LPA51: Logic of the Refutation Neither One nor Many

In response to the request to write some practical advice on sutra and tantra, Tsongkhapa wrote — and I’ll just review it very briefly — that we have the basis to be able to practice the Dharma: we have the human rebirth, we’ve met with the teachings, we have teachers, we have intelligence to discriminate between what to practice and what we need to get rid of, so we just have to engage ourselves in the teachings. To do that we have to rely on a qualified spiritual teacher who knows exactly what are the things that we need to adopt (without adding anything, without leaving anything out) and what we have to get rid of and also knows the graded order of how to apply that to each of us. The teacher has to have gained this experience from having studied in this way with a great teacher and especially in a manner that relies on the great classics, the Indian and Tibetan classics.

As for how we begin the practice once we have the proper teacher, it is to tame our minds. For that the most important thing to start with is our motivating mental framework, and this is the main subject matter of the sutra path. The graded order that’s most usual for that is the lam-rim, the graded stages, with which we work first for turning away from our interest in the happiness of just this lifetime to future lives, then to turn away from thinking of happiness in future lives in samsara to gaining liberation, and then turning away from just our own aims for liberation but to aim for enlightenment to be able to help everybody achieve liberation and enlightenment as well.

We need to develop these motivating mental frameworks in an uncontrived way, not just an intellectual understanding of them. For that we have to build them up as beneficial habits, which means to actually meditate upon them to try to integrate them, to try to use them in our daily life.

In order to familiarize ourselves with these states of mind, we need to know all the details of how to do that. We need to know what are the causes for developing each of these states, what are the various stages, the beginning steps that they rely upon. We need to know what is helpful for developing them, what’s harmful for developing them. We have to know what to focus on when we are practicing them, what are all the different aspects of that, how our mind relates to what we’re focusing on, and what will be the function of developing this state of mind, what will be the result of it, etc. And we have to supplement this by reading various scriptural texts about these motivations in between sessions and also build up a great deal of positive force and cleanse away obstacles with purification practices.

All of this is very sincere and very practical advice that we really need to pay attention to and not ignore. This is the heart of our practice, forms the foundation. We need to maintain these motivations not just at the beginning of a session, not just throughout a session, but at all times.

Then if we want to build on top of this the practice of tantra — which means that we need to practice tantra on this basis, not without this basis (that’s a very important point) — we need to understand that the most important thing for holding this practice is our ethical discipline, the ethical discipline of keeping vows. We have the pratimoksha vows for individual liberation, at least householder vows if not monk or nuns’ vows, and we have bodhisattva vows, and we have tantric vows. We went through all of that. 

When we receive an empowerment, we absolutely have to take the various sets of vows. If it’s any of the four classes of tantra it’s the bodhisattva vows, and in the two higher classes it’s the tantric vows as well. The basis for this is that we need to have some level of householder vow — Tsongkhapa says that best is if we are a fully ordained monk or nun — and this is the case even in the Paramitayana, the sutra vehicle of Mahayana: when we’re taking bodhisattva vows, some level of pratimoksha vow is essential.

Then having received the empowerment and taking the vows and having activated the various Buddha-potential factors in us through the empowerment, we need to practice the generation and complete stage. Just as we need to practice sutra before tantra and tantra’s built on the basis of sutra, likewise the complete stage is built on the basis of generation stage, so we must do the generation stage first.

In terms of the generation stage, there are many different aspects to it, but what Tsongkhapa… We have discussed that in terms of simulating, in our meditation, the manner of death, bardo, and rebirth in our imaginations so that we have a structure which is similar to what we experience at the time of death. But what we can also experience, on the complete stage, in which we access the clear-light mind, which is the subtlest level — and out of the subtlest energy of that clear-light mind generate the form of a Buddha-figure. All of that’s in analogy to death, bardo, and rebirth (or sleep, dream, and waking up).

With all of these — throughout that type of practice what we’re doing is focusing and imagining ourselves as a Buddha-figure in a mandala, which is like a palace, and this is building up the causes for being able to achieve the body of a Buddha simultaneously with the mind of a Buddha. While we’re visualizing ourselves as this Buddha-figure, we have an understanding… We have renunciation of our ordinary form, an ordinary appearance of true existence, of truly established existence; we have a bodhichitta aim, because we’re aiming to actualize this state of a Buddha as represented by this figure; and we have an understanding of voidness in terms of neither our ordinary image nor this image has any truly established, self-established existence. All of this is very important. 

Then Tsongkhapa gave a great deal of advice about how to do visualization and how to gain concentration on the visualization. No need to go through all of that again.

Then Tsongkhapa spoke very briefly about the complete stage and just mentioned that it has practices that entail the energy-channels, energy-winds, and creative energy-drops, and so on. This is a method for being able to dissolve the subtle winds of the body and thereby dissolve the grosser levels of mind that are carried by these winds or energies so that we gain access to the clear-light mind, which is the most efficient level of mind for gaining the nonconceptual cognition of voidness.

Then Tsongkhapa began his discussion of voidness, and he points out that the voidness which is understood in sutra and tantra are exactly the same and that although there may be so-called speedy ways of gaining access to the clear-light mind, we need to rely on logic. None of these other ways are reliable.

The last line that discussed that in the text was regarding the point that there are some that don’t have to train so long in this lifetime, for whom everything happens at once. We explained what that meant. This is a very, very limited number of practitioners who have built up such strong instincts in previous-life practice that in this lifetime they just have to do a little bit of practice and they’re able to achieve a seeing pathway of mind, the pathway of accustoming (or path of meditation), and path of no more learning — these are pathway minds — all at once.

But Tsongkhapa writes:

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 one or many.” 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).

That was where we stopped last time, with our initial discussion of the line of reasoning parted from being either one or many.

You said that you had some questions before we go on.

Participant: The question is about visualization. You said that when half of the visualization is gone, you should reestablish the object. But the problem is if you don’t get something like that. For example, when you visualize a Buddha and try to get the whole figure, but you don’t get the whole figure together, and so you have to constantly sweep over the figure. But if you focus on the upper half, the bottom part is missing, so it’s very difficult to visualize even half of the object.

Dr. Berzin: The question… I don’t know if that got recorded. You can raise the volume? Good. I’ll just summarize it very briefly. Tsongkhapa wrote (and I’ll read):

We (first) need to visualize (ourselves) as the complete (deity), from the head to the feet, in merely the roughest form. When (this) has appeared, we need to have held (our attention) on just that, without mental wandering. If the general form of the body was clear, we need to have held that; and if the general (form) was unclear but a few of its parts were clear, we need to have held (our attention) on whatever was clear. If those (few parts of the body) have faded as well, we need to visualize the (entire) general (rough form once more) and have held that. 

If some aspect has arisen that was totally extraneous to what we have been meditating on, we need to have held our minds (only) on the main focal (object) without having followed out (any spurious ones).

He’s saying that first of all, what do we consider as a few parts have faded? Also, when we’re trying to do this, when you focus on one part, the other parts disappear, and so when do we actually reset the visualization? 

First of all, when Tsongkhapa says we try to visualize the whole thing in general, he’s talking here not just in terms of visualizing a Buddha-figure in front of us — although that is also something that these instructions would apply to — but he’s talking about the generation stage, in which we’re visualizing ourselves as a Buddha-figure, and we’re visualizing a mandala that we’re in, a building, and we’re visualizing lots of other figures around us. He’s talking about a much more advanced stage. 

In terms of this, we try to get a general feeling of the whole thing but focus on the central figure first and try to get that more general. Naturally our awareness of the rest of the mandala and the other figures is going to fade, or it might fade, but here our focus is primarily on trying to get more focus of the general figure. You work with that. Then he says that we have to work just with that, without the details, until we can get a feeling of the whole general thing going and steady. You don’t start to try to fill in the details before you can get the general picture steady.

Within that general picture, you start with the details once that’s stable. And the detail — I think he said it here, or maybe he said it elsewhere — is that you start with the third eye (I think Serkong Rinpoche explained that), the eye in the middle of the forehead. Which, if it’s an anuttarayoga tantra practice, a highest class of tantra practice, there will be three eyes of the main figure. If it’s kriya tantra, the first class, there are only two eyes. You can usually tell from the iconography what class it is, whether or not there’s two eyes or three eyes on each face, at least in terms of the distinction between the first and fourth classes, which are the most commonly practiced ones. I’m not too sure about the second and third. I tend to think that they also only have two eyes, but I’m not positive about that. In any case, you start with that eye, and then you start to fill in more and more features of the face.

He says, “If the general form was unclear but a few of its parts were clear, we need to have held our attention on whatever was clear.” In other words, now we’re talking about something being clear: as long as something is clear, if a few of its parts were clear. If you lose the whole thing — mind you, you’ve already gained familiarity with the whole thing — but if you lose the whole thing while focusing on one of the parts, a few of its parts, then he says, “Keep your attention on whatever was clear. If those few parts of the body have faded as well, then visualize the entire form again.”

The general method is: When you’re filling in details, you fill them in one at a time. It isn’t that you go from… Let’s say you filled in the third eye, you’ve gotten focus on the third eye, in the middle of your forehead. Then you would add the other two eyes. The important thing is not to put your attention on the other two eyes by losing attention on the third eye. You try to have all three. In other words, you add. It’s cumulative. It isn’t as though you turn your attention on the third eye to the other two eyes and then to your nose or something like that. It’s not a sweeping meditation. 

There are certain… I’ve forgotten the technical term for this, but once you have established (with clarity) the whole thing, then there’s a sort of a type of — I think it’s called the lion’s gaze meditation, if I remember correctly. Now we’re talking about a meditation in which you have a Buddha-figure… Let’s talk about Guhyasamaja. Guhyasamaja is a group of thirty-two figures. The central figure and the partner of the central figure all have thirty-two figures within their body, in various parts of their body. In the little figure that’s in the heart there’s another little, even smaller, figure in its heart, and in its heart there’s yet another smaller disc with a syllable on it. What you try to do is sweep. You have the whole thing, but your main attention is starting with the innermost, tiniest thing: that syllable, and the deity around that, then the deities around that, and then the main figures of the mandala around that, and all the figures, and then to the various outside figures, the building. Guhyasamaja doesn’t have the eight cemeteries around it, but in Yamantaka or something like that there are eight cemeteries on mountains with trees and lakes and stuff like that. So, to that. And then to have your attention sweep back in. Of course, throughout all of this you’re not losing the focus of the whole thing, but you sweep out and back, in and out. That’s one type of quite advanced practice in the visualization process.

We’re not doing that here. It’s not that you’re sweeping from one part of the body — let’s say your feet, up to your knees, up to your bellybutton, and so on.

Participant: Yes, but how can I focus on the general, rough object without having parts? This is quite difficult.

Dr. Berzin: Without having what?

Participant: Without having an idea of the parts.

Dr. Berzin: How can you focus on the general thing without having an idea of the parts? 

Do you have some sort of awareness of your whole body? Can you be aware of your whole body? Do you have an awareness of your whole body, a feeling of your whole body? That doesn’t necessarily mean that I have a feeling of ten individual fingers and ten individual toes and nose and ears and stuff like that. It’s just a general feeling of the whole thing. There are no details. It’s just a general feeling of the whole thing. That’s what we are talking about. We’re talking about visualizing yourself as a Buddha-figure.

Participant: But I don’t visualize myself, so I…

Dr. Berzin: OK. If you’re visualizing something in front of you, then there’s a shape of the whole thing. Why can’t you have a shape and a color without it being in focus? If it’s not in focus, then there are no details. You don’t see the full… Let’s say if you’re visualizing Buddha. I can imagine that there’s a face and a body and sitting on a throne, but it’s not in sharp focus with the eyes and the nose and the mouth and the folds of the robe and all of that. 

Participant: It’s difficult.

Dr. Berzin: It’s difficult. Nobody said that this was easy.

Participant: It seems to be easier just to focus on one part.

Dr. Berzin: Easier to focus on one part? Tsongkhapa said that’s not the way. That’s not the way. Why is it not the way? The point is that first you want to have the most general generation of something (which is the clarity aspect, making an appearance) and a settlement of the mind on that (which is the engaging aspect). These are two aspects of mental activity. You want to have something appearing and the mind placed on it. You do that in general, not with some tiny detail. Once you have that and you have an anchor, as it were, then you can fill in the details. You want to have an anchor, as it were, that you’re focusing on. And then the more that you are able to concentrate, automatically the details will become clearer. 

Participant: OK. Fine.

Dr. Berzin: Those are the instructions. Obviously, it has worked for a lot of people.

Participant: Are there any more detailed instructions on how to actually manage to generate this stuff as small as it’s recommended? I find it pretty hard to visualize stuff like a figure the size of a thumb or a bit smaller.

Dr. Berzin: He says: Is there any way of practicing visualizing something that’s very small? Which, if we’re visualizing a Buddha in front of us, then it’s the size of our thumb at a distance of an armspan away from us. Any instructions on how to do that? Stick your thumb out in front of you, and look at your thumb, and get an idea of that size. Just get an idea.

It’s very interesting. A good friend of mine who is a very, very sincere tantra practitioner is very, very fond of a certain deity practice that is in a building, and we studied together all the measurements of the mandala palace. Serkong Rinpoche was incredibly kind to go through all the — I mean, it was an absolute architectural exercise — and building it with tsampa flour mixed with water (so it’s like clay), and had us draw them. We learned how to draw them and all of that. He got all the measurements. And in order to get it accurate, what it would feel like, he went around to all sorts of different halls so that he could stand in one place and have a feeling of what it felt like and what it looked like to have the wall that distance away from him according to the measurement. That was the way that he worked to be able to get a more accurate visualization. If you have something like that, that’s helpful. Similarly, for something small.

When you’re doing microscopic visualizations, like you do in the more advanced practices, of something inside of something, inside of something, inside of something — that becomes more challenging.

Participant: I’m really just talking about being able to maintain focus at least in some way.

Dr. Berzin: Being able to maintain focus. One indication of mental wandering is when the figure in front of you moves (you have to get it to stay still) and if it changes size. That’s also a form of mental wandering. It’s a movement of the winds, actually, that are associated with your mind. All of these visualizations are not done with the eyes. That’s why visualization is the wrong word; it’s imagination, which is obviously the case: if you’re visualizing yourself as something, you can’t possibly see what your whole body looks like and behind you as well.

Participant: Another obstacle to gaining concentration was flightiness of mind.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Flightiness of mind. He says: One of the obstacles (the main obstacle, according to Shantideva) for concentration is flightiness of mind, where the mind flies off to an object of desire or attachment.

Participant: We were wondering a lot, because out of our experience it’s not so much that one has an object of desire; it’s more like the general “Blah blah blah” that goes through the head. But today when we came here in the car, we were thinking about it again. Could it be that in former times it was written for monks, and they didn’t have much TV and things like we have today, so maybe they didn’t have too much chatting in their minds. When the mind calms down a bit more, then the factor of wandering of the mind or desire will come up.

Dr. Berzin: He is saying that when it talks about desire, what you seem to experience more is a lot of extraneous chatter and talk going on in your mind. Maybe the text was written for monks, who didn’t have exposure to TV and media, and their minds were already quieter, and so for them objects of desire, particularly sexual desire, were more compelling.

It is true that the text was written primarily for monks and secondarily for nuns — since there were more monks than nuns — but nevertheless when we talk about objects of desire, your own thoughts are objects of desire. You’re very attached to the thinking process. Whether the thoughts are repeating themes that you saw on television or singing songs in your head that you heard on your iPod, it doesn’t matter, because people at all times had a lot of thoughts.

Participant: We had a distinction between these several kinds of how to lose the object. There was a more general one, Zerstreuung. I don’t know what it is in English.

Dr. Berzin: What is the word?

Participant: Dispersion.

Participant: Yeah, that was the translation in German. Then there was a more special one, like…

Dr. Berzin: OK. So, there’s distraction is how I call it. He said there’s two things: distraction could be to any object, and flightiness of mind is to objects of desire. Obviously, you have to quiet your mind down from both of them. 

Then the question is: If you’re talking about discursive thought, discursive thought can be about objects of desire. You could have a longing for an object of desire, like “I’m really hungry. I want to have food,” or “I want to be more comfortable,” or you want some sexual object or something like that, and desire for “When is this going to be over so that I can get up?” That doesn’t necessarily have to be verbal, but still, it’s an object of desire that is causing your mind to leave the object, to not focus on it. But you could have discursive thought in terms of anger or… It doesn’t have to be verbal. Same thing with jealousy or thinking about your work. Thinking about your work — that’s attachment; you’re attached to your work. Or you could be worried about it, which also is a form of attachment. 

You have to realize that although it’s talking about distraction to objects of desire and the texts always speak in terms of sexual desire, that doesn’t mean that that’s the only form of distraction that you work on. It’s a sort of like when you have a listing of the fifty-one mental factors: That doesn’t mean that there are only fifty-one. There are a lot more. There are just fifty-one that are pointed out as being the most significant ones or representative ones. But of all objects of distraction, objects of desire are the strongest, the most compelling. Then we had a discussion: Is that really true? Aren’t objects of anger equally as compelling? I don’t know. I don’t know if we really settled that. My feeling was that anger dissipates more easily than desire.

Participant: But the attachment of going back and rethinking what happened is not the same as the disturbing emotion of anger. Like someone does something and it makes you very angry. The anger itself that it causes is different to this attachment of going back and replaying it in your mind. It’s not the same, no?

Dr. Berzin: I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about. He’s talking about anger. Part of anger is remembering what’s happened before, isn’t it? 

If you look at general teachings about disturbing emotions — I forget which text it was in; it’s maybe one of the texts of Chandrakirti or one of Nagarjuna (I don’t recall) — where it says that the root of samsara is desire. That could indicate craving (I think that craving was actually the term that was there), which is, in the links of dependent arising, the eighth of the links — which was craving to have happiness, not to be parted from happiness, to be parted from unhappiness or suffering and just the indifferent state. 

Behind anger there is attachment. You are attached to — I mean you’re grasping and holding on to what it is that made you angry, so that’s a form of attachment. You are attached to being rid of that; you crave to be rid of that. Maybe one could understand this flightiness of mind — what’s most compelling is an object of desire — in a broader way. But I really think, from all the texts, it’s actually talking about the sexual desire as being very, very basic — it’s biological, after all — and something which if you are really trying to quiet down your mind, and you have succeeded in quieting down the “Blah blah blah” verbal stuff and all of that, and if you are celibate (or at least, if you’re not a monk or a nun, while you are trying to gain perfect concentration in a retreat, during that period you would be completely celibate), then the more quiet you get, the more basic the biological hindrances are going to come up.

For instance, if you are in solitary retreat — and recall that most retreats are done solitary in the Tibetan context — there’s the factor of loneliness. That’s a form of desire — wishing for others’ company, wishing to do something else besides what you’re doing. These are very fundamental distractions that come up when you’re doing a retreat by yourself. Eventually you stop thinking about your ordinary life and all these everyday things, but you get lonely and you get bored. Even if it’s not specific, you want something else than just sitting there and doing the meditation.

Participant: This feeling of seeking for something, even if one doesn’t know what it is.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Then of course there’s the attachment to a goal (you want to achieve a goal), attachment to being perfect. There are many subtle forms that are involved here.

Participant: Because the main thing, the sexual thing, is probably not coming up that much, it seems to me a bit overstressed that it’s an obstacle at that part of the meditation. To me, there are other things that come up, and so that’s not the point. That’s why I’m wondering that maybe in this context…

Dr. Berzin: He’s saying that the sexual thought is not so compelling in him, whereas other thoughts are more compelling. Congratulations if that’s the case. But for most people who are monks, not somebody married like you, or even if you are married — if you are in retreat and go for quite a long period without any sex, including masturbation, then your thoughts are going to go there. That’s a difficult one for most people.

Participant: I don’t know much about solitary retreats, so maybe then it would come up.

Dr. Berzin: Here we’re giving general advice. You had any other questions?

Participant: Just a very short one. The generation stage and the complete stage — do they refer to all classes of tantra?

Dr. Berzin: The generation and the complete stage — do they refer to all classes of tantra? No. That’s a classification scheme just for anuttarayoga tantra. Each of the other three classes has their own division scheme. For instance, in kriya tantra, the first class, it’s with a sign (mtshan-bcas-kyi rnal-’byor, yoga with signs) and without a sign (mtshan-med-kyi rnal-’byor, yoga without signs) is what it’s called. 

OK? Shall we go on?

We were discussing last time the line of reasoning neither one nor many (or neither singular nor plural), and the main example that we work with first is the self and the aggregates, the aggregate factors of body, speech, and mind. 

We can speak in terms of a very gross level, which is just the body in general and the mind in general. Is the self or me identical with one of them (so one), or is it something which is totally separate and independent from it (which means that it flies off to somewhere else)? That’s a very gross level of the whole discussion — the initial level, I should say. 

A more subtle level is to, within the Buddhist position, when we understand that the self is something which is imputed on the aggregates, on each moment of our experience made up of five aggregate factors (including the mind, consciousness, and various mental factors, and so on) — all Buddhist schools accept that the self is something which is imputed on these things. It’s a non-static phenomenon that’s neither a form of physical phenomenon nor a way of being aware of something but which can only be known at the same time as the aggregates upon which it’s imputed. OK. Everybody accepts that within the Buddhist fold. 

Then this whole discussion of neither one nor many has to do with the basis for labeling and what’s being labeled (what the label refers to). In mental labeling, if you recall, we have three things: 

• We have the basis for labeling, which would be the aggregates. 
• We have the label (like me), which can then be associated with a word, a sound of a word and a word.
• But then that me labeled or imputed onto the aggregates — that me refers to something. And the referent object would be the conventionally existent me.

Then the question is: That conventional existent me that the word me refers to and the basis upon which it’s labeled, if they had existence that was truly established, self-established by its own power — if there were such a thing as that, then there would have to be only one thing like that or many things like that? In this process of mental labeling, it would have to be either singular or plural. Either you have one self-established truly existent thing (meaning that the basis and what the label refers to are the same thing), or they are two self-established things separate from each other. That is the deeper application of this neither one nor many argument.

Is that clear? I don’t know that I actually explained it that nicely. Is that clear? Manuel, you seem quite lost.

Participant: Yeah, I am. I try to get a clue, but we’re in a rush, so just continue and I’ll try to follow.

Dr. Berzin: Right.

Participant: Both of them are wrong, no?

Dr. Berzin: Both of them are wrong. As we had the four-part analysis: 

[1] Recognize the object to be refuted. What is truly established existence? 

That requires — I mean, we’ve discussed this. I’ll review it, but let’s just do the four parts. 

[2] Then the logic that’s involved. You have to be convinced that if something is neither one nor many it doesn’t exist.

If something exists it has to be either singular or plural. It has to be either one or many. There has to be either one example of it or many examples of it. If something exists, there has to be either one example of it or many examples of it. If there is neither one example of it nor many examples of it, it doesn’t exist at all.

Participant: When you talk about existing at all, it would…

Dr. Berzin: Existence at all. The object to be refuted is truly established existence. If there is such a thing as truly established existence, there has to be either one thing with truly established existence or many things with truly established existence. If neither of those are the case, there isn’t anything that has truly established existence. Therefore, there is no such thing as truly established existence.

[3] Then we examine: Is there just one thing within this mental labeling process, the basis — body, speech, mind, objects of cognition, the consciousness, the mental factors (all of that package as a basis for labeling) — and what the word me refers to on the basis of this? Is that one and the same truly established thing?

[4] Or are they two different things? 

Then the third point is to examine: Are they one? Are they the same? We refute that by logic. [And the fourth point:] Are they two separate things (that’s the alternative of many)? And we refute that: that’s illogical. Therefore, you reach the conclusion “There’s no such thing as truly established existence.”

Then in your meditation, where you have this sort of belief in truly established existence — because that’s what appears to us and what it feels like — then you just in your mind, like a guillotine, wham! and cut that off. To put it in plain language, the mantra is “Bullshit” — “This is Quatsch,” you’d say in German — “This is nonsense.” That’s a very useful nonofficial mantra to keep in mind. It can be used in all situations, like paranoia, projection, whatever. “This is not referring to anything real.” “This is baloney,” you would say in English (“Wurst,” you’d say in German).

Participant: Quatsch is better. Nonsense.

Dr. Berzin: Quatsch is better. OK. Nonsense.

What is really essential is to identify the object to be refuted. We went through this. We’ve gone through this many, many times — no need to push it (unless you really want a further review of it) — that there are stages in terms of getting to a more and more subtle object of refutation, and that is indicated by the different Indian Buddhist tenet systems. Without going through the different tenet systems, it’s very difficult to just jump to the Prasangika view as asserted in Gelugpa tradition, Gelug tradition (which is different from the way it’s asserted in other traditions, but this is Tsongkhapa’s text in the Gelug tradition). Very easy to trivialize that position unless you’ve gone through the other ones. By going through the other tenet systems, Indian tenet systems, then one avoids the mistake of either over-refuting or under-refuting. Tsongkhapa makes a big point of avoiding over-refuting, in which you refute conventional existence altogether, or under-refuting, which is that you refute a grosser impossible way of existing but not the subtlest impossible way (you haven’t refuted enough).

Participant: Can you explain it a little bit more?

Dr. Berzin: Could we explain it a bit more? In terms of under-refuting?

Participant: Yeah, under-refuting and over-refuting.

Dr. Berzin: Under-refuting and over-refuting — Tsongkhapa is going to say this in the next paragraph. He’s going to give examples of this. But over-refuting would be to not only say that “There’s no such thing as truly established existence,” but since everything is imputed — the only thing that establishes things, the existence of things, is that they are what words and concepts refer to (you can’t really say anything more than that about what establishes them) — but since everything arises… not necessarily it arises, but its existence is established in terms of names and concepts and so on, you might think that therefore they…

Participant: Exist?

Dr. Berzin: No. You might think that therefore they’re just concepts and so nothing is real. The object to be refuted here is… We made this distinction between what words correspond to and what they refer to. Words are like a category. I mean they are sounds that are associated with categories. A category implies that things exist in boxes, they exist in one category. If things corresponded to our words and concepts, everything would exist in a box by itself, independently, established by itself. 

That’s what’s refuted, that there is an actual referent thing (btags-don) — I translate it as a thing — sort of in a box that these mental labels refer to, that correspond to the mental labels. I use the word correspond here. Nevertheless, words and concepts refer to something. They’re not just ideas in somebody’s head. They actually refer to something that functions, etc., that can be validly cognized. Over-refuting would be to refute not only that our words and concepts correspond to things but also that they refer to anything at all. That’s over-refuting. That’s denying the conventional reality, conventional things. And this, Tsongkhapa says — to think that voidness means that — is the wrong view, the distorted view, of saying that voidness is equivalent to nihilism.

To under-refute would be to say that — How to explain this simply? The Svatantrika position… Let’s take it even more simple: “Everything is made of parts, and so there is no such thing as a solid whole like your body, like the chair, like things like that. It’s made of atoms. Atoms have a lot of space in between them; they’re mostly empty space.” And to think that this is something solid and concrete, or your problem is something solid and concrete, or your mood is something solid and concrete — it’s made of parts; it changes from moment to moment — to under-refute would be to say that to just refute that would be enough.

Participant: Is that also nihilism? Or what is that?

Dr. Berzin: That isn’t nihilism. That’s called eternalism or positivism or absolutism. That’s the other extreme, the opposite. Rather than “Nothing exists at all,” this is saying that “Something exists solidly.” OK?

This truly established existence established by its own power, that’s something Tsongkhapa makes a big deal out of recognizing, and he quotes a line from Shantideva — which doesn’t exactly say this, but it says it indirectly — “If you can’t see the target, you can’t hit it with an arrow.” If you don’t know what it is that you are refuting (you haven’t identified it properly), you can’t refute it. Other (non-Gelug) schools would say, “How can you identify something that doesn’t exist at all?” Tsongkhapa says, “But you are thinking of some sort of concept that represents this thing that doesn’t exist at all, and you imagine that that has a real referent object.”

Participant: It might not exist, but it’s a very active filter of our perception.

Dr. Berzin: It’s a very active filter of our perception, this appearance of truly established existence? What do you mean by active?

Participant: I mean that it influences the way we perceive all the time.

Dr. Berzin: It influences the way that we perceive all the time? Our belief in it influences the way that we perceive all the time. Our belief in it. Because for an arhat — an arhat doesn’t believe that it corresponds to anything real. The mind still produces this nonsense, the appearance, but an arhat says, “This is ridiculous,” and is not affected by it. But that limits the arhat’s ability to see the full functioning of cause and effect, omniscience — it blocks that — because everything appears to be in discrete boxes still. The way that you are now appears to exist by itself in a box, and the appearance of all the factors that influence the way you are now don’t appear to me. OK?

There are many, many lines of reasoning that are used to refute neither one nor many. 

• If I am identical with some sort of basis for labeling me — let’s say my body — then if I lose an arm, I’m no longer me. That’s absurd. 

• Or if we identify with our body at a certain age, then when we get older, we look in the mirror and we say, “That’s not me” — well, who is it then? 

• If we were one with any particular basis for labeling, we’d have to be only that and nothing else, and we’d have to be always that.

• In terms of other people: if we label them on the basis of acting in an awful way — we label them as a terrible person — then they would have to have been terrible every moment of their life to everybody. That doesn’t make any sense.

There are much more subtle arguments that can be done, but this is the most general one.

• Then if they are separate, me and the body (we’re just using the body), then when you burn your finger why do you say, “My finger hurts” or “I hurt”? It would have to be two separate things. You couldn’t have me and my finger — the finger couldn’t be my — couldn’t feel anything if your finger got burned. 

That doesn’t make any sense either. Again, there are more subtle lines of reasoning, but these are the most basic ones.

It’s very important — we’ve gone through this — that we go through these lines of reasoning. His Holiness emphasizes this a great deal, that although eventually we need to be able to just generate the understanding of voidness — which is basically “No such thing. This is impossible. It’s not referring to anything real. There is no corresponding object to this. There’s no referent object even of truly established existence: it’s not referring even to anything real that actually exists” — that although eventually we need to be able to generate that without directly relying on the line of reasoning, initially we have to rely on the line of reasoning (otherwise it’s just words). There has to be the force of conviction generated by valid inferential understanding. I must say that’s not so easy. That’s not so easy, how you become really convinced of something. 

The example that’s used in some of the basic lam-rims is that — I mean, they use this example of a cow. If you’ve lost your cow and can’t find it, and there are only two fields in which the cow could have gone, one field or the other, and you check the two possibilities and the cow isn’t in either, then you didn’t have your cow in the first place. “I thought that I let the cow out of the barn, and it has to be either in this field or that field, and it’s not in either of the fields.” The only conclusion is that you didn’t let the cow out of the barn. = that’s the example that’s used. 

But we can think in terms of: Is there chocolate in the house? If there’s chocolate in the house, it either has to be here or there. And if you can’t find it anywhere — and you look again because you don’t believe it the first time (because you’re attached) — finally you have to reach the conclusion that there is no chocolate in the house. 

But that is a subtle state of mind that you need to try to recognize — what does it mean, what does it feel like, to be convinced of something logically?

Can you think of any other examples?

“I heard a noise in the house. I think there’s a thief.” It’s at night and I hear a noise, a creaking of the boards. Then you look in every room. And if you can’t find anybody, then there was no thief. It was the wind or whatever.

Participant: That type of thinking is essential for kids. When they grow up, they have a lot of ideas like that. I don’t know when adults… They never lose it, but it grows more subtle. Because when you were a kid and you were alone at home, you thought maybe the bogeyman would come, or something like that. Kids have a lot of ideas like that, a lot. Later in life it fades a bit away. I don’t know when that point starts, but anyway you get more used to it, or you get more into the routine.

Dr. Berzin: Manuel points out that as children we have a lot of fantasies that are not referring to anything real, like a fear of the bogeyman or a monster under the bed or something like that, and eventually we outgrow that. 

Participant: Not outgrow. I mean…

Dr. Berzin: You lose it gradually.

Participant: Not really losing. I mean, you still have it, these superstitions.

Dr. Berzin: You still have it. You still believe in the bogeyman?

Participant: No, no.

Dr. Berzin: Only Santa Claus? Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy…

Participant: In general, people lose it with age.

Dr. Berzin: In general, people lose it with age. A belief in truly established existence isn’t something that you lose with age.

Participant: I thought maybe before, as a child, your mind flickers more, and then it flickers… like candlelight, you know?

Dr. Berzin: In terms of belief in truly established existence, that the mind flickers more as a youth than later as an adult? I don’t think that’s the case if you do no meditation whatsoever. If you do meditation on voidness, yes; then your belief becomes thinner and thinner.

Participant: His example is good in the sense that as you grow up, you become logically convinced that there’s no such thing as the bogeyman. Because out of experience that the bogeyman doesn’t appear, and out of your experience of life, using logic to understand that there can’t be such a thing…

Dr. Berzin: I don’t know. Let’s not debate the issue of the bogeyman. He’s saying that as you get older, you learn on the basis of experience that there is no such thing as a bogeyman. And what was the second one?

Participant: You become logically convinced.

Dr. Berzin: You become logically convinced? I don’t know that you become logically convinced. I think you’re told by your parents: “Don’t be a baby. This is ridiculous. There is no such thing.” I don’t think that that’s based on logic. I don’t think that it’s based on doing a thorough search and investigation, looking up on Google whether there is such a thing, and then coming to a logical conclusion.

Participant: Don’t underestimate. I think it’s logical.

Participant: When you learn that there’s no place where Santa Claus is living in the forest far away, and it’s not possible that Santa Claus can come to every child, when you know how many children there are, and things like that. It’s logical.

Dr. Berzin: He is saying that not believing in Santa Claus… that it’s illogical that Santa Claus can go to every household in the night, and lives at the North Pole with reindeer and elves and goes down chimneys and stuff like that — that logically you stop believing in that. I question that. Maybe in your society that’s the case. But I think in other societies you’re just told: “This is what babies believe. And you’re not a baby anymore. This is silly.” I don’t know if you are convinced by a line of reasoning. “If there were such a thing as Santa Claus living at the North Pole, then there should be a house, and so on. Let’s look in Google Earth at the North Pole. Do we see a house? There is no house, therefore there is no Santa Claus.” I don’t think there’s a logical line of reasoning there. There has to be a logical proof — with a thesis, something that proves it, counterexample, and so on. We’re not going into logic here, but let’s not trivialize becoming logically convinced of something. It’s not so easy.

Participant: I didn’t want to trivialize it with the example of the kids. Sorry.

Dr. Berzin: No, no. I mean, you bring up a good example. It shows us what is a logical proof of something. I don’t really want to have a whole class on logic here of faults in lines of reasoning, but that’s thoroughly studied in the Buddhist training — of what proves something, and what are the various faults in a line of reasoning that don’t prove something, that are inconclusive in proving something. By training in that, then you learn what proves something. Then you have the debate court, in which you have to defend what you assert, and everybody tries to make you contradict yourself so that you have not really proven it. There’s a tremendous training there, which is then very applicable to your meditation on voidness.

In other words, what I’m saying is it’s very easy to fall into the habit of just reciting “Neither one nor many,” making it into something very trivial and not really reaching a logical conclusion, and just in your mind saying, “No such thing.” Although that has a great benefit — I’m not saying that there’s no benefit to it — it’s not going deeply enough.

The problem is that when you’re doing a tantric sadhana, that’s not the place to do the logical analysis of a line of reasoning. At that point, you’re supposed to just recall your conviction based on logic. Therefore, you have to practice a great deal with logical reasoning beforehand. That’s not so simple, particularly if you try to do it every day — then eventually you’re just going over the same thing over and over again, and it loses any force. This is a problem, especially if you take very seriously the tantric vow to be mindful of voidness six times a day. Then it’s very easy to just say, “Voidness, there’s no such thing.” You just sort of say it, but it doesn’t have any force.

What His Holiness is emphasizing (and it’s not that His Holiness made it up) is that… He used the example of a sword. The sword has to cut off this belief in truly established existence. In cutting it off, the appearance also goes as well if you’re really skilled at it. But there has to be force with that sword to cut it off, and that force is a conviction which comes — firm conviction — based on a line of reasoning and logic.

Now of course you’re going to have some people that say, “You just sort of experience it. You don’t have to use logic,” but that also is…

Participant: That’s illogical.

Dr. Berzin: That’s illogical, that it’s so simple to quiet down this belief in truly established existence. If it were so simple, then a lot more of people would be liberated arhats and Buddhas. OK?

The first thing: Try to identify the object to be refuted. Tsongkhapa says — not here but elsewhere — it is the appearance of everything that you have all the time. That’s very profound.

Participant: Does he say all these words?

Dr. Berzin: Yeah. It’s everything. You have grasping for truly established existence not just in conceptual but in nonconceptual cognition as well. The only time you don’t have that is in nonconceptual cognition of voidness. This differs from other Tibetan positions. It’s there all the time.

Participant: In one sense, the other schools are a bit more blatant in their criticism of conventional truth. But in another sense, Tsongkhapa is more radical, because he even criticizes nonconceptual sense cognition.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Tsongkhapa’s even more radical than the others, who criticize conceptual thought. He criticizes even nonconceptual thought, our ordinary nonconceptual — let’s say perception, which only lasts a microsecond anyway.

That’s very, very interesting, to identify what does it mean. The thing that always comes to my mind is that it feels as though things are self-established. I was thinking of a very nice example: I was just in India for three weeks, and I saw many friends whom I knew for many, many years. Some of them I’ve known for over forty years. You see these people, and now they’re in their sixties, and they look like old men and old women. I can remember what they looked like in their twenties. Whereas somebody who just meets them — let’s say a young person who meets them — these people appear to be old men and old women and that they were always like that and that that’s who they truly are. 

Participant: Everything’s changing.

Dr. Berzin: But everything is changing. Right. Now this is to under-refute, to think “That’s all that you have to realize, is impermanence.” That’s not going deeply enough. But it’s the first step. You have to refute that. But you see somebody, and it appears as though that’s it, doesn’t it? Not only you don’t have an appearance of the different ages in their life, but previous lives and all of that sort of stuff. And then qualities of course; they seem to be self-established — pretty, ugly, fat, thin, tall, short. It looks like that, and you believe that.

Participant: Even “It looks like that” is a good expression of how it feels. You can get the impression that it looks like that.

Dr. Berzin: Right. To use that expression “It looks like that” implies that it feels like that.

One has to recognize it and then not over-refute it so that you have nothing. These are very, very subtle points that are involved here.

Anyway, that brings us to the end of the class, and I think next time we can go on in the text. Let us end here with the dedication. We think whatever understanding, whatever positive force has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause to reach enlightenment for the benefit of all.