Archive Result

18

Soundfile 20080814GRNYIWM

Speaker Gehlek Rimpoche

Location New York

Topic Inner World of Mind

Section 6 root delusions

Transcriber Hartmut

Date 20080110

We are talking about mind and mental faculties. Out of these we have 5 omnipresent factors that have to be with the mind always for it to function well. Then there are 5 ascertaining mental factors that help the mind to recognize, remember and understand properly. Then there are 11 virtuous mental factors. We have completed all of these. Then there are the 6 root delusions. We have mostly dealt with them. They are obsession, anger, pride, ignorance, doubt and wrong views. We have done all except the wrong views.

Views are very interesting. When I was in India there were lots of view. The British built beautiful hill cottages. They call them hill stations and they had names like "Valley View", "Snow View" and so on. So it means you are seeing them. The cottage is overlooking the valley or looking at the snow mountains. There is also one called "Train View", it must be looking at the train stations. There are actually beautiful, little train rides in these hill stations, left by the British - very nice.

But here, when we are talking about the view we are not talking about the view that our eyes can see but the view of our mind. When we referring to that, then when the mind is focusing, that is meditating. When you are meditating, what to you see? What do you view? Is that right or wrong? That is the most important thing. The right view is perhaps no problem. But the wrong view could mean a hell of a problem. You are not only wasting your time but you may think you are doing something great, but you end up doing something totally opposite. You are thinking you are going to the east but actually you are going to the west more and more. 0:15:35

I think that is the view. What is your mind viewing? That might not be right. That is my way of looking. Thubten Jinpa, the Dalai Lama's translator, told me that if you translate word by word, it may be correct, but if you look at the whole text, in the end it becomes terrible. On the other hand, the translator has to understand the meaning of the text. So it becomes very difficult. They have to read commentaries, understand the explanations and that is why then the translations become like commentaries. That is what Thubten Jinpa said.

In Tibetan this view is called ta wa. In our chart we can see that all the translators call it "view", except Guenther who says "opionatedness". Some say "afflictive view", someone else says "deluded view". Lets say we look at this very question whether we are interested in who we are. It is a big question everybody raises. When I think about that and look at myself, there is something that I see - and that's my view. Buddha tried to tell us we shouldn't have wrong views. Nobody will argue with that. But everyone is arguing about what is a wrong view and what is a right view. They did that in the early Indian Buddhist schools and between the Buddhists and non-Buddhists and everybody else did that and even today everybody is doing that.

So the wrong view is the subject of discussion for today. This Synopsis is referring to afflictive views - ta wa nyon mong chen and afflictive emotions in terms of views that are influenced by negative emotions. 0:20

The Synopsis divides them into five different views. In Sanskrit it is mithya drshti - mistaken views. ta wa nyon mong chen is only used as a term by Yongdzin Yeshe Gyaltsen in the Synopsis. Everybody else just says ta wa. Here in order to make the distinction between right and wrong views, nyong mong chen was added, best translated as "afflicted views".

So this is divided into five wrong views. That is a little complicated. I am going to try to make it less complicated, if I can. Lets just briefly introduce these five:

jig ta - view of the transitory composite

thar ta

ta wa chon dzin

tsul trim to shor chon dzin

log ta

1. jig ta - view of the transitory composite

jig is indicating impermanence. You are viewing the impermanent nature. You are focusing on the perishable identity of the individual, the physical form or body. The body is perishable, something that is going to go away. On the other hand, if you look carefully, the highest school of wisdom in Buddhism, the Madhyamaka Prasangika school of Nagarjuna, Chandrakirti, Buddhapalita and so on - His Holiness calls them the Nalanda teachers - this school accepts jig ta itself as the fundamental ignorance, the root of samsara. This school is the only school that accepts that. 0:25

The moment you raise the question "Who am I?" you are looking at the perishable aggregates. You can call that jig ta or view of the transitory composite, that's up to you.

2. thar ta

tha in Tibetan means end ta means view, so literally it means looking at the end. This means the view of the extremes: the extreme right and the extreme left view. The extreme right is what I call "existentialist view" and the extreme left is the nihilist view. So one of the translations from the chart says "extreme views". Guenther says: "opinionated regarding the extremes". I am sorry to say that, but we are finding that the earlier Tibetologists and Buddhologists did better translations than today's. Their language maybe very clumsy, but they give you a better graps on the meaning. If you are not used to that use of the language you may think about Guenther, "What the heck is he talking about?" But if you get used to it, then "opinions regarding the extremes" is quite a good translation. He could have said, "End-view".

3. tawa chong dzin - View of Superiority

Guenther says, "Clinging to Ideology". Paraphrasing from the Tibetan it is looking at whatever we think as superior to anybody else.

4. tsul trim to shor chon dzin - views of superior morality

This is about moral issues, thinking, "My moral view is the best". According to Geshe Rabten it means "views that regard unsatisfactory moral and spiritual disciplines as supreme". That is a long sentence.

5. log ta - wrong view

That is wrong view or mistaken view or according to Guenther "wrong opinion".

So with that we have just counted the five wrong views. Now lets go into a little more detail. I can't say very much, because we want to finish this subject. I don't want to spend as much time as on the bodhisattvacharyavatara (we spent over 7 years and didn't even finish) or on the lam rim chen mo. I want to keep it short.

1. jig ta - view of the transitory composite

What is it and how do you recognize it? The Synopsis quotes from Tsong Khapa's lam rim chenmo. I paraphrase. It is about many particles of perishable things. It is the collection of perishable particles together. Seeing that as "me", "I", the "self". We all do this. If I want to refer to myself without thinking carefully, I will say "Ngawang Gelek". If the person continues to ask, "Who is Ngawang Gelek?" I may say, "Ngawang Gelek, the teacher." 0:35:31

So I am shifting from the name to the profession, because from the name alone I can't get it. I could point at this big, fat body and say, "That's me." It's easy. I see that as my identity and just refer to that. That is easier than saying the name and trying to explain the profession and so on. We always say that one picture speaks better than a thousand words. But who will own the name "me"? When I am looking at "me", I am getting my physical structure in my mind. It is very hard to say for anyone that perceiving my physical structure and identifying that as "me" is wrong. But also, it is very hard for anyone to say that it is right. I am not just a big, fat lump. Honestly. So whatever you do in identifying "me", it is going to be wrong. It may feel right at the beginning. It is not right to just identify "me" with the lump of a perishable collection of parts. Thereafter, any identification will be wrong, because the base is wrong. When we say "Who am I?", what picture are you getting.

One of Atisha's disciples, one of the early Kadampa lamas, said,

There is nobody who cannot image a yidam. There is nobody who cannot move their lips and say a few mantras. But the problem is that nobody has dharma.

He was scolding his students. That was in the 1200s. It was before Tsong Khapa's period. Not having dharma is talking about this point in conjunction with visualizing yourself as a yidam. You maybe thinking you are the yidam or projecting a yidam in front of you and saying mantras. So he refuses to count that as dharma. He is referring to this point, not correctly identifying "me". Dharma boils down to two things: wisdom and compassion and the combination of wisdom and compassion. 0:40:15

The beginning of the wisdom is looking for "Who am I?" At least that is how they call it in the west. The Tibetans will never say that. They will say, "Am I here or am I not here?" The moment you raise the question "Who am I?", you begin to see what you are identifying yourself to be. If your answer is a lump or collection of transitory, perishable organs, fat, bone and skins and call that "me", then that is a problem. If that is not "me", then where are you going to get it?

So the first wrong view is this. Don't ask me what the right view is. You get that by working and clearing one wrong view after another until we get the right view. By denouncing the wrong views you may be able to find the right view. The Buddha's way of presenting his experience is by presenting what is not, rather than what is. By clearing the "what is not", you are going to be left with "what is". It has to be the right one. That is how it really works.

There are a number of things points. If you read the Madhyamaka texts, they will tell you about 20 wrong jig ta's. But first you have to get the basic idea of jig ta. I think we touched on that two years ago when talked about the lam rim chen mo a little bit. The term jig ta came up, we explained it. Here we have a presentation of jig ta as mental faculty, with a definition of what makes this a mental faculty. In the lam rim chen mo it just simply mentions jig ta and it is not explained any further. But because we don't get it, I spent time then to explain. But otherwise it is expected that jig ta is explained a little bit at this level of the mental factors.

The 20 jig tas are very simple. You multiply this jig ta four times and look at it five different ways. That becomes 20. They even talk about "20 hills of transitory views". What does this jig ta do? It provides the foundation of all other kinds of wrong views. It is like a shelter. The Prasangikas say that this itself is the root of samsara. All others will commonly accept it as shelter of all mistaken, wrong understanding. It provides the base for that and gives it shelter to grow more. Buddha's sutra called "Seven Girls Story". There it says that jig ta is the mother of all wrong views.

Actually the way you get the 20 jig ta's is like this:

You look a physical form and think, "that as "me"

You think "I" have this form"

You think, "this form is "mine""

You think "I" remain within the form".

If you do these four thoughts with all the five aggregates, form, feeling, acknowledgment, consciousness and so on it comes to 20 forms of jig ta .All these jig tas, if you conclude them, will fall into two. That is "me" and "mine". The "me" and "mine" is the source for all the 20. So don't worry about the 20 of them. It really boils down to two: me and mine.

2. Extreme Views

We are looking at the five aggregates. We can look at them as permanent. That is an extreme form of existence. You think, "I have been always there, it has been mine all the time, it will be mine all the time, it won't change." If we don't think about it, our usual feeling about the five aggregates is not very definite. Sometimes we notice we are getting old and so on. When you really think, "Who am I?" you will probably think, "I came from my previous life and I have come from a long way and now I am here and I will still go a long way in the future." If you don't believe in past and future lives, but within this life you will think the same. So it becomes very solid. Nothing is going to change. I have been there all the time and will be there forever. I will be me forever. That becomes the extreme view of existence.

Along with this, there is also the extreme of nihilism too, because we are denying the cause and result relationship. We are denying the karmic changing of lives.

So we have both extremes, right and left. This is seeing the two ends: solid, everlasting permanence, and losing the change of life and cause and result. 53:56

Tsong Khapa says this extreme view is about that solid permanent self standing there, identified as "me" or not going from this life to the future and cause and result not being there.

This view is in the category of wisdom, but afflictive wisdom, negative wisdom (Tib: she rab nyong mong chen) It analyzes, thinks and concludes, so it is part of wisdom, but it is negative wisdom, afflictive wisdom. This happens very easily to us. We have quite a good education, we have a trained mind. We can read, we can think and we can get this quite easily. We also have stubbornness in our blood. Our stubbornness will hold on, our limited wisdom will analyze and it will be reinforced with certain information, documents and even teachings. So it can become wrong wisdom. You have to be quite careful.

Earlier Indian schools asserted that Ishvara created everything. Another school says that everything is made of 25 different things which are all nothing but reactions from one principal. This is well taught, good philosophy, no doubt about it. But it becomes wrong view, because if we accept that and then meditate on it, we are wasting a lot of time. Many times we do that. We may not think that we have been created by God, but then we may look at Yamantaka, Buddha or Vajrayogini as something like an original source. So if you are not careful we can be real Ishvara followers, without noticing. We are quite close to that. The one that prevents that from happening is the wisdom of emptiness, the understanding of interdependence. That is why wisdom is so important. Wisdom and compassion is the real dharma. Saying sadhanas, mantras and so on is not the issue. As the early Kadampa lama said, "There is no one who has nothing to think, there is no one who has nothing to say, but the problem is that there is no one who has dharma." That really boils down to this.

If we are not careful we do this too. We are creating a new creator in front of us that becomes the source of everything else to our mind. That can very easily happen. It sort of automatically establishes itself in our heads. If that happens, it is a problem. Then it is hard to recognize. It has become the wrong view of either existentialism or nihilism.

Emptiness is nothing but balancing. That's why it is called "Middle Path". 1:00:00

Anything, if properly balanced, is okay. Eating any food is okay, if it is balanced. I am talking about a diabetic like myself. You can't be so extreme and try not to eat any sugar. Anything you eat becomes sugar anyway. So eating balanced is the best - even in our material daily life. A moderate, limited, balanced quantity is always good for you. Likewise, here also: when you becomes extreme, you will have wrong views. So try to make wisdom easier. Extreme views are the biggest obstacles for us to achieve wisdom. jig ta is the basis for them and they reinforce jig ta.

3. tawa chong dzin - View of Superiority

Our five aggregates are the fundamental basis of our physical structure, of being alive. They are form, understanding, acknowledging, feeling, consciousness. If I am straight forward in answering the question "who am I?", what else could I bring up? Looking at these five and saying, "This is the best" or "this is the principle, very special and perfect", having patience and desire for these is falling under this supreme view. It is a form of pride, like thinking "me" all the time.

Tsong Khapa said that jig ta, log ta and thar ta (view of the perishable composite, extreme view and wrong view) are coming from looking at the five skandhas and considering them as best. That is negative wisdom, view of superiority. These three are known as something that can be gotten rid of by seeing. That means: when you reach the path of seeing, when you have the wisdom of seeing reality, you will lose all of these wrong views. So these three are known as tong pa kun jor. They are the source of spiritual materialism. Trungpa Rimpoche talked about spiritual materialism in the 70s. A few years ago somebody asked me to clarify that a little more. So I named these three as source of all spiritual materialism. Whether you identify it as such or not, it has to come from there. After these three things are cleared from our mind stream all materialistic feeling and clinging will be completely over. Until then materialistic clinging can never be over, no matter whatever you do. You may have huge compassion, but the clinging to materialism will come in. So when Trungpa Rimpoche used the term 'spiritual materialism' he was thinking deeply of these three wrong views - mental faculties. And cutting through spiritual materialism means to cut through these wrong views.

That is how spiritual practice is linked with these negative emotions. To know them and clear them is spiritual practice.

4. tsul trim to shor chon dzin - views of superior morality 1:10

This is easy. It means violence against oneself for false moral reasons, for purification and so on. For example in Buddha's time there were people jumping on tridents and killing themselves in the name of purification. Some people burn themselves to death. These are extreme sacrifices for the purpose of purification. Even among Buddhists there is a lot of this. There are people who go all out and burn one of their fingers as a butter light offering. They put oil and a cloth and light the cloth. That way they burn their finger and try to bear the pain. They think they are doing something great, that it is a perfect moral issue. We see all kinds of this behavior everywhere. Some people say that the best way for a spiritual practitioner to behave is to maintain a little dirty environment, or wear a mala, or keep long hair, or never shave, never cut or wash it. That all falls under this category. It is literally, clearly written down. For some people it is a commitment in certain traditions not to cut or wash their hear and beard. Other traditions like this will consider this a wrong and extreme view. So there you are. These are all moral issues. In the Buddhist ordination system, monks and nuns are not supposed to eat in the afternoon. They are not supposed to take food after 12 noon. I am not saying that it is wrong, but it can fall under this category. You can argue about that. I could say that not eating after noon is better for your physical body, but someone else could say it is violence against your physical body.

So, moral issues are important and sometimes extreme moral positions are not necessarily right. Even Buddha, before he achieved enlightenment, for a long time lived by taking only one grain of food a day. Six years later you couldn't separate his body from the appearance of a tree branch. But then Buddha realized that this was too ascetic and not right. He accepted some milk given to him by a farmer's daughter. Five of his followers said at that point, "Look at this stupid guy, he spent six years building up his practice and a farmer's daughter walks buy and he drinks milk." So they left him. These are historical facts. Buddha realized that such extreme behavior is not right.

We do that sometimes. In our Buddhist tradition we have a practice called nyung ne, where you fast for one day, eat the next day, fast the next day and so on. On the days where you eat, you also eat only before noon. You can do that for 2, 4, 6, 8, 16 days and so on. Mostly it is done during the Vesak month and it is an Avalokiteshvara practice. I am not saying that this is wrong morality, but that is something we do.

Certain other traditions don't allow you to see a doctor, even if the person is dying. A kid maybe dying but the parents don't call a doctor, because that is against their belief.

Then American morality is about nothing but sex. Only sex scandals are moral issues. Other than that you can steal and kill and do everything and have perfect morality. That view itself is also wrong and falls under this category. War falls under this too. It is killing.

Tsong Khapa makes a point in the lam rim chen mo. Many people identify their own group by certain clothes they are wearing. The Hare Krishnas have a certain way of keeping their hair and wearing robes. Bhagwan Rajneesh's folowers have certain orange colored clothes. Maybe that also falls under this point. I don't know. It is not for me to say, but certain thoughts just pop up in my head, so I am sharing them. The point is thinking that this is superior. You play with the human mind and make it superior and identify that this only is the best way. On the other hand, if you just wear clothes because you wear them, then it doesn't become a moral superiority issue. You can apply the same idea to Buddhist monks and nuns. If they wear their robes because they are monks and nuns and it is the rule to wear these clothes and that is all, then that is fine. But if they wear them because it looks nice and people respect them better, then that comes under this wrong view. Interesting, isn't it? 1;20

5. log ta - wrong view

This is easy. This is thinking that there is no such thing as karma or liberation, there is no Buddha, no enlightenment, no hell, no suffering, no joy. Everything is just so so. Especially it means believing that there are no karmic consequences for doing the wrong things, hurting others and not experiencing the result; likewise believing that helping and serving other people will not give me good results. During the Buddha's life time his cousin purposely criticized everything Buddha said and did as wrong. He claimed him to be a fraud and liar. It is great to have him as an example of wrong view.

According to traditional Buddhist teaching, some people's view that Ishwara created every existence is also wrong view.

So these are the five wrong views. When you meditate on these, the focal point of the mind should be those things and see how they waste our life and not only that, but producing wrong results. We may be thinking that we work for liberation but in fact producing more samsaric difficulties. That is why wrong view is the last of the six root negativities.

So we have completed these six now and for the next couple of days we will cover the 20 secondary negativities and the 4 changeable mental factors.

Thank you

©2008, Ngawang Gelek, All Rights Reserved