Нагарджуна, курс 3 — Мудрость Арьи Нагарджуны, курс 3: Пустота мантры (2021, Аризона), занятие 14

[Speaker 1]
Hi, welcome back to Arya Nagarjuna. And we're still in the middle of this tough, it became a tough chapter, right? Chapter about investigating karma.

And we thought we were going to have a normal discussion, but it's already gone off on some difficult points. And by the way, now Nagarjuna, having given the Abhidharma version of, what do we call it? Don't lose it.

Don't go away. He's going, now he's going to give a more standard Madhyamaka discussion. And here we go.

Okay, the next verse says, ,GAL TE LAS LA RANG BZHIN YOD, ,LTA LTAR RGYUR BA THAD SONGS NAS, ,LAS NYID BYAS PA MA YIN GYUR, ,LTA LA BYA'O MED PHYIR RO, ,GAL TE LAS LA RANG BZHIN YOD, And karma, the laws of karma, are something that you and me feel instinctively, right? We had a discussion here about it with our friends. It feels like they are self-existent.

It feels like those laws are unbreakable, cannot be changed, and they come from their own side. I understand that in general things are coming from me, but who made the laws of the universe? Who made the laws of karma?

And so Nagarjuna is going to try to convince us that our karma made the laws of karma. And that just because laws of karma are coming from karma doesn't mean they could work differently than the way they do. Just because something's empty doesn't mean that it will come in a thousand different forms.

All right, GAL TE LAS LA RANG BZHIN YOD. If karma itself, if the laws of karma had their own nature, LTA LTAR RGYUR BA THAD SONGS NAS, there is no doubt that it would be unchanging. BDAG PA If karma were coming from its own side, it would never vary.

It would always stay the same. It would be unchanging. LAS NI BYAS PA MA YIN GYUR If something is unchanging, it cannot have involved an agent.

If karma, if anything in the universe is unchanging, that means nobody did it. Because if somebody did it, then it would change because the effects of doing something get less over time. Things fall apart, right?

That famous book title, Things Fall Apart. That's the nature of things. So if things are created, they fall apart.

If things don't fall apart, then they cannot have had someone create them. Okay, got it? That's all right, right?

Okay, LAS NI BYAS PA MA YIN GYUR And, BDAG PA MA BYA'O MA'I PHYIR RO If something is unchanging, there cannot have been a process of creation at the beginning of it. Because the process of creation, the process of pushing something into being, that energy which pushes the thing into being is lost over time. So if it's unchanging, if karma has a nature of its own, from its own side, it's unchanging.

If it's unchanging, it cannot have had the person who committed the karma. No one made the karma. Okay, got it?

All right. And I think of it as a driverless car. Okay.

And that used to be a real serious argument, but now we do have driverless cars. So I want to say a driverless car without a program. Okay.

A car driving itself without the internet. How's that? For now.

I don't know what's coming later. All right, next verse. CI STE LAS NI MA BYAS NA MA BYAS PA DANG DRIN GYUR GYUR SANGS RGYUN LAS PA MA YIN PA'ANG DE LA KHYIM DU MTHIL BAR GYUR This is a tough verse, although the words are not so difficult.

CI STE LAS NI MA BYAS NA If you could have karma without anyone doing it, because you say karma has to have its own nature, which implies that karma never changes, which means that they didn't have anyone that did it. Got it? So if you say karma has a nature, then natures don't change.

Then okay. So someone, there cannot be anyone who committed the karma if it's unchanging. Okay, got it?

MA BYAS PA DANG DRIN GYUR GYUR Then you get into the problem of things could happen to you without committing the karma before. Let's go through the logic again. He says karma is self-existent, meaning karma has its own nature.

Okay, nature, which we already talked about in the chapter on investigation of nature or identity, means that it doesn't change. Peripheral qualities change. The color of the fire changes.

The fact that it's hot doesn't change. That's self-nature. That's an identity.

It doesn't change. So if something doesn't change, if karma has a self-identity, it cannot change. No more than fire could become cold and still be fire.

So therefore, no one did karma. Therefore, you can have karmic results without someone doing them. Therefore, things can happen to you that you don't deserve.

Got it? You okay? You following?

If karma is unchanging, then nobody did karma, but karma still works. So karma can work without anybody doing it. Therefore, things can happen to you that you didn't deserve because you didn't do anything.

Got it? Then that's going to be a weird world. MA BYAS PA DANG PHYIN GCIG RGYUR MA BYAS PA is the third law of karma.

If you don't do it, you can't get a result. And he says, no, now you have to change the third law of karma. If karma is self-existent, then you could have karma running around that no one committed.

Karmic results can happen to you for things you never did, which is what you accuse the universe of constantly already. MA BYAS PA DANG PHYIN GCIG RGYUR MA BYAS PA DANG PHYIN GCIG RGYUR GCIG is spelled with an S, which so it doesn't mean destroy, it means like GCIG MED. Yeah, you'd have to walk around on eggshells.

Why? Things can happen to you that you don't deserve. Then you should be nervous.

In a world where you don't have to make karma to get karma back, then you'd better be careful. You better keep your eyes on it. SANGS RGYUD GNAS PA MA YIN PA'ANG This is a weird example, and maybe you got to think about why he chose this example.

He says, you could be a person who keeps sexual purity very well, and still you would have bad results. Still, like the karmic result of sexual impurity, one of them is air pollution, for example. So he says, if you could get karmic results for things you never did, then you can be a good monk and keep your morality as far as sex, and then still you live in a polluted country.

You could get undeserved karmic results. MA YIN PA'ANG DE LA KHYAD DU MTHAL BAR GYUR These are all the examples of problems that would come from your idea that karma has its own identity in the same way that you thought fire had its own identity. Okay, cool?

All right. I have a picture of, that was supposed to be air pollution without cars or something. I don't know.

Pretend there's no cars, but it's still polluted. You got the results of sexual misconduct even though you were very pure with your behavior. All right.

Why he chose that one out of the 10, I don't know, maybe we all have this problem. Maybe we all have some kind of problem. All right, next verse.

THA GNYAD THAMS CAD NYID DANG YANG RGYAL BA RGYUR BAR THE TSUL MED THA GNYAD means expression. And Choney Lama says, he's talking about how the world talks. So sometimes in Buddhist books, they will say, oh, come on, look, even in normal conversation, people don't accept that.

Even normal people in the world wouldn't say that. So here it's THA GNYAD THAMS CAD NYID DANG. Even when people get together and talk who are not Buddhists, they weren't trained.

Still RGYAL BAR GYUR. It would be a contradiction. For example, here's the picture, yay!

It would be a contradiction to have a field full of lettuce, I guess. My enemy, lettuce. And there's nobody who planted it.

So even with a good result, like suddenly 2,000 heads of lettuce grew in your garden by themselves, still people would talk. What happened? I don't know, it just showed up.

Wow, that's weird. See, even people in the normal world understand that it's weird to get a result when you didn't do anything. Like, I don't know.

Suddenly your backyard blooms with all kinds of delicious vegetables, if there were such a thing. BDAG PA LTA SEMS GYI ROL PA In theoretical case. Then even in the normal world, people would say something's weird going on.

He didn't plant any vegetables. Look at all these vegetables. RGYAL BAR GYUR, SEMS RANG DANG NI SDIG BYED PAS RNAM PAR DBYE BA'ANG THE MIN GYUR If you could get suddenly karmic results without having done anything, because karma has its own nature, then there would be no good deeds and bad deeds either.

You can forget the distinction. You can forget the division between good deeds and bad deeds. Because you're just going to get randomly whatever you get.

So why talk about good deeds and bad deeds? Good deeds and bad deeds, morality in Buddhism is defined by the karma that you get back. How do you decide right and wrong in a Buddhist world?

Does it hurt when it comes back? Or does it make you happy when it comes back? That's right and wrong.

That's the definition of right and wrong. It's not even that it hurts someone else. Ultimately, Buddhist morality is based upon will it hurt you if you do it?

And will it help you when you do it? By the way, always do hurting someone else. All right, next one.

Next verse, DE NYID RNAM PAR MIN GYUR By the way, I disagree with this line in Choney Lama. I think someone added it. So the tengyur says, different.

And Choney Lama's commentary says, matches the tengyur. So I think someone added the root text later and was adding a different version. It matters.

So I'm going to change this line to fit the tengyur because that matches Choney Lama. So here it is. DE NYID RNAM MIN GYUR PA YANG DA'I YANG DU RNAM MIN GYUR If karma could come back to you when you didn't do anything in the first place, then when karma ripens on you, that ripening could ripen again.

If you could get a flat tire on your car without hurting someone else's car, then the flat tire would go flat also. Karma would pile up on itself. If no one had to commit the karma for you to get the result, then you could keep getting results.

Not just once, but they could repeat themselves. GAL TE RANG BZHIN YOD NA NI GANG ZHER LAS NAS DE YI PHYIR And then another problem. And he kind of switches.

He's been talking about the result, but now he talks about the karma itself. If karma could come back to you without doing anything, then when you did do something, that action could go on forever and never produce a result. If karma came from its own side, then when you did something, it would be logical that that action would continue forever and it would never ripen.

Because the karma had its own nature that doesn't change. Identity doesn't change. If the karma has an identity, the definition of an identity is that it doesn't change.

It stays with you. So therefore, if karma is action, then you would always be in the state of action and you would never get a result from the karma. There'd be no time for the karma to come back because you'd have to be doing it all the time because it's not supposed to change because it has its own identity.

And you don't change identity. Identity means something you keep that doesn't change. Like heat, it's fire.

All right, and I have a nice picture. I call this workaholic karma. And I think it'd be a nice name for a band.

Workaholic karma. It means the karma keeps working and nothing happens. You keep killing people or you keep saving life or donating to Club Duroro and it never comes back to you.

You just keep doing it, doing it, doing it. Because why? Because karma can't change.

Why? It has an identity of its own. Why?

Because it's not coming from you. The laws of karma are not coming from you. All right, workaholic karma.

I think it's going to be a good book title. Next verse. LAS NI NYON MONGS BDAG NYID LA NYON MONGS DE DAG YANG DAG MIN SKYEL TE NYON MONGS YANG DAG MIN LAS NI YANG DAG JI LTAR YIN The suffering of life, the truth of suffering, the first of the four higher truths, Arya truths, is suffering.

What's the second higher truth? It's the cause, which is traditionally divided into two for $100. The cause of all suffering is traditionally divided into two when you teach the four truths.

[Speaker 2]
Misunderstanding? No. Cancel the bell.

[Speaker 1]
LAS DAG NYON MONGS LAS, karma and negative emotions. You can call them mental afflictions, but that word hasn't been used since the late 1700s and Buddhist scholars. Okay, so anyway, let's call it negative emotions.

LAS DAG NYON MONGS These are the two sources of suffering. Here it says, LAS DI NYON MONGS DAG NYID LA Dirty karma, that the essence of dirty karma is negative emotions, isn't it? Dirty karma.

Dirty karma. SAG BCAD KYI LAS The nature of dirty karma is that it is driven by your negative emotions. NYON MONGS DE DAG YANG DAG MIN Those negative emotions are not YANG DAG for $50.

YANG DAG, huh? Yay, $50, give me. By the way, somebody won $100 while you were gone.

[Speaker 2]
They're going to keep having it because I'm a hundred years old.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. I'm still a hundred years. Pure, $100 from who can explain pure to me?

He says here, your negative emotions are not pure.

[Speaker 2]
He says, they say it's a good experience because they can hold you.

[Speaker 1]
I mean, does Nagarjuna, does Arya Nagarjuna really have to tell you that your jealousy and anger are not nice? Is that what he's doing? Would he bother to tell you that?

[Speaker 2]
He's saying they're not suffering.

[Speaker 1]
Yay, $100 for Rebecca. This pure means exist from their own side. Because obviously Nagarjuna's not going to say, hey, guess what?

Your jealousy is a bad thing. Wow, I didn't know. All right, so it's not pure.

GAL TE NYON MONGS YANG DAG MIN If your negative emotions are impure, then how can karma be pure?

[Speaker 2]
You can't.

[Speaker 1]
Because your negative emotions drive your karma. If the negative emotions are not pure, meaning not coming from their own side, then what they drive can't be coming from its own side. Got it?

That's the last verse, he just finished. If they were unchanging, if they were coming from their own side, they'd be unchanging. If they're unchanging, you could get results that you don't deserve.

Got it? Okay, therefore, I can prove it to you another way. Look, karma doesn't exist from its own side.

Why? It's made by things that don't exist from their own side. Got it?

If something makes another thing and it doesn't come from its own side, then the thing that the thing makes shouldn't come from its own side either. Got it? Therefore, karma doesn't come from its own side.

I just proved it to you a different way. I have an apple, rotten apple, rotten apple. I was thinking of Johnny Rotten Pizza.

Anyway, if the apple's rotten, then the apple pie you make from the apple is going to be... Rotten. Rotten, okay.

Why am I talking about that? What's the rotten apple? What's the rotten apple?

Negative emotions. What's the pie? Karma, good.

If you use rotten apples to make an apple pie, then the apple pie is going to taste rotten. If you use unselfexistent jealousy to create karma, then the karma that's made from the unselfexistent jealousy is going to be unselfexistent. Rotten and rotten.

Got it? Okay. All right, just for fun, we're going to do a Sanskrit word called klesha.

I don't know, it's a big theme right here, right? Negative emotions. So most of you know this word already, but I had to put something.

So klesha means a negative emotion. It comes from the word klesh, which means to be bothered or irritated or distressed. And the English cognate is Harley.

Because it's prickly. So when you talk about negative emotions in Buddhism, RANG YIN DENG GIS RGA SA MA SHES BAR BYAS PA'I SEMS CUNG SEMS PA Say, RANG YIN DENG GIS RGA SA MA SHES BAR BYAS PA'I SEMS CUNG SEMS PA A state of mind which ruins the peace of mind of the person who has it. A state of mind which ruins the peace of mind of the person who has it.

Definition of a klesha, negative emotion. And it's prickly. That's the point.

It disturbs your peace of mind because it's prickly. Jealousy is prickly. And when you keep jealousy in your heart, then you can't really be jolly all day.

So you always got something bothering you. All right. Jolly all day is a great spiritual goal.

All right, next verse. LAS DAG NYON MONGS DE DAG NI LUS RNAMS KYIS NI KHYEN DU BSTAN GAL TE LAS DAG NYON MONGS PA DE STONG NUS LA JI LTAR BYOD LAS DAG NYON MONGS DE DAG NI These two things that we've been talking about, karma and negative emotions. LUS RNAMS KYIS NI KHYEN DU BSTAN They were taught by the Buddha to be the KHYEN of your LUS, to be the cause of your mortal coil.

This is an English special expression, mortal coil. Yeah, the dying body that you are wearing right now. It's called mortal coil.

I don't know why coil. It wraps around you or something? Anyway, this clothing called your body, which will be dropped, it's caused by two factors, karma and negative emotions.

GAL TE LAS DAG NYON MONGS PA DE STONG If the karma and negative emotions which create your body are STONG, empty, then LUS LA JI LTAR BYOD Then what, duh, what do you think the body will be? JI LTAR BYOD I mean, what did you think the body... Did you think it's not going to be empty?

If the body is made by two super empty things, then the body is also super empty. That's nirgajuna. All right, I have a picture of a skyscraper made with bubbles.

It was midnight. I was getting silly. I don't quite remember why.

No, I mean, if the things that are at the foundation of an entity are impure, then that entity is going to be impure also, and it probably won't stand very long. All right, next one. In these next three verses, the other guy gets to come back and insist that he's right.

Okay, here we go. Karma must exist from its own side. Okay, all right.

And now specifically, the other guy is going to talk about the person who commits the karma. He wants to prove. He's done trying to prove that the karma has its own nature.

He wants to prove that the person who commits the karma has their own nature. He kind of gave up on, okay, nirgajuna, suppose the karma doesn't have its own nature, and therefore the body, it's not true that the body doesn't have its own nature because the thing that made the body didn't have its own nature. All right, let's give up on that.

Let's just talk about the guy who committed the karma. Okay, good karma and bad karma. Do they have a nature of their own?

Well, listen, nirgajuna. MA RIG RGYUD PA'I SKYE BA GANG You got a person, SKYE BA, who's blinded, RGYUD PA, right? By MA RIG PA, misunderstanding.

So the other guy's showing he's a Buddhist. Maybe he's Abhidharma or something. Look, look, come on, let's talk about normal samsara.

You got a person who has, blinded by, they don't understand anything. Let's go back to the verse, yeah. SEMS LDAN DE NI ZAL BA PO That person who has SRED PA, meaning desire, it doesn't mean you like sex.

It means you attach to thinking things come from their own side, which means you can also get anger from it, with your husband, for example, if you think he's coming from his own side. And then comes this beautiful word, ZAL BA PO. ZAL BA PO, ZAL BA means to eat dinner.

What's a ZAL BA PO? Yeah, but what's the dinner?

[Speaker 2]
The desire to eat dinner. Amen.

[Speaker 1]
We're talking about someone who commits a karma.

[Speaker 2]
He gets the result of the karma.

[Speaker 1]
Why refer to the person who commits a karma as the eater? Why should we call him the consumer, the eater?

[Speaker 2]
Is he going to eat the result?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, later he's going to eat the result. Perfect. The person who commits the karma will become the consumer of the result of that karma.

You're going to have to... What do you call it? You eat your cake or...

No, there's another one. You're going to have to eat the meal you cooked. Yeah, you made your bed and now you're going to have to lie in it.

You hurt somebody. Two weeks later, you're going to be the ZAL BA PO. You're going to eat that karma.

It's going to come back to you. $100, can you guess what the discussion is here? I'll say it again.

You did a karma. The karma stayed as it was. Don't lose it.

And then it came back to you. What's the question going to be here? What's the Nargajunaic question he would bring up, Tim?

Yeah, perfect. Perfect. $100 for that young man.

Yeah, we're interested in what happened to the guy who made the karma and what's his relation to the... Eater, to the consumer. He makes the pie.

Two weeks later, another guy eats the pie. What's their relationship? Is he still that guy?

And that doesn't make sense. Good answer. You're already thinking like Nargajuna.

SEMS BSTAN DE NI ZAL BA PO DE YANG BYAS LAS GZHAN MIN ZHING Are they someone different from the BYAS? Here BYAS means doer. It doesn't mean to do.

BYAS PA PO Unfortunately, we're in poetry. We got to cut the word short. Okay.

Then Nargajuna says, BYAS PA PO LAS GZHAN MIN The guy who eats the result of the action two weeks later, he is not GZHAN. Yeah, he's not a different guy. He's the same guy.

What? Okay, here's the... He's the same guy.

DE NI DE YANG MA YIN NO By the way, this is the other guy talking. By the way, it's the other guy talking. I'm sorry, I should have said that.

Yeah, come on, it's the same guy who eats the karma, who did the karma two weeks ago. That's the same guy. But in another way, DE YANG DE YANG MA YIN You know, when you think about it, he's not really the same guy either.

So it seems like the debater, the other debater, he's waffling. He says, come on, it's the same guy. And then he says, but in a way he's not the same guy, is he?

So he's waffling. Then here's our reply. Nargajuna comes to the rescue.

GANGS RGYAS PHYIR NA LAS PA'I NI, KHYEN LAS CHUNG BA MA YIN ZHING If karma existed from its own side, it could never come from a cause. If karma existed from its own side, that would be its identity and it could not be triggered by some action. KHYEN MIN LAS CHUNG YOD MIN PA If you had a karma that happened without anybody doing anything, well, that would be a non-existing karma.

DE PHYIR BYAS PA PO YANG MIN And therefore, since there was no karma, which was done by anything, there's nobody who did it. So why are you worried about whether he's the same as the other later guy? Because there is no guy who did it.

Because it's not possible because you think karma comes from its own side. Nargajuna is really kicking his ass. I'll say it again.

Okay, yeah, if karma comes from its own side and the eater comes from its own side, why are you worried about it? If karma comes from its own side, then the eater comes from its own side, then the karma comes from its own side. The karma comes from its own side, it doesn't have to have a cause.

So nothing's going to happen. No one's going to do anything. Why are you worried about the guy who comes later if the guy who comes earlier wasn't there anyway?

Got it? KHYEN TE LAS DANG BYAS MED NA If there's no action done by nobody, got it? If there's no action done by...

If no action is done by nobody, LAS SKYES BDE PO GA LA YOD Then how the are you going to have a karmic result? If there's no action done... If a non-action is done by a non-body, then what the hell is the result?

GA LA YOD means what the hell? It's going to be a non-result. If a non-action is done by a non-body, then the non-body's non-action is going to have a non-result.

Got it? CI DE BDE PO YOD MED NA And if there's no result, why are you so worried about the sawapo? Yeah, why are you worried about the guy who's going to eat the result of the karma if there's no karma to eat?

Okay, got it? According to you. It's getting hot in here.

All right. I want to have a... Look at this next picture.

Now this is amazing. Now, yeah, this is what I want the PhD cafe to look like. Whether it will ever happen, only God knows.

But anyway, the distinctive feature of this picture is how many sawapo's in this picture? Nobody. There's nobody here eating.

If a non-existent karma could be done by a non-existent guy, why the hell are you worried about the eater? There is no eater. And I chose you a picture with no eater.

I hope there will be eaters, but this one has no eater. All right, next verse. Three long, oh my gosh, three verses.

The other guy says, if you say karma has no identity at all, you are KUR BA'ANG BDE PA, the Buddha's teaching. KUR BDEB and SDUG BSNGAL, we had it yesterday. Somebody won some money.

Yeah, you are saying something which does exist, doesn't exist. So the guy comes back. If there's no eater, there's nothing to eat, and nobody made their food to eat, you are goddamn not following Buddha's teaching.

You are disrespecting Buddha. Okay, who's that? The other guy.

Now here's our... Here we go. CI LTAR BSTOD PA'I BCUG Now here's our answer, and it's the last part of this.

Yeah, this is the end of the class. It's the end of the course. Except we will have a review in the next class.

There will be another class. But here's the ultimate answer from the whole 15 classes. Here's the ultimate answer to the accusation that we are disrespecting the Buddha because we say nobody eats the karma.

Okay, got it? Then we say, calm down, calm down, calm down. CI LTAR BSTOD PA'I BCUG PA NI Listen, can the Buddha emanate or not?

Yeah. By the way, there's two classical emanations, living and non-living. What's that mean?

I mean, Buddha can emanate as a fish, or as a bridge. The famous example is a bridge. Or a tree.

Or the ocean waves we teach you when you're sitting at the beach next week. So can the Buddha show emanations that are kind of... How do you say?

They're almost unreal in a way. Is that tree real? When the Buddha emanates as a tree, is it a real tree?

If you climb the tree, what are you really climbing? You're climbing Lord Buddha. Can Buddha emanate as a tree?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all read that Buddha can emanate as a tree. So when you climb that tree, you're really climbing up the Buddha's nose and stuff.

It's a no, no, no, no. It's just kind of an illusion. The real Buddha's up in the heaven, LONGS SPYOD, Tushita heaven.

He's just emanating a tree. I'm not disrespecting the Buddha when I climb on a tree that the Buddha's emanating, because that's not really the Buddha. It's just the emanation of the Buddha.

And then the guy says, okay, I'm cool with that. CI LTAR LTOS MED GZUGS PA NI Now I have a question for you. Could the tree put forth an emanation?

Could Buddha as a tree, could Buddha emanate as a tree emanate as an apple on a tree? No, 10 minutes later, 10 minutes later.

[Speaker 2]
Because he's acting like a real tree. So as a real tree.

[Speaker 1]
Come on. Listen, Buddha's emanating as an apple tree in your backyard. I know.

Would he or would he not have the power from that emanated tree to emanate an apple? Of course, yeah. That's what he's talking about here.

And could he emanate a worm sitting on the apple on the tree that he emanated? Could the emanation have an emanation and that emanation has another emanation? Yes.

Okay, good. You're comfortable with that. LA YANG GZHAN NI RDZOGS PA LTAR LA YANG GZHAN NI means he sends out a third emanation.

Could the emanated tree emanate an apple? Yes. Could the emanated tree emanate an apple and emanate a worm?

Yes. Okay, so what do you got the problem with karma? What's your problem?

It's the same. You do something, it creates a seed, and that creates a result. You are emanating a seed, and then the seed emanates a result and the result kicks you in the ass.

What's your problem? Why do you have a problem with that? He says, well, it's kind of similar, yeah.

Is it real? That's Nagarjuna. Is it real?

It doesn't have to be real. Then his own answer is GZHAD. NYON MONGS DANG NI LUS SNAB DANG, PHYIR PO PO DANG, BDE BA DAG When you talk about karma and mental afflictions creating a body, when you talk about an action creating a karmic result, it's all like the city of the Gandharvas.

What's the city of the Gandharvas? The city. Like Mexico City, Gandharva Mexico City.

What's it mean? What's it mean? There's two kinds of Gandharvas.

One is the celestial musicians who are cool guys, but the other is SHASA, CHISA. GANDA means scent. Yes, smell eater.

Ghost, PRETA. PRETAs are also called Gandharvas. The city of the PRETAs is, if you're a PRETA, you see a city on the horizon and it's got fountains and apple trees and all that kind of stuff.

And then you run towards it and then suddenly it disappears. It's like a MI GYUD MI LAM. Last two words of this beautiful chapter.

The last two words of this beautiful chapter. It's like an illusion. It's like a MI LAM.

It's like a dream. Yeah, the karmic results that you are experiencing are like a dream. The sustaining of that karmic energy until the result comes back to you is like a dream.

The action in the first place was like a dream. It's like an apple tree emanated by the Buddha. Fake apple tree giving fake fruits and fake worms sitting on the fruit.

It's the same. It's the same. It's an illusion.

Why is it an illusion? It looks like it's coming from its own side, but it's not. It's coming from you.

Got it? Can you eat the apple? Yeah, you can.

You can eat the Buddha's finger or whatever it is that he was emanating as the apple. You can eat it. You can experience karmic results even though the whole process is not what you thought because the Buddha can have it.

Now, how deep you go in that comparison is up to you. I mean, if you're a tantric practitioner, it's an interesting question. All the things that ever happened to you from all the karma you ever did, how are you supposed to think about it?

So that's another question. It's for you, medicine Buddha practitioners. Okay, let's stop there.

We got one more class to go. We're going to review this whole course. Yay!