Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 118-minute class session on Tibetan language, Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen teaches students how to read classical Buddhist commentary and translate poetry with grammatical precision. After setting expectations for study discipline and announcing new assignments—memorizing a half-page of the Lama Chöpa liturgy each week and translating an untranslated commentary—he works through five verses from a classical Kachen Yeshe Gyaltsen commentary on the Lama Chöpa’s prostration section. His focus throughout is on syntactic structure: identifying continuatives and particles, tracing subjects and objects through long sentences, recognizing appositions versus conjunctions, and consulting commentaries to disambiguate ambiguous grammar. He demonstrates how overlooking a single grammatical marker can completely invert a sentence’s meaning, and shows students how nested outlines unlock the logic of Tibetan texts. By the end, students see how one stanza—praising the Guru as embodying all three Buddha-bodies in a sphere of great bliss—yields layers of meaning under careful grammatical and contextual analysis. Aimed at practitioners already engaged in serious Tibetan study with some textual background.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2011-05-12 – KR.mp3
UUID: e8e75fc8-0392-499a-a569-859d70f17bfe
Teacher: Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen
Collection: Tibetan Language
Date: 2011-05-12
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~7,844
Are you comfortable like that, Jasmine? Yeah. Good. That’s what matters. Okay.
Very good, I’m delighted to see you all here. You all received my email last week regarding disciplinary matters in the class. There’s nothing to add to that. This is a Tibetan Buddhist center. It is in Australia.
We follow Australian law. Otherwise, as far as behavior, we follow Asian values and these are the values which Rinpoche imparts and these are the values which we try to follow even in a language class. These values are to the benefit of everybody. And if this was not a good class, I would not put this effort. You all have real potential.
Otherwise, we would just let it slack into a friendly cup of coffee every Thursday. Because you have real potential, it is important for this potential to bear fruit. It can bear fruit, I can vouch for that. But there’s only one way for it to bear fruit, it’s the two values of hard work and consistency. And then, out of the class we are friends.
In class I’m not your friend. In class you are my students, I’m your teacher. My task is to lead you from point A to point B, And in the monasteries, we will have a whip over the blackboard. But here, don’t have that margin. But, my teachers are very harsh with me, much harsher than than I have ever been with you in the monastery.
And we can’t behave like that in Australia, but that gives one a sense of the importance and the value of teachings of all teachings, you know. So that’s what I wanted to say at that level. And then as of today, because you are doing well on the study front, because you are doing well on the study front, we are going to increase speed a little bit. And we’re gonna increase speed a little bit. So the the changes are not so much in the volume of material as in the amount of autonomous work you’re gonna have to do.
Basically, from today onwards, we started last time, when you go to the blackboard, you were going cold. No texts, no notes, nothing. This is how in the monasteries one goes to debate. You are alone with your knowledge. And we work things together.
I know all of you can use a dictionary. You’re very proficient at it. But what matters is what’s in the mind. Then if you’re sort of hung up at the blackboard, we work through things together. Secondly, Jasmine has already started and I know it is something Khensur Rinpoche would like us all to do.
We are going to start as of next week memorizing the Lama Chöpa. So your one of your assignments for next week will be to memorize half a page of the beginning of the Lama Chöpa. This is basically the lines I will show you in the root text. Here. It is a section from on page 43, dé tsé.
We start at the beginning, but I suspect most of you have not been able to memorize it. So it’s not an awful lot from dé tsé all the way down to You see it’s half a page and It is half a page and I will cover with you how to memorize, because I think most of you, perhaps apart from Richard and Adrian, have had no experience of memorizing in school, and perhaps Chris as well. So you memorize this the way you memorized poetry if you ever did that in school. What you want to do is every morning when you get up, you memorize one or two new verses, so you see what your capacity is. It has to be done really when you get up in the morning, that’s when the mind is very clear.
I’m sure in Melissa’s case it’ll be at 03:00 in the morning with her little boy, so she’ll have an edge over you. So you memorize in the morning, you repeat at night just before going to sleep. You don’t memorize afternoon, there is no point, it doesn’t stay in the mind. So every morning you memorize, let’s say you start here. And you recite it seven, eight, 10 times.
With a rosary is a good way to do it, count on the rosary. And then recite it without looking at the text. Then once that is there, you pass through the next verse. Same thing, seven to 10 times until it’s there. Then you do both verses together, seven to 10 times.
And you do this in your case, I would suspect perhaps two lines is an awful lot for you every day. Two verses is a lot. See what you can do. At night, you don’t look at the text, you ask yourself what do I remember and you try reciting. If you can’t remember, that night you re memorize until you have done a half a page.
Exactly. So you don’t memorize anything in small letters, that’s all commentary, it’s not important for practice. You memorize only what is in capital letters or larger characters. Then I would hope most of you would have this half page by next Thursday. If you don’t, we would have to reduce a bit the volume, but I think half a page a week is feasible.
The monastery standard is two pages a day. So half a page a week should be okay. Now, this has many benefits. The first benefit is obviously you can participate in the Lama Chöpa. There’s a huge benefit in terms of assimilation of the language.
I learned Tibetan through debate because I get to memorize definitions. Through learning this text and when you memorize remembering the meaning of the words, don’t just recite by rote, then the language structures, the vocab is going to impregnate your minds. And then we will see how far we can go. Down to Namkha Sangayana. Two lines from the bottom.
Now as far as your practice is concerned, this is a huge benefit as well. This is how we would meditate the Lama Chöpa. Once it is memorized and you know the words, then you do not recite it. It flows mentally and as it flows the visualizations occur within Samādhi. So this is impossible until you have memorized the text.
Those of you who practice Deity Yoga, this is how Deity Yoga is practiced. It can’t be practiced if you meditate and you peek at the text and it’s not possible. You can never have a decent concentration. So that’s the second new thing and the third new item is a major step forwards for all of us. You have basically finished for today the section on prostration.
We will cover it together And I will be handing out to you a completely untranslated commentary on the section on prostration. It is Kachen Yeshe Gyaltsen’s commentary. So, basically, for next time, I will ask you to translate as best you can pages one ten and one eleven down to line one two three four five six seven of page one and eleven which ends in Do you have it? Line seven. Oh, thank you.
Now this looks like a very tall order, but basically this is the title which you have already translated for today up here. And I’ll show you on the screen. So, this is a title. You’ve already translated that for today. Then here is actually the last verse, the last stanza of the section on prostration.
So you’ve already translated that as well. That’s in the Lama Chöpa. So what is really new is what starts from this point to this level in the next page. All the vocabulary you have by now, I think with a couple of words, apart from a couple of words, and what I would like you to focus upon for next week is getting the flow of the syntax. This is something you’ve never seen before, you cannot have a clue about the meaning.
So to do this, what I would suggest is for next week go over briefly the grammar in your handouts. Then to translate texts like this you have to apply the basic principles we covered in the class. Key elements in the text: you know what they are, the ablatives, the Ni particles, quotation markers, identify your quotations. Find the end of the sentence, where is the verb, how far down do you have to go? The sentences in this text are very long, don’t be surprised if you have several lines without a verb.
Then use, that’s why I gave you a very large copy, use color pens to identify clauses. If you do not identify your clauses correctly and you do what most of you have been doing until now, which is basically getting the words in the dictionary and flushing the meaning out, you will translate the opposite of what the author means. So this is a marvelous test for true grammar. And don’t pay attention to my hand notes, it’s completely irrelevant. Now, I’m not terribly sure where we stopped last time.
Do you remember? That’s what I thought up here. Then were you able to look at the section of Kachen Yeshe Gyaltsen’s commentary which I gave you for today with the outline? Yes. This one here.
Exactly. So you remember we had a five page 99 of the commentary. We will first do this and then we will try to find this within the text of the Lama Chöpa. That’s the whole point. It will make it a lot easier for all of us.
Oh, no. No. That’s that’s for for next week. For next week. So perhaps see the sense of what everything else.
It’s a very good temptation to resist. One last thing I want to mention regarding the class structure. You know that Sylvia had some family responsibilities which prevented her from participating in our class. And she spoke with the director of TBI and then with myself and in the light of exceptional personal circumstances and the fact that she studied very well in the intensive, she will be able to participate in our class from now on because the situation was not under her control. Therefore, is something we have to be flexible with.
So, now if we look here on page 99, perhaps, Chris, you didn’t translate last time, would you want to translate for us? Second line in this paragraph, Dangponing. Read first, please. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Yes. Yes. You pronounce do. It’s What here, what letter is this? The root letter here, what is the root letter?
Yes, it’s the first of the unaspirated dentals. High tone. Chin. Mhmm. Chuck.
Just finish that line. Chuck. So we’ll read it together. This is two of a five fold subdivision. Could you translate that for us, please?
Explain it to us how you went about translating it. Actually, it started at the other end. Mhmm. You can also. I had from from the central text.
I wasn’t sure whether it’s first or first one. So where are you? You’re on page 100 then. Yes. So can anyone tell me why that would not be the correct way to go about it?
Chris is starting to translate here. Shunlei, page line five of page 100. Why is this not correct? Yes. That is one first major point, Dangpola na, regarding the first.
So if we translate, I did it for you last time, we’ll do it again. We translate the first section here, prostrating, making offerings, The manner of offering the remaining branches. Right? So the manner of prostrating, the manner of making offerings, and the manner of performing the remaining branches. Exactly.
Dangpo Dongbo is the first. The first means what here? Prostration. Dangpo la, the first has five. Prostration has five, as Richard said, subdivisions.
Right? Which are then listed. The second factor, which Richard didn’t point out, is the terminative here. You have Yes. You have The first has five here on page 99, second line from the bottom, and then on the next page, the fifth line, it ends with a terminative.
That means the enumeration stops there. The enumeration stops stops there. Then is something separate. So it’s not too early to start dealing with Tibetan subdivisions. This first here, what does this refer to?
Yes, exactly. The first topic which is where? Which is on page 99. No. Which is here.
I won’t translate it because Chris is going to do it for us. So this is how Tibetan texts function. And it’s it’s very good that we’re able to cover this now. You have. That’s why I used to give you these outlines, this 1.1, 1.2, etc.
This is how it works here. Secondly here, that’s second chapter. There are three methods of making offerings to the Guru deity and so forth. Okay? These three are: prostration, one, offerings, two, the remaining branches, three.
Okay? Then the first has five. The first here means what? It means prostrations. Right?
The first time, the line remaining is here. What’s the word? Means remainder. So what I would suggest to you as a method, the only way I’ve been able to do it practically is to use the following system here. Secondly would be two.
Then this would be the first outline, which is divided one, two, three, and then everything here would be separated by a point. You would have one, two, three, four, five. Otherwise, you tend to run out of a, b, c’s, alphas, betas and all that. So, this refers to prostrations. Then you have an enumeration of five subdivisions of prostrations, which are here.
I, I I. Okay. Then excuse me. I have a plan to step down to the heart as well, but it’s a heart. I I I.
Number four and number five here. And then the Dangpo here refers to the I from the previous page. Do you understand? Does that make sense? This is how Tibetan texts are structured.
This is something which you will get accustomed to over time. It was a nightmare when I started. Then it’s sort of you realize Nyipa is second. Then you have to go back way before this text to find this page to find where the first is. So this is the second chapter subdivided into three subdivisions.
One, two, three. The first of these subdivided into five. One, two, prostrations offerings and how to offer or how to perform the remaining branches. In other words, confession, rejoicing and all that. So for instance I would say 2101, 2102.
2103. You have the professional. I was delighted to find this when I did the Lama Chöpa. With the Lama Chöpa I had something like I would have up to 12 nested outlines. So the key to understanding a Tibetan commentary like this is to get your outline straight.
The outline gives the topic. If you’ve got the outline wrong, your topic is off. Your topic gives the context for your translation. There’s a big difference. Big difference.
So therefore we cannot translate as Chris suggested. Actually is here the fleshing out of this outline. Okay? So could you translate this for us, Chris? The two line the two bottom lines.
So this is perfect Tibetan grammar. If you follow grammatical principles, you will get this with no problem. So syntax. What do you have here? It what is it grammatically?
A? Continuative. Continutive. What does a continuative do? Yes.
So Yes. It indicates that the Yes, the first part of the sentence is being fleshed out by the second part of the sentence. Therefore you start translating at the continuative. So if you start at and go backwards. So grammatically, what is it?
A noun or a verb? A verb. Yes. In which tense? Past tense.
Past. Having you. Having you. The past is extremely important here. You’ll see why.
So having seen, seen who? Yes. The guru. Grammar. Grammar.
Grammar. So you have a lantern here. Right? It’s is a body indeed. Is it?
Yes. Exactly. So what is Exactly. The body of enjoyment. Therefore, having seen the Guru Kur as the Sambhogakāya. What is body?
But the is a ladder. Right? Two questions in one. What does your laddorn tell us here? It’s giving us the object.
In this case it’s probably an accusative. Okay? Now, if you have an object, you need a subject. Or in this case, perhaps a second object qualified by lung chu zoku. Which is that?
It is the Guru. So having seen the Guru, this is very classical Tibetan syntax. The first element of the sentence is put at the beginning of the sentence, that which qualifies it is put after it with a laddern indicating the qualification. Very classical. Yes exactly.
SOV structure. So having seen here the Guru as the enjoyment body, how would you translate that Chris? From that point of view, through that literally what does it mean? Door from. Through that door.
Through that door. So what we would want to do, we could say from that point of view, as Richard suggests, what would be very nice would be to find an English expression with door, with the same meaning. So give me your translation. We’ll see how you take it. So how do you translate it?
So you’d have to say prostrating and giving praise through having seen the Guru as the Sambhogakāya. You can do it like that. You don’t account for the continuative, but that’s okay. But it’s nice to account for the continuative. But why are using the wall as It’s an expression.
You know? Is in Tibetan is standard for in dependence upon. So, in the context of prostration it seems to be the three doors of body spectrum. Yes, but it’s not because we’re in the context of prostration all doors refer to those three doors. Here this is a frozen form.
Whenever you see it means in dependence upon. I’ll write Melvyn Goldstein and so So as I said it’s a frozen form. Means in dependence upon that. Then you Through the door at something. Yes.
You could try to find if you if you had a good thesaurus, a good dictionary, an English expression using door, perhaps an old English expression would be very nice. So that gateway for instance would be nice. That door of the mind. That door of the mind. That is very elegant, very elegant.
If you can sort of convey the connotation of Tibetan. So having said that, do you see now in the remaining subdivisions the pattern, the symmetry we talked about? You crack it once, right? Now this text is marvelous because it’s so regular. Continuatives, especially in the classical author like this, are dead giveaways.
Continutives mean you pause they you can they correspond very well to a colon colon in English. Colon. You know? Corresponds very well. This is prose?
Yes. This is prose. Here the grammar works in full. Can also be yes. It’s different.
This is a continuative. Right? Now, te can be either a demonstrative meaning that or a continuative. Context will tell you if it does. As a demonstrative, it can mean he or she.
It can. It means that normally but it is ambiguous in Tibetan. If you have a syllable ending in da before followed by te, you have grammatically no way of knowing whether it functions as a demonstrative way of continuative. It’s not something you you can figure out. Let’s look at the rest of the sentence.
So it’s a it’s a it’s a very possible transition. What is the only problem with that one? If you want to be accurate. You’re not accounting for the continuative. Let me show you.
You could how you could actually, I’ll do it a bit differently. I’ll show you since my handwriting is nothing to write home about. Uh-huh. It can be translated as and. Yes, that’s how you would translate it in English, exactly.
Having the first half of the sentence in the past and the present in the second half of the sentence. It’s just a bit of awkward construction in English. You you would throw in the word then. We we we You would? Then It would be perfectly legitimate.
It would be perfectly legitimate. I’m gonna show you, if you’d forgive me just a second. So there were comments about my handwriting during the intensive, which cut true and deep because I it has really become abysmal. And then I took them to heart. So this is a sentence we have.
With our continuative. Right? Now, the transition Chris was proposing and Jasmine as well is akin to this. No. No.
It’s very good. I will show you. You can see that. So instead of having te, te, te, gone, you would have, te, pe, gone. You replace your continuative here with what?
With a genitive. Right? Now, do you see grammatically the difference between these two forms? In one case the TEF functions exactly as a colon in English. Having seen the Guru as a comma or colon, in dependence on that, praise, you will have praised and prostrated or praise and prostrate.
Now, if you put the genitive, then the transition Chris was suggesting is mandatory. One prostrates and praises, the genitive qualifies both, through having seen the Guru as the Sambhogakāya. The language allows both ways of formulation. Now the reason I think you want to give an account of the continuative here is because it is present through all five subdivisions, not something minor. It actually gives you a very very clear syntactic reference.
So then let’s move on to the next one, Chris. It should be quite straightforward now. Same same structure. Yes. Praise and prostrate.
And, perhaps, Richard, would you or Adrienne, would you do us the honors? I wasn’t last week, and I didn’t know that. Then Richard. Page 100. Precisely.
We praise and prostrate. Praise and prostrate. And would you take the next one for us? Read it first for it perhaps. So, it’s better praising and prostrating in dependence on having seen the Guru as a Dharmakāya.
Why is it better? Not only. What’s the big advantage of using a present participle here? Yes? Exactly.
Subject is implicit in Tibetan. You want to keep it like that. With the present participle praising and prostrating, you do not have to take any decision regarding the subject. Is it we? Is it I?
In my case as a translator, is it he or her? These are very dangerous topics for Western translators. So we avoid them if we can. So excellent. Present participle.
Way to go. Then we could do the next one for us, Richard. Exactly. So same structure here. So we go back to the the.
Where is it? Here. What is? Nature. Yes.
What is Düpa? Who found Düpa? Without exception. That’s Malu. What is Dupa?
Dupa means to collect. So I often try to do as a synthesis myself. No. No. Means to collect.
Right? So as the collection, you could translate as a collection. Without exception Yes. Of all three. Supreme.
Supreme. Supreme. Supreme. Which are? The the three kayas.
Mhmm. Yes. Exactly. Excellent. Why would it not be the triple gem?
We talked about the three Context. Exactly. So the Kayas were the first three subdivisions we had. Here, what do you have? What is Kachen Yeshe Gyaltsen doing?
He’s giving you a fivefold breakdown of the section on prostration, pointing out that each of the stanzas praises the Guru as having one of the kayas. The first stanza praises him as being the Sambhogakāya. The second stanza praises him as being the Nirmāṇakāya. The third stanza praises him as being the Dharmakāya. The fourth stanza praises him as being of the nature of the sum total, the synthesis of all three kayas.
And the fifth stanza may be Jasmine would you like to do it for us? Yes. Exactly. Excellent. Without exception.
So, thank you for asking that question. Tibetan Tibetans view totalizers differently from us. In English we say all, and as far as we are concerned all and let’s say without exception are synonymous. They are synonymous in Tibetan too, but Tibetan sees a much greater difference between Tamche, which means all, Kündrak, which means all in colloquial Tibetan, kul, which is high classical for all, on the one hand, and malu on the other, which means without remainder, without exception, without remainder. And you the the language really hears an important difference here.
So for instance, here when we say Malu, in English you could say all of the three bodies. But the Tibetan is pointing something very different here. There’s not a single one which is left out. And the Tibetan really hears that. There’s no remainder.
Exactly. There are major debates regarding using the this distinction regarding whether all sentient beings attained for enlightenment and they’re untranslatable in English because in English we do not see such a strong difference. We can. But in Tibetan if you say if you ask is sentient being. Or the time of full enlightenment of all sentient beings.
It has a different meaning from It has a different meaning and the debates hinge on that. So then, Jasmine, if you would take the last one for us. So why are you translating like that? What is Tibetan syntactic structure? What did we say?
Subject, object, verb. So the temptation you have succumbed to is that of thinking you actually know what the author is trying to say. Here symmetry is your guide. Now what does symmetry tell us? We’ve always had a structure with a covert subject, a covert object, and then an explanation.
We have exactly the same thing here. The problem is it’s no longer the Lama, which is the covert subject. It is this clause, And therefore, this would have to be translated as having seen all of the victorious ones of the 10 directions and their sons as emanations or as manifestations of the Guru. So Jasmin’s mistake is a very, very common one. It’s extremely easy in Tibetan to totally invert the meaning of a sentence.
You see? What is being said here is that the Buddha’s are emanations of the Guru. The manner or the method of prostrating to those Did you get it? Is? Prostration suitable, worthy to all worthy of prostration.
So since at least one of the students is musically inclined, do you see the crescendo here? Do you see how it builds up? So we start off by saying the Guru is seen as the three kayas, then he is seen as of the natures of all three kayas inseparably, then all of the Buddhas in Bodhisattvas are seen as emanations of the Guru. Do you see the buildup? Makes a difference, doesn’t it?
Sorry. This is more of a Dharma question. Translation question. Why does one see the Guru first as Sambhogakāya and then What is your suspicion? What is it to whom does the Sambhogakāya teach?
Initiate high high up Yes. aryas. Yes. Yes. Ārya beings.
Can we see Sambhogakāya? No. No. So the Sambhogakayas therefore teach Ārya Bodhisattvas and above. Then that is the fundamental teaching why they are the beings who will reach for enlightenment.
Then the Nirmanakayas manifest to ordinary beings with the Karma to see them. Why is the Dharmakāya less important? Because neither are you or the ordinary beings see the Dharmakāya. Exactly. Nobody can see the Dharmakāya.
Dharmakāya cannot teach. But that’s why I think but every commentary will have its own its own way of viewing this. I think that’s why the Sambhogakāya is given pride of place. And then you build up from the the Sambhogakāya is a form of teaching aspect of the Buddha. As westerners we would have done Nirmāṇakāya, Sambhogakāya, Dharmakāya, you see this is one commentary.
So you have one author who’s trying to flesh out the meaning of the first Pänchen Lama’s Guru Puja. Each commentator will have his own approach. So there would be another interpretation. Does anyone happen to have an idea, completely different? The whole thing.
Of why the Sambhogakāya comes first. So this is typical western thinking. You’re thinking in terms of hierarchies of abstraction. Perhaps the Buddha was for those who responded. You know, it’s the Nirmāṇakāya’s teachings.
Maybe that’s the ones we’ve spoken to. You’re very close to something. That is the second meaning. Actually dressed here. Why would be the Sambhogakāya come first here?
What are we visualizing when you visualize a field? What what is a merit field? It’s a field of Sambhogakayas. Right? So it is natural if you’re visualizing a field of Sambhogakayas that the first verse of prostration is a verse of prostration to Sambhogakayas.
Right? It’s a second interpretation. They’re not incompatible. But by order of abstraction, that is not some that is not the way Tibetan Buddhists think. By order of benefit.
Yes. Or context. So it’s you can see that there’s a lot of depth in these texts. Through visualizations. That’s why you visualize it.
Right, Melissa? If you could see it, you wouldn’t visualize it. You wouldn’t visualize it. I don’t visualize coffee, I just make a cup, you know. So what I would like us to do now, maybe take a tea break, but after the tea break, is to apply these outlines to the verses of the Lama Chöpa.
You’ll see it’s going to help you no end. So pages 110, thank you for asking that question. Pages one hundred ten and one hundred and eleven is how do I get there? Is the fleshing out of outline number five. Okay?
So the fleshing out of outline number one starts here. I don’t have the whole text with me. It goes on for a couple pages, then comes outline two, then outline three, then outline four, then outline five. Outline point 1.5, point one, point two, point three, etcetera. Something like that.
It’s I can tell you exactly what it is if you want. It is 2.10.5, Nothing terribly complicated. Two point one point five. And then that corresponds in the Guru Puja. No.
1.5. Two point one point five. Yeah. That corresponds to This verse in the Guru Puja. Dusum sangye, starting here, this stanza.
So pages a 110, 111 are a commentary just on this stanza. So what we’ve done so far is in Kachen’s commentary, Kachen proposes a fivefold subdivision of this section of the Guru Puja. And this fivefold subdivision is: one, two, three, four, and five. So, this is praise of the Guru as the Sambhogakāya. This is praise of the Guru as the Nirmāṇakāya.
This is praise of the Guru as the Dharmakāya. This is praise of the Guru as the synthesis of all three bodies. This is praise of the Guru seeing all Buddhists and Bodhisattvas as emanations of the Guru. Do you see how rich this commentary is? Different, isn’t it?
Now what makes Kacen’s commentary very interesting as I told you last time is Kachen is from the first Pänchen Lama’s monastery. So if there is an oral tradition regarding the Lama Chöpa this commentary has it. So time for a cup of tea I think. Kindly agreed to basically transfer homework to students who are absent and so forth. If from your side there is something you collectively want to tell us, it is better to do it through Shaya.
So for instance, if it’s going too fast, if it’s going too slowly, there’s too much vocab, there’s not enough vocab, prose helps a lot, which I think it will, or prose is a nightmare, then Shaya will basically be our medium. Thank you very much. So, then since we’re talking of Shayer, would you take the first verse for us or the first stanza? No pressure. No, the When I was at Sera, the Jopon of our class was a nomad.
There’s a hierarchy in the monastery in terms of effort. At the bottom of the heap are the Tibetans born in India. They’re slack, like some people I know. Then above them are the Tibetans from Tibet, the ones from Lhasa, but they’re too happy go lucky. Above them come the Khampas in the people from Amdo.
They’re struggling for that position. But the kampas have become soft over the years. The crack, the elite, are the nomads. Now, Arjopon was a nomad and I’ll tell you two anecdotes before we start. The first was that he was talking with a Khampa and he said to him in dialect, just I overheard, he said, you think you’re tough, you’re an old softy.
When I was tired in the fields, I drank blood of my yak. Which is how they do it. They just slit a vein and they drink from the vein. And then they just put a bandage on it? No.
It coagulates. It coagulates. They don’t walk around with band aids or corks. But then So that’s a different meaning to the word yakking. Yes.
So when Khampa-ji speaks of effort, this is whom he’s thinking of. And this Jopon, he actually was one of the top debaters. He was very fierce in debate, you know. And there’s a tradition, although Buddhism Buddhism is a non violent religious tradition, effort in debate is acceptable. And accidents happen with a debate gesture, like the hand gets carried away backwards and the elbow incidentally hits someone in the face behind who was trying to take your place.
Or even though any type of violence gains you immediate expulsion from the monastery, one is allowed to struggle respectfully with each other for who gets to debate with a top debater. And in Tibetan, the gesture to say please is done by putting both your thumbs up. So both parties put their thumbs up and coincidentally they happen to be at the level of the other party’s jugular. So the law was told he had a particular technique of getting the debating privilege, which was that if someone else was debating and the debate his debate was not going very well, the Jopon-la would lift him and throw him out of the debate courtyard. Then, this is to give an idea of how soft and lucky you are to be in Australia.
Then the disciplinarian of the monastery approached him one day and said, it’s marvelous you’re debating debating with such intensity. Just be careful when you throw the bad debaters because there’s a two meter drop a couple meters away from the debate. They fall, they might be hurt. Yeah. So this was our job in here now.
And we look forward to Shaya developing those qualities. So before we start, it’s number one. What is the basically is the topic of this stanza? Exactly. So that has to be in our minds as we translate it.
Ying. Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. How would you read this here?
Who has it? What is it? It’s a Tibetan transliteration from the Sanskrit. Right? Here.
So, it’s Tibetans read it it’s Padmore. Lotus in Sanskrit is Padma. Then this is Tibetan garble in Sanskrit. Padma doesn’t exist in Sanskrit, but it just it means lotus. Padma.
It should be Padma. Then the is just the is a Tibetan idiosyncrasy. I don’t know why they put it there. Normally it is Padma. Right?
So you remember we studied how to pronounce these. Right? So, pa and then the stacked letters, right, have no vowel between them. Now in Sanskrit this is pronounced exactly as it is written, Padma. The Tibetans mispronounce it and they consider that this da lengthens the vowel of the pa and they pronounce it like this, Pe Ma.
Pe Ma. So if you met a Tibetan girl called Pe Ma, her real name is Padma. You know? Well, it’s there, so you pronounce it. I don’t.
But I mean if you did, would it be or? Well, you read it Tibetan style, it would be. But that’s really bad pronunciation. It should it should be But nobody studies Sanskrit anymore in the Tibetan tradition and therefore they have lost a lot at that level. So Which one?
This one here? Yes. So how do you pronounce it? It’s easy. It’s a very classical Tibetan verb, sender met in modern Tibetan but nothing special about it otherwise.
So I think Okay. So how would you translate that? Mhmm. So, Shaya, could you go to the whiteboard for us? Exactly.
And give us the the grammar first, the breakdown of the sentence. Drop drop the words for the time being. That’s your verb. Yes. The London, exactly.
So where is your subject, where is your object? Do you have an indirect object? What’s your subject here? Implicit subject. Jasmine’s suggestion of using present participles as much as possible is excellent here.
When do you have an object, direct or indirect? So how do you know that it is the lotus feet of the Vajra holder and not the lotus feet which bear a vajra. So let’s start with our verb prostrating or I prostrate. Prostrating is very nice here. Two, is it the lotus feet of the one with the Vajra or the lotus feet with a Vajra?
What in the grammar enables you is there anything which enables you to choose? What does that do? It just tells that you are prostrating too. It’s so too. It’s.
You know? What does Chen mean? Having. So who has here? The guru or the feet?
Why? What would mean? Jasmine, what would mean? Having feet. Right.
We hope he has feet. So actually nothing lets you know. You have Dorje Chen with Vajra, then normally it should come after the shop if the shop had a Vajra. But as it’s poetry it actually can come before as well. So you have to decide, are the feet of the Guru marked with the Vajra?
Or is the Guru the one with the Vajra? Actually, it’s not the Guru, it would be the body of the Guru, the one with the Vajra. The grammar does not let you decide. If it was prose, then the grammar would let you decide because this position means that it would have to be the Guru who has the Vajra. So that well, how would you check?
How would you know? Commentary. So what does he say? It could be. It could be.
But it could also be the Vajra bearing feet. And I was asking all of you. So Which number is it? Here we are, I think. Oh, yes.
Here we are. Now if you go to page where is it? Too many windows. If we go to page 29 of Jamyang Shepa, what does Jamyanshepa say? Look here.
Is that the correct passage? Here we are. So, I meant Jamyang Shepa glosses having the Vajra as being Vajradhāra. He chooses. Right?
But is there anything in the grammar which obliges us to follow Jamyang Shepa? Context. Context. Context. So normally here, we would translate in keeping with Jamyang Shepa, unless we had very good reasons not to.
Then If it was feet there’s no the feet turn. If it was posed prose holding the Vajra. No. If it was posed, the opposite. Oh, okay.
Without any doubt. Inverse word order is much more flexible. So that’s the problem. So prostrating to the lotus feet of the one with the Vajra, and then where do you go from there? So step back, give meaning.
Give meaning. You can either give us a grammar or give us a translation. We’ll take that for the time being, it’s not as accurate as we could do it, but we’ll take that. So, actually is an apposition. Guru, you’re to read it as a relative, actually.
Whose body is Jew alike and bestows and gives and grants. Now the question here is the and we add. But the question is what bestows here? Is it the Guru or is it the body? That’s a question we have to answer before we translate.
So there’s a lot of things which are missing in this sentence. Normally, I think what you would have in good Tibetan is you’d have a genitive. But there’s no space for that in the verse. So then you have Then the question is, is it the Guru or is it the body which bestows? Now, this we can decide partly through reflecting on the commentary.
What is this? Now what is this stanza about? What is it about? Yes. Does what does Ku refer to?
Ku. The Sambhogakāya. So context indicates it could be the body which bestows. The Guru’s Sambhogakāya which bestows what? Jew like.
Jew like. The Guru who’s Jew like body, in other words, Guru who’s Jew like Sambhogakāya bestows, then the lie is very simple. What is it grammatically? Grammatically, is a? Locative.
Locative. In exactly. Who bestows in How you translate? Even. Exactly.
Even in an instant what? Supreme state of the three bodies. Then what do we do with the first verse? So, which in even an instant How would you translate it? How would you translate?
Would you translate kyang? Melissa is not comfortable with even. Kyang? Oh, but even. However, nevertheless.
The meaning here is mere, in a mere instant. Even an instant, just an instant. The supreme state of the three bodies, what do we do with the rest, the first verse? So how do you translate? What is the relative here?
Kanggi is a relative. Ganggi is a relative, right? Here. What is the antecedent of Ganggi? Yes.
So it’s whose compassion who is the who referred to? The guru. Right? So whose compassion bestows in even an instant the supreme state of the three bodies? And then what do we do with?
I understand. It is the sphere or the realm of great bliss. But is it your verb here, does it rule? So we have said that here, This is our verb. Right?
Then this is the bestower. la meaning chen tabu ko. This actually technically would have to be in the instrumental. And the question is, does our verb refer both to Dewa Chenpo Yin and Kusum or is Kusumki Gopin in opposition to Dewa Chenpo Yin? That is a question we have to answer.
In other words, is the Guru’s jewel like body bestowing in a mere instant the supreme state of the three bodies, comma, the sphere of great bliss? Or is it bestowing the supreme state of the three bodies and the sphere of great bliss? Right? Imparting, giving. Yes.
Exactly. Commentary. Exactly. Commentary. This is where you need the commentaries.
So without the commentaries, you can go both ways. We don’t? Is it necessary in Tibetan? No. Uh-huh.
So I don’t yes. I I have it. Thank you. Sorry. If you had an and, wouldn’t you translate it that way rather than If you had an and, you have to.
Yes. But you you would then translate it. But the question is But context dictates that it is the three bodies. You could do it like that. I understand what you’re asking.
You’re asking right, right, right, right. I understand what you’re asking. Let me suggest that we look at Jamyang Shepa, and then we come back to the grammar. Because you will find that he fleshes this out considerably. There.
Okay. So what does Jamyang Shepa mean? Yes. So here we are. Dewa Chenpo so you remember our root verse.
Great bliss. So, he says, by your compassion Kanggi tujay, dak la to us. I would. Bestow the sphere, the realm or the cause of great bliss, which are which are synonymous. Is a Sanskrit for yin here.
An alternative explanation is that the supreme one is the sphere. In which dwells So dharma is c, long is Sambhogakāya, and is the Nirmāṇakāya. So what is Jamyang Shepa saying therefore? He is saying that the three bodies dwell in the Sphere of Great Bliss. Therefore he’s saying it’s not a conjunction, it is an apposition, as you mentioned.
As you mentioned. So this we decide with the commentary. If we don’t have a commentary, we’re stuck. Then context, common sense. Apposition.
Apposition. In other words, if we return to our root text, What Jamyang Shepa is saying is that the state of the three bodies, the supreme state of the three bodies is the expanse of great bliss. That’s how he reads it. If we were to translate it as an and, in terms of meaning there is a problem. What’s the problem?
It implies there is a great bliss separate from the three bodies, which is very problematic. And you come it. You come after It’s terms of meaning it’s very strange. It’s like you have the three bodies of the Buddha and you have great bliss in addition. So that’s the main reason for which Jamyang Shepa says that Dewa Chenpo Yin is an apposition to Kusum.
Yes. Yes. The expanse of great bliss. The expanse of great bliss. So I think we have to stop here for today.
Then I think yes, Jasmine. Just wondering the dhātu? Mhmm. Exactly. Dhatu, Jamyang Shepa tells us, is the Sanskrit term for ing.
Ing. Ying means sphere. Dhatu in Sanskrit means realm or expanse. The dharma dhātu, the realm of the dharma. Here, perhaps we will stop with that, the Pänchen Lama, by using the term yin, which is dhātu in Sanskrit, is implying that it is not only the realm of great bliss but also of emptiness.
Then for next time, unless there are any other questions, work through this again in the light of the four remaining outlines. Then as we said, you have to memorize half a page. I would like you to translate that section of Kachen just handed out with reference to the final verse. The whole idea is to take this final stanza which starts at the bottom of page 48, 49 with the translation you did of that for today and look at Kachen’s commentary and see what additional information he gives us. But do translate Kachen’s commentary in its own right.
You will find it’s very helpful for you. And the focus is on the grammar and on syntax, the flow of syntax. You’re looking for patterns, you’re looking for symmetry, continuatives, ni particles, ablatives and so forth. Thank you very much. Now where do I start?
Memorizing. So do you have do you have your prayer book with you? Yes. I do.