Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A passing remark — that even a dreaming ant has a sense of self — anchors the central distinction Geshe Pema Tsering draws in this 44-minute commentary: not all grasping at “I” is wrong. He works through three ways beings relate to self, arguing that the ordinary uninvestigated sense of personhood is actually a valid cognition of the conventional I, while a philosophically constructed belief in a permanent, independent, inherently existent self is what emptiness practice must dismantle. He traces how instinctive self-experience can harden into that mistaken view. A Q&A covers whether other traditions approach emptiness (Geshe-la suspects Jesus did), why a non-inherently-existent mind is the only kind capable of becoming a Buddha, and how the Buddhist “self” being negated differs from ordinary self-confidence. Some prior exposure to Mādhyamika philosophy is helpful.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 TT 2004 09 14.mp3
UUID: f20e1571-e44c-4f28-8e66-55b0151be8c2
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: DB Thought Transformation (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-09-14
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 43.9 minutes
Words: ~4,016
Okay. So this way that we deconstruct the pot when we can’t find pot maybe getting rid of the idea of the convention of a pot so we may think of things as being a conventionally existent pot and if we just go okay there’s a I can’t find the pot so it doesn’t exist and then kind of finish there we have only destroyed the concept of pot and we’re not actually looking at reality in this middle way So one of the best things that we can do to look for what it is that we’re trying to disprove the existence of in order not to fall into nihilism and in order to not be stuck in eternalism where we think that things inherently exist is to look at the way we perceive ourselves. We look at the way that we perceive self or we think of I we’ll see that this is something that instinctively appears in our mind it’s not something that we have to label it’s not something that we have to generate an idea of it’s something that we just have we have this idea that we exist it’s not something that we think okay there’s a whole section of these things and there’s a whole different groups of stuff and on top of that I’ve got this label called I That’s not the way that the self appears to us.
We may be made up of a group of five different collections of bits whether they’re minds or body but we don’t perceive ourselves as being a concept that is labeled a concept that is put onto this collection of different groups the way that we see ourselves as being an inherently existent thing that is somehow separate from our body, separate from our mind, separate from our feelings and so on. And this instinctive grasping itself is something that is in the deepest recesses of our mind and not only our minds but even ants’ minds. Even ants have a sense of self. Even in their dreams of ants, there is a sense of self. So if we have this we have this instinctive sense of self, we have this instinctive sense of I that isn’t something that’s a conception, isn’t something that we’ve come up with.
It’s something that we naturally experience, this idea that there is an I, there is an I that does this, it does that. So that’s the first type of grasping at I or grasping at self that we may experience. So it’s not just ourselves that we have this instinctual grasping to as it being existent, or it’s all phenomena. If if we watch the way that our mind works then we’ll see that we have this instinctual way of taking all phenomenon as being inherently existent it’s not like we look at something and think well you see that’s a combination of all the causes and conditions that have brought it into existence and I’ve merely labeled it something we just think that’s a cloth or that’s a cup or whatever it is. We don’t have this idea of it being a combination of things that we’ve got to put a label on.
So we have this instinctual tendency or this instinctual thing of seeing things as being inherently existent objects that are existent in their own rights and from their own sides as opposed to being a label that we put on a combination of causes and conditions coming together. So it’s a so for example, if someone says, is Ruth here? Then people will go, yes. She is. She’s here.
And then they’ll say if they say, where is she? And then they’ll point at this is weird translating this. But anyway, they’ll point at me and say, she’s there and it’s not as if they go she’s there only existing as an imputation on a combination of collective causes and conditions that are taking the form of the five aggregates they’ll just say Ruth’s there yeah and so it’s not as a label or as a concept or as a merely labeled object instinctually there is this idea that someone is there and so this is the same way that it works for ourselves as well We don’t think I am here as merely a non inherently existent thing that is a label or is only conventionally existent We think of ourselves as being an inherent little thing and if someone says what are you doing? We think, I’m doing this. Or if they say, hey, you, we go, yes.
And we have a reaction to it. So it’s an instinctual understanding of self, of this inherent existence that we have to work with. So in general we would say that there is three different ways that people relate to the concept of I or they grasp at the idea of I Now the first one is those beings who have developed an understanding of emptiness they have developed an understanding of the lack of inherent existence of objects so the way that they relate to self the way that they relate to objects is that that thing there is existing in a conventional way as a combination of different elements and that combination of different elements I have labelled this or that or I and when the conditions for those elements to come together no longer do exist then that merely labelled thing will cease to exist so there is this sense of the idea of merely labelled things being the only sorry there is the idea of conventional existence being the only way that things actually exist and no sense of ultimate existence in their mind streams they have some understanding of emptiness through developing their studies and their understanding of these philosophies This is talking about the view as presented by the Mādhyamika School is that or the middle way school it’s called the middle way school the middle way between eternalism and nihilism that things don’t exist inherently as self powered objects but they do exist in a conventional way through being a label given to a combination of causes and conditions and different elements and parts So if you say okay is there something from that side that exists inherently and then from the Mādhyamika point of view it’s there’s nothing there’s absolutely nothing coming from the side of that object in that object that it is its-ness that makes it it.
Its existence is merely imputed it by the conventions. So there’s the beings that have developed this understanding and relate to objects in this way that is the first type of being. So this understanding of self as being a conventionally existent thing can still be the first form of grasping of the idea of I. I exist as a conventionally existent thing or whatever it is. The second type of way that we can grasp at I is the way that ordinary people who haven’t spent a lot of time studying tenets or philosophical systems or emptiness will view I, where that is they couldn’t care less if they exist or not.
They don’t have a particular view on whether they are an inherently existent thing or aren’t an inherently existent thing. They have this sense of self, of course, and they hold on to that sense of self, but it’s not a philosophically established sense of self. So the third form of grasping itself is grasping itself where people have used some philosophical means to establish an ‘I’ by its nature so they’ve developed the idea that they exist as an inherently existent thing that there is something in them that is an permanent and indivisible autonomous thing. Now from amongst these three different types of ways of grasping an eye the second of these is said to be a valid mental cognition so it’s a right way of thinking that it assumes the conventional I so this idea that there is an I that exists conventionally but isn’t necessarily established as an inherently existent thing and may not be established as a merely imputed thing either. This is the general idea of I.
That isn’t actually a wrong mind. It’s non investigated mind, but it’s not a wrong mind. So so this uninvestigated eye, that is, if you’re not thinking I inherently exist or I don’t inherently exist and there’s just a me that does things, there’s a me that creates karma, that experiences the results of that created karma, that needs to try and perform virtuous actions to experience happiness and so forth, that kind of sense of self that hasn’t been looked for, it does exist. It’s perceiving the conventional eye. If you don’t bother to investigate whether the self exists or not and you really don’t make up a mind one way or another, then your experience or what you’re affirming is what’s called the conventional eye and that is something that actually exists and if there is a this kind of sense of self is a conventional sense of self which is that I’m here I’m experiencing myself therefore I must exist and in that way that’s valid we do exist in this way we’re not a non existent thing we are an existent thing so this kind of sense of self in that way is a way of affirming this idea of the conventionally existent ‘I’.
That it hasn’t been established that this ‘I’ exists inherently or doesn’t exist inherently because no one’s bothered to look for it if they looked for it they couldn’t find it but before they look at it so it’s like the unsought sense of self that hasn’t been said to exist inherently or not, then that aligns itself with the concept of a conventional eye. The third type of I, this this idea of trying to establish it or thinking about it and coming up with an idea that we are an inherently existent thing, that there is something a ness about us that makes us us that makes us an inherently existent independent object is a wrong view and it needs to have antidotes applied to it a vague idea of self which isn’t necessarily inherently existent or not isn’t a wrong view it’s just a concept of the conventional self but an idea of holding on to self of I am an inherently existent thing that is a solid independent individual this is a mistaken view this is the cause of all of the suffering that we experience and this is the thing that we need to get rid of So this self, this idea of self is, okay, I have thought about it and I’ve established this idea that I am a person, that I have a self, that there is an element to me that is continuous, unchanging, permanent, and based on this conception that I’m going to do things to make that self happy and with external objects this is when I interact with external objects this is the self that needs to be negated and this is the self that we have when we think I want to be happy we don’t have an idea that this self that wants to be happy is permanent or not permanent if we’re reacting to the self as being something that needs to be made happy that needs this or that or has attachment to this or that then that is a solidified self So this solidified self that we’ve established there we’re thinking there is an I that needs that or this or this That is the third type of self This is the self that’s an inherently existent self and that’s what’s the object of negation This is what we need to use logic in order to prove that it does not exist and through proving it does not exist get rid of the negative emotions that it engendered.
Okay. So this I is what we need to refute this sense of self that is an inherently existent thing and this is what we have to use arguments in order to destroy the concept of or to get rid of the concept of so this is what’s called an established way of thinking some way that’s put a lot of effort into that we’ve used theory and ideas to come up with the sense of the self or the non self or the I’m not quite sure. So that’s one way but then we also have this sense of self that comes up instinctively And so there’s two different types. There can be a sense of self that’s like a philosophical position and there can be a sense of self that is an instinctive feel for self. So what happens, what can happen is that we can get into the idea of having a philosophical position of self because we’ve been led astray by an instinctive experience of self or instinctive need for self so we think okay I had this instinctive idea that I exist and then after we do something and go I did this I did that and this I has to exist and I have eaten I have done this I have done this and it’s like a like I said there’s like an instinctive feeling and a philosophical position so once we’ve been had this instinctive sense of self done something and then going, I did this, I ate, I did this, then that self, we grasp onto that self as being an inherently existent thing.
This is an instinctive sense of self. We think, okay, that must be inherently existent. So so this inherent this no. Instinctive sense of self is an experience of self. And if we tried to deny that instinctive sense of self, then that would be falling into the extreme of nihilism but what we need to do is not to think that that instinctive sense of self leads to a concept of an inherent solid independent sense of self so we can still have this idea of I’m going, I’m sitting’ and so on but the experience of going and sitting and doing all of these physical actions are actually a label that we put onto an idea we put onto an idea that we can put on an idea or a label or an idea that we affix to an action.
So that is called going. That is called walking. And then there is an I doing this walking and this sitting. So you can be a conventionally existent I conventionally sitting doing something that’s conventionally called sitting. Actions can be subsumed within this philosophical system where everything is terminologically and conventionally existent, but not inherently existent.
Okay. Oh. Okay. So we may have this kind of, like, fuzzy sense of self that doesn’t necessarily have to think that it’s inherently existent, that does things, that goes here, that goes there, and there might be like an instinctive sense of self that comes along with these things. If we don’t develop that sense of self into an inherently existent thing that’s very important and we can recognise that that sense of self is actually or that self is actually only a convention that we have come up to deal with that experience a convention we’ve come up with to understand that experience, then this kind of sense of self is valid.
It’s not necessarily the object of negation. And if you have any questions. Yeah. Is any practice? I thought you said, is it only practice?
Sorry. So the way that you develop an understanding of emptiness is first by using logic and reasoning to establish it. And then once you’ve developed that understanding then you meditate on that understanding and that becomes clearer and clearer and you eventually realise it directly. So in actual fact using logic, understanding logic, studying these texts is the way that you develop this understanding. But it’s not something that happens in isolation either.
You can’t develop an understanding of emptiness without bodhicitta, without renunciation. So they have to come as a part of the package. If there’s someone up there with a hand up, just yell because I can’t see. He said he doesn’t know. Do other teachings do other religious traditions put forward anything that could be taken to mean emptiness?
Because Geshe-la hasn’t studied every religion, so he can’t tell you any other religion. So he couldn’t tell you for certain whether based on those religious practices you could develop an understanding of emptiness but he doesn’t see why not and there’s definitely practices that are associated with the Hindu religion and even Islam that are similar to this and he’s almost completely convinced that Jesus had an understanding of emptiness. He hasn’t studied Christianity enough to know whether he actually expanded on that but to be able to do the things that he did and act that selflessly and compassionately he thinks that he must have had an understanding of emptiness so it may not be called emptiness in other traditions but they may have something that they experience a similar thing but he doesn’t know for certain because he’s only ever studied Buddhism Yeah. So one way of looking at it is that if our mind wasn’t no. Sorry.
If our mind was inherently existent, there was no way that we could attain Buddhahood. If our mind was inherently existent, there is no way that it would change, that any conditions and causes would make it change. If something inherently existed, there could be nothing to change its nature. There could be nothing to make it change. But because our mind comes into being based on the causes and conditions, it means that when we can change those causes and conditions, that the mind can change.
And this means that we can improve our mind. If our mind was an inherently existent thing that came into being in its own instant, by its own force, by its own power and then it wouldn’t be affected by anything else it wouldn’t be able to improve wouldn’t be able we wouldn’t be able to get rid of the negative aspects to it and develop the positive aspects so the fact that our mind is not inherently existent lacks inherent existence means that it is able to change, that we can create causes and conditions to develop it and eventually become a Buddha, a non inherently existent Buddha. So if Buddhahood wasn’t an inherent not if Buddhahood was an inherently existent state, we wouldn’t be able to attain it. There would be no point for Buddha to explain the path to us because it we would there would be we wouldn’t be able to attain that state if it was a something that existed from its own side and it wasn’t something that you could develop that causes and conditions could develop. Buddhahood itself has to be not inherently existent otherwise we can’t attain it and the mind that achieves that state has to be non inherently existent.
Otherwise, it can’t change to become a Buddha. Yeah. How do you do with diligence? Just can I do the brain? Sure.
Okay. So it’s a difficult position to refute because it’s coming from a different position The reason that scientists are going to come up with this idea is because they are only focusing on the physical and the mind isn’t physical so the scientists assume that anything that isn’t physical doesn’t exist from that position their mind doesn’t exist there is only brain functioning there is no mind so if you’re going to the reason that they haven’t found mind is that they’re not looking for mind. They don’t they don’t starting from a position where mind could exist. They’re starting from a position that everything is a physical function is physically is a physical form. Yeah.
And if you can’t find something physically, therefore, it doesn’t exist. This isn’t the nature of mind. Mind isn’t form. Mind’s definition is clear and knowing. There is no obstruction to mind.
Form is something that can be physically perceived. Mind is something that can only be experienced. So if you’re going to define what exists by saying it needs to have a physical form or a physical function, then mind doesn’t exist But we can know from our experience that we experience mind It’s only through the experience of mind and being able to change mind that we can start to understand that it does exist. Yeah? That they have a very poor sense yourself.
Uh-huh. That’s where there’s something to come from. In terms of, like, depression and self lack of self confidence and so on? Right. Figure out how you’d break that.
Don’t worry about it. You don’t exist. Yeah. Yep. Okay.
I have to say say one thing before I’m gonna I’ll try and explain all of this to Geshe-la because the word that you’re using there for self Yeah. Right, is a different word to the self. Like, so to explain it, I had to say, in English, this self and this self are the same self, but they’re not in Tibetan. Right? Does that make sense?
Yeah. So but I’ll just I’ll tell you that first, and then I’ll try and explain it to him and then see what we get. So this this sense this this idea of self in Buddhism has nothing to do with self confidence. It’s totally different thing. It’s a this is the only thing we can get close to the translation of atma.
Sometimes it’s also translated as ego, but I wasn’t specifically trying not to do that because that gets into a whole other psychological ballpark. So this self, in this instance is defined as an inherently existent thing that has the ability to stand on its own feet without any other causes and conditions to bring itself into existence. You can have the self of book and the self of a chair as well as the self of persons so it’s anything that’s inherently existent that is defined by its that is existent by its characteristics that is truly existent these are the synonyms that describe this self that we’re trying to negate it’s not you don’t exist as a person or you’re not important as a person it’s that this self this inherently existent thing that defines all the actions doesn’t Yeah? It’s it’s yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. It’s it’s difficult. So this is this is it is difficult, and this is why in the in the text, the the says that it’s not enough just to go, Okay, this is the reasons, this is the arguments that we use. If there’s no self because this, this, this and this and this, you actually need to try and incorporate it and try and think about it and see how it processes and try and practice it, trying to get used to it. Then you get an understanding of it.
Just by trying to use the arguments, you may not necessarily get an understanding of it. You need to put it into to get an experience of it. He said, yeah, it’s difficult. So the yeah. How many years do you want to speak to studying?
Do you want me to study? Studying emptiness. They they study emptiness or they study? No. You you study Prajñāpāramitā and Mādhyamika.
Yeah. Tell me. Sure. Okay. So they do what’s called the Prajñāpāramitā, this perfection of wisdom for six years.
And they also study Mādhyamika philosophy for four. And there’s another thing that’s called pramāna, which is to establish valid signs and cognitions too, so you can establish what, like, for example, the thing to be negated is. And I do that every year for about fifteen months. So So it’s not that easy. Sorry about asking the page number.
That’s alright. No. It’s