Discovering Buddhism - The Wisdom of Emptiness (12 May 2011)

0:00 You know the little fridge. On top of the little fridge. You'll recognize it. Thank you, Christy. Oh, we are recording this. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:10 Can you guys pull in close? Because I don't want to... Yeah, no. Yeah, you are, Katya. You are. Oh, I'm sorry. Are you sure? Thank you. Because I won't have any implications. Report an error in the passage at 0:10 Highlight the passage at 0:10

0:28 And they're going to be making a lot of noise. I would say Report an error in the passage at 0:28 Highlight the passage at 0:28

0:46 okay, but just in the last hour, I've had two coughing attacks, so I've been doing a lot of talking today, this afternoon, meetings and stuff, so maybe. I have a pocket pool with fishermen's friends. Actually, I'd love some water. Report an error in the passage at 0:46 Highlight the passage at 0:46

1:09 I'm waiting for the grantee to arrive further. Good call. Maybe she's arguing with the resident. Do we need white books too? No, I just asked for gold because I thought this really has everything that we need to, this one's all tagged. Anyway, with the Eiffel Tower. It's got the Eiffel Tower on this one. Very auspicious. Report an error in the passage at 1:09 Highlight the passage at 1:09

1:19 love you. Report an error in the passage at 1:19 Highlight the passage at 1:19

1:39 The Ox de Triomphe here. I don't know, somebody's planning Parisian travels. No, that's great. Actually, that's perfect. Report an error in the passage at 1:39 Highlight the passage at 1:39

1:53 So we're not going to try to do an opening meditation. We're just going to, this feels weird. It's like you're all there in a big quark or something. It's like an angry mob or something. Do you want some over on the couch too? Yes, please sit on the couch. I thought that's what you were doing. I thought you were actually, that was your... Report an error in the passage at 1:53 Highlight the passage at 1:53

2:12 I'll be the TA. Thank you. could also sit on the stock. You could if you wanted. It's just not very comfortable. I thought it was better not to try to do cushions because they made so many of the cushions. Report an error in the passage at 2:12 Highlight the passage at 2:12

2:28 But now I kind of wish that I would have given you one cushion. Report an error in the passage at 2:28 Highlight the passage at 2:28

2:38 you, I was afraid maybe you were arguing with Bodie about it. Report an error in the passage at 2:38 Highlight the passage at 2:38

2:46 She wouldn't let her have it. Report an error in the passage at 2:46 Highlight the passage at 2:46

2:51 And actually if somebody wants to be here, then they can be here too if they aren't too frightened. So let's just start with an opening motivation before Report an error in the passage at 2:51 Highlight the passage at 2:51

3:04 they really get going. Report an error in the passage at 3:04 Highlight the passage at 3:04

3:10 So let's take a few moments to settle our mind and come on in Jessica. We just started. Report an error in the passage at 3:10 Highlight the passage at 3:10

3:22 Remember that to make anything a Dharma activity, you need to remember... To set a motivation and to give it a Dharma motivation. So, not just to whatever we can get out of the class, get it for ourselves, but to remember that whatever we get out of this class, whatever insights we might gain or understandings or Report an error in the passage at 3:22 Highlight the passage at 3:22

3:44 anything at all that might help us now or help us in the future, that it becomes one of our mind and becomes part of transforming our mind so that we can enlighten. So that we can perfectly benefit every living thing. Report an error in the passage at 3:44 Highlight the passage at 3:44

4:03 bias, without exception. I'm Report an error in the passage at 4:03 Highlight the passage at 4:03

4:16 going to start with the opening prayer on 229. Report an error in the passage at 4:16 Highlight the passage at 4:16

4:27 Do you want to share? This TA is moving up. Do I have to watch my pronunciation then? That's right. It's okay. This part I think you can probably pronounce. it's already. And you're doing it with somebody who has a large . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Report an error in the passage at 4:27 Highlight the passage at 4:27

4:47 With the wish to free all beings, I shall always go for refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Saṅgha until I reach full enlightenment. Inspired by wisdom and compassion, today in the Buddha's presence, I generate the mind of full awakening for the benefit of all sentient beings. As long as space remains. And as long as sentient beings remain, until then may I too remain, to dispel the mysteries of the world. And then we're going to do the Heart Sūtra on the 70s. Report an error in the passage at 4:47 Highlight the passage at 4:47

5:27 I don't know if that memorized. Yeah, no. I'm working on it. Yeah, it's good to memorize, actually. I was telling Christine, I think this is one of the ones I'd like to actually learn in Tibetan. There's not that many. I usually like them in English. But first I want to memorize in English. Report an error in the passage at 5:27 Highlight the passage at 5:27

5:43 don't like this translation so much. I don't like this translation so much, I don't like other translations. I prostrate to the Arya Triple Gem. Thus did I hear at one time the Bhagavan was dwelling on Massive Vulture's Mountain in Rashtriya, together with the great community of monks and a great community of bodhisattvas. Report an error in the passage at 5:43 Highlight the passage at 5:43

6:04 At that time the Bhagavan was absorbed in the concentration of the categories of phenomena called profound perception. Also at that time, the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara looked upon the very practice of the profound perfection of wisdom and beheld those wide aggregates also as empty of inherent nature. Report an error in the passage at 6:04 Highlight the passage at 6:04

6:28 Then through the power of Buddha, the venerable Sariputra said this to the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara. How should any son of the lineage train who wishes to practice the activity of the profound perfection of wisdom? He said that, and the Bodhisattva, Mamasattva, Arya, Abilo, Kinshvara, said this to the venerable Chariputra. Report an error in the passage at 6:28 Highlight the passage at 6:28

6:53 Chariputra, any son of the lineage or daughter of the lineage who wishes to practice the activity of the profound perfection of wisdom, should look upon it like this. Correctly and repeatedly beholding those five aggregates also is an empty of inherent nature. Form is empty, emptiness is form, emptiness is not other than form, form is also not other than emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 6:53 Highlight the passage at 6:53

7:18 In the same way, feeling, discrimination, compositional factors and consciousness are empty. Sharaputra, likewise all phenomena are emptiness, without characteristic, unreduced, unceased. Stainless, not without stain, not deficient, not fulfilled. Sharaputra, therefore in emptiness there is no form, no feeling, no discrimination, no compositional factors, no consciousness, no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no visual form, no sound, no odor, no taste, no object of touch, and no phenomenon. Report an error in the passage at 7:18 Highlight the passage at 7:18

8:00 There is no eye element and so on, up to and including no mind element and no mental consciousness element. There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance and so on, up to and including no aging and death and no extinction of aging and death. Similarly, there is no suffering, origination, cessation and death. There is no exalted wisdom, no attainment and also no non-attainment. Report an error in the passage at 8:00 Highlight the passage at 8:00

8:27 Sharifu, therefore, because there is no attainment, bodhisattvas rely on and dwell in the perfection of wisdom, the mind without obscuration and without fear. Having completely passed beyond error, they reach the end point of nirvāṇa. All the Buddhas who dwell in the three times also manifestly, completely awaken to unsurpassable, perfect, complete enlightenment and reliance on the perfection of wisdom. Report an error in the passage at 8:27 Highlight the passage at 8:27

8:55 Therefore, the mantra of perfection of wisdom, the mantra of great knowledge, the unsurpassed mantra, the mantra of people to the unequaled, the mantra that thoroughly pacifies all suffering, should be known as the truth since it is not false. The mantra of perfection of wisdom is declared. Pai et ha om gate gate paragate parasangate bodhissoha. Report an error in the passage at 8:55 Highlight the passage at 8:55

9:22 Charudra, the Bodhisattva Mahasattva, should train in profound perfection of wisdom like that. Then the Bhagavan arose from that concentration and commanded the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara, saying, Well said, well said, son of the lineage. It is like that. It is like that. One should practice the profound perfection of wisdom, just as you indicated. Report an error in the passage at 9:22 Highlight the passage at 9:22

9:46 Even the Tathagatis rejoiced. The Bhagavan having thus spoken, the venerable Sharapati Putra, the Bodhisattva, Mahasattva, Arya, Avalok, Niteshvara, and those surrounding in their entirety, along with the world of gods, humans, ashras, and Gavdarvas, were overjoyed and highly praised as spoken by the Bhagavan. Report an error in the passage at 9:46 Highlight the passage at 9:46

10:11 I was like, who is on the floor over there? I don't think I can see here. Do you need anything to sit here? And there's more? Should I pull the chair? Report an error in the passage at 10:11 Highlight the passage at 10:11

10:25 So keep your books handy. Report an error in the passage at 10:25 Highlight the passage at 10:25

10:29 So keep the books handy because we're going to go through the parts of the heart syndrome in tonight's class so don't just toss them anywhere to the side as I'm sure you wouldn't anyway. Can you sit here? Is somebody sitting here? Report an error in the passage at 10:29 Highlight the passage at 10:29

10:51 I'm fine if you want to sit here or if somebody else wants to move forward, then that's good. I feel kind of funny, but anyway, I'll get over that. Okay, a couple of announcements. Report an error in the passage at 10:51 Highlight the passage at 10:51

11:03 Did Eleanor, did he give you a bunch of copies? Yes. Okay, good. Thank you. She's going to make me feel better. Good job. Okay, now I'm going to go over there. You get a good star. I know every time I look down, somebody can move, you know. Report an error in the passage at 11:03 Highlight the passage at 11:03

11:21 You can't have my jacket. So one of the things you're going to get tonight are the presentation topic ideas and I'm going to take a count on people who are coming because I'm afraid we're going to be like down to half. Luckily with a big class at least we'll have some people. With a small class if you lose half it can be embarrassing. I have had it be one person and I draw the line at one person. Report an error in the passage at 11:21 Highlight the passage at 11:21

11:42 It's not a practice. So I'll hand that out. There's also a chart in there. I'll give you the wink wink at the beginning of the class when we start talking about the heart teacher. I'm going to have you hand that one out. And then the homework will be at the end. Report an error in the passage at 11:42 Highlight the passage at 11:42

12:02 Also, if anyone is planning to attend Shantideva Rinpoche and has not yet signed up, at the end of class, Eleanor will start a little, she'll just have a blank piece of paper and we'll just sign up. I mean, even if you don't want to go online, we are realizing that some people are... Thank you. I did notice that you went on right after class. You signed the list last night and Carol did the same thing. Went home and immediately signed up. So last night we just had an idea to just ask people to just sign a list because we're just trying to get numbers from people so that we have enough seating set up and that we have enough materials. Report an error in the passage at 12:02 Highlight the passage at 12:02

12:39 So if anyone knows that they're coming, tell Eleanor after class and she'll write it down a piece of paper for me so that I have an idea. Report an error in the passage at 12:39 Highlight the passage at 12:39

12:49 Also, if anyone is doing work-study for this class, and I don't always know who you are, see me, there might be some idea that you can help with the, oh, you're already doing the flyer, I think. But people that are doing work-study, there might be something for the event that you can help with. And I think I mentioned last week, the next DB class is going to be Introduction to Tantra, and I'm going to teach that. Report an error in the passage at 12:49 Highlight the passage at 12:49

13:14 And that's me starting on June 16th. It runs through August 29th, I think, and it has two Tuesdays off in a row. I'm sorry, two Thursdays off in a row. The one is when I go to college. So whenever that is, I think the first two weeks of July will be off. Report an error in the passage at 13:14 Highlight the passage at 13:14

13:42 So I want to talk a little bit more about the Heart Sūtra because there's so much there. So you're not going to have any... New homework this week. We're going to just go deeper with the homework that we've already had. But I'll still give you a homework handout because on the handout it will give you some of the notes that I am seeing tonight. Report an error in the passage at 13:42 Highlight the passage at 13:42

14:05 So you don't have to worry about writing it down. But I am just sort of giving you some more information about how the Heart Sūtra is a really good key to understanding Lama. Report an error in the passage at 14:05 Highlight the passage at 14:05

14:18 One of the things that comes up in the Heart Sūtra is The Buddha actually gives us a map of the path to enlightenment. So he talks about the five paths. This is when you hand out. Report an error in the passage at 14:18 Highlight the passage at 14:18

14:39 So they don't have any hair to push back. So there's a little chart going around and help pass it out. And it shows... The Paths to Enlightenment, and then it's probably more information than many of you want, but I thought it was useful too. And if you took the Heart Sūtra from Tenzin Chokyi, then it came out in that one too. Report an error in the passage at 14:39 Highlight the passage at 14:39

15:04 I just thought it was useful because this comes up. This is actually, I think it was actually originally designed by Emily as part of the basic program, and then I think Tenzin Chokyi has made a few adjustments on it. Report an error in the passage at 15:04 Highlight the passage at 15:04

15:19 So in the Heart Sūtra, Um. Report an error in the passage at 15:19 Highlight the passage at 15:19

15:22 He begins with talking about the Soglam, the first path, the path of accumulation. And as you can see, before you even get to the path of accumulation, there's a lot of stuff that we sort of do. Taking refuge, meaning not just saying the prayer, but actually taking refuge in our heart on the Buddha, Dharma and Saṅgha. Report an error in the passage at 15:22 Highlight the passage at 15:22

15:45 Becoming fed up with Tamsara. Which is the beginning of renunciation, which is probably why some of us are here. Actually, we're already getting a little fed up with saṃsāra. Sometimes that lasts for a few days or weeks or months or years and then we go back to saṃsāra because we actually missed it. Report an error in the passage at 15:45 Highlight the passage at 15:45

16:04 I just had a meeting with a student whose life is sort of falling apart and this is when usually people come to me. You know, girlfriend leaves, boyfriend leaves, lose job. That one's open. It looks like it's not, but it really is. Come on in. No, no, come on in. That's fine. I'm sure parking was difficult. Report an error in the passage at 16:04 Highlight the passage at 16:04

16:26 We added the soak attenders and the class tonight to the neighborhood, so not good. Report an error in the passage at 16:26 Highlight the passage at 16:26

16:34 You know, you lose your job, you get a bad diagnosis, whatever, and then you suddenly start thinking maybe there's more to life than this, and that's usually when we see people for the first time. They come to the center. They might be looking for classes and they might just want counseling. And then they get a new boyfriend and they get a new job. The cancer's gone. Report an error in the passage at 16:34 Highlight the passage at 16:34

16:57 And then they leave. Sometimes they stay and they do a few classes and they get somewhere and then sometimes... They're literally gone with the next wind, and I never see them again. Sometimes I see them again two, three, four years later, which is interesting. Something else has happened. They lose another boyfriend, they're another girlfriend, and they come back. But that's, you know, that's how we start finding out that saṃsāra is what it is, you know. Report an error in the passage at 16:57 Highlight the passage at 16:57

17:24 You're, like, totally at that point. I'll have to just remember, occasionally look over. It's like, who's that person over there? Oh, she, where's Kidera? By the way, I thought I heard her. Is Kara here? But she wasn't out there? Report an error in the passage at 17:24 Highlight the passage at 17:24

17:54 Yeah, but I mean there's those things those events or experiences that happen actually are why we're here, right? I'm I actually Report an error in the passage at 17:54 Highlight the passage at 17:54

18:04 I got into Buddhism because of a lot of deaths that happened in my life. Deaths happened early on and then friends died. Eventually it was just kind of like, okay, I get it. There isn't a whole lot more than this. I want to figure out what is more meaningful, how is the more meaningful way to spend my life. Report an error in the passage at 18:04 Highlight the passage at 18:04

18:24 So actually all those little things that we think of as problems and obstacles are what get us here and get us serious. Report an error in the passage at 18:24 Highlight the passage at 18:24

18:36 That transformation of your mind from saṃsāra is basically a-okay and I just have to fix it to saṃsāra can't be fixed and it sucks is how we get to renunciation. And renunciation happens before we actually get on the path to accumulation. So a lot of us like to think we're on the path to Buddhahood but we haven't actually made it onto the path yet. Report an error in the passage at 18:36 Highlight the passage at 18:36

19:01 Bodhicitta, there's actually... Cultivating actual bodhicitta is the step onto the path of accumulation. So you can see, kind of, we still have a little ways to go. So he starts talking about, when I say he, I'm talking about Shakyamuni Buddha because this is a sūtra, and in this sūtra he is actually speaking through, you know, he goes into that meditative state, but he actually speaks through Avalokiteshvara. Report an error in the passage at 19:01 Highlight the passage at 19:01

19:30 Even though it looks like he's zoned out on the side, he's actually doing the... communication through. Avalok Kijashvar, who is in Bodhisattva Forum here. Report an error in the passage at 19:30 Highlight the passage at 19:30

19:43 So he begins with the path of accumulation and this is actually when Sharputra asks, you know, what are we supposed to do? What are we supposed to do? And at that moment we were talking about the path of accumulation. This is the first hurdle. If you want to think of these five paths as five hurdles or five milestones that we actually have to leap over. Report an error in the passage at 19:43 Highlight the passage at 19:43

20:08 I suddenly have this image of myself in my gym suit in seventh grade and field or whatever that hurtling thing was. You actually had hurdles and you had to leap over them. So this is us. We're kind of having to leap over these different hurdles or milestones in order to get enlightened. Report an error in the passage at 20:08 Highlight the passage at 20:08

20:28 The second one is Jorlam, the path of preparation. Oh, and so with path of accumulation, what are we accumulating? We're accumulating merit. Accumulating and purifying negative karma. So that's what's happening a lot on this path of accumulation. Why do we need to accumulate merit? So that we can have this direct perception of emptiness and so we can get light. Report an error in the passage at 20:28 Highlight the passage at 20:28

20:50 It takes a lot of merit. I mean, if just finding a Buddha center takes a lot of merit. And just having the merit to wear robes, that takes a huge amount of merit. Imagine the amount of merit that it takes for us to completely purify our mind so that we can have a direct perception of emptiness and generate bloody cheetah, blasting bloody cheetah and get enlightened. Report an error in the passage at 20:50 Highlight the passage at 20:50

21:12 It takes a lot of merit. So what's merit? Merit is simply really good positive karma that's earmarked for enlightenment. That's really all merit is. It's almost like, it's not quite unstained, but it's not simply helping an old lady cross the street. Excuse me. So it's not just simple good karma, it's good karma done with this idea of getting enlightened to help others. Report an error in the passage at 21:12 Highlight the passage at 21:12

21:40 Helping that old lady across the street could become merit if I remember to motivate to doing it for all beings and dedicate to doing it for all beings. And that's why I always forget. So trying to build the habit of even our everyday jobs, like running up and getting a teacher tea. Report an error in the passage at 21:40 Highlight the passage at 21:40

22:02 To making those little jobs and those little tasks and even our regular working job, even the most mundane aspect of our working job, doing it with this mind that whatever happens today may I use it on the path to enlightenment. That's a way to start building this merit now. So the path of accumulation, David you're ringing. Report an error in the passage at 22:02 Highlight the passage at 22:02

22:29 Just so you're aware. Good hearing. Report an error in the passage at 22:29 Highlight the passage at 22:29

22:38 It's time to know better. Report an error in the passage at 22:38 Highlight the passage at 22:38

22:44 So path of accumulation is where we spend a long time accumulating this merit and also purifying the negative karma. a good hearing. Report an error in the passage at 22:44 Highlight the passage at 22:44

22:34 That's where we move, let's move our reminder. Or one might say, not so good hearing. Report an error in the passage at 22:34 Highlight the passage at 22:34

22:57 The next path is what's called the path of preparation, and what we're preparing to do is to see emptiness directly. Report an error in the passage at 22:57 Highlight the passage at 22:57

23:08 And this is also where, so part of the preparation is also developing calm abiding meditation, learning how to have single pointed concentration really, really strongly so that we can meditate deeply enough to have this direct perception of emptiness, and also developing special insight, which is a really strong form of analytical meditation that we can Report an error in the passage at 23:08 Highlight the passage at 23:08

23:31 back and forth between color-biting and analytical meditation. Report an error in the passage at 23:31 Highlight the passage at 23:31

23:40 And the next path, which is one I'm going to go into some detail on tonight, is the path of seeing. This is the shortest of all the paths. Path of accumulation and path of preparation could be lifetimes. Path of seeing is one day or less. Path of seeing is the tiniest, shortest path. Of course, you can see already the amount of work you have to put into it right before you can get there. It's like they were saying with, I hate to use it as a comparison, but what they said with finding Osama bin Laden, it took him 10 years and in 40 minutes it was all over. Report an error in the passage at 23:40 Highlight the passage at 23:40

24:14 This is like, imagine in a more positive sense. Lifetimes, and especially within this lifetime, studying emptiness a lot, learning how to meditate, finding proper teachers and serving them, meaning following their advice. We're doing all of that preparation and then we finally sit down and we have this direct perception of emptiness and it may only last 20 or 30 minutes. Report an error in the passage at 24:14 Highlight the passage at 24:14

24:41 It could be over quickly. Then there's a number of things that I'm going to talk about tonight that happen right afterwards in the post-meditative state. And the things also that will stay with you forever. It's irreversible. It's not like with bodhicitta where we can have this boom. Amazing, great meditation on bodhicitta or we go away to a bodhicitta retreat or something and we're like, I'm forever changed or something and then it's gone before you even get into the car to go home. Report an error in the passage at 24:41 Highlight the passage at 24:41

25:11 And unfortunately on bodhicitta that happens a lot where we just have to keep meditating on it and strengthening it and we do things like taking the vows and keeping the vows. Being good vow buddies to our other buddy Safa vow practitioners and so forth. Trying to strengthen it and strengthen our mind and our heart around bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 25:11 Highlight the passage at 25:11

25:32 Direct perception and emptiness, when we have it, we have it. And it is irreversible and it's done. And you know you've had it. So if there's a question in your mind, you think something happened to you last week or last year, you didn't have it. You know because it just irreversible. It irreversibly changes your mind and you are forever after a completely different type of person. So we'll talk about it. The next one is what's called Gom Lam, the path of habituation or meditation. Report an error in the passage at 25:32 Highlight the passage at 25:32

26:04 I actually like habituation better as a translation because what you do for that life, for that path, which could be lifetimes, many lifetimes, it doesn't have to be. I mean, we think it always, right? We're Americans. We think, I could do all this, kick this all out by June or something. It doesn't work like that. We have to get this big view of lifetimes. But we're habituating our mind repeatedly with the experience of emptiness that we had in the direct perception of emptiness by repeatedly re-entering deep meditative equipoise on emptiness and then coming out and habituating ourselves with the fact that we know Report an error in the passage at 26:04 Highlight the passage at 26:04

26:49 Things don't exist inherently, but we still see them as existing inherently. I still see each of you as existing inherently, but I don't buy it anymore. So there's a huge, huge difference than when you started your week, because in that case, it really, honestly, you could have three paths in the same week. Report an error in the passage at 26:49 Highlight the passage at 26:49

27:09 You started your week, you were getting closer and closer, then you had this amazing day, Wednesday, where you directly saw emptiness and had all the things that followed. Report an error in the passage at 27:09 Highlight the passage at 27:09

27:20 Then you come out of that meditation and you're like, wow, that was amazing, but that wall still looks like it's, as Geshe-Lo was saying last night, that wall looks like it's self-existent. It's over there. It has nothing to do with me. It is what it is. And everyone coming into the room would see it exactly the way I see it and things like that. So it still looks like that, but you don't buy it anymore. Report an error in the passage at 27:20 Highlight the passage at 27:20

27:41 So you're not fooled. So it's a lot harder for you to have. Fortunately, mental afflictions arise because even though, of course, you still have old negative karma to work off and you still see things as inherently existent, you stop yourself all the time. So one of my teachers said it's almost like the schizophrenic existence where you're like, you know, because you know, you know in your heart. So what didn't come out of the book, right? Report an error in the passage at 27:41 Highlight the passage at 27:41

28:06 You directly perceive emptiness. Nobody can take that away from you ever. But you're still seeing things as inherently existent. So you've got this kind of weird netherland existence and that can literally happen for lifetimes. But because you're, like depending on how strongly you're practicing, you can create the causes in one lifetime to eliminate the remaining causes for you to see things as self-existent, which are karmically caused, like everything else. Report an error in the passage at 28:06 Highlight the passage at 28:06

28:37 To see things as inherently existent is a karmic result. The more that we can practice even in this lifetime with studying, reading, meditating and so forth, we start flipping that karmic cause to see things as inherently existing around. It's interesting. It's very interesting. It always comes down to karma. The last one is Miloblam, the path of no more learning. Report an error in the passage at 28:37 Highlight the passage at 28:37

29:06 And that's when you've completely eliminated... Oh, I didn't mention Nirvāṇa. In this... In this path, nirvāṇa is not the goal, so it ends up taking place on the fourth path midway through. Yeah, where is it? Liberation from saṃsāra. See how it's like, it's actually about three quarters of the way through the path of meditation or habituation. Report an error in the passage at 29:06 Highlight the passage at 29:06

29:31 That's nirvāṇa. That's when you have eliminated all of your obscurations. She has innate obscurations. I'm trying to think of the other word for it. There's obscurations to omniscience and afflictive obscurations. So afflictive obscurations. So all your bad thoughts, right? No more depression, ever. No more depression. No more anger. No more obsession. Report an error in the passage at 29:31 Highlight the passage at 29:31

30:03 No more jealousy. No more pride. All of that's completely gone. And that's what people who are arhats have had that experience. They have forever left saṃsāra. Report an error in the passage at 30:03 Highlight the passage at 30:03

30:16 They will never be reborn within saṃsāra. That's not enough for us, right? Because we're on the Mahāyāna path. So that means we're going for full enlightenment. So after we have completed that, we still have to get rid of the final obscurations to our omniscience. Buddhas are fully omniscient beings. Report an error in the passage at 30:16 Highlight the passage at 30:16

30:34 They know all there is to know. They know everything. And so what allows us to get from the step of being an Arhat to a Buddha is finished in these final three grounds, the eighth ground, ninth ground and tenth Bumi grounds. And then we reach the final path, which is Buddhahood, which is the path of no more learning. So every time that he... Report an error in the passage at 30:34 Highlight the passage at 30:34

31:09 Let's see. Every time that, sorry, my brain has just gone, I just blah, blah, blah. Every time that he says a different, now I've gone blank on when he says it. Report an error in the passage at 31:09 Highlight the passage at 31:09

31:30 I'll tell you. When we're going through it, I'll tell you when we get to each of the different paths. But he gives sort of a hint at each of the points where he hits a new path. Report an error in the passage at 31:30 Highlight the passage at 31:30

31:44 Firstly, why is it called the Heart Sūtra? The Heart Sūtra is talking about the heart of the Buddhist teachings. It really has nothing to do with being heartfelt or it being anything to do with our heart. It's basically more important than any of the Buddhist teachings in order to get us out of suffering. So that's why it is the core of the Buddhist teachings. Report an error in the passage at 31:44 Highlight the passage at 31:44

32:08 And in fact, probably about two-thirds of the way through, He actually talks about how if we can understand emptiness and cut the chain of saṃsāra, you know, it holds us in saṃsāra, the 12 links, if we're able to do that, we can actually eliminate death itself. And he actually says this in the heart suture. And we miss it a lot of times because we're just saying it, we're just repeating the words. But it's actually pretty amazing that he tells us, Report an error in the passage at 32:08 Highlight the passage at 32:08

32:44 That if we can have this direct perception of emptiness, if we can use these teachings directly to eliminate the ignorance that's keeping us here, we can become Buddhists too. So this is pretty amazing stuff. So he begins with saying, so we'll start out. At the time that, let me go to 76. Report an error in the passage at 32:44 Highlight the passage at 32:44

33:15 So it goes to lead in. And then it tells you about how the Buddha is absorbed in deep concentration and so then the Avalokiteshvara starts talking. Report an error in the passage at 33:15 Highlight the passage at 33:15

33:30 And at the top of 77, looked upon the very practice of the profound perfection of wisdom and beheld those five aggregates also. There's a key word there, also. What else is considered empty of inherent existence that they're not even saying? Any guesses? The self is perceiving the aggregates. The self. The self. And the reason they don't even state it, and they say it again here when he says, you know, what should we do basically? Report an error in the passage at 33:30 Highlight the passage at 33:30

34:02 How should any center of lineage who wishes to blah, blah, blah. He also says, he says it again, the Buddha says it again at the bottom of the page. Should look upon it like this correctly and repeatedly beholding those five aggregates also as empty of inherent nature. Meaning in addition to the self. Report an error in the passage at 34:02 Highlight the passage at 34:02

34:20 So we're actually already on phase two by the time we even get to the sūtra and they never even mention phase one. So when we're meditating on this on our own, we start with meditating on the emptiness of the self. Then we go to the meditation on the emptiness of the aggregates. Or you can do it the reverse. You can do the meditation on the aggregates and various experiences and so forth and then come back to the self, whichever works better for your mind. Report an error in the passage at 34:20 Highlight the passage at 34:20

34:48 But here he's assuming that his audience already knows that the self is empty. That's how advanced that this audience was. And remember this, and it says here at the beginning, it's a great community of monks and a great community of bodhisattvas. So it's not your typical... You know, drop-in course. People are already pretty advanced by the time that they're in this community of monks and great community of bodhisattvas. Report an error in the passage at 34:48 Highlight the passage at 34:48

35:15 And sometimes they say mahasattva bodhisattvas, which are even more advanced bodhisattvas. So those five advocates also are empty of inherent nature. And actually, other philosophies at that time talked about the fact that the self did not exist the way we perceived it. They just didn't put it in exactly the same terms. But it wasn't a new idea. And there were a lot of philosophies being kicked around at the time of the Buddha, too. Report an error in the passage at 35:15 Highlight the passage at 35:15

35:44 It was quite the spiritual age. It wasn't that unusual for people to go off and just give themselves up to a spiritual life, which is not so common now. And India itself, of course, is quite a spiritual country. You still see people going around. and have given up their entire life to be spiritual and people respect them which isn't true of us here necessarily so So then Report an error in the passage at 35:44 Highlight the passage at 35:44

36:24 we Report an error in the passage at 36:24 Highlight the passage at 36:24

36:33 start with doing the four-fold analysis on your aggregates. And so that starts right after he finishes that sentence in the bottom of 77. Where he begins this phrase, form is empty, emptiness is form, emptiness is not other than form, form is also not other than emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 36:33 Highlight the passage at 36:33

36:54 So this is basically the fourfold analysis, but one of my teachers just calls these the four profound statements, which I think is also another way to think of it. And we can use it for every single thing in our life to analyze in this same way. So you could say form is empty, you could say my body is empty, the pot is empty. Report an error in the passage at 36:54 Highlight the passage at 36:54

37:15 Emptiness is the pot. I'll say that. Well, they always say pot, but who of us actually has pots? Emptiness is the cup. The cup is empty. Emptiness is the cup. Emptiness is nothing but the cup. The cup is nothing but emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 37:15 Highlight the passage at 37:15

37:34 So then before we talk about it, we're going to talk about this final few moments that you have on this second path, the path before you go into the path of seeing directly. Report an error in the passage at 37:34 Highlight the passage at 37:34

37:46 You have... You've been doing a lot. So you've been preparing your mind to directly see emptiness. You've been accumulating merit like mad. You've been purifying like mad. You have, you know, spent a lot of time and found really good teachers and have been serving them and also been really studying with them. Report an error in the passage at 37:46 Highlight the passage at 37:46

38:06 And Geshe-la was talking about this actually last night at the beginning. He's just starting chapter 9. And he's focusing a lot on emptiness right now. If anybody's interested, he's going really deep, really fast. We spent last night on just two stanzas and he already covered like everything I've covered pretty much in the first night. Report an error in the passage at 38:06 Highlight the passage at 38:06

38:29 He immediately got into, you know, that things don't really exist. Just jumped right in. So you've been doing this a lot. You've been studying it a lot. You understand it to some degree intellectually. You have developed your ability to meditate quite a bit and you're doing everything in your power to have this experience because you understand the worth of this experience. Report an error in the passage at 38:29 Highlight the passage at 38:29

38:56 So this next step can happen when you're not in meditation. It can happen when you're doing anything. And in some traditions they actually talk about having these kinds of insights when you're having, so chopping wood for example, or making tea. Or cleaning. This is not a direct perception of emptiness because you have to be in deep meditation when you have the direct perception of emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 38:56 Highlight the passage at 38:56

39:23 But this next step you can actually have when you're doing other things. It's called Chuchok in Tibetan. Report an error in the passage at 39:23 Highlight the passage at 39:23

39:35 I'll just give you all I know is that I don't know the Tibetan spelling of it, but Ch is C-H-U and Chok. you try like that? Report an error in the passage at 39:35 Highlight the passage at 39:35

39:48 can find it, but I don't know what it is right now. I mean, I don't know if Chir is. It might be Chirky. I don't know. It might be Dharma. It might be... It's considered the highest experience we can have as an ordinary being. And what happens is, is you have a, it's like a realization of how dependent arising works. Report an error in the passage at 39:48 Highlight the passage at 39:48

40:12 Okay, so you are doing something like making tea. And now we are, I think about this all the time because we don't have our little electric thing in the kitchen anymore, so we're actually reverting to the kettle. Report an error in the passage at 40:12 Highlight the passage at 40:12

40:29 So you're looking at the kettle and you realize you suddenly, like intellectually you've heard these lectures, right? You hear it over and over that your eye doesn't see as it is. But this is like the moment that it just hits you full force. Report an error in the passage at 40:29 Highlight the passage at 40:29

40:47 Your eye is not seeing this pot. It's seeing a mental image of that pot that is created by your mind. So there are shapes and there are colors and there are other data and your mind is filling in with this generalized image of a teapot and you think that's what you're seeing on the stove but the pot that you see on the stove or that you think you see on the stove does not exist the way you think it does. Report an error in the passage at 40:47 Highlight the passage at 40:47

41:21 You suddenly get it that there's no self-existent pot out there, despite how it has always appeared to you. At that moment, it hits you full force and you totally get it. It's just parts and shapes and your karma forces you to see it as a pot. Report an error in the passage at 41:21 Highlight the passage at 41:21

41:44 It's like this huge realization. And in fact, that there could never have been a pot the way you've always thought that pot existed. Report an error in the passage at 41:44 Highlight the passage at 41:44

41:55 This is called the highest experience we can have as an ordinary being because soon after you have this realization, you have the direct perception of emptiness and you no longer are an ordinary being after that. Report an error in the passage at 41:55 Highlight the passage at 41:55

42:10 You actually become a completely different type of being, which is why you're called an Arya being, a superior being. So this is your final moments as an ordinary being when you have this gut level, oh my god, I get it. It's sort of like... That description of, you know, you can explain all you want to to somebody about what sugar tastes like, but until they actually taste sugar, they don't have really any idea. Report an error in the passage at 42:10 Highlight the passage at 42:10

42:38 So this is like that moment where you're like, oh my god, this is what she meant by that, or this is what he meant by that, you know, and it just suddenly hits you full force. Report an error in the passage at 42:38 Highlight the passage at 42:38

42:49 And you suddenly get it that this world that you live in is a complete construct of your mind. You have been conceptualizing all the way along and believing in your conceptualizations. Before you ask your question, I'm going to go through these four steps. So I took that as an aside and then we're going to talk about those four. The fourfold analysis again are these four profound thoughts. Form is empty. Report an error in the passage at 42:49 Highlight the passage at 42:49

43:20 The pot is empty. The cup is empty. In what way does the pot not exist? Inherently, from its own side, out there independently, independent of my mind and the labels that I place on it. So the pot is not what I thought it was. It is absent of being an inherently existent, independently existent thing. Report an error in the passage at 43:20 Highlight the passage at 43:20

43:48 That kind of pot does not exist at all and in fact cannot exist at all. So that's what you're thinking of when you think form is empty. So you just replace the word form with whatever physical thing or object you want to analyze. The table is empty. How does the table not exist? You know, what is it empty of? And then going through that whole analysis of how the table does not exist except as this and this and this. Report an error in the passage at 43:48 Highlight the passage at 43:48

44:16 But it's always been empty of existing in this way that I thought. It is empty of that kind of existence. That's all that emptiness means. Report an error in the passage at 44:16 Highlight the passage at 44:16

44:29 Emptiness is form. So then you think how does the pot exist? Then you think of its dependent arising. So form is empty is thinking about its emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 44:29 Highlight the passage at 44:29

44:41 Emptiness is music. Emptiness is form is thinking about how. The pot arises as a dependent arising. So you're going back through your notes and all your studying and all your thinking about how things actually do exist. Think about the three different levels of dependent arising. How things exist on the basis of causes and conditions. And remember Geshe-la always says, and I said it again last night, the strongest is always karma. Report an error in the passage at 44:41 Highlight the passage at 44:41

45:07 The primary cause is always karma. Think about the second level, which is independence upon parts. The parts that make up the pot or the cup itself, and then what goes into those parts, and what goes into those parts, and what goes into those parts, and what goes into those parts, which our school doesn't believe in. Report an error in the passage at 45:07 Highlight the passage at 45:07

45:30 Wait, wait. A partless particle supporter over here. And then the third level. that's Chidamash, man. And then the third level of... Dependent arising which is that the form exists as both independence upon its causes and conditions and its parts and more importantly or most importantly on this label or concept that we slap upon it. Report an error in the passage at 45:30 Highlight the passage at 45:30

46:04 This conceptualization process that we go through where we label something cup. Based upon cups we've seen in the past and so forth. So that's what you're analyzing in the second step. Emptiness is form. Report an error in the passage at 46:04 Highlight the passage at 46:04

46:21 Emptiness is nothing but form. Here we're actually saying that you have to have a cup or a pot or a body or a form to have the emptiness of the pot. So every object has its own emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 46:21 Highlight the passage at 46:21

46:40 Not just physical objects, that's just what we're looking at right here. And as long as we have an object, it has emptiness. If the pot or the cup or the body goes out of existence, its emptiness also goes out of existence. But it's not like there's just some sort of big emptiness out there somewhere, you know? Report an error in the passage at 46:40 Highlight the passage at 46:40

47:01 Emptiness is a characteristic of whatever object it is that you're analyzing, right? So there's... My body has its own emptiness. The cup has its own emptiness. The table has its own emptiness. If all three are destroyed in an earthquake, that emptiness goes out of existence as well. Right? So there's no emptiness in a broken cup? There is, but it's a different emptiness than it was in the cup. Because it's a different object. Report an error in the passage at 47:01 Highlight the passage at 47:01

47:27 I mean, it'll be the emptiness of the corpse, right? Until they find the corpse. But we don't get into that one. So that's how you're analyzing emptiness is nothing but form. Report an error in the passage at 47:27 Highlight the passage at 47:27

47:39 So you're thinking about how every object has its own emptiness and it's thinking about that aspect of it being almost like a characteristic of every object. Report an error in the passage at 47:39 Highlight the passage at 47:39

47:50 And then form is nothing but emptiness. If there were no emptiness of the pot, could there be a pot? No, you have to actually have emptiness to have a pot arise. Report an error in the passage at 47:50 Highlight the passage at 47:50

48:05 Our mind makes things really solid and heavy and real and inherently existent. Because we both have the habit or the karma, however you want to think of it, to see things that way. But if things weren't empty, we couldn't have a pot. Report an error in the passage at 48:05 Highlight the passage at 48:05

48:30 Let me start that one over. So form is nothing but emptiness. We have to have emptiness to have a pot. Our mind makes us see things as heavier and more real. if, if things, um, um, Report an error in the passage at 48:30 Highlight the passage at 48:30

48:47 Like when we're watching a movie things seem so solid and real and we actually mistake what's happening with reality all the time. In these teachings they're actually saying that things aren't happening in this real heavy solid way and that the emptiness allows for things to exist in the way that they actually exist rather than in this solid way that we actually always want to make them exist. Report an error in the passage at 48:47 Highlight the passage at 48:47

49:13 This isn't again talking about nihilism. Things actually exist. In a way, he's sort of playing with words here. But he's saying that things could not exist the way we thought that they did without emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 49:13 Highlight the passage at 49:13

49:29 So there's like a sort of a lightness to how things actually do exist. So why don't, this would be a good time if you want to ask your question. Two questions actually. The first is the distinction between the Chiu-Chok realization and a direct perception of emptiness. That the former is conceptual and the latter is non-conceptual? Yes. Partially. Partially you're having a conceptual realization, but you're also having a realization of dependent arising rather than of emptiness at that moment. Report an error in the passage at 49:29 Highlight the passage at 49:29

50:04 You're seeing how things actually do exist. You're seeing that trick that your mind does when it looks at an object. So actually what's becoming clear to you there is dependent arising. Report an error in the passage at 50:04 Highlight the passage at 50:04

50:16 And my second question. Thought I heard you say, which I've heard in other classes of this, the paths take lifetimes. But when you said that once you have the direct perception of emptiness, that you don't lose that, even in subsequent lifetimes. So I just find it curious that someone could, say, have another human rebirth. And I'm wondering what the formative years would be like if you're a being who's had a direct perception of emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 50:16 Highlight the passage at 50:16

50:44 Right. I would think about examples like the stories that we hear about Lama Zopa's early life and stuff like that. Because I think if you've already had a direct perception of emptiness, and we're talking about on the Mahāyāna path, right? So you probably also have already had a genuine realization of bodhicitta. So your birth is going to be in incredibly great circumstances, right? Report an error in the passage at 50:44 Highlight the passage at 50:44

51:08 Because you've already created a karma for it. So there's no magic to that. It's just you've created positive karma. To the point where you're going to be in a family where they may notice that you have these leanings. You may even be born in a Buddhist family. And you're going to be drawn, obviously, to certain teachers and teachings. Report an error in the passage at 51:08 Highlight the passage at 51:08

51:28 I mean, like sometimes you hear stories about the Lamas when they were little kids and they, even against all odds, they wanted to get ordained when they were two and a half or something. You know, like these bizarre things. They're like Lama Tsongkhapa who just kept wanting to run up the hill or in that. Report an error in the passage at 51:28 Highlight the passage at 51:28

51:41 movie, The Unmistaken Child, and he kept running, running away from home to be with the, the, um, You could basically be a child without a certain level of intellectual. Report an error in the passage at 51:41 Highlight the passage at 51:41

51:59 But you would be seeing the world in that schizophrenic way that you described. That's a trip. Yeah, it is a trip. It is a trip. But you'd also have the habit of wanting, of already being familiar with Buddhist teachings and being drawn to them. So that's how you would find them again. But they say, even with His Holiness and other high lamas, they still have to study it again. Report an error in the passage at 51:59 Highlight the passage at 51:59

52:22 It's there, but it's almost like... If we studied something when we were in seventh grade and then we go back to it now and it's familiar and you're like, oh wait, I do kind of remember how to say that in Spanish. That's the way it is for me. But it's not on the tip of our tongue and so it's familiar and we're drawn to it but they have to still refresh it. Report an error in the passage at 52:22 Highlight the passage at 52:22

52:46 I guess I had understood that your karmic seeds carry with you, lifetime, lifetime, subtle mind stream and all that. But I never extended it to think that your realizations also stayed with you. I guess part of me thought it was like, you know, clean slate every time you're kind of starting. No, thank goodness. That's why it takes lifetimes because you're only making incremental progress each time. And you just don't know when one of those karmic seeds is going to take off. Report an error in the passage at 52:46 Highlight the passage at 52:46

53:11 I mean, that's the cool thing. We actually don't know really where we are in the path. It's not like we can draw this great little diagram, but I could have a sudden realization tonight. tonight of like renunciation like big time renunciation and just be like sorry you guys I can't even finish the class I have to go off to the retreat I mean I probably won't but you know we don't understand it's actually a little selfish He might understand because he's going to have the same realization. But yeah, you just don't know when that's going to hit, especially if you're constantly purifying, constantly trying to accumulate merit. Report an error in the passage at 53:11 Highlight the passage at 53:11

53:42 Something could happen, like a huge shift suddenly. And also there's Tantra. And we haven't even gotten into Tantra, but Tantra can speed up this whole process. Literally, if you just threw yourself into it, like Milarepa, which not many of us are doing at this point, but we could attain enlightenment in one lifetime. Report an error in the passage at 53:42 Highlight the passage at 53:42

54:02 Certainly in several lifetimes. So we can speed through. It can be the total American approach to getting enlightened. So it does sound like once you have your chok-chok moment that you kind of know you're getting close. Because that's the last realization you took while you're still an ordinary being. Right, but I don't, I mean, you guys would know, right? You guys might be like, oh, it's Chitaka. What does she call that? Report an error in the passage at 54:02 Highlight the passage at 54:02

54:31 I'll be staring at teapots now before I go. I think it can happen with any object. Any object that you're analyzing. It would be for me. It would either be a teacup or a teapot. But... yeah. But. I don't know that you necessarily would be like, oh God, maybe it's going to happen tonight. I don't think it's going to be like that. I think it would be like, you probably would be mulling that over after that experience, right? Report an error in the passage at 54:31 Highlight the passage at 54:31

54:58 You know, you'd go ahead and finish making the cup of tea and bring it in to, you know, your teacher and you'd be like, oh, that's something really interesting just happened. And the teacher would be like, mm-hmm, maybe don't meditate, you know? Report an error in the passage at 54:58 Highlight the passage at 54:58

55:09 But you might not necessarily, come on in, you might not necessarily know, oh, I'm close. Unless you've really been studying this all the time. Oh wait, here's another chair. Yeah, Report an error in the passage at 55:09 Highlight the passage at 55:09

55:25 so you might not. If you had been studying this quite a bit and you knew, you recognized, then you might know. You might be like, wow, hey, that could be it. That could be the one we've all been talking about. But otherwise it might just be that you were just really mulling it over because it really hit you like a ton of bricks. So you might be just mulling it over. And I don't know which karmically causes the direct perception of emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 55:25 Highlight the passage at 55:25

56:00 I mean obviously everything does, but if you're just mulling it over in your mind and then you sit down, it makes sense too that you would then have the direct perception of emptiness, right? Because you just had this really powerful realization. You totally get how dependent arising works in this way you've never gotten it before. Report an error in the passage at 56:00 Highlight the passage at 56:00

56:18 And then you sit down and meditate. It's all just fresh. It's like hitting the refresh button on your screen, your internal screen, and everything just kind of like, it all just freshens up. And that's when you then sit down with that cup of tea to meditate. I can see that it would inspire you to look deeper. Yeah. If you have that cup of tea. Report an error in the passage at 56:18 Highlight the passage at 56:18

56:39 I mean, I should say, I can imagine. I would just think it would just, everything would be sort of more alive and refreshed, you know, like in your mind, I would think. Anyway, so then continuing with the sūtra, he then is giving us what we meditate on, on these two paths to prepare ourselves for the path of seeing, right? Report an error in the passage at 56:39 Highlight the passage at 56:39

56:58 So we've discussed some of this, but I'm just going to go through it in order. So we just talked about form. The form is emptiness. Emptiness is the form. You do that with actually all the remaining four skandhas or the four aspects of your mind. So the five skandhas are talking about your body. And then the four aspects of mind are feeling, discrimination, compositional factors, and consciousness or raw awareness. So you do that with each of them repeatedly, trying to understand the emptiness of those things. Report an error in the passage at 56:58 Highlight the passage at 56:58

57:34 But those things are a little more obscure, right? It's a little, for my mind anyway, it's a little easier for me to think about the cup is emptiness, emptiness is the cup. When you start getting into feelings or emptiness, emptiness or feelings, it gets a little bizarre. But the more you do it, the more it kind of makes sense. And unfortunately, I mean, we can be swayed to doing negative acts based on cups. Report an error in the passage at 57:34 Highlight the passage at 57:34

58:02 Not very likely. We can definitely be swayed by our body to do negative acts. But it's feelings and discrimination and all the actions of our mind that actually cause us to do a lot of negative actions towards ourselves and towards others. So that's what we really need to analyze. Even though... In some ways it makes it harder to analyze, but we have to do that step. So feelings specifically in this case, not emotions. Report an error in the passage at 58:02 Highlight the passage at 58:02

58:31 We're talking about good, bad, neutral feelings that come up when our mind makes contact with an object based on our karma. So, you know, I like the color red. I hate the color orange. Actually, pink. I hate pink. Sorry, I'm going to say orange because I might. Alienate a certain person who likes orange. But I do hate pink. But that's just a karmic reaction. I know that pink doesn't inherently exist in a way. Report an error in the passage at 58:31 Highlight the passage at 58:31

59:03 So we're talking about good, bad, neutral feelings that specifically arise in our minds when our mind makes contact with different objects. Object meaning not things, but everything. So color is an object of the mind, you know, everything is an object of the mind. So I'm using that word object indiscriminately. Report an error in the passage at 59:03 Highlight the passage at 59:03

59:26 Discrimination is talking about the ability of the mind to discriminate between things specifically, like that, don't like that, you know, indifferent towards that, those three. So it's taking that feelings and you're acting on it now. You're beginning to push-pull, you know, yourself towards things. So looking at the emptiness of that. Report an error in the passage at 59:26 Highlight the passage at 59:26

59:48 And then compositional factors are basically any other mental functions that are not feeling discrimination or raw awareness. So that's everything. That's memory. That's compassion. That's concentration. That's intellect. That's identity. That's everything else that our mind can do. I mean, it's almost unlimited. That's the compositional factor. Report an error in the passage at 59:48 Highlight the passage at 59:48

1:00:17 So when I'm meditating on these, I like to think about specific examples of them or else it just becomes, let's call them visual factors. It's basically this huge grabback. So I'll pull out a couple of things and the emptiness and the memories have strong power over it. Or pick out mental afflictions that are really powerful for your mind. So if you're really, really attachment oriented, which is a personal favorite of mine, thinking about the emptiness of that attachment. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:17 Highlight the passage at 1:00:17

1:00:48 It feels so strong, right? It causes us to do so much, you know. It does not exist inherently out there. It just arises in dependence upon certain, you know, causes and conditions and then falls away. So just doing that same analysis but with this. And then your raw awareness. And you have to even meditate to even figure out what raw awareness is because we're not so familiar with raw, but focusing on that. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:48 Highlight the passage at 1:00:48

1:01:16 So the very next moment after you have this experience of Chuchok, After you've handed over your tea, you go and you sit down and you have this direct perception of emptiness. Like I said, it could last as little as 20 to 30 minutes. You have to be able to meditate deeply enough to stay in meditation for a couple of hours, but it could be over in as little as 20 to 30 minutes. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:16 Highlight the passage at 1:01:16

1:01:46 At the moment that you are absorbed in meditative equipoise upon emptiness, nothing else exists for you except emptiness. The absence of everything you thought existed in a certain way, the lack of that. Your mind is making one-to-one contact with an absence of reality as you knew it. And after that experience, your mind is forever changed and you become what's called a superior being or an Arya being. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:46 Highlight the passage at 1:01:46

1:02:18 Again, one of my teachers said, he used to say, it's sort of like one, your mental continuum is like this limitless spaghetti noodle. It's had limitless before this moment and limitless after this moment, but it's almost like there's this dividing line between whatever came before, which is ordinary being. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:18 Highlight the passage at 1:02:18

1:02:42 And everything that happens after is an Arya being. Because you remain an Arya being after you get enlightened. So Buddhas are Aryas as well. So from then on you are an Arya being. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:42 Highlight the passage at 1:02:42

1:02:54 So after you have that, this is the path of seeing. So that moment that you hit that direct perception of emptiness and have this experience, this becomes the path of seeing. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:54 Highlight the passage at 1:02:54

1:03:07 This path is the shortest of the paths and it has two parts. That moment of direct perception and then when you... come back down and they say that it actually is almost like a feeling of coming back down from this experience. You may want to talk to your teacher, for sure, because it's just so big and you're like, oh my god, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:07 Highlight the passage at 1:03:07

1:03:43 There's not a doubt in your mind. And in fact of all of the afflicted states of mind, the one that is completely eliminated at that moment with that experience is doubt. You do not have any doubts either about what you experienced or about the teachings on emptiness or about any of the teachings. Like it all just is like, wow. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:43 Highlight the passage at 1:03:43

1:04:07 This is it. You know, like it's suddenly, you might have been leaning in that direction, obviously, because you've been spending several times on this project, but you just have this gut feeling that these teachings are true. Even if I don't understand certain ones at this point, it's my mind that's not developed. It's not the teachings that aren't true. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:07 Highlight the passage at 1:04:07

1:04:30 And you get it then, of course, that everything... Exist in reliance upon karma, so it becomes super, super important for you to act ethically and to keep your vows if you have vows and to watch your mind and your words and your actions 100%. Get that connection at that moment. You aren't perfect, right? So you have all these other series of realizations that happen over the next 10 to 12 hours, including you have a direct perception or a... Report an error in the passage at 1:04:30 Highlight the passage at 1:04:30

1:05:04 A realization in a way of the Four Noble Truths. You know, so you get that truth that life is suffering, that there is suffering. You get it that there is a cause of that suffering and that cause can be removed, thankfully, from our minds. You get it that complete cessation is possible. And you get it that there is a path to that cessation. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:04 Highlight the passage at 1:05:04

1:05:27 Cessation is just a tricky word for liberation. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:27 Highlight the passage at 1:05:27

1:05:33 And it isn't one that we use all the time, so I don't like it so much. but, um, um. You get this direct experience of the affordable truths. You get it that you yourself will be enlightened and you can see how long it will take you to get enlightened. You know exactly how many lifetimes it will take you. You actually have this direct experience of when you yourself will die and you'll know how much time you have left, which of course I would think would also amp things up a tad bit. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:33 Highlight the passage at 1:05:33

1:06:08 Like I said, your doubt is completely eliminated and you have this unshakable faith. And, oh, and then for that period, for that short period, you're actually clairvoyant. So probably not for the, maybe for the first time in your life, you actually are able to read people's minds without effort. Like it just sort of happens. That doesn't last. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:08 Highlight the passage at 1:06:08

1:06:37 That one actually goes away until you reach certain levels of the bodhisattva boomies. And as you develop calm abiding, you actually gain certain levels of clairvoyance. But for that moment, for that day, you actually can read people's minds. So when you call in sick, you know, you're like, I can't go in, something's just happened, you know, you actually get a hit of what your boss is thinking. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:37 Highlight the passage at 1:06:37

1:07:07 Then the Buddha starts talking about all the different experiences that are also empty in addition to phenomena. So when he's talking about, you know, so he has just talked about form is empty, emptiness is form, emptiness is none other than form, form is also none other than emptiness. In the same way, feeling, discrimination, compositional factors and consciousness are empty. Likewise, all phenomena are emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:07 Highlight the passage at 1:07:07

1:07:34 Then he moves into without characteristic. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:34 Highlight the passage at 1:07:34

1:07:39 This is talking about the pen thing. That pen-ness that we keep looking for in things. You know, cup-ness, table-ness, you know, Alonzo-ness, Morgan-ness. The things that we look for in objects that never existed that way. So that's what he's talking about. There's without characteristic. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:39 Highlight the passage at 1:07:39

1:08:01 He's saying try this analysis with everything. Unproduced. Unceased. So in other words, and we talked about this a little bit in the last class, the transforming problems where we're talking about the deeper eight. Does anybody remember that when we're talking about the eight worldly concerns and we're talking about the flip side? This comes directly from the Heart Sūtra. Things don't start or stop from their own side. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:01 Highlight the passage at 1:08:01

1:08:29 And this has to do with how karma is the how. I'm sorry, karma is the why. We find out why certain things happen and that's the why, but then karma is really what makes it all. Karma is what makes the world go round. So it looks like things start and stop from their own side, but this is talking about how karma works. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:29 Highlight the passage at 1:08:29

1:08:55 So for example, if you go to turn the key to make your car start, it feels like when we turn the key, that's what makes it start. But that's just the how. What makes it start is if I have the karma to have a working car. If I have a karma to have the working car, then I'm going to have a working car. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:55 Highlight the passage at 1:08:55

1:09:15 If I don't have the karma to have a working car, I can turn that key as much as I want to and it's not going to start. Because if the whole reason was turning that key, then every single time you turn the key, it would turn on. That's just a condition. It's a great condition, obviously. You want to have the ability to turn it on and have it work. You want to have enough gas in the tank and all those other conditions. But if you don't have the condition to have a working car, it's kind of like at the end of The Graduate when Dustin Hoffman is like, it's like everything is getting in his way and he's just not going to let anything get in his way to get to the church to get, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:15 Highlight the passage at 1:09:15

1:09:56 Elaine out of the church. And he has to just abandon the car. The car dies. He's running. He won't see an obstacle. If you do not have the karma to have a working car, you can try everybody's car and it won't start. It just won't start for you. It's like me and wristwatches. It just won't start. So that's what it's talking about with things unproduced and unceased. Things don't start from their own side and things don't stop from their own side. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:56 Highlight the passage at 1:09:56

1:10:29 We're talking about, for example, we talked about in that class last term about, for example, if you have a headache and you take a headache pill, if the sole reason for the... Pain to go away was taking the pill, then every single time you took the pill it would work. It doesn't work that way. I know because I get a lot of headaches. I don't anymore, but I have. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:29 Highlight the passage at 1:10:29

1:10:50 The sole reason according to the Buddha is you're only going to experience the pain if you have created Killing Karma. And you're only going to lose the pain or illness or whatever. If you have the karma where you have protected life or helped a sick person or taken somebody's pain away, that's what creates the causes of us to actually remove our own suffering is by taking care of others. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:50 Highlight the passage at 1:10:50

1:11:23 So that's things, you know, it looks like death ends things, right? I mean, I've known a number of people who have committed suicide thinking that that death would end all their problems. It's just moving, you're just, it's like an energy shift, you're just, the mind is then moving into a different existence, a new body based on karma. So you haven't really ended any of the problems that you thought would end with death, because we think of death as the final ending. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:23 Highlight the passage at 1:11:23

1:11:52 I think we even say that, you know, the final goodbye, you know, that's just this life, you know. Then the little mind goes on and then you've created some pretty powerful negative karma by committing suicide and the state that your mind was in. It's really negative. And so then you just get a new life based upon that karma. So even death isn't. And it doesn't exist. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:52 Highlight the passage at 1:11:52

1:12:20 Stainless, not without stain, which are the next two lines. Things don't have impurity and things don't get pure either. So this is again talking about an experience. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:20 Highlight the passage at 1:12:20

1:12:35 If we want to change our lives and our minds and we want to get enlightened, we can't just be sort of vaguely nice. We really have to be working our minds and rooting it out and purifying when we screw up and really trying to change our approach to life. That's the only thing. It's knowing how it all works that's going to make a difference. It's not just showing up for church on Sunday. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:35 Highlight the passage at 1:12:35

1:13:04 Externals almost don't matter. We probably don't know who the most serious students are because we're all thinking the nicest one and then they go home and kick the dog. We don't know what people do. So everything is internal. This is all internal. This is completely internal. Not deficient, not fulfilled. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:04 Highlight the passage at 1:13:04

1:13:28 In other words, things don't ever become less or more. From their own side, you know? Report an error in the passage at 1:13:28 Highlight the passage at 1:13:28

1:13:40 So, you know, if we're talking about purifying our minds and accumulating merit, it's not like stuff. We have to be aware of that, too. It's kind of like we were talking about with the mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:40 Highlight the passage at 1:13:40

1:13:59 There's not an inherent purification process going on and there's not an inherent gaining of merit, either. know? Report an error in the passage at 1:13:59 Highlight the passage at 1:13:59

1:13:55 The mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:55 Highlight the passage at 1:13:55

1:14:06 That's also empty. And the process of attaining Nirvāṇa and clarifying our minds and our understanding all along the path, that's also lax in here in existence. And it's not like, you know, we talk about it in terms of following a path, taking a spiritual journey. We're not really going anywhere. You know, I remember... Report an error in the passage at 1:14:06 Highlight the passage at 1:14:06

1:14:32 One of my teachers said in the middle of a class, he was like, wouldn't it be interesting if it was like the matrix where basically you just never left the room. And you had all these experiences and you thought you were doing all these things, but actually it was all just this internal thing happening in your mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:32 Highlight the passage at 1:14:32

1:14:46 To some degree that is the Buddhist belief that, like you guys could all have attained enlightenment and I wouldn't necessarily know if you didn't want me to know. You know, like people could... If you have this direct perception of emptiness, nobody necessarily knows. Except you might be walking down the street. But after a couple days when you got used to a little bit, I wouldn't know. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:46 Highlight the passage at 1:14:46

1:15:11 You can't tell when somebody's had this direct perception of emptiness. You can't tell when somebody's generated bodhicitta. There's no external change, which is interesting, I think. you. Um... Report an error in the passage at 1:15:11 Highlight the passage at 1:15:11

1:15:23 Then the heart suture starts going into the emptiness of all of your aggregates, or the, I'm sorry, the objects of your aggregates. So he repeats it again, your aggregates. Sharaputra, in the middle of page 78, Sharaputra, therefore in emptiness there is no form, no feeling, no discrimination, no compositional factors, no consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:23 Highlight the passage at 1:15:23

1:15:46 So he repeats the aggregates again. Then he starts talking about the I. The ear, the nose, the tongue, the body and mind. And then he's talking about the six consciousnesses. So there are six consciousnesses in Buddhism. There's the five sense consciousnesses. Eye, ear. He's talking about the sense consciousnesses here. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:46 Highlight the passage at 1:15:46

1:16:11 And then he's talking about mental consciousness. That's the one we think of as consciousness. But in Buddhism there's also the sense consciousnesses too. There's this whole elaborate process of how we see and there's a part of our consciousness involved in the actual organ and so forth. So he's talking about the emptiness of that process. Everybody's well trained as a volunteer. It's okay, just kidding. All the volunteers stand up. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:11 Highlight the passage at 1:16:11

1:16:37 Then he's talking about the objects of those consciousnesses, right? So visual forms. so... Report an error in the passage at 1:16:37 Highlight the passage at 1:16:37

1:16:51 You know, that happened this morning, too. It's sometimes just wind. Whoa. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:51 Highlight the passage at 1:16:51

1:16:59 Sometimes it's just wind or a short circuit. Is this where the kid looks up and says, there. Right, right. Well, we were saying that this morning because Tim was getting ready to start his puja and it just kept ringing. Did you open the door? Yeah, he ran down because it's... wind. Whoa. Yeah. You. That's wind. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:59 Highlight the passage at 1:16:59

1:17:16 Sounds like it's down. Well, I mean, you should just... I know, I said maybe the ghost forgot his keys, right? So he's trying to get back in. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:16 Highlight the passage at 1:17:16

1:17:27 you want to peek down and just see if the door got closed, the gate got closed? Or the gate? Maybe the gate got closed. I doubt it, but just... Report an error in the passage at 1:17:27 Highlight the passage at 1:17:27

1:17:41 No eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind is talking about the consciousnesses. No eye consciousness, no ear consciousness. Nose consciousness, no tongue consciousness, no body consciousness, and no mental consciousness. Then when we get into the next section, no visual form, no sound. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:41 Highlight the passage at 1:17:41

1:18:05 Did anybody call a cat? Yeah, that's me. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Oh, you've got to take off. Have a great trip. Bye. Thanks for coming. Wait, did you get your homework? No, I won't be back. It's okay. Give it to her anyway. Just trying to get out of it. Sorry. thank you so much. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:05 Highlight the passage at 1:18:05

1:18:23 That's cool. That one's going to really creep me out. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:23 Highlight the passage at 1:18:23

1:18:31 So was he at the bottom of the stairs? Is that what she found out? Yeah. Because sometimes it's that doorbell that sounds like it. Yeah, yeah. And if we close the gate, sometimes it's hard. People can't get up and they're just ringing and ringing. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:31 Highlight the passage at 1:18:31

1:18:46 So the next line, no visual form, no sound, no odor, no taste, no object of touch, no phenomena, those are talking about the objects of those consciousnesses, right? So if we're talking about eye consciousness, visual form is the object of the eye consciousness, right? Any visual form at all, any form, ball, cup, table, you know, students, chair, room, house, whatever, any visual form. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:46 Highlight the passage at 1:18:46

1:19:11 So you can do this analysis on any visual form. Sound. Bell, puja, doorbell, instruments, you know, you can analyze the emptiness of them. Odor, you can think about the different odors which are the object of the nose consciousness. Taste, again, thinking about the emptiness of all tastes. Object of touch, you know, anything that you can touch with your sense consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:11 Highlight the passage at 1:19:11

1:19:41 And phenomena is the object of mental consciousness. So that's all those are talking about. There's no ignorance and no extinction of ignorance, so on up to and including no aging and death and no extinction of aging and death. This is talking about the 12 links. So going in this direction, this is what got us here, right? Starting with ignorance and going all the way up to aging and death. It's talking about the 12 links, that diagram that I gave you. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:41 Highlight the passage at 1:19:41

1:20:07 the Buddha said basically ignorance of how of our conception of self particularly is what Created all of our suffering in saṃsāra. So if we unravel it the opposite direction and we come back, we're able to sort of slice the ignorance and allow for the wisdom to grow. We sort of unravel it going back the other way. He's saying both directions, either direction is all empty of inherent existence. So these tools for understanding the mind, like that chart that I gave you on the 12 links or the chart that I gave you of the path. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:07 Highlight the passage at 1:20:07

1:20:47 It only gets us so far because that itself is also empty of inheritance. So we have to be really careful of relying too much on conceptual thought. We need it to get there, but we have to be willing to discard it once it gets in our way. So this is kind of what he's talking about there. And this is when he mentions for the first time that aging and death are also empty of inheritance. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:47 Highlight the passage at 1:20:47

1:21:09 So he's hoping that he has your attention here. Similarly, no suffering, origination, cessation and path. Four Noble Truths, the emptiness of the Four Noble Truths. So the Four Noble Truths themselves, his first teaching is also empty of inherent existence. So he's mentioning like all the big stuff, you know. He's saying it's all empty of inherent existence. Does it exist? Yes, it still does exist, conventionally speaking, and we have to use it to get enlightened, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:21:09 Highlight the passage at 1:21:09

1:21:41 But it doesn't exist inherently, and that's what he's saying. So we have to fill in some missing words there. There is no exalted wisdom, no attainment, and also no non-attainment. Buddhahood itself is empty. He's getting down to the nitty-gritty there. He's basically saying everything on our path is empty of inherent existence, and even our final result, fully enlightened mind, is also empty of inherent existence. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:41 Highlight the passage at 1:21:41

1:22:13 So he's going through basically all of the main teachings of Buddhism. In this, just these two pages alone. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:13 Highlight the passage at 1:22:13

1:22:26 So, that is everything that we have meditated. Then we, you know, we're preparing for it. We have just had this deep meditation. We've just gotten it, that everything is empty of inherent existence. We then rise up that next day. So we've had, you know, this repeat, all these different experiences where we've seen the emptiness of the Four Noble Truths. We get the Four Noble Truths. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:26 Highlight the passage at 1:22:26

1:22:52 We know when we're going to get enlightened. We know when we ourselves are going to die of this life. We have this unshakable faith now. And then we enter what's called the fourth path, the path of habituation. We have to keep going back into that meditative state again and again and again. Not to relive it, but simply to get familiar with what we got out of it the first time. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:52 Highlight the passage at 1:22:52

1:23:22 So we're going back into that direct communication. We are analyzing all of these different things, but when we're in that state of direct perception of emptiness, we're not analyzing anything. We're not, there's no conceptualization. So off the cushion, we might be contemplating these things and thinking about it, you know, the experiences are empty, even what I'm shooting for, enlightenment is empty, my mind is empty, you know, all of this is with as much understanding as we can. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:22 Highlight the passage at 1:23:22

1:23:52 But when we go back into that state of deep meditation, We are not thinking anything. We are simply, it's like we plug in again and get another hit. And that hit is completely non-conceptual. And then we come back out again and we have our little schizophrenic reality where we're constantly studying and analyzing and all that. But then we go back in and it's almost like just another plug in. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:52 Highlight the passage at 1:23:52

1:24:17 We have to keep doing that over and over and over again. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:17 Highlight the passage at 1:24:17

1:24:25 But the underlying thing from the third path on is we have this really, really strong trust because we don't believe the way our eyes perceive things anymore. We don't have the confusion that we used to have. So that base ignorance has already been shattered. So that ignorance that is the cause of the whole twelve links, it's already been cracked just by this direct perception of emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:25 Highlight the passage at 1:24:25

1:24:57 It's not gone yet. But it's been cracked. It's already beginning to unravel. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:57 Highlight the passage at 1:24:57

1:25:05 The other things that you're... How are we doing on time? 8.32. Thank you. I did bring a clock. It was very purpose. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:05 Highlight the passage at 1:25:05

1:25:15 They don't work when you wear it anyway. I know. I know. It's okay in the pocket though. I broke another one like that. This is when I just dropped and broke and I broke another one two nights ago. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:15 Highlight the passage at 1:25:15

1:25:31 So we do have enough. I think we do have enough. Yeah, we do. I'm almost done with this. And then we can just discuss, just talk. The rest of those deeper eight that we talked about in transforming problems are things that we've already talked about in here. But they are further analysis that we can do if we want to have a direct perception of emptiness or get enlightened. And that is that nothing is unchangeable. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:31 Highlight the passage at 1:25:31

1:25:58 Nothing is permanent. Permanent and unchangeable are synonyms in Buddhism. So basically constantly analyzing how everything is impermanent, which is of course good news, including our mind. Our mind is impermanent. Our karma is impermanent. Everything is impermanent. And a lot of our fears are based on the fact that everything is impermanent, but in reality that's the good news. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:58 Highlight the passage at 1:25:58

1:26:31 If nothing existed, then nothing would matter. That's nihilism, right? That's if we fall into, well, then if nothing exists, then I might as well just go out and party, right? You know, nothing exists. The reality is that despite the fact that things are empty of inherent existence, karma still functions. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:31 Highlight the passage at 1:26:31

1:26:56 It still works, and because karma works, and because... And because things are empty of inherent existence, then everything is possible and everything is possible because karma is able to arise and propelling us to either enlightenment or whatever else. Karma is simply the creator force in Buddhism, so we can use karma for anything. If we do negative actions, it can create the causes for a hell realm as well, because we create the hell realm. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:56 Highlight the passage at 1:26:56

1:27:26 We are the creator being, you know. We don't want to do that. We would rather become enlightened and so we want to create the causes of enlightenment. So if nothing existed then nothing would matter is talking about the fact that we can slip into nihilism if we don't get it that lack of inherent existence does not mean lack of existence. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:26 Highlight the passage at 1:27:26

1:27:48 Conventional existence always does exist. There is no coming, there is no going, which is basically very similar to... The other that I just talked about. And that's basically, it's sort of talking about the examples I give are the sprout, the seed that has to be destroyed by the sprout, which is destroyed by the mature plant. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:48 Highlight the passage at 1:27:48

1:28:11 But they're yet, they're somehow innate in that plant. It looks like things are changing, but it's so gradual that it's actually sort of like new things are starting in every moment. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:11 Highlight the passage at 1:28:11

1:28:30 And who was it I was just talking to? Was it you? The fractals. I love the fractals idea. We were just discussing the fractals idea. Say, describe fractals again. I know. I know you're really tested. They're like geometric. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:30 Highlight the passage at 1:28:30

1:28:54 We were talking about it in relationship with your mind. Your mind is like sort of shooting out a new fractal in every second. It's like, and the previous moment causes that, but then it's gone. Right? And then the new one is then gone. And then the next one. And so it's just like the mind becomes like that. When we talk about the various steps of growth and development, we sort of break it down into these static moments that don't ever exist. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:54 Highlight the passage at 1:28:54

1:29:26 Even when we're studying the human body and so forth, the doctors who study the human body know that the body doesn't exist like this. We'll study just one organ that, of course, has to be studied in relationship to all the other organs. And that's true for our understanding of reality. It looks like things come at us without cause, but everything has a cause and everything is interdependent. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:26 Highlight the passage at 1:29:26

1:29:50 And so it's all related like that. There's no coming, there's no going. There's just sort of energy shifts. And then there's no one thing and there's no many, and that gets into that one analysis where we talk about... It looks like a solid cup or a solid table or a solid body, but then we start breaking it down, right? And so everything is made up of parts, so it looks like a solid table, but then we start thinking, well, okay, but it has a top and it has sides and it has the, you know, legs. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:50 Highlight the passage at 1:29:50

1:30:22 This is a weird table, but it has these things holding it up. And then we start going into even deeper parts, you know, the different... Atoms that go into it and, you know, the part, because this is made of wood and so forth, that are changing constantly all the time. We still can't find what we're hanging on to. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:22 Highlight the passage at 1:30:22

1:30:40 It looks like a solid thing out there. And then we start breaking it down and we realize it's not solid. But then we also can say that table is, it's nothing more than its parts and it's nothing other than its parts. You know, it's sort of... If we were to chop it up like we did in that one analysis where all the parts are lying in front of you but no longer in the shape of a table, it's still a table. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:40 Highlight the passage at 1:30:40

1:31:06 So it's not just its parts. Because if it was just its parts and we disconnected all the parts and put it in front of us, it would still be a table. So it's something else. I don't know if I'm making any sense. This is one analysis to do. So the unitary, if it looks like it's one thing. You know, things look like one thing to us, whether it's a dog or a table or a cup. And then things are also not just all parts, you know, because if that were true, then we could just chop up all the parts and it would still be a thing. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:06 Highlight the passage at 1:31:06

1:31:44 That's getting into the penness again. So, anyway, by the end of the sūtra, you move into the fifth path, or enlightenment, and that's when he hits the mantra, which is at the top of page 80. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:44 Highlight the passage at 1:31:44

1:32:03 So this mantra is, oh I know what it is. I started to say, he goes through a different path every time he says Sharaputra's name. That's what I was trying to remember. Every time he says his name, Sharaputra, he bounces up another path. So then at the end you reach the fifth path, or the path of no more learning, they call it, or enlightenment itself. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:03 Highlight the passage at 1:32:03

1:32:26 And that's when we say this, recite this mantra. The mantra is... The mantra actually describes this full path to enlightenment and I like to use it whenever I have a problem because basically it reminds me about emptiness. So it's all there in the path. It also sort of gives you, like if you have a lot of fear, I do it when I'm intrigued, it helps you cut that fear because fear is just based on ignorance, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:32:26 Highlight the passage at 1:32:26

1:32:58 We don't see things as it really. It is when we're in fear. Fear is an ignorance of reality. So using this any time you need a hit of emptiness to recite this mantra. But basically, tayata means this is the way it is. This is how it is. This is how it's starting. Tayata, gate, is follow the path of accumulation. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:58 Highlight the passage at 1:32:58

1:33:25 This is what the path of accumulation is implied. Go follow the first path of accumulation. Gatte, go follow the second path of preparation. Paragatte, go beyond the ordinary state into the path of seeing. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:25 Highlight the passage at 1:33:25

1:33:45 Parasamgatte, go beyond perfectly to the path of meditation. Bodhi Soha, enlightenment, so be it. Can you repeat that? Yeah. You'll have it in your homework tonight, actually. Tayata, this is the way it is. Gatte, go follow the first path of accumulation. Gatte, go follow the second path of preparation. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:45 Highlight the passage at 1:33:45

1:34:15 Paragatte, go beyond the ordinary state into the path of seeing. Parasamgatte, go beyond perfectly to get to the fourth path of meditation. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:15 Highlight the passage at 1:34:15

1:34:30 Bodhisattva, enlightenment, so be it. So let's read that together actually, just that mantra, I'm going to read it three times. And actually Lama Yeshe used to have us do, well I wasn't there, but Benarune continues that tradition, used to have, you just would recite it three times and then before you went into a meditation on emptiness. Report an error in the passage at 1:34:30 Highlight the passage at 1:34:30

1:35:00 I almost like to clear the mind of everything that gets in the way. So that's the way we'll say it. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:00 Highlight the passage at 1:35:00

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:35:40 You Report an error in the passage at 1:35:40 Highlight the passage at 1:35:40

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:36:28 can do that before you start your meditation or the beginning of your session or something like that. And then when I repeat it when I get nervous, I actually do it with a bit more rhythm on it. Gathe, Gathe Report an error in the passage at 1:36:28 Highlight the passage at 1:36:28

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:36:45 I do... It's almost just like under your breath. You can do it at work, even. I mean, they already think I'm weird, so I can do that kind of thing. So questions. Questions on that. I know there's a lot of material. it. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:45 Highlight the passage at 1:36:45

1:37:11 But I wanted to make sure that we covered a lot of it. So questions that are coming up for people and also questions about your meditation this week. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:11 Highlight the passage at 1:37:11

1:37:35 I know it's not truly existent. It's definitely an impermanent phenomenon. You know, in the process of the Report an error in the passage at 1:37:35 Highlight the passage at 1:37:35

1:37:56 Disassembling of phenomenon through analysis, breaking things down to point to point to point, and then doing that with an external object, and then doing it as an internal process. At what point it's... Well, I know. I kind of put this out there for you, too. You know, it's like that experience of it. You're looking at sort of the dissolution of the self by looking at the aggregates, and it's like, no, I'm not my hands, I'm not my eyes, I'm not my arms, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:56 Highlight the passage at 1:37:56

1:38:28 But there's still that, you know, the sense of the inherent self that is trying to go through this negation. Right. You know, so you're kind of training yourself. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's like trying to keep pulling the rug out from under your feet. It's like getting behind you, you know. Yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, that doesn't exist, but don't look at me. The way I describe it is like trying to see your own eye without looking in a mirror. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:28 Highlight the passage at 1:38:28

1:38:54 You know, you're kind of going through this analysis at some point where it's just, I guess it's that part of looking for that aha moment, you know, where you're laying the groundwork at some point. Because at the point, it is that formless setting, at the point where you finally pull the rug out, you're eliminating the dualistic conceptualization. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:54 Highlight the passage at 1:38:54

1:39:13 So I think you're probably going to have to pull that rug out a few times. Yeah, that's what you're talking about. I think you will have the moment of, oh my god, where is it? And then like two and a half, and then it'll go, ah, I'm right here, don't worry. Because you know, and you keep coming back, right? It's ridiculous, the moment that when you pull out the rug, I mean, there isn't, I mean, it is that non-dualistic formless state then. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:13 Highlight the passage at 1:39:13

1:39:34 Well, you will have a direct perception of emptiness, but I think you're going to pull the rug out from underneath yourself a couple of times before you realize that it's not really there. Because that self is slippery. Yeah, like someone could kind of be out there and it's like you get sucked back in. That's right. It's like, no, I'm here, David, it's okay. You know, that's scary or something weird. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:34 Highlight the passage at 1:39:34

1:39:51 I'm feeling nothing. No, wait, if I'm feeling nothing, then there you go. Right, right, right. Exactly. But yeah, I think it is slippery. They say it's kind of like mercury, right? It slips away. Yeah. For those of us of a certain age who remember mercury thermometers when they would break. Try to like move it around. Have you ever find one? Oh God, the kids love it. Oh, I know. We didn't know that at the time. I know. I mean, they put it in our frigging teeth. Report an error in the passage at 1:39:51 Highlight the passage at 1:39:51

1:40:21 You can play with it with a lead chip paint that falls off the wall. I know. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:21 Highlight the passage at 1:40:21

1:40:31 Explains a lot. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:31 Highlight the passage at 1:40:31

1:40:37 Anybody else looking for the eye and having a good time or bad time? I know. I know you. I know you. don't know. I don't know. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:37 Highlight the passage at 1:40:37

1:40:46 I'm looking for anything, any phenomena, the thingness of anything. I've been getting stuck in the mind part, so it's this continual presence, and so then finding memories or likes, dislikes, I'm trying to think of more ways to break down. Well, it'll help too because you haven't really studied the mind that much, right? And we are going to study the mind in the fall, so you'll have another chance. Report an error in the passage at 1:40:46 Highlight the passage at 1:40:46

1:41:14 Books that you can read, like a good preparation is Geshitashi's book on the psychology, I think it's called psychology, what's it called? Buddhist psychology. Yeah, because there's mind into that in Buddhism and that's a different one. Yeah, and the thing I like about Geshitashi is it's a little more accessible. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:14 Highlight the passage at 1:41:14

1:41:33 I mean, there are a lot of studies out there on the mind where you get into low rig and stuff like that, but you don't really, I mean, at this level, let's not go there so much. But that's actually how you start getting into the mental images and stuff like that, which that's more discussed in Lowrig, how our mind creates these mental images of everything, meaning generality. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:33 Highlight the passage at 1:41:33

1:41:57 But I'm just talking about all the things that even make up mind, because we're not that familiar with what mind is in terms of Buddhism. We think of brain, and we think we might think of the emotions, and we might think of conceptual thoughts. But we might not think of that much more than that. Maybe memories. But we might not think of that much more than that. Well, they throw in all this other stuff that they say are minds. And they actually say the emotions, which we sometimes think of feelings, right, coming from our heart. Report an error in the passage at 1:41:57 Highlight the passage at 1:41:57

1:42:27 Like somehow there's this difference between heart and mind. And Buddhists say it's actually all mind. It's all created by mind. That dichotomy doesn't actually exist. The mind is actually right here. And it's creating everything. So studying the mind a little bit actually helps. The study that you do will help the meditation because you'll understand mind more. But until that point, you can still just think about it like you did. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:27 Highlight the passage at 1:42:27

1:42:50 Just pull parts of the mind that seem obviously like mind and analyze those like you did with memory or any afflicted thought. Report an error in the passage at 1:42:50 Highlight the passage at 1:42:50

1:43:02 You know, I have an unlimited amount, so if you knew any ideas... But sometimes the ones that are the most... Powerful in your life are a good place to start. So if you have a lot of problem with attachment or anger or fear or jealousy, then analyze those first. Because we give those a lot of power over us, right? They don't have that much power. It's just mind and thought. And they're just thought thinking. Mind thinking. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:02 Highlight the passage at 1:43:02

1:43:30 But then we're acting on it. Beating people up and killing people and stuff like that. Hopefully not. But you know what I mean? That's what it's possible to do on the basis of mind. Run amok. So you can analyze it from that. And then also, like, how do you know when you're not cheating? Like, it's short-cutting. Report an error in the passage at 1:43:30 Highlight the passage at 1:43:30

1:43:55 Like, okay, I'm done. Like you said the other week. Like, okay, I know my body's not in my... Right. My self isn't in my body, you know. I don't know. I think you probably will cheat a little bit. Yeah, you just have to keep being willing to go back into the... And that's why the mind doesn't want to go back into the analysis, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:43:55 Highlight the passage at 1:43:55

1:44:13 It's like, I know I'm going to find it. What's the point? And it's just like, I need to get it at that gut level that you're not there. I know that you're not there, you crazy self. But I am obviously acting like you're still there, so I need to find it for myself. Because otherwise, it's like that snake in the room. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:13 Highlight the passage at 1:44:13

1:44:33 You still are acting like there's a snake in the room and you're like avoiding that chair where you think it is. And you're, you know, every time you come into the room, you're kind of freaked by it. That's what's happening because we haven't proven it to ourselves that self isn't really there. We haven't proven it to ourself that the self isn't there. We haven't proven it to our own mind that the self doesn't exist. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:33 Highlight the passage at 1:44:33

1:44:54 Once the self, like David was saying, once you really get it at a gut level that the self doesn't exist, all that other stuff, there's no place for it to hang. It has to just drop. But it takes a while to have that realization on a deep level. So you just have to keep going back into it. And I would say, too, go to meditations where, for me, I had an experience where I was at a meditation retreat and somebody else was leading me to meditation. Report an error in the passage at 1:44:54 Highlight the passage at 1:44:54

1:45:24 I found that quite useful. Because I... I probably would have ended that meditation quicker. I would have been like, okay, it's not there. But this person kept leading it. It was Renee. And he kept going deeper and deeper. At that point, it was talking about the emptiness of the mind. And he was going deeper into what that meant and the space between the thoughts. And I had this sudden, ugh, because I couldn't find anything there that I obviously still, without my understanding it, was still thinking that somehow the self was the mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:24 Highlight the passage at 1:45:24

1:45:54 You know, even though I wasn't going to admit it. So it took somebody leading me there and keeping me there, you know. So go to emptiness retreats, you know. Take a weekend and go and just like surrender yourself to somebody who kind of has some experience doing this, like Tenzin Chokyi or Renee or great ones that keep us working with the mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:45:54 Highlight the passage at 1:45:54

1:46:22 When we want to get up and just go get somebody. This is where we put the emptiness retreat in September at Vajor Pani. That's right. Yeah, with Emily and Tensenski and who's the third person? John. John Lando, yeah. September. Do you know the dates? I think I put it on your syllabus, though. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:22 Highlight the passage at 1:46:22

1:46:52 You're the most positive idea. Yeah, yeah, so if you can dig out your syllabus, then that's on there. September 1st to the 5th. Oh, thank you. It's a Thursday to Monday, and I think, because I think that, is that Monday a holiday? That's Labor Day, yeah. Labor Day weekend. Yes, it's going to be four days. Report an error in the passage at 1:46:52 Highlight the passage at 1:46:52

1:47:14 Yeah. Yeah, it's five days. But three, you're already off, so you don't have to take off on Thursday. Yeah. And probably, it may not start, it may start in the evening on the Thursday, so then you don't have to take off on Thursday. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:14 Highlight the passage at 1:47:14

1:47:27 Also, if we're going to do plugs, it's a little late notice because it's happening the first week, first 11 days of June, but Venable René, who I've talked about so highly, and Chodin Rinpoche, who will be here first, he goes directly from here to there, is going to be teaching about comma biting. I think it's still possible to attend his retreat, his teachings as commuter. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:27 Highlight the passage at 1:47:27

1:47:56 That's still possible. But I think at this point there's no space left to attend the retreat as a retreat. There's just no accommodations left. Yeah, there's like 70 people. Yeah, they're booked. I'm going for the first seven days. That's all I could do. I got permission from the teacher. Yeah, because you have to get permission, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But that was when they first announced it. I signed up when they first announced it. At that point it was seven days. Report an error in the passage at 1:47:56 Highlight the passage at 1:47:56

1:48:22 And then all of a sudden they added on the extra four days and I'm like, there's no way. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:22 Highlight the passage at 1:48:22

1:48:28 But that, I think, is going to be the retreat of the century because Chodron Rinpoche, if people don't know his background, when the Chinese invaded Tibet and most people left with His Holiness in 1959, Chodron Rinpoche stayed. And what he ended up doing eventually, not immediately, but eventually he actually went into private retreat in his... Report an error in the passage at 1:48:28 Highlight the passage at 1:48:28

1:48:57 A member of his family's home in Lhasa, so in this busy city. He just, he was already marked as an invalid because he had some various health problems like heart stuff. So he faked it, basically. He never left his bed. He never left that room for 19 years. He never left the room. Never left the room. Which is why he has the problems with his knees and stuff. No. And the problems with his skin. No. Manifesting. But he just did. Report an error in the passage at 1:48:57 Highlight the passage at 1:48:57

1:49:28 He just meditated on, he had finished his Geshe program, so he just meditated on everything that was in, he didn't have any books, everything that was in his mind. So he just meditated deeply for 19 years and then came out the other side and then left to bed in like the 80s or something. So he was way behind everybody else and then he came to Sarah and just started teaching. But when he first came to the West, it's like it wasn't even, the West must have been so overwhelming. Report an error in the passage at 1:49:28 Highlight the passage at 1:49:28

1:49:57 But to even just be out, he had only, you know, that was in 2000, he had only actually been out of Tibet for like 15 years. And that, you know, I can't even imagine. He moved like an iguana. He would move like this. And then when he would smile, he would just smile and he would just completely light up. And we were all just like, oh my God, what is it? Report an error in the passage at 1:49:57 Highlight the passage at 1:49:57

1:50:19 Like it just didn't even, it almost seemed not human, you know? And I remember Veneral Amy saying like, this is like... He knows meditation. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:19 Highlight the passage at 1:50:19

1:50:50 When he describes things in teachings, it's from this place of... of gut level experience, you know. And then Venerable Rene, who's a Swiss monk, is this amazing teacher who is on his way to getting calm abiding if he didn't manage to get it over the winter. He did another four month retreat this past winter. And they begged him to come out, actually. He's basically gone into retreat for at least the next three or four years, but I'm sure they begged him to come out. Report an error in the passage at 1:50:50 Highlight the passage at 1:50:50

1:51:21 I think he's coming out just for this and he's going back. Yeah, and I don't think he was, I think he was actually going to attend it and then they were like, please, please, please, because Fabian is like definitely a disciple of the director of that center. Anyway, so he's amazing and you just sort of feel like, I think he's amazing anyway. It's one of those things where when he became, when he got ordained, he was in his early 20s when he got, he's exactly my age now. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:21 Highlight the passage at 1:51:21

1:51:52 I just don't remember we both had a big birthday at the same time. But when he got ordained, he went to Nalanda and was there for a number of years and he just got all of his neutral practices. Report an error in the passage at 1:51:52 Highlight the passage at 1:51:52

1:52:08 He could just tell that he was like, he got the importance of this human life. Like he already kind of got it and was really applying himself with a lot more gusto than the rest of us, you know, schlucks. So, but he makes you feel like there's a chance for you, you know. So he talks about like these ways that you can do it and you, and you know, he's really, Report an error in the passage at 1:52:08 Highlight the passage at 1:52:08

1:52:31 It's encouraging and also gives you the methods to attain the concentration and discusses with you the reason why it's important in a world that doesn't value a single point of concept. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:31 Highlight the passage at 1:52:31

1:52:44 I mean, we value the opposite. We value being able to, like, while you're sitting on your cushion, you know, texting and checking your email, you know. So the combination of the two. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:44 Highlight the passage at 1:52:44

1:52:56 Is anyone in here planning to go to that retreat? What is it? June 1st through the 11th. But if you can't go, I would still say if it's possible to go to Jenna Rinpoche's teaching, I know it's a lot and it would require back and forth driving, but I highly suggest it if you have any desire to attain common body in this lifetime. Report an error in the passage at 1:52:56 Highlight the passage at 1:52:56

1:53:25 I believe so. Yeah, because the retreat starts Wednesday, the 1st. Go camping in Boulder Creek. Is that what you're doing? You're camping in Boulder Creek? No, no, I'm going to stay there, but I'm saying if you could only go for a few days. Oh, that's true. Yeah, just camping in Boulder Creek. That's true. Why's your ponies right outside of Boulder Creek? Report an error in the passage at 1:53:25 Highlight the passage at 1:53:25

1:53:43 In Santa Cruz Mountains. Yeah. It's like two hours. Yeah, so like go to, you know. There are hotels and also there's a campground, big, what's it called? Big Basin. Big Basin, that's it. Yeah. It might be cold in June at night, I don't know. It would be. You'd have trouble getting reservations. And Big Basin. Big Basin, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:53:43 Highlight the passage at 1:53:43

1:54:12 Your karma will get you there. I know, it'll be like the minute you call, three people cancel. I think it's going to be too hard to travel back every day. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:12 Highlight the passage at 1:54:12

1:54:23 Just think of it, you'll pick up a Southwest flight, you know, you do it at night and the other day. There's probably a lot of cheap ones these days, actually. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:23 Highlight the passage at 1:54:23

1:54:32 Anyway, I didn't give you guys a break. See, I'm all turned around because we're in the wrong room. It's the right room. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:32 Highlight the passage at 1:54:32

1:54:43 It's the inherently existing wrong room inside. I'm facing the wrong direction. You guys are supposed to be facing this way, I'm facing that way. So let's take a moment to dedicate them. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:43 Highlight the passage at 1:54:43

1:54:58 Do you want me to hand that? Nope, do it at the end. If anyone sneaks out to their car. Report an error in the passage at 1:54:58 Highlight the passage at 1:54:58

1:55:07 I want to just find the one I was really looking for last week. Oh, let's just do that one that we found by mistake. Now it's going to be coming. Okay, let's do page 240. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:07 Highlight the passage at 1:55:07

1:55:23 Here they come. Oh my god, the soakers. They're all whacked out from all that instrument stuff. Yeah. Due to the merits accumulated over to three times by myself and all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, which are empty from their own side, may I, who is empty from its own side, achieve the state of enlightenment which is empty from its own side, and lead all sentient beings who are empty from their own side to that state as quickly as possible by myself alone. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:23 Highlight the passage at 1:55:23

1:55:53 Because of these merits, may my actions never cause even the slightest harm to any sentient beings. Instead, may it bring only the greatest benefit. Whatever suffering or happy life I experience, may it be only the greatest benefit to others, causing them to achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. Report an error in the passage at 1:55:53 Highlight the passage at 1:55:53

1:56:14 Like Lama Tsongkhapa, may I be able to offer extensive benefits equaling the limitless sky to all sentient beings and the teachings of Buddha from now on in all future lives by having all the qualities of Lama Tsongkhapa within me. Because of the past, present and future merit created by me and by the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and sentient beings, may I, my family, disciples and all sentient beings be able to actualize completely in this very lifetime Lama Tsongkhapa's path of unified sūtra and tantra, which is pure like refined gold. Report an error in the passage at 1:56:14 Highlight the passage at 1:56:14

1:56:53 May this pure teaching of Lama Tsongkhapa spread in all directions and flourish forever. Because of all the merits of the three times created by me and all the Buddhas, Vaisaphas and other sentient beings, may there be no wars, famines, disease, quarreling, fighting or unhappy minds. May there be great prosperity and may everything needed be easily obtained. May all the human beings in the world be guided by spiritual leaders teaching only Dharma and may everyone enjoy the happiness of Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 1:56:53 Highlight the passage at 1:56:53

1:57:27 May everyone have perfect conditions and have only compassion and love for each other and in their mind streams. May they only benefit and never harm each other. May I and all others be able to live lives of pure moral conduct like Lama Tsongkhapa himself, train the mind and bodhicitta and live in pure view and conduct. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:27 Highlight the passage at 1:57:27

1:57:48 In this way, may we be able to complete our lives without corrupting the pure wisdom of the second Buddhist teachings. Due to the merits of the three times created by myself and others and by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, may I and my family members, all the students and benefactors of the organization, and all sentient beings be able to meet perfectly qualified Mahāyāna virtuous friends in all our future lives. Report an error in the passage at 1:57:48 Highlight the passage at 1:57:48

1:58:15 From our side, may we always see them as enlightened and always perform only actions most pleasing to their holy minds. May we always fulfill their holy wishes. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:15 Highlight the passage at 1:58:15

1:58:27 Pretty much covered everything, I think. I'm sure we thought of another one a minute. She wrote it down. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:27 Highlight the passage at 1:58:27

1:58:39 All right, thank you, you guys. We still managed to finish on time. I Report an error in the passage at 1:58:39 Highlight the passage at 1:58:39

1:58:49 mean, hardly ever drink the tea. Now I'm like, I might as well not because I'll stay up all night. I have to go upstairs and do my own silk. He was like, hmm. Report an error in the passage at 1:58:49 Highlight the passage at 1:58:49

· · · silence, 1 minute

1:59:04 So next week, oh, so everybody got a list also of all the presentation topics? Did you hand that one out? So there was this, and then there was just this on top, but only one copy. He did that by mistake. I told him not to do that. Report an error in the passage at 1:59:04 Highlight the passage at 1:59:04

1:59:26 So he didn't do the presentation topics. No, but is this the correct homework? Yeah, I'm sure it's the correct. Well, let me look. Did everybody get one? It's class eight. Did everybody get a homework? Okay. No. You guys didn't get a homework? No. That's because you're on the couch. Because you're going to help it enter into my money. Report an error in the passage at 1:59:26 Highlight the passage at 1:59:26

1:59:47 I'll go copy it. Thank you. This is like beyond what I can fix. Who else does it? Just us. Okay, so presentation topics. Yeah, I can. I just want to make sure I have everybody's email address correctly. Report an error in the passage at 1:59:47 Highlight the passage at 1:59:47

2:00:09 Did everybody do? are you reading them? we have his ideas? Report an error in the passage at 2:00:09 Highlight the passage at 2:00:09

2:00:18 No, I don't think I've ever done it at the very beginning. I took them all down for this very purpose. Now I just actually have to remember to Okay. Why don't I take account who right now knows that they want to come to the What day is that again? The 21st. So not this Saturday, but next Saturday. Saturday the 21st? Saturday the 21st. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:18 Highlight the passage at 2:00:18

2:00:53 Is that hand up? Go ahead. Report an error in the passage at 2:00:53 Highlight the passage at 2:00:53

2:00:59 That's good. 11 is great. I'm happy with 11. I totally thought it was going to be. Was your hand up or you're still looking? Yeah, I'm supposed to be out of town. I'm sorry, that doesn't work. That's good, Report an error in the passage at 2:00:59 Highlight the passage at 2:00:59

2:01:12 I know, just like meaving at a time for the changing tree. It's not working. Or Gina. Gina was really bummed. She actually made her flight tonight so that she could get in this class as much as she could. So I was really impressed by that. I was like, that's almost like Jessica. Report an error in the passage at 2:01:12 Highlight the passage at 2:01:12

2:01:30 Alright, so... That's right. Those of you who cannot come, I'm sending it to you anyway because you might want to arrange to meet, like we tried that one time, to either as a group meet or just as an individual. I might get together and have a cup of tea and you guys grab something off the list and just talk to me about it for 5-10 minutes. That's always possible if you'd like to do it. Report an error in the passage at 2:01:30 Highlight the passage at 2:01:30

2:01:52 Sometimes it's just a nice way to close the class. If you don't want to, no pressure. For those of you that are attending, there's still no pressure. If you are like me, I always was terrified doing any kind of talk or anything. Like the minute I would get into a college course or, you know, when I had a choice, high school you couldn't drop the class, but college you could. Report an error in the passage at 2:01:52 Highlight the passage at 2:01:52

2:02:16 So you got in, you got the syllabus, there was an oral report in there, I was out. You know, I just wouldn't, I wouldn't do it. And I can understand that. I know, I totally didn't want to and I still get really scared. So, scared. So, um... If you're like that, you don't have to do it. That's okay. But come and listen to everybody else because you probably will get a lot out of it. And you can also do it to me on the side. Report an error in the passage at 2:02:16 Highlight the passage at 2:02:16

2:02:39 Like we can meet later and you can just whisper it to me or pass it to me or something. Otherwise, grab something off the list and think about it. Or if you have your ideas for something else you want to do that's not on the list, shoot me an email and just ask me if it's okay. It's really relaxed. It doesn't have to be a big deal. But it's really a cool way to just hear. Report an error in the passage at 2:02:39 Highlight the passage at 2:02:39

2:02:58 How other people are thinking, and we get a lot out of it. I mean, I see nodding heads. Other people have gotten something out of it, so thank you, David. And while you were going, we made you president of the presentation club. And you have to go first. Report an error in the passage at 2:02:58 Highlight the passage at 2:02:58

2:03:20 Anyway, so I like that, so I'll send it out to you. But thank you very much, and I'll see you next week. Thank you. will not accept. Report an error in the passage at 2:03:20 Highlight the passage at 2:03:20

2:03:38 Okay, I want to pick one. Are you sorry? Are you sorry in the bed? Report an error in the passage at 2:03:38 Highlight the passage at 2:03:38

2:03:50 I don't want anything too empirical to do that. I love plurality. That's something I majored in in college. I've never seen an app getting a blood pressure tape. They have a little kind of philosophy. So a lot of the stuff that you did, did you ever see them? I haven't seen them. I got out around it from the opposite. Report an error in the passage at 2:03:50 Highlight the passage at 2:03:50

2:04:10 Well, Well, she she was. had buried her head in a nice sweater. She was trying to make herself in the Westwood. I found a teacher who, like, you know, received me. Report an error in the passage at 2:04:10 Highlight the passage at 2:04:10

2:04:24 What is it? What is it? he's like, ooh, it's like this recognition, not even like learning something, it's just like, oh, yeah, definitely got a tweaker in it, but he's off the bounce, what? Someone's like, I'm wrong, yes, this is the one I was thinking about, the height, yeah, okay, yeah, my sister used to have too many of them, anyway, it was the best one, my sister ended up in What do you think about this song? Report an error in the passage at 2:04:24 Highlight the passage at 2:04:24

2:04:54 But I was sitting right by my bum and I never heard the buzzer. I must have just gotten up and left every time. I got six texts by the time I looked at my bum and I was like, she's the beard. And then I noticed that three of them were from one brother and two of them from another and then one from you. That's when I found her. So it was like I went through all of them and they were like, what's happening with Christy? Report an error in the passage at 2:04:54 Highlight the passage at 2:04:54

2:05:17 Oh, she's in the hospital. Oh, it was like all the reactions to all of them. And then also the very end was like, would you like to go for a hike in the wild? And I'm like, oh god, that's the best one. Is your sister okay? She's okay now. Okay, good. Report an error in the passage at 2:05:17 Highlight the passage at 2:05:17

2:05:35 She was vomiting now. Oh, it's terrible. It's treatable at least. It is. Yeah, it's totally treatable. It's totally treatable. Okay, here we go. No, I wanted to tell you guys. Seriously, not believe what I found tonight. It's crazy. Yeah, I know. because I've been testing it the last few days. I've been testing it for the SCEO's and did it. I found this random website. You can sign up for a text message. Report an error in the passage at 2:05:35 Highlight the passage at 2:05:35

2:06:04 You need to remind us of your 45-hour refuge and partnership. It's got to be from Simon. It is. Yeah, it's got to be So now I get these texts that are like secondary offense. Report an error in the passage at 2:06:04 Highlight the passage at 2:06:04

2:06:28 It's like room downfall, if you click, do you want bodhisattva bells, do you want reptilian bells, do you want time? Oh my god! At the end of the day it says recall your three best deeds of the day and rejoice. Oh my god, send it to us! I was like, oh my friends are going to be so excited! It's called a vow project. But you don't write it down. So what do you do when you get it? You just think about it? It's just a funeral. Report an error in the passage at 2:06:28 Highlight the passage at 2:06:28

2:07:03 It's not the same as your plus minus. So then it calls on you to remember the best and the worst you did at the end of the day. See, I use my books sometimes by thinking about it. What's nice for this is it helped me the last few nights just even remember it. I think about it rather than pick, like sometimes I would even be trying to get rid of the bed and forget to like pick up my book. Right. You know, so it's kind of just like an extra, like, because you know my phone is usually with me. Report an error in the passage at 2:07:03 Highlight the passage at 2:07:03

2:07:32 Right. And you can always have your vowel book being in conjunction with that. Right. Exactly. And it randomly says, you know, they aren't in order. No, they're just, yeah. So you couldn't handle that you could do it. No, you couldn't do it. Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 2:07:32 Highlight the passage at 2:07:32

2:08:37 I was like, no way, this has gotta be a joke. No, it's funny when you describe it, it's like it's gathering from diamonds. This is exactly, this is the people that I I mean I was doing like a volunteer project there and everyone stopped and got out their vows and I was like, this is so great, everybody's like, you know, but it's cool because like I'll just be randomly at work where I'm going to have my vow book or something, you know, or you just would be, yeah, I'll bring mine religiously, I bring mine to work and then I don't think of it until I get it. Report an error in the passage at 2:08:37 Highlight the passage at 2:08:37

2:09:10 get on the bus to go, right? Yeah, exactly. And I'm like, oh, Darvitz. I love that. That's great. No, I totally send it to you. I'll send it to you guys. Because I'll forget. And I wanted to verify that it was accurate at first. Yeah, yeah, no. Thank you. We have to tell John about it. I'll send it to, he's on our list. Yeah, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 2:09:10 Highlight the passage at 2:09:10

2:09:44 Thank you. He's very lucky to keep you. Yeah, lucky you were someone in your last diagra working really hard. I feel like a squad or their aspects of something here, you know. You're thinking on the 20 seconds? Yes. Yeah. It's not the day that we do our... So that's why I said I bet you're actually doing the... Report an error in the passage at 2:09:44 Highlight the passage at 2:09:44

2:10:11 You guys have to wrap it up. Yeah. It's still, it's like black versus yellow. Yeah. Oh, I love a good one. just a debate, because that day, I was planning to be a senior at Whitman. We were asking for the woman in the close west of the big place in the 28th. Okay, for the cleaning it was on the 21st or the 27th. For the event, yes. Report an error in the passage at 2:10:11 Highlight the passage at 2:10:11

2:10:39 But the 28th and 29th are the events. is hard because I'm so late to come Report an error in the passage at 2:10:39 Highlight the passage at 2:10:39

2:10:47 did, and then that's the day that you were asking me if I can help from 2, 4, 4, 30. He's starting to see me, I didn't know about donations, he's not coming with them. He didn't let me go for the retreat. He's going to let me have the retreat with you on the 21st. That's why I don't know, I'm sure he's going to be here. Report an error in the passage at 2:10:47 Highlight the passage at 2:10:47

2:11:08 Yeah, for the 20th. I didn't have that too that came down the way. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And I wouldn't worry about it too much. I put you down, I was going to put you on the registration table, actually, because I'm just so, I'm really meeting people on that. We just don't have as many volunteers this last time. So why don't we skip that and you just... Report an error in the passage at 2:11:08 Highlight the passage at 2:11:08

2:11:46 this other thing. That'll be enough. Yeah. We need to set these for a few. It's because. We need to be real serious. Okay. So don't worry about it. and we'll just find something else for that. Yeah, but I mean, I would love to see it again, because I just feel like it could be so powerful. Okay, if you, if you are able, we'll find something we're going to do, but. Report an error in the passage at 2:11:46 Highlight the passage at 2:11:46

2:12:04 Yeah, because it's going to come, because it's really going to come, because it's really like me, it's just, it's going to be a hundred people, it's going to be crazy, so I think let's assume not, let's assume not, I'll just like you know, but for the queen, that's brilliant, that's brilliant, so. Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 2:12:04 Highlight the passage at 2:12:04

2:12:20 So, I need to give you keys. Just in case you come on Sunday, if you're not. I think now Charles is going to be here, and John will be here in the morning. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to go down to Medicine Buddha today. I might not. But anyway, why not? I will give you the keys next week. Medicine Buddha Festival Day, so Shadrini Shaya Geshe-la are at Atlanta Medicine Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 2:12:20 Highlight the passage at 2:12:20

2:12:54 but there's a friend you wanted. How did you learn it? Um, yeah, I was like, oh, yeah, and she's like, oh, yeah. Isn't that interesting? I'm definitely trying to do that. I was hearing my last name. I was like, oh, yeah. That's it, yeah, yeah. I mean that was why we, for all the people coming to help clean the front steps and stuff, I told them not to come till three so that it would give. Report an error in the passage at 2:12:54 Highlight the passage at 2:12:54

2:13:25 If I go, it would just be the morning. just think you can go in the morning and put them in the woods. How about that? That would be great. You could take people. Yeah. Yeah, because then I just go down there. I just kind of feel like I want to. I don't necessarily have to do the extensive major with them. Report an error in the passage at 2:13:25 Highlight the passage at 2:13:25

2:13:45 I just want to. Rinpoche said it was good for us to do it somehow. So I just, yeah. Shantideva, Shantideva, Shantideva service here, and you can buy when I come back by lunch, and you can buy, yeah, definitely buy two. Yeah, give me the time. Give me the time. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So now I have to see if anybody wants to go. Report an error in the passage at 2:13:45 Highlight the passage at 2:13:45

2:14:34 Oh my god, this was just recording everything. Sorry. I'm sorry! Report an error in the passage at 2:14:34 Highlight the passage at 2:14:34