Thursday, September 24, 2009


The Truth About Gossip

I just ran across a great article from the 2006 Tricycle by Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron, "The Truth About Gossip." You can read it or download a pdf here:


Here's an excerpt:

Seven Tips for Giving Up Gossip

1. Recognize that gossip doesn’t undo the situation you’re talking about. It only puts in motion another situation based on negative feelings.

2. Know that comparing yourself to others is useless. Everyone has his or her own talents. In this way, give up jealousy and the wish to put others down.

3. Be aware of and transform your own thoughts, words, and deeds rather than commenting on those of others.

4. Train your mind to see others’ positive qualities and discuss them. This will make you much happier than gossiping ever could.

5. Forgive, knowing that people do harmful things because they are unhappy. If you don’t make someone into an enemy, you won’t want to gossip about him.

6. Have a sense of humor about what you think, say, and do, and be able to laugh at all of the silly things we sentient beings carry out in our attempt to be happy. If you see the humor in our human predicament, you’ll be more patient.

7. Practice saying something kind to someone every day. Do this especially with people you don’t like. It gets easier with practice and bears surprisingly good results.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Stop all the labeling already

"Learn to look without imagination, to listen without distortion: that is all. Stop attributing names and shapes to the essentially nameless and formless, realize that every mode of perception is subjective, that what is seen or heard, touched or smelled, felt or thought, expected or imagined, is in the mind and not in reality, and you will experience peace and freedom from fear."
– Nisargadatta Maharaj

Class 4a – The Middle Way Philosophy, Madhyamaka

Middle Way School Teachings on Emptiness

This view comes from the teachings of Buddha Shakyamuni, the cycle of teachings known as the Prajnaparamita teachings (the perfection of wisdom), which are the teachings that Buddha gave at Vulture Peak Mountain. This was known as the second historic teaching of the Buddha. The first was the four noble truths. The second was the Prajnaparamita, the main topic of which is emptiness.

Nagarjuna was born in India 500 years after the death of Shakyamuni Buddha. This cycle later on came to be known as Madhyamaka, the teachings of the Middle Way.

The word “madhyamaka” in Sanskrit -- one way of reading it is “middle way,” the perfect balance between not falling into the two extremes of eternalism and nihilism, existence and nonexistence. Also, it means “not even the middle.” “Madhya” means middle; “maka” here is taken as a negation. If there are no extremes, how can there be a middle? If you remove the four walls, how can there be a middle of the room? You go even beyond that.

Emptiness -- shunyata

The Heart Sutra says, “Seeing the five skandhas to be empty of nature,” or in a literal way, one should clearly and genuinely see that the five skandhas are empty of an inherent nature. The main statement being made in Madhyamaka is that all phenomena are in and of themselves empty of an inherent nature.

It’s not the case that we’re starting out with truly existent phenomena, then relying on an antidote, then later discovering the emptiness. Rather, from the very beginning, things are empty by nature.

This nature being emptiness is known as “the natural nirvana.” The basic state is free, right from the beginning. Free from existence, nonexistence, suffering, and causes of suffering. The nature of the world is in this nature of nirvana right from the beginning according to the Madhyamaka view. This is what we call the absolute truth.

Let’s look at that emptinesss from the middle way point of view.

Imputation and the basis of imputation

When we look at any phenomena, we usually experience things appearing in certain form, such as the skandha of form... body, flower, table, etc. But when you look at what we call a flower, it’s not really a “flower,” it is the basis of what we are labeling or naming. You have to separate the basis of imputation from the imputation itself.

One of the coarsest forms of ignorance we have is that we confuse the imputation with the basis of imputation. For example, with the flower, we take the basis of imputation which is the object and we think it is the same thing as the color, shape, smell, etc. of the flower. By mistaking all these things as being one thing, we give rise to clinging onto this object as being real in a particular way. Beautiful, pleasant, and so on.

We also view ourselves as individuals in the same way. We start with out skandhas, say our form skandha, and confuse our form skandha with the label. We look at all these qualities and think they are the same thing as ourselves. We might have a basis of imputation for which we give the word “John” and we confuse the person and the label as being the same thing. We see how we do this in everyday life… we see someone and immediately think of their name. On the basis of this, we have a lot of clinging to things as being real. Same for the label “friend” or “enemy.”

We call this object a table, yet there is no true correlation between the object and the table. You can label something anything. If everyone called it the same thing, you would understand. But the object itself has no inherent “tableness.” It’s like giving different names to children or dogs or cats.

Since there is no real relationship between the object and the label, we could call it anything. So we come to the conclusion that there is no real correlation between an object and its name, table. So “table” and “flower” do not exist; they are mere concepts.

So what do we have left? The label is a mere concept, so we’re left with the basis for imputation and we have to analyze that and see if it’s truly existent.

Beyond One and Many

When analyzing the basis of imputation, there are many ways of doing this in the Madhyamaka tradition. One of them is “beyond one and many.” This is a reasoning that analyzes the basis of objects.

If we look at the basis of imputation for “body,” we see that it breaks down to particles, then further particles. Ostensibly, we should be able to break down to a final “partless particle,” a very subtle particle. But if we get down to even that and analyze it, we won’t be able to find anything in the end. Even the smallest particles would have sides -- up and down, left and right, and so on. And if you kept getting smaller and smaller, you wouldn’t be able to find any stopping point. This non-finding is emptiness in the Madhyamaka analysis.

When you look at detail in subtle nature, you find no such existence of one single entity in the basis for imputation. It goes down to atomic, then subatomic, and finally not even the smallest particle exists. This is called the absence of a true unit.

It’s important to first come to certainty that there is no single unit existing. Having established that, you can establish that there is no group of existant units. If something doesn’t exist as a single, it can’t exist as a group.

It is clearly an illusion that we are experiencing. If you go to the smallest breakdown, everything is a beautiful illusion like a mirage. On a sunny day when you drive you can see a mirage. Sometimes you can see the reflection of another car, or colors, or trees. But as you get closer, there is no water. How did I see that reflection?

Similarly, we are experiencing the existence of relative reality. When the causes and conditions come together, we can have the experience of existence. Like the mirage, in the same way we can experience this existence here.

Mind Moments

So when you analyze according to the reasoning of “beyond one and many” we can find the nonexistence of the basis of all these labels. But if you try to analyze something like mind, you can’t do that in the same way as matter. We have to look at “moments of mind” and break them down into subtler and subtler moments.

If we look at our mind, we can see that thoughts appear and disappear moment by moment. In analyzing, we find that there is no thing that exists as a single thing that abides for a long time. We won’t even be able to find the most subtle instant of mind that is truly existent.

So even if we analyze the most subtle instant of mind, we’ll see they have three parts... the part that is arising, abiding, and ceasing. Past, present, and future. And these can each be broken down into these three categories. We can’t look for mind and say that it is abiding here. Analyzing this way, we discover that all perceiving subjects and all objects perceived are emptiness.

Class 3b – The Chittamatra (Mind-Only) Philosophical School, part 2

Continuing the series, Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness
Notes from the DVD Teaching by the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

We continue our series with instuction on how to meditate on this stage of emptiness.

Four Convictions

The main point is to rest in dharmata, the true nature of phenomena, which is in the state of being totally free from duality. Resting in the nondual nature. But how do we get to that stage of nonduality resting? We go through four contemplations to develop four convictions.

1. To contemplate on all appearances and see them as mistaken appearances.

We view all appearances as being mistaken appearances. To understand that, we reflect on karma. Because of karmic seeds, we have appearances of dualism. This is not how things are, but they are how they appear to our mind. Subject, object, action.

In order to gain certainty that all appearances are mistaken, it is helpful to contemplate on the dream example. In a dream, appearances of duality arise but they do not exist in any kind of real duality. There is a perceived subject and object in the dream, but we can see that none of these truly exist. If right in the middle of the dream we recognize we’re dreaming, it changes everything. The object that appears may still be there and you still perceive it, but you recognize, “This is a dream.” So there is not a snake “out there,” so the fear you’re having isn’t really necessary.

In this stage of contemplation, we should reflect on the dream analogy. Looking at the present appearances from tomorrow’s point of view, and looking at yesterday’s experiences from today’s point of view, and comparing them with dream appearances. Things appear outside but they are not really that far outside.

I always enjoy the message on the side mirror of the car, “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.” Like that. Objects that we experience are closer than they appear. They’re not that far outside of our mind.

So all appearances are mistaken appearances... they arise from dualistic mind.

When one has gained stable certainty in this, one moves to the next contemplation:

2. These objects, therefore, do not exist externally. They are all simply appearances of mind.

From the perspective of how things appear to oneself, there is nothing there appearing externally. But this isn’t really an investigation of whether something is there or not. It is only relating to experience. Our experience is mind only.

A person appears as a friend. But when our mind changes, they may appear as an enemy. But all along, it has been the same appearance; it has not changed.

All seemingly external objects do not exist in the way they seem to appear. They are appearances for oneself.

3. Contemplation of the perceiving subject

The subject that is perceiving the object does not solidly exist either. The mind that perceives does not exist in the way it appears. Is there a consciousness looking at these nonexistent objects? No, there is not. So the consciousness that apprehends mistaken appearances is a mistaken consciousness and is not truly existent.

4. Rest evenly (in equipoise) in suchness, the true nature of phenomena that is free of perceiver and perceived.

Through the preceding three stages we discovered that neither outer or inner objects exist, so we can rest free of duality. Sometimes this is likened to water being poured into water.

These four stages were taught by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche in Distinguishing True Phenomena from their Nature.

Khenpo Rinpoche composed a verse:

“When you gain certainty in the absence of duality of perceiver and perceived,
this is called dharmata, empty of duality.
When you know how to relax within this state,
this is called meditation on the emptiness of duality.”


[Meditation]