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

© 2005, Gehlek Rimpoche, All Rights Reserved

Oral explanations by Kyabje Gehlek Rimpoche

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10-4-05

Verse 15

When even a mistaken cognition does not exist, by what is an illusion ascertained?

Here we are talking in particular about the difference between the Madhyamaka viewpoint and the Yogacara [also called Cittamatra or Mind-Only] viewpoint. We need to know something at least about their viewpoints, otherwise, when you read these verses where they each challenge and debate the other’s views it may not make sense.

When you talk about emptiness, you need to remember that not every traditional Buddhist school necessarily accepts emptiness. For example, I don’t think that the lowest one [Vaibasheka in Sanskrit or che dak ma wa in Tibetan] accepts emptiness at all, although the Abhidharmakosa in Chapter 8 or somewhere just mentions emptiness a little bit. Other than that, in their school they don’t really talk about emptiness.

So then above that, two other schools [?two versions of Sautratika or do de pa?] do accept emptiness but what they accept as emptiness is different from what we normally talk about. When you point out the truth to them, they accept it as something external. The word in Tibetan is che dön, external thing. So they identify the essence or the truth or let’s even call it the self or person or whatever as an external thing almost like an indivisible essence. Because they accept that as truth, their emptiness is slightly different from what we normally talk about.

We always tell you that there is never anything indivisible, but this particular school does accept some things as indivisible. They think there is ‘an end to the Russian dolls,’ [that if you keep looking at more and more subtle objects you will find something indivisible in the end]. We’ve been talking about finding the end of Russian dolls, and that school will accept that you can do it.

Now, when you come to the Yogacara or the Mind-Only school, that’s different and better than that. It accepts that there is no longer any external thing other than mind to be identified. The Mind-Only school never accepts external existence, yet accepts mind as permanent true existence. They don’t accept external existence, but they tell you that mind is solid and truly existent, that mind truly exists. On that ground, the Yogacarins give the argument in verse 15: When even a mistaken cognition does not exist, by what is an illusion ascertained?

Here they are arguing with Nagarjuna’s viewpoint that every phenomena does not really truly exist. Nagarjuna’s viewpoint says “We accept phenomena and perceive them like illusions. Truly it doesn’t exist, however, we perceive it existing. It’s like an illusion.” Right? You have heard that a number of times, you know that.

So now the Mind-Only school argues if it is like an illusion, which mind perceives this illusion? If everything is illusion, then the mind which accepts this also has to be illusion nature. If it is illusion nature, it should not exist, and if it doesn’t exist, then how is even the illusion ascertained since there is no reliable mind which measures this. So you have these two lines, translated as When even a mistaken

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cognition does not exist, by what it is an illusion ascertained? There is no certain measurement from the mind, because the mind which perceives the illusion is itself illusion-like, therefore, it doesn’t even exist, so what are you talking about? That’s what the Mind-Only people are saying.

Why do they say this? Because according to them only the mind truly exists, and if you exist you have to be truly existent. Exist, truly exist, inherently exist, naturally exist, all of those terms have different viewpoints, different points [according to Madyamaka], but here this particular school will read them as one. For the Mind-Only School, inherent existence means true existence, true existence means real existence. For them, if it really exists, it has to truly exist.

That’s why for them there is no such thing as illusion. They say, “You talk about illusion which a mind perceives. There is no mind which perceives illusion because illusions don’t exist, so, therefore, the perceiving mind does not exist. So, there is no illusion, and there is no mind which ascertains what is truly existing or not.” That is these two lines: When even a mistaken cognition does not exist, by what is an illusion ascertained? This is the Alan Wallace translation. What does Stephen Batchelor say on that?

Gloria: [reading the explanation] He talks about “Refuting the Objections of the Chittamatrins Concerning Ultimate Truths. The Chittamatrins are followers of the idealist ‘Mind-Only’ school of Mahayana Buddhism who maintain that no external objects exist.”

Rimpoche: That is commentary. When they maintain that no external objects exist, that doesn’t mean that an external glass does not exist, or that a flower does not exist. It doesn’t mean that, but the real [indivisible external] essence of it [that the previous school posits] does not exist. When you trace the flower, go down, you will find the essence of the flower. (We are not talking about flower essences in little bottles to drink!) When your mind traces it, ultimately you’re going to find something called like the end of the Russian dolls, something really called “this is it,” which naturally has to be indivisible because if you can divide it, it can’t be the “this is it” because it divides. [The Mind-Only School denies this external indivisible essence.]

When we are talking from the straightforward Buddhist point of view, and not from the points of view of all these schools, normally we accept the highest theory, that of Nagarjuna and Buddhapalita [Prasangika- Madyamaka]. When you get to that level and start talking from their point of view, it is easy to defeat or refute the idea of anything indivisible. [The refutation follows here.]

If you put any form, no matter how subtle it might be, into open space, the open space divides naturally. If you put a piece of paper into space, the piece of paper will divide that empty space. Likewise, a little atom or tiny little particle will divide the open space. The moment space is divided, it creates directions. The moment there are directions, the particle has parts, an east side, a west side, and so on, so there is no indivisible thing from a physical point of view.

As for non-physical existents like sound, for instance if we say, “Hello,” that sound “Hello,” has a time before you say hello, and a time while you are saying hello, and a time when you’ve already said hello. So even when there’s no form, you have past, present and future, so the time divides it into temporal parts. That is the idea behind saying why there can never be anything indivisible.

But these Chittamatrins accept mind as inherently existent. To make it clear, the word they use in Tibetan is den pa drup pa, truly existing, which means inherently existent. Something which truly exists cannot go on changing, right? If you change, you truly don’t exist. So they accept that mind alone is truly existent. Nothing external other than mind truly exists. Only mind truly exists.

Particularly in this case, that words that Gloria read refer very specifically to another school’s viewpoint on true essence. When the Mind-Only School says that there is no external existence, that’s not referring to the flower or the table or the water or the other person. It’s specifically referring to essence of it, which another school before that does accept. That’s what it means to say that Mind-Only School maintains that no external objects exist.

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Gloria: Let me read further. “For them, the mind is not conditioned by an object of a different nature than itself, rather the mind and its object are one in nature and are only nominally distinct. The mind is regarded as truly existent, whereas external objects are denied. To establish the true existence of consciousness they posit self-cognition, a non-deceived aspect of mind that has the function of being conscious of only consciousness itself.”

Rimpoche: So anyway, because this particular school is the Mind-Only school, their measurement of existing or not existing, or whether something is there or not there, is that it has to be acknowledge by mind. That’s why they are saying, “You talk about illusion. There is no such thing as illusion. There is no mind which perceives illusion because there is no illusion.” That’s how they are arguing from their point of view.

Then the answer to that comes.

Verse 16

[Madyamika]If for you an illusion itself does not exist, what is apprehended? Even if it is an aspect of mind itself, in reality it exists as something different.

Verse 17

[Yogacharin] If the mind itself is an illusion, then what is perceived by what?

So the dialogue between the Chittamatrin and the Madhyamika continues. Madhyamaka is the Central Path. Chittamatrin is Mind-Only.

Why is it called Mind-Only? Now you begin to see that it is because they say the truly existent is the mind. A lot of us will say it is mind that makes a difference, other things don’t matter. We say that very often, and we buy and we accept it and we think it true. To a certain extent it is, but according to the Madhyamaka, that’s not it. Mind itself truly does not exist [for the Madyamaka school].

In Verse 16, the Madhyamika tells the Yogacarin, “For you in the Mind-Only School, if mind is true, whatever mind perceives has to be like that, because mind is truly existent. If it exists as mind perceives, then mind perceives something else, something other than the mind itself. Therefore, whatever mind perceives, if it’s true, then what mind is perceiving is something other than mind. Something other than mind, according to your idea, can never exist because only mind truly exist, so something other than you can never exist [and that’s a contradiction].”

That is the same thing what this Yogacharin has been saying to the Madhyamika, so Madhyamika is using the same reason what this Yogachara is using, turning it back to them, saying that in your mind it is only mind that is the measurement and the mind that accepts. Mind does not perceive the mind; what mind perceives is other than mind. More about this will come below. Therefore, there should be something other than mind because the mind perceives that and, therefore, its truth is other than mind. If it’s mind, mind is never perceived by mind, so, therefore, mind doesn’t exist. That is the argument this particular Madyamika makes, “returning back.”

What does Stephen Batchelor say?

Gloria: Verse 16. Madyamika: “But if illusion-like objects are not real for you, what can be referred to?” And then the Chittamatrin says, “Although external objects do not really exist, consciousness does truly exist. Therefore, since the images which appear to consciousness are the mind itself, they are suitable to be referred to by consciousness.”

Rimpoche: This is very interesting here. It says: “Because of the way you perceive, you can never perceive. If you say illusion never exists because there’s mind which perceived illusion.”

The verse 17 If the mind itself is an illusion, then what is perceived by what? So that is exactly when you read in the Stephen Batchelor’s words, I think he’s touching that, unless he is going around, then I don’t

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know. So in Verse 17 the Cittamatrin says, “It is not exactly that what externally appears is not there, but form, etc., can be material of mind.” They have some funny way of putting it, “material of mind.”

So that’s what it’s really saying. If the mind itself illusion, who sees the mind? As I’ve been saying earlier, mind doesn’t see mind.

Verses 17 (second part) and 18

[Madyamika] The Protector of the World stated that the mind does not perceive the mind. Just as a sword cannot cut itself, so it is with the mind.

[Yogacarin] It illuminates itself, as does a lamp.

[Madyamika] A lamp does not illuminate itself, for it is not concealed by darkness

Verse 17 says, “The Buddha says mind doesn’t see mind. So you are going against that statement by Buddha.” Two examples are given. No matter how sharp a sword may be, a sword doesn’t cut sword itself. Another example is the light. However clear light might be, the light could not clear the light itself. These are the examples for the mind doesn’t see mind. The sword cannot cut itself, and light cannot clear the light itself because the light is the nature of light, not in the nature of darkness. What you have to clear is the darkness in order to make it clear. There is no nature of darkness in light.

If the mind is truly existing, you do get all these problems. This is how they [the Madyamika] are pointing out. When you get into it, when you really get into it, it will make a lot of sense, but the difficulty is really to bite this, very difficult. We can bite but we need to chew. Biting is easy but chewing is difficult! Honestly, honestly.

This is really talking about all these different viewpoints of what truth really is. What is really existing? They are talking about how we exist, that’s the question. How do we exist? And then the different viewpoints come in.

Some will say it is the essence of something, which is indivisible. Some will say that indivisible is not possible, because of the reasoning I gave earlier. Then there is the view that says, “All right, indivisible is not possible, but because you perceive something indivisible, then you will produce something else out of that by the combination of a perceiving mind and truly existing. Because these two meet together, then something else will come up and that’s what it is.” And if that’s the case, then if I see you and you see me; because I see you and you see me, we produce a third person! And that really doesn’t make sense.

When they talk about it this way, that’s why the Cittamatrins say that we accept the mind and deny other, external existence. External existence does not refer to every phenomenon that we can see, it’s not talking about the table, glass and so and forth, but that essence of what really is [in that lower school]. That lower school says that because I perceive you, you perceive me, because of the combination of that some kind of indestructible material is produced, some third thing comes up to represent both you and me and that has to be something else. That is very easily refuted. The Mind-Only school saw that’s not true, and said that being free of that is emptiness. That’s how they go. Free of that is emptiness, but mind is truly existent.

What’s happening is that we try to catch something, something to hold on to, because of the fear of annihilation, nonexistence, total annihilation. That’s why we hold on wherever we can. First you call it a physical thing, and then you can no longer call it physical because physical things have nature of being destroyed or disintegrating. Jig ta means that is it has the nature of being destroyed, so that when you try to hold, you’re really scared that you are going to lose it, and hold it tight. All fears are born because of jig ta.

Once you are able to let go of true physical existence, then you try to produce another thing from combination of two minds perceiving each other, so you get something else there which you can call “I,” and you think you can quite comfortably live in there and stay in there. But this is not even possible.

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In my mind, I have a problem even now. That is, this type of external produced third point is called in Tibetan chedön. The Mind-Only School denies this external thing; they are free of it. Will that be emptiness? I think some school says yes, that is emptiness. My doubt is if that is emptiness, one who accept that as emptiness, then later in the Tibetan school there’s something called shen tong and rang tong, emptiness of other and the emptiness of self. The difference between this shen tong, the emptiness of other, and being free of this chedön, is not clear to me. Even now, I’m still studying that.

According to our teaching tradition, we don’t accept either the shen tong or the che dön or external existence. I did ask a number of people including Locho Rimpoche and others who came here, who made it so simple, saying that the shen tong is free of other existence as identification of self. That doesn’t make sense to me. If that is true, then the glass being free of being a table has to be the emptiness of glass. That doesn’t make sense. The word says shen tong, other than self, free of other than self. If that is the case, then being free of not being the table has to be the nature of the glass. That’s not that difficult to know, and any fool will know it, so I don’t think that’s right, there must be something more than that. I’m looking for the difference maybe between external existence and shen tong.

But the idea that mind doesn’t see mind, and a sword doesn’t cut the sword itself, and that light does not clear the light itself because light is free of darkness, there is nothing to be cleared. That is the idea of mind doesn’t perceive mind. Whether that works or not, I don’t know. Some ancient wisdom is great, but sometimes some very funny things are in there, too. Of course, light is free of darkness, and so maybe ity is true that light has nothing to clear, but if you have a 60 watt lamp and then you have a 100 watt light and then you have a 150 watts and if you keep on switching that switch on and goes a little bit lighter and gives you a little more light, so that much darkness may be clearing more. You cannot really go ahead and judge and say light cannot clear darkness.

I don’t know, but that’s what the Bodhisattvacharyavatara says in verses 17 and 18. In the half of verse 19 where it talks about this blue business, it’s almost the same thing. Maybe next time we should read the 19 and 20 because then dependent arise will come in.

Those verses will start talking about the dependent or nondependent arising. At the end of this, it will be great! The moment when we say dependently arise, we will know exactly what we’re talking about. Then when we are talking about the interdependent nature of existence, we will exactly know what we’re talking about. Until we get to the end of this, we are not going to get this complete understanding.

People can interpret interdependent existence in many ways. For example, the world is such that I depend on you, you depend on me. The east depends on the west and west depends on the east, this side depends on that side, and all of those true to certain extent, bI don’t think we are really getting to the point of the interdependent nature of existence at all. I think we are just dancing around the fringes of all this.

Even when we talk about dependent arise in terms of cause and the result, or in terms of part and parcel, these are all fringes and are not really talking about it deeply enough. So at the end of this, we will get into the deeper part of it. All of these other things are the fringes we are cutting around.

No wonder that I had a funny dream last night, that’s what it is! In my dream, the people who come to cut my lawn brought scissors and cut the grass with the scissors! I kept on thinking, “What is this funny dream?” That’s what the fringe is, we are not really mowing the lawn, but cutting the fringes of the grasses with the scissors. They had huge scissors, not two scissor blades like that, huge scissors with something like seven or eight, ten swords and then ten on top, they are going like this cutting. So we are not just cutting little bit of fringe but big fringe! But it is still cutting the fringes only, not really getting in there.

When we talk about what is interdependent, we talk about cause and effects, and part and parcel. When you really go into deeper, it is fringes only, actually it is much deeper than that. That’s why in this Bodhisattvacharyavatara, all the different viewpoints are brought in, and they try to refute them and that’s what it is.

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But I do want you to remember the Cittamatra or Yogacara, whatever they call it, Mind-Only School. Prasangika is the Umapa, right? There are two Madyamaka schools: tangyuwa is Prasangika and the rang gupa is Svatantrika. Yogacara is sem dzampa. The lower school do de pa is Sautrantika [and the lowest school, Vaibasheka, is che dak ma wa].

I want you to remember that the Yogacara or the Mind-Only school accepts that mind is true existence, so every measurement of existence is measured with the mind. That’s why it’s called the Mind-Only school. You can simply understand it, because mind is the measurement, the only truly existent. All other things are going, and mind is the only one left. That’s why it’s called Mind-Only school.

From their point of view, these arguments all come in [in verse 15] that there’s no illusion because illusion is not accepted or perceived by mind. Since there is no mind which perceives illusion, so therefore illusion doesn’t exist, so why are you talking about it? So then the Umapas or the Madhyamika people, we defeat or refute that in verse 17. This is what we talked about today.

Then in the next verses, they use the examples that a sword doesn’t cut itself, light doesn’t clear light itself. We have to think about these. Maybe the one sword doesn’t cut itself, but the other sword can cut the other sword, too! With light, it also the same thing. A light can switch on and as it goes to a higher voltage that much brightness comes out. As much as it is bright, that much darkness is cleared, right?

Why we are talking about these funny things? Again, we talk about these funny things because that is how and why we cut our negativities and imprint of negativities. That is how it is. They call it truth searching. Truth searching, the ultimate truth is free of all negativities. Negativity influences negative actions and functions, and sometimes looks like an illusion. So they say, “Yeah, you can’t look at illusion because there’s no illusion, because there’s no mind which accepts illusion.” That’s how it goes.

Questions and answers

Beth: Does the Mind-Only School think that the mind is permanent?

Rimpoche: I don’t know whether they think mind is permanent, but what they do think is that mind is truly existent. If you are truly existent, do you have to be permanent? I’m quite sure you do. Otherwise it changes, and then doesn’t exist anymore.

Beth: What do they think happens at death?

Rimpoche: I don’t know, I’ll have to ask them!. Nobody says that when you die, you disappear. No

Buddhist school ever thinks that, ever thinks death is the end. Death is a transition.

Beth: If they think the mind is permanent, then that goes on.

Rimpoche: It has to be a transition. They do accept death for sure, because they see it. Their masters die, they themselves will die, too. They do accept death, of course, but that’s not the end. I don’t think any Buddhist school accepts death as the end. Not only no Buddhist school, most Hindu schools also do not accept death as the end at all, except one [Charvakas or materialists].

Sean: So the Mind-Only school believes the mind sees no illusion. What about a simple magician’s trick? More than a sleight of hand but like you making the flowers disappear off of your table.

Rimpoche: I can remove it.

Sean: But for the Mind-Only people...

Rimpoche: Well, as for a magician’s trick, they will say that the mind will perceive this as a magician’s trick.

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Sean: But not a big-I illusion....

Rimpoche: No. I think the Mind-Only school does accept the senses. However, when they are talking about the mind, they are talking about the principal mind, not the eye-consciousness and ear- consciousness and all of those sense consciousnesses.

Sean: That’s interesting because the seeming allegory of the magician’s show that I guess the Prasangikas talk about, the allegory is a direct line. It’s funny they can’t see past that to the large-scale illusion.

Rimpoche: Well, because for them, they have difficulty accepting it. That happens. That’s why when you start with faulty points, you reach a point where you have to accept something funny.

I’ll give you a related example. One of the Hindus schools accepts the cause as the result, the cause as not cause alone and the result. For that school the debate goes on, saying at the end when an ant has the karma to become an elephant 100 times, life after life 100 times, and they do accept that, they’ve been asked, do they carry that? They say they do carry that. The debate between two schools goes on and says when the ant’s climbing on a little blade of grass, do you think 100 elephants are climbing on that little blade of grass, can it carry 100 elephants? By that time their teacher run away! The debate goes on to reach to that point, and he has to give up. So rather than give up, run away!

This is how the schools go on, and sometimes you reach a very difficult point. Actually that’s the point where you come to change your thoughts, because you reach a direct contradiction.

For that particular Hindu school, the problem is that all times are mixed together – past, present and future mixed. Some schools say only the present exists. The past and future do not exist, so time is only present. Even today we have this school. If you really dig through, they do accept karma, so then the argument becomes that the karma of taking rebirth 100 times as elephant should exist now because all time is present. They would probably have to say yes. And then the opponent would say that when the ant climbs on the grass, are there 100 elephants climbing on the grass? How can you say yes? Only if you’re crazy, right?

This is the reason why the Tibetan tradition always says, “This school does this, that school does this, this school does that, that school does this,” rather than “I do this, I do that.” At the end you will find they follow this sort of thing. But that’s why schools are always presented separately because at the end there will be a problem, has to be.

Elizabeth: I was going back to the point that you said about when the Chittamatrin school refutes the idea that the possibility of the third thing coming up to represent you and me.

Rimpoche: They call that external existence.

Elizabeth: Right. In Training the Mind by Trungpa Rimpoche, he first goes through the first five or six slogans on ultimate bodhicitta, and around number four or five of those slogans, there’s a slogan that says, “Rest in the nature of alaya.”

Rimpoche: What is alaya?

Elizabeth: Storehouse consciousness. And I’m wondering if that is an example of a third created thing?

Rimpoche: I don’t know. I’m sorry, I don’t know. I never read Trungpa Rimpoche’s slogans, and I don’t even know what the word alaya is.

Lou: Rimpoche, I wanted to take a look at the argument that says mind cannot perceive mind like light cannot clear light. So just to look at that argument, not to refute it, can’t mind perceive itself through the

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boundaries of what mind can perceive? That which is not mind itself determines the boundaries of mind, other than mind, what’s mind and other than mind.

Rimpoche: I don’t know how to answer, but I should. Otherwise, the mind cannot perceive mind, that’s what it says, right? But we really talked about that, right? We got light can clear light and the second sword can cut the first sword and first sword can cut the second sword, and all this we talked about. Logically speaking, yes, it has to. Mind does not perceive the mind, but then the next question comes: when they cut the boundary, the other half is just blank or what is it? So I don’t know how to answer because I know that will be the next question.

John: Yeah, I was going to ask you about that mind not being able to perceive itself. It seems like both sides agree on that here.

Rimpoche: Yes. You know why? Because this quotes Buddha’s word here.

John: They quote a sutra. But when you’re meditating and your mental faculty of inspection or

introspection is watching your meditation, isn’t that mind perceiving mind? Rimpoche: Well, technically a mental faculty is perceiving mind.

John: Isn’t a mental faculty mind? It’s not a physical reality.

Rimpoche: No.. Mind is not divided into 52 or 53. The mental faculties are divided. That’s what it is. Mind is not divided into 53 pieces. If you are thinking that way, no. Mind is the principal and the mental faculties are secondary or retinue, particularly 5 of them always follow mind as a retinue. And then there are another 5 that make you ascertain. Then another 11 are virtuous, the next 6 are negatives, the next 20 are secondary negatives, and next 4 are interchangeable. That makes 51. That is not the division of the principal mind.

John: So the mind cannot perceive mind means principal mind cannot perceive principal mind? Rimpoche: Yes, definitely, definitely, definitely.

Robert: I was wondering, the mind can’t see itself and the light doesn’t necessarily clear itself. Rimpoche: That’s right, clear itself. You’ve got a point, you’ve got really a point. Light doesn’t clear

light itself. That’s really the point.

Robert: And the light falls on an object.

Rimpoche: That’s a different point. Light doesn’t clear light itself. You are right here, that’s it exactly.

Robert: In English, there is a noun and a verb and an object, and we have a perceiver and the perceiving and the object of perceiving.

Rimpoche: Right.

Robert: I’m suggesting that the thing that goes beyond the mind that was brought up earlier by my friend here, the known mind that goes beyond the mind, is that all the sentient beings is way beyond my mind, that I’m going to save all the sentient beings is way beyond my mind. So I think that there’s a fourth thing between perceiver and perceiving and object which holds the whole world. And it seems like nothing, but it comes back on us and changes our perception, it changes our perceiver, and changes often the object that we’re activated for. This is what I think.

I’m just wondering what you think about that. Because there is an emptiness, there is a nothing that seems to keep not only emptying us but also giving us a potential to come back again selflessly to look again.