The Links That Throw Us into Samsaric Rebirth

The automatically arising unawareness or ignorance is something that nobody has to teach us. We all have this in every lifetime, no matter what we are reborn as. We have automatically arising unawareness when we are in an animal rebirth as well. This is the misconception that we exist as persons, as individuals, that are self-sufficiently knowable – in other words, persons that can be known all by themselves, without simultaneously knowing anything else. 

Basically, we all have this automatically arising unawareness. If we have as well the doctrinally based unawareness, we think that there is an independently existing, unaffected, monolithic “me” that can be known all by itself. Even if we realize that this does not refer to anything real, and even if we realize that the “me” is just something imputed on an ever-changing stream of continuity of aggregates, we can misconceive that it can be known all by itself. 

What does this actually mean? For instance, when we look at ourselves in the mirror, we think, “That’s ‘me.’” It’s not that we think, “There is a body and on the basis of that body I’m seeing ‘me.’” We think we’re just seeing “me,” by itself. Also, we could see ourselves in the mirror and think we see our “selves” in the mirror, and then we say, “Well, that’s not ‘me,’” for example, if we are looking older or too heavy or something like that, “Well, that’s not ‘me!’” We think of a “me” that is knowable, separate from that image in the mirror or the number on the bathroom scale. 

This belief in a self-sufficiently knowable “me” manifests in so many different situations. One of the most common is, “I want you to love me for ‘me’ – not for my body, not for my intellect, not for my wealth, not for my possessions – just love ‘me,’” as if there were a “me” that could be loved separately from these things. Is there a “me” that can be loved separately from all these other things, just by itself alone? Further, “I want you to respect ‘me,’” or, “I want you to pay attention to ‘me.’” We don’t think, “I want you to pay attention to my voice, or what I’m doing, and on the basis of that, you’ll be paying attention to ‘me.’” 

We don’t think that, do we? Automatically it feels like, “Pay attention to ‘me,’” and the self is sufficiently knowable. This leads to all sorts of strange views, like, “I need to go to India to find ‘myself.’” What is that? Or, “I’m a creative artist, and I need to express ‘myself.’” Or we were drunk last night and we said and did all sorts of strange things and then we say, “Well, I wasn’t ‘myself’ last night.” Who were we? Then, we get all sorts of dualistic thoughts as well, “I will treat ‘myself’ to an ice cream today,” and “I will force ‘myself’ to get up,” as if there were two people there. 

Of course, we have the same false view of other people as well. We think, “I know Helmuts.” What do I know? Can I know Helmuts separate from knowing what he looks like or the sound of his voice? Or, “I see Helmuts.” What am I seeing? I can’t see Helmuts separately from seeing a body. Or, “I’m speaking to Helmuts on the telephone.” What is that? That’s really weird if we think about it. “That’s Helmuts on the phone.” Well, it’s a voice – it’s not even a voice; it’s a vibration of some membrane being stimulated by some electric current, with a person imputed on it and we designate that person with the name “Helmuts.” However, we don’t think that; we think, “I’m talking to Helmuts.” 

I think one of the most common examples for us as Westerners is the example, “I want you to love me for myself. Just love ‘me.’” “I want somebody to love ‘me,’ someone to pay attention to ‘me.’” Of course, based on that misconception of a ‘me’ that could be loved all by itself, then we get all sorts of disturbing emotions, “You don’t love ‘me.’” Then, we get angry or attached, or we have greed, desire, jealousy, and all these sorts of things. This automatically arises; nobody had to teach us that. 

Even when we act constructively, like helping and doing nice things for others, it could be based on this misconception of the self-sufficiently knowable “me,” that “I’m doing this so that you will love ‘me,’” or “so that ‘I’ will feel useful,” as though there is a separately knowable “me” that could be useful. I mean, what’s useful? The body is useful, the hands are useful, and the mind is useful – on the basis of that there’s a “me,” but certainly we don’t think that. 

This is something that we have to understand, that this type of “me,” the false “me,” doesn’t exist at all; it doesn’t correspond to anything real. We exist conventionally as “me,” “I’m talking,” “I’m sitting,” and so on. It’s not that it’s somebody else. What establishes that there is such a thing as a conventional “me”? All we can say that what establishes it is that “me” is merely what the concept or category of “me” refers to when labeled on the basis of this ever-changing stream of continuity of body, mind, etc. – the aggregates. Also, it is merely what the word “me” refers to when designated on this category and this ever-changing stream of aggregates. 

Now, even if we understand that the person, or the “me,” the individual, the self, or whatever we want to call it, can’t be known by itself, but has to be known while also cognizing the basis of imputation of it, like a body or a mind or a personality or whatever. Even if we realize that “me” has to be known that way, there is a further, subtler misconception that’s asserted by only the most sophisticated schools of theories in Buddhism. 

This is the misconception that even though “me” is only something imputed on the basis of these aggregates, nevertheless, there must be some characteristic feature or mark, an individual defining characteristic on the side of the basis; in other words, it’s on the side of the aggregates that allows for a correct labeling of “me” with the category “me” and a correct designation of it with the word “me.” We think there has to be something here inside that makes me “me” and not “you,” something special that makes “me” an individual. 

It’s almost like a barcode or some genetic code that’s inside, and when we label it with a scanner – boom – there comes the price. “There’s some individual thing inside ‘me’ that makes ‘me’ special, and makes ‘me’ an individual.” That’s subtler and also false. This is very interesting. How is it that when I look at this body, am I scanning a barcode on its side? Then, the answer pops up in my head, “Helmuts,” and that’s how I know that it’s Helmuts? Furthermore, what if I look at a series of photos of him from childhood on, how do I know correctly that they’re all Helmuts? They look quite different from each other. How does that work? 

On the most sophisticated level, Buddhism says, “There’s nothing findable on the side of the object that makes it what it is; it’s purely in terms of convention.” We can’t establish that this is Helmuts by anything findable on the side of the basis, the body or mind or anything. We can only establish that it’s Helmuts by the fact that there is this name “Helmuts” and it’s designated on this and other people agree. 

What even makes an object a knowable object? Is there some sort of line around it that separates it from the air and things like that, and then on the inside of this line, that’s the body and it’s Helmuts? The outside of the line is not? No, there’s no line there. If we really look in an electron microscope, it’s very hard to find a boundary between the atoms of the body and the atoms of the air, the energy fields and so on. It’s established by the mind. Yet is there a body here? Is there a person here? Well, yes, conventionally there is. Everybody would agree. 

Based on not being aware of this, because it doesn’t seem and feel like that, it feels as though there’s something special about “me” and there’s something special about “you” that makes you either so wonderful or so horrible. Then, again there are so many disturbing emotions that come up on the basis of that, “I want this one. I want ‘you’ to love ‘me,’ not that one. It doesn’t matter if the other ones love ‘me.’ I want ‘you’ to love ‘me.’” “I’m special. There’s something special about ‘me.’” Then, when we don’t get what we want, we get angry and frustrated. 

On the basis of this unawareness, we get disturbing emotions; motivated by these disturbing emotions, we get all sorts of impulses – these are karma, the next link, what’s called “affecting impulses.” Karma refers to the impulses that cause us to do something, either destructive or constructive, based on this unawareness. 

If we analyze a little bit more carefully, what first arises is a feeling. Based on greed, let’s say, “I feel like having some chocolate,” it’s based on a wish. That’s not karma. Nevertheless, just because we feel like having some chocolate, that doesn’t have to go anywhere, does it? It doesn’t necessarily have to lead to any further action. The karma is what comes after, which is the impulse. It’s the beginning of the movement of energy to actually go to the refrigerator; it’s what is actually leading us to the refrigerator. It’s more than just feeling like having some chocolate; we actually go and stuff ourselves with chocolate, even though we’re on a diet, for example. 

There are several descriptions and schemes for analyzing karma. I’m just giving the simplest one here, but the same thing is descriptive of the example, “I feel like yelling at somebody because they’re ignoring me. Why aren’t you paying attention to me?” Then, there’s that impulse that leads us to actually yell. They have this expression in English, which is really weird: “I could kill you! I feel like killing you!” Well, that doesn’t mean that there’s the actual impulse to go get a gun and actually shoot you. 

There’s a big difference between feeling like doing something and actually that impulse with which you go to do it. It’s the same thing as, “I feel like kissing you.” That doesn’t actually mean an impulse of energy that “I’m going to go over and kiss you.” We walk down the street and we see a lot of beautiful people, whatever it is that we’re attracted to. We might feel like going over and embracing this person and further, but that doesn’t mean that energy comes up and we actually go and do it, does it? 

In any case, this is involved with constructive behavior, destructive behavior, all karmic behavior. After the action is finished, it is going to leave a tendency to repeat the action and a tendency to get into situations where somebody does something back like that to us. Further, more relevant to this whole discussion of the 12 links is a tendency to feel unhappy from destructive karmic behavior or to feel this ordinary worldly happiness from constructive karmic behavior. There’s a tendency for that and it can ripen at any time. These are the affecting variables. 

These “tendencies” is the word that’s usually translated as “karmic seeds.” However, we shouldn’t think of this in terms of some physical object. It’s not a physical object like a seed. It’s a tendency and it’s more abstract. After all, what is a tendency? There are many instances of a similar type of experience, like being unhappy today, tomorrow, this time, that time, or being depressed. On the basis of that we would say, “Well, this person has a tendency to get depressed, to be unhappy.” That’s a tendency. It’s like what we were speaking of before: something that is imputed onto a continuity of similar things. 

That’s the second link, affecting impulses, which affect how we’re going to experience things and since they’re variables, they change. 

If a tendency is something that is merely imputed on different similar experiences, what is the basis for it? Of course, it’s the mind, consciousness. Without going into detail concerning what “mind” means in Buddhism, let’s just say for our purposes here that consciousness is the faculty with which we experience things. It underlies all the moments of our life. We can speak of it – depending on the philosophical system within Buddhism – as the mental consciousness, the storehouse consciousness, or we can even speak of this in terms of the clear light mind. It doesn’t matter; some level of mind is going to be the basis on which these tendencies are imputed. It’s not just “projected.” “Projected,” as I said, implies that it’s completely false. Conventionally, there are these tendencies. They aren’t something that’s made up and invented. Because we have similar types of behavior, we can recognize the tendencies and patterns imputed on them; we can see how things fit together. 

It’s like if we have a tendency to drink a lot of alcohol, then if we can recognize that tendency, it helps us to identify what type of problem we might have and what to work on. Basically, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s helpful. The problem, of course, is when we make something solid out of these patterns or the labels that we put on them; basically, we identify with them and think that they’re unchangeable, not affected by anything, forever, solid. Of course, it becomes very difficult to change: “I am a depressed person,” “I am an angry person, so you better watch out.” “You have to learn to live with me because that’s the way I am.” We’re like that, aren’t we? We think, “I’m someone who needs a lot of affection,” and so on. “In our relationship, you’re not showing me enough affection. Don’t you realize that that’s the kind of person I am? I need that.” Although there may be a tendency to act like that, that’s not our true identity forever, fixed, unaffected by anything. However, when we believe that, obviously, we get a lot of disturbing emotions. 

We have this third link, the link of consciousness, which is the basis for carrying these karmic tendencies. This consciousness is a continuity; we call it the “loaded consciousness” because it’s loaded with these tendencies. There are two phases: there’s the causal phase and the resultant phase. The causal phase is in one lifetime and has the various karmic tendencies imputed on it. Then there’s the resultant loaded consciousness, which is in a next rebirth. These tendencies are imputed on both phases of the consciousness. 

We can see in examples of someone in two lifetimes that there are certain tendencies that repeat, that we find in one lifetime and also in another lifetime. For most of us, that’s quite difficult to actually get any evidence of this, but there are some Tibetan tulkus, these reincarnate lamas, like my own teacher, Serkong Rinpoche. I knew him very well in his last lifetime; I know him very, very well in this lifetime, the rebirth after that; there are many tendencies that are continuities of his previous life. 

We also see in small children, even infants, that they have certain tendencies. There are some that cry all the time and are very angry and others that are very quiet and placid. We see that even among chickens, among animals: they have different personalities. These are tendencies that are carrying over from previous lives. 

When we’re speaking about a next lifetime, this third link in its resultant phase, loaded consciousness, after that, the next links are the sequence of how a fetus develops within that lifetime. If we’re going to be born as a human or an animal, from a womb, the next links describe how it develops in the womb. 

First, we have the fourth link, nameable mental faculties with or without gross form. This link refers to the development of the aggregates. There are five aggregates and I won’t give them in their traditional order, but there’s consciousness; this is what is aware of the essential nature of things. However, now it’s not yet differentiated into the different types of sense consciousness; it’s just more general – basically, the mental consciousness. 

Then, there are the various objects of consciousness, the aggregate of form, which includes not just the body, but also the various sense objects that we’re aware of. The first moment in the next lifetime, we’re not aware of various objects yet. We don’t have the apparatus for that, so “with or without gross form” is referring to a physical basis for consciousness. 

Further, there’s the aggregate of distinguishing that’s sometimes called “recognition,” which is just the ability to distinguish one thing from something else, like light from dark. It’s not necessarily associated with words or names or concepts or anything like that. However, at this stage, the fetus or embryo – or whatever we want to call it –  is not sufficiently developed yet to be able to do that. 

There’s the aggregate of feeling, which refers to only one thing: feeling a level of happiness or unhappiness somewhere on that spectrum. That’s all it’s referring to. Again, we’re not at a stage yet that is sufficiently developed to experience happiness or unhappiness. 

Then there’s the aggregate of other affecting variables, which is everything else that changes, so all the emotions, concentration, attention and all these things. These are not yet really developed here either. 

In the beginning, it’s called nameable mental faculties; we can give the name, and there’s the potential for all of this, but they’re not quite operating yet. 

Now, it says with or without gross form – this is referring to the three planes of existence described in the Buddhist teachings: the plane of sensory desires, the plane of ethereal forms and the plane of formless beings. The gross form would be the gross elements of the body, the plane of sensory desires, or it could also be subtle ethereal forms, like the plane of ethereal forms. “Gross form” is either with the gross elements or the subtle elements and “without form,” is the plane of formless beings in which the body is just the subtlest energy that supports the clear light mind. That’s all; it’s not associated with any of the gross or subtle elements. 

This becomes a very interesting problem here and a place where we could have a lot of confusion; it’s not so easy. “Well, what is the relationship between the mind and the body here?” Let’s say if we’re going to be born as a human, we have the elements of the sperm and egg of the parents, is it that consciousness that goes inside? Then, we have this whole atman idea that it’s living inside the house of these elements and then using it. However, it’s not that. What, then, is the relationship? What’s happening here? 

Is it somehow contacting and possessing it now, like buying a cow? Or one of these cranes, like a big metal mouth that goes down and picks up earth and moves it somewhere? Is consciousness something like that? With big pincers or a big mouth that grabs and hooks on to the sperm and an egg and it rides on this? Or what? Then, the sperm and egg, do they only come out of our mind? Well, I don’t think our parents think that, do they? Clearly, this is not a very easy problem to understand. 

If we look at the teachings, they ask what is consciousness, what is mind? The mind is mental activity. It’s not a thing. It’s not an object that does thinking or does seeing. It’s the activity itself and it’s individual and subjective. It’s not that there’s some grand “one mind” that we’re plugged into. If we’re talking about mental activity, there has to be some sort of physical basis for it. If we look just at the subtlest level, the level of the clear light mind, we would say that’s the subtlest mind and there’s the subtlest energy or subtlest wind that “supports” it. However, what does that really mean? 

The simple explanation is that the subtlest wind is like the blind horse and the consciousness is like the person with no legs that are sitting on the horse, but has eyes and so can direct it. Nonetheless, as the first level of introduction to this idea, this is a rather simple-minded way of explaining it. It’s not two totally separate things glued to each other. We’re looking at one thing, one phenomenon, one package, and it could be described in two different ways. 

We could describe it from the point of view of mental activity, and we could also describe it from the point of view of the energy of mental activity. Nevertheless, they don’t exist separately. The activity doesn’t exist separately from the energy of the activity, and the energy of the activity doesn’t exist separately from the activity. Basically, in the formless realm, all we have in terms of the body is this subtlest energy. It’s a physical basis for this; from a physical point of view, it’s the mental activity. 

Now the question is: what happens in terms of a grosser physical basis for this energy? As I said, this becomes quite tricky because it looks as though this package of the subtlest mind and the subtlest energy, with the conventional “me” and all the various karmic tendencies imputed on it, in a sense, activates or sits on top of the grosser elements, say the sperm and an egg and it affects them. However, is it manipulating the elements of the body? That raises the question of what is separable here. 

The incorrect view is that there’s a “me” all by itself that is separable from everything and activates all of this. Buddhism says there’s no such thing as a “me” all by itself. The “me” always has a basis for its imputation; it cannot exist or be known by itself. Ultimately, the “me” is something imputed on the continuity of this subtlest mind and subtlest energy. 

Likewise, the “me” is imputed on the continuity of the grosser elements of a physical body that the subtlest energy is associated with and with the grosser levels of mind and mental factors that the subtlest mind is associated with. In other words, with rebirth, there is a larger, grosser basis of imputation of “me.” All the cells of the body, all the elements are changing all the time. We don’t have any cells in our body now that are the same as when we were a baby. They’re all changed. But there’s a continuity and the “me” is labeled on that. Furthermore, there’s no barcode on the side of that body that has provided the continuity and would allow it always to be the same “me”; it has just followed cause and effect. 

The problem, and this is difficult to express, is that the confusion lies with what I mentioned before, which is to mistake the clear light mind or the package of the clear light mind and the subtlest energy with the Hindu atman. If we call that “me,” which is basically identifying with what’s being labeled with the basis for labeling it, then we fall toward the Hindu extreme that this is what activates or relies on the grosser elements. 

Let me try to find an analogy for this. Maybe it’s not such a precise analogy, but maybe it’s a bit helpful. I often use the example of a movie: we have a film like Gone with the Wind. “Gone with the Wind” is a name; it’s a title and it is labeled on a sequence of scenes and the scenes can also be on a film or a digital thing, so there’s a physical basis as well. However, it’s labeled onto that whole continuity, the whole sequence of the film. 

OK, we have the movie, some physical basis of the movie, and the title. It’s not that in each scene of the movie there’s a little barcode or a little stamp that says, “Gone with the Wind.” What is Gone with the Wind? It’s not the basis; we can’t see all the moments of the film simultaneously, can we? Obviously, not. Furthermore, it’s not the whole pile of the film on the floor. Then, what’s being labeled “Gone with the Wind” is not the basis; it is what the title refers to in terms of this basis. 

In our analogy here, the movie that is visible and the digital information of that or film information of that, that would be like the clear light mind and the subtlest energy. The “me” would be like “Gone with the Wind,” what’s labeled on that. However, the movie has to play out on something and so it could be played out on a movie screen in a theater, on a television set, or on a computer; it can play on many grosser physical bases. That would be like the gross form of a body, the elements. 

Maybe this digital information is more analogous to the tendencies; I don’t know. It’s just an analogy, so it’s not exact. However, what we see, the actual content of the movie, and some sort of subtle physical basis of it, let’s say light or stuff like that, is the subtle level. It’s always labeled “Gone with the Wind,” regardless of what it’s playing on. Then, this could play out on any physical screen. In a sense, what we would see is some sort of physical carrier of it, the light or information or whatever, is the subtlest thing that’s always there; that’s continuity, and the “me” is labeled on that. 

However, that’s not the “me.” So what is playing on the screen? We think that’s “Gone with the Wind,” but actually it’s the information with some physical thing that’s playing on the screen labeled “Gone with the Wind.” Do you follow the analogy here, roughly? This is just off the top of my head now; I haven’t actually thought of this before. Now, the movie “me” is playing on the basis of this body and in the next lifetime, the movie “me” will be showing again on the basis of another body, just like “Gone with the Wind” is being shown now on this screen, and on this computer, and in this movie house and so on. 

It’s not a “me” all by itself that’s playing on the basis of this body. That’s the Hindu fallacy that there’s a solid “me” like that. There isn’t. It’s the “me” that is labeled onto the subtlest mind and wind and a movie, which is then associated with the grosser aggregates; in this case, coming from the sperm and egg of the parents, like the movie screen in the theater. 

Is it the same content every time? No, it’s a continuity. We’re talking about a “Gone with the Wind” that has no beginning and no end, like a soap opera that has a countless number of episodes that goes on forever, and it’s one episode at a time on a different screen. Whatever is more analogous – “The Bold and the Beautiful”– or whatever soap opera that we are familiar with; there are beginningless, endless episodes of “me.” 

However, it’s not “Me” starring me and “there I am.” This is the conventional “me,” but we think this is the movie “Me,” starring the special me, “I’m the great star and everybody should watch me,” and then when we get the ratings we wonder, “How many people watched me today?” How many “Likes” did I get? The “me” imputed on the clear light mind is not that. It’s just something imputed on the continuum of the clear light mind. 

That’s link four, the nameable mental faculties with or without gross form – the very beginning of the fetus. 

The next link is number five, the stimulators of cognition. This is referring to when as a fetus, there’s enough development in the form aggregate – in the elements – to start differentiating the different cognitive sensors; in other words, the cells that will be able to perceive sights, the ones that’ll be able to perceive sounds, those that’ll be able to perceive physical sensations and so on. Originally, they’re not differentiated from each other, as they’re not developed enough; however, at this stage, they’re differentiated from each other and there is the information of the different senses as well. These are what’s called “stimulators of cognition.” This is what’s happening now. 

Then the next link, the next step in the development of the fetus is called “contacting awareness.” This is often translated just as “contact” and then we think incorrectly that it’s referring to a physical act of contact. It’s not. This is a mental factor; it’s a way of being aware of something. 

In the step before, the physical bases for the various senses are differentiated from each other, even if they’re just in a very primitive form. Now, when there are the different types of sensory consciousness, let’s say in the womb if we’re talking about a human, then there is the awareness of certain types of sensory objects as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral; in a sense, it involves a way of considering. 

This is a very difficult mental factor to really understand, very difficult, actually. However, when thinking about the sensory consciousness not being in the womb – at least this is my understanding of it at the moment – but as it functions now as well out of the womb, we see somebody and the seeing of the person, the awareness when it’s contacting, “I see a certain type of person looking in a certain type of way; and the awareness that is contacting that is pleasant.” We’re talking about this experience of pleasant or unpleasant. 

Literally, in Tibetan, the words for it are that it “comes to mind” or it “doesn’t come to mind,” basically, so it comes to mind very easily, very pleasantly, or it doesn’t come to mind. For instance, it’s very pleasant to see somebody that looks this shape and it’s not very pleasant to see somebody that looks that shape. This comes from habit, doesn’t it? It’s a way of perceiving something as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. That’s the contacting awareness. 

The next link, feeling a level of happiness, is the response to the contacting awareness. As I said, the contacting awareness seems to have to be associated together with how we consider, as in “I consider this pleasant” or “I consider this unpleasant.” Feeling a level of happiness or unhappiness is, “In response to that, I feel happy or I feel unhappy.” It’s not so easy to really distinguish the difference here. 

Again, as Serkong Rinpoche always said, “Go back to the words,” the actual words here, and the expression he used was, “You can milk,” like milking a cow, “milk the meaning out of the words.” For instance, “pleasant” or “unpleasant,” literally “comes to mind” or “doesn’t come to mind.” The object, let’s say what we consider a pretty face – that’s mental labeling, of course, based on habits, personal likes, dislikes, and so on from previous habits; we consider that something is pleasant. 

We want to use here the word “experience” and “feel.” An experience is actually with the feeling factor. The feeling, they say, is how we experience the ripening of our karma. There’s a difference between experiencing the object and experiencing the ripening of our karma. At least this is what I think now. We’re experiencing the object as pleasant; it comes to the mind easily, and now, how do we experience the ripening of our karma? In response to this, we could say, “I feel happy at experiencing this pleasant thing.” Or we could feel unhappy. 

Usually, they say it has to correspond: if it’s pleasant, we feel happy, and if it’s unpleasant, we feel unhappy. There’s nothing deluded about pleasant or unpleasant. The question of course is, does a Buddha experience things as pleasant and unpleasant? I don’t think so. A Buddha would experience everything as pleasant. A Buddha would certainly not have contacting awareness, as that’s part of the 12 links; it’s part of the tainted aggregates. A Buddha is aware of everything simultaneously and is omniscient. A Buddha experiences the untainted bliss of being free from all obscurations and does not experience happiness or unhappiness, as that’s the ripening of karma. 

It’s a very interesting question. This is a little bit of an aside, but it completes what we spoke about just before, about the body. A Buddha does not have tainted aggregates. A Buddha has what’s called “untainted aggregates,” they are not received from unawareness. What a Buddha experiences is generated by compassion, not by karma. Then, what about the elements of a Buddha’s body, the gross elements of the Nirmanakaya? This is an interesting question. 

I don’t think we can say that the elements by themselves are tainted or untainted. They become tainted or untainted in terms of the mind, the mental continuum, that is associated with the physical elements of the body. If the elements of a gross body are associated with a tainted consciousness, tainted with unawareness, then the elements of the body will be a physical basis for experiencing the suffering of unhappiness and the suffering of change, of ordinary happiness. If the elements are associated with an untainted consciousness of a Buddha, they’re not the basis of experiencing the suffering of suffering or the suffering of ordinary happiness. 

Sometimes they say that a Buddha has no consciousness, but that means the gross levels of consciousness. A Buddha has only the subtlest mind, the clear light mind. However, in any case, the question is: are the elements of a Buddha’s body subject to physical laws of impermanence? I think we’d have to say “yes,” that there’s a difference between “whatever gathers together will inevitably fall apart because of having relied on causes and circumstances, the basic laws of impermanence” and “is a Buddha inevitably going to get sick?” That’s something else. 

Buddhas do have control over the elements. If a Buddha wanted the elements of the body to live a very long life, a Buddha could do that. However, if a Buddha does not do that, then the elements will just naturally deteriorate. Whatever gathers together falls apart. Aryadeva says this very clearly. Like that, a Buddha has untainted aggregates. 

[See: Four Hundred Verse Treatise, Chapters 1–4] 

Does a Buddha have contacting awareness based on habits, seeing some things as pleasant and some as unpleasant? We’d have to say “no,” that that is mixed with confusion, based on habit, custom, information from society, and all sorts of things. A Buddha is not subject to that. A Buddha would experience everything simultaneously with, as I said, an untainted blissful awareness not coming from karma, but from being free of all obscurations. 

Here, in terms of our 12 links and samsaric situation, the fetus is fully developed and experiences the results of karma as a level of happiness, the aggregate of feeling; it’s either unhappiness, which is the first type of suffering, or ordinary happiness, which is the suffering of change, as the ripening of positive karmic tendencies coming from constructive behavior. 

This is a good place to stop because the next links describe how we activate these karmic tendencies. We activate them in our response to these feelings of happiness and unhappiness. This is actually a very important point, that really the problem here is not so much, “I find chocolate a pleasant taste and I feel happy when I taste it,” that’s not really the real problem. The real problem is all the attachment and other things that come on top of that. 

The reason why that’s important is to know what to work on. The problem isn’t, “I like chocolate.” I like chocolate; you like strawberry; you like this, or you like that. So what? There are various things that we have pleasant contacting awareness of and we feel happy when we experience them. The problem is attachment and so on that is involved in our response. That’s what we have to work on, and not feel bad that “I like this” or “I like that.” Some fanatic practitioners think, “I shouldn’t like anything. I should only like sitting here in perfect meditation like a statue.” This is a fanatic extreme. 

All the great lamas have certain things that they like. Are they attached to them? No. His Holiness the Dalai Lama likes papayas. He likes papayas, so what? That’s very nice. We can get him a papaya when he’s traveling and he likes that; he enjoys that and will feel happy eating the papaya. If he doesn’t get the papaya, it’s no problem. The problem isn’t that we like this or that kind of food. 

What use in this situation then is liberation or enlightenment if there is no atman, no soul, or no “me,” no nothing basically? Why do we then do all these practices? 

This is the confusion that many people have about these teachings, which is that they represent a completely nihilist position that denies and refutes everything.

We still exist; conventionally, there is a “me.” It’s just not something that exists in impossible ways. It doesn’t exist as something all by itself, totally independent of anything, not affected by anything, that can be known all by itself, or that has something on its own side that makes it special. That kind of “me” doesn’t exist. However, conventionally, “me” exists. 

There is the subjective, individual experiencing of things and on the basis of that, we label “me,” “I’m experiencing.” What establishes the “me”? Well, nothing on the side of the mind or the experience. The only thing that establishes that there’s a “me” is the word “me,;” it can be labeled. This kind of “me” exists. 

That’s only the name, the label. Right? 

Well, the label refers to something. For example, Gone with the Wind is not just the title. Gone with the Wind is an actual movie that the title refers to. It’s the same thing with the word “me.” 

What exactly is imputed or labeled by the name “sentient beings,” then? 

As I explained, a sentient being is a person with a limited mind. It’s a category because there are many individual sentient beings and they’re all individuals, but they do not exist totally isolated from each other. We all have a nose – my nose isn’t your nose, though. What is a nose? It’s not that we all share in the Great Nose in the sky. It’s not like that either. However, we could ask, what are the defining characteristics of a nose? “It sticks out from between the eyes and we can use it for breathing.” 

Does a chicken have a nose? Does a worm have a nose? Does a worm breathe? What is a nose? This is very interesting. Where does the nose begin on our face? Is there a line that separates the nose from the cheek? People made up a definition and wrote it in the dictionary and that’s what a nose is, but we can’t actually find that on the side of somebody’s face. However, conventionally, we all have noses and they’re individual. It’s the same thing with “sentient being” and “me.” His Holiness the Dalai Lama loves to use the nose as an example because it’s silly and when people laugh, it makes things a little bit lighter. Otherwise, sometimes we get very tense trying to understand something difficult. So, it’s a good example. 

Nonetheless, this is a very difficult point. How is it that there is a conventional “me,” even though we’re talking so much about voidness, the absence of an impossible “me”? This is a central point of all the philosophical discussion: how do we establish the “me” that actually does exist? The Zen solution to somebody who asks that question, “Well, nothing exists, I don’t exist, etc.” is to hit them with a stick! Then to ask, “Who felt that? Did you feel that? There’s no ‘you?’”

You said that there is no one kind of big mind that we are all plugged into, like no one nose. Then, the question is whether all minds are the same size? 

When we speak about the mind we’re speaking about mental activity, so size is irrelevant – size is a quality of something physical. Do they all have the same capacity? Yes, but the capacity can be limited by the hardware in which it’s functioning. What the mind can understand on the basis of a human brain is quite different from what it can understand on the basis of a worm brain. 

Now we get into really weird stuff if we start analyzing this further. I don’t know if we really want to get weird here. However, the clear light mind has a certain energy that is associated with it, the subtlest energy. That then becomes associated with the gross elements of the body. Based on that, we can feel sensations all over our body, different parts of our body. So, I’m not going to go into a detailed analysis of all of this, but then the question is: how is it that we’re aware of something outside of our body? Does the energy go out to that? Does the energy from that object come into the body? 

As a Buddha is omniscient, that means that the subtlest energy of a Buddha is on the basis of everything. If it’s on the basis of everything, then that’s the explanation of how it is that a Buddha can manifest simultaneously everywhere. This starts to become very weird because then we have to be very careful that we’re not falling to the atman extreme, that the atman is the size of the universe. We would get into very weird subtle stuff here. You see the problem: the clear light mind of a Buddha is omniscient and it takes everything as its object, so the energy pervades everywhere. If we can label “me” of a Buddha onto that, are we labeling the “me” of a Buddha onto the universe? Do we have an atman/Brahman thing? Well, we don’t. 

It’s the same issue as what I said about the connection of the clear light mind and the subtlest mind with the gross elements of the body. One has to be very careful here. Also, we have to appreciate that this whole discussion is within the context of Indian philosophy and basically they all talk about the same issues but just solve them in a different way. To really appreciate Indian Buddhism, we have to understand it in the context of Hinduism and Jainism and all these other philosophies. 

Buddhism and all the other Indian systems say that the energy goes out to perceive objects, so it’s like our attention goes out to the object. The Western systems say that the information comes in, so that’s very different. How that actually works, I must say, I don’t recall. I once heard an explanation of it, but I don’t recall it. I would have to look that up. It’s a very difficult point. 

There are lots of discussions about whether that consciousness or that energy can be a truly existent, solid thing that goes out. However, how does it go out? First, does it notice that there is something and then it goes out to look at it? That doesn’t make any sense. Further, if it doesn’t notice anything and it goes out blind and then all of a sudden, does it see something? This starts to become very weird and these are the arguments that are used to refute that it’s some solid, findable thing, this consciousness, cognitive sensors, powers and so on. However, that’s for a more advanced discussion about voidness.