LPA50: Object of Refutation That Is Neither One nor Many

He says we have the basis for practicing: we have the precious human rebirth, we’ve met with the teachings, we have teachers, we have intelligence to discriminate between what to practice, what not to practice. To engage ourselves in the teachings we have to rely on a teacher who is well qualified: who knows what to develop, what to get rid of; not adding anything, not leaving anything out; and knowing the proper order. The teacher has to have gained experience by going through this training himself or herself with a teacher and relying on the great classics.

To begin the practice, we need to tame our minds, which means to develop the motivation or motivating mental framework. For this, the most frequently followed are the stages that are explained in the lam-rim, the graded stages of the path: working for improving future lives so that we continue to have precious human rebirth, working for liberation, and then for enlightenment.

To get these motivating mental frameworks deeply embedded in us, we need to meditate, which means to practice developing them over and over again. In order to do that we have to know what the causes are, what are the things that each of these states of mind rely on that we have to develop first so that they will have the proper foundation and build-up, and know what we have to get rid of. We have to support this by reading, in between sessions, texts that deal with this, build up positive force, cleanse away obstacles. We have to know within the meditation what is detrimental for developing that state of mind, what’s beneficial; what we focus on, all the different aspects of it; how our mind relates to it; and once we achieve that state of mind, what will it bring about, what will follow from that, and what we get rid of from that. All of these things are very important, and we need to maintain these motivating frameworks all the time. 

To enter into the practice of tantra, the main thing that’s emphasized in the beginning here are the vows, different levels — pratimoksha for individual liberation, bodhisattva, and tantra. And we need to receive an empowerment; for that we need to have some basis of pratimoksha vow (best is as a full monk or nun).

Once we have the empowerment, then we need to practice the generation and complete stage in that proper order, without skipping the generation stage and jumping ahead to the complete stage.

The generation stage — Tsongkhapa goes into great detail about how to visualize. For the complete stage, he emphasizes that we work with the subtle energy-systems to get to the clear-light level of mind and to get the understanding of voidness with that level of mind, and the voidness that we understand with that is the same as we understand in sutra.

That’s the general outline of what we have been covering.

We are up to, then, Tsongkhapa’s presentation of the voidness meditation that is practiced in common in both sutra and tantra. What he said last time, what we were speaking about, was that all the teachings on voidness need to be supported by the texts. For tantra practice, the bases are the texts we find in sutra, the Paramita Vehicle, so-called vehicle of far-reaching attitudes (that’s the common name for the sutra division of Mahayana). And especially it’s important to rely on the texts of Tsongkhapa, the Six Collections of Reasoning they’re called, which are six texts (and we mentioned the list last time; no need to repeat that).

Participant: It was Nagarjuna, not Tsongkhapa.

Dr. Berzin: I said Nag… Did I say Tsongkhapa? I meant Nagarjuna. Sorry. Six texts of Nagarjuna. Thank you for correcting me. The Root Verses on Madhyamaka, Called “Discriminating Awareness”; Precious Garland; Refutation of Objections; Seventy Verses on Voidness; Sutra Called “Finally Woven”; and Sixty Verses of Reasoning are these six texts. Good.

Now Tsongkhapa goes on. He says:

There do exist some special persons who have trained themselves thoroughly like this in past (lifetimes. As a result,) then even though they may not train for long in this lifetime, they (are able to) comprehend the meaning of profound (voidness because of their instincts). But even so, such cases as these are extremely difficult (to come by). 

That is a reference to a division that we find particularly in Nyingma teachings, Nyingma classification — we find it also in Kagyu — and this is the difference between those for whom it happens all at once and those who progress by stages. It’s important to realize that even when — and Tsongkhapa points it out here — that even when we speak of those for whom it happens all at once, that this is on the basis of having done an enormous amount of practice in previous lifetimes. It is not as though their realizations happen with no cause at all. Whether we have to put in a lot of practice in this lifetime or we can rely on the amount of — tremendous amount of — practice we did in previous lifetimes, still one needs to do a great deal of practice. 

This term those for whom it happens all at once is not talking about those who sit down and start to meditate with absolutely no experience... Let me start this sentence again. It’s not that they start from a zero level of realization and go all the way to enlightenment instantly. What it’s talking about are those who, when they achieve a seeing pathway of mind — in other words, when they have non-conceptual cognition of voidness — that they achieve that and at the same time achieve liberation and enlightenment.

In other words, when we talk about the five pathways of mind, the five paths, it’s the  building-up pathway of mind (the so-called path of accumulation), which is when you first get shamatha and vipashyana focused on — if we speak of it in terms of all the yanas (the shravaka, pratyekabuddha, and bodhisattva), it’s focused on the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths. You have a stilled and settled mind, exceptionally perceptive state of mind, focused on the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths (or we can speak in terms of voidness if we want to summarize it, but it’s more fully on all these aspects of the four noble truths). At that point you have conceptual cognition of all of this.

Then with the applying pathway of mind, you apply that in order to get — sometimes called the path of preparation — you apply that over and over again so that eventually you get this non-conceptual cognition of these sixteen aspects or, in short, on voidness, the voidness of the sixteen aspects. That’s the seeing pathway of mind. That gets rid of… normally it would get rid of the doctrinally based — that’s the term — doctrinally based disturbing emotions. Each of the schools of Tibetan Buddhism, and each of the schools of Indian Buddhism, have a different scheme of at which point you get rid of which aspect of these obscurations.

• The emotional obscurations. That’s dealing with the disturbing emotions and grasping for true existence. You have that based on… Doctrinally based, that you learn something from a non-Buddhist Indian system (or according to Prasangika, even from a lower school of Buddhist philosophy), and based on that you have disturbing emotions, like “My view is correct, and everybody else is wrong,” and attachment and anger and so on, and naivety of course. And there’s automatically arising disturbing emotions and grasping for true existence. You have to get rid of that.

• Then there’s the cognitive obscurations. (Now I’m talking about the Gelug definition of these. The other schools of Tibetan Buddhism will define them slightly differently. Let’s not go into all these differences.) That would be the constant habits of grasping for truly established existence. The constant habits cause the mind every moment to generate an appearance of truly established existence, and so you have to overcome that.

Normally you go through that in stages. In sutra — according to Gelugpa and everybody except Sakya — with the seeing pathway of mind you get rid of the doctrinally based disturbing emotions. Then, depending on the interpretation, you have to have the accustoming pathway of mind (the so-called path of meditation), in which you continue working over and over again with this non-conceptual cognition. And at some point, you get rid of the automatically arising ones, and at some point, you get rid of the cognitive ones as well. The schools will differ as to whether you get rid of first the automatically arising emotional ones and then you get rid of the cognitive ones (that’s the Gelugpa interpretation), and some will say you get rid of both of them at the point of enlightenment, so you get rid of them at the same time (that we find more commonly in the non-Gelugpa except for Karma Kagyu; Karma Kagyu agrees with Gelugpa here). 

Sakya says that you get rid of the doctrinally based and the automatically arising disturbing emotions with the seeing pathway of mind all together. This is in sutra. Everybody says that in tantra, that’s also the case — tantra meaning the highest class of tantra — that with the seeing pathway of mind you get rid of the emotional obscurations, both the doctrinally and the automatically arising. But still you have to have this accustoming pathway of mind to get rid of, in gradations — and there’s a gradual gradation of getting rid of the cognitive ones — the appearance-making of truly established existence, and then you achieve enlightenment.

Everybody except Sakya makes a difference between how it works with sutra and tantra. Sakya says it’s all the same. 

Those for whom it happens all at once are those who, with a seeing pathway of mind, get rid of everything all together, both the emotional and cognitive obscurations. That is what happens all at once. That’s what the term all at once is referring to. It’s not referring to “Sit down and first do your lam-rim meditation, or first do your preliminary practices, and then all at once you are enlightened.” It’s certainly not saying that. One has to be clear about that. And for those who this is the case, then, Tsongkhapa says that they’ve “trained themselves thoroughly like this in past lifetimes.” Even in this lifetime, “even though they may not train for long in this life.” He’s not saying not trained at all; he’s saying not trained for long. I’ve never heard of practitioners who have not been told at least to do ngondro, the preliminary practices, in all of the traditions. There’s no way of getting around that. But even though they haven’t practiced for long, trained for long, “they are able to comprehend the meaning of profound voidness because of their instincts.” We can take this in terms of getting quickly to a seeing pathway of mind, or we can take this as a reference to those for whom it happens all at once. But Tsongkhapa says, and this is something that people really need to remember, “But even so, such cases as these are extremely difficult to come by.” 

There are many of us who think that we are Milarepas — but without really thinking of the example of Milarepa, who had to undergo such unbelievable hardships to purify his negative karma — that we’re going to be so advanced and fantastic that we don’t have to do very much and we will get enlightened. As my teacher Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey always said, that is basically an excuse for being lazy. People just don’t want to have to actually do all the hard work, those who are looking for the so-called easy path.

Tsongkhapa goes on to say:

Therefore, for all of us

He uses that type of language in Tibetan.

who are other than that, 

Who haven’t built up this unbelievable amount of positive force in previous lifetimes.

Therefore, for all of us who are other than that, we need to seek (our understanding) through (listening to and thinking about) such lines of reasoning as “parted from being either singular or plural.” Even though we might claim something else as the gateway for entering into a quick and easy (realization of voidness) by ascribing the name (“speedy gateway”) to (a method that) cuts off mental fabrications in general (without such reliance on sound lines of reasoning), we will not be able to please the intelligent (masters with such a claim).

OK. That’s a long sentence. What Tsongkhapa is saying here is that we have to rely on a line of reasoning in order to gain our understanding of voidness. I started to discuss this last time, and we’ll go into that in much detail. But the sentence after that is an interesting sentence. He says that there are people who give this name speedy gateway — speedy gateway to voidness, speedy gateway to enlightenment and so on — and they give that name to a method that cuts off mental fabrications in general without reliance on lines of reasoning. What is that referring to?

I believe that that is referring to, in the context of tantra, this other-voidness type of approach, that just getting down to the clear-light level of mind through working with the winds or different levels of bliss, the various methods, or the dzogchen method… Regardless of which method that you use, to just use that type of method which will get you to a subtler level of mind than the level of mind that generates mental fabrications (and whether it’s done by conceptual mind or non-conceptual mind, everybody’s going to differ), but a grosser level of mind than clear-light mind that is going to generate the disturbing emotions and going to generate appearances of true existence — that all you have to do is cut that off using some sort of yoga method, and that’s the speedy method. You get to the clear-light mind and that’s it, without relying on a line of reasoning — if they say that that is the way. Tsongkhapa says this “will not be able to please the intelligent masters.”

When we access the clear-light level of mind, then the type of appearance that that mind produces is — according to Kedrub Norzang-gyatso, the tutor of the Second Dalai Lama — it looks like the type of appearance that you get with the non-conceptual cognition of voidness. It looks the same, but it’s not accompanied with the understanding of voidness. Just to have an appearance that looks like the appearance that you have with the non-conceptual cognition of voidness, which is basically what’s described as an absence of… what the sky looks like when there’s no sunlight, no moonlight, and no darkness, no absence of starlight. That’s this very faint dark blue that you get just before it starts to get light. Although the mind produces an appearance like that with the clear-light level of mind, which is the appearance that you would get when you cognize voidness by itself non-conceptually — this is referring to the Gelug manner of meditating — that’s not it; that’s not the understanding of voidness. That isn’t a stable attainment, because you have to go there. When you come out of that, which means getting to grosser levels of consciousness again, then because you haven’t gotten rid of the constant habits of producing the emotional obscurations and the cognitive obscurations — because you haven’t gotten rid of those specifically — the cognitive obscurations making the appearance of truly established existence, you haven’t achieved enlightenment.

He says that you have to rely on a line of reasoning in order to accompany that clear-light cognition with understanding of that appearance. In dzogchen terminology, that’s called to have rigpa (pure awareness) recognize its own face (rang-ngo shes-pa) — in other words, understand its own nature. If it doesn’t have that, then you bounce right out of it. It’s not something which is sustained, and it’s not something which acts as a true opponent to get rid of these obscurations.

OK. Is that clear?

Tsongkhapa basically is critiquing mistaken views, and he’s going to do that throughout the rest of the text, is to point out various mistakes that it’s important to avoid — that one might think that one has meditated correctly and followed the teachings correctly, but you haven’t. This is what I think he means by practical advice that someone should know who’s devoting their lives to intensive meditation, like the person who is receiving this letter that he’s written it to.

Now, the line of reasoning. There are many lines of reasoning. I didn’t bring the list of the five major lines of reasoning from Nagarjuna on understanding voidness. I can bring that next time. I don’t think I can generate that straight out of my memory, the names, etc., in terms of voidness of cause, voidness of effect, etc., but neither does it arise from self, doesn’t arise from other, these sort of lines of reasoning. The one that Tsongkhapa mentions by name is parted from being either singular or plural. That’s usually translated as being one or many, but I think singular and plural is a better way, is a more meaningful way of ascribing a name to this method. What is this talking about?

First of all, I should repeat and emphasize what I mentioned last time that His Holiness always emphasizes. When you meditate on voidness, you have to go through a line of reasoning. We’re talking about the stages at which we would be at; we’re not talking about advanced stages of meditation on voidness but the earlier stages of voidness.

Aside from the necessity to go through each of the tenet systems, which I think is very important (it’s particularly emphasized in the Sakya approach): To refute or negate a gross level of what’s impossible, and then what do you have left? Then with what you have left, to negate another level from another tenet system, and then what’s left over? Then another level, and another level, and another level — like that, until you get to the Prasangika refutation. Without doing that, I think it’s very, very difficult to really appreciate the Prasangika view as Tsongkhapa presents it.

His Holiness says and emphasizes that when we meditate on voidness, that understanding that we get, that cognition, has to be generated on the basis of an inferential understanding based on a line of reasoning, that you’re actually convinced that this is so, and then you just cut off — His Holiness usually does a hand gesture with that — just “dzak” – cut off this belief in truly established existence, just “There is no such thing.” That’s not so easy to imagine. How do you focus on “no such thing” with understanding and then not saying that in your head and maintaining that understanding? These are various points that we have to discuss.

Participant: Would the cutting off of the appearance — you mentioned that several times (quite frequently actually) — the cutting off of this appearance of true existence, would this just be like a result of the conviction that you get? Or would this be another conscious effort?

Dr. Berzin: That’s a very good point. He says: Is the cutting off of the appearance of true existence a result of the understanding — cutting off the belief in true existence — is it the result of that, or you do it consciously? 

Now we have two approaches. The belief is coming from the emotional obscurations. Right? That’s unawareness, ignorance. The appearance is coming from the cognitive obscurations. You cut off the emotional ones first and then the cognitive ones. Normally that would sound like the logical way of doing it. That’s why you have the… I won’t complicate it. Let’s leave it like that. In sutra there’s one method; in tantra there are two other methods. If we talk about sutra, then it would just be: you cut off the belief, and the more focus that you have on the belief that “There’s no such thing” then the appearances will, by themselves, disappear. 

If you are following tantra, anuttarayoga tantra, the highest class of tantra, then you actually do visualizations in which you rarify the appearance of true existence. We have these eight stages, if we use the Guhyasamaja system. Kalachakra has ten stages (we’ll leave that aside). The eight stages: 

• everything becomes like an illusion (smig-rgyu); 
• then like smoke (du-ba); 
• then like dots of light (mkha-snang, fireflies); 
• then like just like one dot of light (mar-me, butter lamp); 
• and then, how I’ve explained it and how I understand it, sort of appearance (snang-ba) congealing; 
• then diffusion of light (mched-pa); 
• then just a sort of a threshold (nyer-thob) to the clear light; 
• and then the clear-light appearance (sprin-med nam-mkha’, cloudless sky). 

This is my understanding, that we are dissolving the solidity of the appearance of truly established existence. You could just use it as a visualization of a cartoon of these things, and I don’t think it makes a deep change — transformation — in you. I think that the appearance that they’re describing describes the appearance of truly established existence getting thinner and thinner. 

There are two methods here. First of all, everything is within the context that you’re supposed to be maintaining an understanding of voidness throughout the entire practice. It isn’t as though we had no understanding to start this dissolution practice, which is known as taking death as a pathway for Dharmakaya (’chi-ba chos-sku lam-’khyer). These are stages that happen as you die as well.

• In mother tantra, you start with reminding yourself of the line of reasoning first, and then you go through this dissolution of the appearance of truly established existence. That would be the mother type. First the conviction, and then within the conviction — reaffirming that conviction (cutting off of the belief) — then you imagine the appearance gets thinner and thinner and thinner of truly established existence.

• The father tantra way of doing it would be: Since you’re maintaining the understanding of voidness anyway, to imagine the appearance getting thinner and thinner and thinner and thinner. And when you’ve gotten to the thinnest level of it, then reminding yourself of what that demonstrates (the understanding of voidness). But throughout the whole thing, one has to maintain some understanding of voidness, of course.

These are the different methods that are used. But these are two different points that are there. You have to dissolve the emotional obscuration aspect that’s producing the belief and the cognitive one that’s producing the appearance of true existence.

Participant: Could one say that basically the sutra approach is mainly dealing with the belief in true existence?

Dr. Berzin: Sutra approach is primarily dealing with the belief. It’s only dealing with the belief. The more you stay focused on voidness… How do you get rid of the appearance-making of truly established existence? It’s the accustoming pathway of mind. The accustoming pathway of mind — so-called path of meditation — you are repeatedly, over and over again, staying in the total non-conceptual absorption on voidness. What you are doing is breaking the continuity of the immediately preceding condition for the appearance-making of truly established existence so that the force is getting less and less and less for that appearance-making of truly established existence to arise again after that total absorption. This is the method. That’s why you have an accustoming pathway of mind. You have to accustom yourself to it. It is not just — that’s why I don’t like this word pathway of meditation; it gives a completely different connotation. 

Then it’s divided into the ten bhumis. It’s complicated: Is the first bhumi part of the seeing pathway? The accustoming? There are many different opinions on it. Let’s leave it. Just say you have ten bhumis, these levels of mind, which are getting rid of, chunk by chunk by chunk, these obscurations — whether it is in terms of first the emotional and then the cognitive, whether it’s in terms of both at the same time, step by step, or whether it’s all at once. There are many different ways in which it is explained.

Participant: [missing]

Dr. Berzin: That’s also an interesting point that comes up. You say: Why are there these different explanations for how it happens that you have in the different Tibetan traditions (and even Indian traditions, for that matter)? Isn’t there one that really happens? I think that the way that you have to understand it is that for different people it happens differently. It’s similar to the question: Do you practice Kalachakra or non-Kalachakra? Because Kalachakra has an explanation of the chakras and the channels that looks quite different from what you find in Guhyasamaja (which is the generic one followed in all the other tantras). 

Is it that you… What’s happening? We have beginningless lifetimes, so it isn’t that anyone is inherently one type or another type. It’s a matter of what’s dominant. This I find very nice from the Sakya explanation of inseparable nirvana and samsara — that we have all these levels inseparably, so it’s just a matter of which have been activated more strongly by practice in previous lifetimes, of what’s going to be dominant in your own configuration of your subtle energy-system.

Participant: It can even be despite your chosen course of action.

Dr. Berzin: Despite your chosen course of action. This is an interesting thing.

Participant: You might even have made what seemed a logical and conscious choice to go with something, and then some developments occur which may indicate some previous knowledge of that from somewhere else (not in this lifetime, obviously, but some previous tendency or something), which would be strange. For example, as you mentioned, the obscurations may be all occurring at once. Maybe you’re following a method which is systematically that the emotional ones drop first and then the cognitive, and yet maybe they occur all at once, which would indicate somewhere, unbeknownst to you, you’ve been practicing a different way.

Dr. Berzin: Right. What she’s saying is that you could choose to practice in one way and it would be described by a different system (of what you’re not practicing). Right. 

I was thinking on a different level from what you said in terms of we follow one practice, and we find out that wasn’t really what was suited to us. What I was thinking of was in terms of choosing a yidam, a Buddha-figure, a so-called meditational deity. Often it’s said, “An indication of which one would be most suited for you is which one are you attracted to.” You see the thangka and your eye always goes to that, and you find “Wow. That’s a statue that I would really like.” This type of thing.

Several points that are involved with it. You could be attracted to a certain figure because of previous karmic instincts — if we use a loose term, a nontechnical term, here — of having practiced with that. That could be one thing. 

You could also be attracted to it because of some disturbing emotion: you find it pretty; you find it attractive — sexy or whatever. You could say, “What’s the reason why you find that attractive and not the other one attractive?” There must be some karmic reason, but that karmic reason could be because of your attachment to, let’s say — if we talk about the example of Vajrayogini — to naked women and you find that sexy. And so, you are attracted to that for totally non-Dharmic reasons. These sorts of things happen. Or Yamantaka, a naked male — whatever it is that you’re attracted to. 

It could be for a Dharmic instinct reason, or it could be for a disturbing emotion instinct. That’s why you really have to check up. Also, it could be the case that you are attracted to several or you’re attracted to none.

These are very difficult questions, and one really has to constantly check what’s going on: What is the motivation? As you practice further and further… Presumably you have done a great deal of sutra practice on voidness, as Tsongkhapa is pointing out, before you get into intensive tantra practice, and so you have hopefully cleared away at least the very grossest levels of your disturbing emotions. That’s very important, actually, for any sort of strong Dharma practice, particularly in terms of establishing a healthy relation with a spiritual teacher, which is very essential in tantra and always emphasized in tantra. You have to be emotionally mature. It can’t be somebody who is an emotional wreck that is going to get angry with the teacher. That will never do.  Or clinging and attached to the teacher. That will also never do. And jealousy when the teacher is with other students. That will never do, either. Or proud or arrogant because we can speak our language better than the Tibetan teacher, who speaks terrible English. All sorts of disturbing emotions that could totally jeopardize and destroy any proper relation with the spiritual teacher.

Really for serious Dharma practice, one needs to have really done a great deal of work beforehand on lessening the grosser levels at least. We’re not talking about getting rid of them completely, but at least the grosser levels of these disturbing emotions. Certainly, for getting into serious tantra practice. Otherwise tantra practice will just make your disturbing emotions worse, especially in terms of the sexual imagery. Very dangerous, because it doesn’t have anything to do with our ordinary concept of sex.

We have the line of reasoning here that Tsongkhapa emphasizes, which is neither singular nor plural. How do we understand this? As I said, if we don’t understand the basic tenet systems it’s going to be very, very difficult to really appreciate what is the subtlety of this line of reasoning. In the grossest form, the line of reasoning is: 

If there were anything that had truly established existence, a truly established existent thing, it should be either singular or plural. There should be either one of them or many of them. If it’s neither one nor many, it doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing. 

That’s the general line of reasoning. When you talk about this line of reasoning, then, you have to — I mean, this is the way it’s classically presented, like in many of the lam-rims — you have to recognize the object to be refuted, you have to recognize and be convinced that the line of reasoning will refute what is to be refuted, then you have to recognize what is one, what is many (what is singular, what is plural) and then follow that line of reasoning and come to the conclusion that there’s no such thing.

What is the object of refutation? Truly established existence. What in the world does that mean in the Prasangika sense? That we have to understand. And then the line of reasoning. This is not necessarily a given thing, that if there’s such a thing as tables, there has to be either one table or many tables (it has to be either a singular phenomenon or plural); if it isn’t that, then it doesn’t exist. That’s sort of this type of logic of exclusion of these possibilities, that is has to be either one or the other: it can’t be anything else that’s in between. If you think of singular or plural — I mean, although some languages have dual (singular, dual, and plural) — that sort of covers it. But one shouldn’t be so blasé about that line of reasoning, because it’s very easy to just say, “It’s not singular, it’s not plural, so what?” and it doesn’t really lead you to a firm conviction and understanding of “no such thing.”

If there are any dinosaurs, there has to be either one dinosaur or many dinosaurs roaming on this planet. If you look for it and you can’t find it, then there are no dinosaurs. No such thing as dinosaurs.

This is the simplest form of formulating this line of reasoning. It is much, much more subtle than that. Much more subtle. One really needs to understand the subtlest level of this argument in order really for it to be effective and not to be just “So what?” as the conclusion, especially if you just take it at “If it’s truly existent, you should be able to find it. Is it up your nose? Is it under your arm? Where’s the me?” And you can’t find it, and so what? Of course, it’s not up your nose and it’s not under your arm and not in your head and so on. It’s very important that this whole discussion not be trivial and not be something that you say, “Of course. That’s easy to understand.” It’s not easy to understand. If you find it really easy to understand, then either you are one of these people who, as Tsongkhapa said, the rare, rare few in previous lifetimes who have built up this enormous karmic force, or you haven’t really understood it.

Tsongkhapa himself, who was no dummy, felt that his understanding wasn’t deep enough. He did this unbelievable number of prostrations and mandala offerings in order to burn off the final obscurations that would prevent him from getting non-conceptual cognition of voidness — three and a half million prostrations, and I forget the number of mandala offerings but also equally large (not equal but a significantly large number of mandala offerings). Was Tsongkhapa doing that just to demonstrate and show us the way because — like the Mahayana view of Buddha — he was already enlightened and just showed by what he did how you become enlightened? Or did he actually show us by his own example that, hey, this is not something which is easy or trivial? I tend to think of the latter as being the case.

Without going into a very, very long discussion of all the different tenet systems, let us just speak in terms of, first of all, mental labeling. When we are talking about mental labeling, we are talking about three things. Three things are involved. (Mental labeling is also called imputation, another name for it. Or designation, another name for it.)

• There’s a word or concept. A concept doesn’t have to be verbal. There’s a word or concept. That’s the so-called mental label. 
• Then there is the basis on which it is labeled. For instance, we have the word “table” or concept table. The basis is some sort of object with legs and a flat top.
• Then there is what the word refers to in terms of that basis. What the word refers to is a table, a conventionally existent table.

What’s a table? A table isn’t the word “table” or concept table. A table isn’t just a collection of legs and a flat top. It’s what the word refers to. OK? 

We have these three things. Truly established existence in the Prasangika sense means that there is a referent thing that corresponds to the word, a findable referent thing. That’s the only way I can think of how to translate it clearly. In other words, we have words and concepts. Words and concepts, if you recall our discussion, are basically… A word is a sound which is ascribed to an audio category. There are audio categories and meaning categories. When we think in terms of conceptual thinking, we’re dealing either with an audio category or a meaning/object category. A word is just a sound, then, that is assigned to this. Categories are static phenomena; words are not (they’re sounds).

Now, audio category (sgra-spyi): There’s a category of the name table, and what fits into that category would be “Table. Table. Table,” [repeating “table” in different voices] in any voice, any volume. All of those would fit into the category, this audio category of table — a label, the name.

Then there is a meaning category and object category (don-spyi) — it’s the same term — which is what it means: a table. There are big tables; there are small tables. If you think of the category dog — my goodness, there are so many different animals that are called dog. There’s a general meaning, an object — a dog or a table.

What is truly established existence? What’s impossible is that there’s an actual thing that the word corresponds to. Words refer to things. You have to make a big difference here of what words and concepts refer to and what corresponds to them. Words, like in the dictionary, imply a fixed… Like, if we use simple language, a box, and here is the box with a label on it called dog or called table. This is what is impossible, that there are boxes somewhere out there or independent of words and so on, like a blank disc that is waiting for us to put a name on it (and you can put any name on it). That’s impossible. There aren’t things, referent things. Nevertheless, words and concepts refer to something that performs functions (in the case of non-static phenomena). There are tables. There are dogs. You can get bitten. You can put your glass of water on the table. What we’re talking about in terms of truly established existence are referent things to the words and concepts.

Participant: Is this related to the exercise and practice of breaking down the individual components of any particular thing or object? You come to realize that if you break it down far enough, it doesn’t exist.

Dr. Berzin: Is this related to the practice of breaking things down into its component parts so that you find that there’s nothing solid there? That’s the initial, Vaibhashika understanding. That’s why I said you start with the simpler, so-called simpler, tenet systems and work yourself up. That’s the first level. 

This chair is made of atoms and particles and empty space and so on — and here’s our big nevertheless — despite that, it holds me. My body is made of countless atoms. The chair is made of countless atoms. It’s mostly empty space, but nevertheless — what I call in German the trotzdem factor [nevertheless factor] — nevertheless, in spite of all of this, it works. If you don’t get that “nevertheless it works,” you haven’t understood voidness properly. That was Shantideva’s whole approach. If you could understand, on the basis of this simpler level, that although things are not solid in terms of they’re made of these smaller and smaller and smaller parts, nevertheless they function — if you’re able to accept that, then you can go to deeper levels: that even if they don’t have truly established existence, nevertheless they can function and work. But you have to start step by step to really get it to sink in. 

My body is made up of atoms. It’s mostly empty space. The body of the person that I’m so sexually attracted to is made up of atoms. They’re mostly empty space — let’s not even talk about what’s in their stomach and intestines — made up of atoms, nevertheless I can hold the person’s hand, I can caress them, etc. They can give me a glass of water. They can hit me. It’s not that they don’t exist. But what am I attracted to? The atoms, a package of atoms? What is it? 

Anyway, these are levels of understanding that we have to work through. The actual refutation of neither singular nor plural (neither one nor many) is a very sophisticated thing.

First, we have to recognize what it is that we’re talking about. This is why I always use the image of things as if there were a big solid line around them or encapsulated in plastic, corresponding to word categories, dictionary categories. Even the defining characteristics — here we get really Prasangika — of something are not establishing the existence of the thing as whatever it is from its own side.

So, what does that mean? Table does have defining characteristics: legs and a flat top. However, the defining characteristics don’t by their own power establish it as a table, because somebody made it up; it was mentally labeled. “Things like that we’re going to call table. We’re going to write that in the dictionary. This is the defining characteristic.” What has established it as a table is a defining characteristic that has been mentally labeled. It’s by that power that it’s a table, from the power of mental labeling alone. Nevertheless, there are individual defining characteristics of things. Otherwise, everything would be a big undifferentiated soup. It’s not.

I’m just throwing these points out, but these are obviously very difficult to even just understand intellectually, what I’m talking about, let alone to actually what we would say experience it; I mean actually understand that in terms of how we view things and think of things in our daily life.

Sometimes it’s easier to understand in terms of categories such as friend or enemy or love or our relationship or whatever: “We have a love relationship,” “We have a friendship relationship.” What the world is that? Somebody’s made up a definition and given it a name. What are the boundaries of it? I don’t know, but the name seems to imply that there are fixed boundaries, and if it is a little bit over that solid line, it’s no longer a romantic relation — it’s a friendship. Where do those lines exist? They don’t exist anywhere. They’re projected. That’s called a mental construct, mental fabrication.

Participant: It’s not only the labeling and the ideas and concepts attributed to any given thing, but it’s also the conditioning of the individual to accept those labels. It’s in tandem with conditioning that we accept these things as being what they are, and we’ve learned them, and for millennia they’ve been called this or they’ve evolved to be called this, and there’s a kind of acceptance.

Dr. Berzin: Right. She’s saying that it’s not just in terms of mental labeling, but we have also been conditioned to accept it and believe in this. There are those that are doctrinally based level of it, things that have been taught by other tenet systems. There are things that are similar to doctrinally based in the category of incorrect consideration (tshul-min yid-bcas) that we have been conditioned by. That is not necessarily doctrinally based. This is just a taxonomy, a difference in terms of what you call it. But in any case, there are these problems. And then there’s the automatically arising things, like danger or hunger or whatever. There are many different levels of that. 

What does “conditioned” mean? This is the whole point, that there are constant habits. Remember, we have a difference in terms of tendencies (which is the word seed (sa-bon)) and constant habits (bag-chags). A seed, or a tendency, only gives its result sometimes, not all the time. For instance, a tendency for anger: we are not angry every single moment of our life; only sometimes we’re angry. A tendency gives rise to its result occasionally. A constant habit, karmic habit, gives rise to its result every single moment. These are the cognitive obscurations — and what do they do? They give an appearance of truly established existence and a belief in it.

Participant: That’s why where something’s called a table, you fall into a habit.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Table… You had to learn, for instance, watch: “Here’s a wristwatch.” You had to learn that this was a wristwatch. As a baby, they would think it’s something to put in your mouth or a toy. What is it? Is it a toy or is it a watch?

Participant: A toy watch.

Participant: Which brand is it?

Dr. Berzin: It’s a toy watch. What brand is it? I see. If it was a Rolex, it wouldn’t be a toy. I can assure you this is not a Rolex. This is El Cheapo brand, something like that. 

But in any case, we have to work very hard on this. And yes, it’s deeply ingrained; it’s a constant habit — beginningless. Mind makes these appearances, and it looks as though this is really a room, or a rug, a table, a hand, so you believe it. To be able to actually identify this is very, very difficult. Then when you get rid of that, is there anything left? Tsongkhapa in his presentations (I don’t recall if he mentions it later in the text), he always says you have to avoid — he says this in Lam-rim chen-mo (Grand Presentation of the Graded Stages of the Path) — you have to be careful not to over-refute or under-refute. Over-refute: you’re not left with the conventional level. Under-refute: you haven’t gotten rid of enough. 

Just to introduce the point here: neither singular nor plural, what are we talking about? We are talking about the basis for labeling and what a label refers to. This is why I like singular or plural. Are they singular? Are they the same? If both of them exist as referent things and not just what the words for it refer to, then if there is such a thing as findable referent things that are established by their own power, by something from their own side, then the basis for labeling and what the word refers to — are they talking about the same thing or are they talking about two different things? That’s what this singular and plural business is all about.

I don’t even know if it’s understandable from what I just explained, what we’re talking about. It’s very, very subtle. Is there actually a thing four legs and a flat top and a thing table? And four legs and a flat top as a thing and table as a thing — are they the same thing or are they two different things? If they’re neither the same thing nor two different things, something is wrong here in our whole way of conceptualizing what establishes things as what they are.

Why don’t you think about that for a moment? I don’t know if you followed what I was saying, but this is not easy.

Participant: I have a question about these two concepts, audio concept and object concept. I was wondering where does written language fit in. You said something to her about a dictionary and how it’s a mental construct. I was thinking that written language is also an object somehow. Because, for example, if you write something down by hand, it’s different from seeing it on a cinema screen or something like that.

Dr. Berzin: This is a great question. What he’s asking is: We talk about audio categories of a sound. Whether it’s out loud or mental sound, however it’s pronounced, whatever volume, whatever voice it’s said in, it’s all the same word. This is the way that it was formulated originally; they don’t take into consideration the written form. But I would absolutely agree that it has to be extended, that whether you write the word or you hear the word it’s still the word, the word category. No matter what handwriting it is or what size font and what font and what print it is, and so on, and what color it’s written in, and so on…

Participant: A billboard.

Dr. Berzin: A billboard, however it is. Or just a picture of a table, or a Chinese character for the table, or different language words for a table. Are they all referring to the same thing? That starts to get very interesting here, because different languages divide, let’s say, the spectrum of colors differently. I think that that also has to be there. 

Now the question is: Why wasn’t it formulated that way in the beginning? I was thinking that in the beginning, teachings weren’t written down. Nothing was written down. The written language was first used for military affairs — to send messages to other parts of the army — and for basically keeping records for commerce, trade. Then, after very long time, it was adopted for philosophical things, but philosophical things were always audio. I think that’s why the initial formulation of this was just in terms of sound. But I definitely think it has to be extended to all the different senses, not just the visual. That’s the written and the audio, but how about the smell of a human being for a dog?

Participant: That’s different because there’s not an intention of communicating.

Dr. Berzin: It’s not an intention of communicating, but it is a category that the dog has. Or the category of the smell of my master. I’m sure that at different times of day, depending on how sweaty we are and so on, we smell differently.

Participant: I think if you start to define it or refine it like that, then there’s no end. Because if you say about the smell of a human being and that it really depends on the time of day…

Dr. Berzin: Right. Or a taste, the taste of chocolate or a delicious taste or a terrible taste. That’s a category.

Participant: There’s no end to it. Maybe it’s better to just stick with audio.

Dr. Berzin: No, not that there’s no end but that we have categories for each of the senses, and we might not even have a word for it.

Participant: Yeah, but that’s too much. For example, if you take a human being: it’s a question of if it’s in the morning when he didn’t brush his teeth yet, and stuff like that, or he’s dead already… Where’s the end? Or where’s the beginning?

Dr. Berzin: Right. Where are the boundaries? This is a very good point he’s saying. Where is the end of the category of what you smell like? You brush your teeth, not brush your teeth, alive, dead, and so on. If the word corresponded to something in a box, there should be boundaries around that box. And that’s the point: there are no fixed boundaries established from the side of the object. The boundaries are established by how you have defined it, by a mental label, only by the power of the mental label. The mental label didn’t create the object, however; the object arises from its causes and conditions (here’s our nevertheless factor).

Participant: I just have a terminological question about the terms audio category and meaning category. Are these terms also used in a different context for when you’ve just picked up the words without understanding them and you haven’t got an understanding of what the teachings actually mean?

Dr. Berzin: He’s saying: Do these words audio category and meaning category also refer to when you just know the words and you don’t know the meaning (as in memorize a prayer in Tibetan and have no idea what it means)? You have the audio categories or also adding the meaning. Sure, it has to do with that as well. In addition, words that you don’t know what they mean. 

I travel a lot in countries in which I’m hearing languages that I don’t understand; nevertheless, there are certain words that always stand out. I know the word, but I have no idea what it means, and then I ask, “You keep on saying this word. What does it mean?”

Participant: Taxi, taxi.

Dr. Berzin: Taxi, taxi. 

Participant: You’ve been talking about how to use this practice, talking about tables or objects, physical things. Is there a practice or is there anything in the teaching about abstract things that are important to Buddhism, for instance compassion or a Buddha?

Dr. Berzin: Oh, sure. Do we have an analysis also for compassion, for Buddha, for ethics? Sure.

Participant: If I say, “I’m going to avoid being negative today,” as a prayer, “and realize the positive,” how do you say what is the positive?

Dr. Berzin: Right. This is very good. Do we also have the voidness of things like “I’m going to avoid being negative. I’m going to be positive. I’m going to avoid being destructive. I’m going to be constructive”? You look at the definitions. Vasubandhu in Abhidharmakosha defines it one way; Asanga in Abhidharmasamuccaya defines it another way. We have one way in the Vaibhashika system, one way in the Chittamatra system. If you look in the Theravada texts, they have another definition. It’s clear that there’s the mental label of even the defining characteristic of what constitutes constructive and destructive. Sure, there’s the analysis of that. 

I mean, I have not stated it yet, but we’ll get to this. I’ve used examples like table and dog, but the first example that one needs to work with is me the person, oneself, the basis of labeling the five aggregate factors in each moment, which are constantly changing — what type of consciousness, what is the object, what is the physical thing, the body, and so on — and then me is labeled on top of that. Are those the same referent thing or two different referent things?

Participant: If you’re transforming this abstract me — you’re doing all this practice to become something called a bodhisattva or a Buddha — how do you…

Dr. Berzin: Right. If you are trying to transform the me into a bodhisattva — that’s the whole thing, what in some systems becomes a dualism. “I’m trying to be a bodhisattva, but that’s not really me.” “Can I have time off for myself from being a bodhisattva?” Right? This is complete dualism, isn’t it, and complete misunderstanding. Me and bodhisattva — are they one thing, are they two referent things? 

This is where you have the importance of recognizing the object to be refuted, that you have to, when you are whining “Oh, poor me. I never have time for myself. I always have to try to be a bodhisattva” — when you’re in that state of mind, that’s when you need to recognize the object to be refuted. Hey, what’s the problem here? Why am I feeling so “poor me”? It’s because I am imagining plural here, the basis for labeling and what’s being labeled as two different things (as in things “out there,” thingies): “I have to have time for myself.”

Anyway, let’s bring the class to an end, because I need time for myself. I’m leaving for India in the morning tomorrow.

Participant: But what is India?

Dr. Berzin: But what is India? What is the flight? 

Participant: Hopefully the pilot knows.

Dr. Berzin: OK, so let us end with the dedication. We will continue this in… We won’t have class for three weeks; then after that I’ll be back.

We 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.