Вступление на срединный путь (текущий курс, Аризона), занятие 70

[Speaker 1]
OK. Oh, I wanted to give you a pep talk before class. We're at this really, can you turn it up a little bit?

I like to keep them away. We're at this really important historical cross in history. And Tibet has been lost, really.

They just finished the railroad from, you can go from Beijing to Lhasa in two days on the railroad now. So that's the end of old Tibet, basically. I mean, you don't even have to fly there, no.

You just get on the train. And now millions of settlers will come in. And already, I think, five million have come in.

And Tibetan language will slowly fade. Most people in Tibet are speaking Chinese now. We called Choney Monastery to get some texts.

And they made me do the call so I could speak Tibetan, but no one there could speak Tibetan, to talk about the Tibetan text there. So it's really weird. They finally found one old man who could speak like baby Tibetan.

And it was really hard to talk to him. So the texts are, I don't know, 200,000 important texts there. I'd say 10,000 are as important as the Bible, or Shakespeare, or like classics which can change the world, really.

Very, very important. So they wrote 200,000 texts in the 10 centuries that they had before the invasion. And they're just sitting there.

Nobody's really reading them. Nobody's translating them. Nobody's working with them.

All of them have the keys to happiness and deathlessness are contained in these texts. So you guys have to work hard. You have to work harder.

And I wasn't sure when we started this course. We started this course like three and a half years ago. I wasn't sure if it would work.

And I wasn't sure how many people would really get good enough at Tibetan to help with anything. And I told Krishna I'm not going to put a lot of effort into it. I'm going to translate what I want to translate.

And if somebody learns something, it's OK. Because we don't have time. I can't stop translating and then maybe nobody else translates.

So then we started this text. But now with this weird thing happening, especially all the babies that went to Sarah, they're getting really good. It's amazing.

I'm pretty amazed. I got a text today from somebody that was quite well translated. And I was kind of shocked.

And so now I'm all excited. And now I think this might work, actually. It's like Diamond Mountain in general.

I don't know, sometime we were in New York last time, in November, and it occurred to us, we were sitting somewhere and we said, we looked, Lama Krishna and I looked at each other and we said, oh, Diamond Mountain's working. People are happy. People are healthy.

People look glowing. People are getting really intelligent and all that. And more emotionally stable, et cetera.

And so the whole place is working and the language class is working. So that's really weird. So now being a businessman, like Marpa was, who was a great translator, I'm starting to see ways that we could all work together and do a lot more to save the legacy of Tibet.

Because people in Tibet aren't really doing it. Tibetans in India aren't really doing it. We have a chance to save it.

We have a chance to preserve it. And so now that we have a fairly sizable group of people who, even the beginners in this class can do basic Tibetan stuff now. They can do basic work on texts and help catalog things and stuff like that.

So I just wanted to throw it out that probably, I don't know, if it's possible, JB, John, I'd like to have a meeting with everybody maybe next weekend or something during the break, Tantric break. If you're not the Tantric class, come if you're interested. But we have, I don't know, maybe 5,000, 10,000 texts that are in limbo, like they've been typed in and they're here in our hands, but we haven't been able, we haven't had enough manpower, womanpower to type out all the names and catalog them.

And it's something we can all learn to do. And we can help save Tibetan literature. And then there's another project going on in Mongolia.

They were doing 2,000, 3,000 pages a day of scanning. And they need help. There's some help they need.

And I thought even fundraising help and stuff like that. We have to work a little harder. And why am I saying that?

Why am I interrupting the class to say this? Why don't I just get into the text?

[Speaker 2]
This is why we're doing the class.

[Speaker 1]
Well, it's why you're doing the class, Ed.

[Speaker 2]
You can't translate unless you're helping.

[Speaker 1]
You can't translate unless you do some kind of service of the scriptures. Get it? Like you'll never learn to translate if you don't serve the scriptures.

It's a weird thing. The more you help to preserve the wisdom, the more it will reveal itself to you. And it's a direct correlation.

The harder you work to help John Brady, the better you'll be able to translate. And it doesn't matter how many hours I spend up here telling you verb tenses and conjugations and stuff. It won't help.

Because it's not me who's making you a translator. It's you. And according to Karmic Management on Friday nights, you get good at something by doing it for someone else.

So really, if this class, if we were really smart, we'd spend about half the time helping John and half the time doing the translation, going over the text. And you have to get that in your mind. You have to change your behavior that was taught to you by your culture, by your civilization.

Your culture said, Johnny, you will get good at math if you go to more math classes. You know what I mean? And if you go home and read the book more, and if you memorize your multiplication tables, that was drilled into you since you were a little kid.

And it's not true. How does Johnny get good in math?

[Speaker 2]
How does someone else get good?

[Speaker 1]
Johnny goes and helps the stupid kid in the class who can't do math. Johnny leaves his own homework, and he goes to the stupid kid's class, and he helps him with his math. He sits with him and goes over his math with him.

And then suddenly, Johnny becomes Einstein. You see, that's how it really works. And all the people who look smart now or who look good at Tibetan now, they're all living off some old credit card.

Really, they're all just living off some old credit card. And it can wear out any time. You're smart now, or you were good in school, or you were always number one in your class.

That's not your doing. That was done in your pastime, really. And frankly, it didn't have anything to do with it.

You're just living off somebody else's effort. And that wears out. That wears out.

Either you lose it, or you lose interest, or you die. But some way it will wear out, you see? So even the people who are, what do you call it, sensitive, intelligent, insightful, even brilliant in this room, you have to keep feeding it with new karma, or it will wear out, you see?

And if your mind is good now and strong, and if you value that, you have to serve somebody. You have to serve, or you'll lose that mind. I had a Sanskrit professor, right?

Lama Krishna, we went to see him just before a three-year retreat in the nursing home in Claremont, California. And he was 90-something. And I asked the nurses, how's he doing?

And they said, well, we don't really know. And I said, well, what do you mean? And they said, I don't know.

He keeps gibbering in old languages. He keeps like, you ask him how was the breakfast, and he'll say, asid raja namo nalamanna. You know, in Sanskrit, we don't know what he's saying.

It's just all confused in his mind. And we all get like that if you don't feed it new karma. You have to keep feeding it new karma.

So for this class to succeed, and for us to save the most precious books in the world, we have to help John. We have to do something rather organized and serious to help John. And then your Tibetan will just take off.

You know, it's really weird. When I went to study with Ken Rinpoche, he made me cook for eight years. And he made me water the flowers.

And he made me build him a house. And all this other stuff that had nothing to do with texts. And I was always jealous and mad at all the other students, because they got to do study, and I was out watering.

Or I was out with a hammer. Or you know, the worst thing is he made me teach him English. You know, like, first day we sit down at the table.

And I'm like trying to speak Tibetan to him. He says, no, you can't speak Tibetan. I said, that's why I came here for.

He says, no, no, no. You have to speak only in English for the rest of your time here. And I'm like, but I came here to learn Tibetan, you know?

And he's like, well, Art can speak Tibetan, but not you. And you have to speak English, because I need to learn English. I was really mad.

And of course, you're jealous of Art, right? And see what happened, right? Then everything came.

Because I gave it up. I said, OK, I'll teach you English. I gave it up.

And I'll teach you English. But he knew that that was the karma to what? That's the karma for me to learn Tibetan.

And it just came like that. It was like magic. Nobody could debate it in the monastery.

There was no Westerner there, except one, because I did the dishes. And I taught in English. So we have to serve to learn.

We have to serve JB. So JB has to think, come with a list. Maybe we'll do it Saturday or Sunday.

And then, if you're not in the Tantric class, well, let's just say a day. Maybe Saturday is a good day, OK? And it can be like 20 jobs on a list.

And then we'll come up with some for the Dalbe. But I think also fundraising jobs and stuff like that. And preferably specific numbers, like if we want to get Gonjo back in Ulaanbaatar, we need $13,000 to do that, you know what I mean?

OK? All right. So that's my pitch.

Now we'll do the text. But mark my words, the ones who are translating 10 years from now, or five years from now, or a year from now, they'll be the ones that help other people, that help JB or other people. Really.

Watch. Just watch. All right.

So there's this debate about whether people who haven't got bodhichitta yet are able to see emptiness directly, right? People on lower tracks, not bodhisattvas. We call them listeners and self-made Buddhas.

And there's a quotation in the witch sutra, which supports that they have seen emptiness. That's what they say in the big round. Say, uh.

Uh. Uh means yeah, yeah, come on. You've got to say something.

Sutra on the 10th level. Huh?

[Speaker 2]
Sutra on the 10th level.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Satchipitam. Say, satchipitam.

[Speaker 2]
Satchipitam.

[Speaker 1]
Ah, the sutra on the 10th level. Sa is? Level.

Chu is? Ten. Ten.

Do is?

[Speaker 2]
Sutra.

[Speaker 1]
Sutra. OK. It says that they have seen emptiness, OK?

And then the debate goes into, if they had not seen emptiness, then what's the weird things that would be true? What weird things would be true if they hadn't seen emptiness? Because we know they have already, what?

They're not just talking about people on lower track. They're talking about arhats, people who don't have any more anger, jealousy, desire, et cetera, right? No more mental afflictions.

So if there could be a person who got rid of all their negative emotions without seeing emptiness directly, then here's the problem. Here's the problem. What?

Then they would have to be free of their negative emotions through shirakinambhachan. Say shirakinambhachan. Problem, right?

If you say shi, it means they died. Say shira.

[Speaker 2]
Shira.

[Speaker 1]
They died, OK? Shira.

[Speaker 2]
Shira.

[Speaker 1]
They got to certain meditation levels, right? So you've got to know the difference between shi. Shi.

Shi. Shi. Shi.

Shi. Shi. This one is?

Shi. Shi. Shirakinambhachan.

OK, so that means that thing I talked about, what? What was the example I used? Trying to get off caffeine, right?

Like going from, this is me and Lama Christy. We went from heavy Brazilian coffee to medium Starbucks coffee, Colombian, to watered down Starbucks coffee, and then to lattes, and then to decaf, and then to Tibetan tea with butter and salt, and then green tea, which has 2% caffeine, and then mint. And then, sorry, mint with lots of honey.

Like, remember, it was like a cup of honey. Because that was the caffeine. But anyway, you get the point.

Are you removing your desire? No.

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
No, you're just adjusting it. There was just somebody, C.S. Lewis, in one of his books, he said, the devil, he's a Christian writer, right? So he said, oh, the devil has got people getting as attached to their health food as they are to the junk food, you see?

And they think they're losing their attachment, you see? So I must have my almond milk in a certain way. Like, not too much cinnamon in the almond milk, you know?

And then the desire's the same as it was before, you know, for the usual milk, right? So what he's saying is, if those lower arhats who have reached nirvana didn't do that by seeing emptiness directly, they must have used the tea method, or the coffee method. They must have.

Are you telling me they just got, like, more and more subtle, subtle, subtle, subtle, and then suddenly, at some point, they didn't have anger anymore? Because what? It doesn't work.

You're not giving up your desire. You're just refining it. It's probably harder to give up the desire for the almond milk without cinnamon, too much cinnamon, than it is to give up your desire for coffee, right?

Because you're down at the end of the line. You're down at the very subtle thing. Now I must have my almond milk without too much cinnamon.

Before, you were just like, yeah, I could have coffee or not. It's OK, you know? Your desire increases as you get more refined, and harder to eliminate.

So that's not what the lower arhats did. Are you telling me they got rid of their desire by that method? OK, got it?

You got the debate? That's where we are in the debate. OK, here we go.

Alistair Law, who you should thank for doing all his work in this class. Yeah. Yeah.

And then, while you're at it, you should thank Tad and Andy and Lamin for doing all that wonderful work. Yeah. Yeah.

They did broadcastings classes for like three and a half years. And then we get the weirdest comments. We got one comment from Hasva.

Like, we were listening in Hasva. So that's cool. All right.

And it's not unreasonable to think that you will be teaching Tibetans in the future. I'll tell you that. I make another prediction.

Yeah, it will happen. Okay, so let's see, you think this one has a... Alistair, is it in here?

Yeah, that's Jigme. Right, yeah, I know, it's like a year ago. I quit whining.

All right. Oh, they gave me an unreadable file. That's what they do when they don't want me to have it.

What is that? Excuse me? There's another Jigme class.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, is there?

[Speaker 1]
She didn't tell me there was another one.

[Speaker 2]
There's some technique to open up the files. The bottom one. The one without the dot in front of it.

[Speaker 1]
Where are we? Oh, here. Oh, you didn't get out of it.

Okay. Is this? Oh, what are we looking for?

[Speaker 2]
We got a lot of it already.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, this part we did already? We've done some of Jigme, I think. Is there?

Oh, I'm sorry, here it is right here, right? All right, so I'm going to cut that. I don't have to cut that.

Where's the non-Buddhist down here?

[Speaker 2]
Oh, okay.

[Speaker 1]
Thus we can say... Okay, let's read the Tibetan together. If you don't know any Tibetan, just look at the letters and guess.

Okay? And you'll be wrong half the time. Every person in here who's translating started out like you.

One, two, three. I just want to make a comment on chiropa. Say chiropa.

It's the first three words there, right? The word in Buddhism for a Buddhist is a nangpa, which means what? An inside one, someone on the inside.

And then the word for non-Buddhist is chiropa, an outside, someone who's on the outside. And, you know, if you go to a Tibetan monastery and you study with Tibetanists, they'll tell you, chiropas are classically the Hindu thinkers of 500 AD. You know what I mean?

Like they're Hindu thinkers of 500 AD. That's what a non-Buddhist means. That's what chiropa means.

It doesn't mean like a Christian or a Muslim or like that, at that time. In the classical text, it refers to Hindu thinkers who didn't agree with the Buddhist thinkers. But in my experience, over the years, I've just started to think about chiropa as something like...

I don't know if non-Buddhist is a good translation. It's just people who aren't thinking worldview. But what do you call them?

Do you guys have any suggestions? Like non-Buddhist is the classical translation for chiropa. I don't like it.

Because I've met lots of non-Buddhists who are more Buddhist than Buddhists. You know what I mean? Who do have those views.

And I've met lots of Buddhists who don't have those views. So, I don't know.

[Speaker 2]
Self-neutralized.

[Speaker 1]
Self-neutralized.

[Speaker 2]
But what is it that distinguishes Buddhists from non-Buddhists, essentially? Especially in the Arjunas teachings, where the teachings are selfless. Yeah, that's true.

They're pretty unique. I mean, I don't mean to be flippant.

[Speaker 1]
I know, I know. That's the line between Buddhists and non-Buddhists. But the problem is when someone sees...

But that's not what a non-Buddhist means to the reader. The reader, when they see non-Buddhist, they'll think Christian, Jew, you know. It means someone who's not in the Buddhist religion, right?

Say non-Buddhist to your mom and see what...

[Speaker 2]
They don't study openness. They don't study selflessness. That's what non-Buddhists mean.

But they do.

[Speaker 1]
Anyway, any other... You're correct. I mean, that's correct.

That's what makes a Buddhist a Buddhist. So if there's a person who says they're a Buddhist that doesn't have some view about where reality is really coming from, they're not a Buddhist. That's true.

But assuming that this text will be read by many people who are not members of the Buddhist religion, how do you translate it in a way which is not like almost offensive? You see? That's a little trick.

We can't use it every time Chirupa comes. We've got to find a... I didn't want to call you non-Buddhist, so I called you this guy.

[Speaker 2]
There are thousands of people who would know what you mean.

[Speaker 1]
Realists and materialists or something like that. Oh.

[Speaker 2]
That's a different thing. Insanitarians? What about...

They believe in themselves. Outsiders.

[Speaker 1]
What if we just say ambiguous? What if we just say outsiders?

[Speaker 2]
What if we just say outsiders? Let's try it. Outsiders.

Those who are interested in that. Outsiders.

[Speaker 1]
These would be... What would you call them?

[Speaker 2]
Mind Buddha number zero.

[Speaker 1]
You could string a bunch of words together and hyphenate. It's too true. Would be the same as the...

as the outsiders. Let's try outsiders. They would not even have eliminated all the...

all the... Now here's a phrase that you gotta learn. Say kamsum na chepay taget Okay.

What are the kamsum? Yeah, the three realms. Desire realm, formless realm, form.

Form realm, formless realm. Right? Chepay means which functions or is active.

Like, you've been eating salad in my class? It's such a diss. I mean, at least...

No, it's okay. This is not bhog chenpa. You eat in my class and then you're a freshman in bhog chenpa.

That's fine. No, really. Seriously.

But it's just kind of weird to eat salad in my class. It's got chocolate in it? That's okay.

[Speaker 2]
Alright.

[Speaker 1]
So... But the big word here that I want you to learn is taget. Say taget.

Taget. What does chamo mean? Chamo.

Subtle. And then ge means like widespread. And taget is a synonym for...

In the Abhidharma it's a synonym for mental afflictions. Nyamo. Okay?

So it's klesha. Taget is another word for klesha. I wonder what the Sanskrit is.

No, no. Klesha is nyamo, right? So you go to a gopher, right?

So I'm going to just show you how to use a database. Those of you who are learning to translate, one of the most precious tools they have input is the... I don't know, is it 15 volumes or 12 volumes dictionary put together by some great Indian scholar of Tibetan who he went through, I don't know, 100 different books and he made a dictionary Tibetan to Sanskrit and Sanskrit to Tibetan.

And you've never been able to search it until now. You had to look through 15 different volumes, because he started over with each volume. Okay?

So it was a masterpiece. This is a masterpiece. This is like...

The only reason we're able to translate so many of the classes for the tantric course for example, are because we have this available. So I want to show you how to use it. So you go taget.

Okay? You type taget. And then you...

I keep it here in a directory called Sanskrit, right? And see he says nyomo ekos taget You see? And then he gives you...

These are all synonyms in Sanskrit for nyomo, you see? Anushaya Andhagara Ayasa Umpaklesha Karpana Krodha Sanklishta And then the way you tell what's the most common word is what? How many times it has different references to different scriptures.

So obviously number eight, klesha is the most widely used word for nyomo. Nyomo. But we don't have taget yet.

He just wanted to point out to you that nyomo and taget are the same. Let's go look up taget. Here's the real one.

Anushaya. Okay? Say anu...

Anushaya. Okay? And it just means the Tibetans translated it as taget.

Subtle and widespread. Subtle widespread. Now you, as a translator, you know you get stuck.

I'm not going to call it Oh, their minds are full of subtle widespread. You know? And when I was translating the anagama, I used to use widespread mental fiction.

Why did he say that function in the three realms? And this is an important teaching, okay? I'm going to give an important teaching.

You need to get shamatha and vipasyana, right? You need to get shinne and hlakton. Say shinne.

Hlakton. You need to get shamatha. Shamatha means a totally still state of mind.

A perfectly focused state of mind, right? Totally still state of mind. In order to see emptiness, which is vipasyana.

And the whole vipasyana thing it's all mistranslated and all the name is wrong and everything is wrong. So you need a platform of a totally still and silent mind in order to see emptiness directly. And they often compare it to the surface of a lake.

If the lake's surface is not totally calm, the moon will not reflect in it properly, right? You won't be able to make out the details of the moon. If the mind is not totally calm and still, you cannot see emptiness directly.

Okay? How do you... What's the name of the meditative platform that you need to see emptiness directly?

Sampadangbu Nyendo Michokme Say, Sampadangbu Nyendo Michokme And it's called Sampadangbu means in this case Sampadangbu means the state of mind you would have to keep up for most of your life if you wanted to be born in the form or formless realm. Okay? Mainly the form realm.

Okay? So there's other realms. We're in the desire realm.

In the desire realm, people are mostly driven for a desire by two things. Food and sex. Food and sex.

No. That's the main theme of this realm. And deep down inside you had those two and that's why you were born in this realm.

In fact, the desire created this realm. It's not that this realm was sitting there waiting for you and your mom had you and you popped into it. You are projecting this realm even now by your desire for food and sex, deep down.

And then if you overcome that by what? Like become Anatole's partner or you know on the food on the food or or you know pledge yourself to a life of selflessness and not to keep it then these are then something would happen to your mind. Would you lose your desire?

You see, it's not like that. You would get more subtle. You would eat maybe once a day instead of three times a day.

And you would be willing to eat dhal instead of beef, right? Like your desire for food would lessen but it wouldn't disappear. You see what I mean?

And that's what happens to these people. They get more and more subtle. The mind gets more and more refined.

But the basic desire is still there. So if you wanted to diss somebody, if you wanted to accuse an arhat of not having seen emptiness, what would you say to them? Oh, you must have gotten to Nirvana by that non-Buddhist method which is what?

The coffee to latte method. You see? You must have done it that way.

Okay, got it? If they didn't get there by seeing emptiness, they must have got there by by going more subtle, subtle, subtle, subtle, subtle, subtle, subtle, okay? And you can't get rid of your nirvana afflictions.

So that's what he's saying here. If that were true, they would not be rid of their chage. Because chage as opposed to nyamo has a certain connotation, okay?

When you want to emphasize the kind of desire that still wants even mint tea without honey. When you want to emphasize that this desire goes subtle, subtle, subtle, subtle, you say two key words. Acting in the three realms, right?

Even in the form realm. They don't have their tea in the form realm. I'm sorry, formless realm.

They don't have a body in the formless realm. They just have a mind, right? But they still have desire, you see?

So, chage, when you say chage, instead of using klesha, when you use what? Anu? Shaya.

When you use anu shaya, what you're saying is you have those mental afflictions even to the most subtle. You see what I mean? In the kamsa, which are acting even in the formless realm.

Even a person who's disembodied still has mental afflictions. They can't even yell at anybody. They don't have a tongue.

But they still have anger. You see like that. Or a very subtle, they don't have anger, but they have a very subtle desire.

Like that, okay? Alright, got it? So this one sentence is very profound.

It's talking about very subtle mental afflictions. Very subtle forms of kleshas. And this is wrong.

You can't get rid of your mental afflictions just going to the lattes. Because you still want to get the latte. And I did.

We did. We were like dying for lattes in three retreats. Okay.

Yeah, and Mingyuro means for Jigme, Mingyuro means would not have. It's the future tense used as the, what do they call it? The...

There's a word for that tense. Objective tense. Would not have abandoned.

If that were true, they would not be rid of their mental afflictions. Okay, got it? Okay.

Okay. Okay, let's read it together. And no one's going to say suk, which means to poke somebody until they say, ouch.

Okay, everyone's going to say suk. Suk. Say suk.

Okay, one, two. I mean if you speak Tibetan to somebody and they look at you a little weird, then you know why. You're saying, would you like me to poke you instead of...

Okay. So you got to know your sas and your sas. Say sa.

Sa. Suk. Suk.

Okay, here we go. One, two, three. Suk.

Suk. Suk. Suk.

Suk. Suk. Suk.

This is a favorite mistake of karmas and writers, okay? We don't know who it was. This is the future and present tense of to become, which is say, ngyur.

And if you take off this prefix, right? It becomes kyur. Say kyur.

Ngyur. Kyur. So ngyur means you will be.

Kyur means you were. Got it? So if you can't hear it, how's anyone going to understand you?

Are you going to say, did you come or will you come? And it all depends on whether you can ngur or not. You see?

Really. You say, ngyur? They say, yeah, I'll come.

Kyur? Of course I came, I'm here. Okay, got it?

Say ngyur. Ngyur. Kyur.

Ngyur. Kyur. Now this happens to be ngyur.

Which means they shouldn't have put pa after it. Because that only goes with kyur. Okay, and what's this one?

What? Ngyurwe chö. Ngyurwe chö.

Okay, so you can fix that. You don't have to ask anybody. Okay?

So, why is it that those lower arhats, if they hadn't seen emptiness, couldn't have gotten rid of their mental afflictions? Okay? Why is it that those lower arhats, if they had just used the latte method, could not have gotten rid of their desire for coffee?

Why? Just by going more subtle. Yeah, then that's what he's saying here.

And that's because they would be mistaken. Alright? Because since they would be seeing some nature of their own in things like form.

Okay? Forms? Okay.

Alright, like they would look at a cookie. Is this the best you can do? Who's turning it tonight?

Really? Okay, well, if they start fighting over these six cookies, don't blame it on me. Okay.

Now, we got like 50 people here, okay? Okay. Well, I'm going to take these more partially to the tribes, okay?

It's the same way. Geshe Mike, well... Say, Ro Chog Nong.

Ro Chog Nong. It's one of the qualities of a Buddha. Like, no matter what they eat, they like it.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, so then they would be mistaken. Because they would be seeing some kind of nature in things. Does it have a nature?

If it didn't have a nature to be a cookie, I wouldn't be interested in it. Since I am interested in it, it must have a nature to be a cookie. So, is it correct to say it doesn't have any nature?

It's not correct. So, what is the correct way to say it? It doesn't have any nature of its own.

Got it? Who's making the cookie? Why did I get this cookie?

Is it that I was just closer to the back and the guys in the back are going to lose out? Is that what happened? So, should the people in the back get mad?

No, no. This cookie has a nature of being a cookie because I gave cookies to other people in the past. That's all.

I earned this cookie. And if I really wanted it, what should I do? Give it.

Okay. No, I just got like 50. Don't be sad.

Okay. No, to be sad is to have a... a chinchilog.

Say chinchilog. To be sad is chinchilog.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
To be sad is chinchilog. Chinchilog means ass backwards. It's not just wrong, it's 180 degrees wrong.

100% wrong. Totally wrong. We used to translate it as ass backwards, but then I got all these comments.

Okay. What? Anyway.

It doesn't mean just wrong, it means totally wrong. Got it? So, it's chinchilog to be sad that I didn't get a cookie.

You should be happy. Oh, you're so smart. You're so cool.

You just got 50 more cookies. I'm happy for you. You should congratulate someone who gives away their cookies.

Alright. Otherwise, it displays some kind of lack of knowledge. Right?

Okay, here we go. Ready? First, I found that pronunciation is markedly improved if you have cookie in your mouth.

Okay. One, two, three. Karasate dharme parato paraya mingyurte dhaktu dhaktu gyur kumbhala mikbe chesumbe ching Two cheers, okay?

Why? We'll talk about it. Alright.

Okay. Nor would they be someone who had perceived the lack of a self to the person since they would be focusing upon the heaps which are what we call the self. So he was just talking about them focusing on forms, which you could say colors and shapes, for example.

Right? So they looked at a golden rectangle. Right?

No, and they think it's coming from its own side. They think you can only get this by buying it. Is that true?

You can have money and you can walk to the store and die at the threshold. You can have money and go and ask for tricks and they'll say, we don't have any today. We just sold them all to somebody.

We know that. Or you can have totally no money at all and people come up and give you big bags of tricks, right? Well, that proves it's not coming from money.

Okay? But a person who still has mental afflictions, especially ignorance, they'll be thinking, oh, I can only get this with money. I don't get this by giving it away.

I get this by taking money to a store. They believe that. So that would be focusing on a thing.

Can you have the same wrong idea focused on me, on Michael? Can you do that with Michael? Because that's more insidious, that's more dangerous.

If you focus the wrong way on yourself then all sorts of problems pop up. So what they said was, how could they get rid of their mental afflictions? They're seeing the trickspot wrong.

Not only that, they're seeing themselves wrong. Got it? Like the second one is more powerful, right?

I mean, not only are they misunderstanding trickspots, they would be misunderstanding themselves. Got it? If they were doing the lot they meant to get rid of their desire.

Okay? And they would be looking at Michael's body and Michael's mind and saying that's Michael. Michael would be looking at Michael's body.

Michael would be looking at Michael's mind and be saying what? That's coming from its own side. That's coming from its own side.

What's a sign that you're thinking that? Any mental affliction focused towards yourself. Any mental affliction.

Someone says something mean to you. That's a sign. And you get angry.

That's a sign that you don't understand where your body is coming from or your mind is coming from. Any mental affliction is a sign that you still have this kind of ignorance about me. Anytime you're upset it's a thermostat.

What do you call it? It's a barometer. That you're misunderstanding yourself.

Got it? So what's the only way to get rid of those upsetnesses? Understand yourself.

Got it? Got it? And that's the whole point here.

I'll say it again. If you got upset once today, it proves you still have ignorance about yourself. Who you are.

If you ever want to stop getting upset, then you have to understand who you are. And that's what he's saying here. Okay?

That's all he's saying. And then he says, because you're misunderstanding yourself. Because.

What's the second because? We said two cheers, right? Yeah.

It shows he's quoting a scripture. Because of that it says. Right?

Okay. Now we're gonna go back. If you're gonna, you know.

We have two choices in this class. Like I can keep trying to do interesting stuff with you, or I can do what we need to do to finish the book and have it published. Right?

So we're gonna do that. Alright? Which is, the grunt work is part of being a translator.

You know, people want to know where did you get that. That's part of being a translator. If you don't have the patience to be precise and authoritative, then no one's gonna pay attention to your translation anyway.

I mean, a certain people will and they're not. They're the people who buy every book every week anyway. Okay?

So we gotta go back and find out where this quotation came from. Right there. Okay?

What happened? Geshe Michael did one paragraph from the Autocommentary, and then he switched into Kirtan Mithraji talking. And that was wrong.

Okay? Probably. How do we check?

Go search the Autocommentary. You got John Brady. He gave you the Autocommentary.

He just put out the tenure. Three thousand texts. Three thousand titles.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. So you have every Autocommentary that ever came out of India.

You have all of them. Everyone. You know, because of him.

You have it. So we'll find it. We just have to know how to ask, right?

So we go to Gopher. And what's the trick of finding a quotation? Put something unusual.

Don't say, don't look for the. Don't look for and. Okay?

Because you might hit it in a few other books. So find an unusual string, right? That's your big job.

Find an unusual string. As you get more sophisticated, you will also want to find a string which is not likely to be misspelled. Okay?

All right? He laughs because he knows. No, one guy knows.

What does it mean? Kedug Demadage is a monastic from Sarah in the 1500s, right? He was out there.

Where did he learn these quotations? In the debate ground. He has heard them his whole life.

He's never seen them spelled. Okay? So you gotta find a string which is not only unique.

You have to find a string that he maybe didn't mishear or misspell. Okay? And as we've seen so many times, even this quotation will probably be misspelled.

I predict. That's my interpretation tonight, I think. All right.

Put two pieces. Why? Or four.

Why? Because the first piece is misspelled because you'll never find it. So let's look at another piece.

Actually, everything else is so common I'm not going to bother. Okay. I'll give you three choices.

Don't guess yet. John Brady's database is divided into three huge pieces. One is Kangir, ancient teachings of Lord Buddha himself or other Buddhas.

Or Tengir, ancient Sanskrit commentaries upon the teachings of Lord Buddha from India. Or Tsongbo, Tibetan commentaries on those teachings. Which am I looking at?

Tengir. Because I'm in Chandrakirti's own auto commentary. I'm in Master Chandrakirti's own auto commentary.

So we're going to look at Tengir. Which is three thousand texts. Can we shorten the search?

Can we make it faster? Until such time as I can grab a new computer. I mean, no, no, no.

Well, I'll give you some choices. Is it in Parchin? Is it in Protection of Wisdom?

Is it in Vinaya? Is it in Logic? It's in Uma.

It's in Madhyamaka. Hopefully. Here we go.

Uh-oh. So, here's the quotation. Lungdi Leni, so far so good.

Nyenthe Dang, so far so good. Langsangye Namla Yang, Che Tam Che, Rangshin Mepar Shepa Yang, Ye Tto. Now the big question is going to be solved right now.

Does the quotation go on? She Jawa Sawangye Te, yeah? And so far it's totally perfect.

And I'm going to be embarrassed if he doesn't make some of the spelling. Dek Dalma Yena, so small, it doesn't matter. Lupo Rangshin Mepar Yongsu Shepa Dek Dalma Yena, so far good, right?

Let's take it down. Oops. Uh-oh.

Oh, man. Well, I just searched for twelve. I remember he said that.

Uh-oh. Shepa...

[Speaker 2]
Was I?

[Speaker 1]
Thank you. Weird. I think we wiped out the page number.

Okay. Alright. I'm going to put it right about here.

Where were we? Okay. You read it to me and I'll check the thing.

Okay? You read it. No, you read the big one.

Go slow. Start with Jigden. Go.

One, two, three. This is disgusting. It's like perfect.

Alright. Here we go again. Okay, read the next one for me.

[Speaker 2]
Here we go again. Here we go again.

[Speaker 1]
Only one bubu. What's that? Where's the arrow?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
That's a little more accurate. Right? Because that's the past tense.

Okay? Would not have what? Eliminate.

Ting. Right? So, fangba is a little better.

But not important enough to like make a big deal about it, I don't think.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
So, let's keep going. Whoa, don't do that. Bill.

He retired. Why did he retire? Are they losing money or something?

We were up to here, right? Am I right? Okay.

[Speaker 2]
No, we're not.

[Speaker 1]
We didn't do sukla-sokhe?

[Speaker 2]
We did.

[Speaker 1]
We did that one.

[Speaker 2]
We didn't do sukla.

[Speaker 1]
Hang on. Wait. One, two, three.

[Speaker 2]
Sukla-sokhe. Ranvin. Namo namin.

Khe. Babur. Keep going.

Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Yeah, there's only two differences, and I think I'll correct them, OK? I think I'm going to fix the text.

It's very subtle. dak tu dak pe, what's it say? What did he say, here?

gyu-yi, he said gyu-yi. But this only says gyu-yi. And that's the way I translate it, OK?

Like the gyu-yi, Geshe Thich Nhat Hanh would say what? Devo min du, who said that? Who said that?

Nice, OK. What's devo min du mean? Literally it means, I don't feel comfortable.

Deva means bliss, right? Devo means comfortable. Devo min du means, putting the possessive on it, if you're good at Tibetan, it feels devo min du, it's a little bit uncomfortable.

This gyu-yi, where he's added that, is a little uncomfortable. I'll tell you why, I mean, if you're going to get good at it, everybody else is going to fall asleep, that's OK. What does gyu mean?

Cause. But there's a colloquial form of gyu that you have to learn, and it only comes in 1% of the time. Less than 1%, maybe one time out of a thousand.

Gyu will mean, dinde che gyu min du, say dinde. Che gyu. Min du.

There ain't no cause to do that. There ain't no cause to act like that. There ain't no call to act like that.

It's call in English. And gyu can sometimes mean that. Or che gyu means something you have to do.

Che gyu means cause to be done, right? But it means something that you should have been doing. So how did I translate it here?

Where's the word for gyu in English? If you're hypertexting me. What?

What did he say? I didn't catch it. No, that would be the gyu.

That would be the first gyu, by the way. I don't see it. Yeah, you don't see it.

It's the which. Which are what we call. You see?

That gyu means the cause of the calling. But you don't say in English, the self which is the cause of the calling. You say the thing which I call myself.

So it's very subtle. It's nice to learn. Just put it in your memory bank somewhere.

The word gyu, which 99.9% of the time means cause, sometimes just means that thing which is to be done, the verb next to it. Got it? Sometimes gyu means that thing which is to be done, the verb next to it.

What's the verb next to it? Dak. Dak means to assign a label on something.

To glue a name on something. How do they say it in normal Madhyamika? Tope tak sam.

It's like a mantra. Say, tope tak sam. How does the world exist?

Say, tope tak sam. It's just projected. It's just projected from me.

And if you want it, you can say, it's a... What do they call it in those translations? No, they don't even do it that good.

It's like... You could say imputed maybe, but imputed is too good. Anyway, it means labeled.

Tope tak sam means labeled with your thoughts. Labeled with your mind. What does that mean with Geshe Michael?

How am I tope tak sam? If you get that, then I might even let you go. How am I tope tak sam?

By the way, and the dak gyu is what? What's the dak gyu? What's the thing we're giving the label?

My pieces. The pieces of Geshe Michael. My outline.

My color. My shape. My...

The parts of me, right? That's the dak gyu. The thing to be given the label, right?

Got it? So now whenever you see gyu stuck up against some verb, you might think, Oh, maybe it's the thing to be done that thing to. Got it?

Now to go back to my first question that you're going to answer in order to get out of here. And before you answer, I got to eat my candy bar because she'll stop me from eating it if we stop the class. Okay.

How am I tope tak sam? If you crack that, then you can't have a mental affliction about me. If you understand that, you can't have a mental affliction about me.

[Speaker 2]
How are you labeled?

[Speaker 1]
How am I labeled?

[Speaker 2]
By my karma.

[Speaker 1]
That's a good answer. What of me is labeled? Your parts.

My parts. Okay. The parts I see.

All there really is up here is four sticks and a barrel and a little ball. No, really. That's all there really is up here.

Honest. Just four sticks, a barrel, and a ball. That's all there is up here.

That's my parts. I am the sum of my parts. Your mind synthesizes a Michael.

Your mind synthesizes a Geshe Michael. There is no Geshe Michael up here. There's four sticks, a barrel, and a ball.

And your mind is... Your mind glues together a Geshe Michael. Right?

And each person's mind does it differently. So, I am what? In Tibetan.

I am Topantaksam. What Fitsam means? Nothing but that.

Nothing more than that. Never was, never will be, isn't now. Nothing more than your imagination.

You're gluing together a Geshe Michael. Not me. I'm just four sticks, a barrel, and a ball.

You're gluing together some person up here. Your mind is synthesizing a living, speaking, teaching person. If you like the teaching, if you're learning something, why?

Where did it come from? That's what Michael said. Where did it come from?

You. You taught somebody else. You helped somebody with a database of Tibetan language.

Books. And that's why you can synthesize out of these pieces a living teacher. There is no living teacher up here.

I'm not here. You are synthesizing something. If you were a bug, you wouldn't even stop at my skin.

You would see a big brown thing with some other colors. You'd see this whole wall with some other colors moving. You wouldn't isolate Geshe Michael from the wall.

You'd be seeing a wall with some movement on it. Like that. You wouldn't see a Geshe Michael if you were a bug, right?

That proves I'm not coming from myself. No, for the bug wouldn't hear the Dharma teaching, right? The Dharma teaching is coming from you because you served the Dharma in the past, right?

And if you don't want to get dumb, right? If you want to continue to have a high quality mind, you're just living on old karma now. You're burning up a credit card fast.

You are burning up a credit card fast. And you must serve it. You must have it.

You don't have a choice. Or you just... You'll lose interest.

These classes will stop. Something will happen. And it won't be here anymore.

So you have to... Because I am Tokpe Taksa. Because I am only a...

I'm only a construction of your own mind. In order to have this class happen again, you must be ready to serve the Dharma. You must serve the Dharma, right?

Cool? Got it? Okay, yeah.

Because that's where all the goodness of Dhyanam is coming from, is the projects like that, right? Because we are serving other people. So all the good things come that way, right?

So, by next week, I will have a job for you. Saturday? Even if you're not attending course, you can hang out outside and when everybody starts munching on something, you know it's time to come in.

Okay? Alright. But John, you've got to really get some jobs ready.

Because if there are no jobs ready, they just... They just kind of wander out. And some of them, frankly, will be fundraising jobs.

Because in the bottom line is, even if we do it with refugees, we have to give them something. And some will be done. Unabashedly fundraising jobs.

Alright. When you finish class, always remember to put three dollar signs on your text. Then you don't have to scroll down through the whole text to see where you stopped.

Alright. Venerable Gyatso, how's that? He's going to do a mandala offering.

[Speaker 2]
Loudly.

[Speaker 1]
Stop, stop, stop. You've got to listen to the umze. There's a rule in the monastery.

The umze has authority to do it any way she wants. She can go apki. She can do another song.

She can do the wrong prayer. You must follow the umze. You must follow the Chani Mantra.

So we'll do it again. One, two, three.