Сугэн Ши — Книга 2: Колесо жизни (первый принцип и подразделения зависимости), занятие 27

[Speaker 1]
I love homework. Let's start with the homework. Here it is.

Okay. All right. Who are the four greatest students of Master Vasubandhu?

Stanley. Master, it's a matter of opinion.

[Speaker 3]
Benjamin Kuhn.

[Speaker 1]
According to the, according to the, according to the, according to the, what is this? Oh, biography. Written by, what's the name?

Sorry, I forgot the name. Let me check quickly. Is it Yongzhen Yeshe Gyeltsin?

Yongzhen Yeshe Gyeltsin. Yongzhen Yeshe Gyeltsin. Okay.

Yeah. So anybody remember? Aren't they all like four people who weren't actually his students or something?

Yes, yes, yes. Yes. Come, let's try.

Anybody remembers? The first one is easy, right? We all remember because we discussed the biography, a bit of his story.

[Speaker 3]
Dignaga?

[Speaker 1]
Dignaga is here. I think this is Dignaga.

[Speaker 3]
Gunaprabha.

[Speaker 1]
Gunaprabha is here.

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Who else?

[Speaker 3]
Tiramati.

[Speaker 1]
Tiramati. Tiramati is number here. Yes.

Vimuktesena. Thank you. Thank you for taking part.

What book this, what book did Master Gunaprabha write that made important contributions to the Buddha's teachings? And why was it important?

[Speaker 3]
What's the title? Xiaoping should answer.

[Speaker 1]
Xiaoping, what's the answer? Xiaoping, are you around? He fell asleep.

Family should answer that.

[Speaker 3]
Essence of the Ocean of Vinaya.

[Speaker 1]
The Essence of the Oceans of Vinaya. And why was it important? Because it sums up the Buddha's teachings without having to read like a million Vinaya books.

Yeah. All right. Let me give it.

So yeah, people respected the book with the same authority as the Buddha's teaching. Anybody who was ordained in Buddhism took this book authoritatively or as authority, maybe.

[Speaker 3]
That's good. Is that?

[Speaker 1]
Does it pass the waiter's test? I don't know.

[Speaker 3]
We're not waiters, though.

[Speaker 1]
And as authoritative. All right. Okay.

Oops. And they treated it as having the eye to see the meaning of the origin of Vinaya scriptures as taught directly by the Buddha. All the wise and accomplished masters of the past treated this as their favorite Vinaya book.

What are the four groups of Vinaya Sutra? Okay. I am a waiter.

So please enlighten me.

[Speaker 3]
The divisions according to the word of the Buddha.

[Speaker 1]
Say one, please. The divisions, the foundation, the advice. Division.

And then the foundation. And then what is the third one?

[Speaker 3]
Statement.

[Speaker 1]
And what is the fourth one? Miscellaneous. Thank you.

Wow. All of you did so well. What is chungu?

Often spelled word. Sorry, what? An often misspelled word.

Often misspelled word. Yeah, that's right. What does it mean?

Itty bitty. I'm a chungu now. Young time.

Yeah. I don't know. How do you call that?

Young time? Little time? Little boy?

What? I can mean youth if it's after like a. Sure.

Like a little, but by itself. Little. Just little.

Okay. Okay. Little guy.

I don't know. If you want to just make it cute, then just say young time. That sounded fun.

Young time. No, no, no. Don't listen to me.

[Speaker 2]
No, no. Don't listen to him.

[Speaker 1]
Not English. Little boy. I'm not.

Okay. Anyway. Okay.

They say little grams out here in surf language. They say what? Nothing.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Tripitaka.

[Speaker 1]
Tripitaka. Yes. What is it for the waiter?

Tripitaka.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Sorry. Jung. Strain.

Strain. Did I say jung?

[Speaker 3]
Huh?

[Speaker 1]
I put purified.

[Speaker 3]
Purified. Oh.

[Speaker 1]
Can I? What? It's a word.

Should I? Past tense. Is it past tense?

Right? Purified. All right.

To be purified. It can also mean well-trained. Well-trained.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. Okay.

[Speaker 3]
All right.

[Speaker 1]
This is the phrase that I tried. And hopefully, it's not too bad. It doesn't fall too bad.

Okay. Yeah. Chinle.

What's Chinle, you guys?

[Speaker 2]
Sacred deeds.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. It means the great high deeds. Chinle.

In fact, one of my first kids was named Chinle.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
All right. Get that shin chi, Chinle. LEN GCIG GNAS PA What's that mean, you guys?

LEN GCIG GNAS PA Simultaneously in the same place? Yeah. Who lived together with him.

Who used to hang out with him. LEN GCIG GNAS PA means they used to hang out with him. How many?

SHON DAG NGA'A NOS A thousand. About 5,000 monks used to hang out with him. Okay.

All right. GZHAN means that's what people say. Okay.

That's what people say. People say that because his activities were so vast, that there was about some 5,000 monks would hang out with him. And all of them, all of those were mong du tupa.

[Speaker 3]
Good students.

[Speaker 1]
They listened to many teachings. Very learned. Very learned in the three baskets.

Who's usually called mong du tupa? Great. Tsongkhapa is often called mong du tupa.

Okay. Yeah. He learned a lot of stuff.

Okay.

[Speaker 3]
Good.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Not bad. Not bad. I think Shinten did most of the work anyway.

Yeah. She worked hard on this one. Okay.

Okay. Let's see here. Where are we?

This is it, right? Let me see. Okay.

Here, I think, right? Am I right? Yeah, that's right.

Okay. I should split this a little bit for you. How about we do this much?

Please read. Venerable Utpala wants to check you. Thank you.

,GZHAN YANG SDUG BSNGAL BA'I LAS, ,RGYA RTZA GCIG GYI MTHOGS DGRAG PA'I YANG SEMS TE, Okay, cool. ,RGYA RTZA GCIG GYI MTHOGS DGRAG PA'I YANG SEMS TE, ZE means he also wrote. Okay, YANG ZE means he also wrote another book about the LAS, SDUG BSNGAL BA'I LAS.

LAS means here. It doesn't mean karma. It means rituals.

Wow. Rituals. There's a traditional set of 101 rituals for Vinaya.

For example, how to bless food, how to bless your robes, how to bless a kitchen, how to... So there's a hundred and one rituals of the Vinaya, and he wrote a book called Karmashataka. Here's the spelling down here, Karmashataka.

And it means...shat means a hundred, right? Century comes from that. And karma means here, it doesn't mean karma, and it means rituals, okay?

So this karma means ritual. So he wrote a book called The Hundred Rituals. Drakpa means, came to be known as Karmashataka.

In Tibetan, it's LAS RGYAL THAMS PA, which means the hundred rites, which are actually a hundred and one. Okay? All right.

It's a Vinaya book, Kent? Yes, very, very, very famous. And the hundred and one rituals, I'm actually quite happy that it doesn't appear in Xiaoping's text, because it would take us another ten years.

Okay, Nick, can you check us again? Oh boy. Thank you.

DATTA GALWAY TEMPALA SHUKNE GENYEN THANG PHARMARABDZUNG THANG CHIK NGA MA NGE TSUL KHI DONG PA THANG LAP SI YONG SU TSOK PA GYELONG GI DONG PA LENG PE CHO NGA THANG SI SHUM KHI CHO GA SOK NDUR WEY LE KHI CHO GA NAM DAK GNYIS CHEN PO NI KHO NAS KHAR DRIN LAS BYUNG BA'I TEMPAL NI LA KHAR DRIN CHUNG PA MED PA ZHIG GO Oh, ZHIG. ZHIG GO. Yeah, good.

Nice. You guys, by the way, even Veronica says all you guys are getting much better. She says they sound much better.

DATTA GALWAY TEMPALA SHUKNE, okay, if you're a person who has entered the Galway Tempa nowadays... The teaching of the victor, which is a monk, nun. Yeah, teaching of the victors.

If you're a person who has entered the teaching of the victors, I don't care if you're a Genyan. What's a Genyan, you guys? Spiritual friend, Geshe?

A lay person? Lifetime lay person. Okay, vow.

I don't care if you took vows as a lifetime lay person. I don't care if you took PHAR MA RAB CHUNG, which means you took your first ordination. You didn't take your vows yet, but you got ordained.

Or if you're in the first section, ZHIG means a section of a teaching, if you're in the first section, which is Geshe. Novice. Novice monk.

So, I don't care whether you're a lifetime vows lay person, or if you just got your robes, or if you really stepped into it and you're a novice monk and you took your vows, or if you are a GALONG, who took all of their LHAG PA'I ZHIG, who committed to all their training, all the trainings, all the rules. LHAG PA'I ZHIG here means rules. If you're a monk with all of the rules, or a nun, DONG PA LEN PA'I CHOG GA, those rituals that are required for you to take your vows, whether you're a lay person, or ordained, or a novice, or a full monk, or a full nun, and the ZHIG GSUM GYI CHOG GA.

ZHIG GSUM means the three foundational practices of Vinaya. Let's read it together, Sugeng, right here. ZHIG GSUM ZHIG GSUM CHOG GA SO SBYONG THANG BYAR NAS Whoa, whoa, whoa.

YAR NAS RGAG YES SUM GYI LHAG LEN MYUR SU BYED PA'I KHOR GYIS SU Yeah, okay. That's all you have to read. The three big rituals of the Vinaya, the three foundational rituals of the Vinaya are Sojong, what's that?

The Rite of Restoring. Yeah, doing your confession ceremony twice a month. Yarnay.

[Speaker 2]
Summer retreat. Summer retreat.

[Speaker 1]
And Gagye. Taking a break after the summer retreat. Yeah, that's the party time after the summer retreat.

Those three foundational activities of monks are called the three rituals. The three foundation rituals. Let's go back to your text.

If you are a person who has taken any vows, or if you're trying to keep the three great practices of the Vinaya, duway le kyi chok gang nam, it's only because of the kathirn of this dhagni chenpo.

[Speaker 2]
Great.

[Speaker 1]
Kindness. Yeah, it's only because of the kindness of this mahatma. Great.

Thank you. That this happened to you, chungwa. It's only because of his hard work that any of us could take ordination 1,300 years later.

It's just because he organized all those rituals of the Vinaya. Thank you, Mr. Gunaprabha. Okay.

Therefore, he was kathirn sungme for this tenpa. Kindness that could not be hold by any. His kindness for our teaching in this world was unmatched.

Unmatched. Unmatched. Sungpa mepa.

Unequaled. Nobody ever did more for the teachings in this world than he did. By the way, Sugeng is probably going to say the same thing about the next guy.

All those are great beings. And it's probably true. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Wow.

[Speaker 1]
Here is the... Okay, let's keep going. Who's checking you is Christina...

This is the text that we just discussed in the homework. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, yeah.

Yeah, so we ended up having 5,000 kind of hang out with him. And they were all masters of the three baskets of scripture. Now, Christina, can you check him?

Yes. Okay, thank you. Wow.

Wow. Okay, good. Nice, okay, good.

SNYING ZHAG THUG RE Hey, word. Can you check this prugs? Yep.

Okay, I think it means period, but anyway. Every single day of the year, if he made a mistake in his morality and it was something that he's supposed to confess to another person, he would confess it. If it was something that he was supposed to control himself in the future, dumb, right?

Restrain? Then he would restrain himself. If it was the kind of mistake in Vinaya that requires the blessing of the Sangha to fix it, he would go get the blessing of the Sangha.

So every time he made a mistake in his moral behavior, he would do the right thing to clean it up. Therefore, his sutra was nabar dakpa. What's that?

Morality? Very clean? Yeah, super clean.

Super clean?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Did you find that truth, word? Yeah, it means a unit, like a single... Okay, yeah.

So probably every hour of the day. Okay. Okay.

You can see it down here. These were the great seven groups of monks in ancient times who came right after the Buddha. It's called the Seven Hierarchs or something like that.

The seven great arhats who followed the time of the Buddha and they helped write down his teachings. That's why we have 990 teachings of the Buddha, because of these seven great elders. It's misspelled in the text, which doesn't help.

It's dead up. So, those seven generations following the time of Lord Buddha, when there was all these great drachombas. What's that again?

Conqueror? Yeah, arhats, right? Okay.

So, his activity resembled gyalwa shal shuk du. Who can tell me? Gyalwa shal shuk du.

What's du? Time? Yeah, the days when the Buddha himself was shal shuk.

[Speaker 3]
Was still alive. Yeah, was still alive.

[Speaker 1]
This is an idiom, which means his face was still here. Shal shuk. So, you guys got to learn this.

Shal shuk means while the teacher was still alive, while his face was still here in this world. Shal shuk. So, the way that Guru Prabhupada was acting was just like how those direct disciples of the Buddha were acting when the Buddha was here, or during those seven generations of arhats, right after the Buddha.

In other words, he was as great as in the times, too, when people were gyalwa du tenpa. What's gyalwa du tenpa?

[Speaker 2]
Understood the teachings.

[Speaker 1]
Protecting the teachings, yeah. Or sustaining the teachings. Yeah, Che.

lung gi khepa nam la tam du drag so. Tam du drag means everybody said the same thing. What?

About Guna Prabha. What? When he's in the room, it's like we're back in the days of the Buddha, or we're back in the days of the great arhats that followed the Buddha.

He's so careful with his vinaya that it feels like we're all back in the days of the Buddha himself. By the way, when did he live? About two or three hundred years?

CE 2300? I think 750. Oh, 750?

Yeah, he's pretty late. I'll check. He's pretty late.

He's not early. A thousand years after the Buddha, here comes this person who, every time he's around, it feels like one of the original disciples of the Buddha is around, because he's so careful with his vinaya. We finished the bio for term 16.

We're going on to Sthiramati, the Abhidharma master, next term, which means we have some fun time now to go to Vasubandhu. Here. Yay!

Now, we are jumping back into the original presentation of the Wheel of Life by Vasubandhu. Extremely difficult. I have written some notes here.

I was on a plane in China or something, and I got interested in this book, and I started making notes to myself. You can ignore them. Don't try to use them.

They're just notes to myself. Here we go. Go ahead, Sugeng.

Rebecca wants to check you. Thank you. marikpa kunjung wa le sakpa kunjung wa sejal Okay.

What's kunjung denpa, Sugeng? The source. The truth of the source of suffering.

The truth of the source of the suffering. It comes in several flavors. It's called le dang nyongmong.

The source of suffering is divided into two. Bad karma, or any karma, and negative emotions. Marikpa itself is a form of kunjung.

What does that mean? Misunderstanding itself is a source of the suffering. Misunderstanding is the source of suffering.

From it comes another source of suffering, which is sakpa. Sakpa means impurities. It's a word that's used in the Abhidharma for kleshas.

From misunderstanding, which itself is a form of source of pain, comes negative emotions, which are themselves a source of pain also. Geshe-la, one is causing the others, or two of them are equal? Marikpa is causing the other.

By the way, in the higher schools, misunderstanding is a mental affliction. It is a nyongmong. But in this presentation, misunderstanding is creating your negative thoughts.

They are both functioning to create trouble for us. Are we still in the lower middle way in this case? No, that's a good question.

Who's your writer? Masa Masa Bandhu. Also, it will be mind-only?

Yeah, there's going to be a heavy mind-only twist. This is an extremely interesting early commentary to the Wheel of Life, which is going to be strongly weighted towards the mind-only school. It's very interesting.

In this book, you see Vastu Bandhu's real colors. You never see him mention mind-only in the Abhidharma. When he got to this book, he comes out of the closet as a mind-only guy.

Okay, thank you. Got it. It's kind of exciting, actually, to see him...

When you really read those two books, it's like he's another person, and then you realize how well he faked being an Abhidharma scholar. Okay, thank you. All right, please read the next one.

Rebecca, you're not finished yet. Marikpa Konala, Tenne Marikpa Jungwa Yinggi, Tulsin Mayinparila Chepala Sokpa, Le Ni Mayinte, Mongpa Kona Le The, Kewe Chero Okay, now, this conversation... Because we're having these classes three times a year for two weeks or something, then we kind of lose the flow.

Actually, we should do them every day of the year. And I would have a breakdown. We all would.

But anyway, because we have not been doing the classes every day, it's easy to lose the flow. And the big flow here is, we are not yet into the twelve links. We're about to step into the twelve links.

I think maybe even in this class we're going to reach the twelve links. We are in the dhammo. What's that?

The first principle. Yeah, we're in the discussion of the first principles, which means we're treating the whole wheel as one big thing. And the question somebody's been on is, how come there's only twelve links?

Is it that the first link doesn't have a cause? Is it that the last link doesn't have a result? It's not as though death is the end of everything.

And it's not as though misunderstanding didn't come from anywhere. So why don't you have thirteen links? Or why don't you have fourteen links?

And that's where we are. He says here, what's the source of misunderstanding? What comes before the first link?

Misunderstanding.

[Speaker 3]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
He says, so don't hassle me that we should have had a link before the first link. I know that everything didn't start with misunderstanding. Misunderstanding came from something in the life before.

I know that. But listen, it was the same stuff. Where does the first link come from?

It comes from the first link. Got it? So don't tell me I should put another link in front of the first link.

Got it? Then somebody said, no, no, no, no. Lord Buddha said, what triggers misunderstanding in your mind, and by the way, Maitreya said the same thing, is you look at things the wrong way.

You look at things the wrong way. It's called what here, you guys? TSUL SHIN MA YIN PA YI LA BYED PA TSUL SHIN MA YIN PA YI LA BYED PA means, you look at things the wrong way.

You look at things the wrong way. But it's not full misunderstanding yet. You're just starting to look at things the wrong way.

You're starting to feel like the pen comes from its own side. You're starting to get upset at your husband in the kitchen because you don't understand he's coming from you. It's not full misunderstanding yet.

It's starting to look at things the wrong way. Somebody says, Vasubandhu, look, we should have 13 links. Vasubandhu says, where do you want to add the extra one?

They said, let's add it before misunderstanding. Vasubandhu is like, yeah, okay, what do you want to add before misunderstanding? Well, let's add thinking of things the wrong way.

Because Buddha said, first you think of things the wrong way, and then you get misunderstanding. He said misunderstanding is born from thinking of things the wrong way. And he says MA YIN.

It's not the same weight as misunderstanding. It's again, what's that mean? It's not really a guilt.

It's a condition. It's almost a minor condition. It's not full misunderstanding.

It doesn't deserve to be the 13th link in the Wheel of Life. Does it happen before you misunderstand something? Yes, you start to think your husband the wrong way.

Does it deserve to be a 13th link? No, it's not big enough. SRAG PA LAS NI MA YIN TE Then he says, MONG BA KHO NA LAS DE SKYE BA'I PHYIR RO In the end, misunderstanding only stems from misunderstanding.

You have the habit of believing your husband's coming from his own side. You've had that habit for billions of lifetimes. And it's the habit that makes it happen again.

It's not that for a few minutes before you fight with him, you think the wrong way. That's not the source of misunderstanding. Misunderstanding comes from billions of lifetimes of misunderstanding.

Cool. I have a question about these Wheel of Life texts and this 13th link thing. Do any of these authors who do Wheel of Life commentaries ever get into detail about the other rings in the painting?

The five doas and the five realms and everything else? Cool question. We've been calling these books Wheel of Life books, but actually these are dependent origination books.

So this particular book of Lhasa Bandhu is not going to get into the other parts of the painting. It's not a commentary on the painting, really. It's a commentary on the 12 links.

Are there any such books? Ancient books?

[Speaker 3]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, there's a fascinating, now that you ask, there's two or three fascinating books which I have read about Lord Buddha painting the whole thing for certain people. The story I like the best is when he painted the Wheel of Life himself and sent it in a letter to Sri Lanka to a queen. In there is an explanation of all the pieces.

If you're ever bored, we can read that.

[Speaker 2]
Is that sutra? It's Lord Buddha himself doing it?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, and that lady, if you want to know more about the story, she was a servant woman of some rich ladies who got to go to a teaching of Lord Buddha. She was feeling bad because she really wanted to learn it. They had jewelry on.

They all dressed up for the talk by Lord Buddha on the 12 links. When he got up to teach, I think it was Ananda that told the ladies, look, you can't wear jewelry in front of Lord Buddha. That's not appropriate.

He's not supposed to teach people with sticks or weapons or jewelry. They gave the servant woman all the jewelry and asked her to go back home and take care of it. On the way home, she was praying that she could meet the Buddha.

If I remember correctly, she got eaten by a tiger or something like that. Then she got born in Sri Lanka as a queen and the connection continued. Buddha said, it's a long story.

They talked about the whole wheel. There's another sutra also like that, which is another story. Let's keep reading.

Word now as payment, you have to check Sugeng. Good. Good, good.

Listen. RANG GI RIGS GCIG LAS GCIG CHUNG Things happen from things of their same type. We saw similar language in the definition of the karma of life.

In Stanley's text. Things tend to replicate. Things of a certain type produce other things of the same type.

Look, you want to talk about looking at things the wrong way? Well, what does that produce? According to what he just said, Sugeng.

So it's a wrong understanding. No. Looking at things the wrong way tends to trigger more looking at things the wrong way.

LHAG PA RGYAS PAR CHUNG It kind of just enhances everything. Looking at things the wrong way tends to lead to more looking at things the wrong way. But we are not emphasizing that looking at things the wrong way is so big in the production of misunderstanding that it deserves to be a 13th link.

But I have to say that looking at things the wrong way plants a seed that causes us to have more and more increasing difficulty of looking at things the wrong way. It gets harder and harder to give up our habit of looking at things the wrong way or even of misunderstanding, if we've done this looking at things the wrong way over and over again. So we can say that looking at things the wrong way is like fertilizer, but not really the seed.

The conditions, right? Yeah, it's a condition that helps misunderstanding get thicker and thicker and harder to give up. But look, it's not really the misunderstanding of the previous moment.

Okay. All right. Please read.

Yeah, and that's why Buddha said looking at things the wrong way is a khen as opposed to a gyu. It's a condition as opposed to a cause. Yeah, and therefore since it's not the real cause of misunderstanding, it's just a condition, it doesn't deserve to be a separate link.

Don't tell me that there should be other links because it's endless, okay? Everything comes from something, then there'd be a zillion links, okay? Okay, wow.

Please read. Okay. Word again?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good. So look, this guy comes up and asks a question. He says, look, if starting to think of things the wrong way is a condition for misunderstanding as the first link, why didn't they mention it in this sutra?

Even if it's just like the fertilizer for misunderstanding, why didn't they talk about it in this sutra? And here we go. Timothy, let's go.

Okay. Okay. YANG GZHAN SPYOD PA BYA'I DGOS PAR GYUR LA We should talk more about this elsewhere.

GZHAN means elsewhere. This is something, your question is not bad. It's worth talking more about it, about the role that thinking of things...

By the way, in Maitreya's five or seven steps, where does thinking of things the wrong way come from?

[Speaker 2]
GZHAN NYID KYI BAG CHAGS The inborn tendency to see things as being self-existent.

[Speaker 1]
From your past life?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, from your past life.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good. So I mean this endless... The thinking of things the wrong way also has its own trigger.

There's no beginning, okay? GANG NAS BSTAN PA'I SKYE BA'I RIM PA BSTAN PA'I BSAM PA BYA'I Listen, when we're presenting the twelve links, we're trying to figure out how did you SKYE BA? How were you born?

Yeah, how did you get born? That's the theme of the Wheel of Life, the theme of these twelve links. We're trying to figure out why did you come here?

How did you come here? KHA RGYUD DON DU YAN LAG CHUD NI BSTAN PA DE LA NI And for that purposes of figuring out how you got born here, it's enough. The twelve is enough.

That's why we teach twelve. And in a discussion of the conditions that forced you to take birth into this life, talking about the conditions of the first link, DGOS PA MED No purpose. It's no big purpose.

It doesn't help us figure out why you got born here. The purpose of the twelve links is to figure out why you got born here. And look, it's interesting.

Let's talk about it some more later. CHI BSTAN PA BYA'O Let's talk about it some more later. CHI means later on.

And that's the eternal teacher's way to delay a student. Hey, yeah, you're so smart. We've got to talk about that.

We'll do it later on, okay? It won't appear in this book, right? It won't appear in this kalpa.

What are you talking about? It won't appear in this kalpa. All right.

We got it. All right. Dr. Kramer, are you still awake there?

[Speaker 2]
Hard to say.

[Speaker 1]
I know. I'm sorry it's late. And boy, it's going to get hard on you guys.

Just hang in there.

[Speaker 2]
It's good.

[Speaker 1]
Hang in there. I'm sorry. It's fun for me, but I know it's really hard to sit and listen.

[Speaker 3]
It's hard and fun.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Yeah, now there's a problem here, okay, Sugeng? All the twelve are introduced originally as khen.

All twelve were called triggers. I like trigger in The Wheel of Life. When I say khen, I like trigger.

Look, all twelve were called khens or triggers already, and now you don't want to include something because it's a khen? All right. Okay.

It's a good question. I'll say it again. It is.

We already introduced all twelve as triggers, and we used the word khen. Then he wanted to add a secondary factor, not a main cause, in the group of twelve, and we said, no, that's just a khen. Then he says, well, Gangding, you said everything is a link because it's a khen.

Now you say you don't want to include this one because it's a khen. We say it's not the same kind of khen. It's not the main link.

That's a trigger. That's a khen. When we're telling you here, we don't want to include thinking of things the wrong way as a link, we're saying it's just a secondary cause.

It's not a primary cause.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Therefore, de khen drubpa chok mayin, we don't talk about it here as the trigger type of khen. Okay. Okay.

Wow. All right. Here we go.

Dr. Kramer, you're still checking, okay?

[Speaker 2]
I am.

[Speaker 1]
Dear Khachig, gulwa marikpe khen ngeupe chir korwa tokma yipar ngyurwa dhang, yanglak lakpa dang dedak la thukpa meypar ngyurwa she dek gelne. Yeah, nice, okay. Khachig means some people say.

They say, khachigulwa means some people argue. Gulwa means argue, okay? They say, look, in this sutra, the ma rikpe khyen ma mu.

It's not mentioned. They didn't mention a link before misunderstanding. Therefore, khorwa has a tokma.

Beginning, there is a beginning. Therefore, there's a beginning to samsara, okay? Again, hey, we came up with a 13th link in front of the first link.

Yeah, no, we said, we don't want that. Okay, so there's no link in front of the first link. Right, okay, so samsara has a beginning.

That is argument, okay? And moreover, since I assume you haven't added some links at the end that you could have, samsara must have a starting. Oh, I'm sorry, since you didn't add links that you could have, then can we say samsara is also infinite?

Tokpa mnok. Can we say that because there's no link in front of one, there is a beginning to samsara? And can we say, since you probably haven't added links at the end that you could have, that samsara has no end?

[Speaker 2]
You haven't added links that you could have?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah, yen la hlakpa. There's other links you could have added, okay? But you didn't because you don't want to add links in the front or the back.

So if you don't have links in the front, that must be where everything starts. And if there's more links that you didn't mention that you should have added at the back, then samsara is infinite, goes on forever, okay?

[Speaker 3]
He's got to get that Kachika cookie or something.

[Speaker 1]
He's good, he's not a slouch. He's not a slouch. Deke gel means he expresses this argument, okay?

He fights us in this argument, okay? Let's see what's our answer. Please read and Utpala wants to check you, okay?

Let me choose. I'm sorry. Okay, I'm sorry.

Let's go back. Where were we? Okay, yeah, go ahead.

This one, right? len ni chul shin mayinpar yi la chepa marikpe khen yin no shen do de shen le jungwab ngar tenzinto Yeah, tenzinto, look, I already told you. Do de shen le, if you check other sutras, they did say that misunderstanding has its own causes.

For example, thinking about things the wrong way. We already talked about that. Don't tell me that I think that samsara does have a beginning.

Don't tell me that. I'm the one who brought up this thing about other sutras saying that there's things which trigger misunderstanding, like thinking of things the wrong way. So don't tell me that I said that samsara had a beginning.

I never said that. But you said there's a first link. Yes, I did.

But doesn't that mean samsara has a beginning? No. The Wheel of Life is meant to discuss how did you get here in this life?

Okay, I'm not trying to discuss billion lifetimes. We're trying to figure out how you got here. Yes.

Now, answer to the second argument. The second answer was, the second argument was, well, since there's probably links that you left out after ga shi, aging and death, then I guess samsara goes on forever, right? And we say...

Go ahead. nyenlak lakpa yang ma yin te, lenpay nang du, dey du pay che ro Yeah. Also, there are not more links after 12.

Okay? I'm not saying there's more links after 12. Why?

Any links that come after 12 are already in gupa lempa. Included inside? Inside of gupa lempa.

Number nine. Yeah. Okay.

And these are misunderstanding which feeds the growth, the opening of your seeds at link number 10. Okay? We call it advanced desire, right?

Misunderstanding the world. This is talking about the links after 12? Yeah, he says, look, if you want to say that if you want to say that samsara goes on forever, the place to say it is in link number nine.

Sorry. It's in link number nine. It's not in link number 12.

Link number 12 is all about getting old and dying. What's going on forever is feeding your negative seeds at link number nine. You want to add extra links, do it at nine.

[Speaker 3]
That's right.

[Speaker 2]
Would you be willing to help us get some shade of difference here between yi la chepa and marikpa?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I'm glad you asked that. I'm glad you asked that. Let's go back to Maitreya's Five or Seven Steps, right?

And Sugeng, what he's asking- Terry! By the way, again, we have one minute. Okay.

But it's a good question. Dr. Kramer's asking a question that we should have asked and as usual. And it's, look, then what's the difference between taking things the wrong way and misunderstanding them, okay?

Why does taking things the wrong way? I'm going to take, I'll take you there. You ready?

I have an answer for you, believe it or not. Let's see. Hang on.

Don't worry, I'm not going to take any extra time. I have a present for you. Thank you, Geshe-la.

Can you see it? Yeah.

[Speaker 3]
Oh, yes.

[Speaker 1]
Love Maitreya. This is the Steps of Maitreya. Right, cool.

From the textbook of Saramay, written by- Keturthampadake. Yeah, and it's exactly what Adam said. First, you get those seeds for the two kinds of ignorance from your past life.

And because of those bak chaks, you get the two kinds of ignorance in this life. Due to that, you get yi chul min yi che, means looking at things the wrong way. Here it is.

Because of those seeds growing, you get this habit of looking at things the wrong way. What does it mean? And here's your answer, Ben, and then we can stop.

What does it mean is, things look to you as if they could be pleasant or unpleasant from their own side. So the difference between link number one and seeing things and thinking of things the wrong way is tied up with how nice do they look to you. And that's the difference.

So it's a kind of a bias, or a kind of a prejudice about things that you like and things that you don't like. And then that triggers full-on ignorance. Okay, cool?

Yay! Okay, good question. Cool, cool answer.

What is the next phrase, Geshe-la? Oh yeah, when you're gonna do your homework, let me see, let me, okay, here we go. Yay!

Okay, I got something really sexy for you. And it's right, I want you to translate from here, okay? It's gonna, you'll see Sutra section 12, okay?

And I want you to do one, two, three. I want you to do this number one here, okay? So you're gonna do three sections.

You're gonna do marigpe khenki, then you're gonna do marigpe kangchena, and then you're gonna do yupa gupa, these three small, small sentences. All right, thank you. And I'll tell you why you're gonna do that.

We are starting the real 12 links. Wow, yay. Okay, we are finished with the?

Dangpo, the first principle. First principles. And now we're jumping into the first of the 12 links.

It's a big, big, it's a big, big moment in your text. And we're about to start the discussion of misunderstanding. Cool?

Cool, thank you. Wow. All right.

Grandpa is gonna have a delicious dinner. Yay! Yay!

Shashi, Geshe-la, gewa di. Shashi, what's the best thing about having my wife here? And she's, by the way, she's feeling completely cured from her illness.

[Speaker 3]
Yay.

[Speaker 1]
Thank God, because I was having frozen macaroni for many days. All right, see you guys tomorrow. Good night, Geshe-la.

[Speaker 3]
Thank you. Thank you so much.

[Speaker 1]
Take care of yourself, get some sleep. You know, during these two weeks, be strict about getting some sleep. Turn off your Netflix.

Thank you. Thank you, thank you, Geshe-la. Thank you, everybody.

Thank you, translators.