← Tubten Pende

Song of the Four Mindfulnesses - Instructions for Meditation on the View of Emptiness (7 April 2012, afternoon)

Tubten Pende · 7 April 2012 · 2 h 11 min · Tse Chen Ling via Internet Archive

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  • 0:37

    So this is the way emptiness is appearing to a person who is directly realizing it. It's said to appear like space in that just as space is a mere absence of obstruction to extension, so emptiness is a mere absence of inherent existence. And so our first job, of course, is to try to figure out what inherent existence means. And then to try to imagine what things would be like without it.

  • 11:00

    It's just one thing. But in fact, there's many things here, right? There's actually many things. There's the top of the house, the bottom of the house, different sides of the house. There's the outside, there's the inside, there's the north side, the south side. All of these things are making up the house, and without those, there is no house, let alone getting down to the individual bits, the very, very tiny bits that make up the house.

  • 35:32

    And yet a rainbow is an interaction. of water and light. It's not one concrete entity appearing to us. It just happens to be the way an interaction is appearing to us.

  • 50:26

    As I mentioned yesterday, it's not a conventional analysis. It is an ultimate analysis. It is looking for the essential object within the components of the object or what is known as the basis of designation of the object. So you would be looking for the table in the top of the table, in the wood of the table, in the legs of the table, and you wouldn't find it there. You wouldn't find it in the top, the front, the legs, inside the table, outside the table, in the shavings of the wood.

  • 1:00:20

    Now the way that the direct experience of emptiness comes is that they refer to it as meditative equipoise, wisdom of meditative equipoise. And that's where there's no sense of a gap between the subject and the object. They say just like when the water from one glass is poured and mixed with water from another glass, you can't see the difference between the water from the first glass and the water from the second glass.

0:00 Mindfulness and there's two verses covering because it's the main subject matter so it was offered two verses instead of just one. The first verse is dealing with space-like emptiness and the second verse is dealing with illusion-like emptiness. Report an error

0:27 The second Dalai Lama referred to himself as the yogi of space and he was referring to the space-like emptiness. So this is the way emptiness is appearing to a person who is directly realizing it. It's said to appear like space in that just as space is a mere absence of obstruction to extension, so emptiness is a mere absence of inherent existence. Report an error

1:02 And so our first job, of course, is to try to figure out what inherent existence means. And then to try to imagine what things would be like without it. Report an error

1:20 So the words of the first verse are, Throughout the circle of appearing and occurring objects of knowledge pervades the space of clear light, the nature of phenomena, the ultimate. An inexpressible mode of being of objects is there. Forsaking mental fabrications, look to the entity of immaculate emptiness. Not letting your mind stray, place it within the nature of phenomena. Report an error

1:42 Making your attention unforgetful, maintain it within the nature of phenomena. Report an error

1:55 So this phrase, the circle of appearing and occurring objects of knowledge, is referring to just phenomena, ordinary things, everything from persons to body and mind and components of those to objects of the senses. So visual objects, auditory objects, olfactory objects, gustatory objects, tactile objects, whatever you can think of, imagine and so on. Report an error

2:26 Everything that is an object of the mind. Report an error

2:35 And in the term objects of knowledge, that's referring to things that exist as opposed to hallucinations. Hallucinations exist, but the object that's being hallucinated doesn't exist, if you know the meaning. Meaning, like you can have a mirage, but there's no water. There's no such thing as a wet mirage. Report an error

3:01 So there's a difference between an appearance which exists and that which the appearance is taken to be an appearance of, which does not exist in the case of a mirage in the desert. It's an appearance of water. But there's no water there. So whatever actually exists, that's what's being referred to by the circle of appearing and occurring objects of knowledge. Report an error

3:32 Pervades the space of clear light, the nature of phenomena, the ultimate. So these terms, space of clear light, nature of phenomena, the ultimate, they're all taken as synonyms. They have equal meaning. The term clear light has other meanings. Besides the meaning of emptiness, it can refer to the most subtle consciousness. It can refer to a person. There are people who have the name Clear Light. Report an error

4:04 Like in Tibetan, it's Osel. We know somebody by the name of Osel. So it has different meanings. Report an error

4:19 And the nature of phenomena, so that means that this object, emptiness of inherent existence, is a nature or property. It's not to be found someplace else. It's to be found as a property of things, a nature of things, a nature of these objects of knowledge. Report an error

4:44 That's a point that was stressed especially by Lama Tsongkhapa. I don't know before him, but I definitely know he stressed it because in Tibet At his time, there was already a lineage of teaching started by a great Kala Chakra practitioner. And he was asserting that objects of knowledge, of normal experience, visual objects, sounds, smells, tastes, all of these things are here and emptiness is over here. Report an error

5:27 As if they were two different things. Report an error

5:32 These things, the ordinary things, the objects of our senses, what we're used to, those are empty of inherent existence. But reality, the ultimate, is not empty of inherent existence. And that's over here. Report an error

5:51 And His Holiness, the current Dalai Lama, made an interesting comment on that. I don't know if you've noticed, but he tries to preserve everything Tibetan. Report an error

6:03 It doesn't matter if it's Buddhist or bun or other Buddhist traditions that he disagrees with. The fact it's Tibetan and part of Tibetan culture, he'll try to preserve it. Like, for instance, he provides financial support to the bun tradition to sustain the bun post. Now, that's very different from what you would usually expect. Report an error

6:33 I can't remember the last time the Pope gave money to a Protestant church, but it's sort of unusual. But that's part of his job. He's kind of the king of Tibet, and he has a responsibility to try to maintain and help Tibetan culture, which of course is under threat, and he wants it all intact. Report an error

6:56 So he made this one comment about this one tradition, and he said that the fact... That they said that the ultimate was not empty of inherent existence shows that for them, in order for something to exist, it must inherently exist. If it's empty of inherent existence, it wouldn't exist at all. And so they say that the ultimate exists, it exists in its own right, through its own force, through its own power, objectively, concretely. Report an error

7:31 Whether you're thinking about it or not, your mind has nothing to do with it. It exists there. It's a concrete entity. And then when you know it, then that's where you stay. You stay in the realm of reality, which is a totally different realm from unreality, our everyday life. And because the founder of that tradition was a respected Kala Chakra practitioner, in other words, this was a yogi who had... Report an error

8:01 A lot of profound experiences. And I guess he could demonstrate it too, but I don't know that much. I think Jeffrey Hopkins came out with the book. He's the guy from, what's his, well, now I forget. Report an error

8:21 It's like, it's near the border, Dolpo, the guy from Dolpo, Dolpopa. And he has another name, Sherob Gildson maybe, but I'm not sure of that. Hmm? Yeah, he's the founder of that tradition. Report an error

8:41 And they're great practitioners within that tradition. During the time of the fifth Dalai Lama, the Taranata was the most famous person within that tradition. And he wrote, he's famous for a work on the history of Buddhism. No, it's not mine. Report an error

9:04 So they had this view and Tsongkhapa spent some considerable time refuting that view. And you won't find it espoused by Nagarjuna or any of the great Madhyamikas because they say clearly that emptiness is the nature of phenomena. You don't find it someplace else. And the fact that things don't exist inherently is the way things exist. Report an error

9:36 But especially for philosophers, that can be a hard pill to swallow. That can be a hard pill to swallow. And, you know, even quite great philosophers, people like Dharmakirti, for instance, couldn't be defeated in debate by anyone. Report an error

10:01 So for sure, I couldn't defeat him in debate, even if I said, oh, nothing inherently exists. Then how could things appear? Well, the same way that illusions appear, the same way that dreams appear. The mind is capable of producing all kinds of images, but not because of an inherent identity. We give things identity conceptually, just like with ourselves as a person. Report an error

10:30 Also other things like the house. We're sitting in a house and... And our language is such that, you know, the house is a physical phenomena and you can go to it or you can go away from it and you go inside it, you go outside it. So we're describing it, there's words to describe the house. Report an error

10:52 But the house is just one thing, right? It's not, if it was more than one thing, there would be an S, something like that. It's just one thing. But in fact, there's many things here, right? There's actually many things. There's the top of the house, the bottom of the house, different sides of the house. There's the outside, there's the inside, there's the north side, the south side. Report an error

11:18 All of these things are making up the house, and without those, there is no house, let alone getting down to the individual bits, the very, very tiny bits that make up the house. Report an error

11:31 And aside from all of these things, there is no house, right? And yet none of those is the house. That the roof is not the house. If it didn't have a roof, it would be a roofless house. Still a house. Report an error

11:53 And so on. If it didn't have a kitchen, it would be a house without a kitchen. If it didn't have a foundation, it would be a collapsed house. Report an error

12:05 Still could be referred to as a house. So the house is something we make up in our mind. And we have language. To refer to something that we construct and we construct a house based upon how society and those who use that language refer to it. And that becomes our concept of house. And we apply that concept to individual structures and we just learn how to do that, associate that concept with a visual form that's appearing and so on. Report an error

12:47 But the house is not something like, you know, if an object existed in its own right, that means within what is appearing to you, you should be able to find that object right there. And that would mean, you know, you could have Sherlock Holmes coming here, the greatest detective ever imagined, could come here, you know, with his magnifying glass and start at the bottom of the stairs looking for the house. Report an error

13:21 Opened the door and said, what are you doing here? I'm looking for the house. Upstairs, downstairs, in his nightgown, whatever. But he'd be looking for the house. He won't find it. There's not this entity, house, moving around, trying to escape, being discovered or staying in one place. There's not that entity. And you won't find it in the walls. You won't find it in the floors. You won't find it in the space of the room. Report an error

13:50 None of those things will you find there. So it is not a concrete phenomena that's appearing to your mind. It is something that you create with your thought, words, and you impute or you think when something else is appearing that's appropriate to think that thought in connection with. So some physical structure, the house. Report an error

14:19 And it's like that with everything. And these things appear. Well, even, you know, there's this one professor emeritus at UC Santa Cruz, and he and another faculty member there have the most popular class in the physical and biological sciences. Report an error

14:46 Everybody goes, whether you're interested in science or not. So UCSC has a good reputation for astrophysics, you know, and you've got to do a lot of math and stuff for that. All kinds of people go to this class because anybody can understand it. And it's about something that's interesting. And it's a kind of paradox. Report an error

15:10 Quantum mechanics is something that was invented in the early part of the 20th century. Can't talk about the earliest part of this century anymore. Report an error

15:21 The earliest part of the 20th century. And it's a very successful theory. interesting. That's... Report an error

15:31 Very successful. At the time when I read this book they were saying 50 years of experimentation, never wrong. Of prediction, never wrong. Now Einstein didn't come up with it. Some other people like Heidegger and so on came up with it. But Einstein had a problem with it because there's one unwanted consequence of this and that is Report an error

16:03 Without the mind, objects don't exist. That's the unwanted consequence. And you find that consequence through experimentation that can be reproduced any time, any place, and has been done many times. And you've heard this before, maybe even in high school physics. That's when I first heard it. Is light wave or particle? Report an error

16:28 Wave or particle? And you have the double split... Experiment where you can do the same thing with water, you know, like if you have a tray filled with water and you put a barrier in the middle of the tray and you put two splits in that barrier and you start tapping to make waves and the waves go out and when they get to the barriers or the barrier there's these two splits and then a similar pattern of waves forming and those two splits go out, right? Report an error

17:01 You know, wave after wave. Then hits the furthest wall and you get a pattern of when the waves cross each other and double, they'll strike the furthest wall stronger than if an undoubled wave strikes the furthest wall. But you definitely get a pattern that goes all the way across that back wall. Now, imagine a similar experiment with, you know, you've got a barrier wall. Report an error

17:33 You've got a far wall on the other side, you've got two splits in the burial wall, and you've got somebody with a gun, and they're going to start shooting. Report an error

17:44 And they're going to try to get every bullet through the splits in the wall. What pattern do you think is going to make on the far wall? It's going to be just in two places. It's not going to go all the way across, right? It's just going to be where the bullets get through. The splits in the in-between wall and hit the barrier. So you're going to have a pattern lined up like this in two places in the other wall. Report an error

18:12 Very different from the waves, which has patterns lined up all against the back wall. Very different. Report an error

18:24 Now that's like an analogy. But they have this way of doing this experiment where they can achieve both effects. But it just depends on how they start off expecting the result, how they start off doing that. Einstein couldn't stand that. He said, I like to think that the moon is still there when I'm not looking at it. So he knew what the problem was. Report an error

18:52 And the author of this book, one of those, Professor Emeritus, he met Einstein when he was a student of physics in Princeton. So he met Einstein, and Einstein wanted to talk to him about that problem. Report an error

19:14 So at that time, of course this is an emeritus professor, so he was already retired and everything, an older man, but in his youth in those days when he was studying physics in Princeton, they didn't teach that problem because nobody was going to get a PhD who did their thesis on that subject. It was just unwanted. They didn't want to think about it. It was just a problem. And rather they taught quantum mechanics that would solve the problems like how to measure great distances, deal with small subatomic particles, stuff like that. Report an error

20:00 A practical application of it. There was even a conference, the Copenhagen conference. That they decided to, let's not talk about this and we'll just deal with this subject in a practical application. So this book, The Quantum Enigma, I can warmly recommend. Report an error

20:25 And you can get it online, you can order it. Sometimes it's available in the bookshops in Santa Cruz. It's definitely in the Santa Cruz Science Library on campus. But I can warmly recommend because that will give you... That will help your meditation dealing with particles, which make up this world. Even the author of the book was saying, generally speaking, physicists think that they know reality because the whole physical world is made up of subatomic particles. Report an error

21:03 And that's our realm. That's what we work with. We know the language to describe movements and so on and so forth. We know that. And yet... We have to admit that consciousness plays a factor. It can either be interpreted as waves or as particles, depending upon how you think. Report an error

21:24 So that works really well for Majamika philosophy that says that things don't exist in their own right, but depend upon the mind. Report an error

21:40 So right from, and there are... That's... Report an error

21:43 Even in ancient India, they had logic to show that particles don't exist in their own right. Very easy to understand reasons. Like if we think of a particle, like even the word atom, I think it comes from the Greek and refers to the smallest thing. So these atoms, if you imagine an atom, the way you first imagined an atom, maybe for me, Report an error

22:14 Through the generosity of Walt Disney, I imagined it in the form of little balls. You know, and you could put little, attach balls to other things and then you form molecules and all of that, right? So you get these little balls. So if you imagine a partless atom, which is what this concept would be dealing with, if objects are truly made out of atoms which are the last... Report an error

22:44 You can't divide it any further. That's it. That is the fundamental absolute particle from which all things are made up in the form of aggregations of those particles. Report an error

22:57 Let's take one. Imagine that particle is like a billiard ball in the middle of a table. Smallest particle. Now let's take four other ones around it in the four cardinal directions. And imagine that they start to get closer and closer. To the central one. And now the one on your right touches the one in the center. Report an error

23:28 If the one in the center is truly partless, then the one on the right, when it touches it, it would have to be touching all of it, not just one side of it, because it can't be divided into sides. It is partless. It would have to be touching all of it. In order to touch all of it, It would have to kind of merge, be superimposed with it, right? The same with the other three that are around it. So there's no way you could get an aggregation of particles that would be larger than one particle. Report an error

24:09 They would all merge together. So if particles were truly partless, there's no way you could get an aggregation of particles to form all of these things. Report an error

24:23 You get an unwanted consequence. You'd have to say that, no, if there are partless particles, there couldn't be. Things could not be an aggregation of partless particles. So that was a reputation that like the Chittimatrans would throw at a group of Sotranticas who were clinging so strongly to external objects and partless particles. Report an error

24:49 So even the small particles like atoms, they have parts like directional parts, top, Bottom, right, left, front, back. You can divide them that way. Or if you need to, you can divide them into protons and neutrons, and then you can divide those. And then they say, well, they're not really particles. An electron is more of like a cloud, a charged cloud. And then it becomes increasingly difficult. Report an error

25:20 And of course, the other ones will say, yeah, and true. And when you try to measure it, then it's not there. The less you try to measure it, the more it appears to be there. Report an error

25:35 But things don't have to be existing in their own right to appear. There's all kinds of things that appear and appear differently from the things that make them up. Take, for example, a school of fish. We've seen those nature programs. School of little fish form and then the birds come and the tunas come. Report an error

25:32 so... Report an error

26:02 Lunch! Free lunch! And they all come. And then the school is going this way and that way and so on. Well, the school of fish don't look like the individual fish, do they? The school is like really big, which is the whole advantage of congregating into the form of a school that might detract predators. Unfortunately, it seems to attract them, but poor little fish, what do they know? Report an error

26:24 So, and then... The school of fish doesn't necessarily behave the same way that an individual in that school behaves. Because as you know, the school might suddenly go this way, so the top of the school goes this way and the bottom takes a little bit of time to react to what the rest is doing. So it's going all over the place. So this large accumulation doesn't necessarily behave exactly the same way as each individual. Report an error

26:54 And yet without those individuals, there's no such thing as a school. In fact, this school of fish is another concept that we form in order to understand an aggregation of these individual fish, which is different from the individual fish. Report an error

27:15 But you can't separate it except conceptually. And then you can know it separately, like look at how the school looks, look at how it's moving, oh isn't that interesting. Or clouds, same thing. Clouds, like we can see faces in clouds. We can see horses in clouds, right? You can sit there and dream away, oh, that cloud looks like and that cloud looks like and so on and so forth. Report an error

27:46 But none of the things that it looks like is in the cloud, right? The horse is not in the cloud. The face is not in the cloud. It's just a way of interpreting a particular momentary shape or configuration in the cloud. And as we know, a cloud is made up of what? Water vapor. A little bit stronger than vapor, though, isn't it? Report an error

28:12 Because it's like cooled down water, which starts to become like ice around dust particles, and then it appears in the form of this cloud. And those particles of water are H2O, right? So those are particles. And then H, which is just one thing, is an atom, right? Which is divided into parts or exists as you think it exists. But we have these ways of talking and referring to something and interacting with that. Report an error

28:50 A good example is political borders that exist between countries like between the United States and Canada. There's a border and the border is real. It exists. If you try to cross it without your passport, you might not get in. If you try to come back without your passport, they might not let you in. So it's real. You have to take it seriously. And as you drive further and further north, you're getting closer and closer to the border. And at a certain point... Report an error

29:24 You can, you know, the front of your, the people in the front seat can be in Canada and the people in the back seat will still be in the United States. And you can watch as your feet go over the border and so on and so forth. You can talk like that. But if you try to identify the actual physical border, because the words that we use to describe it sound like it's a physical phenomena, right? Report an error

29:47 And if it was, it should be findable there in the earth, in the soil. But it's not, is it? You know, those places where they move borders, they don't do it with earth-moving machines and dump trucks. They do it a long ways away, usually in capital cities, and they change the numbers and the words in books, and that's how they move borders. Report an error

30:14 And just because there's a house there with a gate doesn't mean that's the only place where a border is, because you can cross the border in the middle of the woods. Report an error

30:25 You're going north and the Canadian geese are going south. And, you know, if it really existed, you know, the Canadian geese would have always been Canadian geese. So I'm Canadian. How about that? Report an error

30:41 So it's also a creation of thought, completely a creation of thought, creation of mind, words, and it's useful, functions in certain ways, stops wars or creates wars, but, you know. People created these borders for some purpose, political purpose, and developed language to think about them and talk about them. Report an error

31:09 It makes them seem as if they objectively existed in some concrete way. Can you see the border? Oh yeah, I can see it. But you might be seeing police and border officials and stuff like that. One of those arms that go over and up and down, letting cars go through. You might see those sorts of things. But you could remove all of those and there would still be a border. Report an error

31:35 But that's because it doesn't have to exist objectively in its own right to exist. So long as conventionally it's accepted to exist and we developed a particular dance to do around it. You come to the border and you don't tell them why you really want to be there. They say, yes, we're going to Vancouver to shop, like that, instead of staying three months to teach or something like that. Report an error

32:07 That's what happened to me when I went to Toronto. They kept me in the customs area, security area, for a while until somebody came to collect me and verify that I was there to teach. They were going to take care of me, all of that. Or when I went to England. For the first time to go to the Menjusri Institute to start the Geshe program. I was the coordinator of the Geshe program. And they asked me, and how long do you plan to stay here? Report an error

32:37 I said, jeez, probably I'll stay here for four, five, eight, twelve years. I'll say nine months. Nine months, he said? Report an error

32:50 How are you going to do that? I said, oh, I don't know. And says, whoa, you have to sit down over there. So I was sitting down over there with people from Africa and who also were having a hard time getting into England. And then they went and called up the Magisteri Institute. And there was a teaching going on. Somribuche was there and everybody was in the gompa except one person who was going by a ringing phone. Report an error

33:17 And that person happened to be the treasurer of the institute. Oh yes, we know him, we're expecting him, we'll vouch for him, we're supporting him, like so on, so then, in the country. But after that, you know, I just need to learn once. Report an error

33:35 First time, your fault, second time, my fault. No, no, second time. So every time, you know, I'd leave the country to go to India or whatever, and then when I'd come back, I knew I was going to be coming back for six months, 12 months, or whatever. And your purpose? Tourist, how long do you expect to stay? Report an error

33:53 Oh, maybe three weeks, the most four, like that, and there you'd have a six-month visa, tourist visa, just like that. Then leave the country again, come back in. The things we do for Dharma. Lying. Oh, but it's okay, because it's Dharma. Report an error

34:15 Risky. It's risky business, but, you know, or then you try to get, you know, a permit to stay in the country. That can be difficult. It can be difficult. So I know what it's like to be an illegal alien in England and in France, where I stayed for 13 years in France, four years in England. Report an error

34:40 But all of these borders, we have language to talk about them as if they're a concrete phenomenon, but they're not. It just depends upon thought. They don't exist without thought. They don't exist without words. And everything is like that. The atoms are like that. It's just a way of conceiving that things are made up of something smaller. We know that. But at a certain point, when you're looking at something, it's really the interaction of many things that's appearing to you. Report an error

35:19 Like, for example, a rainbow. We have a word rainbow. We see rainbows. We like rainbows. And yet a rainbow is an interaction. of water and light. Report an error

35:39 It's not one concrete entity appearing to us. It just happens to be the way an interaction is appearing to us. And that's like everything else. Everything else is an interaction of many things. And then it's appearing to us, that interaction. Report an error

36:13 Initially it's realized, when the mind that realizes emptiness, what is it? The mind that initially realizes emptiness is a thought consciousness, a conceptual mind. It's a conceptual mind, a thought consciousness. And it realizes emptiness by depending upon reasons. So that's the initial realization of emptiness. Report an error

36:37 And then through the force of meditation, you're able to go to the limits of conceptual understanding and have a breakthrough into a direct experience of it. That's the way Dhamma Kurdi described it. Report an error

36:53 And he and Dignaga were considered the kind of champions of Buddhist epistemology, ways of knowing. And so when he was asked that same question, that's how he described it. Report an error

37:13 And thought consciousness is, you know, it's an interesting phenomenon. Without thought consciousness, we wouldn't be able to achieve all the things that we achieve. And yet... so... Report an error

37:24 It's inherently mistaken. It's inherently mistaken because when an object appears to thought consciousness, it appears by means of a universal. Report an error

37:40 Now, a universal is a generality. And when Dhamma Kurdi was describing it, he liked to think of what really exists is what's appearing to our senses. Report an error

37:58 And what appears to our senses is individual things that can be our unique individuals in terms of time, space and their entity, their essence that makes them up. So a real individual is something that exists in this place at this time and can be differentiated from everything else by its own characteristics. Report an error

38:29 And thus is unique. And that's real. Whereas something that exists among many objects over time, duration, is not real, unique. It's a generality. A universal is a more philosophical term that describes it in Western philosophy. A universal. Like the table is impermanent. Report an error

39:04 Impermanent is a property of the table, but it's not only the property of this table, it's also the property of that table. So it's not unique in space. It's also the property of the table of this moment, and it's the property of the table of the next moment. So it's not unique in time either. And so it's something that we can designate conceptually onto all kinds of objects. It doesn't exist. Report an error

39:34 In the concrete world, it's something because only these unique things exist in the concrete world, according to Dharmakirti. And so you could differentiate universals like that. Now, when a universal appears, we're not identifying the appearance as the object. We're identifying the object that that universal represents as our object. Report an error

40:00 So for instance, when I'm thinking about the impermanence of the table, I'm not thinking of impermanence as a mere thought construct. I am thinking of a property of the table. But in fact, the impermanence that I'm thinking of is created as a thought construct. And that's why thought is considered to be mistaken. Report an error

40:26 But we all make the same mistake. And it's kind of like there's a story of a king. Found out that the water supply of his kingdom was going to be infected by some terrible chemical that was going to drive everybody insane. So he put away his own water supply, which was not going to get this infection. And so everybody else went insane except him. Report an error

41:04 And so the whole kingdom wanted to throw him in jail because he was insane. Because he was so different from everybody else. So like that, we're all making the same mistake. So it's not a problem. Report an error

41:20 When we talk about the impermanence of the table, it's a property of the table. When we talk about all the different houses around, this is a house, that is a house, that is a house, we're talking about these objects that we're pointing to. We're not talking about the thought construct that enables us to think of. Report an error

41:42 This object or property of the object, which is not there from its own side, that's designated through the thought process. Report an error

41:52 And it's very useful because it, you know, through inference, through sound reasoning, we're able to learn so many things beyond the range of our senses. And, you know, like mathematics. And you don't see numbers. And through mathematics, you know, we can... We have geometry. Through geometry we can build incredible things. Your golden gate bridge. Geometry applied. Report an error

42:24 And through reasoning we can gain an understanding of emptiness. But because of the limitations of thought, it is not sufficient to eliminate all of this inherent misconception. When I say inherent, it's something we're born with. It's not something that you learn through studying some philosophy or believing in some theology or something like that. Report an error

42:55 It's something we're born with. Beginningless. And you need to have a direct experience of emptiness in order to unseat that. And that's where the single-pointed meditation comes in. Because the more you analyze the object conceptually, pushing... The limits of thought, the more that thought can no longer sustain that. Report an error

43:26 And there's tremendous debates that have been going on since Dharmakirti's time, his predecessor, Dignaga, since Dignaga's time, debates with non-Buddhists, which was Dharmakirti's principal objective, was to defeat particular... Views of non-Buddhists at that time and present a Buddhist epistemology. But then even in Tibet, like differences between the Sakya tradition and the Galug tradition and who has the correct interpretation of Dharmakirti and stuff like that, those debates still go on. Report an error

44:01 Because they're useful to learn things. And it's impossible to decide who's right because Dharmakirti hasn't reappeared. Here I am to set you straight. This is what I really meant, unfortunately. Report an error

44:15 So how Report an error

44:20 does one relate this concept with reality? If the object that one's conceiving of, this like universal, say for example, impermanence, is not existing from its own side as a characteristic of the table, but it's just imputed as a characteristic of the table. So it seems like it's unreal. And yet... These unreal universals have enabled us to be extremely successful in, as I mentioned before, geometry and all of that kind of stuff. Report an error

44:59 How can that be? So Dignaga came up with this explanation, which Tamakurti championed, and that was that whatever the universal appears in your mind as, and it can be if you think of a chair, a chair which you can use on any chair. So that's a universal. It can appear in your mind. Who knows? When I think of chair, a different appearance will appear than somebody else. Report an error

45:29 And yet the significance of that appearance to your mind, the significance of that universal to your mind, what it means is that you're describing a property which is the opposite of Everything that is not that property. Report an error

45:56 The opposite of everything that is not that property is just that property. So thought works by eliminating everything which thought itself will be described as not being it. Report an error

46:11 And consequently, when you first learn something, you've eliminated all kinds of things that don't correspond to your one example. But then you'll learn that there's something else that that property can apply to. So then that's included. And something else is included. And as you learn more, your sophistication of the use of that concept develops. Report an error

46:36 But as you start through more and more precision and analysis, you're saying, is it this? No, it's not that. It's not that. It's not that. It's not that. It's not that. It's starting to eliminate so much to where concept just... Can't hold what you've been eliminating as not being it. And that's where you have this breakthrough into direct experience of emptiness without any of the limitations of thought consciousness. Report an error

47:10 Huh? It kind of collapses. Yeah, you could say it collapses. You could say, yes, the concept collapses. Report an error

47:24 The thinking collapses and is replaced by direct experience. just collapses, or it just... Report an error

47:32 It can be described as a falling away also. The mental image breaks down, the mental image fades away so you have a direct experience of the object. Report an error

47:45 And that's how Dharmakirti described it, and that's how in the Galug tradition, that's how they describe it. There are other traditions who might describe it in a different way. Report an error

48:00 But all except it's possible to have a direct experience of reality and you approach it by means of a concept through relying on reasoning, for example. Report an error

48:15 Such as, I do not inherently exist because I am a dependent arising. I am a dependent arising because I depend upon causes, I depend upon parts. I depend upon designation with the word I. Whatever is a dependent arising is necessarily not inherently existing because something that is inherently existing exists in its own right. Report an error

48:44 If it exists in its own right, it's not existing by depending upon causes, parts or mere designation by thought. So that's a simple syllogism, but that reasoning is called the king of logical reasonings because any other kind of reasoning always comes down to that point. Report an error

49:04 So that point empowers all of the other reasonings. Like a king's authority can be delegated throughout the whole bureaucracy, but it ultimately comes from the king. Report an error

49:26 So it's interesting when, if a thing inherently existed, it should exist objectively or concretely. And so then... When a thing arises, such as, say, the table, we become aware of the table, and we think, oh, there's a table. Report an error

49:56 And for us to think there's a table, like there's a table in front of me, you easily think that, there's a table in front of me, and that's because something is appearing there. Report an error

50:08 And so if the table objectively existed, then you should be able to find it there in what's appearing. So then if you go looking for the table in what's appearing, you would be doing what's called an ultimate analysis. And an ultimate analysis is a very unusual analysis. As I mentioned yesterday, it's not a conventional analysis. It is an ultimate analysis. It is looking for the essential object within the components of the object or what is known as the basis of designation of the object. Report an error

50:41 So you would be looking for the table in the top of the table, in the wood of the table, in the legs of the table, and you wouldn't find it there. You wouldn't find it in the top, the front, the legs, inside the table, outside the table, in the shavings of the wood. Report an error

51:05 You've seen wood cells or plant cells. In any of those chemicals that make up the table, you won't find the table. And if you can't find them... In any of the parts of the table, then an accumulation of table-less parts will not make a table either because they're table-less parts. All the parts are not the table. And even the table-less parts functioning as a table is not a table unless you think of it as a table. Report an error

51:36 It requires the thought to have the table. Report an error

51:44 So that's an ultimate analysis. And you apply that analysis to yourself. You can apply it to any object. It's quite useful. Yogas usually apply it to themselves because no matter where you go, there you are. And you've always got the object to meditate on, yourself. And also, most of our delusions are arising because of our self. Report an error

52:10 They did this to me. I want to do this to them. It all involves me, this person. So if we remove this misconception that is taking me so seriously, Then it very quickly frees you from misconduct, harmful actions. Report an error

52:43 So you take the same thing. You just generate the thought I, such as I am sitting here, and think, well, Report an error

52:58 am I sitting or is it the body that's sitting? Is there a difference between me and the body? And then you go looking. And you would just use ordinary expressions. Report an error

53:17 We think of ourselves as different from the body on other occasions, such as when we have the thought, my body, Report an error

53:29 then it seems like the body is something different from me. It's a possession of me. Report an error

53:38 So although we say, I am sitting here, the only reason we're saying I'm sitting here is we're designating or imputing I, we're thinking I, by depending upon a specific posture of the body. Report an error

53:53 So it's imputedly existing. It's thought of. Imputedly existing just means it's existing through thought. We're thinking it. It's not appearing by direct perception to our mind. It is appearing through thought. The body appears and then we generate the thought, I. And then we have this thing, I am sitting here. Report an error

54:20 And that's accepted conventionally. And that's good enough. So long as it's accepted conventionally and people understand what you mean by that, then that's good enough. That works. Report an error

54:35 So if you have to do an analysis of the body looking for the me that's sitting here, then you have to analyze what sitting is. Report an error

54:45 And usually it's a part of the body that's, in our cases, connected to a cushion or to the seat of a chair. And if that's what I am, then you can't argue with some of those people who have told you that. Report an error

55:05 Repeatedly. Report an error

55:15 So it's like that. You can say, I am holding a cup. But in fact, it's just two fingers and a thumb that's holding the cup. Report an error

55:29 Or somebody might say, it's the hand that's holding the cup. Or somebody might argue, no, it's just two fingers and a thumb. And they'll say, yeah, but without the rest of the hand, you couldn't have held that. I say, well, without my arm, I couldn't have held that. Do you say the arm held it? Without my shoulder, I couldn't have held it. Do you say the shoulder held it? Report an error

55:44 And you have these debates that are just about the use of words. It's semantics, it's convention, by conventions. That's all that means. Semantics, conventions, that's all it is. And that is, Chandrakirti said, and he's giving authoritative commentary on Nagarjuna, he's saying that is the way things exist. Report an error

56:14 That is the way we accept. Conventionality. We accept convention, conventional existence, which means things existing the way that they're accepted as existing through common speech rather than through the force of an essence that represents or identifies that object existing objectively out there that's to be found. Report an error

56:45 Yeah, like that. Report an error

56:53 Yes, it's like that with universals. Chairs in general, and then chair specific, armchair, high back, the court seating. In order for a chair to appear to the mind, it requires thought. It is not existing objectively in a concrete way. Report an error

57:24 If it existed objectively in a concrete way, then you would look and... Chair would appear in your mind without even having to, well, which language would appear? Report an error

57:44 All the languages would have to appear then without having learned any one of them. They would all appear, which is impossible, right? But if the object existed in its own right, from its essence, the essence of chair, then it would have to appear to your mind without having to learn language, without knowing how the word is used. Report an error

58:07 Without knowing the difference between the back of the chair, the arms of the chair and so on. What is the chair that possesses the parts? You can't find it. Report an error

58:19 It's not there objectively appearing to your mind. What appears to your mind is something constructed by thought. And of course, the image that's constructed by thought is not a chair either. But it is the way that you can apprehend or know chair. Report an error

58:41 Yes. Report an error

58:47 I'm still looking at the consciousness realizing emptiness. At that point, that consciousness realizing emptiness, what are the qualities or the characteristics of that consciousness realizing emptiness? And if it melts with it or if the object collapses, and I can see the methodology really as the mind getting rid of a false... Report an error

59:15 images or false, as you're calling it, getting rid of this and that. So if the object at the end of the full analysis collapses, is that consciousness existing in itself or something happens? You're calling it the direct experience. What is that? Is that the Buddha nature or is that? No, it is a knowing and apprehending of its object, emptiness. Report an error

59:42 It doesn't exist in its own right. It exists relative to its object. The mind is a knower of objects. So it's existing relative to the object. It doesn't exist by itself. So the mind realizing emptiness is language that's imputed to the agent of experience, which is the mind. But to have experience, you have to have an object being experienced. Report an error

1:00:10 In Western language they call that intentionality, that the mind has an object. It has to have an object. It is a nor of objects. Now the way that the direct experience of emptiness comes is that they refer to it as meditative equipoise, wisdom of meditative equipoise. And that's where there's no sense of a gap between the subject and the object. Report an error

1:00:39 They say just like when the water from one glass is poured and mixed with water from another glass, you can't see the difference between the water from the first glass and the water from the second glass. And so likewise, when the wisdom is realizing emptiness, it realizes it without a sense of gap, like I'm here seeing that. Report an error

1:01:05 Like when you're... When you look at the Golden Gate Bridge, you're aware of being, I'm here and there's the Golden Gate Bridge over there. There's no sense of gap like that. The only thing that's appearing to the mind is emptiness itself. So they say it's like an experience of one taste. Not two different tastes, just one taste. One object is appearing to the mind, only emptiness itself. Report an error

1:01:29 And that, in part, is part of the function of single-pointed concentration. In fact, there are those who, when they're doing, when they're cultivating single point of concentration, whether it's on the breath, an image of Shakyamuni Buddha, there's a point where they have to pass through a distraction, a period of distraction that is created by a fear that arises in the mind because their single point of concentration is so good, they have forgotten themselves. Report an error

1:02:04 Because that's a separate thought. And the mind would relate that as a distraction. You wouldn't be thinking of yourself if you're meditating on an image of the Buddha. Report an error

1:02:16 But because we're so used to having a thought of ourself around, and we require continuously thinking of ourselves in order to have that sense of self around, because it is just created by thought, then we have to deal with this sudden, you know, where was I? And then say, oh. So... Report an error

1:02:36 This is a particular point of concentration. I'll remember myself after I come out of concentration. But when you're meditating on the emptiness of inherent existence, you have the same thing where no other object is appearing. Report an error

1:02:50 No other object but emptiness will appear to that mind. And so it's said to be an experience of one taste, no gap between subject and object, just the experience of emptiness. And there's even subtle degrees of that. Like, for instance, meditating on emptiness with the mind of clear light, which is considered to be the most subtle mind, has a much, it's described as being more unified. Report an error

1:03:20 There's even less possibility for a sense of difference, a kind of complete merging with the object of emptiness. And they say that... Yeah, okay. Complete merging with the object of emptiness. Or the object emptiness. Report an error

1:03:41 No true existence appears. No conventional objects appear. Until one's a Buddha, whenever a conventional object appears, it always appears to be true existent. So none of those things appear to that mind. And that's why, you know, in the next verse they talk about... Wait a second. Report an error

1:04:19 Was it in another verse? Report an error

1:04:27 Let me read this again. Throughout the cycle of appearing, appearing objects, when it pervades the space, clear life, nature and the ultimate. Oh, the inexpressible mode of being of objects of there. So it's called inexpressible. Not because emptiness cannot be talked about. If it couldn't be talked about, then we wouldn't have the perfection of wisdom sutras, commentaries and so on and so forth. Report an error

1:04:51 It is talked about. But what this means is that the yogi's direct experience, is incapable of being accurately described because description relies on concepts and concepts naturally separates subject and object and so on. So this is an experience that is beyond conceptuality. So it's described as being inexpressible, inconceivable, unalterable, like that. Report an error

1:05:34 An inexpressible mode of being of objects is there. So when you do this meditation on emptiness, then it's Report an error

1:05:52 important to try to see how objects appear to you when you don't analyze them. When you yourself appear as a solid concrete phenomena or as other objects appear as solid and concrete phenomena. So they say that Because then you know what the target is. Then your analysis will have more meaning, more significance, more power. Report an error

1:06:24 So for instance, when one's meditating on emptiness, one might recall times when you've had an emotional reaction to something. Like, you know, somebody calls you a liar. And you have this sort of much stronger sense of, me, I'm a liar? You call me a liar? Are you talking to me? Report an error

1:06:52 So right there, it feels really solid. You can feel it in your heart. It's not only the words and concepts, but even your physical body is responding. Muscles in your chest are tightening around this, in fact, imagined object. But they're tightening it around it, just like our language is referring to the border as if it was a physical phenomena. And so there, then you start the analysis. Report an error

1:07:22 Well, am I really there? I still only see a part of my chest. That doesn't look like me. It looks like a part of me, but it's not me. So then you have something more. And so then it's just a construct of thought. It's not really there. It has no existence at all. Report an error

1:07:44 Except thinking of it through a construct. And even the construct is not it because a construct is part of the mind. It's using words. That's not me. What I'm perceiving when I'm thinking, who, me? It's an object of thought. It's not the subjective thinking process. It's the object of thought. So it's not there at all, really. Not even a particle. Not even an atom. It's nothing. It's not there at all in its own right. Report an error

1:08:14 It's only there. Through the use of language, semantics, convention, it's an imputation, it exists through the force of thought and like that. That's all. Otherwise, it's not there at all. Report an error

1:08:37 You can only touch yourself through the force of thought. Otherwise, you're not touching you at all. It's not there at all. Even in that very spot that you felt so solidly being there. Without thinking, it's not there. Report an error

1:09:00 Nothing. Report an error

1:09:06 That's heavy stuff. Not there at all. Why do I get so worried? I don't have to worry anymore because I'm not there at all. Report an error

1:09:22 I'm only there for the sake of conversation. Report an error

1:09:32 That's all. Report an error

1:09:36 Somebody calls me up, where are you? Oh, I'm in Se Chin Ling. That's all. That's all it's for. Report an error

1:09:47 Otherwise, without words, which have nothing to do with me, but without them, there wouldn't be me. Report an error

1:09:58 Without all of these things, none of which is me, there would be no me. And yet, because of them, there is me. So that's why it's said to be a dependent arising. Report an error

1:10:10 Like the rainbow. Which is just an interaction of two things which are not rainbow, light and water, then you get rainbow. Like that, me appears to the mind through a thought process and some object that is a basis or gives rise to that thought process. Report an error

1:10:37 Otherwise, nothing there. Like an empty space, Report an error

1:10:45 right? If there is a cake box on a table. And at the end of this session, you go out and you look there and you see this cake box and you think, just what I needed, a nice piece of cake. And you open that box and it's empty. Report an error

1:11:08 It's empty. Report an error

1:11:12 Just like that. Report an error

1:11:19 As a concrete, objective thing. Existing through its own force, appearing to your mind through its own force, it is not. It is not there at all. It is something that appears through the interaction of other things which are not it. Report an error

1:11:45 If somebody is mining for gold, Report an error

1:11:52 no matter how much non-gold you accumulate, it doesn't make an ounce of gold. you know. Report an error

1:12:00 Right? It doesn't make an ounce of gold. And similarly, the accumulation of no matter what non-persons there are, it doesn't make even one person. So the accumulation of atoms that make the body, the accumulation of thoughts, constructs and so on, all of those which are not the person, the accumulation of all these that are not the person doesn't make a real person. Report an error

1:12:27 But there can be an appearance of a person. By the interactions. It's like magic. Report an error

1:12:38 Like magic. You know that magician, the street magician, you see him on TV from time to time and he goes to places like Africa and so on and he does magic for these people and they just can't. Report an error

1:12:51 Or he can be on the streets of New York and he does this magic. He does these amazing things and it's a trick. But he's so good at the trick that he makes things appear that they can't possibly. Appear the way they seem. They can't appear the way they seem. Or like the magicians who use supposedly in ancient India, good old ancient India where all things were possible. Report an error

1:13:28 Like the good old days. Report an error

1:13:33 Where the magicians could use spells. right. Report an error

1:13:40 Or mantras is another word. They could use these spells to hypnotize their audience into believing anything. So they could make their audience believe that a stick of wood is a horse. And they'd say this spell and everybody would see this horse there. And all there was was the magician using a spell and a piece of wood. Report an error

1:14:05 None of which is a horse. But the audience would all... Report an error

1:14:12 Even the magician would perceive Horus, but he knew it wasn't real because he did all the repetitions and made the offerings and did all that so that the spell had power. Report an error

1:14:28 Even in India today, you can go along the street and somebody will walk past you and turn around and say, hey, your mother's name is Kathleen. Report an error

1:14:40 How did you possibly know that? Oh, I know many things. Would you like to know more? It will only cost you 5,000 rupees. And you find out, you know, that person went someplace, studied with a guru, recited many, many mantras to be able to have that power. Report an error

1:15:01 It still exists. But the point of that example is that there is this appearance of objects, discrete objects. Differentiated from everything else that that object there is so obviously a table. It's a little table, but it's so obviously a table. Report an error

1:15:29 You know, it's just table. I didn't have to do it. It just appears like a table from its own side. Differentiated from everything else. Table. And yet, there's not even an atom of table existing there. Report an error

1:15:48 Without our thought, which is not table, Without pieces of wood arranged in a certain way and some metal pieces keeping it together, there's no table. Report an error

1:16:10 And yet when we look at it, it does seem like there's a table there from its own side appearing to our mind. Just like our mind is a mirror and the table reflects in the mirror. But it's not like that. Through visual consciousness. Shape and color will appear to the mind and through thought consciousness, term table, the way in which the term table is used conventionally, all of those will appear, interact and then we get table, like the trick of a magician. Report an error

1:17:05 So you have to think about it and then as you get these moments of... Absence of this concretely existing object, then try to hold that, sustain that for as long as you can. Report an error

1:17:24 When you lose that object, bring it back with a little bit more analysis. After a while, you don't have to analyze very much at all. The remembered image is strong enough that you can just bring back that image and sustain that. Report an error

1:17:43 In this case, you would do that as the deity, say. You're the deity and the deity, you know, whoever you are. Vajjogini, but I'm only Vajjogini through name and thought. And Report an error

1:18:01 then you hold that, that image which appears to be like space because it's an absence of something that you were grasping at strongly. It's an absence, a mere absence of obstruction. And it is a quality of things. Report an error

1:18:19 Of a person, the person exists as a conventional object, so the emptiness of a person is the quality of the person. The emptiness of the table is a quality of the table, a property of the table, an attribute of the table. Report an error

1:18:37 Not like Dolbupa, what's his name? Keep forgetting, it's not Dolbupa. No, Dopo, Dopopa, Dopopa, the guy from Dopa, Dopo. The guy from Dopo who was looking for emptiness someplace else or looking for reality someplace. The Buddha said that that's reality and it's called the ultimate reality because you get the most benefit from meditating on that. Report an error

1:19:17 He says that emptiness is not something grand except that through meditating on it you're able to eliminate this root ignorance that causes one to be reborn. Encyclical existence that causes all these problems, all the different delusions and so on. That's why it's important to meditate on. If we didn't have the grasping of inherent existence, we wouldn't have to meditate on emptiness. Report an error

1:19:42 So the emptiness is empty of inherent existence. Report an error

1:19:50 So emptiness, too, is not real. It doesn't exist from its own side, not even a particle of emptiness, because it exists as a relative thing. It's existing relative to... Ignorance. And it's existing. Or there's the other side of emptiness, which is interdependence. And everything is interdependent. So that's the positive side. There's interdependence. Everything arises interdependently. Everything is depending upon causes, conditions. Report an error

1:20:23 Like all these products, if there were no causes of the table, the table wouldn't exist. The table is not its causes. The causes no longer exist. Report an error

1:20:37 Quickly, going out of existence. Because it doesn't have sustaining causes. Just the previous moment is causing the next moment, but not quite as much. It's losing atoms. Gravity is pulling it down. Report an error

1:20:58 These objects which depend upon causes. Report an error

1:21:04 Without its causes, it couldn't exist at all. Therefore, it can't cause itself. It can't cause itself. I'll... Report an error

1:21:13 There's all sorts of arguments about that. A thing can't cause itself. If a thing, well, Report an error

1:21:26 there would be no need for production if Report an error

1:21:33 things caused themselves. Because in order to cause themselves, the cause would already have to exist, right? And if the cause is the same as the product, then there's no need to reproduce it. And if there was a need to reproduce it, then things would be producing themselves forever. Report an error

1:21:53 So... Things don't produce themselves. They're produced by something else which are not those things. And yet, if there's no relationship between the cause and effect, then anything could produce anything else. Report an error

1:22:11 A beautiful coat that protected you from the elements could be produced from turtle hair. Report an error

1:22:25 No such thing, right? But if things could be produced from causes that had no relationship with them, then one thing... Produce anything. Things could be arising from nothing at all. There has to be a relationship. And yet something which is not the cause is producing the effect. Or something which is not the effect is producing the effect. And not anything else. You need that particular group of causes to produce this effect. Report an error

1:23:00 And at what time does the effect come into existence? Just ask an artist. When are they done? When are they done? When they feel like it? When they feel like it? Or when the client requires it? Report an error

1:23:24 Who knows? But they have to say, it's done. They have to say that. And yet that's not existing in the art. That's existing in the words of somebody, which is different from the art. Report an error

1:23:42 So when? Go right ahead. Report an error

1:23:53 I learned the way to think about that. Because I paint is that it stops in an interesting place. And that place could be very uninteresting two weeks after you see it or two years and then you can work on it some more. But can I ask you why it is in all the many years I've heard different teachings on emptiness and you use examples of yourself and the table and all that. Report an error

1:24:16 I've never heard that run of thought applied to, let's say, and I'm being specific, a deity. Can you speak, why don't we say, talk about Tara? Use that as an example. Which one? Which Tara? Tell me. Green. Report an error

1:24:41 So the historical Tara? Just go with it. Report an error

1:24:50 Tara's a person, right? Oh God, you're going to set me up for a debate. No, I mean. Tara is a person. No. Tara's not a person? No. So then we have a different definition of person. Yeah. One definition of person is the mere I designated depending upon body or mind or a combination of body or mind. So that person doesn't have to be a human being, right? It can be, ha ha, ha ha. Report an error

1:25:26 There you go. So Tara would be considered, in Buddhism, is considered a person. Shakyamuni is considered a person like that. Report an error

1:25:41 So there are debates, for instance. Buddha is defined as a wisdom consciousness that is perceiving all aspects of all phenomena. So Buddha is not a person. It's a basis of a designation of a person. So we speak of the Arya Buddha as the term for the person of the Buddha. But that's just a debate in one context. Usually when we say Buddha, We mean Shakyamuni Buddha. And then we say the Buddhas, we mean all of the Buddhas, like that. And so the same reasoning that shows that any person lacks inherent existence can be applied to specific persons, like Green Tara. Report an error

1:26:30 So Green Tara is the name of a particular Buddha and it is a person who achieved enlightenment in such and such a time. And Shakyamuni told his disciples about her and revealed the verses of praise to the 21 Taras like that. Report an error

1:26:54 So there's this person. But because it's a person, we have to ask ourselves, does that person exist in its own right? Or is it a person that depends upon causes and conditions? Is it a person that depends upon parts? Is it a person that depends upon... A designation by name and thought. So, of course, Nagarjuna and Madhyamikas will say, there's no such thing as a person existing in her own right. Report an error

1:27:23 Because nothing exists in its own right. Persons are included in something. It doesn't exist in its own right. And, you know, if Tara existed in her own right, you would find her in doing an ultimate analysis. Analyzing, is this eyeball Tara? Is the nose Tara? If you're painting Tara and you left out a finger, is there Tara missing one finger there? Report an error

1:27:53 Or is Tara not there? And then you find that it's just designation. It's just mere designation. Same thing with Shakyamuni. He went through the 108 phenomena, which includes omniscience, includes emptiness, includes all of these things, none of them. Exist in their own right. They're all existing through the force of convention. And yet things appear. But all kinds of things appear that don't exist in their own right. Report an error

1:28:31 Like mirages and dreams and magic shows and all of these things. And yet the rainbows and so on. Report an error

1:28:42 So things can still appear without existing in their own right. As having an intrinsic identity appearing through the force of their own existence. They appear like that, but they can't possibly exist like that. If Tara existed like that, existed through the force of her own existence, then she would have always had to have been Tara, if she existed at all. Report an error

1:29:10 Because if it exists through its own force, then it wouldn't depend upon causes, because causes are a different entity than the result. When you have the result, the causes cease to exist. So then you would have a Buddha that... Never achieved Buddhahood, certainly by relying on the path, was never a sentient being who needed to be purified, was never a princess who did all of these filling up roads with water bowls and so on and so forth. Report an error

1:29:47 Never a sentient being who dedicated, I must become a Buddha and I'm going to do it in a female form. Never made any of those... Causes to become the Buddha Tara. But all of those things were her reality. She did all of those things. She was a sentient being. She was a princess that was a sentient being, not a Buddha. So she couldn't have been an inherently existing Buddha. Report an error

1:30:21 And you don't need to have the particular form, the green Tara form, to have Tara. Even the mind, the Dharmakaya of Tara, is a sufficient basis. right? Report an error

1:30:35 To generate the thought Tara. Tara who is omniscient. You're based on that omniscience, a quality of the mind, a function of her mind, thinking Tara. Report an error

1:30:47 So like that. Also the Buddhas are said to be the complete, the perfect accumulation of method and wisdom. So Buddhas are composed of parts, method and wisdom. And when they speak about Report an error

1:31:07 Okay, so there's method and wisdom. There's two parts, and those are composed of many things. And then there are causes, like the six perfections, or the causes of the body, like the, you know, the 32 major marks of the Buddha, like that. And they talk about, you know, how much merit it took to accumulate a fingernail in the Buddha, and then how much merit it took to have the light appearing like webs between Buddha. Report an error

1:31:32 That was so many times more than accumulating. That it took to create a hair pour. So many times more. Then how about the spokes, the thousand spoke or eight spoke wheel at the soles of the feet. So many times more merit to accumulate that. And to the hair in the center here, how much merit did it take? Report an error

1:31:53 Oh, so, so, so many more times more merit to accumulate that. And how about the head bump? Oh, indescribable universes. Endless amount of merit to accumulate that, such that an ordinary being could never, even an Arya being who's not a Buddha, couldn't even see the top of it. One of those disciples decided to look, you know, oh, challenge. He flew and flew and flew and flew and flew and flew and up in the air, and he could never get to the top of the head bump. Report an error

1:32:24 It seemed like it wasn't so tall until he tried to see the top of it, and he could never get there. Report an error

1:32:31 Causes, those merits, that's causes. So a result depending upon its causes, that means an object that is not existing through its own power. It's existing through the power of causes. And when you think about that, something existing not through its own power, but through the power of its causes, Report an error

1:32:58 things tend to appear as if they're existing through their own power. But if you cut the causes off... It can't exist at all, like the candle flame. If you cut the fuel off, it ceases to exist. It can't exist at all through its own power, not even for a moment. And yet, the wax is not the flame. The wick is not the flame. Report an error

1:33:26 The spark that initiated the continuum of flame was not the flame. So, and the previous moment of the flame is not the current moment of the flame. Report an error

1:33:40 But the current moment of the flame is created by a certain portion of fuel that has been transformed into flame and that fuel is gone such that that transformation flame can't be produced again because its cause no longer exists. A similar moment of flame arises because a similar cause is then accessed. More wax. Report an error

1:34:11 It's transformed into flame. So like that, each of us, me right now, is created by me a moment ago. And me a moment ago doesn't exist anymore. So me right now, that's the last time you'll see me. Then another me is appearing. But we keep saying me because that doesn't have to, it's not governed by impermanence and so on. Report an error

1:34:44 That's a concept. Concept that we create through thought so we can apply it in each moment, the same name, the same idea, we keep applying it. Report an error

1:35:02 So when you can see that there's nothing there from its own side, not even a particle, and yet things exist conventionally, then you've understood it. Report an error

1:35:22 Tsongkhapa said so in the Three Principles of the Path. Report an error

1:35:29 So this last verse, at the crossroads of the varieties of appearance and the six consciousnesses is seen the confusion of the baseless phenomenon of duality. The illusory spectacles of a deceiving magician are there. Not thinking they are true, look to their entity of emptiness. Not letting your mind stray, place it within appearance and emptiness. Making your attention unforgetful, maintain it within appearance and emptiness. Report an error

1:35:58 I first read that verse in that When it first appeared in 1975, there was no commentary with it, not like the edition that's in Buddhism of Tibet. And when I read the terms, the illusory spectacles of a deceiving magician, I was thinking of glasses. Report an error

1:36:26 Because I had heard this one story of some black magician. Who created this magical spectacles that when you looked at things, your paranoia would start to see and hear voices of those people plotting things against you. It was a frightening story. And so when I thought of the illusory spectacles of a deceiving magician, I thought of these sort of spectacles that there we are without something. Report an error

1:37:02 We see reality for what it is and then we put these on and suddenly everything appears to truly exist. Like that. And then I learned later that it was referring to the tricks of a magician, a spectacle as a show, a magic show. Report an error

1:37:25 So that's when the yogi comes out of meditation and things are appearing to exist in their own right through their own force. But the yogi knows that that's not true. Report an error

1:37:40 It's an illusion. So just like a person, like the magician, who knows that his tricks are not existing in the way they appear, or like a person who's familiar with a certain area of the desert, knows that there's no water where there is a mirage appearing, then Report an error

1:38:05 one remembers. That things are empty of this illusory appearance. They don't really exist like that. Report an error

1:38:23 And, you know, so you can engage in your activities, in everyday activity, not being in your meditation posture with your eyes closed and meditating on emptiness, but all of these things in everyday life appearing and you need to remind yourself from time to time. The best times to remind yourself. Or when some attachment or anger, something like that, is starting to arise. Report an error

1:38:58 And at that time, one could say, why get upset? Who is that person talking to? They're talking to a me that they have created in their own mind. Report an error

1:39:15 And why should the me that I'm creating in my mind get so upset because of the you? That they are creating in their mind. Why should I? It's not helpful. So why should I do it? If it's not helpful, why should I do it? Why should I think it if it's not helpful? Why should I act on it if it's not helpful? Report an error

1:39:44 That's my choice. Report an error

1:39:51 So then you become, you know, like Report an error

1:39:59 Neo, this great martial artist. They try to hit you. Goes right through, doesn't touch a thing. Because there's not an atom of you even existing, really. With their words, you know, they're saying, oh, you did this and you did that. And you can say, yes, I did. You don't have to deny it. Or, no, I didn't, if you didn't do it. Report an error

1:40:30 You know, you can just say the truth, but you don't have to. It doesn't have to be this emotional reaction that arises from grasping. Onto a person that one is conceiving of as having all of these faults from its own side, which nobody wants to have because, you know, you would always have to have them then. Report an error

1:40:53 And then there's no possibility of anything and you'd be an inherently terrible person. You wouldn't be able to stand yourself, let alone hope for anybody else to like you. Report an error

1:41:05 So nobody wants that. So you want to reject those criticisms. But if there is no inherently existing self and there could be no inherently existing properties of such a self, Report an error

1:41:18 then there's just conventional attributes that either they fit at that moment because of some action that has taken place and is no longer existing or not. Report an error

1:41:33 But in each moment, this wisdom realizing emptiness. It gives you freedom to act without being under the control of former actions or what other people are saying about you. It gives you freedom to act. So then your action can be based upon what you understand to be the best thing to do for achieving the best, the most benefit at that time, rather than being victims of... Report an error

1:42:09 Of habits. Report an error

1:42:17 Following to be true something that's not true just because somebody else said it. Identifying with something just because somebody else said it. Report an error

1:42:34 As if that person knows you more than you know you. Report an error

1:42:44 So it gives you great freedom. That was one of the things Lamyeshe mentioned when I was talking to him once about emptiness. He says, oh, emptiness? He said, freedom to act. That's the benefit of emptiness. Report an error

1:43:02 And you can approach things freshly. What will benefit the most right now? What will benefit the most in the long run? What is the greatest benefit? That becomes the basis for acting as opposed to karma, which is, you know, the repetition of what was done in the past. Report an error

1:43:38 Okay. Report an error

1:43:43 Yes. Report an error

1:43:54 The Kagu have this thing that they call Rigpa. And the stillness of the mind between thoughts, there's a gap. And expressing that gap wider and wider and wider. I got to a point to where I saw nothing, I heard nothing, I felt nothing. I just was resting in this space where even as I was looking out of my eyes, I couldn't see or focus on anything. Report an error

1:44:24 Is that a direct experience of emptiness? No. Report an error

1:44:32 Sorry. Okay. Okay. Just was curious. No. Because it was, everything was devoid, it was devoid of everything. Yeah, it's, you can have similar experiences just by meditating on the mind itself. Meditating on just awareness, being aware. Report an error

1:44:58 And because, you know, the mind doesn't have any particular form, shape, color, taste, anything like that. If you're focusing on mind without focusing on, if the mind itself is your object, then without any other objects appearing, without being distracted by other content of mind, other objects, you kind of remove that and you're just focusing on the fact of awareness taking place. Report an error

1:45:26 You can have those experiences. And without being aware of the mere absence of inherent existence. That's what emptiness is. That's what the wisdom realizing emptiness is. That's what the bottom line is. You can have similar experiences to a yogi that's meditating on emptiness in that both a person who's meditating on the conventional nature of the mind and a yogi who's meditating on the ultimate nature of the mind will both be free from other things appearing to their mind. Report an error

1:46:04 No sound, shapes, colors, being in a space which is without those appearances. But they can still have different objects which will have different effects upon their mind. Report an error

1:46:21 So it's still a good experience though, right? It was an interesting experience. Yeah, still a good experience. Because when I came back I didn't know how long I'd been gone. So good experience. It was an interesting experience. Yes. So that's like good concentration. That could be good concentration. Of course, you know, there are those who fall unconscious. Report an error

1:46:47 And they don't know how long they've been out. But that's a different experience. If you have an experience of being aware, you are aware, but you're aware of something else. You're not aware of shapes, colors, etc. You're aware of something else, but vividly aware, energetically aware. Report an error

1:47:11 Then that can be a positive experience. But you can be aware of using awareness itself. The fact of knowing itself. So that's meditating on the conventional nature of mind. Report an error

1:47:25 And it's similar to like Advaita. It's a form of... In the Hindu tradition you have all kinds of different individual traditions and it's sort of generic term Hinduism. But there's very different practices within that. And there's this Advaita form and they meditate like that. They meditate on the nature of mind, being aware. And when you are aware like that, then it's something that you can sustain because you're aware all the time anyway, but we're aware of different objects all the time. Report an error

1:48:16 And then you're told, don't get engaged in all of these other objects, just stay engaged in awareness itself. And that's the conventional nature of mind. Report an error

1:48:30 And that can... Produce profound experiences. Yes, because the nature of the conventional nature of mind has no limits, no shape, no color. There's no particular box that one's in. It's wide open. Report an error

1:48:49 Yeah, good experience. It's a good experience. Now a meditator on Mahamudra would use that as the basis and then meditate on the emptiness of that awareness. That that awareness too. Does not inherently exist. Report an error

1:49:13 Which is also practiced by the Kagyu. Report an error

1:49:26 Sure. Right. Report an error

1:49:36 Yeah. So that's where a way of combining those two. To be able to, in the Mahamundra, which is like the, the Maha 'ati came from originally Nyingma tradition. Maha 'ati is Rigpa practice, right? Maha Ati, that came from the Nyingma tradition and then during the time of the Rime tradition, then Nyingma practices were brought into Kagyu practices and that became the Rime movement, non-sectarian movement. Report an error

1:50:15 And so that's where Kagyu gained the Rigpa practice. But before that, from the time of Marpa, the founder of Kagyu, you had Mahamudra. And Mahamudra is meditating on the ultimate nature of the mind. But to meditate on the ultimate nature of the mind, you have to find the relative nature of the mind. And to find the relative nature of the mind, then it's described in the same way that Rigpa is described. Report an error

1:50:45 And a teacher would bring you there through descriptions and so on, and you would just get the bare awareness function, just being aware of the mind itself. And there's different ways of explaining it, depending upon different... Types of philosophies or different philosophies that might be useful for a certain student as opposed to another student. There's different ways of describing it. Report an error

1:51:09 And in the Kagyi tradition of Mahamudra, they have a lot of different ways of describing, enabling the student to discover the relative nature of the mind, the mere awareness, which is not easy. As you mentioned, it's an unusual experience. It was difficult to get the gap. to widen, but once I got it going, time, gap got so wide that I rested in this. Report an error

1:51:44 Rigpa is a word for awareness. We translate it as awareness. Report an error

1:51:55 Once one understands that, like in the Gelug tradition, the understanding of mind comes through the understanding of Mainly through the understanding of epistemology, like Dharmakirti's works. And that seems to be the main value of studying epistemology. Tsongkhapa was a great fan of epistemology, but not all the great lamas were a fan of studying epistemology. Report an error

1:52:33 But Lama Tsongkhapa saw value in it, and I think from my experience of studying that tradition, It gives you different ways of understanding mind because you have to think about mind a lot and then you start to focus on what is mind, what does it mean to reveal objects and I've got a mind, why don't I watch and see it functioning, trying to identify doing those things and just watching it, the very fact of revealing something without getting caught in what's being revealed but the revealing of something and apprehension and what is apprehending. Report an error

1:53:06 What is doing the work? And there's no color, no shape, and yet there's a function taking place there. And so through those studies, one can get that experience. But then in the Mahamudra tradition, whether it's the Kagyu, and the Gelug Mahamudra comes from the Kagyu Mahamudra, and then it's meditating on the emptiness of that conventional mind. Report an error

1:53:31 And then in the Gelug... Tantric explanation, the conventional mind is the mind of clear light, the very subtle mind of clear light, and you meditate on the emptiness of that. Report an error

1:53:49 So that gets you the most subtle mind perceiving the ultimate object, the most beneficial object. Yes, Report an error

1:54:04 that's the second mindfulness. The compassion part is the second of the four mindfulnesses. Oh, okay. But when you're doing the meditation and these deep mind understandings, where does it enter? As a background or as a... Motivation. A motivation. Oh, the motivation. The motivation. So the more compassion, the more capacity that the mind has to go into these deep subjects? Is there a correlation? Report an error

1:54:33 There is a correlation. There is a correlation. Definitely. Like the Hinayana Arhat, the here solitary realizer. Definitely. Report an error

1:54:45 They understand emptiness too. They have experience of emptiness too. But they're not able to abandon the objects to knowledge. They abandon the misconception that apprehends emptiness or apprehends true existence. They abandon anger, attachment, all of these things. But they don't abandon the obstacles to knowledge. Why is that? Report an error

1:55:08 Because they're satisfied with the peaceful state that... The samadhyan emptiness leaves them in. The bodhisattva is not satisfied by that because of the force of their compassion. There's so much more to do in order to benefit sentient beings. So it's the force of their compassion that keeps them active in trying to abandon the obstacles to knowledge. Because so long as the obstacles to knowledge exist, then one will be unable to know what to do to help the sentient beings. Report an error

1:55:39 So it's through the force of compassion that one is able to Gain the full benefit of the wisdom realizing emptiness, which is to abandon the obstacles to knowledge as well as the obstacles to liberation. Report an error

1:55:57 I have a question coming from somebody who doesn't understand emptiness at all. Is that a friend of yours? Director. Report an error

1:56:13 My question is, once a person realizes emptiness, Is it like everything else which means that it comes and goes, it's not something that you really hold on to or is it a concept that once you realize it once for one thing you realize it for everything else? When it's realized conceptually through a conceptual mind then it comes and it goes. When it's realized through direct perception then you always have the understanding that things are... Report an error

1:56:50 Illusory in appearance. You never lose that fact. So it's like that. And then the conceptual understanding is something that depends upon whether it's held by strong concentration or not. If it's not held through strong concentration, then there's a limit to how much one has penetrated. The understanding of emptiness. There's further that one needs to go, which can only be gone by conjoining an analysis, an ultimate analysis with the concentration, strong concentration called mental quiescence. Report an error

1:57:40 So you get an understanding of emptiness by listening, by reading, some understanding arises and then it can go right away. But then you have to bring it back and keep Report an error

1:57:55 Refreshing one's experience of it and keep bringing it back and expanding one's understanding and comparing one's understanding to different texts, for example, to make sure that one's understanding is in the right direction. Report an error

1:58:13 Because that's another thing, you want to be confident. Before you spend a lot of time meditating single-pointedly on this object, you want to be sure that it's the correct object. Report an error

1:58:24 So then you discuss with authorities, read text written by authorities and try to gain confidence or make sure that one's understanding is correct. And then you have to bring it to mind through mindfulness again and again and again. But once you have a direct experience, that's called the path of seeing. Report an error

1:58:51 And when you come out of that meditation, you have a wisdom that's called aftermath wisdom. An aftermath of wisdom, you look around you and everything appears to inherently exist, but you know it's not. So it appears like an illusion. Report an error

1:59:10 These things appear to exist in their own right, but I know they're not exist in their own right. It's said to be like the person who's having a dream, a lucid dream. A lucid dreamer knows it's a dream, and therefore it never gets too excited by what's going on in the dream or plays in the dream. As freedom to do what they want in the dream. And that last continues. The Arya, you become an Arya, and the Arya is no longer deceived by the appearance of inherent existence. Report an error

1:59:52 So we've run out of time, and so I hope you gain some understanding. Even those who didn't understand anything, I hope you gain some more understanding. Report an error

2:00:11 And so please, whatever you've understood, don't forget it. Practice mindfulness of what you have understood. Okay? As soon as you get up, remind yourself, what was it I understood? Bring that to mind. Before you go to sleep tonight, sit down for a moment by yourself. Just try to think, what was that I understood? Try to bring it back to mind. Otherwise, you'll forget it. By tomorrow morning, you'll forget it. Report an error

2:00:45 It's too subtle. And yet it's not so subtle. Some understanding can come to mind just in a couple hours. Some understanding can come to mind. So bring it back to mind so you don't forget it. Bring it before you go to sleep. Tomorrow morning, remind yourself of it. Report an error

2:01:06 You can do all four of these mindfulness practices as your sadhana practice or incorporate it in your sadhana practice instead of just reciting the words. To fulfill a commitment, make these four parts of your sadhana practice experiential. Report an error

2:01:31 Like that. And even practice parts of it. Before you eat your lunch, offer it. And offer it to the deity. Evoke the deity by thinking, I don't really exist. And I'll just generate myself as a deity. If it's through the force of imagination, through thought, that I'm existing, Why not think better? And then eat like a Buddha would eat. Who was it? The Buddha was invited to a benefactor's house for lunch. Report an error

2:02:09 And he brought his disciples with him, which is customary. And the benefactor had another teacher as well as the Buddha. And he just happened to have had the other teacher over the previous day and had offered his best quality rice to that previous teacher. So that he didn't have any more of the best quality rice. So he ended up offering second grade rice to the Buddha. And if you live in India, you can tell just by looking what's first class and second class rice. Report an error

2:02:39 So Ananda, who was Shakyamuni's attendant and secretary and memorized every word. So Ananda regarded the Buddha as the magnificent, the best, the god of the gods, the bull of bulls. This kind of thing. Then got upset, offering second class rice to the most magnificent human being that ever walked on two feet. Report an error

2:03:08 And the Buddha understood what Ananda was thinking, because he's a Buddha, and took a grain of rice out of his mouth and stuck it in Ananda's mouth. Ananda went into bliss. So if you want to eat better... Report an error

2:03:30 Just imagine you're a Buddha and how much better everything tastes to a Buddha. It's like every opportunity that you can bring these things to mind, do it. Then it benefits you. Otherwise you forget it and then there's no benefit. Just one little imprint from a day or two days, someplace during your life. Report an error

2:03:53 How much power will that have in some future lifetime? How much power? How much? So for your own sake, And for the sake of all of those sentient beings who are depending upon you to get enlightened in order to free them, then please, if you have understood anything, don't forget it. Thank you. Report an error

2:04:32 you with us these past couple of days, and we're eager to have you return. in a more detailed way on some Report an error

2:04:45 job is to speak on behalf of the center, but the center is here. So do we all agree that we do? You're here. Yes, please do. Report an error

2:04:56 Three times. That's okay, I heard the first time. In case you didn't hear that, please come back. Sure. Report an error

2:05:12 Thank you very much. It was helpful. Report an error

2:05:18 Sure. 2.59. Report an error

2:05:30 Prayer for the Flourishing of Jason Kapa's Teaching. Though he's the father, producer of all conquerors, as a conqueror's son, he produced the thought of upholding the conqueror's dharma in infinite worlds. Through this truth, may the conqueror Lo-Sang's teaching flourish. One of your four Buddha Indukkatu, he made his vow to conquer and his offspring, praised his powerful courage. Report an error

2:05:57 Through this truth, may the conqueror Lo-Sang's teaching flourish. That the lineage of pure view and conduct might spread, he offered a white crystal rosary to the sage, who gave him a conch and prophesied, through this truth may the conqueror Losang's teaching flourish. His pure view free of eternity or destruction, his pure meditation cleansed of dark fading and fog, his pure conduct practiced according to the conqueror's orders. Report an error

2:06:24 May the conqueror Losang's teachings flourish. Learned, since he extensively sought out learning, reverend, since he applied, reverend, I know, but I think revered, but anyway, reverend, rightly applying it to himself, good, dedicating all for beings and doctrine, may the conqueror Losang's teachings flourish through being sure that all scriptures, definite and interpretive, were without contradiction. Report an error

2:06:53 Advice for one person's practice, he stopped all misconduct. May the conqueror Lo Tsang's teachings flourish. Listening to explanations of the three Pitakas, realizing teachings, practice and the three trainings, his skill and accomplished life story is amazing. May the conqueror Lo Tsang's teachings flourish. Report an error

2:07:12 Outwardly calmed and subdued by the hero's conduct, inwardly trusting to the two stages practice, he allowed without class the good paths of sūtra and tantra, may the conqueror Lusang's teachings flourish. Combining voidness explained as the causal vehicle, with great bliss achieved by method of the effect vehicle, heart essence of 80,000 Dharma bundles, may the conqueror Lusang's teachings flourish. Report an error

2:07:37 By the power of the ocean of oath-bound production. May the three beings pass, the quick-acting Lord, Vejravana, Karmayama, may the conqueror Losang's teachings flourish. In short, by the lasting of glorious Guru's lives, by the good, learned, reverend holders, of the teachings and all the increase of power of his patrons, may the conqueror Losang's teachings flourish. Report an error

2:08:05 May it be. Report an error

· · ·

2:09:07 Thank you. Report an error

2:09:34 Oh, oh, I'm not, I'm not reading that. it's right in the name of the birds, but when there she uses the of an awful being, which I probably appreciate. Report an error

2:09:52 So I'm going to hear it. Report an error

2:09:58 I'd have to see the camera. Report an error

2:10:11 Thank Report an error

2:10:31 you. Report an error

2:10:49 Yeah, no, no, I just need the... Report an error

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Talk by Tubten Pende, recorded 7 April 2012. Original at Tse Chen Ling Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/TP_Songsof4Mindfulnesses_20120406. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.

Recorded at Tse Chen Ling Center, San Francisco, and archived by the center on Internet Archive. More from Tse Chen Ling

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