Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 70-minute teaching from a Mahāmudrā retreat, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s instruction on the “object of refutation”—the appearance of inherent existence clouding perception—is clarified and explored. Using concrete examples (fashion across cultures, attractive muscles, a blowfly in wax), the teacher shows how the mind projects qualities onto objects, then grasps those projections as real. He explains why mistaking false appearance for genuine existence roots suffering through anger and attachment. The core practice is learning to separate the falsely appearing truly-existing object (which doesn’t exist) from the correctly appearing conventional object (which does). The session surveys how different Buddhist schools refute this false appearance: Vaibhāṣika, Sautrāntika, Cittamātra, and Madhyamaka, each presenting increasingly subtle understanding of emptiness. For practitioners in retreat with philosophical training.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 74 2004 04 25 MR.mp3
UUID: a96ca541-d805-4860-94a5-0f8ed4d54aaa
Teacher: Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1
Collection: y Mahāmudrā International Retreat (Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1)
Date: 2004-04-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 69.8 minutes
Words: ~6,904
So after last night’s talk, Rinpoche sent a message down asking that today I go over it and try and explain. Well, perhaps explain in our terminology the very clear explanation that he himself gave on the subject, the object to be refuted. So I have my notes and I’ll just go through them and we can discuss the points that come up and you’re welcome to ask questions at any time. So the main subject of the talk last night was the negatee or the object of negation according to the various schools. Rinpoche brought in how that if we go through the Buddhist philosophical teachings, there are different schools which present the negatedness at a gross level more subtle, more and more subtle until you get to the final, the most subtle view presented by the Mādhyamika Prasangikas.
And he said that in order to reach that most subtle view or the final view of Buddha as it’s called, one needs to go through the understanding of the more gross levels of emptiness. He also mentioned that we all have the wrong views that are asserted by the various schools and refuted in progressively more subtle way by the different schools. Even we don’t maybe don’t believe we’ve got the wrong views, exist in our mind, the way of seeing, the mistaken way in which we see ourselves and the phenomena in the world. Okay, so Rinpoche began by presenting that everything that appears to us in our life, there is a certain truth and there’s a certain falsity in every single object in our life. And the fundamental cause of suffering is our inability to distinguish between the false appearance and the correct appearance of self and phenomena.
So he didn’t mention, but we’ve learned before that this the mistaken appearance is the appearance of true existence, which has been obscuring our view of self in the world since beginningless time. So we’re born with ignorance, with the imprints of ignorance. So from the very first we’re aware in this life, things have appeared to us with this degree of falsity. And not knowing that this is false, we have grasped that false appearance to be true. So there are two things there.
First, there’s the wrong appearance. And secondly, there’s the grasping at that wrong appearance of true existence to be true. And we can differentiate according to the phenomena which you’re appearing. There are everything in the universe can be divided up into two groups, persons and phenomena. Phenomena means everything other than persons.
So when we grasp at the wrong appearance of a person, could be our self or another person to exist truly, then that’s called the self grasping ignorance of person. And when we grasp it, other things to exist truly as they falsely appear. That’s called the self grasping ignorance of phenomena. So there are two types of self grasping conception. This is according to the Mādhyamika Prāsaṇgika point of view.
It’s not according to the lower schools. Then on top of that, on top of the grasping of the wrong appearance to be true, we then exaggerate, then we add more, we superimpose qualities upon that false base. Rinpoche used an example of good or bad, flowers, a human body we see as good, attractive. So we label beauty or desirable upon the object, and then the object appears to us as a result of that exaggeration from our side. The object not only appears to us to exist truly, it appears as if beauty, goodness, or badness is coming from its side.
Not coming from our mind, but coming from the side of the object. And we also grasp that as being true as well. We’re just unaware of how our mind through its process of grasping at wrong appearance and then superimposing more on top of that wrong appearance, our mind is actually fabricating all the phenomena in our world. Everything that appears to us is altered in some way by our mind. Rinpoche mentioned that it’s not only sort of subjective labels of good and bad, we’re also influenced by society.
His example of muscle builders, those who believe that or bodybuilders, those who believe that having big muscles is a sign of beauty, then they work hard to develop. They see this as attractive. Attractive. So, you know, the the physical characteristics which different societies consider to be beautiful is due to the society, you know, the the common belief held in that society. And we know that in different societies, there are different and also at different times.
In one society, there are different attitudes as to what’s beautiful and what’s not beautiful. So this shows how again Rinpoche mentioned how everything is coming from our mind. Maybe, you know, we look at old photographs or old films showing fashions in our own past, you know, ten, twenty, fifty, hundred more years ago, what people wore considering it to be the highest fashion and it was the highest fashion, but also the most beautiful. Then we all laugh at it. Now, they would think how ridiculous.
And but that beauty was considered to be by society to to be something desirable, something to achieve, to possess, and then one would be happy. And if one didn’t have the beauty of the fashion of the day, one would not be desirable, one would not be beautiful, and one would be unhappy. So whether we obtain or possess the objects of our of our projection determines our our our feelings of happiness or unhappiness. Then Rinpoche didn’t say exactly here, but what he did, he mentioned that the next step is anger and attachment, Attachment towards the things that we project from our side to be beautiful, and anger towards those things that we project from our side to be bad. And as a result of the afflictions of anger and attachment, the final step is that we engage in actions or karma, which bring about the various types of undesirable results.
Rinpoche said that once the label bad is given, then we exaggerate negative qualities upon the bad object and then anger and hatred arise towards the object. Once the label good is given, we exaggerate or superimpose positive qualities upon the object and we grasp, desire to have the object and attachment arises. He said even though in reality the objects only or exist in mere name as merely imputed by mind. When things appear to us sentient beings, except when we are aryas in meditative equipoise upon emptiness, at all other times until we attain enlightenment, things appear as not merely labeled by mind, but as existing from their own side. So a sentient being is by definition, it is any person who has either the afflictions or the imprints of the afflictions upon his or her mind.
Buddhists are persons, but they have neither the afflictions nor the imprints, so they’re not sentient beings. Even though a Buddha is sentient of course in as much as the Buddha has mind and has feelings and so on. We don’t include Buddhas amongst the category sentient beings. Hīnayāna arhats are considered to be sentient beings because although they’ve abandoned the obscurations to liberation, the afflictions, they still have the imprints, the subtle imprints of those afflictions on their mind stream. The arhats still have the wrong appearance of inherent existence or true existence, which is the the result of those subtle obscurations to omniscience.
So the only time when things are not appearing to a sentient being as inherently existing is when we are in single point of concentration focused directly with the mind focused directly upon emptiness. So although we still have afflictions and the imprints of the afflictions in our mind at that time, that wisdom consciousness directly seeing emptiness has no appearance of inherent existence. I think that’s is this dropping? I have to keep bending down lower. When the yogi achieves single pointed concentration upon emptiness, so at that time one’s awareness of emptiness is no longer conceptual.
It’s not an inferential understanding. It’s direct experience of emptiness. At that time, there is no appearance of inherent existence. There couldn’t be. It’s completely it’s extinguished by that wisdom.
And that’s the only time when a sentient being doesn’t have the appearance of inherent existence. At all other times, that was the point Rinpoche made. Is that clear to everybody? When that meditator comes out of meditation in the post meditative state, again, they have the appearance of inherent existence. But they realize its false appearance and they don’t grasp at it as being true.
So Rinpoche says, so everything is built up upon the original grasping at the wrong appearance. And then the discriminating label good, bad and attachment and anger arise on the basis of this wrong appearance. Appearance. And this is how we’ve been living our lives since beginningless time. So our lives are total nonsense.
And he said that the views of anger and attachment attachment are projected onto the base, which is the biggest projection of all, the projection from our side of inherent existence. When anger arises, mind is aggressive. It wants to hurt, to harm, or destroy its object. When attachment arises, the mind doesn’t want to separate from the object. The mind becomes sort of the attached mind becomes very strongly mixed with the object like oil spilt on paper or a fly that’s flown into a candle and it’s covered in wax, difficult to separate.
Once what I was doing, my first retreat before I became a monk, a long retreat in the bush, and there was a blowfly buzzing around my head. And I tried patience, but didn’t work very well. And so I was still meditating, and in my mind I generated this intense thought, go away. And exactly with that thought go away, the buzzing went zoop and it went straight into the candle. I felt I’ve done it.
It’s my fault. And there was no way that I could rescue the the blowfly from the wax which had completely covered its body. So when Rinpocheh said that I remembered that. Alright, so Rinpoche said with regard to attachment, not only has your mind made up the label beautiful, but also you have believed that as true. It’s true and there is the appearance of beauty from the object.
Having labeled the object appears as beauty from its, as beautiful from its side. So this shows how completely the object came from our mind or they come from. Then Rinpoche said that in our daily life when we use the term real, we’re not like those aryas who are meditating directly on emptiness. They’ve seen reality. They know what is real.
They’ve seen the ultimate reality of emptiness. But when we say real, you know, are you really telling me? That our use of the term real is a very good description of the negati, the object of refutation, the gakcha in Tibetan. So this is our main duty or our work is to recognize the object of refutation. Otherwise there’s the great danger that we’re going to negate the existing object, the the functioning object that does exist.
We don’t want to negate that. We want to negate the the this gakcha, this wrongly appearing object. This word gakcha, when I was at Kopan, when I became a monk, there was a young Western boy, Tulku Mong Cho, whose mother was Tulku Mong Mo. She she became a nun, and he was about six six or seven years old. And so he became a monk, he he grew up with the little Tibetan and Sherpa monks who were there at Kopan.
And like all little boys, they used to pick on each other and he was very different, very pale skinned and very thin and not all robust and like they were. And their nickname that they gave him was Gakcha, object of refutation. That’s little boys. But it’s good to think that six and seven year olds are thinking about the object of negation. Are they’re so far ahead of us with the education system.
They’re so lucky and he’s now a very nice young man. So our use of the word real indicates the negatee. We should try and meditate upon what we mean, what we’re seeing as real. I think this feels like me. Maybe it’s got a cold too.
Rinpoche said, The way objects appear to us is real from their own side and we don’t realize that they only exist in mere name, and there is the false view of true existence projected upon the mere I, you know, the functioning I, the I that does exist or the mind or the body. So our mind projects true existence upon the self, the body, the aggregates, all things sweet of, you know, the set the sense objects, sweet things, smells, we see them all as real sweet, real sour, real sound, you know, great music, real and that is the object of refutation. Seeing things really existing from their side, not from our side. For example, he said, if when we have hatred towards somebody, the object of that hating mind does not exist at all. Like, the object of our hatred doesn’t exist in reality.
The view of our of our hatred comes from sorry. The object of our hatred comes from our mind. Not only is is hatred in the mind, but the object is also coming from our mind. We made it up, and then we got angry at the object that we made up. So from this point of view, our lives are nonsense.
We’re completely childish. We’re reacting with emotions to events and to people in our lives that we’ve are completely sort of fantasies made up from our side. The attachment, the jealousy, the pride, the anger, and so on are not valid. So now we talk about hallucinations, we’ve heard a lot about hallucinations. So the element of hallucination is this wrong appearance.
That’s the hallucination. That is what doesn’t exist at all. The functioning objects, the self, the other things in our world, they’re not hallucinations. Rinpoche made this very clear. They’re not even illusions, but the way in which they appear to us is like an illusion because there is something in the appearance which doesn’t exist at all.
If we say everything is hallucination and we are we’re not very clear in what we’re we mean when we say that, then we easily fall into the nihilistic view of rejecting everything. Reject the conventional entity as well as the completely falsely projected truly existing entity. So identifying the negatee involves dissecting away the false appearance from the correct appearance. And actually we have both. It’s not that things are not existing, they are.
In our mind we have a mixture of appearances, a mixture of the correct appearance of the conventional phenomenon mixed with the wrong appearance of truly existing phenomenon. So this is why it’s difficult to identify the negatee. We have to be able to separate the two. And there therein is the meditation, therein is the what Rinpoche keeps telling us, after the sessions, we should be out there thinking, you know, what is the falsity in the appearance of this to my mind? Don’t just block it out, hallucination, hallucination, nothing, nothing.
That doesn’t help. Well, it might help a little bit in gross way to not get angry or attached. But to realize emptiness, it’s not going to help. To realize emptiness, we must identify the wrong appearance, the negatee. And then search, you know, having seen its appearance, don’t just reject it then either.
We have to really try and explore and find, does it exist? It appears. Is it real? How how can it exist? And really, try to find the negativity.
Don’t be afraid of it. Try to find it real and then there’s the realization, it doesn’t exist at all. It’s a false appearance. That is the hallucination. That’s the illusion.
If we see a tree, what I’m saying, what is appearing to us is both the conventional object, the conventionally existing tree which does exist, and mixed with that appearance is the wrong appearance of a true existing tree. That’s what I’m saying. I’m not saying the tree is a hallucination. That the tree exists in its own right, from its own side, independent of my mind. The appearance of the tree the conventional tree, which is correct.
The appearance in general is mistaken, mixed. There’s a mixture of the appearance of a conventional existing tree and a truly existing tree. Well, it’s like the tree’s there. I mean if it weren’t, you could walk right through it. But you can’t, you bump your head.
And there is a conventionally functioning tree there that is appearing to our mind as existing inherently from its own side. And what is that appearance? That’s what we all have to identify. Every yeah. Every every moment there’s wrong appearance.
I’ll repeat it. So it’s like if we’re if we’re analyzing the appearance of trees being like a dream but not a dream, and what happens is that then there’s confusion comes with the, oh who am I? Who am I doing the analysis? Right? Is that was your and then well, I guess we’ve got to stick to the one object of analysis.
At times we should analyze the self that’s doing the observation and then at other times we analyze the objects that we’re experiencing. I guess if we mix them both up and try to do them simultaneously, it can be confusing. So we can yeah. It can be if people get angry towards us and we think, oh, that’s just my projection, and then we start thinking, well, there’s something bad about me. Yeah, well, I think as I said before, you shouldn’t mix.
When you’re analyzing emptiness, stick with one phenomenon at a time. And if somebody is angry at us, it’s the same thing. It’s not that their anger towards us is totally our projection. And there is a conventionally angry person out there creating negative karma towards us through their anger. Now what we have to check up is the way we see them and the way we react to them.
Now, our mind sees them as an inherently existing angry person and they have inherently existing anger directed towards me and this really we see this as very hurtful. We feel it, the anger and hatred that is coming towards us. So if we can understand that there is no inherently existing solid concrete anger from their mind, that that is a projection of our mind, then we should be less affected by their anger towards us. I think. Do you agree?
All right. From their side, they have definitely destroyed the goodwill, right? At the moment, the problem here was talking about there’s a relationship and there is communication only when there’s goodwill, right? But anger totally destroys it. Well, it’s true that from their side the goodwill has ceased.
Right? They’re angry at us. Now, why do we get angry in response? It’s because we see them as inherently existing enemy and their anger is an existing insult towards us and we react with anger and therefore the goodwill is destroyed from both sides. So there is no hope of communication.
But at least I mean we should be, training our mind to retain the goodwill in the face of anger. Right? We can’t stop them. They’re already angry. They’ve broken it.
But if we can not get angry in response, then we will still be capable of radiating goodwill even to aggressive people. So how do we do that? Well, we don’t get angry because we think I am projecting them as inherently existing enemy. But from their side.
My mind is seeing them all of their aggression is coming from their side, and poor innocent me is the object of all this anger. But the reality is that the truly existing anger that we see doesn’t exist at all. The truly existing enemy, the person, doesn’t exist at all. Although there is a conventional situation where someone is being angry at us, we will not have an angry response if we can see through the projections that we’ve put upon that person and the situation from our side. Our mind will then be free to do the many meditations on patience, you know, to have compassion, etcetera etcetera that Śāntideva mentions.
But we can’t really reflect upon patience if we believe our projections to be true. We’ll just get angry. Yeah. Exactly. Rinpocheh said this the other day that and this is one of the best methods to help her patience is I can only cultivate patience in the presence of an angry person, in the presence of harm.
Even the Buddhas can’t make me cultivate patience. I need these enemies. Well, you you def you definitely reflect upon karma. You you reflect upon karma from many points of view. You have compassion because you see that this person’s creating karma to be hurt themselves.
Then you reflect that the person couldn’t be angry towards you if you hadn’t created the karmic cause to be hurt by them. So there is a you know, from previous lives is is something from our side. Definitely, you use the opportunity to reflect on karma. There is no truly existing shared goodwill, but there is conventional shared goodwill. Everything occurs moment by moment.
And it’s changing, constantly changing. That’s what yes. The negative is what we have projected upon the object. And the fundamental negativity is the appearance of true existence. But also we can say that in on top of the exaggerated view of enemy that we put upon that person also is object of negation because it’s truly existing enemy.
Yes, so what was the second part of it? Well, I think Rinpoche was saying that there’s the fundamental negative, the appearance of true existence and then all the elaborations that we build up on top of that, that original false projection of true existence are all negativity. So I mean, perhaps I wouldn’t call them separate objects because they’re built up together. Well, one is more elaborate than the other. No, the mixture has got nothing to do with the negative.
I mean, sure, the negative is further and further elaborated by our deluded mind And enemies can become worse and worse and worse according to our mind. But when I was talking about mixture of appearances, I was saying that when anything appears to us, there is a mixture of the appearance of the conventional object which exists, and an inherently existing object which doesn’t exist. And that is what we have to try and separate, that we have to recognize the wrong appearance. But it ‘s maybe a label that helps us to at least generate a more positive karma. But if you take that back, I mean, there must be a space or something.
I mean, I’m trying to understand where the base is. So this base, would it be the space between guru devotion and everything else? The base. The base of the the lama. The you mean?
Well, if if, you know, conventional reality or what we want to perceive as conventional reality, because we’re creating all this. So if we’re all creating this collectively and together, and we want to create it in virtue, then would virtue’s still a label. Right? I mean, it’s still imputed on something. But but if we we like the results of that, or I I personally I I aim in that direction.
So is that space between I’m just trying to understand where the base is in in relationship to to then then looking at things, taking them apart and constructing and deconstructing them so that it results in the virtues of of guru devotion and bodhicitta that was talking about? I’m not not exactly sure what you’re getting at, but if we look at the affirmative side, I think you’re talking about we’re looking at the affirmative side, what does exist, the merely labeled object, right? And sure, I mean, guru devotion is a merely labeled state of mind. The object of guru devotion, the lama, is a merely labeled object. We in order to cultivate virtue, sure, we we have to work within the merely labeled world.
I mean, that’s all there is. There is no other that’s that’s how the world exists. And if we’re conscious that everything is merely labeled, I think guru devotion comes so much easier. This is my personal interpretation is that the greatest obstacle to guru devotion is the self-cherishing thought, thought of I am in control of my life. This is my body, my world, my things, and I am in control.
And it’s very, very difficult for us to even, you know, conceive of giving somebody else control over our lives. And it it ties in with negating the inherently existing self because the I that we think is in control of our life appears very strongly to our mind as an inherently existing I. To have the Mahāmudrā of the unification of compassion and the wisdom realizing emptiness of self, we need the support from my point of view of guru devotion. So it’s a lot easier when we think I’m just merely labeled. The the guru is just merely labeled.
Enlightenment is just merely labeled. And then virtue becomes it’s like it’s very easy. Life becomes so much lighter. It’s less heavy. When things are going tough, it’s because our mind’s too heavy.
We’re grasping a true existence of this and that and other things. So we mustn’t negate everything because everything exists, but doesn’t exist the way it appears to our mind. So to find that really gentle state of right in the middle, I think that’s how we create virtue. That’s how we do guru devotion. I I don’t know whether this makes sense to you, but yeah.
Then only you label him enemy again as a second thought, isn’t it? The first time you see the person, then you recognize the person as Mr. Smith or so and so. That’s appearing as truly existent. And that’s the gotcha, isn’t it?
In that situation. And then you label And then because of your karma, you label him enemy. That’s another object. That’s so there are actually two Gachas to recognize. Is that what I’m trying to establish?
Is that right? No. Sorry, I tried in both situations, the fundamental thing that we are negating is inherent existence, right? It’s just that when we’ve seen the person as bad, we’ve labeled enemy, then the appearance of truly existing enemy, which you didn’t have before, you just had a true existing person, right? That also is the negative.
That’s also gotcha. Sure, it’s different in as much as you have elaborated the appearance. But from that point of view you could say it’s different, but it’s fundamentally it’s the same because it’s true existence. What I’m saying is that actually we seeing Sure. The negativity gets more and more elaborate as our mind plays its games.
That’s right. But covering them all is the fundamental thing to negate is the appearance of true existence, right? All right. I mean very simply, can you define true existence? Basically something truly exists if you look for it and if it’s findable when you look for it, right?
Then it truly exists. If it’s findable upon investigation. Is the true existence that you grasp at. Is the elaboration, the interpretation, is that No. The very appearance of the body of another person appears to exist inherently.
Okay. There’s to the eye consciousness that the original appearance is mistaken. And then we elaborate upon it according to the situation. That’s also we build up upon the original mistake. Okay.
I just thought to go a little bit into more of what Rinpoche said. At this stage in the talk, went back to the situation of the child being shown the symbol M, what we call M, just this symbol and taught that this means M. And so from that moment on, the symbol appears to that child as M from its side. But in fact, M is projected by the child’s mind. That that appearance is coming from the child’s mind of m.
So Rinpoche, he went into the analysis of m, you know, what is m? Does it exist in the mind or outside the mind and so on. Actually, this meditation on Em is a very old Tibetan meditation. Even comes in the the Lama Chopa, in the tsok offering. Where you’re blessing that tsok and there’s M, ah, ho.
So I had that realization during a meditation. So if we did not label this thing as M, M would not appear to us. A squiggle would, the lines would but M would not appear to us if we didn’t label it. So M comes from the mind and the same with all other things. So once we understand that, that example that Rinpocheh gave, everything depends upon our naming it.
This is how things are named and then they appear to exist from their own side. Rinpoche asked, he said, on the basis of understanding that m came from your mind, when m appears back to you, does it appear as being merely labeled by mind? No. Immediately, the M appears back to your mind as if it’s as not merely labeled by mind, as never coming from your mind, but is truly existing from its own side on the symbol. So this is it’s a really good example.
And then he went on, he said, while it’s impermanent in nature, it appears as permanent. While it is dependent upon parts, it appears as existing alone. While it’s dependent upon causes and conditions, it appears as existing with its own freedom. And so he said, all these gross hallucinations at the very beginning on the merely labeled M. Well, what Rinpoche was leading us to was now the presentation of the objective or the negative according to the various schools of philosophy.
And so he said that the Hindus, the Tīrthikas, they have a philosophical belief in the self or the Ātman to exist as permanent, which means never changing, not arising, not ceasing, but just remaining the same, permanent, partless, existing without depending upon parts, and existing alone or independently. So this permanent, partless and independent self, this is what the Hindus believe in is the Ātman. Then Rinpoche mentioned in Buddhist philosophy that Buddhist teachings have sort of been condensed into four main schools of tenets, two Hīnayāna schools and two Mahāyāna schools. The sort of simplest Hīnayāna school is the Vaibhāṣika school. So they refute the Hindu assertion of the self being permanent, partless and independent.
First of all, they say the self is impermanent in which in that it changes moment by moment. It’s constantly changing, never remains the same from one moment to the next. They say it is empty of being partless because the self does exist in dependence upon parts or the person. There’s the aggregates, labeling of the self upon the aggregates, the aggregates that have many parts. Anyway, so there is it’s not partless and it’s not independent because the self exists in dependence upon causes and conditions.
However, there are eighteen so that is the sort of gross negative according to the Vaibhāṣika School, negating the appearance of self to be permanent, to be partless and to be independent. So that’s gakcha, but it’s not refuting inherent existence. But it’s a gakcha at that level. One of the, there are eighteen sort of schools within the Vaibhāṣika. One of them refutes a permanent, partless and independent self, but they do assert a self that exists self sufficiently and substantially, which means sort of self sufficient and Rinpoche said that self sufficient and substantial existence is the impression of the person to stand alone without depending upon the aggregates.
So this school does assert it and it has scriptural quoteachings to back up that assertion. And it’s said that when Buddha was teaching in India that there were a vast number of people of all different inclinations and dispositions and so on in the audiences. And at times when there were the Tīrthikas, the Hindus themselves who still who could not in any way come to the subtle Buddhist view of emptiness, who still grasped at a substantial existing self. Buddha taught at least he taught the emptiness of permanent partless and independent existence, but he sort of asserted self sufficient existence to make them feel happy. So that they would open their minds to the Buddha’s teachings and receive more teachings and do some more listening, thinking and meditating and eventually would get deeper and deeper understanding.
So that’s briefly mentioned this other school they call the Vatsiputriyas. Yeah, the Vasiputriyas. So that’s one of the eighteen. The other seventeen schools, they present two levels of selflessness. The gross selflessness is the emptiness of the person existing permanently, partlessly and independently.
And subtle selflessness is the emptiness of the person existing self-sufficiently and substantially. The Sir Trantika School also has the presentation of two levels of selflessness. The gross, the emptiness of the person existing permanently, partlessly and independently and the subtle, the emptiness of the person existing self sufficiently and substantially. So Rinpoche said, for the Sautrāntika School, the subtle negativity, the hallucination is the person appearing to exist self sufficiently and substantially. So self sufficient and substantial, as I said, is the appearance of the self to exist independently of the aggregates, separate from the aggregates, sort of as the controller of the body and mind.
Now we have this. We have this view. It’s mixed up with our whole sense of self, that I exist as the ruler, the Lord over the body and mind. I’m back here. I’m the one who’s getting the body to do this and that.
I’m experiencing it, but I’m back here. I’m separate from the body and mind. Do you have that sense of self? Or, well, we do have it. It’s there.
So that’s the way of the eye appearing itself sufficiently and substantially. So that we need to think about and try to recognize and that’s also gotcha. Also the object of negation at this level. Then Rinpoche mentioned they went on to the two Mahāyāna schools, the Cittamātra and the Madhyamaka schools. He said that according to the Cittamātra school, everything comes into existence through the ripening of a karmic imprint or a karmic seed upon the consciousness.
And this karmic seed gives rise to two phenomena. It gives rise to the object, and to the knowing experience of the object, or the consciousness that experiences the object arise from the same base, the same imprint. So from that point of view, Ramesh said that the objects of mind and the mind itself are one substance because they have a common cause. It didn’t say they’re the same. In fact, he said they’re not the same.
But they don’t exist as separate entities coming from separate causes. So another way of putting it, things don’t exist in their own right external to mind. Mind is an internal phenomenon. So things don’t exist in their own right externally to mind. So the appearance of things to exist in their own right, external to mind.
That’s the gakcha according to the Cittamātra, that’s the the selflessness of the person, that’s what they’re talking about. They also have they present the emptiness of permanent, partless and independent self and they also talk about the emptiness of self sufficient and substantial self, these to be realized. And then they have this particular presentation of phenomena, the objects of mind and the mind itself coming from a common source or imprint upon he called it the seventh consciousness. So normally we talk about there being six main types of consciousness, the five sense consciousnesses and mental consciousness. And so the seventh consciousness is proposed by this school, Rinpoche called it the mind-basis-of-all, which means from this everything comes, both Samsāra and nirvana come from this mind basis of all.
In Sanskrit, the Alāyavijñāna. I wanted you to have a longer break. So these talks are only going to be for an hour. So we’ll continue with with because we the most interesting part was when Rinpoche went on to the Madhyamaka School. But I think we can look at that freshly either tomorrow or the next day.
And we’ll going on as as we’ve done. So are there any questions to conclude with? Yeah. It. So with the Cittamātra School, they said the object in the mind arise from the same karmic seed, but I don’t quite understand how they don’t exist as separate, but yet they’re not the same.
I don’t quite understand what’s their argument for saying that they’re not the same if they’re not separate. They’re not the same in as much as objects are not mind. You know? You like otherwise, you would be in my mind. You and my mind will be the same.
That this whole would be our mind. So that they’re not the same in from that point of view that everything is is not mind. Right? So that’s why they’re not the same. But they are they’re not separate because they come from the one substantial cause, this karmic imprint on the mind stream.
So the Cittamātrins do assert atoms and molecules, but just says that they’re not external, that they don’t exist independently of mind. Sorry, I still don’t get it. How did they say that it’s not mind then? I thought they were saying that there wasn’t external objects, that they were mind, or that it comes in dependence upon mind. So You you you thought that Chitta Madras Yeah.
Said that? Yeah. That if they’re arising from the same karmic imprints that therefore, you know, they are the same, that that is not separate from mind. So I thought that implied then that, external objects, didn’t exist independently of mind, so therefore were I see. Somehow.
No. It’s right. They they don’t exist independently of mine because they arise from the same source, from the same seed. Well, I remember Lama Yeshe when he taught the Uttaratantra. And this is the Chittamatran school presentation according to one of Maitreya’s teachings to a sangha.
And a very good teachings that they go late into the night and very powerful. And I will ask someone in the audience. Did Copan exist before you came here? And so how does that person know that Copan exists? Did Copan exist for that person before they came to Copan?
Anyway, we we went to meditate on it, but the way I took it was that Copan for me exists as my mind experiences Kopan. Before my mind and experience of Kopan occur, there was no Kopan for me. For you? For me. How do you know?
Well, because it’s can be known by a valid a valid mind. Then if if you learn about by inference that that that is mine and then it comes to existence. Like if I tell you about some town I visited where you’ve never heard about, before I tell you that town does not exist for you. But once I give it, I give you a name and I describe it, sure. But it exists for you, but it depends upon your mental inference or conception.
Yep. So it’s it’s I mean it’s it’s very I mean it’s a very subtle view. I certainly don’t claim to have, you know, profound understanding of Cittamātra view, but it’s very interesting to think that, you know, whatever I’m experiencing is coming to into existence with my experience. Another question you can ask is it goes back to the very the basis of designation, the basis of imputation. When does that come into existence?
Geshe Jampa Tegchok said that, I think not in the Chittamatran School, I think he said in relation to the Madhyamaka School, it comes into existence at the time of imputation. The phenomena are established by the label and even the basis of the label comes into existence at the time of labeling. Yes. The basis of designation. Now think about that.
Think about that. He was starting to pick away at that. Is the base separate from the imputing Yeah, the base is very important. There’s various phenomena. There’s a basis of designation.
There’s a designating mind. So we’ll continue this either tomorrow or the next day. Rinpocheh is very keen to come down and continue from his side. He may have been here before three, so the next session will start at quarter two, three. So we better have a break.