Ник Лашо — Книга 2: Ратнамала, занятие 20

[Speaker 3]
It's been years. I gotta plan a trip just to hang out.

[Speaker 2]
It's too long. I'm nervous. I heard there's a new Taiwanese restaurant in the village of Boat Creek.

Is it true?

[Speaker 1]
How's the new restaurant? It's awesome. I knew about it.

We would have checked it out when we were there. That sounds great. Okay, how do you think I can corral these people?

Hey, hey, what's going on over there? You guys can do that, but please don't talk. Please don't talk.

Please don't talk. Please don't talk. Please don't talk.

Okay, they're just going to make eating noises. That's fine. I'm used to that.

That sounds way more pleasant than talking. Let's talk about your book. Okay, sure.

I would love to. I am working currently on a book called String of Jewels. We haven't decided on exactly what we are going to call this book, because we're going to give it a sexy title.

Right now, I'm just using the title of Nagarjuna's book, which is Ratnamala, or String of Jewels. This is a commentary by Gyaltsabje on a book by Arya Nagarjuna. Arya Nagarjuna's book was a letter to a king, as it is sometimes known as well.

It's a text on the steps of the path. It also includes advice to the king on how to run his kingdom, apparently. It also includes advice to both lay people and ordained people on how to live and how to practice.

The book started with an explanation of how to get good rebirths and achieve definite goodness, which is a code word for nirvana. So far, we are still in the section on how to achieve higher rebirth. That was broken into these 16 practices or things.

The first 13 of which were things to leave behind, like the 10 non-virtues, like things to stop doing. Then the latter three were practices we should take up. It feels like we're wrapping up this section on how to achieve higher rebirth.

Now, we're getting to the section on how to achieve definite goodness. In this book, he gave a little explanation of the name definite goodness and why it's called definite goodness, which was kind of cool, which we can go back to at some point soon. We're going to get to that section really soon, I think.

All right, thank you. Okay, good. All right, here we go.

Let's go to the text. Do I have the text up? Let me see first.

Yeah, we do. Okay. All right.

Okay, let's go down. There you go. All right, progress report.

Nick's books, the classes for Nick's book, we can split into two books. The classes for the first of the two books, we can finish in early 2025, so in just less than two years. It's got to be split into two books because it's big.

There's five chapters total, so we'll do two chapters in the first volume and three chapters in the second volume. I'm trying to split books into volumes also because otherwise, we have to wait 10 or 12 years for a book, and it's too much. Okay.

There was something, there was a question that we left over from last class, and I said we would come back to it, so let's just finish it, okay? Great. It said, which is an extremely rare combination.

I've never seen it. I've never seen which means patience described as which means clear. I've never seen those two words used together, and I thought it might be which is a very common expression which means to show patience or to have patience.

We went to the Sanskrit. Luckily, we have the Sanskrit, and it says not spastic, okay? It means clear or bright, so it really is a new expression for patience where it's bright.

I have a lot of patience with people, even in this room, but it's not bright. I think it's a worthwhile new idea for us, okay? I found some other references to it, and it seems to be that.

It seems to be okay, okay? Bright patience. By the way, somebody else had the problem.

Somebody else pointed out the problem in history. Somebody in the database said this construction is unusual, and I wonder if it's wrong. Chepa chao means somebody should look into this.

Nyampe topa, topa means, norwa minnam nyampe topa means I think this might be an error. Somebody historically had the same question, but they didn't decide it the way the mixed nuts did. All right, Nick, why don't you read for a while, and then we'll let you pick on other people as a reward.

You got it. Yeah, remember we found that spashta last term too, and we were like, huh, it does mean clear patience. The bright does shed new light on it.

Yeah. DER MA ZAD RGYUD NYOMS SBYUGS KYI BSAM GTAN ZHIG THANG, BRTZE MA'I ZHIG THANG, GZUGS MA'I ZHIG BSGOMS PAS NI TZANG PA LA SOGS PAS DE BA NYONG BAR BYAS STOB Yeah, good. Okay.

DER MA ZAD, RGYUD NYOMS SBYUGS means causal meditation. NYOMS SBYUGS means samatha or balanced meditation. Balanced between what and what, Nick?

Dullness and agitation. Dullness and agitation, good. So, you can talk about the four concentration levels either as results or causes, right?

So, here he's talking about the gyu. So, where might that take place? In what realm?

The causal concentration levels in the form realm? Yeah. The meditator could be in the desire realm, but your mind goes into a form realm meditation.

One of us living in the desire realm could do form realm meditations and then be born into the form realm. So, they talk about the four form realm levels here, and then the four form realm levels that we will reach after we die. So, he says, let's talk about those four high kinds of meditation.

Let's mix it with the semeshi. The four infinite thoughts. Yeah, and then let's throw in the four meditations on the sukhas.

Why not? The four formless realm meditations. If you work on these 12 different things, you can experience nyongwar che, the dewa of sangma.

What does that mean? A bliss of being like the pure one. Yeah.

Sanskrit for pure one? Brahma. Brahma.

Yeah, yeah. Brahma. Keep going.

All right. yang na samten. So, chu druk gompe che bu yin ngewar she to.

Yeah, and I can take you back to the 16 practices that Nick described, and the word samten in the root text here, which is way, way back here in the poetry, the word meditation could refer to the result of the 16 practices. And I think, Nick, it would be interesting to have a course in just the 16 practices. No, I've never heard anyone do that.

Wow, that's cool. Yeah. There's 13 plus 3.

I wrote them down again. 13, as Nick said, we are supposed to stop. And 3, we're supposed to do.

So, we had this section already. There are 13 things here in this list that we're not supposed to do. And there were three things that...

There's the list, by the way. If you guys are curious what went down before this class, in the last months that we've been working on this text, don't... These seven normal body and speech deeds, avoid those.

Then he says he throws in attachment, ill will, and the view that things aren't there. These ten. And then he throws in alcohol, and making a dishonest living, and then not harming other beings.

Those are the 13 he says, I don't want to see you doing. And the three I want to see you doing is respecting people, making offerings when it's appropriate, and love. Somehow, it's a very odd list.

It's not a list I've ever seen anywhere else, and it might be interesting to create a retreat out of it or something like that. Okay. Here's his summary of the whole thing.

And here's the actual verse. So we're going back to Nick's root text by... Master Nagarjuna.

By Nagarjuna. Okay. And we do have the Sanskrit for most of it, I think, or all of it.

I think we have all of it here.

[Speaker 3]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
And we're going to go to the commentary, okay Nick? Can you read this one also? Okay.

Yeah, so, NGAR ZHES PAS means I told you before. DOG PA CHAG BA'I PHYIR, things you should... Give up.

Yeah, things you shouldn't do, I gave you CHUG SUM. 13 of them. Yep, and I hope you will love from them.

Stop doing them. I hope you guys won't do them. Then I gave you three things that you should JUG PA.

We should take up. Yeah. That makes a total of 16.

And these 16... By the way, it's an unusual section of the text, because it's purposely targeting what? Targeting causes.

MENTAL. Oh, realization? HIGHER BIRTH.

HIGHER BIRTH. Yeah, right. We put this whole section on, because we don't often see a scripture that says, you know what?

Let's do a whole chapter on just how to get into a higher rebirth. He's telling you these 16 practices are hard to get, especially if you want to be Iron Man, or Spider Man, or Form Realm God. You don't often see this kind of thing.

We won't do JUG DU PA NI. ,BSTAN PA'I DOR NAS ZHES PA BYA'O, I have told you, therefore, the easy way, or in brief, how to get to that result. And by the way, he doesn't spend much time on it.

And here he's already gone on. So please read this one. Yeah, nice.

The translation is good. Here's the second part. We're going to talk about cause and effect as far as definite goodness has two parts.

What are the two kinds of definite goodness? Real goodness. Real good stuff.

Nirvana and full enlightenment? Yeah, nirvana and Buddhahood. That has a nickname in the scripture called definite good.

It has two parts, nirvana or Buddhahood, or both. I'm going to talk about the cause and effect relationships for getting to nirvana and Buddhahood. When I described to you how to get to nirvana and Buddhahood, I'm going to give it to you in two different sections.

The first section is going to be, DO LAS GSUNGS PA Described in the sutras. Then, you got to catch this DELA. Yeah, on those.

Yeah, right, Nick. DELA RGYAL PO'I KHYEN LUGS PA'I DANG PO Then I'm going to teach you more about definite good by sharing with you the advice that was given to the king, DELA. I'm on those.

This topic of... Reaching definite goodness. Definite goodness.

I'll give you the practices, and then I'll share with you Nagarjuna's words to the king that he was trying to get the king to get up off his rear end and do it. Because you need both. You guys need both.

I can teach you the practices, but then I got to inspire you to actually do it. I'm going to share with you what Nagarjuna said to the king. By the way, they think that this king, Udayabhadra, is the same one in the letter to the friend.

But they're not sure. People are not sure. It seems to be the same.

All right. Nick, you want to pick on somebody else? Yes, I would love to.

Let's see. How about Lindsay? Lindsay, I was on...

What's that street called today? Deer Run. I was on Deer Run, I'm just telling you.

Amazing. It is amazing. Thank you for doing that.

Okay. Here we go.

[Speaker 3]
All right.

[Speaker 2]
All right. Here we go.

[Speaker 3]
Wow.

[Speaker 1]
Nick, do you want to take her through the words? Sure. Tangpo is the first.

Tangpo is referring to... Yeah, how the sutra describes the ways to get to definite good. And sum is also a number, and that's three.

So one is actually chik, but when you say first, you say tangpo. Kyawe sung is the word of the victor, or the word of the conqueror. The words of the victor.

And tsul dor... Sorry, dor tempa is like brief, brief explanation. So gyepar shepa is pretty common, and that means an extensive explanation.

And dun means meaning, and daydun is like the meaning of that or those. So... And duwa is a summary.

So there's three parts. Kyawe is briefly an extensive explanation of the meaning, daydun, gyepar shepa, and a summary. That's good.

It's a good translation. Okay. I think that was so short that Lindsay should do the next one.

Nick, I don't know. Let's do it.

[Speaker 2]
Tangpo la sung gita bu sungpa tang.

[Speaker 1]
Nice.

[Speaker 2]
Kay. Kay mong sab moy.

[Speaker 1]
Kyawe sung la trakpa kye mi kye ki. Perfect. Perfect.

[Speaker 2]
Kya par tong.

[Speaker 1]
Kye par tong. Kye par tong, kye pa... Trakpa.

K-R-S-TRA. There's no reason that anybody would ever expect that. Okay.

Trakpa de yang... This is a weird one. Dang zen.

Dang zen. La. Lay.

Lay. Jung war sung... Jung war...

Jung war sungpa... Sungpe.

[Speaker 3]
Sungpe. Sungpa.

[Speaker 1]
Right. Nice. So the first part was how the Buddha explained how to reach definite good.

It's going to have three parts. Nick, what are they? Let's see.

What kind of teaching it was? G-T-A-B-U sungpa tong. K-M-O-N-G-S-A-B-M-O-Y-T-O-N-L-A-T-R-A-K-P-A-K-Y-E-M-I-K-Y-K-P-A-R-T-O-N-G The distinction regarding whether or not the profound meaning will incite fear depends on whether or not people have mastered it or are in the dark about it.

Yeah, good. And that K-M-O-N-G is more general, Nick. Not a master, but just understand or something?

Yeah, if you really understand the teachings, you won't get scared by emptiness teachings. If you don't understand the teachings, you will get scared by emptiness teachings. And anyway, third part?

The words of our teacher illustrating that this fear comes from holding to a self. Yeah, good. Even the Buddha said, you know, some people are going to get scared when you teach them emptiness.

Smarter people are not going to get scared when you teach them emptiness. But what makes you smart or dumb in that sense is whether or not you yourself are holding on to your selfishness. If you yourself are holding on to your own self, if you are more selfish in a deep way, you're the kind of person who will get scared by these teachings.

So the degree to which you are scared by the teachings is kind of a reflection of the degree to which you are holding on to a self-nature of yourself. That's kind of interesting. So that's why I fall asleep and I don't get scared.

When I couldn't sleep, Nick, in the monastery, I used to always read Madhyamika and I could sleep in five minutes. Good tip. I'm just telling you.

Okay, do you have a victim for the next section? It's kind of long. Yeah, let's have Oscar.

Yeah, Oscar's good. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Hola.

[Speaker 1]
Hola.

[Speaker 2]
Tamponi. Chippa.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good. What's that mean, Nick? That means the causes, the things that...

The dharma of definite goodness, or probably in this case, the causes of definite good. Yeah, the things which give you definite good is BDAG PA'I RTOG PA'I SHES RUNG. The wisdom which realizes the absence of self, or the lack of self-nature.

Yeah, and that wisdom has two objects, okay? GANG ZAG and SPYOD People and stuff. And what's the stuff always a code word for?

The parts of the person. Yeah, good. Okay, so when you're trying to understand emptiness, you look at people, and then you look at the pieces of people.

And those are the two objects of emptiness, okay? What about the outer world? That's part of the people, in a sense.

Part of the people. Your outer world is part of you. In this teaching.

GAL GYI BDAG MED DU BDAG KYANG THAR MED RGYAS BA GZHAN The other normal folk. Yeah. Why does it say here, why did Geshe-la write this note?

This word should always strike a chord in a Buddhist practitioner's heart. Because it's a great bad deed, the worst bad deed, according to the secret teachings, to see the world as something normal. Yeah, THAR MED, this word normal, is a curse word in the Diamond Way.

Anytime you have an interaction with anybody, and you don't think you're having an interaction with my Jushu or something, you're committing a sin in the secret teachings. That's weird. Okay.

It's hard to understand by normal people, and it's hard to understand with THAR MED GZHAN PAS. Normal, conventional wisdom or conventional understanding. Yeah, conventional understanding.

RTOG PA KHAWA Because it's difficult to understand, the root text calls it... Subtle. KHAWA means subtle.

When you see a word from the root text, and you see the word in front of it ends with an S, he's giving you a commentary. Subtle because. Working backwards.

Subtle because. And then you read the word in front of it. Why is it subtle?

It's hard to understand. By whom? Normal people in a normal state of mind.

THAR MED GZHAN And I'm going to call it SABBA because... It's profound because it's difficult. ROR GZHAN GYI TING PHAG TING PHAG means to delve to the depths or something like that.

Yeah. So what's it mean? It's profound because...

GZHAN GYI TING PHAG Because in order for the wise to understand it, it's difficult. No, it's... It's difficult for others to fathom.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, other people have trouble.

[Speaker 1]
By the way, TING PHAG means... And it happens in real life, like with a business problem. You get to the surface problem, and you try to deal with it, and it doesn't work.

If you're a business person, you got to be tough. Mentally, you got to be tough, and then go down to another level. Go down to the next level, and try to solve it at the next level.

And then if you don't solve it there, you got to be tough, and go down to the next level. And that process is called TING PHAG. Go down deep, deep, deep.

But it requires a huge amount of persistence. A success strategy is just being a hard head. You fail, and then you go deeper.

And then you fail, and then you go deeper. And then you fail, and you go deeper, and then you figure it out. It's a very beautiful concept in Buddhism.

TING PHAG. Okay, TING PHAG. You got to TING PHAG.

Sounds like... Think about it. What Korean food does she like so much?

[Speaker 3]
Kimbap.

[Speaker 1]
Kimbap, yeah.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
This is TING PHAG. Bibimbap. Sabar.

Yeah, and there's an S in front of the word from the root text, therefore it's referring to that. It's hard for normal people to dig down the levels too. SKAD PA DAG LA SNGA BA DANG It appears to sages, or to wise people.

I don't know why he's saying that. Anyway, it appears to be deep. Okay, so to the wise, these ideas just seem to be interestingly deep.

But to the Shibas, to the children or two-year-olds, those who don't have THOD PA, those of little learning. Good. DE'I BYAG They're afraid.

It will make them scared. These teachings will scare them. Who said that?

The gyelwa. The conqueror, in this case. Yeah, the Buddha said that.

DE'I RGYAL SANGS PA DE KHO NA NYID NYID GANG LAM NA THOB PA THOB PAR BYED PA LA DMIGS CI So why do we call suchness in the sense of tendo? Yeah, that's a Nagarjuna thing. He's always referring to them together, right?

Why is suchness in the sense of what? Interdependence? Being dependent on each other?

Yeah. What does dependence ultimately mean? It means nothing exists without other stuff.

Well, what does it mean with a pen, for example? It means things are dependent upon the seeds in your mind to be what they are. That's all.

That's all it means. That's all dependent origination means. Things come from seeds in your mind.

DE'I RGYAL SANGS PA DE KHO NA NYID NYID That is the GNAS LAS KYI CHOS. That is the cause of definite good, the thing which brings about definite goodness. Well, now it seems like he's using GNAS LAS KYI CHOS as the Dharma of definite goodness.

The definite goodness Dharma. The teaching in this case? Yeah, I think it's teaching.

Now I think he wants it to be teaching. Definite goodness teaching. What's definite goodness teaching?

The fact that things come from seeds. Because that is the thing which GANG ZHIG THOB PA THOB If you realize it, you achieve nirvana. Yay, okay.

Oftentimes when they're talking about GNAS LAS, THOB PA can mean Buddhahood also. Just so you know. For sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We reached the end of how I went ahead. It's not because of lack of interest, it's just busy running the Mixed Nuts.

Oh, no, I know. So, the root text of the commentary says, on to part two. And it's frustrating because they don't tell you what's part two.

Never, especially not Gyaltsabje. In the Mixed Nuts classes, when we're preparing for the class, we always go back in the book and we find out what was part two. So, part two is in the 16-point time period.

So, those who understand or who are in the dark about the profound meaning, they'll get fear depending on... people will become afraid depending upon whether or not they understand or are in the dark about the profound meaning. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, yeah. If you understand, you don't get scared. If you don't understand, you will get scared by the idea of emptiness.

And we didn't just cover that part? No, we did not. Okay.

We just covered Jitabu Sumba, which means what did the Buddha say.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah, we covered Jitabu Sumba. So, now this next part is kind of the fun part. It's going to be talking about why does emptiness scare some people and doesn't scare other people?

Why don't some people really like it? Like, try to talk to Ben Kramer about something that's not emptiness. And...

You can still talk to everyone. Some people don't want to talk about it at all. Okay.

All right. Who's... Nick, you can pick on somebody else now.

All right. Let's see. Rob, you want to go?

Oh, that's right. You're over there. People can just jump through computers.

All right. Don't let it scare you, Nick. Drakpa Dang.

Kepa Mitrape. Suljitabhushena. Jitabhushena.

You guys want to translate it, Nick? Ben, you guys? Yeah, yeah.

The meaning of emptiness scares kids. Okay. It doesn't scare people who understand.

Smart people. And let's... Let's talk about how.

Some people might say, how is it the case that... Some people might wonder, why is it that emptiness scares kids and not the intelligent people? Yeah, how's that work?

Jitabhu, how's that work? I think you should make Rob do another one because it was so short. Do another one, Rob.

Sure. Tongpaniki Don Tempana. Chiba.

Is that right? Kepa Kachik. Datana.

Daktatayupa Mayinpar. Gurshing. GK.

Kewa. Shendu Yang Yupar Mingyurla. Oh, Mingyurla.

Yeah. Go slow, go slow. I mean, go slow and you're fine.

Yep. If you get a teaching or if you teach the meaning of emptiness. Yeah, if you...

If you teach them about emptiness. If you teach them about emptiness. Chiba, children who don't understand.

These guys. Some of them. Kachik Datana.

Some of those guys. Daktatayupa Mayinpar Gurshing. They might start to think that...

They might start to get the view that there is no self. Or worse than that. They'll start to think, I'm not here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Start to freak them out. Daktatayupa Mayinpar Gurshing.

They might think right then that I'm not here. Yeah, now the tanda is a clue. Because the last half of the sentence is dealing with maungba.

Of the future. Yeah. Here I am.

I'm not existing in this room. Or about chi means later on. Later, yeah.

In the kewa shens. Others. In my other kewas.

My birth. I won't be back. I won't be reborn.

Yeah. We had a long, interesting discussion of these ideas this morning with some people. But it's very...

It very much freaks people out. If they believe that there will be nothing left of them after they die. And then if you tell them they don't exist here either.

It's kind of really uncomfortable for them. And there were... Buddha...

25 centuries ago, Buddha outlined 62 different belief systems trying to explain what would happen to you after you die. 62 different opinions about what happened to you after you die. Because there is no direct evidence.

So you get a lot of variations on what people think. So anyway, this guy. If you tell him everything is empty in this.

He's freaking out about now. And then he starts freaking out about after he dies. Where is he going to be?

And it's not a... It's not a small thing. And as you get older, you will appreciate it.

They say that the Christian churches in England, in London during World War II were constantly packed. Even with the danger of the bombing. The day after the war ended, they were empty.

They still thought they wouldn't die. Okay, go ahead. Okay.

Okay. I'll hand it to somebody else next time. I forgot.

This one's harder. This one's more hard. Well, my parts, dakiwa, pungpo, jipa min, also aren't...

My parts don't exist. So the first thing was about dak. I don't exist.

And I won't be here. And my parts. Also won't be there.

Or later. Yeah. And they won't be there later.

So they start to get concerned. The word che here, which is the past tense of the word jipa, like dorje jipa.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah, cut off.

[Speaker 1]
And this both means they have an unreasonable fear in their heart. They suspect that themselves and their parts are going to be cut off. Yeah, they'll just stop.

I will just stop. Me will just stop. And my body and mind will stop.

They get this terror. If I'm empty, then I'm just going to stop. And I won't be anywhere.

And I'll be gone forever. And that's very frightening. If you really think about it, it's very frightening.

Jipa dakni... Che dok. Dok means they get this...

Suspicion. Terrible worry, right? That they might just stop.

Therefore, stop. They get scared. That's how they get scared, these kiddos.

That's why they feel terrified by the idea of emptiness. My daughter is just starting to think about the concept of death, which is interesting to watch. It's scary.

Yeah, it's asking you questions. But it's actually when people listen to a teaching on emptiness that they can get scared. Most people just nod at you and say, Okay.

You want to do one more, Rob? Sure. Daikona ni lekpar kongdu.

Chupe kapa lani. Kepa. Lani rangshin gi.

Tongpa yinpa.

[Speaker 2]
Ni ki korwa. Tongba dang tarpa. Tupa tong...

No? No. Nyamdu.

Drakpa separ. Drakpa.

[Speaker 1]
Drakpa. Drakpa. Separ gyururo.

Ni kese. Okay. Wow.

So those wise folks who understand suchness very well, deep in their hearts, rangshin gi tong... They know that it means that things are empty of any nature of their own, and they give up samsara, the cycle of pain. They grasp that that's how they're going to get out of samsara.

Yeah, because of that. Chupe kapa lani rangshin gi.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Since things are empty, they can give up the cycle. Ki tongpa ni... Ki.

I see. That last ki. Uh-huh.

Well, they understand. Okay. Yeah.

Anyway. And thus give up the cycle of pain and achieve nirvana. Yeah.

And nyamdu drakpa separ. And then that gets rid of all their fear. Yeah, they're actually quite excited.

Yeah. Let's have my ticket to heaven. Yeah.

They get all excited. Opposite. Probably all the people that came here, they're like, this emptiness stuff is awesome.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Now, frustratingly, the next part says part three, and it doesn't tell you what it is, which is the way these books are written. But we filled it in. And Nick's going to...

You want to pick somebody to read the big print? Sure. Arribas.

Arribas. If he's available.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I'm available.

[Speaker 1]
Thanks.

[Speaker 2]
Wow. Start with drakpa. Drakpa?

Yeah, drak... Sorry, with what? Where?

Yes, drakpa. Drakpa. Drakpa.

Sorry.

[Speaker 1]
What's it mean, Nick? The teacher says, the teacher with a capital T. chakpa de yang dang dzin len jung war Fear only arises when you're grasping to the self.

Nice, nice. Yeah, if you feel scared, it's a sign that you are misunderstanding who you are.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
All right, who's next, Nick? We still got a little few minutes. All righty.

Inna. Yeah. She's translating.

Are you translating, Inna? Uh-oh. Okay.

Maybe she is. Another good Tibetan reader. This is a long one.

Tang tang, one of the translators. She's great. Yeah.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah, hi. Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you.

[Speaker 3]
Tang tang. Nearby. Let me back up.

[Speaker 1]
Tang tang translated all the kinds of karma. It's the Buddha's own explanation of every kind of karma you can imagine. And she translated that book.

And it's amazing. And you should get it from the Diamond Cutter Press immediately. It's available by e-book.

And I was in Vietnam recently. And somebody asked me to sign it. And it's already been translated into Vietnamese.

And it's very popular in Vietnam. So she rescued an ancient scripture that has all the kinds of karma. And it's already spreading around Asia again after 25 centuries.

Okay, please leave.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Yay, beautiful. Thank you. Thank you, Shilang.

Thank you. Okay. Nick, let's go in pieces, okay?

Yeah. Nyewa lempe pung pung dang. So the five heaps that you attained at birth.

That you take on at birth, yeah. Along with the four great elements. Yeah, which makes a total of gu.

A nine. Yeah, good. So notice how you spell gu here.

D-G-U, okay? And we take those nine pieces of people and we call them kyegu. Kyegu.

Kyegu is an ancient word for people. Oh, okay, cool. Like kyewo.

And it's usually spelled D-G-U, which means nine people. So D-G-U, meaning nine, is an ancient plural. It's an S in the ancient language.

So it's been misspelled here. I don't know. Yes.

Oh. But he's making a... Uh-huh.

SFJ's making a pun, okay? All these guys, which is nine guys in Tibetan, have nine parts. Uh-huh.

These niners. Yeah, and all these sosokeros. Uh-huh, these people who have not yet seen emptiness directly.

They are dzinpa to nga and nga yi wa. Uh-huh, they're grasping to self and to my parts. Me and mine.

They're grasping to me and mine. Yeah, and actually they have come from that, okay? And nga yi dzinpa denpa kye gu la.

These guys... These people who have this holding to mind, who have this problem of holding to mind. Mine.

The Buddha was... ta chik tu means exclusively. Right.

The only pemba. He's trying to pemba them. Benefit.

Yeah, he taught them emptiness to try to help them. So he taught them about tongpa nyi. He taught them the meaning of emptiness.

But then they talked. But it scared them. It freaked out, okay?

It freaked out, I like that. Because they were so strongly dzinpa to daken daken. Uh-huh, because they were holding so tightly to me and mine.

But in truth, the Buddha only sung tongpa nyi. He only taught emptiness in order to cut... to liberate them from samsara.

Right. The only reason he taught emptiness was to free those children from samsara. But they freaked out.

Okay.

[Speaker 3]
Geshe-la. Yeah. Doesn't the kye du mean like he taught them at their level?

[Speaker 1]
No, this one means in order to see it. Oh. And one more thing, doesn't the...

It's the same as kye du. Kye du. Oh.

And doesn't the du and kye du mean all beings? Yeah, normally it does. But when it means all beings, it's often spelled DGU, which means nine people.

And it's just a pluralizer for everybody. It's an S. Okay.

But the way it's been spelled here, you don't get the pun. Because Gyatsobje is being cute. Nine people are named on nine parts.

But if you spell it wrong, the pun is destroyed. You see what I mean? He's being cute and nobody knows he's cute, which is the worst thing.

Is it nava in the Sanskrit? It is nine even in Sanskrit? I don't know.

That I can't say. Yeah, I guess we'll look. It should be right above again.

Oh, that's a good question. By the way, look in the root text. Right.

It's predicted. Sorry? Oh, the Buddha?

Yeah, in the root text in Nagarjuna, he spelled it right. And then Gyatsobje changed the spelling. Oh, in the Tibetan.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Interesting. And yet, I don't see a nava in the Sanskrit. But maybe I'm just not...

[Speaker 3]
That's just a Tibetan way to say, oh, it's not a... Right.

[Speaker 1]
That's what I was wondering, too. Yeah. So he's actually just making the joke in Tibetan.

Yeah, I'm just looking at it. Mamakara means who thinks me. So the second two lines in Tibetan are rather in the first two lines in the...

I think. Oh. By the way, he uses nine twice.

Right. And he's catching the praja, praja. Yeah.

The Sanskrit doesn't say nine. It just says beings. Okay.

Cool. Yeah, so it's just Gyatsobje making his little joke. No, maybe it was an alternate spelling in his time, I think.

Oh, yeah, but his pun got wrecked. All right, don't worry much about it. Okay, Nicholas, the next three sections, okay?

Sure. One after the verse, okay? Okay.

Well, there's two verses coming. Oh, yeah, just one. I see.

I got you. Okay. Cool.

Thank you, Geshe-la. Thank you, and say hi to my two ladies, too. I definitely will.

I can't wait. Oh, they're yelling hello from the other room. They can hear everything that we're talking about, and they're not afraid.

All right. Yay. She's no two-year-old.

No, she's not. She'll tell you that very quickly. Her vocabulary is bigger than our Tibetan vocabulary.

Okay. She's going to be four soon. She'll let you know.

Thank you. Thank you, everybody. This has been a really great day.

A lot of amazing texts. Thank you, Geshe-la. Thank you very much, Ken, and I can't wait to see you guys tomorrow.

Yay. Thank you, Nick, for keeping us all going. It's just got to stay alive.

[Speaker 2]
All right. Ciao, y'all.