Someone said to me yesterday that something like, whenever he thinks of the Pentagon rising, he's young for joy. Because he knows if he can understand it, the life will be perfect. Something like that. Anyway, that's true. And I thought that today I'd like to see if we can actually walk quite a ways into this chapter. I thought I might be able to perhaps kind of finish it in the next two meetings. So the first karaka, actually the first few we've been discussing, but I'll read them. And at no time can entities ever exist by originating out of themselves, from others, or from both, or from the lack of causes.

[01:15]

So there's no essential, something doesn't arise out of the causal power of itself, of something other, of both, and also a lack of causes also doesn't have causal power. At least basically here he is saying that causation is empty. The process of causation is empty. And to say that the parts of causation is empty is another way to say that things dependently coerize. Dependently coerizing is the name of empty causation. And dependent coerizing is a rejection of causation in the sense of a causal power, an inherent causal power creating an inherently existing thing.

[02:28]

And something that has an essence transmits that power into creating something else that has an essence. That kind of causation is rejected. and the emptiness of that story, the insubstantiality of that story is proposed. And that story, which I just told, taking away the essence of it, is dependent co-arising. In other words, if you would describe some causal process where you have like this thing, and then that thing, and that story is then emptied of essences, then that's dependent co-arising. If you have essences causing things that have essences, if you have things with essence causing things with essence, then that's causation in the sense that it's rejected by Nargardein. And that's not dependent colorizing. That's like that there really are some things out there in the whole universe.

[03:29]

Among all the things out there, there are some things which for some reason have the power to create other things rather than everything together. it's okay to look out there and say, oh, I see those things causing me things. It's okay to do that, to see these associations and regularities. That's all right. Because we do that, and it's fine to do that. But you can also see that that's just in some way an arbitrary parceling up of the universe. And some other beings looking from some other angle could see it another way, and from other angles in another way. It's really not true that, you know, the world works that way. But if you can see things working that way, that's fine. You can describe them that way, that's fine. If it happens on a regular basis, fine. But the essence is, you know, what Nagarjuna rejects.

[04:31]

That's all summed up there in the first character. The second one, it says that there are four conditions, which, let's see, he calls primary precausal, Ketu Pratyaya, appropriating or objectively extending alambana pratyaya, sequentially or contiguous samanantara pratyaya, and dominantly extending adipati pratyaya. These are the four, if no fifth. Again, these are four classes of causation. So he's suggesting, and Buddhists before him looked over the field of possible conditions or causes, whether you attribute essences to them or not, and all the different varieties can be plastered into these four.

[05:35]

If you want to study more about these, the root text that's available is Abhidham Akosha, chapter 2, starting, I think, in Karaka, 62. I'd like to call on Tom at this point. Okay, let's see if I can do it. Again, this is not, you know, a fixed way to do it, but, so, You might do it this way. You might say that the acorn is part of the... The first one, the first condition is called Hetu Pratyaya.

[06:50]

And under Hetu Pratyaya comes... a set of causes. And a set of causes, one of them is , which is similarly caused . Another one is , which means coexisting cause. Another one is . Anyway, under that heading, you could put You said acorn, but I think you mean oak tree, right? Sure. So we have oak tree. So among conditions for oak trees are something similar to it. Other oak trees are part of the cause for oak trees. The acorn is, is acorn similar to the oak tree? I would think that the acorn would be the final quality.

[07:54]

the acorn under primary cause will come with a whole bunch of causes, okay? There's four classes of causes under actually, excuse me, I think there's five classes of causes under primary cause. And so the acorn could be one of those. And another one Now there are other things you can put under there, water, warmth, earth, things like that. Another thing that causes oak trees is previous oak trees that are like it. That's part of the causation of oak trees, under this heading. That there were oak trees before oak trees. And that has something to do with our... When I observe oak trees, the birth of oak trees, in my sort of story of the universe, I see that oak trees lead to oak trees.

[09:04]

That's one of the causes of oak trees. That's part of it. Another part of it is I wouldn't be able to recognize an oak tree as an oak tree for what it is for me. I wouldn't know an oak tree from a pine tree unless there were other oak trees to say it was like that. So that's part of my causal story that I might tell. That's a different condition, though. That's a different one. That's the one more like the... is that I have an object out there. And for us to see the oak tree and experience the oak tree, it has to be an object for us. So that's switching back. I'm still not clear now how other oak trees are related. It's a . I mean, I understand how... What I'm trying to say is that this is... You could tell a different story, but I'm just telling a story about... And then I'm going to try to... He asked a question, right?

[10:14]

He wants to know what kind of causes would it be? So I'm just telling a story, and I would say, according to the story I'm telling, you can tell a different one, but according to the story I'm telling, that's how I would parcel up these different causes. Maybe it's better for you to tell me the story of how you see ocrens occurring, and then I'll tell you what conditions those are. That's another way to do it, rather than me telling the story, because my story might not be your story. I'm just saying, whatever story you tell about the appearance or the arising of an oak tree, and if you tell me the things that you think go with that, I'll tell you which, I'll try to put the parts of the story you tell me into different categories and conditions, that's all. Now, maybe it's better for you to tell the story than me, so that we don't have any argument about the story.

[11:16]

Okay? So if anybody want to tell a story, and I'll tell you what conditions those are. You said the primary puddle comprised of a set of puddles, and then you started to go similar to those are under the primary puddle. And so you're talking about the story of how the oak tree comes to do. And the story is still just addressing the first condition . Correct. But when Jeremy brought up about something about my vision or my recognizing the oak tree, that brought up another condition. And another thing that has to be for oak tree to happen is that what was before the oak tree, which is not the oak tree, had to stop being. That's the immediate end of C. Whatever there is that has the seeds for an oak tree to happen, that thing or that class of things has to happen too.

[12:29]

So like if you have, like baby oak tree has to stop before a big oak tree can happen, right? Part is sequential, yeah. Sequential is... We're out of the primary. We're out of the primary. The, the, what the one is called sequential or contiguous, okay? Whenever anything happens, then one of the conditions for it is that something else has to cease before it can happen. Because if something else is going on, that thing can't happen. Right? For example, the sprout has to go away before the sapling can happen. The sapling has to go away before the maturity happens. This is just the way we tell. If you tell a story like that, like you tell a story, well, first there was an acorn, then there was a sap, then there was a sprout, then there was a sapling, and now we have an oak tree.

[13:32]

In that story, you have these conditions lead to this. And I would say, that's that condition. That's sequential, contiguous, immediate succession kind of thing. That happened. We sometimes tell those stories. That speaks of that. The other thing that happens is that the fact that we, for us to have an experience of something, it has to be something you can apprehend as an object for us to know about it. So that's the alumna pratyaya. Then the atipati pratyaya is that among the myriad things that could interfere with something happening, none of them interfere. So everything else besides the story you tell, the rest of the universe is in cooperation with this. All the stories you didn't tell, all the causes and conditions that you didn't choose to bring in to account for this, they all let it happen. That's the dominant thing. That's most of what's going on, is that the thing's just being allowed.

[14:34]

And then we tell this little tiny story in the middle of the whole universe about what is happening. So that condition is nice because it shows that we have this rather trivial, arbitrary little story in the middle of everything that's going on about how things happen. But that's our little explanatory trip that we're on, our causal discussion, which we like to do. It's useful to us. And then the details... of acorns, water, heat, you know, blah, blah, blah, all that comes under the heading of these causes. And in each one of these cases, you could attribute, in essence, But Nagarjuna is saying, no, this is all just explanatory usefulness. That's all it is. And this is just simply the, this just simply refers to, this way of looking at it, without attributing any substance to it, just as condition, this way of looking at it is simply to say that it's not to say that the universe is coherent.

[15:40]

It's not saying the universe is coherent. It's not saying the universe is ordered or reasonable. It's just to say that the coherent part of it that we can tell stories about, that's the canonical rising. That's not true, though. It's really empty. Because the universe isn't coherent, and that's part of the reason why we tell these stories, is to help ourselves out. But the story we tell, if we tell the story and we know that the story is empty, then it's dependent co-arising. If we tell the story and think this really is what's happening, then it's causation in the sense that Nagarjuna rejects. Okay? Question? I'm not clear that it really covered all of it. And also I'm confused because Nagarjuna is saying there are four and only four relationships.

[16:42]

And you're saying it's the fact that it's the four or five. And out of an acorn, you're saying that the acorn, the bird, All right, so everything except for the dominant extending. The appropriate or objective extending you didn't cover. Anyway, these are classes. These are four classes. So you don't have to have all four classes. You have to have all four classes. One of the most wonderful examples in some ways is a rainbow.

[17:43]

Actually, everything's like that, but pretty clear. That rainbow, there's no such thing as a rainbow unless somebody sees it. Okay, does everybody follow that? There's no rainbows that you don't see because, you know, you're looking this way and you don't see a rainbow, right? So there's not a rainbow. You look at a rainbow sideways, you don't see it. Sideways means perpendicular to somebody else, and the other way, I'll find it. When you come around and see it, suddenly the fact that you see it makes the rainbow. That's a lumbana pratyaya. Without a lumbana pratyaya, without the condition of it being an object, there's no such thing as a rainbow. It's the same for oak trees and pain and everything else. Without them being objects, they're not events for us in the evening. What? Without using Sanskrit? What are you saying? It's reappropriating. Object, percept.

[18:47]

Objectively extending. Objectively extending. Yeah. Objectively extending. That's it. That's one of them. OK. When it's been appropriating is when you bring something in itself. And objective you're telling is when instead of it coming to you, it affects you. You're allowing it back to you and you have it. How does that work for the problem? Unless the rainbow is an object for you, it's going to be bad for you. You extend yourself into the object. You see an object. You grasp an object. Therefore, you can have a spring conscious of what you call a rainbow, which is there if you move a few feet over that way, because you can't apprehend that object anymore. So what happened with a rainbow? Well, you drown again. So both of them have to be at the same time then?

[19:56]

Good point. the appropriating and objective here. So when you pan... No, that's just... Do you keep her name for the same thing? You just can't decide how to translate it. All right, okay. Another translation... It's alumbana. Alumbana means grabbing the object. The condition of grabbing the object, another translation. You have to wrap the object in order to have an experience. Feelings, emotions. The others, colors, whatever, case, all that there is in the experience they have to do with. They have to be that thing, otherwise it won't happen. Another thing that has to happen is that everything has to allow it. Even the things you don't notice, everything has to allow it. That has to always happen. That's another condition. Another condition is this one of what happened before has to cease. That's another one always has to be there. Those three have to always be there. Now under the K2 criteria, or the condition of causes,

[21:00]

There you find maybe the more unique, special cases that is particular enough. Things that are similar to it have to be there. Otherwise, it can't be reckoned known. And also, the way we understand the story is something similar to something similar. That's part of this. That isn't always there, but that's part of it. Another thing is the cause that is causing to coexist to it. So there's different causes that come with that. However, got it? So like for turning the lights on, there's the seeing the light, all the things that allow it. And then there's like paying electric bill, things like that. Those things are various kinds of things. And then I put together on the one.

[22:01]

The fact that darkness stopped, let it go. Then there's the working of electricity. It's a functionary. Maybe it can change up our illumination. There's leptomagnetic radiation, all that stuff. It's also what calls the body a bit. The similar stuff moves around, so it can happen. They have other like the other before, and so something similar happens. All that's necessary for us to make this story. There's to have a story of how this, a sense of how this thing can happen. There's probably possible stories. That's why this is tempting, the whole thing. I mean, we talked about might have a good take.

[23:02]

Are there other scenarios that are available, or is it always . It seems like to me it's always one . There's that one, too. That's called . That's called . That's one of these kind of causes that go into the first category. So that would be under sequential, right? Like, for example, that's not under sequential, no. So in a moment of consciousness, various factors co-exist. So in order to account for the experience of having, you can't account for it like the experience of anger, right? There's also concentration there. There's also consciousness there. There's also directing your mind towards the object that you're angry about. There's confusion also, and so on and so forth. There are various elements that you have to have coexisting with that in order to count the unique quality of that conscious experience.

[24:05]

So when you see a rainbow, there's also, you know, there's some different scenes of the rainbow. You have different feelings. So there's the coexisting conditions under the first category of conditions that give rise to the different ways you feel when you see rainbows at different moments. And then also for those to change the one set of whole grouping called change the negative. These have to go away because it's going to come up. someone intervened in no gap condition, no gap, preclusion, the immediate perceiving antecedent pause. That all happens in the story, which we usually tell about causation. But the narrative version, this is like the pinnacle arising is a narrative of the universe. But that's it. It's fictional.

[25:07]

There's no sense it's useful, so it's a useful fiction. No, I'm just saying that when you tell stories, Whatever story you tell me, I can account for your story with these four conditions. All the elements of your story, and when I hear it, I can say, oh, that's that condition, that's that condition. So all the ways that human beings make up stories will fall into these categories. The condition about the story themselves? No. No. This is a story, too. This is another story that Nagarajun is telling about the categories, the elements that you use to make stories, particularly stories about causation, narrative story. I think he means that basically what he's, well, like we also have five scholars, right?

[26:12]

What they're saying is, you tell me what's happening, and whatever it is, I can put one of those five scholars. It's utilitarian. The whole point of this is just to help us see how we tell stories. And then, in addition to that, he's saying that these categories are elements that we use to make stories. The categories are empty, plus all the things in the category are empty. It's no apparent need to do those things. But the categories are not false, because they aren't supposed to be true. They're just, they're also explained, like, this whole thing, which is to explain away substance. It's a challenge to it. How did that, when you were writing, it seemed like... It's a lovely story. It's a lovely story, because everything is... That's another story you just told, right?

[27:26]

Right. But the story you told and the story, my response to you is not comparing with me yet. So the situation is which ticks. So there's not, you know, Korean world doesn't have an essence either. But you say, well, I don't see a Korean world. That doesn't have an essence either. I'm wondering where it comes from. Oh, there you go. You want to know where something comes from, whatever you go back to the basic thing. You want to know where something comes from, as though there's some place actually that they come from. And we don't say that they don't come, that there is no place they come from. We say, where did these come from? They come from when this comes, that's where they come from. That's all we can say.

[28:30]

Because when this is happening, that happens. How do you say that they come from that thing? Now, Jesus says, no, they don't come from that thing. But then you would say, that thing has the stuff that needs to come. So, but we also don't say you don't come from nowhere because you'll see. The next character is speak to this point. Choosing is another story. There can be an experience, you can have an experience of choosing. And actually, whether you're conscious of it or not, every moment of experience point, you have to tell what choosing. But that also, there's a story where every, when you're conscious of it or not, there's a story about how all the choosing happened. There's a lawfulness or a regularity about how choosing occurs. We can tell stories about that. When you can see the choosing and you're aware of the choosing, when the choosing comes out of your conscious mind and becomes an object, then you can have the experience of the choosing.

[29:31]

Choosing is going on all the time, but always choosing. Our mind, we can't have an experience without choosing. That's going on. But sometimes the choosing can also itself be an experience, the experience of choosing. But then the choosing have to have a woman of propria, and you have to be able to grab the choosing. And we do sometimes. And sometimes our bad people are through the process of how do I choose? How do I choose? At that time, an issue of choice is out in front of me. Other times, you're going ahead and choosing without knowing. All it could be, and all [...] it And then, all the different elements that we can account for, like the type of choosing you're doing, is similar to some other type of choosing.

[30:36]

Therefore, you're able to consider it, because you know the concept, and so on. And there's also coexisting elements that the choosing. This is the story, the causal story you tell about where the choosing comes from. But there's not this thing that has the power to cause the choosing, like free will or not free will. And we need to think that we need to actually... There's no we or I in this story. This story doesn't have a we or I in it. It's not one of the conditions that causes the choice to happen. The choice happens to be in reference to a we or an I. Or a free will. Excuse me, Stuart's in it for a little bit. I'm Jack. You were talking about the... It's a description of the structure of our cause of explanation.

[31:46]

And when you come to the system for and only for that the way I've defined this situation, I think that I've exhausted all of the logical category. The logical discourse would be applied. Right. I think that's what I mean. Right. The reason that he wants to account for all of the kind of department is because after you you go through and make a demonstration that he hyped up hard. He doesn't want to say, well, there's something you haven't accounted for somewhere else in the universe. There is some kind of powerful power that we haven't talked about yet. But also, He's just simply using a regular Buddhist, you know, scholastic system, which is very important, which he is now, you know, taking the rocks out of. He didn't make this up. He's just saying, he's accepting the regular system.

[32:48]

He's saying, but I'm just going to, for convenience sake, I'm going to call what they call causes before. Those are going to be the things that people say have power. The conditions are going to be just category of explanation of worldly invention. These are the documents. I think it would be good. Finish this chapter. And let me just do a couple of, maybe three more karakas, and then you can ask questions about, again, but they'll be on the table. Number two. Number three. In these relational conditions, okay, now what's going to happen for the next few karakas, if he's going to... He's going to take into account some extreme views and show what would happen in that case.

[33:51]

Some of these conditions are going to kind of like, he's not going to talk about how they work. He's going to talk about how they don't work if he takes certain positions. OK. Number three. I'm going to say just conditions. In these conditions, the self-nature of the entities cannot exist. From the non-existence of self-natures, other natures also, or too, cannot exist. So... In these relational conditions, the self-nature... Certainly there is no self-existence. It's the same... Okay. I thought I was saying they're different. Okay. Certainly there is no self-existence by self-nature. Certainly there is no self-existence of existing things and conditioning causes.

[34:55]

Certainly there is no self-existence. of existing thing, the condition and causes, and so on. And if no self-existence exists, neither does other existence. So if things don't have If the essence of things is not evident in the conditions... No, not yet. The essence of things is not evident in the conditions. The self-existence of things... The self-existence of things is not found in the conditioning causes. or there is no self-existence of existing thing in the causes.

[36:01]

Okay? Got that? Now, and if no self-existence exists, it doesn't exist in the other either. Or. What? Yeah, which other? Which other? Any other? Any other. What are the possibilities? There's self, there's the cause, and then there's other. Okay? That's the other. Four. The functional force does not inherit in relational conditions, nor does it not inherit in them. Well, let me finish the card, okay? The relational condition, vice versa, do not inherit in the functional force, nor do they not inherit it. Okay.

[37:03]

So, this power, you know, this functional force, this causative power, does not have conditions. It doesn't have conditions. Which is the same, let's say, as the conditions don't have it. Functional power can't go around and adopt conditions and then use the conditions to exercise itself. But there's no functional power without conditions. We can't have functional power. Functional power, if there was such a thing, okay, it would need conditions. Because we don't talk about, like, pause coming in from nowhere. Even the substantialists, or the people who are contributing in essence to causes, they don't say, like, cause is operating through nothing. That's almost like no cause. That's like, that would be like something happened, but you couldn't say what it was from, you see? You've got something happening, we see that, oh, there's something, there's Bob.

[38:07]

And there's causation, but I don't know what it is, therefore, there's all I know is the Bob. It's when I set a condition to say John's there. Then, if I would use John as the condition for the power to cause Bob, then causal power in John to cause Bob. But there's no causal power floating out without conditions, but also there's no causal power in conditions. Now, there also are no conditions floating around that don't have causal power. Conditions don't have causal power, OK? But that doesn't mean that the conditions are going around and missing causal power. It isn't like there's some conditions that have causal power and some that don't. Conditions don't have causal power. Nor do they don't have causal.

[39:10]

There's no conditions that are without causal power, and there are no conditions that have causal power. OK? Cause of power also, cause of power depend on the core rises too. What is cause of power? What is cause of power? It's empty. Yeah, it's more like a unicorn, right? Causal power is, we can tell a story about the arising of causal power, right? In the history of the world. And why is so? How did it happen? Well, I told you many times how it happened. If you see something happening, like you see Bob. Well, how did Bob happen? You tell a story. Well, once there was John, then there was Bob. That's the story. Maybe nobody likes that one. But that's that story. No, I liked it. Once there was, you know, Went there with Mr. Hoover, you know, and he was walking down the street and blah, blah, blah, you know.

[40:11]

So that's the story you tell about and use those conditions as sort of like to talk about how Bob happened. In fact, those conditions did have something to do with how Bob happened, according to some people's stories. So somebody else said, no, it wasn't Mr. Hoover. It was the milkman. What? I thought what I was saying was off topic. Is there such a thing? That's a story. I understand that. I understand that. Now, he understands that. Now what he's asking is, is there any essence, any inherent nature that some stories are better than good stories? And Kari Naga, you know. I don't know. I'm not sure what I'm asking. I'm not sure what I'm asking. I'm not sure what I'm asking.

[41:12]

I'm not sure what I'm asking. I'm not sure what I'm asking. Like, we only tell stories. We know we can read stories. But is there any reason that we might want to sort of, like, continue to refine our interpretive technique of what story would likely be about? Is there what they need? Is there any, like, is it Yes, definitely. We definitely have that very strongliness. Like I said, now, for example, to say, there's Bob, isn't much of a story. Right. Same thing. There really isn't a story at all. It's just a statement of the fact of an appearance, okay? Then if I say, once there was John, then there was Bob, the story starts to develop. I don't really like that story. I can't trust my ceiling to not liking that story. Right. Well, part of the reason why you don't like that story is that you've heard better stories. So we have this thing of telling the best popular story about how things happen.

[42:16]

So even novelists are writing the most plausible and exciting and engaging fiction about how things happen. And we do want to tell better and better stories. There is a thing to tell really good stories about how things happen. You definitely are into that. Okay? And that's... Is it useful? It is definitely useful. That's the whole point of it. It is useful. You can make a living in telling stories. You can listen to stories and say that you can love to listen to stories. But what Nagarjun is saying is that they're all stories. And also the way you tell which one story is better than another. The way some, like a writing teacher comes and tells a student how to tell a better story. He's telling them another story. About how in this world tremendous change how to make better stories. And that's his story. And there's a dependent core rising of various factors in the universe, such that some people tell their stories, and other people tell them about how to tell stories, and that modifies their stories in a way that they enjoy, and it's useful to them, and in those stories are popular.

[43:34]

And there is some usefulness there. And that's it. And if you stop right there, that's the knowledge you're sending. So all the things you're telling stories about, well, I'll go on that later, OK? But you know what? Well, I think I was feeling that there's a sort of region like this, a pattern that we tell us about the comic stories of the random things, is that when you know that that's the story, or the pattern, the comic story, then you can . It's a matter of seeing all these things that are being related. That's the first and main point of this discourse.

[44:44]

Yeah, we're going back to that, except that the punchline, which I'll tell you right now, I'm going to tell you again when we get there, the punchline of this chapter is that it's a projection of causation, and therefore it's the same if we uphold it, but we're going to colonize it. rejecting causation of things that have cognitive power, and making things happen rather than just telling stories. So this is the story that says, we just tell stories, and that should relieve us, because all the entities that arise then are empty. All the stories, and there's also the stories, lack and kind of existence too. This is a big relief. However, the principle is, that the reason why something is empty, the reason why the story is empty, is because it's just the pentacle arises. The pentacle arising of the story, the way you told the story, shows you that the story had no essence.

[45:46]

If you see the pentacle arising of your story, you realize it has no essence. If you think it does have essence, it's actually that you completely have essence in the story. You see, it's just a story, really just a story, you can tell many other stories, and you realize there's no essence to it. However, the Pentagon rising itself is empty too. So then you all see your emptiness. It doesn't take you back to substantiality. It's just that you don't make emptiness into a thing either. But that's empty too. And your freedom is empty. And your relief is empty. Which then allows you to go right back to the story with much more energy and commitment and enthusiasm than you could before. Because we all have some problems in the group of essences. When you get released from the essences, then you get released from the things you thought had essences.

[46:48]

But then you're temporarily slightly not liking the story. Because it's not quite as interesting because you have stopped suspending disbelief in your story. You're not disbelieving your story. You don't believe your story anymore.

[47:04]

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