Вступление на срединный путь (текущий курс, Аризона), занятие 107

[Speaker 1]
So, we're continuing to a text on emptiness that was written in the late 1500s and is the textbook on emptiness for the greatest Buddhist monastery in the world. And we've been talking about ten tenpa. Say ten tenpa.

Thank you. Ten is the... how do you say?

Ten is the thing which is supporting something like this podium and then tenpa is the thing which is supported upon it. And again, in this context, he says ten tenpa refers to the thing which you realize and the state of mind which is realizing it. And the thing which you realize is emptiness and that's supporting a perception of emptiness, like that.

Okay, ten and tenpa. So, remember then that the expression, that which is supported and that which supports it is a reference to what is realized and the state of mind which realizes it. DOG CHE RIGS DE'ANG SEMS KYI NGO DANG KHYAD PA LAG BSTAN PA RTOG THAGS NAS When we talk about type in terms of what is realized...

Okay, so let's talk about the word rig, okay? Say rig. Say Rangchen Merik.

Anybody remember what Rangchen Merik is? Huh? That's...

Rang Merik. This is... yeah.

Rangchen Merik is Buddha nature, okay? So, you hear these descriptions that everyone's a Buddha already and somehow inside of you... By the way, those of you who are just walking into this class, this is the hardest class the whole year, and it's not a normal class.

Don't leave. Come to the one on tomorrow and you won't think it's so strange. But anyway, this is a very technical class.

You walked into the physics class. But don't get discouraged, okay? Tomorrow's the real class.

We're just having fun today. Rangchen Merik means Buddha nature. And it's kind of defined as the part of you which will still be the same after you become enlightened, okay?

So, after you become enlightened, will your body be the same? Hopefully not, because Buddha won't have zits and stuff like that. And then, is it your state of mind?

Will you have the same state of mind that you have now when you become a Buddha? Hopefully not, okay? He's kind of irritated all the time and wants to grab the donut off the altar and keeps looking at it.

So, but there is a part of you now which will not change after you become a Buddha, okay? And that's the emptiness of your body and your mind, okay? The fact that how you perceive your body and the fact that how you perceive your mind is coming from you and coming from seeds in your mind.

That's not going to change, okay? After you become a Buddha, your mind will still be coming from seeds in your mind and your body will still be coming from seeds in your mind and not from anywhere else. And when I say not, that means the emptiness of your body and mind.

They are not coming from anywhere else except from seeds in your mind which are determined by how you treat other people, okay? And that will still be the case after you become a Buddha, okay? You will see an arm of light and you will perceive a mind which knows all things, past, present, future, in all parts of the universe.

But still, those will be coming from you and not from anywhere else. And that's the emptiness of your mind and body, okay? That's called Rangchen Nirik.

So, rik, the word rik, which can mean type, it can mean family. Here, you have to think of it as sort of meaning nature of the mind, okay? Ultimate nature.

And the three tracks are sometimes called rikchen, so the three types. But remember that the word type can mean state of mind or emptiness of the mind, okay? So anyway, here we go.

When we talk about type in terms of what is realized, you see? What are they realizing, these three people on the three tracks? The emptiness of their mind, okay?

So, the word type is a... what do you call it? Tip-off.

That we're talking about the emptiness of the mind. When we talk about type in terms of what is realized, the emptiness, right? We're talking about...

We're talking... Talking about the tendency. What tendency?

To drondok. Those of you who studied kundapa and drondok. Drondok is to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Kundapa is to make a molehill out of a mountain. Okay? What does that mean?

Let's say I see the Coke bottle. I don't usually drink Coke during a talk. I don't know why they gave it to me, but it's there.

So, I see that and when I overestimate it, I think it has some existence independent of me. Okay? If I wasn't here, it would still be a Coke bottle.

Okay? Got it? What would kundapa be?

Somebody comes up to Geshe Michael and says, you know that bottle is coming from you. Only from you. And then I think, oh, then it's not real.

If it's a figment of my mind, then it's not real. But that's also wrong because I can drink it. Okay?

So, it's somewhere between the two. It's not as much as I thought it was, but that doesn't mean it's nothing. Okay?

So, here he's using the word drondok. We... we're talking about the tendency to over...

overestimate the... the ngo and the kepa of the mind. The...

the essence and the characteristics and the features of the mind. Okay? What would be an example of the essence of the mind?

Something like its emptiness. What would be an example of the features of the mind? Something like the anger in your mind or the jealousy in your mind or something like that.

And to believe that they are... overestimate the features of the mind, thinking that they... that they are real.

Okay? Are they real? They are.

But in this case, real means not coming from your mind. Okay? Not coming from your mind.

Independently real. And we are talking about... someone has realized.

We're talking about the tendency to overestimate the essence and thinking that they are real. We're talking about that something that isn't... talking about something we think is there, that we feel is there, which isn't actually there.

Okay? Say... I want you to learn a word called shengyul right there.

Say shengyul. Shengyul. I look at a bottle which is coming from me.

Does that bottle exist? Yeah. Yeah.

But somehow between me and that bottle which is coming from me, my mind places another bottle which is not coming from me. Okay? It kind of coats it with a second bottle that it feels is there, but which was never there.

Which is a bottle that's not coming from me. And that's called shengyul. And in the study of perception, that's a very tricky idea.

What's the ontological status of the shengyul? Right? It doesn't exist.

Okay? Does the shengyul exist? Is there a shengyul there?

Is there something you thought is there? Doesn't exist? No.

Okay? Got it? It's tricky.

It's a little delicate. Alright. Then there's dzin dang gi yo, and you got to learn all those things some other day.

Thinking that they're real, we're talking about something that we feel is there which isn't actually there. Both of the great commentaries— bhagavad-goswami-tantric, dhimma-cikir, abdhacir— prove this idea by making reference to an original sutra source which says— Okay? Those of you who care, original sutra source is dok-kung.

Okay? Dok-kung. And it says— Please repeat.

pakpe kangsat Let's say pakpe kangsat tamcheni dhimma-cikir rabtu cheway ledwo What's a pakpa? Yeah, Arya is, you know, Hitler used it for superior race or something. In Sanskrit, in ancient Sanskrit, Arya means superior but because the person has seen emptiness directly.

Okay? So don't think it's we're white supremacists and don't report that in the newspaper. Pakpe kangsat.

Kangsat means— You'd be surprised. Pakpe kangsat means people who are Aryas. Okay?

People who are Aryas. Pakpe kangsat. Tamche means all of them.

Dhu-ma-che. This is a word we got to talk about, okay? Say dhu-ma-che.

All existence can be divided into dhu-che dhu-che and dhu-ma-che. Ma in Tibetan is a negative. Dhu-che means produced by the coming together.

Dhu means coming together and che means produced. Was this coke bottle produced? By the coming together, you can say conventionally of glass and heat and the greed of man and the disregard for people's teeth.

Like that. Different causes have dhu collected together to je, to produce the bottle. Okay?

So this is a dhu-che. Dhu-ma-che means what? It was never produced by the coming together of causes and conditions.

Okay? There are zillions of dhu-ches in the world. There's the chair you're sitting in, there's the hair of your eyebrows, there's your shoes, the carpet, your thoughts, whatever's inside your nose.

These are all dhu-che. Okay? Relatively speaking, there are very few dhu-ma-che.

Meaning, things which exist but were never produced. So there are such things. Meaning, nobody ever sat and created them.

They're just there. Okay? They're just there.

I'll give you an example of a dhu-ma-che. In this room, okay? Is there a two-headed, 18-foot purple elephant rampaging through this room as I talk?

We can say no. I mean, if it was a small one, maybe it's hiding behind there. But we can say no, there's no such thing in this room.

Now be careful. I'm gonna ask you a question. Is there a lack of such an elephant in this room?

Yeah. There is a lack of such an elephant in this room. Okay?

Does that lack of such an elephant in this room get bigger or lesser? No, it's just constant. It's a constant.

Until such time as a 17-foot purple elephant walks into the room, the lack of such an elephant in the room is constant. It's never more or less. You can't say there's 20% lack of an elephant in this room.

It's either here or it's not here. Okay? That's a dhu-ma-che.

It exists. It's an existing thing. But nobody created it.

It's just here. Okay? Most dhu-ma-ches are absences.

Okay? Most dhu-ma-ches are absences. Let's go to a real life example.

When your partner gets irritated at you and starts whining at you and complaining about you, do they exist? Are they a dhu-che or a dhu-ma-che? They're a dhu-che.

They're a dhu-che because you've produced them. You were whiny and unpleasant to somebody last week. You planted the seeds.

Those seeds created the partner today. Is that partner coming from their side? No.

Okay? Is that partner deciding to pick on you? No.

Is there a lack of a partner who's coming from their own side in front of you? Yeah. Okay?

There's no such partner. The partner who is their fault and who is not your fault doesn't exist. Okay?

The non-existence of that partner has always been in your house, as long as a partner has been there. Got it? Got it?

Can it get more or less? No. Can it go away?

Yeah, if the partner leaves you. There's no lack of a partner who doesn't come from you. Got it?

Okay? So you can't destroy a dhu-ma-che, but it can go out of existence. And if you think a lot about that, it will help you see emptiness.

You know, if you want little practical tips to becoming enlightened being in the next 500 years, an important one is to think about that. Okay? Can you destroy a dhu-ma-che?

No. Does it ever get more or less? No.

Can it slip out of existence? Yes. If the partner is no longer there, if they move out, you no longer have an absence of a partner who's coming from themselves.

Okay? Got it? That's a little delicate.

Okay, go ahead. Very good, very good statement. He said, to think of the dhu-ma-che, you have to think of what's not there.

Which means you have to first think of what could have been there in order to realize what's not there. Ṭhākpe chūla mārakpā de ngūmed zinvayin. Master Shantideva, 9th chapter, okay, of the Bodhisattva's Way of Life.

Until you identify the thing that was never there, you can't see that it's not there. Okay? The husband who's coming from their own side.

Yeah. And he's going to say that in a few minutes. Did you have something?

Okay, yeah.

[Speaker 2]
So, the three kinds of people see one kind of emptiness.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
So, he's contradicting the idea that the interdependence of subject and object does, I mean, regardless of the seeds they have in their mind, they see the same emptiness, which is kind of a contradiction that you see the things that come from the seeds in your mind.

[Speaker 1]
That's a good point. I mean, it's like if I see a Ford or a Chevrolet and you see a different Chevrolet on a different street at the same time and then the third person sees another Chevrolet on a different street at the same time, are they seeing the same Chevrolet? No.

But are they all seeing a Chevrolet? Yes. Okay, that's the idea.

I mean, they all see an emptiness. It's just a little different for each person. So, we can still say they see an emptiness, okay?

Okay, now, this original sutra source says it's because all of the people who are realized beings are differentiated by things that exist but which were never produced. Okay? So, apparently there's a sutra in which Lord Buddha said you can divide up aryas by the thing that never changes, by the thing which was uncreated but which exists.

Okay? Which special thing is he talking about? There are many dumaches in the world.

There's a lack of a purple elephant in here. Will that help you immensely in your life if you grasp it? No, I mean if you have a particular paranoia about purple elephants and you realize it's not here, it will improve your life to see that it's not here.

But what's the other dumache that's all around you that would be more helpful to understand? The dumache of your partner or the dumache of the air conditioner or the dumache of your own headache or your body not feeling well. That means the fact that it's not coming from you.

Okay? The fact that it's not coming from you will help you immensely. You won't get angry at them.

You'll just stop collecting the seeds that create them. Okay? Got it?

Now apparently some sutra long ago said that people who see emptiness can be differentiated by the emptinesses which they see. Okay? That would imply that the three tracks are differentiated by a difference in the object or the perception?

The object. Okay? The object.

Okay? And so he's saying both. The book says both.

And that's caused a lot of confusion over the years. This quotation from sutra is implying that there are different grades of emptiness. Because it says the Aryas are distinguished by the different emptinesses.

Got it? Okay? Then there I went to look for that quotation.

Alright? Just to make sure it's correct. Because sometimes they make a boo-boo in the quotation and it causes trouble for 500 years and nobody notices because they don't have the ACIP database.

And a couple of scriptures that I found down here, they credit that quotation to the Diamond Cutter Sutra. And I didn't recall such a quotation. And I went and looked and there is no such quotation.

It's not in the Diamond Cutter Sutra that I can find. Rather, it's in the 8,000 verses. Okay?

The Prajnaparamita in 8,000 verses. And there's the actual quotation. If you want the wider context of that quotation, here it is.

I knew you really wanted it. So I went and found it. CHOM LDAN DE O Buddha, GAL TE LAM YANG NGOS PO MA CI LA Somebody is asking the Buddha a question.

Who is the supreme nudnik of all sutra? Subhuti. Rabjor is going to ask a question of Lord Buddha.

CHOM LDAN DE O Buddha, GAL TE LAM YANG NGOS PO MA CI LA MA CI LA If it's the case that the path itself doesn't really exist, Okay? NYANG NGAN LAS DE BA'ANG NGOS PO MA CI NA then nirvana itself doesn't really exist. Does nirvana exist or not?

Why would someone say it doesn't exist?

[Speaker 2]
From its own side.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it doesn't exist from its own side. But it does exist, okay? MA CI NA CI LAS DU NI RGYUN DU ZHUGS PA'O How can we talk about someone who has just entered this stream?

What does that mean? Just saw emptiness directly. Or, LEN CIG PHYI RONG NGO who is only going to come back one more time to the desire realm, okay?

Or, PHYIR MI YONG BA who is not going to come back to the desire realm at all. Where is the desire realm? You are there, okay?

What makes it the desire realm? The desire for food and sex, okay? All beings in this realm share two great interests, which is food and sex, okay?

And this realm is called the desire realm. And there are other realms where people don't have those desires. And you get there by meditating a lot.

And it's a temporary good place to be. But it doesn't last, okay? DINI SANGGYES SO This is an arhat.

DINI DRAG CHEN PO DINI RANG SANGGYES SO This is a Buddha. SHES SHES LAG CHUNG DIN DE'I KYI RGA TZAL PA And the Buddha answered, RAM GYUR O SUBUDDHI RGYUN DU ZHUGS PA KHA YIN PA DANG DE BZHIN SHES PA DRAG CHEN PO YANG DAG PO RDZOGS PA'I SANGGYES KYI PHAR KHA YIN PA DE LAG All of those things you just listed from people who just saw emptiness up to full Buddhas, all those guys you just listed, YANG DAG PO RDZOGS PA'I SANGGYES KYI PHAR KHA YIN PA DE LAG all of them are DU MA BYAS KYIS RAB TU BYAS BA YIN NO They are differentiated by something which was never started, which was never created, okay? It exists, but it was never created.

What's he talking about? Emptiness, okay? They are distinguished by their emptiness, okay?

Then someone took that quotation and said, oh, the three tracks are distinguished by what kind of emptiness they see, which is a stretch, okay? Just so you know, that's where all this trouble began. Now you know.

Nobody knows that except you. Okay, don't tell anybody. Then I found some other text, but that's the most interesting one.

So we finished a huge section of the text. We have finished the presentation from Maitreya, Lord Maitreya, about the three degrees of emptiness, okay? We finished that.

And we finished the discussion of whether in that text it's necessary to see emptiness to remove your anger and your jealousy forever, okay? We finished that discussion. What was the conclusion?

The conclusion was it wasn't too clear, okay? You can get both positions out of the text. You can get both positions out of the text.

Whether you're reading the text from the lower half of the middle way school or whether you're reading the text from the higher half of the middle way school, you can squeak out both positions. That there is a difference, that some people don't see emptiness and get rid of their anger, and that some people do see emptiness and get rid of their anger, okay? Got it?

Understand one thing though. When I say the higher half of the middle way school interprets that text as meaning you could either have to see emptiness or you could not have to see emptiness, who are they interpreting? The lower half.

Okay? Got it? When the lower half of the middle way school interprets the lower half of the middle way school's text, they think both are possible.

When the higher half of the middle way school interprets the lower half of the middle way's text, they come to the same conclusion, but that doesn't mean that they believe that that's true. Be careful, okay? All right?

Don't make a boo-boo. That's delicate, okay? That takes many years to figure that out, but I gave it to you for free.

Okay, here we go. Nyipa, say, nyipa, gyulama, sandal, dangalwa, pawala, sepatang, lennyi. Nyipa means section number two.

In a western book, the chapters are preceded by a number, right? Chapter three. Okay?

In a Tibetan book it just runs like that. There's no change in the paragraphs or the lines. They'll say number two.

And you don't know whether it's number two from a hundred pages ago or from one line ago. Okay? It just says number two.

Gyulama means what? Uttaratantra, okay? The book's name has the word tantra in it, but it's not a tantra, okay?

It's just a philosophy book. It's not a tantra book. In this book's name appears the word tantra, but it doesn't mean secret book here.

It means a line, okay? Tantra can mean a thread, right? Like sutra can mean a sacred thread.

Tantra can also mean a thread or a line. So, Uttaratantra means the higher line. And Maitreya wrote a book called The Higher Line.

It's no relation to tantra. It's just the word tantra is in its title, okay? The Lama...

Sandal means the root text and the commentary. The commentary, by the way, I checked it and it was written by... Who would you guess?

Wrote a commentary to Maitreya's Uttaratantra. His secretary, Master Sangha, Arya Sangha, okay? So, we say, we believe that Arya Sangha was taking dictation from Maitreya.

Who's the half-brother of Arya Sangha? Master Vasubandhu. Okay?

So, Master Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakosha accounts for two years of the monastic course. And Arya Sangha's accounts for twelve years. So, fourteen of the twenty years of a Geshe course are spent on those two brothers, those two half-brothers.

So, he wrote a commentary, Dangalwapanwa. Dangalwapanwa means your position contradicts the Uttaratantra. Okay?

Your position contradicts both the root text and the commentary to the Uttaratantra. What position is he talking about? It's a position we expressed like three years ago.

Do you remember? What are we trying to prove? What's our side trying to prove?

That you must see emptiness if you want to get rid of your mental, negative mental afflictions, negative emotions, forever. You can suppress them with a good yoga class. You can suppress them with daily meditation.

You can suppress them by eating hemp hearts on your salads. But it won't last. Okay?

It will wear off. If you want to permanently remove your anger, you must understand that the irritating partner at whom you're angry was never there. Then it's automatic.

How can you get angry at something that was never there? What do you mean they were never there? Do you have an irritating partner?

Yes. Where are they coming from? Me.

Okay? Which is cool, because then you can fix them. Okay?

In this system, no blame on anybody. You can't blame anybody. But you can fix anybody.

That's good news. Okay? All right.

So, jatadagawa pongwa. You're accusing us that our idea is wrong, that we say you must see emptiness to get rid of your anger. We're gonna pongwa that accusation.

We're gonna get rid of it. A la... So, first we're gonna present tsepa, and then we're gonna present len.

Tsepa means this. Okay? Tsepa means to make an argument.

Okay? Tsepa. The Tibetan word for debating is arguing.

Just so you know. Okay? You know, tsepa.

That's a scriptural word. The colloquial word for your interest is takseltang. Takseltang.

Which means to throw out reasoning and... and counter reasoning. Takseltang.

Okay? So, tsepa means he's gonna say his piece. Who?

The other guy. And then we're gonna len. We're gonna give an answer, a reply.

Okay? The other guy is gonna say your idea contradicts the Uttaratantra. What idea?

That you must see emptiness if you ever want to deal with your negative emotions. All the rest is band-aids. All the rest is hopeless.

It will never work. Okay? Then people come to me, excuse me, but, hey Geshe-la, can we bring a psychologist in to talk during the talk?

I'm like, about what? About how everybody can be happier. I'm like, you mean not have negative emotions?

Yeah. Okay. How many ways are there to get rid of negative emotions forever?

One. Does this psychologist understand that? No, but they're nice.

Okay. By the way, I'm not ragging on psychology. Am I?

It can be useful. I'm not saying it can't be useful. You know, you're having trouble with your partner, and they can come in and say, you know, really, maybe you should have, eat different breakfast or, you know, try to listen more or, you know, that's okay.

I'm not saying it's not helpful. It is helpful. It cannot fix the problem permanently.

But it's like taking those drugs when you're having a serious depression or something. The drugs are not going to fix it, but the drugs can give you a break and then you can fix it during the break. So, a drug, you know, those drugs for depression or whatever, they can be useful in breaking the cycle long enough for you to figure out what the hell is going on.

And they're not going to fix it, but they can give you some space. And I think a good psychologist or psychiatrist can give even a well-trained Buddhist some space in which they can recollect themselves and then come back to their own beliefs. So, I believe it's useful.

I'm not saying it's not useful, okay? But it does get me a little irritated sometimes. Okay.

So, here, secondly, here is the second section where we hear, where we disprove the idea that our position is in contradiction with that of the root text and commentary of the higher line. Okay? We will proceed in two steps.

The opponent will present his argument and then we will give our response. Okay? That's what that paragraph says.

By the way, I went and got you the first section. I pulled it out for you. It's like 50 pages back.

That was where we were... Someone was saying, your position contradicts... No, the Abhisam Alankara.

Okay? The other book by Maitreya. And now he's saying, you also contradict this other book by Maitreya.

Okay? These two books are important because they are the root text for two different great schools of ancient India. Which ones?

The Abhisam Alankara, written by Maitreya, written down by Asanga, is the root text used for the study of the lower middle way school. Okay? And the Uttaratantra is the root text which is used for the study of the mind-only school.

Okay? And in a Galupa monastery, they don't study Uttaratantra. Okay?

Geshe Michael had to teach it to you in 2003 as dessert. Okay? In a monastery, if you want to study the mind-only school, you go to Je Tsongkapa's book on the art of interpretation, Chang'e.

Okay? Chang'e is where a Geshe candidate in a Galupa monastery studies the mind-only school. We don't go to the Uttaratantra.

But in some other traditions, they use Uttaratantra, like some Kagyu monasteries. Okay? And I think it's a great book.

I think it's worth studying. Gyaltsabje wrote a long commentary on it. And we did a little tiny piece of it in Tucson in 2003 or something like that.

Okay. And I never got to do more because we didn't have time. So there's the original...

And here's the original argument. It's incorrect to say that everyone who is a realized being... Realized being is my translation of Arya, has undergone the perception of emptiness.

And it's also incorrect to say that the tendency to believe that things are real is a mental affliction obstacle. He's going to say it again. Here we go.

Let's translate it here. Here is the first. Here is the first.

Someone comes and says... It's not correct to say that in order to be a realized being, you must have perceived emptiness. Okay?

What's the must-have there, Nyingbo? Khyaba. Okay?

Khyaba. Okay? It's not the case that it's necessarily...

Okay? It's not necessarily the case. And it's also incorrect to say that the tendency to believe that things are real is a mental affliction obstacle.

And they were going to indent that because it's somebody's statement. Okay? So, there is the tsupa.

There is the argument. Someone's coming up to us and says, you've made two mistakes. It's not necessarily the case that to be an Arya, you must have perceived emptiness.

But he didn't say it, but he should have added the word directly. Okay? And it's also incorrect to say that the tendency to believe that things are real...

What does that mean? Let's bring it to your real life, okay? Your husband's yelling at you or your wife is yelling at you or your partner is yelling at you.

Okay? Are they real? Yeah, they're real.

Are they the way they look? No. They seem to be...

It seems to be that they make a decision to fight with you. But that's not true. If...

The reason they appear to be making a decision to fight with you is because you fought with somebody last week. Okay? Okay?

So, they're not real in the sense that they are not coming from you. Okay? The partner you see who's arguing with you is not real.

Okay? They're arguing with you, but they're not coming from where you thought they are. Got it?

In that sense, they're not real. Okay? So, to hold them to be real, is that blocking you from Nirvana or is it blocking you from Buddhahood?

You see, there are two kinds of blockers. My Lama loved football and he was struggling for a translation of the word dripa, which means a spiritual obstacle. And he said, blockers, like that Lawrence Taylor guy, you know, in 76 on the New York Giants, right?

So, he would call them blockers. Okay? They're preventing you from spiritual realizations.

There are two kinds of blockers. One of them stops you from reaching Nirvana. One of them stops you from becoming a Buddha.

Okay? What's the difference? When you become a Buddha, you're able to see all things in the universe that ever were, are or will be at the same time.

Okay? You can tell all the lottery numbers on all the planets in the universe. Okay?

At the same time. When you reach Nirvana, which is long before that, you just stop your negative emotions forever. Okay?

Now, what's stopping you from doing that? Is it... Is your inability to stop your anger at your partner caused by believing that they are coming from their own side?

Yes. So, does that belief block you from Nirvana? Or does it block you from Buddhahood?

Both, but... Nirvana. Okay?

So, he's disagreeing. When he says, the tendency to believe things are coming from their own side is not a mental affliction obstacle. He's saying, it's not what keeps you from Nirvana.

That's all he's saying. Okay? So, to put it in simple language, the second half of this last sentence, he's saying, what keeps you from Nirvana is not the fact that you think your partner is coming from their own side.

Okay? Because we believe it is. Got it?

Okay? We all right? Just nod.

Everybody nod. Okay, it's good. Loosen up your neck.

All right. He's not done with his whining. He's going to prove his statement by quoting Gyulama.

What's Gyulama? Uttaratantra. Okay?

That's true because the... Sorry. The higher line says, because they have no eyes, they cannot see the orb, the bright, the bright burning orb of the sun.

Instant poetry. Okay? That Uttaratantra says, because they have no eyes, they cannot see the bright burning orb of the sun.

Okay? What's the word for orb here? King, say Kingkor.

Kingkor. Those of you who care, it's one of the only prenasals on a second column letter in the Tibetan language. You don't say Kilkor, you say Kingkor.

Say Kingkor. Kingkor. Okay?

What's the Sanskrit for Kingkor? Mandala. Okay?

Mandala. And the word mandala came into Spanish as mundo, the world. Okay?

All right? Anyway, they can't see the mandala of the sun. In this case, it doesn't mean an enlightened world.

It just means a disc. The word mandala originally meant a disc. And at this juncture, the commentary says, okay, meaning at this verse in the root text, the commentary written by Arya Sangha, okay, says, and I went looking for it, okay, and I found it.

It is the one by Arya Sangha. Okay. So, he's going to quote a commentary to the Uttara Tantra which explains that thing about blind people can't see the sun.

Okay? It explains that. To put it briefly, there are four types of people.

People who we say are not possessed. I got to go see the root text, okay? I got to go cut it out and bring it down here.

Why? I have to cut it out and bring it down here. Why?

Many Tibetan commentaries weave in the original wording in the commentary. It's like a crossword puzzle. You can find the original text inside the commentary.

And I think it's important as a translator to identify those words that are coming directly from the root text. So what I do, I translate the root text, then I pull out a copy of it and I throw it down here. And then I italicize the words which are being plucked out of the root text.

So that takes a minute to do, okay? To put it briefly, there are four types of people who we say are who we would say You see, now I have to change it. We would say have no eyes with which they can see the essence of those who have gone that way.

And then I have to italicize have no eyes. Got it? Got it?

Okay. Okay? So the person who wrote the commentary to the Uttaratantra is saying when they talk about people who can't even see the sun, that's pretty bad.

Okay? Not being able to read a cheap science fiction novel without what they call reading glasses is sad. But not being able to see the sun is a little more extreme.

Right? Okay? It's a joke.

All right. Who are the four? This is how we describe them.

They are Sosokyo means what? Yeah, ordinary people, meaning who haven't seen emptiness yet. Who are the four?

This is how we describe them. They are those people who have yet to see, to perceive. They are they are normal people.

The listeners. The self-made Buddhas. And Bodhisattvas who have just entered the way.

I have to indent those pieces because they are a quotation. Okay? And I'm going to take this out.

Let me think about it. Let me see what you've done. And because at this juncture.

As it was stated, O Conqueror, the essence of those who have gone that way is not something that can be perceived by those who have fallen into the view of the perishable assembly by those who delight in the mistaken nor by those who are distracted regarding emptiness. So the Uttaratantra itself says that the bright orb of the sun cannot be perceived by those who have no eyes. Okay?

Then the auto-commentary to that text says that there are four types of people like that. Who are they? They are people who...

What did that say? Normal people, listeners, self-made Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Okay?

Who have just entered the way. Meaning the higher way, but they don't say that. And then they quote a sutra to prove it.

And it's a sutra in which somebody said to Lord Buddha, the essence of those who have gone that way which is a fancy word for emptiness. Okay? The essence of an enlightened being is their rik, right?

Is their emptiness. So, emptiness cannot be perceived by those who have fallen into the view of the perishable assemblage, nor by those who delight in the mistaken, nor by those who are distracted regarding emptiness. Okay?

The commentary to the entire tantra states that there are four types of people who never see emptiness. Okay? Why?

Because sutra itself describes people who cannot see emptiness. Okay? Got it?

Yes, mom. Okay. Self-made Buddha is a misnomer.

Okay? It's a good question. In Sanskrit it's called Pratyekabuddha.

And there's a debate about the word in scripture. And it seems to imply that some people could reach Buddhahood on their own. And then scriptures are careful to clarify that it means you've had a personal teacher in the last zillion lifetimes.

And because of that, in this life you don't need one. So everyone who ever hears about this decides they're that person. And you're not.

They're extremely rare. It's like people had, really they had a billion teachers in their previous lifetimes, private, personal teachers. And then in this lifetime they don't need a teacher.

But you've never met one and there's nobody like that. Okay, so don't stress. You need to have a teacher.

It came to be a word in one of the schools of Buddhism for a person who sees a lower grade of emptiness. Okay. Alright, middle track.

Okay. Sorry? It is a Hinayana track.

It is a lower track. But the distinction between Mahayana and Hinayana, greater way and lesser way, is normally drawn on whether or not you have bodhichitta or love for all people and the desire to save the world, Iron Man wish. Okay?

In that scripture the distinction is not so much drawn by that anymore. It's drawn by what degree of emptiness do they perceive. You should know that.

In the writings of Maitreya in the lower half of the middle way school, the distinction between Hinayana and Mahayana is often drawn not upon the presence of bodhichitta or not, but upon the degree of emptiness which they are capable of perceiving. Alright?

[Speaker 2]
Got it? It implies there's degrees to it.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, and that's... and in the higher school that's not accepted. Okay?

Good point. Now I want to show you something really sexy. So I had a nice meeting with the...

with our Deutschlanter Freunden. Where are you? My friends from Germany.

We have four really beautiful people from our German group are here for the week. And we had a nice meeting about... that we're trying to fundraise for the women, the refugee women who are typing in the scriptures in India.

It's a hundred and... projected to take a hundred and fifty years. We've finished 25 years.

This year is the 25th anniversary. Okay? And it will take another 100 or 125 years.

We're about 10% finished. So anyway, they're helping me fundraise for that. Because we pay them.

And they're nice. They're all ladies. And they've been working for 25 years.

And they set up a little computer center in the shadow of the Tantric College, of one of the two Tantric colleges in the world. They happen to be from that village. And it was kind of beautiful that there's this little secret computer center with these Dakini ladies right at the base of the Tantric College.

And they are typing in the beautiful texts of Buddhism for 25 years. So anyway, because of their work, I'm advertising, I'm selling you guys again. They already bought the bridge, but I'm selling you again.

Because of their work, I could go to the original original scriptures, sutra, and I could check this quotation. I always go and check, okay? Now I'll show you something interesting.

Those of you who care, those of you who know Tibetan, like Nyingbo, okay? Chom din de. That part is the same.

De shin shek pey Nyingbo. That part is the same. Ni, sem chen jik tsok la ta war sung wa dak.

That part is the same, okay? That part is the same. You can see it right here in the red.

Then it says, chin ji lo ki nyam bar gyur pa. Chin ji lo ki nyam bar gyur pa. Those who have been destroyed by wrong ideas.

Okay? It uses the verb nyam ba, which means whose lives have been destroyed. Okay?

Remember it, n-y-a-m-s. Okay, ready? Here we go.

Here it says what, Nyingbo? Gawa, which means what? They like it.

Rather than saying destroyed, it's been miscarved as they enjoy it. Okay? And we wouldn't know.

For 500 years no one corrected it. But due to the Tibetan ladies, refugee ladies, they typed the ancient originals. We can go and confirm.

It's totally wrong. It's totally misspelled. For 500 years at Seramay Monastery, they have taught the new monks, you delight in the mistake.

And it says, you are destroyed by the mistake. Okay? I mean, I'm so passionate about typing in the books.

I'm so passionate about it. We need to do it. And they just don't care and they don't know.

You see? They never think to go look at the original. Oh, that's what the book says.

See? And somebody miscarved it like five centuries ago. And they've been teaching that for five centuries.

Wrong. That's not all. Okay.

Get this, okay? tomba nyi la sem number yangwa. Yangwa means to be distracted.

It's used in the study of meditation. Yangwa means the mind is distracted. Nyingpo, what does la mean?

To. It means to. Tomba nyi.

Okay? To emptiness. Their minds are distracted towards emptiness.

Got it? Let's go to the original, typed in by the refugee ladies. Nyingpo, what's the word now?

Le. It means from. It's the opposite.

They missed the letter. Okay? Their minds are distracted away from emptiness, says the original.

And then somebody carved it wrong and it says their minds are distracted to the emptiness. Okay? Two of the three are the opposite of what they were originally.

And you would never know. No one would know if we didn't have those ladies typing. You see what I mean?

That's what I'm trying to get you to understand. We're not only studying the greatest classic of emptiness. We are fixing it.

Okay? And the seven years of tantra at Diamond Mountain, I fixed countless mantras. All of them were mistaken.

90% were mistaken. And I went and I labored and I fixed them. So to say it's all crazy people running around there, it's just so stupid.

It irritates me. The level of scholarship at Diamond Mountain is higher than anywhere else in the world, including the Tibetan monasteries. Wah!

Okay. All right. Okay.

Anyway. Tell the New York Times. I don't know.

So anyway. So here it... What do we do?

Let's fix it. Okay? Let's fix it.

Lumbar. Chinchi lok la. Lumbar.

Nyamba. Let's just put it in. Rinpoche taught me something very important.

And this is a custom in Tibet. And those of you who studied Vajrayogini, you studied which commentary? Written by Pabongka Rinpoche.

It was miscarved. Trijang Rinpoche, who is the Dalai Lama's teacher, he went through that commentary and he corrected it. In Tibet, when you correct a text or carving, you scrawl, you take a knife, and you scrawl an X in the wood under the wrong word.

And that's all you do. You never cut out the old word. You just say...

In English, they say S-I-C, right? Sik? When you see an X under a Tibetan carved letter, it means, I think this is a bubu.

But who am I? Okay? Who am I?

Right? You never erase the original, because you might be wrong. The typist might be wrong.

Okay? So that's just a Tibetan tradition. We never erase even an obvious mistake.

We just take a knife and go... Okay? We make a mark under it.

So I'm just putting it in. Okay? And I'll put a footnote.

Correcting the reading to the original, as found in the... Bel... Okay, this is where I found it.

Bel... Cheng... Seng...

Ge... Nga... Ru...

Shu... Te... Do.

By the way, I told the New York Times all this stuff, and they just ignored it. They just ignored it completely. You know?

I showed them hundreds of things, and they just ignored it completely. So... That's modern world.

Okay? Anyway... Now we have to change the English, okay?

Those... Nor by those who delight, who are brought down by, you see, by the mistaken. Nor by those who are distracted from emptiness.

Nice. Nice. Very nice.

From emptiness. It makes a lot more sense, right? You would make a mistake if you're distracted from your understanding of emptiness.

Got it? Okay. That's my advertisement for the computer project.

And we need to keep working, you know? It's hard to maintain intensity for 25 years. It's hard to keep pushing.

But we're trying. We're really trying. Okay?

There are some of us who are still... Ningbo and I do it on the airplanes, just before he watches the martial arts movies. It's my...

What do you call it? Carrot on a stick. I say, you can watch a martial arts movie if we do a half hour of cataloging, you know?

So anyway... Then I watch the other movies. Of course, I remember Toppokong.

Then Isshin. And it's true as well because it's of the following statement. Whenever you imagine that one of the three spheres is there, this is what we call an obstacle to omniscience.

What do you call it? Random thoughts like... What's the opposite of generosity?

Huh? It should be like financial. What?

Stinginess. I like it. Random thoughts like stinginess and the rest are something we believe are obstacles to nirvana.

Okay, we got to talk about khorasum. What's khorasum mean? Khorasum.

Three spheres. The three spheres. I...

I want to make money. I want to be financially independent. So, what must I do?

I must help someone else to become financially independent. Maybe I give them a free loan to start their own business, for example. Okay?

So, I take some of the money I have and I offer it to another person and I say, that's a loan that you can use to start your own business. Okay? There are three elements of the act of generosity.

There's the person giving the money, there's the person receiving the money and there's the money itself. Sometimes the third one is counted as the act of the giving rather than the money itself. Okay?

But in any case, there are three elements in any act of giving. Those are called khorasum. Khorasum means the three elements in a karma, in an action, in the case of an act of giving.

Okay? A person who is not well trained, believes that they themselves are coming from themselves. And they believe that the person to whom they are giving the money is coming from themselves.

And they also believe that the money is coming from itself. Okay? They have three misunderstandings about the act of generosity.

Karma can be of two kinds. Okay? If you do an act of generosity without a deeper appreciation of all the stuff involved, the result is kind of random and not very steady.

Okay? You might get rich in three lifetimes. Meaning, you might get a discount on a cheeseburger.

Okay? Something like that. I mean, not very interesting.

Alright? But if you understand the three elements closely, then that act becomes very powerful. Okay?

A person who understands what they're doing, they look at the money they're giving and they say, I got this money because I... In the first place, I have this money because I gave money to someone else before. And now I'm giving it to this other guy, who needs money.

Why do I see a person in my world who needs money? Because I haven't been generous. So they're not blaming the other guy.

They're not like, Oh, I'm a big shot, I'll give you some money. You know? That guy exists because I wasn't generous in the past.

That guy exists in my world because I wasn't generous in the past. I'm giving him money that I got because I was generous in the past. And I'm here because I wasn't generous in the past.

Okay? Otherwise I'd have lots of money and I wouldn't be giving it to get some more. You see what I mean?

Okay? That person understands the three elements. Okay?

In other words, they understand emptiness. Right? Now, the Uttara Tantra, in this quotation, which comes from the Uttara Tantra, and they didn't tell you that, but I'm telling you that.

Okay? Because of the lady's work, I could look it up. So, this quotation is saying, if you don't understand the three spheres, meaning if you don't understand emptiness, it will block you from becoming a Buddha.

Okay? And if you have negative emotions, normal negative emotions, that will stop you from nirvana. Okay?

That screws our whole... Excuse me. That messes up our whole idea that you have to see emptiness to get rid of your negative emotions.

Because the Uttara Tantra says, if you want to reach Buddhahood, you have to understand emptiness. Got it? He's using this weapon against us.

We just completed the argument by the other guy. Okay? He's saying, don't give me this thought that I have to see emptiness, I have to understand my husband's emptiness, or I can never get over my anger for him.

Don't give me that. The Uttara Tantra doesn't say that. The Uttara Tantra says the opposite.

Okay? Got it? Just nod.

Don't... Okay. Alright.

You don't know how much I nodded in the monastery. Do you understand what's going on, Michael? Oh, yeah.

Especially in the debates, they're like... I'm like, right. Okay.

Okay. So, he's pulled out a bunch of quotations from the Uttara Tantra and from the auto-commentary to it, basically, that's proved that it's not necessary to see emptiness to get over your negative emotions. Only if you want to see the essence of the one that's gone, like Buddha's emptiness, or something like that.

Okay? We have to fight his statement. Alright?

Here we go. Okay. Here, secondly, is our response.

But there's no such problem. First of all, the... what do you call it?

Citation from the commentary is only a reference to a number of normal people who have failed to find the path which is in direct... which is in contradiction to the way in which innate... our innate perishable view which is in direct contradiction to the way in which our innate perishable view holds to its object to those who have fallen into the view of the perishable assemblage.

Okay. Okay. So, there's this complicated word called jikta.

Say jikta. It's an abbreviation for jik-tsok-la-tawa. Say jik-tsok-la-tawa.

The view of the perishable assembly. It's a complicated word. Okay?

Don't worry about it. The assembly in this case is you. You are a...

what do you call? You are a collection of pieces which is jik-tsok, jik. It's going to fall apart.

You are a bunch of parts that are going to fall apart. Okay? Got it?

Why? As long as you perceive yourself the wrong way, you are going to fall apart. Meaning die.

Okay? You will die. As long as you...

what do you call it? Persist in perceiving yourself the wrong way, you will die. And that tendency is called jik-tsok-la-tawa.

To view your own body and mind in the wrong way will kill you. Okay? To view your own body and mind in the wrong way will kill you.

Okay? So, it's a special genre of ignorance. Ignorance can be towards computers.

Ignorance can be towards carpets, people. But jik-tsok-la-tawa is a misunderstanding of myself. For Michael, it's a misunderstanding of Michael.

And it's the root of all suffering. Okay? I eat chia seeds.

I made up a new drink in the morning. Half almond milk, half hemp heart seeds. Mixed...

legal, okay? And... I don't want to get in trouble.

Mixed with a teaspoon of coffee. Like I invented this drink. It's really good.

And I imagine that it's making me healthier. Right? Okay.

Then I made Christine Walsh make it for me in the morning. But that's jik-tsok-la-tawa. That's jik-tsok-la-tawa.

I'm misunderstanding my body. Okay? Vitamins can't make you healthy.

We said the other day, yoga can't make you strong. And meditation can't make you peaceful. Okay?

And vitamins and all kinds of raw food, chia seeds, etc. Now people make fun of me when I use my chia seeds. They're like, Geshe-la, last night you said they don't work.

This morning you're pouring them into your smoothie. Okay? But you can have jik-tsok-la-tawa about your vitamins and your health supplements.

Okay? They can't do anything for you. Okay?

If you serve the sick and the poor, if you go to help Don at the homeless shelter and then you eat chia seeds, they will make you strong. And if you don't go help at the homeless center, they won't do anything for you. Because they don't have any power.

Because they don't even have any sides. I'm not kidding. Right?

We said that this afternoon. They're small. And they look like they have a left side and a right side.

But they don't. It's an optical illusion. It's popping out of your head.

Okay? They don't even exist. And you think they can make you stronger?

You think they can make you healthier? You know, they don't. They don't even exist.

Okay? If they make you stronger, it's because you went to help at the homeless center. That's why we have a homeless center program in the middle of this program.

And nobody came. Not many people. Yes, go ahead.

[Speaker 2]
If you go to serve the sick, and you don't eat the chia seeds, would you be just as strong?

[Speaker 1]
We talked about that. Yeah, she asked, if you go to serve the sick, can you skip the chia seeds altogether? If your seeds are very powerful, you can.

And that's proven. I've seen all these guys on the subway in New York, they're eating chocolate bars, and they're drinking Cokes, and they are buff. You know, I'm like, how do they do that, man?

You know? It's because they've been doing nice things for people. Okay?

But, unless your karma is extremely powerful and pure, you need the chia seed as a vehicle for the karmic seed. Okay? You're still gonna need the chia seed.

It's still better to take the chia seed than a box of chocolates, until your karma is strong enough. When your karma is strong enough, you can just eat chocolates all day, and you'll be healthy. Okay?

Okay. So anyway, that's jigsot latawa. Misunderstanding your health and your mind.

Okay? If you want to be healthy, and you want your mind to be strong, then help other people be healthy and strong. And that's the only way.

And that's the only way to prevent the ravages of old age and death. Okay? You come into life with a certain amount of energy.

You better goddamn use it for other people, because if you don't, you will die. Okay? You get a meal for every meal you give.

How's your debit card? Okay? And if you don't take it seriously, you will get old and die.

And that's jigsot latawa. You don't have a choice to serve others. It's not a, what do you call, luxury, to go down to the...

She's begging you for three hours a week. You know? It's not a luxury.

If you don't want to die and get old, you gotta start serving now, before you get too old to serve. Okay? Got it?

It's not a luxury. All right. So that part's okay.

Now, when the... when the text talks about those who... Ngawe Nyambe.

Those who... What did we call it? Sorry.

Let's go look. I used some other word. Yeah, was it brought down by?

Yeah, those who are brought down by the mistaken. It's talking about a number of listeners and self-made Buddhas who take impermanence and the rest of the sixteen aspects to be real and then meditate upon them. This is difficult, okay?

And I thought we would take a little side trip, okay? Into the Four Noble Truths. All right?

There was a... multiple lectures offered by a high lama in America and they keep calling it talks on the Four Noble Truths, okay? It irritates me so bad.

Noble is a very, very obviously bad translation of Arya, okay? There's nothing noble about those truths. They're full of pain and suffering, okay?

Duh! After you see emptiness directly, when you come out of that experience, which takes about twenty minutes, then for the rest of that day, which could be about twelve hours, until you go to bed, you have extraordinary experiences. You can read other people's minds directly.

You can see your future enlightenment directly. You gain insights into images of enlightened beings. You see the being behind the image.

You see what I mean? You meet a Buddha firsthand. You perceive your own enlightenment in the future.

You also see your own death, maybe seven more times, like that. Very, very beautiful things happen to you. Those experiences all lumped together are called the Four Truths for a realized being, for a person who has seen emptiness directly.

The Sanskrit word is? The Four Arya Truths. You know, these British guys who were in control of India in 1890, translated as noble, and it stuck.

And no one had the brains to stop it, okay? Somebody brings me, people bring me Buddhist books all the time, and I say, thank you, I'm so grateful, and I look and I go like this, and it says Noble Truths, and I go, and I throw it out. I don't have any Buddhist books.

Anyway, because I don't want my mind poisoned. I don't even want to hear that word, because it's so wrong. I don't want that in my mind.

You see what I mean? I don't want a mistake stuck in my head. You know what I mean?

So anyway, it's like un poco mas. I can't get that song out of my head. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, good idea, good question, really good question. I'll repeat it, okay? But I'm going to say it a little bit.

I'm going to brag, okay? Which I rarely do. I came from, I come from Gerong House.

Gerong House is one of the sixteen colleges of Sereme, okay? It's Gerong College. And sometimes I say twelve, sometimes I say sixteen houses.

Anyway, the pride and joy of our house is Pabongka Rinpoche, okay? The original Pabongka Rinpoche who wrote the book you're studying all week comes from our college, okay? And he died in 1941.

The current, the first one lived, he was born in 1878, he died in 1941. He taught my teacher as a teenager. And then he passed away.

Then the second one was reborn, right? 1942. He escaped to bed at the age of seventeen and he came down to the refugee camp.

And he lived in the refugee camp. And it's a sad story. He finished his geshe debate and he died the next week.

He just, people said he wanted to leave. He didn't want to stay. You know, he wanted to show to finish a geshe and then he died the next week.

It was really weird. Then he was reborn again, okay? The third one.

So I grew up with the third one. I went to the monastery and the third one was there, okay? He was in my class.

Sorry, one class above me. But we used to debate together. So the custom in the colleges is that the oldest monk who hasn't done his geshe yet gets to examine the geshes for this year.

See what I mean? So next year I will do my geshe examination. But I get to be the one, to be the first examiner of the new geshes for this year.

So I got to examine Pabongkha Rinpoche. And I was the first one to examine him. So he sat down, and I'm all ready, and I'm like, okay, so, you know, why do I see a poor guy in my world?

And he's like, oh, you didn't give money to people, right? And then I say, well, then I guess the Buddhas don't help people, right? And he says, why do you say that?

And I say, well, how can a Buddha whose mind is totally pure see a person who needs money, you know what I mean, in their world? How can they help them? How can a person who's enlightened ever see a person who's not enlightened around them?

Because that means you must still have some bad karma in your head, which is your question. So what I'm saying is, it's a good question. And we debated it for like three hours.

Okay? It was really cool. Like the Geku, you know Geku?

The debate master pulled me off of him and said, And then we went outside and kept going. And we went for two, three hours. And I'll tell you what we came up with, okay?

And it's a delicate answer. And it's a beautiful question. It's a beautiful, important question, okay?

What we came up with was, a Buddha sees everybody around them as a Buddha, or at least as a high-level bodhisattva. The scriptures say that. They're not aware of anyone around them who is less than a high-level bodhisattva.

But do those people see themselves as bodhisattvas? You see? I see...

I'm enlightened. Say I'm an enlightened being, and then all the people around me I see as angels, enlightened angels. But how do they see themselves?

Is it possible they're seeing a Chittar? Is it possible? Absolutely possible, you know?

You can fall in love with this girl and think she's the smartest thing in the world. Okay? Wait, I'm not done yet.

So, is it possible to read their mind and see that they don't see themselves as a Buddha? Yes. Does that make them less of a Buddha?

No, okay? And this applies to the events at Diamond Mountain. And be careful when you think about them, okay?

How you see someone act and how they see themselves act, it's a very delicate thing. They may not see themselves at all in the way you see them, okay? And you have to be very careful not to make a mistake, because you can make big mistakes, okay?

Alright? That said, if you see somebody mugging somebody, you have to pull them off. You don't know how they see themselves mugging the person, but still, in your world, you have to pull them off, okay?

Okay, you were going to debate me, somebody. I would propose the following debate. Why can you even read their mind and see themselves thinking of themselves as less than an angel if you don't have a seed for that?

I didn't figure that out yet. Maybe they are angels who want to give you a chance to do something noble. Dang.

I don't know. At this point, Ken Rinpoche, in the East Village, in 1973, said, what do you think? They're all going to retire?

And then he refused to say anything else. Okay. You got to work on that one.

Thank you. Mitakso Sugominyanangasiktan. Okay.

Oh, so I was going to give you the sixteen aspects, okay? There are four Arya truths. There are four truths that you see, right?

And then, they come in... They always talk about the sixteen aspects. Each one of the four truths has four aspects.

I'm just going to give you the sixteen, so you can say you've heard them in your lifetime. And someday if you want, we can study them, okay? But we don't have time to take that much of a detour.

But let me give you the names of the sixteen, okay? Say, mitak, dungel, tongpa, dakme. Mitak dungel, tongpa dakme.

Mitak dungel, tongpa dakme. That's how they say it in the monastery. Mitak dungel, tongpa dakme.

Okay. Mitak means impermanent. Dungel, suffering.

Tongpa, empty. Dakme, no self. Okay.

These are the four aspects of the Arya truth of suffering. Okay. Life is impermanent.

Life is suffering. Life is empty. And life is not what it appears to be.

Okay. These are the four aspects of the first of the Arya truth. Each one of those has a specific meaning.

Okay. Each one of those relates or corresponds to an actual meditational experience in the hours following the direct perception of emptiness. And that fact has gotten lost in the last sixteen centuries or so.

Because there haven't been enough people who've seen emptiness. So, they just rattle off these things. Mitak dungel, tongpa dakme.

Mitak dungel, tongpa dakme. And they have no idea what it refers to. Okay.

The mitak, for example, refers to the direct experience of yourself dying. Okay. You see it directly.

All living beings think they're not going to die. Okay. Everybody.

Bugs, people, everybody. They think, I'm not going to die. And Arya knows they are.

They've seen it directly. They saw their death directly. Okay.

So, they know. Okay. And that becomes a truth for them.

That becomes a reality for them. And like that, each of the four has its own real experience which has been lost over the centuries. People have, you know, they start talking about the four aspects and they don't know what they're talking about.

It's just names. Okay. Mitak dungel, tongpa dakme.

Got it? Okay. Someday we can go through them.

Say, gyu, kunju, kyen, rabke. These are the four aspects of the source of suffering.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
So, this is called the order of the four truths in which you figure out how they happen. The order of the four truths in which you figure out how they happen. First, you become aware of pain.

Your mom dies. Your brother commits suicide. You know, in my case.

Or something like that has happened to you. Okay. The first step in Buddhism is something bad happens.

Okay. You fall down, you break your back or, you know, something heavy happens to you. Then you get spiritual.

Okay. So, that's dungel tongpa... Sorry.

Mitak dungel, tongpa dakme. Okay. Then you go looking for how did it happen.

You go looking for a cause. Why did that happen to me? Why did she die?

Why did he die? Like that. Okay.

You go asking questions. That's called the source of suffering. You go looking for where does it come from.

And that has four aspects. One is called gyu. Gyu means the cause.

Capital C. The cause. One is called kunjung.

It means the source. One is called gen, which means the contributing factors. And one is called rabke, which means the machine which is producing your suffering.

Okay. It has four different names. Alright.

What happens next? Say gopa, shiwa, gyanom, ngenjung. Gopa, shiwa, gyanompa, ngenjung.

Okay. Gopa means the end. The end of suffering.

That's truth number three. You become aware that you could stop it. Stop what?

Death. Stop what? Old age.

Okay. You become aware that you could stop it. Gopa, shiwa, peace.

Okay. These are the synonyms for the end of suffering. Okay.

The end, peace, gyanompa. Say gyanompa. Gyanompa means lovely.

Okay. The peace of nirvana is lovely. It's a very beautiful word.

Lovely. Gyanompa. And then ngenjung means...

It means renunciation, but in this case it means release or something like that. Release. Those are the four aspects of the truth of the end of suffering.

Okay. Then say lam, rikpa, drupa, ngenjung. Lam means the path.

How do you stop the suffering? The way, the path. Okay.

Lam. Rikpa means the... the logic.

Okay. Or the reasoning. Drupa means the attainment, or the path, or the...

I don't know, the means you could say. Let's say the means. And then ngenjung means the thing that releases you.

The thing that releases you. These are the four aspects of the truth of... the path.

So we've covered the four Arya truths, and the four aspects of each, which makes for a total of... sixteen. Why are we talking about this?

Because... we are explaining... we are explaining the scripture that said they are brought down by the mistaken.

They are brought down by the mistaken. And it refers to a mistaken understanding of the sixteen aspects. Okay.

A mistaken understanding of the sixteen aspects will drag you down. Okay. Yeah.

Do I? Gokpa... Lam, rikpa, drupa, ngenjung.

Lam, path. Drupa, method. Method?

Sorry, rikpa, logic, or... drupa, method. And then ngenjung, meaning that which releases you.

Okay? Those are the four for the path. Got it?

That which releases you is number four. You okay? Okay.

Now, it says here, you are brought down by meditating on the sixteen aspects. After you take them to be real. Okay?

If you misunderstand the sixteen aspects, they will drag you down. Okay? But what does that mean?

You see, what does that really mean? That gets pretty subtle. You see?

That gets pretty subtle. I teach you the sixteen aspects. Let's say impermanence, okay?

I say to you, you will get old and die. Your body will fall apart. Okay?

If you don't believe me, live a little longer. Okay? You can do yoga, you can eat health food, you know, blah, blah, blah.

It starts to fall apart. Okay? It's frustrating.

But I ate my vitamin D's all those years. Yeah, well, you got cancer. Sorry, you know.

It falls apart. Your body is impermanent. Okay?

If you perceive that impermanence to be coming from its own side, it's going to bring you down. Okay? Okay?

If you misunderstand it when I say your body is falling apart, you will die. If you understand it, you will escape. If you understand its real nature, you will escape that death.

Okay? What are you talking about? The impermanence has a cause.

Okay? You have a debit card. You came into this life.

Your past life was ten times more generous than you are. And you're living off his work or her work. She collected all these nice karmic seeds.

You think you got straight A's in school? It wasn't you. Okay?

They were nice to other people. You're living off their work. You're squandering their work.

Okay? You're just using up your good karma, going surfing. I mean, well, surfing is necessary, but...

You're just living off of somebody else's work. You think you're healthy or you're strong or you're beautiful or you're smart. It ain't you, okay?

It never was you. It was the person in your last life who did all this work. They ejected you into this life with all that good karma, and you're wasting it.

And it will run out. And you'll get old. Okay?

You will get old. It's like one of the greatest sadnesses of life when young people are condescending to older people. Like, somehow they think they're not going to get there.

You know? Like, oh, look, she's just feeble. Or, look, she's got lots of wrinkles, you know?

While they're saying she's got lots of wrinkles, their wrinkles are starting. It's so funny. Anyway.

So, they misunderstand impermanence. Okay? Are you impermanent?

Yes. But do you know why? You see?

Do you appreciate why? You're not making new seeds. You're feeding off of your old seeds.

You're using up the debit card, and you're not recharging it. You're not volunteering for the homeless shelter. You see what I mean?

You are just thinking, where are you going to go to dinner? Okay? Really, we are.

And then we come out with a net zero for the day, or a negative for the day. We use up the card. And then we get old.

Okay? So, you can appreciate impermanence and not understand what to do about it. And that's the case of a lot of Buddhists, I think.

They will describe impermanence, but they won't give you a clear understanding of how to stop it. Okay? All right.

How are we doing on time? What time am I supposed to stop?

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Anybody needs to pee-pee, just walk and go pee-pee. I'm going to keep going. Anybody who's thirsty, keep hydrated, okay?

If you're new in the desert here, drink a lot, okay? These long few paragraphs are our response to the other guy's argument. Okay?

He said the Uttara Tantra proves that your idea is wrong, that you have to see emptiness to reach nirvana. Okay? Then he gave some quotations, and we proved that those quotations were not relevant.

Okay? They're just referring to a few people in certain situations. Okay?

Basically that. Okay? Basically that.

I'm going to skip to another part. We have half an hour, okay? And I'm going to take the liberty of skipping to one of my favorite parts in this book, okay?

So I studied this book for many, many years, and there's a certain part in the book which I think is very, very valuable, and it's coming up, and I don't want to wait six months to teach it to you, and we have half an hour left. I think it's one of the most important sections in all of Buddhist scripture, and I think it'd be nice to end on that note. So we'll skip this rather dry argument and go straight to there.

And you'll like it. It's about a couple pages down. Okay.

Say, put on your thinking caps and stick with this one, okay? It's extremely beautiful. It's extremely important, okay?

Ready? Say, gyulama, which is what? Uttaratantra.

Tsandel. Kigongba. Tartug.

Yinte. Here is the ultimate thought of the whole Uttaratantra. In a few words, he's going to give the essence of one of the greatest spiritual classics ever written.

Okay? All right? I'll translate it for you.

Based on the seeds for the two ways in which we grasp to a real self in things, to a real self, those two themselves arise. So you enter this life, you enter this life with the seeds of misunderstanding things because you misunderstood them in your past life. Okay?

You enter this life defective. Okay? You enter this life with seeds for misunderstanding your world.

Okay? Everybody. It's called bhaktyak, okay?

Say, bhaktyak. So, all people enter this life with those seeds. By the way, when I translated the Yoga Sutra, I used this section to explain avidya, smita, raga, dvesha, abhinivesha, the five kleshas in the beginning of the second chapter.

If you're interested, I imposed the disorder on the Yoga Sutra. Okay. Because I believe that's what it's talking about.

And it's very possible that the Yoga Sutra came from the mind-only school. Okay? The arguments are extremely similar.

If you're very familiar with the second and third centuries, you can read the Yoga Sutra. Okay? So anyway, delatene.

Due to that, due to those. Oh, by the way, excuse me. What are the two, what does it mean those two themselves?

Yeah. Okay? You are born with the seeds to misunderstand people and things.

Okay? You are born with the seeds to misunderstand people and things. You get upset at your partner.

Okay? And you get upset at the traffic. Really.

Two kinds of ignorance. Okay? You can't get upset at traffic if you understand that it's coming because you blocked someone from their promotion at work last week.

I'm not kidding. Okay? Got it?

Okay. But you're born with the habit to misunderstand traffic and irritating partners. Okay?

Of course, your partner is not irritating. I'm just talking about other people's partner. Due to those, we, due to those, we get thoughts which misunderstand things, which misunderstand the way in which some things appear to be attractive and others to be unattractive from their own side.

Okay? Due to what those? The two habits, the two tendencies.

We are born with seeds that make us misunderstand our partners and the traffic, things and people. Then due to those seeds, we get those two. Okay?

We start to misunderstand partner and traffic. So already there's two steps. You enter this life with the seeds, they open, and you misunderstand your partner and the traffic.

Okay? Then, based on that, you see it's a cause, he's giving you the wheel of life. Based on the seed, you start to misunderstand traffic and your partner.

Based on the misunderstanding of the traffic and the partner, some of the things about your partner seem attractive and some of the things about your partner seem unattractive from their own side. They are mean to me or they are nice to me because they decide to be. And I should convince them to always be nice.

But that's not who's deciding, they're coming from you. It's all coming from you. But due to the seeds of ignorance, which then flower into ignorance, you start to misunderstand how your partner acts towards you.

Okay? Got it so far? It's a chain reaction.

And due to that, okay, and due to those, right, we get desire, we start to feel the desire, we start to feel the desire not to lose the things which we find attractive and to escape from the... start to feel the desire and the... and a sort of...

I'm going to say liking. No, I'll just say... and...

and this... what do you call it? Dislike.

You could say repulsion or something. How about repulsion? What?

Too scholarly. Let's say liking, okay, and dislike, to escape from the things which we find unattractive. Now all of you know my pet peeve here, okay?

You're aware of my pet peeve here. What's my pet peeve here with regard to pizza? Is it wrong to like pizza?

Is that a sin in Buddhism? Okay, no. You should like pizza.

I like pizza. Maybe I'm getting one tonight. What do you think, Ningbo?

We'll drop the other people off. We'll tell them we're going to pray somewhere. And it's not wrong to like things, okay?

Please, okay? It's not wrong to enjoy yourself. Surf a nice wave.

It's a kind of intelligence. Okay? Go surfing and enjoy the water and the wave.

Enjoy. That's fine. You earned it.

You made the ocean. You made the surfboard. You made the nice wave.

You have every right to surf on it. Okay? And it's not wrong to dislike other things, okay?

I don't like mushrooms on pizza. They're slimy. They're old.

They're black. They're usually dried out. I mean, who would put them on a pizza?

It's not wrong to pick mushrooms off your pizza, which you like. Okay? It's not wrong to pick the mushrooms which you don't like off of the pizza which you do like.

Okay? That's just enlightened activity. Okay?

All right? What this is talking about is trying to avoid pleasant things which are not coming from you. Sorry.

Unpleasant things which are not coming from you. And trying to grab onto pleasant things which are not coming from you. Okay?

Is it wrong to enjoy pizza? No. Is it wrong to go surfing?

No. No. It's great.

Is it wrong to go surfing and fight another surfer for a nice wave that's coming? That's wrong. That's ignorant.

Okay? By refusing it to someone else, you will never have another one. Every time you refuse a wave to another surfer, you lose ten waves.

It's better to offer it to the other guy. Okay? Do your liking intelligently.

Okay? If you enjoy your partner, if you find your partner beautiful or intelligent or sensitive, then be more sensitive yourself and be more kind yourself and serve them more because then they'll be even more beautiful. You see what I mean?

And don't take from them. Give to them. You see what I mean?

It's not wrong to want a nice partner, a beautiful one, a good one, but keep giving to them so that you can keep them that way. Okay? Like that.

It's wrong to... Yeah, that's all. Understand where their beauty is coming from.

It's coming from your patience. In the case of physical beauty, it comes from patience. Okay?

If you want your partner to continue to be beautiful or handsome, then you must be patient. You must never get angry. Like that.

It's not wrong to want a partner to be beautiful if you keep them beautiful by understanding that you must be patient. Okay? All right.

Dey wang gi lay sak. Sak. Sak.

And because of that, we make lay. Karma. Okay?

I want the wave. Well, they say coming down. You say, I don't know, in San Diego in 1970, you would say coming down.

And that's like a polite way of saying, yeah, coming down means get off the wave. I'm coming down. And I'm coming down on you.

You know? And that's karma. That's collecting karma.

You find the wave attractive from its own side and you fight for it. And you push somebody else out of the wave, because I want it. You see what I mean?

And then you've made karma. All right? Now, let's go backwards.

In the monastery, right? Nyingpo Lungjung Lung Dong. They will practice this with you real fast.

They'll say, why did you take the wave? Why did you push the other guy out of the wave? Quick!

Because you found it attract... because you wanted it. Why did you want it?

You found it attractive. Why did you find it attractive? Because you had ignorance.

Where did the ignorance come from? You came into this life with the seed. See?

Going backwards. Let's run it forward again. It's like a video.

Okay? You came into this life with... seeds.

They developed into... ignorance. They saw the wave as...

attractive. Then they... wanted the wave at someone else's expense.

And then they... pushed him off the wave. Karma.

Let's run it backwards. Pushed him off the wave because... I wanted the wave because I found it...

attractive because I... misunderstood it because I... had the seeds from my last life to understand it.

Had the seeds from my last life to understand it. Then I started to... misunderstand it.

Then I found it... attractive. Then I...

wanted it. Then I pushed the other guy off the wave. You gotta be able to go like...

like this. Okay? Got it?

Alright. Alright. And then...

due to that... karma... we continue...

to spin... in the circle. Got it?

Okay? Got it? And that's the process.

How many steps we got. I came into this life with seeds... to misunderstand the wave.

Then I... started to misunderstand the wave. And then I...

found it beautiful from its own side. And then I... wanted it.

And then I... pushed the other guy off the wave. And then I...

created a karma... which planted a seed to misunderstand the next wave. And that's...

then I... it's a downward cycle. Then I start to go through downward cycle.

Yeah. Yeah. The big kid says what?

Yeah, okay. Let's talk about that. Okay?

So, you're at school. You're a child. And then...

a big kid comes over. A bully... comes over and demands your sandwich.

You know, it's, give me your sandwich or I'll punch you in the nose. You know. What's the proper action to take...

about the bully? Okay? And I grew up with four brothers and no sisters.

And no father. So, we had great fights. Every door in the house was broken.

Holes in it. So, four guys. Like four male dogs in a single room or something.

Anyway, I learned something about ethical choices. My big brother would hit me, you know. And then I would discuss in my head the ethical choices.

Should I hit him back? Or should I just... try to be nice to him?

So, you know, first time I hit him back. And then he... he hit me much harder.

But sometimes I hit him back and he ran away. Sometimes I tried to be nice to him and he hit me again. And sometimes I was nice to him and he stopped.

What I mean to say is, in a very simple example, that the normal choices we make don't work. We cannot predict the result of the normal choices we make. Hit back or don't hit back may lead to more hitting or stopping hitting.

About equal amounts, okay? Attacking Iraq after they blow up your building may stop the blowing up of your building or it may increase the blowing up of your building. Sending drones to kill people in Afghanistan may stop terrorism or it may increase it.

See, I mean, we don't know. Both are possible and you know that. You know that.

Making war can succeed and making war can fail. It's about 50-50. So, should we just sit there and do nothing?

You see what I mean? Should we just let the guy take our sandwich? We have to ask, why is this guy taking my sandwich?

In our tradition, in our belief, you have to ask, where is this guy coming from? Where is the guy coming from? Who created this guy?

Who made him? Who made the bully? I did.

In our belief, he's popping out of a seed in my own mind. He's coming out of a seed in my own mind. Who put the seed in my mind?

I did. Why? I pushed my little brother last week, okay?

Because there were two cookies on the table and I... I pushed him and I took the cookie, right? Then that...

pushing my little brother was a small act of violence that planted a seed in my mind. That seed started to grow. Then one week later or one month later, I go to school and there's this big guy and he tries to take my sandwich, okay?

If I told you, that that's where the big guy came from, what would be the right thing to do to the big guy? Huh? I don't know, what do you think?

You know, what would be the best thing to do to the big guy? If the truth is, he's coming from how you treated your brother last week. How do you stop the big guy?

Huh? Yeah, be nicer to your brother, okay? The correct answer to the question, should you fight or not fight, is both are wrong.

Got it? The correct answer to the question, should you fight the bully or not fight the bully, is that both choices are wrong. Why are they wrong?

Because they don't work. Okay? If you punched him and he always ran away, then you should punch him.

I agree. If you give him the sandwich peacefully and he always runs away, then I say you should give him the sandwich peacefully. The problem is, sometimes you give him the sandwich and he punches you anyway.

Sometimes you punch him and he punches you or he runs away. You see? They don't...

No, what I mean is the results are not predictable. It means you're not taking the right action. He was caused by how you behaved to your brother last week.

If you don't like the bully, you should change how you behave towards your brother. Okay? That's the answer.

What are you supposed to do though in the moment? Because that's only going to change it next week. What do you want me to do right now?

It doesn't matter. Okay? You're stuck.

It's too late to do the right thing. Frankly, I guess if you could try to be... In any case, whatever you do, you should love him, the bully.

Okay? You can punch him or you can hand him the sandwich. But in either case, you should love him while you're doing it.

And then it will help. Okay? Whether he'll punch you back or whether he'll leave you alone, is unpredictable.

Because it depends on forces which are already set in motion and you can't stop them. It's too late. That was emptiness number two.

You don't have control of the situation now. It's too late. Your karma is already in motion.

It's too late. There's no good answer. If you fight him, he might kill you.

If you give him the sandwich, he might kill you. Okay? It's too late.

Alright? Don't get frustrated. Don't get sad.

Don't freak out. Just concentrate on how you're going to treat your brother when you get home. Okay?

It's too late to do the right... It's too late to... You can't control what's going to happen.

Do your best, you know? But it doesn't matter what you do. It might work and it might not work.

You have to stop how you treat your brother. And you can't fix it till next week. This is called the mugger and the purse question.

Okay? The mugger and the purse question. Okay?

Let's run through the logic of it. Okay? And this happened to me in New York.

I was with a lama. One of my lamas. We saw a lady getting mugged.

Okay? A lady is getting mugged on the street. Someone is taking her purse away and hitting her.

Should I try to help her? Should I hit the mugger? See what I mean?

If I hit the mugger, will it protect her? Maybe. Okay?

Maybe. He might stop. And he might get really angry and pull out a knife and kill us both.

You see what I mean? You don't know what's going to happen. The answer in the scripture is you should try to stop him.

But as you try to stop him, you should treat him as if he were your own mother who suddenly went crazy when you got home from work. Okay? Would you pick up a steak knife and stab your mother if she came at you with a steak knife?

Or would you try to disarm her, even if it cost you some bad cuts? You see what I mean? If you had enough love for her, you would let her cut you a few times and try to restrain her, right?

And then call the police or something. You see, you wouldn't pick up another steak knife and go at her. You would try to do everything within your power to not hurt her.

Okay? So that would be the practical advice that a Lama would give about the mugging situation. Do what you can to prevent harm to the person who's doing the hurting.

But in any case, understand that whether you succeed in protecting the woman or not is not coming from you. It's coming from her. Did she protect life in the past?

You see? Does that mean you should stand there and do nothing? We say no.

We say you must attempt to help her, even if it involves some kind of extreme activity towards the person doing the mugging. But you should both eventually understand where the guy came from. He came because you forcefully took something from someone in the past.

If you don't want to see muggers in your life anymore, stop taking things from other people. Because that's where he came from, and that's the only way to stop a mugger. Okay?

In the immediate moment, try to restrain him. You see what I mean? But understand that it might fail.

So, the not taking other people's stuff always works. You always stop the mugger. Okay?

But the next time. But not till the next time. Okay?

Got it? That's the only thing that always works. We're actually going to have this question come up in the Lam Rim shortly, this week.

Lord Buddha was faced with a similar dilemma in a previous life. He was on a ship, and he became aware that there was a man on the ship who intended to kill many of the people on the ship. And then he was put in the position of what to do about this guy.

And I'm not going to tell you what happened. Okay? Alright?

Any other questions? We have like five minutes. Yes, please.

No, you too. But let's say it a little more carefully. The way you perceive yourself, your level of intelligence, the success you have in your life, the way you treat other people, these are flowing from your karmic seeds according to how you treated people in the past.

Okay? So, whether you're healthy or not depends on how you serve the sick. Whether you're intelligent or not comes from how you shared what you understand with others.

Have you tried to teach other people like that? So, even you are coming from your seeds. I think it's easier to say from your seeds than to say that you are coming from you because that gets a little weird.

Right? Let's say that. You are coming from what you did in the past.

Your health, your intelligence, your financial situation, they're all coming from how you treated other people in the past. Okay? Any other question?

Dang. Okay. Go ahead, John.

Yes, sir. I know I should know this, but free choice.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Is that free choice forced on you by another seed? It's a good question. He's asking the free will question, okay?

And we were in Europe recently and some guy said, we have no choice but to accept free will. Yeah. So, the bully is taking my sandwich.

I'm faced with several choices. Two of them are false choices. Should I hit him or should I cooperate with him?

These are false choices. Both of them may work and both of them may fail, so they are not good choices. The state of mind which presents those two choices to yourself is defective.

It's always a mistake. And that applies to, sorry, every decision you've made this year. Okay?

If they were normal decisions, should I do this or should I do that? Should I write to the New York Times lady's boss or, you know, should I just shut up and... You know what I mean?

All the decisions we make in our life are normally mistaken. Both choices are bad. Both courses of action are bad.

To fight is bad, not to fight is also bad. Why? They don't work all the time.

If it was the right choice, it would work for sure. Since it doesn't work for sure, it's not the right choice. Both choices are bad.

To fight back and to not fight back are both wrong choices. Okay? What's the correct choice?

Oh, I should have been nicer to my brother last week. And I'll definitely be nicer to him next week. Okay?

Then how the sandwich is going to play out, we can't say. Okay? The correct choice is to treat your brother nicer next week.

What John's question is, what's the karma that allows you to make that choice? Do you have free will to make those choices? Or are they imposed upon you?

If they're imposed upon you, then how the heck can you ever change? Okay? It's a great...

It's a very important question. Do I have a choice? Or will what I did in the past make me decide in a certain way, and then that will make me decide again in a certain way?

And the answer is, it's almost airtight. You're almost always stuck in a bad situation. You're almost incapable of free will.

Okay? 99.999% there's no free will. You are a victim of your past karma.

Okay? You will make the decision either to fight the guy or to give him the sandwich, and you will never understand that it was connected to how you treated your brother last week. Okay?

You will be stuck in making wrong decisions. In... infinitely.

Okay? Whatever decision you make now will be determined by the decision you made last time. Because the seed comes into the ignorance, comes into the appearance, comes into the wanting, comes into the karma, comes into the circling.

It's the six steps of Maitreya. I call it the six steps of Maitreya. Can you ever break out?

Is it possible that Lamrim scriptures which you are studying will say the odds of breaking out of the decision-making jail are equal to the odds of a blind turtle who swims the oceans of the world coming up every 500 years for a breath, sticking his head to a life preserver which fell off of the Titanic in 1912 and is still floating randomly around the ocean. Okay? The odds of being able to make a true free will decision are that bad.

Okay? But they exist. The odds exist.

What breaks the cycle? What allows you to make your first real decision? And the scriptures always say, your personal teacher, the blessing of your own teacher is the only way to break out of a free will cycle.

Got it? Sorry? Yeah, the teacher is also produced by your karma.

You don't have to bring that up. Yeah, the teacher is also produced by your karma. But they are produced by your karma in such a way that they have the power to break you out of a free will blockage.

Okay? Got it? You create a lama.

They're also coming from you. You create a lama who can give you free will. Okay?

It's very beautiful. Alright. Oh, let's stop there.

It's so sweet. Is that okay? Let's stop there.

I'm also tired and I gave you two minutes more than I was contracted to. Let's leave it at that. I think that's a very beautiful place to leave it.

So again I apologize. Tonight's talk, this is the most difficult subject that exists in the monastery. And I felt like I should pass it on.

You know what I mean? But it's going to take another twenty years or something. But that's okay.

I'm not in any big rush. I enjoy it. So we'll keep doing it.

Okay? Maybe we'll try to find a way to do more of it. But I'll repeat what I said this afternoon.

You cannot learn emptiness better than from this book. It's not possible. In the world you will never find...

Did you ever hear anyone talking about one percent of this today? It doesn't exist. It's not there.

People don't do it, you know? They don't understand. And they talk about emptiness and...

You know, after a few sessions of this and then you go and talk, here's some... You'll just be like, ha! What are you talking about?

You know what I mean? Like, what the hell are you talking about? You know?

You will quickly reach a state of... What do you call it? Frustration with every other explanation you hear.

If you study the real authentic scriptures for more than a week and you go to 90% of the lectures being given, you'll just laugh. You know, you'll say, what the heck are you... What are you talking about?

You know? So... You should pass it on.

Okay? The reason I'm giving it to you is my teacher gave it to me. Right?

My teacher spent many years to teach me this. And then I'm teaching it to you and now you have to pass it on. Okay?

It doesn't have to be you're explaining why the sutra was miscarved in the 16th century. You can pass it on at Starbucks or... What's it called?

Cafe House in Hamburg, right? And Shimbaku. Shimbaku in Shanghai.

What's Shimbaku? It's Starbucks in Chinese. Or wherever you live.

Juan Valdez. If you live in Colombia, right? So anyway, pass it on in your own way.

But pass it on, okay? Because now it's on you. I don't have time.

You know, you're younger. You have more years and you can teach many people. So teach them nicely and purely about what to do when their partner is irritating.

Because that's all that matters. It's not the philosophical arguments about emptiness. It's having a nice sweet relationship with your partner.

Or, you know, that's the bottom line. We're not studying it so we can talk about emptiness. We're studying it so we can have a happy life, right?

Cool? The best way to teach, therefore, is to become a happy person. Okay?

I always like it when people come up to you and say, they're like this and they say, you say, who are you? I'm the meditation teacher. You know?

I'm going to teach you meditation today. And you're like, in your mind you're saying, I don't know what kind of meditation they're doing, but I don't want to learn it. Okay?

The best advertisement for emptiness is a happy person. Because they're using it all day long. They don't have any fights with their partner because they fixed the partner a long time ago.

Right? Okay? So, be a happy, become a happy person by using emptiness.

Got it? Okay, good night. Have a nice...

Get some sleep, okay? It's a long... Oh, Venerable Phil, give us one of those beautiful songs.

Okay, good night.