We’ve been going through this text of Tsongkhapa in which he gives many wonderful points concerning how to actually put into practice the complete path of sutra and the anuttarayoga class of tantra. Without going through a review of the entire text, we are on the discussion of voidness that Tsongkhapa has near the end of his text, and Tsongkhapa has been speaking about how to harmonize the two truths. In this, Tsongkhapa was quoting various texts. For instance, Nagarjuna in his Commentary on Bodhichitta, where he said, “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.”
In the last paragraph that we had, there was another quotation:
Also (Matrcheta/Ashvaghosha) 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.”
Then Tsongkhapa summed up. He said:
Thus, as has been said (in these two quotations), we must see that no matter what (object our minds) have taken as the focal aim for our grasping for truly established existence, what is conceptualized (by that mind, namely truly established existence as that object’s actual mode of existence) has not even an atom (of existence). Then, taking (this) fact of reality as a (causal) condition (to prove cause and effect), we must thereby find the deepest conviction that (conventionally) “this comes about from that” with respect to everything such as bondage and liberation, karmic actions and their effects, and so on.
Last time we explained this in quite some detail in terms of a presentation of cause and effect, and we spoke of this in terms of karma and karmic actions, karmic forces, and how we have no-longer-happenings (’das-pa) of these causes and tendencies for the results and not-yet-happenings (ma-’ong-pa) of the results and all of these sorts of things.
There was a question that was asked in terms of the previously-having-perished (zhig-pa) with respect to the cause, which is equivalent to the no-longer-happening of the cause in the Prasangika (Skt. Prāsaṅgika) system. Tsongkhapa had asserted that this is a nonstatic phenomenon (mi-rtag-pa). That previously-having-perished one moment ago gives rise to previously-having-perished two moments ago, and that gives rise to previously-having-perished three moments ago, and so on. After the perishing of a phenomenon, which causes that having-perished to arise, the previously-having-perished of a cause goes on forever. The question was asked: Why does Tsongkhapa in his Prasangika system make such a point of this being a nonstatic phenomenon whereas in the other tenet systems it’s asserted as being static?
Having looked through all my notes and all my articles, I have to confess that I couldn’t find the answer. Tsongkhapa undoubtedly explains this and gives all the logical reasons in some or one of his texts, but I don’t know where that is, so that’s something that will need to be asked to a qualified geshe. Let’s leave that there and go on with the text.
Tsongkhapa writes:
Concerning these two (points),
These two points of voidness and nevertheless this comes about from that.
when we have taken the first part (of this realization, namely the fact that everything is devoid of truly established existence) to be on the side of what is reasonable in our own (system of assertions), we need not (make excuses) about the latter (concerning the conventional truth of the functioning of everything), feeling uncomfortable with it in our own system and therefore ascribing (conventional truth to be true only) to the face of others or on the face of deception.
Tsongkhapa here is referring to the position of the non-Gelug schools that came before him that made the difference between conventional truth (kun-rdzob bden-pa) and deepest truth (don-dam bden-pa) from the point of view of the mind that cognizes things:
- Conventional truth is how things appear to a non-Buddha, someone who has not yet become enlightened, and the deepest truth is how things appear to a Buddha. That was in keeping with the fact that to someone who is not a Buddha, they have grasping for truly established existence and the appearance of truly established existence — that this is inextricably tied up with the appearance of things. And how things exist, what they appear to exist as, to a non-Buddha would be deceptive and therefore not true.
That’s conventional truth. They take that quite literally as being not true from a Buddha point of view but true — seemingly true — to a non-Buddha, non-enlightened being (a limited being, I should say).
- And the deepest truth, which is both how things appear and how they exist (according to this system), together — these would be in a pure way, and that would appear only to a Buddha.
This is what Tsongkhapa is objecting to.
Then he says:
When it comes about that we can see how both (parts of this realization) are reasonable to our own system, then something truly amazing and wondrous has occurred. This is because we will have achieved the skillful means of understanding deeply how what appears as contradictory to ordinary persons is (in fact) non-contradictory. Therefore, with a (correct) understanding of voidness, we must come to (the conclusion) that the presentations of uncontrollably recurring (samsaric) existence and liberated (nirvanic) existence are reasonable (and function).
I think that the main point to think about in this whole discussion here (that Tsongkhapa will go on to substantiate with quotations) is why would Tsongkhapa object to the two truths being presented like this, in this way that it was previously, that conventional truth is how it appears to a limited mind and deepest truth is how it appears to an enlightened mind. What is the danger of that presentation? I mean, obviously it can work as a presentation, because then it also implies that nothing is established on the side of the object, that it’s established in terms of the mind, in terms of the appearance of the mind. You can synthesize that, or put that together, harmonize that, with mental labeling and so on. But what’s the problem with this? What’s the danger?
Participant: It sounds exclusive, no? One truth is exclusive to one type of being, and the other one is exclusive to another type of being.
Dr. Berzin: Right. It sounds exclusive that one truth is exclusive to one type of mind and the other truth is exclusive to the other type of mind. Mind you, the difference between these two minds is whether… I mean, there we speak in terms of the basic nature of the mind being unstained. If it’s stained, then it’s a limited mind, and you see or cognize conventional truth. If it’s unstained, then you see deepest truth. It was always the case that there was this deepest truth.
Participant: It brings up the point that conventional truth is false.
Dr. Berzin: Right. It emphasizes the fact that conventional truth is false. That’s true.
Participant: It sounds like an enlightened being stops perceiving that only to be able to help others who perceive what he or she knows is wrong.
Dr. Berzin: Right. A Buddha would perceive that… I mean, to a Buddha-mind, to the mind of a Buddha, conventional truth then would not appear generated from a Buddha’s mind, but a Buddha would see that this is how it appears to others’ minds, and so the only reason for dealing with conventional truth is to help others, isn’t it? Somehow, it’s difficult to put the two truths together in an inseparable type of way.
Also, I think personally that the problem here is that it tends to place deepest truth as some sort of transcendent realm, some transcendent thing, which is sort of way up there and quite separate from our limited perception, and as a transcendent realm it almost seems beyond our grasp. Although there is a lot of emphasis on that it’s only based on the fleeting stains and so on. But I’m just… There’s a difference between saying that the other position is wrong, which of course you might come to in a debate, but if you want to see how all the various presentations from the different Tibetan traditions fit together harmoniously — sort of a grand unified theory, as His Holiness is always trying to formulate — then I think that one has to look in terms of what are the dangers that could happen if you think in this way. I think that’s the danger, that it really puts a Buddha out of our reach. Although then, as I say, they always put it in terms of “But in your Buddha-nature that’s what is there, that’s what you see.” It seems to me a little bit hard to harmonize. What do you think?
Participant: I think that’s what Jorge meant also with exclusive. It’s exclusive and far away.
Dr. Berzin: Exclusive. Far away. I’m just saying that in other words in transcendent.
Participant: From one angle, I get the same feeling, that it’s like something completely different, and in a sense this discards or devalues our common way of speaking about things and dealing with things. But on the other hand, sometimes I feel that the Gelug perspective is also a bit radical in emphasizing that things are really like we perceive them. We have a very narrow way of organizing things cognitively, putting them into these boxes, as you say. A Buddha doesn’t depend on these boxes for himself. He can use our limited ideas to communicate, but I don’t think that he needs such a primitive way of cognizing things and of modeling things to organize knowledge for himself. Maybe it’s also an emphasis of that fact, which of course is very hard or quite impossible to imagine
Dr. Berzin: Right. Christian is saying — perhaps it got recorded, but let me just summarize — that yes, he agrees that the danger, on the one hand, of this non-Gelug position is a sort of a distance and exclusiveness of the two truths. But on the other hand, the danger of Tsongkhapa’s position — and I think to be fair one has to point out a danger of Tsongkhapa’s position — is making conventional truth a little bit too concrete.
Now, I would refine what you said. You said that conventional truth is in categories and Buddha doesn’t need to cognize things in categories — only uses categories to communicate with others. Gelugpa would agree that a Buddha’s cognition is non-conceptual and doesn’t have conceptual thought at all, therefore a Buddha doesn’t — even from a Gelugpa point of view — doesn’t use categories to cognize things.
What is the conventional truth of categories? Now you start to appreciate that Sautrantika (Skt. Sautrāntika) talks about objective entities (rang-mtshan), metaphysical entities (spyi-mtshan), so categories are metaphysical. And the Chittamatra (Skt. Cittamātra) would make them totally conceptual, totally imaginary type of things. There are many ways of approaching this type of thing. Do these categories exist at all in terms of a Buddha? You see, this is a problematic area. The categories aren’t findable anywhere, are they? They’re only imputable. Can a Buddha impute a category? I don’t know. If a Buddha imputes a category, does that mean that a Buddha is thinking conceptually?
Participant: He can impute a category. I mean, he can at least do what we can do, so I think he should be able to impute a category.
Participant: Or apply it.
Dr. Berzin: Or apply it.
Participant: But he does not need to.
Dr. Berzin: Right. He doesn’t need to, but he can. Yeah, I think this is a very difficult point.
Conceptual thought always is with grasping for truly established existence. It not only gives an appearance of truly established existence — it is with grasping for truly established existence. This is a general Gelugpa assertion.
Participant: I was reading this interesting book last week about neuroscience.
Dr. Berzin: OK, let me repeat. She’s reading a very interesting book on neuroscience.
Participant: They argued that to not be omniscient, to limit our input data for the brain, to filter out, these filters…
Dr. Berzin: What filters?
Participant: To filter things out. Not to be omniscient but really to narrow down the input for processing.
Dr. Berzin: Right. She’s saying that for the brain to function in order to process information, you need to limit it. You limit it into categories.
Participant: No. To limit the whole thing from knowledge.
Dr. Berzin: Yeah, but I don’t know the complete sentence of what you’re saying.
Participant: Sensory input. The amount of sensory input that actually goes into the senses and how much, on a conscious level, you perceive. But this, in a way, is categorization, because what do you filter out? It’s a form of categorization.
Participant: They said this is an advantage.
Participant: Autistic people have exactly this problem, that they cannot do this.
Dr. Berzin: Basically, what she’s saying is that for us to function, we need to filter out what is relevant, and we can’t really process all the information that would come in. This is how the brain needs to function. And autistic people don’t have that ability; they are overwhelmed with sense information and can’t process it.
Participant: They also argued that to have this frame of self-concept is also very useful.
Dr. Berzin: Right. They also say to have a framework of a self-concept is very useful. Buddhism says that too. There is a conventional me.
Now the real question that comes to my mind is: Of the five types of deep awareness (ye-shes lnga) which a Buddha has, one of them is equalizing awareness (mnyam-nyid ye-shes). Does equalizing awareness necessarily mean cognizing things in categories conceptually as apples?
Participant: That’s a hard one.
Dr. Berzin: That’s a hard one. What’s an example of a Buddha’s equalizing awareness, equalizing deep awareness? Can anybody think of an example?
Participant: You see two elephants in two pictures of elephants, and…
Dr. Berzin: There are two pictures of elephants, that they’re both elephants. No. For an omniscient mind, what’s an example?
Participant: Isn’t the point always emphasized that it’s without attachment or aversion?
Dr. Berzin: It’s without attachment or aversion.
Participant: They are both sentient beings, or limited beings, and you have equal affection.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Now here it is, that one example would be focusing on all beings and having equal love and compassion for everyone, and equal understanding, etc. Is that based on a category? I don’t think so. I mean, there’s a reason we are all equal — everybody wants to be happy, nobody wants to be unhappy — but I don’t think a Buddha needs to rely on that.
Or seeing that everything is equally void of truly established existence. That would be equalizing awareness also, wouldn’t it?
Participant: But then you still have to form a category sentient beings and nonsentient beings.
Dr. Berzin: You would have to form a category sentient beings or nonsentient beings. Does a Buddha have love for a rock? I don’t think so.
Participant: Then he has to form a category. This is an object which is worthy of being equally loved and this other one isn’t.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Does a Buddha have to form a category? I must admit that I don’t know. There are these different types of exclusion, this thing about nothing other than. Remember we had our discussion of nothing-other-than’s (ma-yin-pa-las log-pa)? I must say I’ve forgotten the detail of is a category a — I don’t think a category is a nothing-other-than the object that’s a specifier. But there was something about these… What is a category? This becomes a very difficult question. What actually is a category? I think a category is an affirmation phenomenon (sgrub-pa). It’s not a negation phenomenon (dgag-pa). I don’t know. Now we’re just speculating, and obviously people who are listening to this are getting completely lost and bored. I don’t know.
This is what I was saying. In order to focus equal love on all limited beings, does a Buddha have to exclude rocks and nonsentient beings in order to be able to focus on the limited beings? Is that a conceptual process?
Participant: I think this formulation in German is very nice: You can differentiate without separating.
Dr. Berzin: Right. In German you speak in terms of differentiating without separating. Differentiating without separating. Yes, but this is — that’s the same thing. Distinguishing is that there’s an individual characteristic. The thing is not established by the power of that individual characteristic or defining mark — it’s not there on the side of the object — but nevertheless the individuality is maintained by an individual characteristic mark. I mean, it’s very difficult to… We’ve said this over and again: By definition you can’t imagine what non-conceptual would be. You have no concept of what non-conceptual is.
Participant: Let’s practice and wait until we recognize it.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Let’s practice and wait until… Let’s get back to our topic, conventional truth.
Conventional truth. Tsongkhapa was saying that we’re not denying this comes from that or something is this and something is that. You don’t have to think in terms of — because you find this in all mahamudra (Skt. mahāmudrā) texts — you don’t think in terms of a this and a that. Nevertheless, does that mean that things aren’t a this or a that? Or are they a this and a that only to a limited mind, and to a Buddha they’re not a this and a that? If they’re not a this and a that, what are they? Are they an undifferentiated soup? Are they nothing? These are the points that Tsongkhapa is bringing up here.
Participant: That was the position to make sure that one doesn’t fall to this extreme.
Dr. Berzin: To make sure that we don’t fall to this extreme, then, we have to assert that things nevertheless retain their conventional identity as this or that and that even a Buddha would see that.
Participant: It’s useful.
Dr. Berzin: It’s useful. But then of course how does a Buddha see it as this or that? I mean, this is why Tsongkhapa was saying, “Voidness demonstrates that things have to be a this and a that. A this and a that demonstrates that they’re void.” What are we left with? Something not very easy to understand. That’s why Tsongkhapa’s saying, “If you can understand that, you’re really fantastic.”
Remember we spoke about this in German, the trotzdem factor (“in spite of”). In spite of the fact that the chair is made of atoms and all the empty space and force fields, nevertheless it functions — you don’t fall through it. If we can understand that — do we really understand it or do we just sort of accept it? — then you can go on further and further to see the two truths as being noncontradictory. This is the point that Tsongkhapa is taking off from.
As I say, I don’t know. I can’t say what it really means to non-conceptually… I mean, the two truths in Gelug are inseparable. It’s an easy way out to say that “Thises and thats, that’s just conventional truth, and that’s what appears to a limited mind. You don’t have that to a Buddha.” But how do we have that for a Buddha? There are individual defining characteristics, that demonstrates that something is a this or that. It can only be labeled — it doesn’t exist on the side of the object — but nevertheless there are. Is the mind just making it appear, Chittamatra style? No, not really.
Participant: Why not? It’s a way of organizing.
Dr. Berzin: It’s a way of organizing. But a way of organizing implies mental labeling, doesn’t it? It’s not that it’s on the side of the object. To organize is a mental process.
Participant: Yeah, it’s a mental process, but I think the process itself could be without concepts.
Dr. Berzin: The process itself could be without concepts. Yeah. Then we have this equalizing deep awareness, which is what would do it. But how does it functions? Pooh!
Equalizing deep awareness, remember, when it is overlaid with confusion — with grasping for truly established existence — we have either miserliness (ser-sna) or pride (nga-rgyal). What it is putting together, what it’s doing — equalizing awareness is simply looking at several things at the same time equally, considering them equally. When it’s distorted, then you feel “This one is better than the other,” “I’m better than the other.” Or “I don’t want to share with you,” which also is not seeing the equality.
In terms of what something is, that’s more dharmadhatu (Skt. dharmadhātu) awareness (chos-dbyings ye-shes) — that’s the awareness of reality, the sphere of reality — which would focus on either conventional truth (what something conventionally is) or deepest truth. Again, we bring it back to the same problem, don’t we, of the two truths.
I don’t think our problem here is with equalizing. Equalizing is you’re just considering more than one thing at the same time. A Buddha considers everything at the same time. That’s why a Buddha’s omniscient, in that that’s what omniscient means.
Participant: What I find an interesting expression is that a Buddha is like an affirmative person, or something like that. I don’t know.
Dr. Berzin: A Buddha’s an affirmative person?
Participant: Or an affirmative subject, an affirmation… I don’t know how you would express it. Normally we’re conceptual, so we are organizing things as it is nothing else but that, and a Buddha would not do that.
Dr. Berzin: He’s saying that we organize things in terms of this is nothing else than that, but a Buddha would not do that. I don’t think that. Just because it’s nothing other than what it is doesn’t mean that it exists independently.
Participant: A Buddha would not cognize things through the exclusion of what they aren’t.
Dr. Berzin: A Buddha wouldn’t cognize things in terms of the exclusion of what they’re not. I really wonder. I don’t know.
Participant: But I mean that’s the mode of conceptual thinking.
Dr. Berzin: That’s conceptual thinking. As I say, I’m sorry I didn’t refresh my memory on these nothing-other-thans, of what’s involved with them.
Participant: This is how conceptual thinking is working. Nothing other than.
Dr. Berzin: This is how conceptual thinking is working, he says — nothing other than this or that. Again, I would have to… I don’t want to say anything definite without refreshing my memory on this material. This is very complex.
Anyway, let us not dwell too long on that. But the point being that it’s really incredible if you can put the two together.
Tsongkhapa goes on:
But suppose, while not understanding what this (voidness of truly established existence actually means), we came to (the conclusion) that if we were to understand it as being reasonable, then these presentations would not function.
That’s the presentations of samsara (Skt. saṃsāra) and nirvana (Skt. nirvāṇa).
If (we were to reason falsely like that), then with (our position) no different from the way of understanding of those who assert truly existent phenomena, we would be formulating lines of reasoning (about voidness) without understanding at all what voidness meant. (Thus we would be asserting absurd consequences that follow only from our own mistaken notion of voidness and not from voidness as correctly understood.)
In other words, if we asserted that voidness, the way that the Prasangika presents it, implies that there’s no this or that, conventional existence, and so we had to assert conventional existence, then it seems as though we are asserting truly established existence if we assert it separately from the Prasangika point of view. In other words, we’re saying that things can’t function on the basis of voidness, but nevertheless things do function, therefore they can’t quite be the same type of voidness as Prasangika asserts. Right?
Participant: I’m lost.
Dr. Berzin: Christian, do you understand? If you think that the assertion of voidness disqualifies cause and effect or this and that, the functioning of conventional truth, then since that would be an unreasonable position, in order to assert that things function you would have to assert a voidness which is less than what the Prasangika asserts. Right? And then if you take that as the case, then all your assertions would be false.
Tsongkhapa goes on:
(An example would be, for instance, what Nagarjuna) has said in Root Verses on the Middle Way, Called “Discriminating Awareness” (dBu-ma rtsa-ba shes-rab, Skt. Prajna-nama-mulamadhyamaka-karika, XXIV.1), (You might argue with us debating that) if all these things were devoid (of truly established existence), then the absurd conclusion would follow for you that production would be (totally) non-existent, perishing would not exist (at all), and there would be no such things as the Four Noble Truths.
This (verse) presents the charge (based on the misconstruction that the Prasangika-Madhyamaka view of voidness is tantamount to nihilism) that if everything were devoid of self-established existence, then the presentations of uncontrollably recurring and liberated existence would be improper.In answer to this, (Nagarjuna in verse XXIV.20) has said (it is just the opposite), If all these things were not devoid (of truly established existence), then the absurd conclusion would follow for you that production would be (totally) non-existent, perishing would not exist (at all), and there would be no such things as the Four Noble Truths. In other words, with such lines, (Nagarjuna) has said that those things would be improper in terms of non-voidness, but in terms of the (correct) position of voidness, they are completely reasonable.
OK. These are the type of things that we find over and again in Nagarjuna’s writing, and we find this later in all the other Prasangika writings. “You say it’s like this and this and this because of this and that. And we say: It’s exactly the opposite.” This is the prasanga method, to show the absurd conclusion, but it’s not quite drawing it out; we have to fill in a great deal of that. Does that have to be explained anymore?
OK. We’ll go on:
He has said this even more clearly
That’s referring to Nagarjuna.
in the same work (XXIV 14) through a statement of an implication and its converse, “Everything becomes proper for someone to whom voidness is proper and everything becomes improper for someone to whom voidness is improper.” Therefore, if the finding of a (correct) view of voidness were to entail merely having developed the understanding that if phenomena were divested of their spatial and temporal contexts there would be no way for them to be cognitively taken as anything, then it would be pointless (for the masters to have said that the understanding of voidness) is difficult (to gain). This is because even extremely dull-witted persons who have not trained (their minds) at all can understand (this point that nothing can exist independently of its context). Thus merely this much (insight) is not enough.
OK, let’s go over this. Some people assert — what?
Participant: Maybe we could go through that thing slowly again.
Dr. Berzin: OK.
Therefore, if the finding of a (correct) view of voidness were to entail merely having developed the understanding that if phenomena were divested
In other words, separated.
of their spatial and temporal contexts there would be no way for them to be cognitively taken as anything,
Participant: [explaining in German]
Dr. Berzin: No, it’s just the opposite — that they can’t be.
Participant: That they can’t be?
Dr. Berzin: Let me explain this. Tsongkhapa is saying here — let me explain — that some people think that space and time are simply mental constructs, they don’t exist at all, and things just exist on their own, independently of space and time. Then others would say, “No, this is ridiculous. Nothing can exist out of the context of space and time. Space and time do exist conventionally.” And so Tsongkhapa is saying, “If this is your understanding, that nothing can exist independently — if your understanding of voidness is simply that nothing can exist independently of space and time coordinates, then your understanding has not gone far enough.”
Participant: [explaining in German]
Dr. Berzin: Did that come out correctly?
Participant: This time I think so. The first time was wrong, but this time it was OK.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Because I think that this is a common mistake. I know I certainly thought like that before I came in contact with Buddhist teachers, just reading from books back in the fifties and early sixties, that — like if you’re high on a drug — nothing is in space and time; everything is sort of out of that context. And then if you think that voidness is saying that that’s false and that’s all that voidness is:
- First you could think that voidness means that, that space and time are void, and so everything is just purely existing outside of this.
That’s ridiculous from a Buddhist point of view.
- Then you could think the opposite, that voidness only means that things are not independent of space and time.
Now, obviously space and time don’t exist, from a Buddhist point of view, as some sort of absolute grid, as a container. I mean, there was this theory, wasn’t there, that was…
Participant: Newtonian theory was like that.
Dr. Berzin: Newtonian was like that, right. That was refuted with Einstein and relativity. But before that, that space and time was a container, and that actually existed, and things functioned within space and time. If you understand, let’s say from relativity, that there is, from that point of view… Let’s not go into that. But, anyway, you get this point.
Tsongkhapa says:
[If that’s what you think] then it would be pointless (for the masters to have said that the understanding of voidness) is difficult (to gain). This is because even extremely dull-witted persons who have not trained (their minds) at all can understand (this point that nothing can exist independently of its context).
Space and time context.
Thus merely this much (insight) is not enough.
Tsongkhapa goes on:
It will (only) be sufficient when for deepest truth we have the total stillness (or absence) of any focal support (for any cognition’s being aimed at the truly established existence of anything) and for conventional truth, which is like an illusion, we accept the entire presentation of uncontrollably recurring existence and liberated existence.
OK, what does this mean?
When we focus on what appears to us to be truly established existence, there is no referent object supporting this that would correspond to truly established existence. The technical term for that is a focal support — migday (dmigs-gtad) — focal support, something that is backing it up, holding it up. Like in a theatre you have the scenery standing up, and then you have some sort of support behind it holding it up.
What we have to realize is that there is nothing backing up, on the side of the object, truly established existence, and the understanding of deepest truth is the total stillness or absence of any focal support for your cognition being aimed at the truly established existence of anything. We’re aimed at that, that’s our focus, but there’s nothing supporting the focus. OK?
For conventional truth — which is like an illusion (not the same as an illusion), meaning that it appears to exist in a false way — we accept the entire presentation of uncontrollably recurring existence and liberated existence.
Now he goes on:
What makes the understanding of voidness so difficult, then, is that it is difficult (to hold the realization of) these two (truths) jointly (without feeling there is any contradiction). Since it is necessary to have both, it has been said that if we do not know (correctly) the division scheme of the two truths, we do not know the facts of reality as taught (by Buddha), while if we do know it, we are not muddled about what Buddha intended.
Participant: Muddled?
Dr. Berzin: Muddled means confused. Muddled comes from the word mud, that your mind is like filled with mud.
And also, by building up the two networks (of positive force and deep awareness) in reliance on deepest and conventional (truths), we can go to (a state of Buddhahood, which is) the total completion of what is supreme.
When we focus on deepest truth, we build up, in total absorption… Definitionally you build up that network of deep awareness (ye-shes-kyi tshogs), the so-called collection of wisdom, when you focus non-conceptually on deepest truth, on voidness. I mean the one that will lead to enlightenment, to a Dharmakaya (Skt. Dharmakāya), attainment of a Dharmakaya. Dharmakaya is for one’s own purpose as a Buddha.
When you focus on conventional truth, then that’s what builds up the positive force. Obviously not just focusing on it, but in terms of helping others, etc. And that would be the form body — it’s the cause for attaining a form body — the appearances of a Buddha, which is for the sake of others.
You can see how again you might be led to this other view that since form body’s for the sake of others and dealing with conventional truth, then it’s dealing with how things appear to a limited mind. Since when you build up the network of deep awareness — well, that’s focused on the deepest truth, and that’s only for one’s own sake, so that’s how things appear to a mind of a Buddha. Again, it’s hard to put together the two bodies of a Buddha, the body and mind of a Buddha.
(Thus, Nagarjuna) has said in Root (Stanzas on the Middle Way, Called “Discriminating Awareness,” XXIV 9) “Those who do not know (correctly) the division scheme of the two truths do not know the profound facts of reality in the Buddha’s teachings.” And (Jnanagarbha) has said as well (in The Division Scheme of the Two Truths, bDen-gnyis rnam-dbye, Skt. Satyadvayavibhanga), “Those who know the division scheme of the two truths are not muddled
There’s our word again.
about the words of the Able One (Buddha). By building up the complete networks (of positive force and deep awareness), they travel to the far shore of splendor.”
That’s basically just saying the same, that it’s really necessary to understand the two truths. Te point being that it’s necessary to understand the two truths in order to build up the two networks, enlightenment-building networks, with bodhichitta (Skt. bodhicitta), which will then be the cause for attaining the two bodies of a Buddha and having them function together, not in some sort of fragmented, almost schizophrenic way.
To continue:
It is said that this was difficult to understand even for the circle (of Buddha’s direct disciples) at the time when the Vanquishing Master Surpassing All was alive.
Vanquishing Master Surpassing All is how I translate bhagavan (bcom-ldan-’das), which is a terribly difficult term to translate, and I really don’t like it translated it as The Blessed One, which doesn’t mean anything. Vanquishing (bcom): got rid of all the shortcomings. Master: gained all good qualities (yon-tan kun-ldan). And Surpassing All (’das): surpasses the Hindu gods that are also called bhagavan.
This has been stated in The Compendium of Precious Good Qualities (Yon-tan rin-po-che sdud-pa, Skt. Ratnagunasamcayagatha), “This teaching (on voidness) of the Complete Spiritual Leader (Buddha) is profound and difficult to see. No one would be able to understand it and no one would be able to attain (its realization). Therefore after (Shakyamuni Buddha), who had the loving-kindness to benefit others, attained his purified state (of enlightenment), he taxed his mind to think who among the masses of limited beings could come to know it.”
You remember when Buddha attained enlightenment, or demonstrated his enlightenment, he hesitated to teach about the two truths and voidness, etc., because he wondered who could understand it. If deepest truth is merely what a Buddha can understand, how could you explain it to anybody, how things appear to a Buddha? It becomes difficult, doesn’t it?
Participant: One can only infer.
Dr. Berzin: One can only infer.
Participant: But they would say from their perspective that an arya (Skt. ārya) can see a bit of it.
Dr. Berzin: Right. They would say that an arya can see a bit of it.
Participant: In a way, you can only approach that with concepts.
Dr. Berzin: We can only approach it with concepts, that’s true. We can only approach the omniscient mind of a Buddha with concepts. This is why Prasangika says that bodhichitta, all the way up to just before enlightenment, has to be conceptual, because we can only have a concept of what enlightenment would be like.
Participant: How can we imagine a non-conceptual state?
Dr. Berzin: Right. How can you imagine a non-conceptual state, because imagine is by definition conceptual.
Participant: You can’t.
Dr. Berzin: You can’t. Does that just mean shut up and believe?
I mean, this is a very interesting thing. I had this discussion this weekend. I was in Bucharest, Romania, and there was this one very intelligent man who kept on insisting that, well, just become non-conceptual, and you can’t really talk about this, and just meditate and become non-conceptual. What I kept on emphasizing to him was that I think that he and many people who speak like he does, or he did, are trivializing non-conceptuality and just think it means to shut up the voice in your head.
But to think in terms of concepts doesn’t mean that we are just nonverbal. Thinking in terms of categories… You don’t have to say red in order to look at that shirt that Jorge is wearing and see it is red. Then the whole thing becomes quite complicated, because we have all sorts of preconceptions, we have all sorts of nonverbal type of things — what we would call preconceptions — categories.
Then the question is: How do you distinguish anything in terms of non-conceptual cognition if it’s not in terms of categories? Again, how do you even imagine that? You can’t imagine that, what that actually means. To just say, “You can’t imagine that” doesn’t mean shut up and just believe, go to some transcendent realm. That’s why he’s saying that to really understand this is more amazing than amazing, to put this together.
Don’t trivialize non-conceptuality. As I pointed out to this man, that if you look in the lorig (blo-rig) teachings on ways of knowing, non-conceptual sense cognition lasts for one sixty-fifth of a fingersnap, and then it kicks into non-conceptual mental for another one sixty-fifth of a fingersnap, and then it’s conceptual. How can you even recognize it, it’s so fast?
The non-Gelugs are saying that in non-conceptual cognition you don’t even see commonsense objects — you just see colored shapes — and to see it as conventional objects is conceptual. Now you have a real problem. Does that mean that nothing is a this or a that or an apple?
Participant: Is that what a Buddha sees?
Dr. Berzin: Is that what a Buddha sees, only colored shapes? Shakya Chogden would even say that that’s conceptual and what you see non-conceptually is pixels of light.
Participant: A newborn baby would have it.
Dr. Berzin: A newborn baby? What makes you think that a newborn baby is so great in their perception?
Participant: According to this notion that you just have to shut down the more complicated mental processes, then a baby would be pretty…
Dr. Berzin: Pretty enlightened, right. Then we have this idealization. If enlightenment just meant shut down all your cognitive processes and go back to being a baby, then that’s sort of this return to the womb and idealization of that, which is I think a romantic, false idea.
Participant: It completely contradicts the idea of rebirth.
Dr. Berzin: Right. This is very good. If the baby is so ideal, then that contradicts rebirth. Because what I think is closer to a scientific point of view is that the baby’s brain and senses are not developed enough to be able to think in these more complicated conceptual ways, so it’s still there in a potential form.
Participant: But also, don’t underestimate the amount of categorization that happens.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Don’t underestimate the categorization, because a baby will identify the mother. How does a baby animal know its mother from all the rest of the animals in the herd? Then there are these impersonal conceptual minds, these very subtle ones (what we would call instincts in the West), of the instinct to suck for a mammal. How does it know that?
Participant: And a me would be there from the first.
Dr. Berzin: And a me.
Participant: This explanation that commonsense objects in Gelug are also sense objects, where is this explained?
Dr. Berzin: He says that this point that Gelug Prasangika asserts, that we cognize commonsense objects in sense perception — where is that explained? I can’t give you the exact text, but I would think that it’s explained in the very elaborate commentaries and sub commentaries to lorig (ways of knowing) in terms of perception theory.
Participant: But you don’t know if Tsongkhapa has made this very explicit?
Dr. Berzin: Has he made this very explicit? He would have. He would have made it very explicit, and then it would appear in the Gelugpa’s lorigs. I mean, probably also it comes in Pramanavarttika (Skt. Pramāṇavārttika) commentaries. Pramanavarttika is Dharmakirti’s Commentary on Dignaga’s Presentation of Valid Means of Cognition.
A commonsense object is… Like an apple. An apple is — what do we see? We see a red sphere. But an apple is not a red sphere. An apple is also a smell. I mean, there’s also a smell of an apple, there’s also a taste of an apple, there’s also texture that you feel of an apple when you bite it, and so on. When you hold it in your hand, there’s a physical sensation.
What the non-Gelug say is that sense cognition only gets the information of one sense and only from one moment of it, one moment at a time, and it’s conceptual that puts it all together into a commonsense object, an apple, that pervades all the data of all the senses and lasts over time — that that’s a conceptual object; it’s not non-conceptual. Then the problem is: If conceptual cognition is all deceptive, then do you have no such thing as commonsense objects? And does the world only exist as colored shapes (and only one moment at a time, so it’s disjointed)? I think these are some of the reasons why Tsongkhapa says this is just too nihilistic.
Participant: They say that first comes visual data and then…
Dr. Berzin: First comes visual data. And then you would superimpose on that a commonsense object, and that would be conceptual. Tsongkhapa says, “No. Non-conceptually, even with your senses, you’d have to say that you see not only a red sphere, but you also see an apple.” Then they would object and say, “Then does that mean the apple is established on the side of the red sphere?”
Participant: That was making me nervous, how they would explain that.
Dr. Berzin: Right. I mean, there are dangers on both sides.
Participant: I’m also interested in how they would explain this in terms of a model of cognition, which usually has like six kinds of mental consciousness.
Dr. Berzin: How do they establish this in terms of the different types of consciousness? Each consciousness sees the objects that are specific to it and commonsense objects. Is a commonsense object — I must say I haven’t looked very specifically at this — is the commonsense object considered a form? Is the commonsense sentence considered a sound?
Participant: Could you smell an apple as well, or would you only see an apple?
Dr. Berzin: Pardon? Because what’s the smell of an apple? Or a taste of an apple? These are not simple. This is why he’s saying that to be able to establish the conventional existence of this and that and voidness is very difficult.
Where is something established as an apple? What establishes it as an apple? Mental labeling only. All you can say is that it’s what the word apple refers to on the basis of — does it have to be on the basis of every moment of it and on the basis of all the sense data? No, you could impute an apple merely on the smell. Why? Because what the label refers to, the apple, the conventional apple, is not the same as the basis for imputation — and this Tsongkhapa repeats over and over again — the two are not the same. When you see the form and you see that what is imputed on it is an apple, that doesn’t mean that you conceptually conceptualize an apple, but you see an apple because an apple can be imputed on that basis. I think this is the explanation.
Participant: It’s basically like a third-person description of the process.
Dr. Berzin: It’s like a third-person description? As I said, something is what a mental label refers to doesn’t mean that you have to label it at that time. It’s not the process of labeling itself, as an active process, that creates it as an apple.
Participant: The creation of the apple is only really…
Dr. Berzin: To make it an apple. This is the whole misconception, that something can make it an apple. Even to say make it an apple implies that from its own side it’s an apple. You don’t ever make anything an apple. All you can say is: What is an apple? What establishes… This is why I always try to emphasize what establishes something rather than what makes it exist. What establishes — what proves — that it’s an apple? There’s a word. The word refers to something. That’s all.
Participant: It’s something which can only exist when several…
Dr. Berzin: Can you have a private mental label? Yes, but it has to be not contradicted by… Let’s say there’s only one person left speaking my language, and I label it that. Nobody else knows that language. As long as I am consistent with that, then there’s a convention. I don’t know. I mean, you have to discount crazy labeling. To label a dog a cat doesn’t make it a cat.
Participant: Language is only something useful when…
Dr. Berzin: Language is useful only if there is a community. However, there are languages that become extinct, and there will be a last person who knows the language.
Anyway, let’s end here. We only have two more paragraphs to finish this section, so we are approaching the end of the text. Then there’s just the section on joined shamatha (Skt. śamatha) and vipashyana (Skt. vipaśyanā) focused on voidness, which is only two paragraphs, so we are nearing the end of the text.
Let’s end here with a dedication. We think whatever positive force and understanding has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.