Practical Ethics and Profound Emptiness Read online

  through mind, body, or speech,

  but one should always engage in virtue [through those three].

  How to Practice and the Result of Practice

  Every day reflect on lower rebirths and the pain experienced in them as well as the suffering experienced by humans and celestial beings of the desire realm. Reflect that all this misery arises for yourself and others due to ignorance, anger, and attachment, and the physical, verbal, and mental paths of karma motivated by them. Think about rebirth in the upper realms and the happiness experienced by beings there, as well as whatever happiness beings in the lower realms experience. All of the happiness and joy that you and others experience is due to non-attachment, non-anger, non-confusion, and the paths of action motivated by these. Then, strongly resolve to create virtue and abandon nonvirtue, and carry through on that resolve as best you can by abandoning the thirteen actions to abandon and practicing the three to adopt.

  When attachment, anger, or confusion arises in your mind, try to notice it immediately and apply the antidotes. If you don’t, the three poisons will increase until you won’t even be able to see them as faults. When you are successful in taming your mind, your life will be meaningful, and you will accomplish your aims of higher rebirth and highest good.

  23.Through this Dharma one is freed from

  [rebirth as] a hell being, hungry ghost, or animal.

  As a human or celestial being one obtains

  all happiness, glory, and sovereignty.

  24.And through the concentrations, immeasurables, and immaterial [absorptions]

  one experiences the pleasure of Brahma and so on.

  Such, in summary, is the Dharma

  for higher rebirth and its results.

  As a result of practicing, you will not be born in the hell, hungry ghost, or animal realms. You will also experience the various kinds of happiness of humans and celestial beings. By meditating on the fourth material concentration and the four meditative absorptions of the immaterial realm, you will have the feeling of equanimity, which is said to surpass the bliss of the first three material concentrations. Abandoning the thirteen nonvirtuous actions and practicing the three virtuous actions is an excellent way of living that enables us to die without regret.

  There are two kinds of desire: one is a positive aspiration and the other is attachment, an affliction. The desire to attain liberation and awakening doesn’t disturb or agitate the mind. To the contrary, it makes the mind clear and peaceful. The desire to be born in the upper realms is considered a Dharma motivation, though higher rebirths themselves are ultimately to be abandoned because they are taken under the influence of ignorance and polluted karma. However, we need them in order to eventually attain liberation and awakening. In other words, the desire to have a higher rebirth, especially so that we can use it as a basis to attain highest good, is virtuous, even though it is motivated by ignorance and may be tinged with self-centeredness.

  To create the virtuous propelling karma that brings about rebirth as a human being or god, we must have an aspiration to attain these. Ignorance is the initial or causal motivation for the virtuous karma that will ripen in a higher rebirth. The immediate motivation at the time of actually doing virtuous actions is not attachment. When we practice generosity, ethical conduct, and fortitude properly, our motivation is virtuous. Non-attachment is present when we give, non-harmfulness when we practice ethical conduct, and non-anger when we practice fortitude. Non-confusion is present during all three. These three are virtuous mental factors.

  _______________

  5.This pertains to the desire realm where attachment, anger, and confusion regarding karma and its effects are naturally nonvirtuous. In the material and immaterial realms, beings do not have anger, and their attachment and confusion are neutral, not nonvirtuous.

  3. The Path to Liberation and Full Awakening

  CAUSE AND EFFECT OF THE HIGHEST GOOD

  To attain our noble spiritual goals of liberation and full awakening — the wisdom directly and nonconceptually realizing emptiness of inherent existence of all persons and phenomena is essential. This wisdom develops gradually, first by hearing and studying the teachings, then by contemplating and reflecting on them to ensure we understand them correctly, and finally by integrating them in our mind through meditation.

  The way in which things presently appear to us is not the way in which they exist. They appear to have an inherent or true essence, to exist objectively from their own side. Our innate self-grasping ignorance, which keeps us wandering endlessly in cyclic existence, holds them to exist in the false way they appear. Our wisdom must question this false appearance in order to realize how phenomena actually exist.

  People without sufficient merit are frightened to question the appearances of objects in daily life that they take for granted. Nagarjuna speaks of this first, then explains how we enter cyclic existence and how to cease it and attain nirvana. This is followed by an in-depth explanation of the ultimate nature of reality that is free of the two extreme views of absolutism and nihilism.

  25.But the Victors said

  that the Dharma of the highest good

  is subtle, profound, and appearing;

  it is frightening to unlearned, childish beings.

  The Qualities of the Highest Good

  The practice or Dharma of the highest good refers to the methods or causes for attaining liberation and full awakening — principally the wisdom realizing selflessness. The object of the wisdom realizing selflessness is emptiness, the absence of inherent existence of persons and phenomena. Selflessness is subtle, in that the minds of ordinary beings and conventional consciousnesses cannot realize it directly. It is profound because it is difficult to fathom and understand completely. Its meaning is very deep because to realize emptiness or selflessness, we have to first realize the lack of a permanent, unitary, independent self. Going deeper, we must realize the lack of a self-sufficient, substantially existent person. Finally, refuting the assertions of the Svatantrikas and proponents of other philosophical schools, we must go very deep to realize the emptiness of inherent existence. Emptiness has the quality of appearing in that it appears to the minds of intelligent beings who possess great merit and special wisdom.

  Unlearned, childish beings — people who are not versed in the meaning of emptiness, who lack great merit, and who haven’t listened to many teachings — become afraid when they hear an explanation on the meaning of emptiness. As a result, emptiness cannot appear to their minds.

  26.“I am not, I will not be.

  I have not, I will not have.”

  Stated thus, [the teaching of selflessness] terrifies the childish.

  For the wise it puts an end to fear.

  The Naive Fear Emptiness but the Wise Do Not

  The naive become afraid when they hear about emptiness of an inherently existent person because they misunderstand it to mean that the conventionally existing self does not exist. When they hear that the person cannot be found when searched for in the basis of designation — the physical and mental aggregates that constitute the person — they think that the person does not exist at all. That idea terrifies them.

  Similarly, when they hear that the mental and physical aggregates — what is possessed by the person and is considered mine — cannot be found in their bases of designation (the collection of their components), they mistakenly believe that the body and mind don’t exist at all. Thinking that if the person and the aggregates do not exist now, they do not exist in future lives either, they become terrified that after death there is only nothingness, total nonexistence. In this way, they fall to the extreme of nihilism.

  In brief, naive people think, “I do not exist in the present, so I will not exist in future. Since I don’t have a body and mind now, then I will not have them in future lives either.” Because they lack merit, wisdom, and intelligence, when they hear teachings on the meaning of emptiness, they think that everything becomes nonexistent. They erroneously b
elieve that the person who meditates on selflessness, the person who realizes selflessness, and the person who attains liberation do not exist, and in this way they become afraid and shy away from emptiness. Nagarjuna says in Treatise on the Middle Way (24.11):

  By a misperception of emptiness a person of little intelligence is destroyed,

  Like a snake incorrectly seized or a spell incorrectly cast.

  When those who lack proper study and a correct understanding meditate on emptiness, there is danger that they meditate incorrectly and come to the wrong conclusion. Falling to the extreme of nihilism and thinking that karma and its effects do not exist, their behavior becomes reckless and their destructive actions lead them to ruin. This is similar to a person who grasps a poisonous snake improperly — instead of being able to extract the medicine from the snake, he will be bitten by it.

  However, for the wise — those who correctly understand the ultimate nature — meditating on emptiness liberates them, thus putting an end to their fear of the duhkha of cyclic existence. To meditate on the emptiness of the person, contemplate, “If a person exists from its own side, the way it appears, it must be findable either in its basis of designation — the mental and physical aggregates — or totally separate from them.” Then investigate whether it is actually possible for a person to exist in either of these ways.

  Under such investigation we do not find a person that exists from its own side: a person that exists totally independent of everything else. Understanding this, we conclude that the person is therefore empty of inherent existence and focus our minds on this emptiness. At this time we do not think, “I am meditating on emptiness.” We just focus on the absence of an inherently existent person. When you go very deep into the meditation on emptiness, there is no appearance of any conventionalities such as the person or aggregates. There is only emptiness, like empty space.

  During meditative equipoise on emptiness, the mind ceases to apprehend the person as truly existing. There is no appearance of the conventionally existing person at that time. A conventional reliable cognizer — that is, a mind that can apprehend the conventionally existing person — does not function during meditative equipoise on emptiness.

  Upon arising from meditation on emptiness, we reflect that the person is not completely nonexistent; it does exist conventionally. It exists dependent on other factors. By meditating on emptiness repeatedly in this way, self-grasping ignorance is gradually worn down until it is completely dismantled.

  To review, when people who are uneducated and naive regarding emptiness hear that I and mine do not exist objectively, from their own side, they misunderstand and think that a person who experiences pleasure doesn’t exist and that the possessions and people that give them pleasure don’t exist either. That thought causes fear. When one refutes inherent existence, even the followers of the lower Buddhist philosophical systems — the Vaibhashikas, Sautrantikas, Chittamatrins, and Svatantrikas — think that then the person who creates karma and the one who experiences its happy or painful results are nonexistent, and they, too, fall to the extreme of nihilism and become afraid at that prospect. None of these people actually meditate on the correct meaning of the emptiness of true existence.

  On the other hand, the wise who understand the meaning of emptiness and the stages of the path do not become afraid because they know that while things don’t inherently exist, they do exist dependently. Unlike those who believe emptiness means total nonexistence, they know that it means things exist nominally. This brings them great joy because they know they have now entered the path that will free them from the fears of cyclic existence and lead them to liberation.

  27.All beings arise from I-grasping

  such that they grasp mine;

  this is what has been stated

  by the one who speaks solely for the benefit of beings.

  Fear Is Due to True-Grasping

  Ordinary beings fear emptiness because they cannot differentiate between the conventionally existent I that is the object of the reliable cognizer apprehending I, and the inherently existent I that is the object of the I-grasping. The Tibetan word ’dzin can be translated as either “apprehend” or “grasp,” depending on the context. This double meaning illustrates two ways of cognizing a person. With the first, we apprehend a conventionally existent person. This occurs when without any special emotion we say, “I’m sitting” or “I’m thinking.” That I exists, and the awareness that apprehends it is valid in that it correctly identifies a person. This is the person that creates karma, is reborn, and attains awakening. With the second, we reify the I, grasping it as inherently existent. The “object” of this cognizer, an inherently existent I, does not exist at all because nothing exists inherently. The I-grasping mind that grasps it is an erroneous awareness.

  There are two types of self-grasping: the self-grasping of persons and the self-grasping of phenomena. According to the Prasangikas, they grasp their respective objects — the person and other phenomena — as truly or inherently existent. The difference between these two types of self-grasping is the basis of the grasping: the I or other phenomena, such as the aggregates. In general, the I or person is also considered a phenomenon, but when we talk of the two selves or the two selflessnesses, phenomena refers to all other phenomena except the person.

  Don’t get confused here: sometimes the word self refers to the person, the I, while other times it refers to inherent existence, the object of negation that doesn’t exist at all. The latter is the meaning of “self” in “self-grasping,” where the term applies to grasping any phenomenon as inherently existent, and “selflessness,” which is the absence of inherent existence. For the Prasangikas, self-grasping has the same meaning as true-grasping (grasping true existence), grasping inherent existence, grasping phenomena to exist from their own side, and so forth. I-grasping is a type of self-grasping of persons: it grasps our own I or mine as inherently existent and is also known as the view of a personal identity (satkayadrishti).

  The Buddha, the one who speaks solely for the benefit of beings, says that all beings arise from I-grasping. Chandrakirti explains the meaning of this in the introductory stanzas of his Supplement: ordinary beings first think “I,” thus generating the view of a personal identity grasping I. They then generate the view of a personal identity grasping mine. The latter is generated by thinking “my body,” “my eyes,” and so forth and refers to the person who is the “owner” of these. Due to the innate6 grasping at I and mine, sentient beings create polluted karma that causes rebirth in cyclic existence. In this way, the person arises due to the view of a personal identity.

  I-grasping not only is the source of beings’ rebirth in cyclic existence but also keeps them trapped in cyclic existence by making them fear emptiness, the realization of emptiness being the one thing that can liberate them. To benefit beings and free them from cyclic existence, the Buddha taught the meaning of emptiness.

  DISPELLING CONFUSION ABOUT THE ULTIMATE NATURE OF REALITY

  Nagarjuna now extensively explains the ultimate nature of reality so that we can cultivate the wisdom realizing the emptiness of inherent existence, which will destroy the true-grasping that binds us to cyclic existence. He begins by examining the I and mine — the person as she is and the person as the owner of the five aggregates. Although they falsely appear to exist with an inherent essence and we grasp this false appearance to be true, they do not exist in this way. Using the example of a reflection in a mirror helps us to understand this.

  28.Ultimately, the notions “I exist”

  and “What is mine exists” are false because

  from the perspective of knowing [things] as they truly are,

  there is neither [I nor mine].

  Ultimately False, Conventionally Existent

  Conventionally I and mine exist; ultimately they do not. The mind grasping I and mine as existing ultimately is an erroneous consciousness.

  If I and mine existed inherently as they appear, they would b
e the object of an arya’s wisdom of meditative equipoise. That wisdom directly and nonconceptually perceives ultimate reality; it knows phenomena as they actually are, and so it would certainly see them. However, aryas’ wisdom of meditative equipoise does not perceive inherent existence. It perceives the opposite: the emptiness of inherent existence. Inherently existent I and mine — and any inherently existent phenomenon for that matter — are not perceived by this profound wisdom. Therefore, inherent existence cannot be the ultimate mode of existence. The wisdom of the aryas that knows things as they actually are perceives only the emptiness of inherent existence. Nothing else even appears to that mind.

  There is no discrepancy between how emptiness appears to the aryas’ wisdom knowing reality and how emptiness exists. Emptiness itself is empty of inherent existence and it appears as such. Since an inherently existent I and mine — the objects of grasping I and mine — don’t appear to that wisdom, they don’t exist at all.

  Conventionally existent things, such as the I and mine apprehended by a valid mind, do not exist the way they appear. To our ordinary minds they appear to exist inherently whereas they do not. Although they do not appear to the aryas’ wisdom of meditative equipoise, this does not negate their existence, because conventionally existent things are not in the purview of the aryas’ wisdom of meditative equipoise. In other words, the wisdom knowing the ultimate nature is not capable of validating the existence of conventional objects; a conventional valid cognizer does that.

  A valid mind apprehending I and mine is a conventional reliable cognizer. It is correct with respect to the conventional nature of things — it knows we can use a car to go somewhere. However, it is not correct with respect to the ultimate nature of things because its objects do not exist as they appear. They mistakenly appear inherently existent, whereas they are not. The conventional reliable cognizers of ordinary beings cannot perceive the ultimate nature of phenomena.

  A reliable cognizer of the ultimate nature does not apprehend conventionally existent objects because they are not in its purview. It perceives only the emptiness of inherent existence. Because it does, it knows that inherently existent phenomena do not exist at all.