Вступление на срединный путь (текущий курс, Аризона), занятие 105

[Speaker 1]
This is a book from my monastery, Serme, which is part of Sera, which is one of the three great monasteries of Tibet. Like, you can't hear me? Can't hear?

[Speaker 2]
Can you hear?

[Speaker 1]
Can you hear me? I don't know. You can sit up here if you want.

You can put a chair right here if you want. I don't mind. I really don't mind.

Yeah? Better? Better?

Okay. So, this is a textbook from my monastery, which is part of Sera, and Sera is one of the three great monasteries of Tibet. And those monasteries have existed for about 600 years, and they have a special course of study.

And each monastery has its own textbooks called yikcha, and they are extremely difficult, and they are written in debate format, Socratic dialogue. So, I thought if I don't translate some of them, nobody ever will. Because I had the transmission, my Lama was the youngest who could be and have been trained in Tibet, because in 1959 we lost, Tibet was lost.

So, he was the youngest who could have been and had the lineage. And then he died in 84 in 2004. So, I thought I should translate some of them or else nobody will.

So, if there are a few translated, then somebody smart in the future might be able to figure out how I translated it. And then, you know, it wouldn't die completely. But they're extremely difficult, and they're not for general consumption.

Alright? So, I'm just going to take off into it. Don't feel upset, you know, if you can't...

If it's over your head, don't worry, just come back tonight. Which is a more general talk. This is mostly just to try to preserve this lineage.

And it's difficult, it's very difficult. I'll try to make it easier, but it's still difficult. So, here we go.

So, the whole point of this book is emptiness, is to treat emptiness. And the idea in this section is that if you could see emptiness, if you could understand emptiness, you could get rid of your jealousy, your anger, wrong kinds of desire, you would become a perfectly happy person. Okay?

If you could see emptiness. It's related to the fact... How many people were here this morning in the meditation?

Yeah. We were talking about your husband. Right?

What was he doing? He was criticizing you. And that makes you upset, right?

To be criticized by your husband or by anybody makes you upset, right? How could you not be upset? No, if he stopped it.

Right? Right? No, isn't it true?

Right. Okay. But they say there's another way not to be upset.

They say... Oh, let's put it this way. When you're living with a couple of other people and they have to use the shower also, and they let water fall on the floor, and then you walk in with your socks on in the winter, and you step in their water, right?

Do you feel upset? Do you feel upset? Usually, I do.

What if you realize that it was you who left the water on the floor the night before? What if you suddenly remember that you let the water out of the shower the night before, and you're stepping in the water that you put there? Do you feel as upset at yourself as you feel at your roommate?

No. Okay, you feel like disappointed in yourself, or you make some kind of resolution not to do it again, right? But you don't like take yourself in the kitchen and scream at yourself, which is what you would do with your roommate, right?

Am I right? Okay. So if you saw the emptiness of your critical husband, if you realized that the water on the floor you put there yourself, you see?

If you really saw it, would you be as upset? No, I mean you would just make a resolution not to do it again, right? That's all.

You wouldn't get... You wouldn't start screaming at yourself, right? You would just say, I shouldn't be doing that.

I'll try to be less critical of other people. Got it? So that's how understanding emptiness can make you happier and have less negative emotions, right?

They say in Buddhism that if you train yourself enough, you could root out all negative emotions and be a perfectly happy person all the time, okay? Because any irritation you ever meet, any problem you ever have with another person, is coming from you. And if you can stop it if you want, just stop acting like however they're acting.

Okay? Got it? So you can see how emptiness might lead you to have a perfectly, what do you call it?

Un-negative mind, right? Then there's a disagreement about how deeply do you have to see that your husband's critical speech is coming from you, okay? There's a question.

How much do you have to see that? You see? Suppose just somebody...

You went to a talk on the weekend and somebody said your critical husband's coming from you. Is that enough to make you never get upset at him again? You see what I mean?

What's enough that you never get upset again? How much do you have to understand that he's coming from you for him not to follow you? Got it?

You gotta nod sometimes. Just nod. It's gonna get worse, alright?

So we're on the subject of a school which is mainly the lower middle way school which is called Satantrika Rangipa Independent School. Okay? And they have special ideas about what it is to see the emptiness of your critical husband.

Okay? They have special ideas about that. Are they correct?

They're close. That's to say they're not correct. Okay?

That was close to a home run. It's to say it wasn't a home run. Okay?

They are useful. They are interesting. You can use them when you can't remember the better ones.

But they're not the ultimate ones. Okay? So here we go.

We're talking about there's a part in the scripture this whole thing is a commentary on a book called Abhisamaya Ankara, right? And they are discussing who wrote the Abhisamaya Ankara? Maitreya dictated it to his son.

Okay? Way back. Sixteen centuries ago.

Okay? And this is the next Buddha. The next Buddha to come on this earth dictated from heaven a book to a human.

And it is 75 pages long. And we spend 12 years on it. That's six pages a year.

And we work on it for about I don't know, 12 hours a day. Okay? It's beautiful.

It's amazing.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
And in there it says very famous they are able to stop their misunderstanding of things they observe. But they are not able to stop their understanding of the observing mind. Okay?

They understand that the things around them that they perceive around them are coming from seeds in their mind. Got it? But they have trouble applying it to their own mind.

They don't see how their own mind could be coming from seeds in their mind. Alright? I think a simple example of your own mind coming from seeds in your mind we talked about this morning when we said you could change your level of intelligence.

If you understood seeds. You can make money, right? On the outside.

You could give money in a certain way and money would come back to you. You would make a lot of money. You could help lonely people with understanding.

And then you the karma of that is you would find a beautiful partner. Okay? Those are outside things.

Partner and money. But what about your state of mind? Could you make your mind more intelligent than it is now?

Is it possible to plant seeds in your mind that would ripen as a mind which understood more than it did before, right? And you would do that, for example, by teaching other people, sharing what you know. Whatever it is.

Even at work, you know how to change the tires but the other mechanic doesn't. So then you share with them your knowledge freely. You know?

Kindly. And the karma of that is your own intelligence would rise. Your ability to fix cars would rise.

Okay? Got it? Just thought.

Okay. So, this point in the book they're saying it's relatively easier to understand that outside things are coming from your mind than it is to understand that your mind is coming from your mind. Got it?

Okay? That's the debate. That's where we are.

Very famous in the Abhisamaya Upanisad. Then we say to that guy, alright? Can you clarify what you mean?

Can you clarify what you think it means when you say that it's easier to clear up your misunderstanding of objects than it is to clear up your misunderstanding of your own mind. Got it? Can you give me a little more detail on what you think that means?

Alright? And this is difficult. And we give him three choices.

Are you saying this? Or are you saying this? Or are you saying this?

When you say what? It's easier to stop your misunderstanding of the things around you than it is to stop your misunderstanding of your own mind. Alright?

Then we say, could you clarify? What do you mean? We give him three choices and I've written them for you.

Do you think it refers... How do you say it? They understand...

Do you think it means that a person understands that the camera is not real but they have trouble misunderstanding that their own mind is not? Okay? Is the camera real?

Is the camera real? Why is it real? It does something.

I mean it's a recording though. And you can play it back. It works.

Is it real? If it wasn't real, I mean if it was like made out of wood and just painted like a camera, it couldn't record, right? Does it record now?

Is it real? We say not real because it's not what you think it is. Alright?

We say not real because it's not what you think it is. You think it was made in a factory in Japan or something. Right?

And you don't look at the camera and think, I made that camera with my mind. That camera is coming out of my mind. Okay?

You think you go to a... If Sai said, how do you get a camera? You would go to a store.

Right? Okay? So the camera doesn't exist the way you thought it did.

And that's why it's not real. Okay? Is the camera a camera?

Is the camera a camera in the way you always thought a camera existed? No. What's sustaining the camera in this room?

Your kindness to others. Okay? It's not the tensile strength of the metal in the camera.

Okay? It's not the chemicals or the steel or the glass. It's how good were you to other people.

If you had not been kind to others, the camera would break. And no matter how much money you spent and how many people you took it to, it wouldn't work. It'd be like having a cell phone that you had to shut off because something went wrong with the system and you keep getting messages that aren't supposed to go to you.

Okay? It's a working cell phone. It has a battery.

It's hooked up. I paid the bill. I can't use it.

Okay? Today I can't use it.

[Speaker 2]
Alright?

[Speaker 1]
It's not coming from a factory. It's coming from me. And if your kindness runs out, it'll stop working.

Alright? Got it? Is it real?

Not the way you thought it was. Okay? That's a good answer.

Not the way you thought it was. So are you telling me that it's easier for me to understand that this is not real than it is to understand that my mind is not real? Is that what you mean?

When you say it's easier to stop your misunderstanding about objects than it is to stop your misunderstanding about subjects. Got it? If you're not sure, just nod.

Okay. Is that what you mean? That it's easier to see that this is not real than it is to see that your mind is not?

Is that what you mean? That's possibility number one. Here's possibility number two.

This is interesting, okay? If you walk into a room. If you walk into your house and your husband goes after you.

Your husband starts screaming at you. Right? Who put your husband in the room?

You did. Okay? It wasn't his car.

It wasn't his mother. You know, it wasn't coincidence. You put him there, okay?

Who put you there? You did. Okay, got it?

For you, okay? For him, he did. Okay, got it?

You put that seed in your mind and that grew. Okay? And that put you there and that put him there.

Okay? So you can think of it as one karmic seed grows. Okay, so you yelled at somebody at work three weeks ago.

You planted a karmic seed in your mind. You go home today. You're standing in the kitchen.

That karma ripens in your mind like this. Look at my head, okay? It grows like this and it splits.

The seed splits. It creates you to look at your husband and it creates your husband to be seen by you. Okay?

If one seed from being critical at somebody at work in your mind opens and splits and then you're watching your husband criticize you, you put him there and you put you here. Got it? You put yourself there and you put him there.

Got it? Just nod. You gotta nod or else I feel bad.

Alright? Alright? Is it more difficult to understand that he came from one seed in this situation than it is to understand that you came from one seed in this situation?

Is it more difficult to see that... Which is more difficult to see? He didn't come from a separate seed than me?

Or is it more difficult to see that I didn't come from a separate seed from him? Huh? Wait, what'd you say?

He said the same thing. I mean, come on. I'll say it again.

There was one kind of seed. It split up. It put you in the room and it put him in the room.

Got it? Is it more difficult to see that he's not coming from a separate seed from you or is it more difficult to see that you are coming from a separate seed from him? Anatol said, come on, it's the same thing.

It's just different. You got it? None.

I'll ask it again. This time you gotta react somehow. Or you can go in the back.

There's a kid's resting area there. I'll say it again. Is he coming from a separate seed than you?

No. Are you coming from a separate seed from him? Is it more difficult to see one of those than it is to see the other?

Okay? That's possibility number two. Hostility for what?

Understanding why it should be more difficult to see that you're coming from seeds than it is to see that the things around you are coming from seeds. Got it? Hostility number three.

Is it more easy to eliminate the habit of seeing that outside objects are coming from you, sorry, are not coming from you? Right? Or is it more easy to eliminate the habit of thinking that you're not coming from me?

You're... I'm thinking that you are coming from me. I'll say it again.

Is it easier to eliminate the habit of thinking that things around you are not coming from you? Or is it easier to eliminate the habit of thinking that you are coming from me? Some people say some things.

Okay? Just off the top of their heads they say, come on, I mean, it's not the same thing. So there are, those are three possibilities of what it means to say it's easier to see the truth with an outside thing than it is to see the truth with yourself.

Got it? Got it? Okay, we gotta keep moving.

I have a little plan for you and hopefully we'll finish. Maybe no break, okay? That's really torture in the afternoon.

Okay. And then he says, look, if somebody figures out that the flower is not what they thought it was, how long does it take them to figure out their arm is not what they thought it was or their mind is not what they thought it was? Okay, got it?

Is it such a leap to think, when you figure out that the flower is not what you thought it was, is it such a leap to apply that to your own mind? Does it take an Einstein to do that? Our author says they could simply turn their mind around and perceive, they could use the same thing.

They say, my mind must be like the flower. The flower is not what I thought. The flower is not coming from where I used to think it came from.

You thought it came from the nursery because you have enough money, right? But there can be a nursery that has a flower and you have enough money and you cannot get the flower. So it's not the money and it's not the nursery.

It's like your good luck. Who made that? You did, okay?

Got it? If you figure it out with a flower, is it such a leap of understanding to apply it to your own mind? The flower is coming from seeds in my mind.

How I experience my own level of intelligence is coming from seeds in my own mind. Is it such a big deal to say my mind is the same as the flower? What do you think?

It is. Our own system is, come on, it's not a big deal. If you understand it about the flower, it's not such a big deal to say it about your mind.

Can you plant seeds in your mind to make yourself more intelligent? Yeah, teach other people. Can you plant seeds in your mind to add more flowers?

Yeah, share flowers with other people. To get more intelligence, share intelligence with others. To get more flowers, share flowers with others.

Is it such a big difference? Is it like such a big leap? It is a little difference.

[Speaker 2]
Understanding is not such a leap.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Application.

[Speaker 1]
Application is impossible. Okay, now, in support of our saying it's not such a leap of theory, we quote Master Aryadeva. Aryadeva was the student of Yeah, Aryadeva.

All right? Who lived where? 200 A.D. About 16th century. No, 18th century. Just after the time of Christ. He said, the true nature of any one thing is the true nature of all things.

And the true nature of all things is the true nature of any one thing. If you see the real nature of any one thing, then you have seen the real nature of all things. Okay?

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

In practice, you can see the true nature of one thing. When you see the true nature of a chair, by implication, you've understood the true nature of anything. Because the true nature of anything is just to say, this thing is coming from my mind, and it's not coming from where I thought it came from.

Okay? So if you understand it about one thing, then, then in a way, you've understood it about all other things, although you haven't gone through the whole list. Brian Pearson's beard on the left side came from my own seeds and not from his chin.

Okay? Like that. I mean, you don't have time to apply it to all the stuff in the room, but logically it's okay.

Once you see one, you get it. You get it. All right?

That's what Master Aryadeva is saying. He's not saying he went through the room and checked every whisker, and you've concluded that everything comes from your own mind. Okay?

Got it? Just nod. Okay.

All right, good. Thanks. Then there was a line in the Shakyapa which was written by Aryadeva.

I don't know why. Anyway. Then they quote another, cikitapo kayinpa.

Say it. Say it just to wake you up. Cikit.

Cikit. Tapo. Tapo.

Kayinpa.

[Speaker 2]
Kayinpa.

[Speaker 1]
Cikit. Cikit. Tapo.

Tapo. Kayinpa.

[Speaker 2]
Kayinpa.

[Speaker 1]
Then they didn't quote the rest because everybody in a good monastery has memorized it since they were 18 years old or 6 years old. Okay? So I went and got it for you.

The whole thing. In a monastery you just say the first line and everybody knows the rest. But that's not the case here.

So, I got the quotation for you from the King here. Okay? Here it is.

Actually I got it from a thing called Nanda Lakshana. What is that? That's the text you study for the next 9 years.

Twice a year for 10 days. Right? Okay?

He quotes it. He quotes the whole line. Cikit.

Tapo. Kayinpa. Deni.

Kungi. Tapo. Ye.

Cikit. Tapo. Kayinpa.

Deni. Kungi. Tapo.

Ye. Shesun. Kungi.

Tapo. Ye. Okay?

Cikit. Tapo. Kayinpa.

Means anybody who sees one thing Deni. Kungi. Tapo.

Ye. Becomes a person who has seen all things. Anybody who has seen one thing has seen it all.

Okay? Anybody who has seen one thing has seen it all. Cikit.

Tapo. Kayinpa. Deni.

Kungi. Tapo. Ye.

Cikit. Tapo. The emptiness of one thing is the emptiness of everything.

Got it? Is it literally true? You guys are sleepy.

What happened? Let's tell her not to come back for yoga. I really enjoyed the class.

I really, really enjoyed the class. Cikit. Tapo.

Kayinpa. Is it true that one thing's emptiness is the emptiness of everything else? It's not true.

Okay? Destroy this computer. The emptiness of this computer leaves the world.

But the chair's emptiness is still there. They're not the same. Everything has its own emptiness.

What is the emptiness of this computer? It was not made in a factory. Okay?

It is sustained by my kindness to others. If that wears out, the computer will break. It doesn't matter how many shots you take it to.

They'll say, we can't fix it. Okay? You know that.

If this computer breaks, at which time, it's melted down. At which time, its lack of being not from itself, its lack of being from itself, is destroyed. When the computer is destroyed.

But does that destroy the emptiness of the chair, which is still there? No, the emptiness of the chair is still there. So it's not true that the emptiness of the computer is the emptiness of the chair.

Am I right? It's obvious. If this thing goes away, its emptiness goes away.

But the chair's emptiness doesn't go away, just because the computer's emptiness goes away. Am I right? So it's not, so Aryadeva is wrong.

Right? He said, one emptiness is the same as every other kind of emptiness. Huh?

No, it's not. The computer is empty of the computers having been made in a factory. The chair is empty of the chairs having been made.

Huh? Yeah, you can say that. That's the point, okay?

The general principle is the same. The emptiness technically is not the same. Got it?

The fact that it's not what you thought it was, is the same for everything. And in that sense we can say that one emptiness is everything's emptiness. And in that sense we can say if you get one thing's emptiness, you've got everything's emptiness.

Which is to say if you understand the object's emptiness, you must get it that your mind is there. True? Got it?

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
So can we say it's not more difficult to see the emptiness of the asaratu than it is to see the emptiness of your mind? Huh? We just said it's the same thing.

The principle is the same. I mean in principle it's about the same thing. Got it?

R.E. Davis said it's the same thing. But he meant the principle is the same. He didn't mean that you check every person's mind in the room and you've seen that they're all empty.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
At least I haven't. Got it? Okay.

Geshe Tutor Rinchen, we'd be in a class with like 50 guys. It'd be in the middle of the monsoon in India. It'd be in the afternoon.

We got up at 3.30 for 10 weeks in a row. And everybody'd be like this. There was a thing.

The first guy sits up straight and the guy behind him puts his hat on his back and he falls asleep in the class. And then the guy behind him puts his hat on his back and he falls asleep in the class. Everybody's like this.

And then the first guy falls asleep. And then everybody goes bump, bump, bump. And then Geshe Tutor Rinchen is asking a question, you know.

Do you think it's all the same? And the one guy left awake would go like this. And then he'd say Oh, he's your elected representative.

He's nodding but you're not. You must have voted that he could nod for you. Okay.

Okay, the second one. This is... The second idea was where Anatole said come on, it's the same thing.

If you understand that your irritating husband doesn't come from a separate seed from you then it's not so difficult to understand that you don't come from a separate seed from your irritating husband. Anatole says come on, it's the same thing. 400 years ago agrees with Anatole.

He said if you say it's the second you're wrong. Any person regardless of how dull they are would be unable to deny the first once they've figured out the second. It's like come on.

Got it? Jigme. Okay.

Okay. He said it's a no brainer. You figure out that your husband's coming from the same seed as you are then you've already figured out that you come from the same seed as your husband.

Is this just some kind of philosophy? No, I mean I don't know the lady back there I don't know if she's here. She broke up with her husband three days ago on issues like this and if she had known the lady they wouldn't be broken up.

She's going to live with that for 10, 20 years. It helps. Okay?

If you realize your irritating husband is coming from you you can get up you can fix it. Okay? And it'll save years of misery decades of misery.

Okay. Oh, I love this because it's so obscure. Okay.

Deyang, tsepa, sumchiro. Say deyang. Deyang.

Tsepa. Tsepa. Sumchiro.

Sumchiro. Deyang means that's the same. Okay?

Tsepa means the argument. Su means it's the same. Su means it's the same.

Chir means because it's the same. The argument's the same.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
He says that proves what I'm saying about Anatole's thing. Okay? Got it?

What did I say about Anatole's thing? Anybody who figured out that their husband's not coming from a separate sin than they are would automatically figure out that they're not coming from a separate sin than their husband. Okay?

Why? Because the book says Deyang, tsepa, sumchiro. What book?

Okay, he just quotes a single line out of 200,000 scriptures in Tibet. Good luck. You know?

He doesn't quote the whole thing. He doesn't even quote the whole verse. He quotes the first line.

He quotes actually the last line of the verse. Thanks a lot. You know?

The line says it's the same thing. But he doesn't tell you what. And he doesn't tell you what book it is.

But luckily we have this, we have a project that's been going on for 24 years to input the classics of ancient Tibet by teaching refugees and by paying them. So that's where a lot of the diamond money went. And we're still going.

Alice, she pays them actually. She does all the carrying. They're still going.

So we have a million pages in the database. It's free. It's online.

You can just search it. And I did. Ta-da!

Okay? And it's really beautiful. Okay?

It comes from Namda. Say Namda.

[Speaker 2]
Namda.

[Speaker 1]
What's Namda on Limbo? Simananda. Simananda.

Vartika. Yeah. It's the mother book of all books on logic and perception.

Okay? Logic sounds boring. I prefer to call it books on perception.

Okay? When I see four round blocks and two long silvers, you know, and four squares, what is it in me that makes me see a car? And people who are, what do they call it?

It's a disease. A cognitive disease. What children get it?

Autistic. They're like autistic. They can't put it together.

You talk to them and it sounds like boppi boppi. You know, and when they look at a car and they see black rounds and long silvers and they don't, they can't carnalize it into a car. They can't synthesize it into a car.

Okay? By the way, which is also just karma. Okay?

There is such a thing. The Pramana Vartika, this ancient book on perceptual theory, its main subject is how do you see a car?

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Except they used a bull, an ox. Okay? Like when you see four sticks and a curly thing and two half moons, why do you see a bull?

You know, what is it in your mind that allows you to put things together? Because some people lose it, right? People get Alzheimer's.

They start to lose it. They can't, they can't connect the dots anymore. What is it that makes you connect the dots?

Okay? That's what that book is about. Nyingbo is doing a beautiful, beautiful translation.

He's translating the most exquisite commentary on Pramana ever that was written in the 1400s by a Sokaka student named Kirije. Okay? It's never been translated.

It would take him 20 years. But he's working on it and it's exquisite. It's really exquisite.

So if you want to know about oxes, I asked him to start teaching it online because I thought it would help him. If he regurgitated it, he could translate it better. You know, if you teach it to somebody on Skype and they fall asleep or they start going like this, then you might want to adjust your translation.

So, he's doing it. So talk to him. It's exquisite.

It's unbelievable. It's really, really a classic. And it's never been taught or translated in this country, in any Western country.

It's a, it's a, I don't know. It's like the Bible or something. Okay?

Anyway, that's a commentary on a book by a master named Dharmakirti from about the 600s or something like that. Okay? And he wrote this book called An Explanation of How You See Things.

Alright? Got it? Pramanavartika.

In that book, he gives two arguments. You ready? And I thought it would be fun to go through it in some detail.

Do you know the three doshas? These are very much the, one of the important principles of Ayurveda. Pitta, vata, and katha.

Katha. Okay? You're into that, right?

So pitta, vata, and katha. Okay? These are three, they're called the three doshas.

They are three constituents of your body. They're three elements of your body which determine your constitution. The nature of your physical constitution in Ayurvedic medicine is determined from these three energies in your body.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
And if you eat certain foods, they accentuate one of the energies at the cost of the other two, which can lead to illness. For example, kapha, which is phlegm, which is like snore and sinus congestion and things like that. If the kapha dosha gets too strong, you might get pneumonia.

Okay? What does dosha mean? It comes from the root dus in Sanskrit, which came into Greek as dys, D-Y-S, meaning bad, dysfunctional, with a Y.

Okay? And it came into Latin as dys. Okay?

So we use dys. Okay? Dys means bad.

Dosha comes from that. In Sanskrit, it's dus, like du-kha. Before a K, the S must change to ha.

So du-kha means bad wheel and it means suffering. So dus means bad. Dosha means problem.

Okay? The very three physical elements of your body that determine your health are called problems.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
The elements of your body which determine your health, they're called problems. Why? By the way, in Tibetan it's nye-che, problem, troublemaker.

Nye-che, troublemaker. Okay? Like that.

Why are they called problems? The scriptures say they're called problems because when they get out of balance, you get sick. That's kind of unfair to them, I think.

You know, it's like calling you troublemaker because when you're upset, you're a troublemaker. You see? It's not like you're a troublemaker.

It's just when you're out of balance, you're a troublemaker. But to call them troublemakers is kind of unfair, in my mind. The three components of your physical constituency are called problems, dosha.

Kapa means clever. Pitta means like fire, fire energy. And then, what's the other one?

Vata is wind. Okay? Vata came into birth.

Like that. Kapa comes into car, I think. And then pitta comes into actual birth.

Anyway. So it was a belief in ancient India. There are, do you know what the doshas are, the three poisons?

What are the three poisons in the middle of the wheel of life? Yeah, there's a pig, there's a snake, and there's a rooster who used to be a pigeon. Okay?

The pig is what? Ignorance. How would you apply the pig to the theme of your husband who's critical of you?

Yeah, who said that? Thinking that they're not coming from you is pig. Okay?

It's wrong thinking. It's misunderstanding your husband. And as long as you misunderstand him, you will suffer.

Okay? And it could be a 20-year, 30-year thing. We're not talking like a week.

We're talking, unless you get divorced or he dies or some other good thing, if you don't get it where he's coming from, it could cause you decades of pain. Okay? It could ruin your whole life.

And so we call one of the three poisons of the mind is simply not to understand where he's coming from. Got it? The other poison of the mind is represented by a snake.

Why? What is it? What is the snake?

Yeah, dislike. You can say ignorant disliking. Okay?

Which is to hate your husband. Okay? When he criticizes you, you hate him.

Okay? Is it wrong to hate anything? Should you hate war or disease or...

It's right to dislike those things. It's correct. You should not like war.

And you should not like disease in the world. Like that. It's okay to not want things.

That's a good thing. You shouldn't want war in the world. Okay?

And you shouldn't want your husband to complain to you. That's okay. Okay?

That's normal and that's healthy. You shouldn't want to come home and have someone whine at you for two hours. That's healthy.

Not to want that. You're sick if you want that. Anyway.

But to not want it thinking that it's coming from him is wrong. That kind of not wanting is wrong. Uninformed not wanting causes you pain.

You hate him because you think he could change if he wanted to but he won't. Then that kind of hating is wrong because it's not coming from him. To hate him for complaining and think that he's complaining because he doesn't care about it is wrong.

To hate him for complaining and realize it's coming from you and then change is good hating. Got it? Because you can fix it.

You shouldn't like it. Got it? That's the snake.

What's the rooster or the pigeon who are the two most famous licentious animals in ancient India? They like sex. Okay?

Yeah. So they represent ignorant desire. You want this girl.

You're dying to get her into bed. Something like that. You have this desire for her and you don't realize that the way to win her would be to help someone else with their struggling relationship.

Okay? The way to win a woman's heart is not through her stomach or or a man. It's by helping other people who are seeking a legitimate relationship.

Okay? And that's great to see. So is it wrong to want a lady?

It's not wrong. Is it even wrong to want to be intimate with them? It's not wrong.

Is it wrong to want to be intimate with a person and take them from another person? Yeah. Because it's just stupid.

Because by taking them you create a karma that they're going to take somebody else in a year or six months. It's just dumb. Okay?

Okay? If it worked, it might be okay. Okay?

Got it? In Buddhism, morality is judged by whether it works or not. And it don't work.

Okay? That's very interesting, right? Got it?

Okay. We're struggling through these five syllables. Dhyam-tsun-chiro.

Four. Now, there's a belief in ancient India that the three doshas support the three poisons. Okay?

There's a belief in ancient India that imbalances of these three elements in your body will bring on those three wrong kinds of thinking. Okay? So let's go through them, picking one of them.

Pitta is anger. Okay? Pitta is anger.

Pitta would be a person, by the way, who's who's very what do you call it? How would you describe a pitta person? Classically.

Fiery. Passionate. Fast.

Easy to anger. And they like hot food. They like what other kind of food?

Cold drinks. They like carbohydrate. They like sugar.

They're dried out. They like sugar. They like hot foods.

They're like hyper. And they anger easily. So there's a belief in ancient India that if you had excessive pitta, you would easily become the what animal?

Satan. Okay? An imbalance of pitta, an overage of pitta would make you a person who was prone to temper, to anger.

And who ate that kind of food also. Okay? Let's pick another one.

What's another one? Bhadra. Okay?

So wind energy. Which of the three poisons? Which animal?

The pigeon. The pigeon. Okay?

They got too much nervous energy. Like ADD energy. Very windy person.

Truths?

[Speaker 2]
Warm foods. They crave food.

[Speaker 1]
They crave, but what do they like?

[Speaker 2]
Light foods.

[Speaker 1]
You see, that's a balancing thing. You see, their problem is that they're more attracted to carbohydrates, and they're nervous, and they're we call high strung. And they're too active.

Overactive, over nervous, they're on the email all day blah blah blah. Okay? And they have a wind disorder.

Vata. Okay? So that would lead to being the type of personality that was addictive.

To sex, or to food, or okay? Like that. What's the third one?

Kappa. Kappa. Flavor.

Foods? Heavy, greasy foods. They're attracted, they're dull.

Their energy is dull. They're attracted, they're lazy. They're indolent.

They can't get up in the morning. And they're attracted to hot, greasy foods. Okay?

Greasy foods. And that might lead to a tendency towards which animal? The pig.

Okay? Because they're dumb and they can't understand things. Because they're tired and they have no energy because they ate too heavy.

The food is too heavy. And their constituency, what do you call it? Their constitution is more heavy and dull and they're attracted towards fatty foods and like that.

Then, this is beautiful. I want to say it right. Let me think about it.

Then Dharmakirti leans over and he says, so you're telling me every person who eats greasy foods is not prone to violent attacks of anger. Okay? Like, he leans over and he says, so you're telling me people who like greasy heavy foods are not pitta and therefore are not prone to violent attacks of anger.

You never met a person who liked to eat a big fat steak and also was prone to violent anger. He's asking a question. This is a Prasangika, right?

This is a statement of absurdity. Ha! You know, he's like, so, you never met a person who liked big greasy steaks and flew into a rage within 15 minutes.

What do you say? I haven't had such food. Okay, yeah.

He's like saying, look, he says true. In the root text of the Pranavartika, he says true. True means that's true.

This is true. True means mistaken or it doesn't hold. The correspondence doesn't hold.

He says true. He says it's not true. There are people who live on sugar and who are extremely lazy and indolent.

It's not true what he's saying. There is no God-given, self-existent connection between the three doshas and the three poisons. There are tendencies.

There are patterns. But it's not a karma. It's not necessarily the case.

There are many cases of the opposite. Then there's this long debate. The guy tries to say, well, every kamma has some pitta in it.

Maybe he just hit the pitta right after he had the kamma. He hit the pitta vein in the kamma and he got angry that time, but generally he falls asleep. Got it?

Got it? And then down the road he's like, well, he defends him. That's one debate.

What determines your emotional behavior is not caused by external factors. It's not caused by what you eat. It's not caused by your constituents.

It's not you're barking up the wrong tree. It's a pattern, but it's not the cause. What's the real cause?

Well, in the case of anger, it's that you inherited the tendency towards anger from yourself of last month, who was angry. And anger begets anger in the human mind. You see, the real cause of anger is last month's anger.

And where did that come from? Well, we say it also comes from not understanding your husband. It comes from the pitta.

Got it? You can't get angry at your husband and you can't get angry at your roommate for the water on the shower floor if you know what? It came from you.

You're the one. You opened the shower door. You put the water on the floor last night.

You don't remember. Did you take a shower last night? Yes.

Did anybody else in the house take a shower? No, no, no, no. Ha!

Don't get pissed off at us because your socks are wet. You're the one who put the water on the floor. Got it?

Then he likes getting embarrassed, right? He's like, oh, I'm sorry. You're right.

Okay? Got it? Don't get mad at your husband for criticizing you.

Who put him there? Who made him criticize you? You did.

Okay? Then you just feel foolish. You don't feel angry.

Got it? You're just like, oh, I shouldn't do that. I'll try to close the door next time.

Got it? He's trying to say, look, it's not what you eat that gives you your personality. It's the seeds in your mouth.

Right? You can eat whatever foods you want and you'll still be an angry person. It helps, but it's not the cause.

Okay? It helps. When it helps, it's because the karma can't do the food.

Got it? So am I saying you shouldn't eat well? I'm not saying that.

I'm saying when you want to eat well, it'll be because the karma changed the behavior. And then you should eat well. You must eat well.

Okay? Got it? The karma will come back to you through good eating.

But it's not the eating that made your mind clean. It was being patient with others. And then you felt like eating a salad.

And the results of the patience came through the salad and made you a better person. So I'm not saying don't eat salads. I'm saying identify what gives the salad the power to make you a kinder person, which is knowledge.

It's really cool. Knowledge with Ayurveda is undefeatable. Got it?

Okay. Now, Mr. Vitamins comes up to Dharmakirti. Sorry, Dharmakirti.

Okay? What does Mr. Vitamins say to Dharmakirti? Vitamin A.

Vitamin C. Vitamin B. Vitamin E.

You know? Eat vitamins. Get strong, healthy.

Look great. Get a six-pack. Then I'm like, I don't know.

Have you ever been on like an airplane? And there's this guy next to you and he's like really handsome. He's got big muscles and his skin tone is perfect, you know?

And the stewardess says, what do you want? He says, I'll take a candy bar and a Coke. And then you're like, god damn.

[Speaker 2]
You know?

[Speaker 1]
And he's living off candy bars and Cokes. And it still is like that. And you're like dying with this almond milk and orange juice and greens and you know, it's just doing the same thing.

And then you're like, you get confused, you know? You're like, what? What is that?

Mr. Vitamins comes up to Dharmakirti and says, eat well. Make sure you get a good mixture of vitamin A and vitamin C. Who wrote a diet for a small person?

Wasn't it? I think so. My mother believed in that book.

She found out according to that book. Then the lady got cancer. You know?

And we're like, ha ha mom, you know? Let's cut the good word, you know? And then we had a TV on and she came on and the announcer was like, you know, could you explain why you got cancer?

And she's like, when I was 16 I ate a candy bar. I ate a chocolate bar when I was 16. It's gotta be that.

You know? That's true. Like, some people eat really poorly and they look great.

Some people eat really well and it just doesn't work. Some people spend all this money on supplements and it just doesn't do anything for them. And then some people don't spend any money on supplements and they look great.

And then some people spend money on supplements and they look great. And some people eat candy and cokes and they look terrible. There's no correlation.

You see? There's no real correlation. Master Dharmakirti says, Sutra which is the line we were struggling with.

Here it is. Top line. It's the line we were struggling with.

He said to the guy, what? That would be the grace of money. Mr. Biden was there while we were discussing whether your emotions are driven by the doshas. And he said, don't get into that with me. I covered that. We already covered that.

We covered it with the doshas. Don't pull vitamins on me now. Doshas don't make your mind do what it does and vitamins don't make your body do what it does.

Your body's gonna go however you take care of other sick people. Your body will go the same way. And your mind will go the same way with how much you understand and not with what you eat or you know, or your constitution.

Or your Ayurvedic constitution. It's not what decides how you feel. And what determines how your body gets strong or not it's not vitamins.

He said, don't bring up vitamins with me. It's the same argument. Why did he pull out this quotation?

I just spent like 45 minutes explaining to you the most obscure quotation in scripture. And you're the only people who ever got it. Okay, due to the ACIP, thank you.

Okay, and it was hard. It was really hard. Why did he bring this up?

[Speaker 2]
Huh?

[Speaker 1]
More exact.

[Speaker 2]
If you figure out If you figure out that the person that you're upset with is coming from the same seed as you are then you can also figure out just as easily that you're coming from the same seed.

[Speaker 1]
Got it? If you figure out that the person you're upset with came from the same coming seed as you, it's a no brainer to understand that you came from the same coming seed as the person you're upset with. And Dharmakirti proved it.

As Dharmakirti said, look stupid, it's the same thing as the dosha. I already finished it. I already explained it.

Now just apply it to vitamins. Got it? Is it cool?

It's difficult. Okay, got it? He said, I taught you about the doshas not determining how you act.

Whether you're angry or lazy or you want more sex. I already told you that. It's not the fault of your Ayurvedic constitution.

And whether you've got a six pack or not is not dependent on how much vitamin products you take. I already covered that. It's the same question.

Got it? Are we good? Okay.

Do we have time to do more? Yeah. What time am I supposed to finish my talk?

Is that okay? Are you guys alright? Look, it's uncomfortable.

It's in the afternoon. It's a difficult Sunday. You should have a break.

But we took seven years on the first quarter of the book. I don't know if it's even a quarter year. You're talking thirty years.

I think we better speed it up. Okay. The third point of view was I think it's easier to overcome the belief that things are coming from their own side than it is to overcome the belief that perceptions are coming from their own side.

Got it? One misunderstanding is easier to overcome than the other. That was position number three.

And he says, that's equally wrong. It's true that if you are worthy... Who wrote the Abhisamana Upada?

We'll see if you were listening ten minutes ago. Who? Maitreya.

It was written down by Arya Asanga. Okay. Is Maitreya a Buddha?

This is my pre-Geshe exam assignment, actually. It's called Jangchung. That was my exam question.

Is Maitreya a Buddha? Yeah, yeah. The proper answer is a question.

Are you talking secret teachings or are you talking open teachings? In the secret teachings, is he a Buddha? He's the coming Buddha, but in the secret teachings he's already a Buddha.

Okay? Maitreya. In the open teachings, he's a Bodhisattva.

He's around when the Buddha is on this planet. He's one of his students. There was a guy named Maitreya.

There was also a guy named Rajagami. He looked like Winston Churchill. There's a...

Maybe the oldest image of him is in the Russian Hermitage. And his facial features are Greek. Thank you.

So anyway, if a guy is already a Buddha, which of the four classic schools of India is he likely to support? Huh? Yeah, he's Prasangika.

He's highest in the way. All Buddhas are highest in the way. All tantricas are highest in the way.

All tantric deities are highest in the way. Manjushri, Tara, all those guys. Avalokiteshvara, Vajrayogini, Thakurasiddhara, Yamantaka.

What's there with you? It's all straight Prasangika. It's all straight highest in the way.

Okay? There's nothing different. Once you become a tantric angel, you're still talking about middle way.

You're still talking about the husband who's not coming from his own side. That's it. There's nothing higher.

Okay? Got it? Alright?

So when you read a book by Maitreya, it could be taken over by a lower school. And they could start interpreting it in a lower way. And we've seen that.

Even in our own group. People can take over a teaching and sort of lay their own thing on it. And then it becomes something lower.

And that becomes a new school. Okay? And that becomes a whole code of behavior which is different.

You see what I mean? So is it possible to take a book by Maitreya and turn it into something lower? Yeah, and they did.

Okay? Who? These guys.

They came up and said, look, Maitreya said Sundar Thakur, Sundar Thakur Phongche Dham, Dhammami Phongche Dhammi. These are two lines from his book. And the lines say there are people who have overcome the belief that stuff comes from its own side, but they haven't overcome the belief that they are coming from their own side.

Got it? Are you cool? Alright.

What should I do?

[Speaker 2]
Hello?

[Speaker 1]
Hi. Okay, I'm up in front of a class teaching here. I gotta go.

Yeah, can you make it? Okay, don't stress. Okay, I will.

Okay, thank you. Okay, bye. No one is allowed to call this phone or send a message to this phone unless it's a definite or something like that, okay?

Someone said I didn't say that. I said I said that 20 times. Did everybody hear it?

Heard it? Yeah. Okay, this is llama phone.

It's the red phone to the White House. Oh my God. Somebody just broke the law.

All right. My trans-owned viewpoint is highest middle way. He can give a teaching and then people of lower capacity can interpret that teaching and make it a lower teaching.

It's possible, it happens, okay? So our commentator says, when Maitreya said some people get it about objects but they don't get it about subjects, you gotta take it as literal or figurative? Literal or figurative?

Take it as figurative. He didn't mean it, okay? He wasn't giving you the straight poop, okay?

He said it for somebody else. He said it for people of lower capacity. If you have higher capacity, don't fall for it.

If Geshe Michael got up here and said, everybody go out and rob a bank, right now, should you do it? You shouldn't do it, okay? All right, it's some kind of test.

All right, it's some kind of test. The intelligent students will stay here. The dumb students will go out and rob a bank, okay?

Got it? So sometimes students do that to or anybody does that to check people, to check their understanding. You know, they'll tell you to do something stupid and if you do it, they know you need more study.

Okay, got it? So Maitreya, in a book about, a Buddha wrote this book. Maitreya's a Buddha, he wrote the book.

He said some people get it about objects but don't get it about subjects. And our commentator says, if you're gonna take it as higher middle way, take it as figurative. If you want to play with lower middle way, if you want to experiment with lower middle way, if you want to explore the ideas of someone who has suddenly misunderstood emptiness, then take it that way.

Then go study lower forms of emptiness. Is that ever useful? Why?

You might run into someone who can't get it, so give them something lower. Don't leave them with nothing, you know? They say, no, no, Geshe-la, you don't understand.

Some people's husbands may be coming from them, but not mine, you know? And you're like, hmm, this person's not gonna buy it. If I like push it, they're gonna quit the group.

So you say, you know, you're right. Your husband's different, you know? And then you say, probably some of his criticism is coming from him and some is coming from you.

What do you think? Okay? And then you've just dropped down to lower middle way.

Got it? So it's useful to have lower versions ready in case somebody can't digest the real thing. And that's an accepted Buddhist method of teaching.

And this guy is saying, at this point in this book, when Maitreya said, some people get it about objects, but they don't get it about other subjects, they were speaking, but the last sentence, the last few words there says, at the top. Interpreted as being figurative, okay? It was stated with another intention in mind, which is another way of saying figurative in Buddhism.

Okay? Say gong-ba-chen.

[Speaker 2]
Gong-ba-chen.

[Speaker 1]
Or chong-dun. Chong-dun. Gong-ba-chen.

Gong-ba-chen. Chong-dun. Chong-dun.

Same thing. Chong-dun means? Figurative.

Gong-ba-chen means he had something else in mind when he said that. Lord Buddha, the most famous example in scripture is Lord Buddha said, kill your father and kill your mother. What did he mean?

Did he mean you should kill your father and your mother? No, it's figurative. What was his gong-ba-chen?

What did he have in mind when he said that? During your study period of your life, when the time is proper, you might have to leave your family for a while and get your head together and then come back. Lord Buddha himself did that.

Then there's this, we celebrate Father Abdul Chen, it's the day he went back to help his father. He left the palace, he left his father. He said, I got to get my head together.

I got to figure out life. And he left. But then he came back, and he taught his father, okay?

So, kill your father, kill your mother means to get your head together, leave. Then go back and help, okay? Like that.

He had something else in mind, gong-ba-chen, okay? I think today is kind of historical day. I know nobody feels that way except me.

But, you know, we're sitting in a little city in the middle of a hot place, and it's kind of like the afternoon, and we're all tired. The moon is very low right now. It's going to be worse tomorrow.

And it's difficult. You don't feel historical, or even hysterical. You just feel tired, you know?

And you're thinking, when is he going to stop, and we can have a good dinner? But, for those of you who care, we have reached a point in the scripture where he covers many of the six flavors of emptiness. So, you've made it, you know?

Karmically, you made it. People are always coming up to me and saying, where'd you get those six? Here's, this is it.

Out of hundreds of thousands of pages, this is it. You made it to that class, okay? You can say you were there when we finally got there.

People all over, people from Columbia and Virginia, especially university people, they call me, where'd you get that? This is it, okay? You can say it, you were there, all right?

Okay, here we go. Here in the Lentokian, disciples belonging to three different classes are established as being of higher, medium, or low intellectual powers on the basis of their higher, middle, or lower viewpoint of what is emptiness. Got it, okay?

Got it? And this is where three of the, the important six views of Mahamudra came from. This is where I took them from, okay?

These relate mostly to which school? It's lower Mahamudra way, okay? We're not talking Abhidharma, we're not talking Sutras.

We're not talking Mahayoga. We're only talking about the three that were discussed by lower middle way. But they also discussed how the lower schools in them thought about emptiness.

So we cover a little bit more than, okay? This is the source, okay? Here we go.

Tawa memba kaza rangyati vidzeyo ki tongwa tope tawa de la te de nyen tu nangshin gi wang tun zang. So, you know that, by the way, if this is the first time you came to a teaching, don't despair, all right? You walked into the sixth year of physics class.

And enjoy what you can. Don't feel like, oh, I'm not coming back in the evening. But you see, if I don't challenge them after 15 years, they also complain later.

I had a guy in Singapore, he screamed at me. I felt so bad. He said, wu zi, wu zi, wu zi, wu zi, wu zi, taught that last year.

I'm like, there were 600 new people there. What do you want me to do? Okay, so I'm just, this is an advanced class.

Don't stress, all right? If you don't get the class this evening, then you're in trouble. All right.

The lowest of the world views is one where we realize that a person is void of existing substantially in the sense of being self-standing. Rangyati vidzeyo ki tongwa. Say it, rangyat.

Rangyat. Tupay. Tupay.

Zeyo ki. Zeyo ki. Tongwa.

Tongwa. It's the, which world, which of the six mongols is that? What was number one?

Empty or never changing, right? What was the catch, what was the buzzword we may have for number one? This too will pass.

It came from Lincoln during the midst of the Civil War. And he looked around the table and he saw these generals and he was in the midst of slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people and he was a godly man, you know? And all he could say was, this too will pass, you know?

Like, I'm sorry, but it will pass, and we ain't. So, the lowest form of emptiness of all is to say, you know, it ain't gonna last forever, okay? And that will get you by a little bit.

Okay, what's the second word? No control. Huh?

No control. Yeah, I'm not in control. I cannot control things.

There's an illusion of control. Raise your left arm, okay? Then you get on your death bed, you know, because they raise your left arm and you're like, okay, you know, you don't really have control.

It's an illusion of control. You can't control, you get angry, you can't control it. Your mind decides to get angry, you can't control it, okay?

You say, I wish I understood what the class was about. I wish my mind was smarter right now. You can't do that.

Nobody can change the capacity of their mind in the moment. You can change it in the future by sharing what you know. But you can't say, I wish I was smarter this afternoon.

It doesn't work that way, okay? You don't have control over your body and mind. They will do what they're gonna do, according to seeds that you planted in the past.

And you can't change that now. You get a breast cancer right now, it's gonna be a breast cancer. Can you fix it, karmically?

Yeah, you take karmic measures and you can fix it, okay? But you can't wish it away right now, okay? You're not in control of your body and mind.

So that's the lowest viewpoint here. Those of you who for many years have heard the teaching on the three tracks, which are called listener, and self-made Buddha, and bodhisattva, okay? Remember?

The three tracks are called listener, self-made Buddha, and bodhisattva. In this highest form of philosophy, the first and lowest track, called listener, is defined by a person who only gets emptiness in that sense. You don't have control.

You are void of control. You don't have control. If you want to ask, what does it mean to say someone is a listener or a shravaka, it means someone whose understanding of emptiness is least sophisticated and least developed.

And all you can help them with is say, look, it's out of your control. Don't stress. You can do a prayer.

God, let me change those things which I can, and let me be at peace with those things which I cannot. Okay? And leave them with that.

Good luck, you know? What you can change, change. What you can't, don't stress about.

Okay? There's an emptiness in the world. Why?

Of control. So, you know, do what you can about what you can, and don't stress about what you can't. And you leave them, okay?

And they're lowest-level people, okay? That's as far as they can go. Is it comforting to tell them that?

I mean, it's a little comforting, okay? Is it, like, super helpful? It's not gonna change things.

It's just coping. It's just instructions for how to cope. In this system, you don't learn to cope.

You learn to make problems never come, okay? You don't learn to deal with breast cancer. You learn to make it so that breast cancer cannot occur in your body, ever.

Okay? We're not copers. We are proactive non-happeners.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
We make it so that it couldn't happen. And so you wouldn't have to cope with it, got it? We're not copers.

Coping is a bad thing, okay? Because you also start to think that it can't change. If you get too good at coping with your husband, you will just sit there and be criticized for 20 years.

See? Okay. Tawa dingbo du ten, cha me sa pe, rakpa chi dun dang, deng dzin de, tse man tse shi ni ton.

Okay, this is kind of complicated, but I'm not gonna stress you out. You and your critical husband have come from the same scene. You are empty of coming from a different scene.

And that's the medium understanding of emptiness. How's that expressed in the Mahamudra Six World View? Huh?

Is that what it was? Yeah. Or was it I put myself?

Say again? Yeah, I put myself here. I brought myself here.

You say, you know, you get into a room with your husband and you're complaining about your husband criticizing you. And then you're supposed to think, but I put myself here. And I put him here.

Okay? We come from the same karma. It's not a coincidence that he came home early today and he's in a bad mood and he criticized me.

I created him to walk in the door and I created me to be sitting at the kitchen table when he walked in the door. I created the problem and I created the victim. Okay?

Got it? That's even a higher world view. Is that in the sense of logically or in the sense of karmic scene?

Karmic scene. He throws in something else here. And let's talk about it, okay?

While we're like way over your head, so let's just keep going. He says, you have created the body, for example, and the sounds emanating from your husband, which are critical. And you've put your body there also.

How does that differ from the highest view of emptiness? All things are coming from my seas. You see, didn't that ever bother you when you heard the six Mahamudra views?

Didn't you kind of wonder why why this one wasn't that different from number six? I hope, okay? And I never explained it because not many people ask.

But now I'm gonna, okay? It's not the same thing, okay? To say that you have brought your husband here and you have brought yourself here to experience your husband is not the same as saying, he's coming from my karmic scene.

What's the difference? It's in this paragraph. Can you find it?

And I'll take a water break. Because it'll probably take you half an hour. You got it?

What? You still think of things that seem to stand for what happens. You still think of things that, you think that, that thought still exists.

Yeah, it is. When we say it's a lower world view, where you think your husband is coming from a separate scene than you, there's a second problem running at the same time. There's a second problem running at the same time.

What gives this wall the strength to hold up the ceiling and preventing it from crashing down on our heads and squishing all of us? What gives the wall the strength? How do they test the tensile strength of a wall when the Department of Construction comes here to test?

If you build it out of rubber or marshmallows, would they give you a CO, what do they call it? CO.

[Speaker 2]
It worked. You never get past the planning stage.

[Speaker 1]
No, they would say, look, I appreciate that you want to build a house. Probably Kat had the idea. I appreciate that you want to build a house out of Twinkies, but it won't hold the ceiling up.

People could get killed. And you're like, well, what's wrong with Twinkies? And they'd say, well, isn't there stuff in Twinkies?

And they'll say, yeah, there's stuff in Twinkies, but that's not the kind of stuff that has the strength to hold up a wall. And you'll say, well, what gives it the strength to hold up the wall? And they say, well, it's got to have steel in it, or it's got to have cement in it.

And then you say, well, what's so special about steel and cement? And they say, well, steel has iron atoms in it, and cement has calcium in a certain formation, and that tends to hold up stuff better than Twinkies. Okay, got it?

They come down to the atoms in the stuff. They come down to the periodic, what's it called?

[Speaker 2]
Periodic.

[Speaker 1]
Okay? Iron, F-E, has the power to hold up a ceiling. Cement has the power to hold up a ceiling.

Twinkies don't. Whatever's in Twinkies, which is probably rubber. That's why the shelf life is 12 years.

I mean, you could pretty much judge a food by its shelf life. The longer the shelf life, the worse it is for you. Go look at a sign of a Twinkies thing.

It's like, don't use after 2,037 years old. Okay, got it? The World Trade Center had iron and concrete in it, and it fell down, and it killed 3,000 people.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
It was made of iron and concrete. It's not what held it up. The iron and concrete is not what held up the World Trade Center, okay?

What was holding it up? The kindness, the collective kindness of the people of that city was holding it up. They had provided shelter in the past to others on a small scale.

That put seeds in their mind. That caused them to perceive a building that had the strength to stay up. When those seeds wore out, the building had to fall.

Okay? It wasn't some terrace.

[Speaker 2]
Twinkies couldn't hold the wall up.

[Speaker 1]
I mean, there's a precedent with the gingerbread house. Okay? All right?

It's not the chemicals in the wall that are holding it up. And it's not the chemicals that'll make your husband stand up. It's not the food he ate.

It's not the calcium in his bones, okay? That's not why he's standing there. And it's not the vocal cords creating the sounds, which is how he's criticizing you.

He is not a composition of physical energies, and that's not why he's there. And that's not why he's not a jellyfish. That's not why he can stand up.

He's not made of those atoms. There's no such thing, okay? There's no such thing as iron atoms, okay?

He is held up by his kindness. His health will stay as long as that karma remains, and then he will get old and die. Okay?

Got it? So, you now are the only people in the world who heard the truth about this worldview. I hope you will spread it slowly.

Those of you who know the six, if you're planning to teach, mom, an intelligent student in the room should complain. They should say, saying that he comes from the same karmic seed as me is the same as worldview number six. Why is it lower?

And you've got to answer them. You've got to be ready and say. It also implies that you believe he's coming from chemicals.

He's made of chemicals, okay? His health is not sustained by all the times he helped sick people. Got it?

It's very similar to Mr. Vitamins, okay? So, when you teach that worldview, it assumes that the person holds that the gross physical form in front of him is made up of some stuff, and that's what keeps him alive. Got it?

All right, I hope you got it. Anyway. Anyway.

I don't know.

[Speaker 2]
Is that also a type of basically 50-50 worldview, basically?

[Speaker 1]
Isn't it a 50-50 worldview? Kind of, it's kind of similar, because you do hope that the stuff has some power of its own. Iron is better able to hold up walls than water, something like that, okay?

Hydrogen. Are you all right? Can you hang in there?

Yes. Okay, if you've got to take a pee-pee break or anything, please go. We'll go for another half hour.

Did you have a question?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, so then why are you saying it's coming from the wrong view? It sounds like it is coming from the wrong view.

[Speaker 1]
You've got to state the wrong view, and then you've got to state the right view. You want to work that way? What's the wrong view?

He's not coming from the same kind of seed as me, but he is made of some kind of atoms that have an innate quality of their own to hold him up, to make his skin hydrated, you know, things like that, okay? He's out there, he's across the kitchen. He's standing across the kitchen from me.

He wasn't brought here by anything other than the same seed which brought me here, but he is substantial. There are parts of him which are, whose power is lent to him because they are strong atoms. They are iron atoms.

They are calcium atoms, okay? Some part of him, especially his physical appearance, is sustained by little round things that have a quality of their own, okay? Cha me, partness, is another problem.

Okay, the word partness is a problem here, too. Did we lose that, or were we, okay? Partness, partness is also a problem here.

Partness means if you got down small enough, you would get to the smallest thing there is, like an atom, okay? This goes back to an Abhidharma view that you could rank a person down to little tiny balls that are called atoms or molecules, and you would be down to the basic building blocks of a human being. This is a scientific viewpoint.

The qualities, the physical qualities of an object are imparted to that object by little tiny atoms in that object. Got it? Got it?

It's called atoms. Atom means indivisible. Tom means to divide.

The word temple comes from there because it was a set-off place. Tom means a place which is walled off. And atom, which is also atman, means not set off, smallest thing you can get to, indivisible.

It's very interesting. Atom is not divisible, and atman is the same root, not divisible. So, okay?

So they believe you can get down to a thing which was so small that there's nothing smaller. Then a Buddhist would say, does it have width? Okay, got it?

And they have to say what?

[Speaker 2]
Of course it has width.

[Speaker 1]
Otherwise, if it didn't have width, and you piled a billion of them together, how wide would it be? Got it? I'll say it again.

Does the smallest atom have width? It has to because when you put piles of them together, you make stuff, and that stuff has width. Got it?

It must have some width, okay? Then is it divisible? Yeah, you just cut it in half.

Does each half have width? It's got to have width. Then they get, that upsets them.

They say, no, no, my atom is so small, it has no width. Okay? Then is the left side of your atom touching the right side of your atom?

Yes or no? It is. Because it's got no width.

They're in the same place. Left side and right side are in the same place. Got it?

Now you stick a billion of those babies together, and how wide is it? There is no smallest thing. I mean, physicists are just getting there.

They're like, hey, you know, the atom's not the smallest thing. There's pookles and boogles and, yeah. What is the point when you understand so much that the atoms have no width, that you can set up the balance like in the matrix?

When do you reach that point? That's the emptiness of the qualities of an element.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So, water. The quality of water is to flow. It's called Lenz and Sherwood, should we say.

The definition of water is that thing which is wet and flowing, right? The definition of fire is something hot and burning. Okay?

What is a fire? Something hot. Is the hotness in the fire?

That's the delicate question. Is the wetness in the water? Well, if it's not, then you could have dry water or cold fire.

You see? Could you pour a glass of water if it didn't have fluid in it? I mean, isn't that what water is?

It is. It gets into the question of what... Is there wetness in water and is there heat in fire?

Yes or no? No, there's not. Some people will experience it differently.

If your karma is different, you could walk on water. Or pujaras in India, I don't know if you've seen, they just grab the coals and they sit there and you're like, let me try that. It's a different karma, yeah.

That's all. Yeah, so even those things which we believe define an object, heat in the case of fire, wetness in the case of water, are not inherent in them. They're not inherent.

They're coming from us. And therefore they can be changed. And you can grab a piece of hot coals and you can walk on water.

If you have the ability to change things. And that's called, there's a word for that. I remember because I got beat on that in a debate in public once.

There's a whole teaching on that. And now I forgot. Anyway, it's a, what's it called?

Anyway, there's a debate about it. There's a whole school about it. The how elements are not, hot, fire's not hot in itself.

Khyepa kirtim yin dzin. Khyepa kirtim yin dzin. Okay, anyway.

Tawa chok, tong ni tope tawa la duk de. The cheng gi ri chen nam rang shing gi wang nun du shak pa'i chen. What sets you off as a bodhisattva?

In the teaching on the three tracks. You see? And some people would say it's because you have bodhichitta when you start on that track.

Got it? The tok lang on Mahayana track is that you develop bodhichitta. Okay?

The first of the five paths is defined by developing bodhichitta on the third track. Okay? But in this system, it's not your degree of compassion which sets you apart.

It's what? You have a higher virtue. You have lo nun bela dala wang gi shak samayin pa'i yuwa nang gi tubu ma yin pe du su du pe toa.

You have this virtue. What's that? You correctly understand that 50% of an object is coming from it's side and 50% is coming from you.

Right? Highest virtue. But it isn't this one.

We're in lower middle way. This whole book is... I mean, they were interpreting Asanga's book in lower middle way.

And they would say that's true emptiness. They don't call the first two emptiness. Okay?

By the way, they would not grant them the name emptiness. What are the first two that we talked about already? Number one.

No. Self standing. Right?

Number one, lowest emptiness here was I have... I don't have control.

[Speaker 2]
Second was...

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I'm not coming from a different currency. From that guy over there who's made of atoms that have their own qualities. Is that better?

All right? Okay. All right?

Those are what make you lower in this school. And we don't call those two emptiness in this school. We call them selflessness.

In this school, it's not the same as emptiness. I called them in that Mahamudra teaching the six flavors of emptiness. But in this school, you wouldn't call those two emptiness.

You're not allowed to. You can call them selflessness. You're not allowed to call them emptiness.

What is emptiness? Say again? Yeah, 50-50, okay?

In this school, it's 50-50. When I look at a car, it is a just in car to me. And I, with my own cultural background, take it to be a car.

How's that? It is suggestive of a car. And I take it to be a car.

Something coming from its side, and something coming from my side. All right? Got it?

Okay. I think maybe that's a good place to leave it. No, it's just a very natural place to...

Maybe if you have some questions, but I feel like we should let it go here. Do you have a question? Yes, in that view, the 50-50 view, I always had this idea that that process is really impossible, because if you, let's say you, that view of saying you look at something, and you're getting the data, and then you make a label, or you piece it together in a construct, right?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Okay? But then don't we always say then that in order for that to happen, you have to go down one layer, and construct the data from smaller data? You have a pen?

I'm sure that one here. Yeah. Thank you.

So Jeff's question is this, especially those of you who are here at your first class, and you have a headache already. We can talk about after, right? We said yesterday that this is empty of being a pen, and it's empty of being a chew toy, because a human sees it as a pen, and a dog validly sees it as a chew toy.

The word valid is very useful in philosophy, okay? I mean, properly speaking, it's okay that a dog would chew on it, and see it as something to chew on, at the same time that I see it as a pen, and something to write with, okay? It's valid for both of us.

Whether it's true is another question. Or correct. I used to argue with my boss at the diamond company.

My decisions were valid, given the information I had. Then he said that they weren't correct, were they? Got it?

There's a difference between valid and correct. Got it? With the information I had coming from him, I did the right thing.

But it turned out wrong. Got it? I made a valid decision, but an incorrect decision.

Got it? There's a difference, right? We can validly say that this is a pen to a human, and a chew toy to a dog.

Am I right?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
When we set it on the stage, and all the dogs leave the room, and all the humans leave the room, then what is it? Why don't we say pink stick? Or pink cylinder?

Is it a pink cylinder in both cases? Is it a pink cylinder to the dog? Don't they see it as a pink cylinder?

I mean, they grab it this way, and they don't grab it this, you know? They do see it as a cylindrical pink thing, don't they? They don't think cylinder, and they don't think pink, but they see it as a cylindrical pink thing.

Am I right or not? Say it, you gotta nod or something, because I'm gonna fall asleep too. Okay.

That's the humancy of pink cylinder. So, this is where that worldview came from. They say, it's true that the human interprets it as a pen.

It's true that the dog interprets it as a chew toy. But it is, in reality, a pink cylinder under that. Under both ideas, it's still a pink cylinder, okay?

That's not somebody's decision, and that's not a question of how they see it. It is a pink cylinder, from its own side. That's not coming from the human or the dog.

It's always been a pink cylinder. How you take it is your business. Neil Young's Cowgirl in the Sand.

The greatest rock and roll song ever written. Some people, my roommate in college used to call it the screaming eunuch's song, okay? You can take it as a great song, you can take it as a terrible song.

But is it a song from its own side? No, but in this school, you can say it is. No, that's not quite correct.

No, that's not correct. You can keep going down. So, to get to the pink cylinder, you have to put the parts of the cylinder together, right?

We do this many times, the parts and the parts. But if that is true, that process would never end. So then, and therefore, by that virtue, you would never come to a conclusion, because that process is never ending.

If it were a karmic seed, synthesizing it, it's true that you could never come to any conclusion. So then that process is- Let me say, let me catch them up. Even a pink cylinder is the left side of a pink cylinder and the right side of a pink cylinder.

Am I right? And it's possible that there could be an autistic person or somebody who couldn't connect the left side to the right side. See what I mean?

So even the pink cylinder doesn't exist out there from its side. That's also coming from you, okay? But, and what's interesting is that two people can have the same perception of it as a pink cylinder.

That doesn't prove that it's a pink cylinder. Got it? And what Jeff's saying is that to see that it's a pink cylinder, you have to see the left side of the pink cylinder and the right side of the pink cylinder, and then you have to synthesize it in your mind.

To see that the left side is the left side of the pink cylinder, you have to see the left side of the left side, and see the right side of the left side, and you have to synthesize that into your brain. To see that the left side of the left side is of the pink cylinder, you have to see the left side of the left side of the, left side of the left side of the left side of the pink cylinder, and then you have to see the right side of the left side of the left side of the pink cylinder. Okay?

And there's no end. So he's saying, how could you ever see anything? That's the whole point.

A seed ripens in your mind, and you think you see a pink cylinder, and it never was anything else. Did you have a question, Miss Cindy?

[Speaker 2]
Is it the case that the process that Jeff was talking about would end because at a certain point, the mind would be thrust into an understanding of not ending, and then would see the emptiness of it, so it would be an ending because the mind will suddenly surrender, or shift because of the investigation?

[Speaker 1]
There's an Abhidharma school that thinks that. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
There's an Abhidharma school that thinks that, they think that, they have a definition of emptiness. They call it selflessness, right? And they say, when the mind reaches a point where it can no longer disassemble the object, that's emptiness.

You see what I mean? When the mind gets tired, or like the mind thinks you can't go any further, disassembling this thing, that's, then you accept that it's coming from you, or something like that. So what's the highest definition of, in the process of microscoping it down, that, what is a correct understanding of what happened at that point that would be a completion of that investigation?

Say, matak.

[Speaker 2]
Matak.

[Speaker 1]
Mat je pa. Mat je pa. Nye.

Nye. Akshin chen no. Akshin chen no.

Man ye. Man ye. No, they say, if you continue the examination, you, you find nothing.

If you, if you chill a bit, and stop asking, you can have a pink sone. Okay? All right?

If you go relentlessly, you'll come up with nothing. If you say, okay, it's a pink sone, let me just write. Ross can't write if he doesn't have a pink sone.

If he spends the whole day, you know, left side, left side, right side, right side, he's gonna like, he won't take notes. So they say at some point, just let it go, and use it. We'll talk about that tonight, by the way.

It comes up tonight. Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
If you can get down to nothing, since everything comes from nothing, doesn't nothing have to be something?

[Speaker 1]
You never would come down to nothing. That's the thing with no left side and no right side. And you never go, it's not possible.

There is no such thing. There's always width to a physical object. And it can always be divided more.

You never come to something that cannot be divided. It's not possible. That gets into the division of time.

You see? The continuum of a thought over time is another kind of partlessness that doesn't exist. The length it takes to sustain a thought cannot be divided.

And you say, yes, I could have half that thought. Could you have a quarter of that thought? Could you have an eighth of that thought?

There will be a time when your ability to split the thought further, that your perceptual capacity, it exceeds your perceptual capacity, but not your imaginative capacity. Like, I can imagine that it could be split further, but I can't catch it mentally. You get down to a, I don't know what the width is, but you get down to a certain micrometer and width, the human eye can't see the difference.

We knew that in jewelry. We were playing with that, with our jewelry. There's a point at which the human eye can't catch a difference.

But it's still smaller, if you measure it with another instrument. But that doesn't mean it can't be split further. So you reach the limits of human perceptive capacity, but not the limits of measurable capacity.

Okay? Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
So, I'm curious what you're saying. Emptiness, is it really empty? And it's like Cersei's arrow, which we are all, whenever we use targets, it can continually be divided into different kinds of things.

[Speaker 1]
So, emptiness is not truly empty. We're discussing lower ideas of emptiness, which are mistaken. The higher idea of emptiness is empty.

Like that. So, what we're doing as an exercise in this class is discussing lower ideas of emptiness. Why?

They're not correct, by the way. Ultimately, they're not correct. Why?

Why would you discuss something that's not correct? Why is that? Well, you will run into people who have that viewpoint.

You see, they're training you how to be a teacher. They're training you how to treat other people, how to serve other people. So they're anticipating problems that you'll run up against as you teach widely.

I was in Oslo, Norway, teaching two weeks ago. Somebody gave me a question I have never had anywhere else. Okay?

You wanna know?

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
You really wanna know? Yes. The guy says, what's the city I have to plan for kids?

I said, excuse me? He said, what's the city I have to plan for kids? And I thought, oh, he and his wife can't have children, you know?

And I said, kids? He said, no, no, kids, kids! You know?

And I said, kids? He said, yeah, what's the car I gotta plan to get a kiss? I'm like, okay, that's a new one.

And, you know, but the purpose of, the purpose of studying slightly defective ideas of emptiness is that you can be a better teacher. And you will run into somebody in Oslo who says, you know, iron or steel or concrete is holding up the wall. They won't believe that.

And you believe it too, to tell you the truth. You know? You believe it too.

You think you're safe if the thing is made of concrete and steel. And then there's a tsunami and it kills you. The roof kills you.

You know, your last thought is like, oh, concrete and steel ain't so great. You know? So we're anticipating questions that someone will have by discussing kinds of emptiness in which, as you correctly pointed out, they're not really empty.

There's something there. So you're right. You caught it.

You caught it. So what's the highest kind of emptiness? That's where you say, my husband's criticism is coming from me.

How much of your husband's criticism is coming from him? What's the percentage? Yeah, in the highest school, it's zero.

Is the irritating quality of the sound of his voice coming from him? Are the insulting words coming from him? Is his timing or his sarcasm coming from him?

You see, is there anything about his complaining at me which is coming from him? And we say, no. Not even the decibels or the consonants or the vowels or the...

Okay, there's nothing coming from him. Not even the raw value. Not even the decibels.

Not even the clicks and wheezes of his voice are coming from him. Okay, it's very profound. That's the ping-pang thing.

There's nothing coming from him. I mean, not only is his complaining not coming from him, the vowels aren't coming from him, and the consonants aren't coming from him, and the grammars aren't coming from him, and the microscopic durations of tone up and down are not coming from him. Nothing is coming from him.

Did you have a question?

[Speaker 2]
So he's got no free will with this.

[Speaker 1]
Oh man, don't ask me what the free will question is, 445. That's me, that's me. I heard some guy in Europe, you want to hear a guy in Germany who says, we have no choice but to accept free will.

[Speaker 2]
I thought that was a split C.

[Speaker 1]
Sorry?

[Speaker 2]
I thought, what he's talking about is a split C. The current split C explains why.

[Speaker 1]
No, it is one of the highest questions of all time. Then what happens to free will? And I'll tell you how it usually comes up.

And it is a very, very, very profound question. It's one of the most difficult questions of all Buddhism. If how I'm thinking has been determined from something I did before that, and if the reason I did that was I was thinking in a certain way which is determined by something I did before that, how can I ever get out?

You see, if my misunderstanding my world is born from my misunderstanding my world last week, and if I'm always misunderstanding my world last week, how can I ever change? What hope is there? You see?

Isn't everything predetermined? Isn't the present moment predetermined? And how can I ever break out?

How can I ever change? You see? And that's a huge question.

You ready? It gets into the nature of truth. And I like to use the following example.

Then we'll stop, OK? And we'll all go have dinner. And hopefully we can find a place.

I was in the Bahamas. I was teaching at Chirinanda Bahamas, which is a hardship post. But I'd do it.

And we were driving down this little main street near the bay. And out of the corner of my eye, I caught a form. And I thought it was a lady.

And I was going to turn my head and look at this lady. I turned my head. And it's a mannequin in a store window, right?

So let's say you have desire. This is an old Buddhist example. Let's say you have desire.

Let's say that you passed a store in the car. You didn't turn your head. You caught a semi-form out of the corner of your eye.

And you drove on thinking, I got to get back there tomorrow. Maybe the same time she'll be there, I'll try to get her email. Like you made a whole story in your head.

It's 4 o'clock. Maybe she works there. If I get back there at 4 o'clock tomorrow, maybe she'll be there.

And I'll ask her for her email. Like that, OK? Somehow I'll get her email address out of here.

Like when you plan everything, you tell your friends at the ashram. There's a great need to go to town tomorrow at 4 o'clock. And then you go back at 4, and you see that she's just a plastic mannequin.

What happens to the desire to ask her for her email? No. It is supported by the perception of her as a living being.

When you tear out that support, then the desire to have her email address, it collapses. There's no, what do you call it? There's no foundation for that desire anymore.

Because you realize she wasn't who you thought she was. And you would never ask a medic in front of your email, OK? I mean, hopefully.

So the way the universe is constructed is that at some point in all of your life, or lifetimes if you believe in it, you realize that the husband was coming from you all along. And then the anger at him collapses. Because that was sustained by believing that he had some kind of power over what he was saying.

He could have stopped it if he wanted to. But it's not coming from him. So that false perception is all in.

Benjamin Franklin said, what is it? The truth stands on two legs, and lies stands on one. Misperception is always less strong than accurate perception.

And to understand that your husband is coming from you is true. And to believe that he's speaking from his own side is false. And once you, that's what we were talking about the virus last night.

If I say it enough times, that when your husband criticizes you, it's coming from you. And once you get a flash of insight into that, you can never go back. You cannot go back.

You can never be truly angry at a person again. You can get close, but you can't sustain it. There'll always be this little guy on your shoulder saying, maybe it's coming from you.

Maybe it's coming from you. OK? In the question of free will, if there's a possibility that you could see how things really are, you can get out.

Because the appearance is false. I don't know if that helps. You will get out.

One day you have to get out. Because being in depends on misunderstanding things. Is that OK?

That's the answer about free will. See? You have never figured it out before, and you still suffer.

But because it's built on a lie, that lie will one day be cracked. And then you can't be stopped. Do you understand?

I don't know how to say it. The lie is weaker than the truth. And one day, somebody will say something that makes you doubt the lie, the mannequin.

And then you can never go back. So in the question of free will, you can make decisions. You can make decisions that you've never made before.

And that's also a projection of your past deeds. It's also determined. Is that OK?

You do have a choice. You do have a choice. And that choice is thrust upon you by your past deeds.

You have a power to decide. And that's also determined by your past deeds. How's that?

It's touching. You do have free will. And it's also a projection from your own mind.

And that's it. And then Buddhism would go one more step. You ready for this?

Then I'll let you go home, OK? Or just leave. You do have free will.

It is projected from your past behavior, meaning you don't have any choice. You must have free will. Now there's one more step.

And if it weren't coming from your, and what makes it real is it's coming from your past behavior. There couldn't be a free will which was not predetermined. And you don't have a choice.

You must have free will. And I'm not being curious. I'm serious.

It's the truth. You have free will. And it is forced upon you.

Mainly by allowing other people their opinions and things like that in the past. Free will is forced upon you. It's interesting.

And it's true. And even a person who has been stuck in a wrong way of thinking for according to us, billions of lifetimes, because wrong thinking is born from wrong thinking, can stop wrong thinking. And has the will and has the power to do it.

Has choice. It's very beautiful. And ultimately it comes down to because the opposite is false.

And you have to consider, you have to think about it. You have to sleep on it. Ultimately it comes down to a lie cannot sustain itself.

How's that? Falsity cannot sustain itself. You cannot continue the relationship with the girl.

Sooner or later you're going to figure it out. I don't know, maybe when you're trying to kiss her or something. You know?

And she's like plastic. Okay? I mean, because she's false, the relationship cannot continue.

Sooner or later it's going to, something will break. Okay? Because what you're up against doesn't exist.

All right. I promise I'll make it up. I've never heard of free will.

It's a difficult question. By the way, there's another question of grace. Is grace possible?

When we go to the Bahamas and we spend time with our Hindu friends who are very, very sophisticated thinkers and very devoted and very celibate and good practitioners. They have incredible spiritual power and energy. And they say, how can you live without the idea of grace?

Can't grace intervene and get you out of trouble? If your pain is sustained by thinking of things in the wrong way, and if that comes from thinking of things in the wrong way yesterday, then how are you ever going to get out? Don't you need God's grace?

At some point, must there not be grace? How can you Buddhists survive? How can you live without hope of grace?

Because what else could break you out of this cycle? And then we're like, there is grace, but it comes from things in your mind. There is grace.

It's possible that a teacher comes along and you have a moment of grace from them which you have planted the seeds for. Like you did some single kind act to somebody with a true good heart. And we say the belief in a teacher gives them the power to grant you grace.

So if you were totally devoted to whoever is your personal object of worship or your personal teacher, if you reached a certain intensity of devotion towards them, they could have power to do an otherwise impossible thing for you. Got it? But it would still come from you.

See what I mean? You could give God the power to grant you grace that would break you out of this cycle. And it comes from devotion.

And one explanation of the free will question is that if you serve your teacher well enough, you grant them the power to grant you grace which would break you out of an otherwise unstoppable cycle. Okay? If there is grace, God exists, God can give you grace that you've made for her.

All right.