Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 95-minute commentary, Khensur Rinpoche tackles a problem practitioners often underestimate: correctly identifying the object of negation before meditating on emptiness. Grip it too broadly and you fall into nihilism; too narrowly and subtle self-grasping survives intact. An analogy of an Indian cobra charmer who must seize the snake at precisely the right spot or die within minutes captures the precision required. Rinpoche surveys how the four Buddhist tenet systems draw this line differently, explains how the person is imputed on the five aggregates, and identifies the I appearing to exist independently of those aggregates as the subtle object to negate. A closing Q&A addresses the Mind Only view that perceiver and object arise from the same karmic latency, and how to distinguish ordinary “I” thoughts from those bound to the self-grasping being negated.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 16 MM 1997 03 11.mp3
UUID: 17ca1284-88db-4d69-960b-23f5b5140a68
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Mahāmudrā 1996-97 (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1997-03-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 95.0 minutes
Words: ~4,808
We’ll begin by meditating for a few minutes, cultivating as our motivation, the awakened heart. So as a prerequisite to the development of the awakened heart, it’s necessary that we cultivate love and compassion. Love expressed in the thought it would be wonderful if myself and all living beings had happiness and the causes of happiness. And compassion expressed in the thought it would be wonderful if myself and all living beings were free of suffering and the causes of suffering. So the attitude of mind, which seeks to free all living beings and to place in happiness, but not just an ordinary type of happiness, but a a constant complete happiness.
And understanding that in order to lead all living beings to that state, oneself must eliminate their various faults and bring to fulfillment all the excellent qualities, and in order to achieve that, I must attain Buddhahood. So the mind which aspires to that state of Buddhahood for these reasons is the awakened heart. Therefore, in light of this aspiration, developing as a motivation for listening to this present teaching, which is the essence of the universal vehicle Dharma, that is the great seal, that I, having once listened, will reflect upon and then meditate upon the subject in order to achieve this end. Beginning with a quotation from a sūtra, king of meditative stabilizations, the Samādhi Rāja Sūtra by Śākyamūni Buddha, in which he said: just as you have known the discrimination of the self, one applies the mind likewise to all. What he is presenting here is that with respect to selflessness, the mind, the discrimination which misconceives the existence of a self.
With regards to selflessness, there are two types of selflessness. Is selflessness of a person and selflessness of phenomena. Those who desire liberation, what are they to meditate upon? They are to meditate upon selflessness. And as has been previously explained with regard to selflessness, there are the two types.
There is the selflessness of persons and the selflessness of phenomena. In order of actual cultivation, we are first to proceed in cultivating the realization of the selflessness of persons. So in this verse which was quoted by Śākyamūni Buddha, he said: discriminating the self. What that one is to apply that mind likewise to all. I didn’t translate it very well.
By discriminating yourself, is to me interpreted as when having discriminated the selfless as a person, one is then able to take that awareness and apply it to all phenomena. That is to say to the aggregate, to the table, to all phenomena whatsoever. So first having discriminated the selflessness of a person or recognized the selflessness of a person, one can then apply that awareness to all phenomena whatsoever. And this goes on to say that once knowing the selflessness of one phenomenon, we can apply that and thereby know all phenomena as being selfless. So first we are to seek to understand the selfless as a person.
Having understood that which is that initial understanding is difficult but having once attained it, we can easily apply that same reasoning and look to the mode of abidings of all phenomena and easily understand the emptiness of each and every phenomena until ultimately we understand all phenomena in terms of their emptiness. So we are to initially seek to realize the selflessness of the person. And we previously spoke about the three categories of phenomena. Those being manifest phenomena, slightly hidden phenomena and extremely hidden phenomena. Selflessness is the second of these three varieties, of these three categories, that is the slightly hidden phenomena.
And as ordinary beings, we have not yet directly realized emptiness, whether that is selflessness. In order to, prior to directly realizing, we must gain a realization by means of relying upon reasoning. So we initially gain a realization here in terms of the selflessness person relying on a quick line of reasoning. So we rely on a quick sign or a quick line of reasoning. So here signs, the word signs or reasoning are more or less synonymous.
So we rely upon a quick sign or a quick line of reasoning. So we are we are seeking to gain an understanding of selflessness or emptiness. Emptiness here is equivalent, emptiness and selflessness. And in order to understand, to gain that understanding, there is now a quotation by Śāntideva from his text A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, where he says, without contacting the imagined existence, its nonexistence is not apprehended. Without contacting an imagined existence, its nonexistence is not apprehended.
So that is to say, in order to come to an understanding of the selflessness here of persons, first we must understand the object of negation. What is the imagined object? This imagined object is termed the object of negation. This without identifying this object which is to be negated, without recognizing it, there is no way that we can understand its nonexistent. By way of analogy, it would be similar to the case where in order to hit the target using an arrow, it is necessary that we see the target, we identify the target, that we recognize the target.
Without identifying, recognizing, seeing the target, there’s no way that we can shoot the arrow and hit the target. We must it’s a prerequisite that we identify what it is we’re trying to hit. Another analogy would be that if we were looking for a particular person, we would have to know who it is that we’re looking for to decide whether they were here or not amongst the gatherings. For example, there is a Buddha house student by the name of Doc who is well known to most of us. And if we knew Doc and we were questioning, did Doc come to class?
We could look around and he’d say, oh Doc’s not here. But if we didn’t know doc, then no matter how much we may look around, we’re not going to be able to come to a conclusion as to whether doc’s here or not. Not knowing doc, we cannot ascertain whether Doc is here or not. So in order to ascertain whether Doc is here or not, we must understand who Doc is. We can extend this analogy to almost anything that in order to ascertain whether something exists or not we must be able to recognize its existence if it were to exist.
If again, using an example, questioning whether is Tengen here or not? Knowing who Tengen is, we can it it simply becomes a matter of examination, looking around, and then we understand that Tengen is not here today. And this applies to all modes of examination. We have to know the the we have to be able to identify an object before we can conclude whether it exists or not. And here, we are trying to understand whether the self within selflessness exists.
We have the word selfless. That is to say, this self, does that does that self exist or not? Without understanding the non existent self, without being able to recognize, identify the non existent self, we can never really ascertain that it does not exist. So we must be able to identify the self within selflessness. So it is extremely important that we be able to identify the object which is to be negated, the object of negation.
This is difficult but it’s quite necessary that we identify well the object which is to be negated. But there are certain faults that we can fall to in the process of trying to recognize or identify what the object of negation is. The process of seeking to identify the object which we’re seeking to negate, if our identification is too broad, If we take the object of negation too broadly, we could say that to the extent that all phenomena are to be negated. Then this we would fall to the extreme of annihilation. On the other hand, if identifying the object of negation is taken too narrowly, we take the object of negation too narrowly, that will only be a coarse or rough negation.
We will not have a negated, the defined or the subtle obvious to be negated and we will fall to, that is to not enough will be negated. There will be something still to be negated and we will fall to the extreme of permanence. So the the middle way is a centric position between these two extremes. We’re seeking we’re to abide free of both of these extremes, not the the extremes of not taking the object of negation too broadly and thereby falling to the extreme of annihilation nor taking the object and negation too narrowly and thereby falling to the extreme of permanence. But a central position between those two.
Previous to Tsongkhapa, there are many instances of assertions about the object of negation which were either too broad or too narrowly defined. Some asserting the object of negation too broadly took in all phenomena whatsoever. For example, how could this come about? When we, in terms of ourselves, if we were to analyze ourselves, that we don’t think, we don’t go on in the process by first trying to identify the object of negation, but we simply want to know where is the eye. And so we look at, we examine the various parts of the self.
Is the head the eye? No, head is not the eye. Are the arms the eye? No, the arms are not the eye. And we would go through the various limbs, the trunk of the body and having gone through all the various parts, we do not find anything which is the eye.
If we were to find something, then it would necessarily be truly existent. But we don’t find anything. So then we come to a conclusion, ah, the the eye does not exist at all. I I haven’t been able to find it. Or we could extend this process to other phenomena.
We could look at the table. Is the top the table? No, that’s not the table. Is the bottom the table? No, that’s not the table.
Are the legs the table? No, that’s not the table. We go through all the various parts of the table and we don’t find the table. And then when we come to the exclusion that the table doesn’t exist and we could extend that to all phenomena whatsoever, think well nothing exists. So this would be a case of of coming to the conclusion that all phenomena do not exist because we have taken the object of negation too broadly.
But then again we can fall to the other extreme of taking the object of negation too narrowly and this would be a case of the various lower tenets, the philosophic system beneath that of the middle way philosophy. For example, the mind only school. The Mind Only school takes as their object of negation the emptiness of substantial difference between the form and the valid cognition apprehending the form. That’s their object of negation. That is to say, what they’re seeking to refute is that the form and the valid cognition apprehending the form are of different substantial entities.
That’s their object of negation. But really, that’s only a coarse object of negation. Really negating that one does not realize the subtle emptiness. So this is a case of having taken the object of negation too narrowly. If we don’t identify, if we don’t understand the object of negation well, then we will not understand emptiness well.
We will we will fall to one of the either of the two extremes. We will either fall to the extremes where we we refute too much and we we can refute to all of existence and we fall to the extreme of annihilation. That is the nihilistic view. We say nothing exists. This is this is simply due to not having understood well the object negation.
Or we can fall to the other extreme. Can take the object of negation too narrowly, then we’re going to say something exists when it actually doesn’t. We are superimposing. We are projecting a state upon objects which in fact they don’t possess and therefore we fall to the extreme of permanence or the view of eternalism. These are both extreme Seeking to come to an understanding of emptiness is analogous to some of the snake charmers of India.
Those who handle very dangerous snakes such as cobras, they have to be extremely expert in how they take hold of the snake. If they’re clumsy, then they’re going to be bitten and they can die within a matter of minutes and there’s no antidote. So we can see these experts in India who able to know precisely where to grab the snake and not be harmed. Likewise, it’s necessary that in our meditation we be able to grab hold of emptiness at the right spot in order if not, we there is danger of ourselves being harmed. This is the thought of Nāgārjuna.
So we’re going to look at the selflessness, and we’re looking at selflessness in terms of persons and phenomena. And with regard to this, amongst the followers of the Buddha, Śākyamūni, there were those who proposed sets of tenets or organize the teachings in philosophic systems. There are four sets of tenets. There is the great exposition school, the sūtra school, the mind only school and the middle way school. The the the Great Exposition School, the Sūtra School, the Mind Only School, and the Middle Way School.
Of these four tenets, the first two, Great Exposition and Sūtra schools, are categorized within the individual vehicle or Hīnayāna. Whereas the latter two, Mind Only and Middle Way school are included within the universal vehicle or Mahāyāna. So these four tenets are posited by way of their views. So in general, there are certain principles which by means of which we categorize what is a Buddhist doctrine. For a practitioner of Buddhism would be one who went for refuge to the Three Jewels.
But additionally, there is what is called the four seals which testified to an authentic Buddhist doctrine. So these four seals which testify to an authentic Buddhist doctrine are as follows. The first of them is that all compounded phenomena are impermanent. The second is that all contaminated phenomena are dissatisfactory. Thirdly, all phenomena are selfless and empty.
And fourthly, passage beyond sorrow, that is nirvana is peace. So we said the first of these four fields is that all compounded phenomena are impermanent. What do we mean by compounded phenomena? Compounded phenomena are phenomena with functional phenomena or efficient phenomena. That is a phenomena which are a combination of causes and conditions which we’ve discussed previously.
We said that for a result to arise, it must arise through a combination of both causes and conditions. If we have the cause and not the condition, then the result doesn’t arise. If we have the condition and not the cause, result doesn’t arise. So it is through a compounding of causes and conditions that a result arises. So this is what is meant by compounded phenomena.
All compounded phenomena are impermanent. By impermanent, we mean the momentary creation and disintegration of phenomena. That moment by moment phenomena are arising and the next moment they are disintegrating. That they do not abide even for a moment longer, that their entity is being transformed into something other than it was before, moment by moment. So it is the nature of compounded phenomena that having come into existence, they rely upon nothing other than having been created for their going out of existence.
That no other cause is needed for them to disintegrate other than the fact of having come into existence. It’s difficult for us to realize this level of subtle impermanence. Can understand coarse impermanence. When we look at a flower for example, the flower might have been blooming in the morning and then in the evening it’s already wilted or the flower might have been blooming one day and in a few days later it’s all dried up. But this is simply coarse impermanence.
So all fundamental functional phenomena are are momentarily coming into, are being created and disintegrating. You know, it’s like if we take a clock and we look at the time, it doesn’t stop for even one moment. There’s no halting the passage of time, even for a moment. Just to get a grasp of how long the instantaneous arising and abiding and ceasing might take, even within the time of a finger snap, there are said to be sixty five moments and within that time, sixty five intervals or moments within that. If a phenomena does not even abide for even one of those, all compound phenomena are impermanent.
So the second of these seals was all that is contaminated or all contaminated phenomena are dissatisfactory or suffering. And here contaminated is to be understood as the afflictive emotions or extending that which arises out of the afflictive emotions which would include karma. So that is to say all that is a product of karma and afflictive emotions is in the nature of suffering, is dissatisfactory. So the third was that all phenomena are empty and selfless. So in this third seal, all phenomena are empty and selfless.
Selfless is to be taken as the selflessness of persons. All of the four tenet systems are the same in accepting the selflessness of persons. So all the four tenet systems are the same in accepting that persons are selfless or the selflessness of persons. So with regard to the selflessness of persons, there are two levels. There’s the coarse level and the subtle level of the selflessness of persons.
With regard to this, these two levels, the Great Exposition School and the Sūtra School are the same with regard to their presentation of the Course in subtle selflessness of persons. By way of example, beginning with the non-Buddhist. Some non-Buddhist schools would assert that the self of persons is a permanent phenomena and here permanent phenomena means unchanging. The self of persons is permanent but the aggregates, say the body for example, is impermanent. Therefore the self and the aggregates are different entities.
So for these particular non-Buddhist schools, they say that the person is that which accumulates actions, accumulates karma, and that which experiences the result. So the agent of the actions and the experience of the result is what they mean by the person and that is permanent. The aggregates are impermanent. One being permanent, one being impermanent, they are necessarily different entities. But according to the Buddhist assertion with regard to this, the self, the person, and the aggregates are the same entity.
They’re not different entities. They’re the same entity. So, for these lower tenets, it is the emptiness of the different entities, The empty of being different entities. Empty of being different entities. That is the self and the aggregates are empty of being different entities which is the coarse selflessness of persons.
The emptiness of the difference being the self and the aggregates, these two being empty of different entities is the coarse selflessness of persons as asserted by these two lower tenets. So, these two being empty of being different entities, these two being empty of different entities is the coarse selflessness persons. Let’s Let’s talk about what we mean by a person or a being or the I. These various terms are interchangeable or equivalent. Being, person, I and self.
These are equivalent terms here in this discussion. What do we mean by the being? We are made up of five aggregates. The aggregates of forms, feelings, discriminations, compositional factors, and consciousnesses. The being is defined as the I which is designated or labeled upon these five aggregates.
So the being is the I or the self which is imputed, labeled, projected upon the collection of these five aggregates. So we should understand this well, what we mean, how the nature of the person and what we mean by the person or the being. So there are five aggregates and these are the basis for imputing the being. Just like the hand, the hand, we have four fingers and a thumb and a palm. These four fingers, the thumb and the BAM are the basis upon which we label hand.
On that basis of these parts we impute, we label hand upon that. Likewise with the person, if someone who has five aggregates, aggregates of feelings, forms and feelings, etc, upon that we label the being or we label the person, we label the I. This is the basis of labeling, the basis of imputation, these five aggregates. Upon that, we label I or being. So we we have to understand this well.
We’ve emphasized the fact that the person or the being is labeled, is imputed, designated to the aggregates. Though the person is labeled in dependence upon the aggregate, how does it appear? If it appears as if this person does not depend upon the aggregates, it appears that the person does not rely upon the aggregates, it appears that the person does not exist in relationship to the aggregates, This is what we mean by the self of a person. Though the person is in fact labeled, designated, in dependence upon these aggregates, when it appears that this person does not exist relying upon the aggregates, that the person exists independent of the aggregates, this is the self of persons. In talking about this, we’re presently discussing the selflessness of the person from the point of view of the two lower tenet systems, that are the Great Exposition and Sūtra schools.
Now when this I, we reflect upon the I and we think I, I, the I appears to ourselves. When that I appears to ourselves, if it appears not to rely upon the aggregates, not to depend upon the aggregates, when that I as it appears to us, if it appears to exist independent of the aggregates, when it appears to exist independent of the aggregates, then that is the subtle object of negation. The I which appears to exist independent of the aggregates, not dependent upon the aggregates. That eye as it appears at that time is the subtle object of negation according to these two schools. So we can understand that in reality the eye or the self is imputed to the base, is designated, is labeled to the base and the base is the five aggregates.
That’s the way it exists. When it appears as if it does not rely upon the aggregates, when the self appears not to rely upon the aggregates, when the self appears to exist independently, then that is the object, that is the subtle object which we are seeking to negate. This subtle object of negation which we’ve just tried to describe — this is the subtle object; the non-existence of this object is what is asserted as the subtle selflessness of persons. So when that object of negation is actually refuted, it does not exist. This is the selflessness of persons.
It is the subtle selflessness of a person and it is the same as asserted by the Great Exposition School, the Sūtra School, the Mind Only School and the Autonomy Middle Way School. So the Great Exposition School, the Sūtra School, the Mind Only School and the Autonomy Middle Way School all assert this as being the subtle object of negation of the selflessness of persons. The Great Exposition School and the Sūtra School, among these two types of selflessness — those of selflessness of persons and selflessness of phenomena — they accept the selflessness of persons; they do not accept the selflessness of phenomena. On the contrary, they say that phenomena do in fact have a self.
Therefore, they do not accept the selflessness of phenomena. Within the tenet systems of the universal vehicle or the Mahāyāna, those of the Mind Only school and the Middle Way school, they both accept both types of selflessness. The selflessness of phenomena and the selflessness of persons. But though both of these tenet systems accept the selflessness of phenomena, there is a difference in terms of the subtlety of the object which is being negated in terms of their selflessness of phenomena. The Mind Only school only negates a coarse selflessness of phenomena whereas the Middle Way school negates a subtle selflessness of phenomena.
Now how does the Mind Only school assert a selflessness of phenomena? If we take the example of a flower, the flower and the eye consciousness apprehending the flower are asserted to be the same entity or the same substance. What is the reason that they give establishing that these two are the same substance or the same entity? The Mind Only school asserts that the flower and the eye consciousness apprehending the flower have the same substantial cause. This is a latency of past action.
That due to the same latency of past actions that both the apprehending I consciousness and the apprehended object, in this case being the flower, are created simultaneously. Therefore, they are of the same substance or the same entity. Therefore, the Mind Only school would say that the flower and the eye consciousness apprehending the flower are the same entity or the same substance. Therefore, they are empty of being different entities or being different substances. This is the way that the Mind Only school asserts emptiness, in terms of this example of a flower and eye consciousness.
That the flower and the eye consciousness are empty of being different entities or different substances. This is the way they assert emptiness in terms of the selflessness of phenomena. On the other hand, the Great Exposition School, the Sūtra School, these two previous lower tenet systems would say that the flower and the eye consciousness apprehending the flower are different entities, are different substances. Why? Because they assert that they are self of phenomena.
That these in fact are not empty of being different entities. They are different entities. They are not empty of being different. Okay, why how do they say that they are in fact different entities? The flower and the eye consciousness apprehended flower?
Because they say that they have a relationship of cause and effect. That the flower and the eye consciousness apprehended flower have a relationship of cause and effect therefore they must be of different entities. Okay. So we’re going to stop there. We’ll take if you have some question, we’ll take five minutes for questions.
Yes? So, it is said that the in this, taking this flower as an example, that the flower and the eye consciousness apprehending the flower arise from the same latency. So previously, due to past actions of having seen flowers, a potency is implanted in the mind. When this potency is activated, both the subject and the object arise simultaneously. That is to say, to the potency of this latency previously implanted by seeing flowers in the past, that both the subject, the eye consciousness apprehending flowers, and the object, the flower arise simultaneously due to the same potency.
One potency creates both the subject and object. So how do we, can we say this, can I ask this? How do we differentiate between the conventionally I and the I which in fact does not exist. Just a random randomly occurring thought? Yes.
Are those the I which is to refute it? Are those are they part of it? As opposed to you have eyes which are associated with you have thoughts which are associated with the eye and thoughts which are not associated with the eye. Okay. So, yeah, there would be both varieties of types of thought.
There would be thoughts associated with the the eye which is to be of the object of negation with. That is to say when the conception of the self sufficient person or an independently existing person when that is manifest in the mind, when the conception of an independently existing person is manifest in the mind, then we can think that this independently existing person is going to work, is talking, is doing these various activities. There are other times when this conception of an independently existing person does not manifest in the mind. And in such times we simply think I go or I eat or I sleep. And in this case it’s not, such thoughts are not related to this conception of an independently existing person.
And therefore, it is not related with the object at which it’s been negated.