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20051009GRGRFR4M7

4mind 7: 1.43 hours

We have reached now to a very interesting subject. There is a little bit of secrecy involved here.

10:00 min Mindfulness of your Body as a Divine Body

“ In the Divine Mansion of great bliss, pleasant to feel, abides the divine body which is your own body of pure aggregates and constituents. A Deity with Three Bodies inseparable is there. Not conceiving yourself to be ordinary, practice divine pride and vivid appearance. Not letting your mind stray, place it within the profound and the manifest. Making your attention unforgetful, maintain it within the profound and manifest."

Although I already read this earlier for the oral transmission I think it is good to read it once again here, also in Tibetan [reads the Tibetan]. Let me paraphrase the translation: There is the joyful beautiful mandala and whoever reaches it enjoys. There is the pure part of our aggregates and elements. It is the pure part – your own body as deity. Here is the inseparability of the three kayas. Do not look at it as ordinary. Have pride and clarity. Don't let your mind run, keep it on the profound and clear. Don't let it forget. Hold it there.

The reason why I said that it is a little secret is that this is pure vajrayana practice. It is not commonly used and talked about much, but Kyabje Rimpoche talks about it quite openly, so I have no problem following.

Mantra comes from the Sanskrit words “manas” which means mind and “traya”, to protect. Mantra protects the mind from ordinary appearances and the grasping at them which is our usual attitude. In Tantric practice we develop the pride and clarity of being a deity to eliminate the ordinary aspects of ourselves. At present, when we are not engaging in Tantric practice, we feel and appear as ordinary beings. In Tantra, we counteract this by feeling ourselves to be a deity, with clarity and pride. The text says: “In the divine mansion of Great Bliss" --which means in the celestial abodes of the deities there is immeasurably more joy and pleasures than in the best of human mansions. Here we cannot go into great detail as some of those present have not received the appropriate initiation, but speaking in general terms, to keep it simple, there are the five aggregates: form, feeling, recognition, will or volition, and consciousness, along with the four elements, earth, water, fire and wind. The aggregates of ordinary beings, when purified, will appear in the nature of the five Dhyani Buddhas: form relates to the Dhyani Buddha Vairocana, feeling relates to the Dhyani Buddha Ratnasambhava, and so on. As we attain the higher states our four elements will appear in the nature of the four consorts.

Kyabje Rimpoche does say that since there are people who have not obtained initiation, he can't say much in detail, but in general terms there is something he can say. In the usual sutra part, we try to restrain ourselves from negative actions, which follow from negative emotions, thereby creating negative karma and thereby bringing the sufferings of samsara. That is why the object of what not to do is not to engage negative emotions and negative actions in order to avoid creating negative karma. The thing to do in the sutra system is to create positive, virtuous karma, generating compassion and love and so on.

Now, the moment you get into vajrayana, the thing what not to do is shifted. I don't want to go as far as to say that the object of negation is shifted. The prerequisite of the vajryana is a perfect sutra path. So by the time it is shifting, the sutra path is considered to be almost over. So the shift is to not adhere to ordinary perception and ordinary appearance. We should not accept what ordinarily appears in that way. In order to block that ordinary perception and appearance, the individual generates the diving pride of whatever yidam one is practicing.

Then come the three major activities: the activity of death and dying stage, the activity of bardo, the intermediate stage, and the activity of rebirth. These are the three most important things in one's life. In the divine form, you try to transform death, bardo and birth into the extraordinary thee states of dharmakaya, sambogakaya and nirmanakaya.

The first of these is the dharmakaya, which is almost the first state of enlightenment. Second is the sambokaya, which is almost like the first physical appearance of total enlightenment, although it may not be accesssible to everyone. Sambogakaya has five restrictive qualities. Then comes birth as nirmanakaya. This is the manifested body, so everybody can see it. Most importantly, behind all of those, is the combination of method and wisdom. In sutra, when you talk about method, that means love, compassion, bodhimind. It also includes circumambulation, prostrations, mandala offerings, guru devotion and so on. In vajrayana, when you talk about method you are talking about a mind that is totally influenced and almost soaked and absorbed into and radiating out great bliss. It is the nature of the mind absorbed into the tremendous bliss nature. The wisdom is the wisdom of understanding emptiness. The combination of these two is becoming the vajrayana path of method and wisdom. In that process the ordinary aggregates transform. The stages through which you transform them is through the eight stages, four plus four, which we introduce at the dhamakaya level, but they don't necessarily have to be only experienced at death. Thereby the ordinary aggregates are transformed into the five dhyani buddhas, particularly Vairochana as form related, and Ratnasambhava as feeling-related. Ratnasambhava Buddha is the yellow Buddha. Kyabje Rimpoche doesn't mention the other three in detail.

Then the four elements will transform into the four consorts. So the five Buddhas will share four consorts [laughs]. But they don't have to fight over them. There are reasons for the classification. The four elements, earth, water, fire and air, become the four consorts. The essence of the vajrayana is transformation. Not only the mind itself is transformed, but also all mental faculties. Not only that, but also your aggregates, and not only them, but also all the elements. The big horn that the vajrayana is blowing is transforming, rather than cutting away at the unwanted things, constantly, continuously, over a long time with great difficulty.

It is important to see yourself in the form or physical manifestation of a deity. One of the main obstacles in Tantrayana is the ordinary appearance - seeing things in the ordinary way, feeling things in the ordinary way and being in the ordinary state. So we see ourselves as a deity and develop the pride of a deity as an opponent force to ordinary aspects.

When you have the mindfulness of your body as a divine being, and if you only keep on thinking “I am Heruka”, “I am Vajrayogini”, “I am Yamantaka”, and so on, I don't think that will do much good. That is not the point. You are missing the point. Divine pride is not thinking that I, the one who is completely controlled by ego, is suddenly Heruka or Vajrayogini. We have to think, “My consciousness which is totally transformed, is becoming of divine nature.” That is still not right. We all have the divine nature anyway, which is known as Buddha nature. The individual is actually transformed. The pure nature aspect of the transformed person is generated in the divine form. That “me” has nothing impure in it, it is not subject to any impurity. We are not trying to brainwash ourselves and not see anything impure and everything is perfect and wonderful. We are not generating love and light. I have to clarify that here.

Transformation is not just imagination. When you finally really transform, then whatever aspect of purity you have visualized, from the inhabitants to the environment, will actually materialize, become real in the literal sense. That is the real vajrayana. Unless and until we can become that in the literal sense, we are still striving and working for it, first in the development stage and finally at the completion stage.

0:33 What is development stage? You are building it up. Once you have completely built it up and you are practicing in that, then completion means that whatever you have built has become complete.

If you are building a house, it is not enough just to build four walls and a roof. That is not a useful house. Only when a person can use it as a home is it actually completed. Just like that, in vajrayana the completion stage means that it really becomes the reality, in the literal sense. At that point the completion stage is completed and you become fully enlightened as Buddha this or Buddha that.

34:58 Rimpoche reads more from Kyabje Ling Rinpoche’s teaching from Delhi 1980)

(Day 5) As Gungthang Jampalyang has said: “When you travel on the long road of samsara into future lives, the best provisions for your journey, which give comfort and encouragement, are the practice of Dharma itself."

Guntang Jampalyang was a great 1700s scholar, teacher and master, saint and mahasiddha. He is using that analogy, because in those days there were no hotels and motels in Tibet. When you were traveling you had to carry all your provisions.

When I was a kid and was traveling for a week or ten days, there were 30 or 40 people going together in several groups. One group went first, carrying the tents and cooking untensils and so on. They would settle in and by the time the second group arrived, the tent would be put up, the food would be cooked and we could spend the night there. And then there would be another advance party separating from that group, going ahead and preparing for lunch the next day. Perhaps we would spend the rest of the day there or maybe not. By that time the party that stayed behind had packed up the tents and caught up with the main group and then gone ahead to prepare for dinner. That is how it worked. When I was a little kid and we went to our estate in the Kongpo area, that's how we travelled. We had to carry all the provisions we needed ourselves. There was not the convenience of these days, with hotels, motels, shops, etc. There was no hotel to stay at night, with a bed and food to eat and wine to drink. Everything needed to be carried.

That is why Gungtang Jampalyang says that on the unknown road of the future the provision you really need to have with you is dharma. The translation here doesn't seem to be quite right. I do remember Kyabje Rimpoche quoting this and I do know the quote.

When you go into a strange land where you have no acquaintances, it is helpful to have a guide. When you are born in future rebirths, when you are confused, the Dharma will act as your guide. When traveling in a strange place there is danger of thieves and bandits and you need reliable companionship. It is also the Dharma which will give protection and companionship when you travel the dangerous paths of the lower rebirths where there are many chances of being afflicted and harmed. With single-pointed dedication one has to engage in the practice of Dharma, and in order to practice you need knowledge. Just as in ordinary occupations you need a skilled teacher through whom you must learn the methods and techniques, so to practice Dharma you need to rely on a proper Guru to teach you the methods and how to practice. The knowledge is all contained in this teaching of the four contemplations. First the remembrance of one's Guru as a Buddha; then how to develop renunciation of this life's happiness and comfort, and of future lives as gods and so forth, in short, of all samsara.

There is a problem with the translation here as well. You don't renounce the happiness and comfort of life. It is the desire for the happiness and the attachment to happiness and comfort that has to be renounced. That is the reason why it is said that the comforts are not necessarily comforts. They are in nature suffering as well. However, if you have some of those comforts you don't have to give them up. You have to give up the desire to work for the desires, making yourself the slave of what you think your purpose is.

Then going for Refuge by seeing one's own suffering in cyclic existence, and developing sympathetic compassion towards all other beings. Finally, there is the development of the dedicated intention, which leads to Bodhichitta, the desire for Enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.

Lam Rim is the essence of all teachings; it is the graduated path to Enlightenment. In order to practice Dharma, you have to know how. So, listen to the teaching with the highest Mahayana motivation, the noble attitude of attaining Enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. So far we have covered three of the contemplations: how to regard one's own Guru as a Buddha; regarding all sentient beings in all states of samsara as our parents with compassion; and regarding ourselves as deities, with the clarity and appropriate dignity of a deity. The main obstacle to be totally abandoned in the practice of Tantra is the grasping of ordinary appearances. As an opponent, we have the practice of deity-yoga, seeing oneself as a deity with clarity and appropriate pride, being the true Vajradhara oneself. With respect to Tantric teachings we can't explain in detail as some of you present here have not received Tantric initiations. If I go on explaining the detailed aspects of the teachings, both of us, the teacher and pupils will suffer consequences: so there is no point in giving an elaborate explanation, just the essential points.

Kyabje Rimpoche is using the term “appropriate pride”. You don't just think that this dirty old man is Chakrasamvara.

In Tantrayana you find four exclusive qualities or features not shared with the Paramitayana: the four types of purities, of the body, place, utilities and deeds or actions. The purity of the body means of your own form, visualizing yourself as a deity. The purity of place means visualizing the mandala, the celestial abode of a deity. Utilities, or enjoyments, refers to seeing yourself as a deity and then emitting lights and offering goddesses from your heart. They return and make offerings, and you experience Bliss and Emptiness. Purity of deeds or actions means that you visualize yourself as a deity and issue forth many rays which reach all sentient beings: they help them mentally and physically, prepare them spiritually, and place them at various levels of spiritual development, such as pure lands, and the various states of Buddhahood. Although we can't actually do this, we can engage in this practice as a mental exercise of imagination. These four purities are found only in Tantrayana. Although we don’t have the experience or the ability to practice the actual four purities at our present level, Shakyamuni Buddha is a true deity, he lives in a pure celestial abode; all objects of his senses are pure and only cause bliss within him, and all his actions are only devoted to helping sentient beings. We can also engage in the practice of the four purities in a similar fashion at our present level.

All classes of Tantra practice these four purities. The higher Tantras also have the practice of transforming the three Kayas into a spiritual path. One may have great appreciation of and aspiration for the valuable practices which have these exclusive characteristics, yet we need the proper foundation of the Paramitayana, as was taught before, to engage successfully in these practices of Tantra. Engaging hastily in these practices without the proper preparation, without the other requirements and prerequisites, is like constructing a high building without the proper foundation. It's bound to collapse. So developing the foundation is extremely important. The effectiveness of Tantra, which makes it possible to attain Enlightenment in one short lifetime, is totally based on the practice of the Paramitayana, without which you cannot experience the attainments arising out of the Tantric practice: it is entirely out of the question. We need the preliminaries, starting with devotion, renunciation of samsara, Bodhichitta and the right understanding of the true nature of all phenomena, We need a genuine development of these principles. It's like "thu", a Tibetan cheesecake, which is a delicacy, but without butter, the main ingredient, it is tasteless.

49:50 Similarly, if you start without the prerequisites, Tantric practice does not produce any special effects. Even if you manage to visualize yourself as a deity in its abode and so on, it is like looking at frescoes, there is no real effect, no special quality.

So this is the body as the divine body, the deity mindfulness. Kyabje Rimpoche gives an alternative for those who are not initiated. Buddha Shakyamuni is a deity and has all the purity. You can use that.

This is 50-50 vajrayana and non-vajrayana. But Kyabje Rimpoche did talk about the three kayas, the four purities, about development - and completion stages. In that way I can also say a few things. In the beginning of the lama chopa it says,

From great bliss I arise as the lama-yidam. My body radiates light, transforming all existence. Everything becomes pure.

In that way you can always think that the object what you want to achieve is total enlightenment. That is total purity, not only the pure environment, but also the inhabitants, pure beings. Everything you utilize is all pure. That is the reason why before the food offering we say OM AH HUM. The work of OM AH HUM is to purify, transform and multiply. In the vajrayana way during the food offering we say

All faults of color, smell and potentiality are purified, transformed into nectar......

That is pure vajrayana practice. Seeing yourself as deity is vajrayana practice. The purpose is to cut the ordinary appearance and accepting the way it appears. That is considered the main problem. It may appear as ordinary, but you have to see that in reality it is pure.

The great Tibetan early masters always say, “Try to see every person as pure being, whatever you hear, think all sounds are dharma and mantra, whatever environment appears, think that it is pure. All males you see are Avalokitesvara, all females you see are Tara.” This is the usual adive given by all the masters from all traditions. This concludes the mindfulness of the body as divine body.

Meditation on the Third Mindfulness of the Divine Body

Again, we are using the Manjushri form. The page I am referring to is the First Panchen Lama's meditation on the Four Mindfulnesses. Kyabje Ling Rimpoche is basing his teaching on the Seventh Dalai Lama's song. This meditation by the First Panchen Lama is before the Seventh Dalai Lama. The First Panchen Lama was the guru of the Fifth Dalai Lama. The meditation here is from three generations earlier than the teaching. The actual teaching, of course, was given to Tsonkhapa by Manjushri.

I am not going to repeat much, but you have to have the whole thing. I am going to avoid the preliminaries such as refuge, bodhimind generation, four immeasurables, invocation and the offering of the seven limbs. You yourself are sitting in ordinary form. On the crown of this couch potato is a beautiful lotus cushion and above them, moon and sun disc, representing the wisdom and compassion or rather wisdom and method, in terms of both, sutra and vajrayana. Combining the guru who is the nature of the union of wisdom and method, union of body and mind, union of the two truths, absolute and relative, the union of illusion body and clear light. Such a great living master, a totally enlightened being is my root guru in the form of Manjushri, the embodiment of wisdom of all enlightened beings.

On the crown of Lama Manjushri sit all the lineage masters in the form of Manjushri up to Je Tsongkhapa and Manjushri above him and then on top, Buddha Vajradhara. We already generated all of them, invited wisdom beings and made offerings. Here we are just reminding ourselves. With profound respect we request the development of the spiritual path, one by one, step by step, based on either the Foundation of Perfection or a similar process. We request their blessings and special way of purification. They come out to us in form of light and liquid, as nectar and light. They reach to each one of us, purify all negativities in general and particularly the negativities of not seeing the guru as true Buddha, the negativities stopping us from developing compassion, love and bodhimind, the negativities stopping us from seeing ourselves in the form of a divine being, the negativities of not being able to see absolute true reality and not being able to manage the aftermath activities. All these are completely purified, washed away, in the form of light and liquid, inside and outside, completely. These negativities are collected as darkness, the blessings come shining like light and make the darkness disappear completely. I become pure. I obtain the stage by stage developments, from guru devotional practice to non-dualistic perception, one by one. The dualistic perceptions and appearances totally disappear. I constantly and continuously request this to happen by saying the migtsema and Om arapacana dhih, whichever is more convenient. Finally, all the surrounding enlightened beings dissolve to Buddha Vajradhara, he to Manjushri, he to Je Tsongkhapa, he to the lineage master below, and one after another, all lineage masters dissolve into the root master. Finally my master dissolves into me and I become a pure Manjushri. For a short period I maintain divide pride of being Manjushri, the wisdom of all enlightened beings. Everything I touch, see, feel, etc, are all pure.

That should be enough for the meditation on the divine pride.

1:06 Now we have only the Fourth Mindfulness left. That has two parts.

Part I is actually learning, recognizing and developing the sunyatta or emptiness. Part II of the fourth mindfulness is dealing with the aftermath. If I begin to go into it, I won't be able to get much done. On the other hand, tommorrow we only have limited time. Let me at least read a little bit.

Mindfulness of the View of Emptiness

"Throuqhout the circle of appearing and occurring objects of knowledge pervades the space of clear light which is reality, the ultimate, an inexpressible mode of being of objects is there. Forsaking mental fabrications, look to the entity of immaculate emptiness. Not letting your mind stray, place it within reality, making your attention unforgetful, maintain it within reality. "

Now for the fourth contemplation, of Emptiness or Shunyata. The first lines refer to the fact that anything within the realm of samsara or nirvana, all that can be known or perceived is pervaded by Emptiness.

In mahayana, nirvana is also considered suffering, wheras in Thervada, the self liberation vehicle or “Way of the Elders” nirvana is the goal. I always emphasize that whenever you engage in practice you must be grounded, you cannot fly, you cannot just indulge in love and light, although that may be an extremly popular, modern thing. Real practice must be grounded. What does grounding mean? We must have three things: the base on which we stand, a method or path that we follow – what to do, and thirdly, you must have a goal for your practice. If you have these things properly established, then you begin to know what you are doing. You are not just copying the other person. You are on your own and you are working by yourself, on your own path, even though you might be doing it with others.

In Buddhism the base is the two truths. The path is method and wisdom. In mahayana the method part is love, compassion and bodhimind and the wisdom is understanding emptiness. That is true even in hinayana. In hinayana the method is renunciation, seeing the faults of the sufferings of samsara, particularly the lower realms, developing dislike for this situation, being disgusted with the sufferings that come constantly and continuously. Do not let yourself sink into hopelessness and helplessness. Uplift yourself, when you see that the situation is not really that great. It is because of samsara, so your goal will be at least to get away from samsara and into nirvana. That is at least the hinayana level. You are introducing the goal of your spiritual practice as obtaining nirvana.

In mahayana the goal has been changed to total enlightenment. Other than mahayana, in Buddhism, no one introduces enlightenment as goal. No one talks about becoming a Buddha except in mahayana. Except in vajrayana, no one talks about becoming a Buddha within the short period of time, maybe even within this life time, or in three life times, but at least within sixteen life times. When you are grounding yourself, you know where you stand, you know what you are doing and what you hope to get. When you have established your base, your method and your goal, you become grounded. Until then, all you can say is, “I feel good here, it's nice” and have some fun and after a while, “Oh, it's better here, let me have fun here.” That is what I call love and light. Feeling better is definitely good, no doubt. We all need it and deserve it. However, that is not the goal. It is not a spiritual practitioner's goal.

In hinayana, nirvana is the goal. There are the four Buddhist logos and the last one of them says directly that nirvana is peace. The four statements are:

All created things are impermanent

All contaminated things are suffering.

All phenomena are in the nature of emptiness.

Nirvana is peace.

In mahayana nirvana is also considered suffering. It is too lukewarm. It is boring. There is no pain, but not joy either. According to mahayana, those who have obtained nirvana at the theravadan level, will eventually also be asked to progress to total enlightenment, because until you reach total enlightenment, you have not accomplished your own purpose, nor that of the others. When those who have obtained nirvana rest there peacefully, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will come, wake them up and ask them to join forces in liberating all living beings. Ultimately they will join. So ultimately there is only one yana, one vehicle and it leads to total enlightenment. So if those people don't join the mahayana from the first level on, they will do so at the middle level, at the third path, the path of seeing. They have already seen emptiness, so they are already accomplished to that point. So the only thing left for them to do then is to traverse the path of meditation with its nine stages, the final one of which is the path of nor more learning. That is total enlightenment. That is why samsara and nirvana are both to be abandonded.

Then Kyabje Rimpoche says that samsara as well as nirvana are pervaded by emptiness. Emptiness is the basis of all, the reality of everything, the animate and the inanimate, the seen and the unseen. In that way emptiness is pervasive.

The nature of all things, without any exception, is that they lack true existence. Just as there is no place which is not pervaded by the sky in space, there is no place not pervaded by Emptiness.

"Inexpressible mode of being" means a fully-realized Arya's understanding of Emptiness cannot be described in any words, and it cannot be explained how such an Arya arrived at that understanding.

Anything you see hear, touch, think of, the reality of all of that is the space-like emptiness. There is no such thing whose nature is not emptiness. When you see reality you become a special person. When such a person sees emptiness they cannot express it in words.

It says: "Forsaking mental fabrications, look to the entity of immaculate Emptiness". In order to understand Emptiness we have to understand its nature. Emptiness is egolessness; we have to understand what is being refuted, otherwise, "Emptiness" gives rise to many intellectual misconceptions and misunderstandings. We must eliminate wrong concepts, and mental fabrications concerning Emptiness. Shunyata, egolessness, etc. are synonymous. What is egolessness? The lack of a self-existing or truly independent "bdag" or ego. So there is the lack of true existence of the ego in terms of personality. In this realm there are many other things apart from personalities or persons: there are phenomena, and their lack of true or natural existence is called the egolessness of phenomena, while the lack of true or natural existence of the ego is called egolessness.

Kyabje Rimpoche mentions here two kinds of emptiness: the emptiness of self or the being and the emptiness of phenomena. These are two separate emptinesses, although there is a tremendous amount of emptinesses. There are the 8 emptinesses, the 16 emptinesses, and it goes on and on. But the emptiness explained by Nagarjuna, and then commented by Chandrakirti and Buddhapalita thereafter, as a bottom line has two divisions, to make it easier to understand: the emptiness of beings and the emptiness of phenomena other than beings, in other words, the emptiness of the animate and the inanimate. I notice that Kyabje Rimpoche called “dag” ego and I am quite happy about that. I have seen no other place where that was done.

There was a question earlier about the ego and the jig ta. I taught on that in Ann Arbor very recently and also in New York. According to the system of Buddhapalita, the ego itself is the jig ta.Ultimately we accept Buddhapalita. Chandrakirti's work is based on Buddhapalita's understanding. Buddhapalita is based on the chapter 18 of Nagarjuna's mulamadhyamakakarika, the 'root of wisdom'. Chandrakirti's explanations of the Madyamaka, the Middle Path, both the word and the meaning commentary, are based on chapter 8 of Buddhapalita. Therefore, jig ta is ego.

To establish this understanding there are many methods and forms of reasoning. The two main methods are: a) the separation of one and many; and b) dependent arising, which is called the king of reasoning. The separation of one and many has four points:

(1) ascertaining the object to be refuted,

(2) establishing the pervasion,

(3) one, and

(4) Many.

When we talk about egolessness we have to determine what it is that is 'less'. The term in Tibetan is "bdag med'-no ego- so we have to determine what is "bdag" ego?

What is it that we are trying to refute? If you saw a thief and noticed that he was wearing clothes of a certain color, then you can recognize him again and point him out to the police. It is extremely important to understand what one is refuting. There are two types of ego and one is valid. If we deny the one that is valid we will find ourselves in the position of being nihilists, denying everything, which is a very serious mistake. The ego that is valid has functions, it is the relative ego, and we must be careful not to deny its functions. It is said that those of very small wisdom can fail by making this mistake. When we speak of the Madhyamika philosophy, 'madhya' refers to a middle path, between nihilism and eternalism, a path without extremes. If you have a narrow path, you have to walk very carefully without falling to the right or left, between the mistakes of nihilism and mental fabrication, eternalism. When Shakyamuni Buddha became Enlightened in Bodhgaya he spent a week without saying anything, as he felt it would be too difficult for people to understand him. He said: "I have discovered an indescribable teaching on Voidness. It is extremely profound and vast, and will be very difficult for people to be able to understand". Then he wandered off into the woods for forty-nine days, and only started to teach later at the request of Brahma and Indra.

Indra and Brahma are the great Hindu gods. They are common to Hinduism and Buddhism.

So there are two types of ego, one which exists and one which doesn't.

So one type of ego does exists and the other doesn't, but we think that it exists.

How are we to recognize them? The false self appears as something which is independent of, or apart from, the five aggregates. For instance, when we are falsely accused of being thieves, we immediately get angry; thinking "Why am I being accused?" or else when falling off a cliff we think "I am falling!" Without thinking of the five aggregates we get a strong feeling of 'I'. This is a small taste of the false self, the one to be refuted.

I use this analogy of being falsely accused very often. If somebody in a group accuses you, “Hey you thief!”, you will defend yourself very strongly, “Me? A thief?!” That sense of self is what Kyabje Rimpoche refers to here. This strong sense of “I”, also when we are in danger of falling from a cliff, gives us a glimpse of the object of negation.

When we get this feeling of a strong 'I' without any relation to the base of the five aggregates, since the five are the basis of the self, we have to conclude that there is no such thing as this independent and natural false self as we feel there to be. So we have to analyze and establish logically whether it exists as one with the five aggregates or separate from them, i.e. whether it is the same entity or separate.

Above, Kyabje Rimpoche outlined four steps. The first one was to ascertain the object of negation. That is what he is talking about here. You want to find ego-lessness. So what is that ego-less? Or better, what is that ego? We call it self or “I”, but there is an ego- “I”, and an “I -“I”. In the transcript of the talk it sounds like they are both called ego. But if you look at an ego “I” on the one hand and an “I”-”I” on the other hand, it is much easier. The ego-I is the big boss who is tormenting and torturing us, making us confused and which is the source of all delusions. That is the “I” that has to be refuted. Then the “I”-“I” is the basic “I”. The moment the ego - “I” is hit, the ego- I withdraws and at that point the “I” “I” picks up to make sure we don't just collapse. But otherwise, normally the ego – I bullies the “I” - “I” completely. It is the big dictator, the big Saddam.

When you are suddenly being accused of being a thief in a group of people, you first may think that the person is joking, but the moment you realize he is serious, the ego-I pops up, the object of negation, the dictator, screaming “me”. That is a glimpse. Similarly, it comes up when you are in danger of falling. These are the examples I often use and you are familiar with them.

Now the second of the four points: how to refute the object of negation. If you are existing, on what basis do you exist? You exist on nothing but the five skandhas and four elements. Apart from that you are not going to find anything. Therefore, the focal point of the ego-I is the five skandhas. These are by nature perishable. Therefore, the ego watches and holds the perishable aggregates as identity. That is called jig ta. jig means perishable, subject to destruction, not lasting, dismantling. ta means one who holds that. Therefore, according to Buddhapalita's system, jig ta itself is ego. The Mind Only school and others have a little different way of looking at this.

When you are establising the I to be refuted, it is the ego-I, the bully, not the simple, humble, sweet I. The ego I bullies the I-I. The ego I takes over, presuming and pretending to protect the I-I. It is using the methods of hatred, obsession and confusion. That is why the ego-I is the object to be refuted.

I am going to leave it here tonight. To recap, what did we do today? We did the mindfulness of compassion. Then we did the mindfulness of the divine body and did quite a lot of poking our noses in vajrayana. Out of the mindfulness of the emptiness, we sort of are looking at empti-ness. You have to look for what is empty. What is not there? Empty of what? That is the most important thing. If there is just nothing, nothing bothers us, nothing helps us, nothing is nothing. But something is bothering us and we do have some misunderstanding. We are misunderstanding something that is not really there, but pretends to be there and functions as if it was in complete control of the situation.

What does wisdom do? It is refuting that “I”, it becomes dag me. That self is the false self. When you completely negate the false self you are left with the true self. If you don't know that you think you should negate everything and then you think that nothing is there.

To add to the confusion: we say that there is no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, etc. Sometimes people misinterpret that to mean that there is nothing, that everything is just illusion, just a magician's trick. Nothing is there, and at the end everything is going disappear and equal out by itself, it doesn't matter what anyone does, because in the end it is going to be zero, nothing. That is the nihilistic point.

The existentialist point will insist: Yes, everything is real, literally. It is all truly there, you can't change and shake, you can't do anything, it is solidly there. That is the existentialist extreme.

Therefore, we need the middle path between those. Only the middle way can truly establish what we are, and the things around us. What is their nature and their reality? It is emptiness. Why do we call it empty? Because there is a false perception of something and that is being negated. Emptiness is being empty of what is negated.

Professor Thurman has been shouting for years, “Emptiness is not empty, emptiness is full”. What he means is that it is not non-existing. When you negate the false self, the real one appears.

end of 4mind7