Lam-Rim 71: More on the Deluded Outlook toward a Transitory Network

The Three Scopes of Motivation

On the initial scope, we are aiming to improve our rebirths, to continue getting better rebirths, specifically precious human rebirths. We are moved by that by a healthy dread and fear of the worst rebirth states in which we wouldn’t be able to continue our spiritual progress at all and would instead be severely hampered. 

On the intermediate level, we are aiming for liberation from uncontrollably recurring rebirth, seeing that no matter what type of rebirth we have, whether a better or a worse state, it would be filled with difficulties and problems. So, we are motivated by renunciation (it’s called the “determination to be free”) or disgust with all of this.

On the advanced scope, we are aiming for the enlightened state of a Buddha. We are motivated to do that emotionally by love and compassion, thinking of the suffering of others and thinking how, only if we are a Buddha, will we be able to know what the best way to help them will be. So, we are pushed along by bodhichitta, a mind that is aimed at enlightenment, our own future enlightenment that we haven’t attained yet but that we are able to attain on the basis of Buddha-nature. We wish to attain it in order to be of best help to everyone. 

Initial Scope

We have covered the initial scope. In that, we started out with the precious human rebirth, appreciating all the freedoms that we have. It’s actually only a temporary respite from the states in which we would not have any leisure or ability to further our spiritual progress because of being in some non-human situation or living in a very barbaric civilization, being tortured and so on. How fortunate we are not to be experiencing that.  So, we appreciate all the opportunities that we have in terms of the teachings being available, people supporting it, and there being a society that supports it, that allows it – it’s not illegal, and so on. We saw that the causes for it are ethical behavior, which is mainly refraining from destructive behavior supplemented by prayers to be able to continue having precious human rebirths and practicing the far-reaching attitudes – generosity, ethical discipline, patience, perseverance, discriminating awareness (using intelligence), and concentration (mental stability). 

We saw that it’s very difficult to achieve a precious human rebirth and that it is very easily lost. That brought us to death meditation. We saw that death will happen for sure. Everybody who’s been born has died; so, there's no difference between us and everybody else. There is no certainty as to when death will occur; it could occur anytime. You don’t have to be old or sick to die. At the time death, nothing is going to be of any help except the positive habits that we have built up and that will continue to shape our future rebirths. This is in terms of preventive measures (that’s what “Dharma” means) to avoid worse situations. 

We saw that if we haven’t built up these positive habits, we could expect quite a terrible state of rebirth. There are many possibilities. We could be reborn in the so-called hell realms, the joyless realms, as a trapped being – very difficult to get out of that; or as a clutching ghost, never being able to satisfy any of our needs; or as animal. And when we think of an animal, we shouldn’t think of a lovely deer in a Walt Disney movie but rather a cockroach or some other creepy-crawly thing on the floor that everybody just wants to step on. How horrible that would be. 

We develop a healthy sense of fear. It’s not a devastating sense of fear that makes us feel helpless and hopeless but a healthy state in that we want to be very careful to avoid this; we really don’t want this to happen (that’s why I call it “dread”). And it’s based on seeing that there is a way to avoid it. 

The way to avoid it is what’s usually called “refuge.” It means putting a safe direction in our lives of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. We saw what that means on the deepest level. The Dharma refers to (1) the state in which all suffering and its causes are gone forever, removed forever, and (2) the state of mind (the understanding and so on) that brings that stopping about and that results from that true stopping of suffering and its causes. That exists in full on the mental continuums of Buddhas, and in part on the mental continuums of the Arya Sangha. 

In order to go in that direction in life, the first thing that we have to do is to avoid worse rebirths, which is to refrain from destructive behavior. That brought the whole discussion of karma. I don’t need to go into all the details of that. That completed the initial scope.

Intermediate Scope 

On the intermediate scope, we saw that even if we are able to have better rebirths, we still find them unsatisfactory. Our usual type of happiness is something that is never satisfying. It never lasts, and we never know what’s going to come next. And it’s something that the more we have of it, the more it turns into displeasure and discomfort. It’s like eating ice cream: if it were really true pleasure, the more we ate at one time, the happier we would feel. But after a while, we start to become quite sick from eating too much. That kind of pleasure is not really satisfying, and we always want more.

We saw that the better rebirth states are also like that, whether we’re talking about one of the god realms, the human realm, or the realm of the so-called the demigods, the ones who are always jealous. We looked at the sufferings of those realms and the suffering of samsara in general. We really try to develop a sense that this is not what we want as our ultimate goal. Although we do want to continue having precious human rebirths, that’s not the ultimate goal.

Then we started looking at the causes of this suffering, of this unsatisfactory situation, and we saw that they arise from the disturbing emotions. We will go deeper than that later on, but now we’re looking not just at the destructive behavior but at the disturbing emotions that underlie destructive behavior and often constructive behavior as well. 

The Five Root Disturbing Emotions

We went through the five major disturbing emotions (“emotion” is not the best term, but there is no term that will cover all of them very nicely). 

1. We had longing desire, which is based on over-estimating, exaggerating the good qualities of something and totally ignoring the negative sides. If we don’t have it, we long to get it – that’s longing desire. If we have it and don’t want to let go – that’s attachment. If we have some, we want more and more and more – that’s greed. So, we have all these variants. 
2. Then we had, secondly, anger, repulsion, which is based on exaggerating the negative qualities of something. And we’ve got to get rid of it and, in fact, do some violence or harm to it – “Get it away from us!” 
3. Then we had arrogance, or pride – so, feeling puffed up and better than everybody else in one respect or another. There were seven varieties of that. 
4. Then we looked at unawareness, which is the closed-minded state of not knowing. It is an obfuscating mental factor that blocks the mind from knowing both the effect of our behavior and how we exist. Closed-minded unawareness is the basis of all the disturbing emotions and attitudes. A subcategory of that is misknowing, knowing incorrectly. But being closed-minded and not knowing is the most general way that this disturbing state affects our cognition of something. When unawareness underlies destructive behavior – so, not knowing the effect of our behavior – it is synonymous with the closed-mindedness of naivety (Skt. moha). We say things to people, thinking that it’s not going to be destructive. But in fact, what we say hurts other people and hurts ourselves, for example. That’s being either naïve or closed-minded, being blocked from knowing.
5. The fifth one that we looked at was indecisive wavering, which specifically concerns something that is true or correct, particularly in the teachings, like behavioral cause and effect, the positive things of being constructive person and so on. With indecisive wavering, we think, “Is it true? Is it not true?” We can’t make up our minds. We can go toward the correct answer or the incorrect answer or somewhere in between. Although the texts don’t speak about it, indecision in general, even if it is not about something like that, can be very paralyzing. “What should I wear today? What should I do for a living? What should I eat for dinner?” These types of things can really paralyze us. 

Remember, the definition of a disturbing emotion or attitude is a state of mind that, when it arises, makes us lose peace of mind and self-control. So, it makes us feel uncomfortable, and it makes other people feel uncomfortable. And because we lose self-control, we tend to say and do things that, later, we regret. Very foolish. 

The Five Deluded Outlooks

Then we started our discussion of the sixth major disturbing mental state, which has five parts to it. These are what I call the disturbing “attitudes,” the so-called deluded outlooks (which is a more precise translation). We started our discussion of that last time. This is a little bit subtle, so we went quite slowly. Let me review what we said last time about that.

The deluded outlooks occur only in conceptual cognition. We discussed that. Conceptual cognition is when we are thinking in terms of a category. You remember, we used the category “dog.” When we think of a dog, everybody thinks of something different, but there is the general category “dog.” So, conceptual is always mental. And in the case of the deluded outlooks, they always accompany conceptual cognitions in which the category is either an interpolation (which means we add something that is not there) or a repudiation (which means we deny something that is there). The deluded outlooks themselves don’t add or subtract anything. They don’t interpolate or repudiate, but they accompany states of mind that do. 

Remember, in Buddhism, we always differentiate all the different aspects of the mental activity that’s going on in each moment. That is very helpful because then we know exactly which are the pieces that have something faulty. So, we know exactly what to work on if we can distinguish all these tiny little aspects. 

What these deluded outlooks do, you remember, is to seek and latch onto objects that are being conceptually cognized through the medium of an interpolation or repudiation. Adding something or denying something is sort of like what we would call… well, they’re attitudes, basically. They have an attitude, we would say – that “everything is terrible” or whatever type of attitude it might be. This is the mental aspect that itself doesn’t analyze anything. That’s another mental factor. But this is just ready to…

Participant: Label?

Dr. Berzin: Not exactly label, but project, project onto it – “cop an attitude” (we would say in colloquial English) onto whatever. You know, people walk around with an attitude. So, this is the attitude. 

There are five of these deluded outlooks. They are a type of disturbing, deluded discriminating awareness. So, they discriminate the object as existing in the way that they regard it and are certain about it. Each outlook has together with it: 

[1] Tolerance for this deluded outlook because it lacks the discrimination to see that it brings suffering (so, I tolerate having this attitude; I don’t see that there’s something negative or problematic with that) 

[2] Admiration for it because it doesn’t realize that it is deluded 

[3] Discerning things in terms of this outlook 

[4] A mental framework of thinking in accord with the deluded outlook 

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

All five of these outlooks are like that. Is that clear? We had a whole class about this the last time. 

We started with the first one, which is the deluded outlook toward a transitory network. “Transitory” means changing all the time, not lasting. And “network” refers to our aggregate factors – so, basically, the body and all the various things that we perceive in terms of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, physical sensations, all our thoughts, emotions, discriminating, distinguishing this from that, and these sorts of things. These are the networks that make up each moment of our experience. And here, we have a deluded outlook toward them. 

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

This deluded outlook regards these aggregate factors as “me” or “mine.” It refers only to our own aggregates, not those of anybody else. When it regards them as “me,” it is regarding the self to be identical with one or more of the aggregate factors. It could be our body: “I am my body.” It could be our intelligence. It could be whatever… our gender, our age. It could be anything.  

Participant: Our thoughts.

Dr. Berzin: Our thoughts. Yeah, whatever. People identify with their hair, their hairdo. They identify with so many things. But this is the outlook that views these things in terms of “me” or “mine.” “Mine” means that these things are separate from “me,” that they are the possessions of “me.” And the “me” can be the controller: “I’ll use my mind to figure this out.“ Or the “me” can use it as a habitat, as if there were a “me” somewhere inside here looking out.

Participant: Defining yourself.

Dr. Berzin: Well, living inside the body or living inside the mind, this type of thing. 

From the point of view of the earlier Indian texts by Asanga and Vasubandhu, this outlook is focused on some member of our aggregates as “me” or “mine,” with “me,” the self, being identical with these things or “me” being the possessor of these things. From Tsongkhapa’s point of view, it is focused, instead, on the conventional “me” on which is interpolated a false “me,” specifically, a truly established “me.” So, there are two ways of understanding what the focus of this is. 

What Is the Difference between Focusing on the Aggregates as Identical with “Me” and Focusing on Them as Separate from “Me”?

Actually, that’s a very interesting thing to think about. What’s the difference between focusing on the body as being “me”… you know, you have a certain image of yourself. Usually, it’s as being quite young or whatever. You look in the mirror, and you think, “That’s not me!” So, we’re identifying with something. Is there a difference focusing on the body as “me” and focusing on it as “mine”? Think about that. Just experientially, would there be a difference? How does it actually work in your experience? 

Remember, we are talking about very ordinary experiences. Like when we hurt our hand, we say, “I hurt myself.” Actually, we hurt the hand; the hand is what got hurt. Or we were talking last time about feelings, hurting our feelings… whatever feelings are; that’s also quite difficult to define. But we say, “You hurt me” rather than the feelings.

Participant: So, the case of the hand is the first example?

Dr. Berzin: Well, you can say that if you hurt the hand, you hurt me – that they’re the same. 

Now, there are two ways of interpretating this. One is is to focus on the hand (the body, the mind or whatever) as “me,” and the other is to focus on “me” as the possessor of the hand.

Any ideas?

Participant: If you deny the ownership of the hand, does that mean you have no feelings of pain? Like a yogi?

Dr. Berzin: Not so much like a yogi. I am thinking more of people who are alienated from their bodies, who can’t relate to their bodies. “I hurt my hand, but that’s not really me.” 

For instance, I fell in India during the rainy season. I slipped and fell on a concrete corner of a step and cracked my rib. It was intense; it was very painful. I couldn’t catch my breath for quite a while, and my thoughts were, “I don’t want to go on this trip.” I totally disassociated myself from what was happening. I didn’t want to go on the whole thing of being hurt and being in bed, so I just totally disassociated myself from it. It was like there was a “me” inside that wasn’t associating. “This isn’t really happening” – that type of thing. You dissociate. It’s a defense mechanism. When you’re in pain, it’s a defense mechanism.

Participant: Cutting off the sensory perception?

Dr. Berzin: Not relating to it. Not relating to it as “me,” as in “I don’t want to experience this.” Have you ever had anything like that?

Participant:[Inaudible]

Dr. Berzin: Yeah. When you hurt yourself, you say, “It’s OK.” You deny it, or you think, “I really don’t want this. This isn’t really happening.” 

Participant: You make it to the next stop regardless. You just keep going.

Dr. Berzin: It’s not so much that you just keep going. It’s that you don’t accept the reality of what’s going on. 

Participant: You don’t resign yourself.

Dr. Berzin: You don’t accept it. 

Participant: Is there a difference between acceptance and resignation? 

Dr. Berzin: Resignation is that you accept it and say, “There’s nothing I can do about it.” 

But what I was thinking of – and I’d ask you to think about it – is what we would call an “ego trip” in the West. I think that’s quite relevant to what we are talking about here. What does it mean to be on an ego trip?

Participant: To see everything from the perspective of this…

Dr. Berzin: Right, everything is with respect to me. Everything is either me, me, me or mine – my accomplishment, my… “I should get my way. I am always correct. My opinion is correct.” Well, we’re starting with the “me” first. Thinking, “I am always correct” is another deluded outlook. Then, there’s the second one, thinking, “Me – I’m the possessor; I’m the controller.”  

Participant: One is more like centered, and the other one is like sitting inside something looking out.

Dr. Berzin: Right. One is always focused on me, and the other is always focused on the body or on what I am seeing and so on. So, with one, the direction is a little bit out. With the other, the direction is a little bit in. 

Think about that in terms of your own experience. I’m sure we have all been on ego trips at one point or another. No matter what we experience, we are thinking primarily in terms of “me.” 

[meditation]

So, we are ready to identify everything as my favorite food, my favorite restaurant, my thing that I don’t like. My this, my that. Very common, isn’t it?

Participant: I found something out about myself. In past times, I had much trouble with myself and had many needs – the need to be loved, to be seen or whatever. I was very selfish. It was because of the troubles. And it made me so ignorant of others.

Dr. Berzin: She said that when she was in a difficult period, it maybe came from being focused on herself. 

You see, what this is underlying is what we call “a self-cherishing attitude.” Self-cherishing attitude is not just thinking in terms of “me.” It’s thinking, “I’m the only one,” and then ignoring everybody else. “I have to have the attention, the love and so on. I don’t care about anybody else; I don’t care whether they have it or not.” That’s self-cherishing. That’s based on this deluded attitude toward oneself. And all of that is based on not knowing – unawareness. We just don’t know how we exist.

The Conventional “Me” and the False “Me”

What is tied up with this incorrect view that we have about the self? The self that we are focusing on here as the “me” that’s identical with the feelings, the body or the emotions, is, on one level, the initial level, the false “me.” False “me” is a projection. There’s the conventional “me.” That actually exists. The conventional “me” is merely… Now, this is very difficult – what the conventional “me” is. We have the aggregates; we have each moment of experience. And we can call those things “me” as a way of putting them together, of labeling them. And “me” is what the word refers to on the basis of each moment, which is made up of all these parts. The example that I always use for that is a movie. 

A movie is made up of one… Now, we are not talking about the actual film; we are talking about what you see (not the screen either). What you actually see, moment to moment to moment, is changing, changing, changing. You can give it a name: the title of the film. The title of the film could be Star Wars. What is Star Wars? Star Wars is not just one moment of it; it’s not all the moments because you can’t play them all at the same time. And Star Wars is not the name. Star Wars is what that name refers to on the basis of all the moments of the movie. But there is a movie, and it is Star Wars. And you can talk about it. But you can’t actually pin-point it at any moment. So, “me” is the same type of thing. 

We have every moment of experience, and we refer to it as “me.” But “me” isn’t just one moment, and it isn’t your whole lifetime all occurring in one moment. The conventional “me” is what the word “me” refers to. That’s why they say it’s like an illusion. It’s not something that’s solidly existent. That’s the conventional “me.”

Doctrinally Based Wrong View of “Me”

Then we project onto the conventional “me” what’s known as the “false ‘me.’” So, we think that the conventional “me” exists in the manner of the false “me.” The false “me,” the initial level, is something that is doctrinally based – namely, something learned from a non-Buddhist Indian philosophy or religion. This doctrinally based “me” is a permanent soul (never changes) – so, it is unaffected by anything – that goes into a body, uses it, and then goes out of that body and flies into another body. So, it is separate from the body and mind, and it is static; it’s unaffected by anything and, so, never changes. And it’s eternal. Eternal is OK because the continuity of the conventional “me” goes on forever in terms of rebirth. But this is the doctrinally based one. 

Basically, we’re talking about the non-Buddhist Indian idea of an atman, or soul. We could imagine such a thing living inside the body as the inhabitant of the body. So, the body is its habitat, and this atman controls it. The little “me” is sitting behind the control board in the head, with all the data coming in on the screen (from the eyes) and from the loudspeaker (from the ears) and then pushing the buttons. “What am I going to do now?” “Ooh, they just said that to me. What should I say back?” So, it presses the buttons and uses the body like a machine to say something or do something. This is actually quite silly, but it is how it feels because we have this little voice in our heads. So, we think there is somebody inside talking – which is not true, actually. But we think that. It feels like that, doesn’t it? 

So, that’s one level. Think about it. That’s the doctrinally based false “me.” Then we think that that “me” either is identical with some part of the body or mind or is the possessor of it, sitting inside and pushing the buttons. 

As I say, the experience that demonstrates that the most is the voice talking in our heads, as if there were something inside there talking that’s “me.” 

[meditation]

When you get up in the morning, you think, “Here I am again – same me.” 

[meditation]

And we can dissociate even from that: “I can’t face myself today.” What does that mean – that there’s a “myself” and there’s a “me” that I can’t face? That’s very strange. 

[meditation]

So, this type of doctrinally based “me” – thinking that we’re some sort of static, unchanging soul that flies into a body when we were born and flies out when we die – is one that we would have to be taught. That wouldn’t arise automatically.

Automatically Arising Wrong View of “Me”

But then there is an automatically arising form. The automatically arising form is that there is a “me” that can be known by itself, without relying on a basis, as in “I want somebody to love me for myself, not for my body, not for my looks, not for my intelligence, not for my money, but just love me for me,” as if there were a “me” that could be loved separately from all these other things that can be known. Or “I know you, Katja.” Well, what do I know? Or “I am speaking to Katja on the phone.” Well, what am I hearing? I’m actually hearing some electronic imitation of a voice. “I know you” – well, what do I know? I know your name, what you look like, your personality. But automatically, it seems as though there is a person that can be known separately from all of this. 

Participant: Is there a contradiction with the Greeks’ “know thyself”?

Dr. Berzin: Does it contradict the aphorism “know thyself”? No. One needs to be aware of everything that’s in one’s experience. But to say that there is a “me” separate from myself…

Participant: Knowing what you are capable of knowing…

Dr. Berzin: Knowing the capabilities, the aptitudes, etc.? Yes, but that is not… 

Participant: You?

Dr. Berzin: Right.  “You” is labeled on that. But that’s not identical to “me.”

Participant: It doesn’t define me. Is that what you are saying? 

Dr. Berzin: It doesn’t define me? The “me” is labeled on that, so the “me” is defined in terms of that. But there is no “me” that’s identical with that, and there is no “me” that is separate from that. There is a “me,” and there are my aptitudes over there. I possess them, and I want to know them. Or I want to know “me” who has… who is all these aptitudes. “That’s me.” 

Participant: Possessions are transitory.

Dr. Berzin: Possessions are transitory. That’s right. However, for the time being, when you have them, you think, “That’s ‘me.’ I might lose them.” We might get Alzheimer’s, of course. But then the question is, is that still “me”? Then it becomes very funny question. 

Participant: That’s why I don’t see Alex every fifteen years.

Dr. Berzin: Right, you saw Alex every fifteen years. Did you see Alex? What did you see? 

Participant: I saw that from memories.

Dr. Berzin: You saw memories. Is that Alex? Is the visual sight Alex? Or, “I know Alex.” Well, what do you know? But we say that. That arises automatically. And to think that there is the type of “me” that’s either identical with some part of our experience or different from it… Remember, all of this is related just to ourselves. Although we could have it toward other people, that’s not what we are talking about here. The real troublemaker is in terms of ourselves. 

But the important thing is to find relevant examples from our lives so that we know what we are talking about here. 

Participant: I thought about something. It’s also an attachment to this “me,” but I don’t know how to analyze it for this discussion. It’s when I think about how some person will feel about me. It could be a good friend that I haven’t seen for years and then is going to see me again. It could be my father or mother…  

Dr. Berzin: And I want them to like “me.” Well, what do I want them to like? Me! As if there were a “me” separate from… what? How could they possibly like you, totally independently of what you do, what you look like, what your name is?

Participant: Sometimes it really depends. So, you make efforts to identify yourself with a lot of things.

Dr. Berzin: Like my work.

Participant: Yes.

Dr. Berzin: I want them to admire me, and I am identifying with my work. So, that’s what I want them to admire.

Participant: To show all your work. Or you try to show other sides that you think will be important. And this makes a good “me.” 

Dr. Berzin: Right, we think that if they like me, that somehow makes me a good “me,” that it makes me worthwhile, that it somehow establishes my existence and my worth. And that’s totally incorrect. That’s based on confusion. How could that establish my worth? There are always people who are not going to like me. 

The point is that we exist conventionally. We don’t have to prove it. That’s the thing that is the real insight of maturity. There’s nothing that we have to prove because there is nothing that we could do to prove the existence of a false “me,” which is what we are trying to prove. That false “me” doesn’t exist, doesn’t refer to anything. We’re trying to get approval for the “me” that needs to be loved and wants to be loved, that we want everybody to pay attention to and that should always get its way and so on. It doesn’t mean that we are passive in life. There are certain aims, certain things, and so on but not in terms of what we are talking about here – always thinking in terms of me, me, me, and and “I have to do this so that they will like me,” and worrying that they won’t like me and so on. We just act in a constructive way, in a kind way, without being obsessed with this thought of me, me, me, what they are going to think of me. That’s the Buddhist way. Just live moment to moment on the basis of being kind, being constructive, not acting destructively, and so on. Who is doing it? Well, of course, I am doing it, but so what? And all of this is based on not knowing. We just don’t know that that’s how we exist. It’s like Star Wars, like a movie, but it’s not a movie. 

Think about that.

[meditation]

I think it requires quite a lot of thought to try to identify what we are really talking about here. The examples that I was thinking of was that if we always have an attitude of being judgmental, criticizing everything, it’s like there is a separate “me” sitting in our heads that is judging everything, complaining and feeling sorry for ourselves, or a “me” that is just sitting inside, experiencing things, as if “Now I am going to go out and go on an adventure.” Both are deluded. Of course, it’s me, the conventional “me,” who does things. That we are not denying. But you see, this conventional “me” is always mixed up with grasping for an impossible “me.” So, what we have to differentiate here are all the different pieces. Let me go through the pieces, what’s actually working at one time. 

Grasping

Grasping gives rise to the appearance of an impossible mode of existence of its object, namely, “me,” and takes that appearance to correspond to reality – for example, thinking that the “me” is an unaffected, monolithic entity. The conceptual cognition imputes this interpolation of a false “me” on a basis such as the body, and the deluded outlook, which arises simultaneously with the grasping, regards this interpolated self with the view or outlook that it is truly “me” or truly “mine.”

Of course, underlying all this is unawareness. Because we don’t know how we exist, there is this grasping for an impossible “me.” 

Incorrect Consideration

Then there is incorrect consideration. That’s another mental factor. It’s the mental factor of taking an object to mind and paying attention to it in a manner that does not accord with fact. 

The deluded outlook toward a transitory network simply conceptually cognizes some component of the aggregates through the category of “me” or “mine.” When incorrect consideration goes together with that, it adds incorrectly regarding the aggregates as actually being this false “me.” Distorted discriminating awareness accompanying the cognition would add certainty to it. Since Asanga asserts discriminating awareness as always being correct, he asserts that the deluded outlook functions like a distorted discriminating awareness, so it adds certainty to the incorrect cognition by its own power.

That’s actually not very easy to conceptualize. Let’s try to make it a little bit simpler in the way Vasubandhu describes. Underlyingthe deluded outlook is, “I just don’t know how I exist.” That’s the unawareness, the so-called ignorance basis. Based on not knowing, I have this grasping for an impossible “me,” a false “me,” that is, for example, a static, monolithic thing that can never change, or that is a “me” that can be known by itself, or whatever. Then the deluded outlook accompanies a conceptual cognition in which this interpolated self is being imputed on some member of our aggregates and views it as “me” or “mine.” Incorrect consideration regards that as perfectly correct, and distorted discriminating awareness has certainty about it. Then, when this deluded outlook finds something else to latch onto, incorrect consideration considers that correct: that’s “me” or “mine.” 

So, you see, there are many pieces here that we could work with. So, even if we have that deluded outlook, we don’t have to continue to have that incorrect consideration. After thinking with this deluded outlook, we could think about it and say, “This is ridiculous,” for example, and not accept it. “It seems like that, but that’s not true.” So, we can start to deconstruct it from many different levels. That’s very helpful, actually, in working with the disturbing emotions and attitudes. 

Then, of course, based on all of this, there can be pride – “I am so wonderful.” There could be attachment, being attached to our youthful looks, attachment to possessions. There could be aversion and anger – “I don’t like what I look like. I’m old and getting fat – a big belly.” So, we have aversion to that. All the disturbing emotions grow on the basis of this deluded outlook. That’s why, eventually, we have to go further and further, deeper and deeper, to get rid of what really is the root of all the problems, which is unawareness and grasping for an impossible “me” or anything that projects these false things that don’t exist at all. Think about that. 

[meditation]

Looking at Examples from Our Own Lives

Have you come up with any examples from your own personal experience?

Participant: [Inaudible]

Dr. Berzin: She explains that, in social interactions, seeing things in terms of “me” – wanting people to pay attention to me, to like me, wanting to get my own way – is a basic attitude that is going to come up in any situation and be latched onto any situation. And behind it is a mistaken view of a “me” that could be liked, loved or whatever all by itself. 

Participant: There are many concepts about “me”: “I want to do that work or I don’t…”

Dr. Berzin: Right, concepts of “me” and so on. So, now you are identifying the “me” with a concept, “That’s me,” or “That’s who I want the ‘me’ to be.” 

Participant: Yeah. “I want ‘me’ to be good.”

Dr. Berzin: “I want me to be good. I want me to be…” whatever.

Participant: And not to disturb others, not to have mistakes and…

Dr. Berzin: Right, not to have mistakes and to be perfect. There is the perfectionism. We identify with that.

Participant: But I just see that when somebody communicates with me in social ways, there’s always communication about the “me.” 

Dr. Berzin: So, even in communication, the “me” is often reinforced by other people. And it’s interesting how much our thoughts contain the word “me.” Very interesting. 

The example that I was thinking of was with my website. If I think that I want people to appreciate me in terms of the website, I’m identifying the “me” that could be appreciated by itself: I’m identifying it with what I’ve produced. So, the more people that look at it, the more people will appreciate me. Or I could be thinking of a “me” that has done this; so, I’m separate from it. As soon as I start thinking of it in those terms, what is the effect? My energy is a little bit disturbed; I’m not really calm. Then I’m worried, “Do they like it? Do they not like it? Oh, there weren’t so many people looking at it today.” I think it’s a very clear example that it’s a disturbing attitude: I’m not at peace. 

Participant: It’s a barometer.

Dr. Berzin: Thinking like that is a barometer of how deluded I am. It’s not that I am thinking like that all the time, but I am using that as an example. It’s an automatic thought that comes up that automatically there is a “me” that could be liked or appreciated or who is worthwhile (you know, doing something good), by itself, and it is identified with the website.… I think that’s an example. What you have to recognize is that thinking like that makes you uneasy. You lose your peace of mind, and you are quite likely to say or do something stupid based on an ego trip or insecurity or whatever that will just cause problems.

Participant: If you work, for instance, I think there are some moments where the “me” is forgotten, where the work is just… you know, somebody needs something, and you just help. 

Dr. Berzin: In our work, when we’re not thinking… and it’s not that we are consciously thinking like this all the time. But if we just do our work, and we are helping others, we do it without thinking, “Oh, there’s me; I’m helping them,” or “How wonderful I am,” or “I hope they’ll thank me. I hope they’ll appreciate the trouble that I’m going to to help them.” Forget about all of that. You just do it. And you feel quite good, actually. 

Participant: It’s easy. It’s easy then.

Dr. Berzin: Yeah, it’s easy. 

Participant: But these moments, I think, exist.

Dr. Berzin: These moments exist. Unconsciously, there may still be some grasping for a “me,” but it is not so active at that point. 

Participant: So, it may come up.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Well, what they say is that the unawareness is there in every moment. We still don’t know how we exist. We just don’t know. 

Participant: But it’s not functioning…

Dr. Berzin: It’s always there; you always don’t know. How do you experience not knowing? You don’t even know that you don’t know. You don’t even know that there is something to know. 

Participant: So, how would it be different if you did know it in each moment?

Dr. Berzin: If you did know in each moment that the conventional “me” is just what the label “me” refers to on the basis of this or that, then you…

It’s very important to have a healthy sense of the conventional “me” before you go into any of this deconstruction. If you don’t have a healthy sense of conventional “me,” then you don’t take responsibility for your behavior; you don’t get your life together. Somebody who doesn’t get their life together doesn’t have what we would call a healthy ego, a healthy sense of “me.” So, that’s first, before you deconstruct anything. 

So, there is a self-confidence. You have a sense of conventional “me,” which is not based on an ego trip, but just a…. You’re not insecure. You’re not insecure. Take the example of somebody who is nervous when they speak to other people or who is shy: “Ooh, they won’t like me,” or “What are they going to think of me?” You don’t have that at all if you are free of this attitude.

Participant: But there are moments where I think it happens.

Dr. Berzin: Yes, there are moments. But I think from a Buddhist point of view, it’s not a hundred percent gone. It’s sort of dormant at that time. 

Dealing with the Voices in Our Heads

This is what is so deceptive and so nasty about our situation. It appears as though there is a separate, solid “me” sitting inside our heads because there’s this voice going on; therefore, we think that there must be somebody inside there talking. It feels like that. It feels like there is a separate me inside. So, it’s deceptive. It’s not that we are stupid. That’s why I don’t like the word “ignorance” – it’s not that you are stupid. It’s just that you don’t know. It seems as though there is a separate “me” inside talking. “What should I do now? What would people think of me?” That’s what’s so nasty. 

Participant: So, the inner monologue keeps this…

Dr. Berzin: The inner monologue keeps it going. Eventually, one learns through tremendous meditation practice to quiet that monologue inside.

Participant: At the next moment in social life, you face contact; then you…

Dr. Berzin: Well, you face contact. But you don’t have to be commenting inside in your head, “Oh, that’s a stupid thing. I wish they would shut up. I wish they would go away.” You don’t have to… There don’t have to be comments going on.

Participant: It was funny. I spent three weeks in Mongolia. Three hours after I came back, I started recognizing thoughts coming in my head, which I hadn’t had for maybe two weeks because they’d just stopped. Then the feeling was, “Oh, all the stupid thoughts are coming!” and I couldn’t stop them. But then after one or two days, I didn’t even notice any more that there were all these thoughts.

Dr. Berzin: Right. She spent a few weeks in Mongolia. In Mongolia, your mind became a little bit quieter. I think the landscape, the people and everything are very conducive to that. Yeah, Mongolia is a fantastic place, especially the countryside. Then you came back, and all of a sudden, the monologue started again, and it was very noticeable. But then it seems normal after a few days. 

One of the things from the concentration meditations is to learn to quiet that voice, to shut it up. That’s the best way for falling asleep, if you want to fall asleep at night. A lot of people can’t go to sleep because they are constantly thinking. The voice is going on and on and on. If you are a little bit trained (more than a little bit – it’s not very easy), you just stop thinking anything; you just quiet your mind – just like that. So, these are some of the side benefits of these concentration practices. But they are very difficult. Very difficult. But it’s helpful on all levels to stop the worrying. “Oh, how is it going to turn out? Are they going to like me? Is it going to be…” blah, blah, blah, constantly worrying. For some of us.

Participant: Or arguing.

Dr. Berzin: Or arguing with ourselves. Or criticizing ourselves, “Oh, that was so stupid!” and so on. Or the one that’s accusing – making guilt. This is the deluded outlook. It regards what we did in terms of “me.” “What I did was bad. So, actually, I am bad.” So, we identify with what we did. The deluded outlook tightly holds onto the conceptual framework “bad” being conceptually imputed on our action and has the view that “We’re identical: bad and me.” And then incorrect consideration considers that correct. And with distorted discriminating awareness, we’re sure that it’s correct; we’re sure that we were so terrible. 

Participant: First all, accept that it is like this because this inner monologue is constantly active. With this acceptance, for me, it becomes easier not to identify all the time. But first step for me was to accept that it is like this.

Dr. Berzin: So, the first thing, she’s saying, is to not judge but to accept that we have this inner monologue all the time. Well, yeah. To judge is to dissociate. There’s a “me” separate from it that’s saying, “This is really stupid.”

Participant: “I don’t want this.”

Dr. Berzin: “I don’t want this.” 

I think it’s even worse (I know because I have this a lot) when some song won’t get out of my head – what you call an “earworm” in German. Then there is really a “me” separate from that. “This is so stupid! Why can’t I stop singing the song?” That’s a good example of a “me” that is separate from what’s going on. 

So, stop being judgmental. But to dissociate like that, the danger is that you feel that there is a “me” separate from all of this, that there is a “me” sitting in the back of the head, experiencing all these things and just watching them and being dissociated from it. That’s also false. 

Participant: That’s like a second level.

Dr. Berzin: There’s a second level: a dream within a dream.

Participant: The boss of the boss.

Dr. Berzin: The boss of the boss, right. The observer of the observer. 

It’s very hard. There are methods for dealing with the voice in your head. One of them is what we find in the dzogchen teachings, which is to try to view it like writing on water. So, you really, really slow it down. Slow, slow, slow speed, word by word. And then you see that it’s like writing on water. You see the imagined sound of the voice rises and disappears at the same time. And if you slow it down enough, what happens is that it loses all its energy. And when it loses its energy, then the voice stops. That’s one method. 

There are many methods, but these are not very easy. You need discipline. That’s why, first, in the initial level, there is some discipline that you develop, which is that when you have an impulse to act destructively or to say something stupid, you don’t; you just shut up. You don’t do it because you recognize if you do it, it’s going to cause problems. 

Participant: Who was it? 

Dr. Berzin: Then the question is, who was the one that exercised self-control, and who is the idiot inside who wanted to say that or do that? So, that’s only the first step. The first step is self–control, basically, based on clear discrimination that this is going to produce problems. “I don’t want the problems, so better not to say anything now when I am really emotionally upset and to wait until I am calmer before I say anything,” for example, or wait until the other person is receptive. If they are upset, they are not going to listen to anything that we say. So, it’s a waste of words. 

Participant: But the Dzogchen method is slowing down the thought? 

Dr. Berzin: Yes, slowing down the thought. Do it word by word, syllable by syllable. And then you see that it’s nothing. It’s like writing on water – that’s the analogy. Spell it out letter by letter. And what is it? It’s nothing. It’s movement of energy. It’s nothing. 

Participant: The thoughts may provoke feelings that bring me out of my…

Dr. Berzin: With the feelings as well you can do that. It’s much more difficult with the emotional feelings, so you can use a mahamudra method. You try to look in terms of the ocean, seeing the mind as an ocean. It’s not that there is a “me” somewhere in the ocean, in a U-boat, a submarine, that can go down below or whatever. But these thoughts or emotions are just like waves on the surface of the ocean, and you just be the whole ocean. So, it doesn’t disturb the depths; it’s just this little thing on the surface. But it’s very important not to identify a “me” being in a boat on the surface, rocking in the waves, or a “me” in a submarine that will dive below and escape, but just, in a sense, be the whole mind, be the ocean. 

Participant: I have problems. I have little children. Sometimes, fearful thoughts come over me. I do not know where they come from. I have fear about what could happen to the little children. These thoughts… it’s like when they come into your house: you just open the back door and let them go.

Dr. Berzin: That’s another method. She’s a mother and saying  that she has two children. Sometimes, uncontrollable worry and fear come up. And the thing is… that’s just called “letting go”: it just comes in the front door and goes out the back door. Just let it past; don’t grab onto it and hold it. The problem is when it’s a recurring thing, like a song that you can’t get out of your head. That’s much more difficult. That’s much more difficult. Then there are other methods as well. You can override it with a mantra. 

Participant: Wasn’t there something like a wave?

Dr. Berzin: Yeah. That’s a wave in the middle of the ocean. It’s not a wave that’s crashing on the shore. It’s just a wave in the ocean that just comes and passes. 

Participant: Another example of this deluded outlook based on the false “me”: for example, if I think of myself as being inherently unlovable and then I go out to the world, and wherever I go, I basically sabotage relationships and situations in order to prove…

Dr. Berzin: That is a perfectly great example. First of all, you are thinking of “me” and identifying with one quality – “unlovable” – and then you go out in the world and jeopardize every relationship. You make sure that everybody rejects you by the way that you act or speak or whatever. So, it “proves” that you are unlovable. Sure, that’s a very common thing. Or “I’m a loser.”

Participant: Would that fit? Would it be an example of what you’re talking about?

Dr. Berzin: Well, the deluded outlook would be part of it. You are describing a whole syndrome. The deluded outlook doesn’t have a specific thing that it identifies with. It can view anything in our experience, such as the quality of being unlovable, through the lens of the categories “a truly existent me.” Then incorrect consideration regards this quality of being unlovable as actually being correct and discriminating awareness adds certainty to this. And don’t forget about grasping for true existence. It gives rise to the appearance

The thing is that if we don’t identify with one incorrect view – “I’m unlovable,” or “I’m God’s gift to the world,” or whatever – we might identify with another. So, the point is to work on the more basic issue, which is identifying with anything. There is no solid “me” that can be identified with anything. So, to go around identifying the “me” as the separate observer of this or that or as the controller this or that – “I’m in control. Alles in Ordnung (everything is in order) – is delusional. There is no separate, solid “me” that could be in control of what we experience. “Everything is under control” – that’s an illusion. Or “everything is out of control” – that’s the other extreme. “I’m out of control.”

So, this finishes our deluded outlook toward the transitory network. Next time, we’ll get on to the next one.