Нагарджуна, курс 3 — Мудрость Арьи Нагарджуны, курс 3: Пустота мантры (2021, Аризона), занятие 8

[Speaker 1]
Hi, welcome back to Nagarjuna number three. And we've reached now chapter 14. And this is called SPRAS PA BTAG PA, SPRAS PA BTAG PA.

And you guys know BTAG PA because that's pariksha. Pariksha means an investigation. So each of these chapters is a separate investigation.

It's like, I don't know, Nagarjuna is the police or a detective and he's investigating different people, different things in the universe. And this one is called SPRAS PA BTAG PA. He's investigating, can something touch something else?

SPRAS PA, can something make contact with something else? We've been talking about it all along, but here's a whole chapter dedicated to can something touch something else? By the way, if it cannot touch something else, then that draws into question causation itself.

If you put gas in a car, but the engine can't touch the gas, then what's making the car go? Okay, and here we go with the first verse. And we know that we have to watch out for possible...

This might be the other guy, but I'm going to make it easy for you and tell you the first verse here is us. The first two verses is us. So here we go.

,LTA BYA LTA BA LTA BA PO, ,THAMS CAD, Is there any contact between my nose and the tissue paper? ,LTA BYA LTA BA LTA BA PO, ,GSOS MO DE DAG NYID NYID DANG, ,THAMS CAD KYANG NI PHAN TSUN GYUR, ,BYED PA RGYUR BA YOD MA YIN, So he's going to discuss a kind of a difficult kind of touching. When I look at Rebecca, right now, I have Rebecca is the LTA BYA, the looky, the thing I'm looking at.

LTA BA means they're looking, and LTA BA PO is me, the looker. Those three, do they ever make contact? What kind of contact, Geshe-la?

Do these two? Do these two? Or do these two?

Do they make contact? Which means NYID NYID DANG. Do they make dual contact?

Or, THAMS CAD KYANG NI PHAN TSUN GYUR means do the three ever touch each other? So we got some different possibilities, right? Geshe-la, looker, Rebecca being looked at, and then the verb of looking.

Do those three ever touch each other? And do any two touch each other? Does Geshe-la touch the looking?

Or does the looking touch Rebecca? Or does Geshe-la touch Rebecca somehow? Is there any touch going on between those three?

Any combination of touching. DE BZHIN DU BYA BYA BA DANG BYA BA BYA BA And then let's take it to your negative emotions, which is a big part of Buddhist practice, right? When you want something bad enough to hurt somebody to get it, then there's the WANT DUR.

There's the WANT DING. And there's the thing you want. Do they ever touch?

Or do any combination of them touch each other? So he starts out with something innocuous, like looking. And then he's going to take it to negative emotions.

Hating somebody or wanting something bad enough to steal it. BYA BA BYA BA And then he says, and by the way, you have to read over the verse, over the lines here, or you won't get it. NYON MONGS PA LHAG MA NYON MONGS PA LHAG MA Which means, and then let's talk about all the other mental afflictions.

We got desire covered here. Desirer, desiree, and the desiree. And then he says, and then you have to read across the lines.

NYON MONGS PA LHAG MA The rest of these. DANG SKAD CES KYI LHAG MA Then let's, by the way, SKAD CES means in Abhidharma, right? Here it means the senses.

So we talked about seeing, but what about hearing? What about smelling? What about tasting?

What about feeling? Does the feeler ever touch the scent? Does the feeler ever touch the object that they're feeling?

And does your jealousy ever touch what you're jealous about? So let's talk about all those things. All right.

And I have a picture here of a lady. When you want money, and then I keep saying, right, enough to hurt someone to get it. I say you cannot touch the money.

When you want money bad enough that you will hurt someone else, I say you cannot touch the money. You never touch the money. So that's, you got to think about it.

Can you touch money if you want to give it away? Yes. Or maybe.

Can you touch money if you want to steal it? Never. All right.

We're going to learn some Sanskrit here right away. Sansarga. This is not sansara, sansara.

It's sansarga. And this means touching, making contact. It has two parts, san or sam, and sarga.

By itself, sam, when in combination with S, it changes to S-A-N. The pronunciation changes to san, sansarga, sansarga. So san means together.

It comes from sam, sam. And that changes to C-O, like kam-mi-ti, or convention, coming together, or meeting together, sending together, committing. So the kam is easy, the C-O-M is easy.

What's the sarga? It comes from surge, which is a Sanskrit root. And that means to move together or to move towards each other.

And to surge, we have that verb in English, sansarga. In Indo-European, which is also kind of an ancient Sanskrit, S drops out and this surge becomes reg. And it means to regulate or to reign over something or the right way.

So it means straight, to move straight. By itself, surge means to move towards. San means the two things move together and they touch.

So that's sansarga, sansarga. Is it possible that things ever surge towards each other? Sansarga.

Yes or no? Here we go. All right, next verse.

,GZHAN DANG GZHAN DU PHRAD GYUR NA, ,GANG PHYIR LTA BYA LA SOGS LA, ,GZHAN DE YOD PA MA YIN PA, ,DE PHYIR PHRAD PA MI GYUR RO, Now here's our comment on touching. ,GZHAN DANG GZHAN DU PHRAD GYUR NA, If two things which are different from each other can touch each other, ,GANG PHYIR LTA BYA LA SOGS LA, ,GZHAN DE YOD PA MA YIN PA, I'm asking you, can your eye touch your seeing? Can your eye, can the seer make contact with the seeing?

If not, the seer cannot see. If the seer cannot touch the seeing, if the seer never makes contact with the seeing, then they must be smelling, for example. So do they ever make contact?

Yes. Does seer, the eye, ever touch the seeing? They have to.

Does the seeing ever touch Rebecca? It has to. PHRAD GYUR NA.

But if they touch, GZHAN DE YOD PA MA YIN, then they have to be separate. And if they're separate, they don't exist. YOD PA MA YIN PA There's no such thing as other.

Geshe-la cannot be different from Rebecca if Geshe-la can see Rebecca. They cannot be different. ,DE PHYIR PHRAD PAR MI GYUR RO, Therefore, there is no samsara.

What does that mean? Things never touch each other. Things never contact each other.

When I open my eyes, it's not the opening my eyes that makes me see Rebecca. Something else is happening. What's happening?

Seeds are opening in Geshe-la's mind and Geshe-la sees Rebecca. In the mind-only school, she's never outside of my mind. I'm just watching pictures in my own mind.

But in the higher schools, she is out there. She is a separate person. But the reason I see her as separate from me is that seeds are opening in my mind for me to see her as separate from me.

And it's not that my eye is seeing her. It's not that my eye is making contact. The theme of my next picture is things that don't exist cannot touch each other.

A self-existent eye could not touch self-existent seeing to reach a self-existent Rebecca. You can't have contact. You can't have a war between these two rabbits with horns.

And this is the classic Buddhist example of something that's impossible. They call it a jackalope in the West. Jackrabbit antelope or something.

So try to imagine two things that don't exist touching each other and you got the right picture. All right, next verse. ,LTA BYA LA SOGS PAR ZHIG LA GZHAN NYID MED PAR MA ZAD KYI, Let's start with that because it's already difficult.

,LTA BYA LA SOGS Now we had three elements in the act of Geshe-la seeing Rebecca. There was the SEE YI, it's Rebecca. There's the SEE YER, which is Geshe-la.

And then there's the SEE YI between them. Now, let's take them individually. He says BA ZHIG.

Let's just take Rebecca without the seeing and without Geshe-la looking. ,GZHAN NYID MED PAR MA ZAD KYI, She cannot be considered separate because she's alone. Got it?

That's a little tricky. Let's forget Geshe-la, forget the looking. Let's just talk about Rebecca.

Now, what kind of relationships have we got there? Well, zero. Because something has to be different to have a relationship.

A person can't have a relationship with exactly the same person because there's only one. So eliminate that one. Garjuna says, that one's easy.

Take one of the three elements of seeing, SEE YER, seeing, and seen, and just treat one of them, BA ZHIG, seen. Can it have a relationship? No, we don't have to talk about that one.

Okay, well, let's talk, ,GANG YANG GANG DAG LHAN CIG TU, Let's talk about two of them sitting in the same room, Geshe-la and Rebecca. ,GZHAN PA NYID DU MI TE DANG, Well then, they couldn't be something else. They can't be something else if they're only one thing.

And they can't be something else if they're not one thing. That's Nagarjuna. If they're not one thing, they can't be something else.

Because to you, something else means out there from its own side. That's all. You got to keep remembering that.

For some reason, I thought it was really clever to have a cherry that was itself, but something else at the same time. Okay, look, it's hard to find a picture like that. All right, never mind.

Well, I'm not going to say it with no shame. All right. Okay, you're a witness.

I do have some self-control. Okay. Next verse.

,GZHAN NI GZHAN LA BSTAN PA'I GZHAN, ,GZHAN MED PAR YANG GZHAN MI RGYUR, ,GANG LA BSTAN PA'I GANG YIN PA, ,DE NI DE LAS GZHAN MI BRTAD, This is very difficult. Let's go through line by line. ,GZHAN NI GZHAN LA BSTAN PA'I GZHAN, Others are others relative to others.

Others are others relative to others. That's okay. Others are others relative to others.

And he uses the classical example of a water vase and a bolt of cloth. Okay, you could say a car and a refrigerator. Let's use that, okay?

When you say a car is different from a refrigerator, the difference is drawn by observing both together. A car can only be different from a refrigerator if you see the other thing that's there before you decide it's different. You got to have two things there.

,GZHAN MED PAR YANG GZHAN MI RGYUR, If there was no car, you couldn't call the refrigerator different from... There has to be something else there. ,GANG LA BSTAN PA'I GANG YIN PA, Anything that is something relative to something else, ,DE NI DE LAS GZHAN MI STE, could never be other than it.

Nothing which is different from something else by comparison could be called something else. Self-existent. Nothing which is something else by comparison, a refrigerator is different from a car, but it cannot be called different in and of itself.

Once you get into dependence, even if you're not speaking about dependence on mental seeds, you're already messing with the fact that something could be self-existent. Once you say something depends on something else, you're already almost left the realm of self-existence. The word dependent origination or occurring in reliance, once you get into comparison or one thing depending on another, it's difficult to start asserting that they are both self-existent, and they exist in and of themselves.

All right. No one is tall where tall and short are compared. So this is a little tricky.

Normally, you got that picture? Yeah, normally you would say the young girl is short by comparison to her mother or her sister. I don't know who it is, her mom, I guess.

Normally, you would say she's short compared to her mom. Normally, you would say that. And Nagarjuna says if the mom is tall, if you can only call the mom tall by comparison to her daughter, then she's not tall.

I'll say it again. If you can only call the mom tall by comparison to her short daughter, then we can't really say the mom is tall. Got it?

Really say means in and of herself, meaning self-existently. Is she tall? I don't know.

Is she tall compared to her daughter? Yes, then she's not tall. If she's only tall with reference to something else, then she's not tall in herself.

Got it? That's easy, right? We understood one verse.

Where are you going after that, Nagarjuna? ,GAL TE GZHAN NI GZHAN LAS GZHAN, ,DE TSE GZHAN MED PAR GZHAN GYUR, ,GZHAN MED PAR NI GZHAN GYUR PA, ,YOD MIN DE'I PHYIR RNAMS MED, ,GAL TE GZHAN NI GZHAN LAS GZHAN, If a car is self-existently different from a refrigerator, ,DE TSE GZHAN MED PAR GZHAN GYUR, in that case, something which is not different became different. If a car is only a car relative to a refrigerator, then a car which was different is not different.

,GZHAN MED PAR NI GZHAN GYUR PA, GZHAN MED PAR here means that which doesn't have another. That which doesn't have another. Meaning the mom by herself.

The tall mom by herself. ,GZHAN MED PAR NI GZHAN GYUR PA, If the mom were tall, ,GZHAN MED PAR, without the girl around, ,YOD MIN DE'I PHYIR RNAMS MED, then she wouldn't be tall. If the mom were tall by comparison to the daughter, she wouldn't be tall because she's not tall by herself.

She's only tall by comparison. All right. A coffee cup is not different from a pair of jeans.

I was trying to find a... I was trying to get this lady... I was trying to find a lady drinking...

Somebody drinking coffee with jeans on. Is the coffee cup the jeans? No.

Is the coffee cup different from the jeans?

[Speaker 2]
Only if the jeans are there.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, only if the jeans are there. Which means it's not different by itself. It's not really different because it's only different by comparison.

Is coffee different from jeans?

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, why? Because when you look at the coffee cup, you see it doesn't look like the jeans. Then that difference is dependent on something else and it's not part of the coffee cup.

Okay? All right. Somewhere it applies to racism in there, I think.

Okay. Next verse. ,GZHAN NYID GZHAN LA YOD MA YIN, ,GZHAN LA YIN PA'ANG YOD MA YIN, ,GZHAN NYID YOD PA MA YIN NA, ,GZHAN LA DE NYID YOD MA YIN, ,GZHAN NYID GZHAN LA YOD MA YIN, Being something other is not part of anything which is other.

Being other is not part of being other. Being other is not part of something other. ,GZHAN MA YIN PA'ANG YOD MA YIN, Neither is that other not an other.

,GZHAN NYID YOD PA MA YIN NA, If there is no other, which is general otherness, otherness as a concept. ,GZHAN NYID It's being treated as otherness, otherness. If there's no such thing as otherness, then there's no other and other in the sense of being one and the same by comparison.

If there's no otherness by itself, then there can't be otherness by comparison. If there's no concept of otherness, then you can't have otherness by comparison because that's what the concept of otherness applies to, is otherness by comparison. If otherness by comparison were real, it wouldn't need to be compared with something else.

If something's only something by comparison with something else, then it's not really that thing. It's partly the other thing. So therefore, the idea of otherness is questionable.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I've got a picture here.

[Speaker 1]
Are they other or are they the same? Are they other or are they the same? What?

It's a duck with a goose and a chicken. Are they other or are they the same?

[Speaker 2]
Compared to each other, they're other.

[Speaker 1]
Compared to each other, they're other, but they're all fowls.

[Speaker 2]
Sure.

[Speaker 1]
Is this a picture of same things or is this a picture of different things?

[Speaker 2]
Depends on where you compare it to.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it depends on where you compare it to. Anyway, I thought it was a cute example. All right, let's keep going here.

DE NI DE DANG PHRAD PA MED GZHAN DANG GZHAN YANG PHRAD MI DGOS When you talk about two things making contact, is it that one thing makes contact with itself? Can Rebecca make contact with Rebecca? No, cannot, right?

We're talking about Michael seeing, active seeing, Rebecca over there being seen. Can, by herself, can Rebecca make contact with Rebecca? No, cannot, because she's the same thing.

They got to be different to make contact. GZHAN DANG GZHAN YANG PHRAD MI DGOS Things that are, a thing which is itself cannot make contact with itself, and a thing which is different can't make contact with something else either. That's the verse.

The first half is easy. Rebecca can't contact herself, but neither can she contact Yeshvara, who's different. Why?

If they were different, they couldn't really make contact because there can't be a point of sharing. Because at that point of sharing, they would be the same. To be truly different means no contact ever.

If we share a point of contact, then we're not truly different. We overlap somehow. It's not possible for me to touch her, to make contact.

It's not possible. We think so, but that's a seed opening in her mind. But actually the two physical things cannot touch.

Not possible. And in mathematics it's possible because the point is theoretical. It's just an idea.

There's no width to a point. But in reality, there'd have to be a point of contact that had width. And then that would be a certain kind of millimeters, but if you took half of that millimeter, could there still be contact?

Like that. And you go forever. Okay, all right.

All right. Next verse. PHRAD BZHIN PA DANG PHRAD PA PO YANG YOD MA YIN PHRAD BZHIN PA means touching.

That's BZHIN PA, right? BZHIN, I-N-G. Touching and being in the act of touching, the touching and the toucher don't exist.

That's Nagarjuna's next statement. I like Choney Lama's explanations, and I'm not going to do Choney Lama with you because it would take 20 years. But in this case, it's kind of sweet.

So let's go read Choney Lama. PHRAD PA NGO BO NYID KYIS YOD NA If things make contact in and of themselves, CHA THAMS CAD NAS PHRAD DAM CHOG GCIG PHRAD LA If two things make contact, does every part of the two things make contact or does only part of the two things make contact? First part, here we go.

If Geshe-la made contact with Rebecca, would it be that every part of Geshe-la makes contact with Rebecca or just some parts of Geshe-la make contact with Rebecca? Which one? The second one.

Because I can't, if all the parts of me made contact with all the parts of her, I'd be inside her body. We'd be exactly the same height, like that. So it's natural to say, Geshe-la, if you ever make contact with Rebecca, like you do this elbow thing, then it's only the tip of your elbow and the tip of her elbow.

PHRAD LA GCIG GCIG PHRAD LA Busting. And then we're kind of... DAM PO LTAR NA CHA THAMS CAD NAS THAMS CAD DU GCIG GCIG RGYAS PAR GYUR If it's that every part of Geshe-la makes contact with every part of Rebecca, then they would be mixed together inseparably.

PHYI MA LTAR NA Now, if it's just part of Geshe-la that touches, it's just part of Rebecca. PHYI MA LTAR NA NGO BO NYID KYIS BYAS PA RGYAL BA'I PHRAD BZHIN PA DANG PHRAD BZHIN PA DANG PHRAD PA PO RNAMS NGO BO RGYUR PA YANG RGYAL PA MA YIN NO NGO BO NYID KYIS BYAS PA RGYAL BA'I If you're saying that it's just one part of Geshe-la that makes contact with Rebecca, then the idea of contact is destroyed. Why?

Because then there'd have to be a point where we were the same. Some part of Michael would have to be part of Rebecca if there was contact. And then it wouldn't be two different people making contact.

PHRAD BZHIN PA DANG PHRAD BZHIN PA He clarifies the root text by saying PHRAD BZHIN PA for the second PHRAD. The first PHRAD is okay. PHRAD CING And then our author adds ED to the second.

PHRAD STOD And then the toucher cannot exist in and of themselves. If they did, they couldn't touch. Now, the part I like, why I'm reading you Choney Lama, is his last statement here, which is very helpful.

Because we need help, right? RANG LUGS NI, THA GNYAD DU MA BU DANG MED SHING DANG DBANG PHYIR SOGS LA PHRAD PA'I PHYAG YOD PAR SDUG BSNGAL Look, so Nagarjuna, what's your RANG LUGS? What's that mean?

Tim, what's RANG LUGS? Yeah, what's your position, Nagarjuna? You've been just saying a thousand times what's wrong.

Can you tell us what your position is? Which he does not do. It's not his habit.

So Choney Lama puts words in his mouth. He says THA GNYAD DU, nominally, in words only. Yes, a mother can touch her child.

Fire can touch firewood. And you can mix milk and water together. By the way, the image of mixing milk and water together is famous in Buddhism.

Do you remember why? Yeah, dividing ultimate reality from relative reality. And they say there's a tradition in ancient Asia that ducks, if you mix water and milk together in a glass and offer it to a goose or a duck, they can drink the milk and leave the water.

So they say that's easier than picking emptiness out of relative reality. So anyway, can you mix water and milk? Can a fire burn a piece of wood?

Can a mother touch her child? We say, is there a THEG PA'I CHA? Is there a point of contact?

And we say, YOD, DOD, DOD. Now Nagarjuna, DOD, but only THA GNYAD DU. Only nominally, only in words.

What's it mean only in words? MING DE ZHAG MTSAMS Words doesn't mean words here. Words means mental pictures.

Yeah, in pictures. The pictures can mean. That's okay.

The pictures can mean, but in reality, outside they never mean. Now, here he nails it down. Choney Lama, yay, Choney Lama.

THEG PA'I TSUL You want to know how they make contact? You want to know how they make contact? BRDON DANG GCOD BYED KYI RIGS PA'I TSE PA'I TSE If you really dig into it, MI GNYAD MI GNYAD You cannot find MI.

Okay. If you just relax and shake Rebecca's hands, okay, that's fine. You touched her.

Leave it at that. Okay, okay. What's that called?

BDAG MIN Don't dig. Don't dig into it. You want to shake her hand?

Shake her hand. Okay, shake hands. Make a contract.

Yay. Now, but if you really dig into it, you never shook hands. Therefore, the contract doesn't hold, right?

It's not like that. So if you really dig into it, MA LTA MA BYAS PAR MA LTA MA BYAS PAR means if you just go through your everyday life, say your Medicine Buddha mantras, somebody gets helped, that's okay. Don't dig too deep.

But if you really look into it, the mantra never touches the cancer. So what's really going on? So that's if you ask beyond the pictures.

If you stay in the realm of the pictures, everything's okay. Makes sense. If you try to explain it without mental pictures, the mantra can't work.

Cool? We finished the chapter, yay! We finished the chapter on sansarga.

What's that mean, sansarga? Not sansara?

[Speaker 2]
Coming together.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, coming together and making contact. You can make contact with other things, but it's only happening through mental images and not really outside. The picture I had for that last one, by the way, was an intersection.

And is it possible that somehow Geshe-la intersects with Rebecca? Yes, if you don't look too close. If you don't look too close.

All right, see you guys in the next chapter.