We are studying this letter, a text that Tsongkhapa wrote as a reply to a request from his friend the meditator Konchog-tsultrim about how to actually practice a combined path of sutra and tantra in a very practical type of way.
Review of Previous Sessions
In this letter, Tsongkhapa begins by saying how we’ve found an excellent working basis, and we’ve met with the teachings, and we have spiritual masters, and we have the ability to discriminate between what is helpful and what is harmful, what’s to be practiced, what’s to be rejected. With all of these factors that we have, we have an excellent working basis for meditating and practicing and reaching liberation and enlightenment, and so it’s important to not only first recognize and then appreciate them but also to take advantage of them.
To take advantage of them, we need to engage ourselves in the Buddha’s teachings, which means to really get into it and integrate it in a full way and embody it ourselves. To do that, it’s very important to have a fully qualified spiritual teacher, and to have trust in that teacher, and to entrust ourselves with confidence in the teacher. Although there are many lists of qualifications of the type of spiritual teacher to rely upon, if we just summarize them very shortly: Tsongkhapa just says that the teacher needs to know what are the actual states of mind that we need to develop and what are the ones that we need not to develop (in other words, to get rid of); and to not add any, not leave any out; and to know the proper order of how to develop them and how to apply them to each individual student’s mind. Of course, the teacher also has to have the proper motivation, the proper training, and proper level of realization. That goes without saying.
The teacher himself or herself needs to have gained certainty about all of this by their own personal experience of having been led through this training by their own spiritual teachers and in a way which is totally in harmony with the great texts. This is very important to understand, and one of the points that Tsongkhapa makes over and over again, that all the teachings of the practices for developing ourselves are based on the great texts of the Buddha and the Indian masters, and they aren’t two completely separate things — the study of the texts and the practice. He says that this is the way the teacher needs to have been trained and the way we ourselves need to be trained.
Then as for how we actually begin our practice, the main thing is to tame our minds. This is what Nagarjuna and Aryadeva (Skt. Āryadeva), the great Indian masters, have said. In order to train our minds, then, in whatever it is that we wish to develop, it’s very important to have the proper motivating mental framework. That’s really essential. For this, although there are many different schemes for that, we have the basic scheme of the graded stages known as the lam-rim, the graded stages of the path, and that is divided into initial level, intermediate level, and advanced level. It’s important to work through these and develop ourselves with them in the proper order; if we leave any out, that’s not going to work very well.
On an initial level — without going into a great deal of detail (we discussed these in detail), but just as a way of summary — what we’re aiming for is to improve our future rebirths, in the sense of trying to guarantee that we continue to have a precious human rebirth so we’ll be able to continue on the spiritual path. For that we have to turn our interest away from primarily just this lifetime and think in terms of future lives.
Then, on an intermediate level, we understand and realize that no matter what type of situation we are reborn into, it’s going to continue to have all sorts of problems and be a basis for the up and down suffering of samsara (Skt. saṃsāra). We need to gain liberation from all that, and that means gaining liberation from what is driving our uncontrollably recurring rebirth: the disturbing emotions, our unawareness of how we exist, and the impulses of karma that are built up by acting on the basis of these disturbing emotions. We need to develop renunciation, which is the determination to be free from this based on complete disgust with it: we’ve had enough and we want to get out.
Then, on the advanced level, we are thinking not just of ourselves but of everybody else. Everybody’s in the same situation, and how wonderful it would be if we could actually help them to also get out of samsara. So, we develop love, compassion. Bodhichitta is the aim in which our minds are focused on our enlightenment, our individual enlightenment, which has not yet happened but which we aim to achieve, and we have confidence that we can achieve it on the basis of Buddha-nature.
We have these different levels of motivation. That motivating framework is the framework — I think the word that I choose here, framework, is significant — because it’s within that context that we’re going to do any practice that we do. To develop these mental frameworks themselves is a practice needing a great amount of training and meditation and so on. But once we have these motivating frameworks, they give us the energy of why are we doing a practice and what is the emotional feeling behind it, and that’s very important to renew and reinvigorate (or revigorate I guess is the word) over and over again. Otherwise, it’s very easy that our practices become very mechanical — there’s no feeling behind it — and when that happens… Although there is some benefit by just mechanically repeating the practices over and over again, if there’s no feeling or energy behind them then the effectiveness is decreased.
Then Tsongkhapa says: in order to build these motivating mental frameworks up as a beneficial habit, we need to meditate. Meditate (sgom) means just that, to build something up as a beneficial habit. For that we need to know how to meditate. Meditation requires, then, knowing what are the states of mind that we need to develop before them, what is the gradual order that we would develop them — in other words, what will support the state of mind that we’re trying to develop, what would be detrimental to it (what do we have to rid ourselves of), what do we actually focus on when we are trying to develop this state of mind, and how does our mind relate to or take that object of focus. There are all these specifics that are going to help us to develop this or that beneficial state of mind, and that’s extremely helpful practical advice. Then Tsongkhapa says that we need to try to maintain these motivations throughout our meditation session, not just at the beginning and not just during our meditation session but throughout the day.
Then having gone through all of that as a preliminary, Tsongkhapa says that if we really want to practice these two stages of the highest class of tantra, anuttarayoga, then we need to set as our basis ethical discipline, ethical self-discipline. This involves various sets of vows. There are the pratimoksha (Skt. prātimokṣa) vows, the vows for individual liberation. These are either as a layperson, or as a fully ordained monk or nun, or novice monk or nun. We discussed the lay vows. That’s the general… True for all practices. Then on top of that, if we want to practice Mahayana (Skt. Mahāyāna), then there are the bodhisattva vows, and we went through all of those.
The Fourteen Common Tantric Root Downfalls (continued)
Then on top of that, if we want to practice the two higher classes of tantra, then there are the tantric vows. We are still in our discussion of the 14 root tantric vows. These are all formulated in terms of the faulty action that we want to avoid in order to be able to practice tantra in the most efficient way possible, effective way possible. We’re up to number 11 out of 14. Let’s see how far we can get today.
That’s a general summary of what we’ve been doing.
[11] Not meditating on voidness continually
The 11th one is perhaps one of the most difficult ones to keep. This is not meditating on voidness continually, which means that when we are taking the tantric vows, what we’re committing ourselves to do is to meditate on voidness every day. We break this by letting more than a day and night pass without meditating on voidness.
As we mentioned before, tantra can be practiced with any of the philosophical tenet systems of Mahayana — either Chittamatra (Skt. Cittamātra) or, within Madhyamaka (Skt. Mādhyamaka), Svatantrika (Skt. Svātantrika) or Prasangika (Skt. Prāsaṅgika). Ultimately, at a certain stage, it is necessary to adopt a Prasangika point of view, but that actually is a very, very advanced stage. The way that His Holiness explains it is that when we’re on this very advanced stage in the second stage of anuttarayoga tantra practice, the complete stage (rdzogs-rim), then almost automatically we will gain the realization of Prasangika based on the actual experience of appearances and these sorts of things depending on the mind and existing in terms of what mental labels refer to.
But in any case, regardless of the level of view that we hold, we need to meditate on that every day. We saw with the ninth vow we can replace our view of voidness, but it’s important… The ninth vow was not to put down voidness and say, “We don’t need this,” and to minimize the importance and the absolute necessity of meditation on voidness.
Then the question that we have to address very seriously is: How do we actually meditate on voidness and how are we going to do this every day? The usual custom, of course, is to meditate on voidness at least three times during the day and three times during the evening as part of the six-session practice. If we place a limit and think we’ve meditated enough on voidness before reaching liberation and enlightenment, then we’re never going to attain it. It’s something that we have to sustain throughout our spiritual path.
How would you go about meditating on voidness in a fairly concise way? I mean, we should be familiar with voidness and voidness meditation before taking a tantric empowerment; it’s not something that we just start out with after we’ve started to do a tantric practice. As we explained, tantra’s very advanced and it’s absolutely necessary to have this whole sutra level of practice, at least to a certain level, before we engage in tantra.
We need that determination to be free so that we turn away from ordinary appearances and the way that our mind makes ordinary appearances and your ordinary self-image and the disturbing emotions and so on. If you don’t renounce that, it’s going to be crazy to imagine yourself in the form of one of these Buddha-figures and so on. You need that renunciation to turn away, to be willing to give up the ordinary appearance of things and our ordinary identification of ourselves with them.
We need bodhichitta (Skt. bodhicitta). We’re aiming at our own future enlightenments that’s represented by these Buddha-figures, and we want to do that in order to help others. Because in the practices we’re visualizing ourselves in the form that represents what we want to achieve, and we do all sorts of practices of lights going out [i.e. going forth, radiating] and so on, helping others. If it’s not based on love and compassion, sincerely wanting to help them, and not based on aiming to achieve this state of enlightenment, then what are we doing? I mean, the whole thing is absolutely crazy.
Similarly, if we don’t understand voidness, which is the absence of impossible ways of existing, then we are going to still either cling very strongly, as absolute solid, to the identity of me in my ordinary form — in which case then it’s just a game, what we’re doing with these visualizations — or we’re going to cling very strongly to a so-called solid true existence of this Buddha-figure, in which case you become schizophrenic and crazy. The understanding of voidness is absolutely essential.
All of this has to be not on the most advanced level, of course — otherwise we’re never going to go on to tantra practice — but at least to some level in which we are comfortable with it and familiar with it and it’s there to a certain degree. Many people take initiations or receive initiations earlier than… or prematurely when they have not actually reached this level of being able to do the practice properly. If that’s the case, then again it depends on whether there is a practice commitment or not a practice commitment. Even if there’s not a practice commitment, it’s always a good idea to at least repeat the mantra of the practice several times each day, just to keep up the momentum, and we take it in a sense of — the way that many Tibetans do — we’re building up habits and instincts for later on, whether later on in this lifetime or in future lifetimes.
But regardless of what level we’re at in terms of our practice, if you take the vows… I mean, there is no receiving of an empowerment, of an initiation, unless you take the vows. If you haven’t taken the vows — which means consciously taking them, knowing what you’re doing — you haven’t received the initiation. You were present but haven’t actually received it. It hasn’t actually taken form on your mental continuum, if we use the Prasangika explanation of it. That means that, regardless, we have to keep the vows if we’re going to receive empowerment. Otherwise, don’t fool yourselves. You’re there for inspiration, etc., but without making any commitment.
And practice? If one doesn’t really have the framework for being able to do it, you can do it, but be very, very careful. What one really has to do is work on these three principal paths that Tsongkhapa emphasizes: determination to be free (or renunciation), bodhichitta, and the understanding of voidness (and of course concentration and of course refuge and understanding of impermanence and all these other things which are necessary). Tantra is a way of putting it all together and practicing it all together in one integrated way, one integrated form, and that’s another factor that makes tantra practice quite advanced. It’s very important to understand this, because then even if we’re not ready for tantra, we at least develop respect for it and understanding for it, and that’s very important. Without having respect for it and a little bit of understanding of what it involves, then it’s very easy to have a very distorted fantasy idea of what tantra is, and there’s so much garbage literature out there concerning tantra that we can get a very, very false view of what it actually entails. The basic framework.
If we are practicing and we have this commitment to meditate on voidness every day at least once — although, as I say, the six-session practice that is the commitment from taking an anuttarayoga (highest class of tantra) empowerment, then it’s within that structure, that there is a point in it where you do voidness meditation and you do that six times — in any case, how would you go about doing voidness meditation? Anybody? I won’t ask the embarrassing question of how you do it individually.
Participant: At first, searching for the object of negation, that one figures out how things appear to me.
Dr. Berzin: The first step, as Tsongkhapa points out: recognizing the object to be refuted. In other words, what is the impossible appearance of how things exist? How would you choose something like that?
Participant: How to choose? I always choose myself.
Dr. Berzin: You choose yourself. In general?
Participant: In general, I try to focus on how it feels, how myself appears to me, and then to put it in these... that it seems to me not as many things…
Dr. Berzin: Now you’re jumping ahead. Let’s stay with the first question of how you recognize it. My question is: Just in general, or in a specific situation? Tsongkhapa points out that when you are emotionally upset then the false me, the me to be refuted, appears the strongest, and so that generally is where you start to try to recognize the false me. You would choose something current of that day (or the day before, if you’re doing it the first thing in the morning) that was upsetting, that’s bothering me, and you choose that as the general area in which you’re going to do voidness meditation. Because obviously it’s helpful, in doing the voidness meditation, to alleviate that emotionally difficult situation that we are experiencing, that we’re actually in, isn’t it? OK. We want to choose not just a theoretical, vague, general situation but something specific from the day or the past days and so on. OK.
Participant: Sometimes to me, the mental state, especially in the morning — it’s already woken up, so the object is already there.
Dr. Berzin: OK. The morning is bad enough: “I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to go to work. My back hurts,” whatever it might be.
Participant: You keep your eye on your girlfriend.
Dr. Berzin: What was that, Daniel? Something about your girlfriend?
Participant: You open your eyes; you turn over and see somebody next to you.
Dr. Berzin: Right. You open your eyes, you turn over, you see someone next to you, and you wonder “What in the world was I doing?” or “Who is that?” You can keep your personal history to yourself.
What is it that you recognize? You just said how it feels. How does it feel?
Participant: It feels like a single thing that is somehow permanent.
Dr. Berzin: It seems like a single thing, somehow permanent.
Participant: It feels solid, like someone sitting here.
Dr. Berzin: Something solid sitting here. Anything more?
Participant: Independent.
Participant: Important. More important than anybody else.
Dr. Berzin: More important than anybody else. Yeah.
Participant: That’s enough.
Dr. Berzin: That’s enough. The interesting question is: We are supposedly doing voidness meditation within one of the Mahayana tenet systems, and what we need to recognize is what they are — whatever particular tenet system we’re working with — what is it that is actually identified within that tenet system, and is this something that I can recognize? Do you remember what is defined as the impossible way of existing for these things? In other words, what I’m saying is that we don’t want our voidness meditation to be simply a meditation on impermanence. That’s quite easy, to mistake voidness meditation for meditation on impermanence. “There’s no permanent me. I’m impermanent. I change from moment to moment.” Very nice. That’s true; that’s helpful. That’s not voidness meditation.
Participant: Then there’s the term inherent existence, but how can you feel something inherent?
Dr. Berzin: Inherent existence — how do you feel that? That is the thing to recognize. According to the explanations, it automatically arises. You have it. Then the point is how to recognize it. It’s not as though you don’t have it and you have to artificially create it.
Participant: It feels like something sitting there. I think to me that’s… if you can call it inherent or you can call it whatever...
Dr. Berzin: It feels like there’s something sitting there. You see, what I am trying to draw out from you is that that maybe is a little bit too vague.
Participant: I was going to say, is one possible method also logically inferring where is this something that I feel? Does it have a color? Does it have…
Dr. Berzin: Yeah, but you’re jumping ahead. You are jumping ahead now to the analysis of “Is it something that can be located? Does it have color, shape etc.?” First you have to identify what it is that we’re refuting.
Participant: I’d say a concreteness in the sense of it being possible to point out very specifically… like there’s something on the side of the thing or that there’s certain features that make it what it is, that stand out as what it is, from the side of the phenomenon (whether it’s the me or if it’s the body, it doesn’t matter). It’s like there is something that justifies our cognitive engagement with it in a certain way from its own side.
Dr. Berzin: Is there something findable, pointable to, on the basis for imputation, on the basis of me? Right. Doesn’t that mean that first we have to recognize that the self is imputed on the body and mind (the aggregates). That’s quite a realization. That’s quite a realization just to start with.
Participant: I think you have to understand that because otherwise you can’t really analyze the relationship between... I mean, if you haven’t, even to some extent, separated your cognition into what you impute and what could, on a more superficial level, be analyzed as a basis for imputing that, then you can’t analyze deeper into it — have a basis of imputation, and have images of that that seem to exist on that basis of imputation.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Absolutely correct. If we’re going to hold a Prasangika view then we need to understand very well mental labeling, imputation, what is the basis for imputation — that the self is something which is imputed on that — and then to try to understand the relationship between what is imputed and the basis and all the various parts of that. Voidness meditation requires quite a lot of study and understanding.
What I have tried to teach you over the years is that there is a way of looking at the tenet systems in which they are built one on top of the other. What is helpful is to first... I mean, what is the first thing that you overcome? You overcome the conceptually based grasping for a me as defined in the non-Prasangika systems. This is the non-Buddhist point of view, whether we hold it in full or not. This is a self which is what? What are the three characteristics of that self?
Participant: Single, independent, and permanent.
Dr. Berzin: Single, independent, and permanent. What does permanent mean?
Participant: Not changing from moment to moment.
Dr. Berzin: It’s not changing from moment to moment. It is eternal. Buddhism does say the self is eternal: no beginning, no end. OK, there’s a me that goes on, whether we are thinking in terms of future lives or not is another question (obviously at this point we should be fairly convinced of future lives and past lives). But leaving that aside, even within this lifetime: that there is a self, that there’s me, conventional me. But what’s impossible about it is that it is:
- A me that is not changing from moment to moment, always the same
- A monad (in other words, has no parts), the Hindu view that either it’s a little spark of life or it’s equivalent to the whole universe
- Independent of body and mind. Which means what? In the Hindu… The non-Buddhist thing is that it can fly off, out of your body, independent of a body and mind, and go on to another one.
This package — that’s impossible. Then you see “Well, what am I left with once we get rid of that?” What I’m left with is that there’s a me which changes from moment to moment, and which has parts, and which is not independent but is dependent on a body and mind (imputed on it). What in the world does that mean? Does it mean that it only comes together with a body and mind? It is after all in one of the aggregates, the aggregate of other affecting variables (’du-byed-kyi phung-po). It’s included there, but it’s imputed on it.
What does that mean? How do you approach something like that? How do you approach trying to understand that? You approach it by analogy. What’s another thing which is imputed? Change, isn’t it? Change is imputed. Motion. You can only have one frame, one moment at a time. Motion is imputed in the sense of it being a mental — if I can use the mathematical term — mental integration, in which you put together mentally something which pervades various moments. Isn’t it? Now the question is: Is change just a mental construct? From the Gelugpa point of view, no. The self is not just a mental construct, that if you stop mentally constructing it, it wouldn’t exist. That’s not the point. It’s not saying that. This is an important point. A self is not created by imputation and mental labeling. There is a self. How is it established? Its existence is established as an integral in a sense, an integration. In each moment there’s: I’m sitting here, then the next moment I’m talking, next moment I’m saying something else, and so on. It’s an integral on the whole thing.
Now what is false here is that it doesn’t change, and that it’s one solid thing (a monad), and it can somehow fly off and be separate. When that’s not the case, what’s the next… what is the subtle form, the automatically arising (lhan-skyes) form (the subtle one is automatically arising)? The automatically arising form is that there’s a self that can be known separately from the aggregates. That automatically arises, and it’s easy to identify: “I don’t feel like getting up.” What, my body doesn’t feel like getting up? My mind doesn’t feel like getting up? What is it that doesn’t feel like getting up? That automatically comes there, as if there were a me that we can talk about, independent.
You want to be specific here. “I’m angry.” Is it my mind that’s angry? My body that’s angry? It’s clear that the me that’s angry is labeled onto the body and the mind. It’s not a separate me that’s angry, is it? “I feel tired.” The mind is tired? The body’s tired? What’s tired? I’m tired. “I was insulted.” Who? What? You have to recognize what it is. I am reacting, getting upset, on the basis of this false concept that I have of a me that’s separate. If you understand the me that is merely imputed onto a body and mind (if we just make the aggregates simplified like that), somehow the energy is less, isn’t it? “I hurt.” What’s hurting? “My back hurts.” There’s the muscles, there’s all of that, and then there’s me labeled on that. It’s not just that the pain is impermanent, and I’m going to change, and so… like that. It’s not just that.
Then if you want to go to the Prasangika... I mean, you can go to the various tenets. This is just basic (that’s even in the Hinayana (Skt. Hīnayāna) tenets). Then you can add the Chittamatra in terms of the voidness of external appearances. There’s no need to go into great detail about the Chittamatra, Svatantrika, and Prasangika views. That would take several classes, to review that for you. But basically, what we’re talking about is, when you get to the Prasangika, is there something in the body and mind... OK, so now I realize that the self can’t exist independently of being mentally labeled. You can’t establish the existence of it separately from being mentally labeled. But there’s something inside me that makes me me, and that’s false. There is nothing on the side of the body or the mind or whatever that makes me me by its own power, either in conjunction with the label me or independent of the label me.
If you want to get into the object of refutation being that there’s nothing in me, in my body or mind, that make me me, before that you need to refute that there isn’t a me that can be known on its own. Then you can go into that me that can be known by itself, or that me which is based on something special making me me. It’s either one with the aggregates or separate from the aggregates, or this or that, etc., or it can’t be found.
It can’t be found means what? I’m sitting here. I can find myself. I’m sitting here on the chair. It can’t be found — what does that mean? Whether we approach “can’t be found” from “it doesn’t have a form, doesn’t have a color, doesn’t have shape, doesn’t have a smell” — whatever direction we approach it, there are many ways of coming to the same conclusion that it can’t be found. What it means is that you can’t find... Mental labeling — what are the parts? It’s the basis for labeling a body and mind. There is the label, the word me or the concept me. There is what the label refers to, the referent object. The referent object is the me, the conventionally existing me. The word me refers to conventionally existent me on the basis of a body and mind, and there’s nothing in the body and mind that makes me me and that will allow that proper labeling.
You have to differentiate now between the referent object (btags-chos) and the referent “thing” — this is how I’m translating the technical terms (they’re not easy to translate) — referent “thing” (btags-don) that corresponds to the referent object. Is there a “thing,” a truly existent “thing,” that can be found that corresponds to the conventional me? Or the false me, for that matter, because, as Tsongkhapa says, either conventionally or on the deepest level, it can’t be found: there’s no “thing” that can be found there corresponding to the word or what the word means, what the word is referring to. That’s what can’t be found.
Whether we call it a monster, or this person an idiot… My favorite example, one of my favorite examples, is idiot driving the car over there. OK. There’s a basis, the body and mind of the person. Obviously, you can’t know the idiot separately from the body and mind of that person, although it seems like that: “You idiot!” There’s some emotional thing there, so it makes it easier to recognize: “You idiot!” OK, there’s the word idiot. The word idiot refers to an idiot, a conventionally existing idiot (the person is acting like an idiot), so that’s not the problem. The problem is: Is there a referent “thing”? Is there an actual idiot in that car corresponding to what the word means?
Participant: No. There’s just the mental concept.
Dr. Berzin: There’s just the mental... No, there isn’t just the mental concept. The mental concept refers to something. The label refers to something. There is conventional reality, the conventional truth. This person now is acting like an idiot. Therefore, anybody else who sees this person driving like that, and who has the convention of the rules of the road, and can see properly, etc., would agree they’re an idiot.
Participant: But he probably thinks you’re an idiot.
Dr. Berzin: That’s beside the point. That’s beside the point, what he thinks. But is there an actual idiot sitting there? Is there something there on the side of the person that makes them an idiot, there’s something wrong with this person inherently — here’s our word inherently — something by its own power making them an idiot from the side of this person, something wrong, or making me an idiot, or “I’m no good,” “I’m not good enough,” whatever?
Participant: Maybe this is working it around a different way, but maybe it’s a question of terminology or semantics that’s making it hard to grasp. Maybe if we were to understand what you’re getting at more... Because it’s hard to grasp, that is there a “thing” or is there not a “thing,” or what is there when we’re referring to the idiot? Like maybe another way of going around it would be… Are you referring to, for example — it’s another way of putting it — the ego as opposed to an eternal self or soul?
Dr. Berzin: Oh, now she brings in Western things that... Right. Are we talking about ego as opposed to an eternal soul?
Participant: Are you referring to a concept of what this person’s behavior… an interpretation, a mental construct that makes it appear as though it exists, as opposed to something else which exists outside of that. Is that what you’re getting at? I don’t know.
Dr. Berzin: She’s asking whether I’m talking about ego versus an eternal soul, or am I talking about something within the context of mental labeling, and it exists somehow outside of that, and so on, of things being mental constructs, etc. The problem here, aside from terminological problems — terminology which is very, very difficult (these are highly technical terms that are making very fine distinctions) — but one of the things that is very difficult to understand is a mental construct, because usually we imagine that a mental construct somehow is to be gotten over, something to be gotten rid of. In the whole discussion of voidness, there is... How to say this nicely? We’re not speaking about how things exist. We’re talking about how you establish that something exists. That’s the question. How do you establish, how do you demonstrate, how do you prove that something exists? What makes something exist? What establishes that it exists? Is there something on the side of the object that establishes that it exists? In simpler tenet systems, less sophisticated, they would say: if something functions, that establishes that it exists; that proves that it exists. Establish (sgrub) is the same word as prove, or it’s also the same word as to affirm. It affirms that it exists, it proves that it exists, it establishes that it exists. It doesn’t create its existence. On a simpler level, the first level, if it functions then that establishes that it exists. How do you establish that there is a me? How do you establish that?
Participant: The whole Western world is based on the error of the idea “I think, therefore I am,” as if the function proves…
Dr. Berzin: Right. The Western world is based on “I think, therefore I am.” There’s the function — that it functions. Right. But this is not the Prasangika answer here. We have to get more subtle than that.
What establishes that I exist? There’s nothing that you could find on the side of the object — either the basis of labeling or what a label refers to or whatever — there’s nothing on that side that proves or establishes that it exists. What establishes that it exists? Merely that there is... it is the referent object of a mental label and a concept. There’s a name and a concept, and that establishes it, that together with the fact that it is an established convention. It’s all established from the side of the mind.
There’s an established convention: we have this word; some people agree on it. It is not contradicted by valid cognition of relative truth, which means that it’s... I put my glasses on and see straight. You can see it. It’s not that it’s a blur; just because I see a blur, doesn’t mean that there’s a blur actually existing there. It has to be not contradicted by somebody who puts their glasses and can see straight. Or I heard you say something really nasty, but actually nobody else heard that, so I misheard. It’s not contradicted by valid cognition of conventional truth and not contradicted by valid cognition of the deepest truth (that you’re really, truly a monster, etc., etc.). It’s all established from the side of the mind, that it exists and how it exists. There’s nothing on the side of the object that establishes that it exists. That’s the main thrust of Prasangika. That then allows for everything to function, for everything to interact. If there was something that was on the side of the object, then it’s sort of there, encapsulated by plastic: it couldn’t interact with anything, it couldn’t do anything — couldn’t function as a cause, couldn’t function as a result, couldn’t function to do anything.
We start on the simpler level. You start really with… You can start with the non-Buddhist thing: a self which is static (not changing), it goes on separate from the body, and a monad. You could start with that, or you could just start with also the automatically arising one together with those characteristics. There’s a me. “I feel terrible.” Right? You get up in the morning: “I feel terrible. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do the day or whatever. Another horrible day.” That me which can be known by itself — what is its relation to the body and mind? Is it the same as the body and the mind? What is it the same with? The body? It’s the mind? This or that? Is it totally separate from it? No. Is it something which owns it, possesses it, either as part of it or separate from it? No, that’s impossible. Is it something that lives inside the body and mind? No, that’s impossible. Is it something that it is there and controls it, the controller? No, that’s impossible. You go through either the five-part or the seven-part — these various analyses that we have learned. Is it just the collection of the parts? All these sorts of things. You can do that in a more elaborate way or not elaborate way. Presumably we have done these analyses before.
You just remind yourself “This is ridiculous.” Having identified that me (“I don’t feel like doing anything.”) or this person that I’m so upset about (“Grrr, you terrible person,” etc., “You did this or you didn’t do that.”) that we’re so angry with — is it the body, or the mind, is it inside, outside? All this sort of stuff. It’s not any of these. Then the voidness meditation is to focus on “no such thing”: “There is no such thing. This is impossible. Never was, never can be.” You focus on the absence but with the understanding of what is absent, that this impossible way of existing is referring to anything, a referent “thing.” Referent “thing.” It’s not referring to anything that is real. There is no referent “thing.” I mean, here there’s no referent object. I should be more qualified when we say… The referent object of me is the conventional me. Conventional me has a referent object. But the false me — there’s not even a referent object, let alone a “thing.” It’s like turtle hair. There is no turtle hair. You have the word turtle hair, but it doesn’t mean anything.
Participant: I thought before that you were saying that there is a “thing,” but in fact what you’re confirming is that if you strip away all of these factors there is no “thing.”
Dr. Berzin: What I’m saying is that there is an object, there’s a referent object to our words. That’s the conventionally existent “thing.” Let’s say dog. There are dogs. There is a dog. There’s the dog sitting there.
Participant: But what makes up the dog?
Dr. Berzin: But a “thing,” a dog that is existing from its own side, established from its own side, the impossible “thing” — that doesn’t exist either as a “thing” out there or even as a referent object.
Participant: That’s what I was trying to understand in the previous question. What you’re saying is we all agree that there is a thing which we refer to for the sake of a frame of reference.
Dr. Berzin: There is an object. I’m making a difference because they use two different Tibetan words. There is an object but there’s not a “thing.”
Participant: OK. Now I see what you’re saying.
Dr. Berzin: There is a table here. But the table as this horrible thing that I just banged my foot against, or that is so ugly and really upsets me, that “thing” — there is no such thing. There is no such thing.
Participant: There is no reason to be angry at it if it doesn’t exist.
Dr. Berzin: There’s no reason to be... I mean, there are causes why I’m angry for it, from habit and all of that, but there’s no justification for being angry with it. There’s no basis for it.
Participant: In and of itself.
Dr. Berzin: In and of itself. What am I angry with? What am I angry with?
Participant: Is it more that you can’t stick a label on it, right?
Dr. Berzin: You can stick a label on it, but don’t think that there is something... I mean, we stick labels on it because we have language. We need to communicate. We need to communicate, but that’s it. That’s it. Don’t think that the world corresponds to the way that language would imply. Language implies that things exist — either it’s in this word in the dictionary or it’s under that word in the dictionary — as if everything were separated out into entries in a dictionary. They are not. That’s just made up by somebody. But they do refer to something, because we use it, and it communicates. But don’t think that the world is actually made up of...
The example that I always use: the colors. There’s just a spectrum of colors. There’s just a spectrum, a light spectrum. It’s completely arbitrary, a convention, how it’s divided, and names given… from this angstrom to that angstrom is called yellow, from this one to that one is called orange. That’s totally arbitrary. Even more so when it comes to emotions. What in the world is that? But we think “I’m so angry.” What in the world is anger? There’s this whole broad spectrum of emotion that not only I feel but everybody else feels, and what actually is anger among all of those? How do you lump things together, totally individual experiences, into this category of anger? We have a defining characteristic. Where did the defining characteristic come from? Somebody made it up — it’s mentally constructed — it’s not on the side of emotions. There are no little lines on the side of this, like on the light spectrum, making… I mean, where is it? Am I angry? Well yes, that’s a way of describing what I’m feeling. But what in the world is anger? This allows for “OK, so it’s just a feeling, so there’s no big deal.”
Participant: You can only say you’re calling what you’re feeling anger.
Dr. Berzin: Right. “I’m calling what I’m feeling anger. So what?”
Participant: But someone else might think it’s something else, even experiencing the same thing.
Dr. Berzin: It doesn’t matter what I call it is the point. What establishes that I’m feeling angry? It’s what the word anger refers to, and other people would agree I’m pretty angry. So what? That is, in the end, what we come to — “So what? No big deal.” (Or “I’m sick,” or “Poor me,” or whatever.)
When we do voidness meditation each day… It’s very good to do voidness... I mean, there are many, many ways of doing it. We can do voidness of causes and effects, and a classic one is — supposedly when we are already emotionally stable and not being upset — who’s sitting here meditating, doing this meditation? All the baggage, to use the American idiom, that comes along with that, and I’m sitting here meditating. Then the causes: What I’m doing is going to act as a true cause for my enlightenment, or the enlightenment that I’m aiming for is a truly existent result. Then we apply everything that we learned from our Shantideva class on Bodhicharyavatara (Skt. Bodhicaryāvatāra): At the time of the cause, is the result totally nonexistent? If it’s nonexistent, if it’s a nothing, how can a nothing become a something? If it’s already a something, then why does it need to become a something again? We apply the analyses that we learned, the tools that we learned. The more familiar we become with voidness meditation, the more elaborate we can do it.
To do voidness meditation every day… As I say, the best thing to choose is what is upsetting us at the moment or in our recent history. “Oh, my job.” It doesn’t have to be me; it could be something like my job, my life, my rent, my whatever it is, my friend who upset me in one way or another — either attachment, anger, whatever it is, jealousy.
Participant: Does it also count, in order not to break the vow, if you think about this in everyday life when you face a situation and then you try to apply this voidness?
Dr. Berzin: Ah, perfect. To put your question another way, does it have to be when we’re formally sitting in meditation for it count? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. The best way of practicing this is in real-life situations, and that’s what we meditate for, is to be able to build up the habit so that automatically in a real-life situation we will apply the antidote. That’s why you have the three higher trainings (lhag-pa’i bslab-pa gsum). The three higher trainings:
- Ethical discipline first (lhag-pa tshul-khrims-kyi bslab-pa). As Shantideva points out, for ethical discipline you need the same things as you need for concentration. You need to be mindful to — hold on to — what it is that you want to keep (the discipline) and to notice when you’re deviating from it and to apply the antidote as soon as possible. We need the discipline to do that — to watch when am I acting under the influence of anger, when am I acting under the influence of a big selfish me, and so on — to recognize it at that point. So there’s discipline.
- Concentration (lhag-pa ting-nge-’dzin-gyi bslab-pa) to stay on it.
- Discriminating awareness (lhag-pa shes-rab-gyi bslab-pa). “There’s no basis for this, then what in the world am I doing?” To, in that way, deconstruct it, deconstruct the energy.
When you become familiar enough with it, all you have to do is remind yourself. Whether we use the simple, not very polite mantra of “bullshit” or “garbage,” or if you want to say it in a nicer word, but “This is garbage. There’s no such thing. What am I so upset about? What’s the basis for acting so selfishly?” You just [snaps fingers].
You could stop just on the basis of discipline: “If I continue to act like this, it will bring up destructive behavior and so and so,” and then just use discipline not to. That’s called self-control. That will work. That is an initial level. But we don’t want to leave it just at the level of being the constant police, the internal police, that has to control, because then you can get into this dualistic thing of the me who’s the police in my head and the naughty me that needs to be controlled, and then you get into a very dualistic way of thinking, which can be very self-destructive. But as a start, that’s what we do, but then you have to go beyond that level, and the voidness meditation helps it. Then eventually you’re just able to reboot, as it were. Delete. The voidness is basically delete — “There’s no such thing” — then you can reboot; you can start again.
Participant: Isn’t it equally important to delete when you feel overjoyed or happy, like “Oh, this is great. This is wonderful. I’m so thrilled about this”?
Dr. Berzin: OK. Now we get into a very interesting question.
Participant: It’s easy for us to want to not feel anger or despair.
Dr. Berzin: Yeah, that’s a very good question. Do we need to also delete and deconstruct and do voidness meditation when we’re overly happy, overly excited. Yes. However, we have to differentiate very clearly here. Rejoicing in positive things that we do, and others do, regretting the negative things that we do — we need to do that. What you have to separate out from that is the whole ego trip: “I’m so wonderful,” or “I’m so bad,” “What I did was so terrible,” or “What I did was so wonderful.” That doesn’t negate that you rejoice, or you regret. But there is simply happiness and rejoicing arising as a mental factor based on various reasons, and we can mentally label, on the continuum of that, me. No separate me from that. Same thing with regret. It’s similar, that we feel love and compassion and these things, but you have to remove from it the big “Me, me, me” and “I’m so loving,” and “You are so adorable,” or pitiful or whatever it is.
With anger, it’s not that you want to have pure anger at the end of it; you also want to get rid of the anger. You have to differentiate a constructive emotion from a destructive emotion. Remember we had the vow about not being loving toward malevolent people, that when somebody is really causing a tremendous amount of harm, that you have to stop them? But the energy of anger that you use is not the disturbing emotion of anger. It’s sort of the forceful energy of the mind, which is very difficult and very delicate to use, and you really have to: “Stop! Don’t run into the road!” for your child. It’s really hard to do that without your energy being really, really upset [i.e. shaken up] at the time.
Participant: Just to reiterate Jorge’s question: Even if you remind yourself of voidness sometime during the day, this would be counting as voidness meditation?
Dr. Berzin: OK. If we remind ourselves of voidness during an actual incident during the day, would this be sufficient? Personally, I would say that’s dangerous, to rely on that, because then you have to keep score: “OK, I thought of voidness once today, so now I can skip it in my daily meditation.” Or “Ooh, I haven’t thought of voidness yet…” — you know, I’m feeding the cat — “and so I’d better think in terms of voidness while I’m feeding the cat.” Not like that. We want daily practice. That’s why the six-session practice — which is a commitment from the highest class of tantra initiations, at least in the Gelug tradition — has in it a part where you meditate on voidness. You do that as your structure.
It doesn’t say meditate on it only once a day or only six times a day. If we can apply it when we need it, whether we’re feeling proud and arrogant: “Oh, how wonderful, what I’ve done,” etc. But again, don’t think that impermanence meditation is voidness meditation. Don’t think that equanimity meditation to the eight worldly feelings — of whether you’re praised or criticized, same, same — that that is voidness meditation. There are less sophisticated ways of dealing with various problems that come up. Certainly, meditation on equanimity and meditation on impermanence — all these things are very, very helpful. But voidness meditation is “No such thing” in terms of an impossible way of existing, and that impossible way of existing needs to be recognized.
Tsongkhapa makes a big point: neither underestimate nor overestimate. In other words, don’t refute too little or too much. It’s very easy to do too little, so that “I’ve understood impermanence,” and think that that’s enough, so you’ve refuted too little. Or too much, and you’re left with “Nothing exists. It’s all just mentally created. If we stop mentally creating then we are in the great void, the great nothing, and that’s it. Turn out the lights. We’re finished.” Those are the extremes that we need to avoid.
Obviously, if you take a tantric empowerment — and from that first day you are committing yourself to keep these vows — how can you possibly keep this vow if you haven’t had some preparation in the study of voidness? It doesn’t have to be the most sophisticated — it says, “at your own level of understanding it” — but it needs to be within one of the tenet systems. OK?
This is probably the hardest of all the vows. The most difficult, I think. All right. So voidness meditation — very important.
[12] Deterring those with faith
Then the 12th one: deterring those with faith. This refers to purposely discouraging people from a particular tantric practice in which they have faith and confidence and for which they are fit vessels, with proper empowerments and so on. If we cause their wish to engage in this practice to end, that’s the root downfall. If they’re not ready for the practice, there’s no fault in outlining in a realistic manner what they have to master first, even if it might seem daunting.
If someone has... They’ve taken the initiation and they’re prepared, in a sense, to engage in a practice, and they have confidence in that practice, they have faith in it — they may not understand very deeply, but they have faith in it — and that’s not our particular practice; it’s not something that we are into. If we say to them, “Oh, come on, that practice is... that’s no good. You should do the practice that I like, because that’s really the coolest, that’s the best.” For this to be complete, they have to actually lose the wish to practice what they were practicing, then we have the root downfall. Then the vow is broken. If they are not qualified to do the practice, but they’ve received the empowerment and they want to do it — it’s OK to say, “Hey, you’re not ready. Hold off.” But to encourage them, that “You need to do this and this and this and this first.” The point is that we want to take others and their interests seriously. Don’t belittle them by saying, “Oh, you’re incapable,” or “This is too much,” or stuff like that.
Let me give an example. Kalachakra. Kalachakra has 722 figures in the mandala (Skt. maṇḍala) — the most difficult of the practices to visualize. There are a lot of people who are very enthusiastic about it. They’ve received the initiation, they’re enthusiastic, and they want to do a practice, and they do the most simple, simple, simple form of it, just with one deity or just a couple of deities or things like that. And we come along and we say, “This is unrealistic. This is the most complicated practice. Hardly any Tibetans do this. Who are you fooling wanting to do this practice? Do you really know what’s involved? Forget about it. Do something much simpler. Do a Chenrezig practice. Forget about that,” and they lose their interest in Kalachakra, then the vow is broken. But you could explain to them: “Let’s be realistic here. You’re going to have to really train very much, and you start on simpler levels. This is fine, but don’t fool yourself that that’s the full practice. There’s this step and that step,” and you want to encourage them, because it’s important to help people with self-confidence. If we want to actually become a Buddha, which is what we are after all trying to do with tantra, then it is important to help people gain self-confidence, not discourage them. That’s the point of this one.
[13] Not relying properly on the substances that bond us closely to tantric practice (dam-rdzas)
The next one is… We have only a few minutes left. I don’t know whether we can really treat this properly. But it’s not relying properly on substances that bond us closely to tantric practice.
This has to do with tsog (tshogs) pujas. In tsog pujas (tsog is an offering ceremony) you symbolically taste a little bit of consecrated alcohol and meat. To say that “I’m a vegetarian. I have a vow against alcohol. I’m not going to do this” — that’s breaking this vow. That doesn’t mean you drink a whole bottle of vodka or you eat a whole leg of lamb. Doesn’t mean that either. But one needs to realize what it is that it’s representing. It’s representing a transformation of the… If we do it on the non-Kalachakra level, it is of the aggregates and the elements of the body. If we do it on the Kalachakra level, it’s a transformation of the ten types of energy-winds in the body.
But in any case, it’s saying that we have this view... It’s like not abusing the aggregates, of thinking “Oh, a body. I can just do whatever and not take care of it,” and so on. That’s having a low view of the aggregates. It’s the same thing. We may have a low view of alcohol and meat and these sorts of things. Doesn’t mean that we glorify it, and we want to overuse it, but we transform it in the sense of doing voidness meditation on it in terms of my projection that “This is dirty. My body is dirty. The winds are dirty. They’re no good.” It’s the same thing. You purify it, and then you regenerate it in a pure form. Symbolically, by tasting it — which means stick your ring finger in the alcohol, and just the amount on your ring finger, that’s all, and a tiny shrivel of meat — it symbolizes that you’re overcoming this aversion and that there is this idea of transformation and using things on a pure level.
Somebody brought up the question: What happens if you are an alcoholic, an ex-alcoholic, and there’s a danger that if you even taste a little bit you might get back into alcoholism? The advice that I was given was that during a tsog in which they’re passing around a little bowl of alcohol that you stick your finger in — at that time, just go through the gesture of tasting it, without actually tasting it, if you have this problem of being an ex-alcoholic. When you do it in your home, use tea. You don’t have to use alcohol. It’s only a symbol anyway.
Don’t get caught up in what is being used as a symbol, but be careful that you’re not making an excuse: “I’m vegetarian, so I will use tofu instead of meat in my offering.” That’s still holding on to the view that meat is horrible. In the inner offering, you imagine feces and urine and blood and mucus and all this other stuff that you are transforming. The point is not to get this negative view of these things. That’s very helpful. That’s very helpful. You get some feces on your hand, so what? It can be washed off. What’s the big deal? Ohhhhh!
Participant: I think the problem…
Dr. Berzin: That doesn’t mean that you stick your hand in feces. I’m not saying that. But I’m just saying that one needs to get over this aversion to certain things as being dirty and so on, because that’s the attitude that often we have in terms of our body, especially if you’ve been doing the meditation on all the substances that are inside the body (you peel off the skin and so on) for overcoming attachment. You have to counter that.
Participant: The problem with meat, I think, is not that it is dirty or whatever but that it is involved with killing. I think that’s for most vegetarians more the point rather than that it’s dirty. It still tastes quite nice probably. It’s not dirty meat or whatever.
Dr. Berzin: Right. The vegetarian’s objection to the meat — and let’s not get into a big discussion of vegetarianism here, especially since it’s time to end the class — that killing was involved etc., etc. In a sense, that’s irrelevant.
A hypothetical situation: You have no meat. All right? Do you go out and kill a chicken in order to do your tsog, go out and slaughter the pig in order to do your tsog? No, you wouldn’t. I asked Serkong Rinpoche once, “What happens if you don’t have any meat, or you don’t have any alcohol or these things?” He said, “It doesn’t matter. Use a substitute.” Don’t get caught up in what is being used to symbolize the aggregates and the elements and the winds. Don’t get caught up in it. If it’s not available, it’s not available. Use something else.
In mother tantra you have the commitment to do this tsog offering on the 10th and 25th of the Tibetan month. Then they asked, “What happens if you don’t have a lunar calendar, you don’t have a Tibetan calendar, so you don’t know when the 10th and 25th is?” Rinpoche’s reply: “Does the Western month have a 10th and a 25th?” Yes. Don’t make a big deal of “Astrologically it’s...” like that. Forget it. That’s not the point. That’s taking things too literally. The point is to make an offering, and the point here is to make a transformation.
But if it is available then use it. If you’re a vegetarian, does that mean you have to go out and buy meat? Probably not. But I don’t know — a strict vegetarian, what they would actually use. Tibetans would get... somebody would give them a piece of dried yak meat which would last forever, and you take a little sliver of it each time and take a tiny taste and then offer most of it to the hungry ghosts at the end. It’s just symbolic. Here in the West? I don’t know.
Participant: Maybe you can take the thing they throw away in the supermarket or whatever.
Dr. Berzin: To take the meat that they throw away because it’s rotten and then taste that? I don’t think is the best solution. Not the best solution. Right. As I say, I haven’t really thought that out, what happens if you are a vegetarian, you’re living by yourself or with other vegetarians, and there is no meat. Do you go out and buy meat? You have a commitment to do… I mean, it’s only with mother tantra that you have the commitment to do the tsog. That means Vajrayogini (Skt. Vajrayoginī), Heruka, or Hevajra. I’m not quite sure if it’s with Hevajra actually, but certainly with Vajrayogini and Heruka (Chakrasamvara) there is.
Whether you would go out and buy meat, I don’t know. Use some cat food, the cat food. Use some of the dog food. I don’t know what.
Participant: Is that any better?
Dr. Berzin: Is that any better? No, but I mean you’re not eating the thing. I don’t know. One would have to think very carefully about what your motivation is. But I think that here it’s referring a lot to when you are in... I mean, this is a monastery. What’s their context? The context is the tsog puja (Skt. pūjā) in the monastery when there are a lot of people, and they pass around the bowl. What’s your attitude? Because in the minor vows it says not to argue during a tsog. We’re obviously talking about not when you’re doing it in your meditation hut by yourself or in your room by yourself.
Participant: What is the essence of this (for instance, taking meat)?
Dr. Berzin: The essence of it is that it is… You have done the visualization of transforming… chasing away your negative views about it, chasing away the negative appearance, transforming it with the understanding of voidness into nectar and so on that is going to give strength to the body and so on for working with the energy-winds. Because there’s a big danger when you work with the energy-winds in the more advanced stages that you’re going to get lung (rlung), a wind disorder. Meat will weigh it down.
It doesn’t mean that necessarily you have to do that, but the point is that you make that transformation. What it is symbolizing is transforming, as I said: In the non-Kalachakra practices, the aggregates (the body and mind thing) and the elements of the body (earth, water, fire, wind, space). Or in Kalachakra, they represent the ten types of energy-winds in the body.
Participant: Yeah, but you can also put that on a piece of cheese.
Dr. Berzin: You can do it on a piece of cheese. This is what I’m saying, that if you use the same thing, probably you can. By extension — now this I’m hypothesizing — by extension (since this answer in terms of if you’re an ex-alcoholic you certainly would never use alcohol, so you can use tea), I would think OK, you could substitute cheese or tofu. Now I’m just speaking off the top of my head, certainly not quoting anybody on that. But I think here the emphasis is on if you are in the temple, in the monastery, and they’re doing the tsog and they’re passing it around — don’t refuse.
Participant: You can’t say, “This is a terrible thing to do.”
Dr. Berzin: And say, “This is a terrible… You’re no good. You’re murderers,” all of this sort of business. In other words, try to stay within the whole tantric practice. That doesn’t mean that you have to have more than the tiniest, tiniest little bit. But without the attitude of “Eww!” you know? That’s what you want to overcome, and in general that’s the attitude that you want to overcome, whether it has to do with actual meat and alcohol, whether it has to do with actual feces and urine or whatever (which is in the visualization), whatever.
I mean, look at what you do, what you used to do, in terms of taking care of old invalids. You have to clean them up — you have to wipe them; you have to clean them. You can’t be afraid that “Oh, I’m going to get my hands dirty.” None of this “Eww!” type of attitude, you know? I mean, so what? It’s just a substance. No big deal. You can wash your hands. Don’t make a big deal out of it. That’s the attitude that you want to overcome, in addition to “Ooh, now’s my chance to drink a whole bottle of vodka.” The attachment thing as well. Both sides. The naivety with which you think it is, from its own side, inherently evil (if we can use this more general term that implies a big judgment). It’s just a substance. OK?
Good. That leaves just one more of the root vows, and then we have the secondary ones, then we’re finished with the vows.
Let’s end, then, with the dedication. We think whatever understanding, whatever positive force has been built up by this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.