Вступление на срединный путь (текущий курс, Аризона), занятие 18

[Speaker 1]
I wanted to go over again what we do with this course and why we're doing this particular course, right? And this is the translator's course, and people are learning to translate ancient texts. And we're doing a text.

There's three collections in Tibet, called Sumbum Kangyur Tengyur. Which one are we reading from? Huh?

[Speaker 2]
It's all three.

[Speaker 1]
Sumbum, Sumbum, and what other?

[Speaker 2]
Tengyur, right?

[Speaker 1]
So we're talking about a text that comes from Tengyur. What's Tengyur mean? Yeah, classical Indian commentary, meaning from 500 BC up to about 1,000 AD.

Books that were written in India, in Sanskrit, as a result of Lord Buddha's teachings. And what does the word Tengyur mean? The whole collection is called Tengyur.

Yeah, translations from Sanskrit into Tibetan. So the basic text we're studying is called Entering the Middle Way, and it's from one of those texts. But I wanted to show you something that's interesting.

We're going to bring up a search program. And we've put in all the ancient books onto a database with the help of many Tibetan people. And there's about 3,000, 4,000 books now in the computer.

We have how many to go?

[Speaker 2]
No, 3,000 done.

[Speaker 1]
That means 99,000 to go? Something like that. We have 102 catalog.

But I wanted to show you something.

[Speaker 2]
Gyapay, and Gyanak.

[Speaker 1]
Do you know what Gyapay means? Gyan means Gyanak. Gyanak is, no, Gyakar, the big country which people wear white clothes.

Gyakar is India. But what's Gyanak? Yeah, Gyanak means China, the big country where people wear black, at least they wear black clothes, like black pajamas.

And so Gya means big country. And here it means Gyanak. And Pay means where did they get the original manuscript to put in the tenure, to translate for the tenure?

And we know that we normally think of it as coming from India, from Sanskrit. But let's take a look. Go to the catalogs.

And then let's say to the tenure, which is where our book is. And you see, you hit, immediately you hit something. And this is a famous book about in praise of Lord Buddha.

And it says, read that line, first line, where the, let's read it together, OK, you ready? The first two and a half lines, ready? One, two, three.

OK, kap-su-tsik-su-che-pa-chu-ni-hi-de-pa-gya-pe-ma-nye-me-du-chi-ge-long-kun-ka-gya-tsen-ta-sang-po-she-ja. OK, it says here, kap-su-tsik-su-che-pa means, this is a commentary on an ancient text. And then it says, gya-pe-ma-nye-me.

We couldn't even find a Chinese manuscript. OK, so gya-pe means a Chinese manuscript that was used for translating into the tenure. Why?

They couldn't find a Sanskrit. It was already 1,000 years after the Sanskrit texts were written, right? So I'm going to hit it again.

And it says that it was found later by a Sakya, Kun-gya-gya-tsen, using the Chinese manuscripts. But every time you hit a hit here, see here again, this is a commentary on what? On Hevajra.

And it says, gya-pe-la-tsik-su-che-pa. We have to use the Chinese manuscript to translate it into Tibetan. Here's another one.

This is about, this is very beautiful. In Sakya, they found the two Chinese manuscripts and they used it to translate this text, which is called Chakra, OK? And like that.

So every time I get a hit here, it's that this manuscript came from China, you see, from the Chinese. So really, what we're doing here is recovering wisdom from both the Indian tradition and the Chinese tradition. So Tibet was in a unique position geographically to get the best from both cultures.

So from China, they brought in a lot of manuscripts that didn't reach Tibet in Sanskrit. And then from India, of course, they brought in a lot. And then trade was cut off from India.

They couldn't get the tax anymore because of the invasions from Persia. So really, when you talk about what we're doing with our translation, a good part of it has come from the Chinese. And I don't think you really appreciate that sometimes.

You don't really know that. A lot of what we have to study was recovered from Chinese manuscripts. Even this catalog was written in the 1500s, like that.

So what we're studying has come from both traditions. And I wanted to go through the purpose of this class again. And I'll put it in some kind of large point size.

Let me see. Maybe 16, 18? Yeah.

So first, this is what this class is for. I just want to remind you, some people weren't here first term. I think I did this.

I don't remember. But this is what this class is for. First, you have to find the manuscript.

Find the... These are the steps we go through. Like, go somewhere.

We have teams in Russia. We have teams in Mongolia. We have teams in India.

We've worked in Sri Lanka, Japan, Hong Kong, Beijing. Lots of work and lots of people in Tibet. Looking for, find a book.

Find the ancient book, either Chinese or Sanskrit or Tibetan, Pali. So the first thing is to find a book that has the ancient wisdom in it. So that's what, we have this whole, what do you call it?

Line of what we're doing. This whole, from beginning to end. This is the beginning.

You find a book. And I'm going to put some kind of dumb, let me see. Maybe I'll do a couple of those.

So first you find the manuscript. Then secondly, what? What do you do after you find it?

[Speaker 2]
Type it in.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, actually, first you, then you catalog it, really. Okay. Just so, in case it doesn't, in case it gets lost, okay.

It's in some library somewhere in Russia, for example, in St. Petersburg. It's in some, it's in some warehouse in Mongolia somewhere. All the pages thrown all over the place.

And so at least you have to say, you have to make a record that this book is here. You know, that book is there. That way it doesn't get lost.

People don't like, I don't know. There's a lot of ways books disappear from libraries, okay. What do you do after that?

Yeah, then you would scan it if you can. If you get permission, you would scan it. Scan the book.

And we have good friends in New York who are doing that. Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center, TBRC. And so they scan the book.

Then what do you do? Just save it. Then you input it.

Input the book. Why input the book if you already have it scanned? Well, then you can do what we just did with the catalog to the ancient Tengyur.

In five seconds, you can find what you're looking for. All the cases of Chinese manuscripts that were used in the 18th century for carving certain blocks, you know. So if it's just a scan, you can't search it.

It's just a picture. The computer doesn't know how to look for something. So you have to have somebody type this stupid thing in.

So why not do OCR, optical character recognition? Why not just put it on a screen, on a glass and turn a button and it... They're all carved.

Every single Tibetan book is carved. Every single letter is different from every other letter. Every A is different from every other A.

You can't OCR it right now. The machine won't recognize it, you see. Because they're all different.

Because if the carver doesn't have room to get his A in there, he just squishes the side and it looks like a B or something to the machine. You know, so you can't... You have to have somebody actually sit there and type it.

So we have people doing that. And that's what we did with the 5,000 books so far. What after that?

Catalog it. Yeah, input. I say give it away.

Put it on the web. Yeah? I mean, we put them on the web.

And we give them away, right? And for free. Because these books are wisdom.

These books are some kind of glorious knowledge. You know, if people learn them, then people can have a better life, right? So it's important that if there's any people out there in the world who might be able to use it to help somebody, then it should be on the web for free.

It's like you can't withhold... If it were the only medicine that could cure AIDS, then you wouldn't withhold it from people, right? You wouldn't, like, charge people some crazy price.

If you could, you would give it away. You know? Even if you had to go broke or something.

So it's important to give them and make them available. So that's John Brady's project. They got it on the web.

What next? I think translating. Yeah.

Translated into modern languages. Well, let's say English right now. Just for example.

And that's what... I'm going to do a show and tell. That's what we did with Diamond Cutter.

This is the Diamond Cutter Sutra. And it's important for Chinese people. It's important in China.

It's the oldest printed book in the world is the Diamond Cutter. And the language that it's printed in is Chinese. So there's a...

In some museum, there's a copy in Chinese, which is the first printed book... First book ever printed. And it's the Diamond Cutter.

So, you know, it's a really important book for China and then later for Japan and other countries, Korea. But it's... I think it's like the most important book in the world, maybe.

Okay? And people, we only know the books in the West, right? We're not so familiar with books in the East.

But if you counted up all the books that had ever been printed, I think Diamond Cutter might outdo all of them. Okay? And that's from a woodblock...

That's from a woodblock in part of China. Okay, this card here. Yeah.

So then we translate it into English, right? You have to put it into English for people to understand it. But then as you know, like the Diamond Cutter, for example, is hard.

And it's old. And it's a little confusing, right? Okay?

Yeah? All right, so you translate it into English. Then I think those books are still too hard, right?

They still can't be understood very well. You know, like Karma, Ravindra, Marmita, Gima, Siva, Jivinam, Mila, Mata, Tumedhara, Dukkha, Jivinam, Devadatta. She did the last verse of that book.

And it's like a star. Karma, Ravindra, like a cataract. Marmita, like a leg.

Gima, like an illusion. Silpa, like dew on the grass. Gima Siva, like a bubble.

You know, what does that mean? So you've got to have explanations. So then you have to write an explanation of it, right?

Explain it. I think at this point... Oh, actually, back here.

You need something else before you can translate it. Huh? Oh, that's input.

You need a living person to explain it to you from the lineage. Somebody from the lineage has to explain it to you. Some master, if you can find one.

No, you have to go and get a good explanation of it. Otherwise, it's just impossible. And to really, really get the essence out of a wisdom book, you need a living...

What do you call it? Transmission. Somebody who's living, alive.

A master has to explain it to you. Otherwise, you'll never understand it. It's not like other things.

These things you can only understand from a master, right? So, translate it into English. Then what?

Yeah, you give it away, if you can. Yeah, then you make your own commentaries, right? What do you call it?

Popular vote. Okay? And that's what we did with the diamond cutter.

And I'm going to do a blurb. Now, I want to understand what we're doing. Why we're doing it.

Is it just to translate books and have them sit on shelves in some library somewhere? You see, I mean, that, to me, is very frustrating. Is it just to save some old manuscripts on CDs and have them on some computer somewhere?

You know what I mean? It doesn't mean anything. You have to give it...

It has to go down to the next level of normal people. Like, what good is this book if it's only in a couple of eggheads' heads? You know what I mean?

It has to be transmitted to real people. In their real lives. You know, not everyone's going to move to the desert and in the snow and go meditate in a cave.

They're not going to do that. People have normal lives. People have normal families.

People have normal jobs. And they should have. That's where you can really lead a spiritual life.

Unless you're going to be a teacher or something like that. But most people need to be able to practice in a normal home with a normal family and a normal work. And can this wisdom be transmitted to people in a way that normal people can use it?

And that's what it's all about. That's what we're doing, right? We're not just sitting here and arguing about what this thing here...

What verb did they get wrong in the carving in 1585 or something? It's not like that. So then we go to Diamond Cutter.

And it turns into... This is a book about how to make more money in your business by using these principles, right? So use ethical principles quite...

How do you call it? Quite frankly, because it makes more money. You want to make money?

Then be ethical. Because that's what produces money. That's what actually creates wealth.

What caused all the wealth in the world? You see? Is it...

What do you call those things? Federal... What do you call those places that print the money?

[Speaker 2]
They're mint.

[Speaker 1]
They're mint, yeah. Federal mint. Is it the federal mint that makes money?

Yeah. Is it like there's an initiative... Is there like a directive from Washington that says print a billion more dollars and put it into circulation?

That's not where wealth comes from. And there was an idea... Karl Marx said, wealth comes from the earth.

All wealth comes from the earth. Ultimately, if you trace back all wealth, somebody has planted something and grown it. Or gotten metal or wood out of the earth.

And then we say something... This is a whole different idea. This is an interesting idea.

All wealth comes from giving it away. And then people say, that sounds nice and that sounds... What do you call it?

Very noble and ethical and moral and all that. And then... Then they ignore it.

But the point is... You can answer. You can say this guy or this company that was built on this principles is now...

was the fastest growing company in the history of New York City. And is at 250 million dollars a year now. Just because it was run along the ideas that are in these books that we're talking about.

You see what I mean? Just because it was run in a different way along the ideas that that was written about. So what we're doing here as translators becomes a little more...

What do you call it? Substantial. Something important.

Something that could potentially benefit millions of people. Hopefully. So then what do you do?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, you can go there.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, you can turn around.

[Speaker 2]
Turn around and see.

[Speaker 1]
Get people to come film with you. And then you can translate it into other languages. So translate it into other modern languages.

Translate it into other modern languages.

[Speaker 2]
I think.

[Speaker 1]
Right? Make it available to more people than just one country's people. So that's what this is.

The Chinese translation. I think they've sold... I don't know.

It's up to 40,000, 50,000 copies now. It's the best selling book in parts of China. So it's important, I think, to get it out to more people.

Share it with more people. So they can make money. So with this idea, it's interesting.

The idea that resources are limited. The idea that there's only so much lumber and so much minerals and so much oil. You know?

And that we have to sort of compete with each other or struggle to get our share is outdated. According to these ancient books, you see. If everyone were kind, if everyone were generous with other people, then just the total amount of wealth in the world would increase.

Net increase. Just more available for everybody. It's interesting.

So in this theory, in this economic system, everybody could be wealthy at the same time. No problem with that. Okay?

That's a... I think that's a... Yeah, you translate it into modern languages.

I wanted to show you another text. I don't know if you appreciate this. This is a...

The text we found in St. Petersburg that is the source of all the yoga exercises that we've been teaching. Tibetan Heart Yoga. The source is Naropa.

And as far as I know, this is the only drawings of Naropa's exercises that exist in the world. This is a Xerox, okay? But this is the...

These are the exercises. And this is the original page that we got the exercises from. You know, we have an oral tradition.

Christy and I studied the asanas with Tibetan lamas. But it's nice to also have pictures, right? And this is the...

This is the whole thing that the Tibetan Heart Yoga is based on. And I don't know if you appreciate it. I don't think you even know, but this was printed in China.

You see? You see, over here are the printer's... The printer's marks are here.

And it was printed in China. And made its way to Mongolia and then made its way to St. Petersburg, okay? And we found it...

After cataloging about 80,000 books, we found it. It took like 15 years to find this book. We found it the week that the book was going to press.

Okay, just coincidence. But the point is... And there's also, in this same text, are the ancient medical, surgical instruments.

You see? That were used in Tibet for medical purposes. This is called a book of things that you can't explain in words very well.

Okay? It's like a picture book. And there's a lot of cute things in there.

[Speaker 2]
But the point is that...

[Speaker 1]
And then it goes out into books like this. You see? The point is that we're not just sitting here translating something into some weird...

from some weird language into some weird English and then for scholars to read or to put in some university somewhere or something. There's thousands... I'd have guessed thousands of people doing this kind of yoga now or influenced by it right in New York.

And that's what we want to do. We want to help real people. And relay it to real people.

Then there's a whole side project too about the meridians. Like the meridians are very big in Chinese medicine, right? Who can tell me which one comes right here down to your...

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, heart coming back up?

[Speaker 1]
No, lungs, right?

[Speaker 2]
Lungs.

[Speaker 1]
Am I right? Heart's down here.

[Speaker 2]
Right?

[Speaker 1]
Oh, teacher's here. Heart starts in the axilla. I'm studying for my final.

Goes to this side of the people. Our teacher's over there, right? No, but anyway, channels coming up, down and in the legs.

And then it's very similar to the ancient Indian systems. You see? And so our goal, one of our goals is to produce translations, compare the Chinese systems to the Indian systems and the Tibetan systems and then come up with real therapies that can be used by real doctors in real offices.

You see what I mean? So that's one of the big goals of doing all this. I don't know how to say it.

Bring it to the modern world, right? Bring it into everyday life to help people, right? So it's not just...

That's the whole... Oh, wait. Somewhere in there you have to train translators and teachers.

Okay? You have to train people, right? People need to get training.

And that's a big step in there. You can't do anything without that, right? You have to be able to train people.

And then I'll give you another pitch and then we'll start, okay? We don't have that much time today. But there's a new world shaping up.

Like when I grew up, it was Russia and the US were the big superpowers. And then there was this Cold War. I grew up in the Cold War, you know?

And I was... I remember, you guys don't know, if you're under, I don't know, 40? This never happened to you.

We were in grade school. We were in elementary school. And we were told that the Russians were very, very bad people.

Really bad people. Like really evil. Evil empire.

President Reagan said that. They're evil people. And then every, I don't know, once a month, the teacher, there would be an alarm would come to the loudspeaker and we'd all have to get under our desk.

Because this was preparation for a nuclear attack. They said the Russians are very evil people and they want to attack us. And so we just got used to that.

We thought of Russians as bad people. We were trained to get under the desk. And years later, I went to Russia.

I learned Russian in school and in college. And then I went to Russia to find Tibetan books. Because they have a huge library in St. Petersburg, which is where we got this book. And, you know, I kind of was nervous. And I got off the plane and I got picked up by somebody. And we went.

And I spent the day with these Russians, you know. And we went to the library. We talked about working together.

And we went out for dinner. And then we were driving home, I remember. And it was getting, it was still light at 11 o'clock at night.

Because this is St. Petersburg in the summer. And, like, it's dark for like an hour or two hours or something. And so I was feeling kind of giddy because of the long plane ride.

And the guy turns around, the Russian librarian turns around and he says, So, Mikhail, you know, Как поживаете, русские? Наши люди, как... How do you like Russia?

How does Russia feel to you? How do you think about us? And I said, I'll tell you, you know.

When I was a kid, they told us you were the evil people, you know. And we actually had a drill where we had to get under our desks and practice hiding from a nuclear bomb under your desk, right? And I remember.

And I said, I'm very embarrassed to tell you this. Because we were, I grew up being told that you were very evil people. And you're just like me.

And we're having a great time together. And it's a lot of fun to be with you, you know. And it's so sad that we spent so many years like that.

And he goes, Our teachers told us the same thing about you. And I laughed. And I said, listen, our teachers said exactly the same thing about you.

And we practiced getting under our desks, you know. And I'm like, man, why don't we just talk to each other, you know. Why don't we just see each other, you know.

So I, that's the way I feel. I'm pitching this. Now there's two superpowers growing.

I mean, there's China and there's the US. And China's getting very powerful, you know. China's strong.

And then the whole thing is set up to happen again. This whole thing is set up to happen again. You know, you've got one new powerful country.

And then you have this old powerful country. Which is the old one? Which is the new one?

Okay. But you have two big countries now forming in the world. And there will start to be competition, right.

For economic competition and cultural competition. The movies from China are better than American movies right now. The hero is better than the knockoffs that the Americans tried to make.

Which is the last thing we could do better.

[Speaker 2]
You know, and no.

[Speaker 1]
I mean, space program, aerospace, computers now. I think a third come from China. IBM just sold their computer business in China, I think.

PC. So it's all set up to be this tension. It's all set up for there to be tension, you know.

And people to feel like, oh, jobs are going away. Or money, you know, there's a deficit. There's so many billion dollars going to China.

And according to these books, it's a dumb idea, right. I mean, that's not where wealth comes from. It's very interesting.

So we're in this situation where American people don't understand China. You know, I believe that. We don't understand China.

I mean, this is part of China, right. I mean, the manuscripts we're working with came, many of them came from China. And American people just don't have any familiarity with China.

And they don't really want to. You see what I mean. They're just sort of nervous about this big country is coming up.

And economic is coming up. And nobody's thinking, we should get to know them. Like the guys in Russia.

You know what I mean. Like we should, as a country, we should try to get to know this other big friend. Right.

And we should try to learn about what they know. And we should learn their ancient wisdom. Because we can both use it.

You see what I mean. So that's a side thing that we're doing. You know, we're trying to struggle.

A few American people, not a lot, are trying to struggle to learn this great tradition of other countries. Especially India and China, in this case. And it's difficult for us.

It's a totally different culture. It's a totally different language. Totally different ideas.

But I think it's not just that you're here to learn to translate. You're in a position to help prevent another Cold War, in a way. You're in a position to prevent this competition thing from happening again.

You see what I mean. And that's very unhealthy for people. And what it cost, I can't even guess.

You know, to make tens of thousands of nuclear missiles and put them in silos in Tucson. What it cost, I have no idea. David Stump used to work at that museum, the Titan Missile Museum.

He helped build it up. If we could just get to know each other ahead of time. You know, enjoy each other's ancient books.

And go to their country. Learn to speak their language. Appreciate their medical practices.

Learn them. Incorporate them. And get to know each other.

You have to think in those terms. You're not just in a translator class. You're in a position where you could help diffuse.

If more people had known Russian when I was a kid, I don't think the whole thing would have happened. You see what I mean. Billions upon billions of dollars could have been saved.

And all that getting under the desks could have been saved.

[Speaker 2]
You know what I mean.

[Speaker 1]
All that tension. People had tension. You went home and you're like, Mom, what if they do this bomb thing at night while I'm asleep?

How am I going to get under the desk? No, you had whole households of people around the United States. You had kids nervous at night.

I was. I used to dream about what would it look like. How would it look when the red cloud, you know, I would see something.

I used to dream that I would see some kind of bright red light in my bedroom window. And then I wouldn't know. What would I know after that?

You know, I would wonder what would happen after that. Because the house would be gone. I'd be gone.

So you put all these children into this situation for decades just because you want to compete instead of help each other. It's weird. It's just we can prevent it.

You see, people like us, normal people can. We're in a strange position now. If you really learn this language well, and then you can travel to China and you can speak to people who are working on the same task, and then you can also introduce our people, American people, to this beautiful, this is a diamond cutter.

The diamond cutter suture. This book is sold like a hundred thousand copies. You know, there's like business people everywhere using it now.

And then there's less tension and people can learn each other's wisdom. So you have to think like that. I'm doing a pitch.

It's a political pitch. And I'm going to pitch it tomorrow too. But we're not just doing translation of some old books.

There's a national benefit and then there's a global benefit. You see what I mean? The whole globe could benefit from what you're doing.

So I think you have to take it very seriously and think about your responsibility to learn it well. And then you have to sort of be a, what do you call it, a spokesperson for these other cultures. I'm saying India and China mainly.

You can be a spokesperson. You can help people appreciate what they have. And oftentimes you can, by talking about these great books with Indians and Chinese people, you know what you find out?

They'd love to learn more about them too. It's very funny. We go to India and we run into Indians and then we're talking about some of their great books.

And they're like, I never heard of that one. And you're like, yeah. You could run your business along this diamond kind of thing.

What? That's old fashioned stuff. That's old weird stuff.

We don't believe in those old books anymore. You hear that everywhere in India and China. And then you say, no, no, look.

Honest, we built this business. It's a quarter billion dollar business. It's more than the state of Arizona's economy.

Not really. It works. It's exciting.

You can use it. It came from your country. You're not using it or you think it's some old corny book or something.

And you get people excited about it. So that's what we're doing. Think about that.

Have it in the back of your mind. You're not just sitting in Arizona translating some weird old book. Now we've got to translate some weird old book.

Oh, what to do? We have like 15 minutes to translate. I'm going to go on to the next section because it's so cute.

To do in 15 minutes and because Voice of America is here. And it's a little less obscure. But I want you to think about something.

Last week we got to a section that we found out that the language we had was very corrupt. And all those things you see in brackets there and up here. Those were all missing from the new manuscript.

When was the new manuscript made? 1500s. In the 1500s, okay.

When was the original made? When was this book written? Six hours, clear words.

Yeah, 650. So 13 centuries ago, 14 centuries ago. But somewhere in that period, somebody left out a few words.

Now, you think about it before Monday. That's your homework for Monday. Tell me, what are we going to do with that?

How are we going to handle that in the book? We're going to put out a book, right? Beth said we had to put out a book.

Just kidding. How do you handle that? What's a good protocol?

I'm going to skip down this part. It's just a little bit dumb. Let's read it together.

One, two, three. And I do these little signs to make sure you get the pronunciation right. One, two, three.

Dan, bo, la, ni, je, chen, bo, la, so, so, ma, che, wa, te, ba, dan, te, la, so, so, che, ne, cha, sa, wa, ni. Okay. By the way, we just reached the what?

The beginning of the book. We've been working for almost a year now, a half a year. And just tonight, it's kind of auspicious, right?

We reached the start of the book. Everything up to now has been some historical explanation of how the book was written and who the masters were that handed it down. And now tonight, it's kind of auspicious.

We get the beginning of the book. And I think it's very auspicious that the very first thing he talks about is we're going to honor great compassion, OK? How does compassion differ from love in this tradition?

Yeah, OK. So compassion wants to get people out of trouble. And love wants to give them nice things.

Which comes first?

[Speaker 2]
Father action.

[Speaker 1]
What's the theory about the kid? Well, there's this theory, right? What's the theory about the kid?

Tell me about the theory about the kid.

[Speaker 2]
I think it's self-declining. Yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
If a kid is sick, like you don't give them, what did I get tonight for the first time, like a year? She said, why don't you eat more ice cream? I said, I haven't tasted it in a year.

It hurts my teeth. It was not a hint, OK? If the child has got a bad flu, you don't give them ice cream.

You get them over the flu first, and then you give them ice cream. But when they teach the seven-step method of developing ultimate love, which comes first?

[Speaker 2]
Not because of why.

[Speaker 1]
Not because of why.

[Speaker 2]
Because you want to take this up more.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah. You have to be really attracted to this child to want to take this up more. So it's called yu-ong jang-pa.

Means, um, yu-ong jang-pa means love which thinks the object that it looks at is very beautiful. It's this love that is in love with its object, right? You know, like, you love how your child looks.

And then you want to make them better, you see? So it depends on which school you're in. Now, nin-je chen-po is even different from those two.

Great compassion, how does that differ? It was in the ACI courses.

[Speaker 2]
I don't remember.

[Speaker 1]
Is it for real? What is that? Pre-Buddha?

It comes just before you get to Buddhahood? Aimed at all beings? Sounds pretty good to me, but I don't know if you're right.

But anyway, we only got 11 minutes left. McNally will yell at me, so listen.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Did you have a question? What's Brian? Brian?

Does Brian know? His name is Brian. Say again?

Is that what it is? OK, I'll buy it. But I'm not quite sure.

We'll look it up in the computer. OK. Here we will explain.

Now, I'm going to put the whole verse here, OK? He only says it's explaining that verse. Everybody knows it.

I'll give you the first line. OK, we've got to go find this verse. And we'll show off.

We've got to go get the verse from the 7th century. So how does it go again? Nyen-tu.

It's from the entry in the Middle Way, Umla-jupa, Madhyamaka-vatara. So kong-gyur, teng-gyur, or sung-gyur. Take a vote.

OK, teng-gyur. And what part of teng-gyur? Uma.

OK. There it is. So it looks through like 50,000 pages.

And there's the opening lines, right? There's the top of the text. There's Umla-jupa-se-ja is the name of my book.

Jambal-shunur-gyur-pa-la-chak-se-lo, about down to yang-man-ju-shun. OK. And then it starts this quotation that we're dealing with.

By the way, why does it say chak-chelo? Yeah, it looks like child without the flag. Somebody just saw it that way when they were typing.

Is that a mistake?

[Speaker 2]
It's a mistake in the carving.

[Speaker 1]
In the carving, but not the typist. OK. Nyen-tu.

Or a piece broke off in the woodblock, or something like that. So here we go. Nyen-tu.

Say, nyen-tu?

[Speaker 2]
Nyen-tu.

[Speaker 1]
Now let's do it together. And let me block out the whole thing that we mean. Let's do this part.

You ready? Can you see it OK? Should I move it?

One. Just the white part, OK? One, two.

It's very holy. They say that if you have the right seeds in your heart for helping other people, when you read this first verse, you'll get a chill up your spine. And you'll start to cry maybe, OK?

That's very famous with this book. So if you start getting teary-eyed, it's not onions or anything. OK, here we go.

One, two, three. Nyen-tu, sang-gye, ring-nam, tu-wang-gye, sang-gye, chang-chu, sen-pa, le-chu, shing, yin-je, sen-pa, ni-su, me, lo-tang, chang-chu, sen-mi, ya-se, nam, hi, gyu. OK, cool.

Chop it out. And then go get it. What do we call it?

Oh, stop that thing. What's it called? Oh, yanks.

OK, what did I call it? Nyen-tu, there you go. Then you just go and you get it, right?

And we'll just go through it and we'll stop. We've got seven minutes left. Poetry, we usually put it into nice verses.

By the way, you notice the use of the commas before and after now? Poetry has a tsik-she. Poetry has a punctuation mark before and after each line.

That's unusual. OK, that's different. And we're just going to go through the wording of it and then we'll stop.

And he goes on for ten pages and debates about why it looks like that. But here we go. Nyen-tu means listeners.

OK, listeners. What's a listener? Shravaka.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, like a lower path.

[Speaker 1]
They can only work for their own benefit. They're called listeners. OK, and he's going to explain.

This is the text where you hear what listeners, why they're called listeners. OK, so I'm not going to ruin the punchline. You'll get it later.

Sangye?

[Speaker 2]
Buddha.

[Speaker 1]
Kristilana's dung because she studied Lamrim dung. Medium, middle-length, OK? So, middle Buddha.

Mid-level Buddha, OK? We'll talk about it. Nam.

Tupa. Sakya tupa. Sakya muni.

Yeah, it means the able ones. The Tibetans chose the word tupa, which means can do something. But the Sanskrit is muni, which means...

We were in Varanasi a couple months. We did five, six weeks at Mauna, which means silence. You just don't talk for five or six weeks.

People love it. Like in America, they think you're weird, right? In India, they're like, Oh, Mauna, you're so cool.

You know, and you're like... You know, but... So tupa meant they didn't blab unnecessarily.

They know how to keep words pure, and not go over their seven, six-thirty time. Tupa and ke. They are born from past tense.

Wangbo means Lord of the able ones. Lord of the munis, right? So what he says is listeners, which are lower-level spiritual people who are just out to help themselves, which is not bad, but it's not the best you could do, right?

And sangye dung is a code word for rangya, self-made buddha. And he's going to go into why they shouldn't be called buddhas, but I don't have to do that. Now, let's do these two syllables together and then translate.

One, two, three, sangye, buddha. The next four syllables. Wang, chang, chu, sen, ba, bodhisattva, le, from, chung means ge.

Chung is the honorific of to be born. The Dalai Lama's birthday isn't called ge-kar, which is the star of the birth. It's called chung-kar, the star of the holy, magnificent birth, you know?

It's called chung. Chung means like holy birth. Shin means...

So what we got so far is people who are just out to help themselves spiritually are born from buddhas. And buddhas are born from bodhisattvas. Do you feel where it's going?

We got two more lines. Here we go. Ready?

These two syllables. Nying-je means what? Compassion.

Sen, man, dang, and nyi-su-me-lo. Nyi-su-me-lo. What's nyi mean?

Two. And then, nyi-su-me means non-dual. Non-dual.

No duality. What's duality mean? Does it mean there's no me and no you?

It doesn't mean that. It means in a certain deep state of meditation you see that the nature of both me and you is the same. That's all.

It doesn't mean that there's not me and you because there is me and you and when I eat ice cream, you don't eat ice cream and when you eat ice cream, which is probably more often than I do, I don't get to taste it. We're different. So, nyi-su-me-lo means the perception of emptiness.

It's just another way of saying emptiness. Nyi-su-me-lo-dang and we're almost done. I got two minutes.

One, two, three. Chang-chu-sen bodhichitta Nyi gyel-se Gyel-se means gyel-way-se, means jina-putra, means what? Yeah, child of the Buddha.

Man or woman who is a bodhisattva. Bodhisattva. What makes a person a bodhisattva?

Ah, that's bodhichitta. Yeah, you just want to become somebody who can help everybody. Okay, that's all.

Easy. Nan-gi-gyu. What's gyu?

The cause. So this is cool. Here we go.

Here's the whole first opening lines. We finally got there. You survived.

You made it to the opening lines. Okay, God knows if we made it to the last line. Here's the first line, okay?

After, you know, six months. Lower level spiritual people who are out for nirvana. They are out for their own benefit.

Not to suffer. They are born from Buddhas. And Buddhas are born from bodhisattvas.

And bodhisattvas are born from three things. Three causes. What's the first one?

Nim-je. Compassion. What's the second one?

Understanding emptiness. And the third one? Bodhichitta.

The wish to become like an angel. It's so beautiful. So he's bowing down.

Then he says, I'm not going to bow down to Buddha. You know, you're supposed to bow to somebody before you write a book. Before anybody writes a spiritual book in ancient India or China, you must bow down to some big shot.

You know, like a Buddha or some great master. Like Patanjali's book or other books. They all open with Shiva or, you know, I bow down to Patanjali or I bow down to Nagarjuna.

So he says, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing what everybody else does. Who's talking?

Master Chandrakirti. I'm not bowing down to some Buddha, okay? And I'm not bowing down to some arhat, some high level yogi.

And I'm not bowing down to those bodhisattvas either. I'm bowing down to Nim-je. Why?

That's where they all come from. Think about it. They care about other people.

They take care of other people. They really love other people. They care about other people.

I bow down to that love. Who cares about the people? Let's bow down to the most important thing which is the seed that they grow from.

It's a whole chain, what do you call it? Reaction, right? If someone develops this kind of love that cares for all people, then okay, they'll get to be a bodhisattva and then they'll get to be an arhat and they'll get to be a Buddha.

That's okay. But why don't we bow down to the most important thing? It's a totally new idea in the history of these books.

And he took some heat for it. He said, come on, you're supposed to bow down to the king's head. Bow down to a Buddha.

Bow down to somebody. No. I bow to love itself no matter who has it.

No matter where it is. I bow down to that thing. Okay?

And that's more important than some big shots, right? So it's very beautiful. It's very beautiful.

We'll stop there. Ready?