Lam-Rim 70: Deluded Outlook toward a Transitory Network

Initial Scope – Aiming for a Precious Human Rebirth

In the initial scope, we first spoke about the precious human rebirth that we have and learning to appreciate it. So, first, we have to be able to identify it, which means to recognize that we are free of the worst states in which we would have no liberty to do any spiritual practice. But “free,” here, means just a temporary respite; it’s like a time off from the worst states. As one of my teachers said, it’s like having a little bit of a vacation, but you have to go back if you are not careful. Then we looked at the causes for this human rebirth and how difficult it is to obtain, especially when we think of these causes, and then how easily it is going to be lost with death. 

We think how death is for certain; anybody who’s ever been born will die. There is no certainty as to when that will happen. And when it happens, there won’t be any help that we can get from friends, from our possessions, our fame or any like that. The only things that will be of any help are the positive habits that we have built up on our mental continuums. These will shape our future rebirths. This means building up the beneficial habits of the Dharma. “Dharma” means “preventative measures” that we take to avoid sufferings. 

We saw that if we haven’t taken the preventive measures of building up these positive habits, what we can expect is a rebirth in one of the worst states. That could be in one of the so-called hell realms (these joyless realms) as a trapped being, experiencing intense suffering of pain and torture and so on;. Or it could be in a so-called hungry ghost realm as a clutching ghost that is never able to satisfy its hunger or thirst and always lives in paranoid fear and so on. Or it could be as a creeping creature, an animal, that is hunted by other animals or humans, often eaten alive and so on, or used for labor, abused by humans. We certainly wouldn’t want that. 

We develop a strong aversion of that, a sense of fear, a dread that I really don’t want to experience that. But it’s not a feeling of helplessness – not that type of fear – that would paralyze us. Rather, it is a healthy, constructive sense of fear that moves us to try to avoid the causes of such rebirths. There is a way out, and we are confident of that. That is the direction indicated by the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, the so-called Three Jewels of Refuge. This referrs to the state in which all the sufferings and their causes have completely been stopped – so, the true stoppings (or true cessations) and the true pathway minds (or understandings) that bring that stopping about and that result from it. 

These true stoppings and true paths don’t exist just up in the sky; they have to exist on a mental continuum. When they exist in full, it’s on the mental continuum of a Buddha; when they exist in part (or some of them, that means), it’s on the mental continuum of an arya. The arya beings constitute the Sangha, the Jewel of the Sangha, the arya community. 

So, this is the direction that is indicated. It is a safe and sound one – that if we put that direction in our lives, we will protect ourselves from sufferings. 

When we are talking specifically about avoiding the sufferings of the worst states of rebirth – so, the initial scope motivation – the direction we have to go in, as indicated by the Dharma, is to stop acting in destructive ways, which means to restrain ourselves when the karmic impulse (that’s what karma means) comes up to act in a certain way. We’d like to act in a certain destructive way, but we discriminate that this is going to bring us suffering and unhappiness in the future; therefore, we refrain from acting it out. That brought about the whole discussion of karma. We dealt with all the various aspects of how various actions bring about specific results, the strength of the ripening of these results, and so on. 

Intermediate Scope – Aiming for Liberation from All Samsaric Rebirth

On the intermediate scope, we saw that even if we are reborn in one of the better rebirth states, there is still a lot of suffering. The suffering of change, which means our ordinary happiness, is something that doesn’t satisfy, that never lasts, and that turns, after a while, into unhappiness and displeasure – like when we eat too much food. In the beginning, eating the food might give us pleasure, but if we eat too much, it turns to pain. 

We then looked at the sufferings of these better states of rebirth one by one: the human realm, the realm of the so-called demigods that are always fighting with the gods and jealous of them, and the god realms. We also looked at the sufferings of samsara in general. All of these are known as the true sufferings – the first noble truth. 

We then looked at what the causes for these sufferings are. This is the second noble truth: the true causes, or true origins, of our suffering. Here, we are speaking specifically about the disturbing emotions and attitudes. We started our discussion of them. 

The Six Root Disturbing Emotions and Attitudes

There are six of them. Five of them are not in conjunction with some sort of outlook, and one of them, which is divided into five itself, is in conjunction with an outlook. 

We have covered the five that are without an outlook. These are: 

1. Longing desire, which is based on exaggerating the good qualities of something. If we don’t have it, then we long to get it. If we have it and don’t want to let go, we are attached. If we have some of it and want even more, we have greed. 
2. Aversion or anger, which is based on an exaggeration of the negative qualities of something. Then, we have to get rid of it. And not just get rid of it – we want to do harm to it as well in a fairly violent type of way. “I don’t want this!” type of thing. 
3. Pride or arrogance, which exaggerates certain qualities of ourselves, which may or may not be true, and thinks, “I’m so great.” Well, it doesn’t necessarily think that (thinking is another process), but it’s the emotion of feeling better than everybody else. Or it could be feeling worse than others or feeling better in some ways but not in all ways. We looked at the seven forms of this. 
4. Unawareness, which is the basis of all the disturbing emotions. There are two definitions. According to Vasubandhu and Asanga, it is not knowing. But more than simply not knowing, the mind is actually blocked from knowing by closed-mindedness. It could be called “anti-knowing.” And what it is closed to knowing is behavioral cause and effect and how we and everything exist. According to Dharmakirti, it is misknowing these things. Misknowing is a subcategory of anti- knowing. Anti-knowing and misknowing leave room for all the other disturbing emotions and attitudes to arise. 
5. Indecisive wavering, which is toward something that is true. We are indecisive about it; we are uncertain. It could tend in the direction of the correct fact; it could tend in the direction of the incorrect fact; or it could be in the middle. We discussed very much in detail how we become certain of something and not have this indecision – certain about a fact, we are talking about. It’s not necessarily dealing with indecision about what we should have for dinner, what we should order from the menu or what we should wear today, although that type of indecision can also be very crippling. 

All of these are disturbing emotions, although it’s hard to use the word “emotion” for unawareness or indecisive wavering. It’s hard to find the right word, maybe just “disturbing mental factors.” These are disturbing states of mind that, according to the definition, make us lose our peace of mind and self-control, causing us to act often in very foolish and destructive ways or just general foolish ways – because it can underlie constructive behavior as well as destructive behavior. For example, with attachment, we can be very nice to somebody but also have a great deal of attachment to that person. 

Now we are ready to look at the disturbing emotions or “attitudes,” we can call them, that are known as the “deluded outlooks” or “deluded views.” This is a little bit complicated, so we’re going to need to go slowly through this to try to understand them. 

• Deluded outlooks view their objects in a certain way; they regard them with a view, or an outlook. They occur only during conceptual cognition. 

Unlike the deluded outlooks, disturbing emotions like anger, desire and arrogance can occur in both conceptual and non-conceptual cognition. However, in non-conceptual cognition they are brought on by a conceptual cognition that entails an interpolation (something added that wasn’t there, such as the exaggeration of the positive or negative qualities of something). Longing desire, for example, is based on such an interpolation. It first arises with the conceptual cognition that exaggerates the good qualities of an object. And although that conceptual cognition doesn’t continue during the non-conceptual cognition of the object that follows, due to the force of this prior conceptual cognition, longing desire for the object can continue during the non-conceptual cognition of seeing, tasting, smelling, hearing, or touching it. The deluded outlooks, as we said, occur only during conceptual cognitions and only those conceptual cognitions that entail an interpolation. 

Conceptual Cognition and Categories

I don’t know if we have covered what conceptual cognition means. That’s not so easy to understand either. Conceptual cognition is cognition through the medium of a category (spyi, universal) or a concept (rtog-pa). The easiest example is, for instance, thinking about a dog. If you think about a dog, what are you thinking? What appears to your mind? Well, each of us is going to have a different mental picture of a dog, but we all think of it through the category or concept “dog.” In very simple terms, that’s what a conceptual cognition is. It’s through a category. A category could also be a quality: “delicious,” “horrible” – whatever. So, it could involve a certain judgment, like with these qualities, as well as involve a general object like “dog.” 

In the case of the disturbing emotions, the cognition would be through the medium of a category that is an interpolation, an exaggeration – for example, “the most wonderful thing in the world,” when you see ice cream. Then, when you eat the ice cream, your cognition of the taste and the physical sensation of eating it is influenced by that prior conceptual cognition involving that interpolation. So, first, before you start eating, you have the conceptual thought of ice cream as being the most wonderful thing in the world. You could continue to have that thought while you were eating it, though you wouldn’t necessarily be actively thinking about it. Thinking doesn’t necessarily mean verbalizing something in your mind. It can be much subtler than that. 

OK? Let’s focus on that and digest it for a moment.

[meditation]

We have conceptual thought, conceptual cognition. Let’s not use the word “thought” as it tends to imply verbalization. But we have conceptual cognition all the time; it’s the basis for language. We have the word “dog.” That’s obviously connected with the category, the concept “dog.”

Interpolation and Repudiation

So, the deluded outlooks occur only during conceptual cognitions that entail interpolations – categories that are exaggerations. All conceptual cognitions are cognitions through categories, but not all categories are interpolations. The category “dog” is not an interpolation, whereas the category “the most wonderful dog in the world” is an interpolation since it is an exaggeration. And whereas interpolations add things that are false or that are not there, a repudiation is a denial of something that is true or present – for example, “This is no good,” or “This isn’t mine,” or something like that. The deluded outlooks accompany the conceptual cognitions in which the categories are interpolations or repudiations. In other words, it’s not the deluded outlooks themselves that cause these categories to arise. 

The deluded outlooks are mental factors; they’re subsidiary awarenesses. They accompany the consciousness and other mental factors in cognizing an object through the medium of this interpolation. While cognizing the object, they regard it with a certain view (lta-ba), which I’m calling an “outlook.” The word “interpolation,” by the way, literally means, “a feather that is added to an arrow” – so, something added that wasn’t there.

Participant: If you add the feathers to the arrow, then it makes…

Dr. Berzin: Right. You add the feathers to the arrow, which makes it go in a certain direction. That’s true, and maybe that’s part of the point of the analogy. But this is what the word literally means. It means adding something that wasn’t there, something extra. 

What do these deluded outlooks do?  

• They wish for, seek and rush (yul-‘tshol-ba) to an object on which an interpolation is being conceptually imputed and which is being cognized through the medium of this interpolation by the consciousness and mental factors in the conceptual cognition. They latch onto the object, regard the interpolation through which the object is being cognized with a certain view, or outlook, and without actually scrutinizing, analyzing, or investigating, they discriminate the object as existing in the way that they regard it. In other words, they distinguish the object as existing in this way and are certain about it.
• More fully, then, the deluded outlooks are disturbing mental factors that regard their objects with a deluded outlook

So, basically, you have an “attitude.” That’s how we would describe it in basic words.

Participant: So, you mean opinionated almost? 

Dr. Berzin: Opinionated would be another way of looking at it, sure.

Participant: You judge? 

Dr. Berzin: Judgment would involve analyzing. Judging is, “Is this correct or incorrect?”

Participant: Is it prejudice?

Dr. Berzin: It’s a type of prejudice, which may or may not be conscious. 

Participant: So, when I’m in a bad mood, for example, the attitude being projected could be “I don’t like this pillow, and I don’t like that.”

Dr. Berzin: Or “I don’t like this chair,” or “I don’t like this food.” “I don’t like” is a general attitude that can be pinned onto anything. However, the attitude, view, or outlook that these deluded outlooks pin onto things is quite specific and not simply “I don’t like.” They have to do with the view of a specific non-Buddhist tenet system, which we can get into later. The point, however, is that when I call these deluded outlooks disturbing “attitudes,” what I mean is that these are disturbing mental factors that have an attitude, a view, or an outlook with which they regard an interpolation projected by a conceptual cognition.

Let’s digest that for a moment.

[meditation] 

Participant: What is “deluded”?

Dr. Berzin: “Deluded” means that you are confused and mistaken. So, the outlook is based on confusion, and it involves a mistaken cognition, one that is incorrect.

There are five deluded outlooks. Asanga, one of the Indian masters, explained that each is a disturbing, deluded discriminating awareness. Discriminating awareness, you may remember, discriminates between what is correct and incorrect, between what is constructive and destructive, and so on. It’s based on distinguishing, which is sometimes called “recognition,” but “distinguishing” is a much more accurate word. It’s the mental factor with which we distinguish that something is this and not that. Or we distinguish something from the background. Then discriminating awareness adds certainty to that: it’s definitely this and not that. So, there is definite certainty about it. 

For Vasubandhu, discriminating awareness could be correct or incorrect. Asanga, on the other hand, says it is always correct. So, when Asanga says that these deluded outlooks are deluded types of discriminating awareness, he doesn’t say that they’re subcategories of discriminating awareness. In any case, these deluded types function like discriminating awarenesses in that they have certainty about the views that they have. For Vasubandhu, distorted discriminating awareness accompanies these deluded outlooks and adds the certainty factor.

The Five Features Connected with the Deluded Outlooks

Each of these deluded outlooks is accompanied by or entails five features (very interesting): 

[1] Tolerance for the deluded outlook since it lacks the correct discrimination to see that it brings suffering 

Let’s give an example. It’s not one of these five deluded outlooks, but it’s an example of a deluded outlook – deluded in the sense of it entailing an exaggeration – that is easy to understand: “most horrible thing in the world.” We have this outlook, and we’re really certain that it is correct – that this is the most horrible thing. Also, there is tolerance for that deluded outlook since it lacks the discrimination to see that it brings sufferings. We tolerate having that outlook because we don’t see that having the outlook, “most horrible thing in the world,” will bring us suffering. 

[2] Admiration for it since there’s no realization that it’s deluded 

[3] The mental framework of thinking in accord with the deluded outlook

[4] Discerning things in terms of this outlook 

[5].Having this outlook as one’s attitude in life.

I think that “having an attitude” in the colloquial English sense of the term is quite descriptive of that type of outlook. Remember, here, we are talking deluded outlooks, or attitudes, ones that are incorrect. 

[mediation]

Participant: “The most wonderful thing in the world” – you wouldn’t call that an attitude? 

Dr. Berzin: No, we would call that an attitude, a way of thinking. The English idiom for this is “wearing rose tinted glasses,” which refers to somebody who sees everything in the world as so wonderful. Then they open themselves up to being taken advantage of by others. It’s very naïve.

That’s different, by the way, than in tantra, where we view everything as pure, see everything as a pure land, a mandala, and stuff like that. That’s different because there’s the realization that’s it’s not like that yet. There is that possibility; there is that level of thing. But we haven’t lost sight of what’s going on conventionally. So, it’s not a naive view. 

Obviously, we have a lot of attitudes about ourselves and so on, and this is the main thing that these deluded outlooks are talking abouts. They are disturbing states of mind that go along with these attitudes that we have toward ourselves.

The first one is a very, very important one. It’s called a deluded outlook toward a transitory network (‘jig-tshogs lta-ba). “Transitory network” – what does that mean? “Network” refers to a network of our aggregates, the aggregate factors that make up our experience. “Transitory” means that those aggregate factors change from moment to moment. So, now we have to look at what the aggregates are.

The Five Aggregates

Each moment of our experience is made up of at least one, if not more, items from five groups. It’s not that these five groups exist somewhere in the sky and that we pick them out from five bags. They are, in a sense, groupings of things. 

In every moment there is (1) some sort of form of physical phenomenon involved. We can be experiencing a sight, a sound, a smell, taste, physical sensation. We could also just be experiencing darkness, for example, like when we’re asleep. Or on a more basic level, we can simply say that our bodies are involved in every moment of our experience. So, there is some sort of form of material phenomenon in each moment, which, obviously, changes from moment to moment to moment. In addition, there are the cognitive sensors for each of these types of sensory objects – photosensitive cells of the eyes, sound- sensitive of the ears and so on.

Then there is (2) one of the different types of primary consciousness. In Western science, we just speak of consciousness in general. In the Buddhist analysis, we speak of different types of consciousness – eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, body consciousness, and mental consciousness. There are six types of primary consciousness. A primary consciousness is just aware of the essential nature of its object. In other words, it is aware of something as a sight, a sound, a smell, a taste, a physical sensation or some sort of mental phenomenon. The analogy that I often use is the bits of data that are in a computer. The data is digital, so the information is just pluses or minuses, zeros or ones. The primary consciousness would be what knows that it is picture information or sound information. This is what it is aware of – what kind of information the information is. It’s basically what “channel” we’re on – the seeing channel, the hearing channel, etc. That’s happening in every moment. 

Then there is (3) distinguishing. In other words, we are able to distinguish something from the background, distinguishing that it’s this and not that. Without that, you wouldn’t be able to deal with a whole field of vision or a whole field of sound and so on. 

Then there is (4) feeling a level of happiness or unhappiness. This is how we actually experience something. We experience it with some level of happiness or unhappiness. What we feel can be anywhere on the spectrum between extreme happiness and extreme unhappiness. It can be right in between, so it doesn’t have to be intense. That’s the difference between a mind and a computer. A computer doesn’t experience things. It doesn’t deal with data along with the feeling of being happy or unhappy. 

The last one is (5) everything else, what I call “the other affecting variables.” This includes all the mental factors not included in the other aggregates, such as the disturbing emotions. It also includes mental factors that just help us to deal with the world, like concentration, interest, attention, and these sorts of things. 

The deluded outlook toward a transitory network could involve just one of these aggregate factors, or it could involve a bunch of them.  

Regarding the Transitory Transitory Network as “Me” or “Mine”

To put it in simple terms, in a conceptual cognition that focuses on a network of some imagined components from our samsara-perpetuating five aggregates through the category “me,” this deluded outlook, which arises simultaneously with this cognition, regards the network of aggregates it focuses at as being “me” or “mine.” It doesn’t focus at the aggregates of anyone else, only those of ourselves. So, it regards some member of one the aggregates – for example, the body – as being identical with “me,” or it regards it as “mine”: “This is my body.”   

Regarding a member of one of our aggregates as being identical with “me” is like when our hand gets injured and we say, “I got injured.” So, it regards “me” as being identical with the hand. In other words, the deluded outlook agrees with that identification and takes it to be correct: “I got injured because the hand got injured.” If someone criticizes how we look, we take it personally as criticizing us. Or it regards a member of our aggregates as being “mine,” in other words, as totally different from “me”: “What an ugly foot I have,” as though “me” was totally different from the foot. 

Regarding some member of the aggregates as “mine” is based on grasping the “me” to exist as their possessor, their controller, or inhabitant, as if there were a “me” living inside our bodies or living inside our heads. “I have a very good mind,” or “I have a beautiful face” – as if there were a “me” somewhere inside that (1) possesses this mind or face; or (2) is its controller, as in “I’ll use my intelligence to figure that out” – as if we were sitting there with all these instruments that we can use; or (3) is the inhabitant, like when we are feeling really sick, tired, old or stuff like that and feeling, “I am stuck in this body,” as if we were stuck inside and that what we looked or felt like was not really “me.” 

So, either this deluded outlook grasps at some group of these aggregates as identical to “me,” or it grasps at them as “mine,” with “me” being different from them as either the controller, the possessor, or the inhabitant. “Grasping,” here, means conceptually cognizing the object of cognition through the medium of one or more interpolated categories – here, being the category “me” that is regarded as being either identical with or totally different from that object – and taking this cognition to be correct.  

Let’s digest that. That was a little bit much perhaps. Let’s just think about the first part, which is that what we are dealing with here is some member of our aggregates – body, mind, feelings, emotions, etc. – and thinking of it in terms of it being truly “me” or “mine.” And we don’t have to be verbally thinking “me, me, me,” or “mine, mine, mine,” to have this. It’s sort of the basis for being self-centered, for being selfish. 

[meditation]

How Can We Get Rid of This Deluded Outlook?

Participant: I have read about this and can recognize these sorts of things, but how does one overcome this deluded outlook? It doesn’t seem possible.

Dr. Berzin: This will come later, as we lay out this path to enlightenment and begin to realize, basically, that the whole conceptual framework here is incorrect – namely, thinking that there can be a solid “me” that is either identical to or completely different from the body, the mind, the feelings and stuff like that. To think in terms of a concrete “me” being either the same or different from these aggregates is false. But it’s on that basis – of thinking of “me” being the same as the body or different from the body (in which case, it owns the body, etc.) – that we get attachment, aversion and all these other disturbing emotions. And that brings on destructive behavior or constructive behavior mixed with confusion. And that brings problems. 

So, we need to focus, basically, on voidness and to see that these interpolations, these categories of a solid “me” and so through which we view the world don’t refer to anything real. Then we focus on the absence of there being anything real that they are referring to. Then we realize that it is all just a myth. The more that we focus on “This is complete garbage; it’s not referring to anything real”– like thinking that there are monsters in the room and then focusing on “There is no such thing as monsters” – the more we can stop acting under the influence of these misconceptions like thinking that there are monsters. It’s a matter of building up a beneficial habit of realizing that these misconceptions don’t refer to anything real. We exist, of course, but we don’t exist in this false way. 

It’s like, for instance, at Christmas time when you see somebody in the street dressed as Santa Claus, as Father Christmas, you realize that you could be fooled and think, “This is really Father Christmas.” But as you focus on there is “no such thing” as Father Christmas,” you stop believing that this is Father Christmas, even though the person looks like it. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a person standing there looking like Father Christmas. There is. It’s just that the person doesn’t exist the way that it appears. That, I think, is quite a good analogy.

We exist, of course, but we don’t exist as something that’s identical with our body or as something that’s living inside of the body, possessing it and controlling it. 

Think about that. 

So, these psychological things of “I am out of touch with my body,” “I am out of touch with my feelings,” and so on – what we called “alienation” – is based on thinking that there is “me” separate from the body and the feelings. This is a misconception about how we exist. How can there be a “me” that is separate from the body and alienated from it? It might feel like that, though. That’s the problem: it feels like that, just like the man looks like Santa Claus. 

Participant: It’s like we have an attitude based on a deluded outlook of “me” or “mine.”

Dr. Berzin: We’re calling the deluded outlook a disturbing attitude, but as I explained, it is a disturbing mental factor that regards some member of our aggregates as being “me” or “mine.”  The word “attitude” is, I guess, quite vague.. Is the interpolated category or the conceptual framework that it is part of an attitude? Is the conceptual cognition of some member of the aggregates through this category an attitude? I think it’s a little bit hard to say. It seems to be a combination.  

In any case, here, with the deluded outlook toward a transitory network, we’re focusing on our own aggregates, our own bodies, minds and so on. We are not focusing on what we own. Nor are we focusing on somebody else or their aggregates: “You are most beautiful person in the world,” or “You just said that to me; you are a horrible person.” We are not talking about that. We are talking about “me.” Obviously, we have these types of attitudes towards other people, but it’s not included in this particular disturbing outlook. We are focusing in terms of “me” since that is the real troublemaker. If we didn’t have that disturbing attitude towards ourselves, we wouldn’t have it toward somebody else. And if we have it toward somebody else, it’s for sure that we also have it toward ourselves as the basis for projecting it on to other people. 

Participant: It’s revealing.

Dr. Berzin: It is very revealing. “You just said that to me! You are the most horrible…” Well, of course, it’s based on “me,” isn’t it? Think about that. Actually, that’s a very profound point. It’s the big, strong “me” accusing the other person: “You did this; you did that.” Or it could be, “You are so wonderful. I have to touch you. I have to embrace you.” 

[mediation]

Deconstructing “Me” before Deconstructing Others

This is actually a very, very important point. Very important point and very practical level. When we have a disturbing emotion – we are so attracted to somebody, or we are so angry with somebody – often, the tendency is to analyze the object of our attachment or anger: “What’s the object that I am so attached to? What’s the object that I am so angry with? Are they their body? Are they their voice? They are just imputed on their aggregates,” etc. We deconstruct the object. That’s often how we apply these voidness teachings. But that is missing the essential ground for all of this. The first thing that we have to deconstruct is the “me” that’s feeling so angry or so attracted – that’s the basis – because it could be projected to anything and anyone. 

Participant: How to do it?

Dr. Berzin: The thing is to analyze “me” and to see that I am the one that has to have this object or has to get rid of it. Is there a solid “me” that somehow will be made secure by getting this thing or by getting it away from me? If we can deconstruct that, then we won’t have that disturbing emotion toward anybody. It doesn’t mean that we don’t deal with the person we’re getting angry with and investigate what it is that we’re angry with, like asking, “Is it the person? Or is it their words, their actions, and so on?” That we certainly do that on a provisional level because it is easier. Much more emotionally difficult is applying it back to ourselves: “Why do I feel such attachment? Why do I feel such anger toward…” doesn’t matter who it is. 

Participant: Does it include getting hurt by somebody?

Dr. Berzin: Well, there’s being physically hurt, and there’s being emotionally hurt. If you talk about being emotionally hurt, you would also analyze who the “me” is that is so hurt. The person did this; the person did that. The person said this; the person said that. So, what happened? You experienced the sound of words or experienced the sight of this or that. That’s all. All that happened is that you heard these words or saw this action. Then you responded in a certain way. There was a certain feeling – unhappiness – that accompanied that and so on. You grasp onto the “me” who, in that moment, experienced this object with the feeling of unhappiness. But then there was a feeling of indignation: “You hurt me!” So, there is a big grasping to a “me” through this category of “me,” solid “me.” Then what happens is that you hold onto it and don’t let go. 

With all these things, there is tolerance. You don’t see that this deluded outlook makes you very unhappy. You are attached to it because you don’t realize that it’s deluded. And being attached, you don’t want to let go. So, although you have discriminated correctly – it is correct that the person really hurt you – you hold on very strongly to this conceptual framework of a “me” who just got hurt. You have to relax all of that, deconstruct all of that. 

Now, that doesn’t negate that the other person acted destructively. It doesn’t negate that. But what we are dealing with is how you deal with it, how you experience it. Do you get upset, or do you not get upset? The point is to deal with yourself not getting upset. What the other person did or said is history. You can’t change that. But what you can change is what you are feeling now, which is being upset. “Hurt” was the word you used, feeling hurt. Even if you feel it for a short time, don’t hang on to it. “I felt hurt, but then I analyzed further and let it go. Holding on to it is just making me unhappy.” 

Participant: But we don’t see that.

Dr. Berzin: Right. That’s unawareness. That’s not knowing because of being closed-minded, holding on to our misconception about “me.” 

Participant: And we believe that it is correct.

Dr. Berzin: We believe that it is correct and hold onto that. We identify with the feeling of being hurt: “You hurt me. You hurt my feelings.” That’s identifying, isn’t it? “Me” and my feelings are identical. You identify with a feeling of unhappiness and with a whole conceptual framework of what’s proper behavior and what’s improper behavior. In some societies, they don’t say thank you. But if in your conceptual framework, you expect a thank you, then you feel very hurt if the person didn’t thank you. Well, come on; it’s your conceptual framework. 

Participant: To understand the relationship, to understand the other, I think, the next step has to be communication also.

Dr. Berzin: Well, you can only communicate properly if you’ve deconstructed this feeling of being hurt. 

Participant: But if you have deconstructed it?

Dr. Berzin: If you deconstructed it, then you can deal with the other person in an objective way. To get them not to repeat the behavior, you can point out, “Hey, that was really cruel what you said or what you did. That was very inconsiderate.” Or you can be tolerant of it. 

I’m thinking of an example. I spent a Christmas with a South American family. I can’t say that it was typical of South Americans. Anyway, this family did not have the custom of saying thank you to each other for giving Christmas presents. So, everybody opened their Christmas presents and nobody said thank you to anybody for the Christmas presents. I expected a thank you when they open the Christmas present that I gave them. But they didn’t thank me. Even so, I thanked them for the Christmas presents they gave me, which they thought was completely strange. They just didn’t have that custom in that family. So, whose fault is that? 

Participant: Maybe they thought the present was for…

Dr. Berzin: No. They didn’t thank each other. They didn’t thank anybody. It just wasn’t their custom. 

So, grasping… Grasping has two aspects to it. The word “Grasping” is a terrible word, but there is no other word I can think of. The literal meaning of the Sanskrit word “graha” (Tib. ‘dzin-pa) is “taking,” cognitively taking something as an object of cognition. But here, we take something to exist in an impossible way. So, I take, meaning “perceive,” my body in terms of “me”: “When you hurt my feelings, you hurt me.” And I also take that cognition to be true. That’s what the word “grasping” here means. It has these two aspects. First, you get rid of believing it. Then you get rid of perceiving it because then you stop projecting it. 

Maybe that’s enough, actually, because this is complicated. And before we add further complication, it’s better to try to digest it.

So, to review, we are talking about these deluded outlooks. What’s described in the text is that they occur in conceptual cognitions that entail interpolations, categories that are exaggerations. In the case of the deluded outlook toward a transitory network, those categories are “me” and “mine.” So, it looks at the body, for example, as “me” or “mine.” As a discriminating awareness, it is certain about our body being “me,” not you, or “mine,” not yours or anybody else’s. And without scrutinizing or analyzing, it takes that to be correct and holds onto that interpolation very strongly. So, it perceives things in terms of that and takes them to be true. (There are many other mental factors working together with this outlook; it doesn’t work in isolation, by itself. But we’ll bring in the whole picture next time.) 

So, the deluded outlook toward a transitory network focuses on something in our experience. It could be our body. It could be what we’re perceiving – what we’re seeing, what we’re hearing, and so on. It could be some feeling of happiness or unhappiness. It could be an emotional state. It could be our mind. It could be anything that’s part of our five transitory aggregates (they are changing from moment to moment). And as I said, it is going to be looking at each moment of our experience in terms of “me” – for example, “You hurt me: I got hurt,” when, in fact, it was our hand that got hurt. Or it could be our so-called feelings: “You hurt my feelings” – so, our feelings, meaning “me.” Or it could be looking at each moment of our experience in terms of “mine,” meaning that the “me” is different and separate from whatever it is we are focusing on. In that case, the “me” is the possessor, the controller or the inhabitant of whatever it is that we are focusing on. 

OK? That’s what we have covered so far. One last moment for digestion. And it’s a real troublemaker.