Valid Cognition, Seattle 2002 ཚད་མ།

Review notes kindly provided by Hanna Severin:

Milarepa: Four Supreme Things and Eleven Supreme Things
Nagarjuna, Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way,
'An Examination of Self and Phenomena', chapter 18, verse 5
'When karmic action and mental afflictions cease, that is liberation'
There is neither self nor selflessness....

'It is the opposite of something that can be described,
because it is not an object of conceptual mind.
Not arising, not ceasing, this is essential reality, it is as nirvana is.'

' First everything is real, then nothing is real, then conventionally things are real,
ultimately they are not, finally the precise nature of reality is neither real nor unreal,
thus the Buddha taught the Dharma in stages.'

the five aspects of the definition of the precise nature of reality
1) unknowable by analogy
2) it is peace
3) it is not of the fabric of fabrications
4) the wisdom that realizes it is not conceptual
5) it is free of distinctions, it is beyond the fabrication of one and different

' Unknowable by analogy, peace, not of the fabric of fabrications, nonconceptual, free of distinctions -, these are the characteristics of the precise nature.'

'This original wisdom with it's essence alpha pure,
not seen, inexpressible, beyond example, beyond words,
inconceivable it's emptiness by nature from the start,
samsara is not real and nirvana is just a name.'

this has been a brief explanation of inexpressibility in connection with the various schools
' When a result arises in dependence upon a cause,
the result and it's cause are not the same thing,
nor is one different from the other,
therefore there is neither permanents and distinction.'

'The actor is like an emanation, the action like an emanation of that emanation,
of the nature of emptiness, whatever slightest existence it may have is merely dependently arisen.'

'The Buddhas awaken ones, protectors of the word,
give us teaching like an elixir of immortality,
like an elixirs that can cut through birth and death,
the precise nature of reality they teach is beyond the ideas of there being one thing or many things, beyond the notion of there being any distinctions of anything, any permanents of anything.'

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