Lam-rim 24: The Dharma and Sangha Gems; Are True Stoppings Possible?

The Apparent and Deepest Buddha Gems

In any case, we saw that when we talk about the Buddha Gem, we have (1) the Apparent Buddha Gem, which refers to the Form Bodies of a Buddha, the Rupakaya (gzugs-sku), and (2) the Deepest Buddha Gem, the Dharmakaya (chos-sku) of a Buddha, which basically refers to the true stoppings ('gog-pa'i bden-pa, true cessations) and the true pathway minds (lam-bden, true paths) on the mind of a Buddha. 

There are two types of Dharmakaya. Dharmakaya, literally, is a “Corpus That Encompasses Everything.” 

• One is the actual omniscient mind of a Buddha, which not only means that that mind encompasses everything but also that it has the qualities of equal love and compassion for everybody as well as the powerful abilities to be able to benefit everyone. So, there are all these different aspects of the mind of a Buddha. It’s a network of deep awareness, the so-called Jnana-dharmakaya (ye-shes chos-sku). “The Corpus of Deep Awareness that Encompasses Everything” is how I translate it. 

• The other is the Corpus of Essential Nature, the Svabhavakaya (ngo-bo-nyid sku). There are two aspects of that, according to Gelugpa:

• The Corpus of Essential Nature That Is Its Aspect of Being Pure of What Is Fleeting (glo-bur rnam-dag-gi char-gyur-pa’i ngo-bo-nyid sku) – the true stoppings on the omniscient mental continuum of a Buddha. “Fleeting,” here, refers to the fleeting stains. 
• The Corpus That Is Its Purity of What Is Self-Established (rang-bzhin rnam-dag-gi sku) – the voidness of the omniscient mental continuum of a Buddha. Rang-bzhin (self-nature), here, can mean “natural,” but “natural” isn't really so good. It's more that it's free of the self-established stains, which don't exist at all. 

It's here, in this point about the two types of essential natures, that we get these two aspects, that of the voidness of the omniscient mind of a Buddha and the true stoppings on the mind of a Buddha. These are the two aspects of the Svabhavakaya. These two are there because the true stoppings have to be achieved, but the absence of a self-established existence does not – that absence was there all the time.

So we have the deepest Buddha Gem on the omniscient mind of a Buddha – so, the true paths and the true cessations on the mind of a Buddha, the full set of true cessations, which is the voidness of the mind of a Buddha as well. 

This difficult point in Gelugpa about true stoppings being equivalent to voidness is relevant, though I don't want to go through that now. It is one of the most difficult points in the Gelugpa assertions, but it is relevant to these two aspects of the Svabhavakaya. And it's a technical point, one that is relevant for meditation purposes, but that's a bit advanced.

What Does Buddha Mean to Us

In any case, last time, we discussed what a Buddha means to us. When we say, "I'm going in the direction of a Buddha," are we talking about somebody that we pray to, somebody who is going to grant our wishes, somebody who is going to save us, and so on? We saw that what refuge in the Buddha means to each of us is going to have an intellectual aspect – namely, an understanding of what the Dharmakaya, the Form Bodies of a Buddha, actually means – as well as an emotional and a devotional aspect. We each have to come up with a blend of those three aspects. 

Then we discussed whether we actually thought that there was such a person as Buddha. Do we relate to the Hinayana version of Buddha as a historical figure? Or do we relate to the Mahayana version of Buddha – someone who achieved enlightenment eons ago and who was just manifesting the twelve deeds in that particular lifetime as Shakyamuni but who, at the same time, continues to manifest in billions of different forms simultaneously throughout the universe, in all times, teaching countless beings simultaneously in all languages, etc.? Or are we thinking of the tantra version of Buddha, Buddha Vajradhara, in terms of the clarity of the mind itself and its revealing all the tantras, and things like that? Which Buddha are we taking refuge in?

Also, we talked about whether it really matters whether Buddha was a historical person or not. That ultimately comes down to the questions of whether anyone has ever achieved enlightenment and whether enlightenment is possible. These are very difficult questions, ones that many of us don't really face, but they are important questions. When it comes to the Dharmakaya, it's even more important to understand what we’re talking about. 

• The Apparent Dharma Gem is the twelve textual categories of teachings taught by the Buddha. (I don't need to list these twelve; you can find them on the website.) The books represent them, but the Apparent Dharma Gem is the teachings themselves. 

• The Deepest Dharma Gem is the true stoppings and true pathway minds on the mental continuum of an arya, whether a layperson or a monastic, from a first level arya, when they attain the first true stoppings with the liberated seeing pathway mind (mthong-lam), all the way up to an arhat and a Buddha. 

An arhat and a Buddha – so, both a liberated being and an enlightened being – have the same true stoppings. That's why I say these true stoppings are within the domain of liberation. Liberation is really what we're talking about when we talk about true stoppings and true pathway minds. 

Participant: The true stoppings of an arhat are the same as the true stoppings of a Buddha?

Dr. Berzin: Right. When we talk about true stoppings here, we're talking about the true stoppings of the obscurations that prevent liberation, the emotional obscurations (nyon-sgrib). We’re not talking about the cognitive obscurations that prevent omniscience (shes-sgrib). Within Mahayana, of course, true stoppings include the true stoppings of both. 

Now we get into a topic that is the nitty-gritty, the real essence here, one that is comparable to “do you think that there's actually a Buddha?”: Do we think that it is possible to gain true a stopping of the fleeting stains? Fleeting stains refer to greed, attachment, anger, naivety, jealousy, arrogance, pride, etc., all of which are based on the unawareness of reality, the unawareness that there is no such thing as truly established or self-established existence. Do we think it is possible to get rid of those fleeting stains and that the pathway mind, which is the non-conceptual cognition of voidness, can get rid of those fleeting stains forever, never to occur again?

Purity of the Mental Continuum; the Fleeting Stains Are Not Innate

This is a question that comes down to the understanding of the basic purity of the mind. Do we think that confusion – unawareness – is part of the essential nature of the mind, or do we think that it's a fleeting stain? 

If we are not convinced of the basic purity of the mind and that it is possible to get rid of these fleeting stains, then we're in deep trouble in terms of what we are doing following the Buddhist path. Are we saying that liberation and enlightenment are ideal goals but that we can't quite get there – that we can approach them, but we can't quite get there? That may be acceptable for some, but it's not the Real Thing Dharma. Or do we think that it really is possible to go the whole way? It's only when we really know that it's possible to go the whole way that we have a secure direction. 

The next question, of course, is, do we think that anybody has ever achieved enlightenment – in other words, was there a Buddha, or is there a Buddha? That's another question. We first have to be convinced that it is possible that anybody can attain it. Whether anybody has attained it at all – how do we know? That is what we were discussing last time. But somebody must have figured it out in order to be able to come up with all these teachings and all the steps. 

This is what is very helpful in the study of Abhisamayalamkara (the Ornament of Realizations or Filigree of Realizations, however you want to call it), which outlines in excruciating detail absolutely every tiny, little step of the way to liberation and enlightenment. It makes one think, “How in the world could anybody possibly generate something like that unless they had actually experienced every one of those steps themselves?” So, the main benefit that we get from the study of Abhisamayalamkara is the confidence that it's been worked out and that people have done this, even though we may never, in this lifetime, get to those stages ourselves.

Let's discuss this point. Do you actually believe that there is such a thing as a true stopping – that you can get rid of these fleeting stains? And how do you understand that? 

Participant: Yes, it's possible.

Dr. Berzin: Why is it possible?

Participant: Because it does not exist inherently.

Dr. Berzin: Well, truly established existence doesn't exist in terms of the vase either. We're talking about a true stopping. What is the basis of a true stopping? What does a true stopping occur on?

Participant: On the person.

Dr. Berzin: It occurs on the mental continuum. The person is an imputation on the mental continuum. So, what makes you think that the mental continuum, the mind, is basically pure?

Participant: There is nothing on the side of the mind, just as there’s nothing on the side of the vase. There is nothing there from its own side. So, everything that is on the side of the mind can be removed or changed.

Dr. Berzin: You're saying that because there is nothing on the side of the mind that has truly established existence, any characteristic of the mind can be removed or changed. So, does that mean that the essential nature of the mind – giving rise to mental holograms and cognitively engaging with them, the so-called mere clarity and awareness – is something that also can be removed? Is that a fleeting stain?

Participant: It changes, at least.

Dr. Berzin: It changes in its defining characteristic?

Participant: The defining characteristic is something abstract that one puts on top of it.

Dr. Berzin: But is it an innate characteristic? We're not talking about a findable characteristic. “Innate” means that each and every moment in which there is an arising of mind, this also arises. That's the definition of innate: something that is simultaneously arising. So, it's not something that can be changed; it's always going to be the same. What mind gives rise to changes from moment to moment, as does the mental continuum itself, but its essential nature is unchanging.

Participant: But one could also say that the vase is unchanging, that it stays a vase.

Dr. Berzin: But the vase can be broken. It can be smashed. Is the dirt on the vase part of the vase?

Participant: No.

Dr. Berzin: No. That can be removed. So, how is it that unawareness can be removed from the mental continuum whereas the essential nature of the mental continuum cannot? If the essential nature of the mind were to be removed, there would no longer be a mind. You cannot remove the essential nature of the mind – mere clarity and awareness – and still have a mind. 

So, if unawareness were removed… well, for ordinary beings, unawareness is going to arise simultaneously with each moment of cognition. But are there exceptions? This is the question.

Participant: In everyday life, you can experience different types of mind, and they can change very fast. But, still, the basic mind is there. So, that gives us a hint that there's something underlying all the changing things.

Dr. Berzin: But the unawareness is there as well. The unawareness is there because not only do things appear to us to be self-established existents, meaning that they seem to be established from their own sides, we also believe in that appearance. That's why one has to recognize what that unawareness actually means in order to be convinced that our minds produce this deceptive appearance all the time. But, again, is there an exception? 

The Fleeting Stains Are Dormant When We Are Focused Non-Conceptually on Voidness

Yes, there is an exception: when we are focused non-conceptually on voidness. At that time, the fleeting stains are absent, in the sense of being dormant. Now, what's important is to understand why. Why are they not manifest at that time? This is key.

Participant: Usually, we organize everything into conceptual boxes, so things appear to be truly established as existing in these boxes. The fleeting stains are based on that. If, with non-conceptual cognition, you don't have that appearance, you then understand the exact opposite of the truly established existence of the vase.

Dr. Berzin: Well, with sensory non-conceptual cognition, there is still unawareness and an appearance of true existence. So, we need to be careful to distinguish non-conceptual cognition in general from non-conceptual cognition of voidness.

Participant: What I'm trying to say is that when you understand non-conceptually the nonexistence of true existence, you do not on view anything in terms of categories and so you do not make them appear to be  truly existent.

Dr. Berzin: OK, that's one way of explaining it. But I was thinking of a simpler way of explaining it. 

We're having a pretty sophisticated discussion here, which everybody might not be following. So, let's try to make it a little bit simpler. Could you – without bringing in the conceptual/non-conceptual complexity – focus non-conceptually on voidness while the fleeting stain of unawareness was still present?

Participant: No.

Dr. Berzin: You could not because unawareness, which is the belief in truly established existence, could not possibly be present at the same time that you are focused non-conceptually on an absence of truly established existence. You can't have non-conceptual cognition of voidness when unawareness of voidness is also manifest. 

Stoppings versus True Stoppings

So, there is a time when there would be a stopping, which would be as an arya. But is it a true stopping? Remember, we have the two types of fleeting stains here: the doctrinally based fleeting stains and the automatically arising fleeting stains. The doctrinally based ones – which are based on believing in something that we have been taught from a non-Buddhist Indian school and which has to do with how the self exists and so on – we get rid of first. 

When we talk about non-conceptual cognition of voidness with a seeing pathway mind (path of seeing), we’re talking about two phases: the uninterrupted pathway mind and the liberated pathway mind. The uninterrupted one acts as an opponent to a portion of something to be gotten rid of. The liberated one, the next phase, is when a portion of what is to be gotten rid of is actually gone – when you’ve actually achieved the true stopping.

So, to complete my point, at this initial level of non-conceptual cognition of voidness – namely, with a seeing pathway mind – while you're in total absorption on voidness with a liberated pathway mind, you don't have either the doctrinally based unawareness or the automatically arising unawareness. Nevertheless, you only have a true stopping of the doctrinally based unawareness because the automatically arising unawareness will come again when you come out of the total absorption. It’s going to take many more levels – these bhumi (sa), these levels of mind of an arya bodhisattva – before you can achieve a true stopping of the automatically arising unawareness. So, it's just a portion of what's to be gotten rid of that is gotten rid of. How much of a true stopping is achieved has to do with the strength of and the familiarity with voidness, as well as the strength of the network of positive force. 

The point is that these fleeting stains are not part of the essential nature of the mind because there is a period when both the doctrinally based and automatically arising ones are absent. They’re not innately there in every moment because. If they were, you could not have a non-conceptual cognition of voidness. 

A distinction is made between: 

• An opponent (gnyen-po)
• An obliterating opponent (gnod-pa’i gnyen-po).

“Obliterate” means to get rid of something. Literally, the Tibetan word is to “harm,” but “harm” means, in this case, to obliterate. For instance, meditation on the ugliness or dirtiness of the body can act an opponent for overcoming attachment to the body. But it won't completely get rid of that attachment; so, it's just an opponent. An obliterating opponent – literally, a “harming opponent” – does. The obliterating opponent is the understanding of voidness. It has the power to completely destroy what you're trying to get rid of, not just suppress it. I just learned that from Serkong Rinpoche when I was in Bodh Gaya last week. He explained that there are these two technical terms for these two types of opponents. 

So, we have an obliterating type. We have to understand why it's an obliterating type. What's the difference between an opponent that can only temporarily suppress something like attachment to the body and one that can obliterate it? An obliterating opponent is one that is the exact opposite of the obscuration; the two are mutually exclusive. So, again, we have to think… and I'm just working it out here as we discuss this. 

The argument is that if you could stay focused non-conceptually on voidness all the time, then unawareness, which is the exact opposite of the awareness of the voidness of things, could never arise again. But then the question is, how you can have a true stopping of the doctrinally based disturbing emotions when, in fact, you're not focusing on the voidness of them all the time? As a Buddha, you're focused on voidness all the time, so you would have a true stopping of both types of obscurations forever.

Participant: What's the exact question?

Dr. Berzin: My question is, if you could stay focused on ugliness all the time, could you suppress the attachment forever? What's the difference between staying focused on ugliness all the time and staying focused on voidness all the time.

Participant: If you stayed focused on ugliness, maybe you could suppress attachment forever, but not anger.

Dr. Berzin: Well, yes, that's one point. Focusing non-conceptually on voidness gets rid of all the disturbing emotions, not just one of them, though of course it does this in stages. 

Participant: But attaining a true stopping can't be based on being able to sustain the focus on voidness because according to Prasangika, a bodhisattva on the pure bhumis (the eighth through the tenth bhumis) is able to attain a true stopping of all levels of all disturbing emotions and yet is not able to sustain the focus on emptiness all the time.

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, you can't use the argument that only if you stayed focused on voidness forever, you would have a true stopping. This is why I asked how it is that you can to attain a true stopping of the doctrinally based disturbing emotions, even though you’re not focused on the voidness of them all the time.

According to the Gelug Prasangika presentation, you get rid of degrees of the automatically arising emotional and cognitive obscurations as you go through the bhumis. You achieve true stoppings of portions of what's to be gotten rid of. From the second through the seventh bhumi minds, you rid yourself of progressive degrees or portions of the automatically arising emotional obscurations, and from the eighth through the tenth bhumi minds, you rid yourself of progressive degrees or portions of the automatically arising cognitive obscurations. So, you don’t have true stoppings of all the portions or grades of what is to be gotten rid of all at once.

Participant: But at the eighth bhumi, you’re finished with the emotional obscurations, which means all the disturbing emotions. But then there are other things you need to get rid of, right?

Dr. Berzin: Right. Then you need to achieve the stoppings of the cognitive obscurations, which are the constant habits of grasping for true existence which, at this stage, only make appearances of truly established existence. But, of course, there’s a difference between Prasangika and the other schools on this point of when you achieve a true stopping of all the emotional obscurations.. 

Participant: I'm just saying there is an analogy between reaching the path of seeing and reaching the pure grounds. On one,you get rid of the doctrinally based obscurations, and on the other, you get rid of the automatically arising ones. And in both cases, you are not able to continuously sustain a meditation on emptiness. That was my whole point.

Dr. Berzin: But that’s only Prasangika. From a Prasangika point of view, yes, you get rid of automatically arising unawareness and automatically arising disturbing emotions plus their tendencies, which are included among the emotional obscurations. According to Prasangika, you get rid of them at the end of the seventh bhumi, with the attainment of the eighth bhumi. But you're still not able to sustain the focus on voidness all the time. According to Svatantrika, you only get rid of all the automatically arising emotional obscurations at the end of the tenth bhumi. That’s according to the Chittamatrins as well. 

If we're talking about safe direction, we have to talk about an assertion that is going to hold true for all the schools, including the Hinayana schools – which means not getting bogged down in the details about on which bhumi what happens because, in the Hinayana schools, they don't even accept bhumis. So, let's just stay with the fact that what everybody says is that we get rid of the doctrinally based obscurations first and the automatically arising ones second. 

So we're still left with the same question. And let's get the important question, which is not when it happens. The important question is how can we achieve a true stopping of these doctrinally based obscurations – which are based on believing in something that we have been taught from a non-Buddhist Indian school and which has to do with how the self exists and so on – with the non-conceptual cognition of voidness even though we are not able to sustain that cognition of voidness all the time? That's the real question. I must say that I don't understand how. What they would say is that the force of familiarity with voidness and the strength of the network of positive force are sufficient to achieve a true stopping, even though that cognition of voidness is not sustained all the time. So, as I say, what’s going on here? How can we understand that? 

Participant: Maybe it’s that you start to get rid of them later in the process because, since you don’t sustain the non-conceptual cognition of voidness that you had during total absorption, appearances of true existence will come up again.

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, the cognitive ones, the obscurations that make appearances of truly established existence, are basically going to sabotage our ability to sustain the understanding of voidness, because when we are no longer in total absorption, that automatically arising cognitive obscuration, namely, the habit of grasping for true existence, will kick in and produce an appearance of truly established existence. Well, that will happen after you’ve attained arhatship as well, according to Prasangika. 

True Stoppings Are Achieved Portion by Portion

But let's return to our fundamental question with regard to refuge: Do we believe that the mind is pure and that a true stopping is possible? When we talk about the Dharma refuge, we’re talking about true stoppings on any arya's mind from the first level arya – the seeing pathway mind – all the way up to a Buddha. So, how do we understand true stoppings to happen? It's not as though we get rid of unawareness all at once. It would be easier to understand and explain if we got rid of unawareness all at once. Instead, we chip away at it. 

So, what we have to try to figure out is how it is possible to chip away and remove forever aspects of this unawareness? You're right that the argument that says that unawareness would be gone forever if we could stay aware of voidness all the time is not correct, but how is it that we're able to chip away pieces portions of it at a time? That's very difficult to understand. 

Participant: For me, I would use the analogy of believing in Santa Claus. Getting rid of that belief is like getting rid of one piece of unawareness. You get it that he doesn't really exist, but you don't have to have that understanding present in your mind all the time. But you could still believe in the Easter Bunny. So, that's another piece that you get rid of later.

Dr. Berzin: Well, I don't know. Are the different different portions of unawareness analogous to believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?

Participant: It’s hard to come up with a good analogy. What analogy would you use?

Dr. Berzin: Basically, we're cleaning something. We're getting rid of the dirt. If one portion or one layer of the dirt has been removed, other layers of dirt might still be there. But will that layer of dirt that we've gotten rid of ever come back again? This is the question. Then it's relevant to ask: to get rid of that dirt, did we use just an opponent that would suppress it – like meditating on ugliness to suppress attachment – or did we use an obliterating opponent? Here, we used an obliterating opponent. In a sense, we made a portion of the dirt almost antiseptic so that it could never come back again.

Participant: I prefer the explanation that it’s because the non-conceptual cognition of voidness that one has on the path of seeing, for example, is a bare cognition (mngon-sum) and is, therefore, in accordance with reality. And because that cognition is in accordance with reality, it is more convincing and more stable than the belief in Santa Claus. The more one meditates in this way, the stronger that understanding becomes. And it can't be reversed because it has the backing of logic.

Dr. Berzin: When we arise from that liberated pathway mind, we next have the subsequent realization phase of our non-conceptual meditation. Now, the appearance of truly established existence recurs and we focus that appearance as being like an illusion. Remember, when we divide our non-conceptual meditation on voidness into phases, we first have the phase of total absorption and then the phase of subsequent realization, the so-called post-meditation. The total absorption phase is divided into the uninterrupted pathway mind and the liberated pathway mind. During both of these, we have explicit non-conceptual cognition of voidness; there is no appearance of truly established existence. During the subsequent realization phase, we have implicit non-conceptual cognition of voidness; an absence of truly established existence does not appear.   

However, I don't know that we've come up with a full and totally convincing explanation of how one can be rid of one portion forever. For example, we haven’t answered the question, after we arise from the subsequent realization phase of our non-conceptual meditation on voidness, we continue having a true stopping of a portion of unawareness on our mental continuum all the time, but do we continue to have that implicit cognition of voidness all the time as well? I don’t think so.

Participant: Getting rid of unawareness in stages is like with the development of the mind. The mind develops in stages. For example, a baby doesn't realize that an object you have put behind your back is actually still there. The baby thinks it's gone. The baby understands a little bit, but it still has a lot of unawareness. As it gets older, it understands more and more.

Dr. Berzin: That's very, very good. So, as the baby develops, it gets rid of degrees of unawarenes. So, it will get rid of the unawareness that causes it to believe that when you put an object behind you, it no longer exists, that it is no longer there. And once it learns that, it doesn't forget it. That understanding is there for the rest of its development.

How Non-Conceptual Cognition of Voidness Brings about a True Stopping, Whereas Conceptual Cognition of It Does Not

Now, an interesting question is, why does a non-conceptual cognition (mi-rtog-pa) of the voidness of something cause a true stopping and a conceptual cognition (rtog-pa) of it doesn't? I don't think the important issue here is that conceptual cognition happens through categories (spyi) – in this case, the category of voidness – but, rather, that conceptual cognition, by definition, makes appearances (snang-ba) of truly established existence (bden-snang, appearance-making of true existence). With conceptual cognition of voidness, you see a truly established existent, but you know that it’s not real. You’re focusing on a truly established nothing, meaning that the absence of truly established existence appears as a “thing,” established from its own side and by its own power. However, with non-conceptual cognition of voidness, there's no appearance of truly established existence. So, when there's not even an appearance of truly established existence, you're really convinced that there is no such thing. And it's not that you're unconscious and therefore have no appearance of truly established existence; you’re fully conscious and have a full understanding there. 

So, can we be convinced that having a non-conceptual cognition of the absence of truly established existence is a strong enough experience to cause us to be convinced that at least a certain portion of that unawareness is gone forever, never to return, and that it's not just being suppressed? That's not an easy one, but I think that's the hypothesis we at least have to start from in order to get conviction in the possibility of a true stopping. We also need to understand that the fleeting stains on our mental continuums have to be fleeting. If the stains of unawareness were always present, we couldn't possibly have a non-conceptual cognition of voidness. 

So you see, this whole issue of the relation between true stoppings and voidness is a very central one, even when it comes to refuge. Not only is it not possible to have a non-conceptual cognition of voidness without the fleeting stains being absent at the time of that cognition, it is also not possible to have that cognition without it bringing about a true stopping of at least some portion of those stains. So, any non-conceptual cognition of voidness would entail a true stopping.

Participant: But it would not necessarily generate a new true stopping.

Dr. Berzin: Right. This is why, at each phase of the bhumis, you need to go into non-conceptual meditation on voidness many times. It’s not just a one-time shot. You have to build up a tremendous amount of positive force and deep awareness – the two networks – to be able to go onto the next stage. 

What Serkong Rinpoche explained was that non-Buddhists can gain conceptual cognition of voidness. According to Prasangika, they can gain total absorption – that’s with shamatha. Total absorption has shamatha; it doesn't necessarily have vipashyana. In the case of an arya, of course, it does because on the second pathway mind, the applying pathway mind, or path of preparation, you get the joined shamatha and vipashyana. But a non-Buddhist, let's say, a scholar in a university, can hear or read the teachings on voidness – which would have to come from a Buddhist teacher who originally wrote them, whether Nagarjuna or whoever – and they can get a correct understanding of it in meditation. However, they would not have built up the necessary network of positive force – which would come from having complete confidence in that Buddhist teacher – that would allow them to get vipashyana on top of shamatha and to go from conceptual to non-conceptual. 

So, conceptual cognition of voidness does not bring about a true stopping, but non-conceptual cognition does. 

Participant: But special insight is something that you could still have.

Dr. Berzin: Having vipashyana, this special insight, or exceptionally perceptive state of mind, doesn't necessarily mean that you understand anything. A non-Buddhist can have that exceptionally perceptive state of mind, but they cannot have it focused on voidness. They can have it focused on anything other than voidness.

Participant: Not even conceptually?

Dr. Berzin: They can have the total absorption that is merely conceptual shamatha on voidness, but they cannot have conceptual vipashyana as well. Vipashyana has to be with shamatha already present and manifest in the mind. In other words, a state of vipashyana is, by definition, a state of a joined pair of shamatha and vipashyana. So, although non-Buddhists can attain shamatha on voidness, and although they can attain a joined pair of shamatha and vipashyana focused on topics other than voidness, they cannot attain a state of joined shamatha and vipashyana focused on voidness because they lack the amount of positive force that is necessary. That positive force comes from having total confidence in the source of the teachings on voidness. As Rinpoche explained, the inspiration that comes from having confidence in the teacher is what allows them to build up the necessary positive force. 

What are the three types of confidence? 

1. Confidence that a fact about an object is true, based on logic (yid-ches-kyi dad-pa)
2. Confidence based on clearheaded believing a fact about an object to be true (dang-ba’i dad-pa), which frees you from any disturbing emotion toward that object, in this case, the teacher 

What disturbing emotion would a non-Buddhist have toward the teacher? "Well, this is just some Buddhist teacher. I don't have faith in the Buddhist teacher. I know better" – this whole arrogance type of thing. Because there is still a disturbing emotion, they certainly would not have the confidence based on a clearheaded belief in the teacher. 

3. Believing a fact to be true with an aspiration toward it (mngon-‘dod-kyi dad-pa)

They certainly wouldn't have an aspirational type of confidence in the teacher either: "I want to become like that teacher and understand voidness the way the teacher understood it." Lacking that, they will never have enough positive force to be able to attain vipashyana focused on voidness. And, certainly, if they can't attain vipashyana on voidness, they couldn't possibly go even further and gain non-conceptual cognition of it. 

This is what Rinpoche was explaining in Bodh Gaya last week. So, very good, Serkong Rinpoche – the young one. Twenty-five years old and very brilliant.

So, we have a lot of food for thought. 

As I said, if we are going through the initial scope and taking refuge, safe direction, at a beginner level, we don’t bring in the understanding of voidness. I don't think that voidness is even mentioned in the lam-rim at that point. In fact, I think it only comes in reference to refuge in Uttaratantra, where the difference between the Apparent Gem and the Deepest Gem is discussed. So, how do we gain confidence that the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha are the true sources of safe direction? Initially, it is by looking at all the good qualities of the body, speech, and mind of a Buddha, all the qualities of the Dharma, and all the good qualities of the Sangha – which the lam-rim goes into in tremendous detail. So, it is on the basis of all of those qualities that we gain confidence that they are true sources of safe direction. We’re convinced that they're not going to let us down; that they don't care if we make offerings; that we don't have to praise them; that if we are receptive they are going to help; that they don't have favorites, and so on. But that's an initial scope understanding. 

If we're going to go back through the lam-rim and make our safe direction more secure, we then have to deal with it on the level that we've been dealing with it tonight, which is to see that the sources of safe direction are really these true stoppings and true pathway minds. The Buddhas are the ones who have the true stoppings and true pathway minds in full, and the Sangha are the ones who have them in part. 

Regarding the Sangha Gem, then, the Apparent Sangha Gem is the individual person of any arya, whether lay or monastic. The Deepest Sangha Gem is the true stoppings and true pathway minds on the mental continuum of an arya. 

All three, then – Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha Gems – are, on the deepest level, the true stoppings and true pathway minds. In the case of the Buddha Gem, they are on the mental continuum of a Buddha. In the case of the Dharma and Sangha Gems, they are on the mental continuum of either an arya or a Buddha. So, what's the difference? The difference is that each is looking at these true stoppings and true pathway minds from three different points of view:

• From the point of view of the Buddhas, they are the source of inspiration (byin-rlabs, blessings) 
• From the point of view of the Dharma, they are the source of actual attainments (dngos-grub, Skt. siddhi) 
• From the point of view of the Sangha, they bring about the enlightening influence ('phrin-las, Buddha-activity, virtuous conduct) 

We have this distinction in Lama Chopa, The Guru Puja. There, these three aspects are mentioned as well. 

All have the same essential nature in terms of true stoppings and true pathway minds. But when we conceptually isolate the different aspects, we get different points of view. With the Buddha Gem, we are looking from the point of view of inspiration. With the Dharma Gem, we are looking from the point of view of actual attainments – “This is what I'm actually going to attain, what I’m going to work to achieve.” With the Sangha Gem, we are looking from the point of view of the enlightening influence. “Enlightening influence” ('phrin-las) is sometimes translated as “Buddha-activity.” This is the aspect of a Buddha’s attainment that engages with all beings. 

Then we have to deal with what we've been dealing with this evening: How do we understand and become convinced that there is such a thing as a true pathway mind – namely, the non-conceptual cognition of voidness – and that that brings about a true stopping? And how is a true stopping of unawareness brought about step by step, portion by portion, so that those portions never come back, regardless of which portion we get rid of at which stage? That's an internal discussion among the different tenet systems. That's not our concern here. Our concern here is that we can get rid of these things step by step and that, at each step, what we've gotten rid of won't come back. 

I don't think we have fully resolved the question of how that happens, but I think the purpose of our discussion here is to highlight the issues we want to bring up in meditation (and here we're not talking about meditation, really: it's contemplation), what we have to think about in order to gain refuge, this safe direction. If we're approaching refuge in a Mahayana way, our aiming for this safe direction in life is equivalent to aiming for enlightenment with a bodhichitta motivation. All of this comes down to the most fundamental question in Buddhism: are we really working for liberation and enlightenment? Do we really believe liberation and enlightenment are possible? Do we really understand how it's possible to achieve them and that I can achieve them? 

Then the other question that we asked last week was, “Did anybody achieve it? Did Buddha achieve it?” and so on. Well, how do I know? I wasn't around. How do we test whether somebody has achieved it or not? They say only a Buddha can recognize another Buddha, so we can only see this from signs of the teachings that a person gives. 

It's interesting, some of the arguments for the existence of God are that, because the intricacies of the human body, of the universe, and of the laws of physics are so incredibly complex, there must be an intelligent design behind all that, that somebody must have created it. Here, we're not talking about how the body and things like that were created. Instead, we're talking about the complexity of the teachings and how all the steps leading up to enlightenment are described and worked out in such incredible detail. I think we can use the same kind of logic that others use for Intelligent Design – not in the sense that God or Buddha created them but in the sense that somebody must have experienced becoming enlightened in order to have been able to give such a detailed account of how to attain it. And there had to have been others who attained the same result in order to corroborate that the instructions were correct. It’s like in science, to validate a finding, others need to be able to duplicate the results.

So, these are the lines of reasoning that I think we need to use to work with refuge, which is something that people, unfortunately, very often trivialize. It's not at all a simple topic. Refuge, after all, is the entrance point and foundation of the entire Buddhist path.