LTF 42: The Doctrinally Based Impossible Self – The 3 Main Characteristics

[49] It has been said that forms are not the self, the self is not the possessor of forms, a self does not abide in forms, and forms do not abide in a self. Like that, understand that the remaining four aggregates are (also) devoid (of an impossible self). 

We started our discussion of this last week. We saw that there are two types of “me,” to put it in simple terms (“me” being the same as a “person” or “individual”): there is (1) the conventional “me,” which actually does exist, and there is (2) the inflation of that “me” that we project onto the conventional “me”– in other words, we project an impossible way of existing onto the conventional “me.” That is known as the false “me,” the “me” that doesn’t exist at all. It’s also called the impossible “soul.” I am translating the word “atman” as “soul” because, actually, in Hinduism where the term is used, it does refer to what would be equivalent to our Western concept of a soul. So, “me,” the person, doesn’t exist as some sort of impossible soul. 

It’s very important to differentiate these two – the conventional “me” and the false “me.” The reason for that is that if we don’t make a clear differentiation, then, when we refute the false “me,” we might think that I, the conventional “me,” doesn’t exist at all. So, we might fall to the extreme of nihilism, which is a big mistake and very dangerous because without a sense of a conventional “me,” we wouldn’t actually strive to achieve enlightenment or to help others. We wouldn’t do anything. And we certainly wouldn’t take responsibility for our actions. This is very important – to take responsibility for our actions, both in terms of karma and also in terms of the meditation practices that we would carry out in order to reach liberation or enlightenment.

So, we need to refute the false “me” and reaffirm the conventional “me.” The way that we do this is usually in meditation. We have total absorption on “no such thing” as the impossible “me”; that’s the voidness of the impossible “me.” “Voidness” means a total absence – that this never existed. Doesn’t exist, didn’t exist in the past and won’t exist in the future. It’s totally fictitious. Then we focus with total absorption on “no such thing.” Then subsequent to that, what we attain is a realization that what appears – the conventional “me” – is like an illusion. The conventional “me” appears to be solid, appears to exist like the impossible “me,” but that appearance doesn’t refer to anything real. How it appears to exist is not the way that it actually exists. So, the conventional “me” is like an illusion, but that doesn’t mean that the conventional “me” itself is an illusion. It’s not saying that at all. 

That’s very clearly differentiated in Shantideva’s text [IX.11] where he said there is a big difference between killing an actual human being and killing a human being in our dreams or killing an illusion of a human being is not the same in terms of karma. Similarly, we are not refuting the conventional “me” by saying that it is an illusion. Instead, we are saying that it is similar to an illusion. It is similar to an illusion in the sense that an illusion appears to be solid and real, but it’s deceptive; it doesn’t exist the way that it appears. The same with the conventional “me.” I appear to be something solid and findable, but that is not the case. 

So, what is the false “me” that we need to recognize? The false “me,” or the impossible “me,” or impossible “soul,” can be identified on various levels of subtlety.

Participant: Maybe more light.

Dr. Berzin: Yes, that’s a very good idea – have a little bit more light in the room so that we can recognize clearly the self to be refuted. 

By the way, are there any questions on the fact that there are these two “me’s,” one that actually exists and one that doesn’t exist, and that the one that doesn’t exist is an appearance of what doesn’t exist, which is an appearance of something that we think exists? That gets into a very funny metaphysical question: how can something that doesn’t exist appear? What appears is something that resembles or represents what doesn’t exist. It’s not that what doesn’t exist actually appears, if you follow what I mean. 

A pink elephant – something that resembles a pink elephant – can appear in our imagination, but it is not an actual pink elephant that appears. It resembles a pink elephant; it represents a pink elephant. It is just an image of an elephant that’s colored pink. But what appears is not an actual pink elephant; so, it is like an illusion. It appears as though an actual pink elephant is appearing, but that isn’t what it is. Do you follow? 

So, what are the different levels of subtlety of this false appearance (after all, it is necessary to go deeper and deeper till we refute the deepest level of our projection of what’s impossible, what’s unreal)? The first level that is discussed in the Buddhist teachings is the level of what’s called “doctrinally based unawareness,” or ignorance. “Doctrinally based” means that it is something that we learn from some system of doctrines. Here, it refers to some of the non-Buddhist Indian schools. And what that refers to is a description of a soul, an atman, that we had to learn from one of the various schools of Hinduism or Jainism that asserts a soul. 

Now, the question is always asked whether we could also include here the Christian concept of a soul or the concept of a soul in any other religion – Judaism or Islam or whatever. Although there’s something that resembles this type of impossible soul, that’s not really what they are talking about. You have to refute that as well, but that’s not what the texts are talking about. 

Then the question is asked: do animals have this doctrinally based unawareness? And what about people in the West who never learned one of these Indian systems of philosophy? Do they have it? I asked that question to the young Serkong Rinpoche’s teacher, and he pointed out some passage in a commentary that explained (I forget who wrote it, whether it was  Tsongkhapa himself or someone else) that everybody has this because they say that, just as the Buddhist teachings have no beginning, likewise all these other Indian systems have no beginning, no first time when they were taught. So, everybody must have, at some point, learned these doctrinally based wrong views. So, even if you haven’t been taught it in this lifetime, you would have the instincts, or habits, of it. They explain it that way. Otherwise, it becomes very problematic to explain how it is that, in order to achieve the seeing pathway mind (the first level at which you have non-conceptual understanding of voidness), you have to refute this doctrinally based thing. So, what happens if there is somebody who never learned this doctrinally based wrong view?

The Three Main Characteristics of the Doctrinally Based Impossible Self

In any case, what are the main features of this doctrinally based wrong view? They have to do with a type of soul, or “me,” that has three characteristics. Remember, everybody within these systems accepts that the “me” has no beginning and no end. Buddhism accepts that as well. So, it is eternal. That’s not to be disputed. And everybody except the Charvarka – one school – says that the self is what carries karma from one lifetime to another. So, that’s accepted. 

Now, the question is, how does that self, that “me,” that has no beginning and no end, that is responsible and that carries karma – how does it exist? What this doctrinally based wrong view asserts is that,

[1] The self exists as something that is static, which means it never changes. For something never to change means it is not affected by anything. So, in that sense, it always remains unaffected, static, never changing from one lifetime to another. 

The example that sometimes I use to illustrate that is that it is like a piece of luggage on a conveyer belt in the airport when we go to receive our luggage – that the soul, or “me,” is like a piece of luggage that just moves from one lifetime to another lifetime and stays the same. So, that is the first thing that we refute. 

The second aspect (all of these three qualities go together) is that,

[2] The self is a monolith; it’s one. It doesn’t have any parts; it can’t be divided in any way. 

Then the third aspect is that,

[3] The self is something that is separate from the aggregates. We spoke a little bit about the aggregates last week, but to make it very simple, we can say the body and mind.

So, the self, or the soul, is something that is separate from the body and mind, that doesn’t change, and that is a monolith – has no parts. 

This what we would have needed to learn. It’s not something that we would naturally think up by ourselves. But certainly, there are certain similar types of things that it might feel like. The example that I was giving was that we go to sleep at night, and when we get up in the morning, we feel, “It’s the same me. Here I am again – the same me,” as if there were a static “me” that reappeared again.

The Buddhist Refutations of the Three Main Characteristics of the Doctrinally Based Impossible Self

What does Buddhism say? 

[1] Buddhism says that the actual conventional “me” changes from moment to moment. It is affected by what happens; it is affected by what it perceives – what I perceive, and so on. 

So, it is affected. It changes from moment to moment, and it is an everlasting continuity, like, for instance, the frames in a movie… not so much the frames in a movie but the movie actually playing; it goes on. Each scene, each moment is different; it’s not the same. 

[2] If we want to refer to the whole movie, we would give a title, a name, like Star Wars or Gone with the Wind or whatever, but we wouldn’t say that that whole doesn’t have any parts because, obviously, the movie has scenes, doesn’t it? 

Likewise, the “me” has parts; it is not just one thing with no parts. Those parts can be in terms of what we refer to as “me” – “me” in terms of this aspect of my life or that aspect of my life, this aspect of my personality or that aspect of my personality. But also, those parts could bein terms of time – “me” as a child, “me” as an adult, “me” as last lifetime or next lifetime. So, it has parts. 

[3] Also, what Buddhism says is that that “me” is not totally separate from the body and mind and that leaves the body and mind of one lifetime and then goes into another body and mind in the future lifetime. Instead, it is something that is labeled, or imputed, on the stream of continuity. 

For instance, the movie Gone with the Wind – it is imputed, or labeled. We name it on the basis on the continuity of scenes. But the movie is not the name of the movie. The movie itself as a whole is what the name refers to, not just the title. Likewise, the “me” is what the word “me” refers to on the basis of the continuity of body and mind. It is not separate; it’s not something that flies off into another body. 

So, let’s think about this. First, do you have a question? 

Mind Is a Type of Mental Activity, a Way of Knowing Things; a Person, “Me,” Is Not

Participant: What’s the difference between the soul concept and the mind?

Dr. Berzin: The mind, an individual mind or mental activity, likewise is something that changes from moment to moment and has no beginning or end. So, we are talking about a line of continuity. We are not talking about some sort of “thing” but about mental activity, the activity of being aware of things – of making mental holograms and being aware of them. So, it’s an activity, and that activity is individual, an individual stream of continuity with no beginning and no end. 

In Buddhism, we say that both consciousness, or mind, as well as a person, “takes” objects, knows objects – cognitive objects. We’d have to say that; otherwise, it contradicts convention. We don’t just say that “my mind” saw you or that “my eye” saw you; we would say that “I” saw you. So, we would have to say, conventionally, that a person cognizes things, is aware of things, knows things. But a person is not a way of knowing things. Mind is a way of knowing things; it is a type of mental activity. Person is not a type of mental activity. Person is what is labeled on the basis of a mind and body and so on. 

The different schools of Indian philosophy differ as to what the basis for labeling “me” is. But many of them assert that the basis is mind or some level of mind because mind has no beginning and no end and goes on even into Buddhahood, similar to the “me,” or person. So, that’s the most convenient basis, the most obvious basis, for labeling “me.” So, that is basically the difference. Not a very easy answer to a not very easy question. Does that make any sense to you?

Participant: Yeah. So, mind is more the activity itself.

Dr. Berzin: Yes, mind refers to mental activity and the person is what’s labeled on that. So, because it is labeled on that, you would say that the person knows as well. You wouldn’t say that just each scene of the movie played; you’d have to say that the movie itself also played. You can’t say that we showed just a set of scenes; the cinema showed the movie as a whole as well. Like that, you’d have to say that both of them, both the mind and the person, take objects in a cognitive sense, that both of them know things. Otherwise, it is just too weird in terms of convention. 

Follow? Good. Let’s think about this. 

The doctrinally based false “me” is one that, although it has no beginning or end, it: 

• Remains static; it is not affected by anything 
• Has no parts 
• And can be totally separated from a body and mind 

Or as Buddhism says, the “me”: 

• Is affected; it changes from moment to moment (that’s the conventional “me”) 
• Does have parts; there are different aspects of ourselves, of “me” (“me” when we were young, “me” when we were old) 
• And is what the word “me” refers to on the basis of the stream of continuity of body and mind in all our lifetimes. 

So, let’s think about that. 

Please bear in mind that when we speak about grasping for a doctrinally based “me,” the “me” that would be taught in one of these non-Buddhist Indian systems, we are talking about the whole package of grasping for a “me” that has all these characteristics – of being unaffected and a monolith and something that is going to fly off from your body and mind (and go to heaven or hell, for example). So, we need to have the whole package for it to count as grasping for the doctrinally based “me.” 

But we do have what’s called “incorrect consideration” without having to have the whole package. Incorrect consideration – there are various forms of that, but one form of that is considering what is nonstatic as static. That is that aspect that I was speaking about when we go to sleep and then we get up in the morning and think, “Here I am again – it’s the same ‘me.’” That we could have without having that whole package – that there’s a soul that’s “me” that is going to fly off to heaven or hell, leaving my body. Do you follow? Any questions?

The Western Concept of Ego Versus the Buddhist Concept of Self

Participant: I wonder what the modern-day doctrine is. Nowadays, we think in psychological terms. It’s more that you’re not born as a monolithic thing but that you’re born without the sense of being an individual – that this is developed. The personality forms. There are influences. You have to go through certain phases, and it’s added, this way and that way. So, it is in a way not so far from the Buddhist view. It’s not that you come into the world as something fixed.

Dr. Berzin: Mariana is asking about the modern psychological view – that when we come into the world, we don’t have some sort of fixed sense of “me”; instead, it is something that develops and grows through various influences over life. And isn’t this similar to the Buddhist view? 

There is basic difference between what we speak about in psychology and what we speak about in Buddhism. In Buddhism, we speak about the conventional “me” and the false “me.” In the West, when we speak about an ego or an inflated ego, we are speaking about a sense, or notion, of a conventional “me” and a sense of an inflated “me.” So, we are talking about a state of mind. 

Now, a sense of a conventional “me,” or a sense of an ego – this is something that, of course, as you rightly point out, needs to be developed. A child needs to develop this sense of being an individual person and taking responsibility for their actions and all of that. But as soon as a person is born, they are an individual, they are a person. They don’t have a sense of who I am and a sense of a developed character and so on, but they are a conventional “me”; they are a person, they are an individual, they are a “me.” So, you see, there is a difference, here, in terms of what the focus of attention is in the psychological discussion and in the Buddhist discussion. Do you follow?

They are talking about a similar topic, but they are talking about it from different points of view. One is talking about the actual existence of the person itself, and the other is talking about one’s sense, or awareness, of being a person.

Participant: Yeah, from the experiential side.

Dr. Berzin: From the cognitive side, not just the experiential side. But, yes, the experiential side, if you want to express it that way. Sure.

Participant: But the experiential side, you have to build up.

Dr. Berzin: The experiential side, you build up.

Participant: Because I think that when you’re newly born, there is not much difference between mother or…

Dr. Berzin: Right, when you are newly born, there is not much difference between mother and father or a sense of who I am and what I am going to do in life, and that I take responsibility for my actions, and so on. That has to develop.

Participant: [Inaudible]

Dr. Berzin: What I want, what the others want – we don’t have any sense of that. But when you are born, you are an individual; you are a “me.” So, you are a conventional “me”; you are not an inflated “me,” a false “me.” 

Participant: You label the “me” wrongly on a lot of things. Like, the whole world is you in a way.

Dr. Berzin: It’s not that you label “me” incorrectly and that the whole world is “me.” You have to be a little bit more specific here. This is a very common confusion with mental labeling. We are not talking about the act of mental labeling. You don’t have to actively mentally label anything. That’s not what we are talking about with mental labeling in Buddhism. We are simply talking about what words or concepts refer to regardless of whether you apply them or not. It doesn’t matter whether you apply them or not. That’s not the point. 

That baby is “me” whether it thinks “me” or not. One can label an individual “me.” “Me” can be labeled on the baby, and that “me” would refer to the baby – the person, the individual. Whether I am calling it by a name, whether I am calling it “me,” whether the baby is calling itself “me” or whatever, the baby has a concept of what the basis for “me” is. That’s talking about the basis. What is it labeling “me” on? Well, it might label “me”…. If it is actively labeling, it could actively label “me” incorrectly. For example, we could label a human being a scarecrow. The classic one – you label a snake a striped rope. But that’s talking about a projection, a false projection. 

Any other question? 

Incorrect Considerations and Facsimiles of Doctrinally Based Views

Participant: How do you get to the point that you recognize that you have this doctrinally based “me”?

Dr. Berzin: How do we get to point where we recognize that we believe in this doctrinally based “me”? That’s a difficult question, I must say, because what happens if we never learned such a thing, such a concept, and we never believed it? 

I never believed there was a “me” that could go to heaven or hell, that could leave my body, that was separate from my body, and that could go into a future life or go to a heaven or hell. That’s quite true. But usually, what would happen, from an experiential point of view, is that you would never consider voidness unless you studied Buddhism. And if you studied Buddhism, then you could have that misunderstanding. In other words, when you learned in Buddhism that the mind, the self, has no beginning and no end and goes into future lives, you might think that that “me” is not affected by anything and that it will just continue, separate from the body. 

Participant: It’s like an error.

Dr. Berzin: It’s an error, a misconception. I think that’s where it would come. Usually, what precedes it is working with these incorrect considerations. The most common one is to think that I am a “me” that is not affected by anything. It’s the same me – no parts; here I am. We tend to think of the “me” as something quite separate as well. Is that incorrect consideration also? For instance, we look at ourselves in the mirror when we are an older person with grey hair and no longer have a young body or figure, and we think, “That’s not me. That’s not who I think of when I think of me. That’s not me.” “I am not myself this morning,” we might think as well. “I was drunk last night. I wasn’t myself.” 

So, we have these common misconceptions, which are basically incorrect considerations, that deal with one or another aspect of this doctrinally based view. But as I say, the technical thing has to be the belief in the whole package. That’s a little bit difficult, I must admit – to say how, when you have non-conceptual cognition of voidness, it would get rid of that view even if you never studied it and were unaware of it. 

Participant: I think that what convinced me in a way that non-conceptual cognition of voidness got rid of that wrong view is that you understand voidness and there is no way to go back, in a sense, and the fact that there are many ways of considering things incorrectly and just a few ways that really are in harmony with reality. But there are so many ways to have doctrinally false views. It’s strange that they want to say that there’s only this, this, and this, and that they have existed forever, and that it’s what we have to get rid of.  

Dr. Berzin: Jorge is saying that there are many incorrect views, many wrong views from the point of view of Buddhism and that it is a bit strange that they single out this view that comes from the non-Buddhist, Indian philosophical systems. That’s true, but you have to… 

Participant: It’s culturally specific.

Dr. Berzin: It’s culturally specific. But Buddha taught in a culturally specific place. So, there is what call the “doctrinally based wrong view” and a “facsimile of the doctrinally based wrong view.” In other words, you have to not misrepresent the tradition. This I feel very strongly about. So, you say that the tradition identifies this doctrinally based wrong view within the context of Indian philosophy and Indian religions and that there is a facsimile of that, something similar that we have as well. 

Would you get rid of all doctrinally based wrong views? Well, yes and no. As you go deeper into the Buddhist tenet systems, you see that they identify the view of the less sophisticated systems as the doctrinally based wrong view. So, just to get the basic understanding of, let’s say, Vaibhashika, which is the least sophisticated view explained in the tenet systems, and to say that that will eliminate what Prasangika defines as a wrong view from Svatantrika – this is absurd. It doesn’t get rid of that wrong, doctrinally based view. So, when you are talking about the initial level of facsimiles of doctrinally based wrong views, these less sophisticated ones, you’d have to somehow delineate what they are. It would have to be within a certain range of incorrect views. 

Participant: So, we are trying to deny…

Dr. Berzin: That you would refute. I think it would have to be like that. Now, how do you actually delineate that? I think you would need to actually examine the various doctrinally based views of the self, such as the teachings about the soul by various Christian, Jewish, and Islamic masters. Is there a similar concept in Confucianism or Taoism or in native religions of the Americas or of Africa or Australia? You have to look at all of them. 

Do we have tendencies of all of them? Well, that’s a difficult question isn’t it? If you have beginningless time, can anybody come up with something new? Or has everything that could be thought of been thought of? If that were the case, then millions of years ago, somewhere on some planet, they could have computers and Internet. This becomes a very difficult question. Very, very difficult question. You could have the development of bodhichitta for the first time. But even that is not so easy to understand – how that could happen with beginningless time. 

Basically, I don’t think it has been worked out very well in Buddhism, where would it occur on the path to get rid of non-Indian doctrinally based incorrect views. But I think you’d have to consider them. 

Participant: Yes, sure. But to single them out like that, like in that answer from the lama, it’s not very convincing for me because it’s singling out these three…

Dr. Berzin: The Indian.

Participant: The three Indian issues as if they were very, very special. 

Dr. Berzin: Well, it is not very convincing to single these three characteristics, Jorge says. But you have to consider the fact that Buddha was teaching within the milieu of this time. Jainism had just emerged a little bit before that. And you had the various views of the Upanishads. And within those systems, these were the outstanding features of the self. And they spoke about it as such. 

Remember, when we talked about being a monolith, or partless, there were some Indian philosophical systems that considered the atman, or the soul, to be the size of the universe and without any parts. Others considered it to be a tiny little spark, like a spark of life that had no parts. So, these were the characteristics that one could find in common. That was what they were looking for – what could be found in common among these various non-Buddhist Indian systems. And these were the three characteristics. 

The Importance of First Analyzing Our Own Western Beliefs about the Self

Participant: But I think that it is very important to analyze this with ideas that are relevant now.

Dr. Berzin: I would agree. I would agree that we need to analyze it with ideas that are relevant now.

Participant: Not the ideas of these Indian systems – we have only an idea, a very faint idea, of what they had. But we all have our beliefs, our doctrines of self. This might be influenced by Christianity, or it might be influenced by science, or it might be influenced by our upbringing. So, it would be interesting to do the analyzing with our beliefs.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Exactly. Mariana points out that as Westerners who have not grown up in a traditional Indian cultural environment, it is necessary for us to analyze our own belief systems to find out what doctrinally based wrong views we might have, whether they come from our Western religions, whether they come from science, whether they come from atheism, whether they come from whatever Western philosophical system we might have. Sure. We have to examine first what we actually believe based on what we have been taught. This is the important point here. We are not talking about what automatically arises; that’s the next level that we have to deal with. We have to deal here with what we were indoctrinated with, whether we learned it from either of our parents or in school or in a house of worship.

Participant: I think, also, you have to keep in mind that reincarnation, for example, is something that you could understand as there being something static that goes from life to life, or that it’s something…  all these things that refer to soul. Even if you’ve never heard of a soul, you could easily… I mean, it’s like a trap, from a certain interpretation of what reincarnation refers to. Even if you are a Buddhist, you could also fall into this trap.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Exactly. This is a very important point. And I made that point as well – that the classical doctrinally based view is a misunderstanding that one could have about reincarnation and that one could learn about in Buddhism or New Age or whatever type of system. 

Remember, we are not questioning reincarnation here. And we are not questioning no beginning and no end. And, so, a step before that, which is not discussed at all in Buddhism (well, it is discussed in a sense) is the question of whether a person, or mind, can have a beginning, an absolute beginning, and an absolute end. First, we have to analyze that. 

Remember, that was in the discussion of cause and effect: can something all of a sudden appear out of nothing – in other words, can a nothing change into a something – and can a something change into a nothing? We had this big analysis. I think we would have to first deal with these issues, whether we are talking about an afterlife in Christianity or an ongoing reincarnation or whether we think that there is no such thing – that we are born from nothing and that when we die, we become a nothing. Remember, our discussion. It had very much to do with abortion. Do we think that before ten weeks or three months, the fetus is a nothing, and then, at a certain point, it becomes a something – it becomes a person? We had this big discussion.  

So, first you’d have to establish what your views are regarding a beginningless and endless continuity of life, of mind, of person. You’d also have to deal with karma, which has to do with cause and effect – “Is there any effect of my action?” Once you’ve established that, then you have to refine, “What do I believe in terms of… or what have I been taught in terms of that aspect?” 

So, again, it always seems to come back to the fact that we Westerners have to take preliminary steps in our approach to Buddhism because Buddhism starts at a certain stage of analysis that we are not at yet. There are many things in Buddhism that are taken for granted that we Westerners don’t accept. So, we first have to deal with these other issues that come before the stage where Buddhism starts. This is where our analysis of our Western beliefs has to come in, especially the beliefs that we learn from science.

Participant: But do we also have strange ideas? For example, Vaibhashika talks of atoms, and I’m sure it was a very strange thing to learn in that era.

Dr. Berzin: He is saying that “well, Vaibhashikas spoke about atoms, and that was very strange in that era.” Not at all. You have the Atomist school in ancient Greek philosophy. Greeks were into atoms. All the various Indian schools were also into atoms. It was based on the fact that they saw dust particles in the sunlight. I mean, this is what I read – that based on that, they thought there must be tiny, little particles that things were made of.

Participant: Wrong observation, but…

Dr. Berzin: Wrong observation, but this is how they came upon that idea.

Participant: But I don’t think it was in the popular culture. Today, it’s in the popular culture that there are atoms. And that there are many live things, for sure, was in the popular culture in that era. Now we totally reject that idea.

Dr. Berzin: Many what?

Participant: In that era, everybody was talking about several lives and karma, no?

Dr. Berzin: Right. 

Participant: Not about atoms, probably, no? Here, it’s the other way around.

Dr. Berzin: He is saying that the belief in atoms, for instance, was not common to the general public, but that, in India, the view of soul, of reincarnation, was something common. 

But you had to be taught it. This is the point of a doctrinally based view. You have to have been taught it. You wouldn’t automatically think that there was a soul that went to an afterlife. It wouldn’t occur to you automatically. Nor would it would automatically occur to you to think that the world is made of atoms. You’d have to be taught that.

Given Beginningless Time, Are There Any New Ideas, Any Ideas That Can Arise for the First Time?

Participant: On the other hand, someone must have thought about this at some point. Or is it that these ideas are something very special – cosmic – that come from…

Dr. Berzin: Well, then he says that somebody must have thought of it for the first time. Then we get into this problem of whether there are any new ideas when we have beginningless time. This is a very difficult problem. 

Participant: Are these ideas more special?

Dr. Berzin: Are these ideas more special than the rest? Then we get into the discussion of the reality of ideas. Are there ideas somewhere in a cave, in some transcendent realm or whatever? This gets very complicated and very difficult. But, yes, in a world age (Buddhism would agree with this), there has to be a first teacher of this. How did that first teacher figure it out? Is it based just on intelligence? Is it based just on what they learned from other people? Or is there also some sort of tendency from having learned it in a previous existence eons before? That’s the issue.

Participant: I just wanted the answer about whether these ideas are privileged in a way, that they are special because they existed since beginningless time. That’s what it sounds like.

Dr. Berzin: He is saying that these ideas are special (the wrong views you are talking about), since they’ve existed since beginningless time, and that the three characteristics of the false self are special, but other characteristics are not special.

Participant: Sounds very much against voidness.

Dr. Berzin: But voidness itself, the understanding of voidness, has no beginning. There isn’t somebody who first figured it out. 

Participant: Yeah, but that’s just because voidness is special in…

Dr. Berzin: Voidness is special? Well, is anything special? I don’t know. As I said, this is not an easy issue. Is inventing a computer special? Were there such things as computers… if there’s beginningless time? It’s a very difficult question.

Beginningless time implies that there is nothing new to be discovered. They certainly say that there is no experience that you haven’t experienced before. That they certainly say… except that you haven’t experienced being enlightened before. So, there is no samsaric experience that you haven’t experienced before. These are questions that one really has to analyze. And I don’t have any easy answers to them, I must say. I don’t have difficult answers for them either!

Participant: Because when one looks at history, there were always people who figured out new things.

Dr. Berzin: There are new things within a world age, within the evolution of this planet and this universe. But Buddhism speaks about beginningless universes.

 Participant: And it is also possible that it is really the first time.

Dr. Berzin: Well, on an individual mental continuum, there is a first time for developing bodhichitta. That’s very clear. Buddha developed bodhichitta for the first time when blah, blah, blah. I forget what it was, but there is certainly that account. So, in terms of spiritual evolution, there is a first time. But in coming up with something new in samsara? Buddhism would have to say that, no, there is nothing new in samsara. This is the Buddhist statement. Now we have to analyze it. If we say, “I don’t think so,” then there has to be a reason why we don’t think so. It can’t just be because we don’t think it could be like that. That’s not a sufficient reason. 

The avenue for analysis for all of that is cause and effect. What would the causes be for coming up with something new? And do previous instincts or tendencies play any role in that? I don’t know. I don’t know. 

Because Buddhism speaks in terms of potentials… you know, Buddha-nature. So, when you talk about the first time of developing bodhichitta, the first time of gaining understanding and so on, it’s with the understanding that there are beginningless Buddha-nature potentials. Very hard to postulate an absolute beginning. 

And if you’re thinking in terms of solid entities, then any beginning is impossible. Remember the analysis: did the result exist before it came about – like it was offstage and now it comes onstage? Or did the result totally not exist, in which case, it would have to be that a nothing could become a something (which is impossible)?

Participant: But how can the fact that from the Buddhist ideas it’s always so very fixed: there’s a cause and there will be an effect. But I think you can also say that in karma, there can be many different effects.

Dr. Berzin: Right. 

Participant: You know, you throw a dice, and it can be one, it can be two, three, four, five…

Dr. Berzin: Well, that’s correct. That’s correct.

Participant: Only one cause, and then it gives…

Dr. Berzin: Right. Buddhism says that very clearly. You are saying that Buddhism says that from one cause, you don’t just get one effect. It’s not fixed: there could be many different effects. Buddhism agrees completely. They say that everything depends on causes and conditions. And there are many, many causes and conditions. The classic example is that a bucket of water is not filled by the first drop or the last drop; it is filled by the collection of all the drops, Buddha said. 

So yes, there are many, many conditions. We could plant various seeds, karmic seeds, for a result, but then, depending on the conditions and other things that develop over time, they can ripen into many, many different things, in many different ways. 

But there are certain laws of concerning the certainty of karma. A destructive action will ripen into some form of suffering; it’s not going to ripen into happiness. So, there is a law of certainty of the general category of what ripens from destructive behavior, which is unhappiness, and from constructive behavior, which is happiness.

Cause and Effect Occurs “Mechanically,” Meaning That There Is No External, Omnipotent Power Controlling It

Participant: But isn’t karma really mechanical? For example, wouldn’t it be possible, maybe, for Buddha to foretell when you throw dice (and he can take all these things in account before we throw a dice) – tell in advance or in the moment that you throw the dice – what number dice it will be? Isn’t that the case? 

Dr. Berzin: Yes.

Participant: So, it’s not like how we look at the dice.

Dr. Berzin: Right.

Participant: It’s more like we aren’t able to tell all the causes that ripen. 

Dr. Berzin: Exactly.

Participant: So, it is one hundred percent mechanical, so to speak.

Dr. Berzin: He is saying that cause and effect is basically a hundred percent mechanical and that we don’t see what the result will be when somebody throws dice, but a Buddha does. That’s because a Buddha is omniscient. A Buddha knows everything – so, all the causes from beginningless time of what is going to affect the outcome of throwing the dice. So, a Buddha would know what the result will be. That doesn’t mean that we would know what it is. It’s this whole issue of Buddha knows what… that from a Buddha’s point of view, a Buddha knows what we are going to do. What are you going have at the restaurant? Are you going order this or that? A Buddha would know what you are going to order. From our point of view, we are making a choice, and we experience it as making a choice. So, all you can do is speak about it in terms of our experience and the Buddha’s experience. It’s not as though it is fixed.

And when we say cause and effect occurs mechanically, that is in contrast with an external, omnipotent power that controls cause and effect or that can change cause and effect. Those are the two possibilities. That’s why we say it’s mechanical. It’s that there is no external intervention that can take place, like God saying, “Wait! Stop! Stop the music,” and changes certain things. That’s not possible. 

Participant: God is just another factor in the cause-and-effect game.

Dr. Berzin: God is another factor in the cause-and-effect game? Then it’s not an omnipotent God; it’s a God that is acting dependently on causes and circumstances and in response to causes and circumstances. 

God is accepted in Buddhism. All the Hindu gods are accepted. Brahma is accepted. And certainly, they would throw in the Western God as well in one of these heavens. What they refute is that such a god is a creator and is omnipotent. That’s all that they are refuting. Pretty powerful person? Sure. Able to influence things? Sure. But not outside of cause and effect. It’s not a static thing that is not affected by anything. It is affected by what’s going on. Because it is affected, it is not omnipotent. 

You know, somebody doesn’t worship or doesn’t praise God, so God is affected by that and then smites the person with some sort of plague or something like that – so, affected by something. There can be influence from demons and ghosts and gods – sure. Buddhism accepts that. That’s no problem. 

What is always emphasized is recognizing and identifying correctly the object that Buddhism is refuting. And don’t over-refute or under-refute. Tsongkhapa makes that point very strongly. Don’t refute too much, and don’t refute too little, and identify what really Buddhism is saying is impossible. And the only thing with God that is impossible is being an omnipotent creator. Everything else is OK. 

Participant: So, it’s God without the “almighty.” 

Dr. Berzin: It’s the God without the “almighty.” Yes. And also, Buddhism would say God wasn’t always God. God had previous lives and will have future lives. These god reincarnations have a beginning and an end. They are not forever. I think that was one of my favorite Lama Zopa quotes – that God must have done incredibly wonderful things in his previous lives to be worshiped by so many people in this life.

So, we have a doctrinally based false “me.” Then, what’s left over once we have refuted that is an automatically arising wrong view of a “me.” The automatically arising one is that there is a “me” that is “self-sufficiently knowable“ (that’s the technical term) – in other words, a “me” that we could know by itself without also knowing the basis of its imputation. 

What does that mean? It means (and this automatically arises) that we say and think, “I see Lydia,” or, “I know Lydia.” How could we see Lydia without seeing her body? “That’s Lydia on the phone.” Well, we hear a voice. How could we hear Lydia without also hearing a voice? But automatically, we think, “I hear Lydia. I see Lydia. I know Lydia.” Don’t we? This is what is more subtle. 

What is really relevant here is in term of ourselves: “I know myself” – what do I know? “Know yourself.” How could we know ourselves separately from knowing our body or our interests or our intellect or our whatever? We look in the mirror – “I see me; I see myself.” We don’t say, “I see a face with ‘me’ labeled on it.” We weigh ourself on a scale – “I don’t weigh that much! My body weighs that much – but not me.” So, this is much more subtle. And it’s false. But everybody feels like that, including the dog – “This person is attacking me” (you know, when somebody threatens the dog). “I see my master.” It doesn’t think, “I see a body.” It automatically arises. “I smell my master.” 

OK? Think about it.

We have this automatically arising wrong view even if we’ve refuted the doctrinally based wrong view. And it feels like that. That’s the problem. Automatically, it arises, and it feels like that. That’s why we believe it – that there is a “me.” “OK, I can understand it’s not separate, it’s labeled. But that doesn’t help me because I still see Mariana. I still know Dirk.” 

Then, of course, we get all these  disturbing attitudes and emotions based on that. “I wish that Renata were here. I am so unhappy that Renata is not here.” “I am very angry at John.” Who are we angry at? Who do we wish were here? “I wish that the body were here, and then I would label the person on the body?” We don’t think like that, do we? “I want this person. I don’t like that person.” How could we not like a person independent of, separate from…. What don’t we like? “I don’t like this behavior. I don’t like this appearance. I don’t like…” What don’t we like? Or what do we like? Personality? What? There has to be something; there has to be some basis. But automatically, we think in terms of a “me” that, in a sense, can be known separately from any basis. 

OK? Let’s think about that. 

Do you have any question about that? Yes, Dirk.

Tulkus

Participant: Let’s say two enlightened beings have a child, and the child grows up knowing these two persons. Would it be free of such things?

Dr. Berzin: If two enlightened beings had a child together, would that child be basically enlightened – free of these wrong view? I don’t think so. I don’t think so. Why would it be…. Enlightened beings aren’t born or die in ordinary fashion the way that we think. They can emanate as this or that. Would an enlightened being emanate as the child of other enlightened beings? I suppose they could, but it wouldn’t necessarily have to be the case. 

Culturally, you do have in the Tibetan tradition what’s called a “tuksey.” Tulkus, these incarnate lamas, aren’t not necessarily enlightened. They are not even necessarily aryas with non-conceptual cognition of voidness. They have very strong bodhichitta, and they have reached a certain level on the generation stage where they’re able to do various visualization practices when they die, basically. And they have very strong prayers. This is what you need to start a line of tulkus. And not every successor in that line has to do the same. 

But there is a type of tulku…. When you have a very, very highly realized tulku and a very highly realized partner, sometimes they will produce a child while practicing a certain ritual so that that child will carry on the lineages of the parents – either just the father or both, but will carry on the lineages. But the lineages have to be transmitted orally to that child. 

My own teacher Serkong Rinpoche was like that. He was a tuksey. There aren’t very many of those, only a few. I don’t know, in the Nyingma tradition, whether they use that terminology. I don’t think that they do. But it’s often the case that very high rinpoches have children. It’s more common in that tradition. And the children will be recognized as rinpoches. But in the case of a tuksey they get the same name. That’s the problem. So, Serkong Rinpoche’s father was known as Serkong Dorje Chang, and he, the son, is known as Serkong Rinpoche. So, it’s a closer type of relation. But they wouldn’t be considered their disciples. We’d look at them as enlightened beings, but we couldn’t say that, objectively, they were enlightened beings – if there were such as a thing as an objective point of view. Obviously, nothing is totally objective because an observer has to be there. 

Participant: I am also after the point that, is it socialization?

Dr. Berzin: Is what socialization?

Participant: That you have these views.

Dr. Berzin: Which views?

Participant: Umm…

Dr. Berzin: The doctrinally based views?

Participant: Yeah. And the second one as well?

Dr. Berzin: It is socialization to get the doctrinally based view because you have to be taught it. But everybody has tendencies or instincts of that from some previous life. But the automatically arising one you don’t have to be taught; everybody has that, including animals. Including animals. 

OK. Any other questions?

Participant: I wonder, how is the difference between the experience of “I’m so tired” and an enlightened being feeling “I’m so tired”?

Dr. Berzin: Mariana asks about the difference between us feeling “I’m tired” and an enlightened feeling “I’m tired.”

Well, let’s put aside the fact that an enlightened being would not feel tired. Let’s say it’s somebody who understands voidness. How would they experience “I feel tired”? They would experience it in terms of “this body and mind are experiencing tiredness. In the aggregates, there is an experience of tiredness in terms of a physical sensation, in terms of a physical basis for it, in terms of mental awareness that is aware of it, in terms of the mental factor of sleepiness, and so on. There are all these mental and physical factors. And ‘I’ am what’s labeled on top of that.” So, they would experience it in a way in which they would not be attached by it or freaked out – “Oh, I am so tired; I can’t do anything. Leave me alone.” That would be a rather samsaric way of experiencing it. They would just acknowledge that there was this experience of tiredness. And depending on the circumstances, either they would rest and go to sleep, or they would push themselves to overcome it, or have a cup of coffee or do something, but without identifying with it as a solid “me” and a solid experience. 

This is the problem: we solidify things and make them into a big “me” and a big “tired.” Then we think that the two of them are one, are identical. This is what’s going to be refuted in the verse – the “me” and the basis. Here it says “form,” but we regard any of the aggregates as “me” – “I am tired.” You totally identify with it. 

Then we have a wrong consideration of it, which is that this will not be affected by anything, that was not affected by anything, that it is static and will never change; it is monolithic, so it doesn’t have variation in intensity. We have wrong view of it. We think in terms of a “me” – “I am tired.” Sure, you could say, “I am experiencing tiredness.”

Participant: That’s quite neutral.

Dr. Berzin: That’s neutral. 

Participant: Because there is a tiredness. 

Dr. Berzin: There is a tiredness. But it is not some sort of solid thing. It’s based on not only causes and conditions but also on physical sensations and mental sensations. 

Participant: Nobody else is experiencing it.

Dr. Berzin: And nobody else is experiencing it, so it’s individual.

Participant: So, conventionally you can say, “I am tired.”

Dr. Berzin: Exactly. “I am tired.” But it appears as though there is a “me” that can be known as being tired separate from the body and the consciousness and all the other things. And then we solidify it – “You are tired; you are falling asleep in class. Why are you doing that?” We think of a solid “you” that’s independent of a body, independent of anything. Then we get angry with the person.

Participant: If we add something to the tiredness… as soon as you add something.

Dr. Berzin: Well, that’s the whole point: it’s an inflation; it’s a projection. 

Participant: “I am so tired.”

Dr. Berzin: “I am so tired” – you make it into a big something. It’s no big deal – “OK, there’s tiredness.” Then you just act on it. Either you go to sleep or you deal with it in some way. It’s no big deal. As the young Serkong Rinpoche would say, “Nothing special.” You are tired. So what? What do you expect? 

Participant: So, that’s a sort of guideline when you go wrong – that you add things. 

Dr. Berzin: That’s exactly it. The guideline is that you get upset. That’s how you know that there is some disturbing emotion or attitude there. Your mind is not at peace. Definition – go back to the definition: it is a state of mind that, when you develop it, you lose mental peace and you lose self-control. “Ah, I’m so tired!” Then you complain, and you do all sorts of things, weird things. You get cross, you get angry – “Leave me alone! I’m tired.” 

OK? So, let’s end here. We still have one more level of subtlety, but we’ll deal with that next week.