Вступление на срединный путь (текущий курс, Аризона), занятие 104

[Speaker 1]
OK, just to repeat, this is in a very advanced class. And so I just give this class once in a while so my older students don't get bored. And I can entertain them properly.

And it's not a beginning class, OK? So don't worry if you feel confused. In the monastery, there's a tradition that, like I was a freshman, I would be encouraged to go to some of the senior classes and just catch whatever I could catch.

And then maybe three years later, when I heard it again, I would understand it. So that's a Tibetan tradition. In America, you feel like you need to understand everything on the first time you hear it.

But in Tibet, you're sort of taught to be graceful and to listen carefully about something you have no idea what you're talking about. And then you can put some seeds in your mind for greater knowledge rather than just learning something that is easy to figure out in one hour. You can't figure these things out in one hour.

So just relax. Digest as much as you can. This class has been going on for eight years.

So here we go. And then tomorrow, there's a more general class which everybody can digest. All right.

And if I just do general classes for my older students, they get bored. And then they, what do you call it? When people get bored, they get in trouble.

They start making trouble.

[Speaker 2]
So, all right.

[Speaker 1]
So there's a debate about whether a person without ultimate love could ever see ultimate reality. And someone has taken the position that these kinds of people, they could see the ultimate reality of, all things in the world are divided into objects and subjects. Either you are something that you are looking at, or you are something that's looking at.

So that all things in the world are either objects or subjects. Are there any things which are both? Example.

Every subject. Is there anything which is an object of the mind and also a subject of the mind? Huh?

Your mind? When you look at the mind. Yeah.

In the Mahamudra meditation, you're focusing on your mind as it looks at your object of meditation. In the scripture, they would also say the city of meeting other people's minds. So then, the other person's mind becomes both an object and a subject.

Their mind is thinking these thoughts. In that sense, it's a subject. But their mind is also the object of your clairvoyance.

And you are reading their thoughts. So it's possible one thing could be both. But not very common.

If you want to get into it, people are considered subjects. Nick is a subject. Because Nick's mind is obviously a subject.

But there's a strong school of thought that says Nick is also a subject. Nick, the person, is not an object. He's a subject.

We say Nick went to the store. Yeah? OK.

So this person has said, people without a certain level of compassion, they can understand that, say, a pen is empty of being a pen from its own side. OK? What's the proof of that?

If you bring a puppy in here and show it to him, he will chew it. Right? So to him, it's not a pen.

To him, it's a chew toy. You are thinking to the puppy, don't waste a perfectly good pen. The puppy is thinking, why are you wasting a perfectly good chew toy by writing with it?

Right? Who's right? Both are.

You can say both are right, maybe. If I put this black object here and all the humans leave the room and all the dogs leave the room, which is it? Chew toy or a pen?

You can say it's neither. So to... Why is that helpful?

Now that's important. That's really important. Why is that helpful to know that?

Well, why do I see a pen? Why do I see a pen? There's some kind of seed in my mind to see it as a pen.

How did I put that seed there? I gave someone else a pen. By observing myself give someone else a pen, I put a seed in my mind that opened and I saw this thing as a pen.

Now, what if you wanted money? You would just give people money and then that would put a seed in your mind that you would see opportunities for making money where other people didn't see opportunities. And I made a quarter billion dollar company.

I think it exceeds the income of Phoenix. Something like that. By using...

You can use it. It's real. You can use emptiness and you can do unusual things.

You can do amazing things. The point is that you could remove hunger in the world, you could remove poverty, you could remove war. All of these are also coming from the mind.

So this school of thought says, Oh, Geshe Michael, it's easy to understand that the pen is coming from me and that it's not coming from its own side. But how about the state of mind which sees the pen? Is that coming from me?

Everything is coming from me. But that's harder to understand. That's harder to understand.

Someone reading my mind might think it was a very mixed up crazy mind. And to me, that mind seems perfectly rational. That's the emptiness of my mind.

Someone could read my thoughts and say, You are messed up. Like a Buddha. If a Buddha read my thoughts, they'd say, You're really messed up.

And if I hear my thoughts, I'm like, God, he's so rational. And that's the emptiness of my thoughts. Got it?

The thoughts are the same as the pen. This school of thought said, there are people who figure it out about the pen, but they don't figure it out about their own thoughts. And we've been talking about that.

So we're talking about that. Somebody said, there's people who understand that the pen is not a pen from its own side, but they don't understand that their mind is not their mind from its own side. Got it?

Then we asked them to clarify. We said, could you clarify what you mean by that? And we gave them three choices.

So now we're going to translate those three choices. And I put the numbers on them for your benefit, okay? Okay?

Ready? When you say, the guy gets it about the pen, but he doesn't get it about the perception of the pen, do you mean that he understands that the object which his mind is holding is not real? What's that?

The pen. But he doesn't get it that the mind which is holding onto that pen is not real. Okay?

With the assumption that the pen is an object outside of himself, and can be confirmed as being himself. Okay? Is the pen an object outside of himself?

[Speaker 2]
Yes. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
In the higher school, what do we say? Careful. It is an outside object.

Because my inner mind is projecting it as an outside object. Okay? Is it in my mind?

No. Is it created by my mind? Yes.

Where? Outside. Got it?

Okay? You're not living in your head. That's good news.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
But I warn you, when they say here that it has been confirmed to be an outside object, I believe they are referring to it consisting of atoms, of elements from the periodic chart which have qualities which are inherent to them. Okay? Carbon is always necessary for life.

Or oxygen is necessary for oxidization. Or say, you know, like that. That what's holding up the wall is the tensile strength of the molecular bonds, and it's not the fact that you gave someone a place to stay six months ago.

Okay? What would the higher school say? What's keeping the wall up is your kindness towards someone else who needed a place to stay.

And that's the only thing. If that kindness wore out, if the karmic seeds from that kindness wore out, there would be an earthquake and this place would fall and you would die. That was the first choice.

Okay? Second choice. But, they haven't...

I should put a question mark on it. So, I'll say it again. It's a goal in your Buddhist training, in the training of your understanding of reality, it's a goal to understand that for example, when you walk into a room and someone you don't like is there, who put them there?

[Speaker 2]
You did.

[Speaker 1]
Who put you there? You did. And in fact, the person that you see as irritating and the person who's seen as irritating by you had come from a single karmic seed.

They split like two branches of a tree. They came from the same single seed. Okay?

When you have a painful interaction with someone you don't like, it's important to realize you have planted one seed which grew as two branches. You to see them and them to be seen by you. You are not only responsible for them, you are responsible for you bumping into them and you're responsible for you being there to bump into them.

Three things. You're responsible for yourself being there, you're responsible for them being there, and you're responsible for the interaction between the two. It's almost as if you thought your little finger was part of you and your thumb wasn't.

It's that crazy to be upset at somebody who irritates you. Because they're like your little finger and you're like your thumb. Just different parts of you.

Got it? Now he says something interesting, okay? When you say they get it about the pen, but they don't get it about the state of mind which perceives the pen, do you mean to say that they understand that the pen doesn't come from a different karmic seed than the state of mind which sees the pen, but they don't get it that the state of mind which perceives the pen doesn't come from a different karmic seed than the pen?

Got it? Okay? Got it?

Are you saying they understand that the pen came from the same karmic seed as the state of mind, but they don't get it that the state of mind came from the same karmic seed as the pen. Is that what you're saying? Okay?

We're asking them. Is that what you mean? When they don't get it about the state of mind.

Got it? Just nod. You can...

In India they'd be like, that's your common, right? It could be yes and no. Or, they've gotten it that the pen is not an outer object, but they haven't gotten it that their own mind is coming from them, to put it simply.

Okay? Got it? These are three interpretations of what it means to say they got it about the pen, but they didn't get it about the state of mind which sees the pen.

So then we have to treat these three possibilities. We have to... And I've numbered them for you.

Let's go back to the first one and make sure we know what we're talking about. What is the first one? To repeat, these are three interpretations of what it means when you say, this guy understood ultimate reality with regard to the pen, but he doesn't get it with regard to his own perception of the pen.

Okay? When you say that, do you mean that the person understands that the object that they're observing is not real, but they didn't get it that the state of mind which holds that object is not real. Got it?

Now we're going to answer them. And then there was a little parenthesis thing in there where the pen is believed to be confirmable as coming from chemicals by a correct perception. Is that possible?

Does a pen function because it's filled with a carbonaceous liquid? No. No.

It functions because you have been kind to people who needed a pen in the past. Okay? And you could have a tube with a carbonaceous liquid inside of it and it wouldn't work if you hadn't been kind to someone who needed a pen in the past.

Got it? It's not the carbonaceous liquid which is making it right. It's your kindness.

Kindness is the essential ingredient of all working things. It's cool. Okay?

Okay. Now we're going to answer number one. If you say it's the first, you're wrong.

This is because it is always the case that if a person is able to confirm with a correct perception that any one existing thing is unreal, then they are able are then able simply by turning their mind to the question, to perceive that to perceive by using their first perception as a logical example. Okay? That any other given object is equally is equally void of existing in reality.

If a person truly saw that the pen was coming from death, if they understood the... If you explained it to them carefully why the pen was coming from death, right? And then you said, well, what about the Kleenex?

Then they would just think of the Kleenex. They would turn their thoughts to the Kleenex. And in that same moment they'd say, well, of course, it's the same.

Okay? Anybody. Anybody could do that.

And then if you said, well, what about your thoughts? They'd say, well, of course, it's the same. Everything's the same.

Got it? It doesn't take Einstein, he's saying, to use the first example to prove the second example. If I take a lot of time to explain to you that the pen is coming from you and then I say, is Neil Young's Cowgirl in the Sand coming from you?

You'll say, yeah, I mean, why would it be different? Okay? You just think about the song and you would say, yeah, of course, it's the same.

All right? So this is interesting. Our side is denying that it's more difficult to see that the subject is empty than the object.

Okay? That's a little tricky. All right?

I understand that the pen is coming from me. Because if it wasn't coming from me, the dog would write something. But our side is claiming that if you turned that thinking to your own thought process, any fool would immediately see that as the same.

I don't know. Okay. So, you know, you've kind of grown up on the lower middle way school which says it's not the same.

The lower middle way school, you know, vehemently says that it's more difficult to understand the emptiness of Alistair than the emptiness of the pen. Alistair as the subject perceiving the pen. Okay?

But our side just said any fool could see they're the same. They didn't say any fool. They said every fool.

He said, Khyapa, check it out. Those of you who know Tibetan, he said, Nyupe Khyapa. Every fool could figure it out.

There's no case where they couldn't figure it out. All right? I don't know about that.

Okay. And that is so the case. Because Pabbala?

Aryadeva. Now, in Buddhist teaching and in Buddhist debating, you have two options to prove a point. What are they?

Logic and scriptural. You can say model said so, which is scriptural authority. Or you could...

Or Buddha. Okay? Or you could say, look, it makes sense.

Okay? And anytime you're in a debate in a monastery, you have a choice. You can quote a scripture by Lord Buddha.

By the way, it must be a scripture which is accepted by both sides. So in the winter debates, can you use this book in a debate? Can you quote this book to prove a point to somebody from Ganden Monastery?

You can't. You cannot mention this book. Because this book is your monastery's book and it's not accepted by the other.

It's cool. If you're a really cool debater, you memorize huge chunks of their text.

[Speaker 2]
And you use it against them.

[Speaker 1]
It's very cool. Then we had Sakyas come one year to the inter-monastic debates. And we couldn't use what?

We couldn't use Sukapa. We had to go to the kundra. We had to go to the sutras, to debate with them.

One year the Bumbos came. These are the shamans of ancient Tibet. That was difficult.

Then you had to use just logic because there's no book that is shared. There's no book which is accepted by both sides. Okay.

And so that is because Master Ayodhya has said, what? About this. Who's using this quotation and why are they using it?

We're using it.

[Speaker 2]
Why?

[Speaker 1]
To back up scriptural authority for our preachers.

[Speaker 2]
To prove what?

[Speaker 1]
That if you understood the emptiness of the pen, you'd necessarily have to understand the emptiness of the perceiving state of mind. Okay. Got it?

What he said was, correctly, we're using, our side is using this quotation to prove that if someone has seen the emptiness of the pen, they have necessarily seen the emptiness of the perception of the pen. Got it? Okay.

Who said that? I did. This is the student of?

Ayurveda. The greatest Buddhist thinker in Tibet. So probably the other side should accept it.

Okay? Accepted by all. All these guys.

Maybe. And... 1200 verses.

Says this. Well, those lines that include... Okay, now, they assume that the student who's reading this text knows this verse by heart.

But you don't. And neither do I. So, I went and got the verse for you.

Okay? Inside here, there are a million pages of scripture. And you can search it in about 10 seconds.

And that's what we've been doing for 24 years in India. Okay? Typing them in.

And it will take another 150 years to finish. We finished about 5%. Okay.

So anyway, I pulled out the full quotation for you. Which happened to be in... Oh.

I found it in...

[Speaker 2]
Pabongkha Rinpoche's lamrim.

[Speaker 1]
He quotes it there in his lamrim. Okay? Or he quoted it already, I think.

Okay? That was an easy place to find it. Shigyapa dekhyam.

Chigitavo kayinpa deni kupitavo yin. Anyone who sees one is a person who sees all. Chigitoni kayinpa deni kupitavo yin.

Anything which is the emptiness of one is the emptiness of all. Got it? That's the full quotation.

Alright? Would that prove that a person who understood the nature of the pen should also understand the nature of the mind perceiving the pen? Yes.

Yes. Okay? If the other guy accepts the 400 verses...

Who wrote the 400 verses? Ayodeva. It's kind of weird.

He quotes Ayodeva twice. Okay. Okay, we've gone a little bit faster.

Let's see. If you say it's the second, you're... Yes.

Yes. Let's go back and look at the second again because we all forgot what it was. Do you think the guy got it that the pen is not coming...

Sorry. That the pen is coming from the same karmic seed as the state of mind that perceives the pen, but he didn't get it that the state of mind that perceives the pen is coming from the same karmic seed as the pen. Okay?

Is that what you think it is? Got it? Okay.

If you say it's the second, you're also wrong. Any person, regardless of how dull they might be, would be able to deny the second once... by...

once they have been denied the pen. Okay. Why did he say denied?

Because we're talking emptiness. And emptiness is an absence of something. Okay?

The pen is devoid of coming from a separate seed from the mind that perceives it. But any fool who perceived that could perceive that the state of mind perceiving the pen is devoid of coming from a separate seed from the pen. Got it?

You all right? You all right? Okay.

Denied. So denied means denied that they come from separate seeds. Okay?

Got it? And that is so the case. Just given the line which says that would be the very same argument.

That's a big help. Okay? So I went searching for that line.

Okay? I went looking for it. All right?

I found it in a very strange place. I found it in... Dharmakirti's Commentary on Valid Perception.

I found it in a book on logic from the 6th century. Okay? So he's quoting a book from the 6th century.

And he's not giving us any more information than that would be the very same argument. So I went and looked it up. This is how much you would have to read to figure out what he just said.

Okay? Sorry. And it's a very beautiful argument.

Okay? I'm going to lay it on you. This is an ancient, ancient text on logic.

But more importantly it's a book about how do you perceive things. So when you see four wheels and a trunk and a windshield why do you think car? What is it that makes you think car?

Okay? How do we synthesize objects from parts? It's a very important question.

And he talked about... This is me and Ritesh. We're talking about this.

He brings up the three doshas which in Tibetan are called nyepa. Nyepa... Do you know what nyepa is in reference to your bodhisattva?

They're sattvas and they're nyepas. Secondary offenses. Nyepa means an offense.

Nyepa means something bad, something wrong. Okay? The doshas in Tibetan are called wrongs.

Why? What's the Sanskrit? Dosha means wrong.

Okay? The three... What do you call it?

Humors. Of bile, phlegm and wind. In Ayurvedic medicine.

So now we're on to Ayurvedic medicine. Okay? So Ayurvedic medicine says that every person has within them sorry three humors.

Which... Whose names... Whose proper name in Sanskrit and in Tibetan is three problems.

And then there's... I've seen in scripture they say why do they call it doshas? It's the same dosha that comes from dush which comes from dus which came into Greek as dys like dysfunctional.

Okay? It means bad, wrong. Okay?

Dosha comes from dys. So all of our bodies have these three humors. We have bile, we have phlegm and we have wind.

Okay? And then normally in medicine you would say that a person who is has a predominance of the phlegm dosha would be more lethargic or lazy. Okay?

So people you know who have... who are pretty lazy you could say you have a phlegm imbalance. By the way they're called dosha because when they get out of balance they're causing problems.

You get sick. If the phlegm dosha becomes too predominant you get a pneumonia or a cold. You see?

Alright? And that's medicine. If the...

If the bile element... If the bile... What do you call it?

Humor becomes too predominant in the body you get a fever. Okay? It's the heat.

It's the heating element. So that's bile. And then the moon would cause a predominance of the vata or the wind humor would cause you to be a nervous personality sort of thin and and nervous all the time.

Okay? And those are the three doshas. Then a guy made the mistake of saying to Dharmakirti people who have more bile tend to be more angry.

People who have more phlegm tend to have more desire. You know? And people who have more wind tend to be more nervous.

They made the mistake of saying that to Dharmakirti. Okay? People...

People's anger is caused by the predominance of bile in them. And he's like, ha ha ha you know? Like it's not karma, right?

Like we never saw a person who had bile predominating and was perfectly calm. Right? He's like that.

He gets really sarcastic, you know? Or I guess if a person who was really lazy but had a predominance of wind then I guess probably their wind wasn't pure wind and they had a little phlegm in there.

[Speaker 2]
You know?

[Speaker 1]
He gets... This is actually a criticism of medicine. Okay?

Of the idea that medicines work. Alright? It's actually an ancient criticism of the idea that any medicine works.

Okay? Because they don't. Alright?

Aspirin doesn't work. I had what? Nyquil, flu, paraflu.

I had Ayurvedic indescribable stuff. I had nothing work. Okay?

It doesn't work. Medicine doesn't work. Why?

What proves that aspirin doesn't work? It doesn't work all the time. You don't need any more, you know, scientific...

What do you call them? Studies than that. Okay?

You don't need some laboratory to tell you that. Okay? Aspirin doesn't work because it doesn't work all the time.

If it worked, it should work all the time. Okay? Or it's not a headache remedy, it's a sometimes headache remedy.

But so is eating a rock. You see what I mean? Logically, it doesn't make any more sense to take an aspirin that might work than to eat a marshmallow that might work.

You see that? I used to eat chocolate chip cookies when I got migraines. And they worked.

I asked Dr... What's his name? He might care.

I said, What's his name? Yeah, I asked Don Brown. I said, Why I heard the chocolate chip cookies made my migraines go away?

Then he went off with this long thing about expanding the capillaries. You know. So, so Dharmakirti is debating somebody and says, Look, medicine doesn't work.

Okay? Got it? And the simple proof of it is that you take an aspirin on two different days and one day it works and the second day it doesn't work.

I think you should go back to the store and ask for your money back for the tablets that didn't work. Okay? But you're used to it.

And frankly, I mean this is off the subject, but you put up with it. You know, you buy into it. It's a big scam.

It's all a huge scam. They're selling you stuff that doesn't work half the time and you pay full price. And you would be considered crazy if you went back into a drugstore and said, These ten didn't work.

No, see you laugh. You laugh because you're crazy. You're buying something that doesn't work.

And you're paying full price for it. And you think it's funny to ask for the money back for it when it doesn't work. You're crazy.

Okay, but anyway. Then the guy is foolish enough to come up and say, You know, people who eat more protein get stronger. Alright?

The guy is foolish enough to come up again, Dharmakirti, Master Dharmakirti, and say, You know, people who eat more protein get stronger. And Dharmakirti is like, Oh, come on. Here we go.

That would be the very same argument. Got it? Alright?

That would be the very same argument. There's nothing in protein that can make you stronger. There's nothing there.

If you serve the sick and if you empower the disenfranchised and you eat protein, you will get stronger. But it's not that there's anything in the protein. It's your kindness that gives the protein the power to make you strong.

Okay? And if you come up to me, the same guy that came up to me with the Aspen degree, and you say, People who eat more protein get stronger. Say, There it is, right there.

See? What?

[Speaker 2]
That would be the very same argument.

[Speaker 1]
Come on, that would be the very same argument. Alright? I mean, it's the same.

I mean, don't you get it? Don't you get it? It's the same thing.

Why did we bring up that? The idea that seeing the emptiness of the pen are the same, that you'd be able to sort of, if you could understand the emptiness of the outside object, the corpse, you'd be able to understand the emptiness of the state of mind. It's more complicated than that.

I'll give you the first part and you give me the second part. If you grasped that the pen came from the same karmic seed as your perception of the pen, then? You could easily grasp that the perception of the pen came from the same karmic seed as the pen.

Why? It's the very same argument. It's saying the same thing.

Okay? Then he quotes some ancient obscure text to say, Come on, it's the same thing. Okay?

Got it? He's taking an example from a commonly accepted text which says, if you prove something logically and then someone brings a parallel thing, well, then it would apply the same. I mean, you don't have to like sweat about it.

Don't come to me and say protein makes you strong. Okay? All right?

Gandhiji is really... Did you read Gandhiji's Atma-Kathas? I tried to read it in Gujarati, but I give up.

He and his childhood friends observed that the British people seemed stronger, and they decided it was meat. You know? And then he said as a child, he tried to eat meat.

He would sneak meat without his parents knowing, and then he'd look in the mirror, you know, and then he figured out that it didn't work. Okay. Okay.

Now we're to the third argument. We've got to go back to the third argument and remind ourselves what it was. It must be up there somewhere.

Yeah, here it is. Do you think they're able to eliminate the misunderstanding where they hold that the things they say are outer objects? Okay.

They can understand that the pen is not an outer object, okay? But they're not able to understand that the mind which holds the pen is not real. Got it?

And remember where we are. When we say, I've figured out that the wall is not an outer object, what do I really mean? Say again?

Or it's not the atoms that are holding it together. Okay? Got it?

What's giving it its strength to hold up the roof? It's not the chemicals inside the concrete. It's the kindness I have shown to others in the past.

And if those seeds from that kindness wear out, the roof must fall. Okay? Got it?

I've got to go back and see how I said this. If you say it's... And if you think...

And if you say it's the third, you're also... I say equally involved, okay? We're trying to rub it in.

Equally involved. It's true that that if you are working from the point of view of explaining the intent of the root text of the ornament... Oops.

Ornament of Utilizations. Uh... Okay?

Who wrote the Ornament of Utilizations 17 centuries ago? By Trejo. The coming Buddha.

The next Buddha to come in this world. He hasn't come yet. He wrote it up in some heaven somewhere.

And a sangha was able to go there and take dictation. And he brought it back. Okay?

And you know the story of the dog and all that. Okay? So...

That book has its own emptiness. You see? That book by Maitreya, like Calgary on the Seine...

That's a bad example because Calgary on the Seine is the best one. But let's say that like Calgary on the Seine Maitreya's book called The Ornament of Utilizations can be looked at in two radically different ways. Like the pen.

It has its own emptiness. That book has its own emptiness. Some people say that what Maitreya really intended was to write a book according to the beliefs of the lower half of the Middle Way School.

The ultimate intention, the final intention of that book was to describe the beliefs of the lower half of the Middle Way School. Okay? So, what we're saying in this sentence is look, if you're interpreting the book that way, you're alright.

Okay? If you think what Maitreya really had in mind when he taught that book was to espouse the lower Middle Way School, then I can't fight with you. Then you're right.

The guy gets it about the pen and he doesn't get it about the perception of the pen. There's a what coming up. But, but, but, in our own system, in our own system, the words the words Okay, watch.

I'm going to mark this place with four dollar signs because the text doesn't have any dollar signs in it. Okay? Then I'm going to go to the beginning of seven years' work.

And I'm going to see if I ever translated these lines before. Because they should match. I should match what I did four years ago but I don't remember.

So, I'm going to mark where I am. This is just a translation thing. Then I'll go back to the beginning of the book.

Okay? And I'll say search for that, that series of words. And it came.

Alright? I have translated it before. In the same book.

So I have to match it. And you just block it. And then you say, find me the next one.

And that's where I am. Okay, got it? So, that way you maintain consistency inside a single translation.

Okay? Okay? Must be interpreted as a trang dun gompa chen.

Sorry. What's trang dun? Figurative.

What's gompa chen? Their true intent was otherwise. That's what gompa...

That has a synonym for for trang dun. Okay? Alright?

Not an exact synonym. Sometimes there's a difference. Okay.

But in our own system, the lines including blah blah blah must be interpreted as being figurative. As being stated with another intention in mind. Okay?

Got it? Okay, he did say that they don't get it about the mind perceiving the pen. But that's not what he meant.

Got it? When you read the book from a higher, middle way perspective. Got it?

Okay? Now, the next part here is extremely important. Very few people in the history of Buddhism have clearly described the differences between the different schools in what they think emptiness is.

Okay? So when I was writing the Mahamudra thing, I used these lines. This is where I went.

This and similar sections is where I got the six flavors from. People ask me where to get that. So here's three of them.

Okay? I think it's three. Here we go.

Here in the ornament of realizations. Okay? Disciples belonging to three different classes are established as being higher, medium, or lower on the basis I'm sorry.

Established as being of higher, medium, or lower what do you say? Intelligence. Intellectual powers, okay?

One vote, okay? On the basis of their holding three different worldviews. Okay?

Higher, medium, or lower. Got it? Okay?

What defines a person as being a person on the first of the three tracks? In this school, in the lower half of the middle school, what determines whether they're on the lowest of the three tracks? What they believe emptiness is.

Okay? What they believe emptiness is. Alright?

So now you're going to get the versions of emptiness which is going to correspond, I think, to the first, third, and fourth of the Mahamudra track, as you call it. Okay? Here we go.

This is where I got them from. Okay? The lowest of the worldviews is where they hold the uh I'm sorry.

The lowest of the worldviews is where is the one where we realize that a person is devoid of existing substantially in the sense of a rāṅgya-tukpa. Do you know that? What's that mean?

Self-standing. Self-standing. Okay?

That's what we were talking about earlier today. Is there a Sorry. We were talking about those big cranes that put girders on the top of skyscrapers, right?

And when you come from a distance it looks like the crane is just throwing girders up there. When you get closer you see there's a tiny little guy in a glass box. It must be scary to get up in that.

I don't know. He spends the whole day up there. He eats lunch up there.

He's kind of walkie-talkie. You can't even see the ground. And they're like, raise it up now.

And he raises it. You see what I mean? So we tend to think that there's some Michael inside this body who's running the body like that.

Michael up in the control booth turns the levers and says, let's reach out for the water now. Then it directs the hand to reach out for the water. And then you come to believe that you are in charge of your head.

Which causes you a lot of trouble later when you're too old to raise your head. In that moment or you have a heart attack and you have a stroke and you can't move your arm. And then you may realize that you never were in charge of your head.

You asked your hand to move and it moved. But it wasn't for a long time. It wasn't because you asked it.

The asking and the moving of the hand ripened from one karmic seed. And it was in no way related to your asking. You are not in control of your body.

You don't run your body. Or else I wouldn't have a call now. I mean, it's obvious.

So that's the lowest worldview. That's the lowest version of emptiness. Michael Roach is devoid, he is empty of a guy sitting up in the head running the levers and telling the body what to do.

There is no such guy. Got it? That's not the ultimate worldview but it's helpful when the poop hits the fan.

OK? You know, you're at work and your boss told you to come in early and do this project and you came in early and you did the project and you did it the way they wanted and their boss showed up and said that was stupid and in front of the big boss, your boss said you were stupid for doing it that way when you knew that they had asked you to do it that way. And if you have this viewpoint that you're not in control of what's happening around you, at least you can console yourself and not get so upset.

But that sucks as a worldview. OK? I mean, if that's the best you can do just to console yourself when poop hits the fan.

Right? The higher school says, come on, let's take a little control here. Don't just sit there and say I couldn't do anything about it anyway.

I wasn't in control. Somebody else was calling the shots. That's kind of an unsatisfying worldview.

OK? But it's helpful. Hopefully you won't tell the little boss it's crazy and then your employee won't tell you you're crazy.

OK. Oh, I'm sorry. I left out a part of the sentence.

You should have caught me, you guys. Sorry. And it is relative to this view that we describe someone of being of the nature of a listener possessed of rather dull thoughts.

Got it? OK. If that's the best worldview you can scrape up, we would say you're on the listener track.

So this is profound. He's defining what it is to be on the three tracks. In these few sentences, he's defining what it is to be on the three tracks.

And he's defining what lower versions of emptiness are. Why is that important for us? You will go to some teaching.

Some level will get up. You'll say, what is emptiness? They'll say, it means you're not in control of your body.

There never was a guy who was in control of your body. So just do the best you can. And he'll leave.

And stick you with that. And that's the best teaching you'll ever get on emptiness. And what this text is saying is, that's a helpful idea, but it sure ain't emptiness.

You gotta go a little further. You're just gonna spend the rest of your life saying, I wasn't in control. It's not my fault.

I couldn't help it. And then all this poop is happening to you. That's not enough.

Realize that these schools are archetypes. And the people following those schools are archetypes. There wasn't historically people who said this or that.

These are archetypes. Of people in your own head. These are archetypes of people in your own head.

Somebody says everything's empty. Then there'll be a little guy in your head that'll say, yeah, that means I can't control it all. Just chill.

You can't control what's happening. So these books are warning that if you think that's emptiness, you're not there yet. And you might think that's emptiness, because these are the typical misunderstandings of emptiness that happen in a human mind as an archetype throughout history.

It doesn't matter what generation you are. It doesn't matter what country you're in. A certain number of the people in this room tonight, who are wang buktul, dull powers, dull spiritual powers, they will think emptiness means I don't have control over my body and mind.

And I should just chill. And that's the best they'll be able to get. And that's OK.

It's helpful. But the reason it's brought up in the text is that they don't want you to stop there. They want you to...

You go to a lecture and some lama gets up and says, emptiness means you're not in control of your body and mind. In your mind you're going to say, ha ha, that's like a listener. That's like Loa.

OK? He wants you to have the discrimination, the viveka, the ability to say, that's not real emptiness. I mean, it's helpful, but that's not really emptiness.

OK? Got it? Because it will pop up in your own mind from time to time.

This is what emptiness is. It's not that some historical guy made a mistake on a manuscript in the 6th century, or something like that. OK?

Now, this is a little different from what you read in Mahamudra, and I think it's more helpful. The medium worldview is where... I hope you've given up on the thought of a break.

That's OK. Oh, it just goes on. The medium worldview is where you...

believe. Let me think about this. It's where you grasp that outer objects in the sense of that gross outer objects in the sense of...

What do you call it? Something that's made up of a lot of parts. Conglomerate?

Conglomerate?

[Speaker 2]
Collective.

[Speaker 1]
Like, if you think that a computer is made up of so many pieces of plastic, it's a...

[Speaker 2]
Composite? Composite?

[Speaker 1]
No, the word has to mean the combination. It is a blank of keys, top, bottom, sides. Aggregate?

Aggregate's OK. Combination? Let's try aggregated.

Collection. Of partless atoms. Atoms.

OK? In the lowest school of Buddhism, the way you reach the ultimate reality of an object is to disassemble it until you reach a particle which can no longer be divided. And that's the basis of science, roughly, of atomic theory, roughly, until recently.

Until quantum physics. OK? So...

And the higher schools object to that description. They object to the concept of a particle which could not be divided further. Because then the left side and the right side of it would have to touch.

And then there wouldn't be a thing. There is no such thing as a partless particle. Physically.

And there's no such thing as an indivisible amount of time. You could always have half of that time. OK?

But scientists have struggled since the Greeks to find a building block of matter which is indivisible. OK? Which is where the word atom comes from.

And we believe in atoms. And that they compose things. Compose is a pretty good name.

OK. In the sense of the question of particle size. The meaning of this when you grasp it once under objects.

And the correct perceptions which grasp onto them are empty of any... of... are empty of coming from separate seeds.

OK? And relative to this view we describe someone of being of the nature of a self-includer. Possessed of with medium power.

Medium intellectual powers. OK?

[Speaker 2]
Sorry?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Well, look. Svatantrika says this is how he described people of the three.

This is the... Yeah. Let me think about that.

This is an expression of the mind-only view by a Svatantrika. How's that? It's mainly a mind-only view.

What would be the Svatantrika view?

[Speaker 2]
It's me.

[Speaker 1]
What's that? The way we decide if something is real is if it is appearing to an unaffected state of mind. Rather than existing in and of itself.

It's 50-50. There has to be present. If you asked this school about the tree falling in the forest, what would they say?

If there's no one there to observe it, it's... It didn't happen. Okay?

All existing objects depend upon appearing from their side and being taken in a certain way by the mind. There has to be both elements there for a thing to exist. And that's a denial that the thing could exist all on its own without a mind perceiving it.

Okay? That's the real Svatantrika's view. That's what they think emptiness is, which is about what we're about to get to.

But they don't describe it in this text. In this part of the text. They're just going to say, here we go.

The highest world view is where you perceive emptiness. And it is relative to this view that we describe someone of being of the nature of a picture. Yeah.

Of a person of the great way. Practitioner of the great way. Possessed of sharp powers.

Okay? Now, in that paragraph, they didn't describe what emptiness is. And you should know that in the Svatantrika system, the system of the three tracts, the lower two tracts' emptiness is never called emptiness.

It's called a lack of self-existence. Lack of self-nature. Okay?

They reserve the word in this school, they reserve the word emptiness for the highest of the three. And they never refer to what the lower two tracts perceive as emptiness. And I've just been doing it Pamshe.

Say Pamshe. Pamshe. Pamshe means I've taken liberties in the lecture not to drive you crazy.

I just kept saying emptiness. But technically, in this school, you can't refer to the lower two ideas as emptiness. Okay?

So when you do finally say emptiness, everybody knows you're referring to the fact that things are devoid of coming from their own side alone. And that they both come from their side and from your side. That's only the fifth of the six world views.

Because the sixth world view says that a hundred percent is coming from you. World view number five, the lower one says your boss is irritating and you are taking him as irritating. Okay?

The higher viewpoint says your boss is a blank screen and you are projecting irritating on him. Got it? Yeah?

Is this our guide speaking about the Maitreya's text from the point of view of the lower Middle Way school?

[Speaker 2]
Exactly.

[Speaker 1]
Nice point. Did you get that? This is our guide describing the lower Middle Way's interpretation of Maitreya's text.

It's a good point. Okay. Okay.

Even if you even if you accept that all three types of person okay persons perceive emptiness directly all right? You would still be wrong. Okay?

You may think about that. Well, I'll translate this and we'll see. And this is because there are distinctions between them where such as whether or not they are able to perceive suchness with a correct perception relatively quickly or more.

Okay. He didn't say perceive. He said poke.

Poke is Do you know what a pakse is? Or how about J-Pak seminal? What's J-Pak seminal?

Yeah, deduction. So he makes a verb out of it. He says poke.

Which means to use a J-Pak seminal. Poke it. So, I can't say perceive.

I have to say what? Yeah, let me think about it. It has to be a little stronger than it is.

It's not quite grasped. What's just a little bit less than grasped? Say it?

Inferred. Inferred. Let's say figure out.

What's a nice scholarly word for figure out? Ascertain. Ascertain.

Discern? Discern is even better. With correct perception.

And whether or not they perceive whether or not they perceive suchness by using a directly infinite number of arguments. Magical arguments? Okay, this goes back.

Maybe we should take a break. You're pretty dead, sorry. How about we do, I don't know.

We have half an hour. You want to keep going? Is that okay?

One person does. We had a guy in the first three retreat. He was a cowboy who used to come take care of us sometimes.

He'd say, You're the kind of person that when you put your pants on you think the whole world is dressed. So I believe what he's saying is that suppose you are of a school that says there's no use dividing out three tracks because they all see emptiness. They all see real emptiness.

Suppose you're of a higher school that says there's not much sense to divide out three different tracks if they all see real emptiness. Which we say they do. Because they got to Nirvana.

To get to Nirvana they must have seen emptiness directly. Because that's the only thing that can permanently remove your negative thoughts. So suppose somebody came up and said, Let's just forget the three tracks.

Because they all see emptiness. Which is, we would accept that. But then we're going to come back and say, No, no, keep the three track system.

Why? People in the first track see it a little slower. You can say their capacity is a little bit slower.

So relative speed with which they perceive emptiness is different. So let's keep the idea of three tracks. And more importantly, let's Sorry.

And more importantly, there's one track among them which is not satisfied with a few simple explanations of emptiness. They need veritably infinite number of arguments. Would that be the duller track or the sharper track?

I'll tell you why. This could be a nice debate. In the Avidharma it says the Buddha taught that you have five parts.

Heaps, right? He also taught that you have twelve doors of sense. And he also taught that you have eighteen categories of your being.

And then somebody asked Master Vasubandhu, Why didn't he just teach the five parts? Why did he teach twelve and then eighteen? I heard some, I saw Sri Patala joy.

I went to one of his satsangs in Mysore. And somebody asked him, you know, Guruji, How come, when does somebody get to study the second series? He would hold out on certain people.

They wouldn't be allowed to practice the second series of awesomeness for years. And they could do the first series easily. And they'd say, And then one of the students in the satsang was getting a little irritated with him.

And they said, How does a person get to the second series? How do you decide that somebody's ready for the second series? And he said, If they're too stupid to get it with the first series, I teach them the second series.

And that's what Vasubandhu said. He says, If they're too stupid to get it with the five heaps, then they teach them the twelve lines of satsang. If they're still too stupid, they teach them the eighteen doctrines, right?

But now here they say, in reply, OK, I'll stay there. Then maybe you take a five minute break or something. Somebody comes up to him and says, If in the lower scriptures Lord Buddha taught emptiness fully, which is what we say, then why did he bother teaching the mind?

And what's the answer that we get? Do you remember?

[Speaker 2]
There's other factors.

[Speaker 1]
There's more arguments, more presentations.

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
The answer was people of higher capacity want to learn thousands of arguments in favor of emptiness. They want to know a thousand different ways to prevent emptiness. Why?

Because they didn't get it on the second one or the third one? They want a bigger toolkit. They want a bigger toolkit.

What's that mean? They're thinking about the future when they're going to have to teach emptiness to other people. And they're going to use some argument for emptiness and the person won't get it.

And then they'll look in their toolkit and say, Oh, I have a different argument. Here. How's this one?

Here's the aspirin thing. They don't get it. So they want to hear more arguments for emptiness because of their compassion.

They want to be equipped to address people of different faculties and different backgrounds. They want to have a lot of good arguments in favor of emptiness. Not because they need them themselves.

But they want to be able to use them later. They say in the root text for this teaching that a truly fit student, a true student of the middle way, when they hear an argument for emptiness, they get chills at this point. When they hear a new argument for emptiness, they're like, Ah!

I can't believe they say that. Because they think, Oh, now I can help somebody who doesn't get it with the argument that I got it with. Got it?

So that was our response to the argument if the Buddha taught emptiness fully in the lower scriptures, why did he bother to teach the higher ones? And the answer was, one of the answers was a really extraordinary practitioner wants more arguments in favor of emptiness so they can help more people. And that's why you can hang out in these classes.

You get it with the pen. It's enough. You can get it with the pen.

But it's good to have more arguments because then you can use them for people who don't get it with the pen. Take a 5-10 minute break and we'll do a little bit more. ...

... ... ...

... ... But since he didn't bother me during my break, I'm getting to it.

But you answered it actually already, but I'll ask a different question. It was in the lecture. Okay.

The first argument I think we did, it sounded to me, you translated it as person, but it sounded to me like maybe they were talking about a person who sees it directly. Because then the answer would have made a lot more sense to me, so I'm wondering if that's possible. Let's go up and see.

Often times in these texts, just so you know for the future, they will say, saw emptiness, and they won't add directly. And you're supposed to understand that they didn't. Well, yes, and the subject wasn't explicit enough to that at all, right?

Maybe it's referring to that. Because that would make a lot of sense to me. If it was a person who saw emptiness directly, then of course, once they saw the emptiness of one thing directly, they wouldn't need any.

Oh, okay, yeah, okay. Alright. He doesn't say that.

Nowhere does he say directly. That's all. Do you think it could mean also...

Do you think he's just being... I'm going to say, I forgot to explain the word bāngshēn. Bāngshēn means, when you're giving a teaching to an audience who's already up to speed with you, you can skip the word directly and, you know, everybody knows what you're talking about.

So it's either bāngshēn, or he means to include the intellectual perception of emptiness. Which do you think it is? Logically.

If he says, look, anyone who saw emptiness with a pen should be able to see it with the mind that perceived the pen. Is he talking about the direct perception of emptiness, or is he talking about intellectually? Intellectually.

Probably intellectually. Probably intellectually. That's all.

Because you don't normally focus on a pen when you're at the early stages of seeing emptiness directly. You're focusing on... Not even yourself.

You have to say Nyingma. Or Michael. Okay?

Or Darcy. There's a reason to say the person's name. Which you have to figure out.

Any other questions? I'm sorry, she was there. Yeah, Mark?

[Speaker 2]
Thank you. Okay. So, I'm trying to understand how...

I understand there's three different viewpoints of how three different levels of perception can understand. And why we need to know that so that each person can understand. And that each level can perceive emptiness directly.

But you're saying that they perceive it in different ways. So, doesn't that in some way mean that emptiness is relative to how you see it? And if it means that it's relative, that means that I should be able to see it in some way.

Even though I'm not there yet, you know?

[Speaker 1]
And also, I don't understand how the argument about... Sorry, I get nervous asking these questions. Let me answer the first one.

You think of the second one.

[Speaker 2]
I know what the second one is about compassion.

[Speaker 1]
We won't pay any attention to you. Just go ahead.

[Speaker 2]
But it's related. Because why do you need compassion to see emptiness if emptiness is empty? It's empty of attributes.

So why do you need something to see it?

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Let me go to the first one. There's a debate about whether ultimate reality is not empty.

Okay? Of all the things in the world, it seems like there should be something that everyone perceives the same. Okay?

Is emptiness like the pen? And every observer sees it differently? Or is emptiness something really ultimate that if you saw it, you would all see the same thing?

And... What would we say? You do see it all the same way, but it's not...

Is emptiness itself coming from its side or your side? Everything's coming from your side. Even emptiness.

Even ultimate reality is coming from your side. That implies that different people can see it in different ways. Which is why these arguments have come up.

It happens to be that the way to perceive it which is most useful is the highest one. Useful for what? Why do we want to see emptiness?

To remove your negative emotions. Okay? Basically.

Okay? Then the second question was...

[Speaker 2]
So why do we need compassion to see emptiness when it's empty? And also, from that, if it's empty, where's this synapse between empty and something? But you've sort of answered that.

It's not really empty, you're saying. It has attributes.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, don't think of emptiness in the Hindu interpretation of nirguna and sakuna. You know, having attributes and not having attributes. That's a Hindu thing.

Emptiness... It's not that emptiness means there's no qualities. Emptiness means there's nothing coming from its own side.

Everything still has all the qualities. Fire is still hot, but it's coming from you. Okay?

It's not that there's no heat. It's not there is heat, but it's not in the fire. It is imparted to the fire by you.

When a seed opens in your mind for having cooked someone's meal for them on the fire. Okay? Very interesting.

So emptiness doesn't mean the absence of all qualities. It doesn't mean that. What it means is the absence of any quality which was in the thing.

Okay? Stated positively, which for those of you who care, is dependent origination. All the qualities I see in things or people are coming from me by having done similar things to other people in the past.

Good or bad. See, then there's this huge... This is where you want to go.

Then there's this huge melding together of the ideas of emptiness and compassion. You see? If emptiness means that nothing good can happen to me unless I serve others, then the idea of emptiness and the idea of serving the world fit together perfectly.

And if someone teaches you an idea of emptiness which doesn't fit the idea of compassion perfectly, I would say that's a wrong idea of emptiness. Got it? So, a correct presentation of the idea of emptiness should sooner or later bring everybody around to the idea of compassion and serving others.

Or else it's wrong. Or else it's mistaken. The question that came up here though was that can you understand the deepest workings of things without love?

And they would say, to an extent. Okay? You can understand how things work without wanting to help all living beings.

But there's a limit to that. And you won't be able to go higher without a love for all living beings. In this...

I think in all the schools they would say Chö Kitagme as opposed to Kamsa Kitagme. There's an argument like that. You can come to understand the emptiness of a person but you will never understand the emptiness of things without compassion.

And that's what it takes to become enlightened, being without compassion. Nirvana without compassion. Because nirvana just means meeting enough irritating people and understanding that they're coming from you.

And you shouldn't respond to them. Or else you'll have more irritating people. Okay?

You don't have to have love to understand that. Okay? I think...

[Speaker 2]
So could reverse be true then? For... When...

When you said that we can attain nirvana without compassion, can reverse be true? Can we attain nirvana by just having compassion? If you're good all the time then you don't have negative thoughts because there are no seeds to create negative thoughts.

If you are... If there is such a person who is good all the time.

[Speaker 1]
We say you cannot be good all the time unless you understand emptiness.

[Speaker 2]
So for instance... Amma... She...

It was said in her biography anyway that she was already born or she had the inherent quality to serve others. And she got recommended because she gave her clothes and she was poor. She gave her clothes to the poorer kids.

Gave the food to the animals. But at that age she may not have the wisdom but maybe in...

[Speaker 1]
Oh yeah, we would say past life.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. And that gets into an idea called Bhaktsaksepa. And Bhaktsaksepa means at a certain age the seeds from your past life reassert themselves.

Like very holy seeds reassert themselves at a certain age. And that's what a truku is. A reincarnated lama or something like that.

So at a certain point their seeds reassert... And that's the idea of a self-made Buddha that we talked about today. A person who has not had a teacher in the current life.

And then, you know, everybody jumps on that and says OK, I don't need a teacher. And then the next sentence is ours but you need 80,000 in your past life. Something like that to get there.

So we don't believe that a person without training could ever learn high levels of compassion. If they seem to have learned them in this life or exhibit them in this life without training it comes from their training in the past life. That's what we say.

Because it's not human nature to serve others. You see? Because of our misunderstanding we think that I should get close first and you should get close after that.

You see what I mean? And that's human nature because we divide you and me. We divide your interests from my interests.

We don't understand that for me to fulfill my interests I must first fulfill yours. In which case your interests and my interests are not just intertwined, they are the same. Which calls into question the difference between you and me.

Okay? It's very beautiful. It's very beautiful.

If I cannot get close unless I share close then the people with whom I share the close are me. Then the vocabulary breaks down. Then the language breaks down.

What does it mean to share with yourself? What, your right hand is going to share the soap with your left hand? You see what I mean?

The vocabulary breaks down. To say that I'm sharing with you my close is a misnomer. I'm dressing me so that me can be dressed.

You see what I mean? And to reach that understanding you have to understand where things are coming from. To really treat other people as yourself it takes training because it's not human nature.

And once you get training then it's not so difficult. We teach in China, right? I go to China.

I went to China a month ago, right? I was almost invited to speak to the president there. But...

You know, they haven't been allowed to openly study these things since 1949 or something, okay? So... But the minute you start to talk about it people get it.

It doesn't matter who they are. You know, it doesn't matter if they've been allowed to study these things or not. Every human being gets it.

If you just explain it. I think you need that explanation at some point. Later it becomes your nature.

But you need training in it. So she must have had training in... We believe she must have had training in it.

Yes, that's fine. Okay, she had a question.

[Speaker 2]
So... The listeners who receive their form of emptiness when they... What would be the process of moving up the ladder?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, good. It's a good question, okay? How do you...

We said... We said there are three tracks of five levels each. Fifteen levels total, right?

Three tracks you can travel on. Everyone always ends up on the highest track, okay? No one stops on the lower tracks.

It's not possible, okay? So, when can you decide to skip up to a higher track? Let's say you've gone through three paths or three levels on the lowest track.

When can you decide to just... You say, oh... You know, save time.

I should go to track three. There are twenty permutations. And there's a body of literature which has formed about that question called Gendun Nisha which means the thirty permutations.

So, there's thirty ways you can... You know? Go from track two...

Track one, level two, to track three, level four and then skip up to track three, level one. And there's twenty different possibilities. Okay?

Yeah. That's a whole study and it'd be nice to do it someday. Basically, what we're going to see in Pabongkha Rinpoche's Lamrim is that you shouldn't waste your time.

You should go to track number three right away if you can. You just save time. Because on the first two tracks you cannot achieve enlightenment.

Without compassion you cannot achieve enlightenment. Not possible. So you might as well go to track three and get it finished.

It's faster than going to one and going to two and going up to three. Okay? What would trigger someone going from track one or two to three?

Right? And then there's this beautiful description in the scriptures of a person who achieves a private nirvana on track one or track two. They go through track one, to the end of track one and they achieve a personal nirvana.

It's happiness. It's real happiness. They are not capable of being upset again.

They are not capable of becoming angry again. And that is true happiness. They achieve true happiness.

And then some people park there and they say, that's all I need. I'm happy. It's enough for me.

And then there's this beautiful description of the buddhas of the ten directions get irritated. You know, they're like, hey, there's somebody hanging up in a personal nirvana. They like to have a discussion.

You know, like, there's this planet Earth. There's a guy who achieved nirvana yesterday. It looks like he intends to stay there and not share it with anybody else.

Okay? And then there's a shoulder tapping process that's described in scriptures. Like the buddhas of the ten directions come in.

You know, hey man, they've still got a ways to go. I believe that Lord Buddha himself was there. Okay?

Lord Buddha himself decided to hang out in a lower nirvana. And then the buddhas of the ten directions brought him a spiritual partner to wake him up. Her name was Tilottama.

And that was the first time that the third initiation was offered in this world. Okay? And to get him out of his mataji, his private little nirvana, they granted him a partner in the first highest yoga empowerment that was ever granted in this world.

And then that night he achieved enlightenment with her at dawn, together. It's very beautiful. It's a very, very beautiful night.

The description of that night is very beautiful. You know, how they woke him up and got him interested in a partner. That would be something that you could wake up a boy with, right?

And then and then by morning they achieved enlightenment together. It's a very beautiful story. And that was the first time that that empowerment was given in this world.

And the custom has continued. That's a good place to stop, I think. So, again, I'm sorry if you walked in this class and it was too hard for you.

Please understand that I have some students here who've been here 20 years. They get very irritated if they hear the same thing over and over again. And I have to also entertain them.

And I like the... This is the hard scripture. But I think later in your life you will appreciate that someone discussed all the subtle ways that you could misunderstand it.

Because as you get closer to Nirvana you will be... you will encounter subtle misunderstandings of reality. And then you will have the seeds in your mind to overcome them if you go through attacks like this.

And I just don't keep talking about the pen over and over again. You see what I mean? If I go into these details when the time comes that you are very close to seeing emptiness directly and you just have one small misconception left you will remember we talked about it.

And then you'll be able to break through that. You see? And if we never talk about those things then I'm cheating you, Alan.

Those are whole beautiful... They are like... I don't know.

It's like a whole genre of music that you've never heard. It's not available. These textbooks on emptiness.

They're not available. No one has translated them. No one's teaching them.

It's like... It's like Baroque music. As if Baroque music didn't exist.

And then someone is telling you, look, there's this thing called Baroque music. Listen to this. And then you're like, wow, that's pretty cool.

It's a whole body of knowledge that is not available in this world right now. And it's so beautiful. So I thought, I'm gonna keep doing it.

I thought maybe if I had time, I don't know, but it'd be nice to do it online more regularly. Because every six months, two classes is not... We've, by the way, we've covered to page 37 in eight years now.

I think it's... How many pages total? 162.

We are one-fifth of the way through. What would that mean? 20 times eight.

160. Sorry, four times. 32 years total.

We gotta move a little faster. So maybe I'll do it online, okay? And we'll do it more often.

Yeah, we were doing this as a preliminary to a better text that we wanted to put out. Right? Anyway, that's like that.

Thank you for coming and thank you for being so patient. And you've been a good group. Nobody was getting really fidgety or looking angry or...

It's very difficult. And you did really well with it. Because you have a deep seed in you.

Each person here has a deep seed. Thank you so much. www.mooji.org