LPA58: Misunderstandings of Voidness

He says that we have the basis for being able to do this. We have the precious human rebirth, we’ve met with the teachings, we have teachers, and we have the intelligence to discriminate between what we need to develop and what we need to get rid of.

We need to actually engage ourselves with the teachings, which means to first of all rely on a teacher for guidance, somebody who knows what are the states of mind that we need to develop, what are the ones that we need to get rid of, doesn’t add anything, doesn’t leave anything out, and knows the proper order for developing them and can suit that to each disciple. That teacher needs to have gone through a similar type of training with his or her own teacher and based on the scriptural texts.

As for how to begin practice, we need to work first of all on our motivating mental framework, which means what we’re aiming for and why. For this the most usual method is following the graded path of lam-rim:

• Working initially for improved future lives so that we continue to have precious human rebirth, since we really dread losing the opportunities that we have.
• On the intermediate level, we work for liberation, having renunciation, the determination to be free from all uncontrollably recurring rebirth.
• And on the advanced level, with bodhichitta we aim for enlightenment so that we can be of best help to everyone.

To develop these motivations, we need to actually meditate on them, which means to build them up as a habit, as a positive habit. For that we need to know: 

• What are the causes (in other words, the steps that we do first to build ourselves up to these states of mind).
• What are all the aspects of it.
• What will help with their development, what will hinder their development. 
• When we gain it, what will it rid us of, what benefits will we gain. 
• When we actually focus with these states of mind that we’re trying to develop, what we focus on, how our mind relates to it. 
• What we do in between sessions to build up more positive force and purify ourselves.

 Tsongkhapa goes through a very thorough discussion of how we meditate. Then we need to maintain those motivations all the time.

Then as for entering tantra practice, Tsongkhapa first of all emphasizes ethical discipline of the vows — the vows for individual liberation, the bodhisattva vows, and the tantric vows — and says that the best basis is as a fully ordained monk or nun. Then when we actually receive empowerment, then again, he emphasizes keeping the vows.

As for the actual practice, generation and complete stage (on the highest class of tantra, anuttarayoga):

• He emphasizes in the generation stage the visualization practices and explains in detail how to visualize ourselves as one of these Buddha-figures and how to deal with visualizing all the figures of the mandala and the building and so forth.
• For the complete stage — Tsongkhapa just introduces it, saying that it’s a meditation on the subtle energy-systems and so on.

Then he goes into the discussion of voidness, that the voidness that we understand in sutra and tantra are the same. Generation and complete stage practices — it’s the same. Even for liberation and enlightenment, the understanding of voidness is the same. And then he goes into the discussion of voidness, which is where we are at the moment in our discussion.

That’s just a very brief review of where we are. We’ve been, in the last weeks, going into more and more detail on the basic teachings on voidness. 

Voidness is an absence. We have all sorts of projections about how things exist. What is absent — voidness is an absence — is that actually our projections correspond to anything real. We saw that this is referring specifically to our projection of how things exist and not necessarily to what things are. That was a fault that Tsongkhapa points out, that if you lump together the conventional truth of how things exist and what they are, putting that together, then if you point out that our projection of how it exists is incorrect and lump it together with what things are, then you are thrown to the position of nihilism. This is a big problem, that you reject all of that; you reject conventional truth. 

This is the mistaken view that Tsongkhapa points out, and the result of that is that you would think that, he says, all bondages and liberations are like bondages and liberations of children of barren women. In other words, the twelve links that keep us in samsara, twelve links of dependent arising, and the reversal of that that would bring liberation, that all of that would have no basis, because nothing exists. There’s no this, there’s no that, so how could you actually work for liberation and enlightenment? We would go even further, to deny cause and effect. That would be another mistake that would happen. And we would also think that all of conventional truth is distorted, we would think that all conceptual cognitions are distorted, and we would be in big trouble. We discussed that quite in full last time.

Now Tsongkhapa goes on — and we had begun our discussion of this a few weeks ago — that there are two further wrong conclusions that we could draw. First would be that if we thought, like above, that the teaching that voidness of all phenomena means that everything lacks a self-establishing nature, and if we understood that in this incorrect way to mean nihilism — in other words, if we took the teaching that the existence of things can be established merely in terms of being mentally labeled or in terms of mental labeling and there’s nothing on the side of the object that by its own power, or in conjunction with labeling, establishes the object — if we thought that that type of view was nihilistic, and we rejected that as being the teaching of voidness and came up with some other teaching on voidness as what we thought voidness would be, we would be forsaking the Dharma. We’d be forsaking prajnaparamita, the far-reaching discriminating awareness.

Tsongkhapa 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, goes in fact to the (worst joyless realm,) Avichi Hell of Uninterrupted Pain.” 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).

I think we discussed this. That was the first of the further wrong views that we could have. 

The main wrong view was to think that the teachings on voidness basically imply that all of conventional truth is false, all of it is distorted, and just in that alone — if you accept that as the teaching on voidness — then you deny cause and effect and so on. There’s the problem that you would deny cause and effect, and so this is a very dangerous view.

But a further thing that you could have is that you might say, “Well, yes, we don’t want to deny cause and effect. And that teaching on voidness actually is nihilism, and that’s not the teaching that Buddha gave.” Then you would assert a position of voidness that actually affirmed truly established existence, and then you would have no real safe direction out of suffering, because you had denied voidness.

Is that clear? Sort of? I went through that quickly. We have been discussing this for a month already, so hopefully it is a little bit clear already. OK? Respond please. Do you need to discuss it more, or do you get a general idea? Pardon?

Participant: Frantic nodding.

Dr. Berzin: Frantic nodding. OK. It’s OK with going on?

The other (wrong conclusion from this misunderstanding would be like this). We might intellectually have taken hold of the position of voidness (as meaning a total absence of self-established existence). And (we might also have accepted that) all attitude trainings on the side of widespread actions, such as taking safe direction, cultivating a bodhichitta aim, meditating on the generation stage, and so on, as well as all actions of listening to and thinking (about the Dharma teachings) are what can be imputed by conceptual thoughts. 

This is saying, “OK, we accept that voidness means that the existence of things is established merely in terms of conceptual thought or mental labeling.” 

But by (incorrectly) regarding all conceptual thoughts as (distorted and thus) functioning to bind us to uncontrollably recurring samsaric existence, we would repudiate, ignore and cast away all excellent (constructive) karmic actions. In so doing, we would only be opening the trapdoor for (us to fall to) one of the worse rebirth states.

This is saying that we accept that things are established only by mental labeling, but since we would incorrectly think that all conceptual thoughts bind you to samsara, then we would, as he says here, repudiate any excellent karmic actions. In other words, if you are engaged in any type of activity, obviously there are conceptual thoughts that are involved with that, particularly the constructive… 

Is there a word you don’t understand?

Participant: Repudiate.

Dr. Berzin: Repudiate means to deny something that’s true. 

You would say that constructive thoughts… Since constructive thoughts, constructive actions, involve conceptual categories… You have a concept of to help somebody or a concept not to lie. There’s sort of a category that we have constructed around a vow for a certain type of behavior. I mean, if you notice in yourself when we are trying to follow some sort of ethical discipline, there’s a category, isn’t there? We learn a vow to avoid, let’s say, lying or to avoid stealing or something like that, and so we have a certain category, don’t we? Then we shape our actions in terms of that category. I think that’s really how it works if we examine ourselves. 

Of course, people get into trouble when they make these categories something very, very solid, and then they become very, very stiff because they have a very rigid concept of this category, of what it would mean, and then they’re not terribly flexible in implementing it into conduct. You find a lot of people are very, very stiff with their ethical discipline. Ethical discipline needs to be strict, but it also needs to be flexible, and this is something that is very hard for a lot of people to understand, actually.

I think if we see the example of the Tibetans and how they follow ethical discipline, we see that they’re able to adapt it to different circumstances. It’s like, for instance, if you’re traveling and you are overnight on a train or on a plane or on a bus — you have to adapt the way that you practice; you have to adapt the way that you do your daily practice. You have to be flexible in terms of that. You have to have skillful means. That doesn’t mean to bend the rules. But really vinaya and these points in terms of ethical discipline are not like laws or rules that you have to follow strictly or that you can argue in a legalistic way like a lawyer — “Are there loopholes around it?” — and so on. One needs to be quite natural and relaxed in following them. Then it works. Then it works.

It’s saying here that you would think that although everything is imputed by conceptual thoughts — conceptual thoughts are all distorted, and so again you would go in a direction of denying conventional truth.

Tsongkhapa says:

These two (mistaken positions) are similar in that both are deep misunderstandings of the meaning of voidness, (bringing) nothing but the false arrogance (of inflatedly feeling we have understood something when in reality we have not). But (there is one big difference). With the former, (by denying that voidness means the total absence of self-established existence,) we are in fact divorced from any causes for having fervent regard for (the true meaning of) voidness (and thus any incentive to study it further and correct our view). 

That first thing, the first wrong view, in which we think that “Teachings on voidness… Nothing is established from its own side is nihilism, so Buddha couldn’t possibly have meant that,” and we throw it out and deny the actual teaching of voidness in terms of mental labeling and so on. Then you have no incentive to try to study and understand that view of mental labeling only more deeply.

With the latter (on the other hand), we have actually still retained the causes for such fervent regard (by at least accepting voidness as the total absence of self-established existence, although misunderstanding its implications). 

With the second wrong view, we accept that voidness means nothing’s established from its own side and everything is established merely in terms of mental labeling. But then we’ve misunderstood that, because then we think that “But all mental labeling is incorrect.” The point being that still you’ve accepted that voidness means nothing established from the side of the object and everything is only established by mental labeling, so you still have interest and the possibility to go further and correct that view; you haven’t rejected that view of mental labeling only completely.

If, by taking voidness invertedly like this (while still accepting it, but with another, more limited meaning), we get burned, despite our fervent regard,

Right? Because that quotation, that even with this you’re going to get burned in some terrible rebirth.

then what need to mention those who, in taking the totally distorted position (of denying any type of voidness), are thereby hostile (to this view)?

It’s bad enough if you accept voidness as nothing established from the side of the object but then misunderstand the implications of that. When he says burned in hell — we’ve discussed this. We’re not thinking in terms of some sort of biblical torture, or something like that, but rather that we don’t have an opponent that can rid us of the disturbing emotions and the destructive behavior that’s based on it, and so that naturally brings about very unfortunate hellish type of situations and suffering that would follow from that. If we get that even with accepting voidness correctly but then misunderstanding the implications, how much worse is it if we reject voidness altogether because we think that the correct teachings on voidness are just nihilism?

Any comments or discussion that you’d like to have on that? You can see that Tsongkhapa is being very subtle here.

Participant: The second point he makes, this last position, meant that although one might not think things exist from their own side inherently — things do not exist on their own inherently, and they are merely labeled by the mind — one thinks that these conceptions by the mind are distorted views, and so… I mean, it’s a bit similar to the other position.

Dr. Berzin: It is. It sounds similar to the one before. But let’s think further. What could be incorrect here? What could be our incorrect understanding? I think one of them, which is very common, is that we think that everything is created by mental labeling. That’s a very common one. If you think that everything is created by mental labeling, then what do you have? You could mentally label things as being truly existent, as existing the way that they appear. You could mentally label anything, couldn’t you? Mentally label unicorns. You can mentally label whatever. You might lump all mental labeling together as being totally arbitrary and think “If I stop mentally labeling, then nothing would exist.”

Participant: It comes down to nihilism.

Dr. Berzin: Comes again to a nihilistic position. That’s what he said: you would repudiate all karmic actions, all constructive karmic behavior. This is why I keep on emphasizing that it’s not that things exist by means of mental labeling. Because if you say it that way, it sounds as though their existence is created by mental labeling. A Buddha doesn’t mentally label, because mental labeling is conceptual, therefore in reality you are left with nihilism, aren’t you? Or a dualism: that to ordinary beings things exist as this and that; to Buddhas they don’t.

Participant: In the first case, it was that they denied the conventional…

Dr. Berzin: This was before these two further misunderstandings. The very, very first one, before we got these two misunderstandings, was that… Let’s go back and say it was that when we said that nothing could be found established from its own side, then we would say that there was no conventional truth. We’re not really linking it with mental labeling. 

I mean, it’s very similar. This is very, very similar. That’s what he says. From this wrong view that there is no conventional truth, then you could misunderstand it further in two ways. You could misunderstand it in terms of saying that “Buddha couldn’t really have meant that, because that’s nihilistic, so that’s not the teachings on voidness.” Or you could say, “Yes, Buddha meant that, and it did mean that conventional truth is all false.” That’s why he says there are two further misunderstandings. In other words, they develop from that main view, main wrong view. You could take it in two directions.

But this understanding of voidness of mental labeling only really has to be, as I said, fine- tuned. Because also there’s this whole thing of “Buddha doesn’t have conceptual thought. A Buddha has only this subtlest clear-light consciousness. That’s more subtle than conceptual thought.” Actually, I think we’ve discussed this already. I mean, how does a Buddha know conceptual thought in general when he knows it on other people’s minds? OK?

Participant: Isn’t this point that conventional truth for a Buddha is established by the usage of limited beings — isn’t that exactly what the other schools are getting at when they say that things are established due to the ignorant minds of ordinary beings?

Dr. Berzin: Let’s see if I can repeat what you just said. In saying that conventional truth is merely what is established for ordinary beings…

Participant: Not merely for ordinary beings but established due to the practices of them.

Dr. Berzin: It’s established due to the practices of ordinary beings. Isn’t this basically going to this position here?

Participant: No. The other way around. Tsongkhapa would probably be very much against the expression that things are established due to ignorant minds.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Tsongkhapa would say that it’s incorrect to say that things are established conventionally by what an ignorant mind, a mind with — a non-Buddha mind, a mind that projects truly established existence. This goes back to the fault that we were discussing, that conventional truth is merely talking about the manner of existence of things being a truly established manner of existence.

According to Tsongkhapa’s teachings, we have pure and impure conventional truth. Pure would be without an appearance of truly established existence. That’s there for a Buddha as well. Now, in terms of communicating about it, then of course you have mental labeling, that things — how do you communicate? You communicate with words and so on, and these label things.

Impure conventional truth, which means with an appearance of truly established existence, can either be accurate or inaccurate, in terms of a dog is a dog or a dog is a cat. But that doesn’t mean that it’s established from the side of the object as a dog or a cat. It’s established also in relation to minds: 

• Is there a convention? 
• Is it contradicted or not contradicted by a mind that validly sees conventional truth? 
• Is it contradicted or not by a mind that validly sees deepest truth? 

This is what the Chittamatra school was leading up to. They were saying that appearances are established by the mind. And in the Prasangika Madhyamaka it’s saying, “The manner of existence is established by the mind.” Chittamatra starts us in the direction of understanding the relation of mind to what we perceive. But again, it’s not that the mind creates the manner of existence of things; it’s that it can only be understood in terms of mind.

Participant: I don’t get the difference.

Dr. Berzin: Between what and what?

Participant: The Chittamatra saying that…

Dr. Berzin: The Chittamatra is saying that there are no externally established phenomena: you can only establish the appearance of things in terms of mind. Appearance is established in relation to a mind. And the Prasangika is saying that the existence is established in relation to a mind. But this is just it. I mean, when we say established, does it mean created? 

Participant: No.

Dr. Berzin: It’s not that it’s created in either case. Chittamatra is not a solipsistic thing, that you just create things in your mind, and nothing actually exists. It’s just saying that you can only establish the appearance of something in relation to it appearing to a mind. 

Participant: What’s the difference between appearance and the existence?

Dr. Berzin: The difference between appearance, appearance as this or that (also appearance of existing like this or that) — how it appears, how the mind perceives — and then existence is how it actually exists.

Participant: But you can only see how it exists if it has an appearance.

Dr. Berzin: Of course, appearance and manner of existence… You can only have the manner of existence of something; you can’t have a manner of existence by itself. If there is a something, it has a manner of existence. Those are inseparable. OK? These are subtle points, very subtle points. 

Tsongkhapa confirms this in terms of quotations. He says:

This is (the point Nagarjuna is making when he) said in The Precious Garland (Rin-chen ’phreng-ba, Skt. Ratnavali, IV 71), “(Consider) someone who has faith (in something) but with a faulty (understanding of it) and another who despises (that same thing and totally rejects it) out of hostility. If it has been explained that even someone with faith gets burned, what need be said about someone with his back turned in hostility?”

That’s just the quotation from Nagarjuna that Tsongkhapa is basing his statement on in the previous paragraph. You have faith in it, but you misunderstand it is bad enough, but to reject something with hostility, then you really are closed to it. I think this is true in general, not just in terms of voidness, isn’t it? Can you think of another example?

Participant: If one accepts no ethics at all, it’s worse than if one accepts ethical rules but has distorted ethical views (like it’s OK to eat my neighbor but not my own family).

Dr. Berzin: OK. He gives the example in terms of ethics, that to accept that there are ethics but to misunderstand it — that it’s OK to eat your neighbor but not to eat your own family — that is better than rejecting all ethics at all. I would not give that kind of example. But with ethics I think you could say that to accept ethics but to put it into practice in a very stiff way is easier to correct than rejecting all ethics whatsoever, isn’t it? At least you accept ethics; you just don’t quite get it correctly.

That’s the point that Tsongkhapa is making here and Nagarjuna is making, but it has to do with a very subtle point concerning voidness. That’s why — I mean, what’s the implication of this? The implication is that even at a beginning level, if we get a vaguely correct idea of voidness but our fine understanding of it is false, which inevitably it will be, that at least we have accepted voidness and we have the general idea of what it is, and then we can work on correcting it, because we have belief that voidness must be the way that things are and we just want to get a clearer understanding of it. 

The same thing about rebirth: If we accept rebirth but we don’t quite understand it — you think it’s a soul going into future lives — still you would work to benefit future lives, and so that’s not bad. Whereas if you reject completely ethics or voidness or rebirth or any of these things, then you’d never take any interest in trying to figure out what it is. 

That indicates really a very important point of how we study. Which means that it’s OK to work with an incomplete understanding, at least if you have confidence that this is on the right track and are open to trying to get a deeper understanding. That’s the way. That’s the only way, isn’t it?

Participant: There are many ethical norms. You can’t find an ethics where you can say, “This is correct,” because these norms are flexible and differ from society to society.

Dr. Berzin: She’s saying: Is there an absolute ethics — that ethics also are relative to different societies. That’s hard to say.

Participant: You can never say that this is the correct ethic.

Dr. Berzin: That this is the correct ethic. It depends on what we understand by ethic, I suppose. Ethical discipline is to refrain from acting negatively. Maybe we’re not talking about that. If you’re talking about rules of discipline, like vows and stuff like that — or what is destructive and what is nondestructive? There are things which are naturally destructive, like killing, and things that are proscribed for a specific group for a specific purpose, like monks and nuns not eating after noon. 

Even within naturally destructive things, the action could be destructive, like killing, but the motivation could be very positive, like to save others. You’re willing to take on the destructive action yourself. This is what I mean by being flexible. Also, if you look in the vinaya, it says there are times when the necessity overrides the prohibition. The classic example being a woman is drowning, and although a monk is not supposed to touch a woman, obviously he would be stupid to just stand there and let the woman drown without trying to pull her out of the water. This is what I mean by being flexible. You have to apply the ethics in different situations and accord it to the situation. 

Now, there are certain things which are only for societies and differ from one society to another. This is your point. Again, I think it’s very, very difficult to clearly differentiate what is naturally destructive and why would it be naturally destructive regardless of society. For that you have to look at the definition of destructive (mi-dge-ba). Vasubandhu has five categories, Asanga has twenty categories, of what are destructive phenomena. But I think the most important criterion is that it’s motivated by disturbing emotions. If something is motivated by disturbing emotions and not just by unawareness of reality — because positive karmic actions are without the gross disturbing emotions but still would have unawareness of reality — then regardless of the society, it’s going to be destructive. Then one has to see: Is it within the realm of possibility for me to avoid this completely or not? Is it something that one takes a vow to avoid? Or is it something that is beyond my capacity, to vow not to do that? 

It’s like avoiding inappropriate sexual behavior as opposed to celibacy. Any type of sexual behavior is going to involve longing-desire and attachment, so ultimately you have to get rid of that in order to gain liberation — liberation is beyond biology — liberation from uncontrollably recurring rebirth. If you’re not able to give up sexual behavior completely, which means you’re not able to give up that desire, then avoiding inappropriate sexual behavior means I’m going to set certain borders, certain limits, and not just do anything that longing-desire would propel me to do, and I’m going to try to lessen how much I act out longing-desire. 

That’s the point here. Eating after noon — it could be for attachment to food, that’s true, but in and of itself it’s a neutral act. There’s that distinction that’s there. 

Of course, one could argue, in terms of society, that certain norms are… Let’s say a society…

Participant: You have Christian ethics or Muslim ethics or…

Dr. Berzin: There are Christian ethics, Muslim ethics. There’s sharia. There are all sorts of things. Yes. I mean, those are other ethical codes, and whether or not they are… Like eating pig, for instance.

Participant: Having four women, four wives.

Dr. Berzin: Right, having four wives. Tibetans have four wives or four husbands as well. Is that against the basic sexual ethics? One has to see: Is it taking the wife of somebody else or the husband of somebody else? No, it’s not. 

This is the whole argument that you have. It’s a discussion. It’s not an easy one. You have the basic Buddhist ethics, and then you have the ethics of the society that you live in, whether we’re talking about the religious ethics of that society (if it’s a non-Buddhist society) or the legal code of the country, the laws. 

Is it against Buddhist ethics — is it destructive — to cross the street on a red light and not wait for green?

Participant: If a four-year-old is looking, yes. If a four-year-old is watching you crossing the street.

Dr. Berzin: If a four-year-old watches you crossing the street on the red light, that’s destructive. If nobody’s there, it doesn’t matter — when there are no cars; it’s the middle of the night. 

It’s an extreme example, but why is it destructive when there’s a four-year-old watching you cross the street on red? From a Buddhist point of view, why is it destructive? Is it based on a disturbing emotion? Is your crossing the street based on a disturbing emotion? And if so, which one?

Participant: You want to cross. It’s desire to go quickly.

Dr. Berzin: Desire. If you didn’t have desire to cross the street, you would never cross the street even when it was green.

Participant: No, I think it’s impatience.

Dr. Berzin: Impatience. OK. So, impatience. You just want to go. But this isn’t talking about the situation when there’s the four-year-old.

Participant: You don’t care.

Dr. Berzin: You don’t care — naivety to think that your behavior is not going to have an effect on the child, that it’s not going to teach the child a bad habit that could cause the child to get hurt. It’s naivety of cause and effect.

You see, I think this is the direction that one has to go in terms of ethical issues if we’re Buddhists, is to think “What would make it destructive?” and then see: Am I really striving for liberation, really striving to get rid of all disturbing emotions? If I were, I would practice celibacy, as a start. Am I not yet at that level? If I am, can I at least set certain limits and not just act like a dog in the street?

I think the important thing is setting limits in terms of how far — how often, how much — are we going to act out our disturbing emotions. And that could extend well beyond the realm of what’s defined by Buddhist ethics — the vinaya code, the various vows. Like, for instance, am I going to exercise restraint from acting out longing-desire at the table at the buffet? Or you could have an unlimited amount of food. 

Participant: Mmm. That’s my problem.

Dr. Berzin: That’s my problem as well. It’s very difficult at the buffet not to want to taste everything and not to go back for a second plate and not to go to the dessert table after you’re already completely full from the main meal, isn’t it? I’m not successful, so don’t look at me in terms of that. But I’m saying that this is how you start to apply ethical thinking from a Buddhist point of view, is: Am I going to set some limits on how much I act out my disturbing emotions? Do you follow?

Participant: But that is also very generally acknowledged.

Dr. Berzin: It’s generally acknowledged? But I really wonder. I really wonder. You would avoid going for a second healthy helping because you are on a diet, and usually the diet can be sometimes for health reasons, but often it’s for esthetic reasons — I want to look better — so you’re not really… I mean, the Buddhist thing would be you don’t go back for second helpings because you don’t want to give a complete free leash to your disturbing emotions. That’s not the way that ordinary people think.

Participant: It’s one of the cardinal sins.

Dr. Berzin: One of the cardinal sins is gluttony. How many people think in terms of that though?

Participant: Nobody.

Dr. Berzin: Nobody.

Participant: But it existed as an idea.

Participant: But it was a totally different concept behind it. They weren’t thinking about their disturbing emotions. It’s more like “OK, I do this — and then Hell. Ooh, no. That doesn’t sound good.”

Dr. Berzin: Well, yeah. What you’re pointing out is right. Avoiding the cardinal sin of gluttony comes from a completely different conceptual framework in which basically the body is seen as bad and evil and the road to Hell. If you indulge the body in any of its carnal pleasures — carnal means body, doesn’t it — then that’s the road to Hell. This is a very different thing. 

Obviously, Buddhism would also teach — but with quite a different conceptual framework — that if you completely act out the disturbing emotions, that does lead to hellish rebirths. But not as a punishment. It’s not a punishment for being bad. It’s just a consequence of the more you act out disturbing emotions, the more problems you create for yourself.

I think that to aim for liberation sincerely is quite difficult. Really to have the determination to be free from the disturbing emotions — wow — and to really put effort into acting on that, that’s quite extraordinary.

Here we have a good example as well of what these passages are about. If we accept that that is the road that we want to go on, that’s certainly better than rejecting it. If we accept it but misunderstand it, in terms of being very, very stiff, and frightened that “I’m not going to be perfect,” or misunderstand it in terms of saying, “It doesn’t mean really the whole thing, to give up everything, just certain things,” or if we think of it in terms of reward and punishment — this is a misunderstanding of it, but at least we’re going in that direction, the correct direction. All right?

To go on:

(Nagarjuna) has also said (in this same work, II 19-20),

That’s The Precious Garland.

“This teaching (of voidness), when wrongly understood, can cause the unlearned to become ruined in fact. For, by their (misunderstanding) like this, they sink into a mire of nihilism (denying everything). Moreover, because of their having taken (voidness) incorrectly, these fools with the pride of (thinking they are) clever go headfirst to the Avichi Hell of Uninterrupted Pain as they have a nature unfit (now for Buddhahood) because of their rejection (of the correct view of voidness).”

This is just reaffirming what Tsongkhapa has said, that if you misunderstand voidness, the teachings on voidness, you can go to nihilism. Or if you have somewhat of an understanding of it but you think that your understanding is the full understanding and correct and you don’t go further, that also is going to be a problem.

Tsongkhapa goes on:

As for the way to develop an unmistaken understanding, (Nagarjuna) has said in his Commentary on Bodhichitta (Byang-chub sems-’grel, Skt. Bodhichittavivarana, 88), “Anyone who, in understanding this voidness of phenomena, can thereby demonstrate (the conventional existence of) cause and effect is more amazing than amazing and more wondrous than wondrous.”

Also (Matrcheta/Ashvaghosha) 

Those are different names of the same author.

has said in Praises Extolling the Praiseworthy (bsNgags-par ’os-pa bsngags-pa’i bstod-pa, Skt. Varnanarhavarnanastotra), “You do not act while discarding voidness (as irrelevant), but harmonize it in fact with conventional existence.”

This is the whole point. If we can, in understanding voidness, reaffirm our conviction in cause and effect and harmonize it with conventional existence, not just say that conventional existence is the way that ordinary people see things and deepest truth is the way that Buddhas see things… One has to be very careful in that type of formulation. If you define conventional existence purely as true existence and that the way that a Buddha sees things would be a combination of voidness and things being this and that, OK. But still, you get into a bit of trouble here in terms of the two truths and how you talk about the inseparability of the two truths.

Tsongkhapa, then, redefined what we mean by inseparability of the two truths (bden-pa gnyis-med) in Madhyamaka. Not that conventional from ordinary people point of view and deepest from a Buddha’s point of view but, rather, conventional in terms of what things are, how they appear, and the deepest in terms of how they exist. In doing that, then it becomes a little bit easier to understand and accept cause and effect.

We’ve had in the past quite a bit of a discussion about how:

• Because cause and effect works, things are void of true existence.
• Because things are void of true existence, cause and effect functions.

Explain to me that. How do you understand that? Do you understand that? How would you explain it?

Participant: The first one is quite easy. Because things depend on each other, they don’t have an inherent nature from their own side, so therefore they are…

Dr. Berzin: OK. Wait a second. Because things depend on each other, they don’t have an inherent nature on their own side. Couldn’t you have an inherent nature of being dependent on other things? What do you mean by inherent? This is the important point here.

Participant: Something established from its own side.

Dr. Berzin: Something established from its own side. Couldn’t it be established from its own side that it depends on other things?

Participant: No, then it’s not established from its own side. That’s a contradiction in itself.

Dr. Berzin: Then it’s not established from its own side; it’s a contradiction in itself, you say. Explain.

Participant: If one thing is in contact with something else or depending on something else, then there has to be a connection between them.

Dr. Berzin: If something depends on something else, there has to be a connection with it.

Participant: They can’t be isolated; otherwise, they couldn’t have a connection. Therefore, if there’s a connection, then they can’t be isolated. They are empty of these isolated states of existence.

Dr. Berzin: Because they are connected, they are devoid of an isolated state of existence. Can you explain what would be an isolated state of existence? What does that mean?

Participant: That means that there’s some sort of core or whatever that doesn’t change, that isn’t affected by other things.

Dr. Berzin: That there’s a core that’s not affected or changed by other things. What about if things were blank cassettes and you could just print on it with mental labeling what it is? Isn’t that changing?

Participant: The blank cassette?

Dr. Berzin: Yeah. If things were established from their own side as a blank cassette, as a thing.

Participant: I don’t get what you mean.

Dr. Berzin: I’m just trying to refine your understanding.

Participant: What would be a blank cassette?

Dr. Berzin: A blank cassette, that there’s an object out there and I can call it good, you can call it bad, I can call it a table, you can call it a chair — but there’s a thing that is the basis for it that could be called (mentally labeled) various things, even if you assert that it could only be mentally labeled things that it can function as.

Participant: Yes, but still this blank cassette is not independent of the rest of the world, so this problem doesn’t exist.

Dr. Berzin: The blank cassette is not independent of the rest of the world.

Participant: Even if you call it a blank cassette or however you describe it… I don’t see that there’s a difference if I call it blank cassette or if I call it dog or whatever.

Dr. Berzin: Whether you call it a blank cassette, or you call it a dog or whatever, blank cassette would be a basis within the object.

I think the word that is being left out here is power. Power. Something is established by the power of something on the side of the object. Its existence is established by the power of something on the side of the object, as opposed to its existence is being established… Now, another way of translating it is influence. You don’t have to think of it as being so active as the word power might suggest. Things are established as this or that under the influence — not under the influence of just itself. 

How does that relate to cause and effect? Does something exist as a cause by its own power as being a cause? No.

Participant: You need an effect for it to be a cause.

Dr. Berzin: OK. Something can only exist as a cause in relation to an effect.

Participant: The cause is dependent on the effect.

Dr. Berzin: The cause is dependent on the effect. Does the effect exist though at the time of the cause?

Participant: The effect is dependent on the cause.

Dr. Berzin: The effect is dependent on the cause. At the time of the cause, does the effect exist?

Participant: No.

Dr. Berzin: No. How can it be under the influence of something that doesn’t exist?

Participant: One can label it a cause because one expects it will have a result.

Dr. Berzin: You could label it as a cause because you expect that it will have a result. 

Participant: You infer it.

Dr. Berzin: You infer. What about if a result doesn’t follow for some reason?

Participant: Then it’s still the cause for some other result.

Dr. Berzin: It’s the cause for some other result? But isn’t that after the fact that you call it the result? At the time of the cause, there’s no result. At the time of the result, there’s no cause. I mean, let’s not get into the twenty different types of causes and so on, that some are simultaneous, etc., like the elements that something is made of exist at the same time as the thing. But aside from that. This is why we need a very good understanding of cause and effect.

At the time of the cause, the result doesn’t exist, so what is it being labeled a cause as? What can it be labeled as a cause as? I mean, are you talking about coming outside of time and then looking at it and saying, “This is cause and this is effect”?

Participant: Cause is just a mental label.

Dr. Berzin: Cause is just a mental label.

Participant: But it is not the cause in itself from its own side…

Dr. Berzin: Right, it’s not a cause from its own side.

Participant: Independent of an effect.

Dr. Berzin: Of an effect. Even if the effect has not yet happened.

Participant: It’s only in relationship to something else.

Dr. Berzin: OK. So, it’s a cause in relation to… Does it have a potential for giving rise to an effect? 

Participant: Yeah, but not an inherent one.

Dr. Berzin: But not an inherent one sitting inside it.

Participant: Yes, but it still has a potential.

Dr. Berzin: It has a potential. Could it have a potential to give rise to a number of different effects?

Participant: Almost infinite, probably.

Dr. Berzin: Infinite. Not infinite. A rice seed couldn’t give rise to a dog.

Participant: It depends on how far you look in the causal line.

Dr. Berzin: It depends how far you look in the causal line? The dog eats the rice, etc. Please. You know what I mean. A rice seed can’t give rise to wheat. It depends on the conditions what the result will be. It depends on the cause and the conditions. That’s not on the side of the cause — the conditions. We have to get a little bit more precise.

A cause has the ability to give rise to a result, doesn’t it? It’s not that the result is existing already in the cause in some potential form ready to pop out. That was the Samkhya position. It’s not set — it’s not fixed, it’s not determined — what the result will be and a Buddha knows.

Participant: You can’t label something cause if it’s not in relation to an effect.

Dr. Berzin: Right. You can’t label it as a cause if it’s not in relation to an effect. That’s why I’m saying: When do you label it? At the time of the cause, can it be labeled a cause?

Participant: But I think this is another discussion. It’s another point.

Dr. Berzin: This is another point. But what I’m saying is that how cause and effect establishes voidness, and voidness establishes cause and effect — how they are synonymous. I mean, all these quotations saying “If you can really understand that you are more amazing than amazing” indicate that it’s not so simple, isn’t it? 

Participant: That they are synonymous isn’t a problem for me. That a causal world only makes sense if you consider voidness, I think is a pretty good point.

Dr. Berzin: Right. A causal world only makes sense if you consider voidness. Otherwise, as you say, things couldn’t be related to each other. I mean things would be stuck related to each other.

Participant: Can you really strictly say that voidness proves or implies — directly proves cause and effect?

Dr. Berzin: Can you say that voidness directly proves cause and effect? Isn’t there the line of reasoning of dependent arising for establishing voidness? 

Participant: Yeah, but that’s the other way round. You couldn’t say, “Because things are void, there is a direct conclusion that they are…”

Dr. Berzin: Because things dependently arise… Dependently arise is two levels: conventionally dependently arise (that’s cause and effect) as in the twelve links, and deeply dependently arise in terms of mental labeling.

Participant: That’s for sure. That’s fine. Because things dependently arise on these various levels, they are void. You can say that. But because they are void, they are dependently arisen? I think that’s harder to have that direct chain.

Dr. Berzin: He says it’s harder to have “Because they’re void, they’re dependently arising.”  But Tsongkhapa makes this point in other texts. You could say that voidness refutes truly established existence and dependent arising refutes nihilism. But then Tsongkhapa asserts it the other way around; he says voidness refutes nihilism and dependent arising refutes positivism (that things inherently exist). The line of dependent-arising — because things are devoid of truly established existence, that means that they actually do function; they’re not nothing.

Participant: That’s like going around a corner, I find. You say, “Because they are void, they aren’t truly existent, therefore they can function.”

Dr. Berzin: Because they are devoid of true existence they can function.

Participant: They would be static.

Dr. Berzin: They would be static. And because they function, they’re devoid of truly established existence.

Participant: My point is that voidness is a non-implicative negation.

Dr. Berzin: Voidness is a non-implicative negation (med-dgag)? But that’s irrelevant to this. Non-implicative means that after the object of negation has been negated, that what’s left over is — in the wake (bkag-shul), literally — not so much that the basis is left over, whether the basis is left over, but what’s left over after the negation is something. But that has nothing to do with logical implications.

Participant: Yes, but my point is that in the wake of dependent arising, you can understand voidness. In the wake of voidness, you can’t, in the same manner, have the object of dependent-arising present in your mind, even though it’s implied by that.

Dr. Berzin: He’s saying that when you have dependent… No, no, no. He’s saying that when you focus on voidness, you can’t have the basis appear in your mind. But otherwise, then you couldn’t have a Buddha cognize the two truths simultaneously. We can’t, because if there’s an appearance of conventional truth, there’s an appearance of a truly established conventional truth. Only with the clear-light mind, which doesn’t make appearances of truly established existence, can you have both truths appearing simultaneously. But until you’re a Buddha you can’t have that all the time.

Participant: Yeah, but we’re not Buddhas yet. For us…

Dr. Berzin: Yeah, but we’re not talking about what appears in your cognition. We’re talking about logic here. I mean, how do we understand cause and effect and voidness?

Participant: But voidness implies the feasibility of cause and effect. Voidness proves cause and effect.

Dr. Berzin: Voidness proves that cause and effect works.

Participant: That I find is a very strong statement.

Dr. Berzin: That’s a very strong statement. Well…

Participant: If it wasn’t void, it would be static.

Dr. Berzin: If it weren’t void, it couldn’t function.

Participant: I think that that’s clear.

Participant: What is the alternative? If there is a point that doesn’t imply cause and effect, then what else could there be? Staticness. Those are the only two alternatives. 

Participant: Yes, that’s clear.

Dr. Berzin: Jorge is adding: What are the alternatives here? I think the point is either it’s truly established, or it’s not truly established. But your problem here is with the word prove. Because things lack inherent existence, because things lack being established from the power of their own side, the fact that they are established at all means that they are established by the power of other things. The fact that they are established by the power of other things means dependent arising either in terms of cause and effect from the conventional point of view, conventional truth, or mental labeling in terms of deepest truth. It does establish it.

Participant: But there’s the acceptance of establishing the things at all.

Dr. Berzin: You have to accept that things are established at all because voidness eliminates the extreme of nihilism. That’s the proof.

Participant: A better word to use is shows. That shows it.

Dr. Berzin: That shows it. 

Participant: It demonstrates.

Dr. Berzin: That demonstrates it.

Participant: You mean it like in a mathematical way.

Dr. Berzin: Right. In terms of mathematical proof? The immediate thought that comes to my mind is that Prasangika doesn’t use the same type of line of reasoning but proves in terms of absurd conclusions. If things were not void of truly established existence, they would not exist at… Rather than just talk off the top of my head without having thought this out, and since class is over in terms of time, why don’t we continue this discussion next time and think about it a little bit more clearly? But these are very good points. This is what one needs to work with, and by discussing it in a group like this, you can go much more deeply than just thinking about it yourself. Good.

Let’s end here with a dedication. We think whatever positive force has come from this, whatever understanding, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause to reach enlightenment for the benefit of all.