Сокровищница высшего знания, курс 01: введение в Абхидхармакошу (Аризона, 2014), занятие 3

[Speaker 1]
So we said that every text that came from ancient India was translated into Chinese or Tibetan. They put the Sanskrit tongue and they put the Tibetan tongue as well. In Tibetan it's called ke shenjar.

I think you have an alphabet out there. Say ke. Shenjar.

Start dictionary entry for shenjar. Shen, shen, shen, sabadabayadajar, rajjar, shenjar, s-h-a-n-s-b-y-a-r. It's a very specific idiom, a difficult idiom in Tibetan.

And it means to present anything in a parallel format. So shenjar means you give the English for something and if you put the Tibetan for it or the Chinese for it, if you put it English-Tibetan or English-Chinese, English-Chinese, English-Chinese, as we do in the 20,000 pages of courses, which Google is very excited about, then that's called shenjar. How would you call that?

Bilingual or something like that. Or comparative, the two languages opposite each other. So there's a specific word in Tibetan called shenjar.

Say shen. Shenjar. Great.

Jar means to apply. Shen means side to side. So shenjar means to apply side to side.

So that's it. Stop dictionary entry. We're doing a video dictionary on YouTube.

So we'll have, I don't know, 50,000 words. And every time I come to an unusual word, I explain it. They put it up on YouTube for free.

And millions of people can use it around the world. We started Adams working on it already. You can already see a lot of words there.

We'll continue for 10 more years or something. Say shenjar. Why do we put Sanskrit?

Why do we keep a single sentence of Sanskrit there in the book at the beginning? It's meant that people can understand that this book came from Pak Yu. Say Pak Yu.

Start dictionary entry. Pak Yu. Pak Yu.

Pak Yu. Pak Yu. A-P-A-K-Y-U-Y-U-L Pak Yu is the abbreviation of Papa Yu.

Papa means someone who has seen Kongxin directly. It's called pasa. And very rare in the world.

And then Yu means country. In Sanskrit it's desha. So Aryadesha.

Like Bangladesh means the country of the Bengalis. It's called Bangladesh. So desha means country.

So Aryadesha is the land of the Aryas. And for Buddhists... I mean, for Israelis and, I don't know, Christians and Muslims also, right?

The holy city is like Jerusalem or something. Or it's one of the holy cities. The holy land, right?

For Buddhists, India is the holy land. You can call holy land. And the holy land is India.

Because this is where Lord Buddha lived. This is where Lord Buddha started the teaching. So we call India the holy land or the land of the Aryas.

So it's important to put the Sanskrit at the beginning of the book so people know that it came from the holy land. Okay? And that's the first reason why the translator leaves a single line of the original text in Sanskrit, which is the title.

Parkinpoy Khyapa means the wise person. Sumyampar Khyapa means we want you to realize the moment you open the book that it came from the holy land. Okay?

Done? And there's a second reason. Lekchar Ki Ke Say Lekchar.

Lekchar Begin dictionary entry. Lekchar Ki Ke Lekchar Ki Ke L-E-G-S That's B-Y-A-R G-Y-I That's K-A-D Ke means language. Okay?

The word Ke means language. Lekchar means well put together. Okay?

Well put together or well made. The lek in Sanskrit language is sam.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Sam. The jar is kar, meaning to do or to make. And so we have sam and kar.

The past tense of kar is karta. Say karta. Karta In Sanskrit composition, when an M or an N bumps into an S, sorry, a K, you are required to add an S between them.

So lekchar is sam-s-kar-ta. Sanskrit Sanskrit Sanskrit Okay? Say Sanskrit-ta.

The well made language. Because it's perfect. Sanskrit is perfect.

All Buddhas speak Sanskrit. When you become a Buddha you will speak Sanskrit. And it's a perfect language.

It really is a perfect language. Linguistically it's sexy. It's unbelievable.

If you really study Sanskrit, it's what we call a generational language, meaning if you plug the rules into a computer and the 800 roots of Sanskrit into a computer, you can generate the Sanskrit language perfectly. Because it's a perfect language. It was perfectly standardized.

And very, very precise. Okay? 64 vowel chances.

And the declensions of nouns, not just singular and plural, but also dual. So a whole set of extra words. You see?

To make it more precise. So Sanskrit is the perfect language. Say lekchar.

Lekchar Ki Ki Ke Ke The well made language. Sanskrit. Okay?

Sing a little bit. I got it? You got it?

And I won't brag on where the crit came from. But it's from the same place as Rishdi. It's like, Rishdinan.

Never mind. Indigenous. Lekchar, Ki, Ke, Lak.

Now you know the next word. Pachak. Say Pachak.

Pachak. Mental state. Jonsit.

Okay? That's the big word. In Sanskrit, Vatsanar.

Okay? Or Sanskara. Vatsanar.

It means Jonsit in Chinese. I probably pronounced it wrong. The tone.

But... How do you say it? What's the correct tone?

Jonsit. Okay. It means mental state.

So for us, for all of us, especially these people. See, sometimes in China he calls himself Mr. C. People ask him, what's your name?

He doesn't say Eric Wu. He says, I'm Mr. C. Mr. Mental state. So now you can say, Pachak. Mr. Pachak. Okay?

Pachak means mental state. And like yesterday, he gave us a beautiful teaching on mental state. Thank you.

So this is what you learn. Pachak. Jopa means to plant in your head.

Jopa. Chet. Chet means it is for the purpose of what?

Mentioning the Sanskrit in the first line, retaining a single line from the ancient book is to make you aware that the book came from the Holy Land, and to plant a seed in your mind that you can speak Sanskrit later when you become a Buddha. Okay, got it? Alright.

And of course, you guys know, and I'm not going to talk about it. It's believed that the Sanskrit sounds come from the inner body, from the Qi. The sounds of Sanskrit come from the Qi in the inner body, from the prana, and from the chakras.

Alright. Nipa. Gyopi chakra.

Now the translator is going to bow down. Make a bow. Okay, take a bow.

Bow to somebody. Gyopi chakra. Chak here means, it's short for charsel.

Okay. The word namaste means, all those yoga teachers say namaste, right? And it means I bow down to you.

Namaste means I bow down to you. It's related to the word name, and it means I honor you. But the Tibetan is chaktao, and I've explained it to you before.

Start dictionary entry. Did we do this yet? We did already?

Start dictionary entry for the word chaktao. The word chaktao, which is the translation of the word namaste, bow down. And you can sometimes translate it as namaste, meaning I bow down to you.

Chaktao is an idiom Chak means hand. And it's the honorific word for a hand. So, you're a teacher, you don't call a hand lakpa.

You call it chak. So chak is the honorific word for a person's hand. Sel means to seek.

Not sel. Sel. Okay.

Sel means to look for something, or to seek for something. So why is bow, why is bowing down called seeking the hand? Why?

Yeah. It means your teacher has something precious, like a diamond in their hand. And then you seek a boon from their hand.

Like, if you bow down, bowing down means please, please share with me what you have. Please share with me what you have. So the word for bowing down in Tibetan is to seek something from the hand, from the holy hand of your teacher.

So we say chak tsawa. Okay, so please bow. So the translator is going to bow down.

Why? Why? I told you.

I mean, it was yesterday, but it was pretty long ago. Why does the translator bow down?

[Speaker 2]
Huh?

[Speaker 1]
Ah, it identifies the subject matter of the book. Who they bow down to informs the reader of what the subject matter of the book is because there was a decree, a pin in Tibet made a rule. It's just convenient.

You flip the first page open and you know, is this going to be a book about emptiness or not? If they bow down to Kuan Yin and you want a book about emptiness, what should you do?

[Speaker 2]
Close it.

[Speaker 1]
Go find another one. Okay? Go find a book that is bowing down to Manjushri.

Like that, okay? So from the prostration of the translator, it was meant to identify the general subject matter of the book. It doesn't mean that compassion is involved in Madhyamaka Avatar, but the main subject is emptiness.

Okay, like that. So, Nipa Gyalke Chakma, to discuss the Transcendence of Beasts, we are going to have two parts. Shung Gopal means I will give you the actual text.

I will give you the actual line from the Abhidharmakosha. And then, second, to Shepal means I will explain the meaning of the prostration. Who is making the prostration?

The Tibetan translator. And we talked about this. Today there is a city in China called Xi'an.

Xi'an? Which I hope to see. Because I want to see the tower there.

There is a tower there already translated. I just want to go and put my head on that tower. So, then Shepal means let's explain the prostration of the translator.

Then that the prostration is Sejanga, Shungur, Kyurpala, Chakselot. Sejanga, Shungur, Kyurpala, Chakselot. I bow down to Jangal Shungur.

Jangal? Manju Sri. Gentle voice.

Glorious gentle voice. Manju. Here is glorious gentle voice.

Glorious. Sejal is Sri. Sri.

Okay? And it's often used nowadays as an honorific in Sanskrit or in Hindi to refer to a high master like Sri Patavichas. Okay?

So Sri means glorious one. So often times they'll put the word Sri on people's names. Okay?

But it it conveys the sense of a burning brilliance. Incandescence. A glory.

A glorious burning. And that's why my teacher ordained a nun and called her Palma. Because she's fiery.

Okay? When he ordained her Palma it means fiery lady. I don't know why he did that.

So she's back there. It's been very hard. How many years ago?

20 years ago. 18 years. 23 maybe.

23 years. You missed a few years because you were on retreat. So she she means young.

She means young. Okay? There's a joke about it.

I'm not going to tell you. It's too... It'll take 50 years to teach this.

Shunur. The Ur is to the to Manjushri in in the form of a youth. In the form of a youth.

Chakthalo. I bow down to you. So if you bow down to...

If the translator decided to bow down to Manjushri at the beginning of the book the Abhidharmakosha must be about say Kongxin.

[Speaker 2]
Is that correct?

[Speaker 1]
Kongxin. You should learn it's like the most beautiful word in Chinese language. Kongxin.

Kongxin. You know, I think it's related to Tibetan language because Tibetan gong gong means empty. Gong gong.

Or concavity. So kongxin means emptiness. You should learn the word.

Especially to get God's inspiration. I bow down to Manjushri in in the form of a youth. OK?

Now we'll get the meaning. Again we have it in the form of a debate. OK?

This teacher this lama whose name is Chalilama he likes to present things as a debate. This guy is like What are you going to do with this right hand? Not like this, OK?

It's like a cobra. Let's consider everything in the universe. OK?

He's starting an argument. Let's consider the whole universe. The object to which you will prostrate there's a reason why they prostrated to the one they did.

There's a reason why they there was a purpose. Gapa means purpose. You think?

Because and this is a classical poetic device. You say because there's a person who is first of all jam. Say jam.

Jam. Why are they jam? That's the jam in Jampanyang.

OK? Why are they jam? Which means soft.

This is jam. If the cloth is old it means jam. Or velvet is jam.

Or silk is jam. Then sandpaper or my skin My nickname on Mother's Day I'll tell you my nickname on Mother's Day Say Xinyu Papa Mr. Tree Bar That's the nice nickname. I'm not telling you I don't know.

But it means this is called tsup Say tsupo. Tsupo means rough like sandpaper. And jambo means soft like like a soup.

So he says I'll tell you why I'll tell you why we chose the person that we're choosing to make a prostration to which is who? Jampanyang Because there's someone who is jam. They are smooth.

Like if you shave and you go to a razor and do it There's someone who is smooth. Why are they smooth? Because tsup rek dang jawa They don't have that sandpaper feel feeling Okay?

Jawa means divorced from that sandpaper feeling of what? Jipni Jipanyi Jipanyi Yeah the two obstacles Say jipa Jipanyi So there are two great obstacles in Buddhism In all of Buddhism there are two great obstacles What's the first one? Say nyomongki Jipa Jipa The obstacles caused by your negative emotions like anger jealousy desire If you want to know about jealousy I'll give you a teaching I am the expert on this Okay?

That's the first kind of obstacle And it prevents you from reaching nirvana It stops you from reaching nirvana What's the definition of nirvana? Nirvana Wait Next page Yeah Say nirvana Very good Perfect definition It means remove all your negative emotions forever Because you saw anger Because of anger you saw kongxi Okay? Because you saw kongxi That's the definition of nirvana So Do you have to become a Buddha if you reach nirvana?

No Do you have to change your body? No I mean you could reach nirvana right now before I drink this cup of tea And you would look the same Probably you didn't have a big smile But like Bonnie or something But physically you don't change You can reach nirvana at 8 o'clock and at 8.15 you look the same Basically You don't go like that anymore What's the second obstacle? These are obstacles to enlightenment They're called obstacles to knowledge It means your mind didn't expand to all places and all times yet These are obstacles which block They are veils which block you from seeing all times and all places Why are we talking about Junyi?

Why are we talking about these two obstacles? Great He said we're talking about the two obstacles Because Manjushri doesn't have them And she said Sorry, no And that's what made him stop So he's telling you what the word What's the Sanskrit for Junyi? There's no J in Sanskrit There's no such thing as Manju There's no such thing Say Manju Manju Manju Manju So the Sanskrit J Sanskrit doesn't have a J It's Z Manju Manju Gosha Manjushri OK All that Manjushri is the mispronounced OK Manju Manju This is soft It needs soft Why is it soft?

It doesn't have those two obstacles And those make you prickly They make you like a cactus OK He doesn't have them So he's soft He just shaved OK I have to do that better OK All right That's why he's Manju Now We didn't reach what? That's left of his name That nun tell me what's left of his name Shri We have to explain the Shri So here comes the Shri So he fell down Gyanbena Fell Gyanbena Fell He is fell He is glorious Because he has finished the two collections OK He's finished the two collections So he's perfect He's glorious He's shiny You can take a Shri as shiny Shri means shiny Why is he shiny? He finished the two collections OK So you guys know but I'll tell you again When a person collects the karma which is going to make them a Buddha we don't call it karma anymore OK When a person makes the seeds called what?

Vajra Vajra to become a Buddha we don't call that karma anymore We call it sok ni Say sok ni Sok ni Sok ni means the two collections Why? Karma is always bad Karma is always bad Good karma and bad karma are both bad Why? Bad karma is bad because you hurt somebody so you make bad karma Why is good karma bad?

It wears out OK Because it wears out The karma to have a nice dinner is that a good karma or a bad karma? It's a It's a good karma It's a bad good karma It's a good karma Why is it bad? Because you want more Because you wear it out and then you have to cook again and you have to eat again after two hours three hours four hours you start getting hungry If you're Geshe Michael you're hungry ten minutes later and you get hungry again You see what I mean?

So the karma that made a good dinner is a good karma but it must wear out so that's called bad good karma We call it sak ché ki me Say sak ché sak ché ki me ki me impure karma OK The Yoga Sutra in the fourth chapter says karma shukla krsna yoginis tri vidhamitri shram in Sanskrit, right? Karma shukla krsna yoginis tri vidhamitri shram Karma? Ah shukla What's the ah mean?

Ah Shukla means white Ah shukla means not white And it's also krsna krsna not black krsna krsna is called black because it's dark blue and why they call it krsna I have no idea It's like calling somebody loosinger when his real name is loosinger So karma ah shukla krsna means yoginis means four yogis I think it's data plural Sanskrit in the endings ah yoginis means four yogis They don't make white karma and they don't make black karma OK It means they don't make dirty karma OK And then buddhas when they do actions I mean people who are creating their buddha mind do pure karma and then we don't call it karma anymore we call it collecting their body collecting their new body Here's a arm OK So why do we call Manjushri shi He possesses the glory of those two two new kinds of karma which are pure karma so we don't call them karma anymore We don't call them pure karma So White Angus prayer expresses the two collection sunam gestalt creates the body of the Buddha yeshi gestalt creates the mind of the Buddha These are the two collections of power but we don't they collections of karma That is why He is called shri Now we have one more word, which is kumari. What's kumari? In Sanskrit.

It means youth. It means young. In Tibetan, kuma means a thief or a mugger.

So, Rinpoche used to tell me this story that when they first got to India, they were assigned a guy to teach them, you know, English or something, in the refugee camp. And this Indian man came in and stood up and he said, My name is Mr. Kumar. And everyone was like, Ah!

It's like saying, I'm just a robber. So, in Sanskrit, kumar means young. Why is Manjushri called the boy or the young man?

Why does he bow down? The translator, who's not bowing down here? Master Vasubandhu is not bowing down here.

This is added to the text by the translator. Okay, good. I bow down to Manjushri.

But not to just any Manjushri. I bow down to the young one. It reminds me of Mr. Wu Laxu because he's so young.

[Speaker 2]
And he's so smart.

[Speaker 1]
So, it's kind of unusual. Okay. I have to work for 15 years.

Anyway, naksa is a very rare Tibetan word that means his... What does that word actually mean? His physical age or his...

Chronological. Naksa means chronological age. And it's as unusual as chronological age.

Okay, independent. Because na means on or if. So, it's very rare.

Naksa means his age. His chudu. Chudu.

You guys gotta learn cool Chinese things. Chudu. Chudu is what?

Ten. Go? Six.

You can go. In China, you can just go. It means 16.

Surfers also do that.

[Speaker 2]
People surf.

[Speaker 1]
Anyway. This is 16. This is great.

So, chudu means 16 years old. He appears. When Manjushri appears, he appears as a 16-year-old.

And that's a long story. It has to do with his chakras. Numba means 16 years old.

Numba means old. Years old. Numba means years old.

Nyangchen means in that form, in that appearance. Yinbena, therefore he's called Kumari, Shun, the young one. Manjushri in the younger form.

So there are many forms of Manjushri. And in this case we're bowing down to the one which is 16 years. Which is considered a peak of physical development in a human being.

And it's slightly different for women. Slightly younger. Say Numba.

[Speaker 2]
Numba.

[Speaker 1]
16 years old.

[Speaker 2]
16 years old.

[Speaker 1]
More like a snake. Get it up. Get it up.

It's like that. Like a cobra. Hello.

Hello. Hello. Hello.

Hello. Hello. Hello.

Hello. Hello. Hello.

Hello. Hello. Hello.

Hello. Hello. I'm just going to go, maybe we go, we'll go for another 15 minutes or something because we have to do an ordination.

It's quite a long ordination. And they, Jing Mei always gets upset when I say that it takes longer to ordain a nun because they have more rules. Because...

Because they are more naughty. It's 364 vowels. The boys only have 453.

Then she said, the extra vowels are all about not hanging out with boys because they're so much trouble. What's the purpose of drawing down to Manjushri? Why does the translator draw down to Manjushri?

Because that's the question posed by the translator. Tenjil di mun gi ke che tar. Tenjil di means this classical commentary, meaning the Ramakosha.

Mun means in days gone by. Ke, start dictionary entry. Ke che.

It's a totally difficult idiom. Pao ka sa ke, pao cha la che. B-K-A-S-B-C-A-D.

Ke is the instrumental of the word ka. Ka means the mother utterance in Sanskrit. The first letter, in English what's the first letter?

[Speaker 2]
A.

[Speaker 1]
But in Sanskrit it's ka. So ka means the mother letter of all letters. It means like A.

Ka means the mother letter of all letters. It's called ka. And then it came to mean any word is called ka.

Any utterance from your throat is called ka. And then it came to mean the word of a king. So when you translate it, that's a joke, right?

So what do we call the word of Lord Buddha? Kami, right? So ka means the word of a king.

The word, capital W, or the word of Jesus, or something like that. The word, okay? That's ka.

When you put the instrumental, it means with a ka, with a command. Che means it was commanded. Che means to...

You know che from Dorje Jopa? Chikanjin, right? What's the ka in chikanjin?

Is there any chikanjin? Yeah. But when you say chikanjin, it just means diamond sutra, right?

There's no ka in that. Yeah. So, the full word...

Also we say diamond sutra, but the full name is diamond kaka sutra. Diamond kaka sutra. So the word ka is chikan...

[Speaker 2]
How do you say it? Dwan.

[Speaker 1]
Dwan.

[Speaker 2]
Dwan.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. I'll remember slightly. So jopa means to cut, right?

This is another tense of that. Okay, jopa means to cut with the word of the king. And it means to command, to make a command, or to make a rule.

By royal decree. It was decreed by the king. What?

The purpose of bowing down to a magistrate is that you should shepa, the reader should shepa, understand that this book is included, jopa, into the body of literature, kongsu jopa, called mumba. The abhidharma. Abhidharma.

Dana is the sun, is the diamond for... There's three of them in the canyon. The whole Buddhist canyon divides into three.

Pitaka. Yeah. Then if there's three baskets, you call...

Tri... To say tri... Pitaka.

Tripitaka. Tripitaka. Yeah.

The three sections of all Buddhist literature. By the way, there are sutra, and naya, and abhidharma. Each one of them relates to one of the three trains.

The abhidharma, pitaka, of all Buddhist teaching, relates to kongsu. And understanding and wisdom. So in order that we know that, that this book is contained in the pitaka called abhidharma, we bow down to Manjushri.

Then the reader knows, this book is about Manjushri. The meaning of this book's subject is going to be kongsu. Because he bowed down to Manjushri at the beginning.

Give me... Give me a... Ten more minutes.

Okay? No more stop. Okay.

And again, these three days is just a teaser. It's going to take thousands of days. Right?

We're just... Dipping our toe into the lake. Okay?

Real deep. So there are three sections to the actual body of the text. First one will be the required preliminaries for starting a text.

The classical commentary. The second is called shunyidamu, which is the actual body of the text. And then we'll have the shepa-tachi, so the concluding sections.

These are called in... I really like them. Okay.

The back matter. The back matter. It's not colorful.

No, it's just all the stuff in the back of the book. It's called... Tachi means the sections relating to the conclusion of the explanation.

Tachi. My lover's name was... Tachi.

His name was... Ta means the edge of something. Ta means to the edge.

And tachi means... Itta means to go to the edge.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Dambulla means the first of them, which means all the sections that relate to starting the book. Okay? There's four parts of that.

And four traditional parts to start your book. Here's the first one is... Shepa-japa means...

Shepa-japa means you have some high poetry about some high being, and you make an offering of praise. Shepa-japa means an offering of praise to some high being. You say some beautiful words to some high being.

It's the first part of every classical book from India. Every book from India is jing. You call it jing, right?

Whether it's a sutra or a shastra, in Chinese it's called jing, right? Or yi jing, or xi jing, or... Okay.

Then sambar-damchao means, I told you yesterday. Because we finished it for this book, but we didn't finish it for the other one, of course. Damchao.

Yeah, he promises to write the book. He makes a promise to write the book, and he says, I will finish or I will die. But I will finish, okay?

We finished Choney Lama's sambar-damchao, but we didn't get to Master Vasubandhu's sambar-damchao, okay? We still have to cover Master Vasubandhu's promise to write the book, okay? Sambar-damchao.

Then murmbet-sendun means, Master Vasubandhu will tell you why he called this book Abhidhammakashtra. Because Master Vasubandhu, he goes into a long explanation of why it's called Abhidhammakashtra, okay? So that's coming.

And then the fourth part, Very, very beautiful teaching in Buddhism. Very, very beautiful teaching. Let's see if I can remember it off the top of my head.

Probably not. It means, in a Buddhist person, whether you're from Tel Aviv or Beijing, don't waste your time on other books, okay? If that book can get you enlightened, then read it.

If it can't, don't waste your time. Unless you're overworked and you need to read a science fiction book. But it means there must be an ultimate goal to the book.

Or it's not worth a Buddhist person's time. That book. That's why I don't read magazines.

I don't read newspapers. I don't watch TV shows. And I don't know what they say.

And I will never know, okay? I don't have time. If you ask me, do I want to spend half an hour looking at, or thinking about, or talking about one of them, I'm not interested.

I want a book that has those four qualities. It's called, Nyi Dön means, there must be an ultimate purpose to this book, which is what? Getting enlightened so you can help people on countless planets.

Okay? If the book can teach me that, I will read it. If the TV show or the newspaper can teach me that, I will read it.

Otherwise, I don't want to read it, I don't want to look at it, and I don't want to hear about it. I'm just not interested. I don't have time.

I really don't have time. It's ultimate. If you, if the newspaper said something about ultimate, reaching the ultimate goal, then talk to me about the newspaper.

But that's the only reason I want to read about the newspaper. So, one is, does it have an ultimate goal? Does the book have an ultimate goal?

Reaching, reaching enlightenment. Does it have a temporal goal, or a provisional goal? Okay?

What would be the provisional goal of this book? The goal that gets you to the ultimate goal. Learning Abhidharma.

Okay? So the goal of this book is that you learn about Abhidharma or wisdom. Okay?

And that will get me to the ultimate goal. So that's, we call it ultimate goal and provisional goal. What do you call it?

Temporary or short term? Short term goal. Long term goal, short term goal.

Short term goal is learn Abhidharma. Why do you write, you know, what's the short term goal? Learn Abhidharma.

Why? To reach the long term goal, which is enlightenment. Okay?

To get to the short term goal, you need a book. Okay? You need a book.

You need a text. You need someone to write a book. Okay?

So these are the three qualities of a Buddhist book. There must be a text, which is relevant to reaching a temporary goal, which is relevant to reaching an ultimate goal. And what's the fourth one?

There must be a connection. There must be a connection between these three. Okay?

Like Mr. Wu was, Wu Dao, she was teaching us about borders, between the four action seeds. And so there must be a connection between these three. If this book can teach me Abhidharma, and that will take me to enlightenment, then I will read this book.

If there's a connection between those three, I will read the book. Got it? That's a good place to start with you.

Okay? So say, Say, Good is one of them. It's the temporary goal.

means temporary goal. Means ultimate goal. Means subject matter.

And then means the connection between these three. And those are the These are the four qualities of a piece of literature or writing. If it has those four, open it.

If it doesn't have those four, let it go. Because you don't have time. You don't have time to read all those newspapers.

You don't have time to read all those magazines. You just don't have time. It doesn't matter what they say.

Good or bad, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter for you. You're gonna die.

If you're gonna die, don't waste your time on those things. Read something which is gonna help you. Okay?

A Buddhist doesn't, hopefully, I mean ideally, we don't read anything that doesn't have those four qualities. People give me books all the time. And I send them to Goodwill.

How much? Just give me the address of the Goodwill. I've got 4,600 texts from India.

And I have 200,000 Tibetan commentaries. I don't need a book about last year's psychology. Sorry.

It doesn't mean you shouldn't study last year's psychology. It doesn't mean that if it would help somebody, you can read it. Okay?

You can study it. That's okay. If it will help somebody, you can read it.

If you're in a three-year retreat and you're in your brain period and your mind is too, what did Will say? Hot and pressured. And you have to read a science fiction book or romances are very good.

Read one. And that's just to cool down the reactor. Okay?

It's just for entertainment. Relaxation is a crucial part of the Buddhist path. Relaxing properly is a crucial part of the Buddhist path.

When you reach Tantra, there will be a message in the romance novel or the movie. When you reach Tantra, you can read those books and look for Manjushri in the newspapers and so on. Okay?

Cool? So we have finished dipping your toe. It's like going to the edge of the ocean in Venice Beach.

You know how there's a wet part of the sand? You just step, your little toe just got on the wet part of the sand. We have to go to Tokyo or Beijing or Xiamen.

Okay? We have to swim like, I don't know, 5,000 miles. We just touched the edge of the ocean in these three days.

But it's a great start and it's a very good karma to hear the beginning of the number question. It's a very sweet karma that was created by this video retreat. It was created by everybody here that we got to hear from.