Is There a Common Ground-Denominator Time?

Formulation of the Topic for Analysis

In Buddhism, a temporal interval is what we’re speaking about when we talk about time; it’s an interval between the occurrence of a cause and the occurrence of an effect. What is most common in Buddhism (and what all Buddhist tenet systems accept) is that this is measured according to an individual person’s mental continuum – the occurrence of a cause until the occurrence of an effect. We also saw the units with which it is measured; a period of time is dependent on parts, so we need to have units for the parts. Also, it varies – years vary, months vary, days vary, hours vary and so on. There are so many different systems and conventions for how we measure that interval (in other words, how we label it).

However, is there a common-denominator (gzhi-mthun) temporal interval that serves as the basis for labeling with many different labels of temporal units by different persons? It’s like this projection screen: Is there some sort of blank thing which is there, a temporal unit – let’s say a year – which could be labeled by different people traveling at different speeds in different ways? Actually, it would seem as though that common-denominator period of time would probably have to be that period on the absolute grid in the background of space-time that things were measured on. I think it’s only really within that framework that we can have a common-denominator period of time that is labeled or experienced differently by different people.

What does Buddhism say about all of this? This gets into the discussion of external phenomena (phyi-don) and the way that external phenomena exist or don’t exist. This is a topic that is discussed very much in the Chittamatra and Prasangika schools of Indian Buddhist tenet systems. Here, let’s speak just in terms of the Gelugpa interpretation. As we’ve seen in other courses, the other Tibetan traditions – Kagyu, Nyingma, Sakya, etc. – each have their own individual interpretations of these different Indian systems, and even within one system, there are differences in interpretation. As we’ll see shortly, there are differences even within Gelugpa and within one author – Tsongkhapa – who had different opinions in the early and later parts of his life. That doesn’t help us very much if we are clinging to “But what is it really like? What is the real point?”

I mean, this is interesting. This came up when I was in India a few weeks ago. Why are there all these different viewpoints? This had to do with some questions I was asking about karma to Ling Rinpoche’s main tutor, Geshe Wangchen. He said the main point of it was to make us think that “Here are several different positions, but then how do you gain liberation?” We gain liberation not by somebody giving us the answer and then we just memorize the answer and give it back on a test. We gain liberation by gaining understanding through analyzing: “Does this system make sense? Does that system make sense? What aspect of the system makes more sense than other aspects?” Also, by going through this internal debate – or it can be an external debate with other students or teachers – we gain understanding. For internal investigation, it’s very important to have several points of view (all of which perhaps make a great deal of sense). Thus, we have these different views.

The Chittamatra Position According to Tsongkhapa’s Earlier View

Let’s look at Chittamatra. In Chittamatra, according to Tsongkhapa’s interpretation that he had during the earlier part of his life – he had a different interpretation in the later part of his life, which we’ll come to in a moment – he says that there is a conventionally existent common-denominator clay pot involved when several people all validly see a clay pot at the same time, but each from a different angle and distance. They’re all seeing the same clay pot. The same would be true of two different people traveling at different speeds and observing a temporal interval, such as the year 2006.

Remember, we used to analyze this question. I challenged you to prove that we were all in the same room. How do you prove we’re in the same room?

You can’t.

Right, we can’t. We can’t prove it, because if each of us takes a picture with a Polaroid camera, it’ll look like something else. I mean, we’ll see something different. Is there, then, a common-denominator room that we are all actually in at the same time? How does that actually work? Well, that’s not an easy question to answer. Tsongkhapa in the earlier part of his life said, despite the fact that what appears to each person is different, a different angle, and so on, depending on what is ripening from their mental continuum (karmic seeds or tendencies or whatever we want to call them), we’ve got to say that what is appearing is the same thing. Otherwise, it’s very difficult to put common experiences together.

This is his earlier view. Although that discussion is usually made in terms of objects like the clay pot sitting in the middle of the floor or us all being in this same room; we can also apply that to an interval of time, let’s say the year 2006 (now we’re in the year 2007). So each person would experience the year 2006, and although their experiences would be different, conventionally, it would be the year 2006 for all of them. Okay?

However, there’s a distinction that Tsongkhapa makes in Chittamatra. Conventionally, there is an existent clay pot, but ultimately there’s no common-denominator clay pot or year 2006 coming from a different natal source (rdzas) than someone’s cognition of it. Remember, when we think of voidness in the Chittamatra system, we have to put it into the Chittamatra formulation of voidness. It’s impossible that there is a year 2006 coming from its own natal source. A natal source was like the oven out of which a loaf of bread comes or something like that. It’s not that there is this grid of time out there and from it there pops out the year 2006, that little temporal space on it or temporal interval on it, and we all experience it. It’s not like that. It’s coming from the same natal source as our cognition of it – a seed of karma or a karmic tendency on each person’s mental continuum. It’s devoid of coming from a different natal source than our experience of it, our cognition of it. Nevertheless, we’re all experiencing the same year; there is conventionally a common denominator that we’re all experiencing.

Tsongkhapa says that a common-denominator clay pot or year 2006 could not be an object cognized by an arya’s total absorption. An arya, somebody with non-conceptual cognition of the four noble truths, wouldn’t perceive this type of year 2006 coming off an absolute temporal-spatial grid.

What class of phenomenon would this common-denominator object be?

Well, this is a very interesting question. Which type of phenomenon would that common denominator be? I was thinking about that. In Chittamatra, we have thoroughly established phenomena (yongs-grub), so it can’t be that (that’s voidness). We also have what is called a dependent phenomenon or other-powered phenomenon (gzhan-dbang); that’s a nonstatic phenomenon that arises dependent on various causes. We have totally conceptional phenomena (kun-btags), which are like categories and things like that. I don’t think a common-denominator year would be totally conceptional. I think it would dependently arise because it certainly dependently arises on its parts, on months, and would dependently arise within somebody’s experience of what they would observe of the passage of the earth around the sun (or the sun around the earth or however they conceptualize it).

In Chittamatra, space is totally conceptional. However, what is space? Is it location? I don’t think it’s location, as location is not totally conceptional because within our perception there is the relative location of different objects. Location is one of these nonstatic phenomena that are neither a way of being aware nor a form of physical phenomenon. When they say that space is totally conceptional, they are referring to the static phenomenon that is the lack of something that would impede motion or that could be contacted, and that would prevent the object from occupying three dimensions.

Are there three dimensions (or four dimensions) within the Chittamatra system? Yes, within our perception. Are these spatial and temporal dimensions forms of physical phenomena or things that are in this neither category? They are in this neither category. Just because these dimensions, as imputation phenomena on the basis of a clay pot, for instance, are objects of non-conceptual cognition when we see the clay pot and just because both the clay pot and the dimensions arise from the same natal source as do the consciousness and mental factor cognizing them doesn’t make the clay pot and dimensions merely a way of being aware of something. From a Chittamatra point of view, when we see a table, it’s an appearance, of course – I mean, it’s a mental hologram – but it’s an appearance of a form of a physical phenomenon: a sight, physical sensation if we touch it, and so on.

I would think that similarly a common denominator would not be conceptually constructed from everybody’s experience and then we make a concept of a common one that everybody is seeing. I don’t think it would be that. However, I’ve never seen a discussion of that, and I’ve never actually asked.

The word common is a bit stretched in this case. I mean, if everybody has their own common version of it…

If everybody has their own common version… However, is it the same? Okay, now we have to get a bit more precise here, so let’s change our level of discussion.

What is a common denominator? It’s shitün (gzhi-mthun) in Tibetan; shi (gzhi) means a “basis” and tün (mthun) means “shared.” Now, what are they talking about? Remember, Chittamatra says that there are findable defining characteristics on the side of dependent phenomena; we don’t have them on the side of totally conceptional ones like categories, but on the side of dependent phenomena, there are findable defining characteristics. They establish the existence of something as a truly existent phenomenon, which means something that exists independently of being merely what a mental label refers to. All dependent phenomena, whether objects of non-conceptual cognition or conceptual cognition, have such a defining characteristic mark.

When we see some item on the floor existing in a certain temporal interval, what appears to each of us is different, depending in our location and speed. The natal source from which this appearance arises is a tendency (a seed) for this cognition on each of our alayavijnanas (our foundation consciousness). Each of these appearances, however, has established on its own side a defining characteristic mark that establishes its existence. Although the appearances are all different and none of them originate externally, this defining characteristic is the same in each of these appearances. Because all these defining characteristics are the same, they establish they everyone is seeing the same common-denominator object. It is not, however, that there is a common-denominator externally established object that we are all seeing, nor is there a common-denominator internally established object in everyone’s foundation consciousness.

This is the Chittamatra system. Do you follow that? Does that make any sense to those who have not studied Chittamatra? Chittamatra means “mind only.” It’s one of the Mahayana schools of Buddhist philosophy.

If we use the example of the room, although each of our perceptions of the room is different, nevertheless, the defining characteristics of the room – four walls, located here on this street, in this color, with this furniture and so on – whatever the defining characteristics are, they will be the same in everybody’s perception unless we have defective cognitive sensors or defective mental faculties. Defective cognitive sensors would be, for example, I take my glasses off, and I believe that I am in a blurred thing, the room, and it actually exists as a blur, out of focus. Well, that’s not correct. There’s something wrong with my eye sensors. That’s not what’s in common with everybody else. Or perhaps I’m having a hallucination or on a drug, and the room seems to be flashing with psychedelic colors, or something like that.

Discounting those causes for deceptive cognition, then the defining characteristics… I mean, this is the interesting point, because Chittamatra says defining characteristics are findable on the side of the object. From their own power, they make the object what it is. They establish its existence. They’re the same findable defining characteristics on the side of everybody’s perception of the same period of time, whether they call it the year 2006 or whatever they might call it. If that period is called the year 2006, what would establish it as 2006? Nothing on the side of the period of time that each person experiences in common. It is 2006 relative to it being after the year 2005, and it’s before the year 2007. It’s 2006 revolutions of the sun past the birth or the death of Christ. Okay?

I could endlessly ask more questions.

You could endlessly ask more questions. Well, endless is very time-dependent, isn’t it? Time-consuming, yes. That, of course, gets into a whole other question: Can time have no end? Is it an open-ended interval? This is an interesting question actually. Does time have a beginning? This gets into our whole relativity discussion of what we are measuring, I suppose. Does time have a beginning? Well, if we consider the interval between the Big Bang and now, then it has a beginning; that interval has a beginning. However, is there some sort of abstract entity called “time” that begins? This becomes quite interesting. We’ll get to that, but let’s go on.

The Chittamatra Position According to Tsongkhapa’s Later View

Okay, that was Tsongkhapa’s early interpretation. One would assume that his later understanding was an improvement on his earlier understanding. That doesn’t necessarily have to be the case – he could have given another simpler interpretation later to help others or whatever – but this later interpretation certainly seems to be going closer to the Prasangika viewpoint. Tsongkhapa still accepts that dependent phenomena, such as a clay pot, all have a findable defining characteristic mark on their own sides that, by their power, independently of mental labeling, establish the true existence of the phenomena. However, they are not all the same in each person who perceives a clay pot, and they do not establish that they are all seeing a common-denominator clay pot. Thus, he explains Chittamatra as asserting that there’s no common-denominator material item or clay pot, and no common-denominator temporal interval or year 2006, even conventionally existent. Not only from the deepest point of view but also from the conventional point of view, there is no common-denominator pot or year.

This is the generally accepted Gelug Chittamatra view. When two people validly see some item at the same time or experience some temporal interval together – whether or not they give that item a label like clay pot or that interval a label like 2006 – each person is experiencing the ripening of tendencies of collective karma (thun-mong-gi las) on his or her own mental continuum. It’s not that each person is validly seeing a common-denominator item or experiencing a common-denominator temporal interval.

Tsongkhapa in his later writings is interpreting these shared experiences as coming from collective karma; it’s from that point of view that these experiences are similar though not identical (my collective karma isn’t the same as your collective karma). Nevertheless, according to Chittamatra, the item and the temporal interval are both findable – there are findable defining characteristics on their own sides. What does that mean? For instance, if we had some item sitting in the middle of the floor, all of us could point to it as what each of us validly sees. In fact, when all of us are asked to point to what we see in the middle of the floor, we would each validly see everybody else pointing to the same item that we see sitting there. Nevertheless, even conventionally, there isn’t some common denominator object. What we each see is just coming from the collective karma of each of us.

Similarly, everyone could point to the change in their bodies due to aging, which they validly experienced, that occurred over the same temporal interval, and they could validly label that this change occurred in the interval called the year 2006. Right? We see the change that happened in our body – maybe we didn’t cut our hair during that year, maybe we grew a little bit taller if we were still a growing child, maybe we dyed our hair, maybe we gained or lost weight, or our hair started to turn gray, whatever it is. Each person would point to that change, and they would all validly label that this change occurred in the interval called the year 2006.

Now, if the person who was traveling near the speed of light and who experienced the change in his body over the year 2006 were to meet the person who experienced the year 2006 while traveling at a much slower speed (and who somehow was still alive), what would happen? The slower speed person could also point to the change that occurred on the faster speed person’s body and correctly label that change as having occurred in the interval called the year 2006 (of the faster speed person). He wouldn’t label it as the interval called the year 2006 measured in terms of the changes in his own body. Thus, there’s no absolute year 2006. Nonetheless, just as I would see everybody pointing to what appears to me as the same clay pot I’m pointing to, likewise, I could see that this person experienced this year 2006 in terms of what they’re doing. Thus, Chittamatra asserts that although the defining characteristic mark of a dependent object establishes the true existence of the object, it is not a basis on which a mental label or name, such as 2006, can be projected and thereby establish its existence as “the year 2006,” for instance.

Does that make any sense? In any case, we all have collective karma to experience the year 2006 if we’re alive – I mean, if we’re not alive, then it’s in the next lifetime that we’re experiencing the year 2006.

Questions

Collective Karma

What do you mean by collective karma?

Collective karma, that’s a difficult topic. First of all, the word karma is a bit vague here because we have karmic impulses, karmic actions, karmic aftermath and karmic results. When the texts talk about collective karma, they’re really talking about a karmic tendency. That’s what’s collective. When different people do something together, then there would be an aftermath of that, a collective tendency that would ripen into something that they would share. Shared karma is also what it is sometimes called.

Let’s use a simple example, collective karma could be shared just between two persons. For instance, we had a strong relationship with each other in a previous lifetime, so there is the shared karma to meet each other again – the shared tendency or latency or potential to meet each other again – that could ripen in a future lifetime. It would have to ripen on both mental continuums – that I meet you and you meet me.

Similarly, there could be a shared karmic tendency to experience being in this room together. How is it that all of us are here together, engaged in this activity? This has to have come from some sort of shared event. This starts to become pretty weird, but if we have beginningless time, then it’s okay. What is the shared karma of everybody being on an airplane or a bus that has an accident (or to be anywhere together, even when nothing happens)? For each of those situations, there needs to be some sort of shared karma. As I said, that starts to become mathematically very, very wild. Does that mean that for every possible combination of different sentient beings, there is shared karma to be together with every possible combination of every possible number of beings, doing every possible thing? That becomes quite amazing, doesn’t it? Then, this gets into the whole discussion of what influences what ripens, which is not an easy topic actually. When there are so many karmic possibilities, karmic tendencies, what actually ripens?

Anyway, there could also be a shared karma for everybody to be born at a certain time and to experience the year 2006, to be alive in this year. Well, it’s interesting. If we’re in a different galaxy, is it also the year 2006? Is it the year 2006 measured by revolutions of the earth around the sun in that far-off galaxy over there that a person is measuring their lifespan with? This is what I always find so unprofessional in Star Trek, that species from different galaxies say, “I’ll give you two hours to answer, or we will shoot your ship.”

In any case, to experience the year 2006 would be shared karma by everybody who experiences it, and they would have the karma to be born in this particular solar system, this particular planet, at this particular… Well, then it’s difficult to say that it’s at this particular time. What is it? I mean, is it in this particular background grid of time, at that point? Or what? This becomes very difficult, doesn’t it? That’s why the texts are saying, “It’s all coming from collective karma.” These beings with collective karma will experience the year in which they live by the conventions of the world in which they are born. All right? If our planet is orbiting the sun at a much faster speed, then what are our years?

Even if you cannot talk about this absolute time that you will be reborn in, and even if relativity is smashing all these concepts of absolute time, you can still talk about causality.

We can still talk about causality because time is a measurement of change. Also, of course, the abhidharma texts do explain that. I forget the exact figures, but one year of a god’s life is equivalent to hundreds of years of a human life, and they live a certain number of lives of that lifetime, and it’s different in each realm, and so on. There it’s quite clear that there are different experiences and measurements of time.

Is collective karma chance?

No, nothing happens by chance. For things to happen by chance means that anything could happen, and so there would be no relation between cause and effect. Then, there would be no such thing as time – the interval between cause and effect.

For the people who ride on the airplane that has an accident, what is the cause of the accident? Is it the mechanical failure (which has all these causes) or is it the shared karma that creates the accident?

The shared karma doesn’t create the accident. Again, we have to differentiate a Chittamatra from a Prasangika explanation of this. Prasangika does say that there are external phenomena, but not truly established ones. Well, accepting external phenomena, we would say that everybody has the shared karma to be killed or survive the accident. Nevertheless, that doesn’t create the accident. What creates it are all the external circumstances. That creates the accident. They just have the karma to be there and to be killed by it. To ripen, karma needs to have circumstances. If the circumstances aren’t there, it won’t ripen.

So, they come together by chance?

No. Or bad luck? Or the gods weren’t smiling on them? Or it was the wrath of the creator, the omnipotent creator? Buddhism says no; this is shared karma that they had.

The example that’s always given is: There was a queen with 500 maidservants, and they were in a palace, and the palace caught on fire, and all of them were burned to death except for one little maidservant, who was able to crawl out through some water drain or something like that. Why? Because – this is the classic example – if we haven’t built up the karmic cause, we won’t experience a result of it. They say, “Well, in a previous lifetime all the others had set on fire some bush that had a whole bunch of birds or something like that in it. However, this little maidservant in the previous life didn’t do that.”

Isn’t this just a rationalization to explain, after it happened, why they died? Could you predict it beforehand?

Oh, now you’re getting into a very nasty point here, I must say – that isn’t this just a rationalization to explain why all of them died or was it actually a fact? I mean, could we have predicted it beforehand? This will get into a topic that, hopefully, we’ll have enough time tomorrow to discuss, which is: When a Buddha sees the future, what does a Buddha see? Is it determined? Or is it something where there’s this possibility (but it could, of course, be purified so that they don’t experience this)? Well, anyway, we’ll get to that tomorrow; if we have to have an afternoon session to get to it, and if people are agreeable, I’m agreeable.

Nothing happens by chance, from a Buddhist point of view. This gets into the whole topic of probability. Chance means no cause. This, I’m sure, will be touched upon when we get into quantum time and so on. Well, all these possibilities are happening (or are they really happening) at the same time. What causes one quantum possibility to actually occur? It gets very complicated. Buddhism certainly doesn’t say that things happen from no cause (by chance), or good luck (as if luck were some sort of thing that existed), or good fortune (the goddess Fortuna smiled on me – this is the Roman view – and it happened).

An airplane is very clearly a mechanical device, and it operates under the laws of mechanics, but it has components that, when you analyze, look stochastic or statistical. It looks like they operate on probabilities, like probabilities of malfunctioning and things like this. But that’s only something you impute from the outside. Their microscopic operation is just following mechanistic laws.

Buddhism would say – subtle impermanence – that it is from moment to moment going closer to the point when it will break. It has to break at some point because it’s assembled from mechanical parts. Anything that comes into existence by causes and conditions (like our birth) will come to an end when those causes and conditions are no longer happening (our mother is no longer giving birth to us), so every moment it’s going closer to it. Is it foretold when it will end? That gets into another thing. In the case of the airplane, it depends on how much we use it. It depends on whether or not it’s bombed by somebody. I mean, it depends on many things. This gets very, very complex.

There are the external circumstances of the mechanics and so on, and then there’s the factor of the people who come on the plane.

There’s also the karma of the people who might shoot down the plane. There are many, many factors that are involved in all the various causes and conditions for something to be experienced on our mental continuum. Let’s not get too diverted by this, because I’d like to give the Prasangika point of view.

However, in your point about the mechanical causes for the plane to fall apart, likewise, from a Chittamatra point of view, we would say that what ripens from a seed of karma, from a tendency is our experience, which means the cognition and the mental hologram appearance that we cognize. We will have karmic tendencies to experience many, many moments sequentially. Within what occurs in those moments would be all the mechanical causes for the plane to fall apart and even more distant causes, such as the fact of it having been built – even if we didn’t actually see it, we heard about it or we inferred it, that it was built – and it was made from things.

Chittamatra accepts mechanical causes and results – Abhidharmasamuccaya has an unbelievably huge list of different types of causes – things aren’t caused just by our karma. Even Chittamatra would have to accept the existence of other sentient beings and their karma and circumstances, together with our own karma, that causes something to happen. Nevertheless, the hologram that we experience and the consciousness and mental factors experiencing it are both going to come from the same seed of karma on our alayavijnana, our foundation consciousness. That’s Chittamatra. It gets very difficult to understand.

However, within what we perceive, cause and effect is working – mechanical cause and effect is working. It’s not that we created it. We have the karma to exist in a universe in which these laws of mechanics and physics operate. There is collective karma, and everybody is experiencing that in what they perceive. We do interact with each other; otherwise, how could it be Mahayana? The only thing that we can base our claim of the existence of anything on is what we experience and perceive; that’s coming from karma, from a karmic tendency that ripens into “Now I perceive this. Now I perceive that. That is what appears to me.”

Chittamatra

Does that mean that in the Chittamatra School, the Mind-Only School, the mind is the center of all these karmic conditions and only from the mind can you experience it?

Mind plays a very important role. That’s why it’s called the Mind-Only School. What kind of existence does mind have? Within Chittamatra itself, mind isn’t something that exists separately from what it’s doing. It’s not that there’s an entity called mind – all Buddhism says that – it’s not that there’s some thing called mind that’s doing it. It’s talking about mental activity that is occurring. Mind is very central, but how does it exist? The Chittamatra School says that all these dependent phenomena – mind, cognition, appearances and so on – all these things have true findable existence, unimputed existence. They’re sort of there, in a sense, by themselves, establishing themselves. In that sense, mind doesn’t have any special way of existing that’s more solid than anything else that arises dependent on causes.

The Madhyamaka School says: Hey, you’re making mind too central here. It’s not that there’s something wrong with the objects – not something wrong, but something confusing about the objects (we think that their appearance is coming from outside, but they’re not coming from outside). How we establish the appearance of things is not the only problem here. The problem is also how we establish the existence of our mind and all these objects.

Yes, mind is very central in the Chittamatra system and the Madhyamaka Schools, the more sophisticated schools, are saying: Hey, in order to gain liberation, it’s not sufficient just to understand that there’s something confusing about the source of the appearance of the objects we perceive. There’s also something confusing about how our mind and these appearances exist. We’d better address that too; otherwise, we’re not going to get liberation. Just to realize that “Well, everything that I’m experiencing is due to my karma. I’m experiencing you being very nasty or very nice to me, but that is the result of karma and karma appearances, and I can change that,” that’s something that’s very helpful. It’s not coming from an external you out there who’s sitting and plotting to harm us or planning to be nice to us. That can be very helpful for liberation, but that’s not enough.

That sounds more “mind-only” than Chittamatra when the Madhyamaka Schools say that you’d better start working on your mind more because the problem is not the external objects.

Well, this is a good point. Doesn’t it seem, though, that Madhyamaka is more “mind-only” because we have to understand the way in which the mind exists in order to gain liberation? Well, not just that, because an impossible way of existing for the mind is also impossible for everything else. What Madhyamaka is saying is that we have to understand the relationship between mental activity (mind) and everything else. Although Chittamatra is helpful in teaching us that appearances – these mental holograms – are dependent on the mind, what is more significant, deeper, and further reaching, is how do we establish the existence of anything? It’s only in relation to mental labeling, which has to do with the mind. It’s not that the mind makes things exist; it’s how do we prove that anything exists?

What proves that something exists? Some would say, “Well, that it’s there and everybody can see it.” Does that prove that it exists? “It performs a function. It changes.” Does that prove that it exists? Madhyamaka, especially Prasangika, says: Well, when we search really deeply, we can’t find anything. This is made of parts, and that part is made of parts, and that’s made of parts, and that’s made of parts. We can never come down to the smallest solid thing that’s there. So, what proves that it exists? Sure, it functions, but how do we prove that it functions? Well, we have a word for this thing that functions. It’s what the word refers to. It’s related to the mind, but the mind doesn’t create it. This is the case not just with objects like the clay pot, but also time. Mind doesn’t create time.

Yes, the emphasis in Madhyamaka is even more on the mind. But I would say it’s on a deeper level concerning the mind. Chittamatra’s going in the right direction. It’s a step for understanding Madhyamaka and a very important step, but we have to fine-tune it, and that’s what Madhyamaka does. This is why I always say that to just jump immediately to the most sophisticated Madhyamaka view without really giving a great deal of thought about Chittamatra and the other views, we usually miss the point of Madhyamaka; we don’t get it really in full depth. Often Madhyamaka just becomes trivialized in our mind. Where is our mind? Well, it’s not up our nose. It doesn’t have a color. In the end, we say, “So what? That’s obvious.” However, it’s much, much deeper than that. If we have the background, then this questioning about the mind – like we get in Kagyu – we understand that actually, it’s very profound. But we have to have the background to understand what it is based on.

Getting back to Chittamatra, it’s very important to really understand that Chittamatra (Mind-Only) doesn’t negate cause and effect, and it doesn’t negate that we interact with each other. It just negates cause and effect in externally established objects – objects whose existence is established before they are cognized.

What do we mean by “external objects”? External objects are things coming from their own natal source independently of our perception of them. How do we know that they exist? We could only know by observing them. How do we know that the Big Bang existed? Well, we didn’t observe it, but we infer it from data. We know that something exists if we talk about it, think about it, see it, or if we infer it; it’s in relation to a mind. We can’t say, “You can’t talk about it,” without talking about it. However, within what we perceive, there are objects that are forms of physical phenomena – sights and sounds, for example – and they are changing according to cause and effect, the laws of cause and effect. There are still laws of cause and effect. These objects appear to be external, coming from external sources before we perceive them, but actually, all we can talk about is when there’s an appearance of them, a mental appearance of them. Now, within that, there are, of course, cause and effect and mechanical laws.

The common denominator is that cause and effect exists?

Is the experience of things according to laws of cause and effect shared karma? Well, I don’t know if we’d call it shared karma. I’m thinking of the laws of karma itself. If we experience unhappiness, it’s a result of destructive behavior. If we experience happiness, it’s a result of constructive behavior. Is that collective karma? Is that an absolute? It’s usually described as “Well, that’s just the way it is,” which doesn’t give us a very nice explanation. However, there are certain things that are “just the way it is.” Why does everybody want to be happy? Because feeling happy feels good? That’s not a very good explanation, but everybody wants to be happy. That’s sort of a general law.

Could there be universes in which those laws don’t operate? Well, I don’t think so. We could theorize. Then, this gets into this big discussion of the laws of physics allowing for life to exist. I read this somewhere: If Planck’s constant, or any of these sorts of things, were slightly different, life and the universe couldn’t exist. Then, the question is: Does Planck’s constant exist that way on purpose to support us? Or is this the only way it could possibly be? Could there be universes – this gets into the whole quantum stuff – that operate differently?

Is it collective, shared karma? It is a defining characteristic, that’s true. Why is it there? I don’t know that it’s there because of karmic actions on our part. I don’t know. Buddhism does get into some really strange stuff with different planes of existence – the plane of ethereal forms, the plane of formless beings, and all that – and what are the laws of physics there? I have no idea. The abhidharma texts inform us that there's no taste or smell in this realm or that realm. There are no gross objects. There’s no happiness or unhappiness, just a neutral feeling. There are laws there, but these have to do with the experience of the beings in them. I don’t know that they have to do with the laws of physics. In other words, I don’t know.

Formulation of the Topic for Analysis Arrow down Arrow up

The Chittamatra Position According to Tsongkhapa’s Earlier View

Formulation of the Topic for Analysis