Бетси Грир — Книга 2: Интерлюдия о пустоте, занятие 16

[Student]
The subjects of the first and second turnings are equally said to exist by way of their own nature or not exist by way of their own natures, whereas the third turning is considered literal because it's making fine distinctions when it talks about how concepts do not exist by their own nature, but dominated things and established reality do.

Oh, wow.

So can anyone give me the Tibetan for those two terms that make the distinction? Ask the question again. What are you referring to again, Venerable?

Mm-hmm. Equally in fine distinctions. Yeah, and lekpar chepa.

Oh, lekpar chepa. So we had this sutra called Unraveling the True Thought, and in there, Arya, ultimately pure, asked the Buddha, you know, come on, you said one thing in one turning of the wheel and another turning of the wheel. So when were you being figurative?

And how did the Buddha respond?

He said he was being figurative both times.

Oh, okay. I'm going to have to listen to the class again. So we'll go on to the next one because that's not.

So what does Arya Asanga say in a summary about the Buddha's intent when he was teaching the Three Lacks of an Essential Nature? He said that it depends on the disciple and nothing else. So I just made up this phrase, and I have no idea if it's correct.

What does mepa mean when it follows shena?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Oh, nice. That's what I'm saying.

[Student]
That's what I was saying. Yeah, or I'll tell you. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, in some cases. That alone. So thank you.

Yay.

I'll have to share my translation.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Oh, yay. Okay, here we go. In the red, right?

[Student]
Yep.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay. And it is for these reasons. We can say that whenever something's a day chair, khanda, sheshe, gendare, chitantre, mongrel, sumanik, simbong, tsamdik, and it's for outside, that teaching is in the red.

Okay, I have a sad thing to say, which is that it's perfect.

[Student]
No.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
I hate to say it, Dr. Kramer. I don't see a single mistake. And it's a very difficult sentence.

It's a really difficult sentence. So I don't know. Now I'm retiring, okay?

I'm gonna buy.

[Student]
No, no, no. She must love you. She even started a paragraph with and.

Do you know what it took?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, okay. I'm gonna buy a rocking chair. I'm gonna go to Flagstaff and buy a rocking chair now.

[Student]
Well, only if I can come visit you.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, no, you can bring me, you know, stuff. All right. Perfect.

Unbelievable. I'm gonna do a headstand to celebrate. Yeah, it's a really difficult sentence, too.

It wasn't easy.

[Student]
No, it wasn't easy.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Wow, that means you actually spent a lot of time on it, I'm guessing. So thank you for that. Good job.

Unbelievable. Yeah. I would say a thousand dollars, okay?

Wow. All right. That's two today.

Okay, so Xiaoping, I don't know if Ellie's around, so.

[Student]
Yes.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay, don't forget. Yeah, I'll probably take you to Moscato's. You'll probably take me to Moscato's.

No, I mean, okay.

[Student]
Yeah, that would just be a lunch at Moscato's.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, that's true. The way I eat.

[Student]
No, no, no.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay, good job. All right. This is a quotation that we finished last time.

Then here's your famous thousand dollar sentence. Oh my god. Nice job.

Amazing job. And here we go. Here's a really hard one.

Okay, and where? Do you want to check her? Okay.

Okay. Yeah, good. It's a really hard sentence.

And it's misspelled. The crucial word is misspelled. And you know how long it took me to figure this out.

Uh Okay. What's that mean?

[Student]
The sutra on the perfection of wisdom? No.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, Prajñāpāramitā sutras. They start with suk and the suk [?] dictionary.

[Student]
Form and? Yeah. Is this a form?

What?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, good. Yeah, and the emptiness. You can say, uh, yeah.

The tattva or whatever. They start with physical stuff and the emptiness of physical stuff. Ne means, and then they go on up to namkhyen.

[Student]
Wisdom.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, they go up to omniscience. And the dekshin nyi of omniscience.

[Student]
And the emptiness of.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Omniscience. Omniscience. Good.

So the sutras on the perfection of wisdom. Which turning of the wheel?

[Student]
This would be number two.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Good, second turning of the wheel. They start with physical stuff. They go all the way up to omniscience.

And they discuss those things and their emptiness. Okay. Well, actually mainly their emptiness, because the first turning of the wheel discuss the things.

Okay. The eighteen categories. Okay.

And then here's a new word for you guys. Word. I love to give you new words.

It's like feeding my cat or something.

[Student]
Well.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Dekang. Say dekang, you guys.

[Student]
Dekang.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
What's ringdey mean for $20? Ringdey.

[Student]
Follow the same pattern.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, follow the same pattern. So $10 each for Utpala and Word. Yeah, and dekang jar means they just attach the same pattern words.

Okay. So they list all the stuff from physical matter up to omniscience. Which is, by the way, that's a standard way of saying everything in the universe.

[Student]
Okay.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
And then they add the same words to it. Like, oh, this is empty. They just have a long list of all the stuff in the universe.

And each time they say something, they will add the word. Oh, that's also empty. That's also empty.

They'll just add the same formula. Jarne. What's the formula they add?

Ngo nyi mepa.

[Student]
The lack of an essence.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, it has no essence of its own. And we are going to be talking about three kinds of lack of essence, right? In this school.

In the Mind-Only School. Yeah, good. Yeah, say it again.

[Student]
Oh, quality, starting, and ultimate nature.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Nice. We're going to be discussing that today. Okay.

I took it as a personal challenge to try to find this statement, and I did.

[Student]
Yay.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
It's in the 10,000 Lines, Prajnaparamita. And here it is, okay? They start with physical stuff, and then they say, here's the dekang.

And they add dekshini, okay? And then they go to feelings, conceptions, other factors, awareness. And then they say the emptiness of those things.

They add dekshini. And then even the Buddha says, hey, you could just keep adding this word like this. Dekshin vijayate [?].

You could just keep going all the way up to nampa tam je khenpa. Nyi jipar, all the way up to that itself, okay? The omniscient person said, you can add emptiness all the way up to omniscience, okay?

Which means, you would say nampa tam je khenpa nyi kyi dekshin nyi. You could talk about the real nature of the omniscience of a Buddha, and I can tell you, you'll never find it. Okay?

So mimik means... Remember we keep having these mimiks, meaning disappear [?], isn't there? Mimik means, doesn't see living beings as coming from their own side, okay?

[Student]
Thank you.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Why does it say Sharadwati Pu?

[Student]
Because that's who he's talking to.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Who is Sharadwati Pu?

[Student]
It's Shariputra.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
It's Shariputra. This is his full name, Sharadwati Pu. What's the Sharadwati mean word?

I think you said... His mom, right? Isn't it his mom?

Yeah, it's his mother's name, and it means the lady of springtime.

[Student]
The son of the lady of springtime?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, that's the real meaning of Shariputra. And Shariputra is an abbreviation of Sharadwati Putra, okay? Just for you guys' information.

Okay, here we go. Who's checking is... I'm sorry that...

Let's see. Dr. Campbell, do you want to check? Give him a hassle.

Turn on your microphone and criticize her as much as you can. Okay. Yeah, okay.

And the sungpa here means what this is saying. What this quotation from the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra is saying is that nyang ngen la'i depa is rangshin mepa. Rangshin mepa.

[Student]
Yeah, going beyond grief has no nature of its own.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Nice, perfect. Going beyond grief has no... Nirvana has no nature of its own, okay?

And even if there were...

[Student]
Greater than that.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Good, yeah. Even if there were something beyond that, it would also have no nature of its own. Okay, that's...

He says that's what these lines are talking about. These lines are trying to express the thought that nirvana and Buddhahood themselves have no nature. And even if there was something higher than them, it wouldn't have any nature either, okay?

[Student]
Should I say then nirvana here instead of...

[Geshe Michael Roach]
I would say nirvana. Yeah, okay. I keep going and Dr. Campbell, can you keep checking her, okay?

I love this paragraph, by the way.

[Student]
Okay, nang na. Dundam machu... Oh, sorry.

Is it still dundam?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
It is.

[Student]
Dundam machu par kunzok. Pa shik rangshin me par tenpao. She mawani.

Ko oi sik dila yi tenpa gongshik chunwa de. Ni yi ki wangpo rangshin tu mi ne par she par ki shik che dokpe chod... ...neo. Yeah, I mean these corrections were so difficult.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
But anyway, I never get credit. Okay, de nang na.

[Student]
I'll just send you the thousand dollars because you wrote it in my text.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah. De nang na dundam machu par. Okay, among all the things described in this Perfection of Wisdom Sutra as not having any nature, okay?

Which was how many things in the universe did he say didn't have a nature of their own?

[Student]
Everything from form to omniscience.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, everything from pizzas to omniscience, okay? And that's a statement by whom?

[Student]
Lord Buddha.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
By Lord Buddha that everything in the universe has no nature of its own. He added the same formula. He added the same words, don't have any nature of their own.

He listed everything that exists in the universe from pizzas up to the Buddha's mind, okay? The Buddha listed everything up to the Buddha's mind, okay? And for you to say, she mawa, okay?

Third line. For you to say he should not have included here dundam, he was only talking about kunzops, not having a rangchen, okay? Got it?

Can you tell me that in English?

[Student]
He was only talking about deceptive things, not having a self-nature.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
And he didn't mean to include ultimate things.

[Student]
Ultimate things.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay, for you to say that, for you to she mawa ni, for you guys to say that, anybody, here koa means you guys, anyone who trusts that statement from you guys, after the Buddha said everything has no self-nature, and then for you guys to say, oh no no, it's only deceptive objects that don't have a self-nature, okay? For you, anyone who believes what you're saying, kang shik chungwa wa de, okay? Any person who would listen to what you just said, I would have to say, der yi kyi wangpo.

It's rang shin tu mi nepa. It was one of the eight qualities of a good food sharer in the Vinaya.

[Student]
The power of their minds is just like, I don't know.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
They're in their right mind. Good, they are not in their right mind.

[Student]
They're not in their right mind, okay.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay, and shepa gyi shi means everybody should understand that this guy doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, okay? Okay, he's just like, hey everybody, I just want you to know one thing. If you believe this statement after reading that statement from the sutra, spoken by the person who knows everything, okay, and if you still believe these guys, your mind is rang shin tu mi nepa.

Yeah, you are not in your right mind. In fact, I sing this to the skies in a cry of pain. Okay, jok means to jok, right?

And cheong e means, ahhhhhh. Okay, it's very cool. It's very cool.

You guys make me want to pull the rest of my hair out and cry out. Jesus.

[Student]
So, he is writing this text and he's starting off with, he had to go through the pain of talking about the listeners and what they think, and then he had to go through the pain of talking to us about what mind only thinks, and he just couldn't help himself. He had to interject and say, ahhh.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, he says, God, I'm so exhausted by telling you guys over and over, you know, I just got to cry out, you know, and sometimes you make me cry, you know, you guys. If you still believe these guys after reading this sentence by Lord Buddha, then I don't know what to do. I don't know what I can do.

Okay, it's a very, cheong e, by the way, is a word which is restricted to the sound that they make in the hell realms. Okay, you know, I got to give a hell realm scream at you guys, you know, you're driving me crazy. You're out of your mind, okay, got it?

[Student]
Well, yeah, I understand this, but I don't understand why he's saying this now, when he's going to be talking about mind only for pages and pages and pages.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
He probably had some student burn his toast that day. I mean, you never know. Then they almost, what do you call it?

Anyway, the other guy comes back almost repentantly and says, okay, Sugeng, let's help her out. What's that mean, Venerable Upala? If you can do that other sentence last night, you can do this one.

[Student]
Well, you know, I don't have time. Well, then, if you say something about the meaning of that, that is not the meaning of having...

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Agamemnon, what is it?

[Student]
Those three, oh, the meaning, what is the meaning of the three of not having a self-nature and so on?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, not having a self-nature.

[Student]
Essence, sorry, not having an essential nature and so on.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, what does it mean when you say no definitive nature, no nature of growing, and no nature of being ultimate? What are those three referred to, okay? What's he going to answer, by the way?

[Student]
It's the three attributes.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Good, yeah, the three characteristics of the Mind-Only School. He's going to say, so that's all, that's the rest of your class today. He's saying, oh, tse ni ngo nyi me pa means this, kye wa ngo nyi me pa means this, dun danpa ngo nyi me pa means this, okay?

Here we go.

[Student]
Well, how can that be? And that's not a definition, that's like an equivalence.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
It's a meaning. You mean tse ni ngo nyi me pa?

[Student]
Yeah.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
The tse ni and tse ni ngo nyi me pa.

[Student]
If we just say, oh, kuntaks are that, and tse ngo nyi me pa are that.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, I would say defining characteristic or something, yeah. Something like that. It doesn't mean definition here.

Yeah, it does not mean definition. In fact, yesterday we had a rang kyi tse ni, which was very complicated.

[Student]
Yeah, right.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Chik bu nge po. Chik bu nge po. It's one, everything is just one thing.

Rang kyi tse ni, objects of direct perception. Sorry, yeah, all objects of direct perception. Right.

Are one, are only one. Which function are only rang kyi tse ni, which turned out to be a long way of saying...

[Student]
Rang ten.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Changing.

[Student]
Yeah, rang ten.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Rang ten. So obviously, tsen nyi in rang tsen doesn't mean definition. It means the actual thing on the table, right?

[Student]
The sign that triggers a perception in that school.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, that's nice. Okay, keep going. And who was checking you on this?

Was it Word? I don't remember.

[Student]
It was Sugeng.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Oh no, it was Sugeng. Let's keep going.

[Student]
Sure.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, and you should probably burn this into your mind if you're a mind-only school guy, which is Word. Why is something called kuntak? Why do we call kuntak tsen nyi ngo nyi mepa?

Why do we call imaginary things tsen nyi ngo nyi mepa? They have no definitive existence or something like that, okay? Why do we say that?

Because they are ming dang de shakpa tsam.

[Student]
They are merely names and labels.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, they are only established through names and labels, rather than kyi rang gi tsen nyi gyi duk. Or rather, they rang gi tsen nyi gyi ma duk.

[Student]
They are not established through their own definition.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Or through some definitive characteristic of their own. Okay, got it? Okay, so what makes something imaginary in the three characteristics of the mind-only school?

It doesn't have its own nature, okay? It's just something created by words. Okay, now that's a lot different from what?

[Student]
Being created by causes.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
It's a lot different from what ming dang de shakpa tsam means in the higher middle way, right? The words are the same, just established through names and terms, right? And terms here means thoughts.

[Student]
Mental projections.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Mental images, okay? So it's totally different in this school.

[Student]
I see an opening that's over here.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, yeah, okay. So you've got to be sensitive to the difference in these two schools, okay? Now, I wanted to clarify something.

Who can give me an example of a kuntar?

[Student]
A democracy.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
A democracy in which country?

[Student]
Any.

A person's name is pretty common.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, and what about democracy in the United States in 2020? Not the best.

[Student]
Yeah, that's just a lie, which would be probably a kuntar.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, what I'm saying is I want you to be sensitive to the fact... I think I can say, I'm trying to think if I'll get in trouble or not. There's two kinds of kuntars.

[Student]
There is two kinds of kuntars, Genua.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, one of them... One of them is complete fabrications, and one of them are labels. Good, yeah.

You name things. Yeah, so a two-headed elephant is kuntar, but doesn't really exist. And then, you know, other mental constructs.

There are mental constructs which do exist, okay? Got it? So they're both things made up in your mind by words.

Some of them exist, and some of them don't exist. What I'm saying is kuntars can be gakja or not, okay? Kuntars can be the gakja or not, okay?

You can kind of say kuntar is the husband who's not my fault. That's kuntar, okay?

[Student]
So why do you kind of say that?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Well, I'm just saying that also things that you imagine, like a plan for your cafe to open in the next 10 years, is also kuntar, okay?

[Student]
Right.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
I'm just saying, okay? All right.

[Student]
I had to turn off my video. My internet is very unstable, and I may be dropping out.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay. Generally, when you talk about an equation, you're taking shenwang, the husband who's coming from you, and you are subtracting kuntar, which is the husband who's not coming from you, and you reach some kind of emptiness, which is the fact that there's no husband in the kitchen who's not your fault, okay? Generally, that's the formula, okay?

All right. So we covered the first kind of non-nature, non-nature of having its own qualities, okay? Now, the second nature was non-nature of starting.

Let's read that one, 143. Xiaoping wants to check you, I can tell.

[Student]
Okay. Good. Okay.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
The second ngo nyi meypa, the second way of having non-nature, which is called having non-nature of...

[Student]
Of starting.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Of starting, that refers to shenwangs.

[Student]
That refers to dominated things.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Good. Cause and effect things, okay? Why?

Because things don't start ranggi ngo nyi.

[Student]
Things don't start to their own essence.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Because they have to start by rak lepa in on other gyus and gyens.

[Student]
By depending on other causes and conditions.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Good, okay. And because they cannot grow from ranggi dak nyi...

[Student]
Themselves.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Good. We call them shenwang, and that's what we're referring to, changing things, cause things, when we talk about non-nature of starting, okay? So we've knocked out two non-natures.

Non-nature of having any definitive quality of its own. Non-nature of starting. What's left?

Here we go.

[Student]
DUN DANG PA YANG LAS LA DAG NYID KYI NGO MED PA YANG YIN PAS CHER YANG GRUB LA DUN DANG PA NGO NYID MED PA SHES BYA'O Yeah, and I want to point out something to you here.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
And it's really important to understand the three qualities of the Mind-Only School. When we discussed kunthark, things were missing some characteristic of the quality of their own, sennyi, okay? Things were missing some quality of their own, okay?

When we talked about shenwang, things were missing some kind of starting on their own, okay?

[Student]
Yes.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
And so it's tempting to think that when we talk about the third one, they should be missing dun dang pa, because the first two are like that. Okay? Got it?

You okay?

[Student]
I understand your words.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay, I'll say it again. When you say...

[Student]
Oh no, I get it.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, when you say things are just...

[Student]
I'm saying that, and they're the same words down here, so the same words mean something different down here. That's what you're saying, right?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah. When you say things are just constructs, you're saying they don't have any real nature of their own. When you say things are under the power of other things, you're saying they don't start on their own.

But when you say dun dang, you are making a positive statement. When I talk about the third lack of a nature, ngo nyi mey pa, I'm talking about things yin dun dang.

[Student]
Oh, they... yeah, they have...

[Geshe Michael Roach]
They are ultimate. Yeah, they are ultimate, but they don't have a nature of the two kinds of self-existence, things and people, right? People and things.

They don't have that nature. Okay? So when we talk about yong dru, and we say dun dang ngo nyi mey pa, we don't mean dun dang is missing.

We're talking about something which is dun dang, but doesn't have a nature of its own. Okay? Yeah, very confusing.

Okay? Very confusing.

[Student]
So established reality is ultimate, but it does not have an essential nature.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, good. Okay? And you got to remember that, otherwise the three ngo nyi's don't make sense.

It's difficult, okay? All right. Ngo nyi mey pa, sorry.

Now he's just going to prove what he said by using the Sandhinirmochana Sutra. Okay? He's just going to give you the relevant statements from the sutra to back up what he said about the three lacks of a nature.

Okay? Here we go. chen tsam Nice.

[Student]
Yes.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
It's beautiful there. Why is it... Is that just pollution in New York, or why does it look rosy in New York?

[Student]
That's the background.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
It's not evening yet.

[Student]
No, it's just a cloudy day, actually.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay, okay, here we go.

[Student]
dey tar yang gong pa ngendra le dey la chen nam kyi tse nyi ngo nyi mey pa kang she na kun tak pe tse nyi kang yin pa'o Yeah, what do we mean when we say things have no nature of having their own qualities?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
We mean... Then we're referring to kun taks.

[Student]
Right.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Then we're referring to kun taks. Constructs. Okay.

Keep going. chen tsam is still checking. Yay!

[Student]
dey chi chir she na dey tar dey nyi ming dang drek shak pe tse nyi yin kyi rang gi tse nyi kyi nam par ney pa nyi ma yin pe dey chir dey nyi tse nyi ngo nyi mey pa nyi che jau she dang Yeah, so why do we...

[Geshe Michael Roach]
it's constructs that don't have a characteristic nature of their own? Well, they do have a nature, but it's a nature of being established. They do have tse nyi, okay?

They do have tse nyi. They do have a characteristic nature in the sense of just being made up with mings and dags. Okay?

They do have a... I'm not saying they don't have a nature. They do have a nature.

Well, what nature do they have? They're just made up with words and ideas, okay? But why did you say they didn't have a nature?

Well, I'm saying they don't have a nature of existing through some nature of their own. That nature they don't have. They do have a nature.

I mean, it's not like they're zero. They do have some nature. Well, what nature do they have?

They have a nature of just existing through names and labels, okay? So we call them tse nyi ngo nyi med pa. We call them not having any nature, but we don't mean they don't have any nature at all.

They have a nature, that they're just made up with words, but they don't exist through some nature of their own, okay? Got it? Who's talking?

[Student]
Buddha.

Buddha.

Who's he talking to? Yeah, good.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Utpala, we're losing you. You sound like you're in a spaceship or something.

[Student]
He's talking to a guy named Subhuti.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
You sound just like Sugeng when he's really sleepy.

[Student]
Yeah.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay, here we go. I think we got you back. Okay, let's...

We finished kundtas. We finished kundtas. Let's go.

[Student]
I thought I heard you saying that it's not a step. Oh, okay. Sorry.

I'm on my phone and...

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Oh, what's unusual about this... What's unusual about this section, what you have to remember when you translate this section is Buddha says, look, they do have a tsen nyi. They do have a quality.

I'm not saying they don't have a quality. When I say they have no quality, I don't mean they have no quality. Okay?

They have a quality that they are just made of, but they don't have a quality that's not just made of, okay? That's all. I'm sorry, which one?

Oh, they exist, true. They really exist. They super exist, okay.

[Student]
Okay. Yeah.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay, we're on to the second characteristic. Utpala, I hope you can read, and Sugeng wants to check you. He looks like that.

Sure. Okay. Okay, what's it mean when you say that things don't have a nature of starting, okay?

So, who's asking the question? Buddha. What did I mean when I said things didn't have a nature of starting?

I meant, I was talking about the characteristic of things that we call shenwang, okay? Dominated or something like that, okay? I was talking about that.

Oh, why? Oh, you want to know why? Okay.

Because these are things which occur through the power of something else, not through their own power. They occur through the power of something else. What's that something else?

Tian.

[Student]
Some other factor.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, any other factor, okay? But they never occur dak nyi kyi.

[Student]
Through their own nature.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, through some nature of their own. That's why we...

[Student]
That's why we say...

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Whoa!

[Student]
You're breaking up. Sesame butter.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Oh, Nick accuses you of sitting in a bathtub full of sesame butter and dropping it.

[Student]
Okay.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
And that's why they don't have any nature of starting. Yay! Okay.

Now, we're expecting... We're expecting... Youngdrup?

Yeah. Youngdrup. Here comes Youngdrup.

Okay. Kat's driving, so I'm not going to ask her. Dr. Campbell, you want to do it again?

[Student]
Oh, I'm not driving anymore.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Oh, well, I think I recognize the area around Saffron. Am I right?

[Student]
I just landed back at Diamond Mountain. It is so much nicer.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Oh, okay.

[Student]
Okay. Beautiful. Beautiful.

Beautiful.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay. Then the Buddha asked a rhetorical question. What do you think it means, this Youngdrup?

What do we call that? What are we calling that?

[Student]
We're calling it established reality. Totality, the outcome.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
I like totality, but we'll decide later. Okay, what does it mean, this totality or established reality, whatever you want to call it? Oh, that's referring to the third kind of no-self nature.

Oh, what's that? Oh, that's ultimate no-self nature, okay? By the way, the no doesn't apply to the...

[Student]
I'm sorry? The what?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
The no, in no-self nature, in this third one, doesn't...

[Student]
Oh, it doesn't...

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, to the ultimate. It is ultimate, and it has no nature. Okay, good.

You shouldn't say not ultimate, because it is ultimate. Okay, good. Yeah.

Can I ask you a quick question? Yeah. When we come up with a translation for $900,000...

Oh, man.

[Student]
Just kidding, I'm just kidding. Okay.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
When we come up with translations for things like Youngdrup, or the three characteristics, do we need to try to correlate them across all our books, because they occur so frequently, and because we're a series? Or can we each have our own version? Do you have a vision for that?

No, the dictator's going to choose one word, and everyone's going to use it. Okay? The dictator...

That's just... Otherwise, I don't want to be involved with it, because I don't want... I want all the books to be consistent with each other.

[Student]
But the dictator will decide, don't worry.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
That's what I get paid for, actually. And you help me get paid, by the way. Absolutely.

Okay. All right, here we go. So anyway, let's say Youngdrup for today.

What is Youngdrup? It's the ultimate thing which has no nature. Okay?

Well, why do you say that? Chi che shena. Oh, dun dam yang dakpa.

Oh, Mr. Amazing. That thing which is the choky dakme. What's that, Rinpoche?

[Student]
That thing which has no self.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
The lack of self to things, which relates to all these things. That's what I'm calling no nature. Okay?

And that happens to be dun dampa.

[Student]
That's what I'm calling ngo nyi mepa. And that's what I'm calling dun dampa.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Good. What is dun dampa? Oh, it's...

Now, the word here that you guys need is rabtu chewa. It's difficult. I think word might have it.

I don't know. Discriminate, right? Completely divide, distinguish?

Yeah, distinguish. You can say distinguished by. So what distinguishes ultimate from everything else is that it is ngo nyi mepa.

Okay? It's the fact that things don't have a nature of their own. That's what distinguishes.

That's why this third one is positive rather than negative, right? That's why I called it dun dampa ngo nyi mepa. Oh, by the way, if you think you have trouble translating these words or choosing a universal translation, just imagine the difficulty the Buddha had to name these things.

Okay? Oh, this is ultimate... No, don't name it.

Okay. Don't put me in. Ultimate no-self nature.

Okay. But it means ultimate yes. Okay.

All right. Do we have time? Are we okay?

[Student]
We have six minutes.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yay, let's go. Utpala reading. And I don't know, Kat, you look so good with that hat on.

By the way, everyone should have a hat like that if you're a Diamond Mountain. Your microphone's off, Kat. Wait, Kat's going to check your reading.

[Student]
Your microphone.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay, here we go. Please correct.

[Student]
Okay. Get it? He corrected it with te.

Okay.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay. Okay, good. This is a tough...

Yeah, this is a tough sentence. By the way, it does look green there, Kat. Very unusual, right?

Have you had rainstorms? I guess so.

[Student]
We've had more rainfall this month than the whole normal year rainfall, which we haven't had for ten years. The most in ten years.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, us too. The monsoon came back. By the way, there's a second way you can talk about dimdabangwa nyi medpa.

There's a second way that you can talk about the third lack of self nature. And Kedrup Je is saying, you know, you can think of this another way also. Katsalpani, and he did describe it.

I don't think this is a direct quotation, okay? I couldn't find it. But he made it sound like a direct quotation.

So anyway, chen wangwa dimdabangwa nyi medpa she sungpa te When you talk about the fact that changing things don't have any ultimate nature, changing things... When you talk about the lack of ultimate nature with regard to changing things, and then you talk about the pakpa yeshe. What's that, Utpala?

[Student]
The wisdom of an Arya.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, which ngonsum du tokpa.

[Student]
Which directly sees reality. Directly realizes lack of self nature to things.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Nice, yeah. By the way, that's not the first emptiness they see. But anyway, okay.

pakpa yeshe de, kangwa mik ne What do they have to look at? What do they have to look at? And what do they have to gom?

[Student]
Get familiar with.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
In order to dakpa all their dribpas.

[Student]
In order to smash all their obstacles.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Good. And this is a famous, what I really meant [?] sutra method, alternate method of describing the third kind of emptiness here. The emptiness which is ultimate, okay?

And this is a very, very famous concept from the Mind Only School, from this sutra. This is the following concept, okay? If you look at something, if you see something, and it stops all your obstacles in your mind, that's emptiness.

That's the ultimate, okay? So, hey, I saw something. Okay.

Do you think it was ultimate? Well, I'll check, okay? Okay, what?

Do you have any kind of obstacles left in your life? No. Okay, then what you saw was ultimate.

So it's actually the definition from the sutra of ultimate. It doesn't mean highest reality. It means the reality that if you see it, you wipe out your negativities, all of them, forever.

Isn't that an interesting definition of ultimate?

[Student]
Okay. Yeah.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Okay, it's very famous for this school. Okay, what's ultimate mean? Ultimate means, look, if you see it directly, your mind is fixed, okay?

Your mind becomes pure, all right? Good? I mean, eventually, right?

[Student]
Oh, not at that moment.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
No.

[Student]
How can it be ultimate then?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Ah, well, it's getting there.

[Student]
One minute left, Geshe La.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
And there's some difficult syntactical stuff in the last three lines here. You could read it the wrong way.

[Student]
Yeah, I kind of noticed.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
If you distribute things the wrong way, you're going to get in trouble here. So I'm just advising you to pause and then continue, okay?

[Student]
So meaning that the mikpah is what distributes? Or what do you mean by read and pause here?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Well, there's a difficulty here, and I'll tell it to you, okay? You ready?

[Student]
Yes, thank you.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Next to the last line, it says, ngor mepa. Okay? So you should not read it.

You should not read it as the following. It doesn't have a nature of when you focus on it, it cleans up all your negativities. Got it?

You shouldn't read it that way. I'll say it again. Normally, you just go straight backwards in syntax order.

But here, it would be a big error, okay? You cannot say that the third line from the bottom modifies the second line from the bottom, or you're in big trouble. You will be in big trouble, okay?

You can't say it has no nature of being the thing that, when you look at it, you remove all your obstacles. You see, the apostrophe I on mikveh at the end of the third line from the bottom, it is not an apostrophe S to modify ngor mepa. Okay?

Which is what normally that... You know, it's like apostrophe S, right? John's book.

[Student]
Right.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
But you'll get in big trouble. If you say it has no nature of being the thing that, when you look at it, you get fixed, you're in trouble. Okay?

You gotta...

[Student]
Okay, I'm just warning you. This last phrase stands on its own, ngor mepe jir.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Yeah, it almost stands on its own.

[Student]
And then what would be the purpose of the instrumental there if it's not an instrumental after mikveh?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Oh, the genitive, right? The... Or the genitive.

It modifies dampa, okay? It modifies dampa and not ngor mepa. Okay?

And it's very difficult. It's a very, very difficult thing. Okay?

It could be easily misread. Okay? All right.

Anyway, the gist of this sentence is, when I got to the third lack of an essence, what I meant was, it is ultimate. And if you ask me, why is it ultimate? I say, if you can see it directly, your mind gets fixed.

Okay? That's all. That's all.

[Student]
Okay, so what do the last three lines mean? Or the last two lines mean?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Oh, kangla mikne gomna. If you look at it, if you see it and meditate on it, okay, kangla mikne gomna, that thing which, karma, if you see it and then meditate on it, removes all of your obstacles. Mikpe dampa is the highest of all things.

It's the highest of all perceptions. Okay? What's that?

Oh, it's called ngor mepa. Okay? No self-nature.

Okay? So, you gotta be careful here. Okay?

It's, what is, what is...

[Student]
Oh, because it is ngor mepa. Is that like what it is? What it's saying?

The chir, the pe chir?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
It's ngor mepa.

[Student]
Yeah.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Ngor mepa means ngonyi mepa. But the thing before it is dun dam. And in the third ngonyi mepa, in the third ngonyi mepa, we are not refusing something, we are asserting something.

Okay? We're not saying no birth. We're not saying no characteristic nature.

We are saying it is dun dam.

[Student]
Right.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
It's the lack of an essence, which is the ultimate. Okay? And that's all he's saying.

He's saying, please, please don't say, for the third one, it's the lack of being ultimate. Okay? He's saying, never make the mistake that for the third one, you cancel the first word.

Oh, it's not ultimate. Just like the second one was no birth, no starting, and the first one was no characteristics. Well, the third one should be no ultimate.

He says, no, no, no, no, no. The third one is meant to be positive. And it's positive in this way.

You say, dun dampa ngonyi mepa means it is the lack of an essence, which is ultimate. Okay? Right.

And then, then he anticipates the question. Now, look, the first two, you canceled something. Now you got to the third one and you're saying something, duh, is there.

It's ultimate. What do you mean it's ultimate? And he says, listen, to me ultimate means, if you see it directly and you sit with it, mik ne gom, okay, if you see it directly and sit with that, then you're going to remove all obstacles from your mind.

And that's what the word ultimate means in Buddhism. Okay? It's not that it's the highest reality.

It's that it's the highest effective reality, most highly effective reality. Got it? Highest reality in Buddhism means most effective reality, to remove your negativities.

It's very beautiful. Okay? It doesn't mean it's the highest kind of reality.

It means it's the best one for fixing your mind. That's what ultimate reality means. That's what makes ultimate reality ultimate.

It's the best fix for your problems, mental problems. Yay. It's a very interesting idea.

Okay. Yeah, you're welcome. Stopped here.

What's today, 8th, 16th? 16th. Okay.

Okay. Have some nice Japanese sashimi.

[Student]
Yes, sashimi.

[Geshe Michael Roach]
I'll see you guys this afternoon.

[Student]
Thank you so much.

Thank you, [?]. Thank you so much, everybody. That was awesome.

You guys want to do some yoga?

[Geshe Michael Roach]
Amalisa, do you...