Бетси Грир — Книга 2: Интерлюдия о пустоте, занятие 54

[Speaker 3]
Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Speaker 1]
Master Suge, did somebody just tell you a really good joke? I want to hear. Oh, you can't, you can't share it.

I think Gajah Michael looks like he heard it too. Something funny going on. We can't hear you guys at all.

Is that part of the plan? Is that what's funny? Gajah Michael finally just came to the true meaning of emptiness, very quietly.

Just hilarious. You gave it a long time ago, and it's hilarious. There she is.

[Speaker 3]
Yay.

[Speaker 1]
Hi, so I guess we're getting started. Seems like a good idea. Great.

So for some of us, this has been three days. For others of us, this has been a month. So with regard to the quiz, I wish you all the best.

That sounds pessimistic to me, I don't know. Okay, can you see my screen? Are you recording, Sigi?

Are you okay? Actually, I want to say something before.

[Speaker 3]
Hey, just to make sure, I know Francisco is recording, but it'd be good if you Venerable Pala can record on your machine, just in case. It's always a good insurance policy. We are recording you, Gajah Michael.

[Speaker 1]
Okay.

[Speaker 3]
Just, you know, recording sometimes fails. Awesome. All right.

I'm also recording to my computer. Yeah, me too.

[Speaker 1]
Yay. The insurance policy is in effect. Okay, so again, I really tried to make this easy, but here we go.

True or false? Sutras have no problem accepting something which is both appearing to a sense consciousness and unable to perform a function. They have a problem with that.

[Speaker 2]
I don't know if it's true or false. I hope that's false.

[Speaker 1]
It's false, right? It's true.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, no.

[Speaker 1]
Such a thing could appear to a mistaken sense consciousness, but they would have a problem with a thing that couldn't perform a function appearing to an unmistaken sense consciousness. Sorry, I took it off with a trick. I'm supposed to mean...

They're not supposed to be drunk though. It's a Buddhist school. That's true.

Maybe they don't eat well, so their liver is causing problems. True or false? Mentalists say that something appearing to an unmistaken sense consciousness that is unable to perform a function is an actual object in the way that the logicians use that term.

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
False. So to whomever said no, you're quite right. To mentalists, things that cannot perform a function are merely labeled by name and mental image.

Logicians use the term actual object or manifest object to refer to things that are able to perform a function. Mentalists can't reconcile something that is both merely labeled by name and mental image and related to cause and effect. Okay, boss.

Sutras do not accept the fact that space is the basis of the label space is a functioning thing. And they do assert that space being the basis of the label space is established due to the very way space is. And if that weren't the case, then it couldn't exist.

What error in thinking do mentalists say is going on in the minds of such sutrists? Is it about unchanging? Kind of.

Has its own nature.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, it seemed like there was a problem where they were saying that somehow the relationship between two unchanging things could be changing or real. Like the space is an unchanging thing and the name is an unchanging thing, but somehow and then that means that those two things don't exist by definition. But somehow the relationship between the two does exist by definition.

And then that should be a problem.

[Speaker 1]
I'm thinking so. I don't know quite how to say it. I'm trying to get clear because KJJ says we need to really get it.

So here's what I'm writing now, which is that mentalists say the consequence of sutras thinking is that space must be an actual object. Because they say space is named space by its very nature. Is that anywhere close, Mr. Geshe Michael?

I guess. Uh-oh. I think that's okay.

Okay. Yeah. Well, let's just move on to when in doubt, move on to vocabulary.

Is there a Tibetan phrase for the phrase able to perform a function? Njenupa. Njenupa.

Very good. Is there an English equivalent to this phrase?

[Speaker 2]
RANG GI NAS TSOS KYI DBANG GIS By the power of the way a thing is.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, due to its very nature. Yeah, that's good. That's a good vocabulary word.

That TSOS, by the way, is related to TSE MA for measuring. Just in case you want to know. Due to the measure of a thing.

Yeah, the measure of its thing or something. It's related to TSE. Extremely powerful point.

NAS GZHIN DU BYED, something like that. Kind of mix that up a different way. GZHIN DU NAS BYED BA That's nice.

That's a good vocabulary word. They're all good vocabulary words. Yeah.

So I'm hoping I get to the light going on at some point with regards to this. Is that Shel Silverstein? I'll predict what's going to happen with your text.

You're going to hit the middle way section and it's going to be boring for you. Well, that's not going to happen until next year sometime. But I'm just saying, once you hit there, it's something you've heard a thousand times.

So enjoy the different stuff here. I am enjoying the confusion. Am I committing perjury?

I don't know, maybe. Let me get a big cursor up here. Accessibility, display.

Okay. All right. Are you ready?

Let's read. You translated these next two sections. Let's take a look at them.

Yeah, I didn't have time to get to the third and it was just like making my mind go into the squiggle area of that image. All right. Okay, got it.

Please read and then we'll look at your translation. ,'JIGS SKAD ZHES PA'I DRON DOG PA'I THA SGOS PA'I TSUL DI RNAMS PAR RIGS PA TZAM LA, ,'JIGS PHAR BCUG PA NI, How does one engage in this monament? ,'JIGS SKAD ZHES PA'I DRON DOG PA'I THA SGOS PA'I TSUL DI Yeah, the way of denying the extreme, the way of denying the extreme of overestimating, as we've explained it here, how does it apply to the mind-only school?

What cute thing has he done with the name of the mind-only school? Well, it's also a phrase we've used about conceptual thought, right? Yeah, instead of calling them SEMS TZAM, instead of calling them SEMS TZAM, he's called them RNAMS PAR RIGS PA TZAM.

It's just a cute, he's just being cute. Those who say everything is knowing-only rather than mind-only. That's all.

Should we come up with a new name there instead of saying mind-only? Should we say the... I think so.

I think so. Now what do we call them? Conceptualizers-only?

You can call them conceptualists. It would be all right. Something like that.

He's trying to be cute, so you've got to be cute with him. All right. All right.

So how do they explain, how do you stop drom duk? How do you stop overestimating things? Please read the next section.

,RDZUGS NAS RNAMS PHYIN GYIS BAR GYI, ,CHOS RNAMS MIN GYIS THAMS NAS SDOG PA'I, ,GNAS DANG RNAMS POG GI GZHAN PA'I ZHIG YIN PA, ,DE DON DANG BAR GRUB PAR BSKYED PA NA, Good. First of all, this is a fancy way of saying everything in the universe. Everything from physical matter.

This SDUG means physical matter and it does not mean visible form. It does not mean visible form. Okay.

Everything from atomic particles up to our missions. CHOS RNAMS In English it's just a way of saying everything in the universe. All existing things is fine.

CHOS RNAMS MIN GYIS THAMS NAS SDOG PA'I GNAS DANG Are they the locus or are they the thing which is given a name? Are they the thing which is thought of by thought? They want to deny that that exists, ultimately speaking.

Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. In other words, they're not naturally named what they are.

How's that? Great. That seems to be the point in this section is that the sutra school and the mind-only school have a difference between how natural they think that names are for what they refer to.

There was an interesting part about even the second school believing that there's something that we call empty space that it's appropriate to give the name empty space to a certain object and that that relationship is okay. Somehow it's even natural. Even though empty space is what, according to the three divisions of the mind-only school?

It's a kundak. Yeah, it's a kundak. It's just name.

Existing name only. I'm sorry this next section is so long. Do you want to pick on somebody else or you want to read it yourself?

If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to plant the seeds to hopefully one day be able to translate it. All right, go slow. No problem.

Okay, good. SEMS LA GCOD PAR THEG DOD LAS GSUNGS PA THAR YIN LA Good. Okay, good.

It's something in accordance with the way that the summary talks about it. Yeah, the Mahayana Sangraha. Whatever this long sentence says, we would expect it to be a mind-only school position.

Having been described in one of the great books of the mind-only school. I was trying to date the mind-only school and it's kind of messy. But here we go.

GCOD PAR THEG DOD LAS GSUNGS PA THAR YIN LA A name which constitutes a verbal expression? Yeah, the name which says something about a thing. The name which describes a thing.

And then the DON which is GCOD BY the name. A meaning that is expressed by the name? Yeah, here DON means object.

The object, the name which is given to the thing, and the thing which is given the name. He says, he shortens those two to MING DON. MING and DON.

The name and the thing which receives the name. MING DON Are they connected? Do they have a relationship?

They are in agreement. Is it natural? Well, not in the way the sutras think about it.

Yeah, and the more opinionated a person is, the more they believe that the connection between the name of a thing and the thing is natural. How's that? All right.

DUR LA BSTAN NAS GCOD BYAS SDUG BSNGAL DANG Then can you use names to describe the essential nature and the qualities of what is given the name? Can you use modifiers on the names that you give objects to describe both the essence of those objects and the characteristics of those objects? Can you?

Yes. Can you say big cup? Yes, you can say big cup.

Yeah, you can. Cup is NGO BO and BSKYED PA is big. You can describe a cup-like object as being a cup and as being big.

BSKYED PA DU Now, in that case, does the main word cup and does the qualifier big, do they apply to that object? NAS RDZUGS KYI DNGOS NAS Is it a natural relationship? Do they have to be called cup and do they have to be called big?

According to Master Asanga in DEG DU, no. Yeah, so that relationship... Apparently in the third school that relationship is artificial and in the second school that relationship is natural.

Maybe. But in either case, it appears to be natural. There is a state of mind that all people have, and as we said, opinionated people might have it more, where they shen, they hanker, or they tend to want to think that that relationship is natural.

CI LTAR NUS Now, is there any corresponding object, which means a cup which is naturally big and a cup which is naturally a cup, does the object of their hankering or the object of their opinionated thinking, does that object exist? No. Yeah, when they think the word cup and the word big should apply naturally to a certain object, according to the Mind-Only School, does that object even exist?

No. Yeah, right. That's why it says here, LTAR DU GZHAN PA'I DON MED There's no such object.

The object that you think is there is not there. Therefore, that kind of focus on the object, RDZIN DANG, right? Thinking of the object that way as though the word cup and big, the words cup and big applied to it naturally, there is no double negative here.

[Speaker 3]
Right.

[Speaker 1]
There is no MA GRUB PA. Right, it's not at all unmistaken. Yeah, there's no version of that which is unmistaken.

Which means all of that kind of thinking that the word cup and the word big could apply to an object naturally, those kinds of thoughts are all not unmistaken. NYAMS NAS Now, GSUNGS RDZIN GNYIS MED This is a tricky word here. Who believes that?

The non-duality of subject and object? Yeah, and I would personally, when I got to that part of the sentence, I think I was trying to imagine blue. I think it's the mind-only version of how names apply to objects.

And they would say GNYIS MED. They would say that the blue and the perception of the blue are not separate. Are not dissimilar.

Right. They're not separate. Why?

Same seeded. It's the mind looking at the mind. Yeah, good.

They're not distinct because the mind is looking at the mind. When I see this, GSUNGS RDZIN GNYIS MED, I take it as the mind-only position. What you hold, the blue color, and the perception of the blue color, in the end they are indistinguishable from each other.

GNYIS MED. Okay, cool. PAS RNAM PAR RIG PA TZAM LA SBYUG PAR They are both RNAM PAR RIG PA TZAM.

They are both just mere conceptions. Yeah, mere mind. Now we see why it was important in those sentences before to use that new word for SEMS BSAM PA, RNAM PAR RIG PA TZAM in 354.

You see what I mean? He set you up for a new name for the mind-only. He called it, I don't know, conceptualizers or something.

Then when he got to 356, he used it again. He said, that's the... We could check, but I suspect it's the wording that was used in the Mahayana Sangraha.

Okay. I bet if you search Mahayana Sangraha for RNAM PAR RIG PA TZAM, you might come up with some nice stuff. Okay.

Okay, all right. Nice. What are the two things that are merely mind?

Say again?

[Speaker 2]
What exactly are the two things here that are just RNAM PAR RIG PA?

[Speaker 1]
The blue, which is given the word blue, and the perception of the blue, you could say. Could you also say what is held in the holding of it? Yeah, you could say that.

The blue which you... GSUNG means the blue object, and ZIN means the perception of the blue object. Okay?

Cool. Who's going to read next, Venerable Upala? Is Venerable Chintam here?

Did she hear about today's class? I'm not sure how well it was advertised. Yeah.

Okay, Venerable Jigme.

[Speaker 3]
Sorry?

[Speaker 1]
Or, let's see. How about Chloe?

[Speaker 3]
Oh, Venerable Jigme is here.

[Speaker 1]
Oh. Here she comes. Here she comes, Venerable.

Hi. Okay. SBYOR DOG NI THEG PA NI KHYI PHYI ROL DGE LA THOS PA'I GSUNGS CAN TSE GZHAN YANG MED MED Is that a B or a Y?

MED MED MED MED MED MED THEG PA'ANG RGYUR TE Okay, good. What's RGYUR TE, you guys? That's overestimation.

Yeah, and I think he's referring to the belief that the word cup and the word blue, for example, or white applied to the object which receives those names naturally. If we deny this overestimation that the name and the description of the cup apply to it naturally, then we automatically... DE MED means effortlessly.

DE MED means effortlessly. Then we effortlessly can pick, can deny the idea that the blue and the perception of the blue are separate substances. Okay.

So what he's kind of saying is that if we can deny the idea that names apply to their objects naturally, we are one step closer to denying that blue is not the mind. We're one step closer to denying that blue is not the mind. Yeah.

Or that they are separate substances. So it's a very interesting connection. Names are not natural.

Therefore, names don't apply to their objects naturally. Therefore, it's not weird to say that blue is part of the mind. Okay.

All right. He doesn't say they're the same thing, but he says that once you get used to thinking that names don't apply to objects naturally, you'll be able to effortlessly move on to thinking that blue and the mind which perceives the blue are not separate objects. Something like that.

He says not separate doesn't mean the same. Yeah, and what he's saying is that once you grow out of the second school, you can grow into the third school.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. It's kind of nice. It's kind of cute.

All right. Who's next? If Venerable Jigme is still there, that would be...

She's sitting there and she's dying to read the next part. That's what I thought. Yeah.

She's jumping up and down, actually. No, I'm actually trying to struggle you to stay awake. Thanks.

What did I say wrong? It's ta ni.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, that's weird. I thought I said ta ni. Anyway.

Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. Nice. That's good.

Next question. suk sok ngor dang kyepar gyi ta ni drupay shiyam By the way, he gives you a definition. He gives you a positive to explain the word NI, which is helpful.

Oh, yeah. A place or a basis. So he says don't think of place here as a physical place.

Think of it as a basis for names. Think of it as the object which receives a name. The base or the place here is suk, a physical object such as a cup.

We can apply names to the cup. We can call it cup, ngor, and we can call it white or blue or whatever. The locus or the place that we give the name of the main thing, cup, ngor, or the characteristic of the cup, its color for example, when we use those, there's a tendency, shampa, to believe that that relationship of the word cup and blue to the object is natural.

It exists by definition. There's a tendency to think, and again, the more prejudiced you are, the more you believe that names apply self-existently. So you do have a tendency to think, shampa.

You have a hankering or an attraction towards thinking that way. But if you use your rigpa, rigspa, this one has an S on it, but if you use logic, if you use logic, you can learn to deny the truth of what appears to you. You can learn to deny that cup and white apply naturally to cup if you learn, if you educated in Buddhism.

Rigpe kepa na, you can use logic to deny that. Now, question for you Utpala. If you use your logic to learn to deny that the word cup or the word white could apply to a cup naturally, will it change how it looks to you?

No, it will not. So here he says, wang che kyi nansul tar gyepang, it's still going to look that way to your eyeball, to your eye sense power. It's still going to appear as if the names for the thing and the names for its qualities applied to it self-existently.

But we have kepa that with logic, with our rational thinking, we deny the evidence of our senses. With rational thinking, we deny the evidence of the senses. And through rational thinking, we establish, droop at the end of this section, that the way that things appear to the sense consciousnesses is chulwa.

Is mistake. Yeah, and I think you got this classic example of a person in jey tobyeshe. Things are still appearing to them the wrong way, but they don't believe it anymore.

Sometimes they can forget, but they can never truly misunderstand again. But things still look as though they're coming from their own side. Now, is he finally answering that question of the fellow who came along, I don't know, a year and a half ago?

Who said, just how is it that our eyes are mistaken? How can eyes be mistaken? Is he finally answering?

I think that's part of it, yeah. I think that's a big part of it. How can it be that your sense powers are mistaken?

That was one of the big takeaways I had from Sugeng's first book, is that every link in the Wheel of Life is infected, including the sense powers. SNGAGS PA SKYE MCHED, the fifth link of the five doors of sense. They are infected.

The whole wheel is infected. Every one of the twelve links is infected. Yeah, that's cool.

Okay, who's going to read the next one Venerable Utpala? Let's see, who is here? Chloe, would you like to read?

I see your name. I'm Siri. Nice to meet you.

Siri thinks I'm talking to her. Siri is not allowed to answer questions in class. How about Venerable Gyelse?

I'm here. Oh, Chloe's there? Okay, sorry, I can't see anyone but Geshe Michael and the text.

You're so lucky. I am.

[Speaker 2]
Good.

[Speaker 1]
KHANG SOGS KHANG SOGS Like chocolate cake.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
All right. If we can establish that the way the name and the characteristics of a thing don't apply to it naturally, if we can establish that, DE SBYUR PA NA, then we can go on to KHYAD PA. We can go on to DENG NA.

That an object of the sense awareness, such as blue, is somehow being generated from the outside. Somehow that blue is being generated from the outside. We can deny that.

You comfortable? You okay? PHYIR ROL GYI RTOG means that it's occurring through some external influence and not through some change in the seeds in your foundation consciousness.

Once you get closer to understanding that names don't apply to objects naturally, you're getting closer to believing that the appearance of blue itself is not happening through some external influence. PHYIR ROL GYI RTOG LAS PHYIR ROL GYI RTOG LAS cake. We deny it.

Then we can go from there to denying the last cake here, that blue, etc., are substantially separate or different from the sense consciousness. Now, I want to point out something cool here. Something cool.

He did not say RANG TU RNAMS MKHAN GYI DBANG ZHES that he did not say the sense power to which it is appearing. He did not say that. He did not say the sense power to which the object is appearing.

He said he used the language, the sense power which is appearing as it. Which is appearing as blue. He did not use the language here.

He did not use the words here that would say, which would even refer to visual consciousness as something to which blue is appearing. He doesn't want to add the word to in his sentence. He objects to the word to.

It's very cool. It's very tantric. He did not say RANG LA RNAMS MKHAN or something like that.

He said RANG RNAMS MKHAN. He said the sense power which is appearing as blue. He did not say the sense power to which blue is appearing.

He objects to objectifying blue. It's very interesting. It's very beautiful.

So this RANG RNAMS, he did not use a LAD DUN. He did not use a preposition here. He did not say the consciousness to which blue is appearing.

He carefully avoided the two. He said the consciousness which is appearing blue-ish. Because that's what it is according to the Maitreya school.

Blue is not appearing to consciousness. Consciousness is appearing blue-ish to consciousness. Got it?

Cool? It's very cool. Therefore, what appears blue-ish to the awareness of blue is not substantially different from the consciousness.

And we deny that. Again, he's tracing the progression from second school to third school. Did you just say, maybe I heard it wrong?

I did just say illegally. Okay, I'm sorry. And my English here is sloppy.

Okay, let's skip it. Who's next Venerable Utpala? Venerable Gyelse.

Is she there? Thank you. I'm here.

Okay, good. I can barely hear you.

[Speaker 3]
,RANG LUGS LA'ANG, ,'PHA CANG MTHIL BA, ,MA RGYUD MED RDOG PA'I BYUNG STE MA RGYUD MA RGYUD MA RGYUD PA BYUNG STE Nice. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. So there's a drong dok. There's an overestimation going on here.

We've been talking about an overestimation where you think that the word cup and the word blue as applied to the cup apply to it naturally. And that's an overestimation. That's an overestimation.

And that's a ta. That's an extreme view. It's wrong.

It goes too far. To say that the application of cup, the word cup and the word blue to a cup is natural is ta. It's going too far.

And we have to gog that ta. We have to deny that extreme opinion that names could apply to their objects naturally. If you don't understand how the Mind-Only School denies that extreme idea.

If you don't understand how the Mind-Only School wants to correct it back towards the middle, their middle. Now we... And this discussion is so long and so difficult that it's easy to forget how we got here.

We were talking about the three periods in the Buddha's life and the three periods of teaching. The period which is most controversial in the Mind-Only School is which of the three periods in the Buddha's life? The one that's most controversial to them would be the second turning.

Yeah, the second turning of the wheel, like Heart Sutra, Diamond Cutter Sutra, Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, where Lord Buddha said, nothing exists. So YUM GYI MDO means the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, the Mother Sutras. It's called the Mother Sutras.

In those sutras, LAS means in those, in those sutras. In those sutras, ME. He describes the whole second turning of the wheel with a single word.

It ain't there. It ain't there. Nothing there.

When the Mother Sutras, when the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras say nothing, when they say nothing, they are, their real intention is to talk about kuntaks. To talk about mental concepts. Yeah, or named things.

The naming process. A mind-only school person is going to interpret the second turning of the wheel as the denial that cup and blue apply to a cup naturally. They're going to say the second turning of the wheel was a correction of the second school.

That's their version of the second turning of the wheel. That's cool. Yeah, nice.

That's what Thich Duc is saying. That's what Mahayana Sangraha is really saying. We deny the second school's interpretation of the second turning of the wheel.

Okay. Cool. We say what the Buddha meant in the second turning of the wheel when he said it's not there was a natural relationship between cup and blue and an object on your table.

Okay, cool. GSUNGS PA'I LDAN LA RNAM RIG PA And to take the second turning in the way that the second school would take it, according to the Rangluk of the mind-only school, RNAM RIG PA, mentalist, right? According to them, to take the second turning of the wheel in the way that the second school wants to take it, HA BYANG THAL BA That's...

I don't know. It has excessively many problems? Yeah, HA BYANG THAL BA means too much.

Rinpoche used to always say too much. HA BYANG THAL BA is too much. It's too much.

The way the second school interpret the second turning of the wheel is too much. MANG DU MA DGOS PA BYUNG STE They have to say many things like that about the second school. They got to keep repeating stuff like that about the second school.

Alright, who's next? This is cool stuff. You could spend a long time cooking this in your head.

Thank you, I will. By the way, I believe that the application of this to real life discussion should take place live. Am I right Seiji?

Yep, the 15 minute discussion applying this class to real life should go ahead and take place on the day of the class. That's what we're planning. Yeah, because...

I'll be in a certain country where I can't talk about it. It's up on you guys. So we all have like, I don't know, three weeks to think about it.

Yeah, most likely I'll be sleeping. Okay. Alright, who's going to read Venerable Pabla?

I would like Lindsay to please take a crack at this. Whoa. Ever since she moved to Rimrock she got more intelligent.

Well, of course. But although she was in Seattle. It's the cinnamon rolls.

That's what it does. Yes. gong so gong so she sok tok dan la kye mi den la kye mi si pe One more time.

den la kye mi si pe den la kye mi ri pe S-R is pronounced S. si si pe Okay, got it.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you. mi si pe lok tok guk pa wa shig la ja thek cha thik pa che tok pa mang war jung wey chi ro Nice, nice.

[Speaker 1]
See, it was the sweet rolls. That's what it is. Now, suppose somebody takes the second turning of the wheel where Buddha said, meh!

Nothing's there. And they want to apply it to du ma che kyi nam ka. Uncompounded space.

Yeah, and so far, as Ben Kramer pointed out at the beginning of the class, we've had a comfortable discussion that you can call space, space. That's okay. The name space can apply to empty space.

But now, these guys, like second school people, they're moving on to empty space which has no causes and conditions, which was never produced by causes and conditions, du ma che. Let's talk about empty space, which was never produced by causes and conditions. GSUM PA'ANG Now, someone comes along and says, when Buddha said that empty space, that there was no empty space, not created by causes and conditions, there's no empty space, what they mean is, empty space is not an outer object.

When in the second turning of the wheel they said, nothing, and you apply that to empty space, which has no causes and conditions which produced it, they say, what the Buddha meant was, empty space is not an outside object in the same way that blue is not an outside object. They want to take the mind-only school to an extreme. Does the mind-only school deny outside objects?

Yes, but outside sense objects like blue. They say it's an inner thing, it's not an outside object. Then somebody wants to come along and says, well, when the Buddha got to the second turning of the wheel, he was going deeper, and he wanted to deny, not only is blue happening inside your mind, empty space is also happening inside your mind.

There is no outer empty space. If you perceive an empty space, you are looking at part of your foundation consciousness. They want to interpret the second turning of the wheel that way.

Got it? GZHIG ROL BDUN DU MED GONG SO Then Khenpo Jigme Describes those people as LOG LTOGS which is SKAD MI SRID PA for a LTOGS BSTAN GYI SKAD BU By the way, this should be LTOGS BSTAN, I think. Yeah, it should be LTOGS.

What does LTOGS BSTAN mean? LTOGS BSTAN SKAD BU SKAD BU means a person, right? To have a good realization or good idea?

Yeah, intelligent person. A person with discriminating person. STONG LDAN GYI Person.

That kind of idea that the Buddha was denying that empty space could be an outer object is SKAD MA SRID PA'I LOG LTOGS and now the correct spelling is LTOGS. Is it something that comes up that's impossible to have a wrong idea about? That's like a super bad idea which would never happen with an intelligent person.

That's it. LOG LTOGS means really bad idea. To believe that when the Buddha did the second turning of the wheel what he was trying to say was empty space is the same as blue.

To come up with that kind of cuckoo idea is impossible for an intelligent person. SKAD MI SRID That kind of idea could never happen in an intelligent person's mind. Got it?

Thinking that the second turning of the wheel and the Buddha said it's not there, he was talking about an outside empty space. Who could ever think of such a stupid thing? The Buddha was only denying outside blue.

He was not denying outside space. I'm a mind-only guy by the way and I'm explaining the second turning of the wheel. Okay?

You all right? Did the Buddha deny an outside blue in the second turning of the wheel? Sure.

Well, he pretty much denied everything, right? No, but in the mind-only school for sure. That's what he was denying.

In the mind-only school the second turning of the wheel was meant to deny an outside blue. Then somebody came up and said, well then, he must have been denying an outside empty space also. We're like, not the same thing.

Who could come up with that? What a stupid idea. Who's talking?

Probably mind-only again. Yeah, K.W.J. is talking about this other... Well, I don't see what the problem is myself.

Say again? If blue, which is just an idea, is denied as an external object, then why not empty space, which is also just a concept? I don't know.

He said, don't worry about it, you're getting too complicated. Well, I'm not a teacher so that's probably why. Then K.W.J. says, CHE DGOS PA MANG BAR CHUG DGOS Look, I could go on and on about other kinds of impossibles that are impossible, but I'm not going to bother. Now, is he speaking about from the mind-only point of view or is he speaking about...

[Speaker 2]
Absolutely.

[Speaker 1]
That's a great... This whole section, he's got a mind-only hat on. By the way, when he finally takes off the mind-only hat and puts on the middle way hat, you're going to have a big sigh of relief and it's going to be a lot less fun.

All right. Who's next, Venerable Pallai? Let's see.

Who online would like to... Is there anyone online? Catherine Yan, are you online and able to read?

Yes. Yay!

[Speaker 2]
Yay! THO RNAMS KYI MING YANG MA MTHONG BA LA SOGS PAR GSOS SOGS ZHES PHYI TSUL LA SKYE BAR GYUR TE Lovely, thank you.

[Speaker 1]
By the way, word smith, I'm extremely irritated that all your students learn to pronounce things so well so fast. It's really irritating me. It's probably some kind of drugs in Tucson or something.

It's opposite day. But I'm very impressed and I got to study what the heck you're doing. Okay.

DE BZHIN NA If you do understand that. Yeah, if you do understand this, then you will see that when we apply the name nam kha to nam kha, when we apply the name space to space, even when you call empty space, empty space, even that name doesn't apply to its object self-existently. RANG GI MTSAN NYID KYI GRUB PA MED He says, here's the MED again.

Here's the MED. It's not there. What?

It's not that it's not an outside object. It's that the name space doesn't apply to space self-existently. That's the second turning of the wheel.

Something like that. That's the real MED. Because that's what Lord Buddha had in mind during the second turning of the wheel, GONG NAS That's why he said things like NAM KHA YANG MA MTHONG NAM KHA'I MING YANG MA MTHONG This repetition of the word YANG YANG is always like this.

Look, number one, blah, blah, blah, blah. Number two, blah, blah, blah, blah. When you see YANG repeated like this, the person is making two points.

First of all, blah, blah, blah, blah. Second of all, blah, blah, blah, blah. When you see YANG repeated like it is here, it always means that.

First of all... So when you can't see space... First of all, no one could ever see empty space.

First of all. Secondly... You can't see the name empty space.

Good. Yeah, good. When Buddha was talking about space and the name empty space applying to space, that's the point he was making in the second turn of the wheel when he said it's not.

Because what he meant was even in the case of space, the application of the name to the object was not natural. And he was not denying an external empty space. He wasn't doing the blue thing.

He was doing the natural name thing. All right? LA SOGS PAR GSUNGS SO If you understand the points we've been making in this book so far, then you will become a SKAD PA and BYAS PA those quotations from Lord Buddha.

You will become a master of the way to cut.

[Speaker 2]
What? It's explaining.

[Speaker 1]
You'll get really good at explaining weird stuff that Lord Buddha said, such as you can't see space and you can't see the name space. That was the point of the second turning of the wheel. He was talking about names applying to their objects naturally, even if those objects are empty space.

There's a very profound discussion in the Mother Sutras, in the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, about seeing space. There's a very profound and beautiful discussion. We're going to go on a detour to that discussion.

We've got one minute. Can we do it? No.

If we did it, you couldn't translate it before the next class. I mean, yay! You're going to go to the three percentage signs and you're going to try to translate down to the other three percentage signs.

The words are not difficult. The ideas are deep. YIN PAS RIN PHYIN GYIS PA, by the way, is the shortest version of the Prajnaparamita Sutras.

It's shorter than the 8,000 verses. You got 100 verses. You got 25 verses.

You got 20,000 verses. You got 8,000 verses. Then you got RIN PHYIN GYIS DU PA, which is short, short.

Short, short Mother Wisdom. Mother Sutra. There's an amazing discussion about seeing empty space.

We're going to go there next. It's really something amazing. Struggle with it and then we'll work on it next class.

Okay, so we'll see you in January. Yeah, yeah. This recording is to replace the class that's in December, I think.

Okay, which I cannot give from where I'll be. All right. Thank you so much Geshe Michael.

Thank you. It's awesome stuff. Awesome stuff.

I'm glad you wanted to do this talk. Back to Nick. Oh, well, thank you so much for the class.

That was awesome. Thank you everybody for watching. I hope that you've enjoyed.

We have another one coming up in 15 minutes. I think we told Gibson 15 minutes from now, right?

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, but I think he's here, right?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I'm here.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, poor guy. That's great. Thank you for joining, Gibson.

I know it's an unbearable hour for you. So it's up to you. I mean, however much of a long of a break you would like to take, Geshe-la and Gibson.

I'd say five minutes for a pee-pee and we'll come back. That sounds good. Seven minutes, in case it's a long one.

Sounds good. It sounds like a plan. 209, World Central Time.

Thank you for a beautiful class, Geshe-la and Upa. That was awesome. I think I could even follow for a few minutes there.