Нагарджуна, курс 3 — Мудрость Арьи Нагарджуны, курс 3: Пустота мантры (2021, Аризона), занятие 15

[Speaker 1]
Hi, welcome back to Arya Nagarjuna. This is the review class, and we've had 14 amazing classes. We have gone through, I think it's nine chapters, which is a big achievement.

That's a third. It's not a third of the amount of text, but it's a third of the chapters, because the chapters have different lengths, and these are shorter chapters. But definitely we've done a huge piece.

It's about 20% of the whole wisdom text of Nagarjuna, and the commentary by Choney Lama, which is to say the commentary by Tsongkapa also. And we made great progress. We worked through it very hard.

And I thought, let's have some fun. Let's just relax. I have seven of my friends here, and let's just talk about what we just studied.

And maybe it'll be fun for you guys at home also to listen to us wander around in the dark, as they say. So here we go. We started with chapter nine, and that's called an investigation about who might have been there before.

It's a weird name for a chapter, right? It's an investigation about who might have been there before we got there, or something like that. Who might have been there before?

I'm going to show pictures, and my esteemed friends are going to guess what we were talking about with that picture. And of course, I will give you clues, because I was careful to study it before I came, because I also don't remember. So here we go.

First picture, Dr. Bachi. Anybody want to explain briefly what's going on? And I'll repeat it for the recording.

Just briefly, what's going on? There's a young girl. She has a telescope.

She goes outside to look at the stars. But before she looks at the stars, is she an... Astronomer or not?

Good, good, good. So which came first, the astronomer or the stars? It's a joke, right?

Yeah, she came out first, Geshe-la. No, but she wasn't an astronomer yet. Why?

She wasn't looking at the stars yet. Wait, so she has to look at stars before she's an astronomer. Yeah, you cannot call her an astronomer until she looks at the stars.

So the stars came first, right? And then later she became an astronomer. So she didn't come out of the house first, right?

See, this is a problem. Because of the wrong way that we look at reality, we are always confused about how things work. Always.

Even with just somebody looking at something, we don't understand. And this chapter was specifically about the sense powers. How do you look at something?

How do you hear something? How do you smell something? How do you taste something?

How do you feel something? Which comes first, the object or the seeing? When you look at a wall, was the wall there before you looked?

Or did you open your eyes and then the seeds in your mind opened and then the wall was there to see? So maybe it's backwards of what we think. It's not that you open your eyes and see a wall.

It's that you open your eyes and make a wall to see. And it doesn't feel like that. It feels like the wall was there before.

So that can apply to the Medicine Buddha mantra, for example. So you say the mantra and then you think the mantra changes somebody's cancer or something like that. So the mantra comes first, right?

And then cure the cancer, right? No. Why?

Because until you cure cancer with some magic words, they are not magic words, they're not mantras. Mantra means words of power. Until they show their power, they are not mantras.

Okay, so can you say the mantra before the cancer is cured? Can you say a mantra before the cancer is cured? Yes or no?

No, you cannot. It's not a mantra until they get cured. So you have to think about it.

The Garjuna says, if you don't understand this point, I don't care if you say mantras. Maybe you get lucky and they cure somebody because they did something good 10,000 lifetimes ago. But if you want the mantra to cause the cure, you have to understand that the mantra is not a mantra until the cure comes, which means the mantra is impossible to cause the cure.

So something else is happening here. It's not the mantra causes the cure. It's that your mind creates a mantra, your mind creates a meditation session, and then your mind creates a cancer cure.

Duk, duk, duk. Not duk, duk, duk. So don't do mantras thinking that the mantra is going to cure a person.

Save life, protect life, help other people's life. I saw a funny thing today. I took a picture of it for you.

There's a new word in the corporate world. It's called greenwashing, like whitewashing. So in English, American English, whitewashing means you did something bad and then you whitewash it and it looks good.

And now there's a new word in corporate world called greenwashing. And it means you take credit for carbon sequestering that you didn't really do. You see what I mean?

You say, oh, look, I saved 50 trees. And somebody says, where's the trees? And you're like, well...

And it's called greenwashing now. It's a new verb in the American industry. Why am I talking about that?

It looks like the mantra is causing the cancer to go away, but really, saving lives of animals, for example, by saving the environment and sequestering carbon, okay? Which is a huge saving animals. You can save a few fish, but what if you save the whole world's animals?

That would be cool. Then your mantras will work to create, to stop cancer. Okay, got it?

Because the mantra comes from you, saying the mantra comes from you, and the cure comes from you. And it's not that saying the mantra causes the cure. Got it?

You have to save life before you do the mantra or the mantra won't work. That's the emptiness of the mantra. Cool.

All right, that's, by the way, how you can get a cure before the mantra exists. Okay? All right, let's go to our next picture.

By the way, that was, I'm happy that you guys knew what picture it was. This is a tough one. You guys ready?

Oh, uh-oh, I'm on the wrong one. Let's see here.

[Speaker 2]
No, I think it's the next one. I don't know anymore. It's a fire, maybe.

Yeah, okay, good.

[Speaker 1]
It's the next picture, right? Okay, now we're on chapter 10, which was called, if you look at the picture, you can guess, an investigation of fire and firewood. All right, so now we're on the next chapter.

And I want to know how chapter 10 is connected to chapter nine. For $100, chapter 10 is about fire and firewood. Chapter nine is about, how does the eye work?

[Speaker 2]
Chapter 10 talks about the, it burns?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah. How does fire burn the wood? Which is similar to...

[Speaker 2]
Is there an astronomer before she learns about stars?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, okay, roughly. I'll give you 75. Okay, yeah, here we go.

Chapter nine was about, how do you see an object? How does the subject interact with the object? Chapter 10, if you remember, who brought up the fire and the firewood?

He said, look, Nagarjuna, quit overworking your mind. Look, it's simple. It's the same way that fire burns wood.

The way that the eye sees the wall is the same as the fire burns the wood. Why are you making it so complicated? And then Nagarjuna says, oh, you don't think it's complicated when you burn wood with the fire?

Let me ask you some questions. Okay, so that's why I have this picture of people sitting and doing what to the fire? Looking at the fire.

I was trying to bridge you from chapter nine to chapter 10. Chapter nine was about how do you see the wall. Chapter 10 is what's really happening.

When fire burns what? What kind of wood? But before the fire burns the firewood, how can you?

Call it firewood, duh. Okay, let's go to the next one.

[Speaker 2]
What is the next one?

[Speaker 1]
Now, we're definitely having a problem here. You're not, guys aren't showing them in the same order. Yeah, they should be in the same order.

I think the next one is still in the, no, forget chapter numbers. Stick to the order that Finder puts them in. No, okay, well, I think the next one is lighting a cigarette.

I think we're still in. I'm sorry, I saw a finger. Okay, oh, there we go.

All right, now. Now, I'll give you a clue and you tell me what's going on here. The flame is not touching the cigarette.

That's a clue. Why did I choose this picture? I'll start the conversation, okay?

Is the fire the firewood or not? No, the fire acts on the firewood, right? So let's just confirm.

This is how you do a debate, right? Let's just confirm. No problem.

You always say no problem. Is the fire the firewood? No.

So the fire is acting on the firewood, right? Yeah, so they're separate things. You go like this in the debate.

So they're separate things, right? Yes or no? Do they ever touch?

No, okay. So you can light a cigarette by opening a lighter 10,000 miles away because they don't have to touch. So I was trying to find a picture that had a little bit of space between the flame.

I mean, that space could be 10 million miles. It doesn't matter. If the fire is not the cigarette, then where do they touch?

Where can they touch? Where's the point of contact between the cigarette and the fire? If they never touch, then you can't light a cigarette with the fire.

If they do touch, then there's a part of the cause which touches the result. Am I right? And in that case, something in the past, which is already gone, can affect something in the present.

No, it's gone. If it's gone for a millisecond or it's gone for a million years, it doesn't matter. It's gone.

It can't do anything. Something in the past can't burn your finger and it cannot light a cigarette. Or else, do they exist at the same time?

Okay. Anyway, what's the point, Geshe-la? Why are we talking about all this stuff?

Let me do my Master Buddha mantras. Don't hassle me. I'm trying to say, by the time you finish the mantra, it's gone and it cannot cure cancer.

Don't hassle me. Something from a million years ago cannot cure cancer. And something from one half of a second ago cannot cure cancer because it's gone and it doesn't exist.

And it can't touch anything if it's not here. Mantras cannot cure cancer. It can't be like that.

Well, Geshe-la, I heard many stories. People cured their cancer by saying mantra. No.

Your mind created a person talking a mantra. Your mind created the sound. Then your mind created the cancer being caused.

If you want to cure cancer, good, say mantras. But first, connect the karma. What's the karma?

Sequestered karma. Save a billion animals. Save a million.

There's 80 billion animals, I think. I looked it up. Something like that.

In the world. So if you fix the over, what do you call it? Overheating problem of the atmosphere?

Climate change. Then you're going to save 80, what? 50 billion animals.

Let's do that. Then you can say mantras. Everything will happen.

All kinds of weird stuff will happen. Geshe-la will get croissants every five minutes. Impossible things.

All right, next picture. Is it, yeah, what is this? And be prepared to prove it.

What's in the picture? Yeah, why is it firewood? Until you start a fire.

Until it burns. Therefore, this cannot be firewood because it hasn't burned yet, right? Same thing, okay?

Don't get confused. By the way, we're still in what chapter? Chapter 10.

We're still investigating firewood. Nagarjuna spends a lot of time on chapter 10. It seems to be important to him.

All right, let's look at our next picture. Yeah, we're still in chapter 10 and we're talking about dependent origination. What's the short way to describe dependent origination?

What was the first thing Lord Buddha said when he taught dependent origination? Yeah, if this happens, then that happens. He didn't say there's 12 wings, there's a long way out.

He didn't say that. He said, what? If this happens, that happens.

He's probably going like this. If this happens, that happens. Get it?

Okay, that's not dependent origination. Okay, later they put a big name on it. But the very first time he explained it, he was like, if this happens, then that's going to happen.

It's just like what your mom used to say. If you do this, you're going to have that happen. Your mom tried to teach you, right?

So that's cause and effect. So what that means is, think about it. The second thing to happen depends on the first thing to happen.

Got it? If you do this, this is going to happen. Now, if you talk about dependence, the second thing to happen is depending on the first thing to happen.

It's like, here's the coffee cup, here's the handkerchief. So this is the thing that happened, and this is the cause. The cause supports the result.

If you do this, honey, you're going to get that, honey. Because that depends on this, doing this. Getting that depends on doing this.

So there's a dependent relationship. Results rest on causes, right? No.

By the time the result comes out, the cause is long gone. There's no such thing as dependence. You can cancel all of Sugeng's translations.

It's all impossible. Why? Because to have dependence, the thing that happens second have to depend on the thing that happens first.

And if the thing that happens first is already gone, then there's no dependence. Just the handkerchief falls on the floor. Got it?

All right, so that's what it really means. So where's the dependence? Now, $100 question.

Let's go to that last picture. The parts that depend. I say something is depending on something in this picture.

I say something is depending on something in this picture. For $100. Somebody tell me what's depending and what's on what.

I thought you'd say that. Anybody else want to try? Yeah, good.

$100 for Pachi. Yeah, the pen depends on the seeds. This is a trick picture.

This picture is a trick. Geshe-la is going to say, oh, what's depending on what? And Gyeltsay is going to say, oh, the pen is depending on the table.

And then Pachi is going to say, no, the pen is depending on my seed. Got it? Okay, that's all.

That was a clever picture, I guess. I don't know. After I die, who's going to remember this picture?

All right, here we go. Next one. Wait, man, isn't there, maybe I'm in the wrong place.

[Speaker 2]
Let me check. Wow, this is weird.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, we got the venerable fireman. We got the pen on the desk. Oh, right, you're right.

Okay, good. The other guy said, look, you can see that the fire comes from the firewood. For example, look, Nagarjuna, I don't care if you say the fire is the firewood, or you say the fire is separate from the firewood.

It doesn't really matter. If you put a match on some dry wood, it's going to burn. Now, I don't care what kind of philosophy you have.

I can burn your house down, watch me. Okay, then you could philosophize about it. But anyone can see that when you put a match near a bunch of dry stuff, it burns.

And then Nagarjuna replies with this picture. What's the point of the picture?

[Speaker 2]
You have to take off the glasses, your eyes close and you don't know.

[Speaker 1]
Well, I'm saying, why did I use colored glasses here?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, just because you see it that way, doesn't mean that it's correct.

[Speaker 1]
Your eyes are, your equipment is broken. That would be Nagarjuna's answer. In fact, listen to this.

Everything in the wheel of life is broken. Okay, got it? And it took me many years to figure that out.

If something is painted in the wheel of life, inside the wheel, inside the edges of the wheel, it's broken. Okay, everything there is effed up. Everything.

So your eyes, which are Ngapa Kheshe fifth link, the buildings, empty buildings, they are broken. They are broken. Your eyes are broken.

Don't tell me fire burns wood because I can see it. Okay, is everything pink in the world? I don't know.

Is my white phone pink? Why? Why do you say that Geshe-la?

Because if you have pink eyeglasses on, it's going to look pink to you. And you always have these eyeglasses on. You were born with these sunglasses on and you will wear them until the day you die.

You are born with a defect in your eye. What's the famous example about a defect in your eye? Yeah, which kind of means you have a scratch on your eye, on your cornea, and you think there's a crack in the porcelain.

You see, and it's really just a scratch on your eyeball. So according to Buddhism, of course your mind is misunderstanding everything, but the problem is worse than that. Your eyeball is broken.

You always see things the wrong way. When you think you see a match causing a fire, or when you think a mantra is curing cancer, there's a problem with your eyes. That's not what's happening.

What's really happening, Geshe-la? You saved a bunch of animals' life by, I don't know, planting a forest in a mountain, and then that oxygen saved many animals' lives. Then you did mantras and you can cure cancer.

Got it? Okay, that's all. If Nagarjuna is correct, we have to be nice to animals and other humans as well.

All right, next one. This picture is connected to this. For $100, tell me why.

This picture is connected to this. Yeah, good. $100 for the young man.

Oh, you're just self-reporting, okay? If you don't report, it's not my problem. At what point is the pizza done?

At what point is the pizza done? At what point? So there's past fire, there's future fire, and there's the fire in the moment.

And that keeps moving. The present moment keeps moving. What is the perfect point?

What cooked the pizza perfectly, by the way? You made dinner for somebody else two weeks ago and you didn't burn it, okay? You made dinner for somebody two weeks ago, you didn't burn it.

Then you went to Rotten Johnny's and bought a pizza and it was perfect. Why? He found the impossible line between undercooked and overcooked, okay?

Where's the line between undercooked and overcooked? Yeah, where does the part of the room you walked on already meet the part of the room you didn't walk on already? Because they're both gone.

One happened already. One hasn't happened yet. They're not there.

Where do they meet? They can't meet anywhere, they're not here in the room. Okay?

It's all coming from you. When you walk through a door, what's really happening? Yeah, small picture, bigger picture of the doorframe.

Small picture, bigger picture, bigger picture, bigger picture, small picture, small picture. I read a nice book once, Ursula Le Guin. It's a short story.

It's about a tree that got overworked. Why? It's a very old tree.

It's like 500-year-old tree. In the old days, when people walked or had wagons, life was bearable. What do you mean?

Well, as they got closer to me, I had to grow. And then as they walked away, I had to shrink. And you know, it was okay.

But now, 80 miles an hour, I mean, how the god damn do they expect me to grow and shrink in a tenth of a second? It's too stressful. The tree was complaining about, I have to grow as they get closer, and then I have to shrink really fast as they drive away.

It's too much, it's too fast. That's what's really happening. Thank you, tree.

[Speaker 2]
All right, here we go.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, and what's the favorite, what do they call it? It's not bitching, it's similar. Geshe-la's always kvetching.

Yeah, kvetch is good. Geshe-la's always making some statement regarding eternal. For $100, who can tell me?

What's the statement Geshe-la likes to make about this particular eternal?

[Speaker 2]
If you think that the world is carrying on the back of the turtle, then that means that everything is in the world. You think how it is, maybe it's wrong.

[Speaker 1]
Good, yeah, $100. Don't forget to tell my boss. So, I don't know, 3,000 years ago in India, people believed the whole world was being held up by a turtle.

That it was flat and it was being held up by a turtle. If you misunderstand how the whole world happened, then you misunderstand everything in your life. If you misunderstand how fire burns wood, then you must misunderstand mantras, for example.

You must, you have to. And I'll give you a possibility. How many people in ancient India understood the shape of the world?

Correct me. Zero, zero. Call it 10 million, 50 million people.

I don't know how many were alive at that time. How many percent of them were wrong? 100%, okay, 100%.

So, in theory, it's possible that we are also wrong 100%. It has happened in the past that people had the wrong idea about how much stuff? Everything.

You got to say it like that. Everything. And maybe we're also wrong about everything.

So, then if you're wrong about fires, or you're wrong about how plants grow, or you're wrong about how your husband yells at you, then maybe you're wrong about everything. Wives are wrong more than husbands. Can I say it, Pachi?

I think it's true.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Just kidding. Okay, it's always the husband in the kitchen, right? Okay, anyway.

Just consider the possibility. If Nagarjuna is correct in this book, if this book is correct, then everything you think is wrong. And that means every action you ever took in your life is wrong.

When you turned the switch to turn on this light, it was a mistake. That was based on a misunderstanding. When you turn the key to start your car, you're insane.

You should be looking for someone to give a ride. Then try to start your car. Otherwise your car might not start someday, which of course never happens.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, next one.

[Speaker 1]
This picture, by the way, we're on to chapter 11. So this is the third chapter we worked on. By the way, not every class was a separate chapter.

Some chapters took more than one class. But we did chapter 11. Chapter 11 is called An Investigation of a First Beginning and a Final Ending to Things.

Is there a first beginning? And is there a final ending to things? When they asked Lord Buddha, did the universe have a, did samsara have a beginning?

Does samsara have an end? What did he say? What did he say?

Well, yeah, but then, what was the question? They didn't say, is there? They said, yeah, is it evident to you?

LUM PA, is it evident to you? Good, okay. And so this picture is meant to describe, okay, if you ask me, does everything have a beginning?

I can answer you on two levels. If you ask me, does everything have a beginning? I can answer you on two levels.

On an obvious level, I can say no, because everything has a cause. Therefore, nothing has, there is no beginning to everything.

[Speaker 2]
On a deeper level, why do we think anything begins?

[Speaker 1]
When did this class begin? About a hundred years ago. When did this class begin?

When you're, when the seeds in your mind open. This class, on a deeper level, this class had no beginning. The class didn't start.

Your seeds opened. Got it? Don't ask me, did the class start?

Don't ask me how long ago the class started. Did you notice I'm not using the timer anymore? I don't care.

Don't ask me when the class started. I don't care. The class started when your seeds opened.

You can answer your own question. Don't ask me how many minutes went by. That's not the answer.

That's why Buddha, when they asked him his question originally, he said, what was his first answer to this question? LUNG MA BSTAN Well, that means he refused to answer again. He refused.

Don't ask stupid questions. Hey Geshe-la, what time did the class start? How many minutes ago did the class start?

Don't ask me stupid questions. Why is it a stupid question? It started when your seeds opened.

Got it? Don't blame me. You created the class.

It's your problem. If it goes on too long, that's your fault. Go to the bathroom and yell at the mirror.

That's the DCI. Probably have to pay a commission to DCI now. Okay, just kidding.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, what's next?

[Speaker 1]
This was described as the difference between making something out of nothing and making something out of something. Everything is artificial. The world is artificial.

There is nothing real. How much of the world is artificial? Everything.

So is it empty? Yes. Does it exist?

Yes. Is it real? Well, yeah, go out and stand in front of a car and tell me what happens.

It's still breaking. But in one sense, it's not real. And by the way, we are still in chapter 11, trying to see if anything ever started or anything ever stopped.

So is it artificial? Yes. Did it happen?

No. Did it happen from you? Yes.

Got it? Okay, all right, let's go to the next one. We are now moving to chapter 12, which I will remember, which as I will remind you, was an investigation of whether pain was created by pain or something else.

And then the title of the chapter can be read differently. Was the pain in your life created by you or by somebody else? Is the trouble in your life your fault or your husband's fault or your wife's fault?

Is the trouble in your life created by you or by somebody else? Or you can say, does pain cause pain or does non-pain cause pain? There's two ways to read the chapter title.

And we have four possibilities. Number one, and by the way, these are representing four different schools of ancient thought. And that's how we started this chapter.

Where does pain come from? Number one, was pain caused by itself? Which is the Sankhya position.

Did God create pain? Second position, is the pain caused by something other than Michael? When Michael touches a cactus and gets pain, did something outside of Michael hurt Michael?

And we say, yeah, I mean, you could say that. Was it both? Both God and something else.

Jains say that. There's a religion in India that says that. And then did it just happen and nobody made it happen?

That's a position by the Chavakas, which is a certain school of ancient Indians who don't believe in karma. So these are four possibilities. We normally say pain is caused by something other than me.

Like the cactus caused me. The cactus hurt my feet. Okay, let's go to the next one.

Now, this is almost the only normal argument I allowed in this class, in this course. This one's normal argument. If I say to you, the pain of this employee is being caused by someone else or by him, what's your answer?

The employee is in pain. If you've ever been an employee in a big company, you go through this like every day. Who caused the trouble for the employee?

Who's hurting the employee? Himself. That's all.

I mean, I tried to put one normal thing in the picture. It looks like the boss is hurting the employee. There's two famous problems in life.

One is how your boss treats you and one is how your spouse treats you. There's just two. I mean, kids are probably a subset of spouses.

And this is so common if you've worked in a big company. Somebody's yelling at you, somebody's hurting you. Who's hurting?

Is he being hurt by himself or is he being hurt by someone else?

[Speaker 2]
By himself. He's being hurt by himself.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, that's easy. That was a normal question. All right, we're on to chapter 13.

Chapter 13 was called An Investigation of Factors. And the question you should have asked yourself was why did they teach this chapter in addition to which chapter? The first chapter.

The first chapter is called An Investigation of Conditions, Causes and Conditions. And now, 13 chapters later, they're using the same thing? Factors?

What's that all about? It should have been named, this chapter should have been named An Investigation of... This is a clue in the picture.

Real and Unreal. Yeah, Fake and Real. Or An Investigation of Illusion.

That would be a better name for this chapter. It's really An Investigation of Illusion. Now, got to ask you, really, really, is that the...

[Speaker 2]
No, I haven't tried that today.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, let's take that one. Use that one. Use the purse.

Use the purse, okay? Now, is it real or not? It's real, but it's fake.

Yeah, it's real, but it's fake. Good. It's real, but it's fake.

No, it's fake, but it's real. I'm sorry. Okay.

It's fake, but it's real. What do I mean? It's a fake...

[Speaker 2]
It's an imitation.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it's a fake Gucci butt. You can still carry your wallet around in it. Okay, got it?

Fake real. No, sorry, a real fake. Is it what it looks like?

No. Can it work? Yes.

Is the world what it looks like? No. Does it work?

Yes. If you don't believe me, go stand in front of a car and tell me what happens. Does the illusory steel in the bumper break your illusory leg?

Yes. Okay, all right. Okay, we're not saying nothing matters or nothing's real.

The guy, now the other guy says, look, do the leaves change in the autumn? Does the color of the leaves change when the autumn comes? Do leaves change from green to yellow?

Yes or no?

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
So were they green to start? Yes. So did they have an identity when we started?

Were they green? Are green leaves green? Yeah, so they have a nature, they're green.

If they didn't have a nature of green, how could they change to another color? If green was not in them, how could they become yellow? Okay, got it?

That's a fair question. If they weren't green in themselves, why do you say they turned yellow? Okay?

All right, now here's the next argument. Oh, by the way, we say if they were green, they never would have changed to yellow. Okay, that's all.

Your argument proves that you're wrong. Okay, all right. $100 for this one.

$100 for this one. It's a tough one. I'll give you a clue.

It has to do with emptiness. Duh. Come on, think about it.

Did I tell you a joke about the abbot of the monastery? Did I tell you about that story?

[Speaker 2]
It's the one where that monk looks at his reminded abbot and says, he's not really.

[Speaker 1]
No, no, it's a different thing. I guess I forgot to tell you this story. What's gaye?

Gaye is the end of the summer retreat. So for three months in the summer, all ordained people are supposed to stay inside mostly. Why?

[Speaker 2]
So you don't step on bugs.

[Speaker 1]
So in India, in the summer monsoon, after the monsoon, there's millions of bugs around. If you step anywhere, you will kill lots of animals. Therefore, in general, try to stay at home.

It's like virus, what do you call it, lockdown. In general, try to stay at home. It's safer.

Don't go out. If you can help it, don't go out. That's summer retreat.

Gaye means, then you're allowed to come out. And it's just like nowadays in Arizona. Everyone came out.

Everyone came out. You can't get a respite reservation at all this week. Forget it.

That's why we have to play our own rock and roll. So some people come out. And in the monastery, you can play games for one week.

And you can play a radio. You can play board games. You can play soccer.

You can play games on the board. You can play cunning, which is very popular. And you can play a radio.

Now the miracle is, suddenly, everyone has a radio. It's truly a miracle. And so I remember, the joke I like to tell is, I was having a little trouble with an abbot who was past the race system.

We had some disagreements about whether all the monks deserved water or not. And I paid for the water system and I built it. And so anyway, so this is how I became his best friend.

I went to his room to have a discussion with him. And it was Gaye. And here's this very stiff abbot, sitting on the floor, sprawled out with his robes everywhere.

And he's playing a board game with one of the young monks. And I'm like, it came out of my mouth. ,ME LA CHU ZHON NA GAR NA GANG TE, Say ME LA.

ME LA Sorry, CHU LA CHU LA ME ZHON NA ME ZHON NA DE GAR NAS DE GAR NAS CHU LA CHU LA ME ZHON NA ME ZHON NA DE GAR NAS What the hell? If water catches fire, what are we going to do? How are you going to put it out?

You understand? If the guy in charge of making sure kids don't play games in the monastery is playing a game with one of the kids, then who am I going to call to report it? It's him.

That really made me popular with this guy. Why am I bringing that up? Boy, great.

The older you get, the more stories you have. I'll give you a clue, it's about emptiness. I better tell you or else we'll never finish the class.

If you're a Buddhist and if you're studying emptiness, and as you study emptiness, you have the instinct that emptiness is coming from its own side. You have destroyed the only antidote in the world. A miseducated Buddhist is more dangerous than anybody.

A wrongly educated Buddhist is a truly dangerous thing. A Buddhist using mantras who doesn't understand why the mantra works is dangerous. Because they'll go around selling something that doesn't work.

It's like a person who sells fire extinguishers that don't work. What could be more cynical than to sell fire extinguishers that you know they don't work? What could be more cruel than to go sell a hundred fire extinguishers, then the place catches on fire and it doesn't work?

So in a way, we must educate ourselves about what emptiness really is. Because if you come to misunderstand emptiness, it will never work for you. And then you'll always suffer.

Okay, got it? Same with mantras. Okay, yay.

If the water catches fire, if you think the emptiness is self-existent, then we have a problem. Then we can't fix anything. Okay, got it?

All right. I don't know if you remember this one. I don't remember if I really nailed it down.

I think some of the pictures we skipped, right Pachi? I'm sorry. Anyway, we are in the chapter, we're in a new chapter, 14th, about saṃsārga.

My Sanskrit expert just went to the bathroom. What's saṃsārga? It means contact.

Contact between things, okay? Like how do things touch each other? And it feels correctly like a lot of nāgārjuna depends on this question, right?

Can anything touch another thing? And I'll tell you what nāgārjuna would say about this picture. If you want money bad enough to hurt someone to get it, you cannot touch the money.

If you want money bad enough to compete with someone else to get the money, then you will never touch it. The money cannot touch your hand. Okay, got it?

Does that mean you can't hold money? No, it just means the money is unreal. Why?

It looks like you got it by taking it, but you didn't. You got it by being generous. You got it by making a donation to Club Doro last week.

And the money you think you stole isn't the money you stole. This is the money you got because you donated last week. Got it?

But she doesn't have any money in her hands because she thinks it came from stealing, but it didn't. It can't. All right.

Next one. What was this lesson?

[Speaker 2]
Do you guys remember?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, but with what context? Yeah, can you recognize what? Yeah, without a toll person.

And the Buddhist answer is, yeah, because it's coming from your mind. And I've heard weird explanations by American untrained Buddhists who say, oh, Buddhism is all about... In fact, somebody wrote a book about it.

Buddhism is all about comparison. What do you call it? Short, you can't see...

Short comes from long. Basically, it was saying that. Everything is dependence.

Dependent origination means you can't recognize short until you have long. And that's completely false, and Buddha never said anything like that. In fact, the Buddha would say the opposite, which is what?

You can think something is long without something which is short because it's coming from your mind. That's all. It doesn't depend on two outside objects comparing them.

That's not where short comes from. Short comes from your mind. You can have lots of shorts without talls.

All over. All right. And you can find those books.

It's amazing. It's amazing. Okay, next one.

I don't know if you remember, but let's go back to the easiest example. There's a part of the path that you walked on already. There's a part of the path that you didn't reach yet.

And there's a part of the path between. Does the part of the path... By the way, this chapter is about sansarga, which means contact.

Can the part of the path that you already walked on ever make contact with the part of the path that you're going to walk on? Yes. Cannot.

Unless you don't look so close. And that's a Buddhist principle. Unless you don't look so close.

MA LTAG MA BYAS PAR Say MA LTAG MA BYAS PAR Without investigation. Without checking. I mean, look, if you're worried, if you're trying to drive back to Rimrock this afternoon to get your nap on time, and you sit there and worry about which part of the road did you already drive on, which part of the road you didn't drive on, you're going to get in a car accident.

You're never going to get home. There are appropriate times in our life when you should just god damn drive home. And don't worry about where you are.

You're going to get in a car accident. So it's called MA LTAG MA BYAS PAR Does the part of the road to Rimrock that I already drove on ever touch the... Do they ever intersect?

That's the point. Ever touch the part of the road I haven't driven on yet? Look, there's times in life when you don't want to worry about it.

Just don't hit the traffic on the Easter holiday. Don't crash into anybody. When you get home, before your nap, you can think about it.

MA LTAG MA BYAS PAR means, do they intersect? Yes, if you don't look at it too closely. If you don't look at it too closely.

Very famous Buddhist principle. Should I do my mantra? You shouldn't do your mantras.

Look, relax and do your mantras. But they don't work. I know they don't work, but they're going to work.

Just be nice to people, your mantra is going to work. Ah, okay, good. I don't have to stop my mantras.

Geshe-la never said, don't do mantras. Geshe-la said, do mantras with wisdom. And then they work.

But if I don't have wisdom, can I still do my mantras? Yes. Will it help me?

Yeah, your intention is very powerful. Go ahead. But later try to study why they work, which is this book.

Okay. All right. By the way, this is the most famous book about why mantras work.

In fact, the author was the highest tantric in Indian history. Duh! Okay.

Maybe there's a connection. All right. 8,000 pages of books about his ideas of tantra.

Maybe he knew what he was talking about.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
All right. What's the next picture? Tell me a story, somebody.

Great acclaims.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Now tell me the story. Come on. Don't make me repeat the story.

Geshe-la used to drive his lama for 20 years, every month. Yeah, we stopped at Howard Johnson next to Delaware Bridge. Probably they're going to have to put a clock there now.

Rinpoche would say, tell the lady I don't want the artificial cream. Meaning if it's created, it's not natural. We are creating the world.

It's very similar to powdered cream as opposed to real cream. Does it work? Well, that's a question.

Okay. Next picture. By the way, we moved on to chapter 15, which called An Investigation of RANG BZHIN.

For a hundred bucks, Tim, give me a nice translation for RANG BZHIN in this case, which means it's not the one you normally knew. It's not, I almost said it for you. It's not nature here.

I mean, there's a better word you could use. It's not self-existent. Well, what's a self-existent nature?

Give me the word. We found a better word. In fact, I'm going to change my translation.

[Speaker 2]
I don't know.

[Speaker 1]
Anyway, identity. Do things have an identity? Do they have a natural identity?

And the first example we have is, somebody explain the example to me. Is this the last picture, by the way? No, we still have some more.

Okay. What's happening here? Two ways to fall out.

In the kitchen, when you're having an argument with your husband, there's two extremes you can fall out. First one, which is the one that everyone falls off. What's the most common misunderstanding when you're having an argument with your husband?

It's not coming from me. I don't know what's wrong with him today. He's hungry.

He had a bad day. There was a lot of traffic. You make up all these reasons why he's being mean to you.

Then that's one extreme. He's coming from his own side. Now the second extreme is only fallen into by badly trained Buddhists.

[Speaker 2]
He doesn't exist.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. If he's not coming from his side, you always have to say if. If he's not coming from his side, then he doesn't exist.

Maya, illusion, he's not there at all. If the mantra doesn't exist the way I thought it existed, there is no mantra. If the mantra doesn't work the way I thought it did, there is no mantra.

Then you fell off of both edges of the bridge. What's the proper attitude about the mantra? It does work, but only if I try to protect.

If I try to protect. Yeah, if I load it like a stapler. Okay, good.

All right, nice answers. Let's go. We're almost done.

Hang in there. The next chapter, 16, by the way, we only get to 17 and we're done. Yay!

Was called An Investigation of Bondage and Freedom from Bondage. Chained up and breaking the chains, like Schwarzenegger. And this picture was called Removing the Handcuffs from a Nobody.

And it means, who's chained to what? Yeah, I'm chained to, or yeah, good. Or my body and mind.

I'm chained to a mortal body. As you get older, it becomes serious. When you're younger, it's like, okay.

But when you're later, you're like, the body's falling apart and then you realize you're chained to it. You cannot get away from it. And your mind is also, you're chained to your mind and neither one is healthy.

They are falling apart and then you can't get away. You're chained to it. Okay, all right?

So then the Gajanus say, no, the thing you think you're chained to is not real. You are chained to something you produced. You are chained to something you are seeing get old because you didn't take care of your seeds.

So just take care of your seeds and you won't be chained anymore. Got it? Okay, that's Freedom from Bondage.

Next one, you guys. This is chapter 17. Yay, we reached the last chapter, the chapter of the Investigation of Karma, which is a long chapter.

And we spent a couple of classes on it, two or three classes. So this represents cetana and cetaipa. Yeah, karma in the form of intention.

Yeah, karma in the form of intention. And then what you did, either good or bad intention. So when Buddha taught karma, it's interesting, I think, that the Garjuna first talks about karma in the context of thinking and doing what you sought to do.

He doesn't say 10 kinds of deeds or something like that. He says all karma is divided into what you're thinking and what you sought to do. Which is very, what school?

Lele Jigde Nagarjuna, didn't he say Madhyamaka? Abhidharma. Why is he so fixated on Abhidharma?

The other schools didn't exist yet. No Mind-Only School yet. No South Tantric School yet.

He's early. This stuff is old. This stuff is 2,000 years old.

The fact that you can read it a hundred generations later, that's like something. That says something about the lineage. The lineage has been kept.

It's very beautiful. Normally you can't even talk to your parents, right? No, I mean multiply that by a hundred.

It's a miracle that we can read this thing. It really says something about the lineage. It says something about the function of the lineage.

It kept it for 2,000 years. It's unbelievable. All right, yeah, two kinds of karma.

Thinking and what the thinking inspires you to do. Next one. $100.

Somebody tell me why this is relevant. $100. God, I'm giving away so much money.

You guys aren't excited. You're still like, $100.

[Speaker 2]
Who walked into the family reunion? Are you the same person when you walked in? Do I sound it?

The Seven Types of Karma.

[Speaker 1]
Say again?

[Speaker 2]
The Seven Types of Karma.

[Speaker 1]
That's a good guess, but it's wrong. What theme was happening in this chapter that might be shown in this picture? What is this picture?

What's happening? It's a waiting room. Yeah.

Yeah, good. Okay, yay, $100 for the young man. You're getting a lot of money today.

Yeah, where does the karma stay until it ripens? What's the... Okay, to earn the $100 now, if it was, if the karma was...

There's two problems. If it was...

[Speaker 2]
If it was unchanging.

[Speaker 1]
If it was unchanging...

[Speaker 2]
If it was unchanging, it couldn't produce anything.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, how can it... It couldn't produce anything. Yeah, it couldn't produce anything.

And if it was changing, if... It would never have to exist. No, if it was going in and out of existence, then how can it sustain?

How can it ripen? Okay, got it? All right.

How does karma wait until it opens? Okay, good. That's a big issue.

Okay, and this helps to answer that question. For $100, the next picture helps to answer the question. ,GCOD MI SA, $100, what's it mean?

[Speaker 2]
No, it says contractor.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, but what's that mean?

[Speaker 2]
It means like dollar, what is it? That's not dollar, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Just a little work.

[Speaker 1]
Hey, work it out. Then you can share the money. You have to have a GCOD MI SA BA.

You have to have this contract. What's the contract say? Don't go away or something.

Yeah, A, don't go away. A doesn't go away. Okay, what doesn't go away?

Karma, it stays with you until it ripens, until it opens. There's a contractual agreement between you and your karma. As soon as you do...

How many things? Anything. As soon as you do anything, you get a corresponding, don't go away.

I forget what we call it. As soon as you pick your nose, you just made like 10 don't go aways. And they stay with you.

And they help explain why the karma, whether it changes or it doesn't change, it stays with you. Because there's GLU, it's a GLU. It's a contractual agreement between you and your karmic seeds.

You stick with me until you open, okay?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, okay.

[Speaker 1]
Let's write a contract.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
You write a contract with your karmas and they stick with you until they open. Okay, right. Next picture.

Something rotten is making something rotten. It had to do with the first Arya truth and the second Arya truth. Second Arya truth has two parts.

First Arya truth is truth is suffering. The money's going down, down, down, down. Okay?

There's two parts. What, karma and...

[Speaker 2]
Or as a result, sorry, karma and negative emotions. It's karma and emotions.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Yeah, karma and negative emotions, okay? Karma and negative emotions.

If the cause is crappy, then the result is crappy, okay? If the apple is rotten, then the apple pie that you make from it is going to taste bad, okay? What's that mean?

If the karma and the negative emotions are impure, meaning, good, self-existent, how could they make a... Yeah, how could they make a pure result? How could you get a changing result from an unchanging action?

Okay? If the action was not empty, then the action would be... If the action had an identity, then it couldn't change.

And if it still made a result, life would be weird. Then you'd have to be really super careful because results would pop up without doing anything. And even in the normal world, they will complain if you get...

Watermelon. No, lettuce growing all over the yard, which you didn't plant. Even in the normal world, people say something's weird.

Got it? Okay. All right.

I think we have one more teaching, maybe. No? Is that the last picture?

Oh, okay. Did we do the last picture? Oh, we didn't do the movie picture?

Let's do it. I'll explain it and we'll call it a day. This is a...

Okay. Yeah, you can make some money here. $300, last thing, last part of the course.

They are free. Then grandpa can go home and take a nap. Or have 20 minutes.

For $300... I'll tell you what the picture was about, okay? The picture was about...

Do you realize this picture was... What do you call it? Scripted.

It's not... The picture's not real. Somebody paid somebody to come and stand there so they could take a picture of them making a movie.

So you got to... It's all fake. This picture is fake.

Somebody paid somebody to pretend they were making a movie. And the movie is also pretending. Got it?

Isn't it a clever picture? Come on, give me some credit. Okay, now listen.

This is not a picture of people making a movie. It's all fake. Somebody paid them to come and stand there.

They took a picture. They charged me $5 for this picture. Because it's fake.

It's a fake picture of somebody making a... Fake picture. For $300, tell me the connection to the last part of the stuff that we studied.

[Speaker 2]
You're lying.

[Speaker 1]
What's the last thing we talked about in the last class?

[Speaker 2]
That's the thing it's fake to begin with.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, but what was the example? Come on. Yeah, it's a different apple.

Boy, that's a short attention period. What apple were we talking about in the last class, at the end of the last class? Say again.

No. What apple were we talking about?

[Speaker 2]
It's a tree, but I don't know. We were talking about an apple tree. Apple tree.

I'm not sure. The emanation?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, keep going. You're going to make $300. Keep going, keep going.

[Speaker 2]
So there was a tree.

[Speaker 1]
There was a tree.

[Speaker 2]
There was a tree.

[Speaker 1]
Emanated by?

[Speaker 2]
Emanated by the Buddha.

[Speaker 1]
Is it the Buddha?

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
It's not really Buddha, because you can't climb Buddha and pick his tree.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Then what did the tree do?

[Speaker 2]
It made an apple.

[Speaker 1]
Apple. And what did the apple do? It made a worm.

It made a worm. Okay. How many real trees, apples, and worms there?

Zero. Zero. Why is that relevant to a discussion of karma?

You already got $300, but somebody can help you. Why are we talking about that? The other guy said, look, if it's fake, it's not karma and result.

And we said, all karma and results are fake. Come on. You're telling me Buddha can't emanate?

That's also fake, but it's real, isn't it? You can climb the tree. You can eat the apple.

Okay. That's why the worm is there. What do the tree, the apple, and the worm represent in karma?

In karma. What's the three things going on in karma? Similar to the path you had in lockdown, similar to the path you walked on, similar to the impossible line between you.

Somebody does something. It continues, and then it opens. Got it?

Cool. It's all unreal, but you can use it. It's all unreal, but you can use it.

That's all. When you do the Medicine Buddha mantra, and you cure someone's cancer, it's totally possible. But only if it's empty.

Only if the energy of the mantra is coming from saving life, from respecting all life on this planet, then you give power to the mantra. And then the mantra can cure somebody's cancer. But if you don't understand that, then the mantra is kind of like a paper house or something.

It's there, but it's not good luck if you want to keep the rain out or something. Got it? Understand that a mantra is empty, and you have to put your karma into it, and then it will work.

So you can't sit around doing mantras without trying to save the environment. I mean, that's a simple way to help 80 billion living creatures. Plant a tree, then do your mantras.

Yay, that will be a real tree. Okay, so thanks for coming to Nengarjuna Course. I'd like to thank Tim for, I don't know, my God.

He's really a master to get things done. And I don't know how he does all the things he does. It's kind of, must be emanation.

And then Pachi and Pao, thank you for coming from Mexico and helping us to film. And it makes it fun also. It's a lot more fun for me if I have more friends here.

Thank you, Rebecca, for coming from Los Angeles to help run the whole thing with your great cinematics and photographic skills. Thank you, Nirmal Ali, for driving me here and paying all my bills, especially my student debt bills. And thank you, Gyelse, for Diamond Mountain and for keeping this building in good shape so we can have these classes here.

Yay, thanks to everybody. And Christina Kasica for keeping all our stomachs filled during the filming. So we had a great team here and I am really grateful.

And thank you, Choney Lama, and thank you, John Brady, for saving Choney Lama. Okay, all right, see you guys later.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.