We are continuing our study of this letter of practical advice on sutra and tantra that the great Tibetan master Tsongkhapa wrote to his friend and meditator the great master Konchog-tsultrim. In this letter Tsongkhapa answers the request that Konchog-tsultrim made to explain in a practical way how to practice a combined path of sutra and tantra.
Review of Previous Sessions
Tsongkhapa, after giving some words of humility, that he really doesn’t have any ability to explain anything, then goes into his discussion. He says we have an excellent working basis, this precious human rebirth; we’ve met with the teachings; we have great spiritual masters; and we have the power of mind to discern what’s to be adopted and rejected, this ability of our intelligence. With all of this, what we have to do is take advantage of these opportunities, this excellent working basis. To do that, we have to actually engage ourselves in the teachings, which means, in a sense, to not just enter it but to incarnate it — as I’ve explained, that word engage (’jug) is the same word as avatar — and so we need to incorporate it ourselves.
For that, we have to rely on guidance from a spiritual teacher, someone who is qualified: who knows what the various pathways of mind are, or states of mind, that we need to adopt, what are the ones that we don’t or we need to get rid of; and doesn’t add anything, doesn’t leave anything out; and knows the proper order of them and how to accord them to each of the student’s minds. The teacher himself or herself has to have been led through the whole path themselves by having studied with their own spiritual teachers and in a way that is based on the great classics. We shouldn’t consider the classic Buddhist texts and commentaries as different from the practice.
As for how to actually begin the practice, as both Nagarjuna and Aryadeva (Skt. Āryadeva) and many other masters said, it all depends on taming our minds. For this, what is very important is our motivating mental framework. As we have explained, the motivating mental framework refers to both what we are aiming for and why (what is the emotional feeling behind that?). Tsongkhapa introduces this topic and explains it in terms of the three scopes of motivation which we find in the lam-rim. Without going into great detail about that — we’ve discussed that quite fully — but it’s, on the initial level, that we are aiming to improve future lives, which means basically to continue to have a precious human rebirth, because we certainly don’t want to have horrible rebirths (we really dread that). Then, on the intermediate level, we want to gain complete liberation from uncontrollably recurring rebirth. We are completely disgusted with that and have renunciation (we’ve had enough). Then, on the advanced level, we want to be able to reach the enlightened state of a Buddha because of our compassion and concern for others who are in the same situation, that we want to be able to help them.
We need to have these motivating mental frameworks in an uncontrived way — in other words, not just forcing it, but has to be quite sincere — and to do that we have to meditate, meaning to build them up as a beneficial habit. Because in the beginning, obviously it will be forced, it will be contrived, but the more that we accustom ourselves to this way of thinking, gradually, eventually, it becomes quite natural to us. That’s not so difficult to understand if you think in terms of being able to type on a computer. That’s something which is not natural to us. It’s something that we have to learn; you have to practice. But once we have practiced it and incorporated it, become fully habituated to it, then we can type without even looking and it’s perfectly automatic. That’s what has to happen as well in terms of these motivations.
Then as for how to meditate, how to build them up, Tsongkhapa gives a marvelous discussion of this in terms of: for each of these states of mind that we wish to develop, we have to know what will support it, what will be detrimental to it, what are the things that it is supported by or rests on (in the sense of what we have to develop first), and what actually are we focused on (what appears, in a sense, when we are trying to build it up), and how does our mind relate to what we are focusing on, and so on. All these things are very, very essential for being able to actually meditate and build up a certain state of mind. We have to be able to specify it very, very well. Also, of course, he mentions building up the networks of positive force and deep awareness. Then he also mentions that we need to keep these motivations steadily and continuously, not only throughout our meditation sessions but hopefully throughout the day, and in this sense, integrate it into our mental continuums.
Then as for actually practicing the two stages of tantra (this is referring to the two stages of anuttarayoga tantra, the highest class of tantra), Tsongkhapa says that the doorway for entering all of these, whatever vehicle of mind that we’re practicing — whether it’s the lesser vehicle (so-called Hinayana (Skt. Hīnayāna) vehicle), or the Mahayana (Skt. Mahāyāna) vehicle of sutra or the Mahayana vehicle of tantra — each of these has a set of vows that form the basis for its ethical discipline. For the Hinayana stage we need to have some level of pratimoksha (Skt. prātimokṣa) vows, the vows for individual liberation, whether the lay vows or novice or full vows of a monk or a nun. For the sutra Mahayana, the bodhisattva vows. And for the two higher classes of tantra, the tantric vows. We’ve discussed these various sets of vows. We went through the lay vows of pratimoksha, we’ve gone through the bodhisattva vows, and now we are still in our discussion of the tantric vows.
This is where we are.
The Fourteen Common Tantric Root Downfalls (continued)
There are 14 root tantric vows or root... Well, the way that they’re always referred to are downfalls. They are formulated in terms of negative actions, and if we commit them, with all the factors complete, then we have a downfall from the vows.
[8] Reviling or abusing our aggregates
Of these, we’re up to number eight. This is reviling or abusing our aggregates. You all know what the aggregates are. They’re referring to, if we say in the most general way, the body and mind. If we make it more specific, it’s the body and all the various objects of the senses (gzugs-kyi phung-po, aggregate of forms of physical phenomena) — but here particularly, I think it refers mainly to the body — and then in terms of mind, we’re referring to the other four aggregates, if we speak in general terms:
- The consciousness aggregate (rnam-shes-kyi phung-po), the various types of consciousness, mental and sensory.
- Feeling of a level of happiness (tshor-ba’i phung-po) — happy or unhappy, somewhere on that spectrum.
- Distinguishing (’du-shes-kyi phung-po), which is to be able, in a sensory field, to be able to distinguish one thing from another; otherwise we can’t really relate to anything around us.
- Then the aggregate of other affecting variables (’du-byed-kyi phung-po). In other words, everything else, all the positive and negative emotions, all the mental factors that help us to deal with objects — concentration, attention, interest, intention, and so on.
We are talking about these. But I think if we work with this vow on a practical level, we work probably on a grosser level.
What we want to do is not despise them. Despise them means to think of them as unfit to undergo the transformation that is required in tantric practice, or purposely to damage them because of hatred or contempt — abuse it. One can abuse our body and our mind with, for instance, extremely dangerous sports, not eating, not taking care of ourselves, not going to get medical attention when we need it. That might not be on the basis… Here it says specifically because of hatred and contempt, but I think that we can... I mean, if you analyze what is the state of mind which would be behind physically abusing ourselves or not taking care of ourselves — and also abusing our minds, as in taking various types of drugs (or alcohol, for that matter) — is there contempt behind it? Is there dislike or hatred of our aggregates? What would be the state of mind?
Participant: What is meant by contempt?
Dr. Berzin: Contempt means to look down on it and just “Yuck! They’re terrible” think of them as terrible. “I’m no good” — low self-esteem — I think is part of that as well. Basically, I think what is behind it is not valuing — I mean, this is the question that I’m asking — we don’t value the precious human life that we have, the body and the mind, and the fact that, particularly in tantra, we need to use the body (the energies in the body and so on) in order to gain access to the subtlest form of consciousness, by working with the energies in the body, because that’s the most efficient for being able to realize voidness non-conceptually. The same thing with our minds. We need to have, obviously, a very clear mind. We need to have concentration and so on. If we don’t value this precious human body that we have, does that mean that we have contempt or hatred for it? I’m wondering is there maybe a subtle form of this behind not appreciating, low self-esteem, etc. What do you think?
Participant: I would say yes. I mean, the way destructive patterns… Even if there the main factor is inertia or something like that, still behind it there is some destructive, some self-destructive...
Dr. Berzin: Right. There’s a self-destructiveness about it.
Participant: Whether it’s from alcohol abuse or…
Dr. Berzin: Right. Self-destructive is usually “I’m no good.” Might not be directed specifically at “My body is no good,” but it would be “I’m no good.”
Participant: Even if you don’t want to destroy yourself, you don’t think of yourself as valuable enough, then it makes sense not to change it.
Dr. Berzin: Right. We don’t consider ourselves valuable enough not to abuse ourselves, not to destroy ourselves. I don’t know. I mean, what about people... There may be some of you who have taken drugs or who still take drugs. What is the mentality behind that?
Participant: It’s more enjoyment, I would say.
Dr. Berzin: For enjoyment or escape...
Participant: It’s like eating ice cream or something. It’s not thinking about “Oh, it will destroy me,” or something. That’s not necessarily the attitude that you take drugs with.
Participant: It depends. I think different people take drugs for different reasons.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Let me just repeat for the tape. He was saying that taking drugs is a little bit like ice cream. When we take ice cream, we don’t think necessarily “I’m going to make myself fat, and I don’t care what I look like and I don’t care about my health,” although if someone is obese and continues to eat a lot of ice cream then that might be a little bit different.
Participant: I was also more thinking of something like… I mean, like an addiction or something like that — that was more what I had in mind — when you don’t have it strong, and you don’t really abuse it.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Addiction can be to many things, can’t it? It could be addiction to television, it could be addiction to computer video games, addiction to online pornography. It could be addiction to all sorts of things, not just to substances as in substance abuse.
Participant: The same patterns in the brain show up in all these addictions.
Dr. Berzin: OK. Our biologist says that the same brain pattern shows up in all these addictions.
Participant: It’s all attachment.
Dr. Berzin: It’s attachment. That was my question. In the vow, it says to abuse them because of contempt for oneself and hatred for oneself — abuse and hatred for the aggregates. Could it also be attachment? But I wonder. I think for many of us it’s not so much that “My body is no good and my mind is no good,” but it’s sort of “I’m no good.”
Participant: Also, it’s that samsara (Skt. saṃsāra) is painful, and so it’s self-medication.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Samsara is painful, so it’s self-medication. That’s another factor. An escape.
Participant: From pain.
Dr. Berzin: From pain.
Participant: But then not to realize that you have the potential to practice the Dharma in our precious human birth is self-destructive.
Dr. Berzin: Right. To realize that we have the potential to practice the Dharma and reach enlightenment. And to not realize that is self-destructive. It’s a waste; we’re wasting our opportunity.
I don’t know here that we have to be absolutely strict in terms of dislike or hatred of our body. I think it’s a more general thing of not considering it valuable enough, because, for instance, there is not eating properly, not getting enough sleep, pushing ourselves too hard, and then extreme sports, which is very dangerous, these sort of things.
Participant: Sometimes I ask myself, concerning drinking some beer… This is what I do, actually.
Dr. Berzin: Ah, a confession. You drink beer.
Participant: Sometimes I think “OK. I know it’s a little bit deluding my mind, but it’s just one beer. I don’t see a big problem with it.” Then the next morning you wake up and you’re clear and you can meditate. I think it’s OK in a way. This is my approach. But if other people say they don’t do it, then I’m so totally… I admire that.
But I know some people in the Dharma say when they maybe in the past drank a little bit of beer or something and then they stop, they get really totally attached to this not drinking, and they get very uptight — “No, no. Please. Don’t let me drink at all” — and a total paranoia trip, in a way. Then I think… I don’t know. Maybe it makes more sense to say, “OK, I know I’m on my way. I’m developing slowly, naturally. Sometimes I can give myself a nice treat. Just one beer.” I’m a little bit relaxed about it, instead of getting totally uptight. I mean, this is another addiction — it’s another way of being attached — to not drinking, just as the back side of the same coin, in a way.
Dr. Berzin: To just summarize (I don’t know if that got on the recording): He’s saying that he drinks a beer sometimes. He doesn’t find it terribly harmful in the morning; his mind is clear enough to meditate. I don’t know about in the evening after you drink the beer. But in any case, he’s more relaxed, and he doesn’t see it as being so detrimental or abusing his aggregates. But he says that there are some people who then stop drinking beer or smoking marijuana, or whatever it might be, and then become very uptight about that and are very paranoid and become super against that. You know, how some people are communists and then they give up communism, and then they… This type of thing. Would it be better, he says, to adopt some sort of middle way — not be so uptight about it and still drink a little bit now and then?
Again, I would say that to be not uptight about it… one could also be not uptight about not drinking. I think one has to recognize that there are stages that one goes through in terms of trying to overcome something.
- The first stage is when the desire is there, but you don’t act it out. You stop smoking cigarettes or smoking marijuana or drinking alcohol, or whatever it might be, eating badly or eating too much, or whatever it might be. You stop acting it out, but the craving is still there. That’s the initial scope. I mean, this is the way that it’s described in terms of the lam-rim. Initial scope: you don’t act out the disturbing emotions.
- It’s going to take much longer time for the disturbing emotion not to arise at all. You have to be prepared for that, that you’re still going to want the beer. There’s still going to be that temptation — the desire will come up — but you don’t act on it. (Or the cigarette or whatever it might be.) That’s the next stage. That would be the intermediate scope level.
- Then the third stage is where it doesn’t even look appetizing. This is dealing with the appearance level, as in… I mean, this is not exactly what they talk about in terms of the advanced stage — that you want to overcome the appearance of true existence in order to gain enlightenment, to overcome the obscurations preventing omniscience or cognitive obscurations — but I think that there are, by extension, there are these levels.
I think the most common example that most people may experience is with cigarettes. You stop smoking, but you still have the desire to smoke. Eventually the desire goes away, but it still looks appetizing. And eventually it looks disgusting to you. That also is your example. You don’t want it to look disgusting; you want it to look totally uninteresting. You don’t want to have revulsion either, but the point is for it to be uninteresting.
Participant: In that regard, a lot of tantra texts talk about being too involved with a Hinayana approach and having utter revulsion for these things, which brings you out of the tantric approach of just not really caring about it. In other words, not being harshly against them and not being for them.
Dr. Berzin: Right. In tantra we speak, as he says, of various things that we might feel repulsion with, in… not a pure Hinayana way of practicing, because there you would overcome repulsion as well, but as an exaggeration, that “I don’t want to...” We’ll get to this. Like the monks with women: “No way am I going to touch a woman or be alone in the same room or any of that.” On the other hand, the attachment as well. You want to overcome that so that you have no problem with whatever it might be. But “no problem with whatever it might be” doesn’t mean that you actually indulge in it. We’ll get into these other vows, the thing about “What about tasting the alcohol with tsog?” That’s an example in which you’re certainly not supposed to drink a whole bottle of vodka, as might be practiced in some places, but not be so repelled. Or the same thing with tasting a little piece of meat if you’re a vegetarian.
Participant: If you’ve gotten over nondualism, it wouldn’t mean anything to you.
Dr. Berzin: If you’ve gotten over nondualism? You have to be careful there. Nondualism is an awfully specific term. That’s defined differently. You could also say: if you’ve gotten beyond nondualism then it’s OK to put out rat poison to kill the rats, because same, same.
Participant: I don’t mean as a justification. I mean if you’ve reached a level of true equanimity.
Dr. Berzin: Equanimity. If one reaches equanimity — that’s I think much more accurate here, equanimity — then you can make use of certain things when it’s necessary.
But let’s get back to our specific vow here, which is not to abuse our body and mind. This is really very, very necessary, especially if... I mean, it’s not just with tantra. I think in general Dharma practice… What do we want to do with Buddhist practice? One thing we want to do is to gain concentration, to stop mental wandering, to stop projections of fantasy. What is the exact opposite of that? Marijuana, for example. Your mind wanders, projects all sorts of fantasy garbage, and that is, in a sense, abusing the mind; it’s going in the opposite direction that you want to go in. Also, for many people, marijuana causes you to have a distance. It’s like you’re sitting in the back of your head watching everything. If we want to use the term dualism — which I don’t use so often, but if want to use dualism — that sure generates a feeling of dualism. And it’s a hindrance to compassion, because the attitude develops “Don’t bum me out. I’m just going to sit here. I can’t be bothered.” These sorts of things. Let alone drugs that really damage the brain — ecstasy and LSD and so on, not to mention heroin, etc. — these things really are abusing the aggregates. But also, I think what is here as well, if we think of the example of Buddha, is extreme ascetic practices.
Participant: I was going to say that when you were talking about not hating the indulgence so much, because the Buddha also taught that we can’t become ascetics… extreme asceticism.
Dr. Berzin: The extreme asceticism was fasting. The Buddha ate just... I forget what he ate, but he ate hardly anything for six years. These things of how some of the sadhus in India stand on one leg, or next to a fire, and all of this sort of stuff. That’s abusing the aggregates if we take that as an extreme example. But there are many people who don’t take care of their bodies. They don’t eat properly. Then there’s the whole anorexia bulimia type of situation as well. There are many people who have aversions to doctors and taking medicine, and that also is very foolish in terms of if we want to preserve our precious human rebirth.
Participant: Maybe it’s always helpful when thinking about these vows or downfalls — that for example, if we think that we should not revile or abuse our aggregates — it always comes back to “Why? Why should we not?” Then that would be a force. “What does it apply to?”
Dr. Berzin: Right. Exactly.
Participant: It’s because it becomes a hindrance to the goal of why we’re here. I mean it becomes a hindrance to what we are trying to abide by in these vows.
Dr. Berzin: OK. Now you’re bringing up a good point. The reason is… Why do we want to avoid abusing the aggregates? As we have discussed before, we have to understand this in terms of tantra practice, anuttarayoga tantra practice. How does that hinder anuttarayoga tantra practice? In the complete stage (rdzogs-rim) of anuttarayoga tantra, you’re working with the subtle energy-system to try to get the winds to dissolve into the central channel (heart chakra, for most of the anuttarayoga tantra practices) in order to access clear light mind (’od-gsal). If you abuse your aggregates, that’s a hindrance to that. If you’re smoking, that really messes up the winds, the energies. If you are not taking care of your body, if you’re too weak, if you’re sick, and so on, that also makes it impossible. If you cloud the mind and increase more conceptual thoughts, that’s a hindrance, because you want to decrease the conceptual thoughts, etc.
Participant: I’d like to add just one other thing too, that people don’t often think about what other abuses in one’s life could be. It’s not only substances or habits, like television, but it could also be the way one lives their life. For example, if you’re a workaholic and you are totally stressed out, and yet you’re trying to squeeze in your Dharma practice. But you are out of your mind with stress, so something has to stop, because you are abusing… It’s going to end. They’re going to die, and then they haven’t achieved anything. It’s also a lifestyle. I mean, it’s not only things we ingest, it’s not only things that we pollute our mind with, but it can also be our behavior, or habits, or all sorts of things. We really have to think about what is an abuse.
Dr. Berzin: Right. What she’s pointing out — in case that didn’t get on the recorder — that we really have to analyze what abuse means. It could be not only taking various substances or polluting our minds with television… Or music, I would add as well. People who have to have the TV on from morning till night or have to be with a Walkman listening to music constantly, so god forbid they think or reflect on anything or pay attention to what’s going on around them, be aware of what’s going on around them.
Participant: That’s probably the worst problem right now. That’s practically like heroin addiction.
Dr. Berzin: Right. It is like a heroin addiction, the Walkman. But to summarize what you said, before I completely forget: She was saying that also we have to watch out for an abusive lifestyle. That could be being a workaholic, always being under stress, and then trying to fit in Dharma practice in the middle of being so stressed.
As Serkong Rinpoche, my teacher, always used to point out: There’s no end to the work of samsara. It will be endless. The work in the office, or whatever, is going to go on and on and on, long past we’re gone. Whereas Dharma work can have an end, when you achieve nirvana (Skt. nirvāṇa) or liberation or enlightenment. There is a point in which you can finish the training, but there is no point in which you can finish your samsaric work. Yes, not being stressed, not being a workaholic. All of these things, to overcome abusing the body or the mind, require a lot of Dharma training, certainly. Here we’re talking about the ethical discipline — which is basically like a vow, which is a restraint — that when that tendency comes up that you want to abuse, to not act it out. This is very, very important.
One point that we haven’t mentioned here, which I mentioned in my published discussion of these vows, is that this doesn’t contradict the sutra view of considering the body as unclean and suffering and so on. When we’re saying, “Don’t abuse the body and mind,” that doesn’t mean that we go into a body-beautiful trip of “The body is so wonderful, and I’m going to do bodybuilding,” and all of that, and get a facelift, etc. But there’s no contradiction between the two, between these two views. “Yes, the body is filled with dirty substances. Yes, the body gets sick and so on. But I’m stuck with it, and therefore I want to make the best use of it without glorifying it or worshiping it.” Again, one needs a type of middle path there.
But I don’t know about your question about having one beer. I think I sort of skirted around that. You want to comment on that?
Participant: One teacher pointed out to me that if beer had such a satisfactory state or nature to it, you’d probably need one beer and that would be it. But I’m still struggling with that. Still cravings come through. At least I can contemplate the fact that you’re never really satisfied from that one beer.
Participant: But what happens if you are? What if you drink one and you go to sleep, and it’s OK?
Dr. Berzin: No, no. What he’s saying is that... I mean, this is the suffering of change (’gyur-ba’i sdug-bsngal), of ordinary happiness. To just have one beer in your life, and having had one beer, now you are satisfied and happy and you never have to drink another beer — it doesn’t work like that. You’ll always want another one and another one and another one. This has to do with general worldly pleasure. But the point being that Buddha said, “If you follow me, not even a drop of alcohol that fits on the tip of a blade of grass.” OK. Why did Buddha say that?
Participant: That was just for special students.
Dr. Berzin: For special students… I think that one of the reasons is because it is so addictive.
Participant: Yes, but I also heard sometimes that teachers, especially when they… In Bodhgaya some students did a lot of these preliminaries and got a bit mad about it. They told these students to have a beer in the evening during this time, something like this. I’m not really sure about it.
Dr. Berzin: He’s reported that there are some people, some teachers, who — even in Bodhgaya — where people are doing prostrations, recommend that if somebody is really uptight and nervous, that they have a beer at night. I’ve never heard of that, and I would really question such a teacher that gives that type of recommendation.
Participant: I think if you’re turning to beer, there’s some dissatisfaction. You’re not using the Dharma — you’re not looking at your mind to see what the source of the dissatisfaction is — you’re using the beer. Even if it’s not extremely harmful, that will distract you from getting to the root of the mind.
Dr. Berzin: What he’s saying is that we’re using the beer to distract us from getting to the root of whatever problems we might have. The question is: Are things like alcohol, and like drugs, innocent or not innocent? Are cigarettes innocent or not innocent in terms of the goal that we’re striving to achieve? Is it — to connect it with this (I mean, we’re going a bit far from this vow) — when we drink the beer, is it because of contempt for our body and mind?
Participant: It’s an individual thing
Dr. Berzin: It’s an individual thing?
Participant: Let’s go back to what you said originally. Even if it’s not intentionally so, or even if it’s so mild, then in some small degree… I’m just reiterating what Christian already said, is that yes, in some small (even passive) way, it is a degree [of contempt for our body and mind].
Dr. Berzin: Right. In one small way — even if we have one beer — it is self-destructive. It’s like eating poorly.
Participant: Because the fact is: if we’re not to do harm to all living beings, we ourselves are a living being, and we have to include ourselves in that.
Dr. Berzin: We have to include what?
Participant: Ourselves. We are living beings. In other words, we might not do harm to anyone else, but if we ingest something or if we partake in some harmful or dangerous activity, risky activity, or something like that, we are the living being that we’re harming. We’re included in the whole scope of living beings, so we can’t do that. Right?
Dr. Berzin: What she’s saying is that this is a general Mahayana thing — that we are aiming to benefit all beings, so obviously we need to also benefit ourselves and not abuse our aggregates. Where do you draw the line here? Do you draw the line in terms of “I’m not going to eat McDonald’s, because that’s abusing my aggregates. I’m only going to eat organic food, because to eat the commercial food is not healthy”?
Participant: I think every individual has to draw a line of what they’re capable of at any given degree of their development.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Everybody needs to draw the line and decide... Well, then it’s the same thing. “I will decide whether… I will only drink to the point where I don’t get drunk.” A lot of people interpret the vows that way, and that is very dangerous.
Participant: Obviously they’re not… You have to consider “I am not really practicing the Dharma anymore” if you think you’re lying to yourself.
Dr. Berzin: OK. If we’re lying to ourselves and fooling ourselves, we’re not really practicing the Dharma. Specifically, we’re talking here about taking tantric vows. You don’t take tantric vows unless you really, really are a Dharma practitioner who wants to practice tantra and who realizes what tantra is about and appreciates what it’s about.
Participant: There’s no shame in not.
Dr. Berzin: There’s no shame in not practicing tantra. That’s true.
Participant: There’s no shame in that, because again there’s so many factors go into how and why a person would do that, and they’re all karmic, built up from all different causes. There’s no judgment. There’s no moral judgment if one isn’t prepared to take that on. You may be prepared to take some degree of something lesser on, and that’s still virtuous.
Dr. Berzin: Right. This is the point that she makes, is that there’s no shame in not taking a certain set of vows, not going to an initiation, etc., when we’re not ready. We need to be ready and prepared to actually keep a set of vows, keep a daily practice if there’s a practice commitment, and so on. If we’re not prepared to do that, don’t go. Resist group pressure and the feeling that “I have to be part of the in-crowd,” etc., and even if other people make silly remarks, that “Ooh, why aren’t you going? Blah blah blah,” just ignore that.
Participant: In fact, anybody that would make a remark like that I would say is at a lower level of evolution, spiritually speaking, than the person who has the self-awareness to know “I’m not ready to do this.”
Dr. Berzin: She’s saying that anyone who would make a remark that “Why aren’t you going?” is at a lower level of development than the person who knows that they’re not ready and doesn’t go. I think we have to watch out for arrogance here in that judgment.
Participant: Peer pressure is not a good reason to attend.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Peer pressure is absolutely the wrong motivation for going to anything, in terms of the Dharma.
Participant: The main point of Buddhist initiation is to help others, to have compassion for others. How can we help others if we are poorly nourished, drunk, not able to breathe properly…
Dr. Berzin: Right. The same thing. If the point of tantra practice is to be able to help others, how can we really help them if we are stoned, if we are drunk, if we are obese, unhealthy?
Participant: We set a bad example.
Dr. Berzin: Not only do we set a bad example, but we incapacitate ourselves from not only the tantra practice, but we incapacitate ourselves from the general Mahayana practice of helping others to the fullest extent.
I think perhaps that’s enough for this vow. The thing is that we need to use our body and minds in the fullest extent, especially in tantra.
[9] Rejecting voidness
Then the ninth one is rejecting voidness. Voidness refers to the general teaching here of the Prajnaparamita Sutras, referring to the voidness not only of persons but also of all phenomena, and it could be here either a Chittamatra (Skt. Cittamātra) or a Madhyamaka (Skt. Mādhyamaka) view. (It is possible to practice tantra with any of the Mahayana views, even the highest class of tantra. You won’t be able to go all the way without — from the Gelugpa point of view — the Gelugpa interpretation of Prasangika (Skt. Prāsaṅgika). Other Tibetan traditions will have their own hierarchy of voidness views, with other-voidness (gzhan-stong) and Maha-Madhyamaka and all these other things.)
But in any case, here what the vow would be is not to reject these teachings. That means to doubt them, to disbelieve them, or spurn them (that means to avoid them). What is the point of that? The point of that is no matter which Mahayana tenet system we’re holding while we’re practicing tantra, we have to have total confidence in its teachings on voidness, because the voidness teachings are one of the strongest foundations in tantra practice, particularly in terms of transformation of our self-image, transformation of our view of ourselves and of the environment and everything around us, so we have to understand they don’t exist in impossible ways.
Now that doesn’t mean that we can’t upgrade our tenet system. As you go through your training, we may need to upgrade from Chittamatra to Svatantrika (Skt. Svātantrika), or from Svatantrika to Prasangika, and we need to, in doing that, refute the voidness teachings of the lower school as being not accurate enough. But when we discard a lesser view, a less sophisticated view, that doesn’t mean that we’re left with no view of voidness. This is what we want to avoid here. There always is a view of voidness, even if it is an upgraded one, and it needs to be appropriate to our level of understanding.
Any questions on that?
Participant: Then we’re breaking the vow if, for even a moment, we take samsaric appearances as real?
Dr. Berzin: No. He says: Are we breaking the vow if we take samsaric appearances as real? No. Because we’re going to be considering... I mean, this automatically arises, that we take them as real, they appear to us as real. We’re not focused on voidness all the time. That’s very difficult, although obviously we need to try to be focused on voidness all the time. We get this in a later vow, of at least reminding ourselves six times a day of voidness, so that we build up the habit of trying to stay aware of it.
This is saying that “These voidness teachings are ridiculous,” and then we discard them. Saying, “This is garbage. This is not true,” and then trying to practice tantra, in which case you might as well be imagining that you’re Donald Duck or Cleopatra, and then you become schizophrenic. You become really a crazy person if you don’t understand. There are people like that. I mean, I’ve seen people who think that they are — not that they’re Donald Duck, but that they are Tara (Skt. Tārā). You find people like that. I remember once there was, in Dharamsala (Skt. Dharamśālā), a middle-aged Tibetan lady who would take off all her clothes and run around naked screaming that she was Tara. That’s pretty poor. Obviously, we might not go to that extreme, but as it says, to reject the teachings means to doubt them, to disbelieve them, or to spurn them. Spurn them, as I said: “Blargh, who needs that?” We have to have total confidence in the teachings on voidness, which obviously means that we have to understand it to a certain extent.
Participant: The only problem with that being: On the other hand, you need to get conviction based on properly built-up conclusions. If you don’t analyze and doubt certain interpretations and say, “One master expressed it like this, but I have a problem with that,” and stuff like that, then how would you get to a proper understanding?
Dr. Berzin: OK. Now he’s saying: Don’t we need to have analyzed and all of that in order to gain this confidence in the teachings on voidness? And what about: in the process of analyzing, many doubts come up about what this master said, what that master said, and so on.
I think that first of all, tantra practice has to be based on a sound foundation of sutra practice. All that analysis of voidness, etc., needs to have been done already, at least to a certain degree, before practicing tantra, particularly the highest class of tantra, but tantra in general. That’s one thing. There’s a difference between doubting that voidness in general (even if I don’t understand it) is a correct view and saying that “I don’t really understand it. And so I’m looking at this master, that master,” and there’s sort of an indecisiveness there, but it’s not indecisiveness concerning the value of voidness and of understanding voidness and the necessity of it.
Participant: Your provisional understanding should always doubt, no? Because otherwise you don’t move forward.
Dr. Berzin: Right. The provisional understanding… You should always doubt, or you don’t go forward? Now that’s an interesting question. We’re talking now about when you’re actually doing a tantra practice. OK? At that point, saying you need to have confidence in voidness. What happens — I mean, you’re raising the question — what happens if I have a wrong understanding of voidness? Do I have confidence in it or not, or should I doubt it?
At the time, when you’re actually practicing… What do you do in the beginning of an anuttarayoga tantra practice after getting inspiration from the lineage? Dissolve everything in terms of voidness, the understanding of voidness. As I’ve always explained with voidness, if we translate it as “a total absence of impossible ways of existing” without specifying what’s impossible, I don’t think you get into trouble, because each of the tenet systems specifies what’s impossible. “The way things appear to me is impossible, that they actually exist that way,” and so you clear that out and just focus on “There’s no such thing.” Even if it’s a very simple level of everything existing independently, encapsulated in plastic, by itself, establishing itself all on its own, unrelated to everything else, whatever that might be — my body, this problem that I have with my children, this problem that I have at work — as if there it is, establishing itself independent of the million causes and conditions that have brought it about. “This is impossible.” Particularly in terms of myself and the environment, that I exist as this big, solid, encapsulated me. Finished.
Then, on the basis of Buddha-nature — this is why you need bodhichitta (Skt. bodhicitta), why bodhichitta is utterly essential in tantra — then you’re thinking of my own individual enlightenment that we’ve not yet attained, the not-yet-happening enlightenment. On the basis of that — which is imputed on the various Buddha-nature factors, including the voidness of my mental continuum — then I can visualize and imagine myself as a Buddha-figure and validly label me on that.
Without the understanding of voidness, there’s no way to do that. Even, I think, if it’s not totally specific, and still in my analysis I’m trying to go deeper and I’m analyzing — “Maybe I don’t have it exactly right” — the point is whatever level that we have an understanding of, even this simple level that I just explained, to have confidence in that when you’re doing the practice. Otherwise, what am I doing here doing this visualization? This is crazy. But as I say, with bodhichitta and voidness and renunciation. Renunciation is utterly essential, because what you have to give up is our ordinary appearance of these impossible ways of existing. “Poor me,” encapsulated in plastic. “I’m so terrible,” or whatever, and “I have so many problems,” as if I’m the only one in the universe. “I am no good,” or “I’m not good enough,” or “I’m old and fat,” or “I’m short and ugly,” or whatever it might be.
Participant: The best-looking one.
Dr. Berzin: The best-looking one. Yes, OK, Mr. Best-looking over there.
Participant: Because you always make the example of…
Dr. Berzin: I always make the example of the low self-esteem. No, it can be “I’m the smartest one in the class. I’m the one that can give the answer to everything.” That’s a fairly common one. Then of course “I’m so beautiful,” the narcissist trip.
Participant: I think narcissism is perhaps harder to deal with than low self-esteem.
Dr. Berzin: Narcissism is more difficult to deal with than low self-esteem, he says. I think that we have to differentiate — now we’re going very far from our discussion — but I think there needs to be a differentiation between self-cherishing and narcissism. What’s the difference?
Participant: It’s subtle.
Dr. Berzin: It is subtle. It is subtle. I must say: without thinking of it, thinking about it, I can’t just give an answer.
Participant: Narcissism includes solipsism, whereas self-cherishing maybe is more placing a special value on attributes you may have, or you may imagine you have. But narcissism seems to be a step beyond that in terms of a solipsistic way of dealing with life.
Dr. Berzin: Right. She’s saying self-cherishing is perhaps exaggerating certain qualities that we may or may not have, so that’s basically attachment to ourselves (that’s the definition of attachment, exaggerating the good qualities of something). Narcissism is more extreme; it’s solipsistic. I think so. Self-cherishing can be that I push to get ahead in the line. I take the last piece of cake or whatever without thinking that anybody else wants it. It’s more in the direction of selfishness. Greediness can be part of that, but self-cherishing...
Participant: Putting oneself in the first place.
Dr. Berzin: Putting oneself in the first place. Right. Whereas narcissism is a more extreme form, as you say. Nobody else really exists, and I’m just obsessed with myself.
Participant: You believe that you’ve created your own world, so that everybody that you’re interacting with you believe is really just a reflection of you.
Dr. Berzin: Thinking that everybody... That we’ve created a world for ourselves, and that everybody is just a reflection of me. I think not only that, but narcissist is, in addition, “I’m the center of the universe. Everybody… The rest of their life doesn’t exist. The only thing that exists is that they should call me, pay attention to me. They should always be on call for whenever I want something from them.”
Participant: If they don’t, then they’ve betrayed me.
Dr. Berzin: If they don’t, they’ve betrayed me. Yes.
Participant: But then there’s the way it relates to the vows. Such a person can’t possibly grasp voidness.
Dr. Berzin: Such a person couldn’t possibly grasp voidness. Are they rejecting voidness? They don’t even know about voidness. That’s going well beyond the scope of what we’re discussing with our vow.
OK. That’s rejecting voidness.
[10] Being loving toward malevolent people
Then the next one is being loving toward malevolent people. Malevolent means wishing bad. It’s the opposite of benevolent. Benevolent is kind; malevolent is unkind. Malevolent people are — it’s defined here in our commentary — malevolent people are those who despise our personal teachers, spiritual masters in general, or the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and who, in addition, cause harm or damage to any of them. They are wishing ill, or wishing bad, to our teachers, spiritual masters in general, the Triple Gem, and who actually hurt and damage them. As for those who go out and protest against our guru, I don’t know if they would be included there in “cause harm or damage.”
Anyway, the point here is that, it says, although it’s inappropriate to forsake the wish for such persons to be happy and have the causes for happiness, we commit a root downfall by acting or speaking lovingly toward them. This is, in a sense, patronizing them. What this ties up with is that… Remember in the bodhisattva vows: if someone is causing a great deal of damage, if you have the ability to stop them, then it was a downfall not to stop them. This ties in with that. You shouldn’t be supporting them and helping them and all of that. You should try to stop them.
Participant: You should boycott their activities.
Dr. Berzin: Boycott their activities. Don’t buy their goods, or whatever it might be. Of course, that depends on your interpretation of causing harm and damage. His Holiness — here’s the example of His Holiness — here’s a spiritual teacher, and the Chinese Communist government has been doing a lot of damage to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. What does His Holiness say? Does he say we should boycott Chinese goods? No. He says that to help them… It will help the situation to engage with them, not to isolate them, because if you isolate them then they become even more militant, more damaging. How does that fit in with this vow?
Participant: I think he’s able to take a very long-range view and see the effects in later generations.
Dr. Berzin: Right. He takes a very long-term view of… What’s being loving to them? What would be loving to them? To help them destroy. To support what they’re doing and say, “This is great.” He doesn’t say to support what they’re doing. He’s not giving up loving them, but he’s not acting in a loving way to support the harm and damage that they’re doing, but to try to influence them to stop.
Participant: It’s a little like the Christian maxim of hating the sin but not the sinner.
Dr. Berzin: Right. The Christian maxim of hating the sin and not the sinner. His Holiness says that all the time but without using the word sin.
Also, what it says in another commentary is that you use forceful means. This is saying that if it’s necessary to use forceful means to stop somebody from doing harm... This is very interesting. This is a… I forget if it’s a Nyingma or a Drigung Kagyu commentary, but it differentiates the causal motivation (rgyu’i kun-slong) from the contemporaneous motivation (dus-kyi kun-slong). The causal motivation is compassion. You wish to set them in happiness by cutting off their destructive behavior. The causal motivation is what would bring you into the act of trying to stop whatever they’re doing — I mean, to get them to stop what they’re doing.
But then the contemporaneous motivation would necessarily be a type of anger to stop something (it’s a repulsion, in a sense). But what it says here in this commentary is very interesting, is that it’s not the disturbing emotion of anger (which exaggerates the negative qualities of something), but.... Now this is speaking in terms of more of a dzogchen or mahamudra (Skt. mahāmudrā) explanation (I think it’s much more dzogchen actually) of what’s called the reflexive brilliance (rang-mdangs) of the mind. The reflexive brilliance. Reflexive (rang) means that it is coming from within itself, and the brilliance (mdangs) is sort of shining out. It’s light rays, in a sense, forcefully going out. And it says one needs to have that without ever wavering from the understanding of voidness.
Participant: Would that be a spontaneous appropriate action?
Dr. Berzin: Spontaneous appropriate action? Spontaneous I think is really the wrong word to ever use, because what’s spontaneous is usually what’s neurotic, what you’re most accustomed to. It is using…
Participant: Uncontrived?
Dr. Berzin: Uncontrived? No. It is, in a sense, the... When you look at the nature of the energy of the mind, the nature of the energy of the mind is that it goes out — it shines, so it shines out — in terms of making appearances, in terms of energy going out. There are two levels of that. There’s a peaceful, so-called peaceful, level and a strong (a forceful) level of this going out. What it’s saying is: while maintaining an understanding of voidness — not making the malevolent person into the Devil, truly existent “You’re horrible,” and exaggerating all of that, but understanding that — using the natural forcefulness level of the energy of the mind…
Participant: It’s an energy?
Dr. Berzin: It’s an energy level. I mean, they wouldn’t describe it as energy; they would describe it in the category of... the word that they use is the automatic or reflexive brilliance — so it shines out — rang dang (rang-mdangs).
Participant: When I said spontaneous, I didn’t mean neurotic, a neurosis of being out of control. But you said reflexive…
Dr. Berzin: Right. It’s sort of automatic as part of the nature of the mind.
Participant: Natural. Like the metaphor of the sun shining. It’s shining.
Dr. Berzin: Like the metaphor of the sun shining, in that sense. But this is unbelievably difficult to do. Unbelievably difficult to do without your energy getting upset. I mean, think of an example: Your child is playing with fire or something really, really dangerous. The causal motivation is compassion — you want the child not to burn himself or herself, not to get hit by a car by running into the street, etc. — so you yell at them or you grab them, which uses forceful energy. But not to get angry (or at least have your energy get shaken in doing that) and not get carried away is very, very difficult.
Participant: Don’t do more damage to the child than the fire.
Dr. Berzin: Whether it does more damage to the child than the fire is questionable, than letting them run into the street and get hit by a car. It’s questionable.
Participant: No. I mean don’t beat them to death because they touched the fire, for instance.
Dr. Berzin: Yeah. I mean, we’re not talking about beating them to death. I’m talking about our energy when you yell at the person. If you notice your energy — if you have that level of awareness of your energy — that’s really, really difficult, very difficult. I mean, I remember from my own experience:
My house was infested by bed bugs. They were in the walls. I lived in a mud hut, mud, and straw. The walls were infested with bed bugs. The wooden bed that I had was infested with bed bugs. Everything was infested with bed bugs. There was a choice: either give the victory to the bed bugs and move out or exterminate them. Because it was impossible for me to really sleep, do any of my work or whatever, I chose at that time to exterminate them.
OK. The causal motivation was hopefully trying to be compassionate to these bed bugs — “I don’t really hate you,” etc., “I wish you well,” etc. — but this really… I’m not at the level where I can just feed myself to the bed bugs. And acknowledging that I probably will get sick from the fumes and so on and what negative consequences might follow from it. But this is the situation on my own level.
But then when you’re actually squirting the poison spray into the cracks and so on of the wall and into the bed, what is the mentality that comes up? “Die, you bastard!” You want to get it. It’s very, very hard at that time not to really be into killing. You want to get them. One starts running away… you squirt. It was — because I noticed my state of mind — it was horrible, but nevertheless, that was what… Contemporaneous motivation. You need to have enough anger to actually kill them, to carry it out, don’t you?
Participant: What about the example you mentioned a few weeks ago of one of the Buddha’s former lives with the killer on the boat?
Dr. Berzin: Right. One of the Buddha’s former lives, when he took the life of the potential murderer, mass murderer, on the boat.
You have to have enough anger to actually carry out the killing. This is what is raised in this commentary, that the anger there is using the forceful energy with the understanding of voidness, rather than anger itself, the disturbing emotion, which is based on not understanding voidness, in which you make the person or the bed bugs into a truly existent monster and exaggerate the negative qualities: “You eat me and cause me to itch like anything for two or three weeks” — bed bug bites are really quite horrible — exaggerating the nastiness of that, then you want to kill them.
Were the bed bugs destroying the Dharma? That’s hard to say. They certainly were a big interference to my doing any Dharma work.
Participant: That’s a tricky one.
Dr. Berzin: But that’s a tricky one. That’s a very tricky one. If I were really a bodhisattva, I would have stayed there and fed my body to the bed bugs. If I were a medium-level bodhisattva, I would have moved out — give the victory to the others — but then what about the next person who moves into the house? A house in India — which was a pretty good house even though it was a mud hut — somebody’s going to move in there; no way that it’s going to stay empty.
These are difficult things. But here it says specifically “those who are causing harm.”
Participant: What about, for instance, scientists and psychologists who basically ridicule the Dharma for what they think are good reasons? They think of it as superstition and nonsense, etc. They don’t set out perhaps deliberately to be malevolent, but they do a lot of harm by encouraging people.
Dr. Berzin: OK. Now he’s asking: What about scientists or materialists or whatever you want to — because some scientists are investigating the Buddhist principles — but those materialists who would argue against Buddhism and so on? What this is saying is that don’t encourage them by saying, “Yeah, yeah,” and I’m loving toward them in the sense that “Yes, you’re right” and “I don’t want to upset you or anything like that, and I’ll support your activities.” You don’t want to do that. What you want to do is, if you are able, debate them. But then debate them not on the basis of anger or malice, but you have to be forceful. If you’re going to debate, you need to actually want to defeat them — defeat their position, not them as a person.
Participant: You have to be armed with knowledge.
Dr. Berzin: You have to be armed with knowledge.
Participant: If you debate them and you don’t know what you’re talking about...
Dr. Berzin: Right. If you debate them and you don’t know what you’re talking about, you make it even worse.
Participant: But do you think that would be considered a malevolent person?
Dr. Berzin: Is that considered a malevolent person?
They despise our teachers. What happens if our teacher is not qualified and is abusing students? Then we get into a tricky situation. But let’s keep it simple. But despise… I mean, that’s a heavy word, or hate.
Or spiritual masters in general. “All the gurus lead cults.”
Participant: Like Richard Dawkins’s type of attitude that all religions…
Dr. Berzin: Yeah. “All religion is no good.”
Or the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and who, in addition, cause harm or damage to any of them. Again, this is the question of what do we mean by harm and damage and how much is harm or damage?
But I think in general… I mean, what does it say? Don’t support them. Don’t help them to damage it further. If you are capable of — now it goes back to the bodhisattva vow — if you’re capable of stopping them, do so. But then in this commentary it says, do so not on the basis of anger.”
That takes us to the end of our class, and we’ll continue. I hope it’s beneficial that we go through all of this very slowly. But we have plenty of time. (As the Zen koan goes: death can come at any time, so relax.) And hopefully it’s beneficial that we think about these things.
Participant: To understand them practically, you have to understand it from different angles.
Dr. Berzin: Right. To understand them and to put them into practice, we have to understand them from different angles.
Anyway, let’s end with the dedication. We think whatever positive force, whatever understanding has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.