Ник Лашо — Книга 2: Ратнамала, занятие 33

[Speaker 1]
Hey, it's almost that time you guys. I saw you all though. It's green.

Hopefully it helps. Let's see what happens. Because there's only so much a juice can do, right?

Come on juice. All right, welcome to Xuanzang's Tower. It's that time again.

That magical time of of the week where we get together to explore some of the most profound ideas in old books, in old Asian philosophical literature, and some of it less old than others. But this particular book that we're looking at today is the book that I'm working on translating. I feel like it's funny to refer to it as my book, because it's really Arya Nagarjuna's book with a commentary by Gyaltsabje, two incredible thinkers from the past couple thousand years, translated by really Geshe Michael Roach with some input by me, maybe.

Let's see how fast I can progress at this whole learning thing. But I'm having a lot of fun doing it, and I'm learning a lot along the way. So I have prepared a quiz for you all.

As always, special thanks to Worldview Productions, special thanks to all of you who are interpreting, special thanks to Lindsay for helping us out, and all the regional coordinators. And extra special thanks to Geshe Michael, who's on a plane right now. So we're going to do this class together, and then after this class, I will lead you or answer your questions, let's say.

I will do a Q&A for those Mixed Nuts and Xuanzang Tower participants who are interested to stick around for that. Here comes the homework. There we go.

Okay, I did all fill in the blanks, okay? Mad Libs, we just give you a noun, an adjective, a verb. I thought about including that, actually.

For those of you who know what Mad Libs is, I thought about putting noun or adjective. I think it's all nouns. So that makes it easy.

I'll fill in the blanks. We will all fill in the blanks. And it's really just variations on the same theme, because my last class, I mean, the last section that we covered before this class, is basically just, we were just kind of talking about the same idea over and over.

It might be a little confusing, because we had a class on my text recently. That class was from an earlier section of my book. So this homework is covering the work on my text, on this text that we covered two classes ago.

So if you can follow that, then you might be able to answer some of the questions on this homework.

[Speaker 3]
February 24th class.

[Speaker 1]
Correct. February 24th. So let's try.

Let's see. Let's see what we got. I'm sure that some people at least took notes from way back when.

Practitioners of the Middle Way do claim that certain things don't exist, and due to this, some people call them blanks. Anybody want to take a guess? This will help us remember what we were talking about at that time.

Because they claim that some stuff doesn't exist, we might call those people, the people who make that claim. Chat is alive with right answers. Oh, good.

Okay, fantastic. Why is everybody so into chatting, but not into speaking up? Anyway, great.

I'm sure in Inna's case, it's because she's translating.

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
There are multiple types of people in the world. Yes, yes, yes. Blue.

Okay. Yes, great. Nihilists.

Because they say stuff doesn't exist, they're nihilists. We might say that. Or someone might say that.

But if that's the case, and this is the argument that Nagarjun is making, then based on the fact that there's don't say that blank don't exist, you have to call them blank. To be able to fill in both, you might have to remember what we were talking about. I see some smirks, like you guys know the answer.

Go ahead and speak up or chat up. Yeah, I'm on Inna's side. I have things.

Yeah, that's a good guess. It's actually 360 degrees from what you said, Paula, but they didn't phrase it like that. That's why it's plural.

[Speaker 3]
Cause and effect.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good. Yeah, good. Good.

Who said that? Lindsay?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Nice. We would call them what? Nihilists.

Good. Yeah. All right.

Good. Okay. We answered a homework question.

What is the ancient West Chinese language words for nihilists?

[Speaker 2]
Or something?

[Speaker 1]
Close. It's even cuter than that. And realists?

Yeah, good. Yeah, good. When accused by lower school practitioners of denying cause and effect, Nagarjuna explains that the something relies upon unmistaken cause and effect.

The chat is surprisingly sleeping with no answers. Morality? No, that's really good, though.

That's a good guess. It's something really cool. Yeah, good, Utpala.

She got it. Reaching enlightenment. In fact, he says the path to matchless enlightenment.

Good. He says that the path to matchless enlightenment relies upon unmistaken cause and effect, and he probably means the unmistaken teaching on cause and effect. Or cause and effect which cannot fail.

Anybody want to take a shot at the old language? Or something? Say it again?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah. Oh, great. Sorry.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And actually, Utpala put exactly what it says in the text. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. And he then goes on to make the point that practitioners of the Middle Way blank themselves with cause and effect. Any guess?

This one was unexpected. That's a hint. Yeah, that's pretty good.

That's a pretty good guess. It wasn't that. It was something even more Diamond Way-ish.

It was Diamond Way-y. Yeah, good. Empower themselves.

They empower themselves with cause and effect. I thought that was a really beautiful idea about the Middle Way, because he's really kind of trying to affirm the fact of how passionate the Middle Way practitioners really are about cause and effect, and that they, or dare I say we, would never discount cause and effect. Tibetan?

Wong? Yeah, that's right, Gibson. There's a more complete version of the phrase used here, or his word.

Yeah, very close, Ben. Very close vowels. Vowel consonant.

Five. I always count down when Amalie won't listen to me. Five, four, three, two.

Yes, good. You got it. Ben or Wupala for the win with this homework.

Wongkorwa. Wongkorpa. I think it was korwa, but whatever.

Who can ever remember such things? Probably many people. I can't.

Wupala, for example. Wongkorwa. Wongkorpa.

Good. Okay. We nailed that.

I'm going to stop sharing for a second while I find the next part of this class. Wow, cool. That was like the fastest we ever got through one of my homeworks.

Not that it's a race, but it's a race. All right. Oh, I'm fixing the spelling of one thing.

Okay. I don't know if I turned my chat back on. There we go.

I can see all your wonderful contributions to class. I don't know if I mentioned this, but I think I did. Geshe Michael's on a plane right now where we will not be blessed with his all-knowing presence, which makes this infinitely harder, or at least more challenging.

And it also means that we can totally have some fun together, the mix nuts and all of the you dear Shuen Tsang's Tower participants in going through this text. And I know that this, my text is typically not too hard. I see enthusiasm from Wupala and Tim.

And Gibson, I know you're enthusiastic just by virtue of being alive and smart. And anybody else who wants to chime in, I know many of you have been studying hard. So here we go.

So just a reminder, we just finished a whole section where we were talking about, you know, why practitioners of the Middle Way aren't really nihilists or realists. We're trying to talk about why beyond whether things exist or not. And now we've got to another section, which I think we translated this last class, but be fun maybe for somebody to translate this, somebody who's here other than me, who I know knows what it means.

So I'm going to look at the third word. I said third. Oh, that's good.

Oh, good. Yes. That rhymes with your name.

So I thought you were calling on yourself. I was like, damn. Word is so used to calling on people in his classes.

He just called on himself. Word will do it.

[Speaker 3]
Nick, do you want to make someone read?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah. That's what I want to do. Hey, Word, why don't we pick one of your people to read?

Word, you have to read. Wait a minute. I'll read this one because it's funny.

Okay. And I know that you can translate this with ease, but why don't you pick one of your students who you think has a good chance of translating this? Ooh, good idea.

Sushumna is translating. Hold on. I heard that.

Yeah, yeah. That was a cute squeak. Yeah.

Let me see who's here. I'm looking. Where are my students?

Gibson can translate it. I taught him stuff. Gibson, you do it.

All right. What's it say, Gibson?

[Speaker 2]
The third one, Ta-Chung doesn't get away from the extreme.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good. Yeah, yeah. Sangye-Ki-Tun-Mong-Ma-Yin-Pa.

[Speaker 2]
Tun-Mong-Ma-Yin-Pa. The Buddha which is not sure.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah. I guess you have to translate the whole thing.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. What's a tempa?

[Speaker 2]
Tempa, the teaching. It shows, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
So the teaching? No, it's the teaching. You're right.

The tempa. Okay. Which is kye.

The teaching.

[Speaker 2]
Attribute.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good. Yeah. The feature which is Tun-Mong-Ma-Yin-Pa.

[Speaker 2]
Which is not sure.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, or unique, we usually say.

[Speaker 2]
Unique. Yeah, unique.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good. Of the Sangye.

[Speaker 2]
Of the Buddha.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, and in this case, we're talking about Buddha's teachings, which is that it's Ta-Chung.

[Speaker 2]
Ta-Chung is away from the extreme.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, perfect. Thank you so much.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
This is a demonstration that it's a unique feature of the Buddhist teaching to be free from the extremes. It's the third part, sorry, Tsum-Pa. The third part of Yeltsin's outline here.

Here we go. Some verses that I took a shot at, and usually, let's take a look at them. I feel like what I try to do sometimes, and perhaps against the advice of my teacher, who knows way better than me, sometimes what I try to do is I take a rough shot at the verses, and then I'll do the commentary, and then go back and redo the verses.

What you guys get to see right now is my kind of rough, very rough attempt at translating these verses with the understanding that I will go back and redo it after I do the commentary. Personally, I do it this way because it'll give me, I don't know, because it'll give me some idea of what the commentary is explaining. Then when I work on the commentary, then it gets clearer and clearer, and then I can kind of go back and forth between the verses and the commentary until I have my closest approximation of a translation of something.

All right. Let's see. Let's read it.

Someone who's not translating into their language. Ivo, do you want to try? Do you read this language?

He's a translator now. Oh, she is? Oh, I thought she wasn't talking.

Only the translators have their cameras turned on, so this isn't fair. Sugeng, are you here? I'll read this first verse for you while somebody else gets ready.

So it looks like this first line is something about people who proclaim parts or proclamations that people are their parts, and I think it's more like people who proclaim parts. So I think that my first line translation is not quite right. I think it's more like people who assert parts.

Okay. So these two lines I did earlier. Detailers and enumerators of the world.

So I think it's more saying something like worldly people like enumerators. So for those of you who have been with us for a while, you remember studying Ben Kramer's translation of the Siddhanta text, where we studied these guys, the Drangchens. And Uktruk, I believe, is another name for the detailers.

Vaisheshikas? Yeah, Vaisheshikas. Right, Ben?

Yeah, it's like the owl school or something like that. Yeah, yeah. There's a guy named Kamada who's sometimes called the owl, and then maybe he's a teacher of the Vaisheshikas, the detailers.

That sounds right. I was hoping that would align with what you thought. So I think these are two separate groups, the Drangchens and the Uktruks.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
And then there's the Gumeches. I'm a little confused by this part, and I think we'll need the commentary, but I'm open to your ideas. Gumeches are the people who go without clothes.

Yeah, I think that's Jain. Yep. Yeah.

So Gyaltseshikas, I think they're just saying if those guys. Yeah. So tree is like ask.

Yeah. So I'm like, is it like ask those guys if they say, if their teachings or if they say stuff that is beyond existence or non-existence? Boy, this is where you want commentary.

Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, this is my provisional, right?

I know it's going to change. So I just say that. Can you show the Sanskrit too, Nick?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, great. Cool.

Oh, yeah, that's fun. Here's a mouthful. Yeah.

There's Sankhya. There's the Pudgala. Yeah, Pudgala, right?

There's Sankhya. Uh-huh. Sankhya.

Um, Granta. Recognize that word. Skanda.

That's Pungpo. Pungpo is Skanda. Uh, let's see.

Pracha Lokam. Here's the Jigten Lokam. Okay.

Anyway. Let's continue. Um, let's see.

Because I'm sharing my screen, I have a harder time seeing the list of everybody in the class right now. Let's see. That's why I would just make Word do it.

Oh, Word. Can you pick on Word? I mean, beg him kindly to do it.

To find one of his peoples. Yeah. One second.

I'm looking. All right. Aso.

Perfect. Fine choice. Can you read the Tibetan here?

Thank you. Nice. And Word, pick, call on whoever you want.

Whoever's out there. Um, okay. Don't limit it to people who you know can read it.

Uh, therefore. Page here. This is my guess here.

Therefore, the deathless teaching of the Buddhas. Sangye Nam Kyi Ni. Tempa Chime Yime Le.

We'll see if this is really the way the verse goes. Um, beyond existence and non-existence. Uh, Yime.

Lendepa. Okay, Yime Lendepa. So Lendepa is like going beyond.

Beyond that thing. And so I'm translating here. Beyond existence and non-existence.

Beyond Yime. Existence and non-existence. Ye, being existence.

And me, being non-existence. Uh, Sadmo. Um, oh, wow, interesting.

Beyond. I did it differently than that. But let's see.

Yime Lendepa. I said they're the one and only teaching. Um, Chökyi Kuppa.

That explain. Shepa. This.

The. Profound. Sadmo.

Depa. Transcendence. Uh, so that's weird.

I don't agree with my translation there. Uh, I think it's more like Yime Lendepa Sadmo. This profound teaching which is beyond existence and non-existence.

Uh, because he explained it, basically. I think it's, I think it's more something like, therefore, uh, the teachings of the Buddha is so cool because it, it's a deathless teaching that is beyond existence and non-existence. Uh, which explains the profound.

Yeah, that's more like it. Let's see. Let's check the commentary together.

Oh, especially Michael's note. Uh, Kuppa, which comes in the last line of the verse here. He says that's Yautaka, which means.

A gift, or he seems to think it's, um. A present to be made at a bride at her marriage. It's a great gift.

So it looks like this is supposed to be something here, like the gift. Of that dharma, which is explaining the profound or something like that. But this is certainly where we need a commentary.

[Speaker 3]
I know just where to find one.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, let's do it. Okay, Word, you got someone for me? Yes, uh, Kim Chi.

Kim Chi. Aha, she, she came back.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Top of the world right now. Right here.

[Speaker 3]
Sure. Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Nice. Amazing. Yeah, thank you for that.

That was great reading. Um, all right. Let's see if we can figure something out here.

I took a shot at translating it a little while ago. Um, so, shepar gyi shik. And, and, yeah, you better get it.

I said we must understand, trying to be nice. But it's, I think it's more like a command than like a we, we must. I think it's like, it's more just like, understand.

You best recognize. Yeah, recognize. I like that, actually.

That might understand that the teachings. Let's see, gyi shik. So, so what I did in this particular case is I, I took the verb, which as most, many of you know, is at the very end of a pile of words.

And this is how, this is how I understand this language. It's like a big pile of words with a verb at the end. Um, so I took the verb in this case, and then I went all the way back to the beginning.

And made a sentence out of it. Understand, shepar gyi shik, that the teachings of the Buddha, sang gi nam kyi ni tenpa chi me. Um, this is just how I did it.

But tell me if you guys think that the syntax implies otherwise. Understand that the teachings of the Buddhas set us on the path, which grants us the deathless nectar of the state beyond all grief. So here they qualified chi me, which was in the root text, right?

With dutsi. Dutsi is the Sanskrit word amrita, right? Amrita, uh, so chi me dutsi is like the full way in this language to say deathless nectar.

It's like dutsi nectar without death, chi me. Gopang, uh, anyone want to tell me what it means? The state of mind.

Yeah, good. In this case, it's just this, I said the state beyond all grief. Uh, gopang nyangan le depa.

Um, terwe lam gyi mikpa. Um, I always have a struggling with this mikpa here, uh, because the word typically means object, but it felt really kind of clumsy to throw the word object in here. Um, so what did I do?

The explanations of the buddhas. Here we go. A shepa.

Although I'm just now looking at this and realizing that this she here is probably, uh, Gyaltsabje saying that this is what the root text is saying. I didn't fit that into my translation here. Uh, but you guys take your time to take a look at it and see if you think that this she is in fact that.

I think, right? She often, um, since it's the root text as a whole, I would guess that she is probably, um, explaining the word sabmo. Like when he says sabmo, when he says profound she.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That he's talking about that which is free of the elaborations, uh, shepa of, of existence and non-existence. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's, that's the meaning of profound here, I think. Yeah, that's why he's saying she after sabmo. Yeah, you're right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. And it looks like I didn't even, I just skipped that altogether. Uh, but probably because I just blocked it out.

I skipped the word sabmo. Um, yeah, I think I also want to say, um, that the, to work backwards from the end again, a little more like, uh, what you should know, what you should, you know, shepa, shepa, um, is what it is that is, what is special about this gift, this gifted teaching, right? The chukki kappa, this whatever treasure gift, right?

This special treasure that is this teaching of, of the Buddha, what, right? That this is to understand what it is that's so special about the Buddha's teaching is, um, I guess, right? Um, specifically explained, like, shepa de nyi, right?

It's, it's, um, exactly in explaining what's profound about it, or something. I don't know. Like, it's, it's, I don't know how those are connected.

But sabmo, she, shepa seems to be that somehow, like, by the fact that he explained this profound thing. Yeah. Which is that.

Yeah. Is it, I think it's, it's saying something like that is what's special about these teachings is that they are profound in the sense that they are free of any elaboration, or that they, they are profound in the sense that they explain freedom from elaboration of, you know, that things have any of the extremes. And they are, and they're thus beyond existence and non-existence.

And I think, right, seeing that is, is the path, right? Lam gyi mikpa yupa, yu me len depe. Oh, that's seeing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mikpa is seeing here. Yeah, that's good.

That makes sense. Yeah, right. Um, seeing that, uh, that freedom of elaboration, right?

Which goes beyond thinking of things as existing or not existing, in the sense of, um, you know, not coming from us, or, or meaning that taking care of people doesn't matter that when you see that the path somehow balances that you understand the world is coming from you, at the same time, that you could never think that it doesn't matter how you take care of one another, that you see that that is the path, that understanding, I assume.

[Speaker 3]
Then what is terroir doing?

[Speaker 1]
Terroir, uh, looking. Yeah, that's right. A treasure hunt, again, right?

Like, this is, um.

[Speaker 3]
Is there a verb?

[Speaker 1]
No, I think. Yeah, like, to give, to, like, gift, to bestow, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think I wrote set us on the path in this case. Set us on the path. Yeah, but my guess is that Kupa and terroir are, like, Yeah.

helping each other here. I think so, yeah, yeah. Especially because this gift, right, is like this deathless nectar, right?

Chi-mei-dutsi. Right, yeah. Well, the state of, which is the state beyond all grief.

Yeah, I think we're on the right path. I mean, I think with what we've talked about so far, I could construct quite a good, a pretty accurate translation. Alex is asking here, does without elaboration mean, oops, seeing emptiness directly or an intellectual understanding of the nature of things?

The way that this pair, meaning Nagarjuna's old books and Gya-tseb-che commenting on it and how much they use the term without elaboration, I think that it could mean, I think they use it pretty loosely, like where you can interpret it either as an intellectual understanding or a direct perception of emptiness. Because his point over and over again is that that is, he's kind of equating a true drill, like, you know, being free of elaboration with just the true nature of reality. So, yeah, I guess it seems like he's usually making reference to arias and so forth as seeing.

But also like elaboration and wrong conception or something are almost synonymous. And so an intellectual understanding of emptiness almost implies like a unelaborative understanding of emptiness, right? Where you're, you have an idea of emptiness, right?

It's a conception of emptiness. And so it seems to me, especially saying freedom from elaboration and using the word lam-tath, that it is, my sense is it's exactly describing the direct perception of emptiness here. Because there is no elaboration, and it is a lam, it is a path.

And it's nice that this is like a, I don't know, it's like a nice description or elaboration, if you'll excuse me, on the idea that that this is what a path is in Buddhism. The path to Buddhahood, the path to nirvana is understanding, is an understanding which is not wrapped up in thinking things exist or don't exist in the wrong ways. Right on.

Yeah. And yeah, he's going deep here. He's talking about nirvana.

He's talking about transcending it, transcending the idea that things exist or don't exist. So everything here is probably referring to the highest state of mind. Okay, cool.

Anybody else have anything to say about this passage? All right. I see somebody waving.

You can just turn on your mic if you want to. All right. Let's see.

Let's do a little more and then we can maybe go back and look at the verses of the root text if we have time. Who would like to read? Alex Rowland, would you like to read?

[Speaker 2]
Uh-oh. Okay, wait a second. I'm on my phone.

Let me see if I can find the text somewhere here.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, no.

[Speaker 2]
Maybe not. Let's not. Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Worden, can you pick somebody? Sure.

And then think of somebody else to read the next one. Okay. Please.

I'll keep asking you because I can't see you guys here. Oh, yeah. Okay.

[Speaker 3]
Elva, maybe you want to say?

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 3]
I'm here. Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. That was great. All right.

Let's see what we got here. So, I'm thinking it's something like based on that, you know, and in that way. This all goes together.

Sorry. Sorry. Does anybody know what this means?

I liked your first. I mean, I like in your paragraph, it seems like you put it together. I did.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I agree with you. Yes, I agree with me too now.

I did then too. So, it's a comparative lay. Comparative.

So, D being this lay meaning like this in this case. So, there is no other teaching which is unique like this. Yeah.

Yeah. From MEPA working back, right? MEPA, there is no.

There is no this teaching unique. Teaching like that. That's unique.

Other than that, that's unique in that way, I guess. I guess so. And because of that, let's see.

Day cheer. Here's my because of that. And therefore, day cheer.

So, here we go. What's Rang De Kachik mean? Turkeys from our side.

Yeah, turkeys from specifically turkeys from our side, from our schools. And Shende. Turkeys from other sides.

Yeah, people who follow other schools. Hell chair. The majority of them.

Yeah. And I took this to mean some of the people within our own schools and the majority of people from other schools. Because I don't know.

I thought it would might be weird to say like the majority of people in our schools think that things exist substantially. So, he may be saying that.

[Speaker 2]
Could be. Yeah, he might be.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. No, I think you're right because Kachik literally means some. Uh-huh.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. Rang De Kachik Tong. Kachik, yeah.

Day Pell Chair. Yeah, that's a nice word. Right.

The Pell Chair goes with the Shen and the Kachik goes with the Tong. That's great. Yeah, nice.

And I think that is what I was thinking at the time. I was like, oh, just one mouth from our school. Okay, Gong Sok Tse.

So, people, Gong Soks, they are Tse Tsu Yipar Mawas. What are Tse Tsu Yipar Mawas?

[Speaker 3]
Tse Tsu Yipar Mawas?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Yeah. Yes, good.

Stuff exists substantially. What do we mean by substantially generally and or in this case, Nick? This is the first time this word has come up in this book.

So, I think it has seemed to mean in some of the books we were studying that it means that things have parts and that things have atoms. Things have very real parts that they're based upon. Substantial could mean like six different things.

Yeah. Yeah, right. It depends on what school you're talking about.

I think I'm thinking back to Upala's book, which was using substantially a lot at some point in the last two years.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, she had a deep dive on substantial.

[Speaker 1]
Yes, and at seven years, she says, it was seven years. Sometimes in the last years, we talked about substantiality, substantiation. We would never translate with the word substantiation or unlikely to.

Okay, so I think that's pretty straightforward. I mean, roughly, just for the kids at home, I mean, is that wrong? Are things not made of stuff?

Oh, I see. According to people within Rongdaes that are not Kachiks, like a middleweight practitioner would say that things are made of other things, but not ultimately. That that's not the most profound way that they exist.

Here's one to chew on. It's a middleweight practitioner, as I understand it, would say that it's true that things are made of parts, but they would just go a bit deeper and say that the parts are also made of parts and those parts are made of parts and nothing. The further you dive, you'll never find the partless part that is the part to end all parts, and that everything is made of other things until you go far enough and you realize that there's always this very important ingredient that is the projected image from your mind, which is coming from a karmic seed that you planted based on how kind or unkind you were with others.

And this is like our critique of people who think that you are the parts of your body. Yeah, specifically, we're talking about Pungpoists, heapers, heapists. So what am I in some way that helps me in some uniquely Buddha-taught way if I'm not my body and mind?

Like these jerks, the turkeys, most of these turkeys, most of the other guys, and even some of our turkey guys seem to think essentially that I am my body and mind. I mean, most of us probably think that, yes. Yeah, I mean, I kind of do.

I think I do, yeah, most of the time, if not, you know, if I'm ever thinking about it. So what's wrong with that? Yeah, come on.

Well, what's wrong with it is it makes you a jeyuparmawa. Well, maybe I'm okay with that. I mean, I don't even know what that means.

I mean, I guess a little bit I do, but how am I better off not thinking that? Yeah, according to the Middle Way, if you think that things are made of stuff, then at some point, you're stuck being a turkey. But if stuff's not made of stuff, if stuff isn't made of things, which are final, but rather can infinitely be broken down until you can get to the point where you realize that they all include a component that is emitting from the seeds in your mind, then you potentially won't be a turkey one day.

Then you have the power to be vegetarian, to not be a turkey. Great. Yeah, that's better.

Right. For those substantialists who believe you are what you eat. Exactly.

If you think you truly exist and you truly want to harm those who harm you, yeah, that's a good idea. That's a good point, too. Yeah.

If you think that your parts are real, and somebody's trying to hurt you, then you'd probably try to hurt them first or back. Also a very good point. Problem with substantialism.

A problem with thinking that things are substantial. Great point. Yeah.

I guess you would also feel like stuck with your lot in life, stuck with what you're stuck with, stuck with this body and this mind, stuck with the way things are, because you are your body and mind. Whatever you got in the body and mind lottery, that's your deal. That's what you're stuck with, because if those things are what they have to be, then it doesn't depend on the way that you see them.

Then on the other hand, if it does depend on the way you see your body and mind, see your lot in life or something, see your problems that, I don't know, maybe you can not have to see them as problems, or you could even see a life that benefits you instead of a life that pains you, and you could still be looking at the same life. We could be looking at the same life, the same experience side by side, and one person says, oh, you're so lucky, and the other person says, oh, my life's such a pain. That's what I meant by turkey.

Turkeyists. Are you not? The turkeyists.

That's a good translation of Zesu Yebarmawa's. Aha. Okay.

Here we go. Let's try to get a little more, because we've got only a few minutes left, and then we will continue this discussion for another 15 minutes purely about practicality, which is what you're going into. Let's see what I translated that as.

Because worldly people who profess that the parts of a person exist substantially do not teach the profound idea that things are free of elaboration. So here we're referring back to the root text, talking about why is the teaching of the Buddhas something that is unique, and it's because it doesn't teach, because other, I guess, chiktenpas, or worldly people, they talk about things existing substantially as the parts of a person. Zesu Yebarmawa.

Yebarmawa is like somebody who says, they go around saying, pungpur, that they are the parts of us, our body and mind. Dzeyuki, substantially. Dedak tridrel sammamawamepa.

There are no mawas, or professors, people who claim the profound absence of elaboration. These guys don't do that. Dedaks.

These don't do that. They don't say that. So that's why the teaching of the Buddhas was something so special.

And it makes sense. I mean, if you study some of this other stuff, there really aren't, as far as I know, any other philosophical schools of that time that go around saying that none of these parts of a person exist substantially. I think everybody landed on something as existing substantially.

Yeah, this is what we're discussing, the unique features of the teachings of the Buddhas. Cool. So that's cool.

It's interesting. I mean, it is one of the things that attracted me to want to learn more about this particular lineage of teachings, because I found it fascinating that the deeper you dive, the more that you can wrestle with the idea that the thing you thought was there is not there. And I mean, in my life, that was just the most true thing I think I had ever come across philosophically.

Here's a little more. Do you want to have somebody read again? Do you have someone in mind?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah. How, if she's still here? I don't know if she's here.

How are you here?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Okay.

[Speaker 3]
Will you read, please? Thank you. Great.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. And for those of you who are learning to read, this crazy looking word is ma, it's pronounced ma. Kind of confusing.

So, Ben, you can stop me if I'm wrong here, but I believe that they're referring to Kapila. Yeah, right. It's literally like seer, right?

Rishi. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Rishi, right?

[Speaker 1]
Great Sage Kapila taught that all existing things can be categorized into 25 divisions, right? Yeah, right. Okay.

So, oops, sorry. Something's popping up on my computer. So, I'm just trying to break this down.

So, Jongsang Sirgya is the Great Sage Kapila or the Great Seer Kapila. Seja Tamche. So, Seja is, if you've been studying with us for a while, you know that this comes up in Adam's texts a lot.

It's just one way to say stuff, all stuff. The known universe. Yeah.

The known universe. That's a great way to put it because it's literally what it says. Things that you know with your mind.

Tamche, all of them. Nishutsanga, 25. Che, I think it's kind of like divisions divided into.

Yeah. Parmawe. So, these are professors of the 25 parts.

Professors of all stuff being divided into 25 parts. So, therefore, Dejesu, followers of him, Jesu Drangwe, they called them Drangjempas. Counts and counts.

For those of you who don't know, there's a fun show called Sesame Street for Children where there's a count who counts everything, including turkeys. So, I said numerous. Is that where you landed, Ben, in your book?

I think that's right. I think that's what we ended up saying. All right.

And I put a little number here. It happens to be 26, which means I'm going to find some kind of footnote. What did I say?

Something interesting from Ben's first book. I didn't do it yet, okay? Give me a break.

I'm working hard over here, but I didn't. I'm going to do that next. But I thought actually.

Sorry. He explains it pretty well here. I mean, I think it's always nice to cross pollinate.

You don't have to say a lot else, but you can say, hey, go find more information in the other fine works of the Mixed Nuts. Yeah. Yeah, I don't need to put all 25 divisions in a footnote.

No, you could just send them to go buy the book. That's probably what I'll do. Although in the past, some of our books do have things like, we'll just include the 25 divisions in a footnote.

You could. I mean, some of them, they're a little bit intuitive. You could just say like five senses and five elements and five.

Oh, good. The count is in the chat. I see that now.

That's fantastic. He should be on the cover of your book. That's a good idea, at least in the Sankyo section.

Yeah, an illustration. Okay. Oh, I missed that guy.

The Illustrated Siddhanta. Yeah, I'm always still kind of into that show, so it's pretty good. That's one of the few pictures known still available with Kapila.

Something you have to look forward to as your baby grows into television age. Okay, so that's it for attempting translation together today. Good captioning, that is the great sage.

But we can keep the discussion going. I'm not going to keep the text open unless anybody feels the need to reference a particular part, but we can just talk about this a little bit. Anyone want to share thoughts?

It's mostly been me and Ben talking about practical aspects of this or just how this understanding affects us, but what do you guys think? Do you think it could be useful in everyday life to investigate whether or not we are substantially our parts? Do you think there's something unique and special about exploring the idea that maybe our parts aren't atoms?

Does it seem like we are our parts and that our parts can be divided into small atoms or instances? Did anyone ever get that feeling? I think it seems like it.

To me, it really seems like my body could be reduced. Yeah, that is what we're taught in school. That's what Upala says, and that's true.

We learn from an early age that our physical bodies can be reduced to atoms, or at this point in time, subatomic particles. Oh, there's a little dog in here. I've never seen this dog in my house before.

Okay, speaking of small parts. Okay, I wanted to get it to show you, but it ran away. Yeah, I didn't have subatomic particles when I was in elementary school, but when I got to college, I studied a lot of physics, and then I took modern physics as well, so we studied all those ideas, subatomic particles, etc., and even the physics involved with, I mean, the mathematical equations involved with calculating subatomic stuff, which is really interesting, and most of you probably are aware of this, but when you get into the mathematical equations that describe the subatomic world and anything quantum, it's all probability.

The equations are all probability equations. They're not, according to math, anything, any particularly, nothing is fixed. Everything is based on probability.

So, even in that, come here, little tiny dog. Even in that, I think this dog's name is actually Tiny Dog. Maybe we are made up of lots of dogs.

I feel like I could do a better job of leading this discussion to somewhere, but that's a good idea, Alex, and I doubt... I was thinking of this debate we had years ago at Diamond Mountain where you could trick somebody by talking about whether things were different or the same, and so people say, like, oh, I'm a different guy from the guy who had this discussion, or the guy who started this discussion is a different guy than the guy who's at the end of the discussion, and like, yeah, that's true in a way, but it's also nonsense in a way, or I wouldn't remember the earlier discussion. If you say you're not the same person who entered the room, then you can't walk across the room. So, of course, you're the same person who entered the room, but in a way, you're different than the person who entered the room.

So, are you the same or are you different? We have this tendency to see things in extremes, to think that sameness and different are opposites somehow. In fact, for a thing to change, it has to stay the same in the sense of having the same name, or you can't say it changed.

You can't say there's a thing that changed unless there's a thing that keeps getting called thing that's different at one time than it is at another time. There are a lot of these dichotomies, extremes that we get ourselves wrapped up in. Is a sprout a tree, says Utpala?

Well, in a way, the sprout is the thing that became the tree. But do you know that the percentage of the biomass of a tree that came from the sprout is so small? Mostly a tree is cellulose, carbon taken from the air, transformed into plant matter through the power of photosynthesis.

Very little of that tree is the seed, and yet we say the seed is the thing that becomes the sprout, is the thing that becomes the tree. So which is it really? It just depends on the way you think about it and this idea of freedom from extremes.

In some ways, it's useful to understand. Of course, the seed is the thing that turns into the tree. In some ways, it's useful to understand.

Of course, there is so little to nothing left over of that seed. I have a son who looks conspicuously like me, and the percentage of physical material I contributed to that endeavor is so small, it's impossible and yet undeniable. You can see it right in his otherwise handsome little face.

Am I the same or am I different? Do they exist or do they not exist? Does the tree exist as a continuation of the seed, or does it not?

You can look at it in different ways that are at different times. It must depend on the way you think. It's all tricks.

It's all tricks to get you to see that these things that seem to be contradictory, they're not contradictory. It just depends on the way you think, and the way you think depends on seeds, depends on habits, depends on tendencies, depends on predispositions. Are things beautiful or not?

That's what I was going to say. I'm sorry. Please, you go ahead.

No, it's fun. It's great. I'm glad we're having this discussion.

One thing I'm hoping that we can achieve by having these mixed nuts, Schoenzang Tower, Diamond Cutter Classics classes is to breed a caliber of students who are high, who are really thinking through some of this stuff that we're studying in a deep way. I think the discussion that you're bringing up now, Ben, helps because I feel like you have practitioners who are just embarking, and then you get really swept up in some of this deep language. You're not even the same person from moment to moment.

It's like, well, that's cool, and that's deep, but let's keep going. I feel like that's one place to take your spiritual studies and practice. What I think is special about our classes is we're really forcing and encouraging each other to examine what the heck we really mean by that, and what's the real implication, because just being mystified by stuff is not always enough.

I hope that's clear what I'm saying. What you were saying reminded me of the story of the boat. You know that one where there's two boats?

There's two boats side by side, and one of them needs repairs, and there's another boat next to it that's totally full of really good wood. The old boat, every time it needs a new plank of wood, they pull a piece of wood off the new boat, and they replace the pieces of wood on the old boat with the pieces of wood from the new boat. Then over 20 or 30 years or something, they replace every single plank of wood on the old boat with a plank of wood from the new boat.

Then you have to think, well, which boat is it now? This boat that was the old boat, now is it the old boat, or is it the new boat? It's another mental exercise to show you that it's whatever you label it as, really.

It's not really one or the other.

[Speaker 3]
It's the ship of Theseus.

[Speaker 1]
The ship of Theseus, I think, yeah. It's a cool story. Yeah, sure.

It's the same boat. If you want to say it's the same boat, it depends on how you think about it. Yeah, and it's the seed in the sprout that each in the garden is so often, or that I'm hammering on a lot these days, if you watch my classes.

Yeah, yeah. Anybody else? You could never have a...

I'm sorry. Please, yeah, good. It'd be great.

Gibson in the chat. Oh, good. I think now there's a thing called appearance anxiety.

You mean like I'm afraid how I'm going to appear really gray? Maybe it's due to that we think we are made by atomic and substantial. Then the direct way we think is to go into plastic surgery instead to go the deeper way.

Oh, that's cool. Yeah, people in general are concerned about how we look, and that is certainly the cause for people undergoing plastic surgery and spending a lot of money on facial care products and whatnot. I agree.

Appearance anxiety. It's probably not a new thing. I mean, maybe the name is new, but I bet you it's a good point, man.

I wonder if people understand emptiness, would they not risk their life with plastic surgery? Potentially. I don't know.

Master Shanti Davis says it's all about not getting angry. I'll let you know if I can stop getting angry, and then we'll see if I get handsomer. You seem pretty handsome and happy, Nick.

I don't get angry much, but let's see what Aldo says. I think it is interesting to think deeper about what is really the base of reality. Yeah, me too.

Of what creates your body and what it is made of, what things are made of. Is it substantial, atoms and subatomic particles, or is there something else like kindness, how you treat others? One of the first things that I started reversing in my mind when I started studying this stuff was, I think in the Western mindset, we assume, or at least those of us who are scientifically minded, we assume that the mind is a byproduct of the physical body.

Since Aristotle, it's taken as a given that the mind is this byproduct of the physical, the brain or whatever, chemical interactions. Then I was like, oh, maybe it's the exact reverse. This is what it seems like when you start to study yoga, yoga philosophy, and all of the stuff that is within the Buddhist teachings, then it's kind of pointing to the idea that the body is a byproduct of the mental processes.

It goes deeper than that, but I just think reversing that idea is cool. Could you make a middle way argument that both are true? Yeah, I think that's where I was going.

It aligns with what we've been saying, that it's not necessarily one way or the other, but it's both things. I like to think of a bridge, like an arch, where the right side of the bridge is leaning on the left side of the bridge, and the left side of the bridge is leaning on the right side of the bridge. We want to think that the mind depends on objects.

The lower school says that, that there's objects out there, and that triggers a state of mind. Then the mind-only school says that somehow stuff out there only exists by leaning upon mind. Then the middle way says somehow they depend on each other.

It almost feels wrong. How could they both be holding up each other? But it's not so wrong.

The same thing seems almost wrong when you look at a bridge, when you look at an arch. How could the right side be holding up the left side at the same time that the left side is holding up the right side? But they are.

They are. If one was doing more of the work than the other, it wouldn't work. It would fall over.

As we saw recently. Yeah, right, as we have seen. Yeah, it's true.

It's like the middle way is the keystone school. Yeah, that's cool. That's nice.

It's very cool. All right, well, this is a very fun and interesting discussion. We should start a podcast.

This has been a really fun class. Thank you, all you Xuansangs. And to our fans and friends and supporters and participants, please keep coming.

Please subscribe to our Good Night Book Club. But mostly just keep coming and keep studying with us and become people who challenge each other to think even more deeply about the nature of reality and challenge us. We're really grateful for you all.

Now, I will hand it over to Mr. Juan Hasso for the Peachtree World News. And after that, I will stick around for a one hour Q&A. Geshe Michael's on an airplane.

So for the second hour, if you all would like to stick around, we can discuss more about this or other ideas, whatever you would like. All right. All right.

Come on, Juan. Hello, Mustachio, as he's known. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Nick and Ben. And yes, you say correctly, Geshe Michael, according to our inner sources, is just flying, crossing the big ocean.

And you may wonder why he's crossing the big ocean. So he was teaching in Asia, first in Kyoto and then in Shanghai. And luckily, we have special agents all over the world traveling around the globe.

And we want to present you a very special person who share with us some of the latest news that are happening in Shanghai. This person is our dear friend, Rob Haggerty. As you know, he's helping Geshe Michael as personal assistant these days.

And luckily, he's also a very good friend involved with Peachtree World News. So he was sharing us these pictures that we want to share with you of this latest event in Shanghai. So we hear that there is a lot of Dharma celebrities who attended this event.

You can see Jamie Lang, Masha and Peter Mortel, Jasmine Zhao, Vivian Xiaoping, Changtang Stanley, Wang Xia, Geshe Michael, Sayarao, Rob Haggerty, Kong Weibi, who's that? Jenny Wong, Sophie Chow, Salvina and Emily Chang. That's people I can recognize over there.

And they have a great time on stage. Next picture, please. Yes, there you can see Jamie, Rob, Geshe Michael, Xiaoping translating for him.

Next picture, Stanley, Changtang also translating for Geshe Michael. I think they have a great time. It's the first time after COVID they go to mainland China.

DCI, it looks amazing. We can't wait to hear from them. How was it?

And as you know, one of the jobs that Rob is doing these days is taking care of the electronics of Geshe Michael at night. At 10pm, he goes there, takes the computer, the cell phone. He was joking.

He said this time it even includes the TV controls. And this is because the Book Night Reading Club. And we want to, as Nick was saying, and Ben has said some other times, keep encouraging you to attend the classes.

But of course, if you have the chance, if you can do it, also sign up for this very, very good project that is helping to preserve this ancient wisdom, to spread these ideas and to help our lives personally. Because when we give ourselves the time to read and sometimes rest from the electronics, our mind can get very many benefits. And we want to also remind you that Diamond Cutter Press has an online library where you can find a big, big, big compilation, the most complete compilation of titles translated or written by Geshe Michael.

And speaking of books, we just want to remind you that our friend Alex Roland, she's releasing a new book very, very soon. It's a book about how to use the SEED system, especially mainly in the business area. You can find the QR code in the next picture.

I think in winter 2024 is going to be a big publishing date, but you can start checking for more information right now in the QR code. We had an interview with her. It seems that it's a great book for like introduction for beginners who want to understand more about the system.

So it may make a great gift or present for birthdays or Christmas or other occasions. Maybe very good. Lastly, well, not really, really lastly, but next, let's put it next.

Yes, as you know, we have a big event about to happen in the next week. It's called Steps on the Path, the Modern Peacock Warrior. And we have a very special guest with us who wants to talk about it.

Guess who is she? Paulina.

[Speaker 3]
Hi, everyone.

[Speaker 1]
Yes. Can you, Marina, help us to spot? Yes.

How are you?

[Speaker 3]
Good. Thank you. Good to see you all.

I am in Argentina, actually very far away. That's where I used to be, at least.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, you were showing us the pictures of your place. As for you, that may not know, Pachi, Paulina and Shanti just moved to Argentina for some time and they're having a great time in a very beautiful kind of, how do you say in English? Not farm, but like how to say Casa de Campo.

Well, you know, feel ranch in the middle of nature. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So tell us, you and Pachi are helping to produce part of this event.

Can you tell us what is new about what surprises that we have for people today?

[Speaker 3]
Well, as you all know now, this amazing event, amazing retreat is starting this weekend. And the big news is that we have available for everyone who wants to join the first day for free. Wow.

What day is it? Actually, the retreat starts April 12th. OK.

The free day is going to be the next day. So you can join the whole day, the whole program of this Saturday, which is the 13th, Saturday 13th. OK.

Because, you know, unfortunately, the retreat is full. We have full house right now, which is also great. But you can all join online.

And yes, the first day is going to be free. But I hope you can join. I don't know.

Let's stay for the whole retreat, the 10 days retreat.

[Speaker 1]
But I have somebody who wants to talk more about all the details. What if we invite the ACI director, global director, Tim Loewenhaupt? Wow.

Is he around? Let's invite him over. Is Tim around?

Can we spotlight him if he's around? Oh, wow.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, he's here. Where are you? Don't worry about it, Juan.

I'm on assignment.

[Speaker 1]
OK, cool. Daytime there. Still is.

Yep. Great. So tell us, can you tell us a little bit more details on this special, I don't know, deal?

People can come free for the first day. They can sign up online. I think it's going to be amazing.

[Speaker 2]
Right. Yeah. So the very first day on Friday evening, we're going to have a very special celebration.

It's called the offering to our teachers. And everybody's welcome to join that. It's a beautiful, beautiful offering where we imagine our dear teachers and we make and we bring beautiful things to give them in our mind.

And sometimes we and then at the actual celebration itself. And then the second day, as Paulina said, apart from in addition to Geshe Michael's classes on the modern peacock warrior, which we're going to be talking about the six qualities of this peacock warriors, beginning with generosity. We're then going to be doing a whole program on Jurche, which is called the meditation song to teach all of you how to do a real sadhana practice, like a real daily practice that's open and it's available for you to learn the structure and how to go into retreat.

It even has a special mantra as well. And we're hoping that you all will join us that first day to learn about it. And then if you would like to join the full event, you can then sign up after that first day and learn more, learn, go deeper into the practice.

And then we'll also be giving you instructions on how to do a deeper retreat so you can do a three-day retreat with the rest of us in your own home.

[Speaker 1]
That's wonderful, Tim. And how can people sign up for the very first day?

[Speaker 2]
That's a good question, Juan. If they go to that QR code, they can sign up for the free package, the donation-only package, and then they can get all the information for the free day. And then if they want to join the paid package, they can do so after day one.

[Speaker 1]
Awesome. Thank you very much, Tim. Excited to be part of this event and we'll see you soon.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you. Have a good day, everyone. Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
You too. Okay. So finally, just in order to finish and go back to the Q&A with Dr. Nicholas Shaw, I say I was, I have been collecting some material that I had the great opportunity to visit Kyoto. I want to share with you these things. So I prepared one more video of some very cool thing that happened in Kyoto.

[Speaker 3]
I want to share it with you. Geshu Michael recommend people in class visiting this special place. And here I am sharing it with you.

So I hope you enjoy. You can go to the bathroom, do whatever, or watch this video.

[Speaker 1]
And maybe let's check if audio is possible.

[Speaker 3]
No audio.

[Speaker 1]
Can people hear the audio? Well, if the audio is not working, we are almost close to the, how to say, to the time. We can save this video for next time.

And we can just start a Q&A because yeah, without the sound doesn't make more sense. It has a lot of history and talk and stuff. So we can try next time and we just go with Nick one minute earlier.

All right. Well, I'm ready to go. And we can go home one minute earlier that way.

Thank you Juan and Alex and Pal and everybody. No, thank you. I mean, I'm going to share this video some other time with you.

It's very cool. But for now, it's a good time to go to you. I'm going to translate into the Spanish.

So I'm signing up. Thank you Paulina so much. Thank you Gina, Marina for helping us.

Thank you Aldo, Nicolas Shaw and back to you. I'm changing my gear to translate. All right Juan.

Thank you. Thank you. All right.

Hi everybody. Thank you everybody.