Сугэн Ши — Книга 2: Колесо жизни (первый принцип и подразделения зависимости), занятие 35

[Speaker 1]
Oh, okay, Flavia is translating, right? Yeah, no wonder I can't hear her. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, translators. So I can see Cameron. I can see Daniel.

So how is everyone?

[Speaker 2]
Good, how are you, Sigan?

[Speaker 1]
Hi. Good. Hi.

So this is supposed to be Q&A session, right? And how do you all want to start? So I'm not sure how you want to start, but Cameron, you seem to be very good in Tibetan, huh?

[Speaker 2]
Oh, I don't know about that. I don't, I'm like.

[Speaker 1]
You watch the YouTube, the Tibetan language channel a lot?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I'm starting. I've got a pretty decent handle on the alphabet, and now I'm just trying to get a handle on grammar and vocabulary, and then also pronouncing over the transliteration.

[Speaker 1]
I see, wow, that's good.

[Speaker 2]
Tough stuff.

[Speaker 1]
That's amazing. Where are you located, by the way?

[Speaker 2]
I'm in Portland, in Oregon, in the U.S., West Coast.

[Speaker 1]
Northwest, right?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I see, okay. How about Daniel? Are you in Europe or U.S. or?

[Speaker 2]
I'm in Diamond Mountain right now, but I'm from Germany.

[Speaker 1]
You're from Germany, I see, okay. Wow, Diamond Mountain, huh? Wow, okay, and the team.

Vernette Yuen Yuen, is that how we should call your name?

[Speaker 3]
Yes, hello.

[Speaker 1]
Vernette, okay.

[Speaker 3]
This is Vernette from Foshan. From? Foshan, China.

China, Guangdong, Foshan, yes.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, okay. All right, so let's have a easy Q&A, huh, all of you? Don't give me difficult questions, huh?

Let me see, I think after today, there will be other Q&As as well, right? Maybe to kick off, right, to kickstart. Shall we go through the Wheel of Life?

So today it's me, and then, oh, there is, okay, ah, there is, ah, there is one more Q&A with Tim. There is one more Q&A, oh, sorry, with Nick. And that's about, oh, ah, and then the last one is with Getshu Michael.

Wow, all the heavyweights, huh? So I guess you can keep the difficult questions to Tim and Nick. And Getshu Michael.

So how is everyone's team up with the Wheel of Life? Oh, maybe I just interview Cameron, huh? Cameron, is this your first time in the Mixed Nut Session?

[Speaker 2]
It is, yeah. I've been studying the literature for a couple years, like since the pandemic started, and it's really helped me out a lot. And so that, I guess, kind of led into wanting to learn Tibetan, or at least like seeing how possible that would be.

And then there's the YouTube videos on the language channel. And then I watched one of the sessions and saw the website, and I was like, well, that looks very intense. And I kind of put it away for a few months, but then for some reason, I came back to the website and I was like, oh, I'm just gonna do that.

See how it is.

[Speaker 1]
When you're saying literature, are you talking about Tibetan literature or just literature in general?

[Speaker 2]
Well, Buddhist literature, mainly English translations of Tibetan literature, I'm sure.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, I see.

[Speaker 2]
And it's just been really helpful.

[Speaker 1]
I see. And then how did you come into our system?

[Speaker 2]
I just found the website through the YouTube videos. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
That's amazing. Oh, you just found the website, stumbled upon the website, huh?

[Speaker 2]
Pretty much, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
I see. Okay, that's cool. That's cool.

You have the seeds. You have the good seeds.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna give it the best try I can do. I think Ben said I could do some hypertexting after the term is over, so I'm gonna try that.

[Speaker 1]
Ah, I see. Yeah, that's a good way to start. In fact, Juan Hasso is doing that, and he's pretty good, my goodness.

[Speaker 2]
And then the other thing is that I'm a programmer in my day-to-day, and so I'm kind of interested in what kind of tools could be built to help people learn to translate faster.

[Speaker 1]
Looking forward to that. Looking forward to that.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, over the weekend, I did this, there's a tool that programmers use called Visual Studio Code. It's just a text editor, but it makes it really easy to do syntax language highlighting. And I took the 30 verses, and I made it highlight, like, I made all the grammar particles stand out.

And so instead of just looking at like a blob of text, it highlights all the grammar, so you can see all of the vocabulary nouns and verbs and stuff in between the grammar particles. And I thought that was like really powerful because you could say to somebody who's never seen Tibetan, like, show me the grammar in this plain text, and they would say, I have no idea what you're talking about. But if you told them, hey, the grammar is highlighted in red, they would immediately be able to see which particles are grammar and which parts aren't.

And so I thought that was pretty cool, like low-hanging fruit, really.

[Speaker 1]
I see, oh, yeah. Actually, there is one more low-hanging fruit, if we want to call it that way. You know, the gopher that Geshe Michael is using all the time.

[Speaker 2]
The search program.

[Speaker 1]
It's pretty, I would say, old, although we refreshed it a few years ago. It's actually a very simple search engine. If you remember the term gopher from the early days of internet, you know, the gopher that is being used in the universities, academic.

[Speaker 2]
I'm not familiar with the older term, though.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, before Yahoo or Google became popular, right? So gopher was a simple text search over the internet. So I think we are using similar kind of technology, just a text search.

So you can go into that and refresh with a more modern style.

[Speaker 2]
To be honest, I think that all of the tools that we currently have, like the Diamond Cutter currently has, can be consolidated into Visual Studio Code, which is kind of, it's not conventional, but if you think about programming, programmers live in a world of text and context within that text, and that's kind of like translation, too. We could turn the documents into living documents to where, what if you could hover over a selection and then it would automatically do a dictionary search and show you all of the definitions right in one place or underline, like connect words and underline the full words so you can see more context about it. And then, honestly, the Visual Studio Search is probably already as good as gopher, so you kind of get that for free.

And so that's kind of what I'm looking into as a proof of concept.

[Speaker 1]
I think anything that is, I would say anything that you can produce maybe can actually be gopher in terms of UI and maybe functionality, yeah. All right, thank you. Thank you, Cameron.

Looking forward. Thanks again. Innovation.

Okay, I saw the questions from Alex Roller. Thank you for breaking the egg with the first question. In functionalist school, things exist depending on causes.

Are those causes cognitive or only material causes and conditions? Well, personally, I would say that when, well, when we talk about dependence, right? And then when you bring in this term functionalist, I would like to go back to how the three groups of schools look at dependence.

Now, first of all, what is functionalist? Do you all know what is functionalist? How do we define functionalist school?

[Speaker 2]
If an object has some function, then it ultimately exists, right?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, but here, I think Geshe Michael, when Geshe Michael came up with this term functionalist, he, oh, okay, sorry. I shouldn't say Geshe Michael. The way I understand it, the way I organize it in my mind, right?

Yeah, I think your answer is cool. So things that can function is, and the schools that look at things that can function, and we call them functionalist, right? The way I organize this in my mind is, so if you all know that four traditional Buddhist schools, we talk about from the bottom, the Vaibhaska or the detailist, and then the sutris, and then the mind only, and then the middle way, right?

So we traditionally divide them into four. So the functionalist covers the three, the first three at the bottom, the functionalist. And then the top, the middle way, we have the lower and the higher.

The lower is, we call the lower as independent. And then the higher middle way, we call them as a consequence, prasangika, right? Yeah, equality is in the thing, hot and fire, yeah.

That is how we put the functionalist, right? So yes, the functionalist will say that the depend, things exist depending on causes. So this is what I like to say, the cause and effect things, the first definition of the dependence.

So when we talk about cause and effect, cause causing the effect, in this context, I would like to say that it should be the material causes rather than condition. Yeah, the main cause. So to answer Alex's question simply, I would just say that this should be referring to the material causes instead of just the conditions.

Conditions should be supporting causes and they might not be the main one, yeah. In fact, yeah, this is a good starter. He's yelling at kids across from a yelling husband.

Yeah, well, I mean, coming from material cause is the, how do we define material cause, right? We define material cause as the main ingredient of the result, of the result. So if we were to, if we were to say that the yelling husband, we can say that the material cause, the main ingredient of the yelling husband is yelling.

So I would say that the yelling at the kids is the, of course, the material cause of the yelling husband, right? And if not, why is it higher viewed and conventional thinking? Alex, you want to turn on your mic and we can have a conversation.

Are you convenient to speak or is it too early? Hawaii, well, oh yes. So are you still Hawaii or are you at a dog park?

Okay, okay, then it's too noisy, I guess, with all the markings. Higher view, what do you mean by higher view? Are you saying that because we philosophy at home, that's cool.

When you say it's higher view, are you saying that because yelling husband is part of the two husband in the kitchen sutra and because it is considered the higher view, so the component should be part of the higher view, which is more than a conventional thinking or rather than non-Buddhist, okay. If not, then why is it higher? If not, well, I'm saying it's yes.

I'm saying it's yes, right? I'm saying it's yes. So material cost, as we know, is the main ingredient of the result, yeah.

Clay, material cost of clay, we can all agree, yeah. Definitely. Clay is the material cost of pot, okay.

Yes, we can all agree. I can imagine Alex is busy typing now.

[Speaker 2]
Not the only cause, right?

[Speaker 1]
Well, yes, that's right. We have, that's why we have material cost and we have conditions. We have conditions.

So material cost is the main ingredient, which we define it as changing into the ingredient of the result. Yes, definitely not the only cause. We have other conditions also.

And if you, I think it is discussed in Abhidhamma also, right, and it was, in my book also, we talk about that a little bit, about the conditions as compared to cost. Because when we say cost, we always refer to it as the material cost. Pot has coming cost in functionalist school.

Pot has coming cost in functionalist school. Yeah, I would think so. How do we, yeah.

How do we define, yeah, thank you, Daniel. How do we define, or how do we understand the dependence from the functional school perspective? And we say that it's, everything must have cost.

Every result must have cost. And of course, and then we fine tune it to make it even more, even clearer, to say that the changing things have a cost. So pot is a changing thing, and yes, it should have a cost.

Yeah, that is how I would answer this question. Yeah, all right. They just, they are just think there's something involved in the equation which is self-existing, like all between the form of common shapes, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I think before we go into the, below the, so the first two, the functionalist and the independent, rather than the consequence, we say that, yeah, there are self-existing things like what Daniel mentioned, yeah. They must accept karma, wouldn't be Buddhist, right? How do we define a Buddhist, right?

How do we define a Buddhist? There is no, accepting karma is not the main requirement to become a Buddhist, right? So even if people accept karma, but they might not be a Buddhist, correct?

It escaped my mind. I think there was a definition about how to become a Buddhist, right? Oh, yeah, of course, we talk about taking the refuge also.

Yeah, so yeah, they, those people who are non-Buddhist, they accept karma, like the old Hindu people, they accept karma, but they are not a Buddhist. Yeah, I was, I just came from Bali. I was there for about three weeks, two weeks, and the people in Bali are Hindu, and they really believe in karma a lot.

And the crime rate is very low in Bali. The crime rate is very low in Bali. I think mostly because they really ingrain this concept of karma in their life.

They don't like to have bad karma, so they do their best to have good karma. So it's a beautiful place to live, yeah. So yeah, I mean, people, yes, people can accept karma, but they are still not a Buddhist, right?

So yeah, I like Daniel's text here. Lokta is defined as not accepting past, future life and the loss of karma. Yeah, Lokta.

And then Flavia is saying, logical proof that unchanging things are unchanging. Logical proof. You're asking for logical proof?

Okay, then we need to, hold on. I think I jumped the queue, right? Sorry, Flavia, I'll come back to you.

I jumped the queue, sorry. Wang Tzu-Yi is asking earlier, what do you think that monster had a will of life? What do you think that monster the one that looks like a monster in the will of life?

So she think that it is entropy increasing. Well, I think, I guess most of us know that the monster represents the death, the death, the death itself. And it is actually creeping, inching closer and closer to our, in our life, right?

In all the, towards the beings, to the heart of the beings. And one day, they will eat us up. Meaning that one day we need to die.

We need to die. And yeah, so entropy increase. I think you get this term from DCI level, these advanced level one, right?

In DCI advanced level one, Gitche Michael introduced the term entropy, which is talking about, it escaped my mind. Anybody remember?

[Speaker 2]
What is it? Is it like increased chaos or like information loss or something, lack of order?

[Speaker 1]
That is the physics definition, right? But for DCI, Gitche Michael is using that term to entropy. Oh gosh.

Okay, oh, people are, everything is going to die and impermanence. Oh yeah, the changing things. Oh yeah, Daniel, that's right.

Impermanence, the changing things, right? The changing things. Xiaowang, okay.

Yeah, I think the term is impermanence, but he didn't use the term impermanence, right? Meaning that because things are changing and then somebody say, baby in the vault, Alex, yeah, meaning that one day everything will be destroyed. I think we can say that too.

I think we can say that too. So yeah, the monster, although it represents death, but it represents the things falling apart. Yes, Luca, you get it right.

Yeah, Alex too, things are trying to fall apart. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, buildings will fall down.

Yeah, sooner or later by itself. Correct, yeah. Yeah, I hope that answers your questions, Wang Chi.

Okay, okay, now back to Flavia. Logical proof that unchanging things are unchanging. Now Flavia's juicy question, right?

So first of all, in order to prove things logically, we need to put them, phrase them correctly. Yeah, this is how I would do normally. So for Flavia's questions, how should we phrase the sentence and the parts?

How do we mirror it again, her question, right? Consider unchanging things, okay. That is the easy part.

Over there, second and the third, unchanging things, okay. Yeah. Oh, Santon Lun, okay.

Yeah, there is a request from this Chia about the, how do you call that, Santon Lun, how do you call that? Asylogism, okay, sorry, I read the Chinese and I can't switch back to English. Yeah, asylogism, yeah.

So asylogism is basically one of the logic tools and one of the logical proof that we can use and which is used very extensively in the Tibetan literature, right? So basically we try to divide a sentence into three parts to test if they are logical. So thank you, Daniel, please continue while I'm explaining the asylogism.

No, no, I mean, this is an open discussion, okay? My role here is a facilitator, all right? My role here is a facilitator, so let's learn together.

It shouldn't be one way, right? It should be exchanging of ideas and information and yeah. Yeah, all right, so asylogism is how we divide a sentence into three parts and test if they are logical.

So the standard example is sound. Well, yeah, I just remember we can use the sound example to prove unchanging things, right? So let's take sound.

It is changing because, what? And then in Adam's class, we use the reasons to differentiate between the wrong, the illogical components, right? Cameron, you want to say something?

Ah, yeah, Daniel.

[Speaker 3]
Daniel said it, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, Joy Chan summarized text sound. It is made, it is made. Okay, because it made things must change.

Things that didn't change cannot be made, okay? Text sound, it is changing because it is made, right? So that should be the three statements.

And then the three, the one, two, three, that Joy Chan put here are basically the three tests that we put the three sentences into the syllogism, right? So, yeah, if let's say we, so basically let me rewrite what Joy wrote here. Let me type properly.

Text sound, okay, text sound. It is made because it is changing. It is changing because it is made.

So number one, number two, number three. Okay, so this will be the three statements, right? Well, basically what I, basically in, this is how I would do it, right?

I will, sound is changing because it is made. So this is what Alex put up before, right? So a sentence, we will divide it into three parts and then we do the test.

What are the tests? The first test is one equal three. So this will be sound is made, okay?

Is this cool? Is this okay? Yeah, I think that's cool.

And then the second test is that if three, then two, yeah? If it is made, then it's changing. So I think this is cool too, right?

And then the last test is if not two, then not three. If it is unchanging, then it is not made. It is not made.

So basically, this is what Joy put up at the top. So these are the three statements and three tests that we will run through when we do the syllogism, right? So how to prove the logic is correct when three relationships of syllogism is correct?

Well, it's not about to prove it or, I mean, when we run the three relationships and they are all correct, that is the proof that the logic is correct, yeah? So that is basically the definition of it, yeah? So if we were to use the sound, right?

Hold on, let me go back to Flavia's questions. Okay, logical proof that unchanging things aren't changing. Okay, this is slightly different, huh?

Unchanging thing is unchanging. Can we put it that unchanging thing is unchanging, does not change, yeah? Unchanging thing is unchanging.

I guess this is part of the definition itself, right? We say hot sun, the sun is hot, that's why we call it hot sun. The thing is unchanging, that's why we call it unchanging.

Unchanging, I mean, if we just want to, we want to talk about the syntax, right? They are unchanging because they exist, they either exist 100% or not at all. Ah, Alex, come in with a interesting definition, right?

Things are unchanging because they either exist 100% or not at all, okay? Yeah, I kind of like this, let me rewrite. Unchanging, unchanging thing is unchanging because unchanging things are unchanging.

Okay, let's, okay, I rewrite Alex's statement, right? And then I saw Daniel has interesting statements as well. So we can take it into take unchanging thing.

Maybe I should just share my screen, right? Maybe it's easier. Okay, can you all see my screen?

Too small. Okay, let me make it. So take unchanging things, they are unchanging because they exist, they either exist 100% or not.

So we can say that the unchanging, so one equal three, unchanging things exist, either exist 100% or not. 100% or not, and then three equal two. Because they exist, and then not two, not three.

Okay, we should use arrow, right? If they are changing, then they cannot exist 100% or not at all. Okay, looks good, right?

Anybody can find any fault to this reasoning? Okay, maybe I'll just put it up on the chat box so people can see. Oh, okay, Daniel, thank you.

Depending on how we define exist 100%, covers literally everything, also changing things. Ah, exist 100%, exist 100%. Good one, good one, yeah.

Okay, let's rewrite Daniel's statement, right? Existing 100% literally means that covers everything including changing things. Hmm, changing things cannot exist 100%.

Yeah, Flavia, you get it right. So this is the conclusion, right? Doesn't have a bell curve of starting and stopping, excluding Nagarjuna, of course, how can we exclude?

It has to cover everything, right? Okay, bell curve of starting and stopping, okay. So, okay, so we are at the topic of whether existing 100%, whether we can use this term existing 100%, right?

Yeah, okay, let's try. Existing because it includes changing things, right? Can we write this way?

Existing 100% literally means that it covers everything because it includes changing things. So take the phrase existing 100%. It covers, it literally means, it literally means that it covers everything, right?

And then because it includes changing things. Okay, now let's do the test. Existing 100% includes changing things.

Is this correct? Okay, let us put a mark here. This is correct.

Can we say that? I don't know, let's not put that first. Yeah, let's try here.

Existing 100% includes changing things. I think we can say it's correct, right? Or if anybody has any contradicting opinion, if three, then two.

Three, then two. All depends on how do we define existing 100%. Ah, yeah, that's right, existing 100%.

Good point, good point. So I think we are back to the drawing board, okay? How do we define existing 100%?

How do we define existing 100%, right? How do we define existing 100%?

[Speaker 2]
Well, if we mean ultimately existing, like inherently from its own side, then we know that basically everything that falls within concept is not ultimately existing, right?

[Speaker 1]
Inherently coming from its side, coming from its own side, right? So here, I think we just exist, okay? Flavia said that.

I think now we need to really discuss about what is this existing 100%, right? And if we, I kind of like Cameron's definition to ultimately existing, meaning that coming from its own side, right? So if we say that, if we were to use this definition, then this statement is incorrect already, agree?

Yeah, because it shouldn't include, it will not, it shall not include changing things, yeah? Because if we define existing 100% as coming from itself, its own side, unchanging things don't exist like that, okay? That, what is that?

Don't exist that way. So I think to cut the discussion short, although it's kind of fun, you know, if we try to write them down and analyze using this syllogism, right? So self-existing, ah, unchanging things don't exist self-existently.

Hold on, Daniel. I think that is the definition of changing things rather than unchanging things, right? Because apparently when we say unchanging, kind of interesting, what is, what is the most famous example of unchanging things?

When we think, no, I don't think so. I don't think so. We have, yes, emptiness.

We always, when we talk about unchanging things, we use emptiness, right? So, yes, correct. Empty space, cessation.

We use S rather than C. Yes, cessation, Alex Roland, Alex Roland. I think that must be a German impact.

Okay, so yeah, how do we define? Okay, when we talk about unchanging things, right? The most famous example is emptiness or empty space.

Cessation is kind of concept, so it's kind of difficult to visualize. So do they exist 100%?

[Speaker 2]
Not the concepts of them.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, how about the emptiness itself or empty space? Do they exist from its own side? I would say no, impossible.

Okay, why? Yeah, Luca, why? Why impossible?

Or Daniel, why impossible? So from us, okay, now. Okay, this is where I would like to not own side, but it can be perceived by someone.

Okay, this is where I want to go back to the idea that Geshe Michael like to always remind us. First of all, we need to decide which hat are we wearing now. Okay, which hat are we wearing now?

Because I'm not sure, is this continuation of the discussion about the functionalist school or? Yeah, I mean, if we say prasangika, if we say the higher middle way, if we say that it is the consequence, then we can always, there is no more discussion required, right? Because it should be coming from our seeds also.

The emptiness itself, the nirvana, for example, the empty space, right? Only, okay, now let's recap. Okay, functionalist, we say that in functionalist, things, changing things have cause, right?

Cause and effect. In my mind, I just say that things have cause. Cause will produce effect.

That is the simple way I memorize it. I remember, I understand. And then it covers almost everything, 99% of everything in the universe, except the three things that Daniel mentioned, I think.

Yeah, Daniel mentioned emptiness, empty space and cessation. And because of these three, then it is not the highest. Next comes the independent, right?

Independent dependence, according to the independent school says that things can only exist if they have parts, if they have parts. And how do we prove that they can support this, at least the empty space, for example, then we talk about the left, right, front, back, top, down, no, the parts, right? So that's how we can explain the parts.

Even we can use it for emptiness, also the cessation. The starting of the cessation, the cessation process and the end of the cessation. So those are parts.

But when we talk about parts, then come the story of the car, the car, the parts of the car. We had the parts of the cars from many, many years ago, but cars only appeared in our life, I think about what, 100 years ago, 200 years ago. Yeah, so definitely there is something that is making the car appearing to us, right?

Yeah, correct. We say that the time also have parts. Yeah, so yeah, sequence of changes.

Yeah, correct. Sounds is, yeah. Daniel, are you saying, are you, is this a question or is this a statement?

Sound consists of, sound can be seen as a sequence of changes also. Doesn't sound, oh, you mean sequence of, sequence of time, right? Doesn't sound unchanging.

Parts of cessation, part of cessation. Doesn't sound unchanging. Dependence, yeah, that's a good one, dependence, right?

Definition of dependence. So we say that, no, I would say that, no, we are talking about dependence, right? We are talking about dependence.

The definition of dependence or, yeah, some people like to call it dependent origination. And then cause and effect is the functionalist. And then when we move higher up, comes the parts, comes the parts.

And then after that, then we talk about the seeds, the things that, the party that deserve it, right? So how do, oh yeah, you're right, you're right, Daniel. You're right.

Dependence, we don't use the dependence to define the changing unchanging. Yeah, we don't use dependence to define changing unchanging, you're right. So what I'm talking about here on the dependence is basically just how we look at things.

But when we talk about Flavia's question about changing unchanging, about changing unchanging, yeah, suddenly I lost my thought, you know? How do we define changing and unchanging?

[Speaker 2]
I heard Kishla say that unchanging things are absences, uncaused, and the third thing, three negative things, absences, uncaused, and yeah, unchanging. Unchanging, I think, oh, I forgot. But it's uncaused, and I don't understand how a cessation can be uncaused.

In my understanding, a cessation is caused by the path and your practice.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, yeah, good one. All right. Cessation is caused by our practice.

Yeah, those are the, we say that those are the conditions, right? Those are the conditions, yeah. Those are the conditions.

So, yeah. So now, when we talk about, when we go back to Flavia's question, unchanging refers to those that you just mentioned, right, Daniel? Can you repeat again, unchanging?

Yeah, unchanging things are absences.

[Speaker 2]
It's a negative thing, and it's uncaused. And there was a third thing that I forgot.

[Speaker 1]
Caused, yeah. And something else, right? Okay.

I'm confused myself, my goodness. Okay, we have 10 minutes left. Can I suggest that you ask this to Tim and Nick, and Flavia, can you please ask them?

And then, based on their answer, try to do a summary for us. Yes. Thank you very much.

Okay, I would like to come back to this Cameron's statement, permanent and impermanent, right? And then Luca was trying to talk about the permanent, yeah. So, yeah, Cameron, in our system, we don't use the term permanent in English interpretation.

I'm not sure, I'm not the host, though. Any, all of you can hear interpretation good, all right? Frank, Francisco is the host, all right?

Looks like Joy is in the Chinese channel. Yeah, okay, good. And then Flavia is Espanol, individual setting.

Oh, you want me to switch to Spanish, right? Okay. Where is my interpretation here?

[Speaker 3]
Okay, I'm in Spanish now.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, so, yeah, Cameron, I hear you. So, okay, now I would like, okay, let me repeat for the people in the, hold on, let me go back.

[Speaker 3]
Where's my translation? Oh, interpretation, come on.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, sorry, I need to stop my sharing. Okay, so Flavia was talking about, I'm still in Spanish. Okay, so Flavia was saying that, well, when we are in the higher school, we can say that everything comes from our seeds and then she link it to the parts, right?

Well, here, I would like to clarify. Basically, there are three levels of the dependence, right? We have what we call the functionalist school, and then we have the independent school, and then we have the consequent school, right?

So how I memorize them easily is the functionalist is basically cause and effect that we all know that is commonly known. And then the second level is basically parts. And then finally, the highest level is the seeds, right?

It's the seeds. If you refer back to DCI level seven, Geshe Michael call it the three impossibles. So now, when we talk about this dependence thing, we need to be very clear about which level are we talking about.

So Flavia, you mentioned about the parts, that is good, but part is actually part of this independent, not the highest. The highest, we only talk about seeds. Sometimes we use parts to explain about the emptiness itself.

You know, like what Geshe Michael use in advanced level one. And basically that is just a supporting way of the explaining, right? That is not the highest level.

The highest level is still the seeds, but it can be fun to use the parts to analyze the things. Okay, so that is how I would mention, I would say. Now, back to Cameron, right?

In our system, Geshe Michael did mention that we don't really use the term permanent and impermanent because that can be quite confusing. When we say permanent, our idea is that the thing exists indefinitely, right? But here, Luka is trying to say that there is a curve of existence or nothing at all.

This is what Alex was implying earlier, yeah? So unchanging things either exist or not exist. Although the 100% was kind of our arguments just now, right?

So I would say that it either exist or not exist. Oh yeah, I think Alex was trying to say that it cannot exist less than 100%. Yeah, now I got my thought of that.

Yeah, so yes, unchanging things either exist 100% or 0%. It cannot be in between. It cannot be 99% exist, you know?

Yeah, so that is, now I understood what Alex was trying to say, right? But, well, yeah, on the hindsight, the syllogism seem to be quite all right until we try to define existing 100%, right? And now I just remember when we define existing 100%, it means that they are either there completely or they are not there completely.

So Geshe Michael used an example of the mouse, for example. Now in the room, wherever we are, maybe except Daniel, Daniel is in Dhamma Mountain. We don't know.

Maybe there is a mouse somewhere in the room. But all of us in the city, I can say for sure that there is no mouse in the room, right? There is no mouse in the room that you are living now.

But the moment there's a nose of the mouse poking into the room, then the, okay, before the mouse comes in, there is an emptiness of mouse in the room. There's an emptiness of mouse in the room. Yeah, Daniel is trying to find whether there's any mouse.

So before, so there is an emptiness of mouse in the room. But the moment a mouse poking the nose into the room, the emptiness of the mouse is gone. Zero, right?

Zero, yeah. So that is what Alex was trying to mention. So if we were to define the existing 100% as when the mouse, when there is nothing, when there is no mouse in the room, then there is 100% emptiness of the mouse.

But the moment the nose of the mouse goes into the room, then the emptiness of the mouse in the room is gone. It's gone, yeah? So I think that is what Alex was trying to mention.

Okay, so I think that's why we don't use the term permanent or impermanent. We use the term changing, unchanging, meaning that emptiness of the mouse change, change means it goes away. Rather than saying that there is a permanent of no mouse in the room.

It's not permanent, right? It's not permanent, but it is unchanging. It is unchanging.

It just means that the emptiness of the mouse in the room goes away. They are not changing, but it goes away. And then when we say changing, we talk about the subtle, nah, let's not go too far.

Okay, let's not go too far. We talk about a gradual change. We talk about gradual change.

When we say changing, we talk about gradual change. Subtle impermanence, okay, okay. Wow, the term impermanence, okay.

Subtle impermanence, okay. So gradual change means if you see me today and you see me 10 years later, you see me one now and 10 years later, I change. But if you see me every day, there is a gradual change just along the way, all right?

Yeah. Si wei wu chang, okay, yeah. So, yeah, and then Alex, continue with the question, cessation is an absence.

How could absence be caused? Yeah, well, absence. Absence is the, well, I mean, this is how we, when we talk about dependence, right?

We talk about the three levels, the three levels. So of course this cannot be explained by the functionalist, but I was trying to talk about the, and then we move on to the independent, which is parts. And then I guess this also difficult to explain with the parts, right?

But of course we always have the highest level, the higher middle way, which is talking about the seeds. And yeah, absence can be caused through our seeds, right? Absence can be caused by our seeds.

Yeah, so I don't know, somehow I just feel that this seed thing is all encompassing. We can use this to explain everything, yeah. And of course, not forgetting that this seed system also should come from our seeds as well, yeah.

100% or 0% exist. Yeah, it comes again, the line, the line, yeah. Ecclesia change.

Ecclesia, negative emotions, right? So they are changing, they're changing, all right? Okay, yeah, I know.

Thank you, time is over, time is up. Thank you very much for all your active participation, although you all don't talk much. But I hope I don't disappoint any of you.

I hope it's, well, I mean, I learned a lot from this discussion. I get a lot of, I get a chance to sharpen my mind. Thanks a lot.

[Speaker 2]
Thanks again.

[Speaker 1]
And if you see how I type, that is how I analyze normally. I like to put into sentence, break down into three and then try to pass them. And thank you very much.

Thank you very much to, especially to Alex who is unseen here and then Flavia for the juicy question. And then Daniel and Cameron, and also Luca for jumping in. So Flavia, remember to ask and summarize for us, right?

I look forward to that as well. All right, so let's have a break for a while. I saw everybody is in already.

So that means people are joining in shortly. So see you all in, I think, three minutes. Thank you.

All right. Take a few more minutes. Keshe Michael is just gonna be right here.

[Speaker 3]
You guys up there?