Longku FPMT: Because I
Longku FPMT: I will not be equipped enough to know exactly what your kind of doubt is, or where you're getting stuck individually. That will have like you yesterday. Your doubt is a legitimate doubt, but not everyone has that. So if I'm trying to talk to you, and I don't know the kind of doubts that come up for you. There's not much I can do.
Longku FPMT: What I can do in the beginning as an earlier stage. What I can do is share the reasoning with you, and then, when we're discussing it, you'll see that certain doubts come up which are relevant to you. And then, when you think about it, and you try and clarify it, then your doubts can get cleared away. So in that way it's also very effective way of
Longku FPMT: sharing or communicating something to somebody, because everyone will react in the way that is most fitting for them and bring out the doubts for them. Right? Is that. Okay, yeah. So just quickly to look at this one again.
Longku FPMT: what they do when they try. And so
Longku FPMT: we said yesterday, I mean, we said, you saw that it's something that you're already doing right, the thinking in this way we're already doing. We're not saying it's correct or lost, but it's something that you already do. Whenever you try and come up, come up with a conclusion, or you try and make a decision about something that you can't verify. You already use reasons.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, yeah, is this something? Which is it different between animals and humans? Yes.
Longku FPMT: yeah. They call it Namchidan number. Human beings are known as
Longku FPMT: the ability that we have is the ability to think, you know, when they say.
Longku FPMT: When you have those, what are this
Longku FPMT: 8 leisures and 10 opportunity? Is that how we translate it? Leisure and opportunity. One of them is that we're born as humans. And in the humans, why, we have the ability, why, it's considered a better state is because we have the ability to think his Holiness always says it. We have this incredibly powerful brain, and then we have the mind that can work with in tandem with this brain, and it can actually make sense of things.
Longku FPMT: If you don't use it, then it's not.
Longku FPMT: It hurts the human steak.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, that's exactly it. The advantage of being a human is like that. Also, I just wanted to share one thing in the beginning of
Longku FPMT: the stages of Tantra. No, I've never studied Tantra. I'm not telling you that, I know, but I know that there's this thing that Tantra doesn't require reasoning, we have this thing that you just have to jump.
Longku FPMT: Lamasonghapur very clearly writes in the introduction, saying.
Longku FPMT: the same reasoning from the other Buddhist text on epistemology is fundamental, to be able to also prove that the teachings in the Tantras are correct. So it's not limited only to Sutra. And then suddenly you come to a level where
Longku FPMT: you are exempt from having to make sense of things. It's the same pattern that stays all the way through.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, just I don't. Yeah, I just. I remember this. Sometimes I think it's important, because I also thought, oh, certain things. You don't need it.
Longku FPMT: But apparently you need it all the way through. It's always there. Yeah, yeah.
Longku FPMT: And an understanding of emptiness. So, yeah, exactly. Exactly. But not just that. Like, you know, emptiness is common to both even certain things about Tantra that are after having done renunciation both, and emptiness, then you have
Longku FPMT: things that are specifically for Tantra writes, even for those you need to use the same kind of reasoning. So reasoning never just. It's not something that you take and you leave until you are certain of what you do. You need it all the time. Okay? And so now we'll do it today. Again, we carry on. When you think
Longku FPMT: the advantage of using this format. It's like grammar. If you learn the grammar. Well, do you study a lot of grammar here?
Longku FPMT: Is it something you study a lot? Yeah. When you do analysis, you do sentence analysis. You do like a grammatical analysis of sentences, right? So when you
Longku FPMT: we don't study grammar in India very much, this is not a great example for me, but I know that you all do when you look at a sentence, and you analyze it grammatically. You know how to make sense of it, and you can find where the problem is, and you can find how to make it better. Right? It's very different from someone who's working on language? Intuition. Does that make sense right? You might speak a language because of
Longku FPMT: familiarity with it, but it doesn't mean you know how to make it clean, or you know how to make it better, whereas someone who knows that when they edit a text they make it so much more clean and efficient and short. Right?
Longku FPMT: Similarly, we work on intuition in terms of how we think and feel. But if you can break it into this format and structure it like this, then it makes the ability to check and analyze this much better. So that's what we're going to try and do today as well. Okay. The advantage also is when you take anything and you make it in this format.
Longku FPMT: you'll see which part of it is not
Longku FPMT: convincing for you yet, and you understand where your doubt lies.
Longku FPMT: Okay? So it the at 1st attempt that one does is you try. And whatever you're trying to understand.
Longku FPMT: you try and form it like this.
Longku FPMT: So if you are sleep
Longku FPMT: I'm thinking about, I don't know. Let's see, you're thinking about. Let's say you're starting with precious human life right?
Longku FPMT: You have to think that your life is precious.
Longku FPMT: So you look at yourself or your life.
Longku FPMT: and you're trying to understand why it's precious right.
Longku FPMT: Then you have to give yourself some reasons to say that it's precious or not. So you say your subject will become my life. Then you say it is precious. And then, whatever reason you give, you have to see whether it works for you
Longku FPMT: right. My life is precious because I'm a human. For instance, hey?
Longku FPMT: You are a human. You know that you're a human. Are you convinced that being human leads to it being precious? For you.
Longku FPMT: for example, if you don't understand the connection between being human and it being precious. This statement is just something that we end up parroting. It's just something that I say. I read it in the text, and I say to myself many times, but these 2 things are not connecting. Does that make sense?
Longku FPMT: Yeah, another one. Zolina says this a lot, Zolini says, when I look at myself.
Longku FPMT: I only consider myself a human being, and we're all human brothers and sisters above the title of being the Dalai Lama, and being a monk, those are all qualities that his Holiness has right. He is the Dalai Lama. He is a monk, he is a very revered person and a very renowned person, but when he looks at himself he says, I see myself as an ordinary human, and that's how I connect with everyone else because we're all same
Longku FPMT: right? So for His Holiness, the reason is.
Longku FPMT: I am the same as others
Longku FPMT: because I am human. So the reasoning. The thing thought process is. If I am human, then I am the same as others.
Longku FPMT: For us. That is not effective enough as a reason, yet.
Longku FPMT: being human for me doesn't make me feel the same as everybody else. But for someone like His Holiness it works.
Longku FPMT: I'm going to do the same thing with Bodhicitta.
Longku FPMT: That person
Longku FPMT: is very precious to me because they have been my mother. How many times have you heard this?
Longku FPMT: You heard this a million times?
Longku FPMT: If I'm sitting here. What's your name? Sorry, Lusander? Oh, wow! That's hard to pronounce. What? Lusander? Yes, okay. If I say, Lusander is very precious to me, because he has been my mother.
Longku FPMT: Lusanda has been my mother. I'm already stuck over here.
Longku FPMT: How do I know that he has been my mother? So again, if I'm not sure that he's been my mother.
Longku FPMT: And then that's step one step 2. If someone has been my mother, do they? Are they precious to me. This might work for people who have mothers who've been very kind, but we also have cases where mothers don't really care for the children, or they get rid of them at a young age. So all of these things that you're hearing in the texts as explanations of how to practice
Longku FPMT: you can put them in this format, and you'll immediately recognize which part you're stuck on.
Longku FPMT: I think most people in the West will be stuck on. Lusanda has been my mother like.
Longku FPMT: how how quickly does that come to your ears and convince you that this is true?
Longku FPMT: I think first, st you have to know that rebirth, like there's so much information in the back
Longku FPMT: that just to say something like this requires you to
Longku FPMT: think about it a little bit more. No, or you can just parrot it like a mantra. Everyone is my mother, mother sentient being everyone and all. But it doesn't have that impact anymore. Right? So the 1st step and we'll do it today with we did impermanence. We'll do just we'll touch it again. And I thought, we'll do the basic one which is, we'll do suffering, and then selflessness in this kind of format. And then how you switch it into Bodhicitta. All of this based on reasoning.
Longku FPMT: I'm not going to try and convince you I'm going to share with you what the reasons are given and how it's presented, and then hopefully, by doing it in this way you can see for yourself where your conviction is lacking or what you need to work on a little bit more. Yeah, is that does that sound? Okay? We can try like that today. Yeah, okay.
Florian I.: Can I ask a question? Excuse me.
Longku FPMT: Yeah.
Florian I.: I don't know. You probably can't see me. I'm on the on the zoom call. Okay.
Florian I.: so hope you can hear me hear me. Well,
Florian I.: so it seems like to, in order to verify or to examine these statements.
Florian I.: to see like if there's a connection, or or if there's a valid connection.
Florian I.: I need to also have a correct understanding of the the meaning of the words right?
Florian I.: If I if I don't know what precious means, or if I don't know what mother means, then I will come to the wrong conclusion.
Longku FPMT: Yes.
Longku FPMT: yeah. So you're that's absolutely 100%. Right? So you remember yesterday, were you here yesterday as well.
Florian I.: Yeah.
Florian I.: remember when yesterday we were talking about what was the word that we were discussing that we yeah, like debate yeah, use the word debate.
Longku FPMT: But the word debate in and of itself
Longku FPMT: doesn't have the same meaning for the 2 people who are thinking about it right? So we use the word. It's not the same thing you saw yesterday. Also we use the word impermanence. The way you were thinking about impermanence was very different from how the texts speak about impermanence, because impermanence, the way we think about it is something will stop existing later. The meaning of impermanence in the text is, things are not existing in the very next moment.
Longku FPMT: So there is a huge difference between that and so your observation is absolutely correct.
Longku FPMT: because what it's saying is until you can even understand the meaning of these 3. Okay, that's actually really good. Please take it. Take it. Thank you.
Longku FPMT: It's not good.
Longku FPMT: You know that yesterday Venerable brought it up. There's hearing
Longku FPMT: there's contemplation. Now you know this right hearing, contemplation, meditation, this threefold thing, the hearing part, is trying to understand the meaning of the words that are being used. That's what hearing is. So when you hear impermanence.
Longku FPMT: if you think about it in a way which is your understanding of impermanence, and it doesn't tally with what the person's meaning of impermanence is, then the hearing hasn't happened.
Longku FPMT: Does that make sense?
Longku FPMT: Having been my mother, if the way we think of it is in this life you were my mother, and you gave birth to me. That's obviously not true. So that's not what the meaning is.
Longku FPMT: So like. The whoever this person online was as a very accurate observation. The 1st part is, you have to at least understand what the words mean, the meaning of the concepts and the terms that has to be common to both people.
Longku FPMT: because otherwise you will be arguing with. It's like donkey shot. You're fighting against non-existent things. Right? That's what happens. So the 1st step absolutely is, you have to 1st both know what exactly you are talking about. That's step number one. That's already something that we get lost in. Actually, that's a very helpful observation. So that's hearing. Is that okay? So we can actually all center it around the syllogism.
Longku FPMT: The hearing part is, understand the components of it. When you say.
Longku FPMT: Well, you we know. So it's not like. We have to explain very much right, but
Longku FPMT: are very precious to me. Precious means. What are we talking about? The same kind of precious because you've been my mother. What do you mean by having been my mother? Is that shared now? Yesterday's? This cup is impermanent because it's produced because it has causes having causes, we have to have a common understanding of what having causes means. We have to have a common understanding of what impermanent means.
Longku FPMT: And then we can discuss this. So the 1st step is at least to have clarity on the 3 things. Yeah.
Longku FPMT: you know where this is important. Also, let's say, tomorrow you decide to try and think about rebirth.
Longku FPMT: But when you think about rebirth, you think about rebirth as something which is not what the Buddhist texts are saying is the meaning of rebirth.
Longku FPMT: You will have your own little storyline.
Longku FPMT: The Buddha will be trying to explain something totally different. You will not understand what the Buddha is saying, because you're filtering it with your own way, and then you will say, Oh, these teachings are wrong, or these teachings are not correct, or they are inadequate. So step number one. That's why in the monasteries we learn a lot of definition. That's the whole reason for definition. Right? When you understand the definition. It's not that the definition has to be absolutely correct. But if I am trying to speak to you
Longku FPMT: about an idea that you are trying to explain. I need to know what you mean by what you say. So if you're trying to explain impermanence to me and for you, impermanence is you're trying to say, Atisha. This is disintegrating every moment, and I am understanding. In 15 years this is going to go away. I will already say before, yes, of course, everything is impermanent. I know everything is impermanent, and you will say, but have you really understood it? And I'll keep saying yes.
Longku FPMT: but what you're saying, and what I'm thinking are not coinciding. So we have to have common definitions, because then at least, it allows us to discuss something. So as students of the teachings of the Buddha. The 1st step is to understand what the Buddha meant when he said, impermanence, suffering, suffering is a big one, because what the Buddha meant by suffering is not at all encapsulated in the English word suffering.
Longku FPMT: It's definitely not. Yeah. A good view again from yesterday, once again shortly explained the internal causes of, because this was very crucial. I couldn't stabilize it, sure. And it's very basic, you know, so I never
Longku FPMT: sure we'll do that we'll definitely do that. Okay, so, but this is an important question, the one that came because, do you understand this? Now we and then, by the way. We have extra obstacles because we're getting it in English. Some of you are getting it in French and German.
Longku FPMT: So we are. Think about this. Huh? Lost in translation, Sanskrit.
Longku FPMT: Pali, original languages, then, Tibetan. We're getting it in English, and then sometimes you're getting it in German, from English or French, from English. You are 4 steps away from the original language.
Longku FPMT: Have you heard of Chinese whisper? Is that something you do here? No, you don't do it where I say something in your ear, and then you whisper it to them, and by the end it's already something else. Right? So we say one word, and at the end, it's something completely different
Longku FPMT: also. So that's 1 problem. The other problem is sometimes words in other languages already have a meaning. So when we use suffering in English, we already have a meaning for the word suffering. Does it actually encapsulate? What Dukkha means we don't know. So the 1st step is to understand actually what the words meant when they're used in the Buddhist text. So that's our 1st effort.
Longku FPMT: Then that's hearing.
Longku FPMT: Once you hear, then you put it in this format. You try and frame it like this. And then you try and make the connection. So the question that came online, if it's okay, wherever you are, are they? There.
Longku FPMT: there? Okay, if it's okay. Now, once you get the meaning of the 3 parts, then you can check the connection between them. So then, you've gone from hearing. And now you're on the contemplation subpart. Right? So hearing contemplation, contemplation continues
Longku FPMT: where contemplation becomes meditation classically is when you know something, then contemplation ends.
Longku FPMT: Then you do the meditation, because if you start familiarizing with something that you don't know, then your meditation is not
Longku FPMT: going to give you the desired result, because it's just then you're like, it's like, you know, the self affirmation that we do. I am good. I am good, I am happy. Everything is great. You can keep doing that, and you can feel like that, and it helps. No one says it doesn't help. But then, someday something happens. And suddenly your self affirmation loses its strength because you're not sure of what you're saying. Right? So contemplation is this part. Yeah. Okay? So the impermanence one
Longku FPMT: is something is impermanent because it has causes.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, now, here we have to think of 2 things
Longku FPMT: like we said yesterday. First, st you have to think that it has causes, you have to be sure that it has causes. Otherwise, this reason has no
Longku FPMT: work or no weight, it becomes unrelated. Right? Is that fine. Yeah. Okay? Then, the next step is, if it has causes, it can't have a nature that remains in the next moment.
Longku FPMT: That's what we're saying. Right?
Longku FPMT: Okay.
Longku FPMT: Now, it has causes. We need to clarify that like yesterday. So have you come up with your solution, for how causes good, good, great, excellent.
Longku FPMT: So we'll do that. But when the Buddha said something has causes.
Longku FPMT: and then the later Indian masters said, it has causes. They didn't think of it. Maybe how we're thinking of it, because what we're thinking of about causes is something, is there?
Longku FPMT: You do many things, and then it changes. That's how we think of causes mostly right? So we think of influences that come from outside. And then you notice an effect arise.
Longku FPMT: That's not wrong. But that's 1 part of it. Okay. So when the Buddha spoke of causes.
Longku FPMT: they speak of 2 kinds of causes, one are causes that become an effect.
Longku FPMT: and one are causes that support the change support the process.
Longku FPMT: They have technical words, the ones that support the process are actually called conditions.
Longku FPMT: and more frequently okay. So the classic example is when you're planting a seed like if you want to have a good. I don't know, Basil, season right. If you want to have a nice basil plant, you put the seeds, you need many things. You need some fertilizer. You need to water it. You probably need good sunlight right when these 3 things and you need good quality seeds. If you have poor seeds, you won't get a good yield
Longku FPMT: of these 4 things, which are all causes. So you have sunlight, fertilizer seeds and water.
Longku FPMT: The cause that we're talking about here is the seed.
Longku FPMT: It's not the other one, so we call it. Do you want the technical word. Yeah, maybe you should learn this. It's called substantial calls.
Longku FPMT: The technical English translation of this is substantial calls.
Longku FPMT: Yeah. And the other ones are called cooperative conditions, the conditions that are helping.
Longku FPMT: But you can just call them conditions or cooperative condition. They. This is how they're most frequently translated.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, so these are the external ones. Those are the external ones. Yes, yes, which are not that important which are extremely important, but they're not the ones that will help. You understand the impermanence of the thing as well. They're there. They're very important, and it was a little bit tricky, because when we talked about the pain
Longku FPMT: it seemed to you. It's exclusive, but it's coming from no, all the outside things are very important, but they are not good. They're not the main causes that you think of when you're trying to prove impermanent? Does that make sense right?
Longku FPMT: When you get familiar with impermanence? Then you can even use external causes as proof for change. But initially, the problem with using external causes is, you have something that is there, and that there are other things acting on it. Even the language of this sentence seems to suggest that there is some unchanging or some continuing thing that is getting acted upon.
Longku FPMT: That's the problem. If you think of causes. The way we most frequently do so cooperate conditions is the ones that help from outside. Yes, cooperative conditions. No, those are not the ones that go inside. Yeah. Yeah. For example, the substantial cause
Longku FPMT: of this pillar. What would you if it's made of cement? Then the cement that became the pillar? If there are iron rods in between. I can see them over there. Then, whatever
Longku FPMT: compounded phenomena, everything that comes together to become something are substantial causes.
Longku FPMT: whatever becomes the pillar are substantial. Does that make sense?
Longku FPMT: So a house will have many substantial causes. The bricks, the mortar, the cement, the beams, whatever else you might use those all become bread. When you make bread like you have 4 grain bread.
Longku FPMT: all the different grains come together to become the bread.
Longku FPMT: If you have this Mala all the various beads came together with the rope and became the mala. Then there was someone who made it. There was the machine on which it was made smooth. There was the sandpaper. Yeah. And and Carmiko speaking
Longku FPMT: now. So we don't even go to consciousness is another. That's another. That's another like another story. So because matter is very easy to prove right, we're just looking at things which are easily understandable. So we go there first, st the second one. When we do suffering, then you have to do that. The second, yeah, okay, so is that, okay?
Longku FPMT: So what we're saying is, if something has causes. And here we're talking about these substantial ones that become something.
Longku FPMT: Then the nature of that thing has to allow for change. It can't be static, that's all that's being said, do you have any ideas?
Longku FPMT: If something has a cause that has to become it? Do you understand the transformation part? If something has to transform into something else. Then the thing that you're talking about like, if this
Longku FPMT: requires something to transform into it.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, then, this cannot have a nature right now that continues to be the same in the next moment. It can't allow for
Longku FPMT: continuity, identical continuity.
Longku FPMT: What is there in the previous moment? If it stays in the next moment, and it stays in the 3rd moment, and it stays in the 4th moment. It will not allow for one moment where something became it.
Longku FPMT: Do we talk about a.
Longku FPMT: The appearance of that thing we talk about? We talk about. The thing. Thing is an assembly of many things. So when those things are assembled
Longku FPMT: when like, let's this, okay, let's not use this right now. Yeah, this.
Longku FPMT: When this watch was assembled. It's an assembly. You can see it's made up of many parts right
Longku FPMT: when all of those parts were assembled.
Longku FPMT: Right were those parts. Now this is your doubt. That's what the good thing that I was saying, when you assemble, all of those parts are all those parts the same that they were before you assemble them.
Longku FPMT: Yes, you feel like that, and when you feel like that, then this is where you're stuck, you see? Then, if it has causes, you don't feel like it has to change.
Longku FPMT: Do you understand the reason where you, where you will be stuck on this one not stuck, but where your thinking is happening. So if someone gave you a syllogism like this. Do you know now which part you need to
Longku FPMT: further clarify or you need to consider more? Yes, it's not this. Now you know this. It's the connection between these 2, right? So in the texts, the kind of questions that they'll ask that are brought up are.
Longku FPMT: so you think all the parts before assembling them, and when you assemble them are the same.
Longku FPMT: Yes, you say the same. So what the text will say is, do they perform the same function.
Longku FPMT: No. Does that mean that the nature that they had before is a nature that doesn't have those functions?
Longku FPMT: No, it doesn't. It doesn't have those functions before assembly.
Longku FPMT: When they get assembled, do they all start taking new functions?
Longku FPMT: Maybe whatever you feel, you don't have to say yes, or whatever you feel.
Longku FPMT: if it takes on new functions, does it have a nature in an assembled state? That is a nature that is not the same in the unassembled state? It's another nature, it's a different nature. Yes, right? So can the same. Can the things in an unassembled state have an unchanging nature?
Longku FPMT: If, when they get assembled, they take on a new nature. Can it have an unchanging nature, or does the nature have to be one that allows for this kind of yes, it has to allow for change. Yes. Do you see the change like? Does this? Does this hand look different now than it did when it was? It doesn't, but is its nature the same that it was before? No, so that's the whole point. How can the hand, which is just one part in an assembly
Longku FPMT: have the same nature that it had before. Similarly, the other hand, and this, and this, and this, and each part
Longku FPMT: you say whatever you want. Yeah, but but I'm not sure. If we talk about a piece, then yeah, it's it's we talk about the piece, not about the clock. Okay. But now the clock is made up of all different pieces. But the clock doesn't exist. No, no, why not here? Right? Yeah, no. Just the part exists. Okay, good. That's fine. That's fine. You want to do that. That's great. Let's say the clock doesn't exist, but all the parts, the parts we can say parts. Yes.
Longku FPMT: the parts change when they come together to form what we call a clock which doesn't exist.
Longku FPMT: Yes, yeah. So can the parts of this clock be unchanging?
Longku FPMT: No, no can, therefore, what we call the clock be unchanging. Let's say it's not there, but as a verbal
Longku FPMT: communication tool, we say clock right? So we can say, the clock also is made up of all these things that can't be permanent. They have to be changing, they have. Does it look like they're changing? No, that's it. So now, at least this much is fine to you. Now, whether the clock is there or not is another issue. Let's leave that for now, but the parts are like that. So this is the 1st seal. Whatever is compounded
Longku FPMT: has to be changing because compounded means that when things combine in a certain way they all have new functions.
Longku FPMT: They all have a new nature.
Longku FPMT: If they didn't have a new nature, they would have the same nature as before, and then the combination would not. Nothing new would come about. This is when you're putting parts together. Yes, what's about the clock now? And the clock in one second in one second. Yes. Is the clock in one second the same clock that was there in the previous seconds? Yes, okay. Are the parts in the now the same parts that were there before. Yes, the part that was there before. Is it the same part that was there before it was assembled.
Longku FPMT: No, no! So now you've said you've done a very nice thing, which is
Longku FPMT: before assembly. All the parts had to be changing
Longku FPMT: when they are assembled. They are no longer changing. Yes, and when they will be unassembled they will change again. So you've done the world the normal understanding of impermanence, which is.
Longku FPMT: it comes together impermanent. It exists for a while
Longku FPMT: unchanging, then it disaggregates again. Change. Okay. Now, the question here was, if the parts individually have unchanging natures.
Longku FPMT: Yes.
Longku FPMT: Can they aggregate?
Longku FPMT: No.
Longku FPMT: Are they aggregated? Yes. Can they have unchanging natures now?
Longku FPMT: It's no, it's uncomfortable. No, yes, but it looks like they do. My whole point is, I completely agree with you. It looks like they does. No one says it doesn't. No one says it doesn't.
Longku FPMT: But if they had unchanging natures could they aggregate? That's the only question. But then I just help myself with the argument from the the past. Yes, and you. I don't know if I, this is past. This is past.
Longku FPMT: Think about it like this when you say it has a cause. What are you thinking
Longku FPMT: there is right now?
Longku FPMT: But it's existing right now was because something made it exist. So you've always thought of past right? Causality means it exists now because of something that made it exist. Isn't that what causality means? So when you're thinking about causality, you have to consider time.
Longku FPMT: I have to consider that. Yes, unassembled. Yes, I without this. No, okay, you can't.
Longku FPMT: But that's the whole point. That's when the Buddha said, if everything has parts.
Longku FPMT: the nature of having parts means that there was a moment when it wasn't there, it came together through part.
Longku FPMT: There's already a temporal element in having parts. Does that make sense? Yeah. So when you're considering that temporality of having parts. Our problem is, if it has parts, then when it's combined, it becomes strong and stable and unchanging.
Longku FPMT: and then external conditions break it but itself. It is stable and unchanging. What the Buddha saw was. If it has parts, its very nature is always unstable and changing, it looks like it's stable and unchanging. But what is the nature of the clock if the clock
Longku FPMT: are just parts that now now that's that's really good. But now that's
Longku FPMT: that's impermanence, suffering. You're getting into a little bit more madhyamaka. Selflessness, kind of thing. But can we stop there for just one second? But I want to share one thing with you. Do you see how impermanence, if you think about it deeply already, can lead you to have these kind of questions.
Longku FPMT: Do you know why the Buddha taught impermanent?
Longku FPMT: Because it's the 1st part, because it's it's not just the 1st part it leads to emptiness.
Longku FPMT: Causality leads to emptiness. If you think about it in detail.
Longku FPMT: This is how it does it. It's very efficient, I mean it. It's very, very efficient. This tool is very efficient.
Longku FPMT: So Dharmakitti says in Tibetan, he says, he says very clearly, because things are impermanent.
Longku FPMT: they have the nature of suffering, and because they have the nature of suffering. They are selfless.
Longku FPMT: but not in.
Longku FPMT: This is impermanence, this is suffering, this is emptiness. Once you get impermanence, it flows very naturally, your reasoning will transport you over there, I'll give you 2 examples. My teacher's teacher also.
Longku FPMT: Last, 2 years ago he was in Bosgar, and his Holiness had taught.
Longku FPMT: What did it teaches?
Longku FPMT: I think there's a text by Nagarjuna. Oh, yeah. In prayer of Bodhicitta, by Nagarjuna. Have you heard of this text? There's this text, a very short text in prayer of Bodhicitta by Nagarjuna, Arya, Nagarjuna. In that text Nagarjuna's entire analysis of emptiness is all impermanence. Basically, it's just a big analysis of impermanence.
Longku FPMT: And when my teacher was in both, Guy. He was thinking about impermanence, and he said.
Longku FPMT: I have a feeling just thinking about impermanence can just lead you to suddenly understand emptiness like it can happen. There's like a very strong connection, because these are the kind of doubts that you start having.
Longku FPMT: But it's so much more easy, or it's facilitated by breaking it down like this and wondering where you are, not understanding where you're stuck. What's happening? Right? So let's say you understood this, but this now has acted as a stimulus for you to go one step further. That's exactly how it's intended by the Buddha and all the teachers. Later. Yeah, impermanence and causality is supposed to lead to emptiness. Dependent origination is the support of emptiness. What does that mean?
Longku FPMT: This is what it means. No 3 aspects of the path. He says, when you see unfallible causality, and that itself leads you to understand emptiness, then you've understood the view. So these things are connected. We have a hard time connecting them. But if you go like this, it's so fast. Okay, one another one, the founder of our Institute.
Longku FPMT: We? I studied at the Institute of Dialect Buddhist dialectics in Naramshala.
Longku FPMT: the founder of our Institute, said. If you understand impermanence.
Longku FPMT: I don't. His opinion, he said. I don't think you can understand impermanence without understanding how things are imputed, he said. It's not possible to understand this. That's emptiness. Now you haven't even. I don't know. I don't even want to explain that to you. But I'm just telling you that the questions you're asking they lead in that direction. Yeah, does that make sense. Yeah, okay, good. Is that fine?
Longku FPMT: Is that funny?
Longku FPMT: Is that fine? No, you don't have to be fine. You have to tell me if it's not. I was only thinking when we talk about the different views of the schools. Yeah, on this.
Longku FPMT: This is what every school. No, this impermanence is everyone, everyone, you know.
Longku FPMT: I'm so glad all of you are suddenly finding this very surprising.
Longku FPMT: The idea of impermanence is so difficult to digest
Longku FPMT: that other schools in India before the Buddhist school came.
Longku FPMT: They believed in the permanence of things because they said, How can this be disintegrating every minute while I'm looking at it. It doesn't make any sense. If you're saying it's disintegrating in every minute, then how can you say there is something here?
Longku FPMT: So the idea of impermanence is and always has been, uncomfortable.
Longku FPMT: This is basic 1st Level entry into Buddha's teaching.
Longku FPMT: It's not. It's basic same to everyone. That's why I'm saying I have a feeling. This is my personal feeling is in the West. We have been exposed to a Dharma that we have
Longku FPMT: maybe not understood
Longku FPMT: completely, not in the West, even in Tibetan culture. Because if you're not exposed to how to understand these things, and you're just given the information you absorb it and interpret it in. However, you understand it, but it doesn't mean that you understand actually what is being said.
Longku FPMT: And so when you give these explanations, even to Tibetans, who have not learned this skill. They also get a little bit surprised. Indians. Everyone.
Longku FPMT: The entry into the teaching of the Buddha is nothing remains in the next moment it's the 1st seal.
Longku FPMT: It's the 1st there's 3 more.
Longku FPMT: Why is it possible that if even if there is a change.
Longku FPMT: something happens, and then there's no, it stops changing. Yes. A friend of mine asked me this question once, she said.
Longku FPMT: well, fine!
Longku FPMT: Until it comes to exist it changes. Then it stops changing to what
Longku FPMT: she said. It was a very valid point.
Longku FPMT: so your doubt is a very valid doubt.
Longku FPMT: Then the next question is, if it is like that. Then you're saying up until the cause the aggregation happens right until the aggregation happens.
Longku FPMT: All the parts are changing. Then they come together. They suddenly stop changing, and then later something makes them change again. It's the same thing that we said before. This is how you feel right good. Now, over here the Buddha said something very nice, he said. The reason why we have this doubt, or why we have this idea is because when they come together, you suddenly have the feeling that there is one
Longku FPMT: entity that comes to exist suddenly.
Longku FPMT: But you yourself said something before which was But there is no clock. There's only part. The reason why you have this doubt that it stops changing is because when they are combined suddenly it takes on a new nature that seems to be constant.
Longku FPMT: There's a clock that suddenly comes to exist, and it stays a clock until it breaks. Yes, that's what you feel right. Yeah. But then you take the same reasoning forward this hand
Longku FPMT: the minute hand. Yes, before you assembled it.
Longku FPMT: It was a minute hand. Yes, why are you comfortable? Saying that before you assembled it. And now it's changed. Then you should say, because the function changed. Yeah. But
Longku FPMT: but the function changed. Yeah. The function of the hand changed, the hand changed, and you're saying the function of the clock stays the same every time. But if I'm not talking about the clock and just the hands, yeah, the hands. The function changed. Yes, now, yes, and then 10 years stays. The same is the function still the same in this 10 years. So you think so
Longku FPMT: with this, it's very easy. Okay, it's it's it's it's moving. This one is obvious. So this is a really bad example. But it's
Longku FPMT: yeah, no. But it's an external factor. It's moving. It's no, it's a combination. It's the combination.
Longku FPMT: It's a combination that is being moved.
Longku FPMT: If so, remember how we said, you can use the parts external things now as a reason to support it.
Longku FPMT: If there are external parts that are acting on it.
Longku FPMT: is it changing its nature in every moment by doing a different function in each moment. The hand this is very obviously it's visible. So it's different. Yes.
Longku FPMT: so can it have an unchanging nature. Now, if it was an unchanging nature, would it do the same function in every instant? But you said we shouldn't take the external factors? No, don't take the external factors. Look at the hand itself. Is the hand performing the same function? Yes, in each moment. Yes, what function is it perform? It shows me the time.
Longku FPMT: Okay, it shows you the time before it was aggregated. What function was it performing? It was waiting for showing me the time. Great. So that's how it is. No. So right now, it's showing you the type.
Longku FPMT: the function of showing you the time. Is it the same function? This is showing you a different time in each moment.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, it's showing me different time. But it I'm talking about showing me the time, whatever time it is. But then now this is how that before it also had the same function that it had before there was a common function before it assembled.
Longku FPMT: Yes.
Longku FPMT: so if it has a common function that it had before, and it has now, is that enough for you to say that it doesn't change its nature.
Longku FPMT: I understand that it's changed. Nature. No, you've understood. It's changed nature because you're saying you've now identified a function that it does now that it didn't do before. Yes, but there was also a function it did before that. It does. Now. It's black in both cases. Yes, okay, it's long. In both cases.
Longku FPMT: You can use it to clean your ears, you can use it to clean your teeth. That function is common before. And now yes, is that enough to say it doesn't change nature.
Longku FPMT: No, because a new function came.
Longku FPMT: a new function came that was not there before. Yes, right now, is it showing it? Is it doing a different function. Got it? That's it. Just take it forward. Yeah. Every time you get stuck, identify your reasoning.
Longku FPMT: use that same reasoning and test your own premise. I've never thought of it like this before. I'm using your reasoning to check. Why are you thinking the way you think and how you're thinking is common to all of us. A car, the wheels of a car. They perform the same function before you put them in a car, and after you put them in a car, they can roll in both cases. Why do you say that they perform a new function when they're in an aggregation?
Longku FPMT: Because now they're taking a car forward. But before they were also rolling now they're also rolling. There's a new function. Yes, now, in each moment they're taking the car from one place to another, which it wasn't doing before. So in each moment, also, there's a new function. But there's also something that seems like a continuation. So the function in nature, yes.
Longku FPMT: causes this. Having causes means functional.
Longku FPMT: What does scores mean doing something?
Longku FPMT: The meaning, of course, is doing something.
Longku FPMT: Yes, if it is doing something. Can it be static?
Longku FPMT: That's the problem. That's what it's saying. That's what the Buddha is saying. How can you say there is something that is doing something, and it is static.
Longku FPMT: It is unchanging. These 2 things don't work. But in the beginning the initial statement sounds very obvious. You're like, Yes, yes, but then you do what you just did, and you get into a whole loop of different problems.
Longku FPMT: And your doubts are excellent.
Longku FPMT: They really are this, if you read the text, what I find nice.
Longku FPMT: I find this fascinating. When I read text I'm like, Oh, this is my doubt. Oh, this is also my doubt. Oh, this is also my doubt. Oh, I also thought like this! Oh, I also thought like this! And suddenly you realize that all these doubts that you have are essential doubts that creep up because we all don't believe this.
Longku FPMT: None of us believe that things are imperominent. But but do they function and exist without me.
Longku FPMT: or only because I know this will exist even without you, like, I'm seeing it now.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, okay, you know, that's if a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it. Does it actually fall? You've heard this one? Yeah, but I didn't. I didn't. I didn't mean that. For example, if there's a wall.
Longku FPMT: yeah, what is the function of the wall? Now you think the function of a wall is to hold up the ceiling, and why does it change? Why does it change? Now you think about it? It doesn't change for me. Only if 100, when a person comes, what? When you look at it, it suddenly performs a different function. Yeah, I think about I could use the wall for that in that, too. So but you're thinking about. It doesn't mean anything when you're not thinking about it. Is it performing a function
Longku FPMT: just holding something? Or is that function changing in each moment? No, no, it's not. But before the stones came together, were they performing that function? No. So the stones performed a new function when they came together? Yes, can the nature of the stones be something that keeps the same nature all the time.
Longku FPMT: That's the point. I. That's the point. So you need to work on that it's great.
Longku FPMT: Can you see, I'm glad you're doing this. This is a living example of the fact that this is how it has you have to figure it out. You just have to figure it out. Think of many different examples. Think of easy examples. The examples that the Buddha thought of are very beautiful. He gave examples for all of these things. He said, like a bubble
Longku FPMT: you know when you have a bubble
Longku FPMT: things that are very obviously changing but they last for a while.
Longku FPMT: What's that very famous verse that we recite?
Longku FPMT: So it's like a star.
Longku FPMT: a vision, blurry vision like a lamp, a flame, a flame, an illusion, dew and
Longku FPMT: lightning, a dew. Then the Buddha said, See all impermanent things like this? Yeah. But why? Now the reason is this, because all. Why does? Why does why do all of these things just last for a while? When you have a dewdrop.
Longku FPMT: you have a dewdrop. The idea of a dewdrop is. It's very short. No like. It's only in the morning, by like mid off late morning. It's gone. Yes, but when it's there, is it changing.
Longku FPMT: Yes.
Longku FPMT: Why? Because it's like vanishing, vanishing, but doesn't look like it. The dewdrop looks just as real as this.
Longku FPMT: doesn't it? Yes. Now, why are you saying, it's vanishing because the dewdrop was not really a drop. It was all of this moisture that at a certain temperature was at the same place, and then it all collected for a while.
Longku FPMT: So all those little little droplets! They were just holding each other for a while, and because they were holding each other for a while is why that nature is not stable. If the temperature stayed the same and the humidity stayed the same, the dewdrop could last even 10 years.
Longku FPMT: Right? So we're using the understanding of a dew drop, which is very short
Longku FPMT: and we feel it's impermanent, because you know that it's going to go away. But if it was a good temperature, like, you know, those jars, and these are all external factors. No, it's not. The internal factor is all the little drops came together. The dewdrop is made of many, many tiny, tiny drops. That's the nature of a dewdrop. It's made by moisture.
Longku FPMT: So a drop is made of many parts of water that have to
Longku FPMT: act on each other to create what looks like one drop.
Longku FPMT: Actually, it's many, many small things that transform.
Longku FPMT: they take on a different nature.
Longku FPMT: That's what the reason is, yeah, yeah, does that make sense? So whatever has many small things that have to transform their nature to come together. That can't be static. There's another example. Medicine.
Longku FPMT: you know, when you combine different medicines individually.
Longku FPMT: each one of those medicines might not work. Does that make sense? Yes, when you're combining them
Longku FPMT: all the different medicine takes on a different nature.
Longku FPMT: because if it kept the same nature, then the medicine wouldn't work even in a combination.
Longku FPMT: Correct? This is example in the text. So have you ever had to prevent medicine?
Longku FPMT: It's horrible. It's these little you had them. Yeah, they're like these little round, hard balls of different herbs that are put together. But even modern medicine, you have combinations of drugs. Right? So when you combine 2 drugs individually, both of the drugs, they don't do anything in combination. Something new happens, right?
Longku FPMT: Something new has to happen. Can the nature of those 2 drugs be unchanging? If, when it's combined, a new nature comes.
Longku FPMT: can it be unchanging? No.
Longku FPMT: But then, you say, while it is that drug, they cannot be unchanging in that moment, but maybe in the second moment. So now think about it. Just take it forward. So the nature of those drugs you're saying is unchanging, unchanging, unchanging combination happens suddenly change happens, and then again, unchanging, unchanging, right? Because at each step you have a notion that there is one real thing.
Longku FPMT: and then the parts make that one real thing. So when you think on the parts suddenly, it's very easy for you to do it. When you think on the one thing, suddenly your mind stops. Then you think of parts again. Your mind understands it. You think of one again your mind stops.
Longku FPMT: That's what's happening. But you yourself answered this by saying, there is no one thing you say. It's 1 thing. Actually, this is my only explanation. I have keep trying.
Longku FPMT: We are working on it right? That's exactly what it is. So the next thing that the Buddha said was, There is no one thing he always said that. No.
Longku FPMT: you use verbal conventions to designate one thing.
Longku FPMT: but if things are a collection, and they come together through a collection of part.
Longku FPMT: the one thing that you feel might just be an interplay of many parts that are acting on each other, that gives the appearance of one thing.
Longku FPMT: It's exactly that even the individual drugs, they are also made up of other parts that come together to make something, and those are also made up of things that give it that quality. So I think scientifically, we call these co-emergent properties. Have you heard of this? I think they say physic in physics, when things combine.
Longku FPMT: they take on new features. Those are properties that emerge not from outside, but from inside, from the combination of things.
Longku FPMT: These properties are always there. Whatever new combination happens, there's always a new property that emerges. These are all new functions.
Longku FPMT: So if something has causes, it has to change, because there's always a new function that arises.
Longku FPMT: If there's a new function that arises, the thing cannot remain, it has to have a nature that allows for this function to arise. A static phenomenon cannot take on new qualities. It's not possible. That's the reasoning, and where your mind stops, not yours. Everyone's mind stops is when you suddenly forget the
Longku FPMT: parts, and suddenly you fix it on a whole. And you say, Oh, there's 1 common thing now, that's last thing. And then suddenly you break it. And suddenly you understand the permanence of it again.
Longku FPMT: Right? That's exactly how it works. So you see how there's this innate belief in unchanging things. And it's coming from many reasons. Another reason is because you have this notion that there's 1 thing that remains
Longku FPMT: right. All of these things the Buddhas felt, saw and said, This doesn't work. It's not working like that. The 1st one was impermanent. Does that make sense? Okay, now, keep thinking about it. But you see where you need to work.
Longku FPMT: If you need more clarity. This is where you need the clarity between these 2. Right? It's efficient. Isn't it? Quite efficient? Okay, good.
Longku FPMT: What do we have to do?
Longku FPMT: Attend the TV, stop?
Longku FPMT: 1015. What time is it? 1015, 13, I think, yeah, yeah, 40 miles.
Longku FPMT: Is that? Okay, yeah, okay, then.
Longku FPMT: So let's, of course we can't
Longku FPMT: keep doing impermanence, because then one you won't be very happy because we've not done much, and 2
Longku FPMT: I don't think I can actually prove it to you. I think you'll figure it out yourself. Yeah, it takes time. Of course you need to stay with it right? But after this I just want to share with you the very elegant structure in which the Buddha taught the 4th the 1st truth
Longku FPMT: through reasoning. Okay, so this is the 1st one. Okay, the 1st one with the permanent is that okay? So if things come to exist.
Longku FPMT: if things have causes, then nature cannot be static.
Longku FPMT: That's the 1st one, right? It has to have a nature that is in change, even though it's not perceptible.
Longku FPMT: That's fine.
Longku FPMT: Okay, yeah. One very short question I have. They say, when you have, like a single point concentration, you can't see that
Longku FPMT: I'm not sure that it's just a byproduct of single pointed concentration, because single pointed concentration many people can develop.
Longku FPMT: I actually have a teacher who says something very beautiful. I really like what
Longku FPMT: which he says he says if single pointed concentration was enough, then all the snipers in the world
Longku FPMT: would be very close to attaining insight.
Longku FPMT: because it's true. They have incredible focus. It might not be single point of concentration, but they're much closer than most other people.
Longku FPMT: So single points of concentration without having cultivated the view
Longku FPMT: is essentially apparently just a feature of the mind that can stay absorbed in one thing, it doesn't by itself, it doesn't leave to insight, and this is very easily explainable, because
Longku FPMT: all the other traditions in India have all cultivated single point of concentration
Longku FPMT: in the Buddhist explanation of how you take birth in other realms. You need single pointed concentration to go to the higher realms.
Longku FPMT: but if single point of concentration was enough to understand impermanence, then all of them would have understood impermanence.
Longku FPMT: So by itself it's not.
Longku FPMT: It becomes a great base to understand impervience, but left as an isolated cultivation.
Longku FPMT: It's not generating insight. So if you have, this is not that you can suddenly see much more clear things. You will see what you have focused on very clearly, but the nature of things will not suddenly start to reveal itself to you.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, that's why Lama Tonkappa in his.
Longku FPMT: There's this one text that he's written. I think I saw you have Lama Shankarba's biography there.
Longku FPMT: In that there's 1 text, there's a whole chapter on that where Lamasonghapha has this thing called
Longku FPMT: Tutan Jinpala has translated. He's translated in in English. It's like 18 queries from a sincere heart or something is the name of the text. And in that Lamatsonghafa's
Longku FPMT: concerned about the status of Tibetan Buddhist practice, because he feels that in the name of cultivating insight
Longku FPMT: many meditators are just cultivating single point to concentration.
Longku FPMT: and he says, if that is true, then what is the purpose of all of the texts? By Nagarjuna, by Arya, Nagarjuna, by Arya, Sangha, by Acharya Chandra? What is the point. And so, even in the does say this.
Longku FPMT: it becomes a perfection when you're using it, or it's combined with wisdom. But in and of itself it's not sufficient. That's why, when we hear that mindfulness is becoming very popular in the West, we're like, is that enough?
Longku FPMT: You know, because mindfulness is great while you're in it.
Longku FPMT: But then afterwards
Longku FPMT: you can stay calm for a while. But does it make you change your view of the world? Not necessarily
Longku FPMT: so. Yeah, traditionally, mindfulness and single point of concentration itself is not enough.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, yeah, no. You just need to do this.
Longku FPMT: No, you don't need to be omniscient. You can. You can get it directly before also.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, you can have insight into things directly without being on this.
Longku FPMT: Oh, there's so much like, yeah.
Longku FPMT: even told on the path on the guy's path. Yeah, on the path of seeing you see all of that much before you have to
Longku FPMT: to go single pointed on emptiness. Only then you can you arrive the path of preparation. Preparation? Exactly.
Longku FPMT: Yeah. But seeing you don't have to be omniscient, seeing is nowhere close to omniscient.
Longku FPMT: omniscient is like a very big deal.
Longku FPMT: It's much, much more.
Longku FPMT: It's so much more. Yeah, okay, yeah.
Longku FPMT: Yeah. Many, many things have to come. But I think when you understand the the impertinence, you know, you can see also why you you understand the suffering. Yeah, that's what I just said that. Yeah, you know. Because.
Longku FPMT: gosh! Now, everybody is in the same boat that's coming. Now, that's exactly the next one.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, does that make sense so far? Okay, then, after this, the Buddha, said the Buddha saw, if this is the case now you do mind now you do mind now you do the same thing with the mind right
Longku FPMT: if you see that the to the next question the 1st thing that I think said was, does the mind act
Longku FPMT: by itself?
Longku FPMT: If you let your mind, do what it does already without doing much to it. You leave it as it is, status quo. Do you find that it is a place where
Longku FPMT: the kind of things that come out of it, or the way it makes you be, or the way it makes you experience things are
Longku FPMT: detrimental for you, or are they good for you like they are detrimental, right?
Longku FPMT: Everyone does. Everyone feels like that. If what Felix says is true, then even more over here than in other parts of the world, right?
Longku FPMT: The mind, left to itself right now, doesn't do anything good.
Longku FPMT: It does all sorts of things that you don't want. It gets angry, it gets irritated, it gets jealous, it gets proud, it gets stressed out, it gets anxious, it gets depressed.
Longku FPMT: Sometimes it does nice things, but as a base
Longku FPMT: as a thing. Is it something that is currently
Longku FPMT: helpful for us, or is it holding us back? That's the next question, right?
Longku FPMT: And if it's holding us back tier.
Longku FPMT: and the mind is holding us back. Can it have a nature of being blissful, good, happy.
Longku FPMT: pleasurable? It can't. How can something that is constantly creating problems have a great nature. It can't. It's not possible. Right?
Longku FPMT: So that's why the mind is the nature of suffering, not because you're always experiencing suffering because it's that thing or that ground from where all the problems arise, in what simple nature that will come later. These are all doubts. Just go with it. For now just go with this, for now take it for now. Okay.
Longku FPMT: right now, as it is, is it in a great state.
Longku FPMT: No right right now as it is, is the nature of the mind something that you need to just let it be, and things will fix itself, or does it? Is it in a kind of precarious situation?
Longku FPMT: That's the second one. The nature of things. The second seal, the second seal, is that all contaminated things are the nature of suffering right now we're just noticing that it has a nature that's not great. It's not.
Longku FPMT: I don't know if yours is mine isn't.
Longku FPMT: I think most people do that right left to its own resources. It does all sorts of things that are not good for you.
Longku FPMT: unfortunately, and the same thing with the body. Even the body is not great.
Longku FPMT: it gets old, it gets sick. You need constant care. You need to constantly take care of it all the time. So how can something have a pure, good.
Longku FPMT: blissful nature, if everything that come not everything. But if things that come out of it are so predominantly
Longku FPMT: not favorable or not assisting your well-being.
Longku FPMT: That's nature of suffering right? But now you add the 1st impermanence thing to it
Longku FPMT: is the mind. Can the mind have a nature that is
Longku FPMT: static? If it's constantly doing different things.
Longku FPMT: it can't have a static nature. If it's not got a static nature.
Longku FPMT: then is it randomly doing these things, or is it doing it because of causes?
Longku FPMT: It feels random? No, it feels random, no good. That's the next one.
Longku FPMT: That's exactly the next one. If it's random.
Longku FPMT: if it's random. If the mind is doing these things randomly.
Longku FPMT: then why does it do it sometimes?
Longku FPMT: Do you understand? Random means because it's random, right? But the Buddhist reasoning here is the opposite. They say something very interesting. They say.
Longku FPMT: if it's occasional, it can't be random. Random means it doesn't. Okay again. So let's clarify the meaning. What do you mean by random? We mean random here means it doesn't depend on anything.
Longku FPMT: No random like it's it's coming in a way. Sometimes it's both okay. Good. So now, at least at least we clarified that see. Otherwise we could have gone on discussing this for like 1 h, and we wouldn't have
Longku FPMT: random here when we translate random in the Buddhist text. Random means
Longku FPMT: independent of anything, and in English. Sometimes we also say it's very random, random. When you say random, it's like nothing led it to do that. It just does it on its own of its own accord. Kind of thing here. The fact that you're using random is that it does it sometimes, not all the time. Right. Doing it sometimes means, does it mean that it's doing this by itself, or it's doing it because something is making it do it in that moment.
Longku FPMT: That's what we're asking for
Longku FPMT: something that's doing something must be impelling it or propelling it to do that right. Now. The next question is, if the results are not good for you.
Longku FPMT: and something is making it do that.
Longku FPMT: And that thing, therefore, is a cause. Can the causes that make it do that be good causes or causes that are favorable to you.
Longku FPMT: They can't right. How can causes that are excellent.
Longku FPMT: act on a mind which is excellent, and produce effects that are totally not
Longku FPMT: to your advantage. It doesn't make any sense right. So if the results of the reason is, the nature of the mind is
Longku FPMT: suffering, so your subject is mind.
Longku FPMT: The mind is the nature of suffering. Let's not say nature of mind, because then it'll be confusing. The mind has the nature of suffering
Longku FPMT: because it does things that are harmful to you. That's the reason. If it's harmful to you, can it have a
Longku FPMT: blissful nature?
Longku FPMT: Okay.
Longku FPMT: it's weird, right? It's like saying, my body is very healthy, but it's got. It's completely full of tumors and all sorts like if my body is harmful and I'm getting symptoms that are harmful to me. Can I have a perfectly healthy body? It's unlikely right, if the food that I eat makes me sick. Can the food be
Longku FPMT: pure and very nutritious. It can't right? So based on the effect. You can kind of see the nature of the course
Longku FPMT: now.
Longku FPMT: So that's the mind has a nature of suffering because it is the source of all our problems.
Longku FPMT: Right? Okay, then, the mind is the nature of suffering. You take it even one step deeper because the problems are arising from
Longku FPMT: polluted causes, contaminated causes. What we use as contaminated, that's all. Contaminated means contaminated means the causes that are acting on the mind are not to our advantage. That's what contaminated means. Okay, does that make sense? That's it. So now, when you look at the mind? And when the Buddha looked at his mind and he saw it. Probably I'm assuming he saw that all the problems are coming out of here.
Longku FPMT: He saw that if all the or experience all the problems coming out of here. And he also realized that the mind is in constant change because impermanence he understood right, then understood understanding impermanence. He saw that the kind of change that the mind goes is always
Longku FPMT: to some degree it's unfavorable or it's problematic.
Longku FPMT: But he understood that impermanence doesn't happen without causes. Impermanence needs causes, causes mean impermanence. So immediately the Buddhas thought, well, if the mind is changing constantly, and the kind of change is always this harmful change.
Longku FPMT: What would be the causes that make it act like this?
Longku FPMT: Very naturally, he went on, that. And so the 1st step is, the causes are not helpful that's contaminated. Now we get into later detail. That is, Karma.
Longku FPMT: The kind of causes that we have that are making the mind act in ways that is not helpful.
Longku FPMT: The other word is the traditional word is karma.
Longku FPMT: It's that habit of harmful causes that is acting on your mind which then makes the mind have unhelpful experiences or unpleasant experiences.
Longku FPMT: Then we give it all these beautiful, colorful names, like the 5 poisons, the 3 poisons. Yes, but in a very kind of matter of factly way, that's all it is. It's just some sort of causes that are acting on the mind, and that are making it react in ways that are not helpful for us.
Longku FPMT: Then that's the experience of the truth of suffering
Longku FPMT: which is in every moment, of every day of every year that I have ever lived, and that I will carry on living like this. My mind is completely under the power of
Longku FPMT: some sort of causes that are going to make my mind and my body give me unwanted, unhappy results
Longku FPMT: all the time
Longku FPMT: when I am in a great mood, when I'm in a great place, when everything is going well, and I feel excellent same thing
Longku FPMT: beautiful.
Longku FPMT: And then they have all these very graphic examples.
Longku FPMT: Right? Have you heard of these examples like a boil? You know, when you have a boil.
Longku FPMT: if you put cool water on a boil, it feels nice
Longku FPMT: if you put hot water on a boil, it burns. If you don't do anything to it, you don't feel it, but it's always there. That boil is still a base for all your problems to come right. So the mind and the body in the compares it to a boil.
Longku FPMT: because it's that base where, if you don't do anything about it, and you let it be something or the other is always going to come out of it. That's not going to work out for you
Longku FPMT: because it's impermanent, and you are experiencing that it's not working for you. It's working against you right now.
Longku FPMT: right? That's the second one. So when you understand it and you experience it. Apparently it's a little like
Longku FPMT: it's not great.
Longku FPMT: Apparently. You realize that
Longku FPMT: this is not okay, like this is definitely not okay, but you understand it with impermanence and causes. And the impact is more because otherwise you say it's the nature of suffering. And then, if you're having a great day, then it's not the nature of suffering, and tomorrow morning you'll remember it's the nature of suffering right now. What's helping you? Remember the nature of suffering is because it has causes
Longku FPMT: and the fact that it has causes, you're remembering because it's acting in different ways, and the fact that it's reacting. And you have emotional states, you know, all the time. So you're
Longku FPMT: ability to understand the impermanence and the nature of suffering is
Longku FPMT: being shown to you by right now. You don't have to wait for some other moment or something to go wrong, to know that it is the nature of suffering. You can know it now, right now, and if you get familiar with it, then you can know it all the times. Right? That's what it's saying. Is that okay, yeah, this is not the nice part. The nice part is the last one
Longku FPMT: which we'll do after. Yeah. But you see how the reason is. So the reason is the same. 1st you took your mind. It is impermanent because it has causes now causes. You have to think about it right. Whatever way you want to think about it, all of us. We have that now. Second one. The mind has a nature of suffering because it doesn't act in ways that I like one. The mind is the nature of suffering because it has
Longku FPMT: unhelp. It has, can we say, like polluted causes? Let's just call it polluted causes, contaminated causes. If it has contaminated causes the nature of suffering, if it is not the nature of suffering, it can't have uncontaminated causes. Now, nature of suffering does it mean that you have to be suffering all the time?
Longku FPMT: Suffering? Now, now again, what do we mean by the word suffering?
Longku FPMT: See, this is where English is very tricky, because when we use the word suffering it feels like it has to be manifest pain. You have to feel pain right. That's the English word suffering here. That's not what is being said.
Longku FPMT: even in a happy moment. It's still the nature of suffering, or it has a nature of suffering, because the causes have still made it.
Longku FPMT: The way it's combined can in any moment work against you. So even while it's happy while it's calm while it's relaxed. How it has been combined is by
Longku FPMT: contaminated causes or by polluted causes. Does that make sense? That also? So, you know, like a really good example, is, you know, if you have like, I'm really scared of flying. I have literally flight trauma, because I've had a bad experience right now. My mind is fine. I'm not sitting in a plane. I came yesterday. The plane was done. I don't have to worry about it anymore, right? Didn't.
Longku FPMT: But the second I'm going to have to think about it. It's this mind that is suddenly going to bring up that fear.
Longku FPMT: So even though right now my mind is calm.
Longku FPMT: Can I say that it is not under the influence of those causes of my fear of flying? It is
Longku FPMT: even if it's not manifesting. Now it's there, because my mind
Longku FPMT: is combined in a way, my character and my personality has been combined, aggregated by that cause as well. That's part of me. I can't get out of it. So our mind is an aggregation of anger, aversion, hatred, jealousy, pride.
Longku FPMT: ignorance, and a whole host of unpleasant things. This doesn't mean that sometimes you can't feel love, kindness, empathy, be relaxed and be blissed out. But in that moment, all of these causes having combined the mind, don't take it away. So in all moments, it's a combination of these things. That's why it's the nature of suffering.
Longku FPMT: Yeah. So the reason is that, yeah, if it has causes that are polluted. It can't have a pure nature.
Longku FPMT: Yeah.
Longku FPMT: if the nature is pure, it can't have causes that are polluted. These 2 things can't go hand in hand. Does that make sense what is pure, pure means? It's going to make you happy. We're talking about purity here just means something that's going to make your life nice, pleasant.
Longku FPMT: That's what pure means, you know, when we say pure, right? Or let's not say pure, pleasurable. Can we say pleasurable? Maybe that's better.
Longku FPMT: Yeah, yeah. So the nature of the mind is not pleasurable.
Longku FPMT: It can give you pleasure. But that doesn't make it its nature.
Longku FPMT: Does that make sense. Yeah, yeah.
Longku FPMT: But your depends how you interpret. It's also depending on the context, because pure for me, in the context of dharma means it's not non-polluted. It's non obscured. Okay, but the mind is obscure. So that's why. But the word pure also is a little bit tricky. Because, like, he said, then you can have questions like Buddha, nature and the nature of the mind. So that
Longku FPMT: leave that, and if you use the word pure, it can lead to confusion so just pleasurable because we want to be happy. The idea is, we do want to be happy right? In that sense. Okay, should we stop with that feeling? Yes, yeah.