Вступление на срединный путь (текущий курс, Аризона), занятие 93

[Speaker 1]
All right, one, two, three. SOS PA SOS PA PHONG BA LA RGYAL PA MED SHES PA'I SOS PA PHONG BA DANG MA SHES PA'I SOS PA PHONG BA NYID Okay, we talked about it last time. SOS PA PHONG BA means what?

Yeah, blowing away their refutation. Okay, so we give a... You don't start a Buddhist book by saying, here's what it is.

You start a Buddhist book in a monastery, a textbook. It starts out, some guy comes and gives all the wrong ideas about emptiness. And then you listen very carefully and you say, well, that's not right because of this, and that's not right because of this.

So that's called Shenlug... What's it? Shenlugakpa.

Okay, Shenlugakpa. That's where you... you...

what do you call it? You refute the other guy's position. Okay, that's number one.

So we did that already. They get to come and give wrong ideas. And then you beat him every time by some kind of miraculous thing.

And then the second stage is called SOS PA PHONG BA. Sorry, RANG LUGSHAG PA. Say RANG LUGS?

RANG LUGSHAG PA RANG LUGSHAG PA means then we write what we believe. You know, we get to write what we believe. Which is all you would get in a standard Western textbook.

See, you would only get step two. Here's the three kinds of algebra. Here's how you just learn this.

In a Tibetan textbook on algebra, a guy would come up first and present a mistaken system of algebra. And then we would defeat him. And in the process you would almost be able to write the algebra book yourself.

And then you get to the second part which explains algebra. You see what I mean? But first you get some guy coming and making all the wrong ideas about algebra.

See what I mean? And in that way you sharpen your mind about algebra because he covers all the wrong ideas you're going to have. Got it?

So then the third one is called SOS PA PHONG BA. Say SOS PA PHONG BA. He gets...

So this is the beauty of the Tibetan monastic textbook system. He gets to come back and say, you know, okay, so you proved me wrong on most of my stuff. You gave your presentation.

I think your presentation has certain problems, okay? I think you have certain problems with your presentation. So it's kind of a democracy, right?

He gets to come and complain about what you said. See? That's where we've reached, okay?

We're on step three. After six years, we've reached the second one. On one little part.

That's a long story. Actually, I'm just trying to assure my employment for a while. SOS PA PHONG BA You know there's a sister text to this that we have to cover also.

UMA THA CHOD This is the CI DUN. Say CI DUN? THA CHOD CI DUN?

THA CHOD CI DUN means an overview of the Middle Way. And then THA CHOD means an analysis of the Middle Way. So in the old days, the CI DUN was short.

And you went through it kind of fast. And you got the whole overview of the Middle Way. And then you went on to the THA CHOD and you might spend three or four years on that.

Nowadays, both of the CI DUN and the THA CHOD have gotten really fat. We will study the THA CHOD for PAD CHEN, okay? We haven't studied it yet in the 36 courses.

We haven't studied it. We will study the... There are eight volumes.

It's eight volumes. Eight volumes like that. It takes 12 years in the monastery.

So it takes us 36 years. But in the study of the lower Middle Way school, the THA CHOD is better. It's more interesting.

It's much more detailed. It's about... You can call it about 5,000 pages, okay?

And then the... But for MA RGYUD MI DKA, for higher Middle Way, the CI DUN is more interesting. The CI DUN got a little bit fatter.

And that's what we're studying. This happens to be the best textbook on emptiness, okay? But that's where we can go later.

Okay, so here we go. What do you want to say? Oh, if you'd...

What do you call it when somebody comes back to you and complains about your system? Oh, that's beautiful. Who said that?

But how do you spell it? Okay, okay. Refute our opponent's rebuttal, right?

It's like this thing, okay. Like, maybe I could get a rebuttal and have a bite. That's where we refute our opponent's rebuttal.

This itself has two parts. Refuting refutations of rebuttal that we see in the commentary, and those that we don't find there. Okay, so the commentary is probably...

It's probably the auto-commentary by Master Chandrakirti himself. There's a small chance it's Je Tsongkapa's own commentary, but I don't think so. But we'll see, okay?

These kind of things you can fudge until you find it. Yeah, okay, we'll do that. Hang on.

I'm going to put this up here. Oh, I would leave it rebuttal. Okay?

Oh. So normally, when you do a Tsopa Powa, first we hear his argument against us, and then we respond to it. So that's the normal structure of the Tsopa Powa.

I'm going to...

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Let's read just the first paragraph, okay? One, two, three. DANG PO LA LOB PUN SANG NYE GYEN GYI RAB CHE DUNG PAS BRAL PA PHET MEN GYI DO LE CHO THAM CHE DAG PAS SUM PAS DUNG CHO NANG RANG SHIN GYI MA DROD PA'I DUNG DU GSHES PA LA Okay.

Here's the first one. In the commentary by... Who is Sangye Khyang?

Buddha Palita, okay? Okay, so here you just have to know some history, okay? In the 200s, in the 3rd century, Arya Nagarjuna wrote Tsawa Sheru, right?

Mula Madhyamika... Mula Prajna. And there's a very short exquisite verses, extremely difficult.

I mean, they have spawned 18 centuries of commentary, thousands and thousands of pages. This small poem, this small poetry by Arya Nagarjuna, which Lala Kristi has in the book Jimba Course, okay? So then, Buddha Palita...

I forget his days, I think he's around the 500s, okay? He wrote a commentary on Master Arya Nagarjuna called Buddha Palita, okay? It's just called by his name, okay?

So they say, who wrote Buddha Palita? And if you can't answer, you're really in trouble. So then he explained Arya Nagarjuna in a certain way.

And then people came and criticized Buddha Palita, and especially someone named Bhavya, who turns out to be lower middle way school, okay? He's the main writer. Baba Viveka, sometimes they call him Baba Viveka.

He's the main writer for the lower middle way school. But he attacked Buddha Palita's interpretations, okay? Then came along Master Chandrakirti, who defended Buddha Palita.

So part of... And then Master Chandrakirti's work, he wrote two commentaries on emptiness. One is Ummalajupa, Entering the Middle Way, meaning how to explain the root text by Arya Nagarjuna, as far as meaning.

And then he wrote Prasannapada, which is called Clear Explanation of the Words, meaning a literal explanation of Nagarjuna's text, okay? So the first of those is studied more often. And the second one is not studied so often, almost never.

Because the first one explains the ideas of Arya Nagarjuna. That became the book that all Tibetans use to study emptiness, okay? Period.

Okay, so Master Chandrakirti's defense of Buddha Palita's interpretation of... which is a rehash of... Good.

Became the standard, okay? So, here's the first. In the commentary by Master Buddha Palita on the seventh chapter, okay, it is stated that...

Seventh chapter of what? Yeah, Arya Nagarjuna's root text, okay? Who said that?

Yeah, good. In the commentary by Master Buddha Palita, it is stated that the descriptions of the lack of any self-nature, of descriptions of how nothing in the universe has any self-nature are found in Thich Nhat Hanh in the Sutras of the Lower Way, okay? Got it?

And he explains it. And he explains this lack as referring to the fact that nothing in the universe occurs with any self-nature. Okay, so here's for translators, okay?

People are going to try to translate. It says, literally the Tibetan says, chö tham jay dak mey par, all things have no self-nature, okay? The Tibetan says, all things lack a self-nature.

But we don't say that in English, please, okay? We don't say that in English, got it? We say, there ain't nothing that has any self-nature.

You see what I mean? We say, nothing in the universe has any self-nature. So please don't translate the Tibetan literally here.

Don't say, all things don't have a nature. Because we don't say that. All the people in this room don't have drugs tonight.

You know what I mean? Like that. You just say, nobody has drugs.

You see what I mean? That's all. Got it?

If you're going to be, I mean... Because then people try to read it and they're like, they don't understand why it's not easy reading for them. It's not easy reading for them because you're just following the Tibetan syntax and you're not putting it into English.

But they sort of understand what you said, so they keep struggling through the book. But they don't understand, you know, it's like trying to walk through water instead of along the earth. You see what I mean?

They're like walking through water. When you keep throwing little bad translations at them, they get tired, they set the book down. And then you have failed as a translator.

Because as a translator you want them to grab the book and... What do you call it with a novel? This is a real page turner or something like that?

Is it? Yeah, you want it to be a page turner. You don't want them to be struggling through resistance to get to your ideas.

You see what I mean? The translation should be A, transparent, or B, beautiful. Like what they do with Hafiz nowadays.

God knows how close it is to the Arabic, I don't know. I have a feeling not very. But it's sure easy to get through.

So probably we want to be somewhere between there. It should be easy to get through, and it should be totally accurate, okay? That's the goal.

Don't give me a diamond deal. What's the diamond deal? Oh Geshe-la, do you want it literal or do you want me to sort of interpret it?

I want it literal and I want it to sound beautiful. You know? Okay?

All right. So, what's going on here? Buddha Palita, in his commentary, is saying, look, the seventh chapter of the root text on wisdom explains that even in the lower way they talk about things not having any nature of their own.

Okay? Then Buddha Palita says, this is to be taken in the highest sense. Meaning, nothing has any nature of its own.

Okay, what does that mean? What is this? Yeah, it's a pen.

Okay, and... Okay. Why?

Why is it a pen? Yeah, I mean, what a pen is, is a thing that writes, okay? What a pen is, is a thing that writes.

Okay, got it? So, is a pen a thing that writes? Does it have that nature or quality of writing things?

Yeah, I mean, it has to or it's not a pen. I could hold up a cell phone, okay? Is this a pen?

Why not? Because you can't write with it, okay? So this has something about it that this doesn't have that makes it a pen, okay?

So does it have a nature? Yeah, it writes. And this doesn't write, so this is not a pen.

And you can't make phone calls with this, so this is not a cell phone. So does it have a nature? Yes.

Now, if in the lower schools of Buddhism, they say it doesn't have a nature, what do they mean? And Master Buddhapalita says, they mean the same thing that we mean, that it doesn't have a nature of being a pen by itself. The fact that it can write isn't coming from the ink.

The fact that it can write is coming from your past karma. The fact that it can write was produced by your kindness to others when you shared your stock with them, right? By the way, what happens to that karma once it ripens?

It starts to wear out. So now you know why pens run out of ink. It's not because they run out of ink.

Got it? Okay, got it? It's because you didn't give away enough pens.

Got it? And if you had given away constantly, then the pen would last longer and longer. Like nowadays, they have these new flashlights, right?

What are they called? LED. So I bought one, Gyatso gave me one.

You know, and I read science fiction secretly under the covers every night for half an hour. And for many years. And I have a thing about the flashlights wear out.

You're in the middle of the attack by the Obans on Zoe, which happened last night. And then suddenly the flashlight poops out, you know? So like she gave me this flashlight.

She said, Gyatso, just try it, you know? So I don't like to try new things because I'm always right before they give me new things. But I took it, you know?

And this thing doesn't wear, after a year it's still going. I've never replaced the batteries, ever. I think it's two years or something.

And it just won't die, you know? So my karma changed. Got it?

They didn't invent a new flashlight. I was more generous with, you know, I helped arrange for these lights to be put in here, for example. So, you know, I get to have an LED flashlight.

You see what I mean? Got it? So, the bottom line is, Buddha Palita says, look, when Lord Buddha said in the sutras that nothing has any nature of its own, he was saying the exact same thing that he was telling to the middle way people.

And lower school people get it that way also. Or they couldn't see emptiness directly and then reach nirvana. And we know they reached nirvana, so they must have seen emptiness directly.

So, probably the text that explained to them emptiness can at least be interpreted in a higher way, right? Okay? That's Buddha Palita's position.

Do you think Baba Viveka, who represents the lower school of the middle way, is going to buy Buddha Palita's position? He never did historically anyway. That's why Chandrakirti had to come along.

Got it? So, guess who's going to come and complain? One, two, three.

LO BON LENG DEN GES NA RE PHAN CHEN BSTAN PA DON MED PA Stop, stop, stop! Before you get to the Tao. Okay, as you know, Tao at the end of a sentence means, it can mean one or two things depending on how you inflect it, right?

If you go up, you say DON MED PA it means you must be wrong, okay? If you say DON MED PA it means are you telling me it's wrong? Okay, one is a statement, one is a sarcastic consequential thing.

So, he's reporting what Baba Viveka said. And Baba Viveka is saying, I'll give you the sentence and then you tell me whether it's going to be sarcastic or not. Well, you're going to know I guess.

But then you tell me if we're going up or down. Well, so I guess there's no purpose to present the Mahayana. TAO.

Got it? DON MED PA TAO. Say DON MED PA TAO.

So, I guess it was redundant for Lord Buddha to teach the Mahayana. Okay? Then, let's go from the beginning.

One, two, three. LO BUR RENG DENG BYAS NA RE DE CHEN BRTEN PA DON MED PA DA DE MENG GI DE NON LAS SU RGYUR DAG NAS BRTEN PA'I SHES SHES It's a door. Uh, say...

Say RENG DENG BYAS. That means, I opened the couch very well. Say RENG DENG BYAS.

That means Baba Viveka. Got it? Okay?

So, you have to penasal between the first two syllables or Tibetan doesn't... They're wondering why you want to open the couch. Okay?

Say RENG DENG BYAS. RENG DENG BYAS There was some really... Rinpoche told me some guy came to Dharamsala, some Western scholar who didn't know how to pronounce anything.

And he said something really... He said something like that in front of a huge crowd of Tibetans at a conference. And then everybody was roaring.

And he didn't know... He's like, what's going on? Okay.

So, you're never going to say RENG DENG BYAS. You're going to say RENG DENG BYAS. Okay?

Like DOR BYAS. Who's the yogini? GNAL GYOR MA.

Okay? Because GNAL GYOR MA means we washed her or something. Okay.

There is a prenasal. L over D is prenasal. Okay, like a certain monastery out of the big three.

RENG DENG BYAS. Okay? Alright?

Okay, same spelling for RENG DENG BYAS. Got it? Obvious, okay?

The word for collection here, by the way, is DENG NYOD, which in Sanskrit is pitaka. And there's three of them, so it's tri pitaka. Tri pitaka.

Okay? Alright. Which is not an unreasonable statement.

If the lower sutras already present the highest form of emptiness, which they must do if people read them and reach nirvana, then what's the use for all the Mahayana scriptures? Okay? Who needs the Mahayana scriptures?

[Speaker 2]
Huh? That means my God.

[Speaker 1]
NYID PA LEN ZHES PA LA DE LTAR TSE PA MI DE BAR Okay, here we go. One, two, three. NYID PA LEN ZHES PA LA DE LTAR TSE PA MI DE BAR This is us.

And we're saying that argument is incorrect. Your argument is incorrect. Are we going up or down?

We're going up because it's what we believe. You go down when it's sarcastic. So you tell me everything is red because apples are red.

And I say, okay, well, I guess the sky is red, right? Then I would be going down. TAO But if you say, you know, is the sky blue?

I'll say, yeah, it's blue. Blue? TAO?

Okay, got it. Okay, here we go. Let's start again.

One, two, three. NYID PA LEN ZHES PA LA DE LTAR TSE PA MI DE BAR DA LUNG DANG YANG RGYAL Pause. One, two, do it again.

One, two, three. LUNG DANG YANG RGYAL RIG PA DANG RGYAL RE Cheers. You should have put a yang, a second yang.

But, you know, it's okay. What you say is... I told you a couple of times.

He'll say, KHUG PA YANG YIN Say, KHUG PA YANG YIN KHUG PA YANG YIN PHYI MA NGAN PAR YANG YIN PAS Cheers. KHUG PA YANG YIN KHUG PA YANG YIN PHYI MA NGAN PAR YANG YIN PHYI MA NGAN PAR YANG YIN A, he's a fool. B, he smells funny.

Okay? And that's a yang yang. In Tibetan, you say yang yang.

So you have to pause between the two. KHUG PA YANG YIN Pause. Everybody's waiting for the second part.

PHYI MA NGAN PAR YANG YIN Okay, got it? So, just traditionally, that's how you phrase it. Okay?

And in English, we would say, first of all, right? Because first of all, it contradicts, yeah, scripture. And secondly, it contradicts reason.

Reason? Okay? Okay, so this people know, but I'll repeat.

Who's that cute little monk in Hao? DBYA BA LUNG RIG Okay? So they name people LUNG RIG in the monastery.

LUNG RIG means LUNG DANG RIG PA It means LUNG and RIG. LUNG and RIG PA. And these are the two classical ways to prove anything in Buddhism.

You can either use LUNG, you can quote a scripture, or you can use RIG PA, which is logic. Just what makes sense. Okay?

What the masters have said is one way to prove what you're trying to argue. And then, what makes sense is the second way to prove what you're trying to argue. Got it?

So he's attacking him on both sides. He says, look, what you said, first of all, it doesn't fit what all the great masters have said. And second of all, it doesn't make any sense either.

Which is a big insult in Buddhism. Okay? Because that's the only two ways you can prove anything anyway.

To fail on one point is one thing. To fail on both points is sort of serious. Guess which system Geshe Michael preferred on the debate ground?

Logic. Why? I couldn't memorize thousands of books.

Yeah, I just couldn't do it. Like, everybody was pulling out quotations from the top of their head, you know, and I'm going, ah... You know, and then I said, why don't we go to reasoning?

You know? Okay. All right.

One, two... Oh, wait. There's a TEL in there.

We're trying to prove something we asserted. We said, you're contradicting scripture, and you're contradicting reason. So, are we going to go up or down?

Yeah, because we're trying to convince him, right? So, here we go. One, two, three.

DANG PO RGYA THAG NGAR SHES PA'I DNGOS GYEN CHOS PA'I HAM CHOS DANG RGYA BA'I PHYIR Okay. Okay, so we actually... We've already been through this point.

We already gave the scriptures that presented emptiness. So, and we explained the classical commentaries that say, it would be contradictory to claim that just because the lower way presents emptiness, that it's unnecessary to have a higher way. Okay?

We already presented all that. So, he's just saying, Kedrup Tenpa Dhargi, the author, is saying, come on, we don't need to go over that again. We covered that.

We covered that like between 2006 and 2009. Okay? It was like a couple of pages.

All right. Okay. One, two, three.

RIG PA DANG RGYAL BA'I TSUL LA PHYIR THEG CHEN BSTAN PA DOD MED PAR GYUR SERAM THEG CHEN GYI DE NI LAS DONG NYID DAM PA DOD MED GYUR SERAM Okay? We talked about SERAM last week. That can mean to say.

It can mean to report somebody. If you're speaking colloquial Tibetan, like if you're translating for a high lama, or like that, you would say, you would say, THEG CHEN BSTAN PA DOD MED PAR MA YIN TZU MA YIN TZU CIG DROG PA LAS KAR YIN ZEN NA YIN TZE MA CHEN NA KAR YIN TZE YIN NA ZHENG MA LAS And you keep saying S at the end, and it means he says. The lama says.

You know? And it's for SER. So you hear somebody reporting somebody else, it's like, BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH S BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH S You're like, what's the S already?

You know? Get your teeth fixed. But it means, it's short for SER, when you're reporting what somebody else said, especially in a long presentation.

As I said before, SER, especially in the Abhidharma, means claims, meaning I don't believe it. You know? He claims that we're going to get this dome done in three months.

SER. You know? So you know, that means I'm not sure.

Okay? Especially when you say SER RO, in scripture. This SER is a little bit softer, it just means SE.

Because SE is kind of state, I like to translate SU as state. Because normally it's used for authority, scriptural authority, scriptural authority states. You know?

Okay? But when you're reporting someone's argument, you know, are you saying, this or are you saying that? Then it's sort of neutral, right?

Meaning I don't quite already believe what you're going to say. Got it? But it's not as bad as claim.

Are you claiming... So what are you trying to say is different from what are you trying to claim, is different from what statement are thou making. Okay?

Got it? All right? So those are the choices.

You have to be sensitive to the context to know how to translate this word especially. Okay? But every other word.

All right. Okay. Now I want to draw your attention, okay?

To... Oops, where did it go? I want to draw your attention to RAM, okay?

This is the RAM and Sitaram. Not really. Okay.

I'm waiting for somebody to object, but anyway. All right. People ask me, does Tibetan have a question mark?

You know, because you never see one. And they don't. What you do is you take the suffix letter of the previous syllable and you repeat it on AM.

You stick it on AM. So if the question ended in L, you'd say, LAM. Okay?

Got it? So here the question ends in R, so they say RAM. Okay?

Unfortunately, the same spelling can mean or. In a way, it's the same thing, right? Are you telling me that I'm supposed to announce this before class or...

You know. You see, it's really the same thing in a way. But if you want to, if you're writing a letter to a Tibetan friend and you don't want to be one of those cultural ruiners who put question marks in Tibetan letters, you'll put AM like RAM, LAM.

KHANG NAM DAM NAM BAM NAM NAM RAM NAM TZAM TZAM are the choices. Okay. You have to memorize the grammar text.

So SERAM. So he's splitting. It's called a split argument.

It's a type of reasoning. It's a type of way to bug somebody. You know.

Are you saying this? Or are you saying this? And then you're going to kill him either way.

Okay. Here we go. But you say it very sweetly.

Okay, got it? So, let's go back. Let's go backwards.

Master Buddhapalita said, look, when Lord Buddha gave the sutras of the lower way, he talked about emptiness and he meant the same thing that you hear in the highest teachings of the Mayana. Okay? You should be asking me, well, what happened to the six flavors of emptiness and all that.

But anyway, nobody did, so I'll just keep going. And then we say, and then Master Baba Viveka says, well, then I guess there was no point to Lord Buddha giving the higher way teachings because he was just repeating everything. Got it?

Which he gave later, right? Those teachings were given later. So, then we say, oh, when you say it was meaningless for Lord Buddha to have taught the greater way after that, are you saying he didn't have to teach the greater way at all?

Or are you just saying he could have skipped the part about emptiness when he taught the greater way because he already covered it in the lower way? Got it? Are you saying the whole Mahayana was pointless?

Was a waste of time? Like something he already said before? Like, don't use drugs?

Or are you saying, are you saying specifically the teachings on emptiness found in the greater way were not necessary? He didn't have to say those. Those parts of the greater way.

We're asking, it's a split question, okay? It's a split tsupa pong. What would you say, by the way, if someone said to you, because Lord Buddha taught a pretty good kind of emptiness in the lower way, it wasn't necessary for him to repeat himself?

And then you said, well, what do you mean repeat himself? And the guy said, well, he didn't really have to give any Mahayana teachings at all. I mean, what would you say to that guy?

Say again? Right. You could just start listing subjects that are covered in Mahayana that are not emptiness, that aren't covered in Hinayana.

Got it? So guess what's going to happen. Okay, one, two, three.

DANG PO RTA NA KHYAB PA NGES PA MA YIN TE DE CHEN GYI DE NUS SDONG NYID KHRA MO TZAM STON PA MIN GYIS BYANG SEM GYIS SA DANG JIM PA LA SOGS PAS SPYOD PA DANG MA YIN LAM DANG NGO BA LAG PO'I CHE LA SOGS BYANG SEM GYIS THUG PHUG TU CHUNG LO DENG PA'I PHUNG Okay. Okay, got it? Right?

What, what are you saying the Mahayana just teaches emptiness? Got it? Rather, okay?

Rather, I'm not looking at you on purpose. He's from Australia. Now we need a disjunctive particle.

We need a but, or rather. You see? And what do we have?

He. It's an instrumental. Because of that.

Okay? Or by that. It's wrong.

It's a miscarriage. Okay? So part of the deal about translating lots of text, like for the tantric, you have to correct this stuff as you go.

Especially mantras and stuff. There was a cool mantra. Should I steal your lines?

Okay. She had a cool mantra. Say, MARTA You sure you want me to, aren't you going to do it on your homework?

You're so nice. All right. Thank you.

Okay. So say, OM MARTA KUNDALI HANA HANA HUNG PHET Give a little bit of F to the PHET because it's like a... Anyway.

It means that. And Tibetans do that. They don't say, PHET.

They say, PHET. Say it with a little slobber. PHET.

PHET. It's the only F sound in all of Tibetan. And it's purpose.

It's on purpose. And it means exactly that. FU.

Okay. So anyway. So she had a mantra in her Tara class that said, OM MARTA means what?

Or deathlessness, right? KUNDALI No, I don't want to steal your lines. You have to go to her class.

Anyway. We fixed the mantra together. And it's been wrong for a couple hundred years.

Diametrically wrong.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
They've been saying the opposite of what they should be saying. But you'll hear about it if you go to her class. Okay.

Rather. Okay. So we're just going to correct that without asking him.

DZIN PA Giving. So what he's saying is, look. Is it one perfection or six?

I don't quite remember. You know what I mean? I mean there's five perfections covered in the Bodhisattva literature, the Mahayana literature, which aren't wisdom, okay?

Right? Okay. So giving and the rest here means giving and the other four.

Okay. MA RNAMS The practice... I'm going to say the art of prayer.

NGO BO LA PO CHE Yeah, yeah, good. I'm going to talk about LA PO CHE. Okay, LA PO CHEN.

I just want... It's an idiom and I want you to hear how... All of this comes...

I never had a dictionary for 25 years. I had Rinpoche. I would go up and ask him, what the heck does this word mean?

And then I would get the real poop, you know? And I... What do you call it?

Fennegled my way into being his chauffeur and his dishwasher and his cook. And then I always had chances to ask him questions, you see? So I was no fool.

I mean, eight years of washing dishes, right? So I remember LA PO CHE. I remember when he taught it.

And he said, you want to know what LA PO CHE means? He says, what's that thing they put in the communist flag? What do you call that thing?

Yeah, he said, you call it sickle, right? I said, yeah. And he said, yeah, well, would you rather have a sickle or a harvesting machine?

You know, one of those big kudung kudung things that does the whole field, you know? I said, well, you want a harvesting machine because you could do like a thousand times more with the same hours. He says, that's LA PO CHE.

So LA PO CHE means infinitely more effective. Infinitely more, what do you call it? It's really efficacious.

Efficient's a little tricky because efficient just means less waste of time, you see? But this means more powerful in getting what you want done. And I don't know if there's an easier English word than efficacious.

I don't think there is. How do you say? Potent is close.

Let's see if we can use it here. Yeah, I think you could use it here. Yeah, you could use it.

That's good, Alistair. Potent forms of dedication and so on. He's basically covered five of the six perfections that aren't covered in the simple study of emptiness by itself.

But is there a presentation of more perfections? Into ten. And they include...

There's presentations which include the munlam and more. You see what I mean? So he's basically referring to other Mahayana practices, okay?

Munlam meaning... Okay, classical question. What's the difference between munlam and more?

What's the difference between prayer and a dedication? Say again? Yeah.

Both of them are expressed as I wish everybody in the world could be happy. Right? But in munlam it ends at that.

You just say, I wish everybody in the world could be happy. And more means I worked my butt off today on Roger and Yvonne's second straw bale house that we're all going to go to the barn raising for on Sunday a couple of weeks from now. And I take that good karma and I send it into the future to save all living beings.

So you have some stuff to work with. That's the difference between munlam and more, okay? Prayer and dedication.

So, we beat him on the first point. Yeah, did I miss something? Where?

Uh, where was that? Oh, I'm sorry, the... Okay, also present...

Oh, we're ready for snack, okay? We're... As well as...

Okay. Okay. Uh, I'm going to put this...

Yeah, okay. We had argued that the Mahayana has a lot more cool stuff in it than just emptiness, okay? And now we're going to support our statement.

We already stated logic. Guess what we're going to do now? We're going to defend our own statement with some scripture, okay?

But we're going to say, tell before it. Are we going up or down? Up, because we believe it.

It does too. We do it in English, right? It does too.

Got it? One, two, three. DAT THA RIN CHEN CHENG WA LAS NYEN THU PHET PA DE LAS NI CHANG CHU SEM PAS MAN NAM DANG CHOS PA YONG NGO MA SHES PA CHANG CHU SEM PAS KA LAM GYUR CHANG CHOS LA NI PAS DUN DO DE LAS NI KA MA TSAL THEG PA CHE LAS KA TSAL PA DE CHOS KHAS PA NAM KYIS SUNG CHES RUNG PAS CHUNG Oh, everybody has a cold.

I'm sorry. I'll try to get it for you, everybody, tomorrow. I always feel really proud, like, oh, I must be so virtuous, I didn't catch a cold.

And then, like, two hours later... Okay, anyway. RIN CHENG CHENG WA Huh?

Yeah, a string of jewels. The idea is... what do you call those hula things?

A lei, right? So normally you make them with flowers, but what if you made them with diamonds? So that's the idea.

This book is a string of jewels, not a string of flowers, okay? Or beads, right? Because the...

Oh, why I say string? Oh, it could be both. It could be both, yeah.

You could read it both ways. I kind of like to have more. All right.

Okay. Who wrote the RIN CHENG CHENG WA? Ratnamala.

Yeah, Arya Nagarjuna. So it's a fairly authoritative text. All right.

Yeah, the guy who invented the mayana says, look, the mayana has some special stuff in it. Okay? All right.

Yeah. I'm using it here as bhikkhun. Because bhikkhun would be too many, for the meter it won't work.

Okay? So it's an artistic license.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Generally, the thing you have to worry about as a translator is whether it's ngyur or gyur or gyur. Say ngyur, gyur, gyur. Three different words.

Three different meanings. Chukyi and I were working with gyur today. What was that?

Was it exchanging or changing? Oh yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, it was a beautiful section in her Vinaya text.

It was, if you're doing... Oh, this is cool. Yeah, a monk...

You want to explain? A monk is required... What?

If a monk gets some money, if a sponsor gives a monk some money, you're not allowed to touch money. If you're a monk, you're not allowed to use or touch money. Or stoves or pots and pans or anything.

You're just supposed to translate all day on your laptop. But anyway, so there's a ritual that you're supposed to follow. If a sponsor hands you $50, you're supposed to take the money to another fully-ordained monk and you have to ask them, will you help me do the blessing of this money so I can use it?

And then you both go through this long blessing. I guess it's easier if people don't give you much money. Then you don't have to do it so often.

So, and then it says, if you can't find another fully-ordained monk this morning, then you can change the reading to, oh, gods, you know? So you can go in your room, put the money in a dish, and say, will you bless this money to the sky? And then it becomes blessed and then you can use it.

So we were saying that probably led to a lot of abuses. But anyway, but the word for change the reading was, BOS GYUR, BA'O SAGA TE RGA'YA TE RGYA' ZHAG GI GYUR LA GYUR Say, say, GYUR. When you say, it will be, you say, NGYUR.

NGYUR. And when you say, it has become, you say, GYUR. So one has a head letter, one has a pre-nasalizer, and one has neither.

Got it? And it's three totally different meanings. The one you need to struggle with is NGYUR and GYUR, because to have become means to be.

So you have to translate it as is. But that's another story. To have become is best translated as is.

That's tricky. Okay, so that's the one you have to worry about. You have to chew on that.

That's a breakthrough. As a translator, you make that breakthrough someday. You say, oh my god, GYUR just means is.

Because it already became. Got it? Okay.

You got a more fancy word than spoken. Yeah, okay. So what it means is that, you said, I asked you, so the whole greater way was a waste of time to teach?

Or were the teachings on emptiness in the greater way a waste of time to teach? And he said, the whole greater way was a waste of time to teach. So then we say, so basically what you're saying is that Lord Buddha only taught emptiness in the greater way and nothing else.

And then he probably says, why do you say that? And then we say, well, but he taught all this other stuff. He taught giving, morality, patience, effort, concentration, prayer, dedication, all the bodhisattva levels, okay?

Etc. Then we pull out a quotation by Arya Nagarjuna that says, look, there's lots of stuff that wasn't taught in the lower sutras that was only taught in the higher sutras, okay? That's all.

We're just backing it up with a scriptural quotation from the best authority. By the way, the next part is very, very famous and very important and it's probably all we're going to get to tonight. So, this part is worth tonight's class.

This part you should understand, okay? So, turn your mind back on for light. That was in my science fiction book last night too, but anyway.

The obin turn their consciousness back on? Yeah. But I'm not going to tell you about them.

Here we go. One, two, three. CHI MA TAR NA YANG KHYAP PA NGES PA YIN TE THEK CHEN GYI DE NGE LE DONG NYID RIG PE NAM DRANG THA YIN PE GON NE DEN THEK MEN GYI DE NGE LE DONG NYID RIG PE NAM DRANG DOR DU TZAM GYIS GON NAS DEN PAS Okay.

There's a misspelling or miscarving right here. This is just... it's always the instrumental.

GYIS GON NAS DEN PAS What ladder? Yeah, good. Okay?

So, when we say ladder we mean, now he's changed his answer. He said, I didn't mean to say the whole Mahayana was meaningless. I just meant to say it was unnecessary for Lord Buddha to repeat all this stuff about emptiness in the Mahayana, because according to you it was covered already.

Got it? Say RIG PA THA YIN PE GON NAS RIG PA THA YIN PE GON NAS This is very, very, very famous. Okay?

If you're a person whose mind gravitates towards the higher way, right? You should be hungry for more arguments to prove emptiness. Right?

You can say, God, she's on Bhagavad Gita 17 now, but I'm still going to go, because she's up to chapter 20-something. Or something. Yeah.

And, you know, maybe I'll hear some more cool arguments for why the guy who bugs me is not coming from his own side. Or maybe I'll hear a different way to hear the pen presented. So they say that a person who is truly virtuous, when someone gets up and says, hey, I'm going to tell you one more reason why the asshole in your life is coming from you.

I should rephrase that, right? Why the asshole in your life is not coming from their side. Which is emptiness, right?

To say that the asshole in your life is coming from your side is what? Dependent origination. To say that the asshole in your life isn't coming from their side is emptiness.

Right? Because it's negative. It has to be negative.

You say what it is, it's dependent origination. You say what it ain't, it's emptiness. Right?

So, why did I say that? Yeah, so they say in the opening lines of this text, of the root text by Master Chandrakirti, they say, if you are really a person with a core of goodness, if you're really a nice person, or spiritually you have some holy core in you, right? Then if someone gets up and says, we're going to cover another chapter from Arya Nagarjuna that has more confusing explanations of why things are empty, then you get a chill down your spine.

They say if you're a good person, you're like, ooh, Lama Krishna's going to do this thing again, but in a little bit different way. Like, she's going to try to confuse us about the emptiness of this this time. And instead of feeling like put out, oh, she's just giving me a rehash of last class, a Mahayana person is like, ooh, it's real obvious, ooh, she's going to teach me another reason why things are empty, which is basically what bhakti has been, right?

So, they would say that that's really fitting or appropriate for people of highest capacity. That, rikpa tayepe gone means, they want infinite arguments. They want bhok chenpa 137, 138.

You know, Lama Krishna comes in in a wheelchair, you know, and she's like, okay, I got another chapter, you know, and this one you haven't heard before, you know. Is a mango a mango, you know? Like, yeah, she hasn't done mangoes yet.

You know, like that. So, they say that's how you can kind of tell a person who has a Mahayana seed in them, that they think it's ooh, they get ooh, and they hear, oh, we're going to have another class on emptiness. She's going to tell me one more reason why things are empty.

One last thing. PHYIR KHYI RNAM DANG GI, BSTAN GNYEN BZIN LA MYONG BA ZHUGS SO PHYIR KHYI RNAM DANG GI, BSTAN GNYEN BZIN LA MYONG BA ZHUGS SO DE'I TSE CHEN PO'I BRAL SANG MO NO ZHES BYA BA, PHYIR KHYI RNAM DANG GI, BSTAN GNYEN BZIN LA What is that? That's the Heart Sutra.

So, I want to teach you, those of you who are serious translators, should I use plural? Anyway, the word RNAM DANG is an interesting word, okay? RNAM DANG is an important word.

RNAM DANG means synonym. It's the Tibetan word for a synonym. It means an enumeration, right?

RNAM DANG here. You see it in here somewhere. Second line, RNAM DANG.

But in philosophy, it means a different version of an argument, or a different version of a meditation. So, when Lord Buddha in the Heart Sutra goes into PHYIR KHYI RNAM DANG GI, BSTAN GNYEN BZIN, he goes into the meditation called the RNAM DANGS of all things. You see?

The different, what do you call it? It means version, but there's a way to say it. The different permutations or something.

The different versions. Manifestations would be good. Who said, you said that?

You said that, yeah. Yeah, the different manifestations of the Dharma. So, he went into a meditation called PHYIR KHYI RNAM DANG.

And what that is, is a very interesting question. Because he went into that meditation, and then he was there when the Heart Sutra was taught. So, the Heart Sutra is not a sutra, right?

It's not the word of Lord Buddha, right? Huh? It's not the word of Lord Buddha, right?

There's no words of Lord Buddha in the Heart Sutra. He would never have said sadhu sadhu. This is how, when you debate, you have to look disgusted.

You know, like... He would... It can't be Lord Buddha saying sadhu sadhu.

Like so, like so. You're supposed to say, why not? And I say, DOD PA'I KHYEN YOD PA'I PHYIR.

It's a compositional... We talked about it today. It's a rule of composition that you cannot repeat a word unnecessarily in a fine composition.

Lord Buddha never would have said sadhu sadhu. Right, right. He never would have said, right.

He didn't say, right, right. He just said, right. Now, he doesn't have that problem.

You see? He just said, right, Geshe Michael. He didn't say, right, right, right, right, Geshe Michael.

Okay? So, right? Yeah, I got it.

So, it's not a compositional fault to repeat a word unnecessarily. Okay. So, Lord Buddha has committed a...

So, it can't be Lord Buddha who says the only word that even anybody says he said in the Heart Sutra, right? I mean, that's the only word he supposedly said in the Heart Sutra. And he repeats himself, unnecessarily.

Huh? He's not repeating himself? So, if I say, right, right, right, right, right, I'm not repeating myself.

Right, right?

[Speaker 2]
Really?

[Speaker 1]
Huh? Did he? I don't remember.

Is that why he did it? I don't remember. Anyway, they say there's a reason.

Okay? No, there's a big debate about it. But basically, that's the only two words that Lord Buddha says in the Heart Sutra, right?

Okay? Right, right? Okay, okay?

All right. No, that's not him talking. Sharipu.

Sharatwatipu. Rikipu. But that's not Lord Buddha talking.

That's, who is that, Chenlai Sik talking? Oh, you're right, you're right. So, like, so, Rikipu, de desha na, de desha na.

Jito kiki lapa, de desha na. You're right, he does say something at the end. So, he doesn't say anything before that.

Huh? Directly. Okay, all right.

Okay, but anyway, it's considered in scripturally, traditionally, a sign that you have a Mahayana seed. If you like to hear stuff about emptiness repeated over and over with slight variations, because then you can understand it more deeply each time. Okay?

So, you have to keep going to Bodhichitta, and you have to keep going to Umajiddha, even though it's so slow. Okay, you ready? Can you do it?

We're going to dedicate that karma. If you spaced out the whole class, you can just do a prayer.

[Speaker 2]
BUDDHI JYOCHI MEDZO THANG DE YA LING SHI NIN NE GYEN PA NI SANGYE SHIN DU NIN TE RO WA NI DRO KUN NAM DRA CHING RA CHE PA CHUNG NI RANG BU RANG NAM NAM NAM NE GA TA YANG NI HE RO KUN TSE NAM GYE SHE TSO TSOK SHING TSE NAM GYE SHE RE CHUNG WEI DANG PA KUN NI DONG PA CHUNG