We are studying a text which was written by the great Tibetan master Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug tradition, who lived in the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries. In his collected works, we find this letter that he wrote to a friend of his who was a great meditator with whom Tsongkhapa shared the type of relation in which they each taught each other various things. This letter is in response to a request that his friend asked him, to please give some practical advice about how to practice the combined path of sutra and tantra. Let’s go through a rather extensive review of this as there are some new people who are here today.
Reliance on a Qualified Spiritual Mentor
Tsongkhapa starts his letter in a humble, polite way of beginning, saying that he really doesn’t know anything, and really can’t explain so much to someone as learned as you, but he will try. He then begins the formal discussion by saying how we have the basis for being able to practice the Dharma: we have the working basis of a precious human rebirth with all the freedoms and opportunities to be able to study, we’ve met with the teachings of the Buddha, and we’ve been cared for by great spiritual masters, and we have the intelligence and ability to discriminate between what is helpful, what’s harmful, what’s to be practiced, what’s to be gotten rid of. With all of these tools that we have, we need to actually engage ourselves in the teachings (in other words, go ahead with it).
Just to have kind thoughts is not enough. We actually have to study and practice with a teacher. This is what things depend on very much. We need to find a teacher who is well qualified, not just any teacher. Although there are many lists of what the qualifications for a Buddhist teacher are, the main things that Tsongkhapa points out is that this teacher needs to know very clearly what are the states of mind that we need to develop and which are the ones that we need to get rid of, and has to be someone that doesn’t add anything to that or leave anything out, and knows all the proper ways for developing them and the stages in which to develop them, and has the ability to be able to direct those stages in that process of learning to each individual student (in other words, know where to start, how quick to go with each student, and so on). And the teacher himself or herself needs to have gained experience in all of this by having been led themselves through the whole spiritual training by their own qualified teachers, and that training needs to be based on the scriptural texts of the Buddha and the great Indian and Tibetan masters, not just based on thinking that the study and the practice are something different, because, in fact, everything that’s written in Buddha’s teachings is intended for practice.
The Motivating Mental Framework
Then as for how to actually begin once we have such a teacher and we entrust ourselves to such a teacher, the main thing is to tame our minds, and this is supported by many quotations from great Indian masters. As for how to train our minds, the main thing is to develop the proper motivation for spiritual development, and although there are many different ways to do this, the most commonly followed one is according to the graded stages of motivation, which are known in Tibetan as lam-rim (the graded stages). This has three levels of motivation, and each of them builds on the previous one. We can’t just start with the most advanced level without having the foundation and basis for this from the earlier levels.
The Initial Level
The initial level is one in which we think “I have this precious human life, but it’s going to end at some time.” We think of death and impermanence and what could follow from that in terms of future lives. We have to take our future lives seriously, thinking that things could be much worse in the future — we wouldn’t have any opportunity for spiritual practice or improving ourselves — and so we need to turn our interest from just this life alone and have keen interest in our future lives and making sure that they aren’t the worst states, in which we would have no opportunities. This means putting a safe direction in our life — what’s known as refuge — of following the teachings of the Buddha to try to achieve what the Buddhas have achieved and what the highly realized spiritual community has achieved in part. Going in that direction means basically refraining from acting in destructive ways and trying to act in constructive ways as much as possible. Destructive ways mean under the influence of disturbing emotions, like anger and greed and naivety.
The Intermediate Level
Then on an intermediate level, we think in terms of all possible future rebirth states and how all of them are filled with problems. No matter how happy we might be in some of these states, nevertheless that happiness doesn’t last: we never have enough, we’re always frustrated, and there’s no certainty as to what we’re going to feel like in the next moment. We need to turn our minds from just thinking in terms of future lives and making them as pleasant as possible but turn to liberation from all of this uncontrollably recurring rebirth (that’s known as samsara). To do that, we have to understand what propels this samsaric rebirth. This is basically our unawareness of reality (our confusion, sometimes called ignorance) and the disturbing emotions that come from that (anger, greed, attachment, longing desire, naivety, jealousy, pride, arrogance, and so on) and the karma that is activated by that (karma is referring to the impulses with which we act in certain ways driven by this confusion and these disturbing emotions) and then the aftermath of those karmic actions that are carried along on our mental continuum and then again activated by disturbing emotions to give their results.
We need to develop renunciation, which is a mind with which we say, “This is enough. I can’t stand this situation any longer. I have to get out of it.” It’s the willingness to give up not only the suffering and the basis for it, this uncontrollably recurring rebirth, but also give up the causes that are perpetuating it — our anger and greed, etc., our selfishness — and develop a strong, keen interest for liberation.
The Advanced Level
Then on the basis of that, we develop the advanced level of motivation with which we remind ourselves that: We’re not the only ones in this universe. Everybody else is suffering from the same situation. We are completely interconnected with everybody else. Our whole existence depends on everybody else’s kindness, their work, etc., even if it’s not intended specifically to benefit me. We understand how we’re all equal: everybody wants to be happy, nobody wants to be unhappy, and we all have the same right for achieving that. So, we take responsibility for others. We develop love, which is the wish for them to be happy and have the causes for happiness. We develop compassion, which is the wish for them to be free of their suffering and the causes for their suffering. We take even stronger responsibility, this exceptional resolve that “I’m going to help them all the way to liberation and enlightenment, not just in a superficial way.”
Then we develop what’s known as the bodhichitta (Skt. bodhicitta) aim, in which we are moved by this love and compassion, we aim for our own future enlightenments that are possible to achieve in terms of our Buddha-nature factors (the nature of the mind and so on) that will allow that to happen, and we have the strong intention to achieve, to attain, that enlightenment in order to be able to then benefit others as much as is possible. Once we develop that strong bodhichitta motivation, then we work on developing the far-reaching attitudes (or perfections) of generosity, ethical self-discipline, patience, perseverance, mental stability (or concentration), and discriminating awareness (or wisdom as it’s usually translated).
All of this is on the advanced level, what is common to both sutra and tantra, what we find in the sutra teachings of Mahayana (Skt. Mahāyāna).
How to Meditate
It is very important, Tsongkhapa says, not to just have these motivations in terms of nice words that you recite but rather to feel them very sincerely from the depth of our hearts in an uncontrived manner, not just have an intellectual understanding of them but a really heartfelt manner. To do that, we need to meditate. Then Tsongkhapa goes into a big discussion of what it means to meditate. Meditate means to build up all of these motivations, these positive states of mind, as a habit, to make it so ingrained in us through repetition of generating these attitudes that it comes automatically. In order to develop these as habits, we need to know how to meditate, how to do that.
For this he says it’s very important to know what the causes are for developing each of these types of motivation. In other words, what does it depend on. Like bodhichitta depends on love and compassion; love and compassion depend on being aware that we’re all equal and extending our hearts out to everybody because we’re connected with everybody. We need to know what these motivations are based on, what would be the causes for developing them. We need to know what would be helpful for developing them, what would be harmful for developing them. We need to know all the different aspects of the state of mind we’re trying to develop.
We need to, in meditation, know what is it that we focus on and how does our mind relate to that. For instance, if we’re meditating to develop compassion, we focus on others and their suffering. The way our mind relates to it is with the wish that they be free from it. Whereas with bodhichitta we’re focusing on our own future enlightened state which hasn’t happened yet, and the way that our mind is relating to that is that we are intending to achieve that, to actualize it, and to help everybody by means of that.
We need to know what is it that we’re focusing on, what is appearing in our mind when we meditate, and how does our mind relate to it. We also need to know what the benefits are of developing that, what will be the state of mind that will result from that, and what negative states of mind will we get rid of as a result of developing that.
This is explained in great detail, and probably in more detail than we’ll find in almost any other source that I’ve ever come across, as to how do you actually meditate. Tsongkhapa says that in between sessions we also need to build up more positive force by acting in constructive ways, try to purify various obstacles and negative states of mind, and also read various scriptural texts that describe these practices in order to give us more energy and more support in their practice. Then he says it’s not sufficient to just develop these motivations at the beginning of a meditation session, but we need to sustain that motivation throughout the meditation session, and not just leave it when we get up from our meditation seat but to maintain these motivations all day long.
The Ethical Self-Discipline of Keeping Vows
Then, on the basis of having the proper motivation and all these foundational sutra practices, Tsongkhapa goes on to say: If we want to then go further on the Mahayana path and practice tantra, out of all of the sutra practice, what we really, really always need to remember and emphasize is ethical self-discipline. This he discusses in terms of the various sets of vows. If we are aiming for liberation, we need some sort of level of pratimoksha (Skt. prātimokṣa) vows (pratimoksha is a Sanskrit word). That means vows for individual liberation, which is, as a layperson, avoiding the five negative things that prevent liberation: taking the lives of others, taking what’s not given to us (or stealing), saying what is untrue (lying), indulging in inappropriate sexual behavior (like going off with other people’s partners or rape and these sorts of things), and taking intoxicants (which acts completely in the opposite of what we’re trying to do with our minds). There are also the various levels of vows for monks and nuns that are included in the pratimoksha vows. These we need as a basis if we’re aiming for liberation if we are following the Mahayana path.
Then on top of this we need the bodhisattva vows (and to keep them), which are the vows to avoid the type of behavior that would prevent us from being able to help others. We have vows such as to avoid praising myself — “I’m the best, and everybody else is no good” — which we would do just in order to get money or love or fame or things like this, then. With that we aren’t sincerely interested in helping others.
Then if we’re going to involve ourselves with tantra, specifically the two higher classes of tantra of the four classes in that classification scheme, we need to take the tantric vows, which are to avoid the type of things that would be harmful for our tantric practice. We need to do things like remind ourselves of voidness every day many times.
Then Tsongkhapa discusses what are the causes for weakening or breaking these vows, how do we restrengthen them, how do we restore them — all of these procedures.
He then says: If we’re going to involve ourselves with tantra, we need to receive an empowerment (sometimes called an initiation) into one of the tantric practices. The main thing that happens in this empowerment is to take the vows, and he emphasizes the vows again here. The empowerment basically activates the Buddha-nature potentials that we have to reach enlightenment, but it has to be done within the context of taking the vows. Tsongkhapa doesn’t say this, but elsewhere we read that if you don’t take the vows, and do that consciously, you haven’t actually taken the empowerment or received it. For taking these tantric vows, we need a stable foundation for that, which would be some level of vow for individual liberation, either the lay vows or monastic vows as a monk or a nun, and best is if we are a monk or a nun — and this is the case also even just for taking the bodhisattva vows — and Tsongkhapa gives quotations for that.
The Generation and Complete Stages of Anuttarayoga Tantra
Then once we have received the empowerment and are sufficiently prepared in terms of sutra practices — in other words, we have a very secure direction in our life (the safe direction of refuge), we have a basis of ethical discipline, we have renunciation, we’re working on overcoming our disturbing emotions, we have well-developed love and compassion and bodhichitta aim, and we have a good level of concentration (and especially a good understanding of voidness so that we don’t just project fantasy and think we’re some sort of deity and go completely crazy) — then we need to follow the correct procedures in practicing tantra.
And in tantra — he’s talking specifically about the highest class of tantra (anuttarayoga it’s called in Sanskrit), and this has two stages of practice, what’s called the generation stage and the complete stage. Tsongkhapa emphasizes very much the necessity to practice these in the correct order. They are like climbing the rungs of a ladder, and you can’t go to the complete stage without a well-developed generation stage.
On the generation stage, we’re working with our imaginations to build up the causes for success so that, on the complete stage, everything is complete to be able to build up the actual, immediate causes for becoming a Buddha. In tantra what we’re working on is to build up the causes for achieving the physical bodies as well as the mind of a Buddha simultaneously. For this, what we do is to try to generate our subtle energies into the form of a Buddha-figure, which can be any Buddha-figure — whether it’s Avalokiteshvara (or Chenrezig), Tara (Skt. Tārā), Manjushri (Skt. Mañjuśrī), Yamantaka (Skt. Yamāntaka), Vajrayogini (Skt. Vajrayoginī), or whatever, it doesn’t matter (they are all equivalent) — but to be able to generate out of our subtle energy-systems a form of these figures, which then will act as a cause for actually being able to generate ourselves in that form when we reach enlightenment.
We need to practice first with our imagination, and that’s called visualization practice. That’s what you do on the generation stage — you generate these things with the imagination. And the way that we do that is similar to the process of death, bardo, and rebirth in terms of the consciousness getting more and more subtle, down to the subtlest level, and then coming back out in these forms of these Buddha-figures.
How to Visualize in Tantra Practice
Tsongkhapa then goes into a very wonderful, detailed explanation of how to visualize. For the visualization, he says that — without repeating too much of the detail here — that it’s important to have a general feeling of the whole visualization, even though it may be very, very rough, and then within that to fill in the details. The better our concentration is, the more the details will come into focus, because what we need very much to do in this practice on the generation stage is hold what’s known as the pride of the deity, which means to feel that we actually are this Buddha-figure. This is based on our understanding of voidness — that we’re not actually there yet, but we have a basis that will enable us to reach this form. We’re not projecting truly established existence, that I’m truly like this now or that I would ever be solidly like this. That’s very, very important. But we need to feel that this is something that I can become and have the pride or dignity or feeling of being like that. In other words, we can label me on our whole mental continuum. Like we label me when we were a baby, a young adult, an old person, and so on: it’s all me. Likewise, further down on our mental continuum when we can become a Buddha, that also would still be me. We think in terms of that (although it’s not a solid me that’s moving solidly along a mental continuum).
There’s this big discussion of the generation stage, and how to concentrate, and what are the obstacles that we have to overcome in order to concentrate, and so on.
Complete Stage Practice
Then Tsongkhapa goes into a discussion of the complete stage, and this he gives in brief only. He points out that on this complete stage when we have perfect concentration and that concentration has been developed to such a point that we can visualize on a very microscopic level, then that concentration becomes like a laser beam that we can use for actually manipulating the subtle energies in the body. If we don’t have that perfect concentration, then when we try to work with these subtle energies, we could get very disturbed, very messed up. This practice on the complete stage is the practice that deals with the energy channels, the winds, the chakras, the energy drops, and so forth, and working with that system to get down to the subtlest level of mind, the subtlest level of consciousness, which is known as clear light. Then from the very subtle energy that is an aspect of that clear-light mind, we generate these actual forms of these Buddha-figures, like the way that we have a body in a dream. As I say, he doesn’t go into this in great detail.
Voidness Being the Same in Sutra and Tantra
Then after that, Tsongkhapa speaks in terms of the understanding of voidness. He goes into a point that some masters in the earlier traditions say that it’s on the complete stage that you really work with voidness. And he says this has to be understood correctly, that it’s not that voidness or the understanding of voidness is different in sutra and tantra — we need the same understanding of voidness in all systems — but what the other schools, the earlier masters, are referring to here is that on the complete stage, on advanced stages of the complete stage, we have a nonconceptual cognition of voidness, and that is beyond words, beyond concepts (in other words, beyond a conceptual mind), and although they might describe that as quite a different level of understanding of voidness, Tsongkhapa points out that actually it’s exactly the same; the only difference is conceptual and nonconceptual.
Tsongkhapa has quite a different understanding of what it means to have a conceptual understanding of something than these earlier masters did. We’ve spent quite a bit of time in pointing out how much of a revolutionary Tsongkhapa was in seeing the shortcomings of the views of many of the masters that came before him and trying to clarify that. He was very, very brave in doing that, and his explanations are the basis for the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Gelugpa — that word refers to those who follow the Gelug tradition.
Being Parted from Either One or Many
Then Tsongkhapa, for a large portion of the text that remains, goes into the correct understanding of voidness, which is to be understood in common both on the sutra and tantra path and even for just achieving liberation from samsara (Skt. saṃsāra). He says that there are various lines of reasoning and ways to develop the understanding of voidness, but the one that is most common is known as being parted from either one or many.
There are some schools and some traditions, some texts, that say there is a speedy way for achieving the understanding of voidness: just cut out all mental fabrications (in other words, conceptual thought) and there it is. He says that maybe there can be some very, very rare cases of people who have trained very extensively in previous lives with meditation and logic and reasoning so that in this lifetime their instincts are so strong that they don’t have to do very much meditation or study; just quieting down, getting a little bit nonconceptual — I mean, we’ve discussed what that actually means — will bring them to an understanding of voidness. But that will hardly ever happen. For most of us, almost all of us, we need to rely on logic and reasoning to become convinced logically that what we are projecting is not referring to anything real, that that is an impossible way of existing — that things exist all by themselves, totally independently of causes, conditions, and circumstances, parts, etc., as if things were just encapsulated in plastic or like in a coloring book with a solid line around them, just existing like that, the way that they appear to us. That is an impossible way of existing. There are many, many different levels of what’s impossible.
Voidness means an absence. What is absent is a real referent to that projection, that although things might appear like that, it’s complete garbage; it’s not referring to anything real. There are many lines of reasoning we could use to prove this, but we have to become convinced of this through logic. It’s not just enough to say, “Well, OK,” or just have some sort of flash experience of that; we need conviction on a very deep level. We went into quite a big discussion about what it means to be convinced of something, to actually believe something so that it is there on a gut level. And that, we discovered, was not so easy to define, what actually it means to be convinced of something, but through analysis, logic, and reasoning, we can become convinced.
Being parted from either one or many is referring to how, if there were things that existed all on their own — now I’m using a very simple way of explaining it — if things existed encapsulated in plastic all by themselves, isolated from everything else, either there’s only one such thing like that or there are many such things like that. If it’s neither the case that there’s only one thing like that nor many things like that, then there’s no such thing as things encapsulated in plastic all by themselves. That’s the line of reasoning.
This gets into the whole discussion of labeling. Mental labeling has to do with a basis for labeling — let’s say a certain type of behavior of somebody — and me or you and based on a certain type of behavior and way of thinking and so on, we label me or we label you. That way of behaving — or a body or a state of mind or whatever — that and me, if they were encapsulated in plastic, they would have to be exactly the same thing. But if they were exactly the same thing, that would mean that we would always have to be like that. Always this age. Sometimes we think like that, that even if we’re old, we still think of ourselves as being young, for instance. Or if somebody annoys us, then we always identify them with being an annoying person, as if they were identical with being an annoying person and the me and the basis for it is one thing with a big plastic coating around it.
Or they would have to be two separate things. But if the body and me were two separate things, then if the body is hurt, why do we say, “I’m hurt”? How could we possibly feel it? The body would only feel it, but I feel it. And they can’t be two totally separate things encapsulated in plastic either, otherwise they would have no relation with each other.
Thinking like this, we eventually come to the understanding and conviction that this whole way of thinking and projecting — which is how things just naturally appear to me — is complete garbage, that it’s not referring to anything real. Although it seems as though there’s a separate me inside my head, talking all the time and complaining and commenting, and there’s this body over here, it’s not that they exist as solid things encapsulated in plastic.
We had a big discussion of that. We’ve covered quite a lot of ground.
Mistaken Views of Voidness
Then we got to the beginning of the discussion of mistaken views of voidness, and this is where we are now. We had discussed the first paragraph that Tsongkhapa wrote about this; and just to review that, let me read it. (This text, by the way, you can find on my website, the whole translation. Letter of Practical Advice on Sutra and Tantra. There’s a link to it from the audio files. It’s also in the tantra and sutra sections.) The paragraph that we have already discussed — I won’t go into it in great detail, but it’s the basis for what we’re up to discussing today — is (I’m reading now):
When we seek (our understanding of voidness) by training like this in (studying and thinking about) scriptural quotations and lines of reasoning, there are two ways in which such an understanding can be generated: a deviant and a non-deviant one.
In other words, one that deviates away, goes away, from the correct understanding and one that doesn’t (in other words, one that’s correct).
Of these, the first
In other words, the incorrect understanding.
Of these, the first might be (as follows).
Suppose we had analyzed from the viewpoint of many lines of reasoning the arising, ceasing and so forth of phenomena. When (we had done so), the entire presentation of conventional truth had fallen apart (for us) and thereby we could not find (any way of) taking anything as being (conventionally) “this.” (Thus, we felt there was nothing conventionally true or real.)
In other words, when we analyzed and saw that nothing was encapsulated in plastic, we felt that there was nothing at all, that nothing existed unless it was in a plastic coating: there was no such thing. There are many ways in which we could understand that incorrectly, but it could be that everything is just an undifferentiated soup of energy and atoms and force fields, and it’s just our mind that makes the lines around things, and actually there’s nothing real. This is a complete misunderstanding of voidness. This mistake was that we felt that there was nothing conventionally true or real.
Because (of that), we might come (to the wrong conclusion) that all bondages and liberations (from uncontrollably recurring samsaric existence) are in fact like all bondages and liberations of children of barren women.
In other words, this whole thing of suffering and being caught in samsara with all the causes of samsara and gaining liberation from it — all of that was literally an illusion, it didn’t exist at all, and all we have to do is realize that “I don’t exist. Suffering doesn’t exist. Nothing exists,” and then we’re going to be free of suffering. This is a complete misunderstanding.
Tsongkhapa goes on:
Then we would go on (to wrongly imagine) that the occurrence of happiness and suffering from constructive and destructive actions was in fact no different than the arising of horns from a rabbit’s head.
In other words, we would think that there’s no point in doing anything constructive, or no point in refraining from doing anything destructive, because cause and effect was meaningless, because nothing really existed. It doesn’t matter what you do, because nothing is real anyway. That’s a complete misunderstanding.
He said:
Thereby, we would come to a (completely false) understanding that all of conventional truth is distorted conventional truth and that all conceptual cognitions are distorted cognitions that are deceived about their conceptualized objects.
Conceptual Cognition and Mental Labeling
That is starting to deal with very technical terms, but basically when we think in terms of conceptual understanding of something, a conceptual understanding is... Let me explain what a conceptual understanding is, to start with. Conceptual understanding is to think in terms of categories, and words are usually associated with a category, like dog is a category. You see this creature, this body in front of you, and you think of it in terms of a dog. Or let’s say if we ask everybody to think of a dog… Now, if we think of a dog, we have a mental image that represents a dog in our minds, but actually for each of us that’s going to be quite a different image of what a dog is. Actually, it’s quite interesting if you think in terms of: There are all these animals. How did somebody come up with the idea that a Chihuahua and a St Bernard and all these other things are going to be called by the same word.
Participant: Because we made them like this.
Dr. Berzin: Because we made them like this. Exactly. Somebody made it up. Somebody decided that we’re going to put them all together, and then they took some meaningless sounds in different languages and put these sounds together and said, “This is a word. This is what we’re going to call them.” Then you could say, “Isn’t there a defining characteristic within all of these different animals that makes them a dog?” Even the defining characteristics — somebody had to decide and make up that this was the defining characteristic. There’s nothing on the side of the object itself that by its own power makes it a dog; it’s just somebody decided that’s the definition of it.
Actually, when we think conceptually of things, we are thinking in terms of mental labeling; we’re thinking in terms of different categories. And those categories can even be the most general thing, as a thing — “This is a thing” — it doesn’t have to be specified, but it is a thing separate from that thing over there.
But then the question is: Does that refer to anything so-called real? Real is a very loaded term here. What do we mean by real? Does it refer to things that do things, that cause an effect? In other words, if I act in a destructive way, is it going to bring about suffering or does it have no effect whatsoever? If I call you a nasty name, does it make you feel bad? Or often we think that it doesn’t matter what we say that nobody else has any feelings, and we don’t even take the reality of other people seriously. But this is a big mistake, to think that nothing matters, that nothing really exists.
There are conventional people — there are conventional things, conventional objects — but they don’t exist the way that our mind makes them appear, which is encapsulated in plastic. What establishes that they exist? In other words, how do we know that they exist? There are several criteria:
- How do I know that that’s a dog? You know that that’s a dog because there is a convention that a group of people agree upon that there are such things as dogs.
- It’s not contradicted by a mind that validly sees conventional things. In other words, if we ask a few other people, they will agree it’s a dog not a cat. Maybe. And if we thought there was a dog over there and we put our glasses on and went closer, we might find that it was something else: it wasn’t a dog.
- It has to be not contradicted by a mind that validly sees things and understands things on a conventional level and also not contradicted by a mind that validly sees things on the deepest level. In other words, if I think that there’s a truly existent solid dog, and dogs are frightening (they bite you), and then I have paranoia over it, of any dog, then a mind that sees that there’s no such thing as this solid dog that’s always going to bite you — that this is ridiculous — this would contradict what we see.
Participant: We categorize things that have common points. I understand what you’re saying. You’re basically saying that people can’t detach themselves from their categorization of the object or the item.
Dr. Berzin: She’s saying that we were talking here about categorizing things and giving a significance to them and that we need to dissociate ourselves from that. No. This is Tsongkhapa’s point, this is the misunderstanding, is to think we have to dissociate from that completely. Because it’s necessary for communication. It’s necessary for any type of understanding on the level that we have.
Participant: But I can’t necessarily be sure that this dog…
Dr. Berzin: The categories are not established from the side of the object is the point. They are mentally labeled.
There’s a difference, then, between correct mental labeling and incorrect mental labeling. If I label a dog a cat, that’s incorrect. If I label my neighbor a monster, that’s incorrect (there are no such things as monsters). But if I label a destructive action as destructive — conventionally it is destructive, because it brings unhappiness. If I label it as destructive and truly existent as destructive, then we feel guilt — “I’m so bad. What I did was a sin. It’s horrible” — and we never let go; we make it into some solid thing.
What we have to deconstruct is the solidity (in other words, the impossible way of existing). The fallacy that Tsongkhapa is pointing out that the earlier masters made was they didn’t separate the projection of how something exists from the projection of what it is, and they said that those two are always together, so all conceptual thought is crazy, is mistaken. Whereas Tsongkhapa says, “No. It could be accurate in terms of what it is, and it will function like that, we all agree, and we communicate it in terms of categories. But whether we communicate it in terms of categories or not doesn’t matter, because it still exists whether we call it something or not, and it functions.” This is very difficult. This is very delicate, not easy to understand.
What is garbage is our projection of how it exists, not the category of what it is. But that category of what it is, of course, is dependent on many things. This object here could be a table and it could function as a table, but it could likewise be a chair and I could sit on it, and then it would be a chair. Its being established as a chair or a table or a beautiful piece of furniture, the most valuable one that I own, or a piece of junk — all that is mental labels.
There are a lot of things which are involved here in many levels. It’s like the example of: Is this a watch? It may be a watch to me, and it can tell time. But for the baby this is a toy, something to put in its mouth; it’s not a watch. What is it? Is it a watch or is it a toy? It’s not established from its own side as anything; it’s a watch or a toy dependent on how we label it. And to label it doesn’t mean that you have to say the word in your mind, but it’s how you perceive it, how you relate to it. That’s all mental labeling. Even animals do that in terms of food or danger, my master, this sort of thing, smells, etc.
This is what we were discussing: This false view is that all conceptual cognition is distorted. That’s not differentiating what it is from how it exists but saying the whole thing is distorted, and because it’s distorted, then our concepts aren’t referring to anything real.
We got into a discussion of what the previous view was of perception and what Tsongkhapa’s view of it was. The previous view — and it’s still held by the other schools of Buddhism — is that all conventional objects are conceptual constructs. In other words, I perceive things through senses, and so a fruit, an orange — through my eyes I see an orange-colored sphere, orange-colored ball. Is the fruit, an orange, just an orange-colored ball? No. Is it just the taste? No. Is it just the smell? No. Is it the feel in your hands of the thing? No. What is the conventional object orange? It is a mental construct that the mind puts together, all the information from all these senses, and it’s only a concept that it’s a thing, an orange.
When you see something, you don’t actually see an orange. All you see is a colored sphere, a colored ball, colored shape. You don’t actually see an orange. You don’t actually see anything, in terms of objects. Tsongkhapa says this is too radical — this could go in the direction of thinking that nothing exists. This is why he’s pointing all this out and saying that, yes, it’s true that you only see colored shapes, but you’d have to say that you also see conventional objects.
There are many subtle differences here in terms of perception, many, many implications of this.
Participant: In the Gelug presentation, would they express that even each single sense consciousness sees an orange? Or would it only be expressed that nonconceptual mental cognition would see an orange? Are there any such differentiations?
Dr. Berzin: He’s asking: In the Gelug presentation, do we say that only mental bare perception (mngon-sum) — or straightforward perception in the Gelug Prasangika (Skt. Prāsaṅgika) system — sees a conventional object or is it also the sense cognition? It’s the sense cognition; it’s all of them. We see an orange, we smell an orange, we taste an orange, we feel an orange in our hand, we hear an orange fall on the floor, even though we also — you’d have to say we hear a sound, and we feel a physical sensation. That’s a very interesting thing, especially when you get into how the brain works and so on, electric impulses and all of that.
In other words, we make a mental hologram. The whole way in which perception works is basically like in science. They don’t explain it in terms of electrical and chemical impulses, but they do explain like it’s a mental hologram that we perceive, that the brain somehow translates these things into a hologram. Is it a hologram of just a colored shape, or is it a hologram of an orange? Tsongkhapa would say, “Hey, it’s a hologram of an orange represented visually by a round, spherical, orange-color shape.”
All this gets very, very interesting the more and more you delve into it.
What he’s saying is that to think that all conceptual cognition, especially of conventional objects, is garbage — that this is a misunderstanding of voidness and a misunderstanding of perception theory.
Mistaken Views of Madhyamaka
That’s as far as we’ve discussed in our presentations. For those who are joining us newly, that’s a lot of material. I’m sorry, but that’s where we are. Let’s go on:
If we see the meaning of the Madhyamaka (middle path) in this (mistaken manner),
Madhyamaka (Skt. Mādhyamaka) is the name of the school of philosophy in Buddhism that explains like this.
there are two (further wrong conclusions we could draw). Of these, the first (would be as follows). If this were the case (that if all things lacked truly established existence, then all conventional truth would be distorted), then since the entire presentation (of conventional reality) would be improper, (we would feel that) the view of all phenomena as lacking self-establishing natures was in fact a view of nihilism and therefore not Buddha’s intention. In so thinking, we would be forsaking (the teachings of) the far-reaching discriminating awareness (the perfection of wisdom,
That’s prajnaparamita (shes-rab-gyi pha-rol-tu phyin-pa).
by denying that the lack of self-established existence was what Buddha meant by voidness). Other karmic obstacles, even if unbearable, can in fact be purified away…
Let’s stop here before we go on. What’s the misunderstanding here? The misunderstanding is to say that “Truly established existence means that there actually is a findable referent to our label” — that there actually is a solid thing, the label being a truly established thing. We’re not talking about my keys. We’re not saying that there’s no such thing as your keys, so you could never find your keys. It’s not saying that but saying that truly established existence, established truly by the power of the thing from its own side — that you could never find. You could never find that way of existing because there is no such thing. That’s truly established or self-established existence.
This misunderstanding, this is the view that’s saying that that is actually nihilism, that this explanation of voidness that Tsongkhapa has is nihilism, which means that nothing exists at all, and that couldn’t be what Buddha taught, and so Buddha’s teachings on voidness are wrong, and Buddha didn’t really teach that. It’s denying that Buddha taught this view of voidness. In other words, they think that voidness, the correct view of voidness, is the view of nihilism, that nothing exists, and so that can’t be the correct view of voidness, because Buddha didn’t teach nihilism. Therefore, they’re denying the correct understanding of voidness, saying, “Buddha didn’t teach it like that,” and then they give their own, incorrect understanding of voidness.
Tsongkhapa goes on and says:
Other karmic obstacles, even if unbearable, can in fact be purified away by relying on a (correct) view of voidness. Yet, even though that is the case, with this (incorrect view) we become like what (Buddha) said, “He who forsakes (voidness) and thereby comes to lack any safe direction,
That’s refuge.
goes in fact to the (worst joyless realm,) Avichi Hell of Uninterrupted Pain.”
Now he explains it:
In other words, since there is no other safe direction or anything else to rely upon (once we have rejected the correct meaning of voidness), we must remain in the Hell of Uninterrupted Pain for a very long time. This was said (by Buddha) in the chapter on joyless hell beings (from Placement of Close Mindfulness on the Noble Hallowed Dharma, Tib. ’Phags-pa dam-pa’i chos dran-pa nye-bar gzhag-pa, Skt. Aryasaddharma-smrtyupasthana).
OK. This is a very heavy statement here that Tsongkhapa is making (actually he’s quoting Buddha as making). It doesn’t mean that if you don’t believe in voidness and accept what I say, then you’re going to go to hell. It’s certainly not saying that. But what is it saying? Do you have any idea?
Participant: The whole point, as we discussed before, is to ultimately attain liberation and enlightenment and stop uncontrollably recurring rebirth. But that can only be accomplished by having a correct understanding of voidness; otherwise, how would you get rid of your projections? If you forsake the correct understanding of voidness, and don’t really engage your mind with it and try to understand it, and say just, “That’s weird. I won’t bother with that,” then of course you have no chance of accomplishing these spiritual goals. If that’s not the case, then of course you will just continue to be trapped in the regular samsaric sufferings and there will be no prospect of getting out of that.
Participant: But this is a bit more specific.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Let me just repeat that for the recording. What you say is correct, that if we reject the correct teaching on voidness, the correct understanding of voidness, and claim a different understanding of voidness — it’s only the correct understanding of voidness that will get rid of the true cause of our suffering. And if we’ve given up what will get rid of the true cause of suffering to achieve a true stopping of it, then we’re stuck in the suffering of samsara; there’s no way out. Basically, what you said.
Jorge added that that’s not specific enough, because what he’s saying — the quote was that you have no refuge, you have no safe direction, and you’re stuck in the worst hells. You want to make it more specific, Jorge?
Participant: I just thought that it’s talking about a causal relationship between having tried to understand voidness and forsaking it. Having tried to have secure direction and refuge, and having forsaken that, this is a causal relation to being reborn in this kind of specific state.
Dr. Berzin: He’s saying that if you reject voidness and you try to achieve liberation, but you have a wrong idea — and then what? You get discouraged and so you give up refuge? You give up the Buddha’s teachings? Then because of that you go to hell?
Participant: Yeah.
Dr. Berzin: No. No. That’s sort of like a punishment. If you don’t believe in the saving powers of Buddhism, then you are condemned to hell? Come on, this is not Buddhism.
Participant: It seems to me — this is how I’ve understood it — that there’s an item, and we see the item, and then we imbue it with meaning from our understanding of the word and from our feeling toward that item, whether it’s a watch or whatever. We imbue it, the child imbues it, you imbue it. It’s actually just an item.
What we need to do is — the voidness is separating the item (the round, orange circle) from the imbued meaning that we give it. If we can’t do that because we can’t see something as it is without our interpretation of it or its understanding, then in a way we’re in a hell, because we can’t separate the two, the item from our attachment to the item. It’s a question of seeing the item and then our feelings and attachment and our understanding of the word to that item as two separate things in order to understand “This is what’s happened.”
How we react to that gives it meaning, and we can decide not to react that way or to react a different way. If we decide to act badly to something that’s happened… If someone comes in and says something horrible to you, and you decide “I’m not going to let that upset me or hurt me” — I’m not going to give that any imbuing or I’m not going to give it any “Does she mean this? Does she mean that?” or whatever — then if we manage to release ourselves from the meaning that we give it, then we’re freed. But if we’re kind of not able to separate our feelings from that item, then in a way we’re putting ourselves in a hell, because we’re not able to separate it.
Dr. Berzin: OK. What she’s saying is that what is going on actually in the world is that there are all these various items and things, and we imbue it or project on to it various meanings, various interpretations, and we think that the two are identical. And when we do that, then we get — if we don’t understand voidness, that they’re not identical things (we can’t separate the two) — then we suffer tremendously and go to like a hell. Somebody calls us some nasty names, and if we just ignore that and don’t react to that, then there’s no problem. Whereas if we identify it with the meaning that “This person doesn’t like me,” etc., then we’re going to suffer tremendously.
Although what you say is correct and helpful as an understanding, that is only a very partial understanding on the way to understanding voidness. Voidness goes much deeper than that. There are the different Indian Buddhist philosophical systems, and that is one of the positions, but that’s an earlier, less subtle position, but an important position to understand first and become convinced of first. It really isn’t fair to just jump to the most subtle, sophisticated level of understanding, the way that Tsongkhapa’s explaining it here, because if we’re actually going to study voidness, we would have to work through all the different levels of subtlety, because each one is based on the grosser level.
What it’s saying is: things don’t exist as blank cassettes out there that we label. Now, for sure, if you understand like that, that’s OK. I mean, that will help, but it won’t go deeper. Because then you still think “There are these solid things.” But, to use your example: It’s just sounds that this person made, and the sounds are... In one second, there’s only one little sound, and when they say the next part of a word, the first part of it doesn’t even exist anymore. What is it that’s there? There’s nothing solidly standing out there, this sentence that they said, like a blank cassette, which then I can either give meaning to or not give meaning to. There’s a whole basis for it. It doesn’t exist as something solid either. There’s nothing solid. There aren’t blank cassettes.
Participant: Then the step further would be: Why has that person uttered that sound? Where has it come from? What’s happening in them?
Dr. Berzin: Right. That’s very true. That’s very good. Then also we think that what they said just stood by itself, that it was true, but we completely dissociate it, as if just existed by itself, established itself, independent of: this person could be very upset because what happened to them at work today and what’s going on in their home, and all these other things, or what I might have done that triggered this, or some misunderstanding, or whatever. Everything arises based on causes and conditions and understanding labels of things.
But to get back to what this is meaning...
Participant: Another process might be like we’re going to go to a hell because of misunderstanding. I have the notion that whenever the effect is that you go to hell — the Dharma always has like a major thing going on that you have either really misunderstood what’s going on (for example, by killing your mother, something that is really opposed to a beneficial deed) or some understanding of what is going on. When a misunderstanding is worse, you go to the lowest level in the next rebirth. It seems that when you really dissociate from the right view of voidness, that’s more or less the worst thing that you can do.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Andreas is pointing out that of all the — just to summarize it very briefly — that of all the destructive types of actions that we have, what’s called distorted antagonistic thinking (log-lta) is the heaviest, in which not only do we deny what is correct, what is true, but we’re very hostile toward it, not just closed but hostile against it. This is the heaviest type of destructive action because it closes us off to any possible solution to our problems. And part of it is being very stubborn and thinking “I’m right and nobody else knows what they’re talking about. I’m going to put everybody down.” That’s really very heavy.
But none of you are really putting this together with the fact that he says you have no safe direction. For those of you who have studied for a while, what is the actual object of safe direction?
Participant: True pathway mind.
Dr. Berzin: True pathway mind and true cessation of suffering, so the third and the fourth noble truths, on the mental continuum of an arya (Skt. ārya). In other words, we all have this confusion and all the garbage that comes with it, and what direction we’re heading in is that state of that garbage being gone, the true stopping of it, so it never comes back again and the pathway mind, the true pathway mind, (in other words, the understanding that will bring that about) and that state of mind that’s free from it, from this garbage.
This situation — what’s called the true stopping of suffering and its causes and the true pathway of mind (in other words, the true understanding that brings that about and results from it) — that exists on a mental continuum, on a mind-stream; it doesn’t exist up in the air by itself. For those who have gotten rid of all of the garbage and have complete understanding all the time, nonstop — that’s a Buddha. For those who have part of the garbage gone forever and are able to sustain their understanding (not all the time but part of the time) non-conceptually — that’s the arya Sangha. That’s the community of aryas, those that are highly realized beings.
That’s the object of safe direction. That’s what we’re aiming for. If we give up voidness and have a very hostile attitude toward it and say that it’s complete garbage and Buddha didn’t teach it, then — now we have to connect it with what Tsongkhapa was saying in the earlier paragraphs — then we think that there’s no such thing as cause and effect, karmic cause and effect, so it doesn’t matter what we do. We can act destructively. We can do anything that we want to. And doing like that, then that leads, as a consequence, to rebirth in the worst realms. Because we’re so closed and hostile to any correct understanding, we’re going to be in that situation for a very long time, because there’s no way out, and it will take a very long time for the karmic aftermath to wear itself out — it’s not that you’re there forever — you’ll be there for a very long time.
The point is, either you think there’s no way out and you’re very hostile or you’re hostile to the correct medicine. It’s like being sick and here’s the medicine that will cure it, and you say, “No, I’m not going to take that. That’s horrible. It doesn’t work,” and so on, Instead I’m going to go to a witch doctor or something like that, or turn to something else, which is not going to help at all, or go to the wrong medicine. I don’t know — I don’t want to offend people who go to witch doctors, but you know what I mean. It’s rejecting the cure for the disease, the known cure for the disease that works, and not only rejecting it but being hostile toward it — thinking that it hurts the disease rather than helping the disease, so you really don’t want to take it — and then turning to something else which is not going to work at all; it’s just going to make it worse. By turning to something that’s going to make it worse, then you… Especially because it makes you not follow cause and effect, because you think “It doesn’t matter what I do. Nothing really exists.” Then of course you can go out and kill and cheat and do all sorts of destructive things. That leads to the suffering of these worst realms.
You’re giving up safe direction. This is why I like this term safe direction for refuge. It’s not that you’re giving up your savior, but you’re giving up what you need to work on in order to get out of suffering. You’re not just giving it up; you’re rejecting it in a very hostile state of mind because you totally misunderstand it. And not just misunderstand it; you reject it and say, “Nothing matters” — nihilism, that it’s saying the correct view is nihilism. OK?
There’s a little bit of a distinction here. One is to say that “The teachings on voidness are nihilism, therefore nothing matters.” And the other would be — what is being referred to here — that “The correct teachings are nihilism; therefore, we’ll take something else.” Tsongkhapa will differentiate these two views shortly.
Any comments? OK. Conveniently that takes us to the end of the hour, so we will stop here. Next time Tsongkhapa goes into the other wrong conclusion that we can draw from this misunderstanding.
These points, although they’re a little bit subtle, actually are very important, because Tsongkhapa is dealing with a lot of philosophical views that not only were held by various people in Tibet and Indian masters as well, but we can also tend to think in that way and think that Buddhism is teaching that, especially when it comes to teachings about illusion. Buddhism says that everything is like an illusion. It’s not saying that everything is an illusion. Like an illusion means that it appears to exist in a way that doesn’t correspond to reality, like a mirage seems to be real but it’s not. But then Buddhism is not saying that everything is an illusion.
This we find in some other schools, non-Buddhist schools, in India that say, “We’re all one, and it’s an illusion that we’re separated. Just realize that it’s all an illusion and then just merge with the oneness of the universe.” That’s not Buddhism. The problem with that is maintaining ethics and maintaining respect for anybody else. “We’re all one, so I don’t have to care about you, because basically you’re me.” This is a problem. This is a big problem. In Buddhism they say there’s a big difference between killing somebody in a dream and killing an actual person. It’s not that everything is a dream, and you just have to wake up.
This is one possible view that would support a position that nothing is real — real is a loaded term here, but that nothing exists. You could also misunderstand the Chittamatra (Skt. Cittamātra) view as being that – that there’s no external reality, so everything is just appearances in your mind. Which is not what the Chittamatra school is saying (one of the Indian Buddhist philosophical positions), but it’s an easy misunderstanding of it, that everything just exists in my head. What it’s saying is that all appearances are in our mind — it doesn’t mean that everything exists in our mind — we can only relate to appearances, mental holograms, which is true.
Participant: Everyone should judge this on their own because there are different schools and different opinions. One says, “This other school has a false opinion.” The other says, “No. I’m right and you are wrong.” You should judge on your own and form your own opinion.
Dr. Berzin: Yes. This is very good. He says that all these various schools claim that they have the truth and that everybody else is incorrect. This is absolutely the case. He’s saying that we have to judge for ourselves and come to our own opinion, our own conclusion. This is what Buddha said. He said, “Don’t believe anything that I said out of respect for me, but test it as if you were buying gold,” which means that we have to analyze things and not just accept it.
This is why Tsongkhapa said earlier in the text that there are some people that — you know, you just quiet down and, based on instincts from past lives, all of a sudden, you’ve got the correct understanding. But for everybody else, you need to work with logic and reason. You subject all these other views to logic and reason. And then there are many different types: Is it just logical? What is the result of thinking like this? What effect does it have on your behavior and on your experience? and so on. There are many different things that you can evaluate a view on. Based on that, then you come to a conclusion.
As Tsongkhapa points out in the very beginning of the text, a well-qualified teacher, if you have the fortune to be able to work with one on an individual, one-to-one basis — which is quite rare these days, but if you do have that opportunity — that teacher will guide you according to different levels of subtlety and sophistication. Buddha taught many different levels of it, and it’s important not to jump to one that is too subtle before you have the foundation of the ones that are less subtle. It’s like if you don’t understand Newtonian physics, you can’t just jump immediately to Einstein. That’s very important. These other systems are very helpful. It’s not that they are garbage. But in following these other systems, one has to be open to the fact that it could be more subtle. If in following another system, you say that everything else is wrong and have this very, very tight thing, then you’re closing yourself up to getting a deeper and deeper understanding.
For instance, the most basic understanding in terms of this voidness theory is that everything is made of parts: Everything is made of atoms. All material things are made of atoms. There’s nothing solid at all. It appears to us as being solid, but if you analyze it closely it’s made up of atoms; atoms are made up of subatomic particles and force fields, etc. But nevertheless, although this chair is made of these atoms and subatomic particles, and my body is made of them as well, if I sit down, I don’t fall through to the floor; it holds me up. If you can understand that, this voidness of something that’s impossible but nevertheless conventionally things function, and you don’t see a contradiction in that — which is very difficult actually, to really get that, that these two are not contradictory — then you’re ready to go on to an even more subtle level that refutes even a more subtle impossible way but still reaffirms that things work, that things function. Like that. It’s very important to work with that initial level of atoms in the chair and my body, because if we can’t understand that, there’s no way that we could understand anything deeper.
Yes, you work with analysis, you work with logic, and then you work with your experience. If I understand it like that, there’s no such thing as a solid personality that’s always the same from moment to moment. From moment to moment, it changes. Sometimes I’m in this kind of mood; sometimes I’m in that kind of mood. Sometimes this person is in this kind of mood, that kind of mood, and it changes all the time. Nevertheless, I am dealing with the same person — it’s not that they’re completely different people — we can still interact with them. There are many applications of that initial understanding that help us in life to have a much less problematic relation with the world and with others. Then you go deeper and deeper and deeper once it’s really, really digested.
Tsongkhapa pointed out in terms of meditation: How do you make that really on a gut level? You have to know how to meditate on it. You have to know what will help it, what will harm it, what’s the benefit of it, what is the disadvantage, what is it based on, what is the logic of it. And practice seeing things in that way, focusing on things made of parts, made of parts, made of parts, made of parts, and yet functioning. If you can see that, observe that, in things, then you’re convinced that this is the way it is, and then it really starts to sink in. Then automatically when you’re in a situation in which you project “Oh, this person is terrible, and they’re always terrible. They’ve always been terrible. I hate them,” you’re able to deconstruct it. It helps. It may not go deeply enough so that you never get angry again, but it certainly is very, very helpful as a first step. We work like that.
Anyway, now we’ve gone well over the time, so let’s end with the dedication. We think whatever positive force, whatever understanding we’ve gained, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause to reach enlightenment for the benefit of all.