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Root of The Middle Way – Session 17

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  • Buddhist Classics and Philosophy
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  • Rangjung Yeshe Institute - Nepal
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The lecture challenges the conventional approach to analyzing actions, inviting a reevaluation of how we perceive and discuss the interplay between actions and linguistic constructs.

Session 17 delves deep into the “going and coming” chapter, tackling complex linguistic representations of actions, notably walking. Stanzas 3 and 4 revisit expressing walking, revealing challenges in linking verbs and nouns to walking’s essence. The lecture underscores language’s role in shaping our worldview. Stanzas 5 and 6 highlight the absurdity of linking multiple actions and agents to a single walk, highlighting language intricacies. Discussion centers on actions, questioning the distinction between walking and the path. It examines paths in isolation, considers interdependence between the walker, walking, and path, and explores why we analyze actions through sameness and difference.

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"That which originates dependently, does not cease and does not arise, is not annihilated and is not permanent, does not come and does not go, is not different and not the same. To the true teacher who reveals this peace, the complete pacification of constructs, to the perfect Buddha, I bow down." We are in the chapter on going and coming.
And we had the first argument in stanza 1 that going will need to be identified on a path
when there's going or walking. It will have to be somewhere that this action is taking place.
And so looking for walking, we may look for the place where it occurs, because there will have to be such a place. And then the first verse says that when we look for that place, we only find places where either walking has been, wherever we look at the... wherever the feet are placed as they move.
That is the path that has been covered. And then if it hasn't been covered, that means that act of walking has not been completed. And so it is incomplete and has yet to occur. So elsewhere is the path where walking has yet to occur. And then apart from those two, there's no third option. So where's the place of present walking? Given that we can only find places where walking has been or where walking will be. And then there was this objection in stanza 2 that said, "Well, that's not really so, because all you need to do is just look for the place where the movement happens. Look for the movement and you find the place of walking."
Going is of course not to be found. Present walking is not where it has already been, and nor is it where it has not yet come into being, but it's where the movement occurs right now, that's where it happens. And then we also said that this, according to the commentaries, is a kind of hopeless objection because that objection has already been dealt with in the first stanza. However, it takes us into a very interesting discussion that follows after that. And that is where we left off with the...
Rinpoche: "Great teacher. He spent over 30 years in Gompa with expert monks. He filled his brain.. wisdom. So and this text is, believe me not easy, extremely difficult. Why? Extremely profound. And in the world you can say amount of education, Mūlamadhyamaka, this is I think one of the
profound, highest knowledge in the world. If I say it is difficult to believe, now you are all studying
almost every day, five days a week, and now you know how profound, how precious, how genuine, how we are deluded, how we are polluted, not only polluted over there, polluted in our mind, extremely polluted, extremely sick, extremely confused. There's no other way to solve this problem, Only education. There's other, extraorinary is extraordinary, like Tilopa, Naropa is different. Except that, only education. So all of you lucky, this land was farm, farming area cows and sheeps, and cows and this that. Now this is wisdom, wisdom treasure, not only book up there, full of knowledge. So extremely important to learn from A to Z seriously. Not just wishy-washy. Seriously. So please, please listen, please, please, whoever's studying online, listen at least few times, record, and read the commentary. Also name is "Ornament of Reason," by Dr. Thomas. He put a lot of effort to whoever can read in English. So I hope it will translate in other languages, German, Danish. His Mom, his Mom is translating into German and Danish. Also in Chinese, French, Portuguese, all of you need to bring the guts. Only root text is too rich, too profound, very difficult. So now I'm extremely happy you all studying. Please continue to study and read the commentary. And now, since Dr. Thomas explained the root text, so if you read commentary, you can roughly figure out little bit. Otherwise we don't know what it is saying. So today is what? [Tibetan] Yeah. [Rinpoche speaking Tibetan]
Thank you Rinpoche, so much! Rinpoche: "You are great. I have a good student!" So Rinpoche we hope after Drubchen if you will give advice and lung Rinpoche: "lung is important." Thank you so much. Rinpoche: "One special day, I give lung." Thank you. Rinpoche: "lung is very important." [Rinpoche speaking Tibetan] Rinpoche: "Slowly I understand sems dpa...sems dpa chenpo.." [Rinpoche speaking Tibetan] So after the Drubchen, we'll have a ceremony with
with Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche where we can receive the vows of refuge and the Bodhisattva vow, because that's the way to engage with the text, through refuge and Bodhisattva commitment. And then this is the text of the Middle Way that highlights the view, and duma la 'jugs pa is the one that.. yeah, well Bodhicaryāvatāra is the one that highlights the conduct and then duma la 'jugs pa has both aspects. So we'll do that and then receive the text transmission for Mūlamadhyamaka from Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, because it's important to receive that continuous transmission. And so there's text transmission and explanatory tradition, continuity of explanatory activity, so we'll receive both.
Then the Bodhisattva commitment that you have when studying this is a heroic commitment. And Rinpoche said it's something he's beginning to slowly get some sense of what it means, this heroic commitment to be undaunted and fearless, fully energized when accomplishing what is good for others. He came as a refuge with nothing, but he tried to be a hero. So that will be after Drubchen I suppose, yeah? Thank you. That was a good way to begin, yeah? So if there's movement somewhere in the form of walking, then what is entailed by that is that of course there's the action, that's what we just said, there's the act of walking. But that walking is done by something, otherwise it's unthinkable. Walking without anything that walks is, it sounds like some mystical poem, no? In other words, it doesn't make sense the way it needs to. To say there's walking but nobody who walks, no? Maybe at least it cannot be, it'll have to.. some heavy duty interpretation will have to go into that if we have to make sense of it, no? Or perhaps we should then pause a little bit, is there anyone who thinks that walking without anyone walking makes sense?
Because the necessity of all three, given one is there, that the other two also are present, that's kind of key to the way the argument proceeds, no? So if there's walking, then there's also someone who walks, and there's a place where walking occurs.
Because otherwise, how can we say that there's walking if there's no place that it takes place? Okay? So, then we go back to stanza 3. "Going where walking takes place, how could that make sense when without going, there cannot reasonably be any place where walking takes place?"
So here we are looking at the act of walking and its location, yeah? And we're looking also at a sentence that talks about this, or a thought, no?
The girl walks on the path, a sentence about walking. So there's a little girl who's walking on a path, and what is she doing? She's walking. So that's a sentence that makes perfect, immediate, intuitive sense. And yeah, to say that it doesn't make sense, again, would require a lot of strange movement, no? So this is also how we think, arguably, no? It's not just how we talk about it, and then inside our mind we think something else, no? It's not that we say, "Oh, it's just how I have to speak because otherwise people won't, they won't accept the way I really think about this, so I have to say "the girl walks on the path," but actually the way I think about it is, who knows what, yeah? That's not how it is. It's how we speak and it's how we think. It's how we understand the world, really, no?
So in other words, we're not just talking about grammar, right? If we're talking about grammar, it's our own grammar we're talking about, the way we make sense of the world. That's what is under analysis. So is that a good grammar that we have in our heart to make sense of the world?
Well, then we say that we're talking about an act of walking, an act, yeah? In other words, we're not talking about several. We're talking about just one.
And so if we wonder, "Ah, maybe not," then a good way to illustrate that what we mean is one act of walking is just to think that when the girl has walked that path, she arrives, and she arrives just once and at one place. There's not several results, no? As there would be if there were many acts of walking, then she would arrive at many different places when those acts would be over, no? Here we're talking about one act of walking to the store or whatever it is, yeah?
So now in the sentence, since there's just one act of walking, then when we say the girl walks on the path, what do we mean by the different elements? The girl is the one who walks, okay, fine. We'll leave that aside for now. And then we talk about the the act of walking, which if we say that 'walks' in that sentence, "the girl walks on the path," the word 'walks' is what expresses the act of walking, yeah? Then that's maybe natural, no? Because it is, after all, the word 'walking' that we're talking about. It's a form, present tense of that verb, 'walks'.
So maybe when we say "the girl walks to school" and we're thinking about these three different things, it's the word 'walks' that really means walks, yeah? That is the one that picks out walking. But if we do that, then what about the path? The girl walks on the path. So what do we then mean by 'the path'?
We have already said that walking, or what is it that 'the path' element expresses in that sentence? no? We have some immediate understanding when we hear the words, "the girl walks on the path," but what really does the word 'the path' mean for us? And again, we can look at it in this very personal way because that's how it becomes more clearly obvious what's at stake here, yeah? What does it mean for me when I "say she walks on the path," yeah? I have said that the walking is expressed by the word 'walks', but now what about 'the path'? Is that path then not expressed, not intended with the word walks? If we say that, at first glance that may sound okay, but think about it. How could there be a path that she walks on, unless that path is a place of walking, yeah? In other words, unless that path is qualified by a presence of walking. So in other words, in our sentence here, we cannot say that the path means just the path and has this noun sense, and is not associated with the verb in any sense, because if it wouldn't be that, then we end up with the absurd idea that she walks where there is no walking, yeah? If we say that the path is just a place, yeah? It's just the road but without anyone walking on it. How could that be where she walks?
It's probably something we have to go through a few times, yeah? But suddenly it becomes clear what is going on, yeah? In a funny sense.
If we say that the word 'walking' is what expresses and
picks out that activity, and when I say "the girl walks on the path," when I get to the word 'walks', then that's where I intend walking, yeah? Then what about 'the path'? Is 'the path' that I intend to express when I say "the girl walks on the path," a path that has no walking? That would be the conclusion since there's just this one act of walking and that one act of walking has already been associated with the verb. So now the noun that expresses the supposed location where she walks is a location that has no walking. Absurd, no? Then the alternative and the commentary says we can read these two verses
we can read this number 3 as an instance of first associating the verb with the action and not the noun, or we can do it the other way around as well, yeah? So in other words the message of 3 and 4 is the same, just expressed differently. The same goes for 4. This was maybe more complicated to listen to than clarify but it will be clear if you read the commentary at some point. Number 4: "For whomever there is going where walking takes place, it then follows that there is no going where walking takes place, because going is found where walking takes place."
So if we do the opposite because we don't like this conclusion that the path is now a place without walking, then we could say "okay, then let me say that when I say 'the path,' that's when I intend walking." But of course the problem with that is then the verb has no referent. The verb now has no meaning. Why does it have no meaning? Because we said that the place, the path where she walks, that's the element in the sentence that is associated with walking.
And then the verb itself, what does it mean? 'Walking' that does not intend walking. It's an empty word. It's just a sound. It has no meaning at all.
So then one of you said last time that okay, this problem follows only if we really force this idea that there's just one act of walking, and that it can only be expressed by one element among these three: the agent, the action, and the object,
or the subject, the verb, and the location.
So if we go that way, then we end up in this strange situation. But why can't we just say that there's a kind of walking that is associated with the agent? No, that comes later! With the action, and another one that is associated with the place? What's wrong with that? It seems like what we actually mean, no? I mean walking when I say walking, and I also mean that the path is a place that has walking, not a place where there's no walking.
But then the reply comes in stanza 5: "If going took place where walking takes place, meaning if we say that there's going and that's an action expressed by 'going' or 'walking,' and there's also a place where this action takes place, both carry the sense of walking. If that's the meaning behind if going took place where walking takes place. "Then it would follow that there are two acts of going, One, due to which there is a place with walking," so that's one that qualifies 'the path' in that particular way, so that it becomes a path where someone walks. There's a sense of walking that is associated with that. And then another, that is the going that happens there. So the path, because we cannot accept that the path is something that is intrinsically divorced from walking, no? That is impossible. If she walks on the path, there will have to be a deep connection with walking and that path, between walking and that path. So if we say that, that means, okay, then let there be walking there. The path is qualified by walking. But the path is also just the path. It isn't walking, right? So there has to be some walking that makes the path the location of walking because it's not just a place without walking. Okay, but then there's that and then the walking. Otherwise, we started out saying that there's a sense of both, of the action being applicable to the verb and to the location.
And so now we will also have to say that if we allow that 'the path' is qualified by a natural presence of walking,
then that's what makes it the location for walking. But then what about the act that takes place there? They can't be the same, right? 'The path' and 'the walking' cannot be the same. It's crucial that they are different from each other. Otherwise, it's total nonsense, no? If the walking is the path, so there has to be something that makes the path the place where it happens. And then on top of that, there has to be another, the act of walking that happens there. So now we have suddenly two actions going where we thought, no pun intended, where we thought that
thatwe were actually just talking of a single commonsensical action, that of 'walking.' But it can get even more bizarre because, as it says in 6, "When it follows that there are two acts of going, it follows that there are two agents of going because without something that goes, it makes no sense for there to be going." So if there's one act of going that is naturally associated with the location, and then another action that is performed on the basis of that location, then because there are two actions and because whenever there is an act of going present, there must also be something that goes or walks, it now also follows that there are two agents. So who knows if it's still a girl who walks there in the second case. There are now at least two girls or two agents of going. Hard to imagine something more bizarre and absurd than this, no? And yet all of this is only an outcome of our own attempt at making sense of our associations and ideas.
I guess we should think a little bit about that.
And perhaps the most constructive is to think of where it doesn't really work for you, the argument wherever you think there's something odd or artificial or...
What do you think?
Or does it make perfect sense, so to speak?
Student: "It doesn't make sense to... I'm still confused why there has to be two acts.
Because I think to me, if I think about a path, I kind of agree that a path is not just a road because a path is only meaningful if there is a walking taking place.
But that walking is exactly because someone is walking on it. That's why there is a walking. So why can't these two walking be the same walking?" But we can also zoom in on the path, no? Right?
So what is the path in this sentence? "The girl walks on the path."
The path is where she walks. But let's try to zoom in on that path. Let's try to...
Let's try to look at it in isolation. Is that path a path with going or without going in itself?
Student: "It cannot be without going, so it can only be with going." In itself? Student: "In itself as in... " Thomas: "Like we have three things, no? There's the agent of walking, then there's the action, and then there's the place where it occurs. So they're deeply related, we said. But they're also distinct enough for us to be able to talk about the path, no? I can say "the paths are.." without having thereby set "walking," no? For example. 'The path' doesn't mean walking. Just like that, no?
So that path by itself, is that a path with walking or without walking?
Student: "Well, the path itself is not walking." It's a path that has no walking.
Studnet: "But then the path is not meaningful if there is no walking taking place." And if you want to make it meaningful by saying it's a place with walking, even when you zoom in on it on itself, then there's no need to talk about walking. You have said "the path" and all what you need to say is said then.
It's very amazing, no?
Student: "The third term is always needed, this path. Your sentence, "the girl walks on the path," because we started to focus on the grammar, could we not say just "the girl walks" or "the girl is walking"? And then you don't have a path, but then the path I assume you would say is implied, or something along those lines." Yeah, I guess if "the girl walks," that's an okay sentence, no? Very short, but it's okay. But it implies that she walks somewhere, because if she walks,
if we say she walks but she doesn't walk somewhere, that doesn't work.
And it's also possible to say "the girl walks on the path," that's a little sort of simple, but whatever we can say about that sentence, it's an okay sentence, there's nothing wrong with that grammatically speaking, or semantically, "the girl walks on the path."
Student: "And a path is only a path if there is walking." In this case, no? I mean, it's only the path where she walks on, if there's walking there. So how could she walk?
It's interesting to try to then focus on what is implied by 'the path' alone. Why couldn't it be that the path is just the path, just like that, and has no immediate association with walking? Why couldn't it just be like we started out saying, that "the girl walks," 'walks' is what picks out the act, and 'the path' is just the location and nothing more? Why couldn't it be like that? Student: "Yeah, I'm still a little bit stuck on this third term, because I'm thinking if someone has walked, then there's a path. It's still a path if, well, I kind of want to say it's still a path if no one's walking on it, just because in the past someone walked on it, it's now a path, regardless of whether someone is currently walking on it."
Yeah, but that's probably not how, I mean, sometimes we think like that, we find a path in the forest and we can see that someone has walked there, and then we find some traces in the forest, and then we infer someone has walked here, this is a path that I can follow. So that, sure. But when we say "the girl walks on the path," we probably don't mean we don't mean that she walks on something that people have walked on before. I mean, that's not the point, yeah? The point is that that's where she walks now, yeah?
So this is something I think that requires a lot of sort of careful, careful, gentle analysis combined with contemplation, that as Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche advised also yesterday, when he gave advice in the temple,
and again, noting that this is also what His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, encourages repeatedly that when we study profound issues, that we allow ourselves to become sort of deeply informed by whatever we find out, no? This chapter is one I think that really asks for that process of contemplation to take place, because it goes to the heart of thinking, what we are dealing with here. So how can you get to the heart of thinking, through thinking? That's actually the challenge, no?
But, yeah.
And in particular, what is the exact concept that we are analyzing here in particular is getting from one place to another, no? So how can you get to the heart of thinking?
It's not just talking about a path that you can walk on to school or whatever, no?
Yeah?
Student: "In your discussion with him, I thought maybe it's like a chicken and egg question, you know? Can there be a path that the girl is walking on without her walking on a path? Of course not. I mean, the path where the walking takes place is like, let's say, the egg, and the walking needs also a path that is like the chicken. There cannot be a path of walking without the walking, and there cannot be a walking on the path without the path. So I mean, they are just very interdependent, and we cannot really say, we cannot say that one of them was there first, you know, and then the other happened. So therefore I would say they cannot be really so separated." Right. And what is the so separated? It's interesting that you say so separated. Student: "So separate how you like to do it." But they can be nonetheless. Student: "But there's only a path itself, you know? I think that is what you discussed with her, and then that path is not the path that the girl is walking. The path itself is free of walking. But the path where the girl is walking, that path cannot be separated." What is the path then, if it's free of walking? The path itself? Student: "No, that is the traces I see in the forest. But that is not where the girl is walking. But once we talk about a specific girl that is walking, then that is sort of not separable from the path that the girl is walking upon.
Am I confusing too much?" No, it's a question for ourselves, no? When someone, as soon as I begin to walk, then I'm sort of inseparable from the path. Student: "I mean, of course I can see distinct features between the girl and the path." And everything else. Yes, yes, of course. Student: "But still, the path in that context then is characterized by the girl walking on it. Likewise, the girl is also in that context characterized as being the one who is walking on the path. So therefore, I think one cannot really separate it too much."
It's the implications that are interesting.
One way of understanding what you say is that the world may be full of many things that are just there. But as soon as I am there and act, or someone, let's say me, as soon as I'm there and act, then everything that I do and act on and with respect to, I'm not really separate from. That's the implication of what you're saying, no? Student: "We're also not the same with that. But we're not so separable like how we talked about. So separable, that's very… I know, I know. Neither same nor different." Yes, so then you're back to that phrase, not to the… When I walk on my path to school, then me, the action and the path, as well as everything else in the world and whatever else takes place in the world are neither the same nor different. Student: "Yeah, I can live with that." We do. We can, but it's also meant to be… That insight is supposed to have enormous implications and be hugely empowering. So it's not just a matter of being able to live with it, but….
Student: "Okay, so this is… I just don't… Okay, I don't know where this question fits in. I just don't understand why we are enforcing this same difference or slightly same or 20% different on everything. It's like… You know, because where… I don't know, when I think about walking in my brain, or wherever I think, it's like, yeah, I see separate things happening. Or if I then think about it a bit more, then there might be some things that are put same, like the walking and the path, but then the agent seem different, right? So it's just, it feels… Yeah, this is… you can't answer that. Okay, why? I don't understand why that's the thing." Why we need to look for… Student: "Why everything is seen through the filter of same and different in terms of, you know, in terms of cognizing, in terms of perceiving. I don't know if there would be same with all senses, but at least like now we are talking a lot from the sense of perception, like looking, right? We look at walking, or imagine walking. Yeah, and then it just comes up. We end in that every time."
Well, it's because those are… There's no question that the way we get to think about this in this way is because the way the analysis is pushing us, no? The way the argument… Student: "No, I think that's how… I'm not talking about the analysis, I'm talking about how the world appears. When you showed the video of walking, I see a path, I see a place, I see walking, and I see somebody who's doing it." Yeah, let's watch it again. Because maybe we forgot what it is about when we were talking.
It should be really fast, yeah? Student: "I mean, I could also see everything as one, but then I see that that's the same, and I'm in the same place." Yeah, here is somebody walking, right?
That's what we're talking about. And what do we see? There. Do we see sameness and difference? What is it that we see?
Student: "Okay, so when you put it on that way, I don't see sameness and difference, but I think about it, I see sameness and difference, like in my mind. I don't know what's happening." It's very….
Then again it's a question if what we see is so different from what we think. Like, do I really see what I see as neither the same nor different, and then I just think like that? Maybe also not. But it's a very open question, what we see, you know? And then it's very obvious that when we are prompted by certain questions, then we begin to speak in terms of same and different, and we think that we kind of need to, that unless we can talk about these things in terms of same and different, then it's as if we don't know what's going on.
If I can't talk about what is happening on that video here in terms of same and different, there's this woman there who's walking along the tracks and the path that she's walking on is not the same as her, and what she does, that walking, is not her either, and it's not the path, it's just that action you see. Like, you can point at it in like in stanza 2, look at the movement, that's the walking. So that we feel that we need to be able to describe things in terms of same and different.
But what happens when we are asked to account for that,
is, you could say, a complete failure, no?
Then whether we ourselves experience a complete failure or just some sense of lack of clarity or being puzzled, that's another issue, and you should think very carefully, what is my actual reaction to this, yeah? Is it something that I feel I get a little bit from and it sounds perhaps exciting or let's assume that, no?
But is that all, so to speak? Or do we feel that we get it 100%? Whatever it means to get this, that we... Okay, let's say that we get the sense of complete failure when having to account, is that the case or not? Is it the case that we can watch a movie like that one, and then we can see that something that we immediately will feel very comfortable explaining in terms of someone who walks on a path and these three are naturally quite distinct from each other.
And when we then begin to think in terms of same and different, do we then experience a complete collapse of those notions? Or not? Or do they somehow keep floating around and we don't know what to do with them? Try to think about that, yeah? And if it's the latter that's the case, then try to zoom in on what is it that makes it like that? Where is it that I feel something is missing in my picture? Where is it that I feel something I haven't yet looked at that I should look at?
We had mentioned a while ago,
this was Śāntarakṣita talking about the Yogācāra perspective or Cittamātra, what we might want to call it, perspective, and saying that it is a perspective and a philosophy that he spent enormous, invested enormous,
that he contributed enormously to, let's say like that, yeah? To developing pramāṇa and a Yogācāra account of conventional reality. It was not something that he wasn't interested in. He is one of the main philosophers of those systems, yeah? Of our life. But he said that all of this is compelling only when not examined.
So that is something that they say goes for everything, yeah? We have the impression that it makes perfect sense, or at least that there's nothing problematic at all, we know intuitively what's going on, we feel. And yet that sense is lost entirely, when we just do a little bit of inquiry, yeah? If we have done this a few times, then we don't have to sit and spend an hour getting into how was it now, it just comes right away, you know?
And so it is compelling, but only until examined.
Student: "Part of what I've been trying to do as I sit here is think, because we're in the chapter on the action of going, and whether going takes place.
and I was trying to substitute different actions and see if the results are any different. In other words, if I say "I see something," if I see Thomas walking on the path, do I end up in the same place? And seeing, I suppose, doesn't depend on a location in the same way, so I wasn't sure if I was making any headway with that approach, because I could say, I don't know, "I see Thomas walking on the path," but then I still see something, right? That's where I'm just thinking out loud, and I think I end up in the same place, because then the question becomes where is the act of seeing, is it in me, is it in the action, or is it in the object that I see?" It would have to take place somewhere, it's just not the answer. It's not so obvious as it is with walking. With walking it's clear, you're walking on a path. But with seeing, who knows where seeing takes place. For all intents and purposes, it needs to happen somewhere, because if it doesn't happen somewhere, it doesn't happen. So if there's seeing, there's a place where seeing takes place also.
Student: "And then the other thing is, there are different kinds of verbs in terms of the actions they describe. Going is a durative verb. In other words, you go over a period of time. And there are verbs that are punctual, like stop. You stop in an instance, you go over a period of time, but you stop in an instance. But I don't think that gets us anywhere either." Well, that will be the initiation of walking and the stopping of walking. They're treated specifically in the chapter. So I think it probably does get us somewhere to think about it, but whether we solved the basic problem is a different issue. But Nāgārjuna thought it was relevant enough to write it into the chapter 2.
So maybe we should get back to stopping. Student: "I've just been trying to.." Yeah, that's the way to go. "..I'm just trying to think, if I plug in a different verb and try the same approach, where do I get? Where do I stop?" I think for now, what I would just say about stopping is,
especially if we say "stopping," then it implies...
instantaneous action is hard to make sense of, no?
Student: "You started me because you started talking about grammar, right?" Sorry? Student: "You started..." Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. Student: "Once you started focusing on grammar, then I started thinking grammar as well. There are different categories of verbs. There are different kinds of actions. Some actions take place over time, some verbs describe actions that are instantaneous, so to speak." Yeah, so to speak, exactly. And this is a very... Like I said,
Nāgārjuna himself takes up this later, no? And the whole chapter, so much of it is structured in grammatical terms, which is something that is characteristic of a lot of Indian analysis. But the interesting thing is that it's not just about grammar, no?
If we say it's just about grammar, that means that my own thinking has nothing to do with sentences like "I walk home," yeah?
And that's hard to say, no? Grammar is an attempt of making sense of that, yeah? And grammar is supposed to be the best account, perhaps, at least a necessary account of...
a necessary way of making sense of, a very useful way of making sense of sentences. So we are basically talking about our own beliefs, our own understanding of things, yeah?
Okay. Let's stop, if we can. And see you tomorrow. Thanks.
"That which originates dependently, does not cease and does not arise, is not annihilated and is not permanent, does not come and does not go, is not different and not the same. To the true teacher who reveals this peace, the complete pacification of constructs, to the perfect Buddha, I bow down." We are in the chapter on going and coming.
And we had the first argument in stanza 1 that going will need to be identified on a path
when there's going or walking. It will have to be somewhere that this action is taking place.
And so looking for walking, we may look for the place where it occurs, because there will have to be such a place. And then the first verse says that when we look for that place, we only find places where either walking has been, wherever we look at the... wherever the feet are placed as they move.
That is the path that has been covered. And then if it hasn't been covered, that means that act of walking has not been completed. And so it is incomplete and has yet to occur. So elsewhere is the path where walking has yet to occur. And then apart from those two, there's no third option. So where's the place of present walking? Given that we can only find places where walking has been or where walking will be. And then there was this objection in stanza 2 that said, "Well, that's not really so, because all you need to do is just look for the place where the movement happens. Look for the movement and you find the place of walking."
Going is of course not to be found. Present walking is not where it has already been, and nor is it where it has not yet come into being, but it's where the movement occurs right now, that's where it happens. And then we also said that this, according to the commentaries, is a kind of hopeless objection because that objection has already been dealt with in the first stanza. However, it takes us into a very interesting discussion that follows after that. And that is where we left off with the...
Rinpoche: "Great teacher. He spent over 30 years in Gompa with expert monks. He filled his brain.. wisdom. So and this text is, believe me not easy, extremely difficult. Why? Extremely profound. And in the world you can say amount of education, Mūlamadhyamaka, this is I think one of the
profound, highest knowledge in the world. If I say it is difficult to believe, now you are all studying
almost every day, five days a week, and now you know how profound, how precious, how genuine, how we are deluded, how we are polluted, not only polluted over there, polluted in our mind, extremely polluted, extremely sick, extremely confused. There's no other way to solve this problem, Only education. There's other, extraorinary is extraordinary, like Tilopa, Naropa is different. Except that, only education. So all of you lucky, this land was farm, farming area cows and sheeps, and cows and this that. Now this is wisdom, wisdom treasure, not only book up there, full of knowledge. So extremely important to learn from A to Z seriously. Not just wishy-washy. Seriously. So please, please listen, please, please, whoever's studying online, listen at least few times, record, and read the commentary. Also name is "Ornament of Reason," by Dr. Thomas. He put a lot of effort to whoever can read in English. So I hope it will translate in other languages, German, Danish. His Mom, his Mom is translating into German and Danish. Also in Chinese, French, Portuguese, all of you need to bring the guts. Only root text is too rich, too profound, very difficult. So now I'm extremely happy you all studying. Please continue to study and read the commentary. And now, since Dr. Thomas explained the root text, so if you read commentary, you can roughly figure out little bit. Otherwise we don't know what it is saying. So today is what? [Tibetan] Yeah. [Rinpoche speaking Tibetan]
Thank you Rinpoche, so much! Rinpoche: "You are great. I have a good student!" So Rinpoche we hope after Drubchen if you will give advice and lung Rinpoche: "lung is important." Thank you so much. Rinpoche: "One special day, I give lung." Thank you. Rinpoche: "lung is very important." [Rinpoche speaking Tibetan] Rinpoche: "Slowly I understand sems dpa...sems dpa chenpo.." [Rinpoche speaking Tibetan] So after the Drubchen, we'll have a ceremony with
with Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche where we can receive the vows of refuge and the Bodhisattva vow, because that's the way to engage with the text, through refuge and Bodhisattva commitment. And then this is the text of the Middle Way that highlights the view, and duma la 'jugs pa is the one that.. yeah, well Bodhicaryāvatāra is the one that highlights the conduct and then duma la 'jugs pa has both aspects. So we'll do that and then receive the text transmission for Mūlamadhyamaka from Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, because it's important to receive that continuous transmission. And so there's text transmission and explanatory tradition, continuity of explanatory activity, so we'll receive both.
Then the Bodhisattva commitment that you have when studying this is a heroic commitment. And Rinpoche said it's something he's beginning to slowly get some sense of what it means, this heroic commitment to be undaunted and fearless, fully energized when accomplishing what is good for others. He came as a refuge with nothing, but he tried to be a hero. So that will be after Drubchen I suppose, yeah? Thank you. That was a good way to begin, yeah? So if there's movement somewhere in the form of walking, then what is entailed by that is that of course there's the action, that's what we just said, there's the act of walking. But that walking is done by something, otherwise it's unthinkable. Walking without anything that walks is, it sounds like some mystical poem, no? In other words, it doesn't make sense the way it needs to. To say there's walking but nobody who walks, no? Maybe at least it cannot be, it'll have to.. some heavy duty interpretation will have to go into that if we have to make sense of it, no? Or perhaps we should then pause a little bit, is there anyone who thinks that walking without anyone walking makes sense?
Because the necessity of all three, given one is there, that the other two also are present, that's kind of key to the way the argument proceeds, no? So if there's walking, then there's also someone who walks, and there's a place where walking occurs.
Because otherwise, how can we say that there's walking if there's no place that it takes place? Okay? So, then we go back to stanza 3. "Going where walking takes place, how could that make sense when without going, there cannot reasonably be any place where walking takes place?"
So here we are looking at the act of walking and its location, yeah? And we're looking also at a sentence that talks about this, or a thought, no?
The girl walks on the path, a sentence about walking. So there's a little girl who's walking on a path, and what is she doing? She's walking. So that's a sentence that makes perfect, immediate, intuitive sense. And yeah, to say that it doesn't make sense, again, would require a lot of strange movement, no? So this is also how we think, arguably, no? It's not just how we talk about it, and then inside our mind we think something else, no? It's not that we say, "Oh, it's just how I have to speak because otherwise people won't, they won't accept the way I really think about this, so I have to say "the girl walks on the path," but actually the way I think about it is, who knows what, yeah? That's not how it is. It's how we speak and it's how we think. It's how we understand the world, really, no?
So in other words, we're not just talking about grammar, right? If we're talking about grammar, it's our own grammar we're talking about, the way we make sense of the world. That's what is under analysis. So is that a good grammar that we have in our heart to make sense of the world?
Well, then we say that we're talking about an act of walking, an act, yeah? In other words, we're not talking about several. We're talking about just one.
And so if we wonder, "Ah, maybe not," then a good way to illustrate that what we mean is one act of walking is just to think that when the girl has walked that path, she arrives, and she arrives just once and at one place. There's not several results, no? As there would be if there were many acts of walking, then she would arrive at many different places when those acts would be over, no? Here we're talking about one act of walking to the store or whatever it is, yeah?
So now in the sentence, since there's just one act of walking, then when we say the girl walks on the path, what do we mean by the different elements? The girl is the one who walks, okay, fine. We'll leave that aside for now. And then we talk about the the act of walking, which if we say that 'walks' in that sentence, "the girl walks on the path," the word 'walks' is what expresses the act of walking, yeah? Then that's maybe natural, no? Because it is, after all, the word 'walking' that we're talking about. It's a form, present tense of that verb, 'walks'.
So maybe when we say "the girl walks to school" and we're thinking about these three different things, it's the word 'walks' that really means walks, yeah? That is the one that picks out walking. But if we do that, then what about the path? The girl walks on the path. So what do we then mean by 'the path'?
We have already said that walking, or what is it that 'the path' element expresses in that sentence? no? We have some immediate understanding when we hear the words, "the girl walks on the path," but what really does the word 'the path' mean for us? And again, we can look at it in this very personal way because that's how it becomes more clearly obvious what's at stake here, yeah? What does it mean for me when I "say she walks on the path," yeah? I have said that the walking is expressed by the word 'walks', but now what about 'the path'? Is that path then not expressed, not intended with the word walks? If we say that, at first glance that may sound okay, but think about it. How could there be a path that she walks on, unless that path is a place of walking, yeah? In other words, unless that path is qualified by a presence of walking. So in other words, in our sentence here, we cannot say that the path means just the path and has this noun sense, and is not associated with the verb in any sense, because if it wouldn't be that, then we end up with the absurd idea that she walks where there is no walking, yeah? If we say that the path is just a place, yeah? It's just the road but without anyone walking on it. How could that be where she walks?
It's probably something we have to go through a few times, yeah? But suddenly it becomes clear what is going on, yeah? In a funny sense.
If we say that the word 'walking' is what expresses and
picks out that activity, and when I say "the girl walks on the path," when I get to the word 'walks', then that's where I intend walking, yeah? Then what about 'the path'? Is 'the path' that I intend to express when I say "the girl walks on the path," a path that has no walking? That would be the conclusion since there's just this one act of walking and that one act of walking has already been associated with the verb. So now the noun that expresses the supposed location where she walks is a location that has no walking. Absurd, no? Then the alternative and the commentary says we can read these two verses
we can read this number 3 as an instance of first associating the verb with the action and not the noun, or we can do it the other way around as well, yeah? So in other words the message of 3 and 4 is the same, just expressed differently. The same goes for 4. This was maybe more complicated to listen to than clarify but it will be clear if you read the commentary at some point. Number 4: "For whomever there is going where walking takes place, it then follows that there is no going where walking takes place, because going is found where walking takes place."
So if we do the opposite because we don't like this conclusion that the path is now a place without walking, then we could say "okay, then let me say that when I say 'the path,' that's when I intend walking." But of course the problem with that is then the verb has no referent. The verb now has no meaning. Why does it have no meaning? Because we said that the place, the path where she walks, that's the element in the sentence that is associated with walking.
And then the verb itself, what does it mean? 'Walking' that does not intend walking. It's an empty word. It's just a sound. It has no meaning at all.
So then one of you said last time that okay, this problem follows only if we really force this idea that there's just one act of walking, and that it can only be expressed by one element among these three: the agent, the action, and the object,
or the subject, the verb, and the location.
So if we go that way, then we end up in this strange situation. But why can't we just say that there's a kind of walking that is associated with the agent? No, that comes later! With the action, and another one that is associated with the place? What's wrong with that? It seems like what we actually mean, no? I mean walking when I say walking, and I also mean that the path is a place that has walking, not a place where there's no walking.
But then the reply comes in stanza 5: "If going took place where walking takes place, meaning if we say that there's going and that's an action expressed by 'going' or 'walking,' and there's also a place where this action takes place, both carry the sense of walking. If that's the meaning behind if going took place where walking takes place. "Then it would follow that there are two acts of going, One, due to which there is a place with walking," so that's one that qualifies 'the path' in that particular way, so that it becomes a path where someone walks. There's a sense of walking that is associated with that. And then another, that is the going that happens there. So the path, because we cannot accept that the path is something that is intrinsically divorced from walking, no? That is impossible. If she walks on the path, there will have to be a deep connection with walking and that path, between walking and that path. So if we say that, that means, okay, then let there be walking there. The path is qualified by walking. But the path is also just the path. It isn't walking, right? So there has to be some walking that makes the path the location of walking because it's not just a place without walking. Okay, but then there's that and then the walking. Otherwise, we started out saying that there's a sense of both, of the action being applicable to the verb and to the location.
And so now we will also have to say that if we allow that 'the path' is qualified by a natural presence of walking,
then that's what makes it the location for walking. But then what about the act that takes place there? They can't be the same, right? 'The path' and 'the walking' cannot be the same. It's crucial that they are different from each other. Otherwise, it's total nonsense, no? If the walking is the path, so there has to be something that makes the path the place where it happens. And then on top of that, there has to be another, the act of walking that happens there. So now we have suddenly two actions going where we thought, no pun intended, where we thought that
thatwe were actually just talking of a single commonsensical action, that of 'walking.' But it can get even more bizarre because, as it says in 6, "When it follows that there are two acts of going, it follows that there are two agents of going because without something that goes, it makes no sense for there to be going." So if there's one act of going that is naturally associated with the location, and then another action that is performed on the basis of that location, then because there are two actions and because whenever there is an act of going present, there must also be something that goes or walks, it now also follows that there are two agents. So who knows if it's still a girl who walks there in the second case. There are now at least two girls or two agents of going. Hard to imagine something more bizarre and absurd than this, no? And yet all of this is only an outcome of our own attempt at making sense of our associations and ideas.
I guess we should think a little bit about that.
And perhaps the most constructive is to think of where it doesn't really work for you, the argument wherever you think there's something odd or artificial or...
What do you think?
Or does it make perfect sense, so to speak?
Student: "It doesn't make sense to... I'm still confused why there has to be two acts.
Because I think to me, if I think about a path, I kind of agree that a path is not just a road because a path is only meaningful if there is a walking taking place.
But that walking is exactly because someone is walking on it. That's why there is a walking. So why can't these two walking be the same walking?" But we can also zoom in on the path, no? Right?
So what is the path in this sentence? "The girl walks on the path."
The path is where she walks. But let's try to zoom in on that path. Let's try to...
Let's try to look at it in isolation. Is that path a path with going or without going in itself?
Student: "It cannot be without going, so it can only be with going." In itself? Student: "In itself as in... " Thomas: "Like we have three things, no? There's the agent of walking, then there's the action, and then there's the place where it occurs. So they're deeply related, we said. But they're also distinct enough for us to be able to talk about the path, no? I can say "the paths are.." without having thereby set "walking," no? For example. 'The path' doesn't mean walking. Just like that, no?
So that path by itself, is that a path with walking or without walking?
Student: "Well, the path itself is not walking." It's a path that has no walking.
Studnet: "But then the path is not meaningful if there is no walking taking place." And if you want to make it meaningful by saying it's a place with walking, even when you zoom in on it on itself, then there's no need to talk about walking. You have said "the path" and all what you need to say is said then.
It's very amazing, no?
Student: "The third term is always needed, this path. Your sentence, "the girl walks on the path," because we started to focus on the grammar, could we not say just "the girl walks" or "the girl is walking"? And then you don't have a path, but then the path I assume you would say is implied, or something along those lines." Yeah, I guess if "the girl walks," that's an okay sentence, no? Very short, but it's okay. But it implies that she walks somewhere, because if she walks,
if we say she walks but she doesn't walk somewhere, that doesn't work.
And it's also possible to say "the girl walks on the path," that's a little sort of simple, but whatever we can say about that sentence, it's an okay sentence, there's nothing wrong with that grammatically speaking, or semantically, "the girl walks on the path."
Student: "And a path is only a path if there is walking." In this case, no? I mean, it's only the path where she walks on, if there's walking there. So how could she walk?
It's interesting to try to then focus on what is implied by 'the path' alone. Why couldn't it be that the path is just the path, just like that, and has no immediate association with walking? Why couldn't it just be like we started out saying, that "the girl walks," 'walks' is what picks out the act, and 'the path' is just the location and nothing more? Why couldn't it be like that? Student: "Yeah, I'm still a little bit stuck on this third term, because I'm thinking if someone has walked, then there's a path. It's still a path if, well, I kind of want to say it's still a path if no one's walking on it, just because in the past someone walked on it, it's now a path, regardless of whether someone is currently walking on it."
Yeah, but that's probably not how, I mean, sometimes we think like that, we find a path in the forest and we can see that someone has walked there, and then we find some traces in the forest, and then we infer someone has walked here, this is a path that I can follow. So that, sure. But when we say "the girl walks on the path," we probably don't mean we don't mean that she walks on something that people have walked on before. I mean, that's not the point, yeah? The point is that that's where she walks now, yeah?
So this is something I think that requires a lot of sort of careful, careful, gentle analysis combined with contemplation, that as Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche advised also yesterday, when he gave advice in the temple,
and again, noting that this is also what His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, encourages repeatedly that when we study profound issues, that we allow ourselves to become sort of deeply informed by whatever we find out, no? This chapter is one I think that really asks for that process of contemplation to take place, because it goes to the heart of thinking, what we are dealing with here. So how can you get to the heart of thinking, through thinking? That's actually the challenge, no?
But, yeah.
And in particular, what is the exact concept that we are analyzing here in particular is getting from one place to another, no? So how can you get to the heart of thinking?
It's not just talking about a path that you can walk on to school or whatever, no?
Yeah?
Student: "In your discussion with him, I thought maybe it's like a chicken and egg question, you know? Can there be a path that the girl is walking on without her walking on a path? Of course not. I mean, the path where the walking takes place is like, let's say, the egg, and the walking needs also a path that is like the chicken. There cannot be a path of walking without the walking, and there cannot be a walking on the path without the path. So I mean, they are just very interdependent, and we cannot really say, we cannot say that one of them was there first, you know, and then the other happened. So therefore I would say they cannot be really so separated." Right. And what is the so separated? It's interesting that you say so separated. Student: "So separate how you like to do it." But they can be nonetheless. Student: "But there's only a path itself, you know? I think that is what you discussed with her, and then that path is not the path that the girl is walking. The path itself is free of walking. But the path where the girl is walking, that path cannot be separated." What is the path then, if it's free of walking? The path itself? Student: "No, that is the traces I see in the forest. But that is not where the girl is walking. But once we talk about a specific girl that is walking, then that is sort of not separable from the path that the girl is walking upon.
Am I confusing too much?" No, it's a question for ourselves, no? When someone, as soon as I begin to walk, then I'm sort of inseparable from the path. Student: "I mean, of course I can see distinct features between the girl and the path." And everything else. Yes, yes, of course. Student: "But still, the path in that context then is characterized by the girl walking on it. Likewise, the girl is also in that context characterized as being the one who is walking on the path. So therefore, I think one cannot really separate it too much."
It's the implications that are interesting.
One way of understanding what you say is that the world may be full of many things that are just there. But as soon as I am there and act, or someone, let's say me, as soon as I'm there and act, then everything that I do and act on and with respect to, I'm not really separate from. That's the implication of what you're saying, no? Student: "We're also not the same with that. But we're not so separable like how we talked about. So separable, that's very… I know, I know. Neither same nor different." Yes, so then you're back to that phrase, not to the… When I walk on my path to school, then me, the action and the path, as well as everything else in the world and whatever else takes place in the world are neither the same nor different. Student: "Yeah, I can live with that." We do. We can, but it's also meant to be… That insight is supposed to have enormous implications and be hugely empowering. So it's not just a matter of being able to live with it, but….
Student: "Okay, so this is… I just don't… Okay, I don't know where this question fits in. I just don't understand why we are enforcing this same difference or slightly same or 20% different on everything. It's like… You know, because where… I don't know, when I think about walking in my brain, or wherever I think, it's like, yeah, I see separate things happening. Or if I then think about it a bit more, then there might be some things that are put same, like the walking and the path, but then the agent seem different, right? So it's just, it feels… Yeah, this is… you can't answer that. Okay, why? I don't understand why that's the thing." Why we need to look for… Student: "Why everything is seen through the filter of same and different in terms of, you know, in terms of cognizing, in terms of perceiving. I don't know if there would be same with all senses, but at least like now we are talking a lot from the sense of perception, like looking, right? We look at walking, or imagine walking. Yeah, and then it just comes up. We end in that every time."
Well, it's because those are… There's no question that the way we get to think about this in this way is because the way the analysis is pushing us, no? The way the argument… Student: "No, I think that's how… I'm not talking about the analysis, I'm talking about how the world appears. When you showed the video of walking, I see a path, I see a place, I see walking, and I see somebody who's doing it." Yeah, let's watch it again. Because maybe we forgot what it is about when we were talking.
It should be really fast, yeah? Student: "I mean, I could also see everything as one, but then I see that that's the same, and I'm in the same place." Yeah, here is somebody walking, right?
That's what we're talking about. And what do we see? There. Do we see sameness and difference? What is it that we see?
Student: "Okay, so when you put it on that way, I don't see sameness and difference, but I think about it, I see sameness and difference, like in my mind. I don't know what's happening." It's very….
Then again it's a question if what we see is so different from what we think. Like, do I really see what I see as neither the same nor different, and then I just think like that? Maybe also not. But it's a very open question, what we see, you know? And then it's very obvious that when we are prompted by certain questions, then we begin to speak in terms of same and different, and we think that we kind of need to, that unless we can talk about these things in terms of same and different, then it's as if we don't know what's going on.
If I can't talk about what is happening on that video here in terms of same and different, there's this woman there who's walking along the tracks and the path that she's walking on is not the same as her, and what she does, that walking, is not her either, and it's not the path, it's just that action you see. Like, you can point at it in like in stanza 2, look at the movement, that's the walking. So that we feel that we need to be able to describe things in terms of same and different.
But what happens when we are asked to account for that,
is, you could say, a complete failure, no?
Then whether we ourselves experience a complete failure or just some sense of lack of clarity or being puzzled, that's another issue, and you should think very carefully, what is my actual reaction to this, yeah? Is it something that I feel I get a little bit from and it sounds perhaps exciting or let's assume that, no?
But is that all, so to speak? Or do we feel that we get it 100%? Whatever it means to get this, that we... Okay, let's say that we get the sense of complete failure when having to account, is that the case or not? Is it the case that we can watch a movie like that one, and then we can see that something that we immediately will feel very comfortable explaining in terms of someone who walks on a path and these three are naturally quite distinct from each other.
And when we then begin to think in terms of same and different, do we then experience a complete collapse of those notions? Or not? Or do they somehow keep floating around and we don't know what to do with them? Try to think about that, yeah? And if it's the latter that's the case, then try to zoom in on what is it that makes it like that? Where is it that I feel something is missing in my picture? Where is it that I feel something I haven't yet looked at that I should look at?
We had mentioned a while ago,
this was Śāntarakṣita talking about the Yogācāra perspective or Cittamātra, what we might want to call it, perspective, and saying that it is a perspective and a philosophy that he spent enormous, invested enormous,
that he contributed enormously to, let's say like that, yeah? To developing pramāṇa and a Yogācāra account of conventional reality. It was not something that he wasn't interested in. He is one of the main philosophers of those systems, yeah? Of our life. But he said that all of this is compelling only when not examined.
So that is something that they say goes for everything, yeah? We have the impression that it makes perfect sense, or at least that there's nothing problematic at all, we know intuitively what's going on, we feel. And yet that sense is lost entirely, when we just do a little bit of inquiry, yeah? If we have done this a few times, then we don't have to sit and spend an hour getting into how was it now, it just comes right away, you know?
And so it is compelling, but only until examined.
Student: "Part of what I've been trying to do as I sit here is think, because we're in the chapter on the action of going, and whether going takes place.
and I was trying to substitute different actions and see if the results are any different. In other words, if I say "I see something," if I see Thomas walking on the path, do I end up in the same place? And seeing, I suppose, doesn't depend on a location in the same way, so I wasn't sure if I was making any headway with that approach, because I could say, I don't know, "I see Thomas walking on the path," but then I still see something, right? That's where I'm just thinking out loud, and I think I end up in the same place, because then the question becomes where is the act of seeing, is it in me, is it in the action, or is it in the object that I see?" It would have to take place somewhere, it's just not the answer. It's not so obvious as it is with walking. With walking it's clear, you're walking on a path. But with seeing, who knows where seeing takes place. For all intents and purposes, it needs to happen somewhere, because if it doesn't happen somewhere, it doesn't happen. So if there's seeing, there's a place where seeing takes place also.
Student: "And then the other thing is, there are different kinds of verbs in terms of the actions they describe. Going is a durative verb. In other words, you go over a period of time. And there are verbs that are punctual, like stop. You stop in an instance, you go over a period of time, but you stop in an instance. But I don't think that gets us anywhere either." Well, that will be the initiation of walking and the stopping of walking. They're treated specifically in the chapter. So I think it probably does get us somewhere to think about it, but whether we solved the basic problem is a different issue. But Nāgārjuna thought it was relevant enough to write it into the chapter 2.
So maybe we should get back to stopping. Student: "I've just been trying to.." Yeah, that's the way to go. "..I'm just trying to think, if I plug in a different verb and try the same approach, where do I get? Where do I stop?" I think for now, what I would just say about stopping is,
especially if we say "stopping," then it implies...
instantaneous action is hard to make sense of, no?
Student: "You started me because you started talking about grammar, right?" Sorry? Student: "You started..." Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. Student: "Once you started focusing on grammar, then I started thinking grammar as well. There are different categories of verbs. There are different kinds of actions. Some actions take place over time, some verbs describe actions that are instantaneous, so to speak." Yeah, so to speak, exactly. And this is a very... Like I said,
Nāgārjuna himself takes up this later, no? And the whole chapter, so much of it is structured in grammatical terms, which is something that is characteristic of a lot of Indian analysis. But the interesting thing is that it's not just about grammar, no?
If we say it's just about grammar, that means that my own thinking has nothing to do with sentences like "I walk home," yeah?
And that's hard to say, no? Grammar is an attempt of making sense of that, yeah? And grammar is supposed to be the best account, perhaps, at least a necessary account of...
a necessary way of making sense of, a very useful way of making sense of sentences. So we are basically talking about our own beliefs, our own understanding of things, yeah?
Okay. Let's stop, if we can. And see you tomorrow. Thanks.
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