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SHANTIDEVA’S GUIDE TO THE BODHISATTVA’S WAY OF LIFE CHAPTER 9: WISDOM PART III

© 2005, Gehlek Rimpoche, All Rights Reserved

Oral explanations by Kyabje Gehlek Rimpoche

20050712GRAABWL

Talk 12: 7-12-05

Good evening, everybody. Welcome tonight. We are continuing to talk about the wisdom chapter of the bodhisattvacharyavatara. There are quite a few new people here so if I just started on the point wherever we are you would some difficulty. Last Tuesday I talked about wisdom in a general sense. In essence I said that when you are doing a spiritual practice you must have three things: the base or foundation on which you are standing, the method you are applying and the result you hope to get.

The base we are working on is our usual life. Traditional teachings tell you that it falls under the two truths: relative and absolute truth. The relative truth is our daily life, what we see, hear and feel. The absolute truth is the absolute reality of everything we experience. That is the wisdom we are talking about. Whether we know about absolute truth and relative truth or not we do have them. In terms of relative truth we are born, we get up, we think, we talk and do all kinds of things. We hurt and help people, we use things, we drink a glass of water, we use tables, houses, chairs and everything. That is the relative truth. The absolute truth is the wisdom knowledge. It doesn't matter whether we know it or not. Even if we don't know about it, it is still there, that doesn't make it go away. That's why we have the two truths, the two bases.

The know-how or method we apply, consists of two things: compassion and wisdom. You know about compassion already. I am taking a short cut here. We not only have compassion to people right in front of us, but also for people who are not in front of us and not only that we have compassion for ourselves. As much as you can have compassion for yourself you can generate compassion for others. That brings altruism and finally the unlimited, unconditional love and compassion, which is known as bodhimind.

The second aspect is wisdom. It is fine that the absolute and relative truths are there. But if we don't understand them then we are lacking. We are lacking wisdom. We don’t have such a great lack of compassion. We do have quite good compassion. Every American person has a great compassion - not in the sense of what the Bodhisattvas talk about - but a good compassion. I say this because the actual Great Compassion is for us at this point even hard to imagine. It is focused on all living beings. The desire is to liberate all of them totally from all suffering. That is a little hard for us - a very long shot right now. We don't even have a good compassion for ourselves!

Still, most people in America have a good compassion and we do care for people. If we didn't care for people suffering in Africa there is no reason why we would have had these great Live 8 concerts, [which were watched and supported by millions of people]. Somebody must be caring. All this is quite comprehensible and we do acknowledge it and of course there is a long way to go in that direction.

What we do not comprehend is the wisdom aspect. That is complicated and difficult and there are many different views on that. Many of the early great Hindu-Buddhist thinkers have given their views and many other great religions have contributed to wisdom. It is difficult and very subtle. If it were so easy everybody would get it. The subtlety can also be learned and understood by first going through the gross levels of wisdom. You can't know the subtle level before you understand the gross level.

We are at verse 11-14 in chapter 9. This is actually a debate between two earlier giants of Indian Buddhist thought. In order to get into this you have to know what the debate is about, what these guys are talking about. That is our biggest problem. We are not debating here whether somebody is bald-headed or has white hair or black hair. We are debating whether we exist or not!

Let me put it this way. The wisdom we are talking about is known as "emptiness". Further, everybody will tell you that emptiness doesn't mean that it is empty. It is not nihilism. There is a huge amount of teachings by Buddha on that which has been recorded. There is also a tremendous amount which has not been recorded. From what has been recorded the wisdom teachings have been boiled down to a set of books in 12 volumes, known as prajnaparamita or transcendental wisdom. The essence of these 12 volumes is condensed into one volume of prajnaparamita. We do have a copy of that volume in Jewel Heart. We also have all the collected works of the Buddha here. Buddhist scholars call it the Buddhist Canon. They are supposed to be the collected works of Buddha. What we have here is the translation of the Buddhist Canon into Tibetan. There also a lot of these that have not been translated into Tibetan, which still exist in the original Sanskrit and Pali. On the other hand there are also some original texts that are lost from the Sanskrit and Pali texts, but had been translated into Tibetan. Nowadays these are being translated back from Tibetan into Sanskrit in India. The Tibetan Translation Canon consists of a hundred odd volumes. The Chinese translation has about a dozen volumes more than what was translated into Tibetan.

So the 12 volumes of wisdom texts were boiled down into one volume and that was further boiled down into the Heart Sutra. That is why you see in many Buddhist traditions the heart sutra is regularly recited or chanted. If you look into the heart sutra it says "no eye, no ear, no tongue, no nose" and so on. That doesn't mean we don't have noses. We do have very big noses. True. So what does that mean? We are talking about something that we don't know. Honestly. It is something that we are projecting and perceiving as solid, something deeply important, the real essence of "me". I am not thinking about the Chinese chicken essence or any other juice sucked out of the body that you might be thinking about. We perceive a fundamental essence, something that is beyond body and mind, between body and mind or as a combination of body and mind. Maybe it is what in our culture we think of as the soul. Maybe it is even more powerful than the idea of the soul. Maybe it is the ego. And when you talk about no eye, no ear, etc, we are talking about that ego. It is some kind of great dictator called the real "me", something deep inside. When you try to point it out sometimes it seems to be in the brain or sometimes in the heart or sometimes it seems to be a combination of head and heart, sometimes you think it is the combination of body and mind. We think that's the "real one". That actually is the source of all our difficulties.

Being empty is about the non-existence of such an essence. There is no big dictator. This is the Buddha's presentation of wisdom. In order to recognize that it is necessary to identify what it is that you are negating. For example, before you declare that a particular person is not in the room you have to know who that someone is. I can walk into this room and see all of us here and then I can say, "Mr. X is not here." Before I can declare that, however, I need to know who Mr. X is, what he looks like, what his identity is. I have to know whether he is bald-headed, bearded, fat, thin or whatever. Without that I cannot say, "Mr X is not there." The traditional teachers used to say, "If you want to kill somebody you have to know who you are going to kill. You just can't go and kill anybody and then say "I have killed him". You might have killed somebody else.

The first step therefore is the introduction of the target. Before you negate something you have to know the object of negation. This is actually much more difficult "to get" than the wisdom itself. Understanding it [intellectually] doesn’t mean you "got it". There are two kinds of understanding: one is through communication, words, books and so on. This is understanding following sound or communication. The other is the understanding following the understanding of what the words have described, through a direct encounter with the subject. That is the understanding following reality or experience.

The first is where you just communicate the words, you just understand the message. In order to find the wisdom of the object of negation the earlier masters have said that the understanding following words is not good enough. You have to have a better understanding than that. It is the understanding of the real meaning of the words. In other words, in normal western language, it is the experiential understanding.

For almost every realization on the spiritual path you need the experiential understanding. If you don't have it, it will just become words alone. The words alone don't give you a wrong message but it is not enough. It has to go beyond the words. It is extremely important not to get confused on that.

The moment we think about understanding beyond words we get confused. There is no way of referring back to check whether you are right or wrong. There is no reference point. Without that every single damn thing can become a correct experience. Even if you hit yourself on the head and begin to see stars and different colors you might think "I am having rainbow visions". Gone beyond words in that way is not right. It leads the individual to downfalls - according to Buddha. I can never say never, but to 99 per cent we cannot gain a true experiential understanding, unless we have the understanding that follows words first.

In Tibetan these two are called dra chi (understanding following sound) and dun chi (understanding following meaning or experience). The object of negation becomes hard to really "get". In order for us to get that right, Buddha presented it in a very interesting way. It is presented in many different ways by various schools and each school has its own way of presenting that very point. Buddha didn't judge which point was right or wrong. He left it for us to figure it out by ourselves.

We can talk it over and discuss but it is not like in a democratic process where you debate and finally agree on something that majority decides and then that becomes "right". I don't think this is how it works here. Here you have to figure this out through very fine logical thinking. This then has to be confirmed by the statements of the masters and texts. That will confirm whether you are right or wrong. And then you have to take it in. You do need that.

As for the logical thinking there is a defined set of rules. Otherwise you can think whatever you come up with and argue all over the place. Buddha's example is the wheel with its spokes. In old India they had horse carts and bullock carts. So wheels were known as "chakra". That is how the Dharma-chakra came about. The traditional Buddhist temples have a big wheel on the roof and two little deer standing nearby. That wheel also has a lot of spokes. All the spokes fit within the rim. To have a functioning wheel you cannot go beyond the rim with your spoke. In the example it would mean: "No, no, I cannot agree to any reason". That is too stubborn. Or even if your own reasoning is proved to be wrong you keep insisting on your point. That means going beyond the rim. You have then gone out of the dharma chakra. It is just being stubborn.

The other extreme is that you are flying. You are not rooted in your argumentation. You just say all kinds of things, pick up ideas from here and there and throw them in. In the wheel analogy that would mean bringing all kinds of things into the wheel that fly around and disturb and hit everything. It means you are not rooted. Very often I say, "Don't fly". In terms of the wheel, all the spokes have to be rooted at the central hub. Outside they can't go beyond the rim.

I am not going to teach you how the debates on logic are done, that's not my job, but we have to be sure about the basic way of how to figure out the wisdom. You do need a framework. Without framework, it could be anything. There are certain ideas that Buddha refused to accept. One extreme idea is that of the Cravakas. They say that the whole of existence consists of exactly 25 segments. Everything to be known is counted as part of these 25. That sounds like what many of us do. We put everything into boxes. We find something and say, "Oh, this is a Buddhist thought. Let me put it into the Buddhist box and label it." or "This is a Christian thought, put it in the Christian box and label it "Christian". We do the same with Jewish thoughts and Hindu thoughts and Muslim thoughts. After labeling everything we are satisfied and think, "Situation under control". Like that, these Cravakas declared that the whole existence is made up of 25 segments.

Another school says, "If you can't see something it means it doesn't exist." They say, "I can't see my past or my future, therefore there is no past or future. Whatever I can enjoy right here, let it be." The Buddhists will then argue, "In that case you might as well make love to your daughter." The Cravaka will say, "Why?" The answer comes, "If you love your daughter, why can't you make love to her?" Cravaka, "it is not right." Answer: "Why not?" The conclusion from the Cravaka's belief that past and future don't exist would have to be that right and wrong also don't exist, because there would be no consequences of actions. Therefore they have gone completely outside of the wheel's rim, they left the base of everything. That way they can't establish the truth.

Even among the early Buddhist schools there were many different views. Some could never establish the truth. One debate is: A sorcerer comes in and produces a beautiful flower vase in the air and then asks, "What is that flower vase made out of? What is the true status of that vase?" The different schools will have different answers. One says, "The vase is true, because it is a vase. Although it is a vase manifested by a sorcerer I can see it and touch it and I can even put water in it." Others will say, "My mind-acknowledgment may not be true, but I see and therefore it is true". This debate is mainly between the mind-only school and others. The mind-only will say, "Even though my eyes are mistaken and confused I saw it. Because I am confused that is what I saw." So the first says, "It is true because I see it" and the mind only says, "You see what you see because you are confused. "They say, 'If I am not confused I wouldn't see it, but I saw it because I am confused."

According to the mind-only school, ultimately, it is only the mind that makes a difference, nothing else. Everything I see outside, whatever I see, hear, touch and see, it is the mind inside that has made it. Does that sound familiar? In the sixties we used that explanation a lot. I don't know how true it really was, but once I was having a beer in the Nerula bar in Dehli with Norbu, the Dalai Lama's elder brother, the Taktser Rimpoche, who was a professor in Indiana. Taktser Rimpoche started telling me, "Some hippies these days…." Of course the blame always goes to the hippies. The yuppies get the credit, the hippies get the blame. But sometimes I can go vice versa. It is a two way street. Anyway, so he said, "These hippies picked up pebbles from the street and tried to buy airline tickets with that, saying, "It is the mind that makes a difference and this is gold." Some people there must have been really high. How knows, maybe that really happened. That's why I thought this might sound familiar to some.

The mind only school holds that the mind is what matters, nothing else and when the mind is wrong and confused, then everything outside is also wrong. When the mind is right and correct, everything external is correct. They only accept that the mind is true.

Another viewpoint, which is supposed to be better than that, argues, "Mind only is not really true, because there is something that exists on the basis of the vase alone." They say, "If there is nothing there from the point of view of the vase then a perfect mind cannot perceive it." If there is nothing there at all then a faultless mind cannot perceive it. Something must be there and then the meeting of that with a perfect mind creates the valid existence of the vase.

We always use the vase as example. You could use anything else as example. It is about life, me and human beings and everything. Pillars and vases are the Buddhist philosophers' aspirin. They use those everywhere and another one is the rabbit's horn. It is a great example of something that doesn't exist. The rabbits have ears and sometimes from the distance when they raise them it looks like they have horns. But of course, when they move the ears back you see there are no horns.

This is what ultimately the real essence of Nagarjuna's, Buddhapalita's and Chandrakirti's position is supposed to be. So that very vase in front of us came into existence collectively or interdependently. That is why it can be seen by a perfect mind. In [absolute] reality, nothing exists. That is supposed to be the real meaning of Buddha's statement of "no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no form" and that these are all empty.

Right after that statement in the heart sutra the next words are: "form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Form is no other than emptiness, emptiness is no other than form." So right after saying that there is no eye, no ear, no nose, no dick, etc, …it says that form is emptiness and emptiness is form. This means that things come into existence only collectively or interdependently and that this itself is emptiness and emptiness itself is interdependent existence.

In order to get to interdependent existence, [we have to look at] our projection, idea or understanding, that over years and years - and according to Buddhism, lives and lives of efforts we have put in - produced the idea that there is something called "I". You really have to recognize that. Once you have identified it you have to search for it.

In Pabongka's Liberation in the Palm of your Hand, at the wisdom level, there is this example: you are looking for an elephant in a house. You go in and see a buffalo, a monkey and a horse. You take the horse, buffalo and monkey out and then you should see the elephant there and be able to point out, "Here is the elephant!" If you don't see an elephant you can declare, "There is no elephant in here."

Likewise, before you say, "I am empty", you have to know what you are empty of. You have to know what you are perceiving. Your mind is going to build up so many other ideas. It will never just accept that "I don't exist". On the contrary, it will say, "I am here, as large as life, don't you see me? I am bald-headed or bearded or fat or thin or whatever."

That is the reason why you have this dialectical debate between these two schools here. The way the debate works is: if you accept this or that view you will have this and that problem as a consequence. When you get these problems [absurd consequences] it is a clear sign that you are wrong. Then you have to accept that you are wrong, rather than be stubborn. That is the rule you have to abide by when you debate.

But we do like to play around with the rules a little it. I tell you a story. When I was young, living in the monastery, there used to be big debates between the different monasteries and their colleges. There was one particular one between my college, Losseling, and Gomang College on the prajnaparamita. I and a friend from Loseling were defending a particular viewpoint in the great assembly hall and some people from Gomang College came and asked questions. After a while all the senior monks came over and the whole college debated. The argument was about the levels of attainment in concentrated meditation, at which point there may or may not be any feeling, where you are half dead and half alive. I was doing quite okay and no matter how strong the questions came I was defending my view perfectly. We started at 5.30 pm and it went on till 11 pm. Suddenly, a young Mongolian guy came in. He was very sharp, extremely sharp. All the senior monks had already given up and had mostly left. This guy was very sharp. He had a thick Mongolian accent and I kept pretending that I couldn't understand him. I kept saying, "What did you say? I couldn't get it what you said". If I had really answered I would have lost. Since I defended so well the whole night I didn't want to lose in the last couple of minutes. It is like in the football game where you don’t want to risk being beaten in the last minutes. So I just pretended I couldn't understand his Mongolian accent. It was really very heavy. I might have gone outside of the wheel but it was only to pass a couple of minutes.

We should now concentrate on the actual verses at hand. Verse 13 gives the argument against the mind only.

Verse 13

[Yogacharin:] If one could be ultimately emancipated and yet

transmigrate conventionally, then even the Buddha would transmigrate.

So what would be the point of the Bodhisattva way of life?

Verse 14

[Madyamaka:] When its conditions are not destroyed, an illusion

does not cease either. Due to a discontinuity of its conditions

it does not originate even conventionally.

If the Mind only view is true, then Buddha is only mind and Bodhisattvas are only mind. And then what is the point of the Bodhisattva way of life? This is very tricky. If there is one condition and one cause, then nothing could exist. There would be nothing called absolute and nothing called relative. Buddhahood would be the same as samsara and why would one put any efforts in? In other words, if there is only mind, why should there be Bodhisattvas and Buddhas? Since it is only the mind, all you would have to do is think of good things. This becomes like love and light. Just think something positive, why worry? But no matter how long you keep on thinking good things, nothing will happen. It won't make anything different. After a little while you are tired and burnt out completely. Sending good thoughts, receiving good thoughts - if you expand on that it will be love and light. If only the mind makes any difference why don't you just go and be love and light and goo ha ha ho ho. That is not right. Further you can come from the opposite side, "if there is nothing there, if there are all the conditions in the mind, why should you work for enlightenment?"

The conclusion is: if mind is all there is then just sending good thoughts should liberate you. But that's not going to happen. You can send good thoughts for a million years but in the end you will be the same old groundhog that went in. From the opposite side: if there is nothing existing, why bother doing anything? The answer is: there is something that is arising collectively and interdependently. Therefore, interdependent existence is the reality and interdependently there is enlightenment, interdependently there is samsara and nirvana. That is why there are the two truths, relative and absolute.

Now the question rises: what has this whole argument got to do with me? It has got everything to do with me. I am seeking liberation, I am seeking wisdom, and the wisdom I need to get is the interdependent wisdom. In one way it looks like two great Indian giants are debating. But in reality it is showing a dialogue within ourselves. The question really is: who is me? Form is empty, emptiness is form, and so on means that existence and emptiness is one. There is no separation. I am existing interdependently and emptiness is nothing different from that and that is called: The essence of emptiness is interdependence and the essence of interdependence is emptiness.

Good Night

14-7-2005

© 2005, Gehlek Rimpoche, All Rights Reserved