We have been talking about and trying to explain this very important text by Nagarjuna, his Letter to a Friend, in which we find the presentation and the discussion of so many of the points that are taken up later by Shantideva in his Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior and that find such a prominent place in the lam-rim teachings of the graded stages of the path.
In this letter, first, Nagarjuna gives an introductory discussion of what we need, the essential things that are the support for the path. Here, he speaks, first of all, about having confidence in the teachings. This is something, actually, that Shantideva also emphasized in his other text, the Shikshasamaucchaya (Compendium of Trainings) – that in order to be able to follow the teachings, we need to have confidence that what they say are true and that it is actually possible to achieve what is outlined in the teachings and, also, that the methods that Buddha explained will actually bring us to these goals.
Then Nagarjuna speaks of six things to always try to keep in mind, the first three of which are the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. As we all know, the Dharma is talking about the third and fourth noble truths, the true stopping of all the obscurations on the mental continuum and the realization of all the potentials of Buddha-nature – that this is what we are aiming for. The Buddhas are the ones who have achieved those in full, and the Sangha (Arya Sangha) are those who have achieved them in part. This is the direction that we are putting in our lives, the refuge (Dharma refuge) that we are aiming to achieve the way the Buddhas have achieved it and the way that the Sangha are on the way to achieving.
In terms of that point, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, it is very crucial that no matter what practice that we are doing in a Buddhist context, it has to be within that context of Dharma refuge, going in the direction of liberation and enlightenment. That’s because so many of the Buddhist practices are things that are shared in common by many non-Buddhist Indian systems as well.
So, love and compassion. All religions teach love and compassion. It’s just a matter of whether we are using that as a method and motivation to achieve liberation and enlightenment. Same thing with concentration. Same thing with following basic ethics. Same thing even with shamatha and vipashyana, the settled state of mind and the exceptionally perceptive state of mind. Shamatha and vipashyana are not uniquely Buddhist. They’re also found in the Hindu teachings, the non-Buddhist yoga teachings. But what makes all of this Buddhist (and that we have to continually keep in mind) is that we are going in the direction of and using all these methods to achieve the Dharma refuge, the Dharma Jewel – liberation and enlightenment: the true stopping of all the obscurations and the attainment of all our good qualities. Fulfillment of that.
The next three things that we need are, first of all, to practice generosity, to always be mindful of that and to give to others not only material things but also teachings, advice, wish for them to be happy, our time, equanimity (that we are not going to cling to them or reject them or ignore them) and these sorts of things. The next is ethical discipline – to always refrain from acting in destructive ways, to engage in constructive actions, like meditating, listening to the teachings, studying them, practicing them, and the ethical discipline to actually go out and help others, not just visualize helping others or wishing to help others.
Then the sixth thing always to keep in mind are the gods as examples of what constructive behavior can bring about through cause and effect. It’s not that our ultimate goal is to be reborn as one of these gods; a god rebirth is just used as an example of cause and effect. That is very important – that if we want to achieve any of these goals, we have to follow a course of practice based on creating the causes to achieve the effect.
Then, the actual essence of the path is divided into an introduction and then a presentation of the six far-reaching attitudes, or the six perfections. We are in the discussion of the sixth of these, far-reaching discriminating awareness. We had a brief account of this, and now we are in the detailed explanation. That detailed explanation spoke about how this discriminating awareness, or wisdom, of voidness, is the root of all happiness.
Then there is the main explanation. The main explanation has a specific one and then the actual path. We are in the specific explanation. Here, we speak first about the lack of an impossible soul of persons, in other words, the voidness of persons. The next verse will speak about the voidness of the aggregates, which would imply the voidness of all phenomena.
Review of the Impossible Self, or Soul, of Persons – The Two Levels of Unawareness of How Persons Exist
In our discussion of the voidness of persons, the lack of an impossible soul of persons, we spoke about the difference between the conventional “me” and the false “me” and how, when we negate the false “me,” we are not left with nothing: there is the conventional “me,” which is simply what the word or concept “me” refers to. How do we establish that there is “me”? We can’t find anything on the side of the body and mind that establishes “me.” The only thing that can establish “me” is the fact that we can mentally label “me” on an individual continuity of body and mind. So, “me” is what that word or concept refers to. And conventionally, it functions because we say, “I am sitting here. I am talking. I am listening.” So, it’s a “me” imputed on a body that’s sitting here, actually. Mind is listening, speech is talking, and we impute “me” on that. That is conventionally valid.
What is not valid is the inflation of the conventional “me” into a false “me.” We saw that there are many different levels of what the false “me” might be.
Doctrinally Based Unawareness
The first level is the doctrinally based unawareness of how we exist. The doctrinally based false “me” is a type of false “me” that we had to have learned, in this case, from one of the non-Buddhist Indian systems. It is not something that we would naturally think of, that would naturally come up. So, we have been indoctrinated, either in this lifetime or previous lifetimes, into believing that we have this type of soul.
The Three Main Characteristics of the Doctrinally Based Impossible Soul
What type of soul is this doctrinally based soul? It is:
- First of all, one that is static, which means that it is not affected by anything, never changes, and can’t affected by anything else. Buddhism is not denying that the “me” is eternal. Buddhism also says that it is eternal, forever. What is refuted here is that it is some sort of static thing that never changes.
- Secondly, that it has no parts
- Thirdly, that it is separable from a body and mind; it can separate from the body and mind and fly into another body and mind
We would misconceive that type of “me” as:
- The possessor of a body and a mind
- The controller of the body and mind
- The inhabitant of the body and mind
So, it’s some sort of soul that is living inside the body and mind and owns, or possesses, it and controls it – can push the buttons and make use of it to walk around and to see things and stuff like that. This is the doctrinally based false “me.” That is the first level we have to refute.
Automatically Arising Unawareness
Then the next level is the automatically arising unawareness of how we exist. There are two ways in which this manifests.
[a] No Self-Sufficiently Knowable “Me”
The first is that there is a “me” that can be self-sufficiently known, in other words, known by itself without at the same time also perceiving or cognizing something that it is based on, like a body, a mind, a voice, a name or something like that. This automatically arises. We all think that way. When we see ourselves in a mirror, we don’t say, “I see a face in the mirror, and on that face, I impute ‘me’.” We say, “I see me. I see myself.” “I know myself,” “I want to express myself,” “I want to be myself,” “I want to find myself” – all these Western concepts that imply that there is a “me” that can be known and found and expressed separately from a body, a personality or whatever.
We have this certainly with other people as well. When we hear the vibration of a membrane in a little box that we hold by our ear, we think “Ah, that’s Jan. I am hearing Jan. I am speaking to Jan,” as if there were a Jan separate from the voice and separate from this vibration of an electronic thing that is in a box that we are holding next to our ear. We all think like that automatically. So, that has to be refuted.
[b] No Defining Characteristic Mark on the Side of the Body or Mind That Establishes Me as “Me”
The deeper one is that the “me” is not only that there’s something that is imputed on the body and mind but also that there is something on the side of the body and mind, some sort of findable characteristic, that make me “me” and not “you” that allows for that correctly labeling of me as “me,” not me as “Fido the dog” or as “the table.” That is refuted as well. There is nothing on the side of the body and mind that, by its own power, establishes or makes me “me.” The only thing that establishes “me” is the word or concept “me.” It doesn’t mean that the “me” doesn’t exist. We are talking about how we demonstrate that there is a “me” and define what it is. We have a concept of “me,” of course.
That is what we have covered in the last few weeks. Now we are ready to go on to the verse that we only started to discuss last time, which is the refutation of the false “me.” Specifically, what it is referring to is this first level of the false “me.” After all, Nagarjuna is speaking to the king who learned these doctrines from non-Buddhist religions.
So, it says here, verse 49:
[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).
The Twenty Deluded Outlooks Toward a Transitory Network (Continued)
This actually refers to the twenty deluded outlooks toward the transitory network of the body and mind – a set of four with each of the aggregates. The relationship between the false “me” and the body or mind can be described in many ways in these twenty deluded outlooks.
The first of the deluded outlooks is that the self is:
- One with the aggregates, or, let’s say, the body; it’s the same as the body, which means identical – one and the same ping-pong ball (if we think of them as solid ping-pong balls)
The next three deluded outlooks view the self and the aggregates as being separate, separate ping-pong balls. So, in this case, the self is:
- The possessor of the body
- The controller of the body
- Or the inhabitant of the body
We have that set of four with the each of other aggregates. So, altogether, that makes twenty.
But also, in Nagarjuna’s Root Verses on Madhayamaka, he spoke about the self (here, we’ll use the example of the body) is:
- Not the same as the body
- Not different from the body
- Does not rely on the body
- Not something that the body relies on
- Does not possess the body
Those are the five possibilities.
Chandrakirti in his commentary to that, Engaging in the Madhyamaka (Madhyamakaamutara), also adds that the self, or the “me,” is:
- Not the collection of all the aggregates. Like you put all the pieces of a car on the floor – that is not the car
- Not the shape or pattern over time of the aggregates as they function
So, there are many ways of formulating the refutation, many different possibilities that we can refute.
Forms Are Not the Self
Here, in this text, Nagarjuna says, “forms are not the self.” That’s refuting that the self and the body are one and the same. All of these possible relationships between the self and the body boil down to them being either the same or different. They are either one ping-pong ball or different ping-pong balls. It’s just the different views listed here are just elaborations of all the different ways they could be different.
So, the first one here is that they are not the same. This is because if the self were the same as the body, then what about the other aggregates? What is going on with the mind? You couldn’t say, “I am my mind” or “I am my emotions” if you are only the body. So, that is a problem.
Also, to say “my” body becomes a problem. If “me” and the body were the same thing, how could you speak in terms of “my” body or “my” feelings? “You just hurt ‘my’ feelings.” That wouldn’t make any sense. Your body can’t be your possession if it is the same as you.
Also, remember, one of the characteristics of the doctrinally based false “me” is that it has no parts. So, if “me” and my body were totally identical, one ping-pong ball, does it mean that if I lost my hand, I wouldn’t be “me” anymore? How could I lose a part? “Me” doesn’t have any parts. So, that starts to become a problem. Or you lose your memory or your personality, like when you have Alzheimer’s disease… So, it doesn’t make any sense to say that they are one.
The other three possibilities that Nagarjuna points out are the possibilities of “me” and the body being different. If they are different, and if they are totally self-contained ping-pong balls, they can’t have any relationship with each other. That, of course, is, in general, the biggest problem of saying that they are these solid entities and, yet, totally different and unrelated to anything. Remember, one of the characteristics of the self is that it is unaffected by anything – in other words, it is unrelated to anything. But that doesn’t make sense. The way that Nagarjuna describes it here is that “the self is not the possessor of forms.”
Actually, maybe I am going a little bit too quickly. Why don’t we reflect on this first point, which is that I am not my body; I am not my mind; I am not my emotions; I am not whatever it might be that we might think that we are identical to. It could be a part of our bodies that we are particularly attached to it – “I am my figure.” Whatever it might be. Consider how that absolutely doesn’t make any sense. OK?
It doesn’t make any sense because then we couldn’t identify with anything else about our minds and so on (about us as it were) because we could only be one thing – the body or the intellect or sense of humor or good looks or bad looks… whatever. Also, we couldn’t lose part of that and still be “me.”
OK. I think it is important to try to recognize that when we tend to identify with one aspect of our “selves” (if we can say that), it produces an awful lot of problems. Let’s say that we identify with what we looked like when we were twenty years old. Then, when we look in the mirror when we are forty or sixty, we say, “That’s not me. I don’t really look like that.” In our minds, we are still twenty years old. And we still think that we are attractive to other twenty-year-olds. That produces a lot of problems, doesn’t it? A lot of suffering.
Or we might identify with being a strong person who can do a lot of things. Then, when we get old, we are not strong and can’t do a lot of things. “I don’t feel like myself anymore,” we might say. That’s very hard to accept. Or we have a sickness. That also is very hard to accept if we identify with being a healthy person.
A lot of this suffering comes on as you get older, when you can no longer remember names as easily as you remembered them before. Or you walk into a room and forget what you went into the room for… these sorts of things. You can get very frustrated and very upset if you still cling to being… you know, “I am someone with a fresh, young mind.” Or people who are twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old and still think of themself as an adolescent, not as an adult that has to take responsibility for their lives. So, there are many problems that occur. Or you starting to lose your hair and have to wear some sort of wig, or you keep your hair really short so nobody really notices it. These types of things. You dye your hair; can’t have white hair – “That’s not ‘me.’”
Any thoughts or things to discuss about imaging that “me” and either my body or mind or personality or whatever it is are one and the same ping-pong ball? As I say, what is really essential is to recognize this in ourselves.
Then we can go on to these different possibilities of the “me,” the self, being different from the body.
The Self Is Not the Possessor of Forms
The first one of the “me” and the body being different is “the self is not the possessor of forms.” So, “me” is not something that possesses the body.
In the commentaries, it is pointed out that, of course, we can differentiate two types of possession. One is (a) Devadatta (they always use the name “Devadatta”) possesses a hand or (b) Devadatta possesses an ox. That’s different, isn’t it – between possessing a hand and possessing an ox.
In the commentaries, they use the example of possessing an ox. If the “me” (that’s Devadatta) possesses a body like it possesses an ox – that means that the “me” is the controller of the body. You remember these qualities: possessor, inhabitant, and controller. In that case, it should have control over the body. But the body gets sick, the body gets old, and the body falls apart even though we don’t want it to. And, so, how could the self be some entity sitting inside our heads controlling the body, making it move and using it to do things – to get pleasure, to get food, to run around, or do whatever… “I use my mind to understand things”? “I possess a mind. I am the possessor of my mind.” Well, then I should also be able to control it. Very few of us can control our minds in terms of mental wandering, in terms of coming under the influence of strong desires, attachments, anger, etc.
Participant: But why? Why can’t we possess some object that we control, and it still becomes old and still falls away?
Dr. Berzin: Why can’t we possess something and control it, and yet it still falls apart?
Participant: Like an instrument.
Dr. Berzin: Like an instrument, like your computer – “I own this computer.” Well, do you really control it? What does it mean to control? You can use it to a certain extent, but you can’t totally control it. If you can only control it sometimes, not all the time, that would contradict the “me” being unaffected by anything. If you have the power to control it, you should not be affected by anything. You should be able to use your body to run around all the time then. But you don’t have that ability all the time. You get tired and have to go to sleep. So, you don’t have full control. Remember, we are talking about a “me” that is not affected by anything, that doesn’t have any parts, that is separable from the aggregates and that lives inside it, possesses it, and controls it. We’re talking about that kind of “me.” That’s impossible.
Let’s think about this example. Do we think, “I possess my body, I possess my mind, I possess my intellect, I possess my good looks. I possess this or that part of my body that I am going to use… I possess a good sense of humor”? How do we view ourselves? As a possessor… or what?
Any comments? We think like this, don’t we? “I have a good mind,” “I have a good body.”
His Holiness often points out that sometimes when we see other people, we think, “I wish I could have a body like that person has. I wish I could have a figure like they have. I wish I could have a mind like they have,” as if there were “me” that could separate from this body and mind and possess something else. It’s funny how we think like that. And when we think like that, what does it produce? Suffering or unhappiness. “I don’t like my body. I wish I had this other person’s body; then I would be so attractive and so strong.” So, that’s suffering, isn’t it?
Participant: Where does the body come from?
Dr. Berzin: Well, that will be discussed in the next verse. The next verse is talking about where the aggregates come from, where the mind comes from, where the body comes from. That’s coming very soon.
The Self Does Not Abide in Forms
The third position here is “a self does not abide in forms.” That can be interpreted two ways, according to the commentaries: (a) there isn’t a “me” that lives inside the body or mind, like living in a house; (b) there isn’t a “me” that relies on the body (which is similar to what we have in Nagarjuna’s Root Verses). The example the commentaries use for “relies” is that it’s not like there is a “me” that’s sitting on a mat – that the mat is the body and that the “me” relies on that mat or cushion as its support.
What do you think about that? There is a “me,” and how can there be a “me”? Well, the “me” has to be supported by something; it has to have a basis. So, it is supported by a body, and on that basis, there is a “me.” That’s this position.
The way that that type of reliance is refuted in the commentary is by saying that, if the “me” is supported by a body like a person is supported by a mat or a cushion that it’s sitting on, then if the cushion were gone, the self would be gone as well. But that contradicts the basic assertion here that the self is static and eternal. You can’t have a static, eternal “me” that relies on the body as its support – that is different from the body and that relies on it – because if it has that reliance as its characteristic, that must never change. So, when the body is gone, that kind of self would be gone. So, that is self-contradictory in terms of the assertions of the system.
Participant: My next point, which is, I guess, like the Western point, which is that when the body goes, “me” goes; I’m finished.
Dr. Berzin: They don’t discuss that Western position in Buddhism – “when the body goes, the ‘me’ goes” – because everybody assumes that the self is eternal.
Participant: But that last point is more like a Christian who believes in science. They think that the soul is separate, both because there is a brain and the basis is the brain…
Dr. Berzin: Right. So, Jorge says that this is like the Christian belief that the soul is separable from the body – that it will go off to heaven. But while it is in the body, it is supported… again, the inhabitant inside the body, supported by or resting on the brain or the heart or something like that. But how could it…?
Now analyze. If we don’t accept that a self is eternal…. Mind you, Buddhism asserts that the self is eternal, has no beginning and no end.
Participant: An individual.
Dr. Berzin: An individual, an individual being. And even if you say that a person exists so long as somebody remembers that person, even after they’re dead (there are some people who speak like that), that person’s memory lives on. But then, when nobody remembers that person anymore, it is finished. But in either case, there is that view that the self is limited in its time.
But we would have to think what the characteristics of a self would be if it were acceptable to us to say that when the body is gone, when the brain is gone, there is no longer “me.” What characteristics would that “me” have? Do we still feel that that “me” is something that possesses the body, controls the body, uses the body and can be separable from it (and, so, I wish I had somebody else’s body)? Do we think that it’s not affected by anything? Do we think that it has no parts? We’d have to look at the other characteristics. And I think we could still believe that it has these other characteristics and still not assert that it is eternal.
If it is supported by the body and is the controller of the body and has those characteristics as a static quality, then it shouldn’t die. It should have control over it so that the body wouldn’t die; we would always have the support, for example. So, we can never really just speak about one quality. We have to look at the whole package of what they are talking about. I think.
Mind you, the text never questions. They don’t seem to question that the self…. Well, that’s not so. The Chavarka position, the one that believes in no afterlife – they say that there is no afterlife. So, it ends with this lifetime.
Participant: It’s the Hindu position?
Dr. Berzin: It’s Chavarka. It’s one Hindu school of philosophy, one Indian school of philosophy. I don’t think you can call it Hindu. It all depends how you define the word “Hindu.”
Participant: How did they answer the Charvakas?
Dr. Berzin: Well, the Charvakas don’t believe in karma or in cause and effect. They basically refute cause and effect and the whole discussion of the continuity of the mind being the basis for the “me” – that the mind-stream goes on because of the laws of continuity and cause and effect and that it can’t just end without producing a next moment in its continuity. But that gets into a very elaborate discussion because there is a difference between the body and mental activity.
Every atom that comes into your body – atom of food – passes through, gets transformed, and leaves in the form of waste matter. So, when you go to the toilet, what is deposited in the toilet – is that still “me”? Is that a basis for “me”? It was a basis for “me” when it was inside my body, but as soon as it is outside my body, it’s no longer “me”? That’s pretty weird. That’s, in fact, what our bodies are made up of – digested food – and all the cells are manufactured out of that. That’s very weird when you start to think about it.
But is mental activity something like that – that it comes in from experiencing? Does it come in from outside and go away like waste? If physical matter has unending continuity, what about mental activity? The physical basis has unending continuity, but it is not really the basis for “me” because you have the sperm and egg from the parents (so, it was the basis for them, in a sense), which forms you and so on. So, it’s different when we talk about experiencing.
It’s through discussing points like this that you get into the logical demonstration of rebirth – that the mental continuum has to go on as its own individual stream of consciousness. My experiencing doesn’t turn into your experiencing of something. That individual mental continuum is what forms the basis for labeling “me.”
Participant: The point where Western science differs from Indian philosophies is that it does not posit that consciousness is a different from matter and energy.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Western science doesn’t acknowledge yet – at least, most of Western science – that consciousness is something different from matter and energy. But we are not talking about consciousness – conscious versus unconscious. That’s not the point. We are talking about an individual, subjective experiencing of something – pleasure, pain, whatever. That’s not an electrical impulse. It can be based on electrical impulses. But when we are talking about a subjective experiencing of something, we are talking about something different. And it is subjective. That’s part of it. So, how do we describe that phenomenon that we all experience? This is really the question. That’s really the question.
OK. So, that was this third possibility, that “a self does not abide in forms.” It’s not as though the self is supported by the body.
Forms Do Not Abide in a Self
The fourth possibility that Nagarjuna discusses here is that “forms do not abide in a self.” So, this is that the body and mind rely on the self in order to be activated. The one before was that the body and mind are the support for there being a self, whereas this is that a self is the support for there being a body and mind.
The example that is given is that it is like a tree in the earth, a tree being supported by the earth. The earth would be the self, and the tree would be the body. The argument against that is that if the self were permanent and unchanging, then the body – the tree that depends on that – couldn’t change either. And it’s not just the body that we’re talking about when we talk about forms. We are also talking about sights and sounds and these sorts of physical things that we experience because all of that would have to depend on a self. And since that self doesn’t change, all those things couldn’t change. But we see that they do change.
Do you follow that? Basically, if seeing things, for example, were dependent on a “me” – a “me” that is permanent, static, doesn’t change – then what you saw couldn’t change. But what we see does change. So, this doesn’t make any sense. OK?
Participant: The basis is always unchanging, then the experience is unchanging.
Dr. Berzin: If the basis is unchanging, the experience that relies on it can’t change. Remember the self is static, and the body is firmly planted in it. The tree is firmly planted in the earth and can’t change because it is rooted in something that doesn’t change.
These are the arguments that are given in the commentaries. Let’s think about this.
These are very helpful to contemplate when one does voidness meditation on the “me.” “Am I the same as my body? Is there a ‘me’ that is different my body – that possesses it, lives inside it and controls it? Is there a ‘me’ that is supported by a body and mind, that depends on a body and mind? Is there a ‘me’ that activates the body and mind?” Look at all these possibilities and cut them down one by one.
Participant: Which of these schools is this now?
Dr. Berzin: This one isn’t a specific school. This is in general, except for the Charvarkas, the ones that don’t believe in rebirth or karma. All the other classical schools of Indian philosophy, both Hindu and Jain, assert in slightly different ways that there is a soul, an atman, that is static, that doesn’t change. Of course, it is eternal like the Buddhists say, but it doesn’t change, and it has no parts. Either it is the size of the universe (atman is Brahma type of thing), or it’s a tiny, little spark of life, like an atom – something like that with no parts. So, the Indian schools will differ in terms of its size. The Jains say that when the soul gets into the body, it fills the body. So, it varies in size. But it has no parts, and it is separable. When they say “separate” from the body and mind, they mean “separable” – can fly out and go into another body and mind. They all agree on that.
Then, you remember, there are some Indian schools that think that that “me” has a quality of consciousness. There are other Indian schools that say, no, it doesn’t have a quality of consciousness; it uses a brain in order to have consciousness. Remember, we talked about different Indian positions.
Participant: This is also a difficult question in Buddhism, isn’t it?
Dr. Berzin: Which question?
Participant: You know, there’s this question about emptiness and its connection to the individual, the individual intellect, and that there is a knowing place, actually. This is not on a very coarse level? Or is it on a more subtle level?
Dr. Berzin: A “knowing place”?
Participant: And knowing something, you know.
Dr. Berzin: Karsten is pointing out that this is a delicate point in Buddhism as well – the relationship between voidness and the self. Voidness is how the self exists: it doesn’t exist in impossible ways. And where is there a “knowing”? I am not quite sure. I remember we had this big discussion about what Buddhism says knows things. We could say a consciousness knows things. But we also have to say that a conventional “me” knows things, even though a conventional “me” is not a way of knowing. But conventionally, we say, “I know,” “I see.”
You remember, we talked about this dormant cognition – that when you are asleep, it’s actually the consciousness that hears the sound of the alarm… I mean, hears the sound of, let’s say, the clock ticking and feels the sensation of the blanket on your body. But I don’t experience it; I am not conscious of it. That, in a sense, is the Buddhist explanation of what we would call “being unconscious.”
Participant: Actually, I was thinking more about that in terms of the three bodies, like Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya, Dharmakaya. Actually, there is a knowing place… is it Nirmanakaya?
Dr. Berzin: Oh. From the point of view of a Buddha and the three bodies – Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya – which one has the aspect of knowing? It’s the Dharmakaya. Nirmanakaya and Sambhogakaya are forms; they are networks, or collections, of forms. Dharmakaya has two aspects: the so-called jnana-dharmakaya – that’s the deep awareness Dharmakaya, the mind of a Buddha; and then the svabhavakaya, which is the voidness of the mind of a Buddha. That omniscient mind can generate countless Sambhogakaya forms, which are the subtle forms that only arya bodhisattvas can see and get teachings from. And that Sambhogakaya can emanate countless Nirmanakayas (Emanation Bodies) that ordinary people can receive teachings from and see.
The Dharmakaya is a mind. Now, on top of all of that, you could label the “me” of the Buddha, the person. That’s there.
OK? Any more questions about this verse?
[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).
When we meditate on this, what we have to do is, through understanding that the belief in these various types of impossible “me” are baseless – that they don’t refer to anything, that they are illogical, that there is no such thing – is to cut off that belief. His Holiness describes it like Manjushri’s sword: you just slash through and cut that belief off – “This is ridiculous – believing in this. There is no such thing.” Then you focus on “no such thing.” That’s the total absorption: “no such thing” (that’s called the “total absorption”).
Then the subsequent attainment, when you come out of being absorbed in that, is to realize that in spite of all of that, there is the conventional “me.” It’s like an illusion in that it appears to be this solid, false “me” – that it doesn’t exist that way, just like an illusion appears to be solid but it is not. So, things still function. And it’s like an illusion. Not the same as an illusion but like an illusion.
Verse Fifty: The Voidness of the Aggregates and the Six Philosophical Positions to Be Refuted
Then we have the next verse. Remember, I told you these two verses are the most difficult verses in the text. The next one now investigates the aggregates; that’s the support of the person. This is the voidness of all things – so, the aggregates. This is speaking in terms of the cause of the aggregates. Verse 50 reads,
[50] The aggregates (come) not from a triumph of wishing, not from (permanent) time, not from primal matter, not from an essential nature, not from the Powerful Creator Ishvara, and not from having no cause. Know that they arise from unawareness, karmic actions, and craving.
This now goes through the various Indian philosophical schools’ views of causality or creation.
[1] The Aggregates Don’t Come from a Triumph of Wishing
The first one, the first, is that “the aggregates don’t come from a triumph wishing,” which means that they don’t just fall from the sky at random or when you wish for them. You can’t produce a baby by merely wishing for one, can you?
Participant: You can ask for it, and it comes with a bird.
Dr. Berzin: That’s true. But, still! The stork has to bring it; it doesn’t just fall from the sky. If it just happened through wishing like that – falling from the sky – that would mean that it didn’t depend on anything else for its arising. But we can witness that the body, sights, emotions, and so on come from appropriate causes and conditions, not just from our wishing for them.
“I wish to see a tree,” “I wish to see Paris” – that doesn’t make that happen without other causes and conditions, does it? Somebody had to have built Paris, and we have to go there. It doesn’t happen just from wishing. “I wish that I understood voidness” – that is not going to produce the understanding of voidness, is it? Not by itself. It has to have other causes and conditions.
OK? Think about that. Do we sometimes think that we can get something just by wanting it? “I want to lose weight.” Is it going to happen just from wishing that I lose ten kilos?
Participant: Actually, some New Age people say this kind of thing.
Dr. Berzin: “If you pray and wish hard enough, it will happen.”
Participation: You just have to tell the universe what you want.
Dr. Berzin: But that’s the later position here – the “Powerful Creator.”
But do we sometimes wish for things like that? Think about it. Actually, it’s not so far-fetched. If we are into prayers and have a sort of child-like way of praying – “I wish that I could achieve enlightenment. I wish that I could benefit all beings. I wish that I could have a precious human rebirth. I wish that I could always be with my gurus in all my lifetimes”… Don’t we sometimes think that merely wishing and praying for it is enough and that that’s going to bring that result about? I think a lot of us do. We get down on our knees and pray for it and… it will happen.
Think about that. That means that if that were the case, then it should happen without any causes or conditions other than just wanting it.
Also, what I should add here is that this underlines the importance of the distinction that Buddhism makes between an aspiring, or wishing, prayer and a dedication prayer. The wishing, or aspiring, prayer is just wish – “I wish that I had a precious human life. I wish that I was with my gurus in all my lives.” Dedication is, in addition to wishing, that you first bring about the causes and conditions by doing the positive actions that will result in having a precious human life, and then dedicate that positive force for that wish, or intention, to come true. That’s wishing combined with cause and effect (that’s why dedication is emphasized so much in Buddhism). It means actually doing something that builds up positive force, or merit, not just wishing, and then combining the prayer with the positive force from we have done.
I think here of the practice of Geshe Pen Kungyel, the great Kadampa master that so many accounts are given of, is helpful. At the end of the day, he used to review all the positive things that he had done during the day and all the negative things that he had done. He’d also put out white stones for the positive things and black stones for the negative so that he could see in a more graphic form how many of which there were. But the point that I am thinking of is that, at the end of the day when we do our evening practice or whatever and there is a dedication at the end of it (even if we don’t do an evening practice, it is helpful to do a dedication at the end of the day) – you start the day with an intention and end with a dedication – not just to say, “May whatever positive things that I did today act as a cause for blah, blah, blah,” but to actually review: “What did I do today that was positive and constructive? How did I help anybody else today? How did I do anything that contributed to my own spiritual development or personal development and made me better able to help others?” So, we review what we’ve done and then dedicate whatever positive force we have built up. That has much more meaning than just a two second “whatever positive things I have done, may it act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.” You know?
[2] The Aggregates Don’t Come from Permanent Time
The second position here is that “the aggregates do not come from permanent time.” The commentaries don’t say who asserts this, but there is a view of time as being some sort of permanent substance, like a constant substratum, a static, constant substratum. I think one could imagine that type of view. And to think that things come from this doesn’t make any sense. Why? Because time can’t exist as some sort of “thing” that can be observed as a separate entity from all the other things that are changing.
What is time? It’s a measurement of change. Also, if time were static, an unchanging constant, then, as the commentaries say, everything would have to happen all at once. They’d have to arise all at once and perish all at once since you couldn’t have temporal sequences. Things couldn’t happen at different times if time were a static constant.
So, I don’t know. Certainly, science after Einstein doesn’t think of time as some sort of container.
Participant: I think that what you first said about time being a measurement of change – that coincides exactly with science.
Dr. Berzin: That coincides with science as well. And of course, time has to do with speed as well, not just motion.
Participant: Yes. Any kind of process, any kind of change.
Dr. Berzin: Right. So, science agrees, Jorge says, that time is a measurement of change.
Participant: It would be very strange to ask how fast time changes.
Dr. Berzin: Also, its speed is relative to the person who is measuring it and their speed and motion and all of that.
Participant: But you know, from this single point of view, it becomes apparent that time is not a thing in itself.
Dr. Berzin: Right. So, science has agreed that time is not a thing in itself. It is not a container and that everything happens in time. Do we ever think like that though?
Participant: All the time.
Dr. Berzin: All the time. Can you give an example?
[Pause]
A good friend of mine just died a couple days ago. People say (and I find myself saying it as well), “It was time. His time was up,” as if it was the time that caused him… He was eighty-seven and very, very sick, but somehow, you think that time causes whatever happens.
It’s like the change of the millennium, this computer disaster that people were encouraged to believe in and be afraid of – “Time will cause this disaster.”
Participant: The reason it didn’t happen was because a lot of things were done to prevent it, not because it was just a scare that had no consequences.
Dr. Berzin: I see. The reason why it didn’t happen was that a lot of things were done to prevent it. I see… pujas and things.
Participant: Yeah.
Participant: There’s also like Tibetan astrology. It also maybe goes in this direction – that it says that certain days and times…
Dr. Berzin: Right. Astrology, perhaps, could be seen like this as well. But here they are talking about a solid, constant substratum – that everything happens in it. A simplistic and deterministic view of astrology might be that you can’t change – “This is what the stars say, so forget it.” But the argument against this point of view is that you couldn’t have any temporal sequences. If time were static, then things couldn’t happen at different times because time would be just one thing.
I don’t know. It’s hard to really get a good grip on how we might think this way. Anyway, think about it for a moment.
I came up with an example. Don’t we often say (and it’s been said throughout literature, the history of literature), “The times are bad. We live in bad times, and that’s what causing all the disasters.” But then all the disasters should happen all at once because it is a bad time. And nothing good could possibly happen because we live in bad times. There is that way of thinking, isn’t there?
Participant: Buddhism also has this idea of Kaliyuga, the decrease…
Dr. Berzin: Buddhism talks about Kaliyuga when lifespans decrease. That’s true. But they don’t say that that is the cause of everything that happens during the Kaliyuga, like lifespans being shorter during the Kaliyuga. Well, Kaliyuga is a difficult concept because it is defined slightly differently in different systems. But if we just take the general meaning of it as referring to lifespans getting shorter… well, that also is dependent on collective karma, dependent on the actions that the people did, and so on. It’s not just that here is the cycle of change… It’s almost like the I Ching, the period of change – that there is something called “change” that is constant.
Participant: But why couldn’t you say that there is a collective karma that also creates the possibilities for the kinds of bodies you can be reborn in?
Dr. Berzin: Well, there are certain periods of time, as you say, where only certain life forms are available. Like nowadays, it would be pretty difficult to be born on this planet as a dinosaur. But you couldn’t say that this is because of the times – that the times alone creates that. We exist in the Stone Age or in the Information Age, therefore… Well, then everything in that age should be exactly the same.
Participant: Bhutan and USA aren’t all in the Information Age. It can’t be as simple as that because there aren’t a lot of people in Bhutan who are in this Information Age, almost none.
Dr. Berzin: Right. If there were an Information Age, he points out, it should be equal everywhere on this planet. But what’s happening in the United States and what’s happening in Bhutan or some small African country is not the same.
Participant: Because there’s going to be some variability, no?
Dr. Berzin: There is going to be some variation, but not if time itself as a constant substratum is the cause of everything that happens.
Participant: This idea of the decreasing times and decreasing lifespans reminds me of this idea of entropy increasing constantly.
Dr. Berzin: He is saying that the idea of Kaliyuga, lifespans getting shorter, reminds him of entropy – things going more and more to a state of equilibrium. But after the Kaliyuga, the lifespan gets longer. So, that violates entropy.
Anyway, this is the position of time as the cause.
[3] The Aggregates Don’t Come from Primal Matter
The next position is that “the aggregates don’t come from primal matter.”
Primal matter – we go back to our old friend the Samkyas. The Samkhya, which is one of the Indian Schools, assert that there is something called a “static primal matter,” which is composed of an equilibrium of the three universal constituents, sattva, rajas, and tamas. These are defined differently in different contexts. In Shantideva’s text, he always speaks of sattva as pleasure, rajas as pain, and tamas as a neutral sensation. We also have sattva as purity, rajas as energy, or force, and tamas as heaviness. In any case, it’s the imbalance of these three universal constituents that manifest as everything in the phenomenal world.
Remember, we talked about the position that causes are actually unmanifest results. In other words, everything already exists in an unmanifest form. It’s like there is this big, universal cosmic soup – this primal matter – and it is made up of three constituents. When these three constituents are out of balance, according to various forces (here they bring in karma and so on), they manifest in different forms, in different things that happen, and then they transform to something else and something else. But whatever that is going to manifest as is already in unmanifest form, in potential form, in this cosmic soup, this universal soup.
To say that that is the cause of what we experience, the cause of the aggregates – that can’t be. If the aggregates, what we experience, were the manifestation of primal matter, the manifestation of a changing imbalance of these three constituents, and these three constituents are of the nature of this static primal matter, then primal matter would also have to be nonstatic. That’s what the commentaries say. So, what does that mean?
This primal soup is supposed to be static and unchanging, yet it is made out of three things that are changing in terms of their balance. So, that means that the primal soup has to be changing because primal soup is the nature of these three. So, that is an consistency in that system. And to say that the aggregates, as a nonstatic imbalance of the three, had a different nature from the static primal matter would contradict the premise that all phenomena except the soul have the nature of primal matter.
In other words (it’s very interesting – it’s typical Buddhist logic of refuting), here you have the primal soup, and here you have the three constituents. Primal soup is supposed to be unchanging; the three constituents are changing. If the primal soup and the three constituents have the same nature, if they’re the same thing (which is what the system says they are), then, since the three change, primal soup has to change. And if you explain that one changes and the other doesn’t by saying, “Well, the three change, but the primal soup doesn’t change, and they have a different nature,” you contradict your own system because your system says they are the same nature. So, basically, your system is self-contradictory. So, it can’t be the explanation for what we experience.
Participant: Sorry to keep thinking along this line of energy and entropy, but you could say that energy, according to the law of conservation, stays the same. But there are many forms of energy. And they’re transformed in their balance; they can change in their balance.
Dr. Berzin: Jorge is saying that, according to science, there is a certain amount of energy in the universe (the law of conservation of energy) – that the energy in the universe is constant but that the forms of the energy are constantly changing. But would you say that the forms of the energy…
You see, everything depends here on whether or not you ascribe solid existence to what you are talking about. The energy as a whole and the all the transformations – if you make them into ping-pong balls, then either they are the same ping-pong ball or they are different ping-pong balls. So, if one is constant and they are the same ping-pong ball, the other has to be a constant. And if they are separate ping-pong balls, then what’s the relationship between them? So, your system could work if you don’t ascribe solid, true existence.
Participant: There’s no way to ascribe solid, true existence to energy because we have no idea what it is.
Dr. Berzin: We have no idea what it is, but we can measure it.
Participant: Yes.
Dr. Berzin: What would be the answer to “what is it”? That’s like asking, “How fast does time go?”
Participant: All we know is it’s what’s conserved.
Dr. Berzin: All we know is that it’s what’s conserved.
Anyway, all these systems that we are refuting here assert solid, true existence, findable existence.
That takes us to the end of the class. We have three more positions to refute, and then we have the Buddhist explanations. Let’s leave that for next time. OK?
Let’s take moment to think about this primal soup idea. And you can relate it to this primal energy, to the energy of the universe, if you like. Actually, your example is very good for this because we do think that there is only a certain amount of matter and energy in the universe and that it is just going through various transformations to be the various things that we experience. So, there is that way of thinking, isn’t there? Then you have to examine: are you talking about things that are like solid ping-pong balls or not? How could this work?
Thank you.