Review
The Three Scopes of Motivation
We are going through these graded stages. Without repeating in too much detail, we are aiming, (1) on the initial scope, to improve our rebirths and to get one of the better rebirths, specifically precious human rebirths, to be able to continue on the path, and then, (2) on the intermediate scope, to gain liberation from uncontrollably recurring rebirth altogether, and (3) on the advanced scope, to gain the enlightened state of a Buddha so that we are best able to help others.
We can progress through these three scopes of motivation in this sort of manner, namely, dealing with one motivation at a time. We can also progress through them by thinking of the ultimate goal, enlightenment. We want to benefit others. For that, we need to continue having precious human rebirths all the way until we gain liberation. We need to gain liberation so that we ourselves are not under the influence of karma and disturbing emotions, which would hinder us from being able to help others, and, of course, we need to gain the enlightened state of a Buddha so that we know how best to help others in terms of cause and effect – what the results of what we teach them would be.
Initial Scope
In the initial scope, we went through the precious human rebirth and how it’s not going to last forever. So, we spoke about death and impermanence and how, in the end, nothing will be of help except the preventive measures of Dharma that we have taken to avoid worse rebirths. We looked at the worst rebirths that could follow: the hell realms, the realms of the creeping creatures, and the clutching ghosts. We certainly don’t want that. So, turning from that with a healthy sense of fear and seeing that there is a way to avoid that, then we take refuge, which means to go in the safe direction of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, to work on gaining the true stoppings of the causes for worst rebirths and the causes for samsara in general and gaining all the realizations and so on that will bring those true stoppings and liberation about. Buddhas have those in full. The Sangha have them in part. The first thing that we need to do to avoid worse rebirths and to go in that positive direction, that safe direction, is to refrain from destructive behavior. And we discussed that in terms of the teachings on karma.
Intermediate Scope
On the intermediate scope, we looked at the sufferings of any state of rebirth that we could have – samsaric rebirth – recurring uncontrollably under the influence of karma and disturbing emotions. We also saw the sufferings of the higher, better rebirth states – as humans, as demigods or as the so-called gods – and we certainly don’t want that. In order to get free from all that, we need to look at the causes. So, we have been looking at the true causes of all of this not only on the level of karma (because we already looked at karma) but also on the level of the disturbing emotions that bring on the impulses of karma, which we act on and experience the consequences of.
The Five Root Disturbing Emotions and the Five Deluded Outlooks
We have been looking at the root disturbing emotions. There are six of them. Five are the ones that are not with an outlook (we have covered them already): (1) longing desire, (2) anger, (3) arrogance, or pride, (4) unawareness – not knowing or misknowing cause and effect or how we exist, and (5) indecisive wavering.
Now we are on the deluded outlooks. In the last two classes, we looked at the first of these, the deluded outlook toward a transitory network. To review these deluded outlooks very briefly: they are disturbing attitudes that occur only in conceptual cognitions that entail an interpolation or a repudiation. They don’t actually add anything or deny anything by themselves – so, they don’t interpolate or repudiate anything themselves. What these deluded outlooks do is to seek out and latch onto something with the attitude that they come along with. So, it, in a sense, they look for and grab onto an object. These things always work in conjunction with many other mental factors (in Buddhism, we always differentiate very finely all the different factors that are involved).
According to Asanga, the deluded outlooks are disturbing, deluded discriminating awarenesses, but that just means they are like discriminating awareness because Asanga asserts discriminating awareness to always be correct. In any case, discriminating awareness is based on a distinguishing (distinguishing this from that), and adds certainty to that distinguishing. So, these outlooks are definite about the object. But they’re deluded because they discriminate the object in a wrong way. That’s because the conceptual cognition that the deluded outlooks accompany interpolates something that is false onto its object. Then what’s called “incorrect consideration” takes that object in that incorrect way. So, there are all these pieces that are working together.
The Five Features Connected with the Deluded Outlooks
These deluded outlooks are accompanied by five features:
- A tolerance for the deluded outlook
- Admiration for them
- A mental framework of thinking like them
- Discerning things like them
- Having the outlook as one’s attitude in life.
So, these disturbing outlooks are rather stubborn states of mind that basically look around for things on which an interpolation is being imputed and which they regard with a certain attitude. They only occur in conceptual cognitions because these interpolations only occur in conceptual cognitions.
A Deluded Outlook toward a Transitory Network
The deluded outlook toward a transitory network (the first of the five deluded outlooks) seeks and latches onto some member of the transitory network (basically, we are talking about our aggregate factors) on which an interpolation is being conceptually imputed. So, it focuses on some member of our aggregates – the body and mind, to put it very simply, and also the emotions, feelings, whatever. It latches onto it and regards the conceptual framework – namely, the interpolation – through which the object is being conceptually cognized with a certain view, or outlook.
The conceptual framework is that of a “me” or a “mine.” It doesn’t focus on the aggregates of anyone else, only our own. The “me” or “mine” here, however, do not refer to the conventionally existent ones but rather to the false ones that don’t correspond to anything real at all. So, this attitude has to do with a false “me.” And the false “me” here can be either some static monolith that can exist independently of the aggregate factors (sort of like a permanent soul, a static soul – that’s “me”) or a self-sufficiently knowable “me” (one that can be known all by itself).
Remember, we had the example of that. We think, “I see myself in the mirror.” Actually, we don’t see ourselves in the mirror: we see a body in the mirror, and on that body is labeled “me.” But we tend to think, “I want to know myself,” “I want to find myself,” “I want somebody to love me for just me,” as if there were a “me” that could be known all by itself.
So, this deluded outlook is based on the unawareness of how the conventional “me” exists (remember, unawareness underlies all disturbing emotions). That’s the basis. And it accompanies a conceptual cognition that is imputing the interpolation of such a false self on some member of the aggregates. This grasping for the impossible soul of a person is what causes the interpolation of a false “me” to arise in the cognition, not the deluded outlook itself.
Follow so far? In more detail:
A deluded outlook toward the transitory network is a disturbing, deluded discriminating awareness that grasps at a transitory network of aggregates as being identical with “me” (mainly with a false “me”) or grasps at them as “mine,” in other words, as being totally different from “me” – for instance, as their possessor, as the controller of them, or as the inhabitant (I live inside the body). Grasping, here, means to take an object of cognition through the medium of one or more interpolated categories and to consider these interpolations to be correct.
So, it focuses on the aggregates (although Tsongkhapa says it actually focuses on the conventional “me” that is labeled on the aggregates), and it accompanies the conceptual cognition that is cognizing it, being aware of it, through the medium of a category. And that category would be the false “me” – that no matter what, it’s “me”; I am identical with my body, a certain age, whatever. Or, “I hurt myself,” when actually you hurt your hand, and it’s the “me” labeled on the hand, but we think “me” is actually identical with the hand: “Ah! I hurt myself!” So, it focuses on the object that’s being cognized through the medium of this conceptual thing, and it believes it is true.
The conceptual categories constitute the conceptual framework that this deluded outlook tightly holds onto, this framework of a “me.” In this case, the interpolated categories include an impossible, false “me” as well as the categories of either “totally identical” (namely, one) or “totally different” (namely, many). So, it’s either totally identical with whatever is the basis that we are identifying with or totally different from it, as in “I possess it; I’m controlling it,” or “I have a good mind. I am going to use my mind to figure it” – as if the mind were some tool and there were a “me” separate from it that could use it. “I am going to use my body” to do whatever.
Moreover, a deluded outlook toward a transitory network seeks and latches onto one or more of our aggregate factors based on distinguishing them from everything else.
Participant: Distinguishing?
Dr. Berzin: “Distinguish” means “to differentiate” that something is this and not that. In general, distinguishing is what allows us to differentiate something from the background. When I look at you, what I am actually seeing is colored shapes. It’s only with distinguishing that I, in a sense, can put them together into a face and then distinguish that face from the wall, from the colored shape that is the wall. If we didn’t have that mental factor, what we saw would just be like an abstract painting of colored shapes. So, that we have every minute; otherwise, we couldn’t deal with sense fields at all.
So, it’s based on distinguishing one or more of these aggregates – my hand or whatever –from everything else.
As a disturbing, deluded discriminating awareness, it adds certainty to distinguishing. Incorrect consideration, another mental factor – namely, paying attention to something in a way that doesn’t correspond to reality – also accompanies this deluded outlook. It’s the mental factor that actually regards, or grasps – literally, “takes to mind” – these aggregate factors focused on as being members of these categories “me” or “mine.”
According to Tsongkhapa, the Deluded Outlooks Focus on the Conventional “Me” Rather Than on the Aggregates
According to Tsongkhapa, the deluded outlook toward a transitory network doesn’t actually focus on the aggregates as Vasubandhu and Asanga explain. According to his Gelugpa Prasangika system, it focuses on the conventional “me” that is imputed on the transitory network of aggregate factors. Moreover, the false “me” that it holds onto tightly is also one that has truly established existence.
“Truly established existence” (bden-par grub-pa; bden-grub) means that there is something on the side of the object that establishes its existence independently of anything else and by its own power. Or it could be in conjunction with mental labeling – in other words, that there is something on the side of the object that allows it to be labeled correctly. For example, there is something on the side of “me” that makes “me” an individual and that allows me to call myself “me” – as if there were something on the side of the object that, by its own power or in conjunction with a name, gave it its identity.
That is the deluded outlook toward a transitory network. It’s a very, very fundamental outlook. In some texts, it says that this is the main troublemaker in terms of keeping us in samsara. So, it’s always going out and latching onto the object – either the aggregates or, according to Tsongkhapa, the conventional “me” that’s labeled on the aggregates – and regarding the interpolation (the false “me”) imputed on it with a certain deluded view. It’s just a matter of the focus.
Let’s just take a minute to review that in our minds, to digest it, to make sure that we actually not only understand it but recognize it in ourselves. This deluded outlook is basically going around all the time with this attitude of “me” and “mine” that we can throw onto anything: mine – “my seat,” “my dinner,” “my hand,” as if there were a separate “me” that owns it. Well, in a sense, we do. Conventionally, we own, let’s say, the dinner or the chair, but that’s the conventional “me.” Here, we are talking about a false “me” owning it.
You see, I think that is very central here to understanding how this works. There’s the grasping for true existence. The constant habits of that give rise (if we take it in Tsongkhapa’s sense) to the appearance of a false “me,” a “me” that truly exists on its own – “self-established existence,” it’s called. Those constant habits also give rise to the appearance of objects as having self-established existence. Grasping cognizes the appearance and takes it to correspond to how things actually exist. The conceptual cognition, with this grasping underlying it, imputes this false “me” on the conventional “me,” which is imputed on the aggregates, and the deluded outlook, which arises simultaneously with this grasping, takes that false “me” to correspond to reality and considers it both to have truly established existence and to be either identical with or totally different from the aggregates. That’s something that we do all the time – as in the example, “I hurt myself.” You hurt your hand, and then you freak out: “Ah! I hurt myself!” Then, all the emotional things follow based on a mind that would regard the hand in terms of “me” as opposed to just conventionally considering it – “Oh, I hurt my hand. So, what else is new?” You just take care of it.
Questions
Participant: I hope I can put it in English.
Dr. Berzin: If not, put it in German, and someone can translate it.
Participant: Does it mean that as long as we have emotions, we cannot overcome the illusion of this self-existence of a “me”?
Dr. Berzin: She is saying that as long as we have emotions, we can’t overcome this grasping for a self-established “me”?
First of all, we have to differentiate two kinds of emotions. There are constructive ones and destructive ones. Constructive ones like love, compassion, patience, kindness, all these things are fine. These aren’t troublemakers. The destructive ones – attachment, anger, these sorts of things – we have to get rid of. But the point is that we can latch onto and identify with any of them as “me.” And if we project the “me” – “Oh, I’m so kind,” “Oh, I’m so compassionate“ – it becomes what we would call a big ego trip. So, what we have to get rid of is this deluded outlook toward this network, this looking in terms of identifying it with a solid “me” or identifying it with a solid “me” that owns it – “I have such great compassion. I’m so wonderful because I have great compassion.” That’s based on identifying the “me” as the possessor of this compassion. So, that’s the troublemaker that we have to get rid of. Positive emotions are, of course, ones that we want to increase.
Participant: Yes, but there are some, like wanting for myself that I only do good things and not wanting to see what I am doing that is not good…
Dr. Berzin: Well, “I want to only see good things in myself, and I don’t want to look at the negative things.” That’s denial. That is what would be called (it’s further down in the list of distorted outlooks) “denying what is true.” You don’t want to look at it. Now, the desire and striving to gain liberation, to be a kind person, and so on is, of course, very positive.
Participant: “Denying”?
Dr. Berzin: “Denying” is… How do you say “deny” in German?
Participant: Verneinen?
[Participant discussion]
Dr. Berzin: Right. You know people who have terminal cancer, but they are in denial. They don’t want to admit that they can die.
Participant: [Inaudible]
Dr. Berzin: Right. So, that’s a deluded outlook in which you deny what is true, what’s reality.
Participant: What is it that we need we to do?
Dr. Berzin: So, I need to acknowledge that I have shortcomings and then work on them to overcome them. But the drive to gain liberation, to be a kind person, etc. is very positive, but you can do it as a big ego trip. Still, the point is that it is better to do that as an ego trip than something destructive, something negative. Because until you gain liberation, you are still going to have ego trips. They might get weaker and weaker, but you don’t overcome them until you gain liberation.
Until We Have Gained Liberation, We Will Not Be Free of Deluded Outlooks
That, also, is a very important realization to have – that you are not going to be free of the deluded outlooks until you gain liberation. That allows you to have some patience with yourself. It doesn’t mean that you don’t do anything, but it allows you not to get angry with yourself… as if there were a “me” that you could be angry at that’s separate from your behavior or whatever and that there is the dualistic “me” that failed and the “me” who is angry with “me” that failed. This is all part of the deluded outlook that latches onto these things on. “I want myself to be good,” as if there were a “me” separate from the one that you want to be good. That’s also completely deluded, isn’t it?
So, what one has is an attitude of determining to be free – so, some drive, some motivation, some intention to do well, to be kind, an intention that just accompanies our behavior without having to identify it with “I have to do well.” You just do well. If you wanted to identify who is doing well, of course, it’s “me.” But that’s beside the point. That’s not the point. The point is to just do it and not to project on it, “I have to do this. I’m doing it; I’m so great,” and thinking in terms of me, me, me.
This is the problem: thinking in terms of me, me, me. Then you become, what we say in English, “self-conscious.” “Ah! What are people going to think of me? They are not going to like me!” All these sorts of worries come from that, as if there were a “me” separate from everything that could be liked or not liked. That’s also an illusion, isn’t it? This is the self-sufficiently knowable “me,” which doesn’t refer to anything real at all.
Participant: “Love me for what I am.”
Dr. Berzin: “Love me for me.” Well, that’s my classic example. But this is another: “I want people to like me. I want people to respect me.” What’s this “me”? I want them to respect what I have accomplished on the basis of that which is labeled “me”?
Participant: But I ask myself: isn’t there a very normal need to have closeness to other people, to have social contact, underlying under this…
Dr. Berzin: Yes, there is a basic need to have social contact. That’s not in question here. The point is: what is your attitude toward it? It’s “You are not relating to me. You don’t love me, I want you to love me.” So, it’s the me, me, me in the relationship rather than just relating, just enjoying being in each other’s company. If there is some problem in the relationship, you can discuss it, of course, in terms of somebody’s behavior and so on, but without making a thing out of the relationship, as if there were some solid thing… We had this when we studied Shantideva’s text – the position of one of the Indian schools of philosophy, the Nyayas, which is that there actually is some sort of thing called a “relationship” that connects you and me. There it is, and we can talk about it. Then you get this thing of, “You are not relating to our relationship,” as if the relationship had an existence all by itself. This is crazy from a Buddhist point of view – to make a solid thing out of all these things. There’s a solid “me,” a solid “you,” a solid relationship connecting them? And then we’re worried about how that solid “me” relates to that solid relationship. It gets really crazy.
Participant: From another point of view, it brings only strong emotions.
Dr. Berzin: And it brings all the strong emotions, which are usually anger and insecurity.
Participant: [Inaudible]
Dr. Berzin: Yes, certainly. For a Tibetan to be called a thief is one of the worst things you can call a Tibetan. So, Tsongkhapa says that if somebody calls you a thief and you get all upset – this is how you recognize the “me” to be refuted, the false “me,” because it comes up very strongly. “You called me a thief! What do you mean!” This sort of thing.
So, as I said, it’s very important to recognize this. It’s like we are going around with this piece of mud in our hand – this attitude of “me” and “mine” – just looking for things to throw it on. Mine! And it develops so early in a child, doesn’t it? So, it can automatically arise as well as be doctrinally based – thinking in terms of a soul or something like that that you learned about.
One more moment to digest this and then we’ll go on. Otherwise, we will have spent three classes on this, which is OK.
[meditation]
I can’t remember the exact example that His Holiness pointed out of a study done by some medical team that correlated high blood pressure, heart attacks or something like that with the number of times that one said the word “me” and thought in terms of “me.” It said that the people who are constantly thinking of and saying “me” or “I” – “I” this, “I” that – have higher blood pressure or more heart attacks or something like. I don’t quite remember. It’s very interesting. It really fits into the Buddhist point of view.
Participant: There are studies also that when they grow really old, a short time before they die, they stop saying these words. They are more generous. They don’t say these words.
Dr. Berzin: She’s saying that there is a study that was done of old people who were close to death. It showed that they used the words “me,” “mine” and so on much less frequently. They basically stop using them.
Obviously, “I need to go to the toilet,” or “I’m hungry” can just be the conventional “me.” That’s not a problem. But “what should I do,” “what do people think of me,” and so on… Well, that’s an interesting phenomenon. I can report, being sixty-six years old, that as you get older, you no longer care whether people like you or they don’t like you. You have already proven yourself. It’s when you are in your twenties, especially in your thirties, that you need to prove yourself, to get people to like you, to think that you are a success, whether it’s in business, whether it’s raising children or whatever. But when you’re really old, you don’t really care. You pick your nose, you’re not dressed very well, you’re not shaved very well. You don’t really care whether people like you or not. You’re much more secure already. So, in that sense, you think much less in terms of me, me, me – “Will they like me? Will they accept me? Will they…” this or that. Still, there’s the thing of loneliness – “Will they visit me?” – if you’re in a nursing home. That’s certainly there.
Anyway, let’s go on. There are five of these deluded outlooks.
An Extreme Outlook
The next one is called “an extreme outlook.”
It regards our five samsara-perpetuating aggregates – so, some cluster of them: body, mind, intelligence, whatever – in either an eternalist or a nihilist way. However, Tsongkhapa explains that an extreme outlook, like all the deluded outlooks, is a deluded discriminating awareness (Tsongkhapa is amending Asanga’s view) that focuses on the conventional “me” (Tsongkhapa always says all the deluded outlooks focus on the conventional “me”) that the previous disturbing attitude sought out and regarded as either identical with or totally different from a transitory network of one’s own aggregates. So, it focuses on that same “me” that the previous one did, the one that identified something as either “me” or “mine.”
It considers that the conventional “me” has this identity permanently or that the aggregates are permanent. That’s the eternalist extreme – “forever young” type of thing: “I’m going to have my memory forever,” and when you lose it, you get really freaked out. Or it considers it doesn’t have continuity into future lives. That’s the nihilist view – that the “me” is not going to continue.
So, it’s eternally going to have this body or this weight – like when you look at the scale and think, “I can’t possibly weigh that!” or you see yourself in the mirror and see that there’s gray hair or that you’re losing your hair, or whatever. “That’s not me!” The wrinkles… this type of thing. Or it’s the nihilist view: it’s just going to end at death.
According to Vasubandhu, the extreme outlook views the samsaric-producing aggregate factors themselves as either lasting eternally or ending totally at death, with no continuity in future lives.
The difference between the two points of view is whether we are talking about (1) the “me” being either permanent or not continuing into future lives, or (2) the aggregates that we identify with or possess as either lasting forever or not continuing into future lives. So, there’s a little bit of difference in the way that it’s explained.
However, the mechanism is exactly the same: it seeks and then latches on to either the “me” or the aggregates (depending on how we define this outlook), on which the accompanying conceptual cognition is imputing the interpolated conceptual framework. Already, we have the framework, the attitude, of “me” or “mine,” and now we have an additional framework, an additional attitude, that of “It’s going to last forever and never change,” or “It’s going to end, and nothing will ever follow.”
Think about that for a moment and we will try to come up with examples in our experience.
[meditation]
OK, can you think of examples?
Participant: I’m not sure. Is this really completely restricted to denying that something can continue at the moment of death or can… The example I was thinking of is that, OK, I believe in future lives. I believe in the fact that by committing negative actions, something will continue. So, for example, I don’t steal. But I have this thing that I think, “Well, if it’s online, then it doesn’t count.”
Dr. Berzin: Online? Like on the internet?
Participant: Yeah, on the internet. You make out this area, and then you make it into something that will not continue. I don’t know. Does it make any sense?
Dr. Berzin: No. Can you give an example?
Participant: You consider that stealing on the internet doesn’t matter and that the consequences of this will not continue.
Dr. Berzin: He can think of an example in terms of this nihilist view, which is thinking in terms of cause and effect – namely, that if we steal in an actual everyday situation, like stealing something from a store, the consequences will continue into future lives. But if we steal software or music or something like that from the internet without paying, it doesn’t count because it’s virtual, and that won’t continue. No, that’s more the deluded outlook of denying cause and effect. So, you’re denying it in just one area. It doesn’t mean that you are denying it in general.
The nihilist thing really seems to be in terms of future lives – that the “me” will just end at death and you won’t get further aggregates. That means that the karmic consequences of what you have done won’t continue into future lives.
You see, the thing is that these deluded outlooks mix with each other. They don’t come by themselves. And there are consequences of thinking this way. Thinking that the “me” doesn’t have continuity in future lives can go with denying karmic cause and effect, which can go with thinking it doesn’t matter what we do in this lifetime – ”If I get away with it in this lifetime, that’s great, because there won’t be inevitable results of it in some future life.”
The Eternalist View
The example that I am thinking of is the first one, the eternalist – identifying with our age, thinking that we are going to be eternally young or eternally the student because we don’t want to take on the responsibilities of being an adult. So, that student mentality continues even into our thirties – extended adolescent, in a sense. That, I think, is quite common these days. Also, I’m thinking of myself in that I tend to think in terms of, OK, I know eventually I am going to die, but I am holding on to having the clarity of mind to be able to work and to have the physical health eternally until the point when I die. I think that I’ll be able to continue all my work at the same level as I am doing now – all the way into my nineties type of thing. That is a form of this eternalist outlook. This is an extreme outlook – that the present level of energy and clarity of mind, memory, etc. will last, maybe not forever, but that it will remain unchanged until I die. That, of course, is a delusion; that can’t possibly be. So, I think there are many examples we can think of.
Remember, when we talk about the aggregates, one of them is forms of physical phenomena. So, it’s the things that we perceive as well, the things that we see and so on. So, it could be our children – thinking that they’re forever going to be children. So, even when they are in their twenties, we still treat them like they’re twelve-year-olds. That’s the eternalist. “My child,” holding on to it as mine.
With these examples, see if you can think of some more from your own personal experience.
[meditation]
It could be anything: “I am always going to be like this. This is the way that I am. I have a bad temper,” or whatever, “and you have to accept me because that’s eternally who I am.” We think like that, don’t we? Very basic. “You have to accept me for who and what I am.” And it’s, of course, static. We are identifying with something and believing that it can never change; therefore, the other person has to accept it. Eternal.
You know what gives it away? When you think or say in this type of sentence structure, “I’m someone who needs attention, needs affection, needs a certain level of comfort. I’m someone who…” needs or is like this or that. Then you’re making yourself into some solid thing you’re identifying with.
Participant: I studied psychology. They say that personality is something stable, fixed. I was thinking something different as a young student. I disagreed. But that’s what they teach.
Dr. Berzin: She was saying in the psychology classes that she took, that they taught that this is your personality, as if it were something static and stable. And as a student, you found that difficult to accept. Yes, Buddhism also agrees. Personality… Well, first of all, personality is a label put on top of many, many different little pieces, which you then call a personality. Of course, all those little pieces are changing all the time. And what you include in a personality and what you don’t include – that’s also just convention, isn’t it? You can include the type of food that you like – or not include that – as personality, for example. And of course, it changes. But we tend to think of a definite personality type.
Participant: It’s like you learn that this is your personality, and then you start believing in it.
Dr. Berzin: Right. If you learn that this is your personality or you figure it out or whatever, then you believe it and hold on to it. So, again, that’s an attitude. And then you project it.
The Nihilist View
A nihilist one (I’m thinking of another example) is identifying with, let’s say, our memory or some sort of cognitive ability. We get old and start to get Alzheimer’s or something like that. Our memory goes, and we might think, “Well, I’m no longer me. I don’t really exist anymore” – that when this memory was lost, the “me” doesn’t continue. So, one could even think of it not continuing in this lifetime. “I’m no longer myself.” It’s a funny attitude, isn’t it? Or we have a stroke and we’re crippled, paralyzed, or we’re in an accident and we lose an arm or a leg – “I’m no longer myself.”
Any other examples? Can you recognize it in yourself? That’s the important thing.
Participant: You relate to the age that you have, to living situations.
Dr. Berzin: Right, we can relate to our age, our living situation, our status.
Participant: Rich or poor.
Dr. Berzin: Right – rich, poor.
Participant: With titles.
Dr. Berzin: Titles: professor, doctor.
Participant: Mostly, if you have money or not.
Dr. Berzin: Right, we tend to identify very much with money, to define ourselves in terms of our money – a rich person, poor person, a needy person.
Participant: Sometimes I ask myself when changing profession after three or four years and being an age close to forty, “What’s happened here? Who am I?”
Dr. Berzin: This is interesting. She has changed jobs a number of times. She is approaching forty, and she’s had this job for three years. Then the question becomes, “who am I?”
Participant: Or never having an aim or…
Dr. Berzin: Right, not having an aim or whatever. This is wanting to identify with your job, with what you are doing. “I am my profession.” That’s taking this outlook and labeling “me,” projecting the solid “me,” onto a profession. And then the second deluded outlook is thinking that that’s going to be forever, or if that ends, thinking, “I’m no longer me.” For instance, somebody who was a physician, a doctor… doctors tend to identify very, very strongly with being a doctor. Then, all of a sudden, if they’re not able to practice medicine anymore, they think, “It’s no longer me, no longer myself.” For most doctors, it’s very, very difficult when they can no longer practice medicine. Very difficult. Especially if they become a patient, if they get sick. Doctors make the worst patients. That’s common knowledge.
Holding a Deluded Outlook as Supreme
The third deluded outlook is holding a deluded outlook as supreme. So, it regards as supreme one of three of the deluded outlooks and the samsara-perpetuating aggregates on which that deluded outlook is based. Tsongkhapa specified that the outlook at which this disturbing, deluded discriminating awareness aims may be (1) our deluded outlook of the transitory network (that’s the first one), (2) our extreme outlook (that’s the second one), or (3) our distorted outlook (that’s the fifth one, which is basically denying cause and effect or denying the value of being kind and these sorts of things).
According to Vasubandhu, this disturbing attitude may regard the samsara-perpetuating aggregates, based on which any of these three deluded outlooks arises, with the incorrect consideration that they are totally clean by nature or a source of true happiness (so, he has it a little bit different).
Tsongkhapa doesn’t really define “supreme,” here, but he’s saying that thinking that the attitude is supreme means thinking that it’s the best. So, to always think in terms of “me” by looking out for one’s own self-interest and to succeed based on that self-interest (which is the basis for capitalism) – this is the best; this is the best economic policy, and this is the best attitude to have. That would be this deluded outlook.
Participant: I think I do know it.
Dr. Berzin: You know it. [Laughter] You identify with money, and you think that this is the best. “If I have the most money, I’ll be the happiest.”
Identify with the body – strong body, eternal; it’ll be there forever, eternally strong. And this is the best thing: to have the big muscles and so on, to be physically fit. That’s Tsongkhapa’s version of this – that the attitude and the aggregates that they are based on are the best, supreme.
As I say, you always need to look to see not only whether you understand this but whether you have this… and how you have this. These things can be in quite subtle forms.
We can also have a combination of Vasubandhu and Tsongkhapa’s ways of holding this deluded outlook. Take the example of identifying with our body, identifying with our success or our money – we can think this is the best attitude to have, and this will make us the happiest. That’s what Vasubandhu was saying – that the things that we are identifying with are either totally clean by nature (“body beautiful” type of thing) or a source of true happiness. So, we think that it’s excellent, that it’s wonderful to think in terms of “me” and to identify with, as I said, something – body, beauty, money, success, profession – as being the best attitude to have and as being the source of happiness, the best happiness. And it’s completely clean. That means not just physically clean but… well, it’s like the example that you are using: you don’t want to look at the negative side of something. “It’s wonderful. It’s perfect.”
Discussion
Participant: I did not catch what you said about Vasubandhu.
Dr. Berzin: What Vasubandhu said was that this deluded outlook is looking at one of three other deluded outlooks (the deluded attitude toward the network, the extreme one, or the distorted one) and at the aggregates on which that deluded outlook is based as being either totally clean by nature (you take that to be supreme) or a source of true happiness. So, strong, healthy body – source of true happiness. And be young forever. That’s what I am identifying with. And of course, the body beautiful. It’s clean. It’s beautiful. It’s wonderful – not thinking about the fact that it gets sick, that it gets dirty, that you have to wash it all the time, or thinking about what’s inside your stomach, etc.
Any other examples you can think of? Nothing?
Participant: A couple of weeks ago, a piece of my tooth broke. I had a feeling like, “Ooh!” because I thought it was solid. It belongs to me; it’s my tooth. I had a strong feeling of… like I was recognizing, “Yes, I have to die one day.”
Dr. Berzin: She experienced a piece of her tooth breaking off (I also experienced that once, biting into an apple). What she described was that there was this eternalist feeling that “I’m always going to have these teeth… very solid.” And it made her feel very uncomfortable.
So, how do we get this supreme outlook – holding a deluded outlook as supreme? Does that fit in at all? What you were saying was the eternalist point of view. I think it’s not so much with teeth as with hair, at least for men. “If I have all my hair, this is supreme, this is best.” So, we identify with our hair. And if we are losing our hair, we get very upset because to have a full head of hair is supreme; that’s the best. Nothing personal to men in the room here (both are partially bald). But you recognize that attitude. Do you?
Participant: In this case, I gave up.
Dr. Berzin: You gave up. [Laughter]
Participant: I accepted it.
Dr. Berzin: So, you accepted it. But in the beginning, it’s tough for most men. For most men.
Participant: Women have other things.
Dr. Berzin: Yeah. Women identify with other things when they stop occurring. Also, you think of it in terms of being more eternal. For instance, I think one of the most common ones is being of the age in which you can have children. That’s very difficult for most women to accept – that they are past that age, especially if they haven’t had a child yet.
Participant: What about the man/woman thing: “I’m a woman”? I am a woman, but…
Dr. Berzin: Oh, yeah. That’s a very good example. You identify with your gender or your sexual orientation. And this, of course, is eternal. Well, it doesn’t even have to be eternal, but you just identify with that, and that’s supreme; that is the best. So, you get this super feminist type of thing or super macho male thing or super gay pride or super anti-gay as being supreme. This is a source of happiness; this is the best. Or being fanatic about anything. It could be a political party. It could even be your country – patriotism, overly fanatic patriotism, which could lead to all sorts of wars and stuff like that. Religion, for that matter.
Participant: [Inaudible]
Dr. Berzin: It’s that my religion is correct and that this is the best, whatever it might be. Or just my opinion – it doesn’t have to be a whole religious system. “These are my beliefs. This is my opinion and, of course, it’s always correct. It’s right. It’s supreme. I’m always correct.”
Participant: You have a better practice.
Dr. Berzin: Yeah, “My practice is the best, and everybody should do it.” “My diet is the best.” “Being vegetarian is the best.” Our vegetarian friend here says, “Of course.” [Laughter] Or vegan or… whatever.
So, we have all these examples. So, good.
Let’s end here. Next time, we’ll do the last two of these deluded outlooks.
And remember (just one last thing) that underlying all these deluded outlooks is unawareness – we really don’t know how we really exist. And there is at least this grasping, this projection of a solid “me,” of a false “me,” that then is identified with this or that. And it’s not going to last, or it’s going to be forever. That’s underlying all of these. Good, thank you.