Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 109-minute class, Kyabje Rinpoche walks Tibetan students through the Lama Chöpa (Guru Yoga) by demonstrating how to parse complex Buddhist texts through meticulous grammatical analysis. Students read passages aloud and then work through the grammatical skeleton together: isolating embedded quotations, distinguishing honorific and non-honorific forms, parsing case particles, tracking topicalizers and verb tenses. Rinpoche shows how precise grammar unlocks subtle shifts in meaning—a method he applies to the 50 Verses of Guru Devotion, the Vajramālā tantra, and related commentaries. The session ends with an introduction to Kachen Yeshe Gyeltsen’s outline of the prostration section in Lama Chöpa, assigned as a framework for next week’s translations. For students with some Tibetan background studying Buddhist practice texts.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2011-05-05 – KR.mp3
UUID: add6babc-e12d-408f-96db-eef1e9aadd5d
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Tibetan Language
Date: 2011-05-05
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~6,241
You know, whenever we go the road of extrajudicial killings, it is something which is terrible for all of us. Shaya, did you want a copy? I did. Yes. Do you have one?
No. I have I don’t have one. Would you like one? Definitely. Yes.
I would love to. And I mentioned to the others, instead of payment, if you could make a donation of $35 to. Okay. Can you do that? On the Internet.
Very good. Okay. So I assume you’ve all been hard at work during the couple of weeks break. You forged ahead in the root text, the commentaries, sub commentaries, the variants of the commentaries, critical editions. You know, you have a lot of things to tell me about variant manuscripts.
Now. I said, where are you going? I never knew variant manuscripts have such an effect on someone. Jeffrey would do this to us when he said, so regarding Sanskrit Azematic Verbs. So, I think we reached page 47, didn’t we?
We went all the way to the end of the quote of Kyabje Sangye Yeshe and I assume that you’ve translated as we said the rest of page 47 and all of page 48 and as far as you could get on page 49 hopefully down to the end of the section on prostrations. So I think we just got to jump directly in the material. Melissa, would you like to start for us reading at the Pabongka Rinpoche’s commentary here on line three six seven? Page 47. Are you sure?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Take take us to the end of the quote, maybe. Continue a little bit.
Marvelous. Very good reading. Congratulations. Very good reading. So could you give us a grammatical breakdown and then your translation?
We’re starting here. Mhmm. Very good. Give us a broad breakdown, the grammatical particles in these one, two, three lines. Would you actually want to go to the blackboard for us?
Break it up first on the blackboard. So I wait here. Knee? Here, you mean. No?
Yes. So what’s a topicalizer? What does it give us? It gives us the topic. Gives us the topic.
Precisely. Precisely. And then after that, what’s the next big meaning block of the sentence? The next clause, if you want. Okay, that’s the end of the previous sentence.
You’ve got a quote. So, if you isolate the quote within the sentence, right, where does it start and where does it end? Take take one of the the red felt tipped pens and give the breakdown for us. Yes. Do they have the same weight?
So you have one here indeed and as Melissa pointed out very rightly, you have another here. But if you you have to go from the general to the particular to make sense of your sentences. Yes, yes, yes. But before you do that isolate your quote. You told me we have a quote marker which is here.
Where does the quote start and where does it end? Can you guess? I’ll give you a hint. It starts here. And what tells you that is that this is a title of a work, and the is a logative, which means inside.
Yeah. So give us the beginning and the end of the quote. So so this is the quote of Amanda. Exactly. Where does it stop?
Give us our brackets. Exactly. So what we have is let’s do it just like algebra. Starts here, stops here. Then you see what I was asking you.
Do the knees have the same weight? They don’t because this knee is a topicalizer within the main clause, the principal sentence. These knees by definition are inside the quote. So they’re subsidiary. Yeah.
So if you don’t do this initial breakdown, you just go for your knees Yeah. You might miss an awful lot. Now indications of the quote, as you pointed out very rightly, quotation marker at the end, you move back, you’re looking for a title and either a la-dön or an ablative. Both exist. It’s more frequently an ablative, but here it is a la-dön.
Would you like to where were you going? Oh, so it’s very convenient. I take the students through the blackboard, and then I have a laser beam. You know? Oh, that’s the next step.
Thanks for suggesting it, however. Dedication of the students knows no limits. So then how would you start? Where where’s your verb first in this subclause? Think, having said there’s a quote, if I ask you what’s the verb?
Exact no. The the main verb in your sentence. Yes. Said. You want to start from the journal and go to the particular.
Otherwise, you have a heap of words and no structure. So then, we have a topicalizer in the main clause giving our topic, then some developments, a quote and a verb, which once again is in the main sentence. If we try to translate that together, So means what? Means to see. Seeing here or the vision, if you prefer to to put it in as a noun, seeing what?
Lama Dorje Chang, the Guru and Vajradhāra. Is that what’s written? As inseparable. Exactly. As inseparable.
How would you translate that? In this manner, in such a manner. It’s an instrumental of means. Means like, method, in such a method. In which method?
The one we just previously explained. So that’s our topic. In this manner, in this method. So seeing the Guru and Vajradhāra as inseparable in such a way, and then you just read onwards here. Is in keeping.
What is? Yes. But even better intent. It means thought, but it’s often used in hermeneutics. And this is where you’re going.
It’s interesting. It’s like a rubber band, you know. So is in keeping with the thought, as Shai said, the intent to purport of many tantras. And then you have the main verb. So you have an implicit verb to be which you inject here.
Then the main verb is as is said, where in which is 50 Verses of Guru Devotion by Ashvaghosha. How would you translate the quote, Melissa? Just jump in the water, and if you think, we’ll do our best to get you out. Yes. The master.
What do you think it is? Vajra? Yes. What is? Yes.
What would be? It’s another name for. So so far so good. What does mean? Yes?
You’re a bit further. Now why is it a here? Means different. Why? Yes.
There is. A bit further down. Mi. Mi. So what’s the verb?
To To think, to discern, to discriminate. So do not discern. It functions as an adverb differently, precisely, Richard, the master and Vajradhāra. Now what is the function of this knee here and this knee here? What do they do?
What’s the first knee doing? Why would it be put after the Dung? Is that a commonplacement? What do you think it might be? It’s there for Meter.
It’s there for meter and it emphasizes we’re talking about the Vajrajaya. Its placement after dung is uncommon, it’s non standard, but they needed the extra foot. The second knee, same thing. When you have a go Mhmm. Of a quote like that Mhmm.
Is is that an inherited So what is the verbal form here? Thank you for thank you for asking that. Melissa, based on your notes, what is the verbal form? That I know, the goal. But what is it’s a finalizer, actually.
What what tense is? Anyone checked? No. Present tense here. I’ve just Normally it’s a present.
Normally it’s a present. So why do we mean it as an imperative? Think that’s Richard’s question. I I the subject then the the master and the do not. What’s what’s the subject?
Why is it important to see that Tadeepaque is an adverb? It tells you that the Vajra Master and Vajradhāra are not the subject. So who’s the subject? Are you sure? We have an implicit subject, which is very, very common in Tibetan, if not standard.
It could be you or it could be the student in general, you know. It is just you You will should you will not, even though there’s no imperative, but that’s the meaning here. You will not see, if you forgive me for translating tapas, that you will not see the Vajra Master and Vajradhāra differently, as different. You have an implicit subject. If you took as you were saying the Vajra Master or someone said as subject, how would you work with this sentence?
Then you have to say the Vajra Master does not differentiate or does not discern as different what from Vajradhāra? There is something missing in the sentence. Apart from that it doesn’t fit with the context. Well, otherwise, the passive sense, which if you were going to have both as a subject. Yes, Ezra.
As you know, Tibetan basically allows passive forms but doesn’t really represent them. So, it’s a bit awkward, but context here is pretty obvious. Why do we read it in this way? What is there in the first part of the sentence which guides us? This tells us how to interpret this verse.
Viewing the Guru in Vajradhāra as inseparable in this way, and then the quote just justifies that. So we have an implicit subject which is carried throughout here which is the practitioner. Then, Shaya, would you like to take the next couple lines? Excellent reading. Excellent.
Could you give us the grammar, The general breakdown going from the general to the particular as usual. Shaya, what you’re being burdened there. We don’t want to burden you with things. Don’t know. Breaking memory right now.
But unless I don’t. Now we’ll help you with the words, and you’ll discover your inner photographic memory. Yes. That’s a very good way to go about it. Yes?
Are you sure? So we stopped here. So where does a quote in the following section start? You remember what we said you’re looking for what cases? Ladder or?
Quote, ablative. Ablative. Sorry. Yes. Exactly.
That should be a dead giveaway. In the It’s what? Could be. Could be. The in the previous sentence.
Which previous? Very good. That is a particle at the end of the sentence. What is What what is your translation, your vision of atlas? Is it a case particle?
No. It’s Exactly. It’s a sentence ending. It is not a la-dön. Exactly.
Then it’s not a sentence ending. It is what? It can be one of two things in Tibetan. A conjunction of coordination, in other words an and, or a disjunction on or. Context tells you.
In other words, you you have to sort of put it on hold. Remember? And you will know with the flow of the sentence. Does this mean and or does it mean however? Or.
I can tell you it means and here. You know? Very good point, Richard. That’s exactly it. It’s not at all a London, it’s not a case particle.
Then, could you put our quote between brackets for us? From the beginning to the end exactly. Exactly. And you can see if you look inside the quote, the meter. Right?
So would you count the syllables and tell us whether it fits? Exactly. That’s an easy way of confirming your identification of verse in a quote. And then I didn’t I I’ve spoken. Yes.
So you have a verb. Once again, Tibetan is a language which likes symmetry. Having cracked the first part of the sentence, you’re entitled to assume the second block is going to function the same way. We’ll see when we start translating the quote. You want to keep your quotes for the end because they’re always more difficult.
What we want now is to get a verb which you have here, Just as a verb here. So, And then if you look at the beginning of the sentence or the clause before the quote, you look carefully, you have a exactly as above. So that should help you a lot. So that’s the main topic of life. That’s your topic.
Exactly. Yes. Go ahead. Feel free to correct, Chaya. Start by translating at your main topic.
The key, you’ve identified your quote. Meditate. Yes. Meditating. More precisely, what is the tense of that verb?
Yes. How would you translate it precisely? Meditation. Past tense of a verb. Having meditated.
Is it? So is it la-dön? I’m sorry. La-dön. Ablative following Asa.
What? Aladdin. Having meditated on? Means etcetera. sogs, sogs means etcetera.
Okay. The five aggregates. Is aggregates? So, the five aggregates Of whom? Who what’s the de what does the de refer to here?
Of that. Who is the that? So having meditated on the five aggregates of the Guru. Of him. The de means him.
Pu, Son, Na, Riks, Naso as the five how do you translate rigs? Are you sure? Lineage is Buddhist. Of course, it’s bones. Yes.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. So having done that, and then if you want to translate this really carefully. So this is your topic.
Right? You actually have a lovely verb here. This is beautiful Tibetan grammar. This is the meaning of what is said in Gyudoje Trenoi, And then you you give your quote. So give us the quote.
If you start translating the law at the end of the first verse, you’ll be on good Yes. You’ll be on good path. So I’m just stuck on is? Anyone? Body.
Yes. Non honorific. Why do you think so? Let’s translate the verse and then I’ll ask you, and then we will try to answer your question. So, Lai is well translated here by in.
In. Eloctative. Means lord actually. Lord. A feudal lord.
Is lord of the students actually. So it’s a translation of Sanskrit, acarya. Exactly. But the Tibetan word has two components, which a Sanskrit word does not have. The Tibetan said to make translations for the Sanskrit terms.
Yes. Yes. Where’s your verb? In the sentence? Mhmm.
In the in the quote. Our government take it. In the quote? Where do verbs come in Tibetan usually? Yes.
What does nepa mean? To dwell. To dwell. To dwell. The means gradually, the bodies of the conqueror or the body of the conquerors, we don’t know.
So if we were to translate this quote, in the body of the Vajra masters, gradually the body of the conquerors dwells or incrementally is another good transition of Rim Shin. Rim means sequence. Shin Rim Shin normally means gradually. Shin alone can mean like. So here it’s like and sequence, in other words, gradually.
And originally, Shin meant face actually. Why gradually didn’t actually make sense. And what do you think? Do you think is being referred to here? Remember the this quote you can only understand in the light of page 46.
So it refers to a process where the deities are invited in the Vajra Master’s body or the parts of the Vajra Master’s body are generated as the deities. And that leads to the answer to your question. Why? And it’s a very strong point in this verse. Why such a strong ordinance between the non honorific Lu and the honorific Ku?
What is being said here? Something very strong is being said. We cannot know whether the Vajra Master is enlightened or not. But we know for sure that the conquerors are enlightened. But it always seems to contradict the previous point which is to say that they are separate.
You do not see them as separate, but here from the standpoint of objective view, from our side we have no way of knowing. Right? So, we train to see the Vajra Master as enlightened but the Vajra Master Himself, whether from His own side He is enlightened or not, we do not know. Another possible interpretation here is that this is an allusion to what is known as lü kyi. Leu kil is body mandala.
It is never known as. Oh, okay. That’s it. People have a real tendency to sort of So it is also possible that this lu alludes to the body mandala, but my personal feeling is that there’s such a heavy balance between Lu and Ku that that is probably what is being said here. Now, this is something in your opinion which is specifically Tibetan or not?
Could this have been rendered in Sanskrit? Actually, no. Sanskrit does not make a distinction between non honorific and honorific forms. So this is something which the Tibetan translators in consultation with the Sanskrit pandits did to clarify the fact that the Vajra Acharya’s body may or may not be ordinary. We have no way.
We see it as Yes, form to indicate something not Yes, very good point. We had exactly the same situation in Lamrim. So, this material is often very packed with meaning. And it pays back handsomely to try to think what exactly is being said. Now, why did we insist so much on the past tense form of the verb?
It indicates a process. Very good. So, Shaya, would you come? Now, this is beautiful Tibetan grammar. You have a topicalizer and you have in this sentence a verb.
So having meditated on the five aggregates of the Guru as the five lineage Buddhas and so forth is similar in meaning to what is said in the Vajramālā tantra. Gradually, the bodies of the conquerors settle in the body of the Vajra Master. So it is a case where you can translate every single Tibetan syllable into English and every single syllable has meaning. It’s very nice. So the first or the second?
So here normally you would have is a little bit of an odd construction. It basically means the aggregates etc. Form, feeling, recognition, volition and consciousness are the five Buddha families. Right? So Vairochana, Ratnasambhava, Amitābha, Akṣobhya, Amoghasiddhi.
But I would really encourage you in this material to pay a lot of attention to verb tenses. It is often of great importance. So I actually think that here probably you have to look at other text, probably this is a little bit garbled and what is being said is the five aggregates, the four elements, attendants, etcetera, having been meditated upon as the five Buddha lineages, the four mothers, the twenty-one thousand arhats and so forth, is akin to the meaning which is prana, which is taught in the Vajramālā tantra. Etcetera, etcetera. Jasmine, would you like to take onwards for us?
So the first quote today was the 50 verses of Guru devotion. The second quote is a tantra, the Vajramālā tantra, is a commentarial tantra. So we’re not being very kind to you because it’s Changed the size? Yes. Size has changed and you have a lot of a lot of interferences here.
So exactly right there. Mhmm. Uh-huh. Young Da Tam. Very good reading.
Thank you very much. So would you like to try to give us the large blocks of meaning, the large clauses here? Perhaps? Yes. Yes.
Very good. Then you have a quote here. Where does it start and where does it end? Yes, excellent. How do you trace a quote?
You work back, it’s verse. So what does that tell you? Exactly. Get your meter. So it is seven feet.
Right? So you just then move backwards, seeing how far back you have the seven feet verse. Just keep going. Exactly. So, that is where your quote starts.
You can find it very easily. You count. Seven feet. Okay. This verse has seven feet.
This line has seven feet, seven feet, seven feet, then here, tene gompo ludrup ki rimna nine. That’s no longer part of the verse. And they’re a little bit mean with you here because there’s no ablative to indicate the beginning of the quote. There’s a but in the compressed form, a at the end of the syllable of the ma. Therefore, your quote, thank you, extends from I can see why you couldn’t read easily.
From here to here. Then how would we translate this? So here, you pointed out a break here, which is a very good observation. Why did you point that out? The You have.
Exactly. Means then. It’s a major break in the syntax. So it is safe enough to start translating up here at. And if you look, you find as we said Tibetan likes symmetry.
You have a series of verbs. Is one verb there. Actually, you have two verbs here. What is? Yes?
What tense? Are you sure? So, one is it? Past, present, future, imperative? Could be an imperative or a future.
It has a meaning of an imperative. You will do or do. So then if we try to translate it you want to take a go, Jasmine? What is? Collection.
Collection. Yes. Yes. What is? Shing is having, is it?
Or wood. Or orchid. Yes. Yes. What might that mean here?
So where do we have wood here? Apart from wood, what does mean? Apart from that? As westerners As westerners, it’s a nightmare for us, this one. Tibetans do not distinguish between wood and trees.
It’s a tree. It’s a merit tree. The tree of accumulation, the tree of the collections. It is the tree on top of which is the Guru and the entire field of merit. What does mean?
Means clear. Anyone found? It’s very good. Is what we call verbalizer in Tibetan. Tibetan has a category of verbs which function as auxiliaries in English, which are used to turn nouns or adjectives into verbs.
This is tap belongs to that category like like like So make clear. In other words, visualize. So here, visualize the tree of the accumulations of the collections. In other words, the we would translate it more loosely and say, visualize a field of merit. You know?
And what do we have? We have an enumeration here. What is is wisdom. Is the wisdom ones, the wisdom beings in other words. What does mean?
Hook? And means two two. Please sit sit on a cushion, Jasmine. You’re com more comfortable. Just sit up there.
Shook means? It’s causative. It could be, but it would never be spelled like that. It will be spelled it was to cause, to hook. It will be So the wisdom beings are hooked and enter.
Means hooked and enter. So what does this mean? Yes. Exactly. This is actually a reference to what has been done so far.
Right? We visualize the field of merit. We invited the wisdom beings in verses starting with Pendek, and they entered. Right? You’re saying hooked.
Well, that’s the actual Tibetan term. Gukpa means hooked. Then you want to put it in better English than that. In English we would say invited, but that’s not at all the Tibetan verb. Well, that’s a polite way of putting it.
It actually means to hook. Summon think that that’s what Summon is a good term. Yes. Because it’s the Tibetan is too blunt. Too blunt.
Yes. But summoned is a much better verb than invited. It’s much more forceful. There’s an element of coercion here. Enter.
How would you translate this? Three refuges. Yes. Yes. Very good.
So means that they will have a suggestion? Yes. To collect, to assemble. So to subsume. To subsume, to resume, to subsume.
To subsume. Is nature. So what does a do mean here? What does a do stand for? In the image.
Yes. Exactly. So what is in the nature of the subsumed triple gem? The sum total of the triple gem? No.
Everything which precedes. The totality of the tree of refuge into which the wisdom beings have been hooked and in which they have entered is in the nature of the summary of the three refuges. Means? Yes. I don’t think that was the faithful conviction, belief is a good translation for mos pa, very good translation.
Have loving belief in all of this being of the nature of the subsumed or the sum total of the threefold refuge. Does that make sense? Jasmine, please. You can you can sit down a minute. Then is area.
Yes. Exactly. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes. Then, In the five stages of the protector Nāgārjuna. The five stages is Nāgārjuna’s commentary on the Guhyasamāja. This quote is interesting because actually you have an exactly identical quote in the Heruka tantra.
So, it’s far from impossible that Nāgārjuna drew on the root tantra of Heruka. Now I want to hear a clear analysis of the tenses of the verbs. Is from gives us a temporal sequence. Having abandoned What does a young mean here? Yes?
Holy, completely. It’s an intensifier. Remember we saw in the intensive it’s a Sanskrit So having totally abandoned what? All offerings. All offerings.
Why is what? It’s a you see, it’s metaphorical. You give up what’s being said is abandon all offerings apart from a certain category, is coming up just in the next verse. This is almost never translated correctly. What does mean?
Means to start, to begin. In which tense? Past tense. You will have begun. Means authentic, pure, authentic.
You will have begun authentic offerings to the teacher. So this is often loosely translated as give up all other offerings and only offer to the teacher. But that’s actually not what the Tibetan is. Yes, Richard. Excuse me.
It is in the past tense and you have to convey that pastness. Don’t you? Then sometimes you can’t. So I You’ve decided that you’re unhappy with the idea that it’s in the past. Well, because It’s very awkward.
It’s awkward. Because what do you have? You have a sequence. So if you wanted to translate it really in the past, as Richard suggests, how would we do it? Having completely abandoned all offerings, you began or he began to authentically offer to the teacher, but that makes it into something narrative.
Now, there’s no evidence that Nāgārjuna was writing anything narrative when he wrote the commentary on the Guhyasamāja. We’d have to check-in the root text to know, actually. We’d have to go and find it. Now, there’s something I didn’t want to mention, but I’ve often wondered about this, which is the Tibetan past tense functioning as a general tense in Tibetan. I’ve seen this very often.
You have past tenses, you have to be aware of the past tenses, but you actually are better off translating them as a present, which is how it works in English. But I’ve never read anything on this, so I can’t vouch for it. Why not? Why not? Not?
Why not? So you don’t need to To sink to the ignominy of the future perfect. Better in English, I agree. Future perfect is always the elegant way of injecting one’s own interpretation, isn’t it? I can’t even see anything here.
We’ll finish this first and take our tea break. So, So we have an instrumental. Through satisfying or through pleasing. What does the refer to here? The Guru.
Right? Pleasing him or through pleasing him, And this is the reason for my future perfect. Gur is in the future. You will obtain the supreme wisdom of omniscience. You will obtain No.
Wisdom Wisdom. Of omniscient. So Tibetan is very comfortable with genitives traversing the verses. But isn’t isn’t No. Is wisdom.
Then, the being who is of the nature of wisdom is a to go, for instance. Is a mission. Excellent. A short tea break. Congratulation on your readings.
Everyone is doing beautifully. You have to be aware. Very good. Very good. Can I impose on you to And, Richard, perhaps have a quick look at them?
Right. Right. We’ll do it together. We’ll do it together. So you you have to start on the previous page.
Right? The last syllable of the previous page, you keep it all in mind. Right? Yes. Very good.
Very good. Yes. Yes. But before that, give us just the broad structure of this sentence. Grammatical particles.
Quotes if there are quotes. Yes. Very good. Yes. Yes.
And at the end of the sentence, you have yes. You have a topicalizer. Do you have any quotes here? No, we don’t. And then how would where would you start to translate this sentence?
Yes. But there isn’t any. There isn’t any. Right? Mhmm.
So then you’ve given us some major markers or breaks in the sentences. Can you start from one of those? You gave us two ablatives. Yes. So we we we work backwards from one Yes.
Very good. Go ahead. From from offerings to all the Buddhism body circles. To all the? Only one word you missed.
Close enough. What is that? Shen is? Other, yes. Sorry?
Other. So, from, we just run with that one for the time being, from the offerings to all the other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Why is other important here? What is it saying to us? This is this is my body here.
Yeah. Shen. Exactly. Because the guru is a Buddha. Right?
Yeah. So it is the Buddha and Bodhisattvas apart from the guru. Right. Right? Then Okay.
Try it. I’ll take over because this is not an easy one. Has anyone cracked it? If you if you there’s one thing you you don’t get in this In in a sentence or the next? In this group of three sentences, if you miss one thing, you will not catch a meaning.
What does mean? It means sighted. Yes. It has many meanings. It means what?
In general? Yes. It has a meaning of putting something from something. Or induced. These both are good.
Induced what? The certainty? Is that good? Nieshe is certainty. You can say ascertaining certainty.
Niepai is what? Certain. Scepas? Certainty. Certainty.
Certainty. Certitude. So if we look at it like this Richard, I will perhaps take over. Yep. Yes.
I’ll give you that if you want. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Well, I switched to blue because the red is a little bit faded. There’s one thing you have to catch here.
You have your broad block here with your topicalizer, and the ne indeed as Richard pointed out is an ablative. But what is this ablative doing? It’s an ablative of comparison. It leads us to a comparative form of which is So having elicited or induced the certainty or certainty in the statement, which statement? Lama Chöpa offerings to the Guru are more important than offerings to all the other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
Did you did you were you able to get that? Remember when we saw comparatives, we said it’s basically typically a and the adjective form ending in You know. So here, your adjective is means important. Then more important is So here you have an ablative of comparison and this is an ablative of temporal sequence. So having induced or elicited the certainty, the definite ascertainment if you want the certainty, or certainty in the statement that offerings to all of the other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, that offerings, excuse me, offerings to the Guru are more important than those offerings to all the other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
Regarding offering the seven-limb prayer, at first prostrations and then you have to go for your verb all the way to page 49. So we won’t we won’t do that too much today. I wanted to stop here because I wanted to give you something for next time. I don’t know how many of you have worked through the prostration section here. I’d like to give you a passage from Kachen’s commentary on this.
And I suspect, perhaps, we’re not writing as much Tibetan as we should be. So I would like to ask you to take it down in note instead of always giving it as handouts. And I’d like you for next time to interpret the section on prostrations in the light In the light of Yes. In the light of this outline. So what I would like you to write down is this section here.
I’m going to enlarge it for you. What it does There we are. So it’s these three lines, specifically from here, from the second line here. You see the little hand? If you could copy line one, two and then there’s a couple lines on the next page.
This gives the topic of each of the stances of Lama Chöpa in the prostration section. From here. Copy this and this. As soon as you have all finished, we’ll pass to the next page. Then, I’ll ask you to do for next time is to translate this, this is completely untranslated and unpublished, And use this to interpret the sectional prostration in Lama Chöpa.
Be careful with your spelling because you’ll have to check the words. So I’ll give you a brief translation of the top until everyone is finished, and then we’ll pass to the next page. This is a very interesting outline. This is basically the work of the former abbot of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, which is a monastery of the Pänchen Lamas, who became the tutor of the eighth Dalai Lama. He’s called Kachen, it means a great speech.
It’s an attribute of all the Lamas, the Abbots of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery. Yeshe Gyeltsen. And his comment is the most exhaustive commentary we have on Lama Chöpa. It’s the anecdote told about Kachen Yeshe Gyeltsen is that he never could give an explanation without starting to spurt out quotes. The Jangkya Rölpai Dorje traveled all the way from Eastern Tibet to meet him to try to get an answer to a difficult question.
And he asked the question and then Kachen Yeshe Gyeltsen just started giving him quotes and quotes and quotes and quotes and never answered the question. And then he was very upset And he left with this feeling that he had basically missed out. So what is interesting is that this commentary is from Tashi Lhunpo. Jamyang Shepa’s commentary is from Amdo, from Kumbum monastery. Jamyang Shepa was from Kumbum monastery.
And it antedates this commentary by approximately a bit less than a century. And you will find when we do the limb of prostration next week that Jamyang Shepa’s reading is broadly speaking in harmony with that of Kachen. But Kachen’s reading is much more precise as far as meaning is concerned. So, secondly, Lama la mchod pa phul ba’i tshul gsum there are three manners of offering, of making offerings to the Guru and the host of deities. This is the presentation of the seven limbs.
So I will translate only up to here. Chaktsal prostration, Chöpa phul making offerings, Lhak ma’i yan lag Jatsu. The remaining branches Jatsu Los. How to do? In other words, how to perform prostrations, how to make offerings and how to perform the remaining branches, the remaining five branches.
And then, he gives a breakdown of the meaning of the stances in your verse of prostration, in your section on prostration. So if you translate them in the light of this, it will be much easier. So we will pass on to the next page. If I can get there. And if you could please take down Yes.
If you could take down these one, two, three, four, five lines. So basically, Kachen is subdividing the section on prostration, which is the two pages you will prepare for next time, the page and a half, into five subdivisions of one stanza each. Each one is a specific type of prostration. So, I would encourage you to rely on his outline to translate each of the stanzas and to rely simultaneously on Jamyang Shepa’s word by word commentary. Jamyang Shepa is priceless for the grammar, he fleshes it out, he gives you the particles and all that.
He is weaker on the meaning. It’s an earlier commentary, it’s one century before Kachen’s commentary. Kachen’s commentary is a meaning commentary. Lama Chöpa is some 20 pages. Kachen’s commentary is around 400.
So here, this ends, you have Dang po ni. This is the first of Kachen’s outlines on prostration. Phung le. Phong is the text, the root text, which is the Pänchen Lama’s Lama Chöpa. And then here you have the first verse of prostration, kang gi tu je drup pa’i.
Right? How are you, all of you, doing on time? Because if there was time, I would give you some extra material, but I’m afraid to burden yaks with loads of zoos. Zoh. Hybrid between a yak and an ox.
Much more powerful than a yak. So I don’t know whether Australians are yaks or zos yet. Wigs. Wigs. Wigs.
Wigs. From yak hair. They used to be. All I can say is I hope you never walk across a Tibetan mastiff wearing a yak hair wig. It’s gonna be very ugly business.
And the suggestion was that, you know, those sort of wigs that Charles the first wear Why would it make kinds of wigs Why would they make you familiar? From yaks. Extraordinary. You didn’t know that. Didn’t have a clue.
It was a surprise. It traveled all the way to Tibet.