Вступление на срединный путь (текущий курс, Аризона), занятие 109

[Speaker 1]
Four times a year I get to teach real Buddhism for ten days each. The rest of the year is success seminars. Now I have to teach the same thing over and over again.

It drives me crazy. Then, but it affects many people. I think about 10,000 people have come to those programs in the last three months.

So, you know, it helps us to reach more people. But I would also like to keep a transmission of some of the classics of Buddhism, especially the most difficult ones, which I don't think will be transmitted. You know, I had a unique opportunity to be trained by the best from Old Tibet, and then that's gone, they're all gone.

So I think I would like to at least also record on video those transmissions, and then later generations can use them, because I don't think otherwise they will survive. So we've been going through a text. We wanted to go through the, probably the best text on emptiness ever written, is by Je Tsongkapa, the teacher of the first Dalai Lama.

And that's called Gomu Rabsel. And I think it's about, I don't know, 800 folios, okay? And it's exquisite.

And my best scripture teacher, which is Geshe Thubten Rinchen, where is he? On the end there, right? He taught it to me privately for eight years, and we finished it.

So I promised him I would translate it into English. But when I started, which was ten years ago at Diamond Mountain, I thought, I'll just throw in the textbook from Sara Mae, which is called Uma Chidan. I'll throw in the textbook for free, because it's a commentary on Je Tsongkapa.

And no one will ever figure out the textbook if I don't do it. So, because I also, I learned it for many years, and then I was, I edited it for the monastery. So, it's from the 1500s, and it's very important.

It's a very important presentation on emptiness. So I thought, let me teach people the Uma Chidan, it'll probably take me a year or two, and then I'll start Gomu Rabsel, which is Je Tsongkapa's, which is the greatest book on emptiness ever written. And then probably I'll translate Chandrakirti's root text, by the way, and then go back to Nagarjuna's original.

So anyway, it's been eleven years now on Uma Chidan, and we are, I think, we're like a third of the way through the text, okay? So anyway, it's going to take a while. Looks like it's going to take a while.

We're thinking maybe to rent a space up near me, up near where I live, and have yoga for trailer park people, poor people and old people, and then maybe film classes in there for the web. So I could, every time I have an extra hour, I could go down and do another Uma Chidan class on the web, and, you know, and we're thinking to put some equipment at Casa Jardim, maybe in Glendale, where we're also teaching poor people yoga and meditation. So anyway, during these ten-day teachings in Phoenix, I take one day and do Uma Chidan, which is difficult, extremely difficult text, okay?

So, if you've never been to an Uma Chidan class, don't freak out. This class is meant for the most hardcore people, and if you're here by accident, then God bless you, okay? So we were into a section...

By the way, the structure of the Uma Chidan follows the structure of Tsongkhapa's text, which follows the structure of Chandrakirti's text from the 500s, okay? Chandrakirti wrote a fantastic book about emptiness called, Entering the Middle Way, Madhyamaka Avatara, and it is the standard on emptiness for all of Tibet, all sects in Tibet, Sakya, Nyingma, Kagyu, Galupa, they all follow Chandrakirti's text. They interpret it differently.

So, we're going to be... In that text, the general structure, which we haven't really talked about much, of that text, is it follows the six perfections, okay? The chapters follow the six perfections.

So, first would be giving, and then second would be ethical life, third would be not getting angry, fourth would be joyful effort, which means having a good time doing virtue projects of all kinds, five, how to meditate, six, understanding where the world is coming from, understanding... These are the six perfections of the Bodhisattva. So, the structure of Chandrakirti's root text is that it covers the six perfections, okay?

When he gets to the sixth perfection... Oh, sorry. So, the six perfections are reflected in the Bodhisattva Bhumis, the ten levels of a Bodhisattva.

So, actually, his text wanders off to the... not wanders, but it's structured on the ten Bodhisattva levels. So, each chapter treats a Bodhisattva level.

When he gets to chapter six, he writes more than half his book on one Bodhisattva, one of the ten Bodhisattva levels. He... over half the book is devoted to that.

Why? That's the one that relates to emptiness, okay? So, like on the perfection of patience, or on the perfection of joyful effort, he might spend a verse, a single verse.

And then when he gets to emptiness, it's the whole book, you know? So, that's the structure of Chandrakirti. That's the structure of Jetsun Kapha.

That's the structure of Kedrup Damdage, who wrote the book that we're studying right now, okay? We are still in the first perfection. We have spent ten years in the first perfection, okay?

And in the first perfection they have discussed, which at this rate we would finish in... hundred years, okay? In the discussion of how to give things to other people in the proper way, he explores emptiness, okay?

And he explores the idea of nirvana. So, nirvana is defined as... nir-nir-madhu-vabhava-sa-sattvanga, okay?

The ability to eliminate your negative emotions permanently, because you have understood emptiness. Because you have understood emptiness. We gave a lot of examples last night, I think.

Your husband yells at you. You get angry. You are wondering how to deal with the husband.

And normally the human mind goes into two choices. I should be active. I should attack him.

I should argue with him. I should explain to him why he's wrong. Or I should stay quiet and bitter, and make faces at him when he asks me things, and like that.

But I... I'll stay... I'll give him the quiet...

What do you call it? Cold shoulder treatment? Or I will attack him directly.

Like the mind tends to always give yourself these two choices, okay? Emptiness means, when the husband complains to you or criticizes you, that in that moment, a well-trained person understands clearly that the behavior of the husband is a perception which is coming out of karmic seeds in your own mind, in my own mind. The husband is...

how the husband seems to be behaving is emanating from my own mind because I was critical to someone last week or last month, okay? And then if you get good at it, you do detective work. And you go back and you find out that you were critical of somebody at work consistently over a two-week period, and then suddenly a month later your husband is always complaining, okay?

Then a well-trained person connects those two events and says, I must have been critical at work, I remember, I planted seeds, and now I have to see my husband being critical to me. A person who reaches that point, which is emptiness, has a chance to correct the husband, to change the reality of the husband. So they don't have to argue with the husband, and they don't have to ignore the husband.

They simply stop criticizing people at work. And then suddenly, magically, the husband changes, okay? Because the husband is coming from you.

Where the emptiness comes in is that a person without training looks at the husband criticizing them, and the person without training believes that the husband's behavior is coming from the husband. According to this system, everything that ever happens to you is because you've done the same thing to somebody else. So a husband who is criticizing you, who is not coming from you, doesn't exist and never did, and could not in the future.

Never existed in the past, could not exist now, will never exist in the future. Anyone you meet who is irritating, who is not coming from how you acted last month, simply could not exist. There is no such thing, and that's emptiness, okay?

So emptiness is not like you get in a corner and you stare at it, at the wall, and you think about nothing, or you try to close your eyes and everything is black. And obviously those are foolish. They have no effect on you.

They'll make you dull-minded. But to look at your husband and realize that the husband you've always been angry at was never there, is profound. And it might change your life forever, okay?

That's emptiness, okay? According to Buddhism, you cannot remove your negative emotions unless you perceive that emptiness. It's not possible.

A person... the only way to eradicate anger, jealousy, desire from the human mind is to realize that the objects towards which they focus never existed, okay? Then it's impossible to be angry, okay?

Like, you could get... you think somebody at work is trying to get a promotion that you're trying to get, and you're angry. You saw them talking to the boss, right?

I used to have glass... I had glass walls installed in my office. Everyone on the floor could see me talk to anybody.

There was no wall in my office. I had a glass office. I was in a glass...

what do you call? People in glass houses. I built it that way on purpose.

So, all the employees, 800 people could watch me talk to anybody. So, they would draw assumptions about what I was saying. So, you see somebody is talking to the boss, and then you think, oh, they're trying to get the promotion and they're talking bad about me, okay?

Right? Then the boss comes out like two days later and says, you have the promotion, the promotion is yours. And what really swayed my mind was two days ago, your friend came in and talked me into it.

And then you're like, the person that you saw through the glass of the boss's office two days ago, who was criticizing you so they could get the promotion is non-existent. They don't exist, okay? So, the anger focused towards them or the jealousy focused towards them was insane.

Because the person towards whom you were jealous didn't exist. All jealousy is like that. All anger is like that.

Anytime you're upset or angry, the object towards which you're angry doesn't exist, okay? At all. Is there a husband there?

Yes. Is he criticizing you? Yes.

Is that criticism coming from him? No. Is it coming from you?

Yes. Does the husband who is coming from himself even exist? No.

Does the husband coming from you exist? Yes. Does the husband criticizing you exist?

Yes. Is it wrong to want him to stop? No.

Okay. If you could stop him by removing a seed from your own heart, that would be cool. Because then there's no conflict, there's no friction.

What do you call it? There's no tension. You just stop yelling at the kids or you stop yelling at somebody else.

And then the husband stops. So, in this school of Buddhism, which is the highest school of Buddhism, we say it's not possible to remove negative emotions from the human mind permanently unless you understand that stuff is coming from you. That's the only way.

Because then all the people you ever got upset at never existed. And then you don't get angry anymore. And you can permanently remove your anger, okay?

Now, there's two classes of people in Buddhism. There are three tracks, but basically they boil down to two levels. Some are called Mahayana, some are called Hinayana or Theravada.

So, Mahayana means bodhisattva. Hinayana means not bodhisattvas. How do they differ?

Supposedly, bodhisattvas are out to help every living being in the world. They are practicing meditation, yoga, study, service of others, hospice service that we talked about this afternoon. They are doing that because they want to help the whole world.

And then there are lower practitioners who are... somebody compared them to physicists. They have deep insights into reality, and they could care less if they make a bomb that blows up the whole world.

You see what I mean? They are just interested in physics or something. And those are...

we call lower level practitioners. So, they are interested... they are intrigued by reality, but they are not doing it to save the world, okay?

Then a debate comes in the scriptures. Is it possible for a nerd physicist who cares not much for the good of the world to achieve nirvana? Is it possible for the physicist type who could care less if they blow up the world?

They are just interested in the next Nobel Prize or something, okay? Is it possible for a person with deep insights into reality, but who doesn't have much compassion? Is it possible for them to achieve nirvana or not?

And we say, yes, they can. Just by understanding the nature of reality, a person could eliminate their own negative emotions. They would not be kind or compassionate to others, but they could be totally, coldly neutral, never upset, because they saw that people were just masses of atoms.

See what I mean? You could theoretically reach such a place, okay? Then, there is an imaginary opponent in this text who comes to us and says, no, no, no, only a person with deep love and compassion would ever be able to delve into the ultimate sources of reality.

Without love and compassion, I don't see how you could become a person who could see ultimate reality. So, the Ranglug, the highest system of Buddhism says, it is possible for a schmuck to reach nirvana without caring about other people. To put it roughly.

And the lower schools say it's not possible. You must have love to see ultimate reality, okay? So, here is the argument that's been going on now for about seven years in our text, okay?

Then, the other side pulled out some other sources. One of them was the Nguntukgen, the Abhisamaya Alankara, which was dictated in the 4th century to Arya Sangha by Maitreya, who is the next Buddha in the world, the 4th Buddha, I think, okay? Not far...

I mean, just for your interest, it's coming soon, relatively soon. So, the opponent pulls out that book and says, look, Maitreya told Arya Sangha that it's not true that people of lower motivation can see emptiness. And then we have defeated that argument, okay?

We proved that Maitreya did believe that people with lower motivation could see ultimate reality. Then the guy said, okay, but wait, wait, there's this other book called Uttaratantra, which is not a tantra, okay? The name is Uttaratantra.

Tantra in this title has nothing to do with secret teachings. It means a string or a line, like the red string that Brahmins wear, okay? In the Uttaratantra they said, there are four classes of people who are like a blind man who cannot see the sun, okay?

They said, there are four types of people who are like a blind man and cannot see the sun. Who are the four? Sosokyo-wo?

Non... People who have never seen emptiness directly. Pratyajyana in Sanskrit, okay?

Someone who has never seen emptiness directly. Or, listeners, which refers to lower track people, lower motivation people. Or, self-made Buddhas, which also refers to another kind of lower track person.

Or, Bodhisattvas who are just on the path and they haven't seen emptiness yet, okay? They're just... You reach bodhichitta, you become a Bodhisattva before you see emptiness normally, okay?

So, those four kinds of people, says the Uttaratantra written by... dictated by Maitreya to Arya Sangha. That book says, it also says, these four types of people cannot see the sun.

They are like blind people who cannot see the sun. What is the sun in this example? It's ultimate reality as it applies to a fully enlightened being, okay?

So, that's a little bit different, okay? But, basically ultimate reality. Who's the author of the first book that they used to fight us?

Maitreya. Who's the author of the second book they used to fight us? Maitreya.

Why did they have to bring two different books to fight us? If we defeat the first book of Maitreya, if we defeat their interpretation of the first book of Maitreya, why do we have to go through refuting a second book by Maitreya that they say disproves what we believe? Because there are five great books of Maitreya, okay?

Jamsungla, right? They are the five books of Maitreya. Some of them are lower middle way, normally.

They can be interpreted as higher middle way, but they are lower middle way. Some of them are mind only school, okay? Uttaratantra happens to be mind only school, okay?

Abhisamankara is middle way school, okay? So, the reason we have to go through him attacking us using two different books by the same person, is that normally one of them is interpreted as middle way, and one of them is normally interpreted as mind only school. And the middle way is lower middle way, okay?

Although both books can be interpreted as highest middle way by someone who knows what they're doing, okay? That's why we have to go through a refutation involving the Uttaratantra as well as the Abhisamankara, okay? Alright.

By the way, this is the most difficult class I ever teach, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, in the monastery they have a tradition. Couple times a year they took all the freshmen, and they go sit in the seniors classes for a couple of days, and they have no idea what the hell they're talking about. Senior means this person is twenty years further in their studies than the freshmen, you know?

Then they... it's a practice. You go sit in the class and you've missed the first ten years, and you just walked into class after ten years.

The other people in the class have been sitting there for ten years, and you just walk in for your first day, and you're like... and you just get a headache, you know? But they say that it plants a very useful seed for later, okay?

So, don't despair. So, that... that is the case.

So, I'm going to just start translating, simultaneously translating the Tibetan, okay? Very ancient Tibetan, okay? Here we go.

That... that certainly is the case. And if you see me make a mistake, just yell out, okay?

That certainly is the case. But there is... but it...

but it's not... but that doesn't mean that there is any contradiction here with the statement involving... Okay, then he's quoting Nyi-me Khyunkor.

Nyi-me Khyunkor. What's Nyi-ma? We had it last night.

The sun. What is Khyunkor in Sanskrit? Mandala.

Okay, that's the Tibetan translation of mandala, okay? Why do they call the sun a mandala? Mandala is an old word that means a circular earring, or a circular design in ceramics.

And it came to mean the world, because ancient Indians and Tibetans believed the world was a flat disk, okay? So, it came to mean disk, okay? So, we're talking about the disk of the sun.

Why? Now we got to a point in the text where we're saying, look, look, what you say is true, but it doesn't mean that we're contradicting who? Maitreya's description of the sun.

What description of the sun? Four people cannot see the sun. Four people are so blind, they cannot see the sun.

The sun in this case is emptiness, okay? The four people are the ones we just talked about. But our position doesn't contradict Maitreya, okay?

That's... who's saying that? We are.

You always have to ask who's saying it, alright? Now, if I want my translation to be consistent, and if they've already talked about this verse, what should I do? I should go back and find where I translated it the first time.

So, I go to the top of the... This is also a translation training class. I go to the top of the text, okay?

I go back 400 pages, which we've covered in the last 10 years. I go to what? What can I type to search for the original quotation?

Nima! Okay? Nima.

If I hit too many, I can go to Mandala. Okay? Got it?

We just jumped to the place in the Uttaratantra, which in English is higher line, right? Because they have no eyes, they cannot see the bright burning orb of the sun. So, I take that quotation, right?

Because I want my translation to be consistent. I take those three lines, I copy them, then I continue my search down to where we are now, which might be 20, 30 pages later. And the statement involving...

uh... the... bright...

Okay, got it? See how you do that?

[Speaker 2]
Alright? Uh...

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Now, this gets to be a problem. Let me see here.

I'm going to cut this so we have space to translate it. Okay, we... Traditionally, we've been reading it together.

Alright? General rule about reading Tibetan is ignore... You know, there are lots of silent...

prefix letters, as in the English word... no, which has a K in front of the N, but you don't say... kno.

Where did the K come from? The J in Sanskrit, which is... znyana, zjyana, okay?

The J changed to K. That's why no has a K in it, alright? And in Russia, they still say...

znyat, znyayu, ya znyayu. They still use a... They still use the proper Sanskrit J, which is znyat.

Okay? But I'm not going to do that to you. Okay, here we go.

Read. One, two, three. Dey, dun, mik, dang, min, den, bay, mi, kang, sak, shin, ki, den, ba, la, ma, dup, ba, I corrected the Tibetan twenty years ago.

Ni, me, kin, kor, ran, tok, ki, un, sum, du, tok, mi, nyu, pa, dey, shin, du. Okay, so every time we read together, I'll try to point out some... fine point of pronunciation that would help you in your next life.

Okay? The word den, L-D-A-N in the first line, and L stacked above a D in Tibetan, creates what we call a prenasal. Prenasal means...

some kind of nasal... N sound before a D, and M sound before a B, a LA sound before a KA. So depending on where things are coming from your throat, KA, JA, DA or BA, coming up your throat.

Sanskrit is designed to move up your throat, right? So, KA, the prenasal is NA. CHA, the prenasal is NYA.

DA, the prenasal behind your tooth is NA. And BA, which is labial, your lips, the prenasal is an M. So, Sanskrit...

is sanskirt, okay? Sanskrita. Chakrasamvara is...

Chakrasamvara. They're all mispronounced. Everybody mispronounces them.

I'm trying to think of another one. Anyway, so, you got a prenasal, the den. The den comes after an open vowel, meaning there's no suffix sound on MI.

MI is an open vowel at the end. So, an open vowel, before a heavy prenasal becomes... Minden, okay?

Got it? Minden. What's a monastery whose name is very similar?

Ganden, okay? Ganden Monastery. Where Tulkapa came from.

Ganden. There's no N in the word. Ganden, gone.

It's just a prenasal before the next D. So, this is not Miden, it's... Minden, Minden.

Kinkor is the same, okay? Those of you who care, who want to sound good to Tibetans, they don't say Kilkor, okay? It's a prenasal.

They say K-Y-I-L-N-K-O-R. So, try to pronounce that. Kinkor, Kinkor.

Say Kinkor, Kinkor. If you go up to a Tibetan and say Kilkor, they don't know what the heck you're saying. Say Kinkor.

So, I wanted to draw your attention to two prenasals in this paragraph that we have. In each paragraph I'll try to give you some more pronunciation things, okay? So, here we go.

The meaning of that quotation is that a person who possesses no... Mick? Eyes.

Eyes, yeah, sight would be good.

[Speaker 2]
Two eyes.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, sorry, good, okay. Keep doing that. No, I'm just testing you.

The meaning of that quotation is that a person possessing no eyes is incapable, on their own accord, of directly perceiving the orb of the sun. That is, without... Ningbo, you ready?

Shen kyi denpa. Shen kyi denpa. Verbal feel?

Shen means what? Dak shen nyam je. Other people, right.

Denpa means to show or to help, okay? Like Tenggyur. So, that is without the...

That is without relying upon the instructions, or the description, how's that? The description of another person, okay? Which begs a question, even with the description of another person, is it possible for a blind person to see the orb of the sun?

Yes, it's possible. Yeah, because the first chapter of the Yoga Sutra says, Pratyakshanamagama. Pratyakshanamagama.

Say, Pratyakshanamagama. The three forms of perception. Pratyaksha, direct.

Anuman, inference, logic. Another person's description, or even better, Agama, which is the third dimension in the first lines of the Yoga Sutra. Agama.

What's Agama? Authority, scriptural authority, okay? So, if someone that you know cannot lie, tells you, there's a bag of bananas outside the door there, you can get hungry for bananas, because they'll be there, okay?

So, the idea of Agama, even mentioned in the Yoga Sutra, in the opening pages, is that you can have a deductive perception of bananas, based on the trustworthy words of a person that you've never known to lie. If they come in here and say, there's bananas out there on the table, you even in your mind's eye can see the bananas, and it's a correct perception. It's a...

Pramana. Yeah, okay? Got it?

So, is it possible for a blind person to see the sun? Yes, through deduction, based on the Agama of another person, okay? Got it?

So, it is possible, all right? So, what if they're describing here is a person who is blind, cannot see the sun, unless they depend upon the words of another person, okay? Unless someone describes to them the sun.

For religious people, for people on a spiritual path, Agama is crucial. At what point can I trust another person's descriptions of deep points of meditation that I can't see yet? It's the idea of when can I trust another person, okay?

Agama. Kamsa Sipo De. Okay.

I'm going to take the De-Shin-Tu and glue it down below. Okay, one, two, three. De-Shin-Tu Kamsa Sipo De De-Shin-Shekpe Sungla Ma-Ten-Pa Rang-Nyi-Khi Tong-Nyi-Rik-Pa Yan-Dak-La-Ten-Ne Rang-Dok-Khi-Dok Mi-Nyu-Pay-Tu Yin-Pay-Chir, okay?

Chir is the sign in Tibetan that you... the opponent is delivering his... okay?

That's like in the debate ground, you know, Chir.

[Speaker 2]
Okay? Okay.

[Speaker 1]
I'd like to just draw your attention to the De-Es, okay? De-Es. De means what?

Without the Es. De means that. It just means that.

Naga? Naga. De means...

by that, okay? De-Yi means what? De-Yi.

Of that. Okay, De-Er means... at that.

Okay, say De-Er... at that. De-Yi...

of that. De... that.

De... by that. Okay, got it?

So, you draw out an Es, otherwise your listener doesn't know... that you're talking about the subject of a sentence, okay? You have to draw it out.

If you don't draw it out, the listener doesn't know what you're talking about. Okay, got it? They should do in the same way...

Here, here it's the same, okay? Here it's the same. These...

those four types of people, the four types... of people mentioned... are incapable...

on their... on their own accord... relying...

upon... correct logic... proper logic...

These four people mentioned are incapable on their own accord of relying upon a proper logic... of perceiving... Dong-Yi...

emptiness... without... relying upon...

the sung... sung... ku sung thug...

the speech... the words, okay? The words...

of Dehshon Shepa... of those who have gone that way. Okay?

Word for Buddha, right? This is interesting, get this. If they use Agama, they can see emptiness.

If they use Anumana, they cannot see emptiness. And there's no question of Pratyaksha. What's that mean?

You studied Yoga Sutra. If they... if they got some teachings...

if... if they believed in the Buddha and read the Buddha's description of emptiness, it's possible they could see emptiness, okay? But if all they got was some good logic...

that proved why things are empty, the pen talk, they would not be able, okay? Much less to see it directly, they don't have that capacity, okay? So that's where the three kinds of perception are useful, as presented in the Yoga Sutra, okay?

Can they have Pratyaksha towards emptiness? Can they see it directly? No, they're not to that level yet.

Could they perceive it based on some logical arguments? Also not yet. Could they perceive it only acting out of faith in a person that they believe to be infallible?

Yes, okay? If someone told them, look, I don't have time to explain it to you, and you can't quite get it yet, but your husband's not coming from himself, so don't be angry at him. If they believed enough in that person, they could not be angry at the husband.

Later they'll be ready to hear why the husband's not coming from the husband. Got it? Got it?

You okay? Alright. Then we refer to those people as people who cannot see the sun.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
But does that mean they can't perceive that the husband's not coming from himself? No, it just means they can't use logic to do that, but they can use Agama, which is? Faith in somebody's words, who they believe cannot lie.

And that's the, what do you call? In Buddhism, that's the least preferable route. Okay?

It's a dangerous route. Okay? The person could be making the first mistake since you've ever known him.

Okay? Alright? And it happens.

Okay? So in Buddhism we discourage people from believing in another person's words just because they think they're accurate most of the time. Okay?

It's preferable to be able to... Anumana. Anumana.

To figure it out on your own. Okay? And the best would be to see it directly.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Alright? There's hierarchies of perception. Okay?

Is there a Coke in my hand? Is there a Coke in my hand? It's logic, right?

You did not hear a crash. I'm not running around trying to avoid getting Coke on my shoes. So you assume that the Coke is still in my hand.

We could have set up this really sophisticated thing where there's a guy reaching out behind me to take the Coke, and he's already outside by now through the door that you didn't know about, on the side. You see what I mean? So deductive perception can be correct, but it's less trustable than direct.

And if someone says, I swear on Geshe Michael's honor that I have a Coke in my hand, you know, that's also kind of shaky. Geshe Michael's honor. Okay.

Alright. So better to see it directly, right? Show me.

Alright. So actually, they don't go back to that argument anymore. Okay?

They're done with the argument. What was the argument? We said that people who don't have compassion can still see how reality works.

Like scientists, okay? They don't have any invested interest in preventing nuclear wars, most of them, some of them. It's not part of science that you have to sign up and swear you won't cause a nuclear bomb or something.

They're just interested in how things work, okay? Is it possible for them to have deep insights into how reality works? Yes.

Is it possible to still describe them as blind? Sorry, no, I shouldn't go there. Can they still have seen ultimate reality?

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Can we still say they are blind to the sun? No.

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Because blind to the sun means they can see the sun based on faith from another person, but they cannot see the sun on their own accord, okay? Through logic or through direct perception. Are they still blind?

Yes. Do they see ultimate reality? They can.

How can they see ultimate reality? By depending on Agama, the words of a person whom they trust. So why are you still calling them potentially blind?

Because they can't do it on their own. They can't do it on logic and they can't do it on direct perception. And that's what...

who meant... Maitreya in the Uttaratantra, when he said there's four kinds of people who can't see the sun. Do they see the sun?

Yes. Can they see the sun? No.

Why do you say they can't? Because they can't do it on their own. Got it?

That's all. So what? Our position doesn't contradict Maitreya.

That's the point. We say they have to see emptiness if they wish to remove anger permanently from their being, and therefore reach nirvana. They must see emptiness.

Do lower school people see emptiness? Sorry, do lower school people reach nirvana? Yes.

We say they must have seen emptiness. Then the other guys say, no, no, no, they're lower school, they don't have compassion. Then we say you don't need compassion to see emptiness.

And then they say, no, no, but Maitreya said they are like blind people trying to see the sun. And we said, yeah, Maitreya said that, but that's not what he was talking about. He didn't mean they couldn't see emptiness.

He meant they couldn't see emptiness on their own. Got it? You okay now?

So the sun doesn't mean emptiness? Sun does mean emptiness.

[Speaker 2]
The sun means seeing emptiness on your own?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah. In this case, having sight means to see it on your own. Using either logic on your own, or direct perception.

But to call them blind means to... they can't do it without the Buddhas... without believing in a Buddha.

If they believe in the Buddha's words, and if they only act on the Buddha's words, they can't see emptiness. They can't. That's not what blind means.

Blind means they can't see it on their own. If blind meant they could never see it, then it's true that lower school people can't see emptiness. And then it's true that you can remove anger without seeing emptiness, because they do remove anger.

Got it? That's the whole argument. You're almost out of this section.

I've just been going on for three years or something. Yes? I'm wondering...

could the author of this text say where he's getting that... Oh, okay. Did the author of our text prove...

there's two ways to prove anything in Buddhism, which is... Jampa's last name in New Jersey, Lung Rik, okay? Lung means...

you quote... you quote an authority which is accepted by both parties. That's important.

Okay? In Buddhism, you can't have a logical argument with someone and quote someone whom both parties don't accept. You can't have an argument with your husband and prove something by quoting your mother.

Okay? Because he doesn't accept that as authority. Got it?

So, it's very interesting. In a Buddhist argument, if you make a true statement to another person, but you try to prove it with an authority which is not shared by both of you, then your statement is false. That's cool.

Okay? If you try to convince somebody of something and you don't use ideas that they already believe in, your statement is false. Even if it's the sky is blue.

It's interesting. It becomes false. Not just badly presented, it becomes false.

It's very cool. Right? So anyway, yeah, you can prove it through...

he could have used logic or he could have used scripture which was accepted by both parties. And to prove that his interpretation of what it meant to Nazi the son is correct. I would say he's already used logic, but he could have gone to some other author that was accepted by his opponent and quoted them.

And often times they'll do both. And often times they'll leave it at one or the other. He doesn't do it otherwise.

Okay? He doesn't defend his interpretation of the Uttaratantra. He just gives it.

Then you'd have to go find it somewhere else. And you can. Okay.

Moreover, Shenyang... Oh, let's read together. You ready?

This one's long, I'm sorry. It's not... It doesn't lend itself to being caught up.

One... Two... Oops...

Three... Shenyang... Nyan...

Rang... La... Dong...

Ni... Dong... Ba...

Yoba... Ta... Okay, go.

Ta... Sensei, Yobata...

[Speaker 2]
Yobata...

[Speaker 1]
Yobata... They had completely different meanings. We don't know which one it is.

I happen to know. You should be going up, okay? Yobata...

Okay, Yobata... Go. Ngopo den me du tokpa la, tap la shukpa dang, de denpar zinpe, denzin kyi chingpa la, tap mayinpa la shukpa, nyi su chepay, tap la shukpay, rang yu re ching.

Okay, good. So, he's finished with the sunlight thing, okay? It's all done.

It took us a year or something, okay? We just finished the sunlight thing. Now he's going on to another argument.

He said, those lower practitioners have traditionally been divided into two categories, okay? One of them is referred to as those who know the proper method. And one of them are referred to as those who don't know the proper method, okay?

People of lesser motivation. Spiritual practitioners, spiritual searchers of lesser motivation. That is, they're not trying to save the world.

Are traditionally divided into two categories. Those who understand the deeper method, and those who don't understand the deeper method, okay? Got it?

Why would that prove the point we're trying to make all along here? What's the point we are trying to make all along here? People with lower motivation can still see ultimate reality, okay?

So, here we're going off on a different subject. We say, look, traditionally, those lower practitioners have been divided into two types. Those who understand the deeper method, and those who don't understand the deeper method, okay?

Now I'm asking you a question. What if understanding the deeper method means grasping emptiness? Well, that also.

But that would mean there's two categories among people of lesser motivation, okay? There would be those who understand emptiness, and those who don't understand emptiness. Duh!

That means that there's people, there are people, some part of the people of lower motivation, understand ultimate reality, have seen ultimate reality. Got it? If there is such a distinction in scripture, between people of lower motivation, who understand the deeper method, and those who don't understand the deeper method, then the other people who understand the deeper method, are those who have seen emptiness.

Ca. Okay? What's ca mean?

Ca means gotcha, okay? Then you go like this, go like that. Yeah, because ca is short for ngotsa.

Ngotsa means, aren't you ashamed of yourself? Ca. And then in Tibet, when you say, you should be ashamed of yourself, you go like that.

Okay? I guess your cheeks should turn red or something, like... Aren't you ashamed of yourself?

I mean, you're supposed to call your mother yesterday, and you didn't do it. Ca. Okay, so ca means I got you.

You should be... You're a disgrace to the debating community. Ca.

Okay? Got it? You got to practice that thing.

Okay. It's good for zits too. All right.

Shenyang. Okay, so here we go. And I'm going to split it, because I can't get it all on the screen.

Moreover, isn't it the case that we can say that there are listeners and self-made buddhas who have perceived emptiness?

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Because isn't there a traditional distinction made between those who engage in the method, meaning those who have perceived that... Ngupo denme. Help me out, Nyingpo.

Ngupo denme. Bhava. Bhava, right?

Who's Lama... Somebody was studying yoga with Swami Bhula. It's the same, Bhava.

Okay, Bhula and Bhava. Okay. Ngupo.

What's a Ngupo? Yeah, Ngupo has two meanings. Bhava, right?

In Sanskrit. It can mean denje nupa, anything that performs a function. Or it can mean anything which exists in general.

Okay? It has both meanings. And it's delicate.

You have to be careful when you translate, because sometimes they're referring to the function thing, and sometimes they're referring to the existing thing. Okay? Denme du means...

Denme means... Denpa me. Not real.

They're not true. Okay? They're not real.

Okay? So, meaning those who have perceived that... nothing is real.

All right? Is anything real? Yeah, it depends on what you mean by real.

Okay? If I throw this coke bottle at someone in the audience, will it cause a problem? Yeah, I mean it's real.

Okay? But if it does hit you, who will you blame? You see?

If Geshe Michael... Will you blame Geshe Michael or yourself? Is there a Geshe Michael that you should blame in that case?

No, there's no such person. Geshe Michael who maliciously threw a coke bottle at you, doesn't exist. Okay?

If you get hit by a coke bottle coming from my hand, it's because you threw something at somebody else, probably when you were a kid in school. Okay? All right?

Then you should be angry at... yourself, if anybody. But since we forgive ourselves so easily, you actually could go into nirvana, and not have any more anger.

Okay? All right. Because isn't there a traditional distinction made between those who engage in the method, meaning those who perceive that nothing is real, and those who are...

who engage in something which is no method? Listen. Meaning...

Now, ching-pa. Say ching-pa. Do you remember ching-pa?

Anybody? Ching-pa means... chained, fettered, the...what's PLA? People's Liberation Army. Five battalions of which... five whole armies of which freed Tibet.

In Tibetan they're called ching-drol-mok-mi. Okay? Ching means fetters.

Drol is like droma, tara, freeze. Okay? Mok-mi means soldiers, army.

Okay? So the Tibetan word... One of the only modern Tibetan words that uses ching, is the name for that army.

Okay? Five armies, actually. Anyway, meaning what?

Those who... who... are still...fettered, by...

demba dzinbe denzin, the tendency to believe that demba, things are real. Okay? Got it?

Are we good? All right. What does that prove?

I'm just re-running it back to you. We do it in the debate ground. We go backwards, like...

lung-dok, it's called lung-dok. Let's run it backwards. Is there a traditional distinction made among the lower motivated people, between those who are still fettered by their perception that things are real, and those who have seen that things are not real?

Is there such a distinction made? So, if there is such a distinction made, can we say that there are some of them who have seen that things aren't real? So, can we say that those people have seen emptiness?

Yeah, because that's... things are not real. And can we say that among those, some people thereby reach nirvana?

Yes. Okay? Got it?

Okay. Now, this is nice because this is a... the author of our text is going to make the next traditional step, which Nick asked about, which is what?

He's going to prove his idea. What's his idea? What's the last thing he said?

There's a traditional distinction. And then we should say, if we're a good debater, we should say, show me, prove it. Show me this traditional distinction.

Like in the debate ground, you're supposed to get really like, show me your traditional distinction. Like, where's your traditional distinction come from, man? Let's see where...

where's this traditional distinction come back, okay? And then we say, there is two such a... and there is two such a distinction.

And there is two such a distinction, because the... Dralpa says, Nyingbo knows Dralpa, because the commentary says... Nyingbo...

Oh no, Scott Vasek. How many commentaries are there in... in St. Petersburg Library that we went to three weeks ago?

140. Okay, there are 140,000 commentaries there. So, is it...

is it polite to say, there is a distinction because... the commentary says so? Yeah, thanks man.

I mean, that narrows it down, you know. There's 139,999 texts in St. Petersburg alone that aren't the commentary, but are a commentary, you know. That's a great help.

But anyway, that isn't what we say. De la tablo shupa yang nampa nyi te. There are two kinds of people with regard to...

what do we call it? Engaging in the method? Yeah.

...regard to engaging... engaging in the... There are listeners.

There are those... There are those who engage in the absolute certainty in keeping with the way of the listeners. And there are those who engage in it in keeping with...

with the way of the self-made universe. Oh, sorry. Then we're gonna indent it because it's a quotation, okay?

He's quoting the commentary, whatever that is. Okay? Does this prove what he said it did?

Right. He's not proving that there are some who've seen emptiness and there are some who haven't seen emptiness. Even if this refers to what he claims it does, he's only proving that there's two types of people who have seen emptiness among those of lower motivation.

Got it? He's not referring to the two that he just talked about. He's...what do you call it? He's sneaky. All right. Let's see if he clarifies that in any way.

Is there an and there or... By the way, I wanna show off twenty-five years of work, okay? So, all we have here is the commentary.

If we wanted to be more precise, we could go find that commentary. In the old days, back in New Jersey, we used to pull down the volumes of the Kandiya one by one and look through the hundred thousand pages. Hundred thousand pages, scanning for that sentence, visually, okay?

But now we have the database. Nick was there a few weeks ago, helping them. These are hundred Tibetan women who have been typing for twenty-five years, the classics of Buddhism, right?

And now they're on a database. And he's gonna help make them solar because India doesn't have electricity half the time. So they'd be halfway through a book and electricity goes out.

And then they have to start over. So anyway, let's go look for that quotation. Among the ancient scriptures, all right?

So I want to just show you how it works. So there's... Which is why scanning them is not enough.

You can't search a scan. You can't search an image. You have to have it typed in digitally, right?

So here we go. The first thing in making a search, and we're gonna make some YouTube videos about how to use this thing. Something else we could do in Camp Verde, or Casa Jardin.

If you were gonna search for a quotation in the Tengyur, which is two hundred and fifty thousand pages of texts, you have to choose some of the words out of the quotation. Would and be a good word to choose? No, because you're gonna hit a zillion errors, right?

So, in searching for scriptures in the database, and they just finished the Tengyur, they just finished the ancient Sanskrit books. Two hundred and fifty volumes, two hundred and fifty thousand pages. You wouldn't want to look for the word and.

You would want to find a piece of the quotation which was somewhat unique, okay? Hypoxis legumon in Greek, right? Search for a unique phrase, okay?

So how? What would be a good phrase? Find me the phrase.

By the way, you also want to make it as short as possible. Why? You want the shortest possible unique phrase.

Why shortest possible? It's been two and a half thousand years of people copying this stuff by hand, and they made mistakes. So it might not be spelled the same in different counties in Tibet, okay?

So you better search for small pieces. Then you have more likelihood of hitting it, okay? So pick me...

I'll show you something cool, okay? We have tabla-shupa, which means those who have engaged in the method, right? And we have nambanyi, which means they are of two types.

So our search program, which we invented, yay! We can say... What's going on?

We can say, search for tabla-shupa, okay? Look for engaged in the method near nambanyi. They are of two types, okay?

So you took two common phrases, and you told the program, just search for those two common phrases near each other, which is not common. Got it? Because there were no uncommon words in the whole quotation.

They were all ands. Got it? Okay, here we go.

Luckily Tibetan is good for this. Now, shall we look in the 200,000 Tibetan commentaries written in Tibetan, or should we look through the 100,000 pages of the word of Lord Buddha, translated from Sanskrit, or should we look through the 250,000 pages of the word of Lord Buddha commented upon early Indian pundits? Yeah, we want a commentary.

I mean, there's no commentaries in the Kangyur, okay? There are commentarial tantras, but that's another story. So, anyway.

He's probably not quoting a Tibetan. Why? Because the rules of engagement in logical warfare require that you choose a scripture, which is accepted by both sides.

Any Tibetan scripture he chooses is going to belong to one sect or another. But if he goes back to India and takes an Indian quotation, he's covered. Got it?

So, let's search the Kangyur, okay? The Sanskrit commentaries on this stuff. Okay, there's the Kangyur.

We click it, and then we set the search program going, which is somewhere over here. He's going to change this. Okay, fine.

Find it for me. If you can...yeah. So, how long did that take? Five seconds.

It searched a quarter million pages. Okay, and it found it. So, there it is.

Number nyi te, tab mayinpa la shupa, tab la shupa'o. They consist of two types, those who are engaged in the method and those who are not engaged in the method.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So, he has correctly quoted the... Okay? He's correctly quoted the scripture.

What scripture? It shows up down here. Nyingbo's changing this, so it'll show the name of the scripture, but right now it only shows the catalog number of the scripture, which is 4-0-2-5.

Okay? Got it? So, we have to go look.

And remember the folio, okay? What's the folio? 89B.

It's on page 89B. The quotation is on page 89B. Let's go look up 4-0-2-5.

Okay? So, then you open up a new... Sorry.

You open up a new search window. You ask it to find out what's 4-0-2-5. You go to the traditional catalog.

You cut the tinger. And you say, go search for that catalog number. That's not it, okay?

What's that? That's the 64,025th book we found in St. Petersburg. Okay?

We spent 14 years there. And we cataloged 140,000 books. One of them is 64,025.

We're looking for 4,025. Okay? So, keep going.

But I'm a little worried they didn't find it. There's another 64,000. Nope.

I'm going to skip. There's 84,025. Okay?

Like that. We could go on like that for a while, or... I think we'll go...

look for it in a different place. Okay? Okay, so there's the 4,025th work that was translated in Tibet from ancient India.

How many are there total? How many books of Buddhism made it to Tibet? It's about 4,500.

Okay? Half of them are tantra. Okay?

Half of them are yoga. Anyway. Let's read the title together, starting here.

You ready? One, two, three. THEG PA CHEN PO RGYUD LA MED DEN PHYIR RNAM PAR BSHAD PA An explanation of the classical text known as Dutara Tantra.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Who wrote it? His name is down here. Author is...

Who's Thogme? How do you say negative in Sanskrit? Yeah, ah.

Not ah. Ah. You start the word with ah.

And then, Thog means Sangha. Ah Sangha. Like, yay!

Alright. So, was our author lax in calling it the commentary? Should he have identified the commentary?

It's the honor commentary, guys. Come on. Okay?

Got it? This is a Sangha on... Ah Sangha.

It's okay. I can call it the commentary. Like, the city.

You know they are talking about Phoenix, right? Alright. Okay.

Okay. Not Tucson? Okay.

Yeah, yeah. Everybody thinks a different city. Okay, so we can say...

We'll put this and we'll say... Found... Found on folio number 93B of...

What? You're going to make me go look it up again? It takes...

Was it, you swear it was 89? Alright. I was just testing you.

89B of Arya Asanga's own commentary to the higher line. Okay? That's just being polite to the people a hundred years from now.

You know, this is a real quotation. It came from Asanga himself. Arya Asanga himself.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
And how are we doing on time? When am I supposed to stop? I got an hour?

Yeah, yeah. It's supposed to be. This is my big chance.

Oh, here. Yeah, I'll talk to you then also. This is also the only chance I get to show off.

And at any rate, it is fitting that we describe what it means to engage in the method by saying that it is developing within one's mind the view which perceives that nothing is real. Okay? So now he's defending, describing engaging in the method as having perceived emptiness.

Okay? Because they're not necessarily... You wouldn't assume that, right?

Are you engaged in the method? Yes. Oh, so you've seen emptiness.

Alright. Okay, so we have to... Is it alright for him to make that assumption?

Because he is. And then now he's saying, it is okay for me to make that assumption because... and that's because engaging in that which is not the method is described, is already described as being ching-pa, fettered by the tendency to believe that things are real.

Okay? If not engaging in the method is already accepted by everyone in the world as being chained by believing that things are real, is it unreasonable to say that engaging in the method is to perceive that things are not real? That's not a big leap.

That's okay. It's not a khyaba. It's not necessarily so, but it's pretty much...

You could say that. If I define a schmuck as someone who hasn't seen emptiness and I say, you're not a schmuck, then can I say, you've probably seen emptiness? You see what I mean?

That's okay. That's alright. If we all agree that the meaning of a schmuck is someone who hasn't seen emptiness and I walk up to somebody in the class and say, you're not a schmuck, Rob, then we can assume he's seen emptiness.

Okay? Alright. Is that okay?

And that is, too, the case because the commentary says... I got to think about this for a second. I don't like the feeling of this quotation.

I smell something. It's either pretty convoluted or it's been misquoted. It's possible that it's been convoluted, but the principle of physics and of translation is...

What do you call that? Long-winded theories are usually wrong and whatever is simple is usually correct. Like complicated theories, convoluted theories are usually mistaken and simple solutions are usually correct.

And that's true in translation also. It's possible that he's saying something very convoluted, but in translation you should look for an easier solution. If the quotation is misquoted, it would be more comfortable for me.

If it's not misquoted, I can twist it, but I don't feel comfortable with it. So how would we...what shall we do? Let's go look for it.

Okay? Let's go look for it. I'm going to look for nga gyal, which means what?

Nga gyal. Nga means me. Gyal means king.

I king, in the open teachings, means... pride. It's a Tibetan word for pride.

I is the king. Nga gyal. But in the secret teachings, it's a good thing, which is...

I'm already enlightened. Okay? It's a kind of confidence that plants the seed to get enlightened.

Alright? Like you pretend to be enlightened. You say, okay, at 3.40, let's all pretend to be enlightened for three minutes. Everybody pretend they're enlightened. You ready? On the count of three.

Just for ten seconds, okay? Okay? Like that means you've been in a room with other enlightened people.

One, two, three, go. I don't have to finish the class. I can go have hot chocolate at Starbucks.

Okay, go back. That in tantra, that is a high practice, and that's also called... Nga gyal.

And its sister is called... Sel Nang. What's Sel Nang?

Yeah, you look down and you see silk and jewels. That's the... Sel Nang means to see yourself physically as that angel.

Nga gyal. And Nga gyal means to believe it.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
And those two are a high... together they are a high practice. You got to have Nga gyal, and you got to have Sel Nang.

Okay? Alright. And that is to the case because commentary says...

Oh, oh, we're going to go see if it's for real. So I'm going to look up Nga gyal near Tombany, because they shouldn't be close very often. Emptiness next to pride.

Okay, I'm guessing they're not that common together, so... I have to cut the thing. Start, let's start it again.

I'll look up Nga gyal... near... Tombany.

Okay? By the way, the reason it's spreading fatter than the screen is because we're projecting it, and normally it doesn't do that. I got to go back and tell it where to look.

Yeah, and hopefully it's still set for the Tengger. Let me see. No.

It's probably set for some obscure catalog. Yeah, okay. Then we go back and tell it to search the Tengger.

So it's searching 250,000 pages. This is not it, okay? It hit another thing.

So I say next... next one. Maybe I have to...

It's 141 matches. I think we better pick something more... small, smaller, right?

So I'm going to add... Tombany du Tawa, okay? I'm going to add something to it, which is dangerous because what?

Somebody might have misspelled it or misquoted it. Tombany du Tawa. But I'm going to take a shot.

Okay, here we go. This is not it, okay? Hopefully there's another hit.

Is that it? This is extremely close, and it's so close that I'm tempted to think it was misquoted. You see?

Which is what we were hoping for, right? Aiyah! Where are you?

There you are. Lumpen ngagyal chen tombany du tawa. Lumpen ngagyal chen tombany du tawa ni.

It's really close, okay? It's really close. What is 3853?

Somebody write down 3853, okay? 3853. Let's go see if there's another one.

That's not... Okay, by the way, those of you... I mean, I don't want to bore you, but it appears to have come from the Kangyur.

The source, the ultimate source appears to be Lord Buddha's own statement, made a similar statement, okay? And I'm... So that's going to make things more complicated.

This helpful, this is helpful, because I know that parts of it do come from the ancient words of the Buddha. Let's do that and I'll give you a break, because I can see you're spacing. It's going to relate to...

You're going to thank me later, okay? Here we go. This is some commentary from ancient India, and it says, chomden de kyi kyang, er sung, kang sak tu tawa, rab rib sam ni la.

Say, chomden de kyi, kyang, er sung, kang sak tu, tawa. Tawa. Be careful with rab rib, okay?

I think it's going to change in our text. Rab rib, sam ni, lai. Okay?

What's this quotation? karma rab rib ma me dang, gyul mo soo bur chu bur dang, milang lo dang, tin dang dum, du de chen nam, de ta ta. Huh?

The end of the Diamond Cutter Sutra. In Sanskrit, Taraka, Timuram, Dipo, Mayavishaya. Okay?

Timuram, means, rab rib, means, cataracts, okay? Cataracts. She made a song out of it, it's on her album, right?

It's on your album, right? Of the Sanskrit. So anyway, rab rib means a cataract.

La... La here doesn't mean the La in Lama, which means what? Higher, elevated.

Lama means the person who is elevated. It's the Tibetan translation of guru, okay? So, La, it's the same spelling, actually it's probably misspelled, but it means sla, which means easy.

That's okay, that's no problem. Okay? What?

To have a rab rib, vishay, to have a cataract. What's that cataract mean? Kangsang tu tawa, to view things as real, people.

Okay? To think your husband is coming from your husband, that's no problem. Lord Buddha is talking.

Okay? Believing that your husband is yelling from his side, and he's not coming because you yelled at somebody last week, that's no problem. Compared to, ngön bây nga gyal chen, tong bây ni tu tawa.

Ngön bây nga gyal chen, tong bây ni tu tawa. Someone who thinks they understand emptiness, and doesn't have it right. Okay?

You know like, oh, it just means black, or nothing matters, or I can do whatever I want, there's no good, there's no bad, it's all an illusion, right? Those people can get into big trouble. The people who just want to hit their husband, that's just normal trouble.

Okay? To think your husband doesn't exist, so you can hit him, or to think there's no good or bad, and you can hit your husband, or you can do whatever the hell you want, because you're a big yogi, that's real trouble. Okay?

Compared to, just wanting to hit your husband, that's little trouble. Got it? Okay?

La means, yeah, that's bad, but that's nothing compared to someone who thinks they understand, and doesn't understand. Okay? How does that relate to nga gyal?

Okay? How does that relate to nga gyal? There are nine kinds of pride described in the scriptures.

One of them is called lumbay nga gyal, abhi nga gyal. Okay? Ultra nga gyal.

And, that one is really sticky, so I thought it would be a nice detour to go read you the nine types of pride. It might apply to some of us. And then, inside there, we'll hit the one which relates to this quotation.

Okay? Inside the nine, we will hit the one which relates to this quotation. Alright?

Which would be useful. Right? But otherwise, it's nice to know the nine kinds of pride to which human beings fall and into which human beings fall.

Because all of us are in there somewhere. Me, especially me. let's take a pee-pee break.

And, we'll just ignore the schedule. How long was the real break supposed to be? Between classes?

An hour? When was it supposed to start? I know, I know.

When was this whole class supposed to end?

[Speaker 2]
Sorry?

[Speaker 1]
At 4.30. Okay, so why don't we come back at 4? It's 3.50 now. Come back at 4.

We'll go for another half hour. Then you get your real break. So pee-pee break for 10 minutes.

Okay? And I'll try to find the real quotation. Okay, here we go kids.

So, I was going to check that quotation to see if anything was wrong with it. And, he cut it, he cut it, he cut the quotation in half and he only gave half of it. And that half is very confusing.

Okay? The half that he cut says, it's just half a sentence. It's not a full sentence.

It says, how those with exceeding pride think of emptiness and how they think as well of that emptiness as being the view of emptiness which acts as a door to freedom. Okay, sorry. Whoa.

Okay. Glad I got some jeans on. All right.

So there's a thing called Nambatarpi Go. Say Nambatarpi Go. This is a very sophisticated teaching on emptiness which we don't have time to go into.

There are three doors. Nambatarpi means moksha, right? Freedom.

And there are three doors to freedom. Moksha mukha. And they're interesting because they relate to the emptiness of a thing, of one thing, as act...

Let's say your husband. Okay? When he's yelling at you.

Okay? There's the emptiness of your husband who's yelling at you. Meaning, the husband who's not coming from you, who's yelling at you, is not there.

Never was there. Okay? That's one emptiness.

Does the husband who's not really there, but who you believe to be there, can that husband have an effect on you? Yeah, it could cause you wrinkles. Right?

Even though he doesn't exist. But the belief in him exists. And the belief causes you wrinkles.

Right? So, can he act as a wrinkler? Yeah.

Is your perception of him come from you walking in the door ten minutes before? Did it partly come from your walking in the door ten minutes before? Yeah, I mean...

So, in a sense, he is something in himself, he is something which affects later events, and he is something which has been affected by earlier events. Okay? The appearance.

Okay? Those are the three doors of liberation. If you understand that, you can get more sophisticated in your non-response.

Got it? Okay? That's why they lead to freedom.

Now, they're talking about people with exceeding pride who have an idea about what emptiness is, and they have an idea about how that emptiness can free you. And he doesn't say, in either case they are wrong. He cut that part of the sentence out.

The original says, down here, which is what? The auto-commentary. The original says, kang gi wang tu tse ne, either way you cut it, it's wrong.

Okay? And then it goes into another quotation, because you could have a rirab load of thinking things are self-existent, but that wouldn't be as bad as thinking you were right when you didn't see it, emptiness, correctly. Got it?

But I want to draw attention to the word here, which is? Rirab. It's not rub-rib.

Karma, rub-rib, gilmed on millions of... Okay? It's not cataract.

It's... Rirab. Sumeru.

Not just a mountain. Sumeru. Mount Everest.

Which makes more sense? Mountain. Yeah, you could have a Mount Everest.

You could have a shitload of wrong view, but that's not as bad as thinking you're right when you're wrong about emptiness. Got it? I like the rirab, but scriptures have it both ways.

Some of them say, rub-rib. Some of them say, ri-rab. Got it?

It's sexy, it's funny. You could have a... You could have a Mount Everest full of wrong ideas, but if you think you're right, you're worse.

It's worse. Okay? Got it?

If you're... Lumbinagyal means, if you are arrogant about it and believe you're right, you're in more trouble than just when you're being wrong. Okay?

So, now we're going to take a side trip to the nine kinds of pride, or the seven kinds of pride. There's two ways to divide it. This is not very relevant at all, but I like it.

I learned it many, many years ago, 30 years ago, and I like it. For me, it was helpful. You may not guess it, but...

Okay. Number one, didan. Okay, so these are the seven or nine types of pride traditionally taught in scripture.

This is a list of the nine variations of pride that you can... people can have. Okay?

Number one, di dang dak rik sok nyam mo nyam bit nyu senpay nyampe nga gyal. Okay? Nyampe nga gyal.

Nyampa you know because there's a nyampe... lung in your body. It's one of the five vayus.

Wind. But what's sama? Sama vayu.

What's that mean? Pervasive. It spreads...

it covers your whole body. Okay? It takes care of general functions of the body, whereas other vayus like apana vayu...

apana, not udana. Yeah, apana helps you poop, pee, menstruate, and have a baby. Okay?

What is a vayu? It's a prana. Pranas...

it's random pranas which have gathered together in one location of the body temporarily to perform a function. So it's not like all your pranas are concentrated on your... bottom when you're pooping.

They just come there to do the job and then they all go back... then they all spread back throughout the body. Nyamba.

Samaya vayu. Okay? So...

the word sama or nyamba means equal. So what does it mean here? Didan dag rig sok.

In their... in their social class, in their intelligence, in their beauty, I am equal to this person. Meaning...

Tom Cruise or... well I am, but Brad Pitt let's say. Okay?

Alright? So it's like... to think I'm his equal when he's superior.

Okay? Is a kind of... when he's vastly superior.

You know? Gee, I'm just about up to Dalai Lama now. You see what I mean?

Then... he's so vastly superior that to think that is... is a kind of pride.

Okay? So to think you're equal to someone who's vastly superior is the first kind of... pride.

Okay? Number two. Dey lay dak hlak go nyambay hlakpay nga gyal.

So the first kind of pride is called equal pride. The second kind of pride is called more pride. Meaning...

actually I'm a little bit more talented than the Dalai Lama. I mean if we're gonna just talk frankly. Alright?

So if someone's extremely high, way higher than you, and you think you're slightly better than them, that's even worse. Right? Okay.

Number three. Kepar pakpa dey lay kyan dak pay pakso nyambay nga gyal lay. Nga gyal lay nga gyal.

If I tell you that the lay here is the comparative one, as opposed to the ablative or... or source one, then what does nga gyal lay nga gyal mean? Huh?

Pride beyond pride. More pride than... more proud than proud is the name of the third one.

And that means... the person to whom you're comparing yourself is infinitely higher than you in their personal qualities, and you think you're better.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So maybe the Dalai Lama example would have gone better with the third one. Okay? And the Brad Pitt one would have gone better with the first two or something.

Okay? Alright? The third one is someone who's...

who's obviously infinitely superior to you, and you think you're a little bit better than them. That's the third kind of nga gyal. Okay, number four.

NYE BA LEN PA'I PHUNG PO LA MIG NAS NGA'O NYAM PA'I NGA GYAL Okay? You look at the parts of yourself, your body and your mind that you were born within, you say, that's Michael. And that's the kind of pride called me pride.

Me pride. NGA'O... NGA'O NYAM PA'I Is that wrong?

Is Michael not the body and mind into which he was born? Are you not your parts? You know?

People in yoga studios love to go into this, you know? I'm not my mind, I'm not my body. Well, where are you?

Well, where else would you be? Are you the table? Are you the carpet?

You know? Are you your mind and body put together? You are.

You are your mind and body put together. Okay? But is that connection natural?

You see? That's the... That's what it means.

Are you your body? And your... Are you your body?

No, I also have a mind. Are you only your mind? No, I also have a body.

Are you all your parts put together? The answer is... No.

Not until you think of yourself as your parts put together. Is a car the sum of its parts? In Buddhism they say no.

Why? Someone has to think of it as the sum of its parts and then it is the sum of its parts, but until someone thinks of it as the sum of its parts, it's not naturally the sum of its parts. A caveman will walk up to a car and see and divide it differently and not encapsulate it as a car.

A person who's never seen a car before will look at a car and conceptualize different things sitting there. Okay? To think of a car as a car is something you're trained to do or we would say, or which karma forces on you.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
How does that apply to real life? You conceptualize your husband's complaining as being part of your husband, but that's just your mind attaching the complaining to him. It should attach the complaining to you.

You see him complaining, but it's really him and you and the complaining which you have created. The division is here. You made the complaining and you and he's over there, but your mind glues together him and the complaining and divides it from you.

Got it? And either one is valid depending on what your karma forces you to do. Okay?

One causes pain and one causes happiness, but they're both valid because your mind is forcing you to do it. One connects him to the complaining and one connects you to the complaining. Okay?

And they're both real, but one is wrong. Got it? Okay.

So is it wrong to think of your body and mind as you? No. Only if you think it had to be you.

It had to be you. Okay?

[Speaker 2]
All right.

[Speaker 1]
Well, what are you talking about? What would it be like if I didn't think of me as, of my parts as me? Then you would, you could think of your parts as something flowing out of your past karmas and then you could turn your body into something deathless.

Right? You could put, you could attach new ideas to your body. If, if you're born into a body which exists from its side, then you're in trouble.

You will die. If you're born into a body which is flowing from karmas in your mind, then you switch those karmas and then the body will become immortal.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Got it? Okay. So number four is touchy.

Number four is, is you have to be careful. I've heard in like, in New York, in yoga studios, the people saying, you're not your body, you're not your mind. That's not what it means.

Okay? Okay, let me poke a needle into your not your body body. Okay?

They're like, well, I didn't know. YIN RIN GYI KHYAD PAR Number five is very interesting. YIN RIN GYI KHYAD PAR DE MA THOB KYANG Even though you haven't achieved a certain high quality, THOB PO NYAM NYAM PA means you think to yourself, THOB PO, I have achieved it.

Okay? I have achieved it. And that one's called LUM PA'I NGAG YANG And that's the one that was mentioned in the quotation that we just had.

Why? Yeah, you thought you understood emptiness. You thought you had achieved the direct perception.

Many people come up to me and say, oh, last Tuesday I was on the subway and I saw it Geshe Michael, it's all over. You know, I'm like, okay, you know. That's LUM PA'I NGAG YANG.

You think you saw it and you didn't see it, which is more trouble than not even knowing that you should be seeing it, if it's not true, if it's not correct.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So that's the one that we're dealing with here in this quotation. Why are we dealing with that quotation in the first place? Why are we interested in a quotation about a person who thought they saw emptiness but didn't?

Because they are not engaged, they are engaged in something which is not the method. Which implies that there are people who are engaged in the method. Therefore our distinction of people into those who are engaged in the method and those who are not engaged in the method is valid and is a traditional distinction that should be made.

And we're applying it to people of lower motivation in order to prove that there are some of them who have seen emptiness. Got it? You got to remember where we are.

Okay. Number six. The LUM PA'I means ABI in Sanskrit.

ABI means ultra or super. Maybe you could call it super pride or ultra pride or... I don't know.

Exceeding. I called it exceeding pride, didn't I? Okay.

Alright. Okay, number six. KHYAD PAR DE LAS CHUNG ZAD MED NO NYAMS PA'I CHUNG ZAD NYAMS PA'I NGA RGYUR The pride in which you think I'm just a touch inferior towards a person who is...

Yeah, like way beyond you. Like, give me another week to work on it and then I'll pass the dilemma. I mean, I admit I'm not there yet, but give me another week.

I'm just right up there, you know. Okay? Like that.

And the name of that pride is I'm just a little less. Little bit less pride. Little bit less pride?

Yeah. CHUNG ZAD means tiny bit less. Okay.

Number seven, right? YONDAN CHEN... MIM PA LA YONDAN CHEN DU LOM PA'I LOP PA'I NGA RGYAL The crucial word here is LOM PA.

You have it in your bodhisattva vows or your tantric vows? GNAL SBYAR PAR LOM is the vow. GNAL SBYAR PAR LOM To LOM that you are a high yogi.

What's LOM? Delusions of grandeur. Okay, in English we have I'm Napoleon.

You know, like that. That's LOM PA. LOM PA is a very specific verb.

It's a delusion of grandeur. So, number seven is called... It's LOP PA'I NGA RGYAL is the name of it.

LOP PA means... LOP PA is a difficult word and it means totally wrong. It's in the Yoga Sutra.

There's a LOP PA. What is that? I forget.

It's in the second chapter. But there's a... It means to have a wrong idea about something but the wrong idea is diametrically opposed to the correct idea.

It's not just wrong. It's backwards.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
I used to call it ass backwards but it's... I got in trouble for using curse words in my class from my teacher, so... I don't call it ass backwards but it sure is a good translation.

It means 180... diametrically wrong. Isn't that virtue?

Sorry?

[Speaker 2]
Isn't that virtue?

[Speaker 1]
Not exactly. No. I was trying to think of the example.

Oh, yeah. It comes in the discussion of avidya. Okay?

Ignorance. Ignorance is not the absence of knowledge. It's the LOP PA of knowledge.

Yeah, it's actively misunderstanding things. It's not the absence of knowledge. Yeah.

And the example in scripture is, someone who is not my friend is not the same as someone who is your enemy. To say he's not my friend, he could just be someone neutral that doesn't know you. Your enemy is diametrically opposed to a friend.

So, avidya, misunderstanding the world has to be the active misunderstanding. To believe that your husband criticizing you comes from him rather than not being sure where he comes from, which is not actively opposed to the correct view. Got it?

Okay. What are you actively confused about here is that you think something that is not a good quality is a good quality. For example, the scripture...

In the scripture, a typical example would be to hurt yourself and think that that was a spiritual practice. You know, like... They say jumping on a spear and killing yourself or...

There's a practice of sitting in the middle of four fires for... for a week. Or there's a practice of standing on one leg until the other leg rots off, like that.

I mean, there are these weird practices in India. Holding up your arm until it... until you can't move it anymore.

So, those are... I think in modern life it might be, oh, this person can do a one-arm handstand. You know, and sort of being worried about this person, you know, in your life.

They can do a one-arm handstand and I can't. You know, instead of admiring someone who's exceptionally patient or someone who's visiting old people and serving them and being jealous of them. You see what I mean?

Oh, Rob, he's serving people in the hospice. You know, we aren't jealous of him, but we hear that there's somebody in yoga class who can stand on one hand, handstand, and then we get jealous of them. That's, you know, something which is not much of a virtue as opposed to something which is a virtue.

Got it? Okay. Then it gets complicated, okay?

You can see up... there's a division into nine. I'll run it over to you.

The seven are traditional. I was taught it as nine, okay? And there's the source for the nine.

The nine can be included into the seven. Maybe you can do that as homework if you have nothing else to do in the next 24 hours. But...

I'll just read them very fast to you, okay? Here's the nine. Number one, I'm the best.

Number two, I'm equal... I'm the same. Number three, I'm lower.

How could that be prime? Yeah, I'm just a little bit lower than diamond, okay? BDAG PA'I CHOG PO They are superior to me.

BDAG PA'I MED NO They are worse than me. BDAG DANG NYAMS PA MED DO Nobody's equal to me. BDAG PA'I MED PA MED DO Nobody's worse than me.

BDAG DANG NYAMS PA YOD DO Some people are equal to me. BDAG PA'I MED PA YOD DO Some are lower than me, okay? I think what you have to derive from these nine is that it's pride to even compare yourself to others.

How's that? It's comparing yourself to others. It's judging yourself relative to others, which is always dangerous, okay?

Maybe you're fine just the way you are, not relative to others, okay? Alright. By the way, here's the other half of the sentence.

Since I accused him of cutting the sentence in half, it was me who cut it in half. But that's just because I'm a little bit less than Ketu. Alright.

Alright. It doesn't matter, kasyapa, which one we're talking about. How do you want to translate the law?

By the way, he spelled it right, and the tenger spelled it wrong. Our author has spelled it SLA, which means easy, and it's a common expression. It means, it's not such a big deal to misunderstand reality, but to think you understand it when you misunderstand it, now that's a big deal.

So how are we going to translate that in scholarly language? You don't want to say big deal in a scholarly translation. It doesn't matter, kasyapa, which one we're talking about.

It would be a blank if you had a wrong view about a person, which were as big as what? It's sumeru, right? Sumeru.

Mount Meru. Let's say Mount Meru, okay? In the cosmology of ancient India, sorry, pre-blessed me.

I'll save it. In the ancient cosmology of India, there are four continents, and there's a universal mountain in the middle, and it's all on a disk. Alright?

And the sun rotates around the top of the mountain, and the mountain has four quarters, right? And one is made of sapphire. One quarter of the universal mountain is made of sapphire.

And in the period of the day when the sun is facing that side of Mount Meru, the sky is blue. Okay? That's the explanation.

Got it? Why am I saying that? Oh, that's Mount Meru.

So, they believe that every single planet, every single inhabited planet, of which there are countless, is formed in the same way. There's a central mountain, and we live on the southern continent, Jambu, named after... That's a long story.

Jambudvipa, right? Because there's a tree with a big fruit, and when the fruit falls into the water, it goes, Jambu. Okay.

Alright. We live on Jambudvipa. Why does dvipa mean island?

What's the Hindi word for water? Pani. So, pa.

The pa and dvipa means water. Dvi means to divide. So, an island divides the waters.

So, it's called dvipa. We live on the Jambudvipa.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Anyway, the point is, this is the biggest thing in the world. And in debate, it's a singularity event, those of you who care. There's a concept of singularity in Buddhism which is very profound.

And Mount Meru is considered one of the singularities, meaning it only happens once per world. Okay. So, anyway, it's a big mountain.

If you had a wrong view about... It would be a... Tragic.

No, the opposite.

[Speaker 2]
Notable phenomenon. A small mountain.

[Speaker 1]
Ah, I like it. I almost thought I did that myself. So, that must mean it's correct.

It doesn't matter. There's two matters in there. We'll have to work on that.

Which one we're talking about? What does it mean which one we're talking about? Having a certain view of emptiness and then believing that that's the view that will get you liberated.

Okay, that was the two. Which one we're talking about? It would be a small matter if you had a wrong view about a person which was as big as Mount Meru.

But that's not the case with the way in which those who possess exceeding pride view emptiness. Okay? That's not a small matter.

Exceeding pride here means those who think they saw emptiness when they haven't seen emptiness. What time am I supposed to stop? He...

Okay. So, I indented to show it's a quotation. Okay?

Let's see if it ends there. So, just to let you know where we'll be when we come back. Kacig means what?

Literally means one mouth. But in debate it means somebody comes and says. Somebody comes and says, take menla, those who be of lower motivation, tonitopa, the perception of emptiness, me.

They don't see emptiness. Me-pa-ta. It is...

It is true that they don't see emptiness because Gyulama says... What's Gyulama? Say...

Uttaratantra. Okay. He's coming back to us again with a quotation from Maitreya.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
And he's gonna... He claims there's another quotation by Maitreya in the Uttaratantra which proves us wrong. He...

He tried with the quotation that mentioned the... the blind people and the sun and he failed. And now he's coming back with another quotation from the original text, not the commentary.

Okay? Got it? So, he's gonna blah blah some new blah blah.

Alright? Okay. Have a nice dinner.

We'll see you at... Seven. Seven?

Yeah. Okay. Are we practicing in here or over there?

I think in there. Okay. Okay.

Alright. So, you're welcome to use this room if you wish. Okay.

Thank you. Oh, let's do a... Nicole, will you do?

Let's do a Mount Meru. By the way, I mean, this is an offering of the entire world. Enlightened, right?

And you envision it as already without poverty, without war, without death. And you're offering that globe to your teacher. Okay?

As payment for the class.

[Speaker 2]
Yes. And I come to you.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. And it's a pleasure to be with hardcore people. So, thank you for coming.

I get very frustrated if I can't teach this sometimes. Alright?

[Speaker 2]
People watching on the internet too.

[Speaker 1]
Yes, thank you hardcore people on the internet.