B. Alan Wallace, 06 May 2016
We continue to follow the strategy presented by Panchen Rinpoche, examining carefully the way we abide, in contrast to the mode of appearances. As we all know, we appear in very different ways, ever changing - even from day to day, we don’t look the same. But in contrast, when we think of our childhood, we think ‘that was me when I was a child’. Or when someone says something about us when we were adolescents, we feel ‘it’s referring to me’. There is something that abides. What is it that bears that continuity? We’ve already examined that but it’s worth coming back to it. It’s very helpful not to be locked into this appearance or that appearance, but to have a sense that there is something that continues over time, in this lifetime, and in a bigger picture, from lifetime to lifetime. Alan recalled that once the Dalai Lama was asked by someone in the audience to talk about his actual realization as a way of inspiring people, and he said ‘I can remember being with the Buddha’. So, even the Dalai Lama has this sense of continuity. We die every night and we’re born every morning - what is this person that abides and appears, and how do we apprehend this person? Padmasambhava, right after he’s finished settling the mind in its natural state and he says ‘do this until you’re finished’, he goes to the vipashyana chapter and the first stage is ‘engaging in the search for the mind’. When you’re stripped down to the substrate consciousness, to the flow of self-illuminating awareness, you can’t remove the luminosity nor the cognisance, the same way you can’t take out the heat of the fire. And then we go to the next meditation, we search for the mind and then he points out rigpa. We can’t find the mind and then we identify what’s left, pristine awareness. We identify what abides
The meditation is on vipashyana.
Alan returns to the text of Panchen Rinpoche, reading the verses of Shantideva on which our last meditation was based: “an individual is not earth, is not water, not fire, not air, not space, is not consciousness, is not all of them. Where then apart from these is the individual?” And then Shantideva suggests, as Padmasambhava and the Buddha also suggested, that we examine empirically each one of the aggregates, searching for the I. We examine even the self that we hold in our memory, which is not a fiction at all. There is an essential nature of the mind and you identify that when you achieve shamatha; there is an essential nature of fire - it’s hot and burning. And there is someone who does abide overtime: Can you find yourself? It’s not an absence, it’s a presence. Phenomenologically, you first identify it, and then, ontologically, you search for it. Is there anybody there to be found or is it all just appearances? A person has multiple basis of designation but these basis are never equal to the person. Panchen Rinpoche explains why it is not possible to equate a person with each one of the aggregates, individually or collectively, and also why a person cannot exist separate from the aggregates. And then, Alan comments that when we rest in the substrate consciousness and engage in the search for the meditator, we do not find - that was the last possibility of existing outside the manifold of appearances. Not to be found! When we first gain a realization, enabled by an idea - not to be found - this will be a conceptual insight; then we should stop further cogitation and rest in single-pointed equipoise. From within equipoise, examining as before, we maintain the mind in the space-like equipoise. When we come to the point of unfinding and seeing the unfindability, then there is just this openness, spaciousness, suddenly there is emptiness and that is called space-like meditative equipoise. If you’re not familiar with the view, fear will arise; if you are, joy will arise. That’s why one of the mahayana precepts is ‘don’t teach emptiness to those who are not ready’. Fear of annihilation can arise even with shamatha practice. Alan ends by saying that by the power of seeing the emptiness of yourself, you see how you and the sentient beings arise in mutual interdependence. And that very insight into emptiness will enhance your compassion. The grasping to an independent self undermines empathy, compassion, bodhicitta - all other beings are on the other side of the fence. And this is very lonely. Ironically, by realizing the emptiness of yourself, manifesting in a myriad of ways, all interrelated with all beings - we’re all intertwined, our very existence, our very being is one of interdependence - how can we not care for the other? Finally he cited Shantideva: “Do I really have to take on my shoulders the burden of the world?” He posed the question to himself and the answer was: “Yes, you do!” The question comes back: “Why?” And the answer is “because suffering has no owner”.
Meditation starts at 13:03
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Olaso. So, let’s continue following this strategy because that’s what it is, a path, a strategy. A sequence of methods presented here in this, this manual of pith instructions by Panchen Rinpoche now focusing of course on vipassana and specifically focusing on, really understanding the nature of the self. How the self does exist now and how the self doesn’t exist. Right. But the first part I found very interesting. I, I’m not sure I’ve seen it elsewhere. I found it and I continue to find it interesting and that is this careful examination we’ve done it but it, it bears doing more than once. Of examining the way we abide, the way we abide. Right. In contrast to the mode of appearances which we all know we appear in very different ways. Even you know when I’m when I just look in the mirror sometimes. I see very different things even from one day to the next. I’ll see very different things. Not you know I don’t mean anything mystical, it’s just kind of like different. [laughter] Older, different but even from day to day. And I, I’ve just noticed that you know. Just, I don’t look the same even from the morning to the afternoon. One thing I do know is I look the worst when I’m in a barber shop. [laughter] I don’t know why that is but that guy sticking back from the mirror is just pug ugly, really. I notice that every time. I think there must be some kind of a special mystique in the barber shops to make you look good. [continued laughter] Because I know I look the worst. Like, oh I don’t even want to look. So, but that’s the superficial that’s just, visual impression. Right.
[01:43] But then we know in more meaningful ways the myriad ways in which we manifest in the world. Well, very very different and ever-changing, always changing. On the one hand, but in the contrast to that the, the way of abiding, the way of being present. Such that when I think back to my childhood I have a sense of identity, that was me when I was a child. I see a photo of myself as a child, adolescent, and so forth, ah, that was me. If someone right now should praise me when I was a teenager when you were a teenager you were such and such, I’d feel oh thank you. And if a person puts me down when you when you were, you know, when you were, in your 20’s you know you were so uptight. Such a hard ass. I’ve been told that actually. [laughter] When I was a discipline in the, disciplinarian in the monastery. Well my fellow monks told me, Alan, you have no idea, you were such a hard ass. And I feel whoaa [chuckles]. That’s like 35 years ago you know but ohhhh. So something abiding. Some sense that you’re referring to me. Right. Appearance is very, very different. Child, young man, older man, etc., but what is abiding? So we examine that. It’s worth coming back to and examining, uh, who are you? And what is it that bears that continuity that you, you know, you identify, you recognize yourself. That’s going to be really helpful, to have a sense of that. It’s not locked into this appearance or that appearance but something that continues over time. That you say yes. You’re such and such a number of years old. And you were this and you were this and later you’ll be this and so forth. Let alone in the bigger picture, you know, from lifetime to lifetime.
[03:38] You know because highly realized beings will say. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said when he was asked once you know. It was in Australia I heard. If any of you were here you know and I say anything incorrect. It was, he was giving a talk in some place in Australia, not in Melbourne or Sydney, someplace else. And there’s a public discourse. I think many people there of course. And someone raised the question he said, ‘your Holiness here you refer to yourself as a simple Buddhist monk and no realization and all of that. But sometimes we, you know, we’d really like to be inspired by hearing about your actual realization, would you be willing to be a bit more candid? And what I heard, this is second hand, but what I heard he said, ‘well, you have a point. You have a point. Well, in that case I can remember being with the Buddha. I can remember before that living in Egypt. After that I can remember being a pundit in ancient India. So, yes. [Alan speaks to a student] Were you there? [student’s response: I remember the Egypt, I remember the part about Egypt.] Egypt, yeah. And what really brings me to tears even when I say it again I remember being with the Buddha. Oy oy oy. And so here is a person, you know, he does, he, he is candid upon occasion, when he sees, t’s like administering some really strong medicine. When he sees, okay now, now’s the time. He doesn’t go around saying that. But when it’s appropriate. It’s not, it’s not uniform. Never tell. Like it’s some kind of a super secret. But it’s also, don’t broadcast. Don’t highlight. Don’t try to impress people, you know. But he does on occasion he is more candid. So, here’s a person who is now 80s 80, soon to be 81 years old, and saying, I was, I remember being there with the Buddha 2600 years ago. I remember being in Egypt. It’s a sense of continuity right. That was me in a previous appearance. Right.
[05:41] So, this is what we’re really looking at. Now we can’t, most of us don’t have that ability, although I’ve met quite a number of people, uh, who I respect and really, you know, have great respect for, who do claim to have past life recall and show some real evidence of that. But let’s set that aside for the time being just within this life. I remember in a previous incarnation living in a little one room, one room apartment in the center of Güettingen, right across from the cathedral and eating muesli, and muesli and dried fruit and yogurt every day. And reading and meditating and smoking dope. I remember that young man you know. [Laughter] Not me. He’s not, he’s not this one. I haven’t smoked dope for a long, long time but I remember, that was me in an earlier incarnation and then so forth. And then the early times in Dharamsala, boy, very different. And so what is, identifying, what is that common that, the one who abides? Because we’re not speaking gibberish here. Everyone can believe or not believe in reincarnation. To my mind it’s almost self-evident. But clearly we are reborn every time we wake up in the morning. Clearly we’re reborn every time we slip into a new dream and then we die, from the dream born into another dream and then we die and then we’re born into waking state and then we die and we fall asleep and so forth. So, in this miniature, miniature, clearly so, so to make this short because I want to get back to the text. What is it that abides? It’s you. It’s a person. And we’re not talking about something that doesn’t exist because you do. You were a young man. You were a young lady. You were a girl. Right. It’s true. And there is continuity and yes that was this is all meaningful speech. And so identifying what is it? Who is that person? What is the person who abides?
[07:43] And then seeing, it’s really subtle, this is just to my mind brilliant phenomenology and I don’t recall having seen this. Glen, or Glen or Anna, you’ve read a lot, studied a lot, have you seen that particular modality before in other texts? Of examine your way of, in your [?Tibetan 07:57] your way of being present, your way of appearing, and the way you apprehend. Have you seen that elsewhere?
[Glen responds: Not in the way you’re explaining it. No.]
Yeah. He says it just really simply, look right there but I think I’m just saying what it says in Tibetan I’m not doing something special. Have you seen that? It’s fascinating, isn’t it? Because what I’m used to is identify the object of refutation and then do parts, wholes, analysis do, you know, do just any of the myriad reasonings of Nagarjuna, Chandrakirti and so forth and so on. That’s what I’m really familiar with. This one, it really does have that purely phenomenological flavor of Mahamudra, which I find just absolutely enchanting, you know. Like in the insight chapter in Spacious Path of Freedom I just adore that chapter because it’s just so, so radically empirical you know. It doesn’t invite us to get caught up in head trips and just intellectual entertainment. Well this, this is true here too. He’s saying examine closely, investigate closely, how do you appear to abide as you examine yourself? How do you appear to appear as you examine yourself? How do you apprehend yourself? This is radically empirical right. But now we segue to the next meditation which we’re going to begin very shortly.
[09:12] You’ll probably want to do that meditation more than once until we have a sense this is what abides. This is what abides. And knowing that’s not a delusional statement. You know. And then we go to this practice here. So I guided you earlier basically just read Padmasambhava. You remember? It was right after he’s finished settling the mind in its natural state and he says do this until you’re finished right. Don’t be introduced to rigpa too soon. And then it goes right to the next chapter and in his vipassana chapter then the first stage was? Engaging in the search for the mind. Right. You’ve just settled your mind in its natural state. You’ve simplified it down to its raw core, its essential nature. Right. So you see it unadorned, naked. That is without the clothing of gender, age, ethnicity, personal history, and all that stuff which is all fine but if you’d really like to know that, if you’d really like to know the mind, you might want to just see it stripped clean of all the barnacles, all the stuff that’s added to it. Which can be taken away. When you strip it down to the substrate consciousness you really can’t, you can’t just kind of pluck out. You can release gender, you can release ethnicity, and all of that personal history. That’s not a problem. You can go right beyond it. But when you come down to that, that just that crystal clear flow of sparkling water of your flow of awareness as you’re resting in the substrate consciousness - self-illuminating. You can’t pluck off anything. You can’t take, well, let’s see what it’s like without the luminosity. Let’s see what it’s like without the cognizance. Well then it’s not there anymore it’s like looking at fire and say, well, let’s look at the fire but take out the heat. That’s, then it’s not fire anymore. Right.
[11:14] That’s what abides. Right. What abides of you, because there you are. You’ve been around for a number of years. You weren’t born yesterday. What abides of you? And then we go to the next meditation and we’ll seek out, as he, Padmasambhava, all focusing on the mind. So he’s now engaged in the search for the mind, right. And then pointing out rigpa. That was the process, you remember? The one, two. Engaging in the search for the mind and then not finding and then identifying what’s left, rigpa, pristine awareness, right. So, identifying what abides. It’s manner of abiding. How does it abide? What is it that abides from day to day, decade to decade? But that at least we know what we’re talking about. And some people like his Holiness know what they’re talking about when they also said, as he’ll say very gently, I feel a very strong affinity with the 13th Dalai Lama. [light laughter] And I feel strong affinity with the fifth Dalai Lama, you know. Well, read between the lines, you know it’s not too hard to figure out. But for the rest of us ordinary people or subordinary people, you know, like me, at least we know this. So having known that let’s go into the next, into the next practice. Okay. Good. Find a comfortable position.
[12:48] Meditation bell sounds three times.
[13:12] If we take this practice to heart, if we really immerse ourselves in the meditation to follow, we will be going into uncharted territory. It can be frightening. And in order to continue the journey, to have the courage to continue the journey, it will be most helpful, if not simply indispensable, that we have a very deep sense of refuge, deep sense of trust, of ease, of fearlessness. And we can meaningfully take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, in the Guru, the Yidam, the indivisibility of the Lama and the Yidam. All of this could be very meaningful. But on this path, this path of Mahamudra, this path of Dzogchen, the final refuge is, of course, not to look for the Buddha outside yourself, but to take refuge in the Buddha within, in your own pristine awareness. So taking refuge, arousing the motivation of bodhicitta, let’s settle body, speech, and mind in their natural states.
[16:16] This process finally culminates, of course, in simply resting in awareness, simple and unadorned, free of elaborations. You see this awareness very nakedly without mediation when we’ve achieved shamatha. And as Padmasambhava, the Lake Born Vajra says at the culmination of his teachings on shamatha, now you see the essential nature, the essential nature of your mind, the essential nature of consciousness and then where you proceed to vipassana. So now briefly review as you examine the way you abide, the way you appear, and the way you apprehend yourself, what is your essential nature? You that abides, continues over time. Who are you? And how do you apprehend yourself? Examine closely.
[18:34] Bear in mind, the person you’re attending to here does exist. The essential nature of fire is that it’s hot and burning. That doesn’t mean it’s inherently existent it just means this is true of fire wherever it is it’s an abiding constant. However fire may appear in this situation or that, this is the abiding element. The mind appears in a myriad of ways but the abiding element, that which persists over time, that’s sheer luminosity and sheer cognizance. So you too as an individual, a person, you too abide over time. You too have an essential nature. The person you are who wakes up and falls asleep, who grows old. Who are you? What is your essential nature? How do you abide?
[20:39] Now we’ll engage in a task which psychologists call the exercise of working memory. We bring something to mind. It could be a mathematical equation, it could be a design for a new dress, it could be travel plans for going on vacation, it could be anything. Bringing something to mind, holding it in mind, and then engaging in a task while doing so. So we’re all novices in this practice but to the best of your ability as a beginner, hold in mind, bring to mind, hold to mind, the person, this abiding person, the person who abides over time, bring this person, yourself, to mind. Hold it in mind.
[22:01] Now remembering it, direct your attention now to the space of the body. You’re very familiar with this. We’ve done it many times before. Direct the light of your awareness to the space of the body, identify it. It is of course the space, the domain or the field in which this whole array of tactile sensations, tactile feelings arise and pass. Holding in mind the person you apprehend yourself to be, the one who abides. Examine firsthand the arisings of the earth element indicated by sensations of firmness and solidity throughout the body. And look for a match. Among these various manifestations or emergences of the earth element throughout your body do any of these, are any of these a match for the person that you are who abides over time. Are any of them equivalent, identical with, you?
[24:22] Or are they simply manifestations of the earth element empty of any person devoid of any personhood? Examine so closely that you come to certainty. There should be no ambiguity about this. Then moving fairly quickly examine the manifestations within the somatic field of the water element, moist, fluid. The fire element, warmth, heat. The air element, movement, lightness, motility. Are any of these you? Identical to you? Or are they just as impersonal, devoid of person as the earth element, water, fire, air in the surrounding environment? All devoid of self, of person, equally. The space of the body, the domain, the field in which these sensations arise and pass, is that a person? Is that you?
[26:48] Sustaining this stillness of your own awareness, as we’ve done so many times before, now we direct the light of your awareness this time to the space of the mind. Identify it selectively. Focus on it single pointedly and examine now closely whatever appearances arise, whatever experiences arise, anything that arises, images, thoughts, desires, emotions, anything, and whatever comes up, objectively or subjectively, examine closely, are any of these the person that you have identified as yourself, the one who abides over time?
[28:28] Or are they what they, just what they seem to be, they are just thoughts, just emotions, desires with no personhood simply mental events, mental processes. How is it? Examine closely. The space of the mind itself, is that a person? Is that you? Then invert your awareness in upon awareness itself as you’ve done so many times before. Examine closely, awareness illuminating itself, knowing itself. And as it does so, ask this flow of awareness, is this a person? Is this me, the one who abides over time? Or is it no more than what it appears simply a flow of cognizance, a flow of clarity, devoid of any person, any self or I.
[31:14] Now mentally stand back for a moment from this whole system of the body and all the events taking place within the somatic field and the mind and all the events that take place within that field and awareness. Stand back from the whole system and view it collectively as an integrated system, bodily formations, mental formations, the flow of mental consciousness, and of course the derivative sensory modes of consciousness. Examine them now in their entirety, collectively. Is this integrated sum total, the entire system, is that who you are? Is that a person, the person that is you who has abided over time? Or is it simply an impersonal system composed of impersonal parts, empty of person, empty of you? But now, probe in once again upon you the observer, the one who is viewing, attending to the system of your body and mind, the whole system. Examine the observer. Examine the meditator. Are you anywhere to be found? Examine with precision and arrive at certainty. Are you anywhere to be found? If you see the unfindability, if you see the absence of yourself inside the system of the body-mind and outside, rest there. Sustain that flow of knowing, of the emptiness of you. Sustain that flow of knowing, that certainty, that ascertainment, with a sense of ease, stillness, and clarity.
[36:47] Bell rings three times
[37:16] Olaso. So, let’s see where the Panchen Rinpoche is going to take us from here. So, we’ll see in the root text he’s commenting, on which he’s commenting. The last verse we read is; “An individual is not earth, is not water, not fire, is not air, not space, is not consciousness. Is not all of them. Where then apart from these is the individual?” So we just checked that out. Also in accordance with that The Way of the Bodhisattva, Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, Shantideva says, so here’s a very familiar litany. But rather than just kind of getting through this, he’s saying this for a reason. He could have written a shorter text and said teeth, etc, but he gave all of these. And as you know we, we examined this just radically, empirically and just in terms of the appearances arising to our tactile consciousness. Ah. But what he’s suggesting and the Buddha himself suggested in the Satipatthana Sutta, you know. And what Padmasambhava suggests in the Vajra Essence and elsewhere. It comes up in Buddhahood Without Meditation and so forth. They’re doing this, I think, because they actually want us to follow along and not yawn, you know. And that is, as you consider not just the sensations of earth, water, but actually consider the body parts that certainly do exist, ah, just examine each one. Some people are very proud of their teeth. I know I see people with just beautiful teeth. You know. They like to smile a lot. [chuckles]. And some people are very very proud of their skin, beautiful skin. They and they’ll take great lengths to keep their skin in really good shape. Some people like me are very proud of their hair [laughter] and like to show off their hair a lot. [laughter] Unlike those other people losing their hair like [laughter] I’m not losing my hair. I’m gonna have a good full-headed corpse and lots of hair. I’m very proud of my hair. And so we identify with all kinds of things you know, skin, hair, teeth. Some people have beautiful eyes and they may identify with their eyes. You know. Some people are very embarrassed by their ears. So they try to cover them over. I don’t want people to see the real me. Hello Dumbo. [laughter]
(39:48) So, we shouldn’t laugh too quickly when he’s going through body parts because people do identify with body parts. People who are overweight often identify with their overweightness. Make a com, a reference to it and then they feel, oh, you’re talking about me, oh, and then, discomfort. Some people are very skinny. Some people are very, not physically, just not attractive. What can you say? You know. So then they identify with that. They identify with bad skin, being overweight, being underweight, having unattractive bodies, myriad ways with great big feet, whatever. People, people are actually doing this all the time. And not just other people. You know the non-buddhists, the stupid ones. [Laughter] We really smart buddhists, we do this too. So we can go through all the body parts and see there are people who probably do identify with some of the things he’s mentioning. Some people I mean people will spend hundreds of dollars I understand on their nails. [murmuring] Right? Nails. And they say,, oh so nice that you dropped in. [raucous laughter] Don’t tell me they’re not identifying with their nails, they are[continued laughter]
[41:08] So, let’s take this seriously. Some people are, you know, the high cheekbones, high cheekbones, you know. Some people are very proud of their high cheekbones. That look you know. [laughter] English people, I think some English people I’ve heard, long heads like mine. Long heads, that’s more aristocrat. Aristocrats in England say we have longer heads. laughter]] The people like Elizabeth’s definitely not an aristocrat. [continued laughter] It’s the worker bees. The worker bees. The farm hands and so forth, they have round heads. [laughing] But the aristocrats who speak, you know, who speak like this [speaks with an English accent], they have long heads. And you might be very proud of your long head. Seriously. So, let’s not treat this too lightly.
[41:59] People do. So now let’s see jut, you know, pause when you see something that you actually identified with, teeth or absence of teeth [continued laughter]. You’re walking around, you know, It’s nice to meet you and you know you’re covering your mouth. [laughing] Or you know big empty holes. You’re identifying with your teeth and your lack of teeth. It happens a lot. Right. And don’t get me started on mental qualities, you know. Then people identify with those too okay. So, Shantideva, illuminate us. “Teeth, hair, and nails are not the self.” [laughter continues] Okay. So for all that cosmetic dentistry, all the hair salons, and all the nail, we just put them out of business.[laughing continues] “The self is not the bones or the blood,” You know. Do you have aristocratic blood? You know, your bloodline. Are you from a good family? You know. What’s your bloodline? Right. Are you a peasant or are you, do you have nobility in your blood? Oh, oh I met somebody, one woman in, in Mongolia. She was Italian and she was telling about the popes and the other aristocrats in her family line. She was really something. I really paid much more respect for her after that. [laughter]. Oh, you got some blood, you got some real blood there. She looked pretty ordinary actually, but, oh, bloodline like that, she’s somebody special. She made a point of mentioning it. Contessa [Italian word, meaning: Countess] here and the pope here and and this Archduke and so forth. I come from quite a bloodline. She had some blood but the self is not, “The self is not the bones or blood.”
[43:50] (chuckling) And I don’t really know many people that identify with the next part, “It’s not snot, it is not phlegm, it is not lymph, it is not pus”. Although if you had a lot of those you probably would identify with it in a very embarrassing way. “The self is not fat or sweat” people can be very humiliated if they sweat a lot, right. We’ve seen that. I’ve seen that in advertisements, right, for underarm deodorant. chuckling] They don’t dare raise armpits because people see, oh, it’s wet down there. They’re identifying with sweat. There’s no question about it. Otherwise why wouldn’t you say hello, it’s hot. [laughter] I see you’ve never taken this seriously before now. So now you’re really taking seriously, it’s good. So the self, “is not fat or sweat” however much or little you have. It’s not you. People with great lung capacity. People, laughter] people will pride themselves on how long they can stay underwater. Right. Whoa, you got some lungs there. You have some, whoa, you are an impressive person. Or people that can sing. You know. Wow, she’s got a pair of lungs. Ya., Liver? I guess “The lungs and liver too are not the self. Internal organs too are not the self.” “The self is neither.” [thank goodness] “excrement [excrement]nor urine,” But I have heard in my lifetime a person taking a really good poop and then being very proud of it. [raucous laughter]. I had a really good palm, whew, you want to see? [more laughing]
[45:52] I’ve had wonderful teachings on pride from some of my lamas and they say you know there’s basically nothing that someone won’t be proud about, including their stool. You name it. Some people are proud of being uneducated. George Bush (43rd U.S. President) commented at one time when he was in college he read a book. [Laughter] He said that with some pride. He wasn’t one of those egghead you know, knuckleheads who read lots of books, he’s a man of the earth. You know, a salt of the earth and granted, he read a book, he got through. And it, he seemed to be proud of that fact. I understand. I understand that. So, “Heat and breath are not the self. The pores are not nor in all their aspects are the six consciousnesses the self.” The five sensory and the mental. So he just went through the whole spectrum you know that was useful. So, more interesting than before, right? You didn’t just whip through it but now you see,, oh he’s serious. “Thus with respect to an individual or self or I, the bone and the other earth elements of one’s body [the solid parts] are not the I. The blood and other water elements [the liquid parts] are not the self. From the crown of the head to the soles of the feet the fire element [the warm part or the warmth] is not the self. The wind constituent of the body shifting and moving within the channels” That clearly to my mind really shows highlights the flow of prana, the, the winds, the vital energies flowing through, very, and they are wind, they are the energy flowing through. “This is not the individual. The inner hollow regions and other cavities of the body are not the individual. All consciousnesses, the eye consciousness and the others are not the self and the self is not them, so there simply is no equivalent between yourself as a person and any of the above individually.”
[47:59] And then he adds, as we’ve just done in meditation, complete integration of theory and practice. “The collection of those, everything, all the above, the collection of those is not the self. [and] The I is not the collection of those.” So he’s just going you know through the door from the outside in, inside out, not the same. “And this I nor is it other than those.” So when we look for something outside that system, that manifold, or that aggregation of bodily and mental events, processes “nor to be found outside. For in the mind holding the idea of”, now here’s the working memory right, that’s a working memory, exactly what we just did. The mind holding the idea of, holding in mind. It’s like having you know losing a dog. Losing a dog. And you hold up and you’re walking around the neighborhood and you’re, have you seen this dog? Have you seen this dog? Have you seen it in your house, outside your house? Please look. Have you seen this dog? Have you seen any dog that looks like this dog? And if they all say no then you’re probably living in a neighborhood that’s empty of your dog. Not really a laughing matter, but it’s pretty good. You’re not just saying have you seen a dog, but this dog. Have you seen this dog anywhere? Does this match anything you’ve seen in the neighborhood? Anything outside of the neighborhood? Right. That’s it. You’re holding something in mind, me. And very, very importantly here, you’re not holding some fiction in mind like a self-existent immutable partless eternal identity, a metaphysical ego. No no no, no actually no. There is an essential nature of the mind. You identify that when you achieve shamatha. There’s an essential nature of fire. Touch it, it’s hot and burning. And there is someone who does abide over time. Can you find yourself?
[49:58] So it’s a strong parallel. It never really occurred to me before because I’ve never done these two texts simultaneously. But the Vajra Essence says, come to the conclusion of shamatha, you’ve identified the essential nature of your mind. Congratulations. And that was not an absence, that was a presence. Right. Clearly, or as Panchen Rinpoche himself says you’ve now realized the relative nature of your mind. Something that does exist. Not, not something that doesn’t. “And likewise you’re no more or less real than your mind or consciousness.” No more or less. Right. So, if fire has an essential nature, your mind has essential, your awareness has essential nature. Then, why not? You must have some essential nature but again we’re not saying it’s some immutable ego substance and so forth. We’re just saying you were five years old a long time ago. And you were a lot of things in between. Can you find that one? So it’s an interesting strategy isn’t it? Identifying and then searching for it. And the searching for it. The first one is phenomenological. The second one’s ontological. Right. Phenomenologically you can identify the essential nature of the mind, there it is, in the palm of your hand. But then you go to the engaging in the search for the mind, the ontological search. And that’s where you find, not finding. So, “For in the mind holding the idea of [in quotation] ‘the individual who is meditating’ in the mind holding that idea, holding that in working memory. “There is no individual that exists as it appears.” We’ve covered that. You appear in a myriad of ways and many of them simply incompatible. You’re really sweet and just a mean, a mean person. You’re so wonderfully generous and just the stingiest person in a mile. You’re very attractive and so ugly. You’re so intelligent and dumb as a doornail, you know, and so forth. And they’re all true and they’re at least yeah they’re all. I mean not everybody’s super attractive but you know relatively speaking sure we have our better days and worse and they’re not the same.
[52:05] So we appear in a myriad of ways as the mind appears in a myriad of ways, wholesome and unwholesome and so on. And yet we can speak of an essential nature of the mind that is abiding in all those states that are afflicted, virtuous, non-virtuous, yeah. And if the mind is and this body this is not somebody else’s body. One could track this; there is commonality the genes are the same the dna is the same blood type is the same. There’s a lot, you know. This body that’s gotten older since you know since I was born conceived but still it’s identifiable as the same body even though the appearances are changing so much. Right. So that’s so interesting. I’ve never found this so interesting before in my life. “For in the mind holding the idea of the individual that’s meditating, there is no individual that exists as it appears.” As it appears we can write books and books and books, volumes of the many ways I appear sure if anybody is interested. But is there anybody corresponding to, is it really, is there anybody there? Or is it all just appearances? And all of those appearances [are] devoid of a person. “Also as stated in the sutra, form is not the self,” Now we go through the five, the five skandas. So we started with the six elements, that’s a good strategy. We just did it, pretty good. And now the, the whole system, the whole explanation of the five skandas, the five psychophysical aggregates that run through all, all of Buddhism, everywhere to be found in the Pali Canon. So we’ll go through that. This is classic. This is, you’ll find this in the Pali Canon right here. “Form” and the form is not just shape but the form is all the physical appearances. And that’s your shape, your weight, your size, all the material elements of your body “not the self. Form is not the self. Feelings” this includes both mental and sensory, somatic and so forth, feelings. “Feelings” that whole array, positive, negative and indifferent, you remember, feeling.
[54:05] “Feeling is not the self. Discernment” this is that mental faculty that enables us to distinguish this from that. “Discernment is not the self. Mental formations” that’s a wide array of mental activities, mental afflictions, virtuous states of mind, many, many mental factors. In fact all of the rest of them that are not feeling and discernment. They’re all in this, this one, this is the, the assembly. Mental formations, none of them, none of those mental afflictions, virtuous states, mindfulness, blah blah blah, “none of them are the self either individually collectively.” And then just consciousness that sheer being aware of, whether it’s visual consciousness, auditory, mental and so on. Well they’re not a person, it’s not a self consciousness, not the self. So there it is. “Since that is the case the five aggregates of the individual who meditates or the six elements or the collection of these or the shape of the collection none of these is the individual who meditates.” Now what he’s not doing of course, is he’s not saying there’s no one meditating. If there’s no one meditating then there will be no point his teaching medit… teaching meditation to people who can never meditate. Right. He’s teaching meditation, inviting you to meditate. Which means you are one who meditates. So he’s not going to, you know, teach you and then negate you, and, you know, like teach you and then shoot you. Teach you and then obliterate you, you know. He’s not going to do or ask you to obliterate, you know, practice meditation and then hold an ontological gun to your head and blow your brains out. He’s not asking you to self-annihilate. Right? You’re first listening and then you’re thinking and then you meditate. And each of those is a different manifestation. When you’re just listening to teachings that’s one manifestation. You’re a student listening, right. And then you reflect upon now you’re more in the mode of a philosopher, a person who’s really interested in the nature of reality. You’re pondering, reflecting, analyzing, critiquing, you know, investing, investigating and that’s a different manifestation. That’s not the same as one that’s simply taking it in. So you go from a student to a philosopher to a contemplative and he’s not refuting any of them. Any more than he’s refuting the essential nature of the mind or the essential nature of fire. But can you be found? Phenomenologically and then ontologically? None of these is the individual who meditates. His word choice is so interesting. So just to my mind. “If they were,” if any of those five aggregates, the six elements, any of them individually or all of them collectively, “If they were, then the basis of imputation,” which is any of those and the thing, that you, imputed. So now this, this crucial distinction, the basis of designation.
[57:01] When you say I’m a little bit chubby or I’m tall or I’m calm and so forth, we can get to continue on, can continue on. But when you say you’re calm, the basis of designation is not the same at all as when you say you’re tall or you’re short, right. It’s entirely a bit different basis of designation. Your mind is not tall or short and so forth. And so this is one of the very, very interesting factors -, we don’t simply have a basis of designation, you know. Basis of designation on which I designate myself. It’s it’s a wide array and it comes up when we speak about ourselves, about other people. We find oh, but you but here you designated me on this on the basis of this. And then the next, then two minutes later you designated me on this and then you designated me on this and all three of those are entirely different without any overlap at all. And none of them are identical to the person that you designated upon those bases, you know, interesting. So, “If they were,” if the individual were any of those individually or collectively, “If they were then the basis of imputation and the thing imputed, the, the appropriated and the appropriator” that is, I appropriated a cell phone but in this case the appropriate appropriator is the appropriated is you’ve taken up the meditation and the appropriator is the one who’s taken up the meditation for example. The parts and the whole, the parts and the whole. You have many qualities. If some of you go for a job interview tell me your qualifications, you probably won’t just say one. Well I’m here aren’t I. [Laughter] The person might say I got that part anything else? You know. You’ll probably tell more than one qualification. In terms of CVs, so I’ve been told because I have one, the longer the better. Look at my CV Many qualities, each of which can be, oh,, you’re the author of that. Oh, you’re the translator of that. Oh, you spoke at that conference. Oh, you held a position there. And all of those are different bases of designation with no overlap. You show how many people there are on your CV, you know, with multiple bases of designation.
[59:35] So, “If they were then the basis of imputation and the thing imputed, the appropriated and the appropriator, the parts and the whole, would all be one.” They would be identical. “If the aggregates were the self,” the form, feeling and so forth. If they were the self identical to self, “then they would be multiple and then they would be multiple and selves would be multiple.” I mean there are five aggregates, not one. So if each of those aggregates were identical to yourself there would be five of you. You’re, when you were born your parents would have had quintuplets. ]chuckling] Oh my gosh, five in the same body. Horrible. Multiple personality disorder. [chuckling] So that’s, that’s not true. “Such statements are faulty.” Yep to put it mildly. “In particular if consciousness were the individual” this is where we seem to come into the, into the nucleus. And that is, what is it of me that abides over from year to year to year to year stream of consciousness that accumulates memories? It’s not just, you know, an empty stream that just notes moment to moment to moment non judgmentally. We do that occasionally not very often. No the stream of consciousness is like a ship that sails the seas and picks up the barnacles the whole way. A lot more barnacles at the end of the voyage than before. And the older you get the more barnacles you have. That’s why we’re so ugly. Barnacles all over the place.
[1:01:04] So “If the consciousness were the individual” which then really gets, strikes home because that okay, that is not just an appearance of this way or that waym a physical appearance, a mental mood or attitude and so forth. That’s, that’s something that continues. “If consciousness were the individual” that is if there’s an equivalence an identity there, “it would be unacceptable that the individual hear, speak, see or procreate.” Have you ever seen two consciousnesses have sex? [laughter] I haven’t. Kind of like where are you? I know you’re there some place. [laughing] Okay, he said it, not me. [laughter] And your mental consciousness doesn’t hear. Right. Mental consciousness doesn’t hear. Consciousness doesn’t speak. Right. And it doesn’t procreate. As I said, as I just said I just said what he said. But it’s, this is very sensible because people do hear you, you do hear, speak, see, and you may or may not procreate. That’s your, it’s your call. But you do and consciousness doesn’t. So it’s just not true as much as we might be drawn to that. Well after all I am consciousness. No. You’re not. Number one, I can see you. And don’t tell me I can’t see you. Then we’re just speaking gibberish. If you say no you can’t see me because I’m consciousness. Then you’re living in a fantasy world. I can see you and you’re overweight. What do you think about that? I just proved you’re not consciousness because consciousness is never overweight. [laughter] So, so all of the individuals [are] singular. Yes when your parents had you they said it’s a boy or a girl. They didn’t say it’s a whole bunch of boys or whole bunch of girls. It’s one. One individual. One body. One person. It’s just one person.
[1:03:27] So “Although the individual is singular, one person, just as there are six consciousnesses so there would be six individuals” f there’s an equivalence between you and your six modes of consciousness there’d be six of you. Conversely, just as the individual is one so the sixth consciousness would be a partless one.” And they’re clearly not. They’re not one. People go blind they don’t lose all of their consciousness at the same time. “If the shape of the collection, the shape of the collection of elements earth water and so forth were the individual” like the gestalt, something like the gestalt of all of them then the individual “then the individual would, would, would be, would have to be. I think that’s simply a typo I hadn’t seen. “If the shape of a collection of the elements were the individual then the individual would be material [you would have physical form] and there would be no individuals in the formless realm.” Well that’s true. So you’re not, you are not form. You’re not. You are not how you look and that clearly is a serious one. A lot of people especially, it’s reinforced, massively reinforced, tragically reinforced. When people adopt a materialist view and take it seriously because then you are your body. I know a philosopher that says that exactly. He’s a smart guy too. I don’t know any unintelligent philosophers probably are but I don’t think I’ve met any of them. They’re all very smart. This man, full professor at a major university, background in neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy of mind, smart cookie. And he says you are your body. There’s nothing more to you than your body. You’re a body. You’re an animal. You’re, you’re body is a mammalian animal body. You are a mammalian animal body. There’s nothing more to you than your body. You are that, you know. And he’s written books and books. He’s been, you know, very well known, he’s respected by his peers among other philosophers of mind. I’ve been at conferences with him. I wonder if they really follow the implications of what they’re saying and how utterly savage that is. Because that means just some people are beautiful and some people are ugly and I don’t mean their bodies. I mean them, you know. Because, I mean it’s equivalence. If your body is ugly then you’re an ugly person. But we know that’s not true. So people have unattractive forms and they’re just some of the loveliest people you’ll ever meet. And there’s some people who are just drop dead gorgeous and you just can’t bear to be with them.
[1:05:47] Just because of their personality, the way they behave, it’s like oh. Can I go now? You know. We know it’s not true. But in our materialistic society it’s the emphasis. How does the brain generate this? How does the brain do that? You are a brain carrying a body on your back, says one of the most authoritative neuroscientists in the United States. You’re a brain carrying a body on your back. That means if your brain’s damaged then you are a damaged person. Not that you have an affliction. You are, you are damaged, yeah. So I find it really not only profoundly false but so tragically misleading to equate a person with a body which is very widely done now. And then of course this, then you know you’re in a losing game because nobody gets more and more attractive as you get older and older and older. Maybe up to age 20 or so but then after that 25, 30. Thirty is the cutoff isn’t it? That’s where we just start, start looking uglier. And then whether male or female we try to, you know, oh, you, you look you haven’t aged a bit. [laughter] I tricked them. All that money I spent, it was worth it. They think I’m 10 years younger than I am. Oh pitter-pat goes my heart. Thank goodness that’s not true. So nor is the individual separate from. So we see the individual is not identical with any of the five aggregates, individually, not to them collectively. “Nor is the individual separate from the aggregates.” As we just did in the meditation you look for yourself okay. Here’s this whole matrix of mind-body events arising arising, including consciousness, including mental consciousness. That’s one of the aggregates. And then you try to step outside and say am I, since I’m clearly not any of them individually or collectively, the only other place I could be is outside. If I’m not inside the aggregates, if the dog is not inside the neighborhood, it’s got to be outside the neighborhood. If it’s not inside the neighborhood or outside the neighborhood your dog doesn’t exist anymore.
[1:08:07] I mean that’s just that’s straight logic. You’ve lost your dog. It’s in this neighborhood, it’s outside the neighborhood, if it’s neither one, your dog no longer alive, I’m sorry but the dog is nowhere to be found. It doesn’t exist anymore. And so here we are. “Isn’t this the individual not separate from the aggregates because if it were it would exist as inherently unconnected and separate.” And that is your body would get old, you wouldn’t get old. Your mind would get agitated, you don’t, you and so forth and so on. All the characteristics of your body and mind would not apply to you. In fact you would have no characteristics except you would simply be the owner. The absentee owner and manager is like one of those some kind of a corporation, OPSEAS, overseas corporation. It’s a phantom corporation right. And you look for who’s the CEO? Where’s the board? Because it’s registered. It exists and and money is going into it. And then you’re looking where is it? Where’s its headquarters? Where’s its board? I want to meet the director. And then you can’t find it. It’s one of those things on the books,, tax dodge right. So if it were to be it would exist as inherently unconnected and separate. So the collection of aggregates would not possess the characteristics that the collect the collection of the aggregates would not possess the characteristics that define the aggregates. “It is said if it were separate from the aggregates then it would not have this characteristics of the aggregates.” So all the qualities of your body mind and your behavior would not be your qualities and then you say, well tell me your qualities. And then you just wind up with nothing to say.
[1:09:55] Also, “There would be the fault taught in the Sutra on the Elephant’s Exertion.” I don’t know the sutra but it’s going to be interesting. “If phenomena existed inherently, the conquerors, [that’s the jinas] the jinas and the sravakas would know it.” This is speaking within the Buddhist world, you know. These are the people within, within the context of Buddhism where we have faith, we have respect, we have reverence. We regard some people as really knowing what’s going on, the Buddhas, the sravakas, the arya bodhisattvas. If phenomena did exist inherently then the Buddha would know about it or the Buddhas would know about it.
The sravikas would know about it. Okay. And it’s similar like in the context of physics, I mean there are authorities in physics, right? Brilliant physicists. And so if a planet had been discovered, an exoplanet had been discovered in which life was found, well you’d know who to ask. You’d go to Cambridge, you’d go to the MIT, you’d go to Cal Tech, you’d go to other, you know, major, major institutes that have outstanding astronomy departments. If it has been discovered they would know about it. Right. The leading astronomers would know about it. If they don’t know about it then this has to be a fantasy. That’s what he’s saying. Buddhist context, these are our experts. And so if they did exist, well, the Buddha would have known about it, the sravakas would have known about it. “Immutable phenomena [immutable phenomena] would never transcend suffering” And that’s by implication you’ve heard it before. If phenomena were to exist inherently, they would exist independently of everything around them, which means they’d be uninfluenced by everything around them, which means they would be uninfluenced altogether and therefore immutable. And if you were immutable you would never transcend suffering. “and the wise would never be free from conceptual elaborations.” because we’d all be stuck. We’d all be static, frozen.
[1:11:57] “Thus when you examine with a subtle consciousness” Oh here we are again from within equipoise. So he’s tying these together in such a clear crisp way. He taught shamatha first, he’s teaching vipassana first and he’s saying shamatha is your foundation, your platform, your basis. You now have dissolved your coarse flow of mental consciousness into an underlying subtle continuum which is much clearer, sharper, supple, malleable, serviceable and it’s balanced. That’s where, in contemplative objectivity comes in, it’s balanced from in this equipoise right. So, when you examine with this refined consciousness “from within a state of meditative equipoise, you yourself appear such that not even an atom exists of the individual or self or person who’s resting in equipoise.” Okay. We seek to approximate this when we’re practicing for example, settling the mind in its natural state. We’re seeking to approximate the perspective of having achieved shamatha already and from that transpersonal, because it’s not embedded in your personality. Right. Your, your language, your cult, your personal history, and so forth, it’s seeking that stillness of awareness to view the mind as if from afar. You remember that. And all those metaphors used watching a spectacle as if from afar, like the old man watching children play not in the midst of the children playing, not grazing with the sheep, not caught up inside the spectacle and so forth. You’re not a performer, you’re, are the, you’re the audience. Right. And now he’s saying okay, if you achieved shamatha that’s exactly now from that perspective you examine yourself - the specimen, from this transpersonal perspective that’s not embedded in your personality and all of that. And when you, and so how do you appear to yourself? So the meditation we just did, now imagine having done the same meditation from having achieved shamatha. That’s what he’s referring to here. Right.
[1:14:01] Same meditation though. “You yourselves appear such that not even an atom exists of the individual or self or person who is resting in meditative equipoise.” You find when you seek to establish yourself, how do I actually exist? Where am I to be found? Not even an atom. All of a sudden there is emptiness as you are seeking. So again optimally we would have done that, that meditation we just finished earlier this session from the perspective of resting in the substrate consciousness. And, but then activating, not just sitting there, and then engaging in this and that not finding, not finding the meditator, the self, the person. And in that not finding that final, that final moment, when there’s only one more possibility maybe I exist outside the manifold. Not. That was the final straw that broke the back of reification. Right. It’s that decisiveness. Now it’s not to be found. Right. If somehow you lost your dog and you could know decisively I don’t know how this would occur. Thought experiment. You’ve checked thoroughly in your neighborhood nowhere to be found and there’s somehow you could check equally thoroughly outside your neighborhood. Maybe you live in a village in the midst of the Sahara or out in the Gobi desert where it’s pretty empty around there. Right. You might be able to decisively know the dog’s not out there. I know the dog’s not out there. And I know the dog’s not in our little oasis here. I know my dog is not to be found. I’ll stop looking now. It’s that certainty that if it could have been found I would have found it. I didn’t therefore I discovered something, not to be found. Suddenly there is emptiness.
[1:16:01] “When the generic idea” I think it’s more of an idea than an image. “When the generic idea of that clear vacuity, that sheer emptiness is clear in your mind” it’s an idea. Bear in mind he’s speaking progressively here. Where your realization of emptiness is first by way of a generic idea and then as you go deeper deeper deeper deeper the cloud of the generic idea that brought you to the right direction evaporates. And then you have that direct realization of emptiness free of the mediation of any generic idea. But in the Gelugpa tradition very clearly and I, I think there’s every reason to believe it’s true. When you first gain some realization, unless you’re an exceptional individual like a Bahiya or someone like that. When you first gain some genuine insight, that insight will be filtered through, enabled by a generic idea. That is your insight will be a conceptual insight. You look for your dog. It’s not in the neighborhood. It’s not outside and say, my dog’s not there. Well what is the mind that just now knows your dog isn’t there? Is nowhere to be found? It’s a conceptual mind. And that arises in your mind a sheer absence of the dog. The image, if you’re absent, my dog is nowhere to be found and it’s the conceptual mind that knows that. And you know something is true, your dog isn’t there, that’s not a concept it’s a reality. The dog’s not there anymore, right, but you know it by way of, my dog isn’t to be found right. It’s like that, like, oh, like that. It’s a shock. “When the generic idea of that clear vacuity is clear in your mind then without further mental elaboration” don’t keep on cogitating cogitating cogitating just come to that point. You’ve just come to an incisive moment of knowing. Without further mental elaboration, not bringing anything to mind don’t add anything to it, “you rest in single pointed equipoise.”
[1:18:13] Of course, if you’ve achieved shamatha you might be able to rest for minutes and minutes on end right without your mind just, you know, losing the target wandering off. “If your apprehension of that clear vacuity” which is this, which is a simple negation, if your apprehension of that, your knowing, your, your knowing of it “weakens a bit”, [it weakens a] little you get fuzzy, nebulous, fading out, like drifting off a radio station and just kind of going into static. “If it weakens a little bit then meditate single pointedly from within [the with from within] equipoise”. Don’t fall into excitation or laxity, go right back to your medi, your equipoise “and then examine as before. Examining as before that is the way to maintain the mind in space []space like equipoise.” So, that’s what meditation on emptiness is called, it’s called when you’re in meditation and engaging this ontological probe, when you come to that point of not finding, and see, and seeing the unfindability, then there’s just this openness, this spaciousness, all of a sudden there is emptiness, that’s called the space-like meditative equipoise. “It is taught that when you first ascertain things in this way if you’re not already familiar with the view, fear will arise. If you are acquainted with it, joy will arise.” That’s a very profound point. And it’s based on an enormous amount of exper, I mean centuries of experience. It’s why among the Bodhisattva precepts, one of them is don’t teach emptiness to those who are not ready. They’ll very easily and almost certainly fall into nihilism.
[1:20:06] I had a correspondence not too long ago with someone who’s, I’m gonna keep it totally vague, but he’d listened to a talk that I’d given on emptiness and how phenomena arise always relative to a perspective. And uh, he made it very clear that his understanding was, oh well, that means that whatever you believe that’s your reality. You just make it up as you go. If you don’t like global warming well then, just think it’s not true, you know. And in fact every time he summarized or he said some people could think he completely missed the point, not an unintelligent person by any means. Oh that’s interesting I, I never saw that coming that you would so completely miss everything I was saying and completely miss everything that John Wheeler and Stephen Hawking and Andrei Linde were saying that you would completely miss it. Didn’t see that coming. I was surprised. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was somebody kind of like you know mentally dull and kind of uneducated, as it was not true at all; everything the opposite, highly educated, very, very bright but not familiar with this view that was just that simple. That is not a sign of lack of intelligence, just not familiar with the view, right. And then not familiar with the view, you hear it, and you immediately get it wrong. And so it’s either a hippie’s world, like what a it’s your reality man. you know, something completely ridiculous. As if that’s what Nagarjuna was getting at and John Wheeler. They’re just bunch of hippies and think, oh, that’s your reality, man, you know. Well there’s completely silly. Or the more likely one, if you’re not familiar with the view, if you’re not prepared, you’ll do this, and very understandably come to the conclusion I don’t exist at all. I thought I did. You set me up to think I did. I thought I’d identified myself and you just showed me that was completely wrong. Because if I do exist I should be within the system of body mind, somewhere collectively, I should be the whole system or something or I should be outside owning it like, you know, like an immortal soul owning my body and mind. But you’ve just shown me I don’t exist at all. Thanks a million. And that was a bit sarcastic but it can be really, if one takes this to heart, it can be very, very frightening. There’s a very well-known story, I must have heard it from Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey I think. So he told us so many good stories; tell me whether you remember this from him Kathy. It was a monk from Narthang, I told this story many times but it was from a long time ago. Narthang is a region of Tibet during the time of Tsongkhapa and this monk was listening to a discourse by Tsongkhapa on emptiness. And Tsongkhapa of course speaking with from profound realization which just like if you listen to a Bodhisattva speaking about Bodhicitta, it has a big impact, right. And likewise for other things. Well, if you listen to a person who has profound realization of emptiness and you’re listening with open heart, open mind, you’re really attentive, those words can have a lot of power. It’s not going to be just information transfer there’s going to be some real power behind that. Tsongkhapa was such an individual, in addition just an incredibly powerful intellect, you know. So the two together. So Tsongkhapa was giving these teachings on the, the lack of existence, the absence of a self, of a person, that very emptiness and as this, this monk from Narthang, the region of Narthang was listening very astutely, very openly. Then he suddenly as he, he’s as listening, then he suddenly jerked and grabbed his collar, like that, like freaking out. And Tsongkhapa was clairvoyant and he saw this monk, probably many monks there, but he picked him out because he saw this like that and, and Tsongkhapa commented, ah, the monk from Narthang has just established his conventional identity on the basis of his collar, that he would have the sense that I don’t exist at all. Oh, I have a collar, therefore I am, you know, conventionally. Which was good because it’s not true that he doesn’t exist at all and it is true that he has a collar and that’s how he established it.
[1:24:17] So, shamatha is no joking matter. Some of you have experienced and I’ve known I’ve taught it for a long time I know a lot of people, people practice shamatha, they start going deep and they can experience, bump into some very deep fear. And it’s just very simply put, the fear, when it doesn’t have a clear object, right, it’s a fear of total annihilation. That if I continue down this track I’m going to slip into a vacuity, void, an emptiness and there’ll be no coming back because I will have disappeared and I will be annihilated and that’s no laughing matter. And so fear comes up. I’ve seen it happen. In one case it was so strong it basically disabled the person’s meditation, they couldn’t go back. So, no laughing matter. And that’s just shamatha, right. Well this is deeper. This is much deeper. So that’s for the meditative state. That’s I think that was really quite extraordinary to my mind. He just described what you do on the cushion and what is bound to arise. And when he says familiar with the view, it’s not only are you a good scholar, have you learned about it, and so forth but have you prepared? This is a very nice point to end on because we’re coming to our day off on Saturday. But here’s another important element pertaining to the story with this monk from Narthang. This really, really crucial point. I’ll say something you’re familiar with and that is if you have an authentic insight into emptiness,, not slipping into your familiar substantialism or terrifying nihilism but you found that slender middle way that’s what’s left over when you’re free of extremes, and in the very seeing of the emptiness of yourself, you see by the power of that how you and all other sentient beings arise in mutual interdependence. Then that very vision, that very insight into emptiness will enhance your compassion.
[1:26:17] Insofar as I regard myself and truly believe that I exist independently, autonomously, the real me over here, what that immediately implies is I really don’t have any relationship with you or with anybody; not even my, my father who is still alive or my siblings, or my friends, my family, my spouse, my grandson, and so on. No relationship because I don’t have a relationship with anything or anyone because I, I’m a self-made man. I stand on my own, I’m an independent, I am who I am and you are who you are. Good luck, you know. So that grasping to self, that’s the one that actually undermines any sense of empathy, compassion, Bodhicitta. It devastates it, it nukes it ,right. Because everybody is, rather than all sentient beings being our mothers, all sentient beings are strangers, unrelated, the other side of the fence, right. And it’s very lonely. It’s very lonely, very isolated, very alienated. And I see this, I think this crops up on occasion, you know, where people take it seriously. Let alone materialism makes it all the worse. Can you imagine, thinking you’re inherently existent and you’re just chemical scum. How about that? To be inherently existing chemical scum. That’s bleak. On top of bleak that’s just devastating. That should be criminal. I don’t want to put anybody in jail but what a horrific thing to say to people. I mean just horrific. What could be worse than that?
[1:27:59] And so there’s the way of isolation, loneliness, despair, and nihilism. And ironically, realizing the emptiness of yourself and realizing what is the self that’s empty? And then how do I exist? I do exist from moment to moment. arising in a myriad of ways. Here I’m a grandfather. Here I’m a teacher. Here I’m a spouse. Here I’m a customer. Here I’m an employer. Here I am a vacationer. Here I’m a traveler. Here I am. Here I am. Oh, all just a show, all empty and all interrelated because I can’t be any of those things, not one that I just mentioned. I can’t be any of those things without relationship to who’s your, who’s your grandchild, grandpa? Who’s your grandchild? Oh, I don’t have any grandchild, then you’re not a grandpa. No grandchildren, no grandpa and so forth. And so but every one of them they’re all relational which means we’re all intertwined. Our very existence, our very being is one of interdependence and then how can we not care for the other. And Shantideva maybe some, oh, he has so many verses that just go to the heart. But when he’s struggling with the question, issue, do I really need to take upon myself the responsibility for others? And you remember I’ve told this story many, many times. But do I really need to take on my shoulders the burden of the world that great compassion, great loving kindness? Do I really need to, because it frankly, it sounds just absolutely cosmically overwhelming, you know. Rather than just being able to slip off quietly and become an arhat and disappear, you know. Just quietly go off screen. And do I really need to, is that really necessary? He poses the question to himself. And the question and the answer comes back, yes you do. Yes you do. You do need to take that responsibility. And then the answer, the question comes back why? And the answer comes back, because suffering has no owner. Really powerful, yeah. Because suffering has no owner.
[1:30:02] Just that. So, then you can see how the method and the wisdom, the more deeply you’ve been cultivating great compassion, great loving kindness, cultivating Bodhicitta cultivating the four immeasurable for that. The more that you are attending to others and they’re becoming real for you, the interdependence between self and other becomes real for you, real for you. The more you’re exchanging yourself for others, valuing others well being more than your own, the more you’re taking the lower position as in the Eight Verses of Training the Mind, in all circumstances take the lowest position. Remember? The first teaching, the first public teaching His Holiness gave in the west, Eight Verses of Training of Mind. And the author says in all situations take the lowest position, right. So if you’re accustomed to that, you know, accustomed to that, and then you go into this practice and you realize, ah, I, nowhere to be found. My body empty, mind empty, nowhere to be found, empty. What a relief. Joy will arise because there’s this one burden you’re still carrying with you, I am, as someone separate. So if you’re equated with it, joy will arise. So such people, such people following the Buddha, they should be taught, they should be taught Bodhichitta and they should be taught emptiness. I should say, they should be taught teachings on emptiness because it will bring them joy. So that’s that. That should keep you busy for a day. Enjoy your weekend.
Transcribed by Kriss Sprinkle
Revised by Rafael Carlos Giusti
Final edition by Annette Dorfman
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