Бетси Грир — Книга 2: Интерлюдия о пустоте, занятие 59

[Speaker 3]
Can just start the homework just from our side. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Okay. So, um, that's the word from Rimrock, Arizona.

Um, Paula coming to you live from near Rimrock. So I'll just introduce the class. Are you ready with your homework?

Yeah, sure. Okay. Uh, so we're going to do a, we're going to do another class now for those of you who want to stick around, uh, check it out.

We're going to pre-record and we will air this class on Monday for those of you who would like to see it then. So let's jump on in. Thanks, Nick.

Thank you.

[Speaker 3]
I don't want to make it completely.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, and words class will be after this. Okay. So right word, is that still going to work for you?

Sure. Let's do it. Okay.

So just to note for those who are recording, let's do the clap now so that everything that's come before this moment is not part of the recording that's played on Monday or people might get confused. So welcome to interlude on emptiness, the quiz on our last class. Um, if you recall, we are still in the land of the mind only school.

And, um, we got to some quite juicy bits, but I tried to make the quiz as non-painful as possible. So one, one section, um, KJJ was talking about how we have to be careful as, um, as Dharma practitioners who are reading works from different Buddhist philosophical schools, points of view that when we come across certain phrases, we need to keep in mind what the phrase means to that philosophical school. And, um, Geshe Michael frequently says, you know, what hat are you wearing?

So, and he used, uh, just, he used a couple of examples, but if you could talk about in a general way, how the phrase Rangsen is considered by the Sutras, the second philosophical school and by followers of the consequence branch, the, uh, ultimate point of view. So let's start with the Sutras point of view. What, what, how do they consider the phrase Rangsen?

Something that really exists like a functioning thing, which is an expression. Yeah. Changing things manifest archetype.

This is a great question. Yeah. So it's as opposed to a cheats and they consider Rangsen as opposed to cheats and an archetype.

Now. So what do those who follow the consequence branch of the middle way school how do they consider the phrase Rangsen?

[Speaker 2]
It's a description of the type of thing we deny. Rangseni kudrupa, a thing that could exist by its own definition.

[Speaker 1]
Excellent. Thank you so much. So it's the Gakcha.

It's the very thing we deny the thing, the impossible thing that doesn't exist, never existed and never could exist. So two very different ways of taking that phrase. So now jumping, uh, to, uh, KJJ started talking about the three turnings of the wheel again, the three turnings, and he talked about two wrong ways of thinking about why the Buddhist teachings are divided into three turnings and one correct way.

Of thinking about why they're divided into three turnings. So I'm not sure you're going to get these in the order that I've got him in my quiz, but just in case, let's just start with, um, the division is not related to three baskets. Speaking of, uh, not well, yeah, it's not three baskets, but that's not what KJJ brought up.

I'm sorry. What I heard a voice periods of time in his life, right? But in order to show that one, I have to show the one that we haven't yet mentioned.

So I'm going to wait and show you that one in a second. What's the other thing that was mentioned? That is not a correct way of thinking about why the three turnings are divided into three reflections with students or different locations where the teaching was.

Right. How and why students in attendance were collected and periods of the Buddhist life. Yeah.

It's got nothing to do with those things. What does it have to do with the contents of the teaching? Right.

The subject matter or the lack of a self on what authority does KJJ make this claim? I'm guessing the Buddha said it somewhere. Yeah.

Where? In the Sutra. Which one?

[Speaker 2]
There we go.

[Speaker 1]
Very good. Shakyamuni Buddha himself in unraveling the true thought or also known as what I really meant. So it was kind of an easy quiz, right?

Yeah, that's what I want. Celebratory noises, but also useful. Okay, good.

I suppose there's no word that means in name only. Well, there's more than one, but what's the one that we talked about last time?

[Speaker 3]
Ming Tsang?

[Speaker 1]
Not that one. I should have done it the other way around. Sorry.

It's fun to guess. Yeah. What does Yi mean?

That's cool. Oscar said doubt.

[Speaker 3]
Oh, yeah. Doubt. Good, Oscar.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that's what it is.

[Speaker 3]
Nice.

[Speaker 1]
I could not hear it. Yeah, nice. Tse.

Measure? Measure. Wrong idea.

As opposed to tse ma. Just tse is an idea. Tse min?

Oh, okay. Thank you. Yay.

Translation. Yes. Let me get rid of my quiz on my...

Sorry. Can you see? Yes, thank you.

You can zoom in a little, probably. Okay. I mean, for those...

It's like, then I have to be across the room. Oh, no. You got to get special glasses for that.

I'm not sure the glasses would do it. Okay, so remember what we're doing is we're talking about the three turnings of the wheel, and the fact that the three turnings of the wheel, that the Buddhist teachings are divided into three based on subject matter, and that subject matter has to do with selflessness, right? DE PHYIR GSUNG RANG YIN PA LA KHOR LO GSUNG THAM RUNG GI RTO YIN PAS MA BYAGS KYIS GSUNG DU CHE BA NI TSOR BA'I DBANG DU BYED PA'I YI BA'O Okay, let's look at it.

Therefore, just because something is a teaching of Lord Buddha, does not necessarily mean it is the sutra of one of the three turnings of the wheel. Division into three is distinction. Yeah, good.

The only suggestion I have here... And by the way, what was the teaching that he gave as an example of... Generally, we say Lord Buddha's teachings all divide into one of the three turnings of the wheel, right?

Yeah, he gave... Well, the discussion here is, what defines the three turnings of the wheel? Is it historical periods in Lord Buddha's life?

Is it subject matter that he was talking about? And he says here there were certain teachings that...

[Speaker 3]
Are not...

[Speaker 1]
They don't fit into the three turnings of the wheel. And the example he gave was? He gave two examples.

One was the tiger and his cubs. And then the other was about the monk's robes and how they should be worn. Yeah, yeah.

And he said that doesn't really fit. That they should be circular. That doesn't fit into any of the three turnings of the wheel.

Okay, so far what he's done is to say there are certain ideas about the three turnings of the wheel that are wrong. And there are certain teachings that don't fit into the three turnings of the wheel. And the three turnings of the wheel should not be explained as the earlier, medium, and later part of the Buddhist life.

Well then, how do you define the three turnings of the wheel? And this is where we're going. Why is such a big subject at this point in his text?

We're about to go to the second turning of the wheel. Yeah, or the debate between the second and third turning of the wheel. Second turning of the wheel, Heart Sutra, Diamond Cutter Sutra, all the emptiness teachings.

Third turning of the wheel, the mind-only school. We've been in the mind-only school. If it's the last turning of the wheel, shouldn't it be the best?

And there's a lot of questions that come up. So he's throwing in a discussion about the three turnings of the wheel, which I am really happy about, because it means he's getting out of the mind-only school. We'll go to something familiar.

All right, next. Who's going to read the next paragraph? Venerable Rinpoche.

I don't know how to pronounce that. The V is silent. Okay, good.

By the way, in these philosophy books sometimes you get a very nice vacation, and they talk about some sweet metaphor, or they tell you a story, like the magician story or something like that. So this is one of my favorite parts of this book, because it's just kind of a story. Sometimes I miss reading a book and hearing a story.

So these books are so hard, unrelentingly hard, and then suddenly there's a nice story. So here's a story for you. And it's a nice vacation actually.

kha chik means somebody's going to make an argument, right? Someone comes along to protest good, and they're quoting the Exalted Sutra of Questions by the King, the Lord of Dharani, sung gi wang chu gyelpo. Okay, good.

shu ben do. Yeah, okay. Yep, requested by this king.

Yeah, shuwa. O child of noble family, it is, for example, like this. A master jeweler.

Yeah, okay, or a gemologist actually. Norbu khen kepa. A master jewel master.

Not jewelry necessarily. Norbu jungway tsultepar shepa de. They know the way to...

This jungwa is not just... It's like the jung in lojung. It doesn't mean just to clean the jewels, but it means to...

What do you call that? Like when you have a gold pan and you go like this and the gold comes out? Sifting, extracting.

Extract. It's kind of extract, but we'll see why. We'll see what it means.

They take a... jungway lepa shepa nobarungpa che rikne. They take a yong su ma dakpe norbu.

Ma dakpe norbu. Yeah, completely... It's still rough.

The point is it's a rough gem. It's still not cut. And it's still in its form as ore.

Okay, unrefined gem. Say again? Clued gem.

Yeah, clued gemstone. yin sumpa de mi rungpa che lang te. Yeah, they pick it up.

By the way, norbu rungpa che rik means... This is a very important word because it is of the class. Of a precious jewel.

But it's not refined yet. And this word class, rik, is very important in Buddhism. Why?

It's a synonym for buddha nature. Okay, when you say type or family, it's a synonym for buddha nature. And that's exactly what they're talking about, okay?

Everybody has the unrefined gemstone in their heart. But you're going to have to process it to get the real gemstone out. The whole section is about processing unrefined gemstones, which means teaching people.

What's the topic we're in? What's the general topic we're in? The three turnings of the wheel.

Now you got to start cooking in your mind. Why is he jumping to this conversation when he's supposed to be defining the three turnings of the wheel? Okay.

Why is he getting off onto refining jewels? Okay, it's a beautiful segue by Khenrupje. Okay, he and Gyaltsabje and Tsongkhapa especially, they tend to do this kind of thing.

Yeah, so lensar is acid. Okay, yeah, and lensar does mean salts, but here it means mineral salts, meaning like an acid, a kind of acid. Okay, lensar, literally it means super salty bitter liquid, okay, which is the old word for acid.

Okay, they take some kind of special acids, shu, numba means it has a very sharp... This is the word for sharp blade, sword or knife, but when you talk about acid it means like super powerful acid, like nitric acid or something. So numba, when you're referring to acid in the ancient books, means, what do you call it?

Very strong acid. Okay, corrosive, strongly corrosive. Okay, numba means that.

Lensar shu, numba pang de. This must be jang, okay? And by the way, we have a second re...

I gave you guys a second version of this story, so you can check it in the second version. But this must be SBY and not SP. Jang means purify, you know, jangchu, okay?

Probably, okay. Jaya rewa, here rewa means hope, right? But the same sound, you have to tune into the sound.

R-A-S means cloth, milarepa. Mila is a kind of white cotton, re means cloth. And milarepa used to wear a loincloth made of white Indian cotton.

So this rewa is an ancient spelling for cloth. dra means horsehair, or it means, dra means hair, or in general. So rough cloth, what do you call it?

Coarse. Yeah, very coarse cloth, like what you use on your dishes. Yeah, okay.

It means like that. Yongsu jungwa means, there's the jung, okay? You have to purify it.

Okay, what? The rough stone, the rough gem. And then you have to take a cloth with...

you'd have to take acid, and then you have to take a bristly cloth. And we use pumice in the gemstone industry. Or we use hard minerals to polish it, okay?

So you're polishing cloth, right? Okay, good. Keep going.

That was all you asked me to do. Oh, okay. All right, nice.

So far so good. And again, I enjoy having a break from the heavy philosophy. Of course, they always bring it back to the philosophy.

Where are we? I gotta go to another place, hang on. 386 is what we just did.

These are the things I'm working on. Internet, there we go. Okay, okay.

Share this one. Let's do this one. Okay, and we'll put you guys up here.

Nope, nope, I don't know how. Okay, why is that not working, Ron? Oh, I'm sure it's coming.

At least they can just grab it. It's weird. Yeah, how about I go out again and come back?

Oh, okay, hang on. We have dendrocardia of a garnish. Let's do this one.

Okay, let's see if this works. That's weird. How is your health, dear Geshe Michael?

How's my donut? I'm supporting many doctors. Yeah, I'm just gonna work around it.

Okay, why it worked, I don't know. Stanley has magic fingers. Okay.

Okay, okay. Okay, yeah. He's actually using this text from the database.

So I'm going to go to the database text, okay? And we'll come back to your text. It's the same thing, but it's the original, okay?

So, can you start... Who would you like to read the big letters from here? Venerable Utpala, Dene.

Venerable Tsenzum, are you here? Okay. Yep.

Okay. Okay, good. Yeah.

The... BYANG CHUB SEMS PA'I PHYUG GI DBANG PHYUG GI RGYAL PA The king of the lords of the dharma of the bodhisattvas, okay? This person who was named that was in that core.

Here core means the audience surrounding the speaker, okay? GYUD PA means he was included there. He was sitting there.

DUG PA Nowadays in colloquial Tibetan, DUG PA means is. KO RGYAL PA DUG He's a nice person. But in ancient, ancient, ancient language, DUG PA means to sit, okay?

So he was sitting there in the audience, and he said the following words to CHUNG DIN DE, to the conqueror, okay? Oh, CHUNG DIN DE. Who's gonna read Venerable Utpala?

I'm gonna push it down. That was very short, Venerable Chunzum. If you could continue, please.

Okay, let's do it this way. Okay. LA BA'I Good.

Good. Nice. Okay, so this is the original source for the conversation that K.

Dubje is gonna have. And if you can read the original source, you can read his version of it, okay? I prefer to read the original source, okay?

So this... I mean, normally it would be Lord Buddha addressing someone and would say, RIG GYI BU. What's that mean?

Oh, child of noble family. Which often means bodhisattva, okay? Oh, RIG GYI BU.

Oh, child of noble family. DI LTA STE means what, Utpala? It's like this.

Yeah, here's how it is, okay? Here's how it is. It means he's going to start an example, actually.

Fair enough. For example? Yeah.

Norbal Ken Kepa. A gemologist. Yeah, okay, good.

Or a master jewel guy. All right. He SHIN TU ZHES PA STO CHOG PA He really understands the word that I always forget.

Ritual. How you clean. Well, nowadays, CHOG PA means ritual.

A ritual. And by the way, when it's in a two-word word, when it's part of a two-word word, they call it CHOG. So don't get confused.

CHOG PA means ritual. CHOG has the second syllable like JANG CHOG. What's JANG CHOG?

JANG CHOG is the prayers for the dead. JANG means to clean their bad karma. CHOG means ritual.

So when it's a second syllable, it's CHOG. When it's by itself, it's CHO GA. So don't be confused, all right?

It also means, confusingly, to allow somebody to do something. DRO CHOG YIN NA May I be excused? May I leave?

DRO CHOG YIN NA May I leave? Okay, so confusing word. In this context, is it more like the process than like a ritual?

I had to clean my mom's house out. It was 100 boxes of stuff. I actually got a hernia doing it.

So it means another operation I get to go for. But I decided to clean out my house before I reached that point. So I'm giving away all my stuff.

Here's a nice Vajrasattva for Tatiana. Yeah, heavy. Good.

All right. I'm just going to do that today for fun. SBYONG BA'I CHOG BAR BZHIN DU BZHIN NAS DE'I LO BUR Yeah, so here, it's interesting, is the source of the word ritual, which means method.

Okay? That's like drup tab or sadhana. When we say the word sadhana, it means a method to reach somebody.

So here's the ancient meaning of CHOGA, like 2000 years ago. CHOGA doesn't mean ritual. CHOGA means the method for refining a gemstone.

Okay? So here you see the ancient meaning of CHOGA. CHOGA, for BYONG BA, a norbu.

What's that, Utpala? For purifying a gem. Yeah, or to refine a gemstone.

Okay? CHOGA. SHES PA DE He's the guy who knows how to do that.

He takes a piece of norbu rig. We talked about rig just now. He takes a piece from the collection of gemstones.

Yeah, but here it means like that family, meaning unrefined. Okay? It's that type of stone.

It's not refined yet. Ore. O-r-e?

Ore. He takes unrefined ore. Okay?

Rig. Okay? And it hasn't been BYONG BA yet.

Yeah, it hasn't been refined yet. And he picks up... By the way, they're already calling the unrefined stone norbu rimpoche, a gemstone, a gem.

They're already referring to it as a precious gem. Okay? Rimpoche means precious.

And nowadays they refer to high teachers as rimpoche, or an abbot of the monastery is a rimpoche. By the way, they had prayers at my monastery yesterday for my mom. And when they do that, they often do medicine Buddha.

And they hand out these special... This is for Dennis. Okay?

And Marina. Okay? These are special medicine Buddha things.

If you're ever feeling down mentally or unhealthy, you want to hurt. Yeah, same thing. Okay?

But they've been energized by all the assembly. 1,500 people did the birth. So if you're ever feeling down mentally or you're down physically, take some in hot water.

Okay, take a little bit. Then stretch it out. Ah, Rimpoche Langne.

Bultog. Yes. Bultog, spelled T-O-G, is the modern spelling.

And it means mineral salts. Like, what do you call that when you put in a bathtub? Epsom salts.

Yeah, epsom salts. So here it means acidic salts. Strong acid salt.

Okay? And you put the rough stone in that, okay? And then you mix the salts with chew.

Water. Water. And it should be nimble.

Acidic. Strongly acidic. What do you call it?

You put your finger in it, you're corrosive. Your finger disappears. Okay, chen nun.

Cheun nun means to what? Do you guys know? Cheun nun.

Clean or wash. Yeah, you wash the stone. You bathe the stone in this acidic water.

And then you use lawa. It's the ancient word for ray.

[Speaker 3]
Cloth.

[Speaker 1]
Cloth or rag.

[Speaker 3]
Cloth.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, a rag made of kanapo means a very rough black hair. Like horse hair or something, okay? Chi dor che.

Chi dor che. Clean it up? Like sweep it up?

Yeah, chi dor means to refine something or clean up something, okay? That's still used nowadays. They still use that word, chi dor.

Okay, chaway. Chi dor che kyang. What's the kyang mean usually?

Either also or but, okay? Okay, they work hard to clean the rough stone. But de tsam gyi tsun dru gyun mi chu.

This chu is the chu in dorje. But he doesn't cut off his efforts. Yeah, they don't discontinue the flow of the effort.

De tsam, just by doing that. They go further. It means they go further.

Are you getting a sense of the three turnings of the wheel here? Starting to. Rosa, deeply blessed long life.

Buddha, small Buddha inside. Maybe gold, I don't know. Okay, anyway.

All right, they don't stop there. It means they don't stop there. Okay, keep going.

Who's going to read Utpala? I would like, please. Claudia, are you available?

Okay, I waited three breaths. How about Anastasia? Either one.

Oh, me?

[Speaker 2]
Sure. shing dang nam chu chi dorje wey chi dorje do de tsam gyi kyang tsun dru gyun mi chu de Nice, nice reading.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. What you guys think of ngu chi dar bar dra? Lamar quicksilver.

Okay, so ngu chu means silver water. ngu chu means quicksilver. It means mercury.

Okay, which in the ancient times was considered almost mystical. Nagarjuna messed around with it a lot. Supposed to help you with...

what's that called? Alchemy. Highly poisonous.

Don't try it. It will kill you. Don't be stupid.

Every time I say that somebody goes out and buys it and tries to drink it. It's very poisonous. Okay.

So they take acidic... nunpo again means here sharp, meaning acidic quicksilver. And they true the stone.

They wash it. They bathe it in acidic quicksilver. Okay.

Then they take shing... They take a piece of wood and they rub off the rough edges of the stone. With a piece of wood.

And with nambu. Nambu is another ancient word for cloth. Okay.

They use rough cloth and rough pieces of wood to... chidor che means scrape off the impurities from the stone. Chidor.

They do that. de tsam gyi tsundru mi chod. But they don't stop there.

Yeah. This was from my teacher's funeral. All right.

I like to give that away. You understand me. Okay.

I think there's two of them. Something like that. Yeah.

All right. chun mi chod te. Who's going to read next, Utpala?

Oksana, would you like to read? Oh, she's going to do... Oh, I get it.

Okay. We did three breaths. Svetlana, would you like to read?

[Speaker 3]
Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you.

bai durya.

[Speaker 1]
By the way, Tibetans say ben durya. Ben durya. They would pronounce it ben durya.

All right. After that, they take the kuwa, which means the juice. It can also mean semen.

Okay. They take the juice of menchenpo, means the great medicine. Let's use the men in Menla.

What's Menla? Medicine Buddha, okay? So they take the great medicine.

Great medicine is a word for aconite, which is a particular nasty plant, okay? And it's very poisonous, highly poisonous. So they take the juice of a great plant, which means the aconite, okay?

They wash the stone in that, okay, chu te. Then they take a tramo re. Tramo means a very soft cloth, super soft.

Tramo means soft or fine, very fine cloth, okay? And they chi don, they shine it up with this plant acid, plant juice. And then chi don means they polish it up again, third time.

You get it? Third time. Chi don che te.

Then they, that takes the norbu chingpo. Chingpo means, by the way there are books of gemology in the tengyur, in the miscellaneous section. They're very interesting.

Chingpo means crystal, rock crystal, which in gemology is considered cheap and, you know, like 40% of the earth's crust is chingpo. Not very valuable, but beautiful, okay? So they take a rock crystal, and that tells us the rock crystal, and what you end up with is vaidurya.

In Sanskrit it's vaidurya. The Tibetans say bendurya.

[Speaker 3]
Lapis lazuli?

[Speaker 1]
Lapis lazuli, yeah. You get lapis lazuli, this beautiful blue stone. Normally you can only get it in certain canyons in Afghanistan, okay?

We offered a Medicine Buddha statue to our sponsor, our translator sponsor, made from a boulder of lapis, about this big, extremely rare. If you turn the statue upside down, I think it's at the college, you can see the boulder. You can actually see the boulder under the, sticking to the bottom of the metal.

They built the metal around the boulder, then they carved the face. So that's called vaidurya, which is lapis, which in ancient times was extremely valuable, okay? All right, and there's a little definition I can write for you.

Who's going to read next? Tracy, would you like to read? Oh, this one for me.

[Speaker 2]
Lovely, thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Nice. That represents turning the wheel of the Dharma, by the way. Kamsa.

All right, which means you should. Ricky Poole. Yeah, he's a great guy.

Ricky Poole means, oh, child of normal family. Oftentimes it's a bodhisattva, okay? Oh, child of normal family.

They should do, in the same way as the cleaning of an unprocessed gemstone, they should shape us, to target us. They take sem chens who are yong su ma dakpa. They take living beings who are, what did we say?

Unrefined. Totally unrefined. Totally unrefined, okay.

Rough stones. Very rough stones, okay? And they understand their kam.

Yeah, and that's the one that means what's your future, or what's your passion, or something like that. They understand, they see the person's kam, and then they try to yin jung, down at the next last line, yin jung is the same as ngen jung. Yeah, same as ngen jung.

Renunciation. Yeah, they try to give them renunciation, okay? So this is an ancient form of the word for renunciation.

Why? Why are they giving them renunciation? Because these people, korwa la gawa, they love samsara.

Yeah, yeah, they're having a good time in samsara, okay? They enjoy samsara, okay? And they teach these people about mi ta dung ngel tongpa dakme, the four principles, okay?

Number one, everything is mi takpa. Everything is changing. This one means impermanent.

You can translate this one as impermanent. All things are impermanent. Your life is impermanent, your job is impermanent, your arm is impermanent, okay?

Mi takpa. Everything is dung ngel wa. As an adjective, it's suffering-ish, okay?

All things are dakmepa. Selfish. Yeah, nothing has any on its own, and everything is dung ngel.

Sorry, mi dukpa. Mi dukpa means unbeautiful, not beautiful. Ugly.

Yeah, ugly. Gross, okay? So they try to talk to people about why samsara is not so nice, okay?

This is the first part of the washing the gemstone, okay? Teaching them about the nature of samsara is the first washing of the gemstone, and that sounds like the first turning of the wheel. Yeah, Lord Buddha started out with this kind of stuff.

He didn't mention emptiness, really. He's just mentioning how bad the world is, okay?

[Speaker 3]
What about dakme?

[Speaker 1]
Say again? Dakme. Well, yeah, lightly he mentions the lack of self, but it doesn't mean emptiness in that context so much, okay?

And it's definitely not... it's only one of the sixteen aspects, for example, okay? Yi jungwar che, trying to get them to get renunciation, and he's trying to get them into dulwa.

Yeah, into the glorious chedulwa. He calls it the Arya-ish Vinaya, which is a nice... that's a sexy way of talking about Vinaya, okay?

The Irish... Not Irish. Arya-ish.

Okay, not Irish. Probably it's the same thing. Okay, who's gonna read next, Utpala?

Oh, okay, it's Monday today, so I want to tell everybody about this great book that we just finished. Rosa got this book bound by hand. This is a book that's for our sponsor, one of our main sponsors.

By the way, there are three sponsors for Seiji's work as a translator. Two of the sponsors are from Austria, and they asked me about eight years ago if I could translate a book about correlations. And this is one of the...

so I finished both of the famous books about correlations. One is All the Kinds of Karma, which is there, which is the classic 2,000 year old presentation on all the correlations. Correlation means do this, get this, okay?

So this is the classic source 2,000 years ago. Then there's a thousand years after that, there's a super... we're fixing our screen here.

There's a super presentation on correlations from Dharmarakshita given to Atisha before he went to Tibet, and we finished it recently in 850 pages. Here's the second volume, and this was hand bound. Rosa got it done in a rush, and it's a very beautiful hand binding, and it's going to be shipped today to Asia to one of our main sponsors, and we'd like to thank him.

And then Sanjay is sending copies to his two sponsors in Austria, and I'd like to thank them. One of them is not feeling well nowadays, and I hope it helps your health. Okay, let's go back to the text.

Come on, you guys get up. Okay, yeah, please read. Oh, who's going to read?

Rebecca, are you here? I have a feeling you are. She's on retreat in Nepal, I think, or something like that.

I don't know, I occasionally get messages. Um, so, oops. Let's see, how about Maria Nesterov?

Excellent, thank you. Nice. Okay, de tsam gyi means they don't stop with just that.

Tsam means just, like sem tsam means mind only, for example. So tsam means just that. They don't stop their tsundru.

Their efforts. The Buddhas don't stop their hard work. After that, they teach the person, by the way, what did they teach him in the last sentence?

They taught him impermanence. Yeah, basically, basically the four Arya truths, which is the main subject of the first turning of the wheel. And then, and the very first turning of the wheel.

And then they start teaching them about dongpa nyi, and the fact that nothing has any tsenmas, natures or signs, and then the fact that nothing has any mamba, which means prayer. Like Manlam Chenmo is the great prayer festival. And these are code words for the three doors of freedom.

Yes. Okay, these are code words for the three doors of freedom, which are basically emptiness topics. And he says, with this kind of talk, tsam, okay, with this kind of teachings, they try to get them to kong du chu means grasp the way Buddhists exist, meaning their emptiness.

With the three doors to freedom, three doors to freedom is a very important subject in Buddhism. It's very confusing. Nobody understands it.

We understand it. We have great writers who, and I took a footnote from what we do with these books. When we finish a book, we take all the footnotes and we put it in a database.

It's like an AI database. And then those footnotes become the raw material for footnotes of the next translation. So every time we finish a book, this book has like 500 footnotes.

Then those footnotes become part of our AI database for the next book. And then that speeds up the translation. But it depends on people like Utpala making sure that all these footnotes...

now that the book is done, the footnotes and the bibliography go into the AI database, and we don't have to redo it. So the translation... if you notice, we've been speeding up.

Books have been coming out faster, because we can build on the work we did before. But that means we need clean footnote database and a clean bibliographical database. But it's time for this latest book's footnotes and bibliographies to go into the database.

And it has to keep going, or else I have to do it over again. Okay, so here's the footnote that's so useful, I think. You want to read it, Utpala?

I don't remember whose book it came from. The Door to Freedom of Emptiness Itself. Traditionally, three doors to freedom are presented.

The door to freedom called emptiness itself, the door to freedom where nothing has any quality, and the door to freedom where there are no wishes for the future. These refer respectively to the wisdom which perceives that nothing has any present essence of its own, that nothing has any cause which is real, and that nothing has any result which is real. See the clear presentation of this difficult topic by the great master of the great ceremony, Tibetan monastery, Kedrup Dargay.

Yeah, I don't know why they said great twice. Probably somebody likes these. Okay, great.

Okay, good. I mean, sometimes I like to be loyal to my roots. Okay.

By the way, they wrote a very beautiful letter to us recently. Okay, yesterday. So the three doors to freedom are emptiness topics, and he's describing the second washing.

Was it the... I don't remember which was second. Was it the...

We were using a different kind of acid. Yeah, yeah. And a finer, a black cloth.

A black rough cloth. Yeah, a rough... it's probably a medium cloth and a medium acid in the secondary wheel.

Okay, or maybe something like that. Okay. Now, the third one, Venerable Utpal is going to translate herself.

Okay, this paragraph here can you translate by yourself for next time, I think. Okay. We're almost done.

Yeah. Oh, well, you want to finish this third one? They say we started a little bit late, so I'm up for that.

Okay, why don't you read this one, Venerable Utpal, because it's your last paragraph here. Okay. DE TZAM GYIS KHYANG DE BZHIN ZHEGS PA TSUN RUG RGYUN MI CHUG GYIS DE OG TU PHYIR MIN DOG PAS KHOR LO'I THAM THAM KHOR GSUNG YONG SU BDAG PA'I THAM GYIS SEMS CAN DE BDAG DE BZHIN ZHEGS PA'I MYUR LA RDZUS DO Yeah, okay.

Here's the formula we had twice already. Sorry. Yeah, this is the second.

[Speaker 3]
They don't stop there.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, they don't stop there. They don't stop there. They don't stop with the second turning of the wheel.

They continue their efforts. Yeah, so by the way, if you were going to philosophize at this point, if the division into the three turnings of the wheel does not relate to historical periods of Lord Buddha's life, and does not relate to the particular students he had at that time, what does it relate to?

[Speaker 3]
How things are.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, or refining students, refining the minds of... Okay, it's interesting. He's asserting that this is the...

By the way, the sutra is asserting that this is the basis of the three turnings of the wheel. Further acidification of the student's mind. Okay.

Okay. DE YOG TU means after he finishes the second turning, the second acid, PHYIR MIN SDOG PA'I KHOR LO BSTAM They give the student teachings about the wheel which never stops, the wheel which doesn't turn back. In general, there's a principle in Buddhism called PHYIR MIN SDOG PA, which means you don't regress after that.

You can't regress after that. You keep going forward. And there's another teaching, a related teaching, called KHOR BSRUNG, the three spheres, which is giver, gift, and the giving itself.

For example, these are all empty. KHOR BSRUNG NYON SUD DAG PA'I STONG How the three spheres are pure, which means empty. Okay.

This is the fine cloth and the light plant poison, compared to acid and quicksilver. SEMS CAN DE DAG GIS DE BZHIN ZHES PA'I YUL LA RDZOD DO RDZOD means to shove somebody into a place. DE BZHIN ZHES PA'I YUL Shoves them into Buddha paradise.

Oh, into the land of Buddha. Yeah, with the turning of the wheel, shoves them into paradise. That's kind of cool.

There's a sutra called PHYIR MIN SDOG PA'I KHOR LO DANG If you're interested, you can read this part here. I got some more foot, my own notes to myself here. Because I was looking for your acid story, and I finally found it.

So here's where... I think on your own, Venerable Utpala, here is Khenrupje's version of what we just read. And he uses some easier words.

Like here's BAL GYI LA BA, which means a woollen cloth. He uses more current words, current in the 15th century. Which is pretty much our modern words.

And he goes through the whole description again. This is Khenrupje's rewording of the sutra we just read. I thought you might prefer the original.

But here's the same expression. For example, he doesn't give up his effort. The sutra says, SON DU YONGS SU MA CHOD PA He doesn't discontinue his effort.

Here it says he doesn't give up his effort. Like that, there's small differences in the reading. If you're interested, Utpala, you can read through the differences.

And I don't know what you want to do. To me, it would be something we would add in an appendix. We would use Khenrupje's version in the book itself, and then in the appendix we would use this.

We would say, if you want to read the original of the sutras here, if you want the real names for the acids and all that. I don't know... So I should go through at least 394?

Well, the thing I would really like you to translate is 394. What I propose is, you go through Khenrupje's reading of the acid process. You tell us what words he changed or he updated for his audience.

But then this 394 is where we connect it to the three turnings of the wheel. And that's the punchline. So you get to do the punchline.

And I think that's going to be really fun to do after struggling through the acid and all that. Let's hope some of it deals with refining my mind. Okay, we got one more job today, which is, last week was Adam Andrade's birthday.

And we got to do a... Adam, are you there? I don't know if you're there.

I can't see all the people here. He might be babysitting.

[Speaker 2]
Climbing a mountain.

[Speaker 1]
Climbing a mountain with his baby. If Adam's not there... Okay, Ben Kramer.

Would you like to choose a number for Adam between 1 and 400? 307. You got that mystical look.

What's the number?

[Speaker 3]
307. 307.

[Speaker 1]
All right, here we go. This is a prediction for Adam's year. I guess he's 25 now.

[Speaker 2]
I heard 16.

[Speaker 1]
Oh. Okay. A child is born in eastern Tibet.

A great sage nearby named Dundrup Rinchen comes to where the... and offers gifts. Comes bearing gifts for the child, the newborn child, including those kind of pills I just gave you guys, which are, in this case, Manjushri pills.

Here's the important part, I think. At the exact spot where the child was born, a white sandalwood tree springs up. On each of the leaves of this tree are pictures of Buddhas.

On some of the leaves you can see the mantra, OM MA RAB PA RTZA NA, DI DI DI DI DI DU. Okay. That's the famous tree at Kumbum.

Bum means 100,000. Ku means images of a saint. So the place itself was named from the tree.

And the monastery was named from the tree. The tree is called Kumbum. 100,000 images.

Okay? Very important place in history. Maybe you're supposed to build something.

I don't know. You got to figure that part out. Okay.

See you guys on Saturday. Thank you so much, Geshe Michael. Yeah, I mean, I'll see you guys on Monday.

Thank you, Geshe-la. We'll see you in 15 minutes or so. It's what?

Yeah. Okay, Word, have a good class. Don't cause trouble.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you, Geshe-la.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you so much, Geshe-la. Give a hug to your three babies. Your four babies.

Okay. Do my best. Bye.

Bye, Nick. See you guys. Thanks, Nick.

Okay. Thank you so much, Geshe-la. Thank you so much.

That was wonderful. I really like stories once in a while. And strange, ancient words that...