Тим Ловенхопт — Книга 1: Совершенство мудрости, занятие 54

[Speaker 3]
I don't think so.

[Speaker 1]
Look at this cheap microphone tape holding it together. Francisco, if I go to the Schwenfonstower.live link, it'll, okay, all right. Okay, no, I think this will be good, yeah.

Okay, all right, everybody, good evening. Good evening. Excuse me, I got to take off my pink glasses.

So, welcome. My, for those of you who haven't been, am I not a panelist? Oh, that's weird.

Oh, got it, okay. So my book, which actually is going to become multiple translators books very soon. Geshe-la had this idea that because it's going to take 50 years to finish this book, that we should recruit another translator once they have a free book to, so we can double the speed on this.

I thought I was going to be jealous. But then I was, and I was really, it felt like a really cool thing for us to do, because this, this book has, it's an incredible overview of the entire tradition. It has, you know, it has so much information, and it's so loaded with just about everything you need to know, including almost everything you need to know about emptiness with one small but important problem.

But it has, it basically covers everything we need to know. And so it's, this is called a dialectical analysis on the perfection of wisdom. What do all of those words mean?

It just means that we're studying the perfection of wisdom in a debate format. So the entire book is written in somebody shows up and has a, an idea, which is slightly wrong, usually. And then through the art of debate, we get to understand what the correct idea is, sort of like the way we did our workshops.

You're confused at first. And then it starts to clarify itself over time. Thank you.

I'm still confused after, I don't know, seven years or however, how many years I've been doing this, four years. But that's okay. And it was written by, it was written by Arya Sangha.

But how did Arya Sangha learn it? Oh, there was a dog. That was great.

Who just barked? That should have been worth $100. You know, he didn't learn it from a dog.

But because he had such good karma after being in the mountain house and doing retreat for 12 years, Asanga's karma shifted. And then a dog on the side of the road turned into an enlightened being named Maitreya, Lord Maitreya. And Lord Maitreya was like, hey, you want to learn some new stuff?

And Asanga said, where have you been? And there was a whole thing where Asanga was irritated that Maitreya took so long to come. But maybe our retreats can be faster than 12 years, right?

Maybe take us, we can, Om Mani Padme Hum, as she says. And then Maitreya taught him the five great books of Maitreya, and Asanga wrote it all down. And this is a commentary to a commentary to the Abhisamaya Alankara, which is one of the five great books.

So we're in the middle of a debate, and we're going to just get started. Here comes the homework, if I can find it. Here it is.

Okay. Okay. Anyone is allowed to answer, even online.

At the end of our previous debate, so if you weren't here, I'm sorry. You can just guess. At the end of our previous debate, our debater is trying to say that Arya Asanga has attachment to living beings in a negative sense.

However, we learned that he has an attachment in a positive sense. So what is that attachment that Arya Asanga has? And in what way is this attachment not sansaric?

I think they're waiting for money. I don't know. Anybody online?

Yeah, laksham. And what does that mean, Venerable Upala? That means personal responsibility.

Right. So he's taking personal responsibility. That's the kind of attachment that he has, the kind of love that he has for other beings.

So in what way is that not a negative attachment to things? Word. Let's throw a microphone to the...

Hello. Because that sort of attachment is a desire for those beings to be successful, to get enlightened. And that mentality, laksham namdak, is the precursor to the wish for enlightenment.

Or maybe the result? Possibly? Maybe.

I don't know. And what else might suggest to us that it's not sansaric based on the name of Asanga, the name that we attribute to him? The Arya part?

[Speaker 2]
The Arya part, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Maybe there's something there. Probably. The fact that he's already a realized being who is on his way out of samsara.

Right. So apparently Aryas don't plant bad seeds, even if they have some negative seeds ripen. To them, somehow the power is not there anymore, and they don't entertain the seeds in the same way, obviously.

So, all right. Secondly, so then we're starting another debate, and we're in the middle of another debate for this class to start. Okay, so we have to review where we were.

So the next debater comes up, let's see here, and says that not only are the Mother Sutras classical commentaries, I mean the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, and then we're still reviewing this idea. We're not convinced that the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras are classical commentaries. At all, because they're sutras, but we'll get there in a moment.

What other groups of teachings does our debater claim are classical commentaries as well? Hint, there are three of them. And what group of teachings do each of these represent?

Lindsay?

[Speaker 2]
Is it the middle length Perfection of Wisdom?

[Speaker 1]
No, the Perfection of Wisdom is divided into three groups, three types of like this, the brief, the middle, and the middling and extensive, but we're not talking about that right now. I heard Vinaya. Yeah, yeah, it's good that the Venerable Chönzong, she had the right answer.

[Speaker 2]
Vinaya, Abhidharma, and Sutra.

[Speaker 1]
Vinaya, Abhidharma, and Sutra, and what do we call that collection? The three baskets. Okay, so we have the three baskets, so our debater shows up and says, oh, the three baskets, the Sutras, the Abhidharma, and the Vinaya are classical commentaries.

So my next question is, what do each of those baskets represent in terms of the overall teachings? What are the Abhidharma teachings and what are the Vinaya teachings? What are the three trainings in this case?

Which ones, they have to correspond to each one. Chloe? The mic is...

[Speaker 2]
Morality.

[Speaker 1]
Which one's morality?

[Speaker 2]
Vinaya.

[Speaker 1]
Nice, good job. That's an easy one. Yes.

[Speaker 2]
Concentration.

[Speaker 1]
Yes, you have two options, Sutra or Abhidharma.

[Speaker 2]
Abhidharma.

[Speaker 1]
Which one? Did you say concentration?

[Speaker 2]
Concentration is Abhidharma is Sutra.

[Speaker 1]
What does Abhidharma mean?

[Speaker 2]
A treasure house of higher knowledge.

[Speaker 1]
Higher knowledge, so...

[Speaker 2]
That's a wisdom.

[Speaker 1]
Good, good, yes. All right, and the Sutra teachings relate to...

[Speaker 2]
Concentration.

[Speaker 1]
Nice, good job. So when our debater shows up, what we're going to find in the next... We're in the middle of the debater's claim and our debater is going to be quoting a few scriptures to prove his point.

So using scriptural authority to say, look, I didn't make this up. Someone else said this. All right, so he's using a scriptural authority to prove his point or her point or their point.

So the scripture that they quote makes a special claims about the Vinaya group. And this claim is what makes them the best house of the three. All right, and better than the two other houses, it's two other baskets.

What is that claim? Oh, in the back here, get the microphone. I think the claim is that the teaching of the Vinaya is the Buddha himself.

Yes, that's exactly right. But what did he say in that? Do you remember what the text said?

What we need to do because of that? And that proves that it's the best teaching. That's correct.

Because it's both the teaching and the teacher in one.

[Speaker 2]
Right.

[Speaker 1]
What are we supposed to do? Follow it, practice it.

[Speaker 2]
Yes, correct.

[Speaker 1]
Nope. Nope. Neek your pop jar.

What? I'm sorry. You said it again.

Neek your chop jar. Yes. And what would that be in English?

She's reading the line. Make double prostration. Yes.

You need to bow down twice in the Vinaya group because it's both the teacher and the teaching. That's kind of cool. Right.

So that's why Vinaya is the best house. Okay. All right.

According to that, because they're just selling their house. And there's another reason why. It's actually not because you have to bow down twice.

But what's the deeper claim? It's not. I mean, yes, it's complete, probably, but that's not the reason.

The foundation of the other two houses.

[Speaker 2]
So it's the foundation of the other two. Can you explain?

[Speaker 1]
Meditation training and wisdom. Well, how does it the foundation? From morality, you have good seeds, then you have good meditation.

Then from the meditation, you gain wisdom. Exactly. Good job.

Thank you. All right. Some vocabulary words.

Laksam. Personal responsibility in this case. Yes.

What's the difference between chakpa and nchakpa? You don't pre-nasal a second con. I was corrected.

You don't pre-nasal a second con. What's the difference between chakpa and nchakpa? They sound exactly the same.

Which one's attachment? The first one is attachment. What did you say?

To form. Maybe. It's not the one I'm looking for.

It might be. I'm not going to say no, because I don't know enough. When you're doing the seven ingredients in your meditation, you do this.

Past tense of confess? Yeah. Confession.

Confession. Okay. Yes.

And then denasambha. The three baskets. Oops.

Good job, everybody. Thank you very much for playing. All right.

Now we're going to do Tim's translation, which is scarily not very good. Okay. Let's see here.

All right. So this is where we're starting. We're in the middle of the kachig.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Do you want to go back to the first one to remember? Should we go back to the first one to review the first what the actual kachig was? Or no?

Okay. We're good.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Cool. All right.

So who would like to read? Who has a microphone? I got to zoom.

What's going on? Oh, it's them. It's them.

Okay. Who has a microphone? Would you like to read the first line?

Yes. Yeah. Go for it.

Yeah. It's just a few words. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Yay. Nice. So what's happening is the kachig is using various is you refer is referring to text to prove their point.

So this is the second text that they are referencing, which I something like the reasoning of explanation. I don't know if that's yeah, I'm not sure. Yeah.

It also says, okay, next line. Where's the microphone over here? Can you give that to the yawning Stanley?

Sorry. Okay. All right.

So I read your, I read your good, your part here. And then basically Geshe-la went and looked for the quote here. And so we go down and we find it here.

And it looks like our kachig is cheating. Yeah. Basically added words to the quote, to make the point more sound more official.

All right. So John Brady has input 80 million words, and it's searchable. You can search it in less than two seconds.

No one in history could do that. So every time he quotes a book, we can check to see if he added anything. And in this case, he did, he did.

And he added the first three words here, the dumb part, which actually says does not mean ultimate in the sense of ultimate reality. So I'm saying something like in the final analysis, good. Like, like, basically, it's kind of basically rubbing in like, guys, look.

And so I'm saying the word of the Buddha fits the definition of classical commentary. Yeah. So just generally in Buddhism, there's three time periods.

2,500 years ago, Lord Buddha spoke sutras and tantras. And that's, so far we've recovered 990 from 2,500 years ago. A lot of those are in the Mogao case in Dunhuang.

And then from 2,000 years ago up to 1,000 years ago, that's kind of we call classical period in India. So Indian people were writing commentaries, and that was, we call tengyur. Those are called shastras.

So what Buddha taught first is like sutras and tantras. Then there's a period of 1,000 years that are called shastras, which means commentaries. And then there's late commentaries in different countries, China, Tibet, Mongolia, like that.

Okay. So he says here, something, he says something, I don't know, controversial, right? He says the definition of those classical commentaries is sangekika.

Is the word, the speech of the Buddha. Yeah. The definition of the books from the second period is the speech of the Buddha.

Does it sound right? No. The first period is Buddha's speech, okay?

He's made a controversial statement. Our author helped him out. He added a word, dendampa, which normally word means ultimate reality or something, right?

Almost always, 99% of time it means ultimately. Here it means in the end, you know, in the end. Can we say in the end, all the classical commentaries are the word of the Buddha?

Depends on what house you're in. Yes. Okay.

The words on a cereal box are also the word of the Buddha for dharma house, right? Messages. Okay, good.

Okay, anyway, that's his definition, but we're not in diamond way. We're in lower middle way. Although we're trying to figure out if my, we're going to be finding out very soon whether Maitreya is considered a high level bodhisattva or a already a Buddha that's coming up soon.

So the style of this text is first someone says something controversial, and then we try to beat them. That was the controversial statement. In the end, the classical commentaries are the speech of the Buddha.

And then we're going to say, I'm going to say no, no, no, no. So the tongue here at the end, there's he's the, the, the cut cheek is continuing to make another point. Yeah, good.

Lindsay, would you like to read this one from you? From you? This is where I got lost.

So starting here at you.

[Speaker 2]
You. Okay. Is it a dream?

It is dream to do soon 10 trillion partelle.

[Speaker 1]
I going up or down?

[Speaker 2]
I don't know. Okay. Partelle.

[Speaker 1]
Nice. So I had to read that Lindsay, because you this is what you said earlier, we have the Mother Sutras, then we have the extensive ones, the medium length ones, and then the briefer ones. That's why I had to read that one.

So we're in the middle of this debate. So you have to know, this is referring to something that was said a couple pages ago. So our cut cheek is saying, you know, it is to the case that the, it's also the case that the extensive middling and brief, brief for Mother Sutras are classical commentaries.

And then guess what I rest, I'm like, I don't have to deal with. Yeah. He says, by the way, this is does not relate to the first section we already had.

The first section was controversial, but we're not addressing it yet. Okay. Okay.

We're not trying to argue that the commentaries are not sutras. We're not trying to say that. He's going on already.

He has two more claims. One is that the, the longer, the medium and the short perfection of wisdom, Prajnaparamita, Borobudur, must be commentaries, because they are the word of the Buddha. Okay.

All right. Now he's quoting somebody else. He says, those classic, sorry, those three great, huge, massive, the longest one is 100,000 verses.

Those three great presentations of emptiness must be commentaries. And we say, why? And he said, because you have the quotation that says, all of the commentaries are like that.

And there's no more explanation than that. That's why I was confused. Yeah.

He says, yeah, he says, he says, the great perfection of wisdom sutras, which we call the Mother Sutras, including the Heart Sutra, the Diamond Cutter Sutra, 8,000 Verses Sutra, he says, those are all commentaries. And then we say, why do you say that? And he says, well, they, as they say, all of them are it.

He just quotes some book at random. Okay. We don't know what's the book, but because we have John Brady's database, we can search 80 million words in two seconds.

And we found it. We got it. Okay.

And then it says, and denje tathag mani de, not all of the commentaries have been located. Okay. And that's difficult.

Okay. So he says, the sutras must be commentaries because of these two little quotations. Okay.

Then we have to go, we have to do the work. We have to go find the two little quotations. Okay.

So we did. And there they are. Okay.

When you see bold type, dark letters, it means we found the quotation. And there it is. Okay.

Well, sort of. Yeah, but it's not exactly the way he quoted it. Okay.

Who's it by? I think this is Chanakirti. Yeah.

It's by Chanakirti. What did he write? Entering the Middle Way.

Entering the Middle Way, which is the greatest commentary on? Emptiness. Wisdom.

The book called Wisdom, which is the greatest book on emptiness ever written. And we're translating the greatest commentary. It's 2,000 pages.

We are 625 pages finished as of this morning. Okay. So Chanakirti should know what he's talking about.

Chanakirti says, detar ni denje tathag kyi tunpa gyur ro. That's how all the shastras teach it. Okay.

That's all he said. Okay. Next quotation.

That doesn't help much. But denje tathag manyepar means not all of the commentaries were located. Okay.

And how that proves that the commentaries are sutras, I don't know. But that's the idea. Okay.

So we got to keep going. When you don't know what the hell is going on in these books, just keep going. And either it'll get clearer or everybody will forget what you didn't understand.

Okay. Right. We're going to give you the plan now.

Yeah. Okay. All right.

Let me get it up. Let's see. I must be further down.

I have a deal for you guys. I like to make deals. Okay.

Good. You ready? So I was just handed some books from some people I know in South Asia.

And this is another commentary to Tim's book. And it's four volumes. It's the same root text by a sangha, by the dog, meter.

And this is Tsongkhapa's commentary, which is what this commentary is based on. And so there was a lot of destruction during the Cultural Revolution. We lost many, we lost millions of books.

And then slowly we're trying to find them all and print them all. So this is a great achievement by these friends. And why I'm mentioning that is Tim's book that we're using, we're using a manuscript that was handwritten after the Cultural Revolution.

And it has a lot of problems with it. Like imagine if you had to handwrite the Bible after they destroyed all of them. People would make mistakes, right?

And we found one copy in the world so far. John Brady has found one copy in the world so far. And this afternoon, somebody invited me to Russia, Makarova.

And I said I would love to go to Russia. Again, I used to go pretty frequently. And I said I suffered through five years of Russian in Princeton.

And it's frustrating that I can't go there. But maybe we could make a deal. That book is in a Russian library.

And I know which library, I know which shelf. So let's talk, all right? But anyway, even if we don't find it, I'll still come, okay?

When I can, I'll come. When it depends on, you know, visas and stuff. But I'm happy to go.

And I'm not scared to go. I'm fine to go, okay? All right.

Venerable Karin, can you read the next line, please? Geshe Michael, can you share your screen, please? Sorry.

Okay, good.

[Speaker 2]
KHYON MED DE LUNG DANG PO'I DONG NYID KHYA DE NO GSUNG PO RGYAL It is just slightly bigger.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, cool. BA MTHONG PA'I RTEN PA'I THAM CHOD YIN CHE PA'I DONG YIN PA'I PHYIR Nice. Okay, good.

So the first quotation said that all of the Mother Sutras are commentaries, right? And then our author says, don't worry, it's not saying that all those books written a thousand years after the Buddha are sutras. It's not saying that, okay?

It looks like that, but that's not what it's saying. What it's really saying, KHYON MED DE... No problem.

No problem. I think we're referring to the one way before that for the three baskets. Yeah, way before that.

Which said, the quotation that said all of the three baskets, you can say, Say PHRAD PHRAD BITTHIKA Three baskets, right? GYEN MED DE, no problem. LUNG DANG PA'I DOD NI, the first, this LUNG means.

It's the Vinaya. The first quotation. Quotation.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, the first.

[Speaker 1]
But I think the first one's called LUNG something CHE. LUNG NAM CHE. LUNG NAM CHE.

Yeah, but this LUNG doesn't refer to that LUNG. Just so you know. Okay, it just means.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
It just means the first quotation, in this case. He's saying, LUNG NAM CHE KA DE NGOS SUN, the three baskets of KA. Okay, say KA.

KA means the word of a king. The order of a king, okay? And that's the word that Buddhists use for the speech of the Buddha.

We say the king's word, okay? And then if you translate it, it's called KANG YOD, which is our collection of the Buddhists. There's 990 surviving sutras and tantras, okay?

It's about 50-50. Okay? LUNG DANG PA'I DUN NI, KA DE NGOS SUN PO, DGYAL BA, DUN PA'I.

The conqueror, the teacher. Yeah, and by the way, because there's no instrumental on DGYAL BA, you have to read DGYAL BA and DUN PA as the positives. Oh, the teacher, the conqueror.

Yeah, the victorious one, KAMA, the teacher. He taught DUN PA, the DAMG CHOD. He taught the holy Dharma.

Yeah, so listen, can I say all the teachings of Lord Buddha and all the commentaries that came later are commentaries? Would that be accurate? Not technically, okay?

But if I say all the teachings, all the sutras by Lord Buddha and all the commentaries are scripture, is that okay? Sure. Yeah, they're holy books.

They're holy writ, we call. That's all. He says, when they said the word of the Buddha and all the commentaries are the sutras, okay, he meant scriptures.

Okay. Okay, like Yoga Sutra is a scripture, but it's not a sutra. It wasn't spoken by Buddha.

You see what I mean? There's lots of sutras. Okay, so the first quotation's okay.

It doesn't mean that the commentaries are the speech of the Buddha. They're not. They're the speech of human beings, okay?

But they're dang good. All right. How about Khloe Ma?

Khloe Ma, shall we go up? This is really exciting because we've now, after four years, reached the 13th folio. By the way, the monastic, the Genshi course textbooks for this topic, the Perfection of Wisdom, it takes 12 years.

It takes 12 years to read them. It takes 12 years. The root text is 75 pages.

We cover, in the Genshi course, we cover eight pages a year, and we debate up to eight hours a day. So it's a pretty thick book. So don't complain.

Okay, let's go. I was making a joke. Deita.

[Speaker 2]
Deita ma yin na duwa lung.

[Speaker 1]
Wait, wait, wait, how do you say yin?

[Speaker 2]
Yin.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, don't forget the Chinese speaker has to say ya, ya, yin.

[Speaker 2]
Ya, yin, yin.

[Speaker 1]
Ma yin na?

[Speaker 2]
Duwa lung te, sipo te, tongpa tang, tenpa ni, ka yin, pa tel, ni pa tel.

[Speaker 1]
I like how you cheated on that one. You went kind of up and down at the same time. Go down.

[Speaker 2]
Tong tang tenpa ni yin de yi tel, she song pay tel.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good, thank you. So here's the basic argument. Ready?

The book he's referring to said all the sutras are commentaries, and we correct him, and we say, yeah, but when they say commentaries, they just mean holy book. All the sutras are holy books, scripture. We don't mean they are commentaries that came a thousand years later.

That's not what it means. Then he says, I don't agree. And then we say, deita ma yin na, if you don't agree, then let's take that statement that the duwa lung te shi, the four great teachings of Vinaya, which we still have.

They're huge, massive. Each one is a thousand pages, okay? Lung duwa lung te shi po de.

So I guess it's true that those thousands of pages of teachings by Lord Buddha on proper moral behavior, they must be the teacher and the teaching. Right? They must be the teacher and the teaching, because somebody said so.

Got it? We just talked about it. Somebody said, Buddha said, when I pass from this world, your teacher will be ethical, ethical, following ethics.

When I pass from this world, your teacher will be your own ethical behavior, okay? That the Buddha will be your own observation of the Ten Good Deeds, or the Bodhisattvas if you were in Kyoto, okay? Buddha said, when I pass from this world, I will not be gone.

If anyone keeps morality, I'm still here. It's very beautiful, okay? So he said, in the Vinaya, he said, you know, my teachings on morality are the teaching and the?

Teacher. Teacher, but is it literal? No, they're not a living being, okay?

Those teachings are not a living being. It's an exaggeration. It's for effect, right?

Okay, somebody else does that. Okay, so he says, if we're supposed to take all these, if somebody said, all the sutras are commentaries, and we understand that they meant all the sutras are holy books, they're scripture. We understand that.

He doesn't understand that. He says, no, no, we have to take it literally. All the sutras are also the commentaries that were written 1,000 years later, he says.

Then we respond. What would be a good debate back to the guy? Quote something else, which the Buddha meant metaphorically.

Quote something else that the Buddha said in a similar way. It's kind of like a Geshe Michael exaggeration so the student wakes up. Got it?

So what's the one we choose?

[Speaker 2]
Kill your father and your mother.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that ethics is the Buddha. Oh, so I guess ethics is the Buddha, you know? I guess ethics was sitting in Varanasi and got enlightened, and then the guy says, why do you say that?

And we say, well, there's a quotation that says ethics is the Buddha. The Buddha said ethics is the Buddha. But he wasn't being literal.

Got it? We're fighting one not literal statement with another not literal statement. Okay, got it?

If he wasn't exaggerating about the Vinaya being the teacher, then he wasn't exaggerating about the sutras being the Shastras. Got it? Rigpa Gotsong.

Parallel reasoning, we call it parallel reasoning. Okay, we got one quarter of a page done. And let's go to another.

By the way, I went and found you the quotation in the Vinaya. Okay? Because I have John Brady's database.

Here's the actual quotation from the Vinaya. Yeah, okay. All right.

All right, Po, it's up to you.

[Speaker 2]
Khyapa ke dönar pe chod chen khan sak yinpa-thao yinpa-thao Go down.

[Speaker 1]
Khyapa ke. You already agreed. Okay?

You like this quotation from the Vinaya. Then, do you agree that that was spoken by the Buddha? Why?

Buddha said, when I die, I will still be here. As long as anyone's being a nice person, I will still be here. Okay?

Buddha said that. Then we said, so is the Buddha still here? And they said, well, not really.

And we say, why not? And he says, why not? And we say, if he was still here, because people are still following Vinaya, then the Vinaya books and the words of Vinaya would have to be a karthak.

Have to be a person. A person. Put gala in Sanskrit.

They have to be a person. Got it? Okay.

If it's literal, if we're meant to take this quotation literally, then we'd have to say the books are a person. The good behavior of people is a person. Then you'd have a person in your mind every time you're a nice person.

Okay? And it'd get crowded in there. The angels, devils, all kinds of stuff.

All right. DBES BYAS All right. Next, Tim.

Pabongka Rinpoche, could you read? You had such a short one. So our response is, oh, so I guess the Vinaya is a person.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. SDOD MI NUS TE YOD CHE BCOS CHE GYIS SIG YIN PHA'I PHYIR Nice yin.

[Speaker 1]
YIN PHA'I PHYIR Nice yin. BCOS CHE, anybody? Word is a little hard.

Expression? Yeah, expression. You cannot say that the Vinaya is a person.

You cannot say that the teachings on good behavior is a person. They're not really a person. If they survive, the Buddha survives, but only metaphorically.

Okay? They are not a person. They are RGYUD RJE GYI TZIG They are words which tell a story.

They are just words which tell a story. They are not a person. The Vinaya is words.

Okay? KHOR GSUNG You're just chasing your tail. Yeah.

It's like a dog who chases their tail. Logically, he's going like this. And he can keep going.

At that point on the debate ground, you say, I'm going for a tea. I'll see you later. You keep going.

I'll be back later. Because he's just repeating himself. Then he's going to pull out another quotation that he takes literally.

We're going to say it's just metaphoric. And we're just going to go around in a circle. So at that point, you say, YIN DENG BO DANG TSOS PA MI YOD I don't debate crazy people.

That's an acceptable argument in the debate ground. I'm sorry, but I don't debate crazy people. Crazy person in the debate ground means someone who refuses to be logical.

All right. Then we just say, okay, I'm out of here. It means I'm out of here.

I'm going to go the other side of the debate ground. You keep going. All right.

David, could you read the next line? Start with DATA. Long YI PEI DONG NI SANG GYE KEE GA LA DONG NE LA TANG CHO GYI DRA SHA TEN CHO GYI DRA SHA TEN SHE PAY DONG YIN PEI CHE Nice.

Long YI PEI With reference to the second. Yeah, now the second quotation you pulled out to try to fight with me, the real meaning is... By the way, that was the quotation that said, all the speech of the Buddha is a commentary.

That was the quotation that said, all the speech of the Buddha is a commentary. And then we said, look, they weren't speaking literally. It has a deeper meaning.

And what's the deeper meaning? SANGS RGYAS KYI GANG The speech of the Buddha. Yeah, the word, the holy word, capital W, the command of the Buddha.

SANGS RGYAS KYI GANG You don't know this word, word, because it's new. DUR NAS SU means in reality. Okay, it's an idiom from the 16th century.

DUR NAS SU means in actual fact. When you say that the speech of the Buddha is shastra, and now there's a very beautiful debate. We're just talking, we're just saying that the speech of the Buddha has within it all the defining elements of a shastra.

It fits the two meanings of a shastra. The word shastra has two classical meanings. One is protection.

Protect. And two, fix. And fix, okay?

Shastra, the word chö here, means protect and fix something, okay? The word shastra means protect and fix. Is the speech of the Buddha a shastra?

No. But does it protect and fix? Yes.

Yes. So it fits the word shastra. It fits the intent of the word shastra, got it?

Cool. The intent of the word shastra is a book which protects you from the lower realms and which repairs your wrong ideas. So can we say that the intent of a shastra is complete in the sutras?

Yes. Yeah, the literal meaning of shastra is complete in the sutras, got it? Okay.

But a shastra is not a sutra. You could never say that. Now, I'll say it again.

Ready? Is a shastra a sutra? Is a sutra a shastra?

No, I mean literally. No, it wasn't spoken by a human being. But does a sutra fulfill the intent of the shastra?

Yeah, to protect people. Okay, cool. All right.

Keep going. Who's next? Yi Yi.

I'm sorry, I was just looking at all the words and I... Oh, you want to go through the words? Yes, please.

Okay, good. LUNG NYID PA'I DON The meaning of the second quotation is in the speech of the Buddha, you find in its entirety, tsang, complete, tsang. I see, okay.

You find complete. Dashe means the literal explanation. It means word explanation of the word shastra, which is repair and protect.

Okay, cool. Thank you. It's a beautiful argument.

It's a nice argument. This is an extraordinary text. No one's crazy enough to try to translate it.

It'll take 50 years minimum. So we're thinking to split it between a couple of guys. Okay, next.

Ella, would you like to read the next line?

[Speaker 2]
DELTA MA YIN NA SDOM LDAN PA SANGS RGYAL GYI KHAR LDAN CHOG KYI SEMS NYID YIN PA MTHA'O Now, here's a different argument.

[Speaker 1]
Are the commentaries the word of the Buddha?

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
But in the end, are they the word of the Buddha? See, that's the question. Yeah, that's debatable.

Chloe's right. It's like, I mean, you might say that. In the end, they are Buddhism, right?

Kind of Buddha. Kind of word of the Buddha. I mean, they are distillations of the word of the Buddha.

Can we say that? So anyway, he says in the end, he says the definition of a commentary is in the end, the word of the Buddha. In the end, they represent the word of the Buddha.

I mean, that gets close to correct. Let's see where he goes with it. Ella, you had such a short line.

Could you do another short one?

[Speaker 2]
LUNG YOD RANG GI DE PHYIR Nice.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, LUNG YOD RANG GI DE PHYIR. You're the one who quoted the quotation that says, the Shastras are the word of the Buddha, or something like that. And so do you agree that the Sutras are the Shastras?

Do you agree to that? And we say, it sounds like you're agreeing to that. He says, you know what?

By the way, if you're familiar with Buddhism, he's getting pushed into a corner. We're like, now he's in the corner. He's got one thing he can think, and that's what debate is all about.

Then he says, okay, okay, okay. Then I agree. The Sutras are Shastras, and the Shastras are Sutras, okay?

Okay, you get me in the corner. You give me no choices. I can't make any clarifications.

All right, goddammit. Sutras are Shastras. Can goddammit be a Shastra?

That's a good idea. Then Aisha, can you read this? He, by the way, he's been forced into a corner.

We're close to the end of the debate because now he has to either put up or shut up. And he says, okay, Sutras are Shastras. The commentaries are the word of the Buddha.

And we say, who is it? Aisha.

[Speaker 2]
Mdod ne dang chok gong dang chok.

[Speaker 1]
Nun?

[Speaker 2]
Nun. Nung tong. Nung tong gang chok chen.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, let me pause for one second. If you're in a debate, the other guy's in the corner. You're ready for the last punch, right?

And he just said, all commentaries are Sutras, okay? What would be the cutest commentary out of the 3,700 commentaries to throw at him? This one, yes.

The one we're studying, okay? The one by the dog, the dog finder. Okay, we're studying the Jewel of Realizations, Abhisamaya Avankara, written 1,800 years ago, 1,700 years ago by Arya Sangha.

The cutest commentary to throw at him, to knock him out, would be the one we're in, okay? So we're like, oh, all commentaries are Sutras, hmm. What about the one we're in right now?

What about his Sangha? What about his Sangha's commentaries? Then we say, are you saying?

[Speaker 2]
CHOS CAN DONG DAM PAR SANG DONG DAM PAR SANG YANG GYI RGA YIN PAR DAG YIN PAR DAG Sarcastic.

[Speaker 1]
You got him in the corner and punched him. YIN PAR DAG Yeah, I, well, well, oh, you kind of like, you do it like this. In English, it would be, oh, let's take that book by his Sangha, yeah?

Well, I guess it's a Sutra. YIN PAR DAG Then you look at him like this. I guess it's a Sutra, right?

And that was his position all along. Now, he's got to say what? By the way, there are two answers to I guess it is, right?

Tao. He's the opponent, I'm the good guy. Oh, so let's take that book by his Sangha, the famous one that they spent 12 years on in the half the Geshe course, 75 pages.

And they say, well, I guess it's a Sutra. Why would you say that? Because it's a commentary.

Okay. Got it? And then he has to shut up and then we move on to another debate, okay?

He's knocked out. He's like on the floor. Okay, got it?

Okay. Oh, by the way, our answer was, I guess it is in the end, the word of the Buddha. And he has to say no, because it's not.

It's the word of a Buddha, maybe. That comes later. That comes later, but not as later as you think.

All right. Khor Sum. Khor Sum.

Anatole, would you like to read the next line? How are we doing on time? We have four minutes.

If you have four minutes, use it. Shenyang de min de bar dao. Bar dao.

[Speaker 2]
Sangye.

[Speaker 1]
By the way, it goes up.

[Speaker 2]
Shenyang de min de bar dao.

[Speaker 1]
Sangye gi ka sen yi mai yin bei jir. Good, nice. Shenyang, what do you want?

Moreover, just a little bit more to rub it in. Yeah, we're like, moreover. That book by Arya Sanda, no, it's not a sutra, okay?

And then word, and you can appreciate that sen yi. Okay, here. Sen yi means definition.

Sen yi pa means real. If you add a pa, it means real. If you want to be cute and make it kind of mysterious, you can say ka sen yi.

Ka sen yi, but you have to say it fast. You have to say ka sen yi. Say ka sen yi.

Ka sen yi. You don't say ka sen yi. You say ka sen yi.

And if you say it fast enough, it means ka sen yi pa, which means the real thing, the real sutra. Real sutra. So that's, if you said it slower, it would be the definition of ka.

Got it? It's delicate. De min de ba dao sangye ka sen yi mai yin bei jir.

Ka sen yi mai yin bei jir. Meaning sen yi pa. It's not, what?

It's not a definition. It's not real Buddha's speech. We added real.

We added the word real. He said, this book by Asanga is the speech of the Buddha. And we say, why?

And he said, there's a famous quotation. It says all the commentaries are speech of the Buddha. And then we say, yeah, but it's not really speech of the Buddha.

Got it? Okay? All right.

Word, could you read the next line since the microphone's right there?

[Speaker 2]
Sure.

[Speaker 1]
CI ME DON NI NGAR SHES ZIN TO Yeah, CI ME DON means that last thing I was talking about. Okay? That last thing I was talking about.

What was the last thing you talked about? It's not the real. It's not the real.

Real. It's not the real sutra. It's not a real sutra.

And then he says, by the way, if you don't know what's a real sutra, we just went through it for like a whole year. And NGAR SHES ZIN means. I already explained that.

I just taught. I've been teaching you for a year what's the definition of a sutra. You know, go back and read what we just went through.

Okay? He refuses to give it again. What is the definition of a sutra?

Basically, it's a teaching by a being who's enlightened. Okay? If you don't remember the definition, that's not my problem.

But is the book by a sangha teaching by an enlightened being? Maybe. That's a later debate.

That's a later debate. We got time? We got any time?

We have three seconds.

[Speaker 2]
Two, one. Here's the 30 seconds.

[Speaker 1]
All right. Döner, Tenchu. Oh, no, I'm sorry.

Kachik. Kachik. Katang.

Kaigondra. Ni Galparthao. Katang, Tenchu.

Gyalwa Chirsena. I'll give you the argument. And I'll pay $100 if anybody can give me a good answer.

Accept word. Okay. Somebody says, it must be the case that the word of the Buddha and a commentary on the word of the Buddha must be contradictory because a sutra and a classical commentary is contradictory.

Nothing can be both a sutra and a shastra. There's no such thing. Therefore, speech of the Buddha and a commentary on the speech of the Buddha must also be contradictory.

I guess the Buddha never commented on his own work. Yeah. Then we're gonna say, yeah, but you know, the Buddha...

People, it happened in the Buddha's lifetime that his own students challenged him. The whole first part of your life, you said everything exists from its own side. Abhidharma.

Then the second part of your life, you said nothing exists from its own side. And then in the third period of his life, they asked him, is it true that nothing exists from its own side? And he said, nah, I was just kidding.

Okay. But the third turning of the wheel in which he said, nah, I was just kidding, he was commenting on... Second turning.

Himself. Yeah. He was commenting on sutra.

Was it a shastra? No. No, it's another sutra.

You can have a sutra, which explains another sutra, but that doesn't make it a shastra. Got it? That's the point.

That's the point. Very famous. Okay.

And what is this you had in here says, the dimanye, is there something special about? Yeah. I got to teach words something new.

Okay. The kyi mange, the instrumental followed by mange, means, here's the exception. It is made indefinite by the previous word.

It is made indefinite by this fact. And it's a super idiom. Like, you can look for it.

You want me to tell you how many times it occurs in 80 million words? Yeah. I'll search for it.

Oh, you can see my screen? No. Oh, I got to go to...

I know we got to stop. I want to prove something to you. You don't need to be taught how cool is John Brady.

You don't need to be taught how cool is John Brady, but... Okay. So I'm going to go to the search program.

Okay. And I'm going to search for... Yeah.

I'm going to search for that phrase. Yeah. Go away.

Okay. I'm going to search for that phrase. Kyi mange.

Yeah. Yes, technically I should.

[Speaker 2]
I knew you were going to ask that.

[Speaker 1]
Kyi mange. But this particular form of it. Okay.

How's that? And I'm going to search, you know, like 40 million words. You ready?

Watch the bottom, bottom, bottom, bottom. Oh, you can't see it. 60.

How many? 60 times. There's 60 times in 80 million words.

That means word didn't figure it out yet. That means I can make a bet on it. I know all these statistics.

Okay. All right. I won't use it again.

Cool. Gawadi, thank you. And we have another offering.

Brian, Christina and Pachi, please come up here. Because today is Brian's birthday. Today.

Today is Christina's birthday. And because next week is Pachi's birthday, we're just going to, the emptiness of time is today. So we got some big cakes for everybody.

♪ Birthday to you. ♪ You get one candle. ♪ Birthday to you.

♪ ♪ Birthday to you. ♪ I didn't know that. Will you use that book?

Oh, we're going to use a different song. Thank you everyone for being with us in these two classes. It's always amazing to share this journey with you.

And we're grateful for the time you have given to study and reflect on these great books. And remember, we're also planting seeds for creativity in our lives. Problem solving, relationships, creativity is a great seed to plant.

So we just finished the class on the perfection of wisdom with the greatest translator, Geshe Michael Roach and Tim Blouenhaupt. And I hope it bring you inspiration and new understanding. So as always, please stay connected with us.

We have a lot of classes online and offline and see you on the next class. See you soon.