Серия «Сутра Алмазного огранщика», часть 4 — Девять посланий: неожиданный финал Камалашилы к «Сутре Алмазного огранщика» (2017, Даймонд-Маунтин, Аризона), занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
Alright, welcome to Kamalashila number four. Before we start, I'd like to just thank some people, and we talked about it at the Lam Rim, but some of you weren't here. And the history of these cottages that you're staying in, is that we had a seven-year course here in Vajrayana, starting 2003.

Three or four. Then we went until 2010, and then a group of the students went into a three-year silent retreat, and they built their own cabins with their own money, and then they said, after we finish our three-year retreat, we will offer our cabins to Diamond Mountain for free. And so, future generations like you can stay in them, and we have ...

some of them are here today, and I'd like to ask if they could stand up, people who did the three-year retreat. Some of them built two houses, and gave them to Diamond Mountain. I'd also like to ask the staff to stand up, Michael and Melissa, and the other staff.

Yeah. And thank you for Diamond Mountain. They work really hard all year, getting ready for us, and the day before you get here everything breaks.

And then they spend the whole retreat fixing things. So, thank you for that. And I hope you learn to love this place like we do, and I hope you will think about ...

don't ... I mean, of course come in the spring and the fall for these Lamrim retreats. We have about, I don't know, we probably have another 20 to go, and then ...

but also, please consider this your home in America, and anytime you want to come and do a retreat, three days, three years, or something between, then please come, and just do your own retreat okay? And it's hard to find such a beautiful place, and such a quiet place. We chose the quietest place in the United States.

You can't even get cell phone service there, in the valley, and it was hard to find a place like that. So, although we just put in internet, because we thought if there's an emergency you should be able to call one of the staff, but I'm sure you won't use the internet for anything else okay? You spend a lot of money and a lot of time to get here, and if you use the internet you're a little bit crazy okay?

So, I ask you keep silence, except during class if I ask for questions, and then keep silence during this retreat, and you will have a better retreat, you will have a good retreat okay? In recent years, since those guys did their long retreat, we've improved the place a lot. We bought more land.

Now the land is quite ... I think it's the largest retreat center in the United States, and maybe one of the largest in the world. And we were able to build this student center, which fits I think 200 ...

150? 185 legally for dinner, and we're about to put in a million dollars worth of roads starting in the next few months. And a lot of that is possible due to one person, a very kind person who's been helping us, and I'd like to thank Dr. Mengfang Wu. He's very patient. Every time I see him I squeeze him. And his wife is here, and his sister-in-law's here.

I'd like to welcome her also. Alright, so ... by the way, we're handing out the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

It's finished. It's in four languages. A lot of work.

I started this 20 years ago, and we just finished it I think yesterday. And it's in four languages. Jigme worked really hard on the Sanskrit, and Stanley Chen worked really hard on the Chinese.

I think he didn't sleep for some time, and it was a lot of work for many years. And so now it's ready, and we printed a nice one for you to keep for the rest of your life. Because Geshe Michael didn't finish until two days ago, we had to pay the printer ...

what do you call it? A ransom. And Veronica and I paid a thousand, and Jigme paid 500, but I need one thousand more from three people.

Raise your hand. One, two, three. Finished.

The rest of you are too slow. Talk to Tim, okay? And so, we just offer it to everybody, okay?

Did you catch the three? If you didn't, it's you. Okay, and this has all the four Kamalashila classes in it, all the meditations.

If you missed one of the four classes, courses, then you can catch up with one of the people who did do it, and I encourage you to teach it to each other, the ones you missed, and you shouldn't ... you should try to catch up, okay? And we've been doing Kamalashila for two years now, and we're gonna finish this week.

And I think it's the first time in a thousand years anyone has taught Kamalashila. And that's the biggest commentary on the Diamond Cutter from India. There's one very small one by Vasubandhu.

And Kamalashila incorporates most of Vasubandhu, so if you know Kamalashila, you know the tradition from India, okay? There's one great commentary in Tibet by Choney Lama. ACI Course 6 has a lot of it, and we're working ...

by the end of January we will finish that commentary in English, but with the translation programs that we have around the world. And those are also funded by Mr. Wu largely, and I'd like to thank him again. And we also have a strong support from Germany and Austria, Renate Birgitta's been helping a lot, and Norbert and Jessica from Germany.

Alright, let's go to the Diamond Cutter Sutra, okay? Then we're studying commentary by Kamalashila. He lived in ...

same time as Xuanzang I guess, Tang Tsao. 750 Stanley? AD.

Something like that. And ... but his book didn't reach China, because I think he lived at the same time as Xuanzang.

And it did reach Tibet around 800 years ago, and then the Sanskrit disappeared, and we don't have the Sanskrit. We're looking for it. We have a team in India looking for it, and we have a team looking for it online, and they haven't found it yet.

Someone reconstructed it from the Tibetan, but of course we don't know if it's correct. So, we've been going through the commentary page by page, verse by verse, and now we've reached the fourth class. This is the last class about Kamalashila, and we are following certain meditations that he recommends on the parts of the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

Because the ending is so important, there's a poem at the end, and because it's the most important part of the Diamond Cutter Sutra, I thought we should do it first. And we'll start tonight, I think we can finish it in two or three classes. And, because you can meditate about it, okay?

Tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. And I'll give you some meditations you can do, based on Kamalashila, okay? So, I'm going to teach you those verses, this verse, and ...

I had a suggestion that everybody could memorize the Sanskrit. It's not hard. We sang it yesterday?

The day before? You can sing it in about one second. Okay, and then I'd like everyone to memorize the Chinese, because that's even older than the Tibetan.

Stanley, you put it in the back, but that's just a pronunciation in the Chinese. They didn't translate it? But this is just pronunciation of the Sanskrit.

No? Wait, what ya? No, I want the Chinese pinyin.

Can you prepare it for tomorrow? Then I'd like everyone to memorize ... so, don't memorize this last page, that's just the sound in Chinese.

So, but the Sanskrit is here on the last page, okay? You can memorize that. You have to finish by tomorrow night, I'm going to check.

It's easy, come on. Je Tsongkapa memorized 30 pages a day. This is four lines, okay?

Okay, and then Chinese. English of course. And the student who memorized the Tibetan get extra point, okay?

But by the time—by the end of the week, I want to hear those three from everybody. Sanskrit, Chinese, and English. Tibetan you can get extra credit.

I will give you a big yellow hat. Okay? So, let's start.

I like to study the Sanskrit, to me it's very beautiful. In Buddhism we say that all Buddhists speak Sanskrit. Everywhere, every world, okay?

So, I'm going to pronounce it correctly, and you can repeat after me, okay? LTAR GAGS DIM MIR RANG DIG PO MA YANG AVA SHYA YANG BUD BUD DANG Okay, we've been mispronouncing that everybody. Okay, say BUD BUD DANG.

Okay, SVABS NAM BYA VIDYUD ABRAHAM BYA EVAM DRAG ZLAB YANG SANSKRIT THAM Okay, cool. And, I'm gonna teach it to you very slow and very nice, and we're gonna use like five commentaries, okay? By the end of this week you will be sick of this, but you will know it better than anybody in the world, okay?

And this is the essence of the Diamond Cutter Sutra, okay? So, I thought I would start with...each time...there are nine parts here, nine famous examples of emptiness and impermanence, okay? And, first I'll teach you the Sanskrit, and then I'll give it the meaning from many commentaries, okay?

We'll start with Vasubandhu, which is 1,700 years ago, who wrote the Abhidharma Kosha, and then we'll go to Kamalashila, 1,300 years ago, and then we'll do...sometimes we'll do Aryadeva from 1,800 years ago, and then Choney Lama from about 400 years ago, and then three other important Tibetan commentary...commentary? Commentators. One is named Janyang Shepa, one is named Tendar Sarambha, and one is named Kwanjo Tempe Dume, and I'll introduce them to you, okay? I like cognate.

Cognate means...Sanskrit is the mother of Latin and Greek, and they are the mother of all Western languages, European languages, and they are the mother of English. So, every...almost every Sanskrit word has a corresponding English word, and I think it will help you to remember the Sanskrit if I teach you the English... cognate means related English word, okay?

So, and I like cognates. If you understand Sanskrit well, it's a generational grammar. You can predict how Sanskrit evolves.

It evolved logically, and it means you can take the New York...you can take a newspaper, and you can see the Sanskrit there, on every word, if you know Sanskrit well. You can work backwards. You can translate it into Sanskrit in your mind in a few minutes.

Some New York Times, it's cool, okay? So, let's start with Tadaka. I made this simple for you, okay?

There are long A's, short A's, long I, long A. We're not going to do that, I'll just say Tadaka, okay? Tadaka means star, okay?

In the sky. The Tibetan word is karma, so don't be confused. Karma, of course, in Sanskrit means seeds, but karma in Tibetan has no relation to karma in Sanskrit.

Karma in Tibetan means star, okay? And Tara means to cross over, and the angel who helps you cross over a sansara is called Tara, okay? The word of Tara, the name Tara, the Buddhist lady Buddha, Tara, her name means cross over, and the English word transportation, or transit, trans means to cross over, okay?

So, ka means doer. Tadaka means crosser over, okay? Traveler, it means traveler, and in ancient times the stars were called travelers, because they travel on the same circle all night, okay?

They travel. In Tibetan it's called gyukar, gyukar means to travel on the track all night, okay? So, Tadaka means traveler.

Cross, the one who crosses, okay? And we're gonna have nine different messages here, I like to call them nine messages. The first one is, the world around you is like a star, okay?

The world around you is like a star, okay? The world around you, the word here is sanskritam, okay? The last word, sanskritam, means the world around you, okay?

Ker, the root ker, who can tell me? Huh? No.

Well, ultimately, it means to do, to do something. Karma comes from that, okay? K-I-R, that root in Sanskrit means to do something.

In English, cognate? Come on. Create, I'll kiss you, but where are you?

Who was that? Yeah, you already have a boyfriend. Create.

Cereal comes from that, which is why it's spelled with a C, because it grows, crops. And crescent comes from that, like the ... if you look at the moon tonight, crescent means it's growing, okay?

So, ker means to grow. San means to gather, and it came into Greek as S-Y-N, and it came into Latin as C-O-N. So, what do you call a gathering ...

what do you call, in Greek, a place where you gather together? Synagogue, okay? What's the Sanskrit?

Sangha, okay? Sangha. The Jewish name for church comes from Sanskrit, Sangha, okay?

Synagogue comes from Sangha, okay? So, san means together, like C-O-M in committee, or words like that, coming together, compose, many many English words, okay? So, san means together, ker means make, and there's a rule in Sanskrit, when you have an M followed by a K, you have to put an S between, okay?

So, it's called sanskritam, sanskritam. What's one meaning of sanskritam? Huh?

Well-spoken, and it's a language, okay? Sanskrit is a bad bad pronunciation of sanskritam, okay? So, sanskrit, the word sanskrit means put together well, and the language is perfect, okay?

Sanskrit. It's not Sanskrit, okay? That's like Moscow, instead of—the real word is what?

Moscow, okay? Okay, it's sanskritam, okay? Now, sanskritam means anything that's put together by causes, so it means all the stuff around you, the world, everything in your world, the people you know, the things you see, are called sanskritam, and the Buddha compares all the things in your life to nine different things.

The first one is? Star. Everything in your life is like a star.

Now, starting with Vasubandhu, they organized these nine into four groups, okay? These nine examples, starting with star, they are—they are put into four groups, okay? If you're really going to understand the Jingganjing, you have to understand the last poem, and to understand that, for—for 1,700 years, they divided these nine into four groups, okay?

Here's the four, you ready? I know you had jet lag, I don't care, I have it all year except here. Me and Mr. Wu, we—we live on jet lag, we eat jet lag for breakfast, okay?

First one, first group, first three examples, first three examples, okay? This is called, how is your world, you know? Like, what—what's the—what's your world like?

What's your world really like, okay? People, places, what are they really like, okay? That's the first group.

How many? First three. First three examples.

Tadaka, Timuram, and Dipo. These three are—what's your world like, okay? What's your world like?

Three examples by Buddha, okay? Now the fourth one stands by itself, okay? Say maya.

What's maya? Illusion, okay? Or magic trick, okay?

Illusion, maya, okay? That one stands by itself, and it's an answer to the question of, how do I taste the world? How do I taste my world?

Okay? How do I taste it? So, ever since Vasubandhu up to now, that's the second group.

How many members in the second group? One, good. Okay, how many members in the first group?

Nine. First group is, what's your world like? Second group is, how do you taste your world?

Okay, how do you taste your world? Third group, two members. What's wrong with your world?

Okay, what's wrong with your world? Which are the two images up here? Avashaya.

Avashaya, okay? Now in Sanskrit, when an A meets an A, they join. So, when you sing it, you say mayavashaya, mayavashaya, but really it's two separate words, maya, avashaya.

But in Sanskrit, when A meets A, you join together, and you're supposed to make it longer, mayavashaya, mayavashaya, okay? Well, I'm not going to teach you that. But, in classical Sanskrit poetry, you have to give it double length, mayavashaya, okay?

And then, budbudam. Budbudam. No relation to Buddha, okay?

It's a ... it means a bubble, and we're not ... we're not studying that yet.

Okay, those two, avashaya and budbudam, these two tell you what? Yeah, what's wrong with your world? What's wrong with your world?

Okay? How many we have left? We have three, one, and two.

Good. Three left, okay? Which is svapnam, vidyut, and abram, okay?

These last three, okay, they are reason why you should escape from this world. A reason why you should escape from this world, okay? Wheel of life.

The last three are reason to escape from the world of life, the wheel of life, okay? Why you should get out, okay? It's kind of related to the third group.

Third group is problems, right? Fourth group means why you should be tired of this life, okay? Why you should want to get out, okay?

So, these are nine examples in four groups, okay? Got it? Okay, and we'll talk more about it every day, okay?

But, now we're going to go to the first group. How many members? What's it about?

What's your world like? What is your world like? And the first of them is?

A star, okay? Alright, good. Okay, so, I have a plan.

Each...each of the nine, I'm going to tell you how many different things you can think about during your meditation, okay? So, each of the nine, I will say inside here there's five things to think about, or inside here there's six things to think about, and then you're going to meditate on them, okay? So, your job, starting tonight, we still have half an hour, I'm sorry, you jet-lag guys.

I'm sending you to bed early, okay? Geshe Michael, when he go to Shenzhen or Berlin, he has to stay up till midnight the first night. Singapore, they give me three interviews with TV after the talk.

Okay, so, each of the nine messages has many different parts, okay? And those are going to be your meditation guide. So, you have two meditations this week.

You're going to practice ... this is a good way to wake you up, okay? Sound like a lion?

No. Okay, you're going to practice ZING HA BIN CUNG BI DANG, okay? Lion's Dance.

And then you're going to do the JING GANG JING, Diamond Cutter Sutra Meditations, okay? And just this verse will take you the whole week, okay? Just this verse will take you the whole week, okay?

Trust me, you can throw out this already. Okay, Tim's like, ah, we paid for that! Okay, don't worry about it.

Okay, okay, star has six different meanings, okay? The star has six different meanings. And each time I teach you a meaning, I'm gonna give you some of the people who taught it.

Just their names, okay? Just their names. These are your family, these are your great-grandparents, these are your Lama grandparents, okay?

You should know them, okay? When you study Tantra here at Diamond Mountain, which is the best place in the world to study Tantra, you will become generation number 44? Am I right?

Okay? And you have to memorize the first 43 names, okay?

[Speaker 2]
... Like that, okay?

[Speaker 1]
Then when we get to Ella, we'll go Ella, Ella, Ella, Ella, Shincheng Ella, Shincheng Ella ... No, your students have to, okay? So, it's good if you know the names of your parents, right?

Lineage. Okay, so here's the position of ... first one, how many?

Six, okay? Six different meanings of star. Six different meanings of star.

You won't get this explanation anywhere in the world, so enjoy, okay? Then teach it to people. Learn it, and teach it to people, okay?

So, this is the position of Vasubandhu, and Kamalashila, and Choney Lama, okay? Those three big Lamas. And Jamyang Shepad Dorje, okay?

Jamyang Shepad Dorje. I'll tell you about him, okay? Born 1648, died 1721.

Monk's name Ngawang Tsundru. Eh, listen to the recording, okay? He was the abbot of ...

one of the abbots of Drebong Monastery, okay? Gomong College. 32nd abbot, okay?

And he's cool, because after he finished his Geshe degree, he went back home to East Tibet, and he made a monastery called Labrang Dasikyo, okay? Labrang Dasikyo. Labrang Monastery.

Very famous. It's one of the great Gelugpa monasteries in East Tibet. And he also went to Gyumay Tantra College.

There are two Tantra Colleges in Tibet, Gyutu and Gyumay. Which one are you? You are Gyumay, okay?

We are Gyumay lineage. My Lama was vice-abbot of Gyumay, okay? So, he went ...

he finished Gyumay Tantra College, and he was Erdnim Nomahan, which means ... the Mongol king gave him a special title, okay? Erdnim Nomahan, okay?

Big Lama. Very, very cool. Extremely cool Lama.

His stuff is unbelievable. Okay, now here's their position, all those guys. Ready?

Here's what they say the star means. Star can only shine at night. And what's a second husband mean?

Somebody explain second husband to me. Huh? Okay, on Wednesday you yell at your kids.

On Monday, you go to work, you come home, you open the door, your husband yells at you, before you say anything, okay? Then, natural reaction, I didn't do anything! I didn't do anything, he started yelling at me!

Okay? Then, this is natural human reaction, okay? Is it true?

I didn't do anything. No, you yelled at your kids last week, who heard you? Your kids heard you, and you heard you.

When you hear yourself, that plants karma, okay? When you see yourself give money, you plant karma, it makes an impression on your mind, and that becomes a karma seed, okay? So, last week you yelled at your kids because they didn't go to school on time, then you made many impressions on your mind, and then this week, when you came home, you opened the door, you didn't say anything, I didn't do anything, husband start yelling at you.

Where's the husband come from? Coming from here, okay? Coming from seed, coming from right here, seeds opening, husband's coming out, okay?

Why? Because you yelled at your kids last week, okay? But we don't understand that.

So, when we come home, we think the husband is mean, and the husband is bad, and I didn't do anything, he's yelling at me, okay? What's the human reaction? Let's say the husband call you stupid, what's the human reaction?

I'm not stupid, you're stupid, okay? Then what happened? You are stupid, you plant another seed, next week your kids will be bad, come from seed, then you say you are stupid kids, plant another seed, then the next week your husband call you stupid again, okay?

What's the human reaction when husband call you stupid? I'm not stupid, you're stupid. How can you prove you're stupid?

Say stupid back, okay? Then your husband is correct, you are stupid, okay? Because you call him stupid.

Actually, you should go to the toilet, close the door, look in the mirror, you are stupid. That's correct. Got it?

So, in DCI training, we say there are always two husbands living in your house. Who are they? One comes from you, okay?

A trained, a person who came to Diamond Mountain and got trained, when they go home to China, or Russia, or Germany, or Mexico, and their husband says... then they go... okay.

Okay, got it? They understand the husband come from them, they understand, got it? Okay?

I'm sorry, they understand the husband come from them. Then they don't accept the second husband. Who's the second husband?

He decide to call me stupid, he come from his side. Which one exists? Yeah, the one that comes from me exists.

Are you saying the husband who come this way doesn't exist? Are you telling me that? Yeah, that's correct.

He's... the absence of that husband is called? Kongshin.

Emptiness. Okay, got it? So, there's two husbands in your house, one is real, he come from what you said to the kids last week, okay?

That husband is real. But there's a second husband who... what did Buddha say?

Come on, Nick, come on, help me out. He just woke up. Never existed, never will exist, and cannot exist now.

There's second husband in your house, never existed, will never exist, and cannot exist now, okay? Impossible. The absence of that husband is called?

Emptiness. Okay, now, we got two husbands in your house, one come from you, he's real, okay? The other one, you always thought he decide to call you stupid, that one doesn't exist, okay?

The one who come from his own side, who decide to call you stupid, that one doesn't exist. Everybody clear? Now, which one do you get upset at?

Yeah, the second one, but he doesn't exist, okay? Your whole life, every time you got upset, that husband didn't exist. The one you're upset at never existed.

Okay, got it? He's the star. He's the star, and he's the Tadaka, okay?

So, when you see Tadaka, and you explain it to your own students, you say, I'm going to teach you the Sanskrit, Tadaka. It means second husband in your house. Then everybody's like, well, tell me more, I would like to have a second husband.

Okay? The husband who doesn't exist is the star, okay? Now, you tell me, that husband can only live if there is darkness.

Who said that? I will kiss you, but you have a beard, okay? I wish you were, anyway, okay?

That star of the husband who doesn't exist can only live in the darkness, okay? If there's darkness. Darkness doesn't understand, this husband come from me, I yelled at my kids last week, okay?

That's darkness. I'm sorry, if you don't understand that, that's darkness. Oh, I didn't do anything.

That's darkness, okay? And in that darkness can live the star. Now, what happens if the sun comes up?

Boop, boop. What's the sun? Ah, he come from me.

Yeah, go ahead, call me stupid, it's okay. I've just used up my bad seed. You want to call me stupid some more?

Just, I want to use up my bad, come on, just get it all, get all the seeds out, okay? Like that. Okay, got it?

When the sun comes up, the star cannot be seen, okay? The second, the husband who didn't come from you, which is the star, you cannot see it when the sun comes up. Sun is what?

Wisdom. Borobudhamida. Prajnaparamita, okay?

Wisdom. That whole long word, perfection of wisdom, just forget it. It means, I understand the second husband, or first husband, I don't know, okay?

I understand my husband. I have Prajnaparamita, okay? Forget all those long Buddhist words, I hate them.

Dependent Origination, okay? It means husband come from you, that's all. Okay, got it?

If the sun comes up, you cannot see the star. The star is the husband who doesn't exist, okay? What's the category?

What category are we in? Yeah, what's your world like? You are surrounded by stars.

You want to know what your world is like? You are surrounded by people who irritate you, who hurt you, who cut you off in traffic, who call you bad names. Stars all around you, like a diamond mountain knight, okay?

There's a famous joke here, the lady came from Shanghai, first night she's like, wow, look at these stars, you know? Then she asked Michael Dunn, will they be here tomorrow? Yeah, they're here every night, okay?

Okay. But you are surrounded by stars, what's it mean? Every time you have a bad experience, you blame it on the other person, okay?

You live in the stars, you live surrounded by stars, okay? Turn on the sun, okay? Next time someone upsets you, oh, somebody said something bad about Geshe Michael on the internet, dang, stupid person, you know?

Then I just plant another one, okay? Got it? Geshe Michael, just learn what you're teaching.

Okay, I'm trying. Okay, you're always surrounded by stars. Use the sun, turn the sun, aha, I know you're coming from me, I'm gonna shut up.

Then you will disappear, okay? Got it? Beautiful huh?

That's the first of the six meanings. Ready? Okay, first one.

This might take a few years. We have time for more? Yeah, we have some time.

Okay, the second one I'm going to give you is from a Lama named Tendar Sarambha. Sarambha. Tendar Sarambha.

Sarambha means highest Geshe, highest Geshe degree. I'm the lowest, okay? I'm a Ling Tse, I just barely made it.

Then they said, you want to go for more? I said, no, I'm done. Sarambha takes another ten years.

I'm like, I got things to do. Okay, I'm a Geshe, that's enough. Okay, 1759-1831.

Monk's name Ngorong Tendar. Nickname Alaksha Tendar. Alaksha means like buoy, okay?

Probably a little bigger, like Wilcox. Anyway, I'm not gonna make jokes about buoy. He was Mongolian.

He studied at Debun Gomang Monastery, and one of his Lamas was the great Longdol Lama. He's a very famous historian and writer, and Kachen Yeshe Gyeltsen. And he was such a good debater that they just called him ...

it's like calling him Geshe Michael or something. They just called him Haramba. It means like big Geshe, they called him big Geshe his whole life.

Okay? He said, no no no, the stars are the truth of suffering. First of the four truths of Buddhism, okay?

The stars in this verse are the truth of suffering, okay? Now, there's something you have to understand. Buddha said, all of my teaching can be summarized in four truths.

They are mistranslated as noble truths. They are not noble, it's a bad translation of Arya, okay? They are four Arya truths, because Arya sees they are true.

Who's Arya? Anyone who saw emptiness directly is called Arya, okay? So, they are four Arya truths.

If you ever call them noble truths, I will squeeze your noble neck, okay? Completely bad translation for 200 years in America, okay? Let's try to kill those bad translations, okay?

Four Arya truths, okay? So, he said the stars are truth of suffering. Now, you have to know something about the truth of suffering, okay?

Usually, truth means, you know, if this rosary has less mass than the earth, then it will fall when I let go. If it has more mass than the earth, the earth will fall up when I let go, okay? Like that, okay?

So, usually in English, and in Sanskrit, okay? Satya. Truth means, this is this.

There should be a is, right? This is this, okay? The first truth should be, all things are suffering, or something like that.

All changing things are pain. That should be the first truth, but it's not. The pain itself is called the truth of suffering.

If I pinch you, I just gave you truth of suffering, okay? You can call it true suffering, real suffering. So, the four truths are not statements, they are not true ideas, they are not.

They are the thing itself. Pain is the first truth, okay? Pain itself.

Someone pinch you, it's the first truth, okay? So, Tendar Sarambha said, you want to know what the star means? It means all the things in your life which are giving you pain, that's the stars.

That's the star, okay? All the things in your life that are giving you pain. And he says, the real sunlight is the direct perception of emptiness by an Arya, okay?

The real sunlight is the direct perception of emptiness by an Arya. And at that moment, the stars cannot shine, okay? Why?

There's no suffering at that moment, okay? There's no suffering. There's a path, and there's cessation.

There's the end of suffering. There's the end of suffering, and there's the path. His mind is the path, his or her mind is the path.

The Kongxing is the end of suffering, okay? So, for the first time, no stars. For the first time in your life, no stars.

Got it? You're okay? That's the second meaning, okay?

Everybody is living surrounded by stars all the time, because everything in your life can hurt you, okay? Everything in your life can—all sanskirtams, anything that has a cause can hurt you, okay? Got it?

But if you turn on that light, during meditation, on level nine, in your cabin, tomorrow, the first time you turn out the stars, okay? First time you turn out the stars, okay? Got it?

That's the second one. We got time? We just do one more, okay?

Let me really torture you. Yeah. Senor Ultima Causa.

My Mexican friend called me Mr. ... oh, just one more thing. Okay, third one by Koincho Tembe Dunme.

Koincho Tembe Dunme is a famous Lama, born in 1762, died 1823. These Lamas by the way, they wrote commentaries on this poem. They wrote commentaries on this poem, okay?

Beautiful commentaries, okay? And Buddha taught this verse several other times, and I will teach you those, okay? I can teach it to you for a week if you want.

He taught it other places, and he taught it different ways, and because of Nick and John Brady, we have that all in the database, we should give them a hand. So, for dessert at the end, I'll teach you a little bit about how Buddha taught it in other places, okay? Not just in the ...

where? Garden of Prince Jetha. You forget Kamalashila 1 when I teach Kamalashila 2, I know.

Okay. Koincho Tembe Dunme, born in Labrang, sorry, he was the 21st Abbot of Labrang. Who founded Labrang?

Jamya Shepa, we already heard about him. Okay. By the way, I checked how close to Xi'an, not far from Xi'an.

That monastery is about 300 miles, 350 miles, like my house to here, to Dr. Wu's main place. It's about same distance, you can drive there in one day I guess. So, that monastery founded in 1709, now it's in Gansu province.

It's about 400 miles west of Xi'an, which is Shanxi province. He also studied at Dweybun Gomang, and he wrote a commentary to two famous prayers. One is this, Taraka Timuramdipo, okay?

And he wrote a commentary, the same commentary, is a commentary on Tsangpa Gyaxin Yungwarja, Sangye Tenla Gyupaja, Dambud Khyamlang Langchun Jinchida Tenny Xiongpaja, Wheel of Life, the verse at the bottom. He wrote a commentary on both of them, okay, at the same time. Why?

Because monks and nuns are supposed to say these two verses every two weeks, when they confess, GAM MA DRAG PA'I MYUR MED NUS, RGYU MA SUG PA'I PHYIR PA'I DANG, MI LONG LO DANG DRING DRAG PA'I DANG, BU DU BYED BYED RNAMS BDE LTAR DAG, and we're supposed to snap our finger. It means we, maybe we die before the next time we meet. You know, life, life is quick, okay?

So, it's part of the monks and nuns sojong, these two verses. So, he wrote a commentary on them, okay? Very beautiful.

Alright, he says, this represents NANG STONG, say NANG STONG. STONG you know, STONG PA, GONG ZHING, emptiness, okay? NANG means the world that appears to you, the world as it appears to you, okay?

Literally it means bright. NANG means everything you see in your life, it's called NANG. Everything that appears to you in this world, your whole life, whole life appearing to you is called NANG.

In Buddhism, there are two parts to the world, NANG and STONG. Say NANG, STONG. The appearance of the world, and the emptiness of the world, okay?

What do you think is another word for NANG? Huh? Yeah, dependent origination, okay?

Anything comes from causes, appearing to you, people, places, world, your own body is NANG, okay? STONG means higher reality, emptiness, okay? Higher reality.

Now, he says, by the way there's another word for NANG, what is it? Do you know? Remember?

KUN RDZOGS LDAN PA. Fake reality. Fake reality.

Then there's LDAN DAM LDAN PA, true reality. So, Buddhism says there's two realities, fake reality and real reality, okay? We are living in fake reality.

In the fake reality, it looks like your husband is angry at you, that's called fake reality. Is it real? Yeah.

I'm sorry, is it, is it reality? Is it in your house? Yes.

Is it real? No, it's fake. Your mind makes it, okay?

There's, there's no husband who's coming from your husband, okay? So, there's normal reality, then there's ultimate reality, okay? You can't have fake reality unless you have real reality, okay?

This is fake butter. It means somewhere there should be some real butter, okay? When you say fake, it means there's a, there's a real one somewhere, okay?

What's another fake? This is fake... give me another fake.

Huh? Oh, fake diamond, this is a fake diamond. It means there should be, she was in the diamond business.

Then it means there should be a real diamond somewhere, okay? So, the fake one is fake compared to the real, okay? The star can only appear in the darkness, okay?

Got it? Darkness means emptiness, in his, in his interpretation. The darkness is emptiness, and the star is normal reality, okay?

What we call NANG STONG. NANG is the star, that's what appears to you. People, places, cars, cities, countries, your own body, okay?

Is the star. And it can only exist in an empty world, you see? Black.

Got it? That's, that's his interpretation. The fake reality can only exist in the, with, in the background there's a real reality, okay?

Got it? What appears to you in your life, your whole life, is the star. But the background reality that allows the star to shine is GONG ZHING, is emptiness.

Sometimes they call it KUN ZHIG, right? The foundation reality, okay? Okay, got it?

You okay? You guys okay? Cat got it.

She's like, on a diamond-cutter drug tonight. She's like, whoa! By the way, I mean, you want to go deeper?

You got three minutes, okay? I'm gonna take you deeper. Chinese people like to go deeper.

Who would say that if you cancel the fake part of changing things, you get reality? If you were in Shenzhen recently, you should know. Mind only, mind only, okay?

This is mind only school. Classic mind only school, okay? Classic mind only school.

Take all the changing things in the world, subtract the fake part, and you get GONG ZHING. And these are the three parts of the mind only school, these are the three characteristics of the mind only school. That's what Buddha taught during the ...

which turning of the wheel? Third turning of the wheel. People said, in the second turning of the wheel you said everything's empty, is that crazy?

He said, yeah, I was just kidding. Okay, got it? So, this position is very close to mind only school.

What? NANG ... the star is all the normal stuff in the world, okay?

And it's fake. Cancel the fake, you got ... emptiness, okay?

The darkness. So, for him the darkness is a ... good thing, okay?

In the last two guys, the darkness was a bad thing. Ignorance, yeah. Got it?

Cool? Yeah, okay. That's the third guy.

Alright, let's stop there. We got three more just in the first of the nine, okay? Got it?

We are discussing the way things are around us. We didn't get to the way we taste it, we didn't get to the problems of it, and we didn't get to how you should escape it, okay? And we still have a few hundred pages of commentary to look at, but I don't think we will finish this poem, okay?

By the way, I'm ready to teach you the few hundred pages of commentary, but let's see how much we can get to. Okay? Okay?

And ... we're gonna meditate in the next three days, four days, we will meditate ... the first meditation will be about stars.

Sorry, first meditation in the morning will be lion's dance, and then during the day we'll do stars and other examples here. And I want you to have a piece of paper in front of you that has six words on it, okay? Like star, and then it'll say husband number two, okay?

Got it? And then you'll make a list like that, okay? And then you can meditate like husband number two, oh yeah, that's the one not coming from me, never existed, that's the one I get irritated at, never existed.

Then you look ... oh, second meaning of star, and you're gonna meditate like that, okay? And you know, by the time you go home and your husband yells at you, you should be immune?

You should be able to ... oh, you're just a star. He said, I know I'm a star.

Okay? The result of a Buddhist retreat should be that no one can make you angry. But I predict you'll get angry on the way back to Tucson.