Нагарджуна, курс 5 — Мудрость Арьи Нагарджуны, курс 5: Будда Медицины и мудрость Нагарджуны (2023, Аризона), занятие 4

[Speaker 1]
Welcome, good morning. About half the people here have their eyes open. Gina, are you ready?

5.21, yeah, there we go. I had one more question about this thing by Master Vasubandhu, Abhidharmakosha. Yeah, and the Tibetan goes, ,TSI PA'I RTZA BA RGYUR PA DANG, ,GOR BA'I RGYUR BYED RIM RGYUR BYED, ,SEMS CAN RNAMS LA'I TSOR BA DANG, ,DU SHES BLO ZHIG DPON PO ZHAG, It means you have, in the Abhidharma, you have 46 mental functions going on in your mind.

Two of them are causing you trouble. And that's why they don't say body and mind usually. They say, what do they say?

Five piles of stuff. Five piles of stuff. And by the way, that's exactly what the translation is, five piles of stuff.

You can say five heaps, but it's like just five piles of random stuff. And we were saying that, especially in Nagarjuna, but also all of Buddhism, they don't say you are your body and your mind, and then you is just named on your body and mind. They don't say that.

They say you are named on your five parts, your five piles of stuff. And then we were kind of asking, why don't you just say body and mind? And they say, because the mind should be always divided.

And there's two troublemakers out of the 46, and they are? Affiliate discrimination. Yeah, affiliate discrimination.

So my question to you, which I always wondered about, it says, hetutvat karmakaranat, in the Sanskrit. It says, in the Tibetan it's, korway gyur jir rim gyur jir. And it means, they are the causes of samsara.

They cause all your trouble. In order. One by one.

It says karmakaranat. It means in order. What's it mean?

Anybody have a guess? I just want to guess. Raise your hand.

Eat your box.

[Speaker 2]
No?

[Speaker 1]
There's two mental functions, which are feeling and discrimination. Somehow they cause trouble one after the other. What's your theory?

[Speaker 2]
My theory is that feelings cause you to discriminate. So one is related to the other.

[Speaker 1]
I think that's pretty good. She said, I think feelings cause you to discriminate. This person makes me feel good.

This person doesn't make me feel good. Therefore, I like this person I don't like. Therefore, this person is different from the other person.

Is that? I think that's pretty good. I think that's pretty good.

That's a cheap answer.

[Speaker 2]
All right.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Good answer. Okay.

So before you get enlightened, you have a body and a mind. You have your five piles of stuff. And then after you get enlightened, do you still have your five piles of stuff?

[Speaker 2]
Yes. Yes, but they're purified.

[Speaker 1]
He said yes, but they're purified. Okay. And what's the investigation we're in?

Chapter 22. Which investigation? Yeah, Tathagata.

Those who have gone that way. What's their nature? We're inside of that investigation.

And specifically, how do you change when you go from one to the other? Do you have a body and a mind before you get enlightened? Do you have a body and a mind after you get enlightened?

What changes? It's just how you put them together, right? It's just how you put them together.

It's just how you see them. You see what I mean? Your seeds change.

You don't change. How's that? Your seeds change.

You don't change. You don't change into something else. Your seeds change.

You're the same thing. That's what Nagarjuna is trying to say in this chapter. That's just about all he's trying to say.

Okay, next. YAS. What's that?

Artificial stupid program. Next picture you guys. Yeah.

I said give me a puppy dog with two pens in his mouth. There's 20 other ones I don't want to show you, but this one was okay. The idea is that before you became a Buddha, your nature was the same.

You were still putting a name on two pieces. You were still putting a name on two pieces, but it was person who's going to die. The name was person who's going to die.

The pieces were body and mind, or you can say the five piles of stuff. But you were, before that, before you became a Buddha, you were still just pieces with a name on it. After you became Buddha, you are still pieces with a name on it.

That's all. That's all. You can't go from not Buddha to Buddha if the name is coming from the pieces.

You can't go from not Buddha to Buddha if the name is coming from the pieces. If these pieces are Michael, from their side, I can't become a Buddha. If these pieces are Michael, from my side, then if I change my seeds, I can become a Buddha.

Got it? If these pieces were Michael, from their own side, then Michael has to die. Michael cannot become a Buddha.

If these pieces are Michael, from Michael's side, from my seeds, then I can become a Buddha. That's why it's possible to become a Buddha. You created your non-Buddha, and you will create your Buddha.

But if it's not that way, there's no reason you would change. If it's coming this way, you're kind of stuck with it. So Nagarjuna is saying, because you are empty, there's hope.

Because you are empty, there's hope. You can become anything. It just depends on your seeds.

Cool. Why did Grandpa put two pens in the dog's mouth? Huh?

Kind of. No.

[Speaker 2]
Purified world, unpurified world. I'll say that, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Michael not Buddha and Michael Buddha. They're the same. They're just a pen.

Got it? Michael before he became a Buddha, and Michael after he became a Buddha, is a pen. Same thing.

So put two pens in the dog's mouth. You know how long it took me to get the AI to do that? Sometimes it's kind of stupid.

Let's go to the next one. By the way, it's not supposed to be complicated. It's supposed to be hopeful.

If you're coming from your seeds, then there's hope. If you're coming from your own side, there's no hope. You can't change it.

If somehow it's coming from you, then there's hope. If you just change the seeds, then there's hope. If it's coming from this way, there's no hope.

My brother killed himself when he was 20, and he was smart, and he was handsome, and he was strong. He was an almost professional surfer in Hawaii. He went out when the Hawaiians wouldn't go out.

Took me with him. He said, this doesn't make any sense. He just killed himself.

He said, this is hopeless. So I think if it's coming from you, sorry, if it's coming from its own side, it's hopeless. Maybe he wasn't crazy, if he believed that.

But it's coming from you. Therefore, you have a chance. All right.

I'm going to pull you out a verse from Nagarjuna which confirms that last idea. It's the 16th verse in this chapter. Which chapter?

22. How many chapters total? 27.

Are they real chapters? Not really, they're just a bunch of poems. It's not like 50 pages or something like that.

It's like 20 poems is one chapter, supposedly be a chapter. What are the chapters named? Yeah, an investigation.

Checking something out. All right, next. Yeah.

Whatever the nature of one gandhas is, the nature of all these beings is the very same. That's the two pens in the puppy's mouth. The Buddha's nature is not different from our nature.

The nature of a person who's not a Buddha and the nature of a person who is a Buddha, Nagarjuna says, whatever is the nature of the Buddha, the nature of everybody else is also the same. Does that mean we are not suffering? It doesn't mean that.

It just means what? Yeah, we are a pen. We are a pen.

Buddha's a pen and we're a pen. So Nagarjuna says in one way, the nature of the Buddha and the nature of us is the same. Why?

Because we're coming from the seeds. We are also coming from seeds. Buddha's coming from their seeds and we are coming from our seeds.

In one way, we're equal to Buddha. Does that mean we're not suffering? No.

Okay, got it? That's Nagarjuna. Then he says, actually those who have gone that way have no nature at all.

Because we are equal to them, those who are Buddhas have no nature at all, and since we are equal to them, we don't have any nature. First he says, whatever is the nature of Buddha, your nature is the same. Oh, but by the way, they don't have any nature, so neither do you.

Got it? I'll say it again. Whatever is the nature of a Buddha, your nature is the same, if you're not a Buddha.

Then he says, oh, but by the way, they don't have any nature anyway, so if your nature is the same as their nature, you don't have any nature. Okay, got it? What's it mean they don't have any nature?

From their own side. That's all, from their own side. Are you equal to a Buddha?

You are, yeah. You're coming from seeds, they're coming from seeds. There's nothing about them that's coming from their side.

What about the parts? Same, yeah. That divides the highest, highest Buddhist in the highest school.

There's two parts. Some of them say the raw data, the top and the bottom of the pen. Your body and mind, or your five piles of stuff, the lower middle way school says they come from their own side.

The raw data, the pieces of you come from their own side. How you interpret them is up to you. Okay, got it?

That's lower school, lower highest school. And the highest, highest school says, by the way, the pieces are also coming from you. You take the side of the top, you take the left side of the top, and you take the right side of the top, and you put them together and you call it top.

Then you take top and bottom and you put them together and you call it pen. So it's just like that endlessly. You take pieces and you call them something.

Okay, comfortable? But there's a point at which if you get down to the atoms of the top, you cannot see them. So how do you do it then?

I'll say it like this. What is the pen? The pen is the top and the bottom.

Who put them together? You did. You call it a pen.

Where did the top come from? Well, you can say left side of the top and right side of the top. There's a little handle here.

The side with the handle and the side that has no handle. And then my mind puts them together and gives them a name. When I give them a name, by the way, name, name, name, name, name, in Buddhism is a picture coming out of your karmic seeds.

Name is just a picture. Name is not a word. Name is a picture.

You got to remember that. When they say, Buddhism says everything is name only, it doesn't mean, oh, that's Teddy, that's Rob. It doesn't mean that.

It means pictures coming out of your mind. Pictures are called names in Buddhism. Or names are called pictures.

How's that? Say again? Yeah, you can say label.

When you say the world is names only, what you mean is it's pictures coming out of my seeds. It doesn't mean words. Because everybody has different words for stuff.

Chashka, Cub, Caillou. Everybody has different names. It's not the names, it's the pictures.

Pictures are names. In the beginning there was the word. Some wise man said.

That's the first word of the Bible. In the beginning there was the word. It means a picture.

Everything came from a picture. So he says, oh, so my question to you was, is the pen a picture? Well, it's the result of a picture.

I have a top and a bottom, and then a karma opens in my mind, a seed opens in my mind, and a picture comes out of my mind, and it unites the top and the bottom. It puts them together. And that picture is called pen.

You can say name. The picture is the name. It's not the sounds.

How many clicks do your teeth make? Puh, pen, eh, bleh. It's not the sounds, it's the pictures.

So there's pictures coming out of your mind, and you see the left side, you see the top and the bottom, and then your mind puts them together into pen. And the dog takes the same top and bottom and puts them into? CHU TOI But the pen, the black part and the white part are still there.

The dog's mind organizes them in a different way because the dog has different seeds. Got it? Say again?

[Speaker 2]
CHU TOI I'm sorry. The picture can be imprinted or not? Is this imprinted?

[Speaker 1]
When you say imprint, that's how the seed is planted in your mind. It's pressed into your mind.

[Speaker 2]
Can I give you a picture?

[Speaker 1]
When you like, when you, Teddy needs a pen, and you only have one pen left, and he says, can I have your pen? And you're like, and then you give him the pen. When you let go of the pen, that imprint's on your own mind.

That imprint's on your own mind. Then it cook, cook, cook, cooks, and then a picture comes out. Then you have many, many pen pictures come out.

If you give Teddy one pen, you will have 20 pens. That's how I make money. No, that's why I have $100.

No, I mean, you didn't wonder why Grandpa has $100 to give out. When I left here, I was broke. I had $30,000 debt.

When I left retreat, I was $30,000 in debt, and I started using seeds, and then it works. Now, where was I? Yeah, so the dog has different seeds, and the pictures come out of the dog's mind, and those pictures come out on the pieces, and they join the pieces together.

The picture joins the pieces together, and the dog says, mm, chew toy. They say this piece, and what I'm saying is that for the dog to join the top and the bottom together, they have to see the top and the bottom. So, is the top also glued together by picturing?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, the dog takes this side, and the dog takes this side, and puts them... By the way, you cannot see the whole top. It's not possible.

It's red on this side. Really. I have a special pen top.

It's totally red on this side, but you can't see it. You can only see part of it. Every time you put a name on the pieces of something, you actually cannot see all the pieces.

When you look at this side, you can't see this side. If I say, look at the side that has the clip on it, and you look at your left side, and then I'll say, look at the side that doesn't have the clip on it, then your mind goes, you start looking at that side. There's a famous story of a student.

The teacher said, you want an apple? And they said, yeah. And they pick an apple, and it's very beautiful on this side.

And on this side, it's rotten. And they say, you want an apple? And this kid's like, yeah.

And then they give him the apple, and they go, ah. Because your mind creates the whole apple. You can't see the back of the apple.

You don't know if this is red in the back or not. You never see the whole thing. And you're always looking at a piece of the thing.

Got it? Now I have a question for you. How about the clip?

How do you see the clip? Yeah, the seam. The clip has a left side, and the clip has a right side.

So now you're not looking at this part, you're just looking at this part. And you're looking at the left side and the right side. Now here's my question.

What happens when you get down so far, you are looking at less than one atom?

[Speaker 2]
You're pretty close to having a perception. Oh, thank you. I don't know.

[Speaker 1]
How do you see the smallest thing if you can't see the pieces of the smallest thing? In the monasteries, the monks when they're like 15, they get a nickname, like imprint. And the rest of your life, they won't call you by your name.

They say, hey imprint.

[Speaker 2]
Hey imprint.

[Speaker 1]
I have a friend whose name is Momo. Okay. So what about when you get down to, she said by logic, right?

I think that's okay. You think there must be smaller pieces, even though you can't see them. So you see them with your logic.

How's that? And then you glue those together. Why are they talking about all this?

He's trying to say, if you were not empty, you could not become a Buddha. We are investigating what? Buddhas.

This whole chapter is an investigation of Buddhas. If you are not a production of the pictures coming out of your seeds, you cannot become a Buddha. If the pen is not correct, you cannot become a Buddha.

That's Nagarjuna's saying. Okay, got it? Before you became a Buddha and after you became a Buddha, you were the same.

You were still just your pieces. And that's lucky. So before you became a Buddha, the nature you had before you became a Buddha and the nature you had after you became a Buddha was the same.

What was it? You had no nature. I'll say it again.

The nature you had before you became a Buddha and the nature you have after you become a Buddha is the same. What's that nature? You don't have any nature.

Got it? That's this verse. That's this verse.

By the way, when he says you don't have a nature, he means you don't have a nature from your own side. That's all. You do have a nature.

That is the Buddha nature, exactly. The fact that you don't have a nature is your Buddha nature.

[Speaker 2]
So we all have a Buddha nature.

[Speaker 1]
Tathagatagarbha. Yeah. In fact, they don't call it Buddha nature.

They call it a very interesting name. Tathagatagarbha. What's Garbha?

The womb. The womb. Every human being, male or female, has an extra womb.

And it's your Buddha womb. Cool. Everybody has it.

Everybody has a Buddha womb. And it's what Jose said. It's the fact that you have no nature.

That's your Buddha womb. If you had a nature, you wouldn't have room to become a Buddha.

[Speaker 2]
If I have a Buddha nature, why do I don't have a Buddha seeds?

[Speaker 1]
Same thing. Well, seeds are changed. Yeah, that's very true.

[Speaker 2]
I went from the beginning, so I don't want to struggle and look at it.

[Speaker 1]
Buddha nature is not a Buddha seed. Buddha seed is a changing thing, and Buddha nature is an unchanging thing. Seeds are the most changing thing in the universe because if they don't change, they never open.

Seeds are the most changing thing in the universe because if they don't change, they never open. The tree never comes out of the seed if they don't change. But your Buddha nature is the fact that you come from seeds, and that never changes.

You will always have that nature. Before you become a Buddha and after you become a Buddha, you will always be the result of your seeds. You will always not be the result of anything else.

How's that? It's a negative. Your Buddha nature is a negative.

You are not like the pen. You are not like the pen. That's your Buddha nature.

Are you not like the pen? No, I am like the pen. So the fact that you are not like the pen, not, not, that's your Buddha nature.

Yes.

[Speaker 2]
I also have a question. I also have a question.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
After we become a Buddha, and before we become a Buddha, our nature is all emptiness. But after we become a Buddha, our characteristic is Buddha nature, right? I was getting more shy.

Okay.

[Speaker 1]
He's used to it. She's using the difference between quality and characteristic.

[Speaker 2]
So she's saying that, is it true that the quality that I have before becoming a Buddha is emptiness and the characteristic I have after becoming a Buddha is Buddha nature?

[Speaker 1]
Is that true? Although you also have Buddha nature before that, right? But it's good.

That's a good question. Generally, yes. You have, the quality here is emptiness and you have that quality, it's characteristic.

Difficult, difficult question. It's a good question. That's the main question.

All right, let's go to the next. By the way, I'm not teaching you the whole book. It would take about 50 years or so.

So I'm going to the most important points and I'm choosing the points that help you with your Medicine Buddha practice. I'm choosing the parts from Nagarjuna which will help you have a nice Medicine Buddha practice. That's what we're doing.

I'm not teaching you the whole book. I'm translating Tsongkapa's explanation of the whole book. It took me, so far, six years and I'm about one quarter through.

It would take a long time. All right. The next chapter, which number?

23 is an investigation of kleshas. You can say error, but really it's kleshas. Klesha is the Sanskrit word.

You can say mental affliction. I don't like that translation because I don't like a translation that the English speaker doesn't know what you mean because that's not translation. So we don't use the word affliction in America in normal language.

I call it waiter and waitress language. If you go to a pastry cafe and you say, could I have an affliction?

[Speaker 2]
And then they say, huh?

[Speaker 1]
If the waiter says, huh? Then it's not a good English translation. You see what I mean?

So I was there when they invented mental affliction. I didn't like it. Nobody listened to me.

But nobody uses that word in English. I mean, you can find it in some old book, but nobody uses that word. I like to call it a negative emotion.

That's simple, right? Do you have negative emotions? Yeah, a big bag.

I am a big bag of negative emotions. It's hard to get used to using that word if you did mental affliction for 20 years. But anyway, think about it.

Klesha is the definition. RANG YIN LDAN GYI GANG ZAG GI ZHES RGYUD MA ZHIG BA PHYIR PA'I SEMS SBYUNG SEMS PA NYON MONG GI TSE NYID Definition of a negative emotion is it messes up the peace of the mind, I'm sorry, it messes up the peace of mind of the person who has it. That's the definition of a negative emotion.

It messes up their peace of mind of the person who has it. The definition of a negative emotion is any kind of emotion which destroys the peace of mind of the person who's having the negative emotion. So it's specific to the person who's having it.

The root definition of a negative emotion is it makes you unhappy. You can say that. The definition of a mental affliction is that any emotion which makes you personally unhappy is a mental affliction.

Got it? RANG YIN LDAN GYI GANG ZAG MA ZHIG PA PHYIR PA'I SEMS SBYUNG SEMS PA SEMS SBYUNG SEMS PA means it's a piece of the mind and it's not the main mind. It's not general awareness.

It's a flavor of the mind. It's a flavor of the mind. SEMS SBYUNG SEMS PA And it must involve the movement of the mind.

Thought has to be going on. Anytime you have a negative emotion, that emotion is moving. It's getting stronger.

It's getting less. It's aimed at one person. You decide to aim it at everybody.

Like that. It's always changing. That's the definition of a...

One more point and then I'll do a question. Almost every Sanskrit word has a cognate. Cognate means it's an English word which came from the Sanskrit because almost all English words come from Sanskrit.

English comes from mainly German, mainly Germanic languages. Germanic languages come from Latin. Latin comes from Greek.

Greek comes from Sanskrit. So almost all of English comes from Sanskrit. If you know how to look, you can always find an English word that came from the same root.

So the root is klesh. Klesh and it means to disturb your peace of mind. Klesh.

The root of the word klesha is klesh. There's only one cognate that I'm aware of and that's holly. There's a plant called holly and the leaves have prickles on them.

You can't touch the leaves. The leaves are very prickly. They have little needles on them.

If you try to touch holly... It's funny because in the Christmas tradition in the West, if you put a holly branch hanging, then you're supposed to kiss the person who walks under it. You know this custom?

If you're in America for mistletoe, it's the same plant. You're supposed to hang the leaves from the roof and if you have somebody you want them to be your boyfriend or your girlfriend, if they walk under it, you're allowed to kiss them on Christmas. Even if they don't want to.

So why they use a prickly leaf for this unwanted kiss? I don't know. But that holly comes from the same root, kles, sharp and prickly.

It means when you have a klesha in your mind, it's uncomfortable. It feels uncomfortable. How do you know that you're having a mental affliction?

It's uncomfortable. It feels uncomfortable. That's the sign.

Question.

[Speaker 2]
Geshe-la, what is the definition of the peace of mind?

[Speaker 1]
Of seeds?

[Speaker 2]
Of peace of mind.

[Speaker 1]
Seeds?

[Speaker 2]
No, peace. Peace and mind.

[Speaker 1]
It depends on if you're talking about... Are you talking about a lack of distraction or are you talking about a lack of kleshas? You see what I mean?

There's two kinds of peace of mind in Buddhism. One is uninterrupted focus, which is called shamatha. And sham means peace.

You want to go deeper? Sham comes from an older root, ksham, ksham. Like kshama means patience, for example.

Shamatha means peace. Ksham means patience. When you have a K-S-H in Sanskrit, it often becomes kava in Western languages.

Ksha, ksha becomes kava, and kava becomes Q-U. K-S-H becomes K-V-E, becomes Q-U. That's the strange, strange English thing, Q and U.

Q and U came from K and V, and that came from K-S-H. So the word quiet comes from shamatha. Cool?

Because it used to be kshamatha, and then it changed to kava, and then it became kuwa, and then it became quiet. Cool? And calm comes from the same root.

It used to be kavam, calm. So calm and quiet, these all come from the word kshamatha. So the reason I brought it up is when you say peace, mental peace, there's two kinds in Buddhism.

One is a lack of distraction. Are you able to keep your mind on your meditation object, or are you thinking about lunch? Unless lunch is your meditation object, which is me and Ram.

So that's one kind of peace. But a deeper kind of peace is a lack of mental afflictions, a lack of kleshas. Freedom from kleshas.

No more mental disturbances. Two kinds of peace.

[Speaker 2]
Are samskara and klesha synonymous?

[Speaker 1]
Samskara means fresh karma. Karmic seed. Samskara means fresh karmic seed.

It's the witch link in the Wheel of Life. Number two, link number two. And is it the same as what?

[Speaker 2]
Klesha?

[Speaker 1]
Klesha? No, because you can have lots of virtuous samskaras. But I would...

There's a question of whether all kleshas are samskaras. I think you could say that. You think, Sugeng?

All negative states of mind are seeds? Mental seeds? Or are fresh karma?

All negative states of mind. Anytime your mind is made unhappy by a klesha in your mind, is that a bad... Is that a karma?

I'd say it probably is. But the fascinating thing, if you talk to Sugeng, is the first link, misunderstanding, which triggers all samskaras, is it bad karma or good karma? It's neutral.

It's neutral. And that's a mystery. I think Sugeng might have figured it out.

[Speaker 2]
But... Maybe vasana also.

[Speaker 1]
Say again?

[Speaker 2]
Maybe vasana. Not all kleshas are samskaras, but vasana also.

[Speaker 1]
You mean all kleshas are vasanas?

[Speaker 2]
All kleshas are not only samskaras, but also vasanas. They are ripened seeds.

[Speaker 1]
That's a big debate, I would say. That's a big debate. Not, will every karmic seed ripen?

Will every karmic seed come closer to ripening? That's a big debate. Yeah, okay.

Is misunderstanding the pen a bad karma? Yes.

[Speaker 2]
It's neutral.

[Speaker 1]
That's a delicate question. Okay. We're going next to the 23rd chapter, the investigation of negative states of mind.

Negative emotions. We're going to investigate negative emotions. Grandpa is going to try to tie it to Medicine Buddha, because I would rather teach Medicine Buddha that way.

I don't want to go through Medicine Buddha sutra and tell you this Buddha is green, and this Buddha is blue. It's kind of boring for me. As far as I'm concerned, it can be any color you want.

I mean, it's not that important to me. But I'm curious about who they are and how you get to be like that. So that's where we're going.

So investigation of, the next chapter is the investigation of negative states of mind. Question. Why do you think he wrote chapter 23 after chapter 22?

Does Nagarjuna have ADD?

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
Or is there, in English we have an expression, is there a method to his madness? It looks like he's acting strange. Is there a reason or is he just strange?

[Speaker 2]
There must be a reason.

[Speaker 1]
Anybody?

[Speaker 2]
Is that an obstacle that would...

[Speaker 1]
I like it. Yeah, something like that. If you want to be a Buddha, you're going to have to get over these negative emotions.

So let's study negative emotions next. I'll go for that. I think that's a good way to go.

Do all people who have removed their negative emotions reach Buddhahood? No, and that's the nirvana. Nirvana is the definition.

I mean, the definition of nirvana is? Yeah. What's the Tibetan?

[Speaker 2]
Huh?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, anyway, stopping your negative emotions. What is that? Yeah, okay.

So here's his first question. Here's the picture. How can you say that I'm the same as a Buddha?

I can't even stop fighting with my wife or my husband. My kids are the witness. Nagarjuna, how can you say I'm the same as a Buddha if I can't control myself in the kitchen?

How can you say I'm a Buddha? Like somebody's asking him. It doesn't make sense.

You said I'm the same as the Buddha. You said my nature and the Buddhist nature is the same. But this morning I got upset at my wife and my husband.

What do you mean I'm the same as the Buddha? That's where we're headed. And here's the root text.

Okay. ZHUGS PA ZHUGS PA RGYUD PAR YANG SEMS SEMS PA'I DBANG TE PHA THIT YAY DE SOGS BAB PA RNAMS PA'I RGYEN TE THAS MA GROD ZHIG NA THAGS PA DA That's the Sanskrit. The Sanskrit sounds a lot cooler than the English.

It's very magical. These things depend in a mistaken way on what looks nice and what does not. But those are nothing of a nature of their own.

Thus then our negativities have nothing right about them. So he's investigating negative states of mind. And the investigation is starting here.

And he says those things depend on a mistaken way on what looks nice and what does not. So what he's going to say in this chapter is negative emotions are based on feeling good about some things and not feeling good about other things. Then a lot of people misunderstood that.

And they said I shouldn't feel good about anything. And then there's whole schools of Buddhism for hundreds of years. Never eat chocolate.

Never watch Netflix. Never feel good. That's all bad.

Anytime you feel good, it's a bad thing. And then there's whole hundreds of years of poor guys sitting in a little house with no chocolate and no Netflix. And then they didn't get enlightened.

And they're like, what happened? So just to remove things that you enjoy is not Buddhism. It's not Buddhism.

I don't know. It's not Buddhism. You see these paintings of paradise.

They got parasols and flowers and lotus gardens. I'm sure they have Netflix. And chocolate, stuff like that.

I mean, it's ridiculous to say that Buddhism means you shouldn't enjoy anything so that when you succeed, you can go where you can enjoy something. It doesn't make sense. I'll say it again.

Buddhist practice means never enjoy yourself. Why should I practice that? So you can go to a place where you can enjoy yourself called Tushita, the heaven of enjoyment.

It doesn't make sense. It's just weird. So it's not Buddhism to say, I can't have chocolate because it's nice.

It's not Buddhism to say when you're tired and you deserve it, you can't watch The King's Affection. Korean pop, what do you call it? K-pop.

It's like BTS museum. Excellent show. It doesn't mean if you worked all day trying to raise money for ACI, right Tim?

So that you could pay your staff. And then you can't rest or you can't watch a movie to relax. Come on, that's not Buddhism.

Buddhists are not supposed to be serious all the time or there's something wrong with you. Anybody who smiles is not a Buddhist. All right, it doesn't make sense.

But you feel guilty when you're watching Netflix, right? You're like, I'm not a good Buddhist. It's okay.

If you watch it all day, that's a problem. If you watch it when you're tired and you spend all day helping other people, that's fine. Because tomorrow you'll be even better helping people.

You'll be fresh. All right, these things depend on the mistaken way. So some things look nice and some things don't look nice.

Am I supposed to pretend? Is that the root of my kleshas? Is that the root of my negativity?

Should I stop trying to look at nice things? And should I try to look at some not nice things also? Should I watch Disney Channel with Netflix to make sure I get a good balance?

You see what I mean? Like that. Am I a bad Buddhist if I don't look at some boring stuff also?

Am I being discriminating? Do I have discrimination if I refuse to watch HBO but I only want to watch Netflix? Is that the root of my samsara?

Am I discriminating? It says here what looks nice and what doesn't look nice. He's somehow saying that kleshas are triggered, negative states of mind, negative emotions, Nagarjuna says, are somehow triggered by what seems nice to you and what doesn't seem nice to you.

Somehow this is triggering your negative emotions. Okay, got it? Is it or isn't it?

Should you learn to watch a real boring movie and enjoy it? Right? Is that what Nagarjuna is saying?

We have to investigate it. But those are nothing of a nature of their own. What you find to be a boring movie and what you find to be an interesting movie is not coming from the movie side.

Every movie you ever watched, you wrote it. Okay? You can't judge your own state of mind by counting the percentage of good movies and bad movies in your life.

That's a direct sign of your mental state. I'll say it again. You wrote all the bad movies you ever saw and you wrote all the good movies you ever saw.

The next page of a book, when you turn the page, it's coming from you. When you turn the page of a novel and does the character kiss the girl or not? If he doesn't, it's your fault.

Because when you turn the page, the letters come out of your mind. The words come out of your mind. You can't criticize any author, especially Geshe Michael's talks.

You cannot say it was boring, Geshe-la, or didn't make sense. I can't believe you didn't remember the definition of Nirvana. Anyway, it's coming from you.

When you become a regular teacher every day, you can tell your students, if you don't like my talk, just remember it's coming from you. If you do like my talk, that part's coming from me. Okay, all right.

Denny says, yeah, your negativities are also not coming from their own side. They're also coming from you. When you feel off balance, in a lot of klesha, the study of kleshas, the investigation of kleshas, negative states of mind, which is what we're doing now.

We're trying to figure out why do you have a bad mood? Why do you feel upset? Why do you feel angry?

Why do you have doubts? What seeds create those? That would be nice seeds to learn to stop them.

It's a lot easier, if you're a gardener, which I'm not, but my wife forces me to help her. If you're a gardener, it's a lot easier to take the, there's a weed called Johnson grass. A little piece grows up and 90% grows down.

It goes like three meters, four meters deep. Then it branches off this way and it spreads everywhere. What's really fun is if you see a Johnson grass seed, you pick it up and you throw it in the garbage.

Send it to somebody else's house. No, I mean, get the seed out of the yarn. Don't dig Johnson grass roots for six hours.

Just pick up the seed and throw it out. Then your life is smooth. So it says here, understand that your negative emotions are also coming from you.

They're also coming from your seeds. Don't struggle, don't struggle with your negative emotions after they have already gotten strong. Don't try to dig out the roots after the tree is huge.

Just pick up the seed and throw it out. A lot easier. Life is a lot easier.

Dealing with mental affliction seeds is a hell of a lot easier than dealing with anger or pride or desire after it's big. It's impossible. Deal with the seeds and don't deal with the emotions.

Get rid of the seeds and then you won't have them. Dealing with anger after you're angry is pretty impossible. Dealing with jealousy after you're jealous is impossible.

Take care of it before that. Take care of it while it's still a seed. That's what he's saying.

All right, next piece. Let me see here. I have a thing about bus shelters.

When you say taking refuge, I always think about bus shelters. So for 19 years in my corporate life in New York City, Manhattan, the commute was two hours in and two hours out. They offered me a helicopter and they offered me a limousine.

I was like this Buddhist. I said, I'll take the bus. I'll take the public bus.

So for 19 years I took the bus. The way to get the bus is you go out and stand under a shelter. In my neighborhood, because I lived in a very poor neighborhood, Mongolian neighborhood, immigrants, refugees, they had no money at all, nothing.

By the way, they're coming to visit in a couple of days. They're already on the road in their car. I just found out yesterday my student from 50 years ago is coming.

He was a six-year-old kid and now he's a famous rock star. I must have rubbed off on him or something. So he's coming and I asked him will he play some music for us.

So they're coming to celebrate their father's memorial during the fire offering. So Sunim, if you don't mind, is she here? Okay.

It's always good to volunteer people who are not here. We got to set up instruments. He agreed to play.

He's bringing his, unfortunately Sunim, he's bringing his bass player and I think his drummer and his singer. So anyway, he said his father used to really enjoy their music. So I said, that would be a nice offering for your father.

So we're going to dedicate the fire offering to his father and we're going to dedicate the rock and roll to his father. Unfortunately, they only know 60s rock and roll. Grateful Dead.

So anyway, I must have good karma. All right. So anyway, when you talk about taking refuge, it means a lot to me because I, by the way, they didn't build the shelter for 10 years and when it rained or snowed, I was standing out there.

Sometimes it took half an hour, one hour for the bus to come. So it means a lot to me. The shelter, the bus shelter represents taking refuge.

Why is there a big birthday gift there? By the way, my AI did pretty good on this one. Yeah, in the Medicine Buddha practice by the great fifth Dalai Lama, we are starting again the seven steps.

We are starting again the seven steps. We did seven steps in general to all Buddhas at the beginning. Now we are about halfway through and we are going to do the seven steps again to get ready for negotiations with the Medicine Buddha gang.

First we have to butter them up with the seven preliminaries, here is the offerings, here is my confession, etc. Then you say, are you going to keep your prayers or not? Each one of you made prayers.

Some did four, some five, some ten. Are you going to keep those prayers or not? I am here to find out are you going to keep your word or not?

First you have to butter them up. Here is the offerings. Then there is going to come the moment of truth and we are going to practice it together.

We are going to practice it together. We are going to go through some of the more, to me the prayers which are more, which are more powerful for the world today. Like with the situation going on in Israel or the situation going on in Ukraine.

I think we should focus on the Medicine Buddha prayers which might help that situation. So we are going to work on those prayers. To start with that you have to do your seven preliminaries again.

So that is where we are in the sadhana. When you do the sadhana they are going to ask you to do the seven steps again. So that part is there.

The seven preliminaries, you are going to do them again. But this time it is not for all the Buddhas in the universe. It is for the eight Medicine Buddhas.

The gang, Medicine Buddha gang. Because it is the start of a negotiation. Are you going to keep your word or not?

You talked big way back when. I got eight prayers. I got four prayers.

Well, in English you say, put up or shut up. Let's see. Let's see if you can help us or not.

But first you have to make them happy. Timothy, I am supposed to do Q&A at seven? Or what?

Yeah? Correct? Okay, in five minutes we will do Q&A.

If, in five minutes. If there is no Q, there is no A. I will just go have another coffee.

It happened once I think. Okay, so we are taking shelter. Here is what it looks like in the sun.

Ta-da! Next picture you guys. Yeah.

It is the same formula. The same formula. I bow down to the one gone thus, to the defeater of the enemy, to the totally enlightened Buddha, to the king of glory whose name is proclaimed to the corners of the universe, along with his inestimable circle of attendance, hundreds of thousands of millions, hundreds of thousands of millions of billions of bodhisattvas.

I make offering to you. I go for shelter to you. That is the bus shelter and the gifts, the birthday gifts.

We are going to say that to, the first Buddha's name is good name. And then we got jewel moon, finest gold, beyond sadness, ocean song, sea dance, medicine Buddha, Shakyamuni. Somebody told me I left out one of them in the last list.

Sorry about that. So that is the beginning. I make offering to you.

I go for shelter to you. Definition of taking refuge, putting your ultimate hopes in another person, basically, is the definition of taking refuge. It has a definition.

It is in Tim's text. Okay. RANG BA BYA BA'I SEMS PA It means put your hopes in them.

So during these prayers, we will take the medicine Buddha's one by one and we will ask them for help. I don't know why you would think a Buddha would help you even if you don't ask. But somehow, maybe they have a non-interference agreement or something.

If you don't ask, they don't help. I don't know. But generally, you have to ask.

Don't be shy to ask them. If they don't exist, you just wasted a few minutes. If they do exist, you are going to get some help.

But if you don't ask, they might not help. So it is good to ask. In my opinion, it is better to ask, even if you are not sure.

Now, I told you my AI. Artificial intelligence? It is really stupid.

Seiji has been trying for months to find me a better one. He says, Geshe-la, I think you got the best one. Sometimes he does the right thing.

I said, I want to see a picture. If I invite all the medicine Buddhas to dinner at my house, what will it look like? Ta-da!

Yeah. Hagerty, was it Hagerty? He is like, is there any meat there?

That I can't control. At least they didn't put wine bottles. But it is not bad, right?

Yeah. Anyway, invite them for dinner. First you make offerings to them.

We are going to talk about the offerings. We are going to talk about the emptiness of the offerings. We are going to see what Nagarjuna has to say about making offerings to Buddhas.

Buddhas can see everything in the universe. They can be in every French restaurant in the universe at the same time. Why do they need your offerings?

What is the point of it? What is the emptiness of making offerings to a person who can sit in every French restaurant at the same time? What is the point of it?

How does it work? Tune in next class. That is where we are going.

How do you serve dinner to a person who is already at every dinner there is? And what is the point? Okay, cool?

All right, question and answer if you have. If you don't have, I will take a nap right here. I have the microphone, I am sorry.

[Speaker 2]
I am taking control. We are going to take a couple questions from our online audience, as we have about 500 or 600 people listening and they have pressing questions as well.

[Speaker 1]
The first question, Geshe Michael, is thank you for these extraordinary teachings.

[Speaker 2]
I am wondering if it is possible for you to explain to us how do we planet jump during our meditation?

[Speaker 1]
Planet jump.

[Speaker 2]
When you talk about... Jump from planet to planet. Oh, planet jump, yes.

[Speaker 1]
How can we do this? How can we practice doing this before seeing emptiness directly? Yeah, okay, good.

There is a debate in the ancient texts about, first of all, about whether it is possible to see emptiness without being a bodhisattva. It is a fierce debate and it has gone on for centuries. Je Tsongkapa's position is that you can.

You don't have to be a bodhisattva to see emptiness directly. I think you can think of certain physicists who have deep insights into reality, into, what do you call that? Quantum physics.

I think quantum physics is flirting with emptiness. Especially, what's the guy's name? The position of the observer determines the event.

What's his name? What's his name?

[Speaker 2]
Max Planck?

[Speaker 1]
No, there was another one. Heisenberg. Anyway, the position of the observer changes the event.

Whether a proton moving through a diffraction grating acts like a particle or a wave depends on the position of the observer. I think a person with deep scientific state of mind could see emptiness. So Je Tsongkapa's position is that you don't have to be a bodhisattva to see emptiness directly.

That's his position. But if you have certain seeds that this person mentioned, if you already have those seeds in your mind and then you see emptiness directly, it's very typical to become a bodhisattva on the same day, to have this experience of meeting every living being directly and promising to take care of them. That typically happens on the same day because, pronically speaking, your central channel is open for the first time in controlled circumstances.

It's open during death. During the death process, it's open during orgasm. But those are neither controlled things.

To do it under controlled circumstances, during the direct perception of emptiness, while your central channel is open, you can have the experience of a bodhisattva, becoming a bodhisattva. So I would say the karma and the pranic energy to see emptiness directly often leads to the experience of being a bodhisattva, becoming a bodhisattva at the same time. What are the seeds that might make the difference?

The scientist sits down and has a deep insight into reality, but they could care less about people. They blew up the first nuclear bomb not too far from my house. If you go west from my house, so east, you hit New Mexico, and this is where they blew up the first atom bomb.

They had Oppenheimer out there and all those dudes from Princeton. Some general turns to Oppenheimer and he says, is there a chance that this could ignite the whole atmosphere of Earth and burn us all up? He said, yes, there's a chance.

We're not sure what's going to happen, but let's see. It's so interesting. That's a real scientist, non-bodhisattva scientist.

They blew up the first nuclear bomb partly because they wanted to see if their equations were correct. They took the risk that they could stop all life on Earth forever to see if their equations were correct. Who's going to see they're correct?

I don't know. But that's a scientist. Then a person who has the right seeds, when that prana of seeing emptiness directly moves into their central channel, it also causes them to have the experience of jumping from planet to planet, meeting every living being and promising to take care of them.

Now that person's question is, what seeds can I plant in my mind to be the bodhisattva, to have the bodhisattva reaction to emptiness and not the physicist reaction to emptiness? What separates a physicist from a bodhisattva? In this case, there are lots of bodhisattva physicists out there.

I have to say, and I believe it, it's taking care of normal people on a day-to-day basis. Especially the elderly or the sick. Or people who have special needs, like immigrants come to a new country.

Right, Tatyana, Irina? They don't know the language and they don't know the customs. Then they need help.

If I went to Ukraine and tried to live in Irpin, for example, that's where I would live, by the way, then I would need a Ukrainian person to help me. Because I don't know. I might say the wrong thing.

I might do the wrong thing. Helping people who are in new circumstances. Helping the elderly.

Gyelse and Jigme, they're in a program around the capital of the universe, Rimrod. They drive elderly people to the grocery store and they sit in the car for an hour while the person decides what kind of diapers they're going to buy. They do that like once a week.

Things like that, taking elderly people to the doctor is a huge opportunity to plant the bodhisattva seeds so that when the moment comes that you're close to seeing emptiness, the bodhisattva seeds kick in and you have this experience of walking from planet to planet. Almost all high spiritual goals come from the wild reproduction of simple seeds. Almost high spiritual goals come from the wild reproduction of silly little seeds, like driving someone to the hospital or taking them for their groceries and stuff like that.

So that's a high bodhisattva practice. And that's my personal experience. I had a personal experience with that.

So I think it worked for me. And I spent many, many, many days taking old people to the hospital or doctor or social security office. It opens at nine.

You have to get there by six and you have to stand in line. The line goes around the building three, four times on the outside. And it's a snowstorm and they will not let you in.

That kind of thing. That's planting the seeds to walk on different planets. And I've done that so many times.

Okay. All right. All right.

Thank you. Thank you.

[Speaker 2]
So another question here, Geshe-la. Several people, I'm combining questions here. Several people have asked about what is the difference between when we talk about impermanence in general, things are impermanent, and then having an awareness of subtle impermanence.

[Speaker 1]
What is subtle impermanence versus just general normal impermanence? Yeah, okay, good. It's a favorite subject of mine and I'll tell you a secret.

I got teachings on impermanence and I wasn't satisfied with them. And I thought they didn't go deep enough. So I wrote a debate in Tibetan to prove it wasn't deep enough.

And I wrote it out in Tibetan and I left it somewhere where a certain lama would see it. And I didn't say anything. And like the next day they're running around the house like, who wrote this?

What is this? What book did this come from? And I'm like, I don't know.

And it was cute. Anyway, that's the real story. And the word impermanence was bothering me for mitakpa or anitya in Sanskrit.

So it's a very central idea to Buddhism. As we saw yesterday, if the tree's just blowing branches, that don't count. It has to impart to you an understanding of impermanence, for example.

Just wind blowing through trees is not necessarily Buddha sending you a message. There has to be a message. And it could be, if it's one of the four mudras, which is the four signs of a Buddha's teaching, is it should have teaching about impermanence.

But there's a problem with the English word impermanence and we don't have a lot of time. I'll give you a brief synopsis of my Tibetan essay. In America we have a thing called a permanent resident card, which is a green card.

But nobody thinks it lasts forever. You see what I mean? There's a difference between forever and permanent.

I mean, the green card expires when you die. You can't pass it on to your children or something like that. It's a permanent resident card.

In English, the word permanent, I mean, it's misused in that case, but permanent literally means it should last forever. That's permanent. Like the sky is permanent or the universe is permanent or something like that.

Then impermanent in English means at some point it will end. Actually a permanent resident card is impermanent. If you think about it.

So it will end at some time. But that's not what impermanence means in Buddhism. Using the word impermanence to describe SKAD GCIG GI SKAD GCIG GI KHYEN BYAS PA'I PHYIR Say SKAD GCIG GI.

SKAD GCIG GI SKAD GCIG GI KHYEN BYAS PA'I PHYIR Something which goes in and out of existence by the millisecond is the definition of impermanence. It's not that it's going to wear out in six months or something like that. Your new car, Sukhya, your Sukhya, it's impermanent.

You will discover. You'll be asking me, Geshe-la, who's the best mechanic in Rimmel? Like they just bought this beautiful new car, which means they're a real American now.

But yeah, one by one things will break. And Rob Russinger's new car broke the first day. But what I'm saying is impermanent means in English that sooner or later it will start to break.

That's not what it means in Buddhism. In Buddhism it means instantaneous destruction. Second by second, 65 times a second.

KHYEN GCIG BYAS PA'I PHYIR means dying and born second by second. Die born, die born, die born, die born, die born, die born. That's impermanence.

So I don't like the word impermanence. Impermanence means in English, it stays for a while and then it disappears. But in Buddhism it doesn't stay for a while.

There's no such thing. It comes in and goes out of existence instant by instant. That's the definition of impermanence.

I don't like that. I would rather say changing. Changing instant by instant.

I think the word impermanence is misleading. And I feel that way about a lot of translations. But so just remember, when we say impermanence in Buddhism, it doesn't mean you have to die someday.

It means you are dying every millisecond. And the fact that you live for a week is a miracle. Okay, got it?

All right. So that means there's no difference between saying impermanence and subtle impermanence. It's the same thing.

Oh, no. Subtle impermanence is a different thing. Okay, subtle impermanence.

Depends on how deep you want to go. But Nagarjuna would say, Nagarjuna would say, you ready? Going in and out of existence moment by moment.

At what point did it change from going into existence and going out of existence? Where's the border? Between in existence and out of existence.

What's the millisecond, millisecond border between the two? And he'll say, you cannot find it. You cannot find it.

Your senses cannot perceive the length of time it takes for all things to change from starting to stopping. You do not have the sense capacity to detect that. Your senses do not have the capacity, unaided by a microscope, to detect quarks or atomic particles, mesons.

Your senses don't have the power. So how do you see it? How can it shift?

If the perception is built of moments, if the perception is built of pieces of perception, but you cannot see the pieces, how can you see the whole? It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense that you could experience impermanence and that's subtle impermanence.

It's not possible for you to be perceiving subtle impermanence, but you do. That's subtle impermanence. All right kids, take a break.