← Guy Newland

Understanding Emptiness: In Search of Reality (14 March 2010, 4)

Guy Newland · 14 March 2010 · 2 h 4 min · Tse Chen Ling via Internet Archive

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  • 4:18

    There's no way that we're going to have Buddhism. If what you say is true, you can't really be a Buddhist, right? And he says, well, that says you don't understand the two truths. You don't understand the difference between conventional and ultimate. And if you did, you would know that the only way that Buddhism works, the only way that dependent arising works is if you posit things as empty.

  • 19:54

    Do you see what I'm saying? So the procedure for reasoning and teaching young people how to reason in Gyalupa education system traces itself back not to Madhyamaka itself, but to... These logic and epistemology that was imported into Madhyamaka by Baba Viveka from basically what we would say like a Sautranika system or we would say a Buddhist realist system way of looking at the world. Okay, so then we come to Tsongkhapa. Tsongkhapa has, as I said yesterday, the genius to go back and look at all these texts and say people have missed the key thing.

  • 39:46

    So in other words, most Buddhists... Most people in the world who talk about everything's connected, most Buddhists who talk about dependent arising, they don't understand that in the context of and therefore everything is devoid of a shred of intrinsic nature even conventionally. They don't think that that's what it means at all. They think that things have some nature and that's what allows them to interconnect with each other. They can only hook up because they're already there.

  • 47:16

    It's related to this, that all things depend upon being designated or imputed by consciousness. Things don't just depend on their parts, they don't just depend on their cause and conditions, they also depend upon being designated, named, labeled, I guess is popular now, ascribed as X. Ascribe that identity. So this is the deepest meaning of dependent arising. In fact, when Nagarjuna says in 2418, you should read that verse, 2418, when he says meaning of dependent arising is emptiness, he then says, and this is what we call dependent imputation.

  • 52:14

    This is from the Great Trees. Take, for example, the case of a snake. That's been mistakenly ascribed to a rope. You can hear the audience yawning. God, here we go again. He must have a lot of problem with that.

0:00 A lot of what I've said has been interesting and helpful to people. When I say Bhava Viveka this and Chandrakiri that, people don't necessarily always understand everything about the history of Madhyamaka and who these people are, how their ideas relate to each other. I'm going to start with the quick sketch of Madhyamaka history. Report an error

0:03 that, um... Report an error

0:21 and that's going to lead into a short Clear explanation of the difference between the two types of Madhyamaka philosophically, mainly as presented from Tsongkhapa's point of view. Report an error

0:42 And this is actually a very complicated topic, but then that's going to set the stage for our big topic for today, which is what does it exactly mean for things to be empty? And if they're really empty in that sense, which I will explain, then how can they possibly work or function or how can we have any valid knowledge about them, which we've sort of alluded to but we haven't really dug into. Report an error

1:15 And that might give us more than enough for the morning, but then later today we'll either be finishing that up. And then going in to talk a little bit about the actual reasoning that's used in meditation. I'm thinking not, however, to focus on that a great deal. I will go through it and explain the structure of it and remind you of what the basic argument of lack of sameness and difference is. But I'm not going to let go into that in great detail. Report an error

1:45 Then I'll explain what Tsongkhapa thinks the union of... The union of the fifth and sixth perfections is really supposed to be, which is something that took me a long time to understand. And since I finally figured it out, I might as well tell somebody else before I die. I could die any moment. And as you know, if you've been practicing. And then if I'm short enough with those last two things, that'll leave time to tell you something else I've recently figured out, and that is how to read the Dalai Lama's last... Report an error

2:19 talk from the book Kindness, Clarity, Insight, in which he explains the relationship between Nygma and Galupa from his point of view as a Galupa. And it took me a long time to understand Okay, Report an error

2:46 that's the outline for today. History of Madhyamaka. So I thought I would just like to see if I could tell you what that said. It sort of relates to some of the questions about how to think about relationships between different religions or different sects within different chirluk, as we say in Tibetan, within Tibetan Buddhism. Report an error

2:49 Okay, so Mandiyamaka begins with Nagarjuna, you know, the second Buddha. Everybody acknowledges a great genius and I guess everybody thought he was such a great genius that there's like this long list of books that are authored by Nagarjuna that seemed to run all the way for 800 years after the first one. Report an error

3:10 So if you believe that he really wrote all his books then you have to follow the story about how he used superpowers to make himself live that long so he could write all those different kinds of books. And generally we think the sort of commonly agreed upon or commonly accepted idea that everybody agrees upon about Nagarjuna is that he wrote a book called the Mula Madhyamaka Karikas, where sometimes people call it different things in English, we'll say treatise on the middle way. Report an error

3:40 And most of this is a sort of systematic analytical deconstruction of all... The categories that Buddhist philosophers at that time thought were real and showing how when under ultimate analysis none of them are locatable. That would be a simple way. And then after he's done that for 23 chapters, then in the 24th he has an interlocutor say, gosh, you've destroyed the Four Noble Truths 23 times over now. Report an error

4:18 There's no way that we're going to have Buddhism. If what you say is true, you can't really be a Buddhist, right? And he says, well, that says you don't understand the two truths. You don't understand the difference between conventional and ultimate. And if you did, you would know that the only way that Buddhism works, the only way that dependent arising works is if you posit things as empty. Report an error

4:42 And this hasn't even dawned on you every time you talk about this thing or that thing or production or... You think there has to be something essentially grabbable, either the thing itself or something inside the thing. That's the basis of our being able to talk about the thing. Report an error

5:01 That's Nagarjuna. He wrote a bunch of other books besides that, but the core set, the collection of reasonings is along that line. Then he wrote other books too that were more giving people practical advice in the world about okay so okay that's Report an error

5:18 How to practice the other perfections and practice Buddhism. So it wasn't that he only and always wrote about emptiness. Which is, of course, then you have to say, well, if he really believed that everything was destroyed by emptiness, then why did he bother writing about all these other things? Clearly he didn't. And he had some way to posit from his own point of view all the rest of Buddhism because he taught about it. Okay, so Nagarjuna had a disciple during his lifetime. Report an error

5:43 This is the second century A.D. Second century, you know, CE, as we say, this second century. And he had a disciple during his lifetime named Aryadeva. Report an error

5:56 Aryadeva's famous book called The 400, which you can get in, you know, very nice translation with commentary from Geshe Sonam Rinchen, I think is right. Report an error

6:11 So then, you know, that's the second century. Madhyamaka's gotten started. It's not the big thing in Buddhism. There's a lot of other things going on. The Mahāyāna Sutras are appearing in the world, but Mahāyāna is probably initially a minority within Indian Buddhism. And then in the fifth century, you have the Indian intellectual. Report an error

6:38 The atmosphere, as I alluded to, is not that great on history, but is very strong on logic, epistemology, metaphysics and other things too, like drama, poetry and so forth, but astrology. Report an error

6:50 Logic and epistemology, like the philosophy of what it means to know something and how we use reason to sort out what is what, is a huge issue in Indian philosophy generally. The Jains have a very sophisticated system of logic. The Hindus had their logicians. And so the 5th century, the Buddhists had developed their great logical treatises, first Dignaga and then Dharmakirtis. Report an error

7:13 texts, including his commentaries on Dignaga. He explained what it means to know something. This isn't Madhyamaka, but I'm telling you anyway because it's important to the story. Because then the question becomes, when they lay this out, they're not laying it out. They're saying, this is what it means for a Buddhist to know something. This is what it means for a Buddhist to reason. Report an error

7:36 But they're doing it within the context of a Buddhist realist. Metaphysic, ontology, saying, well, what it means to know something is you have a valid mind that gets at an intrinsic character in the thing and certifies that that thing is that because it has such and such a quality or characteristic. You follow? So that was important because that was actually a big thing. Report an error

8:05 That was a big moment. It was a hot thing. In the history of Buddhism, to have Dhyanagam. I mean, Dharmakirti's writings are just like huge down to today and really important in Gyalukpa, even though it's not written at all from a Madhyamaka point of view. Report an error

8:24 So, then what's Madhyamaka going to do with that? Well, Buddhapalita came along shortly thereafter in the 6th century, we think, and he was a Madhyamaka who wrote his own commentaries on Nagarjuna. Well, on Nagarjuna's main text, the Madhyamaka Karikas. And he emphasized this idea of conventional knowledge. Report an error

8:53 He had this story. He said, well, it's like this. There were two villagers and they went into town. This is from Budapalita Commentary on Nagarjuna. There's two villagers and they go, they're just touring around. know, that... Report an error

9:09 And they go into the city, you know, it's not their village. They go into the city, the big city. So they're just tourists, really, going around the big city, seeing the sights. And they go in this temple and there's these two, you know, big statues. And then they start arguing. And one is saying, you know, that's Shiva and that one's Vishnu. Or maybe they don't point, you know, maybe they're just the one with the wheel, you know, because they're being more polite. Report an error

9:33 So then they're like, you know. Each thinks that one god is the opposite of what the other one thinks. And so then they don't have a way to resolve the argument, but then they see this yogi who's there and they say, Sir, which god is this and which god is that? And then the yogi answers them, not from his yogic point of view. Report an error

10:03 But within adopting the kind of perspective they have, he sorts it out for them. The one with the trident is Shiva. The one with the wheel is Vishnu. That guy's right. This guy's wrong. So he's not saying how he sees it. He's saying within the frame of reference that you guys are using to have this argument, I can tell you what you're trying to figure out, and there is within that frame of reference a right answer, and I'm going to tell you what it is. So that's what Buddhapalita says. He just says that kind of stuff, and he says, this is what Nagarjuna was trying to say, and he tells you, look, Nagarjuna is trying to prove that nothing has any kind of ultimate existence. Report an error

10:46 That's his position. He's trying to prove that nothing has any kind of ultimate existence, and he proves by showing that if it did, it would have to arise from itself or from another. Or from both or neither and none of those things works and so he's proving nothing has any ultimate existence. Well a lot of the things that he uses though are in the nature of kind of like these deconstructive consequences instead of just asserting the position like that. Report an error

11:13 So he'll say, well you guys, you know, it must be that this thing just keeps arising forever and ever because you say it arises from itself. Report an error

11:26 And he doesn't always come right out and say, and therefore it has no ultimate existence. It must be arising forever, because within your frame of reference it seems to exist. So then Bhaviveka lives right at the same time, right after Buddhapalita, the same century. And he says, you know, Buddhapalita was kind of a rube. Report an error

11:48 He didn't quite say it like that, but he's like old-fashioned. He doesn't really get it. We modern Buddhists rely on the logic of Dharmakirti. And this logic says you don't just state these contradictory consequences to people like these things must be produced forever. You have to always be very clear about what your thesis is and state your thesis to the other person. Report an error

12:13 You can't just be using these contradictory consequences. You have to assert what it is that you mean. He's very insistent upon that, that it's bad logical form, that you have to be saying what your claim is. And you have to therefore have an argument where all the parties in the argument, the person you're trying to prove to things to empty and the other person, can all look at what you're arguing about and say, okay, we're talking about a sprout. Report an error

12:39 You know, will this sprout be reproduced forever or not? And so they have to like, but you know, it's like both parties have to be able to look at that sprout and say, I have a valid knowledge of that sprout. You have a valid knowledge of that sprout. Now let's talk about whether it's going to be produced forever or not. So this is what Baba Viveka says is Buddhapolita with using all these absurd consequences kinds of arguments, which don't directly state. Report an error

13:05 What it is that Nagarjuna is trying to prove, that that's not the right way to do Buddhist logic. So just kind of leave it at that. And then shortly thereafter, the 7th century, first half of the 7th century most people think, Chandrakirti, you know, the moon rises. Chandra means moon, right? So famous as the moon, that's what Chandrakirti means. And Chandrakirti says that Buddhapalata was doing just fine. Report an error

13:35 In giving these contradictory consequences, there was no need for Bhava Viveka to attack him in that way. That it isn't at all as perfectly proper procedure for a Madhyamaka to do. It would appear more or less the way Nagarjuna did, actually, to just state these contradictory consequences to the other person without going all the way and say, things are empty because X, Y, Z. Report an error

14:01 But instead saying, oh, well, you know. You guys say that things are produced from themselves and that's why they're not empty. Or you say things are produced from something which is an essentially different nature from itself. And therefore, wouldn't it follow? So you could say, you know, since you say that things have their own intrinsic nature, wouldn't it follow that things would just be set up as that? Report an error

14:24 Permanently and on their own side without their needing to be interdependent with anything else. So you draw out absurd consequences of the other person's view without necessarily saying your own. So that's what Chandrakirti said. He said it quite forcefully, just as much as Baba Vekha took Buddhapalita apart, and Chandrakirti came back and sided with Buddhapalita. Report an error

14:51 Okay, so then you had, that's the important part for our story. There are whole much more Madhyamakas after that. Shantideva, you may have heard of the fellow, he was on the side of the Prasangakas, which we call the Prasangakas now, the Chandrakirti side. Atisha, who came to Tibet in the 11th century, seems to... Report an error

15:14 It's a little bit vague, but I've tracked down the passage where he says, you should follow Chandrakirti. So it's the tradition to say that he's a follower of Chandrakirti and there is some basis for it, although there can be a little ambiguity in some verses. And then on the other side, you had a whole bunch of other people who thought Chandrakirti was wrong. And with some modification of their own, we're more on the Baba Viveka side. Report an error

15:41 And those would include people like Shantarakshita, who I see James Blumenthal teaches some for FPMT. He's the expert on Shantarakshita. Gyanagarba and Kamala Shila, who also came to Tibet. And so you have Madhyamakas on each side of the issue coming down. So you have important Madhyamaka thinkers in India from the 2nd century to the 11th century. Report an error

16:07 That's it. Report an error

16:10 so. That's what we need to know about Madhyamaka in India. They agree that nothing ultimately exists, that everything is empty, nothing's findable when you analyze it, but they seem to be having a weird, sharp argument about how to formulate your arguments, whether the best way when you're arguing about somebody who disagrees with you about this emptiness is to draw out the absurd implications of their belief. Report an error

16:40 Or whether the best way is to state directly our position. So that's strange, you know, that is just like, but that's what people thought, well, you know, that's the kind of thing these scholars would do. We'll just get on with our practice. So, but that, right, so it was like that. And for a long time, the manyamaka that was known in Tibet was Svatantrika. Report an error

17:04 It was, that was the, until, until the 11th century and a Taoiseach. came and said, by the way, you guys should be following Chandrakirti. Then Chandrakirti was all translated into Tibetan. And that was then like the hot thing. We've got to figure out what, you know, Atisha said to follow Chandrakirti. What the heck does Chandrakirti mean? And then you had people having to sort out. Report an error

17:29 You know, what their understanding was. And some people who read Chandrakirti and tried to follow what they thought Chandrakirti was saying, as I've been explaining earlier classes, then were interpreting this in a way that could either be considered skeptical, that is, we have no view whatsoever, because that's what it means to be a Madhyamaka. Report an error

17:49 We have no thesis, we have no position, we have no view, because we wouldn't hold on to anything. Everything's empty. but... Report an error

18:01 We're going to say some words anyway, which aren't something we're advocating, but we'll choose our words to try to be helpful to you. So that was that position. That's how we should reach 100K. And then there were other people who would say, well, really all these analyses show that phenomena are posited by ignorance. Report an error

18:20 And to understand wisdom is realizing the non-existence of conventional phenomena. That was actually a position to just literally say that. Thongsakba was a Tibetan who was in the 12th century roughly, maybe into the 13th. And you're saying conventional phenomena do not exist. That's the meaning of wisdom. So you have some people who are going to what we say nihilistic extreme, some people who are just complete skeptics on the basis of their reading Chandrakirti. Report an error

18:51 Other people read Chandrakirti and they said... I don't think so. This is like negating too much. And we're going to stick with the old way of saying that you use logic the way Baba Viveka did and you try to understand the thesis and you try to prove that things are empty, but that doesn't destroy everything in the world. Report an error

19:13 And there was a guy like that, for example, who was named Chabachurgi Senge. And he basically... You know, took all of Dignaga and Dharmakirti's logic and kind of put it into how it could work in Tibetan. And he created the system that, you know, Tibetans use to debate. Like, you look, you know, have their whole system of education based on debate. And that way of setting up how to debate in Tibetan goes way back before Tsongkhapa to this guy Chabachurgi Senge. Report an error

19:41 And he was basing it on, you know, a... He was a svatantrika, that is, he was a follower of Baba Viveka's interpretation, and that means that all of that is kind of based in the end, traces back to Dharmakirti. Do you see what I'm saying? So the procedure for reasoning and teaching young people how to reason in Gyalupa education system traces itself back not to Madhyamaka itself, but to... Report an error

20:09 These logic and epistemology that was imported into Madhyamaka by Baba Viveka from basically what we would say like a Sautranika system or we would say a Buddhist realist system way of looking at the world. Okay, so then we come to Tsongkhapa. Tsongkhapa has, as I said yesterday, the genius to go back and look at all these texts and say people have missed the key thing. Report an error

20:38 And that is most of the time when Nagarjuna and Chandrakirti are saying this doesn't exist and that doesn't exist, if you find, you know, one place in 20 where they say, by the way, and what we mean by not exist is not inherently exist, then you have to understand that they don't want to repeat that 100,000 times. Report an error

20:58 They want the force of their argument to bang up against our innate ignorance, which mixes existence and inherent existence together and feel that it's like... It feels like your world is collapsing because you have been holding on to the world as inherently existent. So they don't add in that qualifier all the time. Report an error

21:16 But when people start to think, oh, you're destroying everything in the world, then sometimes you do get these little qualifying phrases. And so Tsongkhapa says, oh, you really understand and formulate their point of view. You have to go through and distinguish what's being refuted. As inherently exist or intrinsically exist, and what they're saying doesn't exist at all. Some intrinsic nature in things by which they're set up on their own side doesn't exist at all. Report an error

21:42 Tables and chairs and people and suffering and Buddhas and the Four Noble Truths, these things exist, but not intrinsically at all. Even conventionally they don't have a shred of intrinsic existence, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. That's the core. Report an error

22:00 And then once he had that insight as the foundation, then he could do all those other moves that I was talking about yesterday and saying that when we see something, it's always deceived about the fundamental way that things exist, but still always giving us useful, valuable information about other things. Report an error

22:20 Unless we're on drugs or we're hearing an echo and so forth, you have these other kinds of... It's extraneous or circumstantial things that are causing it to be distorted at another level as well. And then this other insight of saying that when you look for what something ultimately is and say, what is this really? Report an error

22:44 And you come to the end of that search. that that the lack Lack of finding anything at that time doesn't mean that nothing exists. It means that nothing exists in such a way as to be findable when you ask that question, what is the very essence of this thing? Report an error

23:02 You know, when you say, what is this really? That's like saying, what is its essential character? So you're searching, just to say, what is it really in search for its fundamental mode of existence means you're looking for an essence or an intrinsic nature within it whereby it can be established. On its own terms. And that is utterly unfindable. That doesn't exist. But that doesn't refute the object. It just refutes the object that is existing in such a way as to be found when you look for it in that kind of way, as I was talking about yesterday. Report an error

23:30 So those insights spring from the fundamental idea of we never see, it never appears to our eyes that intrinsic existence and existence, like we don't know what existence looks like without intrinsic existence. We don't know what it looks like. It doesn't appear to us that way. It never appears to us that way. But we can make an analytic. So that's why I said we're ontologically colorblind. Report an error

23:55 But nonetheless, you can figure out. You're just ontologically colorblind. I mean, you can't figure out the difference between red and green, you know, in practical, how to work in the world. So you know you can understand that there's a difference. It's just not something that you're capable of perceiving. So one of the things that Tsongkhapa did, okay, It was he deduced that Baba Veika's whole trip about why Budapalita was so wrong wasn't just an academic argument about how to make arguments. Report an error

24:36 There was more behind it. That implicitly, that because Baba Veika thought... That you could sit down with somebody who believes that things are truly existent, that things are ultimately real. And you as a Madhyamaka could try to argue with them about the sprout in a directly way. I'll say, this sprout does not ultimately exist because it's a dependent arising. Let's say that's our Baba Viveka argument. Report an error

25:09 This sprout doesn't inherently exist because... It's a dependent horizon. That's like the kind of thing that we would say. Well, okay, that's the kind of thing Baba Viveka says to the Buddhist realists. And it's like Chandrakirti is looking at, Tsongkhapa interprets Chandrakirti's criticism of that and he says, look, you can't, the reason Buddhapalita was right and you're wrong to insist on that kind of approach is that when the person who believes that, believes in, Ultimate existence hears you. They'll say, okay, there's a sprout, by which we mean, of course, a spout that really exists because otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it. Report an error

25:51 And they'll say, that sprout that really exists doesn't really exist. You have to put brackets because you're thinking, well, how does the realist look at it? There's a sprout. You already said it. There's a real sprout. Okay, now you're saying that real sprout isn't a real sprout because it's dependent rising. It just contradicts. A is not A. Report an error

26:08 Because, well, whatever you put is because it doesn't matter. You've already contradicted yourself. As soon as he says there's something, then you can't just say that there isn't that thing. So that's the way the realist is going to hear that argument. You say a sprout is not ultimately exist. Wait a minute, you just said it existed. So this is a Chandra, you know, he's like saying that's the way people are going to hear that argument. Report an error

26:29 So you, you, you, Baba Veika was not no dummy. He must have understood that, that. When we're getting people warmed up to understand that there's a difference between something being ultimately real and something just merely existing, he must have understood that there was a... Why wouldn't he have understood this? That that's not sort of a helpful logical procedure. This is all in the great treatise. Report an error

26:59 So why wouldn't he have understood that? Well, the reason he didn't understand it... It's because he believes that the appearance of things from their own side as having their own intrinsic character is okay conventionally. That is, essentially, he agrees with Dignaga and Dharmakirti at the conventional level. Report an error

27:16 Sure, ultimately none of this stuff is findable, but conventionally when we're talking about the sprout, we have the same kind of sense consciousness that's looking at the sprout and saying, yeah, there's a sprout, now we both know what we're arguing about. That's his argument of saying, well, Baba Vika never comes out and says, I accept inherent existence conventionally. Report an error

27:39 He doesn't say that. But when he says, I refute inherent existence or there's no intrinsic nature, he always puts in ultimately. And from that, it's deduced by Tsongkhapa that he really does accept that things have intrinsic nature at the conventional level. Which then Tsongkhapa's way of saying, well, that means that they have intrinsic nature. When you ultimately search, that's not findable. But he's trying to claim there's such a thing as a conventionally existent intrinsic nature. Report an error

28:09 And that's how you know what is what, and that's how you can argue with the realists. So now I've taught you the hardest thing that there is, really. And people just go, and I know maybe you didn't get it all, but you've been exposed. Maybe the simplest version that has been done of a really complicated topic. It's called, in Tibetan, Chichan Tunangwa. Report an error

28:38 It's a commonly appearing subject. How Tsongkhapa proves that Baba Viveka doesn't have the right philosophical view. It's not just about argumental procedure. So Tsongkhapa goes on to say, yeah, of course, we have theses, we have positions. We will say the Sprout... Does not ultimately exist or the sprout does not inherently exist because it's the dependent arising. But we don't go around thinking that it's extremely important to state that to someone to whom it makes no sense whatsoever because it sounds like a direct contradiction. Report an error

29:11 We understand that it's more skillful because they'll see that as a direct contradiction to start out by using a little bit of, let's say, reductio ad absurdum. To get, you know, say, well, you know, this thing must be permanent because you say it has some intrinsic nature without depending on anything else. This thing must be permanent. This school building must, you know, last forever because, you know, it's not here by way of causing conditions. Report an error

29:35 It's here by way of some intrinsic nature it has on its own side. So just say like that, you know, don't say this real school building is not real. You know, that's how it'll sound to them when you just sort of state directly what it is you're trying to say. So anyway, so that's topic number one. Well, we did history of Madhyamaka now, and we did also the difference between Svatantrika and Prasangaka. Report an error

30:04 So now we come to sort of a little transition into the big topic. If the cup and the cow, according to Chandrakirti, according to Tsongkhapa, according to the way they read Nagarjuna, if they're not established as different, By some distinctive nature that each possesses on some uncommon way of existing, a cow way of being and a cup way of being on their own side, even conventionally, if they don't have any intrinsic nature that allows them to be set up on their own side, even conventionally, then how are we supposed to know which one is which? Report an error

30:45 And how do we know if somebody says that this is a cow? How do we know that that's wrong if there's no intrinsic nature in the thing even conventionally? Report an error

31:00 Yeah. Okay. All the Madhyamakas agree that when you say, what is this ultimately? And you go and you search and you say, among the parts, among the collection of parts, apart from the collection of parts, in the shape of the parts, in anything that you can imagine. You know, that relates to that or doesn't. And you search and you search for, okay, how can we pin down, locate or point out what it is ultimately that you don't find anything. Report an error

31:35 Baba Viveka says that, all the, you know, Shantirekshita says that, Chandrakirti, they all agree that nothing's ultimately findable and that's what I mean by emptiness. They all agree. And people like Chandrakirti and Tsongkhapa, Shantideva, Atisha would say, Yeah, and that's what it means to say that things don't have any essence or intrinsic nature because if they did, we'd find it when we went and searched that way. Report an error

32:01 It's the same thing. The lack of intrinsic nature is the same as lack of ultimate existence. If something had some intrinsic being of its own that was the way that it existed, that's just the thing that we would find when we ask the question, how is it ultimately, how is it really, how is it most deeply existing? Report an error

32:19 We'd come to that. Cowness of the cow. I got it. That little handle, you know, the cow, calling cow in relation to a cow tail and all these other bits that are, but what's the inner cowness of the cow? And we would get to that inner cowness and then, you know, and so we say, right, it's like saying that something is not ultimately findable when you search for it is the same thing as saying something doesn't have an intrinsic nature. Report an error

32:50 But some people say, no, no, no, no, no. When you don't look, when you don't search, when you don't ask the question, things work just fine. Well, we agree. And they say, well, why do they work just fine when you don't look, when you don't ask? Why do they work just fine? They work just fine because conventionally, when you're not looking for what they are ultimately, each has its own distinctive nature. And that's what sets it up and establishes it. Report an error

33:21 As that. Not asking what the cup is ultimately, but just at the conventional level, the cup has its cupness and the cow has its cowness. Report an error

33:32 Yeah. That's Baba Viveka. That's what Svatantrika says. So doesn't that seem right? Don't you feel that that's right? It's like I feel, yeah. You know, there's a lot of, okay, just like I'd say, you know, we don't all have to think, oh. Tsongkhapa followed Chandrakirti, so I must immediately shoehorn every bit of my brain into agreeing with it. I was like, let's play with this. Report an error

33:59 I mean, don't you, I listened to this and I think, that seems exactly right. That's what we, it's true, things are ultimately unfindable, but how do I know my way around? It's because just without investigating, ultimately, I know what the character of different things is. They have their own distinctive character. Report an error

34:17 That I'm not making up, right? It's not like I'm just hallucinating this is one thing and that's... Like, how do we find our way? How do we not bump into each other? Report an error

34:28 You know, we're all having almost exactly the same mass hallucination. If nothing has any intrinsic character apart from our minds, nothing has any intrinsic character on its own side, even conventionally, then do you see what I'm saying? Like, how do we... Yeah. It's a good position. It's a really good position. I just want, you know, you should take it seriously and, you know, mess around with it. Report an error

34:52 I'm not saying, you know, like, you have to think about, it doesn't really do any good to just say, oh, that one must be bad because Thongkhapa refuted it. You have to, like, think about, well, why, what's the strength of the argument and how can, you know, what's the best argument to meet that argument? Report an error

35:10 And there are people who are swatantrikas. One of my teachers told me that of all the main types of Buddhist philosophy, you know, Chittamatra, Vaibhashaka, Sautranika and Madhyamaka and then the different types of Madhyamaka including, you know, Bhavaveika's way, like it's called Svatantrika and our way is Prasangika. Report an error

35:31 All these different types of philosophies, they're all found in all the different orders of Tibetan Buddhism. That's what he said. And I was like, well, I'm still looking for my first Nyingma Vaibhashaka. But the thing is, it's like the point is not that you can easily find instances of all these things. Report an error

35:50 The point is that, you know, being a member of a certain Dharma club, right, or sect, you know, Dharma system, or being affiliated to or attached to or aligned with that or in its lineage. Doesn't automatically mean that your mind has understood or is like automatically perfectly compatible with whatever the person in that lineage has said is the highest view. Report an error

36:18 You have to actually work these things through yourself and you know there's like 84,000 remedies in Dr. Buddha's pharmacy and that's because we have a lot of different kinds of minds, a lot of different kinds of sicknesses and you know the people who have constipation. You know, need different kind of medicine than the people who have diarrhea. And it really doesn't help to give them all the same medicine. That's what's one of the things that's great, right, about Buddhism. Report an error

36:46 That's the way I look at it. I don't look at it like, mine's the best and therefore you should take it. Giving your prescription medicine out to other people. I swear this one really works, dude. Report an error

37:04 Yeah. So, did I answer that? Yeah. Okay. Now. If a cup and a cow are not established as different because of some distinctive nature, even conventionally, without going to look for what they are ultimately, it seems you could see that people would feel that's going a bit over the edge. How do we know what is what? Okay, now this is what we come to. This is what I'm going to try to tell you. This relates to Chapter 7 in Introduction to Emptiness, and I'll look a little bit at that. Report an error

37:41 So So if we say – we could say school buildings, if they existed by way of their own intrinsic nature, then they wouldn't have to depend on causes and conditions. That's true. You can then say, gosh, it seems like these things – Report an error

38:08 If they had some intrinsic nature as they're appearing to me, they would just be set up by way of that and they wouldn't depend on anything and they wouldn't be changing. Why does that work as a kind of way to probe into our minds? It's because it's a lot easier to realize that they depend on causes and conditions than it is to realize that they're empty of intrinsic nature. And that's why it works. Report an error

38:30 And it's easier for us to just look at the building and start thinking about its cause and conditions, and that gets us started on starting to contradict our fundamental ignorance. But the thing is that even if you realize, yeah, these things are really dependent on risings in the sense that they're coming from cause and conditions, it doesn't mean you've realized emptiness. Report an error

38:48 Because emptiness is not simply the fact that things are impermanent or the fact that things depend on other things. So it's not... So there's dependent arising in the sense of depending on causes. If we realize that things are depending on causes, it doesn't mean that we've realized emptiness necessarily. Report an error

39:09 So what's another kind of dependent? That's the most common way of talking about dependent arising, right, is causes and conditions. But just knowing that things depend on causes and conditions doesn't mean we've realized emptiness. Lots of people, as I was talking about before... You know, all Buddhists teach dependent arising, right? They all think that, yeah, this is what Buddhists said, dependence on this, that arises. It's like, yeah. Report an error

39:30 So this must be, got some real thing going on because it's got the power to produce that. Do you see what I'm saying? I mean, the whole idea that things are related to each other is because each of these things has something real about itself that allows it to make these connections. So in other words, most Buddhists... Report an error

39:48 Most people in the world who talk about everything's connected, most Buddhists who talk about dependent arising, they don't understand that in the context of and therefore everything is devoid of a shred of intrinsic nature even conventionally. They don't think that that's what it means at all. They think that things have some nature and that's what allows them to interconnect with each other. They can only hook up because they're already there. Report an error

40:13 That's the idea. so... Okay, so that's one, just understanding dependent arising in terms of causes and conditions is not the same as understanding emptiness. What about, there's another kind of meaning of dependent arising. And we know dependent arising is supposed to have the same meaning as emptiness because Nagarjana 20, chapter 24, verse 18 of the Karikas says these two things have the same import. Report an error

40:37 That's the middle way. That narrow ridge of the middle way that leads out of the canyon, that's understanding that dependent arising and emptiness, the profound emptiness are the same thing. Report an error

40:48 So what else does dependent arising mean besides things arising from causes and conditions? It can mean that things depend, that clumps of stuff depends on their parts. There's a relationship between parts and holes, and particularly it's easy for us to understand that holes are made out of parts and they depend on their parts. And the parts are right there at the same time as them, so that's not what we ordinarily call a cause. Report an error

41:12 But they're not there without their parts. So there's a kind of, they say in Western philosophy, they call it myriological dependence, which doesn't mean anything other than what I just said. It's like things depend upon their parts. That's dependent arising too, in Madhyamaka way of talking. So there's not just causes and conditions, there's also dependence on parts. Report an error

41:37 But that's not – so people say, oh, yeah, things depend on parts. But then there's like – in early Buddhist philosophy, they say, yeah, that's true. We have this false conception of a person, but it's based on these little tiny point instance of experience. Like when I meditate in Vipassanā, then we get down to the smallest noticeable experience. And that's the real stuff there. There's like nothing that you can go down farther than the smallest noticeable thing or the smallest bit. Report an error

42:05 There's a smallest bit. Everybody's going, no, there's no smallest bit. But I don't think we believe in smallest bits anymore. But it used to be people thought, obviously, there has to be a smallest bit. And that's why the smallest moment of experience, smallest bit of matter, those are the real things. And then everything else is just made up out of those real things. Report an error

42:27 So it's like, of course, the table's made up. We understand it's made up. It's made up of something, and we know what that is. It's a little tiny dharma. They use the word dharma with a small d in English, but of course in Sanskrit, they can't tell if the d is capitalized or not. It's the same word. It's a little tiny dharma. It's like, little tiny thing. It's like, oh, it's these little tiny things. Then Mahāyāna philosophers come along and they say, well, oh, these little tiny things, how tiny are they? Report an error

42:56 Do they take up any space or not? Take up a little bit of space. Oh, so then they've got an east side and a west side. Well, we can't see anything like that. I know you can't see it, but if it takes up any space, it doesn't have to have an east side and a west side. Report an error

43:12 If it doesn't have an east side and a west side, then it's got parts. Even if you can't see them, even if you can't find them, it's got to have parts, so it's made out of its parts, right? So it's not irreducible. So then the people who think things have to be made out of parts are going, okay. We're not going to be able to work with those parts taking up any space. So we're going to have to make things out of parts that take up no space. So they got like directionally partless particles. Report an error

43:34 These particles are so small, they take up no space whatsoever. And so they went with this. That's called vaibashaka. Went with this. By everything I mean all material stuff. When you're talking about experience, that's also made out of temporally partless. Report an error

43:53 They take up no time. Report an error

43:59 So if you have something that takes up no space, Report an error

44:06 then you can see everybody laughs. It's like, well, how's that going to work? How many of them is it going to take to make a cup? How much is it going to take to make an atom? You can't make anything. But, you know, now. Report an error

44:02 just easier. It's the same thing with space and time. So we'll just do space. Report an error

44:21 When you start putting them together to make something, then the Asanga and Vasubanda, you know, the same. When you guys, in Vaivashi, you start putting this stuff together, do they touch each other? These particles that take up no space, do they touch each other? And if they say, yeah, they touch each other, then it's like if they touch each other and they have no space, then they're in the same space. Report an error

44:46 You know, because they can't touch the east side of a particle that has no east side and west side. As soon as it touches it, boom. They're right together. So then you have like 10 quadrillion of them and it still takes up no space at all because they're all in exactly the same space. So you haven't built anything yet. Report an error

45:02 So the Kashmiri subgroup of the Vaibhashikas said, eh, that's not going to work. We have to go directionally partless with our tiny bits, but we can't have them like touching each other. So they say there's directionally partless particles, but they're glued together by space in between them. So that was their system. That's what they went with. So anyway, that's sort of a history of building things out of parts a little bit in Buddhist philosophy. Report an error

45:33 So there's an idea that we would say there's no irreducible part of things in time, of experience in time. There's no irreducible bit of stuff that you can ever come to and point out. You might have measuring instruments that are introspective. meditative measuring instruments for experience or physical measuring instruments that are very powerful for stuff. But then, you know, whatever you come down to, you still run. Report an error

46:03 So, um... can't find anything smaller, but anything's made out of it, it seems like it has to have some extension in space or time. Okay. So. Report an error

46:17 Then, what does dependent arising mean if neither of those, just to understand that things are made out of parts, doesn't make us understand emptiness either. We can realize that things are made out of parts, things depend on their parts, and still, and that's, we realize that meaning of dependent arising. Report an error

46:35 It's like, you know, a lot of people will say, you know, I understand that the table depends on its parts, and it appears to us in a gross whole way, but it doesn't really exist that way. Well, they haven't necessarily understood emptiness. It's good to think about because the gross sense of the table as some substantial thing that's just there is being worked on. Report an error

46:58 I mean, it's not that it's bad to do that, right? It's good to do that. But it doesn't get at the root of cyclic existence, which is a fundamental misconception of how things exist. So what is the actual object of negation is this third meaning of dependent arising. It's related to this, that all things depend upon being designated or imputed by consciousness. Things don't just depend on their parts, they don't just depend on their cause and conditions, they also depend upon being designated, named, labeled, I guess is popular now, ascribed as X. Report an error

47:43 Ascribe that identity. So this is the deepest meaning of dependent arising. In fact, when Nagarjuna says in 2418, you should read that verse, 2418, when he says meaning of dependent arising is emptiness, he then says, and this is what we call dependent imputation. He calls it the middle way. The union of dependent arising and emptiness is the middle way. Report an error

48:11 In the same verse he says, and this is dependent imputation. So you understand there that when he says dependent arising is emptiness, he doesn't say, he's not meaning the fact that things arise from causes is emptiness. Report an error

48:23 I don't know why I laughed, but it just seems like kind of obvious that it has to be something other than that because people can figure that out pretty quickly. Report an error

48:33 It means dependent arising in the sense of things being designated by minds or depending on consciousness. So this is where it gets interesting. Report an error

48:43 If the subtle meaning of dependent arising is things exist only in dependence upon being named or imputed or designated by consciousness, then really what emptiness means is things lack of having their own way of existing without being posited through the force of consciousness. That is, their lack of being dependent arisings in that precise and subtlest sense. This is on page 70 in Introduction to Emptiness. Report an error

49:12 And it comes right out of, just right out of the great treatise. I mean, I'm just saying these are Tsongkhapa's words. That's the innate root. You know, we have all these different kinds of ignorance, but the innate root of sickly existence is the concept that things have some way of existing, have their own way of existing without being posited through the force of consciousness. Report an error

49:34 That's what we mean by intrinsic nature. Intrinsic nature means some way that the thing has on its own side of being what it is without the mind being involved. So I've said the words. Now we have to do a whole bunch of examples to try to figure out what this means. So the easy example to start with we already did is drawing the letter A up on the board. Report an error

49:58 And people like just feeling that that's, you would draw the letter A, then people just like naturally feel that that's an A and that it's coming from that side. It has some character of being an A and they're just passively receiving that message, that information from that side. But then people can stop to understand. Report an error

50:18 Especially easy since that's just like a convention of language, right, to have a letter. That this is something that has been made up, that we've agreed to, and that we've all gone A. And it doesn't have any intrinsic character on its own side that, you know, establishes it as that, but it's established on the basis of convention. Okay? So, yeah, we can think about that. Report an error

50:40 That could be like, that's a way to think about it. This is a common kind of example. Jeffrey uses that in his book, The Tantric Distinction, very well. Um, then Then another example. When Geshe-Rapton was on retreat meditating on emptiness and trying to realize it in a very contemplative way with regard to himself and how he existed, he brought to mind the idea of whether the I that he so strongly clings to in fact exists in just the same way as a hundred rupee note, a ten dollar bill or something like that. Report an error

51:19 I'm saying. It's like there's all these different pieces of paper but we strongly feel something about this one but that's on the basis of it having been designated or ascribed that and not because of some intrinsic character on the side of the object. Report an error

51:38 I don't know, I really like that. Those are good ways to start thinking about it and I use those in the book. But in the book, Introduction to Emptiness. But now I want to look at what exactly how Tsongkhapa explains this. And this is just one of my favorite passages. It's a little bit strange. I like it because it starts with a total philosophically cliche and then just does something totally different that you don't expect. Report an error

52:14 This is from the Great Trees. Take, for example, the case of a snake. That's been mistakenly ascribed to a rope. You can hear the audience yawning. Report an error

52:26 God, here we go again. He must have a lot of problem with that. Report an error

52:34 Now, while we're still yawning, J. Rinpoche, if we leave aside how it's imagined from the perspective that apprehends a snake and try to analyze what the snake itself is like in terms of its own nature, its features, we can't begin to analyze them. Inasmuch as the snake is simply not present on the side of the object. Okay. And then it's similar like that with all phenomena. Report an error

53:03 It's not just like that in the case of things that people are stupidly imagining, you know, to be something other. It's like that with all things. Suppose we just leave aside analysis of how things appear, how they appear to a conventional awareness. I'm actually reading Tsongkhapa. Leave aside how they appear to conventional awareness. We go over on the side of the object and analyze the objects in and of themselves. Say, what's the manner of being of these phenomena out there? Report an error

53:34 We find that there's not established in any way. And ignorance is precisely that mind which does not view it in that way or views it in the opposite. It apprehends each phenomena as having its own way of being, its own manner of being. So that it could be understood in and of itself without being posited through the force of consciousness. To bracket out everything about how any mind sees the thing, there should be something there that makes it what it is on its own side. Report an error

54:09 Right? That's what he says. That's a brilliant passage, this whole idea of setting aside the framework of any perspective. If there's some intrinsic nature in the thing, we should be able to set aside all perspectives and go on an exploration outside of mind to find the character of the thing itself on its own side. Report an error

54:33 So I don't know, another example to sort of think about the problematic nature of that. I'm going to have more examples, but another example is Thinking about a rainbow, right? Rainbows exist and they exist in dependence upon light and certain atmospheric conditions with water, right? Report an error

55:00 But they only exist from a perspective. You can't just like go, you know, it depends on where you're standing, whether there's a rainbow. It's like who's looking from where, with what kind of eyes, when. a rainbow. Report an error

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55:15 And not just like what collection of stuff you have out there on the side. And now everybody agrees that rainbows exist, but everybody just sort of, I don't know, understands that it's like you can't call up your friend and say, Report an error

55:34 yeah, the rainbow may not be there, you know, even if they can see the same piece of sky, if they're looking at it from a different point of view. There is no rainbow. Who's right? No, I'm right. There's a rainbow. I'm looking at the same piece of sky you're looking at, so you should be seeing it. No, it's not seeing it because the object requires the point of view. Report an error

55:59 Then you have to think about what's this literally saying. Report an error

56:06 Maybe it means you can think, or they're saying, well, things must have some intrinsic character on their own side. it... Report an error

56:13 Otherwise, how will we know what's what? But unfortunately, it's just a problem of our situation that we can't seem to get outside of our own skin and go around to the side of the object and check. Report an error

56:27 I think that's what Kant thought. This is my interpretation of Kant. It's like, yeah, there's a real world out there and these things have character, but there's no way we can ever know what it is because we're not... We don't have a god power to, like, go outside our limited perspective and go around behind inside the object itself and check on that. Report an error

56:46 We're always, like, seeing the object from a point of view within a certain framework. But that doesn't, you know, it still has something that's intrinsic to it, but we're just not going to be able to figure out what it is. Report an error

57:00 I think that, you know, I don't know if I'm saying Kant and Bobby Baker are the same, but I think it's a little bit like that. I mean, Bobby Baker believes that... That the mind, he does believe the mind's involved in establishing things, but it has to establish things. Like in Bababeke, there's a collaboration, there's an uncommon mode of subsistence, that's his phrase, a unique distinctive way of existing, an intrinsic character that's there on the side of the object. Report an error

57:31 And in collaboration with a non-crazy mind, that's what makes X to be X. in a tantric way. There's a collaboration. Report an error

57:38 Do you see what I'm saying? He's not just saying that it's all on the object side, but there has to be some intrinsic character on the object that makes our mind right when it says this. That's sort of like a Kant way, maybe. It's not Chandrakirti's way. He's going to have to say what's right and what's wrong without putting any intrinsic nature, even conventionally, on the side of the object. Report an error

58:17 Well, maybe this is a good time to ask something that's been confusing me for years. I was told a story in some Dharma class, and I believe it comes from Scripture, but I'm not sure what the Scripture is, so I may get the story slightly wrong. But two Arhats are sitting under a tree, and they're sitting there for hours not saying anything to each other. Report an error

58:40 And then one of them looks over at the other one and says, they call that a tree. And they both break out and laughing uproariously for a few minutes and then they go silent and then they just sit there again. So that seems to imply that both of them are perceiving something. Report an error

59:02 And I'm thinking, well, there's two ways of looking at it. One is they have a dualistic side and a non-dualistic side. So they're looking at it from the dualistic side and they can see the tree because this is the common collective karma of everybody and that's a tree. Report an error

59:17 Are they seeing the same thing when they're not in their dualistic side? What is it they see? Do they see anything if they're looking at it through their non-dualistic side? And that comes back to, is there a consciousness required to impugn something upon that tree-ness there? Or is there nothing there, but they only see the tree when they're looking through the collective karma of the beings around them? Report an error

59:41 Okay. Maybe that's a little bit ahead. I think we'll... We'll get to things that will address that better in just a few minutes. But first let me say that in the Prasanghika system there are external objects. Report an error

1:00:03 So I think that relates to part of what you're saying is like there's nothing there. It's like mind only says that everything is of one nature with the mind and the reason we have trouble is because we mistakenly think that things are a different entity from the mind. That's a chitta matra system. In prasangika and in some forms of the other side of Madhyamaka, including Baba Viveka, they forcefully disagree with that, say that there is an external world. Report an error

1:00:38 And so when I ascribe A or cup, when I make this... You know, imputation and then, you know, perceive things in that way. It's on the, there's a basis of imputation. And there are external, and there's matter, okay, that exists in Prasanga. One of my teachers, you know, because I was so fixed on this idea, yeah, it's like, okay, we got matter. Report an error

1:01:10 We got external objects, you know, getting closer to the way I think the world really is. And then he said, yeah, but you shouldn't think that things are made out of matter. Report an error

1:01:19 What is good for them? What do you mean? Things aren't made out of matter, even though there is matter? No, because things are constituted as imputations by thought, imputations by consciousness. But the consciousness has to be making this imputation a relationship to something. There's always a basis of imputation. Report an error

1:01:44 Matter is not always the base of imputation, right? Sometimes it's consciousness and sometimes it's a collection that includes both, such as in the case of imputing a person, right? So it has to be – I'm not going to fully answer your question right now, but to say like the other thing you could think about – I mean this relates to what you hear when I talk about channel A and channel B. Report an error

1:02:02 The Arhats go over to channel B. Let's just say this is what's happening. The Arhats go over to channel B. They see everything is empty. Then when they come back to channel A – Report an error

1:02:12 Being Arhats, things are still appearing to them. It appears to them in that way, but they utterly disbelieve that it exists as it appears, that it appears to them as though it had some intrinsic nature that then was established on that side. Yet that's just the way, like when I look in the mirror, it looks like there's a man in there with me. Report an error

1:02:35 But I don't give it a second thought. If I were with some kids who thought there was a man in the mirror, then I would laugh at them. Report an error

1:02:46 Do you see what I'm saying? And it's like that. It looks like there's an intrinsically existing tree that I'm not participating in. But yeah, there's something there. There's something there. But they don't believe that it exists as it appears. We would say that from our point of view, it's like, yeah, what's there is a tree. Report an error

1:03:07 But it's a tree because we call it a tree. We designate a tree in relationship to that. Now, let me finish this and then you can get a second one. All right. So, I'm happy that you're unsatisfied with that because I think that it's not supposed to be easy to understand. Now, I might have mentioned that... Report an error

1:03:35 I'll tell my own story. Everybody knows this one, baby. The mind-only people, they're trying to prove there's no external world. They say, I can prove there's no external world for you. This is our top-of-the-line mind-only argument. You have a god and a ghost, a hungry ghost, preta, and a human, and they go down to the river, and all of them have good eyesight. Report an error

1:03:59 And they look and the human sees water and the god sees it streaming with the most delicious nectar that can be possibly conceived. And the ghost sees it streaming with pus and blood. So none of them have anything wrong with their vision. Report an error

1:04:20 So in some sense they all have to be right. And so I hear this story, I just want to say, yeah, and I know which one too. Those other people have some funky karma, but of course that's just a joke, right? I mean, it's like there's no way you can say that that's species-centric or something, realm-centrism. Report an error

1:04:46 There's no reason that our... Our way of seeing it has more superior to this. So the Chirinamatra put this argument because this is what proves that there's not really anything out there apart from the mind. So the Prasangikas, Chandrakirti and his lineage, they have to take on this thing. And it's like, well, each being is correctly perceiving something different. Report an error

1:05:13 And they're correctly, in the Prasangik way, they're correctly imputing. different. They're correctly designating something different in relationship to the basis of imputation. Report an error

1:05:31 I'm going to come to that. He said if there are no beings, there would be any river. And I said, I'm coming to it. I'm coming to it. First we have to think about these beings, the god, the ghost, and the human go to the river. So when they go to the river, what they're saying is that each of them is right, but they're each right from their own point of view. Report an error

1:05:52 And so we feel like there's some Already real world out there that's kind of waiting to be revealed what things naturally are from their own side as our mind turns to them. But it's like each thing is an imputation by consciousness. Then you start to get this idea. I'm going to answer that question very directly. Report an error

1:06:14 But you start to get this feeling that what they mean is everything is a mere imputation by consciousness. Then we would ask our teachers this question, a tree falls in the woods, and it's like, okay, what about the Big Bang? Of course, we don't have the Big Bang Buddhist cosmology, but it's the same. Report an error

1:06:31 What about that tree falling in the woods? Okay, so if there's no being there to impute that as a tree at that time, then what? Report an error

1:06:40 Okay, so different Galupa scholars give different answers, and I'll tell you a few of the answers, and then I'll tell you what I think is the right one from my teachers. But other teachers have said different things. Okay, so some people will say, well, what do you mean? There's no mind there. There's always mind noticing everything. Report an error

1:07:00 You don't believe in Buddha? That's a front-line answer, okay? You may like it. I don't like it. But whatever, I'll tell you. That's an answer. Another answer is, well, it's just... The fact that there's always some sentient being everywhere noticing everything. I'm like, I don't really think so. There's so many sentient beings. Some of them are invisible. They're seeing all kinds of things. Now, that's like a little uncomfortable. Then there's another one that's a little bit better, but I still am not, I don't know, not sure about it. Report an error

1:07:45 And this is, I heard this one, and I've heard some geishis give this answer, and then I've heard other geishis say that's ridiculous. And that's this. Look, everything is merely imputed by thought. Everything is mere designation by consciousness, but when you analyze and try to pin down what it means for something to exist as mere designation by consciousness, you're doing ultimate analysis of the process of design... Report an error

1:08:06 Dependent arising, like everything else, is merely conventionally existent. It doesn't hold up under the process of ultimate analysis. When you say, what is dependent arising really, it's just like saying, what is the cup really? And of course you're not going to come to any graspable answer that will satisfy you. And therefore what you're realizing, you're getting a glimpse of the ungraspability of dependent arising itself when you try to pin down exactly what it is the mind that's doing the imputing is. Report an error

1:08:32 Not buying it. I don't know. I was like, I'm sort of, I kind of like was half buying that one for a while. I'm not really, not really content with it. Report an error

1:08:45 Okay, so here's the answer that I'm going with. What does it mean to say that things are mere imputations by thought in my way? And I'll tell you my basis for this in the tradition. But what it means is it does not mean that there has to be something there each moment watching each thing saying that's that. Report an error

1:09:04 That's not what it means. That's not what it means. So when I asked my teacher in Indi-Geshi Peltan Takpa, what does it mean that things are imputed by thought? He just said that. It doesn't mean that there's a thought there at each moment. It's just describing the measure or limit. It's tse in Tibetan, like tse of tsema. Report an error

1:09:23 That's the measure or limit of how real things are. I couldn't get anything else out of him. I didn't understand what he meant. And then Ann Klein asked, and this is published in the book Path to the Middle. Report an error

1:09:42 Tree falls in the forest. And he says, when we sleep, there are many things that we do not see, and those things are posited by the mind. Whether phenomena are seen or unseen at that time, they nonetheless fulfill the measure of being posited by the mind. It's not essential that there be a mind present at each moment, positing X as X in order for X to be X. Report an error

1:10:07 So external causes and conditions function, but when you try to say, What are they? Then you have to do that from a point of view. You can't get out, you can't, you know, so it's like causes and conditions gave rise to something. Well, when we go back and try to say what were those causes and conditions, we can say some things. But we're always saying it from a point of view, from a perspective, right? Report an error

1:10:39 There didn't have to be like a mind watching every instant of everything happening. But whenever you try to say what is happening, what was happening, what happened when I wasn't there, then you always have to say that from a point of view. It always has to be something that's designated from the mind, from your particular point of view. It can't be a point of view-less description of history or cosmology or... Report an error

1:11:06 How dependent arising works or anything. Things always have to be positive within how a certain kind of mind, and you use the phrase collective karma, which comes from chitta mantra. Report an error

1:11:20 This isn't the idea here, but that gives you the context for understanding how they're doing this here. It's in the basis of our karma or biology that you get an idea of how... But that gives you the context for Report an error

1:11:33 Things appear to us from our point of view. Is this because the mind has already set these causes and conditions into motion, so it's not dependent on our being conscious for these things to be existent? Report an error

1:11:50 That's not my understanding of the point of this. Let me... Okay, so I've given you a Kenser Yeshi Tupin thing. Now I'm going to give you one last... I'm going to see what the Dalai Lama says about this and how to see yourself as you really are and give you my commentary on what he's saying. Did you guys read this book? Great book. Page 186 to 187, he's talking about a passage that's almost like... Report an error

1:12:28 Tsongkhapa does the same thing with the rope and the snake in the medium exposition. That he did in the Great Exposition, but then he takes it in a slightly different way. You know, he wrote the Medium Exposition 15 or so years after he wrote the Great Exposition. So he had time to think about it, you know, and he explained it. It's not the same book. He explains these things in a little bit different way. So when His Holiness says when he was 35, I was thinking about how the I can't be either one with or different from the mind and body. Report an error

1:13:03 And I read this passage. A coiled rope's speckled color and coiled form are similar to those of a snake. And when the rope is perceived in a dim area, the thought arises, this is a snake. As for the rope, at that time, when it is seen to be a snake, the collection and parts of the rope are not even in the slightest way a snake. Therefore, that snake is merely set up by conceptuality. Report an error

1:13:26 It's in just the same way that the thought I arises in dependence upon mind and body. Nothing within the mind and nothing within the body, neither the collection that is a continuum of earlier and later moments, nor the collection of parts at any one time, nor any of the separate parts, nor the continuum of the separate parts, is even the slightest way the I. Report an error

1:13:47 Also, there is not even the slightest something that is a different entity from the mind and body, like a soul, that's apprehendable as I. Consequently, the I is, and this is italicized by His Holiness, I guess by, you know, Jeffrey editing it. Consequently, the eye is merely, merely set up by conceptuality and dependence upon mind and body, and it is not established by way of its own entity. Report an error

1:14:14 And then that ends the passage. He says, suddenly it was as if lightning moved through my chest, and I was so awestruck that for the next few weeks, whenever I saw people, they seemed like illusions, like magicians' illusions, and that they... appeared to be inherently existent, but I knew that they weren't. This is when I began to understand that it is really possible to stop the process of creating afflictions by no longer assenting to the way that the I and other phenomena appear to us to exist. Report an error

1:14:44 Every morning I meditate on emptiness, and when I do, I recall this experience in order to bring its force into all my daily activities. And when I just think or say the word I, It reminds me of this experience and triggers the feelings that this I is just something that's nominally designated. Okay, so obviously that's a very important thing that we would all want to know about, His Holiness describing his experience of realizing emptiness. Report an error

1:15:10 Then, page later, 189, he stops to talk about what does this mean to say that things are merely imputed by thought. Report an error

1:15:21 It would be most uncomfortable to hold that before each and every object comes into our ken, we must already have a thought that's constructing it right at that moment. Report an error

1:15:34 Skipping down a bit. External objects are part of the process of generating consciousness of them. The meaning of the worlds being established merely by conceptual thought is that objects, without depending on a consciousness, Can't set themselves up or can't establish their existence right within themselves. Okay, so this isn't like, you know, like maybe clear up everything, but you can see it's like trying to say that things being mere imputations by thought, at least it doesn't mean that there's a thought that's going around saying each time, you know, that this thing is this and this thing is that, either before or at the same time as the thing. Report an error

1:16:13 Rather, it has something to do with talking about how... How the things exist, you know, and how they don't exist, whether there's a thought there at that moment or not. That's putting together what Kenser Yashitub Tan said with what His Holiness said. Okay, now skip to page 196. This is the last piece I'll read out of this. It says, Buddhist scriptures say that the I and other phenomena exist only through the power of conceptual thought. Report an error

1:16:41 And then you have to read this next part as explaining what he thinks that means. Although the I is set up in dependence on mind and body, the mind and body are not the I, nor is the I the mind and body. There is nothing in the mind, nothing in the body, in dependence on which the I is set up, that is the I. Report an error

1:17:00 Therefore, the I depends on conceptual thought. It and all other phenomena are only set up by the mind. Now, do you see what he's doing? He was saying things he was doing before. He's linking the idea of merely existing as dependent on thought. To the unfindability of anything that you can identify as the eye within the basis of imputation of the eye. Mind and body are the basis of imputation of the person. Report an error

1:17:25 And he's saying there's nothing in the mind. There's no cupness of the cup that makes us know that it's the right thing to say cup and that we're absolutely justified in that from the cup's side. There's no... You know, of course there's a mind and body, but there's nothing in there anywhere among the mind and body that makes it the right thing from its own side to be called a person no matter who's looking. Report an error

1:17:52 Do you see what I'm saying? It depends on who's looking. Everything depends on who's looking. That's what that means. Mirror imputation. This is what I'm here to tell you. Mirror imputation by thought. What does mirror eliminate? It doesn't eliminate... Report an error

1:18:07 It doesn't imply that there has to be a thought there each moment doing the work of making things up instant by instant. It means the mirror eliminates our feeling that there has to be there within the basis of imputation something that really is the object imputed. I know this is a complex. You have this idea of basis of imputation, object imputed. So the person, aggregates. Cup, you know. Report an error

1:18:37 Parts of the cup or shape of the collection of parts of the cup, whatever it's like. There's a base of imputation, object imputed. So all the other systems except Prasanga could say, yeah, there's a basis of imputation, there's an object imputed. Chariot, collection of chariot parts. When we look for the chariot among the parts, it's true, we don't really find the chariot, but nonetheless, there has to be some character within that collection of parts that makes it a suitable thing. Report an error

1:19:07 To call that. The same thing, so when you say, what is the person? You say, a person is designated to the collection of parts. But when we say, what is the person conventionally? Report an error

1:19:18 What goes from life to life? What is it among the mind and body that is the person? At the conventional level, what's its intrinsic character that makes it a person from its own side? And it's like all the other systems will point at something and say, the person is that. Like, for example. Report an error

1:19:40 Some will say, you know, the person is what we impute to the collection of mind and body. It's not ultimately findable. But when you say what functions as the person and say in the sense of moving from life to life, you know, we mean the continuum of the consciousness. So the stream of moments of consciousness is the person. That's what justifies us calling this particular collection a person. Report an error

1:20:04 It needs this other stuff around it, but there's a core there within that collection to which we can predicate the person conventionally. It's not where we're ultimately going to find it if you're a Swatantra, but conventionally there has to be something there that works as the person. Report an error

1:20:24 Okay? Report an error

1:20:27 you, is, does the object imputed? Report an error

1:20:33 it something among The basis of imputation. Can you predicate it to or predicate to it some sub-element of that to which it's being imputed? Report an error

1:20:54 Do you follow? When we say cup, is there something in the cup that justifies from its own side? Is there a cupness of the cup from its own side that justifies that that's the right thing for us to call cup? That's what the mirror is supposed to eliminate. That's just what it eliminates. If you think about it like that, then you just like set to the side all these other – it's not to do with the tree bone. Report an error

1:21:21 Like, Kensori Ishii Tupten was like the best on this. You know, he just said, no, like there's sprout. From our point of view, Report an error

1:21:30 There are acorns sprouting in the forest right now, even though nobody's watching them. But if you have the ants' eye point of view, then you see things differently. Report an error

1:21:46 This is the way Chandrakirti sets it up. The way to make these distinctions is not by saying there's something that's intrinsic to the object. It's by saying, well, what kind of person is looking? It's like every – you referred to karma. Report an error

1:21:59 A person like us, when beings like us look around, then they know cows from cups unless there's something wrong with them. Report an error

1:22:12 I'm summarizing Madhyamaka Arvatara chapter 6, like verses 23, 24 in there. That's basically what he says. People like us, if they don't have anything... You know, we're all messed up by fundamental ignorance and make things look like they exist if they appear. So let's set that aside. How do we know at the practical level one thing from another? Report an error

1:22:33 Well, it's because we're the kind of beings we are. We can know cats from cups unless we're on Jimson weed or, he says, hallucinogenic drugs. That's in Madhyama Kavatarra, right? Datura. So unless we're on that stuff, then, you know, we know what's what and you can just determine. You just say, that's how it is for those kinds of beings. And that's why I used the doll sheep example the other day. Report an error

1:23:00 For us, it's easy to think about all the different kinds of beings and how an ant perceives the world, if we have any spiders here with us today. Report an error

1:23:13 I don't know. So for example, I had this student in my class and she said, well, you can talk about... and that like Report an error

1:23:21 These things, but my roommate and I both look at the cat and we agree that it's a cat. So doesn't that mean that it has something that's on the side of the cat that makes that both correct? Because we're not having confusion. It's not like a dog from her point of view and a cat from my point of view. I was like, well, that's because you're both humans. Report an error

1:23:42 This works as a cat for you, but if you're a cat, is it a cat? What is it for a cat? It might be something, we don't, you know, it's not a cat for a cat. A cat is how we see a cat. If you're an intestinal parasite, then a cat is a world. If you're a cat, then a cat is an eye. If you're a dog, then a cat is rabbit sort of thing which suddenly surprises you with claws. Report an error

1:24:11 I don't know exactly, but you know what I'm saying? It's like, do you know what I'm saying? Or, you know, if you're, uh, uh, I don't know. I was reading Blumenthal's little piece on the Maitreya statue and he said, well, you know, he built a big Maitreya statue and it's like if somebody, some animal comes along that's hungry, they don't see holy object, they see non-food. Report an error

1:24:36 It's like non-food. And so things, and they're right. That's my point of view. So each thing, that's my point. So each thing, you can't, that's what mere imputation by thought means is that There's no perspective-less or framework-free way of saying what things are, first of all. And second of all, that's not because we're just unable to be godlike enough to go around and check, but because the only way that we can talk about what something is is within the context of a framework. Report an error

1:25:15 And in a Buddhist way, we'll say... And to say we're wired and not biologically constituted to see things in a certain way. But in a Buddhist way, you say our karma has created it so that this is the way it is for us from our kind of point of view. And suppose that you're a Buddha or you're getting more – suppose that you're getting enlightened, then – You also have a framework. Just like the spider has a framework that constitutes things correctly, correctly for the spider. And I have a framework in which the spider's objects in the same place and same time do not exist. Report an error

1:25:56 And my objects are invisible to the spider, even though when they're in the same place and same time, we're both right. And there are external objects. But it depends on the framework. That's what it means to be mere imputations by thought. Well, what happens when somebody gets enlightened? They still have a framework. Report an error

1:26:15 Now their framework is not established by their karma. Their framework is established by their prior practice of the path and the accumulations of merit and wisdom. So it's not like you attain to a perspective-free. There is no perspective-free way to look at the world. There's an enlightened perspective, unenlightened perspective, and within the enlightened perspective, there's a whole different set of ways of looking at the world. Report an error

1:26:43 It's not like Buddha realizes the right way of seeing things. What somebody going to a Buddha is realizing is the utter lack in things of having some there-ness on their own side that can be got at, you know, when you get got at, free of a framework. That emptiness means that lack of a framework-free way of existing in things. Can you consider that framework our... Report an error

1:27:11 realm of being you know we all live in this realm and therefore we share a common framework that allows me to see the tree and the cat which is a different type of being living in the same realm to see it also as a tree and not as you know an evil being like a prita might you know discern it Yes, you can. Although this is like where it gets a little bit past what... Report an error

1:27:38 You know, you can establish clearly, I can establish clearly from texts. And maybe we're getting, when you say like, okay, where do these frameworks begin and end? You're going into the realm of something that hasn't been explained clearly yet. But one, it's clear that from that old Chittimatra example that beings born in different realms have different frameworks. Report an error

1:28:01 Okay, that seems very clear. Just from my experience and thinking about this and thinking about what it means, it also seems clear that species have very different frameworks and that frameworks of different species is another way of talking about what used to be called their natural endowment or what we would say is the way that karma has constituted their mind-body system. Report an error

1:28:27 So mind-body, even within the animal realm, that's a realm. That's a lot of stuff to lump together, right? Whole animal realm. It seems to me that not all animals have the same framework. They have different frameworks. That's Guy. I have nothing. There's nothing. I'm just making it up that it just seems that way to me. And then, you see what I'm saying? And then you're just like, well, once you go there, then how are you going to establish how different one being has to be from another biologically before you have a different framework? Report an error

1:29:00 That's the problem. That's a problem. You know, men are from Mars, women for Venus people will say already, you've got two frameworks. You know, it's like, I don't think so. But then how do you, that's Che Bar Jawa, as we say, you know, in the Galupa tradition when we, that's as far as we've gotten, so more analysis to be done. Report an error

1:29:18 I was also confused about the thought of a tree falls in the forest and I see it and then I go back 10 years later and the tree is still on the ground, but now it's aged a lot. Report an error

1:29:30 My thinking there is that time is a part of our common framework, and therefore even though our minds aren't there perceiving it, the object ages when we're not there to watch it because of the common framework we're a part of. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. I think it has to be like that. I haven't really read anything or thought too far into the question of how time works, but it did occur to me to think about how time is different. Report an error

1:29:56 The experience of time is related to how we're constituted by a lot in our mind-body systems are constituted. That's different from the question of the arrow of time. Are there beings who are living backwards? And so forth. It's like, I don't know. Not part of what I've received. Now you're coming right back to the question of the two Arhats that are looking at the tree. Report an error

1:30:21 And when they're in channel B, have some idea that they're sharing their... common framework of previous humanity to see that it was a tree. But when they're in their channel A, or the non-dualistic channel, do they see something which would imply that there was a tree basis of some kind there, even to different realms of beings who might perceive it? Report an error

1:30:44 Or is there nothing there, except when they're looking at it through the framework of others? Okay. I'll answer that, but then you have to the microphone as to come down here in the front row. Okay. First of all, When you talk about two arhats, we're talking about people I'm understanding who are not fully enlightened Buddhas. So they have realized emptiness, but when they're not in the midst of realizing emptiness, then phenomena like trees and so forth are appearing to them. Report an error

1:31:18 And they appear to them at that time, to their senses, just as they appear to our senses. However, unlike us, having just realized emptiness, They radically and totally and utterly distrust that perspective. Do you see what I'm saying? Okay. So that's like the man in the – we don't – analogous to my lack of confusion about there being another person in the bathroom with me. Report an error

1:31:46 Like they don't – doesn't seem to be real even though it's vividly appearing in a certain way. But it does appear. So when they're on channel A, what do they see? When you're on channel A, I mean channel B, when you realize emptiness, only emptiness appears. Only emptiness appears. That's what appears, emptiness. That's what channel B means. Report an error

1:32:07 All emptiness, all the time radio. It's not tree mixed with emptiness. Oh, now I see that the tree's really empty. Oh, gosh darn, I'm glad I found out that emptiness really exists. Nothing like that. It's just emptiness, emptiness, emptiness, emptiness. You can't think about emptiness. You can't think how things are empty. Report an error

1:32:27 I mean, anything that is... Only emptiness appears on channel B. It's a very strict program director. And so only emptiness appears. It's like we had this little weird discussion yesterday about what kind of mind knows that emptiness exists. Not the mind on channel B, because the existence of emptiness is a conventionally existent phenomenon. Report an error

1:32:49 It's a conventional phenomenon. The existence of emptiness, if he's talking about that, then that's like something that's posited by a conventional mind that's just finished being on channel B and come back to channel A. Report an error

1:33:01 So I think that answers that part of your question. And on Channel B, is nothing appearing? No. It's not that nothing's appearing. Emptiness is appearing. That's not the same thing. Emptiness is the sheer and utter absence of any intrinsic nature. And that's all that shines out. So if you've been meditating on the table. Report an error

1:33:23 What only appears is the sheer absence of inherent existence with regard to the basis of the table. But the basis of the table doesn't appear anymore if you're in non-dualistic realization of emptiness. It's just emptiness. So once you're realizing emptiness, it's like at that time it doesn't really matter that it was the emptiness of the table. It's because the table's not appearing. Report an error

1:33:44 It's like you're only seeing the ultimate nature of the table. That was the question you asked. How does the table really exist? Well, you got the answer. It really exists by way of no intrinsic nature whatsoever. That's all that appears at that time. And when you come back, you have what's called illusory appearance or illusion-like appearance when you come back. Report an error

1:34:04 That means now you see stuff again. You see the tables and chairs. You have to let him ask the next question. I see the tables and chairs. Report an error

1:34:16 And they actually, to your senses, they still, because all non-Buddhas, But, um. Report an error

1:34:23 The appearance, the mere appearance of things, intrinsic existence and existence are mixed together. So just the mere appearance of them. Like when I have them, the mirror is clean. Gosh, you know, it really looks like a man there. You know, so just like that. We don't even notice how much it looks exactly like a man because we just stop thinking. Report an error

1:34:44 We just, it's ingrained in us that it's not. Do you know what I'm saying? But it really vividly looks like a man. Just like that, the arhats are, Tree is vividly appearing as though, you know, objectively there from its own side, yet they totally distrust that and they know that it has no such, you know, framework-free nature of being a tree. Report an error

1:35:05 Okay. Okay, so try and formulate this question in a way that makes some sort of sense. So let's take your coffee cup. Let's take your coffee cup, for example. Now, that coffee cup. Is constructed of parts. No problem. Now, to me, on a conventional level right now, that coffee cup being there, okay, it's a coffee cup. Report an error

1:35:37 And to everybody else here, it's a coffee cup. But to me, it's also a donut. Because I can go and see that it's got... It's got a hole in that handle between the handle and the rest of the body. So I can deform that into a donut. So conceptually to me that is a coffee cup and it's also a donut at the same time. Report an error

1:35:58 You have coffee with the donut and eat it? Yeah, sure. Why not? And the donut's already been dunked in the coffee. Are you substance free? Yeah. No, my point is that you're the only one here. who's feeling this that it's a donut topologically it's a donut you can you can deform it into a donut let's put i was pretending i didn't know you meant that okay all right yeah so so to me yeah i can see it's a coffee cup and it's a donut uh you know quote unquote a donut at the same time a quote unquote quote unquote a donut yeah now like Now you're getting more aligned with the rest of the crowd. Right, yeah, yeah. So let's go and then just take... Report an error

1:36:45 A simple system of a universe devoid of everything else except a mind that can conceptually label things and say that coffee cup donut. Now, devoid of all other things, if this mind that can label things is labeling, okay. This is a coffee cup. And it can also label this is a donut, this is this, this is that. Then on a conventional sense, do those labelings of that thing have a conventional existence in and of themselves? Report an error

1:37:23 Okay, well, I'll start at the back. I was just trying to picture this mind floating with the coffee cup. But I don't think if I just start with the end question, the way you phrase things, I can say, yeah, like, okay, does... Report an error

1:37:40 Things exist. What does that mean? It means things exist conventionally. What does that mean? It means things exist in a nominal way. What does that mean? It means things exist as mere designations by thought. So in this system, what if you're saying that within the basis of imputation of the person, there's no thing that we can point to? Report an error

1:38:06 That is the person anywhere within that basis of designation. That's what you mean is mere imputation by thought. Then what goes from life to life? And it's like they say. The mere I or the mere person, the nominally designated. This is like interesting thing because normally we often talk about the continuum of mind moving from life to life. Report an error

1:38:24 But actually the Prasangika perspective, the Chandrakirti perspective is what functions as a person, what is the person, the only thing we can say to the person, the person is the mere I or the nominally existent person. And when you start saying, yeah, and we can pin that down, what we mean by that, by saying this particular thing or that particular thing within the basis of designation. Report an error

1:38:44 Then you're going Svatantrika. You're not really doing what Chandrakirti said anymore. You're saying, you know, when we say mere eye, we're imputing it to the collection of parts. But there's some of those parts we think are special. Report an error

1:38:58 Okay? Okay. Yeah. Do you get what I'm saying? So, you said, is the nominally existent or the merely labeled coffee cup conventionally existent? Yes. It is. Report an error

1:39:16 That's exactly it. They're not refuting the coffee cup. They're saying things – that's how things exist. They exist as nominal – things that are – some external objects exist, but we can't say what they are or what their character is, what their features are, except from a point of view. From a certain point of view, like then that designates them as X, unless that designation – It's subsequently impugned by some other valid kind of cognition. So suppose that we have a society where the majority thinks that women are inferior to men. Report an error

1:40:00 Is that conventionally established because people are labeling like that? No, it is not. Because even though that's a popular opinion, it's subject to... Being impugned upon further analysis of the empirical data that's actually already available to everybody. You see what I'm saying? So that's the idea is that you can – things exist. Report an error

1:40:22 We don't have to – conventional existence doesn't mean just what most people say is true. It means that we have a common mind – we have – okay, say we have this common mind-body system as humans. It gives us a certain amount of data. Data is all tainted with false appearance of true existence, but leaving that aside, a lot of the data is accurate about cups versus cows and so forth. Report an error

1:40:49 And then we can analyze and think about that and draw conclusions about what it means. And in that way, we can use analysis at the conventional level, not to just improve our practice of ethics on the path. Decide, you know, oh, we should be more compassionate by that person if I stop to think about it. Report an error

1:41:06 Virtua arises from reflecting on facts with an undistracted mind. That's analysis at the conventional level. When you think about, like, well, how should I be acting, then you're making discriminations and doing analysis at the conventional level that changes your practice. The same thing can be done at the social level. It's not that nominal existence means popular opinion. Report an error

1:41:30 It means... What people with a common framework can use the data that goes along with having that framework when fully analyzed to see about how things work from their point of view, which doesn't have to do with ants. Ant justice is not human justice. It's like, do you see what I'm saying? It's just like, it's just different. We don't know about their liberation movements. Report an error

1:41:59 Oh, yeah. Just one more quick question. You describe frameworks and perspectives. Yeah. So my perspective of that thing there could be a coffee cup, could be a donut, could be this, could be that. An ant would perceive it as something different, different framework. Right. It's a mountain. Yeah, a mountain, yeah, or like a really nasty thing to fall into and drown. Yeah, exactly, a trap. Yeah. And we just say that, but it's like you have to think, imagine, it's like, oh, what? Report an error

1:42:35 No, that's from their point of view, there is no cup. Cups do not exist in their universe. And it's correct. Their universe, it's not that they're stupid and confused. Cups, they have a legitimate universe right here at this time in which cups do not exist. And so with that perspective, Report an error

1:42:55 Could we kind of imagine omniscient mind and enlightened mind or the mind of an arhat as a mind that can perceive all these different frameworks at the same time? Report an error

1:43:19 A fully enlightened Buddha can... I think I tried to describe this yesterday. As the tradition understands it, a fully enlightened Buddha can see how things appear from the point of view of all the different frameworks simultaneously. Report an error

1:43:44 But my argument today is that's not the same thing as having a framework-free perspective. There's no framework-free perspective. There's the perspective of enlightenment, which includes... Having an appearance of things that's based not on karma or the afflictions, but on the accumulations of merit and wisdom. Report an error

1:44:09 And that that can include super clairvoyant understanding of how other beings are suffering and what their frameworks are. That's the way I understand it. And it's the kind of thing that works as long as you don't... If you read chapter 12 of my book, The Two Truths, you can see that when subject to further analysis, they do run into some problems in explaining exactly how that works, but then why wouldn't you? Report an error

1:44:41 You're using dualistic concepts and language to try to make a construction of how... It's hard to think about how a dog sees the world, and we're very similar. Report an error

1:44:52 How are we going to be very clear about how a Buddha sees the world? They're not even living beings, Buddhas. I Report an error

1:45:09 had a quick question. This is all very heady stuff, but does J. Rinpoche ever go into the sort of relentless emotional need that human beings have to have something existent from its own side, or would he just say that's self-cherishing or our karma to need that? Does he ever go into it? You mean go into it as like have a little expose of his own? Report an error

1:45:35 Right. I mean, what role does he, there's, this all makes sense from an intellectual perspective, but on an emotional level, despite all the classes I've had, despite all the teachings I've had, it's still very, there's still a part of me that wants to reify things, that wants to believe in something eternally existing. Report an error

1:45:53 And how does Tsongkhapa deal with that? Or does he just dismiss that? No, no, no, no. First you have to understand, this is like, right? Okay, so now we have some understanding about. And then there's like, then this is, then there's like, they have this, this genre of literature called Dati, you know, which instructions on the view, which and say, okay, now if you really want to focus on meditation emptiness, here's like a, like some instructions on not everything like this, but just how to, how to meditate on this. Report an error

1:46:30 Okay. So the assumption is that you already understand it. Report an error

1:46:37 That was like, That was my best joke. The assumption is you already understand it. And then now, now, what are you going to do? It's like obviously understanding it. It's like people say, oh, God, you have this understanding of emptiness. How has this changed your life? And I say, well, it's like, I don't know. Report an error

1:46:57 I hope not for the worse. Report an error

1:47:03 You have to internalize. You know, this is like relates to. I don't know. Um. Uh. Report an error

1:47:09 The Gagyu-Geluk discussion, you know, it's like, well, I was thinking about your question. I was like, what do you say to the Gagyu business? They say we don't meditate enough. You know, one thing you could say is like, oh, well, we'll try to do better. I mean, you know, it's like, thank you for the helpful suggestion. Report an error

1:47:31 It's fun, but you don't get a lot of spiritual payoff unless... it's, you don't... Report an error

1:47:37 You're doing surgery on yourself with these kinds of tools. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah. It's not bad. Report an error

1:47:51 Bob Thurman got asked that question one time by Terry Gross on the air. He said, well, it's not like understanding emptiness is like believing in some Tibetan god in the sky that doesn't relate to Manhattan. It's more that... bad i mean like um you know Report an error

1:48:07 You understand that you have a point of view and that the other person has a point of view and you're all crammed in there in Manhattan. And then it's a little easier to get along with people because you realize what they're doing and you see yourself doing it too. Report an error

1:48:25 That's all. That's all I have to say about it. He's teaching this in the context of the practice of the path, not merely for intellectual diversion. Report an error

1:48:37 So that's why I mentioned Geshe Rappten because he's a Gelukpa teacher who has written about what it was like to take these ideas, which he obviously understood, and go and retreat and try to actually apply them to himself. And a lot of people haven't really done that. I mean, I hope that they've done the retreats, but they don't always write about what it was like when they tried to really do this and then come back and tell you. Report an error

1:49:08 They have handbooks on how to do it, but they don't have so many memoirs about, you know, it's not a big thing, you know, to the memoir of my enlightenment. So that's why it's great to read, you know. Well, that's why I read His Holiness telling you, he tells us in this book, if you get far enough in, he tells you what it felt like to understand emptiness. Report an error

1:49:32 Apparently they had a big, you know, there's more to the story than he published in the book. It got everybody together and talked about, you know, got advice from other llamas about what that really meant and so forth. Yeah. Yeah, this is kind of back to how you were starting in the morning with a little bit of the history of Lama. And my question is about when you read about perceptual theory. Report an error

1:50:03 In Gelug particularly, it seems like their presentation is much more from the... Yes, Sautronica. Sautronica view that was kind of the legacy of Damarcurti and Deuteronomy. That's correct. And how can they put this together? I mean, they say this and then in the next breath they have, you know, they're espousing all the prosengigus theories. Report an error

1:50:26 Oh, yeah. And yet they're... It's contradictory. Yeah. No, it's absolutely contradictory, but it's not that – okay, I'll answer it. In my book The Two Truths, having understood exactly what you just said, I had a sentence embedded in the first chapter where I said – Report an error

1:50:48 You know, by combining a logic and epistemology derived from Dignaga and Dharmakirti with this radical view of emptiness from Chandrakirti, Tsongkhapa created such and such and such a system. And, you know, I forgot about it, you know, 20 years went by, and I was at a conference in Atlanta a couple years ago, and a Tibetan who just got his PhD in philosophy from the University of Tasmania, Sonam Takcher, wrote a book called The Two Truths Debate. Report an error

1:51:16 And he was giving a paper about valid cognition in Gilukba. And he said he made a whole list of people who had the wrong view. And I was in the list. And I was like, what did I say? And then I had to go back and search and I found the sentence. And I had left unrefuted that exact idea. I'd implied that... Report an error

1:51:45 Tsongkhapa really thought that you could just take an epistemology that derived from a realist system and just superimpose a kind of deconstruction of analysis on it. And it's sort of, I mean, you could say from a practical point of view, that's kind of how the Giluk educational system works, that you start learning everything for a long time from a Sautronica point of view. Report an error

1:52:10 And then when you're pretty mature, then you study all the different tenant systems and you realize which one you've been studying all this time and where it fits and it's not very high on the ladder. And then you get to the point of studying about Madhyamaka. Most of the time when they're studying Madhyamaka, there's not a lot of detail about like, okay, now what kind of epistemology do we have? Report an error

1:52:34 But there has to be... So what do we have? Obviously it can't be that, epistemology. So there's two kinds of ultimate valid cognition, you know, minds that know the ultimate nature of things. And then there's legitimate conventional knowledge that analyzes and works at the conventional level to sort out what is what. These are the two kinds of wisdom. Report an error

1:53:01 You have both of those things. Chandrakirti makes a passing reference to four, which I quoted I think the other day, that he makes very brief passing reference to four types of valid cognition in the world, which in the world Tsongkhapa is saying, well, you know, we can't say. This has to do with these things existing conventionally and not ultimately. But these four types of valid cognition basically add up to being direct perception and three different types of inference, which is, you know, once you get, so it basically adds up to the same, you know, there's direct perception, there's inference, it's the same as Sautronic. Report an error

1:53:38 How do these kinds of valid knowledge, you know, function? Whether you think of it as knowing an ultimate object or a conventional object, or whether you parse it in terms of whether the mode of getting at things is direct or conceptual and inferential. Well, they can't work in the Dharma Kirti way by certifying that there isn't a character, a defining character on the side of the object. Report an error

1:54:03 How do they work? They have to work by way of being suitable to... The cognitive capacities of the beings within that framework. That is, if there's no superficial cause of error that's messing them up, then we have a right to know, we know in a legitimate way the difference between cups and cows. And that's because of the kinds of beings we are, right? Not because of some intrinsic character out there on the object side. Yeah. Report an error

1:54:39 And you can... That's what he says. There's a whole section in the Great Treatise about what it means for things to exist conventionally. He has this great little section where he says there's three criteria for things to exist conventionally. One, it has to be known by a conventional consciousness. Report an error

1:55:01 Two, no other conventional valid cognition contradicts its being as thus known. And three, and so so when he says about cool I Report an error

1:55:10 Reason that analyzes the ultimate nature of things doesn't contradict it. So it's like you have this big pie that represents everything that people are conceptually designating, all the mundane knowledge, all the examples that philosophers use in their debate, everything that we as humans, the big picture of our framework. Report an error

1:55:33 And then within that, you have this ability to... Yeah, but we can do further analysis of this and determine that even though people thought that this was true and it was widely bruited about in the world to be the case, it turns out that this is contradicted by valid analysis at the conventional level. Report an error

1:55:52 And you can do the same thing as saying, well, everybody just thinks that things exist by way of their own nature, and it just strongly appears that way. But that doesn't mean that it's true, even conventionally. Because there is a valid mind, it turns out to be a difficult one to generate, but there's a valid mind, an ultimate valid cognition that contradicts things existing by way of their own nature, even conventionally. Report an error

1:56:15 So conventionally existent means part of what our mundane knowledge base that has not been falsified by some other legitimate framework which we can adopt from within our karmic endowment. Report an error

1:56:32 That's what it means for something to be conventionally known or conventionally exist. That's what he says. And so what he doesn't, the whole thing is to avoid saying that there's something out there that makes it the basis of that. It comes to do with how we are. That's the way it works. Report an error

1:56:52 So what's the difference between things that do and don't have a point of view? And is there something about things that can do the imputation that is essential? Oh, like living things and non-living things. Report an error

1:57:17 Well, in Buddhist cosmology, there's mind and there's matter and then there's non-associated compositional factors. So mainly with a few special cases, there's consciousness and there's matter. Prasanga doesn't refute matter. Report an error

1:57:41 As I mentioned, atoms. They're just not irreducible. Report an error

1:57:49 You can't say that cups are made out of them because we're imputing cups in relation. So things exist. And what is the difference? It's like that if some collection of matter is a suitable basis for consciousness to operate, which is something different from matter. there are, and else. Report an error

1:58:10 Then that becomes a suitable locus for imputing a living being. And that then functions as having a point of view. That's what it is. So you have to realize that unlike the predominant way of thinking in the West these days, consciousness is never... Report an error

1:58:38 Deconstructed into being an epiphenomenon or side effect of the arrangement of certain molecules. Consciousness is something and matter is something. They don't intrinsically exist, but conventionally they're different. Report an error

1:59:01 Consciousness is understood as being something which is luminous and knowing. And so, in... Report an error

1:59:06 It doesn't intrinsically have that character, but that's how we can understand what they mean by consciousness they're talking about. Another way we can say is what does it feel like to have a point of view? That's like, I don't think that, I don't know what else to say about it. Except, you know, in this thing I was going to do later this afternoon, this holiness says that, you know, Gilukpas like to say, because they always have definitions for everything, you know, consciousness is luminous in knowing. Report an error

1:59:36 um... We don't have many practices that help us explore what it feels like to experience that, and that's something that's more found in the enigma. Report an error

1:59:53 As kind of a related question to the last one, what about emergent mind? And as an example of that, I guess like a simple example from like the animal kingdom. Would be, you know, like hive mind, like a hive of honeybees. You know, even though like each bee has its own particular mind, the collection of bees behaving in a way that governed by simple rules can create, you know, like the hive itself seems to have, you know, it reacts to stimuli. Report an error

2:00:31 It seems to have a sort of, you know, very low level mind, a hive mind. I understand. And also in relation to that, complex systems can at times show emergent properties. Of self-organizing. Self-organizing properties, exactly. So can you have a thing such as an emergent mind in that way and sort of an emergent consciousness? Report an error

2:01:02 We're going to have to stop with that question and take a break, and then I'll come back at two. Report an error

2:01:08 You know, you realize that that kind of question goes into the realm of me making stuff up and not me saying what Tsongkhapa would say. You realize. So I just have to think about, well, what have I ever heard anybody say that relates to that? And what my mind spins to... Something I read a long, long time ago in an interview with His Holiness the Dalai Lama where someone asked him whether computers or robots could ever be conscious. Report an error

2:01:43 In other words, could a system, could we make a system that was complicated enough or suitable in some way to be a basis for consciousness? And, uh, so. Report an error

2:01:59 And he said he didn't preclude it. He didn't rule it out. He said it's, you know, what you need to, it's like our understanding is not that, you know, every living being or every being that has a point of view has to be like us. We have lots of different kinds of beings in cyclic existence, and they're born in all different, they come into being in all different kinds of ways. Report an error

2:02:21 They don't all have mothers and fathers. Some of them have lotuses that they come from and so forth. You know what I'm saying? So, so, uh, um, In that way, if a system of material or any kind of system becomes complicated enough that in some way it becomes suitable to be associated with consciousness, for consciousness to function there and for there to be a point of view, then His Holiness has not precluded even though it's not something that's traditionally discussed that there can be. Report an error

2:02:59 I think it's like if a computer is not precluded as potentially becoming consciousness in some future world. He wasn't saying computers are conscious. But if it's not precluded from being conscious, then that would certainly apply to other kinds of complex systems. It's not a priori being excluded from being considered as beings that had a perspective. Report an error

2:03:20 But it's very difficult to say. In the sense that it goes so far beyond anything that maps directly to anything in any of the traditional texts. So you're at the point where the tradition is confronting another tradition, our Western tradition of figuring things out and how they work. So different ideas about dependent arising, interacting with each other, trying to figure out things together. Report an error

2:03:52 Okay, let's get back at 2. Thanks. Report an error

2:04:14 desk can help you with that. Report an error

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Talk by Guy Newland, recorded 14 March 2010. Original at Tse Chen Ling Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/GN_Emptiness_20100312. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.

Recorded at Tse Chen Ling Center, San Francisco, and archived by the center on Internet Archive. More from Tse Chen Ling

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