Открытки от Геше Ла, часть третья: Семена (2011, Нью-Йорк), занятие 2

[Говорящий 1]
So, we were talking about emptiness, and then I think when you're talking about emptiness you have to ask one more question, which is, so what's the use of emptiness? If everything is empty, then how is that going to help me? And how is that going to help me help the world?

You see what I mean? And I thought I'd talk about that today. So, we were talking about emptiness.

If you'd like to understand emptiness quickly and correctly, which is rare, we have to talk about a pen. And we can say that, when I show this to you and I ask you what it is, then you'll say a pen. When I show it to a dog, they'll just chew on it, they don't see it as a pen.

When I leave this object on the couch, all the dogs leave the room, all the humans leave the room, at that point, if I ask you, is it a pen or is it a chew toy, then your mind correctly says, well, at that time it's really neither one. It's sort of up in the air which one it's going to be. Depends on who walks in the room first.

So we can say that the emptiness of a pen means that this black cylinder is something like a white movie screen. It's just available, and that's its emptiness. Think of emptiness as blankness or white movie screen-ness, and then it's a little easier to understand.

So this is like a white movie screen, and a dog is going to see it as a chew toy, and a human is going to see it as a pen.

[Говорящий 2]
So then if I ask you a question, if I say, do you think the pen, when you look at a pen and you see a pen, do you think it's coming this way, or do you think it's coming this way? Do you think a pen, when you see a pen, is coming this way, or is the pen coming this way? And then the answer is, if you understand emptiness, if you understand what we just spoke about, it must be coming this way.

[Говорящий 1]
It must be coming from me. If the pen was coming from its own side, if the pen was announcing itself and yelling at me, I'm a pen, I'm a pen, if it were coming this way, and then I showed it to a dog, then the dog would try to take it, and they would try to use it to write something. I like to think they'd be writing a poem to their dog girlfriend, you have a nice tail, or something like that.

But they don't feel it as a pen. They don't see it as a pen. It means that the pen must be coming this way.

The pen must be coming from me. It's like a blank white screen, but my mind fills in the screen. In essence then, the pen is coming from me.

How can you use that? And then you get into this idea which is wrong. People say, just think positive.

If the pen is coming from you, and let's say the pen is out of ink. You need the pen really bad. You have to write something really important.

Somebody's phone number. And then the pen isn't working. The pen is out of ink.

Then you would think, oh, if I understand the emptiness of the pen, I could make a pen that has ink. You see what I mean? Just by wishing.

So the pen is out of ink. I hold the pen up. I know the pen is coming from my mind.

I close my eyes. I think, more ink, more ink, more ink. And I'm wishing.

I'm wanting. I am praying that the pen should have more ink. And then I finish because I realize that the pen is coming from me.

So if I just wanted or wished that it had more ink, then it should have more ink if it's coming from me. And then you pray and you wish. It could be ink for a pen.

It could be a new job or a promotion at work. It could be that your auntie, her breast cancer goes away. You can pray.

You can think. You can wish. And if it's coming from you, then shouldn't it change?

Then you open your eyes and you open the pen and then you try to write with it. And then you realize it's still out of ink. So we can say that the pen must be coming from the mind.

The pen is empty like a white movie screen. When I see a pen, it must be coming from my mind. But we can be sure about one thing.

It's not a voluntary process. It's not that you can close your eyes and you wish that the pen would be something else. The pen is coming from your mind.

But other forces are at work. Other energies are at work. You don't have a choice about what you see.

Something else in your mind is forcing you to see what you see. Can we find out what it is? Can we use it?

Can we change it? And then we could create objects. We could make a different world at will.

That's the thing we have to talk about now.