Recap
We have been studying this text, Wheel of Sharp Weapons or Throwing Star Weapon, by Dharmarakshita. This is the earliest text in the genre of mind training or attitude training, coming from India. It’s based on earlier works by Nagarjuna and Asanga, but here it’s put together in a specific type of practice. What this is practice is intended to do is to help us to change our attitudes; we need to change difficult circumstances that we have into a positive type of ones. The deepest way to do that is to change our way of dealing with difficult situations and we do this in terms of what’s known as exchange of self and others. We normally have the attitude with which we cherish ourselves, we think that we are the most important one and we ignore the needs of others. Because of that, we act selfishly – so not only thinking selfishly but then we act selfishly, we speak selfishly – which just causes problems and difficulties. This is because that leads to destructive patterns of behavior and destructive patterns of interacting with others can go to the extreme of stealing, killing and raping and so on. But it can also be in terms of just hurting others with our behavior with our way of speaking to them – saying cruel things and so on. This is because we feel that we are the right ones, we always have to have our way and anybody who differs with us has to be put down.
What we do with this type of practice is to first of all identify that this self-cherishing attitude is the real enemy – this is the thing that’s causing all our difficulties. Whereas if we were to think of others and the welfare of others, this is a source of things going well – harmony and happiness. This is not only on the level of people liking us because we think of them and are considerate of them and not selfish, but also on a longer-term basis, particularly when we think in terms of karma in the Buddhist sense. We are facing different types of problems. These can be disturbing emotions; for example, we are experiencing a great deal of greed of attachment, or we’re experiencing jealousy, or we’re experiencing anger – these are the things that the text itself speaks about. But we can also take it on the level of when we’re experiencing sickness or losing our job or whatever it might be. Instead of having a very limited point of view of thinking, “Poor me, this is my problem, how terrible, I’m the only one with this” – thinking in all sorts of inappropriate ways based on that state of mind or that suffering that we’re experiencing – we think in terms of everybody who has a similar type of problem. This is because things like anger or greed or jealousy are not our problem alone.
Everybody has the same type of problem. We think in terms of problems that face not just us but, for instance, our family or our nation, or all women or all men. This is a problem that all women face and so, “I am a woman so it’s my problem as well, so I think in terms of everybody who has that problem.” Or “I’m German” or “I’m American” or “I’m Colombian” or whatever we might be and then we think of the problem that all German or all Americans or all humans experience – and all animals as well in terms of global warming. In that sense, we take responsibility that this is a problem that I need to deal with. In this way, we take the problem of others, we expand our scope and thinking in terms of everybody – that gives us a great deal of courage and strength. When we’re thinking in a very limited way, just about “me,” our strength is very small; we don’t really have courage, we tend to be very depressed and overwhelmed by that. But if we think in terms of everybody, that’s a very courageous act – to think in terms of everybody who has that. That gives more strength – this is the way His Holiness the Dalai Lama explains this facet of the teaching.
So, there’s a big difference in terms of the strength that is involved with the wish for everybody to overcome a problem, as opposed to the strength of the wish of just, “May I overcome that problem.” In this way, take on the problem of everybody, when we have that problem and try to give a solution – whatever that solution might be – to all others. The text does this in several parts. The first part of it is speaking about various types of sufferings that we experience. It points out the karmic cause for it – in other words, the type of behavior that we have done in the past that would result in experiencing this type of problem. The point of it is that if we have doing that type of behavior in the past, then that’s a pattern that we are likely to be repeating in some way or another. So, it identifies something in our behavior that’s perpetuating this problem.
Then the point points out a way to change our behavior or our attitude, our way of thinking – whatever it might be – that would help us to stop that cycle of perpetuating this problem. We think in terms of not just “me” having this problem and how I would need to modify my behavior to overcome it, but we think of everybody having that as well. We think in terms of taking on that problem universally and giving the solution universally. That’s the first part of the text – we’ve covered this already. The main focus, then, is on overcoming the self-cherishing attitude.
The second part of the text that we also have finished now is going deeper than the self-cherishing attitude that makes us selfish, and we act selfishly based on that; it goes to the level of our misconception about ourselves, of how we exist – who we are and how we exist. This is known, in Buddhist jargon, as grasping for a “true self.” In other words, we imagine that we exist as some sort of solid entity and that is really “me,” that’s the true “me” – therefore it’s called the true self – but actually it’s just a projection and it’s not referring to anything real. And so, ironically that true self is actually a false self – it doesn’t exist at all. Of course, we are not denying the conventional “me” when we discuss all of this: we do exist but when we speak about this so-called true “me,” the “true self” – that’s an inflation of the “me.” In psychology, we speak about a healthy ego and an inflated ego. How that correlated with the Buddhist concept here is that a healthy ego is thinking of ourselves in terms of the conventionally existent “me” – the one that does exist – and on this basis of a healthy sense of the conventional “me,” we take responsibility for our lives: we get up in the morning, we get dressed, we support ourselves and we enter into healthy relationships with others. It’s on that basis that we can develop the courage and strength to help others and to strive on a spiritual path toward liberation and enlightenment. So, that sense of the conventional “me” is extremely important, extremely essential, in Buddhism; without it, we would never strive to improve ourselves, we would never strive to help others. We just lie in bed, basically – watch television or something like that.
The inflated ego, from a psychological point of view, refers to thinking of ourselves in terms of this false “me” – the so-called “true me,” in other words – this “me” who is the center of the universe, the most important one of all and who always has to have his or her way. “Everybody has to pay attention to me,” or if we’re shy, “Everybody has to ignore me” – it could work either way. “I have to get served first,” “I have to get the best seat,” “me, me, me” – this type of sense of a “me.” We need to identify that this is the real troublemaker – this misconception – it lies beneath this whole self-cherishing. It’s the basis for the self-cherishing attitude, for acting selfishly – because we think that there’s a solid “me,” therefore I want to be selfish and get my way.
The second part of the text has gone through many examples of how we have very noble aspirations and wishes for various good things to happen, but they don’t happen. Why don’t they happen, or why does the opposite turn out? It’s because of this misconception about ourselves. Here, in the second part of the text, what we want to do is to smash that misconception. That misconception is so strong, it’s so deeply embedded, we are so habituated to it, that it takes a great deal of not only courage but a great of strength and force to break that habit. We need to realize that this is completely this is ridiculous. This is ridiculous, this is not based on anything real – this is an inflation, a projection.
We use an image here, which we find in Buddhism, or a very strong, forceful figure called Yamantaka. Yamantata is the forceful form of Manjushri; Manjushri is yet another figure that represents the wisdom of all the Buddhas, specifically the discriminating awareness of the Buddhas. That means the state of mind that’s able to discriminate clearly and decisively between what is true and what is false; what is reality and what is fantasy; what is appropriate behavior and what is inappropriate behavior. We need to be able to discriminate clearly and cut off the negative habits, the negative way of thinking – the one that’s false.
Yamantata is therefore a very forceful image of this discriminating awareness that is able to cut through the negative habits. Now, some people might think of Yamantaka as an external figure that we can invoke to help us and, in a sense, one could gain inspiration from thinking about this image. However, on a deeper level, Yamantaka is representing the strong energy that we all have within ourselves that we can call upon to cut through the garbage and just stop it. Yamantaka has so many arms and so many legs and heads and so on and flames all around him and so on, so it’s very forceful image. The various legs and arms that he has and heads that he has, stand for various aspects of the teaching. It is really symbolizing or representing all the different aspects of the teachings. He has, for instance, 16 legs: these are the aspect of the different types of voidness of various different types of things – it’s represented by the 16 legs; and he has 34 arms and body, speech and mind making 37 and there are 37 specific practices that one does on the path to liberation of enlightenment. He has nine heads, which stand for the nine different divisions of the Buddhist texts and two horns which stand for the two truths – this sort of things. Every aspect of this figure represents one aspect of the entire scope of the Buddhist teachings, which we’re calling upon, within ourselves, to overcome our misconceptions, our confusion. This is what’s often called ignorance, unawareness: we either don’t know how things exist, specifically ourselves; or we think things exist in a way which is just the opposite of how things do exist.
This is the main focus, then, in the second part of the text. After working on the self-cherishing attitude, we work on the self-grasping: grasping for this true “me,” which is called the true enemy – something that is our internal enemy, which is really causing us all of our difficulties. In fact, it’s what is causing everybody all their difficulties and all the problems in the world: this is what causes people to be greedy, this is what causes people to be inconsiderate of others in terms of the environment or whatever.
Calling on Yamantaka to Free Us from Self-Grasping
We just finished that second section and now we begin the next section of the text. We had started to explain this with verse 91 last time. In our explanation of verse 91 we can answer your question which is, what is this false conception of the self. We have been looking at two translations that I had done: one done back in 1973 or ‘74, which was a poetical translation, not terribly literal; and then a more recent translation that I did last year, which is a literal translation of the text. Now, the poetical translation, verse 92:
O mighty destroyer of selfishness-demons. With body of wisdom unchained from all bonds, Yamantaka, come brandish your skull-headed bludgeon of egoless wisdom of voidness and bliss. Without any misgivings, now wield your fierce weapon and wrathfully swing it three times round your head.
In the more literal translation, which is what we explain here:
(O Yamantaka), endowed with a Blissfully Gone (Buddha’s) Dharmakaya, destroyer of the demon, the view of a “true self” – oh, wow – (o you,) with strength and force and possessing a skull-headed bludgeon – the sharp weapon of your actions of no “true self” – circle it three times round your head, with no indecision.
As we explained last time – I’ll just review it briefly – Yamantaka (we’ve already explained who he is) is endowed with a Buddha’s Dharmakaya. Dharmakaya is referring to the omniscient mind of a Buddha and the infinite compassion of a Buddha and all the knowledge of skillful methods to be able to help others and so – so it’s the omniscient mind of a Buddha. In that sense, Yamantaka represents the wisdom of the Buddhas. The Buddhas are referred to here as “Blissfully Gone” – that’s the Sanskrit word “sugata.” That means that a Buddha has become a Buddha, going toward Buddhahood on a path which is blissful – in other words, the more constructive and the less destructive, then as a result you experience more happiness. So, it’s a blissful path, not a path of self-torture or something like that. When one reaches the state of a Buddha, then it is a state of supreme bliss – a bliss of being totally free of all obscurations, all limitations and so on. So, we invoke Yamantaka, calling on this force within us; that also is referring to an aspect of Buddha nature, because Buddha nature is referring to many different aspects within all of that will allow us to become a Buddha. Basically, the mind is such that it is capable of encompassing everything. It is now limited because of various obscurations that we have – confusion and habits and so on – but in its nature, it is perfectly clear and perfectly capable – like a mirror reflecting everything with understanding.
Yamantaka is representing this potential within us to be like that. It is described as the “destroyer of the demon, the view of a ‘true self’.” In Buddhism – particularly the Tibetan form and in India as well, where it’s deriving from – we often speak of demons. Demons are not necessarily actual beings living around and carrying pitchforks and stuff like that; a demon represents something that is very destructive – a destructive force – that can be quite powerful and can influence us to act in very negative types of ways. These can be external negative influences; they can also be internal negative influences from our own habits, our destructive habits. Here, the demon is the view of a “true self:” this is this misconception about ourselves, and Yamantaka is the one that destroys that, that overcomes that. In other words, if we can have clarity of mind and strength and also compassion and love, which gives even more strength to us, as we discussed in the giving and taking process, then that is what is able to destroy that demon, that misconception about ourselves. Then the text says, “Oh, wow” – it’s like an onomatopoetic word that’s there; that’s why I translated it as, “Oh wow,” sort of “ha!” so strength. That precedes “(o you,) with strength and force” – so Yamantaka has this strength, has this force and we have that.
It’s very important to gain a sense of self-confidence that we are able to do all of this. We have two psychologists with us today. If I can speak from a psychological point of view, based on some things that I’ve learned from some psychologist friends of mine: if you are able to give, this helps you develop self-confidence in the sense of self-worth. Even if there’s very little that one can offer but, let’s say, as a parent, you allow a destructive child or teenager to actually do something for you and acknowledge that they have given something, that they have done something, this helps to develop self-esteem in the person. It helps develop a sense of self-confidence, a sense of self-worth – that they do have something positive that they can offer and not just be a “loser,” a terrible person or whatever. In doing the type of practices that have been described all along in the text – this giving and taking – we actually are imagining that we are giving to everybody a solution of how to change their behavior. We’re giving them the wisdom to overcome their destructive habits and so on by reinforcing this sense of giving, through these meditation practices.
I think that this helps to develop this strength and force of Yamantaka within us. As I was saying before – just explaining how His Holiness the Dalai Lama explains this – it gives you courage. That’s the main point actually of this giving and taking practice, because it’s hardly likely that it will actually work – that we’ll actually be able to relieve others of their problems and actually give them happiness. This is because, after all, it’s up to the other person to understand and to take our advice and to actually follow it. We can’t just remove others’ suffering and confusion like pulling a thorn out of a foot – Buddha said that. If that were possible, Buddha would’ve done that already, so it’s not possible. People have to understand themselves. You can explain, you can help provide the circumstances so that they can gain insight into themselves, but you can’t understand it for them. They have to understand it themselves. This is true not only in psychology but it’s true in Buddhism as well: they have to understand, they have to realize what’s the problem and they have to change their way of thinking, they have to change their behavior. It’s up to them. But we nevertheless develop very strong strength and courage through this type of practice of giving and taking.
And so, we refer to Yamantaka – the one “with strength and force,” who possesses “a skull-headed bludgeon.” Each of these Buddha figures is holding something, which represents something; a bludgeon is like a big, thick stick that you use to hit somebody, like a club. Manjushri is holding a sword, for instance, to cut through the ignorance and the sword has flames and light coming out of it, to bring clarity. Yamantaka is holding this “skull-headed bludgeon” – let’s say a club that has at the end of it a skull. This is the type of images that are used very much in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, to represent getting down to the bare facts of what is actually there and not covering it over with nice, pretty looking skin and face and stuff like that. This is the objective truth of what is going on. Skeletons can also be used to help us, as an image, to be mindful of death and impermanence and therefore not to lose time and to develop sympathy and empathy for everybody, because everybody faces the same problem of sickness and old age and death and so on.
Understanding Voidness and the Misconception of “Me”
Here, according to the commentaries, the skull-headed bludgeon that Yamantaka’s holding also represents his understanding of voidness with a blissful awareness. In other word, when you understand voidness, voidness is referring to an absence of impossible ways of existing. We imagine that things exist in all sorts of impossible ways – both ourselves and others – and voidness is referring to, “There is no such thing” as what our fantasies would refer to – that’s impossible. I used the example last time of a fantasy of Santa Claus: we can believe in Santa Claus, we can project Santa Claus onto somebody that is wearing a red costume and a white beard, but that projection is not referring to anything real: there is no real Santa Claus. Nevertheless, there is a person who exists who looks like Santa Claus – he’s dressed like Santa Claus – we’re not denying that. But we have to realize that an actual reference to our fantasy, to our projection, is absent: no such thing – not there, never was, never will be.
This is what voidness is referring to: that absence, total absence. There is no such thing. That’s what has to really sink in – and that’s not so easy, as we might know. I just recently lost my keys to my house, which is always a terrible difficult situation. It’s hard to accept or believe that you’ve lost it and so you continue to look for them. It takes a long while for it to actually sink in, because you don’t want to accept that you lost them. It’s worse when you think in terms of the concept of a true solid “me.” When we realize this, we want to realize it with the most powerful state of mind. This, in the most advanced practices of Buddhism, is a blissful state of mind that we can produce in various types of ways, which is going to help us to get down to the most subtle level of mind that understands this absence. You don’t want the level of mind that is wandering all over the place with all sorts of wild thoughts; you want a very focused mind that can stay on this and that’s a state of mind that’s very blissful. If it’s a very disturbed, unhappy state of mind – you can’t really focus very well.
This skull-headed bludgeon is a sharp weapon – which is a little bit strange because a bludgeon is not sharp, but, in any case – it’s a sharp weapon, it says, of your actions of no “true self.” This is where we get to the answer to your question: no “true self.” This is referring to no “true self” or identity with reference to both people and too all things. That’s what we were discussing in a little bit more detail last time, which is referring first of all to people – both ourselves and others. We tend to think of ourselves in many different levels of impossible ways. One level can be that there’s a “me” who is not changing, never changes, is always the same and is unaffected by anything; and doesn’t have various parts or aspects but is just one solid thing. That “me” can be identified with some part of ourselves – of our body or our mind – and we can be stuck with a very solid identity.
It could be, for instance, thinking about ourselves as eternally young, unaffected by age. You look at yourself in the mirror when you are 50 and 60 years old and think, “That’s not me.” Our self-image of ourselves is not somebody with a wrinkly face and grey hair and overweight. Our image of ourselves is still of when we are in our 20s and we still think that we as attractive to others as when we were that age; it is inconceivable that other people, when they look at us, see what we see in the mirror when we look at ourselves. That’s the strange thing: you don’t actually see what you look like when you’re walking around in daily life and so we don’t think that we look the way that we actually look – so like that, a solid “me” that’s unaffected by age, unaffected by anything, always the same. It is also something that many people identify with their weight, whether that is their actual weight or an imagined weight. For example, people who think that “I am fat;” regardless of how much they weigh, they think they’re still fat – people with anorexia. Or people who think, “I am ugly,” “I am weak,” that “I am this” or “I am that” and they base their identity completely on one thing.
There’s another aspect of this of having no parts. There are people who identify with one aspect of themselves. It could be their profession: “I am a doctor” and that’s all that they think that they’re a doctor. Or “I’m a mother,” or “I am this race or that race,” or this nationality or that nationality. Or “I’m a women,” or “I’m a man,” or “I’m gay” – whatever it might be. Very often people think of themselves as having this one singular identity; that’s the only thing that really counts about themselves. This also is obviously false. There is no such thing, nobody exists that way. We are many things and have many different aspects. Also, we tend to think of a solid “me” which is somehow separate from our body and mind. For instance, there are a lot of people who could look at other people and say, “I wish I could look like that, I could have that person’s body;” or “I could have that person’s mind, a mind like that” – as if there were a “me” separate from our own body and mind that could somehow change and take another one.
So, we have this concept of a “me” that’s separate from the body and mind; or we can have a concept of a “me” – and these are all false – that somehow lives inside my body and inside my mind and is the boss. It’s the one talking in my head all the time and it’s the one that wants to be in control all the time and wants to have everybody pay attention to him or her. It’s the one that, like in a cartoon, is sitting behind the control board and information is coming in on the computer screen from the eyes and on the amplifiers from the ears and they sit at the control panel and then they press the buttons to manipulate the mouth to say, “Ooh, now I’ll say that,” or “Now I’ll go to the store,” or “Now I’ll do this.” They press the button and the body goes there. This is quite weird. Or people who think of themselves separate from their body or feelings: “I’m out of touch, I’m out of contact with my feelings,” “I’m out of contact with my body.” People even think, “I’m out of contact with myself,” which is very weird, if you think about that. So, again, alienation and all of that is based on thinking of this somehow separate “me.”
In addition, on a deeper level, we could have a misconception of a “me” – and we covered all of this last time – that can be known all by itself, separate from any basis that you’d have to know at the same time. When we speak about the conventional “me” – the one that actually exists – from a Buddhist point of view, that “me” is what can be labeled on the basis of body, mind, feelings, emotions and so on. In other words, we have a continuum of physical sensations, sights, sounds, hearing and seeing and thinking thoughts, feelings of happiness, unhappiness, emotions and so on – this whole network of these things, moment to moment, a little bit like a movie. And what is the “me?” The “me” is what can be labeled on it. It’s like if you have scenes in a movie, you could label is as the movie Star Wars. Well, what is Star Wars? Star Wars is not the name “Star Wars;” Star Wars is what that name refers to on the basis of all those scenes. But there is no Star Wars separate from all the scenes of the movie, is there? And no one scene is the whole movie. It’s the same thing with “me:” we have all these different moments of experience of an entire life and “me” is what can be labeled on that. It’s not the word “me;” it’s what the word refers to. Let’s take a moment to digest that.
We can an example here: we experience a moment of “I want something” – it could be a material object; it could be another person. “I want you,” for example. When we think that, it’s as if there’s a solid “me” and a solid “you;” a solid “me” who wants a solid “you” – two things here. But what actually is going on is that there is a moment of experience – maybe several moments – in which there is mental consciousness and a mental object – thinking about another person. That thinking process in accompanied by a wish – a mental factor of wanting something – and it probably is also mixed with attachment of longing desire or greed or something like that, which is another emotion that’s there. That’s all that’s happening – that’s what’s there – and we label on top of that, “me,” “I want.” We make that a solid “me” – the same “me” who wanted something else, who did other things, as if it were a solid entity.
We think in terms of the other person as well like that. What is the other person? The other person is a huge, long continuity of experiences and or experiencing, of this and that influenced by this and that. We make into some solid entity – “you” – and “I want you.” Of course, those continuums of experiences can interact with each other – that would be very pleasant. But as soon as we make solid things out of “me” and “you,” then we get into trouble: we make unreasonable demands, we feel very upset when we don’t have the other person, we miss them, we want them; they don’t follow what we want from them, they do other things, and we get very upset. “You don’t love me” – this type of thing. Now, on a deeper level, as I was saying, we tend to think of a “me” that can be known separate from everything: separate from the body, the mind, the feelings and so on, all by itself. If we think about that, that’s really weird. But we have that feeling. “I want you to love me for me; not for my body, not for my money, not for my intellect – love me,” as if there were a “me” that could be loved separate from all these things. How could there be a “me” that’s loved separate from all these things?
Or “I know you – I know Silvia.” What do I know? I can’t Silvia without knowing the name at the same time; I can’t think of you without thinking of the name or a mental image or the sound of your voice. “Ah, that’s Silvia on the telephone” – well, it’s actually a vibration of some electronic metal thing inside a box; not only do I call that “Silvia’s voice,” I call that “Silvia” herself. It’s really strange. But we think like that: that I can know “you,” I see “you,” and I want “you” to love “me.” That can make you crazy: you get frustrated, “Nobody loves me.” These are misconceptions.
Then, on an even deeper level, we think that there’s something inside “me” and inside “you” that makes me “me,” that makes you “you;” that makes “me” special, that makes “you” special – as if there were something findable in there that by its own power is making me “me.” There is nothing; that also is a fantasy. “I have to find myself,” “I have to express myself” – this sort of drive that we have is based on this misconception. We can be creative, of course, but when you’re tortured about, “Nobody appreciated me for myself because I have to express that self and be unique, be this or that” – that can also drive you quite crazy.
These are the misconceptions that the weapon that Yamantaka – this embodiment of strong wisdom – smashes. We can also have this about objects, as well, not just people – and animals and so on. “My car – special!” or “my computer” – as if there were something solid about it that was never changing, which from its own side made it what it was. Things don’t exist that way, they don’t exist that way. A computer is made up of all of the parts, so where is the computer? Is the computer any of the separate parts? No. Is there a computer separate from the parts? No. What’s the computer? What it is you’re so attached to? We have this misconception about everything that we experience, and this is what we need to cut through. That is described here by this line: “the sharp weapon of your actions of no ‘true self’,” so Yamantaka – and this is something that we can do – is the one that cats on that basis of realizing that thing don’t exist in this weird way that we imagine them to exist. If we are imagining things to exist in all these solid ways, then often what happens is that we just bang into things, in a sense. If you realize that things dependently arise on the basis of so many different factors, so many different influences, we can go much more easily through life.
Buddhist Understanding of Love
Now, we have a question from somebody. Carlos asks: how Buddhists explain when one falls in love with another and is not able to think about anything other? Is it some sort of chemical reaction in the brain or something else? Well, falling in love certainly must have a chemical basis that’s going on – a hormonal basis – there’s certainly something like that going on in the brain and the hormonal system. You can’t deny that. But one can’t say that that is the whole cause of what’s going on – that’s just the physical explanation of what’s going on. You can talk about pheromones and this sort of things: the smell of the other person somehow fits harmoniously with something in our own sensory system – sure, that is this sort of things, but we can exaggerate – which we usually do – the other person.
This is a very good example: “I love you; you are the special one.” Now, we may have a very strong relationship with the other person – that’s very true, no one is denying that. No one is denying there can be biological, sexual type of things going on – of course, there are these types of things. But an awful lot of it is mixed with projection: we tend to see the other person as only having good qualities, our quite blind to their shortcomings and that can cause a lot of difficulty, actually, later on. Because one tends to project this “prince or princess on the white horse” onto the other person – “they are the perfect one.” Also, if it’s a sexual type of relation that’s involved, often that takes on more importance than anything else in terms of being compatible with the other person and so one exaggerates that aspect of the relationship very often, in terms of falling in love. Because there are all sorts of hormones and things involved, it makes you feel good, so naturally you want it to continue. But what also comes along with feeling good is that it feels horrible when you’re not with the person. When you miss the person and if they say any small thing that suggests that they’re rejecting you or ignoring you, then you experience horrible pain. So, it’s not the most stable level of falling in love, but it’s certainly a very exciting type of experience.
What we would aim for would be a much more stable type of love, which eventually often comes in relationships, in which you acknowledge the other person’s weaknesses and limitations in addition to their strong points. You love the person as a person – a complete person – with all the various aspects, with all the warts and the pimples and all these things, not just as being the ideal beauty. But it’s a very good example of how we think in terms of a solid “you” and a solid “me,” and “I love you.”
Words and How Things Exist
There’s nothing wrong with mental labeling and names, otherwise we can’t communicate; language is based on words and names. There’s nothing wrong with language; Buddha used language to teach, so obviously, that’s not the problem. The problem is that words refer to objects, but the objects don’t correspond to the words. Let me explain that. When I use the word “teacher” – well, it refers to something. It refers to this person who is fulfilling this function in society and society has agreed on this combination of sounds – “tea-ch-er” – to have a meaning. You have to have a convention like that that the society accepts. It has a meaning, and they use it and this person is fulfilling that function and anybody who sees them and knows the person would agree – they’re a valid source of information. So, it refers to something. But things don’t correspond to words, which means that words give the impression of boxes – and so there is the box “teacher,” there’s the box “doctor” there’s the box “foreigner,” and so on. Okay, somebody may in fact be a foreigner – they weren’t born in this country – so the word “foreigner” refers to something. But there isn’t this box that they are then inside and nothing else. The box could have all sorts of things associated with it that might not pertain to this person, just because it’s defined in the dictionary as this or that and the society has this or that prejudice. This is absurd.
Words refer to things, but the world doesn’t exist in these categories and boxes, as if the categories and boxes were established from the side of objects. That’s the whole point: the boxes and categories are not established from the side of objects; they’re established from the side of the mind. The mind uses categories and words and things to make sense of the universe – you have to – and to communicate. It’s all coming from the side of the mind, not from the side of objects. The example that I always use is with colors – I think this is the most obvious and easy to understand example. The colors red, orange and yellow – well, they’re merely conventions. You have a spectrum of light; there aren’t very clear walls on the side of the spectrum of light that says, “On this side of the wall, this number of vibrations of whatever it is, is red and the other side if orange.” There’s nothing on the side of light that divides it into colors. It’s all convention from the mind and different people will make the border differently. You ask two people, “What color is this, is this red or orange?” and you’re likely to get two different answers. Certainly, different societies are going to divide the color spectrum differently. I mean, the Eskimos are supposed to have about 100 different words for different shades of white. That I think is a very clear example of what we mean by mental labeling. These words that we use refer to something – it’s not that they refer to nothing – but from the side of the object, there aren’t these boxes, set up from the side of the object.
Now, that’s very important when we start to deal with people as well. “You are a terrible person,” “You are a good person,” “You are this or that” – well, that’s a mental label. Conventionally, they could’ve done something that was not very nice, but there’s nothing on the side of them that inherently makes them a wonderful person or a rotten person. It’s all relative; everything is relative. The Dalai Lama used a wonderful example with your fingers. He said, the fourth finger – is it a long finger of a short finger? Well, it’s long compared to the little finger, but it’s short compared to the middle finger, so there’s nothing on the side of the fourth finger that makes it short or long. It’s only short or long in relation to something else. There’s nothing really establishing anything from its own side as this or that; it’s all in relation to other things and in relation to labels, words.
One could work with this, but for it to actually sink in, for it to actually be how we see the world and how we experience things – that takes an awful long time. We need a lot of strength and courage to remind ourselves, especially when we are feeling sorry for ourselves. “I don’t have this,” “I want that,” “You didn’t call me,” “You said that to me” – in these situations, this is the strongest medicine from being able to just cut the garbage – as we say in English, cut the crap. Cut it! This is based on complete nonsense.
Calling on Yamantaka to Free Us from Self-Grasping (Continued)
Then, the last line is, “Circle it three times round your head, with no indecision.” The three times that he circles it around his head: the first one is for the grasping for the solid “me” – to smash that. Then the second time is to smash the self-cherishing attitude, since that’s what comes from this grasping for a solid “me.” Then the third time is what’s called the tainted aggregates – in other words, all the experiences of life that we have that are mixed with this selfishness and that are mixed within all the problems that come from it and which just perpetuate more and more problems. Those are known as the tainted aggregates – the aggregates are what makes our experience: the body, mind, emotions. “Aggregate” just means a collection, a network of things; and they’re tainted in the sense that they are mixed – like with ink on a cloth – with confusion and just perpetuate more. It makes more confusion. They come from confusion – “I’m so confused, this isn’t going well in my life, and I really haven’t gotten things together” – all your daily experience is tainted like that; and in your confusion, you just make more.
So, these are the three times that he circles it around his head and “with no indecision” – that’s a very important point, because it’s when we are indecisive – “Is this true, is this not true, well maybe and so on” – that we don’t act, we don’t stop the negative behavior. In order to get decisiveness, we need to either be convinced by logic that this is absolutely true – that the other, false way of thinking doesn’t make sense at all – and some actual, firsthand experience. Now, depending on the person, it could be more the logic side or more the experiential side, but you need both, actually. The experiential side – you need the logic to understand it; and the logic side – you need some experience that it actually is so. We need both, in a sense and that helps us to become more decisive. It’s like finally, when we decide; “Yes, it is true, I have lost my keys. Now what do I do?” Or “Yes, it is true that there is no chocolate in the house” – you look and you look and you look and there is none – so, decisiveness, it’s finished.
So, this is the verse. It’s a very powerful verse with many things in it, but let me just read it once and then we’ll take a moment to think about it:
(O Yamantaka), endowed with a Blissfully Gone (Buddha’s) Dharmakaya, destroyer of the demon, the view of a “true self” – oh, wow – (o you,) with strength and force and possessing a skull-headed bludgeon – the sharp weapon of your actions of no “true self” – circle it three times round your head, with no indecision.
When we deal with this type of issues, please bear in mind that Buddhism is – in this sense, this type of topic – not the first thing that one would teach somebody who is really psychologically disturbed. This is really for somebody who already has some sort of sense of a healthy ego. You can’t start to work on eliminating the misconception of the false self until you have a stable foundation of the conventional self. There are various methods of psychology – and Buddhism has some methods as well – to help disturbed people to establish a stable, healthy ego, sense of self and being able to take responsibility for their lives and so. That is very essential as the first level. Buddhism teaches about Buddha-nature and this sort of things as it’s a way of dealing with this issue. Then on the basis of that, you can help the person to overcome misconceptions about themselves. That’s an important thing to remember – you don’t give the strongest medicine to people who are weak and not able to take the strong medicine. You have to give much gentler methods and this is what speaking about as a quite advanced level, for people who are already fairly stable – quite stable, actually. To do this tonglen practice – this giving and taking – you have to be really stable; otherwise, you completely freak out or start to become a martyr – “I will take on the suffering of the world,” totally denying yourself. This is quite important to keep in mind, what level of practice this text is speaking about. It’s quite advanced.
Working with Compassion
The next verse adds another element here which is very important and that’s the element of compassion. The verse in the old translation, 93:
With all of your fierceness, come smash this foul enemy! Burst ego-concepts with your wisdom’s great might! With your boundless compassion, protect us from suffering the miseries caused by our self-centered actions; destroy our self-cherishing once and for all!
The literal translation, 92:
We beseech you, free us from this enemy, with your great ferocious force! We beseech you, smash this bad thought, with your great discriminating awareness! We beseech you, protect us from karma, with your great compassion! We beseech you, demolish (this) “true self,” once and for all!
“We beseech you” means really making a very strong request. As I said, it’s not so much to external thing but to ourselves: “Come on, I have to get it together,” “Get yourself together!” “I want to free myself from this enemy and it’s not just me, it’s everybody” – remember, we’re doing this in terms of everybody having the same problem. “Free me from this enemy” – with this strong force; it’s ferocious, it’s not going to give in. “Free me from this stupid misconception that’s causing me all my problems, that I’m so obsessed with, that I don’t want to give up” – “smash this bad thought, with your great discriminating awareness!” Just smash it so that it doesn’t keep on recurring. And then, “protect us from karma, with your great compassion!” Compassion is very important here. “Free us from karma” means from acting out impulsively – all the crazy things we do based on selfishness. Compassion is very important and compassion not only for ourselves, but also compassion for everybody.
This is something that is very noticeable with someone like His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I was recently watching the videos of a teaching His Holiness was giving, and you know how His Holiness tends to speak for a very long time when he teaches – for five minutes or so and then the translator has to translate. Sometimes it’s 10 minutes that he speaks and then the translator takes very good notes and then translates. While His Holiness is speaking, he can be speaking about the most complicated, difficult things and he’s explaining very clearly and very strongly. Then, while the translator is translating, he’s looking around at the different people around, smiling and radiating warmth and happiness and when he sees somebody that he recognizes, he giggles and like that. And then he’s totally back into explaining the most complicated, difficult things.
These two go together and that’s the thing one has to understand: having this strong understanding and clarity is based on the strength that this openness and this compassion and this love gives you. If you’re afraid – “Oh, will they understand? What will people think of me? What do I look like?” – like this, like that – then your strength is very weak. It’s very weak. But if you’re open to and loving and thinking of all the people there and radiating out this love and warmth to everybody and happiness – His Holiness is totally delighted seeing everybody there – seeing the people and so on, there’s certainly no fear or self-consciousness. That gives this tremendous strength and that is emphasized so much in Buddhism: the stronger the love and compassion that we have, the stronger the wisdom will be. It gives you the strength and the ultimate of course is bodhichitta. Bodhichitta is when your mind is based on love and compassion: you want everybody to be happy, everybody to be free from their unhappiness, based on total respect for everybody – we’re all equal, everybody wants to be happy and not unhappy. It’s taking responsibility to actually help them to do this and then realizing that the only way that I can really help them is to get over all my confusion and limitations – to gain this discriminating awareness, to gain this wisdom. That’s the only way so that I’ll know what would actually be best to help them and I’m not going to be caught up in ego trips and things like that in trying to help them. So, “I’ve got to cut through all this garbage in order to really help them” – and that gives the strongest type of strength.
This is what you can see with someone like His Holiness, because he’s just so relaxed and so warm and loving and it’s totally mixed with that clarity of mind and sharp explanation. There’s no contradiction; you don’t feel that there’s a contradiction. We’re not insensitive people, you can feel whether it’s sincere or not sincere. This is a very inspiring example, and the text refers to this when it says, “Protect us from karma, with your great compassion!” In other words, “Give me the wisdom, give me the understanding, so that I don’t act like an idiot all the time.” “Protect us from karma” – from building up more karma, from acting impulsively based on thinking “me, me, me,” whether it’s destructively or constructively. For example, “I do something nice for someone so that you love me, so that you will pay attention to me” – that’s equally perpetuating of problems.
Finally, “We beseech you, demolish (this) “true self,” once and for all!” In other words, get rid of this false concept, realize that it really is not referring to anything real – it’s like a demon inside, haunting me – so that I can really be of help to others.
So, that is this verse. I’ll read it just once more and then we’ll think about it for a moment and then end here:
We beseech you, free us from this enemy, with your great ferocious force! We beseech you, smash this bad thought, with your great discriminating awareness! We beseech you, protect us from karma, with your great compassion! We beseech you, demolish (this) “true self,” once and for all!
The Tibetans like this: it repeats the same thing in a type of poetical idiom that they use in Tibetan poetry. We’ll think about that for a moment and then we’ll end.
The more understanding that we have of voidness – there’s no such thing as a solid “me” and a solid “you” – the more compassion and love we’ll have, because we realize that there aren’t solid boundaries and walls around “me” and around “you.” With those walls gone, we realize that we are all in the same situation. There’s nothing special about me, nothing special about this one that I’m in love with, nothing special with that one who’s my enemy. It allows us to be open to absolutely everybody with equal concern for everybody, because we realize what is the reality. The reality is that we all want to be happy, and nobody wants to be unhappy, and we all are creating our own unhappiness; and how great it would be if we can get out of that. The more wisdom and more love and compassion you have; the more love and compassion you have, the stronger your wisdom. This is why Buddhism always emphasizes that you need the two together: compassion and discriminating awareness of voidness or reality. They reinforce each other and help each other more and more to become stronger and more stable.
Dedication
Let’s end here with a dedication. We think whatever understanding we’ve gained, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.