Review of the First Link: Unawareness
We have started our discussion of these 12 links, and we saw that they describe the mechanism for how we generate our uncontrollably recurring aggregates – the body and mind and so on – of each lifetime, and specifically our tainted aggregates. These are the aggregate factors that are generated by unawareness – specifically, unawareness of the reality of how persons exist. These 12 links describe how the aggregates constitute the basis of the foundation on which we experience the first two types of suffering – unhappiness and ordinary happiness. These aggregate factors contain further unawareness and disturbing emotions and attitudes that derive from that unawareness, as well as various karmic tendencies that are built up by acting on the basis of unawareness.
Because these aggregate factors contain these various “taints,” as they’re called, we generate further tainted aggregates in future rebirths. The whole thing just recurs over and over and over again, almost like a self-perpetuating system. If we do nothing about this, it just continues uncontrollably. However, if we take control, we can stop this chain; for example, “I’m going to be in control of everything.” We do this not from the basis of some solid “me.” We can break it at its weakest point, which is our unawareness, and gain liberation from this uncontrollably recurring cycle of rebirths.
We started going through the 12 links, and the first one we discussed was unawareness. Specifically, that was unawareness of how persons exist, both ourselves and others. It includes the doctrinally based unawareness that we have been taught; we had to learn from one of these non-Buddhist Indian systems of tenets. It’s one of these theories of an atman that we find in the various Hindu and Jain schools, which has to do with what we in the West would call a “soul.” Because we wouldn’t automatically believe that we have a soul and that we identify with this soul, that this soul is “me,” that’s something we had to learn; animals wouldn’t believe that they have a soul, for example.
This unawareness link also contains what is more subtle, underlying this type of this doctrinally based unawareness, namely what’s called “automatically arising unawareness.” This is understood on several levels. The level that is held in common, or asserted in common by all Buddhist schools of philosophy, is the belief that we exist as some self-sufficiently knowable “me” that can be known all by itself, as in the example we used yesterday of, “I want you to love me for me, myself – not for my money, my good looks, my intelligence, or whatever.” Animals have this as well. When a dog sees its master, it thinks, “I’m seeing my master.” It certainly doesn’t think that it’s seeing a body and on the basis of that body, my master is imputed.
Now, on a deeper level which is asserted only by, for example, the Gelug interpretation of Prasangika, which is one of the philosophical schools, then much deeper is this automatically arising feeling or belief that there is something special inside “me,” and something special inside “you,” which makes me “me” and you “you.” The habit of this unawareness, in other words, believing that we exist in these impossible ways, causes our minds to project the appearance and the feeling that we exist like that. Then, with unawareness, we believe that this appearance corresponds to reality, but it doesn’t. Nevertheless, we do exist; it’s not that we don’t exist at all.
However, how do we establish that we exist? How do we prove that we exist? How do we prove that anybody else exists? What establishes it? This is the whole issue that is involved in the discussion of what’s usually called “existence.” How things exist. Nonetheless, it’s not really talking about how they exist. It’s about how we establish that something exists. What establishes it? That’s an important word to understand. It’s the same word for “to prove something,” siddha in Sanskrit and grub in Tibetan. How do we prove it? This is not, though, talking about what creates me or you. We’re not talking about what creates it. We’re talking about what proves it. This is usually translated as “establish.” What establishes it?
Is it something on the side of the object, of a person, that establishes that we can know the person all by itself? Well, no. Is there some special findable characteristic inside the person that makes it “me,” or “you”? No, we can’t find anything like that. Is there a barcode on the side of the person, or a special genetic code? Well, aside from the fact that that’s only there for one lifetime, we might think that, “Well, this is what makes me special,” a fingerprint or something like that. Because, after all, this becomes a very serious question. We look at pictures of ourselves from when we were a baby, when we were five years old, fifteen years old, thirty years old, depending on how old we are, at various stages in our life, let’s say 60 years old, there aren’t any cells in the body that have stayed the same in each of these pictures, in each of these bodies. However, we think, “That’s me!” What makes it “me”?
We might say, the DNA code has stayed the same. Of course, the DNA in one cell is not the same exact atoms and molecules like the DNA in another cell that replaces it; it’s been changing every moment. We could say, the pattern of the DNA is the same. However, what’s the pattern? What establishes that there’s a pattern? Are there little lines joining each of the molecules on the side of the DNA? Well, no. The mind has mentally constructed a pattern based on all these little pieces. That’s what we call “mental labeling” or “imputation.” All patterns and so on are imputations like mathematical formulas, aren’t they? Further, each atom, each molecule of the DNA, and each atom of the molecule, and each part of the atom... I mean it goes on and on. There’s nothing solid findable there. All the wholes are imputed on their parts.
Then, what establishes that that’s “me” in all these pictures? Well, the only thing that establishes it is that there is the word or convention “me” that is labeled on all of these photos, and it’s valid. Why is it valid? Well, other people who knew me agree and say, “That’s what you looked like when you were a baby.” There’s the convention “me.” Basically, this is an established convention that this is a word in a language that we understand that has the meaning “me.” There’s a name. Everybody has agreed that my name is “Alex” in this lifetime. That’s one thing that establishes it, that there actually is a convention.
As I said, everybody who knew me – I mean, I don’t know what I looked like when I was a baby – but everybody else who knew me, who remember correctly, identify it correctly and say, “Yeah, that was you.” That establishes that this is me. It’s not contradicted by people who actually remembered me and saw me then. It’s not that my mother says, “Oh, that wasn’t you, that was your brother in the baby picture.” Also, it’s not contradicted by a mind that validly sees the deepest truth. In other words, if someone thinks, “solidly, permanently existing me.” That’s wrong because obviously, we’ve changed throughout our lifetime. Anyone who understands how things exist would see, “Yes, it’s you. However, yes, you’ve changed throughout your lifetime. You’ve grown, learned things, and so on. You don’t still wet your diaper.”
It’s only this convention or word “me” that establishes that it’s me, isn’t it, when it’s validly applied. Even the valid criteria are all from the side of a mind; they’re not from the side of the object. I am not created by the word “me” – if nobody said “me,” “me,” “me” or “you,” “you,” “you,” then I wouldn’t exist; that’s absurd. If I went through life not thinking “me,” would that make me not exist? No. The mental label or word doesn’t create the object. I am not just a word. After all, a word is just a combination of meaningless sounds that somebody decided and gave it a meaning.
What is “me”? What am I? The only thing that we can say is that we’re what the word “me” refers to, it’s the referent object – the technical word – of what the “me” refers to on the basis of an ever-changing stream of aggregates, body, mind, emotions, etc. Furthermore, on the basis of that type of “me,” this is what actually exists, we function and experience things, don’t we? We do things. What is impossible here is to imagine that the word “me,” or any word for that matter… now, here we have to make a very subtle distinction – that there is a referent “thing” that corresponds to it that we can find.
A referent “thing” is some sort of thing in a box, the box “me,” the box “you,” or the box “table,” the box “good,” or the box “bad,” corresponding to an entry in the dictionary which makes the word a little box by itself that there’s a referent “thing” on the side of reality that’s there in boxes, like in the dictionary. Then, it’s in this box; it’s not in that box. That’s what’s impossible. Yes, words refer to something, but not to some findable “thing” in a box. If we existed, if “me” existed as some sort of thing in a box to be known all by itself, it could never change. It could never do anything. It could never interact with anything. It would be encapsulated in plastic, sitting there. That’s impossible. We don’t exist like that – although it feels like we do. That’s the problem. We just don’t know; it’s unawareness.
For example, it’s “you box,” “you thing.” “You don’t appreciate me. You don’t love me. You’re bad.” We think “you” is something permanent, never changing and in a box. That’s “you.” Then, obviously, we get very upset, don’t we? We “grasp” – the word that’s used – and we perceive the other person to exist like that because our mind projects that nonsense and we believe it. That “you” refers to a referent “thing,” and that’s really who this person is. Then, we get angry and yell at them and that builds up karma; it sets in motion the whole samsaric process. However, it was you – that is a valid label. You ignored me, or you didn’t do this or you did that. “You” is just what that word refers to, but it’s not something in a box. However, “you” is simply labeled on the basis of the body, mind, speech, emotions, or whatever it was that was involved at that moment when “you” said or did something nasty to me that “I” didn’t like.
All the aggregate factors, emotions, mind, body, health, and all these sorts of things at that moment, none of those exist in little boxes either. They were affected by millions and millions of causes and conditions, not only what’s presently happening, but also going back to the past in the family and what we were doing before and all these other things. We don’t just exist like a still photograph. I mean that’s often really the way that we view people, ourselves, and things in the world; it’s like a still photograph. It’s not even color; it’s black and white. It doesn’t even get all the dimensions of it, and then it’s frozen! The world doesn’t exist like a still picture. It’s a movie, if we want to use this analogy of a film. We freeze things. “Aaah, you said that! That’s you. You’re nasty. You don’t love me.” The movie goes on and in all the later moments when we’re doing other things and interacting in other ways, well, that’s still you, isn’t it?
It’s only when we freeze something into a photograph and then make it established from its own side as that’s really the way that “you” are, and then we get really angry. If we see that continuity in every moment is influenced by millions and millions of things and we can label “you” on it, or we can label “me” on our whole stream of this continuity of the aggregates, then it diffuses the whole thing. There’s no reason to get angry. What are we getting angry at?
Basically, with unawareness, the first link, we believe that it’s in reference to persons, myself, and you. We think that we exist in these impossible ways, that there’s something like a still photograph, something on our own side that is establishing that special characteristic of nasty, for example, which makes me “me.” Or there’s a line around us that makes “me” a knowable thing. We have this unawareness and are confused about how we and others exist. On the basis of that, we get disturbing emotions. Then, on the basis of disturbing emotions, we act in a way that creates karma, either constructively or destructively based on this false idea and belief in an impossible “me.”
Review of Links Two through Seven
The second link is the affecting variables. This link refers to the compulsive karmic impulses that come up to act destructively based on this unawareness, for example, “You did something nasty to me,” and then, the impulse is to hurt this person. Or, “You are so wonderful and special; therefore I’m going to do something nice for you.” The impulse to do something constructive, to be nice to you so that “you,” special “you,” will love “me,” special, solid “me.” This is a constructive karmic action. After we’ve completed the action, then we get some sort of karmic tendency after that: a positive one from constructive behavior, and a negative one from destructive behavior.
The third link is the loaded consciousness. In other words, these tendencies, which are not something solid, are imputed on the consciousness, or whatever level we want to consider that, depending on the tenet system. This consciousness goes into future lives. We have the causal phase of this loaded consciousness in this lifetime and the resultant phase in a next lifetime. The main thing that ripens from these karmic tendencies, as is discussed in these 12 links, is from a positive karmic tendency, our worldly happiness that never satisfies; it’s the suffering of change, and from the negative tendencies, we get the experience of unhappiness, the suffering of suffering. These experiences of unhappiness or our ordinary happiness could manifest at any moment of our life. We all know that, don’t we?
Our happiness or unhappiness is not really dependent on the object that we’re seeing or hearing because we could listen to the same music and sometimes feel happy and sometimes feel very unhappy. Furthermore, we see a person and sometimes we feel happy seeing them and sometimes we feel unhappy. Every moment, actually, we’re feeling some level of happiness or unhappiness. It might not be dramatic; in fact, most of the time it’s not dramatic. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s nonexistent. Often we say, “I don’t feel anything.” Well, if we really examine, it’s very rare that it’s going to be what’s called neutral, exactly in the middle of happiness and unhappiness. It’s usually a bit on one side or a bit on the other side.
This mental factor of feeling a level of happiness is actually defined by how we experience the ripening of our karma. In a Buddhist context, when they use the word “experience,” it refers to this. How do we experience it? With some feeling of happiness or unhappiness? Does the computer experience the data in it? By this definition, no. The computer can, in a sense, know data, manipulate data, and do all sorts of operations. However, does it experience all of this? No, it doesn’t feel happy or unhappy. Therefore, a computer doesn’t have a mind. We talk about artificial intelligence – well, a computer can do various operations, but it doesn’t experience anything and doesn’t have happiness or unhappiness. From this point of view, it doesn’t have a mind.
In order to experience ordinary happiness and unhappiness, we need to have a fully developed system of the other aggregates. This feeling of happiness or unhappiness is one of the aggregates: the aggregate of feeling. Now, we have the next links which describe the development of the aggregates in a lifetime, from the moment of conception up until the moment when the aggregates are fully developed and functioning. In the case of someone born from a womb or an egg, it’s talking about the development of the fetus.
First, we have the fourth link: nameable mental faculties with or without gross form. Here we basically have just the aggregate of consciousness. However, it’s not differentiated into the different types of sense consciousness. Those are just potentials. The aggregate of distinguishing and feeling are just potentials. With the aggregate of other affecting variables, only some of them are functioning. Most of them are still in potential form; the various emotions and so on are in potential form. We could say that maybe attention or something like that might be there in a very primitive form because there are certain mental factors that are ever functioning in each moment. However, most of this aggregate is in potential form.
One would have to do quite a detailed analysis to say whether all of this aggregate is in potential form or, as I suspect, maybe some little aspects of it might be functioning. Furthermore, mental consciousness, as we discussed in detail yesterday, can be associated with either some sort of gross form, which could be either the gross elements or the subtle elements, or what’s called “without a form,” which just means the subtlest life-supporting energy itself.
The next step is the fifth link, the stimulators of cognition. Now, the mental consciousness is differentiated into the different types of sense consciousness and the form that we get – referring to the body – is differentiated, at least, into the different cognitive sensors. There are photosensitive cells of the eyes, ears, for sights, sounds, etc. Basically, there’s some sort of association of these with sights, sounds, physical sensations, or whatever it is a fetus can experience in the womb – certainly, sounds and physical sensations.
Then, we have the sixth link, which is the contacting awareness. This evolves next. It is one of the ever-functioning mental factors that are part of the aggregate of other variables. I think this would have to operate in connection with the mental factor of distinguishing. That’s usually translated as the aggregate of recognition. It’s distinguishing, like light from dark. It doesn’t mean we knew it before and remember it. For instance, when there’s the various sensory types of cognition, the sensor, the sound-sensitive cells of ears, and we have a sound and some audio consciousness, there is an awareness that accompanies this cognition, this perception, as being pleasant or unpleasant or neutral.
Yesterday, we started to explain that this is similar to the mental factor of consideration, how we pay attention to something. Nonetheless, it’s not the same mental factor. Let me explain why. This mental factor of consideration, or attention, is taking something to mind. Either we can take something to mind in terms of very painstaking attention, or always bringing our attention back. There’s that type of attention. However, there’s also attention in terms of how we pay attention and consider something. This can either be correct or incorrect, which is explained with various examples.
The usual example is with respect to the body: that we could consider the body clean – that’s an incorrect consideration, whereas, in fact, it is unclean, especially when we think about what’s inside. We could also consider it static, never-changing. That’s incorrect consideration, whereas, in fact, it’s nonstatic; it’s changing all the time. Further, we could consider that it is happiness – that’s incorrect, whereas in fact it’s in the nature of suffering. We can consider it incorrectly that it has an impossible soul, but what is correct consideration is that it lacks an impossible soul. These are usually described as the four types of incorrect consideration and the four types of correct consideration.
Basically, this mental factor of consideration can be correct or incorrect. Here, with contacting awareness, we might think: “Well, it’s like consideration,” but there’s no variable here of being correct or incorrect. When we perceive something, we are aware of it as pleasant or unpleasant or neutral. It’s not that one of those is correct. Although it sounds similar to consideration and certainly is connected with distinguishing, it’s a different mental factor.
We also explained that why we consider something pleasant or unpleasant is based on habit; however, I think, it is also connected with karma to a certain extent. Because when we are eating a certain food, normally when we see this food, we might find it pleasant to see it. Then, there are other times when we don’t find it pleasant to see it. The same object can be pleasant or unpleasant, and it’s not just a matter of habit here, is it? I think in some way, it’s associated with karma, but it’s not very clearly explained. In other words, based on habit, most of the time when we see chocolate, we see it as something pleasant. That would be habit. However, sometimes we see it as unpleasant. For instance, we’ve just finished a huge meal and we see chocolate and it doesn’t really interest us. That’s an example of being affected, I think, not just by karma but by other circumstances, like the fact that our stomach is full. There are many factors that are going to influence our awareness of something as pleasant or unpleasant.
I think we would have to analyze much more deeply and extensively to see whether or not there is really a connection with the ripening of karma here. It’s not explained in terms of ripening of karma, so I have some doubts here. Maybe it’s associated with karma, and maybe not. Maybe it’s just affected by habit and the circumstances, like our stomach is full. Or by everybody around us saying, “Ooh! This is horrible; this is contaminated, radioactive chocolate,” or something like that.
On the basis of how we have this contacting awareness, then the next step, the seventh link, is the feeling the level of happiness. It’s the pleasant contacting awareness with something; on the basis of that, we feel happy. If it’s unpleasant, we feel unhappy. If it’s neutral, we feel neutral. One of my most favorite foods is salt pretzels and I’ve been on a diet recently, trying to lose weight. At one lecture that I was giving, they had a big pile of these pretzels and it was very difficult not to eat them because I am really quite attached to them. Initially, I saw them as pleasant, of course, but I was still a bit apprehensive. Nevertheless, I tasted one. I said, “Okay I’ll let myself eat one.” I found that it was stale! I was really happy that they were stale because then I had no interest in eating any more. It’s very funny. I think it’s not based on habit really, and it’s certainly not based on karma. It’s based on the circumstances that the pretzel was stale, the circumstances of being on the diet, and so on.
The mechanism is full of the five aggregates for experiencing the ripening of our karma with a feeling of a level of happiness. Happiness is defined as that feeling that when we experience it, we would like not to be parted from it. Of course, this ordinary happiness never lasts, so we’re going to be parted from it. Unhappiness is that feeling that when we experience it, we would like to be parted from it. Most of the time, we cannot be instantly parted from it, can we? Wouldn’t that be wonderful? We feel unhappy or sad and then we say, “Well, I don’t want to feel sad or unhappy anymore.” We snap our fingers and now we feel happy. That would be great. Unfortunately, most of us can’t do that, can we? Then, neutral is the feeling that when we experience it, we’d like it to just continue. For instance, when we’re asleep, we don’t feel happy or unhappy and certainly, we like to stay asleep.
The next links are talking about how we activate these karmic tendencies that the consciousness is loaded with. Specifically, it is speaking about how we activate the karmic tendencies for rebirth. These tendencies are the tendencies of what’s called “throwing karma.” These are karmic impulses that can throw us into a next rebirth, throwing us into having a new set of aggregates, or another set of aggregates. That’s what all of this is talking about, isn’t it? It is how we generate over and again basis aggregates, the “tainted aggregates.”
This throwing karma refers to the karmic actions, based on unawareness, that we do with a very strong motivation, whether it’s positive or negative. Also, there are some special objects that are sometimes involved, like doing something nice or something nasty to our spiritual teacher, to our parents, etc. However, the main emphasis here is on the strong motivation: either we hurt somebody with really strong anger or we help somebody with really strong love – the wish for them to be happy, to actually help them – but that’s based on unawareness.
I should also mention that in the standard explanation, these next three links that activate the karmic tendencies of throwing karma are explained in terms of what happens at the moment of death; what actually is going to activate these throwing karma that will throw us into a next rebirth. There are some explanation systems of these 12 links that talk about how this can occur all the time, in terms of activating the karma to feel happy and unhappy. They’re not the mainstream explanations, but they do exist.
Link Eight: Craving
The first of these, the eighth link, is called “craving.” It is the word that in Sanskrit is used for “thirsty.” This is a strong thirst, as in “I’m craving.” It is in response to feeling a level of happiness, really craving; it’s based on the big, strong, solid and impossible “me.” It’s the feeling of really not wanting to be parted from this happiness, to be parted from this suffering, and the desire for this neutral feeling to continue. Usually, it’s always described only in terms of happiness and unhappiness. However, the neutral feeling is there as well. We experience this, for example, when thinking, “I can’t take it! I can’t stand it! I’m so hungry. I’m so unhappy.” I mean that’s maybe an extreme, but this is what we’re talking about here. “Aren’t we happy? Aren’t we having a good time?” This type of, “Oh, I’m having such a good time.” We cling to that. This is very important to understand because we feel happy and unhappy every moment of our lives – something is always going on.
It’s very important to watch out and not to make a big deal out of the “me” that is conventionally experiencing these feelings. Don’t make it into an impossible “me,” as in, “I can’t take it!” and so on. Happy or unhappy, it just goes up and down; that’s the nature of samsara. It’s no big deal. To put it in hippie English, just “surf the waves” of happiness and unhappiness in life and don’t get upset by it. That’s very important. This is really a very practical piece of advice in terms of leading our lives. We’re unhappy, no big deal. So what? What do we expect from samsara? We’re happy; it’s also no big deal. Nothing special. The mantra of the young reincarnation of Serkong Rinpoche that he uses that all the time is “Nothing special.” He went to America, Disneyland, and it was “Nothing special.”
I was the translator for the old Serkong Rinpoche, traveled around the world with him, and he was also into “nothing special.” When he saw the Eiffel Tower, he said, “What’s the big deal about this? We get to the top; all we have to do is come back down. What’s so special about this?” The only thing special he said about traveling in the West was that people were actually interested in the Dharma and came to teachings.
Link Nine: An Obtainer
We go further in this development, in this sequence, and we get what is called “an obtainer.” An obtainer is sometimes translated as “grasping,” which is a silly translation and doesn’t have anything to do with it. Nevertheless, an “obtainer” is an attitude, a disturbing emotion or a disturbing attitude that will obtain for us tainted aggregates in the future. Those aggregates that are received on the basis of all of this are called “obtained” aggregates. It’s a technical word. There’s a whole list here of obtainer disturbing emotions and obtainer disturbing attitudes. We don’t have so much time to go into great detail about them, but let me give a rough overview.
First, we have what’s called “obtainer desire.” Now, this is different from craving. Craving is in terms of a strong attachment or desire. However, it’s literally “thirst,” which is aimed at a feeling of happiness or unhappiness. Here, it’s aimed at the object, the sense object. For example, we really want something. So, it’s some sense object. Usually, as we’re dying, we want to hold somebody’s hand, we want to see a picture of Jesus or Buddha, or something like that. We want to hear the sound of our loved ones. This is a strong desire for a sense object. “Hold me. Don’t let me go” – as if somebody holding us could prevent us from dying. Of course, this desire for a sense object is based on a misconception about “me.” Somehow, if we held somebody’s hand, that’s going to make this solid “me” stay; it’s based on a belief in a solid “me.” It’s interesting because we have that misconception very often during our lives as well, not just at the time of death, that somehow if we could hold somebody’s hand or that if you say, “You love me,” and if I hear those sounds, that somehow that will make the solid “me” secure.
Actually, the more we delve into this, it becomes really quite interesting because there is a conventional level of this that doesn’t necessarily have to be based on this identification with an impossible “me.” Because if we look from a sociological and psychological point of view, human beings do need human contact. We are social animals. If people were totally ignored, they would die. Old people abandoned in a nursing home that nobody visits will die from being irrelevant, from just being ignored. It’s the same with small infants. If they are given no human contact or anything, they often die; they don’t survive. There is some conventional level here, which is not a neurotic, samsaric level, that we do need some contact. However, that’s not going to make “me” real. There’s a difference here, I think, that has to be brought in consideration of these insights from Western psychology and sociology.
Now, we have various obtainer disturbing attitudes that could also be present and function here as the ninth link. We could have a distorted outlook, which could be that we do accept rebirth but we deny cause and effect. For instance, we think, “Okay, I’ll be reborn, but I’ll start all over again. There’s no effect from what I’ve done in this lifetime.” Or it could be a total denial of rebirth. If we feel that there will be rebirth, but there’s no cause and effect, then that’s very insecure because we don’t know what’s going to happen. If we think that there is no rebirth then, well, that’s the end of “me” and so we cling even more strongly to this life. Or we think there’s no safe direction, what’s usually called “refuge,” so we feel lost, helpless and panic, thinking, “I don’t know what to do; I’m dying.”
Then, we could also have an obtainer deluded outlook that is called an “extreme outlook” and it has two varieties. We think that our body and mind are going to be permanent, that they’re going to last forever; as we’re dying, there’s a big denial of death and that could be very disturbing. We refuse to accept what’s actually happening. Or we think there’s no continuity after we die and all we face is the Big Nothing; that’s also very frightening. Actually, we often make the Big Nothing into Something. It’s almost like, “When I die then I will experience the Big Nothing,” isn’t it?
Then, we have what’s called the “deluded outlook as supreme.” Here, we think something is supreme. This is an outlook of some weird idea that something is supreme. Like, for instance, our body is a true source of happiness, so we want to hang on to it for as long as possible. It could be thinking that our body is a true source of pain, like when we’re dying from cancer and we have a very negative attitude toward it. Or it could be like somebody who’s in love with their body or in love with their minds and doesn’t want to let go, or somebody who hates themselves and their life and is just about to kill themselves.
We then have “holding deluded morality or conduct as supreme.” This could include giving up some trivial manner of behavior that’s meaningless to give up in terms of death. For instance, we’re dying of stomach cancer and we only have a few more days to live, and we think, “Well if I don’t eat ice cream, that somehow is going to make me live a little bit longer or better.” Basically, we just give up something that is trivial, thinking that somehow that is going to save us. I remember my brother-in-law was dying of brain cancer and before he had to go into the hospital – he died very quickly after that – he went out and stuffed himself with as much ice cream sundaes and stuff he wanted. He said, “What difference is it going to make?” He ate all the so-called wrong things. You know how the doctors tell you, “Don’t eat this and don’t eat that.” However, if you’re dying, what difference does it make?
The other aspect of this link is deluded conduct. That means to act or dress in some trivial manner that’s meaningless to adopt in the face of death. People that, as they’re dying, “Well, dress me in my most beautiful dress so that I die dressed like this.” Or, “Give me my army sword next to my side as I die.” I mean these things are not somehow going to help or save us, are they?
The most common form here is what’s called “asserting our identities,” which is identifying this impossible “me” with what’s going on. “Oh, I’m dying!” – as if there were a “me” separate from all of this. “What’s happening to me? Why is this happening? I don’t deserve this.” It’s these types of thoughts that revolve around this grasping for a solid “me” – known by itself, with something special that makes me “me.” “This shouldn’t be happening to me. I should be in control.” That certainly is the most common form.
Link Ten: Further Existence
So far we’ve got craving and an obtainer disturbing emotion or attitude, and that is going to activate the karmic tendencies for throwing karma. If we recall, karma is an impulse. Depending on our tenet system, it’s either an impulse of energy or a mental impulse. In any case, this impulse or energy activated throwing karma, and this activated impulse from the tendency or potential is the tenth link that is usually called “becoming.” However, “becoming” is totally meaningless in English. The actual term is “further existence.” It’s an impulse for further existence. It’s the impulse that throws or propels the consciousness into further existence; either “death existence,” “bardo existence” or “birth existence” – the existence during the actual nanosecond of conception. It’s that impulse for further existence to go on. Since all of this is on the basis of grasping for a solid “me,” then sometimes I’ve called this a “survival impulse.” We want that solid “me” to survive, to go on, to further exist.
It’s very interesting because we see that actually these three links here – eight, nine, and ten are craving, an obtainer, and further existence. They really are based on unawareness about how we and others exist, disturbing emotions and activated karma.
Link Eleven: Conception
We have throwing karma, the disturbing emotions and attitudes that activate the throwing karma, and activated throwing karma, which is what’s been activated by it – and now, another life. The eleventh link is conception. This refers to the nanosecond, the moment of conception. We know usually it’s translated as “birth,” but it doesn’t mean when we come out of the womb; basically, it is that moment the mental continuum is connecting and being supported on a physical basis of, let’s say of the sperm and egg of parents – if we’re going to be born as a human. This conception link is actually the first moment of the fourth link, the nameable mental faculties with or without gross form.
Link Twelve: Aging and Dying
The twelfth link is aging and dying. That is from the second moment of a lifetime when we’re already starting to age, all the way up to whenever we die. We could die two seconds after conception, for example. Obviously, throughout the process of aging and dying, unawareness is present and so the chain goes on and on and on.
When we speak of these 12 links, they can either be completed in two or three lifetimes. Without making this complicated, there were the first three links concerning how we actually plant the karmic tendencies. That could happen in one lifetime. Then in another lifetime, which could be millions of years in the future – it doesn’t have to be immediately after – there is the development of the fetus and the whole mechanism that will then have at its end of that lifetime, the activation of these karmic tendencies. Then, the following rebirth after that, we have conception, aging and dying. The process could also be completed in two lifetimes. We plant the karmic tendencies and activate them in the same lifetime and then in the immediately following lifetime, we have the process of the development of the fetus which begins with conception and ends with aging and dying.
As I said, there is a tradition of explaining all of these as being complete in each moment, in terms of generating each further moment of our existence. However, that’s not such a common explanation. Because in each moment, we are planting more and more karmic tendencies, activating them and experiencing happiness and unhappiness. Each moment, we have this going on to further existence, and so on. There is a way of understanding it from moment to moment. However, the main emphasis is on explaining the process of rebirth and that is what we want to stop. When we talk about samsara, we’re talking about uncontrollably recurring rebirth.
Stopping the 12 Links from Recurring
If we want to get rid of and stop all of this, then we think of these 12 links in the reverse order. Dependent arising, in terms of cause and effect, not only works in the forward sequence, that link one is the cause of link two, and link two is the cause of link three, and so on – so dependent arising the forward way, cause to effect. Also, we could look at it in the reverse way – that link 12 was the result that arose dependently on link 11. If we want to get rid of aging and dying forever, we have to get rid of conception. If we want to get rid of conception, we’d have to get rid of activated throwing karma of further existence. If we want to get rid of that, we have to get rid of an obtainer attitude that would activate it. It goes all the way back to unawareness. That’s what we really have to get rid of to start the process of the whole thing falling apart. It’s not that getting rid of unawareness starts the process of getting rid of the other links. That was just a manner of speaking. Furthermore, it’s not as though the first domino falls and then the next one, the next one, and the next one. It’s not like that. If we get rid of the first link, we’ve gotten rid of the whole thing altogether because basically, this unawareness link is underlying all of them. We only get rid of this unawareness link with the understanding of voidness.
As we have touched on this topic several times during this weekend, “voidness” is a total absence of these impossible ways of existing. With unawareness, we either don’t know that these impossible ways are false, or we believe that they are true. What will get rid of that is this understanding that there’s no such thing; it’s totally absent. It never was and never will be – this impossible way of existing of “me” or “you.”
If we understand voidness based on intellectual curiosity on the basis of a belief in a solid “me,” for instance, “How clever I am; I’m going to think about this and explain it in some class,” then that’s just going to further perpetuate samsara. We might get a nicer rebirth, become cleverer and so on. However, the effect of the understanding of unawareness is dependent on the motivation. In other words, what is the motivating factor that accompanies the mind that understands voidness? We want to avoid trying to understand this just so that we can impress others by how clever we are when we explain it. Or studying it just because it’s interesting, like studying insects or something like that; it’s just interesting, so we study it. It’s entertaining for the big solid “me.”
Rather, we try to have renunciation as our motivation: the determination to be free from this uncontrollably recurring suffering of samsara. That motivation, this understanding, will bring us liberation. If we strive to understand this with the bodhichitta motivation – in addition to the determination to be free – then it will bring us liberation as a stepping stone on the way to enlightenment. There is a difference in the various tenet systems whether with that bodhichitta motivation we will achieve liberation and enlightenment at the same time, or first liberation and then, after some time, enlightenment. Nonetheless, these are the variations that we find in the different tenet systems.
Let’s end here with a dedication. We think whatever positive force, whatever understanding has been built up by all of this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.