Practical Ethics and Profound Emptiness

by Jampa Tegchok

  (3) To respond to some questions, we need more information. If somebody asks, “Is a person on the path of accumulation superior?” we have to answer with a question, “Compared to whom?” This is because such a person is superior in relation to those who haven’t entered the path but not in relation to the buddhas and arya bodhisattvas.

  (4) Some questions are better left unanswered. An example is the question above, “Does a permanent, unitary, independent person have an end or not?” There are fourteen such questions that the Buddha didn’t answer because he knew that whatever answer he gave would not help the person. For this reason, he remained silent.

  75.Thus the all-seeing perfect buddhas have said

  the Dharma of the highest good

  is profound, inapprehensible,

  and also without any foundation.

  How the Buddha Taught the Profound Meaning of Emptiness

  The Dharma of the highest good is nirvana, the emptiness of a mind free of afflictions and the polluted karma that causes rebirth. It is profound because it is difficult to realize. It is inapprehensible in that it cannot be established, apprehended, or grasped as either of the two extremes of absolutism and nihilism. This profound emptiness is without a foundation of inherent existence, meaning there is no line of reasoning that can establish it as inherently existent.

  The Buddha taught that by realizing and meditating on emptiness, we can attain the results of the three vehicles. In short, the profound — emptiness — isn’t established as either of the two extremes and cannot be apprehended in either of the two extreme ways. Emptiness also does not have a foundation, or reason, for being inherently existent.

  76.But persons who delight in foundations,

  not having transcended [notions of] existence and nonexistence,

  are terrified by this foundationless Dharma,

  and being unskilled, they are ruined.

  77.Terrified of that fearless state,

  ruined, they lead others to ruin.

  See to it, O King, that no matter what,

  you are not led to ruin by those already ruined.

  The Fault of Fearing Emptiness

  Emptiness is foundationless in that true existence does not exist at all. True-grasping is a mind apprehending signs — signs meaning true existence. The foundation of the true-grasping mind — that is, its conceived object — is a truly existent object. Since truly existent objects do not exist, true-grasping has no foundation or basis.

  Some people become terrified when they hear there is no truly existent self. Their fear is due to their strong grasping at the self to be truly existent and to the build-up of the imprints of this grasping in their mindstreams since beginningless time. They have very few imprints for understanding selflessness.

  While no one except a buddha is completely free of the imprints of true-grasping, there is a difference in the strength of the imprints among those who have them. People also differ in the strength of imprints they have for understanding selflessness and the extent of their collection of merit. Understanding this, we see how important it is for us to listen to teachings on emptiness and to study, contemplate, and meditate on it as much as we can, because doing so will have a powerful effect on our ability to understand and realize emptiness in this and future lives.

  Being unskilled and lacking wisdom, some people grasp phenomena as truly existent and think that if phenomena don’t truly exist, they don’t exist at all. They become terrified when they hear about emptiness, believing that nothing exists or that karma and its effects don’t exist. Their response is in stark contrast to those who have the imprints and merit to understand emptiness and whose hearts are joyful when learning, contemplating, and meditating on emptiness.

  People may go astray in many different ways. Some are not interested to learn about emptiness. They never listen to teachings or contemplate emptiness and thus ignorance lives happily in them. As a result, they will continue to cycle in samsara endlessly.

  Other people abandon emptiness, saying it is nonsense and folly. These people are ruined in that they don’t make an effort to learn and contemplate the correct view of emptiness and like the people who are uninterested in emptiness, they, too, will continue to cycle in samsara without end.

  Still other people reject emptiness and fall to the nihilist extreme, abandoning karma and its effects. Thinking there are no future lives and that their actions have no ethical consequences, they engage in many destructive actions and fall to the lower realms.

  Still others misunderstand emptiness and think there is no existence and no nonexistence. They, too, are led astray and reborn in the lower realms.

  What is even more tragic than one individual ruining himself due to wrong views is that person teaching his misconceptions to others. Ruined himself, he leads others to ruin by encouraging their wrong views and condoning their destructive actions.

  Usually we think that people who slaughter animals for a living create great negativity. However, compared to giving up emptiness, that is not so bad. When someone fears emptiness and abandons it, she dims the lamp that dispels the darkness of ignorance in the mindstreams of all sentient beings. She abandons the unique cause for attaining the truth body of a buddha — the dharmakaya — and will not be able to attain any of the four buddha bodies. While a butcher kills a limited number of sentient beings, someone who abandons emptiness — and especially someone who teaches wrong views to others — interferes with countless sentient beings being able to attain peerless awakening. We should definitely be alert and vigilant so that we don’t become such a person.

  Nagarjuna addresses the king directly here, but what he says applies to all of us. He advises us to exert ourselves to understand that empty means dependent arising, and dependent arising means empty. In this way, we will be able to posit emptiness and dependent arising without contradiction.

  When people deny dependent arising, they also repudiate cause and effect, the existence of the Three Jewels, and so forth. To avoid that, we need to understand how to posit dependent arising correctly. In addition, everything that is dependently arisen is empty of inherent existence. To understand that, we must learn how to posit emptiness correctly. If we accept true existence, there is no way to posit either dependent arising or emptiness. It is essential to know how to posit the two truths — conventional truth and ultimate truth — as being complementary — they are one nature but nominally different.

  Saying things are empty of inherent existence negates only a particular type of existence — existence from its own side, objective existence, and so forth. It does not negate all existence. Phenomena exist, but they exist as mere name, mere designation, and mere convention. To say that a phenomenon exists by mere designation does not mean that someone has to be actively designating it at that very moment. For example, if you see a blue object with your visual consciousness, before you have the conception of a blue object, that blue object still exists by being merely designated by conception.

  When you think deeply and understand that all phenomena — anything included in the two truths — cannot exist inherently, you may wonder, “How do they exist?” If you are already familiar with the notion that phenomena exist by mere name, mere convention, and mere designation by conception, that doubt won’t arise. If it does, it is quickly resolved. Otherwise you might easily think phenomena don’t exist at all, even though you may not feel comfortable with that idea. For this reason, with great compassion Nagarjuna explained to us that although phenomena don’t inherently exist, they do exist.

  SELFLESSNESS OF PERSONS AND SELFLESSNESS OF PHENOMENA

  Nagarjuna continues his argument to help dismantle our true-grasping, the source of our wandering in cyclic existence with all the misery that entails. After exhorting the king — and us, the readers, too — he explains that both persons and all other phenomena lack a self — that is, they lack an inherently existent essence.

  78.King, so that you might not be ruined,

 
I will explain in accord with the scriptures

  this correct, transcendent approach

  that does not rely on the two [extremes].

  Exhorting the King

  Nagarjuna and the king have a particularly close relationship. The king is Nagarjuna’s benefactor, and out of compassion Nagarjuna wants to advise him to learn profound emptiness. Indirectly Nagarjuna shares this advice with all of us. He teaches us the transcendent approach that does not rely on the two extremes of absolutism and nihilism so that we can avoid mistakes that would lead to our being endlessly lost in cyclic existence. Using reasoning and scriptural quotation, he perfectly explains to us this path of the middle way exactly as it is explained in the sutras of definitive meaning.

  79.Beyond both negativity and merit,

  it is the profound meaning derived [from the scriptures];

  other [philosophers, such as] the tirthikas, and even some of our own

  have not tasted it for they fear the foundationless.

  To go beyond both the non-meritorious and meritorious karma that produce rebirth in cyclic existence, we must meditate on profound emptiness. Doing so will lead us to the highest good. The non-Buddhist tirthikas and even some of our own Buddhist followers — adherents of the Svatantrika and lower philosophical tenet systems — have not been able to fully understand emptiness as it is explained in the Buddha’s definitive sutras. They lack experience of emptiness due to their fear that phenomena lack any inherently existent foundation.

  To avoid being paralyzed in that fear, it’s important to understand that emptiness and dependent arising support each other. Because things are empty, they arise dependently; because they arise dependent on other factors, they are empty. Since everything is empty of inherent existence, there is no other way for phenomena to exist except as dependent arisings. Even though you may not understand the full import of this statement, just having a general belief that it is true brings enormous benefit. As long as you follow the Buddha’s definitive teachings, never feel discouraged or think, “I don’t know anything.”

  80.The person is not earth, not water,

  not fire, not wind, not space,

  not consciousness, not all of them [together].

  What person is there other than these?

  The Selflessness of Persons and Phenomena

  This verse has great meaning. Its key point is that the person and other phenomena such as the aggregates don’t have the slightest existence from their own side and are posited merely through the force of nominal convention. In other words, phenomena do not exist inherently, but they do exist conventionally.

  In his Sixty Stanzas of Reasoning (verse 37), Nagarjuna says:

  Since the buddhas have stated that the world is conditioned by ignorance,

  why isn’t it reasonable to assert that this world is [a result of] conceptualization?19

  The world is conditioned by ignorance in that our environment and the sentient beings in it arise due to self-grasping ignorance, the chief afflictive obscuration that prevents liberation. The Buddha explained that from self-grasping ignorance arise all the afflictions, and from them comes the polluted karma that keeps us bound to the five polluted aggregates that a person appropriates anew in each lifetime.

  The world does not exist in the way it appears to ignorance, nor does it exist in the way we ignorantly apprehend it. When we realize that the conceived object of self-grasping ignorance does not exist in the way that self-grasping apprehends it, we realize that the person and aggregates — or whatever object we analyze — do not inherently exist. However, the mere person and the mere phenomena that are the focal objects of both self-grasping and reliable cognizers exist conventionally, as mere name, by mere concept or designation. To have a full understanding of emptiness and dependent arising, after realizing emptiness we must realize their nominal existence.

  Refuting the false mode of existence — inherent existence — of an object does not negate the general existence of the object. When we refute a truly existent object, we are implicitly positing a conventional object that exists as mere name and convention, due to the force of concept. This is the essential meaning of the Madhyamaka texts. While they also explain branch topics, the essence of all these texts is the compatibility of emptiness and dependent arising: all persons and phenomena are empty of inherent existence but exist dependently, nominally, as mere designations. Because it is difficult to understand, this important point is repeated often.

  In general, understanding that phenomena exist as mere designations does not arise automatically from understanding emptiness. It comes only after having contemplated many reasons that lead to an inferential reliable cognizer of emptiness. Later, when you have a direct perception of emptiness and become an arya, because of having repeatedly contemplated existence by mere name and concept in the past, automatically upon arising from meditative equipoise on emptiness you will see phenomena as illusion-like in the time of subsequent attainment — the time you meditate on other topics or engage in daily-life activities.

  The ease with which you will be able to realize that all phenomena exist by mere name after realizing emptiness depends on the extent to which you have understood this topic beforehand. For example, a bodhisattva on the path of preparation, whose understanding of emptiness is still conceptual, spends time reflecting, “Although phenomena don’t truly exist, they exist dependent on name and concept, on conceptual designation.” After she gains direct, nonconceptual realization of emptiness on the path of seeing, when she arises from meditative equipoise on emptiness she will be able to establish phenomena as conventionally existent without much trouble. She will easily realize that although phenomena appear to be inherently existent they are not, and thus conventionally, phenomena exist falsely like illusions. This is because she previously contemplated that phenomena exist conventionally, by mere designation. For this reason, it is extremely important that we understand that things exist by mere name.

  This is a subtle point. Let alone the Vaibhashikas, Sautrantikas, and Chittamatrin masters not being able to understand it, even great Svatantrika masters like Bhavaviveka could not see that phenomena can be empty of inherent existence and still exist conventionally as mere name, mere convention. So, of course, we will not be able to understand this point without thinking about it a lot.

  In the Four Hundred Stanzas on the Middle Way (verse 178), Aryadeva says:

  Apart from conceptuality, desire and so forth have no existence.

  Who with intelligence would hold that [there are] real things [imputed by] conceptuality?

  This and the preceding quotation are difficult to understand. Learned scholars and geshes must discuss a lot to figure out their meaning. The essential point turns out to be something we are already familiar with: because everything is merely designated by conception, it is not appropriate for the intelligent to apprehend phenomena as existing from their own side. They should know them as merely designated by conception on the conventional level.

  Chandrakirti explains the meaning of this stanza in his commentary to the Four Hundred: if something exists by mere conceptual designation, it exists; if it does not exist by mere conceptual designation, it does not exist. Having said this, it is important to note that whatever is merely designated by conception does not necessarily exist. For example, a rabbit’s horn and a turtle’s mustache are merely designated by conception, but neither exists. However, all phenomena — all existents — are merely designated by conception. There is no other way for them to exist.

  The way in which things are merely designated by conception is similar to a snake being merely designated by conception on a rope. Under certain conditions, such as being in a dimly lit place, we can’t see well. When we see a thin, striped thing coiled in the corner, a snake appears to us. We think, “Oh no, there’s a snake!” and are terrified. However, when we shine light on that place, we see it is only a rope and we are relieved. What happened? Based on the striped coiled object we im
agined a snake; we designated “snake” in dependence on this and attributed all the qualities we associate with a snake to the rope. However, no part of the rope is a snake, nor is the rope as a whole a snake. There is no snake there; the snake was merely fabricated by thought; a snake was merely designated in dependence on the rope.

  In the same way, all phenomena exist by being merely fabricated by thought. When the physical and mental aggregates appear, we conceive a person and designate “I.” In fact there is nothing within the aggregates that is the I. One aggregate is not the person; the collection of the five aggregates is not the person. No part of an aggregate is the person, and the continuity of the aggregates is not the person. Furthermore, if we search outside of the aggregates, we cannot identify anything as I or me. Nowhere is an I or me to be found. The I is merely designated by conception, fabricated by thought. Nothing can be posited or identified as being the I.

  Although both the snake and the I are the same in terms of being merely designated by conception and not being findable within its basis of designation (the rope and the aggregates respectively), there is a difference between them. The snake designated on the rope does not exist at all — it cannot perform the function of a snake — while the I designated in dependence on the aggregates does exist. There is a person who walks and smiles.

  How do we know the I exists even though it cannot be found in the aggregates or separate from them? It fulfills the three criteria for conventional existence. First, the person is commonly known in the world. We all know that a person exists, goes here and there, performs actions, and experiences their results. Second, the existence of the I isn’t contradicted by a conventional reliable cognizer. Other people whose senses are unimpaired look over there and see a person and it functions like a person. Third, the existence of the I isn’t contradicted by probing awareness analyzing the ultimate nature. While probing awareness analyzing the ultimate can negate the existence of an inherently existent person, it cannot negate the existence of a conventionally existent person because the latter is outside of its purview.