LTF 64: The 1st Link: Unawareness (the Two Levels)

The text lists here, Nagarjuna lists, the twelve links, starting with Verse 109 and going on to Verse 110. 

[109] From unawareness, karmic impulses come forth; from them, consciousness; from that, name and form; from them, the cognitive stimulators are caused; and from them, contacting awareness, the Able Sage has declared.

[110] From contacting awareness, feelings (of a level of happiness) originate; on the basis of feelings, craving comes to arise; from craving, an obtainer emotion or attitude comes to develop; from that, an impulse for further existence; and from an impulse for further existence, rebirth. 

[111] When rebirth has occurred, then an extremely great mass of sufferings will have arisen, such as sorrow, sickness, aging, deprivation of what we desire, and fear of death (a fearful death – that’s the last link, which covers the aging and dying link); but, by stopping rebirth, all of these (sufferings) will have been stopped. (So, that indicates the way to get rid of all of this in the reverse sequence.) 

This brings us to an explanation of dependent arising. Dependent arising can be understood, of course, on many levels. We can speak of dependent arising based on cause and effect – that things arise (here referring to the whole samsaric situation) on the basis of cause and effect as is outlined in these twelve links. We can also speak about how everything arises dependently on parts. That covers not only nonstatic phenomena (things that change) but also static phenomenon, such as space. Space arises dependently on directional parts. On the deepest level, we can speak of things arising in dependence on mental labeling, on the names and labels for them. So, we have many levels of understanding dependent arising. But here, when we are talking about the pathway minds and what will bring liberation about, we need to give a presentation that is common to both Hinayana and Mahayana. So, here, the discussion is limited to the twelve links of dependent arising. 

First of these links is unawareness, or ignorance (ma-rig-pa, Skt. avidyā). This is specifically about the unawareness of how persons exist. In general, though, we have the unawareness of cause and effect, referring to behavioral cause and effect, or karma, and the unawareness of how things exist in general. That can be either how persons exist or how all phenomena exist. But since the Hinayana schools discuss the unawareness of how persons exist, and since we need to have a presentation here that is acceptable to both Hinayana and Mahayana, the link of unawareness refers specifically to the unawareness of how persons exist, both ourselves and others. So, it does not include the unawareness of how all phenomena exist. It does include here both doctrinally based and automatically arising unawareness. We have probably discussed this in the past, but it is always good to explain this again and again since it is so important. 

When we talk about unawareness, or ignorance, we are saying that either (1) we simply don’t know – so, are unaware – how we and others exist, or (2) we conceive of our manner of existing in a way that is incorrect, that is completely the opposite of how we actually do exist. So, there are two possibilities here. Conceiving of how we exist in an incorrect way is based on not knowing how we actually do exist. Not knowing, in turn, is not because we have no information. It is because we are closed-minded and therefore have a mental block preventing us from knowing.

There are two levels of unawareness. One is the doctrinally based unawareness. In other words, if we have been taught some sort of incorrect system, incorrect explanation, of how we exist as persons and we believe it, we have this doctrinally based unawareness. On the basis of that, we have doctrinally based disturbing emotions and attitudes – for instance, attachment to our own view, close-mindedness, and hostility toward anybody who holds a different view, arrogance about it, jealousy of others who might be getting offerings because they hold a different view and so on. There are many disturbing emotions that can be generated on the basis of this doctrinally based unawareness. 

So, we have to have been taught this incorrect view of how we exist – and not only taught it: we also have to believe it in order to have this doctrinally based unawareness. What we would understand when we first got non-conceptual cognition of the voidness of persons is that this is completely wrong, that the projection that we have of existing in the way in which we have been incorrectly taught is a total fantasy. It doesn’t refer to anything real. What we are talking about here is the belief that we have a soul – that that’s who we are: this soul as defined in the non-Buddhist Indian systems of the time when Buddha… well, it’s hard to say if it was at the time when Buddha lived, but certainly it was at the time when all of these non-Buddhist doctrines were discussed at the monastic colleges or universities in India. Tradition would have all these non-Buddhist systems extant going back to the Buddha. Certainly, the basic views of the doctrinally based disturbing emotions would be found at the time of the Buddha. The various Jain and Hindu systems that developed after that refined the basic beliefs regarding the doctrinally based incorrect view of how beings exist, how living beings exist.

OK, that’s one level. There is a deeper level, what’s called the “automatically arising unawareness.” That is something that nobody has to teach us and that everybody experiences. Even when we are reborn as an animal or as any other life form, we have the automatically arising unawareness of how we exist. In order to overcome this, we need to go deeper and continue to have non-conceptual cognition of voidness. The automatically arising unawareness is what we overcome with the next pathway mind, the accustoming pathway of mind, or path of meditation, with which we accustom ourselves over and over again to the non-conceptual cognition of voidness – that there is no such thing as an actual referent of our projections, our false projections. 

The Three Main Characteristics of the Impossible Self, or “Soul”

Now, let’s go into a little bit more depth about the doctrinally based unawareness and the automatically arising unawareness. What do these types of unawareness project, what types of incorrect views? The main incorrect view, as we’ve mentioned, is a belief in a soul. 

It is Permanent (Static)

Such a soul has three main characteristics. First characteristic is what’s usually translated as “permanent,” but we have to be careful here not to understand this in the sense of an eternal soul. Buddhism also asserts an eternal person, or “me,” because Buddhism asserts that the mental continuum has no beginning and, from a Mahayana point of view, has no end as well, and that a person can always be imputed on the basis of that continuum. The point here that is brought into question is not the fact that a person is eternal but that a person is static – that there is a static soul. Static means it doesn’t change; it’s not affected by anything. Nothing affects it that would cause it to change. It always remains the same. That is the first characteristic.

The second characteristic… and these three characteristics all refer to the characteristics of the same type of soul, so in many ways, they overlap and are looking at this soul from slightly different points of view. So, we shouldn’t think of these three characteristics as being totally unrelated to each other. 

It Is One (Has No Parts)

Second characteristic is usually translated as “one.” We don’t mean one and the same all the time, although one could understand it in that way. But that is not very different from it being static and never changing and, therefore, always the same. Rather, “one” here means that it has no parts. There are two possibilities that developed with the development of non-Buddhist Indian philosophy. One view is that the soul is a partless monad that is the size of the universe, from which we get the way of thinking that the atman is Brahma (the Sanskrit word for “soul” is atman). The other view is that the atman, or soul, is a tiny monad – in other words, a tiny, little dot – that is something like a spark of life, which is, I think, the closest way of describing it in our Western way of thinking. It also has no parts. OK, so that also is false.

It’s interesting to look at this concept of the person being the size of the universe. This becomes a very tricky thing because, in Buddhism, they talk about the omniscient mind – the omniscient mind of a Buddha – being capable of cognizing the whole universe, everything that exists in “the ten directions and three times,” to use the usual formulation. That means that the mind pervades the whole universe throughout time. And if the mind pervades the whole universe, then since the clear light mind, the subtlest level of mind, is said to be inseparable from the subtlest energy wind that is the physical support of it or the description of it from a physical  or energy point of view, that energy or subtlest body also pervades the whole universe. Therefore, it’s the size of the whole universe. This is why a Buddha can manifest in an infinite number of emanations throughout the universe simultaneously. So, that starts to sound a little bit like the self of a Buddha is the size of the universe, doesn’t it? 

This is an interesting point because, often, we tend to think of Buddhism as being outside of any context. But actually, Buddha taught within the context of Indian philosophy. So, in his view of the self that does exist – because Buddha did assert, and Buddhism asserts, that there is a self, a person – there are many characteristics that fit into the context of other Indian philosophies. It’s just how we understand them. 

Buddhism asserts, Buddha asserts, that there is a self that is eternal, but it changes from moment to moment. It’s not eternal in the sense that it doesn’t change from moment to moment. That’s the wrong view. Buddha does assert that there can be a person that pervades the whole universe in the sense that a mind can pervade the whole universe and that, therefore, the energy of the mind can pervade the whole universe. That doesn’t make the person identical to the universe, as in atman is Brahma, nor does it make a person partless because the mind that pervades the universe has moments, and it cognizes different things. So, there are always parts.

It Is Separable from a Body and Mind

What’s the third characteristic? Third characteristic, which is incorrect, is that this soul, or atman, which is partless and never changes, can exist separately from a body and mind (the aggregates). Buddhism says no, that’s not the case. Rather, it’s that a person, or a self, is something that is imputable on the aggregates. It can be included within a set of aggregates – the body, mind, emotions, etc. It can be included in that, but it is something that is imputed or imputable on the basis of these aggregates. And regarding rebirth, there is always some sort of basis for the self. Usually, that basis is described as being some level of consciousness, some level of mind. The various Indian Buddhist philosophical schools assert different levels of mind and types of mind that have continuity from lifetime to lifetime. So, the self is not something that can separate from aggregates. 

That’s an important point because, in the non-Buddhist systems, when someone achieves liberation, the soul, or self, is liberated from the aggregates, from the body and mind – so, from a basis. They say that it doesn’t have any basis and never needed a basis. It never was merely imputable on the body or mind as its necessary basis; yet it is somehow connected to a body and mind. Buddhism, on the other hand, says, hey, even in a state of nirvana (liberation) or enlightenment, there is still a basis for the self. However, it’s no longer tainted; the aggregates are no longer tainted. “Tainted” means that they were generated from unawareness through this process of the twelve links. So, they are no longer tainted when we achieve nirvana (liberation) when we die. It depends on the school of tenets, of course, but to speak in the most general way, when we are finished with these tainted aggregates, either in death or in the Prasangika way of explaining, they – these tainted aggregates – disappear.

Nevertheless, in the state of liberation or enlightenment, there is an untainted set of aggregates. A Buddha does have some physical basis, what we would call a “body.” This would be the subtlest energy. Sometimes it’s called a “rainbow body” or a “mental body” or a “light body.” There are many different names for it, depending on the system within Buddhism. A Buddha certainly has a mind – consciousness, distinguishing, feeling, untainted bliss, concentration and all these sorts of things. The perfected states of the far-reaching attitudes – a Buddha has them. Deep awareness – a Buddha has all of that. So, the self of a Buddha is imputed on that, is imputable on the continuity of that. It’s not something that exists separately, on its own, whereas the other schools in Indian philosophy say that the liberated self exists all by itself. Buddhism denies that. 

Also, what the non-Buddhist schools say is that this type of atman, or self, or “me,” or soul – namely, one that is unaffected by anything, never changing, partless, and separable from a body and mind – is something that comes into association with the body and mind in one or more of three ways, as: 

• The possessor of it (it possesses a body and mind)
• The inhabitant (it lives inside a body and mind like a house)
• The boss, the controller 

These are false as well – as if the self existed independently and was able to control a body and mind that it has as its possessor while living inside it. 

I suppose that in the various different theologies that we have in the West, there are many different conceptions of the soul. I am certainly not an expert on Western theology, but I am sure there are many, many different views. And certainly, there will be certain views that are similar to some of these points. Perhaps some of you know better than I do. 

Would We Have These Wrong Views even if We Were Not Taught Them in This Lifetime?

There was an interesting question that Khedrup Je, a disciple of Tsongkhapa, answered, which is a question that so many of us would ask, which is, “Do we have this doctrinally based unawareness if we have never been taught any of these systems of non-Buddhist Indian philosophy in this lifetime?” We don’t even know them, so why would we even imagine that we exist in this way? Khedrup Je answered that just as there is no beginning to a Buddha and the Buddha’s teachings – given beginningless time – there is no beginning, we’d have to say, to these non-Buddhist teachings. Therefore, everybody, including animals, would have at least the instincts, the mental impressions, of having learned these wrong views. 

Do We at Least Need to Know of These Wrong Views in Order to Refute and Get Rid of Them?

So, a Western person who achieves a seeing pathway of mind would get rid of these false views, this unawareness based on these false views, even if they have never studied these false views – which is an interesting point. I don’t know whether we would necessarily have studied them, but we would need to know these false views in order to get rid of them. 

Now, to analyze logically, Shantideva said very clearly, “If you can’t see a target, you can’t hit it with an arrow.” So, likewise, what do we understand when we understand these four noble truths non-conceptually in terms of this unawareness? What we would understand, from the point of view of voidness, is that the person who non-conceptually cognizes the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths doesn’t exist in this doctrinally based way – that there is no such thing as that kind of atman, or person, that understands this and who would then become liberated by means of that understanding. So, I think we would have to learn the this false view of the self in order to realize that there is no such thing. Would we have to believe it? That’s another question. I don’t think we would have to have believed in it. But it’s an interesting point. What do you think?

Participant: I can imagine that if you achieve the seeing pathway of mind, you would be resistant to anybody who would try to teach you this. So, this way you are totally free of all these doctrinally wrong views.

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, if you have the seeing pathway of mind, you would be immune to anybody who tries to convince you of these wrong views. But how would you ever obtain the understanding that there is no such thing as a referent of this wrong view if you didn’t know what the wrong view was? It’s not in general that there is no such thing as an impossible self: it’s a specific type of impossible self. 

Now, we could have views of an impossible self that has some but not all of these characteristics, couldn’t we? What would a typical, usual Western view of a soul be if you believed in a soul? What would you think? 

Participant: Some sort of independence.

Dr. Berzin: An independent “me” – we certainly think in terms of that, don’t we? For example, we see ourselves in the mirror when we are an older person, and we say, “That’s not me.” So, we have a conception of ourselves that is different from our aggregates. We often tend to think, especially when we get older, not in terms of our actual age. It’s hard to relate to being sixty- or seventy- or eighty-years-old. Very hard to relate to that. We don’t think of ourselves in those terms. 

So, we think in terms of a “me” that is unaffected by aging, for example. We think that we can dissociate “me” from the various things that happen to us. We have this concept, which is felt psychologically, of alienation from our bodies, alienation from our feelings. We even speak of alienation from ourselves. Certainly, that implies that there is a self that is separate, completely separate, that could be alienated from a body or feelings or from itself – which is hard to conceive of logically. But we feel that. Then the question is, did somebody have to teach us that? Doctrinally based is taught: we had to learn it. 

What Is the Difference Between the Unawareness That Knows Things in an Inverted Way and Incorrect Consideration?

Here we have to get into the realm of incorrect consideration. Incorrect consideration, remember, has four types. “Consideration” is another way of explaining the mental factor that is called “attention.” Attention refers to how you take an object, how you pay attention to an object. Is it in a tight way? Is it in a painstaking way? Is it an effortless way? Is it in a way in which you have to constantly reestablish your attention? The word is literally “to take to mind.” Yid-la byed-pa in Tibetan, “take to mind,” “to make it an object of mind,” more literally. So, how you do that. Or it can refer to in what way you make this an object of your mind. So, the way in which you make something an object of your mind can be either correct or incorrect, accurate or inaccurate. 

The Four Types of Incorrect Consideration

The four types of incorrect consideration, which were the topics of the first four chapters of Aryadeva’s Four Hundred Verses, if you recall, are:

1. Regarding something that is non-static as static (here, with reference to the self) 
2. Regarding something that is in the nature of suffering as being in the nature of happiness 
3. Regarding something that is by nature unclean as being in the nature of clean 
4. Regarding something that does not have a false self as having a false self 

This becomes a very interesting point. What’s the difference between the incorrect consideration of something that doesn’t have a self to have a self and unawareness? I must ask my teacher when I go to India at the end of August because I must say that I don’t really know what the difference is. Unawareness is just not knowing. Incorrect consideration is taking something in the wrong way, so I guess it is based on unawareness. But if you have the unawareness that knows it in an incorrect way, in an inverted way, is that the same as incorrect consideration? I must ask. But you can have incorrect consideration that automatically arises, which is not based on doctrine, on having learned it. That’s the point. 

Anyway, the analysis becomes very interesting when we contemplate what we would actually get rid of when we had a seeing pathway of mind. What would we get rid of? 

OK. What else do we think of? Pretend to think, “I’m going to live forever.” Nobody wants to accept their mortality. That’s very difficult to accept. So, that’s thinking in terms of static versus nonstatic. There are two levels of nonstaticness, or impermanence. There is gross impermanence, which is that something will come to an end. So, we tend to think that we are eternal, that either we won’t die or that we live on forever in an eternal afterlife. And then there is the subtle impermanence, which is that something changes from moment to moment.

Participant: Is this doctrinally based?

Dr. Berzin: We could have a doctrinally based incorrect consideration here, where we regard what is nonstatic as static. We could be taught that you have an eternal soul. Doesn’t Christianity teach that – that your soul is eternal? 

Participant: [Inaudible]

Dr. Berzin: Not really, not exactly the same way, because they would say that God created your soul, so it has a beginning. But it has no end. Tell me, because I am not a Christian theologian, in Christianity, did God create all souls at the same time? 

[Inaudible discussion]

Dr. Berzin: Well, that’s true, Adam and Eve – God created Eve after he created Adam. But what about everybody else? Aren’t there views that that say that God is continually creating? It’s not that he created everything and then went on holiday – that he finished creating everything. 

Participant: I’m not sure about that.

Dr. Berzin: Not sure about that. I would imagine that there are many, many different theological positions within Christianity. 

Participant: I heard that now some theologians assert that God is also in the living situation, like in biological beings, that he is in the substances that come together and that he makes things work, like the body system – that he is some sort of link between all the material that comes together and brings the thing to life. So, theology goes even as far as that – to say that God might be present in the biological…

Dr. Berzin: Process. 

Andrea is pointing out that some current theologians assert that God is in all biological matter and is responsible for the physical matter in biological things to actually function and be alive and, I suppose, create their next moment of their continuity. Perhaps.

Participant: He is like the boss or like a… He predestines.

Dr. Berzin: So, you don’t know whether that means that God has predestined everything – that he is like the boss controlling it or what. But I am sure there are many different views.

Participant: The spark of life more or less.

Dr. Berzin: Now we get down to the spark of life. Is it partless? Is it just one and, so, the same in everybody? Obviously, some of these issues are also issues that are discussed in Western theology as well.

Anyway, it’s a very interesting question to explore: what do we as Westerners get rid of? What do we realize as complete absurdity when we get a seeing pathway of mind? I think it’s very important not to trivialize this, as in, for instance, “I never believed in any of these non-Buddhist Indian explanations anyway. I always thought they were ridiculous, so it’s easy for me to see that they don’t refer to anything real.” If it were that easy, what would be the point? I don’t think it is that easy. Can’t be that easy. 

Participant: Also, it doesn’t feel like many. It feels like one.

Dr. Berzin: Right. It doesn’t feel like we are many, that we are multi-faceted: it feels like “me” is one. But then I always explain how, when we talk about “me” – my social life, my athletic life, my intellectual life,  my emotional life – there are all these different “me’s.” I am sure many of you speak several languages (obviously, we are speaking here in English, and none of you are native English speakers), but people often say that when they speak in different languages, they sound like and are completely different persons. So, are we one? Are we many? 

Participant: I can say in Mauritius, yes. So, if I am with Indian people, I feel like Indian people. If I am with a German, I feel like a German. I don’t see the difference between these two Mauritians. And if I am with a Christian, I feel like a Christian because we have grown up like that in Mauritius. 

Dr. Berzin: Lydia, who comes from Mauritius, says that when she is with Indian people, she feels Indian; when she is with French people, she feels French; when she is with Christian people, she feels Christian, and so on. But do you feel as though it’s the same person or as though there are different “you’s,” different Lydias?

Participant: I can’t explain. I don’t know. Mostly, I can hear differences. But I can’t really explain if it’s different persons. 

Dr. Berzin: Right. She can’t explain if it’s different persons or if it’s the same person putting on an act, dancing one thing to another. We had all of these incorrect views in Shantideva’s Bodhicharyavatara, when we were discussing the Samkhya view of the self – that is like an actor putting on different costumes in different lifetimes but that it is the same actor. 

Participant: There are also people who have many different personalities.  

Dr. Berzin: Right, there are many people who clearly have different distinct personalities, as in schizophrenics. Sure. 

Participant: [In German]

Dr. Berzin: Yeah, multi-personalities – in English, we call that “split personality.” It’s the same.

Participant: This is psychology. Split personality is not something that is not pathology.

Dr. Berzin: Right. In psychology, split personality is a pathological state. 

Did we have to learn it though? This is the point. Doctrinally based is something that we had to have been taught; it wouldn’t automatically arise. That’s the problem here. That’s why I think it goes more in the direction of incorrect consideration rather than doctrinally based unawareness. 

Now, we could be taught all sorts of strange, doctrinally based things, not just from our religion or from the political propaganda of a political system but also, I think, from advertising. I used to think that we could include here, in doctrinally based disturbing emotions, those that arise on the basis of television advertising – like, for instance, the desire to buy a new car because they advertise it with the picture of a sexy, young woman. This is a desire that is brought about by propaganda. Who would ever associate a car with something that is sexy? This is absurd. It is clearly absurd if you think about it logically. 

So, I used to think that that could be included in the doctrinally based disturbing emotions, and also the anger or hatred that is brought about by a political or religious leader who talks about the enemy and how bad the enemy is and that you have to go out and kill them.

Participant: Anti-Semitism.

Dr. Berzin: Anti-Semitism is like that. Many, many things are like that. There are many, many examples. All the ethnic conflicts are based on that. Religious conflicts are based on that. Racial conflicts are based on that.

But are those really coming from the doctrinally based unawareness and disturbing emotions? I asked that. I was told, “Well, perhaps you can say that it’s something similar to that, but it is not the actual thing that they are talking about. The actual thing that they are talking about is based on this misconception about an atman as taught in the non-Buddhist Indian philosophical systems.” Very interesting. Very interesting. 

Does that mean that Buddhism is culturally specific? That’s a very interesting question – whether the way the seeing pathway of mind is formulated is culturally specific. I don’t know. I think you could argue that one could include other non-Buddhist doctrines about the soul, and it would be equally valid here. 

So, then the question becomes (I am just playing with these ideas now; I haven’t actually thought this out beforehand): would you have to include here all doctrinally based incorrect views of a soul, not just the ones that fall within the sphere of Indian philosophy? Would you have to get rid of all of them? 

Participant: Of course.

Dr. Berzin: I think you would. I think you would have to say that you would. 

Is the Voidness of One Thing the Same as the Voidness of All Things?

Participant: I can see the emptiness of one object makes disappear the sense that there is something findable in every object.

Dr. Berzin: He is saying that, is it like what Aryadeva said – that if you see the voidness of one thing, you see the voidness of all things, that the way in which one thing is void of impossible existence is the way that all things are void of impossible existence? But that is with reference to one specific impossible way of existing. You would have to say also that… let me explain that, not just leave it abstract. 

When we understand that the “me,” for instance, doesn’t exist as a static, partless soul that is separable from the aggregates – when we understand that I don’t exist that way – then we would understand that you don’t exist that way either. Then we would understand that nobody exists that way. So, that absence would refer to all sentient beings, all beings. 

Another way of understanding Aryadeva’s statement is in terms of the total absorption of an arya. In the total absorption of an arya, according to the Gelugpa description of it, the arya non-conceptually sees the voidness of something, some impossible way of existing. Now, what appears to an arya? Nothing. That’s the appearance: it’s total absence. There is no such thing. So, regardless of what that arya’s understanding of what is absent is – what that impossible way of existing is – when they focus on “no such thing” non-conceptually, what appears is the same: it’s non-conceptual. It’s not that they have a conceptual cognition of an absence; it’s not that they make the nothing into a something. So, that’s another way of understanding it. 

However, when it comes to the object of refutation, what is absent – the impossible way of existing – you would differentiate the absence of… I’m racing ahead. I wanted to say, “The absence of a nose is not the same as an absence of an ear.”

You have a very interesting, difficult point in… excuse me for diverting here, but this may be an explanation. There are eight difficult points in Tsongkhapa’s assertions, the Gelugpa assertions, concerning Madhyamaka, specifically concerning Prasangika. One of them is that a true stopping, or true cessation, is equivalent to voidness. There are very complicated explanations of this, which I must admit I have never quite understood because they are formulated in such a difficult, complex way. But it means that the absence is… 

What is a true stopping? A true stopping is a stopping of unawareness, and that is equivalent to voidness – so, an absence of impossible ways of existing. So, you say, “Hey, these are two different types of absences. One is an absence of something that does conventionally exist – the disturbing emotions and unawareness. And the other is an absence of something that doesn’t exist at all – impossible ways of existing. So, how can they be equivalent?” And maybe this is the answer – that when you focus on it, it’s the same: nothing appears. I think that’s the point. Maybe. Maybe.

I’ll have to explore that more deeply. When I go to India at the end of August, I’ll have the opportunity to ask questions of Serkong Rinpoche’s teacher, Geshe Tenzin Zangpo, which is very difficult because he is the most skilled debater of all the monasteries. When you ask him a question, he gives an answer that is so complicated and so sophisticated that, usually, I am totally incapable of understanding it in Tibetan… also because he says it at top speed. I record it, and then, afterwards, Serkong Rinpoche will repeat it for me more slowly so that I can write it down and then try to figure out what he actually. Usually, his answer has three or four negatives in one sentence and is very, very complicated in its formulation. But these are good questions to ask. 

Anyway, the point is that if you understand that there is no such thing as a soul as defined in Christianity, Islam, Judaism or whatever, is that the same as understanding that there is no such thing as a soul as defined in Hinduism? You’d have to say that when you focus on “no such thing,” the same thing will appear: nothing. But does that mean that you have gotten rid of your misunderstanding concerning any of the other systems if you have understood it just from that one point of view? 

If I have understood that there is no such thing as pink elephants, have I understood that there is no such thing as invaders from the fifth dimension or chicken lips? I don’t think so, even though the same thing will appear – “no such thing” – when you focus on chicken lips and when you focus on turtle hair. They say in the formulation that you get to the same thing, which is “no such thing.” Then do you have to go through all the wrong views from all philosophies in order to get the seeing pathway of mind? That becomes a very interesting question. If you did… well, maybe there is a wrong view that I never thought of and was never formulated by people and that will come up when scientists in the future come up with some theory of what life is and what a person is. Interesting questions, aren’t they?

Anyway, we get rid of those doctrinally based emotions. The Tibetans certainly accept and assert that the doctrinally based unawareness is based on the Indian systems that are not Buddhist. And from the Prasangika point of view, that also includes the less sophisticated Buddhist systems, which under-refute how a person exists; they don’t refute enough. So, what you are left with – that’s doctrinally based unawareness as well. That’s a subtler level of doctrinally based. So, that you have to get rid of as well – in other words, the view that, although there is a person and the person is imputable on the aggregates, and although the person is not something that is static, unaffected, partless, and separable, nevertheless, there is something on the side of the person that establishes its existence. So, that you have to get rid of. That would be doctrinally based. 

Anyway, that’s doctrinally based unawareness concerning a person.

The next level is the automatically arising unawareness, which is what everybody has. Nobody has to teach this to you. This is that, even if you understand that the “me” is only imputable on the aggregates, and even if you understand that it changes from moment to moment, that it has parts and can’t exist separably, nevertheless, automatically, it seems as though that person, that “me,” can be known all by itself without, at the same time, knowing, without having an appearance of, its basis – a body or a mind or whatever. 

We think, “I see Lydia. I see Mark.” We don’t think, “I see a body, and on the basis of that body, is imputed ‘Lydia’ or imputed ‘Mark.’” Same thing when we hear a voice on the telephone. We don’t even hear a voice; we hear the vibration of some sort of membrane, and we think, “I am hearing the person.” Don’t we? Or we think, “I don’t know myself,” “I don’t know you,” or “I do know you.” What do we know? We’d also have to simultaneously know something that we are imputing that person on, whether it be their personality, what they look like… something. 

The example that I love to give because it is so common is, “I want you to love me for myself. Just love me – not my body, not my intellect, not my money, not my possessions. Just love me for myself” – as if somebody could love a “me” totally by itself, not on the basis of anything about ourselves. That’s incredibly common, isn’t it? It automatically arises; nobody had to teach us that. 

We look at a photograph – “That’s me in the photo.” There are a bunch of dots on a piece of paper, and on the basis of these dots, we think we are seeing “me.” And then, of course, on the basis of this false conception of a “me” and of a “you” – “You did this! You did that! You didn’t do this! You didn’t do that!” We get anger. “I want you.” We get desire. “I want to get a good seat and to get in first.” We don’t think, “This body wants to get inside first.” Does the body want to get inside first? But it would have to be the body that gets a good seat. And on the basis of the body getting a good seat, we think it’s “me” getting a good seat. Who would ever think that? We wouldn’t. But in fact, it is a body that is sitting on the seat, not just “me” by itself. 

So that’s the automatically arising form of unawareness, the misconception. And that doesn’t refer to anything real. It’s void or absent. Totally absent is an actual referent object to that projection. It’s a projection. The projection exists, the concept exists, and what we would describe in the West as the feeling of it exists. It feels real; it feels as though that’s how we exist. But what’s absent is an actual referent that this feeling or concept refers to. It doesn’t refer to anything that is real. That’s what’s absent. The more that we can see and understand that it doesn’t refer to anything real, the closer we get to stop believing in it. 

How Does Non-Conceptual Cognition of Voidness Eliminate Belief in the False Appearances That Our Minds Project?

Now, how is it that when you understand that conceptually, it just weakens the force of your belief but that when you perceive it non-conceptually, you get rid of it? Why? I don’t know. I haven’t experienced that. Why would non-conceptual cognition actually get rid of it? Well, when I shut my eyes and don’t see the wall, does that get rid of the wall? No. When I open my eyes again, I see the wall. After you have had non-conceptual cognition of voidness and you arise from that total absorption, things still appear to exist in that impossible way. You just don’t believe in it anymore. This is what we get rid of: the belief. But again, why non-conceptually perceiving that there is no such thing gets rid of the belief, I really don’t know. Is it such a moving experience? I don’t know. It’s hard to say. 

And this gets into the realm of how you become convinced of something – a hundred percent convinced. Anybody know?

How Do We Become Convinced That Our False Belief Is False?

Participant: By familiarization.

Dr. Berzin: By familiarization. Well, for instance, I lost my keys once. I am sure most people have experienced losing something. You look for it everywhere that it could possibly be, and you don’t find it. What do you perceive? You perceive nothing; you perceive an absence of the key or whatever it is. Do you believe that you lost it? It’s hard to accept. You look again and again. I certainly have. So how do you really become convinced that you have lost it and that it is not here? 

Participant: [In German]

Dr. Berzin: Well, you have checked everywhere where it could it be. 

Participant: Then it must be lost.

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, you have checked everything, and you have checked everything several times.

Participant: You have forgotten something. Then you go through all past things.

Dr. Berzin: Forgetting something is something else – like forgetting somebody’s name. That, somehow, can come back. But where did I have my keys? Or did I lose them? 

Participant: You are convinced when all past things checked.

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, you have to check everything and check everything, I think, several times, and check even what would seem impossible. I lost my address book once. And I checked every possible place in my house, and I couldn’t find it. But then, I opened the refrigerator to get something, and there it was, inside the refrigerator! 

Participant: Impossible!

Dr. Berzin: This is impossible! I obviously had it in my hand when I was taking something from the refrigerator and put it down on the shelf. This makes one start to wonder about Alzheimer’s Disease and other things. But that happened to me. That was very frightening, actually. 

Participant: [In German]

Dr. Berzin: So, you have to check what would seem to be impossible places as well. But then you have to decide, “I’ve lost it.” 

Usually, we are thinking about losing something that existed. So, then you can try to figure out “where did I lose it?” But here, we are talking about the absence of something that never existed. The example that I often use is the example of finding the perfect partner – Prince or Princess Charming on the white horse (to make it silly). We always think that we are going to find the right person who’s perfect. And that’s a myth; that doesn’t refer to anybody real. Nobody is perfect – Mr. or Miss Perfect. How do we give that myth up? That’s very difficult.

Participant: I think in India, you have the films.

Dr. Berzin: Right. You have Indian films in which they play on that myth… certainly Bollywood films. But also in India, you have arranged marriages in which one, from the very start, accepts the fact that it’s not going to be perfect, except astrologically, perhaps. And you learn to live with each other. My Indian friends told me that often these marriages are much better because you don’t have any impossible expectation of it. So, many of my Indian friends prefer an arranged marriage.

Participant: In Mauritius, we have the Indian films.

Dr. Berzin: Well, Bollywood films we have everywhere. Certainly. And we have our fairy tales. So, it’s the same thing. And Hollywood also has that sometimes. 

In any case, how do we become convinced that nobody exists like that, that this is a myth that doesn’t refer to anything real? We are in one relationship – it doesn’t work. We get into another relationship, then another relationship… but we never give up the hope. It’s very hard to give up the hope that somewhere, somebody will be the perfect partner and that we will live happily ever after. As I say, I don’t really know. 

When we realize… Now we get back to Aryadeva. When we realize that one thing doesn’t exist in an impossible way… and he says that we don’t have to check everything else that exists in the universe. He says that when we have understood it with one object, we have understood it with all objects. But then the question is, does that really work? Aryadeva said so, but… How many things do we have to check? 

If you look at the lam-rims (graded stages of the path), let’s say the Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, Pabongka’s lam-rim, it doesn’t just explain the voidness of one thing; it explains the voidness of forms of physical phenomena, the voidness of ways of being aware of something, consciousness, the voidness of space, of static phenomena… it goes through the list. Why would the Heart Sutra say, “There is no eye, no ear, no nose…” all of these things? Couldn’t it just say, “There is no nose,” and then that’s it? 

These are interesting questions. From a phenomenological, or experiential, point of view, how does it really work? But I guess we’ll have to experience it ourselves. 

Yeah? One last thing.

Participant: I think in the beginning, it’s very helpful to go through many things in terms of the voidness of things. But if you have a real deep understanding of the voidness of something, then I think Aryadeva’s right – that you have the understanding…

Dr. Berzin: Yeah. I would agree with you that, initially, you need to analyze many different things. And then you reach a point where you understand Aryadeva – that, OK, I don’t have to go on analyzing everything in the universe: it applies to everything. Where that border will be… How many things you have to analyze? Five? Ten? Fifty-three? Probably, for each person it will be slightly different.