Вступление на срединный путь (текущий курс, Аризона), занятие 108

[Speaker 1]
So, this is a book about emptiness that comes from my monastery. So, in Tibet, each monastery has its own set of textbooks. Do you guys want to come over here somewhere?

Second row is empty. Then I don't have to crook my neck at you. And if you fall asleep, I can throw things.

Second row. There's a whole row, you can have it to yourself. So, each monastery has its own...

Each of the great Gelugpa monasteries, which is the lineage of the Dalai Lama, has its own textbook series. And they were usually written about 500 years ago. So, there's a very, very great book on emptiness called Gom Rabsel.

Say Gomba? Rabsel. It was written by the teacher of the first Dalai Lama, whose name was Jetsun Kappa, who was born in 1357 and died in 1419.

Is it written there somewhere? And so, he's the founder of our lineage, Jetsun Kappa. And he wrote this extraordinary book on emptiness.

It's probably... I think it's the greatest book ever written on emptiness. And it's about...

It's about 800 pages in the Tibetan version. So, I was taught that book in Serra for 10 years by Geshe Thubten Rinchen privately. I asked him if he would teach it to me and my classmates in the Geshe program.

And they all dropped out. And I was the only one who stayed. But he kept going.

And we finished. It took 10 years. And the tapes are...

They exist. The audio tapes exist. I recorded it all.

It's all in Tibetan. And I think the tapes are rotting. But if we could find them, I think it'd be really important to preserve his explanation.

So, I don't know. Jigme has to look for those, okay? We got to find them.

There's like a couple hundred tapes or something. Audio tapes. But anyway, we should find them.

Because they're rotting somewhere. I don't know where. So anyway, they were at God's door.

And some of them made it to Diamond Mountain. And after that, they disappeared, okay? Anyway, I wanted to teach that book.

I wanted to teach all that book. And I wanted to translate the whole thing for future generations. And then I started to teach it in Diamond Mountain, I think 10 years...

exactly 9 years ago. And then I stopped, because I said, well, I should... There's a textbook written on that book.

So that book is explained by a textbook from my monastery, which is very, very beautiful and very difficult. So I thought, nobody will ever be able to read the textbook. So let me teach that for a year or two.

And then I'll go to the main book, you know. But the textbook has taken 9 years. And we are averaging 4 pages per year.

So I don't know what to do. We're thinking of renting a little office up in Camp Verde, because the whole place is defunct. Office space there is like 50 cents a month, because nobody wants it.

And we're thinking of installing a video setup and doing yoga classes online. And also, I thought we could do this text online. Whenever I have a couple hours, I could just drive over there and film it.

So I have a permanent setup there for video. And just when I have time, I drive over there and do a class. So I think we're going to try to do that to speed things up and put it online.

And some at the Glendale Center like that also. Nick really wants to do that. So I think it'd be worth it to just...

I don't mind to fundraise for a good video setup, like the lighting and the cameras and the editing equipment, like a nice couple of Apple machines with big suntan monitors, you know. So anyway, we'll talk about that. So today's class is from that textbook.

We're in the middle of the textbook. It's a very, very deep explanation of emptiness. It's probably the best in the world.

And it's extremely difficult to read. I don't think there's any foreigner who could read it. So I thought if you guys could...

If I could teach it to you, then you could spread it to other people. So what I thought would be nice is if we translate it as we go, so you can see the process of translation, how it works. So we're like on 35 pages into the text after nine years.

And... Yeah. Go for it.

There's a shadow right across your face. Perfect. Thank you.

That's okay. We're halfway through. This particular part of the text is a discussion about what can emptiness do for you.

Like if you learn emptiness, what good is it? What can you use it for, right? And I think that's a very, very important question in general.

Like we teach... We just got back from teaching in China, right? For about a month.

In Singapore and Malaysia, but all Chinese people. And... You know, they grew up hearing about emptiness.

空性, they call 空性 in China. And they grew up hearing the word, but they don't know what it means. And they don't know how to...

And especially they don't know how to use it in their own life, in their personal life, right? So for me, our task is to learn... Each one of us should learn emptiness well.

And then we could go teach it to other people. But in the context of using it for your personal life, okay? How do you use emptiness in your personal life, okay?

So I think you need to use spiritual ideas in your personal life. They shouldn't be just some theory, right? We should find ways to use them in your personal life.

That's what they were meant for. The other extreme is to apply what you know to your personal life and not know much. You know what I mean?

To have no depth in your knowledge of the ancient sources. So my ideal is that you have depth, you've been through the ancient sources. And then on the other side of the equation, you know how to turn people onto it in their real life, with their husband or their wife or their job or their kids.

You know, how to use a 16th century text at home with your kids, to make your life smoother and more successful. To me, that's the ideal. You go to...

what do you call? My teacher used to say, go to the dollar store with a hundred dollars. Okay?

Like have a hundred dollars in your pocket when you go to the dollar store. Because you're not going to spend more than a dollar or two, but have a hundred dollars just in case. And I think when you teach people, you should have about two and a half millennia of wisdom in your head.

And then you just tell them a few ideas. You see what I mean? But you should have that depth in your mind.

And then you should try to teach it to normal people. And that's what we just got back from Beijing. We gave a talk to a large corporation in Beijing.

We were invited to just speak to their employees. You know, and for an American to go to a Chinese corporation and speak to a couple hundred employees about an idea that came from their country? You know, it's kind of cool.

And you can help people. You can really help people. So my dream is that you keep going deeper and deeper into the ancient sources, on one hand.

And then on the other hand, you struggle with how do you bring that to normal people without even mentioning Buddhism. We also recently taught in Jakarta to the employees of the body shop in Jakarta. Chain, it's a chain.

And the owner and all of the employees are Muslim. And then in the evening, we gave a talk on Chinese TV in Jakarta. So my dream is that you learn deep wisdom, but then you can apply it in a secular way.

Strip away the Buddhism from it and just turn people on to the ideas, no matter what their background is, right? So that's my idea. We were invited to the Communist Party function in China to give a talk.

And, you know, this is like weird. But you can only do it if you struggle with how to take that ancient wisdom and make it something relevant in modern people, even if they're Communist Party members in Beijing. You see what I mean?

So my dream is that. My dream for you guys is that. So we're going to take off on this book.

This book is based on a book that was written, I don't know, around the... I guess it was around the 7th century, okay? 650 AD, by a master in India called Chandrakirti, okay?

And he wrote a book about emptiness. And that book has been the basis of all presentations on emptiness in Tibet, of all sects, of all the traditions of Tibet. They used Chandrakirti's book called what?

Madhyamaka Avatara, which is Entering the Middle Way, okay? So he wrote that book called Entering the Middle Way. Then we are in the middle of an explanation of that book, okay?

That's particular to my monastery, all right? Sarame. So this is from the textbook from Sarame.

That textbook is written in didactic. It's written in Socratic dialogue. It's normally two people having an argument, okay?

And by observing the argument we learn something, all right? So the whole style of the book, which is very difficult to translate and to read, is an argument between two very sophisticated philosophers about the questions of emptiness, all right? We've been on a certain subject.

What's that subject? An issue came up of what the heck do you use emptiness for, all right? And I can give you a quick practical example, all right?

So there's a person in your life who's critical of you, okay? Just say there's a person in your life, I know most of you don't have such a person, but in case you ever did, if there was someone who were criticizing you or complaining about you, then how do you use emptiness? What role does emptiness have in dealing with criticism?

I'm just taking the example that we had last night, okay? How would emptiness help you if your partner were criticizing you, say at home, okay? Then how would you use emptiness to...

Because the ancient assertion is that you cannot reach nirvana without seeing emptiness directly, okay? That is the big argument here. What's the use of emptiness?

If you can see it directly, then you can reach nirvana. What's the definition of nirvana? Say the last part again.

[Speaker 2]
Due to seeing the fortunes.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, okay. In Tibetan, they're saying? Malupar?

Tangok. Tangok means strangling somebody with a rope. Tangok means seeing emptiness.

Okay. Yeah, just kidding. That's pretty good.

And that's true. So the definition of nirvana is basically to end your negative emotions forever. So a person could achieve nirvana this afternoon in this room and they wouldn't grow a big belly and long ears and a bump on their head, okay?

I mean, they would just look happy all the time, okay? And so you don't change physically. You change inside.

And it's impossible... If a person has reached nirvana, it's impossible to upset them. Probably it would be fun to try.

You know, like you could tie them to a chair and say insulting things to them. See if anything happened, you know, or what do they look like. And it actually happened right in the Diamond Cutter Sutra.

They described the king of Kalinka who cut off the fingers of this sage. But anyway, that's another story. So there's a...

How would emptiness help you not get angry at your partner if they were being critical of you? Okay? Then you could do what I call the pointing thing.

Hold up your finger, okay? Point to something in this room that's not coming from what you did in the last few months to somebody else. Point to anything in this room which is not coming from your mind.

Right? Is this coming from your mind? Yeah, we talked about it last night.

The explanation in terms of karma is that you were generous with your possessions in your life and that created seeds in your mind. And when I hold up this piece of plastic, you see it as a pen. Because maybe you gave away a pen to someone and that put a seed in your mind, okay?

Now point to something in this room that's not that way. And everybody is supposed to go like this. Okay?

Like there is no such thing. The people around you, me, this book, this teaching, the room, your feet, your ears, they're all coming from you. It's all coming from you.

According to how you treated people in the past, alright? That absence of there being nothing in the room that you could point to that's not coming from you is called emptiness. That's the only meaning of emptiness, okay?

That's the only meaning of emptiness. There's nothing in this room that you can point to that's not coming from how nicely you treated others in the past. That's all.

There's nothing in this room that's not coming from that. Got it? Now, how could that be used with a critical partner?

Then the partner is coming from me. And the one who can fix the partner is me. And do I do it from talking to them or do I do it from ignoring them?

It's a trick question, right? It's a trick question. I fix the problem by being less critical to other people in my life, like my workers or my children or...

Okay? I fix my husband and his criticism not by discussing it with him because that doesn't work all the time and not by being bitter and silent with him because that doesn't work all the time either. Stop using things that don't work all the time.

Just do something which works all the time. What works all the time on a husband who's critical of you? You stop being critical of others and then he will miraculously change because he's coming from you.

Got it? That's how emptiness applies to a critical husband. So, it's very important to learn about emptiness in detail, all right?

So, how did... So, we... called Rang...

say Rang? Luke. Rang Luke.

Rang Luke means the good guys in a Tibetan Buddhist ancient argument. The good guys, our side. Rang Luke means our side.

Our side made a proposal. You need to see emptiness directly to remove all negative emotions from your mind forever, which is the definition of Nirvana, okay? To never get angry again, to never be jealous again, would require that you see that there's nothing that's not coming from you, okay?

That's what we say. That's Rang Luke. That's our own position.

Now these other guys come and they criticize us for our position, which is how you learn in a Buddhist monastery. You debate. You...

You trash it out in the debate ground, right? With this... It almost looks like Wushu, like...

martial arts, right? So, you... You trash it out.

You ask questions and you suck Socrates' system. So, this is how you do it in Tibetan monastery. So, we are in the middle of such an argument.

We proposed that you have to see emptiness directly to remove anger, jealousy, desire, etc. from the human soul. There is no other way.

You must recognize that the things you are angry at, or jealous of, or which you desire, are all coming from you. And if you want to fix it, you can just fix yourself. We proposed that.

Then they said, you're wrong. Then we said, why do you say that? And they say, well, there's two ancient books which prove you're wrong.

Three. One is Master Chandrakirti himself, who's the guy we're writing about. And then we talked about that, and Chandrakirti was clear that he also believed that you have to see emptiness to remove your negative emotions.

We proved that he said that himself. And then they came back with, oh yeah, but how about Maitreya? Meaning, who's Maitreya?

It's the next Buddha in this world, okay? We'll be the next Buddha. Number four.

There will be a thousand. Gautama Shakyamuni was number three in India. Maitreya is next, okay?

The next Buddha in this world is named Maitreya. But Maitreya has already been sending epistles to earth through... Arya Sangha.

This guy named Asanga, who lived 17... 16 and a half centuries ago, okay? He supposedly had contact with Maitreya.

And that story is very beautiful, but we won't tell it. But he wrote a series of books under Maitreya's guidance. One of them is called the Abhisamaya Alankara, or the Ornament of Realizations, okay?

Which is mainly lower middle way school. By the way, I'm going to talk a lot about technical stuff here because this is my only chance in the whole year that I get to do it. If you don't like it, you can leave.

I'm not dumbing this class down because it would take 40 or 50 years more if I didn't. And then tonight I'll give a more general class and you're welcome to come to that. But this class, it assumes that you have some background.

This is like senior physics class, okay? So I'm not going to explain everything six times. Anyway, Asanga wrote a book that was dictated by Maitreya called the Ornament of Realizations.

The other guy in this argument tried to prove that that book said that people could remove their negative emotions without seeing emptiness directly. It's possible without seeing emptiness directly. And then we proved that that's not what Asanga said, or what Maitreya said.

We proved that that was wrong. That was Maitreya and Asanga writing from the point of view of the lower Madhyamika, the lower middle way. But they also teamed up on other books which presented the ideas of another school which is called the...

There's not a lot, there's only four choices. Huh? Yeah, the book is the Uttaratantra, but whose school is it?

Which school does it describe? Is it middle way? It's mind only, okay?

So there was a lower school called the mind only. In ancient India, there was a lower school called the mind only school, okay? And...

So Master Chandrakirti is sort of standing for the higher middle way which is called Prasangika or consequent school. Abhisamahankara is more or less the lower middle way school which is Svatantrika, which is not tantra, okay? Just the name is...

It means a string or a line, okay? So, lower middle way school. And now we're into the mind only school.

So they have covered all of the schools belonging to the Mahayana. Okay? These are all the schools that are Mahayana.

Okay? There are two lower track schools, Abhidharma and Sautrantika, logic schools, which are all that reached Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, okay? Parts of Vietnam.

This... The lower two schools, which are very basic schools, okay? That's all that reached the southern Asian countries.

Then the higher two schools reached China, Tibet, Japan, Mongolia, parts of Vietnam, okay? So, we've covered two of the three schools of the greater way of Mahayana. We covered the highest school, which is Prasangika.

We covered the lower half of the highest school, which is Svatantrika. Now we're in the middle of the mind only school, okay? And the imaginary opponent is saying, your idea contradicts the mind only school.

As taught by who? Maitreya, the coming Buddha. And as communicated by Asanga, Arya Asanga, okay?

Your idea contradicts the Uttaratantra, which is not a tantra, it's just called tantra. It has the word tantra in it, like Essex has the word sex in it, but it doesn't have anything to do with... Got it?

Okay? I'm just making it clear. Uttaratantra is a philosophical word, and tantra means a line.

It means a line of thinking, okay? So, we're in the middle of an argument that the mind only school doesn't accept the idea that you have to see emptiness to get rid of your negativities. Got it?

Are we okay? Now we're ready to start the class. This is why it's taking so long.

Okay. So, somebody has pulled out a quotation from the mind only school's Uttaratantra, written by... spoken by Maitreya to Asanga, written down by Asanga, in which it seems to say that certain people cannot see emptiness.

And they're going to give four examples, okay? These are called the four kinds of people who have trouble seeing emptiness according to the mind only school, according to the Uttaratantra. One is Sosokyewo.

Sosokyewo just means in general any person who hasn't seen emptiness directly. It's called a so-so person. Okay?

So-so means... In Tibetan also it means like a normal joe, a normal joe, okay? They don't see emptiness.

Sosokyewo. Number one. Number two, Nyen-tse or Shravaka, meaning listeners who are Hinayana practitioners, lower school practitioners, they have trouble seeing emptiness.

There's been a quotation that indicates that they have trouble to see emptiness. Then they said self-made Buddhists also have trouble seeing emptiness. And then they say...

they go more radical. They say, and Bodhisattvas on the Mahayana tribe, the higher tribe, Bodhisattvas who are... who are just starting out have trouble seeing emptiness.

Okay? So four people have been identified as having trouble to see emptiness. Okay?

These are obviously people who never studied emptiness. Number one. Number two, the lower practitioners called listeners.

Number three, the lower practitioners called self-made Buddhists who are not Buddhists and are not self-made. And then number four, even Bodhisattvas, if they are just baby Bodhisattvas, these people have trouble to see emptiness. So, therefore they don't see emptiness.

That's their argument. Okay? That's their...

Got it? Okay, here we go. Here's our answer.

If it... If it were not that way... Suppose it were not that way.

Are you saying that if a person, a Bodhisattva who had just entered the way, that if a person was just a or else a normal person, that it must be the case either... And it must be the case that they have not realized emptiness. Oops.

I miss having Bets here. She always corrected my... Okay.

deitamayena thevala sardu shukpe jangsamdang sosokye wakano yena tongnyi maddobe khyatha Suppose it were not that way. Are you saying that if a person were either a Bodhisattva who had just entered the way or else a normal person. Normal person meaning someone who hasn't seen emptiness directly.

That's a code word for them. Then it must be the case that they have not realized emptiness. So I'll ask you, is it the case that a Bodhisattva who has just entered the way, the first of the five paths, or a person who's never even thought about emptiness or never seen it, is it the case, is it always the case that they have not realized emptiness?

Are there exceptions? In Tibetan they're called chöchen. Can you give me a chöchen of someone who breaks this rule?

Is there a Bodhisattva who just entered the first of the five paths who has realized emptiness? Or is there a person who hasn't seen emptiness directly who has realized emptiness? Is there such a thing possible?

Who's talking here? We are. Rangguka is talking.

Are you telling me that it's always the case that a Bodhisattva who's just starting out has not realized emptiness? And by the way, starting out means just reached the first of the five paths and has not been on a lower path, by definition. Has never been on a lower path.

They have never been on a hinayana path. They have just entered the mayana path. Is it possible for them to have realized emptiness?

Huh? Huh? That is...

That's what makes you a Bodhisattva. Entering the first of the five paths on the mayana track is what makes you a Bodhisattva.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
By the way, what marks the first of the five paths? The five paths are five steps in the spiritual evolution of every human being. They must enter these...

They must go through these five levels of realization in their life in spiritual evolution. All people, regardless of what religion they are, go through five stages of spiritual evolution. The first one is...

What? What... What gets you on to the first one?

You have a... You have a disaster in your life. You have to have a disaster in your life.

The people who study with me over the last 25, 30 years who are the most serious have had some kind of terrible tragedy in their life. And that's how you get on the first of the five paths. You have to have had a tragedy in your life.

And that's how you start to get spiritual. If you... If you haven't had a big tragedy in your life, then maybe you wouldn't be interested.

Right? Okay? So, I ask you again.

Consider a person who has entered the first of the five paths on a Mahayana track. Right? Who has not been on a lower track.

Could they have realized emptiness before? Some are struggling. Yeah.

No. You can say a thousand past lives. It doesn't matter.

For the first time in all of their lives, they have entered the first of the five paths. Is it possible to... Is it impossible that even one of them has realized emptiness?

Huh? This is us talking. Which means that we believe the opposite.

See, we're being sarcastic. This ended in Tao, right? This ended in Tao.

Are you telling me that a bodhisattva who just entered the path, having never been on a lower path, cannot have realized emptiness? Can they have realized emptiness? They can have realized emptiness?

Huh? Cannot have, right? Because realizing emptiness is what puts you on the third path.

Am I right? Okay, so... Huh?

Oh, no, you stay there. You just don't remember. Okay?

But there's a problem here. Something... You should have caught something here.

There's an adverb missing. Directly, right? Do you notice?

He never said directly. Can you realize emptiness sitting in this class with me talking about a critical husband? You should have, or you wouldn't have understand what I said, that he's coming from you.

Okay? So, you had a little emptiness realization the moment you understood that he wasn't coming from himself, and he didn't decide to criticize you. You forced him.

He's not under his own control. You forced him to be critical. Okay?

So, is there an emptiness of a self... What do you call it? Self...

Self-propelled critical husband. Is there such a thing? Is there such a thing as a self-propelled critical husband?

There's no such thing. Alright? Which, by the way, implies that every time you've ever gotten upset at a partner in your whole life, you were upset at something which was not even there.

Okay? That's the... That's what it comes down to.

If you understand emptiness, then the person that you were upset at when someone criticizes you was never there. Because you're assuming they're self-propelled. They wrote the article about me.

Okay? So, I should dislike them. Okay?

Because they decided to write it and they could have written something else which would have been true, you know? But that assumes that they're self-propelled and they're not. I created them by being critical to other people...

by being unfairly critical to others in my past. I created this newspaper writer. So, can I be angry at them?

No, I should write... I should write an outraged letter to... Michael Roach.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
But I didn't have time.

[Speaker 2]
Vance wants me to tell you you put an H in word.

[Speaker 1]
Either... What was that? Wait.

Are you saying that... That a person were... Yeah, I...

Oh, you're right. I'm sorry. You're right.

Okay, good. Alright. Am I still got something wrong?

Oh, right. You're right. Because...

Because, first of all, it is the case that... the words... that the reference to listeners and self-made Buddhas and...

are... are meant to indicate that they cannot have realized emptiness. And...

And, secondly, there is the continued reference to normal people and bodhisattvas who have just entered... Did I say just entered before? This is a tough...

Say, sardu. What's sardu in Tibetan? Huh?

What's a sardu? What's losar in Tibetan? New years.

So, sardu means new, okay? New or fresh. Now, I need an English adverb that I can use instead of just that has the sense of they have never done it before.

How about for... Rinpoche used to say newly, but it doesn't do it. You could say for the first time, right?

I'm gonna stick with just, okay? Because just can also be a word of exclusion, meaning they haven't been on lower path before. They have just been on the higher path, okay?

I'm gonna use it. I'm gonna keep it, okay? Hmm...

Freshly? Hmm? Because it also has to be exclusive, meaning they haven't done it in any other path.

Only is pretty good. Only just? I like only just, let's do that.

It could be, by the way, a thousand years ago, so recently is a little tricky. I'm gonna say only just, I like that, okay. So let's come down here.

And boys have only just entered. Now catch this. What is he saying in this very obscure sentence?

Okay, here. The reference in a sutra apparently, but also in the Uttara Tantra is to four people, people who have never seen emptiness before, bodhisattvas who have only just entered the way, meaning which way? Mahayana way.

He just says thekpa, if you notice, he says, thekpa la sardu sukha, but he means thekchen la sardu sukha, sukha, who have just entered the great way. So the reference is to four people, okay? Who are?

People who never saw emptiness, people who have only just entered the Mahayana, bodhisattvas, and then the two lower track guys, which are? Listeners and self-made Buddhas, okay? All four are said to have problems seeing emptiness, realizing emptiness.

All four, okay? He's picked out two of them and he's picking on them. He's picking on two of them.

He needs to criticize two of these four guys to prove his point. Who are the two? The listeners and the self-made Buddhas.

Why? Because his idea is they've reached nirvana but have never seen emptiness directly. That's what he's struggling to prove.

He's trying to prove that you can reach nirvana without seeing emptiness directly. It's not seeing emptiness directly which would enable you never to be upset at a critical husband again. He wants to prove that.

That's been his deal all along. If they can see emptiness directly, how can they still be lower way? Okay?

What's the answer to that? They saw emptiness directly, but they don't have bodhicitta. What's bodhicitta?

If I can stop my husband from criticizing me, by using this new method of not criticizing my children, rather than arguing with him or being silent with him, then other people will copy me and I will start a boyfriend revolution. Got it? What we talked about this morning.

That's bodhicitta. It's a desire that you become a living example for thousands of other people. And they start copying you.

Look, he made a million dollars. How? He gave money away.

Wisely. You know? And then, if that becomes...

if that becomes a cool thing to do, the world would have peace. You see? It's very interesting.

So, if that's in the back of your mind while you're giving away the money, then that becomes bodhisattva activity. Okay? I can change the whole world.

I can change the way the world does business. Okay? It's very profound.

That's bodhisattva mind. That's bodhicitta. So...

So, we're saying... Are you saying that those four guys have never seen emptiness? And he has to say, Yes.

Because I need that two of them haven't seen emptiness to prove my point. Got it? That's what this paragraph is all about.

Why did you isolate two of them? Okay? If the quotation is correct about...

Is the quotation correct? He'll say, Yes. These four people have trouble to see emptiness.

Got it? So, we'll say, Oh, because then he can pick on the lower two guys. Then he can pick on them and say, They never see emptiness because these four never see emptiness.

Got it? Are you saying that... Are you saying that the bodhisattva who just got on the path cannot have realized emptiness?

He has to say, Yes, I'm saying that. Why does he have to say that? Because he wants to prove that it's true about the two lower track guys.

So, he has to buy all four have the same problem. Got it? If we can disprove that the bodhisattva cannot have seen emptiness, right?

Realized emptiness. Notice I didn't say seen. Okay?

If we can disprove that the bodhisattva could not have realized emptiness, then his argument is finished. If one of the four guys... If the quotation is wrong about one of the four guys, then the quotation is wrong.

Okay? Got it? It's difficult.

Okay. Okay. And if you agree, then let's consider the two following types of people.

First, a bodhis... Sorry. A bodhisattva...

We're not going to get even two pages done today. First, a bodhisattva who is jorlamba. Jorlamba.

Jor. Not tong. Huh?

Path of preparation. We only got five, so you can keep going. No.

Jor means preparation. Okay? Let's consider a bodhisattva who is on the path of preparation.

Right? That's the second path. The first path or the first stage of any human being's spiritual evolution is to have a...

disaster or tragedy in their life. How do you get to the second stage of spiritual evolution? You start to understand the pen thing intellectually, but not directly.

Some guy stands up there and the 48th time he talks about the pen, you're like, oh, I get it. It's not really anything. Put the thing here on the lectern, kick out all the dogs and people, then it's just nothing yet.

You could call it nothing yet. That's shunyata, that's emptiness. Nothing yet.

And then a dog walks in, it becomes a... chew toy. A human walks in, it becomes a pen.

Both of them sitting in the room at the same time, you have two realities going on at the same time, as physicists are just discovering. There are two realities happening in the same room at the same time, and with the same object. One person, one living being sees a pen, one living being sees a chew toy, they're both correct.

There are two valid realities happening in the room at the same time. Okay? So on the path of preparation you start to understand that stuff.

Okay? You can't get to the second path unless someone explains the pen to you, or some similar object. Okay?

It's not possible. Which means that 6... 5,999,995,000 people in the world will never reach the second stage of spiritual evolution.

Okay? Not possible. Okay?

Anyway, take a bodhisattva who's on the path of preparation and who has not previously traveled a lower... any of the lower paths. And secondly, a bodhisattva who possesses...

How do you call... In Tibetan you say sharp, meaning higher intellect, or what would we say? Like there are lower intellect bodhisattvas and they're called duller and sharper in Tibetan.

But is there an English word? A bodhisattva who possesses... superior.

What? Keen, I like that. Yeah, okay, I like it.

A keen spiritual intellect on the path of accumulation who possesses a keen spiritual intellect and... and is... Ngepa means they've always been Mahayana and they always will be Mahayana.

Ngepa means certain. But is there a way to say that? They are something in the greater way in that family or that type of people.

He uses the word type of person. It means certain... They are never anything else.

Like you could say, they've always been Mahayana and they always be Mahayana and they were never anything else. It's like fixed. But I'm looking for a different word.

Certain. And is certain... I don't know.

From the... He uses the word from the very beginning. Beginning.

Fixed or certain to be or definitely or always or... Hmm? Eternally.

Eternally is a tricky word. Because in Buddhism it's really eternally. Secondly, a bodhisattva on the path of accumulation...

And it's from the very beginning. You could say... I'm gonna say fixed, okay?

Fixed as belonging to the family... To the greater way type. And who has only just...

And who has... Now it's just recently. That's a different word, matakpa.

And who has just recently entered the path of accumulation on the greater way. Okay? We're choosing two guys.

What's chöchen? Chöchen means we're giving a counterexample. Okay?

He made a statement. What was his statement? It's impossible that a bodhisattva who has only just entered the way has realized emptiness.

He said that. Okay? Now we're gonna take...

We're gonna give him a counterexample. And in fact we're gonna give him two counterexamples. Counterexamples are meant to blow up a statement by your opponent.

Okay? All fruits are red. Oh, so I guess oranges are...

Oranges are red. Okay? Like that.

So we don't say, you're stupid, or you don't know what you're talking about. We just say, Oh, well I guess oranges are red then. Like that.

It's a counterexample. And it blows up his statement. His statement was what?

Anybody wanna take a shot? It's impossible that a bodhisattva who has only just entered the way has... Don't say seen.

Has realized emptiness. He said that. Then we come back with two oranges.

Okay? We come back with two oranges. Number one.

A bodhisattva who's on the second path, right? Did he say Mahayana? I don't think so.

Yeah, he didn't say that, but it's understood. First, a bodhisattva who's just reached the second level of spiritual evolution. Okay?

Which means he understands, he or she understands emptiness intellectually. And you get it in the Bible too. I mean, Jesus is constantly talking about how things are coming from how you treat others.

You reap what you sow. He just didn't have a million pages in which to explain it. The Buddhist canon is about a million pages.

Which Jigme is cataloging right now. So anyway, a bodhisattva who understands the pen thing. Got it?

And who was never on a lower track. That's our first example. And our second example is even a bodhisattva who's lower than that.

But he has two qualities about him. What are they? He has a keen intellect.

Keen spiritual intellect. And he's always been and he always will be concerned with the benefit of others. He's fixed in a Mahayana mode.

And he always has been. And he always will be. He'll never be lower than that.

We're talking a special bodhisattva who just reached the first path. Seeing emptiness or understanding anything about emptiness is never brought up as a requirement for the first path. You just have to have a tragedy.

If you want to enter the bodhisattva first path, you have to have a tragedy and want to help other people out of it also. That's all the difference. You're concerned about everybody's tragedies if you're on a bodhisattva track.

If you're on a lower track, you still reached the first path, but you're just concerned about your own tragedy. Okay, got it? Is he concerned about everybody's tragedy?

Yes. Is he a normal bodhisattva? No.

He's sharper. He's one of the top 10 percentile of bodhisattvas in his or her spiritual knowledge, right? And he's always been bodhisattva mentality.

Everything they did, they want to do like Spider-Man. You can't imagine Spider-Man sitting in a room with Aunt May and eating pie. He's got to go out and fly around and beat up criminals and stuff.

He's not going to sit in the room. So, this is the guys... We're talking about those kind of bodhisattvas.

What am I about to say about those two guys? They must have realized emptiness. Okay?

I'm about to say, everybody knows they realized emptiness even before they got the pen explanation from a teacher. Okay? That's pretty profound.

And then that has a big implication for our spiritual development. People can have insights into where stuff is really coming from without getting a formal teaching on emptiness. That's the conclusion of this section of the book.

You can encounter in your life special people who never had any formal spiritual training, who have deep insights into the pen thing already, like Stephen Hawking or God, maybe. All right? I'm going to write a book called A Better History of Time.

Uh... By the way, we didn't do this last part, dare tell, dare chant. Uh...

This is a dare tell. Are you claiming the same thing about them because they do apply? What's the claim?

They cannot have realized emptiness because they apply to what? They apply to your description of being one of those four types of people. They have just entered the way, the Mahayana.

They are bodhisattvas who have just entered the Mahayana. According to you, they should have had trouble seeing emptiness, realizing emptiness. Okay?

Got it?

[Speaker 2]
You mean someone on the second path, they have still just entered?

[Speaker 1]
Uh, well... You... Well, yeah.

We're bringing that as a counterexample. Okay? But the second counterexample would have been enough and more relevant because he's talking about fresh people who only just...

Okay? But I guess only just could apply to second path in some cases, right? Because they do apply.

If you agree, if you agree to that, then you are... What? If you agree that these two guys haven't realized emptiness, you are wrong.

Okay? If you agree to that, you are wrong. You are wrong.

Why? Because this, the first of them, has attained, has already attained bhakto, vipasyana, vipassana. Vipasyana.

The first of them has attained vipasyana. What is vipasyana? It's a kind of understanding of emptiness.

Okay? And it's always combined with samatha. Samatha is a high state of meditation where the mind is totally calm, extremely difficult to reach.

It's perfect meditation. Call it perfect meditation. If you are looking upon emptiness, the object of emptiness with perfect meditation, that's called vipasyana.

And it's not sitting there and watching your breath, vipassana. Okay? But that's another story.

So he's claiming, we're claiming, the first of them has already attained special insight. We got special insight. With which they don't need talk.

They don't realize emptiness. Okay? That's an interesting claim.

Okay? We are claiming that a bodhisattva on the second path has already not only realized emptiness, but with vipasyana, with perfect meditation. Okay?

In a state of perfect meditation, they have already realized emptiness, but not seen it directly, or else they would have popped up to third path. Okay? Remember that.

If you see emptiness directly, you're on the third path. It doesn't matter what else is going on. Okay?

And it also doesn't matter if you have love or not. Okay? You can be a physicist and reach the third path.

Okay? On the lower track. Not on a higher track.

The first of them has already attained special insight with which they realize emptiness.

[Speaker 2]
Which...

[Speaker 1]
Probably dependent origination first, and therefore emptiness. Okay? They have a...

Meaning, they have a deep insight into how their critical husband is coming from them. That's dependent origination. And then, right after that, they understand that he could not be coming from himself, which is emptiness.

Okay? And they usually come together. And it is true that the dependent origination comes first.

He's coming from seeds I planted by yelling at the children. He's attacking me because I yelled at the kids last week in a much smaller way because the seed is always smaller than the tree. And now this week, he's criticizing me for an hour because I slipped and yelled at the kids for 10 seconds last week.

Okay? Because they double every 24 hours, right? The seeds double.

And the second of them... Oh! I'm sorry.

Because... This is difficult. This is even more difficult.

Attaining... in which they... It's the first time attaining, especially with which they realize emptiness.

And... And reaching... And...

Okay, I got a Tibetan word for you. Rinpoche used to use the word promote, meaning get a promotion. Okay?

And it was... He used it to describe this verb palpa here, pospa. Okay?

Palpa means to get a promotion to a higher spiritual level. It means to move, to upgrade. But do you have a better word?

Because he's gonna say when they attain vipasyana, towards emptiness, at the same moment, they palpa to jorlam. They move up to... Graduates a good word, but it's a little conky.

I mean, you wanna say, he graduated to... Move up to. Because they...

Because the first of them attaining special insight and moving up to the path of preparation in the greater way happen at the same time. Okay? Okay?

A person moves up from the first path to the second path on the Mahayana track by achieving shamatha. Sorry, by achieving an understanding of the pen in shamatha. In level nine meditation.

I think that's a little too much. Preparation. Achieving the path of preparation on the bodhisattva track happens simultaneously with...

[Speaker 2]
as seen... Yeah. Yeah, at the end of the path...

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, he's saying, this guy already has shamatha. Yeah, I think it's a little too radical. I mean, not all the books say that.

Okay, I'm just telling you, don't get discouraged, okay? You know, maybe it's a shamatha-like thing or something. Or maybe you can have vipasyana without shamatha under certain conditions.

Okay? He's got a deep insight into the pen. And the moment he has that insight, he is on the path of preparation.

Which is, that makes more sense, right? He gets a deep insight into the pen and that... the birth of that insight throws him up to the second path.

How's that? Okay? Okay.

But in the context of our argument here, it is possible for a bodhisattva to have a deep insight into emptiness even as they move up to the second path. Okay? So you cannot say that a person who has freshly entered the greater way can't have realizations of emptiness.

If that's the case, then it's also not the case that self-made Buddhas and listeners can't have a deep realization of emptiness. And your argument is blown up. To say that people can reach nirvana without seeing emptiness.

Got it? Then that's back to the argument like six years ago. Sorry.

I'll say it again. Their position was that you didn't have to see emptiness directly to get over your critical husband. We said, no person could ever permanently end their anger unless they understand the husband is coming from them.

They will never be... They can suppress the anger, but they'll never be able to remove the anger until they realize it was never the husband's fault anyway. Okay?

And they say, but those people don't see emptiness. And we say, they do. And they say, how can they?

They don't have bodhicitta or universal love. And we say, you don't need it to understand the way things work. Okay?

And then they pull out some quotation that says, new bodhisattvas don't see emptiness. And we just prove that they do. Okay?

Got it? We okay? Phew!

All right. How are we doing on time? You got six more minutes of suffering.

And the... the second of the two has... Get this, okay?

Get this. This is cool. This is really encouraging to all your students.

And the second of the two has already realized emptiness before they ever... before they entered the path of accumulation. It's possible for a very exceptional person to have a realization of emptiness long before they hear it in a class, in a Buddhist class.

An exceptional person can have insights into where the pen is really coming from just from their past life. Okay? They don't have to undergo formal training in this life.

That's a very profound statement. Okay? And...

And of course every student you ever meet thinks they were one of those. But that's okay. If they're in your class, they might be.

You see? If they got to your class, it's possible that they are one of those exceptional people of high spiritual intellect, keen spiritual intellect. Okay?

So, this is a proof of this... of the idea. If you want a scriptural proof, this is a proof that there are extraordinary people who have deep insights into emptiness and how reality works who've never had any Buddhist training.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
That it's possible. There are such people. Okay?

Got it? And have love. Have extraordinary love.

Okay? Alright. I like to suck the last minutes out of this class because, you know, otherwise it's going to take us 50 years anyway.

Moreover, moreover, it must be. It must. I have an old friend sitting in the class.

We went to elementary school together even. I mean, almost. You were like a year ahead of me or something, but...

But I don't know. I feel about... I feel something weird about...

I just feel like... deja vu or something. Okay.

Moreover, it must be the case. It must be the case that listeners and self-made Buddhas can realize emptiness because because there do exist such people who realize emptiness because of the power. Right?

Töp, stöps. Stöps means power. Where do you know stöps from?

Töp. Töpshi. The four powers of purification of karma.

This is the same word. Töp. It means power.

Bala. Power. Li in Chinese.

There do exist such people who realize emptiness because of the power of their tepa. Tepa of their faith. Okay.

That's really a weird statement. Okay. Because of the power of their faith in those who have gone that way.

Okay. Okay. That's a radical statement also for most of us.

Rangglu, our side is claiming that if a person has enough faith in a high spiritual object, and it could be a Christian or Jewish object, then that in itself can trigger the experience of emptiness. Okay. That's pretty cool.

Meaning insight into where things are really coming from. Okay. Like they could read the Bible and suddenly figure out that their critical has been produced by their own actions.

They read some statement by Jesus that you get what you sow, you reap what you sow, and suddenly they understand that it applies to how their husband is behaving. And they have just had an insight into emptiness because of their faith in the Bible or something like that. Okay, it's possible.

There is such a thing. Now, last thing, okay. In Buddhism, if you make a statement, you are required to prove it in one of two ways.

Yeah, either you use reasoning, help the person work it through logically, or you refer to a scripture which everyone accepts. Okay, that's important, right? It must be one which everybody accepts.

You can't be in an argument with a Christian person about the truth of something and say, because the Buddha said so. You know what I mean? And when we debate in the inter-monastic debates, I cannot quote this scripture in a debate with somebody from Debu monastery because they don't accept it.

Okay, I have to go back to Tsongkhapa because everyone in the Dalai Lama's lineage accepts Tsongkhapa, but not everyone accepts the books from my school. So it's interesting. When I go to debate in the winter debates, intercollegiate debates, I have to memorize a lot of Tsongkhapa before I go because the stuff I know is not applicable because they don't accept that as scripture.

Okay, cool? That's the rule. The opponent has to accept that scripture for you to use it against them, which makes sense, right?

All right. Last thing, let's do this last line. And that certainly is the case because the Gyalama, Uttaratantra, in Tibetan called Gyalama, okay?

Lama in this case means Uttara, which means upper, higher. Okay? Uttaratantra.

Because the higher line, Uttaratantra, higher line, itself says... Okay, I'm going to go over a little bit because I like it. Here's a quotation from Maitreya, a direct quotation from the book we've been talking about, okay?

I think there might be a spelling problem in the quotation, all right? I'm suspicious. I'd say there's a 50% chance there's a spelling problem, which makes a big difference in the translation.

So what do I do? I go check it. How?

I go use this database. What's in the database? Over a million pages of scripture that were typed in for the last 25 years, by our refugees, by the project that we started.

I can now... In 10 seconds, or 20, I can search a million pages for this quotation and confirm it or unconfirm it. Ready?

Let's go. First I identify a piece of the quotation which is unique. Because if I look for the word the or the word and in a million pages, how many hits will I get?

I will be here a couple of months. Which is the old way, because we used to go through the book like this and look for the quotation, you know? I'm going to look up...

So I've chosen a part of it which is unique to me. So I go to this program. Wait, that's not this program.

Oh, Scotty. Oh, I see what you did. I don't think this is going to work.

Let me try something. There's still bugs in the program because we had to change it over to Mac when I bought a Mac. Uh...

Okay, there's the search program. I'm going to look for... Sorry, I've got to go look at it.

De-pa-ni-ki-tok-ja. De-pa-ni-ki-tok. Okay, I'm going to take a piece and I'm going to misspell it a few...

I'm going to spell it a few different ways. And then I'm going to go... Where would I look for this book?

In the native Tibetan works, in the Indian commentaries from ancient times, or in the words of the Buddha himself? Kangyur, Tengyur, or Sumbhum? Tengyur, okay?

In the commentaries, okay? Which is an interesting thing. You would think it would be in the Kangyur, but it's not.

Okay, so there's the Tengyur. And now I'm going to go look. Okay, you ready?

You can time it. It's looking through a million pages. Go!

De-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de... Gyu, by the way, means it's looking... Okay, let me show you, let me show you.

Uh-oh. Okay? By the way, where is it?

Look at the bottom line. Here. What's that mean?

Sem-tsam. What's it mean? Mind-only.

We're in the section of the Tengyur called Mind-only. And the person who created the Buddhist canon, four and a half thousand works from ancient India, they put this book in the Mind-only section. So we know we're in the right place.

And there's the original quotation. Okay? I'm going to cut it out, okay?

Watch this. I'm going to take it out of the... This is from a book which was written 17 centuries ago.

We just found it in about 20 seconds. We went through all of the ancient literature of India in 20 seconds. And let's compare that to our quotation.

Okay? Okay, the first two lines here. How does it compare?

Is it the same? Are there any differences? There's one, okay?

It's not very important. We have a... We have a apostrophe here.

See? Right there? That's not in the original text.

Okay? The way it's spelled here would mean, those who come from themselves. All right?

The way it's spelled in the ancient text is, those who came from themselves. Past tense. Describing who?

Those who come from themselves. Self-made Buddhas. Okay?

Lower track people. Okay? Lower track people.

So now I can translate it, all right? But it wasn't misspelled the way I thought it was misspelled. It was misspelled a different way.

Okay, but it still means the same. Okay. By the way, next time this second line is going to be important.

The second line of that quotation is going to be important. Next time we meet. What does it say?

Okay. Those without eyes cannot see the shining of the sun. Those without eyes cannot see the shining of the sun.

Okay? Meaning emptiness. Okay?

But that's...we're going to get to it next time. I'm just putting a C in your mind. You ready?

Let's translate this one. And that certainly is the case, because the higher line itself says, for those who have come from themselves, the ultimate is something that they realize using nothing more than faith. Okay?

Who's the ones who have come from themselves? Self-made Buddhas. Lower track.

Hinayana. Okay? Can they realize emptiness?

Yeah. How? Just with enough faith.

Okay? Don't tell me the Uttaratantra says that lower track people can't see emptiness. Okay?

Because the Uttaratantra itself... Who are we quoting? The same book.

We're quoting the same book back to them. The book you're talking about says they see emptiness. Just by having enough faith in the Buddha.

Got it? Realize emptiness. Got it?

It's very interesting. We're using a perfect counterexample. We're turning their own weapon back on them.

They're like, Oh, the Uttaratantra said you can't see the sun if you don't have eyes. Lower track people can't see emptiness. Well, I guess the Uttaratantra doesn't say that self-made Buddhas can see emptiness if they have enough faith, right?

Okay? That's what he just did. Okay?

That's what we just did. Got it? We quoted the book back to him.

In fact, we quoted the two lines just before the two lines he's using, which you wouldn't know unless you could go look at it. Okay? Alright.

Phew, I wish I could do this all day every day. But... Okay, stopped here.

Jigme, I'm being responsible. Just stopped here, September 2012. Okay.

Alright. So, there's a tradition in Buddhism to dedicate the good karma to a higher purpose, like pizza for dinner. Alright?

Is there one around here? Daniel, are you ready? Sarangye Sheve Chogye Dukkhe Akshay Tell me three ideas we learned today.

Three useful ideas. Any three. That normal life things.

[Speaker 2]
Everything we see.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Everything we see is coming from ourselves. Our lives.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you can reach the third path without having compassion for all living beings.

But there was something else today that I thought was pretty important. It's possible that there are people who have deep insight into emptiness, who've never gone to a Buddhist teaching. There are special people who have done that.

Okay? I think that's pretty cool. There's a claim that you have to have shamatha to reach the Bodhisattva track level too.

But I'm not sure that's so... Or vipasyana. Okay?

Which would imply shamatha. There was one other thing about normal people. What was that?

Oh yeah. Faith in a holy being is enough to trigger an insight into where stuff is really coming from. I like that.

Does it... Huh? Could it trigger direct perception?

I don't think so. I think you would need formal training. But you could have had it in a past life.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, and that's the meaning of a self-made Buddha. That's the meaning of self-made. It's described in the scripture as someone who had countless teachers in their past lives and didn't have a personal teacher in this life.

But due to their work in their past lives, they make breakthroughs in this life without a personal teacher in this life. So the conclusion is that you might run into people who've never had any formal Buddhist training who have deep insight into these things. Yeah.

Why are they always lower track? Yeah, that's an interesting thing. Why are they always lower track?

I think there are people on the higher track who have had countless lifetimes in the past with a personal teacher who have deep insights into the nature of reality, but their karma is so good by then that they cannot not have a personal teacher in this life. How's that? All right.

I got to go have pizza. I was thinking we could have pizza. Excuse me.

The faith could... He asked, is the faith involved with knowing the story of the Buddhist enlightenment, how he struggled, how he had all these problems, and then how he reached his enlightenment? Is that what the faith implies?

It is. Yeah. It is.

Later on they're going to talk about people who could make it... people who could have insights into reality because of narratives of holy beings without being able to reason it out themselves. How's that?

They're going to talk about that kind of people. They have insights triggered by hearing stories of holy beings, like what you said, who are incapable of reasoning it out on their own, you know, logically. And that's...

And they're going to describe people like that. The stories could be descriptions of emptiness, but based on their own experience rather than logic. So this holy being has had an experience of emptiness.

They describe their personal experience to somebody in personal terms without going through the logic of it. And then that person has a deep insight into emptiness, even though they could not have worked it out on their own with logic. Could they have worked it out with logic assisted by this holy being?

They don't go into that. So I can't answer that. That's what you're asking, I know.

They don't talk about it. My gut feeling is they're talking about more personal descriptions of a person. This is how I went, meditated, then I had something happen to me.

But you're not giving the person logic per se. And there are people who have deep insights based on inspiring stories. That's what they're saying.

If it doesn't end with itsa and start with pi, what? Sorry, sorry. You can start with a pi and end with...

There's a style of teaching emptiness called Dzogchen, which means the great completion. It exists in the Gelugpa tradition as a secret tradition. It exists in the tantras.

And it's very, very much a part of some other traditions of Tibet, like the Nyingma tradition, the ancient school. But that's a way of teaching the nature of reality, which they call the great completion. Anaputtara Purna or something like that.

So there is such a teaching. And that's mostly about the emptiness of the mind, like that. It's a kind of Mahamudra.

It's similar to Mahamudra. So it exists in our tradition, but we don't emphasize it. But it would be the same thing.

But it has been misunderstood by many schools. Local schools in Tibet misunderstood that concept. And we're going to talk about it tonight.

We'll talk about it tonight. There was an idea of meeting the nature of the mind in the raw. They emphasized the raw, the naked reality of the mind.

And that's Dzogchen practice. It was misunderstood by some local schools. Because in Tibet, the communication between different valleys was rare.

So geographically, especially East Tibet, was broken up by these huge ridges and mountain passes. So schools would develop in Arizona that greatly differed from the same school in California or Colorado. Because they were physically separated.

It was hard to get from one to the other. So there came to be some schools in some valleys that misunderstood the meaning of Dzogchen. And we're going to talk about it tonight.

Cool? All right. Good night.