LTF 45: Origin of the Aggregates; 3 Things Obstructing Liberation

I must say that, here, it’s not quite talking about the voidness of the aggregates. And one of the things that I find quite curious in this whole Letter to a Friend is that, although it presents the Mahayana path, it seems to present it in a very early form. Now, Nagarjuna was basically the main person, the first person to write about the Mahayana path. So, one gets the feeling that it wasn’t really formulated so fully at the time of Nagarjuna. We’ll see this with the next verse as well – that you get the general idea of Mahayana, but a lot of the presentation is given in terms of the Hinayana path, I must say. 

So, here, he’s not making such a big point about understanding the voidness of the aggregates. Instead, he speaks, in the non-Prasangika way (although that would be within Svatantrika-Madhyamaka) about how, in order to gain liberation, you just need to understand the voidness of the self, the voidness of the person. And in terms of understanding the aggregates, the main thing to understand is not so much the voidness of the aggregates but where they come from and to refute that things come from no cause or an inappropriate cause. So, this is the way that it’s presented here. 

It’s an interesting example, then, of how the Mahayana ideas have developed over time in India. We tend to think of Mahayana as being a set system, one that was complete right from the beginning. And whether or not the understanding was there from the beginning and that it’s just a matter of how much was explained over time or that the ideas were worked out more fully over time – this is really very difficult to say. In other texts of Nagarjuna, I think there’s more of a presentation of the voidness of phenomena. But in this particular one, there doesn’t seem to be so much emphasis on that.

Participant: In which text did Nagarjuna actually formulate this Mahayana more specifically?

Dr. Berzin: Not so much the Mahayana path, but the Mahayana understanding of voidness, namely the Madhyamaka understanding, is in his Root Verses.

Participant: And bodhichitta?

Dr. Berzin: He wrote a text called Praises to Bodhichitta, but that actually speaks very little about conventional bodhichitta. There’s conventional bodhichitta and deepest bodhichitta. Deepest bodhichitta is focused on the voidness of the omniscient mind of a Buddha. In that text he speaks almost exclusively about voidness. And there you have more of a presentation of the voidness of phenomena. But here, in this letter, he seems to be guiding the king along, perhaps, something that’s more familiar to him, which is the Hinayana path, and giving it a Mahayana twist. I think.

Participant: But when did conventional bodhichitta really come into Mahayana?

Dr. Berzin: When did conventional bodhichitta – the teachings of that – fully come into Mahayana? I would guess with Asanga. He wrote Bodhisattvabhumi (The Stages of a Bodhisattva). Asanga also received teachings from Maitreya and wrote down the texts of Maitreya. There, in one of them, Abhisamayalamkara (The Ornament of Realizations), Asanga speaks about the different types of bodhichitta. So, I think it’s like that. 

Anyway, here, Nagarjuna is analyzing where the aggregates come from. And we covered the first three positions last time, which in brief, just to review:

[1] The Aggregates Come from a Triumph of Wishing

They don’t come from “a triumph of wishing,” which means they don’t just fall from the sky when you wish for them or come at random. So, it’s not that “I wish for a young, healthy body,” and then we’re going to get a young, healthy body. Or “I wish that I were happy or more intelligent,” and then, all of a sudden, we are more intelligent. So, it doesn’t come like that. Just to wish for a baby is not going to produce a baby, for example.

[2] The Aggregates Come from (Permanent) Time

The second position that is refuted here is that aggregates come “from time” as some sort of permanent substance. It’s not that time is some static, constant substratum that is there and that time produces what we experience. “We live in a ‘good time,’” or “We live in a ‘bad time’” – and in this “bad time,” this age of degeneration, it’s time itself that produces all the difficult things that we experience. So, that’s refuted as well. There’s no need to go into the refutation here in our review.

[3] The Aggregates Come from Primal Matter

The third position that is refuted is that the aggregates come “from primal matter.” Remember, primal matter is what the Samkhya School of Indian philosophy asserted. It’s something like a primal soup, or grand soup, and that somehow, through the transformations of this primal soup, we get everything that we experience. 

Jorge, last time, pointed out how this position could be understood in a scientific sort of way if we think of the idea that there is a fixed amount of energy or matter energy in the universe, which sort of transforms into various manifestations or various shapes, and that no new energy or new matter is being created or destroyed. So, that position is something that we might take even as Westerners. We don’t have to be a Samkhya philosopher in order to believe in that. And that, also. is refuted.

So, now, we’re up to the fourth position. OK? 

[4] The Aggregates Come from an Essential Nature 

Fourth position is that the aggregates come “from an essential nature,” their own essential nature. According to the commentaries, this is referring to the Mimamsaka position. 

The Mimamsaka Position

The Mimamsakas are yet another school of ancient Indian philosophy. There are six non-Buddhist, ancient schools of philosophy in the Hindu sphere that I’ve discussed. Mimamsaka’s one of them. You have the Yoga and the Samkhya, which are related to each other. You have the Nyaya and Vaisheshika, which are related to each other. And you have the Old Mimamsaka and the New Mimamsaka. The New Mimamsaka is also known as Vedanta, which, of course, has many subdivisions as well. Anyway…

The Mimamsaka position is that all phenomena are created from static particles that are their essential nature. So if we think about that, it would be, instead of this primal soup that transforms into one thing or other, this position would basically be that there is a certain, fixed number of static atoms or particles that just rearrange to perform the various things that we experience – like the atoms of food go inside us and become the atoms of our body, and then they transforms again and are the same food atoms that come then out of us as bodily waste. 

Now, that’s not so difficult to believe, is it? It also makes a little bit of sense. So, what’s the problem here? Remember, what they’re referring to in the Mimamsaka position is that these particles are static: they never change. That’s where the problem is. Why is there a problem with that?

Participant: If you eat some food and you say that it transforms into your muscles or something, you can’t say anymore that it’s food because then it’s muscle. It’s not the food anymore.

Dr. Berzin: Right. But we’re talking about the carbon atoms. The carbon atoms of the food are now the carbon atoms of your muscles. Are they the same carbon atom?

Participant: I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think there’s atomic decay – something like that. So, one atom… they are downgrading through the periods (this word is OK?). So, if you got…

Dr. Berzin: Now our great scientist is saying (too bad we don’t have Jorge here) that the atoms degenerate one to the other. I don’t know that that’s actually the case. I don’t think that an oxygen atom automatically degrades into a hydrogen atom or something like that. Unstable atoms like certain isotopes of uranium – they will split and degenerate. But I don’t think the carbon atom degrades. But I’m no scientific expert. I studied chemistry… forty-five years ago!  So, I don’t remember exactly.

Participant: It makes different connections.

Dr. Berzin: They make different connections. Right. But is it the same atom?

Participant: I think little parts go away, but… 

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, there are parts that come away and parts that change. The electrons bond. To speak in a scientific way, the electrons are going to “bond” with different atoms. So, in that sense you can’t say that it’s exactly the same atom. It’s not a free carbon atom that’s just sort of sitting there: it’s combining with different things. So, it’s changing. It’s affected by something. That’s the big point.

Participant: So, does static mean also indivisible?

Dr. Berzin: No, not really. That’s another quality. If you talk about the qualities of the doctrinally based false “me” – that type of soul has no parts and is static; it doesn’t change. But static by itself is a quality; it doesn’t necessarily imply no parts. What it implies is that it is not caused by anything, that it’s not affected by anything, that it doesn’t change from moment to moment, and that it won’t affect anything else. That’s what “static” means.

Participant: But if you look inside an atom, you see that there are so many things going around inside. There’s nothing that you can say, OK, this is… they’re moving around all the time.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Exactly so. All the parts of the atom are constantly in motion, so they can’t possibly be static; they can’t possibly be the same every nano moment.

Yeah, Andreas?

Participant: There’s this idea that you can’t measure the position of an atom and its speed at the same time. There’s always a relation that you can’t figure out if these two are entities of the thing and…

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, quantum physics – the Heisenberg uncertainty principle – says that you can’t measure, you can’t know both the position and the speed of anything at the same time. What if one put that into Madhyamaka terms? Or Prasangika terms? It fits very well with the Prasangika formulation.

Participant: The more you search, the less you can find it.

Dr. Berzin: Right. That’s one aspect – that the more you search, the less likely you are to find anything. There’s nothing findable on the side of the atom that establishes, all by itself, its position or its speed. It’s all relative to the observer – mental labeling. That’s exactly what Prasangika says. It’s equivalent to this conclusion of quantum physics; it’s just saying it in a different way… which, I must say, is rather amazing – that they come to the same conclusion. Well, it’s not so amazing. It would be amazing if they didn’t come to the same conclusion! It’s rather wonderful that they come to the same conclusion.

Participant: But Mimamsaka – they couldn’t figure that out.

Dr. Berzin: Well, the Mimamsakas thought that the universe was made of little balls and that they connect differently. Remember the…

Participant: The Greek version also.

Dr. Berzin: The Greek version also had that. 

The Refutation

OK. So, the actual refutation of this that we have in the text is that if phenomena were created by static particles alone, they couldn’t depend on causes and conditions to come about or not to come about. And if they did depend on causes and conditions, then the particles couldn’t be static because they’d be affected by other things. 

This, ultimately, is always the argument that’s used against creation from something static. Either it would have to be independent of causes and conditions to occur, in which case, it would all happen at once, or it would have to depend on causes and conditions to occur, in which case, it wouldn’t be static: it would be affected by something. So, that’s the logic behind why things can’t be created from something that doesn’t change. Something that doesn’t change cannot affect something else. If something has affected something else, it has undergone change and so would be nonstatic.

Do you follow that? Take a moment to reflect on that.

Do Carbon Atoms Degrade Moment to Moment?

OK. Getting back to what you said, Dirk, with the atoms changing, one into another type of atom – if you think about it in terms of the evolution of the universe, then, certainly, the elements evolved in terms of explosion energy, energy cooling down, or these sorts of things. And if there were a huge, fusion type of reaction in the sun or something like that, the various elements would change one into another. If you think in terms of the end of the universe, then, probably, also the atoms would somehow degrade. But I don’t know if they degrade moment to moment.

Participant: I could look it up.

Dr. Berzin: Yeah. Please look it up. It’s an interesting point. What we have, of course, is a continuum of a carbon atom. That’s a very interesting question: how long does a carbon atom last? There would be a continuum of that carbon atom in which it combined with other, different elements to form different compounds. But can you speak of a continuum of the carbon atom? Probably you can. How long would it last? I don’t really know.

Participant: But I think each element has kind of (what’s the saying?) life… lifespan.

Dr. Berzin: From chemistry, each element has a life expectancy – a “half-life,” they call it. That would be for the radioactive ones, the ones that are unstable.

Participant: The other ones not?

Dr. Berzin: The other ones not. As far as I know. I wish Jorge were here. He’s our chemist.

Participant: Maybe the radioactive ones are faster than we can measure.

Dr. Berzin: That could be – that the radioactive ones have a half-life that can be measured if something’s half-life is several billion years.

Participant: Or maybe it’s just that they don’t need to take energy from outside for them to decay. 

Dr. Berzin: So, it could be that it doesn’t require energy from outside for a radioactive element to decay – that it is unstable itself.

Participant: But I remember that the beginning of the earth, they said it just started, and then it changed. It started and oxygen was built.

Dr. Berzin: Right. This is exactly what I was referring to – that shortly after the Big Bang, the various elements, in a sense, evolved. You didn’t have all the elements from the very start.

Participant: And even on earth, I remember, this oxygen was built up.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Even on earth, oxygen was built up.

Anyway, this is the Mimamsaka point of view. But we can’t say that the atoms are static, little balls that combine in different ways to create what we experience. 

[5] The Aggregates Come from the Powerful Creator Ishvara

OK. Now, the next position is that the aggregates don’t come “from the Powerful Creator Ishvara.” Ishvara is the Creator god in the Nyaya and Vaisheshika systems. That, again, is something we had a big, long discussion about in the Bodhicharyavatara class, in Shantideva’s work. Here, again, we saw that it was illogical for there to be an all-powerful creator who was static and unaffected by anything. 

The reason for refuting a creator as being all-powerful (as it explains in the commentaries) is that if the creator were unaffected by anything, then everything would have to arise all at once, independently of any circumstances. They’d have to all just be there if he’s going to create things independently of circumstances. And if creation happens sequentially, then it would have to be affected by the will or wish of the creator or by dependence on circumstances. But it would contradict the assertion that the creator was static and unaffected by anything if he was affected by the will or wish to create… you know, the decree of the creator: “Now I shall create.”

Also, if the creator were affected by circumstances, the circumstances would have to be something different from the creator. And that contradicts the assertion that the creator is the creator of everything. Creator would have to create the circumstances that affect him back. That doesn’t make any sense. So, the circumstances would have to be different from the creator. And that contradicts that the creator creates everything.

And if the creator created his own will, then since the creator is static and not affected by anything, the will to create everything would arise all at once. And if all of his wills or wishes didn’t arise at once but in sequence, then each will would be dependent on a previous will. And that doesn’t make any sense.

So, there are many logical arguments refuting that you could have an all-powerful being who was static and not affected by anything and, yet, created. 

Is God Affected by the Prayers People Make?

I wonder, in the Christian concept or the Hebraic concept of God, is God affected by the prayers that people make to him? Does Christianity assert that God is affected by anything?

Participant: Actually, by his will. Actually, this is in many places in the Bible – that he was affected by his will to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and stuff like that. 

Dr. Berzin: By his will or… what were the other words you said?

Participant: You know the story about destroying two cities that were sinful?

Dr. Berzin: Right.

Participant: He decided this was sinful way of living, and so he decided to destroy these two cities.

Dr. Berzin: OK. Andreas points out that, in the Bible, God certainly has a will. He acts according to his will, as in the example of destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, the two cities filled with sin. It was God’s will: he decided that this was no good. But this is very strange. If everything was under the power of his creation, could he create something that was not under the power of his creation, something that had free will? That’s a paradox, isn’t it?

Participant: Also, you have this idea of evil and of Adam in the garden – that God created everything, like Adam and Eve and the tree and the apple, but he couldn’t prevent Adam from eating it. 

How Can an All-Powerful Creator Create Something Not Under Its Control?

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, if God created Adam and the apple and the tree and the snake, why couldn’t God have the power to make Adam not eat the apple? That’s the question. How could an all-powerful creator create something that was not under his control?

Participant: But maybe he created free will.

Dr. Berzin: Could he create free will? But wouldn’t that contradict the fact that he was… I mean, is there a paradox there? I think there is a paradox there. Free will implies either that it’s not under the power of God’s will or that not being under the power of God’s will is God’s will.

Participant: He creates something and then let’s his creation decide themselves.

Dr. Berzin: God could create something and then let them decide by themselves?

Participant: That’s what happened in a way, according to…

Dr. Berzin: Hm. But  then these things exist independent of God.

Participant: Yeah. Maybe he has given the human beings the opportunity to learn. I don’t know.

Dr. Berzin: So, maybe God is giving human beings the possibility to learn.

Participant: Why didn’t he give out the knowledge in the first place? Why do we have to go through all this sh…

Dr. Berzin: Right. The question is, why do we have to learn? Couldn’t he have given us the knowledge in the first place? 

Can God be affected by our prayers? If we pray, then God will grant our wishes; if we don’t pray, he won’t? Again, it means that God isn’t static but is affected by prayer.

Participant: You know, maybe it is the communication that is important.

Dr. Berzin: The communication? Well, I don’t know. If you start thinking in terms of true existence, solid existence, could one truly existent thing, one ping-pong ball, create another ping-pong ball that was independent of the first ping-pong ball and could do whatever it wanted? If they were really independent, they couldn’t relate to God. 

It’s an interesting thing to analyze – not just to analyze the Indian schools and their assertions but to also analyze the Western assertions. This is why I’m wondering: does Christianity assert that God is static, is unchanging?

Participant: I don’t think so.

Dr. Berzin: So, God is affected by circumstances, by causes and conditions.

Participant: God is affected by it, yeah.

Dr. Berzin: God is affected. Does God create his own will? This was the infinite regress argument. If God created his own will, he created it because he had a will to create his own will. And where did the will to create his own will come from? It came from a will for having the will for the will to create. That’s one of the arguments here. 

Participant: So, then he must have created himself.

Dr. Berzin: Then he created himself.  

Participant: It’s like the idea that everything has always existed and is changing all the time and that it has been changing since beginningless time.

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, the Western concept of God is certainly that God has no beginning and no end.

Participant: Yeah, I think so. 

Dr. Berzin: And God, in fact, created time, just as the Big Bang supposedly created time, from a Western point of view.

How Does Buddhism Explain the Christian God?

Participant: Last time I was here, you mentioned that one of the Tibetan teachers spoke about the gods and being reborn in the god realm. So, how do they define the Christian God?

Dr. Berzin: OK. So, the question is: how do the Buddhists explain or define God, since they do accept gods? And they accept that Brahma is a creator (or Ishvara as a creator, depending on the Indian system) is one of the gods. So, the Christian God, Jehovah, would fit into this as well. 

The way that they explain it is that, as a particular universe evolves and various worlds, or realms, are formed and livable environments are created, beings start to manifest and take rebirth in that universe (meanwhile, there are other universes where they can take rebirth). So, the first being that will appear in any universe is Brahma, the great god Brahma, although they say there can be many great god Brahmas. In any case, the great god Brahma (whom they always characterize as just saying, “I am the great god Brahma. I am the great god Brahma”) will be the first one, and everyone else will come after him (in that universe). That Brahma will also be the last one to go; he will have the longest lifespan. 

And because he’s the first (which is one of the connotations of the Tibetan translation of the word “Brahma” – being the first), everybody who follows thinks that Brahma created them. Brahma likes that idea, so he goes along with it and says, “I created them.” Because of that, you get the concept of the creator god. This is the way Buddhism explains it.

So, there are gods. And they could be involved compassionately with what’s happening in the world; they could be all-loving and all of that. But what Buddhism refutes is that any god could be an all-powerful creator. That’s the only thing that’s objectionable about the concept of the Christian God from a Buddhist point of view. Everything else is OK. And that there is order in the universe and all of that – that’s OK. That’s not a problem. And that God can interfere with what’s going on in the world, affect what’s going on in the world – that, certainly, Buddhism would accept. But they’re not the all-powerful creator.

Participant: Does Buddhism also reject the idea of getting in contact with that being?

Dr. Berzin: Does Buddhism reject getting in contact with Brahma, the creator? No. Not at all. You can contact Brahma. You just need to know the email address!

Participant: It’s not part of the path, is it?

Dr. Berzin: No. There’s no benefit in contacting Brahma.

Participant: In terms of enlightenment…

Hindu Worldly Protector Gods in Buddhism

Dr. Berzin: In terms of enlightenment and so on? Well, I tell you, it’s interesting. In tantra, particularly in anuttarayoga tantra, in the various sadhanas, you call in various worldly gods as protectors. There is a set of ten worldly gods (which are actually a set of fifteen in the lovely way Buddhists count), which are actually the Hindu gods, that are enlisted into the Buddhist army, as it were, to be protectors. They include Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu and all of these other ones… Ganesh. Everybody is in there. So, they are brought in. You could say maybe that that was a skillful way of allowing people in India coming from the Hindu background to feel comfortable with Buddhist practice. 

So, they’re not put down; they are enlisted as part of the path. But they are, as they are called, “worldly protectors.”And you set them up in your visualization in a special place, make offerings to them, and so on. Making offerings to them is certainly communicating with them. And you send them off into the different directions to ward off interference.

Participant: You don’t see their status as a stage on the path?

Dr. Berzin: Not a necessary stage. In lam-rim, the graded stages of the path, the initial scope is to aim for one of the better rebirths. So, that could be as a human or a god. It is possible to achieve certain attainments on the basis of a god rebirth but not all the attainments: you can’t achieve liberation or enlightenment on the basis of a god rebirth. But you can achieve certain levels of… I forget the exact thing. There’s something called “twenty sangha” in Abhisamayalamkara, in which from various god realms you can achieve various stages on the path but not the whole thing. So, although there’s the presentation that one could aim for a better rebirth, a fortunate rebirth as a human or a god, but the optimal rebirth is a precious human rebirth, not a god rebirth. 

However, as we find here in this text, one of the six things to keep constant mindfulness of is the gods as examples of cause and effect – that engaging in constructive behavior will bring about a happy rebirth as a human or a god. So, this encourages people to engage in constructive behavior. Some people could be encouraged by the idea of going to heaven. If you’re a kind person, you’ll be reborn in a heaven among the gods, and have a lot of happiness. So, that motivates them. It’s not a very high motivation, but it motivates them to act constructively, which is important. And then you can go further, seeing that this is not an ultimate goal; it’s not going to last. Plus, the gods have various types of suffering as well. And then go further.

OK. So, this is the refutation of the aggregates coming from a static, powerful creator. 

[6] The Aggregates Come from No Cause

And then the last position here is that the aggregates, in other words, what we experience – a body and mind – come “from no cause.” They have no cause. That is the position of the Charvakas or Charvakas (I’m not sure of the pronunciation) are the ones that assert no cause for things. They’re the hedonists in the the “repertoire” of Indian philosophical positions. 

If things had no cause, if they just happened “like that,” either everything would have to be eternal, or nothing could exist at all. That’s because they could never arise and never perish. For things to arise, there has to be a cause, and for things to perish there has to be a cause. If there’s no cause for anything, it becomes very strange.

This summarizes, then, the various positions that what we experience comes either from no cause or it comes from a cause which is an inappropriate cause. So, the verse ends with the last line to explain the Buddhist position, which is the position that “the aggregates arise from unawareness, karmic actions, and craving.” This refers to the twelve links of dependent arising, which is the mechanism presented in all forms of Buddhism that explains the twelve links of dependent arising. This is what describes the mechanism of samsara, uncontrollably recurring rebirth.

Unawareness (First Link)

Now, I don’t think that it’s necessary to go through a long, elaborate explanation of the twelve links, but in brief, we act with unawareness, or ignorance (ma-rig-pa, Skt. avidya). That’s the first thing that’s mentioned here. In other words, we don’t know how we exist, we don’t know how other things exist. It could also be that we don’t know about cause and effect, the relation of cause and effect – that acting destructively brings about suffering for us, acting constructively brings happiness. These are the two forms of unawareness – either of cause and effect or of reality, of how we and everything exist. And either we just don’t know or we know it incorrectly (these two positions on that). 

Affecting Impulses (Second Link)

Based on that, we have what I call “affecting impulses’ (’du-byed, Skt. saṃskāra). That’s the second link. These are karmic impulses that shape or affect our future rebirth states, what’s known as “throwing karma.”

I won’t go into all the twelve links, but throwing karma are the karmic impulses for actions that are done with a strong motivation, the aftermath of which, when activated at the time of death, “throw” our mental continuums into further samsaric rebirths. So, we’re not just talking about the karmic aftermath of scratching our heads or going to the refrigerator. We’re talking about the karmic aftermath of strongly motivated positive or negative actions, such as helping somebody with great compassion or hurting somebody with great anger. 

This aftermath is, at the time of death, activated from its form as a potential or a tendency (constant habits are a little bit more complicated than that, so let’s just speak about the potentials and tendencies). What activates it? What activates it is based on the fact that, in each moment, we are feeling a level of happiness or unhappiness (this is one of the links). Feeling a level of happiness or unhappiness or a neutral feeling in between is the way that we experience the ripening of our karma. 

Beings act with… you know, what is a sentient being? A sentient being is a being that acts with intention and that, based on intentional, motivated acts, builds up karmic aftermath, which then ripens into experiencing things with some level of happiness or unhappiness or neutral. A rock in the rain doesn’t experience the rain. You wouldn’t say that a rock is unhappy because it’s raining. It doesn’t experience the rain with unhappiness. You could say the rain is “happening,” but it doesn’t experience it. A computer processes data. It doesn’t feel… it doesn’t experience the data. It’s not happy when the program is running nicely and unhappy when there are bugs in the program.

Participant: It depends on which Indian school you’re talking about.

Dr. Berzin: We’re talking about the Buddhist definition.

Participant: I guess there’s one Indian school that believes in this – that the rock is unhappy in the rainfall.

Participant: I heard a negation of this.

Dr. Berzin: A what?

Participant: I heard it, and you read it. I heard the negation.

Dr. Berzin: Oh? When I read the verse?

Participant: Yes.

Dr. Berzin: No. The verse said, “Know that they arise” – to know something: Not n-o but k-n-o-w. Know that they arise from unawareness, karmic actions, and craving.

Participant: OK. I got it wrong.

Dr. Berzin: Well, that’s easy to confuse when it’s just spoken and not read.

OK. So, we experience some level of happiness or unhappiness with whatever happens to us – whatever it might be. Three people could experience looking at the wall or looking at a movie, and one person could experience it with happiness, another with unhappiness, another person neutral – neither happy nor unhappy.

Craving (Eighth Link)

Alright. Now, craving (sred-pa, Skt. tṛṣṇā; thirsting). Remember, Shantideva made a big deal about craving when he was refuting the position that an arhat, as defined in the Hinayana systems, actually achieves liberation. There’s a very complicated discussion about that in the ninth chapter of Shantideva’s text. His point was that there are still these feelings of happiness and unhappiness and so on that are associated with confusion, coming from confusion, and that based on that, one has craving. 

Craving is a strong wish, a strong longing desire not to be parted from happiness, to be parted from unhappiness, or for the neutral feeling that you experience in deep states of absorption to continue and not to degenerate. 

This craving doesn’t have to be conscious; it could be unconscious. Buddhism doesn’t make the same difference between conscious and unconscious as Western psychology does. Buddhism would explain the difference between the two in terms of how much attention accompanies the experience. If there’s very little attention, then you’re unconscious. If there’s a lot of attention, you’re conscious. So, when we are asleep, we are, one could say, unconscious. 

OK. Now, this is the first thing that activates the karmic aftermath. And we all experience it; that’s why samsara is perpetuated.

An Obtainer (Ninth Link)

Craving is followed by what’s called an “obtainer” (nyer-len-gyi yan-lag, Skt.upādāna), an obtainer disturbing emotion or attitude. It’s a disturbing emotion or attitude (and there’s a whole big, long list of them) that will obtain, or get, for us a future rebirth, further existence. 

The most common one is the one that identifies a solid “me” with what we’re experiencing. “I crave not to be parted from the happiness that I experience of seeing my relatives around me” (let’s say we’re dying), “or my loved ones around me.” Then, with this obtainer attitude, we identify this strong “me” with our bodies or with the “me” that possesses all these friends and loved ones, and we don’t want to let go. But that activates – that combination activates – the karmic aftermath. 

Further Existence (Tenth Link)

Then you get what’s called “further existence” (srid-pa, Skt. bhava). It’s usually translated as “becoming,” which is a fairly meaningless translation. It is a further existence impulse, an impulse for further existence. In other words, it is an activated karmic impulse. It is an impulse to further exist in terms of another rebirth, usually, although, there are some explanations that explain that this is just what produces the next moment in a mental continuum. There is that explanation as well. But the more usual one is that it’s an impulse to go on to a further existence, to a samsaric rebirth. 

This is what then hurls the mental continuum out of the body as its support and into a bardo body (which is supported on subtle energy) and then into a future rebirth with the support of another physical basis, another body. And all the potentials and so on that have been built up on the mental continuum come with it. 

So, that is what produces the aggregates, what makes up our experience. 

This is the Buddhist explanation. And it’s presented in just a few words here in the text: “know that they,” referring to the aggregates, “arise from unawareness, karmic actions, and craving.”

Participant: When somebody dies, and he has his friends, and he craves for them – is this the cause for the impulse for existence?

Dr. Berzin: Well, there’s the craving not to be separated from happiness and then identifying with the “me,” the strong “me,” who possesses friends, and then having further desire to keep them.

Animals also Experience Craving at the Time of Death

Participant: OK. But it sounds to me like quite human behavior. But what is it with animals when they die? You know, a very stupid animal wouldn’t, I don’t think, have these kinds of thoughts to remain with…

Dr. Berzin: So, what about animals? Doesn’t the explanation here sound terribly human?” I think an animal certainly wants to continue living. When animals are brought to the slaughter, usually, they freak out. They can sense the other animals being killed; they can sense the fear. They have fear: they don’t want to be killed. They still identify with the body that they have and want to keep it. That’s why I say that these things don’t have to be terribly conscious.

Participant: So, it’s a fairly primitive instinct, maybe.

Dr. Berzin: It’s a primitive instinct. I think this activated karma, this further existence impulse, the West would call the “survival instinct.”

Participant: But don’t you have this also in the West.… you have this…

Dr. Berzin: You have what?

Participant: [Inaudible]

Dr. Berzin: I don’t know that word.

Participant: It’s a concept that people yearn for dying, for death.

Dr. Berzin: So, aren’t there instances where people yearn for death? Well, yes. But this is explained by the same mechanism. There is an experience of unhappiness or pain, and you crave to be parted from it. Then one of the obtainer attitudes can be one of the five deluded outlooks such as the extreme outlook, which in this case, would be the outlook, or view, that when you die, you’ll become nothing; nothing will follow. So, because you want to be parted from your pain, you long for death You want your life to be extinguished and to be free from your pain. Or the other one is that you think you’re eternal and that you’ll go to a paradise and that you’ll be happy. So, that’s included here.

Participant: Fed up.

Dr. Berzin: You’re fed up. That’s craving to be parted from unhappiness. Buddhism always includes the two extremes.

Participant: Then you don’t pray for another body.

Dr. Berzin: You don’t pray for another body; you pray for nothing. So, there’s a difference between eternalism and nihilism. With nihilism, you pray for a nothing.

Participant: You really don’t want.

Dr. Berzin: Exactly. You don’t want: you want the nothing.

Participant: And you don’t want a body.

Dr. Berzin:  You don’t want a body: you want a nothing. You want to go to nothing. So, then it’s grasping for the extreme of nihilism – nothingness.

Participant: But then how do you get another body?

Dr. Berzin: This activates throwing karma. And throwing karma is going to bring you future aggregates, regardless of whether you want them or not. That doesn’t matter.

Participant: Maybe you get reborn as a ghost. So, you have body, but still you have consciousness.

Dr. Berzin: You could be reborn as a ghost. You could be reborn as… as anything. This is, I must say, very complex. We have so much throwing karma. So, which configuration of throwing karma gets activated at the time of death? Why this configuration and not that configuration? That’s very difficult to explain. It certainly would be dependent on, probably, millions of factors – circumstances, conditions of other beings having the karma to be our parents, an environment that will support the particular lifetime… I mean, it’s incredibly complex. And when various lamas and so on say, “Yes, I can see that in a future life, you’re going to be reborn as this or that ”… it would take an awfully high level of attainment for that to be accurate.

Participant: For me, this is something that I cannot follow.

Dr. Berzin: Well, that’s something for all of us – that we can’t grasp how that actually works.

How Is It Possible That a Human Can Be Reborn as a Salamander?

Participant: How that fits, you know? If you have this throwing karma to get reborn as a salamander… How do you expect me to follow that?

Dr. Berzin: Well, exactly. That’s it. That’s just it. As you say, it’s very difficult for us to understand what the particular karmic causes for us to be reborn as a salamander could be. And what would the dying thoughts be that would activate that karma? I don’t think we have to think of a salamander at the time of death. Maybe you see that little insignia on some sort of designer clothing that has a salamander on it. I have no idea. I have no idea. These are very difficult issues.

Participant: But there must be beings who have this karma. Many, many have this karma to be reborn as a salamander.

Dr. Berzin: Yes. There are many beings that have the karma to be reborn as a salamander – as many salamanders as there are. There are beings who, in their previous lives, had the karma to be reborn as a salamander. Isn’t that true? That’s logic!

Participant: If they get extinct or…

Dr. Berzin: If salamanders become extinct like dinosaurs became extinct… Well, if you still have the karma to be reborn as a dinosaur, you could be reborn in another universe or another planet where the dinosaur life form is still available. 

Participant: It’s still in the shop.

Dr. Berzin: Yes, it’s still in the shop – not out of stock.

Participant: I have so much doubt about this.

Dr. Berzin: You have doubt about that. Well, good!  

But that’s why it’s very important to continually make prayers to be reborn with a precious human rebirth. That’s very important to include if we’re going to make dedication prayers – to include that one. Very important.

OK. Let us just reflect for a moment on these twelve links, and then we can go onto the next verse.

Basically, then, what Buddhism is saying is that what we experience arises dependently on all these very complex factors that are constantly – each one of them – affected by something else. This is basically what Buddhism is saying. If we’re in a samsaric situation, what we experience, ultimately, can be traced to our unawareness and all the karmic actions that we do based on that and the disturbing emotions that come from that. If we’re in an enlightened situation, enlightened phase of our mental continuum, what we experience would be motivated by compassion. Moved by compassion, we experience various situations in which we can be of help to others. Moved by compassion, we would manifest as a Buddha in this form or that form to help others. Dependent arising.

OK. That concludes the specific explanation within the main explanation here. Now we move on to the explanation of the actual path. And the actual path (this is all within the topic of discriminating awareness) is divided into an explanation of the three things that are incompatible with the path, then an explanation of perseverance, which is compatible with the path, and then the explanation of the three higher trainings that are the essence of the path.

The first verse here, then, is speaking about the three things that are incompatible with the path. The verse reads (this is verse fifty-one): 

[51] Holding deluded morality or conduct as supreme, viewing one’s body in a reverse way, and indecisive wavering – realize that these three yokes are barriers across the gateway to the city of liberation. 

OK. This is one of the reasons why I was saying that, although Nagarjuna’s speaking about the Mahayana path, he phrases things very often in ways that are very reminiscent of the Hinayana path. Here, it’s that he is referring to these three yokes. A yoke is what joins, or yokes, an ox to a cart. So, these are three things that yoke, or join, us in very horrible ways to samsara. These are “holding deluded morality or conduct as supreme, viewing one’s body in a reverse way” (this is referring to the deluded outlook toward a transitory network), “and indecisive wavering.” The first two are part of the disturbing attitudes. “Indecisive wavering” is hard to translate because it is neither an emotion nor an attitude, but it is a disturbing mental factor and is listed among the six root disturbing emotions and attitudes. 

• Holding deluded morality or conduct as supreme refers to considering some type of ethic or conduct that is not going to bring us liberation as one that will bring us liberation. The classic examples of this would be very sever aesthetic practices like starving oneself to death, standing on one leg for ten years or making human sacrifices or sacrificing chickens. So, it’s holding these types of deluded morality or conduct as being supreme methods for attaining liberation.

• Viewing one’s body in a reverse way refers to the deluded outlook toward a transitory collection, or network (referring to our aggregates), and identifying the “me” as being  either (1) identical to the aggregates – “I am my body; I am my mind” or; (2) the possessor of these things – regarding it as “mine”: “I own this body; I posses it. I can use it as mine for whatever I want.” This type of thing.

• And indecisive wavering is wavering between accepting or rejecting what is true or is fact. We can’t decide, “Is it this or is it that?” 

According to the commentaries, the deluded outlook of viewing one’s body in a reverse way would be not wanting to go on a path; holding deluded morality as supreme would be going on the wrong path; and indecisive wavering would be having doubt as to what is the right path. 

[1] Viewing One’s Body in a Reverse Way

The way that that’s explained is that, if we identify with this deluded outlook toward our aggregates – that there’s a solid “me” and that I am either my body or the possessor of my body – we wouldn’t want the type of liberation that Buddhism explains because that would be a liberation in which the static, partless, separable self, the solid “me” that we believe in, doesn’t exist. So, if we held this deluded view toward ourselves and really believed that there’s a solid “me,” we certainly wouldn’t want liberation from that. And that would be a serious hindrance that would yoke us, like an ox to a cart, to samsara. It would be like not wanting to go on the path. 

[2] Holding Deluded Morality or Conduct as Supreme

And if we held some sort of weird, strange behavior or ethic – like we should go out and sacrifice a hundred chickens or something like that, believing that’s what will bring us to liberation – that would be like going on the wrong path. We would never reach our destination that way. So, that’s a serious hindrance, or obstacle, that yokes us to samsara.

[3] Indecisive Wavering

The third one is indecisive wavering – so, having doubts as to what the right path is, being indecisive: “What’s the true path? Is it this one? Is it that one?” We constantly shop around. We can never make up our minds, so we never actually go on a path. That also very strongly yokes us to samsara, keeps us there. We’d never be able to make up our minds and actually go on the way to enlightenment.

The Three Yokes Are Basically a Hinayana Presentation

It’s interesting that Nagarjuna mentions these three yokes as “barriers across the gateway to the city of liberation” – in other words, they prevent us from actually going on the path to liberation. The reason why it’s a little bit noteworthy here is that these three are mainly pointed out in the Hinayana presentation of the path. The Mahayana presentation doesn’t emphasize these as being a group of three, doesn’t specify these three in particular. Where you find them in Hinayana is in the explanation of what you have to overcome in order to become a stream-enterer. 

There’s the classification system in Hinayana of stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner, and arhat. These describe stages of an arya. An arya is somebody who has had non-conceptual cognition of the four noble truths (to put it in the most general way that’s acceptable to the Hinayana as well) and has achieved the seeing pathway of mind, the path of seeing. 

To be a stream-enterer means that you’ve entered that stream that’s going to bring you to arhatship, to liberation, within seven lifetimes (according to the explanation of the shravaka path, the listener path). It’s within a maximum of seven lifetimes that you’re going to attain liberation. For a once-returner, it is only one more lifetime. A non-returner has no more lifetimes; they achieve liberation in that lifetime. And an arhat has actually achieved it. That’s the way that this shravaka path is presented. And they say that to achieve a stream-enterer, you have to overcome these three yokes. 

Well, if we look at a more detailed explanation, we can see that these three yokes refer to the doctrinally based disturbing emotions. Remember, we discussed the two divisions: the doctrinally based emotions and attitudes and the automatically arising disturbing emotions and attitudes. The doctrinally based ones are the ones that we learned from another system. We had to be taught these; we wouldn’t naturally have them. We could have doctrinally based grasping for the solid “me,” of course. We could have doctrinally based thinking to stand on one leg in order to gain liberation. We could have doctrinally based indecisive wavering. We’re taught many different things. It’s very confusing. Maybe we were told, “Well, don’t ever really decide. Always be an agnostic on this question.” Of course, we could have doctrinally based desire and anger and cling very strongly to our own view and want everybody else to hold it. We could have doctrinally based anger and declare that everybody who doesn’t agree with that view is a heretic and has to be burned. There are all sorts of doctrinally based disturbing emotions and attitudes, and there’s a large number of them. 

We don’t have to describe in great detail the Hinayana path here. It’s a little bit complex. But the point is that in order to achieve seeing pathway of mind, what you have to get rid of – what that first non-conceptual cognition of the four noble truths gets rid of – are the doctrinally based disturbing emotions and attitudes. Then you have to work on the automatically arising ones that everybody has, the ones that don’t have to be taught. 

And when these three yokes are pointed out, they are actually summarizing all the doctrinally based disturbing emotions and attitudes. It’s not that you just have to get rid of these three and that’s it. They summarize and represent all the doctrinally based disturbing emotions and attitudes. That’s why they are pointed out. They are specified exactly because of what it says in the commentaries: either you won’t want to go on the path, or you’ll go on the wrong path, or you’ll never make up your mind to go on the path. Because of that, they are very central to what you have to get rid of. So, it’s especially important to get rid of these disturbing attitudes that come from another system that you’ve been taught and developed.

OK? Any questions on that? Good. I think that’s fairly clear. 

So that is verse fifty-one – the explanation of the three “fetters” which is what they’re sometimes called, the things that cause problems, that are incompatible with the path: 

[51] Holding deluded morality or conduct as supreme, viewing one’s body in a reverse way, and indecisive wavering – realize that these three yokes are barriers across the gateway to the city of liberation.

The Importance of Investigating How These Three Attitudes Hinder Our Own Commitment to the Path

Now, let’s think about that for a moment. And I think that when we think about this, it’s important to investigate in ourselves what it is that keeps us from really putting our full hearts and energies into following the path. And wouldn’t it be this idea that, well, to actually achieve liberation, I’d have to give up this concept that I have of the solid “me,” you know, the one that I want everybody to love and the one that I want to succeed and all of that – that this would be gone? And does that, either consciously or unconsciously, prevent us from really putting our full hearts into the path? I think that for a lot of us, it does. We might not be willing to admit it, but I think that a lot of us feel like that: “I have to give up too much.” 

And what about following incorrect practices and thinking that that’s going to be what will bring us liberation and happiness, like, for instance, drinking or taking drugs or sex or whatever it might be? Or some type of strange morality – thinking that if we are physically fit and build our muscles, this will bring us ultimate happiness, so we don’t really go on the actual path. 

And indecisiveness…

OK? Well, these are the things to actually think about, not just in theory but in our own practice. Are there these three factors that prevent us from putting our full heart into the practice? And where do these come from? Are these things that are doctrinally based based on our experience? They might not necessarily come from Hindu philosophy but, instead, be based on all the advertising that we come across, various other types of propaganda that we are exposed to, such as from our society or from the cultural and religious beliefs that we might have been brought up with. 

OK? So, let’s think about that.

You have a question?

Dealing with the Three Hindrances, Using Analysis and Meditation

Participant: How do you deal with the hindrances?

Dr. Berzin: You deal with the hindrances by analyzing the four noble truths. So, you analyze: do I have a concept of a solid, substantial “me” that I identify with as, let’s say, the possessor of my friends and my family and that I want in all my lifetimes to always be with and to never be parted from (so you really don’t want liberation in that sense)? Then you would analyze: is there such a thing as this substantial “me”? Is it possible to actually hold on to this person or that person? You eventually realize that your concept doesn’t refer to anything real, that it’s totally unrealistic. 

Then we have the sixteen characteristics, or aspects, of the four noble truths to see whether a certain pathway of action or morality is something that is a compatible practice with the goal that you want to achieve. Is it a correct path, or are you following some sort of deluded idea of ethics and conduct? 

Indecisive wavering is overcome by using discriminating awareness, seeing, “OK, this is correct, and that’s incorrect. This will bring the goal; that won’t bring the goal,” and then decide. And why don’t we decide? You know, “Well, there’s this solid ‘me,’ so I’m afraid I’m going to make a mistake,” or “I don’t really know,” you know, just thinking in terms of me, “What should I do?” and so on. 

So, it all comes back to the analysis of voidness, basically, to overcome all of this.

Participant: Do you actually try to think it through – that decision – and then it automatically arises that you want to follow the path?

Dr. Berzin: The question is, “If you think it through, will it automatically follow that you will want to follow the path?” Well, if you’ve really analyzed it – yes and no. Yes and no. It depends on how thoroughly you’ve analyzed. Holding deluded morality or conduct as supreme and indecisive wavering – both of those only occur doctrinally based. They wouldn’t automatically arise, according to the Buddhist explanation. 

Indecisive wavering is probably not talking about, “should I wear a blue shirt or a grey shirt,” or “what should I have for supper.” I think it’s indecisive wavering about which spiritual path one should follow. And that has to be based on having been taught various things and being very confused. I think that’s primarily what it’s referring to. You wouldn’t automatically think to stand on one leg for ten years in order to gain enlightenment… or to sacrifice a chicken. Somebody would have to have taught you that. So, if you’ve analyzed to a certain extent what you’ve been taught, you realize that this is not true. 

The first one, though, the deluded outlook toward a transitory network (in other words, identifying “me” or “mine” with the aggregates) – that automatically arises. So, the analysis has to go much, much further, much deeper. But eventually, yes, it’s through analysis and familiarizing ourselves. 

The point of that is to gain understanding and conviction. And when we’ve gotten to the point where where it no longer appears as though we exist as this solid “me,” then it’s not just a matter of, “it appears like that, and I don’t believe in it”: it doesn’t even appear like that to us. Then we’re completely free of it. So, it’s a process of what we call “meditation” – familiarizing ourselves.