Бетси Грир — Книга 2: Интерлюдия о пустоте, занятие 65

[Speaker 1]
Hi, hi, hi everybody. Welcome to Xuanzang's Tower. I hope everybody's doing well and hopefully we're looking forward to a wonderful and exciting night together.

Excuse me, it just got noisy where I was sitting. So we've got a big day, and we are very lucky to have a big day with Venerable Utpala, our brilliant and wonderful translator, mix-nut, editor, among many other things. So Venerable Utpala, are you ready there with homework?

Did somebody just speak on her behalf that she cannot hear me? Does anybody know why she cannot hear me? Can you guys, can anybody hear me?

[Speaker 3]
I can hear you really well.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good.

[Speaker 3]
What about now? Better, better, better, better.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, okay, good. Yeah, that's good. That's great.

That's super helpful. Good. Yeah, I think she's not here yet though.

Oh, not here yet. Very good. Okay.

Oh, here, right. It's a different spelling of here. Yeah.

Does everybody know the word homonym? Do the translators know the word homonym? It is ha-ay-tok-ay-yak-kok-tong-a-ba.

For those of you who know West Chinese spelling, are you here Geshe Michael? Do we have a Geshe Michael in the house? Oh, I hope so.

Utpala coming in from a surprise angle. You never know where she's going to come from. Well, so our plan for tonight, I'll just go over it.

Oh, there's the boss. Awesome.

[Speaker 2]
Yay. Also a surprise angle.

[Speaker 1]
Great to see you. Just in time to answer all homework questions. Just kidding.

Welcome back to Arizona from New York. Yay. He can't hear us at all.

No. No, you could tell. Because he would be laughing at our jokes by now.

How hilarious we all are. Enjoying our witty repertoire. Okay.

Hey, boss. Can you hear us now? Hey, boss.

What's the pin? Welcome back. Welcome back to the West.

That's my slavery pin. Well, we thank you for your service. Look who's here.

Oh, he's got a cone. Look at that. Oh, the cone of shame.

It doesn't go on that way, Amelie. Sorry. Anyway, I'm going to mute.

You guys talk amongst yourselves. Venerable Upal, we would love to see your homework when you're ready. Okay.

Do you see what I'm hoping will be a homework?

[Speaker 3]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
We see the hope in your eyes. That helps so much. Okay.

I have learned how to open chat while doing all this. So that's pretty cool. Even old dogs can learn new tricks.

So welcome to the quiz for our last class. We're still in the mind only way section of KJFJ's book on emptiness and discussion of what is literal and what is figurative. And we talked about an opponent who came forward last time.

And then he came back again and he said, okay, here's a whole long list of sutras. And he listed all these different sutras. And he said, these are all sutras of the final turning of the wheel and are of literal meaning.

And KJFJ, as he did the last time this fellow opened his mouth, responds with a twofold criticism brief. And if you remember all the answers from last time, that may be helpful here. Hmm.

So what did he say? First of all, that the turnings of the wheel were not consecutive. I'm not in response to this particular opponent.

It's a little more along the lines of taking after his brother, Gyaltsabje. He's being a little irritating, moody, a little snarky. What you said is inexplicable.

You clearly haven't thought this out very well. It does sound like old Gyaltsabje. And then he says, the second brief part of it is that the teaching of these sutras that you've listed and the viewpoint of the sutra called What I Really Meant are dissimilar in every way.

So what is the first dissimilarity between this sutra called What I Really Meant and the other sutras that our opponent mentioned that KJFJ focuses on? That there are three paths for the What I Really Meant and there is one path for the other sutras quoted. Thank you, Oscar.

So What I Really Meant teaches that in the end there are three different paths to enlightenment. And all the other sutras our opponent mentioned says that there's one. Now, how does KJFJ substantiate that difference?

Do you remember? He went on and talked about a particular kind of enlightened person with a particular kind of... Like chi.

People with bodhicitta need to be able to teach to students with different needs. Wasn't it in Our Heart Without Remainder or something like that? Yeah, it has to do with a particular kind of arhat.

But what kind of arhat? Does anyone remember? Without Remainder.

Of the three types of arhats. If we think about arhats in terms of three types, what kind of arhat? A listener without remainder.

Yeah, a listener arhat. So KJFJ talks about the Glorious Garland Sutra. And that sutra says an enemy destroyer of the listener track takes on a body made of mind due to potentials for misunderstanding and due to stainless karma.

And he goes on to say that this sutra must be referring to an enemy destroyer who has attained nirvana without remainder. Because if it were one who had attained nirvana with remainder, that suffering body and mind would have been projected by the karma and negative emotions from previous lives. And they kind of wouldn't need another mind.

Anyway, he didn't say that, but that was my first thought. Why does he need another mind? Anyway, KJFJ goes on to say, therefore, if this sutra says that that kind of enemy destroyer without remainder takes on a body made of mind, then its teaching counters the teaching on the three different paths, the three final paths to enlightenment.

Right? There'd be no reason for that fellow or gal to take on, if they're already final, reach the final end, there'd be no need to take anything on. Okay.

Now, what does KJFJ imply by doing so? And this may be a little more challenging because we didn't really talk about this, but it came, it came clear to me in trying to translate from our last class that KJFJ was making some implications, or maybe he's expecting that the people who read his book have studied all this stuff already. And it's just me, who didn't know, but so I'll just tell you what I thought.

Um, the glorious Garland wasn't among those sutras that our opponent named. So KJFJ is implying that it somehow belongs among those that the opponent did name as being in the group of sutras of the final turning of the wheel and a literal meaning. And that he himself holds it to not be a sutra of the final turning of the wheel.

Otherwise his objection, like going to that sutra wouldn't make sense. As a rebuttal. Okey-dokey.

Okey-dokey. Someone who is not a mixed nut. Uh-oh.

Can you tell me an English equivalent to this phrase?

[Speaker 2]
In the end, there are three paths.

[Speaker 1]
In the end, there are three paths. Perfect. Is there a Tibetan equivalent to never expands nor diminishes?

Probably. Yeah, it's, uh, oops, it's power that drip on me. Okay.

Yeah. And then the English equivalent to long the chip makes manifest or I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.

[Speaker 2]
Something like makes manifest or like, yeah, actualize or bring it into being.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Brain with both parts. Yeah. Okay.

Now I'll go to my homework. All right. And it was a little bit hard, a lot a bit hard.

It's the last, you know, just before you, the suffering stops, it feels worse. You mean it's the last push through mind only? Yeah, it is.

Maybe we should go to the last. I'm going to miss it so bad. Maybe we should go to the last of the five sections I had to do to just know that the end is near.

Uh, can you, can you read the first one? Can you make it all bigger? Okay.

All right, good. Day one, day one. Sorry.

Okay, let me check it. Then we know, therefore, Do gongpa nge nge kyi dun du mi tse. Yeah, or the drel wey tse means when it is commented on, right?

Yeah, okay. So then, gong du drangpa tar. As I brought up earlier, the final vehicle.

The tar duk here just means in the end. Okay. You see what I mean?

It doesn't refer to the final vehicle. See what I mean? It's not tar duk takpa sum?

Uh, yeah, but it means in the end there are three, you know, in the final analysis there are three yanas. You see what I mean? Yeah.

Ultimately speaking, there are three different vehicles. Yeah, good. Okay, if he was referring to the last of the three turnings of the wheel, he would say what?

Well, he would just say khorlo sumpa or something. Okay. Uh, je tsultrim kyi kyang.

I messed that up anyway. The Lord explains it like in the joint. Kyang do de geng ne.

Good. In, in, uh, yeah. Geng ne de tar shak chik.

Good. Ningpo do len in the context of the meaning. Asam supa.

Ningpo do len la sumpa. Leng kyi gong pa. Geng wei tse mi.

And in the context of the meaning. Good. Okay.

One more. Yeah. Kyi la tsar dang ti.

We take a turn. Good. Uh.

Tar tu gyi terpa chik tu shepa. Yeah, good. Okay, good.

By the way, uh, just a tiny, uh, translation thing. Um, oftentimes when they combine tsawa and delpa, they're talking wrong del. And, and I'm not sure it is, uh, but just you have to, whenever it's that close to tsa, you have to investigate the possibility.

Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. Geshe-la, can I just ask one question on that? Yeah.

Tsandrel's, is that always going to be, like, the root text and the commentary? It wouldn't be, like, commentary to the root text or something? No.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It, well, let me think. Gyi la tsar dang ne tar tu.

Yeah, it could have been, uh, well, no. No, I don't think so. Not necessarily, yeah.

Okay. I think I looked it up, uh, but I'm not sure. Okay.

All right, um, let's go to 412. Who's going to read, uh, Dalai Lama Upala? Um, how about I just do it?

Okay. Okay. Okay, good.

Furthermore, when following the expression of what I really mean... Yeah, good. Okay.

Uh, one must accept the Buddha's teachings when they're corrected. Yeah, I wouldn't throw it correctly in there. Uh, it just says you have to accept it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, good.

Uh, Khenagunki, uh, it wouldn't be appropriate, Kunzang, uh, to accept that in the Seventh Unit of Name. Uh, and then, yeah, the only, uh, thing I would say is when it says Kunzang Dönpa, right? Uh, as teaching, uh, those teachings, those, those sources which teach the deceptive side of things, you see what I mean?

Uh, you see what I mean? Those, those books which teach the deceptive side of things, uh, are figurative, and those books which teach the ultimate side of things are literal. Jarmirung, that would be an inappropriate, uh, that would be an inappropriate connection between, you know, correlation.

Yeah. In other words, not all, all books that teach deceptive reality are, are, uh, to be interpreted, and not all that teach ultimate reality are, are, say what they mean. Yeah.

So here, um, I was trying to figure out what the heck Kunzang Dönpa meant. It means, uh, in this case we can say teachings by Lord Buddha which, uh, mention subjects which are part of, uh, deceptive reality. In other words, not, not emptiness teachings.

That's a lot of words, okay. Yeah. Dönpa, S-T-O-N, uh, strongly implies, uh, sutras, teachings by an enlightened being.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Thank you. By the way, do we accept that? That the Kunzang Dönpas are Trang Dön and the Döndam Dönpas are Nge Dön?

Yeah. Yeah, we do. Yeah.

And does the, what I really meant accept that? Uh, no. No, good, okay.

All right. Good. All right, uh, you're gonna read this one too?

Yeah. Okay. mi dukpa rikdo yang nge dön dukpa wei chirop Can you push it down?

Yeah, good. Uh, if that were the case then because the explanation of the lack of characteristics in the founding the extensibility, uh, chart of the extensibility sutras, It's been explained to me that everything is a mental construction. It's been taught in Gomaśīla, as well as the emptiness is a mental construction.

Gomaśīla. The teachings of the second wheel are explained as having intended to teach about imaginary things, basically. Mental constructs.

When it said there were no qualities to things. And then you have to pause and you have to catch that la at the end of the second line, which is a big pause. It's like, here comes a new thought.

You might almost split it into two sentences. Well, then I got to reconstruct the whole sentence. And then on the other hand, things that are empty of kūntak, or the emptiness of kūntak to things, is the definition of yongdru.

Right? Therefore, the sutras of the second turn of the wheel would have to also be literal. Yeah, okay.

Even if you express it in terms of... Even though they taught that things were all empty, if they taught it that way in a mind-only language, maybe an argument could be made that they were literal. An argument that who would accept?

Well, I think the mind-only is trying to say... Well, I think we're trying to say to the mind-only school, if you read the middle turning of the wheel according to your three characteristics, then we don't understand why you don't accept the middle turning of the wheel as literal, since it's also talking about the three definitions of existing things. The three characteristics.

It can be argued that the second turning of the wheel is talking about the three characteristics of existing things, since it talks about things that have no definition. Things that are imaginary, and the emptiness of those imaginary things. You see what I mean?

Yeah, well, we don't really... The second turning doesn't really support that changing things are real. Anyway, that's just saying, if that's how you're going to define figurative and literal, then I don't see why you can't say the second turning of the wheel as well as literal.

If you're going to use this mind-only weird stuff to define something as literal, then I think you could push the second turning of the wheel into that model. Oh, right. Then it would be literal, even according to you.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, last one. Did you read this?

No, there's two more. Okay, can you read 414? Yes.

Okay, good. When the sutra explains the ultimate indication of literal meaning as being the literal thing, in harmony with the sutra column of teaching, can everyone hear me? As it says, ,GZHAN MI GZHAN MI DANG DANG, ,THUN PA YIN DE, ,DUG DE LAS, ,DI'I PHYI KHRID DU MYIN PA'I, ,DUG GANG YIN PA DE NYID DANG DANG, ,BA'O Yeah, so I think he pulled out one of the sutras that the guy had listed as the third turning of the wheel, right?

Yes. Okay. All right.

So he's adding criticism to criticism. Right. He actually pulled out both of these, the part the opponent did.

Okay, that part's easy. Okay, last one. The real last one.

,RDOD DE BSGOM PA NGAN DREL, ,RDOD DE BSGOM PA NGAN DREL, ,GYIS BYAS SU DRANG, ,DE'I BHAG PA THOG MED GUS BYED GYIS, ,DRANG NI GYI RNAM SHAG, ,JI LTAR BRTZE PA'I TSUL DO, ,TSAMS SBYOS BZIN DO, Should we have a cake or something? When did we start this text? I don't remember.

2002. Really? No, a long time ago.

No, I have it in my notes. Actually, we just finished the hard part of this text. Actually, we just finished what...

I think we finished why people study this text. They use it to get some deeper insight into the mind-only school. For a lot of people, it's the mind-only part which is intriguing.

Yeah. And that's it. That's it.

Yeah. ,RDOD TZAM here means just a bit. Yeah, good.

Just a bit. Okay, good. Nice.

Yay! Let's go to the part. This is going to read like one of Nick's books, okay?

Somehow Nick got the easy one by getting the hardest one. My last one was hard. Yeah, easy old Gilson J.

Yeah, easy. Yeah. And I'm sorry, Geshe Michael, I just took up way more time than I was supposed to.

I don't mind, but we made progress. We covered more material than we normally would, so okay. Yeah.

Here we are. We're on to Arya Nagarjuna's system. Here we are.

Do you want to choose someone to read? Yes. I would like Venerable Chinzom.

Are you available? Yeah. I better get a bigger...

Yeah. I heard Chinzom talking about coffee and everything just a couple days ago. Coffee and quarters?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
We were walking around New York together. She's the only one who knew what people was talking. Yeah.

Nice to see you in New York. Yeah, it was fun to be there. It was really fun.

Come back soon. It hasn't changed at all. I know, I know.

Just for you. Okay, Nipa. Nipa bhagpa lojong mi tsepa tenpe do la sokpe jesu jang te bhagpa luju yag cha...

Tse? Tse. Tse ki jang ni ne, ki nam shak jita tsepa ni.

Yeah, good. So I went back to see where this comes from, and it comes from section 28. We're on section 416.

So really, he's kind of dividing the book into two parts. We're on the second part now. By the way, page count?

How are we doing on page count? Do you know? Oh, I don't know.

I just have a version. We're on 24B. Oh, yeah.

Okay, and then you go to the end, and you look for the same thing. Okay, let me move this over. And then you go backwards.

That's a footnote, I think. Yeah, hang on. What did I say?

What page were we on? 24B. We're on section 416, and we're on folio...

24B. 24B. Yeah, the whole book is 178.

No, we've got to be more into it. We've got to be farther than 24B, I think. No, I think the first part of the book is much shorter than the second part.

Oh, okay, cool. All right, so it's not really 50-50. All right.

Okay. Okay, let me go back. Way back at the beginning, we said it was 163 folios.

Okay, so we're not that far through. Okay, we're about a quarter of the way through something. Something like that?

No. Anyway, here we go. Who's going to...

Oh, did you... We read it. Okay, nyipa.

What's nyipa? Here's the second part. Yeah, if we jesu jangwa this other sutra...

If we follow after this sutra called... The sutra taught by... Mr. Inexhaustible Intelligence. Yeah, and by the way, it should have been instrumental, right? Lo du mi sep. And it's not, and it's confusing.

But anyway, it was taught by Lo du mi sep. Okay. YI ZHES PA'I SROG PA'I GZHAN ZHIG DANG DE Oh, that's the sutra we were just talking about.

Okay. Yeah, so the whole part up to now was talking about the third... The sutra, the big sutra from the third turn of the wheel, which was...

Which was what I really meant. Yeah, and now basically we're switching to the second sutra. And this is going to closely...

This kind of reflects one other book. Oh, it's going to reflect something that his dear heart teacher wrote. Yeah, which Gibson's going to translate, right?

Yeah. Okay. BYANG NAS LEG SHES MIN PO The Essence of Eloquence on the Art of Interpretation.

Okay. GZHAN ZHIG DANG DE PHAG PA LUS SGRUB KYI Now we're going to be following the Arya Lus Sgrub. Arya Nagarjuna.

Yeah, and his spiritual... And his spiritual son. Yeah, which is Arya Deva.

Should you distribute the Arya to the Arya Deva? That would deserve some study, but it's probably referring to Nagarjuna only. I would think so.

Isn't Yab father? Yeah, I'm just saying the Phagpa could be modifying both Lus Sgrub, both Yab and Se, or just Yab. Oh, I see.

Okay. But it's so often used for Lus Sgrub that it's almost certainly just Phagpa and Lus Sgrub. Okay.

And here's how they made the Changyai Namshak. Here's how they distinguished between literal and figurative. Yeah, there's the source.

I just wrote about it. Yeah, there's the source of this way back there. And we got...

Here's where we got to pick up. Who's going to read this part? Venerable Jigme, please.

Is she here? I don't know. Venerable Gyalse, are you here?

Venerable Khading, are you here? Yes, I'm here. Yay.

Okay. He's mentioning some books that I'm always weak on. Who wrote them?

Where are they from? It's kind of like lower middle way guys. It's mixed with a higher middle way guy.

I'm lazy about these particular books that he has listed. Six L is easy. What's that one?

Clear Words. Yeah, and it's misspelled. It's one of my pet peeves nowadays.

It's misspelled. It should have been T-S-I-G-S. Right.

Okay, which means the clarification of the... Sikhsuchepa. The verses, okay?

The 60 verses, yeah. Yeah, it means the clarification of the verses, and everyone misspelled it. Verse is spelled T-S-I-G-S.

And if you look carefully, the title of the book is really the clarification of the verses. And that's whose other commentary on Arya Nagarjuna? Master Chandrakirti.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, good. And then you've got the commentary to the Dronma of Shirom.

The... Oh, the Lamp of Wisdom? Yeah, the Lamp of Wisdom.

That's the one that I can never remember who they're talking about. So I went and made you a list here. Oh, thank you.

Yeah. And that's by... The Lamp of Wisdom is by Bhagavad Gita.

Okay. And the commentary to it... Yeah, I think it here is just...

I forget. Maybe he wrote an auto-commentary. I think he did write an auto-commentary.

Yeah, I didn't put it here. And then Light on the Middle Way, which is a different light, right? Nangwa as opposed to Dronma, is by Kamalashima.

Okay? And we don't study those much. It's not really a big separate part of the Geshe course, for example.

Okay? But anyway, good stuff. And very important for the lineage as it entered the Himalayas, since Kamalashima actually went there.

Okay. These three books, used as a kum, lo dru mi sepe do. They're used as a source.

Good. The sutra that we just talked about, by never-ending wisdom. Yeah, and I mean, you could...

You know, it could be that that Kirubje is purposely leaving the ess off. Oh? Because?

He's being cute. What does it mean if you leave the ess off? Well, it was really the Buddha teaching the sutra, and just through this guy named never-ending wisdom.

Well, you see, if you don't add an apostrophe I, it becomes the subject matter of the sutra. So the teaching about... Yeah, yeah.

So maybe it's intentional. So you got to be careful. These guys are greasy.

Okay. kung su trang ne. So these three classics use that sutra as their source for deciding trang ne.

Yeah, what's literal and what's figurative. Yeah, good, good. And then he's going to quote that sutra.

And he's going to quote the part of the sutra which is important for us all the time. Who's going to read? Let's see.

Rebecca, are you available? Hello. Hi.

Hello. Hi. Hello.

Hello. Thank you. Nice.

Okay, cool. So that sutra, what sutra? That sutra is either about or about teachings of never-ending wisdom.

Yeah. It says, nge pa'i dun gyi do de ni kham Whatever is literal... What is a literal sutra?

See what I mean? Oh. What is a sutra which is literal, has literal meaning?

And, chungway dun gyi do de ni kham And what is a sutra that is figurative? Yeah, good. Shana, if you ask, do de kham dak any sutras which denpa, which teach, this drupa means how to establish kunzo.

How to establish deceptive reality? Yeah, good. Those are chung dun.

Those are figurative. And then he's kind of being, you know, simple, so, oh, those we call figurative. Shejao, we call figurative.

And then any sutras which establish, which teach how to establish dun dampa. How to establish? How to establish?

Okay, how to establish the ultimate. Yeah, those are nyepay dun. Those are literal.

Yeah, and I'll bring up a point here, okay? A book like the Abhidharmakosha, or those Abhidharma sutras, the ancient sutras of Abhidharma, they are mostly, we had a big, big section in the recent university teachings about, they are teaching jinnyepay chu, jinnyepay chu, the total list of existing things. So the purpose of Abhidharmakosha is mostly to teach cosmology.

It almost reads like a science book. How much stuff is there in the universe? How many divisions?

Blah, blah, blah, okay? So those are kunzo denpa, right? But I wouldn't say they are kunzo jupa denpa, you see?

And I'm a little bit uncomfortable with the wording here. So the Abhidharma teaches kunzo, but it only spends half a line on how to establish what kunzo is. Oh, I see, yes.

You see what I mean? So I'm a little uncomfortable with it. But anyway, we'll go with it.

And then the opposite is easy, yeah. How to establish something is ultimate. That I can see as the second turning of the wheel, that's okay.

[Speaker 2]
Geshe-la, what's the difference in drupad between establishing it or showing how to establish it?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, what I mean is that the Hinayana scriptures, denpa kunzo, they teach deceptive reality subjects like logic, or the divisions of the universe, or things, you know, Abhidharma. But they don't talk about, here's how you define something as deceptive, which to me is kunzo jupa denpa. You see what I mean?

And there's a tiny line in the Abhidharma about it, but it's not... By the way, which says that if you can deconstruct something mentally, it's kunzo. And if you cannot, then it's ultimate.

Oh, interesting. Yeah, and it's kind of intriguing, but they don't spend more than half a page on it. Okay, let's go here.

So then I went and got it for you from that sutra, okay? Thank you. And it's here.

It's in the collection of sutras. He quoted it correctly. Yeah, he did earlier as well.

I found that quote. Yeah. Well, you see, if you spell jupa this way, it could be...

which exists as kunzo, then that would make more sense. He added a bao on it. You see?

He didn't spell it that way. See here? B-S-G-R-U-B and B-S-G-R-U-B.

He was careful to change it. I feel more comfortable with the sutra, but okay. Let's go to this quotation.

Who's going to read that? Bertha Velasco, are you available? Oh, thank you.

Yes, I am. Thank you. Great.

Okay. Great. Lovely.

Thank you. All right. Yeah.

Dongpa... I like this sutra's name. I've always been attracted to this sutra's name.

It is a very sexy sutra, and it's heavily quoted by Chandrakirti in his auto-commentary to Entering the Middle-Earth. But he's going to quote the King of Concentration Sutra. DONG PA DE BA ZHIG PAS BSTAN PA LTAR What's that?

Like the teachings... Yeah. Emptiness as it was taught.

Okay. By the ones called the... Yeah, or to...

Sugata. Those are medan, though. Those are literal.

Yeah, those are. The Tibetan here is difficult because it says you have to read chedrak as half. As what?

Half. Like H-A-L-F or H-A-G? Yeah, H-H-A-L-F.

Those are the literal half of the sutras. You see what I mean? Yeah.

Or that's the section. That's the particular section of the sutras which treats the literal. You see what I mean?

You can't read chedrak here. You have to read chedrak here as division of all sutras. Cool.

GANG NAS SEMS CAN GANG ZAG RGYAS BU'I DPIN Any sutra which stands SEMS CAN or GANG ZAG or RGYAS BU'I Which teaches living beings or... Living beings or living beings. Yeah, living beings, people, or persons.

All of those chodas, all of those topics, are tung gun. All of those topics. We can say all those Dharma teachings are to be interpreted.

They're figurative, yeah. Yeah, figurative. By the way, I was struggling.

There's two English words for this concept. There's figurative, and there's literal, and there's metaphoric. What's the opposite of metaphoric?

Anyway, Tibetan also uses two sets of words. Sooner or later, if your book's topic is heavily interpretation, we're going to have to choose two words for one set and two other words for the other set and stick to them. Because it's...

I'm sorry, because it's different for the two? It is different. Yeah, it is different.

Taken literally, and I don't know if you say on face value or... I can't remember the fourth word, but... Explicit?

Yeah, I mean, I got into this problem at some point. And they do distinguish the meaning in the Tibetan. So, sooner or later, we'll have to deal with it.

Yeah, sooner or later, we'll have to deal with it. It's figurative as opposed to metaphoric. We have to work on it, okay?

And then we'll have to stick to it. But not today. Okay.

But not... Oh, good. But can you put your mind to it, and maybe that's some of your homework or something?

Okay. In English, there's two sets of words, and they're subtly different, and the difference is reflected in the Tibetan scriptures also. Okay.

You don't mean metaphors and similes, do you, Geshe-la? No. It's figurative and metaphoric.

And then I don't remember the other two. Figurative and literal. I don't remember the...

It's factual or explicit or... You got to work on it. Okay, next.

Who's going to read? Christina Kasica, please. El Sanskrito.

We got to get the Sanskrit accent going on here. Yeah, there's... Oh, by the way, the question you asked me is in Whitney's grammar definitively.

Really? The problem is you would have to look it up. You'd have to look at every occurrence of the word Sanskrit in his book, which I was not well disposed to do since I was working on the toilet.

And I didn't want to spend that long. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, it's an epenthetic sigma. Okay, wow.

[Speaker 1]
But he does talk about it. And your source is good. Whoever your source is, I like him.

Yeah, okay. Okay, go. Deda Ki.

[Speaker 3]
Deda Ki. What is that? Chor?

Chor. Chor.

[Speaker 2]
Wow.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it should be a good picture. I'll just fix it. Okay.

Yeah, you can't have a B after an S. Okay, I mean you can have BS, but you can't have a B after an S. Okay.

Deda ki shepa dang chen bar. That means if we follow these guys' interpretation of interpretation. And that implies there might be other guys' interpretation of interpretation.

So if we follow this idea of what's literal and what's figurative. And then we try to decide what's literal and what's figurative. If we try to decide what's figurative and what's literal.

Then we can say if it takes as its soul at the end of the second line. As its primary source? If it's subject matter.

If the primary subject matter is a whole bunch of different kinds of things. A whole bunch of different deceptive things. Which pretty much describes Abhidharma, you see.

And K.W.J.'s wording was deceptive. Because he said, if it... What did he say?

He said, if it explains what is kunzop. And here he's just saying, if it takes as its subject matter a big bunch of kunzop things. Which is what the Abhidharma does.

And the Abhidharma does not spend time explaining what is kunzop. You see what I mean? So this is kind of more clear and more precise.

Whether it's the final version we're going to have, I don't know. But he says, if the book is mainly talking about normal stuff. Or deceptive stuff.

Which is the subject matter of the whole Abhidharma kosha, for example. How many people are there? How many galaxies are there?

And K.W.J.'s word, musottamba. Now he covers himself. This is a debater covering his rear end.

Directly. Directly indicates. If it's direct subject matter, it's mostly deceptive objects.

The implied subject matter of the Abhidharma kosha, you can argue, is emptiness. But he said, now he covered his rear end. He said directly.

It teaches it directly. tenpa na doni. That's jangdung gi dong.

And this being a little bit, what do you call it? What do you call it when you're... What's that called?

He's being condescending. He's, oh, that we call a sutra which is jangdung. The shejyate is slightly condescending.

Oh, that's the ones we call things you have to interpret. And then he's going to explain why they have to be interpreted, which is nice. It's a nice touch.

He could have stopped his definition there. But he says, because do de juk je tsor tenpa what those sutras take as their primary subject matter, it's not ngepa. That is neluk.

It's not certain that it's neluk. It talks about the ultimate state of things or something. And then he uses a positive, deni.

Oh, itself, that itself. No, suchness. Suchness, okay.

Suchness or neluk. It's not certain that it's talking about it. And because it's not apparent, or it's not Explicit?

Explicit that they're talking, yeah, explicit. It's not explicit that they're talking about emptiness. You have to pull the emptiness out of those books.

jang ne, gong du jang. You have to extract it. If you have to extract emptiness from a book, it is figurative.

It is figurative, yeah. So he used gong du, which means you have to take it out. It almost sounds like it's a kind of soup or something.

You have to lift it out. So it's very nice. It's a nice touch.

And it also implies that emptiness is a higher topic than the different kinds of sentient beings or something. So you have to pull it up, out. You have to pull it out and up.

Okay? And then you have to go soloing for the deeper meaning. Fishing?

Yeah. What's the famous word that has soloing? Chaksa.

Yeah, chaksa. Looking for some boon from the hand of a llama or something. Okay?

All right. And we got one minute. Let's do it.

Please read. Nice. CHOS PA RNAM PAR CHOS PA TZAM The simple surgical removal of CHOS PA.

What's the word we decided from CHOS PA? We say elaborations or figments. Yeah, elaborations.

Imaginary stuff. The simple illusion of imagination is emptiness. And we can also say it treats as its main subject matter the fact that nothing can start.

SKYE BA MED PA So if that's the main subject of a book, then that's a NGES DANG NYID DO And then he repeats the... I think it's... What do you call it?

Diminute? Pejorative? Condescending?

Condescending, yeah. He says, Oh, that we call a NGES DANG NYID DO. And the reason we do that is the DOG PA of the LLAMA.

It's the opposite of that earlier school we were talking about. Yeah, you do not have to extract the emptiness up out of the thing. It's explicit.

Yeah, it's the opposite of the previous one. Yay. So we have a 15 minute, right?

Yep, we do. I'm going to sit and enjoy my soda water. What kind of homework would you like?

Let me check. Hang on. I'm not going to finish this section.

Please don't ask me to finish this section. What do you mean, finish which section? This whole second half of the book.

Oh, yeah. Well, first of all, 422 is extremely sexy.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
So you get to do that one. Yay. And 423 you should do.

And he's a pretty good quoter. And I would say 424. And then that's enough, I think.

Is that enough for you? You mean what's going to push me? Why don't you do 425?

Because it's a major start to a new section. Okay, that sounds good. Okay, so let's do 425.

Okay. All right, I'm going to relax and I'm going to listen to these highly intelligent Shenzong Tower students talk about how you can use this stuff in your real life. Am I right, Nick?

Yes, thank you so much, Keshala. Thank you, Michael. I'll make a quick announcement that after this wonderful 15-minute session, then we'll have 15 minutes with Juan.

Then we will be doing the Peachtree World News. Then we'll have another hour of Mixed Nuts, but it will be a special Q&A session with Kala. Thank you for offering to do that.

And then those of you who are taking class with Word, that will be directly after that. I already got the suit on, so I figured what the heck. Thank you for doing it.

I think it's going to be fun. Okay, cool. Wow, guys, so we finished the whole section.

Did anyone feel relief like I did? Yeah. I mean, we're supposed to be hungry for hard stuff, but after a couple of years of the same hard stuff, you kind of get hungry for something you can understand.

I think it's important to read something you can understand once in a while, just to keep up your sense of worth or something. Yeah, I do have a brain that is logical, yes. Yeah.

What about anything with regard to what we covered in this last part of the section? Or at the beginning of this one. Whichever.

I would say one more thing. I would say that if we have two major opinions of what the Buddha meant and what he meant literally and what he didn't mean literally, that would imply to me that there are a lot of other opinions possible. If the two smartest guys in Buddhist history didn't agree on this point, I imagine there's a lot of other opinions.

I imagine there's a lot of other variations possible. I think it would be fun to explore those variations. That's all.

That kind of reminds me, there's this group called secular Buddhists. They have very different ideas than the ones that we study, in terms of the four major Buddhist philosophical schools. I find it very challenging in the sense that, number one, they don't hold a particular philosophical point of view.

Or they have not identified it. Certainly no one can tell me. I've tried to find out.

But then how my own mind works with someone picking some teachings from the Buddhist teachings. And they're applying them to their lives. And they're becoming less agitated about things.

They're more friendly when they are with other people. They seem to be less concerned about a lot of things. And so I just have to think, that sounds good.

Good for you. But my mind still goes, and you're not Buddhist. So that's my projection.

That's a problem. Hi. Someone has their hand up who has a Chinese name.

And so is there someone who can translate? Is it Chinese? I'm assuming.

It seems like for the English, we can go to the Chinese channel, says Marina. Oh no, now we all, for English, please go to the English channel. For Russian, please go to the Russian channel.

Okay. Yay. Please speak.

Thank you, teacher.

[Speaker 3]
I have a question. I'm thinking, as someone serving the teacher, serving the teacher is one deep reason for seeing emptiness directly. Then should I work as an organizer or translating classics or stay by the teacher's side and cook for the teacher?

Which of these is planting the best seed to see emptiness directly? Thank you, teacher. And for us who are very far away from the teacher, we cannot stay by the teacher's side.

How can we do to plant the best seed to serve the teacher? Thank you, Geshe-la.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, my teachers have always told me that the best way to serve them is by putting into practice that which they have taught me. No, no. But you could also look and see like on a more, shall we say, deceptive reality level, like just notice what your teacher may need or want and do that.

And make of it the highest gift, right? When we do something as an offering to our teacher, I think we can make it really, really powerful by thinking about the emptiness of it. Not only what we do, but us in doing it and them as our teacher.

All three have known self-nature from their own side. We keep that in mind when we practice what they've taught us. There's another phrase called bok chenpa.

We will put our practice on a rocket ship. Accelerate. I'd say also that when the teacher sees that you're happy, the teacher feels happy.

And when the teacher sees you're unhappy, then the teacher feels bad. So I'm pretty happy nowadays. Almost everybody's happy.

Thank you. Anybody else have thoughts about anything or about the book or about some thought that came through your mind today? Thank you, Adam.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
No way, no way. It was just quiet too long. I talked too much.

Please.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Thanks, Ben.

[Speaker 1]
One thing that I was thinking about is we were talking about the sutras that don't talk about emptiness directly, and so those ones need to be interpreted, is that that could apply to just anything. And how you could kind of walk around and place, like what word do we use? Extract.

You could extract the emptiness from any situation or any interaction and just a little reminder to do that. It's really interesting because all of the sutras use words, which are really not directly about emptiness, right? I mean, we have to go through the words to extract the meaning of the nature of reality that's trying to be given, at least for me, trying to be given to me.

In other words, is anything literal? I have to evaluate, right? I have to know what the words mean and figure out for me at the time what's being taught.

And from my experience of trying to do this for nearly 30 years now, the meanings of words have changed a lot over that time. This, for me, is one of the great gifts of studying Je Tsongkhapa and the teachers that follow Je Tsongkhapa. What I never heard anywhere else is that you can talk about this mystical reality, this wordless reality, a reality without alliteration, but that doesn't mean that your words can't be accurate, that there is a way to speak about it with accuracy.

And that's rare. I looked for that for a long time in my life, and to say that, yeah, there is a state where you can have some experience that's direct and you can't speak in that state.

[Speaker 2]
And so many people always told me, so just shut up or there's an old hippie saying, to think is to stink or something like that. And it's a bummer. I was always really bummed out by it because I like to think about stuff, and it's one of the beautiful gifts some seed in the past awakens in us and we find ourselves being clever, thinking deep, beautiful thoughts.

And here we are in this lineage, in the stream of this lineage that invites us to use our intelligence also to help us along the way. It's not the same as seeing.

[Speaker 1]
I get that it's not the same as seeing, but that we can use that tool as a guide until the day we see for ourselves. What a relief.

[Speaker 2]
I'm so grateful that we have these books, books like this, like this journey we're about to embark on. I'm so excited that we just got to this new part because we're getting explicit explanation.

[Speaker 1]
It's not the same as me seeing it directly, but it's the best I got for now. Thank you for it. Hey, Kramer and Nick.

Do you want Nescadol? Nescadol. I don't know what it means, but I accept.

[Speaker 2]
It's a miracle.

[Speaker 1]
I do. I do. I want it.

So we just flew in from New York City. We were changing airports. Me and Pat were trying to find a coffee somewhere, and this lady came up to me and said, you don't know me, but I watched the 10th Ox Tower, and I think it's amazing, and I'm so grateful for it.

This is among like 20,000 people in the airport, and I'm like, oh my God. Just so you guys know, that it happened this afternoon. Pretty cool.

You didn't recognize them? I mean, it wasn't even somebody we know.

[Speaker 2]
No, no.

[Speaker 1]
Some lady I never met, and her husband was like, oh, I finally met the guy. It was cool. It was really cool, and she was very, very grateful.

She said it means a lot to her. Just some random person. By the way, Nick, we'll do the QR thing maybe next time, okay?

Okay, whatever you think. Yeah, yeah, and let me know if I can provide anything. Yeah, probably if you can make a sexy illustration with it or something.

Okay. Okay. Yep.

Something that makes people want to reach into their pocket. Great. Great.

Well, I have now gone into on hustle news time. So I'm sorry, Violet. Maybe we can talk after the Peachtree News.

Yeah, we'll just jump into your Q&A after the Peachtree World News, and everybody, please be prepared to ask your toughest, most challenging questions. Yeah. Okay.

Any of the schools.

[Speaker 2]
The Mexican Bob Marley. Thank you, Geshe-la. And I will say, don't worry.

You didn't go into Peachtree World News time. Because Geshe-la was announcing news, and he's the founder. And the most director director of Peachtree World News.

So you were already reporting the news, Geshe-la. And those are wonderful news. What I can share today is, well, we made it back to Arizona.

As you can see, Geshe-la was in his house, safe and happy. We are also in our way there. I'm in Phoenix right now, but soon we'll be in Sedona.

So what happened? Why we were not here is because DSU had this wonderful, wonderful event in the last few days. Probably it went over 10 days.

And what happened is they had on their context of their second anniversary, they have first some classes and events host in the United States, in Sedona, actually. I would like to share with you some pictures about, that summarize a little bit the whole trip. So first they had some sessions in the Poco Diablo Resort in Sedona area.

You can see very wonderful pictures. That's, I think, exactly there. Yeah, outside the restaurants at the Poco Diablo Resort, you can see the beautiful rocks.

And then also they had this wonderful event in, can I see the next picture? It's going to be, oh yeah, they went to visit places like the Peachtree Cafe, for example, and different places in the Sedona area. One of the very special celebrations that I personally enjoy a lot was a concert in the Hilton, in the Hilton Golf Club.

Yes, I haven't find many pictures or videos. This is the only one I have, but it will be great if I happen to get more and then we can share them with you. So this is what happened in Sedona, but the trip not only stayed there, then they took the whole adventure to New Jersey and New York City.

Why? Because in New Jersey, they went to Princeton University. We had the chance to be there.

It's a wonderful, wonderful campus. It's really great. If you have the opportunity, I will recommend at least one time in your life, go walk around.

It's so wonderful. So the SCU went there. They were having also classes and conferences at the venue, very nearby the university.

Geshe Michael took the students around the campus, explaining some of the history of the place, but also about his personal stories and adventures in the campus that inspired him in many, many ways. You can see President Xiaoping and Stanley Chen there with the whole group, wonderful buildings, amazing architecture. Also, there was a great opportunity to have some very beautiful, nice classes at Three Jewels with Geshe Michael.

And for all of you who are part of the daily mailing list on the good, sorry, on the good night book club, you see that Geshe Michael is sending information every day, every day about what's happening. This is one of the things that he shared with us. It was very wonderful to have the opportunity.

Then exactly the next day, the SCU went to have a session in the Andean International Building. Very wonderful. We had the mixed nuts class from there.

And yes, for some of you who may have logging into it, you may have seen the setting, very wonderful experience. That's where Geshe Michael worked for many years on the diamond business. It's the next picture, please.

So yeah, that was, yes.

[Speaker 1]
Who's the handsome guy in the middle?

[Speaker 2]
I don't know. That's the guy who was just presenting there the news or something. But I'm glad to see that people around are having fun.

Yeah, it was very wonderful. And we want to extend our gratitude with Xiaoping, with Geshe Michael, Stanley, and many other of the producers, Edmond, Sonia, Dinara. You did a wonderful, wonderful job.

And thank you for inviting us. There you can see a picture of the classroom with Rob Hagerty Jr. And our friend Junsu there as well. It was wonderful.

And then this is the building. I would like to show you the building. I noticed something very, very cool.

If you can pay attention to the picture, to the side of the building, it says, In Pursuit of Magic. And I never noticed that until today. And I just think it's very, very wonderful when we pay attention to little details that can spark some hope, some of this magic happening all over around us.

So thank you, thank you so much. And congratulations to DSEU. They are doing a wonderful work.

I talked to Edmond today. He says soon they're going to have a very cool video, and they want to share with all of us. It's just going to be ready soon, and we'll share that with you as well.

And then, of course, everybody came back to Arizona after visiting New York City. And what's going to happen is they are getting ready to go to Diamond Mountain this week, actually, this weekend. Geshe Michael and other teachers and friends are going to Diamond Mountain.

It's going to go from October 11th to the 20th. The preparations are still happening, but I bet it's going to be amazing. So if you haven't signed up, you can follow the QR code.

I think the teachings are going to be very, very wonderful. In other news, then later, I just heard that the event we were talking about the other day, the heart yoga event in Costa Rica, hosted by the Mexican teachers, already happened very successfully. They spent a few days there.

They just came back to Mexico, and we want to share with you just a little bit of what happened there. They are preparing also materials like videos in more detail to share. But, yes, Alex Rivas, Alexa Diaz-Desandi, and Georgina Rivera, a.k.a. Gina, thank you so much. She's in the tech table. They went to Costa Rica. They had wonderful teachings, mostly about sessions connected with the art and the philosophy of yoga.

As you may know, Alex Rivas is one of the YSI teachers. So they made a survey inquiry about what the audience in Costa Rica wanted to hear the most, and the people there say, we want to learn more about yoga, more about yoga. So they were having many sessions on philosophy and also practical exercise.

You can see a little bit of what happened there. And I just hear it was very, very nice. People were very happy, making friends, having a great time.

They are getting ready with a video soon to share more. But we just want to congratulate them and also share with all of you, the international audience, that now after Buenos Aires, after Argentina, Costa Rica happened, very successful. And the next one is Colombia in a few more weeks.

And this is something else that just happened. Our friends from YSI finished a very great event in Turkey. So we're going to be talking with some of them about it.

But in these lines, we have a special interview today with Sofia Arellano from Mexico. She's one of the organizers and producers of YSI. And she's going to be telling us about this very exciting upcoming event in November.

The next picture, please. And if the table can help me spotting Sofia Arellano. Hello, Sofi, how are you?

[Speaker 3]
Thank you, Juan. Thank you so much. Hello, friends and dear teachers.

[Speaker 2]
How are you doing? How are you feeling?

[Speaker 3]
I'm working, as everyone, really hard because these teachings are amazing. And I'm really excited to have the honor to share with you that there's a preparation course, a warm-up course, which is free. You can sign up now.

It's the other image. Sorry. OK.

[Speaker 2]
OK.

[Speaker 3]
You can sign up there. And this is to prepare for the upcoming course in November with our dear teacher, Geshe Michael. And this is happening in November 14.

But in the meantime, you can start reviewing what he taught us and the other amazing teachers from YSI about the Six Flavors of Emptiness. So if you sign up to this mini course, you will get access. Sorry, to this warm-up course, you will get access to a mini course.

That is three hours of amazing teachings where they will review the Six Flavors of Emptiness. There is Geshe Michael's presentation. Then there's Michael Johnson's earls.

And then there's also an amazing meditation on these Six Flavors by Earl. And you will also get a preview from Connie O'Brien about the upcoming topic in the Hatha Yoga Padipika final chapter, the number four, about profound partnerships. So I really encourage you to take it.

And if you sign up, you will also get access to the free webinars. There's one coming up this Sunday. I know there are some other programs happening around that time.

So if you already registered to those programs, you can watch the recording. This is happening with Ben Kramer, one of these San San Tower translators. He's famous because he always makes deep philosophy.

He explains it very joyfully and very clearly. So he will be sharing with Earl, Bernie, their experiences on Hatha Yoga when they did their three-year retreat. So don't miss it.

This Sunday, October 13th at 8 a.m. New York time. And coming next will be another free webinar with Connie O'Brien and John Brady on spiritual partnerships. They will also share their experience of what are the ethics, qualities, and practices to have an unmatched joyful partnership and how can this improve your spiritual path.

[Speaker 2]
Great. And finally, the event. I mean, these all are preparations are building up for the final event.

I mean, final in the sense of this sequence of classes that are going to lead us to the November 14th Hatha Yoga Pradipika Chapter 4. And I will say we should soon talk more about it because I think it's going to be very exciting. Maybe we can have another interview to go a little bit into the topics and the content that I really would like to hear about.

For now, we have to go to the next session, the Q&A, but I will still want to share one last time that picture to encourage people to follow the QR code if they want to start already either figuring out or signing up. What would you say, Sofia, is the most special thing about this particular event to encourage people to come?

[Speaker 3]
Many things, but if I have to pick one, Geshe Michael has just finished translating the text that he will be sharing in this final chapter. There's part of it that he translated during his three-year silent retreat, but there's a lot of it that is freshly translated so you can't miss it. Everything is on much joy, so what can I say?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, so it's like very exclusive content never before shared, right? Because the translation is just finished. This is very, very exciting.

And yeah, yeah, yeah, let's talk again soon and see if we can have another segment to share a little bit taste of what's coming up. But on my side, I think these teachings are wonderful and I would recommend if you can make it live, try to come live. If you cannot, at least come online.

And thank you so much. See you next time. Thank you, Sofie.

Sending best regards and wishes over there. Thank you for the work. Thank you, Juan.

Thank you, Geshe-la. Go back to you. I'm taking a nap.

Okay. Bye.

[Speaker 1]
See you later. Thank you, Nick. Bye.

Of course. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.

And thank you, Paula, again. And thank you very much, Geshe-la. Have a good rest.

All right.