Гибсон Чан — Книга 2: Восхваление зависимости, занятие 11

[Speaker 1]
He's special. It's just dumb luck, I guess. They don't hang out in the waves.

They never do that. They're on the bottom. They must be super attractive or something.

I think there's that. That's why the seal's been surfing with me, too. Have they been?

Yeah, I've been seeing a lot of seals. Oh, wow. For anybody who cares, if you're in the ocean in the summer, in a place that's kind of warm, it's better to shuffle your feet in the bottom and not walk, because if you shuffle your feet, it scares them away.

Yeah, they don't want to sting you. They just get startled if you step on them. It's like a cat.

Not fun, though. Anyway, welcome to Schwenzang Tower, Saturday edition. I hope that everyone's doing great.

We have Gibson's text now. For those of you who would like to stay, we are going to prerecord my class, which will be aired on Monday. You can stick around today and listen, or you can tune in on Monday.

Either way, Gibson, you ready with some homework? Yeah, hi. Hey, Nick, again.

Hey, wake up, Gibson. Hi, Emily. I like your haircut, Gibson.

Thank you. I can't do that. I don't have a muff in French.

For 20 years, I will be, yeah. Okay. Please describe how Je Tsongkhapa, in the last time Je Tsongkhapa made a coupons, he described to Lo Buddha and himself, and he used the word jawa, chawa.

Can anybody remember how he described Lo Buddha with the chawa? First, we define what is chawa. What is English translation?

Yes, a net. So how... Like a body of light coming out from Lo Buddha?

Yes, correct, Oscar. Like from... Yay, Oscar!

[Speaker 2]
A distance of an arm span?

[Speaker 1]
Correct. Yeah, don't count. When we contemplate the meaning of the teacher's teaching, the matchless teacher, whose body breathes with the splendor of the sign and mark, and is completely surrounded by a net of light that extends over an arm span, spoke with a pure voice that possessed with the five parts of speech.

And how did Je Tsongkhapa describe himself? Yeah, doubts. He said a net of doubts.

Yeah, Je Tsongkhapa. Hey, Gibson, what's the famous reference to the Buddha's half-brother here? Devadatta?

Devadatta. Do they set a trap to Lo Buddha? When he was criticizing Lord Buddha, he said he's just a normal guy except for that weird light that goes out 12 feet from his...

Yeah. Okay, okay. That's a famous criticism.

It's not a special one. Okay. Half-brother.

So, in that time, Je Tsongkhapa, he's suffering torment by a lot of confused by Lo's author in Tibet. And so he describes himself as being trapped like a net of doubts based on Lo's inconsistency in the way of their explanation. Yeah.

So here, we just mentioned about the five parts of the speech. And last time, Geshe-la found a full reference to compare these five speech and give them each five speech a reason. So here's the question.

First, please help me. What is each English translation of these five speech? And we will connect to each reason.

So what is sabba? Deep. Deep.

Deep. Deep.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Who said that? Deep. Deep.

Yeah. So, what do you think? How can we connect?

[Speaker 2]
Maybe that's not showing on the screen. Which one does it connect to?

[Speaker 1]
Somebody says D. D? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Correct. History World News says D. Okay, cool.

Awesome. And what about the nian jing jie ba? And Geshe-la mentioned this was the first time showing up during the eight-year translation.

[Speaker 3]
Attractive.

[Speaker 1]
Attractive. Oh, yeah. Attractive.

Steal your heart. So what is the connect reason? E.

[Speaker 3]
C.

[Speaker 1]
C. People say C. No.

I think it's E. I think E. All right.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Nice one.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. What is it?

[Speaker 2]
Attractive.

[Speaker 1]
Beautiful.

[Speaker 2]
Beautiful.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Yeah. It has shown up in last time for twice, and the other one is showing up the, how do you say?

The seventh step of the yun zhe dun. In the artichokes. In the artichokes develop the heart.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

C. C. C.

C. Yeah. C.

C. C. Ding.

Yeah. C. C.

How about the nam bar ripa chawa?

[Speaker 3]
Makes sense.

[Speaker 1]
Makes sense? Yes. Nice.

And. A. A.

A. Cool. Is the, okay.

The kids, yes, the A. And how about the nien bar rupa? Okay, here.

[Speaker 2]
It must be.

[Speaker 1]
Must be.

[Speaker 2]
No contradiction.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Nice, nice, nice question. So the last homework.

After being confused by the explanation of those Tibetan authors, Master Zhongkaba finally found relief in which author's work also which classics predict the appearance of this author. Nix, you should answer this question. Arya Nagarjuna.

Yeah, and which which text he predicted, he mentioned. Is it Joni Talanka? Yeah.

Let's predict the appearance of the author. But what Zhongkaba mentioned that he finally found one text among all the texts, including wisdom. Yeah, the wisdom.

But he said, including a lot of texts, found a lot of texts by Arya Nagarjuna, including the wisdom. And yes, the Joni Talanka predicted the appearance of Arya Nagarjuna. And he said, these texts were like a garden of jasmine, giving him a breath of fresh air.

So what is the Tibetan word tse? Vegetable. Garden.

Garden. Garden, correct. Yeah.

And what is tse? Isn't it seek or search for? Yeah, search for.

Yeah. Cool. Because he's looking for good reference.

Because these two words look pretty much similar. So I guess you will enjoy the translation. Okay, here's come to my...

Thank you. Looks like you spent some good time on it. Yes.

All right. So here is my translation. Can you read it, Gibson, and then we'll check it.

Okay. Okay. Good, okay.

May I read the translation? Yes, please. Okay.

I guess we have a few sentences.

[Speaker 3]
That's fine.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, so can we go to the previous one? Sure. Okay, sorry.

Okay. That's fine. Okay.

Well, okay. Okay. Let me check this, okay.

Waxing crescent means... Did you say waxing crescent? Okay.

Coursing across the sky of the highest... By the way, Gibson, when you say kinkor, what's the sentence? Mandala.

Mandala. And it means a disc, and it could refer to the sun or the moon. So how did you know it's the moon?

Because the torrent is reference to the sun, and the moon was like a soaking number to cool you down. Yeah, I agree. The moon cools down, and the sunlight supposedly heats you up too hard.

And he's gyul kar sil kyi nyunpa. What's that? Gyul kar sil kyi nyunpa.

Outshine low star. Yeah, outshines the stars, so it's probably not the sun. The sun is coming up, by the way.

I don't know where... I'm going to tell them... I think you added the translation of the verses.

Yeah, I put the put the letter one belden dawa japa here. I don't know if this is proper. I don't know.

Okay, that's okay. It's a little early, but it's okay. Let me keep looking here.

I'll find something wrong. Okay, du tse dak che kyi. I love that you said forever without changing and stopped altogether for dak che.

Any clarification there in other words? Okay, good. By the way, sab dun lokpa means we're teaching the profound meaning wrongly.

You see what I mean?

[Speaker 3]
Ah, okay.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that's okay. Small thing. Okay, it's beautiful.

Let's go to the next commentary part. Could you have someone else read and could you correct them? Yeah.

Inna. Inna. Are you in the translation?

[Speaker 3]
Yes, I'm here.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, okay.

[Speaker 3]
Well, dun dava trakpe tsik sel la sokpe lek she kyo serkar oy chenwe sel var chepe tava she kyi.

[Speaker 2]
Dun lama jampe jan ki kadrin Okay, cool, let's see.

[Speaker 1]
These fine words... Okay, it's all shaky. It's just the use of chenwa for light.

What's chenwa? Mala. It's a mala.

It's an interesting use of the word, and sometimes it means a halo around the moon or something like that, or light rays coming out of the moon, like beads on a mala. So I would try to catch that. I was curious.

I made a wrong note here. I made this note. I wonder why he didn't refer to Umla Jupa instead of ciksel.

What's the difference? Isn't ciksel a commentary on Umla Jupa? It's a word-by-word commentary on the root text.

Ciksel is a commentary to the chakye, the wisdom, I think. To wisdom, yeah. The clearer word, sthanapada, is Chandrakirti's word-by-word commentary to wisdom.

Then his meaning commentary is Umla Jupa, Madhyamaka Avatara. Comparatively, people use the Madhyamaka Avatara maybe 90% of the time. They rarely use ciksel because it's very complex.

It's kind of super dry. I'm just curious why he didn't mention Madhyamaka Avatara rather than... He mentioned here prasannapada, which is a word-by-word commentary instead of the meaning commentary.

I'm just curious why he would have chosen that, because it's very rare for someone to do that. There must be some hidden meaning here. I don't know.

Satshe, yeah. So he's saying... And then there's Chandrakirti, which is significant here because...

He's describing the light of the moon, and that's what chandra means. Chandrakirti's name is Mr. Famous Moon. So he's using Chandrakirti...

He's using the moon to describe Chandrakirti's wisdom, or commentary on wisdom. And maybe the cell part, the clarity part, is due to the light of the moon, because his subject has been the light. So the lesser-known commentary's name is clarification, meaning what light...like uzel, clear light. So it's probably this kind of thing, that he's on the metaphor of moonlight, and he wants to keep to the metaphor, so he mentions the clarification rather than entering the middle way. You see what I mean? Okay.

Lama Jampen Yanggye Kadun Gyi Yeah, by the kindness of my lama... By the way, here Tsongkapa is admitting what? That he had direct contact with Manjushri.

True. Originally true. Lama Umapa.

We put it in a DCI course. Who was a shepherd, but he had direct contact with Manjushri. And Tsongkapa checked him.

He went to him and said, people say that you have direct contact with Manjushri, and he said, yes I do. By the way, his name means Mr. Middle Way. And he's just a sheepherder on the mountains.

And then he said, yes I am in direct contact with Manjushri. So Tsongkapa doesn't believe him, and he says, I'm going to ask you some questions, and you tell me what Manjushri says. And then he was blown away, and then he said, I believe you.

And then he asked, how do you do that? And then he taught him, and then later he had contact with Manjushri. Direct contact with Manjushri.

And then later people said he was Manjushri. Okay. LAM MA BYAMS YANG DGAR DUN GYIS DUS DU Good.

LO DUS KYI MI GYI MTHONG BA'I ADI Yeah. Yeah, okay good. MTHONG BA'I ADI means rest from your suffering.

Rest from your overwork. Okay. And by the way, shiwa doesn't have to mean peace so much.

It can mean just to stop something. And I like to think of rest in peace, R-I-P. So the verb, as a verb, shiwa doesn't have to mean peace or something like that, pacify.

It can just mean to put an end to some kind of pain. Okay. And it means until he could talk directly to Manjushri, he was in a lot of suffering trying to understand Middle Way.

Okay. That's what he's referring to. Cool.

Nice translation. Okay, let's go to the next. Did you do more?

Yeah, the last one. Good, let's do it. Who's going to read?

We just read it. Oh yeah, we did.

[Speaker 3]
Do you think the string of lights is somehow a particular metaphor meant to suit a word-by-word commentary?

[Speaker 1]
Could be. Yeah, that's a good idea. That's a good thought.

There's another tengwa I'm running around. I think Tsongkapa wrote some tengwas, and so did... I mean, we're about to study the Ratnamala, the tengwa of Nagarjuna, on the same text.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, let's check the translation. Of all the enlightened beings and the able ones... By the way, the translation is good.

I mean, it's good English. Gibson's challenge is to translate into a foreign language, which is... Of all the enlightened beings, the enlightened being in teaching was the highest one among all the enlightened beings.

Chuck, good. And the highest of these teachings... Okay, good.

Therefore. I like the therefore for cheer. It's in the essence of teaching, yeah.

Nice. You should bring... Yeah.

Good. Nice translation. What's this concept?

Sangye je drenpa. Sangye je sur drenpa. There's a famous...

Thinking? ...je sur drenpa. The four pre?

Yeah, there's four. There's four of them. Body, feelings, mind, like that.

There's famous for... They call it close recollection sometimes. Something like that.

But you can also do it with the three jewels. And it means to... It's like you're in love with a girl in high school and you can't stop thinking about her when you're at home.

And that's the meaning of je dren. It means you can't stop thinking about the Buddha or something like that. Okay?

Just when you're just sitting around and having breakfast, you're thinking about the Buddha, like a girlfriend. Okay, nice. Any more?

No. So far. So far.

Very nice. Nice homework.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Nice translation. Yeah. Nice job.

Thank you. Thank you for working so hard. Let's share grandpa's screen and let's make sure we get the right screen to share.

Okay. Yeah, here we go. Let me get rid of these guys.

By the way, I'd like to welcome Keith Emmons, old friend who's here today.

[Speaker 3]
And I'd like to...

[Speaker 1]
Hi Keith. I'd like to welcome Vance. Thank you for coming.

All right, here we go. I think we're... Yeah, okay, good.

We're here? Am I right? Gibson?

Yeah, nipa nupa tsum de gyu tsen here. Okay. Who would you like to read?

Yeah, Yulia Svatenko.

[Speaker 3]
Hello.

[Speaker 1]
Hey.

[Speaker 3]
nipa tsompe yi gyu tsen ngo wa dang chepa la ni tsompe yi gyu tsen dang ngo wa o Nice, nice, nice reading.

[Speaker 1]
Tsongpa Gibson. To Rangkampoli's book, Praise. Yeah, and gyu tsen means why did he write this book.

So by the way, and then comes the ngo wa. The dedication. Yeah, the eighth of the...

Preliminaries. Seventh of the preliminaries. By the way, when you're in a commentary, you get excited when you hit ngo wa.

Why? Yeah, hit the end. It comes at the end of the commentary.

You know, it comes at the very end. You dedicate the good karma of writing the commentary. And it's traditional.

But when you're a translator and you see ngo wa, you start to get excited. And you start to think of the next book you're going to translate. Okay, Changye...

He's going to translate Changye Lekshen Nyingpo. I hope so, if we live that long. Gyu tsen ngo wa dang chepa la nyi.

So he's going to split it into why did I write this book, and then the dedication of the good karma of writing it. And that's pretty much the end, except then they have usually prayers at the end, poetry, and they go crazy with metaphors. Like he's going to talk about the eight qualities of water that he's going to offer at the end of the book.

And then he says the total number of nagas. Because there are famous eight naga kings. But he never says eight.

And it's like that. It's really a hassle to get through it. So we'll be there.

Please read this, Gyu tsen. Dabpa ni. Never mind.

That just means the next verse. Okay, who's going to read, Gyu tsen, this first line here, this first sentence? Tin.

Tin Nguyen. ton ni ten trel kyi wo nye dupe gyu tsen dunpa la nang mi pa the jesu rak tu chungwa gyu te Nice. Nice, Tin.

You're doing amazing. Thank you, Geshe Michael. What's that, Gyu tsen?

ten drel kyi go nye dupe Praise Lord Buddha because he's teaching dependence. Yeah, that's kind of weird when you think about it. I mean, if you're going to praise Lord Buddha, you should praise him for teaching emptiness.

And Tsongkhapa's trying to make a statement. If you have to praise Lord Buddha for something, you should praise him for teaching cause and effect. Which means that things are coming from your seats.

Which means that when you're in trouble, when you're having an argument with your husband or wife, which is the subject of the FCIM course this week, it's probably more effective to think about the cause and effect than it is to think about the emptiness. This is coming from me is probably more powerful at that moment than she's not there. Okay, dupe gyu tsen.

So why did he choose to praise Lord Buddha because he taught dependence rather than emptiness or something else? And then tungpa lam namepa de jesu. What's rupta chung here, Gyu tsen?

Can you guess? I don't know. Yeah, leave the home life to get the ordination.

Yeah, he got ordained. So he's starting to describe himself. At the end of the book, Tsongkapa's starting to describe himself.

And he says, well, first of all, if you're going to ask me why did I praise Lord Buddha through dependence, may I introduce myself? First of all, I'm following this particular dude, which is a common way to say I'm ordained. I have left the home life to follow the Buddha.

Although Buddha didn't live at Tsongkapa's time, it's a common way of saying I'm a monk. Why do I praise this man? I left my home to follow this man.

That's what he's saying. Who's next, Gibson? Nana.

Nana?

[Speaker 3]
Cool.

[Speaker 1]
Gyalway sung rab, Gibson. The teaching of the victor. Yeah, all of it, right?

My jangpa in that sung rab is mi menpa. My learning progress is not just a little bit. Yeah, it's not so bad.

[Speaker 3]
Not so bad.

[Speaker 1]
What famous word is men appear in? Tenmen. No, no, it's different.

That's SM. Yeah, tenmen. Hinayana.

Men is hina, which means inferior. Hinayana is actually... People prefer Theravada because it means the old true way.

Hinayana means it's derogatory almost. So here he's almost derogatory to himself. And then someone throws in che.

Great. Yeah, the commentator threw in che. Tsongkapa describes himself, his knowledge, as mi menpa.

Not too bad. And the commentary says, fantastic. You see what I mean?

When Tsongkapa says not too... My understanding of the Lord Buddha's teaching is not too bad. The commentator says, fantastic.

And that's why we bold or italicize the commentary, when it's an embedded commentary. ZHING THOD DANG SNYAM LAS I not only learned a lot, I SNYAM LEN what I THOD. I practiced what I heard.

The meaning of what I heard. Yeah, I didn't just learn it. I put it into practice.

SNYAM LEN means I put it into practice. That's the commentator's words. Tsongkapa's own words are, I'm a SNYAM BRAL SPYOD PA.

I'm a yogi. He said, I'm a practicing yogi. And then the commentator says, that means he's practicing what he learned.

It doesn't mean he's doing exercises. And it's interesting because NEL DROD SPYOD PA is also the name of... The Mind-Only School.

The Mind-Only School. It's another name for the Mind-Only School. Yoga Charter.

So, you know. LHAG BSRIM PA Fourth Perfection. Yeah, I kicked ass.

I'm putting into practice what I heard. Tsongkapa's rarely describing himself in these texts. And then he gives his name.

Who gives his name? Yeah, the commentator. Je Tsongkapa never gives his name.

He says, I'm just a yogi. I'm an unnamed yogi. And the commentator says, by the way, it's Tsongkapa.

He's a gelong. He's a monk. Fully ordained monk.

And then the commentator says, by that he means to say he's a dzinpa-er of do and gyu. He's a keeper of the open and secret teaching. Nice, good.

So when Tsongkapa says, I'm a real monk, the commentator says it means he was practicing open teachings and secret teachings. shik means I'm a guy. Tsongkapa's being modest.

I'm just a dude. I'm just a yogi. A monk.

Next. By the way, I split it up to make it easier for you guys. Who's going to read next, Gibson?

Dodo. Nice, nice, Dodo. Your pronunciation is pretty good.

Better than my Chinese. Okay, Chang Song, Chenpo. Gibson.

The great sage? Yeah, great sage. Chang Song is siddha.

Like the 80 Maha Siddhas or something like that. That means Maha Siddha. Chenpo means Maha.

And Chang Song means siddha. And siddha means straight. Still, when you're in a taxi cab in India and you want to go straight, you say siddha, siddha.

What's the other famous siddha, siddha? Like Lexo, Lexo? Yeah, in the Heart Sutra.

The only two words that Buddha speaks in the Heart Sutra is good, good. Straight. It means straight, straight.

Sangyechenpo de... Tsongkapa describes him as the great sage. And then the commentator says he's referring to Sangyechenpo.

The Buddha. And then he gives the reason why Tsongkapa wrote this book. By the way, book means a long poem.

And here's the real reason. What is it? Gibson, here it comes.

Respect? Yeah, I just wanted to honor Lord Buddha. I praised him for teaching dependence.

My intention was not so much to educate people, but I wanted to do it as a prostration to Lord Buddha. You see what I mean? It's very beautiful.

That's the punchline here. And then we go on to... We finished the reason why he wrote the book, which was just kupa.

I wanted to show my respect for Lord Buddha. And then we move on to the second point of the end of the book, which is the dedication. Who's going to read that?

Gibson, you read that, because it's kind of long and it's kind of important. Okay. Okay.

Good. So the dedication has five parts. Each one is a mumba.

It's a prayer. Each one is a prayer. There are five different prayers in the dedication at the end of the book.

Usually when you finish a Buddhist book, you dedicate it to some higher purpose. He's got five. Okay, Tsongkapa's got five.

Let's go through them, Gibson. First he prays that he will be dzinpa by a geway shing yin. Will be taken care of by the spiritual guide.

Yeah, and by the way, when you see emptiness directly, you do see, in the aftermath, as the 16 aspects of the Four Arya Truths, one of them is that you see the people who will take care of you in your next life, as a child, which is very comforting to know that you're headed there. By the way, you're probably the only people in the world who really know where you're going, which is very comforting. Because death is very frightening and very unknown to everyone else.

Serab tam che. In all my future life. By the way, if you're in this class, you don't have to worry about your next life, in my opinion.

You know. Okay. tenpay ngang tso shes ne.

tenpa la yi chen. The faith, confidence to your teacher, and to know... May I always have trust in my teachers through tenpay ngang tso shes.

Through knowing the nature of the teaching. Good, yeah. It doesn't mean follow the teacher.

It means follow the teaching. May I always have belief in my teacher because I believe what they teach, not because I believe the person. Okay?

Got it? Okay. That's the second prayer.

Third prayer. LUS SO LA MI LTA BAR. I shouldn't LTA BAR my LUS SO.

I shouldn't give up LTA BAR my LUS SO. LTA BAR. Here it means view, right?

But it means I shouldn't worry about my, I shouldn't worry about my money or my house or stuff like that. Okay? My physical circumstances.

I should focus on THUB LDAN DZIN PA. LDAN DZIN. The keeper of the Dharma.

Yeah.

[Speaker 3]
Protecting the teaching.

[Speaker 1]
Don't worry too much about where you're gonna make your living, or how you're gonna eat, or how you're gonna pay your rent. Just focus on protecting the teachings. Okay?

All right. Next one. DER NA BZANG BA'I LUS PA'I RTOB.

I hope that I can LHUR ZAN. LHUR ZAN means throw myself into, with all my heart. Okay?

To PA'I LO BA'I DEN DANG. To increase, to spread. Spread the knowledge of dependence in the world with a flavor of emptiness.

Yeah. He says deep. When he says dependent origination, I'd like to work to spread dependent origination in the world.

That's kind of a medium goal. When he says TEN DEL ZAB MU, I want to spread the profound version of dependent origination. He's talking about spiced with emptiness.

Okay? Salted with emptiness. Okay?

Which is very beautiful. The addition of the word ZAB MU is very ZAB MU. Okay?

Okay, that's the fourth prayer. Here comes the fifth prayer. I hope that I can get some RTOG PO'I.

I can get some friend. Yeah. In this, in my efforts, which is the TEN ZER.

Protecting the teachings. The Sanskrit for ZUNG BA is BALA. BALA.

Protecting the teachings. He came into the world as a pastor. Protectors.

Yeah. So he's going to, the last thing he's going to do is he's going to ask for divine help in these other four prayers. The last prayer is, I hope I can get some heavy duty protectors on my side.

This is not a controversial protector. Don't worry about it. And we are not in that subject, and we never will.

Okay? Which is a huge waste of time. All right.

We're not going to go to the next one because we're going to cover it in the commentary. Who's going to read, Gibson? Stop throwing things, Tim.

Tracy.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Nice. Very nice. I love this one.

I love your reading. It's very good. By the way, in 15 minutes, we will take a...

for 15 minutes, in 15 minutes, we will discuss possibly how you might use this, today's class, in your real life. Okay? And Gibson will lead that discussion.

But you might start thinking about it now. Okay? We're on the first prayer, and here's what the first prayer is in detail.

Okay? By the way, this is a very famous prayer that's often extracted and used as a dedication. Like that.

I have jelwa the tenpa, Gibson. I have meet the teaching. Yeah, I mean, it's like meeting...

it's like meeting someone by accident on the subway in New York, you know, out of 20 million people or something. You just bump into somebody in the subway. It happens, right Rosa?

Like you just bump into somebody, you're like, oh my god. And so the odds of that is more likely than these odds. Okay?

I have bumped into the precious teachings of the matchless teacher. I have kelsang. I have a good fortune.

Yeah, I'm super karmically lucky. And all of that kelsang is because of the katen of my lama. The kindness of my lama.

Good, good. And that's why we chose the name katen for the book. Also, I made a lot of gewa by Dopa Gipa.

I made a lot of good dhī by having making this praise. Yeah, by composing these verses of praise eulogy, I have made a lot of good karmas. And I dedicated that Drowa Malupa should bump into Je Tsongkapa.

I hope, I pray that every living being in the future can meet the meditable, holy, gentle voice. Yeah, or a similar gewa shengyu. Or a similar spiritual guy.

Yeah. And then the commentator throws in, which is often done in this context, he throws in tse nyi dang denpa. Those who has the quality.

Who's qualified. So he says, I pray everybody meets their spiritual teacher. Okay, that's the commentator, and it's a very common addition at this point.

And I hope they can nyepa that teacher. Please, their teacher. Yeah, don't upset their teacher, or don't let their teacher down.

You will mess up, I almost said something else, but don't let them down. Recover, come back, you will mess up fairly regularly, and then just keep coming back, and keep trying again, and that teacher is happy. And I dedicate this composition as a gewa that people will be je tse dzinpa.

What's that mean? As a cause that everybody will be taken care by those teachers. Yeah, great, nice.

Okay, that's the first prayer. Right? Yeah, here comes the second one.

We're going to skip the verse itself. Who's going to read, Gibson? Let me push this down so we can read the whole thing.

Okay. Who's going to read, Gibson? Utta.

And you check them, okay? Okay, Utta. Grandpa's relaxing.

Okay. It's my pastry cafe day.

[Speaker 3]
Okay, thank you, Gibson. Deni drola penpar sepe tenpa deyi tenpa renpo treang ripe tar tukkiwardu padu.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, because that is the first syllable. Okay. Nice reading.

[Speaker 3]
Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Good.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you for all the corrections.

[Speaker 1]
Thanks so much. You guys are doing good. No, you're doing good.

You're doing good. So the tenpa's function is drola pen. To benefit you.

Yeah, the teacher's function is to benefit you. And I hope that his tenpa renpo che... The precious teaching.

Can stay up to the sepe tar tuk. Can stay till the end of the life of the world.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah, end of samsara.

[Speaker 1]
Samsara. Yeah, samsara. Yeah, till the end of samsara.

And then he describes the deuce as ngenpar tok. The demon has the wrong worldview. Yeah, and a terrible misspelling here.

Why? Because the first one with the S is realization. Yeah, with the S it means realization.

And let's go look at the root text. It says tok without the S. Okay, so somebody miscarved it.

But it's a big mistake because tok with an S means the demons have had high realizations. And tok without the S means they have faulty understanding. Okay, and he compares that faulty understanding to lung.

To a storm. Yeah, to a storm or heavy wind, which would yowa people, which would sway people. Or sway people in the wrong way.

There's a slight difference in the Tibetan here. Choney Lama was apparently using a different version of Tsongkapa's praise. And here's a slight difference.

But it's exactly the same meaning. Our text says ngenpar miyok. But the original text says ngenpar miyok.

Okay, but it doesn't change the meaning at all. tenpay leype ngang su she ni. What's ngang su, Gibson?

It's a little bit difficult word. I have seen someone translate it as character, or some nature. Yeah, it means nang su, the way it is.

The way it is. It's a difficult word. So the way it is, referring to the way the teaching is.

Okay, the way the teaching is, I hope they can get depak. The faith. Good.

Faith. Great. Super faith.

Lhagpa chepa. Okay, I hope they can do that. And may I hope that the whole sa of this planet...

The whole earth of this planet. Here it means the surface of this planet may be kangwa with this kind of people. Full, feel, with this kind of people.

Yeah, good. Yeah, kangwa means full. Kang means what, where, when, how.

So when you see the wak attached to kang, it's a verb that means full of. And it's not a pronoun at all. It doesn't mean who, what, where.

Okay, you got to pay attention to what comes after kang. If it's kangwa, it means full, full of. Okay, and it's a beautiful prayer.

It's a beautiful thing to visualize. The whole planet covered with people who are trying to practice sharing with others and being kind to others. And he's got this vision in his mind.

His second prayer is, I hope that my small contribution could lead one day to a planet which is covered with people who are taking care of each other. Very beautiful. All right, third prayer.

Let's go straight to the prayer. Who's going to read, Ginseng Wu? Merabu Khatim.

Khatim. Morning. Good afternoon.

Thank you. Doni tene chungwe deko nani ki don selwar sepe tupe luk sangpo dini kewa ne te rab tem chedulutang rok Sok. What is that?

Sok. Sok. Sok kyang yel war tang ne nche sok tsong sung gi go ne nzinpa la du kye chik tsam?

Or tsam? Tsam. Tsam.

Yang lo ching gye yel war ma... Yel? Yel.

Oh, yel. Yel. Yes, silent G.

Yeah. Yel war ma gyur chik chey pao. Nice.

G-Y is one of the only ambiguities in the input system that we use. G-Y by itself would be kya. But when we put the hyphen, it means silent G pronounced a Y.

Yel war. Okay, cool. Doni tene chungwa means what, Gibson?

Ten chung. Ten chung. I forgot.

I forgot it. And then originations. It's a synonym for tendo.

It's a synonym for tendo. Occurrence in dependence is the same as dependent origination. But he says...

By the way, the root text says that very dependent origination. And then our commentator stretches out the that very and turns it into de kwa ni nyi. Suchness.

Emptiness. Which means emptiness. Very skillfully.

See how he shoved the kona in between the de nyi? De nyi just means that one. And then our commentator's being cute and he took that one and he turned it into suchness, which flavors the dependence, which is exactly what Tsongkhapa wants.

So it's a very skillful comment. He's a... I mean, I was thinking about books to do because these guys are finishing books like crazy now.

And I was thinking of more books to do, but I think Choney Lama's like the ultimate. And he wrote 125 books. Okay, de kwa ni nyi kyi dun.

By the way, the reason he wrote 25 books is towards the end of his life he had some deaths in his family and he went into retreat and he resigned as the abbot of his monastery. And he just dedicated himself to practice and writing. de kwa ni nyi dun selwar dzinpe tubpay luksambo.

This beautiful system of the able ones where they teach dependence according to emptiness. I hope I can chets... I hope I can dzinpa it.

Okay, what's dzinpa, Gibson? I can keep it. Yeah, I hope I can be one of the people who preserves it in the world.

By what? By chepa, tsepa, and tsongpa. These three.

I hope I can keep it in the world. By chepa, tsepa, and tsongpa. Yeah, explaining it.

And tsepa, like debating. Yeah, debating it. And tsongpa.

And composing, composition. Yeah, yeah, writing fresh commentaries. Explaining it verbally, debating it with people, and writing new commentaries.

I hope I can hold it. I hope I can keep the teaching in this world by those three deeds. And I can...

I hope those three activities I can throw myself into sok kyang yelwar dang. Sok kyang yelwar dang. Sok is life, but sok kyang I don't know.

Yeah, sok means life, and yelwar means at the cost of... even at the cost of my life. Even if I die trying, I should try.

Should throw my life into it. Okay? Sok kyang yelwar dang.

In all of my serifs. In all of my actual life. Yeah, yeah, good.

So I hope I can keep this good system of the Buddha, or all my lives. Tsemyang. And I hope I never lupa.

Lupa means to... Lose it? Lose?

Yeah, lupa means to be... Lupa means if you're holding something tightly and then you loosen up on the grasp. That's called lupa.

[Speaker 3]
I never slack off.

[Speaker 1]
Slack off, good, yeah. And yelwar means to get distracted by something else, like, I don't know, Netflix or something. Okay, I hope I can hold it strongly without loosening it.

And, okay, without getting distracted. I think we have time for... Let's do one more quickly.

Gibson, you read. Thank you. By the way, we're on the third pair, if I'm not mistaken.

Fourth. Fourth pair. Okay.

Okay, the chepa-o means, here's the content of his fourth pair. The drenpa chok. Who's the drenpa chok in this world?

No Buddha. Yeah, he did gyataks many... He did countless gyataks, kawas, to learn what he learned.

Effort? Yeah, more than that. Beyond spiritual hardship?

Yeah, dka is the ka in kangyur, which means the word of the Buddha. But dka means hardship or tapas. He put forth millions of tapas.

And because of that, he was able to druppa da nyingpo. Druppa da nyingpo. Achieve the essence.

Which is sometimes a synonym for reach Buddhahood, okay? So this teaching which helps you to do that, I'm going to pelwa it, Gibson. I'm going to pelwa, spread it.

Yeah, I'm going to spread it as much as I can through tap kye kang da. Ini means necessary. If I have to take off my clothes and dance around and get people's attention, I'll do it.

That's what it means, by the way. Tap kye kang da. Whatever I have to do, I'll do it.

If I have to do something weird to spread it, I'll do it. And it means just similar things that people have to do to spread the teaching. kang da shing gung du pen yin yong nyenpay may I dawa nyin en tsen Dawa.

Day and night. This is the dawa in nyang ngen len depa, which is the past tense of dawa. Nyang de.

To go beyond grief, which is nirvana. Okay, going beyond grief is the Tibetan early translation period. So there's an early translation period, there's a later translation period.

In the early translation period they were poetic. In the later translation period they were literal. And most of the early translation words have been dropped now.

But nirvana survived as nyang ngen len depa, transcending grief. So dawa means to transcend. Okay, may I transcend nyen tsen.

Nyen tsen. Day and night. Yeah, may I spend day and night.

This dawa means may I pass my days and nights always thinking about the teachings, and thinking of ways to spread. May I pass day and night thinking about sexy new ways to spread the teaching. Okay, that's exactly what he says here.

Okay, all right. All right, we're going to stop there. About jenpa chok, is that the translation of Gautama?

That's an interesting question. That would be... I think it's called chukpa chok.

Yeah, when you translate Gautama, it's kyu chok. Kyu chok, K-H-Y-U, which means head cow. Gau means cow.

Tama means highest. It's the superlative in Sanskrit, E-S-T. Cowest is Gautama.

Head bow. Yeah, this is not exactly that. Okay, stop here.

What's the day today? Fourth? Fifth?

Fourth. Fourth? Yeah, may the fourth be with you.

Okay, grandma's going to go sit down and have a coffee on the couch. And you got to lead this thing, handsome. I'm going to cut myself off.

Okay, 15 minutes, and then we got the Peace Tree World News coming up with a very interesting interview. Good luck, Gibson. Yeah, so I think today's class is very interesting because we cover the dedication.

And at least let me think of the chapter dedication of Seiji's text, and that is my favorite subject. And I also want to dedicate all the people translation, involve the translation work or in this class that we can live for a long life to keep joining this class and spreading the knowledge because, yeah. And yeah, so do anybody have any thought about it?

My only thought is it sounds suspiciously like a teacher I know. Yeah, and I think we are very lucky to have the group of people who are dedicating their whole life, preserving the text, translate the text, because this is what the dedication is looking for in the future life. May we all involve with this similar activity.

And probably we have already doing this for several lifetime. And it's not today. Say a very interesting word that people who's ever in this class, we will see each other in the next life and in the future.

So I'm getting very excited that we are being protected. And so, yeah. Rob, I think you want to share, right?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. I thought that was beautiful that you brought that up when Geshe-la mentioned that during the class that especially the people who are here and talking about maybe where we're going next and stuff. But the first prayer about not worrying so much about your job or your money or the car and just throwing ourselves into protecting or preserving the teachings of that number one.

Yeah. And it's just so cool to be here, not only among the mixed nuts in this group who are here in the room, that everyone's doing that in one way or another. Even the people who are just here watching the class.

And I remember when this first class happened at Diamond Mountain, the very first translation class, I wasn't going to go. I was like, no, I'm not going to this translation thing. So I went and sat outside the temple, actually, by the window.

And it was Essence of Eloquence, I can't remember, Chatham Tapa, right? But it was just unbelievable. It was remarkable.

And it ended, I thought, oh, I can't miss this class ever again. It's just so amazing. And so all the effort of everybody to just anything we can do to just sort of help in any way.

When I first showed up, I think I gave like apples or anything I could do to help. It's funny, because once they smell a volunteer back in the day and spill, you're kind of doomed. I was like, I kind of quit my job, actually.

And I said, I'm free. And someone's like, what? And then it was just like, people just jumped on you.

So there's always this like, and it started small. I think I helped Ted Lemon set up some sound for Geshe-la's first classes. And then Aura was digitizing in the dungeon, all the ACI classes.

So I always kept looking for opportunities to do something. And I think it's always like that. We're given so many chances to just help, I think.

And when you're on that wave, you should just sort of jump on it. I think we're on that huge wave. And there's always something we can do.

It could be the dollar a day. It could be the good night book club. There's all these great ways to help.

So that first prayer, it made me sort of put my mind into a place of just, you know, we just keep doing this thing to preserve the teachings. Yeah. Which year was that first class?

[Speaker 1]
For me?

[Speaker 2]
Oh, 2004.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Fall of 2004. And Stanley was asking when that class was.

[Speaker 3]
Oh, right. Because the building, we were in the temple. Yeah.

So I don't know.

[Speaker 2]
Earlier.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 2]
It's all blending together now. Yeah. That's all I had to say.

[Speaker 3]
I think translators started a little later in the curriculum. 2005, maybe.

[Speaker 2]
Gibson, I was thinking about how this, it almost sounds like a sort of a magic. How the Buddha predicted that if a person dedicates themselves to study, dedicates themselves to practice, that that person will be taken care of. And my life has looked like that.

And it's easy to think of it as some sort of a magic, right? But also the beauty of dependence is understanding that we see the mechanisms working in the world. Like Nagarjuna says, I agree with what farmers say, we plant seeds and they come to fruition.

[Speaker 1]
And so like the ways my teacher has taken care of me, not just taught me, but in very practical ways.

[Speaker 2]
It's part of the working of this magic.

[Speaker 3]
And I think one of the deepest forms of the way this magic manifests or appears in the world is a community of people who love these teachings and love one another and love people in the world, because I get to live this life dedicated to studying deeply and trying to understand and trying to share.

[Speaker 2]
But it's only because of all these people that we're surrounded by in these classes. It's not just, it is a magic, right? But it's also, you are paying actual money, bless your hearts.

[Speaker 3]
You're working hard to support the capacity of me to be able to do this. It's your love of one another, your desire to see a world heal and get wiser and develop, and your desire to see people bless you for whatever reason it got to be me, but that get to have time that just, you make it possible for there to be people to dedicate time that's needed to preserve teachings and to understand teachings and to share teachings.

[Speaker 2]
And so it is magical, right? And there's also, because there is magic in the world, there's always a pragmatic, an understandable explanation for that magic. And this is a way of understanding dependence.

When you understand emptiness, when you understand dependence, you understand exactly how things come about. And in my life, it's all of you. It's all of you who take care of this program and support because you love this thing.

You love understanding. You love wisdom. You love love.

[Speaker 1]
And so this understanding that there could be those who dedicate your life, that if you dedicate your life to that, right?

[Speaker 3]
It's not just that the Buddha served however many lifetimes getting his butt kicked, but also it's because he understood the nature of love in the human heart that would support those who are acting in service of love, that people would see those who are truly acting with their whole lives in desperate service of love and want more of that and want to support that.

[Speaker 2]
And I thank you all for being the limb of the teacher in that way and the limb of all the Buddhas in that way, acting on his behalf for all of our goodness.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you, Ben. We are almost time. I just want to mention that today I hear Geshe-la's recording of the Aesop 15.

And somebody asked if some people doing the Ten Good Deeds without knowing the emptiness, will they have the same result in the future? And Geshe-la say, if you following the Ten Good Deeds without the emptiness, you won't last so long. And so, I guess that is the beauty of the text, because Je Tsongkhapa decided to choose this subject and to honor Lo Buddha.

And without, he choose the best gift and to dedicate. And I think, yeah, I'm so lucky. Thank you, Geshe-la.

And thank you, everyone. I think Peter has something. Okay.

I was struck by the idea that the book, which is very powerful, and at the end takes time to close it with a certain routine. And we had a discussion with Connie yesterday that in our societies, we are not very good at closing things. Like COVID is still kind of hanging there.

And no one said, hey, let's make a body to finish it and dedicate it or do something with it. So, I think you could make his course as serious, of course, it's just with the idea of finishing things by helping people to close up stuff. We might want to move on to the Peachtree World News now.

Here we go. Thank you, Nick. All right.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, okay. So, some people have been advising me to speak slower. Because it's so difficult for me, what I'm going to try to do is to speak less.

Not slower, but just less. So, Gina can help me. Quick review of the events that are happening.

It's not everything, but it's just a quick review of how this year is going to go. Uh, first, we would like to remind you that the valises for the Good Night Greeting Club. Yeah, for the nightclub are ready and you can get yours following the QR code.

Also, if you sign up for the nightclub, you get one of these wonderful valises.

[Speaker 1]
What's it used for?

[Speaker 2]
It's so you don't put, you put your devices at night there and you don't get distracted by the worldly temptations of the night.

[Speaker 1]
Where?

[Speaker 2]
Oh, yeah, the log. It has a log. So, you put your devices there, you activate the log, and it has a timer on it.

So, you can actually not get your devices until the next morning when your mind is rest and fresh to start working again. Uh, and yeah, all these efforts help to support all these programs and the sharing of, excuse me, ancient, this ancient wisdom. So, it's a great thing to have and also a great thing like you can use for presents and yeah, birthdays, stuff like that.

You can get one of those valises for people. And yeah, check it out. Christmas, of course.

[Speaker 1]
Mother's Day is coming.

[Speaker 2]
Teacher's Day is coming. Summer's coming. Yeah.

Yes, of course, anniversaries. So, just get it and help us to keep going with this wonderful mission.

[Speaker 1]
And we just, oh, yeah, that program is going very well. And we're making a lot of progress towards supporting all the translators. So, you should.

[Speaker 2]
Just to make sure everybody was able to hear, where's the microphone? I guess here. But Keshila said that it's going really, really well.

And it's accomplishing the mission of supporting the translators and the project. So, thank you all for supporting the program, the project. And of course, thank you, Keshila, for doing everything you're doing for us and for this world.

What's happening next week, just for you to know, the Sedona College of International Management is having a two-week course on impossible anger. Now, the registrations are closed, but it's good for you all to know what's happening. So, two weeks of very busy schedule.

I think it's going to be very cool, very wonderful. And on May 21st, there's going to be a special, it's like a Q&A session. You can register following this QR code and everyone is welcome to attend.

So, remember, May 21st, coming up soon. What else we have? We have, where is Tim?

We have his event coming up in Kyoto, June 4th to the 8th. And also, a wonderful event by great teacher, John Brady. Next one, please.

He's going to be teaching about the Heart Sutra, also nearby Kyoto. I don't know if you have let him know yet, but he is scheduled to do that, June the 8th to the June 9th in Japan. Next one, please.

We have, then later, Geshe Michael visiting Mexico City for an Angel Debates the Devil. We also have, then later in, that's July. Then in October, he's going to be teaching in Diamond Mountain.

He's going to be teaching Steps on the Path series. You can pre-register here. It's still a good time to catch your place and cabin.

Then we will be having, on November, the Hatha Yoga Pratypika, Chapter 4, coming up with the QR soon. But it's good for you to know what's happening. And then, December, Geshe Michael on Steps on the Path in Kyoto, Japan, again.

Yay. All right. So, a very special interview today.

Yes. We have our dear friend, Peter Mortel from Austria, visiting us in Sedona. And he has a very, very cool project that we want to share with you.

Welcome, Peter. Thank you very much.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you.

[Speaker 2]
Very welcome. So, you just finished a little retreat in Diamond Mountain? Yes.

How was it? How are you feeling? No rattlesnakes.

[Speaker 1]
No rattlesnakes. And it was powerful. Even short retreats are very powerful for me.

And it's very cool. Five days? Well, three days to go in and then five, six days.

Okay. Five, six days. Five in retreat, one out.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, great. Welcome back. Thank you.

And my feeling, like the other day, someone was asking me about you. And I don't know why, but my feeling was like, I think he's growing a lot. I think you're growing a lot in your projects.

The amount of people you're reaching, you're really growing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I was checking everything that your team was sending me, and I was very, very amazed of how these things are growing and the amount of people you are reaching.

So, will you feel, Jose, will you share with us a little bit of what's happening? Maybe outside in the projects, but also inside your heart, it will be interesting to hear what's your vision about this.

[Speaker 1]
Well, thank you. First of all, it's always very, very special to be in Ariasona. It's a very special feeling here and a very cool energy.

And I really appreciate the possibility to talk about, but not so much we are doing now, Marie and me, but our teams. Because one of the biggest projects that we have, which is a non-commercial one, is called, we want to bring 100,000 people to a place where they can stop the negativities forever. Okay, 100,000?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, 100,000. You want to help 100,000 people to reach a point where they never again have a negative emotion. That's wonderful.

[Speaker 1]
And it sounds a bit, when I say it, I'm a little shaking because it sounds so cheeky and ambitious, but...

[Speaker 3]
108,000.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, 108,000. So, how are we going to do that? Practically, it was Max Ciabali's idea, by the way, who is in the Lerung right now in Austria.

Oh, wow. And we said, well, our experience is that if you participate really in one classic wisdom project, then you plant seeds, which will bring you back, and you're eventually going to make it. So, we are very clear on, we want to spread the 15 plus 3 ancient wisdom courses to as many people as possible.

And we have the goal to establish that in 36 offline locations. 36 locations? Offline.

We don't want to do online teachings. We want people to go offline to places and teach those courses, so we can reach more people. Meaning live.

Live, yeah. People attend. Yeah, yeah, wonderful.

And the good news is we have now nine locations already, nine teams that are teaching those courses in different cities. And I think if you want to introduce that a little bit, it would be very cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Inside me, I'm just, you know what Ben Kramer said before, and what the book said before that we just heard, it's so amazing that when you start to do something, then the third flower, Ripley effect, leads to that you see many other people do a similar thing. And I think because of that, you can actually succeed in big goals.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, so you don't have to do it all by yourself. You just do a little bit and then everyone starts doing it as well. Oh, thank God, that's good.

Okay, so you say you right now you have nine cities, let's say, or places where these wonderful courses are being taught and shared. You have like different, how do you call it, children who are helping with this program. Grandchildren.

And your children are doing these wonderful projects in nine different cities. You want to grow this to 36 cities? Wonderful.

Okay, so could you tell us a little bit of, maybe give us the names of places where it's happening? Can we do the PowerPoint or? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Yes, PowerPoint. Thank you. Great.

That's the homepage. It's in Russian. It's called the Akademichka Klasiska Modestry.

Classic Wisdom Academy. Exactly. So if you go to the next one, that's the English.

And we have videos whenever you want to show the videos. Yeah, so talk about it too. These are, we're going to go through some of the cities, what they have been doing and where they are right now.

But I also, let's talk about the cities first. So Bulgaria is one place where Max Chabali and Ira have been going in the next courses in June. In Lodz, then Kiev, Ukraine, they're already doing the third one in June.

And under there are some videos. Okay. Because we thought about how are we going to keep this alive that we really have 36 locations that finish all those 18 courses and keep going.

And I thought about, we thought about what is Keshe Michael doing. He's doing two things in my world, mainly. Number one is teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching.

Number two is fundraising, fundraising, fundraising, fundraising. So very, very early on, I said, we said together with Max, and we said, look, we have to teach our kids those two things. It takes quite a bit to be able to teach it.

And then last time, Connie, actually, again, when we were sitting in the same room and you were getting $500 for each commercials, which I happened to get. She said, what I'm doing, what I'm working on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They say. So Connie put the hand up and then she turned back to me and went like this. And I was like, okay.

So out of that, what we're doing right now, I wrote to our team and I said, look, guys, you have to start to learn to fundraise, make a video each team. And we are going to show it in the next pitch tree, which we're doing today. And you have to make clear what you're doing and how much money you need.

So as a result, this PowerPoint came up. If you go back one slide. Yeah.

So in Almaty, Kazakhstan, actually, there's a very cool team with three ladies. No, Ai-Chan, who is also AP now at the same plus Raosa and Elmira. They're starting to do ACI, Asian Classic Wisdom course five in May.

And they do four courses this year. Then in Nizhny Novgorod in Russia, we're going to show a movie of these guys, a video. Yeah.

You want to show it now? Shall we do it now? Let's do it now, if you can.

Yes. I'll talk a little bit about the city. So Nizhny Novgorod is a city east of Moscow from where Maria comes.

And the history of the city is that it was in the Soviet Union, a closed city, because there's a lot of weapon production there. The H2 bomb was being developed. The MIGs are being delivered there, I believe.

But there's also something else going on. So here's a one minute video from Nizhny Novgorod.

[Speaker 3]
More than 2500 years old. Teachers from all over the country come to Nizhny Novgorod to teach how to manage reality and get everything you want in this life. We transfer this knowledge completely free of charge.

However, we need funds to rent a venue, print materials and help our teachers with accommodation. We invite you to become a sponsor of our events. Any amount would be highly appreciated.

Thank you in advance and see you at the live courses of Enchantation Wisdom in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia.

[Speaker 1]
So there was a QR code there. Thank you. Yes, you might say he's donating 1000.

Thank you so much. So thank you. They will be so happy when they realize that someone else cares about them.

Yes. Do we have time for one more video from Kiev? They had a similar thing.

Okay, no, do it, do it, do it. Oh, it's up to you guys. It's a pre-record.

So it doesn't actually, we can spare a few minutes. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. So we do have time. And what we are doing here, I think is very, very meaningful because I've seen in my personal life how much these teachings have helped me.

And I've seen many people also being very benefit from there. I remember how in my personal city in Guadalajara, it's not that I own the city, but I've come from there. I've seen it's changing and I see the communities develop great friendships, great experiences, transformation.

So if these teachings can reach a place, I think they have a deep, deep impact. So I'm so happy and admired of what you're doing. And I think it's a very, very beautiful cause.

And to be honest, then, just honestly, when I saw 4,500, it's very, it's accessible.

[Speaker 1]
It's wonderful. I have this company, I charge more.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think it's very achievable. And to imagine like for that amount, you could impact a place so deeply.

It's so worth it. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[Speaker 1]
Ukraine, also Kyiv, and then we'll leave it. That Kyiv, same situation with their own team. Good evening.

[Speaker 2]
We are from Ukraine. We have stopped believing in miracles. We don't know if tomorrow will come for us.

We have only one tool that helps us. This is the knowledge of where the world really comes from. In Kyiv, we run courses on ancient knowledge.

And here, we teach how to stop looking for someone to blame, how to take responsibility, and how to create a reality in which the word war will cease to exist. We will be grateful for your support.

[Speaker 1]
They wanted to have, I think, $12,000. I have it here. But you have to...

We'll get it done. Thank you so much. Well, they had four courses planned, so they had $30,000.

Anyway, anything you can help us with is amazing. There are six videos from these different cities. The other three we're also going to produce.

And if they, you know, if you want to help someone who starts with fundraising, this is a great place to put your money.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you. And I hope we keep talking about this. This is not the only time we will have you here.

We keep talking and we contribute to the accomplishment of these goals. I think it's very beautiful. Thank you for what you're doing.

Thank you. And that's it for today. Thank you very much.

We'll see you again on Monday, if everything goes well.

[Speaker 1]
And let's...

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, yeah. Look how... No, you're just kidding.

But maybe if all the goals are accomplished, maybe we can get you a present of new socks. So thank you so much. And yeah, let's go back with Nick, right?

Yes, and Geshe Michael, of course. To start the homework, Nick. Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Hey, everybody. We'll get started in just a minute, I think. Welcome to the pre-recording of the next class of Xuanzang's Tower.

And for those of you who want to stick around, that's awesome. And like I said, please come and watch it on Monday as well, or on Monday. Hey, Keith, it's awesome to know you're there.

It's been so many years. As I understand it, I'm on a 12-foot screen in Rimrock, Arizona. So now that I know, I'll do hair and makeup or something next time.

Nick, Geshe said you can start your homework first, and he'll be back in two minutes. Oh, okay. That's cool.

You know, that's perfect. I'm going to give a little introduction. So before we...

One moment. For those of you there, this class is also the first diamond mining class in the upcoming SCIM term. So let's maybe start from right now.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to this Xuanzang's Tower class and this first diamond mining class. So in these classes, Geshe Michael goes through the ancient texts with us, and we're learning the material, the philosophy, how to translate the material.

And many of us also are paying attention to these classes with a special focus on how can we understand this material and make it something relevant in our lives and in people's lives in the world. So you're getting some pretty amazing material here. My book is awesome.

It's Arya Nagarjuna. It's commentary by a really great teacher, Gyaltsab Jey. So I hope you get a lot out of it.

And maybe this will inspire some ideas for creating life tools of your own. We'll start the class with a homework that I created based on what we studied previously. So here we go.

And if that was a little fast, I'm sorry. I'll slow down now. Okay.

So I didn't have much material to draw from. I think we covered like a verse, I mean, a paragraph or two in the last class. So I'm just kind of using this homework as an opportunity to review where we've been and where we are in the text.

We're in a section discussing the uniqueness of the teachings of Buddha. According to this discussion, what makes them so unique? And I'm looking for a pretty specific phrase that he kind of keeps repeating about what's so unique about them.

I thought it would be easy, but this often happens to me. So I blame myself only in the spirit of that last few. Well, what makes the teaching so unique?

According to what both of those teachers keep repeating is that they transcend any idea that things could exist or not. And we keep talking about this. Does anybody know how to say that in the West Chinese language?

Transcend the idea that things could exist or not. Yes, sir. Very good, Geshe Michael.

I had a feeling. What seems to be the common complaint from lower schools about the Middle Way's claim that everything is empty of any nature of its own. Also something that's been repeated quite a bit, probably a few months ago that we talked about this.

I understand. You could also kind of take a guess here, having been exposed to this text for a while. Then who is getting the nirvana?

That's a good guess. That's not what we're looking for here. We're not talking about the person disappearing when they achieve nirvana.

We're talking specifically about what's the problem with saying that nothing has any nature of its own. That maybe we're diminishing or not putting enough importance on certain realities.

[Speaker 3]
Does it sound like function?

[Speaker 1]
Nothing could function? That's pretty good, actually. We've been phrasing it a specific way in the book.

They come along and say that the Middle Way is underestimating the reality of cause and effect. This has been their complaint. They're saying, you guys are nihilists.

You say that cause and effect doesn't work. A Tibetan, West Chinese language, for underestimating the reality of cause and effect. Nick, there's been requests for you to blow up the size of your Word document.

Thank you. Nice.

[Speaker 3]
Absolutely.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. It's probably the same word that's used a lot in tongue. Yeah, in art of interpretation.

Where's word? Word, you know this. Yeah, good.

Yeah, corndep of cause and effect. Anyone? Pause.

Anyone, cause. Another word, cause. All right.

Whatever you're getting back at me for something. Okay. Okay.

Does the Middle Way underestimate? This is a yes or no question, first part, okay? So you can guess and you have a 50% chance of being right.

The people here say no. Oh, okay. That's a great guess.

That's correct. According to this Middle Way philosophy book, the Middle Way does not underestimate the reality of cause and effect. Any recollection, Oscar, Utpala, note takers, of how we refuted the claim?

It was a little bit early.