Вступление на срединный путь (текущий курс, Аризона), занятие 10

[Speaker 1]
Oh, welcome back, and... what I wanted to encourage you, you know, I don't know how many people are going to end up translating obscure Tibetan texts, you know? But, incidentally, we're going through the two greatest books on emptiness ever written, I think.

So, I would keep coming, even if you can't tell ka from ka. Okay? And, you know, like, we'll be talking about translation, and we'll be...

we'll be doing all that, but to get a chance to go through this entire text is like one out of a million people—one out of a billion people, probably, something like that. So, you know, you should keep coming, even if you never... you know, ignore the translation part and just get the emptiness part.

These are the two greatest books as far— in my opinion, the two greatest books on emptiness ever written. So, just to hear them, just to go through them, is unbelievable. Like, very difficult to get this chance.

It took us eight years. It took me eight years in the monastery. No one else wanted to do it.

Everybody dropped out, you know? After—last six years, it was just me and Geshe Thich Drinchen, and... on the Gomba Rabsel, Jetsun Kapa's text.

And Umachiden, very difficult to get the whole teaching, okay? So, you know, stick it out for that. And, you know, go home and try to look beyond the words and just...

you know, you can just go home and read the English, basically, and think about it, and debate it, okay? So, try to debate at least once a week, right? The idea is that you hear it in class, you go home and think about it yourself for...

I'd say an hour, you know what it's going to be, 15 minutes fixing the tea, 30 minutes looking at it, 15 minutes, like, getting interrupted and leaving. But, one time at home, review it on your own. One time, review it with a friend, at Starbucks or 31 Flamers, wherever you can find around here.

It's just fun to do it with at least one friend, or two friends, right? And then thirdly, one session in debate, okay? All right?

Then it'll be good in your mind, then you'll really know it. And otherwise, it doesn't help much, okay? Like, we had the nice three days at the church this week, but we all went out to dinner afterwards and tried to figure out how to keep it going, because it doesn't help, you see?

To hear it once doesn't help, it doesn't really change your mind. You have to review, okay? And then I request that...

Where's the other guy? Where's Alistair? Oh, can you keep doing your shtick on this?

Okay, they're going to keep doing homework, so even if you're online, I encourage you to do homeworks, and, you know, keep that up, okay? So they're writing them after the class each time, because we don't know how far we're going to get each time, all right? Then we've been reviewing the Basic Tibetan Alphabet in a very beautiful system that's really based on the ancient way of teaching Sanskrit.

And so I'm going to do a little bit more of that. I think I figured out a way... Christy didn't tell me this.

There's a Tibetan font in here, right? Isn't there? What's it called?

Which one should I hit? This one? If I want to just type off the keyboard?

What's it called?

[Speaker 2]
This one?

[Speaker 1]
It's this one here?

[Speaker 2]
Oh, I don't think so. Say, oh yeah?

[Speaker 1]
You can't guess what it is?

[Speaker 2]
It's not this, right?

[Speaker 1]
Ah, cancel that. We'll figure it out later. Let's do it orally.

You guys, if you don't have a list of the alphabet, get one, okay? You know? With the rows and all that, okay?

So, we'll just go down the first... I want to review the rows, okay? Anybody have that written out?

No. Do you have it on your computer? Can I have that?

Okay. Yeah. Can you still do that?

Okay. Anyway, the Tibetan alphabet can be... It's 30 letters, can be arranged in 7 rows of 4, followed by 2 letters.

I'll get it up on the screen in a minute, but let's just get going. And there's a trick way to learn the alphabet quickly. You can learn it in about a week.

If you're not... If you don't know the alphabet, work with Eric. Are you still doing your thing?

You and Mercedes? Okay, raise your hands. So, Eric and Mercedes are providing assistance if you don't know.

And I'm not going to do it, because I just... want to get through this book in the next 5 years, okay? Which we have to rush, we're kind of behind schedule already, okay?

So, we'll go down this column. Say, ga... ja...

da... ba... za.

Calming up your throat. Notice, ga... ja...

da... ba... za.

This goes back, because of pizza, when you eat pizza, you need these two teeth, okay? Say, ga... ja...

da... ba... za.

Okay. Then what we call the aspirated. They're still high tone, they're still like...

but there's more air coming out. Say, ka... cha...

It's like you're tired. Pa... pa...

za. Okay? Ka...

cha... pa... pa...

za. What's it called? How do you show it?

In one person? Okay. I mean, we're in red.

Okay. Moo? Okay.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

This goes back. So that's the first column. We'll do it again.

Ka... ja... Ignore that one.

Da... ba... za.

Okay, now second column. Ka... cha...

pa... pa... za.

Third column. Ka... cha...

da... pa... za.

Ignore this next column. This is all the Sanskrit things, you don't need them. Na...

nya... na... ma...

wa... Okay? And then four low tones.

Okay? Sha... sa...

ah... And then ya should be over there. Ya...

Then two mid tones. Ra... rolled.

Okay. Ra... la...

sha... And then... sa...

And then ha... and... ah...

Okay. We finished the alphabet, okay? And we finished the subjoin letters, if I remember.

Right? Right? Okay, did we do head letters?

We did head letters. So now we're going to do prefix letters. Say, ka...

da... ma... ah...

ka-da-ba-ma... ka-da-ba-ma... Five of the letters of Tibetan can appear as silent prefix letters.

Like, how do you spell no? K-N-O. Yeah, K-N-O-W, right?

How do you spell two? You see, it's...Tibetan's like that. It's got silent letters, like the word no.

You can spell K-N-O-W. And the K and the W are really silent, you see? Or you can spell N-O.

So, Tibetan has all these letters that come before the main sound, that used to be pronounced in the old days, but aren't pronounced anymore. Like, if you go to Mongolia or Ladakh, and you say, gyamdo, which means, take refuge, they say, skyab skdgo. And we had a Mongolian monk lived with us, his name was Brtsun Skrus, which is tsundru in Hasa.

So, in the middle of the country, the language evolves and gets slurred. Like, what are you doing? You know?

And then, on the outskirts, you know, in the...what do you call, like the... in the boondocks, everything is pronounced like it originally was. And then the people in the middle of the country make fun of the people in the boondocks, but the boondocks people are really pronouncing it correctly, right?

That's another point. But anyway, there are silent prefix letters that come in Tibetan. So, oftentimes you'll see a word that has...

Let's look at our text, maybe. Let's take this word right here. You see where my cursor is?

This thing? It looks like bas ten, right? Bas ten.

But the B and the S are silent. And you just say ten. Say ten?

So, you don't say bas ten, okay? And we're going to talk about what prefix letters do to the sound, okay? Do they change the sound or not?

Let me see if I can find an example. Oh. Ah, well.

Nah, let's leave it. If you know this three rows thing, one row, two rows, three rows, if you know this row thing, then you'll understand prefix letters, okay? Any first row letter, if you write another letter in front of it, just for spelling, like K, N, or W, right?

It doesn't change the sound at all. The sound is the same, okay? So, for example...

Let me see. Yeah, there's a word kāwa, say kāwa. It means pillar, okay?

And it's just spelled with a K. It's just a plain old K. Then there's a word kāṅgyur, say kāṅgyur.

The word of Lord Buddha, bhakka, okay? It has a B in front of it, like the K in no, but it doesn't do anything to the sound, because it's first column. It's kacchatapatsa.

Whatever you put in front of them, it doesn't matter. So, why did they put an extra letter in front of it? It's a different spelling.

It's a different word, you see? So, in writing you can tell the difference between a pillar and the word of Lord Buddha, because the word of Lord Buddha will have a B in front of it, bhā, right? And that's all.

Like, how do you know the difference between T-O-O and T-O and T-W-O? They're spelled differently, right? And I heard that in Japanese, I don't know, there's so many homonyms that when you talk to somebody you have to go like this.

You have to stand, they'll like, they'll talk, they'll stand there, because in English we only have two, two, and two. But they might have like ten different kās, and then you have to stand there and and write the character as you talk to somebody, like that. So, any first column letter, kācātapacā, with a prefix letter, nothing changes.

The sound doesn't change. Just the spelling changes, and then it's a different meaning, okay? There's another kā that has a dā in front of it, and that means difficult, you see?

So, there's dhṛkā, bhakā, and kā, and they mean three different things. And they're all pronounced... kā.

Okay, got it? Easy, all right? Second column, which is, say, kā, cā, tā, pā, cā.

Again, when you put a prefix letter in front of them, nothing changes. The sound doesn't change, okay? Pronunciation doesn't change.

Except in very, very... like two or three weird words, okay? Like gyaltsen.

Geshe Gyaltsen, for example. Like that. Just a...

or gyaltso, in some cases, like that, okay? They're just weird. Okay.

But, when you get to the third column, say, kā, cā, tā, pā, cā. When you put a prefix letter on one of those, it changes from that Brazilian lady, airport lady... What is that?

It's the sexy lady in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, who announces the flights? She's very famous in Brazil. And I heard it, I said, that's kā.

You know? Because she goes, flight, number, four, five, six. You know?

She's very famous. So, when you say third column, you have to say it like your... what do you call it?

Husky voice. Like kā. Say kā.

kā cā kā kā kā pā pā cā Okay, that's the pronunciation of the third column. If you put a prefix letter, it changes to the real English letter, gā, jā, dā, bā, dzā. So you can tell if someone's been trained properly in Tibetan how they pronounce their third columns, right?

If they've been trained properly, they say kā. Kā means like, where? And gā means a saddle.

You see what I mean? So you gotta know the difference. You gotta be able to distinguish between those two sounds.

Ready? Here's third column without any other thing on it. Kā.

Kā. Kā. Kā.

And then here's with a head letter. Gā. Like God.

Okay? Or here's with a prefix letter. Gā.

And that means old age, or saddle, depending on how it's spelled. Or bliss. You see?

And it depends on how it's spelled. But gā, just the third column by itself, that's like where or what, okay? Like that.

Got it? Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
The sound, even if it sounds like the second column?

[Speaker 1]
No. Catch the difference between the second and third column. Here's second column.

Kā. High tone, aspirated. No buzzing here, no guttural.

No buzzing in your throat. Feel this when you do the Brazilian lady. Kā.

Kā. Kā. It's all here.

And then, second column is just kā. Kā. Okay?

Oh, it doesn't become second column. It just becomes gā. Gā.

No, that's kā. Got it? You want to do some game?

I mean, I'll do a game. You tell me first, second, or third column. Okay, ready?

Kā. Kā. Kā.

Okay? That's easy. Let's do second one, it's harder.

Chā. First. Second, sorry.

Chā. Second. Chā.

Third. Chā. First, got it?

We'll do the third one. Tā. First.

Tā, like you're tired. Tā. Yeah.

Tā. Okay, got it? It's like that.

That's all. You practice, you'll get it. And you have to practice, because if you don't do it right, your Tibetan will never be good, because 23 words will sound the same to you, in your head.

And you'll never be a translator, and you'll never... You know, it's like cheap and jeep. I told you this story in Thailand, I worked in a gem...

I started a stone company there. And we did rubies there, and... there were three vendors, rare gems, lure gems, and real gems.

Now, in Thailand, they don't distinguish between an R and an L. Okay? Like, they can't hear the difference between R and an L.

So, the receptionist would call me, Little Gems is here. I'd say, is that real, rare, or lure? Little.

Okay, it would spell... You know, send me a fax, so I can see. You know, they...

So, to them, these three companies are the same, which can cause a problem, right? And when you write checks to them, and stuff like that. And if you pronounce them all the same, in your head, you'll never be good at Tibetan, okay?

You have to get this difference, from the beginning, okay? And if you stumble, and if you go slow, that's better, than if you get sloppy. If it takes you five minutes to say ka, that's fine.

If you just fake it, ka, somewhere between all three, then you'll never be a good translator. Okay, we'll do it one more time. You tell me what column.

Ka. Good. Ka.

Ka. Now, here's a trick. Ga.

Third with a head letter. Third with something on it. Third with a head letter, third with a prefix letter, something on it.

Got it? Okay, that's all. Fourth column.

Let's go, let's do it one more time. Nga. Your nga is good.

Nga. Because we don't have nga in English. We have nga, and senor, and canyon, and things like that, but we don't have nga, okay?

Nga, nga, nga. Ma. Wa.

They're all low tone. You have to be careful on that. Nga.

Nga. Na. Ma.

Wa. When you put a head letter on them, or you put a prefix letter on them, they get high. Nga.

Nga. Na. Ma.

Wa. When do we use this high tone in English when we're asking a question? Are you really gonna go?

You see how the tone goes? Are you really gonna go? And that's the way it is in Tibetan.

Hear the difference. Nga. Nga.

Nya. Nya. Nga.

Nga. Ma. Ma.

Ma means mom. Ma means a pussy cut on your arm. You see?

You gotta know the difference. Okay? Nga.

Say nga. Nga means ear, right? Nga means your nose or your ear.

Okay? It's like that. You gotta know the difference.

Nga means... me. Nga means a drum or a camel.

You see what I mean? You gotta... get the difference.

You gotta hear the difference. Okay? So that's all we're gonna do.

Is there a difference in sound between nose and ear? Not at all. There's a spelling difference.

And to remember, just so you can remember, the head letter for ear has an R, is an R, like the R in ear. And the head letter for nose is an S, like the S in nose. And that's how I used to remember it.

You know what I mean? So, easy way to remember it. Okay?

Now, one more point. You see these? I'm gonna point to something with my cursor.

The letter ma, which is right here. Okay? Ma.

And the letter a, right here. Okay? Those two, when they are prefix letters, they do something weird to the word, to the sound.

And you should know. When they are prefix letters, like K in K-N-O-W, they make another change in the letter. Okay?

And they only do it to the... which column do you guess? Third column.

First two columns are like locked in, you can't do much to them. But they do it to the third column. What do they do?

They do a thing called a prenasal. A little nasal sound before the sound. So say, ga.

I'm sorry, say, ga. That's where, right? Say, ga.

That's bliss. Okay? But when you put this prefix letter before it, it's nga.

Hear that little N sound? Nga. Nga.

Okay? And then it means some. Some people or some things.

Gassik. Nga. Okay, got it?

Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
Is there a difference between that now, and just a little temporal?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, there is.

[Speaker 2]
It's like a space.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Yeah, it's a difference between nga and nga. One you're just kind of setting up the sound.

You say, mmm, and then you say, ga. And the other one you say, nga. It's a different thing.

You'll get used to it. You'll get used to it. And you won't learn it in one day.

It's just that I'm trying to teach you the rules, so it's on tape. And you've got to be trained in it, okay? And then you'll be perfect.

99.9% of Tibetans could not explain this to you. They do it, and they don't know what they're doing. They don't teach it this way in the monastery or anywhere else.

This was taught by linguists in Tibet, right? But they do it, and they don't know they're doing it. You know, you say, did you peniasal that?

And they're like, huh? You know, okay? Okay, it's not like that.

Like, gan-den is really ga-den. Gan-den monastery. There's no N.

There's no N. It's a prenasal. It's a ga-n-den.

The N belongs to the second syllable. It's ga-n-den. And then when you say it fast, it's gan-den.

I'll give you another example. What do you guess a gun is called in Tibetan? Gun.

Fire arrow. So, fire is what? Me?

An arrow is n-da. It's a ma before the da, right? N-da.

So, what do they call a gun? Men-da. You see what I mean?

They slur it. They say men-da. Okay?

Got it? That's the prenasal. There's no N in there.

Okay? So, you'll learn it, alright? You'll learn it.

It's just I want to have it on your... I want to have it on record that I said it, okay? And then you have to practice, alright?

And we'll do that. We'll read the text together. And that's all we're going to do on the prefix letters, okay?

If we come to some, I'll point them out. Now, I'm going to skip down. We were at...

Arya Nagarjuna, this Arya, was explaining emptiness in two different ways. One was through logic, and one was through scripture, right? And he wrote books to do that.

So, as far as scripture, he wrote this one here, the Compendium of the Sutras. He just swiped quotations out of books to explain emptiness, alright? Then as far as logic, he wrote these six books about emptiness, alright?

And then we've been going through those six books. That's where we've been, okay? By the way, we're in the monastic textbook on emptiness, which explains Je Tsongkapa's textbook, which was written like 150 years before that, something like that, okay?

So, it's easier to get to Je Tsongkapa if you go through the monastic textbook. So, that's the strategy that we're working on, okay? Now, there's a logic to the way that those six books present emptiness, and here's the logic.

The most famous book by Arya Nagarjuna is called Tsawa Sherab, say Tsawa. Sherab. Mula Pragnya.

Ah, the rude text on wisdom, okay? And that's just the most famous one. We had it in the Christian class yesterday, and the day before.

SKYE BA MED PA RGA PA MED There's no starting, there's no stopping, there's no coming, there's no going, there's no going. It's very beautiful, the opening lines are very famous. The car doesn't run on gas.

You know, the opening lines of Tsawa Sherab say, your car doesn't run on gas. It runs on kindness, okay? But it's like, unbelievable.

It's like, Nagarjuna starts out, the greatest book of emptiness ever written, you know? Your car doesn't run on gas, period. He leaves you, he doesn't explain, okay?

All right, but that's another thing. Ah... And that's a truly existing working thing, right?

It refutes that. There is no working thing, a car, which runs on gas. There's no such thing.

And that's... that's earth-shaking. That's earth-shattering.

That's profound. That's unbelievable. If that's true, then every action we take is wrong.

You know, you try to start your car with a key, you're wrong. That's not what starts a car. What are you talking about?

How do I start a car then? You give people rides. That's why your car starts.

Really. Nothing to do with the key. Nothing to do with the petrol.

Nothing. No connection at all. If you have been kind and helped other people, giving them rides, your car will start today.

If not, it won't start. Doesn't matter how much money you have. Doesn't matter how much gas is in it, right?

It's unbelievable. That's... that's Nagarjuna's first statement, in his first book.

And then people are going to freak out, right? So, here they start to freak out. Then people come back to him.

Actually, there are 16 different complaints about him, called the 16 Logical Terms. Okay? And these are very complicated.

You need like six years of logic training. We'll leave it. Part of the art of translation.

And as we go in this translation work, we are defining the art of translation. We are making rules for translation. Maybe you got to put them all in some logical order, because I'm just throwing them out as they come.

Don't get bogged down in the detail, if you know you only got six years to finish this. Because you won't make it. You won't make it.

You see what I mean? Just define your level of detail. We don't have time to go into the 16 Logical Terms in detail.

It would be great. It would be fun. You would learn a lot.

You would never get to the middle of this book. You'd never get to the emptiness part, okay? So, you make a decision.

As a teacher, you make a decision. And as a translator, you make a decision. How much detail?

Do I want an 800-page book, which Doubleday specifically told me they won't publish? Or do you keep it to 200, which they'll think about? You see what I mean?

It's like that, okay? And will the student benefit more from getting to the end of the book, or from learning the 16 Logical Terms? And then you make your decision, you see what I mean?

Okay. The second book... So, the second book does that.

Nagarjuna's third book is called Seventy Lines on Emptiness. It's an extension of the seventh chapter. A lot of his six books are extensions from the first book.

Like, he'll take a theme that he was working on in the first book, and he'll expand on it in another book. So, this is how things work, even though they don't have any nature, okay? Fire is not hot.

But you can still cook popcorn, right? With it. Am I right?

Gyalpo gassho. I get popcorn tonight. You heard, right?

No, right. So, is fire hot? Is heat a quality of fire?

No. But can you make food with it? Yes.

Yes. You know, how does that work? You see?

That's what this book does. This book explains that. Why?

Why is that true? Why doesn't fire possess heat? Isn't that the definition of fire?

Sa shing sepa, me ten yin de ye che. The definition of fire is that which is hot and burning. Then you say, fire doesn't have a quality of being hot.

What do you mean? What's that mean? From its own side, okay?

Even the thing which defines the thing doesn't belong to the thing. It's coming from you. It's coming from your mind, not from the fire.

The heat of fire is coming from your mind. If you know that and you can work with that, you can pick up a burning metal thing and not get burned. You see?

That's how miracles can occur. If you can adjust the quality of the fire which is not there, because it's coming from you, right? If you can learn how to adjust that on the fly...

You know, yogis then they just pick up these burning red-hot things. We saw a pujari in India. He's like...

He had this special lamp thing. It has six... six, seven...

flames on it, you know? And then he handed it to me one day. He said, take it outside, and I grabbed it, and it's like...

It just burned my hand like that, you know? And he's like, oh, sorry, you know? And...

You know, there's this thing, you can... The fire doesn't have heat. Your mind is imputing the heat, you see what I mean?

Okay? And you can still cook with it, okay? Alright, next book...

just explains about positive and negative objects. Why is that important when you're studying emptiness? Huh?

Emptiness? Why?

[Speaker 2]
Because that's what? Emptiness?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Emptiness is just an absence of something, okay? Like...

Rinpoche used to make a joke about the guy in the monastery who said, I saw emptiness, you know, and the other guys would say, well, what was it like? It's a little bit green, you know? He's like, yeah, yeah.

Emptiness is just something that's not there, okay? It's just a condition of something not being there. So you better know the difference between positive thing and a negative thing, okay?

Emptiness means fire never had heat, never could have heat, never will have heat. And that's its emptiness, okay? That's...

by itself, from its own side, okay? Got it? Okay, next book, the next two books...

it's one thing to talk about how this cool thing about fire, it's one thing to talk about how the car doesn't run on gasoline, but what does it do for me? You see what I mean? Does that have any application in a real person's life?

And then you get to this idea, these two books are like, yeah, this is what liberates you. If you see that, anything is possible. You see, if you understand emptiness, you can do anything, you can get liberated.

You know, that's a big thing. So, the first couple books prove emptiness. Then you got two books to say, look, we're not just doing some philosophical, like, game here, you know?

This thing can save you. This fact can save you, you know what I mean? Like, if your arm doesn't have mortality, in the way that fire doesn't have heat, right?

Then all things are possible. You can change, you can save people, you can become an angel, right? So, those two books do that.

This is where we left off last class, okay? If Smashing Things to Find Dust refutes those 16 different logical terms, what are those different logical terms? And we were struggling with how to split the wording to get 16.

And we did 16 logically from the Tibetan text here. Then we did a text search, and we found out that no other book, from India or Tibet, splits them up that way. Okay?

So, he's quoted this thing from somewhere we don't know where, and it's probably wrong. Okay? Sometimes what happens, you hear something in the debate ground, the guy's in a rush, or the guy's like getting beat, and he just throws out a quotation that he half-remembers, and then you memorize it from that, and then it goes on.

People start memorizing it, you see? So, we've made a footnote here, about like three mistakes in that quotation, apparent mistakes in that quotation. Note how I made the footnote.

Here's a rule about translation. You are not smarter than the guy who wrote the book, trust me. Okay?

I mean, most translations when you read it, oh, Nagarjuna didn't get this point, you know, I do. You know what I mean? It's very common, very common.

It's almost like condescending to one of these great masters. Oh, he didn't memorize this line right, or something like that. You don't know.

Maybe he had a different text from ancient India that listed 16 different terms, you don't know. Maybe he was teaching his students and he wanted to test them. Maybe the carver on the third generation woodblock missed the word, you know what I mean?

I've seen it in my lifetime, with stuff that I wrote, that I can hardly recognize, you know, because three editors got a hold of it, I'm like, who wrote this? You did, what what? You know, and, you know, so you have to be careful how you turn, you don't say it's wrong, you say it numbers them differently.

Okay? And every other work numbers them differently than I've found, okay? And they all agree.

So, we better tell the reader what the... what all the other books agree on. And they come from ancient India and from Tibet, okay?

So, there's a short example, there's a short explanation of the... of the pieces that were missing in that quotation, or... or were wrong, or spelled wrong, or, you know, stuff like that, okay?

And that's the cool thing about the ACIP work, you know? If we can continue, not only with the Tibetan, but also the Sanskrit, Greek, Coptic, Hebrew, then the materials we have to work on these things will be more accurate when we lead them than when we got them. You see what I mean?

Which is cool. Okay, now we're on to fresh translation stuff. The rules of this class, if you have a comment, just make it, if you're online, go ahead.

Somebody, Andrea, I think will yell it out. And the thing we wanted to try in this class was to trans... I'll translate on the fly, I'll translate live.

And then, your job is to say, raise your hand and say, that doesn't make sense, or that sounds clumsy to me, or that's not normal English, could you put it in normal English, which is the worst thing a translator can do, right? Or, you know, I can think of a better word for that. And we've had a lot of good words, we've had a lot of good...

I like the translation, I read it again today, and it's sort of a collaboration. And I like it. It's coming out nice.

So, I'll translate, then you critique. And we're encouraging, like, Tibetan scholars around the world, like, you know, experts, we wrote letters to all of them and said, please, once in a while, you know, tune in, and, you know, like Geshe Thubten Jimpa, His Holiness' translator, and people like that, we said, or Professor Thurman, we said, we know you're busy and you have better things to do, but if you want to tune in and critique as it's happening, you know, like, complain about stuff while it's happening, and help us, it'd be a very interesting approach. It'd be like having 15 people lean over your shoulder while you're translating the Bible or something, and they could say, that doesn't make sense, or that's not so clear, or, I happen to know that's wrong, you know, or something like that.

So, it'd be an interesting approach, right? Which the technology allows us to try. So, we'll see.

Okay, here we go. Yeah. So, earlier in this book, the author had said, that book that Arya Nagarjuna wrote, called Seventy Verses on Emptiness, is a take-off from the seventh chapter of his big book, right?

The root text on wisdom. And, the Seventy Verses on Emptiness demonstrates how, even though the car is empty, or even though fire is not hot by itself, you can still cook with it. Things still work.

Okay? So, the author of our book, this monastic textbook, is anticipating somebody saying, prove to me that it comes from that book. And prove to me that it shows that things still start, things still stop.

You can still cook your dinner, you can still get the buoy. Okay? Prove it.

So, here he goes, okay? There is a way. I can show you, here it is.

When you're doing poetry, it's nice to put it into these... to look like Tibetan poetry, into lines. Okay, so I've done that here.

And, let's see. This is true. Where are we?

Yo. Let's try again. Whoa.

I got a bug in this thing. Yeah. It's actually erasing the thing that came up next.

[Speaker 2]
It looks like a display problem.

[Speaker 1]
Should I... Should I get out and go back in?

[Speaker 2]
Try scrolling back and see if it... Okay. No, no, scroll back down again and see if it's there.

Yeah, it's just not displaying it right. It might be because my computer just crashed and so the ANC thing is a little weird.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, okay. How should I do? Well, I'll translate it.

Somebody type it. Okay, and then tell me when you think it might go. Rabje Dumbale.

Say, Rabje? Rabje. Dumbale.

Dumbale. I like the Dumba. It's the third word there.

It's got a prefix. So it's dun and not... Dun.

Okay, it's dun and not dun. Got it? Hear the difference?

Say dun. Dun. Dun.

They're different. They're two different words. Dun means seven.

Dun means meaning. Okay? Big difference.

So Rabje Dumba means the seventh chapter says... Seventh chapter of what? Root text on wisdom.

Because he's trying to prove what? Yeah. The book Seventy Verses on Emptiness is a take-off from the seventh chapter of that first book.

It says... Well... Milam Jishin.

Say, Milam? Jishin. Oh, check.

This is great. There's Mi with a head letter. So it's Milam.

Milam. And not Milam. Hear the difference?

Mi? Mi. Mi.

Mi. Mi. It's not so much tone, right?

I'm not going Mi and Mi. It's more like force. It's more like emphasis.

Say, Mi?

[Speaker 2]
Mi.

[Speaker 1]
Mi. I didn't say that. You see, that's how we use emphasis in English.

Okay? Mi?

[Speaker 2]
Mi.

[Speaker 1]
Mi. Milam means a dream. Milam means a path for a guy to walk on.

Okay? Big difference. So, Milam Jishin.

[Speaker 2]
Milam Jishin.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Ah... Gyumashin.

Gyumashin. Jisei Chongkyur. Jisei Chongkyur.

Jishindu. Jishindu. Daeshin.

Daeshin. Kedang. Kedang.

Daeshin. Daeshin. Ne.

Ne. Oh, without the head letter, it would have been Ne. Say, Ne.

Ne. Ne. Sorry, prefix letter, right?

Say, Ne. Ne. Ne.

This is Ne. Ne. Ne means to stay.

Okay? Ne means barley, which is the most important food in Tibet. Okay?

So you don't want to mix up Ne and Ne. There's a famous story of a Tibetan who sent a letter to somebody and somebody was misreading it because they didn't know about prefix letters and... I won't go into this.

Yagnagashi. Right? Yagnagashi.

Yagnagashi. Anyway. Which he meant to say, the yak with the white tail died on me, but the guy misread it and it came out, all five of my yaks died and it was a big disaster.

But anyway. Say, Daeshin du. Daeshin du.

Ne. Ne. Jigpar sung.

[Speaker 2]
Jigpar sung.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, so should I do anything? Should I start it and turn it off and turn it back on? Should I try it?

Yeah. Let's see.

[Speaker 2]
I think it's probably... No. No, I still have it.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. I'll just keep going and somebody type it, okay? So, rab je dunpa le means, the seventh chapter says, comma, okay?

[Speaker 2]
There's a possibility you may be picking up some sort of format. Yeah. Yeah?

Okay. Yeah, like type after the H. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
No.

[Speaker 2]
No, it's a display problem.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Maybe just...

[Speaker 1]
Get out and go back.

[Speaker 2]
Hit a little D on the bottom, like a little bar on the bottom.

[Speaker 1]
This one?

[Speaker 2]
No, no. Bottom bar. Go to the right.

Go to the right.

[Speaker 1]
No?

[Speaker 2]
No. Okay. Okay.

Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Sometimes I just get out and come back in.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, it might work.

[Speaker 1]
Let's try. Let's try this and see what happens. Nope.

Okay, I'm just going to... Oops. I'll translate.

You type. And like the city of the spirits. And these are three examples that they use for things that aren't real.

Okay? Dreams are clear. Illusions are clear.

Like magical illusions, like pulling a rabbit out of hat. And in the city of the spirits, chisa means a smell eater. And that refers to...

It's gandharva in Sanskrit, but it... And ganda means smell, right? But...

It came to mean preta, because like if you put out tsok, they can smell it, and they come. And they live off the smell oftentimes. They can't eat the food, but they can live off the smell, so they're called...

And this is something that if you came to one of... If they see a city, for example, if they see a river, and they... You know from the waterfall thing in the Madhyamaka course?

It looks like a river, and then when they run up to it, it disappears, or it appears as blood, or something like that. So... You can't see...

They see a something city, or a city of the spirits, and then when you get there, it's just an illusion. It's not there. Okay?

So... He's saying, the starting of your car, the driving of your car, and the stopping of your car, are all illusory. They don't...

They don't exist the way you thought they did. And that's... That's okay if you've had someone explain it to you.

But if someone comes up to you and says, your car doesn't start, your car doesn't go, and your car doesn't stop, then it's a little confusing, right? And people misunderstand for centuries. And then they get up in front of people and say, emptiness means X, ridiculous thing, and everyone's like, wow!

You know? Okay? So anyway, here's where the confusion starts, way back with Nagarjuna.

Okay? And... Okay?

And this part here says, and so, the seventh chapter is demonstrating how these three qualities of starting, and staying, and stopping have no nature of their own. They have no nature of their own. Okay?

Starting is not starting. Starting has no nature of starting. Staying has no nature of staying.

Stopping has no nature of stopping. Got it? Okay.

NA If you say that, then KHA CIG KHA CIG means what? You know? Yeah, but literally what's it mean?

One mouth. KHA Okay? Somebody comes up and says, wait a minute!

KHA CIG always means, wait a minute! Okay? Somebody's mouth.

Somebody opens their mouth. KHA CIG always means, somebody opens their mouth. Wait a minute!

Okay? Let's split this up, right? Oh, I just lost the whole...

the whole quote. Okay. Okay.

We'll just go like this, and see how it goes. Here's the KHA CIG. Here's the guy's complaint.

You know what he's going to say. DE MI DE DE Okay? That's incorrect.

Because, if there's no starting to things, and there's no staying of things, and there's no stopping of things, okay? If there's no such things, I'm sorry. If the starting of things, and then he says the stopping of things, and the staying of things, if these three things don't have any nature of their own, then they can't exist.

Okay? If the car doesn't start on its own, then there's no starting to a car. If the car doesn't drive because the car is driving, then there's no driving.

If the car doesn't stop because the car stops, then there's no stopping. Got it? Boy!

Is it too warm in here? Okay. Alright.

And if there's no starting, staying, or stopping, then you contradict the sutras. Who spoke the sutras? That's a serious accusation.

You contradict Lord Buddha who said, here are the three qualities of all things which are produced by other things. Uh... It is apparent that things which are produced by other things start.

It is apparent that things which are produced by other things stop. Uh... And it's apparent that they go on changing from one thing to another.

Okay? Lord Buddha said that. You got it?

So, where are we so far? Uh... Arya Nagarjuna, picking up from the seventh chapter of his text, uh...

there's a verse that says, things don't start, things don't... No, the starting, the staying, and the stopping of things are just like an illusion, are just like a dream. They're not real.

So this guy comes up and says, you can't say they're not real, because if they're not real, they don't really exist. Is that true? That's the tricky part, right?

They cannot be what they seem to be, but still be something, right? Okay? Got it?

But he doesn't think that. If they're not what they seem to be, they don't exist. He's already put words in our mouth.

Okay? So he said, if these things don't exist, if they don't have any nature of their own, they don't exist. Okay?

And if they don't exist, you're in big trouble. And then we go, why? Because Lord Buddha himself said, the very definition of a pradishthi is that they start, and they stay, and they stop.

Okay? All right? That's where we are.

ser-na If you say that, say ser-na. Right there. Ser-na.

Now I'm going to say something else. Listen carefully. Ser-na.

Ser-na. Ser-na. Ser-na.

Ser-na. What's the difference? Ser-na.

Ser-na. This is the letter sa. Say sa.

Sa. That backwards E. Okay?

And here's the letter sa. Sa. The one that has a V and a line next to it.

Okay? Two different completely. Ser-na.

Say ser-na. Ser-na. Means if you say, if you claim, if you say that to me, then say ser-na.

Ser-na. Ser-na means cheap, won't spend money, won't share money. Big difference.

You got to know the difference. Okay? The opposite of the first perfection is ser-na.

Okay? How would you say if you say cheapness? Ser-na.

Ser-na. Ser-na. Ser-na.

Ser-na. Got it? Ser-na.

Ser-na. Ser-na. Got it?

If you say cheap. Got it? Okay, anyway.

Here we go. Kin me... Say kin me-be.

Kin me-be. Geh. Geh.

Njik. Njik. Why?

It's got that little pre-name on there. Njik. Ne.

Simbo. Simbo. Thane.

Thane. Tsamdu. Tsamdu.

Ye-pa-la. Ye-pa-la. Gong-pa.

Gong-pa. Yin-be. Yin-be.

Chir. Chir. She.

She. Len. Len.

Zer-pa. Zer-pa. Yin-te.

Yin-te. Okay, good. Did you hear the pre-name song?

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Kin me-te. Geshe Lothar's always saying this. Kin me-do.

Kin me-do. People in India are always telling you that. Why?

No problem. No problem. Like, when you just lost your last reservation on the plane to Delhi for six weeks.

No problem. Kin me-do. Okay?

Like, when they say that, then you know you're in trouble. Yeah. Okay, so anyway.

Kin me-do means, nope, there's no such problem. Okay? There's no such problem.

Because, yin-be-chir. Okay? Yin-be-chir, right?

In debating. Because, he was only gong-pa... What does that mean?

What's gong-pa rab-tsal? That's the book we're translating. The other book.

And it means the clarification of the... what he really had in mind, right? So, here's a good colloquial usage of that.

His gong-pa wasn't that. Lord Buddha, what he had in mind, his gong-pa, when he said what? Things start, things continue, things stop.

Okay? What he had in mind was, that those three, ta-nyi-tsam-tu-yur. Ta-nyi-tsam-tu-yur.

They only exist... nominally. Okay?

Ta-nyi means nominally. Ta-nyi-tsam-tu. What's that mean?

What's that mean? Do they exist or not? Does your car start?

Did you get here? Yeah. Was it real?

No, you see, the difference between the two Madhyamika schools is what? The lower school can't get past this point. The lower school can't get past this point.

It started, so it must have been real. Come on. I got here.

It must have been real. Okay? That's what they say.

If it wakes, it must be real. I mean, what more real do you want? You see what I mean?

If it got me here, what more real do you want than that? And we say here, no. It's just nominal.

It's not real, it's nominal. What's that mean? Does the starting of the car only exist in words?

No, I mean you can write, start the car on a piece of paper, it's not going to start the car. Right? It's not true that it exists only in words.

Or is it? What's the word? In the beginning was the word.

Really. What's the word? What's the real word?

Yeah, it's the concept, right? In the Abhidharmakosha, first chapter, you know, what is the word? Is it the concept or is it the sound?

It's not the sound, come on. It's the idea of your car starting. It's the image of your car starting.

Your car started in your mind. Okay? It's a projection of your mind.

Your car started because you helped other people get rides to Diamond Mountain or someplace like that in the past, and that put a seed in your mind to see your car start. Okay, that's all. So is your car really starting?

Out there, on its own? You see, no. That's what all...

That's all he's going by was. He just meant to say, look, your car starts, but it's your mind. It's a perception.

You see? It's not starting out there on its own. If you had not given other people rides, you wouldn't be seeing the car start, because that's the only reason cars start.

Got it? Not because of gas, not because of a battery. Only because you were kind to somebody.

It's really cool, right? That's all Buddha had in mind. LEN ZAD PA YIN DE LEN ZAD PA YIN DE means that's how Nagarjuna answers that objection.

That's how his book answers that objection. I don't know... Yeah, okay.

Let's just leave that alone. I'm not going to split it, okay? It goes down to here.

Say, DE SKAD DU YANG STONG NYID DUN SPYOD PA LAS DE SKAD DU YANG means the same idea is expressed, okay, in STONG NYID DUN SPYOD PA LAS, in the Seventy Verses on Emptiness. What's STONG NYID? Emptiness, okay?

It says, SKYE'AM NAS JIG YOD DANG MED Do starting, and staying, and stopping exist or not? Do they exist or not? MED PA'AM Say, MED PA'AM MED PA'AM Prefixed letter.

It used to be MED PA and it became MED PA Got it? Okay, MED PA Say, MED PA MED PA Let's take MEN. Let's take CHEN.

Yeah, HINAYANA and MAHAYANA. So MEN means HINA means small means lower, okay? So MED PA means lower.

NYAM PA means equal. And SKYE PAR CHEN means extraordinary. So depending on whether this person listening, the person in the audience was lower capacity, medium capacity, or higher capacity, well then, the Buddha, SANGS RGYAS, JIG DE NYES DBANGS KYIS only in keeping with the words of the world, only in keeping with the...

what do you call it? Conventions of the world, okay? GSUNGS He used those expressions.

Things start, things stay, things stop. He said that. KYIS This KYIS is the negative, okay?

What is it usually? No, KYIS. KYIS It's a genitive.

It's just apostrophe S, okay? It's just apostrophe S. One percent of the time it means but.

So go figure. Okay, so he says, yeah, Lord Buddha said that, but YANG DAG DBANGS KYIS MEN He didn't mean it literally. He didn't mean it in and of itself, okay?

He didn't mean that. Okay, got it? So does this book, the Seventy Verses on Logic, come from the seventh chapter of his first book?

Yes. Why? Well, the seventh chapter talks about how starting, staying, and stopping don't really exist.

And then the Seventy Verses on Reasoning explains why they don't exist, okay? Got it? All right.

It's too hot in here. This is important. Like, you can make a quarter billion dollars, you can straighten a bone in your foot, and you can see emptiness, you can get enlightened.

This is the key, right? This is the real key. So, pay attention.

Okay. Say, TZON DOG RAB BYAS DANG PO Did I say DANG PO or DANG PO? DANG PO, because right there.

No prefix letter. It's DANG. Say DANG.

Okay. If you say DANG, it means I got mad. If you say DANG, it means here's the first thing I have to say.

Big difference, okay? Say DANG PO LAS CHOS ZHING THEG PA'I DROD YANG RGAG SGRUB KYI RNAM SHAG THEG PA'I What would this be without a prefix letter? Right now it's THEG PA.

Second column. What would it be without the prefix letter? Same thing.

It's a trick question. It's just THEG PA, okay? Alright.

THEG PA DENG PAS TSUL YOD DE Okay. So, it is true that refuting argument, which is another one of his books, right? He presented emptiness, people complained to him, and he beat them.

Like there was boom, boom, bang. Okay? Got it?

So, he wrote a book called Bang You Back. TSUL RDOG means you argued at me and I turned it back on you. I stopped your argument.

Okay? TSUL RDOG. RAB CES DANG PO LAS PHYIR It does take off from a theme in the first chapter of his first word.

And, in particular, KHYAD PAR DU, it also describes how everything about the idea of positive and negative is fine. It still works. Okay?

Positive and negative still make sense. Okay? How is that?

RAB CES DANG PO, the first chapter says, DNGOS PO RNAM GYIS RANG BZHIN NI Say DNGOS PO DNGOS PO RNAM GYIS RANG BZHIN NI RANG BZHIN NI SKYEN LA SOGS LA SKYEN LA SOGS LA YOD MA YIN YOD MA YIN ZHES ZHES Okay, that's all. DNGOS PO RNAM GYIS RANG BZHIN NI The nature of things, SKYEN LA SOGS LA YOD MA YIN does not lie in their causes. The going of the car does not lie in the gasoline.

Got it? Okay? The going of the car, the working of the car, DNGOS PO, functioning thing, does not lie in the apparent causes, in the gasoline.

Got it? Okay. DNGOS PO RNAM RANG BZHIN GI MA SKYED PA'I RGYUD TSEN GYI Because things don't start on their own, RANG BZHIN GI MA GRUB PAR they don't exist on their own.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So I'm going to investigate whether a car exists from its own side or not. What would be one approach to take? Yeah, does it start on its own?

Okay? Does it take off from its gasoline or not? That is a way to investigate whether the car itself is self-existent.

Okay? If it can start from gasoline self-existently, it's probably self-existent. Okay?

If it can't start from gasoline self-existently, then the car itself is probably not self-existent. Got it? So when you're investigating whether a thing is itself, investigate whether it comes from something by itself.

Okay? That's all. So, GA CI What's that?

Yeah, that guy comes. Big mouth. Hey, wait a minute.

Wait a minute there. Okay, GA CI. RGYUD PO RANG BZHIN GYI MED NA Say RGYUD PO RGYUD PO NAM NAM RANG BZHIN GYI Sorry, it's just RGYUD PO RANG BZHIN GYI RANG BZHIN GYI MED NA MED NA If things don't have any nature of their own, and specifically working things, cars, Okay?

RGYUD KYI Say RGYUD KYI RGYUD KYI RGYUD PO NAM PO NAM RANG BZHIN GYI RANG BZHIN GYI MED MED BYED PA'I TSEG BYED PA'I TSEG Well hell, let's talk about your words. I guess they don't work from their own side either, right? You're trying to explain to me how the car doesn't start from its gasoline, right?

Right. So you're saying like the car doesn't function in essence, right? Okay.

So let's talk about the words that you're using to explain that to me. Okay. DE YANG RANG BZHIN GYI MED So I guess they don't have any nature of their own, right?

Those words don't have their own meaning from their own side. They don't have a meaning that exists in them, right? And if they don't, okay, if they don't have, if they don't have any nature of their own, then how do you expect me to understand what you're saying based on your words?

Okay. If your words can't work from their own side, why are you arguing with me? Okay.

Why are you trying to convince me that a car can't start on its own? Because then your words can't convey to me any meaning. Because they don't have any meaning on their own.

Got it? It's a beautiful argument. It's a nice argument.

I like it. It's really cool. Like once in a while in a lecture you'll get one person will say that, you know?

Like they'll get it, you know? So is it true that words have their own inherent meaning? No, there's like half the people here already fall asleep.

Like I can't believe he just goes on and on. Isn't there a break in this class? It's hot in here, you know?

And then other people are like, they say if you're a real Madhyamika person, you've got this chill up your spine. The minute I said words don't have any nature of their own, you're like, Oh, wow. You know, key to eternal happiness, you know?

Oh, wow. No, they say in the opening lines of the Madhyamika Avatar, you get this chill up your spine, like man, that's it, you know? So my words don't have a nature of being pleasant or boring, right?

Whether you get it, it's not coming from me, you know? Whether you get what he's been saying for the last hour, it's only you, right? The words don't have any nature.

If they did, then when a bug came here it'd be, Oh, wait a minute, I read in this, you know? No, because if the word had meaning of its own, you're giving these words meaning. I'm going blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, palatals, gutturals, you know, sibilants, certain decibels, and then because you were kind, infinitely kind to infinite people in your past lives, you are understanding them.

It's not me, you see? You're creating these words. You're giving them meaning, you see what I mean?

Even the meaning of words doesn't exist in the words, get it? That's so beautiful. Cool.

Okay, anyway. Nithyanandeshwari Nidrupa. So how do you expect your words to disprove that things have their own nature, and to prove that they don't have their own nature, which is a positive and a negative, get it?

Sorry, negative and a positive. That's where we get the positive and negative, got it? That's where the positive and negative thing comes out.

How do you expect your words to prove to me that things don't have their own—that fire is not hot, or that cars don't go? Or how do you expect your words to prove to me that it's true that they don't go? Something like that, okay?

That they—what, is that what you said? Yeah, how do you expect to prove that they don't have a nature? And how do you expect to disprove that they do have a nature?

Okay? Positive and negative, got it? If your words don't have any meaning inside them.

Okay? How do you—how—how—how do you expect that? Okay, and here's the answer.

tsundog le... This is Nagarjuna's response, right? And the book is called My Response, right?

Then—then read it, it's—it's a big bachat, right? It's a big virtuous scene. Say, gyal te...

gyal te... ngepo... ngepo...

tam ched gi... tam ched gi... rang shin...

rang shin... gun la... gun la...

yu me na... rang shin me... rang shin me...

rang shin do pa...

[Speaker 2]
rang shin do pa...

[Speaker 1]
mi nu so... mi nu so... Let's do that part, okay?

This is Nagarjuna's original words. You never get to hear Nagarjuna, okay? And as I said at the Christian talks, you never hear anything before Nagarjuna.

You know? Until the Greeks, Roman, Christian, whatever, Jewish influence hit India, there's no Mahayana. It's very interesting, okay?

But we'll talk about this another time. This is this huge influx of ways of thinking from Greece and... and...

and Jerusalem. And it's very interesting. But anyway, here he goes.

rang shin gun la yu me na... If it's true that no thing has its own nature... Okay, got it?

If it's true that no thing has its own nature... gyu gyi chik ya rang shin me... then the words you're using to explain that to me don't have their own nature either, do they?

Got it? Who's talking? Are you Nagarjuna?

No, the other guy. Right? And they never tell you in these books.

You have to figure it out. But we know Nagarjuna wouldn't say that. Okay.

rang shin do par mi nu so... And so your words can't... refute the idea that things have their own nature.

They can't. It's a nice argument. There's the argument.

she chepa kye ne... He says, she... she...

chepa... chepa... de...

de... kye ne... kye ne...

The other guy presents his argument. That's his argument. Okay?

de la... To that person I say... ngupo rang shin gyi drupe khe lang dang dam cha yu na...

If I had ever accepted that things had their own nature... de tabu gag druk gi nam shak mi te... It would be wrong for me to try to talk you out of your bad ideas, and try to talk you into my good ideas.

kyang... What's kyang? But...

den de kye ne nam dam cha me... I never said that. Okay?

If my words were self-existent, you could... you could criticize me. But since I never said that, you can't criticize me.

Therefore... gag druk gi nam shak mi tepe kyen me... You can't accuse me of trying to prove something, and trying to disprove something, incorrectly.

You can't accuse me that my words are ineffective. You can't say that. Because I never said that their efficacy was part of them.

It's just coming from you. Okay? Got it?

I never said my words had any meaning. You know? I'm trying to get you to accept them, but...

whether you do or not, it's going to come from... you. Not me.

Now, if I had said that the words had some meaning, you could blame me for something. But I never said that. Okay?

Got it? Then he quotes Tsundog to back that up. Okay?

That's been his paraphrase. Just repeat it. It's good karma.

Okay? gyel te... nge dam je...

ga yu... gyel te nge dam je ga yu... Yeah, that's okay.

gyel te nge dam je ga yu... If I had ever said that my words had their own meaning, de na nga la kyen de yu... Say, de na...

nga la... kyen de yu... Then you would be right in criticizing me.

Then say, nga la... dam ja... me pe na...

But the fact is that I never said they had their own meaning. Therefore, nga ni... kyen me...

kon na yin... Therefore, I'm perfectly faultless. Okay?

Kon na means perfectly. You know? I never told you my words had their own meaning.

In fact, whether you get them or not is up to you. That's coming from you. Whatever meaning my words have is coming from you, not from me.

I'm just a red and white cylinder. Okay? Whether you see me as something to chew or something to write with, it's up to you.

Right? I'm just making sounds. Whether you get emptiness in this hour, or whether you get bored in this hour, that's coming from you.

Got it? That's his beautiful response. Even words don't have any quality of their own.

Okay? Got it? It's very beautiful.

Okay. Uh... Denise?

Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
Why do you study spiritual medicine?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah. Why do you take medicine? In the hopes that you have helped someone else with scripture in the past.

[Speaker 2]
But, I mean, you couldn't have the same result from the past, but...

[Speaker 1]
That lady came up yesterday, the one that you're talking about, and she said, well, from... well, then the pen just could have been a cucumber or a chicken. I'm like, you got it.

Okay, here we go. I told her we got to write that one down. Anyway...

And the rest of the answer comes in the rest of the book. That's all he says. And he's finished with...

showing how that particular one of the six great logic books of Nagarjuna does its thing. Okay, he's done with that book. Now he moves to another book.

Say, Rigpa? Drukchupale. This is the sixty verses on reasoning.

That's another one of his six great books on emptiness. Okay? Say, Tani, Bangbe, Yeshe De, Druljeki, Lamdu, Tenba, Yinpe, Okay.

Tani, Bangbe, Yeshe means the wisdom which is free of the two extremes. The wisdom which is free of the two extremes. Give me either one, with regard to the car.

Yeah, the second one would be that. The car doesn't exist at all. Huh?

Yeah, and gasoline makes it go. Yeah, okay? Those are the two extremes.

How many people fall into the... gasoline doesn't... gasoline does make it go extreme.

99.9999999. How many people fall into the other extremes? Very few. Those who misunderstood an explanation of emptiness as worse, which is why it's a bodhisattva vow not to explain emptiness to people who are not ready.

Because they'll go into that other extreme, which is relatively rare, but very nasty. Because then you go into nihilism, and then you say, well, it doesn't matter whether I'm a good person or a bad person. You see what I mean?

[Speaker 2]
So... Like you said, give me the other extreme in relation to the car.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Give me how that thing...

[Speaker 1]
It's normally phrased as, if blah blah blah, then the car can't exist at all. You see what I mean? If gas doesn't make the car go...

You know, somebody comes out of that talk at the Christian church the other night, and after two weeks they forgot the details, and they say, well, if gas doesn't make a car go, then nothing can be real at all. Then cars don't exist, in a way. And then they get confused, and then they...

You know, people go off on ten-year tangents sometimes. Thinking that there's no car there, somehow that's going to make them happy to think that, you know, and something like that. Okay.

Ṭhāṇipāmbayaśit, the wisdom which is free of those two extremes. Okay? Dhūlcekhī-laṁ is the path to freedom.

Okay? Tempa-yantre. This sixty verses on reasoning, by Arya Nagarjuna, does teach that the wisdom which is free of those two extreme ideas is the path to liberation.

That was the... We talked about it? Okay, so you talk...

Okay, you convinced me the car doesn't run on gas. What's that mean to my real life? How's that going to make me a happier person?

You know, how many Madhyamikan scholars are more cheerful people? You see? No, really, that's sort of a...

that's sort of a pity, in a way. Right? If you really get Madhyamika, you should be somehow a happier person, right?

So, so if it's true that the car doesn't run on gas, then what's that mean... what should I do for me? Why should I...

How does that affect me as a person? Right? Oh, this is the way to get the liberation.

This is the way to all higher goals. Okay? That's the goal of his book, the sixty verses on reasoning.

Okay? Because, say, rikpa, rikpa, duk chokpa le, duk chokpa le, because the sixty verses on reasoning says... and then you should repeat, because it's a big verse here.

These are the first big book on emptiness. Say, yöpe, yöpe, nambar, nambar, mi chok te, mi chok te, me pe, me pe, sipa, sipa, di le min. di le min.

Why isn't that suridpa? That... that sub-joint letter is silent.

Okay. In... in...

in Lhasa dialect. How would a Ladakhi pronounce it? Suridpa.

Okay, here we go. ngö dang, ngö dang, ngö me, ngö me, yong she pe, yong she pe, dag ni, dag ni, chenpo, chenpo, nambar, nambar, dru, dru, Okay, this is hard. Yöpe, nambar, mi chok te.

You won't get to freedom if you think things exist. What's he gonna say next? Good, yeah, something like that, right?

Here it comes. And... and you can't get out of samsara, you can't get out of suffering, if you think things don't exist, if you think things don't exist.

Those are the two extremes. He just mentioned the extremes. What was the...

If you think things do exist, means what? With the car. Yeah, that the car makes it run.

But again, if you think that they don't exist, which means what? It's always started with if. If the car doesn't run on its gas, then the car must not exist.

And then you say, if you think that, you're not gonna get out of samsara. That's even almost worse, in a way. Like, if you think the car runs on gas, the worst thing that can happen to you, is you won't get free.

If you think the car doesn't somehow exist at all, it's an illusion, it doesn't matter whether I'm a good person or a bad person, man, you are in trouble. You will never escape pain. The big difference, right?

Between not getting the freedom, and having pain all the time, okay? I mean, those are two separate things. So, which wrong view is worse, in a way?

It's the second one, you know? Oh, everything's an illusion. It doesn't matter what I do.

I could be a good person or a bad person, you know, it doesn't matter. And that was Huashan's viewpoint, right? In Kamalashiva's debate.

That's really what he said, you know? He said, you can just sit around and do nothing. And if you think about nothing, you don't need the six perfections.

You just space out, and you're there. You're already there. Tenth level, you're already...

When you can space out, you're on the tenth level. Okay? Alright.

LUS DANG LUS MED YONGS SHES PAS LUS DANG LUS MED YONGS SHES PAS means... Sometimes LUS means... LUS PO means working things.

Sometimes LUS MED means... a thing which exists which doesn't work, doesn't do anything. Give me one example.

There's only two or three of them. Yeah, empty space. It doesn't do anything.

I hate to say space, because then people think of the black thing, and what the, you know... Empty space just means... the place in which this thing is.

Okay? Does it function? Does it ever do anything?

We say no, okay, the books say no. It doesn't change, for example? Whether the flash disk is in the space, or out of the space, the space is just lying there.

Okay? Like this world is taking up a space, right? Planet Earth is taking up a space.

When it blows up, the space will still be there. The space doesn't care either way. It's just the same, okay?

In that sense, that space doesn't change. Emptiness is the same. Emptiness is just there.

It's not doing anything, okay? So, if I see emptiness, does that do anything? That's another question.

Okay, anyway. Here... LUS DANG LUS MED means...

that which exists and that which doesn't exist. So, BABA and ABABA in Sanskrit can either mean a working thing and a thing which doesn't work, or it can mean a thing which exists and a thing which doesn't exist. And you have to know that it can mean either one, and as a translator, you have to pick the right one.

What does it mean here? I'll give you two choices. It either means you goddamn well better understand the difference between working things and non-working things, or you goddamn well better know the difference between what's real and what's not real.

How are you going to translate it? You have those two choices. I like the second one.

I like the second one. Because what he's saying is that things do exist, but they don't exist on their own. You better know the difference between that kind of existing thing and that kind of non-existing thing.

Okay. DAG NI CHEN PO'I RNAM PAR BGRO DAG NI CHEN PO'I means Mahatma, which if you slur it is... Mahatma, okay?

And it's an old word, long before Gandhiji. It just means man, those great people. Those big people.

Maha comes into English as magna, and atma comes in as diamond. Okay. Atma means indivisible.

And the original Greek word for diamond is ademas, which means indivisible. And then the A got dropped and it became diamond. Okay.

Cool. Anyway. RNAM PAR BGRO means they get free.

They get free, because they get it. They get the difference between what exists and what doesn't exist. Does the car exist?

Yeah. Does it exist on its own? No, I'm making it go.

Why? Because I gave rides to lots of people. Just that much having been said, everyone in this room should be dying to give rides to people because you want your car to start.

Right? No, I mean it's just natural that people coming out of here would be the kindest, nicest people in the world about car-loaning and giving people rides. No, really.

Because that's the only reason your car starts. It's not a question of morality or kindness. It's like, god damn, you want your car to start?

You have to be nice to people. You have to loan cars. You have to give people rides.

They're going to have like, so many cars. Anyway. Uh, okay.

SHES DANG What time am I supposed to stop, by the way? It's 5.30 to... What time does she start?

She's the registrar, she knows. Oh, so I get to go for 21 minutes? Okay.

I'll take it. SHES DANG In this class, I figure you're doing so much, you don't need a break, okay? Okay.

Okay. Say, YOD PA SPA NI DE DRO or NGDRO? Yeah, so this is DENDRO.

Say DENDRO. DENDRO DRO MED PA SPA NI NGAN DRO DRO YANG DAG JI ZHIN YONG ZHES NAS NYID LA MI BSTAN Get it? It's ORNGYUR.

That's where the N in KANGYUR comes from, those of you who know the word KANGYUR, okay? Okay. You can almost translate this.

YOD PA SPA means... PA SPA means a guy who says. YOD PA SPA means what?

A guy who says things exist, goes DRO to DENDRO. DENDRO. The three higher realms.

Okay? They go to the three higher realms. You can do good karma...

without a deep understanding of emptiness. It won't get you out of samsara, but... your car will start, or something like that, you know?

Or you'll go to happy rebirths, okay? MED PA SPA NI NGAN DRO DRO They go to the three lower realms. People who say nothing exists, go to the three lower realms, okay?

Those who say, you should be a nice person. Why? Because the church said so.

Or, because it's right. Or something like that. Who don't understand why you should loan your car.

Okay? They'll have a good result, but... inside the prison.

You get to go to the better jail room. You only get tortured once in a while. Okay?

Like that, okay? And then... those who go to the other extreme, oh, the car doesn't exist then.

It doesn't matter whether I ever loan the car or not. You know? Then those people, they go to...

the three lower realms. NGAN DRO DRO YANG DAG GIS ZHING YONG ZHES NAS Those who understand the way things really are, NYID LA MI BSTAN They don't fall into either extreme. THAR BAR'ANG GYUR They go to THAR PAR.

They go to Moksha. They go to liberation. THAR BAR'ANG GYUR ZHES GSUNGS PA'I PHYIR Okay?

And that's it. Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
I thought that the classic example or at least a classic example of thinking that things exist is that you would therefore think that you can get a thing by taking it from someone.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, that's true too. And in that case, you'd go to the lower realms too. Yeah, yeah.

I think he's saying in the best of circumstances. He's specifically referring to people who do good deeds out of habit or because their parents told them to or the church told them to or it's against the law not to do that, but who don't get it. You see?

If every good deed we ever did was motivated by knowledge, we would never refuse a person a ride. You see? Because you don't want to be stuck out in the desert and your car doesn't start.

Therefore, you have to give people rides. It's a logic. That's what...

And we don't do that. But he's talking about that. Yeah?

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
I think they're talking about the necessary consequence of wrong worldview and not wrong worldview itself maybe. I think that... Because you can't behave properly if you have wrong worldview.

And so then you screw up. Even in your thinking? Okay.

In the teachings on the twelve links, they discuss the ethical... What do you call it? Power of each link.

Meaning, is it virtue, non-virtue or neutral? Okay? What do you guess the first link is?

Ignorance. I mean, it's the source of all pain in the world. And in that teaching, the first link of the twelve is said to be neutral.

Ethically neutral. You see? And I used to sweat over that.

You know, how can ignorance be ethically neutral? It's the cause of all suffering. And then you got to chew on that.

Okay. I used to think it was the wrong misprinter. You know, I used to worry about it all the time.

Think about it. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Now he's going to prove that another book that Nagarjuna wrote is what he said it was.

Okay? So, say Rinchen Terwa. This...

People translate it as what? The jewel rosary or something like that? It's a mala.

Mala, even in modern India, is just a string of anything. A string of jewels, a string of flowers. Okay?

So, Rinchen Terwa means a string of jewels. Like a bracelet made of diamonds or something. Okay?

It says, ,DE LTA BU'I YOD ZHIG DE, ,DU BYED KYI LAM DANG, ,THANG CIG KHYEN PO'I THOB PA BYED KYI LAM, ,BRTEN BU YIN DE, It does indicate that that kind of wisdom is also the way to reach omniscience. Okay? What did we just say it was?

The way to reach tarpa. Yeah, liberation. And that, as opposed to an omniscience, means what?

Nirvana. Just getting rid of your negative thoughts forever. That's freedom.

Tarpa. And then nirvana is, I'm sorry, enlightenment, omniscience is Buddhahood. So, big difference between the two.

I saw a book yesterday, that's why I never read those books, that said they were the same. You see what I mean? Time magazine said they were the same in the article they did on Buddhism and stuff like that.

Anyway. So, this book undertakes to prove that that kind of thinking can get you to... Buddhahood.

So, he's going to present it now, later, right? Because we're going up, right? So, this last book by Arya Nagarjuna is like, if you get it about the car, you not only can overcome your jealousy, you can get enlightened and help countless beings.

Big difference, right? Okay? So, here we go.

RIN CHEN THAMS CAD YIN TE RIN CHEN THAMS CAD YIN TE Say RIN CHEN THAMS CAD YIN TE RIN CHEN THAMS CAD YIN TE Because the String of Shining Jewels says... And now repeat, okay? It's cool.

JI ZHIG PHUNG POR RZIN YOD PA DE ZHIG DE LA SNGAR RZIN YOD SNGAR RZIN YOD NA YANG LAS TE DE LAS YANG NI SKYE BA YIN SKYE BA YIN LAM GSUM LAM GSUM THOG MTHA THOG MTHA U MED PAR U MED PAR KHOR BA'I KHOR BA'I KING KHOR KING KHOR Say it again, KING KHOR KING KHOR Is there a Puneza?

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Is it a third column? That's like one of the three exceptions in the universe. Just so you know, we don't call a mandala a KIL KHOR.

It's called a KING KHOR. Hear the N? KING KHOR Got it?

Not very strong in spoken. RGYAL MED RGYAL MED NYID NYID Then what? DA BU DA BU PHAN TSUN PHAN TSUN DU DU RGYU KHYEN RGYU KHYEN DIN NI DIN NI KHOR BAR KHOR BAR NGYUR NGYUR DE NI DE NI RANG BZHIN RANG BZHIN NI KA NI KA DANG DANG DU GSUM DU GSUM NI DVANG NI DVANG MA THOB MA THOB SPYIR SPYIR Why didn't he just say the normal thing, RGYU KHYEN?

Why did he go DVANG? He has to make his meter. So he's gotta say DA DA DVANG DA DA It's just one beat, you see?

He's cheating. Okay, but they do that. THOB SPYIR NGAN ZIN NGAN ZIN PA NI PA NI SRED PAR SRED PAR NGYUR NGYUR DE LAS DE LAS LAS DANG LAS DANG SKYE BA SKYE BA YANG YANG ZHES ZHES Okay, here we go.

This is a long quotation, as you may have noticed. RGYUS KYI PHUNG POR RDZUN YOD PA RGYUS KYI PHUNG POR RDZUN YOD PA This is tough. As long as you think that the parts of you, as long as you grasp to the parts of you, DESI DE LA NGAN ZIN GYUR then you will grasp to you.

Got it? As long as you think your mind is self-existent, or your body is self-existent, then you will think that cat is self-existent. You see what I mean?

That's different, right? What's that... Like, if you're talking about a car, right, and the gasoline, how could you apply that to your own mind?

That's a tough one. And that's Mahamudrasana, you see. I have control over the thoughts I'm thinking.

Right? I'm thinking my thoughts. I'm not just listening to the karmic repercussions of all the nasty thoughts I had in the past.

Right? I'm not just a witness to... to the screw-ups I did in the past.

I'm thinking these thoughts. Right? I'm thinking these thoughts, right?

And I can get to sleep tonight if I just decide to... to not have insomnia. You see what I mean, right?

Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe. If I had said...

It's a good point. It's a good point, yeah? If I'm not responsible for them, then why do I collect karma when I have them?

Or are you your listening to those? And if you are, how do you get out of it?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Well, I think if you really understood the emptiness of your thoughts, you wouldn't be so frustrated. Yeah, if you try... if you realize that...

you wouldn't get frustrated, because when you fight your thoughts and you lose, you wouldn't get so frustrated. The fighting is gonna have sweet thoughts later. The fact that you can't beat the thoughts coming right now is your old karma, you see what I mean?

And then you have like this calmness about your life. Okay, I can't help the screw-ups that are taking place around me right now. I can't help the circumstances in my...

I mean, at this moment. But by being patient, or by being kind, I know that at least they'll be going away in the future. You see what I mean?

And so, that's gonna be an example of understanding your thoughts, instead of holding them to be suffering. Body is easy. Body is easy.

I'd like to be more attractive. So, three choices. Do yoga, buy cosmetics, or avoid anger.

No, really. Really. The karmic cause of...

of ugliness is anger. The karmic cause of having a face which is unpleasant is only anger, right? So, if you want to fix your face, or be more attractive, the only way is to be more patient with people.

Every time you're angry, you set the causes to have some kind of ugliness in your face. And then later in your life, people will just find you unattractive. You know?

Why do people find... Like, Cindy, what's her name? Got this big mole there.

What's her name? What's her name? Crawford, yeah.

Why do people think it's cute? You see what I mean? A mole on any other person is, like, ugly.

A mole on Cindy Crawford is beautiful. Why? It's not...it's empty. Okay? It's her karma. She was patient in the past.

She's got this big ugly thing on her face. And people pay a million dollars to photograph it. You know?

Yeah, yeah. And she is, right? Because she gets the check.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, there's... There's no breaks. There's only absolute justice.

Yeah, it feels unfair. Yeah, it's one of the four karmic results, right? It's the tendency to keep doing it.

So, like, you're already behind. It still doesn't seem fair, but no, it's totally fair, and that's the problem with it. You know what I mean?

It's totally justice. No one can cut you some slack. No one can write the doctor and say, Johnny, you know, the teacher and say, Johnny's not coming in today.

You know? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Just to fight against it is that. And to... I guess to know...

that you have that problem is the biggest first step, you know? That you...if you have anger, to... I think you get more calm and more at peace with yourself, and more gentle with yourself if you know it's a karmic problem for you.

You know what I mean? And then you're more capable to fight it. If you get flustered, or upset, or you feel low self-esteem, or, you know, then you have less ability to fight it because you're less clear-thinking.

You're just hung up on how bad you feel, you know? So I think to realize that when you have a bad habit it's going to perpetuate the habit. To know that is healthy and helps you fight it.

That's all. And for a person who has a habit of anger to fight it is much better karma than for a person who's not prone to anger to fight it. You see what I mean?

You get more points if you're on a roll of several lifetimes of being an angry person. And in every little fight you can put up count big-time karmic points. So, if a person is prone to anger and they can stop it for a few minutes they get more karmic credit than a person who's not prone to anger who can stop it for an hour, okay?

So, that gives hope to people who are on a karmic roll of any kind, you know? So that's all. Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
What's the real way to fight? Should we fight quickly?

[Speaker 1]
Uh... The texts say... What is that?

The eight verses. Uh... Which means...

kick its ass... immediately. Because...

because it collects bad karma while you're thinking about kicking its ass. You see? So, better if you can...

quit smoking in one day. Yeah, okay. But you can't always do it and you can't get upset or...

when you get flustered then you just do more bad karma usually. So, it's to be calm realize you have limitations and then work, you know? It's not going to stop in a day.

Okay. As long as you hold the parts of you to be self-existent you will hold you to be self-existent. As long as you hold you to be self-existent then you will collect karma.

Lete. As long as you are collecting karma you'll have to be reborn into this cycle of pain. Okay?

Uh... And then you will take the three roads and I don't know what he's meaning but maybe it's like... three lower births?

I don't know. Yeah? Uh, no.

He's talking about birth, rebirth. Yeah. Sorry?

Oh, from that. It's not dene meaning then. It's from that.

Good. Good question. And it's confusing because this le means from and this le means karma.

Sometimes I say le de le. But anyway. Lam sum thog ta u mey par.

This... passing through these three roads I guess he means lower births. Thog ta u mey par.

There's no beginning. There's no end. There's no middle.

Korway kingkor gel mey yee. Korway means... samsara.

I like to somehow get the word self-perpetuating in there. That's what korwa means. You see?

Somehow when you translate it, if you can get in the meaning self-perpetuating. You know? By responding to the world as you do, you keep it going.

You see what I mean? She had a friend... Christy has a friend who's...

invented something called opposite day. And I like that idea. Just do the opposite of what you feel like doing.

If someone yells at you, just do the opposite back. Be nice to them, you know? You know what I mean?

You really want a maple-covered donut? Give one. Give it away.

You see what I mean? Like opposite day. So anyway.

Korway kingkor gel mey. Gel mey means... you take a stick.

Like you've seen those sparklers on 4th of July. And you go like this real fast. And it looks like...

it looks like a solid circle. Okay? And that's what they...

they compare samsara to that. Okay? It's like...

it's just going until it appears like a solid circle. Gel mey. Kingkor tabu pensin du.

Like a kingkor. Kingkor means what in Sanskrit? Mandala.

Okay, mandala. Which comes into English as... Spanish as mundo.

The world. You see? But anyway, that's another story.

Okay. So it means a secret world. It means a world.

But the original meaning of kingkor is a circle. Like the moon and the sun are called kingkor. And sometimes when you visualize a lama, it says...

nyi ma dang daway kingkor. Like he's staying on a... on a disc of the sun and moon.

So it was thought that the earth and the sun and the moon were discs. So what it means here is a circle. Okay?

Pensin du gyu kyen dinay kor gyur. We circle around in this wheel. Like a ferris wheel.

And... causes... It's self-perpetuating.

It's self-perpetuating. You do... You get angry.

Then you get the habit of getting angry. And then the next life you get angry again, which gives you the habit again. Which also allows angry people to be in your life.

Then you get angry at them again. So gyu kyen pensin du means these causes and... factors...

tend to snowball. They... pensin means mutual...

they support each other mutually. You know? Okay?

You get on a downward cycle, is what it means. Bill Gates calls it a downward cycle. dinay dangshin nyi ka dang dusun nyi duwa ma tung chir.

Because they don't have either nature, and because they don't even exist as the three times, you can stop this tendency. What are the two qualities? They exist the way they look, or they don't exist at all.

Okay? And the three times are past, present, and future. Even time...

doesn't exist from its own side. And that's a big thing, right? In the Yoga Sutras, it's a big thing.

Okay? Which is why you can see all three times later. Okay?

Time doesn't have to be past, and time doesn't have to be future. Those are indicators that are glued on those objects. And just as heat can be removed from fire, pastness can be removed from past.

And you can see the past and the future infinitely. You see? Because being past and being future is not a quality that they possess.

Got it?

[Speaker 2]
It's the premise of quantum physics. Why do you remember the past and not remember the future? Because it's infinite.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Do they have any quality of their own of being future? You see, I mean, that's the idea.

And then, the first time you really see into the future, it's like a... it's like somebody hit you with a hammer.

[Speaker 2]
Right?

[Speaker 1]
It's like, wow. So future is not future. You see?

The first time you really clearly see an event that might take place six days from now, and then six days from now you see it again, then you're like... So, even time doesn't have its own quality. You see what I mean?

Therefore, all things are possible. Omniscience is possible. Okay?

Very cool. But we got to stop. You see, de le le dang kye wa dang.

You stop the tendency to hold on to me, and then... de le le, they're used together. And from that, karma stops.

De le le. Okay? And kye wa.

And rebirth. Etc. Okay?

So when you stop ignorance, then you stop making karma, then you stop rebirth. Okay? Pain.

And we'll stop there. I'll put a marker if it takes it. No?

Okay. I'll translate it formally in between, now and Monday, and stick it in there, and... you know...

we can put it up on the web, like that. Shape changes. I don't know.

That's all there is. Okay, you ready? Let's do it.

Satsang with Mooji Okay, good. Keep coming, okay? You don't want to learn too bad and it sounds confusing and you're confused by the whole class.

You will never get a chance like this. There's no greater book about emptiness. If you just hear a sentence and you're confused and you go away for twenty years, it's still the best thing ever done, okay?

So, keep coming, okay? It also makes the room warm, which means a lot.