Heart Sutra — 2009-10-24

Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.

About this talk. In this nearly three-hour teaching on the Heart Sūtra, Tenzin Chogkyi walks students through the foundational concepts needed to understand one of Buddhism’s most revered texts. She begins by situating the sūtra within the Mahāyāna tradition—explaining why it is recited across Tibet, China, Japan, and Vietnam—and then unpacks the dense title, revealing that each word (aria, Bhagavati, prajna, pāramitā, hridaya) carries layers of meaning. The core instruction comes early: Avalokiteśvara teaches Śāriputra that practitioners should meditate on the five aggregates—form, feeling, discrimination, compositional factors, and consciousness—as empty of inherent nature. To make this concrete, Chogkyi spends considerable time explaining dependent arising at three levels of subtlety: dependence on causes and conditions, dependence on parts, and most subtly, dependence on conceptual designation and imputation. She illustrates this with examples (cups, electrons, the film “The Gods Must Be Crazy”) to show that nothing exists from its own side independent of a mind labeling it. She then clarifies how things still validly exist conventionally through continuity, consensus, and function. Throughout, she emphasizes that confusion is expected at this stage and promises the pieces will cohere in meditation and further study.

File metadata (for organising)

File: Heart Sutra2 2009 10 24.mp3

UUID: 7e0d78b6-9736-46f2-830a-764bf330a7fc

Teacher: Tenzin Chogkyi

Collection: Heart Sūtra (Tenzin Chogkyi)

Date: 2009-10-24

Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide

Words: ~25,376

Yeah. Okay. So let’s start with a few minutes of just sitting, watching our breath to focus our minds, get ourselves here in this room, and then we’ll set our motivation for the teachings today. So let’s just sit for a few minutes watching your breath, either the breath at your nostrils or deeper in your body, in your chest, your chest rising and falling. And now let’s take a minute to set our motivation.

We’ve seen yesterday that without studying, meditating on emptiness, getting that direct realization, we’re never going to be able to become fully enlightened. And only by becoming a fully enlightened Buddha will we have all of the qualities necessary to benefit all sentient beings. So let’s set our motivation for studying this subject, thinking the purpose of this is to be able to study, understand enough to get the direct realization of emptiness that’s nonnegotiable on the path that’s absolutely necessary for a full enlightenment. Okay. So let’s read the Heart Sūtra again in the gold prayer book.

And what we’ll do is read the title on page seventy seven first in both English and Sanskrit since we talked about that last night. And then we’ll read in English on page seventy nine. So the heart of the perfection of wisdom, sūtra, ārya bhagavati prajna pāramitā hridaya sūtra. I prostrate to the ārya triple gem. Thus did I hear it one time.

The Bhagavan was dwelling on massive vultures mountain in Rajagriha, together with a great community of monks and a great community of bodhisattvas. At that time, the Bhagavan was absorbed in the concentration on the categories of phenomena called profound perception. Also at that time, the bodhisattva, mahasattva, ārya, Avalokiteśvara looked upon the very practice of the profound perfection of wisdom and beheld those five aggregates also as empty of inherent existence. In the power of Buddha, the venerable Śāriputra said this to the bodhisattva, mahasattva, ārya Avalokiteśvara, or daughter of the lineage who wishes to practice the activity of the profound perfection of wisdom. He said that in the Bodhisattva, MaLhasattva, Ārya Avalokiteśvara, said this to the venerable Shariputratra.

Shariputratra, any son of the lineage or daughter of the lineage who wishes to practice the activity perfection of wisdom, should look upon it like this, correctly and repeatedly beholding those five aggregates also as empty of inherent nature. Form is empty. Emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form. Form is also not other than emptiness.

In the same way, feeling, discrimination, compositional factors, and consciousness are empty. Shariputratra, likewise, all phenomena are emptiness without characteristic, unproduced, unceased, stainless, not without stain, not deficient, not fulfilled. Shariputratra, 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. 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.

Extinction of aging and death. Similarly, there is no suffering, origination, cessation, and path. There is no exalted wisdom, no attainment, and also no nonattainment. Śāriputra, 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 endpoint of nirvana.

All the Buddhas who dwell in the three times also manifestly, completely awaken to unsurpassable, perfect, complete enlightenment, reliance on the perfection of wisdom. Therefore, the mantra of the perfection of wisdom, the mantra of great knowledge, the unsurpassed mantra, the mantra equal to the unequaled, the mantra that thoroughly pacifies all suffering, should be known as truth since it is not false. The mantra of the perfection of wisdom is declared. Tayata gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha. Śāriputra, the bodhisattva, maLhasattva, should train in the profound perfection of wisdom like that.

Then the Bhagavan arose from that concentration and commended the bodhisattva, mahasattva, ārya, Avalokiteśvara, 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’ve indicated. Even the Tathagatas rejoice.

The Bhagavan, having thus spoken, the venerable Śāriputra, the bodhisattva, mahasattva, ārya, Avalokiteśvara, those surrounding in their entirety along with the world, plants, humans, asuras, and Gandharvas were overjoyed and highly praise that spoken by the Bhagavan. Okay. So when we read it now, it’s inspiring but maybe a little cryptic. Maybe it doesn’t make a lot of sense. And hopefully by the end of the weekend, you’ll be able to see it as meditation instructions.

Won’t that be different? Yeah. Okay. So we talked a little bit yesterday. I wanted to just review some of the things that we talked about.

We said that the Heart Sūtra is one of the most beloved and most often recited of the sutras of the Mahāyāna tradition, recited in all Mahāyāna Buddhist countries Tibet, China, Korea, Vietnam, Japan, parts of Vietnam, and so forth. So America, Europe, Australia now we have to include all these other countries too where the Mahāyāna has spread. Because it’s very concise and it’s easy to recite the whole thing. It’s probably one of the few sutras that’s easy to recite the whole thing in less than ten minutes, no matter what language you’re speaking. So it’s very, very profound.

And we talked about three different levels. We said it’s an explanation of emptiness, it’s meditation instructions, and it also implicitly talks about the five paths, or the progression towards Buddhahood and the realizations on each stage. So we’re going to be talking about all three of those levels in our two days that we have together. We’re really going to cram it in. So we started by talking about the title.

So we had aria, which means what? Where’s the microphone? What is aria? Gina. That’s convenient.

And aria is someone who’s had a direct perception of emptiness. Yeah. Okay. So an aria, this is the title in Sanskrit, ārya bhagavati prajna pāramitā hridaya, and an aria means someone who’s had a direct realization of emptiness. Okay, an aria being.

Different from arhat, and sometimes there’s confusion. We talked about that. So an arhat is a being that’s liberated from saṃsāra. They’re an ārya first, have to be, because that realization is necessary for both liberation and enlightenment. So there’s an ārya first, and then they become an arhat.

The amount of time between ārya and arhat all depends. It could be many lifetimes. It could be within one lifetime if they’re really we talked about some of these disciples at the time of Lord Buddha that were becoming aryas right and left. Know, so they became an ārya maybe in the same meditation session kind of progressed all the way through. But these were beings that were had exceptional virtue already just to be born as direct disciples of Śākyamūni Buddha.

Already so ripe. So when Shariputratra heard this one verse from actually he heard it from Maudgalyayāna, his lifelong best friend, who’d heard it from one of the Buddha’s disciples and became an Ārya right on the spot, you know, and became an Arhat about three days later. Know? So frustrating. You read these stories.

You’re like, God. But these are beings with incredible virtue, which is why Lama Zopa Rinpoche keeps telling us to pray to be born as Maitreya Buddha’s disciples. Maitreya Buddha is the next wheel turning Buddha. Right? We talk about the wheel turning Buddha, the Buddha’s that will sort of get the teachings going again after the degenerate time when they’ve completely died out.

So Lama Zopa keeps saying, Pray to be reborn as Maitreya’s direct disciple. And we’re kind of like, We don’t get it. We’re like, Oh no, I want to finish the path by next Tuesday. What do you mean I have to wait for Maitreya Buddha? That’s like however many thousands of years.

But from the scheme of looking at the big picture, if you don’t finish the path before then, the best thing you can pray for is to be reborn as a disciple of one of these wheel turning Buddhas, and then you’re going to be like Shariputratra and you’re going to hear one stanza and you’re going to be liberated, or at least an ārya. So we kind of don’t get that because we don’t have much of a perspective, do we? And often I think we’re practicing to have a better life like right now. You know, we’re not really thinking about liberation. We’re not really thinking about enlightenment.

We might have a little bit of an admiration, some kind of imprint that goes, wouldn’t that be cool? But we mostly just want a little bit of peace of mind right now, and we want a better this life. And that’s all right. It gets you here. It gets me here.

And then we progress. And then our scope sort of increases as we get more and more used to it. But often the instructions we get like that, we just can’t really relate to that. He’s like, oh, Sang Maitreya Buddha’s mantra all these times so that you’ll be reborn as his disciple, and we’re like, What good is that? You know?

Incredible. If we could pull that off, we’d be set. We’d be one of those beings. But that was that was what was happening in the time of Lord Buddha. And then we had this word Bhagavati that had a couple of layers of meaning.

So Ben, why don’t you give that one a shot? I’ll look at my notes. Yeah. You’re allowed to look at your notes. If you were good enough to take notes, by all means, you’re allowed to look at them.

Bhaga meant to destroy, conquer Okay. Overcome. So what are we destroying and conquering and overcoming? Ignorance or what are We’re yeah. I don’t know.

Yeah. Mental afflictions, which includes Oh, the ignorance Yeah. Attachment, aversion, the whole, all of the ones that follow from that Okay. And the karma that follows from them. Okay.

Right? And then there’s one other thing that we’re destroying too, another kind of obstacle that we’re destroying. Don’t know. What John, you wanna just pipe up and then we’ll repeat it for the microphone? Yeah, the knowledge obscurations, which is another we’ll get into that when we talk about the five paths in detail, so if you don’t know what those are, don’t worry.

We’ll talk about that. They are obstacles that prevent the full omniscience of a Buddha. Okay, we’ve talked about two sets of obstacles: the obscuration of the defilements which refers to karma and delusions, and arhats eliminate those. Buddhists do too, but then on top of that Buddhists eliminate this whole other set of obstacles called the knowledge obscurations. We’ll talk about that in more detail, but the destroyer or conquer conquistador refers to that part.

And then what else does Bhaga refer to? Also possessing as in the, I guess, like the Paramitas or the Yeah. Qualities of The qualities of enlightened being. Yeah. So those would be I mean, there are, so many, but the main ones that we talk about a lot are wisdom, compassion, and power.

Those are the three main qualities of the Buddha we talk about wisdom being the wisdom of the ultimate nature of reality compassion being the wish to free beings from suffering and then power not meaning power like in this sort of controlling kind of thing but the power or ability to benefit beings. So power really refers to that ability. So those are the three main qualities of the Buddha we talked about. So that bhaga means that too, endowed with or possessing. And what about vati?

Vati was the feminine form of transcending. Yeah. Yeah. So we have the word vaan in Bhagavan, and it’s the same vaan that shows up in nirvana, and it means transcendent. So often this word, Bhagavan or Bhagavati, is endowed transcendent destroyer, which is great because it’s got all the meanings in there.

And why is it female? I’m not sure. Lynn, why is it female? This Lynn, she’s smirking up here. I’m spooky.

I’m thinking. Oh, Guy forgot that part. Well, hope I’ve got it right. I think it represents I do too. Okay.

So the feminine represents wisdom. Wisdom and the masculine represents compassion. Okay. And then there’s another reason that it’s feminine too because wisdom is considered considered feminine, and then there is that other meaning of feminine. Mother.

Mother? Oh. Mother. Yes. Mother Prajnaparamita.

Yeah. Mother of who? Of all the Buddhas? Of the Buddhas and all the aryas. All the Aryas.

That realization of wisdom is in common, whether you’re no matter what kind of Ārya you are, right? Because we talk about the direct realization of emptiness same one that an arhat has before they’re an arhat, same one a bodhisattva has before their Buddha, same one a solitary realizer has before their liberation. So it’s the same exact so we talk about the mother because the mother is in common. Right? That’s the mother that’s in common.

It comes from that thing from Indian culture that the lineage comes from the father, the caste comes from the father. So whether you’re Bodhisattva or whether you’re hearer or whether you’re solitary realizer, that’s your lineage. But the Mother is in common that’s that direct realization of emptiness. So it’s kind of cool. All these things are hidden in that one word, Bhagavati.

Who would know, right? You just think, Oh, cool word, Bhagavati. And there’s a whole teaching hidden in the title of the sūtra, which is very cool. And then we’ve got Prajñāpāramitā. Before you leave that, do you think there’s a reason they say ārya instead of arhat bhagavati?

Yeah, because I think it’s just really emphasizing how important that realization is. And they wouldn’t say arhat because because remember this is a Mahāyāna Sūtra, so the goal because we’re talking about the perfections next, the perfection of wisdom, so we’re not calling it an arhat because that would not be a Mahāyāna Sūtra. You said when you say arhat bodhisattva, which is rare. No, ārya bodhisattva, not arhat. You never would say in relation to Mahāyāna.

Uh-uh. Okay. I wasn’t clear. Yeah. Yeah.

You say ārya bodhisattva, right? Because it’s a bodhisattva that’s got that realization. What about Prajñāpāramitā? What does that mean? Who’s going to be brave?

Teresa, grab the mic. Prajnana is the wisdom. Okay. And what about Paramita? Gone beyond to the other side of saṃsāra.

Samsāra and nirvana. It’s interesting. Right? Because we’re we pray in the Free me from saṃsāra. That’s pretty obvious, right, from cyclic existence.

And then we also say, Don’t let me just stay stuck in nirvana, which is solitary peace. So we pray to be freed from both saṃsāra and nirvana. And in beginning when you’re a new student you’re like, Wait a minute, I thought nirvana was where we’re supposed to be? No. According to the Mahāyāna, nirvana solitary peace, is what we don’t want.

We want to become a bodhisattva, keeping reborn for the benefit of all beings. We actually pray to be on the other side of both. So that’s kind of interesting. That shows up in our prayers. So pāramitā, sometimes translated as perfection or both going to the other side and gone to the other side.

Perfecting and perfection that which makes you perfect and the perfection that you get to, which relates to the path and the result. So we talked about perfection of wisdom. We have the path perfection of wisdom, which is the direct realization of emptiness in the mind of a bodhisattva, that realization that they keep using to get them to the other side. And then when they’re there, it’s the resultant perfection of wisdom, which is the omniscient mind of a fully enlightened being. So it’s both going to the other side and gone to the other side.

Both perfecting and perfection. Right? At the same time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it refers to both of these things.

So we can translate pāramitā as going to the other side, perfection, but it’s the process too. When we talk about path perfection of wisdom, it’s the process. And then the resultant perfection of wisdom is the goal that we’ve gone to the other side. And that refers to Buddhahood, the omniscient mind of a Buddha. And then, oh, do you have something said here?

Yeah. And then you can answer what means since you’ve got the microphone. No, we can’t. That’s the peril of answering question. So does that also apply to the six paramitas?

Yeah. Those are and this is the sixth. Right? The perfection of wisdom is the sixth of the six paramitas. So what are the six?

Let’s review that real quick. What are the six perfections? I’ve just blanked. Okay. Compassion and Okay.

Catherine. First one is generosity. Oh, the mic? Yeah. You’re off the hook, Sandra.

The first one is generosity and giving. Okay. Giving, generosity, ethics, ethics, patience, patience and tolerance, joyous perseverance, joyous perseverance, sometimes called joyful effort, Concentration, meditation, and wisdom. Okay, so those are the six perfections, and these are the activities of somebody who’s decided to get enlightened for the benefit of all sentient beings. So bodhicitta is the wish to get enlightened for the benefit of all beings.

Then after that you engage in the activities, and these are the six activities that you do to create the cause for the enlightened body and mind of a Buddha. Bodhicitta is deciding, That’s what I want. I mean amazing, incredible, beautiful aspiration, but it’s not enough in itself because as we know nothing arises without being caused. So the six perfections are the causes for the enlightened body and mind of a Buddha. After you have Bodhicitta, then you start engaging in those practices to create the cause for it.

Like first you decide, Wow, that’s what I want. Wow, I really want to become enlightened for the benefit of all beings. Well, how do I pull that off? I’ve got to create the causes. What are those?

Oh, the Buddha taught the six perfections. So the first kind of four and a half create the enlightened body of a Buddha. So we talk about the Buddha’s quality of omniscient mind, which is created by the last one and a half. And the reason I say half is because concentration is needed for all the first ones, but especially for the wisdom, especially for creating the wisdom. So that’s what creates the enlightened body and mind of a Buddha is the six perfections.

So the perfection of wisdom is the sixth of those, so the Prajñāpāramitā as opposed to the other. Yeah. And tell me your name. Okay. Was there a time that there were more than six perfection?

Sometimes there’s ten. Yeah. Yeah. So the question is, is there a time that there’s more than six? And sometimes they talk about ten perfections, and we’ll get to that when we talk about the ten Bodhisattva Bhumis, because each of those is the perfection of one of the perfections.

So we take one of the perfections and I have to cheat because I can’t remember them in order. But just to answer your question, the last four that we don’t usually talk about are method, prayer, power, and exalted wisdom. So method, prayer, so the perfection of method, the perfection of prayer, the perfection of power, and the perfection of exalted wisdom are the other four. So yeah, we can either talk about I mean, commonly we talk about six and then sometimes we talk about this list of ten, and we’ll look at that when we talk about the Bodhisattva Bhumis. Okay.

Who’s going to answer what Hridaya means? Go ahead. It’s the essence, the heart or the essence. Yeah, the heart or the essence. Okay, the heart or the essence.

And we talk about the scriptural perfection of wisdom. The Heart Sūtra is, as the name indicates, the essence or the shortest perfection of wisdom sūtra. In the Tibetan scriptures, the Tibetan canon, there are seventeen perfection of wisdom sutras. We mostly talk about the three major ones that we talk about are the extensive, which has one hundred thousand verses, the medium, which has twenty five thousand verses, and then the shortest one has eight thousand verses. And I think there’s a translation of that one into English.

Edward Conze translated that one. And then the Heart Sūtra is only twenty five verses in the Tibetan, so really, really short. These three major perfection of wisdom sutras the great, the middling, and the small are often called the mothers. So when you hear Tibetan lamas talking about the mothers, it doesn’t mean mother and mother and mother. It means these three perfection of wisdom sutras.

It’s interesting. There’s this translator, Gareth Sparham, who’s written a couple of books. And I was talking to him once a long time ago. I ran into him in New York. And I was like, hey, how’s it going?

What are you working on? What are you working on these days? Because he’s always translating something, and he goes, these days, I’m working on Her Ladyship. And I’m like, what, he got a job with the queen? What are they talking about?

And he meant the perfection of wisdom sutras. He called them her ladyship. Isn’t that awesome? And he’s talking to me for a while, and I’m like, what? And then I finally got, oh, wow.

He’s talking about the perfection of wisdom sutras that he very respectfully called Her Ladyship. Isn’t that great? I thought that was awesome. So Her Ladyship, the Heart Sūtra, Her Ladyship. So those are the scriptural Perfection of Wisdom sutras.

And what turning we talked about the three turnings of the wheel. Remember we said the first turning of the wheel is the sutras that deal mostly with the like the Four Noble Truths, the twelve links of dependent origination. And that’s mostly the Pāli Canon, the Pāli Scriptures. Those were sutras mostly taught in Pāli. And then we have the second turning of the wheel, which question, includes the perfection of wisdom sutras, mostly the sutras taught in Sanskrit on the ultimate nature of reality according to the Middle Way Consequent School.

This is the view of the Middle Way Consequent School, that these are definitive sutras. Other schools think different things, and that question came up yesterday. Which one of the three turnings of the wheel is definitive? So from this perspective, of the Middle Way School, the second turning is definitive. And then we have the third turning of the wheel that includes two types of sutras.

There’s one represented by the Sūtra Unraveling the Thought where he talks about the three natures, and he qualifies what he said in The Second Turning. He said, You know how he said that nothing is inherently existent? I was kind of exaggerating to make a point. You know, it’s not really like that. There are some things that aren’t inherently existent, but yeah, some things are.

And that was a skillful means because sometimes it gets confusing. Was the Buddha lying? What was going on here? And he was just teaching appropriate for the students because it’s much more important to maintain faith in cause and effect than it is to like if you go to a higher view that you don’t really understand and you start to think that nothing matters and I can do whatever I want and there is no such thing as cause and effect, That’s extremely dangerous. Really, really dangerous.

So for people who have different abilities, he taught different sutras. And it’s very interesting to study this third turning of the wheel where he taught three natures because actually it really helps you understand the middle way consequent school view better. They talk about these three different aspects or three different natures that every phenomena has and it actually really, really helps In my mind, it really helped me understand the subtlety of the Middle Way Consequence School, which does something different, but it helps. So we talk about the different philosophical schools and how they’re like the rungs of a ladder to bring your view up to what the Tibetans considered the ultimate is which is the middle way consequence school. So the third turning of the wheel those sutras are the basis of philosophically what we call the mind only school And then there’s some other sutras that explain Buddha nature, like the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra.

Other sutras considered in that third turning. But the perfection of wisdom sutras are the scriptural perfection of wisdom of the second turning of the wheel of the dharma. So those three turning. So any questions? That’s pretty much oh, and then we started with this sūtra and we started with the very first line that says, Thus did I hear it one time, and we said that was our hero Ānanda who memorized everything the Buddha said on the spot.

Remember he had that deal with the Buddha? Yeah, I’ll be your attendant if I get to hang out with you all the time and hear every conversation you have with anyone, not just the public teachings that all the monastics are invited to, but everything that you say. And the Buddha said, Okay. A lot of the sutras are, Oh, somebody came to visit the Buddha to debate with him. That’s a sūtra because Ānanda remembered that.

When he recited them at that first council that he was only allowed to go to because he got liberated when he just relaxed and let go for a minute. That’s a message to us there. He’s trying and trying and trying, and then at the very last minute he’s like, Oh, the hell with it. And then boom, he’s liberated. So he’s able to go to that first council and then recite all of those sutras.

So thank goodness we’d be missing a lot if it weren’t for Ānanda and his realization. So thus did I hear means he was there at the time, and he memorized it on the spot and then recited it later at that first council. So any questions about where we’re up to? Matthew, there’s the mic. I had a question about what you refer to as the three baskets.

Mhmm. Yeah. So there’s the sutras, which are somehow associated with Ānanda because you remember the sutras Yeah. They’re the discourses of the Buddha. Often we we translate sūtra as discourses.

Okay. Yeah. And then you were saying there’s an homage usually prior to them and and and his usually begin, I prostrate to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Buddhists and Bodhisattvas. Yeah.

And that was added by the Tibetan translators. That wasn’t anything Ānanda said. Okay. Right? That was something added later to the Tibetan translations to show which of the three baskets they belong to.

And that was by decree of one of the Tibetan kings. It may have been Trisong Detsen. I’m not sure which one it was. Okay. My other question related to that was, so there was the sutras, then there’s the Vinayas the Abhidharma.

Yeah. So I have three questions about that. Okay. One, you said that there was an individual sort of associated with each basket? Yeah, who recited them at that first council.

So Ānanda was one, and who were the other two? And Upali, a monk called Upali, recited the Vinaya basket, and then Mahakashyapa, the senior monk at that time, recited the Abhidharma basket. So they sat around for however long it took because they were trying to just codify. What did the Buddha teach? What did you hear?

You know, because he’s passed away now. And then they had to decide, what what did you get out of all those years that we spent with him? So they’re just trying to codify and recall and put together what he taught. So these three great beings with perfect memory all kind of took one topic and recited it. Okay.

And so the sutras are the discourses. What are the Abhidharma and Vinaya? What do those mean? Okay. Vinaya is all of the teachings discipline or morality or ethics.

They include a majority of them is monastic discipline. There’s a lot of vows, and then there’s a lot of codes of conduct and things that aren’t specific vows, but like different kind of codes about how monastics should live. So a large part of the Vinaya, but not all of it, is about monastic vows, codes of conduct, the ways that we should live. But it also includes lay vows, like teachings on the lay vows, the five vows for laypeople, also teachings on one day vows. So we talk about eight different kinds of pratimoksha, or individual liberation vows, that are all explained in the Vinaya.

And then Abhidharma is the teachings on manifest knowledge, and they include things like teachings on Buddhist psychology, like the mind and mental factors. Any teachings on Buddhist cosmology fall into Abhidharma. So it’s all these lists and categories. And when you study Abhidharma, there’s this teaching that some of you may have been that Geshe Dakpa did called the seventy topics, And that comes from the Abhidharma. All of these extensive lists and categories of phenomena, of mind, of the universe, of phenomena like that, that’s the main subject.

Okay. And then one last question. So we talked about how the Tibetan king had the homage that he wanted to add prior to each one. Right. Right.

So prior to the sutras, it’s I prostrate to the Buddha’s Right. For Abhidharma, it’s I prostrate to Mañjuśrī. Mañjuśrī. Yeah. What is the Vinaya?

Yeah. It would be I prostrate to the omniscient one, meaning the Buddha, but it’s usually phrased as the omniscient one to signal that it’s a Vinaya teaching. And Mañjuśrī is the bodhisattva of wisdom and abhidharma being manifest knowledge is all about wisdom, so that part makes sense. I’m not quite sure why it says I prostrate to the omniscient one specifically for the Vinaya and the Buddhism Bodhisattvas for the Sūtra. I’m not sure how the king decided that, but that’s the way it is.

Good, but that’s only for the Tibetan translations, and that wasn’t those words weren’t in the original sutras. Yeah. Thank you. You’re welcome. Yeah.

Sarah. Just following up from that question, so did the Vinaya and Abhidharma come from the Buddha? Yeah. They were but they’re separated out from the sutras? Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. They’re separated teachings of the Buddha, but separated out from the discourses, like the conversations that he had and the general teachings that he gave. He also made certain rules for vowed morality that weren’t necessarily made when he was giving some kind of a discourse. Like often, for example, all the monastic vows were made by the Buddha in response to a certain incident that happened.

And it’s really interesting to read the origin stories because they were all made for at first when the Buddha started the monastic order, he didn’t have any vows at all. And then he started making vows when the monastics would start to misbehave. And he would be like, how can my he was always saying, how can my monks and nuns be doing this? I don’t get it. Okay.

I guess I gotta make a rule. You know? So it’d be in response. People would come to him and complain about something that the monastics were doing, and he’d make a new rule, but it wasn’t something that he, you know, kind of taught in a discourse, so it’s seen as something different. Know?

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Tamara. I’m not sure if this question is, like, really related to what we’re talking about.

I think everything is. Okay. But obviously, getting to nirvana or enlightenment is really hard. So if someone is already gonna try, why wouldn’t they just be enlightened, why would they want to reach nirvana but not get enlightened? That’s a great question.

That’s a great question. It actually relates to the difference between the way the goals of the path are presented in the Pāli Sutras and in the Sanskrit Sutras. In the Pāli Sutras, they say the only beings who actually have the destiny to become fully enlightened are these thousand wheel turning Buddhas. We talk about the wheel turning Buddha. Śākyamūni Buddha was one who get the teachings going.

It’s called turning the wheel of Dharma because they sort of get things going after the teachings have degenerated completely. Śākyamūni Buddha is the fourth wheel turning Buddha. Maitreya Buddha is going to be the fifth one, and there’s meant to be a thousand in all. Those are the only beings, according to the Pāli Canon, who have sort of the destiny to become fully enlightened beings. For the rest of us, our ultimate hope is liberation.

So it’s not like you decide. In that system, that’s the only thing that is possible for you. Like, why would we just sit around wanting to be an elephant when it’s not even possible? It would be a total waste of time, and in that system, sitting around wanting to be a Buddha, why bother unless you’re one of those thousand? However, in the Mahāyāna Sutras, a different system is taught, and it’s taught that every being has potential to become not one of those thousand, but fully enlightened with all of those qualities.

There are only going to be a thousand who’ll get the teachings turning again when they’ve degenerated, but we all have the potential to become a fully enlightened being. So it’s kind of different goals taught in the different sutras. So sometimes you’ll hear negative things in this word hinayana that I hate, lesser vehicle, and it’s almost as if, Oh, they just choose because they don’t care about others, and it’s totally, totally wrong. It’s not like that at all. It’s just that it’s not taught as a goal per se in that Pāli Canon in those sutras.

Yeah, good question, good question. So it’s good to clarify. Yeah, Carla. Now your answer just has brought it up to another question. Why there are different Pāli somewhere written in the Pāli and Sanskrit script then?

Yeah, and they say that it’s different teachings that the Buddha gave to different beings of different capacities. Pāli was the language that he taught very, very publicly. Then for certain disciples that had a Mahāyāna inclination, he taught the Mahāyāna sutras that were preserved in Pāli, and there’s this whole historical reason of why it was Pāli for some sutras and why it was Sanskrit. But in general, we talk about the Pāli sutras being sort of the foundational teachings that apply to everyone, and then the Mahāyāna sutras are mostly preserved in Sanskrit. So those were ones that some people don’t even accept them as the words of the Buddha because it was not the ones that he taught to everyone.

He would just teach them to specific disciples that had that inclination that could relate to that, and the feeling of bodhicitta was inspiring for them. Different people have different propensities, and I told this story Carla’s heard it before it was so amazing. I was teaching an introductory course this just shows about different people’s propensities for the idea of being a Bodhisattva and Bodhicitta. I was teaching an introductory course at Tuśita Center in Dharmasala this spring and it was a really big course. There were like sixty people from all over the world, all these different countries and you know I’m presenting the Four Noble Truths and I get up to the path and I present the goals of the path and I start talking about Bodhicitta and full enlightenment and becoming a bodhisattva.

I think I’d just gotten to explaining the definition of Bodhicitta wishing to get fully enlightened for the benefit of all sentient beings. There’s one guy in the class who’d been challenging me a lot like he’d read a lot and he kind of thought he knew everything and he keeps arguing with me. Well we get to the definition of Bodhicitta and he stands up and he freaks out and he goes what you Mahayanas are crazy you think you can get enlightened for the benefit of all sentient beings and he slams out of the room slams the door and leaves the course at that moment, goes to his room and packs his bag. Right? Meanwhile, another student from Denmark, Casper, again, first teaching.

You know, this other guy’s flipping out, and Casper’s sitting there, tears running down his face, and he tells me after, I’ve never been so inspired. I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna become a body shop. It’s just like, wow. Another proof of karma.

You know? Like, the same words out of my mouth. For one person trigger this complete outburst of anger. I mean, was angry. He’s screaming at me, you crazy Mahayanes.

And the other guy was like, you you just put it out there. If I were the Buddha, I would have known, and I would have taken Casper to the side and given him all these secret teachings. But they tell me to teach a class. I do it. I don’t know.

There’s sixty people. I don’t know how they’re going react, but it just shows. And that’s what the Buddha did, and he knew. And so there are certain people like Casper with the tears running down, he knew that, so he would take them to the side and he goes, Oh, but there’s this other thing going on that’s like this. You know?

So that’s the way it’s explained the difference between the Pāli and the Sanskrit situation. There was Buddha himself teaching in different language as opposed to people there later wrote the, you know, the teachings. They wrote in different I think that the Buddha, you know, kind of spoke the dialect of Magadha, and then when was written down, which was several centuries later, it was the difference between what they call the northern school and the southern school, and one was actually recorded in Sanskrit and one in Pāli. But I think the Buddha well, say actually that the Buddha did teach in Sanskrit and then everybody I mean, there’s this sort of esoteric version of the story that says that Sanskrit is this holy language, and one of the qualities that the Buddha is he speaks in Sanskrit, apparently every wheel turning Buddha, and then everybody hears their own language is one of the qualities of the speech of the Buddha. So that’s the more esoteric meaning of it, was that he taught you know, he said everything that he said in Sanskrit because it’s supposed to be this holy language with certain kind of vibrational qualities, then everybody heard their own language.

So that’s another way of looking at it. But what he actually said, I mean there’s debate between scholars and it has to do with history and different languages and things, but they’re collected now primarily in Sanskrit for the Mahāyāna Sutras And then, for example, the Mahāyāna Sutras that have been translated into the Chinese and Tibetan canon were translated primarily from Sanskrit for the most part. Yeah. And the real question I wanna go back to Ārya because I was wondering, you know, like, some people, they at first, they get a glimpse of the realization of emptiness. Yeah.

Is that an aria ready or is it, like, you know, calm abiding after four hours within a single object? I mean, how do you know Yeah. Yeah. Someone is an ārya? You can get intellectual insights.

You know? You can get these glimpses, but we wouldn’t call those direct perceptions. We would say that you’re getting intellectual insights, but only when it’s actually a direct perception do you get the label ārya. After you’ve had that direct perception, they say that three things happen at that moment. You overcome any doubt whatsoever about the path.

You overcome any view that things are inherently existent. Even though when you come out of that meditation, things look the same way they always did, but you know better because you saw it directly. And then the third thing is you overcome any kind of view that ascetic practices are in any way to be practiced on the path. So it’s really, really different from these glimpses that we get that sometimes I think are intellectual insights that could be very, very profound but that wouldn’t be an actual direct perception according to the way that it’s taught. So at that point you’re an ārya.

A lot of times people have deep experiences or they have experiences that are just a byproduct of samadhi, of being able to develop calm abiding that I think sometimes people might mistake experiences for a direct realization of emptiness if they’re not really well trained in what that is and in the whole stages of the path. And it’s great that they’re having these experiences, but there are certain things like perfectly qualified calm abiding that are prerequisites for getting the direct realization of emptiness. If you don’t have that, you know that whatever experience you have wasn’t the direct realization of emptiness. That’s one of the qualities that’s necessary. But I think people can have intellectual insights and they can have certain results of just samadhi and mental pacification that can be quite profound, but it wouldn’t be the direct realization of emptiness.

All right, so let’s launch back into the sutras. Thus did I hear it one time, says Ānanda. The Bhagavan was dwelling on massive vultures mountain in Rajagriha. So this is a place where the Buddha spent a lot of time, right outside of Rajagriha. The word Rajagriha means Rāja means king and Griha literally means hold, so like keep of the king.

You could translate it like that, like hold of the king, keep of the king, and it was the capital city of Magadha, this country in northern India at the time of the Buddha. The king of Magadha was King Bimbusara, who was one of the Buddha’s first disciples. He he actually met the Buddha before the Buddha was enlightened, and the Buddha impressed him so much that he offered him half of the kingdom. Like the Buddha, even before he was enlightened, apparently he was really tall and really good looking, and wherever he went people would just be like, who’s that? You know, he’s really beautiful, really subdued.

So he was walking through Rajgir once before he was before he was a Buddha and everybody you know is kind of hanging out in the outskirts of town and come in with his begging bowl begging for food every day and his reputation would start to spread and people would sort of crowd around to like just look at him when he walked past Then the king heard about it, about this really kind of amazing sadhu who’d shown up in town, and he went to find him in the forest where he was living outside of town and had a conversation with him and was so impressed by him, and he said, Look, you have this really noble bearing. Why don’t you have half of my kingdom? And the Buddha said, Well, I had one, actually. I had a kingdom, so thanks very much, but I just left that because I really decided that that’s not what I wanted to do. I’m really seeking liberation, and King said, Okay, please come back and tell me.

When you succeed in your goal, come back and tell me. So the Buddha lived up to his promise, and King Bimbisara was one of the first people that he saw after his enlightenment, he went to Rajagriha and said, I did it. I pulled it off. This is the way it is. So King Bimbisara became a great supporter of the Buddha and offered him the bamboo grove, one of the first actual places that the Buddha accepted.

First, they were just wandering mendicants, and then King Bimbisara said, here, you can have this grove of bamboo, and you guys can meditate there. It’s close to the city. You can come in and collect alms. And then he offered Vulture’s Peak, this whole mountain outside of town. And when you go there, it’s very cool because you’re walking up to where the Buddha actually taught the Heart Sūtra, and you pass Shariputratra’s meditation cave and Ānanda’s meditation cave that are really close to each other, I mean it’s amazing.

You’re walking and you’re like, Wow, that’s where Ānanda meditated. And then you walk up to the top. So it’s actually referring to this place outside of Rajagriha Vulture’s Peak. The Bhagavan was dwelling on massive Vulture’s Mountain in Rajagriha with a great community of monks and a great community of bodhisattvas. So let’s talk about what this means: a great community of monks and a great community of bodhisattvas.

So we’ve got two great communities or assemblies here. We’ve got a bunch of monks probably some nuns there, and a bunch of bodhisattvas. So why are they differentiated? The monks are beings who are not bodhisattvas yet, so even in the time of Lord Buddha, even among his close companions, there were some beings who were not yet Bodhisattvas. So they’re called monks just to indicate that they’re different from the Bodhisattvas.

Not that Bodhisattvas aren’t monks and not that it’s not like that, but in this case they’re differentiated by one group being called monks, meaning that they’re not Bodhisattvas. And then we’ve got an assembly of Bodhisattvas. And the word great doesn’t refer to the number it refers to their qualities because you go to Vultures Peak and it ain’t big. It’s a small place, so how could there be this huge mob of people there? And that’s not what it’s referring to.

The great refers to their qualities. So it should really be an assembly of great monks and they’re great in qualities meaning that there are haths, meaning that they’re beings of high spiritual realizations. So we’ve got great monks with great qualities that are arhats but they’re not bodhisattvas yet. And then we’ve got great bodhisattvas, another group of people who are bodhisattvas who are also great And they’re great in a different way. So there’s two assemblies and two greats.

So you have to be careful when you translate. When I was in Colombia, they were reading the Heart Sūtra in Spanish. And they decided that this was redundant. And then they said, a great community of monks and bodhisattvas. And that’s why it’s really important when you’re a translator to study the commentaries because there’s all this meaning in the words, and you might miss something that’s really essential.

So I told them to change their translation and put it back to the great assembly of monks and a great assembly of bodhisattvas because the great refers to two different things. So are you saying it might be better translated together with a community of great monks and a community of great bodhisattvas? Weird, doesn’t it? Great monks? Like, I don’t know.

Okay. But Yeah. But that’s kind of more accurate from the way you’re describing it. Well well, what I mean is great community of bodhisattvas. You could still have the whole community as great in their qualities.

It’s just that it doesn’t refer to the number. It refers to their qualities. I’ll tell you what. You just cleared something up for me because I was lucky enough to be one of Rubina’s. Yeah.

And I’d sit there in this little space and I’d go, well How? Well, maybe he had these superpowers and then everybody was, like, sitting way down there in the valley Right. And up on the next hill, and boy, he was gee, it was before PA systems and everything. Like, how did that Honest to god, I thought it was totally esoteric. Yeah.

Oh. Yeah. Well, it makes me feel better. Smaller people. Yeah, right.

Well, there’s that too, which I always find on Indian buses. Yeah. So the great refers to the quality. So we got these monks that are arhats, and then we have these bodhisattvas that are great in qualities, and I want to read to you the qualities that are referred to because it’s a beautiful list, and this comes from one of the commentaries. This comes from the word for word commentaries, and this list is from the Mahāyāna Sutralamkara by Maitreya, and it’s explaining what the word great means here.

And it’s the same maha. Maha is the word for great in Sanskrit. It’s chenpo in Tibetan and maha in Sanskrit, and it’s the same maha that you find in Mahāyāna, and so it has seven distinct meanings, and I think it’s so cool to read these meanings because to me it’s a total description of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, so listen to this and see if this sounds like Lama Zopa or His Holiness the Dalai Lama all our great teachers. So the first quality in Tibetan is migpa chenpo they have big eyes they’re looking towards big goals looking to help as many sentient beings as they can. So that’s the first quality.

Big eyes is what it is literally meaning vast vision big goals looking to help many beings. And then the second quality is don gnyis, meaning they have two goals in mind: benefiting themselves and benefiting others. Because we say that enlightenment benefits yourself and it benefits others. It’s got these two benefits for self and for others, and that’ll come up again in a second, so keep that in mind: benefit for self and benefit for others. The third quality is yeshe, like Lama Yeshe, and that’s a high state of wisdom.

Very, very high state of wisdom is the third quality. And then the fourth quality is söndrü, and that’s the name for joyful effort, that pāramitā of joyful effort. And that just means taking pleasure in doing virtue, being happy at doing virtuous things. Instead of being happy at doing all that other stuff you’re happy about doing virtuous things. And then the fifth quality in Tibetan is thabs mkhas and it’s the ability to find special techniques and unusual ways of helping people.

There are different ways that you need to benefit beings. It’s not just sitting up in front of the room in red robes going blah blah blah. A lot of times beings need some other kind of unique, special techniques. So this is another ability of these it different than skillful means? It’s a kind of skillful means.

Yeah, yeah. It’s a different word. It’s a different word than the word for skillful means, but it relates to that. Then they’ve achieved the Ten Extraordinary Powers. And that’s a long story, but it includes things like clairvoyance, clairaudience, being able to hear from a distant certain special powers.

Again, only achieved so that you can benefit sentient beings with these powers. It’s always caution don’t go after just the powers just because it’s so cool. It’s only about benefiting beings. Then the last is called trinle chenpo in Tibetan and it means the scope of their life and their activity is huge. Does that describe Lama Zopa or what?

Isn’t that cool? It’s really nice to look at those seven qualities. So that’s what the great in the great bodhisattvas is talking about. So it’s these beings that have those qualities. Tamara, did you have a question?

The second to the last one, yeah. Okay, the first one, they have big eyes looking towards big goals, looking to help as many beings as possible. The second one, they have two goals in mind: benefiting themselves and benefiting others. The third one: they have a high state of wisdom. Fourth one: joyful effort.

They take pleasure in doing good things. The fifth one: the ability to find unusual ways of serving others’ special techniques. The sixth one, they’ve achieved the ten extraordinary powers. And then the seventh, the scope of their life and their activity is huge. So these are seven of the qualities of these great bodhisattvas.

Yeah, Matthew, let’s get the mic. I don’t want to turn this into a hair splitting session. What’s the difference between one and seven? No. Sorry?

So it says a great community of monks and a great community of Bodhisattvas. And you said that’s an important distinction. And the monks well, two questions. So was it monks and nuns, do you think, or was it monks at that time? There were a lot of the Buddhist disciples that were nuns, that were arhats, that were great beings, so I’m sure that they were excluded from that assembly.

They were there at so many of the Buddhist significance. The point I’m making, I don’t think it means only men. Okay. Yeah. And so the monks and nuns were arhats.

Yeah. And does that and if you’re an arhat, does that mean that you can be described by all of these characteristics, including, like, the ten extraordinary powers? No. That’s describing the great that refers to the Bodhisattvas. Okay, so that’s the second great.

That’s what the second great means. So that’s referring to the Bodhisattvas. Okay, so this great only is referring to the Bodhisattvas and not the Yeah, so the first great means they were arhats. The second great means they’re bodhisattvas with all of these seven qualities. Yeah, good.

Thank you for clarifying And you can be a bodhisattva and be a monk or a nun too. So it doesn’t mean that the bodhisattvas were laypeople and then the arhats were all it’s not like that. Yeah. I have the same question. Let’s get the microphone.

We’re doing good, aren’t we? We’re doing great. We’re all doing good. I have the same And we’re going to have a pee pee break in ten minutes. Want to let you know.

Again, have the same question just to clarify for myself. So if in order of development you’re talking about, and this is my own understanding, is let’s say that you are not a monk, you are before you are order, so it will be the beginning nuns or monks, then you have the monks and then you have the ārya and then you have the arhats and then you have the bodhisattvas and then you have the buddha. Is that a fair statement of They they aren’t necessarily all different people. Right? You can be a monk and an ārya and a bodhisattva.

And you can be a monk and you can be a nun and an ārya and a buddha. Or you can be a nun and an ārya and an ārya. So it’s not all different categories. It’s different terminology talking about different qualities, but it’s not necessarily exclusive. But based on the realization of emptiness for any of those?

No, Bodhisattvas is based on their realization of Bodhicitta. So that’s different. So you can be that has a direct realization of emptiness, in which case you’re an ārya bodhisattva, or you could be a bodhisattva that doesn’t have that realization yet, and you still get the name bodhisattva. If you have a certain realization of Bodhicitta, which just called uncontrived Bodhicitta meaning it’s there all the time, steady, no matter what, you get the label Bodhisattva. Now it doesn’t mean that you necessarily have the direct realization of emptiness yet.

Or that you’re necessarily a monk or a nun. Yeah, or that you’re a monk or a nun. Ordination doesn’t have anything to do with it. And I think they’re saying monks here because mostly when the Buddha taught, the majority of people that he taught to were assemblies of monks and nuns. There were laypeople that came, and certainly he taught laypeople.

But in the time that the Buddha, there was a big distinction between what he taught to the monastics and what he taught to the laypeople. And it’s quite different in the West that laypeople and monks and nuns all get the same teachings. Even in Buddhist countries now, like Thailand, there’s a big difference between what’s taught to the monastics and what’s taught to the laypeople. There was a great benefactor of the Buddha, Anatapindaka, who offered Sravasti, the grove in Sravasti, where the Buddha spent something like thirty five rains retreats. He was on his deathbed, and Shariputratra went to visit him.

As he was on his deathbed, he started talking to him about emptiness. Anatapindaka started crying and going, I have been a devoted supporter of the Buddha for like fifty years. How come I never got these teachings before? So it’s very poignant that there was such a difference between the kind of teachings given to the monks and nuns, and that’s something quite different. As Buddhism has traveled to the West, there are a lot of people very, very devoted to Dharma, doing incredible practice, who are laypeople.

And in Asia, traditionally, culturally, it just wasn’t like that. So that’s sometimes why they make this distinction or they say it was an assembly of monks, because it really was. You know? And the Buddha gave different teachings to lay people, but that difference doesn’t exist so much as Buddhism has traveled to the West. Yeah.

Yeah. Good. Yeah. He want to reverend Odo Odo asked the language? Why does he need to differentiate that way between the teachings between the arhats, the monks, and the lay people?

That was just the way it was culturally, because back in the days of the Buddha and traditionally in Buddhist countries, lay people were householders. They were involved with raising families, working really hard. You go to India now and they’re out in the fields at five o’clock in the morning and they work twelve hours a day. They don’t have time to meditate and get the direct realization of emptiness. There’s such a difference between the lifestyle of the householders and the lifestyle of the monastics.

So that was the difference. Now there’s not so much of a difference. There’s more free time. There’s birth control. So if you’re a householder and it used to be you had twelve kids.

What kind of time do you have to meditate? You had to feed them all. So there was a lot of difference just in sort of lifestyle and sociologically between lay people and monastics traditionally. Yeah, Keith. Okay.

I I think too that in in other countries, people can move in and out of being a monk. You can even today, you could go to Thailand in in the summer and become a monk for a few months and then come back. Right. And so that you could and a lot of children become monks very early and receive the teachings then and then move into Yeah. The working world.

Right. Right. So they and then people go back work. Auspicious. Yeah.

But here, I don’t we don’t we don’t do that here, so it’s different both ways. And there’s some advantages either way, I think. Right. Right. Yeah.

Alright. So we’ve got our two great communities, and then the great community of Bodhisattvas who are the beings with that those qualities, and we’re going to do just this next line and then we’ll take a break. So it says, At that time the Bhagavan was absorbed in the concentration on the categories of phenomena called profound perception. So at that time means they’re all up there. They’re all sitting down.

Then the Bhagavan, the Buddha, the endowed transcendent destroyer that’s one of the names for the Buddha is absorbed in the concentration on the categories of phenomena called profound perception. So the concentration is what’s called the profound perception, not the categories of phenomena. So he’s doing a meditation called the meditation called the profound perception or the perception of the profound. What do you think that is? Meditation on emptiness.

He’s perceiving perceiving, meditating on the profound, on emptiness. The emptiness that he’s meditating on is the emptiness of the categories of phenomena and that has a specific meaning. We’re going to be talking about it a lot the five skandhas, the five heaps, the twelve sources, and the eighteen elements. We’re going to be talking about it a lot in a little bit. So he’s meditating on the emptiness of all of these things.

He goes into this concentration called the profound perception on the categories of phenomena. So it was absorbed in that concentration. Now it’s interesting what’s going on here. Everybody’s up on top of Vulture’s Peak. They all sit down.

They’re waiting for the Buddha to speak, and what does he do? He sits there and goes right? Now does the Buddha need to go like this to see emptiness directly? No. Right?

We say that one of the special qualities of Buddha, and only Buddhas can do this, they can see the conventional reality and ultimate reality simultaneously. For any other arya than a Buddha, what happens is they go into meditation, they see emptiness directly, they come out again, They see everything. They can’t see the emptiness while they’re seeing this stuff simultaneously. They flip flop back and forth. They go into that meditation, see emptiness directly, which is a mere absence.

We’ll talk then they come out and they see conventional phenomena which appears exactly the way it always did but they know it doesn’t exist like that. It must be this weird schizophrenic kind of phase, right? Like you know it’s not like that but it’s the way it looks. And then they go back into meditation and they go back and forth. A Buddha doesn’t ever have to go like that to see emptiness directly.

So what is he doing? He’s sitting there. He does this thing which we call and you hear Lama Zopa using this word a lot taking the aspect. He’s showing the aspect of going into meditation on emptiness. And you hear Lama Zopa say this all the time.

The Tibetan is sul tempa taking the aspect or manifesting the aspect. And it comes up in the vajrayana a lot because we’re supposed to see our vajrayana teachers as fully enlightened Buddhas. So if they seem to have a cold, we’re not supposed to say Geshe Dakpa has a cold. We’re supposed to say, oh, he’s taking the aspect of a cold, meaning it’s a show. You know?

It’s just a show. So that’s what’s happening here on Vulture’s Peak. The you know, Śākyamūni Buddha is taking the aspect of meditating on emptiness because he doesn’t have to. He’s seeing emptiness all the time. He doesn’t need to sit there and go, and it just shows he’s not the one that’s gonna be doing the talking.

That’s why he’s doing that, showing I’m not gonna teach right now. You know, I’m gonna be sitting there pretending to meditate on emptiness because it doesn’t need to be meditation for the Buddha. It’s really interesting what’s going on in this scene. Yeah, Gina, did you have it’s right behind you. My question might be premature because it sounds like you’re gonna get to it later, but when you were saying that they see emptiness versus seeing conventional reality, I get what it is to see conventional reality, but I always thought that when you talked about the direct perception or realization of emptiness that it was more your world view as opposed to what your eyes see.

It’s not a visual scene, but it’s a How do think or how you conceive of things. No. No. No. Because it’s not a conceptual.

The direct realization we’ll get into that more because we’ll talk a lot about what the direct perception of emptiness is. And it’s not a visual perception, but it is a perception or a direct perception not mediated by concepts when you’re having the direct realization. So we’ll into that more. Okay, thanks. So that sets the scene of what’s going on on top of Vulture Peak and now let’s have a break because it’s about an hour and fifteen minutes in so is fifteen minutes enough?

Is that enough? So we’ll come back at eleven I’ve got quarter of eleven we’ll come back at eleven and then carry on with some of the rest of the sūtra. Great, thank you. So while everybody’s getting settled, I wanted to just make an announcement. Those of you that have been in some of my teachings recently know that all the offerings that I get for teaching these days are going into a project I got involved with in India.

There’s a dog rescue place in Dharmasala run by this young Indian man called Dharmasala Dog Rescue, and he’s very just this incredibly compassionate, beautiful man, and all these stray dogs just die because they’ll get an injury or get hit by a car, and then they’ll just die because nobody bothers to take care of stray dogs, so we started this place to take care of them. And then we had this idea there are all these donkeys in India that get injuries because they’re put to work really early before their bones and joints have fully developed, and then they get these crippling knee injuries. And then the owners just kind of turn them out to fend for themselves when they can no longer work. And they often starve because they’re very timid by nature. And in India, they have to compete for food with the dogs and the cows that are much more aggressive.

So often these donkeys starve. So we’re trying to get a plot of land. And he has two acres that he’s targeted for this, and we’ve raised a lot of money, and we only need fifteen thousand more to buy the land for the donkey refuge. And so there’s a woman who’s been helping him with the dog rescue, and she started a nonprofit, and she agreed to take on the donkey refuge as kind of a subsidiary, and she made this great little flyer. And there’s pictures of the crippled donkeys down here.

You probably can’t see. And this is a dog we made a wheelchair for. There’s this beautiful dog that was paralyzed. She’d been hit by a car, and my friend Arvind found her. She’d been lying in a ditch for three days, and he found her and took her in, but she was complete her whole back end was paralyzed, and I had seen dogs in these doggy wheelchairs in America, and I told him about it.

So we got somebody in Delhi to build a little doggy wheelchair for her. So this is our dog in her wheelchair. And then they have spay and neuter clinics and rabies vaccination clinics, and these are little puppies being marked on their noses that they got their rabies already because there’s a big glitter of So I’ve got a bunch of these up there. And so when I get offerings, usually the way we teach, we don’t teach for money. We get offerings, and these days my offerings are going to that cause.

And this is the business card of the woman who has the nonprofit that all the offerings are going to. So if you’d like a tax deduction for your offering, just leave your check blank and I’ll write in the name or you can it’s called Pyarakuta, the organization that means beloved dog in Hindi. So that’s the Is this related to Jenny? No. I don’t think she’s in I don’t know that she’s involved.

She might be. She does a whole thing for animals too. Oh, does she? I wonder if she knows about this thing. I should let her know.

I’ll email Jenny. So, anyway, I just brought that because we just got these flyers fresh from the presses yesterday, so I brought some of those along. All right, so we’re up on top of Vulture’s Peak with not very many people, but they have great qualities. We have these great arhat monks and a bunch of great bodhisattvas with the seven qualities that we just went over. And then the Buddha sits down and goes into meditation or pretends to, takes the aspect of going into meditation, looking upon the very practice of the profound, or the perception of the profound. Profound perception.

So he’s looking at emptiness, the emptiness of the categories of phenomena. So that’s happening. And then the sūtra says, Also, at that time, the Bodhisattva MaLhasattva, ārya avalokitesvara. Wow. Who’s this?

Also has a specific meaning here, and it means the Buddha isn’t just going into meditation. He’s doing something else, too. What he’s doing we’ll talk about in a minute. So that little word also means what the Buddha is doing not just sitting there in the profound perception of the categories of phenomena, but something else is going on, too. So keep that in mind because we’ll get to that in a minute.

At that time meaning they’re all up there seated the bodhisattva, maLhasattva, ārya what a lot of adjectives! They all mean something different. So bodhisattva we’re familiar with this word. We’ve talked about this. It’s a person who’s developed that uncontrived Bodhicitta.

Anybody who has uncontrived Bodhicitta and we said that’s different from the Bodhicitta you get just because you’ve had a good meditation session. Sometimes you’ll have a really good meditation, you’ll come out of it and you’ll just go, wow, that was great. Yeah, I’m going to do it. I’m going to get enlightened, like Casper, my student, tears coming down his eyes. I mean he was so sweet.

Then he shaved his head and did three month Vajrasattva retreat, like right off the bat. So that’s something that comes up and it’s wonderful and it’s beautiful but it’s not a stable realization necessarily. And then the stable realization of Bodhicitta means that’s the baseline. Night and day, twenty fourseven that’s where all your activities are coming from, from that realization of Bodhicitta, which is the wish to get enlightened for the benefit of all sentient beings. So when you have that, you are allowed to have the name Bodhisattva.

That’s when you get this name Bodhisattva. Bodhisattva is an interesting word too. Bodhi comes from the same root as Buddha. Bodhi, same Sanskrit word that means awakened or awakening because Buddha is just a title. It means the one who woke up.

There was this story about the Buddha’s life and he was sitting meditating under a tree once looking beautiful and luminous and amazing and some Brahmin walks by and he says to the Buddha, What are you? You’re not a man, are you a God? Like what are you? And the Buddha just sat there and he said, I’m awake. Like I’m the one that woke up.

That’s why I look so great. So the Buddha just means the awakened one, the one who woke up. So bodhi comes from that same root, and then sattva has three different meanings. Sattva refers to a sentient being. Just any old sentient being can be called a sattva.

Sattva refers to sentient being. It refers to mind, which relates to the word for sentient being because sentient beings a being with consciousness. Sentient being, mind. And then the third meaning, it has a connotation of courage or bravery. One of the nicest translations of bodhisattva that I’ve heard Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche calls them awakening warriors and I really like that because there’s this whole idea of bravery or courage which a bodhisattva has to have.

Mean, you’re going to sign on to keep working at it until all sentient beings are enlightened. You’ve got to be pretty brave. So there’s this whole idea of bravery too in this word bodhisattva, being who’s on the path to awakening with courage. You could think like that, on the way to awakening with this sort of brave spirit. Awakening warrior.

And then we have MaLhasattva. He’s also called a mahasattva, great being, like Mahatma, Mahatma Gandhi. Great being. So sattva with the same kind of meaning and great. These two words are juxtaposed to show what we talked about before that a Buddha or bodhisattvas are aiming towards their own benefit and the welfare of others.

The bodhisattva means the part that’s the benefit of their own benefit and then the mahasattva means they’re benefiting others in these extraordinary ways. A maLhasattva is benefiting others in extraordinary ways. So that’s why these two words that mean almost the same thing but they’re put together to just highlight those two qualities of a bodhisattva. They’re working for their own welfare because of course bodhisattvas and Buddhas also want to be free of suffering too. And sometimes there’s this misunderstanding that if you’re a bodhisattva, you only care about others, and you’ll just grovel around in saṃsāra forever.

Well, forget it. It’s not like that at all, because we’re a suffering sentient being, too, equal to everybody else. So it doesn’t mean when you’re a bodhisattva. Sometimes in some schools it’s taught, oh, you’ll let everybody else go through the door before you, and you’ll kind of lag back for your own enlightenment. In the Tibetan tradition, we don’t teach it like that at all.

We say, You hurry up as fast as you can to become a Buddha because only then are you going to have all of the qualities necessary to really benefit others. So there is this aspect of working for your own benefit and the benefit of others. So that’s what this bodhisattva, mahasattva. Anything to clarify about that? Is that clear, the benefit for self and others?

Who teaches the lagging? Because I’ve heard that people are really confused about that. I’ve heard Who teaches the lagging behind? It’s interesting. In some of the scriptures, they talk about a bodhisattva that’s like a shepherd, like a ferryman, and like a king.

And the shepherd like bodhisattva is the one that everybody else goes before them. The fairy like bodhisattva, you go together, and then the king like bodhisattva, you go to enlightenment first and then bring everyone along. And they say we’re supposed to have the attitude of a shepherd and do it like a king. So that’s interesting. Like, we have to say, It’s okay if everybody gets free before me.

But the way we actually do it is and I think that the misunderstanding comes from the difference between liberation and enlightenment. And we say that a bodhisattva doesn’t try and get liberated, meaning they’re not staying in nirvana, solitary peace. And I think that maybe that’s where the misunderstanding comes from, meaning, oh, they don’t try and get free of saṃsāra. Sure, they do, with a million times more effort than anyone else because they’re not just doing it for themselves, they’re doing it for everyone else. But their goal is higher.

Their goal is enlightenment. So I think sometimes it comes from this thing that we pray to be freed from both saṃsāra and nirvana. So this idea comes of like bodhisattvas just stays stuck in saṃsāra and they don’t care. But when you think of the qualities that a Buddha has to benefit beings, it’s just astronomical, unbelievable. There’s this beautiful text called the Madhyamakāvatāra by Candrakīrti, and it talks about all the qualities of the ten bodhisattva bumis, the ten levels of bodhisattvas, and then they get to the Buddhas.

And you read these qualities even at the first bodhisattva level, and you can’t believe it. And then you get to about the eighth one, and it’s like you can’t mind blowing. And that’s not even a Buddha yet. And then they get to the chapter of the Buddha, and this text says the qualities of a Buddha are inconceivable, ineffable, indescribable. But then he says the Gelugpas will try and describe it anyway.

So that’s why we’re trying to get all these qualities as soon as possible, which is why in the vajrayana, we practice these special techniques to try and pull off enlightenment in one lifetime. So then you can lead everybody with these special qualities. But I have heard that other view, and not sure, but I think it comes from that misunderstanding between liberation and enlightenment. You know, because we say that Bodhisattvas don’t want mere liberation alone. Know, on the way to enlightenment, you get liberated from saṃsāra kind of by the way, but it’s not that goal of an arhat.

Further to that, then when you refer back to the title, it’s gone beyond also not only Samsāra but nirvana. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Exactly. Okay. So the yeah. Yeah. Back to the questions between because in Chinese traditions, the guanine, which I believe is goddess of mercy Yeah.

Her vow is not to become a Buddha until there’s no more suffering in this world. Yeah. Why would she want doesn’t want to be a Buddha? What’s the distinguishing between bodhisattva and Buddha? If she has a choice, why don’t she just become a Buddha herself?

Yeah. And in Tibetan tradition, it’s taught, yes, you wish to become a Buddha. And like I said, maybe it’s because of that misunderstanding of the difference between liberation and enlightenment. Or maybe that’s her aspiration. It’s not about me.

I want my motivation to be about everyone else. But the way we teach it in the Tibetan tradition is, yeah, you have that motivation that the reason you’re doing it is about others, but you do it as quickly as possible because that’s what gives you the capacity to really be of benefit. So it’s just a different way that it’s taught. But I know in the Chinese Mahāyāna and Kṣitigarbha, there’s all these prayers like that, like let me not become a Buddha. But in the Tibetan tradition, say that would be nuts.

Become a Buddha in this life if you possibly can because it doesn’t mean that you’re somehow not going to be able to benefit beings after you’re Buddha. You’re going to be able to benefit them even more. Yeah, and like I said, it may be her aspiration to overcome any self-cherishing. It may just be not literally but she’s just saying that to overcome any attachment to an outcome for herself. I don’t really know.

I don’t really know, but that’s one way it could be taken as she’s making that aspiration to just emphasize that the goal of her spiritual practice is really to benefit others. That might be it. Okay, so the Bodhisattva mahasattva ārya, we all know what that is. So this is all talking about different qualities of Avalokiteśvara. He’s working for his own benefit, getting enlightened for his own welfare, getting enlightened to benefit others.

Oh, by the way, he’s also had the direct realization of emptiness already. So he’s a high level bodhisattva, very, very high level bodhisattva. Avalokiteśvara we call Chenrezig in Tibetan, the bodhisattva of compassion. This is Guan Yin also. He and she changes gender as she moves east somehow and it becomes Guanyin the bodhisattva of compassion.

Bodhisattva, mahasattva, ārya, Avalokiteśvara. Now in the vajrayana, Chenrezig is considered a Buddha But this is a sūtra teaching and he’s considered a tenth level bodhisattva. Bear that in mind and don’t get mixed up between the sūtra and the tantra versions. According to vajrayana or tantra, we consider Chenrezig a Buddha. And when he shows up in sutras, we consider him a tenth level bodhisattva.

So that’s the difference between the sūtra and the tantra approach, which comes in, bear it in mind, in the next phrase. So Avalokiteśvara, Chenrezig. And Avalokiteśvara, his name in Sanskrit, Avalokiteśvara means one who looks down, and ishvara means capable one or powerful one. It’s translated into Tibetan as is the honorific for eye and then means to look at somebody with love, gaze lovingly. Repeat me?

Yeah. Chin rezig. Avalokita means to look down and then Īśvara means powerful or capable one. So basically the name of this bodhisattva of compassion is one that looks down at all sentient beings with the lovingly, you know, the capable one who looks at all beings lovingly. Yeah, so Chen is the honorific for eye and then resik means to look lovingly, loving gaze or loving look.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so the one who looks down lovingly, this great Bodhisattva Masaphan ārya Avalokiteśvara. Then he looked upon the very practice of the profound perfection of wisdom. So he’s doing something too. He’s also looking at so when it says he looked upon the very practice of the profound perfection of wisdom, this means he’s doing a meditation on emptiness, too.

The profound perfection of wisdom. The practice of the profound means he’s doing something about it. He’s practicing the profound. So he’s meditating on emptiness. Now, since he’s getting ready to talk, it’s not a direct realization of emptiness.

He’s not sitting there like this because he’s about to have this conversation with Śāriputra. So it’s an intellectual understanding of emptiness. Because we say in the sūtra that he’s not a Buddha yet so he can’t be doing it at the same time, having a direct perception and be getting ready to have a conversation. So he’s looking at emptiness intellectually. He’s having an intellectual understanding of emptiness at this point, And he’s beholding the five aggregates also as empty of inherent nature.

So he’s starting to look at the five aggregates of a person, and we’ll get into what these are in a second. So he’s meditating on emptiness on the five aggregates of a person intellectually. The Buddha is sitting in a corner pretending to meditate on all the categories of phenomena directly. So these are the two emptiness meditations going on in the scene. So the Buddha is sitting there like that, which he doesn’t have to do, meditating on the emptiness of everything, having the direct realization.

Then Avalokiteśvara is having an intellectual meditation on the five aggregates or the five paths of a person. It’s two people. Two different people. Avalokiteśvara is one person and the Buddha’s sitting over in the corner pretending to have his meditation. Then through the power of the Buddha, the Venerable Shariputratra asks a question, and this is very interesting.

Then through the power of the Buddha, in the Tibetan here, and this word is really loaded. It’s almost like voodoo. In colloquial Tibetan, there’s this word, which means to curse someone. So this is a really powerful, intense thing going on here by the power of the Buddha. So this means from this point on you can forget about Avalokiteśvara and Shariputratra acting on their own volition.

They’re like puppets of the Buddha. The Buddha is like the great puppeteer. He’s sitting over there, which is what that also means. Through the power of the Buddha. So this gets into when we talk about three different kinds of sutras.

We say that the sūtra are the discourses of the Buddha and there are three kinds of things that get the label sūtra. One is when the Buddha is talking directly. The Buddha is the one that’s doing the talking. A lot of sutras somebody asks the Buddha a question or the Buddha is meeting with all the monks and all the bodhisattvas and he gives a teaching. So that’s obvious.

Then another thing that also gets the label sūtra is something spoken with the approval of the Buddha. You’ll often see sutras like this. Shariputratra and Śākyamūni Buddha are sitting around. Ānanda’s there too because he’s always there. Somebody asks the Buddha a question.

Then the Buddha says, Hey Śāriputra, why don’t you answer that question? I bet you can do a good job. Then Śāriputra answers the question and then the Buddha at the end goes, Great. Perfect. I wouldn’t have said anything different myself.

So this also gets called a sūtra. So sometimes in sutras, it’s often Śāriputra or Maudgalyayāna are the main speaker. So it’s something that was approved by the Buddha. And then there’s this third kind of thing that gets called a sūtra, which is something spoken through the power of the Buddha. It’s like channeling.

It’s just like that. So the Heart Sūtra is mostly this third kind. The Buddha pipes up at the end. It includes all three kinds of speech of the Buddha. The Buddha pipes up at the end.

Basically all he says is, Right on. That’s great. It’s just like that. Then he approves of it. Yeah, that’s right.

But most of it is spoken through the blessing of the Buddha. So he’s channeling through Shariputratra and Avalokiteśvara, blessing them to have this conversation which is what that previous also meant right after we about him pretending to meditate. Also, at the same time, meaning he’s doing something else too. And this is a very interesting concept because we talk about different kinds of emanation bodies. We have in Tibetan there’s this word Tulku, which basically is the Tibetan word for emanation body.

Tulku is a translation of the Sanskrit word nirmanakaya. We talk about one of the qualities of a Buddha. The Buddha can emanate countless emanation bodies to benefit beings. That’s the body of a Buddha. One of the qualities of the Buddha’s body are these emanation bodies.

We talk about three different kinds of tulku We have one called a rebirth Tulku, and that’s the one we’re most used to. Like His Holiness, the Dalai Lama is a rebirth Tulku. So one of the emanation bodies takes a rebirth as a specific person for their whole life. They’re manifesting that Buddha activity. And then we have another kind of Tulku that we call a Jinlab Tulku blessed emanation and that’s this.

The Buddha can speak through an ordinary being and have an emanation through an ordinary being. That’s what’s going on here. So from the beings inside, they’re not enlightened. They don’t have all those qualities. But for that moment, the Buddha can bless them so that they can manifest or emanate as a Buddha.

I was attending these teachings with Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, this great young lama who wrote this great book called What Makes You Not a Buddhist. I really recommend it. It’s awesome. And he was saying he was explaining about these different kind of Tulkus, and he says, it’s like this. Like you go into a coffee shop in Casablanca.

You know, he’s a movie maker, so of course it’s Casablanca he’s like, You go into a coffee shop in Casablanca and a waitress comes up and she just tells you that one thing that is it and it kind of completely sets you off for the next part of your path and he goes either one of two things is going on either she is a rebirth emanation like she took that rebirth and he says a great bodhisattva would do that, live their whole life just to tell you that one sentence that’s gonna set you free. Like they would do that, and he was going, The compassion and patience of a Bodhisattva is such that they would do that. And I was thinking, God, they’d go through seventh grade again? Like, just to benefit beings? I mean, that’s the real test for me.

Would I really be willing to go through seventh grade again for the benefit of all beings? Like, oh, I hope so. Just for that one moment. Or he could say, in that moment, because of the karma of the being, because of your karma sitting there drinking your latte in Casablanca, because your karma is ripe and you’re ready, a Buddha can speak to you through that person. So they can function as a Buddha for you in that moment because you have enough virtue.

And so that’s a blessed emanation. So it’s very cool. Have this whole thing. Chuky right now is teaching a class on guru devotion, and we’re supposed to see our teachers as Buddhas in the vajrayana. And part of it is, hey, if I’ve got good enough karma, it doesn’t matter if they’re an enlightened being from their side at all.

I’m going to get the Buddha’s emanation through them. So that’s an interesting level to think about, that whole idea of seeing your teacher as a Buddha, trusting that if you have enough virtue, it’s going to be like that. They’re going to be channeling exactly what you need to hear the Buddha. So it’s like a puppet. So it’s kind of cool, isn’t it?

So this is what’s happening here. This is a blessed sūtra. The Buddha is blessing Śāriputra and Avalokiteśvara to have this conversation and they’re like puppets. Matthew has a question. Oh, there it is right there, right in front.

Two questions. What was the Tibetan word again for that, for the emanation? Chuku. This specific sort of emanation? Jinki lab means blessed or blessing.

Like a lot of times we’ll say if you recite prayers in Tibetan that I never do, Jinlab means bless me to do this, bless me to do that. So Jinlab is the word for blessing, literally means blessing really means to affect a change in one’s consciousness. So bless doesn’t mean in this sometimes the word bless we have this sort of Judeo Christian thing of it’s this passive Oh please save me. It means, you know, because of your power and my readiness to meet you halfway, please change my my mind, you know, change my consciousness. So is what that one called.

Yeah. Yeah. The other thing that I think was interesting, and maybe there’s a deeper implication to this, all this is going on, and because this is we’re getting this secondhand from Ānanda, what does that mean about him? What do you mean? Well, I guess I’m kinda Is he channeling too?

Well, it it’s I mean, obviously, he’s a he’s he was a great individual, but what what are the implications of him knowing all of this? Right. Because, I mean, the way I I understand it from the way you’re talking about it, he’s been there for all of these great conversations Right. And discourses. So what does that mean about him if he is able to because the Buddha’s over here pretending to meditate, and he’s channeling to Avalokiteśvara and Śāriputra to have this conversation.

And Ānanda is also sitting nearby. Oh, mean like how does he know that this is what’s happening? Yes. Oh, Ānanda always asks the Buddha afterwards. Like, the sutras are full of he’ll have some conversation with somebody, and then the guy will go away.

And Ānanda goes, why did you tell him that? And what did you mean when you said that? And what? So maybe he asked afterwards. I mean, that would be the exoteric explanation.

Esoterically, sure, Ānanda’s probably already a Buddha, and he’s just manifesting as the Buddhist. So there’s all kinds of different levels of looking at all of these people. According to some views, the Buddha was enlightened already and just showed the aspect of going through his life as Śākyamūni Buddha to demonstrate for us how it’s done. So there could be that level explanation. But on one level, he just would ask the Buddha afterwards.

Ānanda was so funny. Sometimes the Buddha would just refuse to answer a question if he thought that his answer would induce a wrong view in someone. So there are all these sutras that the Brahman comes to talk to the Buddha and debate with him, the Buddha just sits there and disses him and doesn’t answer. The Brahman gets ticked off and leaves, and Ānanda always rushes after him. It’s not that the Bhagavan didn’t know the answer.

There must be some reason that the Bhagavan didn’t say. And then he goes back to the Bhagavan and says, what was up with that? How come you didn’t answer? And Buddha says, didn’t answer because I knew that any answer I gave would tend to the two extremes or something like that. So often he would check later what was going on.

So it may be like that. Good question. All right. So through the power of the Buddha then the venerable Śāriputra asks a question and he said this to the bodhisattva, mahasattva ārya Avalokiteśvara: How should any son of the lineage train who wishes to practice the activity of the profound perfection of wisdom? Now something really weird is going on here.

Shariputra is considered the most wise of the Buddha’s disciples. In the Pāli Sutras, he’s the one answering a ton of the questions. He’s foremost in wisdom. So here he is in the Mahāyāna Sūtra asking this really basic question. So it’s already weird when you know who Shariputra is.

He’s saying Hey! And again we’re juxtaposing the great monks and the great bodhisattvas because Śāriputra is considered an arhat. In this context, he’s not considered a bodhisattva. So he’s saying to Avalokiteśvara, the great being, the great bodhisattva, how do you guys practice? How do you guys meditate on emptiness?

I know how I do it. I’m already an arhat. So it’s really interesting. He’s humbling foremost of the Buddha’s disciples, foremost in wisdom, asking this really simple question. He’s usually not the person asking the questions.

Believe me, he’s usually the one giving these profound answers to the questions. So it’s already, again, juxtaposing and saying he needs to ask the bodhisattvas how they do it. So he asks the bodhisattva, mahasattva, ārya Avalokiteśvara, how should any son of the lineage train? Now son of the lineage, some translations say son or daughter. The Tibetan, the Lhasa edition in the Chinese canon here says sons or daughters.

There’s a Tibetan word that means anyone at all, so it’s not excluding women. Some translations say the word for sons, some say sons and daughters. But it’s basically saying, Son of the Lineage means how do you guys on the Bodhisattva track? That’s what the lineage means here. Remember we said it’s like the mother is in common to all the aryas and then the father decides the lineage and that’s whether you have Bodhicitta or not.

So when he says sons of the lineage he’s talking about bodhisattvas here, of that lineage of trainees, sons of the lineage. How do you guys do you bodhisattvas train who wish to practice the activity? And practice the activity it’s the same word being repeated. One’s a verb and one’s a noun. It’s almost like how do you walk your talk?

It’s almost like that. Same word of action. Practice action. Practice the activity of the profound perfection of wisdom. How do you guys meditate on emptiness?

Do you bodhisattvas? So Śāriputra is saying, Those of us who want to realize emptiness according to the bodhisattva track, how do you train? How do you practice? How are you supposed to learn? He said that in the bodhisattva, MaLhasattva, Ārya Avalokiteśvara said this to the Venerable Shariputra Shariputra, by the way, means son of Sari.

Sari was his mother’s name. Her full name was Sharika, and she was incredibly wise, and in fact, she was a great debater, and she was sort of unbeaten, undefeated in debate herself. And so he’s named after his mother, Sharika. So his name Śāriputra means son of Shari. Avalokiteśvara says Śāriputra, any son of the lineage or daughter of the lineage and here in all the translations, it includes both sons and daughters 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 as empty of inherent nature.

So this is our first meditation instruction. Avalokiteśvara is telling us how to meditate because that was the question. Śāriputra is asking for meditation instruction. How do you guys meditate on emptiness? And so Avalokiteśvara is answering and saying, well, the first thing you do to practice the profound perfection of wisdom is meditate on the five aggregates.

The five aggregates is empty of inherent nature. And then there’s a word also that means also the self and the parts of the self. So look at the emptiness of both the self. That’s what this also means. It’s not just the parts of a person, but it’s the whole person.

And that was the instruction I got from Lama. Meditate on the five heaps. Meditate on the self. Meditate on the five heaps. Then look at how they make up the self. Look at the five heaps again.

Look at the self again. So both things we’re looking at. So let’s look at what these five heaps are. Now we’re going to digress a bit from the sūtra. We’re going to talk about the five heaps and how do we meditate on emptiness of the five heaps.

So first let’s talk about what the five heaps are. Okay, So up to here. Forget about this half. Preserving paper. So the five heaps up to here.

These are the five parts of a person, the five components of a person. They’re called heaps because they include a whole bunch of stuff. So heaps, piles, because there’s a whole bunch of stuff included in each of these. So this is one way of looking at the components of a person. One of them is physical.

Four of them are mental. So let’s look at what these five are. And for a lot of you, I know this will be a review, but it’s always worth going through it again. So form, that’s easy. So when we’re talking about the five heaps in relation to a person, the form is the body, the physical stuff.

So form the form aggregate. We use this word aggregate again meaning a whole pile of different things. Form physical body that’s easy. Then we’ve got four mental ones: feeling. Feeling here isn’t what we usually think of in English when we use the word feeling like existential anxiety or depression, joy.

It doesn’t refer to emotions. What it refers to is three really, really basic responses to sensory stimulus: pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral. It’s got three flavors. Feeling means it feels good, it feels bad, or I could care less. It’s only those three very, very basic flavors.

Where else does this feeling aggregate show up in something that some of you have studied recently? Maria, do you remember? I remember it from the four noble truths Yeah. Yeah. Teachings.

And I want to say it’s part of the twelve links. For Maria. Very good. Exactly. And it’s exactly the one that shows up in the twelve links of dependent origination.

Those of you who studied that, a a bunch of you who studied that with me a couple of times, and we have a feeling link. Right after contact comes feeling. So since contact with an object gives rise to feeling, Very basic, pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. And it’s the same feeling that shows up in that twelve links. So that’s this one.

Then the next one, I think in your translation, says discrimination, discernment. Sometimes this is translated recognition. And that’s a pretty good translation too because this just means being able to recognize or differentiate between objects. Short, tall, hot, cold, Keith, Anna, Gina the faculty of mind that helps us differentiate between things. That’s all: discernment, recognition, discrimination.

Now compositional factors. When we talk about mental factors and some of you have studied this mind and mental factors we have fifty one mental factors, a list of fifty one mental factors. Two of these are feeling and discernment. Compositional factors include things that we would call positive emotions like compassion, kindness, joy, joyful effort, things like that. It also includes the negative emotions, things that we call negative emotions attachment, anger, aversion, plus some omnipresent mental factors like attention, intention, things like that.

So we have all of these things that accompany our kind of consciousness, our main sense consciousness. Okay? Things that add that kind of flavor to our main sense consciousness. So we’ve got fifty one, two of them are pulled out here, and this is the rest of the forty nine, all get lumped together in the fourth aggregate all the other mental factors. Then consciousness.

In Buddhism we talk about six main consciousnesses: the five external sense consciousnesses sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and then mental consciousness is the sixth one consciousness of a thought. The thought is the object of that consciousness. And then after that main sense consciousness, we flavor it with these mental factors. Questions about the five aggregates? Sandra and then Morgan.

I always have a hard time distinguishing between the mental consciousness and self. Can you explain that? Yeah, you’re not alone. And in fact, everybody but the Middle Consequence School posits one of the five aggregates or the combination as the self. And only the Middle Way Consequence School says, none of these are the self.

And we’ll get there. If you can just hang on a second, we’re going to talk about emptiness in general in a second and then we’re going to do a meditation on the five aggregates and then look at what the self really is. So that’s a great question, and if you just hang on because it’s a little complicated. In regards to the consciousness, I’ve also heard that there’s eight consciousnesses, Yeah. And and where I’m kinda confused, like, when you sit with it seems like the meditation on when you look at, you know, kinda the eye consciousness as you get through the first five, and then you go to this consciousness as it’s in this sūtra.

It really seems like a a mind only type of consciousness. And and what where Say say again what feels like a mind only Yeah. It just feels like because it seems contradictory. So you because as you go further, it goes there’s no mind, you know, no visual form, you know, into the the next part of the sūtra. So it seems like when you go with these five heaps, this consciousness relates to there is a ultimate consciousness that sits there, and then furthermore, if you as you read further into it, it’s like, well, there is no consciousness.

Right. So when you look at these kind of heaps, it seems that this is almost like a mind only view in a way, then I was curious as I’ve heard about the eight consciousness, they say, Well, we don’t talk about that. Right. So what is that? Okay, so the eight consciousnesses is a view of the mind only school actually.

They differentiate eight consciousnesses because in the mind only school there has to be a consciousness that carries the karmic seeds. So they have something called a storehouse consciousness, and they’re just differentiating that function of consciousness of carrying the karmic seeds throughout our life and from life to life to life. And they’re calling that the storehouse consciousness. Kunzhi is the Tibetan word, the storehouse consciousness. Then they also have a consciousness that’s the defiled consciousness, meaning the consciousness under the control of mental afflictions.

But in the Middle Way Consequence School, they say we don’t need these extra ones. It’s enough to explain everything just in terms of these six consciousnesses. We don’t need those extra two. We don’t need the defiled consciousness, and we don’t need a storehouse consciousness because the way that the karmic seeds are carried from moment to moment in life to life in the Middle Way Consequence School is explained perfectly adequately in terms of those six consciousnesses. So that would be a view of the mind only school, the way those eight consciousnesses are explained.

Again, it kind of comes to why isn’t the consciousness the self? And that’s the difference between identifying what goes from life to life to life from a self. And we’re going to get into that in just a second when we talk about how the self does exist and how it doesn’t exist. And the self that we identify with is not just this subtle mental consciousness at all. Because if somebody insulted Morgan and Morgan reacted, There would be a view of the self that Morgan is holding that that person could be insulting, and it wouldn’t be that Morgan is holding that very, very subtle consciousness that holds the karmic seeds and identifying with that.

So there’s more to it. There’s more to what we’re identifying as self, and we’ll talk about that in just a second. Yeah, good question. Yeah, we’ve got a couple over here. I also have the question in terms of the form.

Is that including in the environment? Yeah. And when we talk about the five aggregates in general, it encompasses everything that exists. But here we’re just restricting it to the personal five aggregates. So it’s the difference between talking about the external form, but here we’re just talking about since we’re using this meditation to attack our sense of self, we’re going to just restrict it to our personal form aggregate.

I’m not sure what the second to last and the last one means. Okay. Because second to last one, I thought that meant, like, negative or positive feelings, but I’m not sure. And I may I’m not sure, but to me, the last one seems like like a mind or a soul, but I’m not really sure. Okay.

So let’s go to the last one first. This one is just talking about sense consciousness and consciousness of thoughts. So when we talk about mind in Buddhism, and this is a whole long story about what is mind, we say mind is that which is clear and knowing. And clear means ability to reflect an object like a mirror. One of the words in Tibetan for mind is yul cen that means object holder.

So we say that the mind always has some kind of object that it’s holding, either a sense object, like for visual, I’m looking at your teal colored shirt, and that’s the object of my visual sense consciousness. I just heard cutlery clattering in the kitchen. That was an object of my auditory sense consciousness. So there’s always an object, or it’s a thought if it’s the mental sense consciousness. So this is just talking about that consciousness that always has one of those six objects.

And then, for example, if I love that color of shirt, which I do. I have to be monochrome these days. I wish I could wear that color. So first I have a sense consciousness of that color, then I identify it teal, then I go, Oh, that’s really pretty. And then I might have some kind of emotions around that or you know, some something else that flavors that sense perception.

Usually, we don’t have a sense perception alone. Then we have some kind of flavor to it. We have associations. You know, we have some kind of you know? There’s a whole list of fifty one different things that include positive emotions, they include negative emotions, they include things like motivation.

There’s a whole big long and that’s a study in itself. And so what we’re doing is just dumping most of them together here. So this is the difference between that clarity and awareness that has an object and then the story that we build up around it, you know, and all the associations and all of the flavor of our experience. Does that help a little bit? Okay.

Okay. Now, the interesting question: How come there aren’t just three aggregates? How come there’s not just form? If these two are just pulled out of this list, how come we don’t just talk about form, compositional factors, and consciousness? What do you think?

What do you think, Matthew? Grab the mic. Let’s see. I actually had a question about that that might help answer it. Okay.

At least draw it out. Or make it more confusing? Yeah. Does it have to do with the point of view? Where for example, when we were talking about feeling, you said, Okay, it could be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.

But that’s from my side. And is there a more concrete way of describing it? We say broadly, pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. But could also talk about it as attraction and repulsion, and that sort of I don’t know. Does that make it more subjective?

I don’t know. Okay, that’s interesting. You’re getting there. Yeah, yeah, that’s related. That’s related to the answer.

Yeah. Yeah. Keith. I think I can only speak about how I started to separate them because it was always very confusing for me, and I’m not sure this is really effective. But what I did was start thinking of the process of birth and death, and that each of these aggregates, go away at the time of death and form in that order at the time of birth.

So that just keep going through that. Because really, form goes first, and then feeling and discernment and compositional factors and consciousness as one dies. And I think the same thing is true as from conception. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, interesting. Okay. Okay. That’s not exactly what I was looking for, but that’s that’s interesting.

That worked for me, and and we had to try to separate them. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good.

Okay. Was there a hand back there? The other Lynn? No? No.

Okay. I’m gonna have Brian take a shot because he hasn’t said anything yet. So why did we pull these two out of this list of fifty one? I really don’t know. I’ll just tell you right now.

What do you think? Okay, Lynn has a question. Hang on a second, Lynn. Compositional factors are negative and positive affect. Yeah, there’s two categories.

It’s a list of a bunch of different things including that. But it’s more refined than just pleasant or unpleasant. It’s things like, on the negative side, pride, jealousy, attachment, which is sort of one step further along than just a pleasant reaction to something. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. We’ve got Anna and then Chris. Well, I keep karma keeps coming up, but when you have contact through form, and we always do, then that’s when the feeling arises. And it’s either going to be neutral, positive, or unpleasant.

And of course, the way we react has to do also with karmic seeds that are ripening at the time. But I think it’s mostly to do with the contact, with form contact. Okay. And then Chris had something. We need a cordless mic.

Yeah. Definitely. I actually really like what she just said. But what I was thinking was because a lot of times, I I identify with my feelings, and I identify my feelings as myself. So maybe But remember, feeling here doesn’t mean emotions.

It just means pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. So it’s not what we usually think of when we say feeling. Oh. Oh, yeah. That’s right.

Right? Because I think you’re feeling you you know, that’s more emotion. Yeah. I forgot about that. John has an idea.

Yeah. So I would say discrimination as, you know, the ability to distinguish between objects, that’s going to be directly related to your perception of things and your reality around you, as well as like your internal reality, how you’re thinking and whatnot. And feeling being pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, you know, that springs out to me as attachment, aversion, and different ways of well, you need feeling and discrimination in order to have, I think, a perception of something so that it could then go and be processed by and have labels thrown onto it from your other compositional factors all that. Is that that right? Okay.

Good. We’re getting really close. Very good. Yeah. Sarah?

I just I was just thinking just to have them stand out because they’re so, I don’t know, maybe sticky or they’re they’re they’re a place where we get hooked. Yeah. So it’s like, look at these. They’re important to look at. Yeah.

Exactly. And that’s it. You know, these especially with the last two, it’s the cause of all of our trouble because it leads to all of our attachment and our aversion. Because what happens? Somebody walks in the room.

Chooky walks in the room. I’ve known her for twenty seven years. It’s unbelievable. Know, we didn’t start out as Buddhist nuns, believe me. She walks in the room.

Oh, friend, pleasant, could give rise to attachment. Or somebody walks in the room. We discern enemy, unpleasant, aversion. They’re pulled out to emphasize what gets us into trouble. We recognize the object because of sometimes this is called memory.

That’s interesting, too, because of association. Recognition and memory are in here. We have an association. Then that gives rise to just raw, pleasant, or unpleasant. What do we mostly do when something feels pleasant?

We want more of it. When it’s unpleasant, we don’t want to have contact because we’re misunderstanding where the pleasant and the unpleasant comes from. That’s why it’s pulled out. Lord Buddha keeps doing the same thing over and over and over again. He’s trying to drum it into our heads.

The twelve links. He’s saying, You guys, misunderstanding sense contact is what gets you into trouble. He’s pulling it out here. He’s pulling it out here. We’ll get here over and over and over again saying you have contact with an object, you have a certain feeling, you misunderstand, you think that your happiness or unhappiness comes from the object and that’s the cause of all of your mental afflictions.

And then, as Anna said, giving rise to your karmic actions. So he’s pulling them out to emphasize the process. The process is discernment, feeling, and then most often one of the other afflictive emotions which often then will give rise to a karmic action. In a lot of other classes we go through this flowchart. We have ignorance up at the top, ignorance about the nature of reality, ignorance about cause and effect leads to afflictive emotions leads to karmic actions leads to suffering.

That’s the relationship between the first and second link. This is all about the cause of suffering resulting in suffering. So our discernment and our feeling for beings who don’t have a direct perception of emptiness, this starts the ball rolling for how we create the causes for saṃsāra for ourselves. Yes, Sandra. I just want to be clear.

So is this another the last two either another way or part of imputing or merely labeling an object? The last two? Say more about what you mean. When we see something and then a feeling comes up positive, negative, or neutral, it’s if it’s an if it’s an object and it’s empty and we’re imputing something onto that, positive, negative, or neutral, we’re labeling it. That’s happening in here.

Discernment. Right? And that happens in the first nine nanoseconds of sense contact with an object. It’s very cool. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is always meeting with these scientists and psychologists, and these neuroscientists measured the interval between the sense data coming in and the labeling.

We’re going to get to that in a second for people who don’t know what I’m talking about when we talk about imputing. They measured something like nine nanoseconds it takes because certain parts of the brain fired when the sense data was coming in and just one little lobe of the brain is going beep beep beep beep. And then nine nanoseconds later there’s just this crazy proliferation of electrical activity in the brain as the labeling was going on. So the neuroscientist showed this finding to his Holinessa Dalai Lama, he’s jumping up and down. He’s so excited, and the other neurologists are like, What’s the big deal?

Only the Buddhist ones got why it was so exciting. So that happens almost instantaneously, and apparently when you’re a really, really well trained meditator, you can perceive that gap between the sense data coming in. And a friend of mine who’s a teacher of Sara’s Achan Amaru, this Theravad monk, was talking to His Holiness about it once at one of these Mind and Life conferences. And he describing in meditation how when you slow things down enough, you can actually differentiate between the sense data coming in and the labeling and get that nine nanosecond gap. I think that’s crazy.

That would be cool. So you slow things down enough that you get the difference. For those of you that don’t know what we’re talking about, that’s next. We’re going to talk about that process of imputing. But that’s like the first nine nanoseconds of this after sense contact.

That without any feeling of good, bad, or neutral? That’s part Yeah, that’s first. That’s And it may be almost instantaneous, right? Like between the recognition happens so quickly, and then it’s almost instantaneous. But we say the recognition has to happen first and then the feeling.

So then I see a cup, and that’s the discernment. But then does the compositional factor part, would that be cup is good? Yeah, yeah, after that. Like it’s pleasant, you hope there’s some nice tea in it, and then you have all of this storyline about it. Yeah, Anna and Gina.

So when we react in a neutral way, our compositional factors don’t come up. Well, we have some. We have some that are called omnipresent. We have six omnipresent compositional factors. So those are always there in any moment of sense consciousness, but we wouldn’t necessarily have any of the there’s a list of twenty six that we call disturbing emotions, So we wouldn’t necessarily have any of those or necessarily have any of the pleasant ones.

But six of them are always there with any moment of sense consciousness. Any kind of consciousness, they accompany every moment of consciousness. So we would always have at least those in operation. What’s the name of the six? What are the six?

They’re called the omnipresent mental factors. Yeah. We have another one back there. I read some place that very good salespeople look at the eyes because when they see that their eyes expand, it means that they like the object. Oh, that’s great.

Right, and you can train yourself to note certain very subtle subtle things. Okay, for people who feel overwhelmed right now, don’t worry. I’m giving you all the components, and then the rest of the weekend is tying it all together. So in the first morning, because it’s just so impossible to be linear. I wish we could be simultaneous, but you have to explain a bunch of concepts, and then we’re going to be spending the rest of the weekend showing how it all comes together.

So please don’t freak out and leave at lunchtime because you leave really confused. I promise you. You know? It will get easier. It’s just almost lock the door.

Yeah. We’ll lock the door. You will not get an exit visa. It’s just almost impossible without explaining a ton of new concepts for the rest of it to yeah. Yeah.

So it’s not gonna be at this pace for the whole weekend. I promise you. It’s just we gotta give you all the building blocks before we start putting it all together. Yeah. I was wondering if the five heaps are concise teaching taken out of the twelve links because they’re so tight.

It almost looks like you have the twelve links and you extracted this. And again, the Buddha kept talking about the same thing over and over and over again in different ways. He talked about the five skandhas. He talked about the twelve sources. He talked about the eighteen elements.

He talked about the twelve links. And he’s just emphasizing over and over and over again how we get in trouble. Because the whole point is to get free of saṃsāra. The way we get trapped in saṃsāra is the karma that we create by the actions motivated by these afflictive emotions that are predicated on just the ignorance about how reality works. So he’s just kind of drumming it in our heads over and over and over again.

And that’s what the whole Heart Sūtra is. All the things that he’s telling us to meditate on in the Heart Sūtra is all, again, drumming it in over and over about how we create our saṃsāra and how we can get free. He could have said there’s no hula hoops, there’s no ice cream cones, there’s no merry-go-rounds, but no. He goes, there’s no five heaps, there’s no twelve sources, He’s just trying to emphasize this process. So in a way, it’s very, very interrelated with the twelve links.

It’s just a different way of looking at how we get in trouble, which is why he’s made five and not three because he’s really trying to emphasize that process of recognition, raw feeling, and then all the rest of the mental afflictions that lead to the karmic actions. Yeah, Gina. When you say raw feeling to describe feeling, one of the lines I was drawing, but I’m not sure if it’s accurate, is that in a way feeling and discernment, you’re pre delusion because attachment and aversion come in more in the compositional or would fit in as you describe compositional factors. Is that right? Yeah, that’s right.

That’s right. Okay. Okay. So are we okay about the five links? Dare I delve into dependent origination?

Oh, wow. That was an enthusiasm for as well. All right, and again another essential building block, not to overwhelm you, and we will review it all this afternoon. It’s always hard to do something right before lunch because everybody’s exhausted and has that low blood sugar thing going on, so we’ll review but we’ve got three ways in order to because remember what we’re trying to do here is figure out the first part of Chenrezig’s answer to Shariputratra. Avalokiteśvara is starting to answer the question, How do I meditate on emptiness?

So in order to know how to do that and in order to get the instructions, we need to be able to do it ourselves this afternoon, I promise. We need to understand about the five heaps and about how to meditate on emptiness. So first, this will be familiar to people like Anna and Carla who’ve seen this a million times or at least three or four. So in order to understand emptiness, it’s important to understand dependent arising how things and I’ll talk about the relationship. But let’s just first look at dependent arising.

And we say in Buddhism that nothing exists independently. Everything exists in dependence on certain things. Everything. Even Buddhas. Even enlightenment.

Sometimes in the beginning you kind of think, oh, well, Buddhas and the state of enlightenment must be some other category. That’s not a dependent arising. That’s something absolute. Forget about it. In Buddhism, we say everything exists in dependence.

On what? Things exist and these are three levels of subtlety, of dependent arising. And we say things exist in dependence on causes and conditions. And every Buddhist school agrees with this one. Causes and conditions.

Now the difference between a cause and a condition. We say a cause is the direct material cause for the result. And then the conditions are what enables that cause to manifest into the result. So the typical example they say is an oak tree. The cause is the acorn.

The conditions are the soil, the water, the sunlight that causes that acorn to sprout, and then all the conditions that cause the oak tree to grow. So the cause would be the acorn, and then the conditions are all those other things necessary. Because the acorn isn’t going to sprout if it doesn’t have soil and water and air and sunlight. Do you have microphone? Where is it?

Oh, it’s right there. Is that why they say that the result is in the cause? Yeah, yeah. Because you need to have and we call it the Tibetan word is the material cause, the thing that actually turns into the result. Let’s look at the cup.

This is my favorite example because I’m constantly drinking tea and I always have a cup somewhere in my vicinity. The cup is dependent on the causes and conditions. So the causes for the cup, we would say, is the material stuff that goes into making the cup. So the porcelain, the glaze, the dye for the little dragons on it, so this stuff. And then the conditions are that somebody dug the clay out of the ground somewhere and then it went to Beijing Cup Manufacturing Company and then the factory and the workers and the machinery.

So that’s the causes and conditions that go into making the cup. Super easy to understand. So we say the cup does not exist independently of the stuff that went into making it, the process of making it. Really easy to understand. All Buddhist schools agree with this one.

So that’s easy. Now the cup also exists in dependence on parts, meaning we’ve got a cylinder with a bottom with a handle. This cup has a top it doesn’t need to to be a cup. So any cup that exists at least has a cylinder and a bottom and may or may not have a handle. I hate the ones that don’t have handles.

You always burn your hands. Cylinder, bottom, handle, open top. Those are all the parts that go into making a cup. If we didn’t have the cylinder, if we just had the bottom, it would be some kind of weird little ceramic coaster. It wouldn’t be a cup.

If we just had the cylinder and not the bottom and the handle, it would be some gigantic napkin ring or something for giants. If we just had the handle, I don’t know what that would be. So it’s dependent on all the parts. It has to have an open top. That’s also one of the parts because otherwise it would just be some enclosed thing that you couldn’t drink out of.

So parts. That’s really easy to understand. Now, the subtlest one, subtlest level of dependent arising only accepted, by the way, by the Middle Way Consequence School says things also exist in dependence on conceptual designation and imputation. So let’s go over this. So for the cup, what this means is this: I have in my mind a concept cup.

We call it in philosophy a generic image. Dönchi is the Tibetan word. I have a generic image, meaning it’s very, very general. Cylinder of a certain size. If it’s too big, it would be a generic image of a wastebasket or a trash can.

If it were too small, it would be the generic image of a thimble. So my generic image, very, very general, but it’s a cylinder of a certain size with a bottom and a top that’s open. So then I come in this room and I’m scanning all the objects in this room and I get the image of this cylinder and then I label it cup with my concept. Because I have a concept in my mind, this generic image, and I label that cylinder cup. According to the Middle Way Consequence School, there’s no cup there independent of my labeling process.

So the cup exists as a cup only in dependence on my labeling process. But it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like there’s a cup there from its own side. Of course it’s a cup. I say to Carla, please make me a cup of tea.

We talk about it as if there were a cup there from its own side. And there’s not. And that’s what this school is saying. It’s saying every object is created by our conceptual designation, our imputation. There is something there.

There are external objects. In this school We say, Yeah, there’s stuff out there. But it only becomes what it is when you’ve got a mind with a concept labeling that thing. So there’s no cup there from its own side. And that’s the subtlest level of dependent arising.

So things exist in dependence on our conceptual designation, to be what they are. And the greatest example of this it’s a movie from the ’80s, but it seems really popular. Almost everybody’s seen it. Do you remember that movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy? Right?

In this Coke bottle, you’re too young. So a Coke bottle drops out of some airplane in the middle of the Kalahari Desert, and this bushman takes it home. And it’s this hysterical movie. And the only reason it’s so hilarious is because we think it’s really a Coke bottle. And they use it as a rolling pin, and then they start hitting each other over the head with it.

It’s like there hasn’t been any Coke within a thousand miles of the Kalahari Desert. Is it a Coke bottle or not? No. It’s for them, it’s a valid rolling pin. It’s a valid weapon, and we’re laughing our heads off.

And I think Lama Zopa wouldn’t laugh at that movie. He’d be like, so what? What’s so funny? You know? So it’s very relative, this conceptual designation and imputation.

You know? It’s culturally relative, what we’re doing. There are plenty of cultures that would not recognize this as something to drink tea out of. Inuits in northern New Zealand, I don’t know what they drink out of or northern Greenland, I don’t know what they drink out of, like some seal bladders or something. God knows what they think that this was.

And we would think, oh, it’s a cup. Of course, this is a cup. And we’d be trying to tell them it’s a cup. And it’d be like, why? It could function as something completely different.

So the subtlest level is saying things exist in dependence on conceptual designation and imputation, and their emptiness is they’re not anything other than that. And we say that emptiness and dependent arising are like two sides of a coin. They’re like two ways of looking at the same characteristic. Things exist in dependence on conceptual designation, and their emptiness is saying they don’t exist any other way than that. Their emptiness is their voidness of any other kind of existence other than existing in dependence on all three of these levels, but the subtlest one is this: their absence of existing in any other way than in dependence on causes and conditions, parts, and conceptual imputation.

That’s their emptiness. Every object has its emptiness, and it’s all the same characteristic an utter, total absence of a certain way of existing that we always thought it existed like that. We never questioned it. Questions on these three levels of dependent origination? Lynn.

The other Lynn. Thanks Marcella. Marcella is the microphone assistant. When you’re talking about different cultures recognizing ball and you have an infant, six month old infant. Yeah.

And there is a ball. Probably cross culturally an infant might try and feel it and touch it. Right. So how do you see that as needing the conceptual designation imputation? Wouldn’t they need, in order to see it as a toy, wouldn’t they need somebody to like play with them and throw it at them and like bounce it?

I don’t think so. You don’t think so? No. I think an infant goes when they just will look for anything. They’re looking to touch things and Right.

Right. But would they have a concept of toy? I mean, is that what you’re saying? Okay. No.

But I But they wouldn’t have a concept of ball either. No. But cross culturally Yeah. They would probably, I think, try to do something with it. And that’s fine.

That doesn’t mean that they have any kind of conceptual imputation. Infants are just trying to have a sensory experience with whatever they can. They put everything in their mouth. It doesn’t mean that they’re thinking of it as ball. That’s a great example.

They need to learn that concept before they walk in the room and see that round object sitting on the floor and think ball. So what I’m asking, so there is an object that the infants cross culturally will reach for without any Without knowing it’s a ball, thinking Without any imputation, without any conceptual designation. So I’m wondering about that third category. Well, doesn’t mean that external objects don’t exist. It’s just saying it doesn’t exist as what it is to you without your conceptual designation.

It’s not saying there’s nothing there. It’s not saying unless you have the word for something, you don’t perceive it. But it’s just saying you always infants have concepts, too. They may not have a concept of ball, but they have a concept of external object. They come in with karmic imprints.

At the very least, they see whatever their concept of it is, they see it as coming from its own side. They don’t see that they’re labeling it with whatever their rudimentary concept is. And with infants, they say even within twenty four hours, they can recognize their mother’s breast. So then it’s like feeling would be pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. It would be very, very rudimentary.

And then their recognition would just be like they wouldn’t even have the concept of mother, but they would just have some rudimentary concept of this is an object that gives comfort. So I think it can be very rudimentary in an infant before they have language, but they’re still having some kind of concepts about the things in their world. One other question here. What about constructs like circle, square? Yeah.

And those are abstract concepts that are learned. A lot of this is learned. Mathematics is completely abstract concepts that bears very little relationship to reality. So all of those kind of things are learned in the same way that we learn other labels for things. And it’s just something that’s learned.

And it’s very interesting. There’s a big association here with language for humans, because all sentient beings have conceptual imputation designation. They all have it, babies, all sentient beings. But it can be very refined by language. Like I had a student recently in India from Finland, and I was saying, you know, the Inuits have eighty five words for snow, and she goes, in Finnish, we have eleven words for snow.

So she I mean, I’ve never lived anywhere it snowed much. I have two kind of conceptual imputations for snow: the dry, powdery kind and then the squishy, wet kind that’s good for making snowmen. I only perceive those two kinds of snow. Because of her eleven words, she perceives eleven different kinds of snow. So it’s very tied up for language with us, but we do have concepts even before we have language and other beings have concepts too.

It’s not completely dependent on learning and language. Okay, one more question. Let’s go back on the same track. You go back to the circle, and we know in nature, there are atoms, there are electrons, there’s a whole lot of things that Right. Even if we’re not aware of them at all, are there.

Right. It’s not like they don’t exist. The circle exists whether or not we see So how do you think about that? Does it exist as a circle? We have a concept electron.

It doesn’t mean that there isn’t an object out there. But we’ve decided a certain elementary particle with these characteristics, we’re going to call it electron. And it’s very interesting. How does that happen? Oh, some machine has a little blip.

Like some machine that we’ve created has a printout that has a little peak. Oh, there must be something there. Let’s see. Let’s have a concept of this particle with a certain kind of charge. It’s all created by our concepts, It doesn’t mean that there isn’t something there, but I’m saying electron is a conceptual imputation on some physical property that we’re creating with our guess what I’m asking is even if we don’t know there’s an electron there, we have no idea, but it’s there.

It’s not an electron. It’s not an electron. There’s something. It’s not an electron. But something is there.

Yeah. There is external objects. But it’s very interesting. When you look at science and look at measurements and scientific theory, due to some instrumentation and some measurement somewhere, it’s like the whole thing about is light a wave or a particle. You design a certain experiment and you decide it’s a particle.

You design another experiment, it behaves as a wave. Is it a wave? Is it a particle? Perfect example. We create a concept dependent on some kind of scientific measurement.

You can’t directly perceive an electron. A Buddha can. We can’t. So there’s some blip on some machine and we make up this whole concept electron. You’re asking, Does external reality exist?

And I’m saying yes, but I’m saying it’s not an electron. And you have to get used to it. And it’s hard because we’ve always thought that things existed from their own side, and we just happen to encounter all this preexisting reality. And this is saying we’re creating everything by our concepts. Now how does this help us?

We’ll get into that this afternoon. So the practical applications for it, we’ll get to. I have to give you all the puzzle pieces, and then please stay after lunch because I promise I’ll show you how does this help you be angry less, be attached less, be a happier person? How does this help you? Because this is the only point in anything that the Buddha taught.

It’s all about suffering less. So I promise you I’ll tie it together, but we’ve got to have the concepts first. Yeah. Okay, Gina has a question. Marcella, my lovely assistant.

I start to get really twisty when I think about the emptiness of concepts. Like we’re talking about emptiness as a concept. Then, I mean, I’ve never seen an electron, but I recognize, at least in my conventional reality, how it’s explained, how it can be measured by people with better instruments in mind than mine. But then can you also take it an extra step to say enlightenment is a concept? Absolutely.

The dharma is a concept. Emptiness is a concept. So I guess I’m trying to very poorly articulate that I have questions about the emptiness of emptiness and the emptiness of the dharma. And it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, right? Because that’s the important thing.

We have always thought that things existed from their own side, so the minute we start to think, Oh, it doesn’t exist from its own side, it all starts to get shaky. The Buddha is just a conceptual designation. On what? On a being with certain qualities. Right?

That’s valid. in dependence on the path, the Buddha has achieved certain qualities. We have an idea as Buddhists of Buddha. So when there happens to be a being that in dependence on causes and conditions and the path has achieved certain qualities. We call the quality omniscience.

We call the quality being able to have emanation bodies. And then we have this idea in our mind Buddha. It doesn’t mean that being doesn’t exist. It doesn’t mean they’re any less there. But they exist independently.

If we had different labels we might call that being something else. We might call them a saint. We might call them an avatar, being with those same qualities. Did we know the first time we walked in this room that’s Medicine Buddha, that’s Tārā? Did we know?

No. We just saw these pretty things. We sort of recognized some of somewhat like a human but not really, like what’s going on? And then we had these labels. So now we walk in and we see all that stuff.

So it’s really important. And in fact, as Nāgārjuna says, because of emptiness, things can’t exist. If they weren’t empty, they couldn’t exist. So quite apart from emptiness negating the reality of things or the validity of things, it could only happen because of emptiness. Buddhahood can only happen because it’s empty, and thank God because otherwise we’d be stuck.

Buddhahood somehow weren’t empty of inherent existence and didn’t exist in all three of these ways, we’d be stuck. If we were inherently existent there’d be no way of changing. So emptiness allows for the possibility of change. I know in the beginning we get all like, Oh, that means the Buddhists don’t exist. It means enlightenment doesn’t exist.

No, it can only exist because it’s empty and because it’s a concept, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t function. Let’s talk for a minute about how things do conventionally exist. After I pull the rug out from under you, I’d like to give you a little bit of a safety net. Great. So how do things exist?

And there’s this great explanation in Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche’s book, What Makes You Not a Buddhist? And he says things conventionally exist in dependence on three qualities, on continuity, consensus, and function. Continuity means this is not the same cup that was here when I walked in the Hum at nine thirty. It’s not even the cup that was here nine nanoseconds ago. But there’s some continuity.

There’s some kind of continuity of the material that make up the cup, even though constantly changing. We know in Buddhism subtle impermanence means it’s changing moment by moment by moment, but there’s continuity. So I can call this my cup, and I can think of it as the same cup that I had at nine o’clock this morning and that’s fine and that works and that functions. The continuity means even though it’s changing moment by moment strictly speaking it’s not the same object there is a certain continuity. And then function and consensus which are related.

We’ve decided in twenty first century Western culture that a cylindrical object of a certain size with a bottom and handle that we drink liquid out of is called a cup. So we’ve decided based on the function. Because things are empty doesn’t mean that I can drink out of this just because I decide. Because it doesn’t function as a cup. We’ve decided based on the function.

And just because the cup doesn’t exist even one iota from its own side doesn’t mean I can just decide that this is a cup. Just because it exists in dependence on my conceptual imputation doesn’t mean Oh I just decided that this is a cup and then this is a cup for me doesn’t function as a cup because we’ve decided it needs to have that function and then we call it a cup. So that’s why anything can’t be anything even though it’s dependent on your conceptual designation. If I start going around trying to drink out of this my friends are going to very quickly seek help from me. It doesn’t mean that anything can be anything.

It’s relative, and it depends on consensus, and that’s why it’s culturally relative. But we’ve all decided based on the function, that’s a cup. So that’s how this is validly a cup and not a telephone. Hello? I try and make a phone call out of this same thing.

That’s why this is validly a cup, in dependence on all of these parts, in dependence upon the concept. A Buddha is validly a Buddha because we’ve decided that a being with that function of having omniscient mind, having emanation bodies, etc, etc, we, by consensus, as Buddhist students call a Buddha. And that’s how the Buddha exists conventionally, perfectly functions one hundred percent perfectly well in dependence on this. Okay, does that help? Yeah, think it does.

I think part of it, and it may be semantics, is because I’ve heard it said several times that the Buddha was trying to teach us the true nature of reality. Right. And when I hear something like this, it almost to me has a quality of being some level of existence on its own side. That the concept itself has some level of existence on its own side when you talk about a true nature reality. So maybe I’m just tripping over some of the words.

And we can talk about ultimate truth and ultimate reality, and they’re not the same thing. So sometimes it’s the semantics. Because we can talk about ultimate reality and ultimate truth, and the word ultimate or true mean different things in those contexts. There’s nothing that is not empty of inherent existence. There’s nothing that’s ultimately existent, but ultimate truth is emptiness.

Right? So there is no ultimate reality, but there is ultimate truth, which refers to emptiness. So, yeah, it gets a little sticky. But even emptiness is empty because emptiness is just, again, a concept that we label onto that absence of a certain impossible way of existing, and we call that emptiness. And I think sometimes I keep using the word conventional reality to describe how I see things, but maybe that’s not necessarily the case too.

Because the Buddhist sees sees things, sees conventional reality Layers of karma or layers of enlightenment that I can’t see, but that is part of what I could, I guess, describe as conventional reality. It’s just not something I’ve necessarily been able to kind of grasp or articulate. Right. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. Let’s see. Keith has one, and then let’s have one more question, and then let’s dedicate the merit. And like I said, you have to as one of my friends says, you have to cook it. I’ve given you the raw ingredients, and you just have to think about it over and over and over again.

So we’ll talk about it a lot more when we get back together again after lunch. So don’t panic. This is just I’ve given you all the raw ingredients, and then for the rest of the weekend, we’re going to be simmering and cooking it. I guess I was cooking in my own primitive way. Was trying to think of the probability theories in physics where that wall, if a person walked into that wall every two seconds for a thousand years, the probability is they would walk through it.

And that is actually a real So therefore, if a person could really perceive emptiness like a Buddha, then you would really know how to do things like that. I don’t if that makes any sense. Right, right, right. No, totally. I had this great experience.

I was teaching this ten day course at Tuśita Meditation Center in India this spring on emptiness according to the four philosophical schools for ten days, so we got into a lot of detail. It was great. And there were these three guys in class. I mean, for a lot of people, was just like, what? And there was these three guys in the class, and they’re all every time I’d say something, it turned out they were all physicists.

Like, it was awesome. There’s these three guys all in their own. They’re like, yeah. Woah. So I said, okay.

Great. Like, I’m giving the four philosophical schools view of the ultimate nature of reality. Give the modern physics view of the ultimate nature of reality. So they did this whole presentation on the last day of the class, and it was great. And they drew all the correlations to modern physics and what I’d been saying about emptiness, and it was so much fun.

It was really great. I just said, yeah, let’s get the modern view because there really are more and more correlations with modern physics, but the the three of them were so cute. They were just like and everybody else is like they really got it, it was very cute. Alright so I want to give you your lunch break, let’s just dedicate the merit real quick. Oh, and then we’ll bless the food together.

We’ll do the meal blessing prayer. But first, let’s just take a minute to think about all of the positive energy that we’ve generated from thinking about emptiness. Even if we feel really confused right now, remember what Āryadeva said, just even doubting for even a second that things exist and the way that they appear tears Samsāra to shreds. So let’s dedicate all that energy towards gaining that realization and then being able to break free completely of Samsāra, attain complete enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. And then in your gold prayer book on page two zero seven are the food offering prayers, and we can just do that together.

So we’re meant to visualize the food as blissful wisdom nectar inside of a vast jeweled vessel. And as we eat, we imagine a little Śākyamūni Buddha at our heart that we’re making offerings to. So we’ll just recite prayer the food offering together. Om Ah hum. Om Ah hum.

Om Ah hum. The guru is Buddha. The guru is Dharma. The guru is Sangha also. The guru is the creator of all happiness.

To all gurus, I make this offering. May we and those around us in all future lives never be separated from the Three Jewels, continuously make offerings to the Three Jewels, and receive the inspiration of the Three Jewels. To the supreme teacher, the precious Buddha, to the supreme refuge, the precious Dharma, to the supreme guides, the precious Sangha, to the triple gem, the objects of refuge, I make offering. Okay. So think of whatever questions that you have during lunchtime because I know there are a couple more hands up, then we’ll discuss more when we come back at two and then carry on and do a little bit of meditation after everybody’s digested.

Okay. Thank you. You. Thank you. Thank you.

And the donkey brochures are up here if you wanna see. Thank you.