And then ZHAR BA'I means then it seems to you as though the blue is automatically blue. NANG BA TZAM YIN PAS That's all. And that, the way it appears to you when the seed opens has two aspects.

The way it appears to you when the seed opens has two aspects. Number one, it is simply a creation of names. It exists in name only.

To call that blue is just words. It just exists in words, number one. And number two, it just exists through imagination.

And that's going to be important for this whole class today. Two things are going on. Number one, it seems as though names apply to those objects automatically.

Number two, they are simply being established by your imagination. Different things, okay? Calling it a name and thinking of it in a certain way are different things, okay?

Right? Okay? So he says two things are going on, okay?

You are using words to think of that thing, blue, and also just your mind making up this connection between the word and the color. So two things are going on. There's a word creating the connection and there's an imagination creating the connection.

And he's going to follow that because for him that's important. Two things are going on. You have used the word blue so often towards this object that now that's creating the connection between the color and the word.

Okay? And then your imagination has been working overtime and creating this automatic connection between the word and the object. So it's imagination and words.

Okay? Okay?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll just throw this out.

K2J is trying to say two things are going on. There's something going on with words and there's something going on with imagination. And that's how things...

That's how that ancient seed works. Okay? It makes you...

It makes you apply certain words to the color, A. And it makes you think in a certain way about the color, B. Okay?

Blue, the bak chak. Which bak chak? The one planted by countless eons of using the same word for the same object.

Okay? Even though they are not necessarily connected, you think they are because you did it countless times. You could have called it fish instead of blue.

Okay? Is that okay? Good?

So two things are at work here, imagination and words. And we say that in Middle Way too, right? Ming dang de shakpa.

Ming de shakpa. Very, very famous in... And that's why I wanted to link this discussion to Majjhimika right here.

Because in Majjhimika you say Ming de shakpa. Only established in names and terms, but the term means ideas. Okay?

So even in Majjhimika, you blame names, and you blame ideas. Ming de shakpa.

[Speaker 3]
How can we know it refers to the actual name or the picture?

[Speaker 1]
Say again?

[Speaker 3]
The mi can mean name or picture, right?

[Speaker 1]
No, the da. The da can mean... Yeah, da means indicator.

Yeah, and it's a very rare word. It means term. You can call name in terms, okay?

But really it's names and thoughts. Names and pictures. Names and pictures, okay?

In Majjhimika, it's name and pictures. Here it's names and imagination. Yeah, you can say...

Yeah, you can say that. What did he say that you can say? Well...

[Speaker 2]
We can't hear anything yet what goes on there in the classroom.

[Speaker 1]
All right. Stanley is saying, look, Majjhimika has this expression. Everything is ming de shak tsam.

Tsam means it's nothing more than that. So the tsam is easy, right? Nothing more than that.

Shak here is not the same shak as here. And it means established through names and pictures, okay? Names and pictures.

And Stanley said, Geshe-la, can you just drop the name, right? Because isn't it really just pictures? The mental pictures are creating things.

And you could say that. You could say that. Anyway, in this discussion, Khadubje is trying to draw a distinction between naming things or using terms, he says, pictures, okay, and imagination.

And imagination implies the possibility of mistake. Okay? All right?

He doesn't spell it with an S. R-T-O-G. Okay?

And that's going to be important here. All right? So let's try to read the sentence again.

Let's see if we... dokpe tanye jawa kongpay Your imagination keeps applying the same word to the same color over and over. Okay?

And that plant's a... bok chak in your mind. And when that bok chak opens, it seems like the object is automatically blue.

Okay? It seems like the object is automatically blue and could never have been green or yellow. The same color.

Could never have been called green. The same color could never have been called yellow. It seems automatically blue.

And what Ben said, I keep thinking about it, there is a deeper level, Ben, which goes beyond language. It's not just the name blue in English or something like that. It's to identify it as a color that matches the color of the ocean or something like that.

It could have been yellow. Apples could have been orange. Oranges could have been red.

You see what I mean? Really red. Colors are...

Really red. All oranges could have been red, and all apples could have been orange. Real orange.

Because even color is not self-existent. Green could have been red. Blue could have been yellow.

Not just in the name, but in its appearance. Blue could look yellow if you had the karma to see it that way. You could say, oh, there'd be poets talking about the banana color of the ocean.

Even such a thing as basic as a color could have been another color, and not just by name, but by reality. And that's the point that Ben was making nicely the other day. I don't know what this is.

Well, there's this thing... You want to go deeper, okay? There's this thing in Buddha where they can hear color.

Okay? For example, they can hear color. And they're not really...

It's not that they have super senses. It's not that their ears are so special that they can hear color. It's that they have the karma for color to appear to their ear as a sound.

Okay? And so if you could have the karma for blue to appear as the sound of a stream, then what's so difficult about blue appearing as red? And not just the name blue, but the color blue.

And then the ocean would be red, and apples would be blue, and Jimi Hendrix would be right. The traffic lights, they turn blue on Sunday. Is there such a thing?

I'm going to ask him. Why didn't he think of it? Okay, anyway.

So basically, not just... What he's saying, Khenrupji, in the first sentence, here's what's important in the first sentence. And I don't mind to go slow here.

We could go faster and not understand it if you want to do that. So, first one. Over and over you refer to something with a certain idea.

You think of a certain color as blue over and over. And that plants a seed. And when that seed opens, it seems like all those things are blue to you.

And there's two things going on there. There's a thing with names, which is more shallow. You're getting used to the word bun, lu, wu, applying to that color.

But on a deeper level, you are perceiving it as the same color. On a deeper level, you're seeing that thing as a blue color when it could have been yellow. And it seems to you that the ocean is blue.

But it's your blue laying on the ocean. Good? All right, let's go to the second sentence, Utpala.

You ready? You okay?

[Speaker 2]
wang she la suk sok ngo dang khepar gyi thane kyi shir nangwa tar suk sok ngo dang thane kyi khepar gyi shir thane du yuk ching de yang ming dang tokpay shakpa sang yin su shepa matakpa dang dra la Yeah, now in the last sentence they didn't talk about wang she.

[Speaker 1]
They never mentioned wang she. If you check 286, they made no mention of wang she. Now he's taking it to your wang she.

Let's assume that your imagination or your mind could get drugged or something and see blue as yellow. Okay? Let's say that that's possible.

But what about... or think of blue as yellow. But can you...

And this is a big question in the Wheel of Life teachings. Can... When you say that you see things as self-existent, is that only an opinion of your intellect?

Or does your eye actually see things as self-existent? And what's the answer?

[Speaker 2]
Your mind only is saying your eye is seeing it that way.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, and your senses are infected. The whole 12 links are infected. It's an interesting thing.

Your sensory equipment is broken. When me and Christy taught this, something similar in the Bahamas, on the last day we bought... We went into town to the tourist shops, and we bought 60 pairs of red sunglasses.

And we had everybody put them on. And we said, is everything red? And they all said, yes.

And we said, get it? You've been wearing red sunglasses your whole life. Anyway, it was expensive.

wang che la suk lo dang kye pa kyi tan yi kyi shi yin ma wang It appears as to your eyeball... Now forget your mind. Don't talk about your mind.

To your eyeball, to your sensory perceptions, to your awareness of what you see. wang che la suk It appears that blue is both itself and also has certain qualities from its own side. Blue is called blue by itself, and blue is called something I can see, and blue is called...

What was the other one? Oh, started, yeah. Yeah, starts, yeah.

So it appears as though... It not only appears that that color is automatically blue, but it appears that its being something you can see rather than taste is also fixed. It could never be something you could taste, that color.

And it could never be something... And that its starting is also part of it. And, for example, you can never have a blue that didn't start.

All right? Okay? It appears to you like that.

shir nangwa tar suk sok lo dang tan yi kyi kye pa kyi shi yin tan yi yin yu ching Nominally... Yeah, is the connection between blue color and the word blue, is it nominal or is it ultimate?

[Speaker 2]
Nominal.

[Speaker 1]
Could you have called it yellow? Yeah, it's also artificial. The connection between the color blue and the name blue is artificial.

shir tan yin du yu ching means that connection between blue and the name blue, and the connection between blue and the idea that it's something you can see, these are all artificial connections created by your karma. Blue could have been a taste, and blue could have been red. And blue starting could be blue ending.

Whoa. Okay? It's just connections that you're putting on there.

You're making those connections. Blue starting could have been blue ending. Blue could have been yellow.

And blue could have been something you taste. And it's not weird. If you think it's weird, you have that ancient bak chak.

If you think it's weird that you can taste blue, you have that ancient bak chak. It's causing you trouble. By the way, if you stop thinking like that, if you were open to the idea of blue being a good taste, and you were open to the idea of blue starting as really blue stopping, and you were open to the idea that blue is actually yellow, you might be close to enlightenment.

Or on acids.

[Speaker 3]
If you're giving to blue, it's not the case.

[Speaker 1]
Say again?

[Speaker 3]
Just all that depends on the definition you're giving to blue. It's not the case.

[Speaker 1]
Well, let's put it this way, okay? And this is an interesting thing that we covered in Advanced Level 2. The objects that you see are coming from you.

The raspberry, the red raspberry is coming from you. I got to get rid of one of them. The red raspberry is coming from you.

You are coming from you. Your perception of the raspberry is coming from you. The red raspberry is coming from you.

Michael is coming from Michael. And Michael seeing the raspberry is coming from Michael. And the fact that Michael is in the same room with the red, and that there's a connection between Michael and the red, is also coming from Michael.

So not only those elements are coming from Michael, the color red, Michael sitting on the couch, and Michael looking at the raspberry, not only are those three things coming from Michael, but the fact that we even met each other is also coming from Michael. Okay, got it? The fact that there's a tie between me and red right now, that connection is also coming from my karma.

And we don't talk about that much. Is the raspberry, is the pen coming from your karma? Yeah.

Are you coming from your karma? Yeah. Is the seeing the pen coming from your karma?

Yeah. Is the fact that the you and the seeing and the pen are all somehow connected? Is that coming from you?

Because that's a different thing. And that you have to say, yes, it's coming from me. Okay?

You could have seen something blue. You could be tasting the blue. When it sounds that weird to you, we are touching your ancient bhakta.

When I say, how does blue taste? And your mind goes, you know. Then we know that we're touching on a real bhakta.

Because at that moment you say, no, come on Geshe-la, that's too much. Gyel Tse has a question, and I will repeat it as she talks.

[Speaker 2]
Something about synesthesia?

[Speaker 1]
Yes, synesthesia. Yeah, I was just writing that in the chat.

[Speaker 2]
Connected with knowledge and taste and people who have that kind of sensibility that they experience it differently than the majority of us.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Well, honestly, I have no idea what you're talking about when you said blue. It could be my yellow.

Yeah, right? There's no way to confirm it. Anyway, Notice here in the second half of the third line, they have gone back to the distinction between naming and imagining.

Ming dang tokpa. He went back to that. He's insisting that we not only talk about names, but we have to talk imagining separately.

Applying names, applying names to something, and thinking of something as something are separate. He wants to separate them. Ming dang tokpa shak tsam nyen.

They're only established that way. Nyen su she ma thakwa thakpa dang dra la. The way...

Now, when he says dra la at the end of this sentence, utpala, I had to go back to 286 and read it and read it and read it. Because 286 and 287 sounded exactly the same to me. And it was bothering me.

Because he said, at the end of 287, he said, by the way, this is similar to 286. I was irritated because I couldn't see any difference between 286 and 287. But he said they are similar.

And I thought he just repeated the same words over and over again. But I'll point out to you... Ming dang tokpa, not ming dang dre.

I don't know. Yeah, that's the difference, because that's what I found. Ming dang dre, right?

Yeah, ming dang dre. Yeah, good. But I also point out, he mentions wang she in 287.

So, 286 could be more mental, and 287 could be more physical senses. It's not so hard to think that you are thinking the wrong way about blue. But it is harder to think that your eye is not doing the right thing.

You can say my mind is mistaken. But to say that your eyeball is automatically mistaken, that gets a little weird. And how are you going to fix that?

If there is something wrong with the skin in your eyeball or something, then what? So anyway, I point out that in 287, he is talking about wang she. And in 286, I assume he is talking about mental consciousness.

What he is saying is that even your equipment is broken.

[Speaker 2]
I thought, as was explained earlier, it goes way back to when he first brought up the idea that... When he first brought up the idea that the essential nature of a thing and its characteristics are made up by your mind. And that was way above.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, but now he is implying that it is made up by your senses.

[Speaker 2]
Well, he is finally getting to the point where he is going to answer our guy's question, which is, how the heck can a sense consciousness, which does not think, be mistaken? How can it be deceived like that?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that is good. Now I am going to prepare you for the next paragraph.

[Speaker 2]
Can you first prepare me for how the heck to translate this sentence?

[Speaker 1]
287?

[Speaker 2]
No, what I have got highlighted.

[Speaker 1]
Sorry?

[Speaker 2]
What is the day?

[Speaker 1]
The blue. The blue, okay. He does not mention it, I guess.

Okay. Did he mention blue anywhere here? No, he has not.

He is talking about the color.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, so I just picked up appearance. I assumed, because there is no subject anywhere in here, except for this sentence. But yeah, there is no subject in here.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
There is no subject in the second half.

[Speaker 1]
It is the blue. It must be in 285. I do not know.

Stanley wants to point out that there is music called blues. Really? Playing the blues.

Okay.

[Speaker 2]
He wanted me to also think about, I mean I do not know if we want to go here or just wait until we have had more teachings on this, to talk about the distinction between the mind-only school and the consequence school with regards to this.

[Speaker 1]
Well, let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. What similarity is there in this?

Is there a similarity in language here to the language that we are going to encounter in the middle way school? Yes. Yes.

Yeah, in fact, the exact same words. Ming dang dak. Name and term, right?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. They use talk instead of shock.

[Speaker 1]
They use... They use joke instead of shock, right?

[Speaker 2]
Instead of...

[Speaker 1]
Oh yeah, yeah, you can say that. That is okay. That is okay.

You can say that. By the way, the difference there is that in the mind-only school here, and by the way, which is also the sutra school, and that is going to be a subject coming up next. In both the sutra school, the second school, and the mind-only school, they are going to be talking about how we apply names and pictures or thoughts to objects.

They both recognize that we do that. Both the second school and the third school, they both use the same language in a way. We are applying names and concepts to things.

They all agree. The second school says, yes, we are applying names and concepts to things. The third school says, yes, we are applying names and concepts to things.

The higher school says, yes, we are applying names and ideas to things. But is it natural or not is a debate.

[Speaker 2]
What do you mean natural? Mind-only is not saying it is natural. It is saying that it happens because you have been doing it countless times over time with no beginning.

[Speaker 1]
Exactly. Exactly. That is where Khenpoje is going next.

That is what is happening in the next few sentences. He is saying, and by the way, natural means rang gi tse nyi kyi drup pa. Is the connection between blue and this color, and is the connection between the concept blue and this color, is it natural or not?

Whether it is natural to the blue and the thought, or whether it is natural that that is what we do? That is the way we work? They both agree that that is the way we work.

That is an interesting thing. Both the second school and the third school recognize that our relationship to blue is conceptual. Okay?

But the second school says it is natural. It is conceptual and natural. The third school says it is conceptual and artificial.

We are going there next. Do you want to go? Yes, please.

Let's go there. My turn. By the way, don't get frustrated that we are not moving much.

We could go faster and we just wouldn't understand it.

[Speaker 2]
No, I am used to it. Last term we spent a whole day, actually we spent three days on one stanza.

[Speaker 1]
Yes, and I was in the car today and I was getting impatient because I was getting closer to Sedona. I was on the fourth time I read this thing and I was like, I am not going to make it. Okay, so here we go.

Please read Utpala. By the way, he has got some copy and sentence analysis.

[Speaker 2]
Yes, I have noticed that.

[Speaker 1]
It is a five-line sentence.

[Speaker 2]
It is teacher time. Go ahead. That P reminds me, we are going to change that P up above.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Let's go slow. We have another sentence.

Wang che means your eye consciousness, right? Your awareness of your eye. Your awareness of what your eye is seeing.

[Speaker 2]
He is talking about more general here, because we are talking about visual form and so on.

[Speaker 1]
He is just talking about sense consciousness. Yes, but in this case it is the eye. I mean, okay.

Your eye sense consciousness. Let's go to the next sentence. Does the blue appear to be the she?

Okay. The referent of the term blue. Okay.

Does what you see with your eyes appear to be the referent, the she of the word blue? And also of the words, this is something I can see, or this is something that started. Okay.

Those words. This is something I can see. This is blue.

This is something that started. Is there something you can see with your eye to which those terms refer? I will say it again.

Hey, this is blue. Number one. Number two.

Hey, this is something I can see. Number two. Number three.

Hey, this is blue start. Now it is blue start. This bread is turning blue.

In my house. Okay. Those three things.

Is the blue what you are talking about with those three expressions? Is it the tanyechi she? Nominally speaking.

Yeah. Yeah, nominally. Yeah.

Okay. Even to your sense consciousnesses, it seems like blue is what you are talking about when you say either this is blue, or this is something I can see, or this is something that started. Now, does it appear that those expressions apply to blue automatically?

[Speaker 3]
It doesn't.

[Speaker 2]
To me it does.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it does. Yeah, to your sense consciousness. Especially to your sense consciousness.

I mean, forget your mind. You could debate how your mind thinks about it, but your sense consciousness, if you could ask your eyeballs, do you think this is blue? Do you think it is something you can see?

They would say, stupid question. Of course it is. All right.

RANG GI TSE NA'I RGYUD DUG PAR NGA'I BA NGA'I BA means what?

[Speaker 2]
Appears.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. To your eyes, it appears like blue is what you are talking about when you say, hey, this is blue, or hey, this is something I can see, or hey, this is a color which started. Right?

To your eyes, it appears that that is what you are talking about. NANG BA, okay? And then NANG BA can be correct or incorrect.

Can I say that? It appears that my husband has a girlfriend, because he is on his phone and he is smiling. And then you find out he was buying you a birthday present.

Right? But that is a NANG BA, right? Does it...

But it also appeared that he was buying you a present. So some NANG BA's are correct, and some NANG BA's are incorrect. But generally...

What?

[Speaker 2]
You would call that... I would have to say a logical conclusion. My husband is on his phone, and I cannot see what he is writing.

That is what appears to me. But the conclusion is that he has a girlfriend. That is not seen by my eyes.

My eyes only see the phone, and not the back of the phone.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. I am trying to explore the word appear. Forget everything else.

When you say it appears to be true, what are you implying? You are implying it could be wrong. Is the real estate honest?

The real estate agent is saying, well, they appear to be honest. Okay. All right?

Now, so it appears, even to your eyes, that the blue should be called blue, that the blue is what you are talking about when you say, I can see it, and the blue is what you are talking about when you say it started. The blue started. Right?

It appears even to your eyes. And nangwa tar du, is it true as it appears? That is another question.

I will say it again. Does it appear to your eyes that this color is blue? Yes.

And then, is that appearance correct? Is it really the way it appears? nangwa tar du drukpa, is it really the way it appears?

Right. Not necessarily. Okay?

Is blue what your eyes are thinking about when they say this is blue? Not necessarily, but... rang gi tsen gyi, is this blue appearing as blue?

Is this blue appearing to be what we call blue? Yes. Yeah, ta nyik gi shi means, is this blue appearing to be what we call blue?

Yeah. Is it appearing that way automatically? Yeah.

The second school says it is. The third school says it is not. And that is what he is trying to say here.

Okay? ta nyik gi shi rang gi tsen gyi drukpa means, this blue is automatically what I call blue. Okay?

This blue is automatically what I call blue. Would the second school agree that I am calling blue blue? Yeah.

Would the third school agree that I am calling blue blue? Yeah. The second school would say, I am calling blue blue automatically.

And the third school would say, no, no, no. You are calling blue blue artificially. Okay, got it?

Okay. rang gi tsen gyi drukpa, nyik ga ming dang tokpay dakpa yin tsuk, ngapa na da yang, dakpa dar, ta nyik tsam di yang, shi ma drukpay. And so, is blue what you call blue?

Yes or no? Is blue what you call blue? Yeah.

In the second school and the third school, blue is what you call blue. Is it automatically what you call blue? Second school, yes.

Third school, no. That is an artificial creation. Okay?

dakpa dar, ta nyik tsam di yang, shi ma drukpay. Now, does there exist a connection between blue and the word blue? In the second school.

Sure. Yeah, automatically. In the third school.

[Speaker 3]
It is connected by two types of bhakchak.

[Speaker 1]
In the third school, is there a connection between blue and the word blue, even just nominally?

[Speaker 3]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
No.

[Speaker 3]
No.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, and this sentence at the end says no. shi ma drukpay, shi ma druk. shi druk means there is.

shi ma drukpay means no, there isn't.

[Speaker 3]
Even if it's artificial, there is no?

[Speaker 1]
They say no. Is there a connection between blue and the word blue? In the second school, yes.

In the second school, is it automatic? Is it natural? Yes.

In the third school, is there a connection between blue and blue? What are you talking about?

[Speaker 2]
An artificial connection.

[Speaker 1]
They say not even an artificial connection.

[Speaker 3]
Why do you call it blue? That's the...

[Speaker 1]
Now, let's go to the next sentence, and it'll help you a lot, okay?

[Speaker 3]
We are over time a little bit.

[Speaker 1]
Let's skip the review, because this sentence is going to help you guys a lot, and I'll read it. suk sok ngo dang kyepar gyi tan yi kyi shi yinpa, shi drukpay kun tak. suk sok ngo dang kyepar gyi tan yi kyi shi rang, kyi tsenay kyi drukpa, shi ma drukpay kun tak.

In this school, there are two imaginary things. In this school, there are two imaginary things. kun tak, right?

Remember, we're still in the three characteristics school. kun tak, yong druk, and shen wang, right? kun tak means imaginary, existing only by imagination, okay?

kun tak, okay? And even in the mind-only school, there are two kinds of kun tak. What?

Lies are kun tak. The sky is green to everybody. That's kun tak.

That's a conceptual thing, and it's false, okay? And then emptiness itself in this school is kun tak. Sorry, yong druk.

There is kun tak which do exist. Concepts are kun tak. They are neither shen wang, like shi's mental images, are unchanging, right?

But they are imaginary. There's imaginary things which are real, and there's imaginary things which are false, okay? In other words, there are kun tak here in this sentence, which are shi druk, and there are kun taks which are shi ma druk.

Shi druk is a synonym for... Existence? Existing thing?

Existence, or yi pa. There are imaginary things which exist, and there are imaginary things which don't exist. Purple elephant, okay?

It's imaginary, and it doesn't exist. But there are also conceptual things, like democracy, which are neither form nor mind, and they are just nominal ideas, but they exist, okay? Got it?

I guess they used to exist. Geshe-la, in Course 15, don't use the example of someone's name. Don't call those 1983 courses to me.

Why? It's all I have. You got the golden key, I point out.

It doesn't talk about kun taks. It does not mention one time. I'll make your bet that it does.

Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Like Tashi, like the name of somebody, that's a shi druk, shi druk pey kun tak, right?

I would say yes. The concept of a person is shi druk pey kun tak. Okay, thank you.

So anyway, we'll come back to this sentence in the next class. It's extremely difficult. Don't get frustrated.

Don't get upset. K.W.J., at the end of this section, he says, look, some people don't talk about this stuff because they don't understand it, and I'm talking about it, and I don't care. He says that.

All right? So let's come back to 289 next time. Utpala, can you try to translate 289 and 290?

Okay. Work on 289 and 290. Don't get worried.

What is that? Anytime you are stressed out in this class, it's a sign that you're learning something. If you feel comfortable and you figured something out, you shouldn't be in the class.

You should go on to something that you don't understand. Okay? What happens when you graduate, when you finish third grade?

They send you to fourth grade to get confused. Really? Okay.

They don't teach you the same third grade thing over again. Right? Is it true?

Okay. Okay. So 289, 290 for next time, Utpala.

Okay?

[Speaker 2]
I'm going to ask that we go back to 287.

[Speaker 1]
I'm totally happy to do that.

[Speaker 2]
Because it seems to me to contradict what you just said, what's said in 288. So I'd like to understand how they're not contradictory.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. I'm happy to do that. Okay.

I'm happy to do that. Yep.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Let's do that. Okay. And let's not go on until we understand it.

All right? How's that? Thank you.

All right. Don't get frustrated. We're okay.

We're learning something. Either this is gibberish, either the author doesn't know what he's talking about, or there's something important here. Okay?

I bet it's the latter. We hope it's the latter. Okay.

All right. Take a break, you guys. If you want to hear eating sounds, I'll leave the microphone on.

It gets exciting in this room between the second and third class. All right. Let's come back in five minutes to start the quiz, if that's okay, so that Adam gets a full class.

Okay, cool. Here we go.