Сугэн Ши — Книга 2: Колесо жизни (первый принцип и подразделения зависимости), занятие 11

[Speaker 1]
We did five folio slides, which is five pages western way. Again, don't expect it to go very fast by page number, because... Page number...

Don't worry so much about the page number, because we're dealing with the tenure. We're dealing with those huge, huge blogs. They're going to be almost twice as long as like Ben's text or something.

You see what I mean? Each page is going to be twice as big. So don't worry too much about the pages.

If we don't split it up, it's going to be... Two and a half pages long. That's too heavy even to hit your husband with shin chen.

You might do some permanent damage. So I think we should split it into two pieces. And that way it's not a seven-year project.

It's just a two and a half years project or something like that. So I suggest we make... That's 200 books, like the same as this one.

And that's a convenient size, I think. And that way we can also sell more books, Sugeng. Because they're only going to get halfway through the 12 links.

And since the links have numbers, they're going to know that they're only halfway through. Okay. Okay.

We got to ask Aisha and John Campbell and Vimala and Miroj to try to find... I think they couldn't find any Sanskrit for this yet. But it would be helpful if we could find it.

And again, we don't have any help on this book. There's no commentaries. There's no Sanskrit.

It's like you fell in the Pacific Ocean and someone threw you a ring. And in a way it's better because you just have to make decisions. You have to make executive decisions.

And there's nobody to ask. No lama has taught this book in a thousand years. Nobody has written a commentary.

It's an incredible book because as we're going to read, Master Vasubandhu was in mind-only mode when he wrote this. So it's a very important book. Okay.

We're also adding another 67 pages to the book with the biography of Vasubandhu. And we're adding the original sutra, which is another... I don't know.

It's another... It's going to be a hundred more pages. Yeah.

This commentary though has a very fixed structure and it's going to be fun to go through it. Okay. It treats the 12 links very clearly.

And he stops one link and he goes to the next link. It's not like Kedrup Tenpa Dagye. So it's going to be kind of more easy to just go step by step and we'll know where we are.

Okay. Now we're going to have some fun at the beginning.

[Speaker 2]
Sugeng, why? Because we are going to read the biography, the story. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Let's go see if he cut his tongue out again or...

[Speaker 2]
While we are here, can I ask a question? Yeah. So I noticed there are three parts in this text.

First is the biography of Vasubandhu and then the biography of the writer of the biography, Yeshe... I forgot the name. And also the text itself.

So should I move all these two into the appendix, a big appendix or how?

[Speaker 1]
I think normally when you're telling about the author, you put it in the introduction if it's not too long. It doesn't get distracting. The tradition in Western books is that people like to know about the guy who wrote the book.

[Speaker 2]
So how about the numbering? So I should have three sets of numbering paragraphs.

[Speaker 1]
I think what our great editor has been doing, which is Utpala, she's been... She created a standard where we number each different text separately. So for example, in her book, we have Nagarjuna, we have Kamalashila, we have Chonin Lama, we have Pabongka, we have Trisang.

Trisang. We have five. So then she put K like T1, T2, P1, P2, C1, C2.

And I think that's good because the purpose of the section numbers is like, especially if you're teaching a class, you can tell your students, please go to section C3 in the book. And then they're going to say they don't have a book. And you're going to say, I can't believe you didn't buy a book here.

So I think Utpala's suggestion is probably good. Okay, I'll refer to her book and learn. Yeah.

Don't get too attached to the section divisions yet. They will change. We'll decide this one needs to be split, or we'll decide, like we just did with Nix, we split a few of them.

Okay. So don't worry too much. When you get to the section numbers, it's out of your hands.

Then you're already on to your next book. Okay. Okay, thank you.

All right. Here we go. Sugeng is reading.

And Tim, are you in the mood? Sure. Okay.

[Speaker 3]
If you can make a purposeful mistake, Sugeng, for us to learn.

[Speaker 2]
This is the biography, right? Yeah, we're inside the biography.

[Speaker 1]
We're going to take sort of a, I tried to limit the biography to one or two classes. So we won't finish the biography for a few terms. I don't want you to do biography the whole term.

I'm just going to have you do maybe one or two classes of biography. And then we'll go to the actual text. Because I don't want you to lose your train of thought on the text itself.

Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. All right. Okay.

Let's start. Okay. Very good.

[Speaker 1]
You're going even faster. It's nice. Don't try to go fast, but you're doing well.

Dene means what, you guys?

[Speaker 3]
Dene.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, and Dene. Lopon is Acharya, right? Acharya.

Master. Parpa. Sugeng.

Arya. Arya. Togme.

Asanga. Yeah, his older half-brother. Okay.

Okay. Now, in the ancient times, sometimes le is spelled la. So this, I'm not going to change it, but it means he studied le.

Le Asanga. He studied from Asanga. What did he study?

Thegpa chenpo. Mahayana. Yeah, and he studied the...

So de means sutra pitaka. Pitaka, the basket of sutras. How many?

Tadak. Each and every. Yeah, Tadak is just a very strong word for kun.

Each and every one. What's sen means, you guys? Honorific, to listen.

Yeah, similar to thupa. He honorably listened. Now, 20 bucks for the next part.

Oh, wait. Give me tuk-su-chu first. That's for free.

Tuk-su-chu. Deep in his heart. You just had it, right?

It's similar to the chup in Changchun. He got it. He totally got it.

Tuk-su-chu means he really got it. Now, for 20 bucks, tell me len-re-tsam. Each of his answers?

Nope, this len doesn't mean answer. It could have meant. In that instance.

But what's it mean? It means he got it right when he learned it. Right when he heard it.

Yeah, I'll give you 10 bucks, okay? Yeah, it means he just had to hear it once. He mastered, totally mastered, every sutra the first time he heard it.

Each one, the first time he heard it. How many sutras did he learn? We're about to hear 500, okay?

And he got it perfectly the first time he heard it. Okay, got it? So, Ali, 10 dollars for the handsome guy.

Okay, keep going. Now you guys can fight over who that is. All right, go ahead, Sugai.

Oh, Tim, still checking, okay?

[Speaker 2]
chak dor gyi wang dang dam ngak sen te sung ngak nge le nge pe nge pe nge pe nge pe nyur du druk te lak te la de nyik gi shal sik Shal sik, good. Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Who's Jam Gun?

[Speaker 3]
Lord Maitreya.

[Speaker 1]
Lord Maitreya, yeah. Don't forget he's been having discussions with Lord Maitreya. What was his problem?

[Speaker 2]
Maitreya said you're never gonna see him in this life. It will be next life if you really study well, comment well on the Ayana Sutra.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, because you put down the hinayana, right? He followed, katar means he followed the ka of Maitreya. This is the same ka as in Kangyur.

The words. Yeah, and here ka can also mean the command of a king. Okay, he followed the command of Maitreya.

And he did this druk, which is present tense. He druk, druk, druked his Lhagpe Lhag. His super deity.

Okay, more deity than deity. Lhagpa here means your personal deity. So for Sugeng, it's Shinten, right?

No, your personal Buddha is called Lhagpe Lhag, okay? Your special deity, okay? For some people, it's Nesambuddha.

For some people, it's Avalokiteshvara. For some people, it's Tara. This druk means try to reach her, or try to reach him.

This is the druk in the rituals called sadhana. He tried to... that's tantra.

That's Vajrayana. You try to reach the deity. That's the whole thing.

She means honorific. He agreed. He decided.

He got advice from Maitreya. He said, you know, I want you to try to reach some kind of tantric deity. I want you to practice.

I want you to try to reach some kind of your own special deity. Nick's got two.

[Speaker 3]
He's playing, right?

[Speaker 1]
Well, I don't know about this. Two and a half. He said, if you want to try to reach your special angel, then you're going to have to go find a Dorje Lopan.

Diamond master. Yeah, a diamond master, okay? Again, this LHA means lay, okay?

Which means... From that diamond master, he got... They don't name the diamond master, which is unfortunate.

They just say he found a diamond master and he got the wang. Empowerment. He got the empowerment for Namgyalma.

This is the lady of victory. Jetson means the holy lady of victory. Her name is Vijaya.

It's one of the tantric deities. He also got the wang for Chakma Dorje. Vajrapani.

Vajrapani. Not to be confused with... Vajradhara.

Vajradhara, which is Dorje Chang, right? Okay, Vajrapani. Vajrapani.

I like to call Vajrapani holder of the diamond, and I like to call Vajradhara keeper of the diamond, and then I keep them separate. Holder is more in the hand, right? Vajrapani.

Okay, all right. Chak Dorje Wang, he got the initiation, and he got the dangar. Advices.

Yeah, dangar means private advices. The teacher took him into the kitchen, and they taught him privately. The private advices for...

You notice it doesn't say he got those for Vijaya. He just got them for Vajrapani, okay? Zen honorific, he listened.

And then, Sugeng, he recited the sungak. Or the dharani. Yeah, he recited the dharani and the mantra, okay?

Or you could say dharani, okay? He recited them, and he nyur du dru. Nyur du dru.

Yeah. Okay, look over here, first line. Bus group.

Drup, drup, drup, drup. Try to reach, try to reach, try to reach, try to reach. Then, drup.

He did it. Reached it. Reached it.

This G is a real English D, okay? Drup. Drup.

This one is trub. Trub. Trub.

Okay? There's a joke in Tibetan. They say, drup, drup, drup, drup, drup.

Trub. Okay? Try, try, try, try, try, try.

Reach. He reached it, okay? And this is the drup and mudrup, for example, okay?

All right. And he met those two deities shell-to-shell. Face-to-face.

Face-to-face, okay? He met them face-to-face, okay? This is the polite word for to see, and we see it in the name of...

Chenrezig. Chenrezig. Okay?

He saw those two deities face-to-face. He could talk to them and meet them, okay? Cool?

That's a nice... You know, when you think about the person who wrote the Abhidharmakosha, you're thinking, oh, he doesn't know about emptiness, and he's never practiced Vajrayana, and here he did, okay? By the way, I got to say, and I can't help it, Utpala, there's several sentences in her text where it specifically says, Tsongkapa said, if you really master the mind-only school, it's enough to finish tantra.

The understanding of emptiness in the mind-only school is enough to reach Buddhahood. And I was like, wow! I got more respect for the mind-only school.

All right, here we go.

[Speaker 3]
To actually reach enlightenment? Total enlightenment? I thought it got you just almost there, and then you had to go over to Prasangika.

[Speaker 1]
Check it again and tell me next class. Tomorrow. Check it again.

In your text.

[Speaker 3]
In Choney Lama.

[Speaker 1]
In Choney Lama.

[Speaker 3]
Okay. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, let's go, you guys. By the way, he's quoting Tsongkapa. Yeah.

Okay, go ahead.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, Nick is checking. Yay, Nick. Okay, cool.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, for 20 bucks. It's Chunkar Duchen, Chunkar Duchen.

[Speaker 3]
Oh, the white, white conch?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, the, no, sorry. Chunkar Duchen. Chunkar.

[Speaker 3]
It's a holiday, isn't it?

[Speaker 1]
It is a holiday, Chunkar. It's the birthday. Chunkar means birthday.

Chunkar means birthday, okay? It means, that car means karma, the star of the birth, the star of the birth, okay? It's not the Sanskrit karma.

It's the Tibetan karma, okay? So, chung means honorific for? To be born.

Kewa, it's kewa, high honorific, high polite word. We don't say sanga kewa. We, or we, basang bandhu kewa.

We say chung, okay? High honorific word, okay? But it's not that he was born.

That thing in Zen was born. The single pointed? Yeah.

This go means like many doors of meditation were opened to him inside of his tuk, inside of his holy heart, which is honorific for what, Sugen? Anyin? Sem.

Oh, sem. Yeah, yeah. How do you say thank you in Tibetan?

[Speaker 3]
Tuk che che.

[Speaker 1]
Tuk che che. It means, oh, your great beautiful heart, your great Lord heart. It's a beautiful word for thank you, okay?

How do you say it in Indonesian?

[Speaker 3]
Tonglen.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Oh, what's it mean, terima kasih? Does it have a meaning?

Tonglen. You can take, tonglen. Take a knee?

Yeah. Wow, wow, nice. Okay, so anyway, many doors of deep meditation were opened inside of his heart, okay?

Were born inside of his heart. And he took suchupa. We just had it.

Yeah, I immediately got it.

[Speaker 2]
He totally grasped all the ka of the gyalwas. All the teaching, all the words of the Lord. Yeah, good, the victorious Buddha.

[Speaker 1]
Victorious Buddha. Which existed in Zambuling. Zambuling, the Jawa Dweepa?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
On the planet. Right, yeah. And it's a way to say in the whole world.

Yeah. He mastered all the, he mastered every sutra that was surviving in the world in his time, okay? He mastered all of them, okay?

Whoa. All right. What is a supakita?

Oh, which were existing in the world, or it literally means sitting in the world, okay? Sitting in the world. Okay, thanks.

By the way, every title in Tibetan has the word shukso at the end, okay? When you say, what's the name of this book? You say, Lam Rim Shukso.

And it means you treat the knowledge inside the book as if it were a person sitting in a car, okay? You don't say, I'm studying Lam Rim. You say, I'm studying Lam Rim Shukso, you know?

So it's a very, very high word. They're treating the books as if they were people, okay? All the great books that were residing in the world, he mastered them, okay?

So it's a very holy, it's a holy word, okay? By the way, this writer is writing high honorific very nicely. Okay, all right.

I need a new victim. Ellie, you're going to check Sugeng?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah, sure.

[Speaker 1]
Are you there? Yeah, I'm here. My banker?

Okay, my American banker, okay. Okay, go.

[Speaker 2]
Sugeng, go. DOR NGA RGYA SANG SNGA GYI SUNG RGYUD DE NGA RGYA SNAM RGYA SNAM Okay.

[Speaker 1]
I'm going to put the Tuk Tzu Chu, I should have put it back here. Okay. All right.

He took Tuk Tzu Chu, which means what? Immediately grabs it. Yeah, he totally grasped the NGAN THOS KYI DE NGOS SUM, okay?

The three baskets, okay, pitika, of the listeners. And this listener doesn't mean Hinayana. This listener means, you know, put together by the great disciples.

All right. And how many sutras were in those three baskets, NGAP RGYA?

[Speaker 2]
500. Oh, 500, oh.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. SHO LO KA is the Tibetan mispronunciation of SHLO KA, which means verses in Sanskrit. And there were BUM SUM, forget the talk, okay, BUM SUM.

30,000? No. 300,000.

300,000 verses, okay. YOD PAR BYAG PA, what's BYAG PA? Famous.

Yeah, people would say that's how many were there. Actually, I'm going to revise what I said. This is a Hinayana sutra, okay?

500 Hinayana sutras in three baskets. And then as far as the THEG PA CHEN PO, right? Hinayana.

Yeah, he also grasped KHO YIN CHOG TSEG PA. This is called RATNA KUTA, which means the pile of jewels. And it's an odd section in the Kangyur.

It's one huge book of many small sutras, like the SA CHUG PAS DO is in there. The Sutra on the Ten Levels. Upali Sutra is in there.

Many, the Brahma Sutra is in there. So there are many, many. That famous one in China, the Box of Jewels, those are all in the RATNA KUTA.

It's an unusual section in the Kangyur, okay? And they can all be considered a single sutra of like many volumes, okay? DUG PA RINPOCHE DO, the Collection of Jewels, or the Precious Collection Sutra.

He also grasped the BO LO BO LO MI DO in DONG KHRAG RGYA. What's that mean, you guys? 100,000 verses?

Yeah, 100,000 verses, okay? So there's a 8,000 verse. There's a 20,000, which is really 25.

There's an 18,000. There's a 100,000, okay? He studied the big one, okay?

And he studied 500 more sutras, okay? For the Mahayana. So 500 sutras in the Hinayana and 500 sutras in the Mahayana.

Then he studied SANG SNGAG. What's that mean? Say again?

[Speaker 2]
Dharani? Mantra Dharani?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Well, SANG SNGAG means tantra, which literally means mantra, which is another name for tantra. And he studied 500 collections of ZUNG, yeah, of secret teachings. Here ZUNG just kind of means secret teachings, okay?

RGYUD means tantra, okay? RGYUD is the Tibetan word for tantra, okay? And he got all of them.

He understood all of them, okay? All right. Not bad for the guy who didn't want to study Mahayana.

All right. Alison, you're going to check again? It's fun.

Just criticize him.

[Speaker 2]
LOR RE NANG DU LEN RE GA THON DU BYED TE DE YANG TSAGS KYIS SONG RING RTE'O MAR GYIS GANG RE NANG DU SUG NE NYIN CHEN DRAL MA SAK CHO NGA RE RING LA GONG DU MUI PE DO DE NAM TSA RE GA THON DU DRO BAR ZE Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Good, okay. This is unbelievable. This is fun.

Okay, LOR RE means what? LOR RE RE? Each year.

Yeah, every year. LEN RE means one time per year, okay? LOR RE LEN RE means one time per year.

He would SVAGYA YA.

[Speaker 3]
Recite.

[Speaker 1]
Recite, yeah. Yeah, he would recite those 500 Hinayana sutras, 500 Mahayana sutras, and a big bucket. Oh, it does say 500 tantras, okay?

1,500 books. He would recite them once a year just to make sure he didn't forget them. Okay, ZETTE.

And he would go find a SHONG RING, means a bathtub. It means a long basin, okay? He would go get a bathtub made of chalk.

Iron. Yeah, the cowboys left one at Diamond Mountain. It's kind of cool.

It's an iron bathtub, okay? And he would fill it with the mar made from till.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah, sesame seed butter.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, sesame butter, okay? What's the famous example of till? Tilopa.

Tilopa. Yeah, tilopa. This is, who's teacher?

Naropa. Naropa's teacher's name is Sesame Seed Grinder. Tilopa, okay?

All right. So in those days, sesame butter was, you know, one of the main kinds of butter they used. And he would fill the bathtub with sesame butter and then NANG DU ZHU.

Get in it? Sit in it? He jumped in.

He jumped in. And then for ZHAG CHUNG RANG, ZHAG means 24-hour period, okay? For 15 days, 24 hours a day, NGON SEMS BDE, day and night, he would SVAGYAYA.

That's where he wouldn't get lonely. He would recite the 1500 sutra, the 1,000 sutras and the 500 tantras he knew by heart. That's so cool.

That's such a cool way not to get lung, right, Utpala?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah, brilliant. Let's add an appendix to my book.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, we could do it and call it the, you know, and then we could sell the sesame butter, special sesame butter, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sesame butter, special sesame butter. GONG DUNG PA'I DO. GONG DUNG PA'I DO means the sutras we mentioned before.

He would recite them SAR RE, what's that mean? Till the end. This SAR means LEN.

Oh, one time at that time? Yeah, one time each. Yeah, SAR RE means one time each, yeah.

So sometimes SAR means LEN, okay? KHA TUN DU DOR TSE, that's what he was doing, okay? Unbelievable.

Yay.

[Speaker 2]
Wow, amazing.

[Speaker 1]
I think it would work better with ice cream, Shigeng. I don't know.

[Speaker 3]
LUNG, LUNG, LUNG, LUNG.

[Speaker 1]
We can do some experiments in Singapore. Shinten can fill up the bathtub with different things and see which one works for Shigeng. I think ice cream's gonna do it, right?

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Ben Kramer, you wanna check this next one?

[Speaker 2]
Yes. Okay. SHUG RAB KYI BAR ROL DU BYIN PA RGYAS STONG PA NI NYIN RE BZHIN KA THON DU ZAD ZAD TE RGYAL BA NYANG NGAN LEN DE PAS OK TU DAG NYID CHEN PON DI LAS MANG TU LTOS PA RGYAGS CHE BA SU YANG MED TO ZHES PA YUL GYIS KHYAD PA RNAM THAM DU LEN NGO Good.

[Speaker 1]
ZHES RAB KYI BAR ROL DU BYIN PA RGYAS STONG PA What's that mean?

[Speaker 2]
STONG PA, oh, it's the Prajnaparamita? Yeah. 10,000?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, 8,000 verses, okay?

[Speaker 3]
8,000 verses.

[Speaker 1]
By the way, there was a separate, sometimes they would take it out of the Kangyur and carve it separately. And there's a priceless version at the temple in New Jersey of this book. It's a separate carving that was probably burned shortly afterwards.

So it's unbelievable. And it's exactly, it's about 1,000 pages, okay? RGYAS STONG PA NI He would recite it NYIN RAS Each day?

Every day, okay? SHIN means that present participle, okay? Every daying, okay?

He would recite it. KHATUN ZHES is honorific, okay? He would DAT DU, okay?

And then all the Khepas, I'm going to the last lines again. All the Khepas. What's Khepa?

Come on, kid, you've done it, don't you? No worries. All the masters.

The land of Pakyu. India?

[Speaker 3]
Oh, the land of the Aryas, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, the land of the Aryas is a nickname for India, okay? All of the great masters in the land of the Aryas, with DAM DU LENG means they would talk about. DAM DU LENG means they would have discussions with each other.

So DAM means discussion and LENG means to take up a discussion, okay? So all the great masters of India would get together and say, and now we have to translate these two lines in between, okay? They would say, ever since the GYAL BA NYA NEN LAS DE, ever since the Parinibbana of the Buddha.

[Speaker 3]
Nice, nice.

[Speaker 1]
Great, so again, great, great. There hasn't been any DAG NYID CHEN PO. Big, big.

Great being. Mahatma. Mahatma, yeah, great being.

KUTUPA MANG. KUTUPA MANG.

[Speaker 3]
Know it all.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, who learned this much, okay? More than this. DI LAS means more than this guy.

There hasn't been anyone who was more, RGYAL CHE BA means more broad learning. SU YANG MED DO, nobody at all. Since the Buddha passed away, there has never been anyone who was a greater, who was more learned in the scriptures than this Mahatma, okay?

Yay. They would talk about it. They'd get together in the coffee shops, or the chai shops, right, Ben?

Is Dr. Campbell there? I don't know. Yes.

[Speaker 3]
It's interesting there. Oh, that they use LAS, L-A-S, as them.

[Speaker 1]
This is comparative.

[Speaker 3]
This is comparative. Right. But it's still.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, Ben.

[Speaker 3]
Partisan.

[Speaker 1]
Than him.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Nobody more than him. Okay, good. Chintzom, you got a chance again now?

Are you awake? Is your microphone on? Chintzom.

[Speaker 2]
Yes, yes. All right, let's go, let's go. In a Jetsun Nyamngungi Khazin Tekpachempoi.

Khazin. Khazin Tekpachempoi Dondrel Nnam, Rimkyi Tsete Yangchup Lam Ki, Rimpe Mangak Ki, Nnam, Siptu Trimpa Dode Yangyi Drelpa Thang, Utta Nnamje Kyi Drelpa, Chunyi Nnam Je Kyi Drelpa. Okay, cool, cool.

[Speaker 1]
It gets a little dry here, okay, Sugen? They're just going to make a list of all the books he wrote. And so here we go.

So Janggun gave him a Kha.

[Speaker 2]
Teaching by the Lord Maitreya.

[Speaker 1]
No, what's the meaning of Kha? I told you today.

[Speaker 2]
Words.

[Speaker 1]
Is that words? Teaching? Today?

He said it has a specific meaning also. Commons?

[Speaker 2]
Commons?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good. He gave him an order. He said, listen, okay?

Okay, listen up. Okay, I saved you from suicide. I saved you from cutting your tongue out.

And I got you your tantric studies finished. And now I got something else I want you to do. I want you to dze some drelpas to the Tekpachempoi Do.

To teach, dze, no? Drelpa, drelpa, drelwa. I want you to write some commentaries on the Mahayana Sutras, okay?

That's your next job. Now that you didn't cut your tongue, now that you mastered all the scriptures, now that you can sit in a bathtub full of sesame seed oil and recite, we got to try it, okay? 1,500 books.

I'm going to recite just the Om Mani Padme Hum if I can remember the whole thing. And I want you, rim kyi means what? Like lam rim.

Yeah, I want you to work through the great Mahayana Sutras, okay? One by one. I want you to make commentaries on each one, okay?

And I want your commentaries to give all the ne. Manmahatta. Manmahatta, right?

Or the killing point. Yeah, I want to see in your commentaries all the crucial points of the menga, the advices of the lam rim, okay? I want to see those in there, okay?

Somebody tell me why this sentence is here. Where did we get this biography from?

[Speaker 3]
Biography of the Lam Rim Lamas?

[Speaker 1]
I think so, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, this is Yongzhen Yeshe Gyeltsen. And he's got to tie each person into the?

[Speaker 3]
Lam rim.

[Speaker 1]
Lam rim. So it's kind of artificial. He's like, oh, you know, Maitreya came to Vasubandhu and said, I want you to write all these commentaries to the Mahayana Sutras and try to cover all the points in the lam rim, okay?

Okay. All right, good. SHES TU BSTAN PA In detail, I want you to cover all the points in the lam rim, okay?

And he started out, and now there's just a list of his books, okay? By the way, I was thinking about it, how to teach this today. And in Buddhism, we define an author by?

By what he wrote, you see? We don't have biographies. This book is very unusual.

And you can see he's desperate to find some detail about Vasubandhu, because the detail about a person's life in Buddhism is judged from their practice and from their writings. They don't write biographies of people. In fact, there are no biographies from ancient India that I'm aware of.

These are all written much later. So, what he wrote is the reflection of his life, and they don't tell stories about him more than that, mostly, mostly, okay? So, it's not strange for a biography in Buddhism to start listing the books that he absorbed, because that tells you more about him than where he was born, or what he ate for breakfast, and stuff like that, okay?

So, first he wrote a commentary on Dode Gen, what's that?

[Speaker 3]
Ornament Sutras.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, The Jewel of the Sutras, written by?

[Speaker 3]
Maitreya.

[Speaker 1]
Maitreya. Maitreya, okay. This is one of the five books of Maitreya, okay?

This is one of the five great books of Maitreya. Then he wrote a commentary on Utthannamje, what's that? Separating the Middle from the Extremes.

Yeah, Separating the Middle from the Extremes, okay? And that's another of the five great books of Maitreya, okay? It's a little fishy that Maitreya asked him to write some commentaries, and he starts by writing commentaries to Maitreya's books, okay, it's kind of cool, all right?

Oh, I got an idea, how about I write a commentary on your book? Okay, that's a good start. Then he wrote a commentary on Chinni Namje, what's that?

Another Maitreya book. It's another, yeah, it's a discussion of the Divisions of Emptiness, okay?

[Speaker 2]
And it's not bothering to point out that he's writing commentaries to books that his brother wrote down.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, isn't that cool? His brother wrote the books down, his brother taught him the Mahayana, and now he's writing explanations of those books, it's kind of cool. Okay, then he wrote a commentary on The Tegu Mahayana Sangha, which has been heavily relied upon by...

Vipassana Kappa. Yeah, yesterday evening, that really difficult session for me, I don't know, I was tired, and anyway, Tegtu Gedepa is a commentary by a Sangha on his own Bodhisattva Bhumis, a huge, huge work in five different sections, okay? Then, yay, he wrote the Sumchupa, what's that?

The three, the three, the...

[Speaker 3]
The language, the language, the language, the language.

[Speaker 1]
No, no, no, that's a different book, that's a different book. This is 30 verses, same name, same name, but this is 30 verses on, where he tried to prove that CHOS THAMS CAD is NAM RIGS. All, all the Dharma's mind only.

[Speaker 3]
Well... All things, all things.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, Upala's got it right. All things in the universe are nothing but your... Mind only.

Mind. And then that became the name of the mind-only school, you see, NAM RIGS TZAM, okay? SEMS TZAM, SEMS TZAM, same thing.

Mind only. So he, this is a very, very important work for the mind-only school. This is one of the most important works of the mind-only school.

Only 30 verses. Teaching, DGON PA, that everything in the universe is just inside your... Mind only.

Foundation, consciousness. Okay. And then he wrote the NI ZHU.

20 permutations? 20 verses, 20 verses, to DGON PA, that there could be any CI RUG GI BRDOD.

[Speaker 3]
To refute that there could be any outer objects.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it's interesting. So he writes one great famous book about why everything you see is in your own mind. And then he writes another famous book of the mind school to say, look, nothing out there exists, okay?

Nothing exists outside of your mind. See, the first book is a positive book, and the second book is a negative book, okay? Okay.

Then he decided, oh, people didn't get my 20 verses about proving there's no outer objects. I'd better write a book. RANG DANG, RANG DANG.

[Speaker 3]
Auto-commentary.

[Speaker 1]
Auto-commentary, okay? I'd better write an auto-commentary, okay? Then he wrote a book called Ascertaining the Three Natures, okay?

And then he wrote the chapters on the... By the way, this one is sometimes spelled NGES PA, which means we should check that. Okay.

Well, okay, we'll decide. Just a couple minutes left.

[Speaker 3]
Okay. Don't forget the percent sign.

[Speaker 1]
He wrote a book called The Analysis of the Five Heaps, okay? The Analysis of the Body and Mind, okay? Cool.

Nick, we got time for another sentence? Yeah, two minutes.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, talk fast again. NAM PAR ZHIG PA'I RIG PA'I DUR DE'I DUM PA RGYA PA NAM PAR ZHIG PA'I RIG PA'I LAS GRUB PA'I RAB TU BYAS PA THEG PA CHEN PO'I CHU RGYA RTZEL BA'I TEN CHU Wow, that was a nice horse race.

[Speaker 1]
I don't know if there should be a... I'm gonna put this, okay? Anyway, Logic of Explanation, 100-part book about the sutras.

Another number, ZHIG PA'I RIG PA', that's suspicious. LAS GRUB PA'I RAB TU BYAS PA A Proof of Karma, okay? Verses on the Proof of Karma.

And then the commentary which clarifies the 100 Teachings of the Mahayana, okay? And let's do one more, one more line.

[Speaker 2]
One more line. CHU NGON PA TSUL GYIS TSIG LAS BYAS PA DE'I RANG DRELG PEN CHU TSIG Stop, stop, stop. Yay, what's that mean?

[Speaker 3]
Verses of the Abhidharmaka.

[Speaker 1]
Grandpa Stanley's book. She's too shy. Hi, Amalie!

Okay, he wrote the Abhidharmakosha and the auto-commentary to it, okay? All right, let's stop there, Sagan. Sure.

[Speaker 2]
It's a good place to stop. So, for the homework will be the next phrase, is that?

[Speaker 1]
No, it's just list of books. Let me give you a real sentence, okay? Look how many books he wrote.

That's a lot. I'd like you to do this one, okay? BHAG PA THOG MED BHAG PA THOG MED Do this four lines, okay?

Good? And it's not very difficult. It's not very difficult, okay?

Okay. All right. Thank you, Geshe Michael.

Oh, it's a great... So, Sagan, next time we just have a tiny bit to finish and then we'll go to your book, okay? Yeah, thank you, Geshe-la.

All right, good job. Come back in five minutes. Can you guys do it?

Hey! Okay, see you guys. All right.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you, Geshe-la.