Judgment versus Discriminating Awareness
You mentioned the lack of judging about self or others. I wanted to ask about it because it seems like there are two aspects. In one case, you or I do something wrong and then I exaggerate and say, “You have always been like that and you will always be like that.” Or, “I am bad and have always been bad.” That’s one way of judging, but, if I have an ideal like the Buddha or my teacher, I feel that almost by definition that ideal, my lama, is also judging me and affects the parts of me that aren’t good. If we can’t judge by our ideal, then we can’t have an ideal and then we can’t have a path.
I think we need to differentiate between judgment and discriminating awareness. We can discriminate between what is helpful or what is harmful, for example, in terms of our behavior or someone else’s behavior without necessarily judging with this concept of good or bad. It isn’t that the judge is someone separate from it and above looking down on the one that is being judged. There are all sorts of attitudes that are with judgment that are not necessarily present with discriminating awareness, although discriminating awareness is the basis in that we discriminate between this and that.
If we have an ideal that we are modeling ourselves after, then of course we can discriminate if we are living up to that ideal or not. Are we striving to be like that ideal or not? That’s simply very objective discrimination, “It’s this and not that.” But it’s without the judgment factor of “I’m not good enough, or no good, or I’m never going to succeed,” and all of that. These two are quite different. It’s never helpful to be judgmental. It adds something that is not there, the whole aspect of good and bad and a judge separate from it.
However, it is part of our Western culture and how we look at things. As we were speaking about doctrinally based confusion, we need to examine this aspect of our culture and discriminate if it is helpful or not. Does it correspond to reality or not? That’s not an easy question because there are civil laws, for example, that are couched in terms of good and bad, but they don’t necessarily have to be. More accurately, there are certain laws and someone has followed them or not followed them. Just because someone doesn’t follow them, doesn’t mean that they are bad. We don’t need to add that judgment onto it.
Also, it is important to differentiate between the person and the action. Someone’s actions can be unacceptable and very destructive, but that doesn’t mean that we reject the person themselves. It is that this is a person who has acted under tremendous confusion and disturbance, and we still have compassion for the person. We may have to lock them up to prevent them from harming others in the future, but this is part of the whole legal system here in Norway. It is very civilized to differentiate between the action and the person.
If I have understood correctly, the twelve links can be interpreted as two sets of causes and effects. The first causes can be interpreted as the causes giving rise to this life. The next group act as causes in the death process giving rise in the next life again. I am confused about this. Do these teachings explain anything about the interface between the mental and the physical in any way or is that beside the point? Do the teachings say anything about how to break the cycle? Can these teachings be used to break that cycle?
Do the teachings on twelve links explain how to break the cycle? Yes, definitely. That’s what we will be discussing in the following sessions.
In terms of the interface between the mental and the physical, certainly when we talk about a mechanism explaining rebirth, the whole thing is being driven by how we exist and how everybody exists. That’s the mental side. Then, the links that describe the development of the fetus certainly describe how the physical side works and how a rebirth, the physical side, is generated or driven by the mental state, our unawareness or confusion. That’s one level of answering your question. But I don’t really know if that is the level that you are concerned about. Is it in terms of the generation of rebirth or just in general the relation between consciousness and the brain, for example? What actually is of interest to you?
Confusion about Causality
I can’t state it clearly, although what you have explained is onto it in a way. I think my question is what comes first? It also has to do with the psyche and the mind. In our society, we are so materialistic in our thinking, but I’m seeking an explanation. Is the body a result of the mind? How does this actually work?
What comes first? This is a question that arises, if there is a beginning to something. Because there is no beginning, there is no answer to what comes first. However, in order to have that unawareness, we need a physical basis of a body, or some sort of form. The combination of that is going to generate more. Without a body or some sort of physical basis, we don’t have a mind or mental activity, even if that basis is the subtlest of subtle wind or energy. That is still some physical basis. We are not going to have the perpetuation of that without something that is driving it, some sort of mental state. From a samsaric point of view, this is ignorance or unawareness. From a Buddha’s point of view, this is compassion. Something is going to drive it.
I think the confusion is in terms of causality. This is very complex and is analyzed in a very sophisticated way in the Buddhist teachings. In some systems there are six types of causes, in others there are twenty types of causes. Therefore, when we speak about the body, it’s not as though the mind creates the body. The body is arising from its own substantial causes, a sperm and an egg. Our minds don’t produce the sperm and egg. We’re not speaking about our minds creating the substance of the body.
We are speaking about the obtainer. There is something called “an obtainer cause,” meaning that from which we obtain a result. Because of our ignorance or unawareness, there is the obtaining of the result, a rebirth. However, it doesn’t create the substance of that rebirth. There has to be the parents and the external conditions, such as the food the mother eats and the air she breathes, that support the development of the fetus. There are many aspects involved in causality involving all the causes and conditions. It’s a bit like that, although more complicated. When we speak of dependent arising, there is a huge network of causes and conditions. It’s not that one cause produces one effect and that’s it. Everything is sort of interdependent. Our being in this room is dependent upon who cut down the trees to make the planks for the flooring. There are so many causes for being in this room besides the car or the bus that brought us here or our parents giving birth to us. We can look at causality from so many different angles.
Personality
I wonder about the issue of personality. Is that something that is reborn? When a baby is born, is there something of personality involved in there or is personality only further created after being born?
Personality is something very complex in that there are many factors involved. It has to do with all our various emotions, talents, abilities, interests, and so on. Each are mental factors involved with the amount of anger we have, the compassion we have, the degree of patience, how open we are to others, how shy or friendly. All of these are either a singular factor or a combination of a few. For example, friendliness is a combination of a few of these. There are tendencies or these non-physical “seeds” for all the mental factors, not just in terms of a karmic tendency to act in a certain compulsive way. These tendencies or potentials, however translated, span a spectrum. For example, intelligence, it spans from very little intelligence as in a fly or an Einstein. That would be the same for patience, anger, love, concentration, or any of the mental factors. We have built up through experience in past lifetimes a certain potential or tendency for each of these mental factors. Each has a certain value on that spectrum in a sense.
It begins to become very complex because we need certain conditions for something to become manifest. For example, we could build up a great potential for intelligence; however, other karmic factors have thrown us into a rebirth as a dog. We could be a very intelligent dog, but the physical basis wouldn’t support the level of intelligence that we could have as a human. All of these things will interact.
Personality is a combination of all these different factors, and these will be influenced moment to moment in a lifetime determined by circumstances. This can depend on parental behavior, schoolmates, how other people around us behave, the media, whether a war breaks out and all sorts of possibilities are going to change the circumstances that will trigger different levels of each of these mental factors. Therefore, personality is something very fluid and not fixed. All the potentials we have as a newborn are going to be affected by what type of life form we are born as, potentials from the past, and what happens to us during that life, and what we encounter. It’s a big insight to have when we realize that we can change our personalities from being, for example, a short-tempered angry person to being more patient and loving. We can change that, but not if we throw out this net of “me” and “mine,” identify with our personality at this moment, which we might exaggerate or misconceive, and then decide that this is “me,” that’s the way “I am,” and everyone just has to live with it. This is the cause of great trouble. Don’t identify with anything, because it’s changing all the time, based on a billion different factors.
Don’t get stuck. If we think in terms of time, what is the present? As soon as we identify the present, it has already passed. It’s gone, so how can we hold onto it and identify with it?
Individuality
I was wondering about the net, the throwing out of the net of “me” and “mine.” In our Western society, we have the strong identification as the individual self, and then we hear about more collective cultures that have a stronger sense of community. We hear about identity as being more like a verb describing an action. Could you please reflect on whether this strong identification makes it harder to break this karmic cycle?
Conventionally, we are individuals. If I am hungry, it doesn’t mean that you are hungry. Each of us is an individual. This finger isn’t that finger. However, when we conceive of ourselves as something solid, something that doesn’t change, independent of influences and not affected by anything, this is an incorrect understanding. We think “me” first, and we can go it alone. We make “me,” in a sense, into a thing encapsulated in plastic, like a ping pong ball. Here’s “me” and here’s “you,” and there are all these other ping pong balls. We just bounce off each other and don’t really communicate. That type of an individuality, a person with this type of identification as a doctor for example, or being a mother, a father or whatever, then everyone else seems out there and against “me,” in a sense. This is a problem.
We can extend that in a non-Western society to identify with a family or a clan or caste or country. It’s not different; it’s just making the basis a bit wider. It’s not seeing the interconnectedness and interdependence of everything. To be clear, the interdependence isn’t in terms of two ping pong bolls connected with a stick. It’s not like that; it’s that there are no solid barriers. However, we still are individuals. It’s very interesting how our way of thinking is reflected by the heroes and heroines in our cultures. To ancient Greek culture, there are the heroic figures who assert their individuality against the gods. These are our role models that we follow. Perhaps we rebel against the authority of the parents or whatever in order to assert this individuality.
It can be done in a healthy way, like in psychology, with individuation that a child needs to develop a sense of conventional self, not just being a part of the parent. There is that aspect; but there is also the feeling that we have to rebel and fight against authority to make ourselves special. We always have to come up with something new – a new model car each year, for example. This is part of our culture and it produces a lot of problems. Why do we need a new model every year? Why do we need to change fashion every year with the length of a dress or whatever? Is it so that people will make money? It’s very artificial, isn’t it?
However, we shouldn’t think non-Western societies where emphasis is larger than the one individual are free of problems. This isn’t true at all. It’s just the larger basis.
If I understand correctly, in talking about no beginning and no end, the continuity is the consciousness and the consciousness propels and carries us into the next life. How should we see this? In the twelve links, the consciousness becomes individuated into six or eight consciousnesses. What is actually being transferred? Is it all these consciousnesses? Is the karmic imprint in that consciousness because I thought it had to go somewhere? Can you elaborate on this? What is it that goes from one lifetime to another?
There are many different models asserted by different Buddhist explanations and traditions. Each has its own advantages that describe what’s happening from one point of view or another. This has always been one of the key issues in Buddhist explanations. What is it that goes on from one lifetime to another? What is it that carries the karmic propensities, tendencies or potentials or whatever we call the two different types? In some explanations we have the mental consciousness, in some others we have the alaya, or foundation consciousness, in some the clear light consciousness. There are many different explanations. We don’t need to get stuck on which one is more correct. Each has its own use and benefit.
The point is that there are grosser levels of consciousness in which it is differentiated into eight or six or whatever number. When we die the grosser levels no longer function. There isn’t such a simple way of explaining it and this answer may be a bit sophisticated.
What are we talking about when we talk about the mind? We are talking about mental activity going on moment to moment. That activity is subjective experience of things. That describes the mental activity from a subjective point of view. In each moment there is the arising of some sort of mental hologram, usually translated as “aspect.” This can be a sight, a sound, a smell, a thought, and so on. From a Western point of view, the cognitive engagement is the arising, for example, of the sight we see when photons hit the retina, become electrical impulses and chemical components, and travel through neurons etc. In this way, what we experience subjectively is basically like a mental hologram. This is the same for sound or thought etc. That is what it means to see or to know something.
That’s the mental activity, and this happens without a separate “me” making it happen or a separate mind, a machine doing it. This mental activity is going on moment to moment, and there is the physical counterpart of it, if we describe it physically from the point of view of energy. On the subtlest level, we have the clear light mind and the subtlest energy. The self is an imputation on that and we will delve into that in later sessions. It’s coming along in this package, in a sense, moment to moment and we are aware of different things all the time.
When that becomes associated with a grosser physical basis, then the energy gets stronger and moves with more force. When it gets stronger, the level of consciousness gets grosser. Therefore, we have conceptual thoughts, and eventually we would have sense perception as well. When the physical basis gets grosser, and the energy travels more wildly through this, being more focused like a laser, this mental continuum of this subtlest mind, whether we call it alaya or rigpa or clear light mind is not the most important thing in this discussion. There are many variants of what we call it and how we define it. There is an imputation that we have on this physical basis.
The non-Buddhist systems identified that with the self and thought that the self goes into the grosser levels. However, it’s not a self; it’s the subtlest consciousness and the subtlest energy. A self is an imputation on that and is not some solid thing. That subtlest level goes on and on. What happens is that it becomes an imputation on the grosser matter developing from the sperm and egg. As that matter gets more differentiated, as explained in the links, more aspects, mental factors and so on that were just potentials in the subtlest level, will be able to function. This is because the energy is moving on the grosser level throughout the matter within the fetus and our bodies.
As we die, the matter is no longer able to support that subtlest mind as its basis for imputation. Therefore, when that fails, that subtle level of consciousness fails and no longer will operate. Then, it progresses through eight to ten stages, with various descriptions in different explanations, of how that consciousness can no longer rely on that physical basis, that body, as it fails to be able to support that subtlest consciousness. Because the energy is becoming less crazy, that level of consciousness will no longer occur and just becomes a potential.
When we speak about the subtlest mind, it has the potentials or tendencies of not only karma, but of all the different mental factors as well. Remember the example of a tendency: we drank coffee yesterday, and the day before, and again this morning. Therefore, there is a tendency to drink coffee. It is the same mechanism with a tendency to get angry, to love, to hug others, to be patient or not, or to yell at people. Each of these has a different level of strength. The subtlest mind also has all our positive potential and the so-called two collections or networks of deep awareness and positive force. If dedicated to enlightenment, it contributes to becoming enlightened. There is all that as well carried along as imputations on this subtlest continuing level. As for the self, it is an imputation on all of that, but not identified with that subtlest mind. That is the fallacy in the non-Buddhist systems. They identify the self with the mind or with matter. Additionally, they believe that it can exist separate from a body and mind.
Again, we will go into the topic of imputations much further, but it is important to understand that it’s not something solid being carried along. This is a bit sophisticated and, hopefully, in part understandable. This is actually why we have all the advanced practices in tantra dealing with the energies. The energy is going crazy in the body. The energy is just a physical description of a mental state. We can understand that with the example of being nervous. When the energy is nervous, our mental state is nervous. If we can calm down, the nervous energy of our minds become calmer. All the practices dealing with the energy are intended to calm down those energies and get them not running wildly through our bodies and nervous systems.
That will happen naturally when we die, but we don’t want to have to die in order to become enlightened. Just because when we die the subtlest energy is there, doesn’t mean we understand any of it. The subtlest levels have these tendencies of ignorance and unawareness, and that’s not what we are aiming for. We have to have understanding at that level.
I can accept theoretically that there is no beginning and no end, but the discussion about the consciousness that can take rebirth as a fly… What determines where the consciousness is taking rebirth? Why is it with parent A or parent B?
The consciousness that is taking rebirth is taking as its basis the sperm and egg from the mother and father.
I can understand that, but why is it with parent A and not with parent B?
This is because of karmic connections. Karma is very complicated. If we have activated a certain type of karmic tendency, it is a cluster of karmic tendencies and not just singular. There is throwing karma which affects the life form, and completing karma which affects a huge cluster of things, such as the circumstances, the type of parents and so on. Karma ripens in many different aspects. For instance, if we were violent, we would be born in a place where things happen to us that are similar to what we’ve done to others. In this case, we might be born in a war zone and that limits the available parents. We will be born in a family that might be physically abusive, and limits it further. There needs to be from the parents side a certain cluster of characteristics that fit, in a sense, with the potentials that have been activated at that time.
History is involved as well in that we aren’t going to be reborn as a dinosaur when there are no more dinosaurs. Perhaps, we could be reborn as a dinosaur on some other planet where there are dinosaurs.
A follow-up question, if I may, is that from my own experience, the children in one family can all be so different form one another. What would be the karmic explanation?
The karmic explanation, for example, is that we can have two identical twins… I actually have a student like that. He is an identical twin with a brother raised the same, dressed the same and so on, except that one is gay and one is straight. How do we explain that? They have different karmic past. The very first computers had these IBM cards that had holes punched in them. Like that, the parents have to have the appropriate cards so that our karma will fit into the holes that are there. There has to be some degree of a match, and then it’s almost like magnetism that draws them together.
That same kind of configuration can be reflected elsewhere, as in astrology for example. It’s not that the configuration of the planets causes our personality or whatever, but it can reflect it. We are born at a certain time that fits the configuration. All these aspects affect what karmic potentials get activated at the time of death. This is dependent arising, and it means dependent on so many factors. That’s what makes it so complex and difficult to understand. Analogous to that, the weather depends on so many factors.
Most Beneficial Practice is Analysis and Integration of the Teachings into Daily Life
As you have been teaching for many years, I wonder if you have seen any patterns of which practices Westerners need more than Eastern students. You mentioned yesterday, for example, judgmental tendencies being stronger with Western people.
I always follow the insights and teachings of my main teacher, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. What he recommends as the most beneficial is analysis. In the West, we come to the Dharma in a different way. We aren’t put into a monastery by our parents when we are eight years old. Many of us come to the Dharma already quite well educated with backgrounds in rational scientific ways of thinking. It’s part of our education; therefore, the most important and beneficial thing is analysis.
What does analysis mean? It means to try to understand what the teachings mean and how they apply to life. How do they help to overcome our suffering and the suffering of all others? It means to try to put the teachings together.
This is something in our Westerns way of thinking is quite pronounced. When we study the five types of deep awareness, the so-called five Buddha wisdoms, one is individualizing and one is equalizing deep awareness. From my experience, Tibetans have very strong individualizing deep awareness. If we ask them something, from their debate tradition, they can offer all the details specifically about that topic. Our Western way emphasizes equalizing awareness. We are always comparing, for example, how the modernization of China compares to the modernization of Japan. How does Madhyamaka philosophy compare to Chittamatra? What are the differences? We are always trying to put things together. The traditionally educated Tibetan will give you all the individual details of Madhyamaka and all the details of Chittamatra, but they won’t even understand the questions about comparing and contrasting the two.
This is helpful to use that ability in our analysis and try to understand things we are learning and put together the pieces of the Dharma. I always think of the Dharma as a jigsaw puzzle. We are given many little pieces here and there. It is through analysis that we put the pieces together. This makes use of our equalizing awareness that we are so good at. How do they fit together? This is where we make the best progress and is what His Holiness the Dalai Lama always emphasizes.
Of course, we need some level of concentration, but we don’t need perfect concentration to be able to analyze. We can analyze for five minutes and that’s fine. It doesn’t mean that we need to sit there for four hours in order to benefit from the analysis. We need some compassion in order to be able to interact with and help others; but to be able to deal with all the suffering of all the mosquitoes on the planet, that is something else. We aren’t at that level yet. However, in order to make progress, we need to understand the teachings and what they mean on a practical level, not just as interesting theory. How does it relate to life? This is the most important thing, and the practices are actually applying it in our lives.
I think I understand what you are saying. Can you please give a practical example?
That is what we will examine in the following sessions in regard to how we work with these twelve links. Another practical example would be teachings on how we differentiate projection from reality. With analysis, we look at something in our life. For instance, one of our friends said something that hurt our feelings and we got very upset about that. Then we analyze why we are getting upset. What we are doing is throwing out the net of “me” and also identifying that person as just what they said and nothing else. That’s who the person is – the person who said something that hurt me. We get angry, reject them and hold a grudge. This is very disturbing. With analysis, we open our minds and look at the entire history of all our interactions and all the other times that were really nice. We aren’t perfect and sometimes we all say stupid things that hurt each other, and other times we don’t. In that way we stop identifying the person with just one instance or episode of our interactions and look at the larger picture.
It is the same thing when anything doesn’t go well in our lives. We need to look at the larger picture. We might think that we are not the only one that has this sickness and realize that there are lots of people suffering with a cold or whatever. It’s not just poor “me.” This is the practical use of analysis. It’s changing our attitude toward things by trying to understand them more deeply. “Are we really the only person to ever catch a cold?” No, this is stupid. There is nothing so special about our cold and it will pass. It’s impermanent and no cold lasts for an entire existence. We analyze: Is our exaggeration and projection actual reality or not? This is quite helpful. Yes, we need to calm down as well. Just sitting there and focusing on the breath helps us to calm down, but that’s only the preliminary preparation to be able to analyze.
Shamatha and Vipashyana: Gross Detection and Subtle Discernment
I should point out because you ask about the main practices of shamatha and vipashyana, the differences between the two. Shamatha, when we talk about concentration with no mental wandering or dullness or flightiness of mind etc, that’s only part of it. What we want to focus on is not just an object, even if it’s the breath, or the mind or the nature of the mind, or whatever. It needs to be with some understanding. There are two mental factors; one is gross detection and the other is subtle discernment. These are rather fancy words, but what does it mean?
If we are watching a football game, the shamatha level of concentration would be watching the whole field with all the players. We would have a general focus of what is going on, the activity on the field. That level of concentration, with that level of perception and understanding of what is going on is shamatha. In addition to that, vipashyana would be being able to have very clear and simultaneous focus on the movement of every player on the field and awareness of all the smallest details of what each person is doing.
That’s the difference between shamatha and vipashyana. Asanga, the great Indian master gave a long list of objects to focus on with shamatha and vipashyana. In terms of the aggregates, a wonderful object upon which to develop shamatha and vipashyana is focusing on what is happening now in each moment. Of course, we have no dullness or mental wandering, but we focus in each moment with gross detection that there are all these mental factors and parts that are changing all the time. We are aware of that, and that is how we focus on the aggregates with shamatha. There has to be a way of understanding of the object as part of shamatha, that there are all these mental factors and parts changing all the time. After that, vipashyana would be awareness of each individual factor and what is going on with each individual one simultaneously. That’s very difficult.
We are giving the name of the result to the cause. We call the result the state of shamatha when we say we are doing shamatha practice. Basically, we are doing the practices to attain shamatha or to attain the state of vipashyana. When we are doing a shamatha practice, it’s very important to do it with an understanding of the object and focus on the object with the understanding. We can get very sophisticated as to whether the understanding is conceptual or nonconceptual. That’s another factor. Understanding, for example, in regard to aggregates, is that they are changing all the time and that what we are experiencing is made up of a type of consciousness as we are sitting here, feeling the temperature of the room, seeing the floor in front of us. There’s an object and mental factors such as attention and concentration, maybe boredom, some level of happiness or unhappiness and it’s changing all the time, each changing at a different rate. It’s all impermanent. That is the understanding, but it is general without the specific details of each factor that is changing. When it is specified and all the details and factors are simultaneously focused upon, it is vipashyana. That is an exceptionally perceptive state of mind and it’s not only dealing with emptiness or voidness. It is much broader than that.
We will try to leave time at the end of each session for more questions as we go along.