Нагарджуна, курс 5 — Мудрость Арьи Нагарджуны, курс 5: Будда Медицины и мудрость Нагарджуны (2023, Аризона), занятие 3

[Speaker 1]
Welcome back. Can you guys show the next item, it's number 16, 5.16. It's a person praying. Yeah, so as I mentioned, we're about to start talking about the prayers that we make to the Medicine Buddha gang of seven and a half Buddhas.

Well, the seven are traditional, and then Shakyamuni is like the... He's the manager of their group. It's like BTS and their manager.

Okay, so anyway, we're going to be... Again, there's an emphasis now in the new sadhana of praying, of including yourself in the prayers. And just, that's all.

And it's a slight change in your mental, instead of praying for the whole world. In fact, I remember when I did... When you graduate from Princeton, you have to write a thesis.

As an undergraduate, you have to write a thesis, and two theses, one junior year, one senior year. And for my senior thesis, I wrote something about Gampopa, who's a famous scholar, famous Buddhist teacher. And I wrote something about his book, and the perfection of giving.

And then you have to do a dissertation defense. You get questioned by your professors, and it's very frightening. So you have to go into the office, and three of the professors from your department will ask you questions about your thesis.

So I went in and I had my defense, and I still remember the main question they asked was, when you do these prayers in Buddhism, do you also pray for yourself? When you do prayers for all living beings, does it include yourself? And then you're like, oh yeah, it does.

I am one of those living beings. So there's a big emphasis in the Fifth Dalai Lama Sadhana of when you pray for all living beings, you appreciate that you are one of them. Are you the most important of them?

No. Are you the least important of them? No.

You're kind of equal. And that's a refreshing thing to think about. So this picture was meant to remind you when you do the prayers to the medicine Buddhists this week in your meditations.

And Tim told me you're focusing more on sort of afternoon retreat time rather than three days in the middle. So during your retreat time, then just don't forget that when you pray for all living beings, there's one in your room. And they get equal time, equal attention.

And it's very easy to forget that. It's typical for people to forget that. But in this sadhana, it's really emphasized that you are also their, something?

No, no, no. Tell Teddy to be quick, what? Okay, good.

Just kidding. All right, next idam, you guys. This is the order in which, this is the rest of the sadhana that we're going to be doing this week.

And that's all. We're going to have entreaties. Entreaty means please help me.

Entreaty means please help me. And we're going to go through the medicine Buddhists in this order. Convocation means there's 6,000 people at the stadium.

And you're going to do just a general prayer to all the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas. Each Buddha has, I don't know, 500 bodhisattvas. It's about the same as, when you think about scale, think about the same as that stadium.

And then we're going to have specific entreaties. And they're different for each Buddha. And there are different requests for each Buddha.

And we're going to be going through some of the main ones in class. So you can listen to them in class and then you can do them when you get home. Now I'm going to start mixing in emptiness teachings.

And now I'm going to start mixing in Arya Nagarjuna and his most famous book called Wisdom. And they're going to help you with your sadhana. When you make the prayers to the eight Buddhas, it's very important to have an emptiness understanding.

So here we go. And by the way, it's difficult. The book is difficult.

Nagarjuna is difficult. And that's just the way it is. Emptiness is not easy.

And emptiness is not instinctive. It has to be learned. It's not something that people naturally understand.

Nobody. Nobody ever did, nobody ever will. You need training.

It's like learning to ride a bicycle or something. You need someone to teach you. And so we're going to have specific exercises that Nagarjuna will suggest for understanding emptiness.

But it takes work. It takes some work. Okay, and here we go.

And it's not easy. When I used to have trouble sleeping in the monastery, I used to read his poetry. And it just put me to sleep right away.

And so, it could save you a lot of money on sleeping pills and stuff. All right, so here's that first, next item, you guys. Yeah, how different am I from one of these Buddhas?

How different am I from one of these Buddhas? Am I different from them? Or am I somehow the same?

And that's a big subject for Nagarjuna's 23rd, I think, chapter, 22nd, sorry. Yeah, 22nd chapter. Okay, we're on the 22nd chapter, which is called An Investigation of...

Of what? Tathagata. Yeah, someone who has reached the goal.

It's An Investigation of Buddhas, chapter 22. How many chapters total? 27.

And the 22nd chapter that we're starting with is An Investigation of an Enlightened Being. What's an enlightened being look like? What are they made of?

And the first question here is, how am I different from an enlightened Buddha? What's the difference between me and an enlightened Buddha? Are we basically different, or are we basically the same?

And we're going to go through this question. Here's the verse. And I...

You guys ready for the next? Yeah. We do have the Sanskrit of Arya Nagarjuna.

We have the original language that he wrote in. I learned it from the Tibetan translation, which was done about a thousand years ago. But somehow the Sanskrit is more poetic to me because it's him writing.

It's his original writing. So each time I give you a verse, I will give you the simple Sanskrit. I call it simplified Sanskrit, anglicized Sanskrit.

Easy for English readers to read. And I broke it up according to kind of... In a way that would be easy for English speakers to pronounce.

But then I also wanted to offer you the chance to pronounce it correctly. And that's in the second, in the italics here. That's the actual exact pronunciation.

So the first two lines is sort of like normal English speaker's pronunciation. And then the next two lines is the technical, is how an Indian, how a Sanskrit person would pronounce it. And so you can choose either one you want.

If you want to recite these verses or memorize them, you can choose either one. The third group, pungpo, is the Tibetan. And that's the Tibetan translation.

Tibetan translation is normally two times as many lines as the Sanskrit. And then I have the English translation, which is sometimes three times as long as the Sanskrit. English is not an economical language.

Chinese is very economical. So anyway, here we go. I'm going to pronounce it, for good luck, correctly.

And then you're welcome to pronounce it generally, in general pronunciation. SKAN DAG NA GNAN YOD, SKAN DE'I RGYOD NAS means SKAN DAG NA DE ZHUGS SOGS THA THAG TU THAGS SKAN DAG BA NA NA THA THAG TU THAGS, sorry. THA THAG TU THAGS SKAN DAG BA NA THA THAG TU THAGS, THA THAG TU THAGS Okay, that's the Sanskrit.

They are not their body and mind. They are not something else than their body and mind. They have no body and mind.

They are not in their body and mind. Those gone thus, Tathagata, right? Have no body and mind.

Where then are they? All right, and this is very, very typical Nagarjuna. And many, many generations have misunderstood it.

Many, many. Many, many people had ridiculous ideas about these lines. Many, many generations.

Whole generations. Whole schools of Buddhism didn't understand anything about what he said. And they made up ridiculous things, like you're not there.

You don't have a body and mind. You should go sit in the snow. Really, Nagarjuna's wincing?

Oh, ow, like wow, they really misunderstood. So I guess the thing you can say about Nagarjuna is he's the greatest writer of emptiness in history, and he's the most misunderstood writer of emptiness in history. And you have to be trained what he's talking about or you will make a mistake.

He's not saying you don't have any body and you don't have any mind. He's not saying that. And when you're reading Nagarjuna, okay?

And it's one of my, it's one of the things I do with my whole life is to read Nagarjuna. I just read Nagarjuna. People say, what's your occupation?

People ask me on airplanes, what's your occupation? I say, I read Nagarjuna. And it's a lifetime thing.

And once you know the keys, it's not difficult and you will get a good explanation. And we are in a lineage, Tsongkapa's lineage. We are Tsongkapians.

He's 100% correct and he understood it perfectly. And I don't think maybe anyone ever has except him. So that's your lineage.

And it's been passed down very, very, very carefully. Very well. I spend all day with this stuff.

I spent three days on Xiaoping's Monday night class. I spent three days on the one hour class. I mean, I'm talking 12, 14, 15 hours on her one hour class and I didn't finish yet.

I'm still working on it. And it's extremely deep and it's extremely difficult. Your book is interesting.

And we'll talk more about it Monday. But she translated a book about Buddhist morality, Vinaya. Of all the translators, her book is probably the oldest.

It is exactly two and a half thousand years old. And it's very difficult. And it's the 253 vows for monks and 364 vows for nuns and all the other vows.

She had a detailed commentary of over 600 vows and it took us seven years to finish it. We will probably finish Monday night. We're on the last page now.

Whether she can get through it, I don't know. But it's very, very deep and very difficult. And the language is very ancient.

It's like reading Chinese from 3,000 years ago or something. It's very difficult to read. And we had to use John Brady's database constantly.

And we had to consult other books. There's about, I don't know, 50,000 pages of Vinaya commentaries input by John Brady. 50,000 pages.

And we have a search program. We can ask it a question and in one second we can get an answer from 50,000 pages. If we don't understand what a vow, there's a vow that nuns are not allowed to wrap their spice packages in thread.

So if you see Ali doing it, let me know. And it comes from a story of a naughty nun who was pretending that she couldn't wrap her spice package in thread. So she asked a handsome monk to help her.

But here's this whole story. We have no idea why aren't nuns allowed to wrap their spice packages with certain kinds of threads. And every time we had a question, we found the answer in another book that was written 450 years ago.

And every time we searched the database, we kept hitting the same book. And then I said, we should translate that book. And that's like a 30 year project.

It's a huge commentary. By a person who lived about almost 600 years ago. So here's the thing.

I was studying, getting ready for your book because you might start the new book on Monday night. We don't know. I think so.

And I studied all the times we found our answers there. And there's two books. It's not one book.

It's two books. The answers we found were in two different books by the same person and with the same title. And they're not the same.

So for seven years, every time we had a question, we searched the book. We found all the answers in this one book, but it turns out to be two books with the same name and rewritten. He wrote an 8,000 page book and then he rewrote it.

Which one are you going to translate? What are we going to do? In this lineage, what I'm trying to say is this lineage is extremely careful and Nagarjuna is presented correctly.

And I don't think you will see it anywhere else. I don't think you can find it anywhere else. And people always coming to me, I met a teacher in the airport.

He looks nice. And I'm like, I don't mean to criticize other traditions. I really don't, but they're wrong.

Okay, 90%, 99% mistaken. Just mistaken. It's like teach you how to fix a car and you break the car.

It's like that. There's a way to fix a car. I tried.

My teacher, here's my teacher. 1976. He's like, my watch broke, fix my watch.

I'm like, what? He said, fix my watch. I said, well, I don't know if I can.

He said, aren't you American? I said, yeah, I'm American. He said, it says made in America.

You fix it. I said, look, just because it's made in America doesn't mean I know how to fix it. And he kept doing it.

He kept doing it over and over again. His car broke. His car broke.

He said, fix the car. I said, I have never touched a car in my life. I don't know anything about cars.

He said, teach yourself. And I did. I learned how to, I took the whole engine apart.

And I broke it. It never ran again. It started.

It ran okay for like a day and then it broke on the Verrazano Bridge. This is one of the highest and longest bridges in the United States. It broke at the top.

And anyway, what I'm saying is it's very similar to a car engine. Nagarjuna is very similar to a car engine. It's very deep.

It's very complex. There's a correct way to read it. And everyone else, all the other ways to read it are wrong.

And you will break it. And it won't work and it will hurt you. You'll be up at the top of the bridge at midnight driving some llama back from Kennedy Airport.

And it broke at the top. And I got out in the middle of traffic on the highest bridge in New York at midnight. And there was a windstorm.

And I'm trying to get this stupid car to work. And I'm saying Nagarjuna is very similar. There's a correct thing he's saying and then there's 99 things he's not saying.

And I have never seen any other lineage that explains it correctly. So ask me. I met a teacher in the airport, Geshe-la.

He looks really nice. And I'm like, yeah, okay. But don't ask me the details.

Don't ask me if they can teach you emptiness because they can't. And I'll say it openly. And I'll say it frankly, cannot.

And they're nice and they can ring the bell at the right place and that's okay. But they don't understand this. I've never met one like that.

So this lineage is unbelievable. And I'm not saying it out of loyalty. I'm saying it out of, just if you know how to fix this car, the car will run.

And if you don't know how to fix it, you'll mess it up. And I've seen it a thousand times. Don't ask me about lamas in the airport.

If they understand this, if they can explain it correctly, then yes, they're a nice person. But otherwise, you cannot see emptiness directly and you will suffer and you will die. So it's your choice.

And that's all. And I'm sorry. That's just the way it is.

And all the rest is nice and I love them and I hang out with them. But they can't teach you this. And you need it.

To see emptiness directly, you need it. If you don't learn it, you can't. And I have to say that, right?

I'm like, trust your Tesla to someone who can fix a Tesla or don't take it to them, okay? Really, okay? I'm not saying because I don't like the other car dealers.

I'm just saying they can't fix it. All right? I blew it up, I know.

All right, here we go. They are not their body and mind. They are not something else than their body and mind.

We're going to go to understand that. We're going to go to, the real word here in the Sanskrit is skandha. Say skandha.

Skandha means one of the five parts of you. Skandha means one of the five parts of you. I have translated skandha here as body and mind.

In English, we don't say, hey Teddy, you are made of your five skandhas. We say you have your body and you have your mind. You are your body and mind.

We say that in English. We don't have the word five skandhas. What is skandha?

Skandha means one of your parts. In normal English, we say body and mind. Who are you?

You are the combination of your body and mind. That's normal. In Buddhism, we never say just body and mind, rarely.

We say you are your five skandhas. Your five skandhas. Skandha is an ancient word that means pile of leaves.

Pile of leaves, like a big bunch of stuff. Like a whole pile of stuff. What did your bedroom look like just before you left for the airport?

Piles of stuff everywhere. Some of it made it into my suitcase. Most of it's still there.

My family's dealing with it. There's piles of stuff all over my room. So in Buddhism, we don't say body and mind.

We say piles of stuff. You are five piles of stuff. We don't say you are your body and mind.

We don't say that. But if you're trying to communicate to a normal English speaker, and you say, are you your five piles of stuff or not? And then they're like, what?

Maybe. I did clean my room. So here I've translated as body and mind.

But I want to explain to you why Buddha didn't use body and mind. Because you can't understand Nagarjuna if you don't understand what he's saying you are not. He says you are not your body and mind.

And the Buddha is not their body and mind. The medicine Buddhas are not their body and mind. We are marrying Nagarjuna to the medicine Buddhas.

We're having a big ceremony at the fire offering. We are doing a marriage, by the way, at the fire offering. But we're marrying these two books.

Nagarjuna is explaining what the medicine Buddhas are made of. And if you don't know what a medicine Buddha is made of, it's probably not going to work to pray to the medicine Buddhas to help a sick person, for example. To try to get medicine Buddha's assistance to help a sick person with your medicine Buddha practice.

But you don't know who they are or where they are, it probably won't work. If you understand who they are, the prayers will work. If you don't understand who they are, they might not work.

Understand? If you understand how a car works, maybe you can fix it. If you have no idea how a car works, I suggest you take it to somebody else.

Okay, got it? I had the experience, I blew up my teacher's car. There's a special feeling when you blow up your teacher's car.

And I'll never forget it. And he never asked me again to fix his car, which was the real go away, hell you go. Okay.

Okay, so next verse, you guys, and we'll come back to this verse. Can you just show that idim? Can you show the lady with the brain?

Yeah, Geshe Michael's having fun with artificial intelligence. My particular computer specializes in artificial stupidity. I call it A.S. and other things. A.S.S. sometimes, but it's an A.I. So I said, I told the A.I., I need a lady with a brain in her hand. He did pretty good, I think. He does lots of weird ones that I'm not going to show you.

My wife, finally, she said, stop asking me to come see the funny mistakes that the A.I. made. You know? She refused.

One day, she's in the kitchen. I said, you got to see this one. You know?

She said, I'm not looking at your A.I.'s mistakes anymore. Just leave it. But this one he did okay.

If in normal English and all over the world you say body and mind, why in Buddhism do you have to say those piles of stuff? Why do you have to say piles of stuff? Why did Nagarjuna say the medicine Buddhas are not their piles of stuff?

And they're not, not their piles of stuff. And they're not, both not and not their piles of stuff. Why did he say that?

Why did he say piles of stuff? And I want to teach you about why in Buddhism do we say piles of stuff and we don't say body and mind. And it's a famous, famous, famous question.

And it's answered in the Abhidharmakosha by Vasubandhu. What is it? PHUNG PO, I want to say it a couple of times.

PHUNG PO RNAM LAS TSOR BA DANG DU SHES BLO BZHI PHUNG PO ZHAG PHUNG PO RNAM LAS TSOR BA DANG DU SHES BLO BZHI PHUNG PO ZHAG KHOR BA'I RGYUD CHER RIM RGYUD CHER PHUNG PO RNAM LAS KHOR BA'I RGYUD CHER RIM RGYUD CHER KHOR BA'I RNAM LAS TSOR BA DANG DU SHES BLO BZHI PHUNG PO ZHAG That's the verse in the Abhidharmakosha. Why do we talk about the five piles of stuff? Why don't we talk about body and mind?

And he says there is body and mind, but you have to split up the mind part. You can say body and mind, that's okay. And the whole argument of Nagarjuna can be you are not your body and mind, but it's useful to split the mind up.

It's useful to split the mind part up. And then the question is why? And he says, because it causes all your trouble.

,GCOR BA'I RGYUD KHYER RIM RGYUD KHYER, ,GCOR BA'I RGYUD KHYER means there's certain parts of your mind that cause your deathality, mortality. The fact that you can die is caused by certain parts of your mind. So we never say body and mind.

We say body and the different parts of your mind, some of which can kill you. Okay, I'll say it again. Do we talk about body and mind?

Yes. Do we ever call it body and mind? No.

What do you call it? Body and the mind which includes parts in it which is going to kill you. And every time we talk about you, and every time we talk about your body and your mind, we want to remind you that there's time bombs in your mind that will kill you.

And if you can get them out, you don't have to die. You don't have to die. So we never say body and mind in Buddhism.

We say your body and your mind which includes parts which are going to kill you. And then hopefully people think, well, maybe I'll get rid of those parts. And yeah, that's why we don't say body and mind.

Thank you. So every time we talk about your parts, every time we talk about who you are, we're not going to say your body and mind. We're never going to say your body and mind.

We're going to say your body and your mind which includes parts which are going to kill you. And then hopefully one day you'll say, boy, it'd be nice to get rid of those parts. And that's, I don't know, that's why Lord Buddha demanded that we don't say body and mind.

We say body and the mind which includes parts which are going to kill you. So we don't have this lady, we don't have this body and mind. She's supposed to represent body and mind.

That's what I asked the AI to make, body and mind. She did okay. What's in her head, I don't know.

But there's parts in your mind. Now, what are those parts? Let's talk about them.

And that's the next verse. You guys ready? ,DE BA DAG MU LA SANGS SARA, ,HE THOD BAR GRAM MA GANG RANG, ,CHAG THAB YOD, ,DE DER NA SANGS NYID PAR, ,THAG SKAN DAG NI DE ZHIG LTA'O, That's the Sanskrit.

Okay, Abhidharmakosha. Very, very famous. Why do we separate out from all the mental functions?

How many mental functions? Forty-six or fifty-one. Am I right?

Fifty-one or fifty-two actually? Fifty-one. Forty-six or fifty-one.

Depends on what school. Depends on what source he is. Of all the mental functions, why do we say two parts of your mind which cause trouble?

Why do we separate out two parts of your mind? Out of the 46 mental functions in Buddhist psychology. Buddhism has a very sophisticated psychology from 1700 years ago.

Much better than modern psychology, actually. But they say two of the functions of your mind are troublemakers. Two of the functions of your mind actually precipitate your death.

If you could fix them, you wouldn't have to die. So here they are. Of all the mental functions, let's take out feelings and discrimination.

Your capacity to feel and your capacity to discriminate. These are two of the, let's say 46 mental functions in the Abhidharmakosha. These are two of the, in Buddhist psychology, the capacity to feel is mental.

Although you do it through your body sometimes. And the capacity to discriminate. So, feeling, your capacity of feeling is divided into either three or five feelings.

Three is the easy way. It's good feeling, bad feeling, and in between. You can split the bad and the good into two.

You can say mental or physical. You can say good physical feeling, good mental feeling, bad physical feeling, bad mental feeling. And then they say neutral.

And then somebody says, well, why did he say split neutral into body and mind, physical and mental? Well, it's so vague that it doesn't deserve to be split. When you're feeling, when you're not aware of feeling bad, and you're not aware of feeling good, you tend to not think about how you're feeling.

Got it? When you feel too hot, you feel. When you feel too cold, you feel.

When the temperature is like medium, you don't notice it. So therefore, we don't split neutral feeling into two kinds. We don't worry about it.

Got it? The capacity to feel is one of the 46 parts of your mind which is causing all your trouble. The capacity to feel is one of the 46 parts of your mind which is causing you all your trouble.

The other one is your tendency to discriminate. This is good, this is bad. She's nice, she's not nice.

This is too hot, this is too cold. I like this, I don't like that. The capacity of discrimination.

These are two mental functions. GOR BA'I RGYUD KHYER RIM RGYUD KHYER RIM RGYUD KHYER in the Sanskrit is HETUD BAD KRAMA KARANAM. Krama means there's a step-by-step process to how these two mental functions cause you trouble.

These two mental functions of all the mental functions in your mind, 46, these two cause all of your problems. Why? Then he says, krama.

It's a step-by-step thing. It's a step-by-step thing. What is it?

They are the root of conflict and they are the cause of samsara. They are the root of all conflict. Here it is, very easy.

All human conflict comes from discriminating. This makes me feel good and this makes me feel bad. All human conflict comes from discrimination.

I like this person. I don't like this person. This person belongs to my country and this person belongs to your country and discriminate.

I discriminate between the two countries. This is the root of all conflict and that's based on feeling. I like people who eat the same food as me and have the same color of skin and I don't like people who eat other kinds of food and have different color skin.

These two habits, discrimination based on feeling, is the cause of all conflict and of all samsara. It's the cause of all bad karma. Instead of referring to ourselves as body and mind, why don't we make an agreement today?

Whenever I ask you, what's your parts? You're going to say, the five parts, including two, which cause all the trouble. Then hopefully, if you have to repeat it every day, instead of body and mind, now you got to say five piles of stuff.

Two of them are trouble. Hopefully, you'll remember the next time you have an argument with someone or you see a person who is different from you, different religion, different face, different hair or no hair. Hopefully, if we don't call you the combination of your body and mind, and for the rest of your life, I call you the three good parts and the two bad parts, hopefully, you'll remember to be careful with your discrimination.

Be careful with your discrimination. It's very, very hard. It wouldn't be in the Abhidharmakosha if we all didn't do it.

We all do it. We all judge other people on their skin color, on the country they come from, on the food they eat, on the language they speak. We all do it.

We all do it. So he says, let's remind ourselves every time we speak about body and mind. Buddha said, I don't want you talking about body and mind.

I want you talking about the five parts of you, two of which screw you up. Okay, got it? Forever.

We're going to talk about now. But when you're translating a class and you're translating poetry especially, I translated this for the peacock parenting class, which hopefully you'll be able to see in a few months. They're working on the video.

We're going to have one peacock parenting class here this week because I wasn't happy with one class. I want to redo it. But I translated this verse to use in that class because that class is based on poetry.

It's how to be a good parent based on world poetry, which is a cool concept, I think. We're going to teach you how to be a good parent based on poetry. And more than that, a person who has never been a parent is going to teach the class.

It wasn't my idea, all right? I'm just going along with it. All right, so here's a new question for you.

Why did Nagarjuna take the Buddhas for this chapter of discussing the parts to a person? Why didn't he take just anybody? Why didn't he say all human beings are made of body and mind and they are not their body and mind in the way you think they are?

Why didn't he just say it that way? Why did he choose Buddhas, body and mind?

[Speaker 2]
Because we think that Buddhas exist self-existently as well.

[Speaker 1]
Well, here's the answer. And it's deep. It's very deep.

It's very deep and it's difficult. Buddhas are also made of body and mind. Buddhas are also made...

The medicine Buddhas are also made of body and mind. The medicine Buddhas... I need a sharpie.

Anybody have a sharpie or a pen? Pen with the top on it? Can I borrow it?

Thank you. Oh, that's best. I like sharpies.

Mind and body. Body and mind. So Buddhas are made of their body and mind.

If you're Abhidharma school, this has different parts. Two of them cause you trouble. But we're just talking normal English body and mind.

Buddhas are body and mind. Before they became a Buddha, were they body and mind? Yeah.

So Buddhas are made of their body and mind and normal people are made of their body and mind. He doesn't talk about normal people in this chapter. He says, DOS GANG DAS, Tathagata.

It means Buddhas, enlightened beings. They are not their body and mind. And he doesn't talk about normal people.

But do you have a body and mind before you become a Buddha? Do you have a body and mind after you become a Buddha? Before you become a Buddha, are you your body and mind?

Is this top and this bottom the pen? I'll tell you, when you teach this thing, when you say, is this thing, is the top and the bottom the pen? And somebody says, no.

Then you say, come here, I'll give you a mustache. And they're like, ew, no. Especially if it's a lady.

You say, come here. Somebody says, the pen is not the top and the bottom together. And I said, oh really?

So it's not a pen? They said, no. I said, come here.

I'm going to put a mustache on your face. They're like, no. And I said, come on, it's almost Halloween.

They're like, no, no. Then you do believe it's a pen. You really do believe it's a pen.

Don't tell me you don't believe it's a pen. You won't let me put that body and mind on your upper lip. You must believe it's a pen.

Only one person let me do the mustache. It was a guy in Florida. So anyway, is the pen the top of the pen and the bottom of the pen?

So it's not a chutoy. Right? Huh?

Is it a pen? Oh yeah, good, to whom? Now you did change your answer, okay.

You have to say to whom, okay? Is it to whom? Okay, you ready?

Is a Buddha their body and mind? Good. To whom?

Okay, let's do it again. You ready? Is a Buddha their body and their mind?

Then you have to say to whom. And that's the correct answer. To say they are or to say they are not is incorrect.

Okay? And by the way, in a debate, if the question could be misinterpreted, you are required to ask for a clarification. I'll say it again.

In a debate, if the question is a trick question and it could be answered in two ways, you fail as a defender if you don't ask for a clarification. Is a Buddha their body and mind? Yeah, to whom?

Okay, in a debate, that's called clarifying the question. If you fail to clarify the question, you lost the debate already because both answers are correct. No and yes are both correct.

Is this top and bottom a pen? Yeah, to whom? If you say yes, you're wrong.

And if you say no, you're wrong. Okay, got it? That's the key of Nagarjuna's poetry here.

Is a Buddha their mind and their body? Yeah, to whom? What's that say for $100?

What's that say about the process of not being a Buddha and then becoming a Buddha? I'll drink orange juice. You're correct.

She has laryngitis, which makes her a great debater today. And Miss Nguyen has laryngitis. Yeah, that's all.

It's coming from the perceiver. Is a Buddha their body and mind? To whom?

To a person who has the seeds to see a Buddha. Yeah, they are. Okay, got it?

Even themselves, even to themselves, are they a Buddha? So that applies to people who not Buddha yet. Is a person who's not a Buddha yet a person who's not a Buddha yet?

Yeah, to whom? Beautiful, beautiful people. Nice.

Is a person who's not a Buddha yet their body and their mind? The combination of their body and mind. Is a person who's not a Buddha yet the combination of their body and mind?

Yeah, and you have to say to whom. To whom? If you see a person in that body and mind, it's coming from you.

It's the same as the pen. Let's go back to the verse and see if it makes sense. Buddhas are not their body and mind.

Make sense? The medicine Buddhas that you are asking for help are not their mind and their body. Yes or no?

Yeah, they're not. So far we can say they're not. Because I'm saying to nobody, right?

Are they something other than their body and mind? Are they rocks and plants or something? To whom?

Yeah, and there's many cases of people meeting a Buddha as a tree, or as a bridge, or as a song. Like that. They correctly perceive a song as a Buddha, or they correctly perceive their children as a Buddha.

You know, okay? So are Buddhas their body and mind? I don't know, we can't say yet.

Are they something else than their body and mind? We can't say yet. Do they have a body and mind?

We can't even say. Now, the second part here is called the raw data question. The second part here is called the raw data question.

What's raw data question? Is this a pen? Yeah, to whom?

Is this a black cylinder and is this a white cylinder? Yeah, to whom? You have to keep saying to whom.

Even the parts in the highest school of Buddhism. By the way, who invented the high school of Buddhism? Nagarjuna.

Traditionally we say Nagarjuna. The highest teachings of emptiness, the founder is considered Nagarjuna. Do Buddhas have a body and mind?

He says they don't have a body and mind. The raw data of a Buddha, the top and the body of a pen, these also depend on who's looking. It's not a top of a pen by itself and it's not a bottom of a pen by itself.

The two together are not a pen by itself. I understand that's easy Geshe-la, the dog chews it. I understand that.

But doesn't the dog see a black cylinder and the human also sees a black cylinder and a white cylinder? What about a blind person? What about a blind person?

You see what I mean? Even the white color, even the black color, even the raw data of human experience is coming from you also. You made the bottom of the pen and you made the top of the pen.

You made the white and you made the black. It's coming from your mental states. Buddha's second part here, have no body and mind.

They are not inside their body and mind. You can look at the top of the pen, you can look at the bottom of the pen for the rest of your life, you won't find a pen. Can it be a pen?

Yeah, if the person has the seeds to see it as a pen and to get a mustache therefore, then yeah, you can see it as a pen. But from its own side, is it a pen? No, it's not, or else a dog couldn't chew on it.

Okay, got it? So does the poem make sense so far? Yeah, is the Buddha their body and mind?

I don't know, I don't know yet. Give me more information. Are there something else in their body and mind?

I didn't say that. I mean, there could be. Do they have a body and mind?

I don't know, depends on who's looking. I mean, lots of people can't recognize a sacred tree as a Buddha or their children as a Buddha or their dog. Some guy told me, my root lama is my dog, is that okay?

I'm like, if you see him that way, that's all right. It really is all right. And it really is true, it's okay.

They have no body and mind. They are not inside their body and mind. We're okay so far, right?

Let's go to the last one. Those gone thus have no body and mind. True or false?

They do have a body and mind. Of course they have a body and mind. I didn't say they didn't have a body and mind.

Yeah, you did, you just said they have no body and mind. I said they have no body and mind. I didn't say those gone thus have no body and mind.

Okay, got it? To themselves, in their own perceptions, they have a body and mind. I didn't say they didn't.

They do. Got it? You okay?

Everybody okay? It's the pen thing. Just keep remembering the pen thing.

So where are the Buddhas? Where are the Buddhas? Where are the medicine Buddhas?

Yeah, when you invite them, you're inviting them from your own mind. When you invite a medicine Buddha to come and negotiate that your uncle's cancer will go away, where do they come from? They're coming from you.

They're coming from you. If a Buddha is coming from you, is it true that they can't work? No, Geshe-la, it's the opposite.

The only way they can work is if they are coming from me. Wait, but you're not a Buddha and you're making Buddha? Yeah, no problem.

I got hot seeds today. Okay? Okay, got it?

You're not a Buddha, but you can make a Buddha. Yeah, that's no problem. I'm not a Buddha, but I have the seeds to have medicine Buddha come.

When I ask them to come to the stadium and I set up all the chairs, medicine Buddha arrives. Okay, got it? Are they coming from you?

Did you make them? Can they still do things for you that you cannot do for yourself? Yeah, got it?

Beautiful. You guys are well-trained by somebody and I appreciate your teachers. By the way...

We used to have five students, okay? In 19, I don't know, 05 or something. 19, what year was that?

1993. In 1993 when ACI started, 30 years ago. By the way, we're going to have 30th anniversary in Kyoto, okay?

But we had five students, okay? I had five students, okay? Now it's about 200,000, okay?

DCI itself is about 150-something thousand people, okay? And I'll tell you this morning's email account. 59,672 unread emails, okay?

59,672 unread emails. So people who knew me 20 years ago, 30 years ago, they're like, Geshe-la, can I just ask you a question? I'm like, yeah, except there's 100 and...

There's 200,000 of you now. And then I feel frustrated and I feel exhausted and I feel hurt that people don't understand. I said, do the math.

You're an engineer, Sugeng. He has an engineering degree from England. Let's do the math.

What is it? 200,000 times... I just need five minutes, Geshe-la, which is always a lie, okay?

Is a million. A million minutes divided by 60. It's 17,000 hours if I give five minutes to everybody.

And I'm not complaining. I spent my whole life to create those 200,000 people. I'm happy.

I feel a lot of happiness about that. It took me 50 years to create 200,000 students. But I don't have time to talk each one for five minutes.

It's totally impossible. I will die. You'll kill me.

So, I have a list of very qualified teachers. And if you ask them a question and if you ask me a question, I guarantee you, you're going to get exactly the same answer. I mean, if you just think I'm more handsome than Tim, that's true.

But otherwise, I trained them, some of them, for 30 years. And if they don't give you the same answer, I'll fire them. And I'm not saying I don't enjoy...

I love to talk to people. I grew up in a big family. I enjoy people.

I really enjoy people. So, I mean, and I'm not saying don't stop me and ask me a question. It's okay.

Go ahead. Take a shot. If I get grumpy, you understand why.

But I have a list of people in here who will give you exactly the same answer. Rebecca, can you stand up? I don't know, she's been my student since she was a teenager.

She still looks like a teenager. I'm kidding. How old were you when...

21. She was a college student here in New York. Venable Jigme, Venable Ellie, can you stand up?

Okay, yeah. Thank you. 25 years?

30 years? 30 years.

[Speaker 2]
More than 30 years.

[Speaker 1]
30 years. And 25 years she's been my personal assistant. So, thank you for that.

Gyal Seng. How long? 27 years.

If she don't give the same answer, I'll fire her. Rob Haggerty. How many years?

27. Okay. By the way, he's doing a lot of the...

He's also taking some of the personal assistant work because it's too much now. When Ellie started as my personal assistant, I had 10 students. Now I have 200,000.

So I'm expanding my capacity by 100%. If you need personal stuff, they both can help. All right.

Venable Synam. Right. She's a baby.

13 years. And she's sharper than the other ones. So she can give the same answer after only 13 years.

But very great. These are all great teachers. Tim Lowenhaupt.

He's a total baby. 13 years. All right.

Kat, Venable Kat. 20 years. Whoa.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
I remember the first meeting. I had just got out of three-year retreat and she was walking down the desert gully. I said, are you Kat?

She's like, yeah. And I said, I have work for you. Right?

Did I have work for you? Okay. And Rihanna, where are you?

How many years? 26. 26.

Yay. Okay. So don't say I can't teach a parenting course.

Ina, Ina. And her husband, Bill McMichael. I'll let you count it together.

23. Okay, cool. Yeah.

Okay, good. 33 combined. Yay.

They all studied... Also Anjali is here too. Anjali, hi.

Anjali. How many years? 18.

Oh, baby. Okay. They have all studied Vajrayana.

They have all studied Diamond Way. It takes a long time. I taught a seven year ACI course and it was required to take the Vajrayana course.

So 18 courses. It's about 20,000 pages of translation. Each page cost me many hours.

And then seven years of Vajrayana, which is 30,000 pages of translation. It's the best Vajrayana course in history. In the last 2,000 years.

I'm sure. I believe it. Then you need to...

You can ask them questions about Diamond Way. And I did not let them start Diamond Way until they finished the 18 foundation courses. I cheated on a few people.

A few people, they were really smart, really handsome. And I thought, okay, you don't have to do the whole 18 foundation courses. And they failed.

It wasn't a regular failure. It was a grand explosion. So I don't do it anymore.

I ask you, finish your 18 courses. It's for your benefit also. You will mess up yourself if you don't do the 18 courses first.

Then I said that and one guy, whose name I won't mention, he got all the answer keys of the 18 courses and he copied them out in one weekend. Which is itself, he should get credit. Because it's 30,000 pages of stuff.

So anyway, it was designed to take six or seven years for the 18 courses. If you want to work through them faster than that, I don't really mind. I guess you could do it in four years, five years, if you really work hard.

But part of the idea of taking seven years was that you would mature. Your thinking would mature and you would get older and you would have more life experiences and you would change in those seven years. Whether I teach you or not, in those seven years you will change.

You'll grow up. I have to say these 18, 20, 30 year olds, they were not like that when they got here. It was a long, hard process of growing up.

It takes time. You can technically try to copy out all the answer keys in two years or something, but you're just cheating yourself. You won't have a good experience in the Diamond Way.

So relax. It's the best courses in history and don't rush through them. If there's a long homework, just relax and do it.

Have fun. Don't think I'm trying to cheat you out of a year or something. Don't cheat yourself.

Take the time it takes. Everybody's in a big rush to get to Vajrayana and then they don't do the homework. When they get to Vajrayana, they say, well, what's the big deal?

And they fail. So do it the way Grandpa intended it. I mean, generally it was a 14 year experience.

Whether you studied for those 14 years or you don't study for those 14 years, inevitably you grow up during those 14 years. Whether you have a course or not. That's my experience.

But these people have experience. They've done the time. For every one of them, there's 10 or 20 people who disappeared.

So ask them questions. You don't have to ask me. You're going to get the same answer from them.

Trust me. I trained them, I know. Okay.

All right, Tim, where are we? Are we? So five minutes?

Yay. Do I go direct to my nap? No.

Okay, any questions from the audience? Online maybe? We have 200,000 students.

It's not possible for me to do what I did 10 years ago or 20 years ago. Please recognize that. It's not that I'm mean or I don't want to talk to people.

It's true. No, I really, really enjoy people. Those people who know me, you know I enjoy people.

It's physically I can't do it. All right, next.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, loud.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, Liana.

[Speaker 2]
I'm sorry, I'm probably the fullest person in this room because I know it's a lot of professionals here and I'm a brand new.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, good.

[Speaker 2]
For a year I tried to, every day I promised myself to listen to you about Japan.

[Speaker 1]
Wow.

[Speaker 2]
Every morning. I'm sorry, I don't get it. I tried to explain everyone.

I tried to explain my friend yesterday and I'm so confused even more and more. So I don't know if it's like seeds or it's my foolish brain. I have no idea but honestly I'm so sorry.

I don't get it.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, let's do the pen real fast.

[Speaker 2]
Please, please.

[Speaker 1]
By the way, when I invented the pen. By the way, the classical example is a white conch shell from the ocean. That's the classical example.

And I chose a pen. The logic was that everyone's always got a pen in their pocket but that was before cell phones. But cell phones don't work so good because dogs are not interested in that.

So I don't know, I'm going to stick with the pen for a while but it's losing its relevance. We got to find something. Anyway, and it's not a silly example and it's not philosophy.

It's just truth. It's just the way it is. When a dog looks at this, they don't see a pen.

Right? I mean it's not a big philosophy thing. When a dog looks at this, they don't see a pen.

What do they see? Chintoy. And a human sees a pen.

Who's correct? Yeah, and that proves that the thing is coming from them. If a dog sees a chintoy, it must be coming from them because if it's coming from itself, the human will see a chintoy.

Right? Logically. And by the way, I mean, the logic is undisputable.

You cannot argue with it. I never. I mean, I had the one guy in Florida, but that doesn't count.

I never had anybody disagree. Does it look like a pen to the human? Yeah.

Does it look like a chintoy to a young puppy who likes to chew things? Yeah, it does. Are they correct?

Yeah, and they're correct because of the function. A human can write with it and a dog can chew on it. Get some pleasure out of it.

Therefore, for them, it's a real chintoy. For them, it's a real pen. Now, listen, please, and I'll say it a hundred times.

It has to be coming from its side. Right? It has to be coming from me somehow.

It has to be. Why? Because the dog doesn't see a pen.

The dog sees something else. Please, please, please, please, please, understand one thing. It has to be true.

It's not me. It's not philosophy. It's not Buddhism.

It's not Buddhism. It's just true. Does a dog see a chintoy?

Does a human see a pen? Then that chintoy and that pen must be coming from the dog and must be coming from the human. That's all.

It's very simple. The pen is not coming from the pen. If the pen was coming from the pen, the dog would see a pen and the dog doesn't see a pen.

Therefore, the pen is not coming from the pen. It's coming from me somehow. You can say somehow.

Then the dog sees, they see the same thing and they want to chew on it. Listen. Please, please, please, listen.

If the dog sees a chintoy and if the human sees a pen, then the whole world is coming from you. You can't deny it. There's no argument in any language, in any philosophy, in any human being.

There's nothing you can say. You can't prove it wrong. It must be coming from you.

If the dog sees one thing and the human sees a different thing, then everything's coming from you. Must be, must be, must be. That's all.

Be careful when you say, when I ask you, is this pen coming from you? Be careful before you go like that. Because this means every asshole I ever met was coming from me.

Every dictator, every murderer, every warmonger, every nuclear bomb maker came from one place. You. All right?

Cool? And then if you want to fix it, there's only one thing you can fix. And that's Buddhism.

The pen is Buddhism. The pen itself is Buddhism. You don't need any other Buddhism.

You can't blame anybody for anything. If the pen is true, and logically it's true, you cannot blame a single other person for anything. Everything's your fault.

But every beautiful thing is also coming from you. Every beautiful person you ever met, every sunset at Diamond Mountain. I keep getting photos of the dawn at Diamond Mountain from Kat because I'm never awake to see it.

But you also created all the beauty in the world. Every beautiful person. You created Lord Buddha.

You created all the happiness in the world. You yourself gave birth to every kid in the world, including my granddaughter. And so there's a lot of joy there too.

If the pen is coming from you, and listen, no one can deny it. No one in the world. No one can prove that this is not coming from you.

No one. It's not provable. Cannot prove it.

It must be coming from you because of the dog thing. Then the world is in your hands. Then the future of the world is in your hands.

Don't complain about bad people. You made them. Then change them.

Fix them. You're the only one who can. You're the only one who can.

Stop blaming other people. Geshe-la, does that mean I shouldn't try to stop a bad person when they're trying to kill somebody? I didn't say that.

If there's a bad person trying to kill somebody and they're coming from your seeds and it takes 10 years to fix those seeds, stand up in front of them and take the bullet. Resist them. Try to stop them without hurting them.

Or else you create more bullets. But I didn't say because it's coming from you you shouldn't try to stop it. You should try to.

You have to. You should do something. If there's refugees running around without a place to stay, without bombs coming down, give them a place to stay and ask your friends to help you pay for it.

Okay?

[Speaker 2]
All right.

[Speaker 1]
That's it, Tim.

[Speaker 2]
Right? Okay.