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20020914GRAAWIS2

CD 3 out of 7

11.48 (until then repetition, going over same terms and quotations)

Even before going into the analysis on selflessness one has to have achieved shamata, the concentrated meditation. It is the prerequisite for practicing vipasyana or special insight.

We know that a good ethical base allows concentration to develop and then concentration helps to develop wisdom. These are the Three Higher Trainings from the medium scope.

What does concentrated meditation do? When you gain a good concentrated meditation, without any analytical component, simply concentration, it is able to cut the gross or strong level of delusions. Strong anger, strong hatred and other strong negative emotions will be overcome by good concentration alone – without having to analyze. But we are really aiming at liberation. We want to cut the root of our suffering, the whole samsara, the continuation of uncontrolled life. Without understanding selflessness that is not possible. Pabongka emphasizes that it requires insight beyond samsara. If you develop this then even if you don’t go into the higher absorptions so much, you will be able to cut the root of samsara.

The various levels of absorption or concentrated power leads to rebirth in higher realms. We have a chart that lists the various levels. There are four levels of concentrated power leading to a god rebirth with a form body. Then there are four further realms you get reborn in without a form body. The last of those is the Peak of Samsara’. You can divide the whole process into 56 layers or so. Normally people will go on and focus on all those absorptions or dhyanas. But if you switch the focus to analysis, to vipasyana, you don’t have to go through all these levels of concentrations. With vipasyana it is like going on a highway that bypasses a lot of cities on the way to the actual destination. You go further quicker and easier. You don’t have to get inside the city of Cleveland in order to catch the 80/90 freeway. You can sit on I 80 continuously until it joins with I 90. Then finally that will lead to I 23 and you arrive in Ann Arbor, Michigan easily, without having to go through all these places.

If you go according to traditional teachings methods like this you can find those freeways. If you just try and develop according to trial and error you will probably go through all these many levels and layers and all kinds of things. Many people today put their sincere efforts in and they do progress to certain levels of concentration. But with that approach you are not taking the highway, but you are going on the country road, passing through each city on the way and that is going to take a very long time.

Instead of going through the usual routing of developing all the levels of concentration or absorption, there is a way to cut through directly to deal with the root of samsara. This now becomes important. Up to this point it doesn’t matter so much how you proceed.

I was doing a retreat for Ram Das in Omega once and he presented three kinds of self: the first, the middle and then self the beloved. I told him that I didn’t have a problem with that classification. He was a little surprised and told me that many of his colleagues had a problem with that. I was thinking more on the lines of different names and labels and layers and if you do that, it is not so important how you call them and divide them. That changes. What really matters is the principle. You can avoid going into all these concentrations. That is important. Pabongka proves this by quoting from Praise of the Praiseworthy:

Although people who follow your doctrine

Do not gain the actual dyani planes,

They prevent their rebirth existence

While Mara looks on helplessly.

One of the Indian non-Buddhist scholars had a debate with a Buddhist master. These traditional debates are not what we know today as debates, like the presidential debates. There would have been a rigorous debate and whoever lost it, would have had to surrender completely. So this Indian non-Buddhist scholar lost his debate and was locked up for a while in a little room in the Buddhist monastery where they kept all the loose pages that had not been made into books. As he was a great scholar, he was interested enough to read all kinds of bits and pieces of the literature that was around there. He was locked up for a few days. At one point, he was sitting on a pile of pages and pulled one out from under his butt and started reading. In that text, Buddha was said to have made a prophesy about this Indian master, saying that he would be a great debater and great person, that his understanding would be incomparable. He realized that this text was talking about him and he realized what the difference between Buddha’s method and non-Buddhist methods were. He wrote this text called ‘Praise to the Praiseworthy’, which Pabongka quoted from. He says that Buddha does not recommend going too far into the dyanis, the concentrated powers that become absorptions. He says that you can cut the root of samsara under the very eyes of the evil within you, here referred to as ‘mara’.

Here you can see that even a scholar such as he who had been an expert in the other methods, eventually found that Buddha’s method was superior and praised him on that ground. Going into vipasyana, the analytical meditation on selflessness, you discover emptiness. Without this there will be no liberation at all. Even if you attempt all the activities of the Bodhisattvas, they will not go towards liberation without focusing on emptiness. No matter how much Bodhisattva work you do without this, you will not get liberation. Good works done without understanding of emptiness will only get you lucky karma. You will get the result of lucky karma within samsara. No matter whatever you do, it will still be samsaric creation. The same is true for unshakeable karma. It is also just samsaric karma. Pabongka now quotes Tsong Khapa from the Three Principles:

Without opening the wisdom eye

Seeking freedom and generating bodhimind

Cannot cut the root of samsara.

Strive to see interdependence

What does that mean? You may reach a very high level of concentration. You may meditate for lifetimes and eons, but if you don’t cut the root of samsara, you will fall back into suffering. You need a spiritual path that does not have any fall back at all. That is only possible if you cut the root. Otherwise, no matter how much you keep cutting the branches, there is always the possibility that the whole plant will grow back. Even if you just leave the stump of a tree trunk and put tiles over it, even then the tree will grow back, right? If it can’t grow through the top it will grow out from under the side. On the other hand, simply having a suspicion that emptiness might exist, will destroy self-grasping. Pabongka quotes from Aryadeva’s Four hundred verses:

Even those with few merits

Have no doubts about this Dharma.

Even those who still have their doubts

Will tear existence to tatters.

He says that if you are unlucky you will not even have a doubt about emptiness. Just simply having a doubt will tear samsara to pieces. It is like a cloth that is torn into many pieces.

How can you get this wisdom of emptiness? It is necessary to have a tremendous accumulation of merit. You need to undertake a good study under a good master who gives the correct teachings. You need strong purification and further you need to view the lama as inseparable from the yidam and then pray.

These are the causes. You cannot just go and try to understand emptiness on its own. The causes all have to be completed, otherwise you cannot gain a deep understanding. In the pre-Tibetan Indian Mahayana Buddhism, four schools were known who each held a different view on emptiness. In one way these four viewpoints look totally different and contradictory, but if you look more closely you find that they are all interlinked and one pushes the other. In order to clearly understand the more subtle, higher viewpoints it is helpful to first understand the grosser, simpler. That makes it easier – unless you are brilliant. The final, most subtle view is that held by the Madhyamaka school. That itself has two divisions, out of which the Prasangika (Tib: tal gyurwa) founded by Buddhapalita, is the most important. To put it simply, Buddhapalita says that the essence of emptiness is interdependence and the essence of interdependence is emptiness. This is the only school in Indian Buddhism who holds that view. This is why Tsong khapa says in the Three Principles Strive to see interdependence. The crucial point here is that the emphasis is on seeing interdependence, rather than on seeing emptiness. Since the essence of emptiness is interdependence, by understanding interdependence, emptiness will be understood. In many teachings it is also said that the essence of emptiness is compassion and the essence of compassion is emptiness.

Let me quote from Pabongka’s Liberation in the Palm once more. He says,

Our Compassionate Teacher taught at various levels for disciples with inferior to superior mentalities. Hence, he first taught that the person is empty of substantial and autonomous existence.

We have mentioned that view earlier. Actually, even before that, a still coarser view of the object of negation is that of an independent, permanent self. That is the view that thinks that somewhere inside of us is that ‘I’, existing independently. It feels almost the same as ourselves, same as the body, pervading body and mind. It does not seem to be the body or the mind, but we feel it is something equal to us in size. We begin to call that our ‘self’. It is supposed to be beyond body and mind. Some people claim that mind is the real self, that the body is just what we point at to establish our identity. This self is perceived to be permanent, never changing. In Tibetan it is called tak chi rang wa gyen gyi dak. This is permanent, solid, independent. Why does it appear to be solid? If it were dependent, it could not be solid, singular, independent. If you are not solitary, if you are not alone, you are no longer a solitary hero. Commonly this is the first view of a self that is negated. It is the easiest one to negate. It is not a big problem for those who have been studying for a while to see that such a permanent, solid, independent self could not exist. People who have never investigated this at all will find even that hard to understand. Most of us here in this room will not accept an independent, permanent self any more. We can see that it is interdependent and impermanent. Think about it and check where you are with your own view.

When you are able to negate the independent, solid, permanent self it is time to look deeper. Expressed in normal western language we are talking about the soul. What kind of soul? Who is that? The next view that you can get stuck in is the substantially existent self that can exist on its own. Now you are looking further inside. There still seems to be some substance that is distinct from the body and the mind that we can label ‘Me’. This is already one layer better than the first, coarser view. You are conceding that this ‘I’ is impermanent. However, even within that impermanent mixture of heart, lungs, thoughts and feelings, there still seems to be a substantial ‘Me’. Now we are holding on to that, that there is some kind of substance that can stand on its own. The part of the definition that says it can stand on its own is important. The moment you are convinced that this ‘Me’ cannot stand on it’s own, you are losing it. Those people who have a very strong attachment to ‘Me’ are hearing from Buddha, ‘No, that kind of ‘Me’ does not exist.

Actually, most of our emotional sufferings come up because of this attachment to ‘Me’. We feel that ‘I have been compromised’, ‘I have been misused’, ‘I have been ignored’, and so on. You are investigating like this, ‘Which ‘I’ exactly? Who are you talking about?’ You answer yourself, ‘Well, just Me’. ‘Oh, that thing inside of me that has the same size, and is always the same and independent.’ You probe further and find that there can’t be an independent ‘I’. Now you say, ‘All right, it is impermanent then. But there is a substance there, able to stand on it’s own and that is the ‘Me’ that gets hurt and suffers.’ With this understanding you have moved up one layer. There is some realization. Buddha has provided this viewpoint for those who have strong attachment to a self. Some Buddhist schools do hold that the lack of a substantially existent self is emptiness.

This view is still not that hard to get. Now, let me introduce the next subtler level of selflessness. Here we are talking about a truly existing self. It is much subtler than talking about solid existence, like looking at a cup. You now think that of course there is no solidly existing ‘I’, but that you are truly here, you truly exist. There is some distinction between existing and truly existing, having and truly having. Now the true existence becomes the object to be negated, rather than the substantial existence.

If you go to a yet subtler level you think, ‘Yes, I am not existing truly, but I am there by nature.’ Can you see the distinction here? It is a little harder to get. It becomes more and more subtle. The hanging on to an ‘I’ becomes subtler and subtler, but still, you just can’t let it go. There has to be a ‘real’ self. When you really deeply investigate the nature of your own existence, you will go through these layers of subtlety.

Even subtler than that you will understand that everything, persons and phenomena, is not naturally existent and not truly existent and not substantially existent and not independently existent, but is empty of all those types of existence. This is the best, most subtle viewpoint. According to Pabongka, Buddha’s actual intention is this last viewpoint. Further he says that Buddha had predicted the coming of Nagarjuna who would be able to make the distinction between having and not having, and between non-existence and true existence. Nagarjuna is the person who really made it clear. People after him not only said that Nagarjuna had the best explanation but also that Buddha had prophesized that he would do it. With that they tried to prove that Nagarjuna had the correct view. There are a zillion different views around and how do we know which is right and which is wrong? We are not going to get any experience that quickly. For us it is first a matter of learning and therefore we rely on Buddha who said that Nagarjuna will propound the correct view. In one way just to believe something because Buddha said so is against Buddhist principles, but here we are doing it anyway. According to Pabongka you have to check whether any philosophical explanation is in accordance with Nagarjuna’s writings. If it is not it goes away from Buddha’s experience. This does not just refer to some Tibetan scholars but even to such great Indian scholars Dignana. Among the Tibetans, the great scholar Jonangpa explained mistaken viewpoints, if you compare them to Nagarjuna’s writings.

After Nagarjuna, Chandrakirti was somebody who is greatly respected for his clear explanations. He was not a direct disciple of Nagarjuna. There are 600 years in between. However, he is regarded as Nagarjuna’s follower. He has commented on Nagarjuna extensively and found that if you go beyond or against Nagarjuna, you cannot find liberation. You would be losing either the relative truth, the absolute truth or both. With that you cannot get liberated. There is no second door to liberation.

The Tibetans consider Atisha, the Bengalian scholar very important. He said that the true upholder of the banner for Nagarjuna is Chandrakirti and that Chandrakirti’s teachings help us to understand Nagarjuna’s view clearly. Pabongka, with this method of quoting authoritative great people throughout Buddhist history, is trying to establish which view has been found to be the best and how best to study and practice it. He says that even in Tibet a great many teachers have come and explained so many things. The teachers always have to teach on the basis of the disciples’ capacity to understand. Because of that sometimes there are different explanations. In light of that Tsong Khapa, some centuries later came and again corrected a lot of the teachings that had become unclear, particularly the wisdom teachings. Tsong Khapa could not trust or rely on any of the Tibetan teachers of his day. He wanted to go to India to meet one of the great masters alive at the time like Lobon Lujang or the great Mahasiddha Maitripa. But before he could go, another mahasiddha in Tibet, Lhotrak Drub chen, insisted that Tsong Khapa not go to India. He talked to Vajrapani, his personal deity and got some answers but Tsong Khapa was still not fully satisfied. Finally he made a very strong dedication and purification and strong prayers to the lama and Manjushri as inseparable. Then he did a lot of meditation practice and finally Manjushri appeared to Tsong Khapa and talked to him. The result of Tsong Khapa’s learning directly from Manjushri is the teaching called The Three Principles of the Path. Tsong Khapa had a great variety of visions in which Manjushri appeared to him. But finally, he experienced Manjushri directly, like one human being talking to another. They were like teacher and disciple. They directly talked to each other. His vision was at that level. He did not have visions that were fuzzy hallucinations and disappeared quickly. That would not be considered to be so important, although even if you get just that, it is quite good.

Manjushri first directed Tsong Khapa to take teachings from Rendawa. He said that after a while, however, Rendawa would not be able to help him anymore, but could still interpret what Manjushri would say to Tsong Khapa. The final understanding of wisdom Tsong Khapa developed when one day he had a fantastic dream. He saw five people above in space, having a conference regarding emptiness. One was Nagarjuna, one was Chandrakirti, one was Buddhapalita. Then there were two others.

[Aryadeva and Bhavaviveka, all in the Pure Land of Tushita. Tsong Khapa dreamt that he was actually there, at the palace of Maitreya who was accompanied by Atisha – Lex Hixon’s Secret Bio of Tsong Khapa]. You can read that in Tsong Khapa’s secret biography.

CD 4 out 7

In Tsong Khapa’s dream they were having a discussion among themselves and Buddhapalita looked back at Tsong Khapa and took out his own commentary called ‘Buddhapalita’ and blessed Tsong Khapa by touching the book on his head. That was Tsong Khapa’s dream.

Then, the very next day, someone came to see him and happened to give him Buddhapalita’s commentary. Tsong Khapa had read Buddhapalita’s commentary 300 times before, but when he received it again he began reading in it and suddenly at that time, he got the real wisdom. So that was prophesized by Manjushri when he had told him, ‘Work hard now and later the wisdom is going to come to you’. So that dream came and a day later that guy with the text and with that, all the conditions were right and it happened. Until then, Tsong Khapa was not fully satisfied with the level of wisdom, no matter who of the earlier Tibetan masters or even Indian masters he consulted.

Tsong Khapa’s praise of Buddha is called In Praise of Interdependent Arising. Every word is very solid in there. He praises Buddha,

You are one who saw it and then showed it. You really understood well. You are a great master. I bow to you, because you understand the meaning of interdependent nature. This is what you have been able to express. That is why you are great. All the faults in the world are coming from ignorance. You are one who sees and understands that this can be understood through the interdependent nature. Therefore, the intelligent ones know that the essence of your teaching is the interdependent nature. Because of that how can one praise you better than by praising you for sharing the importance of interdependent existence.

This praise is also known as the Brief Essence of Eloquence. There is also a Greater Essence of True Eloquence, which Professor Thurman translated. After reading the small one you will understand the greater one a little better. Tsong Khapa wrote this Praise of Buddha right after he gained his direct understanding of wisdom. Then there was a great teacher in Southern Tibet called Badong Choglae Namgyal. Earlier on he was a critic of Tsong Khapa. One day, while he was in his room he heard a beggar outside reciting a poem that he had memorized. In Tibet, the beggars used to go from one place to another. They memorized poems and anything new that had been written and recited them in public places and people would give them money. Badong Choglae Namgyal was staying at his house on the third floor. He was lying down, when he heard this beggar reciting these fantastic words. Badong was thinking, ‘That has to be one of Nagarjuna’s words. I wonder who just translated these.’ Just when he was thinking that, the beggar recited,

The great moon shine of Nagarjuna opened up the night flowers….

Now Badong was thinking, ‘Okay, so it is not Nagarjuna, but it is Chandrakirti’s work.’ Again the beggar went on, ‘When I saw the moon shine of Chandrakirti by the kindness of the guru, I began to relax.’ Now Badong could not keep lying down anymore. He jumped up from his bed. It is said that he jumped down several steps at a time, ran out on the road after the beggar who had kept on walking and asked him, ‘Where did you get this poem from?’ The beggar said, ‘It was written by somebody called ‘Big Nose’. That happened to be Tsong Khapa’s nickname and Badong knew it. He quickly packed his bags and traveled to Central Tibet to find Tsong Khapa, but before he even got there he heard that Tsong Khapa had just passed away. Badong Rimpoche then prepared tremendous gifts and it is said that he threw them all in the air and they actually landed in Gaden monastery. Perhaps somebody physically brought them there, but that is not so important. This is all mentioned in Pabongka’s Liberation in the Palm.

Tsong Khapa’s explanations are so good, because he did not just buy whatever information was available, even if it came from India. He always asked Manjushri directly. That is why this wisdom is faultless. Pabongka says that if you read Tsong Khapa’s teachings they are very difficult to understand in the beginning, but if you read them again and again it will become clearer and clearer and you will find how profound they are. Especially, for this wisdom, first you have to have the wisdom that follows learning. According to Tsong Khapa’s system, Pabongka now explains. He quotes Nagarjuna,

Negate first what is not good

In between, negate self

Finally, negate wrong views.

One who knows this, is called

‘intelligent person’.

[Liberation in the Palm: it is Aryadeva quote:

First, reverse your meritless state;

Next, refute the self;

Finally, the one view refutes all.

He who knows this is skilled. ]

When beginning to learn about Buddhist practice, some people think that there is no such thing as karma or a karmic system. So this misconception needs to be negated first. We do that on the small scope, the ‘Common with the Lower Level.’ In between, on the medium scope, the ‘Common with the Medium Level’ you negate the self. That is what we are talking about here right now. Finally, you negate not only a self of persons but also a self of phenomena. In short, there is the emptiness based on persons and the emptiness based on phenomena other than persons. First, however, it is very important to recognize the object of negation. We are getting to the first outline of the negation of a self, the first key point: what is to be negated.

Where does Buddha talk about emptiness? His teachings are divided into three categories: The first turning of the wheel, the second turning of the wheel and the third turning of the wheel. The second turning of the wheel contains mainly the teachings on the prajnaparamita. The division into the 3 turnings of the wheel is done according to the different message. The second turning of the wheel deals with emptiness explicitly. An example is the Heart Sutra in which you get statements like

There is no eye, no ear, no nose….

There are two groups of Tibetan teachers. One maintains that you can’t just say ‘no eye, no ear, no nose’, but that you have to say ‘no truly existing eye, ear, nose, etc’. From their own nature, truly, these things don’t exist. So this group states that although it is not explicitly said in the texts, this is the way it has to be understood. Tsong Khapa and his followers will be in that group. Some versions of the Heart Sutra will even say that ‘all five aggregates are empty of natural existence. In many versions terms like natural or true existence are not even used, but you have to understand that this is implied.

Nagarjuna further says,

There is no existence of anything that exists from its own nature, independently.

Whatever we perceive, we perceive that way because we label and acknowledge what we see. That is why these objects exist. Without perceiving, labeling and acknowledging, these things don’t exist. It is like in the famous Zen example:

A tree falling in the forest, without anyone acknowledging this, is that actually happening then?

A tree might fall in the forest and nobody sees it happen. Does that tree really fall? Apparently not. However, there is probably always someone who is a witness. It could be some animal, perhaps that falling tree even kills some insects. Therefore the question of a ‘real’ tree falling in a forest does not even arise. But it is a famous Zen riddle that nobody is supposed to be able to solve. It comes from the reasoning that there is nothing that can exist from its own nature, without being acknowledged or labeled.

When Professor Thurman once gave a lecture at the University of Michigan, he drew a Sanskrit letter OM on the black board. Then he asked the audience , ‘When you look at this, what do you see?’ Nobody said anything, except Desh Pandit, an Indian scholar who said ‘OM’. Thurman said, ‘Desh Pandit’ sees an OM coming out at him and everybody else sees nothing but some scratch on the blackboard.’

He made that point to show that something simply being there from its own side is not enough to make it existing. In order make this scribbling into an OM, you not only need the drawing itself but also someone who recognizes that as OM. Without that there would be no OM. The recognition is necessary. This is actually the sign of non-true existence. Everything depends on somebody acknowledging it.

An independent substance can therefore not exist or stand by itself, without being acknowledged. If it could, there would be true existence, natural existence, substantial existence, existence from its own characteristics. But that is not possible. Therefore we have self-lessness, lack of natural existence, lack of true existence, perfect existence, substantial existence. That lack is called ‘emptiness’. According to Nagarjuna’s words, all things cannot exist independently and therefore do not truly exist. Nagarjuna’s own commentary says

Not depending on others for existence does not mean not depending on causes and conditions alone. Phenomena depend on the connection between perceiver and perceived object.

Again, here you can see that the dependence on causes and conditions is a lower level of dependency. The higher, more subtle level, is the dependence on perceiver and perceived object.