Вступление на срединный путь (текущий курс, Аризона), занятие 99

[Speaker 1]
We've been studying a book for 7 years, about emptiness. And this is one of the... I think it's maybe the greatest presentation on emptiness.

It's based on... there's more room over here in the corner, if you can make it. It's based on Jetsun Kapha's Dharmanamsa, which is...

means illumination of the true thought of the Buddha about emptiness, or the Garbha, I guess. And then... oh, I recognize that.

Ah, very good, that's a lot. Okay. So, we're in a part...

we're in a part... It's getting really difficult, it's getting complicated, and we haven't been going very fast for the last 5 years. And we're in a part where...

You know there's like lower tracks and higher tracks, right? Lower tracks means you're trying to eliminate your negative emotions. So your anger, your jealousy, etc.

If you're not sure what they are, just ask me. And then, you know, they say... And then the higher track, which is the Bodhisattva track, they are trying to reach total enlightenment.

Which means they can not only remove their negative emotions, which in Buddhism is called what? Nirvana. Okay, so nirvana means to remove your negative emotions permanently.

So there's... Bodhisattvas are not satisfied with that. They also want to learn to take on a body of light and be able to split themselves into billions of pieces and help countless people at the same time on different buses throughout the universe.

So there's been a discussion going on in the text of whether or not the lower track people ever see emptiness. And the higher school's position is if they got rid of their anger and jealousy, etc. permanently, they must have seen emptiness because that's the only experience that has the power to stop your mental afflictions permanently.

Okay? So the argument of the higher school is that those lower track guys must have seen emptiness directly or they wouldn't have gotten rid of their anger and jealousy permanently. Okay?

You can get rid of anger and jealousy temporarily without seeing emptiness, but it will come back. Like, after a good yoga class, and you go back out in the traffic and you get irritated within half an hour. So the position of the higher school is that yes, they do see emptiness.

They must or they wouldn't be able to get rid of their mental afflictions. Then comes a debate. Then comes an argument.

Well, if these lower track people can see emptiness, then what's the point of the higher track? Why bother with the higher track? If the lower track people who don't have this overwhelming love for all beings, right?

Bodhicitta. Why do you need Mahayana? Why do you need the higher track if the lower people see emptiness?

So what's the point of the higher track? I don't know where we are. Yeah.

So here's where we picked up. So are you saying that if the lower track people are already working on emptiness, studying emptiness, if their scriptures present emptiness, if they see emptiness, are you saying that the entire Mahayana teachings would be pointless? Or are you saying it would be pointless for them to teach emptiness?

Got it? Just nod. In this class, if you don't know what I said, you just nod.

Okay? So the other guy said, who needs Mahayana? Who needs higher track?

If you can see emptiness on the lower track. And then we respond with, are you saying, who needs the higher track Mahayana altogether? Or are you saying, who needs the higher track's teachings on emptiness?

Okay? We give him a choice. Right?

Okay. The two bad diamonds choice. Alright.

Then he says, you know, if you say, what's the, what's, it's pointless for Lord Buddha to have taught the higher track Mahayana, Bodhisattva teachings, right? If you say, it's just generally unnecessary, because the lower tracks have emptiness. They learn emptiness and they see emptiness.

If you say the whole Mahayana, the whole higher track is unnecessary, then that's wrong because there's other stuff in there that doesn't cover emptiness. Okay? Like what?

Say more. More. Mulam.

Mulam. Arjun. Arjun.

What's more? Dedicating. It's dedicating your goodness.

The practice of dedicating your good deeds to a higher purpose. Meaning what higher purpose? What's the best higher purpose?

Yeah, to become Vajrayogini and work on billions of planets for billions of people. Right? Are they doing that in the lower track?

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
No. Okay. How about Mulam?

You know, I'm going to become a Buddha someday. I'm going to be able to split my body into billions of pieces and serve people on different buses throughout the galaxy. Do they have that?

No. No. Do they have hardship?

Meaning, do they do the six perfections? Do they do those six activities of giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, giving. Meditation, right?

With, imbued with, right? Senkeiki Simba. Imbued with what?

A desire to save all beings. But also, imbued with Tongitophishoram. Yeah.

The understanding of emptiness. So, Do they undertake those six practices with those two attitudes? with a desire to save all beings, and with an understanding of emptiness?

No. Do they undertake them with an understanding of emptiness? Yes.

Not the six perfections. Well, they do giving and they practice morality, right? I mean, they're only perfections when you undertake them with those two things, right?

So they're kind of like half-perfections. They are undertaking them with an understanding of emptiness, but maybe not with bodhicitta. Okay?

All right. So if you say... If your accusation to me is that the whole Mahayana is useless because they already taught emptiness in the lower schools, okay?

Then I say to you, that's wrong because we have lots of stuff to build on. We have prayer. We have dedication.

We have the six perfections done with bodhicitta. Okay, got it? All right.

Where is he going to go now? What was the second part of the question? Yeah, are you saying that the Mahayana is no longer necessary because...

Boy, you guys had a long break. You're all like...

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Are you saying that it's no longer necessary to have the Mahayana because they covered emptiness already? Enough in the lower schools. Is that what you're saying?

Is that why you say the Mahayana is no longer necessary? Okay, got it? Then he would say what?

He could say, right? That's what I think. They covered emptiness in the lower schools.

So, who needs to talk about emptiness in the higher schools, right? And then we respond, do you remember? Rigpa taye de gome.

Which means what? We establish emptiness with infinite numbers of arguments. Okay?

We establish emptiness with all kinds of sexy arguments. 10,000 different arguments for emptiness, okay? Then in the monastery you have this debate.

Well, wouldn't that be the stupider people? You see, that need 10,000 arguments.

[Speaker 2]
You see what I mean? But then the answer is no.

[Speaker 1]
It's for the Mahayana people need 10,000 arguments. Why? I like your answer.

He said so they can teach people in more different ways. I like that answer. They will say in this text, because you can't get to total enlightenment without ignoring the 10,000 arguments.

But you can remove your mental afflictions with foundational arguments. That's all. That's what this text claims.

Okay. That's all right. She's louder than Bella.

Oh, no, that's this one. I don't mind. If they're mostly okay, it's all right with me.

I was that way at one point. Or maybe still. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Mostly okay. Mostly better.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, mostly okay. He can stay. So then they quote all this stuff to prove that.

Oh, here's a nice little argument. Do they present emptiness fully in the lower states? Yes.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
If they saw emptiness directly, they must have been presented to them fully. That's the argument, okay? How do we know they saw emptiness directly?

They don't have mental afflictions anymore. And the only way... I mean, if your anger bothers you, or your jealousy bothers you, or your desire for food bothers you, then you've got to see emptiness.

There's no other way to stop it. There's no other way to stop it. If you want to be happy in your mind forever, you have to see emptiness directly.

You don't have a choice. We went through that. If you want to know about it, ask Michael.

He's going to teach this over again for five years. And then they just go through proving all that stuff. That a basic understanding emptiness is enough to remove...

Of the arguments for emptiness, it's enough to move your mental afflictions, right? But a more detailed understanding is... 10,000 reasonings are necessary if you want to use it to become a being of light, right?

Is the air conditioning cranked up? Because it's bad enough already, and if they get warm...

[Speaker 2]
Yeah?

[Speaker 1]
Okay. So nobody breathes for a while. Okay, then we got to this thing.

We got to some interesting arguments. People were struggling with... What would be the difference between a higher emptiness and a lower emptiness?

Okay? Like they were struggling with that. What would be the difference between a higher emptiness and a lower emptiness?

Because... Here's why I lose the other half of this. The lower half of the middle way, right?

Tantrica. They say there are degrees of emptiness. Say...

So they say there are four degrees of emptiness. Two to people, and two to things. Meaning the parts of the people.

The stuff to the Michael, and to the Michael's arms, legs, etc. Okay? All right?

And they say only the last one is real emptiness. All right? And the others are like partial emptiness.

That's where... You got that teaching in what?

[Speaker 2]
Fifteen. Fourteen. Okay?

[Speaker 1]
That's Mahamudra. Okay? Those four are in there.

Okay? What do you think the... What do you think the easiest form of the emptiness of Michael?

Yeah. Who said that? Who said that?

Yeah, nice. Okay. Yeah.

Nice. Yeah, that he's not unchanging. He's bored of being unchanging.

Okay? Is that emptiness?

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
Is it the lack... Is it the lack of the self? Is it the gross lack of self to Michael?

Yes. Yes, but only according to the lower half of the mind. Okay, got it?

Okay. So I lost everybody there. Is it a lack of self to Michael?

Yes. Is it easier or harder to understand? Easier.

Okay. Is it real emptiness? No.

Is it helpful? Yes. Yeah, I mean, then when stuff changes on you quickly, you don't freak out.

See? I was in Phoenix. We flew into Phoenix.

I called the shuttle guy who was driving around the airport, right, to get me. And he said, be in front of door 6, I'll be there in two minutes. You know, I stood in front of door 6.

I got another phone call. The elderly woman that I watched in Phoenix had fallen down, smashed her head on the toilet bowl, broke it with her head, and then blacked out. And then the whole house flooded.

You know? And then she's in the hospital. Didn't even break the skin, okay?

She has a hard head. I told her she was lucky she didn't black out next to the car. So then, so then I thought, you've got to come to the hospital right now.

You know? So I'm like, I'm like, you know, I call the shuttle guy back. Now I can't go.

He said, but 30 seconds ago you told me you had to pick me up. I said, things have changed. You know?

And then, you just, and then she's in the hospital and they do some brain tests and they say, you can't live by yourself anymore. And you have to stop driving. So in, in one day, suddenly she can't be in, she has to sell her house.

And, and she has to stop driving. Which means basically they'll put her in a free home and she'll never go out again on her own. So all that in 24 hours.

[Speaker 2]
You know?

[Speaker 1]
So you've got to be, the first kind of so-called emptiness is helpful. Because then you're, you can adjust quickly. You can say, look, I, I'm not taking the shuttle.

Charge me what you want. You know what I mean? And in 30 seconds later you can make another plan.

And if you practice that kind of emptiness, it's helpful. It's useful. But it doesn't stop your anger and jealousy because I, after that I still had it.

Okay. What's the asakitame termo? What's the more, what's the more delicate or difficult version of the lack of the self to Michael?

Which is not quite emptiness. You and the thing you see on the side. Ranja tubi zeyugi towa.

Say ranja.

[Speaker 2]
Ranja. Tubi. Tubi.

Zeyugi. Zeyugi. Towa.

[Speaker 1]
Geshe Michael's so smart. No, Geshe Michael's was cramming me in the car over here. What is that?

Asakitame termo. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
There's no runner. There's no driver. There's no driver.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Your body's like a car. Your mind is like a car.

And there's no one in control. Which you may have noticed. Okay.

So like your body does stuff. You know, your body, you go out for a nice Mexican dinner in Hamburg if that's possible. And you get sick for two weeks afterwards.

You get diarrhea as if you had gone to Mumbai. And then you're just like, you don't have control. And it's upsetting.

Then your mind goes. Then your patience goes. I'm sick.

Why am I sick? You know, that was Hamburg. It wasn't bad.

And why am I sick? And then you get upset and you get off balance and you start arguing and everything like that. If you've been studying that kind of emptiness, oh, I'm not really in control of my intestines now.

I'm also not in control about the thoughts that run through my own mind. Ultimately, I don't have immediate control over those things. Do I have long-term control?

Yes. Yes, but I don't have immediate control. So, okay, I've thought about killing my boss and you're what?

But it was just a random thought. And it came from before and it's not me. Okay?

[Speaker 2]
Just kidding.

[Speaker 1]
No, I mean, when you get depressed, for example, or you get anxiety attack, then you don't beat yourself up about it. You try to change it and you try to change the seats for it. But you don't, well, I sit there and say I'm a bad person or, you know, why am I depressed?

I'm so bad. I guess I didn't practice properly.

[Speaker 2]
You know, like that.

[Speaker 1]
You don't get, you don't freak out because you're not in control of the current thoughts running through your head. Okay? That's now, in their system, that would correspond to the listeners.

The listeners would perceive that kind of pseudo emptiness. Got it? The third, the lowest track.

The lowest track of the three would perceive that directly. Okay? Got it?

That's the emptiness they perceive. According to the lower middle way school. Got it?

Just nodding.

[Speaker 2]
Me? Okay.

[Speaker 1]
She's going up. Okay, now we got to the more obvious form of the lack of a self to the parts of the mind. Which was what?

su-tang su-ng-jin ki tse-ma tse-shen ki tong say su su-tang tang su-ng-jin su-ng-jin ki tse-ma ki tse-ma tse-shen ki tong which is what? Yes, the perceiver and the perceived have arisen from one currency. From the same currency.

So you can imagine, I have roses, right? And you're supposed to watch out for slip also, right? Below the level of the ground sometimes the rose will split.

A new branch will start under the ground. And it comes out about half an inch away from the plant. And you're supposed to dig them up and cut them because it wastes all the resources of the plant.

But I like to I like to see that kind of a rose bush because it reminds me of su-tang su-ng-jin ki tse-ma tse-shen ki tong. Okay? The one currency below consciousness has split and then burst up through the soil as two separate things.

It looks like I'm not It looks like Michael and I have come from separate currencies. But it's not true. You know?

I put myself here and I put him here. So that helps a lot when working with your boss. You're a supervisor at work, right?

Which is what? How does it help you? You don't get angry.

Yeah, I mean, it's your fault. It's like, basically, it's your fault. Tse-shen ki tong.

Okay? You planted a seed underground in your subconscious and it festered and then it popped up as apparently two different plants and they're not, right? And then you're upset at him and you're freaking out because he's a bad person or he attacks you or he yells at you.

But it's all tse-shen ki tong. It's not a separate thing. The event was planted by one seed which was you being obnoxious to somebody else in the past.

So what do you do about it? How do you cut that off? You use wisdom to say, Oh, I had...

I must have been obnoxious in the past. Now I'll do a four powers the essence of which is number three. Nye-po-le-lan-do-be-to which means...

Yeah, I'll stop being obnoxious at least for a while until I get rid of him. And then I can go back to being myself. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
Alright.

[Speaker 1]
And then... tse-shen ki tong mei khamo What's the... According to that school what's the most subtle form of the emptiness to mind's parts?

[Speaker 2]
They exist other than as a projection from one's mind.

[Speaker 1]
Lo-nu-me-la-na-wa-wang-sha-tsa-ma-ye-go-yu yo-ra-mi-tu-mu-ma-ye-gi-du-lu-su-nye-pa-nye-pe-to Just say that.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Lo-nu-me-la Lo-nu-me-la na-wa-wang-ge sha-tsa-ma-him-pa yu ra-mi tu-mu-ma-him-pe du-lu-su-nye-pe to It's a kind of mantra in the monastery. It means the world is void or empty of instances where some stuff is coming from the other side and I perceive it correctly and we have a joint event happening here. You know, there is stuff out there and it's coming from its own side and I'm also participating.

Lo-nu-me-la With a tema, with a kamana. Okay. There has to be both.

There has to be a participation from both sides. So really the most subtle emptiness according to them is that the wall is not appearing to me just from its own side. There has to be some cooperation from my side.

If there were no perception by Geshe Michael of the wall which is coming from its own side then there couldn't be a wall. There has to be a cooperation. They're saying that.

There has to be both. Walls don't come from their own side. There has to also be something coming from my side.

Would the highest school of all which is also the school of tantra accept that? No. What would they say?

They'd say even the raw data is not coming from its own side. Even the raw data is not coming from its own side. Are the colors and shapes coming from their own side?

Is the what my college roommate used to call unique screeching coming from its own... That's Neil Young. That's the raw data from Neil Young.

We called it the screeching unit. Is the raw data coming from its own side? The screeching that you interpret as the best rock and roll ever made.

I don't know if Calderon will understand. You see what I mean? There has to be both.

There has to be screeching coming. You know what the highest school says is you also made the screeching. Okay?

It is screeching. You are interpreting as the best rock and roll ever made. But the screeching itself is an interpretation.

Got it? Even the decibels. Forget screeching, but decibels.

And consonants. And clickings inside the mouth. These are the raw data of speech, right?

Clicks inside the mouth. And grunts inside the mouth. These are the raw data.

But they are also when you go down to the clicks level that's also coming from you. That's the high school. Which the lower schools find disconcerting.

It's uncomfortable to say that there is no raw data. And even that is coming from you. Got it?

Okay. Why did we talk about that? I don't remember.

Yeah. So in this school all but the last would be So we went through four kinds of emptiness according to the lower half of the middle way school. They don't get to the one I just described.

They don't go that far. Okay? They still believe there has to be some raw data coming from the inside.

But This explanation is useful Okay? If you are a little bit lazy and you like Master Bob DeRicca and you want to explain why the lower track people can get rid of their mental fictions. Yeah, they see a kind of emptiness.

Got it? Okay? He's copying out.

Do they see emptiness? Not really. They see those lower three.

They see those lower three. The growth, lack of it, the fact that there is no microbe. It is changing.

You can call it the head on the toilet bowl. You know, a cycle. Within 24 hours you lost your house, your car, and your life.

Like boom. You see like that. So, he sees that.

And what? Did you forget already?

[Speaker 2]
No driver. Yeah, no driver. And?

Two doctors.

[Speaker 1]
Two doctors. Yeah. Okay?

They see those. They understand that. And that's enough for them to remove their mental fictions.

Got it? So, he's taking sort of a cheap way out. He's saying, they see emptiness.

Okay? He has to say they see emptiness. But then he says it's a lower emptiness.

It's like a pseudo-emptiness. Got it? Do you remember in the six thirds of emptiness what did we say about the first five?

They're not emptiness. Got it? Remember?

They're not emptiness. They're helpful. They're negative.

They're a lack of something. But they're not emptiness. They're not the real emptiness.

The real emptiness is the only one that can... Wait. Get this.

The real emptiness is the only one that can remove your mental fictions. So, does this idea hold up? It can.

Good. Nice. You're with me.

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Now we can get to today's class. Oh, so this is sexy. So I'm going to do it one more time.

I need a... Oh, dang. Do you have my backpack somewhere?

I just need a bag. How sweet is that? She wants a toothbrush.

[Speaker 2]
You know that.

[Speaker 1]
Anyway. There used to be a spin bar. So anyway.

Now a new school comes. Now a new school comes. I should stand over here for a while.

A new school comes and says... Nothing works at all on that side of the bed. Nothing works at all on that side of the bed.

Do you have an aspirin? Does anybody have an aspirin? Or any kind of medicine?

Nah, don't look in there. You'll be in big trouble. Oh, okay.

Yeah. I guess there's no answer. That one doesn't work.

I knew that. Okay. So, I'm going to...

Let's start with this. Do you want this or this? How about this?

This is more helpful, I think. So, does aspirin work?

[Speaker 2]
Yes. Yeah, I mean...

[Speaker 1]
We went to Europe. We stopped all over Europe. And it was really cute.

And I just... For those of you teaching your kids, this turned out to be the most useful one. Because people really care whether aspirin works or not.

When they get a headache. So, rather than a pen sometimes, we use that. Because then you can get into loading more clearly.

So, does it work? And you have to say, sometimes. Does a car work?

Does a red Honda SUV work?

[Speaker 2]
Sometimes.

[Speaker 1]
Sometimes not. Really. Really.

And... Really. But see, this is where, when you explain it to people, in Paris or something, this is where you start to feel you're from a different planet.

And you're trying to talk to grasshoppers. And you're like... I'm not saying French or grasshoppers.

The Amsterdam people are also.

[Speaker 2]
But you're like, what's this game?

[Speaker 1]
It's aspirin.

[Speaker 2]
And you say, well, what do you use it for? On your planet.

[Speaker 1]
And they say, we use it to get rid of headaches. And you say, well, what gets rid of headaches? And then they say, the aspirin remedy.

Which is... And then you say, is it the pill that works or the aspirin remedy that works? And they say, well, really, you take the pill, but it's the aspirin remedy that gets rid of headaches.

And then you say, why is it called aspirin remedy? After, right? Meaning working.

Right? Doing something. Active means doing something.

So you say, is the active ingredient active? And they say, yes. And you say, so any pill that has that active ingredient in it will take away your headache.

And they say, no. And then you say, just run that again through your... by your own mind.

You know? Just run that again through your own mind. You know?

Please. You know? Boing, boing.

Why did you stay? I'll go again, okay? Let's see how many of you got something right.

Why did you stay? Aspirin. And what do you use in front of your friend?

[Speaker 2]
Aspirin.

[Speaker 1]
Why does it work? Because there's an active ingredient.

[Speaker 2]
Right.

[Speaker 1]
So the whole pill doesn't work the aspirin rule.

[Speaker 2]
Right?

[Speaker 1]
Right. That means you took the active ingredient and you took that pill without the active ingredient. If they forgot to put...

That was close. I was close to saying that.

[Speaker 2]
But maybe they forgot.

[Speaker 1]
And you just took the pill. Right? Theoretically, nothing should happen.

Okay? Theoretically. But if the active ingredient is in there, it'll work.

So every time you take an aspirin, your head is going way. Right? No.

Then your glasses are like...

[Speaker 2]
You know?

[Speaker 1]
And you're like... You're like... Does anything seem odd to you?

You know? Do you think there could be a better way?

[Speaker 2]
You know?

[Speaker 1]
And you're like... You're like... I don't get it.

You know? We always take aspirin. My mother took aspirin.

You see? My mom took aspirin. They advertise on the television.

Everybody takes aspirin. You know? And then you're like...

But it doesn't work, does it? And they're like... Right.

It doesn't work. So then you're like... Do you think we could do things differently here?

You see? That's the big, big question. Strive to bounce up to this level.

Strive to jump up to this level. You see? Couldn't we do anything differently and live in a world where stuff sometimes works that we try?

Stuff we try to get what we want sometimes works and sometimes doesn't work. You see? Couldn't we like aspire to a different kind of planet?

At least we could aspire. Right? Now, here's the trick.

Here's the trick. Here we go. Say, Ngo Po La.

Let's read this. Read. One, two, three.

Ka Chi. Ngo Po La.

[Speaker 2]
Ko Chu Ki Chu. Nei Pa. Kei Long.

Nei Chi. Ni. Ru Pa.

[Speaker 1]
Rang Wong. Kei. Nei Ru.

Chu. Ru.

[Speaker 2]
Right?

[Speaker 1]
Ngo Po means anything that works. Like an aspen or a car or a staple. Got it?

Ngo Po. Ko Chu Ki Chu. Something that could function as an aspen.

Does it ever... Something which could work as an aspen. Can these ever work as an aspen?

Yeah, but it works sometimes. Sometimes you take it and it works. Sometimes you take it and it doesn't.

Ko Chu Ki Chu means could something ever work as a working thing? Yeah, an aspen that works. How about an aspen that works when an aspen works?

Got it? Okay? The aspen that works when an aspen works.

Is there such a thing? Is that a mistake or a random or just an accident? No.

It can't be. There must be a more active ingredient under the active ingredient. Got it?

Okay? There must be a real active ingredient under the active ingredient. Below the active ingredient.

That works when the aspen works and it must be missing when the aspen doesn't work. Right? Yeah.

I mean, a science would say that. I think science would say that. There's an active ingredient but apparently it's not active all the time.

There must be some other condition that makes it active. Got it? That's all.

There must be something that makes the aspen and aspen work when it works. Does an aspen ever work?

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Yes. Yeah. Mopola.

Gochuki. Chuh. Yuh.

Okay? Say, Mopola.

[Speaker 2]
Mopola.

[Speaker 1]
Gochuki. Gochuki. Chuh.

Chuh. Yuh. Yuh.

There is stuff that works when it works. Okay? There is stuff that works when it works.

Okay? Now, we just have to investigate why it works and then we're okay. Alright?

And I think it's really useful. You know, we just got, I think British Airways after months of negotiation because half of the management is saying, these guys are cuckoo talking about aspen and the other half is saying, this could be amazing. Maybe it would make our airline the best in the world.

You know, so there's two camps forming British Airways. So like, we're there and they, we, why do they bring that up? Anyway, we're trying to talk to them about how something, when it works, what makes it work.

Right? When it works. If you understand this point, you can give gigs at British Airways.

That's our, that's our strategy. Okay? If you really get this point clearly, you can go to a 12 billion dollar company and speak to the CEO and say, this is how it really works.

And they agree, they agree to have us come. Right? They have 40,000 employees that they're going to start putting into the training to learn this.

Okay? So, is it, it's useful to know this thing. And no one can say no when you present it carefully.

Nobody can say no. We'll do it one more time. What is this thing I'm going to plan?

What does it do? What is it in the aspen intakes order? It's an active ingredient.

Is that active ingredient always active? No. But, is it sometimes active?

Yes. So, can we say that when it's active, there must be some other condition there? And when it's not active, that condition must be missing.

Can we say that? Yes. Now we just have to identify what's the other condition.

What is the other condition? Karma. You can say kindness, or taking care of other people.

Okay? That's really uncomfortable for British Airways. They don't even want to give you dinner.

Okay? They said, are you going to teach us how to cut costs, or are you going to teach us how to serve the public and our workers? I said both.

Don't dine with me, honey. Okay? You're going to make more money, and you're going to have the happiest staff, and we're best paid staff in the industry at the same time.

And they're like, oh, okay, you can stay. So, the big thing is to isolate how is it that a thing works when it works. Is it possible that a thing can truly work?

Yes. When that lower, more foundational condition is there, when that more active ingredient, because it's really the only active ingredient, right? It makes the active ingredient happen.

Got it? Oh, another question pops up here for me. Well, why couldn't you just eat a rock?

If it's the underlying condition, why can't you just eat a stone and your headache will go away? Partly, I mean, the real answer is yes, you could eat a stone if you had a problem. I like to give the example of Jesus coming into Jerusalem.

We talked about it. Jesus is coming to Jerusalem at Passover. It's a dangerous time.

He shouldn't be there. Okay? He's perceived by the Roman authorities as the head of a gang who might try to foment a revolution.

Jewish authorities? Yeah. The Romans.

The Sanhedrin? They weren't Jewish.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, anyway.

[Speaker 1]
So, anyway, Pontius Pilate was a Roman governor of Jerusalem. And he said... The Christ centered over Pilate.

Yeah. So, he's saying this guy is dangerous. You know?

So, then his disciples are saying, well, let's go to Jerusalem. Like, he... I'm sorry.

He's saying, let's go to Jerusalem. He just hired... He just healed Lazarus.

Okay? He just woke up Lazarus from the dead. There's lots of rumors going around.

You know? And then, at the peak of this tension, he's like, let's go to Jerusalem, guys. And then, who was it?

Thomas. Thomas is like... This was the time that Thomas didn't die.

No, it was Thomas. And Thomas said, I'll stick with you. You know?

Thomas said, you know, I think Peter said, you know, this is not a good idea, Jesus. And then, and then Thomas said, I'll do... I'll go with you wherever you go, I believe.

It doesn't matter to me. I'm glad with you because it matters to me. So, he says, okay, we're going.

And they're like, Peter's like, you know... And, uh, they go, you know, and then, uh, they come into town and there's a big meeting outside of town. They say, but Jesus, don't get on our horse.

Okay? And he said, what's the problem with a horse? They say, only kings in this little foreign country only, you know, big shots ride horses.

It's like, what if you drive into Jerusalem in a Mercedes, you know, like a king? And his disciples convince him that he should take a little bit safer and ride a donkey.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Because then he will look like he's not a king and nobody can claim he was turned into a king if he drives, you know, a donkey like my car. Okay? So then he comes in and then, you know, it doesn't work and the whole population comes out.

The population that kills him three days later comes out onto the streets and cheers for him and starts screaming Messiah. You know, you are the Lord, you are the king. You know what I'm saying?

And then his disciples are like, tell them to shut up or there's going to be a problem. And then he says, if I told them not to say anything, if they said nothing, the stones of the street would call out Messiah. Okay?

A stone that you ate would cure your headache if you had that much karma. Right? If you don't have that much karma from normal people, the karma normally expresses itself as an aspirin.

Okay? Do you need to take an aspirin to remove the headache with something that works? No.

You could eat a stone if you have enough karma. But for most of us, the amount of karma we have to remove a headache will express itself through the instrument of an aspirin or through the instrument of yoga if you want to be healthy. In theory, you could sit on a couch eating chocolates and watching TV and be buff.

You see what I mean? In theory. The same thing with the stones.

You see? But normally, the amount of karma we can collect expresses itself through an instrument which is recognizable as, you know, like a car or yoga or an aspirin. Got it?

Okay? So, if you get that if you get that clearly and if you espouse this view to other people, you can liberate them or you can help them save their airline that's losing a hundred million dollars a month. You see?

People are not stupid. You see? If you can describe it convincingly, logically, then they go through the logic in their mind and they say, maybe you've got something.

They kept saying to us, maybe you've got something. You know? Like four or five of these big shops, union and management.

Maybe you've got, like we're not quite sure what it is, but you've got something there. You know? Because they went to each step, but they couldn't do the underground shopping thing.

Like, if you ask them, we call it good peer contentment, right? Good peer contentment means suspicion, which is leaning towards the correct view. It's doubt, which is leaning to the doubt of your old life and you're not quite solved yet, but you're like, maybe you've got something there and it's enough for them to tell us to come back and I think, it looks good.

So, here we go. What I'm saying is that crucial, for you guys, crucial, take these 2,000 year old, you know, unspeakably difficult texts and bring them to British Herald. You see what I mean?

With the Oscar. You see? Don't take the book there and say, okay, repeat after me.

So, your big task as saviour of the world, right? Saviours of the world. Your big job is to know this stuff and to have the background.

You need the foundation. Okay? You can't just say, oh, Gish Michael said something about aspirin.

I'll go take a shot at American Air. You know? You've got to have this foundation.

You've got to sit in these long boring classes. You do have to memorize foreign words. And you need to have that foundation.

And then you can, you know, then you can go give a presentation to a board of directors and you can answer all the objections like a salesperson, right? It's really just answering objections, right? So, you must learn your stuff.

You must keep going to classes. Until you can spout it a little bit in order. Then you've got to keep going.

And you've got to work hard, okay? And then the time will come when you can help somebody, okay? If you just get up there and say, I think Gish Michael said one day something, but I didn't do the homework.

Okay, I don't quite remember. We should have snacks. Who's doing that?

Yeah? Okay. So, during the snacks, I want you to do something.

Every time, what are you serving?

[Speaker 2]
Fruits or veggies.

[Speaker 1]
Anytime fruits or veggies cross your lap, stare at them and stop listening. And, and then go like this.

[Speaker 2]
Okay? You want to practice a little bit?

[Speaker 1]
Because that's the question Scylla's going to ask you at the board meeting that you missed, right? Okay. All right.

This is Geshe Tipton Rinchen's way of describing... Say, Break that cup while you're washing it, honey. What's that mean?

When he yells it at his disciple in the next room and he's washing the dishes. Break that cup, honey. Yeah, it's Chang Dun, right?

That's how he uses, that's what he uses to describe, what do you call that? Something which should be interpreted and not taken literally. He doesn't want his disciple to smash the cup.

He's trying to tell him not to smash the cup. Got it? Do you understand the parallel?

Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. All right.

[Speaker 1]
Here we go. Yeah. So then we say, you got your gaccha too big.

Your gaccha's too big. Got it? What's gaccha?

Gaccha is what we say is not there. What's the gaccha in this case?

[Speaker 2]
Emptiness. It always works.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, I would say that. An aspirin, how about an aspirin that works all the time? Okay.

Essential to understand about the idea of a gaccha. Okay. By the way, gaccha is what is not there when you're talking about emptiness.

Gaccha means what is not there when you're talking about emptiness. That being said, if I say to you, what's the gaccha in this case? An aspirin.

An aspirin that always works. Does it exist? So far.

An aspirin that without the deeper cause could always work. How's that? Yeah, that's the gaccha.

Okay. It doesn't exist. There's no such thing.

It's very important to understand that when we talk about emptiness, we're talking about the absence of a thing which never could have been there in the first place. Okay? It's not like some struggle to cancel something that's sitting there.

We're talking about canceling something that never could have been there. Okay? An aspirin that will work without being kind to others.

Okay? There's no such thing. Okay, that's the gaccha.

What are we complaining about to him now? What are we accusing him of? Your gaccha is too big, man.

You got your gaccha. You got your gaccha set too big. What did he say?

He said aspirin never works. More specifically, he said culture. There's nothing that could ever work as an aspirin.

Okay? He said that. He said that's emptiness.

His gaccha is too big. He's denying too much. Can an aspirin work?

Is there a working aspirin? Could there be an aspirin that works all the time? You guys agree?

[Speaker 2]
Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world like that? Rather.

[Speaker 1]
Rather than in a world where aspirins work sometimes. You know, you're happy now. You're all smiling.

But when you've got a headache, this is no joke, right? You're like, God damn, how do I open this thing? You know, as a child person, it's also proof against people with a headache.

You know? You're like, oh, you just blindly press at everything and then finally you get it. No, it's true.

So, it's true that it works sometimes. Or you and I, and I too, we wouldn't struggle to get it open. You know, when you're really in pain, it matters a lot to get the aspirin open.

Okay? Alright. So, there is a thing that could take away your headache.

There is a thing. Okay? And it's kindness.

And to the extent that you are kind, you could need an aspirin or you could take a rock or you could take a chocolate chip cookie, which is what I often do. Okay. True.

I'm not kidding. I asked Don Brantley. Do you guys know Don Brantley?

He's the head of the Kadampa Center down in North Carolina. And one day we were in the car and I said, Doctor, what's his name? Don Brantley.

I said, I have a weird thing going on with myself. He said, what? I said, when I get a migraine, I just take three chocolate chip cookies.

Is that possible? He said, I don't know. I said, what's happening in my brain when I eat three chocolate chip cookies and it goes away?

He says, it must be something with the oxygen supply.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
All right. So if you ever see me eating cookies, it's not out of desire. Okay.

Now starts an argument about what would you say? I'm going to talk about Master Baba Viveka. Baba Viveka.

Say Baba. Baba Viveka. Baba means well in this case.

And then Viveka, you know, like Swami Vivekananda. What is Viveka? Yeah, the capacity to discriminate carefully between, you know, the deeper causal aspirin and the less deep causal aspirin.

That's Viveka. When you were able to make that sort of more subtle distinction you were you were demonstrating Viveka. So he was called the guy who has good discrimination.

Like Denje or Baba Viveka. Okay. He's the main guy.

He's the main, he's considered the proponent, the head of the lower middle school. Okay. And he wrote a huge text in the thing.

It's 2,000 pages. Explaining all these subtle forms, these different forms of emptiness and stuff like that. Okay.

So the question comes up. Did he think that in the lower way emptiness was presented? Lower middle, the main, the founder.

You can call him the founder of the lower half of the middle way school. Did he believe that the lower schools had a presentation of emptiness? Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good. He had to say that. He had to say that.

Okay. But be aware that Master Baba Viveka generally refused to call the lower two forms of emptiness emptiness. He called them lack of a self.

He wouldn't call them emptiness. Okay. So, but in general did Master Baba Viveka believe that the lower schools had a teaching on emptiness?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Because he believes that they got rid of their mental afflictions. They must have seen it. Got it?

He believes there are arhats, lower arhats, that's all, who are not interested in saving all the worlds in the universe. Are they interested in saving anybody? Yes, they are.

I mean, they're not like creeps. There are bodhisattvas mentioned in the Abhidharmakosha, okay, which is the lowest school of all. So don't think they're like these cold-hearted guys who sit there and try to see emptiness and they don't care about anybody.

That's not true. They just don't have this vision that what they're doing could change the whole globe. That if you got British Air, British Air is...

What is an airline? It's like a blood vessel between countries, you know? Who are they gonna run into in this blood vessel?

Where's the best place to inject the virus in this world? You know, among the employees of the airlines. You see?

Because then they'll infect everyone who flies anywhere. And who flies? The people with money or influence, right?

So, that's a really good comment. Okay. Alright.

So, he does... They do see a kind of... He would say they do see a kind of emptiness.

If you said, a kind of, he'd feel comfortable. If you said, do they see capital E emptiness, he'd probably say, no, because they see those other degrees of emptiness. Got it?

Okay. Did the Buddha... Did Lord Buddha in the scriptures of the lower way describe emptiness?

This question now comes up. Did Lord Buddha in the scriptures which are unique to the lower schools, did he present emptiness? Yes.

Then they get into this cool thing. Yeah. You see?

All things which do anything are lying to you. Got it? All things which do anything are lying to you.

What's that mean? Yeah. We can say there's a real cause behind the action.

When the action works, there's a real cause. And then there's an apparent cause. Okay?

You've got to get into this word apparent. It has to become really important to you. Okay?

There's an apparent cause which is the so-called active ingredient. Now you have to say what? So-called.

You know? Once you're a Buddhist and you say, so-called active ingredient, people know you're here. They know you're here.

If somebody says, what's the active ingredient? What's the so-called symmetripton? I mean, then they know you know what's going on.

Okay? The so-called means it's only apparent. The so-called means it lies to you.

It lies to you. And that's what he's saying here. Okay?

He's saying all things which cause other things are lying to you. Because nothing causes anything. And nothing you ever did in your whole life worked.

And if it worked, it was a dumb luck because you were kind to somebody in the past. Okay? Alright?

That's pretty difficult to hear. Okay? Every action you ever undertook in your entire life to get anything, to reach out to the to the tray to get your fruit, isn't why you got the fruit.

And it was an ignorant act. Okay? And it's creating more pain and suffering for you.

Okay? What? Me?

All I did was reach out to the fruit. Yes, you heard that? Yeah, but you were doing an ignorant act.

That was an ignorant act. You thought that was how you get the fruit. You thought that was why you got the fruit.

You didn't just open your mouth and say, you know, stones speak to me. You know? And then the fruit flies into your mouth and say, is it good?

Okay? It's not the reaching that got you the fruit. And if such a small action as reaching for the fruit is not the cause of getting the fruit, then how messed up has your whole life been?

Your whole life of trying to get things and be successful and have a good life and just not die on the street, you know? Every action you ever undertook, flushing the toilet, turning on the light, cooking the food, these are all mistakes. That's not why the food gets cooked.

And that's not why the light goes on. And that's not how the car starts.

[Speaker 2]
Got it? Okay?

[Speaker 1]
If you don't feel mind boggled right now, you didn't get it. It should be mind boggling to you. Scratching your lip to make the itch go away is an ignorant act.

That's not why the itch goes away. So Geshe Michael, should I stop itching? Scratching?

Whatever. Should I stop taking aspirin? I didn't say that.

Ngo-po-la-po-chu-po-chu-yo. There is stuff which can act as an un-itcher. Scratching.

Un-itching scratching works. Under certain conditions. If you have scratched his mustache for him.

Okay? No, no. Something similar.

Okay? I'm not suggesting. I'm not suggesting.

He's got a girlfriend. Okay, alright. And then Lord Buddha said to...

You know, they're quoting Lord Buddha. Okay, here it is. It's kind of cute.

This is apparently from a... What kind of scripture? It must be lower school scripture.

Because somebody's trying to prove that the lower school do have a description of emptiness. Got it? It must be coming from a lower school scripture.

And somebody says to Lord Buddha. Somebody asks the Buddha. Did I cause my own trouble?

And he says, no. And then they say, was it somebody else? And he says, no.

And they say, well, it must have been me and somebody else. He says, no, not that either. And then they say, well, I guess it was neither me nor anybody else.

And he says, I didn't say that. Okay, got it? Alright.

Is he being cute or is he right? It's true. It's true.

Does Aspen work?

[Speaker 2]
It can.

[Speaker 1]
Does it always work? Let's say it that way. Without training, does it always work?

You have to say it. Now I'll go over here because they're getting sleepy. Does it always work?

No. So is there an Aspen that works all the time? So can we say that Aspens can never work?

No. Can we say that they both work all the time and don't work? No.

Can we say they can never work and can never work? No. There are four no's.

Okay, got it? That seems to be some kind of denial. You're supposed to laugh.

Alright? Four no's in a row. Four no's in a row.

He must be teaching emptiness. He's Godly. The God child.

He's Godly. These are four gods. This is Godly one after God one after God one.

Okay, got it? These are really four gods in a row. There must be a God child.

What's he God child-ing? You can say it that way. There's 10,000 ways to explain it.

Like how to fix these big problems. No, just the whole book chapter series was a nice presentation of like 10,000 different presentations, right? So, what?

What was it? God child. He's Godly.

Oh, yeah. What's he mainly Godly? Working things, okay?

Got it? He's denying that anything could work. Okay?

He's denying that anything could work. Now, what happened in the lower school was based on it. Somebody said, what's emptiness?

Okay? Somebody said, were you there when the Buddha was teaching you about those four gods, you know, in a row? He said, no.

Somebody says, yeah, I was there. And then they said, well, what was he talking about when he said, no, no, no, no? And they said, he was talking about whether Aspen works.

And then they forgot the rest of the class and they didn't hear Homer. And they say, well, what exactly did he say? And they say, he said Aspen didn't work.

He said nothing works. He said he'd been reaching out for the fruit with an ignorant action. Okay?

So then, what was the theme? What body of stuff was being denied? It got misunderstood.

It got misinterpreted. The body of stuff that was being denied got changed from an Aspen that could work by itself to an Aspen that worked. Got it?

Beautiful. Okay? That's very delicate.

Very beautiful. Got that, right? So, in the lower schools, there came to be a belief that Lord Buddha was denying that anything could work.

Rather than, I pick it up anonymously, rather than, rather than there's nothing that works without the undermine. Okay, got it? So, you can't really blame them.

Okay? It was just the second generation teaching. The first generation was too lazy and didn't learn all of the Ved, didn't go over all of Siddha, and didn't go over all the class readings, and only 14 people out of 134 could figure out all the homeworks.

You see? And then the next generation passed it on a little weird. Like, yeah, Geshe-la said nothing works.

Okay? Lord Buddha said nothing works. Okay?

We are not denying all working things. We are denying everything. That's one way to look at what he's saying.

Okay, got it? We are not denying that anything could work. We're denying the things that you thought worked, and the things you thought didn't work, both don't exist.

Well, what's an example of something that doesn't work? sākme chukyā-dambedhā dumacī-naṁsūnyānte nākā-dānaṁ go-paññī dumacī-naṁsūnyānto opening lines of the Avatāra Purusha. sākme lam-vidyam-medhā sākme lam-vidyam-medhā dumacī-naṁsūnyānte There's only three things in the world that are pure.

The path of seeing, and the two kinds of kinds of things that don't change. Things that don't change. What's an example of something that doesn't change?

Space. Okay, don't think black space. Don't think the thing that the stars are in.

Don't think the thing that the stars sit in. That's not space, in this teaching. Is this occupying space?

Okay, watch carefully. Is it still occupying that space? Did that space change between the time that was occupying it and the time it wasn't occupying it?

No. The space is just there. This planet is here one day, this planet gets supernova and vaporizes the next day, which will, in Buddhist terms, is the next day.

Did the place in which it was standing change? No. That's the meaning of empty space, it's unchanging.

Does the fact that the aspen by itself doesn't work ever change? No. Even when you get it to work, does the fact that the aspen by itself doesn't work ever change?

No. Good, right, good. I wasn't sure this class was going to work in an afternoon time slot, because there's rain months down in the afternoon, but you guys have been really good.

Okay, to hang into this stuff, it's really good. You've got about half an hour more, hang in there. Guess what?

What's this mean? We reached today's class. Now, if it took seven years to get through 25 pages, and I have to review for three quarters of the class every time we meet again, who's a mathematician?

How long will it take? Will we die first, or? Okay, alright, alright, so now, now we've got new stuff, okay?

Now we're into new stuff, which is really fun. I have to figure out a way to be a British Air and teach this at the same time, right? Okay, maybe when they get up to your level.

Okay, here we go. We're going to read it together. If you can't read it, attempt to read it.

If it's impossible to read, like, bacha, just drop the first letter, okay? Then say chom, got it? If it doesn't make any sense, drop the first letter and see what happens.

Or you can do wah-wah. What's wah-wah? What is wah-wah?

Wah-wah is when you're the white guy, the only white guy in the monastery, right? And there's a thousand other monks sitting there chanting, you know, the janta, the praises of Manjushri, right? Chanting the names of Manjushri.

And they're all, like, going to it at a hundred miles an hour. And you're the only white guy there, and you didn't memorize it when you were four years old. Then you do wah-wah.

And they all are going, blah-blah-blah-blah, and you're going, wah-wah-blah-blah-blah. And then the important thing is to keep your jaw moving, or they... I learned that.

Like, Like, if I just went like this, one day they said, you don't know this one, do you? And then I found out that if you just move your jaw, the disciplinary doesn't, no? Okay, all right.

The problem with wah-wah comes up when the person next to you is also wah-wahing. Then you have a thousand monks just all wah-wahing, and no one knows where to stop. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
One. One.

[Speaker 1]
Now there's always one nerd who actually studies it. Like, there's always one new boarder who remembers it. Okay, then sometimes they'll call the whole monastery back.

You know, they'll stop and they'll say, no, no, we don't know this one. Okay, one, two, three. Chokhen Lhutang, Lhutmey Pak, Sheypei, Teypei, Khamkha, Khyamkha, Khyamkha, Jitendini, Nida, Nede, Phyache Lhutpak, Nida, Medpak, Nidao, Shey Sungbe, Chir, Serma, Kyunmei, Pei.

So he's throwing out this notation. Chokhen Lhutang means the conqueror, the Buddha. Nida, Medpak, Sheypei, Teypei.

Teypei you should know. Teypei is a difficult idiom for those two of you who are learning Tibetan. If you miss Tibetan, try Teypei.

Teypei means when he got to that, relative to that subject. In Tantra, when you're talking about chakras, they'll say, tewe tene, which is very beautiful. It means the navel chakra lies at the te of the navel and not at the navel.

Got it? Which means what? Yeah, it's at the level of the, it's at the parallel, the latitude of the navel, but it's in the back.

So, tewe tene means at the latitude, at the, what do you call it? The level of, at the level of the navel, but not at the navel. Okay?

So, tewe tene, so when he got, tene in philosophy means when he reached that subject. When he got, relative to the question of, mu dan mu me, whether stuff works or not. Okay?

Whether stuff works. When he got to this question, on the question of whether stuff works or not, he said, kakyayana, he's talking to one of his disciples, okay? Kakyayana, jikten tini, the whole world is, ni la ne te, is stuck in two places.

Okay? He probably had his hands up like this, I think so.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Kakyayana, the whole world is stuck in either this place or this place. Ne, ne means stuck. Pelcher means almost everybody.

The majority of folks. Okay? Pelcher means the majority of folks.

You look at me, they are stuck on thinking that things only exist. Okay? They're stuck on an aspect that works.

Okay? Because they take the aspect. Okay?

They're stuck, they're stuck on the thing is, the thing is an activity. They're stuck on that. 99.99% of people are stuck on that. How many people? How many people? Jikten.

The whole world. I mean, get this, six billion people undertaking actions every few minutes that have no relevance to what they want. Six billion people spending whole lifetimes trying to do something, make money, be happy, find a girl.

And totally like grasshoppers. You know? Whole world.

Whole world of people who have no idea how anything works. Okay? Pelcher.

Most of them. Okay? Alright?

Then there's like the 0.001%. Mebanyi. Mebanyi. They heard a little bit of Buddhism.

They read a book about emptiness. And they're like, everything's illusion, man. There's no good.

There's no bad. There's, you know, just be. Just be.

You know? Don't worry about stuff. Let it float to your mind.

You know? Good thought comes up in your mind. Don't attach to it.

Just watch it flowing. A bad thought comes up in your mind. Don't worry about it.

It's not you. Just don't attach to it. Just let it go, man.

Nothing's real. It's not illusion. You say, can I have your illusory bank account now?

Later. Alright? I mean, tiny, tiny percent fell off the other end.

Tiny percent got a bad explanation about emptiness and they fell off the other end. Got it? Okay?

And they became people who think that nothing matters. Okay? And maybe they are the cruelest kind of people.

You see? Because then they become, I don't know how you say it, people who have learned emptiness the wrong way become heartless in a new way. You know?

People are like, I need your help now. And they are like, that's your karma. You know?

And it's kind of the coldest kind of person there is who says, that's your karma, man. You know? Who have learned a little bit of stuff and they use it to not help anybody.

You see what I mean? As an excuse not to do anything. To take on no responsibilities at all.

That's another extreme. Much fewer people, but I think colder. The coldest people.

You can stand there with a broken arm and they'll say, you know, I have to go. You know? Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
All right. So we got to translate, right? Yeah, okay.

Now, I had trouble with this that I worked on. He's still quoting this other guy quoting the Buddha. Yeah.

So we have to... Beth would be good at this. We have to be careful to...

You see, it's another guy talking, right? It's still Karthik talking, but he's quoting another quote. So we have a nested quotation within a quotation.

Okay? So you have to be careful with the indents to make it clear or else it gets very confusing. He said, the Buddha said.

Got it? All right. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, hang on one sec, because I'll get confused if I don't do this now.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, sorry?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Oh, you're right.

[Speaker 1]
I'm sorry. Right. Okay, good.

Yeah, I'm trying to catch the nyi. Okay? He's very subtle.

I almost said exist the way it seems. Because he's talking about bhavata, which in English would be T-I-O-N or E-N-C-E, the existence. You see?

So we have to catch that nyi. It has to become a wrong kind of existence. So I use the adverb really.

Okay? It's a good question. We have to catch that nyi.

Okay? In Sanskrit it was ta, which came into English as shun or ens. Right?

Or into German as heit, like, you know, Weissheit or Gutsenheit. Okay. All right.

We just got back from Germany, so we're all German. Okay. Now we go out three nests, you see?

We just got a bunch of opinions about why the Buddha in the lower schools seemed to be obsessing on things working or not and not talking about other stuff. Okay? And that guy came back with a bunch of quotations to say, you know, what the Buddha was really interested in was exclusively whether things work or not.

And in fact, he denied that anything works. Got it? Okay?

In the lower school scriptures, it seems that Lord Buddha is obsessing on whether things work or not, which is also my personal obsession. I think it's a very... I think when you go to a British heir and you're trying to talk to them, the thing you want to hit them with is, look, none of the steps you've taken, either management or union, has anything to do with what you want.

You're swatting at flies on a movie screen. In the movie. You see?

You're falling in love with, what's her name? Avatar. You know?

Which I did. But she's just on the screen, man. You see what I mean?

Like, trying to speak about things that seem to be working but don't work is where is the mama harta, right? That's where you want to... That's the crucial point of people's lives, right?

Because they are spending their whole life doing stuff to get stuff that has nothing to do with what they want. Which means, I think the actions are sad. It's sad to see six billion people working all day to get something that has nothing to do with what they're doing.

Right? But what's sadder to me is the mental pain caused when it doesn't work out. You see?

The mental frustration and the wrinkles on the entire faces of the world. You see? The wrinkles of years of frustration and disappointment.

It's not just that the suffering was unnecessary. It's the physical suffering. It's that the mental anguish of six billion people was unnecessary.

It's just a booboo. And if they just heard the right thing... It's not a question of saving people eight hours a day.

It's not a question of six billion people wouldn't have to spend eight hours a day at work. The question is all the disappointment that's accompanied with that. All the mental anguish.

You know, one day, a lot of good genes, you know. How many ups and downs? You know, like the boss says you're doing a great job and then they say the budget doesn't go down and then they say we're keeping you forever and then they say things have to be cut.

You know, in one day your life at a corporation is like that. Multiplied times all the days of your life. Unnecessary.

I don't know. Swatting at shadows. You see?

It's sad. That's more sad to me. The anguish.

The lines on everyone's faces are a mistake. Okay. So, he said look, Buddha concentrated on saying that things didn't work.

So, he must have been teaching real emptiness in relationship. That's all. And we don't need the mind.

Okay? That's who he's trying to go on. Got it?

He's just threw in one more. Oh, and when the Buddha got to talking to Katyayana he also said the same thing. Got it?

And he had the quotations above that. Right? What was the one above that?

Did I cause my pain? No. Did I not cause my pain?

No. Did somebody else cause it? No.

Okay? So, now the line starts at the left because now we're responding to all his quotations. Got it?

We're saying look, you can say all that. You can quote all the scriptures but that's not the point. Got it?

Just nod. It's late in the class. It's your first day back.

You still gotta unload all your luggage. Okay. I know there's things on your mind.

And... Okay. Let's read together.

We still have like... Oh my gosh. Okay.

We still have half an hour. That's all the snacks, right? Okay.

I'm gonna... You read. I'm gonna drink.

One, two, three. Go.

[Speaker 2]
Stop.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. Nobun lekten je is what? Lekten is Baba.

Je is Viveka. That's what we're doing. Nobun means a child.

Okay. The master, Baba and Viveka. What's a dhruvta?

Siddhanta. We gotta study dhruvta. It's like one of the things we haven't done yet.

We haven't done Pramana really. We haven't really done Pramana well. We gotta do 12 years of Pramana.

We gotta do 12 years of Pramana. But then we gotta do dhruvta in there somewhere. Yeah.

It means the study of the schools of philosophy. The study of the schools of philosophy. What is the first school thing?

What is the second school thing? How does that compare? How does that contrast?

Comparing and contrasting the classical schools is called dhruvta. Okay? And it's a separate subject.

And it's beautiful. And it's fun. And it would take us about 20 minutes.

Okay, so you have to live a long life. Okay. Dhruvta okma.

I'll give you a clue. Lung means what? Lung means what?

Dangerous. Oklu means far. So what does the ok mean?

Lower. Yes.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
The dhruvta okma, the lower school. Now you'll never forget that word, right? Say oklun.

Oklun. It's the scriptural word for far. Okay.

People ask me, you know, what's this word mean? Geshe-la. And I didn't have a dictionary.

I had Ken Rinpoche. You know? I had Ken Rinpoche.

I went upstairs and said, Geshe-la, you know, he was Geshe-la at the time. What does okma mean? And he'd say, well, there's this thing about oklun.

And then you never forget where you learned something. Right? That's better than a dictionary because you don't remember dictionaries, but you remember Rinpoche going.

That's one reason to be near your teacher. Not too near. Not too near.

Nor. Nor means to them. Okay?

Nor-la means to them. Okay? Nor.

He said, Kansak, Rangya, Tupa, Zeyuki, Tomo. Kansak, Rangya, Tupa, Zeyuki, Tomo. We did it today.

What is it? Huh? Yeah.

It's number... Yes, number two. You can say that.

That there's no driver. Okay? Kansak means person.

Rangya, Tupa means self-standing, independent, self-running. Okay? Zeyuki, Tomo means substantial in that sense of running their own show.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
I think my fault. Raise your arms right now. Didn't guess Michael's trying to convince you you don't control your body?

I mean... Yeah, I am. I'm saying you didn't raise your arm.

Okay? It wasn't up to you. There will come a day when you can't raise your arm unless you study really well.

Right? Unless you practice well. There will come a day when I say raise your arm and then you'll discover you don't have control of your arm.

Okay? People discover at great personal pain that they don't have control over their arm because the day comes when they can't raise their arm. And they can't do a yoga pose at all.

Any yoga poses.

[Speaker 2]
Except...

[Speaker 1]
Shavasana.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
So, Kansak Rangya Tuleze, Zeyuki Tomo, you know, Bhaduriveka, Master Bhaduriveka, he was telling that he didn't have no driver idea as Togne. And he gave it the Togne of Togne. What's Togne?

Togne means the word. Just... He was just calling it.

To whom? Okay. All right.

Okay. Now you got the sentence all... all parsed.

You've parsed the sentence. Okay? To the lower schools, Master Bhaduriveka was just trying to help him out.

And he... he was using the word emptiness. But what he meant was that there's no driver which we all know is not emptiness.

Okay? Got it? So, we're trying to explain what was going on with Master Bhaduriveka.

You know, I'm sorry. We're trying to explain what's going on when the Buddha used the word emptiness to the lower schools. Okay?

Did Bhaduriveka understand that the Lord Buddha was using the word emptiness to the lower schools? Yes. But he knew that the Lord Buddha was just trying to use the word emptiness for something that wasn't 100% emptiness.

But it was a useful flavor of emptiness which was you're not controlling your body and your mind. Okay? Got it?

Okay? Just nod. Okay.

All right. It's getting late. Huh?

[Speaker 2]
The Druid. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Exactly. But if you questioned Bhaduriveka and you said, do you have to see emptiness to remember the Lord Buddha? Yeah.

He's saying, that's how he gets out of this problem of saying that the Mahayana was unnecessary. It's subtle. All right.

Uh... Drupadzepa means he proved, but they used the zepa to make it honorific. He undertook or he deigned to prove.

If you're really gonna translate it z, nicely, ze, he deigned to prove. All right? Like, he was so kind as to bother to prove.

Okay, what? Tony, just, just using sort of metaphors of emptiness without getting to emptiness. He was just talking in metaphors and he wasn't really talking about emptiness itself.

Got it? Metaphors that were sort of applicable. Okay?

Okay. Now we have to translate. The last thing we said was No problem.

Hey, there's no problem. I admit that the lower, I admit that the lower statues are talking about emptiness. But, it's like Master Baba Viveka.

He was just talking about emptiness, but he didn't mean it. He was just trying to pull people up with a lower explanation of emptiness. Got it?

Which pretty much could be used in a tantric interpretation to say that every teaching of every religion in the world is useful and has been designed purposely for people of varying capacities. See? That one sentence pretty much proves that in our opinion anybody could be trying to pull up people to a higher place by saying anything.

Got it? So we can't disparage other faiths because we don't know who was doing it on purpose and who was just dumb. Okay.

Here we go. Oh, you're so smart to put the quotation marks just in order. Right?

Right? I want to say some kind of expression for riktun. Riktun means was relevant to the real emptiness.

How should I say that? That's a really good word. But is there a...

What I struggle to do in translation is use simple English. Like, could we could we say it in a common way that people in the world you know... He...

Say again? Yeah. What he was trying to do was to prove emptiness to them by using a metaphor in which was applicable.

Then I'm going to sneak in something to make the whole paragraph much more understandable 20 years from now to you. I'm going to say real emptiness even though nobody said that. Okay?

He just said emptiness. How about... Or to the real thing.

How's that? Alright. Somebody is going to come up and say Is that common?

You know? Have other people done that sort of thing? What sort of thing?

Don't go to sleep. I swear if you go to sleep in 10 minutes you can sleep for 2 hours and then in my class you have to do it.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
To use just stuff that was close to the real thing to talk about the real thing because the grasshoppers couldn't get the real thing. Got it? Okay?

Alright. So... He's going to answer.

He says, Yeah, yeah. There are other examples where this kind of thing was done. Alright?

Here we go. 1, 2, 3 I am from the country of the grasshoppers I don't know you I don't know you and I don't know you I don't know you I don't know you and I don't know you I don't know you That was really useful in Europe. You know?

Like we did this debate twice a night and people just woke them up and they got all turned on, and it was really cool. Chen Zong was really hot. Is he here?

He was hot in the thing. OK. So I've got to look up one word that I'm not sure about, and I want you.

There was a nun in Germany. She has spent 20 years of her life trying to work out the nun's ordination with the authorities, you know? And she's a good scholar, and she's a really good scholar.

And I've known her for 20 years, and she's worked on denial, you know, what do you call it, from her heart for 20 years, struggling. She started with a geshe, and he passed away in Hamburg. And now, in the last, I don't know, five, six years by herself, she's trying to do it, you know?

And she was struggling to work on this one idea of what are the vows, are ze chik or ze kade? Like, are your Pratimoksha vows and your tantric vows, are they the same essence, or are they a separate essence in your mind stream, right? She's been working on this question for, like, years, as the head of philosophy at a university in Hamburg, right?

And I said, you could do that in three minutes, you know, with the database. And she said, what database? I'm like, OK, anyway.

So we did it there, sitting in this advertising office. And all her questions for the last 10 years were just finished, you know? In the time we were sitting there.

So, but I want to show you what I'm doing. So I'm looking up in Sik, Sik means Xingzi, Chenmo means the Great Dictionary of the Tibetan Language, like, 4,000-page Tibetan-Tibetan dictionary, OK? So I don't remember whether Döpa meant the bubble bursts or the bubble comes up, you know?

I don't remember. It's an unusual word. So I go to the dictionary, and it's right there.

It says, Döpa is the same as the other Döpa, which is unhelpful. No, but then I go to the other Döpa, you see? Oops.

And the program freezes. Yeah, to temba, to come up, to come up to the surface and form, as in a bubble. So I would have made a mistake.

I would have said the bubble bursts, but it's not the bubble, it's the bubble forming. And that's why I wasn't sure. So then you can do that.

If you don't know Tibetan, you can go to Sorat Chandra Das, and he doesn't have it. OK. Because no one has finished the dictionaries yet.

The nun was saying, there's so many words that aren't in the dictionaries. I said, duh, you know? We need hypertexting.

And she wouldn't have to waste 10 years, right? OK, here we go. De yang yin de means, that kind of thing happens.

What kind of thing? You're so out of it. Come on, you're back at that mountain room.

You're not like, sitting around in a cellar. I don't know.

[Speaker 2]
The people use metaphors.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it happens. People, you know, they use metaphors to bring people up. They use stories about New Orleans.

They use stories about British era. They use stories about the stones, you know? Where?

Vietnam, for example. Sukhi-ua, sukh-ni, the stuff around you. All the things you see in the world.

Sukh-ua-duh-duh-duh. They're like a bubble that comes up. Uh, what's that?

Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

[Speaker 2]
Tarika? Tarika, sukh-i-nam-duh-duh-duh. Tarika, sukh-i-nam-duh-duh-duh.

Budu-dham.

[Speaker 1]
OK, in the Diamond Cutter Sutra, the last words, budu-dham means, like a bubble, like a bubble. But as they explained in Humber to the business people, and they were so turned on by the end, What did we say about the dual meaning of the last verse of the Diamond Cutter? What are the two points Lord Buddha is talking about?

Yeah, one is impermanence. I mean, the bubble doesn't hang around very much. But what's the other meaning?

It's insubstantial. There's nothing in there. It looks all real.

We're talking probably a $10 billion industry of this. It looks so substantial and real. It's nuts.

There's nothing here. You could chew on a rock. You could take anything.

There's nothing here that helps your headache. In this bottle, there's nothing that helps your headache. It's a big illusion.

It's a big scam. The whole marketing of everything in the world is a big scam. It doesn't work.

There's nothing here that works. It's like a bubble. Got it?

So you can say like a bubble in the sense of passing quickly. But more importantly, it's like a bubble in that there ain't nothing in there that helps your headache. It's empty.

It's just air inside. Eat anything. Got it?

Enchiladas on Sunday. That's breaking your bowel, right? Okay.

You do my book for me. We do that, right? We all do other people's books.

So I could just... You could either do other people's books for them, or you could ask other people to do your book for you. Okay.

But when the Buddha said, all the stuff you see around you is like a bubble, what was he talking about? He was talking about the nangyang. Even though people seem to have some kind of dak, essence to them, self to them, people seem to have a nature of their own.

Your boss seems to be angry from his own side. Don't get caught up on this Buddhist lingo. Don't get lost in the Buddhist lingo.

Does the person have a self? What it means is, is your boss pissed off from his own side? No, it looks that way.

Yeah, but... That ain't the way he is. That's not the way it is.

Got it? How did this... What was the Buddha trying to say when he...

What was the Buddha trying to prove when he talked about the bubble? He was talking about your boss. Your boss looks a certain way, but he's not that way.

He was talking about people. They look to be... They look to be angry from their own side, Dhyamadru, but that ain't the way they are.

Why? So how did Lord Buddha teach that idea? Metaphor, metaphor.

He said, look, everything around is like a bubble. Now, can a person make a jump from one to the other? I don't know.

He said... You come up to me and you say, this lady that you asked me to do this project with, she's just an asshole. Period.

I've tried everything. I've been nice to her, I've been mean to her, I've tried to work with her, we've talked, we've done everything. She's just an asshole.

That's it. I can't do anything. And then I say, she's a thot.

She's a thot. With that click in your mind that she's coming from you, and that the more you complain, the more you are admitting your own assholeness. No?

Right? No, I'm totally serious. The more a Buddhist complains about another person, the more they are exhibiting their own fault.

And the more they are advertising that that is their own nature. So among Buddhists, to hear people complain is like insane. You see?

Because every word that comes out of your mouth is a description of yourself. And then your friends are like... I DM you.

If someone agrees with you when you're complaining, be careful.

[Speaker 2]
Alright.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. And it happens that way. Then I kind of catch the taboo.

So I'll stick it in there. It's light. Okay?

Got it? Yeah, no, I agree. Maybe he's trying to take an extreme example.

The question came up in my own mind. I think he's trying to take an extreme example where the metaphor wasn't obvious at all. That's what I was trying to express when I said if you said this lady you've picked me to work with is a bad word.

And in response to your concern, your expression of concern, all Geshe Michael did was smile at you and say, Bubbles happen. Would you get it? Yeah, right.

If you were a lower school person inside of you, you might think Geshe Michael is telling me it will pass. She is an asshole, but it will pass. But if you're a higher level person, the same line from scripture you will take as meaning you're watching a mirror.

Yeah, what you think is there ain't there at all. I just did another metaphor on you. I just did another metaphor on you.

I piled a metaphor on a metaphor. Sorry?

[Speaker 2]
I don't understand the...

[Speaker 1]
To a Buddha, to a great Lama, what may be obvious to them and what's obvious to us grasshoppers might be... it's probably difficult for them to just talk grasshopper language. Okay.

I'm going to skip because we have three minutes left. I just want to put a seed in your mind because it's a very difficult passage and I want you to wrestle with it. Okay.

We have an expression here that I want to draw your attention to. Read the second line here. Let's start here.

Sorry, let's start here. Ready? One, two, three.

Keep going. I'm going to do the second half first and I'm having trouble with the first half and maybe somebody can help me in the next class. Okay?

Here we go. The lower schools. Dana means the scriptural collection, the basket, the pitaka, right?

The scriptural collection of the lower schools. Le means in that scriptural collection. Don't eat them.

The emptiness is taught. He accepts. He accepts the er meaning that.

He accepts that emptiness is taught in the scriptures of the lower way. But here's the hard one. I can't get this very well.

You've got to understand the word lok. Say lok. A different spelling means to read.

I think it's K-L-O-K. K-L-O-G. Then another spelling, G-L-O-G means lightning.

G-L-O-G. This spelling is very difficult. G-L-O-G only Jerome would know.

Because it's what you do with a pancake. So when you put the spatula under the pancake and you flip it, that's called G-L-O-G. In colloquial G-L-O-G.

In scripture, G-L-O-G. So in the monastery, do you see this thing called K-L-O-G? K-L-O-G.

K-L-O-G means, I heard it as K-L-O-G. Or K-L-O-G. And I always thought it meant, read me back the, read me back the, what do you call those things?

Three parts of the Bible say it. What do they call them? They give you back the accent.

K-L-O-G. Give me the accent. K-L-O-G.

So it means, plop that over for me. Here's the syllogism, right? Take the grain away.

It was unnecessary for it to have been taught. It must have been unnecessary for it to be taught because emptiness was taught completely in the Lord. K-L-O-G.

Give me the accent that you're using. K-L-O-G. If emptiness were taught in the Lord way completely, then it would have been unnecessary to teach the Bible.

Somebody comes up to you and makes a syllogism. Ready? Consider the Bible I teach you.

It's not necessary to teach them because the Lord Buddha taught emptiness in the Lord. You covered it. Then I say K-L-O-G.

Give me the accent implied by your statement that you just made. The accent that is implied by my statement is if the Buddha covered something completely in the Lord way, it would have been unnecessary to teach the Bible. Got it?

So there's something here about then Korsun means Korsun means No, this is not the Korsun. This is not that Korsun. K-O-R-S-U-N In a debate, somebody says like Venerable Phil says What do you want to debate about?

And you say, You say Then he says Then he says What do you want to say about mine? Then you say, It was unnecessary. It was a wasted effort.

The whole line of teachings were not necessary. Why? Because emptiness was covered in the Lord's words.

K-L-O-G Now give me your accent that you're working from. If something was covered in the Lord's words, the Maya was not necessary. Yeah, it was unnecessary.

K-O-R-S-U-N means Oh man, you just screwed yourself. You came back like a cat's tail. Korsun in this case doesn't refer to the three spirits.

Korsun means you just did a trip back to zero. Like that. Why?

Who are you? What do I debate? Who are you addressing?

Oh, I'm talking about you. You're the proponent of a good school, please. And is that, could that be in the middle race here?

And is that like that thing, what are you? I don't quite remember. Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-what?

So your school was, according to you? Unmessed. Got it?

Like, Korti Korsun means you're biting on hell, man. You're like a corn in a circle there. But I'm not quite sure that's what they mean.

Okay, you want to do a moa since we're Maya? Since you're Maya, can I do a moa? Go on.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
When we went to Europe, and we took a crew of people with us, G'day Mountain graduates, right? And we took a crew of people with us. They are so well-trained, and they are so valuable, you know?

And everywhere we went, we could just get up and say, talk to the Diamond Mountain graduates. And in L.A. also, in L.A. also. It was so beautiful to have a large group of trained, well-trained people to draw from, and who could really answer people's questions.

In Germany, that's the best center in Europe, is in Hamburg. And they're about a thousand years behind you. And you are, like, amazing.

Like, your training and your understanding is amazing. And if you even just take a group of Diamond Mountain people and you throw them in Hamburg in the middle of a business conference, by the end, when I was sitting off to the side, I asked the teachers to stand up in the front. And these guys, they got a standing ovation for ten minutes, and they wouldn't stop.

I said, okay, we gotta move on, you know? And they wouldn't stop. And they started doing German soccer cheers.

And they were just screaming, you know? And so, you are really unique, and you gotta work hard, because there's a whole world that needs you, okay? What you are learning here is unique in the world.

There's nobody who's getting this. So, hang in there, okay? Even if you're new, and this is your first class, and it's all like, I need an aspirin.

Just hang in there, because you are very, very precious. When you get out of here, you're broke, homeless, and precious.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.