Нагарджуна, курс 1 — Мудрость Арьи Нагарджуны, курс 1: Восемь невидимых (2018, Аризона), занятие 6

[Speaker 1]
Yes, please. From the who? I don't know, I haven't studied those, but I suspect they're the same.

The source is Abhidharma, which is probably, which is one of the only things in the Pali Canon. So, I think so, yeah. I haven't studied them though.

Okay, I think we're on the sixth homework question, right? Yeah. Okay, from homework five, question six, I think.

And I was trying to give you one homework question each, for each of the four conditions that Buddha taught, okay? And if you're really smart, I'm really pleased with this class, and I'd like to thank Tim for doing it. If we didn't have homeworks, and we didn't have a huge team of translators, you know, by the way, they got today's reading at, I think, nine o'clock last night, so, I don't know if they can sleep, but I really enjoy the new format.

You hate it, because you have to work harder. But I think at the end you will be happy that you learned something. It's more work for me, it's more work for Tim, but maybe we should have been doing that, I don't know.

Okay, sixth homework question. We are going to deny for $20. Deny what?

Where are we? We are refuting, we are denying, what? Yeah, nice.

Now give me one more word, it's $20. One more word. It's 140 yuan.

I have the exchange rate. One more word, huh? No, that she got already.

But am I denying that object, or am I denying ... who said definition? Okay, $20 over there.

Maybe you can share with Luka, you know, $20, okay. Yeah, I heard that one first. Up to you.

Okay, don't forget, otherwise you make, you give me poverty in the future. Okay, alright, yeah we're denying the definition, but what kind of definition? Is there no definition of an object?

A definition which must be that way, okay? A definition which belongs in the thing. Fire must be hot and burning.

It's not possible to hold fire in your hand, okay? Must be. All beings must experience fire as hot and burning, because the definition of a thing is inherent, is inside it, and your husband must yell for the rest of eternity, and must never notice the big sink load of dirty dishes for the rest of eternity, okay?

His definition is part of him. If you take out that definition, he will probably die. If he notices the dirty dishes, then he will disappear.

Understand? That's a self-existent husband definition, okay? By definition.

Okay, good. Alright, so here's the homework question, and I think I kind of covered this already. The object in this Abhidharma system, which Buddha taught, triggers an awareness, okay?

The object triggers an awareness. When we teach DCI and we're out in the audience with a hundred dollar bill, we give the person the hundred dollar bill, and I open my hand, or you open your hand, and I talk about how that picture comes to the mind, and makes an impression, right? So, that opening of the hand is an action, but the karma seed is planted by your awareness of the hand opening.

So, somehow this picture crosses the gap, right? We can talk about that someday. Crosses the gap, hits the eye, goes into the brain, and makes an impression.

The object triggers the awareness of the object, okay? Got it? Alright, for example, when we look at a painting, the painting is there first, right?

I just went to France for Adam's wedding, and Veronica and I went to the Rodin Museum. So, you see these beautiful paintings or sculptures, and then they are there before we got there. He lived a hundred years ago or something.

So, the sculptures are in his house, then you go to his house and the sculpture hits your eye, and it creates an awareness of the sculpture, and then you say, oh this is so beautiful, and like that, okay? So, the statue has to be there before I can take a taxi to see the statue, okay? The image of that painting flies through the eye, goes through, and triggers an awareness of the sculpture or something, okay?

But what—now here's the homework question. Homework question six. Homework five.

It's free, almost. What's the internal contradiction here? What's the contradiction?

There's some contradiction going on. There's some contradiction going on, okay? All right, and I added a second question inside the question, which is how I get more questions on the homework.

How does that disprove a common misunderstanding about the direct perception of emptiness? So, I threw that in for extra point, okay? So, here's the two answers, okay?

This is free. Here's Nagarjuna. This is Nagarjuna, okay?

If the perception of a painting exists before we look at the painting, if I have the awareness of Rodin's sculpture before I see the Rodin's sculpture, then we cannot say that the sculpture triggered the perception. We can't say that. If I had a perception of the statue before I walk in the museum, then you cannot say the statue created the perception, okay?

That's one way, okay? But, if my perception of the statue is triggered by the statue, then you can have an object of perception without a perception. It's like the same thing as causes and results, okay?

Before you have a result, you can't call a thing a cause, okay? And before you see the statue, you cannot call the statue the object, because object means object of subject, but there's no subject yet, okay? Before my taxi got to the Rodin museum, was there an object?

No, there was no perception. You can't call it object. Object means object of subject.

Subject and object have to come together, right? If the sculpture, if the statue is in the Rodin museum as my taxi cab is going to the museum, then you have an object without a subject, and that's impossible, okay? If I had the perception of it first, then I don't have to pay for the taxi.

I can stay in my room and watch the statue, okay? Got it? And then people get, and if you talk about this with your family members, they will get frustrated with you, you know?

That's why you pay all that money to go to Arizona, you know? Just enjoy the statue, you know? Who cares?

Okay? But then you have to, if you're a teacher, which we all are, right? You must go to the husband in the kitchen, you know?

You must go to the husband in the kitchen. You must go to something relevant in there, you know? The guy who's washing the dishes, you know?

If you're a woman and you're talking to your friends, and they say, why you waste your time to go there? You say, I have a project. What?

My husband's going to wash the dishes forever, you know? And they're like, what's that got to do with Nagarjuna? But that's what Nagarjuna is for, you know?

Read Nirvana. You think in Nirvana your husband's not going to wash the dishes? Come on, okay?

That's the purpose of Nagarjuna, to reach happiness. Garden is not some stupid philosophy, okay? There's a problem with subjects and objects, and there's a problem with causes and effects.

It doesn't make sense. It just doesn't make sense. What Nagarjuna Pariksha, he's trying to examine things so that you say, wow, so I've been thinking wrong way all this time, my whole life.

Yeah, you're right. Which came first? It's either one impossible, okay?

Got it? Then he wants you to think, maybe it's coming from me. Maybe when I get to the museum and I open the door, you know, a seed opens in my mind because I told Jasmine how much I like her hair, and then I see Rodin's statue coming from me, okay?

It's not coming this way at all. It's not triggering anything. I'm creating the statue, okay?

I just wish I got paid like Rodin. Okay, now, how that relates to emptiness. I can see we're going to get to like two homework questions.

On the wrong day's homework. Tim's going crazy trying to figure out how am I going to grade that. There's a famous expression about the direct perception of emptiness called CHU LA CHU ZHAG PA, pouring water into water, okay?

There's a famous expression of the direct perception of emptiness called pouring water into water, okay? And the first water is the subject, you know, me in meditation, and the second water is emptiness, okay? And I'm pouring one into the other, you know, and they mix.

Crystal, you know, clear like water, okay? So, then some people call it GNYIS SU MED PA, GNYIS SU MED PA, GNYIS SU MED PA. No duality, no duality.

So many people thought, oh, it's very mysterious. When I reach the direct perception of emptiness, I melt into emptiness. There's no more Vivian.

I'm perceiving the emptiness of Vivian. Vivian's mind melts into the emptiness like water into water, okay? And this is a very, very common mistake about emptiness, okay?

It doesn't mean that at all, okay? It's not correct, okay? That's not what happens, okay?

Well, for one thing, the mind is a positive, and the emptiness is a negative, and they can't mix. There's no possible. It's impossible, okay?

Not possible. So, what does it mean Geshe-la? It means, while you're in the direct perception of emptiness, which is ultimate reality, ultimate higher reality, you cannot see normal reality.

It's impossible. It's impossible, okay? Question.

During the time of the direct perception of emptiness, can you say to yourself, I did it? No, because I is not ultimate reality, okay? You can't be aware of, Bertha can't be aware of Bertha during the direct perception of emptiness, because you are not emptiness.

You are positive, okay? So, does Bertha go away? No, Bertha is sitting there, duh, but you cannot be aware of Bertha.

You can't think about Bertha. You can only think ultimate reality, okay? Which is a negative, okay?

And that's what it means when you say water is poured into water, okay? That's what it means when they say, oh subject and object are like mixed somehow. It just means you cannot be aware that I am seeing emptiness.

Not possible, because I is not the absence of the impossible husband, okay? Got it? Okay, so that's the real meaning of ...

So, what's the non-duality mean? What's the meaning of the non-duality? No discrepancy anymore.

So, duality in Buddhism means discrepancy. How do you define discrepancy? The way it looks and the way it is are different, not the same.

That's duality in Buddhism. The way it looks, it looks like the husband is, I didn't do anything, okay? It looks like the husband is, I didn't do anything, okay?

Got it? But really he's, you did everything, okay? You did everything about your husband, okay?

Got it? That discrepancy is called duality in Buddhism. It doesn't mean no subject, no object.

It doesn't mean that. That's not possible, okay? Got it?

Cool. Alright. You are getting all the diamonds in this class.

Okay, next one. Next homework question. Guess what it's about?

Yeah, the third condition which is called ... Condition for ... what happened just after it.

Condition for what happened just after it. There's a negative kind of ... why we study that, there's a negative reason and there's a positive reason.

Why we study what kind of mind can lead into another state of mind, there's two reasons. One is negative and one is positive. What?

Give me the negative one. What are the conditions for anger? Yeah, like what kind of state of mind ...

yeah, what kind of state of mind can flip over into anger, you see? So, we study the cause state of mind that can trigger anger in the next moment, okay? Dab pa.

Tired, upset, you know? Hungry, upset, you see? Dab pa.

So, that's called dematakyan. Okay, so we study the last moment of this mind to see how it started the first moment of that mind. Like this, okay?

Got it? So, in a negative way, when we study shantideva, we are studying what's the state of mind that can come before you're upset. What's the kind of bad conditions that are conducive to anger in the next moment, okay?

Now, in a positive way. Yeah, what state of mind do I have to reach to go to that emptiness perception, direct perception of emptiness? Because this one didn't happen for a billion years.

You've been alive for a billion years. You've been Miss America countless times, even the boys, and the girls have all won the Super Bowl, you know? Everybody has done everything possible.

All possible things have happened except this one, you know? So, how do I ... what kind of conditions I have to create for this thing to happen in the next moment, okay?

That's what we're talking about. Got it? That's the ...

which of the four? Third one. Third one.

Okay, here we go. Here's the question. We now turn to the third kind of condition mentioned by Lord Buddha, the condition for what immediately follows.

It's often described as a state of mind that leads into another state of mind. Nagarjuna says, it would be wrong to say that the seed for a thing stopped before the thing it produces has come. It would be wrong to say the cause stopped and then the result came.

It would be wrong. You can't say that, okay? Then the homework answer is ...

you ready? Write fast. It would be wrong to say that the seed for a thing stopped before the thing was produced, because the end of a seed and the birth of what it produces happen in the same instant.

The end of a thing, the end of the cause, and the first instant of the thing it causes have to happen at the same time, or they wouldn't be connected. Okay, got it? So, this whole concept of ...

this one here, got it? Listen. This ...

is wrong. Nagarjuna says, not possible. It has to be ...

okay, got it? No such thing as ... it has to be ...

last moment of hungry, first moment of anger. You know, here's hungry, here comes hungry ... anger.

It has to be ... there has to be some ... here comes hunger ...

anger. It has to kind of ... they have to overlap a little bit.

Otherwise, anything can cause anything. Otherwise, having a green tree can make you angry, which is very possible. Okay?

One more, and we take a break, just because it's too much. Okay? One more, I think we've ...

right? Nick? Tim?

We finished the ... yeah, we finished the last homework. Good luck on the new homework.

Mmm ... guess what we're going to talk about? Yeah, yeah, just ...

we can call it self-sufficient cause, okay? The cause has power ... the cause has some power to create its result.

The fourth one is very similar to ... which one? The first one.

They're basically the same thing, okay? If you want to know the difference, Choney Lama says the first one kind of emphasizes working things, and the fourth one kind of emphasizes factors, okay? And you can ...

I'm sure that's going to be a major concern today for you. Okay. Here's the homework question.

The fourth and final type of condition mentioned by Lord Buddha is, quote, self-sufficient condition, which just means that it has the power to create a result. It has some power in it to create a result. Actually, this description applies to anything produced by causes and conditions, okay?

Why though, according to Arya Nagarjuna, do these conditions not have the power to create a result? Inherently, by nature, okay? Why would Arya Nagarjuna say they are not self-sufficient?

They don't have their own power. The power wasn't built into them from the beginning of the universe, okay? Which is kind of how we feel about seeds, you see?

You buy a package of seeds, you expect them to make something, you pay good money, right? And it's very frustrating when nothing comes out, you know? You're like, they sold me seeds with no inherent power to create flowers, you know?

Okay. So, when you buy a package of seeds, there's a couple of gardeners in the room I can tell, and you expect them to do something because you think there's something inside the seed that's going to produce a rose, or it's going to produce a flower, or it's going to produce tomatoes in front of your house, you'll see. It's going well.

You didn't plan that, right? Typical lower school. The iris is split in two irises.

Yellow? Okay, I hope they last. Okay, here's the Arya, okay?

I'm going to give you the Arya, this answer is very short. The Arya says, simply, those causes, conditions, don't have any inherent power to create a result, because Lord Buddha himself says, this can only happen if that happens. This can only happen if that happens, okay?

Now, what he's talking about is the power, okay? Inside the seed. He's talking about the power inside the seed.

Where did that come from? Is it inherent? And we're going to study the definition of inherent, three parts, okay?

One is that, nobody else put it in the seed. At the seed factory store where they package the seeds, they don't have people sitting there with needles and putting power into each seed. It just comes that way, okay?

But Buddhism says that's not possible. Something put this power in the seed. Don't tell me the power in a seed is natural, because there's no such thing.

It also came from some place. It also came from some place. Where do we believe it came from?

Patience. Patience. Patience put the power in flower seeds, if you like flowers.

My Lama got allergic to flowers in the last few years of his life. It was very sad. People would bring many bouquets of flowers.

It was my job to throw them out before he starts sneezing, okay? So, if flowers are beautiful to you, then who put the power in the flower seed? You did.

How? You were patient. You didn't get angry when you're supposed to get angry, okay?

Then you put the power in the flower seed, okay? Who said that? Buddha said that.

Nobody ... that power didn't come in the seed. That's also dependent origination.

Lord Buddha's original word for dependent origination is, di yona di jung. Hey, if you got that, you get this. Okay?

Like, you got that, you get this. He wrote books called, you got that, then you get this. If you're patient, you get flowers.

Okay, got it? Alright, we finished homework five. Time for a break.

Okay, I think this is a juice break. Juice break. Yeah?

Have a nice break, okay? Take a nice break. No questions, they gotta pee pee.

Ask me when you get back. Then we'll start six. CHO DAN SOG GI CHO NAM LA CHAM CHUG PAR DU DAG NI GYAG SU CHI DAG GI CHEN GYE GYI PAS SU NAM GYI DO LA PIM CHE SANG GYEL DU PA SHOK CHO DAN SOG GI CHO NAM LA CHAM CHUG PAR DU DAG NI GYAG SU CHI DAG GI CHEN GYE GYI PAS SU NAM GYI DO LA PIM CHE SANG GYEL DU PA SHOK SHOG GI DI, SHOG GI DI.

Mr. Tim, translation of the Tsongkapa's comments on the first chapter. Not finished yet. That separate document.

Wait, should I do it tomorrow? I should do it tomorrow, right? You want to do it today?

Okay, alright. Do you have it to project? Say again?

Oh. Okay, cool. Let's look at this, okay?

We're about to finish the first chapter and we have a few more homework questions, but they're all confusing. So, I thought maybe you'd like to take a break. Me and Tim think you would like to take a break and go to someplace else for a while.

So, when I was finishing up the first chapter, I noticed, Choney Lama says, is this whole book gonna be just a long string of proofs of why what we see is ridiculous? You know, I mean, it's getting a little too much, you know. One or two proofs is okay, but this is like ten so far, and is that what we can expect from this book?

And the guide says, yes. It's just a book of proofs, you know, that's what I'm doing, I'm proving, okay? So, don't expect anything else.

You're gonna get weird proofs for why you can't be seeing what you think you see your whole life, okay? And I think sometimes we need a break. So, Choney Lama says, by the way, don't think these weird proofs are from the Garjuna.

They're not. They come from the Buddha, okay? They are spoken by the Buddha, and you know, there's two traditional ways in Buddhism to prove something in Tibetan, Nick?

LUNG GI GRUB BYED and RIGS PA'I GRUB BYED, okay? LUNG GI GRUB BYED. Say LUNG GI GRUB BYED.

RIGS PA'I GRUB BYED. So, when you're in the debate ground, which we do about three or four hours a day for 25 years, which makes you a very bad person to argue with, you know, you have a choice when you want to prove something. You can use logic, or you can quote a scripture from memory.

No books are allowed in the debate ground. So, and if you quote it wrong, like, people will laugh at you for a long time. Like, if you say Skanda instead of, I don't know, Rupa, then they will nickname you Skanda for the rest of your life.

Like, if you make one mistake in the debate ground, it's possible you'll keep that name. One guy was debating, I watched him, he's supposed to say, he gave a debate demonstration for a sponsor in the monastery, and he's supposed to say, ZHES GSUNGS PA'I PHYIR, which means, because the Buddha said so. But the sponsor also gave a SHAB PA LAS that day, which is Tibetan hamburger, and it's a like a dim sum?

Dim sum? Yeah, dim sum? Yeah, it's very similar.

So, it's a little patty of bread with some meat inside. In those days, they ate meat. So, instead of saying ZHES GSUNGS PA'I PHYIR, he said SHAB PA LAS PHYIR, because he was thinking about the SHAB PA LAS, and then for the rest of his life, his name in the monastery is, hey SHAB PA LAS!

Hey hamburger! So, it happens. I'm not going to tell you my nickname.

Okay, okay, okay. But you can't use it. Oh, you can use it with Arya.

Arya Shingyipakpa. Arya Shingyipakpa. No, Shingyipakpa means the tree bark, the skin on the tree, because my skin is so smooth and soft, they call me.

Hey, tree bark. Shingyipakpa. Shing means tree, like we had mu ...

mu ... mu ... mu ...

muma? Mu. Wood.

Wooden skin. Feels like wood, because it's so soft. Understand?

Okay, but you can't call me that. Alright, why did I talk about that? I don't remember.

Hmm? Oh yeah, so, you can use logic in a debate ground, or you can use scripture. Guess which one I use more?

Logic, why? Because foreigners don't like to memorize books, you know, it's difficult for us. For Tibetan, when they're young, when they're seven, they start memorizing books.

They memorize the Majjhimaka Avatara before they are ten years old, you know, and for us it's difficult. I'm always using logic, okay? But, Choney Lama says don't think Nagarjuna is all his logic, okay?

It's not. Somebody asked me today, the Chinese translation of Tsongkapa's commentary is not Ocean of Emptiness, it's Ocean of Logic, Ocean of Reasoning. That's more correct translation.

I called it Ocean of Emptiness so you think it's sexy. If I say Ocean of Logic, you won't like it. Okay, so anyway, then Tsongkapa says yeah, this all comes from sutra, and not just any sutra, it comes from beautiful sutra poetry, really beautiful poetry, okay?

And he takes it from Chandrakirti. He takes it from Chandrakirti. Chandrakirti used it.

Tsongkapa used it. So, it was so beautiful, I thought I'll translate it yesterday. So, we got it for you, so Tim didn't get it till nine o'clock or something, so maybe the Chinese will come tomorrow or something, okay?

Wow, Chinese are amazing. Okay, but the German can't be finished. Say again?

The same night? Oh my gosh, they're better than the Chinese, okay. But the Spanish can't be done.

That was done before I finished. Okay, so I'm just gonna read it for you, and then you will get a copy, okay? And I thought you would like to taste Tsongkapa.

His commentary is more difficult, alright? But I thought you'd like to taste his commentary, okay? So, some people might say all these books are just the product of some dry logicians who know nothing about clear reasoning, who hide in quotations from scripture and use them to prove something.

Nick, for zero dollars. Who's he talking about? Guess, four schools, I'll give you a clue.

Yeah, Abhidharma, but who else? Because there's another sentence here. Who said that?

Yeah, cool. I'll give you half of his money. Okay?

Yeah, it's a criticism of the Sutra school, the second school. So, kind of, Abhidharma guys are the accountants. I'm gonna go to hell for saying that.

But anyway, and then there's the Sutra people, okay, and they say, come on, these guys are so boring, you know, they don't have any sexy proofs, and the scriptures they use are all dry. Khambo, the word khambo is in the Tibetan, if you know Tibetan. DOG DGE means logic, like DOG DGE BAR BA is a famous commentary on logic, the blaze of reasoning.

But DOG DGE KHAMBO means dry, boring proofs, okay? Which is probably, probably he's talking about the Abhidharma proofs, okay? So, some people say that.

And then Choney Lama says, and he, this is, sorry, this is Tsongkapa, kind of reporting what Chandrakirti says. He says, don't, that's true, and that's why Nagarjuna wrote his book, okay? Don't forget that Nagarjuna represents the revitalization of Buddhism 700 years after the Buddha died.

So, everything got dry and boring, and then came Nagarjuna, and he's super fun and cool with these sexy proofs, okay? So, okay, one of the purposes of the first chapter is to show people, it doesn't, you don't have to teach Buddhism like that. You can be a mu-ma.

You can be a innovator, okay? Alright? So, that's one reason for the first chapter, okay?

You don't have to be boring. You can be mysterious and mind-challenging, okay? This is Nagarjuna style.

And poetry, all poetry, okay? At the same time, we can present just a sampling of the scripture which is literal and not figurative, in order to show that this chapter manages to explain every, everything the Buddha ever said about why things cannot start, okay? So, the second reason for the first chapter, according to Tsongkapa, he's claiming that Nagarjuna's first chapter covers every single thing the Buddha ever said about things not starting.

He's claiming that Nagarjuna's first chapter is so cool, it explains everything Buddha ever said about problems with things starting, okay? Got it? Just nod.

Okay, Jasmine got it. Okay, I'm teaching Jasmine today. Then Tsongkapa, who is ...

who is copying Chandrakirti at the end of his commentary, which is called ... yeah, but don't forget he has two commentaries, which is called ... yeah, light on ...

clarification of the verses, yeah. So, Chandrakirti wrote two commentaries, and actually this comes from the second one, okay? So, Chandrakirti quotes one of the sexy sutras that Nagarjuna is using, because he wants to show that there's authentic source of Nagarjuna, okay?

Nagarjuna's not ... he's an innovator, but he's innovating the presentation and not the information. He's doing the presentation in a modern way for 200 AD, but the information is the same.

So, Chandrakirti wants us to know, look Nagarjuna's not making up this stuff. This is real Buddha stuff. He's just putting it in a more interesting presentation, okay?

Alright, so then there's a sutra called Khoinjok Jugne, say Khoinjok Jugne. It's probably Ratnakara or something, okay? Khoinjok means Ratna, like jewel, okay?

And Akara means source, the source. And I checked the ... I wanted to translate the title correctly, so I read some of the sutra, and it doesn't talk about the three jewels, it just talks about the Buddha as being a jewel in this world, you see?

This is a common Buddhist expression. The Buddha is like the light of this world, okay? Or the jewel of this ...

so it's that jewel, okay? So, the source is the sutra on the source of the jewel. Then there's some poetry from the sutra, and I put some footnotes.

Some of the lines seem to have been corrupted by the time they got to Chandrakirti, and by the time they got to Tsongkapa, but we have the original, so I fixed it, because it makes more sense, okay? I'm not claiming to fix Tsongkapa or Chandrakirti, but we're lucky because we have a database, so I can check it in a few minutes, okay? And it's better, the original is better, okay?

So, here we go. And by the way, that's the same section that John found in the video, okay? So, now you can appreciate his work, okay?

Here, here we go. The mind that understands emptiness in anything at all is simply an impossibility. It's just the same as the track that a bird leaves behind as it crosses the empty sky.

So, this is a very famous example of the direct perception of emptiness. That state of mind is like the track that a bird leaves behind as it flies through the sky, which means ... it's not ...

the perception itself is impossible, which we can play with today. Did the emptiness come first, and it triggered the perception? Or did the perception come first, and it's a subject with no object?

You see what I mean? You can play with that. He's playing with that, okay?

Anne is talking here about RO GCIG, say RO GCIG. So, earlier we had EKAGRA, right? EKAGRA, which means EKA, AGRA.

EKA, AGRA, which together is EKAGRA, and that means single-pointed, okay? What's EKA RASA? EKA RASA.

One taste, and it's the Sanskrit word for ... I like to translate it as a single song. It's a single song.

It's like all mixed together in a single beautiful thing, like the taste of a churro, which is extraordinary, okay? EKA RASA. There's a churro shop in the middle of a dream, do you know that?

I know it. I can't tell you where the temples are, but I know where the churro shop is. Okay, okay.

This refers to the wisdom which is free of all imagined things, and becomes a single song with the suchness, just like pouring water into water. That's the idea, okay? That's the idea, okay?

Single song. Then Tsongkhapa says the first verse of the sutra, you should split it. So, in the Tibetan translation, the two lines of Sanskrit are four lines of Tibetan, okay?

I like to use three lines of English for two lines of Sanskrit. I mean Tibetan, it works nice, okay? Usually.

So, he splits the first verse into two parts, okay? He says the second part, the first part of the first verse is talking about the direct perception of emptiness, but the second half of the first verse is talking about emptiness, which he calls suchness. Same thing, okay?

Okay, here we go. Nothing that never had any essence of its own could ever act as a cause for something ... what's it say?

Next line, go down. For something other than it. There's your scripture, okay?

Did Buddha teach the four factors? Yeah. So, does he believe that things come from something other?

No, he just said no, okay? Don't tell me it's Nagarjuna's idea. This is a sutra by Buddha, okay?

Got it? There it is, okay? You can't ...

if you're in a debate ground you're like, ZA'CING! ZA'CING! You should be ashamed of yourself.

Look, Buddha himself said nothing can start from something else. Buddha said ZA'CING means you should ... it's an embarrassment to have you on a debate ground.

ZA'CING. You can practice. You don't go like this, you go like this, ZA'CING.

No, you gotta look disgusted. ZA'CING! ZA'CING!

How'd an idiot get into the debate ground? ZA'CING! Okay?

Oh, Buddha said everything comes from something else. Yeah, well what about this sutra? Nothing that never had any essence of its own could ever act as a cause for something other than it.

It cannot. And, so ... if it has no essence, it cannot act as a cause.

And if it has an essence, it can't act as a cause either. Sounds like ... Nagarjuna.

Okay. If something has a nature of its own, it cannot cause something else. Okay?

What'd I say? If something does have a nature of its own, it cannot cause something else. Because nature cannot change, for example.

But if it doesn't have any nature of its own, then how is it going to do anything? So, what you think ... the way you think a tree seed works is wrong.

There can't be anything in it, or it wouldn't change. And there can't be nothing in it, or it couldn't do anything. So, you don't ...

there's something wrong with how we think about pens and books. There's something wrong with how we think about it. Okay?

Got it? Sounds like Nagarjuna. Okay.

So, don't say Nagarjuna is making this up. Okay? The very most important argument in the first chapter is things can't come from something else.

Okay? Oh, you mean things come from the self? No, that's even more stupid.

Oh, things come from nothing. Come on, what are you, on drugs? Okay?

Got it? Okay. All four choices wrong.

It's not happening the way you think. Okay? Now, okay, you ready?

Having treated how causes produce results, okay? Having treated how causes produce results, Buddha goes to how the result comes from the cause. Guess who else did that?

Nagarjuna. Okay? Same ...

in English we say modus operandi. The same way of working. Okay?

First you treat how the cause can't produce the result. Then you talk ... then you switch it and go from the result side, and see how it cannot come from the cause.

Okay? Which is exactly what Nagarjuna did in the first chapter. By the way, Chandrakirti, for almost ...

for many chapters, does this game. He says, yeah, you think this comes from Nagarjuna? And then he quotes a sutra that shows the same thing.

Okay? But I'm not going to do it every chapter, that would take too much time. I just want to do it on the first chapter.

Okay? How could something without a nature ever be started by something else? You see, now he's talking from the result side.

Okay? How could the tree ever come from a seed? We already talked about how the seed can't make a tree, and now we're talking about how a tree cannot come from a seed.

Okay? These are the reasons that the one gone to bliss taught for us. Okay?

These lines are expressing that results have no nature of their own either. And this is exactly the kind of place in scripture where the Buddha himself says that things don't have either nature. They don't cause things, and they're not caused by other things.

They are empty of any such nature. Okay? Alright.

Next line gets a little deeper. Of everything in the world, it is the one thing that never wavers. It stays steadfast.

It never changes. The one thing that can never hurt us. The one thing which is peace.

You should not understand it in the way you understand empty space, and those who never understand it continue to live in darkness. Okay? Why does Buddha criticize the comparison of emptiness to empty space?

Why does Buddha criticize comparing emptiness to empty space? Exactly. Different kind of negatives.

I should give you a hundred bucks. I'm a little bit snake bit with saying, I don't want to make the same mistake I made in Guadalajara. I lost three thousand dollars in one morning.

So, there's two kinds of negatives. MED GAG and MA YIN GAG. Okay?

Absence of thing, and not being something else. Okay? He is not a real president.

Okay? It's the second kind. The first kind is, there's no elephant in the White House.

There's just a donkey. Okay? Just kidding.

Not. Okay. Now, there's two kinds of absences.

Who can tell me? One? Good.

One is the absence of something which could exist, which in my example for you, two days ago, but that was a long time ago, was an elephant, the Christmas tree on my table. That's an absence, but the thing that's absent could exist, like a credit card that works. This is a DCI joke.

Okay? And what's the second kind of absence? Yeah, the absence of a discovery card.

The absence of a discovery card. Okay? They don't work anyway.

Okay? So, I in the DCI example, I take John to dinner, I offer to pay, and I change my pants before I go, because I was wearing the same pants for a week, because I'm translating, and then I forget my credit card. Okay?

So, when it comes time to pay, which John has experienced directly, Geshe Michael's like, oh, I'm so sorry John, I forgot my credit card. But, the credit card that's not in my pocket was a lousy one anyway, and it doesn't work. Got it?

Even if I brought it, I would still have to ask John to pay. Understand? Understand?

So, there's two kinds of absence of credit card in your pocket. A good one, and one that doesn't work. The one I usually carry, if I remember to carry it, is the one that doesn't work.

Oh John, they refused my card, could you just pay? I'll pay you back later. Got it?

Okay? Now, who said all this in the first place, that I'm not talking about absences of things that exist? Who said that?

Buddha, right here. Don't understand this the way you understand empty space. Okay?

Empty space is defined niggas. Yeah, tokme. Nothing there to stop something.

Okay? The cup is in empty space, I take it out of the empty space, the space stays there, and then I put it back in the empty space. There's nothing there to stop the cup from going out, or coming in.

There's just an empty space here. Okay? So, Buddha says, don't understand emptiness like that.

That's not what I'm talking about. Because that empty space, for example, is the absence of a mountain where I wanted to put the cup. You see, there's a beautiful mountain back there, Mount Makala, named from our first director.

Okay? And if I stand next to the mountain and I try to push the cup into the mountain, it's not empty space, it's taken up. Okay?

Then if I move the mountain, I can put the cup there. Okay? And Buddha says, I'm not talking about that kind of emptiness.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a credit card which didn't work anyway. Okay?

I'm talking about the husband in the kitchen who was impossible to start with. Okay? Isn't it beautiful?

Okay? So, who brought up mayin gags, and may gags, and good may gags, and bad may gags? Whose idea was that?

Choney Lama? Some guy. Yeah, Buddha did.

He said, don't blame me. All these negatives were ... this comes straight from Buddha.

Okay? And it's interesting that in that same verse he says, emptiness of the husband who was never there cannot change, will always be there when you need it, it never changes, it never wavers, it's the one husband who cannot hurt you, and it's the one husband who is peace. If you meet this husband, you will have peace.

You will have peace. Why? In the kitchen you will have peace.

Why? Because he's not there. Got it?

Okay? And he never was there. It's not gonna change.

The guy you're yelling at, what's he called? I didn't do anything husband. He doesn't exist, never could exist.

He doesn't change, he never exists more or less. He's always not there. Okay?

Who taught the second husband? Buddha. Okay.

Alright, I think we covered ... yeah, we covered this. Okay.

And in his explanation Tsongkapa says, the next line down, yeah, the Buddha is talking about empty space which is the simple elimination of physicality like mountains. Okay? Alright?

He probably heard it at Diamond Mountain. Then the next lines, he says, look, you want to understand emptiness? Just understand it's the simple absence of things.

Okay? Okay? If you don't understand that, you will continue to wander in pain, in samsara.

Cycle, cycle, cycle. In the kitchen, what's the cycle? She yells back, and then the kids are bad the next week, she yells at them, and then the next week her husband calls her rice bucket head.

Okay? Got it? If she understood emptiness, she wouldn't answer.

Okay? I always tell the women, okay Melda? It's true, all men are stupid, but don't say it.

Okay? Don't say it. It's true, but don't say it.

Then your kids will be bad next week. Your kids will cry next week. Okay?

Alright. If you don't understand that, you will continue to yell at your husband, and your kids will continue to be bad, and you'll continue to be miserable, because you're living in the Wheel of Life. Yeah, Wheel of Life.

Okay, here's a cute verse. Mountains never get up and move to some other place, and they can't start anything, and nothing can ever start. Thus did the victor teach us things where there is no death, there is no moving on, and there is no birth.

Okay? Now it goes very serious. Okay?

If you understand this emptiness, what's the use? I keep telling you, tell your friends you went to Arizona because you wanted to learn how to make your husband wash the dishes, right? Or you wanted to learn, what was the other example?

How to make him not call you stupid. Okay? Like that.

You can tell your friends. That's why I went to Diamond Mountain. And it's true.

But, something higher goal. No death. Okay?

No death. For anybody in the world. Okay?

No death. Your body is coming from seeds in your mind. It's not getting old from its own side.

Okay? Your seeds are wearing out. Okay?

Who made your body dye-able? You did. Okay?

You can make it undye-able if it comes from you. If the pen is not producing the writing, then you can change your body. You can not dye.

Okay? You can not dye. Okay?

So, Buddha does a little cute thing here. He says, you don't have to die. But what he's saying is, because death also doesn't come ...

I didn't do anything! Okay? Death is like the second husband.

Okay? It's not true that no one caused it. You caused it.

Okay? It's not true that a death which is unchangeable exists. That's not true.

Got it? So, he's making two jokes about death. A.

If you understand Nagarjuna, you don't have to die. B. Because death don't exist anyway.

You alright? Very cute in my opinion. Alright, then Tsongkapa explains it.

You okay with this kind of a vacation from your logic studies? Okay. Don't worry, you're going back to it tomorrow morning.

That lion among all humankind taught us in these verses that there is nothing at all that ever starts or happens. This is the subject of the first chapter of wisdom. Okay?

Who's talking? Buddha. Okay?

There's no death. Now he gets into why death is changeable, because it don't exist. Does it exist or not?

Did the door exist in my example in my Lama's class? Did the door exist? Yeah, but there was the feeling I had about the door was wrong.

Okay, got it? Death exists, but the feeling you have about it is wrong. It's not inevitable.

It's not necessary. People don't have to die. Okay?

That's really why we're having this class. But, while you're not dying, it would be nice if the husband washed the dishes also. Okay?

I think so. I think so. Alright.

Then he says a cool thing. He says, this is the place we are leading billions of beings to go, because Buddha says I want you to pass it on, in a creative way, to your friends, to your family, to your students. Here is your permission from Lord Buddha.

Okay? I want you to pass it on. Okay?

Got it? This is where Buddha says that. It's not the last teacher was Nagarjuna, or the last teacher was the Buddha.

Right now it's Utta, and Luka, and Daniel, and Hasso. Yeah, okay Hasso. Okay?

By implication, the verse is saying that we should lead living beings to that same place, by using the other ideas presented here as well. We should use all the tools, 27 tools, and we should be leading other people, ultimately from death itself. Okay, got it?

It's like a license to kill is opposite. License to live. Alright, next verse.

Our Savior leads them to the place where there is no essence to anything, but which is nothing else either. The place that no one could find. The place that is neither inside of us, nor found outside of us either.

There we have the idea that if you look for it, you cannot find it. Did you hear that in the last few days? That was the homework question I couldn't answer either.

Okay, Choney Lama said, this is important. What? Looking for it and not finding it, and examining but finding nothing.

These are big different. Okay, so here's who started this problem. Buddha.

Buddha said you can look for it, but you won't find it. By the way, these last three verses, six, seven, and eight, I put numbers on them, they are not in the sutra. Okay?

Chandrakirti says they're in the sutra. They're not. There's a lot of similar discussion, but not these verses.

So, either this sutra got lost, parts of it got lost in Mongolia or some cave, right? Or, I believe Chandrakirti is wrapping up. I believe these last three verses are Chandrakirti speaking, in my opinion.

He's summarizing the other verses. Okay, but maybe we'll find the sutra someday. Maybe John, when he's 180, 70, 60, 50, we'll find the sutra.

But right, the sutra we have, this is not in there. Okay? These next few verses.

Okay, but Tsongkapa comments on them. The Buddha leads living beings to a place where no matter how hard anyone works to find it, you will never find any nature in that thing. You won't find it.

Okay? These lines are meant to indicate how we help disciples to grasp what the Buddha really meant. So again, he says this Buddha quotation is talking about how you should teach.

Okay? You should encourage your students to go looking, okay? For two choices.

Either the power to create a cause, a result is in the cause, or it's not. Go look. Go, you do what?

Pārikṣā. Examine. You get your students to examine it.

Don't give them all the answers, okay? Don't read the homework answers to them. Make them go look.

Make them go look for it. Okay, got it? Buddha is giving you a suggestion about how to teach this stuff.

You know, given the two choices. Is there something in the flower seed, or is there nothing in the flower seed? Because if there's something in the flower seed, something put it there.

And if there's nothing in the flower seed, it ain't gonna make a flower. Now which one? You tell me, okay?

You're supposed to lead your students there. Buddha is teaching you how to be Nāgārjuna. Okay?

Buddha's saying, Nāgārjuna was teaching the way I like. He was making the students figure it out. You guys make real apps.

I don't know. Got it? Buddha's encouraging us to act like Nāgārjuna, okay?

Mūmā. Mūmā. Okay, if it's true that the ones gone to bliss have taught about how to go to peace, but it's not as if you can find any going at all.

So, by the way, what just happened? When you go to peace, meaning nirvana and enlightenment, it's not as if you can find anyone going. What just happened?

For 50 bucks. I lived with Mongolians for like 25 years, and they're like, UGA. They just go like this.

Eww. UGA. You can practice.

UGA. You gotta say it like this. UGA.

It means, come on. Okay, I save 50 bucks. Officially.

He just went to the second chapter. You knew that. You know the second chapter.

We covered that. By the way, we're about to head to the second chapter. Isn't this a sweet quotation?

Isn't it smart to pull out this quotation? Because Buddha said, after you talk about the emptiness of things, you should talk about the emptiness of people in your second chapter. And to do that, you should talk about how it's impossible for anyone to go someplace, or come from someplace.

Cool? Who decided to make the second chapter about coming and going? Buddha did.

Duh. Okay, question 10. It better be good.

It better be good. I'm on a roll. He's like, maybe later.

Okay, okay, come on. Yeah, by the way, we got to say going and coming. Tell me why.

Tell me why. Who said that? Who said it's illogical?

You get the 50 ... Daniel? You get the 50 bucks.

[Speaker 2]
Dude, you got to take me out to lunch, I was a part of that. I was dependent. There was a dependent relationship in that exchange.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, right. You got to think, why did Nengarjuna talk about going and then talks about coming? Or it's coming and going.

No, going and coming. Going and coming back. Why does he say it that way?

Yeah, he wants it to be mixed up. Okay, go ahead.

[Speaker 2]
So, this is right on the point here.

[Speaker 1]
I'm sure. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worth interrupting.

[Speaker 2]
So, objects are coming, perceptions of objects are coming from karma. Projection of subjects is coming from karma.

[Speaker 1]
Same thing.

[Speaker 2]
Same thing. So, when we talk about things coming from you, but you is also coming from a ripening. Yeah.

Right? So, they're happening simultaneously.

[Speaker 1]
Exactly. Like, that's mind-only, pretty much mind-only school. Subject and object are splitting from one seed.

[Speaker 2]
Right.

[Speaker 1]
And then they're looking at each other and they don't understand that they both came from the same plant.

[Speaker 2]
Right, right. If you take that understanding very subtle, when we're talking about going and coming, there's an illusion that we took a plane here, we drove here, that we got here. But on the lower levels, that's accurate.

On the lower levels of dependent origination. So, the question is, where is the mind then that's projecting all of this? There's, because mind has no color, shape, or form, no destination, no location.

So, it seems as though there's a sentry of mind which is projecting all of this that's located almost somewhere.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, you can say that. And we're gonna cover it tomorrow. We're gonna cover that tomorrow.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, you're anticipating the second chapter, which is what Buddha wants. If that question came in your mind, Buddha's like, ah, it worked. My strategy worked.

Teddy's thinking about the second chapter at the end of the first chapter. The end of the first chapter is making Teddy wonder how we got here on an airplane. And Buddha's like, ah, I told you it was a good plan.

Okay, it helps if you can see what's gonna happen tomorrow.

[Speaker 2]
DUD DU BYED.

[Speaker 1]
BUDDHA CI. Yeah, then it says, this is why they said that these beings who go through birth can be liberated, and once they are freed, they free as well many other suffering beings. Okay, it's again a prediction of a teacher.

Who? You. Okay, now you fit the other part of the definition of a MU MA.

You were predicted. Okay, Buddha predicted you here. He said Nagarjuna's gonna show up, but then he said other people are gonna learn how to teach by studying Nagarjuna.

So, when you see your family back home and they say, what'd you learn at Diamond Mountain? You can say, oh, Buddha predicted me. I must be a RINPOCHE.

It's true. It's true. The book is called the RINPOCHE.

Okay, anyway. Alright. If you look for people who went to Nirvana, you won't find them, but still they reach Nirvana, and they lead other people to Nirvana.

Then the final thing, well, it's not quite the final. They say, the point is that, okay, and then we're almost done. Okay, then we can stop today.

The point is that once you analyze them, you cannot find Nirvana or someone who went to Nirvana. But that in turn means that we are not denying them. We are not saying there's no Nirvana.

We are not saying no one goes to Nirvana. We're just saying if you look for them, you won't find them. Okay?

Because you're looking for the wrong person. Okay? Got it?

You okay? The fact that you cannot find them means we don't deny them. If you could find them, if you could find the husband who's, I didn't do anything husband, then there's a problem.

Then there's no Nirvana. If you can find the husband, I didn't do anything husband, then there's a problem. If you go looking for the I didn't do anything husband, and you don't find him, you should feel, ah, now I can get to Nirvana, because I can make him shut up, without talking to him, without negotiation, without discussion.

Got it? Isn't that perfect for a relationship? I think so.

Okay. Last sentence from Tsongkhapa and we're done. Okay?

Then we'll do mandala and all that stuff. As such, you should understand that studying all the proofs found in the first chapter of wisdom is to give yourself eyes to see what the Buddha meant. Okay?

A person who's studying the first chapter is going to the eyeball factory and getting their eyes for the first time, and the implication is, up to now you've been blind. Okay? Up to now you didn't see anything.

Okay? Then you went to the first chapter store and they said, you look like you could use some eyeballs, and you're like, yeah, and they gave you eyes, and now you can see, yeah, Nicholas got it. You can see into these words of the Buddha, and others like them, when they teach what they are saying, when it says, nothing starts.

Okay? Nothing begins. Nothing starts.

Okay? Got it? Now, because you studied the first chapter, you have eyeballs that you didn't have before you came to Diamond Mountain.

So, you got new eyeballs at Diamond Mountain. Cool? That's worth a mandala.

Oh, come on. Are you sure? Yeah, okay, but I didn't say witch brain.

All right.

[Speaker 2]
We say ma khyap, not necessarily.

[Speaker 1]
So, this is a, it's almost an internal contradiction of Buddhism. We say that your lifetimes are infinite. One of the methods for developing love is to recognize that all beings have been your mother countless times.

But if that logic is true, because I've lived countless births, then all beings have been my mother, then you should have seen emptiness directly countless times already. Okay? But then the Lama's answer is, yeah, but it didn't happen.

And it's true. I mean, it's possible to roll the dice a billion times and no twelve comes up. It's possible.

I guess it's even possible to roll infinite times and it never comes up. But still, every being has been your mother. No?

Jasmine? Oh, beautiful. Thank you, Jasmine.