Вордсмит — Книга 2: Трудные места школы «Ум только», занятие 57

[Speaker 1]
It's not easy. It's not easy stuff he's been working on translating and studying. But I find the more that I have studied the Mind-Only School, the more fascinating I find it to be.

So over the years, it's aging on me like a fine wine. So I encourage you all to try to learn the Mind-Only School as well. And if it seems hard at first, just stick with it.

I think certain parts of it will just open your mind to really magical and cool ways of thinking. So, Word Smith, are you here to be spotlighted? Okay, hi.

Hey, Word, I got to show these guys this. Where is that? So we had Word's family at the Peachtree Cafe.

And let me see if I can find it. Yeah, I don't know if you guys can see. His two older daughters, his new baby daughter.

There's three beautiful ladies in his life, four. I don't know, you must have played your cards right, Word. Hey, Word, do you want to say a little bit about your text?

Sure. My book is... Oh, by the way, again, can you send me that picture?

I don't have one. All right, boss. Thank you.

So my book is about the Mind-Only School. It's a commentary by Jason Kappa. It's an auto-commentary.

So it's Jason Kappa talking about his own book on the Mind-Only School, which was probably as incomprehensible to his students as it is to me. So he wrote a book about it, which he called The Tough Points. I don't know how it could get tougher than the original book, but apparently it does.

And it's the hard stuff about the part of your mind that is everything and part of your mind that is mad. And now we are about to discuss the part of your mind that is always upset, which is going to be... This is very pertinent to my life because I'm always upset.

So it shouldn't be hard to have practical applications for you either. That's it. Good.

We're going to go straight to the book now. Let me see here. Here we go.

Okay. Progress Report. This very, very difficult book is 44 folios, which means 88 pages in the ancient language.

And we're doing really well. We're three quarters through the book. And I think we can finish the translation classes in 2024.

And the book is going to be about 575 pages. Okay. And we're on a very interesting topic, which in the Mind-Only School, the most important subject is kunshi, which is like storehouse consciousness or foundation consciousness.

And that's where all your seeds live in that part of your mind. And also in that part of your mind, you have all your thoughts and perceptions and things like that. So really, that part of your mind has two parts.

There's where all the seeds are just sitting there waiting to open. And then there's the part of your mind which has opened already. And that's considered an eighth consciousness.

Generally, we have six consciousness, eye, ear, nose, tongue, fingers, right, or feeling, and then consciousness of the mind. And in the Mind-Only School, we include that storehouse consciousness as number eight. And then that means there's a number seven that we didn't talk about.

And today, we're going to go deep. This is the one of the deepest presentations you can ever see about the seventh part of your mind. And that's called messed up part of your mind.

It's called nyunyi, or the messed up part of your mind, to get to know the problems in your mind. And this is the one part of your mind, part number seven, which is always messed up. It's messed up.

What's it thinking? What's it looking at when it's messed up? How does it feel?

How do you get rid of it? We're about to study this subject. The greatest presentations in history.

And Word has translated the first few sentences here, okay? But Word, why don't we... Can you just read the first sentence here?

Sure. In a normal English word, normal, slowly phrased English, what does this say? It says, tell me the definition of the messed up part of your mind.

Hey, what are you going to give me for the definition of the messed up part of your mind? We're going to skip the root text so we can do more class. That root text was Vaisakapa.

It's one of the greatest explanations of the mind-only school. We had it already in the Golden Key, and we did not change the translation because it was perfect. So we're going to go to the commentary here.

Word, can you read section 479? And you've got grandpa's notes in there, so don't worry about it. Okay.

Yeah, good. What is the messed up part of your mind, mikpa, Word? Focused upon?

Yeah, what's it looking at? When it's messed up, what's it looking at? Well, look, you've got two choices.

You've got the sabunkicha of the kunshi, and you've got the naminkicha of the kunshi. What does that mean, Word? The leftovers in the fridge, or the fridge itself.

Good, nice, nice. Is it seeds that haven't opened yet? Is the messed up part of your mind, when it looks at the foundation consciousness, which is what it looks at, is it looking at the seeds that haven't opened yet, or is it looking at the seeds that have already opened?

And he says, shimate. He says, the latter of the two. Yeah, it's the second one, which is the stuff that has already opened.

In other words, the messed up part of your mind is not primarily focusing on the seeds in your mind. It's focusing on what's already come out of those seeds. And why that is, is because the mikpa of the messed up part of your mind, Word, is the focus of the new me.

It has to be something that feels like a da. Like a sense of self. Yeah, it has to feel like something you could mistake for me, okay?

And the seeds don't fit that description. You can't look at seeds and say, oh, I think it might be me, okay? But you can look at everything that comes out of the seeds and say, hey, I think that might be me in my world.

I think that's who me is, okay? So he says, therefore, the messed up part of your mind, when it looks at foundation consciousness, it's not primarily focusing on the seeds there. It's focusing on what has already come out of the seeds, okay?

Good. Goodbye. The mikpa must be the da.

It needs to. It's necessarily the case. It has to.

Yeah, what the messed up part of your mind is focusing on has to fit the feeling of me. CHOD DANG SONGS GYIR means it has to feel like me. Seeds don't feel like me.

But what I smell, what I hear, how I feel, those feel like me. So he says the object of the messed up part of your mind should be a part of your mind that feels like me, okay? It should fit that soon, okay?

All right. Now, word. Whenever you discuss a state of consciousness, you divide it into the object of that state of consciousness, and then how does the consciousness feel about that object, okay?

So you can talk about the mikpa, which is the object of a state of mind, the messed up state of mind here. Nampa means how does that state of mind feel? What's its aspect?

How does that state of mind feel? When you're in that state of mind, how does it feel? And he says that's too long.

Oh, it's a diluted sense of self. It imagines insanely that there's a me there. Long means crazy.

Long means completely out of your mind, okay? The messed up part of your mind, consciousness number seven, looks at the part of the foundation consciousness which has already ripened and has this insane idea that this is dark. This is me.

I am. And that state of mind, by the way, it's not talking about anger, desire, blah, blah, blah. It's insanity.

It believes that that's me, okay? Lomba means totally out of your mind, okay? Okay, word.

Can you read the next paragraph? And after that, we can pick on some people. Okay, sounds good.

Okay. Nice pronunciation. And by the way, I really appreciate, we all appreciate that you're teaching people to read, and it's a pleasure to hear your students reading so well.

And thank you for taking your time. I know it's hard to wrestle with four ladies at the same time. To take your time, and especially, I know you're getting up early in the morning, things like that.

Thank you very much. Densang is a book called what, Warren? The Secret Meaning.

Yeah, recently, as you guys are going to find out in the later classes, we were looking for a new book to translate. And I seriously considered this book, which is called The Secret Meaning. And it's a mind-only text that we don't know who wrote it.

And it's brilliant. It's super brilliant. And there's rumors that it was written by Vasubandhu, but it doesn't, I don't think, and then other people in ancient times said, we don't think it's Vasubandhu.

It's some, probably words form a line. Okay. Dakinambar kyeway go.

The nyonyi, the messed up mind, kyewas in the dakinambar. What's that mean? Gets, arises within that aspect of self, or the illusion of self.

Yeah, good. When you know, how do you know when you have a, how do you know when your messed up mind is active? You think there's a self there.

You think there's a me there. When you have a strong sense of me, oh, he hurt me. He drove right up behind me and hurt me.

You know? And when you have that strong feeling of me, then your messed up, then your conscious number seven is active. Because, okay, that's its, nambar means, that's the way it feels.

Okay. Nambar kye. But we do not, uh, we do not describe messed up part of the mind according to some kind of moral of it.

Some, some essence, some real nature or something. Yeah. So, so how do you describe the messed up part of mind?

It's only defined by how you feel. Not defined by what it is. Okay?

It's defined by how you feel. If you feel, oh, he hurt me, then you have messed up state of mind. And we don't define the messed up state of mind by any other means.

There's nothing about its nature which we use to define it. It's how it feels. And then you've known that you've got the messed up state of mind.

It's very interesting. Not through the ngo, which is its own nature, but through its nambar. How does it feel in your head?

It feels like mine, me. He hurt, he driving behind me. You see somebody following another car closely, you're like, wow, that's weird.

But they follow you closely, you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Zhe sung mi na, nga men kyi dzed de, ni, nang me.

Very interesting misspelling here. We figured it out. Okay, it used to say your nose.

And now it says the appearance in the mind. Okay. So we don't define so much the object of messed up state of mind according to how did it, the ripened part of the kunshi.

Okay, the ripened part of the kunshi. dzed de, ni, nang me, nyi nyi kyi yin du min gyur kyang. The messed up part of your mind is looking at the ripened part of your foundation consciousness.

But nga men kyi namshe de, too. The main point is that the ripened, it's not so much that you're looking at the ripened part of the foundation consciousness, it's that the ripened part of consciousness affects the messed up state of mind. It suggests to the messed up state of mind, this is you, this is who you are.

Okay. And then you talk to true world. And then you have a, like a emanation, elaboration, a crazy thought of me.

Yeah, you mistake the ripened part of your foundation consciousness to be you, to be me. Okay. What's ripened in your mind?

What ripened in your foundation consciousness just now? A seed for the appearance of an asshole in a car. Okay.

And then you take that, you take that whole experience to be part of me. Okay. That's me, me.

That's, he's already me. Okay. Some of you, you joke off.

We only describe something as the object of the messed up state of mind if it fools you into thinking something about yourself. And that's how we, that's how we define it. It's very interesting.

It's really interesting. By the way, you guys and all of us, we're supposed to imagine applications of words, text to the real world. Okay.

We're not going to have a discussion after the second class, because it's too much. We're gone for three, four hours. But just start, when you're listening to these classes, keep your mind in the mindset of how could I use this?

Or how could I use this in real? How could I make a university course about this, using this? Okay.

And there's the quotation from Dern's song, Word went, he's learned how to go find the original quotations in John Brady's database. And we find the original quotation, so that we can check that our author, who lived maybe 1200 years later, something like that, that he's quoting it correctly. Okay.

If he doesn't quote it correctly, and he says something brilliant about it, it doesn't help so much. Now, here comes a very interesting and what do you call it? Controversial sentence.

Okay. Word. Generally, what does that mean?

Generally, this is saying the essence of the new knee. Yeah, it has some kind of neutrality to it, but it still blocks you in some way that's negative. What's neutral mean here?

Oh, neutral here literally means it was not prophesized by Lord Buddha or something. But if you want to describe it in common terms, it means it's not. Yes, it is in itself isn't a negative thing.

Yeah, it's not a good thing. And it's not a bad thing. It's somewhere in between.

Wait a minute, you said it was messed up. You said it wasn't me messed up state of mind. You said it was the state of mind that sees a self nature where there is no self nature.

You said it's a state of mind where it says the guy in the car is really an asshole. It doesn't come from me in any way at all. But are you telling me that that state of mind is not negative?

And not positive? Are you saying it's neutral, karmically neutral? And we say, yes, but it's jipa.

What's that mean? Jipa means that even though it's not negative, it still stops you from achieving good things in a way. Yeah, it still blocks you, even though it doesn't give you pain as a result.

It blocks your progress. And by the way, if I'm in the class today, here's a very deep idea. There are even good deeds which can hold you back.

And that's a very interesting idea. Okay? There are deeds which are neutral.

There are even deeds which are good, which hold, slow you down. They slow you down spiritually. That's a very interesting idea.

And we're going to go deeper into it. Yay! Warren, do you want to have someone else read since you're reading it so perfectly, boringly perfect?

Sure, I will have somebody read. There's only a few people to look through here. I don't know, I'm looking through.

Who's here from my class? Is Tin here still?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I'm still here. All right, you read. Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. Nice reading. Thank you, Yeshe Michael.

You must have a tough teacher.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, thank you very much. Lots of work.

[Speaker 1]
So, what's that word? What's the question here? Hey, what is jipa and madripa dunkang she?

Yeah, you're probably wondering, what's the meaning of block and not block anyway? Yeah, what do you mean? It's not a bad karma, but it holds you back.

So, what do you mean when you say it holds you back? What do you mean? What's that mean?

And we say jipa means the nyomombas have made your mind nyok nyokpo. Nyok nyokpo. Say nyok nyokpo.

[Speaker 2]
Nyok nyokpo.

[Speaker 1]
Nyok nyokpo. Go ahead. Yeah, due to the mental afflictions caused by that nyumi, you get all fuzzy and out of it.

Good, good. Your thinking becomes unclear. Your thinking becomes muddled.

Muddled means like dirty water. Your thinking becomes unclear. Is it a bad karma yet?

No, you're just not thinking good. By the way, that's very close to the meaning of kleshab or nyonmo in Tibetan. Nyon means things got dirty and messed up in your mind.

Not like crystal water, not like crystal diamond. It's all messed up. But it's not yet that you hurt anybody.

You're just messed up. This is an interesting word. This state of mind makes things unclear.

But this state of mind itself is also made unclear itself by four other things. What are they, Warren? The four mental afflictions.

Yeah. This state of mind makes your thinking unclear. The nyin-nyin, the messed up state of mind.

But it also is unclear itself by four other negative emotions. Then we have a list here. That list comes from the Abhidharma Samajhaya.

But here we go. I got it from a book on Abhidharma. Kosha, by the way.

From Tim Jampayong. Here's the four negative states of mind that make the messed up state of mind confused. And it makes your normal mind confused.

It's confused and confusing, like a lot of people I know. Warren, do you want to read this? Or do you want to have someone read the big letters?

Sure. Thank you. I don't know who's here.

Is Kalita? Are you here? Yes, I'm here.

You're just calling on your best student, Warren. Who else do you want me to call? Go ahead, Kalita.

[Speaker 3]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Nice. Oh my gosh. Warren, did they speak Tocharian yet?

No, I think not. Not yet. Warren, what's SA BA'I NYON MONGS SHES?

The four main negative emotions. Yeah, in this case, when we're talking about what messes up, messed up mind, besides the fact that it messes up other stuff, it messes up the foundation kashyap there. And the four states of mind which accompany messed up state of mind, which help muddy it up, they're also drip and lung mater.

They also are neutral, but cause an obstacle. Right. The first one is JIG SONG LHAG LTA BA.

We just talked about that in Nick's book. It's the view of perfection. Yeah, the view of the perishable, the distressed, the view of assemblage, meaning taking me or mind to exist from its own side.

That's all. That's the definition pretty much of the first link of the Wheel of Life. Then you've got plain old MA RIG PA.

Misunderstanding. Yeah, and how that's different from destruction here is interesting. Misunderstanding could be aimed at other objects besides me and mind.

And then you've got LHAG NYON. Pride. And DUN CHAG.

Ignorant desire. Yeah, so these four make the messed up mind confused. All right, now your author.

Who's your author? Judson Crump. He's going to explain why we call it MA RIG.

Okay. Another reader? Genma?

Yes. I'm just seeing if you're going to run out of perfect students or not. Not likely.

Roxanna, are you available? Maybe. Yes.

Okay, please read. Thank you.

[Speaker 2]
MA RIG PA ZHES PA NYON MONGS PA'I DRIS MA CAN THU MA BYAS PA DBANG PO NGA THAMS TE PA SOGS CHU GCIG LTA BU'O Damn!

[Speaker 1]
That's terrible. Okay. Perfect.

What's MA RIG PA mean, Brun? Not obstacle, not obstacleizing. Yeah, so we've been talking about states of mind that may not be bad for you, but they block you.

And then we said, well, what's an example of something that doesn't block you at all? And we said there are certain states of mind that don't make your mind CHI MA CAN. Solid.

They don't make your mind confused or dirty. There are certain other states of mind which don't block you. What are they?

Well, DBANG PO NGA. The five sense powers? No, in this case it's a different DBANG PO.

It's the five powers. Oh, the five... It's five good guys.

And we're going to go find them because that's what makes us do. The five good guys and that CHI GCIG that includes DBANG. The 11 virtuous states of mind.

Yay! So we're going to go... We just went to another book and found you the five good guys and the 11 good guys.

Here's the five good guys. Geshe-la, it's already in our book. We have a list of them.

We get to that point. I went to Ben's book, by the way, just because I knew it was there. You want someone to read it?

Sure. I knew you were going to... No.

By the way, we're taking this book by Ben Kramer. Yay! These books start to help each other.

If you're in my class, you want to read Speak Up Now because I can't look at all these names. There's only 560 of them. What?

There's only 560 of them. Oh, there's 500. Same word.

[Speaker 2]
I was in your class. I'll read. Yay!

DEPA ZONG ZHUG DRAN PA TING ZIN ZHES RAB GYIS DBANG PO NGA Word?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, they are faith, effort. By the way, Djampa in this place, we looked it up in a commentary. It doesn't mean recollection, it means clear awareness, meditative concentration, and wisdom.

Those five are what word? Are they DEPA or MADRIPA? They are MADRIPA.

Yeah, they don't block you, they don't make your mind confused, they don't make your mind muddy. And here's 11 more good guys. Who's going to read that word?

[Speaker 2]
Let's see.

[Speaker 1]
Looking. I guess. Lindsay, you want to read, Lindsay?

Yay! I think she's muted. Are you muted?

I don't hear anything. Hey, word, that's an old trick when they don't want to read. Is your mic messed up?

Yeah. I think I zoomed. Yeah, she's listening.

That is a good trick. I'll use that one next class. Just go like this.

Catherine, Catherine Yan. Yes, thank you.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
Very, very nice. Unbelievable. Word, I don't know what, you gave them drugs or something?

Okay, can you translate, word? Yeah, don't worry, the drugs are MADRIPA. Martin, go ahead.

I don't know what you're talking about. The 11 mental functions that are considered virtuous are , which is faith, which is mindfulness, which is some kind of mental agility, which is equanimity, having some kind of feeling of shame or embarrassment. Personally, having some kind of embarrassment of what Geshe Michael would think if he saw you doing it.

Having a lack of ignorant desire. Having a lack of ignorant disliking. Having a general lack of ignorance or misunderstanding.

Not harming others, like practicing non-harming. Thank you. Thank you.

And Sun Tzu, doing good things for the sake of others, joyfully. Yeah, enjoying good deeds, good, nice. These 11 and the 5 we just listed are examples of?

Non-obstaclizing, neutral things. Yeah, well, I don't know if they're neutral, but they are definitely, he only said they're MADRIPA. Yeah, they are.

Yeah, he says here MADRIPA. Yeah, they are not, they don't obstruct you, they are non-obstructing. Now we're going to have an opinion from another person.

And Werd, I suggest you read this sentence because it's a little tricky. Okay. Okay.

Thank you again. Thank you. Okay, good.

Dön di la gasik means what? Some of the meanings of these. About this point, okay?

About this point, some people say the following, okay? And the verb is at the end of this paragraph, Dönpa. Some people believe, they have the following belief.

About this topic of messed-up state of mind, okay? And they say, look, in the parpe nyam shak. In the direct perception of emptiness of an ariya, or the meditation of an ariya.

You cannot have nyuni. You can't even have an afflicted consciousness. Yeah, you cannot have that messed-up state of mind, but you still have kunshi.

But you still have foundation consciousness. Yeah, that's their sampa. That's their general thinking on it.

Yeah, and when Tsongkhapa says sam, they think that it could be that it's not true. Okay, it could be that it's not true. Or it could be that it is true, and they're thinking about that fact.

So we don't know yet. But they think about it, and they say, look, when you're seeing emptiness directly, I don't see how you could have a messed-up state of mind at that point. But you still have this foundation consciousness, okay?

So then that leads them to other ideas. Then they say, that nyam shak must have a part which is jik, and it must have a part which is minder. Yeah, it must have a part which causes an obstacle, and a part that doesn't cause an obstacle.

Yeah, good. And they would say, nyun drip ma lungpar pangpa tarpa mi topa la samne. And they would say that, nyun drip ma lungpar ma pangpa, since at that point you haven't given up all your nyun drips, all your negative emotions, all your obstacles caused by negative emotions.

But hasn't he or she, in the direct perception of emptiness, haven't they given up their nyun drips, their negative emotions? Well, if they're in it, I guess they have given up everything there is. But once they come out of it, they've only given up three of them.

Yeah, great. Great answer. Great answer.

Okay, therefore, he says, since they haven't given up all their negativities, they cannot have achieved tarpa. They haven't achieved nirvana or liberation. Therefore, there must be something in the Arya state of mind, which is both drippa nirvana and midrippa nirvana.

Yeah, there still has to be something within an Arya state of mind that is both obstacleizing and not obstacleizing. They have overcome some obstacles, but since they haven't reached nirvana yet, there must be something going on that's obstacleing them, still, when they're in the direct perception of emptiness. So they're kind of getting to a point where they don't have obstacles, but there must be something holding them back, because the direct perception of emptiness doesn't make you an Arya.

It doesn't take you to nirvana. It is not nirvana. Keep going.

Somebody could read that for me. Okay, cool. Rebecca Vinacore could.

Hello.

[Speaker 2]
Hello. Drippa thang, ma drippe rang gi ngowa ma she shing, de ni kyi kun she, nyo ni ko na la njok pe na, sam lo gyat thunpar nduk te.

[Speaker 1]
Good. These guys, drippa ma drippe rang gi ngowa ma she, they don't understand the law of drippa ma drippe. They don't understand the...

I mean, it means essence. They don't understand what we mean when we say, that which causes an obstacle and that which doesn't cause an obstacle. Yeah, and they think somehow, I guess, what it says here, they think that somehow blocking and not blocking relate to kun she and nyo ni.

I see, yeah. They think it's relatively speaking for the messed up state of mind and the foundation consciousness. Yeah, trying to equate blocked and unblocked to messed up mind and foundation consciousness, trying to equate those two pieces like that, two to two, right?

Your sam lo is gyat thun. That's a big statement, yeah. Your mind is vastly small.

Yeah, yeah. This gyat just means extent, you see. You're thinking too small.

You're simplifying things. It's not that you can say that messed up mind is somehow blocking. And then kun she must be left over to be not blocking.

And that's all there is. That's too simplistic. Which in Tibetan means your mental girth is too small.

How wide is your mind is too small. You're thinking too small. Okay, very interesting.

And it's interesting to hear Je Tsongkhapa say that to somebody because probably all of us are somewhat not sharing opinions. Okay, all right. Who's going to read?

Let me look. I don't know. Is Anastasia here?

I didn't see her. Is Chloe here? She's not.

Oh, wow. She's sticking it out.

[Speaker 2]
Good.

[Speaker 1]
Ma yin te.

[Speaker 2]
Ma yin te.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, nice. This is a little hard for me word, but this is what I think it means. De nyi gyi dun, meaning the meaning of those two.

What two? The meaning drip and me drip? Or kun she and me?

It's drip and me drip, yeah. When we say either drips or my drips, okay, it blocks you or it doesn't block you, right? Are we, and here I'm a little unclear word.

I'm probably drip. I'm a little unclear word. Does it somehow block your understanding of the thing itself?

Or does it block the understanding of something else? Okay. If something is called blocking, does that mean it blocks your understanding of what it is?

Or is it blocking your understanding of other things? What do you guys think? It looks like the thing itself blocks your ability to chupa, right?

Those two. De nyi gyi dun. Does it act?

No, I'm sorry. Chupa here means we are investigating the question of whether or not these states of mind block che rang nyi. Or blockers themselves, right?

Isn't that what we're talking about? Yeah. Do they, let's put it this way.

Are they a guy with a mask on? Are they a guy with a mask on? Do they somehow obscure their own nature so that you can't?

So are we examining the question of whether a state of mind prevents you from understanding its true nature? Or are we examining the question of whether a state of mind blocks you from understanding the nature of other things? And the answer is here.

What? Is it seeing its own nature? Its own true nature?

Or is it somehow blocking you from seeing the true nature of other things? And he said... Both, right?

Both. Yeah, that's sexy. That's really sexy.

The question here is, is there a nature to prevent you from understanding who they are? Like a mask, a face. Or are they holding their hand up to your eyes so you can't see other things?

And he says, he seems to say it's the first. You know, that's really interesting. They are self-blocking.

It's very interesting. I mean, we've got to dig into it. And I'm not...

Yeah. Oh, excuse me again. Doesn't he not answer?

Isn't he investigating the two now? He says, well, if it's the second, shouldn't do nothing. We're going to get there.

No, no. He says, the question is, while we're trying to figure out chodpa... By the way, this is not SP, it's DP.

Chodpa means activity, SP. Like entering the bodhisattva's way of life, chodpa. But this is DP, which means we are examining the question.

That's a whole different verb. We are examining the question of whether they somehow mask their own nature. Is that their nature?

Or did they block you from something else? Do they conceal their own nature? Or are they concealing the nature of other things?

And he says, it's the first one and not the second one. Maybe both. Stanley says both.

We've got to write it some copper. Okay. Now he says, otherwise...

Okay, Wern. Okay. Should I read it or someone else?

Up to you, Uncle Wern. I still want to see how many people you've infected. I've infected a lot of people.

Your daughters are awesome, by the way. Your two older daughters. I mean, your young daughter is awesome.

But your two older daughters are unbelievable. Amazing drivers. No, that was kind of scary.

I'm going to tell... I'm going to hold on to that seat belt. Would you like to read, please?

Sort of. Okay. Okay.

This is hard. Otherwise, if that were not the case that they are masking themselves, and that's why they're blocking, rather than masking something else. Pabbanam.

Those ayahs. Do they have yi gewa? Do they have thoughts?

Good thoughts? Yeah, they do have virtuous thoughts. And they also have yi gewas in their meditation, which are lung du mat denpa.

They have distractions that come up in their meditation, which are neutral. Yeah, yeah. Do those...

Is it possible that in the direct perception of emptiness, thinking about something good you want to do for somebody could be an obstacle? Not possible. It would be an incredible obstacle.

Yeah, it'd be an extraordinary obstacle. It's possible for a thought to do something good is a terrible obstacle, in the direct perception of emptiness, for example. And he says here, also, even just neutral states of mind, where you slightly think about lunch during your meditation, are those obstacles?

Would it be an obstacle for an ayah to start thinking about lunch? Yeah, so we have a case where a virtuous state of mind would be an obstacle, and thinking about lunch would be an obstacle. Are they self-masking, or do they block you from something else?

In this case, they're blocking you from something else. Yeah, they're preventing you from seeing emptiness. Yeah, they're blocking you from seeing emptiness directly.

Therefore, they do gergpa your nyamsak. They are blockers, they're obstacles to your meditation. Yeah, according to you, they would become gyepas.

Therefore, they are obstacles. If the function of an obstacle is to prevent you from perceiving other things, then we would have to say that virtuous states of mind can be an obstacle. Is this Kacik again?

Yeah. No, he's saying, if it's not the case that... I'm working on it, okay?

I'm still working on it. If it's not the case that obstacle means it obscures its own nature, its own emptiness, if it's the case that it prevents you from seeing something else, then these mental states for a person who's trying to see emptiness directly become obstacles, because they are blocking you from something else. And he says gyurwa means they would have to be obstacles.

They would have to be obstacles. A virtuous state of mind and a neutral state of mind would have to be obstacles. Because in this case, a virtuous state of mind and a neutral state of mind are blocking you from seeing something else.

Okay, cool. Let's keep going, and maybe it will become clearer, and maybe I'll just get out of having to explain it. Wait.

What then? I don't know. Let me look.

Claudia?

[Speaker 2]
Claudia?

[Speaker 1]
I don't know if she's there. Are you awake? Maybe she's not there.

Let me see somebody else. Inna, are you translating maybe? She might be translating.

No, I'm not. Okay. Hi.

[Speaker 2]
Please read. Hi.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. yang si peng nge kyi kun jung ma lupa ma pang bar Work backwards a word. If you ma pang...

Yeah, if you do not eliminate... All the kun jung... Yeah, everything that is a definitive source of what will launch you into a rebirth.

Yeah, if you have not given up all the energies in the universe which would cause you to take another rebirth, then there's no way you can achieve any of the three tarpas. Yeah, any of the three levels or forms of liberation. Which three he's talking about, I don't know.

I guess it's nyen ter, rang yel, and chung sem, I guess. Three tracks. What is that?

Listener, Self-made Buddha, and Bodhisattva. Okay, I guess. You couldn't achieve any one of those.

If you still have any truth of the source of suffering which is going to project any kind of a new samsaric birth for you, then we cannot say you can achieve any of the three kinds of nirvana, even the lowest one. Therefore, according to you, sanam and myoey lay must be jipas. Yeah, meritous acts or karma or something, and those karmas which are unshifting.

Nice. Yeah, because... And by the way, he's talking now about the specific karmas that cause you to take birth in a higher realm.

So they have a different name. They're not called gyewa anymore, they're called sem. And they are called myoey, unshifting.

They will go to their result. They will not shift to a lower realm. So he says, look, even those high good karmas that put you into the formless realm, according to you, they must be jipas.

Yeah, they have to be obstacles. Because they prevent you from reaching nirvana. So stop doing these high good deeds, because they are jipas.

According to you, it's not that they are self-masking, it's that they are blocking you from something else. And it seems like Tsongkhapa is trying to say, when we say it's an obstacle, we're not saying it's blocking you from some goal. We're saying it's hiding its true nature.

Very interesting. It seems like he's saying that. It's very interesting.

Just about that time, Geshe-la. Do you want to... Do you want to say...

And I know it's a new idea for our Mixed Nuts classes. But if you... Like tomorrow, how do you think you could use the information that you got today?

In your real life, with your four beautiful ladies. Well... Well, considering...

We talked about the five powers, right? Faith, effort, clear awareness, meditation and wisdom, right? And the 11 virtuous states of mind.

And things of that nature, in terms of things that do and do not cause an obstacle. And it's saying they don't cause any obstacles, right? So that's always good to consider.

Sometimes throughout the day, it seems... I've been just trying to remind myself about karma sometimes. It's easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day and forget about seeds on the most basic level.

And then on a deeper level, I would say... If we're using the Mind Only School to become enlightened, which it's a Mahayana school, so apparently it's possible. It is, certainly.

Yeah, so it's possible. So I think it's possible to think, hey, when you are getting upset, which is frequently for me, there has to be part of me that's like, hey, they're messing with you. Hey, they hate you.

Hey, they don't like you. You could, from a middle-weight perspective, be like, well, that's not the ultimate. But it's still pretty darn good.

If I could be thinking of that instead of I should hit them or I should get angry, it's definitely going to go a long way towards helping me engage in virtuous states of mind and karma and playing good seeds. Yeah, and I'll just leave it at that, but I'll say one more thing. We're exploring the space of whether good deeds could hold you back.

We're exploring that space. We're exploring that space. We haven't decided anything, but is it possible that a good deed could hold you back?

Okay? All right. I'll see you guys on Saturday morning.

Again, can I make an announcement? Please. Oh, can I make one more announcement before you make your announcement?

If you're in Sedona, we will be meeting at Stanley Nelson's place at 7 a.m. to meditate together for one hour. Then at 8 a.m. we'll start a class and 9 o'clock we'll end the class. We'll start a discussion on how to use it in real life.

At 9.15, one of those Peachtree Roll News handsome guapos will talk about what's new. At 9.30, we have half an hour to get to the Peachtree Cafe to eat more cinnamon rolls. Okay.

Word back to you. Okay. If you would like to learn the West Chinese language that we are studying and read as well as my illustrious students, please, on this same link, we're going to take a break, but at 7 Arizona time, which is in 26 minutes, I will be teaching a beginner language class for people who would like to pronounce and read Western Chinese.

Yay. Thank you for teaching, Warren. Thank you for teaching.

Thank you for bringing your beautiful ladies here and please bring them again soon. Thank you for taking Sushumna to go play with Sissy. Okay.

You're welcome. Some photographs. Thank you, Geshe-la.

All right, kids. We'll see you later. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Geshe-michael. Okay. Thank you, Word, for teaching.

Yes, stick around for Word's class. Thank you, Geshe-michael, for our amazing class. And thank you to the translators for translating us into the interpreters and for making these classes happen in other languages.

I know we speak fast. We appreciate you guys. Francisco is sharing something.

I bet it's going to be, oh, if you do want to donate to Diamond Cutter Classics organization, we survive off of donations. So this will keep us going into the future. There's a QR code.

I'll put the link right in the chat. Hey, Nick, who did the nice poster? It's really nice.

Who did that? That is a fantastic designer from Mexico City named Lorena. Lorena, thank you.

All right. See you guys on Saturday morning. And Nick, thank you.

I know we don't have any translators in European time zones. You're going to suffer for the rest of your life, but that's okay. It was built in.

All right. Now get some sleep and tell your wife I told her you could sleep in. Thank you.

I'll let her know. Thank you, Geshe-la. Thanks, everybody.

See you soon. Stay tuned for words class if you would like. Thanks, Nick.

See you. Sorry, guys. Will words classes be recorded or just live?

That's a good question. You know, we're actually out of cloud space on our Zoom account at the moment, so this particular class won't be recorded unless somebody comes and records it to their machine. I can sponsor more storage from my own pocket to make it available.

We can pay for it. We just have to do it. But if you can help find somebody just to deal with tonight's class, because I'm going to fall asleep in like five seconds.

Okay, cool. Thank you. Let me see if I can.

Thanks, Brian. Thank you, guys. Thank you.

I'm going to take... I'm sorry. Siobhan offered to record the class.

Thank you so much, Siobhan. Is that okay? Yeah, great.

You know what? I will buy some extra storage right now. Hold on.

Nick, we can talk about how to deal with that shortly. Yeah. Okay, we'll deal with it another time.

All right. Goodnight, guys. Or whatever.

[Speaker 2]
All right. Thanks, Nick.

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. All right. See everybody here in about 20 minutes.

Thank you.