Гибсон Чан — Книга 2: Восхваление зависимости, занятие 20

[Speaker 1]
Hola, Nicolas. Where is that Gibson? We're in Bali.

Where's the Homer, Mr. Gibson? Are you back from Bali? No, we're still here.

What? The vacation is supposed to have an ending and a beginning. It's a mix.

No beginning, no end. 14 unanswered vacations. All right.

What's the three famous texts of gold to confirm whether part of Buddha's teaching is genuine or not? Cutting, burning, filing. Cutting.

Okay. So we go first with the state. Okay.

What is the state? Burning.

[Speaker 2]
Burning.

[Speaker 1]
All right. What's the meaning is related to the part, what is it? Your own direct perception.

Yeah. Your own direct perception. You're correct.

Can you give me an example of the direct perception that we can confirm? You've seen it. You're like, life is suffering.

I have seen that myself. Yeah. Okay.

And you also can see me wear a blue tie, right? Oh, yes. This is also one of the proof.

And the example that Gage Michael gave last time is whether this tea is spicy or not. I mean, this is, there's no other way that you can confirm except your own directions, direct sense. So, what is it?

Direct. Direct. Yes.

How about Toma Mungu? Something that manifests visually. You saw with your own eyes, I guess.

Yeah, I think not only with your eyes, right? Because at first, I also think that Toma only limits to the sense of the eye. But last time I hear Geshe-la experience also came into the town or the hearing.

Every sense you have. Sometimes it's the guy next to you on the airplane. Something other than sense, direct eye perception.

Okay. So it's an obvious reality. Something you can sense with your own sense directly.

Nice. Okay. How about the second test?

What is the G? Why I put the Dung here? I think he put it, right?

Yeah, because the other sutra mentioned about it. Yeah, I smashed my hammer. Yeah.

[Speaker 3]
I was describing the second test.

[Speaker 1]
Yes. So, yeah. Okay.

Cutting the G, part of the teaching that cannot be thrown into question by your logical deduction. For example, it's illogical that a person would put a garlic in the Indian tea. So, the English for Pen Sun Mi Gyalwa.

Pen Sun or Pen Sun? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, there you go. Mutually non-contradictory. So what does that mean in this context?

Pen Sun Mi Gyalwa, doesn't that mean that they could, yeah, they could work together? They could be together? I guess.

It doesn't contradict logically what you thought. Okay. So we can say that it's spirit, right?

Logic. Yeah, logic. Okay.

So what is the Dung Wa Gok Gyur? Hidden. Hidden.

Not obvious thing. Yeah, not obvious. Can you give me an example?

My bank account. Emptiness. Like a fire and smoke, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. So what is the last one? Da.

[Speaker 3]
Fire.

[Speaker 1]
Fire. Did you forget an R? Isn't it B-R-D-A-R?

It could be. It's a Dakar thing. Okay.

I think so. You can say R-D-A-R. So what is this referring to?

We already have the direct sense, logical deduction. So what is the following referring to? Believing someone you trust?

Yeah. You can't confirm or deny with your senses or with logic, so you have to go to an authority. Authority, yes.

So there's no other way that you can confirm with your direct sense or logical deduction. And an example would be if you're willing to share, you will gain a fortune in the future.

[Speaker 3]
Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. And also Gesha gave an example in the DSA that if a person gives you some good restaurant advice in the past, then you can go to him and trust him if you are looking for the next restaurant.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. So what is the yi qie jie ba? Belief deduction?

Yeah. Yi qie means belief, right? Or faith.

But yi qie jie ba is a logic based on authority source. Okay. So what is the tong hua xin du guo jiu?

Something which is deeply in our senses. Okay. So this is the cause, right?

If we couldn't confirm with our direct perception or our logic, we can only go into the logic based on an authority source. Okay. So this is founding.

All right. Second question. So the art of interpretation is mainly divided into two positions.

One is based on the biometric position and the other is based on middleweight position. So please give the presentation that each school uses.

[Speaker 3]
Hmm.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, you mean like the mind only would say that the third turning of the wheel is accurate and the other two are figurative and then the middleweight... They use two texts. They rely on two texts, commentary.

[Speaker 3]
What they really meant?

[Speaker 1]
Yes. Yes. They're called what I really mean?

Yeah. Dou dei gong jiao, what I really mean. Yeah, I think...

Nice. My only school used the commentary of Turing Tien. So how about the middle...

Yeah, the gong is D-G-O-N-G-S. D-G-O-N-G-S. Okay.

[Speaker 3]
That's never-ending wisdom.

[Speaker 1]
Nice. Yeah. Not ending wisdom.

Yes. What is that? Oh, what is that?

[Speaker 2]
Shi, se, I don't know.

[Speaker 1]
Mi, se, pe, lo, ju? Lo, ju, mi, se, pa. Oh, okay.

So we are going to use these two books, two different positions to explain how can we interpretate teaching of Lo Buddha. Nice. Okay.

And we are going to treat the first one, the commentary of the Turing Tien to four parts. Please name the four parts. And I give you the hints here.

The first one is Dou Dei La. That's good.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
That's good. Somebody asked the Buddha if he can clarify his apparent contradictions.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, yes. Nice, nice, nice, nice, nice. Nice answer.

So the question is seeking to explain the inconsistency in the sutra.

[Speaker 2]
Nice.

[Speaker 1]
And the next one is the Leng. Yeah, the response to that above question. Yeah, so Lo Buddha starts to explain, answer the question, clarify the inconsistency.

[Speaker 3]
Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. How about the third one? Identifying the three natures?

Yeah. Yeah, identify. It says identify the nature of the three natures.

Yeah. Three modes. No...

Okay, how about the last one? Dei Dak gi druk pa'i tun shu pa. That's a very, very, very important word in Tongan.

This line is very important in Tongan. A request for which one was correct. I mean, asking Buddha which one is right.

We had it in CSP.

[Speaker 2]
It is like the outcome of this person.

[Speaker 1]
Nice. Excellent. The result of the equation, the three natures.

Yeah, nice, nice. Very difficult phrase. Okay, let me see the translation.

Translation. Nice job, as usual. Thank you.

Must be that terrible weather in Bali, you have to stay inside all day. Alright, so here's my student translation, Geshe-la. Okay, I like it.

But if you're going to put conquer in a sentence, you better capitalize it. Okay. Can I read first?

Yes, please. Okay. Nice.

Please capitalize conquer, make me feel comfortable. Okay. Alright.

Okay, good. But then the conqueror said it's impossible for anything in the universe to have instant change. Nice, that's good.

Nothing in the universe ever started, nothing ever stopped. That's good. And from the very beginning, that's great for seminate, which is very difficult.

From the very beginning, everything in the universe has been in a state of peace, has already gone to nirvana by its very nature. Excellent. What's that?

[Speaker 3]
By the very nature, or by its very nature?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, you can say by its very nature. You can say that. But it's a good translation.

So the question I have here is, what is the thing in the state of peace? It's going to come. I mean, you're going to study it for six months, so don't worry about it.

By the way, when we had these teachings in person, in the special place, this phrase is repeated so often that you almost memorize it. It would be worth memorizing. These are all code words for the art of interpretation.

If you want to memorize something, memorize this. Because it'll keep coming back. You'll keep coming back in your life over and over again.

This paragraph. Very, very, very, very famous. This is the original question in Sandinimochana Sutra.

What the heck did you mean? This is the original question. Very nice to memorize.

All right, what's next, Mr. Translator? By the way, your book finished yesterday. Thank you, Geshe-la.

Can someone in the house read this line? Yeah. Hey, give me a number between...

[Speaker 3]
Okay, five.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, let's start with Lindsay. Let's start with Lindsay. Make her suffer.

Okay. ma ne shi wa rang shin gyi yong su ya ngen le da pa de pa she ka sel nam gyi lak te Nice, okay. Let's do the pieces.

Gibson, chung den de kyi. Okonkwo. Okay, I was wondering to myself, Okonkwo, what was it that you were truly thinking of?

I like that translation. When you said it's impossible for anything in the universe, good, to have an essential nature of its own, nothing in the universe that ever started or stopped, everything in the universe has been in a state of peace, it's already gone to Nirvana by its very nature. Nice, okay, good.

Yeah, the big word here, the big phrase here is chila gong ne. Say chila. Chila.

Gong ne.

[Speaker 3]
Gong ne.

[Speaker 1]
What the heck are you thinking of? Chila means what? Gong means what were you really thinking of when you said all these crazy things?

Okay. By the way, when we get to Tim's text, when we get further on in Tim's text, what's his text talking about nowadays? What's Tim's text talking about nowadays?

Tensions. Classical commentary. Yeah, what's the difference between a classical commentary and a sutra?

And normally you'd say spoken by an enlightened being, or not spoken by an enlightened being. Okay? And then what's this book?

He's quoting a book. What's this book? What's the book?

The commentary. It's a commentary, but it's by Lord Buddha. Yeah, it's called The Commentary on What I Really Meant.

[Speaker 3]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Is it a commentary? No. It's a commentary on what I really meant.

Okay, good. And by the way, chila gong means, you know, what did you really have in mind? Okay?

What's gongpa rapsa? The illumination of what the Buddha really meant. And that's that huge book by Tsongkhapa.

2,000 pages in English. We just finished it. It took 12 years.

Okay? Gong. So gong is an important word.

Gong.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
All right, let's keep going. I choose to fly. Can someone in the house read?

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Lindsay's going to choose somebody.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Stanley. You want to sit on this side?

[Speaker 2]
Hey, Gibson.

[Speaker 1]
Hey. Cursor.

[Speaker 2]
Cursor. Cursor. Cursor.

Cursor. Cursor. Cursor.

Cursor. Cursor. Cursor.

Cursor. Cursor. Cursor.

Cursor. Cursor. Cursor.

Cursor. Cursor. Cursor.

Cursor. Cursor. Cursor.

Cursor. Cursor. Cursor.

Cursor.

[Speaker 1]
Cursor. Nice. Okay.

Good good reading. Ah. UDB, Oh Conqueror K'I TSUL LA BSGOMS NAS What was it you were really thinking when you said che tam che in the universe.

Ngo nyi ma chipa. This word I want you guys to focus on, ma chipa, okay? Say ma chipa.

[Speaker 2]
Ma chipa.

[Speaker 1]
So chi is a loaded word. It means possible. Ancient ancient word means possible.

So ma chipa means... yeah so you know, Buddha, why do you get up in front of a thousand people and say everything's ma chipa? Nothing's possible.

Everything's impossible. Why? So that word is very loaded.

It's an ancient ancient word for existing, okay? Very very ancient. So ngo nyi ma chipa.

It's impossible for anything to have in nature. Nothing in the universe has ever started or stopped. It is from the very beginning.

Say this third line, su-manay. Say su-manay. So there's another su which means to be a master or patient.

B-Z-O-D, Pabongka Rinpoche also does su. B-Z-O-D means patience. Kshanti, which came into quiet.

Ksha changed to kuwa changed to kuwa, which is why ku exists. So anyway, that means patience. This one means the very beginning of all time.

Su-man means the beginning of all time, okay? And it's spelled differently, and he misspelled it in the last paragraph, okay? Because people are so used to carving B-Z-O-D, okay?

Alright, so su-manay, from the beginning of no beginning, because Buddha said he refused to answer the question, is there a su-manay? Yeah, yeah, you said from the beginning nothing exists, but then you refused to say there's a beginning or not. Yeah, okay.

Su-manay, shi-wa. And we're gonna have to explore this idea of shi-wa. Why?

Why? Because it could mean peace or dead? Yeah, how can a person get up and say the universe has been peace from the beginning?

What's that mean? I mean, last night we saw an extraordinary performance by a group of people from a country that's people being killed every day. Those people that we watched dance last night are specifically trying to be murdered by somebody.

Now, today, you know, so how can you say the world is peace? Shi-wa. Shi-wa.

Rang shing gi nyong sum nyang-en le depa. That's even weirder, right? The whole universe is nyang-en le depa.

It's nirvana-sized, okay? How can you say that? It's weird.

It's a good question, right? It's a good sutra. The sutra opens with this frustrated student saying, I don't get it.

Okay, kat-sel-way. Yeah, you said, or you pronounced, or you... ka means what?

It can mean the command of a king. So kat-sel is a high word. You bespoke, or you pronounced, that everything's nirvana from the beginning, everything's peace from the beginning.

What are you talking about? You know, dun-de-nyi. And then he uses the high honorific.

What is the high honorific word here? Lhag? No.

Yeah, lhag. Say lhag. It's the ancient word for is, and that's rarely, rarely used in modern Tibetan.

But they say geshe-la. It's geshe-lhag, which is spelled this way, which means your is-ness or something. Okay, shu-lhag-so.

Very, very, very polite. Shu means what? I'm offering you this question.

It's like, hey, I'm not complaining, and I'm not criticizing, and I'm not even asking you. I'm just offering a thought. Okay?

Like, what the heck did you mean? Okay? That's how this sutra starts.

What's this sutra? What's the name of the sutra? What I really mean.

Yeah, so it makes sense that the sutra starts with a question from a confused student. You know, what the heck did you mean when you said nothing exists, and everything's nirvana from the beginning? What are you talking about?

Okay? Very, very famous. If you wanted to memorize something, you could memorize these two paragraphs, this paragraph and the last paragraph.

They're not that long, and they're very, very, very famous. In the monast, in the geshe course, you get a prize if you memorize this book. It's very common for students to memorize the whole book.

Okay? And they have to recite it in front of everybody, and then they get a free bag of sampa or something. Okay, next one.

Here's one. Can I ask, what is this dark referring to? Yeah.

Oh, dark here? Yeah. Yeah, I'm asking you.

Okay, I'm asking you. I'm asking you. Yeah, so this dark doesn't mean self-existent or anything like that.

It means, may I ask you, may I respectfully ask, what the hell did you talk about? Okay? It's very funny.

It's very, very funny, high, honorific for a confused student. May I be so bold as to request an opinion about what the hell were you talking about? Okay, it's great.

It's very funny in the ancient language. Okay, next. So Geshe-la, I finished my translation, but I...

Okay, great. Okay, good job.

[Speaker 3]
It's a good job.

[Speaker 1]
Choose a few paragraphs that you asked me to verify the two different versions have any use of the word. And this is from the last class. Okay.

Yeah, leave one paragraph. We asked Gibson to check the sutra as it exists nowadays in the Kangyur, and he was comparing it to the way the sutra was quoted by Tsongkapa, because the Kangyur was created just before Tsongkapa. Tsongkapa saw one of the first copies of the Kangyur at the monastery of...

what's his name? Butsen Rinpoche? Butsen Rinpoche, yeah.

So he got there just after Butsen Rinpoche passed, and he saw some of the first copies of the Kangyur and Tenggur. So he didn't always use the version that we see now. He was using sometimes other translations.

So I asked Gibson to check the any differences, any interesting... are there any interesting differences between them? Yeah, this is from our last class, and he said, de shintu jya ne denpa nang kyi rang gyi che ni.

But the other version, he said, jung den de kyi nang jang tu ma denpa nang kyi che ni. Yeah, quite different. Yeah, okay.

de shintu jya ne is a comment by Tsongkapa, or somebody, you know, he's just... between the two quotations, he's saying, you also said this. Okay, okay.

So this one is, you have a different sutra mentioned about it. Okay. Yeah, and yeah, that's pretty much...

Okay. Here is, have a chok here, mitunbei chok chok. One is the mitunba, one is mitunbei chok.

Yeah, that's a significant difference. That's a significant difference. That's something very interesting.

Okay, good. Yeah, and Tsongkapa had his own opinion about good translations, and he sometimes didn't agree with what was used for the Kangyur. So it's interesting to see his comments.

And there does exist a Sanskrit, so it'd be interesting to see the difference. Okay. And his Sanskrit was quite good.

He did study Sanskrit. We have records of his study Sanskrit, and he didn't use it. He didn't push it on people, but he knew it well.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, let's go to the rest of the suffering. Okay, you get up here. No, he doesn't want to get up there.

Why? Let's do this. Let's do this.

No, sorry. Let's share again. Yeah, what's going on?

Share. Okay, I don't know why that's there. Does anybody know how to move that?

You go here. There you go. Okay, and then you can see more people.

Yeah. The last one.

[Speaker 3]
Oh, this one is good.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good. All right. Gibson, check the differences.

And is this the next paragraph, right? Yes. Okay, this is ...

I want to cut it just to make it easier for people. Okay. All right, who would you like to read, Gibson?

Okay. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Good, good.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. Good pronunciation. The important phrase here that you guys haven't met yet in the last eight years or something is jah sorshak.

Say jah sorshak. So jah means sound or word, and sorshak means very rare, and it means if you leave it at the wording, jah sorshak. If you just take it on face value.

If you just follow the words and you don't think about the meaning. So jah sorshak is unique here and you haven't had it yet. Jah sorshak means if you look at the wording of those statements, gel.

Contradictory? You contradicted yourself. Who?

[Speaker 3]
Buddha.

[Speaker 1]
Lord Buddha, okay. So go to the end of this sentence, it says, if we take it on face value, if we take it, if we just look at the words you used, if we just judge from the wording, you must have contradicted yourself. Okay.

What are the two statements that are so uncomfortable for who? Who's complaining? Who's whining in this sutra?

Mind only earths? No, who asked this question? Paramartha.

The Bodhisattva Paramartha. Yeah, yeah, Paramartha. Ultimate meaning, his name.

He's irritated and he's confused, okay. And he says, jah sorshak. You know, if we take it literally, you're contradicting yourself.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
So what are the exact two phrases that contradict themselves? They're so contradictory, they can be allergic. Okay.

First of all, you said, chu tam je ngo nyi me pa. Which means what? You said, nothing in the world has any nature of its own.

Yeah, now in Tibet you say, all existing things don't have any nature. And when you're a translator into English, you have to recast the sentence, nothing in the universe has any existence. Okay.

You cannot translate it literally, it sounds ridiculous. Nothing in the universe has any nature. On the one hand, now what are we looking for?

Something in the sentence which is... The exact opposite. And that's when you say the pungpos are rang gi chen yi kyi drupa.

What do you mean by have their own nature? Yeah, they have their definitions. They have their descriptions, you know.

They're real. They have definitions, which means they are definitive. They exist really.

Okay. Okay. Now, where did he say that the five heaps have their definitions?

Where did Buddha say that? Huh? First turning the wheel.

But you know, nowadays survives as the Abhidharma school. And then when did he say nothing has any nature of its own?

[Speaker 3]
In the Heart Sutra.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, Heart Sutra, Dhammakara Krishna Paramita, he said... So somebody's asking a question. In the early schools, you didn't even talk about emptiness.

You just gave the definitions of stuff. In fact, you gave so many definitions, it was terribly boring, if I may say, because I spent 12 years on it, I can tell you. And then later he said, nothing has any nature of its own.

If we draw a sore shot, what's that mean? Yeah, if we take them on face value, you're saying two completely opposite things. Okay.

And by the way, this should be fascinating for you, because it's a question about all religions. What do you do when the founder of a religion contradicts themselves? What are you supposed to do?

What are you supposed to do? It's a heavy, heavy moral question. When the founder contradicts themselves, what are we supposed to do?

This whole book is the answer to this basic religion question. And it's extremely important in all religions. All right.

Who's next, Gibson? Who's going to suffer? Anyone in the room?

Yo, they're all jumping up. It's hard to get them to sit down. Oh, Chloe Mara wants to come up.

Okay. Okay. Slowly, clearly, move the cursor.

Don't curse. Okay.

[Speaker 3]
Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Great. Okay. By the way, these sentences are extremely profound and important.

Okay. When you're talking about an omniscient being, gyelwa me gu, they must don't have any contradiction. Yeah.

It's gotta be that there's no contradiction. It has to be that there's no contradiction between giving the basic definitions of the skandhas, and then later saying nothing has any nature of its own. You are defining the nature of the most basic stuff in the universe, physical matter, and then later you say nothing has any nature?

What are you talking about? It's like first you're a chemist, and then you're on pot or something. Okay.

Okay, what's wrong? But since you're the Buddha, gyelwa me gu. Don't say okay.

What's it mean? Gyelwa me gu. There has to be gyelwa me.

Yeah, it has to be that you did not contradict yourself. So, do you let go? What were you thinking of?

We trust you. We believe you. You're an omniscient being.

It must be that you had some reason to say that. Chi la gong ne. What did you really have in mind when you said no nyi me?

Nothing has any nature of its own. Nothing has any nature of its own. Chi la gong ne.

What were you thinking of when you said nothing has any nature of its own? Chi la gong ne, et cetera. There are other crazy things you said in the second turn of the wheel.

The important word here is chi. What's chi? Question.

Yeah, ask a question. Okay. What's chi len?

Q&A. It's Q&A. Okay, and there are some amazing chi len texts.

I'm thinking of one by Muthu Dharambhadra. It's 150 chi lens. I was sitting in Vajrapani Institute in a tent, and I broke them out into separate texts of two sentences each and put them in the database because it was a free-for-all Q&A.

The students were like, well, what about Vajrayogini's left toe? Then somebody else said, well, what about the Abhidharma thing? Then somebody else said, well, what about that logic thing?

It was a crazy chi len. It's a very beautiful... I mean, somebody should write an essay about it.

Somebody should teach a class about these ancient chi lens. This is a chi len. What's this?

Yeah, don't explain what it meant. It's a chi len. It's students asking questions like, what's going on?

Okay, it's nice. It's refreshing. It's not like a lecture.

It's a very... How would you say? Interesting.

It's nervous. It's tense. People are asking hard questions.

Okay, so, glong yin meypa, you said nothing exists. Chi, they're asking him, why did you say that? Okay.

Now, listen. They say, okay, ready? You contradicted the hell out of yourself.

Why? You said nothing has any nature. Is that a contradiction?

No, not yet. He just said one thing. Nothing has any nature.

Okay, and then Tsongkhapa says, by the way, this question assumes that Lord Buddha also said that everything has a nature. And that's what he says in the next sentence. de ni rang gi tsen ni kyi yupa sok su sumpa yang, meaning, when the student says, you contradicted yourself because you said nothing has any nature, the assumption is he must have earlier said that things did have a nature.

But he doesn't say that in the sutra. Nobody says that in the sutra. They just say you contradicted yourself.

Why? You said nothing exists. To have a contradiction, you got to say two things.

See, so Tsongkhapa is clarifying. He says, by the way, it assumes he said things do have a nature before that.

[Speaker 3]
Right?

[Speaker 1]
Okay, chi la gong ne, sumpa dun kyi means, by implication... You contradicted yourself. By implication, they must also be referring to other teachings when he said things do have a nature.

And dun kyi is very important here. Two tiny syllables. We are meant to understand from that word contradiction that Lord Buddha must have earlier said things do have a nature.

Dun kyi. It's understood by the nature of the question. You contradicted yourself.

What? You said nothing has a self-nature. It's understood he must have said things do have a self-nature before that.

Got it? Tsongkhapa is very delicate here. Okay.

Okay. Now, interesting point. I'm going to break it up.

Who do you want to read?

[Speaker 3]
I think this one can...

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, okay. Let's choose the next victim.

[Speaker 3]
Francisco.

[Speaker 1]
Francisco, I just met a guy. We're really lucky to have the Guadalajara talented people here. I mean, except for Juan.

Okay. Please read these two lines.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, good.

[Speaker 1]
Now, listen. This was a very difficult sutra. It went north from India.

It went to Mongolia. It went to Central China. It went to West China.

It went to Afghanistan. The sutra was very, very famous. It banged into the Tang dynasty, which was a great intellectual movement, a center, and political.

They had many foreign embassies in Xi'an, Chang'an, 1,400 years ago, something like that. Unbelievable. At that moment in London, there were 50,000 people living, and there was one million inside the walls of Chang'an.

Inside the walls, meaning protected by the government. There were great, great, great scholars and great schools of translation. There was, of course, the great wanderer, Shensang, and he had a student named Yen Tse, whose real name is Wen Tse, and he's Korean.

But he came and studied in Chang'an, and he became Chinese, and he wrote in Chinese. He wrote a commentary on what the Buddha really meant, and it's two volumes. It's 2,000 pages.

In English, it would be 16,000 pages of English. 16,000 pages of English. It's unbelievable.

I went through it, and it's unbelievable. It would be beautiful to translate. There are many, I count eight separate books you could make, and they are sexy.

They are very beautiful and very amazing. There's a whole book on sky flowers and stuff. Anyway, he wrote this commentary.

It is the only native Chinese work that was allowed into the tengyur. Everything else is native Sanskrit. One percent of the tengyur, two of the 210 volumes, were written originally in Chinese, and they were so respected that they were put in with the Indian masters' shastras.

It became recognized as a shastra, and it's amazing. It's very unusual. So anyway, it would take like 50 years to translate.

Anyway, that's called, say, Gyanak Delchen. Gyanak Delchen. Gyanak means big country where they were black as opposed to white.

Gyakar, big country where they were white. Gyanak is the Tibetan word for China, and gyakar is the Tibetan word for India. They're both big countries.

One is one where people wear black pajamas, and one where people wear white pajamas. Seriously, I mean cotton clothing. So anyway, that book by Master Yen Tse, who's called When Taken to Betan, that's called Gyanak Delchen.

Say Gyanak?

[Speaker 3]
Delchen.

[Speaker 1]
The great Chinese commentary. Now you know why it's great. It's huge.

It's massive. And Jetsun Kappa truly respects it. But sometimes he'll say, I don't like this part.

Sometimes he'll disagree with a small tiny thing. But the fact that he's quoting it, he has not quoted another commentary yet. So he really, really respected it, and he used it a lot, and it's a beautiful commentary.

I studied it, and it's great. So anyway, but he has a point of translation almost in the Chinese commentary, Yen Tse's commentary, that he disagrees with. And usually when he disagrees with something, there's a deeper reason why he's doing it.

So let's see. RANG GI TSE NI BYED PA In translations of the sutra, we see the expression, it's definition. RANG GI TSE NI, it's definition.

And when Yen Tse explains that word, it's definition, that phrase, it's definition, he says it's unique definition. He says when Buddha said it's definition, or sorry, when the asker of the question says it's definition, we are to understand it as it's unique qualities. And Tsongkapa says no, I disagree with that.

So don't forget that Yen Tse had to, and his teacher had to translate it into Chinese also. But they also had the Sanskrit, so obviously. So anyway, THU MA MA YIN PA'I TSE NI ZHES PA NI RIG PA MA YIN It doesn't make sense.

You shouldn't refer to definition here as unique defining quality. You can't read it that way, he says. You cannot read it as unique defining quality.

In this question, you gave the definitions of GYIS, skandha, right? And Yen Tse's interpretation almost makes sense, right? If the Buddha is really going to contradict himself, he should say on one hand, nothing has any nature of its own.

And then on the other hand, at some point, he should say everything does have its own nature. So when Yen Tse wants to read nature as own nature, it's logical. It makes sense, because it's supposed to contradict the statement that they have no nature.

Got it? It makes sense that Master Yen Tse would say that, you know, they said it's on unique qualities, or it's on unique definition. Just the word definition doesn't contradict emptiness.

Got it? Unique definition contradicts emptiness. Pretty nice.

So Yen Tse said we have to understand it as unique definition, the unique qualities. He wants to say unique qualities contradicts emptiness. Buddha wants to say qualities contradicts emptiness.

Very deep. Very interesting. Let's see how he goes further.

Francisco has to choose the next victim. Let's go with Mike. He reads Prabha.

All right, Mr. Mike. You got to make the visitors work harder. Round two.

We're at Dongyi-le. Let me see if I can break this. Let's break it there just for fun.

Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Dongyi-le, kontak kyi khyab su rang gyi tsenay kyi jukpa, la sawar sungpay chir dang.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Dongyi means what, Gibson? Dongyi.

This very sutra, what I really mean? Yeah, exactly. The Daoist Sutra, capital T, which means here what I really meant.

Okay. When it gets to the part called kuntar, imaginary, so there's three characteristics of the mind-only school. They are kuntak, shenwar, yungdrup.

Yeah. And kuntak means imaginary things. Okay.

Now, popular question in the study of this book is, do kuntaks exist? There's two kinds of kuntaks, existing and non-existing. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's important. I mean, the classical answer is, yeah, I mean, there are imaginary things that exist.

I mean, democracy is especially imaginary. So kuntak can mean a concept, which is not imaginary. Okay.

So anyway, when they get... but so is the gaccha, is a classic kuntak, the thing that emptiness is empty of that could never exist, because it's crazy. A pen that comes from its own side is kuntak.

It's in the... of the three categories of things that exist in the mind-only school, the pen that comes from its own side in the Middle Way interpretation would be kuntak. It's just something you made up in your head.

It doesn't have a real existence. But there are real... there are things you made up in your head that do have real existence, like democracy, or fairness, or stuff like that.

Okay. Concepts.

[Speaker 3]
All right.

[Speaker 1]
So anyway, he says kuntak gi kap su, when they got to the part about... what are the other two categories, by the way? There's imaginary things, then there's shenwang.

Shenwang is stuff which is at the mercy of other stuff, which means cause and effect things, because effects are at the mercy of causes. And then what was the third category? Yongru.

Yongru, which is the fact mainly that cause and effects things don't have imaginary things. And that's what we call the equation. Start with cause and effect, subtract everything that you thought about it, that you made up in your head, and you reach emptiness.

Okay? You reach ultimate reality, whose name in the mind-only school is sum of the equation. Yongru.

Okay? Very beautiful. Okay, anyway, when they got to the imaginary stuff, they talked about rang gi tsen ne kyi drupa.

When they use the word definition in this sutra, it's always in the sense of something belongs to the category of kuntaks, imaginary things, which means things that don't exist, just in your head. Okay? Which means...

Listening? In this sutra, when they say tsen gyi, which means definition, they're not talking about tsen gyi. They're talking about existing by definition, which is imaginary.

Got it? Definitions are not imaginary. They're real stuff.

The definition of sound, for example, anything you can hear with your ear, that's real. That's not a kuntak. In fact, that's a shen wang.

Okay? So Tsongkhapa corrects yin tsa. He says, look, when they use the word definition in the sutra, they're always talking about things that exist by definition, which don't exist.

Okay? So don't confuse your readers by saying definition means the unique quality a thing has that defines it, because that's not the way they use the word in this sutra. Got it?

It's by definition, not definition. Cool? It's interesting.

And it's interesting that that irritated Tsongkhapa enough to mention it in his opening pages, because he really respects yin tsa, and it's unusual that he respects anyone that much. And he does refer, when he refers to yin tsa, he refers to him with kind of honor or something. You can sense that he really respects him.

[Speaker 2]
Is this word coming from the Sanskrit?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, probably. Yeah. Difficult.

Difficult. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Who's next, Uncle Mike? Jack.

Jacqueline, did you say? Hang on, we got a reader coming. They're so excited, they just can't stand up fast.

Okay. Last sentence. Good.

Yeah, nice. Very nice. Okay.

This is a tough sentence. Let me ask you something. If we talk about the third category of things, which is imaginary things, some of which exist and some which don't exist, democracy and self-existent thing.

Okay? Which one don't exist, we can talk about it. But kuntag means imaginary thing.

Do you think definitions play a part in that category of stuff? Yeah. The lack of definition.

Yeah. I mean, you can define democracy, for example. Okay?

The kuntags which exist, the imaginary things which exist, they all have definitions. You can define them in words. You can say, you know, a country where the law is respected by all individuals or something.

Okay? There is such a thing. That concept has a definition.

Therefore, kuntags, even though they are ideas, can have definitions. Okay? Got it?

And do those definitions define them? Yeah. And by the way, one of the characteristics of a definition is that it shouldn't fit other things.

You see what I mean? Like, I don't know, if you define a fruit in a certain way, it shouldn't fit rocks. You see what I mean?

It should be unique to that thing. Okay? So, he says, tummo mayimpa, sön che.

So, sön means to mark something. It's a verb from seni. Okay?

Seni means definition. Sön means that thing which characterizes another thing. Okay?

So, can imaginary things be characterized?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
So, do they have definitions? So, would the Buddha deny that there were imaginary things when he said nothing exists by definition? No.

No. He would not have said that. So, that's why Tsongkapa feels he can correct the yin-tsang.

Okay? You know, be careful how you define definition, because you may not get it right in our context. Okay?

It's very delicate and very beautiful. I mean, you could have a two-hour teaching about it. It's amazing.

Okay. So, look. Yeah, kuntaks have unique definitions.

They have unique characteristics. Even the ones that don't exist have unique characteristics. There's a definition of gaccha.

Okay. Yes, Shilpa. Yes.

Don't we have to make a distinction between something having a definition and existing by definition? Exactly. That's what Tsongkapa's struggling with here.

Okay. Thank you. And we even have it in English.

There's a big difference between saying something has a definition and saying it exists by definition. By definition means in and of itself, which is self-existent. Yeah.

Okay. Cool. Very, very beautiful.

I mean, already Tsongkapa is shoving you down into the deep water. Okay. And this book is very short, 50 pages, but it's deep water.

Okay. Cool. So, according to you, according to your definition of definition, it should not be applicable to imaginary things.

But it is. Yen Sir, the way you want to read definition, it should not be applicable to imaginary things. But we can define imaginary things.

Therefore, your idea of what Buddha meant in this sutra when he said by definition is not by a written definition. It just means in and of itself. Got it?

As it is in English, it's a confusing phrase in English. By definition doesn't mean through a definition. It means in and of itself, from its own side.

That's what by definition means. Got it? Good?

You okay? All right. Everyone's nodding here.

Foolishly. All right. Let's mark where we stopped.

Stopped here. Two, three, 25. And Gibson, can you work on the next...

To be honest, I'd rather you translate this thing that starts with DANG MO NI. Okay. Okay.

That's more far. That's more important for us. Okay?

And if you're in a good mood, you can check the kangir down here and see if it matches the big letters here. Okay? Okay.

Good? Okay. All right.

I don't know. You look excited. I can tell.

All right. Okay. I think this is a good thing to do when you're sleepy from Bali vacation.

Okay. Wake you up. All right.

And thank you for your other book. It's going to be beautiful. And it's going to be very important for people.

I'll put a seed in your head, and I'll put a seed in Gibson's. So you just finished a short lam rim by Je Tsongkapa called Song of My Spiritual Life. And we have translated two others by him with commentaries.

And they're very popular. And by the way, our printer there in Taiwan wants these books. We offered her those big fat philosophy books, and she said, no, I want the little sexy books that you put in your purse.

So somebody has to take the manuscript to her and show it to her and say, here we go, here's the next one. Okay? Understand?

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
And then I have a fantasy it would be nice to make a book called Three Lam Rims and put the three small ones into a real mixed nuts book. You see what I mean? This is an old publishing principle where you sell the same book twice.

Just kidding. But I think it'd be cool. I think it'd be cool to put his three short lam rims in one volume.

And that would be a more substantial volume. And also put it out as a separate small book that you could put in your purse. Cool.

All right. See you later, alligator. Thank you, Geshe-la.

Thank you so much. You're welcome. Okay.

Good to see you. I'm gonna go eat dinner. Me too.

Thanks, everybody. Nick, you look great. The surfing is making you look handsome.

I wish I could surf, but anyway. Okay. We got a board here for you.

In my spare time, I'll be there. Good night. Good evening.

Good morning. Say goodnight to Aaron. I will, Ryan.

Bye.