I WOULD LIKE TO GO THROUGH TSEMA, PRAMANA IN SANSKRIT. PRAMANA IS

I WOULD LIKE TO GO THROUGH TSEMA, PRAMANA IN SANSKRIT. PRAMANA IS TRANSLATED AS, DIALECTICS, COGNITIVE SIGNS, OR VALID COGNITION. It involves reasoning; in this subject we do not give superstition or simple, blind belief any room. Instead we dig into every aspect of the subject, making sure the truth is revealed, which means valid cognition is a good translation. Pramana is an entire subject in itself. Based on the Sutras and the Abhidharma, it is basically a tool to understand them properly. Let us take karma for example, cause and result. It is a very basic subject but it is still very difficult for people to believe that everything is a cause and a result. Pramana makes it easier for people to understand this by using common sense. To look at something specifically, how can there be today without yesterday? There can never be no tomorrow as long as there is a today. Or another example, if you plant rice seeds, rice will grow. If you plant orange tree seeds, orange trees will grow. Orange trees don t grow when you plant rice seeds. Through these examples karma, cause and result, becomes simple, common sense. Why does each one of us have different tastes, likes and dislikes? Something that is exactly what you don t like may be exactly what somebody else likes. Take paintings for example. I did an exhibition of my It involves reasoning; in this subject we do not give superstition or simple, blind belief any room. Instead we dig into every aspect of the subject, making sure the truth is revealed, which means valid cognition is a good translation. paintings. Some of them were so bad I wanted to burn them, but the organizers said, These are beautiful, I want to exhibit these. I thought these paintings were terrible, but other people thought they were wonderful. When I showed other people some paintings that I thought were really beautiful, really nice, they said, I think we should skip these. Why do these things happen? Of course we can say it is because we grew up in a particular culture, a specific environment, we were taught this and that, exposed to different things and this is how we came to have differences, but it doesn t stop there. Conveniently this line of reasoning stops at birth, although this process doesn t. How could it stop there? If we had the ability to go further back than our birth we would find out that our past doesn t stop conveniently at our birth, that nothing stops conveniently anywhere. Everyone has existed for a very, very long time and goes on forever. If you could trace yourself you would trace forever. There is no end to it, if you got tired of tracing where you have come from and stopped, that would be one thing, but if you wanted to continue tracing your history you could continue doing so forever. 2 Thar Lam AUGUST 2007

Pramana helps us to get these things right. Another example is the concept of a god as a creator. I am quite sure that most of you know that in Buddhism we believe in all the gods but we don t believe somebody created us. Yet we understand and appreciate the creator concept because we consider ourselves equal to the highest power and believe we created ourselves. If we have done something good yesterday we feel good today. If we have done something bad yesterday we may end up in jail today. We created the situation we are experiencing now. In our past lives we created a connection with our parents and the rest of our family, so in this life we ended up with this couple we call daddy and mummy. The same process applies to our brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews and all the other kinds of people around us. In our past lives we have also developed connections with the other people here. Relationships called teacherstudent, guru-disciple, friend, husband and wife, are all productions of our many past lives. We don t believe it is arranged by somebody like a chessboard: no one is playing games with our lives. We don t believe in that kind of creation, but we believe in creation. Creation is accomplished by the ultimate Pramana Tai Situ Rinpoche Thar Lam AUGUST 2007 3

essence within us, an essence equal to the essence of any god you can think of. I don t know too much about other gods, but for example the essence of the Hindu god Shivaji. In Tibetan Shivaji is called, Wang-chug chenpo (Mahashvara, Shiva). In our prayers we say Chenrezig tu wang chug. If I can t defeat my ego, my attachment, my jealousy, my pride, I can never become a Buddha. My awakening essence has to defeat these things. This essence works like the Hindu deity Narasingha, the fourth avatar (incarnation or manifestation) of Shiva, who took the evil king Hiranyashasipu onto his lap. The evil king had a shakti (power) that stopped him being killed by any weapons while he was on Earth. So the destroyer picked him up and put him on his lap: this way he was not on the ground. Then instead of a weapon he used his hand to open his chest. Likewise, whatever shakti our ego has cannot be compared to the shakti of our primordial wisdom. Our primordial wisdom can rip through it, destroy it and reveal itself, reveal the primordial wisdom that is within. I hope I am not playing Hindu guru here. Please forgive me all the Shankara Archaryas and Mahapanditas. I have no right to interpret these things in this way. I can only speak from the point of view of the Buddha s teachings and especially the Vajrayana teachings I have learned. From this point of view I have no problem with a creator, a maintainer and a destroyer but I can never believe or accept that there are guys up there, existing dualistically. That they are just like us, if they are prayed to they get happy and help, and if they are not prayed to, they become unhappy and punish us. I cannot accept that if we listen to them, they do nice things for us and if we don t listen to them, they punish us. I cannot believe this sincerely. It is okay for other people to believe this, but I cannot. It is dualistic and I don t believe in a dualistic Buddha. Sometimes people say to me, God will be happy if you do this, and I don t argue with them. At other times people say to me, God will be unhappy if you do this, and I don t argue with them either! Still for me these comments do not make sense. God, this most supreme, limitless being, should not have any likes or dislikes, they shouldn t have any preferences. When I say god I only think of the highest of high, and from my perspective this is the manifestation of the Buddha, always perfect and equally regarding all. How I receive and perceive this, how it benefits me, depends on what kind of a vessel I am. If I am a clean vessel, when the milk of blessing is poured in, it will stay pure. If I am a dirty, sour vessel then even the snow lion s milk will become sour in me. We say that the snow lion s milk is the most powerful, the most precious milk, but the minute it touches my sour vessel it will go bad. The Buddha s blessings work in the same way as the snow lion s milk. I don t mind saying god; this is not a problem for me. One is spelt G, O, D. The other is spelt B, U, D, D, H, A. There is no difference to me; it is just a different language with a different terminology. Buddha s blessings are there for all sentient beings at all times. It is not as if Buddha only hears us when we shout loud enough and that when we whisper Buddha cannot hear us. We are dualistic, so we think we have to sing, we have to shout so Buddha will hear us. This is okay. This is correct in a way, because it means we are doing everything we can, shouting as loudly as we can, singing as beautifully as we can so that the Buddha will respond to us it makes sense. Still, it is because of us that we need to do this, not because of the Buddha. The Buddhas are like Consequentalists, not offensive. They do not promote themselves. They do not do anything dualistically. They are just like the sky, providing at all times, for all. We receive from them, each of us individual vessels, according to our own capacity. An example of this is an Indian tradition. Perhaps those of you who are not from India will not know this, but here in India people believe that one sour lemon and a few hot, green chilies put together can ward off other peoples jealousy. In Hindi people say, Anka band jata hai, To bind the evil eye. We don t want other people to say, He has a nice car, he has a nice house, because we believe it brings bad luck. You see the results of this belief everywhere; a shoe polisher sitting on the corner of a street with virtually nothing will have some chili and lemon hanging next to him and a Mercedes car that costs $75,000 to $85,000 will also have chili and lemon hanging right there on its windshield. Very big mansions with ten acres of land surrounding them will hang chili and lemon at their door and very small shopkeepers who have nothing but a few potatoes and vegetables worth only a few dollars will also use them. It is very interesting the way we perceive things. For me, the way we receive the Buddha s blessings is the same way that Christians receive God s grace, and everybody has their own reasons for requesting it. If I only had a little shop, instead of putting lemon and chili on it to protect myself from others jealousy, I would be depressed, thinking that others would look down on me because I had nothing. Still the people who live at this level know that other people living in the same way may be jealous of them having a little place like that. This shows me that the way we perceive things is an 4 Thar Lam AUGUST 2007

HIS HOLINESS KARMAPA WITH HIS EMINENCE TAI SITU RINPOCHE. PHOTO COURTESY OF AND KARMA TRIYANA DHARMACHAKRA illusion. It is really all illusion. The other day when I was driving the car, there was a kid selling these clumps of chili and lemon and I bought five! It was very interesting. I don t know where I will put them, I haven t hung them anywhere, but I bought five of them. Pramana is a very, very important tool for understanding Madhyamaka. Madhyamaka has to be understood along with Pramana in order for its subjects to become interesting and rich. For beginners who have not been exposed to these concepts they can seem very complicated. This is why, when I wrote my notes a long time ago, I wrote that My head was turning like an umbrella meant for the noble ones. The subject is so deep and vast, this is what happened when I attempted to understand it myself. If you look at the Vinaya, then the Abhidharma, then Madhyamaka, Prajnaparamita and Pramana, you will see all of these are very big subjects. In my monastery in Himachal Pradesh, for example, monks study and debate every day for nine years to complete their studies of these five texts. Even then they only learn some of these five texts. There are five texts, but each of them has many sections. In these nine years they only learn the symbolic basics of these five texts. Just learning this takes nine solid years. They only have a one or two month holiday a year. During the time they are studying they only have one day off a week; apart from this every day they have several classes and debate until about eleven o clock at night. It is quite something when they debate. They get very excited. Those of you who don t know about debate may think the monks are fighting. The little, thin ones have no chance, the big ones pick them up and throw them aside. The little ones keep trying, itching to say something, their mouths are itching but they never get the chance to say anything because the big ones throw or push them to the side. It can look very unruly and a little aggressive but it never actually turns into a fight. At least I have never seen anybody get into a fight. Our first group graduated this year after nine years of study, there were nine graduates. Right now there are 108 or 109 of them studying like this every day but I think for you here that this much is enough. Questions Question: In Buddhism there are only two proofs Thar Lam AUGUST 2007 5

ARYA DHARMAKIRTI accepted, two Pramana, actual experience and inference. Experience means I see something and an inference is for example, Where there is smoke there must be a fire. Rinpoche: Sir, Who told you Buddhism only believed in these two? Question: I have heard verbal testimony that what is written in a book is not accepted as evidence. In many other religions they say, this is written in the Bible or the Koran or in Veda, so this is absolute truth. But Buddhism says that if it is written in a book it need not be truth. This is a very important difference. I understand that you don t accept verbal testimony as an evidence of truth. Rinpoche: You are very intelligent and have made things quite interesting. I appreciate that. I agree with you in the main, but it is not quite like this. We also have belief without using reasoning. When we have total 6 Thar Lam AUGUST 2007 faith and trust in something we do not need to use reasoning. If we have total faith, total trust in the Buddha, then we don t have to have a reason. It is the same thing as taking aspirin when we have a headache, we don t know what is in it but we have faith in it anyway, so we take it and get well. In Buddhism we have this kind of faith also. If it is necessary we use reasoning, and we have very profound reasoning. In Pramana, Madhyamaka, Abhidharma, Prajnaparamita and Vinaya reasoning has been clearly and thoroughly implemented. We use reasoning but it is not as if we don t believe without reason. Another thing we need to consider is that this reality we see here, that we believe to be reality, is only the reality of a human being on planet Earth, in this solar system. Reality is not exactly like this. I am not talking about this from an enlightened level necessarily, but also from an unenlightened level. Other human beings, from a totally different environment but the same state of mind the same human realm might not even see our reality. They may come here and not even see us. The wall here may not impede their movement. If they have eyes they may see completely different things, but maybe they don t even have eyes. This reality that we are experiencing depends on a lot of conditions. Right now we all see everything in here similarly, not exactly the same but similarly. We call this kal-nyam, a similar fortune. Our similar situation is one of those things that are not solid but are a reality. Similar sorts of conditions and karma have bought us together on this planet. We have this commonality between us, therefore we call it a kal-nyam. We should also consider things like my ownership of this booklet. The minute I got it, it became mine. Before I got it, it was not mine. If I had taken it before I got it that would have been stealing. The moment after I received it, taking it was not stealing. If I own something and take it with me I do not accumulate the bad karma of stealing. What is the difference between these two situations? All of the aspects involved are categories of reality. We call them non-associated compositional factors, demin duche. They are there, but you can t put your finger on them. I paid ten dollars and I got my diary or notebook. But what is that? What stops me from being a thief when I give the shop owner ten dollars before taking this book? You cannot really put your finger on it. You cannot see this kind of thing through inference or experience, so they do not belong to the categories you mentioned. Another thing to consider is our motivation; we learn and reason because we want to believe. Once we believe, we don t need to use reasoning. We use all of this

reasoning, like Pramana, to develop faith. If we have faith without knowing any of this, this is very good, but if we don t have faith without knowing all of these subjects, we can use them to acquire faith. This option is available to us. We also believe in the Buddha s Ka, his commands. In the same way you said people believe things because the Bible says it, the Bhagavad-Gita says it, or the Koran says it, we believe in things because the Buddha s commands say it. These commands are not condensed to one book, however. The correct words of the Buddha, written down by his disciples, run to over a hundred volumes. They run to over a hundred volumes because so much is explained within them. If the Buddha did not explain as much it might be in one volume. We believe in these words of the Buddha, but using this word believe does not mean these commands are not clear: they are very clear. When Buddha talks about emptiness for example, he said, Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. If he had just said Form is emptiness, we would only have one perspective. We would be stuck because this would not be emptiness, it would be solid. When he then went on to say, Emptiness is form, it made it a lot clearer for us. Then when he says a third or fourth thing, it becomes even clearer. In this way we really believe in the Lord Buddha s commands. We also consider the great masters who wrote the commentaries contained within the Tenjur, like Nagarjuna, to be enlightened beings, not just scholars. We consider their teachings pretty close to the Lord Buddha s teachings. These masters were arhats, mahasiddhas, mahapandits and we believe they were all enlightened. All of this means I only partially agree with what you said, as I think we have to add a few things to it. As far as belief is concerned, we are not that different from those who believe in the Bible, the Koran or the Bhagavad-Gita. The Buddha told us that if you have faith, that is very good. If you don t have faith then you should learn and question. You should make sure these teachings are like gold by burning, rubbing, cutting and weighing them. In this way you will learn they are gold, and treasure them. I think that is how it is. Your question was very deep. I appreciate it. Thank you. Question: Tsema is translated in many English works as valid perception. Could you elaborate on this? Do only Buddhas have tsema? Rinpoche: No. Tsema is basically the opposite of the word Tsema Mayinba, non- valid cognition. If they say you are Mr Agawul, that is a non-valid cognition. You ARYA DIGNAGA are not Mr Agawul. You are a lady so you cannot be Mr Agawul. If you are called your correct name, your surname and everything else clearly, that is a Tsema, a valid cognition. There are also different kinds of Tsema/Pramana. There is a Ngönsum Tsema, a direct valid cognition, which means for example what we can see and hear. A Ngönsum is something we experience here; what we can hear, what we can see, what we can really perceive. Another kind of Tsema/Pramana is a Jebak Tsema, an inferential valid cognition. This means you presume something based on a valid sign. From the noise of maintenance on the roof going on now, for example, I can presume they are drilling. I can t perceive what they are doing directly but my inferential valid cognition is that they are drilling. I make this inferential valid cognition when I come to know they are drilling through hearing their drills so many times; they go drrrrrrrr then stop, pull the drill out then try to make another hole drrrrrrrr, then after Thar Lam AUGUST 2007 7

making holes with a drill they are putting nails into them to hang pictures on or something. I can infer this it is an inferential valid cognition. In an inferential valid cognition you use your logic to ensure your thought is a Tsema/Pramana. Seeing you all here is a direct valid cognition, a Ngönsum Tsema, a direct valid cognition. What we think about, like the drilling they are doing upstairs, is a Jebak Tsema, an inferential valid cognition. This is it simply, but generally the monks go into much more detail in their studies of these texts. For example, the Gelugpa lineage is very famous for making Tsema/Pramana the main theme of their studies and when they study the Tse-ma-kun-du / Pramana Samuccaya / The Compendium of Valid Cognition, they spend at least six months focusing on its first two sentences. These first two sentences are: Tsema gyur ba dro wa la pen bä zhe, Tön ba desheg job la gö chag stel lo. What became of valid cognition, [the truth]? Wishing to benefit other sentient beings, I bow my head to the teacher who has reached peace, the protector. The word ton pa, teacher, means one who shows, it means a Buddha. Desheg is short for dewa shepa, the one who has reached peace and also means Buddhahood. To define each of the words in these two sentences clearly they will debate for at least six months. Those who go through Drepung, Sera and Ganden, the three large Gelugpa monasteries, spend many months studying these words. The rest of the text follows on from these sentences pretty quickly but many months are spent on these two sentences, starting with the definition of Tsema gyur ba, valid cognition and became. Is this what you are asking? Student: In these two sentences, the benefactor is the teacher? Rinpoche: Yes. They will look into this, they will ask, what does that mean? What is the definition of benefit? How can a Buddha benefit others? How does it happen? Does a Buddha have a wish, and if so is the Buddha dualistic? If he has a wish he is dualistic. If he is dualistic he is not Buddha. After these six months of debate, to make it very simple for you, they will conclude that the ultimate truth unfolds and becomes. Prince Siddartha became what any of us can become, he reached his destiny this is what becomes of valid cognition, Tsema gyur ba, what becomes of the truth. It means he did not just learn or discover truth but with the intention to benefit others he became truth. This means that after enlightenment the Buddha is non-dualistic but he benefits others spontaneously because his original motivation was to benefit all sentient beings. Millions and millions of eons ago the Buddha Shakyamuni, before he was a Buddha, was a beggar in another universe with just a handful of food, but when he met the Buddha of that land he was so inspired he offered his meager bowl of food. Offering this bowl he said, May I become like you, in order to make everybody like you. This was the first lineage of enlightenment Prince Siddartha received, many, many, many, many, billions and billions and billions of lifetimes ago, and as a result of this original intention, after he finally achieved Buddhahood all of his power manifested, and manifests, spontaneously for the benefit of others. This is the end result of their debates, but it takes a long time to get to this point. If we just jump to a simple conclusion it doesn t really sink in as well as if we had debated it thoroughly. We say, whatever the subject is, you truly understand it when you have to carve it into your ribs and the inside of your skull. By debating, by really scrutinizing and drilling through these topics you receive true lessons. Another example is the debate over the word tön ba, which means the one who shows the path. The Buddha showed us the path, but what path? The path leading where? The path that leads to what has already been reached? The next two words after tön ba are dewa shegpa, one who has reached ultimate peace. These words refer to someone who has reached the ultimate, limitless peace and harmony and is showing us the path he traveled. Job means to protect, help and save. It means the Buddha is a savior, a protector. He is a savior because although all of us have the same potential as him, we don t know we are suffering in samsara, wandering from heaven to hell. Sometimes we are born as a god, then when our god karma finishes we are born in hell. Then when our hell karma is finished we may be born as a god again, or a human being. We go up and down, wandering everywhere, getting nowhere. The Buddha saves us from this wandering, protects us from the suffering of samsara, the suffering of going in circles. The next word is head, gö, to whom I bow my head. The head is the highest part of our bodies. In order to bow down we have to be humble, we bow to the Buddha for this reason. We do not bow because the Buddha is our boss, we do not bow because if we don t we may lose our job. We bow to the Buddha because he became enlightened for us and all his wisdom and power is to benefit us by helping us become like him. Bowing means submission, devotion. If my ego thinks I am better or equal to someone, I will not bow to them. This bowing marks the conclusion of these two sentences. These debates show how Tsema, in detail, is a very elaborate subject but from a commonsense point of view 8 Thar Lam AUGUST 2007

HIS EMINENCE JAMGON KONGTRUL, HIS HOLINESS KARMAPA, HIS EMINENCE TAI SITU RINPOCHE AND HIS EMINENCE GYALSHAP RINPOCHE it is very simple. It is about the confirmation of relative truth, and by confirming relative truth and exposing its fallacy, ultimate truth will be revealed. Relative truth in itself is not the ultimate truth. When the fallacy of relative truth is revealed, ultimate truth is revealed. It is just like the questions about primordial wisdom relating to ignorance. When the fallacy of ignorance is revealed, the secret, the unspeakable, is revealed and spoken. This is what Tsema/Pramana does. Nothing is forbidden when you are debating, there is nothing you are forbidden from saying, but your motivation has to be to learn. If you understand Tibetan you will hear them trying to prove, for example, that the Buddha is not enlightened. This would be forbidden in many other religions, to say something like, God is not god, but in Tsema/Pramana debate you have to address things like this. The people debating may even try to use all the terminology and meaning of the texts, even the words of the Buddha himself, to prove that Prince Siddartha was not enlightened. The person debating this knows that Prince Siddartha is enlightened but his job in this instance is to debate that he is not. This is very enlightening and gives those debating a lot of freedom. These days a lot of the younger monks would rather go and debate than sit and do pujas. In my monastery, it is a little difficult to get monks to do pujas, there are about sixty, almost seventy monks who do this. When it comes to learning debate and philosophy though, I can t accept any more monks we are full. Some of the rooms that are meant for two people now have four people sleeping in them. I have six teachers and that is not enough. We recently had the annual Karma Kagyu higher Buddhist study group come together at Sherab Ling: around 300 monks came and spent a month debating and discussing. It has become a very, very big thing by our standards. In South India there are monasteries that have 7000 monks but in the Himalayas we don t have this kind of capacity. It is very interesting and very good. Debate makes you feel free to explore the Lord Buddha s teaching but it is not mandatory. If you have faith, devotion and trust you don t have to spend your time doing all of this, you can just practice and meditate. Still I thought you should go through a little of this, have a little taste of it, so I have shared this with you. Next we will move into a discussion of practice. From Ground, Path & Fruition, edited by Ruth Gamble and published by Zhyisil Chokyi Ghatsal. Thar Lam AUGUST 2007 9