Вступление на срединный путь (текущий курс, Аризона), занятие 41

[Speaker 1]
Is it impossible to have bodhichitta before you have a direct perception of emptiness? He didn't go that far. Now, did he want to go that far?

I don't know. But it's interesting, because I've had... I've had people in my life, like, challenge me and say, oh, but you're supposed to get bodhichitta first, and then you get the direct perception of emptiness.

And this is a nice scriptural reference, if you need a scriptural reference, that says, sometimes it would be the other way around. Although it doesn't say direct. Now, this is a little confusing, because he said, to follow it all the way back, he said the reason there's three kinds of compassion is that that was presented relative to people of dull faculties.

Then he said, those who are of greater faculties, they have to see that enlightenment is possible before they'll buy into the idea of bodhichitta. Got it? And then he says, with respect to them.

He just throws in, relates to. He just throws in at the end, it relates to them. What relates to them, you know, it's not very clear.

He throws it in at the end, right here, wrongly attributed, same word. Would you say that the presentation in... I would say parts of the presentation, or something like that, because somebody said it's contradictory to say that what he's complaining about is that you've indicated that you have to understand emptiness to get bodhichitta, but then you've also said that compassion is the cause to see emptiness.

So it seems like you're contradicting yourself. He says, no, they're just relative to different people. When we say, first you get bodhichitta, then you see emptiness, that's relative to people of dull faculties.

When we say, first you see emptiness, and then you get bodhichitta, that's relative to people with sharp faculties. That's all he's saying.

[Speaker 2]
Question?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
The gift word, I think it should be great gift word.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, right, okay. Okay. Can you see this okay?

Is it big enough? Big enough? Okay.

I used to do flashcards like this, but okay. One, two, three. I used to do flashcards like this, but okay.

One, two, three. Can you say higher intellectual power? Higher power?

Sharper. Sharper. Okay.

Say tarpa. Tarpa. Dunye.

Dunye. Tarpa dunye. Tarpa dunye.

The aspiration for tarpa, moksha, freedom. Is that enlightenment? Usually that's not enlightenment.

Usually tarpa refers to nirvana, okay? But sometimes it can refer to nirvana and enlightenment. The word moksha, it's sometimes used for both.

It's often used for nirvana only, as opposed to full enlightenment. So let's see where he's going. I'm just warning you.

He slipped in something. Now, does he intend to use it to trip us? I don't know.

Let's see. Because that ain't what we were talking about exactly. One, two, three.

Dhe tarpa se me ma nge pa. Tarpa la dunye ki. Sang pa tam cha min jok.

Slow mo. Okay. Say min jok.

See it at the end there? Min jok. Open vowel and a prenasal.

Okay? Min jok. Okay.

So, you know, are you going to take mun ba sem kye? Mun ba sem kye, right? Are you going to take vowel?

Are you going to take a commitment? Oh yeah, I'll save every living being. And they say, no.

Not until I can confirm that it's possible. Because what would it mean? If I make a promise that I'm going to turn every living being into a tantric deity, then I have to confirm that it's possible first.

Then I'll promise, you see? And if they don't even make that preliminary promise, how could they ever get full bodhicitta, right? We may have committed ourselves to the idea, right?

In the preliminary, in the first stage of bodhisattva vows. They won't even do that until they can confirm, at least intellectually, that it's possible. Because why swear?

Why would a yogi swear to something if they weren't sure it could be done? You see what I mean? And we're just like, we call it yam juk.

Yam juk means, oh, they're giving bodhisattva vows today. Oh, let's go. Everybody's going, you know.

What do you want me to swear to? Oh yeah, I swear, you know. And then they're like, no, no.

Before I swear, I want to know if it's possible. You know what I mean? And so a real yogi doesn't swear to things.

And once they swear, they don't give it up, right? Even when it gets uncomfortable. Easy to say, right?

Okay. You okay? Okay.

One, two, three. Gyula dhar dik. Say it.

Dik. Dik. What is dik?

What is dik? Yeah, it's commentary. Dik in Sanskrit.

That's a Sanskrit word. That's why it looks so weird. Long I.

Dik, dik. Okay. Let's start again.

One, two, three. Gyula dhar dik. Lekya duja niki.

Wangpo nunpo ni. Harpa dunye ki. Oh, oh, I'm sorry.

That was cute, right? Why do you do that? Okay, I'm not going to touch it.

I'm sorry. You have to do it again. One, two, three.

Gyula dhar dik. Lekya duja niki. Wangpo nunpo ni.

Harpa dunye ki. Oh, oh, I'm sorry. What is gyulama?

Yeah, Tantra. You had it long ago. What is gyulama?

I never finish the reading, but I hope to someday. But the dhar dik is Gyaltsabje's commentary. What's his full name?

Gyaltsabje means the regent, right? The one who took over the throne from Jatakamala. Yeah, Dharma Rinchen.

So I think that's why they call it dhar dik. It's not the dharma in dharmamitra, for example. It's a different dharma.

It's spelled differently. It's just dharma rinchen. So I think that's the dhar.

We could check it. Let's check it. We'll look up gyulama, right?

And this we would check in the catalogue, ACIP catalogue. And there's the root text, right? And it doesn't have anything.

There's another place. Yeah, there it is. Okay.

And it's just called a commentary on the Thekpa Chenpo Gyulama, okay? And it's by Gyaltsabje Dharma Rinchen, okay? So we're safe to call it Dharma Rinchen's commentary, Gyaltsabje's commentary, okay?

What do we translate gyulama as?

[Speaker 2]
A part of the series. Commentary on a larger part of the series.

[Speaker 1]
Larger part of the series, nice. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Mahayana Paratantra Shastra. That translates also as a commentary to the series. So how do we differentiate, how do we ensure that the title here is a commentary to the text?

[Speaker 1]
It's Jalpe Jalpa. It should be Jalpe Jalpa. The commentary on the commentary, right?

It should be that. And perhaps that's why he chose the word Thekpa. So it's Jalpe Thekpa.

You see? So that's in my mind when I decide. That's one reason why I would decide, okay?

Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. What are you translating, mundusongwa?

[Speaker 1]
Have already had. In Tibetan it's, it must have gone in the past. It means before.

It can also mean blue. Mundusong means, song is the past tense of what? Dro.

It's very weird. Like, what's the English translation for dro? What's the past tense of go?

Or went. You see, in most languages the past tense of the verb to go for some reason changes drastically. I don't know why.

But in Tibetan as well. It goes from dro to song. So it means, if you were a less mature translator with more hair, you would, you would say, no, you'd say, you'd make it a passive sentence.

You'd say, oh, it must have gone before. You know? And then you'd be following the Tibetan more closely.

But this, this is how we say that in English. And you always have to think that. How would we say that?

How would I say that to somebody in Bui? You know, I wouldn't say the perception should have gone previously or something. I'd say, you must have already tested.

You see? Like that. You have to think like that.

And then you'll be able to reach more, a greater audience with your translations. Because it'll be more comfortable for them. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
What would Geshe Jay consider to be a perception of emptiness in its gross form?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, you have to debate that. You guys have to debate that. Yeah, because, you know, in Madhyamika, we don't believe in Prasangika.

We're not talking about dhagme tharaksam. Say dhagme. dhagme tharaksam The three degrees of selflessness.

We don't accept that in the Prasangika system. So what's he talking about? Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
He asked if, he thought that the past tense is go, chin, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
That's one. You could say that also. That's one also.

They're both, I think, they're both that.

[Speaker 2]
Go south or south?

[Speaker 1]
I don't know. Before a J, it seems to be a B. That's all I can say.

But no, no. It's south or south. Oh, I'm sorry.

You're correct. Yeah, yeah. Go south.

Okay. Okay. I once tried to, what do you call it, standardize the pronunciation system for Tibetan.

And it's in the ACIP Release 4 catalog if you're interested. Okay. I don't think anyone's even ever tried.

I mean, there's a logic to it. But it's difficult. It's a difficult logic.

Okay. Where'd the Tibetan go? Oh, that's all I did, okay?

Just to show you it could be done. And if I have time, I'll do a little bit more next time. But let's just keep going with the with the Roman letters.

Let me think of something. Let's read it together. One, two, three.

One, two, three. Ma, kya, de. No, it's still the wrong look.

It's still us talking. Yeah. Sure.

That was his lungi dukje. What's lungi dukje? Scriptural proof.

Like first he did logical proof. Rigpa dukje. And then he did scriptural proof.

Lungi dukje. Yeah, we're going to go back. But that's why the monk in New Jersey is called Jampa Lungre.

It's a big compliment to give somebody that's name. Lung and Rigpa. He's got scriptural authority and logic behind.

Okay. What he said was that if you have higher powers, you won't aspire to freedom without confirming freedom. But now he said, but not everybody who aspires to freedom has confirmed freedom.

Okay? Yeah. No problem.

Right? But not everybody who aspires to freedom has confirmed that freedom. Like who?

Who is your qi qian? Wang Dou. What?

A person with relatively less sharp powers wouldn't have confirmed it first. But that's not where he goes. That's not his proof.

It would be our... It's where we would go. Right?

That's not how he proves it. Here's how he proves it. Let's read it together.

One, two, three. Like this. Get...

Oh. Get that rotator cuff. We got to get ready, like we'll be at this monastery in Manali, right?

And we got to... You're going to get your tutor and he's going to be like, and what do you think the proof is? And you're going to...

Don't be a girl in the debate. Okay, all right. Now I've noticed this disturbing pattern.

The background is getting all sedate. Okay. Oh yeah?

Give them more ice cream. Then they get all loony and then they're like... Okay.

Just kidding. Okay. Time for chocolate.

That's not hinting, that's directing. Sorry. Here's a translator's trick.

Just copy the last sentence. I have really good chocolates at home. They keep forgetting them.

It's not true that everyone who aspires for freedom has confirmed the existence of freedom. Because it's not true that everybody who aspires for total enlightenment has confirmed the existence of total enlightenment. I'll say it again.

It's not true that just because you aspire for freedom you've perceived that freedom... You've confirmed the existence of that freedom because you can aspire for total enlightenment and not confirm the existence of total enlightenment. Well, it's not what I would have said, but...

Well, that's a very interesting question right now. I see you stall. I think you're done.

No, it's a... It's a good question. I mean, what kind of non-Buddha can perceive a Buddha?

I mean, what kind of non-Buddha can perceive Buddhahood? If you could have a direct... If you could have a valid perception of Buddhahood then you'd be a Buddha.

I mean, we can't... We can't see them, we can't think of them, we can't even imagine their qualities. What are you talking, confirmed total enlightenment?

Say again? That's true.

[Speaker 2]
That's better.

[Speaker 1]
They're both true. Both the lemons are correct. Thank you.

They get a chocolate. And a red whip. You don't want those red vines, do you?

Now, he considers the matter closed, so we will too. But he probably wants you to go to the debate ground and trash that out. Sorry?

That they have to have a direct perception? He never says through a direct valid perception. Sure.

Without directly perceiving what? Oh, now that's a good question. No, I think...

If I was in the debate ground I'd say, I'd say, take a bodhisattva who is, you know, achieved bodhichitta and soglam, but didn't get to jolam chodron yet. I'd say something like that. You said direct perception of dependent origination, right?

Yeah, without a direct perception of dependent origination.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
But it'd be nicer to have a direct perception. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Are your mouths clear yet? I better wait.

Okay, well we can go now. One, two, three. NYE TSO LO SEM CHEN DU NYE LE DOK PAN DU PE NYE CHE LA DOK PA YIN KYANG Does this sound familiar?

NYE TSO SANG GYUR DRIN NAM THUB BUNG KYE I'll speak first. You first. No, doesn't it?

What is it? It's the opening lines of the right text. Okay.

Let's see if we've had it before. I think we've had it. I'm going to go up to the top.

Search for it. What is it? NYE TSO SANG GYUR DRIN NAM THUB BUNG KYE Because I just want to see if we've translated it before.

Yeah, here we go. Back about a year ago, I think. So we'll just cop that.

And then go down to where we are. What page were we at? Oh, I can start again now.

Okay. They're right sometimes. Okay.

McNally likes fledgling. I don't know. Say, LAY DAM BO WA.

LAY DAM BO WA. LAY means to work here. DAM BO means first.

LAY DAM BO WA means a tender foot, or a green horn, or you know, someone who's just first begun the job. So, and it's an adjective, like a beginning bodhisattva, or just starting out bodhisattva. A fledgling is pretty good.

[Speaker 2]
Rookie.

[Speaker 1]
Rookie. Yeah, yeah. Rookie, yeah.

You should say rookie. Rookie. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Betz has to deal with that in the press.

Okay. And which? With which?

[Speaker 2]
With, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Where? Where's he going with this? I don't know.

Okay. But he, he is, he's getting, he's a little bit staying on his theme of, I was talking about, it's not, he's not saying relatively dull powers, but he's saying beginners. Okay.

Where's he going with that? I don't know. We'll see.

Where? Ah, okay. One, two, three.

That's not strictly logical to me. Right? There are words in praise of beginning bodhisattva's compassion.

But there are also words in praise of the bodhisattva's compassion. You see? But I assume he means more developed bodhisattva.

But he doesn't say that. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Ah, we may have had that. It's the...

Yeah. That it was put on tabo. Like sugarcane.

Could be. I think so. Okay.

One, two, three. NING RJE GYUR LAM DENG PAS GANG SA TE CHANG SEM SU SUNG PAS Okay. You okay?

Yeah, I mean, he's got NING RJE in some tenure texts. It's like to say he has bodhicitta. Okay?

And he's a bodhisattva. Okay. The tenure texts are normally less...

How do you say? Demanding. Or they're less strictly accurate than the sumbhum texts.

Yeah. Love. As, you know, with the bodhicitta.

Yeah. You can sense, if you've been in this class for a while, you can sense that there's sort of a mixture happening between the ideas of love and compassion and bodhicitta. Although strictly, they're separate things.

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Heart. Words?

[Speaker 1]
I shouldn't have...

[Speaker 2]
Oh, okay.

[Speaker 1]
You okay? Okay. Now, we're actually getting close and we might...

I believe we're... Yeah, we'll have enough classes to get to the body of the text.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
We'll actually start on the text. And this is normal in a Tibetan commentary. They overkill the first two pages and then they rush through the rest a little bit.

And the last part, I mean, they just quote the text directly. But, it's like a teaching by His Holiness in Central Park. You know, he starts out with the first verse of the eight verses and then he goes off on South Africa.

And then in the last five minutes he's like, he does the other seven verses. But, it's a... And I'm not saying it's not that perfect.

I mean, they did what had to be done. But normally you'll find that even in the debate ground, the first page of a classic is what's debated probably 25% of the time or something. Okay.

Because I guess that the heart of the matter is often in the first page. Okay. Okay.

Here we go. One, two, three. Ten, two, three, four, five, six, nineteen, twenty-one, Khenme du.

No problem. And when you hear that in India, as Christine will learn, it means the bus broke down like four days ago and the parts are in Sri Lanka or something. No problem.

Khenme du. But, okay. Khenme is the literary form.

Khenme du is that. You'll hear it in Tibetan. People say, Khenme du.

No problem. Then you know there's a problem. So there's no problem here.

And this is, we had fun with this when we did the Yoga Sutra commentary because at the beginning he says, ata yoganushasana. He says, ata yoganushasana, opening lines of the Yoga Sutra. You know, now I will review for you how we make ourselves whole.

And the word anushasana, anushasana is, I will review. So he doesn't say, I will. But that's a promise to compose the text, you see.

That's a promise to compose the text. He doesn't directly praise anybody. He doesn't say, I bow down to Ishvara or I bow down to Garaksha or something like that.

He just says, I will review with you the Yoga. But in the word review is contained what? There's this big khenpa, khenwa.

Say khenpa? Khenwa. It means an act of humility.

There's an act of humility in the word review. It means, what do I know? I'm just going over with you what the sages said in the past, you know.

The word anushasana is very powerful. It's like, I'll just review with you. So in that one word review, he's done two things.

What? Say, chögyö and somvartamcala. Chögyö, somvartamcala.

At the beginning of every classical book in India, you did both of these things. You made a praise to some holy object, chögyö, and offering a praise to some holy object. And then you, somvartamcala, you say, I'm gonna write this book, even if I die writing it.

Even if I die halfway through. And I told you many times, but I'll tell you again. There's a book in the Tengyur that ends with, and then, and it just ends, you know.

And then they say the guy died, the yogi died before he finished, but he didn't stop, you know. I mean, his breath finished before he, then he sat the pen down, you know. So once you promise, you promise.

Now there's a problem with this book. He makes this praise of the three causes of a bodhisattva, right? But then he doesn't say, I'm gonna write this book.

He doesn't say, I swear to take it to the end, okay? So what's going on? One, two, three.

tsava-shera-dham, rekpa-tukchu-pa-ni-le, chö-jö-ngö-sö-ze, somvartam-ca-ngö-sö-man-zer-pa-ta-bu, yin-bei-tse. And that's true. Who wrote the root text on wisdom and the sixty verses on reasoning?

Iyengar did. So, it's probably okay. Okay, you know, like, two of his, Rick's so true, two of his, the six great books on reasoning.

Why are they called reasoning? Do they treat the subject of logic?

[Speaker 2]
Emptiness.

[Speaker 1]
I heard you, but I didn't hear you. Yeah, no, he proves logic, he proves emptiness with logic, as opposed to his other book, Dote Kuntu, where he proves it through scriptural sources, okay? But I always used to think they were logic books, books about logic, but they're not.

So, if Arya Nagarjuna can do it, we can do it, right? He's saying. Or Master Chandrakirti could do it.

It's the same in the scriptural sense. Sorry?

[Speaker 2]
He does Shunyata Saptatikrita-nava, that's the seventy verses.

[Speaker 1]
He doesn't?

[Speaker 2]
He bows to the youthful nature of Shunyata, and that's all.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, okay. Yeah, so you could debate that. Are those only two words by Arya Nagarjuna?

One, two, three. Tsog par tham ja, musun zel ne, chö chö, musu man zel pa, yang yö de. Yeah.

Okay? There's places where people do the reverse. They say, I'll compose this book, but they don't bow down to anybody, and they don't describe any holy beings, great qualities, or anything like that, before.

Okay? Which are two requisites for a good book. One, sorry?

Oh, okay. Even Bill Gates knew that. One, two, three.

U ma she pe tring ye, ta mu yin pe. Say, she tring. The Letter to a Friend.

The Epistle to a Friend. King Udayabhadra, right? Written by who?

Arya Nagarjuna. Yeah, Arya Nagarjuna. He's misspelled the title here.

But he's misspelled it in an interesting way. So instead of being the letter to a friend which treats the middle way, it's the letter in which you know the middle way. Maybe it was Freudian, I don't know.

So what do we do with that? Yeah, I'd probably go to the scan. But I'm feeling lazy tonight.

We'll just make a note for next week. We'll leave it to the guy next to me. And this is true.

Breaking one of our rules, right? I don't know about you. I feel tired.

I mean, this is a really heavy semester, right? All those homeworks. Okay.

This is true because I... Okay. Now he's going to say something which you could have guessed.

One, two, three. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero, zero. Three, two, one, zero, zero, zero, one, zero, zero.

We visualize Chanze. Big time. Big time.

Yeah. Yeah. Because it's still an open vowel sound.

Okay. Okay? Yeah, that's fine, right?

No problem. He doesn't explicitly say I'm gonna write this book, but he goddamn well says he's gonna write the book. Yeah, that wire, what's his thought?

Yeah, well, let's see. That's in my cab. One, two, three.

Okay. What's another function of the Chögya, of the offering of praise?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, it's like asking for help, and it's like to set in motion the karma, to not die halfway through the book. So, if he did his offering of praise, which is in part to collect enough good karma to get through the book, he must have been intending to get through the book. So, that's a commitment, isn't it?

Doesn't that implicitly mean he had made a commitment to finish the book? Okay. We're out of time, and I'm just gonna give you a, what do you call it, a preview?

They call us things in the movies. Trailer, yeah, it's a trailer for next week. This is the, what do you call it, a preview?

Trailer. Trailer. Trailer.

Trailer. Trailer. Trailer.

Trailer. So, I look back and I say, God, why did I read all this Reader's Digest? Why did I read all those TV guys?

Why didn't I spend that time more usefully? And this is Goswami Sri Sri, you shouldn't pick up a book, you shouldn't open a book, unless it has four qualities, unless it's relevant to your death, and to your suffering, and other people's suffering. You just shouldn't waste your time on it.

People ask me, people used to ask me, have you read such and such and such and such a book? I said, no, nothing. I haven't read an English book in like ten years.

Then they say, well, did you, did you read these translations of these books? No, I didn't read any of them. I've never read an English translation of a book.

Why? Why? They might have missed something.

Why? I just read the Tibetan, you know, and so, I really encourage you to, don't pick up a book unless you think it's going to save your life. That's what he's going to get into.

Don't waste your time on a, don't waste your priceless mental real estate. Because even in a day, 24 hours, you only have like two hours to really concentrate and do something, right? The rest is all futz, futz, futz, you know, nothing.

You have to eat and sleep and poop and do all this other stuff just to get your two hours a day to do something that you want to do. So, for God's sake, if a book doesn't have any relevance to your enlightenment and to other people's pain, then don't even open it. We have a box downstairs we put all the books in.

It's called Diamond Mountain Library but I hope they don't make it. I hope they never make this library because someone might read them. We're just throwing this book downstairs.

That's where all those bookshelves are downstairs. Books that didn't make it upstairs, you know. Does it directly relate to your enlightenment?

No, once you get on a tantric path, everything changes. I mean, we went to the movie, right? I'm still trying to figure out why.

Once you're really into tantra properly and authentically, the rules are the same and even tighter, but everything changes. And it should be like that, right? Alright, let's do this parenthesis.

[Speaker 2]
Sambye Kshindu Mithey Uwaygi Jokunam Dakshim Vajrapasho Hirambu Rahnamandala Kambe Yatayami Devati Devogu Sanam Yeshe Sotsokshin Sanam Yeshe Dejongwe Tampak Kunito Pashok If you don't know Robert Jordan, it's this great series of, you could classify it as fantasy, I guess, about saving the universe.

[Speaker 1]
But I would also say that to get to tantra, you must master sutra, right? So, to read Robert Jordan, you need Kirtip Dambadangi, right? No, really, to really read Robert Jordan, you need Kirtip Dambadangi first, or at the same time, or something like that.

That's a very strong feeling, I strongly feel that.