The Two Bodhichittas in The Seven-Point Attitude-Training
Session One: The Preliminaries
Unedited Transcript
Listen to the audio version of this page (0:42 hours):
We’re going to start the weekend seminar on a very important and essential text (which is found in all the Tibetan traditions) from India called The Seven Points for Cleansing Our Attitudes, which I received teachings on primarily from two of my main teachers: Serkong Rinpoche and Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey. But I’ll follow primarily Serkong Rinpoche’s way of explaining especially since he was absolutely an expert in this type of practice, especially tonglen (gtong-len), “taking and giving” He was one of the teachers of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
The type of literature that this comes from usually is called “lojong” in Tibetan and that is usually translated as “mind-training,” but that’s a rather misleading translation as Serkong Rinpoche pointed out, and especially when I explain the connotation. “Training the mind” sounds as though we’re training the intellect and that’s not really what’s it’s all about. The word “lo” (blo) people translate as “mind” actually means our attitudes. And the word “jong” (sbyong) has two meanings. One is to cleanse, purify out; so we are purifying out our negative attitudes. And it also then has the connotation of – once we have done that – then training, learning, more positive attitudes. So that’s why I call it “cleansing of attitudes.”
So if we ask where do these teachings come from, particularly teachings on changing our attitudes towards self and others (that’s really what this is all about), this comes from two sutras of Buddha. One is called the Gandavyuha Sutra, it’s A Sutra Spread Out Like a Tree Trunk, a tree trunk of a huge tree, that sends out branches everywhere. This gives a tremendous amount of teachings on bodhichitta and bodhisattva activity. And the other one is, in Sanskrit, Vajradvaja-paripriccha Sutra, which I don’t expect you to remember, but Buddha went to many, many people’s houses – he was invited for lunch, together with his monks. And then different patrons who invited him requested a teaching, and that’s where a great many of the sutras come from. So this is a sutra that was requested by someone called Vajradvaja, and it’s also about bodhichitta.
And then the two great Indian masters who spread the Mahayana teachings, who actually made them accessible to everyone, were Asanga and Nagarjuna. They also have the lineages and the teachings of these sutras, so it comes through them. And eventually they came down, after some centuries, to the great Indian master Shantideva, who wrote Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior, which speaks even more about these teachings. And these great Mahayana teachings, these lineages, were spread outside of India as well, and they went to Indonesia – the island of Sumatra (called the Golden Isle).
A few centuries later, at the time of Atisha, there were some difficult times in India and many of the more specific Mahayana teachings were no longer available there. And so Atisha heard that the lineages and the teachings were available with a great master in Sumatra, and so he undertook a very long and very difficult journey by sea from India to Sumatra. There, after many difficulties and not rushing to this teacher, but taking a lot of time to examine about him and ask other disciples there, and so on, he studied with a great master there called Dharmakirti or Dharmapala, who also is called Serlingpa.
So Dharmakirti had these lineages of Nagarjuna, Asanga, and Shantideva, and now Atisha brought them back to India – which really teaches us a very great lesson, which is that the authentic teachings are really the most absolutely precious thing in the world. And if they’re not available in our country or in our situation, that we don’t just sit around and say, “Well, I’ll take whatever is available” – the second best, or third best – but we really check up who has the authentic teachings; who has the authentic realization? And no matter how difficult it is, no matter how much time it takes and effort to build up the money and get the resources and everything to go get the authentic teachings. If we really are serious about our practice, we’ll go to the authentic sources.
And then Atisha didn’t just keep these things for himself, he taught it. And he was invited to come to Tibet, which was a very, very difficult journey, and the people in India weren’t terribly pleased that he was going, but he took again an incredibly difficult journey in those times. And so there in Tibet he gave these teachings – primarily on bodhichitta – he gave these teachings to primarily one of his disciples, the main one, Dromtonpa, and Dromtonpa gave them to another one of his disciples, Geshe Potowa.
This in the Kadam tradition, and when we hear about these Kadampa Geshes, a Geshe isn’t what it became later in the Gelug tradition – somebody who has gone through the full monastic training. It doesn’t mean that, but what it means is – they sometimes translate it as “spiritual friend,” but that’s very weak – it’s first of all like a friend and relative, brother, who is very, very close to us, with a very loving relationship and who then inspires and leads us through his or her example to be constructive, in constructive ways.
And always this huge emphasis, of course, on voidness and these other things, but super emphasis on bodhichitta. What you have to remember is historically at that time in Tibet things were pretty chaotic and difficult, and this was really what people needed.
And Geshe Potowa had two main disciples; they were called the sun- and moon-like disciples. One of them was Langri-tangpa, the other was Geshe Chaykawa. And Langri-tangpa, he was always very serious. It’s quite interesting, the stories about him – I won’t go into details since we don’t have very much time – but he was the one (you might have heard stories) that only laughed three times and the rest of the time he was very – not serious like stern, but always thinking of others and compassion for others, and filled with sadness and compassion to be able to help others. “I didn’t have time to joke around.” And he wrote the Eight Stanzas for Cleansing of Attitudes, the text of this genre that is very, very famous.
And so the disciple Geshe Chaykawa came across a copy of it at some other great Geshe’s house, and he was especially drawn to one line in it. This is the line, “Give the victory to others and accept the defeat on himself.” This really, really struck him very, very deeply. Like the rest of his life was influenced by this line. And so he said, “Well, who wrote it?” And this Geshe whose house he was at said, “Well, it was Geshe Langri-tangpa.” So Geshe Chaykawa undertook a long journey to Lhasa to try to find him and get teachings on this. Actually he didn’t know, but Geshe Langri-tangpa had died. So he went to [Central] Tibet, to Lhasa, to try to meet him and get teachings, but when he got there he found out that he already passed away.
So again it’s a good example here, that he wasn’t just, “Oh, this is interesting. I’d like to study it,” but then he doesn’t do anything. He had to try to find these teachings. So a big long journey, and he got there and the teacher is no longer alive, so he asks, “Who can I get these teachings from?” And so he was told Geshe Sharawa, another Kadampa Geshe. So he went and he found Geshe Sharawa and he didn’t want to teach him at first – a long story which we don’t have time to go into – but eventually Geshe Sharawa told him where the teachings came from: the line, the lineage of this. Geshe Chaykawa wanted to not just, “Well maybe somebody just made it up. It sounds nice,” but he wanted to know that it was authentic. And so Geshe Sharawa showed him in a text by Nagarjuna, The Precious Garland, that this is where it comes from.
So then Geshe Chaykawa was convinced that this was an authentic teaching going back to India and back to the Buddha. But again it teaches us a very important lesson, that there may be teachings available that sound very, very attractive and somebody is advertising them as teachings of the Buddha, but unless we really are sure that this is authentic – the actual teachings of the Buddha, that it is it based on the great texts – then, be careful. Don’t just go for something because it’s attractive.
This shows us the preciousness of bodhichitta teachings and the teachings on changing our attitudes about self and others, and cleansing these attitudes, how these great masters considered it so incredibly precious, that they underwent so many hardships actually to get these teachings. Nowadays things are very easily available. Sometimes because of that we tend to trivialize the teachings and that really causes us not to take them seriously, not to respect them and really apply ourselves. It’s for this reason that often the texts are written in a style which is very cryptic: only a few words, and really difficult to understand from just reading the texts. And it’s filled with words like “this” and “that”; you have no idea really what they are referring to.
I have trained and worked as a translator, and Serkong Rinpoche saw my rather arrogant attitude that I was a bit critical of the style of these texts: they did not write them clearly, and they wrote with so many this’s and that’s. And he said, “Don’t be so arrogant to think that these great masters like Nagarjuna couldn’t write clearly and they were stupid, bad writers, and so on. That’s really arrogant. If they wanted to write clearly they would have. Obviously they wrote this way on purpose.”
Serkong Rinpoche explained that the great masters wrote the texts like that so that if you wanted to understand them and practice, you had to put in a tremendous amount of work and effort to get the explanation for it. And it weeded out disciples who weren’t so serious. And even when you’re explaining it, he said, the first time you explain, you don’t explain very clearly. Because again then many people will leave and say, “That’s enough!” But those who are really serious will ask for more and go deeper and put in all the work and effort.
Of course I’m a bad disciple; I don’t do that. In terms of I’d like to try to make things more clear, at least to make it a little bit easier. But this is necessary – to put in work in order to actually get the teachings and get clarity on the teachings; otherwise you don’t develop your character. It’s not just a matter of getting information. We really do live in the age of degeneration. And in many places you have Dharma centers which need to get the money from many people coming; otherwise they can’t pay the rent and they can’t pay the expenses, and so on. So they don’t want to scare away people. That really is a sign of an age of degeneration, isn’t it?
Anyway, Geshe Chaykawa spent then six years (according to one account) studying with Geshe Sharawa, and practicing and meditating to try to actually internalize and realize these very, very difficult advanced teachings. Now Geshe Chaykawa was no beginner and no dummy when he went there, and so it took him six years (another account says fourteen years) of working on bodhichitta. And then he wrote this text that we will be studying and he taught it to a number of his disciples, but particularly to one master Lhadingpa, who taught it to Togmey-zangpo. Togmey-zangpo is the author of Thirty-Seven Bodhisattva Practices which also is taught very extensively in the West. He also wrote a very wonderful commentary on Shantideva’s Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior.
From this Lhadingpa there were other lineages and so on, and eventually it went to all the different schools of Tibetan Buddhism, and eventually it came down to Tsongkhapa and then it goes down in the Gelug tradition and it became incorporated into many, many different texts. And what is very confusing is that in all these different lam-rim texts or the Lama Chopa (The Guru Puja) and so on, you get different versions of the text – these seven points. So Pabongka Rinpoche, who was a master in the early half of the twentieth century, looking at all the versions made what he considered as a standard text (only in the Gelugpa, of course). I mention this because from all these various versions there are many texts, at least translated into English; and so when you look at them, a lot of them are this Pabongka edition, but there are many others as well. So don’t be confused. Most of these versions, they are not adding anything that seems inappropriate. Because often what happens is that somebody gives an oral commentary and you get a little bit confused about what’s actually in the text and what the lama is explaining from an oral tradition. Things get added or changed around in their order and so on.
The version that I’ll follow is the one that Serkong Rinpoche always used to teach, which is one of the oldest versions of the text. It is the text that is from Togmey-zangpo, actually going way, way back to – the dates of Togmey-zangpo are not so terribly clear – but something like the 13th century. I’m mentioning this because I know you have the Spanish translation of the text. You have a Spanish translation of the Pabongka version. That is not the version that I’m going to teach. So there are slight differences. I’m sure Serkong Rinpoche had a very strong reason of why he always taught this version, but I never asked him, actually. I was never aware actually at that time that there were other versions. But if he was good enough to be the teacher of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, that’s good enough, no question about that.
I am giving you all this history and things not just to tell you stories, but I think that all of this helps us to approach this material, because this material is actually incredibly advanced and incredibly difficult. We should definitely not trivialize these teachings and also not get discouraged by them. Because as we listen to the teachings, for many of us, we’re going to think, “Come on, this is impossible to really do!” But there are certain aspects of these teachings that are more accessible than others, and so we try to put in practice what we are ready to practice, not sort of pretending to take on more advanced practices that really we are not emotionally ready for. So we need to have really gotten digested the basic teachings, and not just know them but really feel them on an emotional level. This is saying if you really want to train and cleanse your attitudes, that there are some very, very drastic ways of doing this, and if you are not emotionally prepared to do it, it can be damaging if you try to do some of these things before you’re emotionally mature enough to do it.
But, as I said, not all the points are so strong, but many of the points within this are. Okay, so when we receive the teachings, then what it can do, perhaps, is inspire us. This is – this is real bodhisattva training. It’s really how you become a bodhisattva, how you develop yourself in the bodhisattva path. So if this is seriously what we really want to do, really seriously want to reach enlightenment and benefit all others, well this is what I can aspire toward, some idea of what’s lying ahead and you’re not naive about it. We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that the path to enlightenment is so nice and we’ll go on a nice Disneyland trip to enlightenment: All the Buddha lands, it’s so pretty! And everybody is so loving and kind – like that. So let’s not be children about it. It requires great courage to follow the bodhisattva path; we will see that a little bit here.
Now, the text begins: Prostration to great compassion.
Great compassion is not just: “May beings be free from their suffering and the causes of suffering.” And it’s certainly not “Oh, you poor thing!” But it’s a larger scope. The word “great” here is very important. So first of all it’s not just limited to some beings, but all beings. Now often we say “all sentient beings,” but that doesn’t mean anything to us. It’s very easy to say, but how many of us really seriously are thinking about the suffering of every insect in the universe; and we really want to work to help every single insect in the universe not only to get over the suffering of this life, but to achieve liberation and enlightenment? This is not kid’s stuff. When they say “everybody”, they mean everybody. So that type of compassion, in which you really sincerely feel this for everybody, equally, that’s one aspect of great compassion. Now another aspect is being convinced that it’s actually possible for all of them to get out of their suffering. If you didn’t think it was possible – just to feel sorry for them, that’s not much help.
And so this really requires understanding voidness and the nature of the mind, and the mind isn’t stained by this confusion and disturbing emotions, and so on – and that it’s really possible to get rid of it, and it’s possible for everybody – and Buddha-nature, all of that. And it’s not just sitting in your cave or in your room and having this compassion, but also feeling some responsibility to somehow do something.
So in some versions (not in the original version) it says the text is like a vajra diamond, it helps us to cut through all our disturbing emotions; and it’s like the sun, so it eliminates the darkness of self-cherishing and selfishness – just working for ourselves; like a potent medicine, a medicine tree or medicine herbs, to cure, again, our self-cherishing. So much of this cleansing of attitudes is to get rid of self-cherishing. And that would be through the exchange of our attitudes about self and others.
Then the text continues: First train in the preliminaries
Now when we hear preliminaries, it is important to not trivialize them. Preliminaries means what comes, what you do, or what has to go, before – literally. So if you think of it with the following image, I think it’s helpful: If you’re going on a caravan – let’s talk about Tibetans – if you’re going on a caravan to some place and there’s going to be a long and difficult journey, you have to pack all your bags. You can’t just get on your yak and go. It’s not like: we can go on a journey and well, there’s going to be a pharmacy everywhere and a store on every corner and we can buy whatever we need. It’s not like that. So these preliminaries you have to do first. It’s like packing your bags with everything you’re going to need on the journey, because you can’t make the journey without them.
So these preliminaries are absolutely essential and this is usually explained – and mind you, these texts come before the Gelugpa tradition, the Gelug version of lam-rim – so it’s usually explained in terms of the four thoughts, the four common preparatory practices. Now you get teachings here on that. There’s no need for me to go into detail about these: the realization of having a precious human rebirth; and thinking about how it’s not going to last, impermanence and death, and therefore putting a safe direction in our life of refuge; and then thinking of karma, the laws of cause and effect, changing our behavior; and then the disadvantages of samsara.
Now the point is that, as in the lam-rim (the Gelugpa lam-rim), you can follow these teachings and try to develop them with different grades of motivation. Gelugpa lam-rim just elaborates Atisha’s points of putting it in terms of three levels of motivation. These can be seen (the first three) in terms of the initial scope of aiming for a more fortunate rebirth, and then the disadvantages of samsara, intermediate level of aiming for liberation. So we might ask, well, where is the advanced level in these four thoughts, right? But it’s preparing us for that, it’s preliminary to that; it’s common. In Hinayana it’s common, right? Common not only for sutra and tantra Mahayana, but for Hinayana and Mahayana.
Now once we have internalized the insights of these four points in terms of the initial and intermediate levels of motivation, that’s not sufficient. We have to go back and do it again, and again and again. But now, as we’re trying to follow the bodhisattva path, do it with an advanced level of motivation, with bodhichitta, compassion and bodhichitta.
So we think of this precious human life that I have – this precious human life to be able to develop bodhichitta, to practice bodhichitta, to really help others, at whatever level we’re at. And how much can we really help others in a lifetime as a cockroach? Not very much. With a precious human life with the ability to learn, to study, to meditate, not having such gross suffering or too much happiness, we can really work not only on ourselves, but specifically work to reach enlightenment – helping others.
And it’s not going to last: it’s impermanent, it’s changing all the time, and we are going to die. So we want to use the time what we have as strongly as possible, because we’re going to get sick, we’re going to get old, we’re going to die, and so these are things that are undoubtedly going to happen. We want to learn the methods which are taught here, of how to transform and use those sorts of situations to further our practice, to further help others, to further advance on the bodhisattva path toward enlightenment. And we want to use all these horrible situations as well, because as a human, with the precious human life, we can actually use them – not just like a sick dog. So if we don’t take seriously that these things are going to happen to us, we wouldn’t really, seriously, train now – when we have the ability, when we’re not sick and senile or dying – to train to be able to use these type of situations, and cleanse our minds of fear and feeling sorry for ourselves and all this self-cherishing that goes together with usually when we’re sick or old or dying.
So we want to really very strongly to go in the safe direction of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, working on ourselves – the examples, these fine examples of the great Buddhas, and the Arya Sangha, those who have actually achieved true stoppings of the causes of suffering. We want to go in that direction really strongly in our lives to reach enlightenment to benefit others. Every moment of our life, no matter how difficult it is, we want to always be going in that safe direction. So that is why we have to transform difficult situations into things that can help us go further on the path and help others, which is what this is all about.
We’re very secure and we’re very stable in our direction. Otherwise, if you’re not really so stable in your safe direction, like when difficult things come, you might go to something else: you freak out; you feel sorry for yourselves; you take refuge in food, chocolate, friends, whatever.
Now the next one is karma, behavioral cause and effect. It’s very important to understand, to really understand, that when we’re having difficult things that this is the ripening, the karmic aftermath, of destructive actions that we have done. And that we really need to cleanse that; we have to get rid of that. So we want to get rid of it, we want to, in a sense, have it ripen and be over with. And the amount of positive force that we have from our constructive actions, well, this is quite limited now. We don’t want all of that to just ripen, with everything going nicely, and so on, because then what? And so we want to really, somehow, transform. When these negative things are ripening, transform that; so instead of just building up more negative things by, “Oh, how terrible! Poor me,” we can use it as a way to build up more positive things so that we can help others – the whole point is to be able to help others. And Shantideva speaks about this a lot in the second chapter of Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior, that when these negative things ripen, what happens is we’re filled with fear and terror. “Oh, poor me! What’s going to happen to me?” and so on. And so we really, really want to avoid that.
By having very safe and sound direction in your life and, here, transforming that into something positive, because then otherwise we’re lost; and if our motivation is we want to do this to be able to help others in the process, making this transformation, then it gives us very strong motivation to do it. So this requires really good understanding of karma, which is based on the understanding of voidness. Without that, it’s hopeless. Because what happens is that we say, “Well, whatever happens to you, this is the ripening of your karma,” then if you’re grasping onto a solid “me,” then, you know, “I deserve this suffering,” and “I’m a bad person,” and all of that. That totally destroys this type of cleansing process.
So when we’ve gone through it the first time, these preparatory practices, and then we get to Mahayana, we get a little bit in terms of bodhichitta and the understanding of voidness. Then we have to go back and apply that to each of these steps in the preparatory preliminary practices, so that it really has a firm foundation and basis for really getting into bodhisattva practice. In other words, without some understanding of voidness we can’t really understand that it is possible to transform our attitudes and transform these circumstances.
And if we think in terms of “my suffering” and “your suffering,” and it has nothing to do with me because it’s a solid “me” and solid “you” – there’s no relation whatsoever – then how can we really deal with other people’s suffering. You can’t take on others’ suffering with tonglen if you think that it really belongs to them and not to me, and everybody else’s suffering is due to karma, but it’s not in terms of a solid “me” of anybody who’s built up this karma. So it’s very important, otherwise it’s very, very difficult to really emotionally feel comfortable with these practices and not be really frightened or really feel really artificial.
So, again, studying karma (the law of cause and effect) with this bodhichitta aim, really internalizing: how can I use this in order to reach enlightenment and not be overwhelmed by it. And how everybody else, in their situation, is the same. Where we are now, we’re going to be constantly experiencing the ripening of our karma, so we have to deal with it. The more people that we know, we come to realize that everybody has their samsaric horror show going on. Some are more dramatic shows than others, but everybody has a horror show going on. And so rather than the self-cherishing “poor me” attitude: “I don’t want to deal with your horror show; my horror show is bad enough.” And so we need to – by understanding karmic cause and effect – then we need to accept our situation. Okay, this is my samsaric karmic situation, for whatever reasons there are, and so now how can I use that, take the best advantage of it, because I have a precious human life. No matter how much horror show I’m going through, I still have a precious human life to reach enlightenment to benefit others. We don’t simply want to take advantage of our precious human life. That’s not enough. We want to take advantage of our samsaric horror show in order to use that like we would use a precious human life – to reach enlightenment to benefit others. But how can I transform it? How can I use it? That’s what we learn here.
So, understanding of karmic cause and effect, it’s very, very important as a preparation. Where is this horror show coming from, and is it possible to actually cleanse it; is it possible for others to cleanse it, purify, and so on. Very important. And when others are acting horribly toward us, and horribly toward everybody else, well you need to understand that they didn’t have any control over it by this point. It’s just the ripening of their karma. So you don’t say, “You’re a bad person,” or something like that, but given the samsaric horror that is going on all around us, how can we transform that into a path that will actually not just help ourselves, but help everybody?
And then the last preliminary, the disadvantages of samsara. We need to also realize in order to help everybody and reach enlightenment, we have to not just think in terms of my own difficult samsaric situations, and I want to get out of all of that for myself. It’s very easy to be attracted to other people’s samsaric situations, but we don’t really look closely enough. You’re envious of this rich person over there, or this person who has a nice partner. But when you look closely, you see the horror show that’s there with everybody in one form or another. So you think of the disadvantages of everybody’s samsaric trip. Just as I want to get out of my samsaric horror show, so does everybody else. So the more that we work with the disadvantages of my own samsara, and take it really, really seriously – why are we taking it seriously is so that we can apply it and really appreciate other people’s horror shows, so that it acts as the cause for compassion.
Okay, this is the first of the seven points – train in the preliminaries.
The second point is the actual ways to develop the two kinds of bodhichitta. Now I know it’s already nine o’clock and so I don’t want to push this further. I know a lot of people have traveled and it’s very hot in this room as well. But just let me give a very brief introduction and then tomorrow morning we will deal with this point.
Bodhichitta is a mind and a heart – both of these are included in one word – that is aimed at enlightenment. Not enlightenment in general, it’s aimed at our own individual enlightenment that we are aiming to achieve in the future based on all the potentials that we have now. And the intention – what we are going to do once we’ve gotten that – is to benefit everybody as much as possible.
So if we think in terms of what is this enlightenment, we think of the four Buddha-bodies that we are aiming to achieve. So there are two bodies (or corpuses) of lots and lots of different appearances that we would have, to benefit others. Also I need to achieve the mind of a Buddha, the Dharmakaya, and to actually realize the deepest reality of that Buddhahood – so, the voidness of that future enlightenment, which is the same type of voidness as the voidness of everything. The deepest bodhichitta is aimed at that voidness. That is what we want to understand to be able to benefit others. Gelugpa explains it mostly in terms of just the voidness, but the other schools would explain it in terms of voidness and the mind that understands voidness.
These are the two aspects of bodhichitta that we’re aiming at. The relative, or conventional, or superficial, or the appearance, aspect of bodhichitta – enlightenment in its aspect of actually being able to help everybody with all our appearances and forms that we take. And then the deepest level is aiming to the mind, the realization, the voidness, and particularly emphasizing the voidness that we need to realize fully in order to be able to really benefit.
So which one do we work with first? Deepest bodhichitta, or the relative or superficial bodhichitta – the appearance level. There are obviously two traditions of which you work on first. In this text we work on the deepest bodhichitta first – the understanding of voidness – and then the bodhichitta to reach enlightenment and help everybody, and so on. But starting with Tsongkhapa in the Gelug tradition, he changes the order around. We do the relative bodhichitta first and then the deepest bodhichitta, and obviously there are reasons for that. There are reasons for the first position as well. What I’ll explain here is the order that it is in the original text: deepest bodhichitta first. The actual reasons for why it’s first and why it’s so helpful to have it first, this I’ll discuss tomorrow morning when we begin this section. Hopefully also in the morning your minds will be more fresh, so we can understand the way in which the voidness teachings are presented here. And you’ll be on time so as not to come in the middle of it or miss it. Obviously if you come late and miss part of it or miss all of it, what does that indicate about the strength of your actual real desire to learn, to get these teachings? It says something, doesn’t it, about how serious we are.
So to help us to be on time, because I know that can be a problem with many people, we have to reaffirm our motivation and intention. How can we get up? We can set the alarm clock, and then we’re going to come on time – if we really want to get these teachings. Like the great masters, Atisha and others, they undertook an enormous journey – didn’t oversleep and miss the boat. And we’re not being like Tibetans and starting at five o’clock in the morning.
Okay, so maybe there’s time for one or two questions.
The important point is, really, what we’ve covered this evening, is to really appreciate the preciousness of these teachings. How seriously the great masters who actually achieved enlightenment took them. And seeing how well we really need to be prepared to be able to sincerely put them into practice so that we can learn something about them now. These are not things to play around with.
Remember Geshe Langri-tangpa who wrote the eight stanzas. He didn’t joke around, didn’t make light of things and entertain his disciples by telling jokes and laughing. He took it totally seriously. It was not that he was grim. Although we might like entertainment and jokes and laughing, and sometimes it can be useful to sort of calm down, that’s not the purpose of coming to teachings – to be entertained. Serkong Rinpoche said, “If you want entertainment, go to the circus. If you want to see somebody in the center do tricks and amazing things, go to a circus.” That’s not what the Dharma teachings are about. If you see His Holiness the Dalai Lama, he’ll smile, and if things strike him funny, he laughs; he’s not uptight. But when he teaches he is very, very serious.
So if there are no questions, let’s end with a dedication: We think whatever understanding we have gained, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.
Very important because some positive force that we build up without dedicating it, what does it do? It just acts as karmic positive force. So it will ripen in being able to have an entertaining conversation around a coffee table about Dharma. That’s not the point. So we don’t want it to just ripen in some samsaric positive way, and everybody thinks we’re so clever. That’s why you have to dedicate it very consciously, so it acts as a cause not just for samsaric happiness, which it would automatically do, but act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all. So it acts as a cause for reaching enlightenment to bring everybody else also to enlightenment, so it acts as a cause for everybody’s enlightenment. And it’s best to put it in your own words, your own feelings; don’t just recite some formula that eventually just becomes empty words.
Okay, thank you very much.
The Two Bodhichittas in The Seven-Point Attitude-Training
Session Two: Training in Deepest Bodhichitta
Unedited Transcript
Listen to the audio version of this page (0:44 hours):
Yesterday we began the Seven-Point Cleansing of Attitudes by the Kadampa Geshe Chaykawa, and we covered the first of the seven points: the preliminary teachings to rely upon. And the second point that we’ll begin today is the actual training in bodhichitta.
As I said, this deals with the deepest – as we spoke last night about deepest bodhichitta and relative or superficial bodhichitta, the one that deals with appearances. We are aiming to achieve both the understanding of voidness of the omniscient mind, as well as appearing in all different types of forms simultaneously to benefit everyone. And so achieving that deepest understanding of voidness is said to fulfill Dharmakaya, said to fulfill our own purposes. In order to be able to help others, we have to get rid of our own problems, and the understanding of voidness does that. And we need to be able to understand everything that is causing somebody to act the way that they are, and what the consequences would be of anything that we teach them, so we have to be omniscient: we have to know fully cause and effect.
And so gaining this understanding of voidness of the omniscient mind, that fulfills our own purposes. And then all the Form Bodies, these corpuses or collections of Sambhoghakaya (these are the ones that can make full use of the Mahayana teachings to teach the Arya Bodhisattvas) and the Nirmanakaya (the emanations, all the emanation bodies from Sambhoghakaya that can teach those who are on lesser levels of development) – all of that is to fulfill the purposes of others and actually help others. In general, with bodhichitta we could say that when we’re aiming for enlightenment, we’re aiming for both – to be able to benefit everyone. If we divide it into two aspects, we have the deepest bodhichitta, which is aiming for the understanding of voidness of the omniscient mind; and we have the relative, or superficial, or the appearance level of bodhichitta with which we aim to actually manifest various forms to help others, and actually do things to help others.
And as I mentioned there’re several editions or versions of this text. And in the oldest version, from Togmey-zangpo (the one that I’m following here), the deepest bodhichitta is explained first and then the relative bodhichitta. And in the version that we get in the Cleansing of Attitudes Like the Rays of the Sun, which was written by Namkapel, a disciple of Tsongkhapa, he puts it the opposite way – and so first you have the verse about relative bodhichitta, then immediately following you have the one on deepest bodhichitta. And in the edition made in the first half of the last century by Pabongka Rinpoche, he puts the verse on deepest bodhichitta at the very, very end of the whole text.
There are various reasons why we would have deepest bodhichitta either before relative or after relative bodhichitta, but here we’ll follow Serkong Rinpoche’s commentary on the older version, Togmey-zangpo’s version, that explains it first, deepest bodhichitta first. There’s a great importance to having it first. In general, as His Holiness explains, the Dalai Lama, one of the main reasons for having it first is that if you understand the voidness of all phenomena, particularly the voidness of the mind, and the natural purity of the mind in terms of voidness, clear light mind, and so on, then you are convinced that it is possible not only to attain liberation to get rid of all the disturbing emotions and attitudes of the unawareness, but you are convinced that it’s possible to achieve omniscience. Unless you’re really convinced of that, you can’t really put your full heart into the relative bodhichitta to actually work to achieve it. And so this is what His Holiness emphasizes as when the understanding voidness comes first, why that would be so. Also if we are convinced, through the understanding of voidness, that everybody can gain liberation and achieve enlightenment, that also gives us the confidence that when we achieve enlightenment we can help to bring everybody else to enlightenment as well.
And also it follows the order actually in the lam-rim, the graded stages of the path, because the understanding of voidness is common to Hinayana, as well, through the intermediate scope – that in the intermediate scope you have the three higher trainings: higher ethical discipline, concentration, and the understanding of voidness. So that’s where it actually comes in, although the way that it is explained is that it’s also discussed in the six far-reaching attitudes in the advanced scope. So that’s where the full explanation comes, but actually in the order, if you look at it, you would have the understanding of voidness first.
And it’s only according to the Gelugpa version of Prasangika, actually, that the understanding of voidness to achieve liberation and the understanding of voidness to achieve the omniscience of Buddhahood is the same understanding. Not only in the other Indian tenet systems, but the other Tibetan traditions, it’s said that the understanding of voidness is different. So that was one of Tsongkhapa’s revolutionary contributions. So in terms of the other Tibetan traditions, what I just said is a very general statement. Obviously it can be looked at far more precisely, but obviously this is not the time for that.
What Tsongkhapa emphasized as the difference between the understanding of voidness for achieving liberation and for enlightenment is the mind, the strength of the mind that understands voidness. And if the strength of the mind is only with the force of renunciation, then that understanding of voidness is only strong enough to get rid of the obscurations that prevent liberation. But if it’s with bodhichitta, then it has the strength to be able to cut through the obscurations preventing omniscience as well. And so in order to have enough strength behind the understanding of voidness then Tsongkhapa always emphasizes, the Gelugpa tradition always emphasizes, we can see here in the reordering of this text – that we put relative bodhichitta first, then the understanding of voidness, deepest bodhichitta.
So when we have two quite different traditions in Buddhism, then it’s important to not be arrogant and sectarian and just say my position is correct and the other one is wrong. One can understand that there are very, very sound reasons behind each alternative: both of them make excellent sense.
So as many of the great masters, for instance the First Panchen Lama, explained in terms of mahamudra, “Which comes first: shamatha or vipashyana?” Now is this the voidness of the mind or the conventional nature? The conventional nature of the mind (shamatha), and vipashyana (the void nature of the mind) – which comes first? He says that depends on the level of intelligence of the disciple. So the same thing here, you know, for disciples who are very intelligent and can understand quite easily, that would make sense to have the deepest bodhichitta first; but those who are very, very emotional and so on, then perhaps the relative bodhichitta would be easier to develop first.
For different purposes, different types of disciples, the order of many things can be reversed. Someone who is more intelligent and a very thinking person, it really matters to such a person whether or not it’s possible to achieve enlightenment. And so for that reason the understanding of voidness, as His Holiness explained, convinces such a person that it is possible to achieve it. Then they can work to achieve it and can be more relaxed – the heart can open much more; otherwise it will be very tight. Whereas somebody who is more emotional and might not be very analytical at all or disciplined in that type of thinking, then they don’t really care: it’s not an issue to them whether or not enlightenment is really possible, because they’re really moved by the suffering of others and want to do as much as they can – now. And so they work now, as much as possible, and in the process of doing so, build up enough positive force so that their mind becomes clear enough so that then they would be able to understand voidness, which they might not be able to do so easily before.
I think that helps us a little bit to understand that both ways are correct, depending on the individual. But here for specifically our cleansing of attitudes and specifically for the tonglen practice of giving and taking, which is what is specified in the relative bodhichitta teachings, the understanding of voidness beforehand is very crucial, actually. Because in tonglen, this is extraordinarily advanced teachings, and to actually be willing to take on the sufferings of others and give them happiness, our own happiness, what is the biggest obstacle of that is fear: fear of suffering, and fear of suffering of course is based on self-cherishing, grasping to “me” who doesn’t want to get my hands dirty; “I don’t want to get hurt; I don’t want to get involved.” And especially when we actually imagine taking on the sufferings of others, if we think in terms of a solid “me” now and, you know, “Oh my God! What’s happening to me?” and so on, we’ll freak out and not be willing to do it. And so it’s only really with any good understanding of voidness, particularly voidness of the self (of the person), that we can know how to deal with this whole tonglen practice. Otherwise it’s very, very difficult.
And so if we really sincerely want to practice tonglen, not just some trivialized over-simplified version of it, we really need to prepare for that. And to prepare for that we have to at least have some level of understanding of the voidness of the self; otherwise we’re just attacking our self-cherishing with very strong methods, very strong visualizations, that are very, very frightening. And we have to be prepared for that. Otherwise, without that understanding of voidness, it can be a real fight, a real struggle. So that understanding of voidness, at least some level of it, will hopefully give us the emotional maturity to deal with the real tonglen. That’s what we need: emotional maturity to do it. So if you have really strong emotional problems, tonglen is not something that you’re ready for.
Now the lines here on the deepest bodhichitta – there are four lines, and we can understand them in several ways. If we look at the older version, the Togmey-zangpo version – Togmey-zangpo was from the Sakya tradition, and these lines are really very, very much in the vocabulary style of Sakya/Nyingma type of terminology. Sakya, Nyingma, Kagyu, but particularly Sakya in terms of mahamudra. So first let’s look at the Sakya way of understanding this.
Earlier this week, on Thursday night, we were speaking a little bit about the different schools of tenets, of philosophical positions in India, in Buddhism. And the Sakya method of meditating on voidness is in graded steps. Each time you meditate on voidness, first you remind yourself of the Chittamatra (mind-only) position, and then you refine that with Madhyamaka understanding.
So the first line is: Ponder that phenomena are like a dream.
This is speaking in terms of all phenomena that – remember we’re speaking in terms of imputation. When we have for instance “me,” “person,” “self,” we have the basis of imputation (the aggregates) and we have the “self” that is imputed on that, or the “person” that is imputed on that. Particularly in terms of what we experience, the aggregates – I mean it’s clear that the self is, in a sense, imputed on the aggregates, but all these appearances within our experience – all of that is like a dream. Because actually, as we were discussing, what we perceive is a mental hologram. We might think that the source of the mental hologram is coming externally, but how could we possibly know that the source of what appears to us, this mental hologram, exists before we actually have the mental hologram? You’d have to know it. You’d have to perceive it. So somebody would have to perceive it. So you can’t really know the existence of something external without perceiving it. And what we perceive is appearance, which is a mental hologram created by the mind, by mental activity.
And so all these appearances of all phenomena, including the self, is imputed on it. Just like a dream, it’s coming from the mind. It appears to be external existence, separate from the mind, making an appearance, but it’s not. So in this mental hologram, what’s being perceived and the feeling of a “person” that’s perceiving it, that’s cognizing it, both of them are like a dream coming from the appearances of the mind. They’re both part of the same mental hologram. Nondual. It’s within the same mental hologram and they are both coming from karmic tendencies, basically due to our unawareness. “Nondual” doesn’t mean that “me” and what I perceive are identical, it certainly doesn’t mean that. “Nondual” means that they are not coming from different sources: the object coming from out there, and the mind as the perceiver (as “me”) coming from in here – you know, two different holograms.
So, of the persons that cognize things and phenomena that are cognized, subject and object are appearances of the mind, of the automatic, spontaneous play of the nature of the mind as clarity. Remember “clarity” means giving rise to appearances. Mind gives rise to appearances, and appearances are in the nature of the mind. This is a realization in common with Chittamatra.
This is actually an extremely difficult thing to digest, because now you have to apply this to tonglen. We’re looking at the suffering of others and taking it on ourselves, so what are we taking on? Who is experiencing the suffering? Are you experiencing it? Am I experiencing it? What’s going on? Are you just in my head, are you just a dream? How do I know that you exist? The Zen solution would be that the other person punches you in the face, then you know that the other person exists. That’s why it’s like a dream, it’s not the same as a dream.
But it’s very important to realize that any suffering that we will take on from others – they do exist and they do suffer – but any suffering that they experience is an appearance of their minds. Something that arises like the play of the mind. And the same thing – if I were to take it on and experience that suffering, that would also be a play of the mind, a mental hologram. Of course it would hurt, do not deny that it will hurt, because we’ll experience it, but it is an appearance of the mind. And so likewise there’s no “me” that is experiencing this that’s separate from this – either in terms of your experience or my experience. It’s a part of a hologram. So obviously that is quiet difficult to understand. So that obviously requires a great amount of thinking about, that phenomena are like a dream.
The next line is: Discern the fundamental nature of awareness that has no arising.
So “discern” is the same word as “analytical” meditation. Investigation is just a preliminary to that: having investigated it, then we actually discern it. It’s an exceptionally perceptive state of mind; it’s vipashyana. And the fundamental nature of awareness is the fundamental void nature of awareness, of the mind. We have to watch out with this word “nature.” There are about three or four technical terms that are dumped together in our Western languages with one word, “nature,” and that completely loses the technical differences of these different words. And calling so many things “wisdom.” So that’s what it means.
This is now adding the Madhyamaka understanding to Chittamatra, because in Chittamatra it says that the mind is the source of these mental holograms, well that has true unimputed existence. The existence of the mind can be established, or proven, independently of it being imputed on phenomena. Just the fact that it functions and produces mental holograms establishes that it exists.
So, the Madhyamaka says: No, no, no, that’s not so. That’s impossible. The mind, that’s referring here – in Sakya they always emphasize the appearance-making (clarity) – so that appearance-making can’t be found. There’s no true arising, no true abiding, no true ceasing. Not like it’s waiting somewhere off stage, and now it comes onto the stage, does the scene, it makes an appearance, and then it goes off on the other side of the stage and takes a rest. That mind, that mental activity giving rise to appearances, is not sitting inside the karmic tendency, inside the karmic seed, waiting to come out. And then given the proper circumstances it comes out, does its thing (in terms of manifest, makes the appearance), and then goes back in some sort of aftermath into the tendency, waiting for the next set of circumstances that will cause something similar to arise: another incident of being disappointed or getting angry or not showing up – these sort of things.
So this fundamental nature of giving rise to appearances is actually void of this type of true existence. It has no arising, it says in the text, which is short for: no arising, no abiding, no ceasing. Remember in our definition of mind, of mental activity, it was only making up that mental hologram by perceiving something, by means of that, so that’s referring to the same type of thing. It’s not that there is a machine mind that is doing it, separate from all of this. The mental activity is just happening. The arising of the appearances of the mental holograms just happen.
This is also very important in terms of tonglen practice. You have to discern and actually perceive it, with an exceptionally perceptive state of mind, that this is the way that mental activity is. Otherwise, what happens is we take on the suffering and then we hold on to it. We hold on to it. Any moment of experiencing is just happening, and that’s it. It’s not something that you can find and: “Oh, my God. Now there’s this suffering that has come inside me!” And you freak out, as if it’s going to stay there and sit there. And it’s not that this suffering has come from “you,” truly arising from “you,” and now I have “your” suffering inside “me” and now the big “me” is experiencing “your” suffering. Nothing like that. It’s just the arising of an appearance; it’s just experiencing, and doesn’t have true findable existence.
The third line: The opponent itself liberates itself in its own place.
Now we get into the Sakya Prasangika understanding. And this refers to the opponent, that’s the understanding of voidness, the absence of unimputed existence. Now when we think there’s no such thing as this mental activity, there’s no such thing as unimputed existence, that itself, that voidness, is something that we’re imputing on the mind – merely imputed by words and concepts on phenomena. And so we have to go beyond the four extremes: unimputed existence, not unimputed existence, both, or neither. And usually that says: true existence, not true existence, both, or neither. But actually, to be more precise, it’s unimputed, not unimputed, both, or neither. And all of them are imputations. So the actual nonconceptual cognition of voidness is beyond words and concepts, because all four extremes are conceptual. It’s a big issue where the four traditions of Tibetan Buddhism have different opinions and it’s the most difficult point in terms of meditation. How in the world do you go from a conceptual cognition of voidness to a nonconceptual one? That’s the real tough issue, and so it’s explained differently in different Tibetan traditions.
So we apply this to tonglen meditation. We’re taking on the suffering of others, and we have to stop thinking that: “Oh, we have this horrible suffering that I’m now experiencing, because, well, it’s just an appearance of the mind, like a dream…” So we have to stop this grasping, that it’s unimputed, it’s just sitting there, horribly [even though it’s like a dream]. But then, equally, we have to stop thinking that it’s imputed, and it lacks – that it’s void, this is void of unimputed existence, “This is void of unimputed existence, nothing to freak out about. Calm down! It has no true existence. Stop that!” So this is the point here to go beyond words and concepts, because the opponent liberates itself in its own place. “Liberates itself” means that it dissolves: it has no true arising, abiding or ceasing, it comes and goes. And the same thing with your understanding of voidness. That also, let it go. Because you keep on understanding voidness, but you have to do it in a nonconceptual way.
So, the fourth line: The essential nature of the path is to settle within a state of the all-encompassing basis.
This is describing what this nonconceptual meditation on voidness actually is. And according to the Sakya presentation it is to settle within the clear light nature of the mind, the subtlest level of the mind. Because according to Sakya, whether you follow sutra or tantra Mahayana methods, you get to the clear light nature of the mind anyway. It’s really nonconceptual, the difference in sutra and tantra is the methods to get there.
And this all-encompassing basis – that’s the word “alaya” – that’s as in alayavijnana – the foundation of all. And so in Sakya this is called the “causal alaya.” It’s the foundation mind, the clear light mind that is all-encompassing, because it’s the cause of all appearances. That’s the deepest ultimate cause of all appearances, both pure and impure. So both the appearances that are based on unawareness and karma, and the appearances that are not based on that – appearances that a Buddha sends out, emanates. In Sakya this view, in terms of what we just said, is called the “inseparability of samsara and nirvana” – that both pure and impure appearances come from the clear light mind, basically.
This is totally essential for tonglen practice, to the real tonglen practice, because it’s only with this understanding of voidness that we settle down to the clear light level, or at least something we imagine is similar to this clear light level, which is totally pure. And rather than have that the source of disturbing appearances, of confusion and suffering, and all of that, it’s from that which everything has settled that then we can give forth the mental activity of the clear light mind – it can produce the appearances, the pure appearances of happiness and whatever it is that will help the other person. And that is what we give to others. That’s how it’s done.
These pure appearances, they are not tainted, they are not mixed with our own confusion or with any confusion (like our grasping to it and our being stingy about it). There’s nothing confusing about what we want to give to others. That’s very important. Without any of this: “I hope you’re going to like it, or I hope it’s going to work, and I hope you’re going to like me as a result of it.” To do that properly, it doesn’t mean that it’s completely devoid of still having emotion and feeling; it’s not that it’s just happening totally impersonally, because this love and compassion – and this is very, very difficult, very delicate: when you get rid of the negative emotions, to not get rid of the positive ones at the same time. That’s why you have to go down to the source, fresh from the source, and give rise to the positive emotions. The confusion and the appearances all automatically dissolve because they are not going anywhere, I mean they are not coming from anywhere and sitting then going away. The opponent, as well, does that – it’s all void and stuff like that – that as well. Then we’re able to come to this clear light state, this foundation of all. Then within that a few appearances arise for giving to others.
So you can see this Sakya understanding and explanation is not only incredibly profound, but incredibly useful, and fits I think extremely, extremely well in this seven-point training. With this foundation then we can do tonglen. Without it, very dangerous.
Now the Gelug interpretation of this – we come across it quite frequently – very briefly to show how these lines can be interpreted differently, which is also useful, obviously. So, “Ponder that phenomena are like a dream” refers to all phenomena that are cognized by the mind, that all phenomena lack true findable existence. Then, “Discern the fundamental nature of awareness that has no arising” that refers to the voidness of the mind that cognizes all phenomena. So the objects of mind, then the mind itself, both of them lack true existence.
This now encompasses all the five aggregates: all the aspects of our experience, all the factors that make up our experience, moment to moment. So the basis for labeling the “me,” the “self,” lacks true findable existence. Remember we had this in our discussion of Svatantrika, that what establishes it exists is, well, it’s involved in imputation, but there’s something on the side that you can find that allows the imputation, so that’s not the case with the basis for imputation. We have three things, as we explained, that are involved in mental labeling. There’s the basis, and then there’s the label (which is just the word or concept “me”), then there’s what is referred to by that word, in other words what it means, what it refers to. That’s the actual, conventional “me.” It actually does exist.
So Svatantrika is saying that all three can’t exist independently; everything is in terms of this combination – how you establish that something exists; it’s in terms of well, through this process. So if the basis within this process can’t be found, then how can what is designated on it be found? That’s impossible.
If we put this in another way, from another point of view, we’re dealing now with another technical term. If within this process of imputation and mental labeling, on the side of the basis, nothing in the basis has a solid line around it making it a knowable object – there are no solid lines around any of the basis – then how can what is imputed on it have a solid line around it? So if you understand the voidness of the aggregates, it automatically follows that – not automatically, because you have to understand and think – and then what follows from that is the voidness of the person itself.
So, “The opponent itself liberates itself in its own place.” The third line. The opponent is understood here in the Gelugpa as the “me” that’s applying this meditation to this. And if you’ve understood that the aggregates, the basis, the contents of the appearances of the mind itself are void, then the self itself (the “me”) liberates itself in its own place. Once again it’s the voidness of the “me,” of the person.
So, in tonglen, the suffering that I take on and experience, and experiences – the five aggregates – you can’t find it, it has no findable existence, and the mind that’s experiencing this doesn’t have true existence, and none of the aspects of the experience has true findable existence. And so, then, the “me” who is experiencing all of this, that doesn’t have true findable existence.
All of this is in terms of the discerning meditation, what sometimes is translated as analytical meditation. You don’t have to go through the huge line of reasoning every time you do tonglen, only in the beginning, but discerning – you just state it with full understanding certainty and accuracy. And that’s what the analytical investigating does – you’re going through the lines of reasoning. So we take on the suffering, the suffering doesn’t have true existence, the mind experiencing this doesn’t have true existence, I don’t have true existence. We discern all this.
And then the final line is, “The essential nature of the path is to settle within a state of the all-encompassing basis.” And this is to stabilize it. The meditation on the all-encompassing basis is the understanding of voidness, and now just settle in a stabilizing meditation on voidness. The voidness of the three spheres (the person who is meditating, what one is meditating on, and the meditation itself). And then – within that sphere of that understanding of voidness, stabilized in, doing analytical discerning meditation within that stable sphere – then, as in a tantra generation, then the arising of what you’re going to give to others, then of course staying within the understanding of voidness. So both explanations are very applicable to tonglen. Right? Different styles of doing it.
I wanted to go into some detail about this because without this it’s very difficult to do tonglen. It’s very difficult.
So let’s end here, and then we’ll discuss relative bodhichitta.
There was one question during the break that I just want to answer a little bit briefly before we go on, which was this thing about mental holograms having no arising, abiding or ceasing. These words here that they liberate themselves, this is standard terminology used in particularly dzogchen meditation, but you also find it in some mahamudra texts as well. Sometimes it’s translated “self-liberation.” Well, I mean it’s not a wrong translation; it’s just that one needs an explanation for that. “Automatically” I think is better. Automatically liberates itself, in the sense that thoughts simultaneously arise, abide and disappear.
Simultaneously… If you think about it, how do we think? Is it that the thought arises, then we think it, and then the thought goes away? And if that happens in a three step process, that’s only if we think in terms of the thought having a solid line around it. Maybe puffed up like a bubble, then we think it, and then with a solid line around it, it goes away. But nothing has a solid line around it.
And also if we think of time, there’s no smallest unit of time. It can always be divided smaller and smaller. So, can we point to a specific time, a specific microsecond – three different microseconds where it arose, we thought it, and then it goes away? We can’t. That can only [be like that] in terms of, you know, if microseconds have solid lines around them.
So, if we understand voidness, then we can understand that thoughts, mental holograms, appearances, simultaneously arise, abide and cease. And so in this sense, it automatically disappears; it automatically liberates itself. It can’t last; the next moment is going to happen. You don’t have to make that moment go away. By itself, it goes away. “Time marches on,” as we say. And it’s only if we grasp on to it and hold it, if we want it to last, that it seems as though: “Oh, this mood is going on forever.” It’s its own opponent, you know, it automatically arises, abides and disappears, by itself. So if we can recognize this, which is rather subtle, and if we can stay mindful of it, which means your mental glue staying with that understanding, then, we can do practices with it – tong-len, I mean it facilities it further and obviously it facilitates a whole life.
So, when in dzogchen and mahamudra meditation it says, you know, just be natural and relax and like that, it didn’t mean do that literally. It’s talking about this process that I just explained. You don’t have to do anything, because the thoughts and the disturbing emotions, they’re in each moment simultaneously arising, abiding and ceasing. So if you can just get to the clear light foundation, out of which it is doing all of this and stay there with the understanding of voidness, then, you don’t have this problem. So although it sounds very easy, it’s not. It’s unbelievably difficult.
So… and also it’s not to grasp at any moment. And, a very, very important word: nevertheless thoughts arise, emotions arise, appearances arise, like an illusion it’s not that there is nothing happening. So, that’s like the last line of this verse, the section “between session, act like an illusory person.”
Serkong Rinpoche put it very nicely, very cryptically, summarizing this verse, these five lines. He said: “If there’s a wall you can’t walk through it; but if there’s no wall you can.” Like, [if things had a true findable existence like] if there’s a wall, they wouldn’t function; they couldn’t function. Right? If each moment, microsecond, had a solid line around it, how could you ever go from one microsecond to the next? How would they connect? Well, if the cause has a big circle around it, a big line around it and the effect a big line around it as if it’s a findable entity, how could they possibly connect, how could they have things function? But if there’s no line around them, there’s no wall, then everything functions. Cryptic way of Tibetan lamas – they put things in very simple examples, but very profound.
Session Three: Analysis of Everyone Having Been Our Mothers
Unedited Transcript
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OK. We have spoken about how to develop deepest bodhichitta, and we’ve seen that it is very important and helpful for being able to do the practice of tonglen, giving and taking. Now we are ready to discuss the development of relative, conventional, superficial, surface type of bodhichitta, and it’s within that context that tonglen is practiced as part of the training for developing relative bodhichitta.
Now there are two major traditions for how to develop and then strengthen over and again this bodhichitta aim. One is the seven-part cause and effect meditation, in other words six steps that build us up to a seventh one, which is the result, which is the development of bodhichitta, which starts with recognizing everybody as having been our mothers and remembering the kindness of mothers, and so on. And the other method is the method of equalizing and exchanging our attitudes about self and others.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama says that there’s a little bit of danger in the first method, and the second method is a little bit more stable. The danger with the first method is that if we haven’t gained a good understanding of voidness, particularly the voidness of ourselves as persons, then our basis for being kind to others, wishing to help others, and so on, it’s on the basis of everybody having been my mother and been kind to me, it could be a little bit self-centered. Because they’ve been kind to “me,” well, I need to help them and I want to help them. It’s a little bit of an emphasis on “me.” And because there’s that emphasis on “me,” if we don’t have a good understanding of voidness there’s a little bit of danger there. Whereas the other method, equalizing and exchanging the attitude about self and others, doesn’t have that type of danger because it is based on seeing that we’re all equal. Ourselves, others, everybody, in that everybody wants to be happy and nobody wants to be unhappy and so on. So it doesn’t really have involved with it any issue of “me.”
But if we have a good understanding of voidness – I mean it doesn’t have to be perfect, obviously – but if we have a good understanding of voidness, we don’t have this danger in these types of bodhichitta meditation and we can follow either method, or what is often recommended (at least in Serkong Rinpoche’s commentary here) is the eleven rounds, eleven stages of developing bodhichitta which combines the two methods.
We saw the importance of the understanding of voidness for tonglen, so let’s look a little bit here before we present these eleven rounds which are the eleven steps, which I won’t go into in great detail. But let’s see how the understanding of voidness is essential really – how it works – for being able to develop bodhichitta without this danger of “me,” grasping for “me” – or grasping for “you,” for that matter.
The issue that I want to discuss here is the difference between each living being, each mental continuum, being individual, and each one having an inherent identity. If we don’t understand clearly the distinction between those two… It’s a little bit confusing, a little bit difficult. And that’s not a very easy distinction to appreciate.
In our dealing with others, we want to avoid two extremes. We don’t want to make the whole realm of living beings, or the whole universe for that matter, into one big “soup” in which there’s no differences among anything – it’s all one big undifferentiated oneness, a big soup. Or that, okay, there are living beings, there’s mental continuums, but they’re totally anonymous. The other extreme, of course, is the extreme that everybody has an inherent identity that they identify themselves with, you know, that’s their permanent stamped identity. Whether it’s the static identity that we give to them in terms of what they are in this particular lifetime (human, woman or male, cockroach, or whatever), or we don’t want to give everybody the static identity of our mother either.
So the whole issue here concerns defining characteristics. Defining characteristics are merely imputable. That means – we bring it back to our distinction between Svatantrika and Prasangika – that it isn’t that there are within this, we mentally label defining the characteristic of being individual, or a knowable phenomenon, or male or female, anything like that. It isn’t that the defining characteristic is on the side of the object. Svatantrika says that within the context, connected with mental labeling, there’s something on the side of the object – the defining characteristic is there. Prasangika says, no, there’s nothing there.
The most basic defining characteristic is the one that makes it an individual knowable phenomenon. And if that were on the side of the object, that would be like when I’ve been describing a solid line around it that defines this particular mental continuum, this line around it that makes it distinct and individual. That’s merely imputable on it, this defining characteristic of it being an individual mental continuum. Because the experiences that follow in sequence, the contents of that mental continuum, follow an order. It’s an order according to karma, according to cause and effect. It’s not random. It’s not that any moment of any mental continuum could be put together into one thing. It’s like when we look at things in the room, it’s not just arbitrary that you could put colored shapes, all the different colored shapes that we see, and draw lines around it in any old way to form objects. There are objects, knowable objects, but that’s merely imputable – there are no lines connecting different colored shapes. Within my mind I connect, let’s say, the colored form of this person’s hair with the colored shape of the pink wall behind it and the colored shape of the little piece of white on the bottom of the picture above it, and I draw a line around it, in my head, and make that into one object – that doesn’t make it into an object, does it? Why? Because it can’t function, it can’t do anything.
So this is a very interesting question in terms of perception. We perceive patterns of colored shapes, I mean in terms of what we see. That’s the information you get from the eyes, so how in the world do you divide that into objects that function and are [validly] knowable. And it’s not that there are actually lines around them, around these specific objects from their own side making them into objects. But that is imputable from the side of the mind based on conventions and functions – an agreed upon set of defining definitions of what’s a person, what’s a wall, these type of things. It’s all created by the mind at the level of words, which of course are just arbitrary patterns of sound; and it’s also based on valid cognition: you have to have your glasses on to see clearly, for example, and not just imagine that things exist in impossible ways. That’s not correct.
So conventionally we can say that there are defining characteristics, and we are talking just about the most basic ones, the basis of an individual item, and there are defining characteristics for each individual item, for each individual mental continuum. Mental continuum has a defining characteristic: it’s a sequence of mental activity which is based on experiencing the results of one’s behavior according to karma, according to cause and effect. It’s not just like putting any color and shape together; it’s not just putting any moments of experience together. It’s the individual defining characteristic that makes it an individual mental continuum. But that’s totally in terms of – there’s no line around it on the side of the object that makes it individual. So we have the category “mental continuums,” the category “persons,” then there are individual items that fulfill the defining characteristics of these categories without it being from the side of the object. It’s profound, isn’t it?
Now with Chittamatra, this tenet system adds something really very nice here, which is also helpful. There are no hooks on the side of the object that are hooks for each of the individual names and categories (so, individual identities) that a mental continuum has had or could have. These hooks for names and categories, those are another type of defining characteristic. So there’s no little hook on the side of the object for the identity “masculine,” for the identity “feminine,” for the identity “human,” for the identity “cockroach,” for the identity “mother,” “my mother,” which by its own power (because the hook is there) makes it into having the identity of a masculine mental continuum, feminine, human, cockroach, my mother, – continuum. Although all of these names or categories could be conventionally labeled based on the history of the sequence of experiences that make up this individual mental continuum.
So all mental continuums: conventionally they are individual, conventionally they have different identities in different lifetimes, but they don’t have any – what’s usually called “inherent individuality” – inherent identities established from their own side. How do I know this is my mother? There’s nothing on the side of the object that establishes the existence of this mental continuum as having been my mother. That doesn’t establish it or prove it. So what establishes that this particular mental continuum was my mother, what proves it? Well, we have the word “mother” and it can be applied to this mental continuum and it is a valid labeling. Because it fits the convention, fits the defining characteristic, it functioned at some time, and so on. So it’s only established, it’s only proven, by the fact that there is this term or concept that applies. So, who is my mother is what that word or concept refers to, it’s the referent object of this word or concept. But it can’t be found at the basis for labeling, can’t be found in that mental continuum, by some hook – a defining characteristic that was there, a lasting identity.
I don’t expect, and you shouldn’t expect, that you can really understand all of this. This is the first time you’ve heard this type of explanation, so don’t get discouraged.
This distinction between an inherent identity and still being individual, and not just anonymous: mental continuum #12379, like stars or something like that (you know, that each one has an individual number) …. There needs to be a basis for having some positive emotional feeling. It’s very delicate, one’s understanding of this. And if we’re all one big soup, that’s no basis for having any emotional feeling, positive emotional feeling toward any individual. And if everybody was anonymous, just a number, then also there’s no basis for having an emotional connection, love and compassion toward anyone. On the other hand, if you go to the other extreme and give them an inherent identity, from their own side, then that’s the basis for a disturbing emotion – of attachment and grasping and all of that. So you need this new path, the understanding of voidness, to avoid those two extremes. It’s very important and very delicate.
So when we’re working with relative bodhichitta (love, compassion, all these positive emotions), one has to be very careful. Emotions are not easy to work with. Like in my sensitivity training, you have to avoid the two extremes of being insensitive or overemotional. Only on that basis can we really develop properly bodhichitta and love and compassion. “I love you! You’re so wonderful!” – like that, it’s a disaster to approach bodhichitta with that type of emotion. It is always more stable to work on these things on an earlier level. Before really going very, very deeply into these bodhichitta practices, you need emotional maturity. The advanced level is advanced. Should we call it that? It’s an invalid label. It’s an invalid label – it’s valid, but without a hook on the side to mean, “Oh, it’s advanced. I can’t possibly do that!”
We can see then that this level of explanation, although not terribly easy to understand, this is something that you can work with, with other teachers, to go more deeply into it and work gradually to understand this. Because then it will make the bodhichitta practice far more stable, far more emotionally mature. If we are an overemotional type, then often we’re attracted to this bodhichitta type of compassion because, “Oh, it’s so beautiful! Love for everybody! Compassion. Isn’t it nice!” and you could really indulge your over-emotionality, and there’s great danger in doing that of really losing the path and just making it into a self-indulgent exercise of your own emotional excess. So I’m throwing this out hopefully to be of benefit and not just to make you confused. It’s material that you really have to chew on and work with, and this is really the only way to gain that emotional stability and maturity.
If we’re really serious about the Buddhist path and really serious about achieving enlightenment, then it’s very important to do it right, not just the way that I like it. And the way to do it correctly has been said over and over and over and over again: a combination of method and wisdom – compassion and understanding, compassion and understanding of voidness. You have to put the two together; you can’t just do one because that’s what you like and it’s nice, it comes easily to me. Whether it’s the emotion side or whether it’s the understanding side doesn’t make any difference. These are the two extremes of over-emotionality or insensitivity (super-intellectual).
As I often point out, in sensitivity training being overemotional often is just a show. It’s a big show and actually inside, deeply, it’s not so sincere. It’s just coming automatically because of habit and because the culture supports it, but do you really feel it? If you come on to somebody with this super-emotional, “Oh, I love you so much! I want to help you. Let me help you!” you frighten them away. They get overwhelmed and scared that you’re going to swallow them. So that’s not the way really to help somebody. Like a huge mother spider, “Oh, let me help you, I love you!” So this absurd method, to take it to an absurd dimension, often these images from the animal world that are absurd are very, very helpful – if we can remember them – to check ourselves if we are going to that extreme. And Shantideva says, “Remain like a block of wood.” Just don’t do it. Collect yourself more and then respond in a more emotionally mature and stable way. It’s not that you become totally like a block of wood and just sit there and nothing. More stable, more mature.
Let’s take our coffee break now, and then we’ll continue.
So we have seen the importance of understanding voidness, to a certain extent, not only in terms of the practice of tonglen – being able to deal with taking on the suffering of others without completely freaking out – and we also saw the importance of voidness to help us to avoid the two extremes in terms of emotionality: either not feeling anything, or being overemotional. In connection with that, we understand the difference between how conventionally we can say that we are all individuals – every mental continuum is individual – and has had conventional identities in terms of our mother, our friend, and so on, but it’s nothing inherent on the side of any mental continuum that makes it this, by its own power.
We can add one further little point, it’s not such a little point: the fact that we are all able to perceive things in the same way, or approximately the same way. That we all see and label this wooden object above as a “beam” or that we’re all able to see and label a particular mental continuum as an individual. The same individual? This is again purely due to convention. We all follow the same convention in terms of, not just specifically language, the words that we use for these things, but the convention of certain objects, conventional objects. It’s not that we’re all throwing the same imputation and label onto the hook on the side of the object. This is why the Chittamatra understanding is very helpful, although the Chittamatra is not so precise. It has to be qualified in many, many ways by the two Madhyamaka schools, but it’s very helpful for getting us into a level of understanding in which we see how, what there [in Chittamatra] is discussed in terms of “collective karma” allows us to perceive what seems to be the same thing without there being the same thing existing out there, from the side of the object. And appearance is always individual: there are differences in the angle, the distance, and so on, at which we’re looking at anything.
The mental hologram happens like if we took Polaroid pictures of the room. Obviously everybody’s Polaroid picture would be quite different, although conventionally we have to say we’re in the same room. How do you know you’re in the same room? I don’t want to backtrack, but that’s the real problem. How can you prove to our mother or to our friend that we were all in the same room? If we each took a picture and we show that to our mother – well, all of these are different pictures; you’re not in the same room! How can you prove that we were in the same room? It’s a very difficult question. You can reach and touch the floor to make sure we’re still here, but don’t think that Chittamatra is for simple-minded idiots.
Voidness, you have to love it – only if you love it and find it fun, not over-love it. Only that type of disciple is the proper disciple for teachings on voidness. Someone who doesn’t love it is not the proper disciple for studying voidness.
Well if we can understand (it’s not so easy) collective karma, on the basis of that we have shared experiences, then we can go on to trying to understand on the basis of shared conventions, that we can perceive things, mentally label things, the same.
Did you have a question?
Question: [unclear]
Alex: Let me just repeat. It’s because we tend to see all the same thing, that we tend to think that there is something on the side of the object. But then the real question is: do we all see the same thing? And what does it mean when we use the word “same”? Are we all here in the “same” room?
Obviously some conventions we learn as a baby with language. Other conventions, such as things are knowable objects, that seems to be something that comes along with habit or our previous lives, but nobody actually teaches us that.
Question: Does it have any importance that those so-called conventions exist?
Alex: This is a very delicate question. Because we have to really understand what does it mean that they exist? And how do we know that they exist? How do you prove – what establishes, what proves that they exist? The fact that it works, that it functions to communicate. So it can be labeled, these conventions can be labeled, they’re imputable (they refer to something, or you can find what they refer to) and they communicate. And we understand each other. Based on word conventions, that’s what we’re talking about – these categories: word categories, meaning categories, object categories. So they’re merely imputedly existent. In other words, what establishes that they exist is that they are validly imputable, and it works – it functions.
Question: Does a mental continuum, apart from generating suffering, does it also generate karma?
Alex: Yes. Happiness and suffering are defined in the way in which we experience the ripening of our karma.
Question: Is it in the same ways that a child generates karma or an old person generates karma? Because according to it the suffering of old age is greater than a suffering of a child.
Alex: The mechanism is exactly the same. Now the strength and the type of karmic force of course is going to be dependent very much in strength on the intention, motivation, and so on. So a baby might have incredible self-centeredness and greed: “Me, me, me! Food, food, food! If I don’t get my way, I’m going to cry.” But it’s slightly different from an adult going out and shooting somebody. And obviously babies differ in the intensity of greed or anger when they don’t get their way.
Question: And the third question is, does there exist a cessation of a mental continuum?
Alex: No, there is no cessation. Mental continuums have no beginning and no end. This is true for every individual, and this is a very crucial point to understand in order to actually successfully practice the bodhichitta meditations, because everybody having been our mothers is based on beginningless mental continuums. And for that, that really requires an understanding of the voidness of cause and effect. How it is impossible for a cause and effect sequence to have an absolute beginning or an absolute end? Can there be something without a cause that’s changing, and something that has been changing not to produce an effect, but just end, when we’re talking about something so basic as mental activity? If, as in Hinayana, they say that after you’ve achieved Buddhahood, then when you die the mental continuum ceases, how can we actually help everybody, all sentient beings? If our time is very limited and when we die that’s the end. So that doesn’t fit in with Mahayana at all.
But unawareness and the disturbing emotions that are based on unawareness, although that has no beginning – there’s no original sin: “in the beginning we understood and then we fell” – but it can have a true stopping so it never continues anymore, because it can be replaced by understanding. Not-understanding or incorrectly understanding can be replaced by correct understanding, and that has more backing to it than the not-understanding. So if you can have correct understanding uninterruptedly, forever, then you’re never going to get unawareness again. It’s a true stopping of it.
The mental activity doesn’t have something which is its exact opponent that can overpower it and be more supported. Like understanding can overpower… this is the exact opposite way of taking things and not understanding or incorrectly understanding. But to understand that, we really need to understand voidness, because this gets into the whole issue of how can you have continuity at all? When you stop thinking something, how can you think it again? If you have stopped, just because you’re not thinking of it, does that make it a true stopping and you can never – you can never get angry again? You can only get angry once? So voidness here is very crucial for understanding this whole discussion. In other words, how can we remember the first words of a sentence and put them together with the end of the sentence and get meaning out of it? These are very deep questions.
Question: As you explained, we have conventions for communicating and that’s what we have conventions for. But we, as Buddhist practitioners, how should we treat conventions? Do we have to deconstruct them or understand they’re empty? Or how should we relate with or deal with conventions as Buddhist practitioners? I’m a little confused.
Alex: Absolutely. We need to understand the voidness of conventions, and yet they function – like an illusion. They are not found anywhere with a line around them, like some great dictionary in the sky that exists by itself with all these conventions of words having inherent meanings to them. As I keep on telling you, it’s an acoustic pattern – you know, “Umm arrr ahhh rrrr” – and somebody says, “Oh, we’ll call that a word.” And then, “Ah, we’ll give it a meaning.” And then there’s this group of people in a meeting, and they put together all sorts of objects, and they say, “Hey, we’ll call that ‘table’ and it will refer to all these different things.” I mean that’s really quite extraordinary that language and conventions ever developed, even. It’s totally made by the mind. Nothing on the side of objects.
So yes, deconstruct everything.
Question: How do conventions actually work? Because it’s not just that we have a different camera or a different angle for a picture, but we actually have different cameras with different lenses, etc., and some people are good photographers and some are not, etc. How do we know we are thinking the same way everyone else is?
Alex: That’s why it’s like an illusion. It’s incredible. This is what Tsongkhapa says, it’s created as a dependent arising. He says it’s incredible that things dependently arise in terms of mental labeling on the basis of voidness. It’s incredible (he keeps on using this word), it’s amazing. And yet everything functions.
So for the question: well, how does it work? We have to go back to what I mentioned earlier today – Serkong Rinpoche’s cryptic comment: “If there were solid walls, we couldn’t walk through them. But because there are no solid walls, then we can walk.” So there is nothing preventing things from functioning. That’s the way that it is explained and approached from the Buddhist point of view. It’s like space. Voidness is like space. There is nothing preventing something from occupying three dimensions.
If I was inside a cage of solid walls, I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t go anywhere. But because there are no solid walls caging me in, like a solid line, I can walk. I can do things. If we were encapsulated with some solid inflexible plastic coating around us, this solid line, the “me, me, me,” a knowable object, we would be frozen, we couldn’t do anything. We couldn’t relate to anything; cause and effect can’t connect to each other; nothing could work. So voidness is the total absence of that.
But in our minds we are always encapsulating something in solid plastic, “You just said that to me.” Or how about, “You said that twenty years ago, and you hurt my feeling so badly.” We still hold a grudge. This is what guilt is all about. “I made this mistake before. I was so stupid!” Encapsulated in solid – enshrine it in this solid plastic and just put it there. And now I’m stuck. I’m not going to let go of this, this is my prize trophy! And then that’s guilt, “I’m terrible!
Just two more questions, otherwise the end of this evening.
Question: Are the five aggregates a valid basis of labeling the “I”?
Alex: Are the five aggregates a valid basis of labeling the “I”? Yes. That is the basis for labeling the “I,” “me.” We don’t label it on, you know, different parts of the wall.
Question: But why?
Alex: Why? Because they make up each moment of experience. That’s what the aggregates are all about. They are the ever-changing factors that make up each moment of an individual mental continuum’s experience. And on the basis of that, if you wanted to connect the dots of each moment of experience in a continuum, the way to connect those dots would be with the label “me.”
Question: In the same way that you were talking about conventions and agreement, is suffering a conventional agreement?
Alex: Yes, of course. We have moments of experience and it fits a certain convention, certain defining characteristics of a convention which is separate. And so when we label our experiencing, a certain type of experiencing, as suffering, what establishes that it’s suffering? Suffering is what this concept refers to. However, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. We do experience it, and it hurts. But it’s like an illusion. The problem is when we go, “Oh, I’m suffering,” and, “I’m so bad!” We encapsulate it in a big, solid, inflexible plastic. Then, “Ohhhhh, I’m suffering!”
If we just speak about suffering in terms of unhappiness versus happiness, or pleasure versus pain. The defining characteristic is that feeling which, when it arises or we experience it, we would like for it not to continue, not to repeat. And happiness is that which, when we experience it, we would like for it to continue. Unless there’s anybody – you know, a complete masochist – but there’s certain sensations that that person wants to continue, and other ones that they don’t want to continue. If I eat a certain food that I like, I experience it with happiness. You can eat the same food, and you hate that food, so you experience it with incredible suffering. So we’ve agreed upon the defining characteristics, it’s a convention.
Now, so we’ve seen that the understanding of voidness is very essential here for development of bodhichitta, so let’s see how it applies to these eleven rounds, or eleven steps of developing bodhichitta in the context in which tonglen comes.
Now, the first step is developing equanimity toward everyone. This is the equanimity which is developed in common with the Hinayana practices, and it is the state of mind in which we have neither attachment to some beings, and repulsion from others, or indifference to yet others. It’s being free of these disturbing emotions. That’s this type of equanimity. That doesn’t mean that we’re being indifferent, because it’s one of the three disturbing emotions. Another way of saying this is that we don’t consider anybody as friend, enemy, or stranger.
So understanding of voidness is very necessary here. Sure, sometimes some beings have been our friends, sometimes they have been our enemies, sometimes they have been strangers. That’s in terms of circumstances, but if we think in terms of beginningless mental continuums, then they’re all individual. Then, at different times, everybody has been a friend, everybody has been an enemy, and everybody has been a stranger. There is no difference; it’s just a matter of when. There are no hooks on the side of the object: “friend,” “enemy,” or “stranger.”
Then the next step is – we sort of clear the ground, without attraction, there’s no inherent hook with anybody (of friend, enemy or stranger) that’s their inherent identity. So we have equanimity toward everyone. There’s no attachment, repulsion, or indifference. Then what we want to see is recognize that everybody at some point has been our mothers. Without of course a “mother” hook on their side either, as if they’re inherently our mother.
This is a difficult point and one that recently with my class on the ninth chapter of Shantideva’s text, which deals with voidness, that we were working on. How do you prove that everybody has been your mother at one point, at one time? You have to be convinced logically that this is correct. Because don’t the laws of probability and quantum physics and all of that lead us to the conclusion that it could be the case that some person has always been our mother, or some have never been our mothers – isn’t that within the realm of the probability. So we want a mathematical proof for all beings have been our mothers, not just have it based on blind faith. So this is: if you have infinite time but a finite number of sentient beings, how do you prove that everyone at one point has been our mother? Very, very interesting and difficult question. Any mathematician here who can prove it?
How do you prove it? Finite number of beings in infinite lifetimes. Do you have the proof? We wanted to come up with the proof, so we came up with the proof. We have really expert mathematicians to check our proofs, so I want to throw the proof out to you in case there’s somebody here who might be able to find a fault in the thinking. Do you have the proof?
[laughter]
Question: You say that it cannot be proven.
Alex: Because my students said that if there were infinite life times and infinite sentient beings, you couldn’t prove it. But because it’s infinite lifetimes and finite sentient beings, it could be proved.
Question: And I agree with that. The real problem is how can you prove that there is a finite number of sentient beings?
Alex: That’s not the issue here. This is a given value. The given value is that the number of sentient beings is N. We’re just talking about a mathematical problem. Because you see this is an interesting issue. Not just to jump into these type of practices and meditations when, after a while, you start thinking about it and you say at a point, “Well, this is ridiculous! How could everybody have been my mother? This is a fantasy. That’s not right that everyone has been my mother; this is a bunch of baloney!” So, you can come up with something?
Translator: It would take some board and paper, but the basic idea is this. Imagine that we have a pot, very big pot filled with marbles. In this pot, each marble represents one sentient being. So every time anybody is reborn…
Alex: Right, “every time anybody is reborn” as our mother…
Translator: You take one marble. And then when this particular life is finished, you throw back the marble into the same pot. Okay? So we have to check what is the probability that you have not taken one particular marble in that pot – one particular marble in infinite attempts, in infinite lifetimes. If that probability is zero then, without doubt, every sentient being has been our mother.
Participant: But I need to do the mathematical calculation on paper.
Alex: Great. Let me give you our Prasangika proof of this. It came up from one of my students, then I just formulated it properly. But it’s a Prasangika proof, it’s wonderful.
If all mental continuums are equal and one has been my mother, the mother in this lifetime, then everybody has equally been my mother – because they are all equal. There’s no reason why this one wouldn’t be my mother. And now here comes the Prasangika part. If this were not true, if there was one sentient being who was never my mother, then because all sentient beings are equal, then no sentient being could ever have been my mother. And the absurd conclusion follows, that I didn’t have a mother in this lifetime. I’d like to see if that logic can be attacked.
Translator: He’s not refuting that.
Alex: That’s a very simple non-mathematical proof. Very profound, actually. It’s quite good.
Translator: He says that even the sketch of the proof that he has in mind is an oversimplification of reality, because to start with the assumption that every single mental continuum has the same probability of having ever been my mother goes against the probabilistics study of tendencies, because there are tendencies in probability, also. It’s an oversimplification.
Alex: Right. Now we get to this thing that we discussed. That from the Prasangika point of view, of course there are no inherent tendencies in any of these mental continuums. So all you can say is that when somebody has been our mother, then there’s a close connection which has been established. And so then you could say that, you know, there’s a beginning of a tendency to be our mother again. But still that doesn’t negate that everybody has the equal probability to be our mother. Because there’s infinite time, so it doesn’t matter.
There’s a similar problem too, the thing that the universe begins with a Big Bang, and expands uniformly from that first micro, micro, micro second, why is it that the heavens aren’t totally uniform? That you have different stars in different formations? It’s the same issue – I don’t know if it’s exactly the same, but it’s similar. And all these different things that expand interact with each other, and so that effects how they further extend. So the same thing in terms of mental continuums, except that here there’s no beginning.
Participant: It’s not really a comment about the problem of having everyone being my mother, it’s a problem I have about infinite time. Because for me I can equally prove that if in infinite times and not infinite sentient beings, everyone should be illuminated. Because I would have had an infinite number of times encountering the Dharma and I would be illuminated.
Alex: That’s a very difficult question. It’s an interesting question and a good one to think about. My initial thought, without analyzing it very deeply, is that unawareness also has no beginning. So I think that’s a different type of variable, for everybody to then get rid of that unawareness. It’s a different type of variable than the variable of having been my mother.
In other words, the unawareness is not going to go away by itself. You have to put in a great deal of effort in order for it to go away. But it’s not that there’s a major obstacle preventing somebody from being our mother, and has to be overcome through effort in order to become our mother. So I think that’s the difference. Something has to be opposed in order to get rid of unawareness. There’s nothing that has to be opposed that would prevent somebody from being our mother.
Furthermore, only one sentient being can be my mother at a time. But it isn’t the same case in terms of only one sentient being can be enlightened at a time. So that’s another difference. And when somebody has been our mother, they don’t continue to currently be my mother. Whereas if somebody becomes enlightened, that goes on forever. As so, if what you said were true, that everybody should already be enlightened, then we should observe that. But our observation contradicts that, because I’m certainly not enlightened. So being my mother is something that only one being can be, and that’s only now, then they’re not anymore. Whereas being enlightened would be forever and it’s not just one that can be like that. So they are very different – to be my mother or to be enlightened. So we get to absurd conclusion.
The proof that we came up with in my class, that everybody has been our mother, is a wonderful proof that we can also use, which is very, very important to be able to become convinced of, which is that everybody can become enlightened. If we don’t have that, then what are we aiming for? If I’m not convinced that I can achieve enlightenment and that I can actually help everybody else. And so if one person has become enlightened, Buddha Shakyamuni, and everybody is equal, then everybody can eventually become enlightened. And then the point is that they’re not already enlightened because you have to put in the effort. The tendency has to be reinforced and built stronger and stronger. Because then, if that were not the case, if one person couldn’t become enlightened, then nobody could have become enlightened – because we are all equal. So then Buddha Shakyamuni wasn’t enlightened. Then we have to get into the whole discussion: was there ever a Buddha? And that’s a very interesting question. That brings about other points.
So, in summary, why I pursued this and what I wanted to demonstrate with this to you is the development of bodhichitta, and working with all of these things, it’s not something which is independent and cannot really be pursued independent of gaining the understanding of reality. And that we have to question everything and try to understand why, because, otherwise, doubts come up in our meditation: “What in the world am I doing? This doesn’t make any sense!”
And so don’t be afraid of thinking. We all have minds, the ability to understand and reason, that’s what makes us human beings – defining characteristics, although not a hook inside us. And so this is why debate is so important. This is what I wanted to give you a little bit of taste of with that. Because if you sit in analytical meditation and try to figure it out yourself, you’re never going to challenge yourself the way that other people are going to challenge you and challenge your understanding and say, “Hey, wait a minute!” Like what’s just been asked, “Shouldn’t everybody already have been enlightened by the same line of reasoning?” “Oh, I never thought of that.” And so then you think about it and then you try to come up with an answer to that.
And we don’t have to debate back and forth, although that’s better because then everybody has to answer, and everybody has to think; nobody can be just an observer. So just break up into pairs. But at least to do it together in a class, like that. But as I say, better that before class opens up or maybe after you’ve had a general teaching, then you break into pairs and say, “Well, what do you think?” Then you bring up doubts to the class and stuff like that. That this is the process by which we actually understand the teachings and become convinced of them, overcome our doubts. So it’s only on that basis that we can ever have concentration on something in meditation, without questioning, “What am I doing? Do I really understand this?” And that goes for even bodhichitta, for love and compassion.
And I think that what you can see is that it can be really fun and exciting. And this process of questioning and asking and working with each other, as you can see, it can be fun. It’s not so dry, intellectual and boring. And if you notice, the level of energy is much, much higher than it would ever be sitting by yourself in meditation trying to analyze this. Your whole concentration is better. As the young Serkong Rinpoche pointed out to me, all this process, this training in debating, it’s all preparation for meditation. It’s about concentration, it’s about enthusiasm, it’s about energy, getting rid of your doubts and so on, and then you can meditate properly. So I wanted to give you a little bit of a taste of that.
So you can start to appreciate the importance of working with Dharma: it’s not just training of our hearts, training our feelings – also training our minds to understand. You train both, cleanse both, cleanse the negative habits and train the positive habits to support each other. Because, otherwise, trying to work and develop positive emotions, if you haven’t taken care of eliminating doubts beforehand, well, the doubts conflict with the positive emotions and so that becomes a real obstacle.
What you want to do is not get conflicting emotions. “I feel love, but hmmm, I don’t really know;” or, “Do I really have a connection with you?” and, “Can I really achieve enlightenment. It’s what I’m aiming for, but can I really do that?” and so on. So you can’t put your heart fully into it. So the doubt generates negative emotions, and what we’re trying to do with the bodhichitta meditations is all positive emotions. So really to be able to do it properly, you have to get rid of the negative side of both areas – what we call the mind and the heart.
So, we can also then understand a little bit better why Asanga, the great Mahayana master, wrote the Abhidharma-samuccaya it’s An Anthology of Abhidharma, which is the Mahayana abhidharma (abhidharma is “topics of knowledge”). Why is it the Mahayana version? He specifies that there are six root disturbing emotions and attitudes. There’s attachment, there’s anger, there’s naivety, there’s pride, and then there’s indecisive wavering – doubt. Indecisive – you don’t know. Is it correct? Is it incorrect? Is this the teaching, is that the teaching? It’s a very disturbing state of mind, whether we call it emotion or attitude (it’s difficult to find a word that incorporates it). And then the sixth one is disturbing attitudes, this is the outlook on life, if you – well, I don’t want to go into that. There’s another whole list of five attitudes. It’s rather complicated.
These disturbing emotions and attitudes, the word is “klesha” in Sanskrit, are described as sickness. So you need a doctor (the Buddha) and the Dharma is the medicine, and so on. So in that sense you can call them afflictions. But that’s not the definition – it’s just an analogy. The definition is that these are states of mind that when they arise cause two things: they cause us to lose our peace of mind and to lose self-control. That’s disturbing. That’s why they call it disturbing emotions and attitudes. And it’s much better to choose the terminology not according to analogy, but according to definition.
So, we’re not getting terribly far in this text, obviously, but that’s okay. That’s cool, as we would say – that’s okay. Because what is far more important is to get a foundation for being able to then really do this type of practice, and you can see that it’s not something to be trivialized or to be oversimplified.
If you’re really going to do it, it’s incredibly profound, incredibly difficult, that requires a great deal of preparation. But if properly prepared, then we can do it. If somebody did it, achieved Buddhahood through this – we have this line in the Lama Chopa (The Guru Puja), The Honoring Ceremony for the Gurus, that the Buddha always cherished others, but I always cherish myself (this self-cherishing) and look what both of us have accomplished. Look what the Buddha accomplished, and look what I have accomplished. So it’s the same thing. If Buddha could do it, if somebody could do it, through really doing this properly, then so can I.
The great masters and the Buddhas, how did they reach this state? So like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, how did he become like that? Practicing this, these type of teachings, these lojong teachings – cleansing of attitudes. So then, for it to really sink in, in terms of helping us to really take it seriously, and to appreciate its value – it’s quite difficult for us to relate to Buddha and his example, and we don’t see Buddha – but many of us do have the opportunity to meet His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And if you think, “Wow. It would be fantastic to become like His Holiness.” Well, this is what His Holiness practices. That’s how His Holiness became the way that he is, practicing this. As he always says, his favorite thing that he thinks is the most important is Shantideva – Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior. So if we want to become like that, that’s what we need to do. And if you do it, you have to do it right.
One day, a hippy, a young hippy – he was probably stoned – came to Serkong Rinpoche (my teacher, and I was his translator) and he said, “I’d like to practice the Six Yogas of Naropa. Can you teach me the Six Yogas of Naropa?” His attitude was, “This is so far out! Teach me, I’d like to practice it. Teach me it!” And what was really always extraordinary about Serkong Rinpoche, the old one, was that he took everybody absolutely seriously. And he took this hippy, this young stoned hippy, very, very seriously. And he said, “That’s marvelous, that’s wonderful that you would like to practice this. And so if you really want to practice it, this is how you begin: this is the first stage of preparation, and for that it would be good for you to go to the Tibetan library and study this and that, and when you’ve reached the proper level of preparation then come back.” And so this helped this young man very much because somebody took him seriously.
And so it’s very important to take ourselves seriously. If we’re going to follow the Buddhist path – we’re all here because obviously we like to think of ourselves as following the Buddhist path, and practicing the Dharma. Well, it’s very important to take ourselves seriously and do it correctly.
So let’s end with the dedication: We think that whatever understanding we’ve gained and positive force that has come from this, may this go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.
Session Four: The Eleven-Round Bodhichitta Meditation
Unedited Transcript
Listen to the audio version of this page (1:05 hours):
In our discussion of the Seven Points for Cleansing Our Attitudes, we’ve discussed the first of these, the training in the preliminaries, which prepare us to follow the Mahayana training. And the second point, the actual training in bodhichitta: we’ve discussed the training in deepest bodhichitta (the understanding of voidness), and we’ve started the discussion of relative bodhichitta, and we’ve seen in many ways how important the understanding of voidness is (at least some level of it) for not only tonglen but the steps that come before it as well. So that when we try to develop our hearts and minds to sincerely wish to benefit everyone, and to take on the responsibility to do that, and to aim for enlightenment to be able to do that as fully as is possible – when we do that, we do that with the conviction that it’s possible and with some understanding, based on reason, of why it’s possible, and why it’s possible to relate to everybody and deal with everybody. This voidness helps us very much with that.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama explains that there are two different types of love and compassion. There’s the love and compassion which are based on unawareness of reality, on other disturbing types of emotions which could in many cases automatically come up, based on previous attachment and so on. So this is a very (in a disturbing sense) emotional type of love and compassion. And this type of love and compassion is not stable, not dependable, because there’s quite a lot of ego involved here. And so part of it is being dramatic, to show off ourselves like a peacock putting out his feathers; we put out this emotional show of “Oh, I love you!” and these type of things.
I’m sure many of us have experienced this, that we love somebody and we feel compelled to have to always say it to them. “I have to express my love.” I mean it’s really quite interesting when we start to analyze that, because why do I have to express my love in words; why do I have to tell you? And of course sometimes it’s beneficial to tell the other person if they need reinforcement, and feel low self-esteem, and like that. But often we do that not because of a need of the other person, but for a need within ourselves. It’s almost as if by saying it, it makes it more real. I’m sure most of us can recognize that. So voidness helps us, of course, in this – that saying it certainly doesn’t make it more real. And not only does it not make the love real, but often it – you know how we have the expression from Descartes in the West, “I think, therefore I am,” it’s almost as if, “I love, therefore I am.” That somehow we think that this affirms my true existence: if I love somebody. And this really gets far out when we start to analyze it, because then if I’m not in a loving relationship with somebody, I don’t really exist. I can only be fulfilled, in terms of being an existent being, if I love somebody – of course, if I’m loved as well – and if I express it. It’s very subtle and really it’s very helpful when we start to realize that.
Sometimes I like to make up new Zen koan, and we have of course the Zen koan in the West: “I think, therefore I am.” So another Zen koan, a voidness Zen koan, would be: “I think, therefore I’m not.” And, likewise: “I love, therefore I’m not.” This is the same principle as if I was encased in solid plastic – I couldn’t move. If there were walls, you couldn’t walk. If there were walls around there, you couldn’t walk; but because there are no walls, I can walk. And so it’s exactly the same in terms of “I love, therefore I’m not.” “I think, therefore I am not.”
So if we try to develop love and compassion in a stable way, then it’s not going to work – we’ll get a little bit of something, but it’s not really going to be stable if it’s on the basis of “I love you, therefore I am.” “I’ll help you in order to establish and prove my own existence, my being worthwhile.” “I’ll help you in order to prove my being a worthwhile person.” That’s Sautrantika, what establishes that something is truly existent – it functions. So we must not work on the Sautrantika level. And actually Vaibhashika and Chittamatra say the same thing.
And so His Holiness explains that this type of love and compassion, based like this, is unstable because when we have this samsaric up and down – the eight transitory feelings or attitudes, the eight worldly dharmas – somebody is actually helped by us and we get all excited and feel wonderful, and if they’re not helped, or they don’t say “thank you,” or they criticize what you’re trying to do, then we get all depressed and we’re not stable. Our emotions go up and down, up and down. It’s called the “eight transitory things in life” (I just remembered how I translate it). And especially if our grasping for a solid “me” is reinforced by a culture that emphasizes guilt, if we try to help somebody and it doesn’t work or things still go badly with the person, we feel guilty, which is again a very heavy self-centered trip.
And so in this cleansing of our attitudes, why it comes so early in the text (this teaching on deepest bodhichitta) is that in order to develop our hearts emotionally (later on I give another reason) and to do it in a stable way, we need to cleanse our attitudes in terms of “I love, therefore I am,” and “I help, therefore I am.”
And so His Holiness always emphasizes that the second type of love and compassion, which is based on reason, is far more stable. When we understand through reason that nobody is special, especially myself, we are all equal, everyone has been equally kind and so on, and that ego, ego-gratification, all these things are really based on total unawareness and projection (that it’s not referring to anything real) – when our love and compassion is based on this type of reason and this type of understanding, then it develops and grows more and more in a very stable way. And we shouldn’t be prejudiced into thinking that love and compassion based upon reason is just dry and intellectual, you don’t really feel anything or feel any emotion – that’s a preconception which is false.
And I think we can get a bit of a glimpse of the difference here, although it might not be exactly the same, but by analogy. The difference between when we fall in love with somebody and we’re so sexually attracted, and we become partners or we become a married couple; and this type of love is very exciting, and so on, but that’s not very stable and eventually – because it’s usually based on not really accepting the reality of the other person, that they’re not the most fantastic beautiful being in the world, Prince or Princess Charming, but we find out that they snore, or whatever, you get the reality of both the positive qualities and the negative qualities of the person – and then after that initial, what we call “romance” in the West (it’s interesting there’s absolutely no word for that in Tibetan), but this romance wears off. Then if the people are mature – and it doesn’t always happen – if the people are mature, there’s a much, much more stable, long-lasting love which is based on understanding the reality of the other person: their shortcomings, my shortcomings, and so on. It’s emotional, but it’s a different type of emotion; it’s a stable type of emotion, a type of “meta-emotion,” and although it’s not exciting it’s far more satisfying.
When we have this fantasy of Prince or Princess Charming that we project onto the other person, then, although it may be exciting and although it may make us feel good, we also need to recognize that it is a very disturbing state of mind. It makes us feel very bad. I mean nobody can hurt us more and cause pain than somebody that we’re in love with who ignores us, or does something that we don’t like, or criticizes us, and so on. Our mind is distracted, we can’t really concentrate and do other things, because we’re always thinking of the other person. And although we think and we label this “True happiness. I’m in love,” we need to be a little bit more objective about it.
And if we analyze this state, then what we discover is that why do I feel so badly and it hurts so much when this person ignores me, doesn’t call, or doesn’t kiss me in the morning when we wake up – it is because we’re insecure. Again it’s a very strong example of “I love, therefore I am.” You love me and show your love to me, therefore I am.
The other extreme, what’s called the eternalist extreme, and the nihilist extreme goes hand in hand with that – if you don’t show me that I love you and if I’m not in love, therefore I totally do not exist at all – and that really freaks us out, that really disturbs us, the nihilist extreme. Not existing at all. So it’s very important to analyze this state of mind that we’re so attracted to and spend so much effort trying to find and repeat. Like people who have this middle age crisis when they feel: if I don’t do it again, it’s my last chance – which is yet another manifestation of insecurity and “I love, therefore I am.” Those who are older among us recognize that, I’m sure. Nobody will love me anymore because I’ll be fat, ugly, and old.
So if our love is more stable, and not for ego-gratification, and based on understanding reality, then our mind isn’t disturbed; we can feel more secure, and that gives us a basis for being more productive, more creative, really doing things in life. Otherwise we’re so distracted we can’t do anything.
So although I’ve actually jumped ahead a little bit here, what I’m discussing is some of the later points in the eleven-round bodhichitta meditation – the disadvantages of self-cherishing and the advantages of cherishing others. And cherishing others means this type of love and cherishing which is based on reason, not based on ego-gratification. “Cherish” means to feel very close to someone, and we consider them very, very precious, and so I really want to benefit and help this person – so that could be just ourselves or it could be others. This is the connotation of the word “cherish.”
So having this cherishing of others based on stable love and compassion, which is based on reason and so on, the benefits – not only for the other person, because we don’t scare them, frighten them – the benefits of such a mature type of love and compassion, cherishing, to the other… I mean, not only is that far more beneficial, because they’re not frightened by us, they’re not overwhelmed by us, we don’t make any demands (it’s not that we’re asking for anything in return), we just love them for their reality – no projections. So the benefits are not only to the other person, but to ourselves in terms of being far more stable, not disturbed by the relationship, able to help so many others and so on – not just be so focused on one, and if they don’t thank us we’re in a complete depression.
So when trying to help others and so on – I introduced this image yesterday: Don’t be this huge, hideous, frightening-looking mother spider, “Raargh! I’m going to help you! Love me back.” This type of thing. But it’s very helpful to bring that image up when we catch ourselves starting to act like that, but to act in a different way as Shantideva gives the very, very beautiful image for this in Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior (Bodhicaryavatara) – he says, “In helping others, be like a honey bee.” A honey bee goes to these beautiful flowers all the time and has a very close loving relation with the flower, but doesn’t get attached, doesn’t get caught to the flower, and then goes on to the next beautiful one. This is a very helpful image.
So let’s go back a little bit here to the eleven stages of the eleven rounds, one by one. And I don’t want to go into great detail about these, you can study these here. But what I wanted to emphasize is how to develop these in a stable way, not on the basis of a disturbing emotion, ego-gratification type of love and compassion. That’s not the bodhisattva path.
We started with the equanimity with which we are neither attracted nor repelled, or ignore, or indifferent to anyone – every being that experiences the consequences of its actions, his or her actions. And it means everybody, including all the insects and so on. Actions based on intention, that’s what builds up karma. Right, that’s a sentient being – I prefer “limited” being. So a Buddha is not a sentient being. A being with a limited mind, limited body, not in terms of someone being crippled with disease, we’re not talking about that, but limited in what it can understand, what it can do, and limited by its own experiencing of karmic consequences, its own disturbing emotions and so on. That’s what a sentient being is. Buddha is not one. You know what I’m referring to. Limited because you’re poor, it’s the result of the consequences, or you’re always in difficult situations or relationships. And then we saw the importance of the understanding of voidness for clearing out this attraction, repulsion, and indifference. Equalizing in that sense – that now we’re open to everyone. It sets the ground, clears the ground.
So we shouldn’t trivialize this step at all. It’s unbelievably difficult to achieve, because obviously we have attraction based on desire and attachment, and we have repulsion based on anger, and we have indifference based on naivety. So we’re not arhats yet; we haven’t gotten rid of all of that. So to be able to have that perfectly of course we have to be liberated beings, but what we can do to advance at our stage now is to not act on it, to not be uncontrollably compelled by these disturbing emotions so that we’re biased toward one or to the other. It’s very difficult, unbelievably difficult. This first step of bodhichitta is extremely advanced.
And so the standard way of developing this type of equanimity is to think of past lives, that everybody’s position has changed. I mean as there’s infinite time, beginningless time, then everybody sometimes has been our friend, has been our enemy, has been a stranger – every friend that we ever had started out as a stranger – and so, like this, we gain equanimity.
There are of course many other Dharma ways to deal with these three poisonous attitudes, these three disturbing attitudes. We’ll find one here in the tonglen practice. Attachment, repulsion, and indifference. Desire, anger, and naivety. And so I think it’s most appropriate that we try to apply every Dharma method that we know to deal with this issue of equanimity, and don’t just follow the one which is the standard meditation. Of course we practice the standard meditation, but it’s much better, much more effective, to try to apply as many different opponents as we can to deal with these type of issues. Whether, you know, looking at the ugliness of what’s inside the body of someone we find so attractive, or seeing the underlying type of deep awareness – you’re so attracted to someone, so it’s just the individualizing awareness that specifies one person – these type of things you apply. Whatever you can. It’s like if you have HIV, you don’t just apply one drug, you really need a combination, a cocktail of many things. So whatever we can learn from the Dharma, we apply in every difficult situation and step of development.
But on a practical level, who is it that we try to help? Who can we, especially when we’re limited, we don’t have the capacity to help everyone. Then of course we would choose the ones who we feel some sort of connection with and who feel some connection with us, so that they’re open and receptive. So, I mean, sure, that’s where you start, because this is where we can be most effective. But then you have to watch out not to be attached and not to be indifferent to others, to watch out for the dangers of the disturbing emotions there. But somebody who is really aggressive and hostile toward us, it’s very difficult for them to be open to anything that we could try to do to be of help to them. We have wishes: I hope that I can be able to help you in the future; I’m not repelled by you, but my time is limited and my capacity is limited. So this is on a very practical level. You’re not open to only this one, always be open to more and more and more. It’s like more people joining the class – you always have to be open to more who would like to come.
So no matter how old they are, how much we are involved in our family and so on, it’s very important to have our hearts open to new people coming into our lives, but not on the basis of ignoring those who are close to us. But also we have to be practical in terms of the amount of time that we have, the amount of things that we can do. And even if the other person, the new people, make tremendous demands on us that are impossible, if we are free of these disturbing emotions (or at least not compulsively under their influence) we can set limits with the other person in such a way that they don’t feel rejected by us. That’s the only way to set limits. Give them a little bit of time. “Hey, I can’t give you everything.”
And also, when we’re on the other side of this type of relationship, we have to also work really hard to accept the limitations that the other person has – in terms of their time, their availability, their emotional maturity – and not make demands beyond what is realistic. That also requires a tremendous amount of emotional maturity. And it’s necessary not only when we are on the receiving end of help from somebody, but also in terms of how that person is going to respond back to us. Don’t expect anything – it says that here in the training.
One image which is perhaps helpful in terms of helping those that are receptive and around us, even though we have the wish to be able to help everybody, and having equanimity, is the image of putting a bird feeder in the garden – some sort of thing that the birds can come and eat from. Well, it would be very nice to be able to feed all the birds on this planet, but we don’t have that capacity at the moment, and so we put out what we can for the birds that are near us, but it doesn’t matter which birds come – it’s not only for our favorite birds, it’s open to everybody. That’s a very nice image. And we don’t expect anything back from the birds. I mean unless of course you’re attached to having them around so you can spy on them and watch them. I’m talking about doing it with a more pure type of motive.
And also I think a very good example is the example of the Buddha. Not everybody was open and receptive to Buddha when he was here on the earth. And also Buddhas don’t appear all the time; they only appear when beings are open and receptive. It’s not that they don’t want to help beings during the so-called “dark ages” when nobody is open or receptive, it’s just that it’s in many ways a waste of time to come if nobody wants their help. That’s a good example. And a line that I always, always remind myself that is so helpful: “Not everybody liked Buddha, so what do I expect for myself?” It’s very helpful when somebody doesn’t like us, or rejects us, or criticizes us, or whatever. So please remember that.
So we have equanimity. And then we spoke about recognizing everyone as having been our mothers, which Atisha also pointed out as one of the most difficult points possible: to actually sincerely feel that with absolutely everybody – this by no means can be trivialized. So it can only be directed toward everybody on the basis of equanimity, not being attracted to some, repelled by others, or indifferent to others. We weave about what their previous lives could have been.
First of all, we saw yesterday that if we can prove with reason that it’s impossible that somebody has not been our mother, if we can prove that, that gives us a little bit more stable reason for trying to develop this attitude. Otherwise it’s just based on a fiction. If it’s based on a fiction, how can we really be sincere about it? Remember the line: “If one person, if one being, has been my mother in this lifetime, and everybody is equal, then everybody has been my mother – because if one were never my mother then, since everyone is equal, everybody was never my mother and I didn’t have a mother in this lifetime.” I mean I haven’t seen this line of reasoning in Buddhist texts, but we worked it out. It seems to make sense.
Then on the basis of recognizing and distinguishing them…. so we distinguish. What does distinguishing mean? We had this in the five aggregates – it means to distinguish a conventional characteristic feature. So one of the conventional characteristic features of everyone (not that it’s a hook on their side) is that they’ve been our mother at some point or another. So when we meet them, this is the distinguishing characteristic that we want to focus on.
And then the third step is that we remember the kindness of motherly love: how much our mother helped us. Even if our mother in this lifetime is quite disturbed, well, in a previous lifetime she might have been our mother and not so disturbed. And also, I mean, she didn’t abort us – that’s at least something.
So if we have approached this bodhichitta meditation without having this strong egocentric type of identification with “me” and this particular lifetime and this particular mother that I have [now], then I think that we don’t have so much of a problem in meditating on the kindness of motherly love – because we don’t just localize it in terms of “Well, what did my mother give me when I was a child?” Otherwise, I mean a lot of people have problems with this and it’s found in some texts, you can also think of the kindness of your father, your best friends, and so on. But it’s found in some texts. But I think if we have problems with our mother, this specific mother in this lifetime, then you need to work on it. How are you going to help everybody, all your mothers, if you can’t deal with this mother? That doesn’t mean that our mother in this lifetime is receptive to us and is open and is an easy case, but at least try to have the attitude of equanimity without resentment and repulsion.
They don’t say if you have difficulty with your mother in this lifetime in the classical texts, because I was present with His Holiness when this was discussed, beside him, and he was quite amazed that people have difficulty with their mothers. In traditional Asian families maybe you had some difficulties with your father; but in the traditional Asian family a mother’s stability is of love and warmth and acceptance. Tibetans don’t have this kind of problem. We can also think of the kindness of the father, best friends, and so on, which is a very helpful meditation if you get into this state of mind that “nobody loves me.”
And if we have one of these types of mothers that is overprotective and constantly worrying about us and really being very heavy about that, we need to try to apply some of the Dharma methods. And one that I’ve found is most effective with that is trying to deconstruct the emotion behind the mother’s behavior: that there is basically, underlying this, the individualizing awareness that’s focusing on us and really caring about us and about our welfare. Now, of course, in addition to that there’s tremendous insecurity, and ego grasping, and all of that, but try to see the positive component of the emotion that the mother is feeling and recognize that, acknowledge that. That’s not something that we want to reject. She’s not indifferent; it’s not that she doesn’t give a damn and she doesn’t care.
Then in terms of what’s added here in the eleven rounds is that people have been kind to me not just when they were my mother, beings have been kind at all times. And then we look at everything that we have in life, it’s dependent on the work of others: the food, and the roads that bring the food, and the animals – our lives are sustained by an incredible network of effort and work by so many others, that you really extend it to absolutely everybody. And so whether or not they intended to be kind to us or help us, it doesn’t matter. If it weren’t for what they did, we couldn’t survive, couldn’t live. So this opens our mind even more – our heart even more – to the kindness of others and the relation with others, the interdependence with others. This is very important, that aspect of it. And one way of working with this is to look at every item in our house, in our room, and think. “Where did this come from?”
Let’s have our coffee break and then we’ll continue.
The fourth step of this eleven-step meditation is to remember the motherly love and the kindness we’ve received from everybody even when they’ve not been our mothers. We develop a feeling of gratitude, and based on that feeling of gratitude and connection with everybody, then we wish to repay that motherly love.
Now it’s quite obvious that we need very clearly some understanding of voidness here. Otherwise it’s quite easy for this step to translate into guilt: “Everybody has been so kind to me and I’ve been such a terrible person; I haven’t done anything to help them back; I’m guilty, I’m no good, and so I’d better do something.” So this is acting out of guilt, holding on to this strong identity of “I’ve been such a terrible son or daughter.” So that – absolutely we have to clear out. This step can’t at all be on the basis of guilt.
So this is really essential – we wish to repay that motherly love. It’s really quite interesting when they describe this in the teachings. All they say is that it naturally will arise. That when you think of how much kindness that we’ve received, that just naturally we would want to be kind in return. And that’s something we have to examine. If there’s a block in that, where is the block? It’s very interesting that in the Indian and Tibetan context they would say that it naturally arises. That’s not so clear to me – and as I say, it’s not in the text – what the problem is for most of us. I think one of the aspects is guilt, but the more one analyzes, if we have really developed these first steps in a stable type of way, in a non-ego type of way, in which we don’t feel insecure, that if we’re already at some level of emotional maturity, that just sort of a natural sense of decency comes up.
It’s very interesting when you look at young children, that often they want to help. They want to help in the house or do things like that. That’s sort of naturally there, but if it’s constantly put down – “You’re going to break it!” or “I’ll do it for you,” this sort of control freak type of parent that doesn’t let the child do anything – then that reinforces this sort of low self-esteem which can be a big block, which says, “Well, I can’t do anything to repay it, I’m no good. Anything that I do will not be good enough, and so on.” So I think that has to be dealt with before this sort of natural feeling of just naturally wanting to repay, wanting to participate in this general atmosphere of kindness. Why do little children like to take care of a baby doll? Where’s that coming from?
It’s not just my idea. In fact it’s often recommended by psychologists and psychiatrists that one of the best ways to help somebody who has low self-esteem is to let them do something. Do something for you. It’s often the case with very difficult teenagers. Let them do something for you, doesn’t matter how poorly they do it, it really doesn’t matter. But if they can actually give, in some form or another, that helps to build up their self-esteem and unconsciously helps them to pay back some of the kindness that they’ve received without this feeling that: “I can never do anything good enough.” And if you can actually give and pay back, then there’s this feeling that – well, even if it’s an ego-based thing – that, “Well, I’m worthwhile, I can do something.”
It’s very important to let other people help us because often we have this control freak mentality. You know, “Oh, you’re going to break it. Certainly don’t touch my personal computer, because you’re going to break it.” We don’t let people do things for us when they offer. That’s really being very unkind to the other person, let alone the standard Dharma thing that, you know, let them build up the merit, the positive force of doing something. Just on a psychological level, it’s very important to help the other person – to let them help.
It’s quite interesting if you analyze and think these things out, that perhaps one of the reasons why this arises naturally in Indian or Tibetan families, or in Asian families in general, and probably was the case in medieval times as well in the West, is that for survival purposes the children have to help. And so they go and they help take care of the animals, or the farm, or the shop – I mean, little kids, four years old are already helping out in India in the parent’s shop. And so they get a feeling of self-confidence, that they’re actually able to do things. We always involve child labor and these sort of things, but actually, from a psychological point of view, I think that it is very helpful. Obviously, you don’t want to exploit a child, but we have to see that this can arise naturally. What are they doing that we are not doing in the way that they raise children, the way the families function, so that they don’t have a block at this step? If you look at the Asian families, a six-year-old girl is taking care of a two-year-old child.
Now if we’re doing the six-part cause and effect practice, these are the stages that belong to that particular tradition – the six causes, then the seventh one which is the result. Bear in mind that the first step, equanimity, is step zero in the seven steps. I love it in Berlin, the only airport that I’ve ever been to where they have Gate Zero. I love it, wonderful.
At this point you go to the step of love. Love is the wish for others to be happy and to have the causes of happiness, but actually there is a step in-between which is not counted in the count either – this is what I translate as “heart-warming love.” This is the step before wishing everybody to be happy and have the causes for happiness. It’s the type of love with which you feel close and cherish everybody equally and would be really upset if anything went wrong with them. It’s like that feeling that we have – I mean, if we can subtract the ego-gratification aspect of it – that feeling that we have when our closest loved friend comes into the room. That, “Ohhhh,” our heart just really feels warm and lightens and opens and we feel so happy to see this person. I mean, not the baby that’s come home to the mother spider. But this is what we want to cultivate as a result of all of this practice, is to feel that when we meet anybody.
If you look at His Holiness the Dalai Lama, it’s incredible. No matter who he meets, he’s just so happy to meet somebody, anybody. He just lights up completely to absolutely everybody that he meets. And for some, especially these very serious uptight politicians or leaders from other religions, you know, it’s really very shocking. His Holiness takes their hands, and these sort of things, and from a Western point of view it’s outrageous, but it puts people at ease because it’s so sincere.
So we have a good, good living example of this. That’s rare. There obviously are others as well, but with His Holiness it’s so strong – this warmth that he feels for absolutely everybody. When he goes to an audience – like in Berlin he gave a public talk last year, twenty-two thousand people came to this, and His Holiness comes on stage and just is waving and everybody instantly loves him. It’s extraordinary. How does that happen? What is the secret? It’s this, bodhichitta; it’s heart-warming love. Buddha’s hard to relate to. You want to become like His Holiness the Dalai Lama. How many times does he in all the texts have to say, “Develop bodhichitta.”
So it’s at this point in the eleven steps or eleven rounds that the stages from the other method, the second method of developing bodhichitta, the equalizing and exchanging of self and others, comes in. And the reason why it’s added here, it starts with that, is because up to this point this is where you get the basis actually for equalizing and exchanging self with others. That’s why it’s more advanced, because it’s based on this heart-warming love. And so normally with the second method you start with the step number zero – equanimity without attachment, repulsion or indifference – and then you jump to this first step. But it’s much more stable when these other stages are added.
So the next step is the step of having an equal attitude toward everyone. So it’s not the equanimity that’s discussed in step zero (or step one) here in the eleven rounds. It is the special Mahayana type of equal attitude, and that’s the equal attitude of closeness, of this heart-warming love, this closeness to everybody, equally. And of course it can be reinforced with many reasons, and this is why this second method is more stable: it doesn’t have the dangers, the ego dangers, of the first method if we’re not sufficiently prepared with voidness. So reasons like: everybody wants to be happy; nobody wants to be unhappy; everybody has the same right to be happy and not to be unhappy; and if you have food for people it’s not fair to just give it to the ones that you like, everybody is equally hungry; and so on. So there are many reasons to reinforce this view of everybody being equal. But it has also this emotional component to it of heart-warming love: a feeling of closeness for everybody and warmth.
Now in the classical presentation, when we speak about seeing equality of self and others, it is toward everybody on the basis that they have the same wishes as we do. So everybody wants to be happy and not to be unhappy – just as I do. Everybody has the same right to be happy and not to be unhappy – just as I do. So what is again quite interesting is that in the classical presentation, you don’t speak of directing this heart-warming love toward ourselves, but in terms of everybody being equal. It’s not just: “I love everybody else, but I hate myself. Because I’m a sinner I’m going to help everybody, because I’m no good” – this type of thing. Again I was there when His Holiness was first confronted with this Western low self-esteem, and people hate themselves, and His Holiness was shocked. This was a meeting with scientists and His Holiness went around the room and asked each of us individually, “Do you really hate yourself? I mean do you really not like yourself?” And everybody had to admit, “Yes.” His Holiness was shocked at this.
But I think it’s within the spirit of the teachings that we extend this equal warmth and happiness to be with ourselves, not just feeling, “Oh, my God, now I’m alone. And I don’t want to be alone! I can’t possibly be alone!” You know, people that constantly have to have, from the moment they wake up till the moment they go to sleep, they have the radio or the TV on – so that they’re not by themselves, God forbid. Or they have music constantly. God forbid that they have to be alone with their thoughts.
The next step, then, is the disadvantages of self-cherishing, and the following step will be the advantages of cherishing others. These we’ve spoken about already, so I won’t repeat. And it’s at this point where, after this, we get the tonglen, which is combined now with the steps that we find in the first tradition – the seven-part cause and effect.
Although in the seven-part cause and effect, love comes first (wishing everybody to be happy and to have the causes of happiness), and then comes compassion (wishing for them to be free of their suffering and the causes of their suffering), here the order is reversed. Because now we’re taking on some of that suffering – so imagining removing it from them so that we can then give them some happiness. So with compassion, take; and with love, give. Because it’s like if a pail, a bucket, is full of dirty water, well, not only is there no room to put clean water in, but even if you could put clean water in, it would just get dirty. You couldn’t get it filled with clean water. That’s not a precise example because we can’t take out all their suffering, but at least we imagine that we do, so that then they’re relaxed enough and not in such intense pain that they can really benefit more from the happiness. If you have somebody who is hit by a car and there’s bleeding, you don’t first give him a kiss and give him a meal and stuff like that. Obviously their intense pain – you have to take care of that first.
It’s very important to actually apply that in our interaction with others. Somebody comes to visit us and is very tired and very upset and so on – deal with that first before you start giving them all sorts of nice things, and doing nice things. That’s more nice, of course, to help them with, “Do you need a rest?” or whatever. If somebody’s had a long journey, and you want to immediately throw them at the table to eat a huge meal, after they’ve come from the airplane on which they’ve eaten all sorts of junk for hours and hours, that’s not what this person needs at that time. They need a little rest, to lie down for a while.
So we have this tonglen practice. I won’t go into detail now since that comes next, but what’s quite interesting here is that this step of love and compassion already is taking some level of responsibility to do something. His Holiness always says that compassion has an element in it of not just, “Well, I wish somebody else would help you,” but it has some sense of responsibility, as well, to help as much as we can with this particular suffering situation now.
The next step is what’s called the “exceptional resolve” and “extraordinary wish,” which is to take the responsibility – sometimes His Holiness says “universal responsibility” – to remove the suffering from everybody and help everybody, which of course is already included in great compassion as we had in the homage. It’s extended to everybody, but let’s take them all the way to enlightenment – which could also of course be included into the tonglen practice, but here it’s made a separate step because that really is quite extraordinary. Extraordinary resolve – I’m going to take responsibility to not just feed everybody, but bring everybody to enlightenment, liberation and enlightenment.
Then we finally get to develop the bodhichitta, which is that we examine to see, “Well, am I able to bring everybody to enlightenment – obviously not – the only way that I can do that is to reach enlightenment myself.” And so the first motivating emotion that’s based on all these steps: the connection with everybody, and love and compassion, and responsibility to help everybody to enlightenment. And also, as I stress very much, based on understanding that it is possible for me to reach enlightenment, that it is possible for everybody else to reach enlightenment, then our focus is on (and we understand the imputability of) a not-yet-happened enlightenment. Individual, my individual not-yet-happened enlightenment on my mental continuum – that we recognize that’s a valid imputation. Then we aim for that, and then we have the second intention which is to achieve that. Why? Because we have the initial motivating emotion to be able to help everybody as fully as possible. That’s bodhichitta. It’s not just, “I love everybody!”
I just want to mention this as an aside because I know a few of you have been studying here about negation phenomena, but this is what we mean by “future” in Buddhism. Not yet happened. Not-yet-happening of something. So that not-yet-happening of our future enlightenment – that exists; that can be known. The not-yet-happening of it. That doesn’t mean that our future enlightenment, the not-yet-happened enlightenment, is happening now. But it exists and can be an object of valid cognition. And that requires a very delicate understanding of what are we talking about now. And what does it mean for a Buddha to know the future? The not-yet-happening of something. And that, of course, can only be known conceptually – we’re not there yet, we’re not a Buddha. But it’s very helpful to have an idea (and this is really complicated) what in the world are we are focusing on with bodhichitta? What’s the object of focus? The negation phenomenon, not-yet-happening of something, it’s not yet happened. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, just means it’s not happening now. It’s not happening somewhere else, over there. This means it’s validly known.
Because actually it is quite difficult to meditate on bodhichitta with single-minded concentration. What in the world appears in our concentration? What are we focusing on? That’s not a simple question, and most of us, I think, have no idea what in the world to do. So we sit and we just meditate on loving everybody. That’s not bodhichitta. So, often meditating on a visualized figure of a Buddha, or in tantra ourselves as a Buddha-figure – that’s what directly appears, what we explicitly know. Implicitly, without it appearing, we know the not-yet-happened enlightenment and the not-yet-happening of it. Those are two different things. The enlightenment itself which has not yet happened and the not-yet-happening of it. So as I say, it requires a great deal of instruction and sensitivity to these distinctions in order to meditate correctly on bodhichitta. Each of these steps is very advanced, but bodhichitta itself is incredibly advanced.
If we are focusing on a Buddha in front of us and we think of the great qualities of a Buddha, Buddha Shakyamuni, how wonderful that is – this is refuge. This is safe direction. Because we’re inspired by that to put this safe direction in our life. That’s not bodhichitta. Bodhichitta is not focused on the enlightenment of somebody else. It’s focused on our own enlightenment which has not yet happened. That’s an important distinction between safe direction and bodhichitta. We can’t achieve Buddha’s enlightenment; we can only achieve our own enlightenment. It’s individual. And we’re not focusing either on just a general category of enlightenment. It’s an individual item, individual enlightenment – our own – which has not yet happened. And we’re not talking about the enlightenment of an impossible soul, of the impossible “me,” but the not-yet-happened enlightenment of the conventional “me.” That’s why this distinction has to be quite clear, otherwise working for enlightenment to be a Buddha becomes a big ego trip.
So I think we can appreciate from this how delicate the proper development of bodhichitta is. And it’s not something that can be oversimplified and trivialized. It’s a very, very sophisticated advanced step. As Shantideva and Tsongkhapa and everybody says, it’s incredible, this is the most incredible wish-granting gem, they say. It can fulfill everything if we can do it properly and really be sincere about it. As they say in some of the texts, if we’re going to ask the great masters and so on to say prayers for us, don’t ask them to say prayers that may we have worldly success – may my business succeed, may my daughter find a good husband, or these sort of things. But the most wonderful prayers that we can ask a lama to make for us is, “May I be able to develop authentic bodhichitta.”
In our weekend we obviously have not gotten terribly far in the text, we haven’t even gotten to the discussion of tonglen, but I think that this is quite okay because tonglen is a very, very difficult thing to do. I mean, developing bodhichitta is very difficult to do. But if we have some idea of what to work on, to prepare, then we can do tonglen practice properly. Because to do it improperly cannot just simply be a joke; it’s not a joke because these are very heavy practices – that’s not a very nice word, but it’s very heavy what we’re doing with it – and it’s not something to play around with, because it can really freak you out. Some of the visualizations and things, it just reinforces fear and push – it’s like these days I’m going to chiropractor, trying to loosen up something in my lower back, and I’m very, very stiff, and he can’t push too hard because if he pushes too hard for the bone and the muscles, if he pushes too hard to make the bones and muscles crack and move, it can do a tremendous amount of damage. And so you have to be very gentle, work up to it gradually so that you get that flexibility. So the same thing with practicing tonglen. Our minds and our hearts are incredibly stiff, and you can’t just push it: “Stop being selfish and think of everybody!” Because it can do some emotional damage here. It can really freak you out. So this tonglen needs proper preparation in order to practice it.
So that’s fine. What I’ve shared with you this weekend is some ideas about the preparation, then you can prepare and prepare and try to get some sort of stability in some of these steps, and then next time when I come we can continue the text.
We have about ten minutes. If there are any questions, I’ll try to keep my answers short so that we can have a few questions. This looks like a list of many questions! One at a time, please.
[laughter]
Question: We talked about the mind being beginningless and also ignorance is beginningless. So why is the nature of the mind pure and clear since beginningless time?
Alex: Mental activity (mind) and unawareness have no beginning, that’s true, but unawareness is a fleeting stain – it’s not the nature of the mind, in the sense that it’s not an essential part or nature of the mind, because it can be removed. Why? Because unawareness can be totally opposed with awareness. You can’t have unawareness and awareness simultaneously, they’re mutually contradictory – because if I understand a little bit, but I still don’t really know, that understanding a little bit is not correct understanding. You still have a little bit less confused unawareness, but it’s still just unawareness. When you have absolutely correct and decisive understanding, you can’t have unawareness or ignorance, simultaneously.
And so because of that and because although the habit of unawareness is stronger than the habit of awareness, of understanding, there’s no support behind – this is the word that is used in Tibetan – there’s no support behind the unawareness that would make it valid. Whereas there’s a great deal of supporting evidence for valid understanding and so, because of that, valid understanding can – again the Tibetan word – it can hold its position. It doesn’t fall apart when the unawareness starts to come again, it doesn’t shatter it, although you might not remember it anymore for a while. And so if you can reach the stage where that unawareness is totally replaced by awareness, then it’s not going to come again. So it can be removed.
Now what’s really important here is that it follows from this that all the disturbing emotions and attitudes are also fleeting, and can also be removed forever, because they all rely on unawareness. Whereas all the good qualities – love, compassion, and so on – these can’t be removed, because what is underlying and validating them, what supports them, is valid correct understanding of reality. And so, although the negative qualities can be removed forever, the positive qualities can’t be removed. The more understanding we have, the more they’re reinforced. This is very important to understand.
And – although I will go over a few minutes here, but I think this is important to say – so these are the obscurations preventing liberation. So likewise the obscurations preventing omniscience are possible to get rid of. What is that? That’s the appearance-making of true existence due to the habits of grasping for true existence, and so automatically the mind makes mental holograms in which it appears as though everything has a line around it. We may not believe it, we know that’s just garbage, but it still appears like that. And that prevents us from being able to know everything: all the interrelations of cause and effect. I’ve explained it before, there’s no time to go into it, it’s like we have periscope vision – we only see a little bit, because our minds are limited because of beings appearing to have these solid circles around them, these solid lines around them.
Now that can be replaced by – when you have the nonconceptual cognition of voidness, even as an arya, at that moment there is no appearance-making of true existence. And so if we can sustain that forever, without any break, which only a Buddha can, then that periscope vision will never return. Then we’re aware of everything, there’s no limitation in terms of seeing the interconnectedness of everything, which is what omniscience is all about. So this is part of the proof of omniscience, that it is actually possible. And again that reinforces our aim of bodhichitta, that it is possible to achieve enlightenment. So that it’s not, “How in the world is it possible to be omniscient?” You have to sort of chew on that before you can actually aim for it.
And one last point, that when the unawareness, the habits of unawareness, are removed forever from the mental continuum, the mental continuum still retains its essential nature as a mental continuum. In other words, the ignorance, the unawareness, and the deceptive appearance-making are not defining characteristics of a mental continuum. They can be removed. Whereas the essential nature, defining characteristic of a mental continuum, which is (in simple words) the mere clarity awareness – the arising of appearances and cognizing them – that can’t be removed. If that were removable, then a mental continuum would no longer retain its essential nature as a mental continuum. You have to think about that. And so, because of that, a mental continuum never ends. There’s nothing you can do to make it end.
I’ll just put it in a very simple way and then we’ll end, is that if there was a mutually exclusive state of mere arising and cognizing – making appearances and cognizing them – if there was a mutually exclusive state of that, of not making mental holograms and not cognizing them, how could you ever know that? So with that koan to think about, let’s end with a dedication:
We think that whatever understanding and whatever positive force has come from all this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.
Wyszukiwarka
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