Longku FPMT: Anything.
Longku FPMT: Is there anything you want repeated before we go ahead?
Longku FPMT: No doubt
Longku FPMT: people also, if anyone wants to do anything, they can just write them.
Longku FPMT: Yes, maybe. Only make me write something like that.
Longku FPMT: Genius.
Longku FPMT: Okay? Then, yeah.
Longku FPMT: I think before I I wanted to share with you exactly how it works this whole. How it is, what it is.
Longku FPMT: Would you like to have my ipad? So you can see the people? No, no, no, it's okay.
Longku FPMT: Thanks.
Longku FPMT: So I think the important thing
Longku FPMT: here. The most important thing is that I would like you to start considering it.
Longku FPMT: to make it less abstract, because otherwise it becomes abstract than it's what we call conceptual for not letting that happen.
Longku FPMT: If you can start actually looking at it in this symptom kind of like, you know, you have a physical symptom, a physical ailment which you see. And then you're trying to understand
Longku FPMT: why that is like that. That's what we're trying to see. Okay? So when we're thinking of it like that, then it might be, make more sense when we try and break it up into a structure. Can I share the structure with you?
Longku FPMT: It sounds technical, but it's very basic. Okay. It's very, very basic before we do it here. But now let that do a bit of like interaction.
Longku FPMT: I think the other thing. This this, I'm not sure, is actually, I've not read this. But I this is my own personal opinion. I don't think
Longku FPMT: the reasoning that we're going to do right now is invented by anybody.
Longku FPMT: What I mean by that is like
Longku FPMT: economics is something that has been invented by us, based on a model that is invented by man. So there's we've created a certain world. And then within that we have certain rules, right? Those rules are not necessarily natural rules.
Longku FPMT: There are rules and regulations that have been set up by a man-made process, right? So they are only pertinent to us.
Longku FPMT: They adopt a natural order of thing when we're talking about reasoning.
Longku FPMT: Well, we're not talking about something that is made by us.
Longku FPMT: you know in the West when we think logic, many logical systems have been made by us. That's why we have different logical systems.
Longku FPMT: So you have mathematical logic. You have another kind of logic. All of these are systems we've made up.
Longku FPMT: They're not things that we've discovered this mathematical logic. So I what I asked. I have some friends who do logic in the West. They do web western logic, and when I asked them they said.
Longku FPMT: up until Greek logic it was still trying to. It was more an analysis of how the world is.
Longku FPMT: Then, at a certain point it went into abstraction, and so, for logic to be considered effective or valid, it doesn't have to have any
Longku FPMT: truth tied to it.
Longku FPMT: That's what I've been told. I don't know this one.
Longku FPMT: so if that is the case, then it is a man-made system
Longku FPMT: that is checking for validity within man-made parameters.
Longku FPMT: Right? Does that make sense?
Longku FPMT: This is not like that? So it's a natural process, and I'll try and prove this to you.
Longku FPMT: So now we try and do the technical part of it. Okay?
Longku FPMT: And the technical part of it is like this.
Longku FPMT: I I this is my, I think I've used this example a lot of times. But
Longku FPMT: if tomorrow we want to know
Longku FPMT: whether it is going to rain or not
Longku FPMT: tomorrow. Raining is not something that we can verify right now. Right? No.
Longku FPMT: What do you do most commonly to check? If tomorrow's meeting today or
Longku FPMT: checking the call change thing, obviously right. And then it says, you know, 50% of change rain 100% something or the other.
Longku FPMT: So based on what you can verify. Which is the what did you call forecast? Yeah, based on the forecast, you come to a conclusion that tomorrow will rain. Right?
Longku FPMT: Does that make sense? Similarly.
Longku FPMT: another one is, if you're sitting. This is a classical one. If you're sitting and looking at the mountain, and you see a lot of smoke.
Longku FPMT: What is the 1st thing that comes to your mind? Something has caught fire right? You're not seeing the fire because it's stuck inside the trees. But you're seeing the smoke
Longku FPMT: from the smoke. You are assuming that there is fire currently right from what the forecast says, you assume that tomorrow is going to rain.
Longku FPMT: Does that? Does that make sense? When you cook
Longku FPMT: often you don't use these in. That's not a good example. You don't use pressure cookers in Switzerland. You do. Yeah.
Longku FPMT: You know that we send it whistles right when you have a closed pressure cooker, you can't see if the food is cooked inside or not.
Longku FPMT: But in India what we do is this is very common, we say, oh, 3 whistles have happened. It's cooked. If you're doing beans. It's like 10 whistles have happened. It's cooked right? So you can't see the beans inside. You hear the whistle, and you assume that it's like that.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, does that make sense? Okay.
Longku FPMT: also. Now, this is very basic stuff. Now, other things.
Longku FPMT: If you want to employ someone in a company, you look at the curriculum
Longku FPMT: right. The curriculum is supposed to reflect their qualities, their ability, and their competence, their competence. You can't tell.
Longku FPMT: but you can see what's written on a curriculum. So you use the curriculum as a sign
Longku FPMT: to gauge what their competence is. Right.
Longku FPMT: You see how we do this all the time. So we do this always, anyway.
Longku FPMT: Does that make sense?
Longku FPMT: This is something that our mind does all the time. That's why I'm saying it's not made up by us.
Longku FPMT: This is how my function.
Longku FPMT: So if I ask you to
Longku FPMT: call somebody, and you come into this room and you see no shoes outside, you probably won't look inside because you'd be like, well, there's no shoes outside. The person is not inside. You draw this conclusion right? We do this all the time. Now
Longku FPMT: what you are doing already
Longku FPMT: without knowing it is you are using what we are going to call a syllogism. Right? Okay? So we break it.
Longku FPMT: Does that make sense.
Longku FPMT: All of these processes are already happening in your mind. So it's not something that you need to learn.
Longku FPMT: You just need to become aware of how it's happening.
Longku FPMT: I think a good example for it. This is, you know, people who speak a language growing up.
Longku FPMT: but they don't know the grammar yet, like. When a child is young they start speaking a language, but they don't know the grammar. Then they come into the 5, th 6th grade, and they start learning grammar, and they start understanding why you say something in this way when it's in the past tense, or why you put an article, or you put a preposition. So you learn the rules of language after learning
Longku FPMT: the language already similarly, reasoning here is learning the rules of how you think
Longku FPMT: after you're already thinking, does that make sense? So it's not news death.
Longku FPMT: What is the meaning of? Okay, I'm going to do it here. A syllogism is basically, when you take a statement
Longku FPMT: or you take a thought, you make it into a statement, and then you check whether that is true or not.
Longku FPMT: So if you Google syllogism. Later you'll find a lot of Aristotelian syllogisms, because it's a very common thing that they use it. You know that what is the one? Aristotle is all humans are mortal. Have you heard this one? This is a very standard one that they use in the example? All humans are mortal. Socrates is human, therefore, Socrates is mortal. Have you heard this
Longku FPMT: all the calendar? But this may be something that they're familiar with. Have you heard of this? Have you heard of this. You heard this? No, yeah.
Longku FPMT: So it's common. I'll I'll do it with you over here. Okay, now, how does this thing that we've said work?
Longku FPMT: We said, we've said, Let's use the which one can we use? Let's use a good example.
Longku FPMT: We are okay.
Longku FPMT: If I want to show that an apple is ripe.
Longku FPMT: What do I do, Jenny?
Longku FPMT: When you go to the shop and you buy check the color. Exactly. So you have the apple you're trying to prove it's ripe. You're trying to prove it's ripe. You don't know it's right, because you haven't tasted it yet right, and if the shopkeeper doesn't let you touch things, you look at the color that's a syllogism.
Longku FPMT: Why is it a cynicism? Because you're trying to prove that the apple is right by using a sign.
Longku FPMT: You're trying to identify something which is going to help you understand something else.
Longku FPMT: that this is a syllogism, an apple. This apple is ripe because it is red.
Longku FPMT: That's essentially is that okay? Now you can use hundreds of examples. Okay, for instance.
Longku FPMT: Oh,
Longku FPMT: Swiss people are all happy because the country is perfect, but that's how I think when I landed yesterday and I started driving, I was like you all must be the happiest people, because your country is perfect. It's a syllogism. I'm not saying it's right. I'm not saying it's right, but I've thought like that. No, I've used
Longku FPMT: the way this place looks to come to my own conclusion about the people who live here. Right? Similarly, people in a slum are unhappy because they don't have basic conditions. Yeah, is that. Okay, this is the German word. So what?
Longku FPMT: Yeah, okay, that's what it is. Okay, does that is that does that make sense? Now, this
Longku FPMT: has also become a way for us
Longku FPMT: to draw 99% of our judgment about people.
Longku FPMT: So some of these examples are not very appropriate. But they're okay.
Longku FPMT: For instance, a lot of times in in countries that are slightly racist.
Longku FPMT: right? That you have a slightly racist tendency. You say that person
Longku FPMT: is dangerous or could be threatening to me because they are from that, because they're an immigrant or something like that. Right? That's a syllogism. You've used the syllogism you said that person, and you get scared and you move away. Okay? Or you're in another country. And you see someone who looks like you. And you say, Oh, that person is going to be safe to be with, because they are from my country.
Longku FPMT: These are all assumptions that you make based on things that you observe is that? Okay?
Longku FPMT: Is that clear?
Longku FPMT: Yeah.
Longku FPMT: So you are already using similar systems. Does that make sense?
Longku FPMT: We're already doing it based on it? We are coming to our own conclusion and based on our conclusions, we are acting so. Do you see how conceptual thinking already has an immediate correlation with your feeling? You feel scared when you see someone who looks like they're from another, or they're an immigrant. You feel happy when you see someone who's similar to you.
Longku FPMT: This is a immediate response to your thinking right? It's instantaneous.
Longku FPMT: Can you come up with any examples? I want you to try and make a few? Can you just try. You go first, st then we'll do some standard Buddhist ones, and then we'll learn. We'll try and look at how do you check whether it's correct or not. Okay, can you try just a few basic ones?
Longku FPMT: Okay, a fish is
Longku FPMT: a water animal. Yeah, because it lives. It only can live same water because it lives in water, right? So you say that has to be a water animal because you see it in water. So you see a fish, you'll say that is a water animal because it's in water. You've come to a conclusion. We don't know whether it's right. We don't know whether it's wrong, but you've come to a conclusion. Yeah.
Longku FPMT: Can you try and make one? Do you wanna try? Please try and make them
Longku FPMT: when you're late for the train and you come to the train station. There's no more people. Okay. So the train that I'm waiting for has gone because there's no one at the station.
Longku FPMT: That's an assumption that you make. Oh, this happened actually, yesterday, when we were supposed to take the flight.
Longku FPMT: the tickets and the gate closes at 4 40
Longku FPMT: we went to the gate at 4 35, and there was no one there. So like we do make a mistake. What's wrong with the gate? So we thought the flight has left, because there's no one at the gate.
Longku FPMT: We drew a conclusion right? That was a syllogism. Okay, just try and make a few. I drink coffee, and it makes me happy. And I so I think, always drinking coffee makes me always happy. Yeah. So you think coffee makes me happy, because that time it made me happy. Right? That's my problem. I can't drink coffee right now, but I keep wanting it because it always makes me happy. Exactly so you've come now, but see what you've done. You've made a
Longku FPMT: you've made your your view on coffee has been formed
Longku FPMT: by some experience that you've had which you've drawn a connection with something else. Right? That's what you've done. Based on this. Then you will continue drinking coffee. Maybe that's right. Based on that conclusion. You start freaking out at the airport or the train says, Oh, my God! I lost my train running around like crazy right? Based on that, you will say, Oh, this animal has to be in the water because it's in there right now.
Longku FPMT: Do you want to try and make some
Longku FPMT: try? Try? Try. It's very. This flower is not working. So it's not an animal it's not animate because it's not working right, and that you make a decision based on that we do right because animate whatever it is right. Do you want to try
Longku FPMT: like? If I feel a pain in my body, I think it must be a strong intervene. There you go. Yeah, this is, I have a heart attack, because my left arm is hurting. If you go on Google, and you look at the Doc, Google. Everything says I have a heart attack. I have a heart. I'm having a heart attack because my left arm is hurting. You've made an assumption. You've made a connection between left arm hurting and heart attack. Right?
Longku FPMT: Okay? Yeah. I have gray hair, because I'm old. That person is old because they have gray. And that's your solution, right?
Longku FPMT: Playing in my ankles.
Longku FPMT: Because I'm old. Yeah. So my pain is because of my age. That could be a thing. I haven't had it before. So right? So, my, I am old, so I am old because I have pain in my ankles
Longku FPMT: right? No, not saying, because I'm old.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, but you're trying to prove what? By proving what you're trying to prove, that you're old by your proving pain, or you're proving pain by proving pain by old. So you're saying, I'm old because I have pain because I'm old. Okay, that's a syllogism, right? These are all syllogism. Okay, is that fine? Now let's do a same round of all of them. And you tell me how much of these you think are true.
Longku FPMT: For example, if you reach a station, and there's no one there.
Longku FPMT: Does it mean that your train has to have left?
Longku FPMT: No, you could be super.
Longku FPMT: or the train could not have come, or you came at a time when the train got cancelled, or whatever.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, maybe. But you understand, like you've come to an assumption based on something, and you don't know whether your assumption is right. Okay with your one. Coffee will make me happy because I had, because in the past it has
Longku FPMT: is that does that work? If something in the past has worked for me, does it have to work always? Not really right? If something doesn't work
Longku FPMT: does it have to be inanimate?
Longku FPMT: Well.
Longku FPMT: this is also an interesting thing to do in Switzerland, you know, people who are in coma, I said. Animal, not animal, because it's not an animal. Yeah, because it cannot work. It cannot work, because it's
Longku FPMT: it's not an animal because it can't walk. It's not an animal because it can't walk, so if it can't walk, it means it's not an animal.
Longku FPMT: That's your conclusion, though, if something can't work, it's not an annotation.
Longku FPMT: Is that true?
Longku FPMT: I mean, I think yours is quite a clear example of the heart attack, just because you're left right? Yeah, okay? Good. So it doesn't mean that. Okay, same thing. If something happens to be in water when you look at it, it doesn't mean it's a watered animal, right? You? I don't know you could have had something that fell in the water, and it's looking like it's trying to get out. And you're like, Oh, how cute! It's a water, animal swimming.
Longku FPMT: In all of these cases these are easy examples to show that it's not true. What we think often is not true just because you're old doesn't mean you have to have, you know, right?
Longku FPMT: Right? Even. That's not necessarily true. So none of these examples are correct thoughts. Does that make sense? We had a thought we had a judgment, we acted on that judgment, but that judgment does not necessarily have to be true. So if I act on the assumption that coffee is making me happy, because in the past it did. It can give you suddenly acid refund.
Longku FPMT: which it does sometimes. In your case you can go to that when you start freaking out and you can get worried. And you can book another ticket and you spend a lot of money, and you freak out. And then suddenly they say, suddenly, someone walks by and they're like, Oh, no! Today there was a strike, or the train got canceled. You didn't hear the announcement, but you've done something
Longku FPMT: you've assumed that old age has to lead to pain, and therefore then you'll be like oh, well, then, there's no point taking care of myself. I'm not saying you, but that could be a conclusion that you draw.
Longku FPMT: I run to the hospital. You run to the hospital panicking. Day before yesterday my mother called me and said, Oh, the lady who's helping me? She got an appendix problem because it's hurting. I was like Mom. She often just has gas. Just take her to the doctor and check right. But my mother was sitting there worried because she saw this thing, and she assumed it was related to the appendix. All of these are assumptions that we make
Longku FPMT: without being sure that they're true or not. Okay. Now, Dharma.
Longku FPMT: what is the main reason why we feel things are phenomenal action.
Longku FPMT: Now, if you ask yourself, things are impermanent, the Buddha said. So right? That's just a statement.
Longku FPMT: That's what you're trying to know.
Longku FPMT: How do you know this?
Longku FPMT: Up until now? What have we done? Most of experience?
Longku FPMT: Okay, what in your experience shows you that this is impermanent.
Longku FPMT: If.
Longku FPMT: because at some point it must have been built out of other things that that point, it wasn't permanent in this moment.
Longku FPMT: You know what I mean in this moment? How can you know that this isn't possible?
Longku FPMT: It's a little tricky. No, right?
Longku FPMT: So what most of us might do is, it's impermanent. Because and then we do our own conclusion, because the Buddha said, This is impermanent, because in the teachings it says, everything is impermanent.
Longku FPMT: Now just ask yourself, how do you meditate on this?
Longku FPMT: What do you do?
Longku FPMT: This is impermanent. You said the statement once
Longku FPMT: you said it's impermanent, because the Buddha says so, and I trust the Buddha. And then
Longku FPMT: why you say this is not working, because me, too. I think it's
Longku FPMT: it's made by from many factors when I see and
Longku FPMT: when I actively go in this analysis. So when you go in the analysis, this is made of many factors, it's easy to understand, though.
Longku FPMT: Does that make you also understand that this is changing right now?
Longku FPMT: Intellectually it does. I cannot. No, no, not experience. Well, we're not going, but we're not going to experience it. But that convinces you that this is changing right now.
Longku FPMT: you know.
Longku FPMT: So if it's there, I'm not saying it can't. It might, it must, it must, because someone said, sweet.
Longku FPMT: no, because it must, because it's
Longku FPMT: it's it's not permanent. Why is it not permanent?
Longku FPMT: It's because it's parts.
Longku FPMT: So if something has parts. So now that's perfect, you're making syllogism. So. But that's perfect. So you're saying, because it has parts, it can't be permanent. It has to be impermanence. I'm asking you why.
Longku FPMT: if it's for some
Longku FPMT: that's when it falls down, what about now? Right, see so impermanent for? But you understand the way all of us are thinking right now suggests that for us impermanence is only possible when we see the change.
Longku FPMT: The Buddha is not saying that the Buddha is saying. Things are impermanent always
Longku FPMT: not. There will be a day when this falls down, or there will be a day when I'm washing this in the thing, and it scratches and it breaks.
Longku FPMT: That's impermanence that you can see. You don't need to. You don't need proof for that right? That's obvious. You don't need to say the weather is changing when you see the clouds coming, but on a clear sky, when the sky is completely full, empty of clouds, and it's blue. That sky is changing. It's impermanent right now. Do you understand what I'm saying now? The Buddha said. Everything is always impermanent.
Longku FPMT: How do you meditate on something like this? You asked me before, how do you meant so without having this
Longku FPMT: connection of being able to understand that it's impermanent. Now, how do you bring that into your experience?
Longku FPMT: That's what is it
Longku FPMT: important thing to try and think about? Because I had a friend? She asked me a very beautiful question, she said, well, I'm also meditating on impermanence. I said, great! He said, yeah, but I don't know how to do it, because what do I do? She said. What do I do? It is impermanent.
Longku FPMT: Then
Longku FPMT: I was like what you have to think about. It's impermanence. What do you mean? I have to keep saying it's impermanence. She's like, it's impermanence like. What do you mean? You have to meditate on impermanence when you say that
Longku FPMT: it's not clear. So what many people do is everything is impermanent. One day I will die. One day. I will die because I am a human. If I'm a human. That means I have to die because everyone I know has died so far.
Longku FPMT: How about this? Because it's connected to my sense object also, and it's easier to see that my body, my physics, are changing and my thoughts changing, or every moment. So then, therefore, it must also
Longku FPMT: have a connection to the, to the you've seen that your mind and your thoughts, and your body, and all of this is changing. You can perceive that. But can you perceive it here.
Longku FPMT: But how about we? Honestly, I can't. But I think there must be some connection. Good. So we have. That's the thing I'm saying. We're trying to make that connection. You can use a microscope. Sure you can use a microscope. And then you see particles moving around. And all of that, that's 1 way to go about it right? That's 1 way that you can go about it.
Longku FPMT: What about your thoughts?
Longku FPMT: Your mind that your mind is a constant change, your mood you.
Longku FPMT: But this is this what you feel like this? Can you experience like every moment that I would? I would feel like this is like really close like to see the environment? Sure. But now go like this.
Longku FPMT: Are you changing every moment, or are your thoughts changing every moment? This is another doubt that creeps up. Sometimes I am the same person.
Longku FPMT: but in different moments I act differently.
Longku FPMT: This is another doubt that can creep in.
Longku FPMT: and this is a doubt that there are. They all have these names, so the doubt over here can be, I am actually not bad.
Longku FPMT: I am actually a good person, but sometimes I have harmful thoughts, and we say this, we justify people all the time like this.
Longku FPMT: He is actually a bad person. They are actually bad people while they're acting well, or they're doing good things. But they are actually good people while they're harming other people. Right? So people are also in denial of themselves by saying, I like in India is a very common thing.
Longku FPMT: I've had to deal with them a lot recently. You know, house brokers.
Longku FPMT: They all have pictures of God on Whatsapp.
Longku FPMT: They all go to temples all the time
Longku FPMT: all the time, but they are the worst
Longku FPMT: crooks that you ever meet on earth. Okay? So crooks, brokers, property brokers for houses. Yeah, yeah, because we have our family house that we're not living in anymore. And we're trying to sell it. It's been 4 years, and all the brokers I speak to either have one God or some other God, or they're going on pilgrimage. They're constantly doing offerings. How much they are aware that they are
Longku FPMT: under the influence of bad thoughts I genuinely don't know. I actually feel they might think that they're very pious, holy people by doing all of the things that they do, you know, like the Mafia in Sicily who goes on killing people? But then they go to church on Sunday. Right? So I am a good person. I am not really changing, but I keep having different thoughts. That's not really who I am.
Longku FPMT: All of these are weird doubts that come up when you are trying to look at something like this. Right? I'm not saying these are right, these are wrong, but these are the kind of doubts that people have. I am not a lazy person, but I never do anything. And so the thought over there is. If it was, if really, when it's needed, I can do something.
Longku FPMT: But it's not an observation of that aspect of yourself. Right? So you have a narrative of yourself. That is some sort of unchanging goodness, while most of the things you do are distracted, lazy, not harming, not benefiting anyone, harming yourself, etc, etc, etc. So right now you are changing
Longku FPMT: is a thing that we can feel sometimes, but at other times, when you really sit there with yourself. Your mind will start telling you strange stories. Like, I am not children. I am always a single person. I am not bad, I am essentially good, and all of these weird stories come from not having understood this little little fact.
Longku FPMT: Does that make sense?
Longku FPMT: I'm not saying you have to agree. If you don't agree. That'll even be better, because then the discussion will go forward. Right? So here
Longku FPMT: this one, the Buddha said, everything that has causes has to be changing, not changing, later changing. Now.
Longku FPMT: what this means is, whatever has caused this does not exist in the next moment. That's what impermanence meant.
Longku FPMT: You know this right.
Longku FPMT: Do you know what impermanence means? Impermanence means? What is there in one moment? Is not there in the next moment?
Longku FPMT: That's what it means.
Longku FPMT: So what is there next time? Good! That's the kind of doubt that you should have then. So if that's what the Buddha said, the Buddha, saying, if someday somebody made this cup.
Longku FPMT: This cup cannot be the same cup that is existing every moment. That's what the Buddha said right now, this is the syllogism got it. This cup
Longku FPMT: is changing every moment, or is not there in the next moment let's say that because it is, it has causes, or it is a collection of parts. That's what we've been told.
Longku FPMT: Now, this statement to us right now is just as vague as saying, coffee is good for me, because that day was good for me right now. They both have the same value. One is not more provable than the other. Is that fine?
Longku FPMT: These are all. We're just touching the synergism. We haven't gotten into it yet. These are all just synergies. Okay?
Longku FPMT: Then the other thing the Buddha said synergisms that the Buddha gave was
Longku FPMT: our mind is the nature of suffering, because it is
Longku FPMT: a base for all the problems to arrive.
Longku FPMT: That's what the Buddhists mean.
Longku FPMT: Just our mind is always the nature of suffering, not when it's doing bad things always.
Longku FPMT: There is not one moment in our life where our mind is not of the nature of something.
Longku FPMT: The reason that the Buddha gave is because
Longku FPMT: our mind is where we experience all the difficulty. So our mind is the basis for experiencing pain.
Longku FPMT: That's the reason we get
Longku FPMT: again. This is just a syllogism. We don't know how to test whether it's true or not.
Longku FPMT: Okay. So we'll just start with these 2. Is that? Okay?
Longku FPMT: Yeah.
Longku FPMT: I only stay with that. That you say, yeah, it's
Longku FPMT: how can I see it? Not? It's impermanent. I mean, I could not see this in years, because my illusion is so huge that I'm I have not this view of you to see the change in every moment. I can only intellectually say, Okay, I imagine it's changing because I'm changing every moment. So and there is this everything I'm connected. So everything changes. Because
Longku FPMT: that's that's an intellectual.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, knowledge somehow. Okay, but to really see it, how it's changing everything. I will never see that in this life, I think. Because but now tell me something if you were
Longku FPMT: surrounded by
Longku FPMT: people. And the system that said, this is not changing, you are not changing, and you grew up in that system for many, many years.
Longku FPMT: Why would you not say that?
Longku FPMT: Because there are in India there's many philosophical traditions that say this, things don't change, and you don't change no sense.
Longku FPMT: Why are they good?
Longku FPMT: Yeah, this is difficult for me to explain. But I it does not make sense, I agree, but we have to know why it doesn't make sense, you know another question, because if I cannot explain it, you think, then I'm also not. I don't think anything. No, I asked, because no, not at all, not at all. Sometimes something is so obvious.
Longku FPMT: You know what? The problem that's very normal. That's very long. Just because you can't explain. Something doesn't mean you don't understand it. But what it means it could also mean is that you haven't understood it fully.
Longku FPMT: You haven't completely understood. It could mean. I'm not saying I'll tell you the most strange example
Longku FPMT: there was once I did a retreat on Lamre about death.
Longku FPMT: Okay, which is the beginning. No, I assure you I spent one whole week trying to prove to myself that I will die
Longku FPMT: one entire week, because my mind just came up with the most absurd things I was like. No, I might not die. My body doesn't have to die. What if I could find some way to prolong it. What if I could find some cure for it? What if I could find a way for it to be free of disease? So I wasn't willing to accept that this body is always changing. What I thought was this body experiences change when it's influenced by things.
Longku FPMT: So if I eat bad food or I don't exercise my body, or I stay in a lot of sunlight, or I stay in a country which has difficult temperature. Then my body will suffer from all of these things. But what if I left and lived in a place where the weather is good, where all the food is good, where all the nutrition is great, where, when I have a disease, I can immediately take care of it. Why does my body have to die? And I was doing it so much that my mind, at some point I was like
Longku FPMT: this, seems like the most obvious thing that anyone should be able to say I am going to die. But then I realized the only proof that I had was, my body is going to die because everyone else has died so far.
Longku FPMT: and that doesn't work if approved, just because it's happened to everyone is, why does it have to happen to you?
Longku FPMT: Why not?
Longku FPMT: But why I'm not saying why not. It's true. Why and why not? It's open ended. No.
Longku FPMT: but if you're talking about practicing.
Longku FPMT: and your enthusiasm for practice should come from how precious your moment is, and you can't even feel how precious the moment is, because in the back of your mind you're like.
Longku FPMT: maybe I can do it later.
Longku FPMT: and maybe I can do it later is based on the fact that there will be a very long later to come, and the only thing in the text that is said is
Longku FPMT: the only reason that I can give myself is I don't have a later, because everyone has died already. If it's not convinced me, it's not convincing me I'm stuck.
Longku FPMT: So even something like that, when you actually sit and reflect on it.
Longku FPMT: and not here. Reflect here, because the understanding of death is not here. It's here. It's supposed to
Longku FPMT: make you understand that it's precious the time you have. If this is not moving, because there's some strange thought that you might have. Then how sure of it you are one doesn't know. I'm not saying you are or not, but these kind of doubts are very common.
Longku FPMT: And when you study Indian texts or Buddhist texts, these are the kind of doubts that they bring up. This is exactly the doubt of singer. The doubt that you had is called the idea that I am permanent. But I manifest different things in different moments.
Longku FPMT: That there is one entity that carries on, but does different things in different circumstances. It's such an obvious thought we all have this.
Longku FPMT: This is the opposite of impermanence. Impermanence means. There is no entity that is carrying on right.
Longku FPMT: So all of these weird.
Longku FPMT: strange doubts that one has never had will come up. Now. Why, I'm saying this is, if you start doing meditation or practicing at a level where you are not convinced you can keep cruising at this level. Yeah. But then, when you cruise at this level, you will not be able to guarantee that someday some crazy thought is going to come
Longku FPMT: and what they challenge you. And then what do you do. If that happened right?
Longku FPMT: Does that make sense? Yeah, okay, so all of these syllogism, these are syllogisms. Okay, so technically, the syllogism has. This is a little bit technical. They have technical language. Did I write it?
Longku FPMT: Yeah, what's that do?
Longku FPMT: If it is
Longku FPMT: so technically, a cynicism is always made up of this, just so that you're aware
Longku FPMT: we've
Longku FPMT: this one. Yeah.
Longku FPMT: you can call this a reason or a sign, whatever you want. Okay.
Longku FPMT: you know what doubt I had, Felix, when I was doing the death meditation. I was like, what if I had enough money like Silio Berlusconi to change his blood once a year? Then I can live forever to freeze his blood change. You know Berlusconi should take his blood once a year.
Longku FPMT: so I was like, what if I can change my blood once a year. Why should I die?
Longku FPMT: And all these weird? How it looks like someone.
Longku FPMT: But but in this case, I mean, if you look at the world. Everything is changing. So how
Longku FPMT: I mean it must be that you I mean otherwise. If you think
Longku FPMT: that you will not die, so everything is gone, and you alone here. No, everything will be different. Everything will be different
Longku FPMT: also. When you say, change like, look at this, this pillar outside.
Longku FPMT: It's changing right now.
Longku FPMT: The change that we understand is the sunlight has hit it for a long time. So it's slightly faded in color.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, someone has made a crack on it. So it's changed a little bit. Someone has put a poster on it. So there's something on it right? That's how we see. Change a lot of water has happened. So there's a stain on it.
Longku FPMT: That's not the pillar changing.
Longku FPMT: That's external conditions acting on the pillar.
Longku FPMT: But the external condition are the challenge, aren't they? No.
Longku FPMT: when the Buddha said, it's changing, the Buddha said, without external conditions, things are always changing, but that would mean that external conditions are not part of the
Longku FPMT: of the conditions that this pillar exists, the conditions of the pillar existing. But they're not the conditions of the pillar changing.
Longku FPMT: There are conditions that just act on the pillar. They're not what makes the pillar change
Longku FPMT: to get the difference between these 2, but because the pith is a is a composite object.
Longku FPMT: So because
Longku FPMT: those those parts or those things change, so the pivot has to change. But then, now you have to prove that those parts change
Longku FPMT: well, they they change because they again depends on both parts, and then we have to prove that those parts change.
Longku FPMT: So then you get into a loop.
Longku FPMT: and then you know where you end up. If you want philosophically, where you end up, that there are certain parts that make up the world that are not changed like Lego.
Longku FPMT: And that is another view that you can have. It is it really is. This is a view things are made up of little parts that don't change, they combine differently.
Longku FPMT: That's another view. You can end up with that view.
Longku FPMT: But if if the basic things are dependently arising.
Longku FPMT: So. But you've assumed that they're dependent here, right?
Longku FPMT: I can see that you can't. How can you see that this is dependent on your life, of course, up
Longku FPMT: parts, for example. Okay, it has parts. Yes. Why does that mean? It's changing?
Longku FPMT: Because parts themselves, or more
Longku FPMT: again, are made of all those parts. Okay, so can you see that this has parts that are changing the handle?
Longku FPMT: Of course it cannot see it. How? How do you know that the parts of the handle are changed.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, for example, it it is influenced by by the line, by the that's external, that's external.
Longku FPMT: But but the the light itself, or let's say, the the the air
Longku FPMT: is also part because it has become into existence, isn't it? Sure? But that's external. Why do you vacuum pack food
Longku FPMT: when you vacuum back food.
Longku FPMT: food last longer. But when you say it's not depend, why does it last longer? Because you've removed external influence? Yes. So then, when you remove external influence, things don't change. But this is just one part. Yeah. But you understand the thought behind it. When you can remove and manipulate situation. You can have things stay unchanging.
Longku FPMT: That's a doubt that you have. We all have. We act like this. That's why we put sunscreen also.
Longku FPMT: my face is always young. I just have to put cream in order to prevent the sunlight from coming, and all that sort of thing. That's also a dark picture.
Longku FPMT: not you. We all have. We act like that? Because if we didn't act with the assumption that things are not changing with the assumption that things are changing. We wouldn't do 99% of the things that we do.
Longku FPMT: He wouldn't do it.
Longku FPMT: And the proof that you don't feel that things are changing is the second. Something goes wrong. You suddenly get upset. Why, if the nature of things is changing
Longku FPMT: and things in each moment are something new when someone you've known for many years turns around and acts differently. Why are you shocked?
Longku FPMT: It's quite normal.
Longku FPMT: No one would. Why, why would you suddenly be surprised by.
Longku FPMT: But I didn't get that point when you say the pillar itself is changing, but it's not dependent from outside. So what the pillar is trying to say is when you understand things, changing
Longku FPMT: your reasoning, to understand that will only be convincing to you when you understand that the nature of the thing is changing, not that for it to change it requires other influences. But this happened as well, because this also happens. You know what but think about it like this, because if the nature of it is changing is not changing.
Longku FPMT: and it depends on conditions, then the next one won't make sense. Then the nature of things is not suffering.
Longku FPMT: then things
Longku FPMT: act as if they are suffering because of external condition, then the nature of the mind is not suffering right now. The nature of my body is not to suffer. It is influenced by external things that make it suffer.
Longku FPMT: But but it doesn't say because things are changing. You're suffering because the cost contaminate, the things are changing. Yes, but where are those contaminated things? Are they
Longku FPMT: external conditions that act on it?
Longku FPMT: Know that because you mind as a wrong view, no more basic.
Longku FPMT: This is even more basic. Well, I'm very glad that you're saying all these. Now we have a lot of fun stuff to do when the Buddha says you are contaminated. It's not just wrong of you. It's much worse.
Longku FPMT: It's much worse because wrong view suggests that if you remove the wrong view, everything is fine.
Longku FPMT: No problem, not at all.
Longku FPMT: You can remove the wrong view, but your aggregates are still suffering. If you remove the wrong view that there is existing an inherent existing self, you will still suffer. Yes, you will still feel pain, you will. Still.
Longku FPMT: there's that. It is a little bit technical, but you know, carhacks with remainder they still suffer.
Longku FPMT: They've understood the link.
Longku FPMT: Great, good! Great! We're doing. This is great. I'm very happy.
Longku FPMT: Okay, does that make sense? So the idea that things have to be changing
Longku FPMT: has only been explained by in one way, there's no other way that it's explained in text.
Longku FPMT: and that is, it has causes. That's all that said, okay, there's no other explanation.
Longku FPMT: It has parts means many things come together to make it the same thing as okay.
Longku FPMT: Now we've seen that these causes are not external causes.
Longku FPMT: It's not external calls. If that makes sense to you.
Longku FPMT: If that was the reason, then what will your reaction be? Yeah. If the external causes make things change, then your reaction is very simple.
Longku FPMT: Make sure that the external causes don't influence it. Your entire trajectory and your entire focus will just shift.
Longku FPMT: It's normal, though I think it's very natural. You say, okay, then make sure those. So then the nature of my mind is not suffering. I should just not get angry. So what am I going to do? Not surround myself with people who irritates me. It's such a natural reaction. So the nature of my mind is not to get energy.
Longku FPMT: Nature of our mind is pure, perfect, always the same. You come and you talk to me badly, and it comes out. It's your fault.
Longku FPMT: That's how it is right. Isn't that a natural reaction to it. Good things is worth. But
Longku FPMT: that's not the main one. That's what the Buddha is trying to say.
Longku FPMT: Okay, does that make sense? Then, now, the reason. So, okay, so are we. Okay, let's just go back to this one second subject, predicate reason. This is
Longku FPMT: from today. When you think Buddhist debate logic, whatever this is all it is. Okay. There's nothing more to it. That's why I'm saying it's not necessarily very complicated.
Longku FPMT: So what are you trying to prove you're trying to prove that your mind is changing or your body is changing, or this cup is changing, or a diamond is changing, or lead is changing, or the whatever you want to prove. Okay, that's all your subjects. Whatever you're trying to prove is changing.
Longku FPMT: What you're trying to prove is that it is changing. So your predicate is, it is important right?
Longku FPMT: And the reason that you're giving is it has causes right? That's it.
Longku FPMT: Like I, subject, have a heart attack
Longku FPMT: because my left arm is hurting.
Longku FPMT: That's does that make sense
Longku FPMT: everything that you do when you study or think, or reason, according to how it is explained. And good. That's it. This is it. There's nothing more.
Longku FPMT: Is that okay?
Longku FPMT: So whenever you're trying to get clarity about something, the 1st suggestion is, do this.
Longku FPMT: What are you trying to? Where are you thinking? Are you trying? We know that the clouds are impermanent, right? We see them changing the clouds itself. We see a river, and we see the river changing not very hard.
Longku FPMT: right? We can even see. I don't know nothing. Here is moving.
Longku FPMT: but if you see a tree like, if you see wind blowing on this, you might feel this is changing. So you don't need to prove that that isn't permanent. Take solid things, this table, this cup. My mind me, my thought.
Longku FPMT: my feeling, my love for you, whatever you want. That's your subject. Okay.
Longku FPMT: it is changing, it is impermanent. That's what you're trying to prove it. And then reason because it is.
Longku FPMT: It has closes.
Longku FPMT: That's the syllicism. We haven't explained it yet your coffee subject good for you, because in the past it was good for you.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, okay, is that fine?
Longku FPMT: Yeah.
Longku FPMT: When you say the cup
Longku FPMT: exist because it has a cause? No, because now is is it impartment permanent because of the cause? So.
Longku FPMT: for example, the cup of now is different than the cup of. Now, for example, of the next is the second, second later. So the cup of the 1st one
Longku FPMT: devils has a course I know the next cop.
Longku FPMT: In a sense the copulator has another cause. Yes.
Longku FPMT: so the cause of this cup was.
Longku FPMT: was the cause of this cup, and also the cause of the end of this cup. That's what it means. Does that make sense?
Longku FPMT: It's a little more drastic than
Longku FPMT: does that make sense, whatever this is what the statement is, we have to test it. We have to test it. Okay, does that make sense?
Longku FPMT: The cause of this cup was also what made it exist?
Longku FPMT: And it's the same thing that made it and also stop existing.
Longku FPMT: It's the same thing.
Longku FPMT: There is no other thing that makes it stop existing.
Longku FPMT: That's what it means when the Buddha saying things are important.
Longku FPMT: Does that make sense? We have a different attitude? We think the cause is what makes it exist? Then it remains, and then something comes and makes it stop existing. This is because the cause itself is permanent. But again, you'll have to prove that, so you'll get into a strain loop. Right? You get into a loop. Then, yeah.
Longku FPMT: okay, yeah. And I, I'm struggling because you said, you're all here. But this sounds like all here. And
Longku FPMT: and I I feel a little bit helpless because I will never get
Longku FPMT: to the bottom of this, because it's been 2 h.
Longku FPMT: because I don't know this, maybe basic. It's 5 o'clock. We started at 2 20. It's 2 and a half hour, so I think you know this is what. So now I'll tell you what I think.
Longku FPMT: I think one problem that we've had is we've not been explained this.
Longku FPMT: and I think if you've not been explained this, you often feel like you're stuck like you don't know how to make that next step.
Longku FPMT: What this does when you learn how to reason is it opens your ability to think.
Longku FPMT: and then, when you get slightly familiar with it, it starts to flow very naturally. Right now we get stuck. When certain things are not obvious to us.
Longku FPMT: I think over the years, you know, of dharma practicing or study
Longku FPMT: without this reasoning skills maybe build up also ideas about, and then
Longku FPMT: I become struggling, because now I should take it.
Longku FPMT: you know, like, so you know what? It's very true what you said? Yes, because it's yes, and the one the funniest thing that I've noticed. And I'll just share this with you as an experience is the people who struggle the most when they learn reasoning for the 1st time is old.
Longku FPMT: and the people who thrive the most are people who have no backgrounds
Longku FPMT: because the way they approach the subject is, prove it to me. Explain it to me. Why should I believe that things are impermanent?
Longku FPMT: So their attitude is immediately open, and they're like, I want to know why. But if you remember the advice of the Buddha, you know the 3 qualities of a student.
Longku FPMT: you have to be open minded.
Longku FPMT: You remember that open minded load in interested, open-minded, and unbiased.
Longku FPMT: unbiased means, even if you think something
Longku FPMT: just because you think it it should not be brought into your checking or your thinking.
Longku FPMT: Your own ideas cannot influence your decision.
Longku FPMT: because otherwise it's a bias that's called a bias.
Longku FPMT: That's literally the so, for someone to it's called surna means unbiased.
Longku FPMT: Logan is interested. No, if Logan is.
Longku FPMT: who can think like you should be trying to think and done was interested, and of these 3, the one that is the
Longku FPMT: central one is, you have to be unbiased. So old Hanma students are not unbiased because we have this information.
Longku FPMT: we feel that it is already like this. I don't need to explain it. Yeah, it's very hard. No, no, that's not true at all. It's not. Don't say like that. You know why? Because if if you make a little bit of an effort, you might see that it clicks the advantage that
Longku FPMT: all doubts that people have over beginners is, if you understand how to do this.
Longku FPMT: you have such a wealth of information already that you can bring all of it in, and it will all tie in.
Longku FPMT: It's really a tricky one, this one. It's really a tricky one, you know. Also there's another very nice story. Oh, this is quite fun.
Longku FPMT: Hello!
Longku FPMT: In the monastery there's a joke about certain monks who
Longku FPMT: learn how to debate, but they never take the debate and the reasoning, and actually apply it to themselves.
Longku FPMT: There's a there's a thing there's a joke. So the joke that I've heard there's this common thing that we say once when the monks go to debate.
Longku FPMT: The elder monks. Look at the young monks who are just going to keep doing all of this.
Longku FPMT: not getting anywhere with it, and say they're going to put water in dry cement. They're already so hardened with their ideas that their debate is just another thing to do. So if you approach it with. This is already how the world is.
Longku FPMT: This is already. Things are already permanent.
Longku FPMT: then none of this is going to work. But the problem with that is, if you already think everything is impermanent, and your behavior in everyday life doesn't reflect that then
Longku FPMT: you're saying it. But nothing has happened here. So this intellectual and heart is not turned into heart. No, because impermanent, is very transformative.
Longku FPMT: The idea that nothing stays in the next moment is extremely transformative. We don't act like that, so you can check for yourself how much one knows one can check for oneself right? And then, when you see you don't know. This is a very helpful tool, so please don't say it's not possible.
Longku FPMT: What did you say before the the reason?
Longku FPMT: It's the same, the same cause which does something to make existing is the same cause which makes it die, it makes it die. And why? Now we have to do that. Now I need to tell you. Do we have to stop this 5 o'clock
Longku FPMT: for me, anyway? So over here now. So we've said the structure is there? Now we need to test what makes it correct or not? Can we just do that? First, st a little bit of technical stuff? Okay, so there's 3 things. Let's start with.
Longku FPMT: The 1st thing you have to use
Longku FPMT: is you have to be able to at least show that the reason is knowable by you.
Longku FPMT: Right, for instance.
Longku FPMT: What example did you use? Yeah.
Longku FPMT: my arm. I'm getting a heart attack because my arm is hurting.
Longku FPMT: Okay, if I can't even prove that my arm is hurting, but I'm not even sure that my arm is hurting. Then I can't use that as sign for anything as a reason for anything. No.
Longku FPMT: does that make sense? So if I call you? And I say, Felix, my train has left, because there's no one at the station
Longku FPMT: until you can prove that there's no one at the station. You can't help me take that reasoning forward. Right? Right? So basic example.
Longku FPMT: you're talking to someone they're saying, oh, I can't find my phone because it's not in this room.
Longku FPMT: I've lost my phone because it's not in this room.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, very normal happens every day. Yeah. Okay, yeah. So if you, what's the 1st thing that we do, wait, let me help you look for it.
Longku FPMT: So you've already not believe that it's not in the room right? You have to 1st be able to prove that it's not in the room, and then you can see whether it is being lost or not. But the 1st thing is, you have to at least prove that it has.
Longku FPMT: The reason is provable. So this cup isn't permanent, because it has causes
Longku FPMT: for the 1st step you at least have to be able to show that the cup has causes, because if you can't even prove the cup has causes, you can't use this information to do anything. Right?
Longku FPMT: Yeah, is that okay?
Longku FPMT: Coffee is good for me, because in the past it has been, it has helped me if you can't even show that in the past it has been rude for you. This is redundant. You can't do anything with it. Right? Does that make sense. Yeah. So the 1st thing that one has to do here is at least prove that the cup has caused
Longku FPMT: is that okay? 1st step with any user.
Longku FPMT: Yeah. So so the cost for the cup would be the exactly. So you have to at least know, or somehow understand.
Longku FPMT: that the cup was made by somebody in something, because if you can't even understand that the cup is made by someone, or it's coming from some factory or some workshop or some ceramic place. You can't use. The reason to do anything
Longku FPMT: is that, okay.
Longku FPMT: that that one's quite basic. This one's easy. Okay. And now the one that you're asking. You have to connect the reason with the credit
Longku FPMT: which means you have to say.
Longku FPMT: if this exists, this has to exist.
Longku FPMT: That's the hardest one.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, that's the one we were saying before dependent arising.
Longku FPMT: This can exist only if that exists as well. You have to prove that.
Longku FPMT: So now in our example, you have to prove that something can have causes only if that thing
Longku FPMT: has to be changing in each moment.
Longku FPMT: Is that fine? So far? Now.
Longku FPMT: what I think you will like to know is when you read Buddhist texts.
Longku FPMT: All they are trying to do is prove the connection between 2 things. If you open any Madhyamaka text on emptiness. The only thing that that text is trying to do is show how
Longku FPMT: dependent arising means it has to be empty.
Longku FPMT: It's only trying to make this connection between the 2 things.
Longku FPMT: Okay? So all the literature, you know, those volumes and volumes, and hundreds and hundreds of pages and all.
Longku FPMT: They're only trying to show how something has to be
Longku FPMT: coming from something else, or how the existence of one thing depends on the existence of another thing. That's all
Longku FPMT: that text. As we were mentioning essence of eloquence that you receive. That's all.
Longku FPMT: This is like this, because of this. This is like this because of this and draw the connection.
Longku FPMT: Yeah.
Longku FPMT: So now we need to do this. If you want to do it in a tech, if you want to tackle it. Something can have causes only if it's changing, because if it's not changing, it can't have causes.
Longku FPMT: So you look at it from 2 sides. Got it. You look at it from 2 sides.
Longku FPMT: To understand this properly, and to do your reasoning. Now you have to. One has to try and do this. Can you imagine something that doesn't change?
Longku FPMT: Just imagine it! You can't right.
Longku FPMT: Just imagine something that is the same something that is there also in the next moment. Is there anything that is there in the next moment that you think
Longku FPMT: space space? Okay, space, space, a space. Yes. I also thought about space.
Longku FPMT: Can space have a cause.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, okay, so then, now, you've come up with an example of something that has a cause.
Longku FPMT: But it's not changing, see? So you're stuck
Longku FPMT: so for you currently, if it has causes, it has to change, doesn't work every reason correct, because you've come up with an example of something that has causes, but is not changeable. Yeah.
Longku FPMT: got it? So if I tell you this cup is changing because it has causes, doesn't work.
Longku FPMT: it's great. Yeah.
Longku FPMT: Can you think of anything that has clauses but doesn't change.
Longku FPMT: I'm stuck even before for good weather.
Longku FPMT: How do you prove that causes have are important? We're doing that. How do you prove that cause? This is the whole thing. Causes have to be so. The Buddha said. One thing, he said, if something has causes.
Longku FPMT: that thing can't be unchanging.
Longku FPMT: We don't see like that.
Longku FPMT: We often feel the opposite.
Longku FPMT: Now, the connection that we're trying to. And it's very beautiful.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, I don't think we have so much time to do where I make you struggle with it by yourself, so I'll give you a teaser for how the Buddha said it. Okay.
Longku FPMT: if something remains in the next moment, you understand this
Longku FPMT: permanent means. What is here in one moment is also there in the next moment. That's permanent, that's permanent
Longku FPMT: if something has a cause. And now careful causes don't mean external conditions. This is the most important thing. What does cause mean? Something that becomes something else. That's cause right?
Longku FPMT: The other one is known as a condition, it influences it after it's already there
Longku FPMT: causes something that becomes something else. No.
Longku FPMT: if something has to become something else.
Longku FPMT: can that thing have the nature of being one thing in the next moment also
Longku FPMT: do these 2 things go hand in hand. That's what they're we're checking.
Longku FPMT: Does that make sense? Just say it again.
Longku FPMT: a seed and a sprout. Can you take that as an example? No, a seed has to become a sprout. No.
Longku FPMT: So we're saying, the sprout is
Longku FPMT: disintegrating right now because a seed became the sprout.
Longku FPMT: Now the question that we're saying is, the nature of the sprout is not something that stays in your next moment?
Longku FPMT: Yes.
Longku FPMT: why am I saying? That is because if the nature of the sprout was to stay in the next moment.
Longku FPMT: Then the nature of the sprout is something that cannot transform into something else. It has to be something that remains as it is.
Longku FPMT: If it is something that has to remain as it is.
Longku FPMT: can it have anything that becomes it?
Longku FPMT: So? If something becomes a sprout. Can the sprout have the nature of remaining in the next moment?
Longku FPMT: If the sprout is not remaining in the next moment? Does it look like it is remaining in the next moment when you look at it. Yes.
Longku FPMT: when you see a sprout, does it look like it's there like right now? Does this look like? It's still there in the next moment. But the nature of this thing. Can it be something that stays there in the next moment? If it had to be made.
Longku FPMT: That's what you're checking.
Longku FPMT: Do you get it?
Longku FPMT: Cause means something.
Longku FPMT: is there that then becomes something else? Yes, yes, the nature of that thing? Can it be something that stays the same in each moment?
Longku FPMT: Is that even possible? Given it
Longku FPMT: so if something had to become something else.
Longku FPMT: does the nature of that thing have to allow for constant change? Or can it be static?
Longku FPMT: If it can't be static? It looks static, but I know it's not static. That's when it goes from here to here instantly.
Longku FPMT: It's like lightning is like, Wait.
Longku FPMT: and you're talking about one course, but it's always one course it could be many courses. If you get one course, then when you add more courses, it becomes even more strong.
Longku FPMT: Just one cause is enough.
Longku FPMT: The fact that there is a cause means it has to transform
Longku FPMT: transform means. The thing that is undergoing, that transformation can't have the same nature in each moment, which means nothing is there in the next moment. So what made the effect happen was enough for it to disintegrate. It didn't need anything else
Longku FPMT: if they need later things to come and touch it. That was enough.
Longku FPMT: But when you look at things, does that look like the case? Not at it almost gets active.
Longku FPMT: So what happens here is this.
Longku FPMT: I don't know a better word, but you know, do you understand? Cognitive dissonance, the
Longku FPMT: cognitively. You see one thing, but suddenly your mind is like, wait, this is not at all true.
Longku FPMT: Yeah.
Longku FPMT: when you do this and you do it with this, you're gaining certainty by saying, if it has a cause. It can't stay in the next moment. If it stays in the next moment, it can't depend on a cause.
Longku FPMT: The cause means it has to make it happen. Making it happen means it can't have a static nature. It has to be something that is changing.
Longku FPMT: So then what will happen is, you will see that it has a course you will not see change.
Longku FPMT: but your mind now knows if it has a cause. The only way the cause is possible is if it's changing. So your mind says it is impermanent. Your sight says it's permanent.
Longku FPMT: and you have your first.st This is the most gross understanding of illusory.
Longku FPMT: Do you understand what illusory means? Illusory means? It looks like something, but it's not like that. It looks like it's there all the time like this. How many years has this been here?
Longku FPMT: Maybe 20? Grand lord!
Longku FPMT: And now you're saying this is not their next move.
Longku FPMT: And at the same time you're saying this has been there for 20 years. These 2 things can't go together. They just can't go together. But if someone somewhere took metal, carved it, banged it and made a lump of metal into this. This thing cannot have the quality of being the same thing in the next way. It's not possible, otherwise this couldn't have been made into this.
Longku FPMT: So you're looking at this. And you say this has been here for 20 years. And now the Buddha, saying, this is not there even in the next second.
Longku FPMT: and the reason why he's saying it is because it has causes. And now you, as a follower of the Buddha if you sit there.
Longku FPMT: And now you're not sitting in a room where you're debating like this without you don't have to do all of that fancy stuff
Longku FPMT: you can just be by yourself. And just think, can something that have causes also not change?
Longku FPMT: And you might say space. You have a doubt you'll have to address that doubt
Longku FPMT: if you don't have that doubt. Then you keep thinking of various options. Does anything that have causes have to change? No, you know, like when coal becomes a diamond, then the diamond stays a diamond for a very long time, even though there's pressure applied to it. And you think about it, you think about different examples, and at some point when your mind will say, Oh, no, wait! If it has causes the same thing that is there before can't stay in the next moment, because the meaning of causes that something has to become that in the next moment
Longku FPMT: these 2 things can't go hand in hand. Then you've seen it, and you know that it's not there right now, in the next moment that's when it happens. Yeah. But why, why, what does it mean the next moment.
Longku FPMT: whatever the next moment means like, right? This time, does this have many, many moments?
Longku FPMT: Yeah, maybe it can like be stuck the same for a period of time, and then it changes. Yes, good. Now, here, that's exactly see, I said. Doubts come up.
Longku FPMT: That's the kind of bump that comes up.
Longku FPMT: So now the question is, okay, take it. Huh? This was made.
Longku FPMT: It stayed unchanging for many moments, and then it stopped. Yeah, this is how we think about impermanence. What you're describing now is the way most of us think about impermanence means things make it happen. It stays for a while, but because things made it happen at some point, it will stop existing.
Longku FPMT: That's mostly how we think of informed us. No, no, now the thing is, was this made by causeless
Longku FPMT: does that mean that there was this is ceramic let's say, was there a lump of ceramic, that became this.
Longku FPMT: and then lump.
Longku FPMT: Yes.
Longku FPMT: So that lump of ceramic that became this. Did the lump of ceramic have to transform into this?
Longku FPMT: And by external no, no. The ceramic itself did it transform into now? No good. See? Good!
Longku FPMT: And now you have your doubts. So the lump of ceramic didn't transform into this. No, the lump of ceramic didn't transform into this. There were external causes that made the lump of ceramic become this. Yes.
Longku FPMT: you see, earlier one, this is the view that the lamp of ceramic is the same.
Longku FPMT: but it takes different aspects. Yes, the example that other traditions give is like gold that you melt it. You make an earring, then you melt it, you make a nose ring, then you melt it, and you make a ring, but it's still the same gold. The gold is permanent, it takes different aspects. Okay, now you have to think about it. My job is done.
Longku FPMT: You think if the lump of ceramic lump, if that lump didn't become this.
Longku FPMT: not that external causes help become this. But did the lump have to become the component?
Longku FPMT: I have to think about it? Yeah, think about it. Yeah, don't think about that. Think of the gold example is very good, you know, like, because gold, we use jewelry very commonly, or plasticine. You know, when we have plasticine children have play-doh, they make like a ball, and then they make a thing. That
Longku FPMT: is the thing becoming the next thing. That's what you check.
Longku FPMT: And your view is very, very beautiful, because you know what you're doing. You're doing something very lovely.
Longku FPMT: What you're doing is you're saying, there are 2 things there is a nature that is carrying on.
Longku FPMT: and then there are different ways in which it manifests.
Longku FPMT: That's exactly what you're doing. And this is how we all feel.
Longku FPMT: So now, what you think about is
Longku FPMT: is the thing transforming into something else?
Longku FPMT: Is there any nature that is not transforming into this thing.
Longku FPMT: That's what you're checking
Longku FPMT: and and not thinking about before. No, no, you don't have to go there. You don't have to go there. Okay, you don't have to go there. Just go with the lump of clay
Longku FPMT: for the lump of ceramic that became this
Longku FPMT: leave before, because if you go before you know what happens, the focus of your mind will get diluted.
Longku FPMT: and when the focus of your mind gets diluted you will not be able to bring it all in together at the end. You'll just be like it feels like it's impermanent, something like that. So leave that. It's very precise. It's very short, when a cause becomes an effect.
Longku FPMT: Is there anything that carries over?
Longku FPMT: That's all you're checking through one moment to the next? You don't have to add anything more you don't have to bring in before external. This is all the Buddha said. Yep, there's that sutra called the rice seedling sutra, which is the seed becomes the sprout. That's all, the Buddha said. So when the seed is becoming a sprout, do you feel that there is something that
Longku FPMT: the seed is not transforming into the sprout that is still there. That's what you're checking. Okay? And you can check it with the cup. You can check it. With this you can check it with the flower you can with anything.
Longku FPMT: Basically. Now, you are not even checking the connection between the 2. You're only checking calls.
Longku FPMT: We're trying to understand what caused me. You know, this is what you're saying.
Longku FPMT: Yeah. You see how there's so much detail behind it. If you really want to take a peek.
Longku FPMT: I have one doubt about, for example, this this ball.
Longku FPMT: so the ring, or what you call 20 years ago it gave the service effect, could make a sound
Longku FPMT: in this way. It is prominent, isn't it?
Longku FPMT: Again, the Buddha will say, you think it feels
Longku FPMT: every moment is a different effect.
Longku FPMT: But you. You can say that you could make a sound 20 years ago, and you can make a sound now. And both those sounds both the sounds are different. They're completely different.
Longku FPMT: But still it's sound. It's still sound good. Now you're starting to do. Now you're using reasoning.
Longku FPMT: This is your reasoning language that's kicking in.
Longku FPMT: Do you see how? But okay, let can you? Just we have a little bit just to recap
Longku FPMT: when you take a statement that you have been believing for many years.
Longku FPMT: and you subject it to a little bit of analysis. Do you see how suddenly, like Pandora's box opens? And suddenly you have all of these things that still need checking
Longku FPMT: this. My teacher, here is a very beautiful example. This is like when you take dirty clothes and you put them in water.
Longku FPMT: The dirt is stuck in the clothes for a long time.
Longku FPMT: Then you do this and the dirt starts coming out.
Longku FPMT: This is what happens when you use reasoning
Longku FPMT: the doubts that suddenly you start to feel that you never had when they come up. It's like the dirt and clothes is starting to come up.
Longku FPMT: then, finally, you can clear it and make sense of it. So this is big. It's uncomfortable because we believe something for a long time, but it's good in the long run, because it's going to make you refine your understanding. So just to close the reasoning is used like this.
Longku FPMT: does that make sense.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, now, yeah, I felt like in this snake ladder game, you know, since I go back now down to phase one, most people say that
Longku FPMT: because sometimes you think, when you study long, that you are already a little bit on a certain level, you know, and then you see but even I feel like that, because I've also I finished like my undergrad, and I written a dissertation on emptiness
Longku FPMT: very good everywhere. It was very good. I got very good marks also. And then I went to school, and I am not understood.
Longku FPMT: because these doubts are very natural doubts. These are natural doubts, because we don't feel like that. The problem is how we feel
Longku FPMT: when the Buddha said that we have this innate misconception, innate means, we don't think about it. We feel like things remain.
Longku FPMT: That's not. We don't even have to think about that. We feel like it's like that. So what you're doing here is you're
Longku FPMT: checking a very basic assumption that has sustained you for your whole life.
Longku FPMT: even you just causes, which seems so obvious. You know, it was like causes. Yeah, of course we know things are causes. We do things. Then things come up suddenly. You're like, Wait. But
Longku FPMT: when, of course, produces an effect.
Longku FPMT: is there anything that carries over.
Longku FPMT: You seem to think that is right. Nasum. Yeah, good.
Longku FPMT: That's excellent.
Longku FPMT: That's really, really good. Because now you have something to go on. Now, you can think about
Longku FPMT: causality better right now. You were just assuming that it's there and you understood it. Now, suddenly, you're like, Wait. But is there anything that goes over, and you should have a hundred doubts, you know. For example, of course, causes go over. You know the genes your parents had.
Longku FPMT: You have the same game, you know. Probably causes do go over.
Longku FPMT: These are the 100 doubts that you can have, but of course go over. Aren't the coast permanent?
Longku FPMT: Then you'll have the idea that causes a permanent.
Longku FPMT: So then you will get into more confusing things. That's excellent. But you see, this is important, because right now.
Longku FPMT: how? How long have you been listening to to these things?
Longku FPMT: Not very often, but a few years. Okay. Have you ever wondered about causes being impermanent?
Longku FPMT: Not not like today. How hard is it if you just do subject etiquette, reason, and you have someone tell you a little bit of information, or you read a text that gives you this information. Then that's what you need. No. And, by the way, in the text.
Longku FPMT: the debate is with people who believe different views. So not only does it give you this, it also discusses it from all the different points of view. That's why it's so precious.
Longku FPMT: Do you know what levels on campus.
Longku FPMT: He's supposed to have been crying when he read the second chapter of the
Longku FPMT: the Standard Buddhist text on logic is called Pramanavatika. Okay, there's a second chapter of the Pramanavatika which explains all the reasoning for the 4 noble truths
Longku FPMT: and how to attain liberation, Jackie. It's a text from logic like reasoning.
Longku FPMT: The story is that he couldn't stop crying
Longku FPMT: every time he picked up this text would keep crying about that, and the reason he keeps crying is because he says finally, I have something that is explaining how to attain liberation.
Longku FPMT: not just telling me these are the 4 truths. Liberation is this, but actually getting into all the detail and saying, liberation is possible because everything is impermanent, everything is impermanent because it has causes, if it has causes, it has to be impermanent if it has causes and it's permanent. This is the problem. If causes are permanent, this is the problem, and it's giving you this entire framework, so that at the end of it you're like, okay. Now I know that liberation.
Longku FPMT: Now I know that the 4 noble truths are real. Now I know that if I practice, I can attain liberation cries every time he reads this text.
Longku FPMT: That's why Lama says the second chapter, everyone should study.
Longku FPMT: And that's why also, psychologist teacher
Longku FPMT: is a huge fan of the second self.
Longku FPMT: because it just has all the reasoning to explain this. And it's not. It's difficult to read because it's the translation. But the content. Is this the doubt that you had the doubt that you have the doubt that you have the doubt that you brought us
Longku FPMT: that causes actually carry on.
Longku FPMT: Yeah.
Longku FPMT: So tomorrow we just add a little bit more of the other thing, and we'll just carry on with this is that, okay, is that okay? We can touch maybe one or 2 other points. But then I just want you to know that this exists, and that this is possible. And then, if you ever want to really try and like, uphold
Longku FPMT: the teaching that you really want to understand the teaching, but you also want to learn a skill that you can use outside of the teaching. This is not only for this, no, that it's available like it's there.
Longku FPMT: and that you can learn it. And there's many people who know it, and that's what
Longku FPMT: his Holiness wants us to learn. That's what psychology wants you to wants you to know that reasoning is available to you.
Longku FPMT: so please use it right now. I'll just share whatever little bit is there. But then, at the end I would like you to know that it's possible. And it's not here because it can immediately go down.
Longku FPMT: It's immediate impact. Yeah, it's very emotionally. It's very distressing to realize that
Longku FPMT: what I see is not the way it is. It's very distressing.
Longku FPMT: but it can actually bring about a thing.
Longku FPMT: So it's not completely well, we still
Longku FPMT: tell you.