“I must achieve Avalokiteshvara’s enlightenment in order to enlighten all sentient beings; therefore, I am going to listen to the teachings on Avalokiteshvara yoga.”
The nuns can’t understand my mixture of the Sherpa and Tibetan languages. I am supposed to be speaking the Sherpa language, but somehow when I try to speak it the whole thing becomes a joke. So, these Sherpa people hear their own commentaries, according to their minds, and believe in that. They don’t check up amongst themselves as to whether it’s something that I said. It depends on how big a door there is in their ears and their mind.
When I stopped before, I was talking about two things: the nonexistent I and the I that exists. I was trying to clarify that, which is the first thing to understand. That is like the main gate. There is a nonexistent I and there is an existent I.
The existent I, or the general I, is the I that experiences happiness and suffering, the I that creates karma, the I that takes birth in samsara, the I that goes to enlightenment. That general I is empty. How is it empty? It is not empty of the I that exists but of the I that doesn’t exist.
For instance, take this vase, which exists. This silver vase is an existent vase, but it is empty of the nonexistent vase. For instance, it is empty of a golden vase because it is not a golden vase. It is silver. If you understand that, it is easy to understand that the I is empty of the nonexistent I. What is the nonexistent I? The truly existent I. The truly existent I is the object of the together-born thought. This term together-born thought has great meaning. This thought is the ignorance grasping the I, or dag dzin ma rig-pa, in Tibetan. The Tibetan Dharma term is condensed, and if you haven’t received any explanation of the ignorance grasping the I and translated the term word by word from a dictionary, you might understand that any thought of the I is negative and should be stopped. There is this danger if you haven’t received many teachings or read commentaries on it.
So, it actually means the ignorance believing the I to be truly existent. This is similar to the example of a silver vase. A silver vase is not empty of a silver vase, because it is a silver vase. But it is empty of the nonexistent vase. What is that nonexistent vase? A golden vase, because it is not a golden vase.
There are three different objects of the conception grasping the I. This is useful to understand.
The very gross one is the concept of I held by non-Buddhists, such as some of the Hindu sects. There are hundreds of Hindu sects. I don’t remember the specific names of the sects that hold the doctrine that the I has self-control, existing without depending on parts and without depending on causes and conditions.
So, I think I will first introduce this so that what they believe the I is becomes clear.
They believe that the I is permanent, one, and self-controlled, which means it doesn’t depend on parts or on causes and conditions. So, in that case, it has to permanent. Any phenomenon that doesn’t depend on causes and conditions has to be permanent. So they believe the I is permanent. In Hindu books, they talk about the I, or self, being permanent.
Actually, the I is not permanent. First of all, the I is not self-controlled, because it depends on causes and conditions. For instance, today’s I is caused by yesterday’s I and yesterday’s I is caused by the day before yesterday’s I. And this life’s I is caused by the previous life’s I. We can talk about the I in the same way we talked about the consciousness in the section of beginningless mind. The present life’s consciousness was caused by the previous life’s consciousness, today’s consciousness was caused by yesterday’s consciousness, and each split-second of consciousness was caused by the previous split-second of consciousness. This life’s consciousness is changeable in nature because it is caused by the previous life’s consciousness, which was also changeable in nature.
In a similar way, each split-second of the I, or self, is caused by the previous split-second of the I. This split-second’s I is changeable in nature. What has made it? It is made by the previous split-second’s I, which is changeable in nature. As the cause was changeable in nature, the result will also be changeable in nature.
In a similar way, since the tea that is made in the pot was changeable in nature, the tea that is poured into a mug is also changeable in nature. Why is the tea in the mug changeable in nature? Because its previous cause, the tea in the pot, was changeable in nature. Why was that changeable in nature? Because each of the materials gathered to make the tea—water, tea, milk—is changeable in nature.
The I depends on its cause and on conditions. The conditions can be the skandhas, such as the body and consciousness, and also the parents. Our present-life I is dependent on cause and conditions; it is not independent. The fertilized egg can be a condition, because it is in dependence upon this condition that your I can continue.
The I also depends on parts. How does the I depend on parts? The I depends on the parts of the body and on the parts of the consciousness.
How does the consciousness continue? In dependence upon its previous and future seconds of consciousness. If the consciousness did not depend upon the previous second of consciousness, there is no way the consciousness could continue. Consciousness would cease.
Take a simple example. Today exists by depending on the past time, yesterday, and on tomorrow. Without tomorrow, there can be no today. By depending on yesterday and tomorrow, today happens. That is how time continues. This is similar. If there were no tomorrow, there is no way today could happen. There is no way time could continue.
Use this example to understand the I in a similar way. How does the I exist and continue? By depending upon the previous and future seconds of the I.
It is very easy to understand if you use the time. What makes today change? The cause, yesterday, and also the possible result, tomorrow. Today is dependent on its cause, yesterday, and it is dependent on its result, tomorrow. When today finishes, it becomes yesterday, and tomorrow appears.
The meaning of permanence is something that is unchanging in each second, not affected by cause and conditions. Something that is permanent should not be causative. If something is causative, it is changeable in nature, changing within each second by cause and conditions. Since the I is changing in each second by cause and conditions, it is not permanent; and the I depends on parts. The I is not independent, because it does depend on cause and conditions and on parts.
The philosophical belief of the I as permanent, one, and independent is the object to be refuted, or negated. Even though there is no such I, it is believed that there is such an I. What has to be discovered is that this I doesn’t exist. This I has to be refuted. We have to realize there is no such permanent, [one], independent I.
There are then four Buddhist doctrines, though I don’t know their names in Sanskrit. The first doctrine is called je dra ma ba.1 The second is called do de pa.2 The third one is called sem tsam or Mind Only.3 The fourth doctrine is u ma or Middle Way.4 Again, these doctrines also have subdivisions.
There’s no need to talk in much detail, but the first three of these doctrines are all the same in accepting that the I is not permanent, one, and independent. The understanding of the I in these three doctrines is higher than and opposed to what the non-Buddhist religions believe. Although the conception of the I [held by] the three doctrines is completely wrong, it is much better than that of the non-Buddhists. Most of these doctrines believe that the I is self-existent. Even though they accept that I is dependent on cause and conditions and on parts, they still believe the I is self-existent. I won’t talk much on this point, but within these three doctrines, there are again different levels of conceptions. First is je drag ma ba; then do de pa, then sem tsam, Mind Only.
The understanding gets better and better. The understanding of the second doctrine is better than the first one, je drag ma ba; and the understanding of the nature of the I of the Mind Only doctrine [sem tsam] is much better than that of the second doctrine, do de pa.
The last one is u ma, the Middle Way doctrine. The Middle Way doctrine has two divisions: rang gyü5 and thäl gyur.6 The first Middle Way doctrine, rang gyü, has a much better understanding of the nature of the I than the other three doctrines, but it still accepts that the I is self-existent. Why does this doctrine believe the I is self-existent? Because it believes that when you search for the I in the skandhas, it can be found.
These philosophers say that by searching for the I, you can find it, so the I is self-existent. They also say that if the I could not be found, there would then be no way to relate to all the actions, good actions and bad actions. The subject who produces the action would not exist. They don’t know how to relate to actions. If there were no subject and only actions, it would be funny, like there being a creation but no creator. So, they have to accept a subject.
These philosophers say that if the I cannot be found, there is then no way to relate to all the actions. The whole thing about the I then becomes nonexistent. There is no I, no “my body,” no “my mind,” no “myself,” no “my happiness.” The whole thing becomes nonexistent. So, that is not true.
They believe that when you search for the I, it can be found. By accepting that, they believe the I is self-existent, even though they believe it is dependent on cause and conditions and on parts. Even though their understanding of the nature of the I is much better than the other doctrines, there is one subtle thing missing in their understanding. Why do they have to say that the I is self-existent? Why do they have to say that the I can be found? Because one subtle thing is missing in their understanding, which prevents them from realizing the absolute nature of the I.
They don’t accept that the I is merely labeled by thought. They believe that there is I from the side of the skandhas. This doctrine does accept that the I is a label. For instance, these philosophers accept that the mug is labeled by thought; that without depending on thought labeling the mug, there is no way the mug could exist. Their connotation of self-existence is a mug appearing to a non-defective mind as existing by the particular nature of the mug, without being labeled mug.
Thought can be defective because of wrong doctrines, or beliefs; and the senses can be defective because of disease and other things like that, so that you see things in the wrong way. The things that appear to defective senses and are labeled by them don’t exist, just like seeing this white mug as a flower.
The way these philosophers explain the existence of the mug is that the mug has to exist from its own side from the nature of the mug and as labeled by its appearance to a non-defective thought.
The main mistake that prevents these philosophers from realizing the nature of the I is believing that there is an I that exists from the side of the I. Or that there is an I that exists particularly from the nature of the I. This is saying the same thing, just putting it in a different way. This is their greatest fault. What fault stops these philosophers from realizing the absolute nature of the I? Believing there should be an I that exists particularly from the nature of the I. They think that if no I exists from the side of the I, the actions of I and everything else related to the I would not exist. It would become that nothing exists.
Nighttime is a very good time to talk about shunyata, when your mind is tired….
The greatest fault of these philosophers and what prevents their realizing the absolute nature of the I is believing that there is an I that exists from the side of the I, an I that exists particularly from the nature of the I.
This is the very subtle object to be refuted. This is the wrong object that appears to the together-born thought, and this is what we should realize doesn’t exist: the I that appears to the together-born thought as existing from its own side, without depending on being merely labeled by thought.
Now, the second Middle Way doctrine is called thäl gyur. These philosophers believes that if the I is self-existent, if there is an I that exists from the side of the I, in that case, that I should not depend on being labeled by thought, on parts, or on cause and conditions. If there is such an I existing from its own side, that I should be completely self-existent, not depending on a thought that labels, on cause and conditions, or on parts.
So, now, what is the I that we have to realize is empty? As I explained before, it is the nonexistent I, the self-existent I, the I existing from its own side, the object of the together-born thought.
The I that we should realize is empty is the nonexistent I. What is that nonexistent I? The I existing from the side of the I, which is the object of the together-born thought.
To explain the together-born thought, I will first explain the object of this thought, so then you can get some idea of it. The way we now believe the I exists is as something above the skandhas, the body and mind. It’s not a clear or specific recognition; it’s like a mixture of water and milk. This I is truly appearing above the body and mind, which is like a mixture of water and milk. As an I actually appears in this way, we believe there is a truly existent I above the base, the body and mind.
We have to understand from the teachings the explanation of how to recognize the object to be refuted. When we see the I, the I truly appears to us, and things truly appearing to us is itself the explanation of how things appear to us as self-existent. For instance, while you are writing on paper, as soon as you have finished writing each letter, it appears to exist from its side; it truly appears from its own side. That is how things are appearing as self-existent. A real letter on real paper is appearing to you. That itself is how things are appearing to you as self-existent.
For instance, as soon as you have written a figure on the paper, you label it “a letter.” You label, “This is a letter.” And it is the same with the paper. After it has been materialized by depending on many materials, it is then labeled “paper.” Right after that moment you call it “paper,” and becoming stronger with each second, the paper then becomes more and more real. The letter and paper appear more and more that they are existing from their own side. It appears stronger and stronger, and you forget that you have labeled the figure made out of ink “a letter” and the material it is written on “paper.” In the first moment you labeled “paper,” then you forget that you have labeled “paper” on that base. Even though you have labeled in the first moment, you don’t remember that afterwards.
First of all, a person just sees that a new house has been built. If I then tell him, “This is the kitchen,” he himself then labels the whole thing, the roof and the walls, and believes, “Oh, I see, this is the Lawudo kitchen.” Before, there was no kitchen in that person’s view. There was no kitchen from the side of the object at all; no kitchen on all those stones and wood.
When the person asks, “What is this building going to become?” I say, “Oh this is the kitchen.” He then believes it is the kitchen and labels, “This is the kitchen.” On the whole house, on all those materials, his thought merely labeled “kitchen”. There was no kitchen before. That is very important to understand. From the store-room to the roof, nowhere was there a kitchen, nowhere was there the Lawudo kitchen. There was no kitchen at all from the side of the materials.
So, after his thought merely labeled, “This is the Lawudo kitchen,” he then forgets that his thought has merely labeled on that base, all the materials of the walls and roof. Everything is merely labeled by his thought. He forgets this right away. After that moment what appears to him is just, “This is the Lawudo kitchen.” The Lawudo kitchen strongly appears. There is a real Lawudo kitchen from the side of all those materials. And with each second it becomes stronger and stronger. The Lawudo kitchen appears to exist from its own side, above the base, all the materials.
This is how the Lawudo kitchen appears to the person as self-existent. As the Lawudo kitchen appears as self-existent, stronger and stronger with each second, he then believes it. He completely believes what appears to him, the self-existent Lawudo kitchen.
It was the same before you came up here—you didn’t know this monastery is Lawudo Gompa. When a porter introduced it to you, you thought, “Oh, yes. This is the Lawudo Gompa.” Just in that moment you believed it, on the base, the walls, paintings, and all the other things, your thought merely labeled, “This is Lawudo Gompa.”
That is the evolution. That is how your mind created the Lawudo Gompa that you are seeing. But you don’t remember that. Right after that moment, there is a Lawudo Gompa appearing from its own side. From the roof, the walls, the bricks, and all the other materials, there is a real Lawudo Gompa appearing. As it becomes stronger and stronger, you then believe, “This is the real Lawudo Gompa.” So, that Lawudo Gompa appearing from its own side, above the roof, the walls, and the rest of the material base, is the appearance of self-existence. And you believe in that truly existent Lawudo Gompa as it is appearing to you. So, that is the wrong conception of self-existence.
It is exactly the same with the I. A real I appears to you, above the base, the body and mind. The I appears as self-existent. You then believe that there is a real I, a self-existent I, a real me, a truly existent me. For example, you believe, “I am writing now.”
For example, if somebody tells you, “You’re so selfish! You don’t work—all you do is meditate,” or if somebody suddenly says, “You’ve stolen my money,” your mind immediately becomes uptight. You think, “He’s telling this to me. He’s harming me!” There is suddenly a strong I, and you feel very tight. The reaction that happens is that you have a very strong feeling of I. Something very solid and uptight rises up. At times when strong anger, attachment, or pride start to rise, there is an uptight kind of I strongly appearing above the body and mind.
If you check at that time, your mind doesn’t discriminate, “This is the body and this is the mind.” Something else, something that is neither body nor mind, something that doesn’t depend on the body or mind, is above that. That tight I, that truly existent I, is what does not exist. From the very top of your head down to your toes, it doesn’t exist.
Take another example. When you are falling down a cliff, at that time you don’t discriminate, “My body is falling down” or “My mind is falling down.” You don’t think like that. Something other than your body and mind, a real I that is not your body and not your mind is falling down. That appearance of a real I that comes is the appearance of the self-existent I and we believe that the I is self-existent. When you start to fall or when somebody harms you or says bad things about you, a very tight I appears, which is not body and not mind. Specifically, that is the self-existent I. The I appears to be self-existent, and you believe it to exist in that way. So, that I does not exist at all.
This is the I that we should realize is empty. I originally gave the example of realizing that the silver vase is empty of the golden vase.
We believe the I to be self-existent. A real I is drinking tea. That is a current example of how we believe the I to be self-existent. When we taste the tea, we believe the taste is coming from the side of the tea. That is a wrong belief. That itself is how we believe the taste to be self-existent.
When we taste the tea, the taste is appearing from the side of the tea. When we look at the tea in the mug, there is tea appearing from the side of the tea. As soon as we saw this mixture of the water, tea, and milk in the mug, we called it “tea.” But we are not aware of that; that’s completely lost. That was the evolution, but a real tea appears to our senses, to the together-born thought. In the mug there is tea that appears from its own side.
It’s as if the tea itself is sort of saying, “I am tea.” When you look at a candle flame, it is sort of talking to you, saying, “I am a candle flame.” That itself is how things appear to us as self-existent and how we believe them to be self-existent.
It is the same when we are sitting on the ground. We feel the ground is kind of solid, but we feel the solidity comes from the side of the ground not from the side of our mind. If you carefully check, you don’t feel the solidity comes from the side of your thought but from the side of the ground. We believe things are self-existently solid. Solid is not something our thought merely labeled on the material base, the ground.
The Lawudo Gompa is a good example to think about. Before you were introduced that this is Lawudo Gompa, you had no idea that this is what it is. There was no Lawudo Gompa from the side of that object at all. That is the reality. Then, after someone introduced it to you, you see the Lawudo Gompa appearing from the side of the Lawudo Gompa, above the base of roof, walls, and other materials. This is what doesn’t exist at all. Not even an atom of that exists. That is what actually doesn’t exist.
Before you were introduced to Lawudo Gompa, you don’t see any Lawudo Gompa from the side of the roof, walls, and other materials. That is the reality; that is factual. Before you see the Lawudo Gompa, there is no Lawudo Gompa appearing from the side of the Lawudo Gompa. After other people introduce you, “This is Lawudo Gompa,” even if you were still living at Lawudo Gompa a hundred years later, in fact there would still be no Lawudo Gompa existing from its own side, above the base. Just as you didn’t see it before you were introduced to it, it doesn’t exist there. It doesn’t exist at all. If you live for a hundred years at Lawudo, during all that time you would see a truly existent Lawudo Gompa appearing from its own side. A real Lawudo Gompa would appear to you whenever you looked at it. Even though you saw the Lawudo Gompa as truly existent, in fact the Lawudo Gompa is the same as before you were introduced to it. There is no Lawudo Gompa from the side of roof, walls, and other materials. That is the same, even after a hundred years. It is just that your conception changed. Once you were introduced to Lawudo Gompa, the Lawudo Gompa then appeared to you as self-existent, and you then believed in that appearance, so a self-existent Lawudo Gompa continuously appears to you.
You can now see that after you have been introduced to Lawudo Gompa, every time you see Lawudo Gompa appearing from its own side, that is a completely false view. It doesn’t exist at all; it’s completely false. It is similar with the I. So, realizing the emptiness of that wrong belief, that Lawudo Gompa appearing from its own side, is realizing the shunyata of the Lawudo Gompa.
You do analytical meditation on the Lawudo Gompa to check whether there is a Lawudo Gompa existing from its own side, as it appears to. Where is this Lawudo Gompa? When you check each atom of the roof and walls, you cannot find it at all. That object, the Lawudo Gompa existing from its own side, is completely lost. When you check every part, every atom, it completely disappears. When you cannot find that truly existent Lawudo Gompa anywhere, it is completely empty, and at that time you have realized the shunyata of the Lawudo Gompa.
It is like seeing a yellow bush as a tiger. As you check by going closer and closer to it, you realize it is not a tiger but just a bush. When you realize it is just a bush, your view of the tiger disappears, or dissolves. The tiger is nowhere. You can’t find that tiger anywhere, and your view of that tiger completely disappears. Your belief in the tiger is also destroyed by realizing it is just a bush.
It is similar when you realize the emptiness of the I. With analytical reasoning and meditation, such as the four-point analysis, you check up on the existence of this solid I, this tight I, this truly existent I. As you try to see it, you cannot find it anywhere, from your head down to your feet. At that time, you get a feeling of losing the I, “I am losing myself.”
If you are very intelligent, you feel great happiness when you lose the object of ignorance, the truly existent I. But if you are of low intelligence, you get scared.
If you want to realize the emptiness of the I through meditation, you should know about these different experiences.
The most important point that determines how quickly you can realize the emptiness of the I is how accurately you recognize the object of the wrong conception grasping the I as truly existent. This is what is actually empty, what actually doesn’t exist, but we don’t recognize that it is empty and that it doesn’t exist. The recognition of the false object of the wrong conception of the truly existent I, which is called the together-born thought, is the very first thing. This is the secret key. Once you have recognized this, it doesn’t take long to realize the emptiness of the I. As long as you don’t recognize this, no matter how many eons you meditate, you cannot realize the emptiness of the I. The way to recognize it is through meditation after listening to the oral teachings from the experiences of lamas or meditators, and by making much purification and collecting much merit. It also depends a lot on how much devotion you have to your guru.
In conclusion, the I is not self-existent, because one’s thought and sound, or voice, labels “I” on the five skandhas, the body and mind. The thought labels “I” on the base, the body and mind. That’s how the I exists. That’s all it is. Just because of that, the I is existing. We can just leave it like this. We don’t have to check any further; we don’t have to check beyond that. Just because of this reason, the I is existing.
How is the I existing? It is existing by depending. How is it depending? The I depends on its base, the body and mind, and the thought and name. That’s how the I is dependent, and not independent, not self-existent.
If you check carefully how the I actually exists, it’s not something very solid. You can’t find something real. Now, this is the complete opposite of the real, solid I that we normally believe in. The I is not completely nonexistent. The I exists in dependence upon thought and name and its base, the body and mind.
I think I will leave it here.
Normally, when you don’t have any strong fear, attachment, or anger, it is difficult to recognize the way you see the self-existent I. You cannot catch it. You lose the strong view of the self-existent I. Since it is not strong enough, it is very hard to recognize. But when you have strong fear, attachment, anger, or pride, when you are in danger, if you meditate on shunyata at that time, if you try to check how the I appears to you, you can then recognize the self-existent I. This self-existent I that you have recognized is what has to be destroyed; this is what you have to see is empty, because it doesn’t exist. As it doesn’t exist, you should realize that it doesn’t exist. Why we have this wrong conception even today is because we were born with this ignorance. That’s why I say “together-born.” We are born with this ignorance. It is not that we are born first and then this ignorance is born afterwards. During beginningless previous lifetimes, we have been born with it, and it is always with us. That’s why this ignorance believing the I to be truly existent is called “the together-born thought.” That expression has great meaning. This together-born thought, this wrong conception, makes us create all the various negative karmas, and that’s how we continually suffer in samsara.
[End of entire teaching]
1 Great Exposition School [Skt: Vaibhashika] [Return to text]
2 Sutra School [Skt: Sautrantika] [Return to text]
3 Mind Only School [Skt: Cittamatra] [Return to text]
4 Middle Way School [Skt: Madhyamaka] [Return to text]
5 Middle Way Autonomy School [Skt: Svatantrika Madhyamaka] [Return to text]
6 Middle Way Consequence School [Skt: Prasangika Madhyamaka] [Return to text]
