4   Emptiness Yoga

With compassion and an altruistic intention to become enlightened as their bases, practitioners must also probe the nature of phenomena, generating wisdom realizing the emptiness of inherent existence. Otherwise, innate false superimpositions on phenomena of a goodness or badness beyond that which they actually have will lead to the biased and distorted states of desire and hatred. The process of cultivating such wisdom involves meditating on the selflessness of persons and on the selflessness of other phenomena. The following description of these practices is based, for the most part, on the concise and lucid explanation of the perfection of wisdom in the Fifth Dalai Lama’s Sacred Word of Mañjushrī (’jam dpal zhal lung).⁵⁴

Meditation on both the selflessness of persons and of phenomena is framed around four essential steps:

1   ascertaining what is being negated

2   ascertaining entailment

3   ascertaining that the object designated and its basis of designation are not inherently one

4   ascertaining that the object designated and its basis of designation are not inherently different.

FIRST ESSENTIAL: ASCERTAINING WHAT IS BEING NEGATED

With respect to the selflessness of a person, specifically of yourself, the first step is to identify the way we innately misconceive the I to exist inherently. If you do not have a fairly clear sense of an inherently existent I, you will mistake the refutation as negating the I itself rather than a specific reification of the I. Shāntideva’s Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds (byang chub sems dpa’i spyod pa la ’jug pa, bodhisattvacharyāvatāra, IX.140) says:

           Without contacting the superimposed existent,

           Its non-existence cannot be apprehended.

If an image of the object of negation does not appear well to the mind, the meaning of the selflessness that negates it cannot be ascertained.

The Ge-luk-a order of Tibetan Buddhism makes a clear differentiation between the existent self and the non-existent self as it is posited in each of the four major Buddhist schools of tenets – Great Exposition School, Sūtra School, Mind Only School, and Middle Way School. This assumes a dual meaning to the term “self” – the first, existent one as the person or I and the second, non-existent one as a reification of the status of any object, the reification here being inherent existence (rang bzhin gyis grub pa, svabhāvasiddhi).

This distinction is upheld through the observation that when the I is apprehended, there are basically three possibilities with respect to how it is being conceived in relation to the other meaning of “self”, inherent existence:

1   You may be conceiving the I to be inherently existent.

2   Or, if you have understood the view of the Middle Way School, you may conceive the I as only being nominally existent.

3   Or, whether you have understood the view of the Middle Way School or not, you may conceive the I without qualifying it with either inherent existence or an absence of inherent existence.

Though uneducated common beings do not propound either inherent existence or nominal imputation, the I does appear to them to be inherently existent, and because they sometimes assent to that appearance – though without reasoning – they also have a conception of an inherently existent I. Also, they, like all other beings, even including those who have been educated in wrong systems of tenets, have consciousnesses that do not engage in conceptions of inherent existence, such as when just conceiving of themselves without any particular attention. Therefore, it is not that all consciousnesses conceiving I in the continuum of a falsely educated person are wrong or that all consciousnesses conceiving I in the continuum of uneducated persons are right. Rather, both the uneducated and the falsely educated have the misconception of an inherently existent I as well as consciousnesses conceiving an I that is not qualified by being either nominally imputed or inherently existent.

Still, neither the falsely educated nor the uneducated can distinguish between an imputedly existent I and an inherently existent I. Both must become educated in the Middle Way view of non-inherent existence and imputed existence in order to overcome their innate tendency to assent to the false appearance of the I as if inherently existent, existing from its own side, or existing under its own power. This is the immediate purpose of meditation on selflessness.

The first step in this meditation is to gain a clear sense of the reified status of the I as inherently existent. Even though such a misconception of I is subliminally always present, a condition of its obvious manifestation is required. Therefore, the meditator remembers a situation of false accusation that elicited a strong response or remembers a situation of happiness that did the same, trying to watch the type of I that manifested and how the mind assented to its ever so concrete appearance. Since watchfulness itself tends to cause this gross level of misconception of the I as inherently existent to disappear, the first essential is recognized as very difficult to achieve. One has to learn how to let the mind operate in its usual egoistic way and at the same time watch it, keeping watchfulness at a minimum such that the usual conception of a very concrete and pointable I is generated. The demand for watchfulness is mitigated by the need to allow what is usually unanalyzed to operate of its own accord.

When success is gained, the meditator has found a sense of an inherently existent I that is totally convincing. As the Dalai Lama said while lecturing to Tibetan scholars in Dharamsala, India, in 1972, one has such strong belief in this reified I that upon identifying it, one has the feeling that if it is not true, nothing is. It would seem, therefore, that the first step in developing the view of the Middle Way is the stark and intimate recognition that for the meditator the opposite of that view seems to be true.

In the face of this particular consciousness, mind and body are not differentiated, and the I is not differentiated from mind and body. However, the I is seen to be self-established, self-instituting, under its own power, existing in its own right. It is not that you have the sense that mind, body, and I cannot be differentiated; rather, for that consciousness, mind, body, and I simply are not differentiated. For instance, for a consciousness merely apprehending a particular city, say, Chicago, the ground, buildings, and people of that city are not differentiated. These are the bases of designation of Chicago, which seems inextricably blended with them and yet has its own thing.

Recognition of such an appearance with respect to the I and recognition of your assent to this appearance constitute the first essential step in realizing selflessness, emptiness. With this identification, analysis can work on that object; without it, analysis is undirected. From the viewpoint of the Ge-luk-a tradition of Tibetan Buddhism it would seem that most Western attempts to penetrate emptiness fail at this initial step, tending either to assume that the phenomenon itself is being refuted or that a superficial, philosophically constructed quality of the phenomenon, rather than one innately misconceived, is being refuted.

SECOND ESSENTIAL: ASCERTAINING ENTAILMENT

Whereas in the first step the meditator allows an ordinary attitude to operate and attempts to watch it without interfering, in the second step the meditator makes a non-ordinary, intellectual decision that must be brought gradually to the level of feeling. Here, you consider the number of possible relationships between a phenomenon designated and its basis of designation.

Phenomena designated are things such as a table, a body, a person, and a house. Their respective bases of designation are four legs and a top, five limbs (two arms, two legs, and a head) and a trunk, or mind and body, and a number of rooms arranged in a certain shape. The meditator considers whether within the framework of inherent existence these two – phenomenon designated and basis of designation – must be either inherently the same or inherently different or whether there are other possibilities. If there seem to be other possibilities, can these be collapsed into the original two – being inherently the same or being inherently different?

Nāgārjuna is interpreted as listing five possibilities and Chandrakīrti two more beyond the five:

1   inherently the same

2   inherently different

3   the object designated inherently depends on the basis of designation

4   the basis of designation inherently depends on the object designated

5   the object designated possesses the basis of designation either as a different entity in the way a person owns a cow or as one entity in the way a tree possesses its core

6   the object designated is the special shape of the basis of designation

7   the object designated is the collection of the bases of designation.

The last five can be collapsed into the first two as refinements of them: The third and fourth are forms of difference; the first aspect of the fifth is a form of difference; the second, a form of sameness of entity; the sixth and seventh are variations of sameness. Hence, it is claimed that all possibilities of inherent existence can be collapsed into the original two.

Conventionally, however, it is said that the I and its basis of designation, mind and body, are different, but not different entities, and the same entity but not the same. This is technically called being one entity and different isolates55 – essentially meaning that conceptuality can isolate the two. Why not consider this an eighth possibility?

If the relationship of being one entity and different isolates is within the context of inherent existence, then this possibility is internally contradictory since within the context of inherent existence whatever is inherently the same is the same in all respects, making different isolates impossible. However, if the relationship of being one entity and different isolates is within the context of conventional existence, then there is no need to include it here in this list of possibilities within inherent existence.

The list of possibilities, therefore, does not include all possibilities of the existence of a phenomenon designated – such as the I – and its bases of designation – such as mind and body – because the examination here is concerned only with whether the I exists in the concrete manner it was seen to have during the first essential. If it does exist so concretely, you should be able to point concretely to it when examining it with respect to its basis of designation.

Since this decision – that inherent existence involves the necessity of the phenomenon designated being either one with or different from the basis of designation – is the anvil on which the sense of an inherently existent I will be pounded by the hammer of the subsequent reasoning, the second essential is not an intellectually airy decision to be taken lightly. It must be brought to the level of feeling, this being done through considering that anything existent is either one or different, as the great eighteenth century Mongolian scholar ang-ya (lcang skya rol pa’i rdo rje, 1717-86) says in his Presentation of Tenets (grub mtha’i rnam bzhag.)56 A chair is one; a chair and a table are different; a chair and its parts are different; tables are different, etc. The yogi must heroically set standards that intelligently limit the possibilities so that the subsequent analysis can work, causing disbelief in such an inherently existent I.

Upon coming to this decision, you begin to doubt the existence of the self-instituting I identified in the first essential. Geshe Rabten, a contemporary Ge-luk-a scholar living in Switzerland,⁵⁷ compared the effect of this step to having doubts about an old friend for the first time. The emotionally harrowing experience of challenging your own long believed status has begun.

THIRD ESSENTIAL: ASCERTAINING THAT THE I AND THE AGGREGATES ARE NOT ONE

The next step is to use reasoning to determine whether the I and the mental and physical aggregates could be inherently the same or inherently different. Reasoning, here, is a matter not of cold deliberation or superficial summation but of using various approaches to find one that can shake yourself to your being. Since this is the case, the seeming simple-mindedness and rigidity of the reasonings suggested must be transcended.

A series of approaches, rather than just one reasoning, is used on the assumption that certain of the reasonings would not work for some people. The first is a challenge from common experience: If the I were one with the body, how could we speak of “my body”? If the I were inherently one with the mind, how could we speak of “my mind”? Should we also speak of the body’s body? Or my I?

Still, the Fifth Dalai Lama does not seem to expect that this will be sufficient; he continues with a citation from Nāgārjuna on the same reasoning:

           If, upon thinking thus, [your attempt at understanding] is merely verbal and you do not gain strong conviction, contemplate the following. Nāgārjuna’s Treatise on the Middle Way (rtsa shes/dbu ma’i bstan bcos, madhyamakashāstra, XXVII.27) says:

                When it is taken that there is no self

                Except the appropriated [aggregates],

                The appropriated [aggregates] themselves are the self.

                If so, your self is non-existent.

The interpretation among Ge-luk-a scholars is not that Nāgārjuna thought that beings commonly conceive the I to be one with body or one with mind. Rather, his thought is that if the I inherently exists, then oneness with its basis of designation would be one of only two exhaustive possibilities. Nāgārjuna’s reference is not to ordinary misconception but to a consequence of inherent existence, such concreteness requiring a pointable identification under analysis.

The rules for inherent existence, therefore, are not the rules for mere existence. Within the context of concrete existence, sameness of entity requires utter oneness in all respects. Thus, the question is not whether beings ordinarily conceive of such oneness, since it is not claimed that we do, but whether the rules of concrete, pointable existence – the way we experience the I as was discovered in the first essential – are appropriate.

More Reasonings

Permutations of the same reasoning need to be considered; the mere presence of the reasoning is clearly not expected to be convincing. For these permutations to work, the meditator must have gained belief in rebirth. If the I and the body are one, after death when the body is burned, the I also would be burned. Or, just as the I transmigrates to the next life, so the body also would have to transmigrate. Or, just as the body does not transmigrate, so the I also would not transmigrate.

If due to having meditated on such reasonings, you come to think that the I is probably not the same as the body but is probably one with the mind, you are instructed to consider the following fallacies. Since it is obvious that the suffering of cold arises when the I is without clothes and that the sufferings of hunger and thirst arise when the I lacks food and drink, these would – if the I were merely mental – be mental in origin, in which case you could not posit a reason why the same suffering would not be experienced in a life in a Formless Realm. Since the mind would be one with the I, it would still have to make use of gross forms such as food and clothing.

The above permutations of oneness will have prepared the mind for reaching a conclusion upon reflecting on a few more reasonings. First, the selves would have to be as many as mind and body, that is to say, two; or, put another way, the selves would have to be as many as the five aggregates, five. This may seem extraordinarily simple-minded, but the requirements of such pointable, analytically findable existence – not the requirements of mere existence – are the anvil. The meditator is attempting through this analysis, not to describe how he or she ordinarily conceives such an inherently existent I, but to subject such an I to the hammering of probing reasoning based on consequences of such inherent existence.

The second additional reasoning revolves around the entailment that the I would have inherently existent production and disintegration, in which case it would be discontinuous. The third depends upon a belief in rebirth and thus reflects the type of reasoning, in reverse, that many use against rebirth. Its concern is not explicitly with the I and the mental and physical aggregates that are its bases of designation but the relationship between the I of this life and the I of the last life. It is: If they were one, then the sufferings of the former life would absurdly have to be present in this life.

If they were different, which by the rules of inherent existence would make them totally, unrelatedly different, remembrance of former lives would become impossible. Moral retribution would be impossible. Undeserved suffering would be experienced. Such difference would make a mere-I, the agent that travels from lifetime to lifetime, engaging in actions and experiencing their effects, impossible.

Oneness of the I and its bases of designation – the mental and physical aggregates – is impossible.

FOURTH ESSENTIAL: ASCERTAINING THAT THE I AND THE AGGREGATES ARE NOT INHERENTLY DIFFERENT

The meditator has been so disturbed by the analysis of oneness that he or she is ready to assume difference. However, the rules of inherent existence call for the different to be unrelatedly different, again the assumption being not that persons ordinarily consider the I and its bases of designation to be unrelatedly different but that within the context of inherent existence, that is, of such pointable, solid existence, difference necessitates unrelatedness. The Fifth Dalai Lama says:

           Now, you might think that the I and the five aggregates cannot be anything but different. Chandrakīrti’s Supplement (VI.120ab) says:

                There is no self other than the aggregates because,

                Apart from the aggregates, its conception does not exist.

           The inherently different must be unrelated. Therefore, just as within the aggregates you can identify each individually, “This is the aggregate of form,” and so forth, so after clearing away the five aggregates you would have to be able to identify the I, “This is the I.” However, no matter how finely you analyze, such an I is not at all to be found.

The I, self, or ultimate reality that is left over when all else is removed is exactly what many Hindus are seeking to find; therefore, they would loudly exclaim the contrary: Something is found separate from mind and body. But would this be the I that goes to the store? Would this be the I that desires? Hates?

Still, the question is not easy to settle, and it does not appear that easy answers are wanted. Rather, deeply felt conviction is needed.

REALIZATION OF SELFLESSNESS AND DEITY YOGA

With such conviction, the decision reached is that the I cannot be found under such analysis; this shows, not that the I does not exist, but that it does not inherently exist as it was identified as seeming to in the first essential. This unfindability is emptiness itself, and realization of it is realization of emptiness, selflessness.

Incontrovertible inferential realization, though not of the level of direct perception or even of special insight (lhag mthong, vipashyanā), has great impact. For a beginner it generates a sense of deprivation, but for an experienced meditator it generates a sense of discovery or recovery of what was lost. The perception of this vacuousness – the absence of inherent existence – carries emotional overtones, first of loss since our emotions are built on a false sense of concreteness and then of discovery of a lost treasure that makes everything possible. From a similar point of view, the emptiness of the mind is called the Buddha nature, or Buddha lineage, since it is what allows for development of the marvelous qualities of Buddhahood.

In tantric deity yoga, the mind realizing emptiness and motivated by compassion is used as the basis of emanation of a deity such as Kālachakra. The compassionately motivated wisdom consciousness itself provides the stuff of the deity. At the same time as it is appearing as a deity – an ideal person altruistically helping beings – it maintains ascertainment of the absence of inherent existence of the deity. Thereby, the two collections of merit (altuistic deeds) and wisdom (realization of emptiness) are accumulated simultaneously, the two aspects of compassion and wisdom being contained within the entity of one consciousness. Thus, deity yoga is founded on the very heart of the sūtra path of the Great Vehicle, compassion and realization of emptiness. Tantric initiation authorizes those who have some experience of compassion and a degree of understanding of emptiness to practice deity yoga.