Нагарджуна, курс 1 — Мудрость Арьи Нагарджуны, курс 1: Восемь невидимых (2018, Аризона), занятие 2

[Speaker 1]
The homework is due at the beginning of class, okay? And only a homework, Tim, which is received at the beginning of class on the following day after it was given out will be accepted for credit. You can still give it later, but it won't count in your point total.

Your point total decides whether you get a nice meditation cabin at Diamond Mountain in the future and other such perks that I can think of. And there are no exceptions, okay? I'm talking, I heard a rumor this morning that one of the staff decided they were too busy to do their meditation.

And if I'm not too busy to write it, which takes about six hours, you're not too busy to fill it in, which takes about 20 minutes, okay? No exceptions, and no staff exceptions, okay? You have to submit your homework.

If you want to stay out there in John Brady's cabin, which is halfway to Mexico, that's okay. By the way, John Brady, I have good news for you. This is a donation for ACIP from our friends in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, which is very cool.

And I think it's very cool. It's both Muslim countries. And last time we went there, I think our 1,500 people came to the top, and I think it's really beautiful.

So I'd like to congratulate the Kazakhstan team, and thank you very much. Yeah, so homework's on time, okay? Yeah.

Did you have a question? Right, okay. We'll cut you some slack.

At the beginning of class, when you walk in the class, you put your homework in the box, I guess. Right, Tim? Or Jackie?

Okay. Now quiz. Tim made a really good suggestion, and I like it.

He said, Geshe-la, if you give them a quiz before they see how they did on their homework, they will just repeat the same mistakes they made on their homework. So we should hand out the homework master, which has long answers on it, correct long answers on it. We should hand out the homework master early in the morning, or something like that.

And I'm afraid people will just copy the quiz questions or something. So we have a compromise. Today you will get the homework master for yesterday's homework, and you study the correct answers.

And then tomorrow, the next day, we'll give you a quiz, okay? So that means, unfortunately, you don't have a quiz today. And I'm very sad, and I know you're also sad.

But today you will get the homework master for homework number one. And then you will also get homework number two to do, right? And then the quiz will be two days later, after you see the correct answers, okay?

Deal? And I'm gonna be serious, okay? I'm not ...

there are no exceptions, and it's up to you, you know? If you don't want to do it, it's not a ... what do you call it?

First grade, you know? You have the right. You are adult.

You have the right to be stupid, and continue to be stupid, and be stupid for the rest of your life. You have the right. But I think it's stupid.

So, my lama told me, don't say stupid. Okay, uninformed. So, you know, you have the ...

you can do that, but I suggest you work hard, okay? You worked so hard to get here, and you paid so much money, and work hard, okay? Work hard.

Finish the homeworks, and learn something, okay? Take something home, okay? Don't just relax and let it go like level seven, level eight, you know?

And learn something, okay? And you will be grateful later, right? That's what your school teachers told you.

Okay, I'd like to go through the life story of Choney Lama, so you can appreciate his life a little bit. And there's one homework question in there. Is this working, you guys?

Can you tell? There's one homework question in there, okay? Because his life was kind of amazing, all right?

So, I'm just going to go quickly through his life. It's in your notebook, I think, and so I wrote it out for you. This is from an introduction to a book that we finished in our translator program, and it's a commentary on, okay, this is from the introduction to that translation.

It's a translation of his commentary to the Diamond Cutter Sutra, which is the greatest commentary ever written on the Diamond Cutter Sutra that I'm aware of. And I'd like to congratulate all the translators. I think there's only one here today, which is Adam, so thank you.

His book is logic, and it's going to be finished in about eight years. Okay, so here's Choney Lama's life story from that. And I took it from, there's a biography written by his student, who is Adam's author, right?

Seng Ngo and Tashi. And ten years before he passed away, in the final year of his own life, he wrote a personal biography of him, it's an autobiography. And usually lamas won't tell you what their personal experiences have been, and he didn't tell his student his own personal experiences.

But in the last year of his life, I guess he figured, what the heck? And he wrote down some of his personal meditation experiences. So I combined them in this biography, okay?

So the biography starts out with boring facts about his life. Then it goes to, I think, cool things he did that we could kind of emulate. Things that we could also do, okay?

Personal things about him. And then the final part of this biography that I wrote is his private visions, and what happened to him during his lifetime, a long lifetime of practice, okay? So here we go.

Here's the boring part. He was born in Amdo, which is northeast Tibet, in 1675. At the age of seven, he started learning to read and write, which in those days was rare.

And he seemed to learn very quickly. At the age of nine, he received what we call initial ordination, baby ordination. You cannot become a monk until you're 20.

You're not allowed to make that decision until you're 20, which is a good system. But you're allowed to try it out from whenever you want to start. So you see baby monks running around the monastery, but they're not real monks, okay?

So at nine, he got his ordination from the abbot of the Chone Monastery. So Chone is his area, like Kansas, or Jalisco, or what's the state? I don't know.

Pick a Chinese province. I don't know. Huh?

Anyway. Sichuan. Okay.

Changi. Whatever. Okay.

So Chone is his province name, okay? All right. Then there was a pattern in Asia, all over Asia, Mongolians, Chinese, Tibetans.

They would go to Lhasa, capital of Tibet, where the three great monasteries are located. And they would study there at the age of 20, 21. So at 21, he came to the capital of Lhasa, similar to what Tsongkhapa had done 300 years before.

And this was a pattern. I used to live with a Mongol monk who went to Lhasa to study. He took a camel across the Gobi, and became a Harambe Geshe in Debung Monastery.

I used to live with him. He was blind when I lived with him. And so this was very common, even until the early 1900s, okay?

And he studied at Sera Monastery. He wrote some of the textbooks for our monastery, Sera Mei, okay? Sera Mei Monastery.

He learned Adam's text, Basic Logic, at a young age. That was his first debating topics. Then he went on to Abhidharma and Vinaya, which is Stanley's topic and Allison's topic.

They're translating those books. And he stood for his Geshe examinations at the age of 30. And he debated before 20,000 monks.

And he was awarded a high Geshe degree. In 1706, he received his full ordination. So in those days, you might become a Geshe before you finish your full monk's vows.

And the novitiate, the the period when you are still a baby monk, not a full monk, in those days was much longer. Nowadays, I got mine together. I got my novitiate and my full monk on the same day.

So nowadays, they sort of speed it up. But in those days, you would take your first vows, and then they would watch you for many years. And then they would give you full vows, okay?

He entered Gyutun Tantric College, which is one of the two tantric colleges in Tibet. And then he did what was kind of normal in those times. He went back home to his own state, Chonay.

And he worked to teach there. And he built, it's like if you go back to Singapore and build SCIM Singapore, something like that. So you go back to your own country, and you build your own monastery, or your own college, and you start training people, okay?

So he went back. And there was a special position in those days called Guo Shi, Stanley. And it's a position, it's like a government position.

And the person in charge of that, who's sort of overseeing the province, he's like the educational minister of the province, was named Nangso Yeshe. And he was trying to build a Geshe College at Chonay Monastery. And he asked Chonay Lama to do it.

So the Guo Shi was the money, honey, okay? He supplied the money, like somebody we know, who built our cafeteria and our new roads, okay? And he was the money guy.

He gave the financial support. So Chonay Lama didn't have to raise all the money himself. And he had time to teach and to write, okay?

And we see from his books that he wrote, even much later, he's still talking about this sponsor, this big sponsor. So I think through his whole life, he had this relationship with an important sponsor, who helped pay for things. In 1721, Chonay Lama resigned as the abbot of the Geshe College.

And he spent six or seven years writing. And that's probably when he did his best work. In 1727, the Guo Shi asked him to take the position again.

Maybe there was a problem, I don't know. And then in 1729, he was asked to start a tantric college at his monastery. And he did, okay, for the study of tantra.

He resigned that position in 1737. And he spent the last ten years of his life really producing a lot of beautiful books. So many of the books we have are from one of those two periods in his life, after he was kind of staying at home and writing a lot, okay?

We found his writings. His writings were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. And we couldn't find any copies.

And when I was in Russia, in the library in Russia, we found a set of his writings. And so we started to scan it and input it. And we were fortunate that we were, John Brady's project, they spent 14 years in Russia in the library.

And they were able to scan the whole, all of his works. And we saved them. We had a staff member named Jason Dunbar.

And you should thank him if you ever meet him. And he put back together Choney Lama's collected works. And then we put it up for free online.

So I think we should give John a hand. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
APPLAUSE Mmm.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. About his style, his writing style. It's very, almost Western.

So, you know, it's not uncommon in Tibet for people to write in a very fancy way that has no information. You know? And it's kind of frustrating.

And he was the opposite. So he just wrote exactly all the questions come up in your mind, he writes it. And he divides things carefully.

And he defines things. And he presents things extremely well. So that's why we're using his commentary to wisdom.

Because it's unbelievable. It's incredible. You know?

And what he does in the commentary is why you are suffering in your homeworks. And I can't put everything he said in the homework. But it's unbelievable.

We could spend ten years easily on it. But he's a fantastic writer. Okay?

Mmm. Yeah. He also did a lot of deep retreats.

Okay? So he wasn't just writing all the time. Right, Stanley?

He wasn't just working all the time. He also did deep retreat. So that his writing was good.

He studied Sanskrit and Mongolian. And, let's see. And when those people studied a book, it wasn't the way we study a book.

He would memorize the books. So in the monastery, for example, the first 12 years of the Geshe course is based on a 75-page text by Maitreya, Abhisamal Ankara. So we memorize it.

But we spend 12 years with it. And it's in your brain. Like when you're washing dishes, which is a very ...

I was the dishwasher for eight years. Your mind is reciting this text. Okay?

And it's a very beautiful custom. So I figure you can do a homework. He was a fantastic memorizer.

He went to the winter debates. The winter debates is called Jang Gun Chu. There was a monastery called Jang.

And Gun Chu means winter debates. And it's a big deal. You will pack up a backpack with one month's food.

And you will hike like 25, 30 miles to this tiny monastery called Jang. And all the ... normally nowadays it's the 50 best Geshe students from the six major colleges, plus Tashi Humbo.

So seven colleges. And we will debate together for a month. And it's amazing because you get to debate with the best guys from all the colleges.

So it's like the NCAA. It's like the Olympics of debating. And it's a very beautiful custom because it means that the monks who 10 years or 20 years later will become the head of those monasteries, they all know each other because they debated each other at the winter debates.

So they're already friends. And it keeps this lineage very tight. So the management, the administration, the highest Geshe's of all the colleges, they know each other very well.

And it keeps the lineage very cool and very sweet. And it's a big honor to go to the winter debates. So I invited myself four times.

This is a record, I think. To go four times is a big honor. And I got fried there in different ways, in the sun and from the other Geshe's.

But it's an unbelievable experience. It's like the Olympics or something. And there are all-night sessions.

Some of the sessions you debate all night. And it's really cool. Okay.

He wrote 250 different works. Okay. Pretty amazing output.

And they are amazing. He also, his books on Tantra, his books on yoga, his books on the inner body are the best. And the best explanations of the inner body, the channels, the chakras.

He's amazing. Okay. Very thorough.

And we used his books for the Tantra course here, which is 18 courses. It's about 10,000 pages. And I don't think it's ever been done in the world, even in Tibet.

But we used his books a lot for the inner body work. Here's Choney Lama about his output. I may not have been any great master, but it seems that in my past lives, I made many prayers to share this wisdom with other people.

And that's why I was able to write so much. Then his student, Adam's book author, said it more bluntly. He said, Choney Lama just worked harder than any other Lama I ever saw.

Okay. It's cool. All right.

Then I have a section about his inner life. Okay. Which is kind of more interesting.

And I'll just quote you some things. Okay. It seems like a lot of people focus their private practice on trying to see divine beings face-to-face.

I've always thought it was more important for me to focus on improving my capacity to love others, and feel compassion for those in need, and work hard for a pure and peaceful world, and understand where reality itself is coming from. Then his comment on meditation. You know there are deep states of meditation concentration that often don't have any particular spiritual content.

In scripture, they are called the form realm meditations, and the formless realm meditations. I see a lot of people making efforts in these. Myself, I always thought it would be better to try to master the Buddhist practice of taking shelter, where we protect ourselves and others by understanding the Buddha and emptiness.

Okay. Then he says, the world is actually a huge downward cycle. Painful events triggered, triggering reactions in us that create the next painful event.

One of the goals in my life was to try to break this cycle. About emptiness. The main difference between all the many different historical schools of Buddhism is how they view the concept of emptiness.

More precisely, what it is that emptiness is empty of. The idea of reality that we have all the time, and which is completely mistaken. How to fix this problem?

Acquaint yourself with what each school believes is absent in emptiness. Learn Nagarjuna. Learn Tsongkhapa, learn Chandrakirti.

Okay. The way to learn emptiness is to sit and think it out carefully. There are a thousand different proofs of emptiness to be found in the scripture.

For goodness sake, learn them. They will set you free. Okay.

Then I put in some, you know, going towards his, I don't know, about his life. Okay. First, he was no stranger to controversy or politics.

Okay. And during his life, he lived during the time of the fifth Dalai Lama, who built the Potala Palace. And the fifth Dalai Lama had a prime minister, who was called Desi Sangye Gyatso.

And he was very, very young. He was in his thirties. And basically, he was running the country.

And the Dalai Lama committed his time to deep philosophical studies. He wrote many great books. Jampal Shillung, one of the first lamrims.

And he was very tied up with his spiritual practice. So, this other person ran the country. In 1682, the fifth Dalai Lama died.

And the minister kept it secret for 13 years. Okay. And he hired an actor to pretend to be the Dalai Lama.

And so, for, so he could keep running the country. He was afraid the country would fall apart. So, he ran the country for another 13 years with a, with a fake Dalai Lama, an actor.

Okay. And in those days, you weren't allowed to get near a famous, like the Emperor of China, you weren't allowed within about a hundred meters. This was just customary for his safety.

Okay. So, just before Choney Lama was supposed to take his Geshe degree, like the week before, it was exposed that this guy was fake. And a Mongol princess came and cut off the minister's head and stuck it on a pole on one of the bridges in Lhasa, which caused a huge riot.

And there were like 20,000 monks came into the capital. And everything was like crazy, completely confused. Okay.

And then he was supposed to take his final Geshe, but he chickened out. And they, they made an announcement. One of the head Lamas said, let's have some super Geshe debates.

You know, maybe everybody will calm down. So, let's have like super, super Geshe degree debate. Let's create a new Geshe, Geshe of Geshes.

And, because all the monks from all the monasteries are in town. So, let's have a super debate, you know. And he asked, Choney Lama said, you're gonna, you got a chance to be the Geshe of all Geshes, you know.

Let's go, man. Go for it. Then he ran away.

He left Lhasa. He left the capital. He was scared.

And then they say, after two days, he got, he felt guilty, because he broke his Lama's command. You know, you're never supposed to break your Lama's request. So, he felt bad.

And he was really scared. But he came back. And he won.

Okay. Like number one Geshe. Then he became famous.

And after that, everything was cool. Okay. And so, he, he, he wasn't like some fairytale Lama.

He saw hard things. He saw big problems in his country. He saw political problems.

He saw, he saw fighting. He saw murders. He, he was a normal, like us.

Okay. His, he was there. He had a very strong work ethic.

And oftentimes, he would lock himself in his room for five or ten years, just to get away from fundraising, and administration, and things like that. There's a very famous incident where his relatives came to bring him food. And he refused to open the door.

And he just fasted. He took responsibility. Okay.

When he had to run the monastery, he ran the monastery. And he did a good job. So, he wasn't afraid to build an institution, and raise the money, and organize the program of study.

He wasn't afraid of it. And he took responsibility. And I think we have to do the same.

He was also human. And there's a story, let's see, that he was assigned Kansen Gergen. Kansen Gergen is, Geshe Lothar is Kansen Gergen.

Gergen means, there are 12 colleges in Sera. It's like Harvard or something. And each college has a house.

And each house has about, I don't know, 30 to, to 75 baby monks. Okay. And someone has to babysit them.

You know, this is like the mom for the baby monks. Their parents come and drop the second or third son off at the monastery, and never come back. And, because they can't feed them.

And then the monastery gets stuck with, you know, 200 kids. And nobody wants to watch the kids. But, and so, he was assigned Kansen Gergen, and he ran away.

Okay. Until they, until they chose somebody else. Okay.

This is very common nowadays also. When the Abbot elections at my monastery, all the high Geshes will leave. My Lama will go a thousand miles away.

He has a retreat house. When he hears there's an election for Geshe Abbot, he will run away. He did many times.

Okay. He was open to many different viewpoints, which is unusual in Tibet. His father was Bunpo.

Bunpo means, not Buddhist. His father was like local religion, shaman religion. And he didn't follow Buddhism.

So, Choney Lama learned Bun. He learned this other religion. He understood it, and he appreciated it.

He appreciated the good parts. He was also trained by Kagyus, which are not Tsongkhapa lineage. And he was known to respect them.

His father was also practicing Nyingma, which is another tradition, not Tsongkhapa's tradition. So, Choney Lama learned those, and he had some respect for them. And he was asked later in his life by some Bunpos to write the main ideas of Bun in a book.

You know, it's like Vasubandhu being asked to write the Abhidharma when he was no longer following it. And he wrote one of the best books about the Bun religion. Unfortunately, we haven't found it.

So, I'm not sure it still survives. But he was famous for being open-minded. Okay?

He was very devoted to his teachers. There's a story of him coming back from Masera to his home state. And he goes to a village where he meets one of his old Lamas.

But now he realizes what that Lama taught him was all mistaken. Now that he's a Geshe, he understands that what he learned from that Lama was mistaken. But he wanted to help the Lama out of respect.

And he was broke. But he stayed in the village for six months. And he worked at some dirty jobs like, I don't know, ditch digging, things like that.

So that he could leave that Lama with some money and take care of the Lama. So, I think that shows he had a good attitude about his teachers. As a child, so these are his compassion.

His mother got a contagious disease and couldn't milk him, couldn't give him milk. And he watched his mother go through this disease at a young age. And I think it affected his perception of suffering.

And I think it's some other woman in the village gave him milk. And one of his first visions in his life is that Tara is coming to him and he's drinking Tara's milk from her breast. And I think it was all tied together.

Then when he came back to his home state, he met his mother. And it was a very beautiful reunion. But she died.

Then she died. And something happened to him that he resigned. That's why he resigned the first time for seven years.

He went into retreat for seven years. Because of what happened to his mother. And I think that's something about him, special, that he had a deep love for other people, okay?

Yeah. He was famous for not meeting famous people. He refused to meet famous people.

Okay. Last thing about his inner life, okay? And he, he's, there's a tradition in Buddhism that you don't talk about your inner life, okay?

There's a tradition that if you see emptiness directly, for example, you don't talk about it much. And that's because there's a very severe karma to lying about your spiritual life, or exaggerating about your spiritual life, okay? So that's one of the four most heavy karmas there is, okay?

And secondly, so he didn't share his inner life with other people. And then he said, the second reason I didn't share my inner life was every time I share it, it goes away for a while, you know? If I'm having some kind of visions, and I tell people about it, I don't have any visions for like six months, you know?

And then he decided maybe I should just keep quiet about my visions, okay? But, at the end of his life, he wrote out some of those visions. And I think three of them are very important for us.

And they might be on your homework. You never know. First one, okay?

The earliest dream I can remember came to me when I was a very young boy, and it was repeated several times. I am standing on the ground outside my house, and I'm looking towards the east. And far away in the sky, I can see somebody, something flying towards me.

And they kind of look like Buddhas, but I'm not sure, you know? And they come over my head, and they head to the west, okay? And he says, I used to have this dream when I was a small child, many, many times.

And then he says, I still don't know what it means, this emphasis on going to the west, okay? I think it's cool. Second dream, I used to have another dream.

I'm watching the east, the sky to the east. And Manjushri, who is red, golden color, is flying to the west again. He's on his way to the west.

Manjushri is the main Buddha for emptiness, understanding emptiness, okay? And he's going to the west. Then when he gets over my head, I call up to him, you know?

And I say, what's up, man? And I was thinking maybe he would stop for a while and come down, and I could do prostration to Manjushri. So, I was thinking just to try to get him to stop for a few minutes.

And then he comes down, and instead of standing there, he melts into Choney Lama's chest, like that. And then he said, in the dream, I kept thinking to myself, oh, now Manjushri's blessed me, you know, I got Manjushri's blessing, okay? That's the second vision.

Third dream that he used to constantly have is Nagarjuna, okay? Arya Nagarjuna is flying through the sky, and he, when he says Nagarjuna's name, he says, the one who saw emptiness directly, and wrote the greatest words in this world on how to do it yourself, okay? That's how he describes Nagarjuna.

Then he said, Nagarjuna's body was made of pure gold, and it is shining like the sun, and he's traveling through the sky, and he's headed to the west, and I don't know why. And he also, wait, then he pauses and he melts into me also, okay? So, personally, Choney Lama's books are the best explanation for us of emptiness, and Bodhichitta, and Bodhisattva's way of life, and Tantra.

They're the best books, and I think he had a vision of them coming to the west, okay? And that's all, okay? Now let's start the class, okay?

I thought you should know about Choney Lama. Okay, by the way, I went to, I'm going through all the biographies of Nagarjuna that I can find, which are about five or six, and I still couldn't find any mention of when he saw emptiness, or, you know, how it happened. But I'm still, I still have one more long biography to read.

Okay. Okay. Okay, so we're ready to start wisdom, all right?

We're ready to start the real book. And I'll give you a break in about half an hour, okay? And I promised Jigme to be on time with the pee-pee break.

All right. And I thought I would read you the first, the first verse, okay? It's probably the most famous.

Okay. Roughly in English, okay? I haven't translated.

I bow down to the highest of all teachers, to the fully enlightened Buddha, who teaches peace, which is the peace in which we no longer see things that aren't there, okay? I bow down to this teacher who taught that all things occur in dependence, okay? Who taught that nothing stops.

Who taught that nothing starts. Who taught that nothing is ever cut off. Who taught that nothing lasts forever.

There's nothing which doesn't change. Who taught that nothing comes. Who taught that nothing goes.

Who taught that there is, that there are no separate things. And who taught that no things are one. Okay?

This is the first verse, very famous. There are eight things that he denies, okay? There are eight things in the verse which he says do not exist, okay?

And that's why we call this course the Eight Invisibles, okay? So, if you wonder where the name came from, it's from the first verse of the most famous explanation of emptiness ever, okay? And we're going to talk about that first verse, okay?

Especially as it relates to your homework. Okay. So, traditionally, when you start writing a scripture, a holy book, spiritual book, you're supposed to do, by tradition, two things at the beginning, okay?

Number one, you're supposed to honor the lineage and your teacher, okay? So, at the beginning of every Buddhist book, you will see prostration to a holy being, some teachers, or to teacher of the tradition. So, this first verse is bowing down to Lord Buddha and thanking the Buddha for teaching dependence, okay?

Which is, there's two ways to teach dependence. One is you just teach the Twelve Links, you know, why you commit karma, why you misunderstand things. But there's a deeper way to teach the Wheel of Life, where you teach emptiness at the same time, okay?

So, that's the cool thing that is contained in the first verse. He has to bow down to somebody, that's the rule, okay? So, he bowed down to Buddha, but he says, I'm not just bowing down to you because you're Buddha, I'm bowing down to you because you taught dependence, like in the Lion's Dance, right?

And then, you went deeper and you taught the deep version of dependence, which is, you mentioned emptiness, eight kinds of emptiness, okay? The eight invisibles. So, you are so cool, you are the greatest of all teachers, okay?

Because you show us the way to final peace, okay? Final peace. So, that's the verse, right?

So, in, what do you call it? Deer-chiki-sha-wa-ni-se. With one bullet, he kills two deers, which is a bad image.

What do you call it in English? Oh, kill two birds with one stone. They're both bad images, but you get the idea.

He bows down to the Buddha, okay? And secondly, he covers Ge Sok Chi Shi. Say Ge Sok Chi Shi.

Ge Sok Chi Shi. Very, very, very famous, okay? At the beginning of a Buddhist book, you must indicate that this book has four qualities, okay?

It's a seal of approval by Buddhism that your book is a good book, okay? If the book has these four qualities, it's a Buddhist book, and you can spend your time on it, and you can expose your precious mental territory to this book, and you will have good results, okay? So, it's even in the Bodhisattva vows, right?

We can't waste time on videos on YouTube, or worthless books, newspapers, about what stupid thing did Trump do today, okay? Why do you want to smell a fart five times, six times? Just forget it.

It's not worth your time. You don't have time, okay? If you work very hard, you might get enlightened and not die.

But if you don't, you will die, and you'll be back. People will be sneaking food to you at Diamond Mountain. You'll be an animal at Diamond Mountain.

You see, you have those two choices. Use your time, or be a bug at Diamond Mountain. It's up to you.

It's cheaper to be a bug at Diamond Mountain, okay? But, I mean, that's your choice, okay? We don't have time to waste on silly things, okay?

And the Internet is 95% silly things, okay? There are some cool things on the Internet. There are some beautiful things on the Internet.

You can use it, but most of it's just crap. And so, there's a tradition in Buddhism that the author will indicate in the opening lines that this book is worth your time. This book is worth your precious time.

And the guardian is showing off, because in one verse, in the first verse, he squeezes in the prostration, and he squeezes in the four qualities of a good book that you can spend your time on, okay? So, what are the four, just in case it's on your homework? Okay, and by the way, 12 centuries later, Je Tsongkapa writes a whole book called A Song to the Buddha for Teaching the Emptiness Version of the Wheel of Life, okay?

He stole it directly from, he got the idea from the guardian. What do you call it? He ran with the idea, and he wrote a whole book.

It's one of his most famous books. It's a poetry, and it's extremely beautiful, extremely powerful, okay? We translated it a while back.

We have it somewhere. Maybe you can find it, Jing Mei.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. So, maybe you can, maybe we can print a version for everybody, okay? It's Je Tsongkapa's plagiarism, based on the first verse of Nagarjuna, okay?

And it's, he took it and he went with it, you know, okay? Alright, four qualities of a Buddhist book. Number one, it must have important topic, important subject, okay?

Must have, alright? And you must indicate that to the reader at the beginning of the book. So, the topic, which is important, is dependence, okay?

You can say, Wheel of Life. You can say, Past Life Movie, During Lion's Dance, okay? That's dependence.

But, teach it with emptiness. Teach it together. Think about how your Lama came to you.

Think about how your Lama didn't come to you, okay? We have both of them at level nine of the Lion's Dance. We have dependence, which is seeing what past life thing caused your teacher, okay?

And we have emptiness, which is where you think about how your teacher didn't come to you by accident, okay? We have both in the Lion's Dance, okay? So, this book, advertisement cover, we are teaching dependence, but with eight kinds of emptiness, okay?

Eight invisibles, okay? We have not just one, not just two, not just four. We got eight kinds of emptiness in this book.

You guys gotta buy it, okay? What? With your mental time, okay?

Alright? Okay, quality number two. There should be an immediate goal of this book, you know?

Within a few hours of reading this book, there should be some short-term goal, immediate goal, okay? And that goal, which is called Gopa in Tibetan, is if you read this book, you will understand dependence with emptiness, okay? The emptiness version of dependence, you will understand, okay?

That's the second advertisement for this book, okay? Number one, it has important subject matter, what? Dependence, seeds, right?

With emptiness. Then, what's the second good thing about this book? If you read it, you will understand that dependence and those emptinesses, those eight, and you will understand, okay?

Got it? Alright, quality number three of a good book. There should be an ultimate goal, okay?

There should be an ultimate goal. And that's why the text mentions, that's why the verse mentions peace, okay? Peace.

That's the goal, okay? There's two kinds of peace here, okay? One is nirvana, where you don't have any more anger, you don't have any more jealousy, you don't have any more desire, okay?

But it's also referring to a higher peace, which occurs during the direct perception of emptiness, okay? During the direct perception of emptiness, you are in a kind of peace, where you no longer see anything coming from its own side, okay? Got it?

And that's also peace. If you read this book, if you understand dependence and the eight kinds of emptiness, you can reach peace. These two kinds of peace.

You can see emptiness directly, and that will lead you to nirvana and Buddhahood, okay? Got it? Alright.

Quality number four of a good book is, there's a connection between the other three, okay? If you read the words, you will understand the ideas, and they will take you to enlightenment and the direct perception of emptiness. Quality two depends on quality one.

Quality three depends on quality two, okay? If you read the book, you will see, you will understand dependence on emptiness. If you understand it intellectually, then you will reach the ultimate goal of seeing it directly, okay?

Got it? So, there's a connection between one and two, and one and three, and two and three, okay? Got it?

Those are the four. Very, very famous, okay? If you go to Sarah Monastery, and you say, I studied anything, the first question a monk will ask you is, what's the Gosok Choshi, you know?

What's the ... because they think if you were in the first class, you heard those four. And I failed that test one day, so I will never forget.

He's like, give me the Gosok Choshi. I'm like, huh? What are the four qualities?

I'm just trying to save you some embarrassment, okay? They think any idiot who studied any Buddhist book should learn those four on the first day. And if you say you're a Buddhist, and you say you studied with a Geshe, and you don't know those four, it's like you failed before you start.

Understand? Okay. All right.

What is dependence? And I ... I'm following Choney Lama, okay?

I'm not ... most of these are not my own ideas. I'm just stealing stuff from his commentary, okay?

Which I don't have time to translate. And I could translate it in three weeks, if I had any time. But ...

you might be ... Choney Lama says, let's look at what ... how Nagarjuna defines dependence, okay?

Later in the book, okay? Which is in the eighth chapter, okay? In the eighth chapter, somebody asked Nagarjuna, can you define dependence in like one sentence?

Okay, what is dependence, okay? And here's the sentence. The people who do things, okay?

The people who do things depend on what they do. And what they do depends on them. Okay?

Ready? Here we go again. When you do something, you depend on what you do.

And what you do depends on you. It's mutual dependence. Mutual dependence.

One of those is easy, one of those is hard. Okay? You want me to do the easy one or the hard one?

Let's do the easy one. You're right. We're trying to fundraise for an endowment for our college.

And people are helping, and thank you. The people who are helping, thank you, okay? It's not all on me.

People are taking responsibility. John's taking a lot of responsibility. And so, we are working, and Jenny's team is awesome.

And they've collected like a zillion dollars from Singapore. Anyway, yeah, we should give her a hand. But because of Jenny's work, there will be an endowment, okay?

So that's the doer. The doer is Jenny. The thing she does is the endowment, okay?

So, which comes first? Yeah, first there has to be Jenny to fundraise. Then there will be this endowment, which is the result of the Singapore people's hard work, okay?

They work hard, and because of their hard work, there's a result. So that's obvious. There's a dependent relationship.

If there's no Jenny, there's no endowment. Okay? If there's no Jenny, there's no endowment.

But Nagarjuna says, if there's no endowment, there's no sponsor. If there's no endowment, there's no sponsor, okay? If they succeed, if the Singapore people succeed, and we have the endowment, right?

Then we can say, they paid for it. We can say, they are responsible. We can say, they are the cool people, okay?

You don't get to be cool people until after the endowment. You see? You are raising money, you're not cool people yet.

You are just raising money. If you succeed, then everybody call you cool people. So the endowment calls you.

Mutual dependence, okay? Got it? Usually the second kind of dependence is called name dependence.

Name dependence. We cannot call Jenny successful sponsor until the endowment is finished, okay? Did she cause the endowment?

Yeah. But did the endowment cause her to be called what she is called? Dependent both ways.

Got it? Okay? Got it?

Cool? That's Nagarjuna's definition of dependence in the eighth chapter. Okay?

Got it? That's chill, right? In surfing, you call it, that's really sick, man.

That's really sick. Sick means fantastic in surfing. That was a sick wave you got, man.

Yeah, I know, it's really sick. This is really sick definition of dependence. Okay?

Jenny caused the endowment and the endowment caused Jenny. Got it? Even though it came later.

His sentence, you really want that? The agents, those who do things, depend on the action that they take. While the action they take depends in turn upon the agents.

He puts the easy part second. He puts this easy part second. Actions depend on agents, right?

But agents also depend on actions, okay? Only after you have completed, check this out. Only after a seed has created a tree, can that seed be called a cause.

You see? You don't deserve the name until you give your baby. Then we call you mom.

You see what I mean? You can't call a seed a cause until the result comes out. Okay?

After the tree is there, somebody say, where'd that come from? You say, the seed is the cause. You don't get to be called a cause until there's a result.

Cool? That's real dependence. And if you read Pabongka's commentary on the three principle paths, anybody remember for $100, how does he describe this principle?

No more $2,000 bets like in Guadalajara. It took me like six weeks to pay that. Hundred bucks.

Who's laughing? I don't like it. Okay.

They call it the tripod. Pabongka calls it the tripod. Tripod means when you're cooking over a fire on a Tibetan picnic, you have to have three sticks that support each other.

The three sticks support each other. If you take away one stick, the other two fall down, okay? It means Jenny depends on the ...

sorry, the endowment depends on Jenny, but Jenny also depends on the endowment. They are leaning on each other like these two things, you see? And if you pull out one, the other one will fall down, okay?

That's how Pabongka ... Now, I know that was a very advanced reading in ACI number one. You all just failed the ACI course.

It's 1024. What are the three ways to become the most popular professor at the Sedona College? Number one, know your stuff backwards and forwards.

Number two, know the students' names. Number three, let them always end the class early. Okay, go pee-pee.

You have five minutes early. Oh, we have something else. No, I lied.

Is it ready? Okay, we might as well not waste our precious mind space. Until they come back, I'll give you the next homework question for free.

In wisdom, we are examining many different proofs why things are empty. Many different proofs. This is the wisdom.

This is the book. What is the attitude of a bodhisattva about many proofs of emptiness? And what is the attitude about many proofs of emptiness of a person who's not a bodhisattva?

And why is the difference? Why different? What's the difference?

Okay, you want the answer for free? Okay, you have to give me some cake, okay? Birthday cake.

I can smell it coming. Oh, okay, quick. Bodhisattvas like many proofs of emptiness.

They say a thousand. They want a thousand. Why?

Number one, they want to make sure they got it correct. They want one thousand proofs of emptiness, okay? Number two, what?

They want a big toolbox. Bodhisattva wants a big toolbox, okay? Because your students, some of them will understand proof number one.

Some of them will understand proof number two. Some of them won't understand even after a thousand proofs, okay? So, bodhisattva wants a big box of proofs, okay?

This is the difference. Other people, lower hinayana, right? They're like, teach me one proof is enough, Geshe-la.

I don't want more. I will get confused, okay? So, that's a big difference between a bodhisattva, a person who wants to save the world, and a person who's not interested in saving the world.

The person who saves the world, they want more proofs of emptiness. Give me more proof. Give me another proof, okay?

Then other people are like, one thing is enough, Geshe-la. I'll go meditate on it, okay? Okay, we're gonna do a small skit, a small play, which comes from DCI, and it explains the whole wisdom in five minutes.

And I think it's very powerful. So, you over here, it's more comfortable for me. So, just have fun.

And this little play includes all of dependence and all of emptiness, okay? And I think the eight invisibles are in there also, okay? So, this way you can understand in an easy way.

And then we'll talk about the technical Sanskrit words and things like that. But this is the meaning of the whole thing. And the whole point of wisdom is to use it in your life, right?

The whole point of this week is to use it in your real life. So, this is the way we teach it to people, like in Kazakhstan. They will never be Buddhists.

We don't expect them to be Buddhists. We give them something they can use in their life, right? Okay, here we go.

All right, here we go. So, I'm a typical mother in, I don't know, Singapore or Moscow or wherever it is. And nowadays I'm a working mother, right?

Which means my husband gets to relax at home. And I make all the money. And I have to do the traditional jobs of a woman, which is take care of the kids and cook the food.

So, it's a Wednesday and I'm leaving work. And my boss says, don't forget tomorrow you got to come one hour early because we are an international company. And we have a conference call with New York from Shanghai.

And, you know, we decide to do it early in the morning, which is late in New York. And you have to be here an hour early. You understand?

And the boss's eyebrow goes up, which means fired if you don't. Okay, you are fired if you don't come. So, you know, you're like, you see the eyebrow go up.

You're like, okay, I understand. I know what you're saying. I know what you're telling me.

You know, I really do have to come an hour early tomorrow. It's not an option, okay? Then you go and tell your kids, okay, you guys gonna, you guys, you guys be my kids, okay?

You guys be my kids. Okay, you are my two kids, all right? Then I come home and I go to my kids' room and I say, kids, you know, usually mommy comes at eight o'clock to take you to school, but tomorrow mommy has a special job.

And mommy has to be, leave at seven o'clock. And mommy just asking you, please be ready for school, have your homework finished, be all dressed for school, don't forget to tie your shoes, everything yourself, okay? Can you guys do that tomorrow?

Because I'll tell you, mommy's gonna get fired if you guys can't do that. Okay, you agree?

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, two kids agree, okay? Then mommy's like, ah, okay. She comes in the room the next morning, one hour early, seven o'clock, and the kids are fighting with each other.

They are crying, they are still in pajamas, their shoes are missing, and the homework is also missing. And mommy's like, I told you, I gotta be there an hour early. You know, this is, you can't do this to mommy.

Mommy's gonna get fired. You are the stupidest kids in, where are you guys from? What's your city, home city?

JB? The other JB. Oh, they are from Malaysia.

Okay. You are most stupid kids in Johor Bahru. You know, then say, ah.

Then they start to cry. Then, question, who heard mommy say, you are the most stupid kids in Johor Bahru? They heard, that's why they cry.

Anybody else? Yeah, mommy also heard, okay? You are the most stupid kids in Johor Bahru.

Okay, then mommy heard it. Then those words go in the mommy's ear, and they make an impression on mommy's mind, okay? Mind is like clay, and it leaves an impression on mommy's mind.

Then, when you teach it, go like this. Same when you teach the four steps. Go like this, and say, after a few hours, four hours, that impression becomes a seed in mommy's mind, okay?

Then mommy has a bad seed in mommy's mind, okay? Then, next week, Monday, mommy is coming home. She pick up the kids from school.

They are being good today, thank you. And we buy groceries, and we come home. And I'm thinking, you know, why did I get married?

You know, if the husband doesn't work anymore, what's a function of a husband? Then, can think, well, one good thing, my husband always gives me a good hug. When I come home, the one thing my husband can do, besides TV, he can give me a good hug, you know?

And it's worth it, you know, a good hug. It's okay, my life is okay. I get home, I'm tired, I take the kids, I have to make the money, I have to buy the groceries, I have to cook the food, but at least, when I come home, my husband gives me those great hugs.

She opens the door to the kitchen. She says, hello, honey. So, phantom means rice bucket head, which means you're an idiot, okay?

So, try to learn a bad word. In every language, it's good, okay? Say phantom, phantom, okay?

You are a rice bucket head. Then I'm like, what? I didn't do anything.

I just opened the door. I didn't say anything to him. I just opened the door and he starts yelling at me.

I don't know what's wrong with my relationship. He doesn't love me anymore. He used to give me a hug, now he calls me stupid.

The minute I opened the door, I didn't do anything. Is it true she didn't do anything? Not true.

What did she do? She yelled at the kids last week and she put a seed in her mind. Then, the moment she opened the door, that seed opened and the husband came out of the seed, you see?

Yelling husband came out of the seed, okay? So, now, next question. How can she prove she's stupid?

How can she prove she's phantom? Yeah, yell back. Say it back.

I'm not stupid. You're stupid, okay? Then what will happen next week?

Kids will be bad, okay? Why? Because she called the husband stupid, okay?

So, what happened here? Make seed over there. Seed open here.

Make seed over here. Seed open over there. Over here, over here, over here, over here.

What's that called in Buddhism? Samsara. Samsara, okay?

Wheel of life, okay? That's a perfect samsara. So, don't think samsara is, it has to be three lifetimes or something like that.

You make samsaras every five minutes. Every five minutes, you are making new samsara in your life. And also, in Stanley's text, it's called ke chikme tendo.

Dependent origination in an instant, in five minute. Five minute dependent origination. You can do it, okay?

You are creating it, okay? How to break it? Well, you have to understand the two husbands.

So, when you teach it, you have to be funny, right? And you have to say, maybe you are wondering why Geshe Michael has two husbands, okay? Why are there two husbands in the kitchen?

Well, actually, this one is called, his special name is, I didn't do anything husband, okay? Alright? Her name, his name is, I didn't do anything husband, okay?

This husband didn't come from me. I don't know why he's yelling. He called me stupid, phantom, I don't know why, okay?

This one called, I didn't do anything husband. This one come from me, okay? This husband comes from me.

Dependent origination husband, okay? He came because I yelled at the kids last week, okay? This one came because I yelled at the kids last week.

Now, question. One of those husbands really exists. And one of those husbands cannot exist.

Which is which? Which is shopping? Yeah, cannot exist.

There's no such thing. They don't exist. Impossible.

Husband who didn't come from me is impossible. How about this husband? Possible or not?

Yeah, very possible. Super possible, okay? This one come from me because I yelled at the kids last week, okay?

Now, deeper question. And this is very, very important for nirvana. Nirvana means you stop your anger forever, right?

Nirvana means you can stop your anger forever. So, when I get upset, when I come in the kitchen, he calls me phantom. I am upset at one of them.

Which one? Shopping. Why?

Why can't I be upset at, why I'm not upset at Stanley? Why? I understand where he come from, okay?

Who I get upset at? She'll get upset at me, right? Okay?

When I get upset, when I get angry, it's only possible if you don't see emptiness, okay? It's impossible to get angry if you see emptiness, okay? Because you realize she don't exist.

She never existed, okay? Impossible. This one is kongshim.

This one is empty. This one, how did Buddha say it? For $50.

How did Buddha say it? Okay, cancel the bet. Number one, she was never in the kitchen.

Number two, she's not in the kitchen now. Number three, she will never be in the kitchen in the future. She is totally impossible.

Cannot be. She's not there. If you think she's there, you are having illusion.

She's maya. That's illusion, okay? There is no shopping.

There is no husband there, okay? How many husbands in the kitchen? Just one, really.

Only one, okay? And when you get upset, when you get upset, you are angry at this one, okay? Why?

Why cannot get upset at this one? This one you understand. Oh, this one.

Okay, watch. Come in. Okay, okay.

Go to the toilet. Open the door. Look in the mirror.

You're so stupid. Okay, got it? That one's correct.

That one's okay. Alright, understand? So, everything is here.

Where's the kongshin? Where's emptiness? Yeah, she was never here in the kitchen.

Where's dependent origination? Yeah, where's the truth of the source of suffering? Nice, over there.

Where's the truth of suffering? When the kids cry, right? Where's the truth of the end of suffering?

In the toilet. Where's the truth of the path to the end of suffering? Walking to the toilet.

Okay, stay quiet. Now, for all the women in the room. Last thing when you teach it.

Last thing. Look, privately between the women and me, it's true. All husbands are stupid.

Okay? We know. We already agree.

But don't say it. Don't make bad seat, okay? It's true.

But never say, okay? We all know. We don't have to say, okay?

Just stay quiet. Okay, got it? Does that mean if your husband hurts you, you should say, oh, that's okay?

No, you should go tell somebody. You should get some help, okay? Don't let people hurt you.

That's not what I'm saying. But if you want to stop it in the future, stop yelling at your kids. Okay, got it?

All right, now we can talk about Nagarjuna. Thank you, Stanley. Okay, easy homework question number five.

How many chapters does wisdom have? The answer is 27. There are 27 chapters.

They are very short. Some of them are half a page, okay? 27 short Nagarjuna bombs, okay?

Nagarjuna bombs, okay? 27. Each one is called Pariksha.

Pariksha means let's examine something. Let's check something. Does it come from its own side or not?

What was the first one? Husband, okay? You can say Bharata.

It's called Bharata. Wife is called Bharata in Sanskrit. Bharata Pariksha.

Let's look into husbands and wives, okay? I don't know the word for husband. But let's check.

So Pariksha, each chapter is called examination about some question, okay? Where did the husband come from? Okay, so each chapter is called Pariksha.

Pari means around, like periscope, perimeter. And Iksha means to see or to check into. And the German word for eye is E-Y-E, Augen.

And the English word ocular comes from that. And it means to look into something, Aksha. Aksha, to look into something, Pariksha.

Let's look into 27 different things in the world. Let's look into 27 different subjects. And I'm going to teach you the 27 tomorrow.

Tomorrow you have to get a lot of sleep tonight because tomorrow is a rough day. Homework-wise, it's super rough day tomorrow, okay? You're going to learn the 27 chapters and what they talk about, okay?

Like there are some sexy ones like, who made the connection between karma and its result? Like that. They're all like cool, alright?

I'm going to give you the names of the first three chapters just because it's on your homework. And it's just for example, okay? The first chapter is called an examination of conditions.

I put factors yesterday, but he used a different word for factors later, in a later chapter. Sorry about that. So, causes and conditions, right?

Conditions. Conditions means water, fertilizer, sunlight. Cause means seed, tree seed, okay?

Conditions means, sometimes in Sanskrit, condition can mean any cause, all the causes, okay? So, the very first chapter, we're going to check what makes a cause a cause, okay? Who made causes, okay?

That's the first chapter. Second chapter, is it possible to come and is it possible to go, okay? He actually calls it going and coming, okay?

Is it, how does that work? That something goes and comes, okay? How does that work?

How is that possible, alright? Third chapter, an examination of the powers of sense, your eyes, your ears, your nose, your tongue, okay? That's just the first three.

So, I'm going to be merciful today. You just need to know three on your homework. Tomorrow, that's another story, okay?

So, if you're going to run away, run away tonight. Okay, then we are examining, does this thing come from me or not? Does this husband come from me or not?

That's the main examination. Who made the connection between karma and the results of karma, okay? Things like that, deep questions, okay?

Who made emptiness? Alright, alright. I'm going to give you the eight invisibles.

In the first verse of wisdom, they are a single word. They are a single word, okay? I'm going to give you the eight in the order of the verse, okay?

And I'll just give you one word. Then, Choney Lama explains the one word briefly, okay? So, I'm going to tell you the eight invisibles.

Each one has a name. It's just a single word. And Choney Lama puts in two or three words to clarify, okay?

Because some of them look similar, okay? Alright, first one. Things that could stop, things that could stop, moment by moment.

And here's the punchline, okay? On their own, on their own, without yelling at the kids, understand? I didn't do anything stopping, okay?

My girlfriend told me she found another man. My relationship just stopped, okay? Then, I didn't do anything, right?

No, impossible. That's the first invisible, okay? My girlfriend stopped our relationship.

I didn't do anything. I didn't say anything. I didn't do anything.

She stopped. She stopped the relationship, okay? Then, on its own, it stopped.

It's not my fault. I didn't do anything, you know? I didn't mess around.

I didn't do anything. She just stopped, okay? True?

Impossible, okay? We can call it invisible. Invisible.

You cannot see that kind of stopping, okay? Who's the invisible husband in our example? Allison.

Invisible, okay? I don't have two husbands in my kitchen. Don't think I'm weird guy, weird wife.

I don't have two husbands in my kitchen. One is invisible. Cannot exist, okay?

That's what invisible means, alright? When we say eight invisibles, that's the husband in the kitchen who didn't come from me is invisible. There's no such thing.

There's no such thing. But which one you get angry at? Invisible one, okay?

When you have a world war and a hundred million people die, who's the enemy? Where'd the enemy come from? Another country?

No, they come from you, okay? Got it? They are invisible.

The enemy who come from another country is invisible. There's no enemy who came from another country. When you have a world war and you kill a hundred million people, you are fighting nothing.

Literally nothing. There is no enemy came from another country. Doesn't exist.

Cannot exist. Got it? That's the problem with not understanding this book.

You can have a world war. You can kill a hundred million people if you don't understand this book. You see?

You cannot have a world war if you understand this book. Not possible, okay? Impossible.

You can't get angry at a husband who's not there. It's not possible, okay? But we feel he's there, right?

We feel he's there. And it takes a lot of proofs for emptiness to stop that feeling. It takes many, many proofs.

It's not enough to talk about the husband in the kitchen one time. You have to hear it over and over and over again. And we have to talk about pans and we have to talk other things, okay?

Over and over. Because to defeat a mistake that you have made for a billion years is not easy, okay? One logic is not enough, okay?

You have been making this mistake for a billion years, okay? We just had five minutes. Five minutes cannot stand against one billion years, okay?

Alright? The mind has been going for a billion years. You can't fight that in five minutes.

But five minutes of the kitchen story, I don't know, it's worth about a hundred lifetimes, okay? You just cut a hundred lifetimes off of your misunderstanding, okay? Because truth is stronger than lie, okay?

That's the final Geshe question. Every Geshe has to answer. Truth will succeed.

Truth always stronger, okay? The kitchen is stronger than the yelling kids, alright? Alright.

Okay. So, Choney Lama says the stopping, which Nagarjuna mentioned first, is specifically talking about stopping moment by moment, okay? Because there's another stopping in the list.

There's another stopping in the list, okay? So, don't get confused. This one is the one, you know, that husband coming from you, 65 seats per second, right?

Open, close. Open, close. Open, close.

Open, close. Okay? That kind of stopping doesn't come from itself.

It comes from the seats, okay? Cool? Second one.

Nothing can start from its own side, from not being there before, okay? You open the door to the kitchen, and the yelling, what? Start.

The yelling starts, right? Husband mouth open. Just the opening mouth.

This also not coming from its own side. So, stopping doesn't come from its own side, and starting doesn't come from its own side, okay? That's the second invisible, okay?

He started yelling at me, I don't know why. If you understood emptiness, you wouldn't see any yelling coming from your husband, okay? Got it?

Second invisible. Second invisible, okay? Got it?

Alright, third one. This is another kind of stopping, but it's a flavor of stopping, okay? It means cut off, okay?

The thing is going for a month, your relationship is going for a month, your relationship is going for a year, your relationship is going for 25 years, and then cut, cut off, okay? That's the third one, okay? So, it's a little bit different from the first one.

First one is stopping moment by moment. Second one is stopping after 6 years relationship, 10 year relationship, then suddenly got cut off, okay? That also doesn't come from itself, okay?

It's invisible. It should be invisible. Okay, number four.

Some things never change in that sense they don't end moment to moment. Like what? Empty space, okay?

There's space, this bottle is in space. If I take the bottle out of the space, what happens to the space? It's still there.

It's still there. If I blow up the whole world, it will stay. That space will stay here, location, okay?

It's occupied, ocupado, or no ocupado? Inocupado? Desocupado.

But it stays there. It always stays there, okay? No one can change it.

It never changes, okay? That also is invisible if you think it's coming from the outside. It's not the space in which things live.

The universe was created by your mind, okay? The space that planets and stars and people walk through was created by you, okay? Alright, number five.

Nothing can come towards you on its own, okay? From its own side. And we'll talk more about it, but when you walk, when someone walks up to me, if I'm sitting here and someone walks up to me, there's no person walking up to me.

It's a small picture, bigger picture, bigger picture, big, big, big picture, big, big, big picture. They ask me for some appointment to talk about their stuff. I say, no.

Then the picture gets smaller, smaller, smaller. Okay? We designed a new DCI t-shirt, but I didn't have the courage to make it.

It says, shut up and do the four steps. Anyway, so yeah, nobody comes towards you. It's just small picture, big picture, big picture, from your seat.

Then when they walk away, which is number six, okay, five is come towards you, six is go away, okay? Then the picture gets smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller, coming from you, okay? Nobody's coming, nobody's going, okay?

Alright, but you did not come in the kitchen, and you did not leave the kitchen, okay? The kitchen got bigger and bigger, bigger. The kitchen door got bigger, bigger, bigger.

And then the kitchen door got smaller, smaller, smaller. And you came and you left, okay? That's all.

Geshe-la, you're getting weird, you know? It starts to sound like I'm very drunk or something. So why do I need to know that?

Do I have to stop every time I walk through a door and think, oh, door getting bigger, bigger, bigger. Door getting smaller, smaller, smaller. Then I'm enlightened person, you know?

That's weird, Geshe-la. No, the point is, of course, that we would all like to live with a perfect husband or a perfect wife. Of course, this is a half of, 50% of human life is your relationships.

So, if they're not coming from you, you can't change them. You can't fix them. If they are coming from you, well, then you can design a better husband.

Here's the cool part, without talking to them, okay? You don't need to talk to them to change them. You don't have to say, don't call me phantom, you know?

Maybe I'm a gold bucket head, but not a rice bucket head, okay? And when you talk to your husband, maybe it works, maybe it doesn't work. You know that.

It's not a method. It's not a path, okay? Change your seeds with your kids.

Then your husband will change. He has to change. Dependent origination.

He's dependent origination, okay? Got it? If the door is getting bigger, bigger, bigger, smaller, smaller, smaller, that's good news.

Why? You can fix your husband without talking to him. It's an art at a DCI talk.

We teach people how to get their husband to wash the dishes. And you don't know how many success stories we have. Even some husbands are cooking now, which is almost impossible.

Okay, last one. 7 and 8. 7 and 8.

Is this bottle the same as this cup? No. Who made it that way?

I did. I did, okay? Is the cup the same as the cup?

Yeah, it is. It's one thing, okay? It's one thing.

kyur shi drum no kyur kyur yinpi kyal pa'ang chur. This is in Adam's text. If a thing exists, it is itself.

Okay? Definition. What are the definitions of existence?

Yeah. Is one thing possible? That's number 8.

Yes. Yeah, of course. But, not from itself.

One things, one things are possible. This is number 8. One things are possible, but they are coming from you.

Two things are also possible, but they are also coming from you. That's number 7. Okay?

More than one thing. Got it? I'm trying to lose weight.

I did really good for three weeks. I had a million dollar bet with somebody. And I won.

But I wanted like two, three more pounds. It just won't happen. No, I didn't eat for like a week.

It just won't happen. You see? So, one is not one.

And two is not two. Understand? Coming from somewhere else.

It's not coming from food. It's some kind of evil seed. The last two pounds.

Some kind of evil seed. You understand? Is it one?

Or is it many? How much I lost the last week. It's not many.

I'm sorry. It's one. Got it?

Who made things more than one? I did. Who made them just one?

Like the last pound I have to lose. I did. Okay?

That one is permanent and unchanging. Just kidding. Okay.

Excuse me? Sorry? Oh, six was, could go away on its own.

Yeah, five is towards, six is away. Okay. Why are they invisible?

You don't need me to tell you. It's on your homework. In general, the second husband, Xiaoping, Alison, cannot exist.

So, she's invisible. That's why we say invisible. Okay?

That's why we say invisible. But there's a second reason why it's invisible. Okay?

There are many things which cannot be seen by a person who is seeing emptiness directly. While you're watching emptiness directly, there are many other things you cannot see. Okay?

Like donuts. Okay? But also, you cannot see Xiaoping.

While you are seeing emptiness directly, you cannot see the husband. What do we call the husband? Which one?

I didn't do anything, husband. You got to say it with pizzazz. We need Ironton.

I didn't do anything, husband. Okay? Well, first of all, they don't exist, so they're invisible.

But secondly, if you are seeing emptiness directly, you actually cannot see them. Impossible. Okay?

So, two meanings of invisible for your homework. Okay, last thing on this question. I might go a little bit over, Tim.

Why did Arya Nagarjuna choose these eight specifically? Each one relates to your real life. Okay?

Each one of these eight relates to your real life. Okay? Number one.

Is the husband ever going to stop yelling? Moment to moment. Is he ever going to stop?

Well, that depends on your seeds. Okay? Did he ever start?

I mean, don't you want to know why your husband started to yell when you didn't do anything? Don't you want to know why? Don't you want to know the real reason why people start to hurt you?

Okay? Why you got first moment of car accident? Don't you want to know why they started?

Okay, that's the second one. Third one. How can I stop this problem in my life?

You know, my husband's ... How can I cut it off? Okay?

Number four. Is it unchanging? Or, I want unchanging happiness.

I want happiness forever. Okay? Number five.

There are certain people I don't want to ... Number five. Come to me.

Okay? I like to stay away. Number six.

There are some people I don't want them to go. I don't want them to go. Okay?

That's number six. Number seven. I don't know.

You would like to lose multiple pounds and not single pound. You see what I mean? Or, you think of your own example.

Anyway, Nagarjuna chose these eight, because everything in your life revolves around these eight. Everything involves coming, going, starting, stopping, being one, being many. Everything is the same.

Okay? Everything is wrapped up in these eight. Your whole life is eight parts.

Okay? Everything in your life has eight parts. Okay?

Plus the eight in his first birth. Say again? What is number eight?

Things are never one by themselves. Number seven. Things are never many by themselves.

Okay? Later, those eight became very, very famous proofs of emptiness. There are many proofs of emptiness here.

We'll talk about it. Okay? All right.

Question number seven. What has the idea of peace got to do with these eight invisibles? Let's talk about peace in the kitchen.

What's it got to do with invisible husband? How can invisible husband help you to have peace in the kitchen? If you realize he was never there, then you're going to calm down.

Okay? If you realize, oh, the husband who's yelling at me because he decided to yell at me doesn't exist. Okay?

He's not yelling at me because he decided to yell. That's not who's making him yell. Who's making him yell?

You are. Okay? The husband who decided to yell at you is never there.

Doesn't exist. Cannot exist. Never existed in the past.

Impossible. Invisible. Okay?

That husband is not there. If you understand that in the moment in the kitchen, you will get some peace. You will get some peace.

Does it hurt to have husband yell at you? Yes. Does it hurt to have husband that you created yell at you?

Yes. But do you feel better about being in the kitchen? Yeah.

Because you know how to stop it for the future. Okay? You know how to stop it.

It's the same in your meditation. My knees are hurting, Geshe-la. Okay.

Plant a seed, you know. Massage somebody else's knees during meditation. Okay?

Not the cute boy in the class. Okay? But massage someone's knee.

Then maybe tomorrow it won't hurt. Okay? Come from you.

The pain in your knee was created because you hurt somebody. Okay? So you can get some peace now.

Immediately. Some peace. Why?

This is under my control. I can change it. I have power.

I have power. That's peace, right? Then when you change it, you get more peace.

Okay? Ultimate peace. So there's two kinds of peace here, and I want to see two kinds of peace in your answer.

Okay? Well, the first kind of peace has two parts. Okay?

Number one, you feel better in the kitchen. You don't keep the fight going. Okay?

And number two, if you keep refusing to answer, the husband will stop yelling in time. Okay? That's the first general kind of peace.

Okay? Second, if you keep that up in your life, day after day after day, with everything bad, you will reach nirvana. Okay?

And no one will ever yell at you. A Buddhahood. Okay?

You are surrounded by sweet bodhisattvas. Okay? Okay?

That's final peace. Okay? Final peace.

So in this first verse, Nagarjuna promises you two kinds of peace. Number one, more peace in the kitchen. Number two, more peace forever.

Don't have to die. Death also caused by seeds. Okay?

Aging caused by seeds. You can stop it. All right.

Last question. No. Here's a very cool thing, and you only get this thing from Choney Lama.

Okay? So, it helps to come from the best monastery in Tibet. Sera me.

Okay. Choney Lama asks a question. Why did Nagarjuna start with stopping, and he didn't start with starting?

Okay? Why did Nagarjuna start with stopping, and he did not start with starting? Because you have to start before you have to stop.

So, is Nagarjuna illogical? Okay? He should have said, there's no starting, there's no stopping, blah blah blah.

But he said, first thing he said, there's no stopping, and there's no starting. Later he says the same thing with coming and going. Right?

I mean a person should go and then come back. Right? But he said coming and going.

Why he mixed them up? Is he just like sleepy? And I checked the Sanskrit, and the Sanskrit also says, it starts with stopping, and then it goes to starting.

And Choney Lama says, when you're dealing with impossible husbands, anything can happen. Okay? When you're dealing with impossible husbands, anything can happen.

If a husband is not coming from you, he can stop before he start. So, Nagarjuna wants you to say, what's wrong with Nagarjuna? Why he start with stopping?

He wants you to ask the question. The intelligent students in this class, I'm sure, were asking this question. Why he starts with stopping?

Why he doesn't start with starting? And Choney Lama has an answer. Okay?

Choney Lama's answer. If that thing is not coming from you, anything can happen. You know?

Katie's baby can have Katie. Okay? Melissa's baby can have Melissa.

Okay? Everything's possible. Okay?

In a world where the husband doesn't come from you. In a world of, I didn't do anything, husband. Anything can happen.

Husband can have two heads. You know? Husband can be purple.

You know? Everything can happen. Okay?

Husband yelling can come before you open the kitchen door. But that's true always. Okay.

Alright. We're almost finished with the homework. I have one more minute.

It's not gonna happen. Okay. I'm just gonna, I'm sorry to go fast.

I know I hate it when my teacher does that. But, here we go. Okay.

Question number nine. What's the difference between the emptiness of the person and the emptiness of things? Okay.

All emptinesses is divided into two kinds. Emptiness of people and emptiness of things. Okay?

All emptinesses are divided into emptiness of husband and emptiness of the pen. Okay? You know, normal stuff, normal things, and then people.

All kinds of emptiness are divided into two. Okay? In Buddhism.

Okay? Now, what's the difference? The emptiness is exactly the same.

Okay? The emptiness is exactly the same. The question is, who has it?

Who has the emptiness? In the first case, it's a living being. Fish, dog, human.

Okay? Husband, wife. Okay?

In the second case, it's just a thing. Okay? Like a pen.

Okay? You want to go deeper? You sure?

It's kind of late. Yeah, we better, because it's on your homework. Where do you put hen?

Is it person or thing? It's considered a thing. In the emptiness teachings, the parts of person count as thing.

Okay? They are thing. When you say person, it should be someone you can call Michael or Vivian or Jasmine.

That's person. Okay? All right?

Why we make this division? Because the emptiness of people has a special kind called the emptiness of me. Okay?

Michael Dunn's emptiness for Michael Dunn is a special kind of emptiness. Okay? The emptiness of yourself for you.

Okay? Connie's emptiness for Connie. Gelsay's emptiness for Gelsay.

JB's emptiness for JB. Okay? What is your name?

Whatever is your name. Luca. Okay?

Whatever is your name. The emptiness of that is a special emptiness for you. Why?

Several reasons. Okay? Number one, it causes all the trouble in your life.

It is the first link of the wheel of life. It is the blind man. Okay?

If Michael doesn't understand Michael, Michael will compete to get things. Michael will hurt other people to get things. And then he will start the wheel of life.

Okay? So, a special kind of the emptiness of people is the emptiness of me. Me.

Okay? That's the most important kind of emptiness. If you don't understand it, you will hurt people.

Okay? Geshe-la, I like birthday cake. I didn't get a piece of birthday cake.

I'm thinking to take it off the, you know, there's little extra cakes over there. The spirits ate them already, right? Okay?

Then you steal cake off the altar. Okay? Then that's misunderstanding yourself.

Okay? If you want more cake, then make sure you don't get cake. Okay?

If you want bigger birthday cakes at Diamond Mountain, which would be a nice idea, then share the cake with other people. Okay? That's where they come from.

Okay? Got it? So, misunderstand me or mine.

Or mine. This is my cake. Okay?

Michael's cake. When you say Michael, for me, that's a special kind of misunderstanding people. Misunderstanding me and my cake.

Okay? Alright? And that's the, that causes the wheel of life.

That causes the wheel. It's a special kind of misunderstanding people. Okay?

There's another thing there. Yeah, this is kind of cool. By the way, this was one of my Geshe debate questions.

So, I never forget it. Because I almost lost, but I won. Okay.

When you see emptiness directly, you always see the emptiness of Michael. Okay? Jasmine, when she sees emptiness directly, the first time, she will see the emptiness of Jasmine.

Okay? Got it? Chen Zong will see the emptiness of Chen Zong.

Teddy will see the emptiness of Teddy. Okay? So, that's a very personal emptiness.

Okay? The first time you see emptiness directly, it's always the emptiness of whatever, then fill in your own name. Like those vows ceremony, right?

Fill in your own name. Okay? Then, later you will see the emptiness of Pan directly.

Okay? But, okay, ready? When you are teaching emptiness, you always start with outside object that the audience can see.

This is easier for people to understand. If you start teaching Aldo on his first day about the emptiness of Aldo, he's never going to come back. Okay?

So, it's tradition. Teach the emptiness of things first, then go to the emptiness of people. But when you teach, but when you see emptiness directly, it's always the emptiness of you.

Okay? Got it? Alright, we covered that question.

By the way, the misunderstanding of me and mine has a special name in Buddhism. Okay? It's not called one kind of misunderstanding people.

It's not called that. It's called the destruction view. The destruction view.

Okay? It has a special nickname in Buddhist philosophy. It's called destruction viewpoint.

Okay? Why? Well, first of all, it destroys your happiness.

Okay? If you think you get more cake by fighting for cake, it will destroy your happiness. Okay?

Secondly, it's destroyable. The viewpoint can be destroyed. Okay?

This misunderstanding can be destroyed. Thirdly, it's often focused on me, Michael, and Michael is destructible. Michael will die.

Okay? Michael's getting older. Michael will die.

Okay? Got it? So, now you can call it the right name, which is destruction viewpoint, for three reasons.

Maybe it's on your homework. I don't know. Okay, last question.

I'm just going to read the question, then we'll stop. Okay? So, have hope.

Your bed is very close. I mean your meditation, Christian. Number ten.

Arya Nagarjuna is famous for giving us new and cool proofs of emptiness. Choney Lama describes four different ways in which these different proofs work on us. So, when someone gives you a proof of emptiness, like the two-husband demonstration, right?

How does it work on you? What does it do for you? And Choney Lama says four things.

Okay? He says four things happen. He says they're not the same.

And he says, I'll give you a homework assignment. You figure out why they're different. And then he never answers the question.

So, for this homework question, just have fun. Okay? Just have fun.

I myself, I don't understand the answer very clearly. Okay? Maybe you can figure it out.

Okay? So, here's a puzzle for all of us. Ready?

Choney Lama says, when someone gives you the two-husbands talk, four things happen. Four things happen. They're supposed to be different.

Okay? Every proof of emptiness has four different effects are going on. Okay?

I don't understand them myself, but here they are. Okay? Number one.

It gets you thinking about whether or not something that you think you see can stand up under correct logic. Okay? Can Allison stand up under correct thinking?

Correct thinking. Okay? Yes or no?

Cannot. Cannot. So, the verb in Tibetan and Sanskrit is stand up.

Like, the idea of Allison will crumble if you understand about seeds. Cannot stand up. Cannot stand in the bright light of intelligence.

Allison has to disappear in the bright light of intelligence. Okay? That's the first one.

Second one. That bright light of wisdom can destroy many wrong ideas. Destroy ideas.

Okay? So, maybe in the first one, the idea is that the object cannot survive. Allison cannot survive in logic, in the light of logic.

Okay? But the second one, the belief in Allison can also not survive. Okay?

That's part of your mind. It's not in the kitchen, right? When you open the door.

Alright? Third one. Those proofs of emptiness should help you learn to explore and not find anything.

Okay? It's called explore and not find anything. It's like you're looking for your hairbrush in your room, but somebody took it yesterday.

Okay? Got it? So, you explore the room.

Where's my hairbrush? And then you discover. You never find it.

You explore and never find. According to Choney Lama, this is a third thing that goes on in your mind when you think about emptiness. If you think about emptiness correctly, I'm guessing it's something like you go looking for Allison.

She's got to be in the kitchen somewhere. And then finally you say, you know, the result is no result. You don't find her.

Okay? Now you guys have to decide. I don't really understand.

Okay? According to Choney Lama, it's important. Last one.

The existence, the very existence of certain things is denied in the light of logic. Their very existence of certain things cannot survive the light of logic. Now how that differs from number one, it's supposed to be different.

Okay? It's supposed to be different. Okay?

The existence of certain things is denied by a certain state of mind. Okay? And according to Choney Lama, these four are important and they're different.

Okay? And I thought if you have an extra hour to meditate today, you can chew on those four. Okay?

He does not help us. He doesn't answer his own question. But he says you should understand the difference.

Okay? So good luck on that. I'm not going to help you at all.

It's probably hard to get that answer wrong if you just write anything. Okay? Because there's no answer.

At least you should be able to list the four. But how they're different, that's another question. Okay?

Let's do Mandala. Vivian, are you ready? Okay.

Okay. Cool. Thank you for not talking.

It looks like you're doing very well. And thank you for working hard. It's hard work.

Okay? It's not like the old Lam Rim courses. Okay.

Good luck.