Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The rope-and-snake analogy — a striped rope mistaken for a snake, fear dissolving only as observation accumulates — runs through this 47-minute session by Ven Jampa Gendun as a model for how valid cognition dismantles self-misconceptions. Completing the first of four stages toward a Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka understanding of emptiness, he explains what the hearer school actually negates: a coarse self felt to be singular, unchanging, and independent. A science fiction story about a man’s brain floating in a nutrient tank probes just how slippery the referent of “I” really is. Practical meditation instructions follow for observing the I-figure vividly during strong emotion, and the session closes with the first two of four analytical essentials: ascertaining the object of negation and establishing the binary pervasion — one or many, identical or different — that anchors the argument to come.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 3 PA 1990 09 28.mp3
UUID: db0aeb71-ecc7-49d4-8683-d7aad835f2f2
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1990-09-28
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 47.4 minutes
Words: ~6,128
So today we’re going to finish the first of the four stages in coming to an understanding of reality, seeing deeply into the nature of reality. So it’s a progressive understanding, becoming more and more familiar with the subtle object which is being negated in the ultimate nature of emptiness as being presented by the Consequentialist Middle Way school, the final thought of the Buddha and the nature of reality. But this is a gradual unfolding process, like stepping up a ladder, beginning with the first coarse understanding, the understanding as presented by the hearer stage, and then from that the mind only school stage, then the autonomy middle way school, and finally the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka school. So tonight we’re going to finish the first of these four stages, that of the hearer stage. Let me give a little certificate at the end of the night.
Here is stage. You’ll be checked. On your way in the door. So, you know, just in in general, we’ve been discussing selflessness, and particularly with respect to the hearer’s state, the selflessness of persons because the hearers, they accept the true existence of external phenomena that tables, buildings, all these things about us, they truly exist the way they appear. They appear to exist objectively from their own side without depending upon our mind, and they they accept that.
They don’t question that. What they do question is the nature of the self. How does the self exist? Now the the Buddha discovered that the experience of suffering. Now why even go into this question?
Because the Buddha discovered that the experience of suffering is always associated with a strong emotional attachment to a vague sense of self or I. There was always this correspondence. Whenever he suffered, there was always this sense of I or self that was suffering. So he said, well, let’s take a look at this I, this self. Let’s examine it.
This attachment to this grasp is a grasping at a self, of an eye. Ego we call this ego grasping. There’s a good word called reification. The reifying tendency means to make something solid, concrete, something which is very kind of ethereal, something which is very transparent. We solidify.
We make it very solid, heavy. This is this tendency of ignorance and grasping at what is merely imputed to imputedly exist, to exist objectively, substantially exist. We have this instinctive tendency. If we turn our attention to this strong emotional response associated with this sense of self, and we begin to invest investigate what is the nature of this self. You know, how is it experienced?
And this is important. You know, how can it be analyzed? So a couple questions. How do we experience the self, and how can we analyze the self? So the teachings the technique used here to gain is to gain a in order to gain a cognition of selflessness, is to generate well formed, controlled contradictions to our general notion of the nature of the self, of how we normally, even though vaguely, experience the self.
Generally, we’re going to find If we make a commitment to reason, the force of one’s realizing that a particular view or a particular attitude is baseless will contradict our general notion of self. You know, all terms and concepts have a referent object. This means that terms and concepts, they refer to something. Now what it refer what these terms and concepts refer to can either exist or not exist. In the case when, for example, when I think, know, the book is on the table, the book is on the table, I’m making use of the terms book and table, and I’m I’m using those terms within a concept.
Those terms, those concepts have a referent object. They refer to something. In this case, case, the book and the table, in fact, exist. They correspond to something in reality. Real objects in the world.
And we can these objects can be apprehended by a valid cognition, books and tables. On the other hand, you know, we can in an example when we use the striped rope, which appeared to us as a snake, and and the thought, the concept of snake arose in our mind. But we have to but there is nothing which so there is a concept, but there is nothing there is no referent object. There is no snake, but there is nothing which corresponds to the what that thought is referring to. We it cannot be apprehended by a valid cognition that there is a snake when, in fact, there is a rope.
So this is a type of thought which is using concepts, which is using terms, but the terms have no reference. They do not refer to anything in reality which can be apprehended by a valid cognition. A snake simply doesn’t exist there. The conception of a snake is baseless. There’s nothing in reality which is able to support it.
So it is contradicted by a valid cognition perceiving rope or the absence of snake. It cannot be held in view of a valid cognition, which is apprehending the nonexistence of that snake. At that same place. It’s contradicted. It’s refuted.
These two concepts of conceiving a snake at one place and conceiving the absence of that snake at that same place cannot be held in the same mind at the same time. They cancel each other out like hot and cold water. They are mission exclusive. Now, you know, as we talked about, the fact conceiving of a snake when in fact there is a misconceiving of a snake, where in fact there is no snake. Though it’s a misconception, still, in dependence upon that conception, we accede to that there is an object there.
And in dependence upon this, fear arises. And in dependence upon that fear, all the associated emotions, suffering arises. But in fact, there is nothing which corresponds to the referent object of that concept. There’s nothing there that’s baseless. Our fear and all the ensuing suffering is based upon a misapprehension.
Now what we have to do is contradict. You know, we’re holding this concept of there is a snake there very tightly. So we have to begin to contradict it in a very controlled manner. For example, in the case of the snake in the rope, you know, you begin to watch very closely. It doesn’t move.
So maybe just for an instant, a little bit of doubt maybe arises in your mind. Maybe I could be wrong. But still, the predominance of your thinking is that there’s a snake there, and you continue to suffer and have fear. And then you you you begin to investigate it a little bit closer, and you watch it, and you watch it, and you move a little bit closer. And it’s a strange looking snake.
It’s you know, it’s not it doesn’t have a big head on one end. It’s uniform. It doesn’t have a proper sized tail. And, you know, you get a little bit closer. It’s not moving.
It’s not shiny like a snake. And slowly, the tightness of holding that object as a snake begins to lose its intensity. For a moment, the doubt arises. There flits through the mind, maybe it’s not a snake. The possibility that you could be misapprehending this object begins to arise.
And slowly, there’s a diminishment of the fear and the dissatisfaction and the suffering associated with this misconception. And you begin to investigate closer and closer and become a little more courageous, fearless. You get a stick and you poke. Wow, it’s not moving. Maybe it’s dead.
And then you poke it in the the night. And finally, and all the while, the ability to hold that object as a snake is losing its its energy. It’s becoming It’s as if you’re pulling the carpet out from beneath it. It’s beginning to be unsupportable in view of a contradiction. You know, the contradict All these facts are being gathered together which contradicts the position of holding that object as a snake.
And all the associated fear and suffering is beginning to lessen as the tightness of holding this object as a snake becomes less and less. Finally, what’s the next? A total contradiction. And with that contradiction, seeing that seeing the absence of snake, a valid cognition of the absence of snake, the ability to continue to hold that object as a snake is lost. One can no longer hold that object as a snake.
Seeing that it is baseless, it has become completely contradicted in all the fear and all the suffering which arose out of that mental attachment to an object which never existed is gone. All of that suffering, all of that fear arose by the force of mental attachment to an object which never existed. So this is what we’re the same way we’re trying to work with the nature of the eye, the self. At present, we’re holding on to a misconceived self, a type of self which in this case, at this stage, is singular, unchanging, and independently existing. And we’re going to try to form well controlled contradictions to the to a such an object having the ability to exist.
We’re going to see that there’s nothing which corresponds to that object in reality. And slowly, very slowly, because there’s a resistance to this understanding, all of the fear and all of the dissatisfactory qualities which arise out of holding this misconception will slowly begin to vanish until one is released from this misconception completely in all the tension and all of the associated suffering which go along with it. The method that we’re going to use in forming these contradictions is, as we mentioned just last week, the four essentials of the four point analysis. The essential of ascertaining the object of negation. The essential of ascertaining the pervasion.
Ascertaining, understanding, the object of negation. Object of negation. Object of negation. There’s something which we are refuting. To refute, to to show the nonexistence of.
You cannot refute something which is correct and still have be reasonable, you know, conform to logic. We are refute To refute something in this context means to show that something doesn’t exist. We cannot refute something that does exist. We cannot negate something which does Something which exists is established by a valid cognition. That is the definition of existence, that which is established by a valid cognition.
We’re going to show that this object is not established by a valid cognition. It does not exist. This is what it means to refute, to negate, to show the nonexistence of, to show that it cannot be supported by a valid cognition, that it’s merely an appearance, just like a snake, where in fact there’s no snake there. Its referent object does not exist, that we conceive of it to be mistaken. First point, the essential of ascertaining the object of negation.
The second, the essential of of ascertaining the pervasion. We’re going to go all four through all four of these tonight very quickly. The third, the the essential of ascertaining the lack of oneness. The fourth, the essential of ascertaining the lack of difference. We phrase this in many ways, and when we get to it, we will.
So as was mentioned previously, this first essential of ascertaining the object in negation is the most difficult and the most important. Without this, the process cannot proceed with any force. If we don’t identify well the object of negation, if we don’t we are if we don’t identify it well, we’re never going to be sure exactly what we are looking for. And then therefore, we’re never going to be certain whether it exists or doesn’t exist. There’s going to be no certainty, certitude, confidence in the way we proceed.
We have to really identify within our experience a type of self which is at this stage characterized by being singular, unchanging, and independent. These are the primary qualities or characteristics of the type of self we’re looking for at this present time. This is a coarse type of self. Presently, we just have a vague, very vague, confused sense of self. For example, you know, we might say something like, I am sick.
And next moment we say, because I have a headache. I am sick because I have a headache. You know, beginning to question our common sense notion of what we mean by I, what we mean by self. You know, do we mean the eye is one thing and the head is is another? Or do we mean that the eye or that the head is the eye?
You know, we should begin to investigate this. You know, there is a I just read a short story a couple weeks ago. And in it, this was, you know, this was like a science fiction short story. I think it was called Where Am I? And in this short story, there was this took place, I guess, in twenty, thirty years from now.
A science fiction story. They had Oh, I don’t know. Some kind of nuclear mishap. And someone had to go down in this underground laboratory and close-up this exposed piece of radioactive material. But they discovered that if anybody went down there, it would would destroy their brain.
They could they didn’t have a machine that could do it. It had to be a person. But they discovered they they figured that if anybody went down there, it would destroy their brain. So they said, what what can we do? We have to we have to get this job done.
So they asked for a volunteer. And what they did was they they removed this person’s brain, and they put it in this medium, this nourishing medium. And they they had They were quite advanced at this time, obviously. From his brain, it could send out radio impulses. They had a transmitter which connected up with his nervous system.
There was a radio connection between his brain was floating in the lab, in this nutrient material, and his body, which was going to do the actual work of getting this radioactive material. He went along with it, they removed his brain and put it in the in the lab, in the tank. And he had the sense of, I am going to go down in this underground laboratory. He was identifying with his body. So he says, Okay.
He was reporting back, I am going down in the lab, I’m walking down the steps, I’m opening the door. Of course, his brain was back in the lab, but he was doing all this a few hundred miles away. And it turned out they were wrong, that this radioactive material not only would destroy brains, but it would destroy bodies, and his body died. And then one moment he would say, I’m dying. The next moment he realized he was floating in his nutrient material back in the lab, a few hundred miles away.
He began to identify with the brain that was floating. So, you know, at one stage, he was identifying with his body, walking down in the lab. And when that body died, he began to identify with his brain. I am now floating in this nutrient material, in tank. And actually, someone wrote a sequel to this.
It gets rather involved. They wrote another short story in which someone had a very bad car accident. And their brain was destroyed, the body was in great shape. So they hooked up his radio transmitter to this particular body, and he said, Oh, I’ve a new body. And so he was now re identifying with his brain, with his body.
And meanwhile, they they developed a computer which could duplicate perfectly his his old brain patterns. And sometimes they would switch back and forth from the computer to his brain, and all he would hear would be a click, and he wouldn’t quite know what the difference was. And then So sometimes he was operating on brain and sometimes he was operating on computer, but it seemed like this still the same eye. He was still the same eye. And then they they they developed the ability to make robots to the extent where they could almost duplicate his body.
So they hooked up the transmitter to this robot, and it got to a place where he sometimes he would identify with the eye of the robot and sometimes with the eye of the computer And and to the to the place where they could turn off his brain and his body, and there was this eye which was being identified with what is now a robot and a computer. So, you know, it’s it gave me the sense that this eye was kind of shifting around. It was very nebulous about what we exactly mean by this I, this sense of self. Who am I? You know, if we had all our limbs and organs removed in a transplant, Maybe not all of you know, if you were given, say, another person’s heart, you would have the sense of, I am receiving a transplant, a heart transplant.
And we would naturally think that the eye has received a transplant. But we wouldn’t think of the heart being transplanted into the eye. Now what would happen if, as in this case, if you had a brain transplant? Do you go with your brain or do you go and stay with your body? Would you somebody put a new brain in your head, in this body?
Would you, everybody say, Oh, a brain transplant? Or would that eye of the other person, would you have two eyes? The eye. You know, maybe your brain is in garbage pail. Would you be in a garbage pail?
Or, you know, what would happen if you if a man were a man’s brain were transplanted into a woman’s body? Would you say, I I am a am a man with a woman’s body? Or I am a woman with a man’s brain? Or I am bisexual? Anyway, this stimulates some kind of notion that we don’t It’s pretty unclear what we mean by the eye, even very conventionally what we mean by the self even though we use it every day, this conception, this convention.
Yeah. It’s very difficult. I mean, it’s very interesting. It’s also very difficult when we, you know, we think we say things like, have a I have a mind, but other times we say, I can’t control my mind, or I can’t control myself, like the two selves. And it becomes and then you we say he was overcome by anger.
Is it which or I changed my mind. There’s something which can override. It’s all very confusing. It’s not it it has a lot of I change my mind. And you know that there’s something which can override a certain course that you’ve set for yourself.
Some kind of or I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to say that. I didn’t mean to say that. It’s hard to know what’s you know, when we begin to analyze hard to know what we mean by these things that we say, but we use them all the time. I didn’t mean to say that.
I lost my temper. I was overcome by my temper. I was overcome by my temper. And that’s like this battle in there between an eye and a and mind. But you say, have a mind.
Like But we can’t Yeah. No. We’ll get to it. And so this is the kind of analysis. This is kind of the common sense analysis.
And we also have to How do we actually experience the eye? Or you might, you know, some people might think, well, the eye is some kind of you might want the eye as just kind of some of the a vital some kind of vital portion of the brain, some kind of little bit of brain. We that’s the you know, we when we think about it, we we don’t emotionally aren’t emotionally attached to a little bit of brain. We have the sense that we are something more than a little bit of matter. At least, we that’s the way we feel about it.
Or if we were just you know, if we could get it like a lobotomy or something and get rid of this sense of I, then we would get rid of all the suffering which is associated with this sense of I. But additionally, we would our life would probably be without a great deal of happiness and meaning and value. The eye feels more important than that, than just a little piece of gray matter. Or if somebody who has brain damage in a vegetable case. If we still feel there’s an I there, there’s a person who deserves that care.
Or if I thought I was going to be brain damaged, which have people are making wills out. Special documents in the United States now that if you get to a state of vegetable then you have you allow someone you give someone authority to terminate your life. Otherwise, it’s becoming difficult to determine that, to have your life terminated by the state that they won’t they won’t do it. So, you know, you know, if we’re completely with no almost no brain, we still sense the the I there. There’s a sense of the eye that steps back from it seems to step back and look upon our life and all our various experiences, evaluating our experiences, and wishing to avoid suffering, wishing to find happiness.
Sometimes identify with the body. For example, we identify with the brain. But sometimes we identify with the I, with the mind, when we say I am happy or I am sad. If we say, I am hurt. I had a stroke.
Murray had a stroke. I am paralyzed. Identify the I with the body. I am sad about it. And then we identify with the mind.
The mind and the I seem to be the same thing. What we mean is that the mind is happy, but we say we say the eye is happy. I am happy. So beginning this is like beginning to investigate the common sense notion of I. You know, what appears to you when you think I, I, me?
What what arises in your mind? And then what is the reference object for conception? Where is that I what is that conception referring to? What does this I look like? Where, you know, where is the I experienced?
What do you mean when you say I am sitting on the cushion? How can you say that? You know, when you say, I am sitting at Buddha house. I am worried about what’s going to happen tomorrow. It means that it’s like there are two eyes at the same time.
I’m So, you know, using your but also, this is a conception, a common sense conception of I, but also with our own experience, trying to to generate experiences where the eye appears to be appears to one very vividly. In fear, example, when you if you had an accident or or some very sad occurrence like a breakup of a relationship or or maybe a very happy experience. You won the Nobel Prize or And keep keep remembering that situation. And with a corner of your mind, you know, don’t analyze yet. And then just let the emotion build up.
And with a very like a spy, one part of your mind is going to watch. Is it going to be an eye figure? A central figure conception of an eye, which is experiencing this accident, this emotional breakup or Nobel Prize winning. It’s experiencing that happiness, that sadness, that fear. Watching, what is that I figure?
What is its quality? Not analyzing, observing. Observing. How is the how is that I experienced? What does it feel like?
What qualities does it have? Does it feel solid? Does it feel transparent? Does it feel is it constantly changing? Is it permanent, unchanging?
Is it is it the body? Is it the mind? Does it have a color? Is it solid? Does it have parts?
Does it have no parts? You know, what does it what does it look like? And beginning to identify the object and negation initially in a very, very coarse level. You know, if we didn’t if we didn’t believe in such a type of I, this type of I that we’re we’re describing at present, then if we didn’t believe in this unchanging self, why would we be so constantly anxious about what is going to happen in the future? You know, in talking in this way, we’re not saying that it’s not unreasonable to make plans for the future.
That’s quite reasonable. That’s quite a mature, sensible thing to do. It’s logical. But there’s an additional quality, an emotional quality, which we add to our thinking about the future, which is based upon a misconception of the nature of the eye, which is irrational. When, you know, for example, if we grow depressed and anxious about growing old, depressed and anxious about growing old and losing your beauty, losing your vitality, losing all your physical abilities, this arises from emotional attachment to an unchanging self.
This anxiety, this worry about growing old. You know, if we were to age ten years overnight and look at ourselves in the mirror the next morning, we would freak out. But we but this changing, this aging process takes place so gradually that we’re able to accommodate this change. We’re able to accustom ourselves to we’re able to modify our self image gradually to to accommodate this new image, this new appearance of ourselves. But, you know, we but we wouldn’t if we conceived of but when we conceive of having to have an old body, not being beautiful, not having physical abilities, we are in in the anxiety and the worry.
It’s we’re we’re taking this self as we have now and seeing this this same self is going to have to endure living in such a type of body. You know, it’s going to be the same self that I have now that needs a young body, that’s attached to a young body. It’s going to be that same self which is going to be now stuck in his old body, and it’s going to have to endure that, and that’s intolerable. That’s really frightening. Just saying it’s not going to be a changed self.
It’s not what we can say about. This self that I am now is going to have to be is going to be stuck in its own decrepit body. And that’s why it worries us so much. Again, so this is the idea that we have an emotional attachment to an unchanging self. This is why we worry about the future.
Anxious about what’s going to happen in the future. Not to say that we shouldn’t plan, but there’s this additional emotional quality which we bring, which is causes us suffering. We conceive of the self as being singular, a unit. The self of the self of last year, the self of today, and the self of of next year, all I sense. Now, again, when we rationally talk about it, it’s all that no.
That’s I I don’t think about it that way. But the thing we’re not talking about how you logically, rationally approach, might analyze the nature of the self. We’re talking about how you sense the self unanalytically or nonanalytically. You have a sense that the self of last year, the self of today, and the self of tomorrow are a single self. You know, I was a kid when I was a kid, there’s a sense that that kid and you and the self of the kid and the self of who you are now are kind of one.
They’re one unit. A single self, a single identity. And that this self, a single self is extended throughout all this time. One whole self without parts. We also have a sense of a self.
And this is a problem for us, even on a very mundane conventional level. The self which is a single identity as it were. The the the the the sense of self, we try to maintain a sense of self. And therefore, this is is becomes very confusing because we we when we relate to a male, for example, or female, we relate in a very different way. When we relate with an adult, with a when we relate as a parent, when we relate as an adult, when we relate as a child, a different self, the multiplicity of selves.
But we try to we try to cling to an idea of a single partless self. And for some, this this this attachment to a single self image, a single conception of self It doesn’t allow a fluidity in our ability to relate with situations in an open manner. We can’t It inhibits us from allowing, to acknowledging the fact that there are a multiplicity possible ways of relating, a multiplicity of types of selves, of identities that we can express. And we become people become very rigid. They can’t allow themselves to act like a child.
They can’t allow themselves. They’re stuck in one mode grasping to one sense of a single type of self. Very and this is just talking in a very mundane sense. Again, the self is conceived of as being independent. It does not rely on causes and conditions, for example.
It is not continually being conditioned by external, social, and, material factors, the environment, and is not dependent upon internal, physical and mental conditions, situations, experiences. Otherwise, you know, when when when we say, it would make no sense to say, I did this. I have this. And if one had no we have a sense of a separate existence. If one know if if one had no independent existence, there would be no one to to claim actions, take responsibility.
I did this, and therefore, you know, I I claim always all that accrues from that action. Not you. You’re over there. I’m over here. This is my action.
Whatever the good or bad arises out of that action, it’s my responsibility. It flows to me, not to you. There’s a sense of an I doer, an I owner who is responsible, who has things. But it doesn’t rely up there’s a sense of an I having, but doesn’t rely on the object for for it to be a having. There’s an I a sense of an I doer, but doesn’t rely upon the doing.
It’s there’s a sense of an I doer, but it seems as if the I stands apart from the doing. There’s a there’s a sense that there’s an I having. I have a book, but I’m not dependent upon having that book. There’s something which has the book. First, you know, the sense of you know, when we say I have I have a body, there’s a sense that first there’s an I.
First the I rises in the mind. And then there’s the I which has the body. This I have a body. First, there’s a sense of there’s an I. How it it does there’s something there.
An I. Which and then there’s a sense has a body. That the I that body comes later after the I exists. There’s a sense, the feeling that we have that the I is not dependent upon the body. It first is there, and then it has a body.
Just like I have a book. I existed before this book. I was there, and someone gave me a book. I have the book. The same way the same sense of feeling that we have with the eye and the body.
I have a mind. This is this this is the sense that we have feeling that we have. So the first essential is ascertaining the object of negation. Identifying this unchanging singular independent self. Trying to you know, we have to obtain a very clear, vivid mental mental image of it.
How does it appear to us? Now when we You invoke a sense of I and observe with a very small you know, this takes expertise because there are many unskillful obstacles which must be overcome. You know, the the over analyzing which will the eye will disappear. It means you just you just you’re jumping out of an airplane. I know the Dalai Lama’s brother, was he — Ngodup Wangchuk.
He used to be a paratrooper. He said it’s a great time to meditate on the nature of the eye when you’re just about to jump out of the airplane because it appears very strongly, very vividly at that moment. This is great fear, in other words. So generating a fear, keeping it rising, and observing with the corner of your mind if it can be done. But there are many hindrances to developing this as a skill.
If you are to if you’re like an elephant in the china shop with your observation then the eye, the sense of eye will disappear. Or if you start too late with the analysis then nothing will appear. Just be black. Or if you lose the observership then you get completely caught up in the fear. And it’s just bad memory.
You’re not proceeding in meditation well. So it takes a great deal of expertise expertise to develop to develop the ability to observe a state of mind and this I figure which exists as a center of that state of mind. I which is undergoing fear. For example, example, and be able to observe it in such a way that you note its characteristics. What does it look like?
This is the first essential, most difficult. The second essential. Get through these four essentials so you can get your stamp, your star. The second essential, the essential of ascertaining the pervasion, sometimes called the entailment or commitment. It amounts to a commitment to to binary logic or the law of excluded middle.
To in general, if an object exists, if an in talking about an object of knowledge, what that is to say? Something which exists. There are only two possible types that can be re being referred to. Either the object is singular, book, table, house, army, rosary, monk, carpet, or it is many, plural. Dog and cat, book and table, monk and layperson, Iraq and Iran.
All, you know, we can talk about objects in many different ways, but one way of categorizing objects is that they must be either, if they exist, must be either one or many. And other other ways to say these same terms. They must be either identical or different. They must be either one or many, one same or different. These are called exhaustive what?
Exclusive contradictories. Exhaustively exclusive contradictories. You’re either on the bus or off the bus. There’s no third possibility. Either something is one or it’s not one.
It’s many. Either it’s identical or it’s not identical. It’s different. There’s no third possibility, and you must become convinced of this. It seems like a simpleton, but it’s not.
You have to you have to, you know, look around. Well, that’s not the same. Those two are different. Is is you know, it doesn’t for example, what is in in Tibetan, the word for is. So is a and a one or many?
And is that one or many? Is it identical or different? A and a So, you know, playing around with all the all these various possibilities until you oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Has to be either the same or different. It has to be one or many. Identical or different or not identical. Different. Law of excluded middle.
This is the second. What we’re going to do, the reason we’re going to make use of this bit of this earth shaking bit of knowledge, and when we come to the third and fourth essentials. If something exists, it must be the same or different. George and Harry, are they the same or different? Are they identical or different?
Are they one or many? Is George one or many?